经济学人整理版

《经济学家》读译参考 Translated & Edited by Chen Jilong

对城市大学所有不完善的方面而言，它关于低学费和高标准的模式为我们展示了一个与众不同的教育方法，而且，该大学新近发展进程也许有助于打破这样一个谬论，那就是学校高标准会让学生以及捐助者们望而却步。高德斯坦先生坚持认为，“杰出人物统治论这个词并不难听。”

TEXT 2

Here be dragons 龙来了

Jan 26th 2006

From The Economist print edition

Google, the internet search engine that has grown into a corporate giant, began operations in China on January 25th. Though critics suggest it has betrayed its own motto - “don't be evil” - by agreeing to censor certain sites, Google maintains it will do more good than harm

已经成为公司巨人的国际互联网搜索引擎——Google，1月25日启动了在中国的业务。尽管评论家认为，Google违背了自己的箴言——“别干坏事”，因为它同意对一些特定的站点进行审查，但Google公司坚持认为这样一来将利大于弊。

IN 2001 human-rights activists in China crowed that a little-known search engine called Google was the most important tool ever created to skirt state censors. Users could retrieve content that Beijing banned by clicking to call up a “cached” copy of the web page, stored by Google. Soon, however, Google itself was being sporadically blocked. The firm was instructed to deactivate that particular feature, and for a short time its web address was even re-routed by Chinese network operators to the website of a local rival.

2001年，一种鲜为人知的、名叫Google的搜索引擎成为那时被用来避开国家审查的最重要工具。中国人权激进分子为此而幸灾乐祸。用户可以通过点击打开由Google存储的“缓冲存储”网页备份，从而重新获得被政府封杀的相关内容。不过，Google公司自己很快也被不定期关闭。该公司接到通知，要求它取消那种特定功能，并且中国网络运营者甚至曾一度将该公司的网址链接改到一家中国本地搜索引擎（google的竞争对手）上。

The continual cat-and-mouse game ended this week when Google, now a corporate giant, entered the dragon?s den. On January 25th the search engine “Google.cn” began operations. It is a first step towards beefing up the company?s local presence, which will also mean placing computer-servers in the country. This will speed up service for mainland users, who otherwise must penetrate the great firewall of China, which dramatically slows down access to Google.com.

本周，当现已成为公司巨人的Google进入了“中国龙潭”，长久以来的猫捉老鼠游戏也就结束了。1月25日，中文搜索引擎“Google.cn”开始运行。这是公司为加强本地化实力所迈出的第一步，也意味着公司即将把计算机服务器放到中国了，如此一来可以加快为中国大陆用户的服务速度，此外也必然会穿越中国巨大的防火墙——这面防火墙大大减慢了用户登录Google的速度。

Having local infrastructure gives an advantage to Google?s search-engine rivals, such as China?s Baidu.com (which enjoys around 40% of the Chinese search market, compared with Google?s 30%), and Yahoo! and Microsoft?s MSN, which have local Chinese operations. China?s internet market, with more than 100m users, is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative in the world. Can Google—with its motto “don?t be evil”—do

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《经济学家》读译参考 Translated & Edited by Chen Jilong

business in China without betraying its soul?

中国地方政府部门倾向于支持Google在搜索引擎方面的竞争对手，比如中国百度（大约占中国搜索业市场的40%份额，而Google为30%），以及在中国内地都有业务的雅虎、微软的MSN。拥有1亿用户的中国互联网市场是全球发展最快、最富利润的市场之一。以“别干坏事”自诫的Google公司，用不着自食其言，能在中国做成生意吗？

The company is making a concerted effort to do just that. It has reached an agreement with the Chinese authorities that allows it to disclose to users, at the bottom of a list of search results, whether information has been withheld. This is similar to what the company does in other countries where it faces content restrictions, such as France and Germany (where Nazi sites are banned), and America (where it removes material that is suspected of copyright infringement). Although the disclosure is more prominent on these western sites, putting such a message on its Chinese site is an important step towards transparency and, furthermore, is something its rivals do not do.

Google公司正齐心协力，就是为了“自食其言”。他们已经与中国政府达成共识，允许其搜索结果列表底部信息向用户开放，无论是否属于禁止范围。这类似于该公司在其他一些同样面临内容限制的国家中的做法，比如法国和德国（禁止纳粹站点）以及美国（疑似侵犯版权的有关材料将被删除）。尽管在这些西方国家信息公开化要更为突出，但在Google中国站点上出现这一讯息是其向透明化迈出的重要一步，更为甚者，这也是某种其中国对手无法办到的事情。

Furthermore, Google is tiptoeing into the country with only a handful of services. It is not offering e-mail, blogging or social-networking services, because it worries that it will not be able to ensure users? privacy. It wishes to avoid the situation in which MSN and Yahoo! find themselves, whereby they are forced to obey the Chinese government?s orders in censoring content and revealing users? identities. Rather than be placed in a position where it may have to compromise its values, Google instead is narrowing what it offers (although its news service will contain only government-approved media sources).

而且，Google只须提供很有限的服务，就悄悄地进入了中国市场。由于担心无法确保可以保护用户隐私，该公司并不提供电子邮件、博客以及社交网络服务。Google公司希望自己不会落入MSN和雅虎如今的境地——这两家公司不得不遵守中国政府关于内容审查和泄露用户身份方面的规定。Google公司目前的处境并不损及其自身利益，相反还缩减了支出费用（虽然其提供的新闻服务内容来源仅限于政府认可的新闻媒体）。

Google believes that entering China, even with restraints on content, lets it offer more information than if it remained outside. Yet the decision comes as American internet firms such as Yahoo! and MSN duck criticism that they are complicit with the Chinese authorities.

Google相信，进入中国，无论诸多内容限制，仍令其能提供比以往更多的信息。不过，当雅虎、MSN这些美国互联网公司纷纷回避那些指责他们与中国政府串通一气的言论时，Google公司终于下了决心。

Meanwhile in America

For Google, taking the higher road happens to also be a way to differentiate its service. This month America?s Department of Justice went to court to force Google to comply with a subpoena seeking more than 1m web addresses and a weeks? worth of all users? searches (down from an original demand of every web address it holds and two months of searches), albeit without any information that would identify individual users. The government wants the data in order to examine the effectiveness of software filters to block pornography, for a case involving a law prohibiting the content, which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. 美国国内反响

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《经济学家》读译参考 Translated & Edited by Chen Jilong

对于Google而言，向更高目标进发恰好也是一种让服务多样化的途径。1月，美国司法部通过法庭勒令Google公司履行之前法院发出的传票，提供一百多万个网址以及所有用户数周的使用搜索引擎记录（亦即??和两个月的搜索情况），不过不需要确认个人用户身份的相关信息。美政府之所以要这些数据，是想要检验一下打击网络色情的软件滤过性能，

The government requested, and received, information from Yahoo!, MSN and AOL—all of which initially stonewalled about whether they disclosed the data. Yet Google resisted, arguing that “acceding to the request would suggest it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept.” The day the subpoena was made public, Google?s shares dropped almost 9%, its largest single-day decline since it began trading in 2004.

美政府要求并业已收到了来自雅虎、MSN以及AOL提交的材料，这些公司起初对是否公布有关数据有些举棋不定。不过，Google公司最终还是予以了拒绝，并称“谁要是同意按要求去做，就表面谁愿意泄露其用户的隐私。Google对此感到不可思议。”传票公布于众的当天，Google的股价几乎下跌了9%，创下2004年上市以来最大单日跌幅。

Google?s stance could put commercial pressure on its rivals to adopt more customer-friendly policies, and may serve as a warning to other internet firms to treat customers? data with more care. Yet such high-mindedness will be tested as Google enters China. Keeping its options open, the company is not shutting down the Chinese-language version of Google.com. It will remain available, for those willing to wait a bit longer for their uncensored search results.

从商业上看，Google公司这一态度有可能迫使其竞争对手采取更有益于用户的政策，并且会提醒其他互联网公司在对待用户数据时要更为谨慎。然而，在Google进驻中国后，它的这种高尚品格将受到考验。Google并未关闭Google.com的中文界面，仍然保持着其可选性，如此一来，对于那些想搜索到未经审查的信息而宁愿网速慢一些的用户而言，仍然有路可寻。

TEXT 3

Food firms and fat-fighters 食品公司与减肥斗士

Feb 9th 2006 From The Economist Global Agenda

Five leading food companies have introduced a labelling scheme for their products in the British market, in an attempt to assuage critics who say they encourage obesity. But consumer groups are unhappy all the same. Is the food industry, like tobacco before it, about to be *engulfed[1] by a wave of lawsuits brought on health grounds? 五家业内领先的食品公司采取了一项方案，就是在其投入英国市场的食品上作出标注，力图堵住那些说他们鼓励肥胖的批评人士的嘴。不过，消费者团体仍然不开心。食品业会像之前的烟草一样，被卷入一场关乎健康的诉讼之中吗？

KEEPING fit requires a combination of healthy eating and regular exercise. On the second of these at least, the world?s food companies can claim to be setting a good example: they have been working up quite a sweat in their attempts to fend off assaults by governments, consumer groups and lawyers who accuse them of peddling

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《经济学家》读译参考 Translated & Edited by Chen Jilong

products that encourage obesity. This week saw the unveiling of another industry initiative: five leading food producers—Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo—introduced a labelling scheme for the British market which will show “guideline daily amounts” for calories, fats, sugar and salt on packaging. The new labels will start to appear on the firms? crisps, chocolate bars, cheese slices *and the like[2] over the next few months. A number of other food giants, such as Cadbury Schweppes and Masterfoods, have already started putting guideline labels on their products.

将健康的饮食习惯和经常性的锻炼二者结合才可以让身体保持健康。至少就第二点而言，全球的食品公司可以说是树立了一个很好的典范：为了避开政府、消费者团体以及律师们的抨击——指责食品公司四处兜售促进肥胖的产品，他们已经累得大汗淋漓了。本周，食品业的另一举措也公诸于世：五家业内领先的食品厂商——Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft以及PepsiCo——在英国市场实施了一项商品标注计划，即在包装上标明卡路里（热量）、脂肪、糖和盐的“每日摄入量指南”。在接下来的几个月里，这些食品公司的土豆条、巧克力棒、干酪片等等包装上将开始出现这类新标注。其它许多食品业巨头如Cadbury Schweppes 和Masterfoods也已经着手在其产品上加入指导性标记。

The food companies say doing this will empower consumers, allowing them to make informed decisions about which foods are healthy. （1）But consumer groups have cried foul. They point out that the Food Standards Agency, a government watchdog, is due to recommend a different type of labelling scheme next month: a “traffic light” system using colours to tell consumers whether products have low, medium or high levels of fat, salt and the like. The food firms, they say, have rushed to introduce their own, fuzzier guidelines first in a cynical attempt to undermine the government?s plan—which they fear might hurt their sales. In consumer tests, the traffic light performed better than rival labelling schemes.

这些食品公司说，这么做可以让消费者在确定何种食品为健康食品时心知肚明。但是消费者团体大声疾呼食品公司此举纯属犯规，他们指出，作为政府监督机构，食品标准局应该在下个月推出一项不同的标注措施——“红绿灯”方法，亦即应用不同颜色，提醒消费者食品的脂肪、糖、盐分等含量是低、中等还是高。他们说，食品公司突然率先采用他们自定的那些模糊指南，是对政府计划的恣意破坏，他们害怕政府的计划会让他们的产品卖不出去。对消费者进行调查后显示，“红绿灯”方法比食品公司的标注方案效果要好。

Nevertheless, the food companies argue that the traffic-light system is too simplistic and likely to scare people away from certain products that are fine if consumed in moderation, or in conjunction with plenty of exercise—which most observers, including the medical profession, agree is crucial for anyone wanting to stay in shape. They also point out that they have competitors to worry about—namely the big supermarket chains with their own-label products. Last April, Tesco, the biggest of these, announced that it was rejecting the traffic-light system in favour of a less stark “signposting” approach. Its rivals fear that adopting colour-coding could put them at a competitive disadvantage. 然而，食品公司辩称，“红绿灯”方法过于简单，某些产品会因此吓跑消费者，而这些产品如果食用适量或者结合充分锻炼，对人都是十分有益的，而且包括医学专家在内的大多数观察人士都认为，这些食品对于任何想要保持好体形的人而言都至关重要。同时，他们还指出，他们要顾及一些竞争者，也就是那些对产品加上各自标注的大型超市连锁店的做法。去年四月，最大一家超市连锁店Tesco宣布，他们反对采用“红绿灯”方法，取而代之的是一种更为灵活的“路标”法。因此，食品公司担心，若采用颜色编码（也就是红绿灯法），会令他们在竞争中处于劣势。

Better labelling has become an important weapon of the food giants? armoury as they fight back against their critics. In October 2005 McDonald?s, the world?s largest fast-food company, said it would start printing nutritional facts on the packaging of its burgers and fries, including the fat, salt, calorie and carbohydrate content. Before that, information about （2）big-sellers such as the Big Mac, which contains 30g of fat, could only be

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