给经贸协议数字挤水分

British prime minister Theresa May did not come back to London from her visit to China empty-handed last week. According to news reports, British businesses signed ￡9bn worth of deals with Chinese companies.

英国首相特里萨·梅(Theresa May)上周访华后并未空手回到伦敦。据媒体报道，英国企业与中国企业签署了价值90亿英镑的协议。

Similarly, after French president Emmanuel Macron visited China earlier this year, it was claimed that 20bn worth of contracts had been signed. These figures pale in comparison, however, with the announcement of investment and trade deals worth $250bn between the US and China when President Donald Trump went to the People’s Republic in November.

同样，今年早些时候法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)访华后不久，两国据称签署了价值200亿欧元的合同。然而，与唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)去年11月访华时美中宣布签署的2500亿美元投资和贸易协议相比，这些数字就相形见绌了。

Neither the Chinese nor the UK, French and US governments informed domestic audiences whether these agreements were definitive or merely memorandums of understanding which have no binding force. It is not uncommon for such non-binding agreements to be signed even when one or more of the parties has no intention of carrying through on any deal.

无论是中国还是英国、法国和美国的政府都没有告诉国内受众，这些协议是确定性的，还是仅仅是没有约束力的谅解备忘录。并不罕见的是，即使有一方或多方无意履行任何协议，它们也会签署这种不具约束力的协议。

It is likely that the $250bn figure triumphantly touted by Mr Trump is inflated, as most of the deals were previously announced and approved before the president touched down in China. Others are merely pending transactions and therefore should not be considered new deals negotiated by Mr Trump. Indeed, given that the declaration of these deals is often largely politically driven, it is not surprising that figures are often inflated.

特朗普大肆吹嘘的2500亿美元很可能有所夸大，因为大多数交易是在美国总统抵达中国之前宣布和批准的。其他只是待定交易，因此不应被视为特朗普谈判达成的新交易。事实上，鉴于这些交易的宣布在很大程度上往往是受政治驱动的，数字经常被夸大并不奇怪。

A major obstacle to turning diplomatic declarations into actual deals — and here the Chinese government is no exception — is that commitments made at the governmental level need to be transplanted into the domestic law in order to be implemented.

把外交声明变成实际交易的一个主要障碍——在这方面中国政府也不例外——是政府层面的承诺需要移植到国内法律才能落实。

For example, two days after Mr Trump ended his China visit, Beijing announced a radical policy to open its financial sector to foreign companies. Limits on foreign ownership of banks, asset managers, securities firms and insurance companies will eventually be scrapped. This is part of China’s move to open up its $40tn financial sector, as well as an attempt to counter the charge that China does not play by the rules in global commerce.

例如，在特朗普结束访华行程两天后，北京宣布了一项向外国公司开放国内金融业的激进政策。对银行、资产管理公司、证券公司和保险公司的外资所有权限制最终将被取消。这是中国开放其40万亿美元金融业举措的一部分，也是为了反驳中国在全球商业中不遵守规则的指控。