[Word]有道英文阅读

[Word]有道英文阅读 Everything You Think You Know About China Is Wrong发布时间:2012-09-02 文章出自:外交政策 原文链接:点击查看 For the last 40 years, Americans have lagged in recognizing the declining fortunes of their foreign rivals. In the 1970s they thought the Soviet Union was 10 feet tall -- ascendant even though corruption and inefficiency were destroying the vital organs of a decaying communist regime. In the late 1980s, they feared that Japan was going to economically overtake the United States, yet the crony capitalism, speculative madness, and political corruption evident throughout the 1980s led to the collapse of the Japanese economy in 1991. Could the same malady have struck Americans when it comes to China? The latest news from Beijing is indicative of Chinese weakness: a persistent slowdown of economic growth, a glut of unsold goods, rising bad bank loans, a bursting real estate bubble, and a vicious power struggle at the top, coupled with unending political scandals. Many factors that have powered China's rise, such as the demographic dividend, disregard for the environment, supercheap labor, and virtually unlimited access to external markets, are either receding or disappearing. Yet China's declining fortunes have not registered with U.S. elites, let alone the American public. President Barack Obama's much-hyped "pivot to Asia, " announced last November, is premised on the continuing rise of China; the Pentagon has said that by 2020 roughly 60 percent of the Navy's fleet will be stationed in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington is also considering deployingsea - borne anti-missile systems in East Asia, a move reflecting U.S. worries about China's growing missile capabilities. In the lead-up to the Nov. 6 U.S. presidential election, both Democrats and Republicans have emphasized perceived Chinese strength for reasons of both national security and political expediency. Democrats use China's growing economic might to call for more government investment in education and green technology. In late August, the Center for American Progress and the Center for the Next Generation, two left-leaning think tanks, released a report forecasting that China will have 200 million college graduates by 2030. The report (which also estimates India's progress in creating human capital) paints a grim picture of U.S. decline and demands decisive action. Republicans justify increasing defense spending in this era of sky-high deficits in part by citing predictions that China's military capabilities will continue to grow as the country's economy expands. The 2012 Republican Party platform, released in late August at the Republican National Convention, says, "In the face of China's accelerated military build-up, the United States and our allies must maintain appropriate military capabilities to discourage any aggressive or coercive behavior by China against its neighbors." The disconnect between the brewing troubles in China and the seemingly unshakable perception of Chinese strength persists even though the U.S. media accurately cover China, in particular the country's inner fragilities. One explanation for this disconnect is that elites and ordinary Americans remain poorly informed about China and the nature of its economic challenges in the coming decades. The current economic slowdown in Beijing is neither cyclical nor the result of weak external demand for Chinese goods. China's economic ills are far more deeply rooted: an overbearing state squandering capital and squeezing out the private sector, systemic inefficiency and lack of innovation, a rapacious ruling elite interested solely in self-enrichment and the perpetuation of its privileges, a woefully underdeveloped financial sector, and mounting ecological and demographic pressures. Yet even for those who follow China, the prevailing wisdom is that though China has entered a rough patch, its fundamentals remain strong. Americans' domestic perceptions influence how they see their rivals. It is no coincidence that the period in the 1970s and late 1980s when Americans missed signs of rivals' decline corresponded with intense dissatisfaction with U.S. performance (President Jimmy Carter's 1979 "malaise speech, " for example). Today, a China whose growth rate is falling from 10 to 8 percent a year (for now) looks pretty good in comparison with an America where annual growth languishes at below 2 percent and unemployment stays above 8 percent. In the eyes of many Americans, things may be bad over there, but they are much worse here. Perceptions of a strong and pushy China also persist because of Beijing's own behavior. The ruling Chinese Communist Party continues to exploit nationalist sentiments to bolster its credentials as the defender of China's national honor. Chinese state media and history textbooks have fed the younger generation such a diet of distorted, jingoistic facts, outright lies, and nationalist myths that it is easy to provoke anti-Western or anti-Japanese sentiments. Even more worrisome is Beijing's uncompromising stance on territorial disputes with America's key Asian allies, such as Japan and the Philippines. The risk that a contest over disputed maritime territories, especially in the South China Sea, could lead to real armed conflict makes many in the United States believe that they cannot let down their guard against China. Sadly, this gap between the American perception of Chinese strength and the rekality of Chinese weakness has real adverse consequences. Beijing will use China-bashing rhetoric and the strengthening U.S. defense posture in East Asia as ironclad evidence of Washington's unfriendliness. The Communist Party will blame the United States for its economic difficulties and diplomatic setbacks. Xenophobia could become an asset for a regime struggling for survival in hard times. Many Chinese already hold the United States responsible for the recent escalations in the South China Seadispute and think the United States goaded Hanoi and Manila into confrontation. The most consequential effect of this disconnect is the loss of an opportunity both to rethink U.S. China policy and to prepare for possible discontinuity in China's trajectory in the coming two decades. The central pillar of Washington's China policy is the continuation of the status quo, a world in which the Communist Party's rule is assumed to endure for decades. Similar assumptions underpinned Washington's policies toward the former Soviet Union, Suharto's Indonesia, and more recently Hosni Mubarak's Egypt and Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya. Discounting the probability of regime change in seemingly invulnerable autocracies has always been an ingrained habit in Washington. The United States should reassess the basic premises of its China policy and seriously consider an alternative strategy, one based on the assumption of declining Chinese strength and rising probability of an unexpected democratic transition in the coming two decades. Should such a change come, the geopolitical landscape of Asia would transform beyond recognition. The North Korean regime would collapse almost overnight, and the Korean Peninsula would be reunified. A regional wave of democratic transitions would topple the communist regimes in Vietnam and Laos. The biggest and most important unknown, however, is about China itself: Can a weak or weakening country of 1.3 billion manage a peaceful transition to democracy? It is of course premature to completely write off the Communist Party's capacity for adaptation and renewal. China could come roaring back in a few years, and the United States should not ignore this possibility. But the party's demise can't be ruled out, and the current signs of trouble in China have provided invaluable clues to such a highly probable seismic shift. U.S. policymakers would be committing another strategic error of historic proportions if they miss or misread them. If you think that Internet shopping on a Sunday gets you the best deals, then think again. Tuesday is actually the best day of the week if you want to grab a bargain, according to an exhaustive analysis of on-line shopping. Thursday is the second best day followed by Friday - but Sunday is when you are least likely to make a saving. The study also looked at months and found that the pre-Christmas rush in November is when there are most bargains around on the web - and not the January sales. US retailer reporting service SumAll examined 3,000 companies and half a billion transactions as part of its report. It worked out the average discount offered to consumers on each day of the week and over different times of the year. The best day of the week was Tuesday where savings were 4.81 percent, followed by Thursday on 4.80 percent. In third place was Friday at 4.65 percent, then Wednesday at 4.13 percent and Monday at 4.11 percent. Only the foolish would shop on a Saturday where the discounts were typically 3.84 percent - and Sunday was the worst with 3.37 percent. The analysis by month is even more surprising as most people think that waiting until the post-Christmas sales would yield the biggest discounts. In fact, November is when you will get the largest savings at 5.99 percent on average. January came in second at 4.95 percent, followed by May at 4.50 percent. The worst month to buy on-line was March where you could expect to save just 2.76 percent. Consumers and experts have been speculating for years about the best time to shop online. Booking a flight has almost become a science with some claiming that buying six weeks before you travel guarantees you the best price. However a recent analysis by the US Airlines Reporting Commission found that was not actually the case. Not only did the six week window fail to stack up, in some cases the best fares were on sale as long as 24 weeks before departure. The ARC said that booking well in advance is best advised for busy routes or long haul flights, as the price only tends to go up. 如果你以为周日上网购物能得到最实惠的价格，我劝你三思。根据一份对网上购物的详尽分析，如果你想买到 便宜货，周二其实才是一周里网购最划算的一天。 买便宜货的次佳时机是在周四，然后是周五，而在周日网购是最不可能让你省钱的。 该研究还调查了不同月份的网购情况，发现十一月圣诞节前的购物潮是你最可能从网上淘到便宜货的时节，而非一 月份的特卖。 在撰写报告过程中，调查了3000家公司和5亿笔交易。 为零售商提供数据的美国服务机构SumAll 调查分析得出消费者在一周里每天得到的平均折扣，以及在一年中不同时段得到的折扣。 一周中最适宜网购的一天是周二，能省4.81%，其次是周四，可省4.8%。排在第三位的是周五，4.65%，然后是周 三(4.13%)和周一(4.11%)。 只有傻瓜才会周六上网购物，折扣率通常仅为3.84%，周日则是最糟的——3.37%。 按月份所作的分析结果更出乎人们的意料，因为大多数人认为要等到圣诞节后的特价甩卖才能得到最大的折扣。 事实上，十一月份是你购物最实惠的时候，平均折扣率为5.99%。其次是一月份，折扣率为4.95%，接着是五月份， 折扣率4.5%。 最不适宜网购的月份是三月份，你将只能省2.76%的钱。多年来，消费者和专家们一直在思索和推测网购的最佳时 机。 订机票的学问几乎已经成为了一门科学，有些人称旅行前六周购买机票价格最优惠。然而，美国航空公司报告委员 会新近的研究发现，事实并非如此。 旅行前六周买到的机票远远不是最便宜的，在某些情况下，价格最优惠的机票早在临行前24周就已经开始销售了。 航空公司报告委员会说，在航线繁忙或长途飞行的情况下，最好是提前一大段时间订票，价格越往后只会一直往上 涨。