主题：有人看过最近ECONOMIST的一篇关于新经济秩序的文章 -- 远航

Protectionism and xenophobia should be fought wherever they spring up. But it is also worth

acknowledging that these bumptious new economic powers have made the world more complicated for

Western policymakers. For instance, although they have helped keep inflation and interest rates down,

they have also encouraged asset prices to bubble up. They have allowed America to finance its massive

current-account deficit with apparent impunity. Righting these imbalances will be tricky, even if the

strength of emerging economies makes the world less dependent on America.

But the two main challenges for the West are long-term political ones. One has to do with accepting that

there will be some Western victims of globalisation. Adding 1.5 billion people to the global labour force

has boosted the return to capital and richly rewarded rich Westerners; but in Germany, Japan and the

United States, real wages for the median worker have barely budged. None of this is an excuse for

protectionism°(TM)unless you want to make everybody poorer. But there may be fiercer debates, even in

America, about using the tax and benefits system to redistribute more of the winnings.

The other challenge has to do with geopolitics. As the balance of economic power in the world changes,

mustn't the balance of political power change too?

In time, perhaps. But economic power is not the same as political power. Most developing countries are

still military pipsqueaks: China does not yet own a single aircraft-carrier, and its defence budget is less

than the annual increase in America's. Nor in political terms is there such a thing as an °∞emerging block°±:

no alliance of interests brings all these very different countries together in the way that history and

culture have united America and Europe. In Asia, for example, the rise of China is balanced by the rise of

India, which America is striving to turn into a strategic partner. But there is also plainly a need to fiddle

with some of the global political architecture. The IMF will tinker with the power structure of the fund at

its annual meeting next week. Others should follow. The UN Security Council°(TM)whose permanent

members include Britain and France but exclude Japan, India and Brazil°(TM)has long looked outdated and

will soon look absurd. Similarly, it does not make much sense for the G7, supposedly the world's main

economic club, to discuss currencies when China, which holds the largest official reserves, is not a

member.

Making such adjustments will no doubt be awkward. But these are the problems of success. A world in

which most people enjoy prosperity and opportunity is surely better than one in which 80% are mired in

economic stagnation. Celebrate the riches that globalisation has brought°(TM)and be prepared to defend the

economic liberalisation that underpins it.