中国是否会再次震撼世界？

choi

罗伯特•派斯顿, 中国是否会再次震撼世界？ BBC Chinese, Feb 17, 2014
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chin ... china_economy.shtml

, which is translated from

Robert Peston, Will China Shake the World Again? BBC, Feb 17, 2014
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26225205
("the film I have made, to be screened on Tuesday (How China Fooled the World, BBC2, 9pm)")

My comment:
(a)
(i) translation: 武汉市长唐良智 "在五年时间里为该市的一项重建计划花费2000亿英镑，其目的就是为了让武汉这个已有10万人口的城市成为一个世界特大城市，给中国第二大城市上海带来严峻挑战"
(ii) original: Wuhan mayor Tang Liangzhi "is spending £200bn over five years on a redevelopment plan whose aim is to make Wuhan - which already has a population of 10 million - into a world mega city and a serious challenger to Shanghai as China's second city"
(iii) comment: There is no doubt "10万人口" is a typo, but I disagree "Shanghai as China's second city" should be translated into "中国第二大城市上海." It is known that Shanghai is the most populous city in China. See also
list of cities in China by population
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

My view on "second city" refers to its importance (not population), shadowed by Beijing.

(b) "The middle of town is being demolished to create a high tech commercial centre. It will include a £3bn skyscraper that will be more than 600m high (roughly double the height of London's Shard)"

The Shard
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shard
(87-storey; 396 metres; currently the tallest building in the European Union)

(c) "Over the past few years, China has built * * * 26,000 miles of motorway"
motorway (n): "chiefly British  SUPERHIGHWAY"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/motorway

(d) "Here is the thing: when a big economy is investing at that pace to generate wealth and jobs, it is a racing certainty that much of it will never generate an economic return, that the investment is way beyond what rational decision-making would have produced."

racing certainty: "something that is regarded as certain to happen"
Oxford dictionaries, undated.
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/racing-certainty

(e)
(i) translation: "但这些大部分的支出和投资之所以是有毒的是因为它们的资助方式：中国出现借贷膨胀。中国的债务占国内生产总值的比例迅速上升，已经达到大约15%。占全国产量的比例从2008年的大约125%增加到目前的200%。"
(ii) original: "But what makes much of the spending and investment toxic is the way it was financed: there has been an explosion of lending. China's debts as a share of GDP have been rising at a very rapid rate of around 15% of GDP, or national output, annually and have increased since 2008 from around 125% of GDP to 200%."
(iii) comment: My sense is tht the translator fails to realize GDP IS "national [economic] output." The "15%" is the "annual[ ]" rate of the debt-to-GDP ratio.

(f)
(i) translation: "惠誉公司的分析师朱夏莲 * * * 说：'这14万亿到15万亿美元的增长相当于整个美国商业银行界的规模，而美国达到这一规模是花了一个多世纪的时间。换言之，中国在短短的五年时间里复制了美国的整个商业银行系统。'"
(ii) original: "The analyst Charlene Chu, late of Fitch * * * [says,] 'That incremental increase of $14 to $15 trillion is the equivalent of the entire size of the US commercial banking sector, which took more than a century to build. So that means China will have replicated the entire US system in the span of half a decade.'"
(iii) comment: The English part says she is no longer with Fitch. See
late (adv): "not long ago :  RECENTLY <a writer late of Chicago>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/late
(iv)The author is British. Yet "commercial bank" in US was accorded special meaning: commercial bank
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bank
("In the US the term commercial bank was often used to distinguish it from an investment bank due to differences in bank regulation. After the great depression, through the Glass–Steagall Act, the U.S. Congress required that commercial banks only engage in banking activities, whereas investment banks were limited to capital markets activities. This separation was mostly repealed in the 1990s")

But see
bank
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank
(sectin 7 Types of banks)

(g) The truth is we do not know, until it is happening--or after it has happened, as in the case of Japan of 1989--if it ever happens. Until then, there will be bears and bulls always.