A special report on China's place in the world世界之中国

A special report on China's place in the world
世界之中国

Brushwood and gall
卧薪尝胆

China insists that its growing military and diplomatic clout pose no threat. The rest of the world, and particularly America, is not so sure, says Edward Carr
中国强调其不断增长的军事和外交影响力不存在威胁。但爱德华卡尔（Edward Carr）认为，世界其他国家尤其是美国并不确定。

Dec 2nd 2010 | from PRINT EDITION
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IN 492BC, at the end of the "Spring and Autumn" period in Chinese history, Goujian, the king of Yue in modern Zhejiang, was taken prisoner after a disastrous campaign against King Fuchai, his neighbour to the north. Goujian was put to work in the royal stables where he bore his captivity with such dignity that he gradually won Fuchai's respect. After a few years Fuchai let him return home as his vassal.
公元前492年，春秋末期，越王勾践与东北部的吴王夫差大战，惨败后被俘。吴王夫差让勾践当他的马夫，在吴宫的马棚里，勾践渡过了他的囚禁生活并逐渐赢得了夫差的敬重。几年后，勾践答应向夫差称臣就被放回了越国。

Goujian never forgot his humiliation. He slept on brushwood and hung a gall bladder in his room, licking it daily to feed his appetite for revenge. Yue appeared loyal, but its gifts of craftsmen and timber tempted Fuchai to build palaces and towers even though the extravagance ensnared him in debt. Goujian distracted him with Yue's most beautiful women, bribed his officials and bought enough grain to empty his granaries. Meanwhile, as Fuchai's kingdom declined, Yue grew rich and raised a new army.
但是，勾践从未忘记这个奇耻大辱。他睡觉睡在柴草上，并于房里挂了一个苦胆，每日舔一舔以提醒自己勿忘复仇。勾践虽然高贵，但他却向吴王夫差示弱，给吴王献上很多精美的手工艺品和大量木材以引诱夫差大兴土木宫殿，即使这样的放纵让他背上债务。此外，勾践还用越国的美女分散夫差的精力，贿赂吴国的宰相并大量的买进吴国的粮食以挖空吴国粮仓。
期间，随着夫差的吴国逐渐衰落，越国却蒸蒸日上，兵强马壮。

Goujian bided his time for eight long years. By 482BC, confident of his superiority, he set off north with almost 50,000 warriors. Over several campaigns they put Fuchai and his kingdom to the sword.
勾践就这么等了八年，终于在公元前482年迎来了机会，他自信满满地带领了近5000精兵北上赴吴。几次战斗后，他们就打败了夫差，攻破了吴国。

The king who slept on brushwood and tasted gall is as familiar to Chinese as King Alfred and his cakes are to Britons, or George Washington and the cherry tree are to Americans. In the early 20th century he became a symbol of resistance against the treaty ports, foreign concessions and the years of colonial humiliation.
卧薪尝胆的越王勾践对中国人来说，类似于英国人所熟悉的阿尔佛列王和他的蛋糕的故事，再或者是华盛顿和樱桃树的故事之于美国人。在20世纪早期，"勾践"这个名字对于中国人来说意味着反抗口岸条约、外国租界以及殖民统治。

Taken like that, the parable of Goujian sums up what some people find alarming about China's rise as a superpower today. Ever since Deng Xiaoping set about reforming the economy in 1978, China has talked peace. Still militarily and economically too weak to challenge America, it has concentrated on getting richer. Even as China has grown in power and rebuilt its armed forces, the West and Japan have run up debts and sold it their technology. China has been patient, but the day when it can once again start to impose its will is drawing near.
引入越王勾践的故事很好的概括了一些人对中国崛起继而成为超级大国的警惕。自从1978年邓小平开始对外开放以来，中国就一直将和平放在嘴边。尽管军事和经济上太弱而不能挑战美国，但中国却一心一意谋发展。今天，中国已经这么强大并重建了其陆海空三军，而西方各国和日本则债台高筑并不断的向中国出卖各种技术。中国一直很耐心，但他能再次施威的日子也越来越近了。

However, Goujian's story has another reading, too. Paul Cohen, a Harvard scholar who has written about the king, explains that the Chinese today see him as an example of perseverance and dedication. Students are told that if they want to succeed they must be like King Goujian, sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall―that great accomplishments come only with sacrifice and unyielding purpose. This Goujian represents self-improvement and dedication, not revenge.
尽管，越王勾践的故事也有另外一种解读方式。哈佛学者PC也写到过越王勾践，他认为今天中国人只是将勾践作为执着于专注的榜样。学生们会被告知，假如想成功就必须向勾践学习，卧薪尝胆，因为伟大成就的前提是牺牲和坚定的信念。勾践代表的是自我实现和聚焦，而不是伺机报复。

Which Goujian will 21st-century China follow? Will it broadly fit in with the Western world, as a place where people want nothing more than a chance to succeed and enjoy the rewards of their hard work? Or, as its wealth and power begin to overshadow all but the United States, will China become a threat―an angry country set on avenging past wrongs and forcing others to bend to its will? China's choice of role, says Jim Steinberg, America's deputy secretary of state, is "the great question of our time". The peace and prosperity of the world depends on which path it takes.
21世纪的中国追求的是那个勾践呢？是广泛的融入到西方世界，作为一个人们仅仅是想有机会获得成功进而通过自己的努力工作获得回报的国度？还是随着其财富与实力逐渐超过美国以外的所有国家成为一个威胁---一个愤怒的国家，对以前其他国家对其进行的侮辱进行报复和反击，进而使他们臣服？美国副国务卿JS认为，中国的选择是"我们这个时代最大的问题"。世界的和平与繁荣有赖于中国的这个路径选择。

Some people argue that China is now too enmeshed in globalisation to put the world economy in jeopardy through war or coercion. Trade has brought prosperity. China buys raw materials and components from abroad and sells its wares in foreign markets. It holds $2.6 trillion of foreign-exchange reserves. Why should it pull down the system that has served it so well?
有些人认为，目前中国已经全面卷入到全球化中来了，以至于不可能通过战争或者高压政治将世界经济带入危险境地。贸易为期带来了繁荣。中国从世界各地进口原材料和元件并到海外市场卖出商品，目前坐拥2.6万亿美元的外汇储备，为什么要搞垮他从中受益的体系呢？

But that is too sanguine. In the past integration has sometimes gone before conflagration. Europe went up in flames in 1914 even though Germany was Britain's second-largest export market and Britain was Germany's largest. Japan got rich and fell in with the European powers before it brutally set about colonising Asia.
然而，上面的观点有些过分乐观了。过去，整合有时先于突发。即使德国是英国的第二大出口市场而英国是德国的第一大出口商，欧洲也依然在1914年走向了战争。日本在兽性地侵略亚洲之前仅仅是开始富裕并在很偶然的情况下与欧洲列强发生些摩擦。

Others go to the opposite extreme, arguing that China and America are condemned to be enemies. Ever since Sparta led the Peloponnesian League against Athens, they say, declining powers have failed to give way fast enough to satisfy rising powers. As China's economic and military strength increase, so will its sense of entitlement and its ambition. In the end patience will run out, because America will not willingly surrender leadership.
其他人则干脆走向另一个极端，认为中美势必反目。他们会说，自从斯巴达带领PC抗击雅典以来，没落的政权就没能及时的为正在崛起的势力誊出地方。随着中国经济和军事实力的增强，中国的权利意识和抱负也随之增强。最终，中国便不会再有耐心等待，因为美国也不会自动地的交出领导权。



Reasons for optimism
为什么乐观？

But that is too bleak. China clings to its territorial claims―over Taiwan, the South China Sea, various islands and with India. Yet, unlike the great powers before 1945, China is not looking for new colonies. And unlike the Soviet Union, China does not have an ideology to export. In fact, America's liberal idealism is far more potent than token Communism, warmed-up Confucianism or anything else that China has to offer. When two countries have nuclear weapons, a war may not be worth fighting.
这这回的观点又太悲观了。中国坚持自己的领土主张---台湾、南海、各种岛屿以及与印度的领土问题。然而，与1945年前的列强们相比，中国并未寻找新的殖民地。也不像苏联，中国并未输出什么意识形态。事实上，比起象征性的共产主义、提倡仁爱的儒家思想或者其他什么东西，美国的自由主义思想在中国更盛行些。而且，当两个国家都可以置对方于死地时，打仗是很愚昧的。

In the real world the dealings between rising and declining powers are not straightforward. Twice Britain feared that continental Europe would be dominated by an expansionary Germany and twice it went to war. Yet when America took world leadership from Britain, the two remained constant allies. After the second world war Japan and Germany rose from the ashes to become the world's second- and third-largest economies, without a whisper of a political challenge to the United States.
在现实世界中，崛起国家与衰退国家之间的交易其实不太好理解。英国曾先后两次担心欧洲大陆会被扩张的德国统治，然而欧洲却两次走向战争。然而，当美国从英国手中接过权杖后，英德两国却成了坚定地同盟。二战后，日德分别从废墟走向世界第二和第三大经济体，但却没有在政治上合谋进而挑战美国。

International-relations theorists have devoted much thought to the passing of empires. The insight of "power-transition theory" is that satisfied powers, such as post-war Germany and Japan, do not challenge the world order when they rise. But dissatisfied ones, such as pre-war Germany and Japan, conclude that the system shaped and maintained by the incumbent powers is rigged against them. In the anarchic arena of geopolitics they believe that they will be denied what is rightfully theirs unless they enforce their claim.
国际关系专家们已经就帝国的衰落给出了很多高见。"权力过渡理论"认为上升中利益得到满足的国家并不会挑战原有霸主，比如战后的德国和日本。而那些利益没有被满足的国家会认为正是原有霸主所主导的体系在限制他们的发展，比如战前的德国和日本。从地缘政治的无政府主义视角来看，这些国家认为，除非他们诉诸暴力，否则他们的正当诉求就不会受到重视和认可。

So for most of the past decade the two great powers edged towards what David Lampton, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, calls a double wager. China would broadly fall in with America's post-war order, betting that the rest of the world, eager for China's help and its markets, would allow it to grow richer and more powerful. America would not seek to prevent this rise, betting that prosperity would eventually turn China into one of the system's supporters―a "responsible stakeholder" in the language of Robert Zoellick, a deputy secretary of state under George Bush junior and now president of the World Bank.
约翰霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院的教授DL认为，过去十年的大多数时间里，两个超级大国正是按他所谓的双倍下注模型发展。考虑到世界各国都希望得到中国的帮助并进入中国市场，所以就中国在经济等各方面的崛起持肯定态度，那么中国也自然会广泛的认同美国的战后秩序。美国也不会试图阻止中国的崛起，因为中国的繁荣最终会让中国成为现有体系的支持者---用RZ的话来说中国其实是"可靠的持股人"，RZ目前是世界银行的行长，先前曾担任过布什政府的副国务卿。

For much of the past decade, barring the odd tiff, the wager worked. Before 2001 China and America fell out over Taiwan, the American bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade and a fatal mid-air collision between an American EP3 spy plane and a Chinese fighter. Many commentators back then thought that America and China were on a dangerous course, but Chinese and American leaders did not pursue it. Since then America has been busy with the war on terror and has sought plain dealing with China. American companies enjoyed decent access to Chinese markets. China lent the American government huge amounts of money.
过去十年的多数时间里，撇开小打小闹不说，赌注还是起到作用了。2001年前，美中关系因为台湾问题、美国轰炸南斯拉夫大使馆以及美国侦察机与中国飞行员空中冲突等事件走向恶化。当时许多评论员认为美中关系很危险，但两国领导人并没有在这些问题上纠缠不清。从那以后，美国一直忙于反恐战争并致力于以更坦诚的方式对待中国关系。美国企业也体面的进入了中国市场，中国则借给美国大量资金。

This suited China, which concluded long ago that the best way to build its "comprehensive national power" was through economic growth. According to its analysis, articulated in a series of white papers and speeches in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the country needed a "New Security Concept". Growth demanded stability, which in turn required that China's neighbours did not feel threatened.
这不正是中国先前一直坚持的所谓综合国力建设的最佳途径：发展才是硬道理。根据对其在20世纪90年代末和21世纪初的一系列白皮书和公开演讲的分析，中国需要一种"全新的安全理念"。稳定是发展的前提，这就反过来需要中国的诸邻国不至于太紧张。

To reassure them, China started to join the international organisations it had once shunned. As well as earning it credentials as a good citizen, this was also a safe way to counter American influence. China led the six-party talks designed to curb North Korea's nuclear programme. The government signed the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and by and large stopped proliferating weapons (though proliferation by rogue Chinese companies continued). It sent people on UN peacekeeping operations, supplying more of them than any other permanent member of the security council or any NATO country.
为了打消诸国的疑虑，中国开始积极参加各种国际组织，而在先前中国从不鸟这种类似于大学各种协会一样的无聊组织。另一方面还积极的争取受邀出访他国以示三好地球公民的形象，这也是抵消美国影响的一种好办法。中国曾领导过致力于解决朝鲜核计划的六方会谈。也曾在《全面禁止核试验条约》上签字，同时基本上停止了扩散性武器实验，尽管有些中国的无赖公司仍在继续该项研究。中国还向世界各地派出维和部队，数量比五个常任理事国或北约任何一个国家派出的都多。

Inevitably, there were still disputes and differences. But diplomats, policymakers and academics allowed themselves to believe that, in the nuclear age, China might just emerge peacefully as a new superpower. However, that confidence has recently softened. In the past few months China has fallen out with Japan over a fishing boat that rammed at least one if not two Japanese coastguard vessels off what the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands and the Chinese the Diaoyu Islands.
不可避免地，争议和分歧仍然存在。但外交官、政策制定者以及学者们都相信，在和战争时代，中国仅仅是作为一个超级大国和平崛起罢了。然而这种看法最近有些动摇了。不久前几个月，中日因在钓鱼岛（日方称之为尖阁诸岛）海域中方渔船冲撞了一只还是两只日本巡逻艇而发生纠纷。

Earlier, China failed to back South Korea over the sinking of a Korean navy corvette with the loss of 46 crew―even though an international panel had concluded that the Cheonan was attacked by a North Korean submarine. When America and South Korea reacted to the sinking by planning joint exercises in the Yellow Sea, China objected and got one of them moved eastward, to the Sea of Japan. And when North Korea shelled a South Korean island last month, China was characteristically reluctant to condemn it.
更早些时候，中国就朝鲜击沉韩国天安号巡洋舰一事保持沉默，即使一只国际专家组已经确认天安号确实为朝鲜潜艇所击沉，而该事件造成了韩方46名船员死亡。而再当美韩就天安号事件计划在黄海进行联合军演时，中国又立场鲜明的反对并要求他们再向东走走，到日本海演习。而当上个月朝鲜炮击韩国延坪岛时，中国则富有中国特色的不愿意站出来谴责朝鲜。

China has also begun to include territorial claims over large parts of the South China Sea among its six "primary concerns"―new language that has alarmed diplomats. When members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) complained about this in a meeting in Hanoi in the summer, China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, worked himself into a rage: "All of you remember how much of your economic prosperity depends on us," he reportedly spat back.
中国在其六件"基本关切之事"中已经开始概括其对大部分南海的领土要求，这是向其他国家外交官敲响警钟的新的表述方式。当东盟诸国今年夏天在河内的会上抱怨时，中国外交部部长杨洁篪立马变脸道："你们所有人给我记着，你们国家经济的繁荣都要依靠中国"，据说杨洁篪就是这么噎对方的。

Last year a vicious editorial in China's People's Daily attacked India after its prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visited disputed territory near Tibet; Barack Obama was shabbily treated, first on a visit to Beijing and later at the climate-change talks in Copenhagen, where a junior Chinese official wagged his finger at the leader of the free world; Chinese vessels have repeatedly harassed American and Japanese naval ships, including the USS John S. McCain and a survey vessel, the USNS Impeccable.
去年，印度总理辛格走访了西藏附近的存在争端的边境滞后，一个**的人民日报编辑就对印度进行了攻击；奥巴马访问北京以及随后的哥本哈根气候大会上就被这么对待过，当时一个中方的低层官员曾伸手指指着这位自由世界的领导人；中国军舰也不止一次的骚扰美日海军舰艇，包括美国导弹驱逐舰舰"麦凯恩号"和海军测量船"无瑕号"。

Such things are perhaps small in themselves, but they matter because of that double bet. America is constantly looking for signs that China is going to welsh on the deal and turn aggressive―and China is looking for signs that America and its allies are going to gang up to stop its rise. Everything is coloured by that strategic mistrust.
这些事情或许就其本身来说并不严重，但因为是"双倍下注"就显得重要了。美国不停在寻找中国打算赖账并诉诸武力的迹象，而中国也在时刻关注美国拉帮结派遏制自身发展的迹象。所有烦恼皆源于战略上的不信任，也无法信任。

Peering through this lens, China-watchers detect a shift. "The smiling diplomacy is over," says Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state under George Bush. "China's aspiration for power is very obvious," says Yukio Okamoto, a Japanese security expert. Diplomats, talking on condition of anonymity, speak of underlying suspicions and anxiety in their dealings with China. Although day-to-day traffic between American and Chinese government departments flows smoothly, "the strategic mistrust between China and the US continues to deepen," says Bonnie Glaser of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
从这个角度来看，许多关注中国的人们察觉到了某种变化。当年布什麾下的副国务卿RA说"中国的笑脸外交已宣告结束"。另一位日本安全专家YO说"中国对崛起的渴望昭然若揭"。一些不愿透露姓名的外交官也提到了他们在与中国交往过程中感受到的潜在猜疑和忧虑。尽管中国两国政府各部门的日常工作平稳进行，但"中美之间的战略不信任其实在不断加深"，华盛顿战略与国际研究中心的BG这么说道。

There is nothing inevitable about this deterioration. Peace still makes sense. China faces huge problems at home. It benefits from American markets and good relations with its neighbours, just as it did in 2001. The Chinese Communist Party and the occupant of the White House, of any political stripe, have more to gain from economic growth than from anything else.
（然而）中美关系的恶化并不是必然的，因为和平仍然具有重大意义。（今天）中国面临着很多国内问题。它仍像01年那样从美国市场及与邻国保持友好关系中受益。中共和白宫方面从经济增长中将获得比在其他方面更多的利益。

China's leaders understand this. In November 2003 and February 2004 the Politburo held special sessions on the rise and fall of nations since the 15th century. American policymakers are no less aware that, though a powerful China will be hard to cope with, a dissatisfied and powerful China would be impossible.
中国领导层明白这些。03年11月和04年的2月，中共政治局专门就15世纪以来大国兴衰问题召开特别会议。美国的政策制定者们并不是没有意识到这些，但一个强大的中国毕竟虽然难于对付却还是可以对付，而假如是对付一个不满意、不高兴的中国却是不可能的。

Now, however, many factors, on many sides, from domestic politics to the fallout from the financial crisis, are conspiring to make relations worse. The risk is not war―for the time being that remains almost unthinkable, if only because it would be so greatly to everyone's disadvantage. The danger is that the leaders of China and America will over the next decade lay the foundations for a deep antagonism. This is best described by Henry Kissinger.
然而，目前很多问题，从国内政治到金融危机余威问题，加总起来使得两国关系恶化。当然，就目前来说也不至于发生战争，只要中美关系对双方来说意义还重大。但危险在于中美两国领导层可能在接下来的十年里埋下深深的敌视情绪。美国前国务卿基辛格曾就这么讲过。



The dark side
为什么悲观？

Under Richard Nixon, Mr Kissinger created the conditions for 40 years of peace in Asia by seeing that America and China could gain more from working together than from competing. Today Mr Kissinger is worried. Speaking in September at a meeting of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, he observed that bringing China into the global order would be even harder than bringing in Germany had been a century ago.
尼克松总统期间，基辛格先生为亚洲40年的和平创造了条件，美中两国从合作而不是竞争中收获颇多。今天，基辛格很忧虑。国际战略研究协会9月的一次会议上，他说想让中国遵守国际秩序要远比让100年前的德国难。

"It is not an issue of integrating a European-style nation-state, but a full-fledged continental power," he said. "The DNA of both [America and China] could generate a growing adversarial relationship, much as Germany and Britain drifted from friendship to confrontation…Neither Washington nor Beijing has much practice in co-operative relations with equals. Yet their leaders have no more important task than to implement the truths that neither country will ever be able to dominate the other, and that conflict between them would exhaust their societies and undermine the prospects of world peace."
他接着说，"这根本就不是用欧洲风格就可以整合的单一民族国家，而是羽翼丰满的大陆劲旅"。"中美两国的DNA可能就会导致他们日益增长的对立关系，就像当年英德从友好走向对峙一样……华盛顿和北京都没有太多平等合作的实践经验。但中美两国领导层眼下首先要明白这么一个道理：谁也别想控制谁，两国一旦发生冲突将会两败俱伤，导致中美两国社会的动荡并破坏世界和平"。

Nowhere is the incipient rivalry sharper than between America's armed forces and their rapidly modernising Chinese counterparts. Globally, American arms remain vastly superior. But in China's coastal waters they would no longer confer such an easy victory.
没有任何两个国家比美国军队和他们日益现代化的中国对手之间的之间的竞争更强烈。就全球范围来说，美国的军事力量仍然是世界第一，但具体到中国沿海水域，中国不可能再像从前那样束手就擒。

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