中国在同意加入世界贸易组织(WTO)时签署了一份102页的议定书，其中有几个小字正成为对该机构本身的一个严峻考验：非市场经济。
One year ago today was the 15th anniversary of China joining the WTO. The date is important because of a little clause in the accession protocols that deals with how countries should decide whether the goods that China exports have been unfairly dumped. It says: “In any event, the provisions [that allow trade disputants to treat China as a non-market economy] shall expire 15 years after the date of accession”.
一年前的12月11日是中国加入世贸组织的15周年纪念日。这个日子之所以异常重要，是因为中国入世协议中有一个小条款，是关于各国应如何判定中国出口商品是否存在不公平倾销。该条款写道：“无论如何，(允许贸易争议者将中国视为非市场经济的)项目的规定应在加入之日后15年终止。”
In the year following that expiry date, a battle royale has erupted over whether Europe and the US should honour what Beijing sees as its agreement when the other countries say China has not stood by its commitments.
在这一期限届满后的一年里爆发了一场大混战，其主题是当其他国家表示中国没有信守承诺时，欧洲和美国是否应对北京方面认为是协议规定的内容予以承认。
Let’s rewind first to the 1990s. At the time, the question for US and European negotiators was how anyone would know if Chinese exporters were dumping goods in other markets. The normal standard is whether the goods are being sold for less than their cost of production — in other words, being sold without any profit. But that standard was impossible to apply to the planned economies of the Soviet bloc, which lacked normal prices in their home markets. So goods suspected of being dumped by “non-market” economies could be measured against goods in another economy of more or less equivalent levels of development, to see whether the price was fair.
我们先倒回到上世纪九十年代。当时美国和欧洲谈判代表考虑的问题是，如果中国出口商在其他市场倾销商品，别人如何得知呢?一般的判断标准是商品是否以低于其生产成本的价格出售，换句话说，该商品的出售是否毫无利润。但这一标准无法适用于苏联集团的计划经济体，它们的国内市场缺乏正常价格。因此如果怀疑“非市场”经济体倾销某样商品，可以用另一个发展水平大致相当的经济体的同样商品来衡量，看其价格是否公平。
When China agreed to join, its negotiators understood “market economy” as referring to a country without price controls, and there are some indications that the foreign negotiators did too. Anyway, they were fixated on opening access to the Chinese market for goods produced by foreign firms. Now, however, the question of whether to grant market economy status (MES) to China has become a proxy for frustrations with China’s overall economic structure, and an excuse to throw the entire concept of the WTO into question.
当中国同意加入时，中方谈判代表对“市场经济”的理解是指一个国家没有价格管制，而有些迹象表明外国谈判代表们也是这样理解的。总之，他们一心想打开中国市场，让外国公司生产的商品进去。可是现在，是否给予中国市场经济地位(MES)的问题已成为对中国整体经济结构失望的代表，也成为质疑整个世贸组织概念的一个理由。
After China joined the WTO, the “non-market” status very quickly became a disadvantage. With a burst of investment and competition in nearly every industry, Chinese producers of everything from steel to shoes to vitamins quickly drove domestic profit margins through the floor. Exporting became a way to capture the higher prices overseas. Far from dumping, the Chinese exporters were looking to make a profit. But their prices were well below those of most other countries, unleashing havoc on international producers’ margins and leading to numerous WTO complaints. No third country could replicate the scale, low labour costs and cut-throat competition of the Chinese market. But its trading partners used the clause to impose absurdly high tariffs, often exceeding 100 per cent, on its exports.
中国加入世贸组织后，“非市场”地位很快就成了一个劣势。几乎每一个行业都经历了投资的激增和竞争的加剧。从钢铁到鞋子再到维生素，中国所有生产商的国内利润率都迅速降到极低。出口成了在海外赚取较高价格的方式。中国出口商非但不是在倾销，反而是在寻求利润。但他们的价格远低于其他大多数国家的价格，对国际生产者的利润率造成巨大破坏，并让世贸组织收到大量投诉。再没有国家能复制中国市场的规模、低廉的劳动力成本和激烈的竞争。但其贸易伙伴利用上述条款对中国出口商品征收高到离谱的关税——往往超过100%。
That is why Chinese negotiators are dead set on forcing the Europeans and Americans to recognise China as a “market economy”. The fight has focused on Europe, which needs to make a legal change. In a sleight of hand, the Europeans eliminated the entire category of “non-market economies” in October (delivering an unexpected boon to Vietnam, Albania, Mongolia and Turkmenistan) but reserves the right to do a third-country comparison on a case-by-case basis.
这就是为什么中方谈判代表拼命想让欧洲人和美国人承认中国是“市场经济”。这场斗争主要集中在欧洲，这里需要修改法律。欧洲人耍了个花招，在10月份取消了整个“非市场经济”类别——给越南、阿尔巴尼亚、蒙古和土库曼斯坦带来了意想不到的好处——但保留根据具体情况进行第三国比较的权利。
The US doesn’t have to change any law. It only has to refrain, in future cases, from comparing Chinese goods with third country goods when deciding if they were dumped. But China has requested WTO consultations with the US too, leading Washington’s lawyers to push back forcefully and claim they have the WTO’s laws on their side. The response fully demonstrates that this case is not about pricing any more but about all the ways the Chinese economy is different.
美国不必修改任何法律。它只需要——在未来的案例中——在判定中国商品是否存在倾销时，不将中国商品与第三国商品作比较。但中国也要求世贸组织与美国进行磋商，导致华盛顿的律师们激烈反对，并声称世贸组织的法律站在他们这边。其反应充分表明此事不再是关于定价，而是关于中国经济的与众不同。
For their part, US and European negotiators feel China is nowhere near a market economy. Hidden advantages given to hometown players (especially state-owned companies) include cheap financing, discriminatory rules and Beijing’s value destroying attempts to jump-start new industries.
对于美国和欧洲的谈判代表来说，中国与市场经济毫不沾边。本土企业(特别是国企)享受的隐形优势包括低成本融资、歧视性规则和中国政府助推新行业的破坏价值的尝试。
For many years, the Obama administration had been building slow and careful WTO cases against the hidden subsidies on land, water and interest rates that Beijing awards its state-owned companies and its larger, more favourite private ones.
多年来，奥巴马政府一直缓慢而小心地在世贸组织针对中国政府赋予国企及其所偏爱的大型私企的土地、水和利率方面的隐形补贴提起诉讼。
“They had us,” one Chinese negotiator says. Although fiercely contested by the ministry of commerce’s crack WTO team, some Chinese reformers secretly welcomed them as a stick to force tougher structural reforms on recalcitrant domestic foes.
“他们说的没错，”一名中国谈判代表表示。尽管这些诉讼受到中国商务部一流的世贸组织工作组的强烈反驳，但是中国一些改革者私底下欢迎这些诉讼，认为它们可以作为针对国内顽固抗拒改革的势力的一根大棒，以推行更为严格的结构性改革。
The Trump administration threw the Obama administration’s forensic approach out the window. Instead of picking cases that might lead to structural reforms in China, it has fixed on specific items that are arriving on US shores in large quantities. It is an attempt to raise the walls of the levee, sandbag by sandbag, rather than fighting the flood at its source and risk getting swept away.
特朗普政府把奥巴马政府诉诸法庭的方式抛到了脑后。特朗普政府没有选择那些可能推动中国结构性改革的案子，而是把目标锁定那些大量进入美国的特定商品。此举试图冒着被洪水冲走的危险一沙袋一沙袋地加高防洪墙，而不是在洪水的源头抗洪。
This makes the MES a mess. Lawyers may quibble, but the literal text (“in any event”) is quite clear. Arguing against it makes the west look as though it signed the WTO accord (and other deals) in bad faith. Chinese reformers, who have staked their hopes for their country on creating a globally integrated economy, need international agreements to have credibility. Otherwise, they give fodder to the more nationalist strain in the country that believes international institutions are only designed to keep China down.
这使中国的“市场经济地位”问题成为一场混战。律师们可能会狡辩，但是议定书写得明明白白——“无论如何”。争辩这一点让西方看起来像是心存欺骗地签署了世贸组织协定(以及其他协议)。中国改革者把对国家的希望寄托在打造全球一体化经济上，他们需要有信誉的国际协议。否则，他们就给国内更民族主义的论调提供了弹药，这种论调认为国际机构的目的就是压制中国。
Nonetheless, China clearly isn’t a market economy in the sense of “market competition”. For instance, Beijing prioritises the interests of its state-owned companies over private Chinese and foreign companies. Granting MES seems indefensible to businesses and workers who see profits and jobs hit when cheap Chinese goods arrive on their home shores. Denying MES is also disingenuous. For one thing, the “flood” of cheap “Made in China” goods often includes the products of joint ventures by multinationals that have moved production to China. And, since all Chinese companies, state or private, export away from their ultra-competitive home markets in order to secure profits, comparing Chinese export prices with domestic Chinese prices almost always shows the products weren’t dumped.
尽管如此，中国在“市场竞争”方面明显不算是市场经济。例如，中国政府把国企的利益置于私企和外企的利益之上。对于那些因廉价的中国商品涌入本国而遭受利润损失或者失去工作的企业和工人而言，赋予中国“市场经济地位”似乎是不可原谅的。否定其“市场经济地位”又是不诚实的。一来，大量“涌入”的廉价的“中国制造”商品，往往包含把生产转移至中国的跨国企业成立的合资企业所生产的产品。同时，由于所有中国企业——无论是国企还是私企——为了获取利润而避开竞争超级激烈的本土市场、选择对外出口，因此对比中国商品的出口价格与本土价格几乎总是显示这些产品并不存在倾销。
And then there is the politics of the US. WTO judges are very aware that the Trump administration is just looking for one “outrageous” ruling to justify pulling out of the WTO. They might be disinclined to provide one, no matter the merits of China’s argument that it has, in fact, transitioned from a Soviet-style planned economy to one based on market prices (if not market competition).
另外还有美国政治的因素。世贸组织法官非常清楚，特朗普政府只不过在寻求一次“不可容忍”的裁决作为退出世贸组织的借口。他们可能不愿意提供这样的借口，无论中国自称实际上已从苏联式计划经济转型为基于市场化定价(即使不是市场竞争)的经济的观点有多可信。
“It’s become a political problem and so it will need a political solution,” said one western trade negotiator.
一名西方贸易谈判代表称，“这已经成了一个政治问题，因此它需要政治解决方案。”
A bigger issue is that most of the complaints about the Chinese economy (and, to be fair, other countries’ complaints about Washington’s unhealthy economic choices) go well beyond strict trade and tariff issues. The WTO is a poor forum to debate broader structural issues in large economies, but there is no other option.
更大的问题是，大多数关于中国经济的抱怨(公平地说，还有其他国家对华盛顿方面不健康的经济选择的抱怨)都不仅是严格意义上的贸易和关税问题。世贸组织并不适合用来讨论大型经济体更广泛的结构性问题，但现在没有别的选择。
