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【中文翻译登载媒体】星岛环球网
【中文翻译链接】http://www.singtaonet.com/ed_china/200808/t20080826_853280.html
【英语原文登载媒体】纽约时报
【英语原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/sports/olympics/25china.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
周日晚（24日）精心制作的闭幕式为奥运划上句号，给中国政府近十年的奥运组织工作划上句号。近十年来，中国政府把奥运当成国家生活的组织原则。几乎没有什么可以取代奥运成为中国的政治重点项目。
对中国领导人而言，所有的努力都得到回报。在大多数中国人眼中，奥运空前成功——破纪录的奖牌数激发了全国的兴奋，而且北京的好客和效率给外国游客留下深刻印象。中国向全球观众证明它是一个崛起中的经济和政治大国。
但一个新的、后奥运时期已经开始。如今的问题是，奥运经历所产生的自信会令中国加深与世界的接触，并深化政治改革，还是奥运的成功以及西方对中国压制性的沉默回应令领导人们确信他们目前的模式是行之有效的。
国际奥委会主席罗格在周日心下午宣布，选择北京作为主办城市是“正确的选择”，奥运成为中国与世界的桥梁。他表示：“世界了解了中国，中国了解了世界。我相信，从长期来讲，这将带来积极的影响。”
在很大程度上，北京奥运反映的是中国制度的集权力量：430亿美元的奥运开支几乎全部由国家消化的。中国以51面金牌名列金牌榜榜首，这些金牌是国家控制的体育机器的产物。有些分析家怀疑中国领导人不会急于改变现状，原因之一就是奥运取得的那些成功。
北京一位媒体主管Hung Huang表示，“奥运给他们赚取了很多面子，他们将坐享一段时间。我们的文化不是亲改革的。从本性来看，中国要受到刺激才会改变。经济改革是因为我们当时极端贫困。”
事实上，尽管奥运吸引了所有的注意力，但2008年还是中国拥抱市场改革的三十周年。随着人口变得越来越城市化和富裕，领导人很可能不得不应对不断提高的期望值以及要求。中国自由派希望这个周年将激发新的改革，特别是仍然遭受腐败困扰以及缺乏透明度的政治制度改革。
由于奥运给北京带来大量基本上正面的电视报道，党可能赢得总体的公关战役。乔治·华盛顿大学中国问题专家沈大伟（DavidShambaugh）认为，奥运对党而言是一个“双赢”，并提高它的国际形象。但他认为，如果那些成功可以提高国家自信心，让中国抛开今年（尤其是在西藏事件期间）喷发的那种沸腾状态的历史冤屈感，那就更有意义了。
他认为奥运应该帮助中国给它自己描述的“耻辱世纪（19世纪下半叶中国遭遇外国干涉的削弱）”来一个象征性的终结。他希望当我们回顾的时候，可以把这视为中国抛开委屈的历史叙事包袱，并重新书写叙事，并开始对自己以及对自己在世界的角色更加自信的开端。
在奥运期间，北京普通民众的表现给很多分析家留下深刻印象。当局曾担心，西藏事件期间爆发的愤怒的民族主义可能有损奥运，担心当地人嘲弄其他国家的代表队。但这些担心没有成真。运动迷们甚至热情地问候如今担任美国女排教练的郎平。郎平曾是中国排球传奇人物，她带领美国队击败了中国队。
如今在瓦瑟学院（Vassar College）担任地理教授的北京人余周（音译，YuZhou）回国看奥运，她认为民众积极的情绪以及欢迎的态度是国家自尊心增强的证明，而且这将成为一股温和的影响力。“我希望中国更加自信，我认为那会让中国和中国人变得更加宽容和开放。”
复旦大学教授沈丁立（ShenDingli）认为奥运促进国家自信并帮助中国成为一个更正常的国家。但他补充说这个国家仍然有很多问题，不应该试图隐藏问题或者假装问题并不存在。“随着财富的增长，中国进入一个这样的阶段：它需要更大的透明度、更好的治理以及更多的问责。奥运是我们思考中国有多么强大以及我们的弱点的好开始。”（作者JIM YARDLEY）
After Glow of Games, What Next for China?
By JIM YARDLEY
BEIJING — The elaborateclosing ceremony that ended the Olympic Games on Sunday also endednearly a decade in which the ruling Communist Party had made the Gamesan organizing principle in national life. Almost nothing has supersededthe Olympics as a political priority in China.
For Chinese leaders, all that effort paid off. The Games were seenas an unparalleled success by most Chinese — a record medal countinspired nationwide excitement, and Beijing impressed foreign visitorswith its hospitality and efficiency. And while the government’suncompromising suppression of dissent drew criticism, China alsodemonstrated to a global audience that it is a rising economic andpolitical power.
But a new, post-Olympic era has begun. The question now is whether adeepening self-confidence arising from the Olympic experience will leadChina to further its engagement with the world and pursue deeperpolitical reform, or whether the success of the Games and the mutedWestern response to repression will convince leaders that their currentmodel is working.
“China was eager to present something that shows it is a new powerthat has its own might,” said Shen Dingli, a professor at FudanUniversity in Shanghai. “It has problems, but it is able to managethem. It has weaknesses in its institutions, but also strengths inthose same institutions.”
Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee,declared Sunday afternoon that selecting Beijing as a host had been the“right choice” and that the event had been a bridge between China andthe rest of the world. “The world has learned about China, and Chinahas learned about the world,” Mr. Rogge said. “I believe this issomething that will have positive effects for the long term.”
To a large degree, the Beijing Games reflected the might of thecentralized power of China’s authoritarian system: The stunning sportsstadiums contributed to a $43 billion price tag for the Games that wasalmost completely absorbed by the state. China’s 51 gold medals, themost of any nation, were the product of a state-controlled sportsmachine. Those successes are one reason that some analysts doubtChinese leaders will rush to change the status quo.
“They have earned a tremendous amount of face because of theOlympics,” said Hung Huang, a media executive in Beijing. “They aregoing to ride on that for a while. We don’t have a culture that ispro-change. China, by nature, has got to be provoked to make changes.The economic reforms came about because we were desperately poor.”
Indeed, for all the attention to the Olympics, 2008 also marks the30th anniversary of China’s initial embrace of the market reforms thathave powered the country’s rapid economic rise. As the populationbecomes more urban and wealthy, the leadership will probably have tocontend with rising expectations and demands for better services.Liberals in China have hoped this anniversary would inspire newreforms, especially to a political system still marred by corruptionand a lack of transparency.
But critics say that the Olympics have underscored the deepresistance within the Communist Party to becoming more tolerant ofdissent. The party had faced a procession of crises during the preludeto the Olympics: the violent Tibetan protests that began in March, theprotests during the international Olympic torch relay, and the devastating May earthquake in Sichuan Province.
Protests seemed inevitable during the Games, and the authoritiesinitially seemed to signal more openness toward legal dissent when theyannounced three designated protest zones in city parks.
But those zones remained empty. Chinese citizens made formalapplications to protest, but none were approved during the Games. Twoelderly women who applied to protest about a land dispute weresentenced to a labor and re-education prison camp. Meanwhile, eightAmericans were among a group of foreigners jailed after they tried todemonstrate about China’s Tibet policies. The authorities released theAmericans on Sunday and placed them on a flight to Los Angeles as theclosing ceremony began.
“For the Chinese authorities to sentence them at all shows thegovernment’s insecurity and intolerance of even the most peacefulchallenges to its authoritarian control,” Students for a Free Tibet, aNew York-based advocacy group, said in a statement.
Even so, the Communist Party most likely won the overall publicrelations battle, given the enormous television coverage, largelypositive, that the Olympics brought to Beijing. David Shambaugh, aChina specialist at George Washington Universityin Washington, said the Games were a “win-win” for the party andbolstered its international image. But Mr. Shambaugh said that successwould be more meaningful if it increased national confidence in a waythat allowed China to move past simmering historical grievances thaterupted this year, especially during the Tibet crises.
He said the Games should help China put a symbolic end to itsself-described “century of humiliation” that saw the country weakenedby foreign intervention that began during the second half of the 19thcentury. “I would hope that we would look back at this as a majorthreshold of when China ditched all its baggage of the historicalnarrative of aggrieved nationalism,” Mr. Shambaugh said, “and justrewrote that narrative and began to act with more confidence aboutitself and its role in the world.”
No issue poses a more immediate test than Tibet. In October, theChinese authorities are expected to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama,the Tibetan spiritual leader. The Communist Party renewed that dialogueafter the March crisis, but some analysts questioned whether Chineseofficials had agreed to the talks merely to defuse internationalcriticism in advance of the Games. With the Olympics now concluded,China’s willingness to engage in real negotiations will be closelywatched.
“That’s going to be a really good test case,” Mr. Shambaugh said.
Beneath the sphere of geopolitics, many analysts were impressedwith ordinary citizens in Beijing during the Games. The authorities hadworried that the angry strain of nationalism that erupted during theTibet crisis might mar the Games with local crowds jeering other teams.But little of that came to pass.
Fans even enthusiastically greeted the return of Lang Ping, a volleyballlegend in China who now lives in the United States and coaches theUnited States women’s volleyball team — and guided the United States toa victory over the Chinese team.
Yu Zhou, a Beijing native who is now a professor of geography at Vassar College,returned for the Games and described the positive public mood andwelcoming attitude as proof that enhanced national self-esteem wouldserve as a moderating influence on China. “I would like China to bemore confident,” Ms. Yu said. “I think that would make China andChinese become more tolerant and open.”
Any Olympic host city experiences a blend of letdown and reliefonce the torch is extinguished, and Beijing is likely to be nodifferent. Major problems will need attention. The relatively blueskies during the Games were achieved only by restrictions that removedtwo million vehicles from the streets of Beijing and forced thetemporary shutdown of many factories around the region. The city’s airpollution, which ranks among the worst in the world, will return whenthe restrictions are lifted after the conclusion of the Paralympics in late September.
“Beijing will return to being, well, cloudy — full of smog,” said Mr. Shen, the Fudan University professor.
He predicted that the Olympics would raise public expectations. Hesaid Beijing residents, having enjoyed startlingly nice weather duringthe Games, will demand that officials find ways to keep the skiesclearer.
He said the Games would bolster national confidence and help “makeChina a more normal country.” But he added that the country still hadmany problems and should not try to hide them or pretend they did notexist.
“With its increase of wealth, China is entering a stage where itneeds to have better transparency, good governance and moreaccountability,” Mr. Shen said. “This Olympics is a good start for usto think about how China is strong — and where we are weak.” |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2008-8-27 15:59
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2008-8-27 17:13
什么走？继续走！
