纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英台湾大选前台海上空中国气球激增

A surge in sightings of balloons from China flying over Taiwan has drawn the attention of the island’s military and struck some experts as a calculatedly ambiguous warning to voters weeks before its presidential election.

中国气球飞过台湾上空的目击事件激增已引来台湾军方的注意，一些专家认为，这是中国在台湾总统大选几周前蓄意向选民们发出的模棱两可的警告。

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has reported occasional sightings of balloons floating from China since last month, and a surge in recent days, according to the ministry’s daily tally of Chinese military activities near the island. Official Taiwanese accounts about balloons were previously very sporadic.

台湾国防部报称，据其对台湾附近中国军事活动的每日统计，自上月以来就能偶尔发现从中国飘来的气球，而最近一段时间的气球数量出现激增。台湾官方此前很少有关于中国气球活动的报告。

The recent balloons have mostly stayed off Taiwan’s coast. On Monday, however, one flew across the island, according to the ministry’s descriptions of their paths. Of four spotted on Tuesday, three flew over Taiwan, and two passed through to the island’s east side, facing the Pacific Ocean. Another flew over the island on Wednesday.

最近出现的气球大都避开了台湾的海岸线。但据台湾国防部发布的气球路径示意图，有个气球在周一飞越了台湾岛。周二发现的四个气球中，三个飞越了台湾岛，其中两个飞到了台湾临太平洋的东部水域上空。还有一个气球在周三飞越了台湾岛。

The Taiwanese reports also noted some of the balloons’ proximity to the island’s military bases. Of the four reported on Tuesday, three were first detected 120 to 184 miles from the Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in the city of Taichung. Taiwan’s defense ministry declined to specify how close to the base they may have flown.

台湾国防部的报告还指出，一些气球的飞行轨迹距离岛上军事基地不远。周二发现的四个气球中，有三个最先在距离台中市空军清泉岗基地200至300公里处的空中被发现。国防部拒绝就气球距离基地究竟有多近再做说明。

The balloons do not appear to pose an immediate military menace to Taiwan, a self-governed democracy of 23 million people that Beijing says is its territory. Taiwan’s defense ministry last month indicated that the balloons seemed to be for collecting data about the atmosphere, but it has declined to give details about the ones detected this week.

这些气球似乎不会对台湾构成直接的军事威胁。台湾是拥有2300万人口的民主自治岛屿，中国政府宣称对其拥有主权。台湾国防部上个月表示，这些气球似乎是为了收集大气层数据，但拒绝透露有关本周监测到的气球的详细信息。

“The Ministry of National Defense is closely monitoring and tracking them, responding appropriately, and is also assessing and analyzing their drift patterns,” Maj. Gen. Sun Li-fang, a spokesman for the ministry, said on Thursday in response to questions about the balloons.

“国防部均密切监侦掌控、适切应处，并汇整其飘行路径样态，判断研析，”国防部发言人孙立方少将周四在回答有关气球的问题时说。

Taiwan has, so far at least, experienced none of the alarm that gripped many Americans last year when a hulking Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon floated across the United States. China denied that the balloon was for spying, but Washington did not buy that line, and the dispute soured relations for many months.

至少到目前为止，台湾还没有经历美国人去年表现出的恐慌，当时一个巨大的中国高空监测气球飘越了美国大陆上空。中国否认该气球具备间谍性质，但华盛顿不相信这个说法，这场争端使两国关系在长达数月时间里进一步恶化。

Taiwanese people are used to Chinese military flights near the island, and news of the balloons has generally been met with calm, if not indifference.

台湾民众已经习惯了中国在台湾附近的军事飞行，对气球出现的消息普遍反应平静，甚至漠不关心。

The balloon flights may, nonetheless, be part of the “gray zone” tactics that China uses to warn Taiwan of its military strength and options, without tipping into baldfaced confrontation. The timing of the balloon flights, close to Taiwan’s election, was telling, said Ko Yong-Sen, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank in Taipei funded by Taiwan’s defense ministry. Mr. Ko has analyzed the pattern of recent sightings.

尽管如此，放飞气球仍可能是中国“灰色地带”策略的一部分，该战略就其自身军事实力和能力向台湾发出警告，又不至于导致赤裸裸的对抗。放飞气球的时间与台湾大选临近，这一点很能说明问题，台北的国防安全研究院研究员柯永森说，该研究院是一个得到台湾国防部资助的智库。柯永森分析了最近这些气球的行迹模式。

“It’s more an intimidating effect in what happens to be a quite sensitive time, with we in Taiwan holding our election on Jan. 13,” Mr. Ko said in an interview. China, he said, “may want to tone it down. People say that it has recklessly used major weapons like planes and ships for harassment, so it’s shifted to balloons that can be used for a certain kind of lower-intensity intimidation and harassment.”

“它比较有类似威吓的作用。刚好是在这一段时间比较敏感，我们台湾今年1月13号就选举了，”柯永森在接受采访时说。他表示，中国“可能是想降低（威慑），人家说它动不动就飞机、船以及其他的这些大型武器装备来袭扰，所以它就改用气球来进行某种比较低程度、低强度的威吓和袭扰”。

In the election, Taiwanese voters will choose a president and legislature, and Beijing has made no secret of wanting the governing Democratic Progressive Party to lose power. The party opposes Beijing’s claims to Taiwan, and have asserted Taiwan’s distinctive identity and claims to nationhood. Decades ago, the party endorsed independence for Taiwan but now says it accepts the more ambiguous status quo of democratic self-determination.

台湾选民将在大选中选出总统和立法院议员，中国政府毫不掩饰地想让执政的民进党下台。民进党反对北京对台湾的主权主张，并坚持台湾的独有的身份认同和国家意识主张。民进党曾在几十年前支持台湾独立，但现在表示接受民主自治这种更模糊的现状。

Lai Ching-te, the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, has been leading in most polls up to Wednesday. But Hou Yu-ih, the candidate for the Nationalist Party, which favors closer ties with China, has trailed Mr. Lai by only a few percentage points in some recent surveys, and the Nationalists may emerge as the biggest party in the legislature, ending the Democratic Progressive Party’s majority.

截至周三，民进党总统候选人赖清德在大多数民意调查中一直领先。但主张与中国建立更密切关系的国民党候选人侯友宜在最近的一些民调中仅落后赖清德几个百分点，国民党也许会成为在立法院中拥有最多席位的政党，结束民进党在议会的多数地位。

When asked late last month about the initial reports of balloons near Taiwan, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, Wu Qian, did not confirm or deny any flights, but suggested that, as Taiwan was a part of China, any dispute over balloons crossing the median line between the two sides was moot. He also accused the Democratic Progressive Party of whipping up the issue “to swindle votes.”

在上月底被问及有关台湾附近出现气球的最初报告时，中国国防部发言人吴谦没有证实或否认任何飞行，但宣称因为台湾是中国的一部分，任何有关气球飞越海峡中线的争论都没有实际意义。他还指责民进党炒作所谓“大陆介选”的问题。

In 1996, China’s attempt to use missile tests and menacing military drills to shape Taiwan’s presidential election failed, and this time, Beijing has not rolled out any major military exercises in the weeks before the vote. The balloons may augur a more fiery response from China’s leaders if they dislike the election result, said Ben Lewis, a military analyst based in Washington who maintains a daily data record of Chinese military activities around Taiwan.

1996年，中国试图用导弹试射和威胁性军事演习来影响台湾总统选举，但失败了。中国这次没有在台湾大选的几周前举行任何大型军事演习。放飞气球也许是中国领导人发出的预警，如果他们不喜欢大选结果的话，会做出更激烈的反应，住在华盛顿的军事分析师本·刘易斯说道，他一直在记录中国在台湾周边军事活动的每日数据。

“I think the number of overflights, and, even more, their timing, is still an escalation in the P.R.C.’s activities,” Mr. Lewis said by email, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “If nothing else, I’m taking this as a warning that the P.R.C.’s response to the election will likely be impossible to predict.”

“我认为飞越的次数，乃至更重要的飞越时机，仍意味着中华人民共和国军事活动的一种升级，”刘易斯在电子邮件中写道。“别的不说，我仍认为这是一种警告，表明中华人民共和国对台湾大选的反应可能是无法预测的。”

The latest sightings were almost certainly not the first time that balloons from China floated over Taiwan, Mr. Lewis said. The Taiwanese defense ministry began regularly reporting Chinese military flights near the island in 2020, and their numbers have grown year by year and now include drones.

刘易斯说，几乎可以肯定的是，最近的气球飞越事件不是中国气球首次飘越台湾上空。台湾国防部在2020年开始定期报告中国在台湾周边的军事飞行，其数量已逐年增加，现在还包括无人机。

After a Chinese weather balloon was found last year on a small island controlled by Taiwan, Taiwan’s defense ministry said that most of the balloons swept in around the Taiwan Strait from December to February when, it noted, the “prevailing wind direction” helped them along.

去年在台湾控制的一个小岛上发现一个中国气象气球后，台湾国防部说，大多数气球是每年12月至来年2月间飞越台湾海峡的，并指出，“盛行东北季风”有助气球的飞行。

Mr. Ko, the Taiwanese defense expert, said that he worried more about what the Chinese military could do with more concerted use of high-altitude balloons over the island, like the one spotted over the United States last year, which could augment data collection using satellites and radar.

台湾防务专家柯永森说，他更担心中国军方可能会更协同地利用飞越台湾的高空气球，就和去年在美国上空发现气球一样，以此来加强用卫星和雷达收集的数据。

“The intelligence gathering from Taiwan would be even more serious,” he said. “This is something we’ve been concerned about, and it would be more troublesome.”

“对台湾的一些侦照和情报收集就更加严重了，”他说。“这是我们一直在关切的事情，是比较麻烦的事情。”