纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英从华为到农夫山泉中国民族主义者为何向它们开炮

To get the economy back on track, China is trying to champion its domestic companies and reassure entrepreneurs that it’s ready for business.

为了让经济重回正轨，中国正在努力支持国内企业，并向企业家保证，中国已经做好了开始做生意的准备。

Its efforts are running into a problem: an online army of Chinese nationalists who have taken it upon themselves to punish perceived insults to the country — including from some of China’s leading business figures.

这样的努力遇到了一个难题：一支由中国民族主义者组成的网络大军自发地惩罚那些被视为侮辱国家的行为——包括来自中国一些商业领袖的行为。

In recent weeks, bloggers who usually rail against the United States have turned on China’s richest man, calling him unpatriotic, and encouraged boycotts that have wiped out billions from his beverage company’s market value. When fellow tycoons defended him, they were attacked as well, by users whose profiles featured photos of the Chinese flag.

最近几周，通常猛烈抨击美国的博主开始转而攻击中国首富，称他不爱国，并怂恿抵制活动，导致他的饮料公司市值损失数十亿美元。当其他商业大亨为其辩护时，他们也遭到了个人资料带有中国国旗照片的用户的攻击。

As the fervor spread, social media users also hounded Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s tech industry, accusing it of secretly admiring Japan. Others accused a prestigious university of being too cozy with the United States, and demanded the works of a Nobel-winning Chinese author be removed from circulation for purportedly smearing national heroes.

随着这股狂热情绪蔓延，社交媒体用户还开始围攻中国科技行业的明珠——华为，指责其暗中崇日。还有人指责一所著名大学与美国过从甚密，并要求封杀一位获得诺贝尔奖中国作家的作品，理由是其涉嫌抹黑英烈。

The state has often encouraged such nationalist crusaders, deploying them to drum up support, deflect foreign criticism or distract from crises. Social media users have suggested that the coronavirus originated in an American lab, and staged boycotts against Western companies that criticized China’s human rights record. Self-styled patriotic influencers have made careers out of criticizing foreign countries.

中国经常会鼓励这些民族主义斗士，利用他们来争取支持、转移来自国外的批评或分散人们对危机的注意力。社交媒体用户暗示过新冠病毒起源于美国实验室，曾对批评中国人权记录的西方公司发起抵制。自封的爱国“网红”以批评外国为职业。

But the encouragement has also pushed many users to try and outdo one another in nationalist outrage — to an extent that can sometimes escape the government’s control or undercut its broader aims. As the recent attacks grew, some state media outlets issued rare rebukes of the nationalist bloggers. Hu Xijin, a former Communist Party newspaper editor who is perhaps the most well-known online nationalist, also condemned the craze. Yet the barrage persisted.

但这种鼓励也促使许多用户在民族主义愤怒中试图赶超彼此——有时可能脱离了政府控制的范围，或是削弱其更广泛的目标。随着最近的攻击事件不断增多，一些官方媒体罕见地对民族主义博主进行了谴责。一份共产党报纸的前主编、也许是最著名的网络民族主义者胡锡进也谴责了这种狂热。然而，炮火仍在继续。

“While nationalism and populism are quite useful tools, they are pretty dangerous as well,” said Yaoyao Dai, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who has studied Chinese populism. “The government needs and wants to be the one that shapes the narrative. They cannot just give everyone this power to shape the narrative of who are ‘the people’ and who is ‘the enemy.’”

“虽然民族主义和民粹主义是非常有用的工具，但它们也相当危险，”研究中国民粹主义的北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校教授戴遥遥说。“政府需要并且希望成为塑造叙事的那个人。他们不能随意赋予每个人塑造‘人民’和‘敌人’的叙事权力。”

This time, many of the grievances seem to be fueled by a groundswell of discontent over China’s economic malaise, potentially making it harder for the authorities to turn the faucet of public anger off.

这一次，许多不满情绪似乎是由于对中国经济不景气的不满情绪高涨而加剧的，这可能会让当局更难平息公众的愤怒。

Some of those calling for boycotts of the drinks company, for instance, suggested it was focused more on profits than on the public good, amid high youth unemployment and disaffection with harsh corporate culture.

例如，一些呼吁抵制那家饮料公司的人认为，在年轻人失业率居高不下以及民众对严苛的企业文化不满的情况下，该公司更注重企业利润而不是公共利益。

The attacks on the beverage company, Nongfu Spring, and its billionaire owner, Zhong Shanshan, began last month after the death of the founder of a rival drinks company called Wahaha.

上个月，娃哈哈饮料公司创始人去世后，针对其竞争对手农夫山泉及其亿万富翁所有者钟睒睒的攻击便开始了。

The Wahaha founder, Zong Qinghou, had built a reputation for not firing workers, and offering housing and child care subsidies. After his death, some users began comparing Mr. Zong with Mr. Zhong of Nongfu, and asking why the latter did not show the same generosity.

娃哈哈创始人宗庆后因不解雇工人、为员工提供住房和托儿补贴而闻名。在他去世后，一些用户开始将宗庆后与农夫山泉的钟睒睒进行对比，并发问为什么后者没有表现出同样的慷慨。

But the attacks soon spiraled far beyond his business practices. Critics pointed out that Mr. Zhong’s eldest son held American citizenship, and declared the family traitors. Others said that the design of one of Nongfu’s drinks seemed to evoke Japanese imagery — a cardinal sin to nationalists, given China’s fraught history with Japan.

但攻击愈演愈烈，很快就远远超出其商业行为。批评人士指出，钟睒睒长子拥有美国国籍，并宣布这家人是叛徒。 还有人表示，农夫山泉一款饮料的设计令人联想到日本形象——鉴于中国与日本的紧张历史，这在民族主义者看来是不可原谅的错误。

Still others seized on the fact that Nongfu had overseas shareholders, accusing it of enriching foreigners at the expense of China.

还有一些人抓住农夫山泉拥有海外股东的事实，指责其以牺牲中国利益为代价让外国人发财。

“In this current environment, when most people can’t make much money, they’ll be in a bad place, and they’ll resent the rich,” Rebecca Fei, a 35-year-old resident of Hangzhou, the eastern Chinese city where both drinks companies are headquartered, said in an interview. Ms. Fei had published social media posts praising Wahaha’s work culture and criticizing Nongfu Spring.

“在目前的环境下，当大多数人赚不到多少钱时，他们的处境就会很糟糕，就会仇富，”杭州市的35岁居民丽贝卡·费接受采访时说，杭州是这两家饮料公司总部所在地。费女士曾在社交媒体上发布帖子，赞扬娃哈哈的工作文化，批评农夫山泉。

Around the world, anti-elite sentiments often go hand-in-hand with economic downturns. But China’s tightly controlled internet incentivizes users to blend that sentiment with aggressive nationalism. With Chinese censors deeming more and more topics off-limits, pro-China sentiment is one of the few reliably “safe” areas remaining.

在世界各地，反精英情绪往往与经济衰退相伴而生。但中国严格控制的互联网鼓励用户将这种情绪与激进的民族主义相融合。随着中国的审查机构将越来越多的话题视为禁区，爱国情绪成为仅存的几个可靠的“安全”领域之一。

The allure of making incendiary clickbait may be even stronger now amid the shortage of well-paying jobs, said Kun He, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who studies China’s online populism. Some bloggers “take advantage of this populist sentiment to attract traffic for their own profit,” he said.

荷兰格罗宁根大学研究中国网络民粹主义的博士后研究员何坤（音）说，在高薪工作短缺的情况下，制作煽动点击内容的诱惑力现在可能更强了。他说，一些博客“利用这种民粹主义情绪吸引流量，为自己牟利”。

Online streamers began posting videos of themselves pouring Nongfu Spring water down the toilet. Several convenience stores declared that they would no longer stock its products. Nongfu’s stock value has fallen 8 percent since last month.

一些自媒体开始发布自己将农夫山泉倒入马桶的视频。一些便利店宣布不再销售农夫山泉的产品。自上个月以来，农夫山泉的股价下跌了8%。

As the frenzy built, a state-owned newspaper in Hangzhou published an opinion piece calling on the public to treat entrepreneurs as “one of our own,” though it did not mention Nongfu Spring by name. The propaganda department of Zhejiang Province, of which Hangzhou is the capital, denounced bloggers who “damaged the normal economic order.”

随着狂热情绪的蔓延，杭州一份官方报纸发表了一篇评论文章，呼吁公众将企业家视为“自己人”，尽管该文章并未提及农夫山泉的名字。杭州所在的浙江省宣传部谴责了“破坏正常经济秩序”的博主。

The warnings had little effect. Other entrepreneurs who defended Nongfu found themselves attacked, too. Li Guoqing, the co-founder of Dangdang — once called China’s version of Amazon — urged social media users in a video to let businesspeople get back to business, only for commenters to point out that his son, too, was an American citizen. Mr. Li later deleted his video.

这些警告收效甚微。其他为农夫山泉辩护的企业家也发现自己受到了攻击。曾被称为中国版亚马逊的当当网的联合创始人李国庆在一段视频中呼吁社交媒体用户让商业回归商业，但评论者指出他的儿子也是美国公民。李国庆后来删除了视频。

Nationalist furors often subside as quickly as they arise, and Mr. Zhong is still China’s richest person, with a net worth of over $60 billion. But the mania against Nongfu made clear how easily nationalists can descend upon targets other than those selected by the authorities.

民族主义者的怒火平息得通常和点燃一样快，钟睒睒仍然是中国最富有的人，净资产超过4600亿元。但是，对农夫山泉的狂热声讨清楚地表明，除了当局选定的目标之外，民族主义者是多么容易对其他目标下手。

Several more campaigns have recently taken aim at other storied institutions and figures, in spite of official efforts to dissuade them.

尽管官方出力劝阻，但最近又有一些攻击将矛头指向了其他著名机构和人物。

Some social media users have fumed that some graduates of Tsinghua University in Beijing, routinely ranked the country’s best, go on to study in the United States. They pledged not to send their own children there, even after a social media account tied to People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, criticized the attacks as ill-founded.

一些社交媒体用户对北京清华大学的一些毕业生去美国留学感到愤怒，清华一直被评为中国最好的学府。即使在共产党喉舌《人民日报》旗下的一个社交媒体账号批评这些攻击毫无根据之后，他们仍誓言不会把自己的孩子送去那里读书。

Critics also rounded on Huawei, the tech giant, after a Weibo user posted that the company was suspicious, because it had named a line of chips Kirin, another unacceptable Japanese reference. The post, now deleted, appeared to be sarcastic. But as it went viral, some users earnestly took up the call to arms.

一位微博用户发帖称华为公司动机可疑，因为该公司将一系列芯片命名为Kirin（麒麟芯片的英文名称），而Kirin也是一个令人无法接受的日语罗马字，随后批评者还对这家科技巨头进行了围攻。该帖子的本意似乎是为了反讽，现已被删除。但随着它在网上疯传，一些用户信以为真地响应了抨击华为的号召。

Then there was a man named Wu Wanzheng, who announced on Weibo last month that he had sued Mo Yan, the only Chinese national to win a Nobel in literature. Mr. Wu — whose social media username is Mao Xinghuo, in a nod to Mao Zedong — claimed that Mr. Mo had smeared the military and insulted Mao in his novels, which often depict the turbulence of 20th-century China. He requested that Mr. Mo’s books be removed from circulation.

还有一个叫吴万争的人，他上个月在微博上宣布他起诉了中国唯一一位诺贝尔文学奖获得者莫言。吴万争在社交媒体上的用户名是毛星火，这是对毛泽东的致敬。他声称莫言在他的小说中抹黑了军队，侮辱了毛泽东，莫言的作品常常描绘中国在20世纪的动荡。他要求从市场上撤下莫言的书。

Mr. Wu’s suit has not been taken up by a court, and his account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, was recently banned. Hashtags about his lawsuit, after trending on Weibo, were censored.

吴万争的诉讼尚未被法院受理，而他在抖音上的账号最近也被封禁。有关他的诉讼的标签在微博上成为热门话题后也遭到了审查。

Still, the authorities were wielding a relatively light touch, compared to how vigorously they have worked to silence any criticisms of Beijing’s economic policies. Attacks on Mr. Mo have continued, including by Mr. Wu, who declined an interview request, and other bloggers like Zhao Junsheng, a 67-year-old retired state company worker.

尽管如此，与中国政府大力压制对北京经济政策的任何批评相比，政府对这些博主的审查相对较轻。对莫言的攻击仍在继续，包括拒绝采访请求的吴万争和其他博客作者的抨击，如67岁的国企退休工人赵军生（音）。

Mr. Zhao, whose videos attacking Mr. Mo have racked up more than 15,000 likes, admitted he had not read any of his novels. But he was disgusted by the idea that people might criticize Mao-era China, when workers had been taken care of. That time was just as important as China’s modern-day market economy, he said in an interview.

赵军生抨击莫言的视频获得了超过1万5千多点赞。他承认自己没有读过莫言的任何小说。但他反感人们批评毛泽东时代的中国，因为那个时代的工人得到了照顾。他在接受采访时说，那个时代与中国现代的市场经济一样重要。

“I think they must have foreign forces behind them,” he said.

他说：“我认为他们背后一定有外国势力。”