中国援欧的两难选择

<div align="center">中国援欧的两难选择</div> Cautious Beijing keen to avoid domestic unrest <a href="http://www.My6699.com">雅仕网</a>  2011年11月22日  来源：金融时报 Ask anyone standing around in the crowded corridors of Beijing’s Affiliated Children’s Hospital whether they think China should contribute to a bail-out for debt-ridden European countries and they will respond with scornful disbelief. 在北京儿童医院拥挤不堪的走廊里，随便问一个人中国是否应当出资为债台高筑的欧洲国家纾困，他肯定会露出轻视和怀疑的神色。   Here in the dirty, overcrowded wards, visitors can glimpse why there is little enthusiasm in this country for bailing out rich Europeans while most Chinese lack access to even basic social services.   只要看看这里卫生糟糕、人满为患的病房，你就能明白，在大多数中国人甚至享受不到基本的社会服务之时，为何他们对于拯救欧洲富人缺乏热情。    The emergency waiting room resembles a crowded train station in a war zone. The smell of urine hangs where people have relieved themselves on the floor and sick and injured children spill out through the corridors into the parking lot. 医院的急诊室就像战区里拥挤的火车站。有人随处解手，让空气中飘散着尿味，患病和受伤的孩子从走廊一直挤到外面的停车场。 After waiting for hours, sometimes all day, patients in China are often prescribed drugs they do not need, charged outrageous sums for unnecessary tests and may be forced to pay bribes to doctors and nurses for anything beyond rudimentary care.   中国的患者们在等候了几个小时——甚至是一整天——后，医生给他们开的药常常是他们不需要的，一些毫无必要的化验项目却收费高昂，要得到比最基础治疗稍好一点的服务，患者可能不得不给医生和护士塞红包。 With the Eurozone debt crisis spreading from Greece to Italy, Europe’s embattled leaders have been looking to China and other emerging markets to contribute to a bail-out fund they hope will stop the contagion. 随着欧元区债务危机由希腊蔓延至意大利，麻烦重重的欧洲领导人希望中国和其它新兴市场国家能够向欧洲的一个纾困基金注资。他们希望这个基金能够阻止危机蔓延。   On the surface, contributing to this fund makes sense for China. 从表面看，出资支持这个纾困基金对中国有益。   Europe is China’s biggest trade partner and the country has $3,200bn in foreign exchange reserves that it wants to diversify away from the US dollar. Why not help out and buy a few extra bonds from the Europeans to help them through their hour of need 欧洲是中国的最大贸易伙伴，而拥有3.2万亿美元外汇储备的中国正希望实现储备多元化，摆脱美元所占比例过高的局面。何不施以援手、多买些欧洲债券，帮助欧洲人度过危难呢？    In private, Chinese officials say they are open in principle to contributing to a bail-out. Beijing has been the first port of call as European officials pass round the hat for donations to its financial stability fund. 中国官员私下里表示，他们原则上对于向纾困基金出资持开放态度。在欧洲官员四处为其金融稳定基金募集资金之际，北京是他们的第一站。   But Beijing is confronted by a dilemma not normally associated with one-party autocracies.   但中国遇到了一个两难处境，而这类处境通常在一党领导的中国不会出现。  It has to worry about a backlash in public opinion that could result from rescuing what they perceive to be coddled, lazy Europeans so they can continue retiring early and enjoying the world’s best health and social welfare systems. 那就是，中国政府不得不担心公众舆论的反弹。在中国人眼里，懒惰的欧洲人被宠坏了，向他们伸出援手，只会让他们继续提前退休并享受世界上最好的医疗和社会福利。 By contrast, China’s nominally Communist government has reduced its own welfare obligations over the past three decades of reform and today its public health, pension and welfare sectors are regarded as run-down and inadequate.  相比之下，名义上奉行共产主义的中国政府在30年的改革过程中，减少了对社会福利的投入。中国的公共卫生、养老和福利体系被普遍认为低效且资金匮乏。    No indication has been made that China would contribute, so debate on the topic is subdued. But If China were to make a public announcement of a contribution to the bail-out, it would no doubt spark fierce condemnation on China’s rambunctious microblogs. 中国政府尚未表现出任何迹象会出资援助欧洲，关于这个问题的争论也被压低了声音。但如果中国公开宣布向纾困基金出资，无疑会在喧嚣的微博上引发激烈谴责。 “If you ask a Chinese peasant farmer whether China should help save Europe, he will ask you who’s going to save him,” says one senior official working on China’s policy stance toward Europe. “如果你问一位中国农民中国是否应当援救欧洲，他会反问那谁能救救他，”一位负责中国对欧政策的高级官员说。 Back in the wards of Affiliated Children’s, that is a common refrain. 再回到北京儿童医院的病房，听到的也都是这种回答。 “How can the government help foreigners but not help its own people,” says one woman who has travelled nearly the length of the country to try to find a doctor who can tell her why her child can no longer walk. “We’ve had to go deeply in to debt just to try to get our son treated.”   “政府怎能不帮自己的人民，反而去帮助外国人呢？”一位女士说。她为了医治无法继续走路的儿子几乎跑遍了中国。“我们欠了很多债，就是为了给我儿子看病。” According to China’s official central budget, public spending on healthcare, including central government spending and transfer payments to local governments, came to just under Rmb150bn last year. 根据中国官方的中央预算，包括中央政府开支和对地方政府的转移支付在内，去年中国全国的公共卫生医疗支出仅为不到1500亿元人民币。 That is roughly the same as public healthcare spending in Greece before recent austerity measures were announced, and is equivalent to only around one-eighth of what the UK spent on healthcare last year. China’s population is 120 times the size of Greece’s and around 20 times the size of the UK’s.   这个数字和希腊在公布紧缩措施之前的公共卫生医疗支出水平相当，仅相当于英国去年支出的八分之一。而中国人口分别是希腊和英国的120倍和约20倍。 In addition to spending by the central government, local governments in China are supposed to finance around 70 per cent of all public health spending from their own budgets but many do not meet their commitments and instead require hospitals to make up the shortfall themselves.   除中央政府支出之外，中国地方政府应该承担公共卫生医疗支出额的约70%，但许多地方政府无法履行承诺，而让医院去弥补预算缺口。   The World Bank says that in the Chinese health system “drugs are used and overused in ways that are neither financially nor medically efficient” because “both hospitals and doctors rely on drug sales for supplemental income”.   世界银行(World Bank)表示，中国的卫生医疗体系中，“药品的使用和过度使用，不论在财务还是疗效方面都十分低效”，因为“医院和医生都依赖药品销售来补充收入”。   Although public education is in better shape, China’s pension and welfare systems, like the healthcare system, are still woefully inadequate.   尽管公共教育情况稍好，但中国的养老与福利体系和卫生医疗体系一样，存在严重欠缺。 By definition, China’s massive foreign exchange reserves cannot be spent at home on fixing the country’s creaky health system or shoring up its fragmented and elementary pension system. 根据其定义，中国的巨额外汇储备无法在国内使用，用来完善重负下的卫生医疗体系或者充实初级且割裂的养老体系。   But when Chinese officials suggest they may contribute $100bn, or more than four times the amount the central government spent at home on healthcare last year, to a European bail-out, they need to explain that decision to people in China’s overcrowded emergency wards or risk undermining the Communist party’s legitimacy.   但当中国官员表示可能提供1000亿美元——这个数字是中央政府去年医疗开支的4倍多——投入欧洲纾困基金的时候，他们就得向拥挤的急诊病房中的患者们解释为何要这么做，不然可能面临执政合法性被削弱的风险。 Some officials joke that in this respect at least, the Communist party is as beholden to public sentiment as politicians in Brussels or Athens.  有些官员开玩笑说，起码在这个方面，中共与欧盟或希腊的政治家一样，会对公众情绪心存感激。

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