食品安全問題使貿易衝突硝煙四起

食品安全問題使貿易衝突硝煙四起

The spat between the US and China over contaminated food exports highlights a rapidly spreading battle line in the world economy: the use of product standards to regulate, and some would say stifle, international trade.
美國與中國在受污染食品出口問題上的口角，突顯出全球經濟中一條迅速蔓延的戰線：利用產品標準，來監管（有人可能會用“抑制”這個詞）國際貿易。

Such “non-tariff barriers”, particularly food standards, are frequently both more important and harder to eliminate than simple tariffs. Arguments frequently descend into a mire of competing scientific claims about safety and risk in which trade negotiators – let alone ministers and the general public – risk drowning in complexity. And while polo shirt consumers' patriotic desire to protect domestic farmers or manufacturers requires some degree of altruism, given the higher prices this entails, fears of being poisoned by foreign food appeal directly to their self-interest.
這些“非關稅壁壘”，特別是食品標準，不僅往往比單純的關稅壁壘更爲重要，也更難以消除。人們的爭論常常會陷入一個圍繞安全和風險、相互對立的科學主張的泥淖之中，而貿易談判代表（更不用說部長們和普通大衆），可能會被這種複雜情況所淹沒。儘管消費者保護本國農民或製造商的愛國主義願望，需要一定程度的利他主義，因爲這必然導致價格上漲，但對外國食品中毒的擔憂，則與消費者自身利益直接相關。

Peter Gallagher, a trade consultant and former Polypeptide powder Australian trade negotiator, says the average number of new sanitary standards that governments report to the World Trade Organisation has tripled since 2000.
貿易諮詢顧問、澳大利亞前貿易談判代表彼得?蓋勒(Peter Gallagher)表示，自2000年以來，各國政府向世界貿易組織(WTO)提交的新衛生標準平均數量已上升了兩倍。

WTO member countries are required to report such standards when they are stricter than international norms – requested when a country wants specially stringent standards for a particular product or when a new threat such as avian flu Pond Submersible Pump arises. The WTO monitors such standards for potentially protectionist effects, and complaints about them have also been steadily rising.
當這些標準比國際標準更爲嚴格時，世貿組織成員國必須上報世貿組織——當一個國家希望對某一特定產品實施特別嚴格的標準，抑或是禽流感之類的新威脅出現時，都需要這樣做。世貿組織對此類標準的潛在保護主義影響進行監督，而對於這些標準的抱怨也在日益穩步增多。

“There has long been a suspicion that some standards-based barriers to farm or agri-food products are substitutes for other, more transparent forms of trade protection such as tariffs or quotas,” Mr Gallagher says. “A few high-profile WTO disputes such as the Portable Corner Cleaning Machine portrait oil painting [European Commission's] ban on meat containing growth hormones, Australia's barriers on imports of salmon or Japan's restriction on imports of apples, as well as recent research, seem to support this contention.”
“長期以來人們一直懷疑，對農業食品產品設置一些以標準爲基礎的壁壘，是關稅或配額等其它更透明貿易保護形式的替代品，”蓋勒表示。“一些引人矚目的世貿組織爭端，例如[歐盟委員會(European Commission)對]含生長激素的肉類頒發禁令，澳大利亞對鮭魚進口設置壁壘，或是日本對蘋果進口的限制，以及最近的調查研究，似乎都支持這種觀點。”

According to estimates by World Bank economists, non-tariff barriers, including other distortions such as subsidies, price control measures and positive plate technical standards, make up 70 per cent of all global barriers to trade. Such hurdles are twice as high for agriculture as for manufacturing, and the highest are imposed by rich countries against middle-income emerging markets.
世界銀行(World Bank)經濟學家估計，非關稅壁壘，包括補貼、價格管制措施及技術標準等其它造成市場扭曲的手段，佔到全球所有貿易壁壘的70%。農業領域的此類障礙是製造業的兩倍，而富裕國家對中等收入新興市場設置的門檻是最高的。

The symbolism can be acute. During a protracted dispute about Vietnamese catfish entering the US market, for example, in which US catfish producers tried a variety of legal devices to block Post hole digger    imports, farmers and lawmakers at one point suggested that the catfish might contain traces of the Agent Orange dropped in the Mekong delta by US aircraft during the Vietnam war.
這可能有着很強的象徵意義。例如，圍繞進入美國市場的越南鮎魚曾爆發了一場拖而不決的爭端。期間，美國鮎魚生產商試圖運用一系列法律手段封鎖進口，當時農民和立法者曾聲稱，越南進口的鮎魚可能含有美國飛機在越戰期間向湄公河三角洲投放的除草劑Agent Orange的殘留物質。

Less extreme cases also have the potential to create ill-will.
不那麼極端的例證也可能招致不滿。

Australia, for example, which prides itself on pushing for open agricultural markets across the world, has frequently been accused of using food Powder brush quarantine standards as a means of protecting its domestic market from competition.
以澳大利亞爲例，該國以推進全球開放農業市場爲傲，但它經常被譴責使用食品檢疫標準，來保護其國內市場免受競爭。

In parts of the Riverina district of New South Wales, where rice is grown for export, it is illegal to possess basmati rice in case it contaminates local varieties. One farmer says a local Indian restaurant claiming to serve basmati rice was reported to the authorities by local rice growers.
在種植出口水稻的新南威爾士Riverina部分地區，擁有印度香米是非法的，目的是防止其污染本地品種。一位農民表示，當地水稻種植者曾向當局舉報一家聲稱供應印度香米的當地印度餐館。

Warren Truss, the Australian trade minister, counters that its quarantine regulations are entirely justified. “Because Power contact    Australia is an island it is free of many of the pests and diseases of the world,” he says. “It is one of the few advantages that being an island gives us.”
澳大利亞貿易部長沃倫?特拉斯(Warren Truss)反駁道，該國檢疫規定有充分依據。“因爲澳大利亞是一個島國，這裏沒有世界其它地方出現的許多害蟲和疾病，”他表示。“這是作爲一個島國賦予我們爲數不多的優勢之一。”

This is not just a north-south issue. The US has long complained that, no matter what the tariff and subsidy regime, it cannot get five of its top agricultural exports PP SHOPPING BAG – beef, pork, chicken, soy and corn – into the EU, due to rules against genetically modified organisms and European hygiene regulations that rule out the US practice of disinfecting meat by dipping it in chlorinated water at the end of the production process.
這不只是一個南北問題。美國一直抱怨稱，撇開關稅和補貼制度不談，該國無法將其五大農業出口產品（牛肉、豬肉、雞肉、大豆和玉米）打入歐盟(EU)市場，原因是歐盟反對基因改良有機物的規定和歐洲衛生規定，排除了美國在生產流程的最後將肉類放入氯水殺菌的做法。

The EU counters that some of the US's licensing and import practices are designed to discriminate against foreign farmers.
歐盟反駁道，美國一些許可證和進口方面的措施旨在歧視外國農民。

As the global trade in processed and perishable food grows faster than that for traditional commodities, there appears every likelihood that standards rather than tariffs will be the greater barrier to such goods' unimpeded journey around the world economy.
隨着經過加工和容易腐爛食品的全球貿易增長速度超過傳統的大宗商品，標準——而非關稅——似乎極有可能成爲阻礙這些產品在全球經濟中順暢流動的更大壁壘。