[2022-06-16] The Economist - 茶馆: 头脑发热有冷战的威胁

 

CHINA / CHAGUAN
Hotheads threaten a cold war
China’s deep distrust of America and the West is making it reckless
中国/茶馆
头脑发热有冷战的威胁
中国对美国和西方的严重不信任正在变得鲁莽

IT IS ALMOST too polite to call the deepening rivalry between China and the American-led West a new cold war. The original cold war between America and the Soviet Union was grimly rational: a nuclear-armed confrontation between hostile ideological blocs which both longed to see the other fail. For all their differences, China and Western countries profit vastly if unevenly from exchanges of goods, people and services worth billions of dollars a year. Their respective leaders know that global problems from climate change to pandemics or nuclear proliferation can only be solved if they work together. Yet increasingly, interdependency is not enough to stop one side—often China, but not always—from starting reckless disputes rooted in suspicion of the other.
将中国与以美国为首的西方之间日益加深的竞争称为新冷战几乎是太客气了。 美国和苏联之间最初的冷战是非常理性的：敌对的意识形态集团之间的核武器对抗，双方都渴望看到对方失败。 尽管存在差异，但中国和西方国家每年从价值数十亿美元的商品、人员和服务的交换中获得巨大利益，即使不均衡。 他们各自的领导人都知道，从气候变化到流行病或核扩散等全球性问题只有通过共同努力才能得到解决。 然而，越来越多的相互依存不足以阻止一方——通常是中国，但并非总是如此——因怀疑对方而引发鲁莽的争端。

A dismaying case in point involves fighter jets of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which have in recent months staged dangerous, high-speed passes to intimidate Western military aircraft in international airspace near China. Chinese pilots have flown so close that diplomats from America, Australia and Canada have lodged formal complaints with officials in Beijing. Western governments recall the crisis caused by a Chinese pilot who died after colliding with an American spy plane over the South China Sea in 2001. Going public, Australia’s defence minister accused a PLA jet of cutting in front of one of its maritime-surveillance aircraft in the same area on May 26th, before releasing “chaff”—tiny metal-coated strips meant to confuse radar—that were sucked into one of the Australian plane’s engines. For its part, Canada accuses Chinese fighter jets of endangering one of its maritime-patrol aircraft flying out of Japan. Canadian officials note that their plane was on a month-long mission to detect North Korean smuggling, including ship-to-ship fuel transfers at sea, in support of United Nations sanctions designed to deter North Korea from developing nuclear missiles. These are sanctions that China approved as a permanent member of the Security Council. China’s actions “are putting people at risk while at the same time not respecting decisions by the UN”, said Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
一个令人沮丧的例子是中国人民解放军 (PLA) 的战斗机，近几个月来，中国人民解放军 (PLA) 的战斗机在中国附近的国际空域上演了危险的高速通道，以恐吓西方军用飞机。中国飞行员飞得如此之近，以至于来自美国、澳大利亚和加拿大的外交官已向北京官员提出正式投诉。西方政府回忆起 2001 年一名中国飞行员在南海上空与一架美国间谍飞机相撞后死亡所引发的危机。澳大利亚国防部长公开指责 PLA 喷气式飞机在其一架海上侦察机前切入。 5 月 26 日在同一地区，在释放“箔条”之前——用于混淆雷达的微小金属涂层条——被吸入澳大利亚飞机的一个发动机。加拿大方面则指责中国战斗机危及一架从日本起飞的海上巡逻机。加拿大官员指出，他们的飞机执行为期一个月的任务，以侦查朝鲜的走私活动，包括海上的船对船燃料转运，以支持旨在阻止朝鲜发展核导弹的联合国制裁。这些是中国作为安理会常任理事国批准的制裁措施。加拿大总理贾斯汀·特鲁多（Justin Trudeau）表示，中国的行为“将人们置于危险之中，同时又不尊重联合国的决定”。

These mid-air interceptions are worrying evidence of the PLA’s appetite for risk. But defences offered by the Chinese government point to a still larger problem. Chinese distrust of America and its allies is so deep that the two camps do not agree about even basic principles. When America and Western powers try to discuss rules to ensure safe encounters in international waters or skies, China’s response is to growl that foreign warships and planes should stay far from its shores. Its foreign ministry, which has promoted spokespeople who thrill nationalists with shows of contempt for the West, questions the legitimacy of surveillance missions, though these are normal for advanced armed forces, as when a Chinese spy ship loitered 50 nautical miles (93km) from an Australian military communications base last month. Zhao Lijian, a pugnacious foreign-ministry spokesman, said that Australia’s aircraft “seriously threatened China’s sovereignty and security”, and called China’s response “professional, safe, reasonable and legal”. The defence ministry accused Canada of using sanctions as a pretext for “provocations against China” and noted that UN resolutions on North Korea offer no mandate for anti-smuggling operations.
这些空中拦截令人担忧地证明了解放军对风险的偏好。但中国政府的辩护指出了一个更大的问题。中国对美国及其盟友的不信任是如此之深，以至于两个阵营甚至在基本原则上都无法达成一致。当美国和西方大国试图讨论确保在国际水域或天空安全相遇的规则时，中国的反应是咆哮外国军舰和飞机应该远离中国海岸。中国外交部提拔了那些以蔑视西方的方式激怒民族主义者的发言人，质疑监视任务的合法性，尽管这对于先进的武装部队来说是正常的，比如一艘中国间谍船在距离一座 50 海里（93 公里）的地方游荡。上个月的澳大利亚军事通讯基地。好斗的外交部发言人赵立坚表示，澳大利亚的飞机“严重威胁中国的主权和安全”，并称中国的反应“专业、安全、合理、合法”。国防部指责加拿大以制裁为借口“挑衅中国”，并指出联合国关于朝鲜的决议没有提供反走私行动的授权。

Take a step back, and the row reveals how China and the West doubt one another’s sincerity when it comes to ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned on June 6th that the first North Korean nuclear test since 2017 may be imminent, noting activity at a test site. Markus Garlauskas of Georgetown University in Washington was America’s national intelligence officer for North Korea from 2014 to 2020. He calls Chinese “obstructionism” over sanctions enforcement “exactly the wrong message” to send to North Korea at such a moment. Last month China and Russia vetoed an American-drafted UN resolution tightening sanctions on North Korea after it tested ballistic missiles. Western diplomats worry that a rare area of agreement with China—a shared concern about a nuclear-armed North Korea— is crumbling.
退后一步，这场争吵揭示了中国和西方在消除朝鲜半岛核武器方面如何相互怀疑对方的诚意。 联合国核监督机构国际原子能机构于 6 月 6 日警告称，朝鲜自 2017 年以来的首次核试验可能迫在眉睫，并注意到试验场的活动。 华盛顿乔治城大学的马库斯·加劳斯卡斯 (Markus Garlauskas) 曾在 2014 年至 2020 年期间担任美国负责朝鲜事务的国家情报官员。他称中国在制裁执行方面的“阻挠主义”在此时向朝鲜发出“完全错误的信息”。 上个月，在朝鲜试射弹道导弹后，中国和俄罗斯否决了美国起草的联合国加强对朝鲜制裁的决议。 西方外交官担心，与中国达成的一个罕见领域——对拥有核武器的朝鲜的共同担忧——正在瓦解。

Such mistrust is mirrored in China, whose diplomats scold America for failing to offer any incentives for North Korea to return to the negotiating table, after failed summit meetings between Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, and Donald Trump, the president at the time. Zhao Tong, a Beijing-based disarmament expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research institute, reports that a growing number of Chinese scholars suspect that America “doesn’t want to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem”. Such scholars believe that America is using the threat from North Korea to rally South Korea and Japan behind its true goal, namely containing China, says Mr Zhao.
这种不信任也反映在中国，在朝鲜领导人金正恩和当时的总统唐纳德特朗普之间的峰会失败后，中国的外交官指责美国未能为朝鲜重返谈判桌提供任何激励措施 . 研究机构卡内基国际和平基金会驻北京的裁军专家赵彤报告说，越来越多的中国学者怀疑美国“不想解决朝鲜核问题”。 赵先生说，这些学者认为，美国正在利用来自朝鲜的威胁来团结韩国和日本支持其真正的目标，即遏制中国。

Close encounters of the reckless kind
鲁莽的亲密接触

China faces unwelcome choices, says Li Nan, an expert on North Korea at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He reports that North Korean officials yearn for a cold war in Asia, believing that Russia and China would take their side, wrecking the long-standing Chinese policy of seeking balanced relations with North and South Korea, which is an important Chinese trading partner. He says that China is anxious to avoid an ideological division of Asia, which would push South Korea and Japan even closer to America. Indeed, China still supports UN sanctions on North Korea, insists Mr Li. In his telling, China sees Korean disarmament as an area for co-operation with America, but is losing hope that North Korea is a priority for Joe Biden, America’s president.
中国社会科学院朝鲜问题专家李楠表示，中国面临着不受欢迎的选择。 他报道说，朝鲜官员渴望在亚洲打一场冷战，认为俄罗斯和中国会站在他们一边，破坏了中国长期以来寻求与中国重要贸易伙伴朝鲜和韩国平衡关系的政策。 他说，中国急于避免亚洲在意识形态上的分裂，这将使韩国和日本更接近美国。 事实上，中国仍然支持联合国对朝鲜的制裁，李先生坚称。 在他的讲述中，中国将朝鲜的裁军视为与美国合作的一个领域，但对朝鲜成为美国总统乔·拜登的优先事项的希望正在丧失。

The prospect of North Korea fielding nuclear missiles that can hit far-off continents—a nightmare that brought China and the West together at the UN as recently as 2017—is no longer enough to build trust. Meanwhile, the PLA tries to use fear to put Western powers in their place and show that China plays by different rules. It is not a cold war yet. But hotheads are courting disaster. ■
朝鲜部署可以打击遥远大陆的核导弹的前景——最近在 2017 年让中国和西方在联合国齐聚一堂的噩梦——已不足以建立信任。 与此同时，解放军试图利用恐惧将西方列强置于他们的位置，并表明中国按不同的规则行事。 这还不是冷战。 但头脑发热的人正在招惹灾难。 ■

 

 

 

 

 

标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。[/b]

之前都编辑好华盛顿邮报的一篇中国在柬埔寨建立海军基地的文章，结果黑屋了。[/b]

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