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| Inside his capacious office, his tan curtains drawn against the tropical sun, the president of Suriname expressed sympathy with the striking teachers who were massing outside, taunting him while demanding higher wages. | 苏里南共和国的总统坐在宽敞的办公室里，窗户上拉着棕褐色的窗帘以便遮挡热带阳光。他对聚集在办公室外罢工的教师们表示同情，他们嘲笑他，并要求提高工资。 |
| Three years of unmitigated catastrophe has destroyed spending power in this South American country — the result of global crises landing atop decades of profligate governance. Food and fuel prices have soared, worsened by Russia’s war on Ukraine. The national currency plunged, and the economy cratered just as the pandemic spread death and fear. | 三年的全球危机令这个南美国家几十年的恣意挥霍治理雪上加霜，结果是一场彻底的灾难，摧毁了该国的消费能力。食品和燃料价格飙升，俄罗斯入侵乌克兰让情况进一步恶化。就在死亡和恐惧随着新冠疫情四处扩散的时候，苏里南的货币暴跌，经济跌入深渊。 |
| “The heavy burden on my people,” President Chandrikapersad Santokhi declared, gave him a “moral responsibility to provide relief.” | 昌德里卡佩尔萨德·单多吉总统曾宣称，“我的人民承受的沉重负担”给了他“提供救济的义不容辞的责任”。 |
| Yet he had little to offer. The fortunes of his country of 600,000 people were caught in the geopolitical crossfire, its access to aid delayed by the conflict between the United States and China. | 然而，他几乎束手无策。这个60万人口国家的命运遭受了地缘政治的池鱼之殃，美国与中国的冲突推迟了苏里南获得援助的机会。 |
| The following week, a delegation from the International Monetary Fund would arrive from Washington to prod Mr. Santokhi’s administration to advance a round of spending cuts. Budget austerity was the central requirement for the fund’s rescue program — a three-year, $690 million package of low-interest loans designed to give Suriname the wherewithal to continue payments on $2.4 billion in foreign debts. | 下周，国际货币基金组织的一个代表团将从华盛顿来这里督促单多吉政府推动一轮削减支出。缩紧预算是国际货币基金组织救援计划的核心要求，这笔为期三年、6.9亿美元的一揽子低息贷款让该国有资金继续偿还24亿美元的外债。 |
| The I.M.F. and its most influential participant, the United States, also wanted something else: They were adamant that Chinese creditors restructure $545 million in debt — loans Suriname had used to build roads and housing. | 国际货币基金组织及其最有影响力的参与者——美国还想得到其他东西：他们坚持要求中国的债权方重组苏里南欠下的5.45亿美元的债务，这笔钱已用在修建道路和住房上。 |
| The challenges facing Suriname illustrate one of the new complexities in global finance. As scores of middle- and lower-income countries grapple with an intensifying debt crisis, assistance is often held up by conflict between traditionally dominant Western institutions and a significant rising player: China. | 苏里南面临的挑战体现出全球金融出现的一个新的复杂性。许多中低收入国家在应对日益严重的债务危机上面临困难之际，对他们的援助常常面临阻碍，原因是历史上占主导地位的西方机构与一个重要的后起之秀——中国发生了冲突。 |
| In decades past, the International Monetary Fund — a central component of the liberal democratic order forged by the United States and its allies at the end of World War II — was the only source of cash for nations that struggled to pay their bills. China has since emerged as a major lender for countries from Asia to Africa to Latin America. Its financial institutions dispense loans accompanied by few demands, providing an alternative to the austerity prescribed by the I.M.F. | 过去几十年里，作为美国及其盟国在第二次世界大战结束后建立的自由民主秩序的核心组成部分，国际货币基金组织曾是面临还贷困难的国家唯一的资金来源。后来，中国成了向亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲国家提供贷款的主要国家。中国金融机构提供贷款时几乎不附加任何要求，为借贷国提供了一个无需按照国际货币基金组织的规定紧缩财政的选择。 |
| But as strapped governments negotiate with creditors to diminish their debt burdens, the I.M.F. and the Biden administration have balked at providing relief until Chinese financial institutions participate. Otherwise, they assert, Chinese lenders are free-riding on debt forgiveness extended by others. | 但陷入困境的政府与债权方谈判减轻债务负担时，国际货币基金组织和拜登政府不愿在中国金融机构参与之前提供援助。他们坚称，中国放款方不参与减债谈判，是在搭其他提供债务减免国家的便车。 |
| “China now needs to step up as a constructive force in assisting debt-stressed countries,” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said during a speech in April at the Brookings Institution. | “中国现在需要站出来，成为帮助面临债务压力国家的建设性力量，”美国国家安全顾问沙利文今年4月在布鲁金斯学会发表讲话时说。 |
| Yet an increasingly assertive Chinese government has refused to bow to Washington — not to the I.M.F., and not to its largest shareholder, the United States. | 然而，日益强势的中国政府拒绝屈从于华盛顿，也拒绝屈从于国际货币基金组织及其最大股东美国。 |
| “The I.M.F. gives some parameters relating to the debt relief, but for us I think it is not binding,” said a Chinese diplomat in Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could speak openly. “China will negotiate only with the Surinamese government.” | “国际货币基金组织给出了一些与债务减免有关的参数，但我认为这些参数对我们没有约束力，”苏里南首都帕拉马里博的一名中国外交官说，他为了能公开讨论此事要求不具名。“中国只与苏里南政府谈判。” |
| All of which underscores the pressures bearing on countries from Ghana to Ethiopia to Pakistan, each facing escalating debts, much of it to state-owned Chinese lenders. | 所有这些凸显了加纳、埃塞俄比亚、巴基斯坦等国面临的压力，它们都面临着不断增长的债务，其中大部分的债权方是中国的国有银行。 |
| Last week, the government of Zambia hailed an agreement securing a three-year reprieve on payments for $6.3 billion in debt, the bulk of it to Chinese lenders. That cleared the way for the I.M.F. to release $188 million in relief funds under a $1.3 billion rescue package. The arrangement came only after a year and a half of torturous negotiations that left Zambia’s finances in a precarious state. | 上周，赞比亚政府对一项确保其缓期三年偿还63亿美元债务的协议表示欢迎，这些债务的大部分放贷者是中国机构。协议为国际货币基金组织向赞比亚发放1.88亿美元救助资金扫清了道路，这笔资金是一个13亿美元救助计划的一部分。该安排是经过了一年半的艰难谈判才达成的，谈判在这期间让赞比亚的财政处于不稳定状况。 |
| Global trouble frequently leaves lower-income countries confronting untenable financial obligations. The current wave of calamity is especially wrenching — the product of years of low interest rates, which encouraged borrowing, combined with the misery of the pandemic, which added to burdens on health care systems as economies contracted. | 全球性的问题经常让低收入国家面临难以维持的债务。当前这波灾难尤其令人痛苦，它与多年来的低利率有关（低利率鼓励了借贷），而新冠疫情增加了医疗系统的负担，在经济萎缩的同时加重了痛苦。 |
| This time, resolution has been vexed by the evolving hostilities between the world’s two largest economies. | 这次灾难的解决方案一直是个难题，因为世界上两个最大的经济体正在一步步走向对抗。 |
| “If there is one obligation for the powers that be, whether it is China or the U.S., it’s to provide some certainty and security to the world,” said Suriname’s foreign minister, Albert Ramdin. “Uncertainty will create anxiety and will make countries choose sides.” | “无论是中国还是美国，如果说掌握大权的国家有一项义务的话，那就是为世界提供某种程度的确定性和安全性，”苏里南外交部长阿尔贝特·拉姆丁说。“不确定性将引发焦虑，迫使各国选边站队。” |
| A so-called Common Framework crafted nearly three years ago by the Group of 20 nations is supposed to provide a template for what happens when countries sink into insolvency. Governments, private creditors and institutions like the International Monetary Fund are to coordinate debt restructurings, allowing strapped nations to manage their future payments. | 20国集团在差不多三年前制定的所谓“共同框架”本该提供一个模板，让人们知道当国家陷入破产时要做些什么。按照这个框架，政府、私人债权方，以及国际货币基金组织等机构应该在债务重组上进行协调，让陷入困境的国家能解决它们未来的还债问题。 |
| But the I.M.F. serves as the default arbiter of the terms. With the Chinese government unwilling to assent, the system tends to seize up. | 但国际货币基金组织是这个框架下条款的默认仲裁者。由于中国政府不愿意接受这一安排，这个系统往往会停止运转。 |
| “You have new creditors that want to have a say over what the rules of the game should be,” said Daniel Munevar, a sovereign debt expert at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva. | “现在的问题是，新的债权方想对游戏的规则有发言权，”位于日内瓦的联合国贸易和发展会议的主权债务专家丹尼尔·穆内瓦尔说。 |
| The concerns of ordinary people in indebted nations are typically “nowhere to be seen,” Mr. Munevar added. Rather, they are subsumed by politically loaded negotiations that cater to the interests of creditors. | 负债国家普通民众的担忧一般“不可能被考虑进去”，穆内瓦尔补充道。相反，他们被纳入到迎合债权方利益、充满政治考量的债务谈判中。 |
| In Suriname, the costs are borne by families in places like the Sunny Point neighborhood, south of the capital. | 在苏里南，承担代价的是位于首都南部的森尼波因特等社区的家庭。 |
| Mametoen Misiedjan, 26, and her 4-month-old daughter were crammed into her mother-in-law’s two-bedroom concrete home with her three sisters-in-law and their eight children. The toddlers played in the dirt, alongside a ditch coursing with sewage. | 玛米托恩·米西詹现年26岁，她和4个月大的女儿、三个嫂子和她们的八个孩子挤在婆婆家的混凝土两居室房子里。两三岁的孩子们在泥土里玩耍，旁边是一条流着污水的小沟。 |
| She had moved in recently, after the rent on her own home became impossible. | 米西詹已经负担不起自己租房住，她最近搬到了婆婆家。 |
| Ms. Misiedjan worried about how she would pay for diapers, and whether her breast milk would be affected after she had to reduce her food portions because of mounting costs for rice, vegetables and chicken. | 米西詹担心买尿布的钱从哪里来，担心自己的奶水会不会受节食的影响，因为大米、蔬菜和鸡肉的价格上涨，她不得不少吃东西。 |
| “I don’t have any hope left,” she said. “I sit and cry.” | “我已经没有任何希望了，”她说。“只能坐着哭。” |
| The new president inherited an economy that contracted by nearly 16 percent over 2020. The currency eventually lost 80 percent of its value. | 苏里南的新总统接手的经济在2020年收缩了近16%。该国货币最终贬值了80%。 |
| That increased the cost of imports, from gasoline to staple foods. The inflation rate peaked at 74 percent in 2021, and remains near 60 percent. | 货币贬值增加了从汽油到主食等所有东西的进口成本。通货膨胀率曾在2021年最高时达到74%，现仍维持在60%左右的水平。 |
| The amount of government revenue required to manage Suriname’s debt payments increased to 25.3 percent last year from 13.6 percent in 2022, according to Debt Justice, an advocacy organization. | 据倡导组织“债务正义”(Debt Justice)的数据，偿还苏里南债务所需资金占政府收入的比例从2022年的13.6%增加到去年的25.3%。 |
| That left less money for everything else. | 这使得用于其他方面的资金变得更少了。 |
| At ‘S Lands Hospital in downtown Paramaribo, surgeries now require the improvised substitution of drugs and anesthetics to replace those that have become too expensive. | 在帕拉马里博市中心的‘S Lands医院，由于药品和麻醉剂价格过于高昂，现在做手术都是临时找来替代品。 |
| “The alarm bells are ringing,” said the hospital’s Dutch-educated medical director, Soenita Nannan Panday-Gopisingh. | “正在发出危险信号，”这家医院的医疗部主任、曾在荷兰接受教育的苏妮塔·南楠·潘岱-高毕辛格说。 |
| Seeing no alternative, Mr. Santokhi’s government returned to the I.M.F. | 单多吉的政府看不到别的选择，只能去找国际货币基金组织。 |
| In March 2022, the fund released another $55 million. Two months later, an I.M.F. delegation visited Suriname and announced that the government was entitled to receive its next infusion of cash. | 2022年3月，国际货币基金组织向苏里南发放了5500万美元。两个月后，一个国际货币基金组织代表团访问了苏里南，并宣布苏里南政府有权获得下一次资金注入。 |
| But the board never followed with a vote — an extraordinary deviation from the I.M.F. process. | 但国际货币基金组织董事会从未对此进行投票，奇怪地偏离了其发放资金的过程。 |
| The delay reflected the concerns of a powerful actor: The U.S. Treasury — which handles the American relationship with the I.M.F. — pressured the fund to withhold the money to compel China to commit to debt relief, according to two sources involved with the process. | 推迟发放资金反映出一个有影响力角色的担忧——美国财政部，这是美国负责管理与国际货币基金组织关系的部门。据两名参与了发放资金过程的知情人士透露，财政部向国际货币基金组织施压，要求其暂缓发放资金，以迫使中国承诺减免苏里南的债务。 |
| In Congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently described the I.M.F. and the World Bank as “an important counterweight to nontransparent, unsustainable lending from others like China.” | 财政部长耶伦最近在国会听证会上将国际货币基金组织和世界银行描述为“对来自中国等其他国家的不透明、不可持续的贷款的重要平衡”。 |
| That prompted a rebuke from the Chinese government. “The I.M.F. is not the ‘International Monetary Fund of the United States,’” a foreign ministry spokesman said at a news conference. | 这个说法引发了中国政府的批评。“国际货币基金组织不是‘美国国际货币基金组织’，”中国外交部的发言人在例行记者会上说。 |
| In May, private bondholders agreed to forgive 25 percent of their Surinamese debt in exchange for a guarantee of proceeds from recent offshore oil finds. | 今年5月，苏里南国债的私人持有者同意免除25%的债务，条件是确保他们从最近的近海石油发现中受益。 |
| This month, the fund released another $53 million, while praising Suriname’s government for “restoring fiscal discipline.” | 本月，国际货币基金组织又向苏里南发放了5300万美元的资金，同时表扬苏里南政府“恢复了财政控制”。 |
| While officials in Washington and Beijing analyze ledgers, Suriname’s people continue to grapple with grave scarcity. | 在华盛顿和北京的官员分析苏里南的收支总账时，当地民众仍在艰难地应对严重的物资短缺问题。 |
| Just before 11 on a sweltering Tuesday morning in May, four dozen schoolteachers gathered alongside the muddy Suriname River, taking refuge under a leafy almond tree. They prepared to march toward the presidential palace to demand higher wages. | 今年5月一个闷热的周二上午11点前，在浑浊的苏里南河畔一棵枝繁叶茂的杏树下，近50名教师聚集起来。他们准备前往总统府游行，要求提高工资。 |
| Eufrazia Martin, 48, a teacher at a public high school, had seen the value of her pay reduced to $200 a month from about $800 as the national currency plunged. | 现年48岁的欧弗拉西亚·马丁是一所公立高中的教师，由于货币贬值，她的工资从每月约合800美元左右降到仅200美元。 |
| She was able to feed her family with help from relatives in the Netherlands. Many of her students were less fortunate. | 因为有在荷兰的亲戚的帮助，她还能养家糊口。她的许多学生就没有那么幸运了。 |
| “There are children every day that come and say, ‘I’m hungry,’” she said. | “每天都有孩子走过来说‘我饿’，”她说。 |
| Some children did not make it to school because their families could not afford to pay for the minibus as fares increased with the price of gas. | 有些孩子不再来上学，因为随着油价上涨，他们已经买不起小巴票了。 |
| Some were too tired to concentrate on their studies because they were working after-school jobs to help their families. | 有些学生太累，无法集中精力学习，因为他们在放学后要去打工，帮助养家。 |
| Some girls sold themselves to men to earn money for their households, became pregnant and dropped out of school. | 有些女生为了帮家里挣钱卖身给男人，然后怀了孕，不得不辍学。 |
| Ms. Martin was headed into the cabinet office for a meeting with the president. | 接受采访时，马丁正在前往内阁办公室与总统开会的路上。 |
| She and a handful of other leaders stepped into the building, as leaden skies gave way to a downpour. Fifteen minutes later, they were back outside. | 就在倾盆大雨从阴沉的天空降下时，她和其他几名游行的领导者走进了大楼。15分钟后，他们出来了。 |
| “They told us that the president could not be found,” she declared as a crowd of roughly 100 protesters erupted into jeering chants. | “他们告诉我们，总统不知哪去了，”她对大约100名抗议者说，人群爆发出嘲笑的呼喊声。 |
| “The president is hiding,” they hollered in Dutch. | “总统躲起来了，”他们用荷兰语喊道。 |
| Ms. Martin was willing to consider that the president might simply be unable to come up with any money. But she could not countenance his failure to show up. | 马丁能接受总统也许根本拿不出钱来的可能性。但她无法接受总统干脆不露面的做法。 |
| “It’s disrespectful,” she said. “If he comes and talks to us, maybe we would understand.” | “这是不尊重，”她说。“如果他出面与我们对话，也许我们会理解。” |
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