美媒：中国软实力的绊脚石 [美国媒体]

By Andrew McCormick    作者：安德鲁 · 麦考密克

In February, China’s televised Lunar New Year gala made international headlines for its controversial depiction of African life. During a segment of the variety show meant to celebrate relations with Africa, a popular Chinese actress arrived on stage in blackface makeup, with a basket of fruit on her head and prosthetic parts that enlarged her breast and buttocks under a traditional African dress. She was joined by a black man in a monkey costume.

今年2月，中国的春节联欢晚会因其对非洲生活有争议性描述而成为国际头条新闻。在这场旨在赞颂与非洲关系的综艺节目中，一位受欢迎的中国女演员走上了舞台，脸上涂着黑脸，头上顶着一篮子水果，在一件传统的非洲服饰下，她的胸部和臀部都被放大了，一个穿猴子装的黑人和她走在一起。

The skit elicited widespread allegations of racism, with many adding that this was not the first time lately China had offended along racial lines. In October of last year, for instance, an art museum in Hubei Province was panned for pairing portraits of African people with photos of wildlife bearing similar expressions, such as a man and a lion both gnashing their teeth. In 2016, a now-infamous laundry detergent ad featured a young woman shoving a black suitor into a washing machine — and swooning when he emerged as a pale and camera-ready Asian man.

这部小品引发了对种族主义的广泛指责，许多人补充说，这并不是中国最近第一次因种族问题而冒犯他人，例如，去年10月，湖北省的一家艺术博物馆将非洲人的肖像与野生动物的照片配对，这些野生动物都有类似的表情，比如一名男子和一只狮子一样咬牙切齿，2016年，一条如今声名狼藉的洗衣粉广告中，一位年轻女子将一位黑人求婚者推到洗衣机里，当他以一个面色苍白、上镜的亚洲男人出现时，她欣喜若狂。

Boasting a world-class military and an economy on track to surpass that of the United States by 2030, there is little doubt that China will soon assume the mantle of a global superpower. But in a world where many see racial and cultural pluralism as sources of strength for the West in recent decades — and where global media culture has become broadly rooted in the politics of inclusion — experts say blunders like the gala’s may undercut China’s soft power efforts abroad and limit the cultural influence the nation is able to achieve on the world stage.

中国号称拥有世界级的军事力量，经济有望在2030年超过美国，毫无疑问，中国不久将成为全球超级大国。但在这个世界上，许多人认为种族和文化多元化是西方近几十年来的力量源泉——全球媒体文化已广泛植根于包容的政治——专家们表示，像春晚这样的失误可能会削弱中国在海外的软实力，并限制中国在世界舞台上发挥文化影响力。

“China still has many problems in terms of cultural communication,” said Zhang Lihua, a resident scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

“中国在文化交流方面仍然存在许多问题，”北京卡内基-清华大学全球政策中心常驻学者张丽华（音译）说。

“It is an obstacle standing in the way of carrying out One Belt and One Road,” she added, referring to China’s flagship economic development initiative that includes major infrastructure projects across Asia, Europe, and Africa. “Once we step over the line with a partner, the exchange will all become negative.”

她补充说：“这是一带一路实施过程中的一个障碍。”她指的是中国的旗舰级经济发展举措，包括在亚洲、欧洲和非洲的主要基础设施项目。“一旦我们与合作伙伴的关系跨越了这条底线，所有的贸易往来都将变成负面的。”

Responding to backlash after the gala, officials called negative coverage part of a deliberate attempt by the West to tarnish China’s image in Africa. As one representative of the Chinese embassy in Nairobi told Kenyan reporters, who published their own criticism of the broadcast, “We are not happy to see Kenyan media follow the Western media report. Kenyan people should have their own judgment.”

面对晚会后的反弹，官员们称负面报道是西方故意想要损害中国在非洲形象的一部分，中国驻内罗毕大使馆的一名代表对肯尼亚记者说：“我们不乐意看到肯尼亚媒体关注西方媒体的报道，肯尼亚人民应该有自己的判断。“

To Joseph Wasonga, who chairs the Department of Diplomacy and International Relations at Nairobi’s Kenyatta University, these defenses ring false. Not only are Kenyans plenty capable of taking their own offense, in his view, but suggestions that China does not have a problem with race are inaccurate, based on observations of Chinese officials and development workers in his country so far.

对于内罗毕肯尼亚塔大学外交和国际关系系主任约瑟夫·马森加纳来说，这些防御性的应对是错误的，在他看来，不仅肯尼亚人有足够的能力来判断自己是否被冒犯，而且根据对中国官员和中国发展工作官员的观察，中国在种族问题上没有问题的说法是不准确的。

“China says it is approaching African countries as peers, ‘brother to brother,’” he said. “But in many ways, China has been less tolerant of cultural differences than traditional aid partners in the West. They often treat themselves as superior and do not integrate with African people and society.”

“中国说，它正在兄弟般的情谊接近非洲国家，”他说。“ 但从很多方面来看，与西方传统的援助伙伴相比，中国不太容忍文化差异，他们经常把自己看作是高人一等，而不是与非洲人民和社会融合在一起。“

Wansonga added, “Personally, I doubt China’s commitment to appreciating our circumstances, how we think, and who we really are.”

他补充说：“ 就我个人而言，我怀疑中国是否会按承诺去欣赏我们的环境、了解我们的情况，我们的想法以及我们到底是谁。”

China has its own complex history when it comes to race. The country is home to 56 different ethnic groups, though Han Chinese comprise the overwhelming majority of the population and have long dominated China’s culture and politics. Smaller ethnic groups have historically faced pressure to adopt Han language and customs, and a few groups such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the Tibetans in China’s southwest have met particularly harsh treatment by government and security forces.
During the Cold War, Mao Zedong signaled an open mind toward race with his concept of third world solidarity in the face of American and Soviet influence blocs. Taking up the cause of African-Americans specifically, Mao wrote that “racial struggle is fundamentally a matter of class struggle.” Still, relatively homogeneous Chinese citizens were not always inclined toward tolerance or accommodation of different races. In the 1980s, African students hosted by Chinese universities experienced regular episodes of hostility and violence.

中国在种族方面有着自己复杂的历史，中国有56个不同的民族，但汉族占人口的绝大多数，长期以来一直主导着中国的文化和政治，在历史上，较小的民族面临着接受汉族语言和风俗的压力，新疆维吾尔族和中国西南的藏族等少数族群受到了政府和安全部队特别严厉的对待。

冷战期间，面对美国和苏联的势力集团，毛泽东提出了第三世界团结的概念，向种族问题发出了开放的信号，在谈到非裔美国人的事业时，毛泽东写道：“种族斗争从根本上说是阶级斗争。”不过，相对同质的中国公民并不总是倾向于容忍或适应不同的种族，20世纪80年代，由中国大学招收的非洲学生经常遭受敌意和暴力。

Today, despite the hundreds of millions of Chinese who live and travel abroad as migrants, business people, students, and tourists, experts say most people in the country remain largely unfamiliar with the language and norms of global multiculturalism. Though there are certainly those in the country who cry foul at racial missteps, they are not the majority, and they do not carry enough collective weight that Communist Party leaders might feel pressure to liberalize on their behalf.

如今，尽管有数亿中国人以移民、商人、学生和游客的身份在国外生活和旅行，但专家们表示，中国大多数人对全球多元文化的语言和规范仍然很陌生，虽然国内肯定有一些人因种族失误而大声疾呼，但他们不是大多数，而且他们没有足够的集体影响力，北京可能会感到压力，要求他们代表自己实现自由化。

This is in part by design. The characters for China, 中国, literally mean “central nation,” and notions of centrality and superiority historically pervade Chinese literature and thought. China has long been home to strains of nationalism and ethnocentrism, which its rulers have encouraged lately to shore up legitimacy amid the county’s momentous rise. Public attitudes are reinforced by online firewalls that limit access to websites hosting free exchanges of ideas, like Facebook. In fact, many who complained about the New Year’s gala on Chinese social media saw their comments swiftly deleted by government censors.

这在一定程度上是经过设计的，“ 中国 ”的字面意思是“中央国家 ”，“ 中心 ”、“ 优越 ”的观念在中国文学和思想中历来普遍存在，长期以来，中国一直充斥着民族主义和种族中心主义，在这个国家的崛起过程中，中国的统治者一直在鼓励这种做法，以巩固其合法性，网络防火墙限制了像 Facebook 这样的免费思想交流网站的访问，这强化了公众的态度，事实上，许多在中国社交媒体上抱怨春节联欢晚会的人发出的评论被政府审查人员迅速删除了。

“Many people here don’t have a real idea about the outside world,” said Morshed Al Muzahid Mim, a Bangladeshi business student in Yichang. “On the internet, the information is not updated, so no Bangladeshi people will go on to tell Chinese people about Bangladesh.”

“这里的许多人对外面的世界没有真正的了解，”在宜昌上学的孟加拉国商科学生莫尔希德 · 穆扎希德 · 米姆说，“在互联网上，信息没有更新，所以没有孟加拉人会继续向中国人民讲述关于孟加拉国的情况。”

Mim said he encounters frequent and vocal prejudice in China on account of his dark complexion, including assumptions that he is poor or uneducated.

米姆说，他在中国经常因为肤色黝黑而受到歧视，包括认为他是贫穷的或未受过教育。

In the 2000s, under Hu Jintao, it appeared Chinese civil society might soon expand to include liberal ideologies, which could have led to more nuanced understandings of race and culture. Under Xi Jinping this trend has reversed, according to David Lampton, director of Chinese studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

2000年代，中国的公民社会似乎很快就会扩大到包括自由的意识形态，这可能会引发对种族和文化的更细致的理解，根据约翰霍普金斯高级国际研究学院中国研究主任兰普顿的说法，在今天，这种趋势已经逆转。

“Xi is talking about a new model for world development,” Lampton said. “He specifically means to leave out multiculturalism and liberal attitudes. The world, he says, can develop and maintain stability without them.”

兰普顿说：“ 中国正在讨论一种新的世界发展模式。”“ ***明确表示要摒弃多元文化主义和自由主义态度，他说，没有这些，世界也能发展和保持稳定。“

If any doubt this approach, Lampton added, the strongman may point simply to social tension and the calamitous state of political affairs in the United States, compared with China’s rapid economic expansion amid relative political stability.

兰普顿还说，如果有人怀疑这种做法，这位强人可能只会简单地指出美国的社会紧张局势和灾难性的政治局势，相比之下，中国在相对政治稳定的情况下实现了快速的经济扩张。

Still, China has hardly left soft power by the wayside. As its international engagements have kicked into high gear, the country has spent an estimated $10 billion annually on public diplomacy, compared with some $2 billion spent by the United States in 2016. To cultivate influence, China has pursued robust media partnerships with foreign news outlets and production companies. It has opened 500-plus Confucius Institutes in 142 countries, which have taught Chinese language and culture to 7 million students worldwide. And it has aggressively sponsored traveling art exhibits, which draw on millennia of impressive cultural heritage.

然而，中国并没有放弃软实力，随着国际关系进入高速发展阶段，该国每年在公共外交上的支出估计为100亿美元，而美国在2016年的同类支出约为20亿美元，为了培养影响力，中国与外国新闻机构和制作公司建立了强有力的媒体合作伙伴关系，它在142个国家开设了500多所孔子学院，为全世界700万学生教授汉语和文化，它还积极赞助巡回艺术展览，这些展览吸收了几千年来令人印象深刻的文化遗产。


Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, draws a line, though, between routine public diplomacy and earnest soft power acquisition.

不过，外交关系委员会高级研究员伊丽莎白在日常公共外交和获取软实力之间划出了一条界线。

“To the extent that soft power is a more organically felt baseline of shared cultural values and norms, China will struggle to be attractive to other countries,” Economy said. “In the messiness of the West, there is something for everyone. You can embrace art and ideas from all over the world. In China, that type of variety doesn’t really exist. Instead you have a highly censored culture of social and political fear. How do people in other countries relate to that?”

“鉴于软实力是共同文化价值观和规范的一个更为有机的基线，中国将很难对其他国家产生吸引力，”她表示。“在西方的混乱中，每个人都有属于自己的东西，你可以接受来自世界各地的艺术和思想，在中国，这种类型的思想文化并不真正存在，相反有一种高度审查的社会和政治恐惧文化，其他国家的人又会怎么看？“

If China might not capture hearts and minds, experts emphasized that it will not altogether lack power and influence, either.

专家强调，即使中国不能赢得人心，它也不会完全缺乏权力和影响力。

A 2016 survey by the research organization Afrobarometer found that 63 percent of Africans hold overall positive views of China’s role in their country, based on 54,000 interviews in 36 African countries.

非洲 Afrobarometer 研究机构2016年的一项调查发现，63%的非洲人对中国在他们国家的作用持总体积极的看法，这是根据对36个非洲国家的54000次采访得出的。

According to Edem Selormey, an Afrobarometer field operations manager who was heavily involved in the survey’s production, most Africans’ views are shaped by what they see on the ground: new roads, schools, hospitals, and factories, all the result of Chinese investment. Factors in the survey that contributed to negative opinions of China included the poor quality of Chinese-made products and perceptions that China was robbing countries of their resources — not experiences of racism or cultural grievances. Generally, Selormey said, only wealthy or educated Africans were likely to take the latter considerations into account.

Edem Selormey是 Afrobarometer 研究人员之一，曾大量参与调查的制作工作，她表示，大多数非洲人的观点是由他们在当地看到的东西决定的：新的道路、学校、医院和工厂，所有这些都是中国投资的结果，调查显示，导致对中国负面评价的因素包括中国制造的产品质量差，以及认为中国正在掠夺各国资源的看法——而不是种族主义或文化不满的经历，Selormey 称，一般来说，只有富有或受过教育的非洲人才有可能考虑到后者。

“Those who have access to media might see some of the negative things about China, about how Chinese might view Africans,” she explained. “But that sort of imagery doesn’t easily get to everybody.”

她解释说: " 那些能够接触媒体的人可能会看到一些关于中国的消极事物，比如中国人如何看待非洲人。"， "但这种形象并不容易让每个人都感受到。"

Vianie Mbalayi, a Congolese economics student at Sanxia University, believes China and her country have a strong relationship. But after four years in China, she was shocked and disheartened when she saw February’s New Year broadcast.

来自刚果的三峡大学经济系学生 Vianie Mbalayi 认为中国和她的国家有着牢固的关系，但是在中国呆了四年之后，当她看到二月的新年晚会时，她感到震惊和沮丧。

“The behaviors by the Chinese authorities represent the values of the country,” Mbalayi said. “They should be more responsible. You cannot say China and Africa are friends and then humiliate us.”

Mbalayi 说：“中国当局的行为代表了中国的价值观。”，“他们应该更负责任，你不能一边说中国和非洲是朋友，一边羞辱我们。“

Whatever offense might be caused abroad, representations of race in Chinese media are unlikely to change soon, said Zhang Xiaoling, an international communications professor at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo. According to Zhang, who has studied media’s role in building Chinese international soft power, many officials still see no problem with the New Year gala’s imagery, nor with depictions of Africans as helpless and diseased, as in last year’s mega-blockbuster Wolf Warrior II.

宁波诺丁汉大学的国际传播学教授张小玲（音译）说，无论在国外引起什么冒犯，中国媒体对种族的观点不太可能很快改变，研究过媒体在建设中国国际软实力中的作用的张表示，许多官员仍然认为，春节联欢晚会的形象没有问题，也没有像去年的大片“ 战狼 2”那样，把非洲人描绘成无助和病态的形象。

Officials might also judge that the domestic impact of such imagery outweighs potential damage to China’s reputation internationally.

官员们可能还会判断，此类形象对中国国内的影响超过了对中国国际声誉的潜在损害。

“What the Chinese people want to see right now is a stronger country,” Zhang said. “The public and the media are obsessed with emphasizing Chinese identity. If you look at it this way, China is indeed rejecting other cultures.”

“ 中国人民现在想看到的是一个更强大的国家，”张说 “公众和媒体都热衷于强调中国人的身份，如果你这样看，中国确实在排斥其他文化。“

Afanlynness 
chinese are racists for damn sure, and many of them dont know how racist they are, which is just sad!

中国人百分百是种族主义者，他们中的许多人不知道他们是多么的种族主义，这太可悲了！

Seyit lktürk 
China even doesn't respect basic human rights. It is not surprise to perform full racism on TV. I hope they try to understand why people are angry about instead of defending it by saying "There are Africans on the stage".

中国甚至不尊重基本人权。在电视上表现出彻底的种族主义并不令人惊讶，我希望他们试图理解人们为什么对此感到愤怒，而不是用“ 舞台上有非洲人”来为自己辩护。

sasuke ishikawa
It's called Sinocentrism, not racism

这叫“中国中心主义”，不是种族主义。

StopProtestingForDisrespectfulBlackMen
Chinese people please exit Africa

中国人请离开非洲。

Terri theintrovert
Chinese want to be white

中国人想要变成白人。

Niron Vulgader
China trying ever so hard to have some decent creative soft power, always failing miserably. Japan & South Korea rule!  lol stick to the maths and sciences China, art is not your thing. Cringeworthy, boring, uncreative, lazy, stereotypical bs

中国一直在努力拥有一些体面的创造性软实力，但总是以惨败告终，日本和韩国才是王道！LOL  还是坚持玩你们的数学和科学吧，中国，艺术不是你们的菜， 无聊、乏味、缺乏创造力、懒惰、典型的狗屎。

GPU 
God bless the Chinese. To think that China will be more western than the West in just a moment.

愿上帝保佑中国人，试想一下，中国很快就会变得比西方更西方化。

3517 alt
China want impeliarism country. All of the world must expel Chinese in there Land

中国想要成为一个帝国主义国家，全世界都必须驱逐中国人。