是真是假 盤點特朗普的涉中國言論

If there is one thing Donald Trump seems sure about, it is that the United States is getting a raw deal from China.

如果有一件事在唐納德·特朗普(Donald Trump)看來似乎確定無疑的話，那就是美國從中國得到了不公平的待遇。

To people who spend time studying the United States’ economic relationship with China, Mr. Trump’s accounting of its dysfunctions contains both legitimate, accurate complaints and elements that completely misstate how things work between the world’s largest and second-largest economies.

對那些花時間來研究美國與中國的經濟關係的人來說，特朗普對關係失調的描述，既包括合理又確切的抱怨，也有對世界上最大和第二大經濟體之間的運作方式完全錯誤的說法。

“They’re killing us,” Mr. Trump has said in many debates, rallies and television appearances. He has threatened to put a 45 percent tax on Chinese imports “if they don’t behave.”

“他們正在置我們於死地，”特朗普在辯論會、集會以及在電視上露面時多次這樣說。他曾揚言要對中國進口徵收45%的關稅，“如果他們不好好做的話。”

If you take Mr. Trump’s comments at face value, as president he would try to renegotiate a complex set of ties that has pulled hundreds of millions of Chinese out of dire poverty, made a wide range of goods available to American consumers at more affordable prices and contributed to the decline of American manufacturing.

如果你把特朗普的言論當真的話，要是當上總統，他將試圖對一整套複雜的關係進行重新談判。這些關係讓數億中國人擺脫了赤貧，讓美國消費者以更實惠的價格得到了一系列的商品，也造成了美國製造業的衰落。

Here is a reality check on Mr. Trump’s arguments. (It’s also a way to understand the economic relationship between the countries.)

下面是對特朗普的觀點在現實上的核查。（也是瞭解這兩國之間的經濟關係的一個辦法。）

“We have very unfair trade with China. We’re going to have a trade deficit of $505 billion this year with China.” — Mr. Trump

“我們與中國的貿易非常不公平。我們與中國的貿易逆差今年將達到5050億美元。”——特朗普

America’s trade deficit with China was $338 billion last year, and there’s no reason to think it would swing by as much as Mr. Trump suggests in 2016 — but what’s $167 billion among codependent trading partners? (Mr. Trump seems to be conflating the China number with the $505 billion total American trade deficit in 2014, which was first reported to be that much.)

美國對中國的貿易逆差去年是3380億美元，沒有理由認爲2016年的逆差會發生像特朗普所說的那樣大的變化，但是在相互依存的貿易伙伴之間，1670億美元是什麼呢？（特朗普似乎把美國與中國的貿易逆差，與美國2014年的總貿易逆差混爲一談了，5050億美元是最初報道的總逆差。）

The central point, that the United States imports a lot more from China than it exports, is correct. To put it a bit differently, from 1999 to 2015 annual imports from China rose by $416 billion. In the same span, American exports to China rose by $145 billion.

美國從中國的進口大大高於出口這個核心點是正確的。用比較不同的視角來看，2015年美國從中國的進口比1999年的增長了4160億美元。在同一時期，美國對中國的出口增長1450億美元。

That said, many economists would argue that a trade balance shouldn’t be viewed as a simple scorecard in which the country with the trade deficit is the loser and the one with the surplus the winner.

儘管如此，許多經濟學家認爲，貿易平衡不應該是一個簡單的記分卡，貿易有逆差的國家是輸家，而貿易有順差的國家是贏家。

So the question isn’t whether there is a persistent, large trade deficit between the United States and China, but why. And that leads to another arm of Mr. Trump’s argument, and one of the stronger ones.

所以，問題不在於美國與中國之間是否存在着持久的巨大貿易逆差，而在於爲什麼是這樣。這就引出了特朗普論點的另一個部分，兩個國家誰更強。

“I have many friends, great manufacturers, they want to go into China. They can’t. China won’t let them.” — Mr. Trump

“我有很多朋友，他們是出色的製造商，他們想進入中國市場。他們進不去。中國不讓他們進。”——特朗普

It’s not that American multinational companies — heavy industry, technology or finance — can’t do business in China. Rather, their executives complain of Chinese government restrictions that they see as arbitrary, unpredictable and highly favorable to domestic companies — so much so that in practice they are either shut out or can’t make money in China.

這並不是說美國的重工業、技術或金融行業的跨國公司無法在中國做生意。而是這些公司的高管們抱怨中國政府的各種限制，他們認爲這些限制很任意且變化莫測，而且對國內企業高度有利，以至於實際情況是，企業要麼無法進入，要麼進入了也無法在中國賺錢。

Doing business in China typically requires a partnership with a Chinese company, and that often means sharing crucial intellectual property that can enable the partner to become a competitor down the road. The rules of engagement can change capriciously, especially for American and European companies, rendering major investments worthless.

在中國開展業務通常需要與中國企業建立合作關係，這往往意味着要與中方共享關鍵的知識產權，這會讓合作伙伴成爲日後的競爭對手。與中國打交道的規則可以被任意改變，特別是對美國和歐洲的公司，讓大筆投資變得分文不值。

American business interests have a long list of complaints: that the Chinese government uses its enforcement of antimonopoly rules to favor its domestic businesses; that the government subsidizes exports through tax rebates and other practices; that automakers can set up factories within China only as part of joint ventures and face stiff tariffs in trying to sell cars made in the United States.

美國的商業利益有一個長長的抱怨清單：中國政府用反壟斷執法來幫助國內商家；政府用退稅及其他做法補貼出口；汽車生產商只能作爲合資企業的一部分在中國國內建工廠，並在試圖出售美國製造的汽車上面臨高額的關稅。

The United States government has pushed China on these “market access” issues for years. But the situation seems to be growing worse, at least in the opinion of American executives. The American Chamber of Commerce in China regularly surveys its members about business conditions, and this year 57 percent of executives surveyed named “inconsistent regulatory interpretation and unclear laws” as a top problem, up from 37 percent in 2012.

美國政府多年來一直在推動中國解決這些“市場準入”問題。但情況似乎越來越糟糕，至少在美國高管的眼裏。中國美國商會(American Chamber of Commerce in China)定期向其成員調查中國的商務環境狀況，商會表示，今年，57%的受訪高管把“監管解釋不一致、法律不清楚”作爲首要問題，高於2012年的37%。

This may reflect a faltering Chinese economy that is leading the government there to be more concerned than usual about protecting domestic companies.

這可能反映的是，中國經濟狀況不佳導致政府比以往更加關注保護國內企業。

“They are the single greatest currency manipulator that’s ever been on this planet.” — Mr. Trump

“他們是這個星球上有史以來最大的一個貨幣操縱國。”——特朗普

Mr. Trump’s complaint about China’s devaluation of its currency has a long, bipartisan tradition. It is also out of date.

對於中國貶值其貨幣，特朗普的抱怨代表了有着悠久傳統的兩黨均秉持的立場。但這也是一個過時的看法。

It is true that China intervenes in currency markets to influence the price of its renminbi against the dollar. And it is true that a decade ago, both the American government and independent economists tended to think that the interventions served to depress the currency, in the Chinese government’s deliberate effort to make its exports more price competitive.

的確，中國對外匯市場的干預影響了人民幣對美元的價格。十年之前，無論是美國政府還是獨立的經濟學家，也都確實傾向於認爲，中國的干預措施壓低了本幣價值，中國政府刻意採取這類做法，目的是提升出口產品的價格競爭力。

But a lot has changed in the last decade. The renminbi was allowed to rise sharply from roughly 2006 to 2015, and is up 23 percent from a decade ago.

不過在過去十年中，情況已經有了很大的不同。大約從2006年到2015年，在政府的許可下，人民幣出現了大幅升值，現在比十年前升值了23%。

And since last summer, China has let the currency drop some, but that appears to be an example not of manipulation, but of letting the price of the currency fall closer to the rate that reflects China’s fundamentals given the country’s slowing economy. The International Monetary Fund has argued that the renminbi, also known as the yuan, is no longer undervalued.

自去年夏天以來，中國讓人民幣進行了一些貶值，但這似乎不屬於操縱，而是因爲該國經濟正在放緩，要讓幣值跌到更能反映中國基本面的水平。國際貨幣基金組織(International Monetary Fund)指出，人民幣的估值已經不再過低。

“At least in 2006, 2007 or 2008, the yuan was undervalued — now it’s probably not,” said Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and chief economist of China Beige Book, an information service.

“至少是在2006、2007或2008年，人民幣被低估了——但現在很可能並沒有，”美國企業研究所(American Enterprise Institute)的常駐學者、資訊服務“中國褐皮書”(China Beige Book)的首席經濟學家史劍道(Derek Scissors)說。

Indeed, the Chinese government has been trying to restrict capital from flowing out of the country to stop the renminbi from falling any further. It would seem that the Chinese government and Mr. Trump are, for the moment at least, on the same side.

事實上，中國政府正在試圖遏制資本流出國門，避免人民幣進一步貶值。這似乎是中國政府和特朗普的一個共通之處，至少目前如此。

“What will happen if they don’t behave, we will put on a tax of some amount, and it could be a large amount, and we will start building those factories and those plants. Instead of in China, we’ll build them here.” — Mr. Trump

“如果他們舉止不端，那我們可以加些稅，稅率可以非常高，這樣我們就會開始修建工廠。不是在中國建，就在美國建。”——特朗普

Mr. Trump’s broader argument is that a generation of unfair economic relations with China (and also Mexico, Japan and others) is a primary cause of the troubles of American workers.

特朗普的更寬泛的說法是，美國這二三十年來與中國（以及墨西哥、日本等國）之間不公平的經貿關係，是美國勞動者陷入困境的主要原因。

Mainstream economists are more sympathetic to this view now than they were even a few years ago. Traditional trade theory holds that the losers from global trade — factory workers who lose their jobs when that factory moves overseas — are more than compensated by other opportunities created by a more efficient economy.

即便是與幾年前相比，主流經濟學家現在也更加青睞這一觀點。傳統貿易理論認爲，全球貿易的受害者——工廠向海外轉移時失業的員工——獲得了足夠多的彌補，因爲更有效的經濟創造了其他機會。

New scholarship suggests that the pain from globalization in certain geographic locations may be longer-lasting. One study found that Chinese imports from 1999 to 2011 cost up to 2.4 million American jobs.

新的學術觀念認爲，在某些地理區域，全球化造成的傷痛可能會更加持久。一項研究的結論是，在1999年至2011年間，因中國進口而失去的美國就業崗位最多可達240萬。

That said, it’s easy to assign too much of the blame for the collapse of manufacturing employment to China or trade more broadly. Hundreds of millions of workers across the globe — many of whom were in dire poverty a generation ago — have become integrated into the world economy. That’s a lot of competition, all in a short span, for American factory workers.

儘管如此，人們也把容易把製造業的就業低迷過多地歸咎於中國或更寬泛的貿易往來。在世界各地，有數以億計的勞動者——其中很多在二三十年前還處在赤貧狀態——融入了全球經濟。這對美國工廠工人是一個巨大的競爭，而且是在一段不長的時間裏出現的。

At the same time, factory technology has advanced so that a company can make more stuff with fewer workers. The number of manufacturing workers in the United States has been declining as a share of all jobs nearly continuously since 1943, and the total number of manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979; China’s trade with the United States didn’t really take off until the 1990s.

與此同時，技術進步也讓企業可以依靠更少員工生產出更多的產品。自從1943年以來，美國製造業從業人員在全部就業崗位中的佔比就一直在下滑。製造業就業總人數在1979年達到了峯值；而中美貿易直到90年代才真正開始激增。

In other words, trade has been an important economic force over the last few decades, and the deepening of the United States’ ties with China is one of the most important developments in global economics of the last generation. But to look at China as the sole force affecting the ups and downs of American workers misses the mark.

換句話說，在過去幾十年中，貿易確實是一股重要的經濟力量，而美中關係的深化是過去二三十年來全球經濟中最重大的進展之一。不過，把中國視爲美國工人命運起伏的唯一影響因素，這樣的看法並不中肯。