6.10翻译材料：中印城市发展对比

6.10翻译材料：中印城市发展对比

On paper, India’s transport infrastructure is on a par with China’s. Yet anyone who has travelled to both countries can tell you there remains a vast gap between them.

理论上，印度的交通基础设施水平与中国旗鼓相当，不过，去过这两个国家的人都会告诉你，两国在这方面还存在巨大差距。

India’s road and rail networks are only slightly shorter than China’s. But far more of the latter’s roads are multi-lane paved highways, compared with single-lane dirt tracks, and China’s bullet trains outclass India’s lumbering locomotives on virtually every metric.

印度的道路和铁路网只比中国略短一些。但中国有着多得多的多车道铺砌公路（相对于单车道土路），同时，中国的子弹头高速列车几乎在所有指标上都胜于印度慢悠悠的普通火车。

The comparison between the world’s two most populous countries and their approach to building and maintaining cities and infrastructure is irresistible, especially since China has outpaced India so comprehensively over the past few decades. While the countries’ economies were roughly the same size as recently as 1980, China’s gross domestic product is now four and a half times the size of India’s.

人们很难忍住不把全世界两个人口最多的国家、以及两个国家建设和维护城市和基础设施的方法进行对比，尤其是考虑到中国在过去几十年里如此全方位地超越了印度。尽管两国的经济规模直到1980年还大致相同，但如今中国的国内生产总值(GDP)已经是印度的4.5倍。

In India, even politically important projects such as the “golden quadrilateral” highway network connecting the country’s four major metropolitan centres of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have been hampered by chronic delays and obstacles.

在印度，甚至是连接德里、孟买、金奈和加尔各答这四个主要大都市中心的“黄金四边形”公路网等具有重要政治意义的项目，也遭遇了长期拖延和各种阻碍。

In 1999, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee broke ground on the road project, which had a projected completion date of 2006. But the highways were not opened to traffic until 2012 and to this day upgrades and extensions remain bogged down by legal challenges, funding shortfalls and the inability to acquire land.

1999年，印度总理阿塔尔•比哈里•瓦杰帕伊(Atal Bihari Vajpayee)为“黄金四边形”工程举行了开工仪式，当时预计的竣工时间是2006年。但是该公路直到2012年才通车，时至今日，该道路的升级和扩建仍然因法律挑战、资金短缺和无法获得土地而停滞不前。

By contrast, China is already halfway through a three-decade, $300bn expansion of its motorway system that will connect all Chinese cities with a population of more than 200,000 people.

相比之下，中国计划用时30年、斥资3000亿美元的高速公路系统扩建工程已经完成一半，工程完工后，中国所有人口超过20万的城市都将通过高速公路相连。

The scale of the country’s road-building frenzy is matched by the creation of hundreds of new cities and the world’s longest high-speed rail network. All of this construction is reflected in the incredible scale of Chinese cement production. China accounts for about 60 per cent of total global cement production and in just five years from 2012 China produced nearly three times as much cement as the US did in the entire 20th century.

中国道路建设狂潮的规模，与无数座新城市以及全世界最长高铁网的建立相匹配。所有这些建设都反映在中国令人难以置信的水泥产量规模上。中国在全球水泥产量中的占比约为60%，而在从2012年开始的短短五年时间里，中国的水泥产量几乎是美国在整个20世纪的水泥产量的三倍。

India is on track to build 100 new cities of its own and add roughly 300m people to its population by 2050. Yet although it is now the second-largest producer of cement in the world, India’s annual output is only about a 10th of China’s.

印度到2050年建成100个新城市的计划正在实施中，到2050年印度还将新增大约3亿人口。尽管如今印度是全世界第二大水泥生产国，但其水泥年产量仅为中国的十分之一左右。

There are many reasons for the disparity in the pace of urban development and interconnectivity but analysts in both countries tend to focus on their different political systems as the most important factor.

有很多原因可以解释两国在城市发展速度和城市间交通上的差异，但两国的分析人士往往认为最重要的因素是两国不同的政治体制。

“We can’t take land away from people like they can in China and our system is not centralised in the way theirs is,” a senior Indian economic official told the FT recently.

印度一位高级经济官员最近向英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)表示：“我们无法像中国那样把土地从人民手中夺走，我们的制度也不像他们那样中央集权。”

In a one-party authoritarian state such as China that prioritises development of the nation over the interests of individuals it is far easier to appropriate land and mobilise resources to build infrastructure mega-projects.

在中国等优先考虑国家发展、而非个人利益的一党制威权国家，为了建设大型基础设施项目而征用土地和调动资源要容易得多。

In a vibrant, messy, decentralised democracy such as India, opponents of all stripes, from environmentalists to disgruntled contractors, can block developments at a political and judicial level for years or even decades.

在印度等活跃、混乱、非中央集权的民主国家，各种各样的反对者，从环保主义者到心怀不满的承建商，都可以在政治和司法层面上阻挠项目发展数年甚至数十年之久。

Some analysts have also pointed to rampant corruption in India as a reason why the country’s infrastructure buildout has lagged so far behind China’s.

一些分析人士还指出，印度腐败问题猖獗也是其基础设施建设远远落后于中国的原因之一。

“Indian policymakers have allowed the private sector the chance to profitably create infrastructure in return for sharing the spoils,” says Ritika Mankar Mukherjee, senior economist at Ambit Capital in Mumbai. “Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the biggest corruption scams . . . in India in the Noughties related to the infrastructure sector.”

“印度政策制定者给予私营部门通过建设基础设施赚钱的机会，以换取从中分一杯羹，”孟买Ambit Capital的高级经济学家利提塔•曼卡尔•慕克吉(Ritika Mankar Mukherjee)表示，“因此，21世纪头十年里，印度一些最大的贪污诈骗案……与基础设施部门有关就不足为奇了。”

Analysts and participants in Chinese infrastructure construction say that corruption in China is equally egregious, however. The main difference is that corruption scandals in India are far more frequently exposed by the country’s vigorous and free press compared with China, where the ruling Communist party exercises very tight control over all forms of media.

中国基础设施建设的分析人士和参与者表示，不过，中国的腐败问题同样严重。主要区别在于，与执政的共产党严格控制着各种媒体的中国相比，印度的腐败丑闻被其充满活力的自由媒体曝光的频率要高得多。

The Indian and Chinese approaches to urban slum dwelling and clearances are another area where the difference between their political systems is thrown into sharp relief.

印度和中国应对和清理城市贫民窟的方法，是另一个清楚展示两国政治体制差异的地方。

In China, all citizens are classified under the hukou household registration system that decides what benefits, such as education and healthcare, they receive from the state. There are nearly 300m internal “migrant workers” in China living away from their place of registration and most of these people find it impossible to transfer their hukou to their place of work. This makes their lives in the city temporary and tenuous and allows the authorities to remove them as necessary.

在中国，所有公民都根据户口登记制度进行分类，该制度决定了公民从国家获得何种（比如教育和医疗保健）福利。在中国，将近3亿的“外来务工人员”在远离其户口所在地的地方生活，而其中大多数人不可能把户口迁至工作所在地。这使得他们在城市中的生活是临时而脆弱的，这也让政府可以在必要时让他们离开。

Meanwhile, in India, people are largely free to migrate to the cities and settle into the massive slums that ring every large city. Slum clearances are often met with stiff opposition.

与此同时，在印度，人们基本上可以自由迁往城市，并在环绕各个大城市的大型贫民窟内定居。清理贫民窟往往会遭到强烈反对。

Given its relative economic success in recent decades, China is becoming a model of development for other countries from the “global south”.

鉴于近几十年相对成功的经济发展，中国正成为其他发展中国家发展的楷模。

However, such developing countries often have political systems that more closely resemble India’s and it is unlikely many of them would be open to authoritarian adjustments so they can follow China’s path.

然而，这些发展中国家的政治体制往往更像印度，其中不太可能会有多少国家愿意为了能够追随中国的道路而接受朝威权主义迈进的制度调整。

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