After all, when the chimpanzee itself was new and interesting (in the 1700’s), contemporary scholars commonly judged it to be overwhelmingly similar to the human form – so much so, that it was commonly classified as a variant of humans.	毕竟，当黑猩猩刚被发现，还引起人们很大兴趣的时候（大约是在18世纪），多数学者都认为它与人类极其近似－甚至普遍把它作为人类的变种。


After several centuries studying apes, we are familiar with every subtle difference in form between our species and theirs.	经过对类人猿几个世纪的研究，我们对自身和类人猿之间的所有细微差别都已经了如指掌。


But the emergence of molecular comparisons in the 1960’s, and DNA technologies in the 1980’s, presented a new way of comparing species.	但20世纪60年代出现的分子比较和80年代兴起的DNA技术，都为物种比较提供了新的方法。


The comparison of linear polymers – proteins made up of chains of amino acids, or DNA made up of chains of nucleotides – held out the promise of a simple tabular approach to evolution.	比较线性聚合物－像由氨基酸链组成的蛋白、或核苷链组成的DNA－实现了人们用简单的列表方式来表达进化的希望。


When we compare the genetic material of humans and chimpanzees, we do, indeed, find that it corresponds at nearly 99 of every 100 comparable sites.	如果比较一下人类和黑猩猩的遗传物质，就会发现确实每100个可比位置中，有99个都完全相同。


But this method omits much of what has been learned about genomic evolution in the last quarter-century.	但这种方法忽略了过去四分之一世纪来染色体进化研究的大部分成果。


Mutational processes are far more complex than was thought a few decades ago; with strand slippage, duplication, transposition, and illegitimate recombination producing qualitative differences between closely-related genomes.	突变过程比几十年前所认识到的要复杂得多，链滑、重复、换位和异常重组都会使密切相关的染色体产生本质上的不同。


So, while measuring nucleotide similarity in homologous regions is indeed in the 98-99% range, this number does not incorporate or acknowledge the measured difference in the size of the human and chimp genomes, or the widespread differences in chromosome or genome structure.	因此，尽管对相应位置核苷酸测量的近似度确实在98-99%之间，但这个数字并不包含或反映人类和黑猩猩染色体在尺寸方面的差异，以及染色体或染色体组结构的巨大不同。


Because a DNA sequence is a one-dimensional entity, it lends itself much better to single-number comparisons than a four-dimensional body does.	因为DNA序列是单维实体，因此它比四维实体更适合进行单数字比较。


The genes that lead to the production of the human and chimpanzee femur may be 98-99% identical, but it is impossible to say whether the bones themselves are more or less similar than that.	构成人类和黑猩猩股骨的基因也许确有98-99%的相似度，但很难说这些骨骼本身是更为相似还是更为不同。


Perhaps the most seductive aspect of the DNA comparison is its lack of biological context.	将生物背景排除在外或许是DNA对比最引人入胜之处。


The value of 98-99% similarity between human and ape DNA stands outside the rest of life.	人与猿之间98-99%的DNA相似性远远超过了其它的生命类型。


We can gain some zoological perspective on what that number really means by comparing another species to apes and humans.	我们可以通过拿其它物种与猿和人进行对比来了解这个数字真正的动物学意义。


Compared to the body of an oyster, for example, chimpanzees and humans are at least 99% identical – bone for bone, muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, organ for organ.	如果和牡蛎相比，黑猩猩和人的共同之处至少超过了99%－都有骨骼、肌肉、神经和器官。


If anything, the DNA comparison underestimates the profound similarity of the human and ape bodies in the great tapestry of nature.	如果真要说有什么不同的话，那么DNA比较大大 低估 了自然画卷中人和猿深层次的共同之处。


Context reveals something at the low end of the scale as well.	环境背景还揭示了天平另外一端的秘密。


Two DNA sequences generated at random must be 25% identical, by virtue of the fact that DNA is a sequence of only four bases.	两个任意组合的DNA序列肯定有25%的共同之处，这是由于DNA序列仅仅由4个基数构成。


Therefore, all multicellular life, having presumably developed from a single common ancestral form, must be over 25% identical in their DNA sequences.	因此，可能由共同祖先进化而来的所有多细胞生命，其DNA序列的相似性肯定会超过25%。


In other words, a human and a carrot have much in common genetically, despite their being little similarity between them physically.	换句话讲，人和胡萝卜在基因上有很多共同之处，尽管它们在外形上大不相同。


Here the DNA comparison grossly overestimates the actual relationships between species.	这里DNA比对显然夸大了不同物种间的实际联系。


Genetic comparisons simply do not afford an ”inner view” of the relationships between species, or an encapsulation of those relationships.	基因比较根本没有对物种关系进行深入的探讨，也没有对上述关系进行合理的包装。


In other words, this apparent fact of nature – the overwhelming genetic similarity of human and ape – is a fact constructed from culture.	换句话说，人与猿基因极端相似表面是个自然现象，但它实际却起源于文化之中。


That is not to say it is inaccurate or false; just that its meaning is far less obvious than it may appear superficially.  	这不是说它不正确或不准确，只是说它可能远没有表面看上去的那么明显。


We make sense of the world, and of our place in it, culturally – and science provides more information for constructing that place.	我们了解了世界的意义，以及我们的文化定位－科学为实现这种定位提供了很多信息。


But like any other peoples, our own application of that information to the puzzle of our existence is strongly influenced by our non-scientific ideas, our pervasive folk ideologies of heredity.	但和其它人一样，非科学观念对我们在解读生存之谜时对上述信息的应用产生了很大的影响，这种非科学观念就是为民间所普遍接受的遗传观。


The Cultural Contradictions of Multiculturalism	多元文化主义的文化矛盾


STOCKHOLM – State-sponsored multiculturalism has failed.	斯德哥尔摩——国家支持的多元文化主义已经垮台了。


That proclamation by British Prime Minister David Cameron, following hard on the heels of similar renunciations of multiculturalism by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, suggests that a page is being turned in European society.	继德国总理默克尔和法国总统萨科奇宣布放弃多元文化主义之后，英国首相大卫·卡梅伦内容相似的声明宣告欧洲社会这一页已经翻过去了。


But is it?	但实际情况果真如此吗？


Cameron’s attack on multiculturalism minced no words.	卡梅伦对多元文化主义的诘责可谓直言不讳。


“Frankly,” he said, “we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and a much more active, muscular liberalism.”	“坦率地讲”，他说，“我们需要减少近年来的被动忍耐，构建更为积极有力的自由主义。


He was not criticizing ethnic and cultural pluralism, but the idea of “state multiculturalism,” which applies different moral standards to various social groups.	” 他所批评的不是种族和文化的多元性，而是对不同社会团体适用不同道德标准的“国家多元文化主义”。


In the future, Cameron declared, Muslim groups that do not, for example, endorse women’s rights, defend freedom of expression, or promote integration would lose all government funding.	比方说卡梅伦宣布，今后不支持女性权利、捍卫言论自由或促进种族融合的穆斯林团体将失去一切政府资助。


It is not just official multiculturalism that has failed in Europe, however; so has the multiculturalism endorsed by large parts of European civil society.	在欧洲垮台的不仅是官方支持的多元文化主义，欧洲民间普遍认同的多元文化主义命运也并未好到哪去。


Sweden, one of the most liberal countries in the world, but also one that has recently seen a surge in extremism, is a case in point.	全世界最自由国家之一的瑞典近来激进主义思潮也有所抬头，恐怕可以作为一个恰当的实例。


Sweden has long been known for its lifestyle liberalism.	生活方式的自由化早已成为瑞典的一种标志。


Swedes are overwhelmingly secular and indifferent toward the Swedish church.	多数瑞典人都非常世俗，对瑞典教堂不感兴趣。


Homosexuals have been able to register civil partnerships since 1995 and marry since 2009, and the country is one of the most radical in its understanding of women’s rights – as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can attest.	同性恋早在1995年就可以注册同性公民结合，从2009年起就拥有登记结婚的权利。 而且维基解密创始人朱利安·阿桑格可以证明，瑞典也是对女权理解最为激进的国家之一。


Moreover, Sweden’s far-reaching freedom of expression is one reason why Assange located WikiLeaks’ servers in the country.	此外，瑞典无所不在的言论自由也是阿桑格把维基解密的服务器设在那里的原因之一。


But Sweden’s freedom of expression was also one of the motives behind a grisly suicide attack in Stockholm in December of last year.	但瑞典的言论自由也是去年12月斯德哥尔摩发生恐怖自杀袭击事件的背后的动机。


According to a last testament left behind by the attacker, a Swedish citizen named Taimour Abdulwahab, Christmas shoppers in downtown Stockholm had to die in retaliation for “the Swedes’ support” for Lars Vilks, an artist who stirred outrage in the country with drawings of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog.	按照袭击者（一位名叫阿卜杜勒瓦哈卜的瑞典公民）留下的遗言，在斯德哥尔摩市区购买圣诞礼物的消费者为报复瑞典人对拉尔斯·威尔克斯的“支持”而必须死去。 威尔克斯是一位艺术家，因为在瑞典把先知穆罕默德画成一条狗而激起众怒。


Vilks argued that his work was a provocation aimed at revealing the selective liberalism within the Swedish intellectual establishment – its multiculturalism, one could say.	威尔克斯称自己的作品就是一种挑衅，目的是揭露瑞典知识阶层的选择性自由主义，也可以称为多元文化主义。


The Stockholm suicide bombing was not the first act of violence linked to Vilks.	斯德哥尔摩的自杀式袭击并非因威尔克斯引发的首次暴力袭击。


Two young men were recently sentenced to prison for trying to set fire to the artist’s home.	两名年轻人不久前因试图烧毁艺术家的居所而被判入狱。


During a lecture at Uppsala University last summer, a mob attacked Vilks, a professor of art history, while crying Allahu akbar.	在去年夏天乌普萨拉大学的一次讲座上，一名暴徒嘴里高喊“真主至大”袭击了艺术史教授威尔克斯。


The then 64-year-old artist was head-butted, but escaped serious injury thanks to heavy police protection.	当时这名64岁的艺术家被袭击者用头部猛撞，多亏有大批警察的保护才避免了遭受重创的厄运。


What is remarkable is not just the violence and threats against Vilks – anyone who doubts the determination of Islamist extremists in Sweden should watch the YouTube clip from that lecture – but also the reaction from the otherwise radically secular Swedish establishment.	非同寻常的不仅是针对威尔克斯的威胁和暴力袭击——如果对瑞典伊斯兰极端主义者的坚决态度有所怀疑可以观看YouTube上那场讲座的录像——在其他情况下极端世俗的瑞典学界精英的态度也令人大跌眼镜。


A number of influential Swedish intellectuals and politicians have directed their harshest criticism against Vilks, not against those who have called for censorship and even incited violence.	有几位颇具影响的瑞典学界和政界精英不仅没有将严厉批评的矛头指向审查制度的鼓吹者和暴力煽动者，反而不约而同地将矛头对准了威尔克斯。


Only a few of the country’s newspapers and political magazines published Vilks’ drawings.	瑞典国内只有少数几家报纸和政治杂志发表了威尔克斯的漫画。


Like murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the British novelist Salman Rushdie before him, Vilks was criticized by liberals and the left for causing unrest with his art.	正如被谋杀的荷兰导演提奥·梵高和他的前辈英国小说家萨尔曼·拉什迪一样，威尔克斯被自由主义者和左翼指为以作品引发动荡局势。


In this respect, Vilks’ work must be regarded as having succeeded in exposing moral double standards – no matter what one thinks of the drawing itself.	在这方面，威尔克斯无疑已经成功暴露了道德标准的双重本质——这与人们对漫画本身的不同看法没有关系。


In Sweden, just as in similarly liberal Holland and Denmark, right-wing populists have profited from liberals’ failure to stand up for their values.	瑞典的自由主义者不敢捍卫自己的价值观致使右翼民粹份子的阴谋得逞，这种情况与同样信奉自由的荷兰和丹麦何其相似。


The Sweden Democrats (SD), a party with roots in the country’s white-supremacist movement, entered the parliament for the first time in September 2010, with the support of 5.7% of the Swedish electorate.	植根于白人至上主义的瑞典民主党于2010年9月首次入选议会，获得了5. 7% 的瑞典选民支持。


The SD has sought to position itself as the sole defender of gays and Jews in the face of intolerance stoked by large-scale Muslim immigration in the past two decades.	在过去20年大规模穆斯林移民潮所引发的狭隘思潮中，瑞典民主党一直试图扮演同性恋和犹太人的代言人。


Swedes who stand far from the SD’s original platform are apparently willing to be represented by a party that until recently was full of neo-Nazis.	就连远离瑞典民主党原有纲领的瑞典人显然也乐于接受一个不久前还充斥着新纳粹份子的政党作为自己的代理。


Thus, the lack of “muscular liberalism” in one of the world’s most liberal countries has paved the way for both Islamists and right-wing populists.	于是，世界最自由国家“强力自由主义”的缺乏成为伊斯兰份子和右翼民粹份子利用的武器。


Europe’s leading politicians have spoken out, and now it is time for European civil society – its newspapers, critics, curators, academics, and publishers – to declare the failure of multiculturalism and show some courage in defending the values they claim to embody.	欧洲顶层政要已开始据理力争，现在该轮到以报纸、批评家、评论员、学者和出版商为代表的欧洲民间组织站出来宣告多元文化主义的失败，在捍卫他们自称信奉的价值观时表现出一些勇气。


The Cultural Revolution at 40	文化大革命40周年祭


Mao’s Cultural Revolution was launched 40 years ago this month, yet, despite 20 years of economic liberalization, its wounds remain a taboo subject.	40年前的这个月，毛泽东发动了文化大革命。 然而，尽管经过了20年的经济自由化，文化大革命造成的创伤仍然是不得涉及的禁区。


Today’s rulers dare not face up to their own experiences or moral responsibility.	今天的统治者不敢面对他们自己的经历或道德责任。


So, three decades after the Cultural Revolution ended, the national self-examination that China requires has not yet begun.	所以，文化大革命结束30年之后，中国仍然没有开始进行必要的全民反省。


Of course, the Communist Party has deemed the Cultural Revolution a “catastrophe,” a judgment supported by mainstream opinion.	当然，共产党已经认定文化大革命是一场“浩劫”。 这个论断得到主流观点的支持。


But China’s rulers permit discussion of the Cultural Revolution only within this official framework, suppressing any and all unofficial reflections.	但是，中国的统治者只允许在这个官方框架内讨论文化大革命，压制任何非官方观点。


The generalized official verdict, and the use of Lin Piao (once Mao Zedong’s Vice President and designated heir, who rebelled against him) and the “Gang of Four” as scapegoats, obscures the crimes of Mao and the Party, as well as the entrenched flaws in the system.	这个泛泛的官方定论，加上将林彪（曾担任毛泽东的副统帅和指定接班人，最后叛变）和“四人帮”作为替罪羊，掩盖了毛泽东和共产党的罪恶以及这种政治制度固有的缺陷。


The Cultural Revolution’s major figures, who wrought so much mindless violence, thus either maintain their silence or offer spurious self-defenses.	文化大革命的主要参与者因为参与了如此多的盲目暴力活动，不是保持沉默就是进行虚伪的自我辩护。


Most victims also use various excuses to bottle up their memories.	大多数受害者也都用各种借口封存了自己的记忆。


Those who both persecuted and were persecuted are willing to talk only about their being victims.	那些既迫害过别人也受到过迫害的人只愿意谈论自己受到的迫害。


For example, the fanatical Red Guard movement swallowed up almost every youth of the right age.	例如，狂热的“红卫兵”运动几乎把每一个适龄的青年都席卷进去。


Yet all but a few old Red Guards remain silent, saying, “it is not worth remembering.”	然而大多数老“红卫兵”都保持沉默，说“那不值得铭记”。


During the Cultural Revolution’s early days, the Beijing-based Allied Movement, formed by the children of party cadres, committed horrendous acts of violence, operating under the slogan, “If the father is a hero, the son is a good man; if the father is a reactionary, the son is a turtle egg.”	文化大革命初期，由党员高干子弟组成的以北京为基地的“联盟运动”，打着“老子英雄儿好汉，老子反动儿操蛋”的口号，做出了骇人听闻的暴行。


But the memoirs of these rebellious vanguards of yesteryear highlight only their youthful passion and pure idealism, or their sufferings and those of their parents.	但是这些过去的造反先锋只记得他们年轻时的激情和纯真的理想，或者他们和他们父辈遭受的苦难。


They do not mention their own barbaric assaults, vandalism, and looting, or their kangaroo courts.	他们不会提及他们自己做出的野蛮暴行、恶意行径和抢劫掠夺，或者私设公堂。


The revolution’s veterans refuse to discuss their arrogant presumption of “natural Redness,” or to mention that they rebelled because they wanted power.	这些文化大革命的老兵拒绝讨论他们狂妄的假定“天生红”，拒绝提及他们反叛的原因是他们想要权力。


Worse still, they express no remorse toward their victims.	更糟糕的是，他们至今没有对遭受自己迫害的人表示出一点点歉意。


The Cultural Revolution swept up all of China.	文化大革命席卷全中国。


So many people suffered that it is difficult to count the number of victims accurately.	受到迫害的人太多，无法统计准确的数量。


This is all the more true of the persecutors.	迫害人的情况更是如此。


Yet few reflect and apologize.	但是却没有几个迫害人反思并道歉。


The terror of the Red Guards, the armed fights between the rebellious sects, the teams established to “cleanse” the social classes, and all the bloody massacres are simply left to rot in China’s memory.	红卫兵的恐怖行动、造反派之间的武斗、“清洗”社会阶级的小队以及所有的血腥屠杀都仅仅遗留在中国的记忆之中任其腐烂。


The official ban blocks reflection, but human weakness and careerist self-interest among those who participated buttresses the official ban.	官方的禁令阻止进行反思，人类的弱点以及参与其中的自私的野心家则支持这个官方禁令。


Consider Ye Xiangzhen, the daughter of senior general Ye Jianying, who once discussed her family’s Cultural Revolution experiences on television.	想想叶翔珍吧，这位高级将领叶剑英的女儿，曾经在电视上讨论她的家庭在文化大革命中的经历。


During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, she played a dual role: daughter of a Chinese field marshal and leader of the rebels at the School of Art in the capital.	在文化大革命初期，她有着双重身份：中国陆军元帅的女儿和首都艺术学校造反派的领导。


She complained that she was “too famous,” “too active,” and “too stressed” at the time, and she provided extensive details about how Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, persecuted the Ye family and how the Ye children went to prison.	她控诉说当时自己“太出名”、“太活跃”和“太受压”，并且她对毛的妻子江青如何迫害叶剑英一家以及叶剑英的孩子如何入狱提供了大量具体的细节。


But she had only 58 words to say about her career as a Red Guard leader – no details or explanation of how she joined, which activities she participated in, and whether she was involved in “physical struggles” or persecuted others.	但是讲到她作为一名红卫兵的领导时的经历时，她只说了58个字就一笔带过，没有细节和解释她如何参加，参与了那些活动以及她是否参与了“身体斗争”或迫害过其他人。


To call for those people who applied violence and persecuted others to examine themselves and repent is not intended to mete out legal responsibility and moral judgment.	呼吁那些使用暴力迫害过其他人的人检查自身并进行忏悔不是为了给予法律责任和道德审判。


But it would at least restore the truth about the Cultural Revolution, summarizing its lessons in order to avoid repetition.	但是这样做至少可以恢复关于文化大革命的历史真相，总结经验教训以避免历史重演。


More positively, restoring truth would counter the traditional Chinese instinct to blame all disasters on external forces, and might lead to a spiritual epiphany for a people struggling to find value in the emerging new China.	更为重要的是，恢复真相将反击中国人将所有灾难归罪于外部力量的传统本性，并且可能让一个在新兴中国奋力寻找价值的民族获得精神顿悟。


The person with the most responsibility for the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution is, of course, Mao, yet he remains China’s savior.	对文化大革命的灾难负有最大责任的人当然是毛泽东，然而他现在仍然是中国的救星。


The children of Mao’s senior cadres who enjoyed the greatest fame during the Cultural Revolution are now the principal beneficiaries of today’s economic reforms.	他的那些在文化大革命中风光无限的高干子弟现在是当今经济改革最大的受益者。


But this continuing silence by the guilty only transfers the costs to society as a whole, with Chinese life distorted by the weight of lies and evasions.	但是犯罪人持续沉默不过是将代价转移到整个社会身上，中国人的生活在谎言和借口的重压之下扭曲变形。


As one generation after another continues to live in denial, the lies will corrode everything they touch.	随着一代又一代的人继续生活在否定历史的状况之中，这种谎言将侵蚀他们接触的每一个事件。


The Chinese people will no longer know what is personal honesty or historical truth, and they will repeatedly abuse, miss, or forsake historic opportunities.	中国人民将不会知道什么是个人诚信和历史真相，他们将一次又一次地滥用、错失或放弃历史给予的机会。


As long as the Cultural Revolution remains unaccounted for, it will not have ended.	只要仍然没有人承担责任，文化大革命就不会结束。


If historical truth is not restored, the lessons cannot be learned.	如果不恢复历史真相，将无法吸取经验教训。


No amount of material prosperity can make China a healthy society without this necessary reckoning with the past.	如果不会过去的历史进行必要的反思，无论创造多少物质财富，都无法使中国成为一个健康的社会。


The Curse of Unilateralism	单边主义的诅咒


The realization in the United States that the war in Iraq has been lost is perhaps the most momentous fact of international politics in 2006.	美国认识到它在伊拉克的战争失败了或许是2006年的国际政治中最最重要的事件。


The time of American unilateralism is objectively over.	美国单边主义的时代已经一去不复返了。


Whether US foreign policy will come to reflect this fact, only the future will tell.	美国的外交政策是否会遵循这一事实，还有待时间观察。


Unfortunately, this also means that a unique opportunity has been lost.	不幸的是，这同时也意味着一个独有的机会被失去了。


For only the US – with all its power and sense of mission – had the ability to establish a new world order at the beginning of the twenty-first century.	因为只有美国以其实力和使命感有能力在二十世纪初建立一个新的世界秩序。


To achieve this, the US would have had to subordinate its power to the goal of shaping the new order, much as it did at the close of World War II in 1945.	要达到这个目标，美国必须把它的强权让位于追求形成新秩序的目标，就像它在1945年二战结束的时候所做的那样。


Instead, America succumbed to the temptation of unilateralism.	相反，美国迷恋于追求单边主义。


National greatness for a world power always arises from its ability to shape the world.	一个世界强权国家的伟大来自于它塑造世界的能力。


If a great power forgets this, or loses the ability to act accordingly, it begins to decline.	如果一个世界强权国家忘掉了这一事实，或者失去了相应行动的能力，那么它的衰落就开始了。


It is almost tempting to think that America’s great Cold War opponent, the Soviet Union, with its sudden disappearance 15 years ago this month, left its own Trojan horse for America – the poisoned gift of unilateralism.	这很容易让人想起美国巨大的冷战对手苏联，十五年前的这个月它突然消失了，把它的特洛伊木马留给了美国，就是被毒素浸染的单边主义的礼物。


Without a fundamental turnaround in American political consciousness, the unilateralist amnesia of US foreign policy will have far-reaching consequences and leave a huge vacuum in the global system.	如果美国的政治意识不能产生一个根本的转变，美国外交政策的单边主义的遗忘症会产生一个深远的后果，并且给全球体系带来一个巨大的真空。


No other nation – not China, Europe, India, or Russia – has the power and the sense of mission to take on America’s role.	中国、欧洲、印度和俄罗斯，没有哪个国家有这种力量和使命感来替代美国的角色。


Only America was (and potentially still is) able to fuse realism and idealism, self-interest and ethics, in its foreign policy.	只有美国能够（现在和将来都将是如此〕在其外交政策中融合现实主义和理想主义、自我利益和道德标准。


Only the US pursued a foreign policy that conceived freedom and democracy as its mission.	只有美国追求的外交政策是以形成自由和民主的观念作为它的使命。


This was not always and everywhere the case – certainly not in Latin America.	当然，这并不是在所有时候和所有地方都是如此，至少在拉丁美洲就不是如此。


But where it did apply, America’s strength and willingness to seek international cooperation created an order whose institutions still hold the world together.	但是当美国这样做时，它寻求国际合作的影响力和意志力就能够创造一种秩序，其机构现在还能把整个世界合在一起。


The UN, NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, the law of nations and international criminal law, even today’s free and united Europe – all are crowning achievements of US foreign policy.	联合国、北约、世界货币组织和世界银行、国际法和国际刑法，甚至今天自由和联合的欧洲，所有这些都是美国外交政策的至高无上的成就。


They mark the moments in history when America’s power was used to further a global order, while also pursuing America’s own interests in the most effective and sustainable manner.	它们记载了美国的强权被用来推动世界秩序的历史时刻，但同时也是美国最有效和可持续地获取其自身利益的时刻。


America’s departure from this great tradition did not begin with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.	美国偏离这一伟大的传统并非始于2001年9月11日恐怖分子的袭击。


Indeed, as early as the final years of the Cold War, the US began to view the whole system of international treaties and institutions as an obstacle to enforcing its own interests.	事实上，早在冷战的结束年代，美国就开始把国际公约和机构的整个体制看作它追求其自身利益的障碍。


America’s foreign policy elite increasingly came to perceive the US as a Gulliver tied down and oppressed by political midgets, with their laws of nations, treaties, and multilateral institutions.	美国的外交政策精英们越来越把美国看成是一个被捆绑住的格利佛，被国际法、国际公约和多边机构里的政治侏儒们压制着。


The existing world order – created by the US itself – was first devalued in American eyes, then weakened, and finally consciously attacked.	由美国本身所创建的现有的国际秩序在美国人的眼中开始被贬低， 然后是被弱化，最后是被有意识地攻击。


Thus, the current debate in the US about the consequences of defeat in Iraq still falls short – because, despite all the critiques of American policy, that debate is still premised on the unilateral use of American power.	出于这些原因，目前美国关于在伊拉克失败的结果的争论依然是不够的，因为尽管对美国的政策有种种的批评，整个争论依然是以单边使用美国的力量为前提的。


This applies to the views of the Democratic opposition as well as to the Baker-Hamilton report.	这表现在民主党的反对意见上，以及贝克-汉密尔顿报告上。


What is needed is a conscious, deliberate return of US foreign policy to multilateralism.	美国所需要的应该是自觉、有意识地将美国的外交政策回归到多边主义。


This mental turnaround is, indeed, essential if things are to improve, because the situation in Iraq represents, above all, a defeat of America’s unilateralist orientation.	如果要使情况发生好转，这种意识上的转变就是必须的，因为不管怎样，伊拉克的局势是美国单边主义定位的一次失败。


The Middle East, North Korea, Darfur, Central and East Africa, the Caucasus – in none of these places can the US still act successfully on its own.	中东、北朝鲜、苏丹达佛、中非和东非以及高加索地区，在所有这些地方美国都无法再只靠一己的力量获得成功。


And yet, without America and its power, the prospects in all these places are still bleaker: more dangers and more chaos.	然而，如果没有美国和它的强权，所有这些地区的情况会更糟糕，那就是更多的危险和更多的混乱。


The situation is the same with respect to global growth, energy, resource management, climate change, environment, nuclear proliferation, arms control, and terrorism.	全球经济增长、能源和资源的管理、气候变化、环境问题、核扩散、军备控制以及恐怖主义的情况也同样如此。


None of these problems can be resolved or even contained unilaterally.	所有这些问题都无法被单边解决，甚至连控制都无法做到。


Yet no attempted solution will get very far without the US and its decisive leadership.	然而如果没有美国的参与和其关键性的领导，恐怕没有哪个解决方案能获得多大的成功。


This also applies to the future of the law of nations, the newly created international criminal law, and the United Nations.	这对于国际法、新制定的国际刑法以及联���国的未来也是如此。


Unless these rules and institutions are further developed, globalization, too, will take an ever more chaotic shape.	除非这些规则和机构能得到进一步的发展，否则全球化只会变得益发混乱。


Madeleine Albright once called the US the “indispensable nation.”	奥尔布莱特曾把美国称为“不可或缺的国家”。


She was right then, and she is still right today.	她的话当时是正确的，今天依然如此。


Only one power can rob the US of its unique position: America itself.	只有一个强权能够剥夺美国这一独特的地位，那就是美国自己。


The question today is whether the current crisis of American consciousness marks the beginning of America’s decline or, let us hope, the beginning of a return to multilateralism.	现在的问题是美国目前存在于意识上的危机到底是标志着美国衰落的开始，还是让我们希望的那样转向多边主义的开始呢？


Will America hark back to the spirit of 1945 or, despite being sobered and disappointed, decide to stick to its lone and lonely path?	美国会回到1945年的精神吗，还是尽管已经清醒过来并且感到很失望，依然孤独地自行其是呢？


No other power will be able to assume America’s role in the world for the foreseeable future.	在可预见的未来没有哪个国家能替代美国在世界上的角色。


The alternative to American leadership is a vacuum and increasing chaos.	缺少美国的领导所带来的将是一个真空和越来越多的混乱。


But within one or two decades maybe China will define the rules, if the US continues to reject its multilateral responsibilities.	但是如果美国继续拒绝其多变责任，那么，在一二十年内，中国可能就会制定规则。


For all these reasons not only America’s friends have a vital interest in a US return to multilateralism.	出于这个原因，不但美国的朋友强烈希望美国回到多边主义的道路上来。


Given the dangers of unilateralism for the current world order, so do America’s enemies.	考虑到单边主义给当今世界秩序所带来的危险，即便美国的敌人也会抱有同样的希望。


The Cycles of Economic Discontent	经济不满情绪的周期


FLORENCE – The nineteenth century was mesmerized by the cyclical behavior of business.	佛罗伦萨 ——19世纪的经济运行总是呈明显的周期性。


The French economist Clement Juglar became famous for establishing that business cycles ran for around nine or ten years.	法国经济学家克莱芒·朱格拉尔（Clement Juglar，1819~1905）提出了以九到十年为一个循环的经济周期理论，并由此成名。


We have recently had our own cycles of exuberance and disintegration.	我们也刚刚经历了我们这个时代的一次过剩—解体循环。


But they are very different.	但我们的循环和19世纪的循环大不一样。


In the nineteenth-century world, people rapidly picked themselves up after downturns and went back to business as usual.	19世纪的每次经济下行之后，人们很快便恢复过来，重新投入生意，一如往常。


In that sense, the phenomenon of the business cycle looked relatively permanent and unchanging.	从这个意义上来讲，那时候的经济周期是一种比较平和的周而复始。


Nowadays, however, a cyclical collapse comes as a great surprise.	但如今，周期性崩溃的每次爆发都会吓人们一大跳。


In its aftermath, we start to reinvent our view of economics.	每次经济崩溃之后，我们也会修正我们的经济学观点。


Every ten years or so, we think that a particular model of growth is so broken that it cannot be resurrected.	差不多每十年，我们就会发觉某种增长模式已经变得捉襟见肘，难以为继了。


The world needed to be rethought in 1979, 1989, 1998, and 2008.	1979年、1989年、1998年和2008年，我们每次都发觉，重新思考这个世界的时候到了。


Keynesianism definitively ended in 1979, following the second oil-price shock of the decade.	1979年，十年中爆发了第二次石油价格休克之后，凯恩斯主义走到末路。


The coincidental combination of the election of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker’s interest-rate shock of October 1979 ended an era in which inflation had been seen as a solution to social problems.	当年10月，撒切尔夫人（Margaret Thatcher）当选英国首相，时任美联储主席的保罗·沃尔克（Paul Volcker）启动了大幅加息的紧缩政策，这两个互无关联的事件在时间上偶然重合，标志着一个时代的终结，人们不再把通货膨胀视作解决社会问题的一个药方。


State action and monetary expansion as a means of buying off discontent were discredited, as was the West European welfare state.	国家干预和货币扩张原先被当成安抚社会不满情绪的手段，但自那以后便同西欧的福利国家模式一道丧失了信誉。


The association of Europe – and of European social democracy – with Keynesian demand stimulus was more than a little unfair, in that the greatest proponent of the Keynesian view was the Republican American President Richard Nixon.	说起凯恩斯主义的需求刺激政策，人们总是联想到欧洲，尤其是欧洲的社会民主模式，这颇有一点不公平，因为凯恩斯主张的最大代表其实是美国共和党总统尼克松（Richard Nixon）。


But the political shift of 1979-1980, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan, brought about a new opposition of the free market and innovation to social-democratic corporatism and centrism.	然而，1979~1980年间，美国政治氛围发生了转变，其高潮出现在里根（Ronald Reagan）当选美国总统之际。 这一转变使得拥护自由市场和创新的势力迅速崛起，同社会民主式的社团主义（corporatism）以及政治中间派形成尖锐对立。


Ten years later, in 1989, the Soviet model of economic planning and modernization through centrally directed growth was discredited.	过了十年，到了1989年，苏联模式——由中央统一指导经济增长的计划经济和现代化模式也丧失了信誉。


In its last phases, it had taken on large quantities of foreign debt, and over-indebtedness finally sunk a model that had fundamentally failed long before that.	在最后的日子里，苏联累积了巨额外债，这个负担终于压垮了一个其实早已失败的模式。


The next beautiful idea that failed, in 1997-1998, was the concept of a particular “Asian miracle” (as it had been dubbed in the title of an influential World Bank publication).	1997~1998年，下一个美梦破灭，就是所谓“亚洲奇迹”（世界银行一份著名报告的标题就是用的这个概念）。


Asian economies were supposedly better coordinated because of strategic interventions by the government along the lines of the initial postwar practices of Japan’s MITI.	当时，亚洲各经济体以战后日本通商产业省的政策为样本，对经济实施国家干预，人们以为它们会把各方面协调得比较好。


But, like the Soviet Union and its satellites, the smaller and dynamic Asian economies had taken on too much debt.	但是，跟苏联及其卫星国一样，那些亚洲经济体也走上了债台高筑的老路。


The response to the economic crisis in Thailand and Korea in the late 1990’s was emphatic preaching about the inherent superiority of the so-called Anglo-Saxon economic model.	20世纪90年代末，泰国和韩国所爆发的经济危机掀起了一波潮流，鼓吹所谓盎格鲁—萨克森经济模式的优越性。


But this vision, in turn, also became problematic, and it was unambiguously discredited in 2007-2008, amid a massive outbreak of European and Asian Schadenfreude .	但如今，这个模式也搞砸了，2007~2008年的全球金融经济危机显然令它名誉扫地，这下轮到欧洲和亚洲来对英美幸灾乐祸了。


Then it became clear that the rest of the world was badly affected by the fallout from the financial crisis, and a more sinister interpretation became popular.	显然，这场金融危机的冲击波沉重打击了全世界，而金融阴谋论也开始甚嚣尘上。


Many people in many countries interpreted a crisis that unambiguously began in the United States, but affected some other countries more harshly, as evidence of a fundamentally malign US plan.	许多国家冒出不少阴谋论者，他们说，一场完全是美国搞出来的金融危机，为什么对其他国家的打击更大呢？ 这背后一定包藏着美国的邪恶大阴谋。


The Chinese search for a replacement of the US dollar by a synthetic reserve currency is driven by a political backlash against the perceived iniquities of US financial and economic preeminence.	中国试图以超主权货币取代美元地位，背后的推手是一股政治保守势力，这股势力之所以能兴起，是因为美国的金融和经济优势令中国感到不安。


The cycle in which political models are torn up appears to be accelerating.	一个个政治模式从兴起走向没落的循环周期似乎也变得越来越短。


The emerging-market boom already looks as if it is the next vision to be cast in the garbage can of history.	一度繁花似锦的“新兴市场”模式，可能很快就会被扔进历史的垃圾堆。


The ratings agency Moody’s is preparing warnings about the extent and quality of Indian private-sector debt.	印度私营部门的债务规模及债务质量令人担忧，穆迪评级正打算就此发出警示。


Chinese investors are worried about inflationary overheating.	而中国投资者对通胀的忧虑也在加深。


The phase of revulsion and rejection is never complete, but the bold visions never recover their original splendor.	咒骂和诋毁不会彻底摧毁一种模式，但某种模式经历了这样一番折腾之后，很难再恢复昔日��荣光。


The European social-democratic model survived the 1970’s in a bedraggled form.	欧洲社会民主模式把自己大加改造，从20世纪70年代活了下来。


The idea of strong Asian economic growth as a permanent feature of the world economy returned with a vengeance only a few years after the Asia crisis.	世界经济的未来依赖亚洲的强劲增长，这个观点在亚洲金融危机之后短短几年就重整旗鼓。


If the major English-speaking economies remain open and do not close themselves off to trade and immigration, they will also see a return to growth.	如果英语国家能坚持经济开放，不向贸易和移民关上大门的话，它们肯定也能看到复苏的希望。


But each wave of collapse breeds a greater degree of disillusion about particular institutions, which are blamed for the outcome.	但每一波崩溃都会令人对某些制度大失所望，因为危机会被归咎于那些制度。


It may be the welfare state in the 1970’s, the Communist Party apparatus in the 1980’s, the Asian industry and trade ministries in the 1990’s, or the nexus of the US Treasury and Wall Street in the 2000’s.	20世纪70年代的倒霉鬼是福利国家，80年代是共产党政权，90年代是亚洲国家的产业和贸易部，在21世纪头十年则是“狼狈为奸”的美国财政部和华尔街。


As each institution is eroded, there is less and less left in the way of alternatives. That is also true of currencies.	上述制度都会有所削弱，能够寄托希望的制度越来越少，能够令人放心的货币也越来越少。


The dollar has been knocked off its pedestal by the crisis, but any conceivable substitute is obviously even more flawed and more problematical.	这场危机动摇了美元的根基这不假，但其他的货币比美元的毛病更大，问题更多。


The euro is the composite currency of an area with a poor growth record and an inadequate response to the economic crisis.	欧元是一个地区性合成货币（composite currency），而欧元区的经济增长成绩平平，对这场经济危机的应对也不尽人意。


The renminbi is still non-convertible.	人民币仍然不可自由兑换。


So there is no master currency at all any more.	结果，再也没有什么货币能当老大。


The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei sums up the new mood of universal and unmitigated cynicism.	中国非主流艺术家艾未未在时代氛围中敏锐地捕捉到一种四处弥漫、无药可救的玩世不恭。


To make the point that all institutions are equally suspect, he created an exhibition entitled “Fuck off,” in which he shows photographs of himself with an obscene hand gesture in front of famous monuments: the Doge’s palace in Venice, once the commercial capital of the world, the Eiffel Tower, the White House, and the Forbidden City in Beijing.	为了表达一切制度都信不过的观点，他策划了一个主题为“Fuck off”（滚蛋）的展览，展示了一组照片，照片上的他冲着世界著名的地标性建筑做下流手势：威尼斯（一度身为世界商业首都）的总督府、法国埃菲尔铁塔、美国白宫和北京的紫禁城。


His latest exhibition’s title mocks the recent (and almost universal) tendency of governments to offer meaningless apologies for past mistakes: it is called “So sorry.”	他正在策划的下一个展览，把嘲讽的矛头指向近来的一种（几乎是普遍的）趋势——各国政府为所犯的错误进行毫无意义的道歉，所以其主题是“So sorry”（很抱歉）。


The Dirge of Cyprus	塞浦路斯：欧盟的挽歌？


PRINCETON – Europe can choose its own musical accompaniment to its latest crisis.	普林斯顿——如果要为欧洲经济危机配上音乐，可以有大把选择。


In Berlin, 50 Cent’s “All Things Fall Apart” has just had its premiere, so that soundtrack might be appropriate.	在柏林，美国说唱歌手50 Cent自编自演的电影《土崩瓦解》德文版刚刚上映，影片原声配乐就很应景。


Or the continent can reach back to Giuseppe Verdi, born two hundred years ago, whose penultimate, and probably greatest, operatic achievement starts on the coast of Cyprus with a storm of fantastic violence and the opening words of its hero, Otello: Esultate, rejoice!	或者，欧洲还可以向威尔第（Giuseppe Verdi）致敬。 这位诞生于200年前的意大利作曲家的倒数第二部（也许是最伟大的一部）歌剧《奥赛罗》是这样开场的：暴风骤雨的塞浦路斯岛海岸，主人公奥赛罗惊世骇俗地大呼一声“欢呼吧！


The war has been won; but Otello’s achievement is later destroyed by his jealousy.	我们凯旋了”。 但奥赛罗的赫赫功名最终却毁于他自己的嫉妒心。


Today, Cyprus appears to have been rescued.	如今，塞浦路斯貌似得救了。


But the rescue has fueled a growing rift that jeopardizes the future of European integration, partly owing to the way that the upheaval of the early twentieth century – especially the Great Depression – has been reenacted in the debates about the post-2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent euro crisis.	但这一救援行动扩大了裂痕，威胁到欧洲一体化的未来。 之所以会是这个结果，原因之一在于，人们在辩论2008年后的金融崩溃和随后的欧元危机时，激活了人们对20世纪早期的动荡岁月——特别是大萧条的记忆。


The interwar economic slump became intractable because it was also a crisis of social stability, democracy, and the international political order.	两次世界大战之间的经济塌陷之所以难以收拾，是因为它同时是一场社会稳定、民主制度和国际政治秩序的危机。


Widespread bankruptcy and unemployment increased social tension, ultimately making normal democratic politics impossible.	四处蔓延的破产和失业潮加剧了社会矛盾，最终瓦解了正常民主政治的基础。


In Germany, the epicenter of democracy’s collapse, radicals on both the right and the left raged against the postwar peace settlement and the Versailles Treaty.	在德国这个民主制大地震的震中，右翼和左翼的激进分子都对凡尔赛合约确立的战后和平体制怒火中烧。


In the last years of the increasingly unstable Weimar Republic, as democracy was fraying, German governments started to use their opponents’ radicalism in an effort to extract security concessions from the Western powers.	两次大战之间的德国政权是魏玛共和国，它的最后日子变得风雨飘摇，民主派内争不断，德国政府于是转而采纳反对党的激进主义，要求西方列强撤出莱茵非军事区。


Domestic political pressure became a source of heightened international tension.	民主政治的内部压力成了国际矛盾的一个加剧因素。


That is true in today’s Europe as well.	这一判断也适用于今日的欧洲。


Democracy has become a central target of complaints by the European elite.	现行民主制度已经成了欧洲各国精英们抱怨的主要目标。


Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, a former chairman of the Euro group, has lamented that European leaders know what the right policies are, but do not know how to be reelected after implementing them.	卢森堡首相、欧元集团前主席容克（Jean-Claude Juncker）曾感慨：欧洲国家领导人知道哪些政策是正确的，但他们不知道怎样既能实施那些政策，又能胜选连任。


Similarly, after his recent crushing election defeat, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti wistfully explained that Italy’s voters were too impatient to bear reforms whose benefits would only become evident beyond the electoral cycle.	无独有偶，意大利前总理蒙蒂（Mario Monti）在大选惨败后惆怅地说，改革带来的益处只有经过比竞选周期更长的一段时间才能显现出来，而意大利选民的耐心不足以让他们等到那一天。


Events in Cyprus have exposed two other dimensions to the clashes over Europe’s dual sovereign-debt and banking crisis.	塞浦路斯的事件给欧洲的主权债务和银行业双重危机又增加了两个矛盾。


First, the discussion of a levy on bank deposits, and whether small customers should be exempted, put class conflict front and center.	第一，关于是否要对银行存款征税以及小储户是否应该免税的讨论，让阶级矛盾问题走到前台。


Second, the question of foreign, and especially Russian, depositors – along with proximity to Syria – has turned the rescue of the Cypriot banking sector into an international relations problem.	第二，如何对待外国储户尤其是俄罗斯储户的问题，连同比邻叙利亚的影响，将救助塞银行业变成一个国际关系问题。


The initial proposal to impose a one-time tax on accounts holding less than €100,000 came not from the European Union or from Germany, but from the Cypriot government, which must have known that it was likely to generate outrage, and that the Cypriot parliament would never vote for it.	对10万欧元以下银行存款也实施一次性征税的提议，最初并不是欧盟或德国提出的，而是塞浦路斯政府的主意，后者当初就肯定知道这一方案会使舆论大哗，而塞议会也绝不会批准它。


Perhaps the government believed that mass protests – with placards denouncing the EU as a fig leaf for revived German domination of Europe – would strengthen its hand.	也许塞政府认为，群众抗议反倒可以给自己撑腰，让自己对外强硬起来——君不见，抗议者高举牌子，说欧盟只不过是德国重新主宰欧洲的遮羞布而已？


After all, even moderate Cypriots were outraged by the bullying of their small island by Germany and by Europe.	毕竟，看到德国和欧盟盛气凌人地对他们这个小小岛国指手画脚，就连最温和的塞浦路斯人也会气不打一处来。


The other side in the negotiations also played class politics.	在塞浦路斯救助谈判中，阶级政治也扮演着某种角色。


At one of the tensest moments, as Cyprus was seeking an alternative rescue package from Russia, the German Bundesbank announced the results of a new European Central Bank study indicating that average German wealth was lower than in the southern European states, largely because fewer Germans own their own houses.	在谈判最紧张的一个时刻，也就是塞浦路斯打算转向俄罗斯求援的时候，德国联邦银行发表了欧洲央行一个新的研究结论，指出德国人的平均财产拥有量低于南欧国家，主要是因为德国人较少拥有其住房的产权。


The message seemed clearly intended to influence the negotiations: Why should poorer Germans be expected to sacrifice to support Mediterranean millionaires?	这一举动明显是想影响谈判进程：凭什么让较不富裕的德国人去支持地中海地区的百万富翁呢？


In the aftermath of the financial crisis, income and wealth distribution have moved to the center of political debate.	在金融危机之后，收入和财富分配日益成为政治辩论的中心议题。


Even the Catholic Church seems to reflect the new mood: The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis is a clear reference to St. Francis of Assisi and the Church’s mission to stand up for the poor.	就连天主教会似乎也在回应这种新氛围：新当选的教宗贝尔戈格里奥（Jorge Mario Bergoglio）选择“方济各”作为自己的名号，明显是为了纪念天主教历史上以“贫苦人的圣人”闻名的圣方济各（St. Francis of Assisi），以突显教会为穷人请命的理念。


On the international-relations front, after 2010, as deposits from Europe left Cypriot banks, deposits from Russian businesses and individuals increased – and Russia has many reasons to use money as a way of buying political control.	在国际关系的前沿上，2010年以后，当欧洲的存款自塞浦路斯银行业撤出之际，来自俄罗斯企业和个人的存款增加了——俄罗斯则有许多理由以金钱来购买政治控制力。


Cyprus is a crucial staging post for American security operations in the eastern Mediterranean, and the gas fields off the Cypriot coast might be developed as an energy source that would – at least after 2017 – reduce European dependence on Russian supplies.	塞浦路斯是美国在东地中海地区进行安全部署的战略要冲。 而塞浦路斯的海洋油气资源若得到充分开发，也将很有可能削弱欧洲队俄罗斯能源供应的依赖度，至少到2017年以后将会变得明显。


In an earlier phase of the crisis, Russia gave Cyprus a $3 billion credit.	在塞浦路斯危机的某个早期阶段，俄罗斯向塞提供了30亿美元的信贷。


Now, however, a new credit would serve only to make the burden of government debt unsustainable; what is needed is a purchase of all or some of the problematic Cypriot banks.	可事到如今，更多的信贷只会增加塞政府的债务负担。 当务之急是收购塞浦路斯所有的问题银行，或其中的大部分。


In the aftermath of a crisis that has been intensified by the rhetoric of class conflict, Russia might be able to extend its control more significantly, and at a lower price.	鉴于危机之后阶级矛盾的修辞得到强化，俄罗斯可望扩大其影响力，而且还是以更低的代价做到这一点。


Deepening social polarization, its use in financial negotiations, and the intrusion of a new security element provide further evidence of what most economists and commentators on Europe have long argued: a monetary union is impossible to sustain in the absence of a political union.	社会两极分化加重，并在金融谈判中成为砝码，新的安全因素卷入，这些动向进一步证明了大多数经济学家和欧洲观察家长期以来论证的观点：在政治联盟缺位的情况下，货币联盟是不可能长久存在的。


A state, especially in the modern form of the European welfare state, depends on effective mechanisms for arbitrating and resolving social disputes – mechanisms that, as the turmoil surrounding Cyprus has shown, the EU lacks.	一个国家的存在，靠的是仲裁和解决社会矛盾的有效机制，现代欧洲福利国家尤其如此； 而正如塞浦路斯纷争所凸显的，欧盟并不具备这种机制。


As long as that remains true, European integration may be doomed by the time the music stops.	只要这种情况得不到改变，欧洲一体化就难以摆脱曲终人散的乌云。


The Danger of Trans Fats	反型脂肪的危害


Trans fats are unsaturated fatty acids with at least one double bond in the trans configuration.	反型脂肪是指在其反型结构中至少有一个双键的不饱和脂肪酸。


While small amounts of trans fats are naturally present in meats and dairy products from cows, sheep, and other ruminants, the great majority of trans fats in our diet are industrially-produced, contained in foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.	少量的反型脂肪自然存在于来自奶牛、羊和其他反刍动物的肉类和奶制品之中，而我们所摄入的大部分反型脂肪则来自于使用部分氢化植物油的工业化食品。


Partial hydrogenation, which converts vegetable oils into semi-solid fats for use in margarines, commercial cooking, and manufacturing processes, converts approximately 30% of the natural fats to trans fats.	部分氢化将植物油转化为半固态脂肪，并广泛用于人造黄油、商用烹饪和生产流程之中。 该过程将约30%的自然脂肪转化为反型脂肪。


In the US, consumption of trans fats averages between 2-4% of total energy, with major sources being deep fried fast foods, bakery products (cakes, cookies, muffins, pies, etc.), packaged snack foods, margarines, and breads.	在美国，反型脂肪的消费占总能量摄入的2-4%，主要来源是深度油炸的快餐、糕点（包括蛋糕、饼干、松饼、馅饼等）、包装小食品、人造黄油和面包。


Considerable evidence exists for harmful effects of trans fat intake.	反型脂肪摄入所带来的危害不胜枚举。


Furthermore, trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils have no intrinsic health value.	另外，来自部分氢化油的反型脂肪没有任何健康价值。


Thus, little justification can be made for the use of partially hydrogenated oils, compared with other natural oils or fats.	因此，与其它自然的油类和脂肪相比，没有任何理由使用部分氢化油。


Importantly, adverse effects are seen at very low intakes: for example, 1-3% of total energy, or approximately 2-7 grams (20-60 calories) for a person consuming 2000 calories/day.	重要的是，即使少量摄入，其不良后果也是显而易见：如占能量总摄入1-3%，或一个每天消耗2000卡热量的人所摄入的约2-7克（20-60卡）。


Thus, complete or near-complete avoidance of industrial trans fats (≤0.5% of energy) may be necessary to avoid adverse effects and minimize health risks.	因此，完全或几近完全避免食用工业反型脂肪（≤0. 5%的总能量摄入）可能是避免不良后果并使健康风险最小化所必需的措施。


In 2004, Denmark became the first country to legislate limits on trans fat content of foods, largely eliminating industrial trans fats from all foods (including restaurants) in that country.	2004年，丹麦成为第一个立法限制食品中的反型脂肪成分，从而在很大程度上禁止了在所有食品中（包括餐厅食品）使用工业反型脂肪的国家。


Canada is considering similar legislation, and the city of Chicago is also considering banning industrial trans fats from restaurants.	加拿大正在考虑通过类似的法律，而芝加哥也正考虑禁止餐馆使用反型脂肪。


If restaurants and food manufacturers will not voluntarily eliminate trans fats (as has largely been done in the Netherlands), several points validate the need for, and the importance, of legislative measures to reduce the consumption of trans fats:	如果餐厅和食品制造商不愿自觉停止使用反型脂肪（就像荷兰的情况那样），那么如下几点就足以确认立法干预降低反型脂肪消费的必要性和重要性：


1. The harmful health effects of trans fats are now better established than for nearly any other substance in our food supply. The strength of evidence and the potential magnitude of harm greatly exceed those of food contaminants or pesticide residues, which are appropriately regulated to very low levels.	反型脂肪对健康的危害比几乎其它所有的食物成分都更被人熟知。 有力证据表明其潜在的危害程度远远大于食品污染物或杀虫剂残留物。


2. Extremely low levels of trans fat intake are associated with significantly increased risk of heart disease. In our analysis of prospective studies totaling 140,000 men and women, we determined that intake of 2% of total calories from trans fats (or 40 calories/day, for a typical 2000 calorie/day diet) was associated with 23% higher risk of heart attacks or death from heart disease.	极低的反型脂肪摄入量也与心脏病风险的显著升高有关联。 通过对参与预期研究的总共140，000位男性与女性的分析，我们发现从反型脂肪中摄入占总量2%的热量（或从典型的每天2000卡热量的日常食物中摄入40卡路里）就和心脏病发病或导致死亡风险提高23%有关。


This indicates that for every 100,000 individuals suffering a heart attack or death from heart disease each year, 19,000 of these would be prevented if the average trans fat intake were reduced by approximately 40 calories/day.	这意味着在每年十万个患心脏病或由此致死的人中，如果每天摄入反型脂肪的量降低约40卡路里，那么有19，000个人都能幸免。


3. Individuals have no means of evaluating the trans fat content of meals in restaurants. In contrast to packaged foods which now have standardized labeling of trans fat content, it is impossible for an individual to determine how much trans fat is present in restaurant meals.	个人无法评估餐馆食物中的反型脂肪成分。 相对于将反型脂肪含量进行标准化标示的包装食品，消费者个人无法断定餐厅食品中究竟含有多少反型脂肪。


Mandated standardized labeling of all restaurant meals would be neither practical nor cost-efficient, given the ever-changing menus and diverse mixtures of ingredients of meals served in restaurants.	在菜单不断推陈出新，食品成分不断变化组合的情况下，对所有的餐厅食品实施强制性的标准化标示既不现实，又不具成本效益。


4. Use of trans fats in food manufacturing and restaurants can be limited without any significant effects on food taste, cost, or availability. While industry often expresses concern that limiting the use of trans fats will affect food taste or cost, no evidence exists to support this hypothesis.	可以对食品生产和餐馆中对反型脂肪的使用进行限制而又不会对食品的口味、成本或可得性产生明显影响。 虽然食品行业时常表示对限制使用反型脂肪对食品的口味或成本产生影响的担心，但却没有证据支持这样的假设。


Conversely, substantial evidence exists that use of trans fats can be eliminated almost entirely without any effects on food taste, cost, or availability.	相反，大量的证据表明可以几乎完全不使用反型脂肪而又不影响食品的口味、成本或可得性。


This has been clearly demonstrated in both Denmark and the Netherlands.	在一点在丹麦和荷兰都得到了很好地证明。


It should also be emphasized that much less is known about trans fat consumption in developing countries.	必须强调的一点是，我们对发展中国家反型脂肪的消费情况了解较少。


The current evidence suggests that, compared with Western nations, the intake of trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils may be much higher in developing countries, typically because partially hydrogenated oils represent the cheapest (and often subsidized) choice of fat for cooking.	现有的证据表明，与西方国家相比，发展中国家从部分氢化油中摄取的反型脂肪量要高得多。 特别是因为部分氢化油代表着最便宜的（通常是获得补贴的）烹饪油选择。


Given that coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in nearly all countries, including developing nations, intensive efforts must be undertaken to greatly reduce or eliminate use of partially hydrogenated oils in both the developed and the developing world.	由于冠心病是在包括发展中国家在内的几乎所有国家的“头号杀手”，所以我们必须不遗余力地在发达国家和发展中国家减少或禁止使用部分氢化油。


In summary, considerable evidence exists for harm, and little evidence for intrinsic health value, of consumption of trans fats from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.	总而言之，大量的证据表明从部分氢化油中摄入的反型脂肪有百害而无一利。


Elimination of industrial trans fats from foods, either by voluntary or legislative measures, would likely prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks each year in the U.S. and other countries.	禁止在食品中使用工业反型脂肪，不论是以自愿还是以立法的方式，都可以防止美国和其他国家成千上万的人罹患心脏病。


The Dangers of Nuclear Disarmament	核裁军的危险之处


MOSCOW – Russia and the United States have signed a new strategic nuclear-arms reduction treaty (START).	发自莫斯科——俄美两国最近正式签署了新一轮的的《削减战略核武器条约》（简称START）。


Officially, the treaty cuts their weapons by one-third; in fact, each party will decommission only several dozen.	在书面上，双方必须将本国部署的核武器数量削减1/3，而实际上，两国真正动手拆除的核武器大概只有几十件而已。


Nevertheless, the treaty is a considerable achievement. It normalizes political relations between the two countries, thereby facilitating their further cooperation and rapprochement.	即便如此，这份条约也堪称一个相当大的成就，它促成了双边政治关系正常化，从而有利于两国的进一步合作和友好关系。


The return of strategic nuclear weapons to the center of world politics increases Russia’s political weight and highlights the field in which Russia can still assert itself as a superpower.	战略核武器重新成为世界政治的中心议题不仅提升了俄罗斯的政治分量，还把国际社会的目光重新聚焦在了这个俄罗斯依然可以以世界强权自居的领域。


It also gives a political boost to Barack Obama, cast as the most constructive and progressive US president for decades, and possibly for many years to come.	这一事件同时还在政治上帮了奥巴马一把，这位领袖正以数十年来最具建设性和进取心的美国总统的面目活跃在世界舞台上，而这一推动力在未来的几年间都可能持续存在。


After the treaty was signed, the US hosted a nuclear non-proliferation summit, a landmark event for the Obama administration, which has made the fight against nuclear proliferation a trademark policy.	而在条约签订之后，美国主持召开了一场核不扩散峰会，这对于把核不扩散斗争当作招牌政策的奥巴马政府来说堪称一个里程碑式的事件。


The few accords reached at the summit, although welcome, are not as significant as the impression that the summit created that world leaders are ready to work together to confront nuclear proliferation.	虽然在峰会上只达成了几条协议，但造成的影响远不如峰会给人所带来的印象显著：那就是全世界领导都已经准备好一起联合起来和核武器扩散作斗争了。


But debates about the role of nuclear weapons in the modern world, as well as in the future, are only beginning.	即便如此，对核武器在当今以及未来世界所扮演角色的争论才刚刚开始。


The world system on which past discussions of nuclear weapons were based has become almost unrecognizable, calling into question the adequacy of the mentality and concepts inherited from that system.	过往针对核武器的讨论都是构建在旧有的全球势力均衡系统之上，而这个系统如今已经几乎无人认同，对这个系统遗留下来的思维和概念是否依然适用的争论也正在不断增加。


The heart of the matter is this: it is obvious that nuclear weapons are immoral.	而问题的核心则是：很明显核武器是不道德的。


An A-bomb is millions of times more immoral than a spear or sword, hundreds of thousands of times more immoral than a rifle, thousands of times more immoral than a machine gun, and hundreds of times more immoral than salvo systems or cluster bombs.	如果能比较的话，一枚原子弹要比一把刀剑要不道德数百万倍，比一支步枪不道德数十万倍，比一挺机关枪不道德数千倍，比火箭炮或集束炸弹不道德数百倍。


But nuclear arms also have a significant moral distinction: unlike other weapons, they are an effective means of preventing the large-scale wars and mass destruction of people, property, and cultures that have plagued humanity throughout recorded history.	但核武器同时也具有一个特别道德的特性：不像其他武器，核武器可以有效防止大规模战争以及因此造成的对人民生命、财产和文化的极大破坏（这种破坏已经在历史上无数次地劫掠了人类社会）。


To reject nuclear weapons and strive for their elimination is, no doubt, a moral aim, at least in the abstract. But it is feasible only if humanity changes.	力争消灭核武器在理论上无疑是一个很道德的目标，但除非人类能改变自己的天性，消灭核武器才是可行的。


Apparently, the advocates of eliminating nuclear weapons believe that such change is possible. I do not.	很明显那些鼓吹消灭核武器的人都相信这种转变是有可能发生的，而我则不以为然。


Indeed, the risks of a world without nuclear weapons – or only a minimal number of them – are tremendous.	事实上，一个没有核武器——或者只有少量核武器的——的世界所蕴含的危险是非常巨大的。


Nuclear deterrence – a threat to kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people – is a concept that does not fit into traditional morals.	核威慑——某种足以夺去无数条人命的威胁——是一个与传统道德格格不入的概念。


Yet it has worked, preventing catastrophic wars while making people more civilized and cautious.	但它却是行之有效的，可以在令人们变得更加文明和警惕的同时防止爆发灾难性的战争。


When one pole of nuclear deterrence weakened, due to Russia’s political decline in the 1990’s, NATO, a defensive union of democratic and peaceful states, committed aggression against Yugoslavia. Now that Russia has restored its capability, such a move would be unthinkable.	比如当核威慑的其中一级俄罗斯由于1990年代的政治衰落而被削弱时，北约这个由民主和平国家所组成的防御联盟就开始对南斯拉夫发动进攻（如今在俄罗斯恢复了元气的时候，这种举动就是不可想象的）。


After Yugoslavia, there was an unprovoked attack on Iraq.	在南斯拉夫一战之后，他们又无缘无故发动了伊拉克战争。


In a nearly perfect world, Russia and the US would not need large nuclear stockpiles.	在一个近乎完美的世界里，俄罗斯和美国并不需要大量储备核武器的。


But cutting nuclear weapons to a bare minimum in the current conditions would give a big advantage to small nuclear powers, which will see their nuclear potential gain near-parity with larger states.	但将核武数量削减到如此之少将给那些小型核武国家以可乘之机，令他们自认自己的核潜力已经和大国站在同一个水平线上了。


Moreover, reducing nuclear weapons to a minimum might theoretically enhance the usefulness of missile-defense systems and their destabilizing role.	此外，削减核武器至少将在理论上提升导弹防御系统的作用及其带来的不稳定因素。


And even non-strategic missile-defense systems, the deployment of which might be useful, will be questioned.	即便是非战略导弹防御系统的部署也可能起到相关作用，因此也应当受到质疑。


If stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons are reduced, as some US, European, and Russian experts have proposed, the opponents of Russia’s ongoing military reform will have even more reason to object to reconfiguring the country’s conventional armed forces away from confrontation with NATO toward a flexible-response capability vis-à-vis other threats.	如果战术核武器的库存如同一些美国，欧洲和俄罗斯专家所建议的那样被削减的话，那些目前反对俄军军队改革的人就更有理由去反对俄军常规军事力量由跟北约对抗转向针对其他威胁的灵活反应能力。


Similarly, if the US withdraws its largely nominal tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, US-Europe strategic ties would weaken.	同样，如果美国撤回了象征性部署在欧洲的战术核武器，美欧之间的战略纽带就会遭到削弱。


Many Europeans, above all in the new NATO member-states, would then demand more protection from the mythical Russian Leviathan.	许多欧洲人，尤其是那些新加入北约的国家，都将要求更多保护以对抗所谓的“俄罗斯巨兽”的威胁。


The world community seems to be losing its strategic bearings. Instead of focusing on the real problem, namely the increasingly unstable international order, it is trying to apply Cold War-era concepts of disarmament.	目前国际社会似乎也失去了战略指导方向，除了关注某些现实问题之外（也就是逐渐不稳定的国际秩序），它们还试图将冷战的裁军思维应用于今时今日。


At best, these are marginally useful; more often, they are harmful in today’s circumstances.	这个做法充其量只能起到很少作用； 而更可能对当前的局势造成危害。


What is most needed nowadays is clear thinking about how to live with an expanding club of nuclear states while keeping the world relatively stable.	如今最需要的就是形成一个清醒的认识，明白如何在一个核武俱乐部不断扩大的世界上求得生存并保持相对稳定。


To this end, the two great nuclear powers need a coordinated deterrence policy towards new nuclear states.	为了达到这个目的，美俄两个核大国必须形成一个针对新核武国家的联合政策。


Simultaneously, they should offer guarantees to non-nuclear states that might feel insecure.	与此同时两国也需要对那些缺乏安全感的无核国家做出保证。


In the first place, it is necessary to fill the increasing security vacuum in the Middle East.	首先，有需要填补中东地区不断扩大的安全真空。


China, the world’s rising strategic player, might join this policy, though it currently ranks third in terms of military power.	而中国这个正在崛起的世界战略强权也必须参与到这一政策当中，因为该国已经位列世界第三军事大国了。


Arms-control talks are mostly needed for rendering national arsenals more transparent, and for building confidence between the great powers. That is all there is to their usefulness.	为了使各国核武器库存量保持透明并在各大强权之间建立信任，也是有必要举行军控谈判，而这也是该谈判有用武之地的地方。


So, instead of mimicking Cold War-era treaties, it is necessary to launch an international discussion about the role of military force and nuclear weapons in the world as it is now evolving.	因此除了复制冷战时期的条约之外，还有必要发动一场关于军事力量和核武器究竟在当今世界扮演何种角色的讨论。


We might then eventually recognize that eliminating nuclear weapons is not just a myth, but a harmful myth, and that nuclear weapons are a useful asset that has saved, and may continue to save, humanity from itself.	我们可能会最终承认消灭核武器不仅是个幻想，而且是一个有害的幻想，而核武器将成为一项能够给人类以救赎的有用资产，并将一直救赎下去。


The Dark Matter of Financial Globalization	金融全球化中的暗物质


The recent turmoil in global financial markets – and the liquidity and credit crunch that followed – raises two questions: how did defaulting sub-prime mortgages in the American states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida lead to a worldwide crisis?	最近全球金融市场的动荡以及随之引发的流动性和信贷的紧缩向我们提出了两个问题：美国加利福尼亚、内华达、亚利桑那和佛罗里达州次级抵押贷款拖欠现象是怎样引发全球性的危机的？


And why did systemic risk increase rather than decrease in recent years?	以及为什么最近几年系统性的风险是增加了而不是减少了？


Blame should go to the phenomenon of “securitization.”	问题应该是出在“证券化”现象上。


In the past, banks kept loans and mortgages on their books, retaining the credit risk.	过去，银行把贷款和抵押都记在它们的账上，把信用风险保留在自己内部。


For example, during the housing bust in the United States in the late 1980’s, many banks that were mortgage lenders (the Savings ampamp; Loans Associations) went belly up, leading to a banking crisis, a credit crunch, and a recession in 1990-1991.	比如，在美国发生于二十世纪八十年代后期的房地产泡沫破裂中，许多发放抵押贷款的银行（储蓄和住宅贷款金融机构）彻底破产，从而引发了1990和1991年间的银行危机、信贷紧缩和经济衰退。


This systemic risk – a financial shock leading to severe economic contagion – was supposed to be reduced by securitization.	这种系统性的风险会引发严重经济传染的金融冲击，被认为可以通过证券化来减少。


Financial globalization meant that banks no longer held assets like mortgages on their books, but packaged them in asset-backed securities that were sold to investors in capital markets worldwide, thereby distributing risk more widely.	金融全球化意味着银行在它们的账簿上不再持有像抵押贷款这样的资产，而是把它们打包成资产支持证券后出售给全世界资本市场的投资者，从而把风险扩散到更大的范围。


What went wrong?	什么地方错了？


The problem was not just sub-prime mortgages.	问题不仅仅在于次级抵押贷款。


The same reckless lending practices – no down-payments, no verification of borrowers’ incomes and assets, interest-rate-only mortgages, negative amortization, teaser rates – occurred in more than 50% of all US mortgages in 2005-2007.	同样鲁莽的借贷行为，也就是没有首付金、没有核准借款者的收入和资产、定息抵押贷款、负摊销、引逗利率等等在2005至2007年 全 美国的抵押贷款中占据了超过50%的比例。


Because securitization meant that banks were not carrying the risk and earned fees for transactions, they no longer cared about the quality of their lending.	因为证券化意味着银行不再承担风险，并且能够从交易中赚取费率，它们于是不再关心它们借贷的质量。


Indeed, a chain of financial intermediaries now earn fees without bearing the credit risk.	事实上，有许多金融中介现在可以在不承担信用风险的情况下赚取费率。


As a result, mortgage brokers maximize their income by generating larger volumes of mortgages, as do the banks that package these loans into mortgage-backed securities (MBS’s).	其结果是，抵押贷款经纪人通过达成更大量的抵押贷款来使他们的收入最大化，而银行把这些贷款打包成抵押支持证券。


Investment banks then earn fees for re-packaging these securities in tranches of collateralized debt obligations, or CDO’s (and sometimes into CDO’s of CDO’s).	投资银行然后再把这些证券打包成债务抵押债券（有时是债务抵押债券的债务抵押债券）来赚取费率。


Moreover, credit rating agencies had serious conflicts of interest, because they received fees from the managers of these instruments.	此外，信用评级机构因为从这些金融工具的管理者那儿收受费用而存在严重的利益冲突。


Regulators sat on their hands, as the US regulatory philosophy was free-market fundamentalism.	监管者对此不闻不问，因为美国的监管哲学是信奉自由市场基要主义的。


Finally, the investors who bought MBS’s and CDO’s were greedy and believed the misleading ratings.	最后，购买了抵押支持证券和债务抵押债券的投资者变得贪婪，并且相信带有误导性的信用评级。


Nor could they do otherwise, as it was nearly impossible to price these complex, exotic, and illiquid instruments.	其实他们也不能不相信，因为要给这些复杂、外来和非流动的金融工具定价计划是不可能的。


Similar reckless lending practices prevailed in the leveraged buyout market, where private equity firms take over public companies and finance the deals with high debt ratios; the leveraged loan market, where banks provide financing to private equity firms; and the asset-backed commercial paper market, where banks use off-balance sheet schemes to borrow very short term.	在杠杆收购市场也同样充斥着鲁莽的借贷行为，在这些市场上私人直接投资公司以高负债率进行融资后用来收购上市公司； 杠杆贷款市场是银行用来向私人直接投资公司提供融资的市场；


Small wonder that when the sub-prime market blew up, these markets also froze.	所以当次级���场的泡沫破裂，这些市场毫不奇怪地也冻结了。


Because the size of the losses was unknown – sub-prime losses alone are estimated at between $50 billion and $200 billion, depending on the magnitude of the fall in home prices, which is also unknown – and no one knew who was holding what, no one trusted counterparties, leading to a severe liquidity crunch.	因为无法知道损失的确切规模。 单单次级市场的损失预计在500到2000亿美元之间，这要根据房地产价格到底会跌多少来决定，而我们同样不知道房地产到底会跌多少，而鉴于没有人知道是谁在持有什么样的金融工具，没有人信任对方，从而很可能会引发一场严重的流动性紧缩。


But the liquidity crunch was not the only problem; there was also a solvency problem.	但是流动性紧缩还不是唯一的问题； 还存在偿付能力的问题。


Indeed, in the US today, hundreds of thousands – possibly two million – households are bankrupt and thus will default on their mortgages.	事实上，在今天的美国，几十万、也许是两百万的家庭已经破产，因此将不会归还它们的抵押贷款。


Around sixty sub-prime lenders have already gone bankrupt.	大约有六十家次级贷款借贷机构已经破产了。


Many homebuilders are near bankrupt, as are some hedge funds and other highly leveraged institutions.	许多房屋建造商正濒临破产，同样地一些对冲基金和其他高杠杆交易机构也正濒临破产。


Even in the US corporate sector, defaults will rise, owing to sharply higher corporate bond spreads.	甚至美国的公司也因为陡然升高的公司债而将越来越多地出现不归还抵押贷款的现象。


Easier monetary policy may boost liquidity, but it will not resolve the solvency crisis.	更便利的货币政策也许可以提高流动性，但是它无法解决偿付能力的危机。


There are two reasons for this:	这里有两个原因：


1. massive uncertainty about the size of the losses.	对于损失规模巨大的不确定性。


In part, the size will depend on how much home prices fall amp#45;amp#45; 10%? 20%?	部分来看，这一规模将根据房地产价格的跌幅而定，是 10%还是20%？


Moreover, it is hard to price losses on exotic instruments that are illiquid (i.e. do not have a market price).	此外，很难给流动的外来金融工具定价（比如没有一个市场价格）。


2. thanks to securitization, private equity, hedge funds, and over-the-counter trading, financial markets have become less transparent.	因为证券化、私人直接投资、对冲基金和场外交易，金融市场变得越来越缺乏透明度了。


This opacity means that no one knows who is holding what, which saps confidence. When the repricing of risk finally occurred in September, investors panicked causing a liquidity run and a credit strike.	这种不透明意味着没有人知道谁在持有什么样的金融工具，从而损害了人们的信心。 当九月份最终重新给风险定价时，投资者为引发流动性危机和信用危机而感到惊慌。


So what is to be done?	那么我们应该怎么办呢？


It will be hard to reverse financial liberalization, but its negative side effects – including greater systemic risk – require a series of reforms.	要倒转金融自由化是很困难的，但是它的负面效应包括更大的系统性风险需要进行一系列的改革。


First, more information and transparency about complex assets and who is holding them are needed.	首先，我们需要对复杂的资产以及是谁在持有它们有更多的了解和透明度。


Second, complex instruments should be traded on exchanges rather than on over-the-counter markets, and they should be standardized so that liquid secondary markets for them can arise.	其次，复杂的金融工具应该在交易所进行交易，而不是在场外市场进行交易，并且它们应该被标准化以便它们的流动二级市场能够上涨。


Third, we need better supervision and regulation of the financial system, including regulation of opaque or highly leveraged financial institutions such as hedge funds and even sovereign wealth funds.	第三，我们需要对金融体系更好的监管，包括对不透明性或者像对冲基金甚至主权基金这样的高杠杆金融机构的监管。


Fourth, the role of rating agencies needs to be rethought, with more regulation and competition introduced.	第四，需要重新思考评级机构的角色，对它们引入更多的监管和竞争。


Finally, liquidity risk should be properly assessed in risk management models, and both banks and other financial institutions should better price and manage such risk; most financial crises are triggered by maturity mismatches.	最后，流动性风险应该用风险管理模型进行恰当的评估，银行和其他金融机构都应该更好地为这种风险定价和进行管理； 大多数金融危机是因期限错配引发的。


These crucial issues should be put on the agenda of the G7 finance ministers to prevent a serious backlash against financial globalization and reduce the risk that financial turmoil will lead to severe economic damage.	这些危机问题应该被放到七国集团财长会议的议程上进行讨论以便阻止对金融全球化的强烈反应并且减少金融动荡引发严重经济损失的风险。


The Dark Side of Defending Freedom	捍卫自由的阴暗面


BRUSSELS – The price of freedom, it is said, is eternal vigilance.	发自布鲁塞尔——有人说，所谓自由的代价，就是终生生活在失去自由的忧虑当中。


But that price can take the form of morally squalid decisions in which innocent people bear the brunt of the cost of freedom’s defense.	而为了捍卫自由，这一代价有时会化身为某种置道德于不顾的政治决策，那些无辜的人们则首先沦为这些政治成本的承受者。


Under the cover of the Cold War, Western governments were regularly forced to make many strategically realistic but morally noxious decisions.	在冷战的大背景下，西方政府经常要做出一些战略上合理但却违背道义的决策。


Dictators like Zaire’s Mobuto and Indonesia’s Suharto were embraced on the principle that “he might be a bastard, but at least he’s our bastard.”	在“他或许是条疯狗，但至少是我们这一边的”这样的理念引导下，西方不惜与蒙博托（扎伊尔）和苏哈托（印尼）这样的独裁者同流合污。


In addition, all sorts of dubious “freedom fighters,” from the Contras in Nicaragua to Hissene Habré in Chad to Jonas Savimbi in Angola received Western arms and political backing.	此外，所有那些半真半假的“自由战士”，从尼加拉瓜反政府武装，乍得的侯赛因·哈布雷，再到安哥拉的若纳斯·萨文比，都得到了西方的接纳和政治撑腰。


Even the genocidal Khmer Rouge were, for a brief time, partly defended by the US in their forest redoubts after their eviction from Phnom Penh.	即便是犯下大屠杀罪行的柬埔寨红色高棉，也在被逐出首都金边，逃入丛林负隅顽抗的某段时期内得到了美国一定程度上的支持。


Twenty years after the Cold War’s end, the West has at times recognized its duty to make amends to those who were, in a very real sense, the “collateral damage” of that ideological struggle.	冷战结束已经整整20年了，对于那些意识形态斗争中真正意义上的 “间接受害者”，西方有时也会意识到自己的补偿责任。


For example, the countries that were consigned by Roosevelt and Churchill to Stalin’s un-tender mercies are now mostly part of the European Union.	比如说，那些被罗斯福和丘吉尔置于斯大林暴政之下的国家现在大多已经加入了欧盟。


But there are other, untold stories of people who paid a heavy price for the West’s freedoms that have not gained much attention.	但还有一批为西方的自由默默付出了惨重代价的人们，却至今都不为人知。


The fate of the Chagossians, the former residents of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, is particularly harrowing.	查戈斯人，这些印度洋查戈斯群岛原住民的遭遇尤其令人嘘叹不已。


The way in which the inhabitants of this archipelago were systematically dispossessed and thrown off their land in the name of Western strategic interests is a human tragedy for which the West can and should make restitution.	当年在西方战略利益的口号下，这些人被有计划地驱逐出自己的家园，整个过程堪称一场人间惨剧，而如今西方可以，也应当让他们重回故土。


Between 1968 and 1973, British Labour and Conservative governments organized the removal of everyone living on the 55 islands that now constitute the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), and that were split off from Mauritius at the time of its independence.	在1968到1973年间，英国工党和保守党政府先后组织将当年毛里求斯独立后分离出来，现为英属印度洋领地（BIOT）的55个岛屿中的居民全部迁离。


This was done at the behest of the United States, which at the time was embroiled in the Vietnam War and required, for understandable security reasons, the use of the island of Diego Garcia as an air and naval base.	此举是应美国的要求进行的，因为当时卷入越战的美国基于某种可以理解的国防原因，需要将其中的迪戈·加西亚岛变成海空军基地。


The British Foreign Office claimed at the time that the Chagos Islands had no settled population.	而英国外交部则宣称查戈斯群岛上根本没有常住居民。


The Chagossians were shipped off to the Seychelles and Mauritius, where they were deposited and left to fend for themselves.	查戈斯人接着被运送到了塞舌尔和毛里求斯，然后英国就撒手不管了。


They were ostracized and isolated.	他们在当地饱受排斥和孤立。


Many succumbed to mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism.	许多人不堪苦难折磨患上了精神病，或是从毒品和酒精中寻找慰籍。


Despite the tragic impact of this compulsory removal, the islanders never gave up their campaign to win the right to return home.	虽然身负英国强制性移民的悲惨苦难，但查戈斯人却从未放弃重回家园的抗争。


Many Chagossians eventually moved away from the Seychelles and Mauritius.	许多查戈斯人最终离开了塞舌尔和毛里求斯。


Some settled in London (my European Parliament constituency).	有些人定居在伦敦（我竞选欧洲议会议员的选区）。


They have been a persistent thorn in the side of successive British governments, but at long last Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government seems to be seeking to conclude this matter in a fair, humane, and just way.	他们在历届英国政府处都碰了钉子，但到了最后，现任首相大卫·卡梅伦的联合政府似乎要令整个事件得到公平，人道和公正的解决。


The Chagossians want to return to the outer islands of the Chagos archipelago.	查戈斯人希望能迁回查戈斯群岛的外围岛屿定居。


They have never sought to resettle on Diego Garcia, which remains off-limits and leased to the US government until 2016 – and continues to play a vital role in Western security and defense.	他们并没有试图回到迭戈·加西亚岛，因为该岛至今还是美国军事禁区，租约持续到2016年——而且依然在西方国家安全和防御方面扮演重要的角色。


Given Cameron’s determination to place the US-UK relationship on a more equal footing than it was under Labour, I hope he will feel free to raise this issue with the Obama administration; indeed, a deal between the late UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was apparently very nearly closed some years ago.	既然卡梅伦政府希望能一改工党执政期间的低姿态，试图将英美关系构建在一个更为平等的立足点上，我希望他能更加自信地向奥巴马政府提出这个问题； 事实上，数年前由已故英国外交大臣鲁宾·库克和美国前国务卿玛德琳·奥尔布赖特达成的一项协议显然已非常接近于圆满解决该问题。


Despite claims to the contrary, there is no possible threat to US interests from the islanders’ return to the outer islands, hundreds of kilometers away from Diego Garcia.	与那些反对言论恰恰相反，查戈斯人迁回外岛对美国的安全利益根本没有威胁，因为外岛和美军基地之间相距数百里之遥。


Ten years ago, the Chagossians won a tremendous victory in the British High Court, which ruled that the islanders’ expulsion had been unlawful, and that they should be allowed to return.	实际上早在十年前，查戈斯人就已经取得了一场重大司法胜利，英国最高法院裁定当年对岛民的驱逐不合法，而且应该允许岛民回归。


Initially, the government accepted the ruling, but it was overturned by an Order-in-Council (an executive order from the Queen and not a law passed by Parliament) in 2004.	政府最初接受了这一裁定，但该裁定却于2004年被枢密院令（Order-in-Council，由英女王下达的执行命令，而非议会通过的法律）所推翻。


Now is not the time to discuss how appropriate Orders-in-Council are for lawmaking in a twenty-first-century democracy, but this move showed disregard for the Chagossians’ basic human rights.	在英国这个21世纪的现代民主国家，如今已经无须争论枢密院令究竟如何适用于法律制定了，但这一举措表现出了一种对查戈斯人基本人权的漠视。


Earlier this year, we saw this cynicism in action once again, when David Miliband, foreign secretary in the previous Labour government, declared the Chagos Islands to be a protected marine zone, thereby preventing the islanders – if eventually they do return – from making their living from fishing.	在今年早些时候，这种犬儒主义的行为又一次出现在我们面前，即将离任的外交大臣大卫·米利班德竟然宣称查戈斯群岛依然是海军禁区，因此也不允许岛民——如果查戈斯人能真正回归的话——从事捕鱼活动。


The British Foreign Office has often used the excuse that resettling the Chagossians would be prohibitively expensive.	英国外交部经常用回归计划耗资巨大的理由来敷衍塞责。


But, when answering a parliamentary question that I put to the European Commission recently, the commissioner responsible for development policy, Andris Piebalgs, indicated that the Commission would consider any request from the UK for co-financing the Chagossians’ repatriation, which the EU fully and rightly accepts as a sovereign UK matter.	但在回应我在欧洲议会上所提出的一个议会议题时，发展政策委员会负责人安德列斯·皮耶巴尔格斯声明欧洲议会将考虑资助英国政府提出的任何回归计划，而欧盟也完全并正确地将该事务列为英国内政。


Ten years after the Chagossians’ Pyrrhic legal victory – a victory that seemed merely to strengthen the Foreign Office’s resolve to stop them from returning to the Islands – they have taken their campaign to the European Court of Human Rights, which has suggested that the case be withdrawn in favor of a “friendly settlement.”	在查戈斯人不惜血本赢得法律胜利整整十年之后——这一场胜利仅仅加强了英国外交部阻挠他们回归的决心——他们把官司打到了欧洲人权法庭，而法庭则建议这个上诉可以在取得“友善的安置方案”后撤回。


Many Chagossians who have settled in the UK would go back immediately – if only the government would let them.	只要政府允许，许多查戈斯人都会立刻返回自己的家园！


The Dark Side of Self-Determination	民族自决的阴暗面


CAMBRIDGE – National self-determination seems a straightforward moral principle, but it is fraught with problems.	剑桥－民族自决似乎是一个简单明了的道德原则，但是，它充满了各种各样的问题。


After Russia sent troops into Georgia in August 2008, it recognized the independence of two breakaway Georgian provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.	在2008年8月份向格鲁吉亚派出军队后，俄罗斯承认了两个从格鲁吉亚脱离的省份南奥塞梯（South Ossetia）和阿布哈兹（Abkhazia）的独立。


When few other states followed its example, Russia pointed out that the NATO countries had used force to help Kosovo separate from Serbia.	但是，当几个其他的国家依样行事的时候，俄罗斯却指出，北约国家使用了武力帮助科索沃从塞尔维亚分离出来。


Self-determination is generally defined as the right of a people to form its own state.	民族自决通常被定义为一个民族建立自己的国家的权利。


This is an important principle, but who is the self that is to do the determining?	这是一个重要的原则，但是，谁是那个作出决定的自己 呢？


Consider Somalia back in the 1960’s.  Africans used the principle of self-determination to end colonial rule.	回想一下20世纪60年代的索马里。 那时，非洲人民利用民族自决原则来结束殖民统治。


Unlike many other African states, Somalis had roughly the same linguistic and ethnic background.	和许多其他的非洲国家不同，索马里族人几乎拥有同样的语言和种族背景。


In contrast, neighboring Kenya was formed by colonial rule from dozens of different peoples or tribes, with different linguistic backgrounds and customs.	相反，邻近的肯尼亚是在殖民统治时期由许多不同的民族或部族形成的，各民族或部族的语言背景和习惯都不相同。


Part of northern Kenya was inhabited by Somalis.	而在肯尼亚北部的一部分地区，居住着索马里族人。


Somalia said the principle of national self-determination should allow Somalis in northeastern Kenya (and in the southern Ethiopia) to secede, because they were one Somali nation.	索马里声称，根据民族自决原则，应该允许位于肯尼亚东北部（以及埃塞俄比亚南部）的索马里族人从肯尼亚分离出来，因为这些人构成了一个索马里国家。


Kenya and Ethiopia refused, saying they were still in the process of building a nation.	肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚对此加以拒绝，声称索马里族人仍然处在建立国家的过程之中。


The result was a series of wars in northeast Africa over the Somali nationalist question.	结果，在索马里民族主义问题上，在非洲东北部爆发了一系列的战争。


The ironic sequel was Somalia’s later fragmentation in a civil war among its clans and warlord leaders.	具有讽刺意味的结局是，索马里后来在其部族和军阀领导人进行的内战中，分裂了。


Voting does not always solve problems of self-determination.	投票并不总是能解决民族自决问题。


First, there is the question of where one votes.	首先，有在哪里进行投票的问题。


Consider Ireland, where for many years Catholics objected that if a vote were held within Northern Ireland, the two-thirds Protestant majority would rule.	想想爱尔兰，多年来，如果是在北爱尔兰进行投票，天主教徒就会反对，因为在那里占三分之二多数的新教徒会获胜。


Protestants replied that if a vote were held within the geographical area of the entire island, the two-thirds Catholic majority would rule.	新教徒回应说，如果在整个爱尔兰范围内进行投票，占三分之二多数的天主教徒就会获胜。


Eventually, after decades of strife, outside mediation helped.	最终，在几十年的冲突之后，外部的调停起了作用。


But this still does not address the question of when one votes.	但是，这仍然没能解决人们什么时候投票的问题。


In the 1960’s, the Somalis wanted to vote right away; Kenya wanted to wait 40 or 50 years while it went about its nation-building, or reshaping tribal allegiances into a Kenyan identity.	在20世纪60年代，索马里族人想要立即投票； 肯尼亚却希望在其着手建立国家或将对部族的忠诚转变成为统一的肯尼亚身份的同时，等待40到50年再投票。


Does secession harm those left behind?	分离对那些剩下的人造成损害了吗？


What about the resources the secessionists take with them, or the disruption they create in the country they leave?	分离主义者带走的资源，或者他们离开时在国内造成的破坏又如何呢？


For example, the victorious powers in World War I invoked the principle of self-determination, but after the dismantlement of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the Sudetenland was incorporated into Czechoslovakia, even though its inhabitants spoke German.	例如，第一次世界大战的战胜国援引了民族自决原则，但是，在1918年奥匈帝国解体后，苏台徳区被并入捷克斯洛伐克，即使其居民是说德语的。


After the Munich Agreement in 1938, the Sudeten Germans seceded from Czechoslovakia and joined Germany, which meant that the mountainous frontier fell under German control – a terrible loss for Czech defenses.	在1938年慕尼黑条约之后，苏台徳区的德国人脱离了捷克斯洛伐克，加入了德国，这意味着多山的边境地区落入德国的控制之中——这对捷克的防卫来说是一个可怕的损失。


Similarly, when eastern Nigeria decided it wanted to secede and form the state of Biafra in the 1960s, other Nigerians resisted, in part because Biafra included most of Nigeria’s oil.	同样的，当尼日利亚东部在20世纪60年代决定其要脱离尼日利亚，建立一个比夫拉（Biafra）国时，其他的尼日利亚人进行了抵制，这部分是因为比夫拉（Biafra）储藏着尼日利亚的大部分石油。


They argued that the oil belonged to all of Nigeria’s people, not just the eastern area.	其他的尼日利亚人认为石油属于所有的尼日利亚人，而不仅仅是属于东部地区。


After 1989, the issue of self-determination became acute again in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.	在1989年后，民族自决问题在前苏联和东欧地区再次变得尖锐起来 。


In the Caucasus, Azerbeijanis, Armenians, Georgians, Abkhazians, and Chechens all demanded states on the basis of self-determination.	在高加索地区，阿塞拜疆，亚美尼亚，格鲁吉亚，阿布哈兹以及车臣都基于民族自决要求建立国家。


In Yugoslavia, the Slovenes, Serbs, and Croats managed to carve out independent republics in the early 1990’s, but the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina were less successful.	在南斯拉夫，斯洛文尼亚，塞尔维亚以及克罗地亚在20世纪90年代初成功创建了独立的共和国，但是，在波斯尼亚－黑塞哥维那的穆斯林就不是那么成功了。


The war in Bosnia devastated the civilian population, and war-crimes tribunals were convened in The Hague, starting in 1996, to convict those responsible for the massacres.	波斯尼亚战争对平民人口造成了毁灭性的打击，从1996年开始，在海牙召开的战争犯罪法庭审判了那些对屠杀负责的人的罪行。


Part of what made the war in Bosnia so complicated for the international community was the problem of assessing how much of the fighting could be attributed to tensions among Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Muslims, and how much of the violence was caused by Serbia’s intervention.	让国际社会觉得波斯尼亚的战争非常复杂的一部分原因，是怎样评估战争在多大程度上是由波斯尼亚的克罗地亚人、塞尔维亚人和穆斯林间的紧张状态引起的，以及多少暴力是由于塞尔维亚的干涉引起的的问题。


If this was not caused by simple aggression on the part of Serbia, then the only grounds for intervention would be to prevent a massacre.	如果这不仅仅是由于塞尔维亚方面的侵略造成的，那么，干涉的唯一根据就是为了阻止屠杀了。


As with Rwanda in 1994, the international community was united in its condemnation of the Balkan violence, but was unable to agree on effective joint action until late in the conflict, in 1995, when a NATO peacekeeping force was sent to the troubled area.	像在1994年对卢旺达那样，国际社会一致谴责巴尔干半岛的暴行，但是，直到1995年冲突的尾声之前——北约的维和部队于1995年被派到了这个混乱的地区，国际社会都没能在有效的共同行动上达成一致。


Self-determination has turned out to be an ambiguous moral principle.	民族自决已经成为了一个模糊的道德原则。


Woodrow Wilson thought it would solve problems in central Europe in 1919, but it created as many as it solved.	在1919年，伍德罗·威尔逊认为这一原则可以解决中欧的问题，但是，它制造的问题和解决的问题一样多。


Adolf Hitler used the principle to undermine fragile states in the 1930’s.	阿道夫·希特勒在20世纪30年代利用这一原则来破坏脆弱的国家。


Today, with less than 10% of the world’s states being homogeneous, treating self-determination as a primary moral principle could have disastrous consequences in many regions.	今天，世界上只有不到10%的国家是同质的，将民族自决作为首要的道德原则会在许多地区造成灾难性的后果。


The best hope for the future is to ask what is being determined as well as who determines it.	对未来最好的期望是，问问是 什么 被决定，以及是由 谁 决定的。


In situations where groups have difficulties living together, it may be possible to allow a degree of autonomy in the determination of internal affairs.	在民族群体生活在一起有困难的情形下，可以允许在决定内部事务上一定程度的自治。


Internal self-determination could allow degrees of cultural, economic, and political autonomy similar to that which exists in countries like Switzerland or Belgium.	内部民族自决可以允许和存在于瑞士或比利时这样的国家程度类似的文化、经济以及政治自治。


Where such loosening of the bonds is still not enough, it may be possible in some cases to arrange an amicable divorce, as happened when Czechoslovakia peacefully divided into two sovereign countries in 1993.	在对限制进行这样的放松后仍然不够的地区，在有些情形下，可以安排一个友好分离，就像1993年捷克斯洛伐克和平分立成为两个主权国家一样。


But absolute demands for self-determination are likely to become a source of endless violence unless handled carefully.	但是，除非谨慎对待，绝对的民族自决要求极有可能成为永无休止的暴力的根源。


Demands for self-determination in today’s world must be judged on a case-by-case basis that assesses the motives, means, and consequences involved, and that does so in a multilateral framework.	对当今世界的民族自决要求应该在多边框架内，在评估动机，手段以及有关的后果的基础上，进行个案判断。


The Dead Cat Bounce	死猫反弹


NEW YORK – Mild signs that the rate of economic contraction is slowing in the United States, China, and other parts of the world have led many economists to forecast that positive growth will return to the US in the second half of the year, and that a similar recovery will occur in other advanced economies.	纽约——经济紧缩在美国、中国和世界其他地区放缓的温和迹象已经致使许多经济学家预测美国将在今年下半年恢复正增长，且其他先进经济体也会出现类似的恢复。


The emerging consensus among economists is that growth next year will be close to the trend rate of 2.5%.	经济学家间逐渐达成的共识是明年我们将看到接近2. 5%的趋势增长率。


Investors are talking of “green shoots” of recovery and of positive “second derivatives of economic activity” (continuing economic contraction is the first, negative, derivative, but the slower rate suggests that the bottom is near).	投资者正在谈论经济复苏的“绿色嫩芽”，以及正向的“经济行为的第二衍生物”（持续的经济紧缩是负向的第一衍生物，但其速度的不断减缓表明底部已经临近）。


As a result, stock markets have started to rally in the US and around the world.	结果是美国和全世界的股市均开始回升。


Markets seem to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the economy and for the battered profits of corporations and financial firms.	市场似乎相信受到巨大影响的企业和金融公司利润在历尽艰辛之后终会得到恢复。


This consensus optimism is, I believe, not supported by the facts.	我认为，这种一致的乐观情绪并没有事实的支撑。


Indeed, I expect that while the rate of US contraction will slow from -6% in the last two quarters, US growth will still be negative (around -1.5 to -2%) in the second half of the year (compared to the bullish consensus of +2%).	实际上，我预计尽管美国经济收缩的速度将比过去两个季度的-6%有所放缓，但今年下半年的美国经济增长（较之+2%的乐观估计）仍将维持在负数（约为-1. 5到-2%）。


Moreover, growth next year will be so weak (0.5 to 1%, as opposed to the consensus of 2% or more) and unemployment so high (above 10%) that it will still feel like a recession.	此外，明年的经济增长仍将微弱（较之2%或者更高的普遍观点）、而失业率仍将高企（约为10%），以致于让我们感到仍然处在衰退之中。


In the euro zone and Japan, the outlook for 2009 and 2010 is even worse, with growth close to zero even next year.	在欧元区和日本，2009和2010年的前景更加堪忧，甚至连明年的经济增长都接近于零。


China will have a more rapid recovery later this year, but growth will reach only 5% this year and 7% in 2010, well below the average of 10% over the last decade.	中国的复苏速度相对较快，但今年的增长只能达到5%，2010年则将达到7%，这与过去10年来平均10%的增长速度不可同日而语。


Given this weak outlook for the major economies, losses by banks and other financial institutions will continue to grow.	考虑到主要经济体前景暗淡，银行及其他金融机构的损失仍将继续扩大。


My latest estimates are $3.6 trillion in losses for loans and securities issued by US institutions, and $1 trillion for the rest of the world.	我最新的估计是美国机构贷款和证券损失将高达3. 6万亿美元，而世界其他国家也将遭受高达1万亿美元的损失。


It is said that the International Monetary Fund, which earlier this year revised upward its estimate of bank losses, from $1 trillion to $2.2 trillion, will announce a new estimate of $3.1 trillion for US assets and $0.9 trillion for foreign assets, figures very close to my own.	据说国际货币基金组织今年初上调了预估的银行损失，从1万亿美元调整到了2. 2万亿，并将很快公布新的3.


By this standard, many US and foreign banks are effectively insolvent and will have to be taken over by governments.	1万亿美元美国资产和0. 9万亿美元外国资产的预估损失数据，这一数据非常接近我自己的估计。


The credit crunch will last much longer if we keep zombie banks alive despite their massive and continuing losses.	按照这样的标准，许多美国和外国银行实际上均已陷入到破产的境地，必须接受政府的兼并。 如果我们不顾巨额的持续损失仍然允许僵尸银行继续存在，那么这场信贷紧缩的持续时间将会比预想中长得多。


Given this outlook for the real economy and financial institutions, the latest rally in US and global stock markets has to be interpreted as a bear-market rally.	考虑到实体经济和金融机构的暗淡前景，美国和全球股市最近一次反弹恐怕只能解释为熊市中的回升。


Economists usually joke that the stock market has predicted 12 out of the last nine recessions, as markets often fall sharply without an ensuing recession.	经济学家经常开玩笑说股市预测出了9次衰退中的12次，因为市场经常在没有经济衰退的情况下出现急速下跌。


But, in the last two years, the stock market has predicted six out of the last zero economic recoveries – that is, six bear market rallies that eventually fizzled and led to new lows.	但在过去两年中，股市却预测了零次经济复苏中的六次，也就是说，六次熊市反弹最终烟消云散，再创新低。


The stock market’s latest “dead cat bounce” may last a while longer, but three factors will, in due course, lead it to turn south again.	股市最近一次“死猫反弹”可能还会持续更长的时间，但有三种因素将适时地再次导致股价下跌。


First, macroeconomic indicators will be worse than expected, with growth failing to recover as fast the consensus expects.	首先，宏观经济指标将比预期更差，经济的增长速度无法像人们预想中那样很快复苏。


Second, the profits and earnings of corporations and financial institutions will not rebound as fast as the consensus predicts, as weak economic growth, deflationary pressures, and surging defaults on corporate bonds will limit firms’ pricing power and keep profit margins low.	其次，企业和金融机构的利润和收入不会像人们预测中那样快速复苏，因为经济增长放缓、通缩压力和企业债券违约率的快速增长将限制公司的定价能力并同时压低利润水平。


Third, financial shocks will be worse than expected.	第三，金融震荡将比预想中的情况更糟。


At some point, investors will realize that bank losses are massive, and that some banks are insolvent.	在某个时点，投资人终会意识到银行损失巨大，而某些银行已经失去偿付能力。


Deleveraging by highly leveraged firms – such as hedge funds – will lead them to sell illiquid assets in illiquid markets.	高杠杆企业——比如对冲基金——的去杠杆化将导致他们在流动性差的市场出售流动性差的资产。


And some emerging market economies – despite massive IMF support – will experience a severe financial crisis with contagious effects on other economies.	而某些新兴市场经济体——尽管得到国际货币基金组织的大力支持——仍将陷入严重的金融危机，而且还将传染其他经济体。


So, while this latest bear-market rally may continue for a bit longer, renewed downward pressure on stocks and other risky assets is inevitable.	因此，尽管最近这次熊市反弹将持续更长时间，但股票和其他风险性资产必将重新感受到向下的压力。


To be sure, much more aggressive policy action (massive and unconventional monetary easing, larger fiscal-stimulus packages, bailouts of financial firms, individual mortgage-debt relief, and increased financial support for troubled emerging markets) in many countries in the last few months has reduced the risk of a near depression.	有一点可以肯定，那就是过去几个月内许多国家更为积极的政策行动（超越传统的巨额货币放松和对困难重重的新兴市场增加财政援助）已经减轻了很快陷入经济衰退的压力。


That outcome seemed highly likely six months ago, when global financial markets nearly collapsed.	这样的结果就在六个月以前似乎还非常可能，当时全球金融市场陷入到近乎崩溃的境地。


Still, this global recession will continue for a longer period than the consensus suggest.	尽管如此，这次全球衰退会比人们普遍认为的持续时间更长。


There may be light at the end of the tunnel – no depression and financial meltdown.	或许我们能够看到困难背后的曙光——不会发生经济衰退和金融灾难。


But economic recovery everywhere will be weaker and will take longer than expected.	但全球各地的经济复苏将更加疲软，需要的时间也更长。


The same is true for a sustained recovery of financial markets.	金融市场的持续复苏也是这种情况。


The Death of a Nation	国殇


Belgium is in danger of falling apart.	比利时正处于分裂的险境。


For more than six months, the country has been unable to form a government that is able to unite the French-speaking Walloons (32%) and Dutch-speaking Flemish (58%).	六个多月以来，该国无法组成能够联合讲法语的瓦隆人(32%的人口)和讲荷兰语的弗拉芒语人(58%的人口)的政府。


The Belgian monarch, Albert II, is desperately trying to stop his subjects from breaking up the state.	比利时国王阿尔伯特二世正在竭尽全力阻止其臣民分裂国家。


Apart from the King (who might be out of a job), who cares?	但是除了国王以外(可能要失业了)，谁又会关心呢？


First of all, the Walloons do.	首先，瓦隆人关心。


Although the French-speaking Belgians started the European Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, they are now living in a deprived rustbelt in need of federal subsidies, a substantial amount of which comes from taxes paid by the more prosperous, high-tech Flemish.	尽管讲法语的比利时人在十九世纪引发了欧洲工业革命，但是他们现在却处境窘迫，需要联邦补贴。 而补贴的一大部分来自于更为繁荣、具有高科技的弗拉芒人交纳的税收。


A handful of right-wing Dutch dreamers care, too, for they have visions of uniting Belgian Flanders with the Dutch motherland.	少数几个右翼荷兰梦想家也关心此事，因为他们构想把比利时的弗拉芒人和祖国荷兰联合起来。


Alas for them, however, the Flemish have no such desire.	但是对于他们来说，弗拉芒人却没有这样的意愿。


Belgium, after all, became an independent state in 1830, precisely in order to liberate the Catholic Flemish, as well as the Walloons, from being second-class subjects in a Protestant Dutch monarchy.	毕竟，比利时在1830年成为独立国家就是为了把作为二等公民的信奉天主教的弗拉芒人以及瓦隆人从信奉新教的荷兰君主中解放出来。


But perhaps we should all care at least a little, for what is happening in Belgium is unusual, but not at all unique.	但是或许我们应该至少都关心一下，因为比利时发生的事件尽管并非独一无二，也是不同寻常。


The Czechs and Slovaks already parted ways, as did the different nations of Yugoslavia.	捷克和斯洛伐克已经分家，南斯拉夫不同民族也是如此。


Many Basques would like to break away from Spain, as would many Catalans.	许多巴斯克人想从西班牙独立出来，许多加泰罗尼亚人也是如此。


Corsicans would love to be rid of France, and many Scots of Britain.	许多科西嘉人想要从法国独立，许多苏格兰人想要从英国独立。


Then, of course, there is the Tibetan problem in China, the Chechen problem in Russia, and so on.	当然，还有中国的西藏问题、俄国的车臣问题等等诸如此类的问题。


No doubt some of these peoples would be able to survive perfectly well on their own.	毫无疑问，他们有些人会自力更生生活地很好。


But history does seem to suggest that the cumulative effect of states falling apart is seldom positive.	但是历史好像表明，国家分裂少有积极的的累计效力。


Belgian separatists like to observe that Belgium was never a natural nation-state, but an accident of history.	比利时的分裂主义者喜欢指出，比利时从来就不是一个自然产生的民族国家，而是历史事故而已。


But so are many, perhaps most.	但是其他许多、或者大多数国家都是如此。


The accident in the case of Belgium is usually placed in the early nineteenth century, the result of Napoleon’s European empire collapsing and Dutch arrogance.	就比利时而言，历史事故发生在十九世纪早期。 当时拿破仑的欧洲帝国正在瓦解，而荷兰又趾高气扬。


In fact, one might just as well set the accident in the sixteenth century, when the Habsburg Emperor hung on to the Southern Netherlands (today’s Belgium) while the Protestant northern provinces broke away.	实际上，这一事件也可以发生在十六世纪。 当时，哈布斯堡皇帝维持荷兰南部的统治(也就是今天的比利时)，而信奉新教的北部省份则独立出去。


Be that as it may, nation-states were often formed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to promote common interests that transcended cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences.	历史就是如此。 民族国家通常成立于十八和十九世纪来促进超越文化、种族、语言或者宗教区别的共同利益。


This was true of Italy and Britain, no less than of Belgium.	意大利和英国是这样，而比利时也不例外。


The problem now is that interests are no longer the same, or even held in common.	现在的问题是利益不再相同，甚至根本就不再共同维系。


The European Union, which actively promotes regional interests, has weakened the authority of national governments.	欧盟积极促进地区利益，削弱了各国政府的权威。


Why rely on London, say the Scots, if Brussels offers greater advantages.	苏格兰人说道，如果欧盟提供更大的优势，那为何要依靠伦敦呢？


When common interests no longer prevail, language and culture begin to matter more.	当共同利益不再占优的时候，语言和文化开始变得更为重要。


One reason why Flemish Belgians resent having to prop up the Walloons with their tax money is that they regard them almost as foreigners.	弗拉芒人为何憎恨用自己的税金养活瓦隆人的原因之一是他们几乎把瓦隆人视为外国人。


Most Flemish readers don’t read French-language newspapers or novels, and vice versa.	大多数弗拉芒人不读法语报纸或者小说，反之亦然。


TV stations are separate. And so are schools, universities, and political parties.	电视台都是独立分开的，中小学校、大学以及政党也是如此。


Similarly, northern Italians don’t like their tax money being used to help the south, but at least they still have a language – more or less – in common, as well as TV stars, a national soccer team, and Silvio Berlusconi.	同样，意大利北方人也不喜欢让他们的税金用来帮助南部，但是至少他们还多多少少都有一个共同的语言以及电视明星、国家足球队以及贝鲁斯科尼。


The Belgians only have a king, who is descended, like most European monarchs, from Germans.	比利时人只有一个国王而已，而国王也是像大多数欧洲君主一样是德国后裔。


Again, why should this matter?	那又怎样呢？


Don’t we feel sympathy for the Tibetans in their struggle for freedom?	难道我们不对那些要求自由的藏人感到同情吗？


Why shouldn’t the Flemish go their own way?	弗拉芒人为何就不能独立呢？


It is one thing to support a people that is being oppressed by an authoritarian government.	支持一个受到专制政府压制的民族是一回事。


And Tibetans are actually in danger of losing their culture.	而且藏人实际上正处于丧失自己的文化的危险之中。


It is more disturbing when people choose to break up nation-states because they refuse to share their wealth, for linguistic or ethnic reasons.	人们由于语言或者种族的原因拒绝分享财富而分裂民族国家则更为令人不安。


If Flemish citizens don’t want their taxes to go to the Walloons, what about helping out unemployed immigrants from Africa, a large chunk of which the Belgians once owned and exploited as a major source of their prosperity?	比利时一度拥有大片非洲土地并且强取豪夺，成为其繁荣的一大源泉。 如果弗拉芒人不想让自己的税金流向瓦隆区，那么，帮助来自非洲的失业移民又当如何呢？


It should come as no surprise that the Flemish nationalist party (Vlaams Belang) is hostile to immigrants too.	弗拉芒国民党对移民也抱有敌意，这也就不足为奇了。


So the fate of Belgium should interest all Europeans, especially those who wish the Union well.	所以，所有欧洲人、特别是那些希望欧盟安定的人都应当关心比利时的命运。


For what is happening in Belgium now could end up happening on a continental scale.	这是因为比利时现在所发生的事件有可能在整个欧洲大陆发生。


Why, for example, should the prosperous Germans continue to have their tax money pooled to assist the Greeks or the Portuguese?	例如，为何繁荣的德国人继续用自己的税金来援助希腊人或者葡萄牙人呢？


It is difficult to sustain any democratic system, whether on a national or European scale, without a sense of solidarity.	没有了团结之感，就难以维系民主体制，这对各国和欧洲整体而言都是如此。


It helps if this is based on something deeper than shared interests: a language, a sense of common history, pride in cultural achievements.	如果建立在比共同利益更为深厚的东西之上，那就有所帮助。 这些东西包括语言、共同的历史感以及为文化成就而自豪。


The European identity is still far from being solid.	欧洲身份认同还远远不是坚固的。


Perhaps the citizens of Belgium do not have enough in common anymore, and Flemish and Walloons would be better off being divorced.	或��，比利时人不再有共同的东西了，弗拉芒人和瓦隆人还是分家为好。


But one hopes not.	但是人们希望不是这样。


Divorces are never painless. And ethnic nationalism unleashes emotions that are almost always undesirable.	离婚从来都没有毫无痛苦的，而种族民族主义释放出的情感几乎总是不悦的。


We know what happened when the twin pulls of blood and soil determined European politics before.	我们知道当以前流血和土地决定欧洲政治会发生什么事情。


Without having intended it, the EU now seems to be encouraging the very forces that postwar European unity was designed to contain.	欧盟本意不是如此，但是它现在好像在鼓励战后欧洲联合意在遏制的势力。


The Death of King Fahad	法赫德国王的去世


Saudi Arabia’s decade long royal death watch is over.	沙特阿拉伯长达十年的皇家病危监护结束了。


King Fahad, the longest-serving king in Saudi Arabia’s history (24 years), is dead.	法赫德国王（King Fahad），这位沙特阿拉伯历史上在位时间最长（24年）的国王，去世了。


For six weeks, the King lay in a hospital fighting death, something he has done, in reality, ever since he suffered a massive stroke 10 years ago.	六个星期来，国王一直躺在医院内与病魔作斗争，这事实上正是他十年前中风后就一直在做的事情。


The identity of the new king is clear, but who will really wield power is not.	新国王的身份已经明确，但是权力真正在谁手中还不清楚。


As when Marshal Tito was dying in a divided Yugoslavia, the King’s royal relations (who are also his political underlings) fear that the ruler’s death will unleash chaos.	正如当年马沙尔·铁托（Marshal Tito）在分裂的南斯拉夫病危时候一样，国王的皇室亲属们（他们也是他的政治部下）竭力否认这件事情，因为他们担心统治者的死亡将会引发暴动。


This fear comes at a time when the wider Middle East is abuzz with talk of democratic change.	这场病危监护的发生正值更广泛的中东地区开始遍布民主改革讨论之时。


From Egypt to Lebanon to Iran, political passions are mounting, along with a renewed optimism.	从埃及到黎巴嫩到伊朗，政治热情正随着新兴的乐观主义而不断高涨。


Street demonstrations, elections, and political debate in cafes and on the Internet are flowering as never before.	街道游行、选举以及咖啡馆和互联网上的政治辩论正以前所未有的态势繁荣发展。


Even the conservative states of the Arabian Peninsula are embroiled in lively disputes about women ministers, Shia representation, Islamist participation in the political process, and even the future of their ruling monarchies.	即使阿拉伯半岛这样的保守国家也卷入了有关女性部长、什叶派代表、伊斯兰在政治进程的参与程度、乃至有关他们君主统治政体未来的热烈讨论之中。


In these dynamic circumstances, Saudi Arabia stands out.	在这种活跃的气氛中，沙特阿拉伯就显得尤为与众不同。


Indeed, Saudi Arabia seems trapped in a state of suspended animation, its body politic sick and infirm.	事实上，政治体系不健全且不稳固的沙特阿拉伯陷入了一种休眠状态。


The country is caught between two choices: progressive reform or continuing paralysis and decay.	这个国家现在面临两个选择：实施进步的改革还是继续麻痹和腐朽。


Divisions in the kingdom are sharper than ever, and the King’s death might deepen them further.	王国内的分裂比以往任何时候都严重，国王的去世也使这种分裂愈加尖锐。


Two rival camps - the so-called reformers and the hard liners - are forming in the Al Saud, the world’s largest ruling family, with 22,000 princes and princesses.	两大敌对阵营——所谓的改革者和强硬派——正在邵德家族（Al Saud）内形成。 邵德家族是全世界最大的统治家族，拥有22,000名王子和公主。


The reformers have less authority but are the acceptable face of the Saudi dictatorship internationally.	改革派权力相对较少，但却是国际社会可以接受的代表沙特独裁的面孔。


Their new leader, King Abdullah, appears to have legitimacy because of his seniority in the family.	他们的新领导人，阿卜杜拉国王（King Abdullah）因为是家族中的长子，所以拥有合法继承权。


The reformers talk about partial municipal elections, national dialogue, and the rights of women, who they hint may one day even be allowed to drive cars!	改革派讨论着局部地区的市镇选举、国家对话、以及妇女权利，他们暗示妇女可能有一天甚至会被允许开车。


Even these limited efforts are obstructed by the hardline Wahhabi camp, which controls the security forces, the judiciary system, and the real levers of domestic power.	但这些有限的努力却也遭到强硬派瓦哈比阵营的阻挠，瓦哈比控制了安全部队、司法体系，并操纵着国内权力的真正控制杆。


Indeed, Prince Naif, the Minister of the Interior and leader of the hardliners, has either silenced or imprisoned hundreds of the key Saudi reformers.	事实上，内政大臣兼强硬派领导人纳伊夫亲王（Prince Naif）已经压制或拘禁了数百名重要的沙特改革派人物。


One reason for the weakness of Abdullah’s faction is that he has scant support within the family, because the Al Saud center of power lies with the al Fahads - the six full brothers of the dead King Fahad, most importantly Prince Sultan, the Minister of Defense, and Prince Naif.	阿卜杜拉派别之所以力量微弱的原因是他在家族内缺乏支持，因为邵德家族的权力中心在阿尔·法赫德（al Fahads）家族手中——即已故法赫德国王和他的六个同胞兄弟，最主要就是国防部长苏尔坦亲王（Prince Sultan）和纳伊夫亲王。


On the surface, the succession has proceeded as expected, with Crown Prince Abdullah becoming king now that Fahad has died.	表面来看，王位继承如预期般进行，皇储阿卜杜拉在法赫德去世后成为国王。


In spite of this, Abdullah may not be able to shape the future, because he seems doomed to lose any showdown with Naif’s forces.	尽管如此，阿卜杜拉也无法决定未来，因为他看来注定无法与纳伊夫的力量抗衡。


Abdullah’s power base is in the National Guard, and his claim on the support of Saudi Arabia's modernizing forces.	阿卜杜拉的权力基础在于国民警卫队以及他支持沙特阿拉伯的现代化力量的主张。


Both are insufficient to check Naif.	但这两样都不足以对付纳伊夫。


A key early test of Abdullah’s kingship will be if he can succeed in freeing the hundreds of political reformers now in prison, especially three respected academics whom he encouraged to make reform proposals, only to be incarcerated by Naif.	一个不久就能检验阿卜杜拉国王身份的关键测试是，他是否能够成功释放上百名现在身陷囹圄的政治改革者，尤其是三位受人尊敬的学者，他们在阿卜杜拉的鼓励下开始起草改革提议，结果却被纳伊夫投进监狱。


Now that King Fahad is gone, old scores among his numerous brothers and half brothers, not to mention the thousands of princes in the next generation, will need to be settled.	既然法赫德国王已经去世，那么他众多的同胞以及同父异母的兄弟之间的种种恩怨就需要作个了断，更不必说下一代几千名王子之间的恩恩怨怨了。


But don’t look for hope in the new generation, which is not necessarily young or progressive.	但是别指望这新的一代，他们既不年轻也不进步。


Indeed, the Al Saud clan’s third and fourth generations are divided not only in political and religious affiliation, but also range in age from 20 to 90 years old.	事实上，邵德家族的第三和第四代不仅在政治和宗教从属上存在分歧，年龄跨度也很大，从20岁至90岁不等。


All await a chance to rule.	所有人都在等待一统天下的机会。


So Saudi Arabia’s people confront this key question: can an authoritative ruler emerge who will reunite the country in the progressive tradition of the late King Faisal?	因此，沙特阿拉伯的人民现在面临这个问题：会有一个权威的统治者出现将国家重新统一到已故费瑟国王（King Faisal）所倡导的进步传统中吗？


The sad likelihood is that, given the power of the obstructionists under Naif, a decisive and energetic king is unlikely to emerge.	令人沮丧的可能性是，在纳伊夫手下的阻碍力量下，难以出现一个果敢有为的国王。


The direction the country will take in the longer term can best be assessed by whom Abdullah chooses to name as the successor to Prince Sultan, Naif’s chief ally who has already been named Abdullah’s heir.	这个国家的长期发展方向最好由被阿卜杜拉选择任命为苏尔坦亲王继承者的那个人来做出评估。 苏尔坦亲王是纳伊夫的主要同盟，并已经被任命为阿卜杜拉的继承人。


If Abdullah (aged 83) can perhaps skip a generation and appoint a more open-minded younger figure, there may be hope.	如果阿卜杜拉（83岁）可以跳过一代任命一个思想更开通更年轻的人，这样或许还有希望。


But Naif (age 77), his full brothers - including Sultan (age 82) - and their supporters within the Wahhabi establishment appear too entrenched to allow that to happen.	但是他的同胞兄弟纳伊夫（77岁）、包括苏尔坦（82岁）以及他们在瓦哈比教派中的支持者太顽固了，他们无法允许这样的事情发生。


Like the geriatric successions that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union, the succession in Saudi Arabia seems to be only a step in an inexorable march toward political decay.	正如苏联解体前的���年继任一样，沙特阿拉伯的王位继承看来只是它不可逆转地大踏步走向政治腐朽的其中一步。


Russia found a young reformer in Mikhail Gorbachev too late.	俄罗斯应该早点发现米凯尔·戈尔巴乔夫( Mikhail Gorbachev )这个年轻的改革者。


It may also be too late for Saudi Arabia.	沙特阿拉伯或许也已经晚了。


The Death of NATO	北约之死


LONDON – NATO, whose foreign ministers will meet next week, is dying.	伦敦amp#45;amp#45;北约外长会议将在下周举行，而这一组织本身却已病入膏肓。


Death, of course, comes to all living things.	当然，所有生物都难免一死。


And, as NATO approaches its 60th birthday next spring, there seems no immediate urgency about writing its obituary; 60-year-olds may reasonably look forward to another decade, perhaps two or even three, of active and productive life.	北约明年春天将迎来六十周年纪念，人们现在好像并不急于撰写讣告。 六十岁的人一般都可以指望再健康积极地活十年、二十年或者更长。


But perhaps it is now time for some discreet reflection on the fact that “the old man will not always be with us.”	但是，老头不会总在这句话现在也许应该认真思索一下了。


Human institutions, like human beings, can collapse with surprising speed once they have outlived their usefulness.	人为机构就像人一样，一旦完成了任务就会以令人惊讶的速度瓦解。


The dramatic dissolution of the Soviet Union stands as a reminder of what can happen to organizations when doubts take hold as to whether they still serve any real interests other than those of their own apparatchiks – and how suddenly such doubts can grow when they attempt to convert themselves into something they are not.	苏联戏剧般的解体提醒我们当人们怀疑某些机构除了满足其自身利益以外别无他用之时将会发生什么事情，以及当这些机构企图把自身转变为他物之时这些怀疑将会如何突然增长。


NATO has, of course, shown remarkable tenacity.	当然，北约表现得极有韧性。


It should have disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact evaporated; its job was done.	它本应当在苏联解体、华沙条约组织解散的时候消亡，因为它的使命业已完成。


But then came the Balkans crises of the 1990s, culminating in the realization that only American military power could put a stop to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.	但是九十年代出现了巴尔干危机，最终人们意识到只有美军才能阻止塞尔维亚总统米洛塞维奇对科索沃的种族清洗。


And then came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, making the “out of area or out of business” choice seem a no-brainer.	随后又发生9/11恐怖袭击事件，使得北约做出“超出地域和任务范围”的选择成为理所当然的事情。


So NATO remains in business, and in Afghanistan.	所以北约还继续存在，并且存在于阿富汗。


But NATO’s repeated demonstrations of resilience should not blind us to the fact that it no longer provides a healthy basis for the transatlantic security relationship.	但是北约不断表现韧性并不应该让我们忽视这一事实，也就是它并不再给跨大西洋安全关系提供任何健康的基础。


As long as NATO’s raison d’être was to keep the Russians out and the United States in, NATO’s internal dynamic of American leadership and European obeisance was both inevitable and appropriate.	只要北约的存在理由是抵御俄国和留住美国，北约内部的美国领导作用和欧洲言听计从就不可避免并且理所当然。


This unbalanced relationship still has advantages for both parties.	这一失衡关系对于双方来讲依然还有优势。


Americans may find their (old) European allies less pliable than before – but they can at least count on the absence of any serious alternatives for what NATO should become, or what it should do.	美国发现其欧洲老盟友们不再像以往一般顺从，但是至少可以放心北约不会的确变得不伦不类。


Europeans can continue to avoid responsibility for their own security, and to invoke the catechism of “NATO, the corner-stone of our security” as a substitute for serious strategic thought.	欧洲可以继续避免承担自己的安全责任并且用“北约是我们的安全基石”这一教义取代严肃的战略性思考。