纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国国家安全面临的新威胁恶意唱衰经济的中国人
January 31, 2024 7 min 1299 words
这篇报道揭示了中国政府对经济批评的新一轮严密打压。在国家安全部门的警告下，言论自由受到限制，经济领域的负面报道被审查和撤下。这种行为不仅遏制了舆论自由，还加深了投资者和外国企业对中国经济真实情况的疑虑。政府试图通过强调“加强经济宣传和舆论引导”来塑造正面形象，但这种封锁负面信息的手段可能适得其反，导致投资者对经济状况的信心下降。此外，咨询公司、金融分析师和投资银行也面临审查，加剧了对经济真相的不透明感。这种举措可能会在长期内阻碍中国经济的可持续发展。
China’s top intelligence agency issued an ominous warning last month about an emerging threat to the country’s national security: Chinese people who criticize the economy.
中国最高情报机构上个月发布了一个不祥的警告，称中国国家安全面临新的威胁：批评经济的中国人。
In a series of posts on its official WeChat account, the Ministry of State Security implored citizens to grasp President Xi Jinping’s economic vision and not be swayed by those who sought to “denigrate China’s economy” through “false narratives.” To combat this risk, the ministry said, security agencies will focus on “strengthening economic propaganda and public opinion guidance.”
China is intensifying its crackdown while struggling to reclaim the dynamism and rapid economic growth of the past. Beijing has censored and tried to intimidate renowned economists, financial analysts, investment banks and social media influencers for bearish assessments of the economy and the government’s policies. In addition, news articles about people experiencing financial struggles or the poor living standards for migrant workers are being removed.
中国正在加大打击力度，同时努力恢复过去的活力和快速经济增长。北京方面审查并试图恐吓那些对经济和政府政策做出悲观评估的知名经济学家、金融分析师、投资银行和社交媒体红人。此外，关于人们遭遇经济困难或农民工生活水平低下的新闻文章正在被删除。
China has continued to offer a rosy outlook for the economy, noting that it beat its forecast for economic growth of 5 percent last year without resorting to risky, expensive stimulus measures. Beyond the numbers, however, its financial industry is struggling to contain enormous amounts of local government debt, its stock market is reeling and its property sector is in crisis. China Evergrande, the high-flying developer felled by over $300 billion in debt, was ordered into liquidation on Monday.
The new information campaign is wider in scope than the usual work of the government’s censors, who have always closely monitored online chatter about the economy. Their efforts now extend to mainstream economic commentary that was permitted in the past. The involvement of security agencies also underscores the ways in which business and economic interests fall under Mr. Xi’s increasingly expansive view of what constitutes a threat to national security.
新的信息运动比政府审查者通常的工作范围更广，他们一直密切监视网上关于经济的讨论。现在，他们的工作范围延伸到了过去被受到允许的主流经济评论。安全机构的介入也凸显出，习近平对构成国家安全威胁的事物的概念越来越宽泛，商业和经济利益也受制于此。
In November, the state security ministry, calling itself “staunch guardians of financial security,” said other countries used finance as a weapon in geopolitical games.
去年11月，国家安全部自称“金融安全的坚定守护者”，它表示，其他国家将金融作为地缘政治游戏的武器。
“Some people with ulterior motives try to stir up trouble and profit from the chaos,” the ministry wrote. “These are not only ‘bears’ and ‘short sellers.’ These market doomsayers are trying to shake the international community’s investment confidence in China and trigger domestic financial turmoil in our country.”
“一些居心叵测者妄图兴风作浪、趁乱牟利，不仅有‘看空者’‘做空者’，还有‘唱空者’‘掏空者’，企图动摇国际社会对华投资信心，妄图引发我国内金融动荡，”该部写道。
Over the last year, China has targeted consulting and advisory firms with foreign ties through raids, detainments and arrests. These firms, which helped businesses assess investments in the country, have become collateral damage in Mr. Xi’s drive to bolster national security. Such efforts to curb the flow of information, curtail the release of unfavorable economic data and limit critical financial discourse seem to only deepen the concerns of investors and foreign businesses about the true state of China’s economy.
在过去的一年里，中国通过突击搜查、拘留和逮捕的方式，将目标对准与外国有联系的咨询和顾问公司。这些公司帮助企业评估在中国的投资，却成为习近平加强国家安全的附带损害。这些限制信息流动、限制不利经济数据发布、限制批评性金融言论的努力，似乎只会加深投资者和外国企业对中国经济真实状况的担忧。
“In my view, the more the government suppresses negative information about the economy, the less confidence people have in the actual economic situation,” said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.
“在我看来，政府越是压制有关经济的负面信息，人们对实际经济形势的信心就越低，”加州大学伯克利分校信息学院的研究科学家萧强说。
New foreign investment in China fell 8 percent in 2023 to its lowest level in three years. China’s CSI 300 index, which tracks the biggest companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell 12 percent last year, compared with a 24 percent gain in the S&P 500. The Chinese index is down another 5 percent this year to nearly five-year lows.
2023年，新到中国的外国投资下降了8%，达到三年来的最低水平。追踪在上海和深圳上市的最大公司的中国沪深300指数去年下跌了12%，而标准普尔500指数上涨了24%。中国股指今年又下跌了5%，跌至近五年来的最低点。
Premier Li Qiang called on Monday for more effective measures to stabilize the stock market against the backdrop of reports of a possible rescue package for the equity market.
中国总理李强周一呼吁采取更有效的措施稳定股市，与此同时，有报道称股市救助计划可能出台。
Mr. Xiao, the research scientist, said he started noticing in the latter half of 2023 that Chinese censors were quicker to take down many financial news articles. Among them: a December article on the financial news site Yicai that cited research stating that 964 million Chinese people earned less than $280 a month.
研究科学家萧强说，他在2023年下半年开始注意到，中国的审查机构更快地删除了许多财经新闻文章。其中包括财经新闻网站“第一财经”去年12月的一篇文章，该文章援引一项研究称，9.64亿中国人的月收入低于2000元。
This month, a documentary from NetEase News about migrant workers enduring extremely low living standards was also taken down from the internet. Search results of the documentary, “Working Like This for 30 Years,” were also restricted on Weibo, a social media site similar to X.
本月，网易新闻的一部关于农民工生活水平极低的纪录片也被下架。这部名为《如此打工30年》的纪录片在微博上的搜索结果受到限制。
Since June, Weibo has restricted dozens of accounts from posting after, it said, they “published remarks bad-mouthing the economy” or “distorted” or “smeared” China’s economic, financial and real estate policies.
自6月以来，微博已经限制了数十个账户的发帖，称他们“发布唱衰经济言论”或“歪曲”、“抹黑”中国的经济、金融和房地产政策。
Weibo warned users in November not to be “maliciously pessimistic” about the economy or spread negative sentiments. Last month, the company said it hoped users would help “boost confidence” in the economy’s development.
去年11月，微博警告用户不要对经济“恶意唱衰”或传播负面情绪。上个月，该公司表示，希望用户能够帮助“提振经济发展信心”。
Other social media services, too, are moving to censor negative speech about the economy. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has specific rules prohibiting the “malicious misinterpretation of real-estate-related policies.”
其他社交媒体服务也开始审查有关经济的负面言论。抖音是中国版的TikTok，它有明确的规定，禁止“恶意曲解房地产相关政策”。
Liu Jipeng, a dean at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, was prohibited from posting or adding new followers on Douyin and Weibo last month after he said in an interview that it wasn’t the right time to put money into stocks. He also wrote on Weibo, where he has more than 500,000 followers, that it was difficult for ordinary people to invest safely because there were so many unethical institutions. His Douyin account, where he has more than 700,000 followers, stated that the user “is banned from being followed due to a violation of community rules.”
上个月，中国政法大学院长刘纪鹏在接受采访时说，现在不是投资股市的好时机，因此他被禁止在抖音和微博上发帖，也不能增加新粉丝。他还在拥有50多万粉丝的微博上写道，由于有太多不道德的机构，普通人很难安全投资。他的抖音账号拥有70多万粉丝，该账号称该用户“因违反社区规则被禁止被关注”。
Banks and securities firms are also under intense scrutiny for the content of their economic research. In June, the Shenzhen Securities Regulatory Bureau warned China Merchants Securities, a Shenzhen-based brokerage, about a “carelessly produced” report a year earlier warning that domestic stocks would remain under pressure because of the economy.
银行和证券公司的经济研究内容也受到严格审查。去年6月，深圳证券监管局就一年前一份“制作不审慎”的报告向总部位于深圳的招商证券股份有限公司发出警告，该报告警告称，由于经济原因，国内股市将继续承压。
In July, Goldman Sachs sparked a sell-off of Chinese bank stocks after one of its research reports put a “sell” rating on three major lenders and warned that banks might struggle to maintain dividends because of losses from local government debt. The Securities Times, a state-owned financial newspaper, struck back, saying that the report was based on a “misinterpretation of the facts” and that “it is not advisable to misunderstand the fundamentals of Chinese banks.”
去年7月，高盛在一份研究报告中将三家主要银行的评级定为“卖出”，并警告称，由于地方政府债务的亏损，银行可能难以维持股息，引发了对中国银行股的抛售。国有财经报纸《证券时报》予以回击，称该报道是基于“误解”，“看空我国银行基本面并不可取”。
One economist at a foreign securities firm said a Chinese government official had recently asked the economist to be “more thoughtful” when writing research reports, especially if the content may be construed negatively. The economist asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
一家外国证券公司的一位经济学家表示，一位中国政府官员最近要求这位经济学家在撰写研究报告时“多加思考”，尤其是在内容可能被负面解读的情况下。由于担心遭到报复，这位经济学家要求匿名。
Even once acceptable commentary has become problematic in light of China’s current economic challenges.
考虑到中国目前面临的经济挑战，即使是曾经可以接受的评论也变得有问题了。
In a 2012 interview, a year before Mr. Xi assumed power, Wu Jinglian, a famous Chinese economist, warned that the country was at an inflection point. He said China could move forward with a market economy ruled by law, or it could be swayed by those who sought an alternative agenda of heavy government involvement.
2012年，在习近平上台前一年，中国最著名的经济学家吴敬琏在接受采访时警告说，中国正处于一个拐点。他说，中国可以继续推进依法治国的市场经济，也可能会被那些寻求政府大量参与的另一议程者所左右。
China’s societal problems, Mr. Wu said in the interview, “are fundamentally the result of incomplete economic reforms, serious lag in political reforms and intensified administrative power to suppress and interfere with legitimate private economic activities.”
吴敬琏在采访中说，中国的社会问题“从根本上说是缘于经济改革没有完全到位、政治改革严重滞后、行政权力变本加厉地压制和干预民间正当经济活动，造成广泛寻租活动的结果。。”
The interview was reposted last year to mark the 45th anniversary of China’s opening up its economy. It was widely shared and called a rebuke of Mr. Xi’s economic policies — which have pushed for greater state control at the expense of market reforms — before it was taken down from WeChat.
去年，为纪念中国经济开放45周年，这篇采访被重新发表。它被广泛分享，并被称为是对习近平经济政策的抨击——习近平的经济政策以牺牲市场改革为代价，推动了更大的国家控制——之后，这篇访谈从微信上被撤下。
But the pressure campaign has intensified so much that it is turning some who are usually defending Beijing’s policies into critics. Hu Xijin, an influential commentator and a former editor in chief of Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, wrote on Weibo that it was the job of influencers to “constructively help” the government identify problems, “rather than actively covering them up and creating public opinion that is not real.”
但这种施压运动的力度如此之大，以至于一些通常为北京政策辩护的人变成了批评者。有影响力的评论者、中共党报《环球时报》前总编辑胡锡进在微博上写道，有影响力的人的工作是“建设性地帮助”政府发现问题，“而不是主动掩盖它们，营造不真实的民意”。