Should we feel threatened by the rise of China? The relentless progress of what my colleague Martin Wolf describes as the world's largest ant colony is giddying. Exports from China have risen by almost half in the past year, causing a political stink in Washington, while Chinese workers are reminding their employers, and rulers, that cheap Chinese labour cannot be taken for granted. China has a habit of outrunning any superlative we can apply to the place. (The statistics about China I included in my book The Undercover Economist – published in 2005 – have been shredded by the pace of Chinese growth.)
對於中國的崛起，我們應該感覺到威脅嗎？我的同事馬丁•沃爾夫(Martin Wolf)把這個國家比作全球最大的蟻穴，它毫不停歇的發展令人眩暈。在過去一年裏，中國的出口增加了近一半，這在華盛頓政壇激起了軒然大波，同時中國的工人正敦促僱主和政府當局，別把中國廉價勞動力視作理所當然。不管你用多誇張的詞語來形容中國，它都會一一趕超。（我在2005年出版的《臥底經濟學家》(The Undercover Economist)一書中，列舉了許多有關中國的統計數據，但中國成長的步伐讓它們化爲了碎片。）