考研英语#2017-2025考研究生英语*经济学人*阅读#在账房的朝鲜领导人 ...

1413223624

A Kim in his counting house
一位在账房的朝鲜领导人
The regime suffers none of the consequences of itsmisrule
朝鲜政权没有受到暴政所带来的恶果
A powerful army usually depends on a strongeconomy. Not in North Korea. Per head, the countryhas more soldiers than any other: 1.2m out of a population of 25m. As well as a hugeconventional arsenal, it also has a dozen nuclear warheads and spends perhaps $3 billion ayear on a nuclear programme that involves rocket launches and nuclear tests—the latest tookplace last week, the fourth since 2006. Yet the performance of the economy over the pastfour decades has been little sprightlier than that of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, since he wasembalmed in 1994.
一支强大的军队通常依赖于经济繁荣。但在朝鲜却不是这样。如果算人均军人数，朝鲜比任何一个国家军人数量都要多咨询QQ、微信：2544906在核项目上，其中包括导弹发射和核武器测试—就在上周朝鲜进行了最新一次测试，这是自2006年来的第四次测试。但是在过去的四十年里，朝鲜经济仅仅比1994年被防腐处理的“伟大领袖”金日成在位时稍稍富有生机一点点。
North Korea suppresses most economic data. But as far as we know, from the 1950s to the1970s its economy outgrew capitalist South Korea, as a Stalinist state marshalled all resourcestowards production. Today the North's per capita GDP is only one-40th of the South's—awretched $600 a year or so, by UN estimates. The blame rests squarely with the Kim dynasty'sruinous policies. Yet the regime of Kim Jong Un, the third Kim on the throne, pays nopenalty for the people's suffering. Rather, it funnels money to itself, the elites and the nuclearprogramme.
朝鲜封锁了其大部分经济数据，但就我们了解，从上世纪50年代一直到70年代朝鲜的经济增长速度要快于资本主义国家韩国。这是因为作为一个斯大林主义国家，朝鲜那时将全国的资源都投入到了生产当中。如今朝鲜的人均GDP只有韩国的四十分之一。据联合国估计，其人均GDP大约只有可怜的600美元每年。这直接归咎于金王朝毁灭性的政策。。但是金王朝的第三代当权者金正恩的政权却没有为人民所受的苦痛付出任何代价。甚至，它还在为自己，为朝鲜精英层，为其核项目敛财。
In a recent paper for South Korea's Asan Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt of the AmericanEnterprise Institute in Washington, DC tries to estimate the scale of North Korea's economiccatastrophe. Given the paucity of data, Mr Eberstadt used “mirror statistics”: estimates of thecountry's trade divined from other countries' records. He then made adjustments forpopulation growth and inflation. It is no straight proxy for output, but useful nonetheless.
来自华盛顿特区美国企业研究所(the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC)的尼古拉斯·埃伯施塔特(Nicholas Eberstadt)在其最近为韩国峨山研究院(South Korea's Asan Institute)撰写的一篇报告中试图估计出北朝鲜的经济灾难的规模。由于缺乏数据，他使用“镜像统计数据”咨询QQ、微信：2544906。
The money seems to have helped the Kims live like god-kings and still have enough left over topay the army, the secret police and various suppliers of nuclear materials. Yet Rüdiger Frank, aneconomist at the University of Vienna, thinks that increased supplies of hard currency may alsohave helped the informal markets for food and basic supplies that burgeoned as a responseto the famine. These black markets are the single most benign transformation in NorthKorea in the past few years. Most North Koreans now depend on them for their livelihoods. Thestate usually turns a blind eye, since its central planning system, which is supposed toapportion goods, has broken down. Besides, the elites demand their cut.
这一大笔援助似乎让金氏家族过上了国王般的生活，还剩下足够的钱用来支付军队，秘密警察和各种核材料的供应商。但是维也纳大学的经济学家弗兰克(Rüdiger Frank)认为硬通货供应量的增加也助长了朝鲜的黑市交易。为了应对饥荒，这种供应食物和生活必需品的黑市快速发展壮大起来。在过去几年，朝鲜的黑市就是一场良性的变革。大多数朝鲜人依赖黑市来维持他们的生活。由于本来应该起到分配商品作用的中央计划系统崩溃，政府通常对此睁一只眼闭一只眼。另外，那些朝鲜精英们也想在黑市买东西时得到些折扣。
Some see in such markets the seeds of deeper economic reform. And Mr Kim seems keenerthan his father to promise prosperity to his people, and even a modicum of leisure. NorthKorea's capital, Pyongyang, now boasts a dolphinarium and a water park, and even a ski resortto its east. As high rises go up, the capital's fashionable sip espressos in upmarket bars.
有些人从这类市场中看到了深化经济改革的种子。并且相比于他的父亲，金正恩似乎更加热切的希望给他的人民带去繁荣昌盛甚至给他们一点休闲活动。如今平壤新建了一所海豚馆和一所水上公园，在其东边甚至建了一滑雪胜地。随着一幢幢高楼拔地而起，平壤的时尚饮品浓咖啡进入了高档酒吧。
Yet the regime's old habits are unchanged. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the state issqueezing the donju, North Korea's new successful class of traders. According to DailyNK, anews source with informants in the North, donju are worried that they will be forced to handover hard-currency savings to make up for the “massive dollar bomb”—ie, the expensivenuclear test—that was detonated last week.
但是金氏政权的旧习仍未改变。民间传闻，政府正在打压donju。donju是指朝鲜新兴的成功贸易商阶层。据朝鲜新闻提供源“今日朝鲜”透露，donju担心政府会强迫他们交出硬通货储蓄以此来资助“大规模美元炸弹”——例如上周进行的花销不菲的核试验。
In the absence of direction from the top, there are limits to how much can change. A new policythat seems to have been quietly rolled out from 2013 allowed farmers to retain 30% of a newproduction target, plus any excess over the target, to sell on informal markets. Yet localofficials are not distributing the promised shares, perhaps to make up a shortfall atcooperatives, according to a report by Radio Free Asia.
由于缺乏高层的指挥，改变是有限的。一项似乎从2013年悄然开始的新政策允许农民保留新产量目标的30%。另外超出目标的部分可以留下拿黑市出售。根据亚洲自由广播((Radio Free Asia))的一篇报导，地方官员并没有给农民之前所承诺的份额，这或许是为了弥补合作社产量短期下滑的影响。
Meanwhile, the few foreign investors brave enough to enter North Korea must contend with anunpredictable and predatory state. In November the biggest such, Orascom, an Egyptiantelecoms company that set up the North's first 3G mobile net- work, said that it thought it hadlost control of its joint venture, and has not been able to repatriate its profits.
同时，少数有勇气进入朝鲜的外国投资者不得不与这个无法预测并且损人利己的国家作斗争。其中最大的一家是埃及电讯公司Orascom，该公司在朝鲜建立了首个3G移动网络。在去年11月，它宣称自己已经失去了对合资企业的控制，无法将其利润汇回埃及。
China remains North Korea's lifeline. Most products for sale in the North's informal markets arefrom China. Last year North Korea sold over $1 billion of minerals to China, chiefly coal. AsChina's economy slows and the price of coal falls, the North will suffer. But the regime has asolution: putting its scant resources into military power. This serves as a “battering-ram forinternational extortion”, as Mr Eberstadt puts it. Alas, it seems to work.
中国仍然是朝鲜的生命线。北朝鲜黑市的大部分产品都是来自中国。去年朝鲜向中国销售了总价值超过10亿美元以煤炭为主的矿物。随着中国经济的放缓，煤炭价格逐下滑，朝鲜将受到重创。但是金氏政权有一个解决方法：将其匮乏的资源用于军事武器。埃伯施塔特将这种做法看成是朝鲜对国际社会进行勒索的一种强硬手段。不幸的是，这种方法似乎起作用了。
1.depend on 依赖于
例句:Industry and agriculture depend on and supporteach other.
工业和农业是互相依赖、互相支援的。
2.take place 发生
例句:There have been innumerable books that have been written regarding the unusualphenomenon which take place in this area.
关于在这个地区发生的不寻常现象已经写了无数的书。
3.lead to 导致
例句:A lack of prudence may lead to financial problems.
不够谨慎可能会导致财政上出现问题。
4.according to 根据
例句:They will swap posts in a year's time, according to new party rules which rotate theleadership.
根据轮流担任领导的新政党章程，他们在一年后会轮换职位。