译者 lonelybai
It takes about three hours by bus from the glitzy malls of central Beijing to reach Yongfengtun, a farming village northwest of the capital that has quadrupled in population, to 20,000, over the past few years. Here one finds a gritty version of a Chinese bedroom community. Grimy storefronts advertise cheap clothing, shoes, and budget mobile-phone service. Mangy dogs root through piles of trash on the bicycle- and pedestrian-crowded streets.
从北京市中心繁华的购物商场驱车到永丰屯大概需要3小时。这是首都西北部的一个农村，在过去的几年里当地人口翻了两番，达到了20000人。这里是中国城郊居民区的真实写照。肮脏的店面销售着便宜的衣服、鞋子，以及廉价的移动服务。在挤满了行人和自行车的街道上，几只肮脏的狗在垃圾堆中翻寻着食物。
Yongfengtun's streets may be rundown, yet they attract thousands of migrant workers and the so-called ant tribe (cash-strapped urban youth) from across all China. "It's cheap!" says one 23-year-old, a recent college graduate who pays $39 a month for a 65-square-foot apartment. "Heat costs money," he says ruefully as he kicks a pan of water for washing laundry that has frozen solid. "There is no way I could afford an apartment in central Beijing," with rents probably 10 times higher for a comparable place, he says.
永丰屯的街道或许很破败，但它仍吸引着成千上万，来自全国各地的外来务工人员和那些所谓的蚁族（没有钱的城市青年）。“这里便宜。”一个23岁，刚从大学毕业的青年说到。他每月花39美元（译者注：约246元RMB），租了一个65平方英尺（译者注：约6平方米）的房间。“取暖也要花钱，”他悲伤的说着，踢了一脚一盆已经结成冰块的洗衣水。“我没办法负担北京市中心的房子”，他说同样大小的房子，在那里的租金可能是这里的10倍。
It's not as if incomes are stagnant in China—anything but. In the first half of 2010 per capita income rose 13 percent in the countryside, to $935 a year, and 10 percent in the cities, to $2,965 a year. Nevertheless, swelling slums in the suburbs of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou attest to a yawning wealth discrepancy between thousands of newly minted rich and millions of poor.
这并非说中国的收入停滞不前。2010年上半年，农村居民人均年收入达到935美元（译者注：约5895元RMB），增长了13%，城镇居民达2965美元（译者注：约18695元RMB），增长10%。然而，在北京、上海、广州的郊区，日益扩大的贫民窟却又证实着，成千上万的新富阶层与数百万穷人之间的财富差距越来越大。
China already is showing levels of inequality comparable to the Philippines and Russia and is far less egalitarian than Japan, the U.S., and even Eastern Europe, according to Li Shi, an authority on income distribution trends at Beijing Normal University. Official figures show rural incomes are less than one-third those in cities, with the top 10 percent of urban Chinese earning about 23 times that of the poorest 10 percent—a ratio that is almost certainly understated, according to Li. "You can find increasing income inequality almost everywhere in China today," he says.
北京师范大学研究收入分配的权威学者李实说，中国所显现出的不平等程度，已经跟菲律宾、俄罗斯不相上下，公平程度更是远不及日本、美国甚至东欧。官方数字显示农村收入不到城市收入的三分之一，中国收入最高的10%人群，收入是最穷的10%人群的23倍。而李实认为这一数字几乎肯定是被低估了。他说：“在现今中国的任何一个地方，你都可以发现日益加剧的收入不公现象。”
One reason is a system that blocks an estimated 150 million or more rural migrant workers from gaining access to benefits such as health care, education, and pensions available to urban residents. As a result, migrants are forced to save more of their wages to cover medical expenses and their retirements, says Li. Their incomes are also getting pinched by higher food prices (inflation is hovering around 5 percent) and rising housing prices (up 6.4 percent in December on an annual basis).
造成上述现象的一个原因，是制度阻碍了1.5亿（或更多）外来务工人员，能像城市居民般获得应有的医疗、教育和养老的保障。李实说，这导致外来务工人员被迫省下更多的薪金，以应对医疗费用和自己的退休养老金。此外他们的薪水还被高企的物价（通货膨胀率高达5%）和不断飞升的房价（12月份同比增长6.4%）所压缩。
China's Gini coefficient, an income distribution gauge used by economists, worsened from below 0.3 a quarter-century ago to near 0.5 today, says Li. (The measure, named after Italian statistician Corrado Gini, ranges from 0 to 1.) Poverty researchers recognize anything above 0.4 as potentially socially destabilizing.
李实说，中国的基尼系数——经济学家用以衡量贫富差距程度的指标（这个指标以意大利统计学家Corrado Gini命名，数值范围在0和1之间），在25年前不到0.3，而今恶化至 0.5。贫困问题的研究者认为，一旦超过0.4，就有可能引发社会的动荡。
China's wealth gap may be worse than official statistics indicate. The incomes of better-off families are understated, says Wang Xiaolu, an economist at the independent National Economic Research Institute in Beijing.
而中国的贫富差距，可能比官方统计数据显示的还要严重。北京一家独立的研究机构的经济学家王小鲁说，较富裕家庭的收入被低估了。
Undisclosed income, which Wang says could add up to $1.4 trillion annually, ranges from kickbacks to businesses or government to perks such as subsidized housing offered by state-run companies. If so, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population earned 65 times that of poorest 10 percent—not the 23 times shown by government data.
王小鲁说，中国的灰色收入每年达1.4万亿美元（译者注：约8.8万亿RMB），包括商业回扣，以及政府津贴，比如国企的住房补贴。如果数据属实，那最富有的10%人群，收入将是最贫穷的10%人群的65倍，而非政府数据所显示的23倍。
President Hu Jintao's government is keenly aware of the problem. Policies aimed at lifting incomes include the 2006 abolishment of the agricultural tax, new central and local government mandates to fund nine years of free education, improved health care, and the construction of low-income housing.
胡锦涛政府已经很强烈的意识到了这个问题，并为了提高收入而制定了多项政策，包括2006年取消农业税，中央和地方政府对九年义务教育的新的拨款政策，提高医疗服务质量，以及为低收入者建造房屋。
Further narrowing of the income gap will require changes in fiscal policy, says Louis Kuijs, a World Bank economist in Beijing. Expanding government revenues beyond taxes on wages to include levies on property, as well as on income earned from capital gains on real estate and stocks, is one step, say Kuijs and economist Wang. Continued reform of China's household registration system, to allow migrants more access to social welfare benefits, is also necessary. A survey done last September by Horizon Research Consultancy Group, a Beijing researcher, showed a drop in life satisfaction and declining confidence about China's future, despite the country's double-digit growth rates. With food and housing prices rising, "people feel their quality of life has gone down," says Victor Yuan, founder and chairman of Horizon.
在北京的世界银行经济学家Louis Kuijs说，如果要更进一步缩小收入差距，那就需要改变财政政策，其中一项措施就是扩大所得税范围以提高财政收入。使所得税不仅针对工资收入，还包括物业税，以及不动产和股票市场的资本利得税。并且，继续改革中国的户口登记制度，允许外来人员更多的享受社会福利，这也是十分必要的。去年9月，北京的零点研究咨询集团完成了一项调查。调查显示，虽然中国经济达到了2位数的增长，但是人们对生活的满意程度在下滑，对中国未来信心也在下降。零点研究的创建者及董事长Victor Yuan（译者注：袁岳）说，随着物价和房价的持续上涨，“人们觉得他们的生活质量在下降”。
The bottom line: The gap between rich and poor in China is wider than generally realized and could create political problems for Beijing.
关键问题：中国的贫富差距比一般大众认为的更要严重，这可能会给北京当局带来政治上的危机。
Roberts is Bloomberg Businessweek's Asia News Editor and China bureau chief.
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/242964/248545
