双语阅读｜中国经济增长放缓 外界呼吁放弃制定增长目标
Every March, China releases a closely watched growth target for the year, a number that looms large for the world’s economists, executives and policy makers. But calls are growing for China to stop setting that goal, as its economic engine slows and doubts rise about the validity of Chinese data.
每年三月，中国政府都会发布当年的增长目标。这个备受关注的数字对于各国经济学家、企业高管和政策制定者来说都有着重大意义。然而，中国经济增长动力放缓，外界对中国政府提供的数据真实性存疑加剧，要求中国不要制定这种增长目标的呼声日渐增多。
On Saturday, at the start of the National People’s Congress, the government announced a target for 2016 that acknowledges a worsening slowdown. It is a range, 6.5 percent to 7 percent economic growth over last year, rather than a number, suggesting that leaders are rethinking their adherence to hard-and-fast goals. Still, even the broader target is unlikely to reduce skepticism of official Chinese figures.
3月5日，中国人民代表大会开幕之际，中国政府宣布了2016年的增长目标，承认经济增长减缓日益加剧。此次的增长目标是一个区间，而不是一个确切的数字：同比增长6.5%至7%。这也从一个侧面反映了中国领导人正在就过去制定硬性目标的方式进行反思。可是，这次目标区间的设定依然不太可能减少外界对中国官方数据的怀疑。
The government’s reading on the growth rate last year was 6.9 percent. The new target range means that leaders expect China’s growth could dip this year, which would further depress the global economic outlook.
中国政府认定2015年的经济增长率为6.9%。因此，从今年的目标增长区间能看出，中国领导人预计今年的经济增长会下滑，而这有可能进一步让人对全球经济前景感到失望。
Following tradition, Prime Minister Li Keqiang declared the new target at the legislature’s opening session. The Chinese government also announced its intent to keep the annual growth rate at a minimum of 6.5 percent through 2020, according to a copy of the 13th Five-Year Plan released Saturday.
依照以往作法，李克强总理在人大会议开幕式宣布新的增长目标。在5日发布的《十三五规划》文本中，中国政府也宣布，到2020年，经济增长率至少保持6.5%。
The target — a product of China’s mix of central planning and quasi-capitalism — gives a general sense of what leaders think of the country’s economic health, but no indication of how the growth is supposed to happen or what policies the leaders are adopting. Economists and investors want to know whether China is really addressing deepening economic problems.
经济增长目标是中国计划和类市场经济相结合的产物，反映了中国领导人对国家经济状况的总体看法，但并没有对目标增长方式以及会采取的政策多加叙述。经济学者和投资者们更加希望了解的是，中国是否会真正解决不断加深的经济问题。
Though its service sector is growing, China is grappling with heavy debt and a glut of factories and homes, a legacy of years when the government pumped money into the economy to keep it humming. Global weakness has reduced demand for China’s exports, while money is increasingly leaving the country.
中国的服务业在持续增长，但面临着沉重的债务、有大量的厂房和住宅空置——是中国政府多年来为保持经济增长而大量投入的资金所遗留下的问题。世界经济疲软局势导致对中国出口的需求减少，与此同时，资金却在加速流出中国。
The growth target can actually make problems worse. For one thing, specialists and policy advisers say, it encourages central government officials to hide or falsify data, and it prods local officials to do the same, to meet tough provincial growth targets that feed into the national one.
制定增长目标的方式其实会让问题恶化。一方面，专业人士和智库人士认为，增长目标的制定将诱使中央政府官员隐瞒或伪造数据，并让地方官员加以效仿，以此来达到难以实现的省级增长目标，进而计入全国数据。
It also reinforces a growth-at-any-cost mentality that harms China’s economy because it leads to wasteful investment and piles of debt. In January, the pace of lending reached a record level, with aggregate financing soaring to $525 billion.
另一方面，这种方式助长了“不惜一切代价寻求增长”的心态，对中国经济尤为不利，因为这会导致没有必要的投资，债务大量堆积。今年一月，中国放贷速度创下新高，融资额累积升至5250亿美元。
“Putting too much emphasis on G.D.P. has become a habit,” said Han Meng, a researcher at the Institute of Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, referring to gross domestic product, the focus of the annual target. “Now we need to break that habit. We need to keep G.D.P., but at the same time not make it into a hard goal.”
“过于强调GDP已成为一种习惯。”中国社科院经济研究所的研究员韩梦如此说道，并指出GDP成为了每年增长目标的焦点。“我们现在要破除这个习惯。我们需要保持GDP指标，但同时不要将它制定为一个难以实现的目标。”
China is the only major world economy to set a hard annual growth target. The number has been critical to China’s economic planning in the post-Mao years. Communist Party leaders believe that the nation’s perceived ability to meet or exceed the annual number is an important element in lending legitimacy to the party, which offers citizens economic opportunity in exchange for their agreeing to the party’s monopolization of political power.
中国是全世界唯一一个制定年度增长目标的经济大国。在毛泽东时代之后, 经济增长数据对于中国的经济计划来说至关重要。中国领导人认为，国家达到甚至超额完成年度增长目标的能力是中共稳定政权的一个重要因素，因为向民众提供经济机会能换取他们对共产党执政的认可。
“They’re so obsessed with this G.D.P. target — it’s not an economic narrative, it’s a political narrative,” said Leland Miller, president of China Beige Book, which provides independent economic data for investors.
“他们过于执迷于GDP目标，这已不再是经济层面的问题，而是出于政治层面的考虑。” 中国褐皮书国际研究公司的总裁利兰•米勒(Leland Miller) 说道。该公司专门为投资者提供独立的经济数据。
Now the propaganda value of hitting the target every year is wearing thin. Ordinary Chinese and foreign analysts say they doubt the economy is growing as quickly as the official rate indicates, given the facts on the ground: stagnant wages, mass layoffs and empty buildings nationwide, including apartment towers and shopping malls.
如今，每年实现经济目标的宣传价值越来越弱。根据一些基本事实，如全国范围内的工资水平停滞、大面积裁员以及包括住宅和购物中心的空置现象，普通中国人和外国分析人士都怀疑实际经济增长率与官方公布的数据并不相符。
They also point to missteps by Chinese leaders that highlight economic mismanagement in areas unrelated to the growth target, like the desperate, failed attempts in recent months to prevent a stock market rout.
他们还提到了中国领导人的几次失误，突显了与经济增长无关的某些领域的经济管理失策，例如在最近几个月中，政府孤注一掷地多次抵御股市崩盘，却均以失败告终。
There is “much more scrutiny on policy makers for their economic policy-making,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics, based in London. “It wasn’t that long ago when the world felt the Chinese government could do no wrong when it came to managing their economy. But there’s a lot more skepticism now, both in China and abroad.”
伦敦的凯投宏观（Capital Economics）首席亚洲经济学家马克•威廉姆斯（Mark Williams）认为， “对政策制定者制定的经济政策有更多的质疑。就在不久前，世界各国都认为中国政府在处理经济问题时是不会犯错的，但到现在，中国国内外都有了更多怀疑的声音。”
Some analysts say Chinese leaders should put more focus on measurements that give a much better sense of the nation’s economic health — gauging quality of life or the purchasing power of households, for example.
一些分析人士认为，中国领导人应当更加注重那些能让人了解国家经济良好状况的标准，例如衡量生活质量或家庭购买力数据等。
Qi Jingmei, a senior economist with the State Information Center, which does economic research for central government agencies, said G.D.P. growth is “not the only number.”“We want the public to care more about how and where the growth comes from,” she said, “rather than only care about what the number is.”
国家信息中心高级经济学家祁京梅表示，G.D.P.增长“并不只是一个数字”。“我们希望公众能更多地关心增长是怎么来的，从何而来，”她说。“而不是只关心那个数字是多少。” 该机构是中国政府的经济研究机构。
China can take extreme stimulus steps to hit the target, as it did after the 2008 global financial crisis. Then, a lending-and-spending binge increased growth but saddled state-owned companies and local governments with big debts. Officials also can massage or falsify data to hit the target.
为了达到增长目标,中国可能会像2008年全球金融危机爆发后一样，采取极端的经济刺激措施。疯狂的放贷和财政支出虽然拨高了增长率，却也使国有企业和地方政府背上了巨额债务。为达到经济增长目标，官员甚至可能会篡改或伪造数据。
Christopher Balding, an associate professor at the Peking University HSBC Business School, noted how the official growth number announced after the year ends always hews closely to the target set months earlier. Last year, the announced target was “about 7 percent,” and the official achieved growth at year’s end was 6.9 percent.
北京大学汇丰商学院副教授克里斯朵夫•鲍尔丁（Christopher Balding）指出，官方每年年底公布的增长数字总是与几个月前设定的目标非常接近。去年，官方宣布的目标为“7%左右”，而年底公布的实际增长率则为6.9%。
“It’s absurd how close they get to basically hitting their target,” he said. “I’ve seen that pattern going back years.”
“他们总是非常接近，几乎达到了目标，很离奇。”他说，“这咱模式持续了很多年。”
In 2007, Mr. Li, then the party chief of Liaoning Province, in the northeast, met the United States ambassador, Clark T. Randt Jr., for dinner and told him that “G.D.P. figures are ‘man-made’ and therefore unreliable,” according to a State Department cable.
据美国国务院一份电函显示，2007年，时任辽宁省省委书记的李克强在一次晚宴上，对美国驻华大使克拉克•雷德（Clark T. Randt Jr.Clark T. Randt Jr.）表示，GDP数据都是‘人造的’，不可靠。
When gauging Liaoning’s economy, Mr. Li preferred to look at three indicators, he said: electricity consumption, volume of rail cargo and the amount of loans disbursed.
在衡量辽宁省的经济状况时，李克强通常会看三项指标。他认为这些指标分别是用电量、铁路货运量以及贷款额。
In December, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, published a series of stories examining the problems in the lagging economies in the three northeastern provinces, including Liaoning. One article concluded that some local officials were falsifying data to burnish G.D.P. numbers and many other economic indicators.
去年12月，新华社于发表了一系列文章，指出了包括辽宁省在内的东北三省落后的经济状况中所存在的问题。其中一篇文章认为，一些地方官员为了让GDP和其它经济指标更好看而伪造数据。
Analysts say the shift this year from one number for the target to a range is a move in the right direction, even if the change reveals uncertainty among policy makers about the strength of China’s economy. Besides the central government, nine provinces are announcing ranges this year, according to official news reports.
市场分析人士指出，今年的目标由某一确定的数字转向一个区间，是朝正确的方向迈出了一步，尽管这一转变同时也反映出政策制定者对于中国经济实力并没有完全的把握。据官方新闻报道，除中央政府之外，有九个省也将宣布今年的目标增长区间。
译者：陈天惠、杨宇、张惠贤、卜凡、杨蓝溪，北京外国语大学英语学院2015级翻硕
审校&编辑：王旭泉
英文来源：纽约时报