If world trade were behaving the way it used to, the global economy would be in crisis rather than just looking a touch wobbly.

如果世界贸易还像过去那样开展，全球经济可能会陷入危机，而不会只是看起来有些不稳。

During the 1990s and most of the 2000s, goods trade grew at about twice the rate of global gross domestic product. The financial crisis brought with it a massive 12 per cent contraction in trade volumes, which led to a great deal of hand-wringing about a repeat of the collapse in global commerce during the Great Depression. There was then a smart recovery in goods being shipped, which reassured many that business had returned to usual.

在上世纪90年代和本世纪头十年的大部分时间里，商品贸易增速大约是全球GDP增速的两倍。金融危机导致贸易规模大幅萎缩12%，使得许多人非常担忧“大萧条”(Great Depression)期间全球贸易崩溃的情景重现。随后商品发运量迅速复苏，这又让许多人相信，情况已回归正常。

In fact, neither catastrophists nor optimists were right. While goods trade has expanded over the past five years, it has done no more than keep pace with the growth of the global economy. Economists and policymakers wondering whether this is a cause for alarm have generally concluded not.

实际上，灾难论者和乐观者都错了。尽管商品贸易过去5年里在增长，但它只不过是与全球经济增长维持了同步。曾经探究这是否值得警惕的经济学家和政策制定者大多得出了否定的结论。

Much of the slow growth in trade seems to be to do with the changing structures of supply chains, with China in particular taking internationally disaggregated production lines inside its economy. But it still means that, with global commerce shifting from manufacturing and agriculture to services and investment, the international rules of the game are struggling to keep up.

贸易增长缓慢在很大程度上与供应链结构不断变化有关，尤其是中国将原本分散在世界各地的生产线集中到了中国经济内部。不过这仍意味着，随着全球贸易从制造业和农业转向服务和投资，国际贸易规则很难跟上这种转变。

Ironically, given its disembodied nature, the rapid expansion of digitisation from the 1990s seems to have facilitated trade in goods much more than in services. Instant communication of demand and production meant rapid and efficient manufacturing supply chains could snake around the world.

具有讽刺意味的是，鉴于其无实体的特质，上世纪90年代起数字化的快速扩张对商品贸易的促进似乎远远超过其对服务业的促进。需求和生产的实时沟通意味着快速而高效的制造业供应链可以遍布世界各地。

Cross-border flows of data are growing very quickly: the consultancy McKinsey estimates that by the end of 2016, businesses and individuals will send 20 times as much data around the world as in 2008. Yet while parts of some sectors like business services have seen considerable outsourcing, others such as legal and professional services, constrained as they tend to be by domestic regulation, are subject to much less international competition.

数据跨境流动越来越快：咨询公司麦肯锡(McKinsey)估计，到2016年年底，企业和个人在全世界发送的数据将是2008年的20倍。然而，尽管企业服务等行业出现了大量外包，但法律和专业服务等其他行业面临的国际竞争要少得多（这类行业往往受到国内监管规定的限制）。

The reality is that globalisation of much of the newer parts of the economy, particularly the service sector, has been held back by fragmented regulation and segmented markets. Attempts to unify different sets of rules have generally foundered on entrenched interests and the inertia that comes with regulatory frameworks that are time-consuming and politically difficult to change.

现实情况是，许多较新的经济部门（尤其是服务业）的全球化受到监管不统一和市场割裂的阻碍。整合不同规则的努力通常因既得利益集团的阻挠以及与监管框架相伴随的惰性而失败——改变监管框架既耗费时间，在政治上又非常困难。

For example: in both the Trans-Pacific Partnership it has negotiated with eleven other Asia-Pacific countries and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership it is hammering out with the EU, the US has argued that trade in financial services is a key part of the global economy. Yet there is no appetite in the US for substantially reopening the Dodd-Frank Act to aid harmonisation of international practices.

例如，在美国与其他11个亚太国家达成的《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》（Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP），以及其正在与欧盟(EU)商谈的《跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴关系协定》（Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership，简称TTIP）中，美国都主张，金融服务贸易是全球经济的关键部分。然而，美国没有兴趣大动干戈地重新讨论《多德-弗兰克法案》(Dodd-Frank Act)以帮助协调国际金融活动。

Only recently has the apparatus of trade negotiations turned itself towards the modern services trade. The Doha round of trade talks which died a merciful death last year after 15 years of negotiations focused mainly on agricultural and manufactured goods. Talks over a smaller plurilateral services agreement were launched in 2012, but are a long way from conclusion. Meanwhile, the attempt to harmonise regulations in the TTIP is foundering on differences in the way the EU and US set their rules.

贸易谈判机制只是在最近才将重点转向现代服务贸易。多哈回合贸易谈判在十五年致力于农业和制造品谈判之后于去年终于寿终正寝。围绕较小规模的多边服务协定的谈判在2012年才开始启动，离缔结协议还早得很。与此同时，协调TTIP监管规则的努力因美欧制定规则的方式不同而失败。

Global patterns of trade are changing, and the rapid growth in goods exports and imports in the two decades before the global financial crisis may never return. If globalisation in services is to replicate that already achieved in goods, the rules that govern it must change too.

全球贸易模式日新月异，全球金融危机爆发前20年里的那种商品进出口快速增长局面可能一去不复返了。要想让服务业全球化复制商品全球化取得的那种成就，就必须同时改变相应的治理规则。