Xin: Well I think discussion is going on and I have heard a very live discussion about it. Indeed, there are people talking about China already big, why don’t you just grow up? I think we want to grow up, we don’t wanna be dwarf and underdeveloped all the time. But it depends on how you define developing country, right?
If you look at the overall size of the Chinese economy, yes we are very big. But don't forget we have 1.4 billion people, that is over three times population of the United States. But when it comes down to per capita GDP, we are less than 1/6 of that of the United States and even less than some other more developed countries.
It’s a very complicated issue, because as I said it’s very small, but overall it’s very big.
We can do a lot of big things, and people are looking upon us to do a lot more around the world.
So I think we are doing that, we’re contributing to the United Nations, we’re the world’s biggest contributor to the UN peace keeping commissions, we’re giving out donations and humanitarian aids. Because we know we have to grow up and Trish, thank you for the reminder.
好的,我认为讨论正在进行中,我已经听到了关于这个话题的非常生动的讨论。事实上,有很多人说中国已经很大了,你们为什么就不能成长起来呢?我认为我们也想要成长,我们也不想一直低人一等、不够发达。但是这要取决于你如何定义发展中国家,对吗?
从如果你观察中国经济的整体规模,那么没错,我们体量很大。但不要忘了,我们还有14亿人民,是美国人口的三倍。但是,由人均GDP来看,我们还不到美国的1/6,跟其他更发达的国家比起来就更少了。
这是一个非常复杂的问题,因为我说了中国的人均GDP很低,但总体经济规模非常大。
我们可以做成很多伟大的事情,人民期待我们在世界各地做更多的事情。
所以我认为我们正在这要做,我们正在为联合国做贡献,我们是世界上为联合国维和任务贡献最多的国家,我们积极捐款,参与人道主义援助。因为我们知道我们必须“长大”,也谢谢你的提醒。
Regan: Let’s get to the tariffs, I’ve seen some of your commentaries too, and Xin I appreciated it you think China could lower some of it’s tariffs. I watch to see that and I totally agree with you. In 2016, the average tariff charged on the American goods in China was 9.9%, and that was nearly three times what the US was charging, so what do you say about this?
让我们来聊聊关税。我也看过了一些你的评论,我很感谢你认为中国应该降低关税。我拭目以待,而且完全同意你的观点。2016年,中国对美国商品征收的平均关税是9.9%,差不多是美国所征收的三倍。你怎么看待这个问题?
Xin: I think that would be a wonderful idea, I mean don’t you think? I mean for American consumers, products from China will be even cheaper, and for consumers in China, products from US will be so much cheaper too. I think that will be wonderful idea.
You talked about rule-based order, this is the thing, if you want to change the rules, it has to be done in mutual consensus, basically, if you talk about tariffs, it is not only about China and US, I understand, if you lower tariffs just between China and the Unites States, the Europeans will come, the Japanese will come, the Venezuelans will probably come and say, hey, we want the same tariff. But you can’t discriminate between countries, so it’s a very complicated settlement to reach.
When the world agreed on the tariff reduction China should commit to……was exactly the result of years of difficult negotiations of the United States saw in its interests and decided to what degree they can agree, or to what degree they can lower their tariff, and China agreed to, although in some difficulties, lower our tariff considerably, it is all the decisions of countries according to their own self interests, now things are different.
20 years later, what are we going to do? Maybe these old rules need to be changed. Let’s talk about it, let’s do it according to the rules. If you don’t like the rules, let’s change the rules, but again, it must be a multilateral decision.
我认为这是个很好的主意,你不觉得吗?我的意思是,对于美国消费者而言,来自中国的商品会更便宜了,而对于中国的消费者而言,来自美国的商品也会便宜得多。我认为这会是个很棒的主意。
你谈到了基于规则的系统,基于规则的秩序,这就是问题所在。如果你想要改变规则,那必须是建立在双向共识之上。从基本上说,如果你要谈关税,那就不仅仅是中国和美国之间的问题。我明白,如果你只降低中美之间的关税,那么欧洲国家会跑过来,日本会跑过来,委内瑞拉或许也会跑过来,然后说:喂,我们也想要一样的关税。你不能区别对待不同的国家,所以这是一个非常复杂、难以解决的问题。
全球各国也是经过了艰难的协商才决定关税降低的幅度。期间美国也是根据自己的利益,决定在多大程度上同意或者在多大程度上决定他们可以做些什么。尽管中国面临一些困难,但依然同意大幅降低关税,这本来就是各国根据自己的利益所做的决定。现在,事情不一样了。
20年后,我们应该怎么做?或许旧有的规则需要改变。让我们坐下来沟通、根据规则行事。如果你不喜欢现在的规则,那让我们来改变规则。但我需要再重申一遍,这必须是一个多边的决定。