BEC阅读练习：中日或竞争亚洲开发银行行长一职

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　　原文阅读：中日或竞争亚洲开发银行行长一职

　　It has long been convention that an American heads the World Bank, a European runs the IMF and a Japanese sits atop the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

　　But now that Haruhiko Kuroda will leave his position at the top of the Asian Development Bank to become governor of the Bank of Japan, western central bankers and academics are braced for the Chinese to launch efforts to install one of their own as Mr Kuroda’s successor.

　　“The Chinese have long wanted control of the ADB,” said Eswar Prasad, a senior professor at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

　　Taro Aso, Japanese finance minister, made clear this week that Tokyo planned to fight any attempt by any other country to take the top job at the Manila-based ADB. “Japan will have to carry out election activity in order to secure the position to succeed ADB president Kuroda,” he told reporters. Mr Aso also said that Takehiko Nakao, Japan’s top currency diplomat, was among the candidates for ADB chief.

　　Any such Chinese push would be likely to add to tensions between the two countries, already locked in a dispute over control of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. It would also reinforce growing regional anxieties about China’s behaviour, with Beijing taking an increasingly prominent role in multilateral institutions in recent years.

　　The International Finance Corporation, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank, recently recruited Cai Jinyong as its chief executive in an indication of Beijing’s growing profile.

　　One likely Chinese candidate to head the ADB is Jin Liqun, at present the chairman of the supervisory board of China’s sovereign wealth fund and a vice-president at the ADB and the World Bank earlier in his career. Zhu Min, now a deputy to Christine Lagarde at the IMF and extremely well regarded, is also seen as qualified although he is likely to prefer to remain in Washington.

　　While China has long used its teeming foreign reserves and its own policy banks, particularly the China Development Bank, to help its neighbours build their energy and transport infrastructure, there has been a backlash to this approach in recent months.

　　“Nobody in the region believes in the peaceful rise of China anymore,” said the head of one local bank in Hong Kong.

　　Beijing’s increase in military spending is part of the reason for those concerns. But so is the feeling that China’s economic relations with its neighbours are often colonial in nature, sucking in raw materials at cheap prices and then selling finished goods in return with little local investment.

　　Some bankers worry that if China took the top job at the ADB, it would use its position to pursue its political agenda. In the past, China has lobbied against loans to places where it has territorial claims, such as in the province of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India, which it claims does not belong to India at all.

　　Staffers at the ADB respond that the Japanese used the bank to further their own agenda at a time when many Asians with memories of the second world war were uncomfortable dealing with Japan directly.

　　The Japanese finance ministry has regarded the post as its preserve, staffing it with senior officials from its international side who have retired, leading to complaints in many cases that the occupant was too bureaucratic. At the same time, many potential candidates for the job have been reluctant to move to Manila, regarding it as a dangerous backwater.

　　学习指南：

　　1.Word of the day

　　bureaucratic: bureaucratic means involving complicated rules and procedures which can cause long delays. 官僚式的，官僚主义的。

　　ex1:Diplomats believe that bereaucratic delays are inevitable.

　　例句一：外交官们认为繁文缛节造成的延迟是在所难免的。

　　ex2:The department has become a bureaucratic nightmare.

　　例句二：该部门的官僚作风非常严重。

　　小编注：bureau是“局、所、司、处、属”的意思，比如FBI的全称就叫the Federal Bureau of Investigation，bureau这个词来自法语，表示办公室、桌子，最早指暗褐色的桌布，crat为希腊后缀，衍生形式有-cracy, -cratic ,-cratism, -cratically, -cracies，表示统治、权威、权力等。不妨闭上眼睛暗想几个带这些后缀的单词吧，用词根背单词是很有效的一个方法。参考词：democract 民主人士、aristocrat 贵族。

　　2.Phrase of the day

　　lobby aganst: If you lobby someone such as a member of a government or council, you try to persuade them that a particular law should be changed or that a particular thing should be done. 游说

　　ex:The union has attacked the plan and threatened to lobby against it.

　　例句：工会不但会攻击该计划，而且还扬言要游说议员反对它。

　　3.Sentence of the day

　　It has long been convention that an American heads the World Bank, a European runs the IMF and a Japanese sits atop the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

　　美国人领导世界银行(World Bank)，欧洲人领导国际货币基金组织(IMF)，日本人领导亚洲开发银行(ADB，总部位于马尼拉)，这早已形成一种惯例。

　　小编注：之所以特地挑出这句话是因为原文中为了表达“领导”这一含义，用了三个不同的表达方式："heads", "runs", "sit atop"，这样子使得文章的用词显得非常丰富而饱含变化，令人耳目一新。我们在进行写作和翻译时，也要注意这一点，当连续出现几个相同的意义时尽量选择不同的表达。译文全部使用“领导”一词，不免略显苍白。

　　4.Cultural point of the day

　　lobby：又见lobby，主要是这个词有一个有趣的典故。lobby一词中国学生往往是用其名词“酒店大堂、休息厅”的意思，而在英语世界中，更多地是用其动词“游说”的含义，并且引申出了另一个词lobbyist，说客。lobby被引申为“游说”，还有一个小小的典故，据说美国第18任总统格兰特每日下午喜欢去华盛顿一家名叫Willard的酒店休息厅喝酒小憩。请愿者不久发现，在这家酒店的休息厅比在总统办公室向总统游说更为成功，故而给休息室(lobby)赋予了“游说”的含义。但实际上，lobby作为“政治游说”的用法早在1808年就出现在《牛津英语大词典》上，其来源不得而知。不过格兰特的故事反倒能让我们更好地记住lobby的动词用法，我们姑且就记住这个小典故吧。

　　5.Translation of the day

　　Beijing’s increase in military spending is part of the reason for those concerns.

　　中国增加军事开支是其引起外界担忧的原因之一。

　　小编注：英文报刊中经常用一国首都来代表该国政府的立场，比如Beijing, Washington等，翻译时可以直接把它代表的国家译出来。这句翻译另一个比较值得学习的地方在于将文中作名词的increase翻译成了动词的“增加”，这是为了语句通顺和简洁而对原句单词的词性进行的变通。

　　It has long been convention that an American heads the World Bank, a European runs the IMF and a Japanese sits atop the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

　　美国人领导世界银行(World Bank)，欧洲人领导国际货币基金组织(IMF)，日本人领导亚洲开发银行(ADB，总部位于马尼拉)，这早已形成一种惯例。

　　But now that Haruhiko Kuroda will leave his position at the top of the Asian Development Bank to become governor of the Bank of Japan, western central bankers and academics arebraced for the Chinese to launch efforts to install one of their own as Mr Kuroda’s successor.

　　但如今，在亚洲开发银行行长黑田东彦(Haruhiko Kuroda)即将离任、以出任日本央行(BOJ)行长之际，西方央行官员以及学者们认为，中国可能会展开活动，寻求让一名中国人接替黑田东彦之职。

　　“The Chinese have long wanted control of the ADB,” said Eswar Prasad, a senior professor at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

　　康奈尔大学(Cornell University)资深教授、布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)高级研究员埃斯瓦尔•普拉萨德(Eswar Prasad)说：“中国人对亚行掌门人的位置期望已久。”

　　Taro Aso, Japanese finance minister, made clear this week that Tokyo planned to fight any attempt by any other country to take the top job at the Manila-based ADB. “Japan will have to carry out election activity in order to secure the position to succeed ADB president Kuroda,” he told reporters. Mr Aso also said that Takehiko Nakao, Japan’s top currency diplomat, was among the candidates for ADB chief.

　　日本财务大臣麻生太郎(Taro Aso)本周明确表示，日本政府将力争不让亚行行长之位落入别国之手。麻生向记者们表示：“日本将不得不展开竞选活动，以确保亚行现行长黑田东彦的继任者仍然是日本人。”麻生还说，日本负责汇率事务的最高外交官中尾武彦(Takehiko Nakao)是竞选亚行行长的候选人之一。

　　Any such Chinese push would be likely to add to tensions between the two countries, already locked in a dispute over control of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. It would alsoreinforce growing regional anxieties about China’s behaviour, with Beijing taking an increasingly prominent role in multilateral institutions in recent years.

　　如果中国人竞选亚行行长，可能进一步加剧中日之间的紧张关系。东海尖阁诸岛(Senkaku islands，中国称为“钓鱼岛及其附属岛屿”)控制权争端，已导致中日关系陷入僵局。与此同时，此举也可能加剧亚洲地区对中国行为的担忧，近年来，北京方面在一些多边机构中表现越来越活跃。

　　The International Finance Corporation, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank, recently recruited Cai Jinyong as its chief executive in an indication of Beijing’s growing profile.

　　世界银行旗下的私营部门融资机构——国际金融公司(IFC)最近聘请蔡金勇担任首席执行官，这反映出中国的影响力日益显著。

　　One likely Chinese candidate to head the ADB is Jin Liqun, at present the chairman of the supervisory board of China’s sovereign wealth fund and a vice-president at the ADB and the World Bank earlier in his career. Zhu Min, now a deputy to Christine Lagarde at the IMF and extremely well regarded, is also seen as qualified although he is likely to prefer to remain in Washington.

　　中国主权财富基金的监事长金立群是可能竞选亚行行长的中国人之一。他曾先后担任世行中国副执行董事和亚行副行长。声望极高的国际货币基金组织副总裁朱民，也被视为符合亚行行长任职条件的人选，但他可能倾向于继续担任原职。

　　While China has long used its teeming foreign reserves and its own policy banks, particularly the China Development Bank, to help its neighbours build their energy and transportinfrastructure, there has been a backlash to this approach in recent months.

　　中国长期以来一直利用其巨大的外汇储备，通过本国的政策银行(特别是中国国家开发银行(CDB))，帮助邻国进行能源和交通基础设施建设，但近月来，这种做法遭到了抨击。

　　“Nobody in the region believes in the peaceful rise of China anymore,” said the head of one local bank in Hong Kong.

　　香港一家本地银行的负责人表示：“(亚洲地区)没人再相信中国会和平崛起了。”

　　Beijing’s increase in military spending is part of the reason for those concerns. But so is the feeling that China’s economic relations with its neighbours are often colonial in nature, sucking in raw materials at cheap prices and then selling finished goods in return with little local investment.

　　中国增加军事开支是其引起外界担忧的原因之一。另一个原因是，人们觉得，中国与邻国的经济关系在本质上往往带有殖民色彩——进口廉价原材料，出口制成品，很少在当地直接投资。

　　Some bankers worry that if China took the top job at the ADB, it would use its position to pursue its political agenda. In the past, China has lobbied against loans to places where it has territorial claims, such as in the province of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India, which it claims does not belong to India at all.

　　一些银行家担心，如果亚行掌门人之位落入中国之手，中国会利用这个职位推进自己的政治议程。在过去，中国曾对亚行进行游说，希望该行不要向与中国有领土争端的地区发放贷款，比如印度东北部的阿鲁纳恰尔邦，中国声称该地区并不属于印度。

　　Staffers at the ADB respond that the Japanese used the bank to further their own agenda at a time when many Asians with memories of the second world war were uncomfortable dealing with Japan directly.

　　对此亚行工作人员回应称，在许多亚洲人对二战记忆犹新、不愿意直接与日本打交道的时候，日本也曾利用亚行推进自己的议程。

　　The Japanese finance ministry has regarded the post as its preserve, staffing it with senior officials from its international side who have retired, leading to complaints in many cases that the occupant was too bureaucratic. At the same time, many potential candidates for the job have been reluctant to move to Manila, regarding it as a dangerous backwater.

　　日本财务省视亚行行长一职为自己的所有物，一贯从该省主管对外事务的退休高官中任命亚行行长，因此经常有批评称，亚行行长一职过于官僚化。另一方面，许多有希望出任此职的人却不愿迁往马尼拉，觉得那是个危险、闭塞的地方。