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China has been through a wrenching series of changes and experiments. (1) It is not for me, or for others in America, to tell China what its economic system should be. What works best for China will be a system rooted in China itself-in Chinese customs and traditions and ways of doing things. (2) The proof of any system lies in its results: in the extent to which it provides for the people more of what those people want. What the people of China want will not be in all respects the same as what the people of the United States would want. But in some respects it will be the same. The bottom lines test of any economic system is whether it works. (3) An economic system that works is one that creates incentives to produce, and provides a fair distribution of what is produced. What incentives will work, what distribution is seen to be “fair”---these are questions that different cultures may answer differently, and that even the same culture may answer differently in different periods of history or at different stages of its development.

Among the great nations, the United States’ economic system is the most successful in history in producing prosperity. The Chinese system is the most successful in history in producing equality. (4)The challenge we both face is to avoid forcing people to make a hard choice between a system at one extreme which provides equality but would perpetuate poverty and one at the other extreme which provides prosperity but would ignore poverty. Poverty is too high a price to pay for either equality or prosperity. China’s challenge is to support the principle of equality without destroying the productivity of the people. America’s challenge is to provide prosperity which gives all an opportunity to escape from poverty. (5) Our systems are profoundly different, but in long view our goal of a better life for all our people is the same.

——选自《2008年考研英语阅读完型翻译全突破》

参考译文

1. 不论是我还是其他美国人都不便说中国应当实行什么样的经济制度。

2. 检验任何制度的标准在于它的成效，在于他能在多大程度上向人民更多地提供他们所需要的东西。

3. 一个行之有效的经济制度能刺激生产的积极性，能公平的分配产品。

4. 我们两国面临的共同挑战是避免强迫人民在两个极端之间做出困难的选择：一种制度实现了平等，但会使贫穷长期继续下去；另一种制度带来了繁荣，却会无视贫困。

5．我们两国的制度有着深刻的差别，但从长远看，我们为本国全体人民谋求更好生活的目标则是一致的。