纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英访问台湾后我最担心的不是中国而是美国
March 6, 2024 10 min 2080 words
随手搬运西方主流媒体的所谓的民主自由的报道，让帝国主义的丑恶嘴脸无处遁形。
Michael Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is concerned enough about the risk of war between the United States and China that he is listening to the audiobook version of Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August,” the classic history of how the major powers in 1914 stumbled into World War I.
对美中开战的担忧已经促使前参谋长联席会议主席迈克尔·马伦听起了芭芭拉·图赫曼的《八月的枪声》(The Guns of August)有声书，该书讲述的是大国在1914年如何陷入第一次世界大战的经典历史。
“I think this is the most dangerous time since I was a kid in 1962,” during the Cuban missile crisis, he told me. “The world war potential is really, really significant.”
“我认为上一次我们处于如此危险的时刻，我还是个小孩子，那是1962年，”也就是古巴导弹危机期间，他对我说。“世界大战的可能性真的非常大。”
I came to Taiwan to gauge that risk and assess how to manage it better. For what it’s worth, I greatly respect Admiral Mullen — few people know as much about global hot spots and how wars happen — but my best guess is that Americans may be overestimating the risk of conflict, particularly of an all-out invasion of Taiwan by China.
我来台湾就是为了衡量这种风险，并评估如何更好地管理这种风险。事实上，我非常尊敬马伦将军，很少有人像他那样了解全球热点以及战争是如何发生的，但我的猜测是，美国人可能高估了冲突的风险，尤其是中国全面入侵台湾的风险。
Moreover, I worry that American anxiety about the risk of war with China may inadvertently exacerbate it. “The Guns of August” is, as Mullen noted, a useful prism for reminding us how miscalculation, misunderstanding and escalation created a world war that no one wanted. So we should be alert not only to the risk that China poses to peace in the region but also to the risk we Americans unintentionally pose, and to the possibility that our legitimate efforts to confront China can lead to accidents at sea or air that lead to war.
此外，我担心对美中开战风险的焦虑可能会无意中加剧这种风险。正如马伦所指出的，《八月的枪声》是一面有用的多棱镜，它提醒我们误判、误解和战争升级如何造成了一场谁也不希望发生的世界大战。因此，我们不仅要警惕中国给地区和平带来的风险，也要警惕我们美国人无意中带来的风险，更要警惕我们对抗中国的正当努力可能导致海空事故，进而引发战争。
There is a fine line between deterring China and provoking it. My take is that while we should do significantly more to help Taiwan boost defenses and deter aggression, we should do so quietly, without needlessly humiliating China. Sometimes Americans loudly embrace Taiwan in ways that inflame tensions at times when we should be hoping to lower them.
威慑中国与挑衅中国之间存在着微妙的界线。我的看法是，虽然我们应该做更多的事情来帮助台湾加强防御和遏制侵略，但我们做的时候应该不动声色，而不是无谓地让中国难堪。有时，美国人大声支持台湾的方式会加剧紧张局势，而我们本应希望缓和局势。
Let me also make the case that we think too much in terms of an invasion — when the greater risk may be China’s taking lesser nibbles to pressure Taiwan, leading to the possibility of accidents and escalation that could drag us into an unintended world war, as happened in 1914.
我还想说的是，我们过多地从入侵的角度来考虑问题，而更大的风险可能是中国以较小规模的蚕食来向台湾施压，导致意外和升级的可能性，从而把我们拖入一场意外的世界大战，就像1914年发生的那样。
It’s disorienting to go from talking to American security experts, deeply worried about war with China, to Taiwan, where most people seem to perceive the risks as lower. Taiwan’s outgoing president, Tsai Ing-wen, said at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit in November that China was probably too overwhelmed with domestic problems to take on an invasion. And the former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou, on the other end of the political spectrum, agreed, telling me: “I don’t think China is in any mood to start a war to conquer Taiwan.”
我和美国安全专家谈话时，他们对与中国开战忧心忡忡，而在台湾，这里的大多数人似乎认为风险较低，这种差异让人无所适从。台湾即将卸任的总统蔡英文在11月举行的《纽约时报》交易录峰会上表示，中国可能被国内问题压得喘不过气来，无法开展入侵。站在政治光谱另一端的台湾前总统马英九也同意这一观点，他告诉我：“我不认为中国有心思发动战争征服台湾。”
Many prominent people in Taiwan told me that while they appreciate American moral and military support, they also fear that hotheaded, China-bashing Americans don’t understand the region and may make things worse.
台湾的许多知名人士告诉我，虽然他们感谢美国的道义和军事支持，但他们也担心头脑发热、抨击中国的美国人并不了解这个地区，可能会让事情变得更糟。
“Quite a few Americans, opinion leaders or particular members of Congress, made ridiculous statements over Taiwan,” President Ma told me.
马总统告诉我：“不少美国人、舆论领袖或一些国会议员在台湾问题上发表了荒谬的言论。”
Efforts to help the island sometimes backfire. One example often comes up in conversations in Taiwan: Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile visit to Taiwan in 2022, when she was speaker of the House. It was a gesture of moral support, but it didn’t obviously boost Taiwan’s defenses. And China’s response was to move military ships closer to Taiwan in ways that increase the risk of conflict.
帮助台湾的努力有时会适得其反。在台湾发生的谈话中经常会提到一个例子：南希·佩洛西在2022年担任众议院议长时曾高调访问台湾。这是一种道义支持的姿态，但并没有明显提升台湾的防御能力。而中国的回应是将军舰开到离台湾更近的地方，从而增加了冲突的风险。
For that reason, 62 percent of Taiwanese said in a poll last year that they thought the Pelosi visit had made Taiwan less secure.
因此，62%的台湾人在去年的一项民意调查中表示，他们认为佩洛西的访问降低了台湾的安全性。
Just as American officials read fiery speeches by Chinese officials and grow alarmed, imagine what Chinese leaders thought when an American Air Force general, Michael Minihan, declared last year that he anticipated war with China soon: “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
正如美国官员读到中国官员的激烈言辞而感到警惕一样，想象一下，当美国空军上将迈克尔·米尼汉去年宣布他预计很快将与中国开战，声称“直觉告诉我，我们将在2025年开打”时，中国的领导人会怎么想。
Beijing must also have been unnerved when Ely Ratner, a senior Pentagon official, described Taiwan as a strategic asset for the United States. The implication was that America may try to use Taiwan as a military bulwark against China; what such comments and high-level visits like Pelosi’s have in common is that they aggravate the paranoia in Beijing.
当五角大楼高级官员伊利·拉特纳将台湾描述为美国的战略资产时，北京肯定也感到不安。言下之意是，美国可能试图利用台湾作为对抗中国的军事堡垒。这些言论和佩洛西这样的高层访问的共同之处在于，它们加剧了北京的怀疑。
Instead, we need to solidify the status quo. That means China doesn’t use military force against Taiwan, and Taiwan isn’t seen as slipping away forever into America’s orbit. Taiwanese officials, including President-elect Lai Ching-te, are prudent enough to say they will maintain that status quo — messy and unsatisfactory though it is — and Washington should as well.
其实，我们需要做的是巩固现状。也就是中国不会对台湾动武，台湾也不会被视为永远滑向美国的轨道。包括当选总统赖清德在内的台湾官员足够谨慎，他们表示将维持现状——尽管现状如此混乱且不尽人意——华盛顿也应如此。
But perhaps the single best way to discourage Xi Jinping from attacking Taiwan is to help Ukraine against Russia. The more the West is united in making Russia pay a stiff price for Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the less inclined Xi will be to take a whack at Taiwan. Yet some Republicans who in theory are hostile to China nonetheless resist funding for Ukraine.
不过，阻止习近平攻击台湾的最好办法也许就是帮助乌克兰对抗俄罗斯。西方国家越是团结一致，让俄罗斯为普京的入侵付出沉重代价，习近平就越不愿意对台湾动手。然而，一些理论上敌视中国的共和党人却抵制资助乌克兰。
As for President Biden, he has done an excellent job in leading the Western alliance against Putin. But he let himself be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, especially early in the war, refusing to provide some advanced arms to Ukraine for fear that Putin would respond with tactical nuclear weapons. Xi may thus have absorbed the lesson that nuclear threats work.
至于拜登总统，他在领导西方联盟对抗普京方面做得非常出色。但他让自己被普京的核武威胁所威慑，尤其是在战争初期，他拒绝向乌克兰提供一些先进武器，因为担心普京会以战术核武器作为回应。这样一来，习近平可能已经学到了，核威胁是奏效的。
Granted, my argument that the risk of war is overblown may be wrong. A rule of thumb in following China is always to distrust people who assert with confidence what will happen. “A China expert is an oxymoron,” Winston Lord, a former ambassador to China, likes to say. In truth, there are legitimate reasons to fear what China might do.
当然，我认为战争风险被夸大的这一观点也可能是错误的。关注中国的一个经验法则是，始终不要相信那些自信地断言会发生什么的人。前驻华大使温斯屯·洛德喜欢说：“中国问题专家是个自相矛盾的概念。”事实上，对中国可能会有何举动的担忧并非杞人忧天。
“Xi Jinping has been different from his predecessors in how he talks about Taiwan, in ways that we would be unwise to ignore,” noted Matt Pottinger, a Chinese speaker who was deputy national security adviser under President Donald Trump. Xi has shown greater urgency about “recovering” Taiwan, and has linked this to his own legacy, while matching his talk with a military modernization that targets Taiwan and the United States.
曾在特朗普总统手下担任副国家安全顾问、会说中文的马特·波廷格(Matt Pottinger)指出：“习近平在谈论台湾问题时与他的前任们有所不同，我们忽视这一点是不明智的。”习近平对“收复”台湾表现出了更多的紧迫感，并将此与他自己的政治遗产联系在一起，而他在针对台湾和美国的军事现代化上采取的行动与他的言论是相符的。
“When I look at the military China is building, it is not a general-purpose military,” said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall III. “It is designed around the goal of being able to take Taiwan and keep the U.S. out.”
“当我看到中国正在建设的军队时，它不是一支普通用途的军队。”空军部长弗兰克·肯德尔三世说。“它的设计目标是为了攻占台湾并将美国挡在门外。”
Also : The Times has reported that China appears to have inserted malware into computer networks that operate electrical grids, telecommunications and water supplies that serve United States bases, including those that would respond to an attack on Taiwan.
同样不祥的是，《纽约时报》报道称，中国似乎已将恶意软件植入了为美国基地操作电网、电信和供水系统的计算机网络，包括那些应对攻击台湾的基地。
Yet the basic reason to be skeptical that war is coming is that it’s not in China’s interest or Xi’s (although it’s also true that plenty of nations have started wars that didn’t serve their interests).
然而，对战争即将来临持怀疑态度，根本原因是这不符合中国或习近平的利益（尽管很多国家也曾发动过不符合自身利益的战争）。
An amphibious operation to conquer Taiwan would be an enormous challenge and might well fail. Taiwan is nearly 100 miles from China, without many beaches to offer easy landing. A surprise invasion in Normandy was possible in 1944, but would not be feasible in an age of satellites and drones.
两栖作战征服台湾将是一个巨大的挑战，很可能会失败。台湾距离中国大陆近160公里，没有很多便于登陆的海滩。对诺曼底的突袭在1944年是可能的，但在卫星和无人机时代是不可行的。
China’s military is inexperienced — the People’s Liberation Army’s last “combat” came when it fired on fellow citizens during the 1989 pro-democracy protests — and deeply corrupt. Well-connected Chinese friends have told me how officers are regularly promoted based on the bribes they pay. Xi is a risk taker, but even he must know that an all-out invasion would be a dangerous roll of the dice.
中国军队缺乏经验——中国人民解放军最后一次“作战”是在1989年民主抗议期间向同胞开枪——而且腐败严重。一些人脉很广的中国朋友告诉我，军官们是如何通过行贿获得定期晋升。习近平是个敢于冒险的人，然而即便是他也一定知道全面入侵将是一次危险的掷骰子行为。
“Just out of prudence, I think he’s unlikely to do something in the next few years as the alarmists have been promoting in Washington,” said Joseph Nye, a retired Harvard professor with long experience in Pacific strategy.
“出于谨慎考虑，未来几年，我认为他不太可能去做一些华盛顿的危言耸听者一直宣传的事情，”在太平洋战略方面拥有长期经验的哈佛退休教授约瑟夫·奈说。
One step that might make Chinese aggression more likely to succeed — and thus a greater possibility — is a Trump victory in November. Trump has expressed uncertainty about helping Taiwan, and it’s difficult to imagine him coordinating allies to press China to back off.
有一件事可能会让中国的侵略更有可能得逞——因此可能性更大——那就是特朗普在11月的胜利。特朗普已表示不确定是否会帮助台湾，很难想象他会协调盟友向中国施压。
Alexander C. Huang, a Taiwan strategist, said he took part in a war game set in early 2025 that assumed that Trump was president. The war game was supposed to last three hours, but it was over after two — even before shots were fired — because China and America were making demands that Taiwan couldn’t meet and that were beyond the scope of the game. These included a timetable for unification in China’s case and pressure to spend more on the military from the U.S. War games should always be regarded with some skepticism, and Taiwan did not end here in ashes — but given the possibility of a Trump election, the war game did conclude ominously.
台湾策略人士黄介正说，他参加了一场战棋推演，背景设在2025年初，假设特朗普是总统。这场军事演习原定持续三个小时，但两小时后就结束了——甚至还没等开炮就结束了——因为中国和美国提出了台湾无法满足的要求，这超出了推演的范围。其中包括中国统一的时间表，以及美国要求台湾花费更多军费的压力。对战棋推演的结果一向需要带有一些怀疑，而且台湾并没有化为灰烬——但考虑到特朗普当选的可能性，这场推演确实以不祥的方式结束。
“Taiwan was toast,” Huang said.
“台湾麻烦大了，”黄说。
In the United States, there are calls to adopt a formal policy of defending Taiwan, replacing the present “strategic ambiguity” of a U.S. response (which Biden has in any case undercut by saying four times that the United States would defend Taiwan).
在美国，有人呼吁实施一项正式的保卫台湾政策，取代美国目前的“战略模糊”反应（拜登曾经四次强调美国将会保卫台湾，多少削弱了“战略模糊”的政策）。
For the United States to formally say that America would back Taiwan militarily would be a mistake, I believe, partly because of its effect on Taiwan. If Taiwan were confident that the American cavalry would ride to the rescue, it might be less worried about provoking China and do less to defend itself.
我认为，如果美国正式表示将在军事上支持台湾，那将是一个错误，部分原因在于它对台湾的影响。如果台湾有信心美国侠士会前来救援，它可能就不会那么担心激怒中国，也不会在防务上做那么多。
The truth is that Taiwan hasn’t been willing to make deep sacrifices for its own security. It’s a wonderful place, partly because it’s much more Athens than Sparta. It allocates a smaller share of G.D.P. to defense than the United States, Israel or Estonia; it is only now requiring a year of military conscription (for men); and it is phasing out nuclear power plants, which are critical for resilience in a blockade because they provide homegrown power when imports provide 98 percent of energy.
In any case, a tighter squeeze on Taiwan — including a blockade — seems a more likely scenario than a sudden invasion. China could hold high-intensity military exercises that rattle Taiwan. It could cut undersea cables carrying the internet to Taiwan. It could also seize one of the Taiwan-controlled islands, like Taiping.
无论如何，比起突然入侵，更有可能的情况是对台湾进行更凶狠的挤压——包括封锁。中国可能会举行高强度的军事演习，让台湾感到不安。它可以切断向台湾传输互联网的海底电缆。它还可能夺取台湾控制的一个岛屿，比如太平岛。
China broached one alarming idea last year: It announced inspections of ships traveling from Taiwan to the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen and Matsu. It never actually conducted inspections, but the announcement offered a clue to what it may be planning.
中国去年提出了一个令人担忧的想法：宣布对从台湾驶向台湾控制的金门和马祖的船只进行检查。虽然中国从未实际进行过检查，但从中可以看到它可能在计划些什么。
What if Xi moved toward a partial blockade of Taiwan, saying: The world recognizes that Taiwan is a part of China, so ships bound for Taiwan are now subject to Chinese customs inspections. The Chinese Coast Guard will board ships periodically, to ensure that papers are in order.
如果习近平打算部分封锁台湾，声称既然全世界都承认台湾是中国的一部分，前往台湾的船只现在必须接受中国海关的检查。中国海警将定期登船，以确保文件齐全，那会怎样呢？
This kind of gradual approach, a salami slicing of Taiwan’s autonomy, is how China neutered Hong Kong.
这种循序渐进的方式，会像切香肠一样切掉台湾的自治，这也是中国阉割香港的方式。
Maj. Gen. Sun Li-fang of the Taiwan armed forces told me that China is particularly ramping up its efforts to demoralize the Taiwanese people and gain an advantage through what’s called “cognitive warfare,” including manipulation of public opinion and the release of fake photos and information. He described it as an update of the strategy for how to win without fighting a battle depicted by the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu in “The Art of War.”
台湾军方的孙立方少将告诉我，中国正在加紧打击台湾人民的士气，并通过所谓“认知战”获得优势，包括操纵公众舆论和发布虚假照片及信息。他称这是中国古代军事家孙子在《孙子兵法》中所描述的“不战而屈人之兵”战略的更新版。
“The threat is not just coming from guns, artillery, rockets, missiles, warships,” General Sun said. “They’re trying to influence our minds as well.”
“威胁不仅仅来自枪炮、火箭、导弹和军舰，”孙立方说。“他们还在试图影响我们的思想。”
What Taiwan needs is more practical help — anti-ship missiles, military training, coordination with allies, better cyberdefenses. Meanwhile, the United States needs to boost the capacity of industry to produce munitions rapidly in a crisis.
台湾需要的是更实际的帮助——反舰导弹、军事训练、与盟友的协调、更好的网络防御。与此同时，美国需要提高工业生产能力，以便在危机中迅速生产军火。
The Biden administration has worked very effectively with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines to prepare for joint action to constrain China. That enhances deterrence. Washington could also do more to help Taiwan cultivate cyberwarfare: If the grid goes out in Taipei, Shanghai should lose power, too. If Taipei’s internet cables are cut, then China’s great firewall should cave so ordinary Chinese are able to read about their leaders’ corruption.
拜登政府与日本、韩国、澳大利亚和菲律宾进行了非常有效的合作，准备采取联合行动遏制中国。这增强了威慑力。华盛顿还可以做更多的事情来帮助台湾培养网络战能力：如果台北电网崩溃，上海也应该断电。如果台北的互联网电缆被切断，那么中国的防火墙也应该瘫痪，这样普通中国人就能看到他们领导人的腐败。
Maybe the best recommendation I heard came from Mark Liu, the chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. He offered this useful advice for Americans aiming to help Taiwan’s security: “Do more. Talk less.”
也许我听到的最好的建议来自台积电的董事长刘德音。他向希望帮助台湾安全的美国人说了这样一句很有用的话：“多做少说。”
That advice might have helped the major powers in August 1914 avoid a cataclysmic and unnecessary war. It remains sound counsel today.
放在1914年8月，这一建议或许有助于各国避免一场灾难性的、不必要的战争。时至今日，这仍然是一则明智的忠告。