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发表于 2017-8-7 00:04:03
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III. Write a summary of the following story in 150-200 Chinese character.
(20 points)
Beijing’s Focus on Food Prices Ignores Broader Inflation Risk
China took steps Wednesday to control rising prices at the most basic
consumer level. But Beijing faces a severe challenge in preventing higher global
commodity prices from igniting broader inflation that could threaten China’s
streak of powerful economic growth.
With prices rising this autumn for many commodities like sugar and cotton,
the country’s cabinet announced on Wednesday evening that it would impose price
controls on food, introduce subsidies for the needy and increase the
availability of fuel supplies.
So far, the inflation in consumer goods in China has been largely confined
to food and energy, and government policy makers want to keep it that way. But
avoiding more general inflation could prove difficult.
And in terms of economic diplomacy, the measures announced Wednesday were
almost precisely the opposite of the steps the Obama administration and many
Western economists have been urging Beijing to take.
China’s broadly measured money supply has surged in the last two years,
soaring 54 percent as its central bank has supported the export economy by
intervening in currency markets to keep the renminbi artificially low.
Considerable cash is also sloshing around the Chinese economy because of two
years of extremely heavy lending by state-owned banks to finance a highly
successful economic stimulus program that has returned the country to
double-digit growth.
But China’s leaders are now clearly worried about the inflationary side
effects of those financial policies. The premier, Wen Jiabao, has toured
southern China over the last week and was shown on national television late
Tuesday night expressing concern about rising food prices and promising that the
government would take action.
Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the central bank, had said earlier on
Tuesday that the amount of money racing through the global economy was putting
pressure on emerging economies that want to control inflation. And Yao Jian, a
commerce ministry spokesman, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the
government would tighten scrutiny of foreign investment so as to prevent too
much money from pouring into China as foreign investors seek higher returns than
are currently available in the West.
Imposing price controls and other administrative controls on the Chinese
economy runs counter to the steps recommended by many Western experts. They have
suggested that China should further deregulate its economy, let the renminbi
appreciate and otherwise rely on market forces to tame inflation.
The standard policy prescription from Washington has been that China should
raise interest rates, as a way to slow investment and prevent the economy from
overheating. And American policy makers from President Obama down have argued
that if China would let the renminbi rise against the dollar, oil and other
commodities would be less expensive in China, helping to tame inflation. But
Beijing has resisted, in large part because Washington’s prescribed medicine
would reduce the price competitiveness of Chinese exports to the United States
and elsewhere.
Still, even as China is zigging when Washington would rather it zag, some
corporate economists are cautiously optimistic that China may be able to tame
inflation with its approach — for now, at least.
“Given that food prices are spearheading immediate inflationary pressures,
supply-side measures should be more effective than rate hikes,” Qu Hongbin, the
co-head of Asian economics research at the international bank HSBC, wrote in a
research note on Wednesday night. “There’s no need to panic, as Beijing has more
than enough effective policy options to combat inflation.”
And yet, while there may be limits to China’s ability to keep a lid on
inflation, it is better prepared than many countries to cope with rising world
commodity prices. That is because China is self-sufficient in most foods, has an
enormous trade surplus and has accumulated copious foreign reserves that reached
$2.65 trillion at the end of September.
“There’s no need to panic, as Beijing has more than enough effective policy
options to combat inflation” -Co-head of Asian Economics Research, HSBC, Qu
Hongbin
In contrast, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned on
Wednesday that food import bills were up 10 percent this yearfor the world’s
poorest countries.
But many economists were surprised by the accelerated inflation in China
that the National Bureau of Statistics disclosed in Beijing last week. Overall
consumer prices were 4.4 percent higher last monththan a year earlier.
Chinese leaders have repeatedly made clear over the years that fighting
inflation is a top priority, because it could fuel social unrest. And they have
publicly set a target of not allowing the annual increase in consumer prices to
reach 5 percent again. It peaked at 8.5 percent in the spring of 2008.
If food and energy prices are removed from the consumer price index, the
prices for everything else are up only 1.3 percent from a year earlier,
according to the government. But that is not necessarily a reassuring measure,
some economists suggest.
Chinese and Western economists worry that the Chinese price index may
underestimate inflation separate from food and energy. The Chinese index has
longstanding methodological problems — like measuring apartment rents but not
the cost of buying and living in an apartment, which has soared in recent
years.
While climbing food and energy prices are a global problem, they
particularly affect lower-income countries like China, where such necessities
claim a far larger share of household incomes than in more affluent nations.
China’s consumer price index, which is based mainly on urban spending patterns,
assumes that groceries represent a third of a family’s spending.
That is extremely high by Western standards. And it shows how far China
must still go to create the kind of broad-based consumer society that American
officials recommend and that Chinese leaders say they want to adopt in the long
term in place of their current export-led model. In the United States, groceries
represent only 8 percent of the Consumer Price Index.
The State Council, China’s cabinet of ministers, decided on Wednesday that
it would stabilize prices for grain, oil, sugar and cotton in particular,
according to a statement on a government Web site. The State Council also said
that the government would make sure that more diesel reached filling stations,
to fuel trucks, and that utility power stations had ample supplies of coal.
The high prices and relative scarcity of diesel fuel have resulted in part
from its use by factories, which have been burning it in backyard generators as
power companies have cut back electricity generation to meet national targets
for limiting energy consumption.
Meanwhile, utilities have struggled to buy enough coal because the
government requires coal mines to sell it to power companies at low, regulated
prices. The mines, of course, prefer to sell their coal at higher prices on the
open market.
Last week, in another move against inflation, Beijing ordered commercial
banks to put more of their assets in low-yield accountsat the central bank. The
measure, an increase in the so-called reserve requirement, was meant to cool a
frenzy of lending over the last two years that has priced urban real estate
beyond the reach of most working-class families.
Liang Huoqiao, a 22-year-old plastics worker, said in an interview earlier
this year in Guangzhou in southern China that his pay was rising 10 percent a
year, to around $300 a month. But his entire annual pay would be enough to buy
only about two square meters of an apartment, or 21.5 square feet.
So he planned to buy a car as soon as possible, and worry about a home
later.
IV. Chinese to English translation
旅客似乎是十分轻松的人，实际上却相当辛苦。旅客不用上班，却必须受时间的约束;爱做什么就做什么，却必须受钱包的限制;爱去哪里就去哪里，却必须把几件行李蜗牛壳一般带在身上。旅客最可怕的噩梦，是钱和证件一起遗失，沦为来历不明的乞丐。旅客最难把握的东西，便是气候。
我现在就是这样的旅客。从西班牙南端一直旅行到英国的北端，我经历了各样的气候，已经到了寒暑不侵的境界。此刻我正坐在中世纪古堡改装的旅馆里，为读者写稿，刚刚黎明，湿灰灰的云下是苏格兰中部荒莽的林木，林外是隐隐的青山。晓寒袭人，我坐在厚达尺许的石墙里，穿了一件毛衣，如果要走下回旋长梯像走下古堡之肠，去坡下的野径漫步寻幽，还得披上一件够厚的外套。
-选自余光中《西欧的夏天》第一二段
Summer in Western Europe
Yu Guangzhong
Light-hearted as he seems,a traveler is in fact under great stress. Though
on vacation, he is nevertheless subject to the restraint of time. He can do
whatever he likes on the trip, but he has to keep the expenditure within the
limits of his pocket. Wherever he goes, he has to take with him his cumbersome
hand luggage. He faces the most horrible possibility of losing his money and
credentials, which will reduce himself to a pauper of unknown background. And,
besides, he can never be sure of the weather.
That’s what I’m like now. I’ve traveled all the way from the southern tip
of Spain to the northern tip of England, experiencing a variety of climates
until I’ve become apathetic to the elements. I’m now sitting in a medieval
castle turned hotel, writing an article for my readers. The day is just dawning.
In Central Scotland, there lies under the gray wet clouds a wild wooded region,
beyond which a green mountain stands faintly visible. In the chilly air of the
early morning, I have to be dressed in a woolen sweater while sitting on a stone
wall one foot on thickness. But I need, in addition, an outer garment to keep me
warm in case I come down the spiral staircase—the intestines of the castle—to
take a stroll along an unfrequented path down the mountain slope in search of
secluded places of quiet beauty.
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