[2009.09.03] Doing Doha down 推倒多哈 多哈, Doing, Doha, down

richard0803

Trade agreements 贸易协定 Doing Doha down 推倒多哈 Sep 3rd 2009 From The Economist print edition Regional trade deals are no substitute for a Doha agreement. Indeed, they are its enemy 区域贸易协议并非多哈协议的替代品。事实上，那是它的敌人。 SOMETHING is usually better than nothing. Shorn of all of the economic jargon and legal niceties, that is the logic behind the booming business in bilateral trade deals that is sweeping Asia. As the Doha round of world trade talks languishes, Asia’s trading nations say that they cannot afford to sit on their hands and wait for Doha to revive. Better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful. 有总比没有好。撇开所有的经济术语和法律上的细小差别，这正是横扫亚洲、如火如荼的双边贸易协议背后的逻辑。由于多哈回合全球贸易谈判陷入僵局，亚洲各交易国说它们无法承担坐等谈判恢复的损失。它们辩称，更好的解决之道是在两三个国家之间先解决问题。如果你真的很有雄心，那就四五个一起来吧。 Some regional trade deals in the right circumstances have indeed added to economic well-being. But the sorts of deals that are now being signed in Asia, just when multilateral trade desperately needs supporting, are likely to do less for their countries’ economies than for the egos of the politicians who sponsor them. Taken as a trend, they amount to a dangerous erosion of the system of multilateral trade on which global prosperity depends. 在适当情况下，一些区域性的贸易协议的确能在经济上锦上添花。但是在多变贸易亟待支持之时，目前正在亚洲签署的这类协议，与其说能给各国经济带来多少好处，不如说是力主签署这些协议的政客们自我感的产物。如果把这种情况当做一种潮流，它们对全球经济繁荣倚赖的多边贸易体制会产生危险的破坏。 In 2001 there were just 49 bilateral and regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) in place. A deal signed last month between India and South Korea raised the total to 167 (see article). That recent agreement was trumpeted as a boon for both economies. South Korean firms say they are keen to make more use of India as a manufacturing base from which to export to the rest of the world. In return, Indian programmers will more easily be able to set up shop in South Korea. 2001年一共只有49项双边自由贸易协定（FTA）签署就位。而上个月印度与韩国签署的一项协议使这一数字上升到了167项。（见文）最近的这项协议被赞誉为是两国双赢的结果。韩国公司表示它们愿意更多地把印度作为一个制造基地，从那里把商品出口到世界各地。作为回报，印度的编程员也会更容易地在韩国开店。 More such agreements are likely to follow. And who could object to that? In a world of collapsing exports and rising protectionism, the fashion for bilateral deals looks like a welcome boost to the idea that trade is good. Peer deeper, however, and the message is far less reassuring. 更多类似的协议会接踵而至，有谁又能反对呢？在一个出口萎靡、保护主义抬头的世界里，双边贸易协议的潮流看上去是对贸易有益这一受欢迎的想法的推动。然而，深入探究下去，这一信息并不令人放心。 Noodles all round 四散的“面条” For a start, bilateral deals impose so much paperwork and bureaucracy on trade that companies rarely make use of their provisions. Only about a fifth of 609 firms in four Asian countries surveyed by the Asian Development Bank in 2008 took advantage of the agreements that applied to them. 首先，双边协议强加了过多贸易上的文书工作和官僚作风，公司很少会使用这些条款。2008年，亚洲发展银行在亚洲四个国家调查的609家公司中，只有约五分之一使用了赋予它们的协定内容。 When bilateral agreements are attractive to companies, it is often for the wrong reasons. Many bilateral trade deals offer favourable treatment to a few companies from a particular country at the expense of all the rest from elsewhere in the world. The companies that lose out may well be lower-cost producers, since such agreements are dictated more by politics than by economics. If so, the economy will suffer. Even if such a deal is eventually superseded by a broader one, it may already have caused long-term damage by allowing less efficient firms to become entrenched. Economies that are too small to extract concessions from their bigger bilateral negotiating partners fare particularly badly. 双边协定吸引公司，经常是出于错误的原因。许多双边贸易协议以牺牲世界其他公司的代价提供优惠待遇给某个特定国家的几家公司。由于这些协定更多是出于政治上而非经济上的决断，那些出局的公司很有可能是成本更低的生产商。如果情况确实如此，那么经济就会受到损失。即使这样的协议最终被更广泛的协议取代，它也可能通过让低效率的公司确立利益已经造成了长期的损害。那些因规模小而无法从更大的双边谈判对手中获取税收减免的经济体尤其受到影响。 Then there is the complexity of the growing number of bilateral and regional deals. Each has its own rules and administrative requirements, leading to a confusing spaghetti (or perhaps noodle soup) of preferential agreements, instead of the predictability that multilateralism promises. As such agreements multiply, there is less chance that they create the wealth that their authors claim. 此外，双边和区域协议中还会出现复杂的情况。各方都有自己的一套规则和管理要求，这就像意面（或面汤）一样引发令人迷惑的优先协定，而非多边贸易允诺的可预测性。随着类似的协定越来越多，产生协定作者声称的财富的可能性也越来越小。 Some claim that the tricky issues that stand in the way of a multilateral deal can be more easily resolved when only two countries are sitting at the table. That rarely happens: in the rush to conclude an agreement, such issues are often shelved. India’s deal with ASEAN last year, for instance, put aside the poisonous question of farm trade, which was one of the deal-breakers in the Doha talks last July. 有些人主张两国坐在谈判桌上能让多边贸易协定中的拦路虎更容易地得到解决。而这样的情况很少发生：为了快速签署协议，这些难题经常被搁置。比如，印度与东盟的协议就把充满争议的农业贸易问题放在一旁，而这是去年七月多哈谈判的一大攸关问题。 Bilateral agreements, thus, do not, on the whole, serve as stepping stones to a comprehensive global deal. On the contrary, they both distract governments from the multilateral process and offer cover for politicians’ failure to advance it. Moreover, the fear of losing favourable treatment in a bilateral agreement can deter governments from talking tough in multilateral negotiations. 因此，总体来说，双边协定并不能作为综合性全球协定的垫脚石。相反，它们既使政府从多边贸易的过程中分散精力，又给政客们无法推进协议达成提供借口。另外，害怕失去双边协议中的优惠条件也使政府不敢再多边谈判中表现强硬。 Some defenders of bilateralism admit all this, but cling to one argument they regard as clinching—that bilateral agreements are at least possible, whereas the chances of concluding Doha seem ever more remote. The comparison, they say, is not between local deals and a global one, but between regional deals and no deals at all. 有些双边协议的卫道士承认所有这一切，但他们死死纠缠住他们认为重要的一点不放——双边贸易至少是可能的，而结束多哈谈判似乎还遥遥无期。他们说两者比较下来不是地区协议和全球协议的问题，而是地区协议和根本没有协议的问题。 This argument ignores the lessons of the past. The history of the multilateral trading system is littered with rows, hiatuses, disillusion, despair—and sudden success. In the 1970s many people wrote off the precursor to the World Trade Organisation. The ministerial meeting of 1982 failed and the later Uruguay round of talks nearly collapsed, before being successfully concluded. Even now, amid deep pessimism about ever finishing Doha, the Indian government is holding a summit of trade ministers in the hope of restarting the talks. If they truly want Doha to succeed, the bilateralists need first to acknowledge that their own deals are poisoning its chances. 这种论述忽略了历史教训。多边贸易的历史充满了争吵、缺漏、幻象、绝望——甚至还有突然到来的成功。20世纪70年代许多人为世界贸易组织写下了序篇。而1982年的部长会议失败，随后的乌拉圭回合谈判在最终成功前险些崩溃。即使现在，在能否结束多哈谈判的深重悲观主义下，印度政府正在举办贸易部长会议，希望能重启谈判。如果他们真的希望多哈谈判成功，双边主义者首先需要承认他们

mmay0453

legal niceties 建议翻译成，法律纠纷