缅甸担忧中国影响力

飞雪寒冰

In Mong La, a gambling town on Burma’s north-eastern border with China, business is booming. Chinese gamblers, flush with cash from the profits made from Burmese timber, gems and mines, place big bets on the turn of a card, all bills to be settled in renminbi.
在位于缅甸东北部、与中国接壤的赌城蒙拉(Mong La)，生意一片兴隆。在缅甸通过木材、宝石和矿产生意发了财的中国赌徒们用扑克牌进行豪赌，所有输赢都以人民币结算。

It is in towns such as this that China’s increasingly cosy embrace of Burma becomes apparent: everything from the currency to the mobile phone network is Chinese, marking Mong La out as an enclave beyond the influence of the Burmese generals.
从蒙拉这样的城镇，可以明显看出中国对缅甸日益亲近的“接纳”：所有东西——从货币到手机网络——都是中国的，这使得蒙拉成为不受缅甸将军们影响的一块飞地。

飞雪寒冰

The flood of Chinese into border towns and Mandalay, the old royal capital, has fed anxieties over Chinese neo-colonialism.
中国人潮水般地涌入缅甸的边境城镇及其过去的皇家首府曼德勒，让人们对中国的新殖民主义感到不安。

Chinese interest lies almost exclusively in extractive industries and that often leaves few benefits for other parts of the economy, says Sean Turnell, a Burma specialist at Macquarie University in Australia. “There is little indication that any Chinese investment could be at all transformative for the Burmese economy – Burma is just providing cheap resources.”
澳大利亚麦考瑞大学(Macquarie University)缅甸问题专家肖恩•图内尔(Sean Turnell)表示：“中国人的兴趣几乎完全集中于采掘业，这往往很难让缅甸其它经济领域受益。没有什么迹象表明，中国人的投资与缅甸经济转变有任何关系——缅甸只是在提供廉价资源。”

飞雪寒冰

This perception that Burma is losing out – felt from the generals down – is evident in dispatches from US diplomats in Rangoon.
美国驻仰光外交官发回的电报验证了以下看法：已经下台的将军们觉得缅甸输了。

In a 2010 cable, US diplomats reported opposition to a hydroelectric project in Kachin state, northern Burma, where 15,000 people were to be relocated. The project was a collaboration between Burma’s Asia World Co and Chinese Power Investment Corp.
在2010年的电报中，美国外交官报告称，在缅甸北部克钦(Kachin)修建的水电项目遭到民众反对。该项目是由缅甸的亚洲国际有限公司(Asia World Co)与中国电力投资集团公司(CPIC)合作实施的，1.5万人将因此被迁移。

Local activists sent a petition signed by more than 4,100 people opposing the project to the Chinese government, but tellingly, not to Burmese authorities, said the cable. The dam, the first of seven planned for the Irrawaddy and its tributaries, went ahead anyway.
电报称，当地维权人士向中国政府、而非缅甸当局（这很能说明问题）递交了一份由逾4100名反对者签名的请愿书。这是在伊洛瓦底江及其支流上7座拟建大坝中的第一座。但不管怎样，大坝仍在继续建设中。

飞雪寒冰

While sovereign debt problems in western Europe and the political uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa had increased the downside risk for global growth, the fund said it was now more certain about its forecast than it had been at the previous estimate in October. “The recovery has become more self-sustaining, risks of a double-dip recession in advanced economies have receded, and global activity seems set to accelerate again,” it said.
IMF表示，虽然西欧主权债务问题和中东及北非的政治风波增加了全球经济增长的下行风险，但它目前对自己的最新预测比去年10月作上次预测时更有自信。“复苏的自我维系性增强，发达经济体的双底衰退风险已经消退，全球经济活动似有重新加快之势。”

It even struck a sanguine note about recent rises in food prices, saying that good recent harvests in sub-Saharan Africa and an increase in global food supply in response to higher prices should moderate much of the impact.
IMF甚至就近期粮价上涨发表了乐观言论。该机构表示，撒哈拉以南非洲国家近期收成良好，以及涨价导致全球食品供给增加，应能缓解相当大部分冲击。

飞雪寒冰

But the fund said that countries with large external surpluses, such as Japan and China, had made little progress in rebalancing demand in the medium term and were still too dependent on exports.
但IMF表示，日本和中国等拥有巨额国际收支顺差的国家在中期需求再平衡方面进展甚微，仍然过度依赖于出口。

Meanwhile, rich economies such as the US needed to adopt more credible plans for fiscal consolidation to prevent a loss of confidence in their assets and a rise in long-term interest rates. The White House said over the weekend that Barack Obama, president, would on Wednesday present a plan for returning America’s medium-term public finances towards balance.
另一方面，美国等富裕经济体有必要采取更加可信的财政巩固计划，以防人们对他们的资产失去信心，并导致长期利率上升。白宫周末表示，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统将于周三提出一项计划，目标是在中期内使美国财政状况恢复平衡。