原始来源：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/15026/152696

西方崛起曾用的六个杀手锏：竞争，科学革命，法治和代议政制，现在医学，消费型社会，职业伦理。亚洲多数国家的崛起都是跟随西方模式，强大程度也与模仿时 间先后成正比。作者认为中国应对的策略依然是传统四项：提高消费，扩大进口，增加海外投资和加大创新 并且对西方统治终结，东方崛起的故事深信不疑。

11月11日，中国国家主席胡锦涛在韩国首都首尔同美国总统奥巴马举行会晤。 www.voc.com.cn/article/201011/20...922.html
"现在我们是主宰“。我在想上周首尔举行的20国集团首脑会议上，奥巴马总统是否看到了中国国家主席胡锦涛思维泡泡（thought bubulle)里的这些话。如果总统希望改变，那他可以相信中国的货币政策，这样他得到零钱（译注：change 即指奥巴马总统的竞选宣言--我们需要改变，又有零钱含义）。或许财政部长盖特纳也听到了“现在，我们说了算”的声音，因为中国枪毙了他关于覆盖全球经常 账户失衡的提议。联邦储备委员会主席伯南克宣布新一轮“量化宽松”时也享受到相同待遇。该策略在于迅速启动美国经济，但是被中国主流评论家形容为“失控” 和“不负责任”。

"We are the masters now." That was certainly the refrain that I kept hearing in my head when I was in China two weeks ago. It wasn't so much the glitzy, Olympic-quality party I attended in the Tai Miao Temple, next to the Forbidden City, that made this impression. The displays of bell ringing, martial arts and all-girl drumming are the kind of thing that Western visitors expect. It was the understated but unmistakable self-confidence of the economists I met that told me something had changed in relations between China and the West.

“现在我们是主宰。” 两周前的中国之行，这句话确实不断萦绕在我脑里。这种想法在我参加故宫旁的太庙里举行的绚烂如同奥运般的庙会时还不明显。 钟声，武术以及女子击鼓之类的表演都是西方游客能预想到的。但当我遇见了那些低调但相当自信的经济学家，他们告诉我中西方关系已经发生变化时，这种感觉变 得强烈。

One of them, Cheng Siwei, explained over dinner China's plan to become a leader in green energy technology. Between swigs of rice wine, Xia Bin, an adviser to the People's Bank of China, outlined the need for a thorough privatization program, "including even the Great Hall of the People." And in faultless English, David Li of Tsinghua University confessed his dissatisfaction with the quality of Chinese Ph.D.s.

晚餐时，经济学家成思危解释了中国领跑绿色能源技术的计划。觥筹交错之际，中国人民银行顾问夏滨，概述了一个彻底的私有化方案的必要性，“甚至连人民大会堂（也适用这个方案）”. 而来自清华大学的李先生则用完美的英语表示他对中国博士学位质量的不满。

You could not ask for smarter people with whom to discuss the two most interesting questions in economic history today: Why did the West come to dominate not only China but the rest of the world in the five centuries after the Forbidden City was built? And is that period of Western dominance now finally coming to an end?

你不能要求聪明的人来讨论两个如今在经济历史上最有趣的问题：为什么故宫修建后的5个世纪里是西方来主宰中国以及世界其他地区？现在西方统治时期是否走到了尽头？
In a brilliant paper that has yet to be published in English, Mr. Li and his co-author Guan Hanhui demolish the fashionable view that China was economically neck-and-neck with the West until as recently as 1800. Per capita gross domestic product, they show, stagnated in the Ming era (1402-1626) and was significantly lower than that of pre-industrial Britain. China still had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy, with low-productivity cultivation accounting for 90% of GDP. And for a century after 1520, the Chinese national savings rate was actually negative. There was no capital accumulation in late Ming China; rather the opposite.

在一篇尚未用英语发表的优秀论文里，李稻奎和他的合著者管汉晖驳斥了一种颇为流行的观点，即中国在19世纪之前，在经济上都是与西方并驾齐驱。人均国内生 产总值，他们认为，在明朝时期（1402年至1626年）基本停滞，明显比工业革命之前的英国要低得多。中国的农业经济占压倒性地位，低生产率的种植业占 GDP的90％。而1520年之后的一个世纪里，中国国民储蓄率实际上是负数。明朝晚期，中国不存在资本积累，甚至完全相反。

The story of what Kenneth Pomeranz, a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, has called "the Great Divergence" between East and West began much earlier. Even the late economist Angus Maddison may have been over-optimistic when he argued that in 1700 the average inhabitant of China was probably slightly better off than the average inhabitant of the future United States. Mr. Maddison was closer to the mark when he estimated that, in 1600, per capita GDP in Britain was already 60% higher than in China.

美国加州大学欧文分校的历史教授 Kenneth Pomeranz所谓的东方与西方之间“大分流开始得更早。即使是已故经济学家安格斯麦迪逊可能已经过于乐观，他认为，18世纪中国居民的平均生活水平可 能略好于后来的美国。但麦迪森先生在估计17世纪英国人均国内生产总值已经比中国高60%上是正确的。

For the next several hundred years, China continued to stagnate and, in the 20th century, even to retreat, while the English-speaking world, closely followed by northwestern Europe, surged ahead. By 1820 U.S. per capita GDP was twice that of China; by 1870 it was nearly five times greater; by 1913 the ratio was nearly 10 to one.

在接下来的几百年里，中国继续停滞不前，在20世纪，甚至出现倒退。而英语国家和欧洲西北部却在迅猛发展。到了1820年美国的人均GDP是中国的两倍，到1870年到了近5倍，到1913年这一比例接近10：1。

Despite the painful interruption of the Great Depression, the U.S. suffered nothing so devastating as China's wretched mid-20th century ordeal of revolution, civil war, Japanese invasion, more revolution, man-made famine and yet more ("cultural") revolution. In 1968 the average American was 33 times richer than the average Chinese, using figures calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity (allowing for the different costs of living in the two countries). Calculated in current dollar terms, the differential at its peak was more like 70 to 1.

虽然发展受到大萧条的阻挠，美国没有经历过中国在20世纪中期所遭受的毁灭性的苦难：内战，日本的侵略，更多的革命，人为造成的饥荒，更多的（“文化”） 的革命。 使用购买力平价（考虑到两国不同的生活成本）计算，1968年美国人的生活水平比中国要好上的33倍。如果按当前美元计算，峰值的差距超过70：1。

This was the ultimate global imbalance, the result of centuries of economic and political divergence. How did it come about? And is it over?

这是由几个世纪的政治经济所导致的最严重的全球经济失衡。它是怎样形成的？它是否结束了？

As I've researched my forthcoming book over the past two years, I've concluded that the West developed six "killer applications" that "the Rest" lacked. These were:

在我即将出版的新书里对过去两年进行研究，我的结论是，西方发达国家应用了“别的国家”不具备的六大“杀手程序”。它们是：

? Competition: Europe was politically fragmented, and within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities.

? 竞争：欧洲在政治上四分五裂，在每一个君主或共和国统治时期都有多个相互竞争的集团。

? The Scientific Revolution: All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology happened in Western Europe.

? 科学革命：17世纪在数学，天文，物理，化学和生物学上，所有重大突破都发生在西欧。

? The rule of law and representative government: This optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.

?  法治和代议政制：这种在社会和政治秩序上最优的体制出现在英语国家，是基于财产权利和财产所有者的代表选举立法机关的基础上。

? Modern medicine: All the major 19th- and 20th-century advances in health care, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.

? 现代医学：19世纪和20世纪所有在医疗上的重要发展，包括热带疾病控制，都是西欧和北美取得的。

? The consumer society: The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.

? 消费型社会：工业革命的发生在于随着技术提高生产力而提供的供给，以及对更多更好更便宜的商品的需求--从棉服开始。

? The work ethic: Westerners were the first people in the world to  combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.

?  职业伦理：西方人在世界上第一次将更广泛和深入的劳动力与高储蓄率结合起来，实现了持续的资本积累。

Those six killer apps were the key to Western ascendancy. The story of our time, which can be traced back to the reign of the Meiji Emperor in Japan (1867-1912), is that the Rest finally began to download them. It was far from a smooth process. The Japanese had no idea which elements of Western culture were the crucial ones, so they ended up copying everything, from Western clothes and hairstyles to the practice of colonizing foreign peoples. Unfortunately, they took up empire-building at precisely the moment when the costs of imperialism began to exceed the benefits. Other Asian powers—notably India—wasted decades on the erroneous premise that the socialist institutions pioneered in the Soviet Union were superior to the market-based institutions of the West.

这六个杀手程序是西方崛起的关键。我们这个时代的故事，可以追溯到日本明治天皇统治时期（1867至1912年），那时“别的国家”终于开始下载学习。这 个过程很不顺利。日本人不知道西方文化中哪个因素是至关重要的，所以他们只好从西方服饰头饰到对其他民族的殖民统统复制。不幸的是，他们是在帝国主义已经 弊大于利时才开始修建帝国大厦。其他亚洲强国，特别是印度，在以苏联为首的社会主义体制比西方市场体制优越这个错误的前提上浪费了数十年的时光。

新加坡的人均国内生产总值比美国高21％

Today per capita GDP in China is 19% that of the U.S., compared with 4% when economic reform began just over 30 years ago. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore were already there as early as 1950; Taiwan got there in 1970, and South Korea got there in 1975. According to the Conference Board, Singapore's per capita GDP is now 21% higher than that of the U.S., Hong Kong's is about the same, Japan's and Taiwan's are about 25% lower, and South Korea's 36% lower. Only a foolhardy man would bet against China's following the same trajectory in the decades ahead.

今天中国的人均国内生产总值是美国的19%，而30年前刚开始经济改革时，这一数字仅为4%。香港，日本和新加坡早在1950年，台湾在1970，韩国在 1975年就到达这个水平。据会议委员会，现在新加坡的人均国内生产总值比美国高21％，香港是差不多高，日本和台湾则低25％，韩国低36％。只有有勇 无谋的傻瓜才相信中国在未来几十年不会沿着同样的轨迹发展。 中国GDP将在2027年将超过美国

China's has been the biggest and fastest of all the industrialization revolutions. In the space of 26 years, China's GDP grew by a factor of 10. It took the U.K. 70 years after 1830 to grow by a factor of four. According to the International Monetary Fund, China's share of global GDP (measured in current prices) will pass the 10% mark in 2013. Goldman Sachs continues to forecast that China will overtake the U.S. in terms of GDP in 2027, just as it recently overtook Japan.

中国的工业化革命一直是最广最快的。仅26年间，中国国内生产总值增长了10倍。而1830后。英国花了70年才增长了四倍。根据国际货币基金，中国的 GDP所占的全球份额（以货币价格计算）将在2013年通过的10％大关。高盛继续预测，中国GDP将在2027年将超过美国，正如它最近超过日本一样。 世界最大的城市是上海 而不是美國的任何城市

But in some ways the Asian century has already arrived. China is on the brink of surpassing the American share of global manufacturing, having overtaken Germany and Japan in the past 10 years. China's biggest city, Shanghai, already sits atop the ranks of the world's megacities, with Mumbai right behind; no American city comes close.

但在某些方面，亚洲的世纪已经来临。中国已经站在超越美国全球制造业份额的边缘，在过去10年内已经超过德国和日本。中国最大的城市上海，在世界大都市的排名中位居榜首，孟买紧随其后，这不是美国城市可以媲美的。 美國在2040年要用稅收的58%  來還國債

Nothing is more certain to accelerate the shift of global economic power from West to East than the looming U.S. fiscal crisis. With a debt-to-revenue ratio of 312%, Greece is in dire straits already. But the debt-to-revenue ratio of the U.S. is 358%, according to Morgan Stanley. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that interest payments on the federal debt will rise from 9% of federal tax revenues to 20% in 2020, 36% in 2030 and 58% in 2040. Only America's "exorbitant privilege" of being able to print the world's premier reserve currency gives it breathing space. Yet this very privilege is under mounting attack from the Chinese government.

正如我们相信美国财政危机迫在眉睫一样，我们对全球经济实力的加速东移也无可置疑。312％的债务与收入比例已经将希腊陷入绝境。而据摩根士丹利报告，美 国债务对收入比率为358％。国会预算办公室估计，用于联邦债务支付的利息将从联邦税收的9％上升到在2020年的20％，2030年的36%以及 2040年的58％。只能靠美国能够印刷世界首要储备货币的“嚣张特权”才能留下它喘息的机会。然而，中国政府要对此特权发起攻击。

For many commentators, the resumption of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve has appeared to spark a currency war between the U.S. and China. If the "Chinese don't take actions" to end the manipulation of their currency, President Obama declared in New York in September, "we have other means of protecting U.S. interests." The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was quick to respond: "Do not work to pressure us on the renminbi rate…. Many of our exporting companies would have to close down, migrant workers would have to return to their villages. If China saw social and economic turbulence, then it would be a disaster for the world."

对于许多评论家而言，联邦储备局对量化宽松的重新启用已经引发美国与中国之间的货币战争。如果“中国不采取行动”来结束货币控制，奥巴马总统9月份在纽约 宣布“我们就要动用其他手段来保护美国的利益”。中国总理温家宝迅速作出反应：“不要通过人民币汇率对我们施压...我们的许多出口企业将不得不关闭，农 民工将不得不回乡，如果中国出现社会和经济动荡，对世界将是一场灾难。“

Such exchanges are a form of pi ying xi, China's traditional shadow puppet theater. In reality, today's currency war is between "Chimerica"—as I've called the united economies of China and America—and the rest of the world. If the U.S. prints money while China effectively still pegs its currency to the dollar, both parties benefit. The losers are countries like Indonesia and Brazil, whose real trade-weighted exchange rates have appreciated since January 2008 by 18% and 17%, respectively. 这就意味着，中国将在2012年超过美国成为全球最大的轨道交通市场。 www.ed-china.com/ART_8800036642_...a577.HTM

这种交流是一种皮影戏，中国传统的影子玩具表演。实际上，今天的货币之间的战争是发生在“Chimerica”--我所谓的中国和美国经济联合体--以及 世界其他地区之间。如果美国印钱，而中国仍然在货币上钉住美元，则双方受益。输家是像印尼和巴西这样的国家，他们真正的贸易加权汇率自2008年1月来分 别升值了18％和17％。 中國現在的出口還比危機之前提高了20%   美國則降了2%

But who now gains more from this partnership? With China's output currently 20% above its pre-crisis level and that of the U.S. still 2% below, the answer seems clear. American policy-makers may utter the mantra that "they need us as much as we need them" and refer ominously to Lawrence Summers's famous phrase about "mutually assured financial destruction." But the Chinese already have a plan to reduce their dependence on dollar reserve accumulation and subsidized exports. It is a strategy not so much for world domination on the model of Western imperialism as for reestablishing China as the Middle Kingdom—the dominant tributary state in the Asia-Pacific region.

但是，谁现在能从这种伙伴关系中收获更多呢？考虑到中国现在的出口比其危机前水平提高了20％，而美国则降低2%，答案似乎很清楚。美国的政策制定者可能 会说习惯性地说出“他们需要我们正如我们需要他们一样”，并不祥地参考劳伦斯萨默斯的那句名言“财政上的两败俱伤”。但是，中国已经有计划减少对美元的储 备积累和补贴出口的依赖。这么一个战略即便不能在西方帝国主义模式中占据主导地位也能重塑中国的中央王国地位--成为亚太地区占据优势的朝贡国。

If I had to summarize China's new grand strategy, I would do it, Chinese-style, as the Four "Mores": Consume more, import more, invest abroad more and innovate more. In each case, a change of economic strategy pays a handsome geopolitical dividend.

如果要我总结中国的新战略，我将按照中国式的四个“习惯”进行：提高消费，扩大进口，增加海外投资和加大创新。在每一种情况下，经济战略的改变都要支付大额的地缘政治红利。

中已取代美國成為世界最大汽車市場

By consuming more, China can reduce its trade surplus and, in the process, endear itself to its major trading partners, especially the other emerging markets. China recently overtook the U.S. as the world's biggest automobile market (14 million sales a year, compared to 11 million), and its demand is projected to rise tenfold in the years ahead.

通过提高消费，中国可以减少贸易盈余，并在这个过程中，亲近自己的主要贸易伙伴，特别是其他的新兴市场。中国最近已经取代美国成为世界上最大的汽车市场（年销售额：中国1400万，美国1100万），预计需求量在未来数年将上升十倍。

By 2035, according to the International Energy Agency, China will be using a fifth of all global energy, a 75% increase since 2008. It accounted for about 46% of global coal consumption in 2009, the World Coal Institute estimates, and consumes a similar share of the world's aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc production. Last year China used twice as much crude steel as the European Union, United States and Japan combined.

根据国际能源机构统计，到2035年中国将消耗全球能源的五分之一将比2008年水平增加75％。据世界煤炭研究所估计，2009年中国的煤炭消耗量约占全球46％，铝，铜，镍和锌的消耗份额类似。去年中国所用的粗钢数量是欧盟，美国和日本总和的两倍多。

從低級產品出口 到成為日德高檔產品最大買家

Such figures translate into major gains for the exporters of these and other commodities. China is already Australia's biggest export market, accounting for 22% of Australian exports in 2009. It buys 12% of Brazil's exports and 10% of South Africa's. It has also become a big purchaser of high-end manufactured goods from Japan and Germany. Once China was mainly an exporter of low-price manufactures. Now that it accounts for fully a fifth of global growth, it has become the most dynamic new market for other people's stuff. And that wins friends.

这些数字转化为成为相关商品出口商的巨大利益。中国已经是澳大利亚最大的出口市场，2009年占澳大利亚出口的22％。中国购买巴西的12%，南非10% 的出口商品，同时也是日本和德国高档制成品的大买家。曾经中国只是低价制品的出口国，现在，它支撑了全球经济增长的20%，成为其他国家商品所需的最有活 力新市场，因为也能赢得许多朋友。

The Chinese are justifiably nervous, however, about the vagaries of world commodity prices. How could they feel otherwise after the huge price swings of the past few years? So it makes sense for them to invest abroad more. In January 2010 alone, the Chinese made direct investments worth a total of $2.4 billion in 420 overseas enterprises in 75 countries and regions. The overwhelming majority of these were in Asia and Africa. The biggest sectors were mining, transportation and petrochemicals. Across Africa, the Chinese mode of operation is now well established. Typical deals exchange highway and other infrastructure investments for long leases of mines or agricultural land, with no questions asked about human rights abuses or political corruption.

中国人对世界商品价格的波动感到紧张也确实情有可原地。在过去几年的巨大价格波动后他们又是一种什么样的感受？因此，他们顺理成章地加大海外投资。 仅2010年1月，中国就对75个国家和地区总共420家海外企业进行直接投资，投资总额24亿美元。绝大多数的投资在亚洲和非洲，涉及最多的行业是采 矿，运输和石油化工。在整个非洲，中国式的操作模式已经充分建立起来。典型的交易是用交流公路和其他基础设施换取对矿产和农田的长期租借，对人权侵犯或政 治腐败也不去过问。加大對海外天然資源的投資

Growing overseas investment in natural resources not only makes sense as a diversification strategy to reduce China's exposure to the risk of dollar depreciation. It also allows China to increase its financial power, not least through its vast and influential sovereign wealth fund. And it justifies ambitious plans for naval expansion. In the words of Rear Admiral Zhang Huachen, deputy commander of the East Sea Fleet: "With the expansion of the country's economic interests, the navy wants to better protect the country's transportation routes and the safety of our major sea-lanes." The South China Sea has already been declared a "core national interest," and deep-water ports are projected in Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka.

加大对天然资源的海外投资力度，不仅是中国减少美元贬值风险的一种多元化战略，也提高了中国的金融实力，尤其是通过其庞大的具有影响力的主权财富基金。同 时也证明了其雄心勃勃的海军扩张计划。按照东海舰队副司令员，海军少将张华臣的话来说：“随着国家经济利益的扩张，海军希望能够更好地保护国家的运输路线 和我们主要海上通道的安全。”中国南海已被宣布为“核心国家利益”，深水港在巴基斯坦，缅甸和斯里兰卡修建深水港。

Finally, and contrary to the view that China is condemned to remain an assembly line for products "designed in California," the country is innovating more, aiming to become, for example, the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. In 2007 China overtook Germany in terms of new patent applications. This is part of a wider story of Eastern ascendancy. In 2008, for the first time, the number of patent applications from China, India, Japan and South Korea exceeded those from the West.

最后，与中国只是“加州设计”的产品装配线这一谴责声音不同的是，这个国家加大创新，力争成为，比如全球最大的风力涡轮机和太阳能光电板制造商。 2007年，中国在专利申请方面已经超越德国。这是东方崛起故事中的一小部分。 2008年，由中国，印度，日本和韩国的专利申请数量超过了西方国家。

The dilemma posed to the "departing" power by the "arriving" power is always agonizing. The cost of resisting Germany's rise was heavy indeed for Britain; it was much easier to slide quietly into the role of junior partner to the U.S. Should America seek to contain China or to accommodate it? Opinion polls suggest that ordinary Americans are no more certain how to respond than the president. In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 49% of respondents said they did not expect China to "overtake the U.S. as the world's main superpower," but 46% took the opposite view.

“新到”力量对“退位”力量所造成的困境一直都很让人恼怒。对于英国而言，抵御德国的崛起所付出的代价确实太沉重，那倒不如悄悄地转向美国，做一个小伙 伴。美国对中国该遏制还是适应呢？民意调查显示，普通美国人和总统一样不知道该如何应对。皮尤研究中心近期的一项调查中，49％的受访者表示，他们不希望 中国“取代美国成为世界超级大国” 但46％的人持相反意见。 蘇聯從未在經濟上超過美國 而這次東方挑戰者動真格了

Coming to terms with a new global order was hard enough after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which went to the heads of many Western commentators. (Who now remembers talk of American hyperpuissance without a wince?) But the Cold War lasted little more than four decades, and the Soviet Union never came close to overtaking the U.S. economically. What we are living through now is the end of 500 years of Western predominance. This time the Eastern challenger is for real, both economically and geopolitically.

苏联解体后，接受一个新的全球秩序已经非常困难，让许多西方评论家头脑崩溃。 （到现在还有谁记得美国超级强权毫不畏缩的言论？），但冷战持续了四十多年，苏联从未在经济上超过美国。我们正在所经历的是对500年来西方控制的终结， 这一次，东方挑战者在经济上和地缘政治上都动真格了。他們不再是學徒

The gentlemen in Beijing may not be the masters just yet. But one thing is certain: They are no longer the apprentices.

北京的先生们可能还不是主人。但有一点是肯定的：他们不再是学徒.

作者簡介

—Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University and a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. His next book, "Civilization: The West and the Rest," will be published in March.

——Niall Ferguson 是哈佛大学历史学教授及哈佛商学院工商管理教授。他的下一本书，“文明：西方与其他地区，”将于三月出版