今年全球经济顺风不多，逆风却不少。两场大型地区战争正在扰乱各地的价格和供应链。企业和消费者正感受到严重能源冲击的影响。通胀上升让政府为债务融资的成本大幅增加。中美在贸易问题上剑拔弩张。
Not much has gone right for the global economy this year, and plenty has gone wrong. Two big regional wars are destabilising prices and supply chains everywhere. Businesses and consumers are feeling the effects of a serious energy shock. Rising inflation has made it a lot more expensive for governments to finance their debts. China and the US are at loggerheads over trade.
然而，迄今为止，冲击尚属温和。聚集在曼谷出席今年国际货币基金组织（IMF）年会的各国财长和央行行长，不必应对全面爆发的危机，这简直有点像奇迹。这不像2008年秋天，当时会议召开正值全球银行业崩盘最严重之际。
Yet, so far, the impact has been modest. It is something of a miracle that the finance ministers and central bank governors gathered for this year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Bangkok are not having to deal with a full-blown crisis. This is not like the autumn of 2008, when the meetings took place during the worst of the global banking meltdown.
IMF说各国在应对如此多逆风时表现出了韧性，这是对的。情况本可能更糟，糟得多。对英国甚至传来了一些好消息，IMF上调了其今年增长预测，并称赞政府的削减赤字计划。
The IMF is right when it says countries have shown resilience when having to cope with so many headwinds. It could have been worse. A lot worse. There was even some good news for the UK, with the IMF upgrading its growth forecast for this year and praising the government for its deficit-reduction plan.
全球经济表现优于预期，打破了历史惯例。过去，自伊朗战争爆发以来所见规模的石油冲击，都会产生显著且即时的影响，但这次增长保持强劲、通胀压力相对温和，有三个关键原因。
The better-than-expected performance of the global economy breaks with historical precedent. In the past, oil shocks of the magnitude witnessed since the start of Iran war have had a marked and immediate impact, but there are three key reasons why growth has remained robust and inflationary pressure has been muted this time.
首先是人工智能发展方面的巨额投资。这在美国尤为重要，美国在七国集团主要发达经济体中年增速最快，且领先优势明显。其次是各国动用石油储备，这有助于缓解中东原油供应的损失。如果石油储备没有被动用，油价将会上涨得更为剧烈。第三是中国的经济战略依赖于向世界其他地区出口廉价商品，这正在压低其他地区进口商品的价格。
The first is the massive amount of investment in the development of artificial intelligence. This has been particularly important in the US, which is comfortably the fastest growing member of the G7 group of major developed economies year on year. The second is that countries have drawn on inventories of oil, and that has helped to alleviate the loss of crude from the Middle East. Had stockpiles not been run down, oil prices would have risen even more sharply. The third is that China’s economic strategy relies on exporting cheap goods to the rest of the world, and this is bearing down on the prices of imports elsewhere.
尽管如此，麻烦的潜在导火索无处不在。中东局势正在恶化，冲突已蔓延至沙特阿拉伯。石油库存正在减少，而特朗普已将美国拖入他过去曾强烈反对的那种永久战争。廉价中国商品的弊端在于，它们正威胁西方的制造业就业，德国尤其脆弱。
All that said, the potential flashpoints for trouble are everywhere. The situation in the Middle East is deteriorating, with the conflict spreading to Saudi Arabia. Oil stocks are running low and Donald Trump has got the US into just the sort of forever war that he used to rail against. The downside to cheap Chinese goods is that they are threatening manufacturing jobs in the west, with Germany especially vulnerable.
与此同时，美国在人工智能方面的巨额投资推高了借贷成本，并导致非人工智能部门出现资本短缺。政府面临压力，需要控制支出或增加税收，希望通过削减预算赤字的努力给债券市场留下好印象。
Meanwhile, massive US investment in AI has pushed up the cost of borrowing and resulted in shortages of capital for non-AI sectors. Governments are coming under pressure to rein in spending or raise taxes in the hope that bond markets will be impressed by their efforts to cut budget deficits.
国际货币基金组织总裁克里斯塔利娜·格奥尔基耶娃和英格兰银行行长安德鲁·贝利（以及其他一些人）发出警告，强调在此时需要更紧密地管理财政，而选民希望政治家多做事而不是少做事。对新一轮紧缩政策几乎没有兴趣，财政部长们也清楚这一点。如果他们坚持强硬表态并实际推行痛苦的措施，反弹很可能会非常激烈。
Warnings from (among others) the head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, and the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, of the need to run a tighter fiscal ship come at a time when voters want politicians to do more, not less. There is little appetite for a new era of austerity, and finance ministers know it. If they follow through on the tough talk and actually deliver painful measures, the backlash is likely to be brutal.
正如政府面临的另一个大问题是：在全球供应链紧张脆弱的时刻，提升国家自给自足的必要性。印度和法国的学生抗议凸显了各国政府被迫干预的压力。然而，各国政府有效行动的能力远比他们愿意承认的要弱得多。
Just as big a problem for governments is the need – at a time when global supply chains are stretched and fragile – to boost national self-sufficiency. The student protests in India and France highlight the pressures on states to intervene. Yet the capacity of states to act effectively is much weaker than they care to admit.
在全球化倒退之际，需要一个强有力的多边合作体系来应对压力。但事实并非如此。在这个保护主义抬头的新时代，世界贸易组织已经濒临死亡；而国际货币基金组织和世界银行又不愿指出特朗普的反复无常行为。
At a time when globalisation is in retreat, there is a need for a strong system of multilateral cooperation to cope with the strains. That is not currently the case. The World Trade Organization is moribund in this new age of protectionism, and the IMF and the World Bank are reluctant to call Trump out for his erratic behaviour.
然而，认为新美国总统上任就会迎来新伙伴关系繁荣的想法是不切实际的。多边主义的问题远比这更深层次。国际货币基金组织和世界银行自二战结束以来一直主导的自由世界秩序，早在特朗普上任之前就已经失灵。
Yet the idea that a new era of partnership will flower when there is a new US president is for the birds. The problems of multilateralism run far deeper than that. The liberal world order that the IMF and World Bank have presided over since the end of the second world war was dysfunctional long before Trump arrived in office.
正如前联合国官员理查德·科祖尔-赖特在下个月发表的一篇论文中指出的那样，国际货币基金组织（IMF）和世界银行——这两个机构诞生于1944年的布雷顿森林会议——虽然仍在运作，但它们已经与82年前《新政》所确立的原则脱节：即国家干预经济运行、推行积极的产业政策、追求充分就业以及帮助贫困国家发展。“相反，近几十年来，它们推行了一套鼓励资本自由流动、支持（并保护）私人利润、同时压缩政府政策空间的议程。结果，它们成了不平等加剧、债务危机频发和焦虑情绪高涨时代的帮凶。”
As the former UN official Richard Kozul-Wright points out in a paper published next month, the IMF and World Bank – created at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference – may still be operational but they have lost their connection to the New Deal principles laid out 82 years ago: state intervention in the running of economies, active industrial policy, the pursuit of full employment and help for poor countries to develop. “Instead, they have in recent decades pursued an agenda which encourages footloose capital, bolsters (and protects) private profit, and reduces the policy space available to governments. As a result, they have acted as hand maidens to an age of rising inequality, debt distress and heightened anxiety.”
对于寻求财政援助的国家而言，IMF自身的援助计划恰恰印证了科祖尔-赖特关于政策空间受限的观点。援助总是附带条件：要求增税和削减开支，且这些措施必须前置执行——一半的措施要在第一年落实，三分之二则要在两年内完成。
The IMF’s own programmes for countries that come looking for financial assistance illustrate Kozul-Wright’s point about the lack of policy space. Help comes with strings attached: an insistence on tax increases and spending cuts that are frontloaded so that half the measures are implemented in the first year and two-thirds within two years.
IMF辩称，这种“严酷之爱”更有可能成功，尽管他们对“成功”的定义十分有限，主要指借款国在未来三年内不再需要IMF的新一轮援助计划。但这并不意味着生活水平在改善，也不意味着贫困人口在减少。
The IMF argues that this “tough love” has a higher chance of success, although its view of what constitutes success is limited, and primarily means that a borrowing country doesn’t need another IMF programme in the next three years. It doesn’t mean living standards are improving or that fewer people are in poverty.
显然，回归《新政》原则将大有裨益。这意味着各国政府将拥有更大的政策空间，能够制定符合自身需求的战略；意味着公共投资将得到提振；意味着将出台一项新的“马歇尔计划”，帮助较贫穷的国家应对气候危机；也意味着将采取切实行动解决债务危机。但坦率地说，这些短期内都不可能实现。因此，世界将变得更加炎热、更加分裂、更容易爆发冲突、更加不平等，也充满更强烈的愤怒。
Clearly it would help to return to New Deal principles. It would mean governments had more policy space to develop strategies tailored to their own needs. It would mean a boost to public investment. It would mean a new Marshall plan to help poorer countries cope with the climate crisis. It would mean a serious attempt to tackle debt distress. But, in all honesty, none of that has a chance of happening any time soon. As a result, the world will become hotter, more fractured, more prone to conflict, less equal and a lot angrier.
IMF 担心这种韧性的极限可能很快就会受到考验，这种担心是正确的。中东若实现和平，油价将大幅下跌，但若不能很快实现，漫长的冬天就在前方等待。这更像是危机的推迟而非永久避免。很可能是暴风雨前的宁静。拉里·埃利奥特是《卫报》专栏作家。
The IMF is worried that the limits of this resilience may soon be tested, and it is right to be worried. Peace in the Middle East would bring oil prices tumbling down, but unless that happens quickly a long winter lies ahead. This looks more like a crisis postponed than a crisis permanently avoided. A lull before the storm, in all probability. Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist