War and peace in Asia
全球重心东移，西方霸权式微
广州翻译公司：拉赫曼：过去50年来，亚洲经济迅速崛起。而经济和政治力量重心东移意味着，西方的绝对主导地位正走向终结。
In Chinese history, foreign visitors to the imperial court were often treated as “barbarians” who were expected to pay tribute to the emperor. There are echoes of this in the way that modern China’s leaders engage with the rest of the world, as I discovered in November 2013, as part of a small group of visitors received by President Xi Jinping in Beijing. There were plenty of eminent people in the group, including former prime ministers such as Gordon Brown of Britain, and Mario Monti of Italy, as well a smattering of western billionaires. Yet the foreign grandees were treated a bit like a class of schoolchildren.
在中国历史上，中国人往往将到访中国宫廷的外国人当成“蛮夷”对待，认为他们理应向中国皇帝朝贡。这与现代中国领导人对外交往的方式存在遥相呼应之处，正如2013年11月我作为一群外国访问者中的一员，在北京受到中国国家主席习近平接见时所发现的那样。这些访问者中有很多显赫人物，其中包括英国前首相戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)和意大利前总理马里奥•蒙蒂(Mario Monti)，还有多位西方亿万富翁。然而，这些外国大人物却被当成小学生一样对待。广州翻译公司。
First, we were ushered into the echoing central area of the Great Hall of the People; then we were lined up on benches for a photo with the president. After a little while, Xi swept into the room and shook a few hands (“I touched him,” gasped Francis Fukuyama, the famous academic, in mock awe) — before posing for the photo.
首先，我们被引入人民大会堂空旷的中心区域；之后被排成一排坐在长凳上等待与习近平合影。过了一会儿，习近平大步走进房间，与众人握手（“我触摸到他了，”著名学者弗朗西斯•福山(Francis Fukuyama)装作敬畏的样子惊叹道），随后摆姿势合影。
A few minutes later, the president’s discourse began. Seated at the centre of a banqueting room, with a giant mural of the Great Wall of China behind him, chandeliers above him, and a semi-circle of former western leaders arranged in front of him, Xi began his remarks by reminding his visitors that “China is an ancient civilisation with over 5,000 years of history”. It was, in some respects, a boilerplate remark. Yet China’s awareness of its thousands of years of history is fundamental to the country’s understanding of itself. It also inevitably means that China, in some ways, sees the US as an upstart nation — a country that has been in existence for fewer than 250 years, a shorter lifespan than most Chinese dynasties.
几分钟后，习近平开始讲话。他坐在宴客厅的中间位置，身后是一幅巨大的壁画（上面画着长城），头顶悬挂着吊灯，一众西方前领导人在他身前排成半圆形。他在演讲一开头就这样提醒访问者：“中国是一个有着5000多年历史的文明古国”。从某些角度而言，这是一句套话。不过，中国意识到自己有几千年历史，这种自知自觉从根本上影响着这个国家对自身的理解。这种自知自觉也不可避免地意味着中国在某些方面把美国视为后起之辈——一个建立不足250年的国家，其历史甚至比中国大多数朝代存在的时间都短。广州翻译公司。
Xi’s determination to rebuild the wealth and power of his nation was the central theme of his speech. One of his favourite slogans, which he tried out several times on his foreign audience, was “the great rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation. But he was also keen to reassure his audience that China’s rise would not lead to conflict with the outside world — “We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap — destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers,” he insisted.
习近平对重建中国财富和实力的决心是其讲话的主题。他最喜欢的口号之一是中华民族的“伟大复兴”——他曾多次在外国听众面前提到这个口号。但是他也急于安抚他的听众——中国的崛起不会导致它与外界的冲突。“我们需要共同努力，避免落入修昔底德陷阱(Thucydides Trap)——新兴大国与守成大国之间具有破坏性的紧张局势，”他坚称。
Xi’s reference to “Thucydides’ trap” showed that he (or his staff) had been following the American debate about the rise of China. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor, had coined the phrase with reference to the ancient Greek historian’s observation that the war between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BC was caused by Sparta's fears of a rising Athens. He has calculated that in 12 of 16 cases since 1500, the rivalry between a great power and a rising power had ended in war.
习近平提及“修昔底德陷阱”，表明他（或他的下属）一直关注着美国有关中国崛起的辩论。哈佛大学(Harvard University)教授格雷厄姆•艾利森(Graham Allison)借用古希腊史学家修昔底德的理论创造了这个词。修昔底德指出，公元前5世纪雅典和斯巴达之间的战争，是由斯巴达对雅典崛起的担忧所引起。艾利森发现，自1500年以来，共出现过16次守成大国和新兴国家相对抗的情况，其中有12次最终导致了战争。广州翻译公司。
Despite Xi’s attempts at reassurance, there is no doubt that strategic tensions are rising between the US and China. Over the past year, China has attempted to re-enforce its disputed claims to most of the South China Sea by building artificial islands and military installations across the ocean. In response, the US navy has deliberately sailed through these disputed waters — prompting a furious rhetorical response in Beijing.
尽管习近平试图打消人们的疑虑，但是美中之间的战略紧张局势无疑正在升温。过去一年，中国试图通过在南中国海上建造人工岛屿和军事设施，来强化其对南中国海大部分区域具有争议性的领土主张。作为回应，美国海军故意驶过了争议海域——激起北京方面愤怒的言辞回应。
The rivalry between the US and China is one of the most striking and dangerous themes in international politics. But rising tensions in East Asia are just part of a larger story. The Obama years have been characterised by a series of challenges to the west’s dominance of international politics. In the Middle East, a state-system largely constructed by Britain and France in the early 20th century — and which was then maintained by American power after 1945 — is now crumbling, amid violence and political anarchy. In Europe, Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 marked the first forcible annexation of territory on the European landmass since 1945.
美中之间的对抗是国际政局最突出、最危险的议题之一。但是东亚日益加剧的紧张局势只是大局的一部分。奥巴马执政期间的特点是，全球出现了一系列挑战西方对国际政治主导权的事件。在中东，20世纪初主要由英国和法国建立、在1945年后由美国维持的国家体制，如今正在暴力和政治混乱中崩塌。在欧洲，2014年俄罗斯占领克里米亚，标志着自1945年以来欧洲大陆上首次出现武力吞并领土的事件。广州翻译公司。
The red thread connecting these seemingly regional crises is the west’s growing inability to function as a pole of stability and power, imposing order on a chaotic world. In the US, President Barack Obama’s critics often argue that western weakness is the fault of Obama himself. But in fact there are much deeper historical forces at work. For more than 500 years, ever since the dawn of the European colonial age, the fate of countries and peoples in Asia, Africa and the Americas were shaped by developments and decisions made in Europe — and, later, the US. But the west’s centuries-long domination of world affairs is now coming to a close. The root cause of this change is the extraordinary economic development in Asia over the past 50 years. Western political power was founded on technological, military and economic dominance — but these advantages are fast eroding. And the consequences are now being felt in global politics.
这些事件看上去是地区性危机，贯穿其中的的红线则是，西方越来愈无力作为稳定和力量的标杆，在这个混乱的世界里发挥维持秩序的作用。在美国，批评美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的人往往主张，西方的弱势要怪奥巴马本人。但事实上，这背后有更深层次的历史因素在起作用。自从欧洲殖民时代开启以来，在500多年时间里，在欧洲（后来是美国）发生的事情、做出的决定，左右着亚洲、非洲和美洲国家和人民的命运。但是，西方对国际事务长达数百年的主导如今正在走向终点。这种变化的根本原因是亚洲过去50年来经济发展的出色表现。西方政治实力的基础是其在技术、军事以及经济上的主导地位，但是如今这些优势正在迅速消失。这一事态的后果眼下正在全球政治领域显现。
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The idea that the rise of Asia might one day threaten the west’s geopolitical dominance still seemed like a remote prospect when I first moved to Asia as a foreign correspondent in 1993. China was growing at double-digit rates, but it was still an obviously impoverished country. Even in Shanghai, the country’s commercial capital, there were still more mopeds than cars on the streets. The gleaming skyscrapers of Pudong, which today symbolise the city’s wealth — had not yet made it off the architects’ easel. Even then, there were military tensions between China and the US. But, in 1996, when Beijing attempted to intimidate Taiwan by staging missile tests in the waters around its “rebel province”, the US swiftly dispatched aircraft carriers to the region — and Beijing backed off. There was still no doubt that America was the sole superpower.
1993年，当我作为一名外国记者第一次来到亚洲时，以下这一观点所描述的前景似乎仍然遥不可及：亚洲崛起有朝一日可能威胁到西方对地缘政治的主导。那时，中国正以两位数的速度增长，但显然仍是一个贫穷国家。即便在中国经济最发达的城市上海，大街上的轻便摩托车仍多过汽车。浦东那些如今象征着这个城市财富的耀眼的摩天大楼，当时还只是建筑师们的蓝图。即便在那时，中美之间也存在着军事紧张局势。但当北京方面1996年试图通过在台湾周边海域试射导弹来威慑这个“反叛之省”时，美国迅速向该地区派出航空母舰——结果北京退让了。那时，美国毫无疑问仍是世界唯一超级大国。广州翻译公司。
Twenty years on, China is challenging the balance of power in the Pacific with much greater determination. But to truly understand the significance of the era we are living through, you need to go back to the era before European imperialism. At the beginning of the 1400s, China and the Islamic world were at levels of economic and political power and sophistication that were at least equivalent to those attained in Europe. The global balance of power began to tip with the great European voyages of exploration of the 1490s. In 1492, Christopher Columbus, a Genoese explorer employed by the Spanish crown, crossed the Atlantic. In 1498, Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, reached India.
二十年过去了，如今中国正以越来越大的决心挑战太平洋地区的力量平衡。但要真正理解我们正在经历的这个时代的意义，需要回到欧洲开始帝国主义扩张之前的那个时代。15世纪伊始，中国和伊斯兰世界经济、政治的实力与先进程度，至少与欧洲水平相当。伴随15世纪90年代欧洲伟大的航海探险活动，全球力量平衡开始倾斜。1492年，受雇于西班牙王室的热那亚探险家克里斯托弗•哥伦布(Christopher Columbus)横穿了大西洋。1498年，葡萄牙探险家瓦斯科•达伽马(Vasco da Gama)到达了印度。
Over the succeeding centuries, Europe’s edge in military, seafaring and industrial technology allowed other European nations to build global empires. By the early 20th century, the British empire alone covered almost a quarter of the world’s land area.
随后几个世纪，欧洲在军事、航海及工业技术方面的优势使得部分欧洲国家建立起全球帝国。到20世纪初，仅大英帝国就覆盖了全世界近四分之一的陆地面积。
Two world wars and a wave of decolonisation led to the collapse of European imperialism during the second half of the 20th century. But the emergence of the US as the world’s pre-eminent power, in the aftermath of the second world war, prolonged the hegemony of the west. Even the Soviet Union — which represented the alternative to the political “west” during the cold war — was a European power.
两次世界大战以及随后的反殖民化浪潮导致了欧洲帝国主义在20世纪下半叶的崩溃。但二战后崛起为世界头号强国的美国延续了西方的霸权。冷战期间，政治上不属于“西方”的苏联是另一个大国，但即便苏联也是一个欧洲大国。广州翻译公司。
Over the past 50 years, however, the west’s dominance of the global economy has steadily eroded. The economic transformation of Asia first became evident in Japan in the 1960s and then in South Korea, Taiwan and parts of Southeast Asia in the 1970s. From 1980 onwards, the Chinese economy began to grow at the double-digit rates pioneered by Japan in the 1960s. India also grew strongly, albeit not quite as fast, after economic reforms in the early 1990s.
然而，过去50年间，西方的全球经济主导地位已经被一步步侵蚀。亚洲经济巨变首先显现在上世纪60年代的日本，然后是70年代的韩国、台湾及东南亚部分地区。从1980年开始，中国经济开始以两位数的速度增长（这一增速由日本在60年代开创）。经过上世纪90年代初的经济改革之后，印度也增长强劲，尽管不像中国那么快。
A symbolic moment was reached in 2014 when the IMF announced that, measured in terms of purchasing power, China is now the world’s largest economy. The US had been the largest since the early 1870s; now China was “number one”. China’s rise is just part of a larger shift in economic power. According to the IMF, three of the world’s four largest economies are now in Asia. China came first, America second, India third and Japan fourth.
具有象征意义的时刻出现在2014年——国际货币基金组织(IMF)宣布，按购买力平价计算，中国已成为世界最大经济体。自19世纪70年代初以来，美国一直是世界最大经济体；如今，中国变成了“第一”。中国崛起只是更大范围内经济实力重心转移的一部分。IMF的数据显示，如今世界前四大经济体中有三个位于亚洲。中国位居第一，美国第二，印度和日本分列第三、第四。广州翻译公司。
The fundamental reason for the shift in economic power to Asia is simple: weight of numbers. By 2025 some two-thirds of the world’s population will live in Asia. By contrast the US will account for about 5 per cent of the world’s population and the European Union about 7 per cent.
经济实力重心向亚洲转移的根本原因很简单：人口的比重。到2025年，世界大约三分之二的人口将生活在亚洲。相比之下，美国将占世界人口的约5%，欧盟约占7%。
Hans Rosling of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute puts it nicely when he describes the world’s pin code as “1114” — meaning that of the planet’s 7bn people, roughly 1bn live in Europe, 1bn live in the Americas, 1bn in Africa and 4bn in Asia. By 2050, the world’s population is likely to be 9bn, and the pin code will change to 1125, with both Africa and Asia adding a billion people.
瑞典卡罗琳斯卡学院(Karolinska Institute)的汉斯•罗斯林(Hans Rosling)巧妙地总结了这一点，她说世界的密码是“1114”，意思是：地球上70亿人口有约1个十亿生活在欧洲，1个十亿生活在美洲，1个十亿生活在非洲，还有4个十亿生活在亚洲。到2050年，世界人口可能达到90亿，这一密码将变为“1125”——非洲和亚洲各增加1个十亿。
For centuries, the wealth and technology gap between west and east was so enormous that western nations dominated international affairs and business — no matter the difference in population. But rapid economic development in Asia during the past two generations means that this wealth-gap has narrowed sufficiently for the weight of numbers in Asia to begin to tilt the balance of power in the world.
几个世纪以来，东西方之间的财富差距、技术鸿沟如此巨大，使得西方国家能够主导国际事务和全球经济——不受人口多寡影响。但亚洲在过去两代人的时间里快速的经济发展意味着，这种财富差距已显著缩小，以至于亚洲的人口比重开始改变世界的力量平衡。广州翻译公司。
Western anxiety about the implications of the rise of Asia has played out in different forms. On the left — and now on the nationalist right, as expressed by Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen — there is a great focus on the impact on the living standards of western workers. For much of the US establishment, however, there is also often a tendency to dismiss the rise of Asia as a mirage or a phase — that does not truly threaten US primacy. Any sign of economic and political weakness in China in particular is seized upon — and there is no shortage of warnings signs in the country, both political and economic, to highlight.
西方对亚洲崛起影响的担忧呈现出不同的形式。左翼——以及当下唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)、马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)代表的民族主义右翼——极为关注的是亚洲崛起对西方工人生活水平的影响。然而，大部分美国建制派往往存在的一种倾向是，认为亚洲崛起是幻觉或昙花一现，不会真正威胁到美国的头号大国地位，因而不足为惧。任何暴露出亚洲（尤其是中国）在经济和政治方面短处的迹象都会被揪住不放，而无论在政治还是经济上，中国的示警信号可一点儿也不少。
But, in geopolitical terms, a slowdown in Chinese or Asian growth would no longer be transformative. The economic development allowing China and India to push for great-power status has already happened. The most senior analysts in western governments are already operating on the assumption that the shift in economic power from west to east will continue and that this economic change will translate into strategic power. America’s National Intelligence Council, the centre for strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community, which brings together all of the country’s intelligence agencies, including the CIA, predicted in 2012 that “by 2030 Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based on GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment”.
但从地缘政治角度看，中国或亚洲增长放缓将不再影响大势。让中印两国能够争取大国地位的经济发展已经实现。西方各国政府里最资深的分析人士已经认定，经济实力的重心将继续从西方向东方转移，而且这种经济上的变化将转化为战略力量。美国情报体系(United States Intelligence Community)汇集了包括中央情报局(CIA)在内的所有美国情报机构。2012年，该体系内负责战略思维的核心机构——美国国家情报委员会(National Intelligence Council)曾预测，“按国内生产总值(GDP)、人口规模、军事开支以及科技投资计算，到2030年，亚洲的全球实力将超过北美与欧洲之和”。广州翻译公司。
The NIC was not shy of spelling out the implications of this trend for US power. It wrote that: “Pax Americana — the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945 — is fast winding down.” Those words, published just before the beginning of Obama’s second term, have come to seem prophetic over the ensuing four years. The US has stood aside while the fighting in Syria escalated and Russia — counted out as a great power after the cold war — has once again emerged as a threat to European security.
美国国家情报委员会还毫不避讳地详细描绘了该趋势对美国力量的影响。它写道：“美国治下的和平(Pax Americana)——自1945年开始美国支配国际政治的时代——正在快速走向终结。”从随后四年的局势变化来看，这份在奥巴马即将开始第二个任期前发布的报告似乎很有预见性。美国坐视叙利亚的战事不断升级，俄罗斯（冷战后丧失大国地位）再度成为欧洲安全的威胁。
But it is the threat to Pax Americana in the Pacific that may matter most in the long term. The Americans know that Asia is now the core of the global economy. As a result, one of the Obama administration’s signature foreign policies has been the “pivot to Asia” — a transfer of military and diplomatic resources to Asia, in response to the easternisation of the global economy and the challenge of a rising China. The Obama administration has also sought to be more cautious and strategic about how and when it uses American power. The US has deliberately hung back from deeper involvement in the Middle East, partly because it is attempting to preserve its power and resources for a struggle with a rising China. Yet power is also a matter of perceptions. So the vision of an America that is less committed to playing the role of global policeman in Europe and the Middle East has — ironically — also sown doubts about the durability of US power within Asia itself.
但从长远来看，美国治下和平在太平洋地区受到的威胁或许才是最事关重大的。美国人知道，亚洲如今是全球经济的核心。因此，奥巴马政府的一项标志性外交政策就是“重返亚洲”(pivot to Asia)———将军事、外交资源转移至亚洲，以应对全球经济重心东移以及中国崛起的挑战。在如何以及何时运用美国的力量方面，奥巴马政府也一直试图采取一种更谨慎、更策略性的方式。美国有意不再深度介入中东事务，部分原因是其正试图保存实力和资源以对抗崛起的中国。然而，力量也跟形象有关。具有讽刺意味的是，人们看到美国不再像以前那样坚决在欧洲及中东扮演世界警察角色，反过来也对美国在亚洲本身的力量能持续多久产生质疑。广州翻译公司。
The Obama administration’s ability to preserve the Pax Americana has also been eroded by the chronic problems of Washington’s European allies. For all the accusations of “weakness” levelled at the Obama administration, the fact is that the US is easily the most robust part of the western alliance. With the European economy in crisis and European military spending falling, the US now accounts for almost 75 per cent of Nato military spending.
欧洲盟友的长期问题也一直在削弱奥巴马政府维持美国治下和平的能力。虽然有很多指责都认为奥巴马政府“软弱”，但事实是，美国无疑仍是西方联盟最强大的一部分。由于欧洲经济陷入危机、军费开支下降，美国如今承担了北约(Nato)近75%的军事开支。
In his incoherent and crude way, Donald Trump has put his finger on some of the emerging dilemmas for American power in the age of easternisation. He has questioned whether the US can continue to shoulder the financial burden of protecting its European and Asian allies from the potential aggression of Russia or China. And he also cast himself as the enemy of the “globalism” and the “terrible” trade deals that have provided the international economic framework for the rise of Asia.
虽说特朗普前后矛盾、言辞粗鲁，但他却准确指出了东方化时代美国力量遭遇的一些新出现的困境。他质疑美国在财政上能否继续担负得起这一重担，即保护欧洲及亚洲盟友免受俄罗斯或中国的潜在攻势侵害。他还极力攻击为亚洲崛起提供了国际经济框架的“全球化”及“糟糕的”贸易协议。
So Trumpism potentially presents both peril and opportunity for China. On a geopolitical level, it flirts with a pullback of American power in the Pacific — which would grant Beijing the sphere of influence that it longs for in its near-neighbourhood. But, economically, Trump’s rampant protectionism threatens all the rising Asian economies with heavily restricted access to the world’s largest market — the US.
因此，对中国而言，特朗普主义可能既带来危机，也带来机遇。在地缘政治层面，特朗普有过念头要撤回美国在太平洋地区的力量——这将拱手让出北京方面渴望在其周边地区得到的势力范围。但在经济方面，特朗普明目张胆的贸易保护主义可能会严重限制美国这个世界最大市场的开放，从而对所有正在崛起的亚洲经济体构成威胁。广州翻译公司。
For the Clinton camp and most of the American establishment, the Trump political formula is geopolitical and economic heresy. At the Democratic convention in Philadelphia last week, I heard stalwarts of the US foreign policy establishment, such as Madeleine Albright and Tom Donilon, make it clear that the maintenance of open global markets and the US alliance system remain the twin pillars of American foreign policy — as since 1945.
对希拉里阵营及多数美国建制派而言，特朗普的政治方案在地缘政治和经济上是离经叛道的。不久前在费城召开的民主党全国代表大会上，我听到美国外交政策建制派的中坚力量——如马德琳•奥尔布赖特(Madeleine Albright)、汤姆•多尼伦(Tom Donilon)——明确表示，维护全球市场开放和美国的联盟体系（像自1945年以来一样）仍是美国外交政策的两大支柱。
A Clinton victory in November will mean that the US will persevere with this tried-and-trusted formula. But the easternisation of economic and political power suggests that the years of uncontested western primacy are coming to a close — whoever wins the White House.
如果希拉里在11月大选中获胜，这意味着美国将坚持这一久经考验的路线。但经济和政治力量重心东移意味着，无论谁入主白宫，西方占据绝对主导地位的日子都行将结束。
Gideon Rachman is the FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator. His new book, ‘Easternisation’ has just been published in the UK by Bodley Head
吉迪恩•拉赫曼(Gideon Rachman)是英国《金融时报》首席外交事务评论员。他的新书《东方化》(Easternisation)日前由英国Bodley Head出版社出版
