【2010.9.28 华尔街日报】A Game of Trade Chicken

rhapsody

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 17300721920676.html

Poultry protectionism shows where the U.S. and China are heading.

The U.S. and China are slouching toward a trade war, with the House of Representatives aiming to vote this week on a bill to impose duties on Chinese goods if Beijing doesn't revalue its currency against the dollar. Two can play at that game, however, as China is proving as it responds to earlier U.S. protectionism.

China's Commerce Ministry Sunday unveiled its final order in an antidumping investigation against U.S. poultry. Effective yesterday, Beijing is levying duties ranging from 50% to 104%, depending on the producer, on imports of products such as chicken feet. The Chinese government claims U.S. companies sell in the Chinese market at a price less than their cost of production. In a separate case in August, Beijing slapped countervailing duties of between 4% and 31% on the imports, claiming U.S. agricultural policies unfairly subsidize chicken production in America.

These moves must be about politics because the economics of the cases make no sense. Far from dumping, U.S. poultry producers can sell chicken products in China at a premium over the American market because Chinese consumers prefer parts of the bird that Americans don't like—especially the feet, a delicacy known as "phoenix claw." And while it's hard to dispute that subsidies distort the U.S. agricultural marketplace far beyond anything Adam Smith would recognize, to the extent China feels the effects they amount to a U.S. subsidy for Chinese consumers.

What's really going on here is that Beijing is trying to send President Obama and Congress a message about trade policy. The Administration is discovering the flaw of its "exports for me, but not for thee" trade strategy: Other countries won't keep their borders open to American products if Washington is simultaneously closing America's own ports to foreign products.

This antidumping case was filed within days of Mr. Obama's imposition last September of a discretionary 35% tariff on Chinese tire imports and amid American antidumping and antisubsidy duties on Chinese exports worth billions of dollars. This case also came after years of Chinese frustration with an unrelated move on Capitol Hill to block imports of cooked Chinese chicken over misguided safety concerns. Chinese chicken producers had complained about U.S. practices for a long time. In the face of mounting American protectionism, Beijing simply couldn't say no to its own domestic lobby anymore.

This trade revenge might taste sweet for now, but the danger for Beijing is that it will sour pretty quickly. Most immediately, Chinese consumers will see the effects of these duties in the form of higher prices at the supermarket—which ought to be of concern in Beijing, where officials live in terror of food-price inflation. There's also the increasing political concern that the U.S. Congress will retaliate against China's retaliation.

As for American lawmakers—and Mr. Obama—the chicken case is a warning. Merely because retaliation hurts China's own economy doesn't mean Beijing won't give in to political pressures to respond to American protectionism.

We're blithely told that a full-scale trade war a la the 1930s can't break out again because everyone knows better. But that's what we were told about the other lessons of Depression economics, and our leaders have already remade nearly every one of those mistakes. In a game of trade chicken, everybody will lose.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A20

Jigong

病急乱投医！

wowo33

回复 1# rhapsody


    是否可认领？

rhapsody

回复  rhapsody


    是否可认领？
wowo33 发表于 2010-9-29 17:57

当然可以。原文库里的文章只要不是别人认领了的都可以认领。

tonyisgreat

嗯，我也是新手，一直不敢认领，害怕翻译得不好。。。
前辈们能不能推荐一些翻译得教程？

m122320056