國際大閒話:中國難成世界一流強國

Outside of world wars and market cataclysms, the relative trajectories of major powers usually trace gradual curves rather than abruptly rising or falling. After the 2008 financial crisis, however, commentators in China and to a lesser extent in the West suggested that the U.S. had hit an inflection point. China, they said, was zooming toward parity as a world power, and perhaps more.

除了世界大戰和市場崩盤之外，主要大國的相對發展軌跡通常都是平緩的曲線，而非大起大落的形態。然而，2008年金融危機之後，中國的評論家以及少數西方評論員表示，美國已經到達拐點。他們說，中國正在迅速發展成爲一個和美國平起平坐的世界強國，也許還不止這一點。

In recent months, for somewhat less obvious reasons including Beijing's increasing pushiness in East Asia and the country's just-completed once-a-decade leadership transition, this conversation has been shifting again, at least in the West. America's relative decline is anything but assured, many analysts have begun to proclaim, with some adding that China's rise to global pre-eminence any time soon is highly unlikely.

在最近幾個月裏，出於有些不太明朗的原因，包括中國政府在東亞越來越咄咄逼人的姿態以及中國剛剛完成的十年一度的領導人換屆，這個話題再次發生着轉變，至少在西方是如此。很多分析家開始宣稱，美國的相對衰退根本沒有定論，有些人還表示，中國在短期內崛起成爲全球一流強國的可能性非常小。

Timothy Beardson's sprawling 'Stumbling Giant: The Threats to China's Future' joins a far-ranging group of books making the latter case. Edward Luttwak, in his 2012 book, 'The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy,' for example, argues that what he calls China's 'all-round military aggrandizement,' coupled with the country's very fast economic growth, is essentially self-canceling. If China continues along this path, with double-digit increases of military expenditures and ever more assertive behavior, the result will not be a stronger China but rather a country increasingly countered by balancing neighbors and more distant powers.

譚寶信(Timothy Beardson)洋洋灑灑的著作《蹣跚的巨人：威脅中國未來的因素》(Stumbling Giant: The Threats to China's Future)是一本論證後一種觀點的圖書。這樣的圖書有很多，比如，愛德華•勒特韋克(Edward Luttwak)在他2012年的著作《中國的崛起與戰略邏輯》(The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy)中就指出，他稱之爲中國“全面提升軍事力量”的舉動，加之中國異常迅速的經濟增長速度，實際上是一種自絕於人的做法。如果中國繼續沿着這條路走下去，軍事開支以兩位數增長，行爲上越加獨斷，其結果不會是成爲一個更加強大的中國，而是會越來越受到勢均力敵的鄰國和遠方大國的制衡。

In his recent 'China Goes Global: The Partial Power,' David Shambaugh, one of America's foremost scholars of Chinese affairs, performed perhaps the most comprehensive examination of China's strengths and weaknesses, concluding that 'the elements of China's global power are actually surprisingly weak and very uneven' and that 'China is not as important, and it is certainly not as influential, as conventional wisdom holds.'

沈大偉(David Shambaugh)是美國最著名的中國問題專家之一，他在最近出版的《中國走向全球：不完全大國》(China Goes Global: The Partial Power)中對中國的優勢和劣勢進行了也許是最全面的審視，得出的結論是：“中國成爲全球性大國的要素實際上弱得驚人，而且非常不均衡”，“中國不像人們普遍認爲的那樣重要，也肯定沒有那麼大的影響力”。

In 'Stumbling Giant,' Mr. Beardson, a banker with long experience in East Asia, argues that a combination of terrible demographics and conservative, reform-averse leadership makes it unlikely that China will ever attain world leadership or superpower status.

作爲在東亞長期生活過的銀行家，譚寶信在《蹣跚的巨人》中指出，可怕的人口形勢加上保守、不願改革的領導層，使中國不太可能成爲世界領袖或具備超級大國的地位。

By 2030, China will have more people over the age of 65 than the U.S. has people, and its working-age population is already beginning what will be a steep and hard-to-manage decline. When the U.S., Japan and South Korea attained levels of aging similar to China's today, Mr. Beardson writes, 'they each had a per capita GDP of around $15,000; the figure for China in 2011 was about $4,300.'

到2030年，中國65歲以上的人口數量比整個美國人口還多，中國的勞動適齡人口已經開始下降，這樣的下降趨勢在未來會很劇烈，而且難以控制。譚寶信寫道，美國、日本和韓國當初在達到類似中國今天的老齡化水平時，“它們的人均國內生產總值(GDP)都在15,000美元左右；而中國2011年的數據大約是4,300美元”。

The actuarial implications of this are staggering. China stands to become the first aspiring global power that becomes old before it can become rich. As citizens of Japan, Northern Europe and, increasingly, the U.S. well know, it is hard for even high-income countries to meet the health and retirement burdens of the elderly.

這種情況在精算學上的結果是令人震驚的。中國將成爲第一個有心成爲全球性大國卻又未富先老的國家。日本、北歐和越來越多的美國公民都知道，即便在高收入國家，要解決老齡人口的健康和退休金負擔都很困難。

This task will be vastly more difficult, Mr. Beardson argues, for China, a country with a meager social safety net. In a couple of decades, it will have hundreds of millions of citizens with expensive chronic diseases and perhaps 150 million people in need of institutional care.

譚寶信認爲，這項任務對中國這樣一個社會保障體系很不完備的國家來說將會艱鉅得多。在二三十年的時間內，中國將有數以億計身患慢性疾病的公民，這些疾病的醫治費用高昂，而且有大約1.5億人需要護理機構照顧。

'China has a limited window of opportunity岸maybe twenty years岸to make its economic breakthrough. Otherwise it risks being caught in a 'middle income' trap,' Mr. Beardson writes in the introduction. Toward the end, he writes that 'China can continue to rise but the threats [it faces are] so serious and so widespread, and the domestic policy response so timid, that it is inconceivable that China will overtake the United States this century.'

譚寶信在引言中寫道：“中國取得經濟突破的機會窗口──大概20年──十分有限，錯過機會就有可能陷入‘中等收入’陷阱。”在臨近尾聲的部分，譚寶信寫道：“中國會繼續崛起，但是[它面臨的]威脅太大太廣，而其國內政策反應又太過謹小慎微，很難想象中國會在本世紀超越美國。”

These are reasonable, if debatable, observations, however lacking in originality or particular insight. But most of the book is a woolly compendium of bric-a-brac gleaned from research, years of reading and plentiful surmise. Mr. Beardson's book aims to be even more comprehensive than Mr. Shambaugh's, though he brings none of the discipline of a scholar to his task. 'Stumbling Giant' has the encyclopedic feel of something from a bygone century, when isolated thinkers committed everything they had learned about the universe to a single book.

如果說這些言論尚存爭議，但都還是言之成理的，不管它們是多麼缺乏新意或獨到的見解。不過書中的大部分內容是經過研究、多年閱讀和豐富猜想而寫成的綱要式文章。譚寶信的書意在寫得比沈大偉的書更全面，雖然他在寫作中沒有加入學者的自律。《蹣跚的巨人》給人感覺像是來自過去某個年代的某種百科全書式的東西，當時的獨立思想家會在一本書裏寫下他們所知的有關宇宙的一切知識。

Mr. Beardson holds forth on subjects as varied as land tenure, education, dynastic history and science. Sometimes the results are provocatively interesting, such as his claim that the emergence of large international concessions in cities like Shanghai and Tianjin in the late 19th century岸an aspect of what China speaks of today as a 'century of humiliation'岸'constituted the largest cultural transfer in human history,' with Western traders and industrialists providing invaluable knowhow in industry and finance. That China suffered humiliation is undeniable, but this claim is a refreshing counterpoint to the manipulatively nationalistic way in which the history of this era is taught in China.

譚寶信談及的話題包括土地所有制、教育、斷代史和科學等各個方面。有時探討的結果具有爭議性，很有意思。比如，他聲稱19世紀末期在上海和天津等城市出現的大片國際租界──今天中國稱之爲“百年恥辱”的表現之一──“是人類歷史上最大規模的文化遷移”，西方的貿易商人和實業家在工業和金融領域提供了寶貴的專業知識。不可否認，中國蒙受了恥辱，但是這種說法相對中國教授這一時期歷史時有意使用的民族主義方式而言，是一種讓人耳目一新的對立觀點。

Much more often, one is left bewildered or simply numbed. At one point, Mr. Beardson writes that China 'has never been at the center of world affairs.' For most of world history, no country was, but for centuries China, the center of gravity for much of Asia, came as close to meeting this standard as any. Sub-chapters, meanwhile, often begin with banal observations like 'There are many different views of the years from 1949 until Mao's death in 1976' and 'There is a potential in China for further major change in Party, state and nation.'

更多的時候，讀者會感到困惑或者乾脆感到麻木。譚寶信在書中一處寫道，中國“從來沒有處於世界事務的中心”。在世界歷史的大部分時間裏，沒有任何國家成爲過世界的中心，然而中國在數百年的時間裏作爲亞洲大部地區的中心已經接近達到這個標準了。與此同時，細分章節經常都是以類似這樣的老套評論開頭：“對於從1949年到毛澤東去世的1976年間的這些時間存在很多不同的看法”，“中國有可能在黨、國家和民族層面發生進一步的重大變革”。

Worse, though, is the pretense of expertise in virtually everything as the author rambles from subject to subject. This has the perverse effect of robbing any particular argument of authority. 'This is not an encyclopedia of modern Chinese civilization,' Mr. Beardson writes. 'It does not celebrate all the many achievements of China in science and medicine, contemporary art, commerce, cuisine, sport or space.' Amid the huge catalog of topics glancingly touched upon, it's a wonder that he left these out.

然而更糟糕的是，作者從一個話題漫談到另一個話題時，差不多在任何事情上都在炫耀專業知識。這樣做的結果事與願違，讓任何具體的論證失去了權威性。譚寶信寫道：“這不是一本關於現代中國文明的百科全書，它沒有頌揚中國在科技、醫學、當代藝術、商貿、烹飪、體育或空間技術方面取得的衆多成就。”在泛泛而談的大量話題裏，他居然沒有寫到這些內容，這簡直是個奇蹟。