HONG KONG — Willie Fung, a leader in the world’s bra industry, knows just what he will do if negotiators from the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations complete a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement this summer.
香港——全球胸衣行业的领导者冯炜尧(Willie Fung)很清楚，如果美国和11个环太平洋国家的谈判代表在今年夏天签署跨太平洋伙伴关系协定（Trans Pacific Partnership，简称TPP），他接下来会怎么做。
He says he will catch a flight to Vietnam to look at possible locations for a new brassiere factory. Mr. Fung’s company, Top Form, has built factories in China, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, countries that are not part of the planned trade deal. That makes him worry that they may become less competitive if Vietnam qualifies for extra-low tariffs and the United States eases access in other ways to its vast market.
他说自己会坐飞机去越南，寻找一个合适的地方，用来建立新的胸衣加工厂。冯炜尧的黛丽丝国际有限公司(Top Form)之前已经在中国、泰国、柬埔寨和缅甸建立了加工厂，这些国家都没有参与TPP谈判。这让他担心，如果参与谈判的越南取得了超低关税优势，而且美国在其他方面也作出安排，让它可以顺畅地进入其巨大市场，前面提到的几个国家的竞争力可能会有所下降。
As the trade talks move toward conclusion, Mr. Fung said, garment industry tycoons here in Hong Kong “ask ourselves the question, ‘What does it mean to us?’ ”
冯炜尧表示，随着贸易谈判进入尾声，香港的服装加工业巨头们都在“问自己这个问题，‘这对我们来说意味着什么？’”
After a bitter fight, the House and Senate approved legislation last month to allow President Obama and his successor to submit the Pacific pact and a potential agreement with Europe to Congress for an up-or-down vote with no filibusters or amendments permitted.
经过一番鏖战之后，美国参众两院上月已经通过一项法案，授权奥巴马总统及其继任者向国会提交TPP和一项可能会与欧洲达成的协议，议员们将只能对此投支持或反对票，不能用冗长演说式拖延战术阻挠议程，也不能对协议内容进行修订。
The draft text of the agreement has not been released, but emerging details suggest that it could have a substantial effect on a variety of industries.
这份协议草案的内容还没有发布，但是已经浮现的细节显示，它可能会对诸多行业产生实质性影响。
Some Asian economists, particularly those from China, are skeptical that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will have a profound effect on commerce in the region. He Weiwen, a former Chinese Commerce Ministry official who is now a director of the influential China-United States-European Union Study Center at the China Association of International Trade in Beijing, said the potential expansion of trade from a possible China-led pact covering all of East Asia could be up to three times greater.
一些亚洲经济学家，尤其是来自中国的经济学家，对跨太平洋伙伴关系协定是否真的会对这一地区的贸易产生深刻影响，持怀疑态度。前中国商务部官员何伟文表示，如果由中国牵头制定覆盖所有东亚地区国家的贸易协议，其潜在贸易扩大幅度会是TPP的三倍。何伟文现在是北京的中国国际贸易学会中美欧研究中心主任，这个中心颇具影响力。
One shortcoming of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is that it has only one major consumer market, the United States, while the rest of the trading partners are essentially producers with limited demand for imported goods, said Terence Chong, who is the executive director of the Institute of Global Economics and Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is also a senior economist at Nanjing University in east-central China.
跨太平洋伙伴关系协定的缺点之一在于，它只有一个重要消费市场，即美国，其他贸易伙伴基本上都是提供商品的生产国，进口需求非常有限。香港中文大学全球经济及金融研究所常务所长庄太量(Terence Chong)表示，他也是位于中国中东部的南京大学的高级经济学家。
“There are not enough markets for the whole thing to develop — you need China as a market and producer,” he said. “You need more members; now it has only 12, but it may need 20.”
“没有那么大市场，不足以支撑所有国家的发展，你需要中国参与进来，既作为一个市场，也是生产国。”他说道。“需要有更多成员，现在只有12个，可能需要20个。”
Such criticisms have not dissuaded the Obama administration from pushing ahead. One goal of the pact is to set streamlined rules on technical issues like standardizing the online processing of customs documents, a measure that could not only expedite shipments but also reduce the opportunities for bribing customs officials.
这类批评意见并没有影响到奥巴马政府继续推进此事的决心。TPP的目标之一，是为一些技术问题设定精简规则。比如关税文件在线处理的标准化，这一措施不仅能加快发货速度，还能减少海关人员受贿的机会。
“The real impact, I think, is going to be on trade facilitation,” said Richard Vuylsteke, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.
“我想，它真正的影响在于贸易便利化，”位于香港的美国商会主席魏理庭(Richard Vuylsteke)说道。
The member countries of the new pact already have a series of bilateral free trade agreements and regional trade agreements that cover large chunks of their trade with each other. The two big exceptions are Japan, which has gone out of its way to protect its farmers, and Vietnam, which is embracing capitalism while remaining tightly controlled politically by its Communist Party.
这一新协议的成员国之前已经达成了一系列双边自由贸易协定和区域贸易协定，可以覆盖他们彼此之间的大部分贸易活动。其中只有两个比较大的例外，日本和越南，前者竭力保护其本国农民的利益，后者则仍然由越南共产党实行严密的政治控制。
But perhaps the single biggest driving force is geopolitical.
最大的推动力可能是地缘政治因素。
China has been making increasingly assertive claims of sovereignty over islands and seas close to Japan and Vietnam. That has left both countries willing to open their markets wider to trade with the United States, as a way to move further under the American security umbrella.
中国对日本及越南附近岛屿及海域的主权诉求愈发强硬。这促使两个国家愿意更多地开放市场，与美国开展交易，以进一步靠近美国的安全保护伞。
The bra industry offers one specific sign of what some of the shifting trade patterns from a successful Trans-Pacific Partnership might mean.
胸衣产业提供了一个具体案例，说明了如果TPP成功通过，所带来的贸易模式转变可能意味着什么。
As it turns out, a move of bra manufacturing from China and some of its Southeast Asian neighbors to Vietnam could have a modestly beneficial effect on textile makers in the United States. That is because the partnership is virtually certain to include a “yarn forward” rule, specialists said. Such a rule, already found in the North American Free Trade Agreement, says that to qualify for low or zero tariffs while crossing borders within the regional trade pact, garments must be made from fabric woven in a member country, and that fabric must be made from yarn made in a member country.
事实证明，胸衣产业从中国及其东南亚邻国转移到越南的情况会给美国的纺织品生产商带来一定的正面影响。专家们表示，这是因为该协定实际上肯定会加入“从纱线开始”的规定。《北美自由贸易协定》(North American Free Trade Agreement)已经包含该规定。该规定要求，要想在向该地区贸易协定成员国出口产品时享受较低关税或零关税优惠，服装必须由成员国出产的布料制成，而且布料本身也必须由成员国生产的纱线制成。
Vietnam has low-cost labor but virtually no fabric production or yarn production, said Mr. Fung, who is the chairman of the Hong Kong Garment Manufacturers Association. The United States is the only country in the proposed trade zone with a cotton yarn industry or a cotton fabric industry of any size, and one of several countries in the pact with sizable production of synthetic fabric.
身兼香港制衣厂同业公会(Hong Kong Garment Manufacturers Association)主席一职的冯炜尧表示，越南拥有廉价劳动力，但基本上并不生产布料或纱线。美国是拟建贸易区中唯一拥有一定规模的棉纱产业或棉布料产业的国家，除美国之外，还有几个成员国能够大量生产混合纤维。
Freight costs to bring fabric from the United States to Asia are extremely low, largely because current trade flows across the Pacific lopsidedly consist of goods traveling from China to the United States. To avoid having shipping containers come back to Asia empty, freight companies accept very low rates for exporters in the United States who want to send cargo to Asia.
将布料从美国运往亚洲的运费非常低，这在很大程度上是因为，目前跨太平洋地区的贸易流量主要是从中国运往美国的货物。为了不让船运集装箱空荡荡地回到亚洲，货运公司同意那些想要向亚洲运送货物的美国出口商支付非常低的运费。
Foreign companies may eventually set up yarn and fabric factories in Vietnam. But this could take many years. The country has almost no one with the technical skills needed to operate and maintain the computerized equipment for these highly automated industries.
外国公司可能最终会在越南设立纱线厂及布料厂。但这可能需要多年的时间。在越南，几乎没人掌握操作、维护这些高自动化产业的计算机化设备所需要的技术。
So garment makers may set up operations in Vietnam for shipments to the United States, while buying substantial quantities of American fabric to supply their factories, Mr. Fung said. And fabric is a big part of the overall cost.
冯炜尧表示，因此，制衣商可能会在越南设立生产平台，生产向美国出口的服装，同时购买大量美国布料，为其工厂提供原料。而布料在总成本中会占据很大的比例。
“If I sell a $10 bra to the United States,” Mr. Fung said, “$5.50 of the cost is the fabric.”
“如果我以10美元的价格向美国出售一件胸衣，” 冯炜尧说。“其中5.5美元是布料成本。”