「中英」抗疫情还是保经济?中国艰难寻找平衡
在北京一个商住小区的停车场入口,一名司机在登记、测体温,车也要经过消毒。Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
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新冠病毒疫情每日中文简报,或发送邮件至cn.letters@nytimes.com加入订阅。] SHANGHAI — China’s business leaders know better than to argue with Beijing. Leave the politics to the Communist Party, they long ago concluded, and the government will let them make money in peace.
上海——中国的工商界领袖们很明白,绝不要与北京争论。他们早就得出结论,只要把政治留给共产党,政府就会让他们安稳赚钱。 A vicious viral outbreak has upended that formula. China’s typically supercharged economy has ground to a near standstill as the authorities battle
a coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people and sickened tens of thousands more. Hundreds of millions of people now live
essentially in isolation, as roadblocks seal off entire towns and the local authorities
stop companies from reopening. 一场恶性病毒的暴发颠覆了这个准则。
它已导致2000多人死亡、数万人被感染,随着当局努力抗击疫情,中国以往格外强劲的经济已陷入了近乎停顿的状态。路障已将整座整座的城市封闭,地方当局
不让企业复工,这导致数亿人现在基本上过着
与世隔绝的生活。 Business leaders and economists in China are increasingly saying, Enough. While China must stop the outbreak, they argue, some of its methods are hurting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people while contributing little to the containment effort. 越来越多的中国工商界领袖和经济学家都在说,做过头了。他们认为,虽然必须遏制疫情,但政府的一些做法对此没有多少帮助,而且正在给数百万人的生活和生计造成危害。 “Strike a balance that is conducive to protecting lives,” wrote James Liang, the executive chairman of Trip.com, China’s dominant online travel agency, in a widely circulated essay this week. “(需要)在疫情防治和恢复秩序之间形成平衡的方案,”本周,携程董事局主席梁建章在网络上一篇广为转发的文章中写道。携程网是一个在中国占有举足轻重地位的在线旅游票务平台。 If the country becomes poorer because of emergency health measures, Mr. Liang warned, that might hurt public health more than the virus itself. 梁建章警告,如果国家因为采取紧急卫生措施而变得更穷的话,其结果对公众健康的损害可能会超过病毒本身。
成都几乎空无一人的商业区。Yuyang Liu for The New York Times No one questions that the disease is still a serious problem, particularly in Hubei Province and its capital, Wuhan. More than 70,000 people have been stricken, according to official figures. Foreign medical experts have suggested the true total may be much higher. 没有人对新冠病毒仍是一个严重的问题有疑议,尤其是在湖北及其省会武汉。官方数据显示,确诊感染病毒的人数已超过七万。外国的公共卫生专家说,实际数字可能要比官方数字高得多。 Nevertheless, business leaders and economists are beginning to ask whether mandatory 14-day quarantines, roadblocks and checkpoints are really required across much of the country, especially in provinces far from Hubei where there have been fairly few cases. 尽管如此,工商界领袖和经济学家们开始质疑:是否真有必要在中国大部分地区,尤其是湖北以外的省份,实施14天的强制隔离,以及在这些确诊病例相当少的地方设置路障和卫生检疫站。 The debate is unusual in a country where dissent is usually censored or squelched. Even topics like business and the economy, once considered relatively fair game for discussion,
have become sensitive as
China’s economy has slowed and as the Communist Party
has tightened its grip on
more aspects of Chinese life. 在这个异议经常受到审查或压制的国家,出现这种辩论很不寻常。随着
中国经济增长放缓,以及中共
对国内人民生活的更多方面加强控制,即使是商业和经济等一些一度被认为相对而言可以讨论的话题,也
变得敏感起来。 Still, even the Chinese government has acknowledged the wounds inflicted on the country’s economy, further fueling national discussion of when enough might be enough. 不过,就连中国政府也承认,疫情已给国内经济造成了伤害,这进一步激发了这场全国性的讨论:什么时候该适可而止了。
“If the epidemic lasts for a long time, agricultural products, food and industries with long industrial chains and labor-intensive industries are expected to be greatly affected,” said Li Xingqian, the commerce ministry’s director of foreign investment, on Thursday afternoon at a news briefing in Beijing. “如果疫情持续时间较长,农产品、食品以及产业链长、劳动密集的行业预计会受较大影响,”商务部外贸司司长李兴乾周四下午在北京召开的网上新闻发布会上说。
The ripples are spreading far beyond China, hitting companies like Apple, General Motors and Adidas. Amazon, the e-retailing giant,
is taking steps to keep its virtual shelves stocked. 疫情对经济的波及远远超出了中国的边界,苹果、通用汽车和阿迪达斯等公司均受到了影响。电子零售巨头亚马逊
正在采取措施,保障库存。
武汉一家方舱医院的病人。Chinatopix, via Associated Press Beijing is striking a difficult balancing act. It is urging officials across the country to continue to wage
what Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, has called “the people’s war.” At the same time, it has urged workers and farmers to
get back on the job and has taken steps to help businesses. On Thursday, it cut lending rates to give businesses more access to money. 中国政府正在寻找一个艰难的平衡。中央敦促地方官员继续抗击疫情,这一努力已被中国最高领导人习近平称为一场“人民战争”。同时,政府呼吁工人和农民
重返工作岗位,并已采取措施帮助企业。为了让企业更容易获得资金,政府本周四下调了贷款利率。 Many of China’s businesses, particularly small ones, appear to be in trouble. One-third of small firms in the country are on the brink of running out of cash over the next four weeks, according to a survey of 1,000 business owners by Peking University and Tsinghua University. Another third will run out of cash in the next two months. 中国的许多企业,尤其是小型企业,似乎已陷入了困境。北京大学和清华大学对近1000名企业主进行的问卷调查显示,中国三分之一的小企业持有的现金只能维持四周的运行。另外,有三分之一的小企业的现金将在两个月后耗尽。 Beijing’s options are risky. New data on Thursday showed the number of newly confirmed infections had plunged sharply. Much of that drop, however, appeared to reflect a narrowing in the definition of a confirmed infection. 北京如何选择都有风险。周四的新数据显示,新确诊的感染人数大幅下降。不过,这种下降在很大程度上是因为政府缩小了确诊感染的定义。
Chinese health officials insist that it is too soon simply to dismantle the many measures they have imposed. 中国的卫生官员坚称,取消他们已经采取了的许多措施还为时尚早。
“We actively support the orderly resumption of work and production, but we still cannot relax our vigilance in the slightest,” said Zheng Jin, the spokeswoman for the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, at a news briefing on Thursday. “近期我们积极支持有序复工复产,但是依然丝毫不能放松警惕,”上海市卫生健康委员会新闻发言人郑锦在周四的新闻发布会上说。
中国政府也在密切关注食品价格。Yuyang Liu for The New York Times Signs of progress combined with growing worries over the economy have, nevertheless, spurred calls for Beijing to loosen up. 不过,疾控取得进展的迹象,以及对经济担忧的加剧,刺激了让中国政府放松措施的呼声。
A team of Chinese economists, mainly at Peking University and the brokerage Huachuang Securities, wrote a widely circulated online analysis last week that took a critical look at the containment effort. Too many areas of China with few coronavirus cases were trying so hard to stop the virus that they were preventing normal commerce among cities, they argued. 上周,一个主要来自北京大学和华昌证券的中国经济学家团队写的一篇分析文章在网上广为流传,它对遏制疫情的措施表示了批判性的看法。文章作者认为,太多的地区并没有多少冠状病毒的病例,却在过于努力地严格阻止病毒的传播,以至于阻碍了城市间的正常贸易。 “If all regions rely on blocking, they may block viruses, but they may also block the economy,” the economists wrote in an essay that first appeared in Caixin, one of China’s best-regarded publications. “At that time, a wave of corporate closures and unemployment may occur, worse than the current epidemic.” 这篇文章最初发表在《财新》杂志。经济学家们在文章中写道:“如果各地都靠‘封’,可能把‘病毒’封死,但也把经济封死,到时产生的企业倒闭潮和失业潮,可能比现在的疫情更糟。”《财新》是中国最受人尊敬的出版物之一。 No single business or city can resume regular activity by itself, because every company and community needs materials and workers from elsewhere, wrote Lu Zhengwei, chief economist at Industrial Bank in Fujian Province, in an online posting this week. “It is necessary to restore normal urban life” for the economy to rebound, he added. 福建兴业银行首席经济学家鲁政伟本周在网上发帖说,没有任何一家企业或一座城市能够独自恢复正常的活动,因为每家企业和每个领域都需要来自其他地方的材料和工人。他补充说,为了让经济运转起来,“要尽快恢复正常的城市生活。” Should Beijing ease back too quickly, however, it could allow large numbers of workers to gather together in their factories and offices in ways that might reinvigorate the spread of the coronavirus — something that neither business leaders nor the government want to see. 但是,如果中国政府过快地放松疾控措施,大量员工将聚集到工厂和办公室里,这可能会让新冠病毒再次快速传播——这是工商界领袖和政府都不希望看到的。
上周,北京几乎空无一人的火车站。Giulia Marchi for The New York Times E-commerce China Dangdang, an online retailer based in Beijing, ran into that nightmare this week. One of the company’s employees ran a fever on Tuesday, and by Wednesday evening, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention had diagnosed the coronavirus as the cause. 总部位于北京的在线零售商当当网本周就遭遇了这种噩梦。公司的一名员工周二出现发烧症状,到周三晚时,中国疾病预防控制中心已将发烧的原因确诊为新冠病毒感染。
The company said it had ordered all employees to work from home. Employees who sat near the infected worker have been quarantined at their homes. 当当网说,已下令所有员工在家工作。坐在那位受感染者附近的员工,已在各自家中隔离。 Working from home may be an option for companies like Dangdang, but manufacturers do not have that luxury. Many factories are still operating at a small fraction of full capacity, even as businesses all over the world watch their inventories dwindle for products and components that are made in China. 让员工在家上班对当当网这样的公司来说,是一种可能的选择,但制造商们没有这种选择。中国许多工厂目前仍在以远低于满负荷生产的能力运转,尽管世界各地的企业都看到来自中国的产品和零部件库存正在减少。 Incremental moves are starting to be made to offset the effects of stringent curbs imposed on the movement of people and goods. 政府正开始逐步采取措施,来抵消对人员和货物流动的严格限制所造成的影响。
Cities are starting to arrange special trains to bring migrant workers back from hometowns that they visited over the recent Lunar New Year holiday. The city of Hangzhou announced that it had arranged one high-speed train to bring more than 600 workers back from Central China’s Henan Province and another high-speed train to bring back 750 workers from Western China’s Sichuan Province. 一些城市已开始安排专列,将回老家过春节的农民工接回来。杭州市宣布,已安排了一列高铁从中国中部的河南省接回了600多名工人,并安排了另一列高铁从中国西部的四川省接回了750名工人。
北京,等着顾客上门的店铺。Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Worried about job losses, some officials are paying companies to hire. The city of Xi’an, in northwestern China, announced that it was offering a one-time subsidy of $285 for each worker hired by companies making medical protective gear, and as much as $430 per worker for companies in any industry that hire large numbers. 政府官员出于对失业的担心,已开始补贴招聘工人的企业。中国西北部的城市西安宣布,将对生产医疗防疫物资的企业为扩大产能每多雇一名工人,提供一次性补贴2000元,对新招大批工人的企业,每雇一名新工人最高可获得一次性补贴3000元。 Chinese officials are also keeping a sharp eye on grocery bills. Even before the coronavirus hit, food prices were already surging more than 15 percent a year in China by last autumn. A different epidemic, the African swine fever, had
swiftly killed half the country’s pigs, its main source of protein. 中国官员也在密切关注食品价格。在冠状病毒暴发之前,中国的食品价格在去年秋天已在以15%的年率增长。其原因是另一种流行病:非洲猪瘟。猪瘟让这个国家
很快损失了近一半的猪,而猪肉是中国的主要蛋白质来源。 Now the coronavirus threatens to send food prices even higher. The Agriculture Ministry has ordered villages all over the country to take down the roadblocks and checkpoints and to allow movements of animal feed and livestock. But there have already been reports of mass slaughters of poultry for lack of feed, and chicken prices have temporarily plunged — in a possible sign of panic selling. 现在,冠状病毒的暴发可能会使食品价格进一步上涨。农业部已下令全国各地的村庄拆除路障和检疫站,让运送动物饲料和牲畜的车辆通行。但已有报道说,由于缺乏饲料,大批家禽正在被宰杀,鸡肉价格已在短期内大幅下跌,这可能是恐慌性抛售的迹象。
“The overall impact of production shutdowns on agriculture across the country,” Mr. Lu of Industrial Bank wrote this week, “cannot be underestimated.” “全面的停产停工对全国农业的影响不容小觑,”兴业银行的鲁政伟本周写道。
Alexandra Stevenson自香港对本文有报道贡献。Claire Fu自北京对本文有研究贡献。
Keith Bradsher是《纽约时报》上海分社社长,曾任香港分社社长、底特律分社社长。他之前曾驻华盛顿报道国际贸易新闻,后驻纽约报道美国经济和通信行业,还曾担任航空业记者。欢迎在Twitter上关注他 @KeithBradsher。
翻译:Cindy Hao
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