原文地址：https://www.quora.com

　　Why is China - a developing country so ahead of the US - the "greatest" developed country in infrastructure?

　　为什么中国，作为一个发展中国家，却在基建领域远远领先于有着“最伟大”的发达国家之称的美国？

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　　外国网民评论：

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　　Paul B B.Ec. Economics (2016)

　　Answered 19h ago

　　That seems like a loaded question and I’m not sure if you’re entirely correct. But I’ll take it for granted that China is “so ahead in infrastructure”.

　　这似乎是一个诱导性的问题，我不知道你的观点是否完全正确。但我对于中国“在基础设施上如此领先”这一看法是赞同的。

　　The reason is probably that the USA built most of its infrastructure a long time ago. Once it’s there there is little incentive to upgrade it. Why spend billions when you can make do with what you’ve got? Also once the capital stock of a country reaches equilibrium a large fraction of savings (pretty much all of it) is used up in maintaining existing capital.

　　原因可能是美国很久以前就建设了大部分的基础设施。一旦它已经存在，没有什么理由来升级它了。当你能用所拥有的东西来完成想做的事时，为什么还要额外花费数十亿美元呢？此外，一旦一个国家的资本存量达到均衡，大部分储蓄（几乎全部)都被用于维持现有资本。

　　Rewind to 1990 and China had very little infrastructure. As its economy has boomed it has accumulated capital very rapidly. Now it is at a point where there is too much capital. The government has used investment to employ some of the country’s excess capacity and support an ultimately unsustainable rate of growth. The problem is that the capital will not be able to be maintained. It would require an astronomical savings rate. China wants to transition to a consumption driven economy but how can it do this while simultaneously maintaining a high savings rate to support a huge capital stock?

　　倒回1990年看，中国当时的基础设施很少。随着经济的蓬勃发展，资金的积累非常迅速。现在则是处于一个资金过剩的阶段了。政府就利用投资来开发该国的一些过剩能力，并支持最终不可持续的增长率。问题是资本不能一直维持下去。这将需要一个天文数字的储蓄率。中国要转型为消费型经济，但如何实现这一目标呢？同时保持高储蓄率来支持巨额资本存量？

　　Martin Dièdre studied at Aix-Marseille University

　　Answered 19h ago

　　You have to understand China is not a typical developing country. This term is a bit antiquated in that it was more appropriate during the 80–90’s to describe the emerging countries that were not fully developed not part of USSR and not Third World Countries.

　　你要知道，中国并非一个典型的发展中国家。

　　“发展中国家”这个称谓已经有点不合时宜了，它更适用于形容上世纪八九十年代的一些新兴国家——它们既不是苏联的一部分，同时也不属于第三世界，这些国家当时尚未充分发展起来。

　　China is what we call a newly indusrialized country. Its economy is still not completely dominated by services and trade because the industry is very strong and predominant. Among the features we can find: export-driven and fast-growing economy developing urban centers large corporates strong political leadership and high human development index.

　　中国是我们常说的新兴工业国。在中国的经济中，由于强大的工业占据了支配性地位，服务业与贸易尚未完全成为经济的主导。

　　在这些特点中，我们可以看出，中国拥有由出口驱动的快速增长的经济、建设中的城镇中心、众多的大型企业、强有力的政治领导以及较高的人类发展指数。

　　Here is a map of newly industrialized countries (red).

　　这张地图显示了世界上的新兴工业国（图中所示的红色部分）。

　　Terry Newman Ten years living and doing business in China.

　　Answered 16h ago

　　Because US politicians in order to get votes and corporate support have eroded the tax base to the point that basic infrastructure (and also other basic services like education and health) can no longer be effectively funded. Adding to their woes is the fact that Washington has been paralysed for 12 of the last 16 years due to the failure of either party to control simultaneously the Presidency and the legislature.

　　因为美国的政客们为了获得选票和政治团体的赞助已经侵蚀了税收的基础，以至于基本的基础建设（还有其他基本的服务，如教育和医疗）不能再得到充足的拨款。一个令这种情况雪上加霜的事实是，在过去16年中，华盛顿政府一直因两党不能同时控制总统和立法机关而陷于瘫痪。

　　Joel Phelan Former USMC NCO and Veteran Programmer Wiggin Libertarian

　　Answered 17h ago

　　Joel Phelan 前美国海军陆战队士官，资深程序员，维京的自由主义者

　　It’s because they started building their infrastructure about 80–100 years AFTER the USA did. Thus the engineering was standardized (mostly by the USA) material costs were down and technology existed that they could reasonably implement that the USA cannot without having to tear out the OLD infrastructure (and as another person answered much of the US’ spending is in maintaining the existing infrastructure roads bridges and train tracks where as China because they (comparatively) have nothing and had almost literally nothing in the way of modern infrastructure 30 years ago did not have these maintenance costs. It’s a problem they will run into going forward.

　　那是因为他们基建建设的时间比美国晚80-100年。因此，工程已经标准化（大部分由美国制定），材料成本下降，他们可以合理地实施的技术早已存在。而如果美国要使用这些技术的话，就得先把旧建筑完全拆毁。另一个人已经回答了这个问题，美国的大部分消费用在维护中现有的基础设施道路桥梁和火车路线上。因为（相对来说）中国简直一无所有，30年前几乎没有任何现代化的基础设施，就没有这些维护成本。未来中国也会面临美国现在所面临的基建问题的。

　　It also depends on what you mean by “ahead”. You can speak of their better maintained highway system yes. But you cannot do so honestly without admitting that part of the reason it’s better maintained than the US system is (aside from only having been in existence for less than 30 years) that it is less than 10th the size of the US highway system and exists in about a third of the land area as the US system. China also has a smaller railway system much of which didn’t exist before 1990. China could afford to deploy high speed rail for example because it HAD to lay the tracks for something anyway. nothing existed in that route before. The US railways network is over 100 years old (and over 150 years old in some places). That’s rail to maintain and replace. Switching equipment. Safety equipment. And so on. China has a few nice modern airports in large cities. That’s because again they had NOTHING before. They can afford to do a re-build and upgrade project on the main airport in Beijing because they don’t have five thousand airports to maintain (fifteen thousand if you count all airfields) as the US does. China has 188 airports and less than 600 airfields total. The USA has 5194 airports and 15095 airfields total. How exactly is China ahead in air traffic infrastructure again?

　　R03;这同样要看你怎么解释‘领先‘这个词了，你可以说说他们更好的已有的高速公路系统，但是你必须得接受部分为什么他们的高速公路系统的养护比美国做的更好的原因，（一方面是因为他们的高速公路系统存在还不到30年）他们的公路系统只有美国的十分之一，存在的地域也只有美国的三分之一；中国同样还拥有一个更小的很大部分在1990年以前还不存在的铁路系统，例如，中国能够负担得起高速铁路是因为中国为了一些事情不得不铺设铁轨，在那条路上本来什么都不存在。美国的铁路网已经存在了超过100年了（有些地方已经超过150年了）；那是需要维护和替换的轨道，交换机，安全设备，等等；中国的大城市有少量的一些漂亮的现代化的机场，这再次是因为在那以前那里什么都没有；他们能够负担得起重建或者升级北京的主要机场是因为他们不像美国有5000个机场要维护（如果你把所有的飞机坪也算上，那就是1.5万个）；中国总共才有188个机场，不到600个飞机坪；美国总共有5194个飞机场和15095个飞机坪。所以中国的航空交通设施哪里比美国先进了？

　　China should eventually MOVE ahead as they continue to liberalize their economy and government simply due to demographics (having 5 times the population of the USA the Chinese economy will have to surpass the US economy just to keep the people in jobs and clothes as they move out of being a mostly agrarian society to a more diversified nation - though the current forced relocation of entire villages to metropolitan areas could backfire. Which I suppose is another way the USA is currently ahead of China - we don’t forcibly relocate our citizens off of their property to cities hundreds of miles away (or anywhere at all). Of course a citizen’s property in the USA IS their property. It doesn’t belong to the government which can then take it away with no justification at all required. China’s not there yet.

　　中国总是向前发展的，因为他们继续开放经济和政府，仅从人口数量看（美国人口的5倍)也能知道，中国经济必定要超越美国经济才能让人们有工作做，有衣服穿，他们也正在从一个农业为主的社会向一个更加多元化的社会转变 - 虽然目前将整个村庄强制搬迁到大都市地区的行为可能会事与愿违。我认为在这件事上美国使用的另一种方式要比中国先进得多 - 我们不会强行让我们的公民搬迁他们的财产到数百英里远的地方（或其他任何地方），当然，在美国，公民的财产是他们的财产，它不属于政府，可以没有任何理由地把它们拿走，中国还没达到这一步。

　　Kalynn H lived in The United States of America

　　Answered 19h ago

　　Because the U.S. and China spend money on different things. Much of the U.S. federal spending goes to our military foreign affairs and NATO. Our spending also focuses on programs like social security housing and healthcare. A new infrastructure plan is expected in the near future. So to sum things up each country spends their money on high priorities. Infrascture I would assume is a high priority for China and hasn't really been for the U.S.

　　因为美国和中国把经费花在了不同领域上。美联邦的大部分费用花在了军事外交和北约上，同时我们也关注于类似社会住房保障和医疗保健这样的项目。在近未来，预计会出台一个基础设施（建设）计划。所以，总而言之，每个国家都把自己的钱花在高优先级事项上。我猜想基础设施（建设）对于中国而言是个高优先级事项，但对美国而言却真不是这样。

　　Brandon Hawthorne former Graphic Artist Illustrator Comercia Photog. at Creative Advertising (1963-2010)

　　Answered 19h ago（前图形艺术家插画家）

　　China's government and the people in it are much more involved in what's best for China and not just what's going to benefit themselves. Unlike the United States where the people running the country seem to have little interest beyond what's best for themselves and their constituents.

　　中国政府和其官员更多地参与到最有益于国家的事物中，而不是那些只有利于他们自身的事物。而美国不是这样，运转国家的人看起来对除有利于他们自己和其选民的事物以外的其他事情都没有任何兴趣。

　　While they are technically a socialist country they encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.

　　虽然理论上而言中国是个社会主义国家，但是他们鼓励创业和创新

　　They also tend to ignore copyrights and international patent laws taking advantage of the Innovation done by other countries without acknowledging the contribution or paying for it.

　　同时，他们也倾向于忽视版权和国际专利法，（毫无顾忌地）利用其他国家所做的创新还不承认其贡献或为此支付专利费用。

　　But I think mostly it is just the fact that the people running China really are interest in making China more successful.

　　但我认为，大多数情况下，那些领导中国的人确确实实是专注于如何使中国更加成功这件事上。

　　Here politicians will fight anything that might benefit the country if they don't think it's going to be a benefit themselves and their constituents directly.

　　（而）这里的政客们却会对抗任何有利于国家却不能让他们自己或其成员直接受益的政策。

　　Healthcare is a perfect example if they would just sit down together and work out all the details they could come up with a healthcare plan that would benefit everybody except maybe the people in the healthcare industry who are ripping off the population with excessive healthcare charges.

　　医疗保健是一个很好的（直译：完美的）例子，如果他们能够坐在一起制订出每个细节，（那么）他们就可以拿出一个除了那些正从（忍受）超高医疗费的人们身上榨取利益的医疗行业（从业者）外每个人都会从中受益的医疗保健计划。

　　But each group is afraid that somebody is going to benefit more than they are therefore they'd rather see nothing done at all so that's what happens nothing.

　　但是，每个团体都害怕别人会比他们受益更多。所以，他们宁愿看到什么都不改变，所以也就什么都没有发生。

　　Most developed countries have modern high-speed railways but not the United States.

　　大多数发达国家都拥有高速铁路，但是美国没有。

　　No we're trying to go back to using coal while the Chinese are trying very hard to get away from using coal and develop clean energy to fight there terrible pollution problems.

　　哦不！当中国人为了对抗倒了大霉的污染问题，正在玩了命儿地摆脱煤炭并开发清洁能源的时候，我们却企图倒退回去重新使用煤炭！！

　　We are ignoring the problems and hoping that they will just go away like climate change for instance.

　　我们无视诸如气候变化这样的问题并希望它们能（自动）消失！

　　I think that the United States is on a down slope that we may not see the end of for a long time. We lack the one thing that's most important we lack cooperation.

　　我认为美国走在了一条长长的我们看不到尽头的下坡路上。我们缺乏一样最重要的东西——我们缺乏团结！

　　Patrick Bindner

　　Answered 13h ago

　　The basic premise of the question is incorrect. China has deficient infrastructure in much of its territory whereas the US has solid & pervasive infrastructure throughout its territory. It is in China’s major cities that Chinese infrastructure surpasses some levels of US infrastructure development & that is entirely due to being newly installed in places that were previously bereft of modern infrastructure. US infrastructure is now old but it blankets the nation.

　　问题的基本前提是不正确的。中国在其大部分领土上的基础设施不足，而美国在全国范围内拥有扎实和普遍的基础设施。在中国的一些大城市，中国的基础设施超过了美国基础设施建设的某些水平，这完全是因为它们是新建设在以前没有现代基础设施的地方。美国的基础设施现在已经很旧了，但它覆盖了整个国家。