If the forecasts materialize—and the OECD's growth estimates for Japan exceed most private forecasts—they will restore some balance to the world economy and relieve fears of a global recession.
如果这些预测成为现实——经济合作与发展组织对日本经济增长的预测比大多数民间预测乐观一些——这将会给世界经济发展注入平衡,缓解人们对全球经济衰退产生的恐惧心理。
Asia and Latin America can continue to recover without relying solely on exports to the United States. But until that happens, no one can be certain that Asia's financial crisis has truly ended. It remains possible that abrupt surges of global capital, first moving into Asia and then out, will have caused, with some delay, a larger instability.
亚洲和拉丁美洲的经济可以不用完全依赖对美国的出口而持续恢复。但在它们的经济复苏之前,没有人能确定亚洲金融危机是否真的结束了。仍有可能出现全球资本的急剧流动,首先涌入亚洲,随后又涌出,这将会在一段时间之后造成更大规模的不稳定局面。
Globalization's other problem is political, cultural and social. People feel threatened by any kind of economic change—and change from abroad naturally seems especially alien and menacing.
全球化所引发的另一个问题涉及政治、文化与社会方面。人们感到任何经济变革都会给他们带来威胁——而来自其他国家的变革自然而然看起来不仅令人感到特别陌生,而且具有威胁性。
The street protesters at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in early December may have lacked a common agenda or even a coherent case against trade. But they accurately reflected the anxiety and anger that globalization often inspires. So do European fears of genetically modified food or nationalistic opposition to cross-border mergers.
12月初在西雅图举行的世贸组织会议期间,街头抗议者们可能没有反对贸易的共同计划,甚至没有统一的理由,但是他们准确地反映出了全球化经常会引发的焦虑与愤怒情绪。欧洲人对转基因食品的恐惧以及出于民族主义而对跨国兼并的反对也是这种情绪的反应。
What is local and familiar is suddenly being replaced or, assaulted by something that is foreign and unfamiliar. And even if trade helps most people, it will usually create some losers. In the United States, workers in some high-cost industries-steel and autos, most conspicuously—suffered from intensified import competition.
当地常见的事物突然间被外来的陌生事物所取代,甚至遭到侵犯。尽管这种贸易会对多数人有帮助,但也会使一些人蒙受损失。在美国,从事某些高成本行业的工人——最为显著的是钢铁业和汽车业——在激烈的进口竞争中蒙受损失。