數字化時代世界應重新反思經濟願景
We have become used in recent decades to a particular vision of the world economy, which comprises accelerating interconnections that drive globalisation and international business.
最近幾十年，我們已經習慣於世界經濟的一種特定願景，它包含着不斷加速的互聯互通，這種互聯互通推動着全球化和國際商業往來。
Bigger and bigger container ships carry the load of expanding global trade, surging flows of data feed an increasingly international digital economy and supply chains sprawl across borders and spit out consumer products that are ever cheaper and better.
越來越巨型的集裝箱貨船承載着不斷擴大的全球貿易，暴增的數據流支撐着日益國際化的數字經濟，供應鏈穿越國界在全球延伸，爲消費者送上價格越來越便宜、質量越來越好的產品。
What if that version of events has almost run its course? Consider what is happening in the world of trade and the rate of technological change and it is easy to construct a case that it is time to re-examine the prevailing view.
如果這種趨勢已幾乎走到盡頭，會發生什麼？考慮到世界貿易的現狀和技術變化的速度，很容易論證這樣一個命題：是時候重新審視當前流行的觀念了。
The first piece of evidence is that the expansion of global trade has slowed. Before the 2008 financial crisis the volume of worldwide trade in goods expanded at an average of 6 per cent annually, according to the World Trade Organisation. In the past three years growth has slowed to an average of 2.4 per cent, with some measures showing that global trade recorded its worst performance since 2009 in the first six months of this year.
第一個證據是，全球貿易增長已經放緩。世界貿易組織(WTO)數據顯示，2008年金融危機之前，全球貨物貿易量以年均6%的速度增長。過去3年，增速已放緩至年均2.4%，一些指標顯示，今年前6個月，全球貿易創下了自2009年以來的最差表現。
Part of the reason for that is the anaemic recovery in the global economy. Once the world booms again then so will global trade, optimists argue.
導致這種局面的部分原因是全球經濟復甦乏力。樂觀者認爲，一旦世界經濟重新走向繁榮，全球貿易也會隨之好轉。
Yet there are also structural reasons for the change. When economists from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund examined the trend last year they attributed a significant part of the difference to more permanent shifts that began even before the crisis. The biggest of those is that China, which has made its fortune by playing a crucial, assembly-focused role in global supply chains importing parts and exporting finished goods, has begun to replicate large parts of that supply chain at home.
然而，引起這種變化的還有結構性原因。當世界銀行(World Bank)與國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)的經濟學家們去年研究這一趨勢時，他們在很大程度上將此歸因於甚至在經濟危機之前就開始的更爲永久性的轉變。其中最大的變化因素是中國——曾經通過在全球供應鏈中扮演至關重要的裝配角色（進口零部件、出口製成品）實現繁榮的中國，已開始在國內複製這條供應鏈的很多環節。
That is happening alongside moves by companies in other large economies such as Japan and the US to “reshore” or “nearshore” supply chains to make them more disaster proof or because rising wage costs in China have made producing closer to home more economic.
與此同時，日本、美國等其他大型經濟體的企業將供應鏈“遷回”或“遷近”國內，爲的是在更大程度上免受災害影響，或是因爲中國工資成本上升使得在距離本國更近的地方生產更加划算。
Pair those trends with technological innovations such as “additive manufacturing”, or what most of us think of as 3D printing, and the impending March of the Robots, driven by artificial intelligence, and it is hard to imagine a vision of globalisation remaining quite as we imagined.
將這些趨勢與技術創新——如“添加製造”(additive manufacturing)，即多數人所稱的3D打印，以及即將到來的由人工智能驅動的機器人大量出現的景象——放在一起，很難設想一種與我們此前的想象全然相同的全球化前景。
What if one day 3D-printed robots can make their own 3D-printed robots? What happens to world trade then?
如果有一天，3D打印出的機器人可以在3D打印機上自行製作機器人，那會發生什麼？那時的世界貿易會是什麼樣子的？
To Robert Koopman, who took over as the WTO’s chief economist this year, what we are seeing is not so much the end of globalisation but the end of an era of what others have called “hyperglobalisation” that accompanied the emergence of economies such as China’s in recent decades.
對於今年接任WTO首席經濟學家的羅伯特錠湞曼(Robert Koopman)來說，與其說我們所看到的是全球化的終結，不如說是其他人所稱的“超全球化”(hyperglobalisation)時代的結束，後者近幾十年來伴隨着中國等經濟體的崛起。
The data we have on global trade also has huge holes, he says, and is not good enough to assess the growing flows of services or data, or what trade in a new digital world really looks like.
他說，我們所掌握的全球貿易數據也存在巨大漏洞，不足以評估服務或數據越來越大的流動，也不能很好呈現新的數字世界中的貿易的真正形態。
“I do think we may be missing an important part of the story,” he says. “But we won’t know until we find out how to measure it.”
“我認爲我們可能錯過了一個重要部分，”他說，“但我們不會知道——直至我們發現如何衡量它。”
There is another vision of what is happening and of where we are heading. This holds that we are living through the beginnings of another great age of liberalisation that may in time yield its own boost to global growth and perhaps its own version of globalisation.
對於正在發生的情況以及未來趨向，還有另一種看法。這種觀點認爲，我們正在經歷另一個偉大自由化時代的開端，假以時日，它可能產生對全球經濟增長的提振，甚至自己版本的全球化。
The last great multilateral trade agreement — the culmination of the Uruguay Round that led to the creation of the WTO — is more than 20 years old. The stalled previous attempt to yield another global agreement, the Doha Round, is 14 years old and counting.
上一份大型多邊貿易協定——烏拉圭回合(Uruguay Round)談判最終創建了WTO——距今已有20多年了。嘗試敲定新的全球協定但陷入僵局的多哈回合(Doha Round)談判已進行了14年，仍一籌莫展。
There are a half-dozen or more big regional or sectoral trade negotiations under way globally, however, that contain a new kind of promise and that are tackling new trade issues such as the barriers to the free flow of data and ecommerce. Among those is the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership — agreed this week though subject to ratification — which includes the US and Japan and other economies making up some 40 per cent of the global economy.
然而，全球範圍內還有6個或更多大型地區或行業貿易談判正在進行，它們包含一種新型的願景，並且在應對新的貿易議題，如數據自由流動以及電子商務的壁壘。這些談判包括由12個國家不久前剛剛達成（但仍須各國立法機構批准）的《跨太平洋夥伴關係協定》(TPP)，該協定覆蓋美國、日本及其他經濟體，共計佔全球經濟的40%左右。
There are transatlantic negotiations between the EU and the US and others to liberalise the services industry and the trade in environmental goods. New regional trade blocs in Latin America and Africa are finding their feet and ways to integrate whole economic neighbourhoods.
還有歐盟與美國之間的跨大西洋談判以及其他談判，目的都是開放服務業和環保產品貿易。拉丁美洲和非洲新建立的區域貿易組織正在站穩腳跟，並尋找實現整個周邊經濟區域一體化的方式。
The bigger promise is that they could one day be stitched together and piece by piece a new picture of globalisation might emerge that causes us to rethink our vision for the global economy once again.
更大的願景是，他們有一天可以被一塊塊地拼接在一起，形成一個新的全球化景象，促使我們再次反思自己的全球經濟願景。
