To be sure, it remains the world’s eighth-largest economy, with a per capita income of roughly €26,000 ($29,300) and a relatively high gross savings rate of 18% of GDP.	诚然，它仍是世界第八大经济体，人均收入大约为26,000欧元，毛储蓄率也较高，为GDP的18%。


But from 2000 to 2015, real GDP shrank slightly, while real per capita income dropped by 0.5%.	但从2000年到2015年，真实GDP略有下降，真实人均收入下降0. 5%。


The 2012-2014 period was especially difficult, with a deep and prolonged recession resulting in a 2.1% drop in real GDP and 4.3% drop in real per capita income.	2012—2014年特别困难，长时间深度衰退导致真实GDP 下降2. 1%，真实人均收入下降4.


Unsurprisingly, for many young people, emigration seems a better option than unemployment or underemployment at home, where they must rely on support from their families.	毫不奇怪，对许多年轻人来说，移民似乎是比在国内失业或不充分就业、必须依靠家庭更好的选择。


Of course, some end up in precarious or unsatisfactory jobs abroad.	当然，一些人在国外的工作也不稳定和如意。


But for the most skilled and best qualified, the chances of building a career in their chosen field abroad are significantly higher than in Italy.	但对大部分有技能、高质量的年轻人来说，在国外打开他们所选择的领域的职业生涯的机会远远高于意大利。


Not surprisingly, it is Italy’s most qualified who are most likely to leave.	毫不奇怪，最有可能离开的正是质量最高的意大利年轻人。


This trend began in the late 1980s, with PhDs and researchers who could not find a place at local universities, which are hierarchically controlled, prone to corruption, and starved of funding.	这一趋势始于20世纪80年代末，当时，博士和研究人员无法在论资排辈、腐败横行、又囊中羞涩的本地大学找到职位。


Since then many other professionals, from doctors and health-care practitioners to librarians and software specialists, have joined them.	此后，其他许多专业人士，从医生和医疗工作者到图书管理员和软件专家，都加入了出国大军。


To some extent, this trend is being offset by immigration, with three newcomers (officially) arriving for every Italian who leaves.	在某种程度上，这一趋势被移民流入所抵消，（官方数据是）对于每一位离开的意大利人，有三位新来者到来。 对意大利的人口平衡来说，外国人的涌入——略高于五百万人，或人口的8.


For Italy’s demographic balance, this influx of foreigners – just over five million people, 8.3% of the population – is a positive development.	3%——这是一个积极趋势。 意大利是人口年龄仅次于德国的最年长的国家，每位15岁以下年轻人对应1.


Not only does Italy have the EU’s oldest population after Germany, with 1.5 people over 65 for every one person under 15; its fertility rate, 1.35 children per woman, is also one of the world’s lowest, about on par with Japan.	意大利出生率为每位妇女生育1. 35个孩子，也位于世界最低行列，大约和日本相当。


But the limited supply of higher-skill jobs in Italy, compared to other advanced EU countries, also affects migrant flows.	但意大利相对其他欧盟发达国家更加有限的高技能岗位供给也在影响移民流向。


With 30% of foreign workers believing that they are overqualified for the job they perform, Italy is losing its appeal, especially to skilled professionals.	30% 的外国工人认为自己大材小用，因此意大利正在失去吸引力，特别是对高技能专业人士。


As a result, since 2007, the number of immigrants arriving each year has fallen by half, while the number of emigrants has tripled.	结果，自2007年以来，每年到达意大利的移民人数下降了一半，而离开意大利的移民人数增加了两倍。


Those who remain in Italy – Italian or foreign – tend to be the least skilled.	留在意大利的人——不管是意大利人还是外国人——一般技能较低。


Some 41% of Italy’s population has only a basic education, a considerably higher share than in most other European countries (with the exceptions of Portugal, Malta, and Spain).	41%的意大利人口只接受过基础教育，这一比例远高于其他大部分欧洲国家（葡萄牙、马耳他和西班牙除外）。


Moreover, 17% of Italy’s population leaves education prematurely, and only 22% of young people receive tertiary education.	此外，17%的意大利人口过早结束教育，只有22%的年轻人接受高等教育。


The good news is that Italy, along with its EU partners, has already committed to improving these education outcomes.	好消息是意大利与其欧盟伙伴国家一样，已经承诺要改善教育结果。


The European Commission’s Europe 2020 growth strategy – aimed at creating “a smart, sustainable, and inclusive economy” – demands that countries reduce by 2020 the share of early school leavers to below 10% and ensure that at least 40% of people aged 30-34 have completed some form of higher education.	欧盟委员会的欧洲2020增长战略——旨在创造“智能、可持续和包容的经济”——要求到2020年各国将辍学比例降低到10%以下，并保证至少40%的30—34岁人口完成某种形式的高等教育。


But these goals represent just one feature of an effective strategy for revitalizing Italy’s economy and capacity to attract top talent.	但这些目标只是重振意大利经济和对顶级人才的吸引力的有效战略的一个方面。


Italy’s government must also fulfill its promise of further improving labor-market flexibility and fighting corruption, including in the form of nepotism.	意大利政府还必须兑现进一步改善劳动力市场灵活性和打击腐败（包括裙带风）的承诺。


Given the headwinds of a sluggish world economy and the legacy of a long recession, however, reforms will be difficult to implement.	但是，考虑到世界经济停滞的不利因素和长期衰退的后遗症改革实施起来很困难。


At the very least, they will take time.	至少需要时间。


In the meantime, young Italians will continue to try to build their future elsewhere.	与此同时，年轻意大利人仍在继续着眼于其他地区寻找未来。


Not even a young, buoyant prime minister can persuade them to stay.	即使充满信心的年轻总理也无法说服他们留下。


Ivy League Investors	长青藤联盟投资者


Yale University, where I teach, has entrusted its endowment portfolio to one man, David Swensen, for over 20 years.	在过去20年中，我所执教的学校耶鲁大学将其捐款组合交付给了斯文森一人。


During this period, the portfolio has grown from just over $1 billion to $18 billion – an average return of more than 16% a year, which appears to be the highest of any major university.	在此期间，这一组合从10亿美元多一点增长到了180亿美元，每年的平均回报超过16%，这一比率可能是任何主要大学中最高的。 而且，也没有任何下降的迹象。


And it shows no signs of diminishing: in the latest fiscal year ending in June, the return was 22.9%.	在今年六月份结束的最新财政年度中，回报率为22. 9%。


Presidents of Yale have come and gone, but Swensen stays on.	耶鲁大学的校长们过往不息，而斯文森则岿然不动。


He has done more for the university than any president, or anyone else.	他为耶鲁大学做出的贡献超过了任何一位校长或任何某人。


In a university, ideas count more than money, but $18 billion dollars can create an environment for many new ideas.	在大学中，观点比金钱更为重要。 但是，180亿美元却可以为许多新观点创造环境。


With 11,500 students, that is more than $1.5 million per student (not including the university’s buildings and art collection, each worth many billions of dollars more).	耶鲁大学有学生11,500名，这样，每个学生均摊150万美元多 (不包括耶鲁大学的建筑和艺术收藏，每一项都值几十亿美元) 。


How did this happen?	这是如何形成的呢？


How did Swensen make so much money?	斯文森如何挣到那么多的钱？


Everyone is wondering – not least those of us at Yale.	每个人，不仅仅是我们耶鲁的人都在疑问。


After all, many people here have been teaching the “efficient markets hypothesis” that financial markets around the world have become so competitive that it is impossible to make more than a normal return from investing.	毕竟，许多人都一直在传播“高效市场假设”。 这一假设认为，全球的金融市场变得极为富有竞争性，乃至从投资中获得超过正常的回报是不可能的。


Anyone who beats the market must simply be lucky.	任何在金融市场中长袖善舞必定是极为幸运的。


Studies seem to confirm this.	研究报告好像也证实这一点。


For example, a 2004 study by Brad Barber and Terrance Odean of the University of California and Yi-Tsung Lee and Yiu-Jane Liu at National Chengchi University acquired trade-by-trade data on individual day traders on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.	例如，加利福尼亚大学的巴伯和欧丁以及台湾国立政治大学的李怡宗和刘玉珍在2004年做的研究报告获得了台湾股票交易所中单个股民的交易数据。


The study found that only the top 1% of day traders made a profit – after deducting trading costs – in two consecutive six-month periods, and the median profit was hardly worth the effort: only about US$4000.	这一研究发现，在连续两个半年期间中，只有前1%的股民在扣减了交易成本后依然获利，而中等利润只有大概4000美元，还不及辛苦钱。


It is easy to conclude that there is just no point in even trying to beat the market.	因此，很容易得出结论说，即使是试图获得超过市场平均的回报都是徒劳的。


But then one remembers people like Swensen.	但是，人们又记得像斯文森那样的人。


Can his consistent performance really be attributed to luck?	他的一贯的业绩真的归功于运气吗？


Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of popular investment books, bases his books’ titles and themes on a comparison of his own highly-educated father with his friend’s father, an eighth-grade dropout.	罗伯特清崎是<<富爸爸，穷爸爸>>以及一系列畅销投资书籍的作者。 他把他的书名和主题建立在他的受过高等教育的爸爸和他的朋友的、八年级辍学的爸爸的比较上。


According to Kiyosaki, his poor but scholarly dad tended to be pessimistic about one’s ability to achieve anything in the real world, so he discouraged his son from even trying.	在他看来，他的爸爸清贫但是有学问，而且，对于人们在现实生活中做出成就倾向于悲观，因此他就劝他的儿子连尝试都不要。


By contrast, the friend’s dad relished trying to achieve something big.	与此相反，他的朋友的爸爸却热衷于大显身手。


Is it just a coincidence that he was rich?	他富有仅仅是巧合吗？


Kiyosaki may try too hard to be inspirational, but I often think of him when I hear finance professors opine on the efficiency of markets and the futility of making money by trading in them.	清崎可能过于竭力表现得鼓舞人心，但是，当我听说金融学教授对市场的高效以及通过股票交易挣钱无功而返发表意见时，我经常想到他。


Maybe many academics find it difficult to take the initiative to achieve in the real world – I have yet to meet another professor who has mentioned having read Kiyosaki.	可能是众多的学者认为开拓进取、在现实生活中有所获利是困难的事情。 目前为止，我还没有遇到一位提到读过清崎书籍的教授。


But Swensen is an academic, with a Ph.D. in economics.	但是，斯文森却是一位学者，拥有经济学博士学位。


He is surrounded by academics.	他的周围也是学者。


Somehow, all this talk about efficient markets has not discouraged him from trying, and succeeding.	不知怎的，所有这些有关高效市场的谈论都没有劝阻他进行尝试以及成功。


There seems to be a pattern.	这里看起来有一种模式。


Two similar universities, Harvard and Princeton, have had nearly the same success.	两所类似的大学，哈佛大学和普林斯顿大学也有几乎相同的成功。 在过去10年中，与斯文森平均17.


The Harvard endowment, under Jack Meyer, earned a 15.2% average annual return over the last ten years, compared to Swensen’s 17.2% average, while the Princeton endowment, under Andrew Golden, earned an average of 15.6% per year.	2%的回报率相比，哈佛大学的捐款在梅尔的管理下获得了年均15. 2%的回报，而普林斯顿的捐款在戈登的管理下则年均获利15.


In fact, Golden worked under Swensen at Yale from 1988 until 1993.	6%。 实际上，戈登在1988年至1993年期间在斯文森手下工作。


Swensen has written two books about investing, one for professionals and one for the general public.	斯文森写了两本有关投资的书，一本用于专业人士，另外一本用于普通读者。


I did not come away from reading them with a feeling that I know how to do what he did.	我读后并不感觉我知道了他的成功之道。


But a couple of things stand out.	但是还是有几样事情值得注意。


One is his long-term focus.	首先是他的长期关注。


Yale lets Swensen invest for the very long term, and does not bother him about quarterly performance.	耶鲁大学让斯文森做长线投资，而且并不在季度业绩上打扰他。


Maybe this allows him to focus more on long-term fundamentals – and thus to make investments that may not perform well in the short run.	这可能让他更为关注长期的基本面，从而做出在短期内可能并不十分获利的投资。


But, in fact, he has done consistently well in both the short term and the long term.	但是，实际上，他在长线和短线上一直做得都很好。


Part of the reason for Swensen’s success is “absolute return,” a term – now widely quoted in the investment community – that he coined for unusual investment strategies involving such things as merger arbitrage and distressed securities.	斯文森成功的一部分原因是“绝对回报”，这一名词现在在投资界经常被引用。 他为不同寻常的投资战略造了这一名词。


He also has invested in non-traditional asset classes, including real estate, oil, timber, private equity, and venture capital and buyout firms.	这些战略包括兼并套利以及价格被压低的证券。 他还投资于非传统资产级别，包括房地产、石油、木材、私有股本以及风险资本和收购公司等等。


These assets are generally not followed by multiple analysts, and are not easily understood, giving him a greater advantage in applying his intellectual skills and the skills of others around him.	多重分析师通常并不追踪这些资产，而且也不易被理解，因此就在应用其智力技能以及他周围的人的技能方面给了他更大的优势。


In these senses, Swensen is completely different from day traders, who are both investing for the short term and trying to beat the most crowded market – the market for exchange-listed securities.	在这些方面���斯文森与一般股民迥然不同。 这些股民做短线交易，同时又试图在拥挤的在交易所挂牌交易市场中获得超出平均的回报。


But I also think that the phenomenal success of Swensen and others like him reflects the environment that Kiyosaki criticizes.	但是，我还认为斯文森以及类似的人不同凡响的成功反映了清崎所批评的环境。


The problem is a defeatist attitude, not scholarship.	问题是失败主义着的态度，而非学识。


When an analytical mind, a mind that is trained to search rigorously for the truth and as part of a community of such people is set free from self-doubt, it can do amazing things.	当一个具有分析能力、受过训练来努力探寻真理的头脑以及这样的一些人摆脱了自我怀疑，就可以做出令人惊叹的事情。


Knowing David Swensen, I can attest that he is not a lonely day trader trying to beat the market.	我认识斯文森，可以作证他不是一个孤独的、试图取得高于平均市场回报的股民。


He is a good listener, is supportive of people he trusts, and is surrounded by a lot of good people with a wide array of skills.	他善于倾听，为他所信赖的人提供支持，而且周围有许多具有大量不同技能的人才。


And he is certainly not a defeatist.	而且，他也绝对不是一个失败主义者。


Europe’s Red-Tape Economy	欧洲的官样经济


WARSAW – Over the past 60 years, the project of European integration has confronted many challenges: post-war economic hardships, the heavy yoke of communism, and the uncertain footing of the post-Cold War world.	华沙—在过去60年中，欧洲一体化工程面临着诸多挑战：战后经济困境、共产主义的严重束缚、后冷战时代的不确定性。


But, while it has overcome them all, with the European Union now comprising 28 states, many of which now share a common currency, the EU faces another, equally important challenge – that of reducing the burden of regulation weighing down its major industries.	但是，尽管欧洲一体化工程克服了所有这些问题，如今欧盟已经有了28个成员国，其中许多还共用一种货币，但欧盟仍面临着另一个同样重要的挑战——减轻让其主要行业不堪重负的监管负担。


European business is bound up in rules and regulations, many of which originate from unelected officials in Brussels, whose laudable intention to harmonize business conditions across the EU is instead sapping the continent’s commercial creativity and dynamism.	欧洲商业受到规则和监管的束缚，其中许多规则和监管来源于布鲁塞尔的非当选官员，他们调和欧盟商业环境的初衷值得赞赏，但结果却是破坏了欧洲大陆的商业创新和活力。


As a result, economic performance has become sluggish as competitiveness declines and unemployment, especially among young people, remains stubbornly high.	结果是竞争力的衰落和失业（特别是年轻人失业）顽固高企，经济表现也因此停滞不前。


EU institutions issue thousands of regulations, directives, and decisions every year.	每年，欧盟机构要出台几千项监管、指导和决定。


In 2012, 1,799 laws were enacted; in 2011, there were 2,062.	2012年实施了1 799项法律； 2011年是2 062项。


Some laws, enacted long ago for a European Community of six founding members, are still on the books.	一些法律年代久远，本是为了欧共体创始六国设立的，但至今仍保留着。


It is this thicket of red tape that hampers business and deters entrepreneurs.	这批汗牛充栋的官样文章阻碍着欧洲商业和企业家。


One small but important example of this is the average cost of setting up a business, which is €158 ($212) in Canada, €664 in the US, and €2,285 in the EU (and as much as €4,141 in Italy).	一个很小但重要的例子是创办企业的平均成本。 加拿大是158欧元，美国是664欧元，而欧盟是2 285欧元（其中意大利是4 141欧元）。


The sheer cost of getting started is as big a deterrent as one can imagine for a young entrepreneur trying to escape the bounds of unemployment.	创业的高成本成为试图通过企业家之梦摆脱失业束缚的年轻人的一个巨大障碍。


European industry is afflicted by similar problems.	欧洲工业也受困于类似问题。


The refining and petrochemical sector supplies the EU with a large proportion of its fuel, and is also a major source of tax revenue.	炼油和石化部门供应着大部分欧盟所用燃料，也是主要税收收入来源。


The downstream sector, together with fuels distribution, contributes a total of around €240 billion annually to treasury coffers.	这一下游部门加上燃料分销部门每年为欧盟贡献约2 400亿欧元的财政收入。


By any reckoning, this is an important industry that should not suffer from overregulation.	不管从哪个角度看，这都是一个重要行业，不应该因为过度监管受损。


But, while the industry faces the threat of inflated gas prices from around the world, its concerns closer to home are the abundance of EU and national energy regulations.	但是，尽管该行业面临全球天然气价格上升的风险，但更迫在眉睫的担忧是欧盟和国家层面的叠床架屋的能源监管。


Excessive law-making has pushed up prices and pushed out investors, not only from refining and petrochemicals, but from all energy-intensive sectors, including aluminum, steel, and cement.	过度立法推高了价格，也挤出了投资者，不但炼油和石化部门是如此，所有能源密集型部门都是如此，包括铝业、钢铁业和水泥业。


In some EU states, electricity prices for industrial customers are twice what their North American counterparts pay.	在一些欧盟国家，工业用电价是北美的两倍。


Overly complex climate regulations, political resistance to shale-gas development, and energy policies that favor expensive, ineffective technologies are largely to blame.	过度复杂的气候监管、页岩气开发的政治阻力以及偏袒昂贵、低效技术的能源政策是罪魁祸首。


Some policymakers in Brussels are gradually beginning to recognize that lower energy prices might be good for the economy.	布鲁塞尔的一些决策者正逐渐开始认识到更低的能源价格或许对经济有利。


But most still believe that protecting society and the environment from the wider effects of the energy business should take priority over the industry’s development and broader economic growth.	但大部分仍相信保护社会和环境免受能源业务波及影响应该优于该行业的发展和更广的经济增长。


They assume that robust recovery and job creation will emerge simply of their own accord; as a result, rather than enjoying sustainable growth, Europe is heading toward a model for which a new term – “sustainable stagnation” – might be appropriate.	他们认为稳健复苏和就业创造会从天上掉下来； 因此，欧洲非但没有迎来可持续增长，反而进入了一种新模式——“可持续停滞”。


This approach is a colossal waste of money.	如此决策是对资金的巨大浪费。


As Bjørn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center notes, “The European Union will pay $250 billion for its current climate policies each and every year for 87 years.	哥本哈根共识中心（Copenhagen Consensus Center）的比约恩·隆伯格（Bjørn Lomborg）指出：“欧盟将会在87年的时间里每年为其当前气候政策付出2 500亿美元。


For almost $20 trillion, temperatures by the end of the century will have been reduced by a negligible 0.05ºC.”	在花了20万亿美元后，到本世纪末气温将下降可以忽略不计的0. 05℃。


By contrast, the EU is allocating a paltry €8 billion over seven years to alleviate youth unemployment, which currently runs close to 60% in some member states.	”相反，欧盟在七年的时间里只花了区区80亿欧元用于解决年轻人失业问题，目前一些成员国的年轻人失业率高达近60%。


But Europe’s economy will not grow, and a sufficient number of jobs will not be created, if such vital industries as aluminum, steel, fuels, plastics, and cement are not allowed to thrive.	但欧洲经济不会增长，也无法创造足够数量的就业岗位，如果铝业、钢铁业、燃料业、塑料业和水泥业等关键行业无法繁荣的话。


This outcome would be bad not only for the economy, but also for the environment, because these industries will simply continue relocating to markets with far worse environmental records.	这一结果不仅不利于经济，也不利于环境，因为这些行业将继续流向环境记录原味糟糕的市场。


The problem is not a lack of investment capital.	问题不在于缺少投资资本。


In 2011, Europe’s publicly traded firms had an estimated €750 billion in cash sitting on their balance sheets, equivalent to twice the decline in private-sector investment in the EU from 2007 to 2011.	2011年，欧洲上市公司资产负债表上的现金数量可达7 500亿欧元，相当于2007—2011年欧盟私人部门投资减少程度的两倍。


But, despite the dire state of public finances, the desperate need for growth and jobs, and historically low interest rates, the authorities are doing nothing to encourage investment.	但是，尽管公共财政情况惨淡、对增长和就业的需要紧迫、利率也维持在历史低位，但当局却没有采取措施鼓励投资。


Europe’s governments urgently need to undertake a root-and-branch review of the regulatory environment, especially in those industries that have the greatest impact on the wider economy.	欧洲政府急切地需要采取对监管环境的全方位检视，特别是在对整体经济具有最大影响力的行业。


And, after six decades of meddling, EU policymakers should step back and consider which restrictions have become harmful or irrelevant, and how better to support the entrepreneurs and industries of the future.	此外，在六十年瞎干预后，欧盟决策者应该后退一步，思考那些限制是有害的或无关紧要的，以及如何更好地支持未来企业家和行业。


Much of the groundwork has already been laid by the OECD, in several guiding principles: economic goals, especially growth and competitiveness, should be as important as social and environmental goals; a regulation’s benefits must justify its costs; regulations should be reviewed frequently, and a cost-benefit analysis of all the alternatives – including simply maintaining the status quo – should always be carried out.	经合组织已经打好了大量基础，包括一些指导原则：经济目标，特别是增长和竞争力目标，其重要性不应该低于环境目标； 监管必须利大于弊；


With 7% of the global population, 25% of global GDP, and 50% of global welfare expenditure, the EU has created a model that inspires millions of people to dream of emigrating to Europe.	欧元区占据全球人口的7%，GDP的25%，50%的全球财富支出，创造了吸引数百万人梦想移民欧洲的模式。


However, the EU’s historic emphasis on achieving its social goals, to the exclusion of industry’s long-term needs, is undermining the entire European project.	但是，欧盟长期强调实现其社会目标以至于不顾行业的长期需要，这破坏了整个欧洲工程。


The EU cannot be the inclusive, thriving, and democratic home that millions dream of if red tape is allowed to strangle the industries that are crucial to European prosperity.	如果欧盟继续放任官样文章继续窒息欧洲繁荣关键之所在的行业，就不可能实现包容和民主，成为数百万人的梦想之地。


Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture	通货膨胀、美联储和大局


CAMBRIDGE – Inflation – its causes and its connection to monetary policy and financial crises – was the theme of this year’s international conference of central bankers and academics in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.	美国剑桥—通货膨胀——它的原因以及它与货币政策和金融危机的关系——是今年怀俄明州杰克森霍尔（Jackson Hole）央行行长和学者国际会议的主题。


But, while policymakers’ desire to be prepared for potential future risks to price stability is understandable, they did not place these concerns in the context of recent inflation developments at the global level – or within historical perspective.	但是，尽管决策者渴望为潜在未来物价稳定风险做好准备之心可以理解，但他们并未把这些担忧置于最近全球层面通胀发展的环境（或置于历史角度）中考虑。


For the 189 countries for which data are available, median inflation for 2015 is running just below 2%, slightly lower than in 2014 and, in most cases, below the International Monetary Fund’s projections in its April World Economic Outlook.	从有数据的189个国家看，2015年中位通胀水平正好不到2%，略低于2014年，也低于国际货币基金组织（IMF）在其4月的《世界经济展望》（World Economic Outlook）中的预测。


As the figure below shows, inflation in nearly half of all countries (advanced and emerging, large and small) is now at or below 2% (which is how most central bankers define price stability).	下面的数据显示，目前近一半的国家（发达国家和新兴国家、大国和小国）通胀没有超过2%（大部分央行定义物价稳定的数字）。


Most of the other half are not doing badly, either.	另一半中的大多数做得也不差。


In the period following the oil shocks of the 1970s until the early 1980s, almost two-thirds of the countries recorded inflation rates above 10%.	在20世纪70年代石油冲击后直到80年代初的一段时期中，近三分之二的国家录得超过10%的通货膨胀率。


According to the latest data, which runs through July or August for most countries, there are “only” 14 cases of high inflation (the red line in the figure).	根据最新数据（大部分国家为7月或8月数据），“只有”14个国家出现了高通胀（图中红线）。


Venezuela (which has not published official inflation statistics this year) and Argentina (which has not released reliable inflation data for several years) figure prominently in this group.	委内瑞拉（今年没有发布官方通胀数字）和阿根廷（已有多年没有可靠通胀数据发布）在这一群体中鹤立鸡群。


Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and a handful of African countries comprise the rest.	伊朗、俄罗斯、叙利亚、乌克兰和一些非洲国家组成了其他部分。


The share of countries recording outright deflation in consumer prices (the green line) is higher in 2015 than that of countries experiencing double-digit inflation (7% of the total).	2015年录得消费物价全面通缩（绿线）的国家比例比出现两位数通胀的国家（占7%）更高。


Whatever nasty surprises may lurk in the future, the global inflation environment is the tamest since the early 1960s.	不管未来隐藏着什么令人不快的意外，当前的全球通胀环境为20世纪60年代初以来最温和的。


Indeed, the risk for the world economy is actually tilted toward deflation for the 23 advanced economies in the sample, even eight years after the onset of the global financial crisis.	事实上，对于样本中的23个发达经济体来说，世界经济的风险其实已经转为通缩，虽然全球金融危机爆发已经过去了八年。


For this group, the median inflation rate is 0.2% – the lowest since 1933.	对这些国家，中位通货膨胀率为0. 2%——为1933年以来最低值。


The only advanced economy with an inflation rate above 2% is Iceland (where the latest 12-month reading is 2.2%).	唯一一个通胀率高于2%的发达经济体是冰岛（最近12个月的记录为2. 2%）。


While we do not know what might have happened were policies different, one can easily imagine that, absent quantitative easing in the United States, Europe, and Japan, those economies would have been mired in a deflationary post-crisis landscape akin to that of the 1930s.	我们不知道，如果政策有所不同会发生什么，但你可以轻易想象出，如果没有美国、欧洲和日本的量化宽松，这些经济提将陷入类似于20世纪30年代的危机后通缩局面。


Early in that terrible decade, deflation became a reality for nearly all countries and for all of the advanced economies.	在这个可怕的十年的初期，通货紧缩成为几乎所有国家和所有发达经济体的现实。


In the last two years, at least six of the advanced economies – and as many as eight – have been coping with deflation.	在过去两年中，至少六个发达经济体——可能多达八个——已经陷入了通货紧缩。


Falling prices mean a rise in the real value of existing debts and an increase in the debt-service burden, owing to higher real interest rates.	物价下跌意味着现有债务实际值的增加和债务维持负担的增加，因为实际利率升高了。


As a result, defaults, bankruptcies, and economic decline become more likely, putting further downward pressures on prices.	结果，违约、破产和经济衰退可能性���加，并进一步加大物价下跌压力。


Irving Fisher’s prescient warning in 1933 about such a debt-deflation spiral resonates strongly today, given that public and private debt levels are at or near historic highs in many countries.	欧文·费雪（Irving Fisher）在1933年以先见之明发出的这一债务-通缩螺旋警告在今天引起了巨大的回响，许多国家的公共和私人债务水平处于或接近于历史最高点。


Especially instructive is the 2.2% price decline in Greece for the 12 months ending in July – the most severe example of ongoing deflation in the advanced countries and counterproductive to an orderly solution to the country’s problems.	特别具有说明意义的是希腊在截至7月的12个月中物价下降2. 2%——是发达国家持续通货紧缩最严重的例子，也不利于有序解决该国的问题。


Median inflation rates for emerging-market and developing economies, which were in double digits through the mid-1990s, are now around 2.5% and falling.	新兴市场和发展中国家中位通货膨胀率为2. 5%左右，并在继续下降，而20世纪90年代中期的这一数字为两位数。


The sharp declines in oil and commodity prices during the latest supercycle have helped mitigate inflationary pressures, while the generalized slowdown in economic activity in the emerging world may have contributed as well.	最新的超级周期中的石油和大宗商品价格暴跌减轻了通胀压力，而新兴世界经济活动放缓的一般化趋势也起到了作用。


But it is too early to conclude that inflation is a problem of the past, because other external factors are working in the opposite direction.	但认为通胀问题已是明日黄花还为时过早，因为其他外部因素仍在推动通胀。


As Rodrigo Vergara, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, observed in his prepared remarks at Jackson Hole, large currency depreciations in many emerging markets (most notably some oil and commodity producers) since the spring of 2013 have been associated with a rise in inflationary pressures in the face of wider output gaps.	智利央行行长罗德里格·贝尔加拉（Rodrigo Vergara）在杰克森霍尔进行了有准备的评述，他观察道，许多新兴市场货币自2013年春以来大幅贬值（最值得关注的是一些石油和大宗商品生产国），这带来了通缩压力的增加，尽管产出缺口进一步扩大了。


The analysis presented by Gita Gopinath, which establishes a connection between the price pass-through to prices from exchange-rate changes and the currency in which trade is invoiced, speaks plainly to this issue.	吉塔·戈平纳斯（Gita Gopinath）所做的分析直指这一问题。 他的分析建立了汇率变化到价格的价格传递和用于贸易计价的货币之间的关系。


Given that most emerging-market countries’ trade is conducted in dollars, currency depreciation should push up import prices almost one for one.	大部分新兴市场国家的贸易用美元结算，因此货币贬值以接近一比一的比例推升进口品价格。


At the end of the day, the US Federal Reserve will base its interest-rate decisions primarily on domestic considerations.	最后，美联储的利率决策主要将取决于国内条件。


While there is more than the usual degree of uncertainty regarding the magnitude of America’s output gap since the financial crisis, there is comparatively less ambiguity now that domestic inflation is subdued.	尽管自金融危机以来美国产出缺口的程度还存在不同寻常的不确定性，但如今国内通胀已经得到遏制，模糊性相对来说也有所减小。


The rest of the world shares that benign inflation environment.	世界其他国家也分享到这一温和的通胀环境。


As the Fed prepares for its September meeting, its policymakers would do well not to ignore what was overlooked in Jackson Hole: the need to place domestic trends in global and historical context.	美联储正在准备9月的会议，其决策者绝不应该忽视在杰克森霍尔没有关注的东西：需要将国内趋势置于全球和历史环境下考察。


For now, such a perspective favors policy gradualism.	现在，这一方法倾向于政策渐进主义。


Jailing the Messengers	囚禁信使


WASHINGTON, DC – As China’s clout in global affairs grows, the world is watching more closely than ever to see what kind of great power it will become.	发自华盛顿特区——随着中国对全球事务的影响力日渐增大，全世界也正以一种前所未有的仔细态度观察这个世界大国将以何种面目面对世人。


Next month, when jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo receives the Nobel Peace Prize, attention will be drawn away from the more encouraging aspects of what China’s leaders like to call their country’s “rise,” and toward their persistent mistreatment of its most outspoken citizens.	而当下个月被关押的异见分子刘晓波被正式授予诺贝尔和平奖之时，人们的目光将从中国领导人所谓的“崛起”中转向他们对那些敢于发表反对声音的人民的长期镇压之上。


Already, Chinese officials’ ham-handed response to the award has undercut their cherished – and lavishly financed – mission to project China’s “soft power” around the globe.	而中国官员对该奖项笨拙的反应已经破坏了他们将中国的“软实力”投射到全球各地的目标。


Liu won the prize because his lifelong commitment to political activism makes him exceptional.	刘晓波之所以能得到这个奖，是因为他将毕生精力投入到了政治行动之中。


But we ought to pay equally close attention to another jailed Chinese activist, one whose plight at the hands of China’s justice system is just as troubling as Liu’s – and far more revealing of the boundaries of permissible dissent.	但我们同时也应该对另一个在押的中国异见分子给予同样关注，他在中国司法系统中的困境与刘晓波类似——且更深刻地揭露了所谓许可之下的异见的界限。


A Beijing court recently convicted Zhao Lianhai, a 38-year-old former advertising salesman, of “using a popular social issue to incite a mob…to seriously disrupt social order,” and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison.	北京一所法院日前判处赵连海（一位前广告销售人员）有期徒刑两年半，而罪名则是“利用社会热点问题，煽动纠集多人……. 严重扰乱社会秩序”.


Unlike Liu, Zhao had not called for change in China’s political system.	但与刘晓波不同的是，赵连海关注的并不是中国政治制度的改革。


Rather, he had spent two years rallying around the almost boringly uncontroversial notion that his family and many others deserve justice from the Sanlu Dairy Group, a company that gave their children kidney stones by illegally doctoring its milk powder with the industrial chemical melamine.	他花了两年时间四处奔波，只不过是为了一个毫无新意的理念：他的家庭和其他家庭应该向三鹿奶业集团讨个公道，因为该公司违规向生产的奶粉中非法添加了工业化合物三聚氰胺，导致这些家庭的孩子们都患上了肾结石。


Zhao did not set out to become an activist.	赵连海本来不想成为一个活动分子。


His three-year-old son was lucky to recover quickly after he and 300,000 other children fell ill after drinking the adulterated milk in 2008.	他3岁的孩子虽然和其他30万名儿童一样在饮用了掺假奶粉后得病，但经过治疗后幸运地迅速痊愈了。


But some of the children urinated blood, others have suffered long-term health problems, and at least six died.	但有些孩子出现了尿血症状，其他孩子则产生了长期健康问题，其中至少有六名儿童死亡。


Zhao, who once worked for the government’s own product-safety watchdog and lived in the capital, saw an opportunity to help less well-positioned families.	赵连海曾在政府质检部门的媒体工作并居住在北京，他认为这是一个绝佳的优势去帮助那些处境更差的家庭。


He set up Web sites to help them exchange medical information, attract media attention, and file lawsuits demanding compensation.	他建立网站帮助这些家庭交流求医信息，吸引媒体关注，并向法院起诉要求赔偿。


Initially, the campaign seemed to succeed.	一开始，这场运动似乎成功了。


A massive recall of Chinese milk ensued, and the Sanlu Dairy Group collapsed.	中国国产奶粉被大规模召回，三鹿集团也宣告破产。


Two of Sanlu’s suppliers were executed, and its chairwoman was sentenced to life in prison.	两个三鹿的供应商被判处死刑，三鹿集团女董事长田文华被判处无期徒刑。


China’s National People’s Congress enacted a new food-safety law.	全国人民代表大会通过了一项新的食品安全法。


But, after Zhao and other parents protested that the government’s compensation plan was inadequate to cover the cost of their children’s ongoing medical care, they began to receive threats from local police.	但当赵连海和其他孩子的父母抗议政府的赔偿计划不足以补偿孩子未来的医疗费用时，他们开始遭到当地公安的威胁。


Zhao’s Web sites were repeatedly shut down, and the group’s lawyers received phone calls from authorities urging them to drop the case.	他的网页数次被关闭，而他们的代理律师则接到当局打来的电话，要求放弃这单案件。


In late 2009, Zhao was officially arrested; he has been in police custody ever since.	在2009年年末，赵连海被正式逮捕； 自此被警方拘留。


Zhao’s campaign had been based on the widespread belief in China that while local officials or individual businesspeople may engage in venal or criminal activities, the central government, once informed of the truth, will see to it that justice is done.	赵连海的抗争其实是基于一个中国人普遍存在的信念，那就是即便当地官员和不法商人蛇鼠一窝，但只要中央政府查明了真相，就会主持正义。


After all, the same Chinese leaders who reject Liu’s calls for political reform argue that what Chinese citizens really want are not “Western-style” rights, but basic necessities – clean water, economic opportunities, safe food – that allow their families to prosper, and which China’s own homegrown political system can adequately protect.	毕竟，那些反对刘晓波对政治改革的呼吁的中国官员也曾经辩解说，中国人真正想要的不是“西方式”的权利，而是一些最基本的需要——洁净的饮用水，挣钱过活的机会，安全的食品——这些要素能令他们的家庭繁荣兴旺，也是中国本土的政治系统所能保护的。


But Zhao’s conviction, like the mistreatment of other Chinese whistleblowers, sends the message that when faced with a perceived threat to social stability, China’s legal institutions are not up to the task of providing basic protections to its citizens.	但对赵连海的判决，正如对国内其他揭发者的迫害那样，传达了一个信息：每当面对一个可能影响社会稳定的威胁时，中国的法律制度似乎并不会为公民提供基本的保护。


A discussion thread on the case on Tianya, a popular Chinese Internet portal, was soon flooded with comments expressing bafflement and outrage at the verdict.	在著名的天涯网络论坛上，关于这起案件的讨论帖很快就被网友的迷惑和愤慨所淹没了。


“I don’t have children of my own,” wrote one, “but reading this makes my heart hurt.”	有网友写道：“我没有小孩，但看到这些真的让我很心痛。 ”


Another wrote: “If things go on this way, our country doesn’t have a future.”	另一个则说：“如果一直这样下去，我们的国家就没有未来了。 ”


In Hong Kong, Zhao’s sentence has sparked popular protests outside of government offices and formal objections from local officials.	在香港，对赵连海的判引发了民众在特区政府门前的示威，有些当地政府官员也正式表示抗议。


Reactions like these ought to be far more worrying to China’s leaders than any rebuke from a group of Norwegians.	这些反应应该比一帮挪威人（指诺贝尔奖）更令中国领导人感到忧心。


Zhao’s allies are not out to “humiliate China.”	赵连海的同路人并不是想要“令中国蒙羞”。


Rather, like those around the world who believe China deserves credit for its impressive achievements – indeed, like Liu Xiaobo himself – they want their country to develop governing institutions befitting its growing economic stature.	事实上，全世界那些认为中国理应因自己所取得的优异成就而赢得赞赏的人们——就像刘晓波自己——都希望自己国家的治理架构能与不断提升的经济地位相适应。


So do China’s neighbors and global partners – and for reasons that have as much to do with self-interest as political values.	中国的邻邦和国际伙伴也是如此——这与其说是出于政治价值观，不如说是为了自身利益。


If China is to honor its commitments on a wide range of international issues – trade, product safety, and environmental protection, to name just a few – and command genuine trust and respect at home and abroad, it will need to embrace people like Zhao, not silence them.	如果中国真的要在一连串国际事务——比如贸易，食品安全，环境保护——上信守自己的承诺，并在国内外赢得真诚的信任与尊重的话，他就必须欢迎像赵连海这样的人，而不是迫使他们闭嘴。


Taming Leviathan	驯服利维坦


STANFORD – A successful society needs effective, affordable government to perform its necessary functions well, and that includes sufficient revenue to fund those functions.	斯坦福—成功的社会需要高效、实惠的政府卓越地行使其必要功能，而这包括为这些功能提供充足的收入。


But a government that grows too large, centralized, bureaucratic, and expensive substantially impairs the private economy by eroding individual initiative and responsibility; crowding out private investment, consumption, and charity; and damaging incentives with high tax rates.	但过于庞大、中央集权、官僚主义以及成本高昂的政府会破坏个人的努力和责任，与私有经济不相容、挤出私人投资、消费和慈善，并以高税率破坏激励。


It also risks crowding out necessary government functions such as defense.	这样的政府还可能挤出国防等必要政府功能。


That is today’s Europe in a nutshell, with America not far behind.	这就是今日欧洲的现状，美国也好不到哪里去。


The recent death of James M. Buchanan, the father of public-choice economics, is reason to reflect on his sage warnings.	公共选择经济学之父詹姆斯·布坎南刚刚去世，我们应该好好反思一下他先见之明式的警告。


Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986 for bringing to the study of government and the behavior of government officials the same rigorous analysis that economists had long applied to private economic decision-making.	1986年，布坎南因将经济学家使用已久的对私人经济决策的有效分析引入对政府和政府官员行为的研究而获得诺贝尔经济学奖。


Buchanan concluded that politicians’ pursuit of self-interest inevitably leads to poor outcomes.	布坎南认为，政客对私人利益的追求不可避免地会导致糟糕的结果。


Buchanan’s analysis stood in marked contrast not only to Adam Smith’s dictum that the pursuit of self-interest leads, as if “by an invisible hand,” to desirable social outcomes, but also to the prevailing approach to policy analysis, which views government as a benevolent planner, implementing textbook “solutions” to market failures.	布坎南的分析是举世瞩目的，它不仅与亚当·斯密关于对私人利益的追求会受“看不见的手”的引导，形成令人满意的社会结果的观点相悖，也与将政府视为仁慈规划者、会实施解决市场失灵问题的教科书“解决方案”的流行政策分析观点格格不入。


According to this view, if markets do not fully internalize all of the costs of private action – environmental pollution is a classic example – some “optimal” tax or subsidy supposedly can correct the problem.	根据这一观点，如果市场不能充分内部化所有私人行为的成本——环境污染便是最经典的例子——那么“最优”税收补贴应能纠正这一问题。


So, if a monopoly is restricting output and raising prices, regulate firms and industries.	因此，如果垄断限制了产出、提高了价格，则管制企业和行业即可。


When weak demand leads to recession, increase government spending and/or cut taxes by just the right amount, determined by a Keynesian multiplier, and – presto! – the economy rebounds quickly.	当疲软的需求导致衰退时，根据凯恩斯乘数恰到好处地增加政府支出并/或削减税收就会让经济“嗖”一声立刻反弹。


Buchanan considered such analysis romantic.	布坎南认为这样的分析太过天真烂漫。


He showed that public officials, like everyone else, are driven by self-interest and governed by the rules and constraints operating in their economic environment.	他证明，公共官员与所有人一样，受私利驱动，根据其所处经济环境的规则和约束行事。


Households have a budget constraint.	家庭面临预算约束。


Firms have technological, competitive, and bottom-line constraints.	企业面临技术、竞争和利润约束。


For politicians, the ability to exercise power – for their own interests or those of vested interests – is constrained by the need to get elected.	对政客来说，行使权力的能力——以有利于私利或既得利益——受当选需求约束。


Buchanan predicted that, by hiding the full costs, the ability to finance public spending through deficits would lead to higher spending and lower taxes at the expense of future generations, whose members were not directly represented in current voting.	布坎南预测，通过隐藏全部成本，用赤字来为公共支出融资的能力将导致更高的支出和更低的税收，其代价将由子孙后代承担，他们在当前投票体系中没有直接代表。


He predicted ever-larger deficits and debt – and ever-larger government as a result.	他预测，赤字和债务会越来越大，并由此导致政府越来越大。


On this issue, Buchanan was, unfortunately, prescient – and well before financial crisis and deep recession led to yet another jump in the size and scope of government, accompanied by large deficits and exploding debt in the United States, Europe, and Japan.	不幸的是，在这个问题上，布坎南是有先见之明的——且远远先于金融危机和深度衰退导致政府规模和范围的又一次大扩张，并伴随着美国、欧洲和日本的大规模赤字和债务爆炸。


Buchanan argued tirelessly for lower government spending, balanced budgets (even a balanced-budget amendment to the US Constitution), and streamlined regulation.	布坎南不知疲倦地呼吁减少政府开支、平衡预算（甚至呼吁将平衡预算修正案写入美国宪法）、改进监管。


Buchanan, along with Milton Friedman and many others, correctly pointed out that government failures are as numerous as market failures.	布坎南和米尔顿·弗里德曼等许多人正确地指出，政府和市场一样经常失灵。


So, even in areas like infrastructure or education, it is necessary to compare the benefits and costs of the imperfect fiscal and regulatory policies likely to be implemented by fallible, self-interested officials with potentially imperfect market outcomes.	因此，即使在基础设施和教育等领域，也有必要比较不完美财政和监管政策的收益和成本，有私利在其中的不可靠官员可能实施不完美政策，造成潜在的不完美市场结果。


These government failures include rent-seeking, pork-barrel spending, social engineering, regulatory capture, and induced dependency.	这些政府失灵包括寻租、定向支出、社会工程、监管俘虏以及诱发依赖。


Market failures or claims of unmet need are not sufficient to prescribe government intervention in the private economy, because the cure may be worse than the disease.	市场失灵以及需求得不到满足的诉求本不足以构成政府干预私人经济的充分条件，因为药方可能比疾病更加糟糕。


There are, of course, important, successful government programs.	当然，重要而成功的政府计划也是有的。


In America, the post-World War II G.I. Bill financed higher education for demobilized soldiers, and was a highly beneficial public investment in human capital.	在美国，二战后士兵法案为复员军人深造提供了资金，是一项收益无穷的人力资本投资项目。


Social Security has helped reduce poverty among the elderly.	社会保障有助于减轻老年人的贫困。


The military has kept the US safe and free.	军队保证着美国的安全和自由。


But the gap between textbook solutions drawn up in universities and think tanks and the reality on the ground can be vast.	但大学教科书和智库机构的解决方案与现实之间的差距太大。


More spending or regulation does not always lead to better outcomes.	更多的支出或监管并不一定会产生更好的结果。


Government spending is no less subject to diminishing returns than anything else.	政府支出和其他支出一样摆脱不了回报递减规律。


Programs become entrenched, develop powerful constituencies, and are hard to shrink.	政府项目会有强大的支持者，很难叫停。


Few programs are targeted carefully enough to real needs – or to the really needy – as politicians buy votes by spreading coverage far beyond what is needed to achieve programs’ stated goals.	只有极少数项目得到了充分仔细的规划，面向真正的需求（或真正的需求者），因为政客要通过将项目覆盖面大大扩展、远超计划目标来赢得选票。


Hence Buchanan’s disdain for romanticizing government action.	无怪乎布坎南批评政府行为天真烂漫。


In country after country, one casualty of the ongoing debate over spending, taxes, deficits, and debt has been efforts to make government more effective and efficient.	关于支出、税收、赤字和债务的旷日持久的争论的一大受害者是让政府变得更务实、更有效的措施，这是在各个国家一再证明了的。


In most areas of government, from defense to entitlements, better outcomes can be achieved at much lower cost, which should please both the left and the right.	在政府的大部分领域，从国防到福利项目，都可以以低得多的成本实现更好的结果，而这本能让左翼和右翼都更满意。


For example, America’s federal government has 47 separate job-training programs in nine different agencies, costing almost $20 billion a year, most of which the Government Accountability Office reckons are ineffective or poorly run.	比如，美国联邦政府通过九个不同机构开办着47种职业培训项目，每年需耗资200亿美元，据政府问责办公室的观点，其中绝大部分项目效率低下、经营不善。


President Barack Obama added the 47th – for green-energy job training – in 2009.	第47个项目——绿色能源职业培训——是奥巴马增加的。


The success rate was so poor (a tiny percentage of participants got targeted jobs) that the Labor Department’s Inspector General recommended shutting it down – and this at a time of massive unemployment, with firms listing millions of job openings but unable to find workers with the required skills.	其成功率是如此低下（参与者获得目标岗位的比例寥寥），以至于劳工部主监察官建议取消这一项目，而当时的现实是工人大规模失业，而企业招工清单上的数百万个岗位却找不到达到技能要求的工人。


We have seen what ultimately results when unsustainable spending leads to exploding debt: economic chaos and human tragedy.	我们已经看到，不可持续的支出所造成的债务大爆炸会产生什么终极后果：经济混乱、人间悲剧。


Somewhere between “romanticized” government solutions to problems and Buchanan’s self-interested government officials, we must find leaders willing to eliminate poorly performing programs; modernize, streamline, and consolidate others; improve services; and limit pressure for ever-higher growth-destroying taxes.	在“天真烂漫”的政府解决问题方案和布坎南的自利政府官员之间，我们必须找到愿意取消表现低下的项目的领导人； 对其他人进行整合以实现现代化和合理化；


Reassurance and Resolve in East Asia	东亚的保证与决心


WASHINGTON, DC – As territorial frictions involving China and many of its neighbors persist in the East and South China Seas, the United States needs a clearer regional strategy.	华盛顿—中国与其多个邻国在东海和南海��发领土纠纷，在这样的情况下，美国需要更清晰的地区战略。


America must simultaneously uphold its interests and alliance commitments and avoid counterproductive confrontation, or even conflict.	美国必须同时顾及其自身利益和联盟承诺，并避免破坏性对峙甚至冲突。


Doing so will be difficult, especially because it is not clear whose claims to the region’s disputed islands and outcroppings should be recognized, and the US has no intention of trying to impose a solution.	这决非易事，特别是考虑到哪一方对该地区的争议岛礁的主张应该获得承认尚不清楚、并且美国并无意提出解决方案的情况下。


At the same time, the US must modernize its armed forces in response to new challenges – particularly China’s rise.	与此同时，美国必须实现武装力量现代化以应对新的挑战——特别是中国的崛起。


As China develops advanced precision weapons to create a so-called anti-access/area-denial capability, the US must consider how to respond to the growing vulnerability of its bases and naval forces in the region.	随着中国发展出高精尖武器、形成了反进入和区域阻绝（anti-access/area-denial）能力，美国必须考虑如何应对其在该地区的军事基地和海军力量日益力不从心的局面。


There is no easy answer to these challenges.	对于这些挑战，没有简单的办法。


What is needed is a nuanced approach, which is what we develop in our new book Strategic Reassurance and Resolve.	美国需要巧妙的方针，这也是我们在我们的新书《战略保证与决心》（Strategic Reassurance and Resolve）中所述及的。


Our approach is an adaptation of America’s longstanding “engage but hedge” strategy, through which the US and its allies have used economic, diplomatic, and sometimes military instruments to give China incentives to rise peacefully, while maintaining robust military capabilities in case engagement proves unsuccessful.	我们的方针是改变美国长期以来实行的“相与且相防”（engage but hedge）战略。 通过这一战略，美国及其盟友使用经济、外交手段，有时甚至还使用军事手段给中国和平崛起的激励，同时维持强劲的军事实力应对相与方针失败的情形。


The problem is that hedging has typically been interpreted to mean sustaining overwhelming US military superiority.	问题在于相防通常被解读为保持美国的压倒性军事优势。


But China’s development and acquisition of advanced weapons, including precision anti-ship missiles, makes it implausible that the US can maintain its forces’ decades-long invulnerability in the region, including the ability to operate with impunity near China’s shores.	但中国对先进武器的开发和购买——包括精确反舰导弹——意味着美军不再能够保持几十年来在该地区不可战胜的优势，包括靠近中国海岸行动而不受影响的实力。


Given China’s own history of vulnerability to foreign intervention, unilateral US efforts to maintain overwhelming offensive superiority would only trigger an increasingly destabilizing arms race.	考虑到中国历史上曾经对外部干涉毫无还手之力，美国单方面维持压倒性攻势的做法只能导致让该地区日益动荡的军备竞赛。


Some American strategists advocate a largely technological solution to this dilemma.	一些美国战略家建议用技术解决这一难题。


Their approach, a concept called “Air-Sea Battle,” implies a mix of defensive and offensive tools to address the new challenges posed by the proliferation of precision-strike weaponry.	他们的方针——所谓的“空海战”（Air-Sea Battle）概念——需要结合进攻和防御力量解决精确打击武器扩散带来的新挑战。


Officially, the Pentagon does not direct the concept of “Air-Sea Battle” against any particular country.	五角大楼从未正式将“空海战”概念针对某个特定国家。


For example, Iran’s possession of precision-strike capabilities – and a much more hostile relationship with America – would warrant new US initiatives to cope with growing security vulnerabilities.	比如，伊朗拥有精确打击能力——并且与美国的关系要敌对得多——意味着美国必然要采取新措施应对日益严峻的安全问题。


But it is clearly China, which has the resources to develop a credible anti-access/area-denial strategy, that most worries US military planners.	但是，显然，拥有发展可信反进入和区域阻绝战略的资源的中国才是令美国军事计划者最担心的国家。


Some Air-Sea Battle proponents propose tactical preemptive strikes on missile launchers, radars, command centers, and perhaps also air bases and submarine ports.	一些空海战支持者建议对导弹发射架、雷达、指挥中心甚至机场和潜艇港口采取战术先发制人打击。


Moreover, many of these attacks would be carried out with long-range weapons based on US territory, rather than at sea or on the territory of regional allies, because these assets would be less vulnerable to preemptive attacks themselves.	此外，这些打击中有许多将从万里之外的美国领土发动，而不是从海上或地区盟友领土上发动，以使这些武器资产本身不易受到先发制人打击。


Unfortunately, Air-Sea Battle’s underlying logic poses serious risks of miscalculation – beginning with the name.	不幸的是，空海战战的基本逻辑存在极高的误算风险——从其名称开始就是如此。


Air-Sea Battle is, obviously, a concept for battle.	顾名思义，空海战是一种“战”。


Though the US clearly needs war plans, it also needs to be wary of sending China and regional partners the message that its hottest new military ideas base deterrence primarily on the ability to win a war quickly and decisively through large-scale escalation early in a conflict.	尽管美国当然需要战争计划，但也必须谨慎向中国和地区伙伴传递这样一个信息：其最热门新军事思想将威慑力主要放在通过在冲突早期大规模升级从而迅速地、决定性地赢得战争的基础上。


Air-Sea Battle recalls the AirLand Battle idea that NATO adopted in the late 1970s and early 1980s to counter the growing Soviet threat to Europe.	海空战让人想起北约在20世纪70年代末、80年代初所采取的空陆战（AirLand Battle）方针。 空陆战是为了抵抗日益增加的苏联对欧威胁。


But China is not the Soviet Union, and America’s relationship with it needs to avoid Cold War echoes.	但中国不是苏联，美国与它的关系也应该避免冷战模式。


“Air-Sea Operations” would be a much more appropriate name for a more effective approach.	更有效的方针起名为“空海行动”（Air-Sea Operation）更合适。


Such a doctrine could include classified war plans; but it should center on a much broader range of twenty-first-century maritime activities, some of which should include China (such as the ongoing counter-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden and some military exercises in the Pacific).	这一思想可以包括机密战争计划； 但它应该以更广泛的二十一世纪海军行动为核心，其中一些应该包括中国（如目前仍在进行的亚丁湾清剿海盗行动以及一些太平洋军演）。


Moreover, war plans need to avoid depending on early escalation, particularly against strategic assets on the Chinese mainland and elsewhere.	此外，真正计划需要避免依靠早期升级，特别是针对中国大陆和其他地区的战略资产的升级。


If a skirmish erupts over a disputed island or waterway, the US needs to have a strategy that enables a favorable resolution short of all-out war.	如果在某争议岛屿或水域发生小规模冲突，美国需要能够产生最有利结果的解决方案，但必须排除全面战争。


Indeed, in the broader context of Sino-American relations, even “victory” in such an encounter might be costly, because it could trigger a Chinese military buildup designed to ensure a different outcome in any subsequent skirmish.	事实上，在中美关系的大背景下，升值在小规模冲突中的“胜利”有可能代价高昂，因为这可能引起中国增强军备以确保在下一场小规模冲突中实现不同结果。


Instead, the US and its partners need a broader range of responses that would enable them to adopt effective measures that are proportionate to the stakes involved – measures that demonstrate a willingness to impose meaningful costs without triggering counterproductive escalation.	相反，美国及其伙伴需要更广泛的应对措施，使它们能够采取与所设利益规模相当的有效措施——表明既不惜付出一定代价，又不引起破坏性升级。


Likewise, America’s military modernization agenda needs balance.	类似地，美国的军事现代化日程也需要平衡。


Responding to the threat that China’s growing arsenal of advanced weapons poses to many of its assets does not require greatly expanding America’s long-range strike platforms.	应对中国先进武器日益增加给美国军事资产带来的威胁并不一定需要大幅扩张美国的远程打击平台。


In fact, doing so would inevitably create incentives for US war planners to emphasize preemptive options in contingency plans and deemphasize American forces’ day-to-day presence in forward areas near China, where they contribute significantly to maintaining deterrence.	事实上，这样做不可避免地会刺激美国战争计划者强调紧急计划中的先发制人要素，而不重视美军在中国附近前沿区域的日常身影，而后者在维持威慑力方面具有重要作用。


And it would create a powerful incentive for Chinese war planners to develop further their country’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities.	这还会极大地刺激中国战争计划者进一步发展中国的反进入和阻绝实力。


Continued US engagement in the region requires it to heed the lesson of the Cold War: No technological fix will provide complete invulnerability.	美国对该地区的继续涉入要求其吸取冷战教训：不存在可以带来不可战胜地位的技术解决方案。


Economic and political measures, as well as a sustained US military presence, would be more effective than reliance solely on offensive escalation should the US need to counter Chinese actions that threatened important American interests.	经济和政治手段，加上美军身影的不间断出现，比完全依靠进攻性扩张更加有效，如果美国想要制衡威胁美国重要利益的中国行为的话。


Indeed, relying on the capacity to attack the Chinese mainland to defend freedom of navigation and alliance commitments in East Asia could tempt China’s leaders to test America’s willingness to risk Los Angeles to defend the Senkaku Islands.	事实上，依赖于打击中国大陆的实力捍卫东亚航行自由和兑现联盟承诺可能导致中国领导人试探美国是否愿意拿洛杉矶冒险捍卫钓鱼岛。


A more balanced US strategy to increase regional stability requires a judicious combination of resolve and reassurance, and a military posture that reflects this mix.	美国若想增加地区稳定，就必须采取更平衡的战略，这一战略需要决心与保证的巧妙结合，以及体现这一结合的军事姿态。


This approach would give the US the best chance to induce China’s leaders to adopt a more cooperative approach to the region’s territorial disputes.	这一方针可以让美国最大可能地诱导中国领导人在地区领土纠纷上采取合作态度。


Europe’s Digital Reactionaries	欧洲数字反动派


BRUSSELS – Many European politicians praise the Internet.	布鲁塞尔—许多欧洲政客都歌颂互联网。


Unfortunately, their lofty rhetoric often rings hollow.	不幸的是，他们的高尚颂词往往空洞无物。


While calling for a strong digital agenda in one breath, the same politicians, supported by protectionist interests at home, often argue for putting a brake on the Internet’s “disruption” by imposing strict new regulation.	在国内保护主义利益的支持下，同一批政客往往既呼吁强大数字日程，又提出要采取严格的新监管刹住互联网的“干扰”。


Such double-talk is misguided.	如此两面派颇具误导性。


If Europe is to prosper in the twenty-first century, its newly elected leaders need to embrace a positive, concrete pro-Internet agenda.	如果欧洲想要在21世纪繁荣下去，其新当选领导人就需要采取积极务实的亲互联网政策。


That means signing digital free-trade agreements and creating a true European digital single market out of today’s fragmented 28 national jurisdictions.	这意味着签署数字自由贸易协定，创造真正的、统一现今28个各自为政的国家法律管辖区的单一欧洲数字市场。


Long-outdated copyright and licensing laws must be overhauled.	过时已久的版权和授权法必须予以修订。


New privacy rules must protect citizens and allow innovation; calls for mandatory data localization and local versions of the “Internet” must be resisted.	新隐私规则必须保护公民、允许创新； 与此同时，关于强制性数据局域化和局域“互联网”的要求应该受到抵制。


If carried out, this substantive digital agenda could provide what Europe needs most after the financial crisis: economic growth.	这一真正的数字日程如若得到实施，可以提供欧洲在金融危机后最需要的东西：经济增长。


According to the OECD, the Internet now accounts for up to 13% of economic output in the US.	根据经合组织的数据，目前互联网贡献了美国13%的经济产出。


Every type of business now depends on the digital economy.	各种企业都要依赖数字经济。


With a few keystrokes, small companies selling Polish antiques, traditional Bavarian costumes, and Spanish shoes have burst out of their home markets and reached consumers around the globe.	小公司只要轻敲键盘便可出售波兰古董、巴伐利亚传统服饰和西班牙鞋子，从而走出国内市场，拥抱全球消费者。


By unleashing the Internet, financially strapped Europe can create new jobs without taking on new debt.	饱受金融制约的欧洲可以通过解放互联网创造新就业岗位而不增加新债务。


European Commission figures suggest that Europe’s so-called “app-economy” workforce will rise to 4.8 million by 2018, from 1.8 million in 2013, with revenues more than tripling, to €63 billion ($86 billion).	欧盟委员的数据表明，到2018年，欧洲的所谓“应用经济”（app-economy）工作者将从2013年的180万增加到480万，行业收入将增长三倍以上，达到630亿欧元。


We also know that some 90% of jobs by 2020 will require workers to have skills in information and communication technologies.	我们还知道，到2020年，90%的工作岗位要求员工拥有信息和通信技术方面的技能。


Such success requires breaking down resistance by Europe’s market incumbents and embracing rather than blocking new entrants.	要想获得成功，就需要打破欧洲的市场势力，欢迎而不是阻挠新进入企业。


Under the European Union’s current fragmented regulatory regimes, companies must obtain separate permission to sell in each of the 28 national markets.	在当前各自为政的欧盟监管框架下，公司必须在28个国家级市场上分别获得许可。


It takes even large companies like Apple and Google years of work to open local stores and launch new offerings.	即使像苹果和谷歌这样的大公司，也需要花数年时间才能开出地方商店、发布新产品。


The growth of small European innovators, such as Spotify, has been stunted.	欧洲的小型创新企业，如Spotify公司，发展大受掣肘。


Many new services that allow us to swap, rent, and share everything from taxi rides to second-hand designer dresses are struggling to get off the ground.	许多让我们能够交换、租用和共享从出租车到二手设计师礼服的各种东西的新服务举步维艰。


Internet skeptics could also scuttle potentially transformative transatlantic free-trade talks, launched with great fanfare last year.	互联网怀疑派还可能蓄意破坏极具变革潜力的跨大西洋自由贸易谈判。 这一谈判以极旺的势头始于去年。


A growing volume of trade is conducted in bits and bytes that flow over the Internet.	通过比特和字节流在互联网上完成的贸易量越来越大。


A new study by McKinsey finds that digital-driven, knowledge-intensive goods today comprise a full 50% of total global cross-border trade – and are growing at least 1.3 times as fast as other types of trade.	麦肯锡（McKinsey）的新研究发现如今数字驱动的知识密集型商品占据了全球跨境贸易的整整50%——并且在以比传统贸易形式高1. 3倍的速度增长。


If current trends persist, the volume of such goods could triple by 2025.	如果当前趋势继续下去，到2025年此类商品贸易量将翻三倍。


Yet many Europeans talk of imposing draconian privacy or data-localization rules as a precondition for signing any new free-trade deal.	但许多欧洲人却要求实施严厉的隐私或数据局域化规则，以此作为签署新贸易协议的先决条件。


Such requirements would be diametrically opposed to the Internet’s founding principles of frictionless, borderless access to information.	这样的要求与互联网的基本原则——无摩擦、无阻力地获得信息完全背道而驰。


Like Russia and China, Europe would be blocked from the rest of the global Internet, because new services that are unable to build European data centers would be locked out.	与俄罗斯和中国一样，欧洲将被阻挡在全球互联网之外，因为无法建立欧洲数据中心的新服务都会被踢出欧洲。


In this context, the European Court of Justice’s recent ruling, which recognizes a “right to be forgotten” – and thus requires Google to remove search information, even when legal, on demand – represents a significant danger.	在这样的背景下，欧洲法院（European Court of Justice）的最新裁决是一个巨大的隐患。 该裁决承认“被忘记的权利”，因此要求谷歌按要求移除搜索信息——即使是合法的。


By requiring every search service, including those of university libraries, to make it difficult to find legal information, we risk opening the door to large-scale private censorship.	要求每一项搜索服务——包括大学图书馆搜索服务——增加寻找合法信息的难度意味着有可能开启了大规模私人审查的大门。


Such unintended consequences pervade EU competition policy as well.	这些意料之外的后果在欧盟竞争政策中也随处可见。


European policymakers are considering a regulation that would require Internet platforms like app stores, social networks, search engines, and ecommerce sites to meet certain publicly specified criteria to achieve economic, social, or political ends.	欧洲决策者正在考虑一项监管措施，要求应用商店、社交网络、搜索引擎和电子商务网站等互联网平台满足某些公开的具体标准才能抵达经济、社会或政治终端。


Such regulation, it is argued, would facilitate the emergence of European Internet platforms and guarantee “open access” to users.	这项监管据称将促进欧洲互联网平台的兴盛，确保“开放抵达”用户。


In fact, these moves might create new barriers to entry, entrenching market leaders and undermining innovation.	事实上，这些措施可能造成新的进入壁垒，巩固市场领导者地位，破坏创新。


Internet markets are typified by dramatic change.	互联网市场以变化剧烈为特征。


Witness how Facebook overtook MySpace in social networks, or how Apple upended the market for smartphones – or how new services and markets are constantly being invented.	Facebook在社交领域取代MySpace以及苹果逆袭智能手机市场就是明证，层出不穷的新服务和市场亦然。


Twitter has displaced no one; rather, it supplements and competes with all other modes of communication.	Twitter没有取代任何东西，而是起到了补充作用，并与其他通信方式竞争。


By contrast, EU competition investigations drag on and on.	相反，欧盟竞争调查旷日持久。


It took ten years to reach a settlement with Microsoft; it may end up taking that long with Google.	与微软的和解花了十年才达成； 与谷歌很有可能也将如此。


By that point, the fast-paced Internet environment may well have evolved beyond recognition.	到那时，快速变化的互联网环境可能早已突破了我们的认知边界。


European authorities should avoid shackling digital progress.	欧洲当局应该避免制约数字进步。


Europe’s consumers should be able to buy online songs, watch online video, and shop online for whatever products they choose, and Europe’s businesses should be able to benefit fully from the EU’s giant market.	欧洲消费者应该买到在线歌曲，观赏在线视频，在线购买想买的所有东西，而欧洲企业应该充分从欧盟这一巨大市场中获益。


Indeed, letting the Internet blossom not only makes good business sense; it might also help to restore voters’ waning faith in the European project.	事实上，让互联网兴旺发达不仅有商业利益，也有助于扭转选民对欧洲工程日益失信的局面。


Boards on Their Backs	董事会之罪


WASHINGTON, DC – The recent governance controversy at JPMorgan Chase has masked a much larger issue.	华盛顿—最近关于JP摩根大通的公司治理之争掩盖了一个远为严重的问题。


Regardless of Jamie Dimon’s victory in retaining his dual role as CEO and chairman of the board, the more important failure on display was that of the board of directors itself – a problem that affects almost all of the world’s megabanks.	杰米·戴蒙（Jamie Dimon）成功地保住了CEO和董事长的双重职位，但此事件所显露的更大问题在于董事会本身，这个问题影响着世界上几乎所有大银行。


This is completely obvious at JPMorgan Chase.	这在JP摩根大通的案例中显露无疑。


The report of the recent bipartisan investigation, led by US Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, into the infamous “London Whale” trades provides just one example.	由美国参议员卡尔·莱文（Carl Levin）和约翰·麦凯恩（John McCain）牵头的关于著名的“伦敦鲸”交易的最新两党调查报告只是一个例子。


There is also the litany of complaints and legal cases now surrounding the firm.	还有目前围绕该公司的冗长的投诉和法律纠纷。


It is difficult to see JPMorgan Chase escaping its past anytime soon.	JP摩根大通很难快速地摆脱麻烦。


But the problem is much broader: Not a single global megabank has a well-functioning board.	但问题要广泛得多。 没有一家全球大型银行拥有运转良好的董事会。


Their members kowtow to CEOs, do not examine management decisions closely, and, with very few exceptions, rubber-stamp compensation requests.	董事们对CEO卑躬屈膝，并不仔细地考察管理决策，除了及少数例外，他们只不过是酬金要求的橡皮图章。


Big banks’ boards are supine for three main reasons.	大银行董事会的沦陷有三个主要原因。


First, and most important, there is no market for control over the biggest banks.	首先也是最重要的是，控制最大银行没有市场。


One cannot build up a significant shareholding and use it to put pressure on boards – let alone pursue a hostile takeover.	你无法屯集大量股权并用于向董事会施压——更不用说展开敌意收购了。


The London Whale is a case in point.	伦敦鲸就是这方面的一个例子。


The pressure brought to bear on JPMorgan Chase was completely inconsequential – nothing significant will change.	它JP摩根大通带来的压力微不足道，根本无法引起重大变化。


This is primarily because regulators – despite what they may claim – effectively protect megabanks from market discipline.	这主要是因为监管者说一套做一套，实际上有效地保护了大银行不受市场纪律约束。


“Systemic importance” has become an excuse for maintaining impenetrable entry barriers (yet another reason why executives want their firms to be regarded as too big to fail).	“系统重要性”成为维持不可逾越的准入壁垒的接口（也是高管希望自己的公司变得太大而不能倒的又一原因）。


Second, most board members lack sufficient relevant expertise.	其次，大部分董事缺乏相关的专业经验。


Who on the current board of JPMorgan or Citigroup has real experience running a giant complex trading operation (which is what will make or break these companies over the next decade)?	哪位现任JP摩根大通董事拥有管理大型复杂交易业务的实际经验（此乃这些公司在未来十年或成或败的关键）？


Who among them understands macroeconomic risks not in terms of the platitudes of the prevailing consensus, but as the tail risks – the low-probability, high-impact events – that always wag the dog of financial crisis?	哪位董事对宏观经济风险的理解超越了流行共识的陈词滥调，能够把它视为屡试不爽的引发金融危机的尾部风险（即概率极低、后果及严重的事件）？


Unqualified board members do not ask hard questions.	不合格的董事不问尖锐的问题。


And, five years after the largest financial crisis in almost 80 years, one can count the number of properly qualified board members – across all megabanks – on the fingers of one hand.	此外，在近80年来最大金融危机过去五年后，所有大银行的合格董事数量一只手都数得过来。


As a result, megabanks’ senior managers are not pressed to remove layers of opaqueness that shield their risk-taking from effective scrutiny.	结果，大银行高层管理者并没有感到压力消除承担风险和有效审查之间的不透明的障碍层。


This helps to keep board members in the dark – and gives them a convenient excuse for not really understanding how the business works.	这使得董事茫然不知所措，也给了他们方便的藉口不去真正了解业务是如何运行的。


Effective governance is possible under various formal arrangements.	有效治理可能存在于多种正式框架下。


In principle, a strong outside lead director can be just as effective as an independent chairman – a fair point that has been made in recent weeks.	从原理上说，强大的外部董事领袖可以和独立董事长一样有效——最近几周正是这样的写照。


But which huge banking conglomerate has such a lead director today?	但如今哪家银行集团巨头有这样一位董事领袖？


Which board members are willing and able to stand up to CEOs?	哪些董事愿意也能够与CEO争锋相对？


That has certainly not been the recent experience at JPMorgan Chase.	这显然不属于JP摩根大通最近的经验范畴。


Finally, regulators, too, have been rendered docile in the face of the megabanks’ CEOs.	最后，监管者对大银行CEO面前也是慈眉善目。


Regulators have the power to require that boards become more powerful – or at least minimally effective.	监管者有权要求董事会变得更强大——或至少最低限度地增加点效率。


For example, they could tighten the qualifications needed to become a bank director (in the United States, for example, the requirements are not serious).	比如，他们可以收紧成为银行董事的资质（比如，在美国，银行董事要求并不严格）。


Instead, regulators stand idly by while bank boards remain self-perpetuating clubs, with membership regarded as little more than so much social plumage.	但是，监管者对银行董事会沦为自娱自乐俱乐部、董事沦为社会装饰物的现状视而不见。


The regulators acquiesce because, simply put, they are afraid.	简而言之，监管者的默许是因为他们害怕。


Mostly, they are afraid that being tough on bank governance will somehow disrupt the flow of credit.	在大部分情况下，他们害怕对银行强硬免不了会干扰信用流。


It is a silly and baseless fear, but that is how modern regulators think and act – in a state of constant, irrational anxiety.	这一担心毫无根据，愚蠢透顶，但正是现代监管者的想法和行动——一种持续的非理性焦虑。


The banks in question are so large and so central to the functioning of economies that each of them is too big to regulate.	出问题的银行对经济运转来说太大、太核心，以至于它们变得太大而不能管。


Whenever small groups of individuals acquire that much power relative to the state and the rest of us, there is big trouble ahead.	只要个人团体攫取了这一相对于国家和我们其他人而言的大权力，就会带来大麻烦。


Power corrupts, and financial power corrupts the financial system.	权力导致腐败，金融权力导致金融系统的腐败。


The biggest banks were badly run in the years leading up to the crisis of 2008 – exhibiting a toxic mixture of hubris, incompetence, and excessive leverage – and their governance problems today are worse than they were in 2005 or 2007.	在2008年危机之前，大银行经营不善——表现为狂妄、无能、过度负债的危险组合——二如今，它们的治理问题更要重于2005或2007年。


The 2008 crisis was followed by a long, hard recession; we should not expect a different scenario now.	2008年危机之后是长期的艰难衰退； 如今，我们也不用指望会出现不同情景了。


Back to the Future in Ukraine and Asia	回到乌克兰和亚洲的未来


NEW YORK – With Russian troops occupying Ukrainian territory and the Chinese Navy inhabiting Philippine territorial waters in the South China Sea, the world is now entering a dangerous time warp.	纽约——俄罗斯军队占领乌克兰领土和中国海军占领南海菲律宾领海标志着世界正在进入危险的时间段。


In geopolitical terms, Russia and China are reenacting the norms of the nineteenth-century, when states competed by amassing hard power in a system of unbridled nationalism and rigid state sovereignty.	俄罗斯和中国正在地缘政治领域重新执行19世纪标准，即各国在肆无忌惮民族主义和僵化国家主权制度下开展硬实力竞争。


Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be trying to reassemble the nineteenth-century map of Czarist Russia by holding on to Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and other parts of the old empire at all costs.	事实上，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京似乎想通过不惜一切代价抓住克里米亚、阿布哈兹、南奥塞梯和原有帝国的其他领土来重现十九世纪沙皇俄国版图。


Similarly, China is staking its claim to the South China Sea in full violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the basis of vague histories of bygone empires.	同样，中国也基于昔日帝国的模糊历史全然不顾联合国海洋法公约主张其对南海的权力。


Both countries are now behaving as if power is a zero-sum game dictated by the old rules of realpolitik.	两国都表现得好像权力是现实政治旧规则决定的零和游戏。


But, despite US Secretary of State John Kerry’s admonition that Russia’s occupation of Crimea “is not twenty-first-century, G-8, major-nation behavior,” the United States and its allies are struggling to hold on to the postwar twentieth-century world.	虽然美国国务卿约翰·克里警告俄罗斯占领克里米亚“绝非二十一世纪、八国集团大国之所为”， 但美国及其盟友都在竭力维持战后的二十一世纪局势。


For the US, the destruction wrought by Europe’s rapacious nationalisms, reflected in colonialism and two world wars, had to end in 1945.	在美国看来，欧洲贪婪民族主义所造成的殖民主义和两次世界大战的破坏必须止于1945年。


America’s postwar planners concluded that if excessive nationalism was the problem, transnationalism was the answer.	美国战后策划者认为只有跨国主义才能解决过度民族主义所带来的问题。


The US took the lead in building a system of international law, creating the UN, and fostering free trade and open markets around the world, while maintaining the security umbrella that allowed transnational institutions like the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to develop.	美国率先建立了国际法律体系、成立了联合国并促进世界自由贸易和市场开放，同时继续提供安全保护伞，使欧盟和东南亚国家联盟等跨国机构取得了长足的发展。


The US was far from consistent or perfect in this process, sometime to murderous effect in places like Vietnam.	美国在此过程中还远未做到持续或完美，有时甚至在越南等国家带来了灾难。


But its steadfast defense of an international system that was more mutually beneficial than any that had preceded it ushered in seven decades of the greatest innovation, growth, and improvement our species has ever known.	但其对前所未有的互惠互利国际体系的坚定捍卫带来了迄今为止最伟大的创新、增长和改善，而这种积极的进展已经持续了长达70年。


Now, however, with China rising, global power rebalancing, and the US worn down by two decade-long wars that have eroded its credibility, the postwar international order is under intense strain.	但现在随着中国崛起和全球力量再平衡，长达20年之久的战争拖垮了美国的公信力，战后的国际秩序也因此面临着严峻的挑战。


Contemporary Japan, a stalwart supporter of the US-led postwar system, was also transformed by it.	坚定支持以美国为首战后体系的现代日本也经历了逐步的转变。


When US Commodore Matthew Perry blasted his way into Tokyo harbor in 1854, he found a weak, isolated, and technologically backward country.	美国海军准将马修·佩里1854年攻进东京港的时候，一个疲弱、孤立、技术落后的日本呈现在他眼前。


Fourteen years later, Japan began a massive modernization drive under Emperor Meiji; thirty-seven years after that, its victory in the Russo-Japanese war shocked the world.	14年后，明治天皇率领日本开始大规模现代化建设； 改革37年后，日本在日俄战争中的胜利令世界刮目相看。


Rapidly appropriating the lessons of nineteenth-century Europe, Japan in 1894 launched a brutal five-decade effort to dominate Asia and secure its resources, stopping only when America’s atomic bombs flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.	1894年日本生搬硬套了19世纪欧洲经验，发动了长达50年的残酷战争意图称霸亚洲并保护其资源，美国原子弹将广岛和长崎夷为平地让日本的梦想变成了碎片。


After the war, under America’s protection and initial guidance, Japan emerged as a champion of a rule-based international system.	战后在美国的庇护和初步引导下，日本以一个尊重规则的国际体制拥护者的形象出现。


It financed the UN to a greater degree in relative terms than any other country, engaged meaningfully in other international institutions, and supported the development of its Asian neighbors, including China.	日本对联合国的资助相比而言大于其他国家，此外还切实参与其他国际组织，并支持包括中国在内的亚洲邻国的发展。


But, with China’s leaders now aggressively demonizing Japan and pressing disputed territorial and maritime claims more assertively than ever before, the country is being thrust in a direction that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with his penchant for historical revisionism and highlighting Japan’s nationalist past, may in some ways have already favored: back to the nineteenth century.	但随着中国领导人积极妖魔化日本并以前所未有的力度主张争议领土及海洋主权，日本可能被裹挟着向宣扬历史修正主义并强调日本民族主义过去的首相安倍晋三已经在某种程度上默认的方向——回到19世纪——前进。


Europe, too, embraced the postwar international system.	欧洲也同样接受了战后的国际体系。


With security outsourced to America, European governments shifted their focus and expenditures to social welfare and set about building a twenty-first-century post-sovereign utopia that has blurred national divisions and replaced aggression and hostility with negotiation and compromise.	因为将安全事务外包给美国，欧洲政府得以把重点转移到社会福利开销上，并着手建立起模糊了国家界限和以谈判妥协替代侵略敌视的二十一世纪后主权时代乌托邦。


The EU’s twenty-first-century dream now confronts the nineteenth-century Czarist bear, flashing its atavistic claws on the Russia-Ukraine border.	欧盟二十一世纪之梦现在正遭遇到十九世纪沙皇俄国熊的挑战，俄国已将过时已久的魔爪伸向了俄罗斯乌克兰边境。


And, just as ASEAN has been unable and unwilling to stand up to China over its encroachment in the South China Sea, the EU is already discovering the limits of its soft-power, consensus-driven approach to Russia.	正像东盟不能也不愿对抗中国对南海的侵略一样，欧盟已经觉察到用软实力和以共识为基础的方法来抗拒俄罗斯有很多不尽人意之处。


If a twenty-first-century post-sovereign system remains an unreachable dream in our Hobbesian world, and reverting to nineteenth-century norms by acquiescing to aggressive behavior by Russia and China is unpalatable, defending the postwar international system may be the best option we have.	如果二十一世纪后主权制度在我们霍布斯式的世界里仍然是遥不可及的梦想，并且我们无法接受默许俄中恢复19世纪的侵略行为，那么剩下的最好选择或许是捍卫战后国际体系。


Ironically, a nineteenth-century response, featuring balance-of-power politics and the rearmament of Europe and Japan, may be part of what is required to do it.	颇具讽刺意味的是，要想实现目标，可能必须采取以权力平衡和欧日重新武装为特点的19世纪对策。


Syria’s Humanitarian Lifelines	叙利亚的人道主义生命线


NEW YORK – After more than a thousand days of death and misery, two important recent public statements show why policy toward Syria must enter a new phase of intensity and focus.	纽约—在经历了一千多日的死亡与悲惨后，两份最新重要公开声明说明了为何对叙利亚政策必须进入一个密集且专注的新阶段。


Last month, US President Barack Obama, in setting out his broader foreign-policy stance, spoke of Syria’s three evils – brutal military tactics, the terrorist threat from the opposition, and the need to support refugees.	上个月，美国总统奥巴马在制定其广义外交政策立场时指出了叙利亚的三个问题：残酷的军事策略、来自反对派的恐怖主义威胁以及支持难民的需要。


A week earlier, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported excruciating details of Syria’s humanitarian crisis, including citizens under fire from all sides, sustained government barrel-bomb attacks, and shortages of food and medicine.	一周后，联合国人道主义协调办公室（Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs）报告了叙利亚人道主义危机令人毛骨悚然的细节，包括陷入各方围攻的平民，持续不断的政府桶状炸弹（barrel-bomb）袭击，以及缺少食品和药品。


Over the past three years, at least 160,000 people have been killed, nine million displaced, and three million refugees have flooded into neighboring countries.	过去三年中，至少有160,000人被杀，九百万人流离失所，还有三百万人难民涌入邻国。


Many have suffered untold horrors, from repeated chemical weapons attacks to the bombing of hospitals and bread lines.	许多人遭受到数不尽的恐惧，如不断的化学武器袭击和对医院和食品路线的轰炸。


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, growing ever stronger, is acting with impunity.	叙利亚总统巴沙尔·阿萨德变得越来越强，也越来越肆无忌惮。


The opposition is fragmented, comprising more than a thousand armed groups.	反对派一盘散沙，参与的军事组织超过一千个。


And Syria’s neighbors are struggling to cope with the conflict’s spillover.	邻国也因为叙利亚冲突的溢出效应焦头烂额。


Three years ago, few would have believed that the world would do so little to prevent such a situation.	三年前，没有人相信世界放任如此局面发生。


But diplomatic efforts during this time have been lamentable.	但三年来，外交手段效果寥寥。


Indeed, the UN still has not replaced Lakhdar Brahimi, who recently resigned as its peace envoy to Syria.	事实上，联合国，联合国叙利亚和平特使布拉希米（Lakhdar Brahimi）最近辞去了职务，但联合国并没有撤换他。


With little hope for a political solution, we must focus on relieving the humanitarian crisis.	既然政治解决无望，我们就必须把注意力集中在减轻人道主义危机。


The Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee, for example, are doing important work, delivering cross-border humanitarian supplies into Syria and helping refugees and host communities in four countries.	比如，挪威难民委员会（Norwegian Refugee Council）和国际救援委员会（International Rescue Committee）正在做非常重要的工作，为叙利亚提供跨国人道主义供应，帮助难民和四个难民接收国当地社区。


They currently aid more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, including a half-million who are internally displaced, traumatized, angry, and bewildered by the lack of outside assistance.	目前，它们已经援助了超过150万叙利亚难民，包括五十万流离失所、饱受心理创伤、满怀愤怒之情、眼巴巴盼望外援的国内难民。


More can and must be done.	我们可以也必须做得更多。


First, we must focus on the four million civilians trapped inside Syria and cut off from aid.	首先按，我们必须聚焦于四百万深陷叙利亚国内又与援助绝缘的平民。


Some are being starved into submission, while others are being subjected to unspeakable atrocities.	他们中有的因饥饿而不得不投诚，有的则在经受不可名状的暴行。


Aleppo is our “Srebrenica” – the site of Serbian forces’ 1995 genocidal massacre of Bosnian Muslims – except that in Aleppo, more lives are at stake and no international witnesses are there to report on what is happening.	阿勒颇是我们的“塞雷布雷尼卡”（1995年，塞尔维亚武装在塞雷布雷尼卡种族灭绝了波斯尼亚穆斯林）——但阿勒颇牵涉人数更多，并且没有国际人士在现场报道发生了什么情况。


Despite the UN’s ill-fated observer mission, the Security Council must seek ways to increase the international community’s presence on the ground.	尽管联合国观察任务命运多舛，但安理会仍必须找到办法让国际社会更多地在阿勒颇露面。


Second, we need to address the Security Council’s insufficient attention to the humanitarian situation, and specifically its failure to implement Resolution 2139.	其次，我们需要解决安理会对人道主义状况关注不够的问题，特别是安理会实施2139号决议不力。


We propose that the Council’s permanent members, along with key Middle Eastern states, appoint humanitarian envoys whose sole purpose would be to secure access to those in need.	我们建议安理会常任理事国与重要中东国家合作，任命以确保接触到有需要群体为唯一使命的人道主义特使。


The envoys would be senior diplomats and politicians who could tap the highest levels of government to challenge abuses of international law, cut red tape, and apply pressure on warring parties to agree to local ceasefires.	特使应该由资深外交家和政治家担任，能够阻止政府最高层挑战国际法、便宜行事并向交战各方施压促成地方停火协议。


Third, we must intensify cross-border operations.	第三，我们必须加紧越境手续。


Of course, there will be concerns over sovereignty and consent, but there are millions of desperate people within just a couple of hours of those borders.	当然，存在对主权和民意方面的担忧，但数百万绝望人群距离边境线只有几小时远的路程。


Simple measures –including easier registration, swifter visa procedures, improved information-sharing with Damascus-based aid workers, and predictable funding mechanisms – would allow colleagues in the field to concentrate on reaching those in greatest need.	简单的措施——包括简化注册手续、加快签证流程、改善与大马士革援助人员的信息共享以及可预期的融资机制——就可以让这方面的工作人员集中精力为最需要的人群服务。


This would make a huge difference, especially when coordinated with aid packages that are delivered to border crossings.	这会造成极大的不同，特别是在与越境方面的援助计划相结合的情况下。


Finally, we must recognize that the refugee crisis is a collective international responsibility.	最后，我们必须认识到难民危机是国际社会的集体责任。


Jordan has more than 600,000 registered refugees, and a similar number who are unregistered; it expects a half-million more this year.	约旦已有600,000多名注册难民，未注册难民数量与此相当； 今年预计还将增加五十万。


Lebanon has more than one million, the world’s highest refugee population per capita – equivalent to the combined populations of Germany and France migrating to the US.	黎巴嫩有一百多万难民，是全世界人均对应难民数最多的国家——相当于德国人和法国人全部移民到美国。


Turkey, Egypt, and Iraq are also severely affected.	土耳其、埃及和伊拉克也受到了很大的影响。


However, only 26% of the funds needed to support Syria’s neighbors have been pledged, resulting in a patchwork of short-term aid.	但是，在叙利亚邻国所需要的资金支持中，只有26%获得了承诺，这导致短期援助无法形成体系。


As resources dwindle and tensions rise, these countries need help to ensure that refugee assistance is aligned with longer-term national development plans, such as Jordan’s National Resilience Plan and Lebanon’s Stabilization Plan.	随着资源减少和对峙加剧，这些国家需要帮助才能确保难民援助和长期国民发展计划的协调——比如约旦的国民恢复计划（National Resilience Plan）和黎巴嫩的稳定计划（Stabilization Plan）。


Half-funded, half-coordinated, and half-committed international responses not only threaten regional stability, but also endanger millions of lives.	国际应对措施缺乏资金、缺乏协调、缺乏承诺，这不但威胁到地区稳定，也让数百万人的生命风雨飘摇。


Syria’s seemingly endless civil war, waged without regard for international law, has left countless civilians at fate’s mercy.	叙利亚内战毫无结束迹象，并且完全无视国际法的约束，这让无数平民命运堪忧。


We should have done more to prevent this disaster; now it has become this generation’s greatest humanitarian challenge.	我们早应采取更多措施阻止这场灾难； 如今，叙利亚内战已成为我们这一代最严重的人道主义挑战。


Erdoğan and the Paradox of Populism	埃尔多安和民粹主义悖论


VIENNA – The triumph of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey’s first direct presidential election is no surprise.	维也纳—埃尔多安在土耳其首次总统直选中获胜，此是意料中事。


Erdoğan is popular, and, as Prime Minister since 2003, he has been riding a wave of economic success.	埃尔多安深得民心，并且自2003年成为总理以来，他的经济成绩十分漂亮。


But he is also a populist, who has steadily tightened his grip on the state and the media, demonizing all critics (including former allies such as the expatriate cleric Fethullah Gülen) in the process.	但他也是个民粹主义者，日渐收紧对国家和媒体的控制，妖魔化一切批评者（包括昔日盟友，比如流亡海外的牧师古兰（Fethullah Gülen））。


As with other populist leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, reconciling Erdoğan’s electoral promises and his performance in office is a puzzle.	与匈牙利总理欧尔班和已故的委内瑞拉总统查韦斯等其他民粹主义领导人一样，埃尔多安的选举承诺和他的执政表现之间的一致性一直是个谜。


Such figures start out attacking their opponents’ corruption and accuse them of hijacking the state for a self-serving political establishment that excludes the interests of ordinary people.	这些人物一开始攻击反对派的腐败，指责他们绑架国家，打造为自己服务的集团，不顾普通民众的利益。


Yet, when in power, they end up behaving exactly the same, treating the state as their or their party’s property and engaging in, or at least condoning, corruption.	但是，掌权后，他们也会依样画葫芦，将国家视为他们或他们所在政党的财产，参与（或至少放任）腐败。


Usually, this apparent hypocrisy does not hurt populists’ electoral prospects, as Erdoğan’s success has just dramatically demonstrated.	通常，这一显而易见的伪善并不会妨碍民粹主义者的选举前景，埃尔多安刚刚大获全胜就是明证。


Why?	这是为何？


Contrary to much conventional wisdom, populism is not defined by a particular electoral constituency – such as the lower middle class – or by simplistic policies pandering to the masses, as liberal observers often argue.	与许多传统智慧相反，民粹主义并不是由某个特定的选民群体（比如中下阶层）或迎合普罗大众的简单政策（如自由派观察者常常指出的那样）定义的。


Rather, populism is a thoroughly moralized conception of politics, and a populist is a politician who claims that he or she – and only he or she – truly represents the people, thus relegating all political opponents to the role of iniquitous pretenders.	反之，民粹主义是一个彻底到的话的政治概念，而民粹主义者是这样一种政客，他——也只有他——真正尊重群众，从而可以把一切政治反对者归为邪恶的伪善者。


Behind this claim stands the further assumption that the people have one common will that genuinely aims at the common good, and that the people’s authentic leader – such as Erdoğan, who campaigned under the slogan “National Will, National Power” – can identify and implement it.	之所以这样说，是基于以下进一步假设：人民有一个真切的以共同利益为目标的共同意愿，而真正的人民领袖——如以“国家意志、国家权力”为口号的埃尔多安——能够认识和实施这一意愿。


Populists, then, are not only anti-elitist; they are necessarily anti-pluralist and hence anti-liberal.	因此，民粹主义者不但反对精英主义； 也必然是反多元论者，从而也是反自由主义者。


Their politics is always polarizing, splitting the actual citizenry into a pure, moral people and the immoral others – whom Erdoğan has often simply called “traitors.”	他们的政治永远是极化政治，将真实世界中的公民分割为纯粹的、道德的人民和不道德的其他人——埃尔多安常常称他们是“叛徒”。


In the eyes of the populist, there cannot be anything like a legitimate opposition.	在民粹主义者眼中，任何类似于合法反对的东西都是不可存在的。


Whoever is against the leader is automatically against the people.	反对领袖就是反对人民。


And, according to this logic, whoever is against the people cannot truly belong to the people.	而根据这一逻辑，反对人民的人必然自绝于人民。


This explains Erdoğan’s accusation that the protesters in Gezi Park last summer, who demonstrated against his government’s plans to erect a shopping center, were not proper Turks at all.	这就解释了埃尔多安对去年夏天格齐公园（Gezi Park）反对者的指控。 他们示威表达对埃尔多安建设购物中心的计划，被埃尔多安称为不配做土耳其人。


And it explains his astonishing pronouncement earlier this year when he accepted his Justice and Development Party’s nomination to be its presidential candidate: “We are the people.	这也解释了他在今年早些时候接受其所在的正义和发展党（Justice and Development Party）总统候选人提名时令人震惊的话：“我们是人民。


Who are you?”	你们是什么？ ”


It is often said that populists cannot govern, or will be exposed as incompetent, when elected to office.	人们常说，当选后的民粹主义者根本无能力治国，或迟早会暴露出无力胜任。


According to this view, populist parties are essentially protest parties, and protest cannot govern, because it is impossible to protest against oneself.	根据这一观点，民粹主义政党本质上是反对党，而反对是无法治国的，因为你无法反对你自己。


But things are not that simple.	但世事并非那么简单。


Populists typically adopt a governing style that mirrors the very accusations that they leveled against the previous political establishment.	民粹主义者通常所采取的治国风格恰恰是他们指责此前的执政者所做的。


They grab whatever power they can, disable checks and balances, fill all state offices with cronies, and reward their supporters (and only their supporters) with benefits in exchange for their loyalty – what political scientists call “mass clientelism.”	他们攫取一切可以攫取的权力，厌恶制衡，用裙带关系把持一切政府部门，用赏赐换取支持者的忠诚（只有他们的支持者可以获得赏赐）——政治学家称之为“大规模裙带关系”（mass clientelism）。


Austrian arch-populist Jörg Haider, for example, would literally hand out €100 ($134) bills to “his people” on the street.	比如，奥地利极端民粹主义者海德尔（Jörg Haider）愿意拿出1,000亿欧元赏给街头的“他的人民”。


Of course, all parties seek to take care of their constituencies first.	当然，所有政党首先都要巩固自己的票仓。


What is peculiar about populist politicians is that they can do so openly and with a clean conscience.	民粹主义政客的特殊之处在于他们可以以道貌岸然地公开这样做。


After all, if only their supporters are really “the people,” everyone else is undeserving.	毕竟，要是他们的支持者是真正的“人民”，那么其他人就不配获得这一地位。


In the same vein, populist parties tend to colonize the state with alacrity.	同理，民粹主义政党总是十分乐意奴役国家。


If only one party truly represents the people, why should the state not become the instrument of the people?	既然只有一个政党真正代表人民，那为什么不让国家变成人民的工具呢？


And when populists have an opportunity to write a new constitution, why should they not ride roughshod over any opposition, which, by definition, must comprise the enemies of the people (who often are accused of being foreign agents)?	而当民粹主义者拥有起草新宪法的��会时，他们为什么不借此打击根据定义必然是由人民的敌人（常常被指责为外国势力的走狗）组成的反对派呢？


This explains why populist governments’ clientelism and corruption do not erode their leaders’ core support among the electorate.	这就解释了为何民粹主义政府的裙带关系和腐败不会影响到领导人获得选民的核心支持。


Such practices are perceived as serving a moral “us” at the expense of the immoral or foreign “them.”	这些行为被认为是为道德的“我们”服务的，打击的是不道德的或外国的“他们”。


Thus, liberals’ belief that they have only to expose the populists’ corruption to discredit them is a vain hope.	因此，自由派的信念——只要曝光民粹主义者的腐败，就能让他们名誉扫地——完全是徒劳的。


They also have to show that for the vast majority of citizens, clientilism yields no benefits, and that a lack of democratic accountability, a dysfunctional bureaucracy, and erosion of the rule of law will in the long run hurt the people – all of them.	他们还必须证明，对绝大部分公民来说，裙带主义根本无法带来好处，而缺乏民主问责、功能紊乱的官僚主义和被腐蚀的法治精神会在长期伤害人民——所有人民。


Should Extremist Parties Be Banned?	应该禁止极端主义政党吗？


PRINCETON – The Greek government’s crackdown on the country’s far-right Golden Dawn party has revived a vexing question that seemed to have disappeared with the Cold War’s end: Is there a place within liberal democracies for apparently anti-democratic parties?	普林斯顿—希腊政府取缔了该国极右翼的金色黎明党（Golden Dawn），这引起了一个自冷战结束以来便似乎消失了的问题：在自由民主国家，可以存在显然是反民主的政党吗？


To be sure, liberal democracies have felt threatened since communism collapsed in 1989 – but mostly by foreign terrorists, who tend not to form political parties and sit in these countries’ parliaments.	平心而论，自由民主国家自1989年共产主义崩溃以来便一直感受到威胁——但大部分来自外国恐怖分子，他们的意图不是组建政党和进入议会。


So, should extremist parties that seek to compete within the democratic framework be outlawed, or would such a restriction on freedom of speech and association itself undermine this framework?	那么，寻求在民主框架内参与竞争的极端主义政党应该被定位非法吗？ 还是这样的言论和结社自由限制本身破坏了这一框架？


Above all, it is crucial that such decisions be entrusted to non-partisan institutions such as constitutional courts, not other political parties, whose leaders will always be tempted to ban their competitors.	最重要之处在于，这些决定应该委托非党派机构（如宪法法院）来做，而不能交给其他政党，政党领袖总是会有禁止竞争对手的诱惑。


Unfortunately, the moves against Golden Dawn are mostly identified with the government’s interests, rather than being perceived as the result of careful, independent judgment.	不幸的是，反对金色黎明党的行动大体上是根据政府利益做出的，而没有被认为是谨慎独立判断的结果。


On the face of it, democratic self-defense seems a legitimate goal.	表面上，民主自卫似乎是合法的目标。 美国最高法院法官罗伯特·杰克逊（Robert Jackson，他也是纽伦堡审判美国主检察官）指出，宪法不是“自杀契约”。


As US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (who was also the chief US prosecutor at Nuremburg) put it, the constitution is not “a suicide pact” – a sentiment echoed by the Israeli jurist Aharon Barak, who emphasized that “civil rights are not an altar for national destruction.”	这一观点得到了以色列法学家阿隆·巴拉克（Aharon Barak）的认同。 巴拉克强调“民事权利不是国家破坏（national destruction）的祭坛。


But too much democratic self-defense can ultimately leave no democracy to defend.	但太多的民主自卫可能最终导致没有民主可卫。


If the people really want to be done with democracy, who is to stop them?	如果人民真的想和民主说再见，那么谁去阻止他们？


As another US Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, put it, “if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell, I will help them.	另一位美国最高法院法官奥利佛·温德尔·霍尔姆斯（Oliver Wendell Holmes）说：“如果我的同胞想去地狱，我会帮他们一把。


It’s my job.”	这是我的职责。 ”


So it seems that democracies are damned if they ban and damned if they do not ban.	因此，民主国家禁止要被诅咒，不禁止也要被诅咒。


Or, in the more elevated language of the twentieth century’s most influential liberal philosopher, John Rawls, this appears to be a “practical dilemma which philosophy alone cannot resolve.”	或者，用二十世纪最有影响力的自由主义哲学家约翰·罗尔斯（John Rawls）的雅言说，这似乎是“光靠哲学无法解决的实践难题。 ”


History offers no clear lessons, though many people like to think otherwise.	历史也没有提供明确的借鉴，尽管许多人的看法正好相反。


In retrospect, it appears obvious that the Weimar Republic might have been saved had the Nazi Party been banned in time.	事后看来，显然魏玛共和国还有得救，只要当初及时禁止了纳粹党。


Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, famously gloated after the Nazis’ legal Machtergreifung (seizure of power): “It will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy that it provided its mortal enemies with the means through which it was annihilated.”	希特勒的宣传部长戈培尔在纳粹的法律“夺权”（Machtergreifung）后踌躇满志地说：“这将永远是民主国家最好笑的笑话——它为它的道德对手提供颠覆自己的方法。 ”


But a ban might not have halted the German people’s general disenchantment with liberal democracy, and an authoritarian regime still might have followed.	但禁止可能无法阻止德国人民对自由民主制度的总体性的失望，集权政权崛起的土壤仍在。


Indeed, whereas West Germany banned a neo-Nazi party and the Communist Party in the 1950’s, some countries –particularly in Southern and Eastern Europe, where dictatorship came to be associated with the suppression of pluralism – have drawn precisely the opposite lesson about preventing authoritarianism.	事实上，20世纪50年代西德禁止了新纳粹党和共产党时，而与此同时，一些国家——特别是在南欧和东欧，那里的独裁制度与镇压多元主义互相勾结——在防止集权主义方面却恰恰反其道而行之。


That is one reason why Greece, for example, has no legal provisions for banning parties.	这就是（比如）希腊没有禁止政党的法条的原因。


The fact that Greece nonetheless is effectively trying to destroy Golden Dawn – the parliament just voted to freeze the party’s state funding – suggests that, in the end, most democracies will want to draw the line somewhere.	尽管如此，希腊事实上仍试图摧毁金色黎明党——议会刚刚投票冻结了该党的国家资金支持——这一事实表明，说到底，大部分民主国家总会在某处划出一条界线。


But just where, exactly, should it be drawn?	但这条线到底应该划在哪里？


For starters, it is important to recognize that the line needs to be clearly visible before extremist parties even arise.	首先，很重要的一点是这条线需要在极端主义政党出现之前明确地划定。


If the rule of law is to be upheld, democratic self-defense must not appear ad hoc or arbitrary.	如果要支持法律规则，那么民主自卫就不能是权宜的或是武断的。


Thus the criteria for bans should be spelled out in advance.	因此，禁止的标准必须事先制定。


One criterion that seems universally accepted is a party’s use, encouragement, or at least condoning of violence – as was evidently the case with Golden Dawn’s role in attacks on immigrants in Athens.	一个似乎被广泛接受的标准是一党对暴力的使用、鼓励或至少是宽恕——这一点在金色黎明在攻击雅典外来人口方面所扮演的角色中表露无遗。


There is less consensus about parties that incite hatred and are committed to destroying core democratic principles – especially because many extremist parties in Europe go out of their way to emphasize that they are not against democracy; on the contrary, they are fighting for “the people.”	关于煽动仇恨和致力于毁灭核心民主原则的政党就较为缺少共识——尤其是因为是许多欧洲的极端主义政党竭力强调它们并不针对民主； 相反，它们是在“为人民”而奋斗。


But parties that seek to exclude or subordinate a part of “the people” – for example, legal immigrants and their descendants – are violating core democratic principles.	但寻求排除或贬低一部分“人民”（比如法律上的移民及其后代）的政党在违反核心民主原则。


Even if Golden Dawn – a neo-Nazi party in appearance and content – had not engaged in violence, its extreme anti-immigrant stance and its incitement of hatred at a moment of great social and economic turmoil would have made it a plausible candidate for a ban.	即使金色黎明党——从外表到内容都是新纳粹党——没有参与暴力，其极端反移民立场及其在社会和经济动荡期间鼓吹仇��也意味着他们是被禁的不二候选。


Critics warn of a slippery slope.	批评家警告说这将导致灾难性滑坡。


Any disagreement with a government’s immigration policy, for example, might eventually be deemed “racist,” resulting in curtailment of freedom of speech.	任何（比如）对政府移民政策的不满最终都有可能被认为是“种族主义”，从而导致言论自由的萎缩。


Something like the classic American standard – the speech in question must pose a “clear and present danger” of violence – is therefore essential.	经典的美国标准——问题言论必须构成“明确且即刻的”暴力“危险”——因此至关重要。


Marginal parties that are not connected to political violence and do not incite hatred should probably be left in peace – distasteful as their rhetoric may be.	与政治暴力无关且不煽动仇恨的边缘政党也许应该和平地保留——尽管他们的言辞可能令人不快。


But parties that are closer to assuming power are a different matter, even if banning them might automatically appear undemocratic (after all, they will already have deputies in parliaments).	但接近掌权的政党是另一回事，即使禁止他们可能自动显得不民主（毕竟，他们已经成为议会次要组成部分）。


In one famous case, the European Court of Human Rights agreed with the banning of Turkey’s Welfare Party while it was the senior member of a governing coalition.	在一个著名案例中，欧洲人权法庭同意禁止土耳其福利党（Welfare Party），尽管它是执政联盟的资深成员。


It is a myth that bans turn leaders of extremist parties into martyrs.	禁止让极端主义政党领袖成为殉道者，这是一个神话。


Very few people can remember who led the postwar German neo-Nazis and Communists.	很少有人能记得战后德国新纳粹党和共产党是谁领导的。


Nor is it always the case that mainstream parties can cut off support for extremists by selectively coopting their complaints and demands.	主流政党也不总是能够通过选择性地拉拢他们的指责和要求来切断对极端分子的支持。


Sometimes this approach works, and sometimes it does not; but it always amounts to playing with fire.	有时这一套管用，有时不管用； 但不管什么时候这样做都是玩火。


Banning parties does not have to mean silencing citizens who are tempted to vote for extremists.	禁止政党并不一定意味着让被引诱投票支持极端分子的公民噤声。


Their concerns should be heard and debated; and sometimes banning is best combined with renewed efforts at civic education, emphasizing, for example, that immigrants did not cause Greece’s woes.	他们的关注点应该被聆听和讨论； 有时禁止最好辅之以国民教育方面的新措施，比如强调移民并没有导致希腊的萧条。


True, such measures might come across as patronizing – but such forms of public engagement are the only way to avoid making anti-extremism look like extremism itself.	诚然，这些措施可能被认为居高临下——但这种形式的公共参与是唯一能够避免让反极端主义看起来像极端主义本身的办法。


An Asian Community Can Wait	亚洲共同体可以等


TOKYO – In the world of international finance, conflicting monetary and exchange-rate policies compete for advantage and countries battle for influence over the rules of the game.	东京—在国际金融领域，冲突的货币和汇率政策竞争优势，而国家竞争对游戏规则的影响力。


After all, just as investors compete to maximize their profits, countries compete to ensure that international rules and norms are agreeable to them.	毕竟，就像投资者竞相利润最大化，国家竞相确保国际规则和规范对自己有利。


That is why agreeing to an international economic regime – say, establishing a fixed exchange rate, or adopting a common currency – is a deeply political decision.	因此，就国际经济机制达成一致——比如建立固定汇率，或者采取共同货币——是一个非常政治性的决策。


And today’s Asia faces many such decisions.	而今天的亚洲就面临许多这样的决策。


Economic integration is a hot topic in the region.	经济一体化是亚洲地区的一个热门话题。


From the negotiation of the mega-regional Trans-Pacific Partnership to the establishment of China-led investment platforms – including the Silk Road Fund and, most recently, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – Asia is becoming more interconnected than ever.	从大型地区级协议跨太平洋合作伙伴（Trans-Pacific Partnership），到中国领导的投资平台的成立——包括丝绸之路基金和最近的亚洲基础设施开发银行（亚投行）——亚洲正在变得比以往任何时候都更加紧密地互相联系。


As a result, some observers may find the notion of increased monetary integration – even the establishment of a fixed exchange-rate regime based on, say, the Chinese renminbi or the Japanese yen – highly appealing.	因此，一些观察者也许发现，增加货币一体化的概念——甚至一个基于（比如）人民币或日元的固定汇率制度——十分诱人。


But I would argue that the flexible exchange rates that prevail today remain Asia’s best bet for boosting prosperity and protecting it from shocks.	但我认为，如今普遍存在的弹性汇率仍是亚洲刺激繁荣、免受冲击的最佳选择。


To understand the advantage of maintaining a flexible exchange rate, one need look no further than the recent growth trajectories of the advanced economies.	要理解保持弹性汇率的好处，我们应该让眼光跳出发达经济体目前的增长轨迹。


After the 2008 economic crisis, the United States and the United Kingdom were able to employ unconventional monetary policies to escape recession.	2008年经济危机后，美国和英国能够实施非常规货币政策以摆脱衰退。


Japan adopted similar policies in late 2012 to escape two decades of stagnation.	日本也在2012年底采取了类似的政策以摆脱二十年的停滞。


Members of the eurozone, however, lacked such an option.	但是，欧元区成员国没有这样的选择。


European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was eventually able to pursue policies aimed at devaluing the common currency, but not before years of painful austerity, deep recession, social strife, and political instability in many eurozone member countries.	欧洲央行行长德拉吉最终能够追求旨在贬值共同货币的政策，但在此之前，选举多欧元区成员国经历了痛苦的紧缩、深度衰退、社会冲突和政治动荡。


Against this background, it seems anachronistic to consider the possibility of establishing anything like a unified currency in Asia, where institutional disparities are far deeper, and the variety of economic shocks far greater, than in Europe.	在这样的背景下，考虑在亚洲建立类似的统一货币听起来是在逆潮流而动。 亚洲地区的制度差异远比欧洲更加深刻，经济冲击的变化也比欧洲多得多。


To hope for a unified currency in Asia seems almost like hoping for the region’s own Greek crisis.	希望亚洲出现统一货币几乎就像是希望亚洲爆发自身的希腊危机。


This has important implications for new multilateral institutions like the AIIB.	这给亚投行等新成立的多边机构带来了重要影响。


Other developing countries have joined because they believe that the existing international monetary order, underpinned by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is excessively oriented toward the advanced economies.	其他发展中国家之所以加入，是因为以国际货币基金组织（IMF）和世界银行为基础的现有国际货币秩序过于偏袒发达经济体。


Even the Asian Development Bank, in which Japan enjoys considerable influence, is said not to heed developing-country voices adequately at times.	即使是日本拥有巨大影响力的亚洲开发银行（亚开行），也常常不充分听取发展中国家的声音。


Moreover, Asian countries recognize that their continued development requires more advanced and reliable infrastructure, which cannot be built without new financing platforms.	此外，亚洲国家认识到，它们的后续发展需要更先进、更可靠的基础设施，而没有新融资平台，这些基础设施的建设就无从谈起。


The AIIB seems to offer an ideal solution.	亚投行似乎提供了一个理想的解决方案。


And, indeed, it does not appeal only to developing Asian countries.	事实上，亚投行不仅吸引了发展中国家。


France, Germany, Italy, and the UK have joined more than 30 other countries as founding members.	法国、德国、意大利和英国也加入了其他30多个国家的行列，共同成为亚投行创始成员国。


The US and Japan, however, still have their doubts.	但是，美国和日本仍有疑虑。


Should they join?	它们应该加入吗？


To answer this question, US and Japanese policymakers should rely on the “calculus of participation,” which dictates that the first step in choosing whether to join an international initiative or regime is to consider the last step in the process: the outcome.	要回答这个问题，美国和日本决策者应该依靠“参与的计算”，这一计算表明，选择是否加入一个国际计划或机制的第一步是考虑过程的最后一步：结果。


In short, a country’s leaders should ask whether, ultimately, their country would be better or worse off.	简言之，一国领导人应该问一问，最终对他们的国家是有利还是有弊。


This “backward induction” approach may seem obvious, but the AIIB’s members seem to have ignored it.	这一“逆向归纳”法也许看上去显而易见，但亚投行成员国对此似乎视而不见。


Indeed, beyond the fact that China will be in charge, almost nothing is known about the bank or its financing rules.	事实上，除了中国将是主导者这一事实之外，关于该银行或其融资规则我们几乎是一无所知。


Given this, it seems logical for countries like Japan to wait and see before deciding whether to join the AIIB.	因此，对于日本这样的国家来说，在决定是否加入亚投行前先观望是符合逻辑的选择。


Of course, there is a counter-argument.	当然，也有相反的意见。


Just as talks between the US and Iran, while far from perfect, have helped build mutual understanding and deterred Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, closer integration among Japan and its Asian neighbors could help to align their actions and interests.	正如美国和伊朗之间的谈判——尽管远远称不上完美，但仍有助于构建互相理解并拖延伊朗对核武器的追求——日本更加紧密地融入其亚洲邻国也有助于协调它们的行为和利益。


The merits of this “community” approach – which reflects a more Eastern perspective than the backward-induction approach – cannot be overestimated, especially in a highly fraught situation like that with Iran, where the consequences of stubborn silence could be catastrophic.	这一“共同体”方针——它更多地反映了东方特色而非逆向归纳法——好处怎么高估都不过分，特别是对于伊朗这样的令人高度担心的局面，在这样的局面中，顽固沉默的后果可能是灾难性的。


But the potential cost to Japan of delaying participation in the AIIB seems to be quite limited.	但日本推迟加入亚投行的潜在成本十分有限。


There is another strong reason why Japan should wait: macroeconomic stability.	日本应该等待还有另一个重要原因：宏观经济稳定。


As it stands, the misallocation of capital and poor investment decisions in China raise serious risks, which increasingly seem to be on par with those in the US that triggered the 2008 financial crisis.	目前，中国资本配置不合理和糟糕的投资决策导致了严重的风险，这一风险似乎不亚于美国出发2008年金融危机的风险。


If the AIIB begins with nothing more than vague criteria for monitoring international investment and an implicit Chinese veto, these domestic risks may spread to China’s neighbors, raising the danger of another large-scale international crisis.	如果亚投行一开始只是监测国际投资模糊标准以及隐含的中国否决权，那么这些国内风险将溢出至中国周边国家，有可能引起又一场大规模国际危机。


European countries may join the AIIB to deepen their business and political ties with China, but their financial stakes in the outcome are limited.	欧洲国家可以加入亚投行以深化它们与中国的商业和政治联系，但它们金融利益十分有限。


The same cannot be said for Japan.	日本则非如此。


Given this, Japan should not join the AIIB until the criteria for monitoring its investments are clear.	因此，日本不应该加入亚投行，直到监测其投资的标准变得更加明确。


For now, Japan’s best bet is to make no bet at all.	如今，日本最好的选择是不作任何选择。


Japan As Number Three	日本经济下滑到第三位


TOKYO – China has now officially supplanted Japan as the world’s second largest economy.	东京——中国如今已正式取代日本成为世界第二大经济体。


The question for Japan is whether or not the country will continue to tumble down the list of the world’s great economies, or whether its politicians will return to a path of reform that can revive growth.	日本的问题是其世界经济排名是会继续下滑，还是会重新走上恢复增长的改革道路。


That the ruling Democratic Party of Japan now seems trapped in a power struggle between Prime Minister Naoto Kan and party power broker Ichiro Ozawa suggests that serious economic reform is not at the top of the DPJ agenda.	执政的日本民主党目前身陷首相菅直人与政治掮客小泽一郎权力斗争的事实表明严肃的经济改革并不是民主党眼中的头等大事。


In the 1980’s, Japan’s annual GDP growth averaged 4.5％; since the early 1990’s, the economy has been virtually stagnant, averaging barely 1% annual growth.	20世纪80年代，日本的年均GDP 增长为4. 5%，从20世纪90年代开始，经济几乎陷入停滞，年均增长率只有区区1%。


In the 1990’s, Japan’s government, grossly misjudging the sources of the economy’s difficulties, vastly increased government expenditures on public works, but ignored supply-side adjustments.	20世纪90年代，日本政府对经济困难原因的判断出现严重失误，并由此大幅增加用于公共建设的政府开支，却忽略了在供应领域采取改革措施。


This policy created new vested interests, and thus a new political environment, as construction companies and other beneficiaries of government contracts began donating heavily to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.	随着建筑公司和其他政府合同的受益者开始向执政的自民党大笔捐款，这项政策催生了新的既得利益团体，也因此改变了政治环境。


This kept the LDP’s coffers brimming, but posed the risk of a serious financial crisis in the late 1990’s.	自民党的库房被塞得满满当当，接踵而至的却是20世纪90年代严重的财政危机。


It was in these circumstances that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001.	2001年4月小泉纯一郎首相在上述情况下开始任职。


Under Koizumi’s leadership, insolvent banks were made whole again.	在小泉的领导下，破产银行进行了重组。


At the start of Koizumi’s government, 8.4% of bank loans in Japan were non-performing.	小泉政府就职时，日本有8. 4%的不良贷款。


By the end of his tenure, the rate was down to 1.5%, restoring the country’s potential for growth.	而他任期届满时，不良贷款率降至1. 5%，恢复了日本的发展潜力。


Indeed, this was one reason why Japan was so little affected by the “Lehman Shock” that incited the global financial crisis.	事实上，这是日本在“雷曼冲击波”所引发的全球金融危机中几乎未受影响的原因之一。


But macroeconomic reform came to a screeching halt after Koizumi stepped down in 2006.	但2006年小泉下台后宏观经济改革嘎然而止。


A series of short-term prime ministers began a pattern of huge government outlays.	一系列短期首相启动了大规模的政府支出。