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A Bailout Beijing Would Cheer 北京將為之喝彩的救援行動
By David Ignatius Thursday, October 16, 2008美國《華盛頓郵報》網站10月16日文章
We are all Chinese now. That is, we have a nominally capitalist economy, but we don't trust the freewheeling private market when it comes to the crunch. So we turn to the government for protection and stability.
我們現在都是中國人了。換言之，我們名義上實行的是資本主義經濟，但當危機來臨時，我們卻不信任自由的私營市場，因此我們轉而向政府尋求保護來穩定市場。
The new interventionism isn't so much socialist as it is Confucian -- a belief that a public-private partnership of the wise ones will get us out of the mess. And if it's any consolation, the Chinese are becoming more like us, even as we are becoming more like them.
新幹涉主義並非社會主義而更像儒家思想，明智的公有私有之夥伴關係將會收拾我們的爛攤子。如果說有什麽安慰的話，那就是中國正變得越來越像我們，我們正變得越來越像他們。
A Chinese preview of this week's government-funded recapitalization of the banks came in the Hong Kong stock market crash of August 1998. To counter a typhoon of speculation that had battered the local market, Chinese authorities intervened to buy up sagging stocks with public money. The government spent $15.1 billion to acquire about 7.3 percent of the companies in the blue-chip Hang Seng Index.
早在1998年香港股市遭遇危機的時候，中國就實施過像本周美國政府救助銀行一樣的舉措。為了對付重創當地市場的大規模投機行為，中國政府動用公共資金買進了下跌的股票，花費了151億，持有了大約百分之7.3的恒生指數藍籌股公司的股票。
Free-market partisans in the West were shocked by the Chinese intervention and decried it as a dangerous precedent. But it helped stabilize the Hong Kong market. Now, that earlier bailout seems modest indeed -- compared with the quasi-nationalization of the world's leading banks we're seeing this week.
當時，西方自由市場的參與者對中國政府的幹預行為感到震驚，稱這是一個“危險的先例”。但這的確幫助維護了香港市場的穩定。現在看來，這一救援行動實在算不上什麽--尤其是與我們本周所看到的對世界幾大銀行的準國有化措施相比。
The Chinese have stayed edgy about markets, even as their version of capitalism has created unprecedented growth and prosperity. They preferred to run very large trade surpluses, a kind of forced public saving, rather than spend their new wealth. And they resisted pressure to revalue their currency upward, as market forces would have dictated, because they feared the consequences.
在中國長期保持增長的市場，作為其獨特版本的資本主義已經創造了前所未有的增長和繁榮。他們擅長經營巨大的貿易盈餘以及擁有龐大的公共儲蓄，而不是消耗他們的新財富。他們抗拒升值的壓力和匯率完全由市場力量來決定，因為他們擔心造成嚴重的後果。
A Chinese central banker explained to me in Beijing a few years ago that he believed Japan's "lost decade" of economic stagnation was a result of letting the Japanese yen appreciate too rapidly during the boom years, and that the Chinese wouldn't make the same mistake. The Chinese were also squeamish as they watched the Russians during their wild "oligarch capitalism" phase in the 1990s. The Russian model was too raucous, too rapacious.
幾年前，在北京，中國央行官員向我解釋，他認為日本“失去的十年”經濟停滯的原因，是在經濟繁榮的年代讓日元升值過快，而中國將不會犯同樣的錯誤。中國顯然比較謹慎，因為他們看到了俄羅斯在20世紀90年代滋生“寡頭資本主義”的階段，俄羅斯模式太吵雜了，太貪婪了。
It will take many months for the dust of this crisis to settle and to make judgments about the shape of the new order. But already, my favorite futurist, Peter Schwartz of the Monitor Group, predicts that we are entering a new political and economic paradigm. "Clearly, we have just moved a big step away from democratic capitalism," he says.
做出正確的判斷並解決這場金融危機，形成市場新秩序，將會需要數月或者更長的時間，但是已經曙光初現，我最喜愛的未來預言家，彼得施瓦茨預測，我們正在進入一個新的政治和經濟模式。“顯然，我們遠離民主資本主義，剛剛移動了一大步，”他說。
One source of instability that must be fixed is the structural imbalance in global trade that came to be known as "Bretton Woods II." Essentially, it meant that the Chinese and other Asian economies would run large trade surpluses and fund the corresponding U.S. trade deficits by buying Treasury bonds -- in effect lending us the money to finance our overconsumption. That helped create the huge pools of capital that sloshed around international markets, and the low interest rates that encouraged investors to take too many risks.
全球貿易結構性失衡是一個不穩定的根源，必須調整，被稱之為“布雷頓伍茲體係II”，從本質上講，這意味著相對應美國的貿易赤字，中國和其他亞洲經濟體操持著巨大的貿易盈餘和基金，用來購買美國國債--實際上是我們過度消費的貸款資金，低利率鼓勵了投資者甘冒太多的風險，推波助瀾形成的金融海嘯波及了全球市場。
The Bretton Woods II regime must evolve into something more stable. In the simplest terms, the fix will require more consumption by China, and less by the United States. It's a tricky transition: After the shocks of the past few months, the Chinese will want to be less vulnerable to global markets; they will put more emphasis on domestic growth and consumption and less on export markets. But China and the West still need each other, perhaps more than ever.
“布雷頓伍茲體係II”，世界必須趨於穩定平衡的新秩序，最簡單的說，解決這些問題，需要中國去更多的消費，而美國則需要減少消費。這是一個複雜的轉型：在經曆了幾個月動蕩之後，中國希望不要受到全球市場更大的衝擊，他們將更加重視國內經濟增長和消費增長，盡量減少對出口市場的依賴。但是，中國和西方仍然需要對方，也許比以往任何時候都更加彼此需要。
One hopeful sign last week was that the Chinese were moving toward private ownership, even as America and Europe were moving away from it. The Chinese government announced a new rural policy aimed at allowing millions of farmers to own the land they have been working. This would create a huge new reserve of private wealth in China, which could power domestic spending and growth.
上周，一個充滿希望的跡象是，中國人正在努力走向私有製，即便在美國和歐洲，人們正在遠離它。中國政府宣布了一項新的農村政策，旨在使數以百萬計的農民擁有土地的承包經營權流轉，這將創建一個巨大的新的私人財富的儲備，並可能增強國內消費和促進經濟增長。
The reality that has come home to all of us during the great panic of 2008 is that nobody likes living on the knife-edge of the market. We want the dynamism and flexibility that a capitalist economy uniquely provides. But we want protection, too -- a safety net for ourselves and our families when markets fail.
在2008年的這場大恐慌中，我們都要麵對的一個現實是，沒有人希望站在市場的刀刃上過活。我們需要資本主義經濟所獨有的活力和靈活性，但我們也需要保護---一個在市場崩潰的時候，能保護我們和家人的安全網。
Lucky, prosperous people disdain this human need for protection when times are good and relief is going to the destitute and unlucky. But let's not hear any more thundering about self-reliance and the "school of hard knocks" from the bankers and trust-fund babies who are the beneficiaries of the bailout. We are all Chinese now, for better or worse, and we're all eating from the same bowl.
當美好時代，救濟給與窮困和不幸的人們的時候，幸運、富裕的人們，一貫蔑視人類這一保護的需要。現如今，我們沒有聽到任何來自銀行家和信托基金雷鳴般的“自力更生”和“逆境把我們錘煉成才”的口號，而他們這會兒則是政府救市計劃中嗷嗷待哺的嬰兒。現在，我們都是中國人，無論是好還是壞，我們都端著同樣的飯碗。
The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
作者是PostGlobal共同主辦者，這是一個國際問題的在線討論。他的e - mail地址是davidignatius@washpost.com 。
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