Driving through the dusty street of Beijing’s southern depot, the air is heavy with grumbling.

　　駕車駛過北京南部貨運站那條塵土飛揚的街道時，耳邊一片抱怨之聲。

　　"Business is no good," says Liu, a wizened driver from Henan province. “I’ve got rent to pay, a kid in college, and I can hardly find work.” Diesel prices have soared, he complains, but “our revenue hasn’t gone up one bit”.

　　“生意不好，”來自河南、身材干瘦的司機老劉說道。“我得付房租，還有個孩子在念大學(xué)，很難找到活兒。”他抱怨說，柴油價格猛漲，但“我們的收入?yún)s一點兒都沒漲”。

　　A strike by truck drivers at Shanghai’s port led to pitched battles with security forces last week, illustrating just how volatile the politics of high fuel prices can be in China. Operations at what is, by some measures, the world’s largest port appeared to be returning to normal on Sunday evening after the Shanghai city government ordered authorities to cut fees and reduce road tolls in a bid to get drivers back to work.

　　上周，上海港的貨車司機舉行罷工，并與安全部門發(fā)生了激烈沖突。這顯示出高油價在中國可以造成的政治不穩(wěn)。沖突爆發(fā)后，上海市政府命令有關(guān)部門減免多項收費，并降低過路費，以期讓司機們重返工作崗位。周日晚間，上海港的運營似乎在逐步恢復(fù)正常。從一些指標來看，上海港是全球第一大港口。

　　But the complaints of Shanghai’s truck drivers as they slowly return to work are being echoed across the country as high fuel prices cut into profit margins for China’s independent truckers.

　　但由于高油價擠壓了中國個體貨車司機的利潤，就在上海的貨車司機慢慢復(fù)工之際，全國各地都出現(xiàn)了類似的抱怨。

　　China’s transportation sector is struggling to cope after the government raised fuel prices twice this year in response to increasing global oil prices.

　　隨著全球油價不斷上漲，中國政府今年已兩次提高燃油價格，令中國的運輸行業(yè)難以招架。

　　Trucking is big business in China, with road freight revenues amounting to $129.7bn last year, according to research from Datamonitor. And for young men from the countryside, buying a truck to tap into that sector is a big step up the economic ladder.

　　中國貨車運輸業(yè)規(guī)模十分龐大。Datamonitor的研究顯示，去年，中國公路貨運收入總額高達1297億美元。對于農(nóng)村地區(qū)的年輕人而言，購置一輛卡車跑貨運，可以大大改善經(jīng)濟狀況。

　　But while almost everyone else in China has seen their incomes increase in recent years, truckers have experienced the reverse, with fuel price rises the main reason for that.

　　但近年來，雖然幾乎每個中國人的收入都在增長，貨車司機的境遇卻恰恰相反，主要原因就是油價上漲。

　　State-set diesel prices are at historic highs, with China’s diesel price now more than 30 percent above its 2008 peak due to recent reforms. For independent truckers, their vehicles have become a burden.

　　由政府決定的柴油價格目前處于歷史高位。最近幾次調(diào)價后，中國目前的柴油價格較2008年的此前最高水平高出逾30%。對于個體貨車司機而言，他們的車輛已成為一種負擔(dān)。

　　"We have no way out, and that’s the truth,” Mr Liu says. He has tried selling the truck he bought for Rmb30,000 ($4,600), roughly three years’ salary, after working on construction sites for 20 years, so he can try his hand at something else. But he has not been able to find a buyer.

　　“說老實話，我們已經(jīng)沒有出路了，”老劉說道。在建筑工地上跑了20年后，他試圖賣掉當初以3萬元人民幣（合4600美元，大概相當于他3年的工資）買來的卡車。這樣，他就能試著做些其它事情。但他一直找不到買家。

　　In Shanghai, drivers tell similar stories of hardship. “Most of us live in small communal rooms with our families,” said a truck driver in Shanghai’s Baoshan port. “There are no kitchens, no bathrooms.”

　　上海的貨車司機們也講述著類似的艱辛故事。“我們大部分人都和家人住在狹小的合租屋內(nèi)，”上海寶山港的一位貨車司機說道。“沒有廚房，也沒有洗手間。”

　　A driver there can earn Rmb70,000 to Rmb80,000 a year, excluding maintenance and living costs, he says, but most of this is eaten up by freight agents and management companies. “The logistics companies give us the same pay today as they did several years ago when diesel was just Rmb4 a litre,” he says. Diesel now costs twice that amount.

　　他表示，除去車輛維修保養(yǎng)費和生活成本，那里的司機每年可以掙到7萬至8萬元人民幣，但其中大部分落到了貨運公司和管理公司手中。“物流公司給我們的工資，與幾年前柴油價格還是每升4塊錢的時候一樣，”他說。目前，柴油價格較那時已經(jīng)漲了一倍。

　　One problem is that there are so many independent truckers in China that each feels they will lose business if they raise their prices even slightly. That overcapacity also makes clan ties and provincial origins particularly important in determining who gets work, and several trucking groups in the Shanghai ports are organised around provincial delineations.

　　這個行業(yè)面臨的一個問題是，中國的個體貨車司機如此之多，以至于所有人都覺得，自己哪怕是稍稍提價，都會丟掉生意。這種供應(yīng)過剩也讓貨運公司在決定給誰派活時，特別看重派系和同鄉(xiāng)關(guān)系。在上海港，就有數(shù)家貨運集團只招收同省人。

　　Truckers are not the only ones to be hit by high oil prices, part of the reason authorities were so swift to stifle any news of the strikes and violence in Shanghai. Taxi drivers have also been complaining loudly. Two weeks ago Beijing doubled the fuel surcharge for long trips in a bid to appease taxi drivers’ complaints.

　　貨車司機并非唯一受高油價沖擊的群體，這也部分解釋了當局為何如此迅速封鎖了有關(guān)上海罷工和暴力事件的消息。出租車司機也滿腹怨言。兩周前，北京將長距離車程的燃油附加費上調(diào)一倍，以平息出租車司機的怨言。

　　Chinese taxi drivers have historically been relatively quick to organise. In late 2008 a strike by taxi drivers in Chongqing inspired similar actions in Guangzhou, Sanya, Shantou and other cities. Earlier this year, cabbies in Zhengzhou briefly went on strike to protest against a new overtime rule.

　　中國的出租車司機歷來都能夠較快組織起來。2008年底，重慶出租車司機罷工，引發(fā)廣州、三亞、汕頭等多個城市的類似行動。今年早些時候，鄭州司機進行了短暫罷工，抗議該市新出臺的加班規(guī)定。

　　"Besides manufacturing and industrial workers, taxi drivers are the ones who have the biggest record of having gone on strike in recent years," says Andrew Gilholm, Shanghai-based analyst at Control Risks, a consultancy. “Often it has been about fees as much as fuel prices. But because of their unusual position in terms of being able to co- ordinate and disrupt, they are a bit of a special case.”

　　“除了制造業(yè)和產(chǎn)業(yè)工人，出租車司機是近年來罷工次數(shù)最多的群體，”咨詢機構(gòu)“控制風(fēng)險”(Control Risks)駐上海分析師安德魯?吉洛姆(Andrew Gilholm)說。“他們罷工往往是因為收費或燃油價格。但由于他們在協(xié)作能力強、可以打亂秩序，這個群體有些特殊。”