上周，我匆匆走进曼哈顿的“美国女孩”商店(American Girl)，这个庞大的消费殿堂出售安全健康的“正宗美国”玩偶和服饰。当我排队购买一套啦啦队长服和足球衣的6英寸仿造品时，忍不住笑了：在一片红白蓝之间，一块标签上写着“中国制造”。“美国女孩”终究也不那么原汁原味了。
这块标签是一个鲜明的标志，象征着困扰西方世界的一个重大经济、文化和政治难题。过去十年中，越来越多的制造业流程从美国和西欧迁往世界其他地区。根据经济咨询机构HIS环球透视(IHS Global Insight)近期的估算，2010年中国已取代美国，成为全球第一大制造业国家——这是110年来美国首次丢掉这一桂冠。
加入迁移大潮的商品种类与日俱增。《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)近期刊载的一篇分析性文章称，一大批名义上的美国商品已经不在美国生产了，如芭比娃娃(Barbie)、悍马(Hummer)、口香糖贩卖机、沃立舍(Wurlitzer)自动点唱机、Levi牛仔裤和匡威(Converse)“All Star篮球鞋”。就连NBA指定用球“斯伯丁”(Spalding)也算不上地道的美国货，因为它们是在海外缝制的。
不出所料，许多美国人为此坐立不安。美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)将中国及其他新兴市场的崛起，比作前苏联发射人类首颗人造卫星“伴侣”(Sputnik)——如此震撼人心的事情，理应激起美国人的斗志。IHS上述数据出炉时，竞争力协会(Council on Competitiveness)会长德博拉文斯-史密斯(Deborah Wince-Smith)向我的同事彼得•马什(Peter Marsh)表示，对于中国夺走美国的榜首位置，美国“应该感到担忧”。她表示：“这表明美国必须与之竞争。”
从某个方面来说，这种焦虑心理可以理解。但如果你深入剖析贸易统计数字，就会洞察到另外一种更为微妙的变化：在各种产地标签背后真正的“故事”，不仅仅在于某些商品已不再是纯粹意义上的“美国货”；实际上，一个更重大的问题在于，如今这些商品都是在各个不同的地方生产的，涉及的供应链错综复杂，简直无法分辨出这些商品是哪里制造的。
举例来说，我们不妨看看亚洲开发银行(ADB)近期一份有趣的报告。报告分析了以下问题：iPhone是在哪里生产的？ 在这个案例中，苹果(Apple)是一家美国公司；但iPhone的各种零部件分别是在中国、韩国、台北、德国和美国等不同地方生产的，涉及十几家难以贴上任何一个国别标签的企业。
产地标签变得模糊，并非电子产品领域独有的现象。20年前，斯坦福大学(Stanford University)人类学教授西尔维亚•亚娜基萨科(Sylvia Yanagisako)前往意大利研究该国纺织品及时装贸易情况，结果发现很多关键流程都已迁往中国，于是她把课题转到上海。她还发现，对于何谓“意大利设计师”这个问题，意大利时装界如今深感困惑。毕竟，“意大利制造”标签在消费者心目中等同于精品的代名词（具有讽刺意味的是，在中国富人的眼里也是如此）。许多意大利设计师坚持认为，“意大利风格”是一个近乎神圣的概念。换言之，如果一种产品部分是在中国制造的，却贴上了“意大利”标签，那么“意大利风格”究竟意味着什么？这条“21世纪的丝绸之路”——这是亚娜基萨科取的名称——充斥着激烈的文化冲突。
经济学家面临的挑战更加深刻。过去，他们通常按照商品的“产地”来测算一个经济体的产出。然而，一部iPhone（或一件意大利时装、一款“美国女孩”玩偶）的“价值”应该计算在哪个国家名下呢？在企业可以在全球各地逐利的年代，真实的“产出”到底来自哪里？
正是有感于这种复杂性，世界贸易组织(WTO)总干事帕斯卡•拉米(Pascal Lamy)近期发表了一番貌似异端邪说的言论，认为经济学家不应再把太多注意力放在“进口”、“出口”这类统计数字上。因此，别再试图琢磨如今哪些商品属于“美国制造”或“中国制造”，经济学家们如今应该把全球经济作为一个整体来看待。他表示：“再以‘他们’和‘我们’来思考贸易已经失去意义。”在拉米看来，把20世纪的贸易统计方法放在21世纪使用有失严谨。
从道理上讲，拉米说的完全正确。但是，从政治层面来说，或者说在美国失业率持续攀升、政治家抱怨汇率战的形势下，此番言论不太可能化解多少“坚冰”。因此，下次再走进“美国女孩”商店时，我的目光会去寻找“中国制造”标签——怀着既好笑又不安的心情。“21世纪新丝绸塑料之路”无论从哪个角度来看都充满欺骗性；但可悲的是，它照样有可能成为今后引发冲突的导火索。
译者/杨远
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001037696
Last week I popped into the American Girl store in Manhattan, the giant consumer temple that sells wholesome “all-American” dolls and clothes. As I queued to buy 6in replicas of a cheerleader costume and football suit, I could not help but chuckle: between the red, white and blue, there was a tag saying “Made in China”. Those American Girls were not so “American” after all.
It is a telling metaphor for a much bigger economic, cultural and political dilemma stalking the western world. Over the past decade, a growing proportion of the manufacturing processes that used to occur in the US and western Europe have moved elsewhere. Last week, for example, the economics consultancy IHS Global Insight calculated that in 2010 China displaced America as the largest manufacturer in the world – the first time that the US has lost this top slot for 110 years.
And the list of goods involved in this shift is growing longer by the day. According to a recent piece of analysis by Newsweek magazine, a host of seemingly American items are no longer produced in America, such as Barbie dolls, Hummers, gumball machines, Wurlitzer jukeboxes, Levi’s jeans and Converse All Star basketball boots. Even Spalding basketballs – the official ball of the NBA – are not truly “American”, since they are stitched offshore.
Unsurprisingly, this makes many Americans very nervous. President Barack Obama likens the rise of China and other emerging markets to the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik missile – an event so shocking that it should galvanise the nation. And when the IHS data emerged last week, Deborah Wince-Smith, president and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness, told my colleague Peter Marsh that the US “should be worried” by China taking the top slot from the US. “This shows the need for the US to compete,” she declared.
On one level, such anxiety is understandable. But if you peer into the trade statistics, there is another, more subtle, shift under way: the real story behind these “made in” labels is not just that some items are no longer entirely “American”; instead, the bigger issue is that they are now produced in so many places, with such convoluted supply chains, that it is hard to tell where they are “made in” at all.
Take a look, for example, at a fascinating paper recently produced by the Asian Development Bank, which looks at where an iPhone is made. In this case, the company – Apple – is American; however, components for the iPhone are variously assembled in China, Korea, Taipei, Germany and the US, involving almost a dozen companies which are hard to pigeonhole with any ethnic label.
And it is not just in the world of electronics that these labels blur. Two decades ago, Sylvia Yanagisako, a Stanford University anthropology professor, went out to Italy to study the Italian textile and fashion trade – only to realise that so many of the key processes had moved to China that she shifted her research to Shanghai. She also found that Italian fashion designers are now tying themselves up in knots about what being an “Italian” designer really means. After all, the “Made in Italy” label carries cachet among consumers (including, ironically, wealthy Chinese shoppers). Many Italian designers insist that the concept of italianità (Italian-ness) is almost sacred. What, in other words, does italianità really mean if a product is partly made in China? The cultural contradictions on this new “21st-century Silk Road” – as Yanagisako dubs it – are intense.
The challenge for economists is even more profound. In the old days, they typically measured the output of an economy by watching where goods were “made”; but which country should claim the “value” for an iPhone (or an Italian suit or an American Girl doll)? Where does the real “output” come, in a world where companies can shift profits around?
Indeed, such is the complexity that Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation, recently voiced the seemingly heretical idea that economists should stop paying so much attention to “import” and “export” statistics. Thus, instead of trying to measure what is now “made in America” – or “China” – what economists should do is focus on the global economy as a whole, he insists. “It no longer makes sense to think of trade in terms of ‘them’ and ‘us’,” he argues; 20th-century-style trade statistics can be too arbitrary in the 21st-century world.
In rational terms, Lamy is absolutely right. But it is unlikely to cut much ice in political terms – or in a world where American unemployment is rising and politicians are muttering about currency wars. So the next time I pop into the American Girl store, I will look for the “Made in China” labels – and both chuckle and fret. This new, 21st-century Silk and Plastic Road is full of artifice on all sides; but, sadly, that does not prevent it from being a potential future flashpoint.
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