20年前，北京豪华的五星级饭店每周都会举办各种与全球化有关的会议，与会人员提出的愿景是，全球化将加强世界各国的联系、消除贸易投资壁垒。茶歇期间，商界人士、会计师、投行专家和律师等聚在一起畅所欲言。大家都感到有一股无法抗拒的强大力量将进一步推动世界融合，使之成为整体。
Twenty years ago, the ritzy five-star hotels of Beijing were hosting conferences every week on globalization, holding out a promise it could bring us all together and that barriers on trade and investment would be coming down. Business people, accountants, investment bankers and lawyers crowded during coffee breaks, and we all felt the buzz of something bigger than us that would somehow make the world more integrated and whole.
中国政府官员会参与主持和外国商业领袖举行的小组讨论会。在他们描绘的蓝图中，中国将积极融入国际社会，而国际社会也将参与中国的发展和未来。没有人会料到，二十年后的今天，我们会在谈论中美脱钩，而推动脱钩的则是意欲逆全球化潮流而行的美国政府。
Chinese officials would take the stage in panel discussions with foreign business leaders, envisioning a future where China would be part of the global community, and that community would be participating in China's growth and future. Nobody could have possibly imagined 20 years later we would be talking about a China-U.S. decoupling, driven by a political administration in Washington that wants to deglobalize the world.
Where differences began
分歧初现
没错，二十年前人人都在探讨所谓的全球化。不过，那时候我们或许没有意识到全球化的真正涵义，也不知道全球化会如何发展。那时候，国内外专家几乎每周都要在北京召开商业、金融和技术会议。大家普遍认为，更紧密相连、更多样化的世界会让未来更美好。
Yes, 20 years ago everyone was talking about this thing called globalization. However, at the time maybe we did not realize what globalization would really mean, or how it would look as it evolved. It seemed almost every week we had a business, finance or technology conference in Beijing with world experts, foreign and Chinese alike, all promising a better future through a more connected world and more inclusive planet.
但是，每个人对全球化的理解可能不尽相同，于是便出现了分歧。彼时，大家对全球化的看法很简单——全球化意味着全球金融、资本市场将融为一体。在数字化传播技术的推动下，这种融合将有助于消除壁垒、促进理解，从而创造无限繁荣和持久和平。
However, everyone might not have had the same vision in mind, and this is where the differences began. At that time, the simplistic view was integration of global finance and capital markets, together with digital communication, would somehow bring down barriers and create more understanding, thus fostering unlimited prosperity and peace.
没有人会想到，二十年后我们将经历去全球化，而且其力度还有可能是史无前例的。当然，也没有人能预测到美国的深层政治势力会把互联网当作秘密工具用以盗窃个人资料，从而操纵算法和选举，煽动一波又一波仇恨、种族主义和愤怒情绪。这一切在此前是无法想象的。
Little did anybody realize, two decades later we would be living in a world of greater localization, maybe more so than ever before. It certainly wasn't easy to predict the Internet becoming the U.S. deep state's insidious tool for stealing personal data to manipulate algorithms and political elections, fanning the winds of hatred, racism and anger in a way previously inconceivable.
同样让人始料未及的是，美国会出现债台高筑的情况。其原因有很多：前所未有的国债回购，通过投资社交媒体平台、过度杠杆化释放流动性，人为支撑资本市场的繁荣，这些都有赖于美元的优势货币地位。
Equally unpredictable was the gargantuan debt accrued through unprecedented Treasury debt buybacks, issuing over-leveraged liquidity to artificially prop up capital markets by investing in social media platforms, made possible only by the supremacy of a single currency.
Where is all this going to take us?
何去何从？
一切都始于1999年。当时，时任美国总统克林顿废止了格拉斯—斯蒂格尔法案。该法案是二战后为了防止再次发生经济大萧条而颁布的。它将投行业务和商业银行业务划分开，以防止银行拿储户的存款进行投资或投机——这是引发1929年经济大萧条并导致二战接踵而来的关键原因。
It all began in 1999 when U.S. President Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, put in place after World War II to prevent another Great Depression. It separated banking from investment banking, preventing the banks from investing or gambling with people's deposits—a key factor that led to the Great Depression in 1929 and the war that followed.
上世纪九十年代以及接下来的十年时间好比二十世纪“咆哮的二十年代”。突然之间，企业的损益评估变得毫无意义，一切都是为了赢得市场份额。每家公司都希望比别人多占据市场份额，以推高公司股价。那时候，重要的是资本市场，而非实体业务。中国市场令人垂涎。
The 1990s and decade on were like the "Roaring Twenties" of the past century. Suddenly profit and loss evaluations of companies did not mean anything. It was all about market share. Every company wanted to claim a bigger market share than the other to kick up stock prices, as the capital market was what counted, not real business. China as a market looked delicious.
由于健忘，人类总是犯同样的错误。由于缺乏监管，金融行业再次醉心于搞金融衍生品、合成衍生品，人为制造出市场虚假繁荣，最终2008年的次贷危机引爆了金融市场。
Human memory is short. We make the same mistakes. Once again, with no restrictions applied, the financial sector went berserk with something called derivatives and then synthetic derivatives, creating an artificial market boom that crashed miserably in 2008 with the subprime mortgage crisis.
量化宽松、通过发债为市场注入流动性等手段再次制造出市场繁荣的假象，不断加杠杆则使得绝大多数美国家庭背负沉重的债务。这种政策始于小布什，在奥巴马当政期间得以延续，特朗普上台后愈演愈烈。
Quantitative easing or liquidity issued against debt created another market boom, and leverage on top of leverage, assuring the debt serfdom of most American households. The policy started under George W. Bush., continued under Barack Obama, spiked and then rocketed under Donald Trump.
A non-option
不得已的选择
正是在这种情况下，金融和大型高科技企业的结合得到了真正的巩固。科技企业依靠量化宽松提供的大量资金纷纷上市。此时，市场份额已不再是衡量企业价值的指标。要确保企业的价值，就必须抓人眼球，必须吸引更多人敲击键盘。所以，这时候最重要的是吸引人们多上网。脸书和推特正是靠这种方法发家。但是，中国企业家有自己的想法。
This is where the finance and big tech marriage really solidifies. Fast-forwarding beyond market share as a measurement of corporate value, the tech-listing boom financed through quantitative easing required eyeballs and clicks to assure the value of a company. So the game became getting people to bang on their keyboard. That worked for Facebook and Twitter, but Chinese entrepreneurs had some ideas of their own.
如果说吸引眼球的能力是衡量企业价值的指标，那在本土可以开发微博和微信等替代产品，从而使不公平的国际市场秩序有所改观的情况下，中国为什么还要将14亿消费者拱手让给脸书和推特呢？这正是冲突的真正根源所在。中美贸易战不是为了美国可以出口更多大豆，而是为了美国企业可以吸引更多注意力，让更多人敲击键盘。为了金融，为了可以不断加杠杆举债。如果这招棋输了，那么后布雷顿森林体系将跌入前所未有的大萧条。
Moreover, if eyeballs are the measure of corporate value, why should China just give away 1.4 billion of them to Facebook and Twitter when it can create alternatives like Weibo and WeChat and make the uneven playing field a bit more even? This was where conflict really began. The trade war is not about soybeans. It's about eyeballs, clicks, finance, and unsustainable debt leveraging, which if tipped, will sink the post-Bretton Woods system into the depths of a Great Depression like never before.
金融、技术垄断、军工复合体和深层政府之间诡秘的结合产生了一种新的治理体系。为了维持这种治理体系，他们制造社会压力、煽动民众的仇恨情绪。贸易和服务业急剧萎缩。一切都只围绕着一条原则——保持资本市场的资金充盈。具体做法是，把靠发债筹集的风险资金投入十多家垄断科技公司。而这些公司则编写程序，煽动仇恨，控制人们的思想、情绪和投票。
The insidious marriage between finance, tech monopolies, the military-industrial complex and deep state has created a new system of governance, assuring its sustainability by creating social stress and civil hatred. Trade and services are in free fall and everything functions around one principle—keeping the capital market pumped up, through debt-backed funny money investing in a dozen monopolistic tech companies that program hatred and control minds, emotions and votes.
但是，总有人不屑于这些公司出品的产品，而喜欢看更精彩的内容。这些人的思想和选票是无法左右的。现在大家开始明白，为什么特朗普、脸书共同创始人扎克伯格和美国深层政府容不下抖音和腾讯了吧？
But you cannot control the minds and votes of people not looking at your stuff because there is better stuff to look at. Now are you beginning to understand why Trump, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and the deep state don't like TikTok and Tencent?
并非所有人都追捧美国模式。问题也由此产生。位于地球另一端的中国一直在开发尖端的智能基础设施，利用绿色金融促进城市环境修复，逐渐从化石燃料发电转向绿色能源发电。中国希望把大数据应用于医疗保健，疫情防控以及旨在支持绿色能源发展的电网转型。
Not everyone wants the American model. That is where problems begin. China, on the other side of the planet, has been developing cutting-edge smart infrastructure using green finance for urban environmental repair, and switching the grid from fossil fuels to green energy. It wants to apply big data toward healthcare, pandemic control and prevention, and grid switching to support green energy.
中国也希望，能在贸易和服务业领域与他国，尤其是面临相似挑战的发展中国家，建立真正的业务关系。因此，中国首先要消除国内贫困并和他国分享相关经验。很多发展中国家都认为，世界上没有“放之四海皆准”的发展模式，需要推动超越意识形态的、务实的、相互融合又相互尊重的发展模式。
It also wants to build real trading and service business relations with other countries, particularly developing ones facing similar challenges. This means prioritizing an end to poverty at home and sharing such approaches worldwide. There are many developing nations who see the need for un-ideological, pragmatic, integrated but mutually respectful development processes, recognizing one model does not fit all.
中国从未想要与美国脱钩。脱钩，是自诩最高领导人的特朗普强加给中国的。除了应对，中国别无选择。除中国外，很多国家都在被迫与美国脱钩。多年来，各国为促进全球一体化付出了大量心血。因此，脱钩着实让人难受。
For China, decoupling from the U.S. is not a choice. It has been pushed on China as a non-option by self-styled supreme leader Trump. Decoupling is also being forced upon many other nations. It is discomforting, given all that has been done to integrate the world up to now.
在一体化的全球贸易环境下，本没有脱钩的理由。在本质上，这种脱钩进程和上世纪的冷战时期类似，会把我们推向另一场冷战。一旦发生冷战，就会有引发热战的潜在风险。
There is no reason in an integrated global trade environment to decouple. The nature of this decoupling process mirrors another era in the past century, leading us into another cold war with the dangerous potential to become hot.
如今，我们生活在一个分化的世界。将来，地球上会存在两个世界。其中一个世界将建立在多边主义、多元文化和务实主义等政策基础上；另一个世界将建立在单边主义、单一文化、宗教神学和意识形态的原则上。
We are now living in a bifurcated world. In the future, there will be two worlds. One world will be built on the policies of multilateralism, multiculturalism and pragmatism. Another will be built on the principles of unilateralism, monoculture, theology and ideology.
引领其中一个世界的是“一带一路”倡议、5G、生态文明、扶贫以及人类命运共同体等理念；而另一个世界强调的是美元优势地位，大型科技企业垄断和“美国优先”。在后一个体系下，化石燃料的使用不断增加，贫困继续蔓延。这就是当下世界，一个分化的世界。
One system will be working with policies like the Belt and Road Initiative, 5G, ecological civilization, poverty alleviation and the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity. One system will be focused on dollar supremacy, big-tech monopoly, fossil fuel promotion, continued spreading of poverty, and a vision of "America First." This is how our bifurcated world now looks.
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来源 / 北京周报
美编 / 曦嘉
