中国经济放缓，日本很“受伤”

Japan’s Economy Feels the Sting of China’s Slowdown
中国经济放缓，日本很“受伤”

TOKYO ― In its small way, Tsutomu Nyuwa’s metalworking shop in Yasugi, Japan, has been feeding the economic boom 700 miles away in China.

东京――生和勉(Tsutomu Nyuwa)在日本安来市有一家金工工厂，对于700英里之外的中国经济繁荣，它也做出过自己的小小贡献。

Many of the precisely machine-tooled gears, bearings and other components turned out by Mr. Nyuwa and his 14 employees end up on Chinese work sites, in the engines of the giant earthmovers that have powered China’s breakneck pace of construction.

生和勉及14名员工生产的机器精加工齿轮、轴承等部件，有很多都安装在巨型推土机的引擎里，最后抵达了中国的施工场地，推动着中国一日千里的建设步伐。

But with Chinese growth now slowing, Mr. Nyuwa’s business is slumping ― along with the rest of the Japanese economy, which data released on Monday showed is in recession again.

但是，随着中国经济增长放缓，生和勉的生意现在正在下滑――日本经济整体也是一样，本周一公布的数据显示日本经济在衰退。

Japanese equipment makers like Komatsu, Kubota and Hitachi Construction Machinery are selling fewer excavators and bulldozers in China and, in turn, are buying fewer parts from manufacturers like Mr. Nyuwa. Orders from the construction sector are off 40 percent this year, he estimates.

像小松制造(Komatsu)，久保田(Kubota)和日立建机(Hitachi Construction Machinery)这样的日本设备制造商，在中国的挖掘机和推土机销量出现了滑坡，所以从生和勉这样的供应商处采购的零部件也减少了。生和勉估计，建筑行业的订单今年减少了40%。

“It’s definitely come back down to earth, and we feel it,” Mr. Nyuwa said of the Chinese market.

“中国市场肯定是在大幅下滑，我们感觉到了，”他说。

Japan, more than many other developed countries, needs everything to go right for its economy to grow. Its population and work force are shrinking. Once-big industries like consumer electronics are retrenching under pressure from lower-cost rivals. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won power three years ago on a promise to accelerate Japan’s economic metabolism, but despite some notable successes ― joblessness is low and many large companies are earning record profits ― a broad increase in growth and incomes remains elusive.

日本比其他任何发达国家都更需要一切都在正轨上，才能实现经济增长。其总人口和劳动力人口一直在缩减。在成本更低的竞争对手的压力下，家电产业等曾经颇为庞大的行业一直在收缩。三年前，首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)因承诺加速日本经济的新陈代谢而赢得大选。但现在，尽管取得了一些重大的成功――失业率处于低位，很多大公司也实现了创记录的利润――但依然难以实现增长和收入的广泛提速。

With the economy on the edge, even small setbacks can have major repercussions. In the latest quarter, companies wary about the outlook cut back on their investments in factories and equipment, tipping the economy into its fifth recession in seven years. Exports to China dropped sharply, exacerbating the falloff in activity and contributing to the general unease.

在经济处于边缘的情况下，即便是小的挫折也可能产生重大影响。上一季度，对前景持谨慎态度的公司削减了对工厂和设备的投资，使经济进入七年中的第五次衰退。面向中国的出口大幅下降，加剧了活力的衰减，引发普遍的不安。

China’s slowdown has reverberated around the world.

中国的放缓也在全世界造成了严重影响。

Commodity-exporting countries like Australia, Brazil and Ecuador have seen demand for their oil, iron ore and other products decline. Developing economies that have grown dependent on Chinese investment in resource projects have been left vulnerable.

澳大利亚、巴西和厄瓜多尔等大宗商品出口国眼看着石油、铁矿石和其他产品的需求下降。依赖中国投资资源项目的发展中国家变得颇为脆弱。

Others, like Japan and Germany, have provided many of the machines used to build China’s skyscrapers and equip its thousands of factories. For them, it is manufacturing industries that stand to lose.

中国用来修建高楼大厦和装备数以千计的工厂的机器中，很多都来自日本和德国等国。对这些国家来说，制造业可能会蒙受损失。

Japan supplies “all the things used in China’s infrastructure expansion,” said Paul Sheard, the chief global economist at Standard & Poor’s, the credit ratings agency. Because of that, Japan now risks being hurt as that expansion slows.

日本供应“中国基础设施扩张所需的所有东西，”评级公司标准普尔(Standard & Poor’s)全球首席经济师保罗・希尔德(Paul Sheard)说。因此，随着中国基础设施扩张的放缓，日本经济现在面临受挫的风险。

China’s economy is hardly in ruins. It grew at an annualized rate of 6.9 percent in the third quarter, according to the official government estimate. While that was enviable by the standards of more advanced countries, it was the lowest rate since 2009, in the depths of the global financial crisis. And sectors that have been especially eager buyers of Japanese capital goods, like manufacturing, construction and mining, are in worse shape than the economy as a whole.

中国经济远远没到崩盘的地步。据中国官方估计，今年第三季度，它还保持着6.9%的年化增长率。尽管和不少更发达的国家相比，这个数字依然让人艳羡，但它却是自2009年全球金融危机以来中国经济增长的最低速度。而且相比于整体经济，制造、建筑和矿业等尤其热衷于从日本购买生产资料的行业，状况要更差一些。

China overtook the United States as Japan’s top trading partner a decade ago. Roaring exports of things like mining trucks, textile looms and semiconductor fabricators have been a bright spot for Japanese industry, which has lost ground in more visible areas like consumer electronics. Diplomatic disputes that have divided Tokyo and Beijing have failed to halt a deepening interdependence in commerce.

10年前，中国替代美国成为日本头号贸易伙伴。出口量激增的采矿卡车、纺织机械和半导体产品制造业成为了日本工业的亮点。在更为显眼的消费电子等领域，日本工业失去了昔日的阵地。使东京和北京产生分歧的那些外交争端，并没有妨碍两国在商业上的彼此依赖日益加深。

China’s commercial relationship with Japan has been shifting, however. Rising labor costs in China have prompted many Japanese companies with factories there to spread their bets, turning to countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand and Indonesia.

不过，中日之间的商业关系正在发生改变。中国劳动力成本不断上升，促使很多在那里建厂的日本企业开始分散投资，转向泰国和印度尼西亚等东南亚国家。

In their place, Japanese retailers have poured into China to target newly wealthy consumers there. Convenience stores and clothing chains like Uniqlo have been expanding rapidly.

取而代之的是，日本零售商大量涌入中国。他们的目标是新近富裕起来的中国消费者。便利店和优衣库(Uniqlo)等服装连锁店在中国迅速扩张。

Tomokatsu Shiina, an architectural designer in Tokyo who regularly works in China, recently returned from Shanghai, where he was overseeing design for a Japanese discount shoe retailer's first store in the city. “These are budget consumer items,” he said. “That's where the activity is now.”

经常在中国工作的东京建筑设计师椎名友和（Tomokatsu Shiina，音）最近刚刚从上海返回日本，他在那里负责给一家折扣鞋品零售商设计它在上海的第一家分店。“这些是平价消费品，”他说。“现在活跃的就是这一类。”

It is also in Japanese shopping districts like Ginza in Tokyo, where a standard amenity on package tours from China is an extra, empty suitcase, for filling with brand-name clothing, handbags and electronics. A tourism explosion brought 3.8 million mainland Chinese to Japan in the first nine months of this year, more than twice as many as visited in the same period last year. Their shopping habits have inspired a new Japanese word, “bakugai,” or “explosive buying.”

中国消费力集中的另一个领域是东京银座等日本商业区。在那里，中国旅行团游客的标准配置是额外准备一个空手提箱，用来装满他们购买的名牌服装、手提包和电子产品。日本的中国游客激增，今年前9个月就有380万人涌入，是去年同期的两倍还多。他们的消费习惯还催生了一个日文新词汇――“爆买”(bakugai)。

Dong Changyuan is one of several new Chinese employees hired by Laox, an electronics chain, at its Ginza store in September. Laox has between 20 and 30 Chinese clerks helping visitors find the right air purifier, heated toilet seat or high-end rice cooker. “There are people who buy four at a time” for friends and relatives back home, Mr. Dong said. The weak yen was still a draw, he added, regardless of lower growth in China.

董昌源（Dong Changyuan，音）是电子产品连锁店乐购仕(Laox)今年9月为其银座店新聘用的几名中国雇员之一。该公司共有二三十名中国员工帮助游客寻找自己想要的空气净化器、加热马桶座，或高档电饭煲。“有些人一次买四个，”带给国内的亲戚朋友，董昌源说。他还表示，尽管中国经济增长在放缓，日元疲软对中国消费者仍是一大吸引力。

At a small shoe store in the same neighborhood, about 15 Chinese shoppers were examining the offerings on a recent afternoon. Kazuhiro Kawashima, the manager, said the number of Chinese customers was holding up, but they were buying less than they did a few months ago. “They used to buy everything and anything, completely bakugai, but now they’re more selective,” he said. Average spending per customer was down about 5,000 yen, or $40, he estimated.

不久前的一个下午，在银座的一家小型鞋店内，大约15名中国游客正在查看店内的商品。店铺经理川岛一弘（Kazuhiro Kawashima，音）表示，中国消费者的人数依然不低，但他们买的东西比之前几个月有所减少。“他们过去什么都买，完全是爆买，现在则更有选择性了，”他说。他估计中国游客的人均消费下降了大约5000日元（约合260人民币）。

Retailing and tourism are not yet big enough to fill the hole left by heavy industry. Overall Japanese exports to China fell 3.5 percent in September, according to Japanese government trade figures, the second straight month of decline. Some sectors, like steel, car parts and industrial machinery, are falling more steeply.

零售和旅游业的增长不足以填补重工业贸易萎缩留下的空缺。日本政府公布的贸易数据显示，日本对中国的出口总额在今年9月下降了3.5%，已是连着第二个月出现下滑。在钢铁、汽车配件和工业机械等行业，降幅则更大。

Several major Japanese companies, including Canon, the camera and office equipment maker, cited the slowdown as they issued profit warnings over the past few weeks. Steel makers like Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal and JFE Holdings, as well as suppliers of semiconductor-making machinery, also cut their forecasts in response to falling Chinese demand.

包括相机和办公设备生产商佳能(Canon)在内，好几家大型日本企业在过去几周发布利润预警时，都将中国经济放缓列为一项影响因素。新日铁住金(Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal)和JEF控股等钢铁公司，以及半导体制造机械供应商，也因来自中国的需求持续下降而调低了利润预期。

“Recovery is going to take time,” Canon’s chief financial officer, Toshizo Tanaka, told reporters. His counterpart at Komatsu, Mikio Fujitsuka, said the company had “no sense yet of hitting bottom” in China.

“市场复苏需要时间，”佳能首席财务官田中稔三(Toshizo Tanaka)告诉记者。小松制造首席财务官藤冢主夫(Mikio Fujitsuka)也表示，公司还“不清楚”它在中国的市场“何时会触底”。

The headwinds from China are making it harder for the Japanese government to create forward momentum in the economy.

来自中国的阻力使得日本政府更难提振本国经济。

Mr. Abe’s three-year-old program, known as Abenomics and centered on aggressive stimulus by the central bank, has curbed persistent consumer price declines and benefited exporters by weakening the yen. Unemployment is just 3.4 percent, the lowest it has been in two decades. Yet the project remains “half-finished,” said Mr. Sheard of S.&P., with deflation not yet safely beaten and many households and businesses still fearful about the future.

安倍晋三提出的以中央银行大力刺激为核心的三年期“安倍经济学”(Abenomics)遏制了国内消费价格指数的持续下滑，还通过日元贬值促进了出口增长。日本失业率目前只有3.4%，是20年来的最低点。但这个计划“还有一半没有实现”，来自标准普尔的希尔德说。日本通货紧缩的情况并未得到真正的改善，很多家庭和企业依然对未来充满担忧。

To give the economy another push, Mr. Abe’s government is putting together a stimulus package worth ¥3.5 trillion, or roughly $29 billion, according to Japanese media reports. But sustained stimulus is politically tricky. Mr. Abe says he is committed to increasing the national sales tax in April 2017, after delaying a planned 2 percent increase by 18 months to take pressure off growth. The finance ministry wants more tax revenue to offset Japan’s national debt, the largest in the world relative to the size of the economy.

据日本媒体报道，为了再推经济一把，安倍政府正在制定一项价值3.5万亿日元的刺激计划。不过，实施持续的刺激计划在政治上颇为棘手。安倍表示，他决心在2017年4月提高全国性的消费税。一年半之前他就计划将这项税率提高2%，以缓解经济增长压力，后延迟至今。日本财务省也希望增加税收，以偿还日本的国债。日本的债务与其经济规模的比值为全球之最。

At his metalworking shop, Mr. Nyuwa said he did not believe government policy would do much to change the direction of the economy. Abenomics, he said, may have helped big companies at the top of the food chain, and the investors that own their shares, but it has not done much to benefit small businesses like his.

生和勉在自己的金工工厂里表示，他认为政府的政策不大会扭转日本经济发展的方向。他说“安倍经济学”或许会有益于食物链顶层的大企业和拥有这些企业股票的投资者，但对他这样的小企业不会有太大帮助。