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The BRICs 万亿美元俱乐部

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IN ANY global gathering, the American president is usually seen, at a minimum, as primus inter pares: the one who can make or break the final bargain and select his favoured interlocutors. So in Copenhagen last December, as negotiations for a new climate-change treaty were entering their final hours, a hastily convened meeting between Barack Obama and China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, looked as if it would be the critical moment when a deal might be struck. But when the president turned up, he found not only Mr Wen but the heads of government of Brazil, South Africa and India. This was unexpected. The Americans even thought the Indians had already left the summit. What was conceived as a bilateral talk turned instead into a negotiation with an emerging-market block. As an additional sign that things were changing in the world, the president got a finger-wagging from one of Mr Wen’s hangers-on. But at least Mr Obama was in the room; Europeans were shut out while the emerging powers and America put the final touches to their deal.

在任何全球会议上,美国总统通常是同侪之首[1]:他能拍板亦能终止最后交易,并且选择他喜欢的对话者。去年十二月的哥本哈根,当关于最新气候变化条约的谈判进入最后阶段时,美国总统奥巴马和中国总理温家宝紧急召开了一次会议,看起来双方成交的关键时刻即将来临。然而当奥巴马总统出席时却发现除温先生以外,巴西、南非和印度的政府首脑也都在场。这可真是出人意料。此前美国人甚至以为印度人已离开峰会。原先预计的双边对话变成了一场与”新兴市场集合体“的谈判。另一桩标志着世界局势在改变的事件是,一位温先生麾下的媚臣对奥巴马总统居然指手画脚。所幸至少奥巴马先生还能呆在房间里;这些新兴力量和美国就协议最终商谈时,欧洲人直接被排除在外。

This week the same developing countries are meeting again, in Brasília. On April 15th Brazil, India and South Africa—rising powers that are also democracies—put their heads together. The next day South Africa will drop out and Russia and China will join the party, to create a meeting of the so-called BRICs.

本周这些发展中国家于巴西利亚再次举行会议。四月十五日,巴西、印度和南非这些新生力量同时也是民主国家齐聚一堂。次日南非将离开,随即俄罗斯和中国将加入此次所谓”金砖四国“的峰会。

For this group, it is a second summit; last June their leaders met in Yekaterinburg, in Russia. That inaugural summit, which produced almost nothing concrete, appeared to be a one-off event and could be ignored. But the foursome is starting to establish a record. BRIC foreign ministers have met annually since 2006. Finance ministers and central bank heads meet frequently. This week, in addition to the leaders’ summit, there are gatherings in Brazil of BRIC commercial banks, BRIC development banks, and even BRIC think-tanks.

这是金砖四国的第二次峰会;去年六月四国元首于俄罗斯叶卡捷琳堡举行会晤。首次开幕性质的峰会并没有产生什么实际结果,看起来是一次性、可被忽略的会议。但它们此后开始建起了良好的对话机制,四国外交部长自2006年以来每年都举行会议。财政部长和央行行长更是频频会见。本周除了峰会之外,四国的重要商业银行、发展银行以及智囊团都会聚首商谈。

The term itself was coined by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street bank, and is sometimes written off as just a gimmick aimed at tempting punters. But is it now the case that life, in a serious way, is imitating investment analysis? Are the BRICs developing a momentum of their own? If so, what difference might that make to the rest of the world?

华尔街银行高盛的吉姆·奥尼尔创造了“金砖四国”这个称谓,有时候只是用来吸引那些跃跃欲试的投资者的噱头。然而如今这个戏谑的称谓却变得严肃起来,实际世界中这四个国家真的在朝着投资银行分析的方向发展吗?金砖四国是在酿造自己的势头吗?果真如此,它们会如何改变其身外的世界呢?

Life imitates Goldman Sachs
高盛一语成谶?

The BRICs matter because of their economic weight. They are the four largest economies outside the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich man’s club). They are the only developing economies with annual GDPs of over $1 trillion (Indonesia’s is only half that). With the exception of Russia, they sustained better growth than most during the great recession and, but for them, world output would have fallen by even more than it did. China also became, by a fraction, the world’s largest exporter. Meanwhile, the BRICs are also increasing their trade with one another: Chinese-Indian trade has soared and is likely to reach $60 billion this year. China has also become the largest market for the fast-industrialising countries of East Asia. Less happily, China has become the largest spewer-forth of carbon dioxide, emitting 6.5 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2008, or 22% of the world’s total. Russia is third and India fourth on this particular roll of shame.

金砖四国的重要影响来自于它们自身的经济重量。它们是除了经合组织(经济合作与发展组织,发达国家的俱乐部)成员国之外的四个最大的经济体。他们是世界上仅有的年度国内生产总值超过1万亿美元的发展中国家(印度尼西亚的生产总值只有约5000亿美元)。除俄罗斯以外,它们在经济萧条期都保持了高于其他大多数国家的增长率,如果没有这些国家,全球产出会经历更大缩水。中国还是世界最大的出口国。同时,金砖四国之间的贸易往来也在增加:中印贸易正迅速膨胀,今年两国之间的贸易额将达600亿美元。对那些经历快速工业化的东亚国家来说,中国也成为了它们最大的市场。而令人不快的是,中国也是最大的二氧化碳排放国,2008年排放量达65亿吨,占世界总排放量的22%。俄罗斯和印度在这份不太光彩的名单上分列第三和第四。

The most striking sign of the BRICs’ significance to the world economy, though, is probably their share of foreign-exchange reserves. All four are among the ten largest accumulators of reserves, accounting for 40% of the world’s total. China is easily the largest, with a staggering $2.4 trillion, enough to buy two-thirds of all the NASDAQ-quoted companies. It is the world’s second-largest net creditor after Japan (the net credit position takes account of equities as well as debt). Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves were virtually zero when it began market reform in 1992; now they stand at $420 billion. If the BRICs were to set aside one-sixth of their reserves, they could create a fund the size of the IMF.

然而,金砖四国对世界经济重要性的最显著的标志可能是他们的外汇储备。四个国家都跻身世界十大储备国,总共拥有世界40%的外汇储备。中国以其惊人的2.4万亿美元储备轻易成为最大的外汇储备国,这些钱用来收购三分之二的纳斯达克上市公司都绰绰有余。中国位居日本之后,为世界第二大债权国(债权考虑了资产和债务)。俄罗斯1992年开始市场改革时外汇储备几乎为零;如今已经拥有4200亿美元储备。假设金砖四国拿出其外汇储备总额的六分之一,它们就能成立一个和国际货币基金组织(IMF)同等规模的基金。

Foreign assets provided cushions against the great recession and helped turn the BRICs into financial powers as well as economic ones. Even as most Western countries struggle to rein in record budget deficits and soaring debts, the BRICs’ public-debt levels are mostly modest and stable (India is a partial exception). Most investment banks offer BRIC funds. The world’s top two banks are Chinese.

创记录的预算赤字和高筑的债台让大多数西方国家都苦苦挣扎,而金砖四国的公债却大多维持在稳定的中等水平(印度是一个部分的例外)。大多数投资银行都愿意向金砖四国注入资金。世界最大的两家银行都在中国。

This macro performance is being translated into different sorts of influence. Perhaps the most important is an intangible one: that of reputation. In some respects, the BRICs share a distinctive view of the world. They have large domestic markets with substantial numbers of poor people, so growth and anti-poverty programmes are higher up their list of concerns than in Western countries (this is even true in Russia, though to a lesser extent). They are trying to diversify their economies. They are innovating (though Russia is much better at producing guns than civilian goods) and challenging received notions about globalisation (see our special report). All have become far more entwined with the world economy. But the BRICs have opened up without the full market liberalisation championed by the “Washington consensus”. In the aftermath of the great recession, this mongrel position commands respect in other developing countries, which want to know how the BRICs did it. “The BRICs aren’t exactly an alternative to the Washington consensus,” says Mathias Spektor of the Getúlio Vargas foundation in Brazil, “but they provide other models to emulate and are effective at expressing something distinctive in economic affairs.”

宏观经济的成就渗透影响到各个不同的方面。也许其中最重要的影响是无形的——声誉。在某些方面,金砖四国拥有它们自己独特的共识。这些国家都有着巨大的国内市场,贫困人口众多,因此相比于西方国家,它们的首要任务除了经济增长之外,还要消除贫困(即便俄罗斯亦是如此,尽管它的任务要轻一些)。金砖四国都在努力使经济多样化。它们在不断革新和挑战人们对全球化的现有认识。(尽管俄罗斯在制造军火方面远胜于生产民用物资。)金砖四国没有推行“华盛顿共识”所拥护的完全市场自由化,却依然成功实现了市场开放。在大萧条的余波中,那些想知道金砖四国成功原因的其他发展中国家,应该借鉴这种杂合式的立场。“金砖四国的模式准确来说并不是华盛顿共识的替代者,”巴西Getulio Vargas基金会的Mathias Spektor说,“但他们提供了效仿华盛顿共识的其他模式,而且在经济事务方面表现出独特的成效。”

An acronym in search of a role
一个寻求不简单影响的简称

Wealth may produce market power and even soft power. But it does not necessarily generate geopolitical heft. Rich Japan and Germany deliberately adopted a “big Switzerland” policy of hiding their light under a bushel for decades. Even now, they throw their weight about reluctantly.

财富可能产生市场力量,甚至会产生软实力。但它不一定带来地缘政治影响力。例如近几十年来,发达国家日本和德国刻意采取了“大瑞士”政策以掩其锋芒[2]。即使是现在,日本和德国也只是近乎勉强地运用它们的力量。

But there are several reasons for thinking that the BRICs might be different. Germany and Japan had a golf-sized American security umbrella for shelter. But international institutions are now in flux. Robert Hormats, America’s under-secretary of state for economic affairs, compares the 2010s to the late 1940s: “The post-war period was so different from the pre-war one that it needed new institutions. The turn of the 21st century is similar, especially after the financial crisis.” He argues that “you can’t go back to having the system run by a few rich economies. Our big challenge is to work out how large emerging economies integral to the financial and trading system take some responsibility for maintaining it.”

但有很多理由认为,金砖四国可能无法照搬这种策略。德国和日本曾经仰仗美国这把大伞作为其保护屏障。但国际机构现在在发生变化。负责经济事务的美国副国务卿罗伯特·霍马茨是这样比较2010年代和1940年代的:“战后的国际环境与战前迥然不同,因此更多国际机构应运而生。21世纪的转折也是如此,尤其是金融危机以后。”他认为“由几个发达经济体主导的体系已经一去不复返了。现在我们面临的一大挑战是如何让这些整合到金融和贸易体系中的新兴大国担负起维护该体系的责任。”

One reason the BRICs matter is that the world’s most important country thinks they do, and is willing to rope them into decision-making. America’s means of doing this is the G20. It pushed for the group’s expansion to include the BRICs and declared the club the chief forum for dealing with international economic issues. The BRICs and the original group of seven rich countries (G7) form natural blocks within the G20. So far, the clearest expression of a coherent BRIC agenda—for reform of the international financial system and more domestic stimulus programmes—came on the eve of a G20 meeting in 2008.

金砖四国为何举足轻重?原因之一是世界上大部分重要的国家认可它们的重要性,而且很愿意与它们一起决策。美国采取的方式是G20。美国推动了这一集团的扩张,将金砖四国吸纳到G20中来,并且宣称该集团是解决国际经济问题的主要平台。金砖四国和集团最初的七个发达国家(G7)形成了G20的中坚力量。2008年G20峰会之夜,金砖四国在改革国际金融体系和加大刺激内需等问题上的协议,是迄今为止四国之间一致计划最明确的表征。

A second reason why the BRICs matter is that all four giants have reasons for creating a new club of their own. China’s leaders know their time has come. They want to enhance their own influence and reduce America’s. But at the same time their leaders hew to Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that “China should adopt a low profile and never take the lead.”

原因之二是这四个大国有理由组建它们自己的集团。中国领导人明白他们的时代已经来临。中国渴望提升自己的影响力,削弱美国的影响力。但同时他们也恪守邓小平的格言“中国应该韬光养晦、永不称霸。”[3]

The BRICs, which the Chinese calls jinzhuan siguo, or four golden brick nations, are a way to square that circle. By teaming up with others (which are anyway attractive as raw-materials suppliers), China can hide its national demands behind a multilateral façade. And a meeting of the BRICs looks slightly more like a collection of equals than do most gatherings involving China (though China’s economy is still larger than those of the other three combined). China sees climate-change diplomacy as a way of boosting its soft power, and as part of its bilateral relationship with America (its stubborn behaviour in Copenhagen notwithstanding). But it does not want to break with the rest of the developing world on climate issues. Co-ordination with other “emerging” polluters helps it to succeed on all these fronts.

被中国人称为金砖四国的BRICs可以帮助中国人化圆为方[4]。和其他成员国合作(它们本身也是诱人的原材料供应国)有助于中国将国家需求隐藏在多边外交关系之后。相比于其他有中国参加的会议,以“金砖四国”之名召开的会议看起来略微多了一些“四国平等”的意味(尽管中国的经济仍然比其他三国加起来还要大)。中国把关于气候变化的外交政策视为一种增强其软实力的方式,同时也是它与美国双边关系的组成部分(尽管它在哥本哈根的表现颇为固执)。但是在气候问题上,中国无意与其他发展中国家翻脸,与这些“新兴的污染大国“协调有助于中国在这些前沿问题上获得成功。

This balancing act applies to the other BRICs. All want to soften the impact of China’s rise. The BRIC forum is an alternative to what they all (perhaps even China itself) regard as a nightmare: a G2 of America and China. They all also want, in the words of Brazil’s foreign minister, “to increase, if only at the margin, the degree of multipolarity in the world”.

这种制衡的行为也适用于金砖四国的其他成员国。巴西、印度和俄罗斯都想削弱迅速崛起的中国的影响力,对他们来说(也许甚至包括中国),金砖四国是G2的替代品,毕竟只有美国与中国组成的G2对这些国家来说是一个噩梦。如巴西外交部长所言,他们也想”增加世界的多极化,哪怕只是微弱的增加“。

India has been profoundly disappointed by traditional multilateral diplomacy. Years of pushing for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council have got it nowhere. The BRICs can hardly be worse. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been trying to expand Brazil’s diplomatic influence beyond Latin America. The BRICs help him fulfil these geopolitical ambitions. (Whether Lula’s successors will share his taste for the world stage is an open question: at the moment, both likely successors seem more concerned about domestic matters.) As for Russia, association with some of the most dynamic economies in the world may perhaps divert some attention away from its own decline. More important for Russia, as for all the others, the BRICs are a way of telling America that the largest developing countries have their own options and that not all roads lead to Washington.

印度已经饱受了传统多边外交政策所带来的失望。印度多年来力争联合国安理会常任理事国的席位,却始终无果。卢拉总统一直在尝试将巴西的外交影响扩展到拉丁美洲之外。金砖四国有助于卢拉完成他地缘政治上的野心。(卢拉的继任对世界舞台是否和他有一样的观点还不得而知:现在看来,两位热门的候选人似乎更关心国内事务。)对俄罗斯来说,与一些世界上最活跃的经济体联系起来也许能让人们的视线从俄罗斯的衰退转移。更重要的是,金砖四国是俄罗斯和其他国家向美国宣告的方式——宣告着这些大型发展中国家有了自己的选择,而并非条条大路只通华盛顿。

Because of this, some members of America’s Congress look on the BRICs with trepidation. The main focus of their concern is China’s currency. But there are other reasons why the BRICs might damage the global economic system, rather than buttress it. They might, for example, undermine the role of the IMF and World Bank, abandon attempts to expand free trade or even just ride roughshod over aid conditions in poor countries. But Mr Hormats thinks they will not. “They understand,” he argues, “that the openness and smooth functioning of the system is vital to them and so far there has been very little evidence that they want to change it dramatically.” When world output was plummeting last year, the BRICs’ economic stimulus programmes did a lot to stabilise it. And on the question of reforming the international financial institutions, America and the BRICs find themselves on the same side.

正因如此,一些美国国会成员对金砖四国的出现不甚惶恐。他们的首要忧虑是中国货币问题。不过还有很多原因解释为什么金砖四国可能损伤而不是扶持国际经济体系。例如他们可能削弱国际货币基金组织和世界银行的作用,放弃推广自由贸易,甚至通过援助贫困国家的手段对其施压。但霍马茨先生以为不然。他认为,”这些国家明白经济体系的开放和畅通运行对它们来说至关重要,迄今为止几乎没有证据显示他们想要大刀阔斧地改变现有体系。“去年世界产出大幅下滑时,金砖四国的经济刺激计划起到很大的稳定作用。在改革国际金融机构方面,美国和金砖四国也站在同一边。

Without straw
失去最后一根稻草

A more compelling reason for doubting the BRICs’ chances of changing anything fundamental is that they are not capable of it. They lack coherence. They compete as much among themselves as they do with America or Europe—and hence the BRICs as a club seem unlikely to match the force of their individual ambitions.

质疑金砖四国带来改变的更有利的论据则是他们缺乏改变的能力。他们缺乏一致性。金砖四国成员国之间的竞争不亚于他们和欧美国家的竞争——因此金砖四国组成一个俱乐部的行为,似乎和它们各自的野心不太匹配。

Two are authoritarian; two are noisy democracies. Three are nuclear powers. Brazil is not, though it had a nuclear-weapons programme which it abandoned in the 1980s; in 2009 the vice-president said he personally thought Brazil should build its own bomb and the country plans a nuclear-powered submarine to patrol offshore oilfields. Two have permanent seats on the UN Security Council; two (to their immense frustration) do not.

金砖四国中两个是独裁国家,另两个则是嘈杂的民主国家。其中三个国家拥有核武器。尽管巴西没有核武器,但曾一度有过核武器计划,于八十年代终止;2009年巴西副总统声称他个人认为巴西应该制造自己的原子弹,且巴西也开始计划建造核动力潜艇用来巡逻海上油田。金砖四国中有两个是联合国安理会的常任理事国;两个不是(它们因此感到巨大挫折)。

When Mr O’Neill first coined his term, people wondered why Brazil was in the group but not Mexico. Now Russia looks like the odd man out. Its population is falling. Its fertility rate is catastrophically low, at around 1.35, compared with 1.8-2.8 for the others (the fertility rate measures the number of children an average woman can expect to have during her lifetime). The working-age populations of India, China and Brazil will all rise between now and 2030 (enormously in India and Brazil, marginally in China). Russia’s working-age population will fall by 17m. In general, uncertainty about who belongs in the group casts doubt on its coherence. Should South Africa join? Mexico? Indonesia? If they did, what would happen to the group?

奥尼尔首次提出金砖四国这一概念时,不少人困惑为何巴西名列其中,而不是墨西哥。如今俄罗斯显得格格不入。俄罗斯的人口在减少,和其他国家的1.8-2.8相比,其低至1.35的出生率简直如同灾难(出生率指的是该国平均每个妇女一生中生育的子女数)。印度、中国和巴西的劳动年龄人口从现在到2030年均会增加,其中印度和巴西会大幅增加,中国则增幅较小。而俄罗斯的劳动年龄人口将减少1700万。总而言之,关于哪些国家属于这一集团的不确定性都让人们对金砖四国的一致性产生怀疑。南非该加入这一集团吗?墨西哥呢?印度尼西亚呢?如果这些国家加入,集团会发生什么改变呢?

A more important obstacle to coherence is strategic rivalry. True, BRIC countries co-operate on a bilateral basis. There have been joint military exercises between Russia and China, Russia and India, and China and India in recent years. Russia and China also have a mutual-security body, called the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which includes Central Asian countries. The big problem, though, is India’s rivalry with China.

对四国的一致性来说,更重要的障碍是战略竞争。诚然,金砖四国之间的合作建立在双边关系上。近年来,俄罗斯与中国、俄罗斯和印度、以及中国和印度之间都曾举行过联合军事演习。中国和俄罗斯之间还成立了包括许多中亚国家在内的上海合作组织,以作为一个双边安全机构。印度和中国之间的对抗才是大问题。

China and India fought a war in 1962. China has taken control of a slice of Kashmir which India says was ceded illegally by Pakistan. China also disputes India’s title to the state of Arunachal Pradesh. In 2009 it tried to stop the Asian Development Bank from lending money to India because the loans would have financed a flood-control project there. India has been trying to limit the numbers of skilled Chinese workers. Some Indians fear that China wants to strangle their country with a “string of pearls”: the imagined necklace consists of Pakistan, India’s longtime rival; Nepal, where China backs the Maoist opposition; and Sri Lanka, where it is financing the country’s big post-civil-war reconstruction projects.

1962年中印战争时,中国控制了喀什米尔界内的一块领地,而印度声称该领地是被巴基斯坦非法割让的。另外中国也就印控阿鲁纳恰尔邦而与印度产生争端。2009年,中国试图阻挠亚洲发展银行向印度发放贷款,因为贷款将用于资助印度的一个防洪计划。印度也一直努力控制国内中国技术工作者的人数。一些印度人担心中国人想用一串”珍珠项链“扼杀他们的国家:这串想象中的项链由巴基斯坦、尼泊尔,和斯里兰卡组成。其中巴基斯坦是印度的宿敌;尼泊尔执政党是中国支持的毛主义党;中国还在资助斯里兰卡内战后的大型重建计划。

The BRICs have also stepped up competition between one another in third countries. Although the flow of aid and investment from rich countries to poor has been faltering, China promised $10 billion of cheap credit to Africa in 2009-12 and Brazil has invested $10 billion in the continent since 2003. The BRICs have also dramatically increased their purchases of exports from poor countries. Rather as America and the Soviet Union vied for influence through economic and military aid, the BRICs do now (though their competition is less fierce than the cold-war version).

金砖四国也在援助第三世界国家上展开了竞争。在发达国家对贫困国家的资助和投资显得犹豫不前的情况下,中国承诺 2009-2012年间向非洲提供100亿美元的低息贷款,巴西从2003年至今也已经在南美洲投资100亿美元。金砖四国都大幅增加了他们对贫困国家出口产品的购买。过去美国和前苏联曾经通过经济和军事援助来争夺影响力,金砖四国现在也如出一辙,不过今时今日他们的竞争要比冷战时期的竞争温和多了。

Even where BRIC countries agree in general, they often disagree in detail. Climate change is a good example. The emerging giants all argue that Western industrialised nations should take the largest share of the burden of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. They criticise absolute emission caps for developing countries and argue for limits based on population or intensity of use. They all want to keep questions of trade and climate change separate, opposing things like carbon duties.
However, for the purposes of climate change, the BRICs are actually BASICs (Brazil, South Africa, India, China): Russia is an industrialised country under the Kyoto accords, with obligations the others do not have. Even on a specific matter such as forestry, their records differ. Brazil is the world’s biggest deforester, albeit one committed to slowing the pace; China is the world’s biggest afforester (now planting 4m hectares of forest a year)—though some complain that its trading partners’ trees are being felled to stoke its economic growth.

即使是在大方向统一的问题上,金砖四国也经常在细节上出现分歧。气候变化问题就是一个很好的例子。这些新兴大国一致认为西方发达国家应该担起减排温室气体的重责。他们批评绝对排放上限,而主张根据污染现状或使用强度来设定排放限制。他们都想把贸易问题和气候变化问题分开讨论,反对诸如”碳税“这样的产物。
然而在气候变化问题的战线上,BASICs(巴西、南非、印度和中国)事实上要比金砖四国更像一个集团:俄罗斯是签署《京都协议书》的工业化国家之一,因此担有其他三国无需履行的减排义务。金砖四国甚至在例如森林这样的具体问题上也大相径庭。巴西是世界上最大的森林采伐国,虽然它承诺会减慢采伐速度;而中国却是世界上最大的造林国,每年种植四百万公顷森林——虽然不少人抱怨中国的贸易伙伴国为中国的经济增长付出了砍伐树木的代价。

Lastly, the BRICs differ economically. Obviously, their incomes range widely, from Russia’s $15,000 per head per year to India’s $3,000 (these are IMF figures using purchasing-power parities). Brazil and India define themselves as non-aligned developing economies. Russia does not. China sometimes does, and sometimes thinks of itself as sui generis. China and Russia have more open economies, with exports accounting for around a third of GDP. India and Brazil are more closed, with exports less than a fifth of GDP. Perhaps most important, China and Russia are both running huge current-account surpluses; Brazil and India, small current-account deficits. That reflects fundamentally different approaches to economic management. China is suppressing domestic demand and encouraging jobs in export industries. India and Brazil look askance at this form of mercantilism and suffer from China’s resulting currency undervaluation.

最后是金砖四国在经济状况上的不同。四国的国民收入显然差异跨度很大,从俄罗斯每年人均15000美元到印度的人均 3000美元(以上数据来自国际货币基金组织,计算时考虑了购买力平价)。巴西和印度定义自身为不结盟发展中国家。俄罗斯则不然。中国有时将自己定义为不结盟发展中国家,有时则认为自己是独一无二的[5]。中国和俄罗斯的经济较为开放,出口约占国内生产总值的三分之一。印度和巴西相对较为封闭,其出口低于国内生产总值的五分之一。或许最重要的一点是,中国和俄罗斯都有着高额的经常项目盈余;巴西和印度相反有着小额经常项目赤字。这些差别反映了国家之间经济管理方式的本质不同。中国抑制国内需求,鼓励出口行业就业。印度和巴西对这种形式的重商主义(译者注:即贸易顺差型经济)甚为不满,而且事实上也深受中国货币贬值政策之苦。更多信息请访问:http://www.24en.com/

Marriages of inconvenience
困难重重

The BRICs’ divisions do not paralyse the group. The countries got together to propose reforming the IMF, for instance. But they do limit the block’s effectiveness. There is no sign of military co-operation within the organisation, and nothing much on trade. As Mr Spektor puts it, the BRICs merely have to be something, not do anything.

金砖四国之间的分歧并未让这个集团瘫痪。例如他们曾联合提议改革国际货币基金组织。但是他们也各自限制了整个集团的有效力量。没有任何迹象显示四国之间有军事合作或贸易上的广泛合作。正如Spektor先生所言,金砖四国仅仅是为其名义所存在,而没有任何实际的行动。

Paradoxically, this makes it easier for the group to flourish since co-operation within the BRICs is in essence free: no one need sacrifice anything, so, however tiny the potential gains, they are worth pursuing. Emerging giants are able to criticise the management of the world economy without having to do anything about it (for example, deploring the failure to complete the Doha round of world trade talks without offering to break the logjam). As Agata Antkiewicz of the Centre for International Governance Innovation puts it, “even though the BRICs group has always been incoherent, the tag seems to have permeated the public domain and become synonymous with change, emerging markets and growth.” But this could end if ever BRIC membership required trade-offs.

然而讽刺的是,这反而为集团的繁荣提供了方便,因为金砖四国之间的合作本质上来说是免费的:没有任何一方需要牺牲,因此即便是再小的潜在利益也是值得追求的。这些新兴大国可以对世界经济管理评头论足,而又无所作为。例如他们对世贸组织多哈回合谈判的失败表示强烈不满,却又不主动采取措施打破僵局。如国际治理创新中心的Agata Antkiewicz所说,”即使金砖四国集团长期以来步调并不一致,但这个标签似乎已经渗透到公共领域,成为改变、新兴市场和经济增长的代名词。“但如果金砖四国需要为成为会员付出代价的话,这些可能会戛然而止。

Meanwhile, the BRICs face rivals. East Asian countries are cobbling together something that might one day become a coherent emerging-market group. In January a free-trade agreement linking China and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) came into force. In March ASEAN nations, China, Japan and South Korea set up a pool of foreign-exchange reserves giving them a small element of monetary-policy co-ordination. Such a group leaves out Brazil, Russia and India. But Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank in Washington, DC, reckons the West ought to be thinking about how to respond to this regional group, rather than the global club of BRICs.

金砖四国同时也面临着来自其他集团的竞争。东亚国家正急不可耐地抱成一团,可能会成为一个统一的新兴市场集团。今年一月,中国和东南亚国家联盟之间的自由贸易协定正式生效。随后三月,中国、日本和韩国建立了一个外汇储备基金用以协调其货币政策。巴西、俄罗斯和印度被排斥在这些集团之外。华盛顿特区的智库,彼得森国际经济研究所的Fred Bergsten认为西方国家更应思考如何应对这些地区性集团,而不是应对金砖四国这样的全球性俱乐部。

Eswar Prasad of Cornell University points out that as an organisation (as opposed to a clever acronym), the BRICs are a product of the great recession. They are noticed because of the recessionary debate about rebalancing the world economy. As that debate evolves, so will ideas about the BRICs. But that is no reason for writing them off. There have also been endless numbers of Gs: starting in the 1960s with a G10, then G5, G6, G7, G8—and now G20.

来自康奈尔大学的Eswar Prasad指出,作为一个组织(而不是一个巧妙的简称),金砖四国是大萧条的产物。经济衰退时期关于重新平衡世界经济的论辩将金砖四国引入了人们的视线。在论辩展开的同时,对金砖四国的争论也将出现。但没有理由将他们擦除。同时,无数以G冠名的集团也层出不穷:从六十年代的G10开始,然后是 G5,G6,G7,G8,到现在的G20。

The BRICs cannot claim legal, historical or geographical coherence, in the way the European Union can. They are not facing a common security threat, as NATO originally did. But events in Copenhagen, messy as they were, are surely proof that new and improbable combinations of large, emerging countries can play a role on the world stage. The BRICs’ begetter, Mr O’Neill, does not regret his creation: his “overriding conclusion is that [they] are a good mechanism for pressing rich countries to change their role in managing the global economy more radically.”

金砖四国没有像欧盟成员国之间那样的法律、历史或地理联系。他们也没有北约成立最初所面临的共同安全威胁。但哥本哈根发生的状况(尽管颇为糟糕)明确证实了看似不可能的这些大型新兴力量的组合会在世界舞台上大有所为。作为金砖四国这一概念的创立者,奥尼尔先生并无遗憾:他的“最重要的结论是这些国家本身是一个很好的机制,这一机制可以迫使发达国家更彻底改变他们在世界经济管理中的作用。”


译注:
1. primus inter pares, 拉丁语,"the first among equals" or "first among peers",同辈中最年长的,同辈之首。
2. 瑞士是经济繁荣而在外交上采取中立的发达国家的典型代表。hide one"s light under a bushel,习语,意为”不露锋芒“。
3. hew v. To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with to
4. 化圆为方,著名的古希腊数学题,由于这个问题用尺规无法完成,后引申为做不可能的事。此处也与方形的“金砖”暗合,很巧妙。
5. sui generis 拉丁语,英语译为”its own kind” 或 “unique in its characteristics“,独特的,独一无二的。

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