纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国物价指数再次下跌引发通货紧缩担忧
November 9, 2023 4 min 791 words
随手搬运西方主流媒体的所谓的民主自由的报道，让帝国主义的丑恶嘴脸无处遁形。
Prices are falling again in China after a two-month reprieve, with households and businesses wary of spending even as state-controlled banks pump money into the construction of more factories.
The decline in prices could put China on the cusp of a pernicious economic condition called deflation, in which companies and workers find that they receive less money for their goods or their work, while their debts remain as heavy as ever.
物价下跌可能是中国通货紧缩的前兆，在这种恶性经济状况下，企业和员工会发现从商品或工作中获得的收入更少了，债务却一如既往地沉重。
In the United States, by contrast, inflation has been brought down substantially, although consumer prices are still higher than before the pandemic. Europe is still struggling with inflation.
相较之下，美国的居民消费价格虽然仍高于疫情前水平，但通胀率已大幅下降。欧洲则仍在与通胀作斗争。
Consumer prices in China dipped 0.2 percent in October compared to a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. Falling food prices played an important role, notably a 30 percent plunge in pork prices from a year earlier, as Chinese farmers have begun raising more pigs.
国家统计局周四宣布，10月份中国居民消费价格同比下降0.2%。这其中的一个重要因素是食品价格下跌，尤其是猪肉价格较一年前下跌了30%，因为中国农民开始饲养更多生猪。
Changes in food prices can be abrupt and do not necessarily lead to either deflation or inflation, which are changes in the overall price level of an economy. Excluding food prices as well as energy prices — gasoline became slightly more expensive in China last month — consumer prices were up 0.6 percent in October compared to a year earlier, the statistical agency said.
食品价格的变化可能是突发性的，不一定导致通缩或通胀，这两者的衡量指标是经济的总体物价水平。统计局称，不包括食品和能源（上个月中国油价略有上涨）的居民消费价格比去年同期上涨了0.6%。
Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday that she thought China would be able to avoid deflation. Weak food and energy prices have pulled down broad measures of inflation but might not persist, she said.
周二，国际货币基金组织第一副总裁吉塔·戈皮纳特在北京举行的新闻发布会上表示，她认为中国可以避免通货紧缩。她表示，食品和能源价格的低迷拉低了广义通胀指标，但可能不会持续太久。
“We don’t expect to see a general deflation trend in China — we expect, in a year from now, inflation to be squarely in the positive territory,” she said.
“我们不认为中国将出现通缩的普遍趋势。我们预计从现在起的一年内，通胀水平也将完全处于合理区间，”她说。
But falling food prices do not explain a far broader decline in wholesale prices charged by factories and other producers. China’s index of producer prices dropped 2.6 percent in October compared to the same month last year; on that year-on-year basis, it has now been down for 13 consecutive months.
但食品价格下跌并不能解释工厂和其他制造商批发价格大幅的下降。10月份中国工业生产者出厂价格比去年同期下降2.6%，这一数字已经连降13个月。
Producer prices were down in October from a year earlier for goods ranging from steel and coal to electric cars, although there have been hints of a stabilization in electric car prices this autumn.
从钢铁、煤炭到电动汽车，10月份各种商品的生产者价格较去年同期均出现下滑，不过电动汽车价格在今年秋季有企稳迹象。
Stocks edged higher in initial trading on Thursday in Shanghai and Shenzhen, even though the drop in consumer prices was slightly deeper than the 0.1 percent decline that economists had expected. Consumer prices were flat in September from a year earlier, up 0.1 percent in August and down 0.3 percent in July.
虽然居民消费价格的降幅略高于经济学家预期的0.1%，但上海和深圳股市在周四开盘时依然小幅走高。9月份居民消费价格与去年同期持平，8月份上升0.1%，7月份下降0.3%。
Economic weakness was visible on a recent weekday in Weifang, a city in Shandong Province in east-central China. A blocks-long street of shops selling construction materials like paint, plaster and flooring was completely empty of customers shortly before lunchtime.
在最近的一个工作日，山东潍坊的经济疲软状况显而易见。一条延伸数个街区的长街上满是出售油漆、石膏和地板等建筑材料的商店，正午时分这里没有任何顾客。
Liu Xinjiang, the owner of a small shop that outfits apartments with new or renovated kitchen stoves and cabinets, said prices for steel and cement had fallen sharply while prices for home decoration supplies were also broadly down. The prices of apartments in the towers overlooking the street have fallen by 30 to 40 percent in the last several years, he said, yet there are still no buyers, and therefore no one who is spending money on kitchen interiors.
刘新江（音）经营着一家全新或翻新炉灶橱柜定制的小店，他说钢铁和水泥价格大幅下跌，家装用品的价格也普遍下跌了。他表示，过去几年这条街上的高层公寓价格跌了三四成，但还是没有人买，因此也没有人花钱装修厨房了。
“Apartments can’t sell in China now,” Mr. Liu said.
“中国的房子现在卖不动了，”刘新江说。
Falling prices in China are a reflection of weak demand and oversupply for an array of goods. Apartments are the main assets for Chinese families, representing three-fifths to four-fifths of household wealth. The declines in apartment prices have left many people reluctant to spend money.
中国物价下跌说明了各种商品需求疲软和供过于求的现象。住房是中国家庭的主要资产，占家庭财富的五分之三到五分之四。房价下跌导致许多人降低了消费意愿。
Prices of existing homes in 100 cities across China have fallen an average of nearly 18 percent since August 2021, according to the Beike Research Institute, a research firm in the city of Tianjin.
根据天津研究公司贝壳研究院的数据，自2021年8月以来，中国100个城市的现房价格平均下跌了18%。
China’s strict pandemic restrictions also appear to have had a lasting effect on consumers’ and businesses’ willingness to spend, even though China abruptly abandoned those measures 11 months ago. Consumer confidence plummeted nationwide during Shanghai’s two-month Covid lockdown in the spring of last year, dropping far more than it had during the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
严格的疫情管控似乎也对消费者和企业的支出意愿产生了持久影响，尽管中国在11个月前突然结束了这些措施。上海在去年春季遭受长达两个月的封城，致使全国消费者信心大幅下滑，幅度远超2008年和2009年全球金融危机时的水平。
When surveys of consumer confidence failed to show a recovery last spring, the National Bureau of Statistics temporarily stopped releasing the data. But it has now resumed doing so, and the data shows that after a small rebound in the first three months of this year after Covid control measures were lifted, consumer confidence has fallen to levels almost as low as at the end of the Shanghai lockdown.
今年春季，当消费者信心调查未能反映出复苏迹象，国家统计局暂停发布该数据。现在该数据的发布已经恢复，而消费者信心水平在今年前三个月因解封而迎来小幅反弹后，已经降至几乎与上海封城结束时一样低的水平。