原文转自：The New York Times
软件翻译：有道词典
翻译校对：LoneCapital
Why China Is Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Trade War
China’s leaders sound supremely confident that they can win a trade war with President Trump.
中国领导人似乎极度自信，他们能够赢得与特朗普总统的贸易战。
The state news media has depicted him as a reckless bully intent on undermining the global trading system, while presenting the Chinese government as a fair-minded champion of free trade. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has used the standoff to reinforce the Communist Party’s message that the United States is determined to stop China’s rise — but that it no longer can. China is already too strong, its economy too big.
中国官媒将他（特朗普总统）描绘成一个不计后果的恃强凌弱者，意图破坏全球贸易体系，同时将中国政府描述为一个公平的自由贸易捍卫者。中国领导人习近平用这种僵局来强化共产党的信息，即美国决心阻止中国的崛起，但它已经不能再这样做了。中国已经太强大了，经济规模太大了。
“China is not afraid of a trade war,” the vice minister of finance, Zhu Guangyao, declared at a news conference to discuss possible countermeasures. More than once, he cited the history of the “new China” — which began its extraordinary economic revival four decades ago — as evidence that it would “never succumb to external pressure.”
“中国不怕贸易战，”财政部副部长朱光耀在一次新闻发布会上宣布了可能的应对措施。他不止一次引用了“新中国”的历史——它在40年前开始了非凡的经济复兴——作为证据，它将“永远不会屈服于外部压力”。
Missing in the bluster and the propaganda are the questionable methods that China has adopted to squeeze foreign companies out of key technology markets — and the fact that in the cold-eyed calculus of economics, China is more vulnerable to a trade war than officials admit.
中国采取了一些有问题的方法，将外国公司挤出关键的技术市场，然而在冷漠的经济算计中，中国更容易受到贸易战的影响，而不是官员们阐述的那样。
Exports account for a big share of Chinese economic growth. Because the United States buys so much from China, Washington has many more ways to hit Chinese manufacturers. By contrast, the retaliatory tariffs Beijing has proposed already cover more than one-third of what China buys from the United States, leaving it fewer options to strike back.
出口占中国经济增长的很大一部分。因为美国从中国购买了很多东西，华盛顿有更多的方式打击中国制造商。相比之下，北京方面提出的报复性关税已经超过了中国从美国购买的商品的三分之一，这让中国减少了反击的机会。
In the political realm, however, Mr. Xi enjoys advantages that may allow him to cope with the economic fallout far better than Mr. Trump can. His authoritarian grip on the news media and the party means there is little room for criticism of his policies, even as Mr. Trump must contend with complaints from American companies and consumers before important midterm elections in November.
然而，在政治领域，习近平享有的优势可能让他能够比特朗普更好地应对经济影响。
他对新闻媒体和政党的威权控制意味着，他的政策几乎没有受到批评的空间，而与此同时，特朗普却必须在11月重要的中期选举之前与美国企业和消费者的抱怨进行斗争。
The Chinese government also has much greater control over the economy, allowing it to shield the public from job cuts or factory closings by ordering banks to support industries suffering from American tariffs. It can spread the pain of a trade war while tolerating years of losses from state-run companies that dominate major sectors of the economy.
中国政府也对经济有更大的控制，允许它通过命令银行支持遭受美国关税的行业来保护公众免受裁员或关闭工厂的影响。它可以缓解贸易战的痛苦，同时还能容忍主导经济主要部门的国有企业多年的亏损。
“My impression is that there is in Washington an exaggerated sense of how painful these tariffs might be” in China, said Arthur R. Kroeber, managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm in Beijing.
“我的印象是，华盛顿夸大了这些关税可能对中国产生的痛楚。”北京研究公司Gavekal Dragonomics董事总经理Arthur R. Kroeber表示。
At worst, he estimated, the American actions could shave one-tenth of a percentage point off China’s economic growth — hardly enough to force a drastic reversal of policies, given the enormous benefits that Chinese leaders see in the state-heavy economic model they have relied on in recent decades.
他估计，在最坏的情况下，美国的行动可能会使中国经济增长减少十分之一的百分点——这几乎不足以迫使中国政策大逆转，以赖国有经济为重的经济模式让中国过去几十年获得了太多好处。
At the same time, Chinese officials seem to believe they can take advantage of what they consider vulnerabilities in the American political system.
与此同时，中国官员似乎相信，他们可以利用他们认为的美国政治体系的弱点。
“The American agricultural sector is quite influential in the Congress,” said Wang Yong, a professor of economics at Peking University, explaining why China has targeted farm products such as soybeans with possible retaliatory tariffs. “China wants the American domestic political system to do the work.”
“美国农业部门在国会具有相当大的影响力”，北京大学经济学教授王勇在解释中国为什么会对大豆等农产品采取可能的报复性关税时表示：“中国希望美国国内的政治制度能发挥作用。”
There are already signs it might. Hours after China’s announcement on Wednesday, Trump administration officials sought to calm fears that a trade war was imminent, suggesting that they might not pull the trigger on a plan to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods such as flat-screen televisions, medical devices and industrial machinery.
现在已经有迹象表明这可能会发生。在中国周三宣布这一消息数小时后，特朗普政府官员试图平息人们对一场贸易战即将爆发的担忧。这表明，他们可能不会启动一项计划，即对平板电视、医疗设备和工业机械等中国商品征收500亿美元的关税。
Speaking earlier in the day, Mr. Zhu, the vice minister of finance, even thanked American soybean farmers and the association that represents them for declaring their opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.
在当天早些时候，财政部副部长朱先生甚至感谢了美国大豆种植户以及代表他们反对特朗普政府计划的协会。
In addition to soybeans, China threatened to retaliate with tariffs on American cars, chemicals and other products. The 106 goods, many produced in parts of the country that have supported Mr. Trump, were selected to deliver a warning that American workers and consumers would suffer in a protracted standoff.
除了大豆，中国还威胁要对美国汽车、化学品和其他产品征收关税。106件商品被选中（其中许多在支持特朗普的地区生产）是一种警告：美国工人和消费者将陷入旷日持久的僵局。
“If anyone wants to fight, we will be there with him,” Mr. Zhu said, more or less outlining the terms for an American surrender: the removal of unilateral tariffs and a resolution of any grievances through the World Trade Organization. “If he wants to negotiate, the door is open.”
“如果有人想打仗，我们就应战，”朱先生说法中或多或少地提到了美国和解的条件：取消单方面的关税和通过世界贸易组织解决任何不满。“如果他想谈判，门是开着的。”
Globally, China’s strategy has been to isolate the United States, splitting it from allies in Europe and Asia who otherwise share American concerns about heavy-handed Chinese trade policies intended to protect key markets and to acquire technology from foreign firms.
在全球范围内，中国的战略一直是孤立美国，将其从欧洲和亚洲的盟友中分离出来。这些国家与美国一样对中国强硬贸易政策表示担忧，这些政策旨在保护关键市场，并从外国公司获取技术。
Mr. Kroeber said a united front against China would be more effective than American tariffs alone, but so far Mr. Trump has not managed to build one.
Mr. Kroeber说，联合起来反对中国将会比美国单方面的关税更有效，但到目前为止，特朗普还没有建立一个这样一个联盟。
Instead, Mr. Xi has largely succeeded in occupying the high moral ground on the world stage, projecting China as the sober-minded steward of international agreements on issues — from global trade to climate change — that Mr. Trump has been eager to walk away from.
相反，习近平在很大程度上成功地占据了世界舞台上的道德制高点，他将中国描绘为一个头脑清醒的国际事务遵从者——从全球贸易到气候变化——这恰恰是特朗普先生一直渴望离开的。
“The American side is ready to launch a trade war at the slightest pretext,” the party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, wrote in a blistering editorialon Thursday, condemning Mr. Trump’s tariffs as “totally against the trend of economic globalization”，“Today, it targets China, and tomorrow may take aim at other countries,” it said.
《人民日报》(People ‘s Daily)周四在一篇言辞激烈的社论中写道：“美国方面准备以最轻微的借口发动贸易战”。它谴责特朗普的关税“完全违背了经济全球化的趋势”。它说：“今天，它瞄准了中国，明天可能会瞄准其他国家。”
The party has also seized on the trade dispute as new evidence that the United States is intent on undermining China’s rise as a global power, a central narrative used to justify the party’s, and Mr. Xi’s, rule.
中国共产党还抓住了贸易争端，以此为证据说明美国有意破坏中国作为全球大国的崛起——一个用来证明中共和习统治合法化的核心故事。
In December, the state news media also highlighted the new National Security Strategy unveiled by the Trump administration, which declaredthat China “sought to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor.”
去年12月，中国官媒还强调了特朗普政府公布的新的国家安全战略，该战略宣称，中国“试图取代美国在印度-太平洋地区的地位，扩大其国家驱动的经济模式的范围，并重新调整该地区的利益。”
The document signaled a bipartisan shift in Washington’s posture toward China after decades of economic cooperation and concessions. The party has argued that the United States is only now challenging China because it fears losing its privileged place in the world order.
这份文件表明，经过几十年的经济合作和让步，华盛顿对中国的态度出现了两党一致的转变。中国共产党认为，美国现在只是在挑战中国，因为它担心失去在世界秩序中的特权地位。
“The latest U.S. measures against China carry a sense of containment, which purportedly is commonplace among U.S. politicians,” said an editorial in Global Times, a nationalist state-run tabloid. “But they have overlooked the fact that China has grown to be another economic center of the world.”
“美国最近针对中国的措施带有一种遏制感，据称这在美国政界人士中很常见，”民族主义国家报纸《环球时报》(Global Times)的一篇社论说。“但他们忽略了一个事实，即中国已成为世界另一个经济中心。”
It went on to note that China’s market was now “no smaller or less attractive” than the American one — a bit of an exaggeration perhaps, but not as big as it would have been a decade ago. And that makes the country a more formidable opponent than Mr. Trump may have anticipated.
它接着指出，中国市场现在“不比美国市场小多少，也并不比美国缺少吸引力”——或许有点夸张，但没有十年前那么大。这使得中国成为比特朗普预想的更强大的对手。
“To take China down,” the editorial said, “would mean an unimaginably cruel battle for the U.S.”
这篇社论说:“把中国打倒在地，将意味着对美国的一场难以想象的残酷战争。”
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