The best-managed state-owned enterprises could emerge – or remain – as successful and prominent players, adapting to expanded market competition and combining innovation with economies of scale.	管理最完善的国有企业将脱颖而出——或维持——成为成功和长期的市场参与者，适应不断扩大的市场竞争并实现创新与规模经济的结合。


Indeed, public-sector asset management could be “outsourced,” with private asset managers competing for the job.	事实上，公共部门资产管理可以“外包”，邀请私人资产管理者来竞争这一角色。


This would accelerate the development of the asset-management sector, with far-reaching benefits for savers and investors.	这将加速资产管理部门的发展并为储蓄者和投资者带来长远的好处。


China does not have to give up the safety net provided by large asset holdings to allow markets to play a decisive microeconomic role.	中国没必要放弃持有大量资产所带来安全网来让市场扮演一个决定性的微观经济角色。


It can abandon the commanding heights model and develop its version of “state capitalism” to support the best of both worlds.	它可以摒弃“制高点”模式并发展自身的“国家资本主义”来发挥两个世界经济模式的优点。


All that is needed is a persistently strong government commitment to the public interest – and, of course, a skillfully executed reform strategy.	而唯一所需的则是政府持续且坚定追求公众利益的承诺——当然，还有一个完美执行改革战略。


A Growth Agenda for China	中国经济日程


MILAN/BEIJING – At a time when the United States is poised to turn inward, China’s economic performance is more important globally than ever.	米兰/北京—在美国即将向内转之际，中国经济表现对全球变得至关重要。


Whether China can achieve sustainable growth patterns in the coming years will depend upon a number of key factors.	未来几年，中国能否实现可持续增长将取决于诸多重要因素。


One of the leading external factors shaping China’s prospects will be its relationship with the US under President Donald Trump.	影响中国前景的主要外部因素之一是其与唐纳德·特朗普的美国的关系。


Ideally, the two governments would work together to negotiate mutually beneficial trade and investment agreements, with sensitivity to the challenges faced by both sides.	理想的情况是两国政府合作协商双赢贸易和投资协定，对双方均面临的挑战保持敏锐。


But the opposite outcome – the escalation of mutually damaging trade and investment disputes – is also a distinct possibility.	但相反的结果——双输贸易和投资纠纷升级——的可能性同样不小。


Political uncertainty is also on the rise in Europe.	欧洲政治不确定性也在增加。


While its impact on China would not be as direct as Trump’s actions, it is a source of significant medium-term risks for the entire global economy.	其对中国的影响不如特朗普的行动直接，但也是对整个全球经济的重要中期风险源。


Within Asia, a key factor shaping China’s economic prospects is progress on Chinese-led regional trade and investment agreements.	在亚洲内部，影响中国经济前景的一个关键因素是中国领导的地区贸易和投资协定的进展情况。


In particular, investments in regional development via the “one belt, one road” initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may produce expanded trade and growth in Asia (and beyond), though the effects will not be immediate.	特别是，通过“一带一路”计划和亚洲基础设施投资银行进行的地区发展投资可以为亚洲（及其他地区）带来更多的贸易和增长，尽管其影响需要时间才能显现。


The fourth major external factor relates to exchange rates.	第四个重要外部因素是汇率。


As it stands, the renminbi is facing significant depreciation pressure, caused largely by a surge in capital outflows.	目前，人民币面临着巨大的贬值压力，主要原因是资本外流。


Meanwhile, the US dollar is strengthening in anticipation of Trump’s fiscal expansion.	与此同时，在特朗普采取财政扩张的预期下，美元正在升值。


China’s performance will depend partly on how these dynamics play out.	中国的表现部分将取决于这些动态如何发展。


But, beyond the external uncertainties and headwinds, China faces a slew of internal challenges, which may well present even greater risks to its economy.	但是，除了外部不确定性和不利因素，中国还面临一系列内部挑战，它们也许是中国经济所面临的更大的风险。


Those challenges – including weaknesses in the real economy and the private sector, overcapacity, excessive leverage, and high housing prices – are rooted largely in the financial sector’s mounting problems and the failure of China’s leaders to address them.	这些挑战——包括实体经济和民营经济疲软、产能过剩、杠杆过高、房价高企等——主要原因在于金融部门问题的积累以及中国领导人没能及时解决这些问题。


Consider efforts to promote investment in the real sector.	以促进实体部门投资的措施为例。


The People’s Bank of China has been providing spurts of liquidity to the market, in the hope of relieving financial constraints on productive private businesses and industries.	中国人民银行一直在向市场提供流动性，希望缓解生产性民营企业和行业的财务负担。


But the monetary-policy transmission mechanism is broken, and liquidity is not making it to the real economy.	但货币政策传导机制不畅，流动性没有流向实体经济。


Instead, China’s banks continue to allocate credit largely to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local-government financing vehicles (LGFVs).	相反，中国的银行仍然将信用主要配置给国有企业和地方政府融资平台。


Credit to the state sector ends up flowing not into productivity-enhancing investments, but into the housing market (fueling price bubbles) and industries with excess capacity (fueling even more overcapacity and enabling companies to avoid much-needed restructuring).	流向国有部门的信用最后没有用于提振���产率的投资，而是进入了房地产市场（这推高了房价泡沫）和产能过剩行业（进一步增加了产能过剩，也让许多公司逃避急需的重组）。


While LGFVs use the low-cost loans to build infrastructure, the social returns of those investments are often low; and, after decades of rapid infrastructure construction, the marginal returns are declining.	地方政府融资平台用低成本贷款建设基础设施，但这些投资的社会回报通常很低； 而在进行了数十年高速基础设施建设后，边际回报也在下降。


Meanwhile, local governments’ leverage continues to rise.	与此同时，地方政府的负债仍在节节攀升。


SOEs may also use the unregulated shadow banking system to re-lend at higher interest rates the cheap money they receive to private businesses, which cannot borrow reliably from the formal banking system.	国有企业也可能利用不受监管的影子银行系统，将它们获得的廉价资金再次贷款给民营企业，因为后者无法从正式银行系统中借到钱。


Whereas the interest rate of a one-year loan in the formal banking system is around 5%, the average one-year interest rate in the Wenzhou shadow banking market (to cite one example) was around 16% in November.	正式银行系统一年期贷款利率为5%左右，但温州影子银行市场（姑举一例）11月平均一年期利率高达16%左右。


This state of affairs is jeopardizing the entire economy.	这一形势正在伤害整个经济。


Banks are bailing out bankrupt companies, while private firms – especially small and medium-size enterprises – continue to get squeezed.	银行救活了破产的公司，而民营企业——特别是中小企业——仍然饱受挤压。


Given that the private sector is generally significantly more productive than SOEs or LGFVs, generating much higher returns on investment, the absence of hard budget constraints on troubled SOEs clearly must be addressed.	考虑到民营部门生产率一般远高于国有企业或地方政府融资平台，创造远远更高的投资回报，因此经营不善的国有企业缺乏预算硬约束的问题显然必须得到解决。


Of course, China’s leaders have known this for a while, and have created a reform agenda that seeks to reform the SOEs, while unleashing the private sector’s potential.	当然，中国领导人曾经明白这一点，也制定了旨在改革国有企业、释放民营部门潜力的改革日程。


But it is still a work in progress.	但这项工作进展缓慢。


Convincing banks to lend to private enterprises, rather than to SOEs and LGFVs, will require substantial structural shifts in China’s economy.	说服银行贷款给民营企业而不是国有企业和地方政府融资平台仍需要中国经济做出重大结构性调整。


For financial institutions, SOEs and LGFVs represent much lower risk than private businesses, regardless of how leveraged or uncompetitive they are.	对金融机构来说，不管负债多重、竞争力多低，国有企业和地方政府融资平台的风险远低于民营企业。


After all, because SOEs and LGFVs are implicitly guaranteed by central or local governments, they are highly unlikely to default.	毕竟，国有企业和地方政府融资平台有中央或地方政府的隐性担保，违约的可能性很低。


Banks know (or believe) that if an SOE or LGFV faces bankruptcy, the government will step in with favorable policies and subsidies, tax cuts, and low-cost financing instruments.	银行知道（或认为），如果国有企业或地方政府融资平台破产，政府会介入采取有利政策并给予补贴、减税和提供低成本融资工具。


In some cases, banks have no choice but to lend to failing SOEs; their provincial government may demand that they provide large low-cost loans to a struggling and unproductive firm, particularly if it contributes significantly to local fiscal revenue and employment.	在一些例子中，银行别无选择，只能贷款给倒闭国企； 省政府可能要求它们提供大量低息贷款给奄奄一息、生产率低下的企业，特别是对地方财政收入和就业影响巨大的企业。


Given that private firms enjoy no such official protections and thus play on a field that is nowhere near level, they must be substantially more productive and competitive than the SOEs.	由于民营企业无法享受到这样的官方保护，因而必须在相当不公平的竞技场上竞争，它们就必须在生产率和竞争力上远远超过国有企业。


And even then, if the SOEs with which they are competing struggle too much, they are vulnerable to policy shifts that increase their disadvantage further.	即便如此，如果与它们竞争的国企日子太难过，它们还有可能面临更加恶劣的政策环境变化。


Simply put, the Chinese financial sector’s bias in favor of SOEs is contributing to some of the biggest risks faced by China’s economy.	简言之，中国金融部门偏袒国有企业正在成为中国经济的最大的风险源之一。


Investors’ recognition of these risks may be one driver of capital outflows, meaning that distortionary incentives in the financial system are also contributing to the downward pressure on the exchange rate.	投资者对这一风险的认识或是资本外流的原因之一，这意味着金融系统激励扭曲同时也在给人民币汇率造成贬值压力。


China has made great strides in recent years in implementing reforms that boost domestic private consumption.	近几年来，中国在实施提振国内私人消费的改革方面取得了巨大进展。


And, despite the barriers it faces, the country’s private sector has become highly dynamic and innovative.	尽管中国面临各种挑战，其民营部门仍然充满活力和创新力。


Earlier reforms are now bearing fruit, and this has helped to sustain economic growth.	早先的改革现在正在结果，这有助于保持经济增长。


But achieving faster, more resilient growth will require China to eliminate the biases, protections, and implicit guarantees favoring SOEs in the marketplace and in the financial system.	但实现更快、更富有韧性的增长需要中国取消有利于国有企业的市场和金融体系的偏袒、保护和隐性担保。


Only then can monetary policy achieve its goal: supporting productive investment, innovation, the scaling of private-sector businesses, and real economic growth.	惟其如此，货币政策才能实现目标：支持生产性投资、创新、民营企业壮大和实体经济增长。


They recognize that, when economic and financial systems comprise intricate networks of a variety of interlocking and interdependent elements, changes to one component – especially one as dominant as China’s state sector – can have far-reaching consequences.	他们认识到，当经济和金融体系由各种联动和互相依存的要素网络组成时，改变其中一个组成部分—��特别是像国有部门这样的重要组成部分——可能会引起深远的后果。


Asia’s Dammed Water Hegemon	亚洲的筑坝水霸权


NEW DELHI – As if to highlight that Asia’s biggest challenge is managing the rise of an increasingly assertive China, the Chinese government has unveiled plans to build large new dams on major rivers flowing to other countries.	新德里—好像为了强调亚洲最大挑战乃是如何应对日渐专横的中国的崛起似的，中国政府披露了在流向他国的大河上建设新大坝的计划。


The decision by China’s State Council to ride roughshod over downstream countries’ concerns and proceed unilaterally shows that the main issue facing Asia is not readiness to accommodate China’s rise, but the need to persuade China’s leaders to institutionalize cooperation with neighboring countries.	中国国务院无视下游国家的忧虑，决定单方面行动，这表明亚洲面临的主要问题不再是做好适应中国崛起的准备，而是需要说服中国领导人将与邻国合作制度化。


China is at the geographical hub of Asia, sharing land or sea frontiers with 20 countries; so, in the absence of Chinese participation, it will be impossible to establish a rules-based regional order.	中国是亚洲地缘政治中心，与20个国家海陆相邻； 因此，没有中国的参与，就不可能建立基于规则的地区秩序。


How, then, can China be brought on board?	那么，如何让中国入局呢？


This challenge is most striking on trans-boundary rivers in Asia, where China has established a hydro-supremacy unparalleled on any continent by annexing the starting places of major international rivers – the Tibetan plateau and Xinjiang – and working to reengineer cross-border flows through dams, reservoirs, barrages, irrigation networks, and other structures.	这一挑战在亚洲跨国河流问题上特别突出。 中国拥有众多国际大河的上游（主要在青藏高原和新疆），因此握有地区水霸权，而中国也在着手通过大坝、水库、堰堤、灌溉网和其他构造改造跨国河流，这是其他大洲所没有的现象。


China – the source of trans-boundary river flows to more countries than any other hydro-hegemon – has shifted the focus of its dam-building program from dam-saturated internal rivers to international rivers after having already built more large dams than the rest of the world combined.	中国——它比任何其他水霸权国家都拥有更多的跨国河流水路——的建坝关注点已经从内河（已经建满了大坝）转向国际河流，其建坝数量比其他国家的总和还要多。


Most of China’s dams serve multiple functions, including generating electric power and meeting manufacturing, mining, irrigation, and municipal-supply water needs.	中国的大部分大坝兼负多重功能，包括发电和满足制造、矿业、灌溉和市政供水需求。


By ramping up the size of its dams, China now not only boasts the world’s largest number of mega-dams, but is also the biggest global producer of hydropower, with an installed generating capacity of 230 gigawatts.	不断增加大坝规模的中国不但建造了世界上最多的超级大坝，也是世界最大的水电发电国，建成发电能力高达230G瓦。


The State Council, seeking to boost the country’s already-large hydropower capacity by 120 gigawatts, has identified 54 new dams — in addition to the ones currently under construction — as “key construction projects” in the revised energy-sector plan up to 2015.	中国国务院意在将中国已经很大的水电发电能力再增加120G瓦，并挑选了54做新坝——不含目前已经开工的大坝——纳入新版2015年能源规划的“重点建设工程”。


Most of the new dams are planned for the biodiversity-rich southwest, where natural ecosystems and indigenous cultures are increasingly threatened.	这些新大坝大多位于生物多样性丰富的西南地区，那里的自然生态系统和土著文化正在日益受到威胁。


After slowing its dam-building program in response to the serious environmental consequences of completion in 2006 of the Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest – China is now rushing to build a new generation of giant dams.	2006年的三峡大坝（世界最大大坝）建成后的一系列严重环境后果让中国放慢了建坝计划，如今，中国急切地开始建设新一代大坝。


At a time when dam building has largely petered out in the West – and run into growing grassroots opposition in other democracies like Japan and India – China will remain the nucleus of the world’s mega-dam projects.	西方基本上已不再建设新坝——日本和印度等其他民主国家的普通民众也越来越反对建设大坝——中国将继续充当世界巨型水坝工程的核心建设者。


Such projects underscore the zero-sum mentality that seemingly characterizes China’s water-policy calculations.	这些项目凸显中国水利决策的零和心态。


By embarking on a series of mega-dams in its ethnic-minority-populated borderlands, China is seeking to appropriate river waters before they cross its frontiers.	中国在少数民族聚居的边陲建设一系列巨坝，意在赶在河流出境前截留更多的水源。


Asia, the world’s driest continent in terms of per capita freshwater availability, needs a rules-based system to manage water stress, maintain rapid economic growth, and ensure environmental sustainability.	以人均淡水量衡量，亚洲是全世界最干旱的大洲，它需要一个基于规则的体系来管理水压力，维持快速经济增长以及确保环境可持续性。


Yet China remains the stumbling block, refusing to enter into a water-sharing treaty with any neighbor – much less support a regional regulatory framework – because it wants to maintain its strategic grip on trans-boundary river flows.	但中国是当中一块绊脚石，拒绝与邻国签署水共享条约，对地区监管框架支持寥寥，因为它希望保持其对跨境河流的战略控制。


Among the slew of newly approved dam projects are five on the Salween, three on the Brahmaputra, and two on the Mekong.	在新批准的多个大坝项目中，有五个位于怒江，三个位于雅鲁藏布江，两个位于澜沧江。


China has already built six mega-dams on the Mekong – the lifeblood for continental Southeast Asia – with its latest addition being the 254-meter-high Nuozhadu Dam, whose gargantuan reservoir is designed to hold nearly 22 billion cubic meters of water.	中国已在澜沧江——东南亚的生命河——建设了六个巨坝，最新建成的254米高的糯扎渡大坝，其所形成的水库设计容量近220立方米。


The current dam-building plans threaten the Salween River’s Grand Canyon – a UNESCO World Heritage site – and the pristine, environmentally sensitive areas through which the Brahmaputra and the Mekong flow.	目前的建坝计划将威胁到联合国世界遗产怒江大峡谷以及雅鲁藏布江和澜沧江流域环境脆弱的原生态区域。


These three international rivers originate on the Tibetan plateau, whose bounteous water resources have become a magnet for Chinese planners.	这三条跨国河流发源于青藏高原，它们丰富的水量吸引着中国规划者。


The Salween, which runs from Tibet through Yunnan Province into Burma and Thailand, will cease to be Asia’s last largely free-flowing river, with work on the first project – the giant, 4,200-megawatt Songta Dam in Tibet – to begin shortly.	从西藏经云南流入缅甸和泰国的怒江将不再是亚洲最大的无坝大河——其上第一个大坝将是4200兆瓦容量的西藏松塔水电站。


The State Council’s decision reverses the suspension of dam building on the Salween announced by Premier Wen Jiabao in 2004, after an international uproar over the start of multiple megaprojects in the National Nature Reserves, adjacent to the world heritage area – a stunning canyon region through which the Salween, the Mekong, and the Jinsha flow in parallel.	中国国务院推翻了总理温家宝2004年宣布的中止在怒江建坝的决定，当时，在毗邻世界遗产——怒江、澜沧江、金沙江三江并流地区的国家级自然保护区开工建设一系列巨坝的计划引起国际舆论大哗。


This reversal is consistent with the pattern established elsewhere, including on the Yangtze: China temporarily suspends a controversial plan after major protests in order to buy time while public passions cool, before resurrecting the same plan.	这一出尔反尔也见于其他项目，包括长江：在大工程之后，中国暂时叫停了争议计划，以平息汹涌的民意，稍后再重启相同的计划。


Meanwhile, China’s announcement of three new dam projects on the Brahmaputra, the main river running through northeastern India and Bangladesh, has prompted the Indian government to advise China to “ensure that the interests of downstream states are not harmed” by the upstream works.	与此同时，中国宣布在印度东南部和孟加拉国主要河流——雅鲁藏布江建设三座新大坝的决定促使印度政府建议中国“确保下游国家利益不受上游工程侵害”。


Water has emerged as a new divide in Sino-Indian relations.	水已成为中印关系的新分歧因素。


China’s new focus on building dams in the southwest of the country also carries larger safety concerns.	中国在西南部建坝的新计划还带来了巨大的安全担忧。


Indeed, Chinese scientists blamed the massive 2008 earthquake that struck the Tibetan plateau’s eastern rim, killing 87,000 people, on the newly constructed Zipingpu Dam, located next to a seismic fault.	事实上，中国科学家将2008年青藏高原东沿发生的夺去87000人生命的大地震归咎于位于地震断层附近的新建成的紫坪铺大坝。


The weight of the water impounded in the dam’s massive reservoir was said to have triggered severe tectonic stresses, or what scientists call reservoir-triggered seismicity.	大坝的水库截留了巨大的水量，据说这些水的巨大重量触发了严重的结构应力，即科学家所谓的水库引发的地震。


China’s rush to build more dams promises to roil relations across Asia, fostering greater competition for water and impeding the already slow progress toward institutionalizing regional cooperation and integration.	中国急切地建设新坝的计划注定要引起亚洲关系动荡，引发水的更大竞争，妨碍已然进展缓慢的地区合作和一体化的制度化进程。


If China continues on its current, heedless course, prospects for a rules-based order in Asia could perish forever.	如果中国一意孤行，基于规则的亚洲秩序前景渺茫。


China’s Threat to Russia	中国对俄国的威胁


Last week, Russia and China held joint military maneuvers in the presence of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.	上周，在俄国总统普京和中国主席胡锦涛的观摩下，中俄两国举行了联合军事演习。


But a new strategic alliance between the two countries is not likely, as it is China that poses the greatest strategic threat to Russia, although many in the Kremlin seem blind to this as they rattle sabers at America and the West.	但是两国之间不大可能结成战略联盟关系，因为尽管克里姆林宫的许多人在与美国和西方交恶之际，对于中国对俄国构成最大的战略威胁这一点视而不见。


Indeed, China officially considers several regions in Russia’s Far East to be only “alienated” from it.	确实，中国官方认为俄国远东的几个地区只是从该国“分离”出去。


China’s territorial claims on Russia are often noted in Chinese grade school geography textbooks, which include a number of Russian Far Eastern regions within China’s borders.	中国对俄国的领土主张在中国的小学地理教科书中经常提及，这包括在中国境内的几个俄国远东地区。


This is consistent with the Chinese strategic concept of “vital space,” which includes all spheres of a state’s strategic activities, on land, at sea, under water, in the air, and in space.	这与中国的“重大空间”战略概念相吻合，这一空间包括陆地、海上、空中以及太空的国家战略活动的所有方面。


The dimensions of “vital space” are determined by a country’s economic, scientific, technical, social, and military capabilities – in essence, its “total power.”	国家的经济、科技、社会以及军事能力，也就是它的“总体实力”决定了“重大空间”的各个方面。


According to Chinese theorists, the “vital space” of great powers extends far beyond a state’s borders, whereas the “vital space” of weak countries is limited to strategic boundaries that do not always correspond to the borders of their national territory.	中国的理论学家们认为，大国的“重大空间”延伸到国家的边界以外，而弱小国家的“重大空间”则限于战略边境以内，而且并不总是与其国家领土相符合。


Today, China has territorial claims against 11 of its 24 neighbors, including India, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, in addition to Russia.	如今，中国对其24个邻国中的11个有领土要求，包括印度、日本、越南、菲律宾以及俄国。


In China’s relations with all of them, the potential use of military force was and remains an important factor.	在中国与所有这些国家的关系中，潜在动用武力过去是一个重要的因素，现在也是如此。


In September 2006, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted an unprecedentedly large 10-day exercise, involving the Shenyang and Beijing military districts, the two most powerful of China’s seven military districts.	2006年9月，中国人民解放军举行了一次前所未有的为期十天的大规模军事演习，包括中国七大军区中实力最为雄厚的沈阳和北京军区。


Shenyang abuts the Russian Armed Forces’ Far Eastern District, and the Beijing district shares a border with Russia’s Siberian Military District.	沈阳军区毗邻俄国军队的远东军区，而北京军区则与俄国西伯利亚军区接壤。


During the exercises, Shenyang units advanced 1,000 kilometers into the Beijing district, where they engaged in joint war games.	在演习中，沈阳军区的部队深入北京军区1000公里，两大军区在那里进行了联合军事演习。


To military observers, the Beijing/Shenyang exercises seemed to be practice for a possible offensive operation against Russia, because exercises on such a scale are undertaken only at the final stage of a multi-year program to train troops to enact specific strategic and operational plans.	对于军事观察家而言，北京和沈阳两大军区的演习看起来是针对俄国的进攻行动，因为，如此规模的演习只是在多年训练士兵、进行具体的战略和作战安排的最后阶段才实施。


The geography of the exercises, and the offensive nature of the tasks undertaken, leaves little doubt that Russia was cast in the role of “potential adversary.”	演习的地点及其进攻性质毫无疑问说明俄国被认为是“假想敌”。


Such a show of force is an ancient, traditional Chinese political technique.	这种喧耀武力是中国古代的一种政治手段。


Paradoxically, these exercises were undertaken during a period when bilateral political and economic ties appeared on the surface to be at their highest point.	自相矛盾的是，这些演习是在双边政治和经济关系表面上处于最高点的时候进行的。


Russia has an important place in Chinese geopolitical calculations, as a supplier of both modern weaponry and energy resources needed to continue its modernization.	俄国在中国的地缘政治考量中占有重要的地位，是其现代化所需要的现代武器和能源的供应国。


Therefore, the Chinese are doing everything possible to strengthen their economic and political position in Russia, and to draw Russia into their sphere of influence.	因此，中国人竭尽全力来加强在俄国的经济和政治地位，并且把俄国拉入其势力范围之中。


And China is succeeding, most importantly by consistently reinforcing Putin’s anti-American and anti-Western agenda.	中国最主要地通过一贯强化普京的反美和反西方规划正在取得成功。


While Beijing/Shenyang exercise should have indicated to Russian leaders that China’s intentions toward Russia may not always be benign, Russia’s political and military leadership seem not to sense any threat; on the contrary, they continue to sell the Chinese advanced weapons.	当北京军区和沈阳军区的军事演习向俄国领导人表明，中国对俄国的意图未必总是善意之时，俄国的政治和军事领导层看起来并未意识到这一点； 相反，他们继续向中国出售先进武器。


Russia’s current diplomatic tilt, indeed, is clearly against its own long-term national security interests.	俄国目前的外交倾向完全是违背其自身的长期国家安全利益。


China will never be interested in Russia’s economic and political modernization, for it prefers Russia to remain a source of mineral and energy resources and a vast “strategic rear” in its looming challenge with the United States.	中国永远不会对俄国的经济和政治现代化感兴趣，因为它宁愿俄国继续成为矿产和能源来源以及同美国日益成形的挑战的巨大“战略后方”。


Likewise, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which just concluded its annual meeting, is in China’s eyes a tool of regional policy that helps strengthen China’s influence and control over Central Asia’s natural resources at the expense of Russia.	同样，刚刚结束年度会议的上海合作组织在中国的眼中是帮助加强中国影响力和以俄国为代价、控制中亚自然资源的地区政策的工具。


No nation threatens China’s land borders.	没有一个国家威胁中国的陆地边界。


China can solve its domestic problems, such as separatism, by itself.	中国可以自己解决其国内问题，例如分裂主义。


China is militarily self-sufficient and needs military cooperation under the SCO framework only in order to free its hands if any conflict should arise that affects its interests.	中国在军事上自给自足，只是为了在影响其利益的冲突发生时可以腾出手来才需要在上海合作组织的框架下的军事合作。


In fact, conflict between Russia and China is possible precisely in Central Asia, given the clear differences in the two countries’ economic and political interests in that region.	实际上，鉴于两国在该地区经济和政治利益的明显不同，正是在中亚地区中俄之间才有可能爆发冲突。


Aside from control of the region’s energy supplies, water has become a potential source of conflict, given China’s serious shortages.	除了控制该地区的能源供应外，由于中国严重缺水，水已经成为冲突的潜在因素。


Yet, while the Chinese clearly understand these contingencies and are preparing themselves to deal with them diplomatically and militarily, the Kremlin remains myopically obsessed with the phantom threat of America.	但是，尽管中国完全理解这些急迫的问题并且准备用外交和军事手段予以处理，克里姆林宫依旧短视地专著于美国威胁的幻影。


Thus, as the Kremlin dreams of re-establishing its domination over what Russians refer to as the “near abroad” (Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries, and the other post-Soviet states), China is increasingly looking at Russia as its own “near abroad.”	如此，正当克里姆林宫梦想重新建立对自己所称的“近邻”(乌克兰、白俄罗斯、波罗的海国家以及其他后苏联国家)控制之时，中国正在日益把俄国视为其自身的“近邻”。


Will the Kremlin finally wake up to this?	克里姆林宫是否会最终清醒，意识到这一点呢？


Thirty-six years ago, Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong turned world politics upside down, as both America and China realized that it was the Soviet Union, and not each other, that posed the greater threat.	36年前，当美中两国意识到是苏联、而非各自两国构成更大威胁的时候，尼克松和毛泽东把世界政治搞得天翻地覆。


Vladimir Putin needs his own “Nixon moment.”	普京需要其自己的“尼克松时刻”。


Alienating the West is a foolish strategy when the greatest long term threat to Russia comes from the East.	当对俄国最大的长期威胁来自东方的时候，与西方分离是一项愚蠢的战略。


Global Growth – Still Made in China	全球增长——依然中国制造


NEW HAVEN – Despite all the hand-wringing over the vaunted China slowdown, the Chinese economy remains the single largest contributor to world GDP growth.	纽黑文—夸大中国减速的焦虑不绝于耳，但中国经济仍然是世界GDP增长的最大贡献者。


For a global economy limping along at stall speed – and most likely unable to withstand a significant shock without toppling into renewed recession – that contribution is all the more important.	对于以失速速度蹒跚前行的全球经济而言——如果再来一次大冲击，恐怕就无法避免再次陷入衰退了——这一贡献无比重要。


A few numbers bear this out.	一组数据说明了这一点。 如果2016年中国GDP增长达到6.


If Chinese GDP growth reaches 6.7% in 2016 – in line with the government’s official target and only slightly above the International Monetary Fund’s latest prediction (6.6%) – China would account for 1.2 percentage points of world GDP growth.	7%——与政府官方目标一致，略高于国际货币基金组织（IMF）的最新预测6. 6%——则中国将为世界GDP增长贡献1.


With the IMF currently expecting only 3.1% global growth this year, China would contribute nearly 39% of the total.	目前，IMF 预测今年全球增长仅为3. 1%，这意味着其中中国的贡献接近39%。


That share dwarfs the contribution of other major economies.	如此比重令其他主要经济体汗颜。 比如，尽管人们广泛赞扬美国稳步复苏，但其2016年增长率预计只有2.


For example, while the United States is widely praised for a solid recovery, its GDP is expected to grow by just 2.2% in 2016 – enough to contribute just 0.3 percentage points to overall world GDP growth, or only about one-fourth of the contribution made by China.	2%——只能为世界总GDP增长贡献0. 3个百分点，或者中国贡献幅度的四分之一。


A sclerotic European economy is expected to add a mere 0.2 percentage points to world growth, and Japan not even 0.1 percentage point.	僵化的欧洲经济预计只能给世界增长带来0. 2个百分点，日本恐怕连0.


China’s contribution to global growth is, in fact, 50% larger than the combined 0.8-percentage-point contribution likely to be made by all of the so-called advanced economies.	1个百分点都达不到。 事实上，中国对全球增长的贡献要比所有所谓的发达经济体的贡献之和（0.


Moreover, no developing economy comes close to China’s contribution to global growth. India’s GDP is expected to grow by 7.4% this year, or 0.8 percentage points faster than China.	此外，没有发展中经济体对全球增长的贡献可以与中国相比。 印度GDP预计今年将增长7.


But the Chinese economy accounts for fully 18% of world output (measured on a purchasing-power-parity basis) – more than double India’s 7.6% share.	但中国经济占世界产出的整整18%（以购买力平价衡量），是印度的7. 6%的两倍多。


That means India’s contribution to global GDP growth is likely to be just 0.6 percentage points this year – only half the 1.2-percentage-point boost expected from China.	这意味着今年印度对全球GDP增长的贡献可能只有0. 6个百分点——只有中国预计贡献幅度1.


More broadly, China is expected to account for fully 73% of total growth of the so-called BRICS grouping of large developing economies.	光广泛地看，预计中国将占所谓的金砖国家（大型发展中经济体集团）总增长的整整73%。 印度（7.


The gains in India (7.4%) and South Africa (0.1%) are offset by ongoing recessions in Russia (-1.2%) and Brazil (-3.3%).	1%）的贡献将被俄罗斯（-1. 2%）和巴西（-3.


Excluding China, BRICS GDP growth is expected to be an anemic 3.2% in 2016.	3%）所抵消。 剔除中国的话，2016年金砖国家GDP预计将只有3.


So, no matter how you slice it, China remains the world’s major growth engine.	因此，不管你如何剖析，中国仍然是世界主要经济引擎。


Yes, the Chinese economy has slowed significantly from the 10% average annual growth recorded during the 1980-2011 period.	诚然，中国经济较1980—2011年间平均每年10%的增长已经大幅放缓。


But even after transitioning from the “old normal” to what the Chinese leadership has dubbed the “new normal,” global economic growth remains heavily dependent on China.	但即使在从“旧常态”转为中国领导层所谓的“新常态”后，全球经济增长仍然严重依赖中国。


There are three key implications of a persistent China-centric global growth dynamic.	长期以中国为核心的全球增长动态有三个重要影响。


First, and most obvious, continued deceleration of Chinese growth would have a much greater impact on an otherwise weak global economy than would be the case if the world were growing at something closer to its longer-term trend of 3.6%.	首先也是最显而易见的是，中国增长的持续减速对于疲软的全球经济的影响要比后者以接近3. 6%的趋势增长率增长时的情况大得多。


Excluding China, world GDP growth would be about 1.9% in 2016 – well below the 2.5% threshold commonly associated with global recessions.	剔除中国的话，2016年世界GDP增长将在1. 9%左右——远远低于常常伴随全球衰退的阈值2.


The second implication, related to the first, is that the widely feared economic “hard landing” for China would have a devastating global impact.	第二个影响与第一个有关，即人们广泛担心的中国经济“硬着陆”将带来灾难性的全球影响。 中国GDP增长每下降一个百分点，都将直接拉低近0.


Every one-percentage-point decline in Chinese GDP growth knocks close to 0.2 percentage points directly off world GDP; including the spillover effects of foreign trade, the total global growth impact would be around 0.3 percentage points.	2个百分点的世界GDP； 若包括对外贸易的溢出效应，总全球增长影响将在0.


Defining a Chinese hard landing as a halving of the current 6.7% growth rate, the combined direct and indirect effects of such an outcome would consequently knock about one percentage point off overall global growth.	将中国硬着陆定义为当前6. 7%的增长率下降一半，则其直接和间接总影响将是全球总增长下降一个百分点左右。


In such a scenario, there is no way the world could avoid another full-blown recession.	在这个情形中，世界将无法不免又一次大衰退。


Finally (and more likely in my view), there are the global impacts of a successful rebalancing of the Chinese economy.	最后（更有可能只是我的观点），中国经济成功再平衡也会带来全球影响。


The world stands to benefit greatly if the components of China’s GDP continue to shift from manufacturing-led exports and investment to services and household consumption.	如果中国GDP的组成要素继续发生改变，从制造业拉动的出口和投资转变为服务和家庭消费，那么世界将大受裨益。


Under those circumstances, Chinese domestic demand has the potential to become an increasingly important source of export-led growth for China’s major trading partners – provided, of course, that other countries are granted free and open access to rapidly expanding Chinese markets.	在这样的环境下，中国内需有可能成为中国主要贸易伙伴出口拉动型增长的重要源泉——当然，一个前提是其他国家能自由开放地进入快速扩张的中国市场。


A successful Chinese rebalancing scenario has the potential to jump-start global demand with a new and important source of aggregate demand – a powerful antidote to an otherwise sluggish world.	中国成功再平衡的情形有望以新的重要总需求源提振全球需求——这对于停滞的世界来说是一针强心剂。


That possibility should not be ignored, as political pressures bear down on the global trade debate.	也许我们不应该忽视这一可能，因为全球贸易争论正在受到政治压力。


All in all, despite all the focus on the US, Europe, or Japan, China continues to hold the trump card in today’s weakened global economy.	总而言之，尽管所有的焦点都集中在美国、欧洲和日本身上，但中国仍然是当今疲软的全球经济的王牌。


While a Chinese hard landing would be disastrous, a successful rebalancing would be an unqualified boon.	中国硬着陆将是灾难性的，但成功的再平衡将是不折不扣的提振。


That could well make the prognosis for China the decisive factor for the global economic outlook.	因此，可以断言，中国才是全球经济前景的决定性因素。


While the latest monthly indicators show China’s economy stabilizing at around the 6.7% growth rate recorded in the first half of 2016, there can be no mistaking the headwinds looming in the second half of the year.	最新月度指标表明，中国经济已经稳定在2016年上半年所报告的6. 7%的增长附近，但下半年仍然阻力重重。


In particular, the possibility of a further downshift in private-sector fixed-asset investment could exacerbate ongoing pressures associated with deleveraging, persistently weak external demand, and a faltering property cycle.	特别是，私人部门固定资产投资进一步下滑的可能性可能加剧去杠杆、外部需求持续低迷以及房地产周期由盛转衰所带来的压力。


But, unlike the major economies of the advanced world, where policy space is severely constrained, Chinese authorities have ample scope for accommodative moves that could shore up economic activity.	但是，和政策空间严重受限的主要发达经济体不同，中国当局有足够的空间调整以支撑经济活动。


And, unlike the major economies of the developed world, which constantly struggle with a tradeoff between short-term cyclical pressures and longer-term structural reforms, China is perfectly capable of addressing both sets of challenges simultaneously.	与一直在短期周期性压力和长期结构改革之间权衡的主要发达经济体不同，中国完全有能力同时解决这两大挑战。


To the extent that the Chinese leadership is able to maintain such a multi-dimensional policy and reform focus, a weak and still vulnerable global economy can only benefit.	只要中国领导层能够保持这一多维度政策和改革重点，疲软且依旧脆弱的全球经济就可能受益。


The world needs a successful China more than ever.	世界比任何时候都需要成功的中国。


Market Manipulation Goes Global	市场操纵全球化


NEW HAVEN – Market manipulation has become standard operating procedure in policy circles around the world.	纽黑文—市场操纵已经成为全世界政策圈的标准操作流程。


All eyes are now on China’s attempts to cope with the collapse of a major equity bubble.	如今，所有人的目光都集中在中国如何处理股市大泡沫的破灭。


But the efforts of Chinese authorities are hardly unique.	但中国当局的措施并不独特。


The leading economies of the West are doing pretty much the same thing – just dressing up their manipulation in different clothes.	西方主要经济体无不做着同样的事情——只不过用不同的外衣掩饰操纵之实而已。


Take quantitative easing, first used in Japan in the early 2000s, then in the United States after 2008, then in Japan again beginning in 2013, and now in Europe.	以量化宽松为例。 先是本世纪初的日本，然后是2008年的美国，再然后是2013年日本再次动用量化宽松，现在则轮到了欧洲。


In all of these cases, QE essentially has been an aggressive effort to manipulate asset prices.	在所有这些例子中，量化宽松本质上都是操纵资产价格的大动作。


It works primarily through direct central-bank purchases of long-dated sovereign securities, thereby reducing long-term interest rates, which, in turn, makes equities more attractive.	它主要通过央行直接购买长期主权债券、从而降低长期利率、反过来再让股票更有吸引力起作用。


Whether the QE strain of market manipulation has accomplished its objective – to provide stimulus to crisis-torn, asset-dependent economies – is debatable: Current recoveries in the developed world, after all, have been unusually anemic.	以量化宽松的方式进行市场操纵是否完成了目标——为饱受危机冲击、依赖资产的经济提供刺激——仍有待争议：毕竟，目前发达世界的复苏相当萎靡。


But that has not stopped the authorities from trying.	但这并没有阻止当局继续尝试。


In their defense, central banks make the unsubstantiated claim that things would have been much worse had they not pursued QE.	央行的辩解缺乏事实依据。 它们说，如果不采取量化宽松，情况还要糟糕得多。


But, with now-frothy manipulated asset markets posing new risks of financial instability, the jury is out on that point as well.	但是，如今被操纵的资产市场出现了许多泡沫，带来了新的金融动荡风险，因此对于这一点也有待争议。


China’s efforts at market manipulation are no less blatant.	中国的市场操纵措施并不比发达国家更激进。


In response to a 31% plunge in the CSI 300 (a composite index of shares on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges) from its June 12 peak, following a 145% surge in the preceding 12 months, Chinese regulators have moved aggressively to contain the damage.	面对沪深300指数从6月12日的高点暴跌31%的情况（此前12个月上涨145%），中国监管者采取了大手笔措施遏制损失。


Official actions run the gamut, including a $480 billion government-supported equity-market backstop under the auspices of the China Securities Finance Corporation, a $19 billion pool from major domestic brokerages, and an open-ended promise by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to use its balance sheet to shore up equity prices.	官方行动可谓火力全开，包括证金公司的4,800亿美元政府支持的救市资金、190亿美元国内主要券商资金池以及中国人民银行承诺无限期动用其资产负债表支持股价。


Moreover, trading was suspended for about 50% of listed securities (more than 1,400 of 2,800 stocks).	此外，大约50%的上市公司停牌（2,800家上市公司中的1,400多家）。


Unlike the West’s QE-enabled market manipulation, which works circuitously through central-bank liquidity injections, the Chinese version is targeted more directly at the market in distress – in this case, equities.	与西方通过量化宽松进行市场操纵——通过央行流动性注入间接操纵市场——不同，中国的版本的目标更加直接——处于危机中的市场，现在是股市。


Significantly, QE is very much a reactive approach – aimed at sparking revival in distressed markets and economies after they have collapsed.	显然，量化宽松是一种被动方法——旨在促使危机市场和经济在崩溃后复苏。


The more proactive Chinese approach is the policy equivalent of attempting to catch a falling knife – arresting a market in free-fall.	中国的方法更加主动，好比是接飞刀——驯服处于自由落体状态的市场。


There are several other noteworthy distinctions between China’s market manipulation and that seen in the West.	中国和西方的市场操纵之间还有几个重大差异。


First, Chinese authorities appear less focused on systemic risks to the real economy.	首先，中国当局似乎较少关注实体经济的系统性风险。


That makes sense, given that wealth effects are significantly smaller in China, where private consumption accounts for just 36% of GDP – only about half the share in more wealth-dependent economies like the US.	这是明智的，因为在中国，私人消费只占GDP的36%，相当于美国等依赖财富的经济体的一半，因此，中国的财富效应要小得多。


Moreover, much of the sharp appreciation in Chinese equity values was very short-lived.	此外，中国股市市值暴涨时间很短。


Nearly 90% of the 12-month surge in the CSI 300 was concentrated in the seven months following the start of cross-border investment flows via the so-called Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect in November 2014.	沪深300指数过去12个月的大涨中有90%的涨幅集中在2014年11月所谓的沪港通开始、引来大规模跨境资本流之后的七个月。


As a result, speculators had little time to let the capital gains sink in and have a lasting impact on lifestyle expectations.	结果，投机者没有时间让资本利得沉淀下来、形成持续的改善生活（lifestyle）效应。


Second, in the West, post-crisis reforms typically have been tactical, aimed at repairing flaws in established markets, rather than promoting new markets.	其次，在西方，危机后改革通常是策略性的，目标是修复已有市场的漏洞，而不是促进新市场。


In China, by contrast, post-bubble reforms have a more strategic focus, given that the equity-market distress has important implications for the government’s capital-market reforms, which are viewed as crucial to its strategy of structural rebalancing.	相反，在中国，后泡沫时代改革更具战略眼光，因为股灾对政府的资本市场改革具有重要影响，而资本市场改革被视为结构再平衡的关键。


Long saddled with a bank-centric system of credit intermediation, the development of secure and stable equity and bond markets is a high priority in China’s effort to promote a more diversified business-funding platform.	长期以来，中国存在着以银行为核心的信用中介体系，发展安全稳定的股市和债市是中国促进更加多元化的商业资金平台的重中之重。


The collapse of the equity bubble calls that effort into serious question.	股票泡沫的崩溃让这一方针受到了严重的质疑。


Finally, by emphasizing a regulatory fix, and thereby keeping its benchmark policy rate well above the dreaded zero bound, the PBOC is actually better positioned than other central banks to maintain control over monetary policy and not become ensnared in the open-ended provision of liquidity that is so addictive for frothy markets.	最后，中国人民银行强调监管措施，其基准政策利率仍稳稳地保持在可怕的零区间上方，因此它实际上比其他央行都更能够保持货币政策控制力，不会沦为泡沫市场严重倚赖的无限期流动性提供者。


And, unlike in the West, China’s targeted equity-specific actions minimize the risk of financial contagion caused by liquidity spillovers into other asset markets.	此外，与西方不同，中国专门以股市为目标的措施使得流动性溢出至其他资产市场从而造成金融传染的风险降到最低。


With a large portion of China’s domestic equity market still closed, it is hard to know when the correction’s animal spirits have been exhausted.	中国国内股市基本上仍处于封闭状态，因此很难知道此次修正走势的动物精神何时耗尽。


While the government has assembled considerable firepower to limit the unwinding of a spectacular bubble, the overhang of highly leveraged speculative demand is disconcerting.	政府集中了大量弹药遏制一个巨大的泡沫的破裂，但高杠杆投机性需求的堆积令人不安。


Indeed, in the 12 months ending in June, margin financing of stock purchases nearly tripled as a share of tradable domestic-equity-market capitalization.	事实上，在截至6月的12个月中，保证金融资买入股票规模占国内股市流通市值之比翻了近三倍。


While Chinese equities initially bounced 14% off their July 8 low, the 8.5% plunge on July 27 suggests that that may have been a temporary respite.	中国股市从7月8日的低点大幅反弹14%，但7月27日再度暴跌8. 5%，这表明市场稳定也许只是昙花一现。


The likelihood of forced deleveraging of margin calls underscores the potential for a further slide once full trading resumes.	全面恢复交易后，被迫去杠杆的可能性仍可能造成进一步下跌。


More broadly, just as in Japan, the US, and Europe, there can be no mistaking what prompted China’s manipulation: the perils of outsize asset bubbles.	从更广的角度，与日本、美国和欧洲一样，毫无疑问促使中国进行市场操纵的是巨大资产泡沫带来的风险。


Time and again, regulators and policymakers – to say nothing of political leaders – have been asleep at the switch in condoning market excesses.	监管者和决策者——更不用说政治领导人了——一再守着遏制市场过度的开关睡大觉。


In a globalized world where labor income is under constant pressure, the siren song of asset markets as a growth elixir is far too tempting for the body politic to resist.	在劳动收入被持续抑制的全球化世界中，把资产市场当作万灵丹的诱惑实在太大，国家难以抵御。


Speculative bubbles are the visible manifestation of that temptation.	投机泡沫便是这一诱惑的症候。


As the bubbles burst – and they always do – false prosperity is exposed and the defensive tactics of market manipulation become both urgent and seemingly logical.	随着泡沫的破裂——泡沫总是会破裂——虚假繁荣暴露无遗，防御性市场操纵策略刻不容缓，看起来也符合逻辑。


Therein lies the great irony of manipulation: The more we depend on markets, the less we trust them.	这就是市场操纵最大的讽刺所在：我们越是依赖市场，就越是不信任市场。


Needless to say, that is a far cry from the “invisible hand” on which the efficacy of markets rests.	不消说，这与决定市场效率的“看不见的手”大不相同。


We claim, as Adam Smith did, that impersonal markets ensure the most efficient allocation of scarce capital; but what we really want are markets that operate only on our terms.	与亚当·斯密一样，我们声称无人性的市场确保了稀缺资本的效率最高的配置； 但我们真正想要的是完全按我们的意图行事的市场。


China’s Abnormal Stock Market	不正常的中国股市


LONDON – China’s stock market has plunged yet again, this time by 8.5% – the market’s second-largest fall in a single day, and the largest since the global financial crisis.	伦敦—中国股市再次暴跌8. 5%——历史上第二大单日跌幅，也是全球金融危机以来第一大单日跌幅。


The roller-coaster ride is far from over.	股市“过山车”远未结束。


In fact, China’s stock market is more like a casino than an amusement-park attraction.	事实上，中国股市更像是赌场而不是游乐场。


Retail investors account for 85% of trades, in contrast to other major markets, where institutional investors – with their relative abundance of information – are the biggest traders.	散户贡献了85%的交易量，而在其他主要市场，机构投资者——它们拥有相对更充分的信息——才是最大的交易者。


The result, no surprise, is an extremely volatile market, in which rumor and emotion play an outsize role in driving outcomes.	毫不奇怪，结果便是市场波动剧烈，流言和情绪在驱动股价方面起着极大的作用。


And that volatility is the other reason why the casino metaphor applies: China’s stock market can rise or fall by double digits without triggering a wider economic crash – at least so far.	而这一波动性正是赌场比喻成立的另一个原因：中国股市可以暴涨暴跌10%以上而不引发更广泛的经济灾难——至少到目前为止是如此。


For example, China’s GDP growth was unaffected (in fact, the economy was growing at nearly 10%) when the stock market lost half of its value between 2001 and 2005 – or, for that matter, when the market then recovered (only to fall dramatically again after the 2008 financial crisis).	比如，2001—2005年，中国股市市值缩水一半，这并没有影响到中国GDP（事实上，中国经济增长率接近10%），而此后的市场复苏（直到2008年金融危机后才大幅下跌）也是如此。


Since then, China’s stock market has been a global laggard – that is, until the past year, when it became the best performing in the world, rising by more than 150%.	此后，中国股市一直落后于全球——直到去年以来又成为世界表现最好的股市，上涨超过150%。


And yet the roller-coaster pattern continues: the 8.5% plunge came when the market re-opened on a Monday that followed the largest two-day rise since 2008.	但过山车模式还在继续：周一8. 5%的暴跌之前，中国股市刚刚经历了2008年以来最大的两日涨幅。


That rise had been preceded by a loss of nearly one-third of the market’s value from mid-June to early July.	而在上涨之前，从6月中旬到7月上旬，中国股市跌去了近三分之一的市值。


This volatility highlights the challenges of ensuring a smooth process of financial liberalization in China.	如此波动凸显出中国确保平稳实现金融自由化的挑战。


After extensive government intervention prohibited some selling of shares and froze trading for the bulk of the market, prices rebounded.	在大规模政府干预禁止某些卖出股票行为并大面积停牌后，股价出现了反弹。


Yet intervention is unlikely to prevent another crash.	但干预无法阻止新一轮崩盘。


The reason is that the Chinese stock market is not wholly liquid or globally integrated.	原因在于中国股市流动性不足，也没有融入全球市场。


Moreover, it is dominated by captive money from Chinese savers – the retail investors.	此外，中国股市的主力资金来自中国储户——即散户。


Indeed, it was not until 2009 that most shares on China’s stock exchanges were tradable.	事实上，在2009年之前，中国证交所上市股票只有一小半可以交易。


Until the reforms that began in 2005, two-thirds of shares were non-tradable and held by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or legal persons, which are typically state-controlled entities.	在2005年启动改革之前，三分之二股票是国有企业或法人（通常是国家控制的实体）持有的非流通股。


Indeed, private firms still comprise a minority of China’s listed companies, though today fewer than 30% of shares cannot be traded.	事实上，尽管如今只有不到30%的股票不可交易，民营企业仍然只占中国上市公司的一小部分。


To be sure, that has led to a huge infusion of liquidity over just the past few years.	诚然，在过去几年中，这带来了巨大的流动性。


But China also imposes capital-account restrictions on portfolio-investment flows, which means that its stock markets remain relatively closed.	但中国也对投资组合投资流实施资本账户限制，这意味着其股市仍相对封闭。


Until the recent launch of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect corridor, which links the two markets, international investors could not directly buy A-shares on the mainland exchanges.	直到最近连接沪港两地市场的沪港通启动前，国际投资者是无法直接在大陆交易所购买A股的。


Direct purchases remain subject to a quota, in the form of a limited number of so-called Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor licenses.	目前直接购买仍有限额，即数量有限的所谓合格境外投资者（QFII）资格。


By the same token, aside from the very wealthy, who benefit from personal connections and other devices, the hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese savers who have achieved middle-class status do not have easy access to global markets.	同理，除了可以从人脉和其他手段获益的巨富群体外，数亿跻身中产阶级的普通中国储户无法进入全球市场。


Moreover, returns on deposits are low (and had been negative), and the state-dominated financial system offers few diversified products.	此外，存款回报极低（此前一直为负），国家主导的金融体系也不提供多样化的产品。


As a result, housing and domestic equities are the main investments available to them.	结果，住房和国内股市就成为他们能够进行的主要投资手段。


But then the housing market stalled, as fears of a property bubble spurred a government clampdown on credit, leaving the stock market the place for middle-class savers to put their money.	但随后对房地产泡沫的担忧促使政府收紧了信用，住房市场随之停滞，而股市成为中产阶级储户的资金流向。


The ensuing boom was a mirror image of the pattern between 1998 and 2001, when the housing market was liberalized and the stock market fell.	随后的上涨时1998—2001年走势的镜像，当时住房市场实现了自由化，而股市则处于熊市。


The big question now is whether the recent volatility will spill over into other asset markets and the real economy.	现在的大问题是最近的波动是否会溢出到其他资产市场和实体经济中。


The double-digit drop in the Shanghai Composite Index since June has not triggered an economic crisis largely because fewer than 10% of Chinese households participate in the stock market, and equities comprise less than 15% of household assets.	6月以来上证指数两位数的下跌之所以没有引起经济危机，主要是因为只有不到10%的中国家庭参与了股市，而股票只占家庭资产的不到15%。


But even a small fraction of Chinese households experiencing paper losses still amounts to tens of millions of people.	但即使只有一小部分中国家庭发生了直面损失，其数量也将达到几千万人。


That has caused enough concern for the government to act, including by relaxing collateral requirements to permit real-estate assets to be used to cover margin calls.	而这足以引起政府的关注并采取行动，包括放松抵押品要求、允许用不动产充抵保证金。


It was, in fact, the authorities’ clampdown on margin borrowing, together with a loss in confidence as global markets declined, that is thought to have triggered the market meltdown.	事实上，人们认为当局对保证金借贷的严打——以及全球市场下跌导致的信心损失——才是引发市场崩溃的罪魁。


And that, too, is a feature of a market dominated by small traders: the “herding” behavior that fuels major booms and busts becomes more prevalent, because individuals assume that others have better information.	这也是小交易者主导的市场的一大特征：助长大规模枯荣循环的“羊群”行为更加普遍，因为个体认为其他个体拥有更好的信息。


The result, as we are now witnessing, is that a moderate sell-off can easily turn into a stampede.	结果我们都看到了——小规模甩卖可以轻易演变为崩溃。


And government intervention to block the exits is inadequate.	而政府干预堵住出口并不恰当。


On the contrary, until China’s stock market opens up and its institutional foundation becomes predictable, volatility will be its only guiding rule.	相反，在开放中国股市、使其制度基础变得容易预测之前，波动都将是中国股市唯一的指导规则。


A False Alarm About China	错误的中国警报


MANILA – To hear some pundits tell it, China’s economic miracle – one that lifted 300 million people out of poverty and shifted the world’s geopolitical center of gravity – is coming to a tumultuous end.	马尼拉—一些专家说，中国的经济奇迹——让3亿人摆脱贫困并改变了世界地缘政治重心——正在走向混乱的终局。


The volatile stock market and the renminbi’s “surprise” depreciation are signs of imminent economic collapse, according to this view, as risky investments and high levels of government debt put the brakes on decades of turbo-charged output growth.	根据这一观点，剧烈动荡的股市和人民币“意外”贬值便是经济崩溃即将到来的信号，高风险投资和高水平政府债务给几十年来的“涡轮增压式”产出增长踩了刹车。


Fortunately, there is little reason to believe such dire predictions, or that the market gyrations that have been driving recent headlines represent anything more than short-term volatility.	幸运的是，没有理由表明应该相信这些末日预言，也没有理由相信最近屡屡成为新闻焦点的市场轮动比短期波动更严重。


After all, equity-price movements are a poor predictor of the real economy’s performance.	毕竟，股市波动只是实体经济表现的拙劣预测指标。


Indeed, when Chinese GDP was growing strongly during 2010-2013, stock prices were falling.	事实上，2010—2013年，中国GDP增长强劲，股价也是下跌的。


More recently, when stock prices began soaring during the first half of 2015, the economy’s slowdown had already begun.	更近一点，2015年上半年股价狂飙突进，但经济减速已经开始。


As the American economist Paul Samuelson famously quipped, “The stock market has called nine of the last five recessions.”	美国经济学家保罗·萨缪尔森（Paul Samuelson）有一句名言，“股市九次预警最近的五次衰退。 ”


China’s growth has slowed largely as a result of changes in its fundamentals: less favorable demographics, a shift in emphasis from exports and public investment to the service sector and domestic consumption, and lower demand from advanced economies.	中国经济减速主要是其基本面变化的结果：人口结构不再有利，从强调出口和公共投资转向着重服务业和国内消费，以及发达经济体需求下降。


But China’s past success also contributed to this slowdown, in the form of higher wages, which narrow the scope for rapid growth based on low-cost labor and technological catch-up.	但中国过去的成功也助长了这场减速：工资提高了，这制约了依靠低成本劳动力和技术赶超的高速增长的潜力。


Additional signs of weakness, including soft data on exports and investment, emerged in the first half of 2015.	2015年上半年出现了更多疲软信号，包括出口和投资的萎靡数据。


But other important indicators – like retail sales and housing – show upticks.	但其他重要指标——如零售额和住房——表现出上升势头。


And, perhaps most important, the country’s labor market remains healthy, creating some 7.2 million new urban jobs – many of them in services – in the first half of 2015.	此外，也许最重要的是，中国劳动力市场仍十分健康，2015年上半年创造了720万城镇新工作岗位——其中许多是服务业岗位。


Meanwhile, wage growth remains strong and uninterrupted.	与此同时，工资增长仍然强劲，没有受到干扰。


China’s growth rate may be lower than 7% this year, but I do not believe that it will end up very far from the government’s target of “about 7%.”	今年中国的增长率也许会低于7%，但我不相信会比政府“7%左右”的目标低很多。


The volatility in equity prices in recent months has more to do with the peculiarities of China’s stock markets than with the country’s underlying economic fundamentals.	最近几个月中的股价波动与其说与中国经济基本面有关，不如说与中国股市的特殊性有关。


In more developed economies, such as the United States and Europe, many institutional investors – who tend to be focused on long-term fundamentals – help stabilize stock markets.	在更发达的经济体（如美国和欧洲），众多机构投资者——他们往往专注于长期基本面——有助于稳定股市。


By contrast, the Chinese markets are dominated by retail investors, who are more likely to pursue short-term gains and engage in momentum trading, thereby exacerbating volatility and creating a greater disconnect between equity prices and real economic growth.	相反，中国股市由散户主导，他们更有可能追求短期收益，参与动量交易，从而放大的波动，在股市和经济增长之间制造出更大的失联。


Moreover, the firms listed on China’s stock exchanges are not representative of the country’s companies.	此外，中国上市公司并不代表中国企业。


Majority state-owned firms account for two-thirds of the market value of the country’s exchanges, for example, though they are responsible for no more than one-third of Chinese GDP and an even smaller share of employment.	比如，大型国有企业占了中国股市市值的三分之二，但它们只贡献了中国GDP的三分之一弱，对就业的贡献就更小了。


The rise and fall of the Chinese stock market should also be understood in the context of Chinese households’ limited options for storing savings.	中国股市的兴衰应该置于一个背景下去理解：中国家庭的储蓄选择十分有限。


The run-up in prices took place at a time when deposit interest rates were officially capped.	价格上升发生在存款利率被官方限定了上限时。


When the alternatives are few and provide only low returns, the equity market looks more attractive, especially if – as was the case – the country’s major newspapers are running bullish editorials about stock prices.	当其他储蓄手段少之又少，并且只能提供低回报时，股市看起来很有吸引力，特别是当中国各大报纸纷纷发表牛市评论时——事实正是如此。


More recent developments may have contributed to the downward pressure on prices, including discussion about abolishing interest-rate ceilings on deposits (the cap on term deposits of one year or more was removed on August 25).	最近的发展趋势增加了价格下跌的压力，包括关于取消存款利率上限的讨论（一年期及以上定期存款利率上限在8月25日被取消）。


The greater ease with which wealthy households can move savings out of the country, along with an anticipated increase in interest rates in the United States, was likely another contributing factor.	富裕家庭将储蓄转移出国更加容易了，而美国预计即将升息，这也许是另一个下跌压力。


Furthermore, as Harvard’s Jeffrey Frankel has pointed out, regulators increased margin requirements several times this year, making it harder to buy stocks with borrowed money.	此外，哈佛大学的杰弗里·弗兰克尔（Jeffrey Frankel）指出，监管者在今年数次提高保证金要求，使得借钱买股票更加困难。


And, as with all stock markets, shifts in sentiment that are not connected to fundamentals can also drive volatility.	此外，和所有股市一样，与基本面无关的情绪变化也助长了波动。


Whether China’s economy can continue to grow rapidly will depend far more on its ability to reform than on how its stock markets perform.	中国经济是否能够继续高速增长更多地取决于其改革能力，而非股市表现如何。


If China is to thrive in the long term, raising its aggregate productivity is key.	如果中国想实现长期繁荣，那么提升总体生产率是关键。


This means that it will need to overhaul its state-owned firms and the financial sector so that resources can flow to the most productive investment projects.	这意味着中国需要整顿国有企业和金融部门，使资源能够流向生产率最高的投资项目。


Lowering the tax burden on firms – including the payroll tax – would also be useful.	降低企业税负——包括工资税——也十分有用。


Reforms that increase the flexibility of the labor market are also in order.	增加劳动力市场灵活性的改革也很重要。


While China used to have a relatively flexible labor market in the manufacturing sector, firms’ reallocation of workers based on market needs has become more difficult in recent years.	过去，中国制造业劳动力市场相对比较灵活，但近几年来，企业按照市场需要配置工人变得更加困难。


Greater flexibility might not stimulate short-term growth, but it would improve resilience to future negative shocks, whether they originate at home or abroad.	增加灵活性也许不能刺激短期增长，但可以改善对未来消极冲击（不管来自国内还是国外）的恢复力。


As long as China continues to pursue pro-market reforms, it will remain the largest single-country contributor to global GDP growth over the medium term – unperturbed by stock-market volatility.	只要中国继续追求亲市场改革，从中期看，它就将继续成为全球GDP增长最大的贡献者，股市波动无法改变这一点。


If reforms stall, falling stock prices are likely to be the least of China’s worries.	如果改革停滞下来，那么股价下跌仅仅是中国悲剧的开始。


China’s Stock-Market Red Herring	中国的股市烟雾弹


ROME – With the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index down more than 40% since last June, investors worldwide are watching the decline with growing concern – but not because they are invested in the plummeting market (China’s stocks are overwhelmingly held by Chinese).	发自罗马——上证券综合指数自去年六月以来已经出现超过40％的跌幅，而全球投资者对这场下跌的关注也日渐增加——这并不是因为他们有意趁暴跌抄底（中国的股票绝大多数还是由中国投资者持有）。


Rather, the fear is that plunging equity prices mean that China’s economy is going down the tubes.	相反，他们担心的是股价暴跌意味着中国的经济已经进入下行通道。


But those seeking compelling clues about China’s economic future should look elsewhere.	而那些试图分辨中国经济未来的人则应该从其他地方去寻找可靠的线索。


Of course, it is true that China’s growth rate has slowed substantially, and there are plenty of reasons to believe that the deceleration is not temporary.	当然，中国的增长速度已经显著放缓是事实，并有充足的理由相信，这种减速并非是暂时的。


But none of those reasons has much to do with the stock market.	但所有这些原因基本上都跟股市没什么关系。


This disconnect is apparent in the fact that market prices are higher today than they were in 2014, the year when China surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest economy (in terms of purchasing power parity), a development that spurred bullish expectations.	这种脱节状况其实已经相当明显，因为当前的股市价格竟然比2014年更高，而那年正是中国超过美国成为世界第一大经济体（按购买力平价计算）并催生了乐观预期的一年。


What observers at the time did not seem to recognize was that China’s economy was already slowing.	但当时似乎并没有什么观察家认识到中国的经济已经放缓。


According to official statistics, the growth rate averaged 10% in 1980-2010, but fell to 7-8% in 2012-2014.	据官方统计，1980~2010年间的增速平均为10％，而在2012~2014年间则下降到7-8％。


At first, the slowdown actually contributed indirectly to a rise in stock prices, by spurring the People’s Bank of China to begin cutting interest rates in November 2014.	首先，经济放缓实际上间接有助于股票价格上涨，因为这刺激了中国的人民银行在2014年11月开始降息。


But by the spring of 2015, the market’s boom was looking a lot like a credit-fueled bubble.	但在2015年春的市场繁荣则更像一场信贷推动的泡沫。


The Shanghai index peaked on June 12, when the China Securities Regulatory Commission tightened margin requirements.	当中国证监会提高了保证金比例后，上证综指于6月12日见顶，。


The truth is that China’s economic slowdown should not have surprised anyone.	事实是，中国经济增速放缓本该不是什么意外。


The country’s three-decade run of 10% annual GDP growth was already unprecedented.	因为该国三十年来年均10％的GDP增速已经堪称前无古人了。


The question is why no country, not even China, managed to prolong its economic miracle?	问题是为何没有一个国家，甚至包括中国，可以将其经济奇迹不断延续下去？


Some offer broad explanations: countries fall into the middle-income trap or experience a regression to the mean in growth rates.	有些人会提供一些众所周知的解释：国家落入中等收入陷阱，或增长率回归均值。


But, in China’s case, a number of specific factors may be at play.	但在中国的情况下，一些特定的因素可能会发挥作用。


The first factor is diminishing returns to capital, which weakened the growth-enhancing effects of, say, investment in transport infrastructure and residential construction.	第一个因素是资本回报的不断减少，这削弱了投资于交通基础设施和住宅建设等措施所带来的增长促进作用。


Another is that urban land prices have been bid up, while the environment’s “carrying capacity” has been exhausted.	另一个原因是，城市土地价格被抬高，而环境的“承载能力”却已经耗尽。


Then there are demographic challenges.	再就是人口结构方面的问题。


The working-age population has peaked, and the share of retirement-age population is rising fast – not least because of the country’s 35-year-long one-child policy, which was only recently rescinded.	劳动年龄人口数量已经达到顶峰，同时退休年龄人口的比重迅速上升——这主要源自于该国延续35年之久，直到最近才宣告取消的独生子女政策。


Moreover, China’s once seemingly inexhaustible surplus of rural labor willing to migrate to urban areas has largely disappeared, causing wages to rise and the country’s competitive advantage in labor-intensive manufacturing to weaken.	此外，曾经看似取之不尽用之不竭的农村剩余劳动力已经基本消失，从而导致工资上升，削弱了该国在劳动密集型产业的竞争优势。


The economy has shifted from manufacturing toward services, where there is less scope for productivity growth.	经济已经从制造业向服务转型，而后者的生产率增长空间较小。


Moreover, room for catch-up gains with the developed economies in terms of technology, production processes, and management practices is shrinking, undermining productivity growth further – and leaving it up to China to do some innovating of its own.	此外，中国在技术，生产工艺和管理方法上追赶发达经济体的空间不断缩小，进一步削弱了生产力增长——导致中国只能寻求一些自身的创新。


Against this background, a shift to a trend annual growth rate of 5-7% is natural.	在此背景下，增长率趋向5-7％的转移是自然的。


But that shift can happen in two ways: a soft landing, in which China continues to grow at the slower-but-sustainable trend rate, or a hard landing, involving a financial crisis and more severe economic recession.	但是，这种转变可以以两种方式发生：一是软着陆，在中国继续维持较慢但可持续的增长趋势，或是硬着陆，爆发一场金融危机以及一系列更严重的经济衰退。


Like Japan after the 1980s or South Korea in 1997-1998, China has depended significantly on investment and debt financing during its high-growth phase, raising the risk that excess capacity could lead to financial crisis as the economy slows.	跟日本在1980年代和韩国在1997~1998年的情况类似，中国在其高速增长阶段主要依赖投资和债务融资，提高了经济增长放缓后产能过剩导致金融危机的风险。


And, indeed, excess capacity is already a serious problem in many sectors.	而事实上，产能过剩已经成为了许多行业的严重问题。


Still, it is unclear what kind of landing China faces – not least because official statistics may be overstating current GDP growth considerably.	不过，目前还不清楚中国将以何种方式着陆——这不仅是因为官方统计数据可能极大夸大了当前的GDP增长。


With official growth data usually aligning a little too closely with government targets to be credible, skeptics are turning to other, more tangible measures of economic conditions, pointing out that energy consumption, freight railway traffic, and output of industrial products like coal, steel, and cement has slowed sharply.	由于官方增长数据通常与政府定下的目标过于接近所以显得不太可信，怀疑开始转向可以统计的有形经济指标，指出能源消耗，铁路货运量以及如煤炭，钢铁和水泥等工业产品的产量都已大幅放缓。


These statistics could, as many infer, indicate that China’s economy is growing at a rate much lower than the 7% the government claims.	正如许多人推断的那样，这些统计数字可能表明中国经济增长速度显著低于7％，远低于政府数据。


But, as Nicholas Lardy persuasively argues, they could also reflect the economy’s shift from heavy manufacturing toward services – a shift that is highly desirable in helping China’s natural transition to the more sustainable trend.	但是，正如尼古拉斯·拉迪（Nicholas Lardy）令人信服地指出，这些数据可能也反映了经济从重工业向服务业的转换——这正是中国向更可持续发展趋势的自然转换所急需的。


It is still possible, then, that China is on track for a soft landing.	如果是这样的话，那中国就正在稳步实现软着陆。


But success presupposes less reliance on investment spending and export demand, and more on domestic household consumption, to support growth.	但是，成功的前提是减少对投资支出和出口需求的依赖，更倾向国内居民消费以支持经济增长。


Moreover, China must increase the flexibility of land and labor markets.	此外，中国必须增加土地和劳动力市场的灵活性。


For example, insecure land rights in the countryside and the hukou (household registration) system in the cities continue to impede labor mobility.	例如，不确定的农村土地使用权以及持续阻碍劳动力流动的城市户口制度。


More generally, markets’ role in shaping the economy must continue to grow.	更宏观地说，市场在塑造经济中所扮演的作用必须继续增强。


State-owned enterprises must be reined in. The health-care, social-security, and tax systems must be reformed and strengthened.	国有企业必须受到限制，卫生保健，社会保障和税收制度必须进行改革和强化。


And better environmental regulation is crucial.	而更完善的环境监管则是至关重要的。


Chinese leaders and economists already know all of this.	中国领导人和经济学家已经知道了这一切。


They adopted a list of reform objectives covering these areas in 2013.	他们在2013年制订了涵盖这些领域的改革目标清单。


And in the last two years, they have made progress in implementing some of them.	并在过去的两年中在一些方面取得了进展。


But there is still a long way to go, and success is by no means guaranteed.	但这仍有很长的路要走，也没人能保证一定成功。


As Shang-Jin Wei, the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank points out, progress on these reforms – not what happens in the stock market – is what will determine the fate of China’s economy.	正如亚洲开发银行首席经济学家魏尚进指出的那样，决定中国经济命运的是这类改革的进展——而非股市的表现。


China’s Triumph of the Will	中国的意志胜利


MOSCOW – When the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games begins in a few days, viewers will be presented with a minutely choreographed spectacle swathed in nationalist kitsch.	莫斯科-当北京奥运会在几天后举行开幕式时，观众们会看到一场经过精心设计的、浸透着民族主义庸俗演出。


Of course, images that recall Hitler’s goose-stepping storm troopers are the last thing that China’s leaders have in mind for their Olympics; after all, official Chinese nationalism proclaims the country’s “peaceful rise” within an idyll of “harmonious development.”	当然，会让人回想起希特勒迈着正步走的冲锋队的画面绝对不是中国领导人想让人们留下对奥运会的印象； 不管怎样，官方的中华民族主义宣扬的是这个国家将依靠田园诗般的“和谐发展”来实现“和平崛起”。


But, both aesthetically and politically, the parallel is hardly far-fetched.	但是，不管是在美学上还是在政治上，这种描述都不着边际。


Indeed, by choosing Albert Speer Jr., the son of Hitler’s favorite architect and the designer of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, to design the master plan for the Beijing Games, China’s government has itself alluded to the radical politicization of aesthetics that was a hallmark of twentieth-century totalitarianism.	事实上，选择希特勒的心腹、1936年柏林奥运会的建筑师和设计师的儿子小阿尔伯特·斯佩尔来设计北京奥运会的总体规划，中国政府本身就暗示了美学的极端政治化正是二十世纪极权主义的一大特征。


Like those regimes, whether fascist or communist, China’s leaders have sought to transform public space and sporting events into visible proof of their fitness and mandate to rule.	像那些政权一样，不管是法西斯政权或是共产主义政权，中国的领导人一直在寻求将公共场所和体育比赛项目转化成他们能胜任并且授权统治这个国家的可见证明。


Speer Jr.’s commission was to lay out a master plan for the access to the Olympic complex in Beijing.	小斯佩尔的使命是为进入北京的奥林匹克建筑群的大道制定总体规划。


His design centered on the construction of an imposing avenue to connect the Forbidden City and the National Stadium in which the opening ceremony will take place.	他的设计主要集中在建设一条连接紫禁城与将举行开幕式的国家体育场之间的气势宏伟的大道。


His father’s plan for “Germania,” the name Hitler selected for the Berlin that he planned to construct after World War II, also relied on such a mighty central axis.	而他的父亲为“日尔曼尼亚” 、也就是希特勒为计划在二战后建设的柏林所选择的名称所进行的规划也主要依赖这一宏伟的中轴线。


China’s rulers see the Olympics as a stage for demonstrating to the world the exceptional vitality of the country they have built over the past three decades.	中国的统治者把奥运会看作是他们向世界展示他们在过去三十年所建设起来的这个拥有巨大活力的国家的舞台。


And that demonstration serves an even more important domestic political objective: further legitimizing the regime’s continuing rule in the eyes of ordinary Chinese.	而这种展示还带有一种更加重要的国内政治目标：使这个政权的持续统治在普通中国人眼里进一步合法化。


Given this imperative, an architectural language of bombast and gigantism was almost inevitable.	鉴于这一因素，一种高调并且巨型的建筑语言几乎就是不可避免的了。


So it is no surprise that the Beijing Games may resemble the hubristic Games that beguiled the Führer and enthralled the German masses in 1936.	因此北京奥运会可能与1936年那届欺骗了德国元首兼帝国首相并且迷住了德国普通民众的傲慢的奥运会相类似就并不令人感到奇怪了。


Like the Beijing Games, the Berlin Olympics were conceived as a coming-out party.	像北京奥运会一样，柏林奥运会也被设想成一场亮相的盛会。


Josef Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda machine was fully deployed.	戈培尔的纳粹宣传机器开足了马力。


Athletic imagery – used to brilliant effect in Leni Riefenstahl’s acclaimed documentary – appeared to create a link between the Nazis and the ancient Greeks, and to confirm the Nazi myth that Germans and German civilization were the true heirs to the “Aryan” culture of classical antiquity.	里芬斯塔尔著名的纪录片发扬光大的运动形象似乎在纳粹和古希腊人之间建立起了联系，被用来证明纳粹关于德意志人和德意志文明是古代“雅利安人”文化真正后裔的谎言。


While designing the master plan for the Beijing Games, Speer Jr., an acclaimed architect and town planner, also sought, like his father, to create a futuristic global metropolis.	在为北京奥运会设计总体规划时，小斯佩尔这位享有盛名的建筑师和城市规划师而像他的父亲一样试图创造一个未来国际大都市。


Of course, the language that he used to sell his scheme to the Chinese was very different from the words his father used to present his plans to Hitler.	当然，他用来向中国人兜售他的规划的语言与他的父亲将他的计划提交给希特勒时所用的语言肯定非常不同。


Instead of emphasizing his design’s pomposity, the younger Speer insisted on its environmental friendliness.	小斯佩尔没有过分强调他的设计的壮观性，而是坚称其对环境的友好。


The 2,000-year-old city of Beijing should be transported into hyper-modernity, whereas his father’s 1936 Berlin design was, in his words, “simply megalomania.”	拥有2000多年历史的北京应该被转化成一座超现代的城市，而他父亲在1936年对柏林的设计用他的话来说“就是妄自尊大”。


Of course, the sins of the father should never be visited on the son.	当然，父亲的罪过不应该落到儿子的头上。


But, in this case, when the son borrows essential elements of his father’s architectural principles and serves a regime that seeks to use the Games for some of the same reasons that animated Hitler, is he not willingly reflecting those sins?	但是当儿子继承了他的父亲建筑原理的核心思想，并且把它用来服务一个寻求用某些曾驱使希特勒的理由来利用奥运会的政权时，你能说他没有有意地表现那些罪过吗？


Totalitarian regimes – the Nazis, the Soviets in 1980, and now the Chinese – desire to host the Olympics as a way to signal to the world their superiority.	极权主义政权，比如纳粹、八十年代的苏联和现在的中国，都渴望把举办奥运会作为向世界标榜它们的优越性的途径。


China believes that it has found its own model to develop and modernize, and its rulers regard the Games in the same way as the Nazis and Leonid Brezhnev did, as a means of “selling” their model to a global audience.	中国相信它已经找到了它自己发展和现代化的模式，而它的统治者像纳粹和勃列日涅夫一样，也把奥运会当成将他们的模式“兜售”给全球观众的途径。


Obviously, the Chinese were politically tone-deaf in choosing an architect whose name carried such dark historical connotations.	显然，中国人在选择一位其姓名承载了如此黑暗的历史含意的建筑师时出现了政治上的音盲。


The name of Speer itself probably did not matter to the officials who chose him.	斯佩尔这个名字本身对于选择他的那些官员来说也许根本不算什么。


They sought to stage an Olympics that made manifest their image of themselves, and Speer Jr., looking back to his father’s mastery of the architecture of power, delivered the goods.	他们寻求的是让奥运会成为展示他们自己形象的舞台，而小斯佩尔，鉴于他的父亲精湛的建筑技艺，能够为他们实现这一目标。


The realization of Speer Jr.’s Olympic vision, and that of his patrons, marks the end of a welcome interlude.	小斯佩尔以及他的客户的奥运梦想化为现实标志着欢迎插曲的终结。


For years following the end of the Cold War, politics had been removed from the Games.	自从冷战结束后，政治已经远离了奥运会。


A gold medal signified the sporting abilities and dedication of individual athletes, not the supposed merits of the political system that produced them.	一块金牌反映了某个运动员的体育才能和对体育的执着，而不应被认为是造就了他们的政治制度的功劳。


But now we have returned to an aesthetic of political mesmerization, reflected in the host government’s declared aim that China should win more gold medals than any country before.	但是现在我们又回到了政治催眠的美学标准中，这反映在主办国宣称中国应该赢得比任何国家都多的金牌。


As the Olympic torch relay – itself a creation of the Nazis, first employed in the Berlin Games – makes its way down Speer Jr.’s avenue of power, the world will once again be made to witness a triumph of the totalitarian will.	奥运火炬传递本身就是由纳粹创造出来的，并且首先是从柏林奥运会开始进行的。 当火炬在小斯佩尔建造的强力大道上行进时，世界将再一次目睹极权主义意志的胜利。


China’s Trouble with the Neighbors	中国的周边烦心事


BEIJING – China’s “good neighbor” policy is under unprecedented pressure; indeed, it is at its nadir since the Cold War’s end.	北京——中国的“好邻居”政策正在受到前所未有的压力； 事实上，中国周边形势正处在冷战结束以来的最低潮。


One after another, frictions with neighboring countries have arisen recently.	最近，中国与邻国一再发生摩擦。


From the territorial disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea to tensions with Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand, relationships that were sound, if not always friendly, have now soured.	从与越南和菲律宾的南中国海领海之争，到与缅甸和泰国的紧张局势，曾经良好甚至可谓友善的邻邦关系急转直下。


Myanmar’s decision to shelve the Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam project shocked China.	缅甸决定搁置中国支持的密松大坝项目，令中国大为震惊。


Likewise, the killing of 13 Chinese boat crewmen on the Mekong River in October serves as a stark reminder that China’s presumably peaceful southern land border, which has been untroubled for nearly 20 years, today resembles the most hostile sort of neighborhood.	此外，10月，13名中国船员在湄公河遇害，此事件不啻当头一击，中国向来稳固的南部边境——已有近20年时间没有发生任何麻烦——现在似乎成了对中国敌意最深的邻邦。


China’s people and government are especially dismayed by the Mekong killings, which seemed to demonstrate, once again, the government’s inability to protect its citizens from being murdered abroad, despite the country’s newfound global status. As a result, two compelling questions have arisen: Why do China’s neighbors choose to neglect its interests?	中国民众和政府对湄公河杀戮事件尤为震惊，这似乎再一次证明，尽管中国的全球地位已经今非昔比，但其政府在保护公民免遭海外屠戮方面依然无能。 结果产生了两大引人注目的问题：为什么邻国不把中国的利益放在眼里？


And why, despite China’s rise, do its authorities seem increasingly unable to secure Chinese lives and commercial interests abroad?	为什么在中国崛起的背景下，当局在保障中国人民海外人身安全和商业利益方面却越来越无能？


Chinese anxiety about these questions forms the atmosphere shaping Chinese policy.	中国民众对这些问题的焦虑左右着中国的政策氛围。


With Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fall from power in Libya, Chinese companies lost investments worth roughly $20 billion, which Libya’s new government has implied are unlikely to be recovered.	随着卡扎菲在利比亚的倒台，中国公司损失了大约200亿美元的投资，而利比亚新政府已经暗示，这笔损失无法弥补。


Many Chinese were disquieted by their government’s decision to evacuate China’s citizens from Libya, and would have preferred a bolder effort to protect the countries’ commercial assets there.	许多中国人对政府决定从利比亚撤侨的决定感到十分不满，他们更愿意留在利比亚，为保护中国商业资产做更大努力。


Similarly, the Chinese government’s later, and quite sudden, about-face in recognizing the rebel Transitional National Council as Libya’s government aroused considerable sneering at home.	与此类似，随后中国政府的态度突然来了一个大逆转，承认了国家过渡委员会为利比亚政府，国内一片哗然。


After all, China spent valuable political capital to oppose NATO’s airstrikes at the beginning of the intervention, only to end up backing the forces that NATO helped bring to power.	毕竟，在北约干预之初，中国曾下了很大的政治血本反对北约的空袭，然而到了最后，却又支持在北约帮助下夺得政权的反对派。


This was China’s utilitarian, commercially-driven diplomacy at its most transparently hollow.	中国外交的功利主义和唯利是图尽显无疑。


For most Chinese, Libya is a far-away and out-of-reach country, owing to China’s limited capacity to project power.	由于中国实力部署能力有限，对大部分中国人来说，利比亚是个遥远的国度。


So the emphasis on restoring Chinese commercial interests is accepted reluctantly if not completely understood.	因此强调恢复中国的商业利益即使得不到完全的理解，也可以被勉强接受。


But Myanmar and the other Mekong River countries are supposed to be the country’s “good neighbors,” and are completely within reach of Chinese power, so public anger over threats to the country’s interests in these places is intense.	但缅甸和其他湄公河流域国家被认为是中国的“好邻居”，且完全在中国实力覆盖范围之内，因此公众对中国利益在这些地区受到威胁十分愤怒。


Those interests include a new oil pipeline linking Myanmar to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan province.	这些利益包括一条连接缅甸和昆明的新输油管道。


China is also working on “connectivity” projects – namely, a rail and highway network – aimed at boosting economic and social ties between China and the ASEAN countries.	此外，中国还在从事不少“连接”工程——即高速公路和铁路网络——以提振中国和东盟国家的经济和社会联系。


The Myitsone and Mekong incidents have now cast a shadow over these projects, fueling fear of a chain reaction that could wreck China’s two-decade-long effort to achieve deeper regional integration.	现在，密松事件和湄公河事件给这些项目蒙上了一层阴影，激发了人们对产生连锁反应的担忧——中国20年来促进地区一体化的努力可能因此付诸东流。


Obviously, Myanmar’s new government does not want to aggravate sentiment in its already-unstable border areas, where rebel groups were using the dam project to rally new supporters.	显然，缅甸新政府不愿意激化已然不安定的边境地区的情绪——叛军集团正在利用密松大坝项目召集新的支持者。


The new government’s effort to share power with political forces in Myanmar’s volatile regions, and thus weaken local warlords, clearly contributed to the decision to halt construction.	新政府试图与缅甸动荡地区的政治势力分享权力从而削弱地方军阀，这显然也是叫停大坝建设的原因之一。


The dam’s Chinese investors, for their part, relied too heavily on the depth of the two countries’ bilateral ties, and so heavily discounted the project’s political risks.	而对大坝的中国投资者而言，他们太过依赖两国双边联系的深度，低估了该项目的政治风险。


Their behavior also reflects the implied guarantee of official government mercantilism, as well as the complacency of China’s state-owned enterprises, which account for most Chinese overseas investment.	他们的行为也反映了政府重商主义的隐性担保，以及中国国有企业——大部分中国海外投资都由国企经手——的目中无人。


Operating on the assumption that the government will back them – or bail them out if they fail – they can afford to be cavalier.	他们认为政府会为他们兜底——万一失败必会出手救援——因此态度颇为傲慢。


The Mekong incident tells another grim story.	湄公河事件则体现出另一大严峻现实。


The river, which links five countries, has been long famous as a setting for trans-national crimes such as drug trafficking, gambling, and smuggling.	湄公河流经五个国家，向来以贩毒、赌博、走私等跨国犯罪的温床著称。


China’s booming economy has brought growing interaction between China and the Mekong’s underground economies.	中国经济的繁荣使得其与湄公河流域的地下经济有了越来越多的互动。


The killing of the 13 Chinese boat crewmen was linked to this trend.	13名中国船员遇害便与这一趋势有关。


But China can best avoid similar tragedies not by flexing its muscles, but by building greater multilateral cooperation to combat transnational crime along the Mekong.	但中国避免类似悲剧再现的最好方式不是展示实力，而是促进更大的多边合作，打击湄公河流域的跨国犯罪。


The Myitsone and Mekong episodes highlight China’s suddenly edgy relations with its southern neighbors.	密松大坝和湄公河事件凸显了中国与其南方邻国关系的急转直下。


Its good-neighbor policy, it turns out, has steered China’s regional diplomacy into uncharted waters.	中国的好邻居政策正把中国外交导向一个未知领域。


Indeed, China’s neighbors will not be reliably good to Chinese interests unless and until China begins to provide essential public goods – not just commerce, but also full-fledged regional governance based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and regional economic growth.	事实上，除非中国开始提供必须的公共品——不仅包括商业，还包括基于法治精神、尊重人权和地区经济增长的成熟完善的地区治理——否则其邻国是不会真心实意地位中国利益着想的。


Otherwise, ruptures such as those at Myitsone and along the Mekong will recur, deepening China’s sense of isolation and panic.	否则的话，像密松事件和湄公河事件这样的决裂还会再次发生，加深中国的孤立感和恐惧感。


China’s Next Stimulus	中国的下一轮刺激政策


BEIJING – Since last November, economists and the media alike have been hailing supply-side structural reform as a groundbreaking solution to China’s economic woes.	发自北京——从去年十一月以来，经济学家和媒体都都在为供应侧结构改革大唱赞歌，视之为破除中国经济困境的开创性解决方案。


After all, the logic in China goes, demand-side policies, in the form of Keynesian stimulus measures, are useful only for resolving short-term and aggregate problems.	说到底，在中国人眼里以凯恩斯主义刺激形式存在的需求侧政策只能解决短期和数量问题。


Because China’s problems are long term and structural, the country should be focused on supply-side structural reform, even if it means accepting slower GDP growth.	既然当前的问题是长期和结构性的，那么国家就该聚焦在供应侧的结构改革，即使GDP增速放缓也在所不惜。


Is this the right approach?	不过这个做法就是对的吗？


GDP growth is generated via the interaction between the supply side and the demand side of the economy.	GDP增长是通过经济的供给侧和需求侧之间的相互作用来推动的。


For example, investment in human capital enables innovation, the products of which create demand and, in turn, economic growth.	比如说在人力资本上的投资能驱动创新，而创新产生的产品反过来又创造了需求——以及经济增长。


Demand-side policy and structural adjustment are not mutually exclusive.	需求侧政策和结构性调整不是相互排斥的。


In aggregate terms, growth of supply determines growth potential, and growth of demand determines the use of that potential.	从总体来看，供应增长决定了增长潜力，而需求的增长则决定了这一潜力如何付诸现实。


To change the economic structure and growth pattern, first the structure of demand must be changed.	要转变经济结构和增长模式的话，首先就得改变需求的结构。


For China, the supply side should be driven more by innovation and creation, rather than by increasing inputs.	对中国来说，应该主要由创新和创造来驱动供应侧，而非以增加投入为主。


On the demand side, it should be driven more by domestic consumption, rather than investment (especially in real estate) and exports.	在需求侧，主力应该是国内消费，而非投资（尤其是房地产）和出口。


But this shift is proving difficult, as structural factors cause China’s long-term potential growth rate to fall; the economy now seems set to fall below even that lower rate this year.	但这种转换遇到了难题，因为结构性因素导致中国的长期潜在增长率下降； 目前看来今年的经济甚至还要低于这个已经调低的增长率水平。


All of this suggests that continued structural adjustment is needed in China.	所有这些都表明中国需要持续实施结构调整。


But the reality is that China has been engaged in such adjustment for a long time, with unsatisfactory results, indicating that complementary demand-side policies may be needed.	但现实是中国一直都在实施这类调整，搞了很长时间，结果却不尽人意，说明可能需要执行需求侧政策作为补充。


Moreover, while slower growth is unavoidable because of adjustment, there is a limit to how low a growth rate China can accept.	此外，尽管经济增长会因调整而不可避免地放缓，中国对最低增长速度的接受程度是有下限的。


With China’s growth having already reached a 25-year low in 2015, that threshold may not be far off.	由于在2015年已经出现了25年来最低的增长率，离这道底线的距离可能并不遥远了。


To be sure, many believe that China’s growth rate will stabilize in the second half of 2016.	实际上许多人认为中国的增长率将在2016年下半年企稳。


If it does, China’s leaders could probably concentrate on structural adjustment, without considering additional stimulus.	如果确实如此的话，中国的领导人可能会聚焦在结构调整上而不考虑额外的刺激。


But there is good reason to believe that China’s growth rate will continue to decline this year.	但也有充分的理由相信中国经济的增速将在今年继续下滑。


The fact is that China remains gripped by deflation, with prices and output in a downward spiral.	事实上中国仍然笼罩在通货紧缩的阴云之下，价格和产量双双处于下降通道。


Despite a slightly positive consumer price index (CPI), the producer price index (PPI) has been falling for 47 months in a row.	尽管消费者价格指数（CPI）稍显正面，但生产者价格指数（PPI）却已连续下跌了47个月。


Moreover, the GDP deflator has been negative since the beginning of 2015.	同时GDP平减物价指数自2015年开始一直为负。


Two types of deflation spirals are currently at work in China.	目前中国出现了两种类型的通货紧缩螺旋效应。


There is the overcapacity-deflation spiral, in which overcapacity pushes down PPI, leading to falling corporate profitability.	一是产能过剩-通货紧缩螺旋：产能过剩压低了生产者价格指数，导致企业的盈利能力下降。


Then there is the debt-deflation spiral, in which falling PPI causes real debt to rise, again weakening corporate profitability.	二是债务-通货紧缩螺旋：生产者价格指数下降导致实际债务上升，再次削弱了企业的盈利能力。


In both cases, firms are driven to deleverage and reduce investment, a response that leads to more overcapacity and further declines in PPI.	在这两种情况下公司只得去杠杆化并减少投资，从而导致更多的产能过剩和生产者价格指数的进一步下滑。


Furthermore, given that China’s corporate debt is already very high, the increase in real debt may have devastating consequences for financial stability.	此外，鉴于中国的企业负债水平已经极高，实际债务的增加可能会对金融稳定形势造成灾难性的后果。


Compounding the challenge confronting China is the fact that the economy’s major demand-side driver, real-estate investment, is declining more rapidly than the alternative source of demand, domestic consumption, is rising.	令中国面临的挑战进一步复杂化的是经济的主要需求侧驱动力（房地产投资）比处于上升阶段的替代来源（国内消费）下降得更为迅速。


In 2015, the unsold residential floor space for China as a whole was 700 million square meters (7.5 billion square feet), while the average annual sale of floor space in normal times was 1.3 billion square meters.	2015年全国住宅未售出面积为7亿平方米（折合75亿平方英尺），而在正常年份的年均销售面积为13亿平方英尺。


Faced with double-digit growth in inventory, real-estate developers slashed investment.	面对两位数的库存增长，房地产开发商只得大幅削减投资。


By the end of 2015, real-estate investment growth dropped almost to zero.	截至2015年底，房地产投资增速下跌到几乎为零。


This year, though investment increased somewhat in January and February, that rate is almost certain to fall significantly further.	尽管投资额在今年一、二月有所增加，但这一速度几乎肯定会进一步显著下跌。


Because real-estate investment accounts for more than 10% of China’s GDP, the impact of this trend on overall economic growth will be considerable.	由于房地产投资占中国GDP的比重超过10％，这一趋势对整体经济增长的影响将极为巨大。


In this context, China is not facing a choice between Keynesian stimulus or supply-side reform, but rather a challenge in balancing the two.	在此背景下，摆在中国面前的并不是究竟该选择凯恩斯主义刺激还供应侧改革，而是如何平衡这两者。


In order to avoid a hard landing that would make structural adjustment extremely difficult to implement – not, it should be noted, to prop up growth – another stimulus package that increases aggregate demand through infrastructure investment is needed.	如果要避免一场令结构性调整非常难以实施的经济硬着陆——就得推动成长——就需要另一项通过基础设施投资刺激来提高总需求的方案。


Given that China’s fiscal position remains relatively strong, such a policy is entirely feasible.	鉴于中国的财政状况仍然较为强健，这样的政策是完全可行的。


The new stimulus package should be designed and implemented with much more care than the CN¥4 trillion ($586 billion) package that China introduced in 2008.	新经济刺激计划的设计和实施应当比2008年实施的4万亿（折合5860亿美元）政策更为严谨。


With the right investments, China can improve its economic structure, while helping to eliminate overcapacity.	在正确的投资下，中国才能改善其经济结构，同时有助于消除产能过剩。


The key will be to finance projects mainly with government bonds, instead of bank credit.	其成功的关键是主要利用政府债券而非银行信贷来为项目融资。


That way, China can avoid the kinds of asset bubbles that swelled in the last several years, when rapid credit growth failed to support the real economy.	这样一来，中国就可以避免再次出现过去几年间的那种资产泡沫——信贷快速增长，却未能支持实体经济。


To accommodate this approach, the People’s Bank of China should adjust monetary policy to lower government-bond yields.	为配合这种方式，中国的人民银行应及时调整货币政策以降低政府债券收益率。


Specifically, it should shift the intermediate target of monetary policy from expanding the money supply to lowering the benchmark interest rate.	具体来说，应该将货币政策的中期目标从扩大货币供应量转为降低基准利率。


Needless to say, in order to uphold monetary-policy independence, China has to remove the shackles from the renminbi exchange rate.	当然，为了维护货币政策的独立性，中国必须去除对人民币汇率的束缚。


Structural adjustment remains absolutely critical to China’s future, and the country should be prepared to bear the pain of that process.	结构调整仍是中国的未来依然至关重要，也应当准备好承担这一过程的痛苦。


But, under current circumstances, a one-dimensional policy approach will not work.	但在目前情况下，单凭一侧的政策手段不会生效。


Expansionary fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy also have an important role to play in placing China on a more stable and sustainable growth path.	扩张性的财政政策和宽松的货币政策也会对中国迈向更稳定且可持续的增长道路发挥重要作用。


Beyond Structural Reform in China	超越结构改革


HONG KONG – Global markets have breathed a sigh of relief.	香港—2016年上半年中国的经济增长平均为6.


Following the shock of the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union, GDP data indicate that China’s economy seems to have escaped a slump, with annual growth averaging 6.7% in the first half of 2016.	7%，这让全球市场舒了一口气。 在英国投票退出欧盟的冲击后，中国的GDP数据表明其经济似乎已经摆脱衰退。


But that does not mean that China is in the clear. On the contrary, the success of the structural rebalancing that China needs to ensure sustainable long-term growth is far from certain.	但这并不意味着中国经济已经安全着陆，确保可持续长期增长所需要的结构再平衡能否成功还远未确定。


To be sure, President Xi Jinping’s government is committed to structural reform.	国家主席习近平领导的中国政府对于结构改革可谓尽心尽力，知道不能再依靠刺激短期需求来挺增长。


China’s leaders know that they can no longer rely on stimulating short-term demand.	今年头半年，固定资产投资增长已经下降了2.


Already this year, annual growth in fixed-capital investment has fallen by 2.4 percentage points, to 9%, with the private-sector investment up by just 2.8%.	4个百分点至9%，民营部门的固定资产投资增长率更是只有2. 8%。


The plan now is to implement supply-side structural reforms aimed at boosting productivity and improving the functioning of both the market and the state.	中央政府的计划是实施供给侧改革以提振生产率、改善市场和政府的运行效率。


But, given China’s size and diversity, not to mention its deep integration into the global economy, communicating and implementing new policies across regions, sectors, and social groups will be very difficult.	但是，考虑到中国的规模和多样性——更不用说其深深融入全球经济的状况——在各个地区、部门和社会群体中沟通和实施新政策并不容易。


If China is to succeed, its leaders will need to think beyond their traditional top-down approach.	中国要想成功，其决策层可能需要跳出中国传统的自上而下的施政习惯。


Some 30 years ago, Deng Xiaoping used the slogan “delegating power and sharing dividends” to motivate local officials, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and soon-to-be private entrepreneurs to embrace market-oriented reforms.	30年前，邓小平用“放权让利”的口号成功地激励了地方官员、国有企业和后来的民营企业家接受市场化改革。


A similar approach could work today, as China’s leaders attempt to address the problems generated by the rapid expansion of imperfect markets managed by an imperfect bureaucracy.	如今，中国可能还需要类似的激励来应对当前的挑战：即解决由不完美官僚体系监管的不完美但却快速扩张的市场所造成的新问题。


Among the main problems China faces are over-leveraged local governments and SOEs, manufacturing overcapacity, excessive real-estate inventory, rising production costs, corruption, inequality, environmental degradation, and inadequate technological innovation.	中国现在面临的市场发展中的新问题包括地方政府和国有企业杠杆过高、制造业产能过剩、房地产库存过剩、生产成本上升、腐败、不平等性、环境破坏以及科技创新不足。


Supply-side structural reform is intended to address these problems, producing a more sustainable, inclusive, open, and efficient economy.	供给侧结构改革就是为了解决这些新问题，以便形成更加可持续、包容、开放和高效的经济。


But macro-level solutions alone might not be adequate to address supply-side structural problems, which often relate to the micro-level failure of business models, say, to produce adequate growth or productivity.	但光靠宏观层面的政策可能不足以解决供给侧结构问题，因为这些问题常常与微观层面的商业与监管模式有关，例如，市场与监管效率都太低而无法保持足够的增长率。


And, in fact, in a mature market economy, those problems are addressed largely by businesses themselves, perhaps with the involvement of municipal governments.	事实上，在成熟的市场经济中，这些问题主要靠微观层面的企业自身解决，也许一些地方政府与行业监管部门需要参与。


In China, however, national policy shapes business models, most obviously in the case of the SOEs.	但是，在中国，国家层面的政策对商业模式及市场监管影响巨大，最显而易见的例子就是国有企业。


That creates conflicts of interest, with the government struggling to balance the imperatives of growth, employment, efficiency, and social stability.	这造成了许多利益冲突，导致政府难以同时平衡增长、就业、效率和社会稳定等多重使命。


In some parts of China, supply-side structural problems are being addressed on the micro level.	在中国的部分地区，供给侧结构问题正在微观层面被不断解决。


In the cities of Foshan and Shenzhen in Guangdong province, the private sector and local governments are dealing relatively effectively with such issues.	例如，在广东省佛山市和深圳市，民营部门和地方政府正在相对有效地处理这些问题。


And, tellingly, they have performed significantly better than the rest of the country.	结果，他们的业绩比其他地区要好得多，这很能说明问题。


In the first half of this year, Guangdong’s GDP grew by 7.4%, compared to the 6.7% national rate.	今年上半年，广东省GDP增长7. 4%，而全国为6.


Private fixed-capital investment in the province grew by 19.6%, compared to the 2.8% economy-wide figure.	广东民营固定资产投资增长19. 6%，而全国为2.


This provides important insight into the approach that China’s leaders must take to addressing supply-side structural problems throughout the country.	广东的经验对于中国决策层应该采取什么策略来解决全国各地的供给侧结构问题提供了重要启示。


Just as increased bureaucratic efficiency is important to harness market forces more effectively, micro-level market incentives are needed to sustain healthy growth.	正如提高官僚效率对于更有效地引导市场力量至关重要，微观层面的市场激励对于维持健康的经济增长也是必不可少的。


For a country that has long relied on state control over the economy, this complicates matters significantly.	对于一个长期依赖中央政府管控经济的国家，政府与市场的关系极其复杂。


Not only are there considerable differences in how markets work in different regions and sectors; the interaction between the state and these markets will undergo major changes.	不但市场在不同地区和部门的运行状况大相径庭，政府与市场的互动也会经历重大变化。


That can create far-reaching ambiguity, leading to tensions and confusion among officials, scholars, businesspeople, and the public.	这可能导致影响深远的政策模糊，导致官员、学者、企业家和公众的紧张和误解。


This issue was evident in the hostile takeover of China’s top real-estate developer, Vanke.	对中国顶级房地产开发商万科公司的敌意收购很能说明这一问题。


The process has involved disputes among the incumbent executives, a private investment fund, and an SOE shareholder, as well as a default on corporate bonds issued by the state-owned Dongbei Special Steel that has spurred disputes among the Liaoning provincial government, the China Development Bank, and many other investors.	收购过程导致了现任管理层、一个民营投资集团和一家国有企业股东之间的纠纷。 另一个例子是国有企业东北特钢公司票据违约事件，该事件导致辽宁省政府、国家开发银行和许多其他投资者之间的纠纷。


Markets do not know how to react to property-rights disputes that involve this many layers of government.	市场不知道如何应对包括多个与政府相关的利益相关方的产权纠纷。


To minimize uncertainty, institutional reforms are needed.	要最小化不确定性，制度改革必不可少。


Specifically, the central and local authorities must clearly delineate property rights with regard to land, capital, and natural resources, and establish industrial standards and best practices.	具体而言，中央和地方当局必须明确土地、资本和自然资源等方面的产权，并确立行业标准和最佳实践。


Such clarity is critical to curtail a surge in disputes over rights, which block productivity-enhancing market-oriented adjustments.	这种产权明确化过程对于遏制产权纠纷激增至关重要，而产权纠纷的激增又会阻挠能提高生产率的市场导向的产权调整。


Of course, disputes would still occur, and on a scale that China’s legal system is not equipped to handle.	当然，产权纠纷还是会不断发生，并且会以中国司法体系难以处理的规模与速度发生。


To resolve them quickly – and thus to deter the social and economic instability that could arise from escalating conflicts – China needs reliable, affordable, and independent mechanisms that separate specific economic interests from broader political and social objectives.	要想迅速处理这些纠纷——从而遏制可能因为产权冲突升级而导致的社会和经济动荡——中国需要建立可靠、低成本和独立的纠纷解决机制，并将具体的经济利益纠纷的解决与实现更广泛的政治和社会目标相对隔离。


At the same time, China will need to cultivate micro-level competition, by developing exchange platforms and related financial services for small and medium-size enterprises.	与此同时，中国需要培育微观层面的竞争，这可以通过发展面向中小企业的资产交易平台和相关金融服务来实现。


Free of incentive-crushing financial repression, such firms would be able not only to contribute to growth and development, but also to help propel the needed market adjustments.	一旦摆脱破坏激励的金融抑制，这些企业不但能够为增长和发展做出贡献，还有助于推进必要的市场结构调整。


There is reason to believe that China’s supply-side rebalancing is moving in the right direction.	有理由相信中国的供给侧再平衡正在朝正确的方向前进。


But unless China’s leaders also tackle the challenges posed by market and bureaucratic inefficiencies, the objective of strong and sustainable growth will remain out of reach.	但除非中国决策层同时处理好市场和官僚效率低下所带来的挑战，强劲可持续的增长目标并不容易实现。


Greening China’s Financial System	绿化中国的金融体系


BEIJING – China’s establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has intensified debate about whether a new generation of development banks, led by emerging countries, is needed to ensure that financing decisions account adequately for principles of environmentally sustainable growth.	北京—中国成立亚洲基础设施投资银行（亚投行）加剧了关于是否需要由新兴国家领导的新一代开发银行来确保金融决定充分考虑环境可持续增长原则的争论。


Far more important, however, is whether such principles underpin developing countries’ broader capital markets, which have become increasingly central to the international financial system.	但是，远为重要的是这些原则是否巩固了发展中国家的总体资本市场的基础。 发展中国家资本市场在国际金融体系中的核心作用正在日益显现。


The answer, as of now, seems to be yes.	从目前看，答案似乎是肯定的。


Indeed, China and other major emerging economies appear committed to designing financial systems that serve the long-term imperatives of inclusive and sustainable development.	事实上，中国和其他主要新兴经济体致力于设计服务于包容性、可持续发展的长期目标的金融体系。


But they cannot create a genuinely inclusive and sustainable global economy alone.	但它们无法单枪匹马建立真正的包容性、可持续的全球经济。


Policy-directed investment vehicles, which have grown in number and significance in recent years, are critical to this effort.	对于这方面的努力，政策导向投资载体——近几年来，这类机构数量和重要性不断增加——至关重要。


While the AIIB and the forthcoming New Development Bank, operated by the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), are the most visible internationally, they are only the tip of the iceberg.	亚投行和即将成立的由金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非）经营的新开发银行的国际化特征最为明显，但它们只是冰山一角。


The world’s two largest development banks – the Brazilian Development Bank and the China Development Bank – together manage about $1.5 trillion in assets.	世界上规模最大的两家开发银行——巴西开发银行和中国国家开发银行——加起来管理着大约1. 5万亿美元的资产。


Sovereign wealth funds – the assets of which have swelled from just over $3 trillion in 2007 to more than $7 trillion today – also have a significant influence on global asset markets.	主权财富基金也对全球资产市场具有重要影响。 主权财富基金资产规模已从2007年的略高于3万亿美元膨胀到今天的7万亿美元。


Likewise, monetary authorities have been playing an increasingly active role, with the major central banks’ balance sheets having expanded from about $5.5 trillion in 2005 to $13.9 trillion earlier this year.	类似地，货币当局也一直在扮演日益积极的角色，主要央行资产负债表规模从2005年的5. 5万亿美元左右扩大到今年早些时候的13.


But such figures, though large, pale in comparison with the $305 trillion worth of financial assets held by commercial banks, institutional investors, and other private financial institutions and individuals.	但这些数字固然巨大，与商业银行、机构投资者和其他私人金融机构和个人所持有的305万亿美元金融资产相比只是九牛一毛。


How these funds are deployed will determine the shape of tomorrow’s economies and the state of the environment on which they depend.	这些资金如何配置将决定未来经济的格局和我们所生活的环境的状况。


Recent reports commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) neatly summarize where we are with two key data points: While global investment in renewables increased by 17% last year, 116 of 140 countries registered a deterioration in their stock of natural capital.	联合国环境署的最新报告用两个关键数据点简洁地总结了我们的状况：去年全球可再生能源投资增长17%，140个注册国家中有116个自然资本存量出现了恶化。


In other words, financial markets are responding to environment-related risks and opportunities, but far too slowly to halt, let alone reverse, the potentially catastrophic damage being wrought by human activity.	换句话说，金融市场正在响应与环境有关的风险和机会，但速度远远不足以停止人类活动可能导致的灾难性破坏，更不用说扭转这一局面了。


This must change.	这必须有所改变。


Finance needs to be directed more rapidly and decisively away from natural-resource-intensive and polluting investments and toward green opportunities.	需要更迅速、更果断地将融资从自然资源密集型和污染性投资引向绿色机会。


While greener economic and industrial policies are vital, they are inadequate; policy and market failures in the financial economy must be addressed as well.	绿色经济和产业政策至关重要，但仍有欠缺； 政策和金融经济的市场失灵也必须纠正。


The OECD countries, despite being the source of modern history’s most devastating financial meltdown, have shown less appetite to advance sustainability as a design principle of their financial systems (the Bank of England’s ongoing prudential review of climate-related risks to the financial sector is a notable exception).	经合组织国家是现代史上最严重的金融崩溃的始作俑者，但对于推进可持续性作为金融体系设计的基本原则，它们并没有什么兴趣（英格兰银行对于与环境有关的金融业风险的审慎态度是一个显著例外）。


This contrasts with the approach of some developing economies, which not only face more immediate environmental and social challenges, but also take a “developmental” view of the financial system’s role.	这与一些发展中国家的���针形成了鲜明对比，后者不但面临更紧迫的环境和社会挑战，还采取了关于金融体系作用的“发展”观。


Consider China, where a task force created by the Peoples’ Bank of China has just unveiled 14 ambitious proposals to green the country’s financial system.	以中国为例。 中国人民银行成立的工作组刚刚发布了14项宏大的方案以“绿化”中国金融体系。


The so-called “green finance task force” – co-convened by the PBOC’s Research Bureau and the UNEP Inquiry into Design Options for a Sustainable Financial System – initially comprised 40 ministers, regulators, academics, and financial actors, supported by international experts.	所谓的“绿色金融工作组”——由中国人民银行研究局和联合国环境署可持续金融体系设计选择调查（Inquiry into Design Options for a Sustainable Financial System）联合组建——最初由40名部长、监管官员、学者和金融活动家组成，并由国际专家支持。


It was recently expanded to include more than 100 institutions, which are working together to create detailed execution plans for each proposal.	如今该工作组已包括100多家机构，共同致力于为每一项方案制定详细的执行计划。


The proposals cover four broad areas.	方案涵盖了四大领域。


• Specialized investment vehicles to support green investment, domestically and internationally.	•         支持绿色投资的国内和国际专业化投资载体。


• Fiscal and financial support, including interest subsidies for green loans, incentives for developing the green bond market, and better mechanisms for green firms to communicate their environmental performance in equity markets.	•         财政和金融支持，包括绿色贷款利息补贴、发展绿色债券市场的激励、设计更加良好的机制以支持绿色企业在股市中披露它们的环境业绩。


• New financial infrastructure, including carbon markets, a green ratings system, and a green investor network.	•         新金融基础设施，包括碳排市场、绿色评级体系和绿色投资者网络。


• Legal infrastructure, including clearer lender liability provisions, compulsory environmental liability insurance, and the disclosure of environmental information.	•         法律基础设施，包括更加明确的贷款人责任条款、强制性环境责任保险、环境信息的披露等。


Green finance is at an early stage in China, just as it is in the rest of the world.	中国的绿色金融正处于初级阶段，全球范围亦然。


Fortunately, according to UNEP’s two-year inquiry into policy options for greening financial and capital markets, the movement is gaining traction in emerging countries such as Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia, as well as developed economies like the United Kingdom.	幸运的是，根据联合国环境署对绿色金融和资本市场政策选择的为期两年的调查，绿色金融运动正在巴西、肯尼亚和印度尼西亚等新兴国家以及英国等发达经济体赢得动力。


China’s recent move marks the beginning of a new phase of its financial-market development, in which green-finance goals are central, rather than an add-on, to relevant initiatives.	中国的新举动标志着其金融市场发展的新阶段，绿色金融目标将是核心措施而不再只是一个附加项。


According to Pan Gongsheng, the PBOC’s deputy governor, green finance will be a “key element” of “the 13th Five-Year Plan for the reform and development of China’s financial sector.”	据中国人民银行副行长潘功胜透露，绿色金融将是“中国金融业改革和发展十三五规划”的“关键要素”


The current shift toward green finance in developing countries can have a significant international impact.	发展中国家当前向绿色金融转变的趋势具有重要的国际影响。


China’s efforts, in particular, could take the world to a tipping point, through their effects on the country’s growing global financial footprint.	特别是中国，随着其全球金融重要性的日益增加，它的措施可以推动世界走向临界点。


And, indeed, international action – from knowledge sharing to the development of suitable standards and oversight – is vital to advance green finance.	而事实上，国际行动——从知识共享到制定合理的标准和监督——对于推进绿色金融至关重要。


Fortunately, progress is being made here, too.	幸运的是，这方面也正在取得进展。


UNEP’s work has helped to invigorate a vibrant informal network involving central banks and other rule-makers and market actors.	联合国环境署的工作有助于推动一个包括央行和其他规则制定者和市场行动者在内的充满活力的非正式网络。


The major rating agency Standard & Poor’s is integrating climate risks into its sovereign-credit analysis.	主要评级机构标准普尔正在其主权信用分析中加入环境风险因素。


And the G-20 recently asked the Financial Stability Board to consider the risks that a possible “carbon bubble” – caused by markets’ overvaluation of fossil-fuel companies’ oil, coal, and gas reserves, owing to a failure to account for future limits on extraction and use – pose to the global financial system.	G-20最近也要求金融稳定委员会（Financial Stability Board）考虑潜在的“碳泡沫”——其根源在于，因为没有考虑未来开采和使用极限，市场高估了化石燃料公司的石油、煤炭和天然气储量——给全球金融体系造成的风险。


Progressive national leadership and international coalitions – together with more deeply engaged multilateral institutions – are needed to build a more inclusive green global financial system.	进步国家的领导和国际合作——再加上国际机构的深度参与——是构建更包容的绿色全球金融体系的必要条哦见。


Only such a system can effectively advance sustainable development.	唯有这样一个体系能够有效推进可持续发展。


China’s U-Turn	中国的政策转变


BEIJING – Hope and danger collided at the recently concluded National People’s Congress in Beijing.	北京－最近在北京结束的全国人民代表大会，充满了希望和危险的碰撞。


The two-week conclave meets annually, and while it is unfair and inaccurate to characterize the Congress as a rubber-stamp exercise, delegates tend, in the main, to jump on the bandwagon of policies constructed by the central government, and by the Communist Party.	中国每年都会召开为期两周的全国人民代表会，虽然将这一大会描述成橡皮图章是不公平、不准确的，但是基本上，全国人民代表大会的代表们都会对中央政府和中国共产党确定的政策，表示支持。