纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英乌克兰以色列卷入两场战争的美国还有余力对抗中国吗

America’s long-promised pivot to Asia was finally gathering momentum — new security deals with the Philippines and India, expanded military exercises, and plans with allies to stay ahead of Chinese technology.

美国承诺已久的转向亚洲战略终于增强势头，它与菲律宾和印度达成了新的安全协议，扩大了在亚太地区的军事演习，并计划与盟友一起在技术上保持对中国的领先。

But the Middle East, like a vortex, has pulled Washington back in. And for America’s partners in the Indo-Pacific, many of which already worry that the United States is not moving fast enough to counter Beijing, the sudden focus on Gaza — with Pentagon task forces, ramped-up U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel and rushed visits to Middle Eastern capitals — feels like a loss, delaying progress on some of their most critical challenges.

但中东的冲突已像漩涡那样将华盛顿拉了回去。美国把注意力突然集中到加沙的做法（成立国防部特别工作组，加大对以色列的武器供应，官员们匆忙前往中东各国首都）让美国在印太地区的合作伙伴们有一种有所失的感觉，觉得这将推迟他们为最关键的挑战作准备的某些进展，而他们本来就已经担心美国抵制北京的行动不够快。

“What concerns us most is the diversion of the U.S. military’s resources from East Asia to Europe, to the Middle East,” Akihisa Nagashima, a lawmaker and former national security adviser in Japan, said at a strategy forum in Sydney, Australia, last week. “We really hope that conflict is completely finished pretty soon.”

“我们最担心的是美国军事资源从东亚转向欧洲、转向中东，”曾担任国家安全顾问的日本议员长岛昭久上周在澳大利亚悉尼举行的战略论坛上说。“我们真的希望中东冲突尽快彻底结束。”

American military commanders have said that no equipment has left the Indo-Pacific. And two top cabinet officials, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, will be crisscrossing Asia this week with messages of reassurance, making stops separately or together in India, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia.

美国的军事指挥官们已表示，没有武器装备从印太地区抽走。两名内阁高级官员——国防部长奥斯汀和国务卿布林肯——本周将前往亚洲各地传递安抚信息，他们将分别或一起访问印度、日本、韩国和印度尼西亚。

Along the way, they most likely will hear a mix of views about Gaza, with India more supportive of Israel, Japan seeking a more balanced approach, and Indonesia, home of the world’s largest Muslim population, increasingly outraged by the thousands of civilians killed in the Israeli invasion that has followed Hamas’ assault on Israel.

访问期间，他们很可能会听到有关加沙的各种看法，印度更支持以色列，日本寻求更平衡的做法，而世界上穆斯林人口最多的国家印度尼西亚已对以色列在遭到哈马斯袭击后入侵加沙，造成数千名加沙平民丧生的情况越来越愤怒。

But what these countries all share are questions about how Washington’s entanglement with another distant war, on top of Ukraine, will be weighed against the needs of the Indo-Pacific. Many are asking: How many pledges of support to how many nations can the United States — a power stretched thin abroad and politically divided at home — actually handle?

但这些国家都关心的一个共同问题是，华盛顿继乌克兰之后卷入另一场遥远的战争，这将对印太地区的需求有怎样的不利影响。许多人都在问：美国能真正同时处理多少个支持不同国家的承诺？美国在国外的力量已过于分散，在国内存在政治上的分裂。

Weapons are one area of common concern. The defense industry in the United States has struggled with shortages of ammunition being provided to both Ukraine and Israel, including 155-millimeter artillery shells. Guided munitions and more complex American systems are also being funneled to both conflicts, even as American partners in the Indo-Pacific wait for weapons deliveries of their own.

武器是亚太各国共同关心的一个方面。美国的国防工业已面临同时向乌克兰和以色列提供弹药（包括口径155毫米的炮弹）所带来的短缺问题。在美国的印太地区伙伴们等待他们订购的武器交付的时候，有制导能力的弹药和更复杂的美国系统正在涌向这两场冲突。

Japan, Taiwan and Australia could face delays on military equipment that has been contracted and promised by the United States.

日本、台湾和澳大利亚可能会面临军事装备推迟交付的问题，美国已经签了合同承诺提供这些装备。

“It’s not just hardware,” said Andrew Nien-Dzu Yang, a former defense minister of Taiwan. “You have to teach or train the people to operate those systems.”

“不仅仅是硬件，”台湾前国防部长杨念祖说。“还需要教会或培训人员来操作这些系统。”

“The concern is that the United States won’t have a more effective and abundant capacity to deter China,” he added.

“令人担心的是，美国将没有更有效、更充足的能力来威慑中国，”他补充道。

If the Gaza war drags on, its impacts could change. While an extended conflict could further strain American arsenals, China may learn from it that urban warfare is extraordinarily difficult, perhaps deterring Beijing from following through on threats to take the densely populated island of Taiwan, which it sees as lost territory.

如果加沙战争持续太久，其影响可能会发生变化。虽然冲突时间延长可能会给美国的武器库带来进一步的压力，但中国也许会从中认识到城市战异常困难，这或许会阻止中国政府把武力收复人口稠密的台湾岛的威胁变成行动。中国认为台湾是自己失去的领土。

For now, though, Beijing seems to favor continued brinkmanship. Two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, a Chinese Coast Guard ship and maritime militia vessel rammed Philippine ships on a resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal, a Philippine outpost in a part of the South China Sea that China claims as its own. It was one of the most confrontational encounters between the two countries in more than 20 years of back and forth over the disputed territory.

但从目前来看，北京似乎倾向于继续采取边缘政策。在哈马斯10月7日袭击以色列两周后，一艘中国海警船和海上民兵船只撞击了正在前往第二托马斯沙洲（中国称仁爱礁）执行补给任务的菲律宾船只，该菲律宾前哨位于中国声称拥有主权的那部分南中国海水域。20多年来，两国围绕着这片有争议水域已发生了多次冲突，这是最激烈的一次。

A few days later, a Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of an American B-52 bomber in a nighttime maneuver over the South China Sea that nearly caused a collision — part of what the U.S. military called a “dangerous pattern of coercive and risky operational behavior.”

几天后，一架中国战斗机在南中国海上空进行夜间演习时，飞到了距离一架美国B-52轰炸机不到三米的地方，险些造成相撞，美国军方称之为“强制和冒险操作行为的危险模式”。

China’s goal, according to Adm. John C. Aquilino, the U.S. Indo-Pacific commander, is “to force the United States out of the region.” Pentagon officials have stressed that will not happen.

美国印太司令部司令约翰·阿奎利诺上将表示，中国的目标是“迫使美国退出印太地区”。五角大楼官员已强调，这种情况不会发生。

But for skeptics of America’s commitment, wild swings in Washington’s attention are woven into the historical fabric. Vietnam stands out as one example, but so does the era of George W. Bush. On the campaign trail in 2000, he said, “When I am president, China will have no doubts about our power and purpose in the region, about our strong commitment to democratic allies throughout Asia.”

但对怀疑美国承诺的人来说，华盛顿注意力的剧烈摆动已是历史结构的一部分。越南就是一个突出的例子，小布什时代也是个例子。他曾在2000年的竞选活动中说：“我担任总统后，中国将不再怀疑我们在这个地区的力量和目标，以及我们对亚洲各地的民主盟友的坚定承诺。”

A month after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he went to Beijing to meet with the Chinese leader at the time, Jiang Zemin. Avoiding all his previous talk of the rising giant as a “strategic competitor,” Mr. Bush emphasized trade and the need to fight terrorism together.

2001年9月11日的恐怖袭击发生了一个月后，布什去北京与当时的中国领导人江泽民见面。布什避免了他以前把正在崛起的中国称为“战略竞争对手”的所有言论，而是强调了贸易和一起打击恐怖主义的必要性。

India still recalls the impact of that shift — the war in Afghanistan pushed the United States closer to New Delhi’s archrival, Pakistan. And with Xi Jinping, China’s current leader, expected to meet with President Biden at a summit in San Francisco this month, some Indian commentators have wondered if Washington may again tilt back to the Middle East.

印度仍记得美国立场转变的影响，阿富汗战争将美国推向了印度的宿敌巴基斯坦。中国现任领导人习近平预计将于本月在旧金山举行的峰会上与拜登总统见面，一些印度评论人士已想知道华盛顿是否可能会再次向中东倾斜。

“If you go back to the old trading relationship and the idea of ‘we’re going to work out accommodation in Asia,’ that would affect Taiwan, Japan, India and all our neighbors,” said C. Raja Mohan, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. “But I don’t think we are there yet.”

“如果回到旧的贸易关系上去，回到‘我们要在亚洲和平共处’的想法上去的话，会影响台湾、日本、印度和我们所有的邻国，”新德里亚洲协会政策研究所的高级研究员C·拉贾·莫汉说。“但我认为我们还没有到那一步。”

For some countries, the rekindled conflict over the Palestinian issue has also inflamed old beliefs that the United States is anti-Muslim, or at least too biased toward Israel. After years of watching Washington avoid confronting the often harsh mistreatment of Palestinians by both the Israeli government and extremist Israeli settlers, some no longer trust the United States to be a fair broker.

对于一些国家来说，巴勒斯坦问题的冲突重起也激起了人们对美国反穆斯林，或者至少过于偏向以色列的旧观念。这些国家的人看到，美国政府多年来一直避免批评以色列政府和极端的以色列定居者对巴勒斯坦人往往残酷的对待，他们中的一些已不再相信美国是公正的中间者。

When Mr. Austin, the defense secretary, gets to Indonesia, he is likely to face an angry public, if not anti-U.S. protests, despite his efforts to advise Israel’s military on how to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

国防部长奥斯汀抵达印度尼西亚时，他很可能会面临愤怒的公众，甚至是反美抗议，尽管他努力给以色列军方提供如何避免加沙平民伤亡的建议。

“There is significant cynicism toward U.S. calls for Israeli restraint,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. “In many ways, the Biden administration has a difficult job and has to bear the baggage of past U.S. policy, which makes it all the more important for the administration to get things right and show that it is trying hard to be evenhanded.”

“对于美国呼吁以色列保持克制，人们持极大的怀疑态度，”新加坡国立大学政治学副教授庄嘉颖说。“拜登政府在很多方面有艰巨的工作要做，不得不背着美国过去政策的包袱，这让拜登政府把事情做好，表明它在努力试着不偏不倚，变得更重要。”

Efforts by Mr. Blinken to meet with Arab leaders and try to broker a pause in the fighting for humanitarian assistance “somewhat tempers the impression that the U.S. is just simply backing Israel regardless of Israeli actions,” Mr. Chong added. And at a meeting of G7 foreign ministers this week in Japan, the grouping of leading democracies joined that call for “humanitarian pauses.”

布林肯与阿拉伯领导人会面的努力，加上他试图斡旋暂停战火以提供人道主义援助的努力，“在一定程度上缓和了人们认为美国只是简单地支持以色列，不管以色列行为如何的印象，”庄嘉颖补充道。本周在日本举行的七国集团外长会议上，这些主要民主国家也加入到了“人道主义暂停”呼声中来。

But for Japan and many other American partners in Asia, the war in Gaza risks disrupting both oil supplies and progress on security. The faster it ends, in their view, the faster the world can get back to what Washington still defines as its most important challenge: deterrence and competition with China in an interdependent world.

但对日本以及美国在亚洲的许多其他伙伴来说，加沙战争有可能扰乱石油供应和安全伙伴关系的进展。在它们看来，这场危机结束得越快，世界就能越快地回到应对仍被华盛顿定义为最重要的挑战上去：在一个相互依赖的世界里威慑中国、与中国竞争。

Asked in Japan on Wednesday if the United States was too occupied with the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine to continue its pivot to Asia, Mr. Blinken said: “I can tell you that we are determined and we are, as we would say, running and chewing gum at the same time. The Indo-Pacific is the critical region for our future.”

有记者周三在日本问布林肯，美国的注意力是否过于集中在加沙和乌克兰冲突上，从而无法继续将战略重心转向亚洲时，他说：“我可以告诉你，我们已下定决心，正如我们所说，我们能同时处理不同的事情。印太地区是我们未来的关键地区。”

“Even as we’re dealing with a real crisis in Gaza and the Middle East,” he added, “we’re also not only able, but we’re fully engaged in all of the interests we have in the Indo-Pacific.”

“在我们应对加沙和中东实实在在在的危机的时候，”他补充道，“我们不仅有能力，而且正全力保持我们在印太地区的所有利益伙伴关系。”