HONG KONG — Markets around the world have been jolted by fears that slowing growth and deflationary pressures in Europe, Japan and other major economies could derail the United States. But the health of China, for decades an engine of growth, has emerged as one of the most significant wild cards in the global economy.
香港——由于担心欧洲、日本及其他主要经济体的增长放缓和通缩压力可能危及美国，全球市场正陷入恐慌。而作为几十年来的增长引擎，中国的经济状况已成为全球经济的一个最大变数。
It is hard to be certain just exactly how the Chinese economy is faring, given mixed signals in the data.
很难确定中国经济到底表现如何，原因是数据中呈现的复杂信息。
Chinese inflation is at its weakest levels in nearly five years. Commodity prices are plunging. New home sales are declining. Foreign investment is contracting.
中国的通胀处于近五年来的最低水平。大宗商品价格大幅下跌。新房销售不断下滑。外国投资正不断缩水。
The overall economy, though, continues to chug along at a steady, albeit more modest, pace. China's gross domestic product increased by 7.3 percent in the third quarter, compared with 7.5 percent in the previous quarter. While that was the lowest quarterly growth since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, the rate remains the envy of major economies. The economy also continues adding jobs at a good clip, and the currency is one of very few that are still rising against the dollar.
不过，整个经济仍然平稳增长，虽然速度更加缓慢。中国的GDP三季度增长了7.3%，相比之下，前一季度的增幅为7.5%。尽管这是2009年金融危机最严重时期以来的最低季度增幅，这个速度仍然让主要经济体艳羡不已。中国的新增就业岗位仍在大幅增加，而人民币则是兑美元汇率仍在上升的少数币种之一。

"The question or problem we are all facing at the moment is, ‘What is right picture for the economy as a whole?' " said Louis Kuijs, the chief China economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. "It's complicated by negative forces that show up very strongly in industry but not in the service sector."
“我们所有人目前面临的疑问或问题是，‘中国整体经济状况的真实图景是什么？'”苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)驻香港的首席经济学家高路易(Louis Kuijs)说。“令整体状况更加复杂的消极力量来自于实业，而不是服务业。”
Making sense of China's economic health is challenging because the slowdown is partly by design.
看懂中国经济状况极具挑战性，因为经济放缓部分源自刻意安排。
The Communist leadership has pledged to reduce China's dependence on credit-fueled growth and investment, to instead emphasize domestic consumption. It is a risky proposal, and leaders have signaled a willingness to live with slower growth, provided employment holds up and systemic risks are contained.
中共领导层已经承诺减少中国对信贷推动的增长以及投资的依赖，要转而重视国内消费。这是一个存在风险的计划，但领导人已经表示，只要就业市场坚挺、系统风险可控，愿意接受增长放缓的事实。
One figure that Chinese leaders study closely is the number of new jobs. Li Keqiang, China's prime minister, boasted in a speech at a World Economic Forum meeting last month that nearly 10 million urban jobs had been created in the first eight months of the year, up slightly from a year ago. As a result, he said, he would not mind if the growth of the gross domestic product fell short of this year's official target of 7.5 percent.
中国领导人密切关注的一个数据是新增就业岗位。中国总理李克强上个月在世界经济论坛会议上的演讲中骄傲地说，今年前8个月，中国城镇新增就业近1000万人，比上一年有小幅增长。他说，因此，GDP增长低于今年7.5%的官方目标也是可以接受的。
"An important goal of maintaining stable growth is to ensure employment, and the floor of the proper range is to ensure relatively adequate employment," he said at the meeting in Tianjin.
“稳增长是为了保就业，调控的下限是比较充分的就业，”他在天津的这次会议上说。
But even in the jobs figures, broad disparities exist across China. Employment has grown solidly in the services sector nearly every month in the last five years, according to the purchasing managers index compiled by HSBC and Markit. By contrast, manufacturing employment, which generally expanded from 2009 through 2011, has mostly contracted since.
但即使是在就业方面，中国各地的数据也存在着较大差异。汇丰银行(HSBC)和Markit编制的采购经理人指数显示，过去五年，服务领域的就业人数几乎每月都会出现稳定增长。相比之下，制造业的就业人数虽然从2009年到2011年总地来说是在扩大，此后的多数时间都在下降。
At an employment fair for the medical appliance industry at a government-run career center near the Lama Temple in Beijing last week, more than a hundred job seekers bantered with recruiters and weighed their options. A 42-year-old man who gave only his surname, Mr. Lin, was applying for a job at Beijing Niubao Technology, a chemical equipment maker.
上周，北京的雍和宫附近一个政府运营的就业指导中心，举行了一场医疗器械行业的招聘会。100多位求职者与用人单位攀谈着，权衡着自己的选择。42岁的林先生正在申请北京纽堡科技有限公司的一个职位，这是一家化学设备生产商。
With 20 years of experience in a specialized industry, Mr. Lin expressed confidence about his prospects despite the overall outlook in the sector. "Manufacturing isn't doing so great in the past few years, but I think chemical equipment is still doing relatively O.K.," he said.
由于在专业领域拥有20年的经验，虽然行业的整体状况不佳，林先生仍然表示对自己的前途充满信心。“制造业过去几年的表现不是很好，但我认为化工设备相对来说还算可以，”他说。
That somewhat positive outlook is a sharp contrast to most traditional industries. "We didn't have any new recruits this year," Huang Xinqun, 48, a manager at a large ocean-shipping company, said last week. "Usually when the manufacturing business is not doing so well, it would be directly reflected on us," he said.
这种比较积极的态度与多数传统行业的情况形成了强烈对比。“我们今年没有任何招聘，”48岁的大型远洋运输公司经理黄新群（音）上周说。“通常当制造业不景气的时候，会直接在我们这里反映出来，”他说。
"We're like a signal post on how the economy is doing," Mr. Huang said. "If companies don't have that many orders and products to transport, then we don't have as much work."
“我们就像是经济状况的信号灯，”黄新群说。“如果企业没有那么多订单和需要运输的产品，我们就没有多少工作要做。”
Despite the signs of malaise in China's manufacturing and industrial sectors, the government is wary of repeating the significant stimulus measures it undertook after the financial crisis. Leaders are worried that would add to China's ballooning debt, which rose to 250 percent of gross domestic product at the end of June, from 150 percent five years ago, according to estimates by Standard Chartered Bank.
尽管中国制造业及工业领域出现低迷迹象，政府对再次实施金融危机后采取的重大刺激举措持谨慎态度。领导人担心，这会增加中国不断膨胀的债务。据渣打银行(Standard Chartered Bank)估计，截至6月底，中国债务规模达到GDP的250%，而五年前，这个比率为150%。
Instead, policy makers in recent months have used targeted, behind-the-scenes stimulus measures, including extending limited amounts of short-term credit to large and medium-size banks. The government also has directed more financing to favored projects, like supporting agricultural efforts and redeveloping shantytowns.
最近几个月，政策制定者采用了具有针对性的幕后刺激举措，包括给予大中型银行有限的短期信贷。政府还将更多资金投入其属意的项目，比如支持农业发展，及重建棚户区。
"Things can be done to bolster activity for short periods of time, but I think the fundamental theme is a persistent ratcheting down in the measured rate of growth," said George Magnus, a financial consultant and a former chief economist at UBS. "China is in for an extended period of volatility."
“可以做些事情在短期内增强市场活力，但我觉得根本的主题是监测到的增长率持续走低，”金融顾问、前瑞银(UBS)首席经济学家乔治·马格纳斯(George Magnus)说。“中国正在进入一段相当长的波动期。”
Other major indicators offer similarly contradictory perspectives on the progress of China's economic transition.
其他反映中国经济转型进展的重要指标同样存在矛盾。
Retail sales are rising at their slowest pace in nearly a decade, seemingly casting doubt on the ability of Chinese consumers to drive economic growth. But with an increase of about 12 percent in value this year, sales are hardly anemic.
零售销售的增长速度降至近10年来的最低点，这似乎引起了对中国消费者拉动经济增长的能力的怀疑。但由于价值上涨了12%，销售不算疲软。
What is more, official sales figures fail to capture the explosive growth of online shopping in China. The statistics bureau only began including the sales of some unnamed, large Internet retailers in its data this year. But Mark Williams, the chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, estimates that official retail sales figures only capture about one-sixth of the online purchases in China.
而且官方销售数据没能反映出中国网络购物的迅速发展。统计局今年才开始将一些未指明的大型网络零售商的销售情况计入数据。但凯投宏观(Capital Economics)首席亚洲经济学家马克·威廉姆斯(Mark Williams)认为，官方零售销售数据只计入了六分之一的网购量。
Trade figures, too, are somewhat unclear. Reported Chinese exports rose 15.3 percent last month, their biggest increase since 2013. But that was partly because of a 34 percent increase in exports to Hong Kong.
贸易数据也有点含糊不清。公开的中国出口额上月增长15.3%，这是自2013年以来的最大涨幅。但这部分是因为对香港出口增加了34%。
The dynamic has prompted some economists to question whether trade figures are again being distorted by so-called over-invoicing. The practice was rampant two years ago, when China's reported exports to Hong Kong surged when companies disguised speculative capital inflows as the proceeds from trade. Hong Kong's separately reported imports from China are much lower, which economists say is evidence of the practice.
这种情况促使一些经济学家怀疑开高价发票的行为是否再次导致贸易数据失真。两年前，这种做法非常普遍，当时公司将投机资本的涌入掩饰成贸易收益，中国报告称对港出口剧增。而香港方面报告的进口额要低得多。经济学家称，这证明中国存在上述行为。
The most problematic economic indicator in China may be gross domestic product itself. Though economists say the data broadly are improving, the numbers do not always seem to add up. For example, the combined G.D.P. reported by each of China's provinces still regularly exceeds the official total for the country.
在中国，问题最多的经济指标可能是GDP本身。虽然经济学家表示，这一数据总体上在不断完善，但相关数字似乎并不总能自圆其说。例如，将中国各省报告的GDP加在一起得出的数据经常会超过官方发布的中国GDP。
Even Mr. Li, the prime minister, has at times expressed doubts over this benchmark measure of output. In 2007, when he was governor of Liaoning Province in northeastern China, Mr. Li privately acknowledged to a visiting American diplomat that China's G.D.P. figures were unreliable and "for reference only" because they were "man-made," according to a confidential diplomatic cable released in 2010 by WikiLeaks.
甚至连李克强总理有时都对这种针对产出的基准数据表示怀疑。维基解密(WikiLeaks)2010年公布的机密外交电报显示，2007年，在中国东北辽宁省担任省委书记的李克强私下与一名到访的美国外交官交流时承认，中国的GDP数据并不可靠，“仅供参考”，原因是“人为因素”。
Since then, many economists have supplemented China's official figures with their own versions of a "Li Keqiang Index," alternative measures based on what Mr. Li said were his bellwethers of economic expansion. They include electricity consumption, rail cargo volumes and the value of loans disbursed.
此后，很多经济学家都结合“克强指数”分析中国的官方数据，“克强指数”是基于李克强所说的经济扩张风向标的另类测量指标，由耗电量、铁路货运量和银行贷款发放量三个指标组成。
"Certainly these data have the potential to be more reliable but there are complications there, too," said Carsten Holz, a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who has scrutinized China's economic data.
香港科技大学(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)社会科学教授穆嘉(Carsten Holz)表示，“这些数据有可能是更可靠的，但这里也存在问题。”
"It's a planned economy thing," Mr. Holz said of the Li Keqiang indexes, likening them to tallying apples on a tree but making no attempt to calculate their value.
穆嘉称克强指数相当于计算树上苹果数量而不尝试计算它们的价值，“是种计划经济的做法”。
"It is a very rudimentary measure, because you don't know how many of these apples are rotten, or measure how big they are," he said. "You are just counting apples."
“这是一个极其粗略的指标，因为你不知道有多少苹果已经腐烂，也没有测量苹果有多大，”他说。“你只是在数苹果。”