Joseph wang答题七则（第二弹） [美国媒体]

每人一小段，翻译我也行！
每日新素材，等你来认领！ http://www.ltaaa.com/translation.html

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Joseph wang's Q&As




-------------译者：喜欢蜜桃味的仙姑-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

1.How can China build so much infrastructure with a smaller budget than the US?
The numbers are very misleading. Most infrastructure projects in China are not financed directly from the central government budget.

1.相比起美国，中国是怎样用较小的预算修建这么多的基础设施项目呢？
数据很容易误导人。在中国大多数基础设施项目的经费都不是直接从预算里扣除的。

What happens is that if you want to build a road or a railroad the people building it form a company which is owned by the local government. The local government sells land to fund the company and the company then issues bonds which are to be paid from the revenue of the company.

事实是这样的，如果你想要修建公路或者铁路，你需要成立一家公司，然后公司会发行债券，而这些债券会从公司的收入中扣除。

Now at some point the company may have trouble paying the bonds and people expect at that point that the government will do a bail out but it means that most Chinese infrastructure projects are off-budget.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/...

在某个时刻，公司可能会出现无法偿还债券的困难，然后需要得到一些援助，但这就意味着中国的大多数基础设施项目是超出预算的。

What this means is that China has truly stunning amounts of debt that’s not on the books.

即公司有大量的债务是没有记录在账单上的。

It’s hard for the US to do this now because the US doesn’t have land that it can sell but large parts of the railroad infrastructure of the US in the 19th century was financed this way.

而这对美国而言，现下是很难做到的，因为美国没有土地可以出售，但在19世纪，美国的很多铁路基础设施项目是以这种方式融资的。

​-------------译者：山不渝-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

2.Why did China and Japan adopt German model for a legal system not English legal system?
Japan tried to use the English legal system and gave up and switched to a German system.

2.为什么中国和日本采用德国法律体系模式而不是英国法律体系？
日本曾尝试过英国法律体系，但最后弃用了，改换用德国法律体系。

The nice thing about the German system is that in principle the entire law is in one book. You borrow a civil code adopt it and that one book describes the entire legal system. Very useful if you are building a legal system from scratch.

德国法律体系的优势在于，原则上，整个法律都在一本书里。你借用一本民法典，对其进行采纳借鉴，而那本书却描述了整个法律体系。如果你打算从头开始建立一个法律体系，这是非常有用的。

The problem with common law is that there isn’t a single book that you can point to and say “here is the law.” This also gets you into problems with language. What you can do with civil law is to take the book which is written in German and then translate all of the principles into Japanese and Chinese and now you have a legal system that works in Japanese and Chinese.

普通法的问题是，你没有单独的一本法典，可以指着它说：“这就是法律。”这也会给你带来语种上的问题。你所能做的就是把用德语写的民法，把其所有的法律原则翻译成日语和汉语，然后你就有了一个适用于中国和日本的法律体系。

Also civil law works a lot better with new developing countries. With civil law you can write a book and then have the emperor or whoever is in charge say *THIS IS THE LAW*. Common law just doesn’t work that way. You can’t just have the king say *THIS IS THE LAW*. In addition if you are the king or emperor and you have civil law then you can order that the laws be changed if you don’t like them. This really doesn’t work that well with common law since you can’t as the king (or the emperor or the party) order the judges to just change the law.

在新兴的发展中国家，民法的运作效果也要好得多。用民法，你可以写一本书，然后让皇帝或统治者说“这就是法律”。普通法就没法这样运作。你没法让国王宣称“这就是法律”。甚至于，如果你是国王或皇帝，在民法的规则下，如果你不喜欢这部法律你是能更改的。这在普通法中确是不可能的，因为国王（皇帝）是不能命令法官修改法律的。

The trouble with common law is that you simply cannot have a common law system that does not use English. Civil law is based on a single code that you can translate but common law is based on hundreds of years of court decisions that are written in English. In the case of Hong Kong oral
proceedings are in English or Cantonese but the written record of the cases are in English. It wasn’t until 1973 the you could use Cantonese in court.

普通法的问题在于，你必须要用英语语系才行。民法是建立在一个你能进行翻译的单一法典之上的，而普通法是建立在数百年来用英语书写的法院判决的基础上的。以香港为例，口头起诉以英语或粤语进行，但书面记录以英语书写。直到1973年，才可以在法庭上使用粤语。

3.How bad will the Chinese economy suffer in a trade war with the US?
Not much. I should mention that I'm writing this from Hong Kong and no one that I've talked to thinks that Trumps tariffs will have any real effect.

3.中国经济在中美贸易中会遭受多大损失？
不会受多少损失。我必须提一句，我人现在是在香港写下这回答的，与我交流过的，没有一个人认为特朗普的关税政策会起到什么实际效果。

China is trying to get out of the cheap export market and getting into the high value export market. If you go to Shenzhen people are doing solar cells robots and smart phones. Also there has been a major push to export to markets like southeast Asia Middle East Russia Latin America and Africa. For the last few years China has been funding infrastructure projects to develop the economies of southeast Asia and Africa so they have the money to buy Chinese goods.

中国正努力从廉价出口市场转型成高端出口市场。如果你去深圳，大家都在做太阳能电池、智能机器人和智能手机等产业。此外，中国还大力向东南亚、中东、俄罗斯、拉丁美洲和非洲等市场出口。在最近的几年里，中国一直在资助基础设施项目，发展东南亚和非洲的经济，使他们有钱购买中国商品。

The other thing to consider is that factories go into and out of business all the time and a lot of the factories people think if when they think Chinese factory went out of business a few years ago.

另一件需要考虑的事情就是，工厂总是开业和停工更换不停，所以很多人谈到中国工厂，他们会认为中国工业不是在几年前就已经崩溃了。

One thing is that I find that Americans are often scarily out of touch with what is going on with the world. I think people are going to be in for a rude shock over the next few weeks.

我还发现一件事，那就是美国人常与世界上正在发生的事情大幅脱节。我认为在接下来的几个星期里，美国人会受到严重的打击。

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4.Why is it OK for China or Japan when they due their currency but horrible for Russia now that they are going through it?
China and Japan are manufacturing economies. When you due the currency exports become cheaper this creates local jobs and since people use local currency to pay for local stuff this boosts the economy.

4.为什么中国或日本在货币贬值时情况还好，但对目前卢布贬值的俄罗斯来说情况却很糟糕呢？
因为中国和日本是制造业经济体。当货币贬值时，更有利于出口，这就创造了许多就业机会，又因人们用当地货币支付当地产品，这就促进了经济。

（译者注：中国是这样，但是日本可不行，日本资源太少，货币跌太狠的话后果会很严重的）

Russia is an oil economy. Because oil is a global commodity when you due the ruble people don't buy more oil. Because Russia uses oil profits to import stuff things become more expensive. The other problem with oil is that it is a capital intensive industry. It doesn't create that many jobs and those jobs tend to be high skill rather than low skill.

而俄罗斯是石油经济体。由于石油是全球性商品，所以当卢布贬值时，人们不会购买更多的石油。由于俄罗斯利用石油利润进口商品，（进口越多）商品会变得越昂贵。石油的另一个问题是，它是资本密集型产业。它没法创造那么多的工作岗位，而且这些工作往往需要的是高技能人才而不是低技能人员。

5.Why are Asians (e.g. Indian and Chinese) known to be so smart? What influences it?
Immigration laws.

5.为什么亚洲人（如印度人和中国人）如此聪明？是什么造成的？
因为移民法。

If you have immigration laws that say that you can only get into the United States if you are very smart then you shouldn't be surprised if the people that you let in are very smart.

如果移民法规定，只有非常聪明的人才能进入美国，那么，如果所有进来的移民都非常聪明，你不应该感到惊讶才是。

It can be odd. In the United States pretty much every ethnic Chinese person I grew up with had a post-graduate degree and did very well in school. I didn't know too many Chinese people that were bus drivers or construction workers because you can't get into the US legally if you are a bus driver or construction worker. If you are a college professor it's not hard to get an immigration visa. So most Chinese people I knew in the US were college professors or something like that.

这可能很奇怪。在美国，几乎每个和我一起长大的华人都有研究生学位，在学校里表现很好。我不知道有多少中国人是巴士司机或建筑工人，因为如果你是巴士司机或建筑工人，你是无法合法进入美国的。如果你是名大学教授，获得移民签证并不难。所以我在美国认识的大多数中国人都是大学教授之类的。

Once you get to China you realize that most Chinese *aren't* college professors.
There are a lot of stupid and unmotivated Chinese people but stupid and unmotivated Chinese don't end up in the United States.

一旦你到了中国，你就会意识到大多数中国人并不是大学教授。愚蠢和没有动力的中国人大有人在，但是愚蠢和没有动力的中国人是混不进美国的。

-------------译者：李爸爸-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

6.Why did the British stop selling opium to China?
This is one of the inconvenient questions that people don’t ask because the answer is a bit embarrassing. The embarrassing part is that after the British won the Opium Wars the British made tons and tons of money and it ended up completely messing up China. As far as why the British stopped

6.为何英国不再向中国兜售鸦片？
这是个挺麻烦的问题，因为答案有点尴尬，人们都不怎么提。尴尬的是英国在赢得鸦片战争后获得巨额钱财，而中国却因此混乱一团。至于英国为何要停止兜售鸦片，有以下几点原因:

（1）Christian missionaries. In the late 19th century you have British Protestant missionaries that were extremely appalled and guilty over how much opium was destroying China and they managed to get Parliament to restrict and ultimately ban the sale of opium to China. This was part of a general global anti-drug/anti-alcohol movement that hit the United States in the form of Prohibition.

1）英国传教士
19世纪末，英国新教传教士非常震惊和歉疚于鸦片对中国造成的破坏，他们设法让议会限制鸦片出口规模，最终完全禁止出口鸦片给中国。这是以禁止形式冲击美国的全球化反毒反酒精运动的一部分。

（2）End of the British Empire. The British stopped selling opium directly to China but they were still importing it through Hong Kong. That didn’t stop until the Japanese kicked the British out and then the Japanese got kicked out the Communist took over and they just put a stop to the use of opium.

2）大英帝国的终结
英国停止直接向中国兜售鸦片，但是仍然通过香港出口（至中国）。鸦片贩卖并没有停止，一直到英国人被日本人赶走，随后日本人被赶走，中国人真正当家做主后才停止吸食鸦片。

（译者注：英国主动与清政府签订《中英禁烟条约》的原因不仅仅是英国人良心发现和英帝国衰弱那么简单。深刻的原因是英国通过鸦片战争，完成在华资本输出后，中国对西方工业产品也有了需求，英国完全可以用工业产品逆转中国的贸易顺差，更更更重要的是英国本土社会工业化继续深入，出现了新兴工商业阶层，这一阶层在英国逐渐掌权，他们认为鸦片贸易阻碍了工业产品在华销售。而鸦片贸易收入所占比也越来越小，所幸就主动废了，赢得中国人好感，更有利于英国工业产品在中国贩卖。英国所有的举动都是为了逆转贸易逆差。译者说那么一大段并不是否定上面的回答，上面那个回答太西方价值观了，补充点东方价值观，更全面一点。不要嫌译者啰嗦，本人不接受反驳 ╭(╯^╰)╮ ）

This ends up with a mix of historical trends that ended up creating this odd mix which is me. I happen to be an astrophysicist who is a very strong Chinese nationalist and who was raised a fundamentalist Southern Baptist. I don’t smoke or drink alcohol. Those three aspects of me don’t make any sense until you look at this period of Chinese history.

最后是各种历史潮流的碰撞混合，后来就有了我这种奇怪的混合体。我碰巧是个天体物理学家，也是个坚定的中国国家主义者，同时也被培养成南方浸礼会原教旨主义者。我不抽烟也不喝酒。如果你不了解这个时期的中国历史，你就不理解我为何会同时有这三种身份。

（译者注：浸礼会，也称浸信会，是17世纪从英国清教徒独立派中分离出来的一主要宗派，因浸入全身的施洗方式而得名。——百度百科。）

7.Why does America refuse to see how much China's technology has surpassed them?
It’s not so much refusal to see but “how would you know?”

7.为什么美国不愿意弄明白中国科技已经超他们多少？
这不是多么不愿意去弄清，而是“你怎么看得清？”

The thing is that the United States is the most powerful country in the world which means that people outside of the US have a pretty good idea of what is going on in the US. Conversely you can live in the US and have absolutely no idea what the world is like outside of the United States. The other thing is that Chinese companies don’t have that much interest in competing against US companies in the US and are more interested in doing business in the Middle East and Africa.

美国是世界上最强大的国家，这意味着美国之外的人都能很好了解美国发生的事。相反，如果你在美国住，当然对美国以外的世界不太了解。另一个就是在美国的中国公司对和本土公司竞争没多大兴趣，他们更喜欢在中东和非洲等地做生意。

So if you look at Chinese breakthroughs in robotics manufacturing and fintech. There would be absolutely no reason why someone in the United States would be aware of it.

所以，如果你看到中国在机器人制造和FinTech（金融科技）领域的突破，绝对不会奇怪为何美国没有意识到。

（译者注：FinTech 中文名金融科技，起源于美国，但目前在中国势头强劲。指金融行业融入科技元素，例如人工智能、区域链块和大数据等在传统金融业务中的应用。你的手机支付也算一部分。FinTech和互联网金融有明显区别，前者外延更大。）