经济学人下载:灾难来袭日本,大自然的报复

For the authorities, one increasingly apparent danger is that the nuclear drama is distracting them from what should be an equally pressing priority. They need to find a way to move supplies to the stricken towns and villages in the north-east. Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Lawson, Japan’s second-largest chain of convenience stores (which lost 68 stores in Friday’s disasters, with more than 100 staff unaccounted for), says that the urgent priority is to renew fuel supplies to Tohoku, the north-eastern region and the scene of the disaster. Without fuel, he says, local factories have been unable to produce rice balls and other food supplies; nor is there enough petrol for food brought from elsewhere in Japan to be trucked to the hardest-hit areas.

对政府来说，一个危机正逐渐浮出水面：他们的注意力被核危机的一系列进展所完全吸引却忽略了将救灾物资运送到东北部受灾村镇一事，这要知道这件事同样不容小觑。日本第二大连锁便利店——劳森公司（周五的灾难中有68家店铺被毁，100多名员工下落不明）的总裁武新浪说，当务之急是要恢复对东北市等受灾地区的燃料供应。因为没有燃料，当地工厂就无法生产饭团等食品。如果没有燃料，卡车也无法将来自全国各地的救援物资运送至重灾区。

Mr Kan has ordered 100,000 troops from Japan’s Self-Defence Forces to the region, but according to Mr Niinami their task is to find dead bodies rather than distribute supplies. He has urged the authorities to divert passenger planes to help airlift provisions. Others in the affected region blame the bureaucratic mindset of civil servants for blocking the flow of emergency supplies.

首相菅直人已派出10万名自卫队队员奔赴灾区，但据武新浪先生称，他们的任务是搜救遇难者遗体而非运送物资。他敦促政府调遣客机支援航空运输系统。来自灾区的另一些声音则责备公务人员的官僚习气阻碍了救济物资的供应。

Layered over the humanitarian and nuclear drama is yet another mounting concern: the effect on Japan’s economy. It is in a parlous state, suffering from slow growth, high debt and relative decline (see chart). Many economists at first suggested that things were not as bad as they looked. Of course, there would be a short-term dip in growth. But as reconstruction began, growth would pick up again. The international impact, too, would be limited. Supply-chain disruption would cause some problems, especially in the electronics industry, but overall the expected boost in Japanese imports as it rebuilt would help the rest of the world.

相比人道主义救援以及核危机的一系列进展，另外一件事情更为引人瞩目，那就是本次灾难将给日本经济带来何种影响。日本经济危机四伏，不仅发展缓慢，债台高筑，还经历了相对萎缩。毋庸置疑，经济增长会小幅回落。但随着重建工作的开始，经济增长会重回旧轨。其对国际市场的影响也会控制在一定范围之内。供应链遭到破坏会引发诸多问题，尤其是在电子产业。但总体看来，随着重建工作的开始，日本的进口会大幅增加，这将惠及全球市场。

That, at least, is what the history of recent Asian disasters suggests. The tsunami of December 2004 and the Kashmir earthquake of October 2005 involved death and destruction on an even wider scale, yet had virtually no impact on growth rates. That was largely because the victims were mostly poor people who added little to GDP. But even the Kobe earthquake of 1995—the second-biggest ever to hit a modern urban area—had a surprisingly modest effect. Within 15 months industrial production in Kobe had almost reached pre-quake levels, and Japan as a whole suffered only one quarter of declining output.

至少，这是我们从近段时间亚洲各国灾难中所得到的启示。2004年12月的印度洋海啸以及2005年10月发生在克什米尔地区的地震造成的破坏和损失更为严重，但经济增长却并没有受到严重影响。，这在很大程度上是由于灾民普遍贫困，他们对GDP的贡献微乎其微。1995年日本神户发生大地震，这是发生在现代都市地区的第二大地震，即便如此，其对经济的影响也较为缓和，这着实让人感到惊讶。震后仅15个月，神户的工业生产就恢复了震前水平，日本的总体工业产出也仅下降了25%。