China is unnerving a lot of people. Its hackers have been launching cyber-attacks on companies, institutions, and web sites. It is refusing to be a responsible stakeholder in the international political system, cultivating, as it has been, good relations with some of the world’s most odious regimes. And, as I have been reporting for several years now, its military—particularly its navy—has been growing by leaps and bounds. Should we be worried about China?
中国让很多人感到神经紧张。它的黑客对企业、机构和网站发动网络袭击。它拒绝在国际政治体系中扮演一个负责任的大国，还跟全球一些最臭名昭著的政权发展良好关系。此外，这几年来中国军队——尤其是海军——实力增长迅猛。那么我们是否该担心中国？
We should be concerned, but not hysterical.
我们应当关注中国，但不该歇斯底里地对中国感到恐慌。
China is rising as a great power, that’s for sure. I see China’s rise as similar to that of the United States after the Civil War. From the end of the Civil War to the outbreak of World War I, the U.S. economy (under forgettable presidents – Hayes, Garfield, Arthur…) expanded steadily, with high growth rates for decades. We closed the frontier and would eventually build the Panama Canal. And as our power grew, we developed interests around the world that we never previously had, and that led to Navy and Marine landings in South and Central America, and in the Pacific, as we became a two-ocean Navy. We didn’t explicitly seek power so much as we naturally followed our interests. We rose legitimately, in other words. And China is doing likewise.
中国正崛起为一个世界强国，这是毋庸置疑的事实。我认为当前中国的崛起和南北战争之后的美国有些类似。从内战结束到爆发第一次世界大战，美国经济稳步扩张，高速经济增长持续了数十年。我们关闭边境，建巴拿马运河。随着国力的增强，我们的经济利益开始遍布世界各地，这是前所未有的。接下来，随着海军实力日益增强，美国海军和海军陆战队开始登陆南美洲和中美洲，以及太平洋地区。在这个过程中，我们并未刻意谋求强国地位，只是更多地关注自身利益。换句话说，我们的崛起是正当合理的。现在的中国亦是如此。
It needs to be emphasized that China is not Iran under Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: it is not threatening to destroy any nation. It does not promote a radical philosophy. Its nationalism may at times be assertive, but it also sends out signals of benevolence.
需要强调的是，中国不是内贾德统治下的伊朗：它不会威胁说要摧毁某个国家。中国不提倡激进的价值观。它的民族主义有时候会有些过于自信，但同时也透露出善意。
During his term as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld expressed concern about China—asking out loud why China was investing so much in its military: who were its enemies? But Rumsfeld missed the point. As a great continental nation’s economy grows, it begins to trade more with the outside world and develops interests it did not have previously: hence a military build-up. As I’ve said, China is simply following the same path we once did.
拉姆斯菲尔德担任国防部长期间曾对中国崛起表示担心——他高声质问中国大力发展军事力量是出于何种目的：谁是它的敌人？但拉姆斯菲尔德弄错了。随着一个大陆国家逐渐发展经济，它和外界的贸易就会增加，开始产生很多此前不存在的利益，因此要发展军力。在我看来，中国和美国走的是同一条路。
A case in point, which may indicate the kind of military power China will turn out to be in the 21st century, involves its recent commemoration of Zheng He, the early-Ming Dynasty explorer. Zheng He sailed his treasure fleet through the Strait of Malacca and out across the Indian Ocean as far as the Horn of Africa, stopping in Ceylon, the Indian Subcontinent, and the Arabian Peninsula along the way. Zheng He’s naval fleet brought trade and prosperity and suppressed piracy, and his commemoration is a way for China to indicate two points: that it intends eventually, if all goes well, to build a two-ocean navy – covering the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean (a development that would signal China’s rise as a great military power to go along with its economic clout); and that it intends this projection of power to be benign.
有一个例子或许能说明21世纪的中国会拥有什么样的军事实力。明初郑和下西洋在中国是家喻户晓的故事。郑和的船队穿越马六甲海峡和印度洋，最远抵达非洲之角，沿途经过斯里兰卡、印度次大陆和阿拉伯半岛沿岸。郑和的远洋船队为明朝带来了贸易和繁荣，并有效驱除海盗。纪念郑和下西洋对中国来说意味着两点：其一，如果一切顺利的话，中国志在打造一支两洋海军——活动范围覆盖西太平洋和印度洋(那标志着随着经济影响力的增长，中国也会崛起成为—个军事强国)；其二，中国发展海军出于善意。
But China is a long way from having a two-ocean navy. It does give significant amounts of military and economic aid to Indian Ocean littoral countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Burma, and is involved in port building projects in all these places. But whether these projects evolve into overt naval bases for the Chinese is highly questionable. More likely, port authorities from third countries will end up running these harbors. And China will be careful not to provoke India, with whom its relations are already quite delicate. What’s more likely to happen – and this is a clue to power relationships as a whole in this new century – is that rather than official Cold War-era style military bases, navies and air forces like our own and China’s will have subtle access agreements, whose use will depend upon the health of the bilateral relationships in question.
但中国离打造两洋海军还有很长的路要走。它的确向印度洋沿海国家(如巴基斯坦、孟加拉国、斯里兰卡、缅甸等)提供了大量军事和经济援助，参与这些国家的港口建设项目。但这些项目能否演变成中国海军的公开活动基地还是个问题。由第三方来经营这些港口的可能性更大一些。中国还要注意别激怒印度——现在两国关系已然十分微妙。与冷战时期的军事基地不同，现在像中美等国的海军和空空部队更可能签署隐蔽的通行协议，他们对这些港口的使用将取决于和所在国双边关系的好坏。
In The Grand Chessboard (1997), Zbigniew Brzezinski presents a map of what Greater Chinese influence is likely to look like in the future, and shows it extending through parts of the Indian Ocean, all of Southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago, and the First Pacific Island Chain. But he also suggests that, in keeping with Chinese imperial history, Beijing will seek to apply its influence very indirectly.
兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基在其名著《大棋局》中阐述了未来中国影响力可能扩张到什么程度。他认为中国的影响力将扩张到印度洋部分地区，所有的东南亚地区和印尼群岛、太平洋第一岛链。但他也指出，与历史上一样，北京会通过非常隐蔽的方式来扩张影响力。
According to that vision, the navies and air forces of America, China, India, Japan, and other powers would patrol the seas and air spaces in concert, defending the global commons against pirates and other marauders. That is the future we should strive to achieve. Just as celebrating Zheng He was one signal sent out by China, its dispatch of ships to the Horn of Africa both to fight piracy and to assert its presence in the Indian Ocean was another. Rather than fret over China’s rise we should embrace it, and seek to manage it through robust relationships with democratic countries like India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and others.
按照他的说法，美国、中国、印度、日本和其他大国的海军和空军部队会协同参与海上和空中巡逻，共同打击海盗和其他掠夺者。这是我们应该努力实现的未来。跟纪念郑和下西洋一样，向非洲之角派遣海军护航编队——为了打击海盗和表明中国海军在印度洋的存在——是中国发出的另一个信号。我们不该担心中国崛起，而是应该欢迎中国崛起，并通过加强与印度、日本、韩国、印尼及其他民主国家的关系，努力影响中国的崛起。
True, we must be vigilant. We should follow China’s military rise closely, and have plans to confront China in the unlikely event of asymmetrical attacks at sea. A subtle cold war in the Indian and Pacific oceans with China is not out of the question sometime in the 21st century. We should hold Beijing’s feet to the fire on numerous trade and human rights issues. But we must not panic. And we should not assume that the future is necessarily linear. The fact that China’s economy has been growing exponentially for decades now does not mean it will continue thus. Because its government has no unifying philosophy beyond continued economic growth, China is prone to internal unrest in the event of a downturn or Dubai-style unraveling. And that could push it toward assertive nationalism as a way to distract its angry multitudes. Then we might panic. But not now, and not yet.
诚然，我们必须对中国崛起保持警惕。我们应该密切关注中国的军力变化，为美中在海上爆发不对称战争制定计划——尽管这不太可能发生。21世纪美中两国在印度洋和太平洋地区进行冷战的可能性仍然存在。我们应该向北京施压，要求其解决大量贸易和人权问题。但我们不能感到恐慌。我们不该假定未来一定会如此发展。中国经济几十年来高速发展的事实并不意味着未来它会继续这样的经济增长，因为除了保持经济增长以外，中国政府还没有统一的发展理念。一旦经济出现下滑或者发生迪拜式的危机，国内就有可能发生骚乱。为了分散注意力、平息民众的怒火，政府可能走上极端民族主义的道路。到那时我们也许会感到恐慌，但不是现在，这一天尚未到来。
