2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：中国特色互联网
2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。An internet with Chinese characteristics
中国特色互联网
Online business in China is growing even faster thanthe offline sort. Local tastes and needs, as well asthe state, are endowing it with distinctive features
中国网上业务较网下业务发展更为迅猛。本土风味与需求，还有政府，正赋予其鲜明特色。
WHEN Huang Bing graduated from university in 2005, he promised himself he would make hisfirst 1m yuan (about $155,000) within three years. It took him a bit longer, but no matter: ifhis business, a collection of online cosmetics stores, maintains its current trajectory, he willsoon count his first billion. In a few years he expects annual revenues to reach 10 billion yuan.
黄冰(音译)2005年大学毕业时，决心在三年内赚到首个100万(约15.5万美元)。现下看来，达成目标尚需时日，但不要紧，倘若其化妆品网店生意照现在这种趋势发展下去，首个100万很快就会赚到，且有望在数年后年收入达1000万元。
Mr Huang’s company, United Cosmetics International, is only one of thousands on Taobao Mall,a huge online shopping centre. He spotted a demand from women in China’s hinterland forbranded cosmetics—and advice on how to use them. “A lot of women in rural areas don’t haveaccess to quality products,” he explains, guiding visitors through the firm’s headquarters in theoutskirts of Hangzhou, two hours’ drive south-west of Shanghai. On several floors, at deskafter desk, “beauty consultants” busily type answers for customers.
大型网上交易中心“淘宝商城”入驻企业成千上万，黄冰的“联合化妆品国际公司”(United CosmeticsInternational)仅是其中之一。他看准了中国内地女性热衷名牌化妆品、渴望了解其使用方法的需求。“许多身处偏僻地区的女性没法接触到优质化妆品”，他一边领着来宾参观公司总部，一边解释道。其总部位于杭州郊区，距上海西南部两小时车程。几层楼上，桌子一张挨着一张，“美容顾问”忙着敲打电脑键盘，在线为顾客解疑答惑。
As goes United Cosmetics, so goes the Chinese internet. It is growing by leaps and bounds(see chart 1), as ever more people log on from phones, homes or offices, or in huge internetcafés (pictured). The China Internet Network Information Centre reckons that the onlinepopulation, already the world’s biggest, has risen by 6% to 485m this year. And almost two-thirds of people are not yet online.
“联合化妆品公司”所走之路，便是中国互联网成长之途。随着越来越多的人用手机入网，或在家中、办公室及大型网吧(见照片)上网，其发展突飞猛进。“中国互联网络信息中心”估计，已排名世界第一的中国网民数，今年又增加了6%，达4.85亿人。并且还有近三分之二的人尚未上网。
Just as striking, as the country’s internet growslarger it also grows more distinctly Chinese. “Thebeauty of the internet is that it easily adapts to localconditions,” says Paul Zwillenberg of the BostonConsulting Group (BCG). The Chinese internet is thebest example of the argument that, far from creatinguniformity, the global network is shaped by localforces.
中国互联网规模日益壮大令人瞩目，而同样突出的，是其发展愈发具有中国特色。“波士顿咨询集团”(BCG)的PaulZwillenberg称，“互联网妙就妙在能轻易适应当地状况”。有种说法，全球互联网不仅没有使世界千人一面，反而被各种本地力量塑造得丰富多彩，中国互联网就是最佳佐证。
Consumers, firms, economy and state
用户、企业、经济与政府
Those forces can be divided into four: the demands of Chinese consumers; the attitudes ofChinese entrepreneurs; China’s offline economic development; and the role of the state. Startwith consumers. China’s internet users are younger than the Westerners who first logged onabout 20 years ago. They are hungry for entertainment and mostly poor (but fast becomingricher). Foreign internet companies have struggled to replicate their success in China (thoughthey have done quite well as investors, a current quarrel between Alibaba Group, one ofChina’s internet giants, and America’s Yahoo! notwithstanding). Chinese firms, most of whichbegan by copying Western models, prospered when they devised clever adaptations.
这些本地力量可分为四种：中国用户的需求、中国企业家的态度、中国网下经济的发展以及政府扮演的角色。先说用户，较之约20年前首次上网的西方用户，中国互联网用户更年轻。他们非常热衷娱乐应用，多数荷包欠奉，但会快速致富。外国互联网企业已努力将其成功复制到中国，作为投资者，他们干得还不赖，尽管中国互联网巨头阿里巴巴集团目前仍与美国雅虎争执不休。中国企业多以仿效西方模式起家，可一旦设想出巧妙的适应方法，生意就兴旺发达了。
Take Tencent, China’s second-biggest internet firm by market capitalisation. It started as aclone of ICQ, a chat service, but quickly outgrew the original by offering China’s youthfulmasses a cheap way to communicate and have fun. Tencent’s chat service, which boasts 674muser accounts, and most of its other offerings are free. The firm makes most of its money byselling virtual goods (a dress for an avatar, a weapon in an online game) for play money thatusers buy with real cash.
以腾讯为例，这家中国市值第二的互联网企业，以ICQ翻版聊天服务QQ起步，但靠着为中国年轻大众提供廉价的沟通娱乐方式，迅速青出于蓝而胜于蓝。腾讯聊天服务拥有6.74亿用户账号，其他大部分业务免费。该公司赚的大部分钱都来自虚拟商品销售，如QQ秀、网络游戏武器等，这些物品要用户拿真金白银购买游戏币来置换。
Similarly, Taobao, which is owned by Alibaba, was launched to compete with the Chineseservice of eBay, an auction site. It quickly overtook its rival by not charging transaction fees.But its main achievement has been to overcome perhaps the biggest barrier to onlineshopping in China: lack of trust. Alibaba’s online payment system, Alipay, the world’s largestby value of transactions, has an escrow function that withholds payment until goods havebeen received (most deals are still cash on delivery). Taobao today boasts 370m registeredusers. It accounts for three out of four online sales in China and reportedly one out of twopackages posted.
同样，阿里巴巴旗下淘宝网上线，目的就是与拍卖网站eBay的中国业务竞争。靠着免收交易费，它迅速超越了对手。但其最重要的成就在于跨越了或许是中国网购最大障碍的“诚信缺失”。阿里巴巴交易额世界第一的网络支付系统“支付宝”，具有第三方支付功能，即消费者收货之前，付款可代为保管，而大部分交易仍是一手交钱一手交货。淘宝现有3.7亿注册用户，占中国网上交易额的四分之三，而据称，中国邮政包裹有一半出自淘宝。
Vancl, a start-up that intends to go public soon, is satisfying both consumers’ desire for instantgratification and their growing brand-consciousness (or dislike of pirated goods). Its welldesigned but cheap clothes and shoes can only be ordered on its website. In the big coastalcities they are often delivered the same day—a service most big e-commerce sites now offer.
用户热衷瞬时称心，品牌意识或对山寨产品的厌恶感与日俱增，凡客诚品这家新兴企业投其所好，发展迅猛，很快就要上市。它的衣服鞋子设计精良但价格便宜，仅在其网站上才可订购。在沿海大城市，产品常可当日送达，而这项服务多数大型商务网站目前已可提供。
A recent addition to this innovative group is SinaWeibo. Run by Sina, another leading internet firm, itis often billed as the “Twitter of China”, but it allowsusers to attach comments, pictures and even videosto their messages. Sina has also recruited thousandsof celebrities to use the service.
这一创新集团的新起之秀，是另一家互联网领军企业新浪运营的“新浪微博”。这项服务常被贴上“中国推特”的标签，但它允许用户发信息时附上评论、图片甚至视频。新浪也招募了数千名流使用其服务。
China’s internet entrepreneurs are different, too.There are lots of part-timers. Students have taken en masse to selling on Taobao: manyuniversity dormitories double as storerooms for goods awaiting orders. Full-time entrepreneursmay have less experience than their Western counterparts, but make up for that with sheereffort. “They do not want to miss their chance to make it big—which is why they work like crazyand practically abandon life,” explains Kai-Fu Lee, who used to run Google China but nowheads Innovation Works, a start-up incubator in Beijing.
中国互联网企业家也与众不同。兼职者众多。学生成群结队在淘宝上卖东西，许多大学寝室兼有货仓功能，储存待售货物。专职企业家或许比西方同行欠缺经验，但勤能补拙。“他们不想错过任何发展壮大的机会，这就是他们何以疯狂工作到几乎不要命的原因”，谷歌中国前总裁李开复这样说，他现在是北京一家新兴孵化企业“创新工场”的老板。
This drive to win explains why Chinese online entrepreneurs are often more pragmatic thanWestern ones and do not mind adapting something invented elsewhere, says Hans Tung ofQiming Ventures, a venture-capital firm. They tend to be less enamoured of technology. AtGoogle in Silicon Valley, maths problems are pinned to some toilet doors, so that brains neednever be idle. The headquarters in Beijing of Baidu, which has 75% of China’s search market,feels much less dominated by engineers. “We’re focusing more on products and satisfying ourusers’ needs,” says Robin Li, Baidu’s boss. He is making a big bet on what he calls “boxcomputing”, which turns Baidu’s search box into a window to all kinds of applications andservices.
这种力争胜利的干劲说明了中国互联网企业为何比西方同行更务实，且不介意采用别处的创新发明，风投公司“启明创投”的童士豪称。他们往往很少沉溺于技术。在位于硅谷的谷歌，数学问题钉在一些卫生间门上，工程师大脑一刻不闲。而总部位于北京、拥有中国搜索市场75%份额的百度公司，感觉上工程师主导较少。百度老板李彦宏称，“我们更专注于产品，致力满足用户需求”。他正豪赌其所谓的“框计算”，该技术会让百度搜索框变为一个面向各种应用与服务的窗口。
The will to win and the abundance of venture capital make China’s internet a “ferociouslygladiatorial environment”, says Richard Robinson, an American who has founded several start-ups in Beijing. Rivals spring up literally overnight. There are 80 social networks, 200 online-video services and 2,000 online-coupon sites. Questionable business practices, such askickbacks for online advertisements, add to the competitive frenzy.
曾在北京创立数家新兴企业的美国人Richard Robinson称，这种志在必得及充足的风投资本，让中国互联网沦为“残酷的角斗场”。竞争对手一夜之间冒出，现已有80家社交网站、200家网络视频服务及2000家团购网站。而饱受质疑的商业行为，如网络广告收取回扣，更加剧了这种竞争乱象。
The founders of companies that come out ahead in this battle often prefer to enjoy their newwealth rather than become serial entrepreneurs, as successful Silicon Valley folk are wont todo. Others set out to build sprawling online empires, which is one reason why China’s biggestinternet companies, more than their Western counterparts, fight each other directly and onseveral fronts. Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent are becoming internet conglomerates offering similarsets of services.
在这场混战中脱颖而出的企业创始人，常喜欢享受新到手的财富，而不愿像事业有成的硅谷小伙子那样，习惯继续创业。而别的企业家则设法大肆扩张网络帝国，这便是中国互联网巨头比西方同行更会直接交手并在数条阵线PK的的原因。阿里巴巴、百度与腾讯正成为互联网综合企业，提供成套类似服务。
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