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| WUHAN, China — Thousands of retirees confronted local officials and the police outside a popular park in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to demand the repeal of recent cuts in government-provided medical insurance for seniors. |
| 中国武汉——数千名退休人员在中国中部城市武汉一个著名公园外与当地官员和警察对峙，要求取消最近政府对老年人医疗保险的削减。 |
| The protest on Wednesday, the second in Wuhan in a week, was the latest sign of strain on the finances of China’s local governments, which are responsible for covering much of the cost of everything from health care to heating homes. China’s “zero Covid” policies, dictated by Beijing over the past three years, saddled those localities with additional costs, while a downturn in the real estate market eroded a reliable stream of revenue. |
| 周三的抗议是武汉一周内发生的第二次抗议活动，也是中国地方政府财政紧张的最新迹象。地方政府负责支付从医疗到供暖等种种费用的很大部分。北京在过去三年里制定的“清零”政策让这些地方承担了额外的成本，房地产市场的低迷则侵蚀了一个可靠的收入来源。 |
| Video footage that circulated online indicated that large crowds gathered around Zhongshan Park in Wuhan, as the police tried to divide them by imposing barricades. When police officers tried to push the crowds back, older men and women refused to back off and shouted in officers’ faces. Some protesters sang songs like “The Internationale,” an anthem employed by both the ruling Communist Party and by protesters, who have used it to suggest that the party has strayed from its ideological roots. |
| 网上流传的视频片段显示，大批人群聚集在武汉中山公园周围，警方试图通过设置路障来拆散他们。当警察试图驱赶人群时，老人们拒绝后退，对着警察的脸大喊。一些抗议者唱着《国际歌》之类的歌曲，这是执政党共产党和抗议者共同使用的赞歌，抗议者用这首歌来暗示共产党偏离其意识形态根源。 |
| In Wuhan, seven witnesses to the protest and two other residents described what they called a large demonstration during the day. One witness said he had seen police officers roughly detain protesters and lead them away. |
| 在武汉，七名在现场目击了抗议活动的人和另外两名居民描述了当天他们所称的大规模示威活动。一名目击者表示他看到警察粗暴地拘留了抗议者，并将他们带走。 |
| On Thursday, a couple hundred seniors gathered in groups at the same park at midday, angrily discussing their unhappiness with the health insurance policy changes. Security was tight, with plainclothes officers milling around, filming people as they talked. Nearly 100 uniformed officers stood behind crowd control barriers. |
| 周四，数百名老人于中午时分聚集在同一个公园里，愤怒地讨论他们对医保政策改变的不快。现场安保严格，便衣警察徘徊在周围，在人们说话时对其进行录影。近100名未穿制服的警察站在控制人群的障碍物后面。 |
| Social frictions in China may be reappearing as economic growth slows and the population ages. China has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality. The protest Wednesday took place near a luxury mall with street-level stores for brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton and Versace. |
| 随着经济增长放缓和人口老龄化，中国的社会摩擦可能会再次出现。中国是世界上收入不平等程度最高的国家之一。周三的抗议活动发生在一个奢侈品购物中心附近，那里有迪奥、路易威登和范思哲等品牌的临街门店。 |
| The protests were about China’s medical insurance system for urban residents. The system consists of two parts: a collective pool of funds and each individual’s account. As part of a restructuring of the national health insurance system, local governments are reducing the amount of money deposited into the personal accounts. |
| 抗议针对的是中国城镇居民的医疗保险制度。该系统由两部分组成：集体资金和个人账户。作为国民健康保险制度结构调整的一部分，地方政府正在减少个人账户的存款金额。 |
| Protesters who gathered on Feb. 8 had vowed to return in a week if their demands that the local government restore insurance contributions for retirees to previous levels were not met. |
| 2月7日聚集的抗议者要求当地政府将退休人员的保险缴款恢复到以前的水平，他们誓言，如果这个要求得不到满足，他们将在一周内回来再次抗议。 |
| The Wuhan government, in a document posted on its website, said that while it was true that the reforms would result in lower payments to everyone’s personal insurance accounts, ultimately there would be lower out-of-pocket expenses for certain individuals, because the collective pool would shoulder more of a person’s health care costs for routine hospital visits. |
| 武汉市政府在其网站上发布的一份文件中表示，虽然改革确实会降低每个人的个人保险账户支付额，但最终某些个人的自付费用将会降低，因为集体医保资金将承担一个人日常就医的更多医疗费用。 |
| In addition to the protest in Wuhan, videos also surfaced online on Wednesday of a demonstration of retirees in the port city of Dalian, in Liaoning Province. Last month, a crowd of retirees gathered outside government offices in the southern city of Guangzhou to protest the reduction in government contributions to their personal health insurance accounts, according to videos posted online. |
| 除了武汉的抗议活动，周三网上还出现了辽宁省港口城市大连市退休人员示威的视频。网上发布的视频还显示，上个月，一群退休人员聚集在南方城市广州的政府办公室外，抗议政府减少他们个人医保账户的款项。 |
| Alfred Wu, an associate professor at National University in Singapore who specializes in political and economic issues in China, said the protesters, many of whom are retired government workers or employees of state-owned companies, were upset at what they saw as a broken promise. |
| 新加坡国立大学专门研究中国政治和经济问题的副教授吴木銮说，抗议者中很多人是退休的政府工作人员或国有企业员工，他们对政府没有兑现承诺感到不满。 |
| They accepted years of working for low salaries with the expectation that they would receive generous health care and pensions in retirement. Workers in China also expected to retire fairly young by international standards — by 50 or 55 for many women and by 55 or 60 for many men, though it is very common for retired older workers to take part-time jobs. |
| 他们接受了多年的低薪工作，期望退休后能得到丰厚的医疗保健和养老金。按照国际标准，中国工人预计退休年龄相当早——许多女性的预计退休年龄为50岁或55岁，许多男性的预计退休年龄为55岁或60岁，尽管退休老年工人从事兼职工作很常见。 |
| The trade-off on retirement benefits has become increasingly unsustainable in the face of China’s looming demographics challenges, in which the number of old people is growing more rapidly than that of young people entering the work force. |
| 面对中国日益逼近的人口结构挑战，退休福利方面的平衡已变得越来越不可持续。在中国，老年人数量的增长速度快于进入劳动力市场的年轻人。 |
| When Covid struck, local governments had another financial burden: paying for extensive mass testing and quarantine facilities mandated by the central government. |
| 当新冠疫情暴发时，地方政府还有另一个财政负担：支付中央政府授权的大规模检测和隔离设施的费用。 |
| “The Covid measures accelerated a problem that was already looming on the horizon,” Mr. Wu said. |
| “新冠疫情措施加速了一个已经迫在眉睫的问题，”吴木銮说。 |
| Local governments across China are facing financial crises. In the mid-1990s, they lost most of their ability to collect taxes because of a government policy change. They were given broad authority instead to borrow money, or to raise money by selling long-term leases of state-owned land to developers. |
| 中国各地的地方政府都面临着财政危机。在20世纪90年代中期，由于政府政策变化，地方政府失去了大部分的征税能力。它们同时被赋予广泛的权力，可以借贷，或通过向开发商出售国有土地的长期租约来筹集资金。 |
| Sales of land leases boomed, and were equal to roughly 7 percent of the entire economy’s output in recent years. Even that money was not enough to pay for local governments’ extensive investments in roads, bridges, rail lines, urban parks and other projects. Provinces, cities and towns also borrowed very heavily, often using state-owned enterprises to do so. |
| 土地租售随之蓬勃发展，近年已经大概相当于整个经济产出的7%。然而即使这笔钱也不足以支付地方政府在道路、桥梁、铁路、城市公园和其他项目上的大量投资。各省、市和乡镇还要大量举债，通常是通过国有企业来进行。 |
| A slow-motion housing crisis since the autumn of 2021 has now disrupted China’s model for local government financing. With dozens of developers defaulting on at least some of their debts, they have pulled back sharply from leasing further land. Government revenues from land transfers dropped by nearly a quarter last year. |
| 自2021年秋季以来，一场缓慢发展的房地产危机打乱了中国地方政府的融资模式。由于数十家开发商至少拖欠部分债务，他们已大幅减少了租赁更多土地的计划。去年，政府土地出让收入下降了近四分之一。 |
| That deprived local governments of money even as their expenses surged because of “zero Covid” policies enacted by Beijing. |
| 这使地方政府失去了资金，而由于北京实施的“清零”政策，地方政府的支出还在激增。 |
| Caught between falling revenues and rising costs, local governments have responded by delaying pay for civil servants and enacting broad spending cuts. Many local governments in Hebei Province, which surrounds Beijing on three sides, could not even afford to continue heating subsidies for natural gas during the winter, leaving residents to shiver during a record-setting cold wave. |
| 在收入下降和成本上升的夹缝之间，地方政府的应对措施是推迟支付公务员工资，并实施广泛的支出削减。在三面环绕北京的河北省，许多地方政府甚至无力在冬季继续提供天然气取暖补贴，让居民在创纪录的寒潮中瑟瑟发抖。 |
| Last month, hundreds of workers who had been hired for the government’s mass testing programs took to the streets to demand unpaid wages. A month prior, medical students at universities and hospitals, many of whom were pressed into duty as the country’s health care system strained to handle a flood of Covid cases, protested for better pay and more protective equipment. |
| 上个月，数百名受雇于政府大规模核酸检测项目的工作人员走上街头，要求支付拖欠的工资。一个月前，大学和医院的医学生举行抗议，要求提高工资和提供更多防护装备。由于该国的医疗保健系统疲于应对大量新冠病例，许多这样的学生被迫上岗。 |
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