|
|
本帖最后由 vivicat 于 2009-11-24 00:02 编辑
【中文标题】了解中国
【原文标题】Understanding China
【登载媒体】洛杉矶时报
【来源地址】http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-jacques22-2009nov22,0,6682428.story
【译者】遥远的冬天
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-208040-1-1.html
【译文】
Opinion
观点
Understanding China
了解中国
The West has gotten it wrong on China for decades -- even as it embraces a market economy, it has shunned Western-style freedoms. And its power is only growing.
西方误解中国几十年——正当中国接受市场经济时，她仍然回避西式自由。而她的影响力只是不断上升。【怎么翻才能更通顺呢？林语堂说：“甚矣乎译事之难也！”然也。这篇是我觉得比较难翻的一篇，可能是因为作者是学者的缘故吧。】
By Martin Jacques
马丁·雅克著
【Martin Jacques是伦敦经济学院亚洲研究中心经济学家，《当中国统治世界：西方世界的终结以及新世界秩序的诞生》一书的作者。关于这本书，赞成和反对的人都相当多，反对的人认为“统治世界”也好，“拯救世界”也好，通通都是糖衣炮弹。他自己曾经说：“这的确是很吸引人的标题，……我写书，必须要吸引人们注意，让他们首先开始翻这本书。”】
The dynamics of President Obama's trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese -- though studiously cautious in their approach -- a rising sense of self-confidence.
奥巴马总统中国之行的动力与克林顿总统和乔治·W·布什总统显著不同，后两者在访问上的动力是明显的。【dynamics在这里不太好懂，不知道是不是这个意思，欢迎指正。】这一次中国人清楚地表明他们甚至不愿意讨论诸如人权和言论自由的问题。为什么呢？两国之间的关系变了。在他们的双边关系中美国感到虚弱而中国感到强壮。这不是暂时性的转变，不会随着美国脱离其如山债务而逆转。这种深厚且不断加深的转变表现在两国之间实力的平衡上，这给予中国人上升的自信感——虽然他们行事谨慎。
Nor should we be surprised by the Chinese response. They may have appeared more conciliatory on previous visits by American leaders, but that was largely decorative. The Chinese have a powerful sense of their identity and worth. They have never behaved toward the West in a supplicant manner, for reasons Westerners persistently fail to understand or grasp.
我们也不应该为中国人的反应而惊讶。他们或许在以前美国领导人访问时表现得更平和，但是那很大程度上只是一种装饰。中国人对自己的身份和价值有很强的意识。他们从来没有对西方表现过恳求的姿态，西方人一直不能理解或是领会其原因。
Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement, and through the various iterations of the Sino-American relationship over the subsequent almost four decades, there has been an overriding belief in the West that eventually China would become like us: that, for example, a market economy would lead to democratization and that a free media was inevitable. This hubristic outlook is deeply flawed, but it still prevails, albeit with small cracks of self-doubt starting to appear.
自从尼克松-毛友好关系恢复后，大约40年里通过中美关系变化多端的反复【various iterations，到底该怎么翻呢？我觉得是指通过不同事件得到稳固。】，西方普遍认为最终中国将变得像我们一样：比如说，市场经济将导致民主化，媒体自由必将发生。这种自负的见解是非常错误的，但是仍然很流行，即使微小的自我怀疑已经开始出现。
The issue here is much deeper than Western-style democracy, a free media or human rights. China is simply not like the West and never will be. There has been an underlying assumption that the process of modernization would inevitably lead to Westernization; yet modernization is not just shaped by markets, competition and technology but by history and culture. And Chinese history and culture are very different from that of any Western nation-state.
这里的问题比西式民主、自由媒体或者人权深奥得多。中国实在是不像西方，将来也绝不会像。有个基本的假定就是现代化进程将不可避免地导致西方化；然而现代化不只是由市场、竞争和技术形成，也是由历史和文化形成。中国的历史和文化与任何西方民族国家都非常不同。
If we want to understand China, this must be our starting point.
如果我们想要了解中国，必须从这里出发。
The West's failure to understand the Chinese has repeatedly undermined its ability to anticipate their behavior. Again and again, our predictions and beliefs about China have proved wrong: that the Chinese Communist Party would fall after 1989, that the country would divide, that its economic growth could not be sustained, that its growth figures were greatly exaggerated, that China was not sincere about its offer of "one country two systems" at the time of the hand-over of Hong Kong from Britain -- and, of course, that it would steadily Westernize. We have a long track record of getting China wrong.
西方在理解中国人上的失败多次地削弱了其预测中国人行为的能力。一次又一次，我们的关于中国的预测和信仰被证明是错的：中国共产党将在1989年后倒台，这个国家将分裂，她的经济增长不会持续，增长数据严重浮夸，香港从英国手里移交时中国对自己提出的“一国两制”不真诚——当然还有中国必将西方化。我们有误解中国的一大串纪录。
The fundamental reason for our inability to accurately predict China's future is our failure to understand its past. Although China has described itself as a nation-state for the last century, it is in essence a civilization-state. The longest continually existing polity in the world, it dates to 221 BC and the victory of the Qin. Unlike Western nation-states, China's sense of identity comes from its long history as a civilization-state.
我们在理解中国的过去上很失败，这是我们不能准确预测中国的未来的根本原因。尽管中国将上个世纪的自己描述成民族国家，她实质上是一个文明国家。作为世界上存续最久的国家组织，她可以追溯到公元前221年秦的胜利。不像西方的民族国家，中国的身份意识来自她作为一个文明国家的悠久历史。
Of course, there are many civilizations -- Western civilization is one example -- but China is the only civilization-state. It is defined by its extraordinarily long history and also its huge geographic and demographic scale and diversity. The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence (which is why China could offer Hong Kong "one country two systems," a formula alien to a nation-state).
当然，有很多文明——西方文明是一个例子——但是中国是唯一的文明国家。这是由她的漫长历史和在地理以及人口上的巨大规模和多样化所决定的。这种含义是深刻的：统一是她的首要考虑，而存在方式是多样的【从上下文理解应该是这个意思，欢迎指正】（这就是为什么中国可以给予香港“一国两制”这样一种迥于民族国家的政策）。
The Chinese state enjoys a very different kind of relationship with society compared with the Western state. It enjoys much greater natural authority, legitimacy and respect, even though not a single vote is cast for the government. The reason is that the state is seen by the Chinese as the guardian, custodian and embodiment of their civilization. The duty of the state is to protect its unity. The legitimacy of the state therefore lies deep in Chinese history. This is utterly different from how the state is seen in Western societies.
中国享有与西方国家相比非常不同的与社会的关系。她享有更大的天然的权威，合法性和尊重，尽管没有一张选票投给政府。原因在于国家被中国人视为监护人、保护者和他们的文明的化身。国家的责任是保护自身统一。国家的合法性因此植根于中国历史中。这与西方社会如何看待国家完全不同。
If we are to understand China, we must move beyond the compass of Western reality and experience and the body of concepts that has grown up to explain that history. We find this extremely difficult. For 200 years the West, first in the shape of Europe and then the United States, has dominated the world and has not been required to understand others or The Other. If need be it could always bully the latter into submission.
如果我们要了解中国，我们必须超越西方现实和经验的限制以及与生俱来的解释那些历史的概念。我们发现这极其困难。200年来，西方，起初是欧洲后来是美国，主导着世界，从没有被要求理解别人或另一方。如果需要这么做他就威逼后者屈服。
The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of that era. We now have to deal with The Other -- in the form of China -- on increasingly equal terms.
中国作为全球性势力的出现标志着这一时代的终结。我们现在不得不和另一方——以中国的形式出现——在日益平等的关系中打交道。
China, moreover, is possessed, like the West, with its own form of universalism. It long believed that it was "the land under heaven," the center of the world, superior to all other cultures. That sense of self, which has engendered a powerful self-confidence, has been persistently evident over the last 40 years, but with China's rise, it is becoming more apparent as the country's sense of achievement and restoration gains pace. Or to put it another way, when the presidents of China and the United States meet in Beijing in 2019, with the Chinese economy fast approaching the size of the American economy, we can be sure that the Chinese sense of hubris will be far stronger than in 2009.
此外，像西方一样，中国为自己的普世价值而疯狂。【虽然现在所谓“普世价值”人人喊打，这里还真不知道除了这个词该用什么。】她一直相信自己是“天朝”，世界的中心，优于所有其它的文明。这种引起强烈自信的自我认识，在过去40年里一直都很明显，但是随着中国的崛起，在国家的进步和复兴稳步前进时更加明显。或者换言之，当中国主席和美国总统2019年在北京会面时，中国经济飞速接近美国经济的规模，我们可以确信中国人自傲的感觉会更甚于2009年。
But long before that, we need to try and understand what China is and how it behaves. If we don't, then relations between China and the United States will never move beyond the polite and the formal -- and that will be a bad omen for the future relationship between the two countries.
但是远在那之前，我们必须尝试理解中国是什么以及她是怎样表现的。不然的话，中美之间的关系将永远不会突破礼貌和形式——那将是两国间未来关系的坏兆头。
编译交流 见#7
The dynamics of President Obama's trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush.
奥巴马总统中国之行的动力与克林顿总统和乔治·W·布什总统显著不同，后两者在访问上的动力是明显的。【dynamics在这里不太好懂，不知道是不是这个意思，欢迎指正。】遥远的冬天 发表于 2009-11-23 21:11 
dynamics这里感觉是指“行为、处事、运作方式”，该句或许可说成：“奥巴马总统的中国行显然背离了与克林顿和乔治·W·布什两位前总统访华时所体现的一些行为方式”
Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement, and through the various iterations of the Sino-American relationship over the subsequent almost four decades,...
自从尼克松-毛友好关系恢复后，大约40年里通过中美关系变化多端的反复【various iterations，到底该怎么翻呢？我觉得是指通过不同事件得到稳固。】……遥远的冬天 发表于 2009-11-23 21:11
various iterations简单点可说成“反反覆覆”；个人觉得如果这句话要说得形象点的话，或许可说成：“经过近40年中美关系的风云变幻……”
The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence
这种含义是深刻的：统一是她的首要考虑，而存在方式是多样的【从上下文理解应该是这个意思，欢迎指正】遥远的冬天 发表于 2009-11-23 21:11
这个提法基本同意
China, moreover, is possessed, like the West, with its own form of universalism.
此外，像西方一样，中国为自己的普世价值而疯狂。【虽然现在所谓“普世价值”人人喊打，这里还真不知道除了这个词该用什么。】遥远的冬天 发表于 2009-11-23 21:11
“普世价值”的提法可以，但possessed with说成“为……而疯狂”感觉似乎有点过了，或许可说成：“中国和西方一样，都执着于自己的（一套）普适价值”
rhapsody 发表于 2009-11-23 23:50 |
评分
-
1
查看全部评分
-
|
狗仔卡
发表于 2009-11-23 21:11
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
楼主
发表于 2009-11-23 21:31
