A quick quiz: Which of the world's major economies is relying most on exporting to the rest of the world and less on homegrown demand?
快速测试：世界主要经济体中，哪一个国家最为依赖对外出口，对国内需求的依存度不高？
Is it China, long the target of U.S. complaints? Or Germany, strongman of Europe?
是美国长期依赖抱怨的目标中国？还是欧洲强国德国？
China's current-account surplus--the broadest measure of its trade balance and a gauge of the extent to which it relies on demand from outside--went from 10% of gross domestic product in 2007 to 2.6% in 2012.
中国经常项目盈余在国内生产总值(GDP)中的占比从2007年的10%降至2012年的2.6%。经常项目是衡量一国贸易平衡的最广泛指标，也是衡量一国对外需依赖程度的指标。
Germany's surplus, in contrast, fell modestly from 7.5% to 6.4% in the same period.
相比之下，同期德国的经常项目盈余只是从7.5%微跌至6.4%。
At any moment in the world economy, some countries are going to be exporters and others importers. But this isn't any moment. The global economy is growing slowly largely because it is starved for demand. When the pie isn't growing, a strong economy that runs a big trade surplus is taking away someone else's lunch.
任何时候在世界经济中，必定有一些国家是出口国，另外一些是进口国。但眼下并非平常，全球经济增长缓慢主要是因为极度缺乏需求。在蛋糕没有做大的时候，一个强大的经济体如果拥有大量贸易顺差，一定是抢了别国的午餐。
This is particularly acute in Europe. Southern Europe is struggling to increase exports and use the proceeds to pay debts. Every decrease in the trade deficits of Portugal, Spain and Italy has to be matched by a decrease in someone else's trade surplus; that's economic arithmetic. China gets it.
在欧洲这一问题尤为严重。南欧正在努力增加出口，并用出口所得偿还债务。葡萄牙、西班牙和意大利的贸易逆差每降低一个水平，某些国家的贸易顺差必须相应降低同等幅度。这是经济学中的简单算术。中国明白这一点。
It has allowed its currency to rise against those of its trading partners, which makes its exports less attractive. It has spent heavily--too heavily, probably--on investing in everything from steel mills to airports. It is allowing labor shortages to push up wages, which gives consumers more spending power.
中国已经允许人民币对其贸易伙伴的货币升值，这降低了中国出口商品的吸引力。在从钢铁厂到机场等各类项目上，中国不惜投入巨资（可能投入太多）。中国允许劳动力短缺推高工资现象的存在，这提高了中国消费者的消费能力。
Some of the decline in China's trade surplus is more circumstance than choice. Its biggest export markets, the U.S. and Europe, aren't buying as much. Its appetite for commodities has pushed up their price, and thus the country's import tab.
中国贸易顺差的下降在一定程度上更多的是形势使然而非有意为之。中国最大的出口市场美国和欧洲的进口量不如以往。中国对大宗商品的胃口推高了大宗商品的价格，从而推高了中国的进口总值。
But there is a clear strategy. China's leadership, more to satisfy the rising expectations of its huge population than to respond to International Monetary Fund admonitions, preaches the virtues of enhancing people's ability to consume, as departing Premier Wen Jiabao did this week.
但中国拥有明确的战略。中国领导层大力宣扬提高民众消费能力的好处，就像即将离任的中国国务院总理温家宝本周所做的那样。这与其说是回应国际货币基金组织(IMF)的告诫，不如说是满足中国广大民众不断提高的期望。
China has a long way to go. As a share of its overall economy, consumer spending is roughly half what it is in the U.S. or Europe. It is moving in the right direction.
中国还有很长的路要走。从消费开支占整体经济的份额看，中国目前的消费支出大约只有美国或欧洲的一半。中国正朝着正确的方向前进。
Germany is another story, an older one.
德国的情况就不同了，而且历史更为久远。
'This question has been around since I joined the German desk at the IMF in 1987, ' says Thomas Mayer, now a Frankfurt-based economist for Deutsche Bank.
德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)驻法兰克福经济学家迈尔(Thomas Mayer)说，自从我1987年加入国际货币基金组织德国分支机构以来，这一问题就已经存在了。
The rigid German business model dates to the 1950s, when impoverished workers produced goods to sell to returning American GIs. Germans saved a lot, and that means they spent less. Producers relied more on selling to foreigners.
严谨的德国商业模式要追溯到上世纪50年代，当时，贫穷的工人们把生产出来的产品卖给返乡的美国大兵。德国人非常喜欢攒钱，这意味着他们的花费会减少。生产者更加依赖向外国人出售商品。
Over time, a cycle emerged, Mr. Mayer says. A period of strong exports and growing trade surpluses would push up the deutsche mark. The rise in the currency would then curb exports. That would increase unemployment, and laid-off German workers rarely moved to other industries. That, in turn, would provoke a burst of productivity that restored Germany's international competitiveness; exports would rise again.
梅耶尔说，后来，一个循环出现了。一段时期的强大出口和逐渐增长的贸易顺差会推高德国马克币值。货币的升值会限制出口。这就增加了失业率，下岗的德国工人很少转换到其他行业。这反过来会引发生产力的迅速提高，从而恢复德国的国际竞争力；出口将再次增长。
The reunification of Germany disrupted the cycle as East German consumers caught up with 40 years of deprivation. But that was temporary. After changes to German labor laws restored manufacturers' competitiveness in the 2000s, exports climbed.
德国统一后，随着东德消费者弥补40年的物资贫乏，这一循环被打乱。但这只是暂时的。在21世纪头几年，德国劳动法的修订恢复了制造商的竞争力，出口攀升。
The advent of the euro disrupted the usual equilibrating move in exchange rates. If Germany still had the deutsche mark, the currency would be soaring, diminishing exports. But the mark has given way to the euro, and the Continent's woes restrain the currency from climbing.
欧元时代的到来打乱了通常状况下汇率的平衡移动。如果德国仍然使用马克，德国马克的币值将会飙升，进而打击出口。但是马克已经被欧元替代，整个欧洲的困境限制了欧元的升值。
So Germany, justifiably proud that it has rebuilt its manufacturing muscle, enjoys an export boom. Its advice to the rest of Europe: Be more like us. We beat back our unions. We made our manufacturers more competitive. We cut our government budget deficit. You should, too.
因此，德国正享受着出口的繁荣，理所应当地为重新打造了制造业实力感到骄傲。德国对欧洲其他国家的建议是：像我们一样。我们击退了我们的工会。我们让制造商更有竞争力。我们削减了政府预算赤字。你们也应该如此。
It sees no reason to do anything that would restrain its exports. 'Germany sees export success as a goal in itself rather than a means to an end, ' says Adam Posen of Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics.
德国认为，没有任何理由采取将会限制出口的措施。华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)的波森(Adam Posen)说，德国将出口成功本身作为一个目标，而不是达到一种目标的手段。
That approach, though, threatens the viability of the euro. It threatens the prospects that Southern Europe will be able to pay back the loans that Germany's savers, banks and governments have made to them. It hurts the global economy.
不过，这种态度威胁到了欧元的发展。它可能使南欧无法偿还德国储蓄人、银行和政府借给他们的钱。它伤害到了全球经济。
Keynesian textbooks prescribe more government spending and bigger budget deficits for Germany, but that's not going to happen. A surge in business investment in Germany would be welcome, but companies aren't so inclined.
凯恩斯主义的教科书给德国的药方是，更多的政府支出和更大的预算赤字，但这是不可能发生的。德国商业投资的增长将会是好事，但是企业不太倾向于这么做。
Further deregulating service industries to bring down prices, expanding shopping hours and the like might nudge Germans to spend a bit more, but such changes over the past 15 years haven't turned them into American-style consumers.
进一步放宽对服务业的监管以压低价格，延长购物中心的营业时间，以及类似的措施可能会让德国人增加消费，但是过去15年，这样的措施并没有把他们变成美国式的消费者。
Perhaps the only practical solution for Germany is to let wages rise along with improving productivity so consumers have more spending power and German manufacturers lose a bit of their competitive edge.
也许对于德国来说，唯一可行的办法是让工资水平与不断提高的生产力一同增长。这样消费者就会有更大的购买力，德国制造商也会失去一点竞争力。
Reducing a trade surplus to zero essentially means that a society consumes as much as it produces. The notion that consuming what you produce is punishment is uniquely German. Perhaps Germany could learn a little something from China.
把贸易顺差降到零本质上意味着，一个社会的消耗量和生产量一样多。只有德国才会认为，把生产出来的东西全部消耗掉是一种可耻的行为。也许德国可以从中国那里学到点什么。
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