口譯時事:中歐葡萄酒戰爭開打
The hardy citizens of Europe made it through the banana wars. They even survived the bra wars – against China, no less. Trade disputes capture the imagination only when they have a catchy name. The solar panels at the heart of the spat between Europe and China were never going to excite interest. But that has changed since China this week said it would probe European winemaking subsidies. The battle for the bottle, perhaps? Aux armes, Bordeaux and Burgundy!
吃苦耐勞的歐洲民衆挺過了“香蕉戰爭”。他們甚至同樣挺過了對手爲中國的“胸罩戰爭”。只有當貿易爭端擁有一個引人注目的名字的時候，纔會激發人們的想象力。處於歐中貿易爭端核心的太陽能面板永遠不會引起人們的興趣。但自從中國本週宣佈將對歐洲葡萄酒生產補貼展開調查以來，情況就有所不同了。或許這是一場“酒瓶戰爭”?準備開戰吧，波爾多和勃艮第!About a fifth of the wine drunk in China last year came from the EU. Sixty per cent of that, or 227m bottles, was French. EU wine exports to China have grown more than 50 per cent a year for the past three. For a country that increasingly likes the odd glass of foreign wine, it is odd that China has taken threatening action that could sharply raise the cost of that wine.
中國人去年喝掉的葡萄酒大約五分之一來自歐盟(EU)，其中60%(合2.27億瓶)來自法國。在過去三年裏，歐盟對華葡萄酒出口的年增長率超過50%。對一個日益喜歡喝幾杯外國葡萄酒的國家來說，中國採取了可能大幅提高進口葡萄酒價格的威脅性舉措，有些令人費解。But China is anything but reckless: the 2bn bottles the Chinese drank last year work out at under two per head. That makes the country a mere entry-level toper compared with the 60-plus bottles the average French person consumes, or even the eight drunk by Hong Kongers.
但中國也絕非魯莽行事：中國人去年總共喝掉20億瓶葡萄酒，平均下來每人不到兩瓶。與人均葡萄酒消費量達60多瓶的法國相比，中國不過是一個初級酒客，甚至香港人人均還喝8瓶葡萄酒呢。
In other words, France’s one-tenth share of China’s wine market, which is expected to grow in volume by about 8 per cent a year, is more important to France than the cost of each bottle is to China’s small if growing band of oenophiles. And those wine fans have options, too. Any drop in European imports will probably only benefit its 450 domestic wine producers. Less than a third of China’s wine is imported and it is already the sixth biggest producer in the world, ahead of Australia, according to Vinexpo.
換言之，法國在中國葡萄酒市場佔據10%的份額，而中國市場預計年增長率約爲8%，中國發起調查對法國的影響，要大於進口葡萄酒價格的上升對中國爲數不多但日益壯大的愛酒人士的影響。那些喜歡喝紅酒的人也有其他選擇。歐洲對華葡萄酒出口量的任何下降，都只會讓中國的450家國內葡萄酒製造商受益。國際葡萄酒及烈酒展覽會(Vinexpo)方面表示，中國不到三分之一的葡萄酒來自進口，如今已經是全球第六大葡萄酒生產國，領先於澳大利亞。Pitting French viniculture against Chinese power could turn into a real fight. The French wine industry – the world’s biggest – is no slouch at promoting a sons-of-the-soil, family enterprise image. Yet the one-quarter of exported Bordeaux that headlines its wine sales to China and Hong Kong comes from big-production vineyards that can hardly be deemed artisanal.
讓法國葡萄莊園與中國角力可能演變爲真正的戰爭。法國葡萄酒產業雖然是全球最大的，但並不擅長宣傳土生土長的家族企業形象。然而，新聞報道中經常提到的出口至中國內地和香港的波爾多(Bordeaux)葡萄酒中，有四分之一來自幾乎不可能被視爲小作坊的大型葡萄莊園。With China’s wine imports already taxed at about 50 per cent of value, French wine fans had better stock up in case the wine wars are only just beginning.
隨着中國已經對進口葡萄酒徵收大約50%的關稅，愛好喝法國葡萄酒的人最好多存些貨，或許這場葡萄酒戰爭纔剛剛開始。
