中國崛起改變英國經商基本規則

China's rise will change the nuts and bolts of British business

作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家 蒂姆•哈福德

Should we feel threatened by the rise of China? The relentless progress of what my colleague Martin Wolf describes as the world's largest ant colony is giddying. Exports from China have risen by almost half in the past year, causing a political stink in Washington, while Chinese workers are reminding their employers, and rulers, that cheap Chinese labour cannot be taken for granted. China has a habit of outrunning any superlative we can apply to the place. (The statistics about China I included in my book The Undercover Economist – published in 2005 – have been shredded by the pace of Chinese growth.)	对于中国的崛起，我们应该感觉到威胁吗？我的同事马丁•沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)把这个国家比作全球最大的蚁穴，它毫不停歇的发展令人眩晕。在过去一年里，中国的出口增加了近一半，这在华盛顿政坛激起了轩然大波，同时中国的 工人正敦促雇主和政府当局，别把中国廉价劳动力视作理所当然。不管你用多夸张的词语来形容中国，它都会一一赶超。（我在2005年出版的《卧底经济学 家》(The Undercover Economist)一书中，列举了许多有关中国的统计数据，但中国增长的步伐让它们化为了碎片。）
Philippe Legrain's new book Aftershock reports the most eye-catching statistic about China I have seen for a while: that China now exports every six hours as much as it did in the whole of 1978. Consumers have enjoyed cheaper goods, but now that businesses across the world have to compete with the “China price”, it's hard not to feel nervous about this new economic superpower.	近来最惹人瞩目的中国数据，来自菲利浦•勒格兰(Philippe Legrain)的新书《余震》(Aftershock)中。书中称，如今中国每6个小时的出口，相当于1978年全年的出口。消费者得以享用更廉价的商 品，但如今世界各地的企业都必须与“中国价格”竞争。人们很难不对这个新的超级经济大国感到紧张。
China is also a business opportunity, of course. Peter Mandelson once cited a 19th-century commentator who remarked that “if everyone in China lengthened their shirt tails by a foot, the textile mills of England would spin for a year”. At a recent gathering of business leaders in Manchester, that 19th-century sentiment was going strong. These entrepreneurs were worried about the slump and the tight purse strings of the banks – but about China? Never: China was viewed as one big opportunity, even if shirt tails no longer top the list of Mancunian exports.	当然，中国也代表着商业机遇。彼得•曼德尔森(Peter Mandelson)曾引用19世纪一位评论家的话说，“如果每个中国人的衬衣下摆都加长一英尺，英国的纺织厂就得纺上整整一年”。近期在曼彻斯特举行的 企业领导人聚会上，这种19世纪出现的情绪变得强烈起来。与会企业家担心经济低迷和银行收紧银根——而关于中国呢？他们从不担忧：中国被视为一个重大机 遇，即使衬衣下摆不再是曼彻斯特最主要的出口商品。
This is the right attitude. It's not that doing business in China is easy. (It isn't, even for the Chinese: the World Bank “Doing Business” database lists 150 countries in which it's easier to set up a new business.) But the opportunities are there and they will grow.	这是正确的态度。这并不是说在中国经商很容易。（事实上并不容易，即使是对中国人来说 也是如此。世界银行(World Bank) “经商”数据库列出了150个创业更为容易的国家。）但机会是存在的，而且越来越大。
Less obvious is the dynamic introduced into our economy by the rise of China, and here a simple economic model may help. Imagine a British economy with eight million workers producing eight million nuts, while four million workers in the more productive bolt industry produce eight million bolts – 12 million workers in total producing eight million nut-and-bolt pairs. When the Chinese arrive, offering to sell two nuts for every British bolt, the British nut industry goes bust and the unemployed workers are hired by the bolt industry. The total output of the 12 million workers is now 24 million bolts, of which 16 million stay in the UK and the rest are swapped for Chinese nuts. Every British worker is still employed and the British economy has twice as many nut-bolt pairs as before.	不太明显的一点是，中国崛起给我们的经济注入了活力。这一个简单的经济模型可能会说明 这点。假设英国有800万名工人在生产螺帽，单位时间产量为800万颗，同时有400万名工人生产螺旋，他们的生产效率较高，同样时间内可生产800万个 螺旋——总共有1200万名工人，生产800万副螺旋螺帽。这时中国人来了，提议以每2颗螺帽交换一个螺旋。于是英国螺帽行业倒闭，失业工人转而受雇于螺 旋行业。如今，1200万名工人的总产量为2400万个螺旋，当中1600万个留在本国使用，其余用来换中国的螺帽。每个英国工人仍然有工作做，而英国经 济中所有的螺旋螺帽是以前的2倍。
That is a sketch of the familiar calculations offered in economics textbooks to explain the gains from trade. The textbooks are largely correct, although they omit much, not least the juddering shock of workers having to try to switch from one industry to another.	这是经济学教科书上众所周知的用来解释贸易收益的大概计算方法。教科书大体上是正确 的，但也忽略了许多问题，特别是受到剧烈冲击的工人们不得不设法转行。
Yet what has always remained implicit in such accounts is the competition between domestic companies. The aggrieved nut industry might claim to have been put out of business by cheap Chinese competition, and in a way it has been. But it has also been put out of business by the efficient British bolt industry.	不过，在这类描述中，一向没有言明的是国内企业之间的竞争。愤愤不平的螺帽行业或许会 宣称，中国廉价商品的竞争抢走了他们的生意——现实中的确有这样的抱怨。但是，他们也遭到了本国高效的螺旋行业的排挤。
If someone invented a machine that would turn a bolt into two nuts or two nuts into a bolt, nothing important would change about the story. Rather than sending bolts to China, the bolt industry would pour them into the machine.	假如有人发明了一种机器，能够把一颗螺帽变成两个螺旋，或者把两个螺旋变成一颗螺帽， 整个故事也不会发生任何重大变化。螺旋行业不会把螺旋出口到中国，而是会把它们倒进这种机器里面。
The nut industry would still go bust and the bolt industry would still expand.This is the hidden story of trade. Rather than competing with British businesses, China is altering the playing field on which British businesses compete with each other.	螺帽行业依然会倒闭，而螺旋行业依然会扩张。这是贸易中难以发现的一面。中国并不是与 英国企业竞争，而是在改变英国企业相互之间的竞争环境。
	译者/杨远