Financial markets are like small children. They find it hard to focus on more than two things at once.” That is the conclusion drawn by one of my colleagues after a lifetime of professional investing.

“金融市场就像是小孩子。他们很难同时对两件事保持注意力。”这是我的一位同事在从事了一辈子专业投资工作之后得出的结论。

Whether small children can focus on anything at all is a matter for debate. Chocolate, perhaps. But he has a point when it comes to global markets. Investors have been so focused on the Brexit vote and its aftermath that they have missed the big picture, which is that the global economy is still worryingly dependent on US growth and the extreme efforts of central banks.

小孩子到底能不能对某些事物保持注意力，是个值得讨论的问题。对巧克力或许可以。但关于全球市场，他说得有道理。投资者一直以来太关注英国脱欧公投及其后果了，以至于没有看到全景：全球经济仍令人担忧地依赖美国经济增长，以及各国央行的非常措施。

There was a fear, in the days after the EU referendum, that Britain’s troubles would sink the global recovery. But investors have decided that for stocks and bonds this shock is actually a win-win. Why? Because growth will not be much affected outside the UK, but central banks will keep monetary policy looser than it would otherwise have been, just to be safe. That explains why stock markets are reaching new highs, even in the UK, and long-term interest rates are lower in most countries than they were on June 23.

在英国脱欧公投之后的日子里，人们担心，英国的麻烦将毁掉全球复苏。但投资者们认为，对于股市和债市而言，这一冲击实际上是一种双赢。为什么？因为，英国以外地区的经济增长将不会受到太大影响，但为了安全起见，各国央行的货币政策将比假如未发生英国公投的情况更宽松。正因如此，世界各地、甚至英国的股市都在屡创新高，而大多数国家的长期利率也低于6月23日的水平。

This time last year, the obsession was China and the mood was rather different. Stock markets, you will remember, fell around the world when the Chinese authorities announced a surprise depreciation of the renminbi against the dollar. The fear was that a deflating Chinese economy would export its falling prices to the rest of the world via a lower exchange rate and take another bite out of growth in emerging markets.

去年此时，市场的关注焦点是中国，氛围也迥然不同。你不会忘记，当中国当局出乎意料地宣布人民币对美元贬值时，全球股市纷纷下跌。人们担心，陷入通缩的中国经济将通过货币贬值把价格下降输出至世界其他地区，并进一步拉低新兴市场的增长率。

Funnily enough, the Chinese currency has been falling again recently — by 3 per cent against the dollar in the past three months. That is bigger than the fall last summer but no one seems to care at all. It would be nice to believe that this was because the world is in a stronger position to cope with a deflationary China than a year ago. I fear it is because investors simply have not been paying attention.

有趣的是，人民币近来再次不断贬值，在过去3个月里对美元下跌了3%。这一跌幅大于去年夏季，但似乎谁也不在乎这一点。人们可以认为，这是因为今天的世界比一年前更有能力应对中国的通缩。但我担心，这是因为投资者根本没有予以关注。

It is true that this depreciation feels somewhat more controlled. What spooked investors about China last summer was the feeling of chaos — the mixed messages about the renminbi and the frantic moves to prop up the domestic stock market all had a whiff of panic. If the authorities could not achieve a smooth transition for the exchange rate, how were they going to deliver one for the broader economy?

没错，此次人民币贬值让人感觉或多或少更受控制。去年夏季中国吓到投资者的是混乱感——有关人民币的混乱信息和支撑国内股市的慌乱之举，都透露出一丝恐慌。如果当局不能实现人民币汇率的平稳过渡，那么他们将如何实现宏观经济的顺利转型？

It feels different this time because those in charge have a plan, and the currency is supposedly now linked not to the dollar but to a broader basket of currencies known as the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. But anyone who has been watching closely would have noticed that the authorities only follow the new system when it allows the renminbi to fall. When the CFETS was rising against the dollar in the first part of the year, the Chinese currency did not rise with it. The net result is that the renminbi is nearly 6 per cent weaker on a trade-weighted basis than it was at the start of the year.

这次给人的感觉不一样，因为相关负责部门有所计划，并且如今人民币应该不是与美元挂钩，而是与中国外汇交易中心(CFETS)的一篮子货币挂钩。但任何一直密切关注人民币汇率的人士都应已注意到，唯有允许人民币贬值时，中国当局才会遵循这套新制度。当今年头几个月CFETS一篮子货币对美元升值时，人民币并未随之升值。最终结果是，人民币贸易加权汇率较年初下跌了近6%。

On the surface, China’s economy does look less scary than it did a year ago. The authorities, though, are using the same tools to support growth that they used in the past — public investment and subsidised credit. Fixed asset investment by state-owned companies grew by more than 20 per cent, year on year, in the past three months.

在表面上看，中国经济确实不像一年前那么令人担忧了。不过，当局正在使用过去惯用的工具——公共投资和补贴信贷——去支撑增长。过去3个月里，国企的固定资产投资同比增加逾20%。

Big picture: China might be more stable but is no closer to resolving its structural and financial imbalances than it was a year ago, and it is still exporting disinflation to the rest of the world via a weaker exchange rate. US import prices from China fell by 3 per cent in June, the largest monthly drop since 2013.

全景：与一年前相比，中国或许更稳定，但距离解决结构与金融失衡并未更近一步，并且仍在通过货币贬值向世界其他地区输出通缩。6月，美国从中国进口商品价格下降了3%，为2013年以来最大月度跌幅。

The US can probably shrug off this imported deflation because domestic prices — and, finally, wages — are picking up as the domestic consumer-led recovery continues. Globally, however, the picture is not nearly as strong. The International Monetary Fund’s forecasts, released last week, show global consumer inflation for advanced countries at just 0.7 per cent in 2016. The central banks in the US and the UK are the only ones in the developed world that are expected to achieve inflation at or above the targeted 2 per cent by 2017.

美国很可能对这种输入的通缩不予理睬，因为随着国内消费驱动的复苏继续，国内价格——以及最终的工资——都在上升。然而，全球来看，局面就没有这么乐观了。上周发布的国际货币基金组织(IMF)预测显示，2016年发达国家消费价格涨幅仅为0.7%。到2017年，发达世界中唯有美英两国央行有望实现或超过2%的通胀率目标。

Those new IMF forecasts are helpful, not because they are likely to be right, but because they let us step back from the day-to-day stories to see how global growth expectations have changed over time. At 3.1 per cent, the new growth forecast for 2016 was only slightly lower than the April number. This was taken as more evidence that the negative effects of Brexit are likely to be centred on the UK. But a year ago the fund was expecting global growth this year to be 3.8 per cent, and growth for the advanced economies to be 2.4 per cent. Now its best guess is for growth of 1.8 per cent in those countries — not just in 2016 but in 2017 as well. The forecast for world trade has also been slashed, yet again. We have now had six consecutive years when world trade has been flat or falling as a share of global gross domestic product.

IMF的这些新预测是有帮助的，原因不在于其可能是正确的，而在于其让我们从日常新闻中抽身出来，看看全球增长预期是如何随着时间推移而变化的。新的2016年全球增长预测为3.1%，仅仅略低于4月的预测值。这被视为英国脱欧的负面影响可能集中于英国一国的更多证据。但一年前，IMF预计今年全球增长率可达3.8%，发达经济体增长率可达2.4%。而现在发达经济体增长率最乐观的估计只有1.8%，不但2016年，而且2017年也是如此。世界贸易增长预期也被再次大幅调低。世界贸易占全球GDP的比例已连续六年与上一年持平或者下降。

None of this suggests that the global recovery is about to grind to a halt. It does remind us that the world is expecting an awful lot of the US right now, and an awful lot of its central bank. The US has managed a respectable recovery, despite a deeply needy global economy and an unhelpful rise in the dollar. Investors are betting that this can continue, despite the dysfunctional cacophony coming out of the party conventions. We should all hope they are right. The world does not have a plan B.

以上所有并非暗示全球复苏将陷入停顿，但确实提醒我们，目前世界对美国和美国央行的期待非常之大。尽管全球经济面临极大困难，美元又出现毫无益处的升值，美国仍实现了相当不错的复苏。投资者开始押注这一趋势可能持续下去，尽管政党的全国代表大会上传出了异常的刺耳之声。我们都应当希望他们是对的。世界没有B计划。