贸易战升级，中国手中筹码不足？

President Trump imposed tariffs in July on $34 billion in Chinese goods. China matched them dollar for dollar with its own.

特朗普总统在7月份开始对价值340亿美元的中国商品加征关税。中国对同等价值的美国商品加征了关税。

Then he hit an additional $16 billion in goods in August. China matched that, too.

后来，特朗普在8月份又把价值160亿美元的中国商品包括了进来。中国也做出了同等回应。

Now, Mr. Trump has made his biggest move yet, announcing 10 percent tariffs starting in a week on $200 billion a year of Chinese goods. But this time, China can’t match them all — and that crystallizes a growing problem for Beijing.

现在，特朗普拿出了他迄今为止规模最大的举措，宣布在一周内开始对美国每年从中国进口的价值2000亿美元的中国商品加征10%的关税。但这次，中国无法做出完全对等的回应，这突显了北京面临的一个日益严重的问题。

On Tuesday, Chinese officials responded to the president’s latest move by following through on an earlier threat to impose tariffs on $60 billion in American goods — nearly everything China buys from the United States.

周二，中国官员回应了特朗普总统近期采取的行动，他们兑现之前的威胁，对价值600亿美元的美国商品加征关税——这几乎是中国从美国购买的全部商品。

China’s responses have so far failed to thwart Mr. Trump’s trade offensive, and with the White House amping up the fight again, Chinese leaders aren’t sure how to respond, people briefed on economic policymaking discussions say.

中国的回应迄今为止未能阻挠特朗普的贸易攻势，据了解制定经济政策讨论的人士说，随着白宫再次加大打击力度，中国领导人对如何回应有些拿不准。

Chinese officials “are generally confused,” said Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, a trade specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been traveling around China speaking with officials, businesspeople and workers.

中国的官员们“普遍有些迷茫”，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校的贸易专家劳尔·伊诺霍萨-奥赫达(Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda)说。

“They don’t know what to do,” he added. “They worry that the tit-for-tat model is playing into Trump’s hands.”

“他们不知道该怎么办，”他还说。“他们担心，针锋相对的做法正中了特朗普的下怀。”

China doesn’t import nearly enough from the United States to target $200 billion in American goods — let alone the additional $267 billion in Chinese goods that Mr. Trump has threatened to tax.

中国从美国进口的商品远远达不到针对2000亿美元的等价商品加征关税的规模——更不用说特朗普进一步威胁征收关税的2670亿美元等价商品了。

But China’s leaders feel they can’t back down. They have presented the trade war as part of a broader effort by the United States to contain China’s rise.

但中国领导人觉得他们不能让步。他们已把这场贸易战作为美国遏制中国崛起的更广泛努力的一部分。

Mr. Trump has said as much, and did so again at a news conference on Tuesday. “China has been taking advantage of the United States for a long time, and that’s not happening anymore,” he said.

特朗普在周二的新闻发布会上再次表示：“中国长期以来一直在占美国的便宜，这种情况不会再发生了。”他此前曾多次表达类似观点。

The Chinese public could see any effort to soothe tensions as capitulation.

中国公众可能会把任何缓和紧张局势的举措视为投降。

Lou Jiwei, who retired as finance minister in 2016 but is still the head of the country’s social security fund, suggested on Sunday that China could deliberately disrupt American companies’ supply chains by halting the export of crucial components mostly made in China. But Chinese trade experts dismiss that idea as impractical and not the government’s position.

2016年卸任中国财政部长、现在仍是中国社会保障基金负责人的楼继伟在周日表示，中国可以通过停止出口大部分由中国制造的关键零部件，有意扰乱美国企业的供应链。但中国的贸易专家们认为这种想法不切实际，也不是政府的立场。

Chinese officials know what they don’t want to do. They have rejected one idea that would replace the matching tariffs with a more sophisticated system, said the people briefed on the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the fragility of the deliberations. That response — discussed in detail within the Commerce Ministry and other agencies — would have led to lower tariffs on American goods in dollar terms, which could be seen as a fig leaf to the White House.

中国官员知道他们不想做的是什么。据知情人士说，官员们已经否决了用一个更复杂的系统来取代对同等价值商品加征关税的方法，由于有关讨论的敏感性，这些知情人士要求不具名。商务部和其他机构曾在内部对该想法进行过详细的讨论，这种回应将会降低以美元计算的对美国商品征税额，在白宫眼里这可能被视为一种遮羞布。

That approach would have recognized a potentially expensive new reality for Beijing: The tariffs may be here to stay. Mr. Trump is suffering from weak approval ratings and could lose influence in congressional elections in November. But while Democrats have opposed most of his agenda, many have supported his attacks on trade with China. Even if Mr. Trump leaves office in two years, there is little guarantee that his China trade policies will be changed.

这样做会表明，北京承认了一个可能代价高昂的新现实：关税一时半不会取消。特朗普的支持率很低，可能会失去在今年11月的国会选举中的影响力。虽然民主党人反对特朗普的大部分议程，但许多人支持他在对华贸易上采取的攻势。即使特朗普两年后不连任，也很难保证继任者将改变特朗普的对华贸易政策。

In Beijing, proponents of the new approach, which would scale down China’s tariffs in dollar terms to reflect the lopsided trade imbalance between the two countries, say Chinese leaders could still revisit the idea because it offers them a way to contain the damage and soothe tensions.

新思路会降低以美元计的中国关税，以反映中美贸易的不平衡。在北京，新思路的支持者表示中国领导人仍可能会重新考虑这种做法，因为他们可以借此控制损失、缓和紧张局势。

China’s leaders “don’t really want to engage in a dollar-for-dollar retaliation,” said Yu Yongding, a prominent economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “Their purpose is to stop this trade war.”

中国领导人“不是真的想用一美元对一美元的方式进行报复”，中国社会科学院著名经济学家余永定说。“他们的目标是停止这场贸易战。”

China’s other options are limited.

中国没有太多别的选择。

It could punish American businesses that depend on China. Already, its antitrust officials have effectively killed the $44 billion effort by Qualcomm, the semiconductor company, to buy a Dutch chip maker. China has also pledged to buy soybeans from other countries, but replacing voluminous American supplies will be difficult.

中国可能会惩罚依赖中国的美国企业。中国的反垄断官员实际上已经阻止了半导体公司高通(Qualcomm)花440亿美元收购一家荷兰芯片制造商的努力。中国还承诺从其他国家购买大豆，但全面取代规模巨大的美国大豆供应将很困难。

Other moves have already served as warnings, like delays at Chinese ports. Ford Motor’s Lincoln cars and other goods have sometimes been the subject of unusually lengthy customs inspections this summer, although the delays do not appear to have caused much financial harm.

其他比如中国港口拖时间的做法已经起到了警告的作用。今年夏天，福特汽车公司的林肯轿车和其他产品有时会受到异常缓慢的海关检查，尽管这些拖延似乎并未造成多少经济损失。

“It is certain that China will have other, invisible retaliation against the United States,” said Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the Commerce Ministry’s policy research and training academy.

“中国肯定会对美国采取其他的隐形报复，”商务部国际贸易经济合作研究院研究员梅新育说。

But more drastic moves, like closing factories or encouraging consumer boycotts of American goods, could eliminate Chinese jobs. They could also permanently damage China’s reputation as a place to do business and only accelerate corporate plans to look to other countries.

但采取比如关闭工厂、或鼓励消费者抵制美国商品等更激烈的做法，可能会减少中国的就业岗位。这些做法也可能会永久性地损害中国作为经商地的声誉，并且只会加速企业将目光投向其他国家的打算。

“It’s difficult to build a reputation, and easy to harm a reputation,” Mr. Mei said.

“建立声誉很困难，损坏声誉很容易，”梅新育说。

China could also guide its currency to a weaker level against the dollar. It has already nudged the currency a bit lower, making Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and partly offsetting the tariffs. But a weaker currency would make China’s imports more expensive, raise the risk of inflation and lead to a potentially damaging flight of money out of the country. It could also provoke further American retaliation.

中国还可能把人民币引导到与美元相比更弱的水平。中国已在逐渐压低人民币的价值，使中国商品在美国更便宜，并部分地抵消关税的影响。但人民币走软将使中国进口商品的价格更高，增加通货膨胀的风险，并导致可能造成破坏性影响的资金外逃。让人民币贬值的做法也可能引发美国的进一步报复。

While the trade war has hit only a small part of the Chinese economy for now, the damage could add up. Higher tariffs on American goods raise the cost of essential imports like soybeans and microchips. China still derives a big chunk of growth from making smartphones, clothing, chemicals and a raft of other goods and selling them to Americans.

虽然贸易战目前只对中国经济的一小部分造成了打击，但这种损害可能会积少成多。对美国商品征收更高的关税提高了大豆和微芯片等重要进口产品的成本。中国经济增长的一大部分仍靠制造智能手机、服装、化学品和大量其他商品，然后将这些商品卖给美国人。

Already its currency and stock market have weakened as the trade war has intensified. China has taken steps to shore up its economy, but they could take months or years to kick in.

随着贸易战的加剧，中国的货币和股市已在走弱。中国已采取措施支撑经济，但这些措施可能需要数月或数年的时间才能见效。

China has offered small concessions to the United States, like lowering its tariffs on imported cars from everywhere to 15 percent, from 25 percent; the United States, however, charges 2.5 percent. China has also allowed foreign companies to own greater shares of Chinese insurers, banks, asset management companies and car factories.

中国已向美国做出了一些小小的让步，比如降低了来自世界各地的进口汽车的关税，从25%降至15%;但美国对进口汽车只收2.5%的关税。中国还已允许外国企业在中国保险公司、银行、资产管理公司和汽车厂中持有更多的股份。

The new plan that Chinese officials rejected in recent weeks could have been more warmly greeted by the White House.

中国官员在最近几周里拒绝的这个新方案，本可能会受到白宫的更大欢迎。

Under that plan, the United States and China would each levy tariffs based on proportions of trade rather than dollar amounts, people familiar with the discussions said. Because the United States imports nearly four times as much from China as it exports, that would lead to tariffs at different values.

知情人士说，按照该方案，美国和中国将按同等比例的贸易额、而不是同等美元的贸易额来征收关税。因为美国从中国的进口额几乎是向中国的出口额的四倍，这将导致征收关税的商品价值不等。

For example, the United States has already levied tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, one-tenth of what it imports from China. Instead of matching that with tariffs on $50 billion in American-made goods, China would levy tariffs on one-tenth of such goods, totaling $13 billion to $15 billion, depending on the details.

比如，美国已对从中国进口商品的10%征收关税，价值500亿美元。如果中国对其从美国进口商品的10%，而不是500亿美元的等值美国制造商品征收关税的话，受关税影响的美国商品额将在130亿至150亿美元之间，视具体情况而定。

Proponents of the plan say letting Washington impose more tariffs than Beijing would actually hurt the United States more because tariffs are ultimately paid by consumers and businesses in the countries that levy them.

支持该方案的人说，让华盛顿比北京征收更多的关税，实际上会对美国造成更大的伤害，因为关税最终是由征收关税国家的消费者和企业支付的。

“The United States wants to hurt China by imposing tariffs on Chinese exports,” Mr. Yu, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences economist, wrote in a journal in July. “In the end, it may be the United States itself” that is hurt, he wrote.

“美国想通过对中国出口产品加征关税打痛中国，”中国社会科学院经济学家余永定今年7月在杂志上发文章写道。“到头来，被打痛可能是美国自己。”

But other Chinese trade experts say tariffs on equal fractions of trade would be too big a compromise.

但也有一些中国贸易专家说，对同等比例的贸易额加征关税将是一个太大的妥协。

“It’s unrealistic, it’s difficult in practice, it’s not doable, and it’s against basic trade rules,” said Mr. Mei, the Commerce Ministry researcher.

“这不现实，做起来有困难，不可行，而且违反了基本的贸易规则，”商务部的研究员梅新育说。