[2006.07.27] The future of globalization

The world’s most successful confidence trick
世界上最成功的骗局
Old hands will find that alarmist. Trade talks always seem to break down before they succeed: the Uruguay round was supposed to be over in four years and dragged on for a painful eight. Farm trade, the cause of this week’s collapse, has always been particularly contentious. Anyway, although a global deal may have been lost, regional ones between small groups of countries are doing the job at twice the speed and with half the fuss. The gains of previous trade rounds have been banked, and nobody is going to risk the prosperity created as China, India and others join the global economy by undermining trade.
经验人士会把那看作是杞人忧天。贸易谈判往往功败垂成：乌拉圭回合的谈判原定四年内结束，可它终究拖了八年，令人备受煎熬。本周谈判破裂的直接原因在于农业贸易。这个问题总是倍受争议。总之，尽管没有达成一份全球性的协议，但区域性协议正在几小批国家之间达成。与前者相比，后者简直是事半功倍。前几回合的贸易谈判已然硕果累累。对于中国、印度以及其它加入全球经济的国家所营造的繁荣状况而言，没人会冒着破坏繁荣的风险而破坏贸易。

Old hands need to look with new eyes, for this week’s debacle constitutes the biggest threat yet to the post-war trading system. It marked the trade diplomats’ surrender to the confidence trick on which the system is founded. And it betrayed a reckless disregard for the value not just of the Doha round, but also of the smooth working of world trade.
老手们需要新的思维，因为本周的崩溃对战后贸易系统构成了史上最大的威胁。它标志着贸易外交人员屈服于这个使贸易系统得以建立的骗局。它显露出的那种盲目漠视，既是对多哈回合谈判的漠视，也是对世界贸易平稳运行的漠视。

The benefits from free trade come more from imports than from exports. Imports of cheaper or better goods give consumers more for their money and, through competition, raise domestic productivity. Multilateral liberalisation is a sort of jujitsu that uses exporters’ determination to get into foreign markets to overwhelm domestic lobbies that would sooner keep home markets closed. The trade diplomat’s incantation that to open his market is a “concession” granted in exchange for an opening somewhere else is economic nonsense spouted for domestic political purposes. But it is remarkably fruitful nonsense because, within the World Trade Organisation, any concession to one trade partner is automatically extended to all members. This trick has helped the world enjoy decades of prosperity.
自由贸易的益处多是源于进口而不是出口。进口物更美价更廉的货物可使消费者花同样的钱买到更多的商品，并通过竞争来提高国内的生产力。多边贸易自由化如同柔道一样，利用出口者进入外国市场的决心来击败本国的游说团体，否则他们很快就会关闭国内市场。贸易外交人员经常说，做出敞开本国市场的妥协是为了换取在其它地区开辟市场的权利。从经济的角度来讲，这简直是荒谬的。大肆宣传这样的言论是服从于国内的政治目的的。但它居然是带来累累硕果的谬论，因为在世贸组织的框架下，对任何一个贸易伙伴做出退让，所有的成员都会自动地享有同样的退让。这样的把戏使世界享有了几十年的繁荣。

Doha added a fiction all of its own with the idea of a “development round”, seen as a clever way of giving grubby trade some moral appeal. But both tricks have now backfired, by persuading rich-country participants that, rather than boosting their own economies, they were sacrificing their national interests to those of foreigners. No one country is to blame: many of the participants are culpable. India wanted fewer farm subsidies and lower tariffs but was unwilling to reduce barriers to farm goods and industrial products; the EU wouldn’t cut its farm tariffs; America, the animating spirit behind earlier trade rounds, declared that a bad deal was worse than no deal at all—and meant it. The underlying rationale of unilateral trade liberalisation had been buried and forgotten long ago.
多哈谈判在“发展回合”的主题下加入了一些独有的构思。这不失为可以给陈腐的贸易带来些许道德诉求的良策。但这两个把戏如今却起到了相反的作用，因为它们是在劝说富国成员为外国牺牲本国利益，而不是促进本国经济发展。要受到谴责不应是单独的某个国家：许多成员国都脱不了干系。印度希望减少农业补贴并降低关税，但它不愿削减农业货物和工业产品的关税壁垒；欧洲不同意削减它的农业关税；美国作为早期贸易回合谈判的幕后活魂，宣扬着一份糟糕的协议还不如没有协议，而且它说到做到。单边贸易自由化的根本原理已被埋葬并被长期的遗忘。

Which is why trade diplomats are looking to regional agreements as a better way to do business. Such deals are certainly easier to pull off. A decade ago they were a rarity but now just about every WTO member is part of at least one.
这就是贸易外交人员为何将目光放在了区域性协议上，将其视为更好的贸易途径。这样的协议当然很容易实现。十年前，这还只是少有的现象。但现如今，每位世贸成员都处于一个以上的区域性协议中。

In narrow terms, the merit of such deals depends on whether they create trade or divert it. But their broader effect may be damaging. Bilateral deals are complex and tend to be bad for poor countries. In multilateral deals, poor countries can piggyback on powerful countries’ negotiating clout; in bilateral deals, they’re on their own. And the more bilateral deals are in place, the harder it will be to pull off a multilateral one.
从狭义的角度来看，此类协议的价值取决于它们是否能够创造或者转移贸易。但在更加广泛的层面上，它们带来的却是负面影响。双边协议是复杂的，且往往不利于贫穷国。在多边协议中，贫穷国可以依附于强国在谈判时的影响力；在双边协议中，他们只能靠自己。而且双边协议越多，多边协议就越是不容易实现。

Those reckless wreckers
那些鲁莽的破坏分子
Is Doha’s collapse just a failure to advance, rather than a reversal? Probably not. True, the seas of world trade are calm. Trade has been growing much faster than global GDP. High commodity prices and robust growth mean that the call for protection is low. But although the system will not fall apart overnight, with the years, the rust will set in.
多哈谈判的崩溃仅仅是前行之路上的一次挫折而非一次倒退吗？多半不是这样。的确，世界贸易波澜不惊。贸易的增长速度要高于全球GDP。高额物价与强劲增长意味着保护主义的呼声较为低落。但尽管贸易系统不会在一夜之间崩溃，但多年之后也将积重难返。

Next year, the American president will lose the power that Congress has granted him to negotiate trade deals without them being picked to pieces by the legislature. That will make it hard to revive Doha. Rows about farm trade could be aggravated by next year’s American farm bill. The ill will evident this week could spread if American and European manufacturers start to shed lots of jobs in a downturn. Western complaints about the piracy of intellectual property could sharpen rows with developing countries.
明年，美国总统将失去国会赋予他的贸易协议磋商权。没有了这个权力，立法机构会把那些贸易协议批得体无完肤。如果那样，多哈谈判可能无力回天。美国明年的农业法案更会加剧农业贸易上的争端。假如美国和欧洲的制造商们开始在低迷时期裁员，那么本周已然明显的恶意便会扩散开去。西方对盗版行为的谴责会激化与发展中国家的矛盾。

What’s more, the WTO’s crucial trade-disputes procedure could easily come unstuck. After this week’s failure, next time the WTO rules against America, Congress will not take the offence kindly. Put all of these together, and it is easy to see how easily the whole trading system, not just one round of talks, could be wrecked.
另外，世贸组织至关重要的贸易纠纷处理程序很有容易产生紊乱。本周的谈判失败后，世贸组织倘若在下一回合中做出不利于美国的裁决，那么美国国会也不会善意地接受这样的冒犯。综上所述，可以看出，不仅仅是一轮谈判，整个贸易系统有多么不堪一击啊。

The Doha round was launched after the attacks of September 11th 2001 as proof that a prosperous and united world could rise above Islamist terrorism. This week, faced once again with violence that they seem powerless to halt, political leaders had it within their scope to make the world better off. They failed.
2001年911袭击后，为了证明一个繁荣的、团结的世界可以战胜伊斯兰恐怖主义，多哈回合由此展开。本周，再次面对暴力冲突时，政治领导者们显得那么无能为力。他们本来可以在其能力范围内让世界更加殷实，但他们失败了。

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