Writing from 1930’s Shanghai, China’s great essayist Lu Xun once observed: “Today there are all kinds of weeklies. Although their distribution is not very wide, they are shining in the darkness like daggers, letting their comrades know who is attacking the old, strong castles.”	中国杂文大家鲁迅在二十世纪三十年代的上海曾经写道：“现在的各种小周刊，虽然量少力微，却是小集团或单身的短兵战，在黑暗中，时见匕首的闪光，使同类者知道也还有谁还在袭击古老坚固的堡垒。


Muckraking broadsheets in the first half of the last century played cat-and-mouse games with Chinese government censors, ultimately helping to expose the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the Nationalist (KMT) government and contributing to the Communist victory in 1949.	”上世纪前半叶针砭时事的大幅印刷品同中国当局的审查官们玩猫捉老鼠的游戏，最终帮助揭露国民党政府的腐败和道德沦丧并且推动共产党在1949年夺取江山。


If that sounds familiar, its is because the Chinese Communist Party never forgets its history – and is determined to prevent history from repeating itself.	如果这听起来有点熟悉的话，这是因为中共从未忘记历史，而且决心防止历史重演。


Thus, China’s rulers acted in character last December, when they cracked down on news organizations that were getting a bit too assertive.	因此不出所料，去年十二月，中共打击某些过于“嚣张”的新闻单位。


The editor and deputy editors of Beijing News, a relatively new tabloid with a national reputation for exposing corruption and official abuse, were fired.	新京报是一家面市不久的街头小报，因揭露腐败和官府滥用职权而在全国享有声誉，其正副编辑遭到解职。


In protest, more than 100 members of the newspaper’s staff walked out.	为表达抗议，该报一百多名职工因此罢工。


Most Chinese might not have known about the walkout if it hadn’t been for Chinese bloggers.	如果没有中文博客，大多数中国人还可能不知道罢工事件。


An editorial assistant at the New York Times, Zhao Jing, writing under the pen name Michael Anti, broke the news on his widely read Chinese-language blog.	纽约时报的编辑助理赵京取笔名Michael Anti在其广为阅读的中文博客上披露了这一消息。


He exposed details of behind-the-scenes politics and called for a public boycott of the newspaper, evoking strong public sympathy for the journalists, expressed online in chatrooms and blogs.	他揭露了幕后政治细节并且呼吁公众抵制该报纸，从而引起了公众对记者们的同情。 他们在聊天室和博客上在线表达情感。


Zhao’s blog wasn’t under the direct control of the Party’s Propaganda Department.	赵京的博客并不在中宣部的直接控制之下。


It was published through a Chinese-language blog-hosting service run by Microsoft’s MSN Spaces.	它是通过微软公司MSN空间运行的中文版博客主机服务发表的。


On December 30, Zhao’s blog disappeared.	9月30日，赵京的博客消失了。


Since then, Microsoft has confirmed that its staff removed the blog from an MSN Internet server, citing the need to respect Chinese law when doing business in China.	以后，微软确认其工作人员将这一博客从MSN互联网服务器上删除了，并宣称其理由是在中国做生意就必须尊重中国法律。


Microsoft’s contribution to Chinese political repression follows Yahoo’s role in the sentencing of a dissident reporter and Google’s decision not to display search results that are blocked by what has become known as the “Great Chinese Firewall.”	微软协助中国的政治镇压紧随雅虎公司在判处一名异议记者中的作用以及Google公司决定不显示被称为“中国防火长城”所阻拦的搜索结果。


Indeed, China has developed the world’s most sophisticated system of Internet blocking and censorship, thereby hiding information unfavorable to China’s rulers from all but the most technologically savvy.	的确，中国已经开发了世界上最先进的互联网阻拦和审查系统，从而将令中国统治者不悦的信息隐藏于所有人的视线之外，只有那些技术最为高超的人例外。


The system is bolstered by human surveillance and censorship carried out not only by government employees, but also by private service providers.	政府雇员和私营服务供应商都实施人工监控和审查，该系统因此固若金汤。


Some liken Microsoft’s behavior to IBM’s infamous collaboration with the Nazis in Germany.	有些人将微软公司的行为与IBM公司在德国与纳粹臭名昭著的勾结相提并论。


Human rights activists in the United States are calling for legislation that would prevent American companies from engaging in business practices that help repressive regimes stifle democratic movements.	美国的人权活动分子呼吁立法防止美国公司从事帮助压制自由的政权弹压民主运动的商业作法。


But the companies argue that there is absolutely no other way to compete – they must either comply with censorship or discontinue business.	但是，这些公司则辩解说，它们绝对没有其他办法竞争。 它们要么遵从审查，要末停止业务。


If MSN Spaces did not censor its Chinese blogs, Microsoft argues, the Great Chinese Firewall would simply be programmed to block Chinese Internet users from accessing its service.	微软公司说，如果MNS空间不阻挡其中文博客，那么，中国的防火墙长城就会阻挡中国互联网使用者接触使用它的服务。


In fact, most international blog-hosting services are blocked in China, which provides a competitive boon to several hundred domestic blog-hosting services.	实际上，大多数国际博客主机服务在中国被阻挡，因此几百个中国国内博客主机服务供应商坐收渔利。 这些博客主机，例如Bokee.


These services, with names like Bokee.com, Blogbus.com and Blogcn.com, all comply with Chinese government censorship requirements.	com，Blogbus. com以及blogcn.


Software prevents users from posting politically sensitive words, and provocative content that gets past the automated controls is frequently removed.	com都遵从中国政府的审查要求。 软件防止使用者们张贴政治敏感用语，而那些通过了自动控制的煽动性内容则被经常删除。


These businesses would not be allowed to exist otherwise.	如果不是这样，这些公司就不会被允许生存。


Despite the censorship, the Chinese blogosphere is blossoming, with probably somewhere between 5-10 million active blogs.	尽管有这些审查，中国的博客空间仍在蓬勃发展，目前大约有5百万到1千万活跃的博客。


The Chinese public has grown expert over the years at finding plenty of things to do and talk about while avoiding politically dangerous issues.	多年来，中国公众已经善于找一些事做以及谈论而回避政治上危险的问题。


Chinese bloggers are no different.	中国的博客们也不例外。


New pop cultural celebrities are emerging online, and people are creating their own radio and even TV shows.	新的流行文化名人正在在线涌现，而人们在制作自己的电台甚至电视节目。


Naturally, the Chinese companies that provide most of the tools used to create and host this content have censorship built into their software, management structure, and business models.	很自然地，提供大多数用来制造这些内容并提供主机服务的中国公司们把审查内置到其软件、管理结构以及商业模式之内。


But most Chinese bloggers accept this as part of the reality of life in China.	但是，大多数的中国博客们将此接受为中国生活现实的一部分。


They are not willing to fight for greater freedom of speech and are even willing to censor each other in order to preserve what they have.	他们不愿意为更大的言论自由而抗争，甚至愿意相互审查来明哲保身。


Which brings us back to China’s greatest modern writer, Lu Xun.	这样也就把我们带回到中国最伟大的作家鲁迅上。


In 1921, he wrote a biting piece of social criticism, “The True Story of Ah Q,” about a hapless character who adjusts his values to whatever the circumstances and people around him seem to demand.	他在1921年写了一部强烈讽刺社会的小说<<阿Q正传>>。 这部小说的主人公是一个调整自己的价值观以迎合环境以及他人要求的不幸人物。


Unfortunately, faced with a choice between protecting the long-term interests and human rights of their customers and complying with laws implemented by unelected power-holders, technology firms like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google seem to have embraced the Ah Q spirit.	不幸的是，像微软、雅虎以及Google等技术公司在面临保护其客户的长久利益和人权以及遵守由未经选举产生的当权者实施的法律之间作出选择之时，似乎采纳了阿Q精神。


They have made it clear that when it comes to free expression, their priorities lie on the side of surrender.	它们表明，在涉及到自由言论的时候，它们的优先考虑在投降方一边。


In the long run, this does not bode well for their global reputations, which depend on users’ trust in the openness and independence of their products and services.	这些公司的全球性声誉依赖于使用者对其产品和服务的公开性和独立性的信任。 从长远来看，他们这样的做法与其全球性声誉不符。


One day, perhaps, censorship will no longer make good business sense anywhere.	也许会有一天，审查在各处都不再是好的生意手段。


The Great Game’s New Players	大博弈的新玩家


NEW DELHI – Two “great games” currently roil South Asia.	发自新德里——两场“大博弈”最近正在南亚地区隆重上演。


In the West, Afghanistan – and what Henry Kissinger calls “Islamist Jihadists” – challenges the international order.	在西部，阿富汗——以及亨利·基辛格所谓的“伊斯兰圣战者”——正在向国际秩序发起挑战。


In the East, a large number of Chinese troops have entered Pakistani-held territory high in the mountain fastness of the Kashmir Karakorams, in the picturesque Gilgit-Baltistan region, not far from the glacial battlefield of Siachen, where India and Pakistan confront each other.	在东边，大批中国军队已经进驻克什米尔喀喇昆仑山脉巴勒斯坦控制区的高山要塞，而该地位恰好于风景如画的吉尔吉特-巴尔蒂斯坦地区，附近就是印巴相互对峙交火的主战场——锡亚琴冰川。


Senge Hasan Sering, from Skardu, the director of the Gilgit-Baltistan National Congress, believes that the number of Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops now present “could be over 11,000,” as there are also additional “PLA construction corps personnel” deployed.	据吉尔吉特-巴尔蒂斯坦国民大会党主席，来自斯卡杜地区的森吉·哈桑·舍尔林称，目前进入该地区的中国人民解放军“可能超过1万1千人”，还额外部署有“工程兵部队”。


It is here that China is currently investing “billions of dollars in mega projects like expressways, tunnels, and oil and gas pipelines.” This, Sering says, is “surely not on account of any overflowing altruism.”	他还声称中国在该地区投资了“数十亿美元的大型项目，包括高速公路，隧道以及油气管道”，而且“显然不是来无私奉献的”。


The Chinese say that some of their troops are present in Pakistan because of another sort of “overflowing,” of which there has been a great deal in this part of Kashmir and in the rest of Pakistan.	而中国则声称一批部队出现在巴基斯坦是出于另外一种“无私”，对克什米尔地区以及整个巴基斯坦都是有益的。


This year’s heavy monsoon rains have wrought havoc in the area, severing road connections, washing away bridges, and rendering over half a million people homeless in these mountains – without “dwellings, farmlands, moveable assets,” or even “graveyards.”	事实上本年度的强季风雨天气对该地区造成了极大破坏，冲毁了公路和桥梁，并导致山区近50万人无家可归——失去了“住所，农场，动产”，甚至“墓地”。


This is over and above the many thousands in the Hunza region, who in January lost everything on account of a cloudburst that wiped out several villages and created a highly unstable artificial lake.	而且该地的受灾程度比罕萨地区有过之而无不及，在今年1月一场暴雨席卷了罕萨地区，数千人财产尽失，几座村庄惨遭夷平，大雨甚至制造了一个极不稳定的人造湖。


Rudyard Kipling’s old “Great Game” now has new contestants.	由此可见，英国作家鲁德亚德·吉卜林所谓的“大博弈”如今有了新的参与者。


Instead of an expansionist Russian empire confronting Imperial Britain, it is now a China hungry for land, water, and raw materials that is flexing its muscles, encroaching on Himalayan redoubts and directly challenging India.	不过游戏内容已经不再是大肆扩张的俄罗斯帝国与大英帝国之间的较量，而是中国为了获得更多的土地，水源以及原材料，正不断扩张其实力，蚕食喜马拉雅山脉的各个要冲，进而直接挑战印度。


China’s incursion reaffirms the ancient strategic axiom that “geography is the real determinant of history” – and, as a result, of foreign and security policy, too.	而中国的进犯也再次印证了那条古老的战略格言：“地理才是历史的真正决定因素”——并进一步决定着外交和国防政策。


Robert Kaplan wisely observes that “Indian geography is the story of invasions from a northwesterly direction,” and “India’s strategic challenges still inhere in this fact,” which is why Afghanistan, to Indian eyes, is linked to the sub-continent’s history, and thus our future.	罗伯特·卡普兰也英明地观察到“印度的地理就是抵御来自西北方面入侵的历史”而且“当今印度的战略挑战依然与这一事实密切相关”，因此在印度人眼中，阿富汗与次大陆的历史密不可分，甚至决定着印度的未来。


It is also why there exists an “organic connection of India to Central Asia,” the key to that link lying in the Himalayas, which is where the India-China rivalry is currently focused.	与此同时，这也是为何说“印度和中亚之间存在着有机联系”的原因，而这一联系的关键就是喜马拉雅山脉——也正是当前中印对峙的焦点所在。


Fortunately, at least for the present, this rivalry is far less emotional than India-Pakistan relations, having not been born of historical grievances.	幸运的是，至少在现在，这种对峙比印巴冲突更为理性，并未有太多的历史宿怨夹杂其中。


The Chinese urge is to break from the confines of their country’s history, and thus China’s own geography.	中国试图突破本国的历史领土范围，并随之扩张本国的地理。


An assertive and relatively stable China, it seems, must expand, lest pent-up internal pressures tear it apart.	似乎一个自信而相对稳定的中国必须扩张，以免被内部积聚的压力所撕裂。


A strong and stable India, on the other hand, will always be a status quo power.	另一方面，一个强大而稳定的印度从来就是一个现实存在的力量。


It is against this backdrop that the latest contest between India and China must be assessed.	在这种背景下，最近中印之间的斗争必须得到认真对待。


Several thousand PLA troops are indisputably stationed in the Khunjerab Pass on the Xinjiang border to protect the Karakoram Highway, which PLA soldiers are now repairing in several places.	数千名解放军正驻扎于红其拉甫口岸的新疆一侧以保卫喀喇昆仑高速公路，而且正在修理某些路段。


The road, after all, is a vital link in China’s quest for direct access to the Arabian Sea. But this is also Indian territory, wherein lies the rub, for the region is now victim to a creeping China acquisitiveness, with Pakistan acquiescing as a willing accomplice.	虽然这条公路是中国直通阿拉伯海的重要纽带，但这同时也是印度领土，也正是问题的关键所在，目前该地区已经成为中国不断膨胀的欲望的受害者，而巴基斯坦作为帮凶则默许了这一切。


Despite India’s historically established territorial claims to the region, China terms the area “disputed,” a description that it has now begun to extend to the whole of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.	尽管印度历史上一直对该地区拥有主权，但中国却将该地区定义为“争议地区”，并将该定义扩展到整个查谟和克什米尔地区。


This sort of verbal trickery to hide a strategic objective has been seen before.	这种用文字游戏来掩盖战略目标的把戏在从前也曾出现过。


Indeed, some years back, a planned visit to Indian Ladakh by the PLA’s commander of the Lanzhou Military Region was canceled on the grounds that Pakistan had protested – implying that Pakistan had a legitimate claim to the area.	事实上就在数年之前，人民解放军兰州军区高级官员计划对拉达克地区的访问就遭到取消，因为巴基斯坦方面表示反对——暗示巴方对该地区享有合法主权。


It would be a mistake to presume that the vast expansion of trade between India and China, currently worth more than $60 billion annually (with China now India’s largest trading partner), must lead to improved bilateral relations.	而如果认为不断扩大的中印贸易（每年600亿美元，中国已成为印度最大的贸易伙伴）必将令双边关系有所改善的话，那就大错特错了。


Even while trade expands, China is attempting to confine India within greatly foreshortened land and sea borders through its so-called “string of pearls policy.”	即便是在贸易规模扩大之时，中国依然试图通过所谓的“连珠政策”用不断收紧的陆地和海上边界来围堵印度。


This effort to encircle India by sea with strategically positioned naval stations from Hainan in the East to Gwadar in the West, and on land by promoting bogus Pakistani claims that undermine India’s territorial integrity, takes the “Great Game” to a new and more dangerous level.	通过从印度西面的海南岛和东面的瓜达尔港等关键战略位置部署海军基地，并在陆上扶持巴基斯坦虚假的领土主权诉求来破坏印度的领土完整，中国把这场“大博弈”提升到了一个崭新而且危险的高度。


Indeed, the pincer of Afghanistan and Gilgit/Baltistan poses the gravest challenge to India’s statecraft since Independence.	事实上，从阿富汗到吉尔吉特-巴尔蒂斯坦地区形成的夹击之势已经成为了印度自独立以来最为严重的威胁。


More than that, the struggle now underway at the top of the world may well determine whether this will be an “Asian Century” or a “Chinese Century.”	更重要的是，这场位于喜马拉雅山脉世界之巅的斗争将决定未来究竟是“亚洲的世纪”，还是“中国的世纪”。


The Great Global Bargain Hunt	全球捡便宜货大行动


TOKYO – Few recent elections have grabbed world attention in the way that Greece’s vote on June 17 did.	发自东京——很少选举能像7月17日的希腊大选一样吸引了全世界的注意力。


Now that the center-right New Democracy, which finished first, has formed a coalition government with the center-left PASOK and the Democratic Left, the key issue for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s administration is whether it can implement the austerity measures agreed with Greece’s eurozone partners in exchange for continued support from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.	如今，得票最多的中右翼新民主党已经和中左翼的泛希腊社会主义运动党以及左翼民主党组建了联合政府，而关键问题则在于总理安东尼斯·萨马拉斯的政府是否能履行与其他欧元区伙伴协商达成的紧缩措施，从而继续获得世界货币基金组织和欧盟的支持。


The situation remains dangerous – and not only for Greece.	情况依然危急——且不仅限于希腊。


Spain and Italy face the redemption of government bonds valued at €13.2 billion ($16.5 billion) and €17 billion, respectively, in July, with redemptions continuing every month thereafter like an unstoppable tsunami, ensuring continued turmoil in Europe and beyond.	西班牙和意大利在即将到来的7月将分别面对132亿和170亿欧元政府债券的赎回压力，由于往后每月都有新的赎回如海啸般持续涌来，欧洲甚至欧洲以外也将继续陷入混乱。


Given the global menace posed by Europe’s sovereign-debt and banking crises, measures to strengthen the European banking system and encourage fiscal integration gained some momentum at the recent G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.	考虑到由欧洲主权债务和银行危机所引发的全球威胁，巩固欧洲银行系统和鼓励财政整合的措施在最近墨西哥洛斯卡沃斯（Los Cabos）举行的G20峰会上得到了推进。


The summit’s concluding statement declared that countries with ample finances are prepared to provide economic stimulus if growth weakens.	会后发表的声明表明那些资金充裕的国家已经准备好在增长疲弱的情况下提供经济刺激手段。


One result of this promise is that pledges to boost the IMF’s funding have now reached $456 billion. These pledges come on top of the $430 billion expansion of IMF funding that was announced in April, so the Fund should have the financial firepower to act in any crisis – if, that is, the money pledged at the G-20 summit is actually contributed.	该承诺的其中一个成果就是各国声言要将世界货币基金组织的资金规模增加到4560亿美元，而这些声言又是在4月扩张到4300亿美元的基础上做出的，因此该组织也应当有足够能力去应对任何危机——当然是在款项确实到帐了的情况下。


The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), which are all members of the G-20, now account for 43% of the world’s population and 18% its economy.	如今已经是G20成员的金砖五国（巴西、俄罗斯、印度，中国和南非）占据了全世界人口的43%以及经济总量的18%。


Their share of “international responsibility” was revealed at the recent summit: contributions to the IMF of $43 billion by China, $10 billion by Brazil, Russia, and India, and $2 billion by South Africa. Mexico, the G-20’s host, also pledged $10 billion.	它们对“国际责任”的分担也在本次峰会上昭示天下：中国向国际货币基金组织捐助430亿美元，巴西，俄罗斯和印度三国各100亿，南非20亿，而作为主办国的墨西哥也承诺提供100亿美元。


This renewed international cooperation was intended, of course, to protect the global financial system.	当然，这个重新修订了的国际合作本意是保护全球金融系统。


But contributing money also means having a say, and the BRICS – no surprise – are pressing their demand for voting reform in the IMF, and are increasingly offering currency swaps to economically troubled countries.	但捐助资金同时也与话语权有关。 金砖五国——不出意外——也不断施压要求对世界货币基金组织的投票体制进行改革，并逐步与那些经济受灾国进行货币互换。


Various countries, however, are also strengthening their own positions with little regard for the impact of their actions on the international financial system.	然而一些国家也在不断强化其地位，根本不顾自身行为对国际金融系统所产生的影响。


The most active of these countries is, of course, China, which can call upon its vast and still-rising foreign reserves of $3.3 trillion to push its interests in every corner of the globe.	其中最活跃的当然是中国，它不断利用其巨大且不断膨胀的3. 3万亿美元外汇储备去在全球每一个角落实现其利益。


For example, although China has done little to bolster the Greek government’s balance sheet, its active approach to the crisis has been conspicuous.	比如说，虽然中国在帮助希腊政府实现收支平衡方面鲜有建树，但它对希腊危机的积极参与无人不知。


Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Greece in October 2010 and agreed to strengthen cooperation between China and Greece during a meeting with then-Prime Minister George Papandreou – timely support that the weakened Greek government was delighted to receive.	中国总理温家宝于2010年10月访问希腊并与时任希腊总理的乔治·帕潘德里欧会面，同意加强两国合作——这对虚弱的希腊政府来说真是求之不得。


But the form of Chinese support for Greece will likely benefit China far more than Greece in the long term.	但在长期上看，中国对希腊的支持形式为前者带来的好处显然要远大于后者。


Indeed, in an editorial published on June 15, China Daily described Greece as a “gateway” for China into Europe.	事实上，在6月15日英文版中国日报的社论中，希腊被形容为中国进入欧洲的“门户��。


Already, the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) has obtained a 35-year lease to operate the second pier at the port of Piraeus, one of the busiest in the world, for €3.5 billion, and has purchased a truck-loading facility and packaging center in the Piraeus suburbs.	中国远洋运输集团已经以35亿美元的价格获得了希腊比雷埃夫斯港——也是世界最繁忙的港口之一——二号码头35年的租约，并在港口郊外购买了一个货车装载设备以及货物包装中心。


The company has also expressed its intention to acquire 23% of Piraeus Port Authority, and is seeking to lease or acquire ports on the island of Crete.	该集团还希望购买比雷埃夫斯港管理局23%的股份，并试图在克里特岛租赁或者购买一些港口。


Likewise, though COSCO’s bid for the Thessaloniki Container Terminal met local opposition, Chinese investors are in negotiations with the Greek government to acquire a 20-year interest (2026-2046) in Athens International Airport for €500 million.	同样，虽然中国远洋运输集团竞投德萨罗尼基集装箱中心（Thessaloniki Container Terminal）的行动遭到了当地人抵制。 中国投资者依然在与希腊政府展开谈判，希望用5亿欧元购买雅典国际机场20年（2026-2046）的权益。


China may look like a white knight for Greece, which remains mired in fiscal crisis and severe recession; but this was also a perfect chance for China to go bargain hunting around the world.	对深陷财政危机和严重衰退的希腊来说，中国或许看上去像个救苦救难的白衣骑士； 但这同样也是中国在全球捡便宜货的绝佳机会。


So instead of using its vast foreign exchange reserves to bolster the international system, China is picking up strategic assets on the cheap.	因此与其花费庞大外汇储备去巩固国际体系，不如收购廉价战略资产。


Consider Iceland, which suffered bitterly following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.	以2008年9月雷曼兄弟投行崩溃后大受打击的冰岛为例。


An enormous Chinese Embassy has been built in Reykjavik with an eye to improving China’s intelligence about future developments in the Arctic Ocean.	一栋巨大的中国大使馆随之在首都雷克雅未克拔地而起，为中国在北冰洋地区的未来发展收集情报。


And Chinese companies’ land purchases in Iceland have been so extensive as to fuel local paranoia, with some investment plans blocked for fear that they might be a stepping-stone to a Chinese military presence.	中国企业在冰岛大肆收购土地，以致引起了当地人的疑虑，一些投资计划因此遭到搁置，因为当地人担心这些项目将成为中国未来军事存在的垫脚石。


For almost a decade, people have wondered how China would use its gargantuan foreign-exchange reserves, particularly whether it would challenge the supremacy of the dollar.	近十年以来人们一直都在猜想中国会如何使用自身庞大的外汇储备，尤其是会否挑战美元的无上权威。


It now seems clear that China intends to use its foreign reserves to further its own global geopolitical strategy, not to buttress the international system that has enabled its three-decade boom.	如今看来中国显然是想利用这些储备去推进其全球地缘政治战略，而不是巩固支撑了其三十年繁荣发展的国际体系。


As governments and citizens around the world become aware of the influence that China can buy with its deep pockets, is an anti-Chinese backlash inevitable?	随着世界各国政府和人民越来越意识到中国可以用自己巨大的财富买来影响力之时，一场反华运动是否已经无法避免？


Or have some countries been so scarred by the financial crisis that they don’t care where their next meal ticket comes from?	或许某些国家已经被金融危机吓破了胆，抱着一种有奶便是娘的心态？


Time will tell, but there is a danger that Chinese hubris is beginning to extend to global finance.	时间将说明一切，但最危险的莫过于中国的霸道行径已经开始渗入到了全球金融领域之中。


The Great Illusion	最大的错觉


The saddest of the books on my office bookshelf is an old one published nearly a century ago: Norman Angell's The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage , which tried to prove that military conquest was obsolete.	摆放在我办公室书架上最令人伤感的著作是诺曼·安格尔的一部老书，出版于近一个世纪前，书名是《最大的错觉：研究国家军事实力与经济社会发展状况之间的联系》。 这部著作中，安格尔试图说明武力征服是多么荒诞。


Angell's argument was simple: in all prolonged modern industrial wars, everybody loses.	安格尔的论据很简单：在所有迁延日久的现代工业战争中，人人都是输家。


Losers lose the most, but winners also are worse off than if peace had been maintained.	战败的一方输得最惨，即便战胜方状况也远逊于和平时期。


Many fathers, sons, and husbands are dead, and so are many mothers, wives, and daughters.	很多父亲、儿子和丈夫抛尸荒野，母亲、妻子和女儿也未能例外。


Much wealth has been blown up. Much architecture has been turned into rubble.	无数的财富烟消云散，建筑变成一片废墟。


Confiscation damages the rule of law on which modern industrial prosperity rests.	财产充公破坏了现代工业繁荣赖以存在的法治基础。


The most that even the winners can say is that they are little losers rather than big losers.	即便是战胜的一方，顶多就以小输家而非大输家来聊以自慰。


Modern industrial war is, as the computer in the 1982 movie War Games put it, a very peculiar game: "The only way to win is not to play."	现代工业战争正如1982年电影《战争游戏》中计算机所说的那样，是一场非常独特的游戏："唯一的获胜方法就是不要开始。 "


At the time that Angell wrote, some people argued that war was an important means to promote national prosperity; that commercial prosperity was the fruit of military power.	就在安格尔撰写著作的同时，有人主张战争是促进国家繁荣的重要手段，商业繁荣是军事力量结出的硕果。


Angell puzzled over how pre-WWI pan-German politicians could believe that German prosperity required a big battle fleet when the absence of one made no difference to the prosperity of Norway, Denmark, or Holland.	令安格尔倍感困惑的是：一次大战前泛德联盟的政治家为什么会认定德国的繁荣需要庞大的军事力量作后盾，而军力的薄弱并未影响到挪威、丹麦或荷兰等国保持繁荣昌盛。


He looked forward to the coming of an age of rational statesmanship, when every prime minister and foreign minister would recognize that regardless of the matter in dispute, binding arbitration between nations was a better strategy than war.	他渴望理性治政时代的到来，让所有的首相和外相都认识到：无论引起纷争的事件多么重要，各国之间的联合仲裁永远是比战争更好的解决方法。


He was, of course, right in his judgment that the only way to prevent any modern industrial war from becoming a destructive tragedy for all was to quickly conclude a ceasefire.	安格尔认为阻止现代工业战争变成毁灭性人类悲剧的唯一方法是尽早实现停火，这种观点的正确性勿庸置疑。


Governments that view aggressive war as a means to prosperity have been rare since the end of World War I: the Imperial Japanese government that launched World War II in the Pacific and Saddam Hussein's two grabs for oilfields are examples that spring immediately to mind.	一次大战后，将侵略战争视作繁荣之道的政府已日渐稀少：在太平洋发动二次大战的日本帝国主义和两度侵占油田的萨达姆·侯赛因是立即映入脑海的两个实例。


In one sense, governments have learned the lesson Norman Angell preached.	某种意义上，各国政府已经认可了诺曼·安格尔所持的观点。


But what makes The Great Illusion the saddest book on my office bookshelf is that we have found other reasons to fight wars, and the years since Angell wrote his book have seen the most terrible and bloody wars ever.	但我们又找到了发动战争的其它理由，安格尔著作问世后的这些年发生了有史以来最为血腥、恐怖的战争，使《最大的错觉》成了我办公室书架上最为可悲的著作。


We have fought wars to preserve colonial domination and wars to end it. We have seen civil wars.	我们发动战争来保持和结束对殖民地的占领，还有形形色色的内战和意识形态之争。


We have seen ideological wars. We have seen wars of extermination like the one that Hitler and the Nazis waged against not just Jews and Gypsies, but Poles and Russians.	这期间还爆发了希特勒和纳粹党徒针对犹太人、吉普赛人、波兰人和俄国人的灭绝之战，还有种族冲突和用战争阻止政府杀戮本国平民。


We have seen ethnic wars and wars fought to make governments stop killing their citizens. Indeed, we have seen more religious wars than at any time since the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648.	事实上，自从1648年德国三十年战争后，为宗教发动的战争比任何时候都多。


Yet there is cause for hope.	但我们有理由期盼。


From the pro-consulate of Julius Caesar until 1945, there was most likely at least one army crossing or about to cross or thinking of crossing the Rhine in arms. Now there are none.	从优利乌斯·恺撒建立专职执政官制度到1945年，很可能有不只一支军队越过或试图越过莱茵河，现在却一支也没有。


A little more than a century and a half ago the United States appeared willing to go to war with the world's only superpower of the time to try to turn Vancouver, British Columbia, into a city ruled from Washington, D.C. rather than from Ottawa or London.	大约一个半世纪前，美国似乎决定与当时全球唯一的超级大国交战，将英属哥伦比亚的温哥华变成由华盛顿，而非渥太华或伦敦控制的城市。


Vancouver is a lovely city, and I would love to have the voters of British Columbia inside the US, because I think they would add much health to the American electorate.	温哥华是个美丽的城市，我更想得到英属哥伦比亚选民的支持，因为他们会使美国的选举制度更为健康。


But nobody thinks that idea worth fighting a war over.	但没有人值得为此打仗。


A century ago, a French politician was no more likely to advocate peace and detente with Germany than a modern Arab politician is likely to advocate peace and detente with Israel.	100年前，法国政治家不太可能向德国民众宣扬缓解与和平，正如现代阿拉伯政治家不可能在以色列面前宣讲上述内容一样。


Academic foreign policy "realists" (who somehow strike me as not a very realistic bunch) attributed the end of Franco-German antagonism to the fact that they had something bigger to be scared of: Russia, which was terrifying under Stalin, frightening under Khrushchev, and worrisome under Brezhnev.	学院派外交政策的所谓"现实主义者"（虽然在我看来他们并不现实）将法德对抗的结束归因于害怕共同的强大敌人：俄国。 这个国家在斯大林统治下极度恐怖，赫鲁晓夫时代令人惧怕，勃列日涅夫时代则令人担忧。


Let the Cold War end, they said, and then we will see France and Germany begin to rattle their sabers again, for that is the tragedy of international power politics.	冷战一旦结束，学者们信誓旦旦，我们就会看到法德两国再度开始拼杀，因为这是国际强权政治注定的悲剧。


Yet the Cold War has been over for fifteen years, and military conflict between France and Germany today seems as unlikely as military conflict between America and Canada.	但冷战结束已经15年了，而法德两国冲突的可能性就像美加两国一样微乎其微。


I hope that it is the fact of European interdependence - an interdependence carefully constructed by Jean Monnet, Robert Schumann, Konrad Adenauer, and those who followed in their footsteps - and not the memory of the horror of World War II that has caused the armies that used to cross the Rhine in arms to vanish.	我希望是Jean Monnet、Robert Schumann、Konrad Adenauer及其后继者们审慎建立的欧洲国家间的相互依赖，而不是二次大战留下的恐怖记忆让武装越过莱茵河的军队消失得无影无踪。


If so, there is a chance that the globalized economic age to which we look forward will be a more peaceful age than the twentieth century was.	如果确���如此，那么我们一直企盼的全球化经济时代就有可能比20世纪更为和平。


If not, then Angell may well continue to be as irrelevant as he was right.	否则的话，安格尔阐发的真理就将继续被束之高阁。


The Ghost of Inflation Future	未来的通胀幽灵


DIJON – With all of the problems afflicting the world economy nowadays, inflation seems to be the least of our worries.	第戎—眼下，在困扰世界经济的诸多问题中，通货膨胀似乎是最不令人担心的一个。


In addressing the post-2008 economic malaise, which stems from over-indebtedness, policymakers are correct to focus on the threat of debt deflation, which can lead to depression.	2008年以降的经济困境来源于过度负债，在解决这一问题的过程中，决策者正确地将精力集中在可能导致萧条的债务通缩危险。


But dismissing inflation as “yesterday’s problem” could undermine central banks’ efforts to address today’s most pressing issues – and, ultimately, facilitate inflation’s resurgence.	但将通胀视为“昨天的问题”而不予关注不利于央行解决当今最紧迫的问题，也将最终助长通胀的卷土重来。


Understanding how the Great Inflation from the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s was tamed offers important lessons for addressing far-reaching economic problems, however different ours may be, and provides insight into the dangers that may lie ahead.	理解20世纪60年代末到80年代初的大通胀如何是解决的能为解决重大经济问题提供重要教训（不管我们现在所处的时代已有了多大的不同），也能为未来所面临的的危险提供洞见。


The first useful lesson concerns expectations.	第一个有益教训与预期有关。


In the decades following World War II, the doctrine that inflation needed to be traded off against employment – based on the relationship that William Phillips described in 1958 – dominated economic thinking.	在二战结束后的几十年中，需要在通胀和就业之间进行权衡的思想——其基础是威廉·菲利普斯（William Phillips）1958年提出的关系——主宰着经济思想界。


But the Phillips curve fared poorly in the 1970’s, when many countries experienced “stagflation” (high levels of both inflation and unemployment).	但菲利普斯曲线在20世纪70年代表现不佳，当时许多国家经历了“滞涨”（高通胀和高失业并存）。


This vindicated criticism by Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps, among others, who had already begun to argue that the Phillips curve represented merely a short-term relationship.	这证明了米尔顿·弗里德曼和埃德蒙·菲尔普斯（Edmund Phelps）及其他人的批评，他们开始指出，菲利普斯曲线只代表了短期关系。


If people do not expect inflation, the illusion of increased purchasing power can boost employment and output for a relatively short period.	如果人们没有通胀预期，那么购买力增加的幻觉能在相对较短的时期提振就业和产出。


But once workers realize that real wages have not increased, unemployment will return to its “natural” level consistent with stable inflation.	但当工人意识到真实工资并未增加时，失业会回到与稳定通胀一致的“自然”水平。


Later, “new classical” economists like Robert Lucas and Thomas Sargent demonstrated that once people understand that inflation is being manipulated to generate market optimism, the monetary authorities’ actions lose their impact.	随后，罗伯特·卢卡斯（Robert Lucas）和托马斯·萨金特（Thomas Sargent）等“新古典”经济学家证明，如果人们明白了通胀被操纵以形成市场乐观，那么货币当局的行动将不再有影响。


The result is higher prices and no job creation.	结果是更高的价格和不存在的就业创造。


These ideas, combined with effective policy practice like that of the US Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker’s chairmanship, led many countries worldwide toward more explicit inflation targeting, in which central banks stabilize inflation expectations by making a credible commitment to a predetermined rate of price growth.	这思想与有效政策实践（比如保罗·沃克尔（Paul Volcker）任主席期间美联储的政策）一起，让很多国家制定了更明确通胀目标——央行通过可信承诺预先确定价格增长率，以此稳定通胀预期。


By the 1990’s, inflation was old news in the advanced economies, with much of the developing world soon to follow.	20世纪90年代，通胀已不再是发达经济体的新闻，很多发展中国家也随之跟进。


Today, the Fed is again playing the expectations game.	如今，美联储再一次玩起了预期游戏。


But, in order to stave off the threat of deflation and depression, it is targeting a lower unemployment rate, below 6.5%.	但是，为了抑制通缩和萧条的危险，美联储制定了更低的目标失业率——不到6. 5%。


As progress toward that target is made, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced in late May, the Fed will begin to “taper” its program of long-term asset purchases known as quantitative-easing (QE).	随着这一目标的越来越近，美联储主席伯南克在5月底时声称美联储将开始“减弱”其长期资产购买计划，即所谓的量化宽松（QE）。


That prospect has already sparked renewed financial-market volatility.	这一前景已然重新激起了金融市场动荡。


In July, Bernanke attempted to calm investors with remarks signaling that, amid inadequate employment gains and persistently low inflation, the Fed would not abandon monetary stimulus anytime soon.	7月，试图稳定投资者的伯南克放风说，由于就业改善不充分和持续的低通胀，美联储近期不会退出货币刺激。


This stance reflects the Fed’s dual mandate, according to which monetary policy targets maximum employment consistent with price stability.	这一立场体现了美联储的双重使命——货币政策的目标是就业最大化与价格稳定兼容。


But the credibility needed to anchor expectations is difficult – sometimes even impossible – to achieve when two targets are being pursued simultaneously.	但锚定预期所需要的信誉在同时追求这两大目标时很难——有时甚至不可能——获得。


The resulting uncertainty could trigger more volatility, especially in bond markets, potentially impeding economic recovery (for example, by pushing up long-term mortgage rates) or augmenting future inflation risk.	由此造成的不确定性可能引发更大的波动，特别是在债券市场，并可能阻碍经济复苏（比如通过推高长期按揭利率）或增加未来通胀风险。


By contrast, the credibility associated with pursuing only an inflation target builds on itself.	相反，与仅追求通胀目标有关的信誉可以自动产生。


Given this, it would be safer and more effective for the Fed and other central banks to pursue a single inflation target, and then use the gain in credibility to aid economic recovery.	基于此，美联储和其他央行更安全、更有效的做法是追求单一通胀目标，然后用赢得的信誉助推经济复苏。


For example, a central bank might announce that circumstances during, say, the next two years warrant a doubling of the inflation target from the usual – that is, almost never varied – annual rate of 2%.	比如，央行可以宣布（比如）今后两年的环境可以保证通胀目标较平常水平——即每年2%，几乎一成不变——提高一倍。


Such an approach would reduce the risk of debt deflation, while capping inflation expectations to prevent a damaging surge in prices as recovery takes hold.	如此将减少债务通缩的风险，同时遏制通胀预期以防止随着复苏的稳定而出现价格的破坏性大涨。


Such preventive measures are all the more important in view of the Great Inflation’s second relevant lesson: fiscal discipline is essential to price stability.	从大通胀的第二个相关教训看，这一套预防性措施尤其重要。 财政纪律是价格稳定的关键。


Sustaining a high budget deficit over many years will lead to an unmanageable debt buildup, unless that debt is inflated away or restructured.	在多年间维持高水平预算赤字会导致不可治理的债务堆积，除非债务可以通过通胀贬值或被重组。


As it stands, the United States – and presumably the United Kingdom – plans to begin tapering QE when the economy is growing faster, unemployment is lower, and government and household revenues are rising.	事实表明，美国——大概还有英国——计划在经济增长加速、失业下降、政府和家庭收入增加时减弱QE。


But will tax revenues rise fast enough to offset the escalating cost of servicing the government’s mountain of debt?	但税收收入增长速度赶得上如山积的政府债务的利息增长吗？


Even if public debt is not growing as fast as before, the huge volume of existing debt must be repaid.	即便公债增长不如从前那样快，巨大的存量债务也必须偿还。


The best cure would be controlled higher inflation – that is, the aforementioned temporary increase in the inflation target – to erode the real value of public debt and forestall the risk of a much more damaging inflationary shock later, one in which expectations become unhinged.	最佳解决办法是有控制的高通胀——即上面所提到的临时性提高通胀目标——以减少公债的实际价值、切断日后发生伤害更大的通胀性冲击（此时预期将完全错乱）的风险。


But, while this approach could work in the US, the European Central Bank is institutionally constrained from raising the inflation target.	但是，尽管这一方法可能在美国奏效，但欧洲央行存在制度性约束，无法提高通胀目标。


Although its pledge last August to purchase unlimited quantities of short-term government debt has calmed markets, activation of the ECB’s “outright monetary transactions” program is conditional on continued fiscal retrenchment.	尽管去年8月欧洲央行通过承诺购买无限量短期政府债务稳定了市场，但激活欧洲央行的“直接货币交易”计划必须以持续财政紧缩为条件。


So the eurozone’s crisis-stricken economies cannot grow.	因此，欧元区危机经济体无法增长。


In this context, the eurozone’s most heavily indebted countries will have to force their creditors to accept a restructuring of public debt.	在这样的环境下，欧元区债务最沉重的国家将不得不迫使债权人接受公债重组。


The preferable alternative would be growth-boosting devaluations – that is, a eurozone breakup.	更受欢迎的替代方案是增长提振型贬值，即欧元区的崩溃。


But if, as seems likely, such devaluations are left too late, debt restructuring might still be needed.	但是，如果这样的贬值（看起来有可能发生）来得太晚，债务重组可能仍必须进行。


In the coming years, Europe appears set to lurch from the frying pan of depression to the fire of high inflation.	在未来几年中，欧洲有可能经历从萧条到高通胀的过山车。


When it does, the lessons of the Great Inflation will suddenly be all too pertinent.	果真如此的话，大通胀的教训实在是太有意义了。


The Great Man Syndrome	伟人综合症


In our globalized age, vast impersonal forces are supposed to determine events.	在我们这个全球化的时代，许多事情本应该有巨大的非人力决定。


Globalized markets, unfettered trade, militant Islam, China’s awakening: these are the things historians and strategists usually portray as the key forces shaping our destiny.	全球化的市场、自由贸易、武装伊斯兰和中国的觉醒：这些都被历史学家和战略家们描述为决定我们命运的关键力量。


But most people don’t see things this way.	但大多数人却并不这么看。


Instead, most people still instinctively look at “great men” as the agents of history, the men (and women) who seem to forge events through their political vision, personal charisma, and the force of their moral claims.	大多数人仍然本能地将“伟人”看成是历史的代理人，这些男人（和女人们）似乎是通过他们的政治远见、个人魅力和道德力量来造就时势。


By sheer force of conviction and personality, such figures, many of us believe, can carry the day, bringing a glimmer of hope to an otherwise detached and impersonal universe.	我们许多人都相信，这些人物只需运用他们的说服力和人格力量就能推动时代，并为我们这个（如若不然）疏离而非人化的世界带来些许希望。


This yearning for providential men or women in our global age results from at least three factors.	在我们这个全球化的时代里，人们对天赐男女伟人的渴望至少是由三个因素造成的。


The first concerns the complexity and vulnerability of our world.	第一个是有关于我们这个世界的复杂性和脆弱性。


The second, paradoxically, reflects our growing cynicism towards politics and politicians.	第二个，颇为荒谬的是，反映了我们对政治和政客们日益的蔑视。


And the third is the result of our media culture, obsessed as it is with putting a “face” to events.	第三个则是传媒文化使然。 传媒总是痴迷于为各种事件安上一副“面孔”。


Confronted with the problem of bringing about positive changes in a domestic or international environment that seems to defy the power of “normal” leaders, one looks for new Alexanders to untie the “Gordian knot” and transcend complexity by sheer force of will and dynamism.	给国内或国际环境带来积极的变革似乎是“普通”领导人们力所不及的。 面对这样的困境，人们开始寻找新的“亚历山大大帝（们）”。


For example, structural reforms in Europe are thought impossible to enact unless imposed by some reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher.	他们能够解开“戈尔迪之结”，并只需通过意愿和干劲的力量就能化解难题。 例如，人们认为没有一个玛格丽特•撒切尔化身般的领导人，欧洲的结构性改革就无法实施。


In the Middle East, everyone waits for a new Anwar Sadat to arise among the Arabs.	在中东，所有人都在期待一位萨达特式的伟人出现。


Disillusion with politics and politicians also is a key element of our yearning for providential leaders.	对政治和政客感到幻灭，也是令我们期待天赐领袖的重要原因。


In France for example, the overly flattering commemoration of President François Mitterrand’s death ten years ago primarily reflects widespread disillusion with his successor, Jacques Chirac.	例如在法国，人们对十年前去世的密特朗总统的过度夸张的缅怀，首先就反映出大众对其继任者希拉克普遍存在的幻灭情绪。


Indirect criticism of the present is usually a key element in idealized views of the past.	对现任总统的间接批评通常是对过往的理想化看法中的重要元素。


The less we expect from a “normal” politician, the more we look for a hero.	我们对“普通”的政客期望值越低，就越想要寻找英雄。


With the world becoming a global stage, the media’s role in fueling the appetite for providential leaders is essential.	随着世界日益成为一个全球性的舞台，传媒在提高人们对天赐领袖的胃口方面扮演着至关重要的角色。


The public demands quick answers to complex problems that, unsolved, risk endangering the planet.	公众要求对复杂的问题要有迅捷的答案。 这些问题如果解决不好就可能危及到我们这个星球。


They need figures with whom they can identify, immediately recognize, and, above all, trust.	他们需要能信任、有认同感和醒目的领袖人物。


The emergence of an embryonic “world civil society” heightens demand for universal and charismatic figures, holding out the hope of global accountability, but also carrying populist overtones.	初具雏形的“世界公民社会”的出现，提升了人们对世界性和富有魅力的领袖人物的需求。 这样的人物不仅满足人们对全球性责任的希望，还带有浓厚的平民色彩。


In a world searching for providential leaders, the case of Ariel Sharon is both symbolic and paradoxical, for this universal man remains one of the most controversial figures of recent decades.	在这个极力寻求天赐领袖的世界中，沙龙的例子颇具象征意义，同时也充满了矛盾。 因为在过去几十年以来，这位世界性的人物一直是最具争议的领导人之一。


He has become a nearly revered figure in his country, and large segments of Western public opinion believe that his political demise represents a potentially fatal blow to any hope of progress in the region, even as he remains hated in large parts of the Arab and Muslim world.	他在自己的国家已成为一位被近乎神化的人物。 虽然他在大部分阿拉伯和穆斯林世界遭到仇恨，但相当部分的西方公众还是认为他的政治禅让可能会使该地区（和平）进程的希望遭到致命一击。


Sharon’s transformation from villain to hero within the space of a mere few years is a source of fascination for his people, the region, and the world – all the more so because his ultimate intentions will remain a subject of endless dispute among historians tomorrow and among politicians claiming to be his faithful heirs today.	沙龙在短短数年里从恶棍到英雄的转变引起他的人民、中东地区和全世界的遐想—由于他的最终意图仍会是引发未来的历史学家和当今自称为他的忠实追随者们无休止争论的主题，所以这种遐想还会进一步升温。


Was Sharon really convinced by demographers that the “Great Israel” that once seemed to be his dream would actually mean the end of a Jewish State, or did his disengagement strategy of “Gaza first” really mean “Gaza last”?	沙龙真的被人口统计学家们说服了，认为自己一度追求的“大以色列”梦想意味着犹太国家的终结吗？ 抑或他的“加沙第一”的脱离战略实际上意味着“加沙最末”？


For those who support one or the other reading, Sharon will forever hold the benefit of the doubt.	不论人们支持那种理解，对沙龙而言，永远是疑狱从轻（benefit of the doubt）。


That Sharon’s stroke could be compared – in terms of political consequences – with the assassination of Yitzak Rabin demonstrates that his personality had become associated with hope and security.	沙龙中风在政治后果方面足以和拉宾遇刺相提并论，足见其人格已经和希望与安全关联起来。


The “bulldozer” had become the grandfather of most Israelis and the last card of Western diplomacy, for Americans and, surprisingly, for Europeans, too.	这部“推土机”已经成为大多数以色列人的祖父，和西方外交的最后一张牌—对于意料之外的美国人和意料之中的欧洲人都是如此。


He alone seemed to incarnate the combination of reassuring strength and vision to carry the majority of Israelis behind him in a process of unilateral disengagement.	他单枪匹马似乎就足以成为强大的安慰力量和背负以色列人实施单边脱离的愿景的化身。


In fact, one may wonder if the world has made of Sharon a providential man because it wanted so much to believe that there was still “hope around the corner” in the Middle East.	实际上，人们可能会追问世界是否因为渴望相信中东“仍有一线希望”所以才造就了沙龙这样的天赐伟人？


Was this wishful thinking or self-fulfilling prophecy?	这究竟是痴心妄想还是自我实现的预言？


We will never know.	我们将不得而知。


What is certain is that the vacuum left by Sharon’s departure from politics is all the more striking in view of the images of chaos emerging from the Gaza that Israel has vacated, and the collapse of the Palestinian authority before our eyes.	可以确认的是，在以色列撤离之后加沙出现的混乱景象和巴勒斯坦权力当局在我们眼前的崩溃使得人们更为真切地感受到了沙龙退出政坛以后留下的真空。


Nor will the emergence of another providential figure come easily.	而下一位天赐人物的出现并非易事。


Not all exceptional periods create their Bonapartes, and this is probably a good thing, for exceptional leaders may give the illusion that all problems have solutions, which is far from true.	并非所有的非常时势都会造就拿破仑式的英雄。 这也许不失为一件好事，因为非常领袖们可能会造成一种所有问题都有解决之道的幻象，而现实决非如此。


The natural course of history in the most optimistic sense is progress “at the margin,” but the rapid pace of technological change is pushing us to expect equally rapid progress in human affairs.	从最乐观的角度看，历史的自然进程也只是“点滴”进步，但技术变革的日新月异让我们期望人事也能快速进展。


Many of us believe that such an impossible wager can be fulfilled only by a providential man, with all the hopes – and dangers – that this entails.	我们许多人深信这种不可能的赌注只能由引发一切希望和危险的天赐伟人来实现。


The Great Organ Bazaar	大型器官集市


LUND, SWEDEN – The Web site 88DB.com Philippines is an active online portal that allows service providers and consumers to find and interact with each other.	瑞典德隆——菲律宾网站88DB. com为供需双方互相联络提供了活跃的在线门户。


Naoval, an Indonesian man with “AB blood type, no drugs and no alcohol,” wants to sell his kidney.	印尼人Naoval“AB血型，不吸烟不喝酒”，想要出售自己的肾脏。


Another man says, “I am a Filipino.	还有人说，“我是菲律宾人。


I am willing to sell my kidney for my wife.	我想为我的妻子卖肾。


She has breast cancer and I can’t afford her medications.”	她身患乳癌，我没钱为她治疗。


Then there is Enrique, who is “willing to donate my kidney for an exchange.	”此外还有“希望互换捐肾的恩里克，21岁，身体健康。


21 years old and healthy.”	”


Other offers of this type could, just a few years ago, be found at www.liver4you.org, which promised kidneys for $80,000-$110,000.	就在几年前，此类信息可以在www. liver4you.


The costs of the operation, including the fees of the surgeons – licensed in the United States, Great Britain, or the Philippines – would be included in the price.	org上找到，该网站肾源标价从80，000－11，000美元不等。 此报价包含手术费用，负责手术的外科医生在美、英或菲律宾有行医执照。


All of this Internet activity is but the tip of the iceberg of a new and growing global human-tissue economy.	所有这些网络活动不过是全球人类组织经济新兴并不断壮大的冰山一角。


Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that about 10% of organ transplants around the world stem from purely commercial transactions.	事实上，国际卫生组织（WHO）估计纯商业交易约占全球器官移植约10%的份额。


Trade in organs follows a clear, geographically linked pattern: people from rich countries buy the organs, and people in poor countries sell them.	器官交易表现出明显的地域模式：富国民众购买器官，穷国民众出售。


In my research on organ trafficking, I have entered some of these shadow markets, where body parts from the poor, war victims, and prisoners are commodities, bought or stolen for transplant into affluent ill people.	在对器官买卖的调查中，我进入到某些影子市场，穷人、战争受害者和犯人的身体器官在这里成为商品，通过买卖或盗窃等方式移植到富有的患者身上。


One woman, originally from Lebanon, told me that a wealthy businessman from Spain paid a huge sum for her kidney.	一位黎巴嫩女人告诉我一名西班牙富商曾出巨资购买她的肾脏。


In the end, however, she received no monetary payment.	但最终她一分钱也没有拿到。


Today, her life is much worse than before, because medical complications following the operation make it difficult for her to work.	今天她的生活比过去困难得多，因为术后并发症令她无法出去工作。


Similar stories are told by organ vendors I have met from the former Soviet states, the Middle East, and Asia.	类似的遭遇也在前苏联、中东和亚洲的器官供体中延续着。


Organ trafficking depends on several factors.	器官买卖取决于若干因素。


One is people in distress.	其一是贫困民众。


They are economically or socially disadvantaged, or live in war-torn societies with prevalent crime and a thriving black market.	他们的经济或社会地位低下，或者在犯罪横行、黑市活跃并饱受战争蹂躏的社会中生活。


On the demand side are people who are in danger of dying unless they receive an organ transplant.	需求方则除非接受器官移植，否则可能就此死亡。


Additionally, there are organ brokers who arrange the deals between sellers and buyers.	此外还有器官经纪人，负责撮合买卖双方成交。


It is also necessary to have access to well-equipped clinics and medical staff.	设备精良的诊所和医务人员也同样重要。


Such clinics can be found in many countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Ukraine, South Africa, and the Philippines.	伊朗、巴基斯坦、南非和菲律宾等很多国家都可以找到这样的诊所。


Indeed, the Philippines is well known as a center of the illegal organ trade and a “hot spot” for transplant tourism.	实际上，菲律宾是著名的非法器官交易中心和移植游的“热点目标”。


From the 1990’s until 2008 (when a new policy was adopted), the number of transplantations involving organ sales by Filipinos to foreign recipients increased steadily.	从20世纪90年代到2008年（新政出台），涉及菲律宾人和外国受体的器官出售移植量一直在稳步提高。


Many organ sellers from Israel, for example, were, together with their buyers, brought to Manila for the transplants.	比方说，很多以色列器官卖主与买主一道前往马尼拉接受移植手术。


Hector is one of the several hundred cases of kidney vendors documented by social workers in three impoverished towns in the Philippines’ Quezon province.	赫克托尔是社工记录在案的菲律宾奎松省三个贫困城镇数百位肾脏供体的代表。


His brother was trapped in Malaysia with high debts to criminal gangs, so Hector sold his kidney in order to buy his freedom.	他的兄弟在马来西亚欠下犯罪团伙的巨额债务，赫克托尔因此出卖肾脏，以此来换取兄弟的自由。


Another vendor, Michel, became a broker himself; after selling one of his kidneys to pay for his father’s medicines, the surgeon forced him to deliver more organs.	另一名卖主米歇尔自己也成为器官贩子，他在替父治病卖掉一个肾脏后，主刀医生逼迫他提供更多器官。


The vendors’ organs were transplanted to recipients mainly from the Philippines, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.	卖方器官主要提供给来自菲律宾、以色列、日本、韩国和沙特等国的接受者。


Trade in humans and their bodies is not a new phenomenon, but today’s businesses are historically unique, because they require advanced biomedicine, as well as ideas and values that enhance the trade in organs.	人类器官交易古已有之，但今天的情况因为现代生物医学和推动器官交易的思想和价值观的介入而变得与众不同。


Western medicine starts from the view that human illness and death are failures to be combated.	人类疾病和死亡可以修复的观点构成了西方医学的基础。


It is within this conceptual climate – the dream of the regenerative body – that transplantation technology develops and demand for biological replacement parts grows.	正是在这样的理念氛围（身体再生梦想）中，移植技术不断发展，对生物替代器官的需求也在不断增加。


One of the more obvious manifestations of treating the human body as a resource to be mined is the hospital waiting list, used in many countries.	将人体视为待发掘资源的一个明显表现是很多国家采用的医院候诊名单制度。


A man I interviewed recently for a study of Swedes who had been on the waiting list, but who decided to purchase kidneys abroad, described to me his trip to Pakistan for the transplant: “I’m not the kind of man who uses other people, but I had to.	在一项针对候诊瑞典人的研究中一位男子刚刚接受了我的采访，他最终决定到国外购买器官，并向我讲述了到巴基斯坦接受移植的经过：“我并不愿意利用别人，但我别无选择。


I had to choose between dying and getting back my life!”	我必须在死亡和生存两者之间进行抉择！ ”


In an era of transplants on demand, there is no way around this dilemma.	在按需移植的时代，根本无法避开这样的困境。


The biological imperatives that guide the priority system of transplant waiting lists are easily transformed into economic values.	决定移植候诊名单顺序的生物必要性很容易转变为经济价值。


As always where demand exceeds supply, people may not accept waiting their turn – and other countries and other peoples’ bodies give them the alternative they seek.	就像求大于供时总会出现的情况一样，人们不愿乖乖排队等候——而其他国家其他人的身体为他们提供了所需的选择。


The Great Real Estate Bust of 2008	2008年的房地产大萧条


NEW HAVEN – What brought on the collapse of home prices in 2008 that is the root of the financial crisis now enveloping much of the world?	纽黑文－是什么在2008年引起住房价格崩溃的呢？ 这种崩溃是现在席卷世界许多地区的金融危机的根源。


Home prices in the United States, as measured by the Standard ampamp; Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, have plummeted more than 40% in real inflation-adjusted terms in some major cities since the peak around the beginning of 2006.	以标准普尔/Case-Shiller房价指数计量的美国住房价格显示，一些美国主要城市的住房价格大约在2006年年初到达顶峰之后，在调整通货膨胀后实际上已经下跌 超过了40％。


Nationally, including all cities, the fall is over 25%.	就包括所有城市的美国全国范围而言，下跌已经超过了25%。


The futures market at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is now predicting declines of around 15% more before the prices bottom out in 2010.	芝加哥商业交易所期货市场预测，在2010年房价见底之前，还要再跌大约15％。


These are the market’s forecasts – and it is not a very liquid market.	这些只是市场预测——而且房地产市场不是一个流动性非常好的市场。


But those who make these forecasts are implying real declines, from peak to trough, of more than 50% in some places.	但是，做出这些预测的人暗示，在有些地区，房价从最高点到谷底有超过50％的真正下跌。


Why are we seeing such big price drops?	为什么我们会看到如此大的价格下跌呢？


And why does the housing market in so many other countries now reflect similar conditions?	为什么现在很多其他国家的房地产市场也出现了类似的情况呢？


The answer has both proximate and underlying causes.	引起这些问题的原因既有近因，也有潜在的原因。


The proximate answer for the US is that a decline in lending standards helped people buy houses at ever-increasing prices before 2006.	对美国来说，住房价格下跌的近因是，在2006年之前，贷款标准的降低使人们在房价不断上涨的情况下买房。


Freer lending meant that people were freer to bid up prices of homes to ridiculous levels.	更宽松的贷款意味着人们可以更容易地将房价推高到荒谬的水平。


Shacks were selling for a million dollars.	简陋的小房子都卖到了一百万美元一套。


After the peak, lenders tightened their standards.	在房价到达最高点后，贷款人严格了其贷款标准。


When buyers find it difficult to finance home purchases, sellers have to cut the asking price.	当买房的人发现很难为买房筹到钱时，卖房的人就不得不降低要价了。


The up and down of lending represents a credit cycle, and credit cycles have played a major role in economic fluctuations for centuries.	贷款的这种变化代表了一个信贷周期，而信贷周期在几个世纪来的经济波动中，扮演了重要的角色。


In his 1873 book  Lombard Street , Walter Bagehot, the British businessman and editor of  The Economist , described these cycles perfectly.	在其1873年的作品《伦巴第街》中，英国商人兼《经济学家》的编辑沃尔特·白芝浩( Walter Bagehot)，完美地描述了这种周期。


The boom just before the depression of the 1870’s that he described sounds a lot like what happened just before the current crisis.	他所描述的19世纪70年代萧条之前的繁荣，听起来和当前危机爆发之前发生的事情非常相像。


When credit expands, he wrote, “The certain result is a bound of national prosperity; the country leaps forward as if by magic.	他写道，当信贷扩张时， “肯定的结果是国家繁荣的提升； 国家像是被施了魔法一样向前跃进。


But only part of that prosperity has a solid reason…this prosperity is precarious.”	但是，这种繁荣中只有一部分具有坚实的理由…它是不稳定的。 ”


But the credit cycle was not the ultimate cause of the 1870’s depression or the crisis we are seeing today.	但是，信贷周期不是19世纪70年代萧条的根本原因，也不是我们今天看到的危机的根本原因。


Ultimately, one must always ask why lending standards were loosened and then tightened.	最终，人们肯定总是会问，为什么会放松贷款标准，然后又严格贷款标准呢？


The credit cycle is an amplification mechanism.	信贷周期是一个放大机制。


The instability in the lending sector is always there, and the crisis manifests itself only if some precipitating factor triggers it.	贷款政策方面的不稳定总是存在的，只有在某些突发因素触发它时，危机才会显现出来。


Moreover, the extreme weakening and then tightening of credit standards seems particularly prominent only in the US, while the housing boom-bust cycle is prevalent throughout much of the world.	而且，虽然房地产的繁荣－萧条周期在世界的大部分地区都很普遍，但是，信贷标准极度放松然后收紧的现象似乎只有在美国特别突出。


The precipitating factor that led to the current situation has to do with our evolving world culture, spread rapidly through enhanced media outlets and the Internet, and its perceptions of the markets.	导致当前危机的突发因素和我们全球文化的发展——它通过强大的媒体网络和因特网迅速传播——以及其对市场的看法有关。


It has to do with the deep admiration of markets that has developed during the boom, in line with the “efficient markets theory” in academic finance.	当前的危机和对繁荣时期发展起来的市场的高度崇拜有关，这与理论金融学中的“有效市场理论”是一致的。


It became widely believed that financial markets are such sublime poolers of information that they represent a collective judgment that transcends that of any mere mortal.	人们普遍认为，金融市场是非常庄严的信息会聚地，它们代表了超越任何一个凡人的集体判断。


James Surowiecki’s bestselling 2004 book, with the outrageous title  The Wisdom of Crowds , pressed this idea forward at the very height of the real estate boom.	2004年詹姆斯·索罗维基（James Surowiecki）以庸俗的《群众的智慧》为书名的畅销书，在房地产市场最繁荣的时候，将这一观点进一步向前推进。


The boom in the world’s housing markets and stock markets between 2003 and 2006 was caused by this faulty idea, and the idea that investments in homes and equities are a sure route to wealth.	2003年到2006年全球房地产市场和股票市场的繁荣，是由以上的错误观点以及投资房地产和股权是发财的可靠途径的观点造成的。


It had become an article of faith that the value of both types of assets only goes up in the long run, and that it is foolish to try to “time the market.”	房地产和股权的价值在长期来看只会上升，试图“确定市场时间”是愚蠢的，这种观点已经成为一个信条。


It was sincerely believed, and supported by deep intuitive judgment, that interruptions in this upward trajectory could only be small and transient.	房地产市场和股票市场上升轨道的中断只会是很小的而且是暂时的的观点，得到了人们内在直观判断真诚地相信和支持。


People seemed to think that rapid appreciation in these markets had become a universal constant, like the speed of light.	人们似乎认为，这些市场的快速升值像光速一样，已经成为一个常数。


Nothing else ultimately explains lenders’ immense willingness, in the boom up to 2006, to lower their credit standards on home mortgages, regulators’ willingness to let them do it, rating agencies’ willingness to rate mortgage securities highly, and investors’ willingness to gobble them up.	除此之外，没有其他的东西能从根本上解释，贷款人为什么非常愿意在截至2006年的繁荣中降低其住房抵押贷款的信贷标准，监管者为什么愿意让贷款人这么做，评级机构为什么愿意给予抵押证券很高的评级以及投资者为什么愿意投资它们。


There is no theory in economics that provides a reason to think that prices in these markets can only go up.	经济学中没有理论为这些市场的价格只能上涨的观点提供根据。


On the contrary, economic theorists have been puzzled by the historical rate of increase in the stock market, which they call “the equity premium puzzle.”	相反，经济学理论家一直对股票市场的历史增长率感到困惑，他们将此称为“股权溢价之谜” 。


They do not have a corresponding name for the behavior of the housing market, because, historically, its prices (correcting for inflation) have not generally gone up very much on average, until the post-2000 bubble.	对住房市场的表现，经济学理论家没有相应的名字，因为从历史上看，直到2000年后的房地产泡沫之前，平均起来，住房价格（调整通胀后）并没有普遍上涨很多。


The booms in these markets can be traced substantially to the growth of the idea that one should always continually hold as many of these assets as possible, just as that you should drink green tea or eat dark chocolate every day for antioxidants.	房地产市场和股票市场的繁荣完全可以追溯到这样一个观点的发展过程：人应该一直不断地尽可能多地占有这些 资产，就像应该每天喝绿茶或者吃黑巧克力来抗氧化一样。


Such ideas create artificial demand – but only for a while.	这样的观点引起了虚假的需求——但是这种需求只会持续很短的时间。


After all, we no longer smoke cigarettes to prevent infections.	毕竟，我们不再通过吸烟来预防传染病了。


People will believe many things if they have the impression that the rich and famous believe them, too.	如果人们有富人和名人也相信这些事情的印象，他们就会相信许多事情。


But their belief can suddenly be disrupted if plainly visible events contradict it.	但是，如果有显而易见的事件与他们相信的事情相矛盾 ，他们的信念就会突然瓦解。


That is what is happening now, and 2009 will shape up as a year of even more profound disenchantment.	这就成为现在正在发生的危机，而且2009年会成为人们对这些问题有更深刻觉醒的一年。


The Greek Conundrum	希腊迷局


The euro is a unique and unusual construction whose viability is now being tested.	欧元是一种独有奇特的产物，一直在市场上接受着检验。


Otmar Issing, one of the fathers of the common currency, correctly stated the principle on which it was founded: the euro was meant to be a monetary union, but not a political one.	欧元的创造者之一奥特马·伊兴正确地阐述出欧元创建的原则：欧元是一种货币联盟，不是政治联盟。


The participating states established a common central bank, but they explicitly refused to surrender the right to tax their citizens to a common authority.	加入的成员国只是建立一个共同的中央银行，但并没有设立相关共同税收系统，这项原则在马斯垂克条约的 125 条中有清楚的写明。


This principle was enshrined in Article 125 of the Maastricht Treaty, which has since been rigorously interpreted by the German constitutional court.	这也是德国最高法庭积极重申的一点。


The principle, however, is patently flawed.	然后，这种原则也有自身缺陷。


A fully-fledged currency requires both a central bank and a treasury.	一种成熟的货币需要有一个央行和财政部。


The treasury need not be used to tax citizens on an everyday basis, but it needs to be available in times of crisis.	财政部不是为日常纳税人服务的，而是为了危机而准备的。


When the financial system is in danger of collapsing, the central bank can provide liquidity, but only a treasury can deal with problems of solvency.	当金融体系面临崩溃之时，央行可以提供流动资金，但只有财政部能处理偿付问题。


This is a well-known fact that should have been clear to everyone involved in the euro’s creation.	这也是在欧元创建之时众所周知的事情。


Issing admits that he was among those who believed that “starting monetary union without having established a political union was putting the cart before the horse.”	伊兴承认，他也相信，“在没有建立政治联盟之前就建构一个货币联盟，其实是一种本末倒置。 ”


The European Union was brought into existence step-by-step by putting the cart before the horse: setting limited but politically attainable targets and timetables, knowing full well that they would not be sufficient, and thus that further steps would be required in due course.	欧盟的设置其实就是一种本末倒置：设置有限但政治性的目标和时间表，由于其不完备性，人们相信随后的步骤就会跟上补充。


But, for various reasons, the process gradually ground to a halt.	但出于种种原因，前进的进程被迫中断。


The EU is now largely frozen in its current shape.	欧盟的现状就是这样形成的。


The same applies to the euro.	欧元同样如此。


The crash of 2008 revealed the flaw in the euro’s construction, as each member country had to rescue its own banking system instead of doing it jointly.	2008 年的大崩盘显示出欧元架构的缺陷，各国都忙于采取自保，并没有联合起来行动。


The Greek debt crisis brought matters to a climax.	希腊债务危机将这个问题推到了顶峰。


If member countries cannot take the next steps forward, the euro may fall apart, with adverse consequences for the EU.	如果成员国不能联合行动起来，欧元就会破产，这对欧盟也有负面影响。


The original construction of the euro postulated that each member would abide by the limits set by the Maastricht Treaty.	欧元的创始国设定了共同遵守的 马斯垂克条约 。


But previous Greek governments egregiously violated those limits.	但希腊政府过分地挑战这些底线。


The Papandreou government, elected in October 2009 with a mandate to clean house, revealed that the budget deficit reached 12.7% of GDP in 2009, shocking both the European authorities and the markets.	2009 年 10 月当选的帕潘德里欧政府试图做出清新姿态，揭露出 2009 年的政府赤字已经达到 GDP 的 12. 9% ，这大大震惊了欧洲各国政府和欧洲市场。


The European authorities accepted a plan that would reduce the deficit gradually, but the markets were not reassured.	欧洲当局接受一个逐渐削减赤字的方案。 但市场对此依然保持警惕。


The risk premium on Greek government bonds continues to hover around three percentage points, depriving Greece of much of the benefit of euro membership – namely, being able to refinance government bonds at the official discount rate.	希腊国债的风险溢价还维持在 3% ，希腊也被取消作为欧元成员国的部分权利 —— 例如，以政府折扣的利率发行国债。


With the risk premium at current levels, there is a real danger that Greece may not be able to extricate itself from its predicament, regardless of what it does, because further budget cuts would further depress economic activity, reducing tax revenues and worsening the debt-to-GDP ratio.	如果风险溢价保持当前的水平，希腊很可能不管怎么做都无法摆脱目前的困境，因为削减预算就会降低经济活力，减少税收和导致债务和 GDP 的比率进一步恶化。


Given that danger, the risk premium will not revert to its previous level in the absence of outside assistance.	在没有外界帮助下，风险溢价不可能回落到正常水平。


The situation is aggravated by the market in credit default swaps, which is biased in favor of those who speculate on failure.	市场上 CDS 产品的出现导致情况更加恶化。


Being long CDS, the risk automatically declines if they are wrong.	对于一个长期的 CDS 产品而言，如果没有违约，风险就会自动下降。


This is the exact opposite of short-selling in equity markets, where being wrong means that the risk automatically increases.	在股权市场上的卖空却是相反的运行方式。 违约意味着风险自动提升。


Recognizing the need, the last Ecofin meeting has, for the first time, committed itself “to safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole.”	认识到这个问题后，近期的欧盟财长会议上首次提出了“保卫欧盟整体金融稳定”的概念。


But Ecofin has not yet found the mechanism for doing so, because the current institutional arrangements do not provide one – although the Lisbon Treaty establishes a legal basis for it.	但欧盟财长会议没有提出具体的实施手段，因为当前的机构设置没有提供这样的方案 —— 虽然里斯本条约有法律基础。


The most effective solution would be to issue jointly and separately guaranteed eurobonds to refinance, say, 75% of the maturing debt, as long as Greece meets its agreed-upon targets, leaving Greece to finance the rest of its needs as best it can.	最为有效的解决手段就是联合地及单独地发放欧洲债券，比方说， 75% 的到期债务，只要希腊达到设定的目标，它就可以自行融资剩余部分。


This would significantly reduce the cost of financing, and it would be the equivalent of the IMF disbursing its loans in tranches as long as conditions are met.	这样就能显著地降低融资成本，这也就相当于 IMF 发放贷款时候提出的条件。


But this is politically impossible at present, because Germany is adamantly opposed to serving as the deep pocket for its profligate partners.	但是，目前的政治形势不允许这样，德国强烈反对本国为其他挥霍的国家买单。


Therefore, makeshift arrangements will have to be found.	这样来说，我们只能寻找权宜的办法。


The Papandreou government is determined to do whatever is necessary to correct the abuses of the past, and it enjoys a remarkable degree of public support.	帕潘德里欧政府决心为过去的错误付出代价，因此赢得公众一定程度的支持。


There have been mass protests and resistance from the old guard of the governing party, but the general public seems ready to accept austerity as long as it sees progress in correcting budgetary abuses – and there are plenty of abuses to allow progress.	虽然原先的执政党举行了若干反对集会，社会大众似乎愿意做出改变来挽救过去的挥霍 —— 要改变的事情还很多。


So makeshift assistance will be sufficient to allow Greece to succeed, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland.	虽然临时手段可以确保希腊过关，但西班牙，意大利，葡萄牙和爱尔兰也有同样的问题。


Together they constitute too large a portion of the euro zone to be helped out by makeshift arrangements.	它们的问题加在一起就对欧元区是一个很大的麻烦。


The survival of Greece still leaves the future of the euro in question.	就算解决了希腊问题，欧元的未来还是一个大问号。


Even if the EU handles the current crisis, what about the next one?	就算欧盟解决了此次危机，那么下一次呢？


It is clear what is needed: more intrusive monitoring and institutional arrangements for conditional assistance. Moreover, a well-organized eurobond market would be desirable.	目前，我们需要做的事情很清楚：加强风险监管和制度建设，一个更有组织的欧元债券也必不可少。


The question is whether the political will to take these steps can be generated.	问题是，政治人物是否愿意采取这些行动。


The Greek Tragedy, Act II	希腊悲剧，第二幕


CHICAGO – A Greek tragedy is typically composed of three acts.	芝加哥——希腊悲剧通常由三幕组成。


The first sets the scene.	第一幕设下悲剧的场景。


It is only with the second that the plot reaches its climax.	然而，只有到了第二幕，剧情才达到高潮。


For current-day Greece, the imposition of “voluntary” losses on the country’s private creditors represents just the end of the beginning.	对于今天的希腊，私人债权人的“自愿”损失政策的实施恰恰代表着另一个开端的完结。


The real tragedy has still to unfold.	真正的悲剧还将上演。


On the face of it, the “voluntary” arrangement with creditors might appear to have been a big success.	表面上看，对债权人的“自愿”政策，似乎一直是个很大的成功。


The volume of Greece’s foreign debt has been reduced by more than €100 billion ($130 billion).	希腊的外债额已减少了1000多亿欧元（约合1300亿美元）。


Greece’s European partners have provided €130 billion in new loans.	希腊的欧洲伙伴为其提供了1300亿欧元的新贷款。


As a result, Greece has avoided generalized bank failures, and it has been able to continue paying its public employees.	因此，希腊逃过了大范围的银行倒闭这一浩劫，此外它已经能够继续为其公共部门的雇员发放薪水。


But, despite these trumpeted results, the reality is much harsher.	但是，尽管希腊大肆吹嘘这些成果，现实却更加严酷。


Even with the latest deal, Greece’s debt ratio remains at 120% of last year’s GDP.	即使在最新的协议下，希腊的债务比率仍保持在去年国内生产总值的120%。


With a projected drop in GDP of 7% this year and a sustained deficit, the debt ratio would exceed 130% before stabilizing at 120% in 2020.	今年，国内生产总值预计下降7%，财政赤字还将持续，由此一来，在2020年稳定为120%之前，希腊的债务比率可能会超过130%。


But even this reduced level is not sustainable.	然而，就是这种削弱的级别还是不可持续。 未来30年，由于每年0.


With its population set to contract by 0.5% annually over the next 30 years, even if per capita income in Greece were to rise at the German rate of 1.5% per year, the debt would be difficult to service.	5%的人口递减率，即便希腊人均收入以德国1. 5%的水平增长，债务仍将难以偿还。


Assuming that Greece could borrow at a real interest rate of only 3% (the current level is 17%), the government would need to run an annual 2.6%-of-GDP primary budget surplus (the fiscal balance minus debt-service costs) for the next 30 years just to keep the debt burden stable.	假设希腊借款的实际利率仅为3%（目前的利率为17%），未来30年内，政府将需要达成每年2. 6%的GDP初级预算盈余（财政结余减去债务服务费用）才能勉强稳定债务负担。


To put that task in perspective, in the last 25 years, Greece ran an average primary deficit of 2% per year.	正确看待这一任务：过去25年间，希腊每年平均遭受2%的基本赤字。


To reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio to 70%, Greece would have to maintain an average primary surplus of 4% for the next 30 years, a level that it has temporarily achieved in only four of the last 25 years. 	为把债务与GDP的比率降为70%，今后30年，希腊必须保持平均初级盈为4%，一个在过去25年间只有四年暂时到达的水平。


If the situation is so dramatic, why are the European Union and the International Monetary Fund celebrating the recent agreement?	如果情形如此惊人，为何欧盟和国际货币基金组织庆祝最近达成的协议呢？


Simply put, these institutions’ primary objective was to minimize the repercussions that a Greek default would have on the international financial system.	简单地说，这些机构的首要目的是最大限度地减少希腊违约对国际金融体系的影响。


Greece, frankly, was not their priority.	希腊，坦白的说，不是他们的首要工作。


Given the reaction in financial markets, they have succeeded.	鉴于金融市场的反应，他们已经成功了。


The delay in reaching an agreement enabled most private creditors to escape the consequences of their reckless lending to Greece.	拖延达成协议使得大多数私人债权人得以逃脱鲁莽地给希腊借款的后果。


Roughly half of Greece’s external debt migrated from the private sector to official institutions.	大约半数的希腊对外债务从私营部门迁移到了政府机构。


But the group of lenders that the EU and the IMF wanted to help the most – the banks – only partly reduced their exposure.	但欧盟和国际货币基金组织最想帮助的放款群体 — 银行，却仅仅部分降低了暴露。


Between May 2010 and September 2011, the value of Greek sovereign debt held by French banks dropped by €4.6 billion (39%), while German banks reduced their holdings by €2.9 billion (31%) and Italian banks by €530 million (30%).	2010年5月至2011年9月间，法国的银行持有的希腊主权债务价值下降了46亿欧元（39%），而德国的银行持有的股份减少了29亿欧元（31%），意大利的银行减少了5. 3亿欧元（30%）。


In part, this drop reflects the reduction in market value of the existing liabilities.	在某种程度上，这一下降反映了现存债务市场价值的减少。


Thus, on average, banks have sold very little.	因此，平均而言，银行售出很少、


But, while private-sector losses have been minimized, at what price?	但是，虽然私营部门的损失已降到最低，但这样做的代价是什么？


Had Greece defaulted on its debt in 2010, imposing the same “haircut” on private creditors as it has imposed now, it would have reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio to a more manageable 80%.	要是希腊在2010年就违约，如同现在一样对私人债权人实行扣减，它可能已经把债务和GDP的比率降低到更易于管理的80%了。


That would have been painful, but it could have spared the Greeks from a 7% decline in GDP and a rise in unemployment to 22% (including an increase in youth unemployment to a whopping 48%).	这样可能很残酷，但是它可以让希腊人免于遭受国内生产总值7%的下降以及上升至22%的失业率（包括高达48％的青年失业率的增加）。


More importantly, a default in 2010 would have left some room for adjustments.	更重要的是，如果在2010年违约，就可能留下些许调整的余地。


Under the current plan, there is none: if the economy does not turn around quickly, Greece will need more help.	照目前的计划，根本没有余地：如果经济不迅速扭转，希腊将需要更多的帮助。


But where can it go now to find it?	但它能去哪里找到寻求帮助呢？


Most of the sovereign debt is now held by the official sector, which traditionally does not allow any haircut.	大多数政府债务现由政府部门持有，按照传统这些债务不允许任何扣减。


The remainder has been reissued under English, not Greek, law, putting it outside of the control of the Greek government and its new collective-action clause, which facilities partial defaults.	其余部分已经在英国法律而不是希腊法律下重新发行，脱离了希腊政府和其新的集体行动条款的控制，加速了部分违约。


In other words, Greece has exhausted its ability to share part of the burden with the private sector.	换句话说，希腊已穷尽了同私营部门分担部分负担的能力。


Next time, Europe’s taxpayers will be on the hook.	下次，欧洲纳税人将陷入圈套，难以摆脱。


The second act of the Greek tragedy will cast desperate Greeks against angry and disenchanted Europeans elsewhere.	希腊悲剧的第二幕将把绝望的希腊人推向愤怒，心灰意冷的欧洲人。


Only at the climax will we know whether the effort to delay the inevitable contributed to undermining the idea of Europe for the current generation. 	只有到了悲剧的高潮，我们才会知道，拖延必然会发生的情形所做的努力，是否会破坏当代人对于欧洲的概念。


The Green Guevara’s	绿色的格瓦拉


“Bolivia is rich,” a Tacana Indian woman told me last week inside Madidi National Park.	上周在马迪迪国家公园，一位对我说：“玻利维亚是片富饶的土地。


Earlier in the day, we’d witnessed a hundred capuchin and squirrel monkeys rush down from the Amazon jungle canopy and were now relaxing beside Lake Chalalan while her cousin, a shaman, blessed coca leaves as the evening’s traditional drumming and dancing began.	” 那天一早，我们就看见了上百只僧帽猴和松鼠猴从亚马逊遮天蔽日的丛林中一路冲下来，跑到查拉澜湖（Lake Chalalan）边休憩，而那位特迦拿印第安妇女的萨满表姐，在夜幕降临，传统鼓声响起、人们又开始跳舞的时候，虔诚地颂扬着神圣的古柯叶。


This is Chalalan Lodge, a wholly Indian-owned and -operated ecotourism outfit through which a hundred indigenous families lifted themselves out of poverty – while creating benefits worth a half million dollars for the Bolivian economy each year.	这就是查拉澜小屋，一个完全由印第安人拥有和经营的生态旅游项目。 因为它的存在， 当地100多个家庭在摆脱贫困的同时，还为玻利维亚创造了每年高达50万美元的利润。


It is one of dozens of similar operations – from the world’s largest salt flats in the south, to Lake Titicaca in the west, to the eastern Pantanal wetlands – that combine economic growth with conservation.	从南部全球最大的盐沼、到西部的的的喀喀湖，再到东部的潘塔纳尔沼泽地，类似这样把经济增长和生态保护相结合的旅游项目还有许多。


It seems improbable that such enterprises should exist in Bolivia, a fragile democracy, and the hemisphere’s poorest place next to Haiti.	玻利维亚的民主体系非常脆弱，是该半球仅次于海地的穷困国家，在这里能经营起这样的项目，看起来似乎有些不可思议。


As the December 18 presidential elections approach, the front-runners could not look much different from one another.	随着12月18日总统大选的临近，那些一路领先的候选人们已经很难拉开距离。


In first place is Evo Morales, an Amayra Indian running under the Movement Toward Socialism banner who is sometimes seen as Che Guevara’s second coming.	首先是埃沃·莫拉莱斯，一位Amayra印第安人，在社会主义运动的旗帜下，他有时被看做是玻利维亚第二个切•格瓦拉。


Running behind “Evo” is Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, a millionaire former IBM executive from the European-descended Bolivian elite; he is closely aligned with America’s Republican Party and is married to a Texas blonde named Ginger.	埃沃之后就是Jorge “Tuto” Quoroga，他是身价百万的前IBM董事，一位精干的欧洲玻利维亚籍后裔。 他与美国共和党联系密切，而且娶了德克萨斯州一位名叫金格（Ginger）的金发女郎。


Tuto warns that, should Evo win, he might consolidate a Latin American axis-of-evil connecting a leftist Bolivia with Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.	Tuto威胁说，如果埃沃获胜，他将联合左翼玻利维亚、菲德尔·卡斯特罗领导的古巴以及雨果·查维斯领导的委内瑞拉，建立一个拉丁美洲的“邪恶（政权）轴心”。


Evo counters that Tuto is too linked to Bolivia’s corrupt political establishment – one of the most dishonest in the world according to the watchdog group Transparency International – to do much for Bolivia’s two-thirds Indian majority.	埃沃却反驳说，根据监督机构“国际透明组织”的调查，玻利维亚政府是世界上最缺乏诚信度的政府，而Tuto与这一腐败的政治机构牵连太深，根本不可能为占玻利维亚人口三分之二的印第安人做任何有益的事情。


Whichever man wins will face Bolivia’s seemingly intractable pair of ills: social-exclusion and poverty.	无论谁赢得竞选，都会面对玻利维亚两大棘手的难题：社会排斥和贫困。


It’s a combination that has led to the overthrow of two presidents in the last three years.	这两大难题交织在一起，导致在过去三年中两任总统先后被推翻。


Workable solutions will lie not in ideology but rather in capitalizing on what the nation has to offer to the global economy: its stock of pristine ecology.	可行的解决办法并不在于意识形态，而在于如何充分利用该国向世界经济所提供保存完好的原始生态资源。


Noel Kempff, for example, one of Bolivia’s national parks, is home to the world's biggest forest-based Kyoto Protocol experiment.	比如，诺尔·肯普夫（Noel Kempff）是玻利维亚的一座国家公园，是世界上最大的《京都议定书》森林实验基地。


The park contains the biggest chunk of virgin cerrado habitat left on Earth, with tapirs, red brocket deer, silvery marmosets, and pumas living amid twenty waterfalls crashing off the Huanchaca Mesa into forests.	这座公园保留着地球上现存的最大一片原始赛拉多营地； 貘、红角鹿、银毛猴、美洲狮生活在20个瀑布之间，这些瀑布从Huanchaca 石台上冲下来，一路流进森林；


The park’s waterways contain one-tenth of the world’s remaining 1,000 giant river otters, along with black and speckled caiman, pink river dolphins, and capybaras.	世界存活下来的1000只巨型水獭中，这个公园的河道里就有约100只，还有黑色和斑点凯门鳄，粉色的河豚和水豚。


The 2,000 Chiquitanos living around the park contend that a tree holds up the Amazon’s seven skies, and they are living that belief in a modern way: by using their forests to help reduce the stratospheric greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.	2000位居住在公园附近的Chiquitanos族居民坚持认为，是一棵树撑起了亚马逊河的七个天空，并且他们以现代的方式坚守着这一信念：用他们的森林帮助减少导致全球变暖的同温层温室气体排放。


British Petroleum and American Electric Power, the largest electricity supplier in the United States, have helped the Chiquitanos buy up logging concessions, thereby doubling Noel Kempff to three million acres.	英国石油公司和美国电力公司（美国最大的电力供应商），已经帮助Chiquitanos 人买下了伐木特许权，也因而把诺尔·肯普夫的面积扩大到了300万英亩。


The firms earn cap-and-trade carbon credits to fulfill their Kyoto requirements.	这些公司因此在二氧化碳“限量”排放方面被给予肯定，履行了京都议定书提出的要求。


Bolivia’s Indians have also used their eco-clout to convince the energy companies to bankroll their fight for a 750,000-acre homeland bordering Kempff.	玻利维亚的印第安人还利用生态优势说服能源公司资助他们赢得肯普夫边上75万英亩的土地。


It now pays for nature to stay, as the locals earn their neo-traditional living by ranching oxygen traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), and through shipping certified timber and organic palm-hearts to Chile and Europe.	现在，当地人通过芝加哥气候交易所经营氧气，向智利和欧洲运输优质木材和有机棕树心，开始了全新的谋生方式，可以说保护自然为他们带来了经济上的回报。


Bolivia destroys the myth that Third World countries are too poor to be green, and casts serious doubt on the famous “environmental Kuznets Curve” – the theory that environmental quality correlates with wealth.	玻利维亚推翻了关于第三世界国家因过度贫困而不可能拥有绿色的荒诞说法，也向著名的环境库兹涅茨曲线（认为环境质量和财富相互关联）提出了置疑，玻利维亚的发展轨迹令世界瞩目：它是世界上第一个用债务换取自然的国家； 拥有世界上最大的干燥热带林保护区；


Bolivia’s track record is remarkable: the world’s first debt-for-nature swap; the world’s largest protected dry tropical forest; experimental Indian park management; a rapidly growing protected-areas system; a National Environmental Fund; a world leader in international efforts to protect the endangered vicuna; progressive forestry legislation; a national biodiversity conservation agency; and a total ban on trade in domestic species.	而且是国际保护濒危小羊驼运动的领导国家； 拥有不断完善的森林立法体系和生物多样化保护机构，并且完全禁止国内物种贸易。


Conservation resonates with local political parties.	地方政党也响应建立生态保护区的做法。


On the left, Evo delivers homilies exalting Pacha Mama, or Mother Nature; on the right, Tuto favors market mechanisms like Kyoto over command and control.	左翼政党成员埃沃在演讲中提到了巴夏母亲，或自然母亲； 右翼政党成员Tuto支持利用《京都议定书》这样的市场机制来支配和控制经济。


Both candidates want jobs to be created in ecological services.	这两名候选人都希望能在生态行业中创造更多的就业机会。


Regardless of who comes to power, the West should channel a larger portion of the billions of dollars in development aid each year, including the newly approved $535 million for the country from the UN’s Millennium Challenge Account, to foster a local spirit of natural capitalism instead of providing charity.	无论谁来执政，西方国家每年都要从几十亿美元的发展援助资金中拨出很��一部分对玻利维亚进行援助，包括刚刚核准通过的来源于“千年挑战帐户”的5亿3500万美元资金。 这笔资金用于鼓励当地的自然资本主义精神，而不是提供慈善施舍。


The Indian-run lodge I visited is part of a $175 million ecological tourism industry that has been growing at 20% a year precisely because of the country’s natural splendor.	我游览的印第安人小屋就是投资1亿7500万美元的生态旅游业的组成部分，这个行业的存在纯粹是因为该国有富饶的自然资源，生态旅游业的发展方兴未艾，而且每年正在以20%的速度快速增长。


Economists argue that should the current trickle of 350,000 visitors each year grow to a quite reasonable million, every Bolivian would be employed.	经济学家认为，现在每年35万的游客数量应该可以增加到几百万，到那时，每一个玻利维亚人都会找到工作。


“Bolivia is where Costa Rica was 20 years ago,” an eco-tourism expert told me at the first national summit on the industry on the shores of Lake Titicaca.	一位生态旅游业的专家在第一次的的喀喀湖湖滨工业全国峰会上告诉我，“玻利维亚就是20年前的哥斯达黎加。 ”


Finally, the Bush administration must ratify the Kyoto Protocol, in order to allow both global firms and Bolivian community entrepreneurs to create yet more rainforest ranches and other creative initiatives that reduce poverty, harbor biodiversity, and cool a warming world.	最后，我想说的是：为了让全球公司和玻利维亚国内企业家能开辟更多的雨林农场，并提出其它可以减少贫困、庇护多样化物种、遏制全球变暖的创造性提议，布什政府必须签署《京都议定书》。


Perhaps Bolivia is indeed rich – in a way that could benefit all of us well into the future.	也许玻利维亚的确很富饶，或许它的富饶可以在未来给我们所有人带来好处。


The Greening of Bush	布什变绿


The United States is usually regarded as an environmental laggard, with President George W. Bush perceived as being little better than the head of a gang of willful polluters who do everything they can to obstruct global action to protect the environment.	一般人认为美国是环保的落后者，布什总统只比那些有意污染者团伙头领好一点。 他们竭力阻碍全球保护环境的行动。


Of course, there is some truth in this characterization of America (and quite a lot in that of Bush), but the picture is not uniformly bleak.	当然，如此刻画美国不无道理(而对布什的刻画入木三分)，但是情况并非完全如此灰暗。


Indeed, the environmental movement – like most modern social movements – began in the US.	实际上，正如大多数现代社会运动一样，环保运动发端于美国。


The roots of America’s “environmental movement” lie in the nineteenth century, when the damage wrought by the industrial revolution and the fragmentation of the natural landscape by individual property rights and tenures first became apparent.	美国“环保运动”的根源来自十九世纪。 当时，工业革命造成的损害以及个人产权和终身享有对景观造成的破碎第一次变得明显。


But it was the publication in 1962 of the book Silent Spring – a polemic against the use of pesticides in agriculture – by the biologist Rachel Carson that jump-started the modern ecological movement.	但是，正是生物学家卡尔森在1962年出版了amplt;amplt;寂静的春天ampgt;ampgt;一书促发了现代生态运动。 该书是讨伐农用杀虫剂的檄文。


Carson drew on scientific findings, but also voiced fundamental misgivings about consumer capitalism and a “postmaterialistic” belief in the primacy of the quality of life over economic growth.	卡尔森利用科学发现，同时又表达对消费资本主义的根本性担忧以及对生活质量超越经济增长前提的“后物质主义”的信念。


In Carson’s wake, the “Woodstock” generation of the 1960’s, with its Earth Days, soon began to organize a broad campaign, which saw, in April 1970, around 20 million Americans take to the street to defend the environment.	在卡尔森之后，六十年代“伍茨托克”一代首创地球日，马上开始组织大范围的运动。 1970年4月份，这一运动导致大约2千万美国人上街游行要求保护环境。


In this new movement, the libertarian tendencies of the New Left and the protectionist tendencies of the traditional right became intertwined.	在这一新的环境下，新左派的自由主义倾向以及传统右翼的保护主义倾向相互交错。 俄里奇的畅销书amplt;amplt;人口炸弹ampgt;ampgt;影响深远，直至今日。


Paul Ehrlich’s bestseller The Population Bomb exerted an influence that lasts to this day.	美国的环保运动马上波及到欧洲以及世界其他地方。


America’s environmental movement was soon exported to Europe and elsewhere: on one hand, the pragmatic Friends of the Earth and the media-oriented organization Greenpeace , and, on the other hand, eco-fundamentalist groups like Earth First! and the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM) or lobbying groups like the World Wildlife Fund.	一方面，出现了务实的“地球之友”和面向媒体的组织绿色和平； 另一方面，出现了像“地球第一”和“环境正义运动ampquot;(EJM)等的生态原教旨团体或者像世界野生动物基金会那样的游说团体。


This movement managed to force the first environmental laws out of the conservative Nixon administration: the National Environmental Act of 1969, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.	这一运动迫使保守派的尼克松政府颁布了第一批环保法律，包括1969年的国家环境法案，1970年的清洁空气法案，1972年的清洁水法案以及1973年的濒危物种法案。


Then as now, the focus in America was on “green” topics (clean water, fresh air, and biological diversity) rather than with the “brown” topics of ecological disasters such as the Chernobyl (or Harrisburg) disaster, which have played a dominant role in mobilizing Europeans.	像现在一样，当时美国关注的是所谓“绿色”议题(即清洁水源、新鲜空气以及生物多样性)，而不是有关生态灾难的“棕色”议题，例如切尔诺贝力(或者哈里斯伯格)灾难。 这些灾害在调动欧洲人上发挥了重大作用。


America’s influential Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also was established under Nixon.	美国势力强大的环境保护署也是在尼克松时期建立的。


Environmentalists hired scientists, lawyers, and lobbyists who made sure that laws weren’t just passed in Congress, but also implemented in practice.	环保主义者聘请科学家、律师以及游说者确保法律不仅在国会得到通过，而且在实践中得到实施。


But the current Bush administration has been hacking away at these 1970’s laws from all directions.	但是目前的布什政府从所有的方向都偏离这些七十年代的法律。


He approved oil exploration in closed nature reserves, and also systematically fought to suppress scientific evidence on climate change.	他批准在不对外开放的自然报护地勘探石油，还系统地尽力压制有关气候变化的科学证据。


Now, however, due to the surge in crude oil prices, even Bush has had to begin to consider alternative energy sources, and it won’t be possible to limit these to nuclear power or ethanol, which is so popular among farmers, a key Bush constituency.	但是现在，由于石油价格猛升，甚至连布什也已经开始考虑替换能源。 把这些替换能源局限在核能或者乙醇是不可能的，而乙醇在布什的关键性选民农场主中广受欢迎。


Indeed, even Bush’s own political base, the Christian fundamentalists, are becoming “green,” pressuring the administration to sign the Kyoto Protocol because they believe that the environment must be protected just like unborn life.	确实，即使是布什自己的政治根基基督教原教旨主义者也开始变“绿”了。 他们给政府施压，要求签署京都议定书，因为他们相信必须向保护没有出生的生命一样保护环境。


“Eco-theology” and evangelical pro-life propaganda have become one of the liveliest branches of the US environmental movement.	“生态神学”和福音教派的反堕胎宣传已经变成美国环保运动中最为活跃的分支之一。


“Green” eco-activists, while feeling awkward about support from this quarter, nonetheless find them useful allies.	“绿色”生态活动份子从这些人中获得支持感到尴尬，但还是认为他们是有用的盟友。


Indeed, the greening of America is becoming a general proposition.	实际上，美国变绿正在成为一个一般性的命题。


Many Americans can only shake their heads at the energy lobbyists who surround Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, and for a long time now a majority has been in favor of signing multilateral agreements, particularly in the area of climate protection.	许多美国人对于那些围绕在布什和副总统切尼身边的能源游说者只能摇头，长久以来，美国大多数人赞成签署多边协议，特别是在气候保护领域方面。


Catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina have reinforced this stance.	类似卡特琳娜飓风那样的灾害增强了这一立场。


All this has caused Bush to seek to accommodate – verbally, at least – the will of an overwhelming majority of Americans to conserve energy.	所有这些都让布什至少在言辞上包容绝大多数美国人保存能源的意愿。


Moreover, although Bush has given mainly national security reasons for his seeming change of heart, America’s federal system, helps the country get around even a roadblock as powerful as the president, as “localism” promotes eco-political initiatives at the state level and even within municipalities.	而且，尽管布什主要是用国家安全的理由来解释其表明上的改弦更张，美国的联邦制度帮助国家绕过像总统那样强大的路障。 美国的“地方主义”在各州、甚至是城市的层面上促进生态政治倡议。


It is not just California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who has recognized the signs of the times and proclaimed bold Kyoto targets for his state that may become a pacemaker of All-American modernization again.	不仅仅是加利福尼亚州州长施瓦辛格认识到时代的迹象并宣布在加州实施大胆的京都议定书目标，这有可能再一次成为美国现代化的心律调整器。


Political climate change has also been brought about by people like Jerome Ringo, the president of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) , whose 4.5 million members make it one of the largest environmental organizations.	政治气候的改变还产生了像国家野生动物联盟主席瑞格这样的人物。 这一组织有450万会员，是最大的环保组织之一。


Ringo also heads the Apollo Alliance , a coalition of trade unions, environmentalist groups, managers, and local politicians that demands clean energy and good jobs.	瑞格还是阿波罗联盟的领导人。 这是一个由工会、环保组织、管理人员以及地方政客组成的要求清洁能源以及良好工作的同盟组织。


How green America will actually become remains to be seen, of course, but, as an ecological avant-garde, the US might even regain its lost influence in the world.	当然，美国变得如何绿色还有待观察。 但是，作为生态先锋派���美国甚至可能会重新拾起其失去的世界影响力。


Those who disdain environmental concerns have been ousted at the polls in large numbers, companies invest huge amounts in environmental technologies, states are suing car producers for their climate-adverse policies, and the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol have long been surpassed by some states – a lesson for German and European cities and municipalities.	那些对环保关切不屑一顾的人在投票中惨败，被逐出政坛，企业投入巨资用于环境科技，各州因对环境有害的政策而起诉汽车制造商，而某些州长久以来则凌驾于京都议定书的要求之上。 这对于德国和欧洲各城市而言都是一个教训。


As in the past, the effectiveness of these initiatives ultimately will depend on whether these impulses reach Europe and Japan, as well as emerging nations like China and Brazil.	正如过去一样，这些倡议的有效性最终将取决于这些势态是否到达日本和欧洲以及中国和巴西那样的新兴国家。


It is time for Greens everywhere to start attending to ecological matters again – and, strange as it may sound, to look again to America for inspiration.	世界各地的环保主义者现在应该再一次开始关注生态问题，而且，应该再一次向美国看齐获取灵感，尽管这听起来有点奇怪。


The Greening of China	中国的环保问题


Two countries – the United States and China – remain aloof from global efforts to create a new post-Kyoto framework on climate change.	美中两国游离在全世界为气候变化建立一个新的后京都框架的努力之外。


Fifty years ago, the rest of the world might have carried on with remedying the problem of conventional and greenhouse gas emissions and let China and the US stew in their own waste.	五十年以前，世界上其他的国家也许会任由中美两国被它们排放的废物所吞没，而自行去解决传统和温室气体排放的问题。


But the world is now so interdependent that what happens in one place affects all others.	但是世界现在已经变得极为互相依赖，在一个地方发生的事情会影响到其他所有的地方。


For example, visitors and residents alike have long thought of Hong Kong as a beautiful city clinging to the South China coast.	比如说，旅游者和当地居民长久以来一直把香港看成是南中国海岸上的一座美丽的城市。


But, for at least five years, Hong Kong’s citizens have found themselves starting to cough and wheeze from the city’s increasingly degraded air.	然而，至少在最近五年时间里，香港居民发现他们因为这个城市越来越差的空气质量而咳嗽和喘气。


Corporate employers are even complaining about not being able to attract overseas talent.	大企业雇主甚至抱怨无法吸引海外人才。


Pollution from Hong Kong’s own power generation plants, growing number of vehicles, and burgeoning shipping industry can certainly be reduced.	香港自身的发电厂、越来越多的机动车以及繁荣的海运业所带来的污染还有办法减少。


But the lion’s share of this industrial haze – like the growing pollution of its coastal waters – is a direct result of the rapid industrialization of the Pearl River Delta across the border in China’s Guangdong Province.	但是这个工业烟雾的罪魁祸首就像海岸水域越来越严重的污染却来自它对岸的中国广东省珠江三角洲地区迅速发展的工业。


China is exporting not only more and more goods, but also its environmental degradation.	中国不但在出口越来越多的产品，它同样在传播其环境的退化。


The inescapable truth is that the futures of Hong Kong and China are integrally linked.	一个无法逃避的现实是香港和中国是紧密相连的。


There are roughly 58,000 factories in the Pearl River Delta with Hong Kong connections, and together they employ more than 10 million workers.	珠三角地区有大约58000座工厂与香港有关，总共雇用了一千万多工人。


Guangdong accounts for about 30% of China’s total foreign trade, while Hong Kong is China’s international finance center.	广东省的外贸总额占有中国外贸总额的30%，而香港是中国的国际金融中心。


Officials in both Hong Kong and Guangdong are powerless to clean up their environmental problems on their own.	粤港两地官员对于解决他们自己的环境问题都感到无能为力。


In fact, development plans in China may be heading in the opposite direction.	事实上，中国的发展规划也许南辕北辙。


Political heavyweights in Guangdong still favor a form of development that relies on speed and quantity while ignoring overall environmental quality.	广东的主要领导喜好的依然是一种注重速度和数量而忽视整体环境质量的发展模式。


And Hong Kong’s economic blueprint also focuses on accelerating large infrastructure projects whose environmental impact has not been rigorously examined.	而香港的经济蓝图同样强调加快大的基础设施项目建设，而并没有对于它们对环境的影响进行有力的调查。


It will not be easy for leaders on either side of the border to reverse gears, but there is still chance that people and companies can make a difference.	对于边界两面的领导人来说要改变方向都不是件容易的事情，但是两地人民和企业依然有机会有所作为。


Increasingly loud complaints about deteriorating air quality have goaded Hong Kong and Guangdong into embarking on a joint program in which a series of monitoring stations now provides emissions data.	越来越强烈的对于空气质量变差的抱怨促使香港和广东两地开始实施一项联合计划，现在它们已经建立了一系列的监测站来提供排放数据。


Hong Kong’s data have been released regularly, and in 2006, Guangdong’s data were made publicly available for the first time.	香港的数据已经做到能经常公布了，而在2006年，广东省的数据也第一次对公众开放。


There is now also talk about monitoring water quality.	现在已经开始谈论监测水的质量问题。


These are laudable steps for China, given its poor record on transparency.	考虑到中国在透明度上的差劲记录，这对他们来说绝对是令人称赞的步骤。


Indeed, the joint air-monitoring network provides a foundation for the region to develop a sophisticated regional air management program.	事实上，联合空气监测网络为这个地区建立一个高度发达的地区空气管理计划提供了基础。


Furthermore, new coal-fired power plants may no longer be allowed on either side of the border, necessitating greater use of natural gas and renewable energy sources.	此外，新的火力发电厂可能不再允许在边界两面建设，这样就必须使用天然气和可再生能源。


The first challenge for authorities is to regulate power generation very differently.	对于当局的第一个挑战就是以完全不同的方式来进行电力管理。


People are used to paying for the electricity that they actually use.	人们习惯于为他们实际所使用的电力来付费。


But, to optimize efficiency, utilities need to be rewarded for what they help consumers save.	但是，为了使效力最优化，电力公司需要因为它们帮助消费者节约电能而得到奖励。


In other words, utilities must be given incentives to help consumers use less power.	换句话说，电力公司应该被激励帮助消费者使用更少的电能。


This idea is clearly feasible.	这种想法绝对是可行的。


Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has proposed what he calls the “negawatt,” or energy that is never used.	洛基山学院的Amory Lovins曾提出他所谓的“负瓦”概念，即从未被使用的能源。


All that is needed are the right financial incentives to induce utility companies to produce less electricity (and still be more profitable) and consumers to reduce their use (and gain savings without sacrificing comfort).	我们所需要的只是进行恰当的财政刺激来诱使电力公司生产更少的电能（但是同时确保更高的利润）以及使消费者减少他们使用的电能（在减少开支的同时并没有降低舒适度）。


This can be done by refitting households with high-efficiency light bulbs and other technological improvements, and by retrofitting industrial plants with energy-saving technologies.	这可以通过给住所改装节能灯泡以及其他技术改进手段，以及给工厂实施技能技术来实现。


Another innovative idea that Hong Kong and Guangdong are exploring is the “P2E2” scheme.	香港和广东正在进行的另一个富有创新的想法是“P2E2”计划。


To help industries in the region upgrade environmentally, firms can now obtain special loans for which the Asian Development Bank assumes the risk – a program made possible by Hong Kong’s sound banking practices.	为帮助区域内的工业在环保上进行升级，公司现在可以获得由亚洲开发银行承担风险的特别贷款。 该计划因为香港良好的银行表现而得以实施。


Another initiative worth watching is the Hong Kong stock exchange’s exploratory project to offer a trading platform for emissions derivatives, which will most likely include conventional pollutants as well as carbon.	另一个值得关注的倡议是香港证券交易所为排放衍生物提供交易平台的探索性项目，该项目很可能将传统排放物以及碳都包括在内。


The exchange will undertake a study this summer, with trading to begin as early as 2008.	交易所计划今年夏天进行研究，并最早在2008年开始进行交易。


If these reforms are not trumped by efforts to maintain high growth at all costs, the region could not only clean itself up while continuing to prosper, but could also establish a model for all of China.	如果这些改革的努力不被不惜任何代价保持高发展的观念所埋没的话，这个地区不但可以在保持繁荣的同时维持自身的清洁，而且可以为整个中国树立样板。


Nothing is more necessary in a country that, according to the United Nations Development Program, contains 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.	对于这个根据联合公司发展计划的统计，在全世界20个污染最严重的城市中占了16个的国家来说，没有比这更迫切需要的东西了。


Hong Kong’s leaders to do not want to end up on that infamous list.	香港的领导人把想让自己也排在那个丢人的名单上。


By saving themselves, they may also be able to play an instrumental role in saving China.	在拯救他们自己的同时，他们也许还可以帮助拯救整个中国。


The Greening of Work	绿色行动


MONACO – When environment ministers from some 100 countries meet here on February 20-22 for UNEP’s Governing Council and Environmental Forum, talks will focus on environmentally friendly “green growth” and ways and means by which the world can achieve a low-carbon economy.	摩纳哥-当来自100多个国家的环境部长来这里参加2月20日-22日的联合国环保署举办的理事会及环境论坛时，讨论的焦点将会集中在环境友好的“绿色增长”以及如何让世界实现低碳排放经济的途径和办法上。


The employment and development potential of combating climate change is only now being understood as a part of this effort.	对抗气候变化可以带来的就业和发展潜力现在被理解为是这一努力的一部分。


UNEP has invited the International Labour Organization and the International Trade Union Confederation to contribute to these discussions.	联合国环保署已经邀请了国际劳工组织和国际工会联盟一起来参与这些讨论。


Changes underway are a result of the Kyoto Protocol, but they are also partly being made in anticipation of deeper emission cuts to come.	这些正在发生的变化是《东京议定书》所带来的结果，但是人们也希望这些改变能够带来更大幅度的减排。


Equally important, the perception of organized labor and industry concerning environmental issues is changing dramatically.	同样重要的是，劳工和产业组织对环境问题的看法发生巨大的改变。


Environmental regulation was sometimes viewed with suspicion and concern for business and labour.	环境监管一度受到产业和劳工组织的怀疑和担心。


Now, business sees profits and unions see jobs.	而现在，产业从中看到了赢利的机会，而工会从中看到了就业机会。


Consider these facts:	让我们来看一看这些数据：


·A Washington-based consulting firm estimates that the U.S. environmental industry generated more than $340 billion in sales and almost $50 billion in tax revenues in 2005.	lamp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; 根据一家华盛顿的咨询公司的评估，美国的环保行业在2005年产生了超过3400亿美元的营业收入以及大约500亿美元的税收。


The 5.3 million workers in the environmental industry outnumber pharmaceutical workers ten to one.	有530万人在环保行业工作，这一数字是医药行业就业人数的10倍。


·A British company specializing in improving the energy efficiency of homes was floated on the London Stock Exchange last June and now employs 4,000 people who once worked in nearby, now closed, coal mines.	lamp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; 一家专业提高家庭能效的英国公司去年6月在伦敦证券交易所上市，现在它雇佣了4000名曾经在附近、但是现在关闭了的煤矿里工作的工人。


·A study prepared for the German Ministry of Environment estimates that employment in the German environmental technology industries will surpass employment in the automobile industry by 2020.	lamp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; 一份呈交给德国环境部的研究预计到2020年德国环境技术行业的就业人数将超过汽车工业。


·China has some 1,000 solar thermal energy firms, generating sales of $2.5 billion and employing 600,000 workers in manufacturing and installation.	lamp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; 中国有大约1000家太阳热能公司，营业收入25亿美元，下属60万工人从事制造和安装工作。


·The Indian city of Delhi is introducing new eco-friendly compressed natural gas buses, which will create an additional 18,000 new jobs.	lamp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; 印度的德里市正在推出新的生态友好的压缩天然气汽车，它将额外创造18000个新岗位。


These trends look set to continue.	这些趋势肯定将会延续下去。


The United Nations Environment Programme’s Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative estimates that investment in renewable energy has reached $100 billion worldwide, or 18% of new investment in the power sector.	联合国环境规划署的可持续能源金融倡议预计全世界的可再生能源投资达到1000亿美元，占能源行业总投资的18%。


The Initiative, which involves some 170 financial institutions, also estimates that market financing for clean and renewable energies could reach $1.9 trillion by 2020.	这项涉及大约170个金融机构的倡议还预计到2020年市场对清洁和可再生能源的投资可能会达到19000亿美元。


International efforts are now beginning to bear fruit.	国际社会的努力已经初显成果。


The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol could channel $100 billion in funds from North to South for investment in carbon offsetting projects such as renewable energy schemes and tree planting.	《东京议定书》所规定的清洁发展机制可以将北半球的1000亿美元通过投资可再生能源计划、植树等碳补偿项目转移到南半球。


The Bali conference last year agreed to include avoided deforestation in tropical countries into a new climate regime, which could generate new employment opportunities in sustainable management, conservation, and tourism.	去年召开的巴厘会议同意将避免热带国家的森林滥伐纳入到新的气候制度中，它可以在可持续管理、森林保护以及旅游等方面带来新的就业机会。


Several countries, including Costa Rica, Norway, and New Zealand, have pledged carbon neutrality, which in turn will require investment and employment in carbon-friendly sectors.	包括哥斯大黎加、挪威和新西兰在内的一些国家已经承诺要达到碳中和，这些都会给碳友好行业带来投资和就业。


Significantly, labor is adding to the effort.	重要的是，工会组织也加入到了这一努力上来。


At Bali, the global trade union movement signaled its commitment to an 85% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, underlining the perceived value of environmentally sustainable development and a future in “green jobs.”	在巴厘，全球工会运动表示它将为实现在2050年前全球温室气体排放减少85%的目标而做出努力，表明了环境可持续发展的感知价值以及 “绿色就业”的未来。


These jobs will play a vital role in reducing the environmental footprint of economies and promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns.	这些工作将在减少经济发展的环境影响以及促进可持续生产和消费的模式方面发挥重要的作用。


In a rapidly greening labor market, those jobs lost to environmental unsustainability will have to be replaced by just transitions involving the promotion of social security, economic diversification and retraining.	在越来越追求绿色的劳动力市场上，那些在环境方面不可持续的工作注定将被为促进社会安定、经济多样性和再培训而进行的合理过渡所取代。


Yet green jobs are not enough.	然而单单绿色工作并不足够。


Meeting the challenge of climate change will require a new development model that combines reduced emissions with a better future for the vast majority of people and the opportunity to earn a living in a decent job.	迎接气候变化的挑战需要将减排与为大部分人创造更美好的未来以及提供依靠体面的工作维生的机会融合起来的新的发展模式。


Last month, President Hu Jintao of China called for the realization of sustainable development and decent work by advancing “economic globalization in the direction of balanced development, shared benefit and win-win progress and to make sure that international economic, trade and financial institutions provide favorable conditions … so that the 21st century is genuinely a century of development for all … to realize sustainable development and for the vast majority of workers to enjoy decent work”.	上个月，中国国家主席胡锦涛呼吁实现可持续发展和体面的工作，应该推动“旨在实现平衡发展、共享利益以及双赢结果的全球化，确保国际经济、贸易和金融机构提供有利的条件……让21世纪真正成为一个各国共同发展的世纪……实现可持续发展以及让大多数工人享受体面的工作”。


Clearly, change is in the air.	显然，改变即将到来。


Our responses to climate change must have a social dimension.	我们对气候变化必须做到全社会一致的回应。


Workers, employers and governments must engage in dialogue to put in place the social policies which ensure that green jobs are decent jobs.	工人、雇主和政府都必须参与到对话中来以便能让确保绿色工作是体面工作的社会政策实施到位。


Only in this way can the poor and the jobless from Marseille to Mumbai and Sao Paulo to Shanghai be optimistic that creating an environmentally-sustainable world will also deliver decent, environmentally-sustainable work.	只有这样从马赛到孟买、从圣保罗到上海的穷人和失业者才能对创造环境可持续的世界同样可以带来体面、环境可持续的工作持乐观态度。


The Green Inquisition	绿色宗教法庭


COPENHAGEN – When it comes to global warming, extreme scare stories abound.	哥本哈根--现在，世界在全球变暖问题上充满了吓人的言论。


Al Gore, for example, famously claimed that a whopping six meters (20 feet) of sea-level rise would flood major cities around the world.	例如，戈尔曾经发表著名的观点，那就是全世界的各大主要城市都将由于海平面巨幅上升六米（相当于二十英尺）而会被淹没。


Gore’s scientific advisor, Jim Hansen from NASA, has even topped his protégé.	戈尔的科学顾问、美国国家航空和航天局的韩森比他有过之而无不及。


Hansen suggests that there will eventually be sea-level rises of 24 meters (80 feet), with a six-meter rise happening just this century.	韩森说，海平面最终将会上升24米（80英尺），其中，本世纪内将会上升6米。


Little wonder that fellow environmentalist Bill McKibben states that “we are engaging in a reckless drive-by drowning of much of the rest of the planet and much of the rest of creation.”	难怪另一位环境主义者麦克吉本说：“我们人类正在毫无顾及地淹没地球的大部分地区以及其他生物。 ”


Given all the warnings, here is a slightly inconvenient truth: over the past two years, the global sea level hasn’t increased.	尽管警示之言如此之多，但是还是有些真相不让他们高兴。


It has slightly decreased .	那就是，在过去两年的时间里，全球海平面没有上升，而是轻微下降了。


Since 1992, satellites orbiting the planet have measured the global sea level every 10 days with an amazing degree of accuracy – 3-4 millimeters (0.2 inches).	从1992年以来，环绕地球飞行的卫星每隔10天就极为精确地测量全球海平面水平，其精确度达到三到四毫米（0. 2英寸）。


For two years, sea levels have declined.	两年以来，海平面下降了（所有的数据都可以在网站sealevel.


(All of the data are available at sealevel.colorado.edu.)	colorado. edu上得到）。


This doesn’t mean that global warming is not true.	这并不是说全球变暖现象并不存在。


As we emit more CO2, over time the temperature will moderately increase, causing the sea to warm and expand somewhat.	人类排放更多的二氧化碳，日积月累气温就会轻微上升，让海水暖化并在一定程度上使之扩张。


Thus, the sea-level rise is expected to pick up again.	因此，海平面上升就会再加速。


This is what the United Nations climate panel is telling us; the best models indicate a sea-level rise over this century of 18 to 59 centimeters (7-24 inches), with the typical estimate at 30 centimeters (one foot).	联合国气候变化专家小组就是这样告诉我们的。 最佳的模式表明，本世纪内海平面上升18到19厘米（7到24英寸），一般估计为30厘米（一英尺）。


This is not terrifying or even particularly scary – 30 centimeters is how much the sea rose over the last 150 years.	这并不令人恐慌，甚至并不特别吓人，因为在过去150年的时间里海平面上升了30厘米。


Simply put, we’re being force-fed vastly over-hyped scare stories.	简而言之，我们被大量灌输了过渡渲染的吓人说法。