|
|
【中文标题】中国和日本，成熟点吧
【原文标题】China and Japan: Grow Up
【登载媒体】外交家
【原文作者】Kerry Brown
【原文链接】http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/attention-china-and-japan-grow-up/
到目前为止，还有一个词尚未用来形容日本与中国之间不断升级的争吵，那就是“幼稚”。世界第二和第三大经济体、两个重要的地缘政治力量比赛看谁说的话更恶毒，这已经足够糟糕了。但是真正让人三观尽失的是双方除了恶语相向，还匪夷所思地试图通过大使和外交机构把对方推上国际“道德法庭”。
首先是个极具讽刺意味的做法，中国政府利用《纽约时报》这样的媒体在外部接触更广泛的受众，却给对方在国内报道新闻和记者的签证制造了很多困难。除此之外，把事件推向高潮的是，中国驻英国大使刘晓明借用J•K•罗琳的《哈利•波特》来阐述中日之间的冲突。他在1月1日的英国媒体《每日电讯》上撰文称：“在哈利•波特的故事里，黑暗的伏地魔最终死掉了。因为，他赖以作恶的七大神器被销毁，这些神器隐藏着他的灵魂。如果说，军国主义是日本摆脱不掉的伏地魔的话，那么，东京的靖国神社，就像一种作恶的利器，代表着那个国家灵魂最黑暗的部分。”
我简直不敢相信，一个驻西方大国的全权代表，竟然把像《哈利•波特》这样的儿童读物中非黑即白的道德准则，拿到书籍之外的现实世界中作比较。不过我们的确看到，中国的很多政治精英极为担忧，他们把目前的地缘政治局面视为与邪恶势力的“抗争”。难怪中日之间目前对于谁的说法更有理、谁的方案可以最好解决二战之后遗留下来的海域问题的争吵各执一词、没有结果。如果我们把这种复杂的情况简化为“神器”和“国家灵魂最黑暗的部分”，那可就大错特错了。
这些都无法成为日本领导人近期挑衅行为的借口。北京和东京的领导人都在利用民族主义情绪来维持国内的支持力量，但是如果这股力量得到真正的释放，将是一个可怕的局面。《哈利•波特》不再是一个恰当的参照，他们或许要引用《世界大战》中的桥段了。中日之间的经济，甚至军事冲突会彻底扭转全球经济增长的趋势，这是一个不能再糟糕的消息了。中国和日本的政客及其代表要成熟一些，说点负责任、上档次的话。
这是一个比中日历史和文化差异更深层次的问题。现实是他们双方的代表都视对方为异类，英国在圣诞节之前举办了一次由中日代表出席的中日问题的研讨会，明显体现出这一点。一位日本前外交官被一名中国学者问到什么是二十一世纪的“日本梦”，他只是简单地说：“在日本这样的后现代化社会中，我们不需要政府和国家主导我们的梦想。人们有自己的梦，他们可以自己努力去实现。”在日本对于国际法的诉求上也体现出对现代化的承诺，他们更倾向于采取法律手段，而不是参照历史来判定水域领土的归属。可惜的是，目前的国际法尚不完善，在最终判定领土归属问题上只能算是模棱两可。”
如果日本真的是我们想象中的那种现代、民主、稳定的国家，那么日本就有责任做出无可指责的表率，而不是去和中国发生没有实际意义的摩擦，应该恪守法律底限和外交原则。安倍在去年12月参拜靖国神社，给他的中国宿敌拱手送上弹药。国际社会需要让日本明白，它的言谈举止必须要像一个现代化国家，不要去挑衅和培养过时的民族主义情绪。而中国，在外交问题上还是少借鉴《哈利•波特》，花更多的时间来持续自己的现代化进程，改善国内政策和国际形象，别再提霍格沃兹、魁地奇和什么神器了。
原文：
First, there’s the irony of the Chinese government in particular utilizing the readership reach of newspapers like the New York Times externally while giving these papers huge problems when covering stories and getting journalists accredited within China. Beyond that, there is the tenor of the message. The acme of this was Chinese Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming’s quite extraordinary attempt to convey the conflict between China and Japan in terms lifted from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories: “In the Harry Potter story, the dark wizard Voldemort dies hard because the seven horcruxes, which contain parts of his soul, have been destroyed. If militarism is like the haunting Voldemort of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is a kind of horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation’s soul,” Ambassador Li wrote on January 1 in the British paper The Telegraph.
It is barely credible that a sophisticated plenipotentiary to a major western power would live in a world where moral equivalences from the black-and-white universe of a children’s story like Harry Potter have any real relevance beyond the pages of the books they are in. And yet it’s tough to shake the worrying suspicion that many within the Chinese elite do see the current geopolitical situation as a “struggle” against forces of evil. No wonder the debate between China and Japan at the moment is stuck in entrenched positions and unproductive clashes over whose idea of legitimacy should be used to solve maritime issues in particular, and the grievances left over from the Second World War in general. If we are reduced to conveying key points through language like “horcruxes” and “dark parts of a nation’s soul” then something has gone badly wrong.
This is not to excuse the current Japanese leadership’s recent inflammatory behavior. The bottom line is that in Beijing and Tokyo the elite leaders currently in power are playing with forces of nationalism to bolster their domestic appeal. Yet these forces, if really unleashed, could be terrifying. Far from invoking Harry Potter, it might be better to talk of “War of the Worlds.” An economic or even a military clash between China and Japan would throw a devastating wrench in the global engine of growth, and be terrible news for us all. Chinese and Japanese politicians and their representatives need to grow up and start speaking with some sense of responsibility and dignity.
This is a deeper issue than the historic and cultural differences that exist between China and Japan. The reality is that their respective polities are alien to each other. This point was eloquently made by a discussion between a Japanese and a Chinese representative at a conference on the Japan/China issue held in the UK just before Christmas. When asked by a Chinese academic what the “Japan dream” was in the 21st century, a former Japanese diplomat simply stated that “in a post-modernist society like Japan’s we don’t need our government or state to start dictating our dreams. People dream for themselves, if they want to.” This commitment to modernity by Japan is also clear in their appeal to international law, rather than history, as the basis of the legitimacy of their maritime claims. It is a pity that international law at the moment is less evolved and ambiguous than it should be in finally sorting out the arguments about territory between the two nations.
If Japan is the modernist, democratic, stable nation state most believe it to be, then in many ways the moral onus on Japan is to behave irreproachably, to not dabble in symbolic clashes with China, and to stick close to the line of law, and diplomatic negotiation. Abe gave his Chinese foes easy ammunition with his visit to the Yasukuni Shine last December. The international community needs to make it clear to Japan that it has to act and speak like a great modern nation, not dabble in provocations and outmoded nationalism. As for China, its foreign affairs should be based less on Harry Potter and more on the continuing project of modernizing and reforming its polity and its global role. And no amount of appeals to Hogwarts, quidditch and horcruxes is going to help with that.
|
评分
-
1
查看全部评分
-
|
狗仔卡
发表于 2014-2-11 09:57
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2014-2-11 16:42
发表于 2014-2-11 18:19
