新聞翻譯 - TIME - The Importance of Pork in China

The Importance of Pork in China

豬肉對中國的重要性

Chinese government statistics are a black box, but one economic indicator you can always count on to reflect reality is demand for pork.Pork is so ubiquitous in the Middle Kingdom that the word for it is the same as meat. And as the Chinese have gotten richer, they’ve eaten a lot more of it – as exemplified by this week’s $7 billion offer from China’s largest meat processor, Shuanghui International, to acquire Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer. The Chinese middle class is predicted to triple in size to 630 million people by 2022, according to a new study released by the China United States Exchange Foundation, and this new aspirational class wants meat, cars, better housing, more elaborate white goods – in short, all the things that the Western middle class wants.

中國政府的人口統計是個黑盒子，但豬肉需求是能反映現實且值得信賴的經濟指標。 豬肉在中國普便到所謂的肉字指的就是豬肉，隨著中國越來越富裕，他們越吃越多，一個例子便是這禮拜中國最大肉類製造商 – 雙匯國際花七十億併購了Smithfield Foods，全球最大的豬肉商。 根據海峽交流基金會公佈新研究指出，中國中產階級預計將在2022年翻三倍到達六億三千萬人， 而這股成長中的人潮想要肉、車、更好的房子、更多精緻的家電，簡單的說，那些西方中產階級想要的東西。

This presents some incredibly opportunities for direct investment into the U.S., as cash-rich Chinese firms look to ramp up acquisitions of Western companies. At less than $2 billion a year, direct investment from China to the U.S. is miniscule relative to the sizes of either economy. Part of that is due to the fact that a number of recent Chinese acquisitions of U.S. firms have been blocked due to national security or anti-trust concerns.

這代表了一個相當難得可以投資美國的機會，因此手上現金滿滿的中國公司購併西方公司的現象逐漸升溫，中國每年對美國投資不到二十億元，相較於兩國的經濟來說都是微乎其微的，部分原因是由於近來中國併購美國公司的數量被國家安全或反壟斷法阻擋的關係。

While it’s hard to argue that bacon is a strategic asset, the Smithfield’s deal will certainly be put through the regulatory paces. Yet as Joe Nocera and I discussed on this week’s episode of WNYC’s Money Talking, it might also present an opportunity for the U.S. to force the Chinese to open up their own markets, in which state-owned firms have been playing a bigger role in recent years, and also to do their part to protect the intellectual property of American firms via a more robust legal system. These issues and many other economic challenges will surely be on table when President Obama and Chinese premier Xi Jinping meet next week in Los Angeles.

很難去爭論說培根到底是不是戰略性資產，不論如何，Smithfield併購案當然會經過監控的階段，Joe Nocera和我在這禮拜的WNYC’s Money Talking討論到，這也意味著一個美國逼迫中國打開其市場的機會，一個近年來國有企業佔據大多舞台的市場，也要透過更健壯的合法系統保護我們美國公司的人力資源。 這些議題與其他經濟挑戰將會在下禮拜美國總統歐巴馬與中國總書記習近平在洛杉磯會面時被搬上檯面。