纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国的体育场外交给非洲国家带来了什么

The Alassane Ouattara stadium rises like a piece of sculpture from the dusty brown earth north of Ivory Coast’s largest city, its undulating roof and white columns towering over the empty landscape like a spaceship that has dropped onto a uninhabited planet.

在科特迪瓦共和国最大城市的北部，阿拉萨内·瓦塔拉体育场就像一座雕塑，从尘土飞扬的棕色土地上拔地而起，起伏的屋顶和白色圆柱耸立在空旷的大地之上，如同一艘掉落在无人星球上的宇宙飞船。

On Sunday, the three-and-a-half-year-old stadium will host its signature moment, when the national soccer teams of Ivory Coast and Nigeria compete in the final of Africa’s biggest sporting event, in front of tens of thousands of fans chanting and cheering in a stadium financed and built by China.

本周日，这座建于三年半以前的体育场将迎来它的标志性时刻，科特迪瓦国家足球队和尼日利亚国家足球队将在这座由中国出资并建造的体育场内，在数万名球迷的呐喊和欢呼声中，角逐非洲最大体育赛事的决赛奖杯。

While that is nothing new for the tournament, the Africa Cup of Nations, the arena is just the latest example of the contradictions that emerge from Chinese projects built on Chinese terms, and on African soil.

虽然这对非洲国家杯这项赛事来说并不是什么新鲜事，但这个场馆却是按照中国的条件在非洲土地上建设中国项目导致矛盾的最新例证。

Stadiums have been a cornerstone of China’s diplomatic reach into Africa since the 1970s, but their number has increased since the early 2000s, part of a larger Chinese strategy to build infrastructure — from highways to railroads, ports to presidential palaces and even the headquarters of the African Union — in exchange for diplomatic clout or access to natural resources.

自20世纪70年代以来，体育场馆一直是中国在非洲开展外交活动的基石，但从21世纪初开始，体育场馆的数量不断增加，成为中国建设基础设施——从高速公路到铁路、港口到总统府，甚至非洲联盟会议中心——以换取外交影响力或自然资源的更大战略的一部分。

Through that trillion-dollar program, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, China has become a central partner to the developing countries that benefit from expensive projects they might not otherwise be able to afford. But Chinese construction has sometimes been accompanied by charges of local corruption, and critics have questioned the value of the big-budget projects, noting they deliver dubious long-term economic benefits but very real debts that governments can struggle to repay.

通过这项被称为“一带一路”倡议的万亿美元计划，中国已成为发展中国家的核心合作伙伴，这些国家可以受益于它们本来可能无力承担的昂贵项目。但是，中国的建设有时也伴随着地方的腐败指控，批评者质疑这些大预算项目的价值，指出它们带来的长期经济效益存疑，但却带来了让政府苦于无法偿还的真实债务。

“China doesn’t ask why you need a stadium,” said Itamar Dubinsky, a researcher at the African Studies Program at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. “It just finances and builds it.”

“中国不会问你为什么需要一个体育场，”以色列内盖夫本·古里安大学非洲研究项目的研究员伊塔马尔·杜宾斯基说。“中国只会出资然后建造它。”

Over the past two decades, Chinese companies have built or renovated dozens of stadiums across Africa, including, in the past 15 years, nearly half of those that have hosted matches in the Africa Cup of Nations. That total includes three of the six used for this year’s tournament, whose showpiece is the 60,000-seat Ouattara stadium, designed and built by two Chinese state-owned companies.

在过去二十年里，中国公司在非洲各地建造或翻新了数十座体育场馆，其中近一半在过去15年里举办过非洲国家杯比赛，今年比赛使用的六座体育场中有三座，其代表作是由两家中国国有企业设计和建造的可容纳60000人的瓦塔拉体育场。

Its exterior of white columns and curving arches — inset with panels tinted green and orange, the national colors of Ivory Coast — is a stylistic improvement from earlier projects on the continent, which critics have derided as drab concrete monoliths.

它的外观由白色圆柱和弧形拱门构成，镶嵌着科特迪瓦的国家色——绿色和橙色——的面板，与非洲大陆早期的项目相比，在风格造型上有所改进，那些早期场馆被评论家讥讽为单调乏味的混凝土巨石。

But three years after the stadium hosted its first game, the new road leading to it still hasn’t opened, forcing fans to walk for up to an hour to reach or leave the arena, and the sports city around it has yet to materialize. That, critics say, is another regular feature of the projects. Chinese-built stadiums are rarely delivered with the infrastructure to support them, or the know-how to maintain them.

但在体育场举办了其首场比赛三年后，通往体育场的新路仍未开通，球迷们不得不步行长达一小时才能到达或离开体育场，而体育场周围的体育城也尚未建成。批评人士说，这也是这些项目的另一个常见特点。中国建造的体育场馆很少有配套的基础设施和维护相关的技术。

Yet for countless fans who watched games over the past month, what mattered lay elsewhere. Ivory Coast, bouncing back from civil war and boasting one of West Africa’s largest economies and a dynamic middle class, has showcased its ability to host a major tournament in state-of-the-art facilities.

然而，对于过去一个月观看比赛的无数球迷来说，重点在其他方面。从内战中恢复过来的科特迪瓦拥有西非最大的经济体之一，以及充满活力的中产阶级，该国展示了其在先进设施内举办大型赛事的能力。

“One can only be impressed,” one fan, Halima Duret, said as she scanned the stands on a recent evening. An interior designer living in Abidjan, Ms. Duret was attending a soccer game for the first time, and it was a special one. Her home country’s team, Guinea, had reached the quarterfinals. “What a beauty,” she added.

“一定会给人留下深刻印象，”最近一个晚上，一位名叫哈利玛·杜雷特的球迷看着场馆的看台时说。杜雷特是住在阿比让的一名室内设计师，这是她第一次观看足球比赛，而且是一场特殊的比赛。她的祖国几内亚队进入了四分之一决赛。她还说：“太美了。”

The partnership between China and Ivory Coast, a major producer of rubber and cocoa, is emblematic of the way China has eagerly pursued ties with resource-rich African countries.

科特迪瓦是橡胶和可可的主要生产国，它与中国的合作关系，是后者热切寻求与资源丰富的非洲国家建立联系的体现。

As Chinese and Ivorian workers were building the stadium in Ebimpé, on the outskirts of Abidjan, President Alassane Ouattara visited his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing in 2018 to strengthen the countries’ relations. Since then, Ivory Coast has increased its exports of rubber and crude oil to China, which has become Ivory Coast’s largest trading partner. China is also financing the expansion of Abidjan’s port, one of its largest Belt and Road Initiative projects in West Africa.

就在中国和科特迪瓦工人在阿比让郊区的埃宾佩修建体育场时，阿拉萨内·瓦塔拉总统于2018年前往北京访问国家主席习近平，以加强两国关系。此后，科特迪瓦增加了对中国的橡胶和原油出口，中国已成为该国最大的贸易伙伴。中国还在资助阿比让港口的扩建，这是其在西非最大的“一带一路”倡议项目之一。

When China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visited Ivory Coast during the Africa Cup of Nations last month, he thanked Mr. Ouattara for his country’s support to China’s “vital interests,” including on Taiwan. Mr. Ouattara vowed to deepen the bilateral relationship and said the countries shared a similar vision of the world order.

在上个月非洲国家杯期间访问科特迪瓦时，中国外交部长王毅感谢瓦塔拉总统的国家支持中国的“重大利益”，包括在台湾问题上的利益。瓦塔拉总统誓言要深化双边关系，并表示两国对世界秩序有着相似的愿景。

While stadiums might not be the biggest infrastructure projects, or the most worthwhile, they are popular, at least at first, experts on China-Africa relations said.

研究中非关系的专家认为，虽然体育场馆可能不是最大的基础设施项目，也不是最有价值的项目，但至少在一开始，它们很受欢迎。

“A stadium is one of the most eye-catching signs of China’s ability to contribute to the development of African countries,” said Filomène Ebi, an Ivorian Sinologist and associate researcher at the National Taiwan University. “Most people in Ivory Coast know that China built the Ouattara stadium,” she said.

科特迪瓦汉学家、国立台湾大学副研究员菲洛梅娜·埃比说：“体育场是中国有能力为非洲国家发展做出贡献的最醒目标志之一。”她说：“大多数科特迪瓦人都知道中国建造了瓦塔拉体育场。”

As mass consumption of sports booms in Africa, other countries have joined the game. A Turkish construction company built Senegal’s new national soccer stadium, which will host the Youth Olympic Games in 2026. And “Visit Saudi Arabia” is the main sponsor of a new pan-African soccer league.

随着大众体育消费在非洲蓬勃发展，其他国家也加入了这一行列。一家土耳其建筑公司建造了塞内加尔的国家足球场，该体育场将于2026年举办青年奥运会。“来沙特旅游”(Visit Saudi Arabia)是一个新的泛非足球联赛的主要赞助商。

Western companies and governments are also playing: The French oil company Total Energies is the Africa Cup of Nations’ main sponsor, and the N.B.A. is a main backer of the Basketball Africa League.

西方公司和政府也参与其中：法国道达尔能源公司是非洲国家杯的主要赞助商，美国国家篮球协会是非洲篮球联赛的主要支持者。

But no country has poured more effort into embedding itself into Africa’s sports scene than China, and countries hosting the Cup of Nations have been favored recipients. All of the stadiums built for recent editions of the tournament in Angola and Gabon were built by Chinese companies. And in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a Chinese company is renovating the stadium where President William Ruto was inaugurated, and which will host soccer games for the 2027 edition of the cup.

但是在融入非洲体育界方面，没有哪个国家比中国投入了更多努力，而非洲杯的主办国一直是最受青睐的受资助者。在安哥拉和加蓬主办的最近几届非洲杯赛事的所有体育场都是由中国公司建造的。在肯尼亚首都内罗毕，一家中国公司正在翻修总统威廉·鲁托就职的体育场，该体育场将作为2027年非洲杯的举办地。

Most stadiums are donations from China, or financed through soft loans from Chinese banks. “A soccer stadium is a small price to pay for potentially much larger benefits,” said Simon Chadwick, a professor of sport and geopolitical economy at the Skema Business School in Paris.

大多数体育场都是中国捐赠的，或者通过中国一些银行的优惠贷款提供资金。巴黎斯科玛商学院体育和地缘政治经济学教授西蒙·查德威克表示：“对于可能获得的更大利益来说，一座足球场只是很小的代价。”

But many African governments have let stadiums that were initially a point of pride fall into disrepair. A Chinese-built stadium in the capital of Gabon, Libreville, has been mostly abandoned since it hosted the final of the Cup of Nations in 2017. The Chinese-built national stadium of the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries, cannot even host the games of its own national team.

但很多非洲政府对这些最初引以为傲的体育场疏于维护。加蓬首都利伯维尔的一座中国建造的体育场自2017年举办非洲杯决赛以来已基本废弃。在世界上最贫穷的国家之一中非共和国，中国建造的国家体育场甚至无法用来举办该国国家队的比赛。

Even Ivory Coast’s shiny stadium has imperfections: Its grass field doesn’t extend far enough beyond the playing surface, so organizers have had to patch its perimeter with artificial turf to keep players in cleats from slipping on the adjacent running track.

即使是科特迪瓦那座光鲜的体育场也有缺陷：其草地在比赛场地之外延伸过窄，组织者不得不用人造草坪修补外缘，以防止穿着钉鞋的球员在场边的跑道上滑倒。

The future of the smaller stadiums built across Ivory Coast also appears uncertain.

科特迪瓦各地修建的小型体育场的未来似乎也充满了不确定性。

Government officials said local teams would use the infrastructure once the tournament was over, but in the resort town of San Pedro, home to a new 20,000-seat stadium built by a Chinese company, the city’s main soccer club said the facility was too big for its needs.

政府官员表示，非洲杯结束后，地方球队将继续使用这些基础设施。但在度假小镇圣佩德罗，当地的主要足球俱乐部表示，中国公司修建的那座可以容纳2万观众的体育场对他们来说太大了。

“At best we might manage to fill it at 30 percent,” said Abdelkarim Bouaziz, an executive at F.C. San Pedro, which plays in Ivory Coast’s top league. “But we won’t be able to pay for its maintenance.”

圣佩德罗足球俱乐部是科特迪瓦顶级联赛中的一只球队。“最好的情况下我们能填满30%的座位。”该俱乐部官员阿卜杜勒卡里姆·布阿齐兹说。“但我们无法支付其维护费用。”

Ivory Coast invested more than $1 billion in the organization of the tournament, but it has also struggled to fill its stadiums’ shiny seats, raising questions about whether it made sense to construct such large venues for a monthlong event.

科特迪瓦在非洲杯赛事组织上投入了超过10亿美元，但仍然难以填满体育场内闪亮的座位，这引发了人们对为了为期一个月的赛事建造如此大型的场馆是否合理的疑问。

During the opening game, which featured the host nation, the Ouattara stadium was about two-thirds full. In San Pedro, the town hall was recently awash with unsold tickets, which the mayor, Nakaridja Cissé, said she was distributing free in an effort to invite residents into the new arena.

在东道主队的揭幕战中，瓦塔拉体育场内大约坐了三分之二的观众。在圣佩德罗，市政厅内最近堆满了未售出的门票，市长纳卡里贾·西塞表示，她正在免费分发这些门票，以邀请居民们踏入这座新的体育场。

Ivorian officials say they have a post-tournament strategy for the new or renovated infrastructure. Ousmane Gbané, the head of the National Office for Sports, said local clubs like F.C. San Pedro would finally leave Abidjan, where they have trained and played for years, and use the new facilities. International hotel chains, Mr. Gbané said, had expressed interest in managing the residences built for the tournament’s teams.

科特迪瓦官员表示，他们对新建成和那些翻新的基础设施制定了非洲杯后的战略。国家体育办公室主任奥斯曼·巴内表示，像圣佩德罗队这样的当地俱乐部最终会离开他们训练和比赛了多年的阿比让，转而使用新的设施。巴内表示，已有国际连锁酒店对管理为非洲杯球队建造的住所表达了兴趣。

“We’ve learned from the mistakes of others,” Mr. Gbané said. In only a few weeks, he said confidently, “the infrastructure we built for Afcon will have a new life.”

“我们从其他人的错误中吸取了教训，”巴内说。他自信地表示，几周后，“那些为非洲杯建设的基础设施会获得新的生命”。