For decades, the world’s largest car factory was Volkswagen’s complex in Wolfsburg, Germany. But BYD, the Chinese electric carmaker, is building two factories in China, each capable of producing twice as many cars as Wolfsburg.

几十年来，大众汽车位于德国沃尔夫斯堡的制造厂一直是全球最大的汽车工厂。但中国电动汽车制造商比亚迪正在中国建设两家工厂，每家都有两倍于沃尔夫斯堡工厂的产能。

Recent data from China’s central bank shows that state-controlled banks lent an extra $1.9 trillion to industrial borrowers over the past four years. On the fringes of cities all over China, new factories are being built day and night, and existing factories are being upgraded with robots and automation.

中国央行最近的数据显示，过去四年中，国有银行向工业借款人额外放贷13.6万亿元。在中国各地的城市边缘，新工厂正在日以继夜地建设，已有工厂也在进行机器人和自动化升级改造。

China’s investments and advances in manufacturing are producing a wave of exports that threatens to cause factory closings and layoffs not just in the United States but also around the globe.

中国在制造业方面的投资和进步正在掀起一波出口浪潮，不仅在美国，而且在全球范围内都有可能导致工厂关闭和裁员。

“The tsunami is coming for everyone,” said Katherine Tai, who was the United States Trade Representative for former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“海啸正向每个人袭来，”前总统拜登的美国贸易代表戴琪说。

President Trump’s steep tariffs announced on Wednesday, which have caused stocks in Asia and elsewhere to plunge, were the most drastic response yet to China’s export push. From Brazil and Indonesia to Thailand and the European Union, many countries have already moved more quietly to increase tariffs as well.

特朗普总统上周三对中国扩大出口的努力作出了迄今为止最猛烈的回应，他宣布大范围征收高额关税，引发了亚洲和其他地区的股票市场暴跌。从巴西到印度尼西亚到泰国，再到欧盟，许多国家也在不声张地提高关税。

包括极氪在宁波的工厂在内，中国各个城市的工厂都在进行机器人和自动化升级。

Chinese leaders are furious at the recent proliferation of trade barriers, and particularly Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs. They take pride in China’s high savings rate, long work hours and abundance of engineers and software programmers, as well as its legions of electricians, welders, mechanics, construction workers and other skilled tradesmen.

中国领导人对最近的贸易壁垒激增，尤其是特朗普的几轮新关税非常愤怒。他们对本国的高储蓄率、长工作时间、大量的工程师和软件程序员，以及大批电工、焊工、机械师、建筑工人和其他熟练工匠引以为傲。

On state television Saturday night, an anchor solemnly read a government statement condemning the United States: “It is using tariffs to subvert the existing international economic and trade order” so as “to serve the hegemonic interests of the United States.”

上周六晚，一名主持人在官方电视台上表情严肃地宣读了中国政府谴责美国的声明：美国“以关税手段颠覆现有国际经贸秩序”，“服务美国的霸权利益”。

Five years ago, before a housing bubble burst, cranes putting up apartment towers dotted practically every city in China. Today, many of those cranes are gone and the ones that are left seldom move. At Beijing’s behest, banks have rapidly shifted their lending from real estate to industry.

五年前，也就是中国的房地产泡沫破灭之前，建造公寓楼的起重机几乎遍布中国每座城市。如今，这些起重机中的许多已不见踪影，剩下的也几乎不运行。中国的银行已在政府要求下将贷款从房地产行业迅速转向工业。

China is using more factory robots than the rest of the world combined, and most of them are made in China by Chinese companies, although some components are still imported. After several years of rapid growth, overall installations of new factory equipment have already jumped another 18 percent this year.

中国工厂使用的机器人数量比世界其他国家加起来的还多，这些机器人中的大部分是中国公司在中国制造的，尽管一些零部件仍需要进口。经过了几年的快速增长后，今年的新工厂设备整体安装量已再次增长了18%。

When Zeekr, a Chinese electric carmaker, opened a factory four years ago in Ningbo, a two-hour drive south of Shanghai, the facility had 500 robots. Now it has 820, and many more are planned.

四年前，中国电动汽车制造商极氪在上海以南两小时车程的宁波开设了一家工厂，当时工厂里有500台机器人。现在工厂里的机器人已达820台，而且还有进一步增加的计划。

As new factories come online, China’s exports are rapidly accelerating. They rose 13.3 percent in 2023 and then another 17.3 percent last year.

随着新工厂陆续投产，中国的出口正在迅速增长。2023年增长了13.3%，去年又增长了17.3%。

Lending by state banks is also financing a boom in corporate research and development. Huawei, a conglomerate making items as varied as smartphones and auto parts, has just opened in Shanghai a research center for 35,000 engineers that has 10 times as much space for offices and labs as Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

国有银行的贷款也为企业的研发热潮提供了资金支持。华为这家生产从智能手机到汽车零部件等各类产品的企业集团，刚刚在上海设立了一个有3.5万名工程师的研发中心，其办公和实验室面积是谷歌在加州山景城总部的10倍。

在华为位于上海西郊的新研发中心内，有104座各具特色的建筑，这里设有实验室和办公室，甚至还有一列包括八个站的环线小火车。

Leaders around the world are struggling to decide whether to raise trade barriers to protect what is left of their countries’ industrial sectors.

世界各国领导人都在努力权衡是否提高贸易壁垒，以保护本国剩余的工业部门。

China has been rapidly expanding its share of global manufacturing for decades. The growth came mainly at the expense of the United States and other longtime industrial powers, but also of developing countries. China has increased its share to 32 percent and rising, from 6 percent in 2000.

几十年来，中国一直在迅速扩大它在全球制造业中的份额。这种增长主要是以牺牲美国和其他老牌工业大国的利益为代价的，但也牺牲了发展中国家的利益。中国制造业的占比已从2000年的6%增加到32%，并且还在上升。

China’s factory output is bigger than the combined manufacturing of the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain.

中国的工厂产出规模比美国、德国、日本、韩国和英国的制造业产出总和还要大。

Even before Mr. Trump won a second term, Biden administration officials warned during their final year in office about industrial overcapacity in China. They raised some tariffs, notably on electric cars.

甚至在特朗普赢得第二个任期之前，拜登政府的官员就在他们任期的最后一年发出警告，指出中国的工业产能过剩问题。他们为此提高了部分关税，尤其是对电动汽车的关税。

But during their first three years, Biden administration officials mostly focused on tighter export controls for technologies like high-end semiconductors, citing national security concerns. They left in place tariffs of 7.5 percent to 25 percent that Mr. Trump had imposed on half of China’s exports to the United States in his first term.

但在拜登政府执政的前三年里，其官员以国家安全为由，主要侧重于加强对高端半导体等技术的出口管制。他们保留了特朗普在其第一个任期内对中国一半输美产品征收的7.5%至25%关税。

It remains uncertain how the president’s much tougher approach this time will play out. Tariffs have occasionally slowed China’s growth in exports, but not stopped it. Other nations are on high alert for the possibility that Chinese exports could be diverted elsewhere, threatening the economies of longstanding U.S. allies like the European Union and South Korea.

目前尚不确定特朗普此次强硬得多的举措最终会产生怎样的结果。关税偶尔会使中国的出口增长放缓，但并没有起到阻止作用。其他国家高度警惕中国的出口可能会转向其他市场，对美国的长期盟友，如欧盟和韩国的经济构成威胁。

五年前，随着公寓楼拔地而起，中国城市的天际线起重机林立。如今，许多起重机已不见踪影，在政府的指示下，银行正将贷款重心从房地产行业转向工业领域。

China’s automakers were preparing a push into the American car market in 2017, when Mr. Trump first took office. GAC Motor in Guangzhou, China, brought dozens of U.S. car dealers to the city’s auto show that November. The company announced plans to sell gasoline-powered sport utility vehicles and minivans in the United States by the end of 2019.

2017年，特朗普首次上任时，中国的汽车制造商正准备进军美国汽车市场。当年11月，位于中国广州的广汽传祺汽车有限公司邀请了数十家美国汽车经销商参加广州车展。该公司宣布计划到2019年底前开始在美国销售汽油动力运动型多用途车和小型货车。

But GAC and other Chinese automakers canceled their plans after Mr. Trump included cars in his initial 25 percent tariffs several months later.

但几个月后，特朗普将汽车纳入他最初的25%关税范围，广汽和其他中国汽车制造商随即取消了他们的计划。

Chinese companies still sell almost no cars in the United States. That is unlikely to change: With Mr. Trump’s latest moves, Chinese carmakers now face U.S. tariffs as high as 181 percent.

中国车企在美国市场仍然几乎没有任何销售。这种情况不太可能改变：随着特朗普的最新举措，中国汽车制造商现在面临高达181%的美国关税。

Blocked in the United States, Chinese automakers have continued building factories and have pivoted their export campaigns elsewhere. Their sales have soared in Australia and Southeast Asia, taking market share from Japanese and American brands. In Mexico, Chinese carmakers held just 0.3 percent in 2017; by last year, it was over 20 percent.

由于在美国市场受阻，中国的汽车制造商继续建厂，并将出口转向了其他地方。他们在澳大利亚和东南亚的销量大幅飙升，抢占了日本和美国品牌的市场份额。2017年，中国汽车制造商在墨西哥的市场份额仅为0.3%；到去年，这一比例已超过20%。

Rapid sales gains in the European Union, and evidence of Chinese government subsidies, prompted E.U. officials last October to impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on electric cars from China.

在欧盟，中国汽车的销量快速增长，再加上有证据显示中国政府提供了补贴，促使欧盟官员于去年10月对来自中国的电动汽车征收高达45%的关税。

China is not just building car factories. It has built more petrochemical refinery capacity in the past five years, for example, than Europe, Japan and South Korea together have created since World War II. And China is on track to build these refineries even faster this year. Petrochemicals are then turned into plastics, polyester, vinyl and tires.

中国不只是在建造汽车工厂。例如，在过去五年里，中国新增的石化炼油产能比欧洲、日本和韩国自“二战”以来新增产能总和还要多。而且，中国建造炼油厂的速度今年有望更快。石化产品随后会被加工成塑料、聚酯、乙烯基和轮胎。

Robert E. Lighthizer, who was the United States Trade Representative in Mr. Trump’s first term, said that the latest American tariffs “are long overdue medicine — the real root cause is decades of Chinese industrial policy that has created breathtaking overcapacity and global imbalances.”

特朗普第一任期的美国贸易代表罗伯特·莱特希泽表示，美国最新的关税“是早就该采取的措施——真正的根本原因是中国几十年来的产业政策造成了惊人的产能过剩和全球失衡”。

China is exporting so much partly because its own people are buying so little. A housing market crash since 2021 has wiped out much of the savings of the middle class and ruined many wealthy families.

中国出口如此之多，部分原因是国内的消费不足。自2021年以来的房地产市场崩盘，使中产阶级的大部分积蓄化为乌有，许多富裕家庭也因此破产。

中国在化工行业的巨额投资不仅涵盖石油化工领域，还包括位于淄博的这家工厂。该工厂使用一种稀土金属来生产能够控制汽油动力汽车尾气污染的化学品。

Tax revenues are falling, but military spending is rising rapidly. That has left the government wary of spending on economic stimulus to help consumers. China has offset its housing debacle instead with its export campaign, creating millions of jobs to build, outfit and operate factories.

税收收入下降，但军费开支却在迅速增加。这使得政府对于通过支出刺激经济来帮助消费者持谨慎态度。相反，中国通过推动出口来抵消房地产市场崩溃带来的影响，在建设、设备和工厂运营方面创造了数百万个就业岗位。

Some Chinese economists have recently joined Western economists in suggesting that the country needs to strengthen its meager social safety net. At the start of this year, the minimum government pension for seniors was just $17 a month. That barely buys groceries, even in rural China.

最近，一些中国经济学家与西方经济学家一样，建议中国需要加强其微薄的社会保障体系。今年年初，政府为老年人提供的最低养老金标准每月仅为143元。即使在中国农村，这点钱也几乎难以维持日常生活。

The country’s best-known economist, Professor Li Daokui of Tsinghua University, publicly called in January for raising the minimum monthly pension several fold, to $110. The Chinese government could afford it, he argued, and extra spending by seniors would stimulate the entire economy.

中国最知名的经济学家之一、清华大学的李稻葵教授在今年1月公开呼吁将养老金最低标准提高几倍，达到2000元。他认为中国政府负担得起的，而且老年人的额外支出将刺激整个经济。

Chinese officials rejected his advice. When the budget came out on March 5, it had an increase in monthly pensions — but it was just $3, bringing it to $20 a month.

中国官员拒绝了他的建议。3月5日公布的预算案中确实提高了养老金标准，但仅仅增加了20元，使月养老金达到163元。

The same budget included $100 billion for investments, including ports and other infrastructure that help exporters. And there was a new program to upgrade technology used in manufacturing across 20 Chinese cities.

同一份预算案中还包括了7000亿元的投资，其中涉及港口和其他有助于出口企业的基础设施建设。此外还推出了一项新计划，对中国20个城市制造业中使用的技术进行升级。