閱讀訓(xùn)練:中國是否將成為高科技巨人

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考研英語閱讀文章絕大多數(shù)來自英、美國家的報(bào)刊雜志,并且以面向大眾的社科類和科普類刊物為主。歷年考研英語閱讀文章的類型也大致分為以下這幾類:經(jīng)濟(jì)類文章、科學(xué)技術(shù)類文章、社會(huì)生活以及文化類文章??佳芯W(wǎng)校輔導(dǎo)專家在編寫英語復(fù)習(xí)專區(qū)時(shí),本著盡可能貼近考試的原則,精心挑選符合考查要求的閱讀文章,幫助考生們有針對(duì)性地進(jìn)行復(fù)習(xí),從而提高英語閱讀能力,在考試中取得優(yōu)異的成績(jī)。
     The myth behind China as a high-tech Goliath?
     Having become workshop to the world, is China poised to storm the bastions of its high-technology industries? Thanks partly to foreign expansion by Huawei, telecommunications equipment maker, and a few other Chinese companies, the idea is starting to be taken seriously abroad above all in the US, ever jealous of its technological pre-eminence.
     Some commentators predict China may rival US information technology leadership in only a decade. Its scientific achievements also provoke awe. Stephen Minger, a stem-cell scientist who led a UK fact-finding mission to China last year, says he was stunned by the sophistication of its medical research and laboratories.
     Since the late 1980s, the number of science and engineering doctorates awarded in China has exploded. It now has more researchers than Japan. Its annual research and development spending, though still well below US levels, is rising five times faster, while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says China's biggest exports are now high-tech products. But those dazzling statistics mask an often more mundane reality. The bulk of China's high-tech exports are actually low-margin commodity products such as personal computers and DVD players, assembled from imported components that account for most of their value.
     In contrast to the home-grown IT industries of Japan and South Korea, two-thirds or more of those exports are from partly or wholly foreign-owned plants. China's state-owned companies spend relatively little on R&D and have almost no international brands or distribution networks, a drawback acknowledged by Lenovo's purchase of IBM's barely profitable PC business.
     Ah, say the China-boosters, but all that is mere prologue. China's abundant cheap brainpower, energy and determination to succeed make it only a matter of time before it grows into a formidable knowledge economy. Again, appearances may deceive. R&D effort is only a rather crude measure of input. Its economic value depends on the quality of output and how it is commercialized. On both counts, China still has much to prove.
     Its engineers' high calibre and low cost have spurred western companies such as General Electric and International Business Machines to set up laboratories there. But China's state-owned enterprises seem less adroit at exploiting those assets. The OECD last year gave most SOEs low marks for innovation and for training and organizing researchers. McKinsey, the management consultancy, says China's software industry lags behind India's, because of its fragmented structure and poor management. That may change as more foreign-trained IT engineers with business experience return from abroad. However, they face big barriers to disseminating technology across industry. Not only are foreign companies operating in China increasingly careful to keep core technologies to themselves but Chinese companies collaborate little with each other or with universities.
     Weak intellectual property laws, long assailed by western companies, are also a self-inflicted handicap because they provide no rewards for innovation. China's international patent applications, though growing, are still less than 1 percent of the total filed in the US and Europe. And while start-up companies abound in China, they are poorly supported by its financial system. Its bigger banks favour lending to state-owned industries;venture capital is in its infancy, and the country's immature equity market fails to offer the dependable exit route demanded by sophisticated early-stage investors.
     That compels many company founders to rely on funds raised from relatives. Some management gurus believe China's model of family-based capitalism is a shaky foundation for enduring corporate structures. Japan's Kenichi Ohmae says his successful Chinese friends care more about getting rich quickly than creating world-beating businesses.
     Historians puzzle over why, for 500 years after inventing gunpowder, China invented so little else. No country, of course, is bound to repeat history, and China has shed centuries of insularity to embrace foreign investment, trade and technology. But whether its future is as a high-tech powerhouse in its own right or as the world's biggest branch-plant economy remains an open question.
     一、參考譯文:
     中國是否將成為高科技巨人
     在成為世界工廠之后,中國是否已做好準(zhǔn)備對(duì)本國的高科技行業(yè)發(fā)起強(qiáng)攻?部分由于電信設(shè)備制造商華為(Huawei)和其它一些中國公司的海外擴(kuò)張,其它國家已開始認(rèn)真考慮上述想法,特別是美國,因?yàn)樗騺砦质プ约旱目萍嫉匚弧?BR>     一些評(píng)論家預(yù)言,不出10年,中國就能挑戰(zhàn)美國在信息技術(shù)(IT)領(lǐng)域的領(lǐng)袖地位。中國的科學(xué)成就也令人敬畏。干細(xì)胞科學(xué)家史蒂芬?明格(Stephen Minger)去年曾率領(lǐng)一個(gè)英國的實(shí)地考察團(tuán)去中國訪問,他說,中國的醫(yī)學(xué)研究和實(shí)驗(yàn)室如此先進(jìn)成熟,令他大吃一驚。
     自上世紀(jì)80年代以來,中國被授予理工科博士頭銜的人數(shù)量激增。中國的研究人員數(shù)量現(xiàn)已超過日本。中國每年的研發(fā)支出仍大大低于美國的水平,但增長速度卻比美國快5倍以上,同時(shí)經(jīng)濟(jì)合作與發(fā)展組織(OECD)表示,中國現(xiàn)在出口多的是高科技產(chǎn)品。但這些耀眼的統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)字掩飾了一個(gè)通常不那么出色的現(xiàn)實(shí)。中國大部分“高科技”出口品實(shí)際上都是低利潤率的大宗商品,比如個(gè)人電腦和DVD播放機(jī)等,它們由進(jìn)口的零件組裝而成,這些零件占據(jù)了大部分的產(chǎn)品價(jià)值。
     與日本及韓國土生土長的IT行業(yè)相反,中國三分之二或以上的IT出口品都是外商合資或獨(dú)資的工廠制造。中國的國有企業(yè)在研發(fā)方面的支出相當(dāng)少,而且?guī)缀鯖]有國際品牌和分銷網(wǎng)絡(luò)。聯(lián)想收購國際商用機(jī)器公司(IBM)幾乎不盈利的個(gè)人電腦業(yè)務(wù),就是對(duì)這一缺陷的承認(rèn)。
     看好中國的人則說,啊,但這一切只是個(gè)開頭。中國有著豐富而廉價(jià)的人才資源和能源,以及取得成功的決心,因此中國成長為令人生畏的“知識(shí)經(jīng)濟(jì)體”只是個(gè)時(shí)間問題。此外,表面現(xiàn)象不足信。研發(fā)只是對(duì)投入的一個(gè)相當(dāng)粗淺的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn),其經(jīng)濟(jì)價(jià)值取決于產(chǎn)出的質(zhì)量和商品化方式。對(duì)這兩種說法,中國都還需要好好證明。
     中國的工程師水平高,成本低,這已促使通用電氣(GE)和IBM等西方企業(yè)在華設(shè)立實(shí)驗(yàn)室。但中國的國有企業(yè)似乎不那么善于利用這些資產(chǎn)。在創(chuàng)新、培訓(xùn)和組織研究人員方面,經(jīng)合組織(OECD)去年給大多數(shù)中國國有企業(yè)的評(píng)分都很低。管理咨詢公司麥肯錫(McKinsey)表示,中國的軟件業(yè)落后于印度,原因就是中國軟件企業(yè)結(jié)構(gòu)松散、管理不善。隨著更多受過海外培訓(xùn)、又有實(shí)踐經(jīng)驗(yàn)的IT工程師回到中國,這一狀況可能會(huì)改變。但他們面臨巨大的障礙,無法在整個(gè)行業(yè)傳播技術(shù)。不僅是在華經(jīng)營的外國公司越來越小心,對(duì)核心技術(shù)秘而不宣,中國企業(yè)與企業(yè)、企業(yè)與大學(xué)之間也極少進(jìn)行合作。
     中國的知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)法規(guī)薄弱,這點(diǎn)長期遭到西方公司的攻擊,也成為中國自我造成的障礙,因?yàn)楸∪醯姆ㄒ?guī)沒有為創(chuàng)新提供回報(bào)。中國的國際專利申請(qǐng)數(shù)量雖然在增加,但仍不到美國和歐洲專利申請(qǐng)總數(shù)的1%.另外,雖然在中國有大量初創(chuàng)企業(yè),但中國的金融體系對(duì)這些企業(yè)支持不足。在中國,較大的銀行喜歡貸款給國有行業(yè),風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資還處在萌芽階段,而中國不成熟的股票市場(chǎng)也無法為精明的初期投資者提供可靠的退出渠道。
     這迫使許多公司創(chuàng)建者依靠從親戚那里籌措的資金。一些管理大師認(rèn)為,在形成持久的公司結(jié)構(gòu)方面,中國的家族式資本主義模式無法充當(dāng)穩(wěn)固的基石。日本的大前研一(Kenichi Ohmae)表示,他那些獲得成功的中國朋友們更關(guān)心快速致富,而不是打造舉世無雙的企業(yè)。
     在發(fā)明火藥后的500年間,中國幾乎沒有什么新發(fā)明,歷史學(xué)家對(duì)此感到困惑不解。當(dāng)然,沒有哪個(gè)國家一定要重復(fù)歷史,并且中國也已擺脫了數(shù)個(gè)世紀(jì)的閉關(guān)自守,而向外國投資、貿(mào)易和技術(shù)展開了懷抱。但中國未來將憑借自身能力成為一個(gè)高科技強(qiáng)國,還是會(huì)成為全球大的分支工廠經(jīng)濟(jì)體,這仍是個(gè)謎。
     二、重點(diǎn)詞匯
     1、Goliath   n. [圣經(jīng)]被牧羊人大衛(wèi)殺死的Philistine的巨人
     2、be poised to  隨時(shí)準(zhǔn)備著做
     3、preeminence n.卓越
     4、rival   v.競(jìng)爭(zhēng),對(duì)抗,相匹敵;n.競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者,對(duì)手
     5、provoke   vt.激怒,挑撥,煽動(dòng),惹起,驅(qū)使
     6、stun   vt.使暈倒,使驚嚇,打暈;n.暈眩,打昏,驚倒
     7、account for   v.占
     8、in contrast to  和……形成對(duì)比
     9、prologue   n.序言
     10、deceive   v.欺騙,行騙
     11、spur   v.鞭策,刺激,疾馳,驅(qū)策
     12、disseminate   v.散布
     13、collaborate with   v.合作,與敵人合作,通敵
     14、self-inflicted   adj.自己造成的
     15、venture capital   n.風(fēng)險(xiǎn)資本
     16、compel   vt.強(qiáng)迫,迫使
     17、be bound to  一定要
     18、shed   vt.擺脫
     19、embrace   vt.擁抱