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President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya has called on China to rebalance an increasingly skewed trade relationship between Africa and the rising superpower, arguing that Beijing must do more to tackle a widening trade deficit.
肯尼亚总统乌胡鲁肯雅塔（Uhuru Kenyatta，上图左二）呼吁中国让非洲与这个崛起中的超级大国之间日益倾斜的贸易关系恢复平衡，称北京方面必须采取更多行动解决非洲日益扩大的贸易逆差。
Africa’s trade balance with China has moved decisively into deficit due to a fall in the price of many African commodities, such as oil, copper, iron ore and cocoa. In 2015, the most recent year for which there is reliable data, Africa’s 54 countries recorded a $34bn deficit with China on total trade of $172bn, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative (Cari) at Johns Hopkins University, although commodity prices have strengthened somewhat since then.
由于石油、铜、铁矿石和可可等许多非洲大宗商品价格下跌，非洲对华贸易已不可避免地出现逆差。约翰霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)“中非研究倡议”(China-Africa Research Initiative)的数据显示，2015年（能找到可靠数据的最新年份），非洲54国对华贸易总额为1720亿美元，总逆差为340亿美元，尽管大宗商品价格自那年起已有所走强。
“As with any country, the...trade deficit is an issue of concern and we will be pushing to see how we can increase opportunities for Kenyan goods to penetrate the Chinese market,” Mr Kenyatta said in an interview with the Financial Times. He did not specify which goods Kenya hoped to export or precisely what Chinese barriers stood in their way.
肯雅塔在接受英国《金融时报》采访时表示：“与所有国家一样……贸易逆差是个令人关注的问题，我们将努力探究如何能提高肯尼亚商品渗透进中国市场的机会。”他没有具体说明肯尼亚希望出口哪些货物，也没有明确指出中国设置了什么壁垒。
Kenya, east Africa’s most developed economy, is less dependent on commodities than many countries on the continent and grew by nearly 6 per cent last year. Nevertheless, in 2015, Kenya imported $5.9bn worth of Chinese goods, much of it steel and equipment for a $4bn Chinese-built railway, but shipped only $99m of goods in return, according to Cari.
肯尼亚是东非最发达的经济体。与非洲大陆的许多国家相比，肯尼亚对大宗商品的依赖要弱一些，该国经济去年增长了近6%。尽管如此，“中非研究倡议”的数据显示，2015年肯尼亚进口了价值59亿美元的中国商品，其中很大一部分是供中方修建的一条造价40亿美元的铁路所用的钢材和设备，而肯尼亚只向中国出口了9900万美元商品。
Mr Kenyatta, one of only two African leaders to attend this weekend’s Beijing forum of China’s flagship Belt and Road regional infrastructure programme, said ahead of the gathering: “Those of us there, representing Africa, will be pushing...to increase our trade into China.”
上周末，中国招牌性的地区基建计划“一带一路”(Belt and Road)的论坛在北京召开，肯雅塔是出席该论坛的仅有的两位非洲国家领导人之一。他在会前表示：“我们这些代表非洲出席的人，将力求……扩大我们的对华出口。”
Referring to concerns in parts of Africa that China was recreating colonial trading patterns by flooding the continent with manufactured goods, extracting raw materials and gobbling up construction contracts, Mr Kenyatta said that Beijing was “beginning to appreciate that, if their win-win strategy is going to work, it must mean that, just as Africa opens up to China, China must also open up to Africa”.
当谈及对中国正在非洲部分地区重现殖民地贸易模式、在这块大陆倾销制成品、攫取原材料、抢夺建设合同的担忧时，肯雅塔表示，北京方面已“开始认识到这一点，如果他们的双赢战略想要奏效，就必然意味着，正如非洲向中国开放一样，中国也必须向非洲开放”。
Under its Belt and Road initiative, China is seeking to refashion the ancient Silk Road linking Asia with Europe and Africa, including Kenya on the Indian Ocean coast. China overtook the US as Africa’s biggest trading partner in 2009.
依托“一带一路”倡议，中国正试图重塑将亚洲与欧洲和非洲连接起来的古“丝绸之路”，位于印度洋沿岸的肯尼亚也在这条路上。中国在2009年超越美国成为非洲的最大贸易伙伴。
Mr Kenyatta said Kenya intended to emulate Ethiopia by inviting Chinese manufacturers to the country. As Chinese wages rise, African leaders see attracting jobs in labour-intensive industries such as textiles, shoes and agro-processing as one way of tackling the trade imbalance.
肯雅塔表示，肯尼亚打算效仿埃塞俄比亚，邀请中国制造商来肯尼亚。随着中国人的工资水平升高，非洲国家领导人认为，将劳动密集型行业——如纺织业、制鞋业和农产品加工业——的工作岗位吸引到非洲是解决非中贸易不平衡的一个办法。
Mr Kenyatta said the establishment of special economic zones, modelled on China and built close to new, mostly Chinese-built, transport links, was “critical for job creation in Kenya”.
肯雅塔说，在新的交通运输网（主要由中国人修建）附近建立中国式的经济特区“对肯尼亚的就业创造至关重要”。
The president denied Kenya was taking on too much Chinese debt to finance what critics have suggested are white elephant projects that will never pay for themselves. His government borrowed $3.6bn for the Mombasa-Nairobi leg of a new rail line, due to open next month, which Mr Kenyatta said would eventually extend to Uganda, Rwanda and even the Atlantic coast in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
肯雅塔否认肯尼亚向中国借了太多的钱来建设永远收不回投资的“面子工程”。他的政府为修建蒙巴萨-内罗毕铁路借了36亿美元。蒙内铁路定于下月开通，它是一条新铁路线的组成部分，肯雅塔表示该线最终将延伸至乌干达、卢旺达乃至大西洋沿岸的刚果民主共和国。
“We believe strongly that infrastructural development is what is going to help us open up east Africa, open up the continent to trade and investment,” he said. “Our debt is all towards investment — investment that should have been made a long time back,” he said, adding that debt was still at a “very sustainable level”.
他说：“我们坚信，基础设施发展将有助于我们敞开东非、敞开非洲大陆的大门迎接贸易和投资。我们借的钱全都用作投资了，用作老早就应该做的投资。”他还表示，债务规模仍处于“非常可持续的水平”。
On Mr Kenyatta’s watch, since 2013, debt has risen from 40 per cent to 53 per cent of gross domestic product. And critics say that ratio is flattered by the fact that Kenya’s GDP jumped by a quarter when it was recalculated in 2014. “We’ll find ourselves so indebted to China we will be beholden to them not only economically but politically,” said Patrick Lumumba, director of the Kenya School of Law.
自肯雅塔于2013年上台以来，肯尼亚的债务与国内生产总值(GDP)之比已从40%升到53%。而且批评者称，这一比例还是“美颜”后的结果，因为2014年肯尼亚的GDP经过重新计算后激增了四分之一。肯尼亚法学院(Kenya School of Law)院长帕特里克卢蒙巴(Patrick Lumumba)表示：“我们会发觉自己欠中国太多，我们将不仅在经济上欠他们的，在政治上也欠。”
