China’s leaders emerge from the fog of pollution denial
中国将领导全球气候变化合作
环境评测翻译公司：吉密欧：由于特朗普仍对证明人类造成气候变化的科学证据心有疑虑，中国势将成为应对气候变化的全球领导者。
In mid-2012, Donald Trump fired off this tweet: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
2012年年中的时候，唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)在Twitter上放言称：“全球变暖是中国人为了自己的利益制造的骗局，目的是让美国的制造业变得不具竞争力。” 环境评测翻译公司。
Apart from its sheer absurdity, one of the most striking things about Mr Trump’s assertion is how similar it sounds to the paranoid ravings of Chinese nationalists, who blame almost everything on the CIA and evil, imperialist America.
除了十足的荒谬之外，特朗普的这种论断还有一个最突出的地方——听起来与中国民族主义者偏执的胡言乱语何其相似，后者将几乎一切问题都归咎于美国中央情报局(CIA)和邪恶的美帝国主义。
With admirable patience, Chinese officials have pointed out in recent weeks that global discussions on climate change were started by the Reagan administration in the 1980s at a time when China did not even acknowledge the existence of pollution within its borders.
中国官员的耐心令人敬佩，最近几周他们指出，全球气候变化谈判是由里根(Reagan)政府于上世纪80年代发起的，那时中国甚至都未意识到本国境内存在污染。
Thanks to the election of Mr Trump, who remains unconvinced by the overwhelming scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change, China is now poised to become the world’s leader in tackling global warming and the environment. Nobody is as surprised by this new responsibility as China itself. Less than a decade ago, the Chinese government still refused to admit that the acrid clouds of choking smog hanging over most of the country had anything to do with industrial development.
由于当选的特朗普仍对证明人类造成气候变化的强有力的科学证据心有疑虑，中国如今势将成为应对全球变暖和保护环境的世界领导者。对这一新的责任最感到惊讶是中方自身。就在不到10年前，中国政府还拒绝承认国内大部分地区笼罩的令人窒息的刺鼻雾霾与工业发展有关。环境评测翻译公司。
Fed on a diet of government denials and propaganda, ordinary citizens in Beijing would insist the sulphurous haze enveloping the capital was in fact harmless “fog”, despite the fact the city is built on a desert.
受中国政府拒绝承认及相关宣传的影响，北京的老百姓坚持认为，笼罩首都的可怕雾霾其实是对人无害的“雾”——尽管北京气候干燥。
The big shift in China’s policy and public perceptions was prompted, ironically, by the actions of the US government. In 2008, the US embassy in Beijing decided to install an air monitor on its roof and began publishing hourly updates of pollution levels through its Twitter account.
具有讽刺意味的是，促使中国的政策和公众认知出现重大转变的正是美国政府的举动。2008年，美国驻北京大使馆决定在使馆屋顶安装空气污染监测设备，并开始通过Twitter账户每小时更新污染水平数据。
The Chinese government initially reacted with threats, saying the tweets were “illegal”. But eventually Beijing caved to public pressure and began monitoring and publishing pollution levels itself.
中国政府最初的反应是发出威胁，称这些Twitter帖子“非法”。但最终，北京方面向公众压力屈服，开始自己监测并发布污染水平数据。
Since then, China’s authoritarian leaders have become increasingly zealous in their attempts to halt rampant poisoning of the environment, even to the point of declaring a “war on pollution”.
从那时起，中国的威权领导人越来越热心设法阻止猖獗的环境污染行为，甚至到了“对污染宣战”的程度。环境评测翻译公司。
This militant devotion to environmentalism now extends to the issue of planetary climate change, which Chinese hawks once decried as an American plot to “contain China” and stop it from reaching its full potential as an industrial juggernaut (sound familiar?).
如今，这种对环保的强烈执着扩展到了全球气候变化问题上，而中国“鹰派”曾谴责气候变化问题是美国人“遏制中国”的阴谋，企图阻止中国充分发挥作为一个工业强国的全部潜能（听起来熟悉么？）。
This does not mean China’s Communist leaders have turned entirely soft and green. Beijing still insists on “common but differentiated responsibilities”, which means countries that industrialised earlier, like the US and Britain, have a bigger obligation to tackle climate change. But the crucial difference from the past is that China’s rulers actually want to cut emissions regardless of what the US or any other country decides to do.
但这并不意味着中国共产党领导人的立场已经完全软化并且转向环保。北京方面仍坚持“共同但有区别的责任”，即美国、英国等越早实现工业化的国家越应在应对气候变化方面承担更大的责任。但与过去的关键区别在于，无论美国或其他任何国家做出什么样的决定，中国领导人真的希望能减少污染排放。
According to people who claim to know, President Xi Jinping himself genuinely cares on a personal level about protecting the environment. More important is the Communist party’s realisation that reducing the country’s shocking levels of pollution has become a matter of political survival.
据自称了解中国高层的人士透露，习近平主席本人确实非常关心保护环境。更重要的是，中共已经认识到，降低中国触目惊心的污染程度已成为事关政治生存的问题。
Since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 the autocratic state has survived because of its reputation for competence, particularly in its handling of the economy and its ability to raise living standards. But the economy has been slowing for several years and the huge environmental cost of untrammelled growth is painfully apparent to all.
自1989年天安门广场爆发抗议，独裁的中共政权延续了下来，这得益于其能力方面的声誉，尤其是推动经济发展及提高人民生活水平的能力。但近些年中国经济增速一直在放缓，而所有人都看到了无节制的增长带来的巨大环境代价。环境评测翻译公司。
Some in China are even starting to question the legitimacy of an unelected government that cannot provide breathable air. Most dangerous of all are the middle and upper classes who can afford to buy non-poisonous water and food imported from abroad but still have to breathe the same air as everyone else.
在中国，一些人甚至开始质疑一个连清洁空气都无法提供的非民选政府是否拥有合法性。最危险的是中上阶层，他们可以买得起从国外进口的未受污染的水和食物，但仍不得不跟其他人呼吸同样的空气。
Fear of losing legitimacy and ultimately power is the most important motivation for China’s rulers to take the global lead in tackling emissions and climate change. But they also recognise they have an enormous opportunity.
对失去合法性并最终丧失权力的恐惧，是中国的统治者在应对排放和气候变化方面承担全球带头作用的最重要动机。但他们也认识到这其中存在巨大机遇。
If they can channel the urgency created by shocking levels of pollution into finding technological solutions to climate change then they will end up controlling the technologies and economic benefits that flow from them. That is now the basis of Chinese industrial policy.
如果中国领导人能将治理国内严重污染的紧迫性转化为寻找气候变化的技术解决方案，那他们最终将掌控相关科技及其带来的经济收益。这就是当前中国工业政策的基本点。
So the opposite of Mr Trump’s tweet from four years ago is probably true. Thanks to his scepticism towards man-made climate change, US manufacturing is likely to be left behind and the green economy of the future is now far more likely to be made in China.
因此，反过来理解特朗普四年前的Twitter帖子可能才是对的。由于他对人类造成气候变化的怀疑，美国的制造业很可能将被甩在后面，而未来的绿色经济更有可能由中国打造。
