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超级大国不好当
作者：英国《金融时报》亚洲版主编维克托·马莱(Victor Mallet)
成为超级大国，并不完全是一件值得炫耀和开心的事。你不仅要参加峰会、派遣航母、推翻加勒比地区与你意见相左的恼人政权。你还必须能够处理好外界的批评，哪怕此刻你正在全力对付一场自然灾害，例如卡特里娜 (Katrina)飓风，或是上个月发生在中国四川省的毁灭性地震。
中国尚需慢慢体会即将到来的超级大国地位所带来的不利影响，这一点从互联网论坛上流传的一篇满纸辛酸的电子邮件中就可以明显看出（注：篇名为《一首写给西方的诗》）。中国的爱国人士以各种形式反复转帖这首诗，以此回应针对北京奥运会和中国ZF在西藏的ZY而采取的抗议活动。这封邮件的匿名作者强烈谴责了西方社会对中国崛起表现出的伪善。
邮件写道：“当我们关上我们的大门时，你们走私毒品来打开市场。当我们信奉自由贸易时，你们责骂我们夺走了你们的工作……当我们有十亿人民时，你们说我们正在摧毁这个星球。当我们实行计划生育时，你们说这是违反人权。”
“当我们建设我们的工业时，你们称我们是污染者。当我们卖给你们商品时，你们责备我们助长了温室效应。当我们购买石油时，你们称是剥削和种族大屠杀。”这篇文章在结尾处用大号字体恼怒地诘问：“你们到底想要我们做什么？”
这个问题问得好。文章抱怨的核心是，中国做事挨骂，不做也挨骂。鉴于美国或欧盟政府并不总是能够理解中国人对西方双重标准的愤怒程度，这篇文章值得全文阅读。
不过，美国人一定忍不住会冷笑。几十年来，作为一个狂妄、冷漠、好战和毁坏生态的超级大国的公民，他们一直遭到挖苦嘲讽。更何况，这个超级大国也可悲地无力应对2005年卡特里娜飓风对本国国土造成的灾难性后果。
在前苏联解体后，美国一直独自承受着地缘政治压力。如今，美国人终于可以袖手旁观，由中国去感受地缘政治的热度。
这种趋势的迹象越来越明显。在今年3至4月对欧洲5个最大的国家进行的英国《金融时报》/哈里斯(Harris)月度民意调查中，欧洲人首次将中国排在美国、朝鲜和伊朗之前，认为它是对全球稳定的最大威胁。
无论中国在军事上存在哪些薄弱环节，在公众心目中，中国俨然已是一个超级大国。在美国系列喜剧《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)的最新一集里，小学童巴特·辛普森(Bart Simpson)让妈妈玛吉(Marge)吓了一跳，因为他被人哄去“预先报名”参加带有危险性质的美国陆军士兵的工作。巴特的笨爸爸荷马(Homer) 则觉得无所谓。“吔，哪有什么？巴特18岁时，我们就能控制世界啦。”停了一会，他又问：“我们都是中国，对吧？”
现在的问题并非中国是否会成为超级大国，而是它将成为什么样的超级大国。在上世纪60年代，中国和前苏联一样，都喜欢对外输出自产品牌的共产主义。但现在的中国政府在国内都没有推行毛泽东思想或是与资本主义做斗争的欲望，更不要说在外国了。
事实上，现代中国与美国在本质上的共同之处多得惊人，其中既包括乐观和自信，同时也包括傲慢，以及一定程度上对外部世界的无知。就目前而言，这两个国家的民粹主义者甚至都对法国人有点孩子气的仇恨——美国人是因为法国人对最近伊拉克战争的怀疑态度，而中国人则是因为法国人支持受迫害的藏人。
和所有超级大国一样，众多庇护国犯下的罪行也牵扯上了中国。前苏联受到菲德尔·卡斯特罗(Fidel Castro)、门格斯图·海尔·马里亚姆(Mengistu Haile Mariam)及其东欧卫星国各位暴君的拖累。美国有奥古斯托·皮诺切特(Augusto Pinochet)、蒙博托·塞塞·塞科(Mobutu Sese Seko)、伊朗国王(Shah)和萨达姆·侯塞因(Saddam Hussein)。中国则永远难以摆脱与波尔布特(Pol Pot)、霍查(Enver Hoxha)和金日成(Kim Il-sung)之间的瓜葛。现在人们把中国与缅甸军政府、苏丹的伊斯兰政权以及罗伯特·穆加贝(Robert Mugabe)联系在了一起。
不过，即使是普通的国家也会有一些暧昧的盟友。作为大国的真正标志是，世界其他国家和地区都在乎你境内发生的事件。按这个标准衡量，中国已经是一个超级大国了。
人们在乎这些事件，首先是因为他们会直接受到影响：中国的空气污染、切尔诺贝利(Chernobyl)的核辐射、好莱坞电影、俄罗斯文学和中国艺术。当然，还有白宫发动的一次次战争——这解释了为什么外国人会关心美国的总统大选。人们在乎的另一原因是，超级大国往往会因其实力而受到尊敬，作为激励他国公民的典范而受到赞美。这就是为什么，美国新奥尔良在卡特里娜飓风过后呈现的混乱会让世界震惊，全世界的注意力目前都集中在中国四川省。
震灾发生后的早期证据表明，与热带风暴“纳尔吉斯”(Nargis)肆虐过后缅甸军方的反应全然不同，中国军队的救援行动快速而有效。但他们仍将受到人们的密切审视，就像北京奥运会临近之际，中国领导人会受到密切关注一样。
成为超级大国并不好玩，因为伴随着权力而来的，还有重大的责任和外国人的猜疑。关于那份悲愤痛斥中国所遭受不公正待遇的文章里所提到的问题，唯一的合理回答只能是：欢迎获得超级大国地位——现在你该知道当美国人是什么滋味了。
译者/何黎
The downside of joining the superpower club
Financial Times
14-May-2008
By Victor Mallet
Being a superpower is not all pomp and pleasure. There is more to it than attending summits, deploying aircraft carriers and overthrowing irritating regimes in the Caribbean with which you disagree. You also have to be able to handle criticism, even when you are grappling with a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or the deadly earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province on Monday.
That China has yet to grasp the downside of its imminent superpower status is evident from a plaintive e-mail doing the rounds of internet forums. The anonymous author of the text, published and republished in various forms by Chinese patriots in response to protests over the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, bitterly condemns western hypocrisy about the rise of China.
"When we closed our doors, you sent gunboats and opium to open markets. When we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs," the message says. "When we reached a billion people, you said we're overcrowding the planet. When we have one-child policy, you say it is human rights abuses...
"When we build our industries, you call us polluters. When we sell you inexpensive goods, you blame us for your deficits. When we search for oil, like you did, you call that exploitation and genocide." The message concludes peevishly, in large print: "What do you really want from us?"
It is a good question. The thrust of the complaint is that China is damned if it does something and damned if it does not. It is worth reading in full because the depth of Chinese anger over western double standards is not always appreciated in Washington or Brussels.
Americans, however, must find it hard to suppress a wry smile. They have been mocked for decades as the citizens of a swaggering, insensitive, militaristic and ecologically destructive superpower - a superpower, furthermore, that proved pathetically incapable of dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on home soil in 2005.
Now Americans can stand aside and watch as China feels some of the geopolitical heat that has been directed exclusively at the US since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Evidence of this trend is accumulating. In an FT/Harris monthly opinion poll in Europe's five biggest nations, conducted in March and April, Europeans for the first time ranked China as the biggest threat to global stability, ahead of the US, North Korea and Iran.
Whatever its military weaknesses, China has already made it as a superpower in the popular imagination. In a recent episode of The Simpsons, the US comedy series, schoolboy Bart Simpson is lured into "pre-enlisting" for the dangerous job of soldier in the US army, to the horror of his mother, Marge. Homer, his clueless father, is unmoved. "Yeah, big deal. By the time Bart is 18, we're gonna control the world." He pauses. "We're China, right?"
The question now is not whether China will become a superpower, but what kind it will be. In the 1960s China, like the Soviet Union, was happy to export its own brand of communism. But Beijing today has no desire to spread Maoism or fight capitalism at home, let alone abroad.
In fact, modern China has a surprising number of qualities in common with the US. They include optimism and confidence, but also arrogance and a degree of ignorance about the outside world. Nationalists in the two countries even share, for the time being, a rather childish hatred of the French - the Americans because of French scepticism over the latest Iraq war and the Chinese because of French support for persecuted Tibetans.
Like all superpowers, China is associated with the crimes of its various protégés. The Soviet Union was lumbered with Fidel Castro, Mengistu Haile Mariam and the tyrants of its satellite states in eastern Europe. The US had Augusto Pinochet, Mobutu Sese Seko, the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. China is forever tainted with Pol Pot, Enver Hoxha and Kim Il-sung. Now it is linked to the Burmese junta, Sudan's Islamist regime and Robert Mugabe.
Yet even a mediocre country can acquire dubious allies. The true mark of a great nation is that the rest of the world cares what happens inside your borders. By this measure China is already a superpower.
People care first because they are directly affected: by air pollution from China, by radioactivity from Chernobyl, by Hollywood films, Russian literature and Chinese art, and indeed by wars launched from the White House, which explains the view that foreigners have a stake in US elections. People also care because superpowers tend to be respected for their strength and admired for ideals that inspire the citizens of other nations. That is why the world was shocked by the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina, and one reason attention is focused now on Sichuan.
As it happens, the early evidence suggests that the Chinese armed forces have been swift and effective in their rescue efforts, unlike their Burmese counterparts after the devastation of cyclone Nargis. But they will remain under intense scrutiny, just as the Chinese leadership will be closely watched in the approach to the Beijing Olympics.
It is no fun being a superpower, for with power come great responsibilities and the suspicion of foreigners. There is only one sensible answer to the plaintive e-mail about the injustices meted out to China: welcome to superpower status - now you know how it feels to be American.
victor.mallet@ft.com
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto051420081239564100&page=2
作者：英国《金融时报》亚洲版主编维克托·马莱(Victor Mallet)
成为超级大国，并不完全是一件值得炫耀和开心的事。你不仅要参加峰会、派遣航母、推翻加勒比地区与你意见相左的恼人政权。你还必须能够处理好外界的批评，哪怕此刻你正在全力对付一场自然灾害，例如卡特里娜 (Katrina)飓风，或是上个月发生在中国四川省的毁灭性地震。
中国尚需慢慢体会即将到来的超级大国地位所带来的不利影响，这一点从互联网论坛上流传的一篇满纸辛酸的电子邮件中就可以明显看出（注：篇名为《一首写给西方的诗》）。中国的爱国人士以各种形式反复转帖这首诗，以此回应针对北京奥运会和中国ZF在西藏的ZY而采取的抗议活动。这封邮件的匿名作者强烈谴责了西方社会对中国崛起表现出的伪善。
邮件写道：“当我们关上我们的大门时，你们走私毒品来打开市场。当我们信奉自由贸易时，你们责骂我们夺走了你们的工作……当我们有十亿人民时，你们说我们正在摧毁这个星球。当我们实行计划生育时，你们说这是违反人权。”
“当我们建设我们的工业时，你们称我们是污染者。当我们卖给你们商品时，你们责备我们助长了温室效应。当我们购买石油时，你们称是剥削和种族大屠杀。”这篇文章在结尾处用大号字体恼怒地诘问：“你们到底想要我们做什么？”
这个问题问得好。文章抱怨的核心是，中国做事挨骂，不做也挨骂。鉴于美国或欧盟政府并不总是能够理解中国人对西方双重标准的愤怒程度，这篇文章值得全文阅读。
不过，美国人一定忍不住会冷笑。几十年来，作为一个狂妄、冷漠、好战和毁坏生态的超级大国的公民，他们一直遭到挖苦嘲讽。更何况，这个超级大国也可悲地无力应对2005年卡特里娜飓风对本国国土造成的灾难性后果。
在前苏联解体后，美国一直独自承受着地缘政治压力。如今，美国人终于可以袖手旁观，由中国去感受地缘政治的热度。
这种趋势的迹象越来越明显。在今年3至4月对欧洲5个最大的国家进行的英国《金融时报》/哈里斯(Harris)月度民意调查中，欧洲人首次将中国排在美国、朝鲜和伊朗之前，认为它是对全球稳定的最大威胁。
无论中国在军事上存在哪些薄弱环节，在公众心目中，中国俨然已是一个超级大国。在美国系列喜剧《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)的最新一集里，小学童巴特·辛普森(Bart Simpson)让妈妈玛吉(Marge)吓了一跳，因为他被人哄去“预先报名”参加带有危险性质的美国陆军士兵的工作。巴特的笨爸爸荷马(Homer) 则觉得无所谓。“吔，哪有什么？巴特18岁时，我们就能控制世界啦。”停了一会，他又问：“我们都是中国，对吧？”
现在的问题并非中国是否会成为超级大国，而是它将成为什么样的超级大国。在上世纪60年代，中国和前苏联一样，都喜欢对外输出自产品牌的共产主义。但现在的中国政府在国内都没有推行毛泽东思想或是与资本主义做斗争的欲望，更不要说在外国了。
事实上，现代中国与美国在本质上的共同之处多得惊人，其中既包括乐观和自信，同时也包括傲慢，以及一定程度上对外部世界的无知。就目前而言，这两个国家的民粹主义者甚至都对法国人有点孩子气的仇恨——美国人是因为法国人对最近伊拉克战争的怀疑态度，而中国人则是因为法国人支持受迫害的藏人。
和所有超级大国一样，众多庇护国犯下的罪行也牵扯上了中国。前苏联受到菲德尔·卡斯特罗(Fidel Castro)、门格斯图·海尔·马里亚姆(Mengistu Haile Mariam)及其东欧卫星国各位暴君的拖累。美国有奥古斯托·皮诺切特(Augusto Pinochet)、蒙博托·塞塞·塞科(Mobutu Sese Seko)、伊朗国王(Shah)和萨达姆·侯塞因(Saddam Hussein)。中国则永远难以摆脱与波尔布特(Pol Pot)、霍查(Enver Hoxha)和金日成(Kim Il-sung)之间的瓜葛。现在人们把中国与缅甸军政府、苏丹的伊斯兰政权以及罗伯特·穆加贝(Robert Mugabe)联系在了一起。
不过，即使是普通的国家也会有一些暧昧的盟友。作为大国的真正标志是，世界其他国家和地区都在乎你境内发生的事件。按这个标准衡量，中国已经是一个超级大国了。
人们在乎这些事件，首先是因为他们会直接受到影响：中国的空气污染、切尔诺贝利(Chernobyl)的核辐射、好莱坞电影、俄罗斯文学和中国艺术。当然，还有白宫发动的一次次战争——这解释了为什么外国人会关心美国的总统大选。人们在乎的另一原因是，超级大国往往会因其实力而受到尊敬，作为激励他国公民的典范而受到赞美。这就是为什么，美国新奥尔良在卡特里娜飓风过后呈现的混乱会让世界震惊，全世界的注意力目前都集中在中国四川省。
震灾发生后的早期证据表明，与热带风暴“纳尔吉斯”(Nargis)肆虐过后缅甸军方的反应全然不同，中国军队的救援行动快速而有效。但他们仍将受到人们的密切审视，就像北京奥运会临近之际，中国领导人会受到密切关注一样。
成为超级大国并不好玩，因为伴随着权力而来的，还有重大的责任和外国人的猜疑。关于那份悲愤痛斥中国所遭受不公正待遇的文章里所提到的问题，唯一的合理回答只能是：欢迎获得超级大国地位——现在你该知道当美国人是什么滋味了。
译者/何黎
The downside of joining the superpower club
Financial Times
14-May-2008
By Victor Mallet
Being a superpower is not all pomp and pleasure. There is more to it than attending summits, deploying aircraft carriers and overthrowing irritating regimes in the Caribbean with which you disagree. You also have to be able to handle criticism, even when you are grappling with a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or the deadly earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province on Monday.
That China has yet to grasp the downside of its imminent superpower status is evident from a plaintive e-mail doing the rounds of internet forums. The anonymous author of the text, published and republished in various forms by Chinese patriots in response to protests over the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, bitterly condemns western hypocrisy about the rise of China.
"When we closed our doors, you sent gunboats and opium to open markets. When we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs," the message says. "When we reached a billion people, you said we're overcrowding the planet. When we have one-child policy, you say it is human rights abuses...
"When we build our industries, you call us polluters. When we sell you inexpensive goods, you blame us for your deficits. When we search for oil, like you did, you call that exploitation and genocide." The message concludes peevishly, in large print: "What do you really want from us?"
It is a good question. The thrust of the complaint is that China is damned if it does something and damned if it does not. It is worth reading in full because the depth of Chinese anger over western double standards is not always appreciated in Washington or Brussels.
Americans, however, must find it hard to suppress a wry smile. They have been mocked for decades as the citizens of a swaggering, insensitive, militaristic and ecologically destructive superpower - a superpower, furthermore, that proved pathetically incapable of dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on home soil in 2005.
Now Americans can stand aside and watch as China feels some of the geopolitical heat that has been directed exclusively at the US since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Evidence of this trend is accumulating. In an FT/Harris monthly opinion poll in Europe's five biggest nations, conducted in March and April, Europeans for the first time ranked China as the biggest threat to global stability, ahead of the US, North Korea and Iran.
Whatever its military weaknesses, China has already made it as a superpower in the popular imagination. In a recent episode of The Simpsons, the US comedy series, schoolboy Bart Simpson is lured into "pre-enlisting" for the dangerous job of soldier in the US army, to the horror of his mother, Marge. Homer, his clueless father, is unmoved. "Yeah, big deal. By the time Bart is 18, we're gonna control the world." He pauses. "We're China, right?"
The question now is not whether China will become a superpower, but what kind it will be. In the 1960s China, like the Soviet Union, was happy to export its own brand of communism. But Beijing today has no desire to spread Maoism or fight capitalism at home, let alone abroad.
In fact, modern China has a surprising number of qualities in common with the US. They include optimism and confidence, but also arrogance and a degree of ignorance about the outside world. Nationalists in the two countries even share, for the time being, a rather childish hatred of the French - the Americans because of French scepticism over the latest Iraq war and the Chinese because of French support for persecuted Tibetans.
Like all superpowers, China is associated with the crimes of its various protégés. The Soviet Union was lumbered with Fidel Castro, Mengistu Haile Mariam and the tyrants of its satellite states in eastern Europe. The US had Augusto Pinochet, Mobutu Sese Seko, the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. China is forever tainted with Pol Pot, Enver Hoxha and Kim Il-sung. Now it is linked to the Burmese junta, Sudan's Islamist regime and Robert Mugabe.
Yet even a mediocre country can acquire dubious allies. The true mark of a great nation is that the rest of the world cares what happens inside your borders. By this measure China is already a superpower.
People care first because they are directly affected: by air pollution from China, by radioactivity from Chernobyl, by Hollywood films, Russian literature and Chinese art, and indeed by wars launched from the White House, which explains the view that foreigners have a stake in US elections. People also care because superpowers tend to be respected for their strength and admired for ideals that inspire the citizens of other nations. That is why the world was shocked by the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina, and one reason attention is focused now on Sichuan.
As it happens, the early evidence suggests that the Chinese armed forces have been swift and effective in their rescue efforts, unlike their Burmese counterparts after the devastation of cyclone Nargis. But they will remain under intense scrutiny, just as the Chinese leadership will be closely watched in the approach to the Beijing Olympics.
It is no fun being a superpower, for with power come great responsibilities and the suspicion of foreigners. There is only one sensible answer to the plaintive e-mail about the injustices meted out to China: welcome to superpower status - now you know how it feels to be American.
victor.mallet@ft.com
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto051420081239564100&page=2
