纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英为何中国和波音仍需要彼此

Boeing’s commercial aircraft sales to China have slowed to a trickle as U.S.-Chinese relations have soured. But there are new prospects for the company to regain traction.

随着美中关系恶化，波音对中国的商用飞机销售已大幅减少。不过，这家公司在中国重受欢迎的新前景已经出现。

A meeting this month between President Biden and President Xi Jinping of China did not yield public progress toward resuming plane sales, but it may ease tensions between the two countries, boding well for Boeing, a giant of American manufacturing. Perhaps more important, Boeing and China still need each other.

虽然美国总统拜登与中国国家主席习近平本月的会晤并未在恢复飞机销售方面取得公开进展，但可能缓解了两国之间的紧张关系，这对美国制造业巨头波音来说是个好兆头。也许更重要的是，波音和中国仍需要彼此。

“There’s lots of incentives for everyone to do a deal here,” said Eddy Pieniazek, head of advisory at Ishka, an aviation consulting firm. “A lot of it is just down to timing.”

“现在有很多让各方都想做交易的激励措施，”航空咨询公司Ishka的咨询主管艾迪·皮耶尼翁热克说。“很多事情取决于时机。”

Six years have passed since Boeing’s last large airplane order in China, an agreement to buy 300 planes that was signed during a visit to Beijing by President Donald J. Trump. For several years, the company’s customers and government officials in China have also refused to allow delivery of previously ordered 737 Max jets, the company’s most popular commercial plane.

波音上次在中国拿到大订单已是六年前的事情，那份购买300架飞机的协议是时任美国总统特朗普访问北京期间签署的。数年来，波音在中国的客户以及中国政府官员均拒绝接收之前订购的737 Max喷气式客机，那是该公司最受欢迎的商用机型。

As a result, Boeing has redistributed dozens of jets earmarked for Chinese airlines to other customers. Boeing is holding 85 Max planes in storage awaiting delivery to Chinese carriers, for which the planes were even painted years ago. Those are among 250 aircraft in Boeing’s inventory, most of which the company said it expected to deliver by the end of next year.

结果，波音将数十架预先安排给中国航司的客机转卖给其他客户。波音的仓库里目前存放着85架等待交付给中国的737 Max，这些飞机甚至数年前就完成了涂装。波音目前的库存量为250架飞机，这些是其中的一部分，波音表示，公司的大部分库存预计将于明年底之前交付。

China is a crucial market for Boeing. Before the pandemic, about a third of Boeing’s 737s were being delivered to the country. Over the next two decades, Boeing projects, China will account for 20 percent of global airplane demand. This means China will need an estimated 6,500 single-aisle planes like the 737 Max and more than 1,500 larger, twin-aisle planes, such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, Boeing said.

中国是波音的重要市场。新冠疫情暴发之前，波音737客机约三分之一交付给了中国。据波音预测，在未来20年全球飞机需求量中，中国将占20%。波音表示，这意味着中国预计将需要6500架737 Max这样的单通道客机，以及1500多架波音787 梦想客机这样的大型双通道客机。

The Max was banned globally for 20 months after it was involved in two fatal crashes in late 2018 and early 2019, killing 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Passenger flights aboard the Max resumed in much of the world by early 2021, but China was the last major country to clear the plane to fly again. The first Max passenger flight there was in January, and all 95 Max planes in China are now back in service.

2018年底和2019年初，波音737 Max分别在印度尼西亚和埃塞俄比亚发生两起灾难性的坠机事故，共导致346人死亡，之后该机型在全球被禁飞20个月。虽然世界大部分地区已在2021年初恢复了737 Max的客运飞行，但中国是最后一个批准该机型运行的主要国家。中国今年1月才允许它复飞，目前国内所有的95架737 Max客机已全部恢复运行。

While Boeing’s sales and deliveries to China have diminished greatly, the company hasn’t been shut out. Boeing sold a handful in 2020 to a Chinese leasing company, ICBC Leasing, which also took delivery of a dozen Max jets in 2021 and 2022. Boeing has also sold and delivered dozens of 777 freighters to customers in China in recent years.

虽然波音对中国的销量和交付量已大幅下降，但它并未完全被中国市场排除。波音曾在2020年向中国租赁公司“工银金租”出售了少量飞机，后者也在2021年和2022年接收了十几架737 Max。最近几年里，波音还向中国客户销售和交付了数十架波音777机型的货机。

In the three years since the Max began flying again, Boeing has received more than 2,100 new orders worldwide for the jet, not including cancellations. During an air show in Dubai this month, the company announced more than 200 additional orders, about a third of those for the Max. That sales momentum, faith in the company’s ability to accelerate deliveries and other recent positive news have helped to lift Boeing’s share price more than 15 percent this month.

自737 Max复飞以来的三年里，波音已从全球各地收到了逾2100份该机型的新订单，不包括取消的订单。在本月的迪拜航展期间，波音宣布又收到了200多份新订单，其中约三分之一是737 Max的订单。这种销售势头、对公司有能力提高交付速度的信心，以及最近有关公司的其他正面消息已帮助波音的股票本月上涨了15%以上。

But Boeing still lags behind its European rival, Airbus, in orders. Airbus has more planes in service and on order in China and has seized the opportunity to try to widen its lead: Last year, it announced an order for nearly 300 more planes in the country, and this year it said it would double production capacity at a factory there.

但波音的订单数仍落后于其欧洲对手空客。空客在中国有更多现役民用飞机和更多订单，并已抓紧机会极力扩大领先地位：空客去年宣布了一份来自中国的近300架飞机的订单，今年又表示将其在中国的一家工厂的产能提高一倍。

Still, China will be hard pressed to grow without Boeing, experts said. Even with existing orders from Boeing, Airbus and Comac, a homegrown airplane manufacturer, China is expected to need nearly 1,100 more planes by the end of 2030 to replace aging aircraft and to meet growing demand for domestic travel, according to IBA, an aviation consultancy.

尽管如此，专家们表示，中国的民用航空市场很难在没有波音的情况下实现增长。据航空咨询公司IBA表示，即使把现有的波音、空客和（本土飞机制造商）中国商飞的订单都考虑进来，预计中国到2030年底仍将需要近1100架飞机才能满足替换老飞机和国内旅行不断增长的需求。

“We’re going to need to see some announcements over the next year to fill those gaps,” said Dan Taylor, head of consulting for IBA. “Comac won’t be able to fill all that.”

“我们将会在明年看到一些为满足这些需求宣布的订单，”IBA咨询主管丹·泰勒说。“中国商飞没有能力满足所有的需求。”

In the two decades before the pandemic, air travel in China increased tenfold, rising from just over 60 million passengers per year in 2000 to nearly 660 million in 2019, according to the World Bank. That growth rate is likely to moderate in the years ahead, particularly now that China has built more miles of high-speed rail lines than the rest of the world combined. But the country’s appetite for air travel is still expected to swell.

据世界银行的数据，在新冠疫情暴发前的20年里，中国的航空旅行增长了十倍，从2000年的略高于6000万人次增加到 2019年的近6.6亿人次。这种增速在未来几年可能会放缓，尤其考虑到中国修建的高铁里程数已超过了世界其他国家的总和。但中国对航空旅行的需求预计仍将增长。

China will need new planes to meet that growing demand. Of all the passenger planes in China, more than 95 percent are in service, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider.

中国将需要新飞机来满足不断增长的需求。据航空数据提供商Cirium，中国现有全部客机的95%以上在使用中。

To address its needs, the country has moved ahead with the production of its own narrow-body jet, the Comac C919, which is similar in size and range to the Max and its main rival, the Airbus A320. The Chinese government has lavishly funded Comac, a state-owned enterprise with more than 110 buildings in Shanghai for design, testing and assembly of the C919.

为了满足对客机的需求，中国商飞已开始生产C919型窄体喷气式飞机，它的载客量和航程与波音737 Max及其主要竞争对手空客A320类似。中国政府为中国商飞提供了大量资金，这家国有企业在上海有110多栋建筑，用于C919的设计、测试和组装。

But the C919 uses equipment, including engines, from General Electric and other American and European suppliers, meaning even that plane’s future is tied to Western nations. The plane had its first publicized test flight in 2017 and in the past year has gone into limited commercial service between Shanghai and Chengdu.

但C919使用来自通用电气和其他美国和欧洲供应商的设备，包括发动机，这意味着仅就这架飞机的未来而言，中国也离不开西方国家。C919在2017年进行了首次公开试飞，并从去年开始投入上海和成都之间班次有限的商业飞行。

Most orders for the C919 have been placed by Chinese airlines, although a few have come from developing countries that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The C919’s arrival means that Chinese airlines will have a locally produced alternative to Airbus or Boeing, which entered the Chinese market 50 years ago, although experts said it would be years before Comac could make such planes in large numbers.

虽然C919的大部分订单来自中国的航空公司，但也有少数订单来自参与中国“一带一路”倡议的发展中国家。C919的到来意味着中国航司将拥有一个替代空客或波音的国产机型，波音是50年前进入中国市场的，但专家们说，中国商飞实现量产还需要多年时间。

The C919 is widely believed to be priced below its Boeing and Airbus competitors, but foreign air carriers have been concerned about its fuel efficiency. Improved efficiency can yield big savings in operational costs and has become increasingly important as airlines feel pressure to reduce their large carbon footprints.

人们普遍认为，C919的定价低于竞争对手波音和空客，但外国航司一直担心它的燃油效率。提高燃油效率可大大节省运营成本，而且，随着航司受到的减少巨大碳足迹的压力越来越大，燃油效率也变得越来越重要。

Comac is also working on a long-haul, wide-body jet that could someday compete with aircraft like the Airbus A340 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, but it has not said when that plane might be ready.

中国商飞也在研发有朝一日能与空客A340和波音787梦想飞机等机型竞争的长途宽体喷气式飞机，但公司尚未表示什么时候准备就绪。

Building a commercial airplane manufacturer is no easy feat, and experts say it will probably be many years before Comac can produce planes at the same scale as Airbus and Boeing, which have decades of experience and established global supply chains.

创建一家商用飞机制造商并非易事，专家表示，中国商飞大概需要很多年时间才能拥有与空客和波音相同的飞机生产规模，而空客和波音都已有几十年的制造经验和成熟的全球供应链。

“For the next decade, China needs Boeing and Airbus,” said Michel Merluzeau, director of Aerospace Intelligence & Research, a defense and aerospace consulting firm.

“中国在未来十年离不开波音和空客，”国防和航空航天咨询公司“航空航天情报与研究”的总监米歇尔·梅鲁佐说。