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At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week there were so many exhibitors from China — a third of the 4,500 total — some delegates joked that CES now stands for “China Electronics Show”.
上周在拉斯维加斯举办的“消费电子展”（Consumer Electronics Show，简称CES）上有很多来自中国的参展商——总数4500家中占了三分之一——一些代表开玩笑说，CES现在成了“中国电子展”(China Electronics Show)的缩写了。
Through its upstream position in the supply chain, the country has a long-established role in global tech. But it is no longer a mere supplier of components or assembler of the devices on display at shows like CES. Chinese tech companies are increasingly winning with their own products. Shenzhen-based DJI is the dominant global producer of drones. GoPro, which relied on contract manufacturers in China, has just grounded its last drone model, the unfortunately named Karma.
由于其在供应链上游的地位，中国在全球科技领域中的角色早就根深蒂固。但在CES等展览上，中国已不再只是参展产品零部件的供应商或设备的组装者。中国的科技企业正日益凭借自身的产品取胜。深圳大疆创新科技有限公司(DJI)是全球最大的无人机制造商。依赖中国代工制造商的GoPro最近决定停止销售其最新款无人机——名字不太吉利的Karma（含有因果报应的意思——译者注）。
Yet the value in tech these days is increasingly in services and content, not devices themselves. Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have a combined market value of $2.8tn, far exceeding any pure hardware seller.
然而，如今科技的价值越来越多地体现在服务和内容上，而不是设备本身。谷歌(Google)、苹果(Apple)、Facebook及亚马逊(Amazon)的合计市值为2.8万亿美元，远远超过任何纯硬件销售商。
Here, too, China is catching up. Chinese internet leaders Tencent and Alibaba have a combined valuation of $1tn. Add in another $200bn or so for Baidu, JD.com and Netease plus other listed or unlisted companies, such as Toutiao, Meituan and Didi, and the scale of the Chinese market becomes apparent. Trends emerging in China are beginning to shape the future of the global tech landscape. To its dominant role in the supply chain we can now add a “demand chain” aspect to the country.
在服务和内容方面，中国也在迎头赶上。中国的互联网巨头腾讯(Tencent)与阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的估值合计有1万亿美元。再加上百度(Baidu)、京东(JD.com)和网易(Netease)以及其他上市或非上市的公司，包括头条(Toutiao)、美团(Meituan)和滴滴(Didi)等，这些企业的估值加起来也有2000亿美元左右，中国市场的规模是显而易见的。中国正在兴起的一些趋势正开始塑造未来全球科技的格局。除了其在供应链上的主导地位，我们如今也需要从“需求链”方面来看待这个国家。
US tech titans are already global companies. But Chinese companies are just beginning to look abroad. The week before last week, ride-sharing business Didi acquired 99 in Brazil, crimping fellow group Uber’s prospects in the country. Both Alibaba and Tencent are investing significant sums in India, ramping up pressure on Amazon.
美国科技巨头都已经是全球性企业了。但中国的企业才刚刚开始将目光投向海外。上上周，共享出行企业滴滴收购了巴西的网约车企业99，势必影响竞争对手优步(Uber)在该国的发展前景。阿里巴巴和腾讯都在印度大举投资，给亚马逊造成越来越大的压力。
Not that China itself is short of growth. Massive investments in mobile broadband and a highly competitive handset market means that nearly all of China’s approximately 750m internet users use smartphones. Payments via QR codes, led by Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay, are making cash obsolete. Dockless bikes line the streets of Chinese cities. The country’s physical infrastructure — roads, high-speed trains and airports — are facilitating as big a boost to consumption as President Eisenhower’s roll out of the Interstate Highway System in the US in the 1950s.
并不是说中国本身缺乏增长。由于在移动宽带上的巨额投资和竞争激烈的手机市场，中国约7.5亿的互联网用户几乎都在使用智能手机。由腾讯微信(WeChat)及阿里巴巴支付宝(Alipay)引领的二维码支付让现金显得过时。无桩自行车遍布中国城市街头。中国的实体基础设施——公路、高铁及机场——对消费的极大提振，与20世纪50年代艾森豪威尔总统在美国推动建设州际高速公路网络所起的作用旗鼓相当。
I have lived in Beijing for more than 20 years, yet only in the past year have I felt on returning to London or Silicon Valley that I’m going backwards in time. For urban residents, China is increasingly a study in frictionless living. Hopping on a bike, ordering a meal from a huge range of restaurants, paying for utilities, transferring money to friends — all can be done at the touch of a button. Internet services in the west offer increasing convenience no doubt — but nothing beats the experience in China.
我在北京住了20多年，然而过去一年中我才感到仿佛回到了我不时回去的伦敦或硅谷。对于城市居民来说，中国的无摩擦生活方式日益值得考察。骑上一辆单车，从一众餐馆中订餐，缴纳水电费，转账给朋友——只要点击一下按钮，这一切都可以完成。毫无疑问，西方的互联网服务提供了越来越多的便利——但没什么比得上在中国获得的体验。
Why such rapid growth? Intense competition between the country’s internet companies is one reason. The rapid embrace by Chinese consumers of the new is another: few cling to a past where shops were crowded, taxis hard to hail, banks a waiting room hell. Convenience is the new religion in China.
为什么中国的发展如此迅速？一来是由于中国互联网企业之间竞争激烈。二来是由于中国消费者能迅速接受新事物：很少有人执着过去的生活，那时的商店人满为患，在街上很难打到出租车，银行里等待办理业务的客户人山人海。如今在中国，便利成了人们所崇尚的新信条。
Critics contend that Chinese internet companies are merely hothouse flowers, thriving only as a result of the Great Firewall of China (GFC) acting as a greenhouse. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others are indeed blocked, making China’s modernity seem hollow at times.
评论家们认为中国的互联网公司不过是温室里的花朵，它们得以兴旺发展仅仅是因为有中国“防火长城”(Great Firewall of China)这座“温室”的庇佑。谷歌、Facebook、Twitter等海外互联网企业都被封锁了，这令中国的现代化有时显得很空洞。
Would tearing down the wall make any difference to the prospects for US internet companies? For Google, it could. Savvy internet users in China use virtual private networks (VPNs) to access its services; not so much for Facebook, however, as Tencent’s WeChat has essentially removed the need. Amazon is a bit player in China. By contrast, Apple has been hugely successful, its integrated hardware/content model generating billions of dollars a year.
那么拆除这堵墙会对美国互联网公司的前景产生影响吗？对谷歌来说会。中国的网络达人使用虚拟专用网络(VPN)访问谷歌；然而，对Facebook来说影响不会多大，因为腾讯的微信基本上已使其变得没有必要。亚马逊在中国市场是个小玩家。相比之下，苹果取得了巨大的成功，其将硬件与内容相融合的模式每年为苹果赚大量的钱。
In Washington, the drumbeat of protectionism is getting louder, blocking Huawei from selling phones to AT&T and Alibaba-affiliate Ant Financial from buying money transfer company MoneyGram. Security concerns are cited. Both governments have been involved in skulduggery in recent years to gather each other’s secrets, not to mention China’s targeting of corporate intellectual property in the US.
在华盛顿，保护主义的呼声越来越高，美国已禁止华为(Huawei)为AT&T供应手机，并否决了阿里巴巴的金融关联企业蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)收购美国汇款公司速汇金(MoneyGram)的交易。理由是出于安全考虑。近年来，中美两国政府为收集对方机密均不惜使出欺诈手段，更不用说中国对美国企业知识产权的觊觎了。
Erecting barriers to trade and investment is a risky move for the US. Chinese companies can help make technology more affordable in America, as it slips down the league of internet speeds and affordability. US tech companies need China’s scale to help make and deploy emerging technologies at home, as the recent deal between Facebook and Xiaomi for Oculus VR headsets shows.
对美国来说，设置贸易和投资壁垒是一项危险的举措。美国在互联网速度和资费方面的排名下滑，中国企业可以帮助提高技术在美国的可负担性。美国科技公司需要中国市场的规模来帮助将国内新兴的技术投入生产和应用，正如最近Facebook就与小米联手推出了Oculus VR头显设备。
As both countries look to artificial intelligence, China’s role as a living laboratory is even more important. Silicon Valley companies, including Google, which just announced an AI lab in Beijing, are well aware of this. Whether the US government, which is already restricting visas for qualified researchers, will help or hinder their innovations remains to be seen.
随着两国都开始着眼于人工智能的开发，作为“实验场”，中国的作用显得更加重要了。硅谷的企业清楚地意识到了这一点，包括刚刚在北京宣布成立人工智能实验室的谷歌。已在限制对研究人才发放签证的美国政府将帮助还是阻碍本国企业的创新仍有待观察。
The writer is chairman of BDA China and author of ‘Alibaba — The House That Jack Ma Built’
本文作者是北京博达克咨询公司(BDA China)的董事长，著有《阿里巴巴：马云的基业》(Alibaba — The House That Jack Ma Built)一书。
