中国必须学会如何做一个大国（中英双语）

青岛希尼尔翻译咨询有限公司（www.sinosenior.com）整理发布  2015-11-06

青岛希尼尔翻译公司（www.sinosenior.com）2015年11月6日了解到：几天前，当一艘美国军舰驶过南中国海时，中国方面表示了抗议，它的邻国则表示欢迎。美国政府表示，自己的行为是面对中国填海造岛工程而采取的维护航行自由的举措——这些填海造岛工程正在将有争议的礁石变成人造岛屿。中国政府则警告称，在该地区没有主权声索的局外人不要采取挑衅行为。这令我们其他人想起修昔底德(Thucydides)的《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中的可悲宿命论。China must learn how to be a great power   When a US warship steamed through the South China Sea the other day China protested and her neighbours applauded. Washington said it was upholding freedom of navigation in the face of Chinese land reclamation projects that are turning disputed rocks into artificial islands. Beijing warned against provocation from an outsider with no claims of its own in the region. The rest of us were reminded of the dismal determinism of Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian war.

The demonstration of US naval power — the ship sailed in waters deemed territorial by China — pointed up the multiple collisions of competing historical claims, geography and shifting power balances fuelling an East Asian arms race. Some say there are now as many submarines prowling the waters of the western Pacific as there once were in the north Atlantic. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia also contest the “nine-dash line” that asserts Chinese suzerainty over the South China Sea. Tokyo and Beijing are locked in a separate dispute in the East China Sea. 美国军舰驶入被中国视为领海的水域，这种展示海军实力的行为，凸显出助长东亚军备竞赛的多方面碰撞。这些碰撞包括彼此冲突的历史主张、地缘以及不断改变的实力对比。一些人表示，如今西太平洋海域下潜行的潜艇，与曾经游弋在北大西洋的潜艇一样多。越南、菲律宾和马来西亚也对宣示中国对南中国海拥有宗主权的“九段线”提出异议。此外，日本和中国还在东中国海陷入了另一场争端。

Just before the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen set its course, I joined the serried senior ranks of the People’s Liberation Army at China’s annual international security conference in Beijing. I have never seen so many starred epaulettes. 就在导弹驱逐舰拉森号(USS Lassen)启航之前，我和众多中国人民解放军(PLA)高级军官一道，参加了在北京召开的一个中国年度国际安全会议。在这以前，我从未见过如此多的肩膀上扛着星星的将官。

The Xiangshan Forum, hosted by the Chinese Association for Military Science, is another sign of the changing times. Not so long ago the PLA was, in the minds of westerners, an ineffably secret, some would have said sinister, organisation. The Xiangshan meeting, a competitor of sorts to Singapore’s long-running Shangri La Dialogue, speaks to a military establishment that now wants to be heard on the international stage. 这个名为香山论坛(Xiangshan Forum)的会议由中国军事科学学会(Chinese Association for Military Science)主办，它是时代变革的另一个表现。就在不久以前，在西方人的意识中，中国人民解放军还是一个隐秘得难以言状的组织（有人或许还会用邪恶来形容它）。香山论坛在某种程度上是新加坡由来已久的香格里拉对话(Shangri La Dialogue)的竞争者，代表一个希望自己的声音在国际舞台上被听到的军事力量。

China’s rise has come faster than its own leadership imagined, in part because of the immense damage inflicted on the west by the 2008 financial crash. Beijing now has to learn what it means to be a great power. This is not meant to sound patronising. Rather it is a description of reality. After two centuries, first as a victim of, and then largely a bystander at, global events, China has emerged in the space of a couple of decades as second only to the US. 中国的崛起速度甚至超出了其领导人的想象，这部分是由于2008年金融危机对西方造成了巨大打击。中国现在必须弄明白成为一个大国意味着什么。成为大国并不意味着语气上要高人一等，而是对现实情况的一种描述。过去的两个世纪中，中国先是全球事件的受害者，后来又在很大程度上做了全球事务的旁观者。如今，中国在短短几十年的时间里已成为仅次于美国的第二大国。

This is not as easy as it sounds, especially since pretty much everyone else in the neighbourhood would have preferred things to have remained as they were. China is discovering that, like its neighbours, it too must adjust to China’s rise. I caught a small glimpse of this in the Xiangshan discussions. The PLA was founded as a land force to defend Chinese territory against external aggression. Now the generals are slashing troop numbers as they look to build expeditionary reach with naval and air power. This is what rising powers do. Yet I have the impression they are puzzling about how to make the transition. 这种局面并没有听上去那么轻松，尤其是，在中国的邻国中，差不多每个人都宁可让事情保持原来的样子。中国也正在认识到，与邻国一样，它也必须适应自身的崛起。在香山论坛的讨论中，我看到了一点点这种认识的迹象。解放军在成立时，是保卫中国领土免遭外来侵略的陆军力量。如今，中国的将军们正在大幅裁减陆军，同时寻求用海、空军打造远程力量投射。这正是崛起中的大国所做的事情。然而，我有一种印象是，他们对如何完成这种转型十分迷惑。

Likewise, the nation’s civilian policymakers often struggle to find the balance between assertion of what they see as China’s rightful claims and recognition that rising powers need to reassure. To western ears, there is a dissonance between loud proclamations of inalienable sovereignty over disputed territory and quiet assurances, heard many times at the forum, that Beijing will never use military force in order to prevail. 同样，中国的文职政策制定者一方面主张他们眼中中国的正当诉求，一方面承认崛起中的大国需要打消世界的疑虑，他们通常很难把握两者的平衡。对西方听众来说，中国表现不协调的是，一方面大声宣告对有争议领土拥有不可剥夺的主权，一方面又多次在论坛上轻轻地安抚称，中国将永远不会动用武力称霸世界。

What marks out President Xi Jinping from his predecessors is his determination at once to concentrate his personal authority at home — the old collective leadership has been dismantled — and project power abroad. The land reclamation works in the South China Sea are one manifestation of the latter aim; to my mind, the One Belt, One Road strategy to build Chinese influence across Eurasia is a still more ambitious one. 中国国家主席习近平与其前任不同的是，他决意一方面在国内树立个人权威（旧日的集体领导制已经解体），另一方面在国外投射力量。在南中国海的填海造岛工程是其第二个目标的体现；在我看来，打造中国在欧亚地区影响力的“一带一路”战略是一个更为雄心勃勃的体现。

Mr Xi’s decision to hold talks with Taiwan’s outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou — the first such meeting since Taiwan broke from the mainland in 1949 — also suggests a leader willing to take risks. The meeting may be seen to have badly backfired if Mr Ma’s KTM loses to the more overtly nationalistic Democrat Progressives in January’s elections. 习近平决定与即将卸任的台湾总统马英九举行会面——这是自1949年两岸分治以来的首次此类会晤——这也表明他是一位愿意冒险的领导人。如果马英九所在的国民党在明年1月的选举中输给更明显支持台湾独立的民进党，此次会晤可能被视为具有严重的不利影响。

Beijing has a point when it says that things cannot stay the same. Its strongest argument is also the simplest: the world has changed. The range and complexity of China’s economic and security interests have multiplied. Like other great powers, it must assume a role in policing the global commons. To say that the old balance must not be disturbed is to defy the facts of geopolitics. You cannot look at the 21st century through the eyes of the 20th. Oh, and when last did a rising power not seek control over its coastal waters? 北京方面表示，情况不可能一成不变，它说到了点子上。中国最有力的观点也是最简单的观点：世界已经改变。中国经济和安全利益的广度和复杂性已经倍增。与其他大国一样，中国必须在全球事务上拥有发言权。有人说，旧的平衡不能被打破。这是在无视地缘政治的事实。你不能以20世纪的眼光来看21世纪。哦，上一次一个崛起中的大国不寻求控制其沿海水域是什么时候？

Yet it is equally natural that Beijing’s ambitions jar with the US. America’s presence in East Asia has been the guarantor of regional peace. What is more, the US is an East Asian power by invitation. China’s neighbouring states have been asking for a bigger not a smaller US presence. Vietnam is cross because Washington will not sell it sufficiently sophisticated weaponry. Think about it. The big criticism from most regional powers of President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia is that it has been too timid. 然而，同样正常的是，中国的抱负与美国不一致。美国在东亚的存在一直是地区和平的保证。此外，美国是受到邀请才来到东亚的。中国的邻国一直要求增强而不是减弱美国的存在。越南感到不满，是因为华盛顿不会向其出售足够高端的武器。想一想吧。大多数地区强国对美国总统巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)“重返亚洲”战略的主要批评是，该战略过于怯懦。

East Asia will not stay the same for the simple reason that China’s rise has remade the landscape. America cannot hold on to a primacy that has already been lost. But nor can China claim its own hegemony. A new order must accommodate both. Any effort from either side to prove otherwise would tell us only that, like Sparta and Athens, they are doomed to collide. 东亚将不会保持原状，原因很简单，中国崛起已经重塑了版图。美国不可能保持业已失去的主导地位。但中国也不可能主张自己的霸权。新的秩序必须容纳中美两国。任何一方若试图证明并非如此，结果都只会告诉我们，与斯巴达和雅典一样，它们注定会发生冲突。

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