On the other hand, the worry in some parts of Asia is that young people entering the work force with strong technical training lack sufficient experience “thinking outside the box.”	另一方面，一些亚洲国家的担忧则是进入劳动力大军的年轻人经历了充分的技术训练，但缺少足够的“另辟蹊径”经验。


This fear is manifesting itself in an incipient effort to expand education to include the cultivation of feeling and imagination.	这一担忧正在扩大教育范围、纳入对感觉和想象的培养的初步努力中逐渐显现。


Both movements are rooted in economic concerns.	这两个方向的发展根源都在于经济问题。


In the US, where most undergraduates bear at least part of the cost of their university education, political pressure is mounting to provide incentives like tuition discounts or loan forgiveness to students of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (the so-called STEM fields).	在美国，大部分本科生或多或少都因为大学教育而背上了债务，给予科学、技术、工程和数学（所谓的“干”领域）学费优惠和贷款豁免的政治压力越来越大。


Cost-cutting measures, such as compressing traditional four-year degree programs into three years – thereby reducing or eliminating elective courses in “impractical” subjects like literature, philosophy, and fine arts – are also being discussed.	将传统的四年学位项目压缩为三年、因此减少和取消文学、哲学和美术等“非实践”选修课程等成本削减措施也在讨论当中。


Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Singapore, and China, there are calls for extending university programs so that students can obtain a broad, liberal education, in the hope that graduates will be more inclined to experiment and innovate.	与此同时，在中国香港、新加坡和中国，人们要求延长大学教育，使学生获得广泛的文科教育，以期毕业生更倾向于实验和创新。


Hong Kong University, for example, has extended its undergraduate programs from three years to four.	比如，香港大学将其本科生项目从三年延长为四年。


But such a narrow, economics-based view fails to account for the larger questions of value that societies worldwide are facing.	但这一狭隘的基于经济的观点没有考虑到全球社会所面临的更大的价值问题。


To be sure, progress in any field, from commerce and communications to health and environmental science, will become increasingly dependent on technological innovation, and thus on the high-order skills – acquired through intensive technical training – that drive it.	平心而论，任何领域的进步，不管是商业、通信还是健康和环境科学，都将越来越依赖技术创新，因此也越来越依赖推动技术创新的高阶技能，而高阶技能需要强化技术训练才能获得。


It is also true, however, that such training does not provide an adequate foundation for addressing the more abstract, but profoundly important, questions that ultimately must guide global policy and decision-making.	但是，另一个事实是强化技术训练并不能提供解决更抽象但极其重要的问题的充分基础。 这些问题最终将指导全球政策和决策。


For example:	比如：


·         How can the imperative of economic development be reconciled with the need to limit climate change?	·         经济发展的紧迫任务如何与限制气候变化的需要相协调？


·         What does national sovereignty mean in a world where diseases, pollutants, and terrorists cross national borders at will?	·         国家主权在疾病、污染和恐怖分子可以随心所欲地穿越边境的世界中意味着什么？


·         Are there universal human rights that transcend conflicting claims of particular cultural traditions?	·         存在超越特殊文化传统观念冲突的普世人权吗？


·         How should limited resources be distributed in order to provide opportunity and hope to young people, while treating the elderly with dignity and respect?	·         应该如何配置有限的资源，从而为年轻人带来机会和希望，同时又让老年人得到尊严和尊重？


·         What are a country’s obligations to refugees fleeing from persecution, poverty, or strife elsewhere?	·         一国对因迫害、贫困和冲突而到来的外国难民有什么义务？


·         How should we balance individual liberty and collective security?	·         我们如何平衡个人自由和集体安全？


In answering such questions, advances in science and technology (for example, new methods of energy production, surveillance, or online learning) will have a key role to play.	回答这些问题时，科学和技术的进步（比如能源产品、监控或在线学习的新方法）将起到关键作用。


But moral and ethical questions never yield fully to technical solutions; they also require an understanding of humanity’s social and cultural heritage.	但道德和伦理问题从来不会有完全技术的解决方案； 这些问题还需要对人类社会和文化传统的理解。


Science can help us to attain the life we want, but it cannot teach us what kind of life is worth wanting.	科学可以帮助我们获得想要的生活，但无法教导我们怎样的生活值得向往。


In short, each side in the current education debate is half right.	简而言之，当前教育争论的双方都是对错参半。


As human affairs become increasingly complex and morally exigent, future generations will need both scientific and humanistic learning – and they will need them more than ever.	人类事务变得越来越复杂，对道德的要求越来越严苛，因此我们的子孙后代将需要科学和人文学习的双管齐下——比此前任何时候都需要。


Fortunately, promising new models for making education more coherent and capacious are emerging.	幸运的是，让教育更有条理、范围更宽广的很有希望的新模式已经出现。


Yale University and the National University of Singapore have worked together to establish Yale-NUS, Singapore’s first liberal arts college.	耶鲁大学和新加坡国立大学共同成立了耶鲁-新加坡国立大学，这是新加坡第一所文科学院。


Led by a literary scholar and an astronomer, this new residential college aims to break down interdisciplinary boundaries and enable students to learn from one another.	这个新成立的寄宿制学院由文科学者和天文学家共同领导，其目标是打破学科界限，让学生能彼此学习。


Likewise, Quest University in Canada encourages students to bring both scientific and humanistic knowledge to bear on today’s most pressing problems.	类似地，加拿大奎斯特大学（Quest University）鼓励学生同时用科学和人文知识探索当今最紧迫的问题。


Similar efforts have been underway for years in the US.	美国进行类似尝试也已经多年。


For example, North Carolina State University’s Benjamin Franklin Scholars program – a collaboration between the College of Engineering and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences – aims “to produce well-rounded professionals who are analytical problem-solvers, ethical decision-makers, and effective communicators.”	比如，北卡罗来纳州立大学的本杰明·富兰克林学者计划——由工学院和人文和社会科学学院合作举办——旨在“培养通才式专业人才，既能用分析方法解决问题，也能做出道德决策，同时又身为高效沟通者”。


Unfortunately, such programs largely lack the visibility and influence needed to shape educational reform.	不幸的是，这类计划大多缺少曝光度和影响力，无法决定教育改革走向。


It is time to abandon the “either/or” discourse that pits science against humanities – which the British chemist and novelist C.P. Snow identified more than a half-century ago as an obstacle to human progress.	应该抛弃让科学与人文对立的“要么/要么”思维，英国化学家兼小说家斯诺（C. P.


It is time to seek out best practices that bridge this putative divide, and scale them up.	Snow）五十年前就认识到这是人类进步的一大障碍。 应该寻找弥合这一推定分歧的办法并推而广之。


In the important work of adapting educational institutions for the future, we must not lose sight of their core mission as articulated in the past.	在调整教育机构以适应未来的重要工作中，我们决不能忘记已在过去得到充分阐明的教育机构的核心任务。


No one has expressed that mission better than Benjamin Franklin, a man of letters and a scientific innovator, who defined education as the quest for “true merit.”	在这方面，做的最好的莫过于本杰明·富兰克林，他既是文学家，也是科学创新者，他把教育定义为对“真正美德”的追求。


“True merit,” Franklin wrote, consists in “an inclination joined with an ability to serve mankind, one’s country, friends, and family; which ability is…to be acquired or greatly increased by true learning; and should, indeed, be the great aim and end of all learning.”	“真正美德”富兰克林写道，存在于“服务人类、祖国、朋友、亲人的能力和愿望的结合； 能力……可以通过真正的学习获得或大大增强；


This is an aspiration that should be renewed for every generation.	事实上，也应该是所有学习的大目标和终点。 ”每一代人都应该有这样的抱负。


China’s Subprime Risks	中国的次贷风险


HONG KONG – It is now widely accepted that the recent global financial crisis was actually a balance-sheet crisis.	香港—一个广为接受的观点是，最近的全球金融危机实际上是一场资产负债表危机。


Long periods of negative interest rates facilitated the unsustainable financing of asset purchases, with high-risk mortgages weakening national balance sheets.	美国长时间的负利率助长了不可持续的资产购买融资热潮，而高风险按揭破坏了美国的国家资产负债表。


When liquidity in the key interbank markets dried up, the fragilities were exposed – with devastating consequences.	当关键的银行间市场流动性枯竭时，脆弱性就暴露无遗，并且产生了灾难性后果。


Today, the rapid expansion of Chinese financial institutions’ balance sheets – which grew by 92% from 2007 to 2011, alongside 78% nominal GDP growth – is fueling predictions that the country will soon experience its own subprime meltdown.	如今，中国金融机构资产负债表快速扩张——从2007年到2011年共增长92%，而名义GDP增长为78%——正在让越来越多的人预测中国很快就会经历其自身的次贷危机。


Is there any merit to such forecasts?	这样的预测有合理性吗？


The first step in assessing China’s financial vulnerability is to distinguish a solvency crisis, which can occur when firms lack sufficient capital to withstand an asset-price meltdown, from a liquidity crisis.	评估中国经济脆弱性的第一步是区分偿债能力危机和流动性危机。 偿债能力危机发生在企业没有足够资本抵御资产价格崩盘时。


During the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, some countries suffered foreign-exchange crises, in which devaluation and high real interest rates de-capitalized banks and enterprises, owing to the lack of sufficient reserves to repay foreign-exchange debts.	20世纪90年代亚洲金融危机期间，一些国家经历了外汇危机，贬值和高利率使银行和企业资本流失殆尽，因为它们缺少足够的储备偿还外汇债务。


In the case of Japan’s asset-price collapse in 1989, and again in the United States in 2008, bank recapitalization and central-bank liquidity support restored market confidence.	在1989年日本资产价格危机中（2008年的美国也是如此），银行资本重组和央行流动性支持重塑了市场的信心。


The recently released Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) National Balance Sheet Report suggests that China is unlikely to undergo a foreign-exchange or national insolvency crisis.	中国社会科学院最新发布的国家资产负债表报告（http://cass. cssn.


At the end of 2011, the central government’s net assets amounted to CN¥87 trillion ($14 trillion), or 192% of GDP, of which CN¥33 trillion comprised equity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs).	cn/baokanchuban/xinshukuaidi/201403/t20140318_1033767. html） 表明，中国不太可能经历外汇短缺或国家资产负债表失衡型的破产危机。


Moreover, at the end of last year, China’s net foreign-exchange position totaled $2 trillion – 21% of GDP – with gross foreign-exchange reserves totaling just under $4 trillion.	2011年底，中央政府净资产为87万亿人民币，占GDP的192%，其中33万亿为国有企业的股本。 此外，截至去年底，中国净外汇头寸为2万亿美元——相当于GDP的21%——总外汇储备略低于4万亿美元。


The concern is China’s rapidly increasing domestic debt, which currently stands at 215% of GDP.	值得关注的是，中国国内债务的快速增加，目前已占GDP的215%。


Since 2008, SOEs and so-called local-government financing platforms have been using loans to fund massive fixed-asset investments, while private-sector actors have been borrowing – often from the shadow-banking sector – to finance investment in real-estate development.	自2008年以来，国有企业和所谓的地方政府融资平台一直在使用贷款为大型固定资产投资融资，而非国有企业的借贷通常是通过影子银行——为房地产开发投资融资。


This excessive dependence on credit stems from the lack of adequate funding and the relative underdevelopment of China’s equity markets, with market capitalization amounting to only 37% of GDP, compared to 104% of GDP in the US.	过度依赖银行信贷的原因是缺少足够的其它融资渠道，特别是股市的相对欠发达。 中国股市市值只占GDP的37%，而美国为GDP的104%。


The debt held by non-financial enterprises amounts to 113% of GDP in China, compared to 72% in the US and 99% in Japan.	中国非金融企业债务相当于GDP的113%，美国为72%，日本为99%。


But, given that the largest enterprises are either state-owned or local-government entities, their debts are essentially domestic sovereign obligations.	但是，由于中国的大企业多为国有企业，或为地方政府实体，因此它们的债务实际上都是国内主权债务。


With China’s total government debt/GDP ratio amounting to only 53% – much less than America’s 80% and Japan’s 226% – there is sufficient space to undertake debt-equity swaps to tackle the internal-debt problem.	不计国企及地方债务，中国的政府总债务/GDP之比只有53%，远低于美国的80%和日本的226%，因此有充足的空间采取债务-股本互换来解决内债问题。


Of course, China’s leaders will also need to pursue major fiscal reforms, including improved revenue-sharing between central and local governments.	当然，中国领导人需要继续进行重大财政改革，包括改善中央和地方政府的收入分配关系。


In the longer term, the authorities must put in place stricter regulations to ensure that local-government infrastructure investments are sustainable and do not depend excessively on revenue from land sales.	长远来看，政府必须实��更严格的监管以确保地方政府基础设施投资的可持续性，并且不完全依赖于土地出售收入。


In the interim, the burden of adjustment will fall largely on monetary policy, which will be particularly challenging given the structural “tightness” in liquidity in the more productive sectors.	在过渡期间，调整的重担落在了货币政策方面，考虑到生产率较高部门所面临的结构性流动性“趋紧”，这一挑战尤其艰巨。


From 2007 to 2011, China’s money supply increased by 116%, whereas its foreign-exchange reserves grew by 180%.	从2007年到2011年，中国货币供给增加了116%，而其外汇储备增加了180%。


The excess was mopped up through statutory reserve requirements amounting to as much as 20% of bank deposits.	外汇储备增长超出的部分通过对银行存款采取高达20%的法定储备金比率回收。


With the official banking system thus constrained, it allocated the remaining credit to large enterprises and those with sufficient collateral, resulting in an uneven distribution of loans across regions and sectors.	因此，国有银行体系饱受掣肘，将剩余信贷额度配置给大企业和能提供足够抵押品的客户，这导致了贷款在地区和部门之间的不平衡分配。


As a result, large enterprises – mostly SOEs, which enjoy considerable financial subsidies and liquidity – accounted for 43% of total bank loans in 2011; small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), which face financial repression, including higher borrowing costs and tight liquidity, accounted for only 27%.	结果，大企业——大部分是国企，它们能享受到可观的金融补贴和流动性——在2011年获得了银行总贷款的43%； 中小企业则面临金融抑制，包括更高的借贷成本和趋紧的流动性，它们只获得了银行总贷款的27%。


This highlights two fundamental structural imperatives.	这凸显出两大根本性结构问题。


First, large SOEs and local governments must be discouraged from over-investing, which undermines the rate of return.	首先，必须遏制大型国企和地方政府的过度投资，因为这些投资降低了资本回报率。


Second, more capital must be channeled toward SMEs and faster-growing regions, which are more likely to generate jobs and innovation.	其次，必须把更多的资本引向中小企业和增长更快的地区和行业，那些地方更有可能创造就业和创新。


In other words, interest-rate reforms must be pursued alongside capital-market reforms that boost access to credit by the more productive sectors.	换言之，利率改革必须与资本市场改革齐头并进。 资本市场改革能让生产率更高的部门更容易获得信贷。


China cannot complete its transformation from an export-led economy to one driven by domestic consumption and services unless value creation through innovation exceeds value destruction from excess capacity.	只有创新所创造的价值超过产能过剩所摧毁的价值，中国才能完成从出口拉动型经济向国内消费和服务推动型经济的转型。


In short, despite a strong national balance sheet and ample central-bank liquidity, China is confronting a localized subprime problem, owing partly to high reserve requirements.	简言之，尽管拥有强大的国家资产负债表和充足的央行流动性，中国仍面临着局部次贷风险问题。 而为防止过度信贷而设立的高准备金却会导致健康项目面临局部流动性紧缺。


One promising move is the central bank’s recent release of CN¥1 trillion in liquidity through direct lending to the China Development Bank for the reconstruction of shanty towns, fulfilling the need for socially inclusive investment.	一个令人振奋的举措是央行最近通过向国家开发银行提供直接贷款释放出1万亿元的流动性。 这笔流动性帮助国家开发银行贷给棚户区改造项目，以满足社会包容性投资的需要。


Unlike the US Federal Reserve, it has not purchased subprime mortgages.	与美联储不同，中国央行并未直接购买次贷。


The key to success will be to manage the sequence of liquidity injections and interest-rate reforms so that the effort to address local subprime debts does not trigger asset-price deflation, while reducing financial repression that cuts off funding to more productive sectors and regions.	成功的关键将是管理好流动性资金的注入和利率改革的顺序，以使纠正地方次级债务的动作不会触发资产价格贬值。


If it manages to get these structural reforms right, China – and the rest of the world – will be able to avoid the consequences of a hard economic landing.	如果中国能顺利地完成结构性改革，那么它——以及世界其它地区——将能够避免经济硬着陆的后果。


Harnessing China’s Competitive Streak	梳理中国的竞争脉络


HONG KONG – China’s State Council recently unveiled a comprehensive blueprint for capital-market reform until 2020, in which it identifies two key objectives: “to support open, fair, and integral market processes, and to protect investors, particularly the legal rights of small investors.”	香港—中国国务院最近发布了2020年资本市场改革的若干意见，其中提出了两个关键目标：“维护公开、公平、公正的市场秩序，保护投资者特别是中小投资者的合法权益。


Achieving these goals, as the blueprint recognizes, will require policymakers to weigh market autonomy against state authority, innovation against stability, investor protection against caveat emptor, and the temptation of rapid reform against the need for pragmatism.	”要实现意见中提出的这些目标，决策者需要权衡市场自主竞争与政府监管、创新与稳定、保护投资者与购者自慎，以及加速改革和务实稳妥之间的平衡。


Can it be done?	中国有可能实现这些平衡吗？


From a policy perspective, the goal should be to strike a balance between competition (which spurs growth-enhancing innovation but can also generate instability) and cooperation (which promotes long-term social cohesion but can also lead to stagnation).	从政策角度看，目标应该是在竞争（刺激经济增长但也可能造成不稳定的改革）与合作（有利于长期的社会团结但也有可能导致停滞）之间取得平衡。


In doing so, China’s leaders must account for three levels of competition: inter-enterprise competition, inter-sectoral competition, and competition among the interests of citizens, businesses, and the state.	在一过程中，中国领导人必须考虑三个层面的竞争：企业间竞争、部门间竞争，以及公民、企业和国家利益间的竞争。


The implementation of a competition framework for enterprises is a work in progress.	企业竞争框架的落实已取得了进展。


In 2008, the government enacted an anti-monopoly law aimed at preventing anti-competitive or “monopoly” agreements among enterprises, minimizing abuse of market dominance, and blocking mergers and acquisitions that would eliminate or unduly restrict competition.	2008年，政府颁布了“反垄断法”，旨在防止企业间形成阻碍竞争或“垄断性”的合约，最大限度地减少通过独占市场份额来操纵市场的行为，并阻止可能阻碍或过度限制竞争的并购活动。


But managing competition in a market that has three major players – state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and domestic and foreign private companies – is a complex task.	但监管拥有三个主要参与者（国有企业、民营企业与外资企业）的市场竞争是一个复杂的任务。


Private-sector firms are frustrated with the privileges that SOEs enjoy, while foreign-owned enterprises complain that they are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis domestic companies.	民营企业对国有企业享有的特权十分不满，而外资企业则抱怨它们在与本土公司的竞争中处于下风。


The management of inter-sectoral competition is even more complicated.	监管部门间的责任划分则更加复杂。


In banking, for example, competition is extremely fierce, and China is one of the few economies where concentration (the market share of the top five players) has declined in recent years.	比如，银行业的竞争是非常激烈的，中国也是极少数银行业集中度（五家最大银行所占市场的份额）在最近几年呈现出下降趋势的国家之一。


But, more than a decade after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, foreign banks’ share of the Chinese market stands at a miniscule 2% – a reflection of Chinese regulators’ failure to create a level playing field.	但是，在加入世贸组织十多年后，外资银行占中国市场的份额只有 2% —— 这表明中国还需要改进准入、开放及公平竞争环境。


The challenge is intensified by technological advances and regulatory arbitrage.	技术进步和监管套利加剧了这一挑战。


E-commerce platforms like Alibaba have not only breached banks’ payment business; they have also begun to offer wealth-management products.	阿里巴巴等电子商务平台不但侵蚀了银行的支付业务； 还开始提供理财产品。


And regulatory arbitrage has fueled the emergence of shadow banking, which is competing actively with traditional financial institutions for wealth-management and lending business.	监管套利则刺激了影子银行与传统金融机构积极竞争理财产品和贷款业务。


Regulatory arbitrage arises from competition among central-government agencies for the authority to regulate – competition that often delays market reforms and institutional change, owing to agencies’ unwillingness to accept one another’s authority.	监管套利产生于监管部门间由于责任不清而导致的监管权限的重叠与缺位， 往往会拖延市场发展和体制改革，因为各监管机构间的协调并不容易。


For example, overlapping regulation by at least five agencies and ministries has delayed the development of China’s bond market considerably.	比如，中国债券市场至少要接受五个机构和部门的重叠监管，这阻碍了它的发展。


The best example of healthy competition in China is that which occurs among cities.	中国良性竞争的最佳范例发生在城市之间。


China has 287 prefecture-level cities, with a median population of 3.7 million and median per capita GDP of $5,800.	中国有287个地级市，人口中位数370万人，人均GDP中位数为5,800美元。


Sixteen cities have already crossed the World Bank’s threshold for high-income status, with annual per capita incomes of more than $12,616, and four – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen – have global reach.	其中有十六个人口超过三百万的城市已经跨越世界银行的高收入门槛（年人均收入超过12,616美元），更有四个城市——北京、上海、广州和深圳——已跻身全球大都市行列。


These cities hold the key to the ability of China as a whole to avoid the middle-income trap.	这些先锋城市是中国能否跨越中等收入陷阱的关键。


That should come as no surprise. The secret of China’s economic success since 1979 has been the easing of central-planning rules to empower cities, markets, and private businesses to experiment, innovate, and grow.	中国经济自1979年以来取得巨大成功的秘诀便是放松中央计划，分权给城市、市场和民营企业去尝试、创新、及增长。


Given the difficulty of identifying which of the old rules needed to be reformed or eliminated, the process depended on the delegation of central-government powers to local governments, which were better equipped to experiment with market rules to boost economic growth.	由于难以确定旧体制中哪些需要改革或淘汰，这一过程得益于中央对地方的放权，因为地方处于更有利的位置来尝试及发现通过建立市场规则来提振经济增长。


At the same time, in order to preserve the system’s stability and integrity, these efforts were accompanied by the centralization of fiscal authority and certain oversight powers.	与此同时，为了保证系统的稳定和健全，放权的同时中央政府也上收了财政权和某些市场监督权。


This balance between horizontal competition and vertical regulation was critical to promoting growth and dynamism in Chinese cities.	这一横向竞争和纵向监管的矩阵式治理平衡是刺激中国城市腾飞和活力的关键。


But the balance has been far from ideal.	但这一治理平衡绝非完美。


Indeed, competition among cities – intensified by the large role that municipal-level GDP growth plays in determining local officials’ career paths – went too far, creating destabilizing imbalances.	事实上，由于城市GDP增速对地方官员升迁的重要影响，城市间的过度竞争也导致了一些破坏性的失衡。


Yes, local autonomy facilitated bold productivity-enhancing activities, such as the use of rural land for industry and commerce and the creation of public-private partnerships to finance major infrastructure projects; private enterprises were thus able to seize market share from SOEs in the service and manufacturing sectors.	地方自主竞争有助于实施提高生产率的大胆措施，如农地转工业和商业用途、公私合作的基础设施项目融资方式、及民营企业与国有企业争夺服务业和制造业的市场份额。


But cities’ hasty efforts to imitate one another’s growth models also led to overwhelming environmental pollution, mounting debt, excess infrastructure capacity, rising inequality, depletion of farmland, and rampant corruption, including administrative abuses that encroached on citizens’ property rights.	但城市间争相模仿彼此的增长模式也导致了严重的环境污染 、过度的地方负债、过剩的基础设施、不平等加剧、农地耗竭、 及滥用行政权力侵害国家及公民财产权的腐败行为。


Competition-fueled growth propelled China’s emergence as the world’s second-largest economy.	由竞争推动的增长已经将中国转变为世界第二大经济体。


But it is unsustainable.	但目前不平衡的增长模式不可持续 。


The imperative now is to rebalance competition to address the negative externalities of state and market activities that harm citizens’ interests.	现在的任务是实现竞争模式的再平衡，即纠正政府和市场两方面都存在的损害公民利益的负外部性 。


The central government’s recent removal of certain judicial powers from local governments, thereby strengthening protection of property rights, is an important step in this direction.	中央政府最近上收了地方政府的一些司法权，从而强化了财产权的保护，这是朝改革迈出的重要一步。


But it is not enough.	但这还不够。


Enabling the market to drive resource allocation, while ensuring a level playing field for all participants, will require the establishment of clear competition principles, possibly supported by a powerful “competition commission.”	让市场决定资源配置，并同时确保所有参与者能公平竞争，需要政府设定明确的竞争规则，这或许需要一个强有力的“竞争委员会”来提供支持。


No competition can work without clear, fair rules.	没有公开、公平、公正的规则就没有好的竞争。


That is the real challenge facing China’s leaders today.	这是目前中国领导人所面临的真正挑战。


If they succeed, a high-income China will be only a matter of time.	如果他们能够成功应对这一挑战，中国进入高收入行列将只是时间问题。


Re-Governing China	调整中的政府职能


BEIJING – This year’s China Development Forum in Beijing revealed the clearest vision yet of how China’s leaders intend to deliver the “Chinese Dream,” which President Xi Jinping has described as “national rejuvenation, improvement of people’s livelihoods, prosperity, construction of a better society, and military strengthening.”	北京—今年的中国发展论坛清楚揭示了中国领导人准备如何实现“中国梦”。 习近平主席将“中国梦”描述为“国家富强、民族振兴、人民幸福。


The question is whether the government can follow through on its ambitious reform and development plans.	”。 问题在于政府如何贯彻这一宏伟的改革发展计划。


Last November’s Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party produced more than 330 major reforms in 60 areas for implementation by 2020 – a package of unprecedented scale, depth, and complexity.	去年11月的中共十八届三中全会制定了需在2020年前落实的改革方案，涵盖60个领域的330多项重大改革，改革的广度、深度和复杂度前所未有。


Orchestrating China’s transformation from a manufacturing- and export-based economic model to one driven by consumption and services – and that is inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and creates more than 13 million jobs annually – is a massive undertaking.	实现中国从以制造和出口为基础的经济模式向由消费和服务驱动的经济模式的转变，即包容性、环境可持续性，同时每年创造1,300多万个就业岗位。 这是一项极其艰巨的任务。


Add to it the challenge of upholding financial and social stability – and accomplishing all of this while managing one of the world’s largest bureaucracies – and the task ahead becomes truly mind-boggling.	除此之外，中国政府还面临维护金融和社会稳定的挑战，与此同时需要管理好世界最庞大的官僚机构。 任务之艰巨令人难以置信。


Consider the effort last summer to assess the government’s financial condition.	以去年夏天政府财政状况的评估为例。


The National Audit Office had to mobilize 55,400 staff members to review not only the central government’s accounts, but also those of 31 provinces and autonomous regions, five central municipalities, 391 cities, 2,778 counties, and 33,091 rural communities.	国家审计署需要动员55,400位工作人员审查各级政府的账目，包括中央政府以及31个省和自治区、5个直辖市、391个市、2,778个县、33,091个农村社区。


The investigation covered 62,215 government departments and agencies, 7,170 local-government financing vehicles, 68,621 public finance-supported reporting units, 2,235 public business units, and 14,219 other entities – responsible, altogether, for 730,065 projects and 2,454,635 items of debt.	整个调查涵盖62,215个政府部门和机构、7,170家地方政府融资机构、68,621家公共财政支持的机构、2,235家上市公司以及14,129家其他机构——总计730,065个项目和2,454,635项债务。


Clearly, public-sector governance in China is radically different from that in the West, where the rule of law, democratic elections, and free markets are structural norms.	显然，中国公共部门的治理与西方截然不同。 西方的结构模式是法治、民主和市场化。


And, though 35 years of major reforms have brought about considerable change, with the private sector now accounting for the bulk of job creation, there remains much to be done – exemplified in the fact that the state, especially local governments and state-owned enterprises, still command most of China’s credit resources.	尽管35年以来的重大改革带来了巨大变化，民营部门已成为创造就业的主力军，但中国仍有很多方面有待改善——一个显著的例子便是国有部门，特别是地方政府和国有企业仍掌握着中国大部分信贷资源。


One way to appreciate the complexity of China’s governance ecosystem is to examine the matrix of relationships among institutions, the tiao tiao kuai kuai – literally, “lines and pieces.”	理解中国治理体系复杂性的一个角度是考察机构之间的关系矩阵，即所谓的“条条块块”。


Tiao tiao refers to the vertical lines of control from the central government through national ministries or agencies to local-level institutions. They include central planning concerning development and reform; the nomination and promotion of officials to important posts in ministries, state-owned enterprises, and local governments at all levels; and macroeconomic tools, particularly fiscal, monetary, exchange-rate, and regulatory policies.	“条条”指从中央政府通过国家部门和机关控制地方机构的垂直体系，包括国家发改委，其它重要部委、国有企业和各级地方政府重要职位的任命及升迁，以及宏观经济工具，特别是财政、货币、汇率和监管政策。


Kuai kuai refers to the lateral, highly competitive relationships among regional entities, to which the central government delegates a certain amount of autonomy.	“块块”指地方实体之间高度竞争的横向关系，中央政府在这方面向地方下放了相当的自主权。


In order to achieve genuine stability, China’s leaders must strike a delicate balance between tiao tiao control and kuai kuai autonomy.	为了实现真正的稳定，中国领导人必须在条条的控制和块块的自主性之间保持巧妙的平衡。


But this has proved difficult, with relaxation of tiao tiao often leading not just to rapid regional growth and improvements in local public services, but also to widening imbalances and a heightened risk of overheating, owing to pro-cyclical herding behavior, such as excessive fixed-asset investment.	但这是个艰难的任务，放松条条往往不仅带来地方经济快速的增长和公共服务的改善，也造成失衡的加剧和过热高企的风险，原因在于过度的固定资产投资等顺应趋势的羊群行为。


The government is then forced to re-impose central control abruptly, bringing about a sudden stop.	所以，中央政府不得不重新启动宏观调控，紧急叫停。


If China’s economy were a car, the country’s leaders would always be either flooring the accelerator or slamming on the brakes.	如果把中国经济比作一辆汽车，那么国家领导人一直在交替猛踩油门和刹车。


With its latest set of reforms, China’s government is attempting finally to fine-tune its approach.	最新的改革方案表明，中国政府终于开始尝试政策的微调。


The package centralizes some responsibilities, such as managing resistance from vested interests, while expanding local-government autonomy in other areas, including procedures for licensing and planning approval.	改革计划将一些责任集中到中央，例如应对既得利益的阻力； 同时在另一些领域扩大地方政府自主权，包括执照发放流程和计划批准流程。


With the creation of free-trade zones – which entail lower tariffs, reduced customs barriers, and less administrative intervention – the government is attempting to give market forces a decisive role in resource allocation.	政府还建立了自由贸易区（低关税、降低海关壁垒并减少行政干预），试图以此加强市场在资源配置中的决定性作用。


This effort to ease unnecessary constraints on regional entities will lead to market and institutional innovations.	这一措施缓解了对地方机构不必要的约束，将带来市场和制度创新。


These innovations, together with increased transparency and the implementation of cutting-edge technologies, are likely to reduce rent-seeking and corruption, while boosting productivity and employment significantly.	这些创新，再加上提高透明度和采用尖端科技，有望遏制寻租和腐败，同时提高生产率和增加就业。


The government’s recent decision to phase out the household registration (hukou) system will augment these gains further, as it gives workers and private business-owners alike the opportunity to choose where to live, work, and invest.	政府逐步改革户籍制度的最新决定将进一步扩大成果，这使劳动者和民营企业主有机会自主选择在哪里生活、工作和投资。


As China’s leaders explicitly recognized at the Third Plenum, the removal of arbitrary tiao tiao controls can enable cities and local communities to evolve according to their own comparative advantages.	中国领导人在十八届三中全会上明确指出，消除武断的条条控制能够让各大城市和地方根据自身的比较优势进一步发展。


But China’s gradual opening up will increasingly allow companies and individuals to cross national borders in search of more lucrative opportunities, complicating the country’s governance matrix further.	中国的逐步开放，将使越来越多的公司和个人能够出国追求更有吸引力的机会，而这将使中国的治理体系进一步复杂化。


Indeed, coping with global competition for markets, resources, talent, and respect will require a two-way interaction between Chinese and global governance systems.	事实上，为了应对市场、资源、人才和全球竞争，中国和全球治理体系需要双向互动。


China’s leaders have already demonstrated that they understand the need to implement modern management techniques, and that doing so requires them to update and recalibrate the tools of central control on which they have long relied.	中国领导人已经表明，他们知道实施现代管理技术的必要性，也明白这样做需要更新和重新调整长期以来所依赖的中央控制工具。


With the right adjustments, China’s governance system can effectively address market failures like air and water pollution, food safety, energy efficiency, and social inequality, while ensuring the country’s long-term prosperity.	如果能做出正确的调整，中国的治理体系将能够有效地解决空气和水污染、食品安全、能源效率和贫富不均等问题，并确保中国的长期繁荣。


This process is only beginning, but it is off to a strong start.	这一过程才刚刚开始，但这仍是个好的开局。


Great Cities and Ghost Towns	中国的大都会与鬼城


HONG KONG – Many observers tend to regard the rise of unoccupied modern “ghost towns,” funded through risk-laden local-government financing vehicles (LGFVs), as symptoms of China’s coming collapse.	香港—许多观察家喜欢将无人居住的现代“鬼城”作为中国经济即将崩溃的征兆。 这些“鬼城”常常由有风险性的地方政府融资平台提供资金。


But this view underestimates the inevitability – indeed, the necessity – of such challenges on the path to development.	但这一观点低估了类似的挑战在发展道路上的必然性，或者更确切的说是必要性。


In 2012, the venture capitalist William Janeway argued that economic development is a three-player game involving the state, private entrepreneurial innovation, and financial capitalism, with inevitable cyclical overshoots that create the conditions for the next wave of invention and output growth.	2012年，风险资本家威廉·詹韦（William Janeway ）指出，经济发展是一个包括国家、创新型私人企业家和金融资本主义的三方博弈，它必然会产生超调，从而为下一波发明和产出增长创造条件。


The United States had ghost towns and local bank busts once it began investing in railways, mining, and industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century.	美国在十九世纪中叶铁路、矿产和工业化投资兴起后也出现了鬼城。


But it experienced no systemic crisis that spilled over its borders.	但美国并没有因此而遭遇超越国界的系统性危机。


Without large-scale infrastructure investment, especially in transport, the productivity gains that enabled America’s emergence as an industrial power would have been impossible.	没有大规模基础设施投资，特别是交通投资，就不可能产生让美国跻身世界工业强国的生产率的提升。


Though the process included significant creative destruction, rapid economic growth offset losses resulting from excess capacity.	尽管这一过程包括了巨大的创新性破坏，但经济的高速增长抵消了产能过剩造成的损失。


Similarly, when viewed through the long lens of history, China’s ghost towns will prove to be potholes on the path to development.	同样，从历史的长镜头看，中国的鬼城也将不过是发展道路上的坑洼。


China’s massive infrastructure investment, funded largely through LGFVs, will most likely be remembered for its critical contribution to the country’s economic modernization.	主要通过地方政府融资平台融资的大规模基础设施投资，更有可能因其对中国经济现代化的关键贡献而被铭记。


Of course, the translation of infrastructure investment into economic progress is not guaranteed.	当然，基础设施投资并不一定能转化为经济发展。


The new infrastructure – together with on-the-job training that enables Chinese workers to manage it effectively – must boost the country’s productive capacity sufficiently to offset the value destruction from obsolete fixed assets and underemployment.	新的基础设施——以及让中国工人能够有效管理这些设施的在职培训——必须让中国生产力有足够大的提升，才能抵消多余的固定资产被淘汰及闲置而带来的价值毁灭。


In this sense, China’s prospects are promising.	从这个角度讲，中国的前景相当乐观。


As it stands, the total value of infrastructure investment in China amounts to only about 240% of GDP, less than half of Japan’s 551% – and with a much younger population.	目前，中国基础设施投资总值只相当于GDP的240%，比日本的551%低一半有余——并且人口也要年轻得多。


China’s capital stock remains below $10,000 per capita; that figure is above $90,000 in the US and more than $200,000 in Japan (at 2011 prices).	中国人均资本存量仍低于10,000美元，而美国则超过了90,000美元，日本超过了200,000美元（按2011年价格计算）。


Moreover, roughly 1% of China’s population – about 12 million people – is migrating to cities each year.	此外，每年有大约1%的中国人口——即1200万人——迁往城市。


Unrelenting demand for modern, innovative infrastructure that supports citizens’ livelihoods, improves energy efficiency, and minimizes pollution cannot simply be ignored – especially given urbanization’s central role in driving economic modernization and productivity gains.	这对改善人民生活、提高能源效率以及实现污染最小化的创新型现代基础设施有巨大需求——特别是在考虑到城市化在经济现代化和生产率提高方面的核心作用。


Though LGFVs carry some intrinsic risks, stemming from relatively low levels of transparency and government supervision, they have been integral to China’s industrialization process so far.	尽管地方政府融资平台由于透明度低和政府监管不力而具有一些内在风险，但到目前为止，它们已经融入了中国现代化进程。


Indeed, they emerged in the early 1990s to enable Shanghai and Guangdong to upgrade their infrastructure in preparation for their industrialization drive.	事实上，它们在20世纪90年代初就已经出现，为上海和广东得以升级基础设施和工业化腾飞做好了准备。


Both cities suffered from weak technical and institutional capacity and little foreign exchange or domestic credit.	当初这两个城市都饱受技术和体制性质的局限及外汇和国内信用稀缺的困扰。


By working with the World Bank and the China Development Bank (CDB), Shanghai and Guangdong created an innovative institutional structure to facilitate the coordination of stakeholders to deliver specific infrastructure projects, employing the legal and accounting tools of modern corporations.	通过与世界银行和国家开发银行的合作，上海和广东都���立了创新性制度结构，为利益相关方提供法律、会计及管理的合作便利以使具体的基础设施工程得以实施，特别是启用了现代公司的法律和会计工具。


In other words, the LGFV is, at its core, a vehicle for local modernization.	换言之，地方政府融资平台在本质上正是地方经济的现代化平台。


This institutional innovation enabled the reconstruction of hundreds of Chinese cities, connected by airports, highways, high-speed rail, and advanced telecommunication systems.	这一制度创新使数百个中国城市得以复兴，并通过机场、高速公路、高速铁路和先进的通讯系统连接在一起。


Supported by these structures and linkages, one-third of Chinese cities have attained per capita GDP of more than $10,000.	在这些结构和连接的支持下，三分之一的中国城市人均GDP已经突破10,000美元。


Moreover, the original LGFVs were not subject to maturity mismatches, because they were funded through long-term CDB loans, with local governments using the fees and taxes they accrued from the completed infrastructure to cover operating costs and service their debt.	此外，最早的地方政府融资平台并没有受到期限错配影响，因为它们是通过长期国开行贷款融资的，地方政府用从完工的基础设施中所获得的税费覆盖运营成本、偿还债务。


In this way, LGFVs also helped to create the network linking local markets to global value chains.	如此，地方政府融资平台还帮助建设了将地方市场与全球价值链连接起来的网络。


But, as is often the case, success led to excess.	但是，与往常一样，成功总是导致冒进。


Massive government stimulus in the wake of the global financial crisis spurred local governments to take loans from Chinese banks to realize dream infrastructure projects, with remote cities attempting to imitate urban showcases like Shanghai or Shenzhen.	全球金融危机后的大规模政府刺激计划促使地方政府以廉价银行贷款及土地为基础，来追求其梦想的基础设施工程。 偏远城市纷纷试图模仿上海、北京或深圳等榜样城市。


In a sense, this was a positive development.	从某种意义上说，这是个积极的进步。


After all, leveling the infrastructure gap enlarges the range of options from which people and companies can choose when deciding where to live or establish factories and offices.	毕竟，缩小基础设施差距扩大了个人和公司决定在哪里生活或在哪里开设工厂和办事处的选择范围。


But the infrastructure boom was underpinned by the belief that local governments would always have access to easy credit, cheap land, and rising demand.	但基础设施繁荣的背后有一个关键的因素：即相信地方政府能够轻易获得廉价的信贷、廉价的土地和不断上升的需求。


When the market tightened in 2011, many projects’ prospects diminished, spurring LGFVs to seek credit in the shadow banking sector, which has caused their borrowing costs to rise and introduced new market-based challenges to the reform process.	当2011年市场趋紧时，许多工程的前景不再光明，这就刺激了地方政府融资平台转向影子银行寻找信贷机会，进一步导致借贷成本上升，以及来自市场的对改革进程的新挑战。


Nonetheless, because China is a net lender to the world, LGFV debt has no global systemic implications.	尽管如此，由于中国是世界的净债权人，因此地方政府融资平台债务并不会对全球金融有系统性冲击。


While China’s outstanding local-government debt totaled CN¥29 trillion ($4.7 trillion) at the end of 2011, its land and fixed assets are worth some CN¥90 trillion, meaning that even if asset values were written down by half, local governments would remain solvent.	2011年末，中国未偿还地方政府债务总额为29万亿人民币，而其土地和固定资产总价值为90万亿人民币，这意味着即使资产价值缩水一半，地方政府作为一个总体仍不会资不抵债。


This leaves only the issue of debt servicing.	这样就只剩下债务偿还及分配问题了。


To resolve it, the government has announced fiscal reforms to split revenues between central and local governments and enable local governments to issue long-term municipal bonds.	为了解决这一问题，中国政府已宣布了财政体制改革，目的是进一步理清中央和地方财政收入的来源及支出责任，特别是允许地方政府能够发行长期市政债券。


China’s ghost towns and local-government debts are not harbingers of doom. They are bumps on the road to a developed economy, in which excesses will have to be resolved by the state or the market.	中国的鬼城和地方政府债务并非末日预兆，而只是迈向发达经济道路上的小颠簸，冒进问题必然会得到纠正，要么通过国家，要么通过市场。


In fact, overcoming these challenges will make for a more resilient economy in the long run.	事实上，从长期看，克服这些挑战将造就更具弹性的强大经济。


The Coming CLASS War	为谁而战？


HONG KONG – The eighteenth-century German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz defined war as the continuation of politics by different means, and, like the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, believed that securing peace meant preparing for violent conflict.	香港—十八世纪德国军事战略家克劳塞维茨将战争定义为：政治以不同手段的延续。 与中国古代战略家孙子一样，他认为确保和平意味着为暴力冲突做好了准备。


As the world becomes increasingly tumultuous – apparent in the revival of military struggle in Ukraine, continued chaos in the Middle East, and rising tensions in East Asia – such thinking could not be more relevant.	随着世界变得日益动荡，如乌克兰军事冲突复燃、中东持续混乱以及东亚紧张局势的升级等局势所证实，对战争的这一深刻理解变得非常重要。


Wars are traditionally fought over territory.	传统上，战争围绕领土进行。


But the definition of territory has evolved to incorporate five domains: land, air, sea, space, and, most recently, cyberspace.	但领土的定义包括五个维度：陆地、天空、海洋、空间以及最新出现的网络。


These dimensions of “CLASS war” define the threats facing the world today.	这种多位一体的战争形式反映了当今世界所面临的威胁。


The specific triggers, objectives, and battle lines of such conflicts are likely to be determined, to varying degrees, by five factors: creed, clan, culture, climate, and currency.	但最重要的问题是：为谁而战？ 战争的具体触发因素、目标和冲突的战线其实主要将由五个因素决定：信仰、种族、文化、气候和货币。


Indeed, these factors are already fueling conflicts around the world.	事实上，这些因素正在主导全球性的冲突。


Religion, or creed, is among history’s most common motives for war, and the twenty-first century is no exception.	首先，信仰及宗教是历史上最常见的战争动机之一，二十一世纪也不例外。


Consider the proliferation of jihadist groups, such as the Islamic State, which continues to seize territory in Iraq and Syria, and Boko Haram, which has been engaged in a brutal campaign of abductions, bombings, and murder in Nigeria.	以圣战组织的兴盛为例，包括仍在蚕食伊拉克和叙利亚领土的伊斯兰国和在尼日利亚实施野蛮绑架、轰炸和谋杀的博科圣地（Boko Haram）组织。


There have also been violent clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar and southern Thailand, and between Islamists and Catholics in the Philippines.	还有缅甸和泰国南部佛教徒和穆斯林的暴力冲突，以及菲律宾伊斯兰教徒和天主教徒的暴力冲突。


The second factor – clan – is manifested in rising ethnic tensions in Europe, Turkey, India, and elsewhere, driven by forces like migration and competition for jobs.	第二个因素——种族，体现于欧洲、土耳其、印度和其它地区日益激烈的种族紧张局势中。 这些紧张局势的起因是移民和就业竞争等。


In Africa, artificial borders that were drawn by colonial powers are becoming untenable, as different tribes and ethnic groups attempt to carve out their own territorial spaces.	在非洲，由殖民者人为划定的边界已难以维持，不同部落和种族群体试图开拓其自身的领土空间。


And the conflict in Ukraine mobilizes the long-simmering frustration felt by ethnic Russians who were left behind when the Soviet Union collapsed.	而乌克兰的冲突激起了苏联解体后遗留下来的俄罗斯民族压抑已久的怨气。


The third potential source of conflict consists in the fundamental cultural differences created by societies’ unique histories and institutional arrangements.	冲突的第三个潜在因素，是由不同社会独特的历史和制度体系所形成的根本性文化差异。


Despite accounting for only one-eighth of the world’s population, the United States and Europe have long enjoyed economic dominance – accounting for half of global GDP – and disproportionate international influence.	尽管美国和欧洲人口只占世界的八分之一，但它们长期占据着经济主宰地位——GDP约占世界的一半——并拥有不成比例的国际影响力。


But, as new economic powerhouses rise, they will increasingly challenge the West, and not just for market share and resources; they will seek to infuse the global order with their own cultural understandings and frames of reference.	但是，随着新经济强国的崛起，它们开始日益挑战西方，它们的目标不仅仅是市场份额和资源； 它们还将寻求往全球秩序中注入它们自身的文化体系（或软实力）。


Of course, competition for resources will also be important, especially as the consequences of the fourth factor – climate change – manifest themselves.	当然，资源竞争也将是重要因素，这与第四个因素，即气候变化有关。 它会使这一问题加剧恶化。


Many countries and regions are already under severe water stress, which will only intensify as climate change causes natural disasters and extreme weather events like droughts to become increasingly common.	许多国家和地区面临着严重的水资源紧缺压力，而随着气候变化导致自然灾害和干旱等极端天气事件日益频繁，缺水的压力还会继续恶化。


Likewise, as forests and marine resources are depleted, competition for food could generate conflict.	同样的，随着森林和海洋资源的消耗，粮食竞争也可能导致冲突。


This kind of conflict directly contradicts the promise of globalization – namely, that access to foreign food and energy would enable countries to concentrate on their comparative advantages.	这些冲突与全球化的福音直接相悖。 全球化理应让各国能够获得进口的粮食和能源，从而让各国集中精力发展自身的比较优势。


If emerging conflicts and competitive pressures lead to, say, economic sanctions or the obstruction of key trade routes, the resulting balkanization of global trade would diminish globalization’s benefits substantially.	如果新出现的冲突和竞争压力导致经济制裁或重要贸易途径的阻塞，由此产生的全球贸易分裂将极大地抵消全球化所带来的利益。


Moreover, the social unrest that often accompanies economic strife could cause countries to fragment into smaller units that fight one another over values or resources.	此外，往往伴随经济冲突出现的社会动荡，可能导致国家分裂为更小的区域，并且彼此之间就价值或资源展开博弈。


To some extent, this is already occurring, with Iraq and Syria splintering into sectarian or tribal units.	从某种程度上说，这一情形正在发生，伊拉克和叙利亚正在分裂为宗派或部落区域。


The final key risk facing the world concerns currency.	世界所面临的最后一个重大风险是货币。


Since the global economic crisis, the expansionary monetary policies that advanced-economy central banks have pursued have caused large-scale, volatile capital flows across emerging-economy borders, generating significant instability for these countries and fueling accusations of “currency wars.”	自全球经济危机以来，发达经济体央行所追求的扩张性货币政策，导致了新兴经济体出现大规模、高波动的资本跨境流动，造成了这些国家严重动荡，助长了“货币战争”的升级。


The extra-territorial use of regulatory and tax powers – particularly by the US, which has the added advantage of issuing the world’s preeminent reserve currency – is reinforcing the view that currencies can be wielded as weapons.	监管和税收权的超国界使用正在强化一个观点，即货币也可以成为武器。


For example, the US has effectively balkanized global banking by requiring all foreign banks operating there to become subsidiary companies and requiring international banks with US-dollar clearing accounts to comply fully with US tax, regulatory, and even, to some degree, foreign policy (for example, refraining from trading with US enemies).	比如，美国由于发行世界主要储备货币而获得了额外的优势，而美国正要求所有在美经营的外国银行采取子公司的形式，并要求有美元清算账户的国际银行完全遵守美国的税收、监管甚至在某种程度上外交政策（比如不与美国的敌人做贸易），这实际上造成了全球银行业的分裂。


Hefty fines imposed by US regulators for breaching the rules – notably, the recent $8.9 billion settlement by BNP Paribas – are already causing European banks to re-think their compliance costs and the profitability of operating in the US.	美国监管者对违规银行课以重罚——最近巴黎银行的89亿美元和解案就是显例——这已经导致欧洲银行重新考量守法成本和在美经营的盈利能力。


Meanwhile, American courts have forced Argentina into another national default.	与此同时，美国法院还迫使阿根廷走向又一次国家违约。


But perhaps the strongest message is being sent via targeted sanctions on Russia’s oil, finance, defense, and technology industries, as well as on Russian officials.	但也许最强的信号是来自针对俄罗斯石油、金融、国防和科技产业以及俄罗斯官员的定向制裁。


With this approach, the US and its allies are sending a clear message to anyone who may disagree with US policy: avoid using the dollar and dollar-denominated bank accounts.	通过这一举措，美国及其盟友向可能会反对美国政策的任何人释放出清晰的信号：最好不要使用美元和美元银行账户。


Some financial activity has already been driven into the shadows, reflected in the use of Bitcoin and other currencies that are beyond the reach of US regulators.	受此影响，已有一些金融活动转入影子银行系统，比特币和其它不受美国监管的货币的使用就体现了这一现象。


A recent example of the disaffected seeking an alternative to US leadership is the establishment of a New Development Bank and a contingent reserve arrangement by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).	心存不满以至于寻求替代美国领导的新方案的一个最新例子是，金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非）将建立金砖国家开发银行和应急储备安排。


The problem for the US is that, in this case, the disaffected are five of the world’s major emerging economies, wielding combined resources that exceed those of the Bretton Wood institutions.	美国的问题在于，在这个例子中，心存不满的是五个世界主要新兴经济体，它们所动用的资源加起来超过了布雷顿森林体系机构现有的资源。


It is highly unlikely that BRICS bank transactions will be denominated in US dollars.	金砖国家银行交易基本上不可能用美元计价。


In a recent speech, US President Barack Obama declared that the question is not whether the US will lead, but how it will lead.	美国总统奥巴马最近宣称，问题不在于美国是否会继续领导，而在于它如何继续领导。


But, as creed, clan, culture, climate, and currency cause the world to become increasingly alienated from the US-centric international order, such declarations may be excessively optimistic.	但是，信仰、种族、文化、气候和货币这五个因素，导致了现实世界与以美国为中心的国际秩序渐行渐远，奥巴马的这一言论可能过于乐观了。


Indeed, in the coming CLASS war, no one seems quite sure whom to follow.	事实上，在即将到来的五位一体战争中，似乎没有人很确定应该跟随谁。


Kermit’s Bankers	科米（青蛙）的银行家


HONG KONG – Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog once lamented that “it’s not easy bein’ green.”	香港-- 《芝麻街》青蛙科米（Kermit the Frog）曾经哀叹，“生而绿，大不易。


Today, this sentiment is surprisingly relevant to the global economy – only it is becoming green that is the problem.	”如今，这一感叹也可用于描述当前的全球经济——只不过现在如何变绿（转变为绿色经济）才是问题所在。


Last September, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change warned that if the world sticks with “business as usual,” global temperatures may rise more than 4°C – far beyond the 2°C increase that has been deemed “safe.”	去年9月，联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会（Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change）警告说，如果世界再不转变增长模式，全球气温将升高4—6℃，远远超出被认为是“安全”的2℃升温水平。


This prompted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to challenge political, economic, and financial leaders in January to intensify their efforts to achieve a new global agreement on climate change by 2015.	这促使联合国秘书长潘基文在今年1月敦促政治、经济和金融各界领导人加紧努力，争取在2015年达成新的全球气候变化协议。


But, as important as high-level deals are, they will amount to little unless they are backed by considerable investment in areas like smart grids, energy storage, and renewables.	高层协议虽然重要，但若不能实现对智能电网、能源储存和可再生能源等领域大额投资，这些协议将收效甚微。


Indeed, the International Energy Agency estimates that nearly $1 trillion worth of investment will be needed annually between now and 2050 to put the world economy on a more sustainable path.	事实上，国际能源署估计，从现在到2050年，每年需要投入1万亿美元才能让世界经济走上可持续道路。


While that may seem like a lot of money, it is the equivalent of only 1% of global GDP, and less than 0.3% of global financial assets.	尽管这看起来是一笔巨款，但其实只相当于全球GDP的1%和不到全球金融资产的0. 3%。


Moreover, since 2007, major central banks have proved that they can augment their balance sheets by more than $1 trillion annually, without triggering inflation.	此外，自2007年以来，主要国家的央行已经证明，它们可以每年将资产负债表扩大1万亿美元以上而不触发通胀。


In other words, the world can afford the transition toward a green economy.	也就是说，世界能够负担绿色经济的转型成本。


Nonetheless, last year, green investment amounted to only $254 billion – implying an annual shortfall of nearly $750 billion.	尽管如此，去年绿色投资规模只有2,540亿美元——这意味着每年的缺口将近7,500亿美元。


To bridge the gap, advanced-country governments are leveraging their limited public funds to catalyze private-sector investment.	为了弥补这一缺口，发达国家政府正在用有限的公共资金促进私人部门投资。


At the same time, developing countries are rapidly increasing their contributions to green finance, with domestic clean-energy financing in non-OECD countries having surpassed OECD-country levels in 2008.	与此同时，发展中国家对绿色金融的贡献正在快速增加，非经合组织国家的国内清洁能源融资规模在2008年便已超过经合组织国家。


But the problem remains that the current structure of markets impedes their ability to adjust to climate change.	但问题仍在于，当前的市场结构限制了市场根据气候变化作出调整的能力。


What is really needed is not money, but the political will to correct market failure by bringing about fundamental shifts in the metrics, institutions, and policies that govern how investors evaluate economic activities.	真正需要的不是钱，而是纠正市场失灵的政治意愿，即需要从根本上转变投资者对经济活动评估起决定作用的衡量指标、制度和政策。


A green project is bankable only if it provides a clear view of its real costs and benefits.	只有在绿色项目的实际成本和收益明确无疑时，银行才会愿意提供贷款。


The return on private capital (profit and loss) plus the return on “social” capital must be positive.	私人资本的回报（利润和损失）加上“社会”资本的回报必须为正。


The current GDP metric ignores the negative externalities of fossil-fuel-based private activities, leading to overwhelming pollution and gross wastage of non-renewable natural resources.	当前GDP衡量指标忽略了基于化石燃料的私人活动的负面外部作用，导致污染严重和不可再生自然资源的大量浪费。


Without full cost accounting, some of the worst activities will continue to be immensely profitable.	没有完整的成本核算，一些最糟糕的经济活动将继续表现出极其丰厚的利润。


A successful transition to a green economy will require a new set of metrics.	向绿色经济的成功转型需要新的衡量指标。


The good news is that some governments have already moved to establish a shadow cost for CO2 emissions.	好消息是一些国家已开始着手计算二氧化碳排放的隐形成本。


In the US, the “social cost” of carbon was raised from $24 to $37 per ton emitted.	在美国，碳的“社会成本”从每吨排放量21美元提高到35美元。


Publicizing fine-particulate (so-called PM2.5) levels was critical to mobilizing widespread Chinese public support for addressing air pollution.	在中国，公布PM2. 5水平在动员公众支持解决空气污染问题上起到了关键作用。


Similar metrics are now needed to measure other forms of natural capital destruction, such as deforestation, marine-reef bleaching, wastewater discharge, and soil degradation.	现在，我们需要类似的指标来衡量其他形式的自然资本破坏，如森林采伐、珊瑚礁白化、废水排放和土壤退化等。


Once these metrics are established, they must be incorporated into international accounting standards for private and public financial statements.	在建立了这些指标后，必须将它们按照国际会计准则纳入私人和公共财务报表。


Some companies are already releasing annual reports with full details on their activities’ social and environmental impact, and will eventually move toward fully integrated reporting.	一些公司已开始在年报中披露关于公司行为对社会和环境影响的详实细节，并将最终形成完整的报告。


But bringing about real change will require more than moral suasion.	但要实现真正的变化，光靠道德观念是不够的。


Policymakers must take advantage of the full range of tools available to them, including legislation, reporting guidelines, taxes, incentives, and public education about the costs of inaction.	至于如何防止不作为，决策者必须充分利用所有工具和手段优势，包括立法、报告指引、税收、激励和公共教育。


Financial regulators in emerging economies like Bangladesh and China have already taken a step in the right direction, introducing rules to promote financial inclusion.	孟加拉国和中国等新兴经济体的金融监管者已经开始向正确的方向迈进，引入了促进金融包容的规则。


China’s green credit banking guidelines call upon financial institutions to consider the environmental risks in their loan portfolios.	中国银监会的绿色信贷指引要求金融机构考虑贷款组合的环境风险。


Finally, there needs to be an honest discussion on the merits – and limits – of current monetary policy and financial regulation.	最后，我们需要诚实地探讨当前货币政策和金融监管的优点和局限性。


Central-bank subsidies like quantitative easing and near-zero interest rates should have increased the supply of low-cost financing for green projects.	量化宽松和近零利率等央行补贴应该针对绿色项目增加低成本的融资供给。


Instead, they have boosted the profits of ever-larger financial institutions, leaving credit to small and medium-size enterprises and long-term projects severely constrained.	然而事实上它们却增加了日益庞大的金融机构的利润，而流向中小企业和长期项目的信用受到了严重制约。


The irony is that regulations aimed at strengthening financial stability tend to reward short-termism (higher liquidity), adding risk-weights and costs to long-term projects – that is, most green investments.	讽刺的是，旨在加强金融稳定的监管总是奖励短视行为（更高的流动性），反而导致长期项目的风险权重和成本的增加（大部分绿色投资是长期项目）。


Regulators must recognize that if the real economy is unsustainable, no amount of bank reforms will protect people’s livelihoods, let alone the financial system.	监管者必须意识到，如果实体经济不可持续，银行改革就无法保护人民的生活，更不用说保护金融系统了。


Adding a green-investment requirement of just 0.5% would be sufficient to cover the annual financing gap.	将绿色投资要求提高区区0. 5%便足以弥补年度融资缺口。


The global financial crisis occurred because we ignored externalities – shadow prices and institutions – allowing instability and inequality to proliferate.	全球金融危机发生的原因是我们忽视了外部性（影子价格和机构），放任不稳定和不公平的滋生。


Building a more stable, sustainable future requires getting policies, prices, and incentives right.	建立更稳定、更可持续的未来，需要理顺政策、价格和激励机制的关系。


It will not be easy, as Kermit said, but the risk is that if we do not act, we get boiled before we become green.	正如科米所言，“变绿决非易事”。 然而，问题是如果我们不作为，那结果就是一起完蛋。


King Coal’s Climate Challenge	煤王的气候挑战


WASHINGTON, DC – Coal is emerging as a major topic of conversation at the United Nations climate-change negotiations currently taking place in Warsaw – and rightly so.	华盛顿—在最近正在华沙进行的联合国气候变化谈判中，煤炭成为对话的主要话题之一——确实应该如此。


Indeed, it is a discussion that the world needs to have.	事实上，世界正需要这样一场讨论。


The latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclude that we are quickly using up our carbon “budget” – the amount of carbon that we can afford to emit while still having a good chance of limiting global warming to 2º Celsius.	政府间气候变化委员会（Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change，IPCC）的最新发现表明，我们正在快速耗尽我们的碳“预算”——在仍有很大机会将全球变暖程度控制在2摄氏度以内的情况下可以排放的碳量。


According to the IPCC, keeping the global temperature increase from pre-industrial levels below this threshold – the recognized tipping point beyond which climate change is likely to get seriously out of control – requires that the world emit only about 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC).	据IPCC的数据，将全球气温在前工业化水平基础上升高幅度限制在这一阈值之下意味着全世界只能排放大约1 000十亿吨碳（GtC）。 超过这一阈值，气候变化就可能大大超过控制能力。


More than half of this amount was already emitted by 2011.	到2011年，我们已经排放了一大半的碳量。


Unless we shift away from carbon-intensive behavior, the remaining budget will run out in roughly three decades.	除非我们很快减少碳密集行为，否则剩余预算将会在大约三十年内耗尽。


When it comes to tolerable CO2 emissions, coal is the budget buster.	在可忍受二氧化碳排放量这个问题上，煤炭是预算毁灭者。


Just this week, a group of 27 prominent scientists, representing all major continents, issued a joint statement that explains that burning all known fossil-fuel reserves would produce about 3,800 gigatonnes of CO2, or 1,053 GtC, with coal alone accounting for more than half.	就在本周，一个由27位著名科学家组成代表五大洲的团体发布了一份联合声明，指出把所有已知化石燃料储备烧尽将产生3 800十亿吨的二氧化碳，或1 053GtC，其中煤炭占了一大半。


Simply put, if the world burns its known coal reserves using current technologies, it is likely to push global temperature rise far beyond 2ºC.	简言之，如果世界按当前技术烧尽已知碳储备，就可能将全球气温升高远不止2℃。


Many governments and financial institutions recognize this.	许多政府和金融机构也承认这一点。


In recent months, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and the United States Export-Import Bank have introduced policies that restrict financing of new coal-fired power plants unless they can capture and store their CO2 emissions.	近几个月来，世界银行、欧洲投资银行（European Investment Bank）和美国进出口银行（United States Export-Import Bank）引入新政策限制为新的煤电项目提供融资，除非可以捕捉和储藏二氧化碳排放。


Five Nordic countries have joined the US Treasury in ending public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, and others may soon follow suit.	五个北欧国家加入了美国财政部的行列，停止用公共资金支持新的海外煤电项目，其他国家可能也会很快跟进。


And this fall, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed emissions standards for new power plants that would rule out conventional coal power – an important step that would cut carbon pollution and drive innovation.	今年秋天，美国环境保护局（US Environmental Protection Agency）制定了新电厂排放标准，传统煤电将无立足之地——这是降低碳污染、刺激创新的重要一步。


Likewise, China, concerned about the serious health costs linked to burning coal, is prohibiting new coal capacity in three coastal provinces under its newly adopted action plan on air pollution.	类似地，中国也开始关注与烧煤有关的高昂的健康成本，据其最新采取的治理空气污染行动计划，三个沿海省份将停止新建煤电产能。


The Chinese authorities have also introduced policies to reduce the proportion of coal in the country’s overall energy mix.	中国当局还制定了降低煤炭在占总耗能比重的政策。


Against this backdrop, the World Coal Association (WCA) is meeting this week, also in Warsaw – in fact, just across the river from where negotiators are trying to forge the building blocks of a global climate agreement by 2015.	在这样的背景下，世界煤炭联合会（World Coal Association，WCA）在本周召开了会议，地点也是在华沙——事实上与正在致力于为2015年全球气候协定奠定基础的谈判���们只有一河之隔。


The WCA is calling for the use of “high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-combustion technologies” to lower greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power plants around the world.	WCA呼吁采用“高效能、低排放的煤燃烧技术”以降低全世界煤电厂的温室气体排放。


But this approach would still consume too much of the CO2 budget.	但这一方针仍会消耗太多的二氧化碳预算。


Even the most modern and advanced conventional coal-fired power plants emit over 15 times more CO2 per unit of electricity than renewable energy systems, and more than twice the amount of efficient gas-fired power stations.	即使是最现代、最先进的传统煤电厂，每单位电量二氧化碳排放量也高达可再生能源系统的15倍、高效燃气电厂的两倍多。


And yet coal power is still going strong globally.	而煤电在全球仍保持强势。


The World Resources Institute estimates that there are close to 1,200 proposed coal-fired power projects around the world, with a total installed capacity of more than 1,400 gigawatts.	世界资源研究所（World Resources Institute）估计，全世界大约有1 200家煤电工程计划，总建成产能在1 400十亿瓦以上。


If built, the world would commit a large share of the remaining carbon budget to high-carbon infrastructure with a lifespan of 40-50 years.	如果建成，世界剩余谈预算将把一大部分划给寿命周期长达40—50年的高碳基础设施。


According to the International Energy Agency, the current trend in coal use is in line with a scenario that would lead to a 6ºC temperature rise.	据国际能源署（World Resources Institute）的数据，按当前用煤趋势，气温会升高6℃。


This is a future that would radically and irreversibly change life on earth as we know it.	据我们所知，这将给地球生活带来极大的不可逆转的变化。


This is why the OECD Secretary General has suggested that it is time for a moratorium on the construction of conventional coal-fired power plants.	这就是经合组织秘书长指出应该停止传统煤电厂建设的原因。


Governments have far more cost-effective electricity-generation technologies at their disposal.	政府可以使用远比煤电划算的发电技术。


Renewable energies like solar and wind are already competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, and they can be scaled up rapidly.	在很多地区，可再生能源（如太阳能和风能）已可与化石燃料一争高下，并且可以迅速扩大规模。


Moreover, most economic models do not account for the externalities related to coal and carbon pollution.	此外，大部分经济模型没有与计算煤炭和碳污染有关的外部性。


For example, a recent report by Trucost estimates that coal-fired power generation worldwide may be responsible for around $1 trillion of damage due to climate change and air pollution.	比如，据Trucost的一份最新报告测算，全球煤电在气候变化和空气污染等方面造成的伤害相当于1万亿美元左右。


Many coal-fired power plants would be uncompetitive if they were required to internalize these costs.	如果要求将这些成本内部化，许多煤电厂将失去竞争力。


Of course, coal continues to offer millions of people a reliable source of electricity – and the transition to low-carbon technologies will not happen overnight.	当然，煤炭为数百万人提供了可靠的电力——向低碳技术的转型也不会一夜之间实现。


We need to expand access to these technologies rapidly, while helping people whose livelihoods depend on the coal industry.	我们需要迅速扩大获得这些技术的途径，同时帮助依赖煤炭行业生活的人。


While we need to be passionate about climate change, we must also be pragmatic about how we address it.	我们需要对气候变化保持热情，但也必须在解决气候变化问题时采取务实态度。


But so must the coal industry.	但煤炭业也必须这样。


Participants at the WCA meeting this week should commit to additional measures that will help ensure that emissions are kept within safe limits.	本周的WCA会议与会者应该承诺采取更多措施帮助确保碳排放限制在安全限度以内。


A moratorium on conventional coal plants would be a smart place to start.	停建传统煤电厂是一个明智的开始。


That would help to show the world that the coal industry truly understands the scientific implications of current energy-use patterns, and that it is willing to assume more responsibility for combating climate change.	这将有助于向世界表明煤炭业真正了解了当前能源使用模式的科学影响，并愿意在气候变化斗争中承担更大的责任。


We need people on both sides of the Vistula River to do their part to build a fair and ambitious universal climate agreement by 2015.	我们需要维斯瓦河两岸的与会者都做出努力来构建一个公平的、充满雄心的2015年全球气候协定。


Let’s roll up our sleeves together and plot a viable pathway to a safe and effective low-carbon economy.	让我们携手共进，创造一个安全、高效的低碳经济。


An Earthquake in Chinese Politics?	中国官场地震


BEIJING – Now that the aftershocks from the great Sichuan earthquake appear to have dissipated, it is time to ask what shocks, if any, the earthquake delivered to China’s political system.	北京--四川大地震的余波看来已经消失，现在应该看一看这场大地震给中国的政治体制带来了哪些冲击。


Has the quake given birth to some new, positive political force that will accelerate reform?	这场地震是否孕育了某些可以加速改革的新的、积极的政治力量呢？


It has happened before.	这种情况以前也发生过。


After all, dramatic political changes – the fall of the “Gang of Four” and Deng Xiaoping’s consolidation as China’s supreme leader – did follow shortly after the devastating Tangshan earthquake in 1976.	毕竟，“四人帮”的倒台和邓小平巩固势力成为中国最高领导人等剧烈的政治变化发生在1976年的唐山大地震之后不久。


Given the sharp contrast between Premier Wen Jiabao’s caring attitude during the earthquake and President Hu Jintao’s mediocre political performance, some people could not help but imagine that the earthquake may have tipped the balance at the Communist Party’s highest levels, pushing the liberal forces represented by Wen to the center of power.	总理温家宝在赈灾中鞠躬尽瘁而主席胡锦涛在政治上乏善可陈，二者对比强烈。 因此，有人难免想像这场地震或许改变了中共最高阶层的平衡，把由温家宝所代表的自由派势力推向了权力中心。


But this is naive.	但是这一想法却是天真的。


Unlike 30 years ago, no strong force for political reform now exists in China’s vast bureaucratic system.	与30年以前不同，现今中国庞大的官僚体制中并不存在强大的要求政治改革的力量。


Back then, Mao’s Cultural Revolution had forced large numbers of his revolutionary comrades onto a reformist path.	当时，毛泽东的文革迫使其大批革命战友走向改革之路。


In today’s China, the overwhelming majority of bureaucrats like the status quo and have enough resources to protect themselves.	在当今中国，绝大多数官僚喜欢维持现状不变，而且拥有足够的资源来保护自己。


Although Wen has won popular support through his tireless efforts for earthquake victims, he remains isolated in official circles.	尽管温家宝为地震灾民不知疲倦地奔走，赢得了大众支持，但是在官场中他还是处于孤立。


And, although Hu can barely hide his mediocrity, the bureaucrats are unconcerned.	而且，尽管胡锦涛难以掩饰其无能，官僚们却无所谓。


After all, they don’t want someone controlling them who is both able and serious.	毕竟，他们并不想要让既有能力又脚踏实地的人来领导。


But the Sichuan earthquake was not completely irrelevant to China’s political progress.	但是四川地震对于中国的政治进程也并非完全没有影响。


Wen, who had been bogged down by the bureaucracy, had been seeking to counter it by expanding the media’s openness and transparency.	温家宝受到官僚体制的钳制，一直想要通过扩大媒体的开放和透明来加以对付。


He had sought to take advantage of the Beijing Olympics to give the foreign media unprecedented freedom, but the bureaucrats succeeded in reversing his decision.	他试图利用北京奥运会来赋予外国媒体前所未有的自由，但是官僚们还是成功地扭转了他的决定。


The earthquake gave Wen an unexpected second opportunity.	这场地震给了温家宝意想不到的第二次机会。


He used television and his outstanding performance to prove that modern media and information tools can curb China’s bureaucracy.	他利用电视及其卓越的表现来证明，现代媒体和信息工具可以限制中国的官僚。


This precedent will not be easy to roll back, and will have a far-reaching positive influence on China’s political progress.	这一先例难以逆转，而且会对中国的政治进程产生深远的积极影响。


The earthquake, together with the media transparency that accompanied it, has made the bureaucrats more accountable.	这一地震加上随之而来的媒体透明让官僚更为负责担当。


Thousands of people, including nearly 10,000 school children, whose parents will not be easily placated, lost their lives.	几万人丧生，包括将近一万名学生，他们的父母难以安抚。


Millions of dispossessed people must be re-housed in a process that will last for several years.	几百万人流离失所，必须重新安置，这需要花几年时间。


Bureaucrats must not be allowed to spend the huge donations collected and state relief funds allotted in an arbitrary manner.	官僚不得肆意花销募捐款项以及分配的国家赈灾资金。


As a result, a new political culture conducive to accountability may have a realistic opportunity to grow.	结果，一个有利于承担责任的新的政治文化或许有了现实的机会来成长。


But this does not mean that someone will emerge from the Party with the courage and ability to assume bold political leadership.	但是这并不是说中国将会产生某一具有胆魄和能力之人来承担果敢的政治领导地位。


In fact, I believe that China’s future leaders, are more likely to come from China’s burgeoning, but still limited, civil society than from the bureaucracy.	实际上，我相信中国的未来领导人更有可能来自中国蓬勃兴起、但是仍旧受到限制的民间社会，而不是官僚体制内部。


One source of China’s future political leadership could well be its growing NGO sector.	其中，中国未来政治领导人可能来自正在成长之中的非政府组织。


Although the Party uses various means to suppress their development, the Sichuan earthquake demonstrated that it has failed to eliminate NGOs as a social force.	尽管中共使用不同的手段来压制它们的发展，但是四川地震表明中共无法将非政府组织作为一支社会力量加以消除。


The quake gave them an opportunity to be seen, and an unprecedented number of people had a chance to perceive this nascent civil society as a positive force that serves their own interests.	地震给了它们一个机会来展示自己，而且，前所未有的人有了机会把这一新生的民间社会看作是一个符合他们利益的积极力量。


There is an even greater silent force which may produce a new generation of political leaders: the rapidly growing army of Christian believers, now estimated at 20 million.	还有一个更大的默默无闻的力量，或许会产生新一代的政治领导人，也就是快速增长的基督教信徒。 现在估计他们有两千万人。


With a population of 1.3 billion, China has no lack of people with leadership potential, and I believe that more and more of this talent is situated outside the Party bureaucracy in NGOs, startup enterprises, philanthropy, and even missionary work.	中国有十三亿人口，不乏具有领导潜力的人才。 我相信越来越多这样的人才位于中共官僚之外而立足于各个非政府组织、新兴企业、慈善事业甚至传教士工作之中。


In today’s mostly closed environment, they mostly lack awareness of their political skills and vision.	在如今大部分封闭的环境中，他们绝大多数并不知道自身的政治技能和视野。


A more open and transparent public environment will help awaken their sense of political mission.	更为开放和透明的公共环境将会帮助唤醒他们的政治使命意识。


Yet we are left to ask: when will the time for major political change come?	然而我们还是要问：重大政治变革何时会到来？


Wen Jiabao wrote recently in Sichuan that “more hardship will arouse the country,” evidently believing that the Chinese may still need to suffer further in order to realize political progress.	温家宝最近在四川题词写到“多难兴邦”。 他明显相信中国人还要承受更多的灾祸才能够实现政治进步。


That may be true, but I also believe that a new generation of political leaders can grow up in a more open information environment.	这也许是对的，但是我还相信新的一代政治领导人可以在一个更为开放的信息环境中成长。


And, in any coming showdown, we must hope that all leaders will refuse to use innocent people’s lives as bargaining chips.	而且我们必须希望，在将来的摊牌中，所有的领导人都会拒绝使用人民的性命作为筹码。


An Economic Agenda for Italy	适合意大利的经济议程


MILAN – At the end of this month, Italian voters will choose their next government, from which they expect jobs and a more level economic playing field – and from which Italy’s European partners expect structural reforms and fiscal probity.	发自米兰——就在本月底，意大利选民即将选举出下一届政府，人们期望新政府能提供更多的就业岗位以及一个更为平等的经济活动平台——而其他欧洲伙伴国家则期待它推行结构性改革并精简财政。


What should the new government’s economic-policy agenda be?	那么意大利新政府的经济政策议程应该是怎样的呢？


To reduce public debt, which stands above 120% of GDP, while minimizing painful adjustments, Italy needs economic growth – something that has eluded policymakers in recent years.	为了减少目前总额超过GDP120%的公共债务并尽量缩短痛苦的调整过程，意大利急需经济增长——这是近几年来一直迷惑着政策制定者的问题。


Indeed, Italy’s average annual GDP growth rate since joining Europe’s economic and monetary union in 1999 has been an anemic 0.5%, well below the eurozone average of nearly 1.5%.	确实，意大利的平均GDP年增长率自1999年加入欧洲经济与货币联盟来一直维持在0. 5%的低水平，远低于欧元区约1.


In the four years since the global financial crisis struck, the growth rate fell to -1.2%, compared to the eurozone average of -0.2%, and it is expected to remain negative this year.	自全球金融危机爆发后的四年，增长率下降到-1. 2%，今年预计依然会是负值，而与此同时欧元区平均增长率则为-0.


The new government’s biggest challenge will be to implement reforms that enable Italy’s economic performance to catch up to that of its neighbors after years of bad policies and neglect.	因此新政府面对的最大挑战就是要实施成功的改革——这种改革要让意大利经济的表现在经历多年错误政策和政府麻痹失职后赶上其他邻国。


This requires increased investment in innovation and human capital.	这就要求在创新和人力资本上增加投资。


From 1992 to 2011, labor productivity grew at an average annual rate of 0.9%, the lowest in the OECD.	从1992到2011年，意大利的劳动生产率每年平均只增长0. 9%，在经合组织成员国中倒数第一。


Since 2001, unit labor costs have been growing faster than real GDP and employment, undermining the economy’s competitiveness vis-à-vis developing countries.	而自2001年来，单位劳动成本一直以高于实际GDP和就业率增长的幅度上升，这相对于发展中国家等于损害了本国经济竞争力。


In the last decade, Italy’s share of global exports dropped from 3.9% to 2.9%.	结果在过去十年中意大利的出口量占全球出口的比重从3. 9%降到了2.


Persistently weak labor-productivity growth has created a situation in which unit labor costs do not fall, even if real wages remain stagnant or decline.	一直疲软的劳动生产率增长已经导致了这样一种局面——即便实际工资停滞不前或下降，单位劳动力成本也没有下降。


Indeed, despite a 1.3% drop in real wages in 2011, unit labor costs remained unchanged.	事实上，尽管2011年实际工资下降了1. 3%，单位劳动成本一直没有变化。


Italy’s new leaders must address this situation by decoupling labor’s contribution to productivity growth from that of capital and total factor productivity.	要解决上述问题，意大利新一代领导人必须通过把劳动力对生产率增长的贡献和资本以及总要素生产力中分离开来。


According to the OECD, lower regulatory costs and more efficient public administration (building upon measures introduced by the previous government, led by Mario Monti) could add 0.3-0.4% to average annual GDP growth by 2020.	根据经合组织的预测数据，较低的监管成本及更有效的公共管理——建立在由马里奥·蒙蒂（Mario Monti）领导的上届政府出台的措施之上——可以在2020年前让意大利GDP年平均增长率额外提升0. 3-0.


Likewise, labor-market reform, improved education, and enhanced human capital could contribute an additional 4% to GDP growth in the next decade.	同样地，劳动力市场改革、教育水平和人力资本的提升会在未来十年内为GDP额外贡献4%的增长。


Moreover, Italian policymakers should strive to boost the female labor-force participation rate, which, at 49%, is one of the lowest in the OECD.	此外，意大利决策者应该努力提高女性劳动力参与率——目前为49%，也处于经合组织的最低水平。


Doing so would raise per capita income by 1% annually through 2030.	这么做的话到2030年就可以让国民年平均收入再增加1%。


At the same time, fiscal adjustment remains essential to Italy’s short- and long-term stability.	同时，财政调整对意大利短期及长期稳定来说仍然必不可少。


According to the International Monetary Fund, the budget deficit is declining, and the primary surplus (net revenues minus interest payments) is growing.	根据国际货币基金组织的数据，预算赤字正在下降，主要盈余（净收入减去利息支付）正在增长。


Italy’s new leadership must sustain this progress.	意大利的新领导必须保持着这种进步态势。


Despite positive developments, the road ahead is bumpy.	尽管现在经济积极地发展，往后的路仍然坎坷。


Navigating it will require Italy to retain its credibility with other European Union member states and international investors.	要合理引导未来的走向需要意大利与欧盟成员国和国际投资者之间构建信任。


The new prime minister will need to persuade Germany, financial markets, and the European Council that Italy is a reliable partner.	新首相将需要说服德国、金融市场和欧洲理事会，让各方确信意大利是一个可靠的伙伴。


The ability to refinance government debt and keep costs down is essential to strengthening public finances and boosting GDP growth.	为政府债务重新融资并降低支出的能力对增强公共金融和促进GDP增长来说是必不可少的。


Furthermore, attracting more direct investment is crucial, given that capital inflows, while recovering, remain 30% below their pre-crisis level; with outflows exceeding inflows, Italy has become a net capital exporter.	此外，吸引更多的直接投资也很重要，考虑到在当前经济复苏过程中资本流入低于危机前水平的70%； 资本流出超过资本流入，意大利已经成为了净资本出口国。


“Selling” Italy in Europe should entail more than photo opportunities with other leaders in Brussels and the occasional road show to financial institutions in London.	要在欧洲“推销”意大利不仅需要跟他国领导人一起在布鲁塞尔亮相或者偶尔在伦敦金融机构露面的机会。


Italy’s leaders should engage actively in commercial diplomacy, using the country’s embassies and trade agencies to promote Italy globally, while working to build strong bilateral relations with other EU members, particularly southern countries like Spain.	意大利领导人应积极地投身到商业外交中去，利用大使馆和贸易机构对本国进行全球性地宣传，同时与其他欧盟成员国建立强有力的双边关系，尤其是像西班牙这样的南部国家。


At the same time, the new leaders need to “sell” Europe in Italy, where Euro-skepticism is rampant.	与此同时，新一代领导人还需要在意大利“推销”欧洲，现在意大利到处散布着欧洲怀疑论。


According to the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, only 30% of Italians view the euro positively.	根据皮尤研究中心的全球民意调查项目显示，仅仅30%的意大利人对欧元持正面态度。


In the country’s wealthier north, where average per capita income, at €30,000 ($40,500), approaches that of Germany, people are questioning the rationale of EU membership.	在较为富裕的意大利北部地区，其个人均收入为3万欧元（折合4. 5万美元），接近德国的水平，人们正在怀疑欧盟成员资格的合理性。


The costs are evident, they argue, but what are the benefits?	他们认为自己显然付出了很多成本，但却并未因此获益？


Meanwhile, fears of structural decline pervade the country.	此外，整个国家内部也到处弥漫着对结构性衰退的恐惧。


The crisis has lasted for a long time, and people are tired.	这场危机已经持续了很久，而民众都很疲倦了。


Unemployment has risen to a record 11.2%, with 35% of young people jobless.	失业率已经上升到创纪录的11. 2%，这就意味着35%的年轻人都没有工作。


And the tax burden, which has exceeded 40% of GDP since 1990, now stands at almost 43% of GDP.	而税收负担自1990年以来都一直超过GDP的40%，当前约为为GDP的43%


A Scandinavian level of taxes would be bearable if public services did not remain inferior to those offered in Scandinavia.	如果公共服务不低于北欧水平的话，现在这种北欧水平的税收负担也是可以承受的。


For example, per capita health-care spending in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland exceeds $3,000, compared to only $2,300 in Italy, where households must contribute roughly 20% of total health-care spending.	比如瑞典、丹麦和芬兰的人均公共医疗支出均超过三千美元，而意大利只有两千三百美元，这意味着意大利的家庭必须承担全部医疗支出的20%。


Moreover, Italy spends around 4.5% of GDP on education, while the Scandinavian countries spend more than 6% of GDP.	此外，意大利的教育支出占GDP的4. 5%，而北欧国家的教育支出超过GDP的6%。


As a result, Italian students’ scores in the Program for International Student Assessment are significantly lower than those of their counterparts in many other OECD countries.	结果，意大利学生在国际学生评估项目上的得分显著低于其他经合组织成员国的学生。


Italy’s new government will have to display leadership and vision to guide the economy toward stable growth, avert a race to the bottom, and stem growing social tension.	意大利的新政府必须表现出领导能力并展现引导经济走向稳定增长的愿景，避免经济加速下坠，还要遏制不断涌动的社会紧张局势。


Most important, economic renewal depends on the next government’s willingness and ability to address the institutional weaknesses that have made concerted action increasingly urgent.	最为重要的是，经济复兴取决于下一届政府应对体制性弱点的意愿和能力，而这种弱点已经使得一致行动越来越迫切。


An Energy Tax for Europe	欧洲的能源税


George W. Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq has put Europe in a bind.	布什灾难性的伊拉克战争让欧洲处于困境。


The United States long has been Europe’s protector.	美国长期以来一直是欧洲的保护国。


Now, because of a war it wanted no part of, Europe finds its security undermined.	现在，由于这一欧洲不想卷入的战争，欧洲感到其安全受到了削弱。


Chaos in Iraq has empowered Iran – a much more dangerous country for Europe than Iraq ever was.	伊拉克的混乱让伊朗得势，而对于欧洲来说伊朗是比伊拉克远更为危险的国家。


And, with America bogged down in Iraq, Russian President Vladimir Putin has resurrected Soviet-style bullying tactics.	而且，由于美国在伊拉克不能自拔，俄国总统普京又重新拾起了苏联式的恐吓伎俩。


Would Russia otherwise have dared to threaten to re-direct its nuclear missiles at European cities?	如果情况不是这样，俄国真的敢威胁重新把它的核导弹对准欧洲城市吗？


Not only has Bush destroyed Iran’s most formidable enemy and bogged down US troops in a hopeless cause; he also has enriched energy-abundant Iran and Russia by pursuing a war that has dramatically raised energy prices.	布什不仅仅是摧毁了伊朗最强大的敌人并让美国士兵身陷毫无希望可言的战斗事业，他还通过发动这一大幅度提高能源价格的战争而让能源丰富的伊朗和俄国大发其财。


High crude oil prices make it easier for Iran to build nuclear weapons and for Russia to use energy blackmail to threaten Europe.	高油价让伊朗更为容易建造核子武器并让俄国利用能源敲诈勒索来威胁欧洲。


But Europe can fight back.	但是欧洲却可以反击。


By imposing a stiff tax on energy consumption, Europeans would reduce both consumption of energy and its price in world markets, in turn cutting the flow of funds to Russia and Iran.	通过对能源消费实行高税收，欧洲人可以降低能源消费和国际市场上的能源价格，从而切断流向俄国和伊朗的资金。


Because crude oil is priced in US dollars, and the dollar has depreciated against the euro, European consumers have gotten off relatively easy from rising energy prices.	由于原油是以美元来标价，而美元相对欧元已经贬值，欧洲消费者在能源涨价中相对得以脱身。


So an energy tax roughly equal to the euro’s 33% appreciation in recent years would be about right.	所以，大致相对与欧元近年来升值33%的能源税大体上是正确的。


Europeans might be forgiven for thinking that the Americans, who pumped up oil prices in the first place with their military misadventure in Iraq, should be the ones who “pump it down” with an energy tax.	欧洲人认为，美国在伊拉克的军事冒险首先提高了石油价格，所以就应当用能源税来平抑油价。 人们可以原谅他们这样的想法。


But, with a “Texas oil man” in the White House, it won’t happen.	但是，美国现在是一个“德克萨斯州的石油商人”掌权，这种情况是不会发生的。


Perhaps after 2008, the politics in America will change in favor of an energy tax, but such a tax is needed now.	可能在2008年以后，美国政治的变化将会有利于能源税，但是现在就需要这样的税收。


Besides, given the strength of environmentalism in Europe, the issue is tailor-made for Europeans to take the lead.	另外，鉴于欧洲环保主义的实力，这一议题专门就是让欧洲人发挥领导作用。


Moreover, Europeans do not narrowly equate national security with military spending.	而且，欧洲人并不狭隘地将国家安全与军费开支等同起来。


They know that confiscating the checkbooks of Russia and Iran would probably make the world a lot safer than building another submarine or aircraft carrier.	他们知道，切断伊朗和俄国的财路可能要比多建造潜艇或者航空母舰可以更加让世界安全。


Indeed, an energy tax would not only effectively counter the argument that Europeans are “free riders” when it comes to defense; it would be tantamount to defense leadership.	确实，能源税不仅会有效地反击那种欧洲人是防务上的“逃票者”的论调； 这也将等同于在防务上发挥领导作用。


Still, with the amount of real resources transferred to their governments already high, Europeans might balk at a further increase.	然而，由于转移到政府的实际资源已经很多了，所以欧洲人可能会对进一步增加不满。


That is why the energy tax must be imposed as a tax substitution, with income or payroll taxes simultaneously reduced to keep real resource transfers to government at a constant level.	这就是为什么必须以税收替补的形式实施能源税，而所得税和工资税同时降低来让实际转移给政府的资源保持相同的水平。


This would increase economic growth as well as strengthen national security.	这将会在加强国家安全的同时提高经济增长。


Critics who worry about the cost of the energy tax have not thought about tax substitutions.	担心能源税费用的批评者们并没有考虑税收替代。


They also do not seem to realize that an energy tax is a much cheaper way for Europe to protect itself from Iran and Russia than alternative means, such as a defense buildup.	他们好像也并不认识到能源税比扩军等其他手段而言是保护自身免受伊朗和俄国威胁的远更为便宜的方式。


Europe currently lacks military muscle because it made a decision a half-century ago to be protected by the US and devote the saved resources to building up its welfare state.	欧洲目前缺少军事实力，因为它在半个世纪前做出决定让美国保护，并且将节省下来的资源用于建立自身的福利国家。


This strategy – which worked well for decades – always carried the risk that at some point America’s resources might be tied up elsewhere, leaving Europe under-protected.	这一战略几十年来一直奏效，但是却有风险，那就是美国的资源有可能被困于其他地方，让欧洲不能得到有效的保护。


That risk materialized with the Iraq war.	这一风险由于伊拉克战争而成为现实。


But Europeans are showing little taste for increased defense spending, Iraq or no Iraq.	但是欧洲人正在表明对于增加国防开支没有什么兴趣，无论是否有伊拉克战争。


Even France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy – thought by many to be a pro-American foreign policy hawk – is backing away from his campaign promise to maintain defense spending at 2% of GDP.	法国许多人认为新总统萨尔科奇是一个亲美国的外交政策上的鹰派，但即使是他也正在从他的保持军费开支在GDP的2%的竞选许诺中退缩。


In a recent speech to the French defense industry, Sarkozy conspicuously failed to repeat the pledge, instead warning that he soon might cut France’s defense budget.	萨尔科奇在最近向法国国防产业做的一次演讲中引人注目地没有重复许诺，相反却警告说他可能会马上削减法国的国防预算。


According to a respected defense industry publication, Sarkozy changed his mind after his party’s smaller-than-anticipated victory in June’s parliamentary election.	根据一家享有声誉的国防产业出版物报导，萨尔科奇在该党六月份议会选举获得比预期要小的胜利后变了卦。


The reason Europeans are reluctant to increase defense spending is expense.	欧洲人不愿意增加国防开支的理由是费用问题。


Cutting welfare spending – where the big money is – would be painful.	福利开支花费巨大，削减这一开支将是痛苦的。


Solemn promises made over the years would have to be broken (people would not get the social services that they paid for with a lifetime of high taxes), lives would be shortened (less money for hospitals and nursing homes), and overall hardship increased.	多年来做出的庄严许诺不得不违反(人们就无法得到他们终身付出高税收的社会服务)，受命将会缩短(医院和福利院拨款减少)，而总体的苦难会增加。


Even economic growth will not prevent a tradeoff between defense and welfare spending for Europeans.	即使经济增长也不会为欧洲人阻止在国防和福利开支两者之间做出取舍。


Fifty years of defense dependence on the US has created a powerful “peace industry” in Europe whose primary business is to fight defense spending tooth and nail.	防务五十年来一直依赖美国，在欧洲形成了强大的“和平产业”，其主要业务就是竭尽全力与国防开支作斗争。


They will want to protect all social spending, regardless of the consequences for foreign policy.	它们想要保护所有的社会开支，而无论其对外交政策的后果。


A counterweight to the “peace crowd” may be new migrants from Eastern Europe, for whom cuts in social services would break no promises, and for whom job availability and wage levels are more important.	来自东欧的新移民可能是对“和平群众”的制约。 对于他们来说，削减社会服务并不违反诺言，而且有工作和工资水平更为重要。


But it will take some time before the new migrants gain decisive political influence, and the problems of Iran and Russia for Europe require immediate attention.	但是新移民获得决定性的政治影响力还有待时日，而欧洲的伊朗和俄国问题却需要立即引起注意。


In short, Europeans will not allow Bush’s Iraq war to become a war on their welfare state.	简而言之，欧洲人不会允许布什的伊拉克战争成为对他们的福利国家的战争。


What makes the energy imposed as a tax substitution tax particularly attractive as a defense measure is that it leaves the welfare state intact while making Europe safer, greener, and richer.	让作为税收替代的能源税尤其作为防务措施具有吸引力的地方是，它在让欧洲更为安全、环保而且富有的同时保持福利国家毫发无损。


Why wait?	那么还要等待什么呢？


A New Anti-Semitism	新的反犹主义


These are violent times.	现在是暴力频发时期。


Some believe that we are experiencing a new kind of conflict: “culture wars,” such as those between Sunni and Shiite Muslims or tribal groups in Africa and Asia, or indeed Islamists and Westerners.	有些人相信我们正面临一场新型种类的冲突，也就是所谓“文化战争”，例如逊尼派与什叶派穆斯林之间的冲突，或者非洲和亚洲各种族部落之间的冲突，或者伊斯兰教主义者与西方之间的冲突。


However, the deeper reasons for some of these conflicts may well be more traditional.	然而，这些冲突的深层原因却很有可能更为传统。


Belonging to a particular cultural group is merely a pretext for battles between the winners and losers of globalization.	分属特定的文化团体只不过是全球化胜利者与失败者爆发冲突的一个借口。


Ruthless leaders mobilize disoriented followers.	残酷无情的领导人动员那些失去坐标的追随者。


Particularly the losers, often represented by young men with no future to look forward to, can be induced to take even suicidal action against the alleged enemy.	特别是那些全球化的失败者常常以那些没有未来可以憧憬的年轻人为代表，能够被诱导采取甚至是采取自杀式行动来对抗指称的敌人。


Perhaps one should not be surprised that at such a time, the oldest of our ugly – indeed, deadly – resentments, anti-Semitism, is re-emerging from the shadows.	在这样一个时代或许大家不应该对此感到吃惊，那就是我们古老的而且是致命的反犹主义仇恨正死灰复燃。


Its comeback takes the classical form of attacks on individuals, like the recent killing of a young Jew in France, or of disfiguring symbolic places, like cemeteries and synagogues.	其卷土重来以对个人进行攻击的传统形势进行，正如最近法国一个年轻的犹太人惨遭杀害，或者是毁坏标志性建筑，如公墓和犹太教堂。


But there is also a more general sense of hostility to all things Jewish.	但是也存在一种更为普遍的对所有犹太事物的敌视情绪。


One would have thought that anti-Semitism died forever with the Holocaust; but it did not.	有人可能认为反犹主义已经随着二战犹太人大屠杀一起永远消逝了；


There are those who deny that the Holocaust ever took place, or that it did in its all-too-well-documented manner.	但是事实并非如此。 仍然有人否定大屠杀历史，或者大屠杀以历史文献上不容置疑的方式发生过。


The deniers range from second-rate historians like David Irving to apparently popular politicians like Iran’s recently elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.	这些否认历史的人既有像大卫•欧文这样的二流历史学家，也有像伊朗最近当选的总统内贾德这样表面获得拥戴的政治家。


The evidence of what Nazi Germany did is so powerful that those who deny it can probably be dealt with even without putting them in prison and thereby drawing more attention to them than they deserve.	由于纳粹德国所作所为的证据充足有力，所以或许都不需要把这些否认历史的人投进监狱，以免让他们获得更多的关注。


The more worrisome source of anti-Semitism is different and justifies speaking of a new anti-Semitism.	一种与此不同的反犹主义苗头更令人担心，这种苗头可以称之为一种新的反犹主义。


It has to do with Israel.	它与以色列密不可分。


To be sure, America is the first name in anti-Western resentment.	毫无疑问，美国是反西方仇恨的首要目标，但紧随其后的就是以色列。


But its second name is Israel, the only successful modern country in the Middle East, which is also highly militarized, an occupying power, and ruthless in defense of its interests.	以色列是中东唯一成功实现现代化的国家，一个高度军事化的占领国，残酷无情地捍卫自己的利益。


It is difficult to exaggerate the strange sentiment in the West which one might call Palestine romanticism.	西方存在一种可以称为巴勒斯坦浪漫主义的奇异情绪，这种情绪很难被夸大。


Intellectuals like the late Edward Said gave voice to it, but it has many followers in the United States and Europe.	像已故的爱德华•赛德这样的知识分子是这种情绪的代言人，并且在欧美有众多的追随者。


Palestine romanticism glorifies the Palestinians as the victims of Israel’s rule, points to the treatment of Israeli Palestinians as at best second-class citizens, and cites the many incidents of oppression in the occupied territories, including the effects of Israel’s “security fence.”	巴勒斯坦浪漫主义美化作为以色列统治受害人的巴勒斯坦人，矛头指向以色列国内巴勒斯坦人最多只能享有二等公民的待遇，并且大量援引占领区内发生的压迫事件，包括以色列“安全围墙”的影响。


Implicitly or explicitly, people take the side of the victims, contribute by sending money to them, declare even suicide bombers legitimate, and move ever further away from support for and defense of Israel.	人们或含蓄或直率地站到了受害人的一边，通过捐钱给他们为之提供援助，甚至宣称自杀式爆炸行为合法，从支持与保卫以色列的立场上渐行渐远。


Of course, it is true that in theory one can oppose Israel’s policies without being anti-Semitic.	当然，理论上而言，人们可能虽然反对以色列的政策，但却不是反犹主义者。


After all, there are enough critics of Israel’s policies among Israelis.	毕竟，以色列国内也不乏批评以色列政策的人。


Yet the distinction has become more and more difficult to maintain.	但是，两者之间的界线却越来越模糊。


Jews outside Israel feel that they have to defend – right or wrong – the country that, after all, is their ultimate hope of security.	以色列以外的犹太人认为，他们无论对错都得保卫这个国家，因为毕竟它是他们最后的安全希望所在。


This makes their friends hesitate to speak up for fear of being painted into not just an anti-Israel, but also an anti-Semitic corner.	这就使得他们的朋友不敢仗义执言，因为他们害怕被划归成为不仅仅是反对以色列，而且是一个反犹主义者。


The defensiveness of Jews and the uneasy silence of their friends mean that the stage of public debate is open for those who actually are anti-Semitic, though they confine themselves to anti-Israel language.	犹太人的防御心理和他们朋友的尴尬沉默意味着，那些实际上真正的反犹主义者可以在公开辩论的舞台大行其道，虽然他们将自身局限于反对以色列的言辞。


Anti-Semitism is disgusting in whatever form it arises.	反犹主义无论以何种面目出现都令人厌恶。


This is true also for other kinds of group hatred, but the Holocaust makes anti-Semitism unique, because it is an emotion complicit in the near annihilation of an entire people.	虽然对于其它种族仇恨而言也同样如此，但是二战犹太人大屠杀使得反犹主义显得独一无二，因为它与那场几乎灭种的大屠杀串通一气。


The new anti-Semitism, however, cannot be fought successfully by education and argument in the rest of the world alone.	然而，不可能只通过在世界其它地方开展教育和辩论就成功地打败这种新的反犹主义。


It is linked to Israel.	它与以色列有着千丝万缕的联系。


If one belongs to a generation that regarded Israel as one of the great achievements of the twentieth century, and admired the way in which the country provided a proud home for the persecuted and downtrodden, one is particularly concerned that it may now be at risk.	如果一个人属于这样一代人，他们把以色列看作20世纪伟大的成就之一，崇拜这个国家采取种种方式为被压迫和被践踏的人提供了一个引以为自豪的家园，那么这个人肯定特别担心，因为这个国家现在可能面临风险。


A New Asian Security Constellation	新的亚洲安全链条


NEW DELHI – Leading members of the governments of India and South Korea recently met to begin a new “strategic partnership.”	发自新德里——印度和韩国政府的高级官员最近展开会晤，寻求启动一个新的“战略合作关系”。


They are not alone in doing so, for across Asia, a new security architecture is being constructed, seemingly piecemeal.	而他们也不是孤家寡人，因为在整个亚洲地区，一个新的安全架构虽然略显零散，但其实正在稳步构建当中。


How Asia’s geopolitical landscape will evolve over the coming decades is not easy to foresee.	亚洲的地缘政治状况在未来几十年内将如何演变依然是未知之数。


But it is apparent that an increasingly assertive China is unwittingly reinforcing America’s role in Asia, restoring US primacy as the implicit guarantor of security and stability in the region.	但很明显一个越来越自信的中国正不断补足美国在亚洲角色的缺漏之处，重新确立美国作为该地区安全和稳定保证者的首要地位。


There are at least four possible Asian security scenarios for the years and decades ahead.	在未来数年甚至数十年内，有可能出现4种不同的亚洲安全形势。


The first is the rise of a Sino-centric Asia.	首先就是出现一个以中国为中心的亚洲。


China seeks a multipolar world but a unipolar Asia.	中国在全球范围内寻求多极化，但要独霸亚洲。


By contrast, the US desires a unipolar world but a multipolar Asia.	与此相反的是，美国试图称霸世界，但却希望构建一个多极化的亚洲。


A second scenario is that the US remains Asia’s principal security anchor, with or without a third possibility: the emergence of a constellation of Asian states with common interests working together to ensure that Asia is not unipolar.	第二个情况就是美国依然是维护亚洲安全的最主要力量，无论第三种可能性存不存在：那就是各亚洲国家基于共同利益结成一个安全链条，确保亚洲单极化的情况不会发生。


Finally, Asia could come to be characterized by several resurgent powers, including Japan, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and a reunified Korea.	最后一种情况则是亚洲将被定义为一连串重新复兴的地区势力，包括日本、印度、越南，印尼以及一个重新统一的朝鲜半岛国家。


Of the four scenarios, the first has caused the greatest unease.	在这四个情况中，第一个已经引发了极大的不安定情绪。


China’s neighbors are increasingly anxious about its growing power and assertiveness.	中国的邻国对其不断膨胀的实力和自信的忧虑与日俱增。


While China’s rulers aspire to shape a Sino-centric Asia, their efforts to intimidate smaller neighbors hardly make China a credible candidate for Asian leadership.	当中国的统治者打算要建立一个中国一家独大的亚洲之时，他们恐吓弱小邻国的行为使之无法成为亚洲领导者的可靠候选人。


After all, genuine leadership cannot come from raw power, but only from other states’ consent or tacit acceptance.	毕竟，真正的领导力并不单纯来自于实力，而是来自于其他国家的赞同或者默认。


If leadership could be built on brute force, schoolyard bullies would be class presidents.	如果领导角色能靠穷兵黩武来建立，那么学校操场上的小混混也能成为校长。


In any event, China’s power may be vast and rapidly growing, but it lacks the ability to compel.	无论如何，中国的实力都将极其巨大并不断膨胀，但这种力量缺乏一种强制力。


In other words, China does not have the capability to rout any rival militarily, let alone enforce its will on Asia.	换句话说，中国没有能力去驱逐任何武力侵犯，更别说将武力施加于全亚洲了。


That fact has, however, done little to allay fears in the region.	然而这个事实并未能舒缓该地区的恐惧情绪。


With its defense spending having grown almost twice as fast as its GDP, China is now beginning to take the gloves off, confident that it has acquired the necessary muscle.	随着中国的军费以超过GDP增速两倍的速度增长，该国已经开始撕去伪装，自信已经有足够的实力行事了。


For example, China now includes the South China Sea in its “core” national interests, on a par with Taiwan and Tibet, in order to stake a virtually exclusive claim to military operations there.	比如说，中国目前将南中国海视为与台湾和西藏同等重要的“国家核心利益”，这是为了能在该区域独自开展军事行动。


China also has increasingly questioned India’s sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh, the northeastern Indian state that China’s rulers call “Southern Tibet” and claim largely as their own.	中国也逐渐质疑印度对阿鲁纳恰尔邦（位于印度东北面，中国称为“藏南”地区）所拥有的主权并宣称该地区大部分属于中国。


Indian defense officials have reported a rising number of Chinese military incursions across the 4,057-kilometer Himalayan border.	据印度国防官员报告，中国正在这条长达4057公里的边境线上不断增加军队部署。


As China seeks to translate its economic clout into major geopolitical advantages in Asia, a country that once boasted of “having friends everywhere” finds that its growing power may be inspiring awe, but that its actions are spurring new concerns and fears.	随着中国试图将其经济影响力转化为在亚洲地缘政治上的优势，这个曾经自称“朋友遍天下”的国家发现自己不断增长的实力可能会引发忧虑，但其实际动作更加刺激了新的关注和恐惧。


Which states will accept China as Asia’s leader?	试想哪个国家会把中国称之为亚洲领袖？


Six decades of ruthless repression has failed to win China acceptance even in Tibet and Xinjiang, as the Tibetan and Uighur revolts of 2008 and 2009 attested.	持续60年的残酷镇压甚至都难以让西藏和新疆认同这一点，这从2008年的西藏人和2009年的维吾尔人爆乱中可以得知。


Leadership entails more than the possession of enormous economic and military power. It demands the power of ideas that can galvanize others.	领导力要求的不仅仅是强大的经济和军事实力，而是需要一种能够激励各方的理念力量。


Such power also serves as the moral veneer to the assertiveness often involved in the pursuit of any particular cause or interest.	而这种力量同时也常常成为对某种目标或利益的追求的道德装饰。


The US and its allies won the Cold War, for example, not so much by military means as by spreading the ideas of political freedom and market capitalism to other regions.	比如说，美国及其盟国不是靠武力赢得了冷战，而是靠向其他区域播撒自由的理念和市场经济。


In the words of the strategic analyst Stanley A. Weiss, this “helped suck the lifeblood out of communism’s global appeal,” making it incapable of meeting the widespread yearning for a better and more open life.	正如战略分析家斯坦利·A·崴斯所说，此举“抽干了共产主义的新鲜血液，使其丧失全球吸引力，”也最终使之无法满足人们对更加美好也更加开放的生活的渴望。


China has shown itself adept at assertively promoting its national interests and playing classical balance-of-power geopolitics. But, in order to displace the US and assume the mantle of leadership in Asia, China must do more than pursue its own interests or contain potential rivals.	中���已经在实现本国利益和玩弄经典地缘政治平衡方面展示了自信，但如果要最终取代美国并领导亚洲的话，中国就不能仅仅追求自身利益或是遏制潜在对手。


Most fundamentally, what does China represent in terms of values and ideas?	更根本的则是中国究竟代表了什么样的价值观以及理念。


In the absence of an answer to that question, China’s overly assertive policies have proven a diplomatic boon for the US in strengthening and expanding American security arrangements in Asia.	在无法回答这个问题的情况下，中国的过度自信反而在外交上刺激了美国在亚洲地区加强并扩张安全合作条约的举动。


South Korea has tightened its military alliance with the US, Japan has backed away from a move to get the US to move its Marine airbase out of Okinawa, and India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, among others, have drawn closer to the US.	韩国已经和美国加强了军事同盟，日本先前要求美军空军基地撤出冲绳，如今也重投美国的怀抱。 在亚洲诸国中，印度、越南，印尼和菲律宾都和美国走得更近了。


In terms of power-projection force capabilities or the range of military bases and security allies in Asia, no power or combination of powers is likely to match the US in the next quarter-century.	在武力投送能力，以及军事基地分布和亚洲安全盟友的数量来看，没有任何单一力量或者联盟能在未来25年内与美国匹敌。


But, while America’s continued central role in Asia is safe, the long-term viability of its security arrangements boils down to the credibility of its security assurances to allies and partners.	但在美国继续确保亚洲核心地位的同时，其安全条约的长期有效性必须要靠对盟友和伙伴的安全保证来维护。


America’s readiness to stand by them when the game gets rough will determine the strength and size of its security-alliance system in Asia in the years ahead.	美国在形势恶化时与盟友并肩作战的决心将决定其未来亚洲安全联盟系统的能力和规模。


The third and fourth scenarios can unfold even if the US remains the principal security anchor for Asia.	在美国依然保持其亚洲安全基石作用的情况下，第三和第四种状况也可能出现。


A number of Asian countries have already started building mutually beneficial security cooperation on a bilateral basis, thereby laying the groundwork for a potential web of interlocking strategic partnerships.	各亚洲国家也开始构建多边安全互助合作，并为未来形成一个连锁的战略合作伙伴关系打下了基础。


A constellation of Asian states linked by strategic cooperation, in fact, has become critical to help institute power stability in the region.	事实上，一连串由战略合作连接起来的亚洲国家，对于实现地区实力稳定是极为关键的。


A New Bargain for UN Reform	联合国改革的新协议


The United Nations is torn apart by internal tensions.	联合国深受内耗困扰。


No sooner was the controversy over the creation of a Human Rights Council satisfactorily resolved than a new battle has erupted.	有关建立联合国人权理事会的争议刚刚满意解决，新的争端又开始了。


The United States is pressing for administrative reforms and threatening to cut off funding if the reforms are not forthcoming.	美国正在努力争取行政改革并且威胁说，如果不进行改革就要削减经费。


The Secretary General has submitted a reasonable reform plan, but a majority of UN member states, acting together as the so-called G-77, are balking, because they regard it as another step in reducing the authority of the General Assembly relative to the Security Council.	秘书长也已提交了一份合乎情理的改革规划。 但是，联合国成员国的大多数国家，即所谓的77国集团联合强烈反对。


In particular, they object to the plan’s proposal to give increased powers and responsibilities to the Secretary General, whose selection is effectively in the hands of the Security Council’s five permanent members, which wield veto power.	这是因为它们认为这是迈向削弱联合国大会、偏重于安理会的又一个步骤。 它们特别反对该规划中赋予秘书长更多权力和责任的建议，而拥有否决权的安理会五个常任理事国实际上决定秘书长的人选。


Many UN members, believing that power within the UN has been shifting from the General Assembly, resist giving up what they regard as its last vestige: control over the budget through the work of the Assembly’s Fifth Committee.	许多联合国成员国相信，联合国的内部权力在从联合国大会转移出来，因而拒不放弃它们所认为的最后一点权限，也就是通过大会第五委员会的工作控制预算。


In practice, the Fifth Committee has exercised the kind of micro-management over personnel and expenditure that ought to be exercised by the Secretary General if the UN is to operate effectively and to have a staff which is up to the challenges facing the organization.	在实践中，第五委员会对人事和开支实施了本应由秘书长实施的宏观管理，而由秘书长实施则可以确保联合国有效运作并拥有一套可以胜任该组织面临的挑战的工作班子。


This is the basis of America’s insistence on administrative reforms.	这也就是美国所坚持的行政改革基础。


There is an urgent need to find a way out of this impasse.	目前急需找到脱离这一困局的途径。


Failure of the current proposal would mean an effective end to all efforts to reform the UN, with disastrous consequences for people across the world who depend on the aid provided by the UN Development Program, the security provided by the UN’s numerous peacekeeping operations, or the myriad other services rendered by UN agencies.	当前的提议如果失败将意味着所有联合国改革努力的终结。 这将给世界各地依赖于由联合国发展计划署提供的援助、联合国为数众多的维和任务提供的安全或者由联合国机构提供的难以计数的其他服务的人们带来灾难性的后果。


For example, failure of management reform would fuel demands by the US Congress to withhold America’s contributions to the UN budget – a policy that would greatly undermine America’s own interests, such as the planned expansion of the mission to stop genocide in Darfur.	例如，管理改革失败，美国国会将会增加扣留美国给联合国预算贡献的要求，而这一政策将会极大地损害美国的自身利益，例如计划中的扩大停止达尔富尔种族灭绝大屠杀的使命。


The path to a satisfactory resolution is clear: give the General Assembly a greater role in the selection of the Secretary General so that members would be delegating powers to an authority of their own choosing.	通向满意结局的途径是清楚的，那就是在秘书长的挑选问题上赋予联合国大会更大的作用，这样成员国将会把权力交付给它们自身所选择的权力机构。


This solution would not only permit the much-needed administrative reforms to be implemented; it would also bring clarity and transparency to a process that is in great need of improvement.	这一方案不仅会落实急需进行的行政改革，而且还会澄清这一急需改进的进程并将之透明化。


After all, the UN Charter provides that “the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”	毕竟，联合国宪章规定，联合国大会根据安理会的推荐任命秘书长。


The original concept was that the two bodies would reach a consensus on a candidate.	最初的构思是，这两大机构将在候选人问题上达成一致。


In practice, however, the five permanent members now agree on a candidate, and their decision is rubber-stamped first by the Security Council and then by the General Assembly.	但是实际上，五个常任理事国就候选人达成一致，其决定由安理会、随后由联合国大会以橡皮图章形式通过。


Real discussions about a new Secretary General are currently being conducted in secrecy among the permanent five, adding to the frustration of other UN members, including large powers that have been seeking without success to enlarge the Security Council.	有关新秘书长的实质性讨论正在五大常任理事国间秘密进行，给包括寻求扩大安理会规模不成的大国在内的其他成员国平添了怨言。


To achieve the reforms of the budget process that it wants, the US will need to lead the way in persuading the other permanent members of the Council to give the General Assembly a greater role in the process.	美国为实现要求的预算进程改革，应当在劝说安理会其他常任理事国在该进程中赋予联合国大会更大的作用上起主导作用。


This might be done in several ways.	可以有几个途径达到这一点。


The Security Council might agree to recommend several candidates from which the General Assembly would select one.	安理会可以同意推荐几个候选人，由联合国大会挑选。


Alternatively, the General Assembly might propose several candidates to the Security Council, from which the Council would choose one to refer back to the Assembly for approval.	同样，联合国大会可以向安理会建议几个人选，安理会从中挑选一人再由大会批准。


Either way, the selection process would benefit from greater transparency.	无论采用哪种方式，挑选进程都将得益于更大的透明度。


For example, the General Assembly should hold public hearings in which candidates are interviewed, thereby greatly enhancing the stature of the candidate who is eventually selected.	例如，大会应当举行公开听证会面试候选人，这样大大提高最终获选的候选人地位。


Such proposals, if accepted, would help resolve the current dispute to everyone’s satisfaction.	此类建议如果得到接受，将会帮助解决目前的争议，各方都满意。