想跟中国抗衡 加拿大和美国应该合并

When Americans think about Canada -- and that doesn't happen often -- they usually think of us as the nice, predictable guy next door who never plays his stereo too loud. Even Rob Ford, Toronto's ranting, crack-smoking mayor, has barely dented our squeaky-clean image.

美国人想到加拿大的时候不多，如果想到，他们一般会把我们想成性情和善、作息规律的邻居，从来不把音响调得太大的邻居。即便是夸夸其谈、吸食霹雳可卡因的多伦多市长罗布・福特(Rob Ford)，也没有怎么玷污我们的纯洁形象。

But Americans shouldn't just think more about Canada. They should consider building on the two countries' free-trade deal and forming a more perfect North American union. It is past time for the U.S. and Canada to eliminate their border -- either by creating a customs and monetary union or, more radically, by merging outright into a single nation-state or a European Union-style partnership.

但对于美国人来说，只是多花点时间想想加拿大还是不够的。他们应该考虑如何强化两国自由贸易协定，形成一个更加完美的北美联盟。美国和加拿大早就该取消它们之间的边界了，具体办法可以是建立一个关税与货币联盟，也可以做得更彻底，直接合并成一个单一民族国家或欧盟那样的合伙关系。

Such a merger makes perfect sense. No two countries on Earth are as socially and economically integrated as the U.S. and Canada. They share geography, values and a gigantic border. Their populations study, travel and do business together and intermarry in great numbers. If they were corporations (or European states), they would have merged a long time ago. And each has what the other needs: The U.S. has capital, manpower, technology and the world's strongest military; Canada has vast reserves of undeveloped resources.

这样的合并完全说得通。地球上没有哪两个国家的社会、经济融合程度赶得上美国和加拿大。两国拥有共同的地理条件、价值观和漫长的边境线，两国人民一起学习、旅游、做生意，通婚现象也普遍。如果两国是企业（或欧洲国家），它们早就合并了。而且双方都拥有对方所需要的东西：美国有资金、人力、技术和世界上最强的军队，加拿大拥有庞大的未开发资源储备。

Of course, even the most mild-mannered Canadian may sputter at the prospect of being swallowed up by the U.S., and Americans may wonder about the wisdom of absorbing their huge neighbor. But it needn't be so radical. Nobody is proposing that Canada become the 51st state.

当然，即使是最温和的加拿大人，想到加拿大被美国吞并的可能性，也可能气得语无伦次；而美国人则有可能怀疑一下子吸纳这个庞大的邻国是否明智。但合并不一定非得那么激进。没有谁提议让加拿大成为美国第51个州。

Like modern businesses, modern nations must constantly recalibrate their economic and political models. The smartest people in a room prevail until a smarter group comes along. And unless winners adapt, they eventually lose out, in economic and political life as in nature. Today's U.S. or Canada could become tomorrow's Portugal or Greece. In the competitive and interconnected world of the 21st century, countries that stand still will be left behind.

和很多现代企业一样，现代国家必须不断校正自己的经济和政治模式。一屋子里面最聪明的人会占据上风，但等更聪明的人进来的时候就不一样了。如果胜者不适应新的环境，他们终将出局。在大自然中如此，在经济和政治生活中也是如此。今天的美国或加拿大有可能成为明天的葡萄牙或希腊。在21世纪竞争激烈而又彼此勾连的世界里，僵化不动的国家将落后于人。

The two North American neighbors increasingly find themselves staring down the barrel of state capitalism, as practiced above all by China, whose state-owned enterprises and sovereign-wealth funds have made a concerted effort to capture markets and resources. In October, the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook database forecast that by 2018, China's economy will be bigger than that of the U.S. -- and Asian economies will be bigger than those of the U.S., Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Russia combined.

我们这两个北美邻国越来越发现自己正面对着国家资本主义的炮口。奉行国家资本主义最积极的是中国，它的国有企业和主权财富基金步调一致地夺取市场和资源。国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)的《世界经济展望》(World Economic Outlook)数据库10月份预测，到2018年中国经济规模将超过美国，亚洲经济体的总规模将超过美国、加拿大、德国、英国、意大利、法国和俄罗斯的总和。

If Canada and the U.S. were to join forces, the tables might well be turned. The North American neighbors would become an even more formidable superpower, with an economy larger than the European Union's and a land mass bigger than South America's. The new union would top the world in energy, minerals, water, arable land and technology, and all of it would be protected by the U.S. military. Size matters.

如果加拿大和美国联合起来，形势就很有可能逆转。北美两邻国将成为一个更加强大的超级大国：经济规模超过欧盟，国土面积超过南美。新的联盟将在能源、矿产、水资源、耕地和技术方面称霸世界，而这一切都将受到美国军事力量的保护。规模很重要。

Canadians have traditionally bristled at the thought of falling under the sway of the U.S., but without a deeper cross-border partnership, we face some grim existential challenges. With its small, aging population and relatively small economy, Canada lacks the resources to develop and defend its gigantic piece of real estate. Through a series of aggressive buyout attempts and transactions, China has targeted Canada's resources and empty landmass. In 2007, Russia used a small submarine to symbolically plant its flag on the ocean floor beneath the North Pole and underscore its claim to a large swath of the resource-rich Arctic, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pushing the U.N. to affirm his claims to the region.

在过去，加拿大人一想到听任美国摆布的可能场景就怒发冲冠；但如果不加强跨境伙伴关系，我们就会面临事关生死存亡的严峻考验。加拿大人口稀少且正在老龄化，经济规模又相对较小，因此缺少必要的资源来开发和保卫其辽阔的疆土。通过一系列激进的收购行动和交易，中国已经瞄准了加拿大的资源和空旷地皮。2007年，俄罗斯的一艘小型潜艇在北极之下的海底象征性地插了一面国旗，强调俄对资源丰富的北极大片地区的权利，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔・普京(Vladimir Putin)也一直在推动联合国确认他对该地区的所有权主张。

The U.S. faces serious challenges of its own. It must create millions of jobs for its relatively young population, and even as its political system grows more sclerotic, it must compete for markets, resources and Arctic access with the aggressive practitioners of state capitalism.

美国自己也面临着严峻的挑战。它必须为其相对年轻的人口创造数百万的就业岗位；在其政治体系变得日益僵化之际，它又必须跟国家资本主义的激进践行者争夺市场、资源和北极地区的使用权。

Truth be told, the merger of the U.S. and Canada is already well under way. As many as one in 10 Canadians (more than 3 million people) live full- or part-time in the U.S., and an estimated 1 million Americans live in Canada. As of 2010, U.S. enterprises controlled about 10% of Canada's assets, 17% of its revenues and 13% of its corporate profits, according to Statistics Canada. Canadians bought more goods and services from Americans than did the 340 million people living in the European Union -- a population 10 times as large.

实话实说吧，美国和加拿大的合并其实早就在进行。10个加拿大人当中就有一人永久或临时地居住在美国，总共超过300万人。居住在加拿大的美国人估计有100万。据加拿大统计局(Statistics Canada)数据，截至2010年，美国企业控制着加拿大10%左右的资产、17%的收入和13%的公司利润。加拿大人从美国人那里购买的商品和服务比生活在欧盟内的3.4亿人从美国买的还多――欧盟的人口可是加拿大的10倍。

A still deeper integration could drive major economic growth. Canada's hinterland is largely without infrastructure or development, even though it contains enormous untapped natural resources. Political disputes have also stranded some of the world's most promising hydroelectric and tidal power prospects in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

再进一步融合的话，则有可能形成强劲的经济增长。加拿大内陆地区虽然蕴藏着巨量的自然资源有待开采，但那些地区基本上没有基础设施，没有开发。加拿大魁北克、不列颠哥伦比亚、马尼托巴、纽芬兰、新斯科舍这些省份一些最有前景的水电站和潮汐发电站项目，也因政治上的纠纷而搁浅。

Despite the powerful logic of a U.S.-Canada merger, the obstacles remain daunting. Both countries are divided politically and heavily regionalized. To execute so audacious a move would require a level of statesmanship now lacking in both countries.

尽管美加合并有着充分的理由，障碍仍然令人望而生畏。两国都存在政治上的两极化和严重的区域分化。要执行一场如此大胆的行动，必须具备相应的政治才能，然而这是目前两个国家都缺乏的。

But remember, the Europeans pulled off something far more dramatic, uniting populations that shared no language and had slaughtered one another for centuries. Other recent examples of deeper integration include the Eastern Caribbean Economic and Monetary Union and the Economic Community of West African States. They all did it by opening their borders to trade and travel -- while at the same time leaving governments intact.

但别忘了，欧洲人取得了更戏剧性的成就，把没有共同语言、数百年来互相残杀的人口都统一了起来。近期其他加深融合的例子还有东加勒比经济与货币联盟(Eastern Caribbean Economic and Monetary Union)和西非国家经济共同体(Economic Community of West African States)。它们加深融合的办法都是针对贸易和旅游开放边境――同时保持各自政府不变。

Opinion surveys about an outright merger are scant, but as far back as 1964, a poll showed support from 49% of Canadians. In 2007, the World Values Survey Association, a research network of thousands of social scientists, found that about 77% of Americans and 41% of Canadians said they would opt for political union if it meant a better quality of life. In 2011, another poll by Harris/Decima showed that 65% of Canadians backed greater integration with the U.S. and supported a plan to eliminate the border by blending U.S. and Canadian customs, immigration, security and law enforcement efforts.

有关直接合并的民意调查很少，但早在1964年的时候，就有调查显示49%的加拿大人持支持态度。2007年，由数千社会科学家组成的研究网络“世界价值观调查协会”(World Values Survey Association)发现，77%的美国人和41%的加拿大人说，如果组建政治联盟能够提高生活质量，那么他们就会选择组建政治联盟。2011年Harris/Decima的另一项调查显示，65%的加拿大人支持与美国加强融合，并支持一项通过整合美加海关、移民、安全和执法行动来清除边界的计划。

Those who oppose such a merger are on the wrong side of history. When the North American Free Trade Agreement passed in 1987, the U.S. and Canada (along with Mexico) began a mutually beneficial process of integration that now needs strengthening. Untended, the border has become clogged, damaging trade and tourism. And the wolves are at the door. Just this year China, Inc. picked off a large Canadian oil company and a large American food processor and exporter, without promising either country any reciprocal buyout privileges in China.

反对合并的人站在了历史潮流的对立面。1987年北美自由贸易协定(North American Free Trade Agreement)通过的时候，美国和加拿大（以及墨西哥）开启了一段互惠互利的融合进程，现在这种融合需要加强。不加管理的边境已经变得拥堵起来，损害了贸易和旅游。而且狼群已来到门口。就在今年，中国拿下加拿大一家大型石油企业和美国一家大型食品加工出口企业，但并没有向这两个国家承诺任何在华收购特权。

Serious discussion of a merger should be a top priority for both the U.S. and Canada. The continental neighbors need one another more now than ever before, and the status quo grows less viable by the day.

认真讨论合并事宜，应当成为美国和加拿大的优先要务。两个同属一个大洲的邻国现在比以往任何时候都更加需要对方，而现状正一天比一天难以为继。