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【中文标题】金正日死后的朝鲜 － 中国的行省？
【原文标题】China’s Newest Province?
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】VICTOR CHA
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/opinion/will-north-korea-become-chinas-newest-province.html?_r=1&ref=china
正如我们所知，朝鲜完了。这个国家的分崩离析不过是未来几个星期，或者未来几个月的事情，在其领导人金正日去世之后，这个政权无法再把国家团结在一起。美国的反应是什么，或者准确地说，美国人对中国人的反应是如何反应的，将决定这个地区的形势是走向稳定还是陷入冲突。
金先生去世的时机，对朝鲜来说实在不能再糟糕了。经济崩溃、饿殍遍地、政治孤立，这个黑暗帝国正在准备把权力移交给他不到30岁的儿子——未经受任何考验的金正恩。国有媒体已经把他称为“伟大的继承人”，围绕在他身边的老年人不一定比他父亲的健康状况强多少，他即将掌权的军方在去年曾经明确表示愤怒，因为这个未曾服过一天兵役的年轻人竟然被授予四星上将。这样的体系显然不能持久。
在这个时候，美国正准备把朝鲜半岛核谈判拉回正轨。这些努力现在被一些匆忙编制的计划所取代，目的是如果政权崩溃，该如何控制这些松散的核武器。
华盛顿对此无能为力。任何对年轻的金先生以及其它可能存在的竞争对手的压制行为，都会为权力转换期带来新的问题，并且会被中国当作一种威胁。2008年金正日中风患病时，美国和韩国曾经一起制定了专门面对类似问题的紧急预案，但他们都认为还有几年，甚至几十年的时间。
这对弟兄现在最好的做法是，看看中国有什么行动。中国核心外交政策之一就是保持一个分裂的朝鲜半岛，北京对于维持朝鲜独立主权的官方表态也并不令人吃惊。从2008年开始，中国与朝鲜的关系日渐密切，它公开为朝鲜领导人辩护，在中朝边境巨额投资煤矿开采。
尽管北京对这个共产主义小兄弟呵护有加，但其领导层内部也有一些争论，焦点是朝鲜是否应该成为中国战略上的一份义务。支持一个密不透风、在金正日领导下相对稳定的政权是一回事，但为一个未经检验的领导人做担保就是另一回事了。对于在明年即将成为中国主席的习近平来说，第一个重大的外交课题就是要决定，继续庇护朝鲜，还是干脆把其纳为一个省。
所有迹象都表明中国将选择后者，主要原因在于其领导层内部倾向于维持地区现状，而不要发生重大变革。当然，“收纳”朝鲜这样的变化也足够巨大了。中国或许会全力促成此事，首先给年轻的金先生提供各类援助，并发出谨慎的邀请，以此作为条件要求进行经济改革。
有些观察人士期望金正日的死将引发这个地区的民主改革，中国会不惜一切力量避免这种可能性，尤其是如果韩国和美国提供任何形式的支持的话。北京是唯一与朝鲜有深入交往的国家，华盛顿和汉城束手无措。
但中国的如意算盘依然有可能落空。它所提供的援助微不足道，而且太晚了，新领导人要面对更紧迫的问题。有美国、中国和韩国参与的多方对话势在必行。
这样的对话自从金正日中风后就几乎没有进行过，对于华盛顿发出的官方和非官方对话邀请，讨论朝鲜潜在的不稳定问题，北京一概不理。以前，中国的担心是西方利益集团会利用这样的事件占上风，明智的中国人应当劝说政府打开这样的渠道。三方会谈的内容应当是朝鲜的崩溃带给所有人的恐惧感——不受控制的核武器、难民潮、炮击——以及该如何解决。
鉴于我们对这个黑暗帝国的内部运作一无所知，任何一方对于朝鲜内部形势的误判都很有可能引起半岛千钧一发的军事危机。
这不是件容易的事。对中国来说，朝鲜局势不稳定的大背景是奥巴马把亚洲作为美国最新的战略重点。北京已经为此感到不安，并且愿意硬着头皮与美国谈话——因此三方会谈就显得更加必要了。
原文：
NORTH KOREA as we know it is over. Whether it comes apart in the next few weeks or over several months, the regime will not be able to hold together after the untimely death of its leader, Kim Jong-il. How America responds — and, perhaps even more important, how America responds to how China responds — will determine whether the region moves toward greater stability or falls into conflict.
Mr. Kim’s death could not have come at a worse time for North Korea. Economically broken, starving and politically isolated, this dark kingdom was in the midst of preparations to hand power over to his not-yet-30-year-old son, the untested Kim Jong-un. The “great successor,” as he has been dubbed by the state media, is surrounded by elders who are no less sick than his father and a military that chafed at his promotion to four-star general last year without having served a day in the army. Such a system simply cannot hold.
The transition comes at a time when the United States has been trying to get nuclear negotiations back on track. Those efforts have now been replaced by a scramble for plans to control loose nuclear weapons, should the regime collapse.
And yet Washington remains powerless. Any outreach to the young Mr. Kim or to other possible competitors could create more problems during the transition, and would certainly be viewed as threatening by China. Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, the United States and South Korea have been working on contingency plans to deal with just such a situation, but they all thought they would have years, if not a decade.
The allies’ best move, then, is to wait and see what China does. Among China’s core foreign-policy principles is the maintenance of a divided Korean Peninsula, and so Beijing’s statements about preserving continuity of North Korea’s leadership should come as no surprise. Since 2008 it has drawn closer to the regime, publicly defending its leaders and investing heavily in the mineral mines on the Chinese-North Korean border.
But even as Beijing sticks close to its little Communist brother, there are intense debates within its leadership about whether the North is a strategic liability. It was one thing to back a hermetic but stable regime under Kim Jong-il; it will be harder to underwrite an untested leadership. For Xi Jinping, expected to become China’s president over the next year, the first major foreign policy decision will be whether to shed North Korea or effectively adopt it as a province.
All indications are that Beijing will pursue the latter course, in no small part because of a bias among its leadership to support the status quo, rather than to confront dramatic change. And yet “adopting” North Korea could be dramatic in itself. China may go all in, doling out early invitations and new assistance packages to the young Mr. Kim, conditioning them on promises of economic reform.
While some observers hope that Kim Jong-il’s death will unleash democratic regime change, China will work strongly against that possibility, especially if such efforts receive support from South Korea or the United States. Given that Beijing has the only eyes inside the North, Washington and Seoul could do little in response.
Yet even China’s best-laid plans may come apart. The assistance may be too little, too late, especially given the problems the new leadership will face. A clear channel of dialogue involving the United States, China and South Korea is needed now more than ever.
And yet such a dialogue is completely absent since Kim Jong-il’s stroke. Beijing has deflected every official and unofficial overture from Washington to have quiet discussions on potential North Korean instability. Before, China let its fears of Western interests get the better of it; wiser Chinese judgment should lead authorities to open such a channel now. The three sides should open with a conversation on all our fears about what could happen in a collapsing North — loose nukes, refugee flows, artillery attacks — and how each would respond.
With so little known about the inner workings of this dark kingdom, miscalculation by any side in response to developments inside the North is a very real possibility given the hair-trigger alerts of the militaries on the peninsula.
None of this will be easy. For China, the uncertainty surrounding North Korea comes against the backdrop of Mr. Obama’s “pivot” to Asia and assertion that the region is America’s new strategic priority. This has already created insecurities in Beijing that will make genuine dialogue with the United States even more challenging — and thus all the more necessary.
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狗仔卡
发表于 2011-12-20 12:50
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发表于 2011-12-20 13:22
