本届G20峰会可能仍然令人失望

FRANKFURT — It will shut down a city for two days, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and oblige 20 of the world’s top leaders to make long journeys to the east coast of Australia. So it would be a bit of a letdown if the Group of 20 summit meeting in Brisbane on Saturday and Sunday failed to accomplish very much.

法兰克福——它让一座城市停止运转两天，它耗费的资金达数亿美元，此外，它还迫使20位国家元首不远万里来到澳大利亚东海岸。因此，如果本周末在布里斯班召开的20国集团（Group of 20，简称G20）峰会不能取得多大成就，那可有点让人扫兴。

Expectations are that the gathering will be a disappointment. Past summit meetings have fallen short of their goals, and the latest meeting will take place when collegiality among leaders is at a low ebb, strained by conflict in Ukraine, territorial disputes in Asia and war in the Middle East.

不过外界预测，这次峰会将以失望告终。以往的G20峰会均未能达成目标，而本届会议召开之际，各国领导人的关系正处于低潮，造成他们关系紧张的因素包括，乌克兰冲突、亚洲领土争议，以及中东的战争。

Failure of the G-20 meeting would be more than just a diplomatic setback for the countries involved, which include the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Germany and France. If they fail to coordinate their economic policies — the forum’s primary goal — the leaders will squander an opportunity to make the global economy grow faster and improve the living standards of millions of people, economists say.

如果本届G20峰会失败，将不光是与会各国在外交上的一次挫折。参会的成员国包括美国、中国、俄罗斯、日本、德国和法国等。经济学家们表示，如果无法协调各国的经济政策——这是峰会的主要目标——这些领导人将浪费一个让全球经济更快增长并改善无数人生活水平的机会。

John P. Lipsky, former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has said that the Brisbane summit meeting is a make-or-break moment for the G-20. If the leaders fail to achieve anything concrete, or fail to follow up later, it will raise questions about whether they are capable of working together in service of global prosperity, Mr. Lipsky told an audience in Melbourne this year. During a recent telephone interview, he did not sound optimistic.

国际货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund，简称IMF）前第一副总裁约翰·P·利普斯基(John P. Lipsky)称，此次布里斯班峰会对于G20是一次成败攸关的机会。他今年在墨尔本发表演讲时曾表示，如果G20的领导人无法达成任何实质性成果，或者未能在会后有效跟进，将会引发对他们能否共同服务于全球繁荣的质疑。在最近的电话采访中，他似乎并不乐观。

“In the way of these summits, agreements will be announced on all the principal agenda items,” Mr. Lipsky said by phone from Washington. “What remains to be seen is whether the specifics will be sufficiently credible and whether they will receive strong enough political backing by the G-20 leaders to make them politically convincing as well.”

“按照峰会的安排，各国将宣布就各项主要议程达成共识，”利普斯基在华盛顿通过电话表示。“仍需拭目以待的是，协议的具体内容是否足够可信？它们能否得到20国领导人足够的政治支持，从而在政治上同样令人信服？”

The G-20 nations held their first summit meeting in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, when the world was in danger of falling into economic depression.

首届G20峰会召开于2008年金融危机最严重的时期。当时，全球正面临着陷入经济衰退的危险。

Initially, the leaders, including those from developing countries like Brazil and India that had been excluded from the Group of 7 summit meetings — focused on creating a financial system less vulnerable to the kind of crisis that was then raging. Later, a more ambitious goal evolved — coordinating economic policies with the aim of lifting world growth.

起初，G20的领导人只是想打造一个不那么容易受到当时正在肆虐的危机影响的金融体系。后来，他们有了一个更宏伟的目标——协调经济政策，促进全球增长。G20包括了一些七国集团(Group of 7)之外的发展中国家，如巴西和印度。

World leaders would work together to remove the roadblocks to economic progress, including corruption, trade reStrictions and regulations that discourage hiring and firing. Countries would spend more on research and development, create more equitable tax systems, and invest in public infrastructure like transit systems.

各国领导人决心共同扫除经济发展的障碍，包括腐败、贸易限制措施，以及阻碍劳动力市场发展的监管规定。他们打算在研发领域投入更多资金，建立更加公平合理的税收体系，并且投资运输系统等公共基础设施。

The stakes were big. In 2010, the I.M.F. estimated that if the 20 leaders could follow through on their commitments, global growth would have been 2.5 percentage points higher. The extra economic output would be worth $1.5 trillion, the I.M.F. said, while 30 million new jobs would be created and 33 million people would escape poverty.

它的意义非同小可。2010年，IMF估计，如果20国领导人能够贯彻他们的承诺，全球增长本来可以高出2.5个百分点。IMF称，这意味着增加1.5万亿美元（约合9万亿元人民币）的经济产出，与此同时，还可以新增3000万个就业岗位，并让3300万人摆脱贫困。

The I.M.F. also sketched out a worst-case scenario in which members of the G-20 did not follow through on their promises and growth missed forecasts. The difference between the best-case and worst-case scenarios was $4 trillion in output and 52 million jobs.

IMF也预计了最糟糕的情形，即20国领导人没有履行承诺，增长低于预期。它与最好情形的差距是4万亿美元的经济产出，以及5200万个就业岗位。

In fact, it was the worst-case scenario that proved to be the more accurate prediction. If anything, Mr. Lipsky said, it was too optimistic.

事实证明，最糟的情形成了更为准确的推断。利普斯基表示，甚至可以说这种看法还是过于乐观。

Strictly speaking, the G-20 is not a forum to achieve rapprochement with Russia over Ukraine or adjudicate conflicting claims to waters in the South China Sea. The G-20 is supposed to be about economics and finance. The United Nations is supposed to be responsible for geopolitical issues.

严格来讲，G20并不是一个用来在乌克兰问题上与俄罗斯恢复友好关系，或者对多国在南海水域存在冲突的主张做出裁定的论坛。G20的关注点应该是经济和金融。联合国才应该对地缘政治问题负责。

But heightened tensions will inevitably affect the mood in the Brisbane convention center, where the leaders, 4,000 delegates and an estimated 3,000 media representatives will gather. Security precautions will be even more intense than usual because of conflict in Syria and Iraq and heightened fear of terrorism. A public holiday has been declared in Brisbane for Friday.

但是，升级的紧张氛围将不可避免地对布里斯班会议中心的情绪造成影响。届时，20国领导人、4000名代表和大约3000名媒体人士将在这里齐聚一堂。由于发生在叙利亚和伊拉克的冲突，以及人们对恐怖主义的担忧加剧，此次会议的安全防范会比以往更加严格。周五，布里斯班将进行公休。

The government of Australia will spend 400 million Australian dollars, or about $350 million, hosting the event, according to local press reports. That figure does not include what the G-20 leaders and their entourages will spend during the meeting.

据当地媒体报道，澳大利亚政府将斥资4亿澳元（约合3.5亿美元）来举办这次活动。这个数目还不包括G20领导人和他们的随从人员在会议期间的开销。

The summit meeting is the culmination of intense preparation by officials below the rank of head of state. In September, central bank governors and finance ministers from the G-20 countries met in Cairns, farther up Australia’s eastern coast, and agreed to a range of measures designed to add 1.8 percent to global growth by 2018. This included more investment in public works and measures to combat tax evasion.

峰会召开之前，国家元首以下各个级别的官员进行了紧锣密鼓的筹备工作。9月，G20成员国的央行行长和财政部长在位于澳大利亚东海岸更北面的凯恩斯会面，就旨在到2018年将全球经济增长提升1.8个百分点的一系列举措达成了共识。其中包括对公共工程进行更多投资，以及一些打击逃税行为的措施。

But such high-minded policy declarations often prove to be inconsistent with the domestic politics of individual members. Germany, for example, has been reluctant to spend more fixing roads and bridges, even though the government has a budget surplus and can borrow money on international financial markets at interest rates close to zero. Cautious German voters would rather save than invest in, say, their country’s overcrowded public universities.

然而，事实证明，这些雄心勃勃的政策声明往往与单个成员国的国内政策相左。例如，德国就一直不愿意在修缮路桥方面增加开支，尽管政府预算存在盈余，而且还能以接近零利率的水平从国际金融市场借贷。谨慎的德国选民宁愿把钱存起来，也不愿意对诸如过度拥挤的公立大学之类的领域进行投资。

Even under the best of circumstances, the G-20 is an unwieldy group. Unlike the G-7, whose members are all wealthy democracies, the G-20 includes authoritarian countries like China and poor countries like India. But is it all just a waste of time and money?

即便在最佳状态下，G20仍然是个运转不灵的组织。与成员均为富裕民主国家的G7不同，G20包括中国这样的威权国家和印度这样的贫穷国家。那么，G20是否只是在浪费时间和金钱呢？

The G-20 has arguably had a significant impact in addressing one pressing global issue: the fragility of the financial system. G-20 support has been crucial in addressing the problem of banks that are too big to fail, an underlying cause of the financial crisis that brought the world leaders to Washington in 2008 for the first summit meeting. Another likely outcome of the Brisbane gathering will be to endorse rules that further strengthen banks’ ability to absorb losses.

在处理一个紧迫的国际议题方面，G20可以说是产生了巨大影响。这个议题就是金融体系的脆弱性。G20的支持对于应对那些“大到不能倒”的银行的问题十分重要，而此类问题就是这轮金融危机的潜在诱因。由于这场危机，各国领导人2008年在华盛顿召开了首次G20峰会。布里斯班会议另一项可能的成果是，让各国承诺支持进一步加强银行承担损失能力的规章。

“Has the G-20 done enough to support a vision of well-functioning, integrated financial markets? I would say no,” said Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a research organization in Brussels. But he said the progress on bank regulation “has been useful.”

“G20是否已经为支持一个运转良好、完整统一的金融市场做出了足够努力？我认为没有，”在位于布鲁塞尔的布勒哲尔国际经济研究所(Bruegel)任高级研究员的尼古拉斯·韦龙(Nicolas Véron)说。但是他表示，银行监管方面的进展“起到了作用”。

Moreover, he and others pointed out, there is something to be said for getting leaders together in one room where they have a chance to take each other’s measure, where they must deal with each other as mortal human beings.

此外，他和其他一些人还指出，让各国领导人共聚一堂是有好处的：他们必须作为普通人与彼此打交道，有了机会来增进了解。

“Maybe there are too many people attending and too much taxpayers’ money spent,” Mr. Véron said. “But the fact that we have these meetings to discuss the world economy at the highest level with the most important leaders is useful.”

“或许参与者过多，也花了纳税人太多的钱，”韦龙说。“但是，我们召开这些会议，与最重要的领导人一起在最高层面讨论世界经济，还是有用的。”