China has agreed to eliminate a wide range of subsidies¹ for its exporters following a US complaint to the World Trade Organisation². The move came in a bilateral³ agreement between the two governments that ended a dispute that had lasted more than a year.

在美国向世界贸易组织(WTO)提起申诉后，中国已经同意取消其向出口企业提供的多种补贴。两国政府为此达成了一项双边协议，结束持续一年多的一场纠纷。

Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative, announced the deal on Thursday, calling it “a win for Americans employed in seven diverse sectors⁴ that run the gamut⁵ from agriculture to textiles”.

美国贸易代表迈克尔•弗罗曼(Michael Froman)周四宣布这项协议，称其“对于在从农业到纺织品的7个不同行业受雇的美国人是一个胜利”。

The US challenge, launched in February 2015, took issue with incentives⁶ for Chinese exporters in seven sectors: textiles, apparel and footwear; advanced materials and metals; light industry; specialty⁷ chemicals; medical products; hardware and building materials; and agriculture.

美国在2015年2月向中国发难，针对中国在7个行业向本国出口企业提供的激励。这些行业是：纺织、服装和鞋类；先进材料和金属；轻工业；特种化学品；医疗产品；五金建材；以及农业。

The EU, Japan and Brazil later joined the complaint over what China calls “demonstration⁸ bases”, or industrial clusters that receive government subsidies in return for meeting export targets. US officials spotlighted⁹ 179 such clusters after uncovering what they labelled illegal subsidies during an earlier WTO case over auto¹⁰ parts. To ferret out the details, US investigators¹¹ pored over more than 5,000 pages of Mandarin-translated government documents from Beijing.

欧盟、日本和巴西后来加入了针对中国所称的“示范基地”（接受政府补贴以达到出口目标的产业集群）的申诉。美国官员们列出了179个这样的产业集群，此前他们在一起围绕汽车零部件的WTO案件中发现了他们所称的非法补贴。为了深挖细节，美国调查人员仔细研究了5000多页从中文翻译过来的中国政府文件。

Though China is attempting to pivot¹² from its reliance upon exports to a greater focus on domestic consumption, exporters enjoy an array of benefits that the US said were prohibited under WTO rules. They included cash grants and free or discounted services for designated enterprises.

尽管中国正试图从依赖出口转向更加注重国内消费，但出口企业仍享受着一系列优惠，而美国认为这些优惠在WTO规则下是被禁止的。它们包括面向指定企业的现金补助和免费或优惠服务。

Trade with China has featured in the 2016 presidential campaign with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump¹³ regularly lambasting Beijing for taking unfair advantage of American companies. Last year, the US ran up a $366bn trade deficit¹⁴. So far this year, the deficit is running more than 10 per cent ahead of last year’s pace.

对华贸易成了2016年美国总统大选中的一个重要话题，共和党总统竞选领跑者唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)经常猛轰北京方面不公平地占美国企业的便宜。去年美国贸易赤字达到3660亿美元。今年迄今美国贸易赤字同比高出逾10%。

Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the accord would do little to reshape trade flows. “It’s not going to make any great difference,” he said, adding that it might shave as little as $5bn from the yawning deficit.

华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)贸易专家加里•赫夫鲍尔(Gary Hufbauer)表示，该协议将无助于重塑贸易流动。“它不会带来任何大的改变，”他表示。他补充说，它可能只会使不断攀升的美国贸易赤字降低50亿美元。

The concessions¹⁵ come as the US and Europe threaten to withhold¹⁶ “market economy status” from China, which would allow Chinese goods to be judged against prevailing¹⁷ prices in China when dumping cases are brought. Without the designation, Chinese companies accused of dumping may be measured against prices in third countries that are almost always higher. The terms of China’s accession to the WTO say that China should be granted the status in 15 years, which falls in December of this year.

中国作出这一让步之际，美国和欧洲威胁不承认中国的“市场经济地位”，市场经济地位将使中国产品在反倾销案件中按照中国的现行价格得到评判。若没有这一地位，被指倾销的中国企业可能被与第三国的价格进行比较，其结果几乎肯定是第三国的价格更高。根据中国加入WTO的条款，中国应该在加入15年后（即今年12月）被授予市场经济地位。

The agreement to withdraw the subsidies also comes as Beijing acknowledges the degree of excess industrial capacity that has been constructed over the past 15 years, in sectors ranging from metals or coal to consumer goods. Chinese planners are now worried that mills and factories built with subsidies and bank loans are destroying margins¹⁸ and making it more difficult to tackle a pile of debt that is weighing on economic performance.

同意取消补贴之际，北京方面还承认过去15年里中国在金属、煤炭、消费者产品等行业发展了严重过剩的产能。中国的规划者们现在担心，当年依靠补贴和银行贷款建成的大批工厂，正在摧毁利润率，并加大了应对一大堆正在拖累经济表现的债务的难度。