外刊经贸知识选读 课 带中文翻译 (8).doc

旺旺英语Lesson 8Here Comes Korea, Inc.Like Japan in the 1960s, the old “Hermit Kingdom” is poised for将迎来 an assault 冲击on the worlds markets像20世纪60年代的日本一样，一个古老的“闭关自守的国家”已准备好向世界市场发起冲击。The ritual begins shortly after dawn. As the early morning light filters through the windows of Lucky-Goldstars towering corporate headquarters in Seoul, Koo Cha-Kyung, chairman of the $8 billion conglomerate, issues instructions that echo around the world. In Huntsville, Ala., 200 factory workers are producing a million Goldstar color televisions yearly. In Californias Silicon Valley Koos white-frocked research scientists delve into the mysteries of state-of-the-art semiconductor technology. In Jubail, Saudi Arabia, the company is putting the final touches on a sprawling new petrochemical complex. It is an impressive display of global reach, and a harbinger of things to come. As one of Koos lieutenants puts it: “Our future lies in becoming a truly global company.”黎明后，仪式开始。当晨光透过汉城乐喜金星公司高耸的总部大厦的窗户时，这家拥有80亿美元资本的跨行业公司董事长具滋暻向全世界发布了引起反响的指示。在阿拉巴马州的亨茨维尔，200名产业工人每年生产100万台“金星”彩电。在加利福尼亚的硅谷，身着白色工装的研究人员在探索目前最先进的半导体技术的秘密。在沙特阿拉伯的著拜尔，该公司正在进行一个新的宠大石油化学企业的最后试验。这充分显示了其全球的势力范围，也是即发生的许多事情的预兆。正如具滋暻的一名下属所言：“我们的未来就是成为一个真正的全球性公司。”For South Korea as a whole, that seems as much a prophecy as an ambition. Like Japan in the 1960s, the country is poised for an assault on the worlds export markets. Its surging $81 billion economy is churning out a flood of increasingly sophisticated products, from shoes, toys and telephones to video recorders and microprocessors. Koreas mighty conglomerates dominate Middle East construction, and they command key shares of the worlds shipbuilding, textile and steel industries. Their affiliates, joint ventures and subsidiaries girdle the globe, stretching from Australia, Indonesia and India to Norway, Spain and Gabon, Hyundai and Daewoo, with annual sales of $10 billion and $6 billion respectively, are pushing into the U.S. auto market, riveting the attention of American and Japanese manufacturers. Another colossus, the $9 billion Samsung, has started marketing a “super-tech” 256K computer chipencouraging some Koreans to speak confidently of the day when they will become the worlds second largest manufacturer of basic electronic components, outstripping America and running just behind Japan.对整个韩国来说，那似乎不仅是个预言，也是个理想；像20世纪60年代的日本一样，这个国家准备向世界出口市场发起攻击。它迅速崛起的规模达810亿美元的经济体正大量生产越来越先进的产品，从鞋、玩具和电话到录像机和微处理器无所不包。韩国实力雄厚的跨行业公司支配着中东地区的建筑业，并控制着世界造船业、纺织业和钢铁工业的主要份额。这些公司的附属企业、合资公司和子公司遍布全球，从澳大利亚、印度尼西亚、印度到挪威、西班牙和加蓬都有；年销售额分别为100亿美元和60亿美元的现代公司和大宇公司正在进入美国的汽车市场，这引起了美国和日本厂商的注意。另外一个大企业，年销售额90亿美元的三星公司，已开始推销一种“超高科” 256K计算机芯片这使一些韩国人自信他们有一天将超过美国，成为仅次于日本的世界上第二大基础电子元件生产国。Might: Korea, once known as the “Hermit Kingdom,” is plainly on the move. As with “Japan, Inc.” before it, the new label “Korea, Inc.” may be no more than a trendy buzzword. But South Korea aims to forge just such a national economic machine, using the might of its established giants backed by centralized planners who can mobilize- the countrys banks and industrial infrastructure. The heady dreams of actually rivaling Japan may never come within reach; Koreas economy, while large by Asian standards, is barely one-fifteenth the size of its island neighbor. And it faces a gantlet of other obstacles, ranging from an unwieldy bureaucracy and a volatile political climate to a chronic shortage of investment capital and heavy commitments to military spending. Still, the comparisons with Japan, Inc. are more than empty flattery; in fact, they signal Koreas gathering clout.力量：曾被称为“隐士王国”的韩国正在阔步前行。可能“韩国公司”会像此前的“日本公司”一样仅仅是一个时髦词。但韩国的目的就是利用其地位稳固的大企业的力量来建成强大的国家经济机器，而大企业又都是由那些能动员国家银行和工业基础设施的中央集权的计划者所支持的。实际上那种可与日本媲美的梦想或许永远也无法实现；以亚洲的标准来衡量，韩国的经济规模不算小，但仅是其岛国邻居日本经济规模的十五分之一。而且还面临着其他重重困难，从难操作的官僚机构和多变的政治气候到长期的投资资本短缺和大量的军备开支。尽管如此，与“日本有限公司”相提并论并不是空洞的恭维话；事实上，这标志着韩国不断扩大的影响力。Those signs have not been lost on the West. From Washington to Tokyo, Bonn to Rome, governments are eying Koreas challenge with unease. Justified or not, the view is that the Koreans are aggressively targeting Western markets for an all-out export blitz. Already there are hints of a protectionist backlash. European manufacturers shuddered as $4.1 billion worth of Korean goods flowed into their home markets last year. And in the United States, 13 antidumping suits were brought against Korean firms. The doubling of countrys trade deficit with South Koreato a conspicuous, if still relatively modest, $3.5 billiontouched off a groundswell of concern in Congress and the White House.西方世界并没有忽视这些迹象。从华盛顿到东京，从波恩到罗马，各国政府都在不安地盯着韩国的挑战。不管是真是假，韩国似乎正在虎视眈眈地瞄准西方市场，以开始其全面的出口闪电式行动。目前已出现了保护主义强烈抵制的迹象。去年，价值41亿美元的韩国商品涌入欧洲市场，欧洲厂商战栗了。在美国有13起针对韩国公司的反倾销起诉。美国和韩国之间的贸易赤字增加了1倍达到35亿美元，虽然还算适度，但已经足够引起人们注意了这使国会和白宫的担忧日益增长。Not surprisingly, no country is more worried than Japan. Fearful that rapidly modernizing Korean rival will intrude on its foreign and domestic markets, Japan has fought to keep the Koreans from appropriating its technologies. Koreas entry into the global video market, for instance, has been delayed for years by an embargo enforced by Japanese licensers. But the Japanese will not be able to keep a lid on their high-tech know-how forever. Sooner or later they will begin to lose their edge, much as the United States did against Japan. “History is repeating itself,” says Eji Yamashita, general manager of the Daiwa Securities Research Institute in Tokyo. Adds another Japanese executive: “There is still a 10-year gap (between out countries), but it is quickly eroding.”当然，没有哪个国家比日本更担忧了。日本害怕迅速现代化的对手韩国会侵占其国内外市场，所以极力阻止韩国获得其先进技术。例如由于日本技术拥有者禁止对韩国企业转让相关技术，韩国进入全球音像市场被推迟了好几年。但日本不可能永远使其高科技保密，正如过去美国和日本的竞争一样，日本也迟早会失去其优势。东京的大和证券研究所的总经理山下荣思说：“历史总在重演”另外一个日本企业高层也指出：“我们两国之间还有十年的差距，但它正在一点点地消失。”Strategy: South Koreas emergence as a world-class economic power has been startlingly rapid. Four decades of Japanese colonial rule, followed by the bloody Korean War, left the country psychologically scarred and economically bereft. In 1961, when Gen. Park Chung Hee seized power in a military coup, yearly per capita income hovered at a barebones $100. Park committed Korea to exporting its way out of poverty, and his strategy was as simple as it was effective: shower the countrys fledging conglomerates with huge subsidies, government-backed loans and official favors and turn them into the worlds suppliers of bargain-basement textiles, footwear and light industrial goods.策略：韩国以令人惊讶的速度成为世界级经济强国。在经受日本40年的殖民统治和随后的残酷朝鲜战争之后，该国在心理上伤痕累累，经济上一贫如洗。1961年，当朴正熙将军在一次军事政变中夺取政权时，其年人均收人一直在少得不能再少的100美元左右徘徊。朴正熙决定要通过出口使韩国摆脱贫困，他的策略既简单又有效：给本国新兴的跨行业公司以大量的补助金、政府担保的贷款和官方的优惠政策，使其成为世界上价格低廉的纺织品、鞋类和轻工业品的供应国。More recently, Korea has benefited from some unabashed borrowing of Japanese business practices. At the Han Ryuk Electronics Co. on the outskirts of Seoul, for example, all 350 employees wear uniforms, the color and style depending on the job. The plant recently held a competition to come up with a company song, and wall placards exhort workers to “Improve Quality,” “Boost Exports.” And true to their which meet after work once a week to discuss ways to improve productivity.最近，韩国毫不掩饰地借用了日本企业的做法并从中受益。例如在汉城郊区的韩六电子公司，350名员工都穿着制服，颜色和式样因工种不同而不同。工厂近来又通过比赛选出了公司之歌；墙上的标语牌敦促工人“提高质量”，“促进出口”，并要求铭记“勤奋和忠实”的重要性。而且，与日本公司一样，员工们被编为“质量小组”，每周在工作之余聚会一次，讨论提高生产率的途径。The results have been dazzling. For two decades, year in and year out, Korea has sizzled along at an 8 per cent annual growth rate. Exports have surged from $119 million in 1964 to $29 billion last year. Per capita income, now $2,000, could reach $5,000 by the end of the century. All this has been accompanied by a near-revolutionary improvement in living standards. Korea boasts a literacy rate of 95 per cent, a standard met by only a few of the most advanced Western nations, and a recent poll showed that nearly two-thirds of all Koreans provincial capital of Seoul teems with energy and sophistication. Beyond any doubt, Koreas expectations for a better life are high and rising fast.效果是非凡的。连续20年，韩国的经济一直以8的年增长率在增长；出口额已从1964年的1.19亿美元猛增到去年的290亿美元。人均收人现在是2,000美元，到本世纪末可能会达到5,000美元。所有这些都伴随着生活水平近乎革命性的提高。韩国宣称其脱盲率已达到95，这个标准只有少数最发达的西方国家才能达到；最近的一次民意测验显示，三分之二的韩国人认为他们自己属于中产阶级。汉城这个曾带有不少乡村气的首都，如今却充满活力和繁荣。毫无疑问，他们越来越期盼更好的生活，而且要求也越来越高。Income Gap: In fulfilling those hopes, however, Korea faces some potentially disruptive problems. Some are social. For all the progress, deep pockets of poverty exist throughout the country. In Seoul, glistening high-rise apartment houses jostle with warrens of slum housing; in remote rural communities people are still eking out subsistence livings. As a result, conspicuous consumption by a nouveau rich elite has become a real source of friction. In contrast to Japan, which has managed to spread its postwar wealth relatively evenly, Korea is beset by a widening income gap between rich and poor. Prosperity has flowed most readily to the large cities, and to those who foundedor work forthe countrys largest industrial companies. Small businessmen and their employees are still waiting for a bigger cut of Koreas new-found bonanza.收入差距：然而，在实现这些希望的过程中，韩国面临着一些严峻的问题，其中一些属于社会问题。尽管取得了一些进步，但各处都存在贫困现象。在汉城，闪闪发光的高楼大厦与破旧拥挤的贫民区毗邻；在偏远的乡村地区，人们仍在艰苦地维持勉强糊口的生活。结果，新生暴发户奢侈的消费成了冲突的一个真正的根源。日本设法使其战后的财富分配得较为均衡，相反，韩国却在为贫富之间日益扩大的收人差距困扰。大城市最容易在经济上走向繁荣，还有那些创立了该国最大实业公司的人们或为此工作的人们也很富有。而小商人及其雇员仍在等待着大范围的削减韩国新建立的财源。分享韩国新得财源方面依然所得微薄。Equally unsettling has been the political price paid for economic progress. For much of its postwar history, South Korea has been governed by authoritarian figures who seized power by force. And while Koreans today have more money and more leisure time than ever before, they are also pressing for greater democratic freedoms. President Chun Doo Hwan recently eased human-rights restrictions and adopted a less heavy-handed attitude toward his political apposition. He has also repeated his pledge to step down from office in 1988, just before Seoul hosts the Olympic Games. But these signs of political liberalization pose another dilemma. South Koreas short history has been long on turbulence; while most Koreans welcome the new moves toward democracy, they worry that a major political change could upset their economic apple cart.同样令人不安的是韩国为经济发展所付出的政治代价。在战后的大部分时间里，韩国一直由通过武力夺取政权的独裁者统治着。虽然人们比以前有了更多的钱和闲暇时间，但他们仍在要求更多的民主和自由。全斗焕总统最近放松了人权限制，对他的政治反对派也采取了略微宽松的态度。他还重申了他将在1988年汉城主办奥运会之前离任的承诺。但这些政治自由化的迹象又提出了一个难题。韩国历史较短，但长期骚乱；虽然大多数人欢迎走向民主的新举措，但他们却担心大的政治变革可能损害其经济成果。Defense: That picture is complicated by South Koreas huge military commitments. Unlike Japan, which spends less than 1 per cent of its gross national product on defense, South Korea has committed more than 6 per cent of its GNP to military expendituresprimarily to meet the threat of an unremittingly hostile North Korea. But while that has bolstered the Souths security, it has also detracted from its economic growth. For now, South Korea can only hope that its border with the North will remain tranquil; if so, the countrys attention can continue to be focused mainly on growth and material prosperity.防务：韩国巨额的军费开支使情况更加复杂。日本国防开支不到其国民生产总值的1，韩国则要花掉6以上主要是为了对付一直敌意的朝鲜的威胁。这虽然保障了安全，却也拖累了经济发展。目前，韩国希望与朝鲜的边界保持平静；如果这样，他它就能集中精力发展经济和物质繁荣。If South Korea is to carry its momentum into the next decade, however, it will have to achieve a huge economic leap forward. For years, relatively cheap labor has been the driving force behind Koreas export boom. Today, with wages rising, the price advantage that Korean products enjoy world wide is shrinking. To preserve its markets and continue to grow, Korea must now change gears by moving up the high-tech ladder, much as Japan did when its labor-cost advantage began to erode in the 1970s. it must improve the quality and sophistication of its products, and in many cases, compete toe-to-toe with the United States, Western Europe and Japan. If it does not, Korea risks being overtaken by new low-wage rivals, including China, Pakistan and Malaysia.但是，如果韩国想把其发展势头带入90年代，它就必须实现一个经济上的大飞跃。数年来，相对廉价的劳动力一直是韩国出口增长的推动力。如今，随着工资的提高，韩国产品在全世界所享有的价格优势正在减弱。正如日本在70年代开始失去劳动力成本优势一样，为了保住市场继续发展，韩国必须发展高科技来提高其产品的质量和档次，在许多情况下，必须直接与美国、西欧和日本进行竞争。否则，它就有可能被新的具有低工资优势的竞争者，包括中国、巴基斯坦和马来西亚所赶超。Such challenges and opportunities are to be expected as Korea enters a new era. To negotiate the transition, President Chuns brain trust of American-trained technocrats is busily charting a new economic course. The goal: to leapfrog many of the traditional bottlenecks to development, to begin with, the advisers aim to catapult the countrys still-fledgling electronics industry into the outer frontiers of high technology. Over the next five years, say South Korean officials, the countrys 50 largest companies will spend more than $3.5 billion to develop everything from state-of-the-art microprocessors and video recorders to advanced telecommunications equipment. That figure is dwarfed by the $28 billion that Japan spends each year on research and development, but it is a start. And the commitments made by Koreas largest industrial groups are much more competitive than the countrywide figures would indicate. For example, Hyundai, the countrys largest company, has been spending $700 million a year on electronics factories and research facilities. In time, company executives hope, the company and its sisters will be as widely known and respected as Sony or Mitsubishi.韩国进入一个新时代时应该预料到这样的挑战和机遇。为了顺利过度，韩国总统的那些在美国留学的高参正忙于制定一套新的经济路线。其目标是：逾越阻碍发展的传统瓶颈问题。首先，他们想把该国尚处于发展初期的电子工业推到高科技的前沿。韩国的官员们说，在未来的5年中，该国50家最大的公司将花费35亿多美元来开发从最先进的微处理器和摄像机到高级电信设备等各种产品。与日本每年花在研究和开发上的280亿美元相比，这个数目显得微乎其微，但这仅仅是开始。而且韩国主要工业集团发展高科技的决心可能比数字更能说明问题。例如韩国最大企业现代公司每年花在电子工厂和研究设备上的资金达7亿美元。公司的管理人员希望，总有一天，该公司及其姊妹公司将会像索尼公司和三菱财团一样广为人知并获得普遍的尊重。Revamping: Seouls ambitious planners have other changes in mind. In fact, they envision nothing less than a wholesale revamping of the countrys basic industries. Their main target is the chaebol, the closely held businesses that, like Japans leviathan zaibatsu, have long powered Koreas growth. While such companies as Daewoo, Samsung and Dong Ah helped put Korea on the words corporate map, many Koreans view their unbridled growth with misgivings. “We wont advance unless we change our industrial structure.” explains Lee Kyu Uck of the Korea Development Institute. “The real question is whether the conglomerates can cope with the world economy in the coming century.”改组：汉城雄心勃勃的计划者还构思着新的变革。事实上，他们已经预想到了大规模地改组该国的基础工业。他们的主要目标是财阀，即那些像日本的大财团那样为少数人所有的企业，而且是长期为韩国的发展提供动力的公司和企业。虽然大宇、三星和东亚等公司促使韩国进入世界贸易大国行列，但许多韩国人对它们没有节制的扩大已有不满。“除非改变我们的工业结构，否则我们将不会前进，”韩国发展协会的李六克说，“真正的问题在于集团公司能否适应新世纪的世界经济”。The debate boils down to whether Koreas industrial giants wield too much power and influence, both for their own and their countrys good. They are clearly an awesome force. Last year sales from the 50 largest chaebol equaled more than a half of South Koreas gross national product. They account for an overwhelmingly large share of both the countrys exports and its $46 billion foreign debt. Their often helterskelter expansion has created monopolies in many industries and resulted in widespread inefficiency; some companies are run by managers whose qualifications are limited to their family ties to the founder. And because most of this expansion has been financed through borrowed money, the chaebol have grown increasingly vulnerable to business setbacks and changes of economic climate. As a Western banker in Seoul bluntly puts it: “Its a house of cards.”争论的焦点最后集中到韩国的工业巨头对自己和国家的利益行使的权利和施加的影响是否太大了。它们显然是一种令人敬畏的力量，去年，50家最大企业集团的销售额相当于韩国国民生产总值的一半以上。在该国的出口额和460亿美元的外债中占有相当大的份额。它们仓促地扩大规模在许多行业产生了垄断，并导致了普遍的低效；某些公司在任命高管时任人唯亲。而且，由于扩大规模的资金大都是借来的，大企业集团越来越容易受到经济衰退和经济气候变化的影响。正如汉城一个西方银行家坦言的：“这种扩展是不可靠的。”Stakes: The challenge for Chun is to rein in the chaebol without damaging their absolutely essential contribution to the Korean economyand without stepping on the toes of the chaebols enormously powerful chieftains. Among them: such rugged empire builders as Hyundais Chung JuYoung Samsungs Lee Byung Chull. Given the stakes involved, its not surprising that the issue has become politically volatile. The outspoken opposition leaders of the National Asembly routinely criticize the government for granting special tax breaks to the chaebol, which they argue have impeded the growth of small businesses and stymied entrepreneurship. Even worse, they say, the lions share of the nations new wealth has gone to the chaebola charge that even the conglomerates owners find hard to deny. “We have to change,” acknowledges one senior chaebol executive. “If we dont share the fruits of our success better, the system wont survive.”风险：全斗焕所面临的挑战是，控制大企业集团扩大规模的速度而又不妨碍其对韩国经济做出必要贡献并且不触怒大企业集团势力极大的首领，其中包括：现代公司的郑周永和三星公司的李秉哲等大企业强有力的创建者。由于牵涉极大，因此变革可能会引起政局不稳也就不足为奇了。国会中言词不羁的反对党领导人时常批评政府给予大企业集团特殊税务优惠，他们认为，这妨碍了小企业的发展和创业精神。他们认为更糟的是，国家新的财富大部分都流人了大企业集团这一指责连跨行业公司的老板们也难以否认。一位大企业集团的高级管理人员承认，“我们必须变革，如果我们不更好地分配自己的成功果实，我们的制度就会垮掉。”But Seoul is proceeding cautiously in hunting a remedy. The government has already eliminated direct subsidies for such industries as steel and shipbuilding. It has also imposed a partial freeze on new loans to the chaebol, mainly in a bid to channel more bank credits to small and medium-size businesses. In addition, South Korean bureaucrats pointedly declined to bail out the Kukje industrial group, the countrys sixth largest chaebol, when it was declared insolvent three months ago. The giant footwear, textile and construction conglomerate had been battered by losses on its Middle East building projects, and Chinese and Pakistani textile makers had begun to eat into its markets elsewhere. Since those problems were by no means unique to Kukje, the lesson of the bankruptcy was clear: South Koreas chaebol had better learn to swim on their ownor sink. “Wed like to see the big conglomerates concentrate their activities rather than extend everywhere,” says Sakong II, President Chuns chief economic adviser. “They are getting the message.”但汉城在很谨慎地寻找解决办法。政府已取消了对钢铁和造船业的直接补贴