中英雙語話史記 第125期:第一次鴉片戰爭

Qing Dynasty

清朝

The First Opium War

第一次鴉片戰爭

Roughly between the Congress of Vienna and the Franco-Prussian War, Britain reaped the benefits of being the world’s sole modern, industrial nation.

大約在維也納會議和普法戰爭之間，英國抓住機會成爲了世界上唯一現代化和工業化的國家。

Following the defeat of Napoleon, Britain was the “workshop of the world”, meaning that its finished goods were no longer produced so efficiently and cheaply that they could often undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in almost any other market.

打敗拿破崙後，英國成爲了“世界工廠”，這意味着它們生產的商品不再高效和低廉，也使它們的產品無法再像以前一樣比其他地區本地生產的同樣商品更具價格優勢。

If political conditions in a particular overseas markets were stable enough, Britain could develop its economy through free trade alone without having to resort to formal rule or mercantilism.

如果海外市場的政治格局足夠穩定，英國就可以不用採取形式規則或商業主義，而是僅僅通過與他國進行自由貿易來發展經濟。

Britain was even supplying half the needs in manufactured goods of such nations as Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States.

英國甚至爲德國、法國、比利時和美國提供了它們所需的一半以上的製造品。

As these other newly industrial powers, the United States, and Japan after the Meiji Restoration began industrializing at a rapid rate, however, Britain’s comparative advantage in trade of any finished good began diminishing.

自從新興的工業國家，如美國以及明治維新後的日本開始高速工業化後，英國在成品貿易方面的優勢開始減弱。

Sovereign areas already hospitable to informal empire largely avoided formal rule during the shift to New Imperialism.

大英帝國的主權領土大部分在轉向新型工業化的過程中拒絕形式規則。

China, for instance, was not a backward country unable to secure the prerequisite stability and security for western-style commerce, but a highly advanced empire unwilling to admit western (often drug-pushing) commerce, which may explain the West’s contentment with informal “Spheres of Influences”.

比如，中國並不是一個無法維持穩定和西式貿易安全的落後國家而是一個不願意承認西式貿易（通常是販毒）的高度發達的國家，它將西方的滿足感解讀爲“區域影響力”。

China, unlike tropical Africa, was a securable market without formal control.

與非洲不同，中國是一個還沒有得到官方控制的觸手可得的市場。

Following the First Opium War, British commerce, and later capital invested by other newly industrializing powers, was securable with a smaller degree of formal control than in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and the Pacific.

第一次鴉片戰爭過後，英國的貿易以及其他新興工業國家對其投資的資本只能小幅度地通過官方控制東南亞、西非和太平洋地區獲得。

But in many respects, China was a colony and a large-scale receptacle of Western capital investments.

但是從許多方面來說，中國是一個殖民地並能大幅度的接收西方的資本投資。

Western powers did intervene military there to quell domestic chaos, such as the horrific Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion.

西方列強對中國進行軍事幹預來鎮壓國內的動亂，如可怕的太平起義和反帝國主義義和團運動。

For example, General Gordon, later the imperialist “ martyr” in the Sudan， is often accredited as having saved the Manchu dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.

比如，戈登將軍也就是之後蘇丹的帝國主義“烈士”通常被認爲將滿洲國從太平起義的暴亂中拯救了出來。