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【中文标题】下一个中国
【原文标题】The Next China
【登载媒体】《经济学人》The Economist
【来源地址】http://www.economist.com/node/16693397
【译者】Rok-Viv
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
China's labour market
中国劳动力市场
The next China
下一个中国
As the supply of migrant labour dwindles, the workshop of the world is embarking on a migration of its own
随着中国农民工数量的减少，世界工厂也开始转移
THE angrier they become, the less intimidating they seem. The strikes, stoppages and suicides that have afflicted foreign factories on China’s coast in recent months have shaken the popular image of the country’s workers as docile, diligent and dirt cheap. America’s biggest labour federation, the AFL-CIO, blames imports from China for displacing millions of Americans from their jobs. But in June its president applauded the “courageous young auto workers” who waged a successful strike at a Honda plant in Foshan demanding higher wages.
劳工越愤怒，就让人觉得越无所畏惧。最近几月，中国工人罢工、自杀事件令中国沿海的外资企业非常苦恼。这些事件动摇了对中国工人的普遍印象，即勤恳、低廉。美国最大的劳工联盟“美国劳工总会与产业劳工组织”（AFL-CIO）指责中国，称从中国进口产品造成几百万美国人失业。但就在今年六月，AFL-CIO总裁特拉姆卡（Richard Trumka）却称赞年轻的本田工人为提高薪酬而进行的罢工是勇敢的表现。
While foreign unions cheer, multinational companies fret. According to UNCTAD, foreigners have invested almost $500 billion in China’s capital stock. Their affiliates employ about 16m people in the country. For a decade this combination has dominated global manufacturing growth, dispatching ever cheaper goods from China’s ports. Of China’s 200 biggest exporters last year, 153 were firms with a foreign stake. But the recent unrest has put Chinese labour at odds with foreign capital.
外国工会为之高兴的时候，跨国企业却十分苦恼。联合国贸易与发展会议（UNCTAD）称，外商在华投资已近5000亿美元。外资企业分支机构已在中国雇佣1600万工人。十年来，这些跨国企业成为了全球制造业的主要增长点，从中国的口岸不断输出廉价的商品到国外。去年，中国出口商200强中，有153家企业拥有外国股份。然而，进来发生的工人事件却让中国劳工与外国企业格格不入。
Firms may have to get used to bolshier workers. The number of young adults is set to shrink, which is likely to make China’s factory boys and girls harder to please. But then, as the AFL-CIO points out, China’s workers are due a pay rise: their share of national income has fallen in the past two decades, contributing to China’s low rate of consumption. As pay goes up the country’s domestic market will become more lucrative. Foreign firms that came for the workers will stay for the shoppers. China will become more of a workshop for itself and less of one for the world.
外资企业不得不习惯更难相处的中国工人。年青工人的数量或会减少，这使得他们的要求更难得到满足。而AFL-CIO也指出，中国工人的薪酬应该增加。因为在过去二十年里，他们的工资在国民收入中的比例已经下跌，这导致中国的消费水平较低。当工人薪水增加，中国国内市场的利润将变得更为丰厚。这样，中国将成为“自己的工厂”，而“世界工厂”的角色将不再那么明显。
The workers are revolting
工人奋起反抗
Labour unrest in China is more common than you may think. The country’s courts handled more than 280,000 labour disputes in 2008, according to Outlook Weekly, an official magazine. It is difficult to know if unrest is growing, but the government at least seems to think so. The same source reports that disputes in the first half of 2009 were 30% higher than a year earlier. Guangdong, a favourite province for foreign companies, suffered at least 36 strikes between May 25th and July 12th, according to China Daily, a government newspaper.
中国劳工事件比人们想象的要普遍得多。官方杂志《瞭望》撰文称，2008年，中国法院处理的劳动纠纷超过28万件。目前还很难看出劳工事件不断增多，但至少中国政府是这样认为的。《瞭望》还报道称，2009上半年的劳动纠纷要比前一年同期多30%。官方报纸《中国日报》也写到， 5月25日至7月12日期间，外企青睐的广东省发生至少36起罢工事件。
As students of Karl Marx and of history, China’s party leaders will know that labour movements can begin with economic grievances and end in political revolt. By concentrating people in one place, Marx argued, factories turn a crowd of strangers into a “class”: conscious of its interests, united with each other and against the boss. But workers in China’s coastal factories have hitherto shown little class-consciousness. They migrated from all over the country, jumped from one plant to another and retreated to their villages when times were bad.
作为马克思及唯物史观的学徒，中国共产党领导人会明白，工人运动会因经济上的不满为开端，以政治反抗而结束。马克思曾说过，工厂将一群互不认识的人们集中在一起，然后成为一个“阶级”。当意识到自身的阶级利益后，这个阶级便联合起来，与老板斗争。然而，中国沿海地区的工人至今仍无强烈的阶级意识。这些农民工来自全国各地，从一个工厂跳到另一个工厂。在经济情况不佳时，才返回家乡。
Their new assertiveness may reflect a labour law introduced in January 2008, which gave workers more contractual rights. The strikers at Honda were better educated than the average rural migrant and also trained together, which may have given them the social glue to organise their protest. The malcontents may also represent a generational shift among migrant workers. According to John Knight and Ramani Gunatilaka of Oxford University, they no longer compare their lot with the rural folk they left behind, but aspire to urban standards of living.
中国工人最近表现出的自信或许正体现了2008年1月施行的劳动法的内容。新劳动法给予工人更多的合同权利。本田罢工者比普通农民工的受教育程度要高，并且也一起接受培训。这两个因素为工人组织抗议行动提供了社会凝聚力（社会黏合剂）。或许，这种不满也反映出了农民工新老更替的情况。牛津大学John Knigh及Ramani Gunatilaka说，这些年轻的农民工不原再与已被抛在脑后的父老乡亲比较了，而是渴望城市的生活。
The strikers have also taken advantage of the government’s willingness to indulge nationalist sentiment. The police are far less likely to charge at you with batons if you strike in a Japanese-owned factory rather than one owned by the state. At Honda the workers complained that their wages were disproportionately lower than those of their foreign managers. “Aren’t Chinese as good as the Japanese?” one asked. Though any form of protest worries party officials, they have not tried to crack down on the recent unrest in foreign-owned enterprises. As workers shouted their grievances to journalists at the gate, police kept their distance.
罢工者也利用了政府纵容民族主义的心态。如果罢工发生在日资企业而不是国有企业的话，那么警察将不会轻易棍棒相加，阻拦罢工。本田的工人抱怨他们的工资与外国管理人员的工资悬殊。“难道中国人比日本人差吗？”一名工人这样问到。虽然任何形式的抗议活动都会令中共担忧，但他们并未试图镇压近来在外企的工人罢工。当工人在工厂门口向记者高声抱怨时，警察只是保持在一段距离之内。
China has the world’s largest manufacturing workforce: more than 112m people at the end of 2006, according to Erin Lett, formerly of America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics, and Judith Banister of the Conference Board, who include enterprises in China’s towns and villages, where 70% of its metal-bashers work. This workforce is still cheap, costing $0.81 an hour, by the authors’ estimates, or just 2.7% of the cost of their American counterparts.
中国拥有世界上最多的制造业工人。据原美国劳工统计局的Erin Lett及美国经济咨商局Judith Banister的研究显示，至2006年底，包括乡镇企业在内，中国制造业工人数量超过1亿1000万。并且，中国70%的钢铁（打铁）工人都在这些乡镇企业里。这些工人依然廉价，每小时的薪水大约只有五块多钱，不到美国钢铁工人的百分之三。
But it is not as cheap as it was. Workers’ compensation rose by more than 9% a year in dollar terms from 2002 to 2006, according to Ms Lett and Ms Banister, and by over 11% in the cities. A new study by Dennis Tao Yang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Vivian Chen of the Conference Board and Ryan Monarch of the University of Michigan suggests that Chinese workers, in the cities at least, are now as expensive as their Thai or Filipino peers.
但现在不会像以前那么廉价。从Lett和Banister的数据可以看出，2002年到2006年，中国工人的收入增幅超过9%，而城市工人的增幅超过11%。香港中文大学Dennis Tao Yang、美国咨商局Vivian Chen及密歇根大学Ryan Monarch的最新研究表明，如今中国工人（至少城里的工人）已经和泰国或菲律宾工人的工资一样高了。
Lately strikers in Guangdong have done even better. Those at Atsumitec in Foshan, which supplies gear parts to Honda, returned to work on July 22nd with a pay rise of 47%. Several cities have raised the minimum wage by up to 20%. Ministry of Agriculture data say that migrants’ wages rose by a sixth last year, to 1,348 yuan ($197) a month (see chart 1).
近期广东省的罢工者表现更有成效。本田变速齿轮零件供应商阿兹米特（Atsumitec）罢工工人于7月22日返回工作岗位，薪水提高了47%。令有一些城市的最低工资提高了20%。中国农业部数据显示，去年农民工工资增加了六分之一，月薪达到1348元人民币，相当于197美元。（见图表1）
These rapid advances may be no more than a post-crisis blip, retrieving ground lost during the worst months of the global recession, when minimum wages were frozen, 670,000 labour-intensive factories shut down in the coastal cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen, and 25m migrants lost their jobs. But they may also be a taste of things to come. A number of economists believe China has reached a turning-point in its development, having exhausted its supply of surplus labour. Others think this conclusion premature. Calculations by Mr Knight, Deng Quheng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Li Shi of Beijing Normal University imply there are still 70m people in China’s villages who might be expected to leave in search of work, given their age, family obligations and so forth.
这些明显的进展并不代表危机结束。回看全球萧条的几个月，最低工资被迫压低。沿海城市广州、东莞、深圳的六十七万劳动密集型工厂关闭，2500万民工失业。这也由此引发来后来的罢工事。部分经济学家认为，中国经历了发展的转折期，其剩余劳动力所剩无几。另一些观点则认为这种定论还为时过早。Knight及中国社会科学院邓曲恒、北京师范大学李实得出的数据表明，考虑到年龄及家庭责任等因素，目前中国仍有7000万农民打算离开农村，带外打工。
Mr Knight and his co-authors suggest that the labour market may still be “segmented”, so that a surplus of labour in the countryside can coexist with shortages on the coasts. China’s land policies and its household-registration system, or hukou, may be partly to blame. Villagers risk losing family plots if they do not tend them. At the same time, they cannot enroll their children in city schools or benefit from many other public services until they have been officially acknowledged as permanent urban residents. That can take years.
Knight等人的研究表明中国劳动力市场仍是“分割”的，因此，会有农村劳动力剩余与沿海地区劳动力短缺共存的现象。其部分原因可以归结到中国的土地政策及户籍制度。农民如果不耕田就会有失去自留地的风险。而且，他们又不能让子女在城里上学，或者享受许多其他的公共服务。除非他们拿到城市户口。
Policy aside, people over 30 are much less likely to shoulder their bindle stick and seek their fortunes. Having risen for the past decade, the number of Chinese aged 15 to 29 will fall quite sharply after 2011, according to the United States Census Bureau (see chart 2). The drop is already evident in university applications, which have declined for two years in a row, notes Stephen Green of Standard Chartered.
除政策因素外，人过30便不太可能会卷起铺盖，去实现他们的发财梦了。美国人口普查局数据表明，过去十年，15至29岁中国人数量一直在增长，但在2011年后将会大幅减少（见图表2）。渣打银行经济学家王志浩（Stephen Green）指出，这种现象已在大学报考人数上明显体现，因为报考大学的人数已经连续两年减少。
The workshop of the world, in other words, is ageing. As China’s villagers grow older, coastal factories will have to offer higher wages to tempt them to migrate. One-sixth of non-migrants say they are too old to go, even though they are under 40. The end of surplus labour is not an event, but a process. And that process may already be under way.
换言之，世界工厂正步入老龄化阶段。随中国农民的年龄不断增大，沿海地区的工厂不得不支付更高的薪酬来吸引他们。六分之一呆在农村的农民表示，他们年龄太大，走不动了。但实际上，他们还不到40岁。剩余劳动力的时代不会突然结束，而是个缓慢的过程。或许这个过程已经开始。
Pay versus production
收入与产出
How much damage this will inflict on the competitiveness of China’s manufacturing depends not only on how much the workers are paid, but also on how much they produce. From 1995 to 2004, for example, labour costs in China’s bigger firms tripled, according to a study by Ms Chen, Bart van Ark, also of the Conference Board, and Harry Wu of Hitotsubashi University. But labour productivity more than quintupled. The result was that unit labour costs fell by 43%. Chinese manufacturing became more competitive, not less.
这对中国制造业带来影响的大小不仅取决于工人的薪资，也取决于工人的产出。美国咨商局Vivian Chen、Bart Van Ark及日本一桥大学Harry Wu的一项研究表明，从1995年到2004年，中国大企业的劳动力成本增加了三倍，而劳动生产率却增加超过五倍。这便使得单位劳动成本减少了43%。因此，中国制造业就更具竞争力。
But repeating that trick will not be easy. Insofar as they can be tracked, China’s unit labour costs have risen more often than not in the past five years, thinks the World Bank (see chart 3). That is starting to show in the notorious “China price”, which once undercut all rivals. Between the summers of 2006 and 2008 the prices Americans paid for imports from China rose by 6%. They fell during the crisis, but are rising again. That may leave room for lower-wage countries to enter industries China is graduating out of.
然而，这种情况不会经常出现。世界银行表示，从手头的数据来看，过去五年，中国单位劳动力成本多为上升。这一点开始反映在因一度压低所有对手而臭名远扬的“中国价格”上。2006年夏季到2008年夏季期间，美国从中国进口商品的价格增长了6%。在金融危机期间有所下降，但目前又开始上扬。这可能会给那些收入水平更低的国家留下空间，使这些国家进入中国正在推出的行业。
Vietnam, for example, is often touted as the next China. Its stock of foreign direct investment has tripled since 2000 and its exports have quadrupled. In July Hoya, a Japanese maker of optical glass, announced a $146m factory near Hanoi to make the glass substrates from which hard disks are fashioned. Intel is due to open a $1 billion plant, assembling and testing silicon chips.
比如越南，该国已被标榜为下一个中国。自2000年，越南的外商直接投资增长了三倍，出口增长四倍。今年七月，日本光学玻璃制造商“豪雅”（Hoya）宣布在河内投资1亿4600万美元，建一家生产硬盘玻璃基板的工厂。因特尔公司也打算投资10亿美元，建立硅片组装测试工厂。
Vietnam is cheap: its income per person is less than a third of China’s. But its pool of workers is not that deep. Strains are already showing in its labour market. Workers downed tools 95 times in the first three months of this year. The Communist Party has decreed double-digit pay rises and firms are grumbling about a new labour law. Vietnam is not perhaps the sanctuary from strife that firms fleeing China’s coasts might wish for.
越南劳动力非常廉价。其工人人均收入不到中国人均的三分之一。但越南工人数量没有那么多，劳动力市场已出现紧缺。今年头三个月，越南就发生了95起罢工。越南共产党颁布新劳动法，要求增加劳工薪资至少10%。企业则满腹牢骚，抱怨新劳动法。这样一来，对那些想要从中国沿海罢工浪潮中逃离出来的外国企业来说，越南也并非他们的避难所。
The next China may instead lie closer to home: within China’s borders, but away from its coasts. Three inland provinces are wooing Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company which raised pay in its coastal plant after a string of suicides by workers. Another, Anhui, is only a few hundred kilometres up the Yangzi river from Shanghai, but its income per person belongs to another realm. Foreigners invested $3.8 billion in the province last year, pursuing cheaper land and labour.
下一个中国或许还是会离本土近一些，即它还是在中国境内，但又不在沿海地区。目前，已有三个内陆省份对富士康（一家台湾电子企业。该企业曾发生一连串员工自杀事件。事件发生后，被迫提高工人薪资。）有意向。安徽，也是一个内陆省份，在上海的上游地区，距离上海仅有几百公里，但劳工人均收入却与上海有着天壤之别。去年，外商在皖投资达38亿美元，同时也找到了更为廉价的土地及劳动力。
Unilever, which moved production from Shanghai to Anhui’s capital in 2002, said in April that it would increase its investment in the province by $103m. More telling, perhaps, is the arrival of firms from Guangdong, such as Midea, an electronics firm, and Konka, a television-maker, which bought a refrigerator factory. Anhui’s home-grown champions, such as Chery Auto, are also expanding. Heli exports forklift trucks to over 40 countries. Last year the province’s economy grew faster than those of its more celebrated coastal neighbours (see chart 4).
2002年，“联合利华“将其生产线从上海搬迁至合肥。今年四月，”联合利华“称公司再向安徽投资1亿300万美元。更能说明这一情况的例子还有，比如家电企业“美的”、电视机厂商“康佳”也都进驻安徽。安徽的一些自主品牌，例如“奇瑞汽车”也正在进行扩张计划。另外，“合力”公司生产的叉车已行销40多个国家。去年，安徽经济增速高于周围的沿海省市（见图表4）。
The interior has demographic depth: Anhui alone has a population of 62m, about three-quarters of Vietnam’s (although about a fifth of its labour force already works outside its borders). Provinces farther west are even bigger: Sichuan has 82m people. How far upriver might Chinese manufacturing travel? Over 2,500km from Shanghai, where the brown Yangzi meets the greener waters of the Jialing river, the city of Chongqing is flourishing. It is the centre of a municipality of 28m people, run directly by the central government. The municipality’s GDP grew by over 19% in the year to the first quarter.
中国内地人口较多。仅安徽一省的人口就达到6200万，相当于越南人口的四分之三。尽管该省有五分之一的劳动力在外打工，但其劳动力依然丰富。中国西部一些省份的人口数量更大：四川人口已经达到8200万。中国制造业会向长江上游迁移多远呢？重庆市距离上海2500公里，位于长江与嘉陵江的交汇处，正在蓬勃发展。重庆是中国直辖市之一，拥有2800万人口。该市今年一季度GDP同比增长达到19%。
Chongqing’s residents describe it as a “vertical city”, its hilly topography accentuated by the skyscrapers above and the deep pits below, where the foundations of new towers are being laid. The city’s best-known skyscraper, named the New York, New York tower, pays homage to the Chrysler building. But Chrysler itself is now second to a Chongqing carmaker: Chang’an Automobile sold 1.9m vehicles last year compared with Chrysler’s 1.3m.
重庆市民将其称作“垂直城市”。重庆的高楼大厦及深坑低洼凸显其丘陵地形。新建的高楼便在这些地势低的地方打下地基。该市著名的摩天大楼“纽约?纽约大厦”效仿美国“克莱斯勒大厦”。但克莱斯勒公司却只是重庆第二大汽车制造商。去年，长安汽车销售190万两汽车，而克莱斯勒只有130万辆。
In January Hewlett-Packard (HP) made its first laptop in the municipality, where it has built ten production lines. The company says it was attracted by Chongqing’s forward-looking government, among other things. The municipality’s growth also owes a lot to a steady feed of state-backed investment. Many of its manufacturing firms trace their origins to China’s defence industry, which Mao Zedong moved inland to make it harder to bomb. It also benefited from last year’s stimulus spending and the government’s “Go West” campaign of tax breaks and infrastructure projects, which is now ten years old.
今年一月，惠普公司（HP）诞生了第一台在重庆生产的笔记本电脑。在重庆，惠普公司建了十条生产线。惠普称，在诸多因素中，它最看重的是富有远见的重庆市政府。重庆市的经济发展也要得益于国家源源不断的投资。该市的许多企业起源于中国国防工业。当时，毛泽东为使这企业免遭炮弹袭击，将这些企业搬迁至重庆。当然，其发展也离不开去年的经济刺激计划及已经开展了十年的“西部大开发”计划。“西部大开发”为重庆提供了税务优惠及许多基础设施建设项目。
But Chongqing remains more attractive as a gateway to inland China than as a workshop to the world. According to Bo Zhiyue and Chen Gang of the East Asian Institute, 90% of its industrial output is sold domestically. In the interior, cheaper labour is soon overshadowed by costly logistics, argue Zeyan Zhang of the University of Sydney and Miguel Andres Figliozzi of Portland State University. China’s seaboard ports are impressive. But it still lacks a national trucking service, leaving companies at the mercy of a patchwork of provincial and local operators.
但是，重庆的魅力，更多还是体现在其作为中国内陆发展通道的角色上，而非世界工厂的角色。新加坡国立大学东亚研究所薄智跃及陈刚的研究表明，重庆90%工业产出都是内销。悉尼大学的张泽颜（音译）及波特兰州立大学的Figliozzi表示，中国内地的廉价劳动力很快会受到高昂的物流费用影响。中国沿海地区的港口会让人留下深刻的印象，但这些港口仍无全国性的货车运输服务，使得企业受控于混杂的地方货运商。
Sold up the river
行销（长江）上游
Just over half of the 270 companies surveyed last year by the American Chamber of Commerce in China have a presence outside the country’s established hubs (the Bohai region, including Beijing; the Pearl river delta, which encompasses Shenzhen; and the Yangzi river delta around Shanghai), but only 17 did so to take advantage of lower costs. HP sees its Chongqing plant as a way to get closer to its inland customers.
美国商会去年的一项调查显示，其接受调查的270家在华企业中，有超过一半的企业是在三大中心经济区（环渤海经济区【包括北京】、珠江三角洲经济区【包括深圳】及长江三角洲经济区）之外的地区投资建厂的。但只有17家企业是因为降低成本而选择这些地区。惠普在重庆建厂的目的在于亲近内陆消费者。
Chongqing’s government is doing its bit to improve its links with the rest of China. To enter the city from HP’s plant in the rural periphery, cars traverse a 3.8km tunnel through a mountain. The government is quadrupling the size of its main airport and a high-speed railway will eventually connect to Shanghai. And HP benefits from a special express postal service to 375 cities and counties in western and central China.
重庆市政府尽其所能加强与中国其他地区的联系。从位于郊区的惠普工厂到市区的路上，重庆市政府开凿了一条长3.8公里的（汽车）隧道。重庆市政府正扩建其主要的机场到原来的四倍，连接上海的高铁也在铺设之中。此外，能够通达中国中西部375个城镇的特快邮递业务也让惠普从中受益。
Coastal exporters interviewed by Ms Zhang and Mr Figliozzi complained that western boomtowns were competing with them for men and materials. Trade between the coast and the inland provinces was crowding out trade between the coast and the rest of the world. Trucks carry goods inland, but return empty.
接受张泽颜及Figliozzi调研的沿海出口企业抱怨，西部崛起的城市与它们竞争劳动力和生产材料。沿海及内陆省份的贸易正挤掉沿海地区与国外间的贸易。如今，卡车满载货物到内陆地区，而后空车返回。
The redrawing of China’s industrial map may, therefore, contribute to a rebalancing of its economy. The rise of the inland provinces will push up demand for labour, even as China’s baby-bust reduces supply. As a consequence, wages will rise at the expense of profits and China’s workers will take home a greater share of the national cake. This will add to households’ spending power and erode China’s high saving rate, the sharp rise of which owes a lot to corporate tight-fistedness. According to Bai Chong’en and Qian Zhengjie of Tsinghua University, the corporate saving rate rose from 16% of GDP in 1997 to about 23% in 2004, where it has remained.
因此，重新描绘中国工业版图或许能有效地重新平衡中国经济。尽管中国出生率的低潮会减少劳动力数量，但内陆省份的发展将增加劳动力需求。其结果便是工人工资增加，企业利润降低；并且中国工人将分享更大快的国家蛋糕。这也会提升家庭的消费能力，并降低中国的高储备率。中国拥有较高储备率的原因就是企业不肯花钱。清华大学的白重恩和钱震杰称，1997年中国企业储蓄率为GDP的16%，到2004年上升到23%，此后便保持在这一水平。
Higher consumer spending will increase demand for services, such as housing, retailing and haircuts, which consumers favour, and which cannot be traded across borders. The rise in their price will have much the same effect as a stronger exchange rate, making Chinese goods pricier relative to internationally traded commodities. As a result, China’s trade surplus will shrink along with its saving rate. Arthur Kroeber of GaveKal Dragonomics calls it natural rebalancing.
提高消费者支出将会增加对诸如房产、零售、美发等服务业的需求。这些需求都是消费者所关心的，而且不可能销往国外。这些服务行业价格的增长会和拥有更为强势的汇率一样，使得中国的产品价格高于国际贸易中的产品价格。这样，中国贸易顺差会与其储蓄率一道降低。龙洲经讯咨询公司（GaveKal Dragonomics）的葛艺豪（Arthur Kroeber）将此称为自然平衡。
This rebalancing will benefit China, which relies too much on heavy investment for its growth. It should also benefit the world economy in its present predicament. Private spending in the rich world is weak; government spending is out of fashion; and interest rates are as low as they can go. Extra demand is welcome.
这种平衡会使中国收益。目前中国过于依赖大量的投资来促进其经济的发展了。而且这也会让陷于困境的世界经济受益。如今，发达国家的个人消费需求疲软；政府投资不合时宜；利率也跌破低谷。更大的需求才最受欢迎。
China cannot rescue the world economy on its own. Its consumer spending amounts to only 13% of American GDP, for example. And only some of the stuff its better-paid workers buy will come from the moribund rich world. But back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that if Chinese consumption rose by, say, 20% and $25 billion of that were spent on American goods, it might create more than 200,000 American jobs, many of them in the manufacturing industries that fear China the most. No wonder the AFL-CIO is pleased.
单靠中国不可能拯救世界经济。就拿中国消费者支出来说，它只占美国GDP的13%。仅一些收入较高的工人才会买发达国家的进口商品（这些国家自身也处境恶劣）。但经粗略估算，若中国消费每增长20%，且其中250亿美元来购买美国商品的话，这将给美国创造20万个工作岗位。其中许多工作岗位都在那些担心中国经济的制造业之中的。这就无怪乎AFL-CIO现在高兴了。
As costs rise, some economists worry about a new Chinese export: inflation. Between 1997 and 2005 the price of Chinese exports to America fell by more than 12%. What if that trend is now reversed? In principle, the China price can rise or fall without any effect on inflation. As long as the central bank remains vigilant, other goods will just get cheaper or dearer, leaving overall prices unchanged. In practice, however, Chinese competition probably made it easier for the Federal Reserve to contain inflation, back when containing inflation was the biggest thing on its mind. For now, though, it is low on its list of worries.
随着生产成本的提高，部分经济学家担心中国会向世界输出新的产物——通货膨胀。1997年至2005年，中国对美国的出口价格下跌超过12%。倘若这种趋势再次出现怎么办？原则上，中国商品价格的升降不会对通货膨胀造成什么影响。只要中国央行保持警惕，最多是部分商品价格上扬或下跌，但总体价格将保持不变。然而，实际中，中国的竞争会使美联储更加随便地抑制通货膨胀。尽管目前抑制通膨只是美联储关注的问题之一，但它曾一度是美联储的头等大事。
In the Ranjiaba district of Chongqing, shoppers push their trolleys around a Wal-Mart supercentre, the company’s third store in the city. Young “associates” huddle around a shopping till, learning how to tally the necessaries and conveniences of life, such as the live turtles and toads on sale in the food section. It is here that the next China may be taking shape: clustered around the shopping tills of Chongqing, not the assembly lines of Shenzhen.
在重庆的冉家坝，你会看到顾客推着购物车在逛该市的第三家沃尔玛超市。年轻的店员围在收银机旁，学习如何清点生活必需品和便利品，比如清点食品区的特卖活甲鱼和青蛙。这就是下一代中国形成的地方——在重庆，而不在深圳。
编译交流 见8#
"THE angrier they become, the less intimidating they seem. "
是不是译作“他们越生气，就显得越冷静（越不吓人）”比较好一些？
如果是"the less intimidated they seem"，译作“无所畏惧”可能会比较好 ...
爱啥啥 发表于 2010-8-7 09:58  |
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发表于 2010-8-6 21:28
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