Prevent global chaos

弁言：全球经济危机的政治衍生是什么？我们是否会朝着一个全球范围的混乱时代前行？华盛顿邮报对此做了观察，下文为其简单描述。其中尤其提及中国、俄罗斯等国面对经济危机可能的风险与变化。
The political ramifications of the global economic crisis: Are we headed toward a period of worldwide instability? (Don't read this if you are squeamish and/or want to be in a good mood over the Holidays) Posted 6:00AM, Monday, December 22, 2008

The real challenge for Obama and his team: Prevent global chaos.

Forget Mr. Bush's legacy as the guy who drew the US into a disastrous war in Iraq. Rather, Mr. Bush may be most remembered for plunging the world into a pervasive普遍深入地 instability, caused by the global economic crisis, that brings the world to the brink of outright chaos. And, while Mr. Bush's policies compounded混合 the problem and drove its severity to heights never dreamed of, the philosophy of Ronald Reagan spawned it. Bush 41 and Bill Clinton exacerbated it...and factors completely outside Mr. Bush's control, like demographics and the bad habits of Baby Boomers drove its speed and depth.

But placing the blame won't help Mr. Obama and his team avoid a cycle of disastrous global instability (that, by the way, will further fuel the economic crisis). But understanding that it's coming and what it means is a first step.
谴责不回版主奥巴马和他的团队避免一个全球进入不稳定时代的到来（顺便来说，这将加剧经济危机）。当理解他的到来和他将意味着什么是第一步。

First, understand that the economic crisis may last a decade or more, and, it most likely will get much worse before it gets better. It's caused by a combination of demographics, deregulation, depression (fear and the decline of consumer confidence) and disappearance (of US consumer spending). Out of these four causes only deregulation can be fixed quickly...and that horse unfortunately is already out of the barn.
第一，要认识到经济危机可能会持续十年甚至更久，他很可能会在他变好之前变的更糟。它是一个由人口、异常、沮丧（恐惧和消费者信心的下降）以及消失（美国消费力的消失）综合而引起的。这四项之中只有异常是迅速的表现出来了，那匹马也不幸的已经走出了马厩。

The US Federal Reserve Bank ("Fed") has recognized the severity of this decline as have many governments around the world and all are lowering interest rates and printing money like mad to goose their respective economies back into a semblance of health伪健康. They may be successful but that's by no means certain particularly over the short term. And, that's the scary引起惊慌 part.

As many of our readers know, the GPB tracks the emergence and consensus of cutting edge analysts the world over. And, they've passed the first significance threshold in the GPB systems for a warning on coming global instability in critical countries like China, Russia and even the United States. The instability is not just internal. It affects how these countries interact in the world and the aggression进攻、侵略 they show to their neighbors and rivals.

Let's look at just some of the hot spots.
让我们看看其中的一些热点。
The two most dangerous are clearly China and Russia. Both countries have had significant growth rates over the past decade that have raised expectations in each nation and changed the internal dynamics of the countries. In China, the rural poor have moved to the cities to work in export-based factories. Russia has had its first baby boomlet as its recent fast growth actually did trickle down. Both have enjoyed the stability that comes with economic optimism.

But the global uber recession (a nice word for a depression) has changed all that. We'll cover Russia in the next Observation. Here we'll look at China.

In China's Guangdong Province, ground zero in the Country's export business, the New York Times reports that more than 7,000 small and medium sized factories have closed. Last Saturday, China's official news agency, Xinhua, reported in China View that "According to the latest survey from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security this week, 4.85 million jobless migrant workers had returned to their hometowns by the end of November, and nationwide, more than 10 million of migrants are currently out of work."

State Council advisor Chen Quansheng told a forum in Beijing on Friday that some 670,000 small firms had closed their doors. Xinhua says that about 6.7 million jobs have vanished in recent months pushing the unemployment numbers far beyond the official of 8.3 million.

And it's not only migrant jobs that are vanishing. At the end of 2008, 1.5 million university graduates have failed to find jobs (a 12% unemployment figure among new graduates), prompting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to make a special visit to students at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Dec. 20 to reassure them that the government views jobs for grads as a top priority. "Your difficulties are my difficulties, and if you are worried, I am more worried than you," Wen told students.

In a country many analysts believe must grow its GPB at least 8%/year to generate the 20 million jobs required to maintain confidence in its government, these are not good signs. Some believe China's 2009 growth could come in below 4% as industrial production plummets垂直下滑.

Perhaps as serious as the real numbers is the rapid decline in worker confidence. "There is a strong sense of insecurity among migrant workers, college graduates and even white-collar workers amid the global financial crisis," Guo Weiqing, a professor of public administration at Guangzhou's Sun Yat-sen University, told China Daily (reported in China View).
可能真实数字更为严重，工人阶层的信心在迅速下滑。“在移民阶层、大学生、甚至白领阶层中因为全球金融危机，都有很强的不安全感，“广州中山大学公共行政学院的的教授郭巍青告诉《中国日报》。

Most analysts believe the biggest risk with China's economic problems is internal. In a nation where "mass incidents群体事件" as demonstrations are called can sometimes number nearly 300/day, social instability is a constant worry. Reuters has reported, "Labour strikes, small scale protests and land disputes are already cropping up across the country. Disappointed students who will soon graduate add to the problem." Chinese newspapers have begun opinion pieces on the importance of social stability, a bad sign. Few believe the current economic problems will seriously threaten the Chinese government, particularly given that it weathered the Asian financial crisis of the 90's where China's growth sputtered to a crawl. But others warn that the difference then was that the American consumer was strong and growing stronger. The American consumer will not be there this time to fuel exports and according to various Chinese economists, not enough of China's recent growth trickled down to allow internal consumption to revive the economy by itself.

The Chinese government has announced numerous stimulus packages and local governments are providing subsidies for migrant works and small loans for new citizen businesses, but few believe it will be enough to rescue the economy without revived exports, which few believe will occur in 2009 or even 2010. 中国政府已经宣布了庞大的经济刺激方案，并各地政府也为移民工人提供了补贴，为新市民商务提供贷款，当很少有人相信他能够在没有得以恢复的情况下拯救经济，有些人相信出口的恢复大概会在09年或10年开始。

There's another effect of the Chinese slowdown. As jobs dry up in China, foreign workers are returning home to countries around southeast Asia. Some 250,000 workers, for example, have returned over the past few months to Indonesia. With an unemployment rate over 9.5% and nearly 2 million jobs at risk form the current global crisis, this is not something that will contribute to Indonesia's stability.

If the global slowdown is not reversed next year, the leaderships of multiple Asian nations, including China, could be threatened. And anything that threatens the stability of some of the world's most populous countries人口稠密 is an unnerving thought.

Yet, while many Asian countries are most likely to focus internally to resolve their instability, many analysts are concerned that Russia could focus externally. The GPB will consider the global effects of Russia's economic turmoil in the next Observation.