苏按：路透社报道德国首相默克尔最近的言论，值得玩味。如今粮食紧张，粮价攀升，她认为原因不在别处，在于发展中国家生活水平的提高——印度人吃起两顿了，中国人喝起牛奶了。我们也要过好日子和他们气儿不打一处来，构成了我们和他们之间关系的本质。这次西方从百姓到政客到媒体对中国的一脸凶相明白无误，根本不是欧莱雅之类法国化妆品所能掩盖的。这类化妆品的中国经销商和推销员最近舌弊唇焦，说西方人生中国的气是因为中国政治制度有问题，中国要是把毛主席纪念堂扒了盖国会山，他们就不会生气了。俄罗斯倒是把什么都扒了，西方照样不依不饶。两度“脱亚入欧”的日本1970、1980年代冒了点尖，西方的话就很难听。印度久行“宪政”，但最近不安贫乐道，要加一顿饭，默克尔就有意见了。这些，经销商推销员们是看不见的，看见了也不会说的。
一则有助于理解中国与西方关系本质的报道
Bad policy, not biofuel, drive food prices - Merkel
Thu 17 Apr 2008, 15:04 GMT
BERLIN (Reuters) - Bad agricultural policies and changing eating habits in developing nations are primarily to blame for rising food prices, not biofuel production as some critics claim, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
Environmentalists and humanitarian groups have stepped up campaigning against biofuels, arguing they divert production away from food and animal feed while contributing to sharp rises in the price of cereals and milk products.
But Merkel, whose country is Europe's largest biofuel producer, said the rise in food prices was not mainly due to biofuels but to "inadequate agricultural policies in developing countries" as well as "insufficient forecasts of changes in nutritional habits" in emerging markets.
"If you travel to India these days, then a main part of the debate is about the 'second meal'," Merkel said.
"People are eating twice a day, and if a third of one billion people in India do that, it adds up to 300 million people. That's a large part of the European Union," she said.
"And if they suddenly consume twice as much food as before and if 100 million Chinese start drinking milk too, then of course our milk quotas become skewed, and much else too," she said referring to EU limits on dairy production.
Biofuels, which are seen by supporters as a way to increase energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are made mainly from food crops such as grains, oilseeds and sugar.
Critics argue there are few, if any, environmental benefits for so-called first generation biofuels. They have also been blamed for increasing grain demand and pushing up prices at a time of growing threat of famine in some parts of the world.
The FAO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have said biofuels were "one of the main drivers" for forecasts of food price increases of 20 percent to 50 percent by 2016.
