中國的“美國通”參不透特朗普
US president Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing today will highlight the role of an elite group of think-tank analysts, diplomats and scholars struggling to help Beijing’s leadership make sense of Washington.
美國總統唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)今日對北京的訪問將突顯一個精英圈子的角色，這個圈子的智庫分析師、外交官和學者正在幫助北京領導層搞懂華盛頓的任務上犯難。The reign of an erratic US president who threatens nuclear war and thumbs his nose at diplomatic politesse has made the jobs of such experts both harder and more important. Above all, Beijing craves stability, a commodity in short supply in its most important foreign relationship.
一個反覆無常的美國總統主政，威脅要打核戰爭，同時對外交禮儀不屑一顧——這使得這些專家的工作變得更加困難，也更加重要。最重要的是，北京方面渴求穩定，而在其最重要的對外關係中，穩定眼下是難以覓得的東西。“When they are making decisions about policy they are always very interested in how the US will respond,” said Andrew Scobell, an expert on China at the Rand Corporation. “They want a predictable response, whether it is good or bad, they just want predictable.
“當他們做出政策決定時，他們總是對美國將會如何迴應非常感興趣。”蘭德公司(Rand Corporation)中國問題專家施道安(Andrew Scobell)表示，“他們想要一種可預測的迴應，無論好壞，他們只是想要可預測。
“In that sense, President Trump is a real enigma, because he is rather unpredictable.”
“就此而言，特朗普總統是一個真正的謎，因爲他是相當不可預測的。”Many of China’s “Americanologists” hold doctorates from top US universities, and their speciality is one of the best-funded of the social sciences in China. However, many say privately that they struggle to be heard by a leadership in Beijing that does not trust them, while their US colleagues say their public and private personas are markedly different.
中國的許多“美國問題專家”擁有美國頂尖大學的博士學位，他們的專業是中國社會科學領域資金最充足的專業之一。然而，很多人在私下裏表示，他們很難向北京的領導層進言，因爲領導層不信任他們。與此同時，他們的美國同事透露，他們在公共和私下場合表現出明顯不同的人格。“You’ll often find someone who has one set of views in a one-on-one chat sounds very different when they are writing a column in a Chinese newspaper. They will be much more hawkish,” said Mr Scobell. “They feel like they have to inoculate themselves from being considered too pro-American.” The election of Mr Trump created a conundrum for many of the Chinese Americanologists, who failed — along with most US political experts — to predict it.
“你往往發現某個人在一對一聊天期間表達的一套觀點，與他們在中國報紙上撰寫的專欄文章聽起來有很大不同。他們會鷹派得多，”施道安表示，“他們覺得他們不得不保護自己，以防被認爲過於親美。”特朗普當選給中國的很多美國問題專家帶來一個窘境：與大多數美國政治專家一樣，他們未能預測到這一結局。“There was a lot of initial panic in China when Trump was elected, a lot of ‘how do we handle this guy and who do we need to contact to establish communications?’,” said Yanmei Xie of Gavekal Dragonomics, a Beijing consultancy. “But China’s management of Trump has been mature. They have a good reading of Washington.”
“特朗普當選後，中國最初有很大恐慌，有很多‘我們如何對付這個傢伙，我們需要聯繫誰來建立溝通渠道？’之類的問題。”北京諮詢公司龍洲經訊(Gavekal Dragonomics)的謝豔梅表示，“但是中國對於同特朗普打交道的把握迄今是成熟的。他們對華盛頓有很好的理解。”Shen Dingli, a professor of American studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said Mr Trump “says he is making America great again, but he defines greatness in a very narrow sense, in money. He cares only about money, exports and jobs. That makes it very easy for China to handle him.”
上海復旦大學的美國研究教授沈丁立表示，特朗普“聲稱他要讓美國再度偉大起來，但他對偉大的定義非常狹義，只是用金錢來衡量。他只關心金錢、出口和就業。這讓中國很容易對付他。”China has not always understood the US. Mao Zedong mistakenly thought that the US would not send troops to defend South Korea when it was invaded by the North in 1950, although the US also miscalculated the possibility that China would also invade.
中國並不總是瞭解美國。1950年，毛澤東錯誤地以爲，在韓國遭到朝鮮入侵後，美國不會出兵保衛韓國，儘管美國也誤判了中國是否也會出兵的可能性。Much attention has again focused on the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula, fuelled by Mr Trump’s militaristic language. He has threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea and has regularly taken to Twitter to issue threats against Pyongyang.
現在，在特朗普狠話的助燃下，各方再度關注朝鮮半島爆發戰爭的可能性。他已威脅要對朝鮮傾瀉“火與怒”，並經常在Twitter上向平壤方面發出威脅。“There is always an element of confusion in China over who speaks for the US,” said Scott Harold, an expert on Asian security affairs at Georgetown University.
“對於誰在代表美國說話，中國總是存在一些困惑。”喬治敦大學(Georgetown University)亞洲安全事務專家斯科特?哈羅德(Scott Harold)表示。“And that is amplified in the era of a US president who is on Twitter a lot.”
“在美國總統經常上Twitter表態的時代，這種困惑被放大了。”Shi Yinhong, a US specialist at Renmin University, said Mr Trump’s tweeting “has boiled the US-China relationship down into one issue that is not solvable: North Korea”.
中國人民大學的美國問題專家時殷弘表示，特朗普發表的推文已把美中關係的關鍵歸結爲一個解決不了的議題：朝鮮。Both the US and China see the other as the problem in North Korea. According to China, Pyongyang would not be making such dramatic efforts to acquire weapons if the US had not threatened it with military force.
美國和中國都把對方視爲朝鮮問題的癥結。按照中國的說法，如果美國沒有威脅使用武力對付平壤方面的話，後者就不會爲了獲取核武而付出如此誇張的努力。
On the US side, many appear to see China as North Korea’s chief enabler and as having a great deal of leverage over Pyongyang which it is not using. China says it does not possess much leverage.
在美國這方面，很多人似乎認爲中國是朝鮮的主要後臺，對平壤有極大支配力，只是不願使用。中國表示，它並沒有太大的支配力。The conundrum for Beijing is whether to take seriously Mr Trump’s threats and apply more pressure to North Korea, in order to head off a confrontation. “There is a major debate in the US right now about whether the US president is really a risk taker or just playing a risk taker,” said Mr Harold. “They are having the same debate in China too.”
對北京方面來說，難題在於，要不要認真對待特朗普的威脅，向朝鮮施加更大壓力，以阻止一場對抗。“美國國內正在展開一場重大辯論，焦點問題是美國總統真的是冒險者，還是隻是在扮演一個冒險者。”喬治敦大學的哈羅德表示。“中國方面也在展開同樣的辯論。”
