译者 max3019
It’s usually extremists and dictator-like leaders who use the phrase “wiped off the map,” and they usually mean it as a threat to some other nation they’d like to see destroyed. Not often is that phrase put into action, and especially not domestically. But officials in China have done just that: they’ve wiped one of their own cities off the map. The map, yes, but not the earth. Physically it’s still there; officially it no longer exists.
通常来说，极端分子和有独裁倾向的领导人才会用“从地图上抹去”这种字眼。这往往被理解为他们对那些想消灭的国家进行的恐吓。然而这个字眼一般只是说说而已，如果在一国之内，那就更不会付诸行动了。但中国的官员最近却破了例：他们把本国的一座城市从地图上完全抹去了。当然，只是从地图抹去。它的地理位置没有改变，但却从中国官方的版图上消失了。
The city of Chaohu has officially been eliminated, as NPR reports. It’s a city of about 4 million people, a Phoenix metro area-sized population that’s been suddenly stripped of its cityhood. Located about 200 miles west of Shanghai, the city is still trying to figure out exactly what that means, and why.
据国家公共电台报道，巢湖市正式被取消了。城市的大约四百万居民——相当于菲尼克斯市区的人口——突然被生生地赶出了城市。这座位于上海以西320公里的城市，仍然对这一政策感到困惑不解。
The land of the former Chaohu has been divided and distributed to three neighboring cities. It’s a municipal shakeup that surprised many residents, who hadn’t been advised or consulted about the plans. NPR reports that rumors had been circling, but most found out about the city’s dissolution on the news the day it happened in August. The move, it seems, is driven by a desire for growth:
以前的巢湖市被分成三个区域，分别并入邻市。这一行政区划的动荡让该市居民惊愕不已，有关部门也从未就这一计划征求过市民的意见和建议。公共电台报道说虽然坊间传言不断，但大多数市民还是在八月份城市被拆解的那一天才从新闻中得到这一消息。目前看来，这一举措是出于经济增长的需要。
Economics professor Jiang Sanliang from Anhui University explains the thinking behind the decision:
“Chaohu’s development hasn’t been good, but Hefei is industrializing and urbanizing. It needs land, so absorbing Chaohu will benefit Hefei. The government hopes that redistributing the land will improve the entire province’s GDP,” he says.
安徽大学经济学教授江三良就此事件背后的原因作了解释：
“巢湖市一直以来发展迟缓，而合肥市正处于工业化和城市化的关键时期，需要土地。因此，将巢湖的土地并入合肥对后者的发展有利。政府希望土地的重新分配能提高全省的GDP。”
In recent years, Hefei’s GDP growth has been an average of 17 percent. So this move serves the long-term aim of boosting Hefei’s competitive advantage by giving it land to expand, so it can challenge the more prominent cities of Nanjing and Wuhan.
近几年，合肥市GDP平均增长率为17%。所以此举给合肥提供了更多可开发的土地，有助于政府实现提高合肥市竞争力的长期目标，以使其在和南京、武汉等经济发达的省会城市竞争中不落下风。
It’s a pretty harsh message for a country to essentially give up on a city. The state of California recently considered a plan to do something similar in the economically troubled — and some say corrupt — city of Vernon. That plan was rejected by the state legislature, mainly over concerns that its passage would harm the local economy further. It’s tough to say what the exact result will be in the newly enlarged Hefei, but even a modest reduction in the city’s 17 percent growth rate would be hard for Chinese officials to worry about.
一国实质上放弃一个城市是很可惜的。前段时间加州也提出了一项计划，旨在对经济萎靡——有人说腐败横行——的弗农市做出类似的调整。由于担心这么做会对该市经济产生更沉重的打击，此项计划最终被州议会否决了。由此看来，要判断此举对扩大了的合肥市的经济发展是有利还是有弊，现在还为时尚早。然而，维持17%的经济增长才是官员们的底线，他们接受不了哪怕一丁点儿的下降。
本文由自动聚合程序取自网络，内容和观点不代表数字时代立场
