譯者按：

6月份，拜登政府發布供應鏈百日評估報告。報告由四個部門聯合撰寫，它們分別是商務部、能源部、國防部和衛生與公眾服務部，聚焦于四大領域：半導體、大容量電池、關鍵礦物質和藥品。雖然報告看起來是“就事論事”，并不針對中國，但由于中美經濟相互依賴度較高，也很難離開中國談美國的供應鏈安全問題。所以，每個章節幾乎都提到了中國。本文并非報告原文，而是新經濟思想研究所的一篇評論文章，作者為詹姆斯·加爾布雷斯（James K. Galbraith）。

Contrary to rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. has an economic interest in trade and peace with China

與民主黨和共和黨的言論相反，美國在與中國開展貿易以及保持和平關系中獲得了經濟利益

In January 2013, the Obama White House released a White Paper on “National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Security: Implementation Update.” It was a short document, only 22 pages, almost wholly focused on the security of transport – of ships, air freight, the mails – against terrorism and other threats. What traveled through the supply chain,and from where, does not appear to have been a major concern.

2013年1月，奧巴馬政府發布了一份名為《全球供應鏈安全的國家戰略：實施情況更新》的白皮書。這是一份簡短的文件，只有22頁，幾乎完全集中在運輸安全——船舶、空運、郵件——反對恐怖主義和其他威脅上面。供應鏈上的內容，它們從哪兒來，似乎不是一個主要的關注點。

In June 2021, the Biden White House published a “ 100-day review” entitled “Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing and Fostering Broad-based Growth.” It is focused on a very different concept of what the “supply chain” is; the term now encompasses the entire spectrum of upstream production. The Biden review takes these up in four areas: semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, critical minerals, and pharmaceuticals.

2021年6月，拜登政府發表了題為《建立彈性供應鏈、振興美國制造業和促進廣泛增長》的“百日評估”報告。它的重點完全不一樣，即何為“供應鏈”；這個術語包括整個上游。這篇報告聚焦于四大領域：半導體、大容量電池、關鍵礦物以及藥品。

One might ask, why these four areas and not others? There is no clear answer, and it may be that choice was mainly bureaucratic.The review was compiled from separate reports by four cabinet departments: Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Health and Human Services. Had the Department of Agriculture been asked, or the Department of Transportation, one might have gotten different choices. Petroleum comes to mind. Or natural rubber – the linchpin of World War II in the Pacific.

人們可能會問，為什么是這四個領域，而不是其他領域？并沒有明確的答案，這主要與不同政府部門的關切有關。該報告由四個內閣部門（商務部、能源部、國防部和衛生與公眾服務部）的獨立報告匯編而成的。如果由農業部或交通部來編寫，報告內容可能會有差異。我想到了石油，或者天然橡膠——二戰中太平洋地區的關鍵材料。

If there is an Ariadne’s thread to these four areas,it is the trading and competitive relationship with China. The reports do not focus solely on China and give what is largely a fair-minded and wide-ranging assessment of vulnerabilities in each sector. For the reader not previously immersed in the structures of semiconductor production or the technology of electrical storage, this document, at 250 pages, is a mine of information. But China lurks in each section, sometimes looming large, in other places only inthe background.

如果說這四個領域有一條“阿里阿德尼之線”，那就是與中國的貿易和競爭關系。當然，報告并不針對中國，而是對每個領域的薄弱之處進行了客觀的和廣泛的評估。對于之前沒有深入了解過半導體生產結構或電力存儲技術的讀者來說，這份長達250頁的文件是一座信息寶庫。每一部分中都有中國的影子，有時隱約可見，在有些地方只作為大背景。

The global semiconductor industry is here described in fascinating detail. It is a paragon of extreme specialization, relentless technological improvement, economies of scale, and global division of labor. US firms dominate in semiconductor design and integrated production; Japan produces the wafers; Taiwan and (to a much smaller degree) South Korea dohigh-end fabrication in “contract foundries,” while China handles a substantial share of low-end chips and of “packaging” – a term that covers the placing of chips into circuit boards including, of course, the assembly of smart phones.American-based production is only 12 percent of the world’s capacity, roughly athird of what it was in the 1990s.

報告對全球半導體行業進行了詳盡描述。它是高度專業化、持續的技術改進、規模經濟和全球勞動分工的典范。美國公司在半導體設計和集成生產線方面占主導地位；日本生產晶圓；中國臺灣和（在較小的程度上）韓國在“合同鑄造廠”上進行高端制造；中國處理相當份額的低端芯片和“組裝”——這個術語包括將芯片放入電路板，當然也包括智能手機的組裝。美國的生產只占世界產能的12%，大約是20世紀90年代的三分之一。

To characterize broadly, the semiconductor supply chain is a network of unique nodes, in which a given firm has one upstream supplier for many major components and perhaps just one downstream customer,creating a web of bilateral monopolies operating in extreme interdependence.Thus a breakdown anywhere along the line can disrupt the entire system. This is, by the way, very much the classic problem of Soviet-style industrial structure, designed to maximize efficiency at each node (in the Soviet case, amatter of scale), but fragile as events in the early 1990s showed.

從廣義上講，半導體供應鏈是一個由獨特節點組成的網絡，在這個網絡中，一個特定的公司有一個上游供應商提供許多主要部件，但也許只有一個下游客戶，形成了一個雙邊壟斷的網絡，在極端相互依賴的情況下運作。因此，供應鏈上的任何節點出現故障都會擾亂整個系統。順便說一下，這在很大程度上是蘇聯式工業結構的典型問題，旨在使每個節點的效率最大化（蘇聯模式是一個規模問題），但它很脆弱，正如20世紀90年代初的事件所顯示的那樣。

The review calls attention to several specific events that have led to recent and ongoing shortages in semiconductor supply.These include a fire in March at a facility in Japan and the freeze in Februaryin Texas which took a trio of Austin facilities off-line for up to a month. But the most important was not itself a natural event but rather the reaction toone. As Covid-19 took hold, key figures in the industry shifted capacity tohousehold applications. They failed to anticipate how quickly demand for vehicles would recover as the pandemic waned.

報告呼吁關注近期及持續導致半導體供應短缺的幾個事件，包括：3月份日本一家工廠的火災和2月份德克薩斯州的嚴寒天氣，這使得奧斯汀的三家工廠停工長達一個月。但最重要的不是自然事件本身，而是對自然事件的反應。隨著新冠疫情的爆發，該行業的廠商將產能轉移到了家居應用。他們沒有預料到，隨著疫情的減弱，對汽車的需求會迅速恢復。

The problem is that chip production takes a lot of time; it is characterized to an extreme degree by what economists of theAustrian school call “roundaboutness.” The multiple steps (etching, doping, andso forth) are repeated “hundreds of times”; producing a single chip “can takeup to 26 weeks.” So once locked into a program, the industry has the margin ofmaneuver, roughly, of the Ever Given in the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, the automakers who have designed a hundred or more distinct chips into their newcars must sit and wait. This accounts, no doubt, in part for the surging prices of used vehicles and the current scarcity of rental cars.

問題是，芯片生產需要大量的時間；它具有奧地利學派經濟學家所說的極端“迂回生產”過程。多個步驟（蝕刻、摻雜等）重復數百次；生產一個芯片“可能需要26周”。因此，一旦被鎖定在一個項目上，該行業的回旋余地就像在蘇伊士運河中擱淺的“長賜號”貨輪那樣小。與此同時，那些在新車上設計了一百個或更多不同芯片的汽車制造商必須等待。毫無疑問，這在一定程度上解釋了二手車價格的飆升和目前租賃車輛的稀缺。

What then is the “China threat” to the semiconductor supply chain? The most important one is stated very plainly. China is theworld’s largest semiconductor market, both for home use and for incorporation into products sold elsewhere. The single biggest risk from Chinais not some nefarious disruption of components or materials. It is rather, a possible fall in the final demand. The review is clear and unambiguous on thispoint:

那么，半導體供應鏈中的“中國威脅”是什么？這是最重要的一點，報告說得很明白。中國是世界上最大的半導體市場，無論是自用，還是作為銷售到其它地方的投入品來使用。來自中國的唯一最大風險不是對零部件或材料的惡意破壞。更確切地說，是來自最終需求的可能下降。在這一點上，報告有明確說明：

“US semiconductor companies… thus have the potential to be significantlyimpacted by trade restrictions between the United States and China, with major potions of their revenue at risk of long-term disruption. Based on the Chinese government’s ambitions in regard to the semiconductor industry, these revenue sources may be at risk regardless, but given that their ability to reinvest isimmediately dependent on sales to China, their long-term viability is immediately affected by actions that decrease sales.” (p. 57.)

"美國半導體公司......因此有可能受到美國和中國之間貿易摩擦的重大影響，他們的主要收入有可能被長期壓制。基于中國政府在半導體行業的野心，這些收入來源可能會面臨風險，但鑒于他們的再投資能力直接取決于對中國的銷售，他們的長期生存能力會直接受到銷量下降的影響。(第57頁)

The review goes on to note that since much of the industry operates on the two banks of the Taiwan Strait, “Even a minor conflictor embargo could have immediate major disruptions to the United States and long-term implications for US supply chain resilience” (p. 57). In a WhiteHouse document, at this moment of heated China-bashing, this is a welcome realism.

報告繼續指出，由于該行業的大部分業務是在中國臺灣海峽兩岸進行的，“即使是小的沖突或禁運，也會立即對美國產生重大干擾，并對美國供應鏈的彈性產生長期影響”（第57頁）。在這個激烈抨擊中國的時刻，白宮文件是一個受歡迎的現實主義報告。

With large-capacity batteries, the principal supply-chain issue is not so much a science-driven matter of design and engineering as it is access to key materials, most notably nickel, graphite,cobalt, and lithium. With these materials, it appears reserves are not particularly scarce, although in the case of cobalt they are concentrated inthe Democratic Republic of Congo, where mining conditions are tactfullydescribed as being “outside of international practice.” The review notes that China’s advantage in materials supply results, mainly, from having invested infinding reserves on its own territory.

對于大容量電池來說，主要的供應鏈問題與其說是設計和工程的科學驅動問題，不如說是關鍵材料的獲取問題，最明顯的是鎳、石墨、鈷和鋰。就這些材料而言，儲備似乎并不特別稀缺，盡管就鈷而言，它們集中在剛果民主共和國，那里的采礦條件被委婉地描述為“不符合國際慣例”。評論指出，中國在材料供應方面的優勢主要來自于投資在自己的領土上的儲備開采。

But, it turns out, industrial dominance in this area does not rest on the supply side. It lies rather in the development of theindustry itself, driven by demand for electrical storage, which is overwhelmingly in the automotive sector. China is the low-cost producer because it is the world’s largest user, consuming 40 percent of global large-capacity battery output. Europe accounts for another 40 percent, and the United Statesfor just 13 percent. Consider this: there are 425,000 electrically-powered buses in the world today. Of these, 300 are in the United States; 421,000 arein China. Perhaps oddly for a report on the supply chain, but not unreasonably under the circumstances, the recommendations in this section are relentless: the United States should work to bolster demand.

但是，事實證明，工業在這一領域的主導地位并不在于供應方面。相反，它在于行業本身的發展，由汽車行業對電力存儲的需求所驅動，汽車行業對電力存儲的需求占絕大多數。中國是低成本生產商，因為它的用戶是世界上最大的，消費了全球大容量電池產量的40%。歐洲占另外的40%，而美國僅占13%。可以參考這個數據：目前世界上有425，000輛電動巴士，其中，300輛在美國；42.1萬輛在中國。對于一份關于供應鏈的報告來說，也許很奇怪，但也不無道理，本節中的建議是毫不留情的：美國應該努力刺激需求。

In the report on critical materials, prepared by the Pentagon, thirty-eight minerals are listed for which US direct import dependence is above 75 percent. Of these, China is a top supplier in eighteen cases. And why is that? Largely, as the report states, because the growth in China’s own demand for these materials has made it profitable for China toinvest in the supply chain, hence to become the high-volume, low-cost producer, to whom the world turns.

在五角大樓編寫的關于關鍵材料的報告中，列出了38種美國直接進口依賴度超過75%的礦物質。其中，中國是18種材料的首要供應商。這是為什么呢？如報告所述，主要是因為中國自身對這些材料的需求的增長，使得中國在供應鏈上的投資有利可圖，從而成為大批量、低成本的生產商，世界都向其看齊。

The Defense Department is naturally concerned with the possible consequences of conflict, and so with the possibility that access to materials might be lost, especially where there is only one source ofsupply. This is particularly true in the case of “rare earths” – a grab-bag of exotic minerals – where China had 85 percent of the global market as of 2014 – even though the entire Chinese workforce in the mining of rare earths consistsof only 4,000 souls, with an additional 40,000 in smelting. Perhaps understandably, not even the Pentagon has a good answer to this problem, apart from conservation, recycling, stockpiling, and being prepared to divert from routine to essential uses in an emergency. The review laments the decline of mining expertise emerging from US university systems, where educational programs have folded as mines have disappeared. But it is hard to see why students would pursue degrees, or universities provide them, in fields for which jobs no longer exist.

國防部自然關注沖突可能帶來的后果，因此關注可能失去獲得材料的機會，特別是在只有一個供應來源的情況下。“稀土”尤其如此——這是一種奇特的礦物——截至2014年，中國擁有全球市場的85%——盡管整個中國開采稀土的勞動力只有4000人，另外還有4萬人從事冶煉。也許可以理解的是，除了保護、回收、儲存以及準備在緊急情況下從常規用途轉為必要用途之外，五角大樓都無法很好的解決這一問題。該報告對美國大學系統中出現的采礦專業知識的衰退表示遺憾，在這些大學中，隨著礦場的消失，教育項目也隨之關閉。但很難說為什么學生要在工作崗位不再存在的情況下追求學位，或者大學提供學位。

With pharmaceuticals, the problem is not of scarcity but of basic economics. The supply chain moved to India because costs are lowas befits the low-price, low-margin, high-volume business of generic drug manufacture. Supply chain resilience would thus be a matter of maintaining a“virtual” stockpile, consisting of manufacturing equipment and precursor chemicals, to be held in reserve in case of emergencies. It is important tonote that to be useful, the reserve capacity would have to be kept idle –otherwise it adds no layer of safety in the event of a disruption. The reviewis realistic about the prospects for this: the scale and complexity of the sector, together with the unpredictability of future biological threats, makesit impractical to maintain large reserves in all areas. In an open globalmarket economy, drugs will be bought from where they are cheapest to produce.

對于藥品來說，問題不在于稀缺性，而在于經濟性。供應鏈轉移到印度是因為成本低，這與低價格、低利潤、高產量的非專利藥品生產業務相匹配。因此，供應鏈的彈性依賴于“虛擬”庫存，包括制造設備和易制毒化學品，以備緊急情況下的可用儲備。值得注意的是，為了發揮作用，儲備產能必須保持閑置——否則在發生中斷的情況下，它不會增加安全墊。報告對這一前景持實用主義態度：該部門的規模和復雜性，以及未來生物威脅的不可預測性，使得在所有領域保持大量儲備是不現實的。在一個開放的全球市場經濟中，藥品將從生產成本最低的地方購買。

In each area, the Review is critical of Chinese practices, which are said to consist of large-scale, “top-down,”“market-distorting,” public investments, subsidies to Chinese companies, state-sponsored industrial rationalization, and in the case of electric vehicles, large subsidies to consumers to spur demand. Thus we read: “The Chinese Government has focused on capturing discrete strategic and criticalmaterial markets as a matter of state policy.” (p. 174). Examples given arethat in 2002 China “prohibited foreign investors from establishing rare earthmining enterprises in China” and in 2014 consolidated the business in the handsof a “handful of national champions.” Also, back in 1985, China had establisheda VAT rebate for rare-earth exports, “which contributed to the erosion and theelimination of US production in the global market.”

在每一個領域，報告都對中國的做法提出了批評，這些做法包括大規模、“自上而下”、“扭曲市場”的公共投資，對中國公司的補貼，國家支持工業的合理性，以及在電動汽車方面，對消費者提供大量補貼以刺激需求。因此，我們看到：“中國政府的政策重點是占領分散的戰略和關鍵的物資市場。”(第174頁)所舉的例子是，2002年，中國“禁止外國投資者在中國建立稀土開采企業”，并在2014年將該業務整合到“少數國家龍頭企業”的手中。另外，早在1985年，中國就為稀土出口設立了增值稅退稅，“這導致美國生產在全球市場中被侵蝕和淘汰”。

In this and other instances throughout the Review,the deplorable practices of state planning and national development strategiesundertaken by China are, within a few pages, pretty much exactly what theauthors recommend for the United States. (The DoD recommendations on criticalmaterials are an exception here, addressing among other things recycling, humanrights issues, and environmental concerns, even though these are perhapssomewhat tangential to supply-chain issues per se.) Thus onlithium-ion batteries, we read: “As part of the American Jobs Plan, PresidentJoe Biden has called for transformative investments to spur this demand,including $100 billion in incentives to encourage US consumers to transition toEVs” (p. 134). Similarly on semiconductors: “Consistent with the American JobsPlan proposals, federal incentives to build or expand semiconductor facilitiesare necessary to counter the significant subsidies provided by foreign alliesand competitors.” (p. 76). How an “incentive” differs from the Chinese practiceof “subsidies” is not clearly explained. Nor does the review admit that exportrebates on VAT are standard practice everywhere.

（悖論之處在于）在這一點上，以及在其他情形中，中國所采取的國家規劃和國家發展戰略的行為，幾乎也是作者對美國的建議。（國防部關于關鍵材料的建議是一個例外，其中涉及到回收、人權問題和環境問題，盡管這些問題可能與供應鏈問題本身有一些聯系）因此，關于鋰電池，“作為美國就業計劃的一部分，拜登總統呼吁進行變革性投資以刺激這一需求，包括提供1，000億美元的激勵措施以鼓勵美國消費者過渡到電動汽車”（第134頁）。在半導體方面也是如此：“與美國就業計劃的建議相一致，聯邦激勵措施中關于建立或擴大半導體設施的提議是必要的，以對抗外國盟友和競爭對手提供的大量補貼”。(第76頁)“激勵”與中國的“補貼”的做法有何不同，報告并沒有明確解釋。報告中也沒有承認增值稅的出口退稅是各地的標準做法。

Still, from a broad reading and fair appraisal ofthis genuinely excellent document, two major conclusions may be drawn. Thefirst is that the Chinese advantage – which is by no means absolute in allareas – stems from a pragmatic program of economic development, includinginfrastructure and human resources, in a vast country able to take advantage ofa scale of production and internal market impossible anywhere else. This leadsto lower costs across a wide range of industrial and engineering capacities,bolstered by being embedded (as the Review does not point out) in a systemoriented toward social stability and steady growth rather than short-termprofitability and financial contracts. The Chinese edge – similar to India’s inpharmaceuticals but much more broadly based – is the product of the success ofChina’s development approach, especially in the post-Mao era, but with rootsthat go back to the 1949 revolution, to the creation of the People’s Republicand to the restoration of a unitary Chinese state with full control over thenation’s land and resources. This is a fact of life and not an artifact ofruses or dirty dealing.

不過，從對這份極其優秀的文件的廣泛閱讀和公正評價中，我們可以得出兩個主要結論。第一個結論是，中國的優勢——在所有領域都不是絕對的——來自于一個務實的經濟發展計劃，包括基礎設施和人力資源，在一個幅員廣闊的國家，能夠利用其他地方不具備的生產規模和內部市場。這使得工業和工程成本的普遍降低，并通過嵌入（正如《報告》沒有指出的那樣）一個以社會穩定和穩定增長、而不是短期盈利和金融合同為導向的體制而得到支持。該優勢——類似于印度在制藥方面的優勢，但基礎更廣泛——是“中國模式”取得成功的關鍵，尤其是在后毛澤東時代，但其根源可以追溯到1949年的革命，追溯到中華人民共和國的建立，追溯到對國家土地和資源有完全控制權的大一統國家的恢復。這是無法改變的事實，而不是詭計或骯臟交易的產物。

The second key conclusion is that in criticalsectors, in the world we inhabit and from which we cannot escape, US-Chinainterdependence is indefeasible. Rare earths are a minor example, barring newdiscoveries in other places. Semiconductors are a major one: without theChinese market, the American firms that presently dominate the high-end designprocesses would collapse. Bringing manufacturing back to the US, we learn,would come primarily at the expense of allies, including Japan and South Koreaas well as, especially, Taiwan. It is hard to see why even the most aggressiveChina hawk would favor stripping Taiwan of its chip foundries – but even doingthat would hardly lessen the dependence of the semiconductor ecosystem on the Chinesemarket.

第二個關鍵結論是，在我們所居住的、我們無法逃避的世界的關鍵領域，美中的相互依存關系是不可動搖的。稀土是一個小例子，除非在其他地方有新發現。半導體是一個重要的例子：如果沒有中國市場，目前在高端設計過程中占主導地位的美國公司將崩潰。我們了解到，將制造業帶回美國，將主要以犧牲盟友為代價，包括日本和韓國，特別是臺灣。很難理解，為什么即使是最激進的中國鷹派也會支持剝離臺灣的芯片代工商——但即使這樣做也很難減少半導體生態系統對中國市場的依賴。

So we come to a truly remarkable third conclusion,no less powerful for having been left unstated. It builds on the fact that theintegration of the global economy cannot be undone. The division of labor –hence productivity, living standards, and the advance of technologies – islimited by the extent of the market, as Adam Smith wrote in The Wealthof Nations back in 1776. China is a now-developed country with abouttwenty percent of the human population; its advantages are stability and scale,almost exactly as was true in the 18^th century. Theseadvantages cannot now be taken away without destroying the world as it is.

因此，我們得出了真正令人矚目的第三個結論，這個結論并不會因為未被說明而顯得無力。正如亞當·斯密(Adam Smith)在1776年的《國富論》(The Wealth of Nations)中所寫的那樣，勞動分工——即生產力、生活水平和技術進步——受到市場范圍的限制。中國是一個發達國家，擁有占全人類20%的人口；它的優勢是穩定和規模，幾乎與18世紀的情況完全一樣。這些優勢現在無法在不破壞世界現狀的情況下被奪走。

To be sure, the Chinese still, in many importantadvanced areas, draw from and depend on the United States. Certainly, the UScan slow the inroads of Chinese firms in some cases, and certainly the US canfoster, as this report recommends, its own advantages in new sectors bymaintaining and expanding its research and development base. Certainly, thereare many things to be done in the United States to meet urgent environmental,public health, and critical social goals.

可以肯定的是，在許多重要的先進領域，中國人仍然會借鑒和依賴美國。當然，美國可以在某些情況下減緩中國公司的發展，正如本報告所建議的那樣，美國可以通過保持和擴大其研究和開發基礎來加強其在新領域的自身優勢。當然，在美國有許多事情要做，以滿足緊迫的環境、公共衛生和關鍵社會目標。

But the US position, as an economy with onlyone-fourth the population, equally now depends on the Chinese market, and ondownstream Chinese firms supplying applications to the world. While precautionsagainst natural disasters and pandemics can be taken – up to a point – thecentral unstated message of this 100-day Review is that the greatest risk tothe supply chain, in each of the four areas, is disruption of normal traderelations with China. In short, as an objective economic matter, we learn here,the United States has an overwhelming interest in peace. 

但是，美國作為一個只有中國四分之一人口的經濟體，現在同樣依賴中國市場，以及向世界提供產品的中國下游企業。盡管在一定程度上可以采取預防自然災害和流行病的措施，但這份百日評估報告未明示的核心信息是，在上述四個領域中，供應鏈面臨的最大風險是與中國的正常貿易關系受到破壞。簡而言之，我們在這里了解到，作為一個客觀的經濟問題，和平對美國利益有著壓倒性的攸關性。