China's Consumer Society Largely Surpassing US - Report
For decades, while China was closed to Western trade, American companies lusted over the boundless merchandise market that such a big country was certain to offer one day.
Now that day has come: China has surpassed the United States in consumption of every basic food, energy and industrial commodity except oil.
The Chinese have overtaken the Americans in refrigerators, watch 50% more television sets and use 66% more cell phones. Only in automobiles does China still lag, with barely one-tenth the number of motor vehicles the United States has on its roads.
A report released Wednesday by the environmental advocate Earth Policy Institute said, however, that per-capita consumption in China remains far below that of the United States.
China's 1.3 billion people ate 64 million tons of meat in 2004, compared with 38 million tons consumed by the 297 million people in the United States. That's an annual intake of 108 pounds of meat -mainly pork, with half the world's pigs in China -for every Chinese, and 279 pounds of steak, hot dogs and fried chicken for every American.
Fertilizer to grow more food is a measure of more growth to come in China's food consumption. It was double that of the United States in 2004, and both countries cover roughly 3.8 million square miles.
Steel is the commodity that most reflects a modernizing country, and China was using more than twice as much as the United States by 2003. "Steel consumption has climbed to levels not seen in any other country," the report said.
The consumption report said American dominance in automobiles -226 million to 24 million -is one reason the United States uses three times as much oil as China. Another major fossil fuel product, coal, amounts to two-thirds of China's energy consumption, and its homes and factories burn 40% more than those in the United States.
The report was issued on the day the Kyoto Protocol was enacted by 35 industrialized states. The protocol is designed to cut into pollutants caused by fossil fuels, the so-called greenhouse gases.
The treaty will not affect greenhouse gas production in either the United States or China, however. It considers China a developing country that need not cut back, while the United States withdrew from the protocol four years ago.
To feed its consumption, China imports massive quantities of grain, soybeans, iron ore, aluminum, platinum and many other products, which the report said puts its economy "at the center of the world raw-materials economy. Its voracious appetite for materials is driving up not only commodity prices but ocean shipping rates as well."
Many of those goods come through government-to-government agreements from countries rich in resources, such as Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia, Indonesia and Australia. Ironically, China keeps its trade balance stable partly by maintaining the largest trade surplus of any country ever with the United States -$162 billion in 2004. That was one-fourth of the overall record $617.7 billion U.S. trade deficit.
中国的消费量已远远超过美国
中国向西方贸易关紧大门长达数十年，美国公司对这个广袤无垠的市场一直跃跃欲试，认定这个幅员辽阔的国家终有一天会给予丰厚回报。
这一天终于到来了：中国对各类大宗食品、能源（不包括石油）以及工业品的消费量均已超过美国。
中国人拥有的电冰箱数量已超出美国，电视机数量比美国多出50%，手机更是多出66%。只有汽车一项中国依然落后，中国的汽车保有量目前只及美国的十分之一。
但是，环保团体Earth Policy Institute周三发布的报告称，中国的人均消费仍然远远低于美国。
中国拥有13亿人口，2004年消费了6,400万吨肉类；而美国的2.97亿人口消费了3,800万吨。按人均年消费量来算，中国人均年消费肉类108磅──主要是猪肉，中国拥有的生猪数量占全球总数的一半；而美国人均年消费肉类279磅，包括牛排、热狗和炸鸡。
钢铁消耗量是衡量一个国家现代化的重要指标。截至2003年，中国的钢材用量是美国的两倍多。报告称，“中国钢材用量的增幅前所未见”。
报告还表示，汽车是美国人的主要代步工具，因此美国人的石油消耗量为中国的三倍。而另一种化石燃料──煤炭，则占到中国能源消耗的三分之二。中国居民和工厂消耗的煤炭比美国高出40%。
这份报告是在全球35个工业化国家签署的《京都议定书》(Kyoto Protocol)生效当日发布的。《京都议定书》的主旨就是减少使用化石燃料而排放的污染物，也就是所谓的温室气体。
不过，这份议定书既不会影响美国，也不会影响中国的温室气体排放。中国被看作发展中国家而无需控制污染物排放，而美国四年前退出了《京都议定书》。
为满足消费需求，中国进口了大量的谷物、大豆、铁矿石、铝和铂等各种产品，报告因此称中国经济已经成为“全球原材料经济的中心”。中国对各类原材料的大量需求不但推高了全球市场原材料价格，就连海运运费也随之上涨。
许多大宗原材料都是根据政府间协议实现进口的，中国同巴西、哈萨克斯坦、俄罗斯、印尼和澳大利亚等资源丰富的国家签署了多项双边协议。颇具讽刺意味的是，中国贸易帐户基本保持稳定，部分原因就在于同美国，而不是上述这些国家保持了巨额贸易顺差。2004年中国对美国的贸易顺差达到1,620亿美元，占美国贸易逆差总额6,177亿美元的四分之一。
