中国产能过剩之痛向全球蔓延

China's problem with bloated production is ricocheting around the world.

中国产能过剩的影响正在波及全球。

China is producing too much steel, plate glass, chemicals, solar panels and other goods for the domestic market, and usually exports the excess at cut-rate prices. That creates big problems for China's competitors, who have to cut their prices to compete, slashing profits for everyone. Back in China, producers find cheap loans to keep producing and exporting. That risks inflating China's credit bubble further -- making China's economy ever-more vulnerable to downturns -- and adds even more manufacturing capacity.

中国目前的钢铁、平板玻璃、化学、太阳能电池板以及其他产品的产能已超出国内市场需求，而过剩的产品通常会以更低的价格向海外出口。There are winners here, of course: consumers, like car and appliance buyers, who may benefit from the lower costs of steel, glass and chemicals used to build consumer goods. But for producers and policymakers, it means tough decisions about how to keep the pain from spreading and putting more companies -- and free trade -- at risk.

当然也有赢家，那就是消费者，例如汽车和家用电器的消费者。用于生产消费品的钢铁、玻璃和化工产品成本的降低可能令他们受益。但对于制造商和决策者而言，这意味着艰难的抉择，如何来防止由此造成的负面影响进一步扩散、如何避免更多公司、甚至是自由贸易受到威胁都成为他们必须考虑的问题。

'China is creating a glut of supply and hurting the profitability of the global industry,' says Anthony DeCarvalho, a senior economist at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, referring to the global steel industry. 'It also may be displacing more efficient producers' outside China who can't compete with subsidized Chinese production, he adds, and go bust.

Faced with such a challenge, many nations resort to trade sanctions, tacking huge charges on Chinese imports.

面对这样的挑战，许多国家选择了贸易制裁，向中国进口商品征收高额关税。

China's vast excess capacity makes it the biggest target of such sanctions. Global Trade Alert, a trade research group headquartered in London, looked for The Wall Street Journal at six sectors marked by excess capacity in China: steel, aluminum, cement, plate glass, wind turbines and solar energy components. Of all the trade sanctions cases brought since Jan. 2009 in these industries, China was the sanctions-target 75% of the time.

中国严重的过剩产能使自己成为这种贸易制裁的第一大目标。

Overall, China was the target of global sanctions about 46% of the time during the same period, Global Trade Alert found. The U.S. was dinged 34% of the time and the European Union 43%. (The numbers add up to more than 100% because trade sanctions often target multiple countries.)

OECD发现，总体来看，中国在同期有大约46%的时间被列为国际制裁目标。美国的比例为34%，欧盟为43%（数字之和大于100%，因制裁措施通常针对多个国家）。

Trade restrictions deepen tensions among trading partners and can, in some cases, lead to trade wars. In the U.S. and other democracies, such restrictions help turn China into the sinister face of globalization, at least in the court of public opinion. 贸易限制措施加深了贸易伙伴之间的紧张关系，在某些情况下还会引发贸易战。在美国和其他民主国家，这种限制措施使得中国变为经济全球化的负面典型，至少在公众的观念中是如此。

'China continually seeks to evade the trade laws and identify new opportunities to ship dumped and subsidized products into the U.S.,' charges Michael Wessel, a member of Congress's U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and a consultant to the U.S. steel industry.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, China's Ministry of Information and Industry Technology said China's steel exports, including those to the U.S., abide by the World Trade Organization rules. China's steel overwhelmingly feeds the domestic market, the ministry said, with only 8% of China's crude steel shipped overseas.

'There is no dumping taking place,' the ministry said. ('Dumping' is selling at below-market prices.)

中国工业和信息化部在发给《华尔街日报》的一份声明中称，中国的钢铁出口（包括出口至美国的钢铁）遵守世界贸易组织(WTO)的规则。该部表示，中国钢铁绝大部分供给国内市场，只有8%的粗钢出口海外，不存在倾销行为。（“倾销”即以低于市场价格出售商品。）

Steel is especially politicized, in part because there are few large multinational steel producers to temper nationalist sentiments in individual countries. According to Global Trade Alert, between 1995 and 2013, 28.5% of all anti-dumping trade cases brought globally involved steel, by far the largest sector hit by such suits. China was the target of 35% of the cases, making it number one by a wide margin.

钢铁是一种尤其具有政治意义的商品，在一定程度上是因为大型跨国钢铁生产商屈指可数，难以缓和各国内部的民族主义情绪。根据OECD，1995至2013年间全球范围内的所有反倾销贸易案中，有28.5%的案件与钢铁有关，这是到目前为止诉讼最多的行业。这其中，中国被定为诉讼目标的案件占35%，位居榜首，数量远超第二位。

'Steel is at the center of trade controversy,' says Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at Indiana University.

印第安那大学(Indiana University)大学中国问题专家肯尼迪(Scott Kennedy)称，钢铁处在贸易争议的中心。

According to OECD data, the global steel industry can produce 555 million more tons of steel than consumers need. Of that, China accounts for about 37% of the excess capacity.

根据OECD的数据，全球钢铁行业的产能比消费需求高出5.55亿吨。其中大约37%的过剩产能来自中国。

With so many of the world's factories running at low, inefficient rates of production, prices and profits have dropped. In China, the average price of steel fell by one-fourth between 2011 and Feb. 2014, according Chinese government statistics, about the same percentage decline as import prices for steel in the U.S.

由于全球有太多低效运转的工厂，钢铁价格和利润出现下降。中国政府统计数据显示，2011年至2014年2月，中国钢铁平均价格下降四分之一，与美国进口钢铁价格降幅

基本一致。

If anything, the global glut may get deeper. That's because other nations, including India, Vietnam, Iran and Saudi Arabia have followed China's example of trying to build big national steel industries.

全球产能过剩问题可能愈演愈烈，因为包括印度、越南、伊朗和沙特在内的其他国家

也在效仿中国，试图建立大规模的国有钢铁产业。

Even so, China's production increases still dwarf any other nation. Between 2012 and 2015, China should account for about 40% of the world's increased steel-making capacity, the OECD estimates, despite Beijing's efforts to scale back excess production.

尽管如此，中国的钢铁产量增幅仍明显高于其他国家。OECD估计，2012至2015年，中国将占到全球新增钢铁产能的40%左右，尽管中国政府正在努力收缩过剩产能。

The OECD is trying to get a handle on the overcapacity issue, especially in defining more precisely what counts as excess. But the OECD can't force nations to make adjustments to their industrial production.

OECD试图找到产能过剩问题的症结，尤其是更准确地定义过剩产能。但OECD不能

强迫各国调整其工业生产。

That likely means more frustration ahead.

这可能意味着未来将有更多麻烦。

'A lot of policy makers and steel producers say China doesn't have any competitive advantage in the raw materials' used to make steel, says Mr. DeCarvalho, the OECD economist. 'Their companies aren't making money. So why do we see more investment in plans in China?'

OECD经济学家DeCarvalho表示，很多决策者和钢铁生产商认为中国在钢铁生产的原

材料方面不具备任何竞争优势；既然中国企业没有盈利，为何中国要增加投资呢？

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