Moreover, cooperatives account for a significant share of GDP in many countries, and an especially high share of the agricultural and consumer sectors.	此外，在许多国家，合作社在GDP中占有很大份额，尤其是在农业部门和消费者部门所占份额更大。


Cooperatives are also one of the largest providers of financial intermediation to the poor, serving an estimated 78 million people globally who live on less than $2 per day.	同时，合作社也是最大的穷人金融中介服务提供者之一，帮助了全球大约78,000，000日生活费不足两美元的人。


Of course, cooperatives have sometimes struggled to live up to the ideal.	当然，合作社有时候不能达到其理想状况。


In the most egregious cases, some have fallen victim to bad politics, weak governance, or mismanagement.	最坏的时候，甚至沦为那些失败的政治的牺牲品，管理无力和经营不善的受害者。


Others are exposed to risks stemming from concentration in a single business sector, commodity, and/or geographic area.	然而，其他一些合作社只专注于一个商业部门，一种商品及（或）一个地区，这使得他们也处于风险之中。


Cooperatives have also wrestled with questions of members’ entry and exit, financial disclosure, and relationships with the non-cooperative sector.	合作社也面临着其成员进出问题，财务披露问题以及与非合作部门的关系问题。


And governments have often faced vexing questions with regard to financial regulation and taxation of cooperatives, including treatment of profits and consideration of exemptions.	同时，政府也面临着在合作社财务监管和征税方面的难题，包括，对利润的处理，对免税额的制定。


And now, in a more mobile and urban world, one might ask: can cooperatives maintain their essential character, based on inclusion and knowledge sharing within a community?	如今，世界更加动态化，更加城市化，可能会有人问，合作社还能植根于社区，保持他们的开放包容和知识分享的本质特点吗?


In a world in which geography is a diminishing barrier to business, can cooperatives sufficiently distinguish themselves as a viable alternative model?	在一个地理阻碍对商业的影响越来越小的世界里，合作社还能作为一种可行的另类模式，使自己脱颖而出吗？


Or will they evolve to serve virtual communities, organized around new sets of challenges and opportunities?	他们会发展成为服务于那些围绕新的机遇和挑战而成立的虚拟社区吗？


The United Nations has declared 2012 the “Year of Cooperatives.”	联合国已经宣布2012年为“合作社年”。


This provides a good opportunity to examine the extraordinary history of cooperatives, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and rekindle a discussion about a development model that promises higher levels of inclusion, ownership, self-determination, and concern for community.	借此良机，可以来回顾合作社的辉煌历史，衡量其优缺点，重燃人们对这种更加开放包容，自主经营和关心社区的发展模式的讨论。


The World Bank is active in the development of producer and credit cooperatives around the world.	世界银行致力于在全球范围内发展生产商合作社和信用合作社。


Some of the most notable programs include the Indian Dairy Cooperative, which has created an estimated 250,000 jobs, mostly in rural areas.	一些著名项目，如：印度乳品合作社，大约创造了250,000个工作岗位，这些岗位主要集中在农村地区。


Similarly, Mexico’s National Savings and Financial Services Bank has helped to strengthen savings and credit institutions that serve millions of rural residents who would otherwise have been relegated to the margins of the formal financial sector.	同样，墨西哥的国民储蓄和金融服务的银行辅助储蓄和信贷机构增强其实力，如果没有这些机构，数百万农村居民将沦为先前的金融部门的边缘人。


The Bank’s policy work has re-affirmed the notion that rural producer organizations are fundamental building blocks of agricultural development.	世界银行的决策组再次肯定了农村生产商组织是农业发展的基石这一观念。


And it has helped governments to supervise and regulate cooperative financial institutions.	同时它也能协助政府监督管理合作金融组织。


As we search for innovative solutions to today’s development challenges, we should consider what the cooperative movement can offer.	当我们寻求新方法来应对当今发展中面临的挑战时，我们也应思索合作社运动能带来什么。


That means not only greater economic inclusion, higher agricultural productivity, strengthened food security, and financial stability, but also lessons concerning responsible and sustainable business practices, corporate governance, and community relations.	它不仅意味着更大的经济包容开放，更高的农业生产力，更安全的食品和更稳定的金融，也带来了许多教训，可见我们在可持续和负责任的经营方式，企业管理和社区关系方面做的还不够。


And we should consider how to facilitate the spread of cooperatives’ best practices while avoiding common pitfalls.	我们应该思考如何促进合作社发扬优良传统，同时避免常见的缺点。


The cooperative movement can prompt us to think in new, inspired ways.	合作社运动可以促使我们以一种新型的，充满灵感的方式来思考问题。


Capitalizing on cooperatives’ successes and learning from their mistakes can help us to expand the menu of options as we search for more inclusive and sustainable models of development, and new ways of building and sharing knowledge.	利用合作社的成功方面，总结其缺点教训，可以使我们在寻找更加开放包容的可持续发展模式，更加新颖的知识构建和知识分享体系时，拥有更多的选择。


The Copenhagen Panic	哥本哈根恐慌


COPENHAGEN – A sense of panic is setting in among many campaigners for drastic cuts in global carbon emissions.	发自哥本哈根——在许多支持大幅削减全球碳排放的活动家之间正在蔓延着一种恐慌性情绪。


It is becoming obvious that the highly trumpeted meeting set for Copenhagen this December will not deliver a binding international treaty that will make a significant difference to global warming.	因为人们越来越明显地感觉到，这场将于今年12月在哥本哈根举行且被大肆宣扬的会议不会为人们带来一个具有约束力的国际条约，并对全球变暖的现状产生显著影响。


After lofty rhetoric and big promises, politicians are starting to play the blame game.	继冠冕堂皇的言论和慷慨承诺后，政治家们又开始玩起了相互推卸责任的把戏。


Developing countries blame rich countries for the lack of progress.	发展中国家指责发达国家没有进步；


Many blame the United States, which will not have cap-and-trade legislation in place before Copenhagen.	大多数国家则把矛头指向了美国，因其在哥本哈根会议将近之时仍未完成对“碳交易”的立法。


The United Nations Secretary General says that “it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority” to reach agreement in Copenhagen.	联合国秘书长则说“奥巴马总统或许很难带着强大的威信参与这次会议”并与各国在哥本哈根达成协议。


Others blame developing countries – particularly Brazil, China and India – for a reluctance to sign up to binding carbon cuts.	而其他人则把责任推卸给发展中国家——特指巴西，中国和印度——因为这些国家不愿签署限制性碳减排条约。


Wherever you turn, somebody is being blamed for Copenhagen’s apparent looming failure.	而不论你转向哪一方，都能发现会有一些人会因哥本哈根会议那显然即将失败的结局而受到指责。


Yet, it has been clear for a considerable time that there is a more fundamental problem: immediate promises of carbon cuts do not work.	然而很显然在一段时期内还将存在一个更为根本性的难题：立即实施碳减排的承诺并不起作用。


Seventeen years ago, industrialized nations promised with great fanfare in Rio de Janeiro to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Emissions overshot the target by 12%.	17年前，许多工业国家在里约热内卢夸下海口，要在2000年将碳排放量减少至1990年的水平，而实际排放量却超过了目标水平的12%。


In Kyoto, leaders committed to a cut of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2010.	在京都会议上，各国领导人承诺到2010年把碳排放量削减到比1990年水平还低5.


The failure to meet that target will likely be even more spectacular, with emissions overshooting by about 25%.	2%，这次的目标也没能达成且失败更为惊人：如今排放量已经超过目标水平25%之多。


The plan was to convene world leaders in Copenhagen and renew vows to cut carbon while committing to even more ambitious targets.	哥本哈根会议的原定计划，是将全球领导人召集至哥城，并在制订更具雄心之目标的同时重申削减碳排放的承诺。


But it is obvious that even a last-minute scramble to salvage some form of agreement will fare no better in actually helping the planet.	但很显然，即使领导人们能在最后一刻紧急达成了某种形式的协定也不能对我们的地球产生实质上的任何帮助。


With such a poor track record, there is a need for soul-searching and openness to other approaches.	考虑到那些令人失望的过往记录，我们需要好好反思自身并以开放的态度迎接其他解决问题的方法。


A realistic “Plan B” does not mean plotting a second meeting after Copenhagen, as some have suggested.	一个真正具有现实意义的后备方案，并不是就像一些人所建议的那样在哥本哈根会议之后再召开另一次会议。


It means re-thinking our strategy.	后备方案意味着重新思考我们的策略。


This year, the Copenhagen Consensus Center commissioned research from top climate economists examining feasible ways to respond to global warming.	今年，哥本哈根共识研究中心委托全球顶尖气候经济学家来对那些可以用于应对全球变暖的方法进行检验。


Their research looked at how much we could help the planet by setting different levels of carbon taxes, planting more trees, cutting methane, reducing black soot emissions, adapting to global warming, or focusing on a technological solution to climate change.	他们研究包括设置不同等级的碳排放税，种植更多树木，削减甲烷排放量，降低煤烟排放，适应全球变暖，或者致力于气候变化的技术性解决方案等各种不同的方法，并对这些方法究竟对我们地球能有多少帮助得出结论。


The Center convened an expert panel of five of the world’s leading economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, to consider all of the new research and identify the best – and worst – options.	研究中心召集了一个由5位全球顶尖的经济学家组成的专门小组（成员包括3位诺贝尔奖得主）来仔细考察有关问题的全部最新研究，并鉴别出其中最好和最差的选择。


The panel found that expensive, global carbon taxes would be the worst option.	专家组发现昂贵的全球碳排放税是最差的选择。


This finding was based on a groundbreaking research paper that showed that even a highly efficient global CO2 tax aimed at fulfilling the ambitious goal of keeping temperature increases below 2oC would reduce annual world GDP by a staggering 12.9%, or $40 trillion, in 2100.	而这一发现则基于一篇突破性研究论文，文中指出即使是一项高效的，旨在实现把全球温度升高限制在2°C范围内这个充满野心目标的全球性二氧化碳税都会使得全球年GDP在2100年时降低足足12. 9%（等值于40万亿美元）。


The total cost would be 50 times that of the avoided climate damage.	并且其总成本是其防止之气候损害的50倍之多。


And if politicians choose less-efficient, less-coordinated cap-and-trade policies, the costs could escalate a further 10 to 100 times.	此外如果政治家们选择效率更低而且欠缺协调性的“碳限额及交易”政策，我们所付出的代价可能会在此基础上再扩大10至100倍。


Instead, the panel recommended focusing investment on research into climate engineering as a short-term response, and on non-carbon-based energy as a longer-term response.	相反，专家组建议将投资重点放在气候工程研究��以作为短期的应对措施，并将无碳基能源的研究来作为长期应对措施。


Some proposed climate-engineering technologies – in particular, marine cloud-whitening technology – could be cheap, fast, and effective. (Boats would spray seawater droplets into clouds above the oceans to make them reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing warming).	一些人提议说，气候工程学技术——尤其是海上云层白效应技术——是一种经济、迅速而高效的方案（这项技术是用船只喷洒雾状海水射入空中形成云层使其反射更多的太阳光线，降低地球温度）。


Remarkably, the research suggests that a total of about $9 billion spent implementing marine cloud-whitening technology might be able to offset this entire century’s global warming. Even if one approaches this technology with concerns – as many of us do – we should aim to identify its limitations and risks sooner rather than later.	而引人注目的是，研究指出总共耗费大约90亿美元执行此项海上云层白效应有可能解决本世纪所有地球变暖效应，即便一个人谨慎地实施这个方法——就如我们中大多数所做的那样——我们都应当尽早地识别其局限性和风险，而不是延后。


It appears that climate engineering could buy us some time, and it is time that we need if we are to make a sustainable and smooth shift away from reliance on fossil fuels.	如果我们想要真正实现可持续且平稳地摆脱对矿物燃料的依赖，那么这个方法显然能为我们争取一些必要的时间。


Research shows that non-fossil fuel energy sources will – based on today’s availability – get us less than halfway toward a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way towards stabilization by 2100.	研究显示，非矿物燃料能源资源——依据目前的可应用性——在帮助我们在2050年保持一个稳定的碳排放量方面也只能解决不到一半的需要，而在达成2100年目标方面也只能是杯水车薪。


If politicians change course and agree this December to invest significantly more in research and development, we would have a much greater chance of getting this technology to the level where it needs to be.	如果政治家们能改变谈判进程并在今年12月达成一致，将更大数量投资在研究和提高技术方面，我们就可能拥有一个更好的机会把这项技术提高到所需的水平之上。


And, because it would be cheaper and easier than carbon cuts, there would be a much greater chance of reaching a genuine, broad-based – and thus successful – international agreement.	并且由于它价格更低，比削减碳排放更加简单可行，这对于达成一个真心诚意而且得到广泛支持——并因此成功实现——的国际条约来说也是一个更好的机遇。


Carbon pricing could be used to finance research and development, and to send a price signal to promote the deployment of effective, affordable technology alternatives.	实施碳排放定价可以用来资助研究和技术提高，并且作为价格信号推动有效、经济的可替代性技术的应用。


Investing about $100 billion annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate-change problem by the end of this century.	年投资约1千亿美元就意味着我们能够在本世纪末从根本上解决气候变化的难题。


While the blame game will not solve global warming, the mounting panic could lead to a positive outcome if it means we re-consider our current approach.	互相推卸责任并不能够解决全球变暖问题，而那么持续升级的恐慌却能够产生出一个正面的结果——如果这意味着我们能够重新考虑当前措施的正确性的话。


If we want real action, we need to pick smarter solutions that will cost less and do more.	如果我们真的想采取行动，那就需要我们挑选出更明智的，低成本高回报的解决方法。


That would be a result for which every politician would be happy to accept responsibility.	只有那样才是每一位政治家乐于承担的义务和责任。


The Corporate-Tax Conundrum	公司税难题


BERKELEY – The United States now has the highest statutory corporate-income tax rate among developed countries.	伯克利—如今，美国的法定公司税率是发达国家中最高的。


Even after various deductions, credits, and other tax breaks, the effective marginal rate – the rate that corporations pay on new US investments – remains one of the highest in the world.	尽管实行了多种税收减免和其他优惠措施，有效边际税率——即公司需要支付的税额占美国新投资的比重——仍然是世界最高之一。


In a world of mobile capital, corporate-tax rates matter, and business decisions about how and where to invest are increasingly sensitive to national differences.	在一个资本可以流动的世界中，公司税率兹事体大，怎样投资、在何处投资等商业决策越来越敏感于此税的国际差别。


America’s relatively high rate encourages US companies to locate their investment, production, and employment in foreign countries, and discourages foreign companies from locating in the US, which means slower growth, fewer jobs, smaller productivity gains, and lower real wages.	美国相对较高的税率无异于鼓励美国公司将投资、生产和招聘放到国外去进行，也阻止了外国公司前来美国，而这又意味着更慢的增长、更少的就业岗位、更小的生产率改进以及更低的真实工资。


According to conventional wisdom, the corporate-tax burden is borne principally by the owners of capital in the form of lower returns.	在传统智慧看来，公司税负担首先是由资本所有者以低回报率的形式负担的。


But, as capital becomes more mobile, relatively immobile workers are bearing more of the burden in the form of lower wages and fewer job opportunities.	但是，随着资本流动性的增加，流动性相对较低的工人正在以更低工资、更少就业机会的形式承担更大的负担。


That is why countries around the world have been cutting their corporate-tax rates.	这就是为什么世界各国都在削减公司税率。


The resulting “race to the bottom” reflects intensifying global competition for capital and technological knowhow to support local jobs and wages.	由此造成的“减税竞赛”反映了日益激烈的全球竞争，争夺资本和技术秘辛以支持本国就业和工资。


Moreover, a high corporate-tax rate is an ineffective and costly tool for producing revenues, owing to innovative financial transactions and legal tax-avoidance mechanisms.	此外，由于创新金融交易和合法避税机制的存在，高公司税率是一种低效率、高成本的税收收入工具。


A company’s legal residence and geographic sources of income can be and are manipulated for such purposes, and the incentives and scope for such manipulation are especially large in sectors where competitive advantage depends on intangible capital and knowledge – sectors that play a major role in the US economy’s competitiveness.	公司可以操纵其法律登记地和收入的地理源来达到此种目的，这样做的激励和空间在竞争优势取决于无形资本和知识的部门尤其强烈和广大，而这些部门正是美国经济竞争力之主要所在。


In the absence of close and broad international cooperation, the US must join the race and lower its corporate-tax rate.	如果没有紧密广泛的国际合作，美国就必须加入减税竞赛，降低公司税率。


A lower rate would strengthen incentives for investment and job creation in the US, and weaken incentives for tax avoidance. It would also reduce numerous efficiency-reducing distortions in the US tax code, including substantial tax advantages for debt financing over equity financing and for non-corporate businesses over corporate businesses.	更低的税率能增强美国投资和就业岗位创造的激励，减弱避税的激励，还能去除大量起到妨碍效率的扭曲作用的税法内容（包括债券融资较股权融资显而易见的税收优势以及非公司业务较公司业务显而易见的税收优势）。


But each percentage-point reduction in the corporate-tax rate would reduce federal revenues by about $12 billion per year.	但公司税率每降低1个百分点，联邦收入将减少120亿美元/年。


These revenue losses could be offset by curtailing so-called “corporate-tax expenditures” – deductions, credits, and other special tax provisions that subsidize some economic activities while penalizing others – and broadening the corporate-tax base.	此收入损失可以用所谓的“公司税支出”的减少（即税前扣减、税收豁免和其他对某些经济活动的税收补贴）以及惩罚他人（扩大公司税基）弥补。


Both President Barack Obama’s plan for business-tax reform and the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan propose reducing such expenditures to pay for a reduction in the corporate-tax rate.	总统奥巴马的企业税改革计划和辛普森-鲍尔斯（Simpson-Bowles）赤字削减计划都打算通过减少此类支出补偿公司税率的下降。


Corporate-tax expenditures narrow the base, raise the cost of tax compliance, and distort decisions about investment projects, how to finance them, what form of business organization to adopt, and where to produce.	公司税支出缩小了税基，提高了守法纳税的成本，也扭曲了投资项目、如何融资、采取何种企业组织形式、在何处生产等方面的决策。 格林斯通（Michael Greenstone）和鲁尼（Adam Looney）5月3日最新出版的报告《关于税收改革的若干事实》（http://www.


As Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney show in a just-released report, the resulting differences in effective tax rates for different kinds of business activity are substantial.	edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2012/05_taxes_greenstone_looney/05_taxes_greenstone_looney. pdf）指出，由此造成的不同企业活动之间有效税率的差异非常大。


That said, if the goal of corporate-tax reform is to boost investment and job creation, broadening the tax base to pay for a lower rate could be counterproductive.	如此说来，如果公司税改革的目标是提振投资和就业岗位创造，那么扩大税基以补偿低税率将不利于达成目标。


Eliminating “special interest” loopholes, like tax breaks for oil and gas, or for corporate jets, would not yield enough revenue to pay for a meaningful rate cut.	堵上“特殊利益”漏洞（如石油和天然气税收减免，或公务机税收减免）并不能增加足够的收入弥补有意义的税率削减。


And curtailing accelerated depreciation, the manufacturing production deduction, and the R&D tax credit – which account for about 80% of corporate-tax expenditures – would involve significant tradeoffs.	而阻止加速折旧、制造业产品税收扣减和研发税收减免（大约占公司税支出的80%）也将牵涉重大权衡。


Indeed, cutting these items to “pay for” a reduction in the corporate-tax rate could end up increasing the tax on corporate economic activity in the US.	事实上，削减这些项目以“补偿”公司税的降低可能最终会抬高美国公司经济活动的总税负。 禁止设备的加速折旧会提高新投资的有效税率；


Eliminating accelerated depreciation for equipment would raise the effective tax rate on new investments; repealing the domestic-production deduction would increase the effective tax rate on US manufacturing; and rescinding the R&D tax credit would reduce investment in innovation.	国内生产不再享受税收优惠将增加美国制造业的有效税率； 而取消研发税收优惠将减少创新方面的投资。


Instead of cutting proven tax incentives for business investment, the US should offset at least some of the revenue losses from a lower corporate-tax rate by raising tax rates on corporate shareholders.	美国不应该削减已被证明了的商业活动的谁手机里，至少一部分因降低公司税率造成的收入损失应该用提高公司股东税率的办法来补偿。


Most countries that reduced their corporate-tax rates have followed this path, while the US has done the opposite.	大部分降低了公司税率的国家都采用了这个办法，而美国却反其道而行之。


At 15%, America’s tax rates on dividends and capital gains are at historic lows, while the profit share of national income is at an all-time high.	美国的股票红利和资本利得税率为15%，处于历史最低值，而利润占国民收入的比重则处于历史最高值。


Defenders of low rates for capital owners argue that it minimizes “double” taxation of corporate income – first of the corporation and then of its shareholders.	资本所有者低税率的捍卫者支出，这让公司收入的“双重”税收最小化了——首先是对公司征税，然后再对公司股东征税。


A lower corporate-tax rate would weaken this justification.	降低公司税可以削弱这一说法的说服力。


Moreover, pension funds, retirement plans, and non-profit organizations, which receive about 50% of all corporate dividends, do not pay tax on these earnings, and would benefit from a lower corporate-tax rate.	此外，养老基金、退休金计划以及非营利组织（大约获得了50%的公司红利总额）的收益不用纳税，从而可以从公司税率降低中获益。


Although individual taxes on corporate income reduce the after-tax return to savings, they have less distorting effects on investment location than corporate taxes do, and they are more likely to fall on owners of capital than on workers.	尽管公司收入的个人税收降低了储蓄的税后回报，但与公司税相比，它们具有更小的对投资目的地选择的扭曲效应，也更容易落在资本所有者而不是工人头上。


Moreover, it is far easier to collect taxes from individual citizens and resident shareholders than from multinational corporations.	此外，从个人公民和居民股东头上征税要比从跨国公司头上征税容易得多。


Apple can use sophisticated techniques to manipulate the location of its corporate income, but individual US citizens who own Apple stock have to report the dividends and capital gains that they earn from it in their worldwide income. 	苹果公司可以采用复杂的手段操纵其公司收入的来源地，但拥有苹果股票的美国个体公民必须报告其收入（不管在世界何处赚得）中的苹果股票红利和资本利得。


A recent study found that taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, subject to a maximum 28% rate on long-term capital gains (the pre-1997 rate), could finance a cut in the corporate-tax rate from 35% to 26%.	一项最新的研究发现，对资本利得和股票红利像正常收入一样课税（按1997年之前的标准，长期资本利得税率最高不超过28%）可以补偿公司税率从35%削减至26%。


Such a change would reduce corporations’ incentives to move investments abroad or shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions, while increasing the progressivity of tax outcomes by shifting more of the burden of corporate taxation from labor to capital owners.	这样的变化能够减弱公司将投资移向海外或将利润源移向抵税地区的激励，同时将更多的公司税负担由劳动力移向资本所有人，从而增加税收结果的累进性质。


An increase in the corporate-tax rate appeals to many US voters who believe that corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes and are worried about widening income inequality.	对许多相信公司并未支付合理的税收比重并担心不平等性愈演愈烈的美国选民来说，提高公司税颇具吸引力。


But, in a world of mobile capital, raising the corporate tax rate – or simply leaving it at its current level – would be a bad way to generate revenue, a bad way to increase the tax system’s progressivity, and a bad way to help American workers.	但是，在一个资本可以流动的世界里，提高公司税率（或维持现有水平不变）无益于增加岁入，无益于增进税收制度的累进性质，也无益于帮助美国工人。


The Cost of Dick Cheney	迪克·切尼的代价


LONDON – George W. Bush has started work on his memoirs.	伦敦——乔治·W·布什已经开始撰写回忆录。


Count to ten before you respond.	在你做出反应前先数十下。


The autobiographies of political leaders are not a very elevated literary form.	政治领袖的自传算不上是一种严肃的文学形式。


First, few leaders write well, though there are exceptions, like Nehru, Churchill, and de Gaulle.	首先，虽然也有像尼赫鲁、丘吉尔和戴高乐这样的例外情况，但是没有几位领导人擅长写作。


No wonder that most of them employ a “ghost,” like the one in Robert Harris’s excellent thriller of the same name, which is really a devastating critique of Britain’s former premier, Tony Blair.	怪不得多数领导人雇佣“枪手”代笔，这让人联想起罗伯特·哈里斯精彩的同名惊险小说中塑造的角色，这的确是对英国前首相托尼·布莱尔的致命的批评。


Second, these memoirs are usually little more than slabs of self-justification interspersed with lists of famous people met in the course of life at the top.	其次，这些回忆录通常不过是自我证明之作，文中间或点缀着作者在担任最高长官期间所遇见的知名人物。


To take one example, while Bill Clinton speaks with warmth, wit, and great eloquence in the flesh, his autobiography is not worth reading.	举个例子，尽管比尔·克林顿本人的演讲充满热情、智慧和雄辩，但他的自传却根本不值一读。


Third, these books are usually written largely for a big paycheck.	第三，撰写这些自传书籍的目的通常都是为了领到大额的薪水支票。


But it beats me how publishers ever recover the huge multi-million dollar advances they hand out.	但出版商怎样才能收回高达数百万的预付投资常常令我感到困惑。


When the great General George C. Marshall – whose memoirs of World War II and of his tenure as America’s Secretary of State would have been worth every penny – was offered $1 million by a publisher in the1950’s for his autobiography, the old man replied, “Why would I want $1 million?”	虽然伟大的将军乔治·C·马歇尔有关二次大战和他本人任职美国国务卿期间经历的回忆录的确每一分钱都物有所值，但当20世纪50年代一位出版商愿意拿出100万美元购买他自传的时候，这位老人回答说，“我要100万美元做什么？


What a different world we now inhabit.	”这与我们目前生活的世界是多么不同。


The good news about the Bush project, so far title-free, is that it is apparently going to be different from the usual reputation polishing.	关于目前还没有定名的布什自传有个好消息，那就是这本自传显然将会与一般的沽名钓誉之作有很大不同。


Instead of starting at the beginning of his presidency, with all those dodgy Florida voting machines, and plodding on to the bitterly unpopular end, he intends to concentrate on the 20 most consequential decisions he made in the White House.	布什的自传并没有从他在总统任期伊始得到佛罗里达州狡猾的选举机器的全部支持时入手写起，一直写到他痛苦地走到众叛亲离的结局时才告一段落，而是打算集中笔墨阐述他在白宫做出的前20大重要决策。


He will also focus on key moments in his life, such as his decision to give up alcohol and to choose Dick Cheney as his Vice President.	他还将着力描绘自己生命中的关键时刻，比如决定戒酒和选择迪克·切尼当他的副总统。


Shaking off his addiction to booze speaks extremely well of Bush, his strength of character and the support of his wife and family.	改掉酗酒的恶习足以为布什正名，证明他的人格力量及其妻子和家庭的支持。


To turn your back on an addiction is never easy.	戒掉某种成瘾的嗜好绝不是一件容易的事。


Those who do it, helped in Bush’s case by a growing religious faith, deserve sympathy and approval.	那些成功实现这一目标的人应该得到同情与赞许，而布什则是借强化自己的宗教信仰达到了这样的目的。


It was never Bush’s determination that was in doubt, nor his geniality – despite that slightly annoying rich-boy joshing.	人们所质疑的从来就不是布什的坚定和诚恳——尽管的确存在有点恼人的富家公子的揶揄。


Nor did I ever believe that the former president was stupid: a criticism leveled at him by many of his European peers who were themselves hardly philosopher kings.	我也从不相信这位前总统愚蠢：这是自己也算不上哲学国王的欧洲同僚们砸向他的批评之辞。


The problem with Bush was not lack of intelligence but a complete absence of intellectual curiosity.	布什的问题不是缺乏智慧，而是学术求知欲的彻底丧失。


He was content to camp on his own shallow prejudices, and the rest of the world had to be fitted into this narrow terrain.	他满足于死抱住自己肤浅的偏见，而世界其他国家则必须适应这种狭隘的见识。


This is where Cheney came in.	这为切尼提供了出场的时机。


It was certainly a key moment when Bush chose him.	布什选择他无疑是一个关键时刻。


Imagine, for example, how different the world and the opinions of Bush’s presidency might have been if he had chosen Colin Powell or John McCain as his running mate?	比如，想象一下如果布什选择了柯林·鲍威尔或约翰·麦凯恩作为竞选伙伴，那么世界事务和布什任期的主张将会发生多么大的不同？


What Cheney did was to feed and nourish the Bush prejudices, and to move ruthlessly and energetically to occupy the policymaking ground left vacant by the President’s indolence and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice’s lack of political clout.	切尼的所作所为培养和助长了布什的偏见，毫不留情地竭力抢占了因总统的懒惰和国家安全顾问康多莉扎·赖斯政治影响力的缺失留下的决策真空。


What did Cheney believe?	切尼信仰什么？


He thought that Ronald Reagan had shown that fiscal deficits don’t matter.	他认为罗纳德·里根已经表明财政赤字无关紧要。


He believed in capitalism – or at least in supporting big companies and the rich – though whether he understood how free markets should work under the rule of law is more doubtful.	他信仰资本主义——或者至少是支持大企业和富裕阶层——尽管他是否理解法治规则下自由市场的运行方式比较值得怀疑。


The law was never Cheney’s strong point.	法律从来就不是切尼的强项。


He was an apologist for American power, even though during the Vietnam years he had wriggled and dodged to avoid being at the sharp, conscripted end of it.	他是美国强权的辩护者，尽管在越南战争年代他曾经左藏右躲避免在残酷的战争尾声时被征召入伍。


He thought that the American president should operate beyond the checks and balances applied by the US Constitution, just as his country should not be constrained by any international rules.	他认为美国总统应当不受美国宪法规定的平衡和限制措施的束缚，就好比他的国家也不应受到任何国际规则的约束。


Rules were for others, and at the very end of his term in office his one public disagreement with Bush concerned the President’s refusal to pardon Cheney’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who had been convicted of perjury.	规则是为别人定的，而在他任期届满时他与布什的公开分歧是因为总统拒绝赦免切尼的前参谋长，被裁定犯有伪证罪的斯科特·比利。


Cheney’s influence resulted in the bloody disaster of Iraq, the moral humiliation of Guantanamo, water-boarding and “extraordinary rendition,” the despair of friends and the contempt of critics, a full-dress parade of double standards around the globe.	切尼的影响导致了伊拉克的血腥灾难，关塔那摩的道德耻辱、水刑和“特别引渡”，朋友的绝望和批评家的轻视，双重标准在全球各地的盛装展示。


Mean-spirited and partisan, Dick Cheney was one of America’s most powerful vice presidents.	不怀好意同时拉帮结伙，迪克·切尼成为美国有史以来权力最大的副总统之一。


I cannot think of one who did so much damage to America at home and to its reputation abroad.	像他这样损害美国国内和国外声誉的人我想不起第二个。


No wonder Bush regards the choice of Cheney as such a key decision.	怪不得布什把选择切尼作为如此关键的决策。


Ideas matter in politics and having only a few simplistic ones of his own, Bush found his agenda shaped and dominated by his clever surrogate and deputy.	理念在政治生活中至关重要，由于自己只有为数不多的简单理念，布什发现自己的议程受到了聪明的代理人和代表的操纵和左右。


That is what eventually did him in.	正是这个原因最终搞垮了布什。


Bush’s presidency was discredited and sunk by the man whom he fatally selected to work for him.	布什的总统任期由于他不幸选定为他工作的那个人而沉沦并蒙受耻辱。


The bigger tragedy was that so many others paid a much higher price for this than Bush did.	更大的悲剧是那么多其他人为此付出了远远超过布什本人的代价。


“The Cost of Dick Cheney” – perhaps that should be the title of Bush’s memoirs.	“迪克·切尼的代价”——也许那应当成为布什备忘录的题目。


China’s Interest-Rate Challenge	中国的利率挑战


NEW YORK – China’s successful transformation from a middle-income country to a modern, high-income country will depend largely on the reforms that the government undertakes over the next decade.	纽约——中国能否从中等收入国家向现代高收入国家成功转型将在很大程度上取决于政府今后十年的举措。


Financial reforms should top the agenda, beginning with interest-rate liberalization.	以利率市场化为开端的金融改革将是主要举措之一。


But liberalizing interest rates carries both risks and rewards, and will create both winners and losers, so policymakers must be prudent in their approach.	但利率市场化有赢有输，有回报也有风险，因此决策者必须谨慎决策。


In 2012, the People’s Bank of China allowed commercial banks to float interest rates on deposits upward by 10% from the benchmark, and on bank loans downward by 20%.	2012年，中国人民银行允许商业银行存款利率在基准利率基础上上浮10%、贷款利率下浮20%。


So, if the PBOC sets the interest rate on one-year deposits at 3%, commercial banks can offer depositors a rate as high as 3.3%.	如果中国人民银行把一年期存款利率定为3%，商业银行可以向储户提供最高3. 3%的利率。


Many analysts viewed this policy, which introduced a small degree of previously non-existent competition among commercial banks, as a sign that China would soon liberalize interest rates further.	很多分析人士把这项政策视为中国将很快进一步放松利率管制的标志，这项政策给商业银行领域带来了一定程度的竞争。


But any further move toward interest-rate liberalization must account for all potential costs and benefits.	但任何深化利率市场的举措都必须考虑到潜在的成本和收益。


Chinese policymakers should begin with a careful examination of the effects of current financial repression (the practice of keeping interest rates below the market equilibrium level).	中国决策者理应从认真研究当前金融抑制（将利率保持在低于市场平衡水平的做法）所产生的效果开始。


The degree of financial repression in a country can be estimated by calculating the gap between the average nominal GDP growth rate and the average long-term interest rate, with a larger gap indicating more severe repression.	平均名义GDP增长率与长期平均利率之间的差额可以用来估算一个国家金融抑制的程度，差额越大表示抑制越严重。


In the last 20 years, this gap has been eight percentage points for China, compared to roughly four percentage points on average for emerging economies and nearly zero for most developed economies, where interest rates are fully liberalized.	20年来中国的差额一直维持在八个百分点，而新兴经济国家平均差额约为4%，多数利率完全市场化的发达国家差额则近乎为零。


Developing-country central banks keep interest rates artificially low to ensure sufficient low-cost financing for the public sector, while avoiding large fiscal deficits and high inflation.	发展中国家央行人为地压低利率，目的是确保公共部门能充分得到低成本融资的同时，避免出现高通胀和巨额财政赤字。


But, in the long run, such low interest rates may also discourage households from saving, lead to insufficient private-sector investment, and eventually result in economy-wide underinvestment, as occurred in many Latin American countries in the past.	可从长远看，这样的低利率也可能损害普通家庭的存款倾向，从而使私营部门投资不足，并最终导致整个经济投资低迷，这样的情形在很多拉美国家曾经发生过。


In many ways, China is breaking the mold.	中国没有出现这种情况。


Despite severe financial repression, it has experienced extremely high savings and investment, owing mainly to Chinese households’ strong propensity to save and massive government-driven investment, particularly by local governments.	因为中国家庭强烈的储蓄倾向和大规模政府（尤其是地方政府）主导投资，所以虽然存在严厉的金融抑制，中国仍出现了超高的储蓄和投资。


The adverse effects of financial repression in China are reflected primarily in its economic imbalances.	中国金融抑制的负面影响主要表现为经济失衡。


Low interest rates on deposits encourage savers, especially households, to invest in fixed assets, rather than keep their money in banks.	低存款利率鼓励储户、尤其是普通家庭投资资产，而不是将钱存在银行里。


This leads to overcapacity in some sectors – reflected in China’s growing real-estate bubble, for example – and underinvestment in others.	这样导致某些行业产能过剩——这体现在中国不断增长的房地产泡沫——而其他行业又投资不足。


More important, financial repression is contributing to a widening disparity between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), with the former enjoying artificially low interest rates from commercial banks and the latter forced to pay extremely high interest rates in the shadow-banking system (or unable to access external financing at all).	更重要的是，金融抑制造成国有企业（SOEs）和中小企业（SMEs）差距越拉越大，前者享受商业银行人为的低利率，而后者则迫不得已向影子银行系统支付超高利率（或根本无法获取外部融资）。


Interest-rate liberalization – together with other financial reforms – would help to improve the efficiency of capital allocation and to optimize the economic structure.	利率市场化和其它金融改革将有助于提高资本配置效率和优化经济结构。


It might also be a prerequisite for China to deepen its financial markets, particularly the bond market, laying a solid foundation for floating the renminbi’s exchange rate and opening China’s capital and financial accounts further – a precondition for the renminbi’s eventual adoption as an international reserve currency.	此外，它也是中国拓展金融市场、尤其是债券市场的先决条件，为人民币汇率浮动和进一步开放中国资本和金融账户奠定坚实的基础——这也是人民币最终成为国际储备货币的必要前提。


SMEs and households with net savings stand to gain the most from interest-rate liberalization.	中小企业和净储蓄家庭将成为利率自由化最大的受益者。


But financial repression’s “winners” – commercial banks and SOEs – will face new challenges.	但商业银行和国有企业等金融抑制政策的“赢家”将会面对新的挑战。


Under the current system, the fixed differentials between interest rates on deposits and those on loans translate into monopolistic profits for commercial banks.	在现行体制下，存贷款利率间的固定差额毫无悬念地转化为商业银行的垄断利润。


(The three percentage-point differentials that Chinese banks have enjoyed are roughly on par with those of their developed-country counterparts.)	（中国银行机构当前三个百分点的价差与发达国家金融机构大体类似。


By creating more competition for interest income and reducing net interest-rate differentials, liberalized interest rates could reduce banks’ profitability, while SOEs will likely suffer the most, owing to much higher financing costs.	）利率市场化将增加利息收入方面的竞争及降低利率价差，从而会影响银行的盈利能力，而国有企业则可能由于被迫付出比目前高得多的融资成本而成为最大的受害者。


Another major risk of interest-rate liberalization in China stems from rising public debt, particularly local-government debt, which has grown significantly in the wake of the global financial crisis.	中国利率市场化的另一个主要风险在于公共债务不断上升，特别是全球金融危机爆发以来不断攀升的地方政府债务。


A key parameter for determining the long-run sustainability of public debt is the gap between interest rates and the nominal GDP growth rate.	衡量公共债务长期可持续性的关键参数是利率和名义GDP增长率之间的差额。


In China, total public debt currently amounts to roughly 60-70% of GDP – a manageable burden.	中国目前的公共债务总额占国内生产总值的60-70%左右，这样的负担仍然属于可以控制的范畴。


But, after interest rates are liberalized, the public sector’s debt/GDP ratio is expected to increase substantially.	但在利率放开后，公共部门债务占GDP的比率预计将会大幅增加。


Given these challenges, China’s leaders must take a cautious approach to interest-rate liberalization.	鉴于存在上述挑战，中国领导人必须以谨慎的态度对待利率市场化。


Gradual implementation would enable the losers to adjust their behavior before it is too late, while sustaining momentum on pivotal reforms, which should be policymakers’ top priority.	应该渐进式实施利率市场化，既允许利益受损者有时间调整自己的对策，又能保持关键改革的势头。 保持改革势头应当成为决策者的首要任务。


After all, as Premier Li Keqiang has put it, “reforms will pay the biggest dividend for China.”	毕竟，正如李克强总理所言，“改革是中国最大的红利”。


David Cameron’s Euro-Nemesis	戴维·卡梅伦的欧元复仇


LONDON – Unlike some in Britain’s Conservative Party, Prime Minister David Cameron has not previously given the impression of being obsessed with Europe.	伦敦——与英国某些保守党人不同，首相戴维·卡梅伦以前给人的印象是并不沉湎于欧洲。


He demonstrated no enthusiasm for the European Union, but he appeared clearly less exercised by its supposed iniquities than many Tories are.	他对欧盟并未表现出多大热情，但与众多保守党人相比他显然对欧盟的罪过认识不足。


This view of Cameron’s position is now difficult to sustain.	对卡梅伦立场的这种看法已经很难站住脚。


His long-gestating speech on Europe, although containing elements that many might share, also sows the seeds for a prolonged and acrimonious debate – and not just in Britain.	他长期构思的欧洲演讲虽然不乏大家一致认可的观点，但也为长期激烈的争论埋下了伏笔——而且此次争论的范围并不仅限于英国。


Conservatives in the House of Commons (and in the wider party) want to be reassured that their leader shares their antagonism for the entire European integration process.	下议院（和其他机构的）保守党人希望确保其领导人在整个欧洲一体化进程问题上与他们同仇敌忾。


They have not forgotten or pardoned his “treachery” in refusing to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, signed by his predecessor, Gordon Brown.	他们并未忘记或原谅他拒绝就前任戈登•布朗签署的《里斯本条约》举行全民公投的“背叛”行径。


With his speech, that reassurance may now have been given.	他的这次讲话终于可以让他们放心了。


Cameron, of course, faced a difficult task with his party, which required a statement from him of his European policy.	当然，卡梅隆在党内面临着艰巨的任务，需要阐述自己的欧洲政策。


Cameron then had to find something appropriate to say.	卡梅隆因此必须找到合适的措辞。


He needed to placate Tories and his domestic critics while avoiding the economic and political havoc that would be caused by announcing an imminent referendum that might lead to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU.	他必须安抚保守党和国内批评者，同时避免宣布即刻公投导致英国退出欧盟，进而对经济和政治造成严重的破坏。


The time that he took to decide what he would say attests to the difficulty of squaring that circle.	他字斟句酌所耗费的时间恰恰证明了解决问题的难度。


In fact, as Cameron’s speech made clear, his solution to his dilemma – to buy himself short-term peace from his critics at the expense of potentially making his (and Britain’s) problems more intractable in the long term – is hardly new.	其实，卡梅伦的演讲表明了他应对困境的方法无外乎老调重弹——为在批评者面前换取短暂的和平，不惜付出让自己（和英国）的长期问题变得更为棘手的代价。


It was already clear that Cameron wanted to push any possibility of a referendum into the most distant possible future.	卡梅伦显然希望尽一切可能推迟公投的时间。


The idea that he would seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership is also familiar from his earlier speeches and interviews.	此前的演讲和采访已经表露了他希望重新谈判英国作为欧盟成员条件的想法。


Now that position has been bluntly and uncompromisingly expressed.	现在卡梅伦已经斩钉截铁、毫不妥协地表明了立场。


The demand for far-reaching change in the structure and functioning of the EU, including repatriation of powers to Britain, is a major new demarche at a difficult time for Europe.	他在欧洲困难时刻提出了一项重要的新方针，要求对欧盟的结构和功能进行意义深远的改革（包括将权力收归英国）。


Cameron has said on several occasions that he wishes to avoid a referendum revolving around the simple choice of continued EU membership on the basis of the current terms of membership.	卡梅伦曾多次表示，他希望避免在现有成员条款基础上就是否延续欧盟成员资格进行单一选择的公投。


Already some are claiming to discern in his European policy the makings of an heir to Harold Wilson, another famous “renegotiator” of Britain’s terms of membership in the then-European Community who went on to win a referendum on Europe.	已经有人称在他的欧洲政策中找��了哈罗德·威尔逊的影子，威尔逊曾就英国欧共体资格条款进行了著名的重新“谈判”，并在其后赢得了欧洲问题的全民公投。


Britain’s relationship with European integration has been a difficult one, regardless of which party has been in power (Wilson, after all, was a Labour prime minister).	无论哪党哪派掌权（威尔逊毕竟是一位工党首相），英国与欧洲一体化的关系注定将会困难重重。


This was inevitable from the outset, owing to Britain’s deep and irreconcilable disagreement with virtually all other EU member states on the fundamental issue of pooling sovereignty.	这种情况从一开始就不可避免，因为英国与几乎所有欧盟成员国在汇聚主权等根本问题上的分歧既深入又不可调和。


Essentially, the British point of view has been that a loose confederation of nation-states cooperating on trade is as much Europe as the UK needs.	从本质上讲，英国一直相信以民族国家贸易合作为基础组成的松散邦联既符合欧洲也符合英国的需求。


But Britain joined the European Community, not just the free-trade area that Cameron now apparently wants.	但英国加入了欧共体，而不像卡梅伦目前希望的那样仅仅是自由贸易区成员。


Nonetheless, the undertow of Euro-skepticism in British politics has never diminished and was evident in Cameron’s speech.	但欧洲怀疑论的暗流在英国政坛从未减弱，并且表露在卡梅伦的演讲之中。


Even the supremacy of European law in defined areas was accepted only reluctantly by Britain, and long after many others had done so.	英国勉强接受了即便在特定领域中的欧洲法律至上，而且在众多其他国家已经这样做之后。


Indeed, in his speech, Cameron could not resist a passing shot at the European Court of Justice.	事实上在他的演讲中，卡梅伦按捺不住地对欧洲法院提出了批评。


Britain has made major positive contributions to Europe, particularly with respect to the single market.	英国对欧洲、尤其是统一市场做出过重大的积极贡献。


But it is no exaggeration to state that whenever Britain has perceived an opportunity to wage a war of attrition against the European supranational project, it has done so, opposing any substantial increase in the EU’s competences or resources.	但英国也一直抓紧一切机会对欧盟超国家项目发起消耗战，反对欧盟资源实力的大幅增加，这样说也毫不夸张。


Given that this position reflects the British public’s attitude toward the EU, it is not surprising.	鉴于上述立场反映了英国公众对欧盟的态度，英国这种做法也在意料之中。


But it nonetheless distresses other member states, particularly those, like Germany, that recognize the great benefit of having a country with a strongly pro-free trade position and a deep commitment to the rule of law play an important role in the EU.	但英国的做法无论如何都让德国等其他成员国备感苦恼，他们认为坚决支持自由贸易立场并坚定支持法治的国家能在欧盟发挥重要的作用。


The prolonged period of renegotiation now proposed by Cameron implies high costs for both sides.	现在卡梅伦提出的漫长的重新谈判计划会令双方都损失惨重。


For starters, it creates a source of deep and prolonged uncertainty at a time when the eurozone crisis already has called into question the EU’s long-term health, if not its survival.	首先，这种做法在欧元区危机已经威胁到欧盟长期健康、甚至是生存的基础上再次制造出深刻而漫长的不确定性。


Moreover, Cameron’s strategy seems unlikely to lead to an outcome that satisfies anyone.	此外，卡梅伦的策略似乎不太可能取得所有人都满意的结果。


If it is intended to be a negotiation that takes place in the context of broader treaty talks, it may not happen in the foreseeable future.	如果谈判以更大范围的条约谈判为背景，那么或许在可以预见的未来都不会发生。


European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, among others, seems to doubt the need for a new treaty, which would require the unanimous support of the member states – some of which are sharply opposed – to enter into force.	以欧洲理事会主席赫尔曼·冯·范龙佩为首的许多人怀疑新条约的必要性，新条约需要各成员国一致支持（而有些成员国强烈反对）才能切实生效。


Indeed, Cameron recognized this explicitly in his speech, so the new treaty to embody a “new settlement” for Britain may have to be negotiated with all member states as a separate exercise.	事实上，卡梅隆在讲话中明确承认了这一点，因此包含针对英国“新方案”的新条约可能需要与所有成员国单独协商。


Part of this negotiation apparently would entail a repatriation of powers, requiring the consent of all EU members – and making the conditions under which Cameron’s renegotiation is supposed to take place both legally and politically uncertain.	需要全部欧盟成员国同意的权力归还显然是此次谈判的部分内容——而这导致卡梅伦重新谈判的条件在法律和政治上缺乏确定性。


Many European politicians would view a member state’s repatriation of competences as a totally destructive precedent, and thus would oppose it resolutely.	欧洲许多政治家会将向成员国还权看作彻头彻尾的破坏性先例，并因而坚决地加以反对。


The net result is that it seems highly probable that any attempted achievement of a “new settlement,” including repatriation of competences, will make it much more difficult for Britain to remain in the EU than would be the case if a straightforward “in/out” referendum were held now.	结果很可能是任何试图达成“新方案”，包括还权协议的努力会比让英国现在直接举行是否退出欧盟的公投退出的可能性更大。


So, far from reassuring anyone (including Tory Euro-skeptics), Cameron’s stance heralds a new era of turbulence and uncertainty for Britain and its European partners.	因此，卡梅伦的立场不仅不能让任何一方（包括对欧元持怀疑态度的保守党人）放心，反而预示着英国及其欧洲盟国有可能进入充满动荡的新时代。


Overcautious Obama	过度谨慎的奥巴马


PRINCETON – In this election season in the United States, President Barack Obama is two men in one.	普林斯顿—美国的这次大选季，总统奥巴马是个双面人物。


The Obama of the Cairo speech of 2009, when he called for a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, has been increasingly eclipsed by Obama the terrorist-slayer, the commander-in-chief who has launched hundreds of drone strikes against Al Qaeda and its affiliates and who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden.	2009年开罗演讲时的奥巴马（当时他呼吁开启美国和穆斯林及全世界关系的新篇章）逐渐被作为恐怖主义死对头、数百起针对基地组织及其设施的无人机空袭的总司令以及清除本·拉登指令下达者的奥巴马取代。


Commander-in-chief Obama is doing what he thinks is necessary to keep Americans safe, but he is ignoring the deeper roots of US security that the Cairo Obama understood so well.	总司令奥巴马在想方设法让美国更安全，但他忽视了开罗奥巴马所深刻理解的美国安全问题的深层次根源。


It may well be necessary for other Muslim countries to hold him to account.	也许只有穆斯林国家才能让他发生改变。


Consider Syria.	比如叙利亚。


Everything happening there was both predictable and predicted: a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, increasing sectarianism and ethnic segregation, the polarization of extremes and the silencing of moderates, de-stabilization of neighboring countries, infiltration by terrorist groups, and a bloodbath from which the country could take decades to recover. Syrian opposition groups beg for the kinds of weapons needed to fight President Bashar al-Assad’s planes, defend hard-won territory, provide safety for civilians, and signal to Assad that the world will not stand by as he does whatever it takes to subdue his own people.	那里发生的所有事情都是可预测的，而且也被预测到了：沙特和伊朗之间的代理战争、日渐滋长的宗派主义和种族隔离、极端主义的两极分化和温和派的沉默、周边邻国的动荡、恐怖组织的渗透，还有需要几十年时间才可能恢复过来的大流血。


Every morning, Obama receives a briefing from men who warn him of every plot and conspiracy to kill Americans.	每天早晨，奥巴马都会收到简报，警告他所有谋杀美国人的意图和阴谋。


He knows that any weapon capable of shooting down a Syrian warplane could also be used by a terrorist against a US airliner.	他知道，能够击落叙利亚战斗机的武器同样可以用来对准美国民航客机。


He believes that he is doing the right thing and following the prudent course in waiting for the Syrian conflict to burn itself out in some way while minimizing the long-term risk to American lives.	他相信，他在做正确的事，等待叙利亚冲突自己水落石出，同时将美国人民生民安全威胁最小化，这才是审慎的战略。


Other advisers warn him that any possible action – a safe zone on the Turkish border, for example, that could expand outward – requires taking out anti-aircraft defenses all over Syria.	其他顾问警告他，任何可能的行动——比如，在土耳其边境设立可以向外扩展的安全区——都需要在整个叙利亚部署防空力量。


That would mean bombing Damascus, which could harden Syrian support for Assad.	这意味着轰炸大马士革，从而让更多的叙利亚人支持巴沙尔。


And perhaps it would do no good; it might save a few lives, they argue, but, with so many different countries fighting a proxy war via so many different groups of opposition fighters, it would not change the overall dynamic of the conflict.	这样做可能不会带来任何好处； 他们指出，这也许可以救几条人命，但叙利亚有如此多的不同国家通过如此多的相互敌对的集团开展着代理战争，因此安全区不可能改变冲突的整体动态。


Moreover, other countries in the region will not use offensive force without approval by the United Nations Security Council, which the Russians and Chinese continue to block.	此外，该地区的其他国家不会再没有联合国安理会批准的情况下使用武力，而俄罗斯和中国不会的存在意味着不会有安理会的批准。


And let’s not forget that US voters have no appetite for more military action in the Middle East, even if the price is years of civil war and the implosion and fragmentation of a country bordering Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon.	我们也不要忘了，美国选民对于增兵中东并没有多少兴趣，即使不增兵的代价是一个毗邻以色列、约旦、伊拉克、土耳其和黎巴嫩的国家发生多年内战、分裂和崩溃。


These arguments are advanced in good faith and deserve serious consideration. But the art of leading rests on calculating costs and benefits and exercising judgment when the balance is unclear.	这些观点的出发点是好的，值得认真考虑，但领袖艺术在于衡量代价和收益，并在均衡点并不清楚时作出判断。


No one speaks for the Syrian people in the Oval Office every morning.	每天早晨，没有人会在椭圆办公室为叙利亚人民说话。


No one adds up the costs of betraying, yet again, what America claims to stand for, even while witnessing people willing to march – in the face of bullets – for precisely those universal values: dignity, freedom, democracy, and equality.	没人会增加美国背叛其一再自称会捍卫到底的普世价值——尊严、自由、民主、平等——即使我们眼睁睁看着人们愿意为此冒着枪林弹雨走上街头。


The cost is yet another generation of Middle Eastern youth who will believe the worst about the US, no matter how far-fetched the rumor or extreme the claim.	代价是又一代中东青年不惮以最大恶意忖度美国，即使关于美国的传闻极端得离谱，而且纯属捕风捉影。


No one points out the huge opportunity cost of what could have been and what could still be – albeit barely – if the US took decisive action to save tens of thousands of Syrian lives and possibly tip the balance of the conflict.	没人指出这样做的机会成本——如果美国采取果断措施拯救千万叙利亚人民生命甚至改变冲突平衡的话（尽管这样的可能性极低）——有多大。


Consider the contrast with Libya, where one of the outcomes of US intervention was tens of thousands of Libyans marching in the streets with placards declaring their support of the US and their outrage and sorrow at the murder of the US ambassador.	想想与叙利亚形成鲜明对比的利比亚吧，美国干预的结果是千万利比亚人民举着支持美国的横幅走上街头，对美国大使的遇害表示愤怒和悲痛。


And, on the world stage, Russia and China have been encouraged to believe that America will never push past a veto, effectively giving them the final word.	而在世界舞台上，俄罗斯和中国也知道美国绝不会投反对票，于是最终决定权掌握在它们手上。


It may well be impossible to get the US to act before its presidential election in November.	在11月总统大选尘埃落定之前，美国不可能采取行动。


The only chance, in my view, is if countries in the region – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – call openly for US leadership.	在我看来，唯一的机会是，如果该地区各国——土耳其、沙特、约旦、卡塔尔和阿联酋——都敞开胸怀接受美国的领导。


They should remind Obama of what foreign-policy experts Nina Hachigian and David Shorr have recently called “the responsibility doctrine”: great powers have an active responsibility to uphold global norms and solve global problems.	他们应该提醒奥巴马——用外交政策专家妮娜·哈奇格恩（Nina Hachigian）和大卫·肖（David Shorr）最近的话说，这叫“责任原则”——“超级大国有维护世界规范、解决全球问题的积极责任。 ”


The Arab League should publicly charge the Security Council with abdicating its responsibility for preserving international peace and security and call on countries with important interests in the region to join with them in taking action.	阿盟应该公开要求安理会放弃其维持国际和平和安全的责任，号召在该地区有重大利益的各国加入它们，采取行动。


They should specifically call on the US to assume the mantle of global responsibility and, in the phrase that Obama used to describe the intervention in Libya, “create the conditions and coalitions for others to step up.”	它们尤其应该号召美国承担全球责任，用奥巴马描述对叙利亚的干涉的话说，“创造让他人崛起的条件和联盟”。


The League would be asking the US to live up to its values and pursue its interests, while at the same time fulfilling its own responsibility as a regional organization.	阿盟应该要求美国不辜负它的价值观、追求它的利益，而与此同时，阿盟应该承担起其自身作为地区组织的责任。


The devastating and widening conflict in Syria does not present any good choices, only choices between bad and worse.	叙利亚愈演愈烈的灾难性冲突没有好的选择，只能数劣相权取其轻。


But a leader must choose, and Obama is making the wrong choice – for Syria, for the region, and for the US.	但领袖必须做出选择，而奥巴马做的是错误的选择——对叙利亚如此，对中东地区如此，对美国也是如此。


The Cracks in the G-20	G20峰会的破题之策


MADRID – The world financial crisis has served as a quick and efficient catalyst to the G-20.	发自马德里——世界经济危机已经成了20国集团（G20）最为迅速有效的催化剂。


The first three G-20 summits of chiefs of state, in Washington, London, and Pittsburgh, will be remembered for advancing multilateralism and coordinated global action.	前三个G20国家首脑会议——华盛顿，伦敦和匹兹堡会议——都因推动了多边主义和全球合作而被人们铭记。


But the G-20 remains very much a work in progress – and one that needs much work to succeed, as its most recent summit in Toronto demonstrated.	但在最近的多伦多峰会上所发生的一切告诉我们，在推动进步方面G20依然有许多工作要做——也必须付出极大的努力才能获得成功。


The G-20 summit in Washington in 2008 was the first at which the member countries’ chiefs of state met since the group’s creation in 1997.	2008年的华盛顿G20峰会是各方领导人在集团于1997年成立后的首次聚会。


The G-8 was no longer an appropriate vehicle for global economic governance, given the need to stabilize financial markets around the world.	G8已经无法继续承担全球经济治理的重任，因为稳定金融市场的必要性已经延伸到了全球范围。


The voices of countries such as China, India, and Brazil had to be heard if a coordinated response to the crisis was to be found.	如果想对危机做出集体反应的话，就必须听取中国，印度和巴西等国的意见。


With the financial crisis worsening, the London summit in 2009 agreed to unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus and backed a stronger, more coherent regulatory and supervisory framework worldwide.	随着危机进一步恶化，2009年的伦敦峰会通过了前所未有的财政和货币刺激计划，并支持在全球范围内建立一个更加强大也更为完善的金融规管和监察框架。


In view of the G-20’s success, the Pittsburgh summit recognized it as the main forum for international economic cooperation.	有鉴于G20所取得的上述成功，匹兹堡峰会最终确立了峰会作为国际经济合作的主要平台的作用。


This recognition raised expectations for the G-20 and granted it the prestige that it deserved: it is the only forum in which world powers and emerging countries sit as equals at the same table.	这种承认使人们对G20的期望大增，并赋予其应有的地位：这是唯一一个世界强国和新兴国家能平等对话的论坛。


The premise is clear: as the crisis made more evident than ever, the interdependence of countries is inescapable. In the face of today’s global challenges, the only possible response must be global.	前提很明确：由于危机的影响比从前都更为显著，各国之间的互相依存已经成为无法回避的事实，况且也没有另外一条道路可供选择。


There is no possible alternative. But the imprecision of the agreements reached at the summit in Toronto in June has left political leaders with a bitter taste in their mouths.	但即便如此，在6月多伦多峰会上达成的协议却如此含糊其辞，令所有与会领导人心里都不是滋味。


Two clearly defined gaps stand out as causes of discord. The first is transatlantic divergence over how best to assure a return to solid growth.	引发各国之间分歧的原因有二：其一是大西洋两岸对如何重新实现稳定增长有不同意见。


The United States favors continuing economic stimulus, while the European Union prefers fiscal consolidation.	美国希望继续实施经济刺激计划，而欧盟则希望巩固财政。


The other source of dissension is disagreement over a bank tax.	另一个分歧则是关于银行税率方面。


The US, the EU, and Japan are in favor, while emerging countries, as well as Canada and Australia, are opposed.	美国，欧盟和日本都希望推动实施，而新兴国家以及加拿大和澳大利亚都持反对意见。


While an agreement has been reached (2013 has been set as the year to reduce budget deficits by half; 2016 to stabilize sovereign debt), consensus is not headed in the right direction.	当协议最终达成之时（计划在2013年实现预算赤字减半，2016年稳定所有主权债务），共识却没有运行在正确的方向上。


It is not a question of stimulus versus deficit. Both are necessary.	这不是刺激计划和赤字之争，因为两者都有存在的必要。


Even respecting the idiosyncrasies of each context, there is still sufficient common ground for more precision in the agreements.	尽管各方都理解每项协议条款的内在涵义，但依然缺乏足够的共同基础来继续细化这个协议。


The same can be said for transparency, accountability, and regulation of the bank tax.	同样的情况也出现在银行税率的透明度，可信度和监管问题上。


I know very well that this is not an easy task, but it is essential for world leaders – not markets – to lead reforms.	我深知这是个棘手的问题，但全世界领导人都必须着手推动改革——而不是去依靠市场的力量。


Moreover, a custom has been repeated that should be changed.	此外，一个一直延续的习惯必须改变。


Obviously, holding a G-8 summit just before a G-20 summit, as happened in Canada this June, simply serves to prolong maintenance of separate clubs, which is unsustainable.	很显然，在G20峰会之前召开G8峰会——正如今年在加拿大那样——其实就是一个维护小团体的举动，但这是不可持续的。


The G-20’s role should increase further in importance, owing to emerging countries’ share of global GDP – projected to reach 60% in 2030 – and to the global nature of the challenges of the twenty-first century.	G20的角色必须变得更加重要，因为新兴国家的GDP占全球GDP的份额——预计将在2030年达到60%——正不断增大，以及这类21世纪挑战的本质也是全球化的。


If we want to make progress on global governance problems we will have to work together on getting through this economic crisis and on other essential issues, such as nuclear non-proliferation.	因此我们若想能在全球治理问题上取得进展，那么就必须在金融危机以及其他事务（比如核不扩散）上携手合作。


The problem is that, despite the clear need for multilateralism, there is a risk of a relapse into bilateralism due to a lack of global leadership.	问题是，尽管多边主义已经是大势所趋，但由于因为一个全球领导角色的缺失，单边主义依然可能复辟。


The attention of US President Barack Obama is centered on matters of great importance, such as the Middle East, his evolving strategy in Afghanistan, and the struggling American economy.	美国总统奥巴马的注意力都放在了许多重要的事务上，比如中东问题，阿富汗干涉战略以及拯救美国经济。


The same is true of the EU, where attention – and action – has been centered in recent months on defending the euro and resolving the economic difficulties on the Union’s periphery.	类似的情况也发生在欧盟身��，比如最近欧元保卫战以及应对外围国家的经济问题。


Meanwhile, the emerging powers continue to lean toward bilateralism and are aligning themselves with other countries.	与此同时，新兴国家却继续奉行单边主义并与其他国家合纵连横。


Lack of agreement on the United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran does not help coordination and cooperation within the G-20, either.	如果我们在联合国安理会对伊朗制裁问题上缺乏共识，自然也是不利于促进G20内部的协同合作的。


Summits should be well prepared and provide a forum to debate today’s great global issues.	为此，峰会必须精心准备并提供一个讨论当今重大全球事务的平台。


Coherent, well-defined, and precise proposals would produce results that are more acceptable to all.	条理清晰，定义明确且周密妥当的政策建议将带来更能被各方所接纳的成果。


But just as important as making decisions is explaining them well. A G-20 summit is not something that happens every day.	但跟做出决策同样重要的，则是如何完美地阐述这些决策。


It is a global event. Especially in a time of crisis that has caused so much suffering, its decisions must be explained to the public clearly and without cacophony.	G20峰会不是一个能随便召开的会议，它是一个全球盛会，尤其是在这个危机造成了许多苦难的时期，因此必须向公众清楚阐述会议的决策内容，避免出现任何误解。


People’s anguish demands this effort, and it was lacking in Toronto.	民众的困扰必须由这种方式得到缓解，但多伦多峰会却没有做到这一点。


The world remains in a very delicate transitional phase, and it is not clear yet in which direction the G-20 will lean.	世界依然处在一个非常关键的转折时期，而G20峰会的走向也尚未明确。


The main challenge now is to continue using the “geometry of 20” to build instruments of world governance.	如今最重要的挑战则是继续使用“20国框架”去建立全球治理架构。


Although the economic storm has become less intense, it hasn’t calmed yet.	虽然金融风暴稍微缓和，但威胁依然存在。


So there remains much to do.	因此需要许多工作去彻底消灭这场危机。


With countries headed toward growth at different speeds, global strategy must continue to be a priority.	即便各国的增长速度不尽相同，全球战略依然是是首要任务。


The degree of interdependence among countries is increasing, and the global nature of our problems is inherent.	国家之间互相依存的程度正不断提高，而我们所面对的问题的全球化本质也是显而易见的。


Within the framework of multilateralism, countries must make the effort to smooth over their differences and deepen their relations: we must conquer the inertia that moves us towards old thinking – and old alliances.	在多边主义的框架下，各国必须通力合作，减少分歧并深化关系，因此我们必须克服的，就是那种将我们引向旧思维——和旧联盟——的惰性。


The Crimes of Ratko Mladić	拉特科·姆拉迪奇的罪名


NEW YORK – Ratko Mladić is an easy man to hate.	发自纽约——拉特科·姆拉迪奇是那种一看就令人生厌的人。


In his prime, he not only talked and behaved like a thug, but he also looked like one – the kind of bull-necked, pale-eyed, snarling psychopath who would gladly pull out your fingernails just for fun.	在他得势的那些年头，此人不但言行举止像极了一个恶棍，连长相都颇为神似——就是那种脸红脖子粗，眼仁白多黑少的狂躁症患者，一个仅仅为了取乐能把人指甲活活拔掉的恶魔。


Apart from many other cruelties, the Butcher of Bosnia was responsible, in the summer of 1995, for the killing of around 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the woods around Srebrenica.	而除了其它各项暴行外，这位“波斯尼亚屠夫”还被指控于1995年夏天在斯雷布雷尼察附近的森林中下令屠杀了8000多名手无寸铁的穆斯林男性。


So it will give most of us a feeling of warm satisfaction that he has finally been arrested in the Serbian village of Lazarevo.	因此当此人在塞尔维亚东北部的拉扎勒沃村落网的消息传来，包括我在内许多人都甚感欣慰。


Serbia has gained respect by arresting Mladić, which should speed up its membership in the European Union.	塞尔维亚逮捕姆拉迪奇的行动令人刮目相看，估计也能对其欧盟成员国进程助推一把。


The former victims of Mladić’s Bosnian Serb forces will feel that some justice is being done at last.	而那些曾遭姆拉迪奇手下波斯尼亚塞族武装蹂躏的受害者们也会觉得正义终于得到了伸张。


Yet the forthcoming trial of Ratko Mladić raises certain uncomfortable questions.	然而即将对姆拉迪奇进行的审判也引发了一系列令人不快的问题。


Why, in the first place, can’t he be put on trial in Belgrade, instead of The Hague?	为何要在海牙开审，而不能把法庭设在贝尔格莱德？


And is it really wise to charge him with genocide, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes?	另外，向此人发出种族灭绝罪，反人类罪以及战争罪的指控又是否明智？


Both questions reveal how much we still live in the shadow of the Nuremberg Tribunal, where the Nazi leaders were tried by an international judicial panel.	这两个问题都显示出我们依然活在当年纽伦堡审判的阴影之下。


It was believed, perhaps correctly, that the Germans would be incapable of trying their own former leaders.	当时人们认为德国人可能没有能力去审判自己的前领导人（这或许是有道理的）。


And the Nazi crimes had been so horrendous in scale and intent that new laws – “crimes against humanity” – had to be created to try those who had been formally responsible for them.	而纳粹所犯下的罪行无论是在影响范围和主观意图上都如此令人发指，以致不得不创设一条新罪名——“反人类罪”——来指控这些曾经犯下类似罪行的人。


States, too, should be held accountable for their deeds – hence, in 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.	同理，各个国家也应当为在本国内部发生的相关罪行负责——并以此在1948年通过了《防止及惩治灭绝种族罪公约》


The Holocaust was not the main issue at stake in the Nuremberg Trials.	犹太人大屠杀并不是纽伦堡审判中最具争议的主要议题。


Nevertheless, the allies thought that the Nazi project of exterminating an entire people called for an entirely new legal approach, to ensure that such an atrocity would never happen again.	但同盟国依然认为必须有一个全新的法律手段来应对纳粹试图灭绝整个民族的计划，以确保这类暴行不再重演。


The problem with genocide, as a legal concept, is that it is vague.	但作为一个法律概念，种族灭绝的问题在于其定义相当模糊。


It refers to “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The emphasis is on “intent,” not on the numbers of people whose lives are destroyed.	它被定义为“蓄意整体或部分消灭某一民族、人种，种族或宗教团体的行动”，而其重点则是“蓄意”而非被杀害者的数目。


Mao Zedong murdered up to 40 million Chinese, but did he intend to destroy them as a group?	毛泽东令4000万中国人丧命，那可否认定他是蓄意把这些人作为一个群体而消灭之？


Surely not.	答案显然是否定的。


We know that Hitler did intend to destroy every last Jewish man, woman, and child.	我们知道希特勒确实想消灭每一个犹太成年男女和儿童。


Even though mass killings are not rare in history, Hitler’s extermination plan was, if not unique, certainly highly unusual.	虽然大屠杀在历史上并不鲜见，但希特勒的灭绝计划即便不是特例，也是极不寻常的。


However, the laudable effort to prevent such a thing from recurring has had unfortunate consequences.	然而试图阻止这类事件重演的善行却带来了不幸的后果。


For, in our zeal to learn lessons from history, we often learn the wrong ones, or distort history towards dubious ends.	因为在努力从历史中取经的时候，我们常常会学到了错的东西，或者歪曲了历史并导致不可预知的结局。


In a way, the killings at Srebrenica also were affected by the memories of World War II.	在某种程度上，斯雷布雷尼察屠杀也受到了二战记忆的影响。


The United Nations’ Dutch battalion promised to protect the Muslims there, even though it was in no position to do so.	虽然实际上无能为力，但驻当地的荷兰派驻联合国部队却依然承诺会保护当地的穆斯林。


It was a promise that partly reflected the feeling of guilt that still haunts the Dutch for looking the other way as the Germans rounded up and deported two-thirds of their country’s Jewish population to death camps.	事实上荷兰人一直被一种负罪感所困扰着，因为当年他们坐视德国人将本国2/3的犹太人口抓起来并押解到死亡集中营，而这一承诺恰恰也反映了这一种困扰。


This time, it would be different. This time, they would act.	他们认为这次会跟以往不同，决心这次不会无动于衷。


Alas, outnumbered and outgunned by Mladić’s forces, the Dutch surrendered Srebrenica to its fate.	谁知在姆拉迪奇的优势兵力威胁下，荷兰人只得拱手将斯雷布雷尼察送上了死路。


Because of the trauma of Hitler’s intention to murder all of the Jews, genocide has become the one compelling reason for military action, including armed invasion of other countries.	由于希特勒试图屠杀所有犹太人所造成的心理创伤，种族灭绝已经成为了一个采取军事行动——包括武装侵略其他国家——的最有力理由。


But what constitutes genocide?	但种族灭绝究竟如何定义？


Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders, wanted the world to intervene in Nigeria in 1970, because he saw the killing of Ibos by Nigerian troops as a genocidal echo of Auschwitz.	1970年时“无国界医生”组织的创始人贝尔纳·库什内（Bernard Kouchner）希望国际社会干涉尼日利亚事务，因为他看见尼日利亚政府军杀害伊博族人，就跟当年在奥斯维辛集中营发生的那样。


Others saw a brutal civil war, and cautioned that intervention would make things worse.	而其他人则将其视为一场血腥内战，并警告国际干涉可能会令事态继续恶化。


For some, we are forever living in 1938, or rather, 1942, when the Nazis approved what Hitler called “the final solution of the Jewish question.”	对于某些人来说，我们永远活在《慕尼黑协定》签订的1938年，或是纳粹党批准通过希特勒所谓“犹太问题最终解决方案”的1942年。


President George W. Bush and his cheerleaders, invoking the Munich Agreement at every opportunity, regarded the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a call to arms.	美国前总统小布什��其吹鼓手们从不放过任何机会去引用《慕尼黑协定》，将2001年“9·11”恐怖袭击比作战斗的号角。


Saddam Hussein was Hitler, so we had to send in the troops.	萨达姆·侯赛因就是希特勒，因此我们必须出兵。


We should stop Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir’s genocide in Darfur. We must stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from committing mass murder in Benghazi.	我们必须阻止苏丹总统奥马尔·巴希尔在达尔富尔的种族灭绝行动，我们必须阻止利比亚领导人卡扎菲在班加西进行大规模屠杀……如此种种，不一而足。


Sometimes intervention might save lives.	有时干涉行动确实能拯救生命。


But wars often beget more wars, or longer ones.	但一场战争往往会引发更多或者更持久的战争。


Military action can cause more violence, and more civilian deaths.	军事行动会带来更多的暴力以及平民伤亡。


This is especially true of intervention in civil wars, where the sides cannot easily be divided into victims and aggressors, good and evil.	这一点在对内战的干涉上尤其应验，因为交战各方都无法被简单定义为受害者或施暴者，好人或坏人。


Of course, the world becomes much simpler if we choose to see it in black and white. And the Mladić trial will, no doubt, encourage this perception.	当然，在非黑即白的视角下这个世界显然会变得更简单，而对姆拉迪奇的审判无疑会助长这一看法。


He will be tried for genocide, because the UN’s tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice decided that the Bosnian Serbs were genocidal.	他肯定会受到种族灭绝罪的审判，因为联合国前南斯拉夫问题国际刑事法庭以及海牙国家法院都认定波斯尼亚塞族是种族灭绝者。


Since his subordinate, Radislav Krstić, was already sentenced for his complicity in the genocide at Srebrenica, Mladić will presumably be convicted.	鉴于姆拉迪奇的下属拉迪斯拉夫·克里斯蒂奇（Radislav Krstić）已经因“合谋在斯雷布雷尼察进行种族灭绝”而被判有罪，他本人估计也逃不过类似罪名。


We need not feel sorry for Mladić. There is no doubt that he is guilty of serious war crimes.	我们无需为姆拉迪奇感到遗憾，因为他无疑犯下了严重的战争罪行。


And a trial, however unsatisfactory, is in most cases still to be preferred to an assassination.	而一场审判，虽然不尽如人意，在许多情况下至少也比一场暗杀要好。


But trying him for genocide, even though it will be hard to prove that he ever intended to exterminate Bosnian Muslims as a group, just because they were Muslims, will further muddy the term’s already vague definition.	但以种族屠杀的罪名指控他，即便难以证明他确实是蓄意将波斯尼亚穆斯林作为一个整体而消灭（理由仅仅因为这些人都是穆斯林），将令种族灭绝这一本已模糊的定义更加含糊不清。


Mladić was engaged in ethnic cleansing, which, though reprehensible, is not the same as genocide.	姆拉迪奇参与了种族清洗，当遭世人唾骂，但却与种族灭绝不是同一概念。


Loose definitions will encourage more military interventions, thus more wars.	宽松的定义将激发更多的军事干涉，并因此引发更多战争。


By invoking Hitler’s ghost too often, we trivialize the enormity of what he actually did.	在不断召唤希特勒的阴魂之时，我们实际上贬低了这位纳粹领导人所犯罪行的严重性。


The Crises of Summer	夏天的危机


PRINCETON – Europe’s crisis is now poised at the moment that divides recovery and renewal from decline and death.	普林斯顿— 眼下，欧洲危机进入了关键时刻，复兴和复苏还是衰退和死亡，马上就要见分晓了。


Whereas a few weeks ago, commentators and financial analysts argued that only a few months remained to rescue Europe, leading politicians, lurching from summit to summit, have recently talked in terms of days.	几周之前，评论家和分析师们还在大谈拯救欧洲的时间只剩下了几个月，而如今，连轴转出席峰会的政治领导人已开始用“天”作为计时单位。


Summer crises are a familiar feature of European history – and of financial history.	夏天的危机乃是欧洲历史的常见之事，金融史亦然。


Indeed, the twentieth century was shaped by three summer crises, whose seriousness was heightened in each case by the absence of major policymakers, who were on vacation.	事实上，20世纪便是由三起夏天的危机造就的，每一次危机都因为主要决策者休假不在场而导致严重代价。


In two years, Europeans will commemorate the centennial of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, and the subsequent “July crisis” that triggered World War I that August.	两年后，欧洲就将迎来斐迪南大公遇刺（1914年6月28日）及其后引发第一次世界大战的“七月危机”100周年纪念。


On July 13, 1931, the German banking system collapsed, ensuring that what was previously an American economic downturn became the worldwide Great Depression.	1931年7月13日，德国银行系统崩溃，从而导致此前美国所发生的经济衰退演变成一场全世界大萧条。


On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon ended the United States’ commitment to a fixed gold price, leading to a decade of global currency instability.	1971年8月15日，美国总统尼克松结束了美元和黄金固定比价的历史，引发全球货币十年动荡。


Each of these crises involved a highly technical issue, but also a much broader set of political problems.	所有这些危机都包含着高度技术性的方面，但也均具有比技术问题广泛得多的政治问题。


And, in each case, the intertwining of the technical and the political produced disaster.	在每一场危机中，技术问题和政治问题的综合作用产生了灾难。


In July 1914, diplomats were trying to devise a solution that would permit the Habsburg Empire to deal with the cross-border police investigation that was inevitable after a terrorist attack.	1914年7月，各国外交官试图找出一个解决方案，让哈布斯堡王朝加入跨国政策谈判——恐怖袭击的必然结果。


Political leaders were thinking about national revival and assertion.	政治领导人们所构想的是民族复兴和宣言。


In 1931, the experts were preoccupied with the complexities posed by the combination of reparations and war debts arising out of World War I with large private-sector indebtedness.	1931年，专家们全神贯注，试图解决由赔款问题和一战及私人部门高度负债带来的战争债务问题所导致的复杂性。


Populist political movements in many countries were still thinking about national revival and assertion.	席卷多国的民粹主义政治运动所构想的仍是民族复兴和宣言。


In 1971, the technical issue concerned the role of the dollar in the international monetary system.	1971年，技术性问题是美元在国际货币体系中的作用。


But politicians in other countries also felt uncomfortable about the continuing centrality of the US in the postwar order.	但令其他国家的政客感到不安的还有另一个问题：美国在战后秩序中的日益极权。


In each of these summer crises, addressing the technical issue was not enough to solve the problem.	在所有这三次夏天的危机中，修正技术性问题并不足以解决问题。


That is true today as well.	今天的状况同样如此。


Indeed, Europe’s current crisis reflects exactly the same mixture of elements, each requiring a different type of solution.	事实上，当前的欧洲危机反映了完全相同的要素组合，不同的要素需要不同的解决办法。


On the one hand, a complex set of national fiscal crises and Europe-wide banking problems calls for a comprehensive and detailed rescue operation.	一方面，复杂的国家层面财政危机和欧洲层面的银行问题需要全面、详细的援助方案。


On the other hand, an underlying European governance problem – at both the national level and that of supranational European Union institutions – has been intensifying since the early 1990’s.	另一方面，基础性欧洲治理问题——既包括国家层面，也包括超越国家的欧盟制度层面——自20世纪90年代初开始便一直在恶化。


What is now required to resolve the technical issue is some mechanism for assuming existing debt and preventing excessive borrowing in the future.	解决技术性问题所需要的是偿还现有债务、防止未来过度举债的机制。


In the US, Alexander Hamilton famously negotiated the federal assumption of states’ debt in 1790, but many states behaved badly in the early nineteenth century, with multiple bankruptcies, until they adopted laws or amendments to their constitutions requiring balanced budgets.	在美国，亚历山大·汉密尔顿在1790年成功地进行了将州债务联邦化的谈判，但许多州在19世纪初仍然表现糟糕，发生了多起破产案，直到它们出台了平衡预算的法律或州宪法修正案之后情况才有所改善。


The EU needs some fiscal authority of its own if it is to make Europe’s economic and monetary union work.	欧盟也需要自己的财政当局，如果它想让欧洲经济和货币联盟运转起来的话。


It is already a profound peculiarity that customs duties in a customs union are still administered nationally.	作为一个关税同盟，欧洲各国在关税问题上依旧各行其是，这已然是一件怪事。


Hamilton made federal customs houses the key element of his proposal.	在汉密尔顿的方案中，联邦关税机关是重要组成部分。


A Europeanization of some part of value-added tax would be a tremendous advance in combating the massive fraud that the existing system nurtures.	将部分增值税欧洲化将是打击现有制度滋生的大规模欺诈的重大进步。


Labor mobility is also incomplete without a common pensions and benefits system: under current arrangements, a worker who spends five years in France, five years in Greece, and five years in Germany is left with a fragmented collection of small entitlements.	在缺乏共同退休金和福利制度的情况下，劳动力流动性也是不完全的：在现有安排下，一位在法国、希腊和德国各呆了五年的工人退休后只能得到几项少量福利的简单组合。


The crisis has already increased the extent of such migration within Europe.	此次危机已经增加了欧洲此类劳动力迁移的程度。


But any solution will be unacceptable unless it finds broad acceptance across Europe, in debtor and creditor countries alike.	但除非能被欧洲（不管是债权国还是债务国）广泛接受，否则任何解决方案都不会被采纳。


There is no reason why a constitutional solution that involves debt limitation should not command a large measure of public acceptance, especially in debtor countries, which have experienced the political and economic damage caused by previous profligate governments.	没有理由表明包括债务上限在内的宪法性解决方案能够得到广泛的公众接受，尤其是债务国，它们因享乐无度的前任政府而经历了政治和经济伤害。


What has produced the populist backlash is the spectacle of political authorities devising technically complicated solutions that lack credibility.	导致民粹主义逆袭的是那些设计出没什么信誉的、技术上十分复杂的解决方案的正值当局的拙劣表演。


Simply put, the experts need to stop treating Europe’s citizens as if they were stupid.	简言之，专家不能再把欧洲人民当成蠢蛋应付了。


That is why Europe needs a longer-term constitutional renewal, through new treaties, as much as it desperately needs a short-term fix.	这就是为什么欧洲需要通过新条约进行的长期宪法更新，其迫切性一点都不亚于短期修正。


Working around existing treaties just looks like more of the same old recipe – a denial of a massive problem that everyone sees.	围绕现有条约开展工作看上去就像是照着旧菜谱做菜，不啻于否认所有人都看得到的大问题。


The public can be forgiven for choking on this kind of stuff.	无怪乎公众被噎到了。


Consider the European crises that produced good outcomes.	也有些欧洲危机最后产生了好结果。


On June 16, 1940, Winston Churchill proposed a Franco-British political union in the aftermath of the German invasion of France.	1940年6月16日，在德国入侵法国之后，丘吉尔提出了英法政治联盟。


A decade later, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer proposed a Franco-German political union.	十年后，西德总理阿登纳提出了法德政治联盟。


That is the kind of boldness that is now needed.	这样的魄力正是目前所需要的。


In the past, it was war, immense dislocation, and suffering that could weld nations.	在过去，是战争、严重混乱和苦难将各国拧成了一股绳。


Is Europe’s current crisis severe and dislocating enough to generate an analogous effect?	此次欧洲危机是否严重和混乱到了足以产生类似效果的程度？


The more Europe suffers, the more its people will correctly perceive an incrementalist agenda for reform as nothing more than an exercise in futility.	欧洲苦难越重，就有越多的欧洲人民能正确地感受到渐进式的改革日程纯属无用功。


The Crisis of Consumerism	消费主义的危机


FLORENCE – Major economic crises are inevitably also structural milestones.	佛罗伦萨——严重的经济危机不可避免地也是结构的里程碑。


There is no simple return to a pre-crisis normalcy. Something changes permanently.	我们不会简单回到危机前的常态，有些事情永远改变了。


As we learned in 2009, patterns of expectations and demand take a new shape.	正象我们在2009年认识到的那样，期望和要求的模式要求一种新的形态出现。


Our current crisis is not simply a blowback effect of financial globalization.	我们现在的危机并不仅仅因为金融全球化的后座力作用。


Financial globalization misfired because it took a bet on a type of economy that was becoming unsustainable.	金融全球化哑了火，是因为它拿一种变得不可持续的经济类型来做赌。


During the past quarter-century, but especially over the five years leading up to 2008, the world seemed to revolve around the American consumer.	在过去的四分之一世纪里，尤其是截至2008年的此前五年，世界似乎都在围绕美国的消费者转动。


American-style consumption offered a new model of economic development. It inspired widespread emulation.	美式消费提供了一种新的经济发展模式，引发了广泛的消防。


Over the course of a few decades, major city centers across the world began to resemble each other much more closely, with the same brands, designs, and lifestyles.	几十年来，世界各地的主要城市中心越来越难以彼此区分，充斥着同样的品牌，设计和生活方式。


Consumption or, more precisely, consumerism , appeared to be globalized.	消费，或者更精确地表述为 消费主义 看来发生了全球化。


American universities delivered new curricula based on studies of consumption and consumerism.	基于对消费和消费主义的研究，美国的大学传授新的课程。


In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush advised Americans that they should not allow the trauma of the attacks to interfere with their ordinary shopping, and implied that buying had become a patriotic duty and virtue.	在2001年的9月11日的恐怖袭击之后，乔治·W·布什总统忠告美国人他们不应该让袭击带来的创伤干扰日常购物，暗示说买东西已经变成了一种爱国的责任和美德。


The United States had become the world’s consumer of last resort.	美国成为了世界世界消费者的最后指望。


The post-2007 crisis was not simply a financial affair.	2007年后的危机也不只是一起金融事件。


It began as a result of weakness in a specific sector – residential mortgages – after a bubble in home prices allowed many Americans to borrow massively, and often disastrously, against the putative value of their equity in order to finance purchases.	某个领域——住宅抵押——的弱点引发了危机。 此前，泡沫房价允许许多美国人大数额地，而且经常是灾难性地，违反他们股票证券的推定价值进行借贷，以便来为购买提供资金。


The global imbalances that many people view as being at the root of the problem reflected savings rates of near zero in the US, as well as in those economies that seemed best to emulate the American model – the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain.	许多人认为全球不平衡是问题的根源，这种不平衡反映出美国的储蓄率近乎于零。 那些效仿美国最出色的经济体也是如此，包括英国，爱尔兰和西班牙。


In the course of the crisis, these debt-ridden economies’ consumers abruptly changed their purchasing habits. Savings rates shot up.	在危机当中，这些负债累累经济体里面的消费者突然改变了他们的购买习惯，储蓄率扶摇直上。


Spending on automobiles ground to a halt, until government stimulus programs in many countries revived it.	汽车消费陷入停滞，直到许多国家的经济刺激计划重新将之激发起来为止。


But schemes such as public subsidies for scrapping old and fuel-inefficient cars simply led many people to re-schedule their purchases.	然而类似在拆除陈旧汽车和燃料无效的汽车方面进行国家补贴等计划只是让许多人重新考虑购买而已。


The automobile market was rescued in 2009 at the expense of sales in 2010 and subsequent years.	2009年的汽车市场被拯救了，但它是以牺牲2010年和随后年份的销售为代价换来的。


The crisis also revealed the extent of the massive over-capacity in the US retail market, with estimates that at least one-fifth of American shopping malls would be forced to close.	危机还显示出美国零售市场里的严重产能过剩，据估计至少有五分之一的美国购物中心将被迫关闭。


The response to the crisis will be a hastening of the movement toward on-line purchases, in which physical location is no longer a preeminent part of shopping decisions.	这次危机将加速网上购物的发展，它不再把物理位置作为购物决定的优先考虑方面。


High-value and luxury brands were brutally affected by a wave of deep discounting in the last quarter of 2008.	高价和奢侈的品牌在2008年的最后一个季度里惨遭大折扣浪潮的重击。


The aura of a brand is easily destroyed.	一个品牌的氛围轻易就被摧毁了。


One reaction has been to look for radically new marketing strategies, as in the case of the up-market Jimmy Choo brand of women’s shoes, now to be sold in a simpler guise by the low-price mass retailer Hampamp;M.	应对策略之一是寻找尖端的新型销售策略，例如Jimmy Choo旗下的高端女鞋品牌现在扮相简朴，由低价批发商Hampamp;M. 来销售。


Such recovery as there has been in the luxury market has been largely limited to so-called affordable luxuries – shoes, handbags, or ties, rather than yachts or fast cars.	奢侈品市场里的类似复兴主要局限于所谓“可负担的奢侈品”：鞋子，手袋，领带，而不怎么发生在帆船或高速汽车上。


Purchases of these relatively low-cost items can be regarded as the withdrawal symptoms of the world’s consumer binge.	购买这些相对低价的消费品可以被认为是世界性购买狂热消退的迹象。


The consumer age was the product of two previous crises.	消费者时代是前两次危机的产物。


The Great Depression of the 1930’s was interpreted as the result of inadequate consumption, of poverty in the midst of plenty.	1930年代的大萧条被理解成是因为不完全消费，因为富足中的贫困而产生的。


Governments took on the responsibility of stabilizing and organizing consumption on a wider level.	政府承担起了在更广泛范围内稳定和组织消费的责任。


A second major global crisis, in the 1970’s, shook the heavy-industrial basis of manufacturing, and with it the idea that governments should manage the economy.	第二次大型全球性危机发生在1970年代，它动摇了制造业的重工业基础，也使得政府管理经济的观点受到质疑。


The 1970’s produced a new model of sustaining consumption through individualized desire.	1970年代产生了一种通过欲望个人化来维持消费的新型模式。


Production was decentralized and focused on the creation of niche products for highly specialized markets.	生产被分散化，并且重点关注为高度专业化的市场创造有针对性的产品。


Consumption became primarily an individual phenomenon through which people could distinguish themselves.	消费变成了首先是一种个人现象，据此人们能够让自身脱颖而出。


In retrospect, the 1970’s mark the end of an era dominated by mass production, and the beginning of the new consumer age.	回顾过去，1970年代标志着结束了大众化产品占统治地位的时代，也象征着新消费者的时代出现。


Sometimes the age of productionism is also called “Fordism,” after Henry Ford, who supplied large quantities of cheap but identical cars.	在亨利·福特提供大量廉价但单一的汽车之后，某些时候生产主义的时代也称之为“福特主义”。


Rather unimaginatively, the consumer age is dubbed post-Fordism.	消费者的时代被毫无创意地称为“后福特主义”。


In fact, it could be called “Tom Fordism,” after the young American designer who realized the iconic potential of the Italian fashion house of Gucci.	其实，当年轻的美国设计师汤姆·福特认识到意大利时装品牌Gucci的图像潜力时，我们可以说这个时代实行的是“汤姆·福特主义”。


What will replace the age of consumerism?	什么将会取代消费主义时代呢？ 最明显的答案是将会面向服务经济发生更全面的转移。


The most obvious answer is that the shift to a service economy – already well under way by the beginning of the new millennium – will become more complete.	全面。 新千年开始以来，这种转移进展良好。


Consumerism depended on a radical notion of individualism.	消费主义依赖于极端的个人主义论调。


We become indebted in order to consume because we are convinced that our utility schedule is more important than someone else’s.	为了消费，我们债务缠身，因为我们深信自己的物品清单比起别人的更重要。


If I see a beautiful piece of jewelry or a bright new car in a shop, I am convinced that it should be mine, and that it can be more usefully employed in my possession than in someone else’s.	如果我在商店里看见一件美丽的珠宝或是一辆锃亮的新车，我确信它应该是我的，而且在我拥有之下它会比在别人拥有之下更好地发挥作用。


In that way, greed feeds on a kind of pride or self-regard.	如此这般，贪婪源于一种骄傲或是自���。


The empirical study of happiness has produced evidence that the satisfaction from buying objects is short-lived and depends on continued repetition.	关于快乐的实证研究已经提供了证据显示：从购买物品中获得的满足是短期的，而且需要不断重复。


That is socially, morally, and environmentally wasteful.	这是一种社会，道德和环境方面的浪费。


On the other hand, the consumption of experiences (rather than objects) produces a more sustained satisfaction.	反之，消费经历（而不是物品）会让满意持续的时间更长。


The new service economy emphasizes human interaction more than individualistic consumption.	新的服务型经济强调的不是个人消费，而是人们之间的联系。


In an extreme form, luxury hotels are now organizing service in local community projects as a way of engaging the passions of their wealthy patrons.	昂贵的酒店正在以一种极端的形式在本地的社区工程中组织服务，以此来引发富有赞助人的热情。


This service economy may generate higher levels of overall well-being if it emphasizes that humans do not exist as separate islands, but existentially depend on their relations with others.	这种服务型经济可能带来整个社会的较高水平，如果它强调人们不是作为单独的岛屿存在，而是依赖他们和他人的关系而存在。


The Crisis of Thai Democracy	泰国民主的危机


One year after he was re-elected in a landslide, Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been forced to dissolve the National Assembly and call a snap election.	在他信以压倒性胜利再次当选泰国总理之后一年被迫解散国民议会并举行提前选举。


Although his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party commands a 75% majority in the assembly, Thaksin is embattled.	尽管他的泰爱泰党在议会中拥有75％的多数席位，他信仍然四面楚歌。


He remains immensely popular with rural voters and the urban poor, who comprise more than 60% of Thailand’s electorate, but he has been battling a fervent Bangkok-based insurrection against his rule by the intelligentsia and middle classes.	农村选民以及城市贫民占泰国选民60％以上，他信在他们中间依旧声望极为低下，但是，他仍然在与由知识阶层和中产阶级所主导、以曼谷为基地的反对其统治反抗运动作激烈的斗争。


They accuse Thaksin, Thailand’s wealthiest businessman, of corruption and treason for the tax-free sale of his family-owned Shin Corporation to the Singapore government’s Temasek Holdings for $1.9 billion.	他信是泰国的商界首富。 他信被控腐败以及通过将家族家族企业那越集团以19亿美元免税出售给新加坡政府控股的淡马锡控股公司的叛国行径。


Thaksin’s rapid reversal of political fortune attests to the limits of the ballot box, as well as to democratic shortcomings that now beset a host of developing countries, including regional neighbors such as the Philippines.	他信的政治运程急转直下证明了选举的局限性以及当今困扰许多发展中国家、包括菲律宾在内的地区邻国的民主缺陷。


Until recently, Thaksin appeared to be as unassailable at home as he was bold and credible abroad.	直到最近，他信看起来在国内还是地位稳固，在国际上颇为大胆，享有声誉。


Exploiting Thailand’s deep urban-rural divide, Thaksin bulldozed his way to power in 2001 on a populist platform.	2001年，他信利用泰国深刻的城乡差别，以民粹主义竞选纲领一举赢得大选胜利。


He stirred up national pride and promised rural Thais that their country would rise to greatness following the devastating 1997 economic crisis.	他鼓动民族自豪感，并且向泰国农民保证国家将会在1997年严重的经济危机之后实现振兴。


A raft of populist policies underpinned his first four-year government, from rural debt suspension and cheap universal healthcare to handing out $25,000 to each of 77,000 villages for entrepreneurial start-up funds.	在他的首任四年政府任期内实行了大量的民粹主义政策，从中止农村债务、廉价的全民医疗直到给77000个村庄每个2万5千美元的创业基金。


Reminiscent of development strategies prevalent in East Asia, Thaksin picked strategic niche industries to propel Thailand’s economic expansion, focusing on automobiles, fashion, food, healthcare, and tourism.	他信选择了适当的战略性产业来促进泰国的经济增长，集中发展汽车、时装、食品、医疗以及旅游业。 这些措施让人回想起东亚国家所盛行的发展战略。


In foreign affairs, Thaksin carved out his own space on the international stage with ambitious regional cooperation schemes anchored around the 25-member Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation (ACMECS) and a clutch of bilateral free-trade agreements with the major powers, including the US, China, Japan, India, and Australia.	在对外关系上，他信以拥有25个成员国的亚洲合作对话组织和伊洛瓦底江、昭披耶河与湄公河经济合作战略会议以及与包括美国、中国、日本、印度以及澳大利亚在内的大国签订一系列双边自由贸易协定为中心的雄心勃勃的地区合作规划而在国际舞台上崭露头角。


The ACD was designed to make Thailand the political center of gravity in Southeast Asia; ACMECS was to make it the region’s linchpin of economic development; and the bilateral agreements would cement relations with the biggest players in the region.	亚洲合作对话组织被用来使泰国成为东南亚的政治重心； 伊洛瓦底江、昭披耶河与湄公河经济合作战略会议则使得其成为该地区经济发展的关键；


At his zenith, many saw Thaksin as a worthy successor to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, buoyed by authoritarian rule at home and assertive leadership abroad.	而众多的双边协议则将会加强其与该地区大国的关系。 他信如日中天之时，许多人认为他是马来西亚前总理马哈蒂尔优秀的继承人，其地位依靠国内的专制统治以及在国际上发挥当仁不让的领导作用来得以维持。


Voters overwhelmingly returned Thaksin to office in February 2005.	2005年1月，泰国选民压倒性地再次选举他信担任总理。


But his personal popularity then plummeted, owing to the spate of separatist violence in the Muslim-dominated south and the scourge of corruption.	但是，从此以后，由于穆斯林占多数的南部地区独立分子暴力事件以及腐败猖獗，他的个人受欢迎程度一落千丈。


Sins overlooked during his first term – from harassment of the media and coercion of civil society groups to extrajudicial killings in an anti-drug campaign and conflicts of interest that benefited his Shinawatra telecommunications empire – soon caught up with him.	其罪恶行径，从对媒体的骚扰、威胁民间社会团体直到在反毒品战役中的不经司法程序杀人，乃至使得其泰纳越电信帝国坐收渔利的利益冲突在第一个任期内被忽略了。 但是，它们现在却很快缠绕住了他信。


The shady sale of Shin Corporation in February galvanized long-simmering discontents.	二月份出售那越集团疑点重重，激发了累计已久的不满。


The deal was viewed as the epitome of Thaksin’s sophisticated corruption and a betrayal of his proclaimed nationalism, thus exhausting his moral authority and political legitimacy.	人们把这一交易视为他信诡秘的腐败及背叛信誓旦旦的民族主义的象征，因而令其道德权威和政治合法性不复存在。 该公司资产包括卫星、移动电话以及航空公司。


The company’s value quadrupled during Thaksin’s reign, with assets such as satellites, a mobile phone service, and an airline having originated from state concessions that were conditioned on majority Thai ownership.	在他信当政期间，该公司的股价上升了四倍。 但是，国家给予该公司的特许经营权是以泰国拥有大多数所有权为条件的。


For Thaksin’s opponents, the sale of these assets to a foreign company owned by a foreign government amounted to putting Thailand’s economic sovereignty on the block.	对于他信的反对者来说，出售这些资产给一个由外国政府拥有的外国公司不啻于出售泰国的经济主权。


Thaksin’s days appear numbered, for Thailand seems poised to eject a popularly elected prime minister.	泰国看起来准备撤换一名经过普选上台的总理，他信的统治恐怕来日无多。


The number of street protesters has since swelled from five digits to six.	上街抗议的民众数量已经从数万人增加到数十万人。


His predicament illustrates the common dictum in the politics of developing countries where rural electorates elect governments but urban elites get to throw them out.	他信的困境表明了发展中国家政治中通常的一律现象，也就是农村选民选举政府上台，而城市精英将他们赶下台。


Indeed, the anti-Thaksin coalition will settle for no less than his ouster from office, permanent banishment from Thai politics, and possibly exile.	的确，反他信联盟要把他赶下总理宝座、令其永不得从政甚至可能流放，否则决不善罢甘休。


But the opposition has decided to boycott the snap election, which the TRT would likely win again by a large margin, because Thaksin has captured and manipulated the institutions established by the constitution to safeguard against graft and uphold separation of powers within the state.	但是，反对派决定抵制提前选举，这样，泰爱泰党就有可能再次获得大胜，那是因为他信已经将由宪法确立的反腐化和在国家内维护分权的机制玩弄于掌骨之间。


Thai politics has thus reached an impasse.	泰国政治现在进退维谷。


Only intervention by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is widely revered, seems capable of saving the day.	泰国国王普密蓬广受敬仰，看起来只有国王的干预才能够化解矛盾。


In a fiercely contested battle between Thaksin and his opponents, King Bhumibol is the fundamental difference between Thailand and the Philippines, where “people power” revolts regularly undermine and sometimes overthrow presidents.	在他信与其反对派之间激烈的斗争中，普密蓬国王是泰国与菲律宾之间的关键性区别。 在菲律宾，“人民权力”叛乱定期削弱、有时推翻总统的职位。


The King’s intervention would put an unconditional stop to the street confrontations.	国王的干预将会无条件地终止街头的对抗。


But the Thai people cannot afford to look to their aging and ailing King every time they have a problem.	然而，泰国人民无法每次有问题的时候都求助于年老体衰的国王。


Moreover, a royal intervention would risk returning Thailand to square one, seeking to rewrite its constitution to remedy the shortfalls of its democratic culture.	而且，皇室的干预将会有把泰国带回到起点的风险，将试图重新制定宪法来补救其民主文化的不足。


What Thai democracy needs in order to mature is not a political safety net, but a vigilant citizenry to ensure disciplined enforcement of the constitution’s provisions and institutions, so that they can no longer be hijacked by the likes of a Thaksin.	泰国民主成熟所需要的不是政治安全网，而是一个保持警觉的、确保严格履行宪法条款和机制的公民社会。 这样，这些条款和机制就不会再被像他信那样的人所劫持。


The Cruelty of Chance	La crueldad del azar


MOSCOW – In Russia, somewhere behind every event lurks the question: Who is to blame?	MOSCÚ - En Rusia, tras casi cada acontecimiento acecha la pregunta: ¿Quién tiene la culpa?


In the tragedy that claimed the lives of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other Polish leaders, we can answer that question with certainty in at least one respect: history is to blame.	En la tragedia que se cobró las vidas del Presidente polaco Lech Kaczynski y otras 95 autoridades polacas, podemos responder con certidumbre al menos en un aspecto: la historia la tiene.


The event is so hideous that it seems like a bad joke, or an evil KGB plot, a mad conspiracy out of James Bond – or some combination of all three.	Lo ocurrido es tan espantoso que parece una broma pesada, un diabólico complot de la KGB, una disparatada conspiración sacada de una película de James Bond. .


Yet the crash that has sent all of Poland into mourning was none of these things.	o una combinación de todo eso. Y, no obstante, el accidente que cubrió de luto a toda Polonia no fue ninguna de esas cosas.


A tragedy that defies any logical explanation confirms only one thing: the cruelty of chance.	Esta tragedia que desafía toda explicación lógica confirma sólo una cosa: la crueldad del azar.


What if no fog prevented the safe landing at Smolensk airport?	¿Qué habría pasado si la niebla no hubiera impedido un aterrizaje normal en el aeropuerto de Smolensko?


What if the plane was not a 20-year-old, Russian-made Tupolev-154, but a newer and safer model?	¿Si el avión no hubiera sido un Tupolev-154 ruso de 20 años de antigüedad, sino un modelo más nuevo y seguro?


What if the Polish pilot had obeyed the Russian air traffic controller who tried to divert the plane to Moscow or Minsk?	¿Si el piloto polaco hubiera seguido la sugerencia del controlador ruso de tráfico aéreo que intentó desviar el avión a Moscú o Minsk?


Unfortunately, the cruelty of chance also lies at the heart of the centuries of mistrust between Poland and Russia.	Lamentablemente, la crueldad del azar también está al centro de los siglos de desconfianza entre Polonia y Rusia.


The irony (if there is an irony at all) is that this tragedy came at a time when mistrust seemed, at long last, to be giving way to better, more businesslike relations and greater understanding between the two countries.	La ironía (si es que hay alguna) es que esta tragedia golpeó en momentos en que la desconfianza, por fin, estaba dando paso a relaciones mejores y más orientadas al intercambio y a una mayor comprensión entre los dos países.


After 70 years of denial, Russia’s leadership (if not yet ordinary Russians) were ready to admit that Joseph Stalin’s NKVD (precursor to the KGB) slaughtered more than 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals, and clergy in the nearby Katyn forest in 1940.	Tras negarlo por 70 años, las autoridades rusas (si bien no los rusos comunes y corrientes) estaban preparadas para admitir que el NKVD (precursor de la KGB) de José Stalin masacró a más de 20. 000 oficiales, intelectuales y clérigos polacos en el cercano bosque de Katyn en 1940.


Indeed, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer himself, invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, to commemorate that tragedy together.	De hecho, el Primer Ministro ruso Vladimir Putin, ex oficial de la KGB, invitó a su contraparte polaco, Donald Tusk, a conmemorar juntos la tragedia.


But Kaczynski, a member of Solidarity in the 1980’s who was eager to overthrow the communist regime, was more mistrustful of the Russians than Tusk.	Sin embargo Kaczynski, que siendo miembro de Solidaridad en los años 80 luchó derribar el régimen comunista, sentía más desconfianza que Tusk hacia los rusos.


He put together his own delegation to visit Katyn, and wondered aloud if the Russians would give him a visa.	Organizó su propia delegación para visitar Katyn, y se preguntó públicamente si los rusos le darían una visa.


Certainly, no Russians were invited.	Ciertamente, no se invitó a ningún ruso.


When the pilot of the presidential plane (ironically, again, Soviet made) was advised not to land in the thick fog, either he, or perhaps even the president himself, may have mistrusted the Russians’ willingness to give honest advice.	Cuando al piloto del avión presidencial (irónicamente, fabricado por los soviéticos) se le aconsejó no aterrizar debido a la densa niebla, él -o quizás el presidente mismo- debe de haber desconfiado de la buena fe de los rusos.


Indeed, they may well have wondered if the cunning ex-KGB men around Putin simply wanted to make Kaczynski’s Katyn commemoration a mockery?	En lugar de ello, bien pueden haberse preguntado si los maliciosos hombres de la ex KGB que rodean a Putin querían arruinar la conmemoración de Katyn que Kaczynski había organizado.


Russian-Polish suspicions and disagreements date back to the sixteenth century, when Poland was the far greater power; indeed, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was a backwater.	Las sospechas y desencuentros entre rusos y polacos se remontan al siglo dieciséis, cuando Polonia era una potencia mucho mayor; de hecho, el Gran Ducado de Moscú era su patio trasero.


Across the centuries, there have been wars, started by both sides, and partitions of Poland executed by the Russians, followed by attempts at “Russification,” with the Russian Christian Orthodox Empire trying to control the “silver-tongued,” “deceptive,” West European-oriented Catholic Poland.	A lo largo de los siglos ha habido guerras iniciadas por ambos bandos, y particiones de Polonia ejecutadas por los rusos, seguidas de intentos de rusificación en que el Imperio Cristiano Ortodoxo Ruso ha intentado controlar a una Polonia Católica "engañosa", "de labia fácil" y con la mirada puesta en Occidente.


Then there was the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which the Poles refused to join, and Marshal Jozef Pilsudski’s miraculous victory over the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw in 1920.	Luego ocurrió la Revolución Bolchevique de 1917, a la que los polacos se negaron a unirse, y la milagrosa victoria del Mariscal Jozef Pilsudski sobre el Ejército Rojo a las puertas de Varsovia en 1920.


Throughout the interwar years, Poland and the nascent Soviet regime were at daggers drawn almost without interruption.	En los años de entreguerras, Polonia y el naciente régimen soviético se miraron con los dientes apretados casi sin interrupción.


When Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop  pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, it gave him an opportunity to invade Poland.	Cuando Stalin firmó el pacto Molotov-Ribbentrop con la Alemania nazi en 1939, tuvo en sus manos la oportunidad de invadir Polonia.


The Katyn massacre was a direct result, with Stalin ordering the mass murder of Poland’s elite in order to decapitate Polish society and thus make it more pliable.	La masacre de Katyn fue resultado directo de la orden de Stalin de eliminar a la elite polaca para decapitar a su sociedad y volverla más dócil.


Katyn was also the occasion for the Soviets to break off relations with Poland’s wartime government-in-exile in London.	Además, los soviéticos aprovecharon los sucesos de Katyn para romper relaciones con el gobierno polaco en el exilio, que se había asentado en Londres.


Because the Polish leaders refused to exonerate the Russians, Stalin accused the Poles of collaborating with the Germans in trying to shift the blame for Nazi crimes onto Russians.	Puesto que los líderes polacos se rehusaron a exonerar a los rusos, Stalin los acusó de colaborar con los alemanes para echar sobre los hombros de Rusia la responsabilidad por los crímenes nazis.


Soon after, the idea of establishing a puppet regime in Warsaw took root.	Poco después se hizo realidad la idea de crear un régimen títere en Varsovia.


Although the Nazi-Soviet Pact did not last long – Germany invaded Russia in 1941 – for Poland there was no way out.	Si bien el Pacto Nazi-Soviético no duró mucho (Alemania invadió Rusia en 1941) no había salida para Polonia.


With Hitler’s defeat, it once again became part of the Russian sphere, this time of Soviet Russia.	Con la derrota de Hitler, una vez más pasó a ser parte de la esfera rusa, esta vez de los soviéticos.


But Poland never stopped striding – and striking – for independence.	Sin embargo, Polonia nunca dejó de luchar -y de ir a huelga- por la independencia.


The rise of Solidarity in the 1980’s was the earliest and most severe blow to the stagnating Soviet system.	El ascenso de Solidaridad en los años 80 fue el primer y más duro golpe a un sistema soviético que se estancaba.


The Polish-born Pope John Paul II crystallized the anti-communist “threat” that Poland now posed to the Soviet Union.	El Papa Juan Pablo II, nacido en tierra polaca, cristalizó la "amenaza" anticomunista que ahora representaba Polonia para la Unión Soviética.


The Pope’s call for religious freedom around the world, including in the socialist countries, rubbed the atheistic Soviets – and Orthodox Russians – the wrong way.	El llamado del Papa a la libertad de culto en todo el mundo, incluidos los países socialistas, cayó mal a los ateos soviéticos (y a los rusos ortodoxos).


Indeed, throughout the twentieth century, animosity between Poland and Russia remained at fever pitch, manifested not only in politics but also culturally.	De hecho, a lo largo del siglo veinte la animosidad entre Polonia y Rusia se mantuvo siempre en un punto alto, y se manifestó no sólo en política, sino también en el ámbito cultural.


This, of course, continued an old pattern, too.	Por supuesto, esto no hacía más que dar continuidad a un viejo patrón.


Alexander Pushkin, Nicolai Gogol, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were all suspicious of the Poles, calling them “cold,” “distant,” and “manipulative,” and seeing Poland as always on the side of the West, rather than standing with its Slavic brothers.  Indeed, Pushkin’s friendship with Adam Mickiewicz ended in acrimony over the 1830 Polish insurrection against Tsarist rule.	Alexander Pushkin, Nicolai Gogol y Fiodor Dostoievsky tenían una mala visión de los polacos, llamándolos "fríos", "distantes" y "manipuladores", y viendo siempre a Polonia como un país que se pone del lado de Occidente en lugar de alinearse con sus hermanos eslavos. De hecho, la amistad de Pushkin con Adam Mickiewicz acabó agriamente tras la insurrección polaca de 1830 contra el régimen zarista.


In fact, the animosity ran so deep that when both countries were no longer communist, and Russia was looking to replace its November 7 Bolshevik Revolution holiday, it came up with November 4, the anniversary of the Russian boyars’ victory in 1612 over Polish King Sigismund’s short-lived occupation of Moscow.	La animosidad era tan profunda que, cuando ambos países ya no eran comunistas y Rusia buscaba reemplazar su feriado del 7 de noviembre -que conmemoraba la Revolución Bolchevique-, ésta escogió el 4 de noviembre, aniversario de la victoria de los boyardos rusos en 1611 sobre el Rey polaco Segismundo y su breve ocupación de Moscú.


Now there is talk, in both Warsaw and Moscow, that the second tragedy of Katyn might usher in a new era in bilateral relations.	Ahora en Varsovia y Moscú se habla de que la segunda tragedia de Katyn podría abrir las puertas a una nueva era en las relaciones bilaterales.


Perhaps so, but as the Polish essayist Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said: “You can close your eyes to reality, but not to memories.”	Tal vez sea así, pero vienen al caso las palabras del ensayista polaco Stanislaw Jerzy Lec: "Se pueden cerrar los ojos a la realidad, pero no a los recuerdos".


The Cultural Bias of Genetics	有关遗传学的文化偏见


All cultures impose on their members ideas about who they are, how they came to be, and where they fit in socially.	所有文化都会在人们的心里打上深刻的烙印，告诉他们自己是谁、从哪里来、怎么做才能适应社会。


For example, pre-modern Europe believed that a woman who had sex before marriage might carry the imprint of her lover within her, so that her child born in wedlock would resemble the earlier lover, rather than the husband.	比如，近代欧洲流行一种观点，那就是如果一个女人婚前有过性行为，她就可能把爱人的印记留在自己体内，如果她婚后生子，小孩就可能会更像她从前的恋人，而不像现在的丈夫。


This served to justify the premium placed on female chastity.	这就为人们看重女性贞操找到了正当的理由。


Folk ideas about heredity are a particularly powerful cultural tool, but they are not unique to pre-modern societies.	人们对遗传问题的看法是一种非常有力的文化武器，但这种武器却并非为近代社会所独有。


Even contemporary science has its own cultural ideologies about heredity, which are often difficult to disentangle from the complex data and high technology that we believe produces objective, value-free glimpses of nature.	即便是现代科学也不乏遗传方面的文化观念，而这些观念很难与复杂的资料和高科技完全分开，人们相信这些科技手段使我们能够客观、不存偏见地认识这个世界。


In the field of human origins, it is well-known that a human DNA sequence is nearly 99% identical to the corresponding part of a chimpanzee’s DNA.	在人类起源领域，人们都知道人类的DNA序列近99%都与黑猩猩完全相同。


From there, it is not uncommon to hear the conclusion that we are ”nothing but” chimpanzees (and fated to be aggressive, or to possess whatever attributes are being imputed to apes these days), or that apes merit human rights.	从这个角度讲，听到我们与黑猩猩无甚差别（我们天生注定有侵略性、也拥有类人猿的所有特征）、或者猩猩也有人权之类的结论也不足为怪。


Once again, social meanings are enmeshed within beliefs about heredity.	这里，社会意义与遗传信仰再次融合在一起。


Actually, that overwhelming similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA is a product of two cultural facts: our familiarity with the chimpanzee’s body, and our unfamiliarity with DNA.	实际上，人类和黑猩猩DNA的极端近似是两种文化因素共同作用的结果：我们对黑猩猩的身体非常熟悉，而对DNA又没那么熟悉。