2013年08月

2013年08月30日

中国の環境汚染はひどいが、本当に解決できるのか?中国だけでなく世界が困る。

明日は朝7時の飛行機で台湾に行くので、明日の分を今日アップしておく。これはエコノミストだ。

Climate change
Can China clean up fast enough?
The world’s biggest polluter is going green, but it needs to speed up the transition
Aug 10th 2013 |From the print edition

十分な速度で
推移

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583277-worlds-biggest-polluter-going-green-it-needs-speed-up-transition-can-china?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C8-8-2013%7C6338624%7C37877959%7C 

19世紀のイギリスのように中国はきれいな空気よりも経済成長を優先して来た。2013年1月に世界保健機関によると北京は基準値よりも50倍汚れていて、都市の水道水の半分は飲み水どころか手を洗うことも出来ない。この国の北半分では5年半の寿命が短い。こうした環境に対して抗議運動があるが、それは取り締まっている一方で、香港と同じGDPの金額、国防費の2倍の金額を環境浄化にあてがって来ている。太陽光発電とか風力発電に国家は力を入れて来ているが、企業は利益を上げる為に環境を依然として犠牲にして来ている。中国は世界のCO2の排出量の30%だ。このままでは何らかの対策を打たないと、中国国民だけでなくて、世界の人々がその環境汚染の影響を受けることにになる。


“HELL is a city much like London—a populous and a smoky city,” wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819. It is a description that would suit many Chinese cities today for, like Britain in the early 19th century, China is going through an industrial-powered growth spurt. Like Britain back then, the urge to get rich outweighs the desire for clean air, so the Chinese are chucking all manner of filth into the atmosphere. And, rather sooner than Britain did, China is beginning to clean up its act.

ひどいところだ。
ふさわしい 

ほどばしり

まさる

大気の中にあらゆる種類のゴミ/汚染

投げ捨てる

イギリスよりも意外と早く
その行動をきれいにし始め 


If China were simply following the path of rich countries from poverty through pollution to fresh air, there would be little to worry about (unless you lived in one of those hellish cities). But the parallels fall apart, for two reasons. One is time. When Britain’s industrial engine was gaining speed, levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were the same as they had been for millennia. Now they are half as high again, and not far off 450 parts per million, which most scientists think is the danger level. The other is place. China is so vast and its economy is growing so rapidly that its effect on the world is far greater than that of any other single country.

類似点は崩れる
数千年間
現在彼らはその1.5倍の濃度だ。
百万分の450からそれほど離れていない

Dragon breath
The muck that spews from Chinese factories most immediately affects those unlucky enough to live nearby. In January 2013 the air of Beijing hit a level of toxicity 40 times above what the World Health Organisation deems safe. A tenth of the country’s farmland is poisoned with chemicals and heavy metals. Half of China’s urban water supplies are unfit even to wash in, let alone drink. In the northern half of the country air pollution lops five-and-a-half years off the average life.

臭い息
汚れ
吐き出す
最優先で、
毒性
安全と見なす
農地の10分の一は化学物質と重金属で汚染されている
都市の水道の半分は飲むことは言うまでもなく、洗うことさえ適していない
この国の北半分では平均寿命を5年半縮めている

All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism. That worries the government, which fears that environmental activism could become the foundation for more general political opposition. It is therefore dealing with pollution in two ways—suppression and mitigation. It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits. At the same time, it is pouring money into cleaning up the country. It has just said that China will spend $275 billion over the next five years improving air quality—roughly the same as the GDP of Hong Kong, and twice the size of the annual defence budget. Even by Chinese standards it is a massive sum.

反対運動の激増
ニンビー主義、地域住民エゴ◆自宅周辺への迷惑施設の建設に反対し貧困層や社会的弱者の住む地域への建設には眼をつぶる地域エゴに徹した考え方
現状改革主義
抑圧
緩和
独占
監視
極めて多い

The pace at which it deals with local pollution is a matter for China itself. But the country’s emissions are of wider interest because they also pollute the atmosphere, which is a global resource. The scale and speed of China’s development—it consumes 40-45% of the world’s coal, copper, steel, nickel, aluminium and zinc—means it is doing so fast. Since 1990 the amount of CO2 pouring from Chinese smokestacks has risen from 2 billion tonnes a year to 9 billion—almost 30% of the global total. China produces nearly twice as much CO2 as America. It is no longer merely catching up with the West. The average Chinese person produces the same amount of CO2 as the average European. Even if you reduce that number by a quarter to take account of the emissions produced by China’s exports, it is still huge.

大煙突
CO2h世界の30%を排出。アメリカの2倍。
中国の輸出品によって作り出される排出物を考慮してその数を4分の一に減らしたとしても

Size has a silver lining
China’s government is trying to make a dent in these alarming figures. It is cutting the amount of energy that large companies use to produce each unit of output, and it has created impressive new solar and wind-power industries. But the targets and executive orders it uses to try to reduce its emissions are not very effective. They tend to get negotiated away in local deals between officials and the managers of big state firms who have been given greater incentives to meet their economic targets, create jobs, raise output and suchlike. And, as the economy slows, there is increasing pressure on the government to lower environmental targets and loosen controls. Even in an autocracy, leaders feel the need to respond to pressure from mid-level officials.

規模は良い面もある
取りかかろうとしている
優れた
行政命令
などなど
排出物は役人と大企業の経営者達との間の現地の交渉において放棄される傾向にある
独裁政治

If China cannot cut its CO2 emissions substantially, then either other countries will have to reduce theirs by more than they are doing now—which seems unlikely—or the world will need to find other ways to cope. That means exploring the possibilities of geoengineering the atmosphere or investing in ways of adapting to higher temperatures, such as drought-tolerant crops.

実質上
地球工学
干ばつに強い農作物

But getting China to cut back further is not a lost cause. The place is vulnerable to climate change: in absolute terms, more people live at sea level in China, and so are threatened by rising oceans, than in any other country. The leadership therefore knows it needs to come up with a more effective means of changing behaviour. The obvious way is through a carbon tax, which would be more transparent and less subject to negotiation than targets. The government has promised to introduce one, and should get on with it.

更に中国に削減させることは見込みのない試みではない
この地域は気象変動の被害を受けやすい
絶対的には
より効果的な手段を考えつく必要がある
目標設定するよりも交渉する際に影響を受けない
それをどんどん進めて行くべきだ。

China is more likely to move if it sees movement elsewhere. Although attempts to reach a global deal on emissions have failed, Western countries need to continue to lead by example. In addition, America and China have made progress through bilateral negotiations. They recently agreed to cut hydrofluorocarbons (an especially potent greenhouse gas), develop carbon capture and storage and reduce emissions from heavy vehicles—a good start. It is worth rich countries’ while to fork out to support emissions-cutting measures in China, because a dollar spent reducing Chinese emissions goes further than a dollar spent at home.

する可能性が高い
運動/傾向
ハイドロ[ヒドロ]フルオロカーボン◆【略】HFC
強力な
二酸化炭素の回収と貯留◆発電所や工場などから排出される二酸化炭素を排出源で抽出・回収し、地層の中に貯留(しようと)すること。2005年にIPCC(気候変動に関する政府間パネル)が、同タイトルの報告書で発表した。
大型車両
フォークで書き出す
よりも効果が大きい

For the rest of the world, there is an upside as well as a downside to China’s vastness: it cannot shirk its responsibilities. National policy in China, unlike that anywhere else except America, makes a global difference. If China continues to pour emissions into the atmosphere, its own people are likely to suffer along with everybody else. If, on the other hand, it wants to do something about warming, it will have to cut its own emissions—and everybody will benefit.

広大さに対して良い面
責任を逃れることはできない
グローバルな効果がある。

今日はこれまで。今日は昼食以外はデスクワークをしたが、3時半に自宅に戻り、明日の準備と来週の研修会の資料を探した。明日は7時発の飛行機なので、明日の分を今日アップすることにした。ではまた明日。 

swingby_blog at 20:13コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

都市化が中国の経済の成長を促進している。

これはエコノミストだ。

Urbanisation and growth
City chickens and country eggs
Aug 4th 2013, 13:42 by T.P. | BEIJING

都市化と成長 
都市が鶏で、田舎が卵だ。

http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/08/urbanisation-and-growth
 
経済の成長によって都市化が進んでいると言う意見もあるが果たしてどっちだろうか。その都市化が工業化を加速させ、ひいては消費をも増大させるだろうと言っている。そうはいっても、都市の人口が農村人口を超えたが、都市化の加速はそれなりのペースを持って行うべきで、農村での人口減少のペースを考慮した方が良い。成長が都市化を推進すると言う意見に対して、李克強は都市化による消費の増大を数字をあげて都市化が経済を成長させる考えを支持している。つい最近まで都市人口は4億だと言われて来たが、今は7億5千万人いる。農民が6億5千万人で、そのうち農民工が2億6千万だ。4億の農民が農業を行っている。それでも農民が農地の規模に比較して過剰だ。政府は大規模農業を推奨している。都市化のペースは慎重に考えないと都市の環境が悪化するだろう。

AS IT adjusts to the end of its run of sustained, double-digit rates of annual economic growth, China is staking a great deal on the idea that growth and urbanisation are linked. It has made continued urbanisation a pillar of the government’s long-term strategy for rebalancing. But policymakers who put so many of their hopeful eggs in the this basket must also consider a vexing chicken-and-egg question: is it urbanisation that causes growth, or is it the other way round? In a paper released in July, two scholars argue that “the direction of causality likely runs from growth to urbanisaton, rather than vice versa.”

持続した
中国が適応しているように
賭ける
支注
厄介な
因果関係の方向性は成長から都市化へと進むようだ

There are caveats galore about their findings, especially as they relate to China. The scholars, Anett Hofmann of the London School of Economics and Guanghua Wan of the Asian Development Bank, seek not only to determine the impact of economic growth on urbanisation, but also that of industrialisation and education. And, while they seek and find indications that growth causes urbanisation, they do not themselves investigate the reverse sort of causality. They leave off noting instead that “attempts to identify a causal effect of urbanisation on growth have so far been unsuccessful”.

警告
しようとする
都市化への経済成長の影響を解明するばかりでなく、工業化と教育による影響もある
兆候
因果関係
中止する
成長に対して都市化の因果関係を示す影響を特定する試みは

More relevant still is the fact that China is not betting the farm, as it were, on urbanisation. True, some influential figures have hinted at the belief that it might be sufficient as a spur to future growth. For instance Zhang Liqun, of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, recently said that "the growth momentum gained from the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation alone will support the country's steady growth."

適切な
全財産をかける
幾つかの有力な数字は将来の成長を促す誘因として都市化が十分かもしれない信念をほのめかしてきている。
成長の勢いは工業化の一連の過程から得て来たが、都市化だけがこの国の堅実な成長を支援するだろう。

But the senior leader most closely identified with the idea is the current prime minister, Li Keqiang, and he has outlined a more nuanced position. Elaborating his position in an article published in May in a theoretical journal of the Communist Party, Qiu Shi, Mr Li wrote that “China is experiencing exponential urban growth which will spur investment and consumption and play a significant role in expanding domestic demand.”

微妙な立場
詳細に述べる
急激な
投資と消費に拍車をかけて来た急激な都市の成長を経験して来ていて、国内需要の拡大に重要な役割を果たして来ている

His formulation involves more than a simple “urbanisation-causes-growth” assumption. Under China’s current circumstances, there is plenty of reason to believe he is onto something. Rather than counting on urbanisation to boost growth directly, through increased production or higher efficiency say, the hope is that it will raise the economy’s consumption share—a key goal of China’s overall restructuring effort.

系統的な論述
思い当たるところがある

In doing the sums for his article, Mr Li started with data showing that in 2010 China’s urban residents spent 3.6 times more per capita than did their country cousins. He concluded that every rural resident who moves to a city will increase consumption by an average of 10,000 yuan ($1,631). Multiplying by the 10m rural residents he expects might be absorbed into cities in a single year, he predicted that “this will, in turn, translate into consumption totalling more than 100 billion yuan and correspondingly create more investment opportunities.”

彼の論文で論理的に推論しているが、
彼らの田舎の仲間よりも3.6倍
増加する
吸収される
同様に
合計で一千億元以上の消費になるだろう
それに応じてより投資機会を創造するだろう

With or without the government’s encouragement, the process of urbanisation has been moving at great speed. At the end of 2011, China crossed an important threshold when, for the first time in history, its city-dwellers became the majority. In 1980 they accounted for only one fifth of the population.

奨励
重要な敷居を越えた

And while policy will have an effect on the pace, robust urbanisation will almost certainly continue no matter what the government does. Even scholars who have been supportive of China’s drive for urbanisation are wary of its pace. In a paper from 2005 titled “Are Chinese cities too small?” Chun-Chung Au and J. Vernon Henderson, of Brown University in America, conclude that many of China’s cities were “significantly undersized” and that cost the economy in terms of both productivity and worker income. However they were careful to qualify that view: “the recommendation here is not to suddenly increase the sizes of all cities by enormous magnitudes overnight.” Whether it is truly the chicken or the egg that comes first, eggs must always be placed in the basket with care.

堅調な
警戒している
条件を付ける

今日はこれまで。昨日は昼食以外は外には出なかった。今日も同様だ。まだまだ暑い。ではまた明日。明日から4日まで台北でまた忙しい。



swingby_blog at 07:10コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2013年08月29日

ベルルスコーニが有罪となったが、彼のいないイタリア政界は火が消えたようだ。

これはタイムだ。

italy
Judges Reject Silvio Berlusconi’s Appeal, but His Political Appeal Endures
By Stephan Faris / Rome Aug. 01, 2013

上訴
彼の政治家としての魅力は持ちこたえている。

http://world.time.com/2013/08/01/judges-reject-silvio-berlusconis-appeal-but-his-political-appeal-endures/?xid=newsletter-daily 

ベルルスコーニの記事だ。彼は脱税で、最終的に一年の刑期の判決が出た。 この10月には未成年の売春の裁判の判決がある。この刑期も自宅での監禁となるだろう。彼は今後の裁判の審議によって、公職には何年かつくことは出来ない。その結果、彼の派閥もその相方の党も彼がいないので、きっと寂しいに違いない。それくらい彼はこの世界で大物だと言うことだ。彼がいないとイタリアの政治が始まらないくらいだと言っている。

For the first time, after more than two decades of high-profile judicial battles, Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been definitively convicted of a crime. After seven hours of deliberation Thursday, the judges in Italy’s highest court emerged from their chamber to reject his final appeal on charges of tax fraud — and therefore confirming a one-year prison sentence, while sending back for a review a five-year ban from public office. He was originally sentenced last October.

注目を浴びた
確実に
評議
裁判官室

Berlusconi was accused, along with three others, of using offshore companies to purchase the rights to American movies, reselling them to his media empire at markup in order to pay lower taxes. The sentence is a blow for the 76-year-old billionaire, but Berlusconi has made a career of proving the writers of his political obituaries wrong. Because of his age and the nature of his crime, Berlusconi is unlikely to see the inside of a prison cell. He will serve his sentence — originally for four years but commuted to one — either under house arrest or performing community service. While the ban on public office is under review, a process that could take months, the conservative politico will be able to keep his position as Senator and de facto head of his political party. “Politically, he’s still very much alive,” says Franco Pavoncello, a political scientist at Rome’s John Cabot University. “This will weaken him, but he can continue to be a leader, a symbol for the right.”

彼の政治生命の死亡記事を書いた作家達が間違っていることを証明することを生涯の仕事として来た
減刑した
保守的な政治家

In his 20 years in politics, Berlusconi, one of Italy’s richest men and the owner of a large swath of the country’s media, has faced trial some 30 times, on charges ranging from perjury to illegal financing of a political party to the bribing of a member of the tax police. Every other time, he’s managed to get the charges overturned or dropped. Another conviction, in June, for prostitution with a minor and abusing his office to cover it up, is under appeal and is expected to be back in the courts in October.

この国のメディアの広大な領域
偽証
未成年との
隠す為に彼の職位を悪用して

Berlusconi has long maintained that his judicial travails are the fault of a politicized judicial system determined to oust him from politics. And so his conviction is unlikely to result in a serious drop in support. Indeed, in a video address broadcast after the conviction, he struck a defiant tone and promised to continue the fight. “Those who saw him as a crook will feel vindicated by today’s result,” says Duncan McDonnell, a fellow in the department of political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. “Those that saw him as persecuted will also feel vindicated.”

主張する
骨折り
責任
政治色の強い
開き直った
ペテン師
正当化する/支持する
迫害を受けている

If anything, the verdict places as much pressure on Berlusconi’s fellow politicians as it does on him. For the past two decades, Italian politics has revolved around the media mogul; the country’s government hinges on a fragile coalition between those who support him and those who have traditionally opposed him. Berlusconi’s conviction and his eventual ban from public office, for an expected one to three years, will put it under increasing strain.

どちらかといえば、
判決
権力者を中心に展開して来た。
依存している
試練

His center-right People of Freedom party, many of whose members threatened to resign if the conviction was upheld, has appeared rudderless without him, not least because it seems Berlusconi never groomed a credible successor. Meanwhile, the center-left Democratic Party, headed by Prime Minister Enrico Letta, already rife with discontent at having to form a partnership with the man many consider an archnemesis, is likely to experience further discord now that its chief interlocutor in government has become a convicted criminal. In a political landscape where Berlusconi still casts the largest shadow, all must tread carefully. “He’s like the bottom block of a Jenga puzzle,” says McDonnell. “You take him out and it all collapses.”

支持する
リーダーのいない
とりわけ
育てる
信頼できる
不満があふれている
宿敵
仲違い
対談者
注意深く歩いて進まなければならない
景観
ジェンガ(英語: Jenga)は、同サイズの直方体のパーツを組んで作ったタワーから崩さないように注意しながら片手で一片を抜き取り、最上段に積みあげる動作を交代で行うテーブルゲーム。おもにパーティーゲームとして利用されている。だるま倒し見たいなもの。

 今日はこれまで。昨日は昼からでていたので、まだまだ日差しがきつかった。今日は出かけるのは昼だけだ。それにしても田口式の腹巻きはよく眠れるなあ。今朝も寝坊してしまった。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 08:12コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2013年08月28日

死刑執行の世界の急激な減少の多くは中国のせいだ。

これはエコノミストだ。

The death penalty
Strike less hard
Most of the world’s sharp decline in executions can be credited to China
Aug 3rd 2013 | BEIJING |From the print edition

あまり激しく宣告しない

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21582557-most-worlds-sharp-decline-executions-can-be-credited-china-strike-less-hard?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C8-1-2013%7C6280705%7C37877959%7C

昨年の中国での死刑は3000人だった。それでも世界の全ての死刑よりも4倍多い。2002年は12,000人もいた。死刑を減らそうと言う動きがあって、執行猶予付き死刑を奨励している。中には家族に知らされないまま処刑されたケースもある。銃殺刑も薬物注射に変えようとしている。革命当時は人口の0.1%である数百万人を処刑した。また、文化大革命の時にも多くの人たちを処刑して来た。こうした処刑の流れは1998年から変わって来た。世界は人権の視点からこの処刑を非難している。



LAST year China is thought to have executed about 3,000 people, or roughly four times more than the rest of the world put together (excluding Egypt and Syria, where numbers are hard to assess). It is a grim distinction. But consider a brighter, even astonishing, trend: over the past decade, the number of people China executes has fallen precipitously.

恐ろしい特徴
更に明るい
驚くべき
急激に

According to the Dui Hua Foundation, an American NGO that tracks these things, the 2012 figure is down from 12,000 people executed in 2002—a fall of three-quarters. In other words, though China remains the world’s chief executioner, it is also largely responsible for a marked worldwide fall in the number of executions.

4分の3の減少
際立った世界での下落

The Communist Party considers the execution rate to be a state secret and has not even publicly noted the extent of this fall. But it has confirmed it indirectly. In 2012 a deputy minister of health cited the decline in executed prisoners as a reason for a shortage in organs available for transplant in China. Dui Hua’s estimates are thus the best figures available. Western scholars broadly agree with the numbers, behind which lies an intriguing tale of Chinese reformers working quietly for change.

興味をそそる

Historically, the Chinese Communist Party has overseen horrendous violence. Though not on the scale of Stalin’s Soviet Union, this started with the purges of landlords and other “counter-revolutionaries” in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Mao Zedong coolly declared that “the killing of counter-revolutionaries should usually not exceed 0.1% of the population, and should be less than 0.1% in the cities.” Millions died in a few short years, as Chinese villages were encouraged to mete out their own punishment with the aim of creating a blessed “New China”.

目撃する
恐ろしい
彼等自身の処分を行う

Mao’s death in 1976 brought to an end the last spasm of violence in his name, the Cultural Revolution. Chinese leaders relaxed political control over people’s daily lives and encouraged economic change. But they enforced a rigid system of criminal justice in the name of maintaining social order. Capital punishment was to be for “extremely serious crimes”, a category that was open to broad interpretation but which included corruption and drug trafficking. 

発作
死刑
拡大解釈

Starting in 1983, the government launched regular “strike hard” anti-crime campaigns. Judges—many of them former soldiers without legal training—were ordered to be severe. In the first campaign 24,000 people were sentenced to death by firing squad in less than one year. As a result of similar drives in the 1990s, the country executed about 15,000 people a year, more than 90% of the world’s total. Public sentencing rallies, and occasionally public executions, took place.

「徹底的に攻撃する」
非情に
銃殺隊
集会

One man began turning this culture round. Never a household name, Xiao Yang served as president of the Supreme People’s Court from 1998 to 2008. Exceptionally for that post, Mr Xiao was qualified, possessing a degree in law. Neither he nor a deputy at the court, Liu Jiachen, who helped him, can be counted as radicals. Rather, they wanted a more professional, accountable and methodical judiciary—especially in handling capital offences. Their urge to modernise found a growing base of support within the system. One of Mr Xiao’s professors at Beijing’s Renmin University in the 1960s, Gao Mingxuan, was an influential legal figure and, though viewed as a conservative, was an advocate of reducing executions. People who graduated from law school in the 1980s and 1990s—some of them avowed abolitionists as young scholars—were now up-and-coming officials, judges and court advisers.

この文化の向きを変え始めた。
誰でもよく知っている名前ではないが、
裁判官
急進主義的
秩序だった
裁判制度
死罪
近代化しようとする彼らの衝動はこの仕組みの中の増大する支持基盤を見いだした。
擁護者
率直に認める
廃止論者
将来有望な

Daniel Yu, a legal scholar who knew many in this group, says they were keenly aware of a global mood turning against the use of the death penalty. They were equally aware how much of an outlier China was. The country’s taste for execution had become a source of embarrassment.

世界的な傾向
異常値
この国の分別
困惑

Quietly does it
That Mr Xiao and his deputies set out to limit executions became apparent to outsiders only years later. He could not argue the case for fewer executions before his political masters on the basis of concerns about China’s image abroad. Hardliners dismissed foreign complaints about human-rights violations; besides, the party was convinced of the need to “kill many” so as to keep order. And public opinion has long been for capital punishment.

部外者の目に明らかになって来た。
政治の支配者達の前で
はねつける
更に、
確信している
死刑

According to Susan Trevaskes, author of “The Death Penalty in Contemporary China”, one of Mr Xiao’s schemes to reduce the number of executions was to encourage the wider use of suspended death sentences. He and other officials of the Supreme People’s Court sought to persuade judges to hand down such sentences in more cases of murder, drug trafficking and violent robbery. It marked a change of rhetoric. In 1983 officials urged that “when there is a choice to kill or not to kill, choose to kill”; in 2005 officials said courts must “kill fewer, kill cautiously”.

執行猶予付き死刑
判決を言い渡す
強盗
それは言い方の変化を特徴づけた。

Ms Trevaskes argues that Mr Xiao was able to push this line because he could argue that it would boost the system’s legitimacy. “Killing many” had not worked to reduce crime, and could lead to challenges to authority. In small communities, where serious crimes often involved family members, resolving disputes through compensation and lesser punishments promised to reduce the risks of tensions spilling over. What is more, a bolder state media had begun to expose how police framed innocent people for drug trafficking and murders in order to claim rewards or appear efficient. The idea of innocent people being executed after wrongful convictions fed growing popular revulsion.

正当性
賠償による議論での解決やより少ない処罰が波及する不安のリスクを減少することを約束した
より大胆な
無罪の人々に麻薬とか殺人の濡れ衣を着せる
嫌悪感を増大させた

The harmonious way out
Mr Xiao also cleverly seized on the official rhetoric of Hu Jintao, the former president and party chief. In 2006 the official document defining Mr Hu’s ideology of a “harmonious society” called for “balancing leniency and severity”. This language went unnoticed by most, but the supreme court appropriated it into national policy.

調和した解決法
寛大さと厳格さ
注目されない
それを国家の政策に充てた。

In 2006 Mr Xiao won a change in the law that had profound consequences. In a country where local functionaries jealously guard their powers, he ensured that every capital case had to be reviewed by the highest court in Beijing. Mr Hu himself seems to have supported the move. The Supreme People’s Court added several hundred judges and constructed a new complex in Beijing to take on the task of reviewing so many cases. The impact was immediate. The number of death sentences was already slowly declining. But it plunged by 30% in the first year of court reviews; executions fell in turn, to about 5,000 in 2008. Plenty of cases were sent back for retrial.

核心を突いた論理的な結論
現地の役人
確保した
急落した

Executions have declined further since, as the court has taken other measures to encourage the use of the suspended death penalty, including the publication of model cases to help guide lower courts about when they should impose the suspended sentence. On July 8th a former railways minister, Liu Zhijun, was given a suspended death sentence for corruption—though many Chinese commenting online deemed that too lenient. In 2011, in a largely symbolic step, China removed 13 crimes from the list of capital offences, including smuggling, tomb-robbing and stealing prehistoric fossils. It has also changed the method of execution in most cases from firing squad to lethal injection.

あまりに寛大だ
密輸
先史時代の化石
薬物注射

John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, calls the reduction in executions “the most significant positive development in the human rights situation in China in recent decades”. Yet legal-rights activists worry that the number of executions may not have much farther to fall. Party ideology unequivocally endorses capital punishment, and Mr Xiao and his allies did nothing to challenge it. Though executions are less common, the activists say, the judicial system still lacks any kind of independence and miscarriages of justice are still commonplace.

明白に承認している
誤り
当たり前である

Teng Biao, a lawyer who helped form a group opposed to the death penalty, says he gets little public support for his cause, though people react to individual cases of perceived injustice. The recent execution of a businessman convicted of defrauding investors in Hunan province drew a public outcry when it emerged that his family had not been notified that the execution was about to take place.

彼の理念
不当な処置として認識されている
詐欺行為をする
激しい抗議

Mr Teng and others argue that abuses of defendants’ rights are still widespread, and that defence lawyers are often prevented from properly representing their clients in capital cases. In their view China still kills thousands too many. It will, says Mr Teng, be at least another 50 years before China abolishes the death penalty.

乱用
被告人

今日はこれまで。昨日は昼に長女と昼食を食べた。双子を妊娠したようで嬉しかった。やっとできたようだ。そのあとは自動車会社に行った。今日は昼食からアポが2件ある。ではまた明日。



swingby_blog at 08:00コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2013年08月27日

石油の時代は終わって、これからはシェールガスの時代だ。と言うことは中東が衰退し、アメリカの出番だ。

これはエコノミストだ。

The future of oil
Yesterday’s fuel
The world’s thirst for oil could be nearing a peak. That is bad news for producers, excellent for everyone else
Aug 3rd 2013 |From the print edition

石油の将来
昨日の燃料
石油に対する世界からの渇望はピークに近いと言える。それは製造業者にとって悪いニュースだが、他の人達にとってはすばらしいことだ。

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21582516-worlds-thirst-oil-could-be-nearing-peak-bad-news-producers-excellent?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C8-1-2013%7C6280705%7C37877959%7C

石油はシェールガスのお陰で、世界の石油地図が変わってしまうだろう。精油の需要が最大化すると言われて来た「ピークオイル」のことではなく、技術の進歩によって石油の需要は2005年以来減少して来ている。その一つはシェールガスの開発だ。それによってこうした石油の埋蔵量が50年から200年になった。現在一日あたり、8,900万バーレルの原油が消費されているが、2020年までには数百万バーレルがシェールガスに置き代わりだろう。それともう一つは自動車の内燃機関の飛躍的な進歩と車自体の軽量化だ。液体水素燃料電池によるハイブリッドがガソリンの消費量を削減するだろう。ここ数年で、9,200万バーレルで原油は頭打ちになるだろう。発展途上国の車需要が今後急増すると言われているが、彼らも燃費には敏感に対応するだろう。だから石油の需要は増えない。

1990年代にあったようにサウジが原油の供給量と値段を操作して市場を操ったようにもう行かない。環境問題があるから、原油が安くなっても、燃費の悪い車は普及しない。需要が安定して来ると、今度は環境がクローズアップして来る。石油よりもガスの方が環境に優しい。メジャーは生き残るだろうが、利益は以前ほどではないだろう。アメリカが力を持って来て、中東が後退して行くだろう。時代の流れは予想もしない方向に流れて行くものだ。石油価格が最近まで高止まりだが、それも時間の問題かもしれない。

THE dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices). It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped. But the unwanted petrol and diesel did not go to waste for long, thanks to the development of the internal-combustion engine a few years later.

夜明け
本格的に 
石油を掘り当てる
18ドルで売れた
脂肪

Since then demand for oil has, with a couple of blips in the 1970s and 1980s, risen steadily alongside ever-increasing travel by car, plane and ship. Three-fifths of it ends up in fuel tanks. With billions of Chinese and Indians growing richer and itching to get behind the wheel of a car, the big oil companies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and America’s Energy Information Administration all predict that demand will keep on rising. One of the oil giants, Britain’s BP, reckons it will grow from 89m b/d now to 104m b/d by 2030.

幾度かの急上昇を伴って
車を運転したくてたまらない
計算する

We believe that they are wrong, and that oil is close to a peak. This is not the “peak oil” widely discussed several years ago, when several theorists, who have since gone strangely quiet, reckoned that supply would flatten and then fall. We believe that demand, not supply, could decline. In the rich world oil demand has already peaked: it has fallen since 2005. Even allowing for all those new drivers in Beijing and Delhi, two revolutions in technology will dampen the world’s thirst for the black stuff.

横ばいになる
世界の石油産出量の頂点。ピークに達したあと生産量は減少の一途をたどり、需要をまかなえなくなることから石油価格が高騰すると考えられている。
鈍らせる

The first revolution was led by a Texan who has just died. George Mitchell championed “fracking” as a way to release huge supplies of “unconventional” gas from shale beds. This, along with vast new discoveries of conventional gas, has recently helped increase the world’s reserves from 50 to 200 years. In America, where thanks to Mr Mitchell shale gas already billows from the ground, liquefied or compressed gas is finding its way into the tanks of lorries, buses and local-delivery vehicles. Gas could also replace oil in ships, power stations, petrochemical plants and domestic and industrial heating systems, and thus displace a few million barrels of oil a day by 2020.

挑戦した
水圧粉砕
「一般的とは言えない」
押し寄せる
液化された

The other great change is in automotive technology. Rapid advances in engine and vehicle design also threaten oil’s dominance. Foremost is the efficiency of the internal-combustion engine itself. Petrol and diesel engines are becoming ever more frugal. The materials used to make cars are getting lighter and stronger. The growing popularity of electric and hybrid cars, as well as vehicles powered by natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells, will also have an effect on demand for oil. Analysts at Citi, a bank, calculate that if the fuel-efficiency of cars and trucks improves by an average of 2.5% a year it will be enough to constrain oil demand; they predict that a peak of less than 92m b/d will come in the next few years. Ricardo, a big automotive engineer, has come to a similar conclusion.

節約する
人気
抑制する
液体水素燃料電池

Not surprisingly, the oil “supermajors” and the IEA disagree. They point out that most of the emerging world has a long way to go before it owns as many cars, or drives as many miles per head, as America. 

〔石油資本の〕スーパーメジャー◆国営会社を除く巨大国際石油資本で、通例、エクソンモービル(米)、ロイヤル・ダッチ・シェル(米・オランダ)、BP(英)、シェブロン(米)、コノコフィリップス(米)、トタル(仏)の6社を指す。
国際エネルギー機関

But it would be foolish to extrapolate from the rich world’s past to booming Asia’s future. The sort of environmental policies that are reducing the thirst for fuel in Europe and America by imposing ever-tougher fuel-efficiency standards on vehicles are also being adopted in the emerging economies. China recently introduced its own set of fuel-economy measures. If, as a result of its determination to reduce its dependence on imported oil, the regime imposes policies designed to “leapfrog” the country’s transport system to hybrids, oil demand will come under even more pressure.

推定する
強い欲望
「飛び越す」
更に多くの圧力にさらされるだろう。

A fit of peak
A couple of countervailing factors could kick in to increase consumption. First, the Saudis, who control 11% of output and have the most spare capacity, may decide to push out more, lowering prices and thus increasing demand. Then again, they might cut production to try to raise prices, thereby lowering demand further. Second, if declining demand pushes down the oil price, drivers may turn back to gas-guzzling cars, as they did when oil was cheap in the 1990s. But tightening emissions standards should make that harder in future.

ピークに達する時
相殺する
増加させうる
燃費の悪い自動車

If the demand for oil merely stabilises, it will have important consequences. The environment should fare a little better. Gas vehicles emit less carbon dioxide than equivalent petrol-powered ones. The corporate pecking order will change, too. Currently, Exxon Mobil vies with Apple as the world’s biggest listed company. Yet Exxon and the other oil supermajors are more vulnerable than they look. Bernstein, a research firm, reckons that new barrels of oil from the Arctic or other technologically (or politically) demanding environments now cost $100 to extract. Big Oil can still have a decent future as Big Gas, but that will not prove as profitable.

環境は少しばかり貢献するべきだ。
企業の序列
はりあう
北極の
まずまずの

The biggest impact of declining demand could be geopolitical. Oil underpins Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy. The Kremlin will find it more difficult to impose its will on the country if its main source of patronage is diminished. The Saudi princes have relied on a high oil price to balance their budgets while paying for lavish social programmes to placate the restless young generation that has taken to the streets elsewhere. Their huge financial reserves can plug the gap for a while; but if the oil flows into the kingdom’s coffers less readily, buying off the opposition will be harder and the chances of upheaval greater. And if America is heading towards shale-powered energy self-sufficiency, it is unlikely to be as indulgent in future towards the Arab allies it propped up in the past. In its rise, oil has fuelled many conflicts. It may continue to do so as it falls. For all that, most people will welcome the change.

支える
盗奪政治:国家国民から収奪して私腹をこやす政治形態
商売の主要な源泉
気前の良い
懐柔する
落ち着かない/不安な
街頭で抗議する
ギャップをなくす
金庫
買収する
自給自足
寛大な
支えた
石油の需要が増えると石油は多くの紛争に火をつけていた。石油の需要が減少しても紛争が続くかもしれない。とは言うものの、殆どの人々はこの石油の需要が減ると言う変化を歓迎するだろう。

今日はこれまで。この数日間で涼しくなった。一昨日暑いので、扇風機を買ったが買ってから使っていない。クーラーもつけていない。窓を開けて寝ていると、寒くて目が覚める。日本の気候は急に変化する。さて、今日は久しぶりに娘と会食する。午後は自動車企業に訪問する。ではまた明日。



swingby_blog at 07:43コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2013年08月26日

吊り橋をニューヨークの都市交通局が中国の業者に発注して来たが、アメリカ企業に発注すべきだ。

これはニューヨークタイムズだ。

The Price of ‘Made in China’
By PETER NAVARRO
Published: August 4, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/the-price-of-made-in-china.html?hp&_r=0 

ブルックリンとスタテンアイランドを結ぶ、ヴェラザノ海峡にかかる吊り橋をニューヨークの都市交通局が中国の業者に発注して来たことを問題にしている。中国に発注すれば、アメリカの鉄鋼建設業界の労働者が犠牲になる。中国は鉄鋼産業に補助金を出している。また、中国の建設コストが安いのは中国人の労働者も過重労働で犠牲になっているからだ。そして輸入した鉄鋼も不良品が多い。出来たものも品質上の問題がある。中国製はこうした建設ばかりではない。おもちゃなどの製品も同じだ。と言ったことを言っている。いわば、アメリカ製品が中国製品に負けているので、その泣き言を言っている。バイアメリカンの宣伝文句だ。しかしながら、それでもアメリカ人はこうした中国のサービスとか製品を買っていることが中国人と一緒で、良いものは良いと言う判断があるのだろう。この記者のように保護貿易を支持する人もいるが、まさに、今のTPPの動きと一緒で、保護貿易に走ればきりがないだろう。そうした動きに今までは日本人は負けて来たケースが多いようだが、今後はこうしたアメリカ人の意見には反論して行く必要がある。


HERE is a symbol of China’s assault on the American economy: the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and Staten Island. This landmark, which opened in 1964, is North America’s longest suspension bridge. It’s also in urgent need of renovation. Unfortunately, $34 million in steel production and fabrication work has been outsourced to China.

攻撃
歴史的建造物
吊り橋
修理

How did this happen? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says a Chinese fabricator was picked because the two American companies approached for the project lacked the manufacturing space, special equipment and financial capacity to do the job. But the United Steelworkers claims it quickly found two other American bridge fabricators, within 100 miles of New York City, that could do the job.

都市交通局◆ニューヨークの地下鉄とバスを運営している機関
鉄鋼労働組合
製作者

The real problem with this deal is that it doesn’t take into account all of the additional costs that buying “Made in China” brings to the American table. In fact, this failure to consider all costs is the same problem we as consumers face every time we choose a Chinese-made product on price alone — a price that is invariably cheaper. Consider the safety issue: a scary one, indeed, because China has a very well-deserved reputation for producing inferior and often dangerous products. Such products are as diverse as lead-filled toys, sulfurous drywall, pet food spiked with melamine and heparin tainted with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate.

必ずより安い
恐ろしいこと
様々な
硫黄の乾式壁
こっそり別のものを混ぜる
過硫酸化のコンドロイチン硫酸
ヘパリン◆肝臓や肺の組織から採取される、血栓症の治療に用いられる抗凝固作用を持つ有機酸。

In the specific case of bridges, six have collapsed across China since July 2011. The official Xinhua news agency has acknowledged that shoddy construction and inferior building materials were contributing factors. There is also a cautionary tale much closer to home. When California bought Chinese steel to renovate and expand the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, for a project that began in 2002, problems like faulty welds by a Chinese steel fabricator delayed the project for months and led to huge cost overruns. Those delays eroded much of the savings California was banking on when it opted for the “cheap” Chinese steel.

手抜きの建設
品質が劣った
不良溶接
当てにする

There is a second reason not to buy “Made in China” products: jobs. The abiding fact is that steel production is heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. These subsidies range from the massive benefits of a manipulated and undervalued currency to the underwriting of the costs of energy, land, loans and water. Because of China’s subsidies — most of which are arguably illegal under international trade agreements — its producers are able to dump steel products into America at or below the actual cost of production. This problem is particularly acute now as China is saddled with massive overcapacity in its steel industry.

いつまでも変わらない
エネルギー、土地、借入金、水の費用の負担まで
ほぼ間違いなく、
ダンピングする
深刻な
巨大な過剰生産能力を負っている

Of course, every job China gains by dumping steel into American markets is an American job lost. Each steelworker’s job in America generates additional jobs in the economy, along with increased tax revenues. With over 20 million Americans now unable to find decent work, we could certainly use those jobs as we repair the Verrazano Bridge. The M.T.A. has ignored not only the social costs but also the broader impact on the environment and human rights. Chinese steel plants emit significantly more pollution and greenhouse gases per ton of steel produced than plants in the United States. This not only contributes to global warming but also has a direct negative impact on American soil, since an increasing amount of China’s pollution is crossing the Pacific Ocean on the jet stream.

まともな仕事

Finally, when American companies and government agencies opt for Chinese over American steel, they are tacitly supporting an authoritarian regime that prohibits independent labor unions from organizing — one of many grim ironies in today’s People’s Republic. As a result, American workers are forced to compete against Chinese workers who regularly work 12-hour days, six or seven days a week, without adequate safety gear. Both Chinese and American steelworkers wind up as victims.

アメリカの鉄鋼よりも中国の方を選ぶ
それとなく
独裁政権
不快な皮肉
安全装置
結局、犠牲になる

The bottom line here is this: Buying “Made in China” — whether steel for our bridges or dolls for our children — entails large costs that most consumers and, sadly, even our leaders don’t consider when making purchases. This is hurting our country — and killing our economy. Peter Navarro, a professor of economics and public policy in the business school at the University of California, Irvine, directed the documentary film “Death by China.”

必要とする

今日はこれまで。昨日はサムソンの偉い人と会食できた。朝はよたよたしながら雨の中をスケートした。途中4回も休憩したが、3週続けてしんどかった。なぜだろうか?午後は英語の勉強があって、夕方からデスクワークをしたが、調子は良かった。ただ、昨晩は2時まで寝ることができなかった。2晩続けて、10時間以上寝ていたからだろうか?今日も昼食以外はデスクワークが出来る。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 08:20コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 
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海野 恵一
1948年1月14日生

学歴:東京大学経済学部卒業

スウィングバイ株式会社
代表取締役社長

アクセンチュア株式会社代表取締役(2001-2002)
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