纽约时报：中国人口日益减少 [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

-------------译者：散夜-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------



【图中纵轴为“中国总人口”（浅色区域为预测值），横轴为“年份”。图中标注为10亿人口水平线。】

Chinese academics recently delivered a stark warning to the country’s leaders: China is facing its most precipitous decline in population in decades setting the stage for potential demographic economic and even political crises in the near future.

中国学者最近发出了严厉警告：中国正面临几十年来最急剧的人口下降局面，这为不远将来潜在的人口、经济等埋下了伏笔。

For years China’s ruling Communist Party implemented a series of policies intended to slow the growth of the world’s most populous nation including limiting the number of children couples could have to one. The long term effects of those policies mean the country will soon enter an era of “negative growth” or a contraction in the size of the total population.

多年以来，中国实施了一系列旨在减缓其这个世界上人口最多国家的人口增长的政策，...（略译）。这些政策的长期影响意味着中国很快会进入人口“负增长”时代，总人口规模缩小。



【图中纵轴为“人口年增长率”（红色区域为预测值），横轴为“年份”。图中标注分别为“三年自然灾害（大饥荒）”（左一）、“'晚、稀、少'政策提出”（左二）、“独生子女政策提出”（中）、“独生子女政策写入宪法”和二孩政策提出”（右一）。数据来源：美国人口普查国际数据库。】



The government has recognized the worrisome demographic trend and in 2013 began easing enforcement of the “one child” policy in certain circumstances. It then raised the limit to two children for all families in 2016 in hopes of encouraging a baby boom. It did not work.

中国已经认识到这个令人不安的人口趋势，并从2013年开始在某些情况下放宽执行“独生子女”政策。其后，在2016年对所有家庭全面开放二孩政策以鼓励婴儿潮，但并没有奏效。



【图中纵轴为“妇女生育率”（浅色区域为预测值），横轴为“年份”。图中标注分别为“独生子女政策提出”（左）和“二孩政策提出”（右）。数据来源：世界银行；美国人口普查国际数据库。】

After a brief uptick that year the birth rate fell again in 2017 with 17.2 million babies born compared to 17.9 in 2016. Although the number of families having a second child rose the overall number of births continued to drop.

在经过一年的短暂上升后，2017年的出生率再次下降，新生儿数量是1720万，而在2016年是1790万。虽然生二孩的家庭数量有增加，但总出生数持续下降。

According to preliminary official figures cited by The Global Times a party-run newspaper the total number of births for 2018 could fall to as low as 15 million. Some cities and provinces have reported declines in local birth rates of as much as 35 percent.

根据《环球时报》引用的党媒的初步官方数据，2018年的总出生人数可能会降至1500万。一些城市和省份报告当地出生率下降了多达35%。



【图中纵轴为“新生儿数量（单位：百万）”（下部区域为第一胎占比，中部区域为第二胎占比，上部区域为其他），横轴为“年份”。图中标注分别为“二孩政策下预测值”（上）和“独生子女政策下预测值”（下）。注：基于中等生育率转变。数据来源：中国国家统计局；《实施全面两孩政策人口变动测算研究》，王培安，国家卫生和计划生育委员会】

-------------译者：散夜-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

The fertility rate required to maintain population levels is 2.1 children per woman a figure known as “replacement level fertility.”

维持人口水平所需的生育率为每名妇女2.1个孩子，这一数字被称为“生育更替水平”。

（译注：生育更替水平是指这样一个生育水平，即同一批妇女生育子女的数量恰好能替代她们本身以及她们的伴侣，当净人口再生产率为1.00时，恰好等于更替水平。）



Yi Fuxian a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has written that China’s government has obscured the actual fertility rate to disguise the disastrous ramifications of the “one child” policy. According to his calculations the fertility rate averaged 1.18 between 2010 and 2018.

威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的教授易富贤写道：“中国XX掩盖了实际的生育率以掩饰“独生子女”政策的灾难性后果。根据他的计算，2010年到2018年间中国的生育率平均为1.18。



【图为2017年各国生育率（从左往右递增）。分别为：新加坡、韩国、日本、中国、美国、（生育更替水平）、印度、菲律宾、尼日尔】



Chinese women born during the years following the “one child” policy are now reaching or have already passed their peak fertility age. There are simply not enough of them to sustain the country’s population level despite new efforts by the government to encourage families to have two children.

在实行“独生子女”政策后出生的中国妇女现在已经达到或已经过了其生育高峰年龄。虽然政府为鼓励家庭生育两个孩子做出了新的努力，但仅靠她们还不足以维持国家的人口水平。



【图中纵坐标为“人口数量（单位：百万）”，灰色区域为2015年水平，红色区域为预测2050年水平，横坐标为“年龄”，图中标注分别为“20到40岁的女性人口将下降35%以上”（左）和“到2050年3000多万女性将超过84岁”（右）】

-------------译者：jsdanxtandkao-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

The looming demographic crisis could be the Achilles heel of China’s stunning economic transformation over the last 40 years.

迫在眉睫的人口危机可能是中国过去40年惊人经济转型的致命弱点。



Many compare China’s demographic crisis to the one that stalled Japan’s economic boom in the 1990s.

许多人将中国的人口危机与上世纪90年代阻碍日本经济繁荣的那场危机相提并论。



Some experts believe the population has already started shrinking. In a recent paper Dr. Yi and Su Jian an economist at Peking University argued that the population contracted in 2018 the first year it has done so since the famines of 1961 and 1962 induced by the Great Leap Forward Mao’s industrialization campaign. The researchers said inaccurate census estimates had obscured the actual population and fertility rates.

一些专家认为中国的人口已经开始减少。在最新的一篇论文中，易富贤博士和北京大学经济学家苏建认为，中国人口在2018年出现了萎缩，这是自1961年和1962年毛的工业化运动大跃进引发饥荒以来，中国人口首次出现萎缩。研究人员表示，不准确的人口普查统计掩盖了实际的人口和生育率。

“It can be seen that 2018 is a historic turning point in China’s population” Dr. Yi wrote in an email. “China’s population has begun to decline and is rapidly aging. Its economic vitality will keep waning.”

“可以看出，2018年是中国人口的一个历史性转折点，”易博士在一封电子邮件中如此写道，“中国的人口已经开始下降，且正迅速老龄化。中国的经济活力将继续减弱。”

-------------译者：散夜-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

【纽约时报处评论】

Djt
I say this as an atheist - DEAR GOD please let humans find a way to have their economies and societies survive without endless population growth. More people use more resources and are crushing the other residents of this planet and are burying its beauty in trash. Soon there will be no part of the surface that has not been appropriated for human use. Seas will be empty of fish. Declining population in China is a huge positive step - now just figure out how to make the economy work with that limitation. The US needs to be doing that too. The solution to our problems can't always be "pile on more people". At some point that solution won't work but why wait until the crush of humanity has destroyed everything? Why not find a solution now when we still have elbow room?

我以无神论者的身份发言——亲爱的上帝，请让人类找到方法，让他们的经济和社会能在不用人口无休止增长的情况下得以存在。更多的人会消耗更多的资源，这种情况正在摧毁地球上的其它“居民”，正在用垃圾埋葬美好。很快，地球表面将没有任何一处不被人类占据，海洋将会空无一鱼。中国的人口下降是一个巨大进步——接下来只需弄清楚如何让经济在这种限制下运转即可。美国也需要这样做，解决我们的问题不能总是靠“增加更多的人手”。虽然这个解决方案在某种程度上是行不通的，但为什么非要等到人类的毁灭摧毁一切那时再来解决呢？为什么不趁着我们还有施展余地马上找解决办法呢？



James Davis
The idea that a continued population growth is essential for economic expansion is unsettling. When your existing populations sustenance currently depends on importing food from other countries and has over taxed its own agricultural capacity by chemically coaxing the farmlands to complete nutrient exhaustion isn't less demand a good thing? Let our earth rest by demanding less of her while she still has the capacity to recover.

人口持续增长对经济扩张是必不可少的这种观点令人不安。当你们的现存人口依靠从其他国家进口粮食来维持生计，通过化学手段诱使耕地耗尽养分从而过度透支农业生产力时，难道更少的需求不是一件好事吗？趁着我们的地球母亲还有能力恢复的时候，减少对她的苛求，让她休息下吧。

Fernando
Crisis? No. This is a part of the solution to the problem of climate change.

危机？不，这是解决气候变化问题方案的一部分。

-------------译者：ViperGTS-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------



Kealoha
The slow-motion climatic and environmental changes are the real crises we face. Everyone on this planet needs to wake up to the fact that there are too many of us and endless growth is an impossible goal. We seem entranced by the idea that we can somehow manage to maintain a growth economy forever. It's colossal stupidity: nothing short of collective suicide by binge consumption. If we are to survive we need to figure out how to live within our means - and that is bound to hurt in the short term. The economic effects of a decrease in population are like the side-effects of a curative medication. Who likes that? But we put up with it because of long term benefits. Same. Just bigger.

气候与环境的缓慢变化其实才是我们正面临的真正危机。地球上的所有人都该醒醒意识到这么一个事实，那就是我们真是人太多了，无休止的增长发展是绝不可能的。我们似乎都深陷进了我们能永久实现经济增长的幻想中，实在是愚蠢至极：这无异于过度消费导致集体自杀。如果要存活，我们就必须做到量入为出——尽管这么做在短期内确实会造成一定的伤害。人口减少带来的经济效益就像是良药苦口。谁会喜欢呢？但为了长期的效益我们必须坚持，和企业经营这一点是相通的，不过规模更大。

NYC299kms
Seven billion people and climbing is also uncharted territory. For those with zero ability to understand how we are creating an unprecedented environmental catastrophe it might seem crazy to think that billions fewer people gradually dying off instead of starving to death dying of new plagues or in the water wars already shaping might be a good thing. But they'd be um wrong.

七十亿，并且还在不断增长的人口也是一个未知的领域。对那些完全不自知我们制造了一场空前的环境灾变的人而言，他们是无法理解为什么比起饿死、死于新的瘟疫或水资源争夺战，数十亿人逐渐自然消亡（人口减少导致）可能会更好。但他们真是错了。



rosa
Yes well that "cultural preference for males" can be a real bugaboo when it gets up to 120 males born per 100 females. (World Bank 2009.) It's pretty tough to keep that birthrate up when the females are long dead. "....cultural preference...." How delicate that phrasing is. ERA now.

是的，嗯，当每100个女性出生就有120个男性出生时，“偏好男性文化”就成了难题。（世界银行2009年数据。）在女性早就灭亡的情况下，要保持这样的生育率是相当困难的。“......文化偏好......”这个微妙的措辞如今早就每人用了。

Rachel C.
With all due respect to China isn't a shrinking population in all countries good for all of us? Shouldn't we be using the rapid rise of automation to replace straighforward jobs (such as bank tellers) and shift human workers to places that need a human touch like caring for the elderly? If they need workers they can certainly allow moderate immigration too.

恕我直言，中国，但人口减少现象不是对我们所有人都有好处吗？难道我们不应该利用迅速崛起发展的自动化来取代那些简单易懂的工作（比如银行出纳员），把人类转去做那些要求与人接触的工作，比如照顾老人吗？如果他们人手不够需要雇员，还可以允许适度的移民。



Kim from Alaska
One billion in a single country is still too many. Overpopulation in general is still the elephant in the room when people talk about climate change and food security.

一个国家有10亿人口还是太多了。当人们谈论起气候变化和粮食安全的时候，人口过剩仍然是人们闭口不谈却确实存在的事实。