《国家利益》：中国和俄罗斯正在形成战略联盟 [美国媒体]

China and Russia: A Strategic Alliance in the Making

中国和俄罗斯正在形成的战略联盟

THE YEAR before he died in 2017, one of America’s leading twentieth-century strategic thinkers, Zbigniew Brzezinski, sounded an alarm. In analyzing threats to American security, “the most dangerous scenario,” he warned, would be “a grand coalition of China and Russia…united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.” This coalition “would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower.”

美国20世纪最重要的战略思想家之一，布热津斯基在他去世前一年，向美国敲响了警钟。在分析美国安全面临的威胁时，他警告说，“最危险的情况是，中国和俄罗斯结成一个规模庞大的联盟……不是通过意识形态，而是通过相互补充的利益关系团结在一起。”“这一联盟”将“在规模和范围上让人想起曾经由中苏集团构成的挑战，但这一次，中国可能是领导者，俄罗斯可能是追随者。”

Few observers heard his admonition then. Even fewer today recognize how rapidly this grand alignment of the aggrieved has been moving from the realm of the hypothetical toward what could soon become a geostrategic fact. Defying the long-held convictions of Western analysts, and against huge structural differences, Beijing and Moscow are drawing closer together to meet what each sees as the “American threat.”

他的警告在当时并没有引起多少人的关注。即便是在今天，也很少有人意识到，这种规模巨大的联盟正在从假设领域迅速向现实中的地缘战略演变。
与西方分析人士长期以来坚持的预测相反，在巨大的分歧面前，北京和莫斯科不但没有彼此远离，反而正日益互相靠拢，以应对各自眼中的“美国威胁”。

For two proud nations with long memories, their convergence also serves as a kind of cosmic revenge on the diplomatic maneuver Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger orchestrated a half century ago.

对于两个以悠久历史而自豪的国家来说，两国的联盟也是对半个世纪前尼克松和基辛格精心策划的外交策略的一种回击

When Nixon became president (in 1969), he and his National Security Advisor Kissinger sought to establish a relationship with Communist China to widen the divide between it and the Soviet Union, which they rightly regarded as the preeminent—indeed, existential—threat.

当尼克松于1969年成为美国总统时，他和他的国家安全顾问基辛格试图与中国建立关系，以扩大中国与苏联之间的分歧。

Even as they watched communists pursue “wars of national liberation” around the globe, Nixon and Kissinger embraced George F. Kennan’s strategic insight about containment: that nationalism would prove a sturdier pillar than communism. They also recognized that the crack in the Eastern Bloc between the Soviet Union and its junior Chinese partner could be widened by deft U.S. diplomacy at the expense of the Soviets.

就在尼克松和基辛格看着GC主义者在全球范围内展开如火如荼的民族解放运动时，他们接受了乔治凯南关于遏制战略的见解:
事实将证明，民族主义是比GC主义更坚固的支柱。他们还认识到，如果美国以牺牲苏联的利益为代价，通过巧妙的外交手段，就可以扩大苏联与伙伴中国之间的裂痕。

We know how the story turned out—so it is difficult to appreciate how radical this thought was in 1969, though Nixon had noted a year earlier in an essay in Foreign Affairs , “There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.” Had Nixon asked his government’s interagency process to consider the possibility of the United States establishing a relationship with Mao’s Communist China, this option would doubtless have been rejected as not just unrealistic, but unsound.

现在的我们都知道这个故事的结局-所以很难理解这个想法在1969年是多么激进，如果当时尼克松要求他的政府部门考虑美国与中国建立关系，这个要求无疑会被拒绝，因为这不仅是不现实的，而且是不安全的。

So instead, in a cloak of invisibility worthy of Harry Potter, Nixon sent Kissinger to Beijing for a series of meetings so secret that even his secretaries of state and defense were unaware of them. Ultimately, this led to Nixon’s historic visit in 1972 to China, recognition of Beijing (rather than Taipei) as its capital, and the creation of an uneasy but selectively cooperative relationship that contributed to the ultimate defeat of the Evil Empire.

因此，尼克松秘密派遣基辛格到北京参加了一系列会议，这在当时甚至连他的国务卿和国防部长都不知道。最终，尼克松顺利地在1972年对中国进行了历史性访问，承认北京(而不是台北)为中国首都，并建立了一种不稳定但有选择性的合作关系，并为最终击败邪恶帝国（苏联）做出了贡献。

The Nixon-Kissinger gambit is now known as “playing the China card.” Today we should be asking: is Xi Jinping’s China “playing the Russia card?”

尼克松和基辛格的策略在现在被称为“打中国牌”。那么今天我们又有了新的问题：中国是不是在“打俄罗斯牌”？

THAT THOUGHT seems to strike many Washington strategists as outlandish. Secretary of Defense James Mattis repeatedly emphasizes Moscow and Beijing’s “natural non-convergence of interest.” And the differences in national interests, values and culture are stark. Today’s map draws a line between Russia and China that leaves a large swath of what was in earlier centuries Chinese on the Russian side of the divide. That border has repeatedly seen violent clashes, the last in 1969.

这种想法似乎让许多华盛顿的战略家觉得奇怪。国防部长马蒂斯一再强调莫斯科和北京“天然利益不一致”。国家利益、价值观和文化的差异是明显的。
在一个多世纪前，俄罗斯曾经侵占了中国大量的领土。中俄也在边境地区多次发生暴力冲突，最后一次发生在1969年。

Given these structural realities, the prospects for a Chinese-Russian alliance in the longer run are undoubtedly grim. The confluence of China’s strategic foresight and exquisite diplomacy, on the one hand, and U.S. and Western European clumsiness, on the other, has produced an increasingly thick and consequential alignment between two geopolitical rivals, Russia and China.

鉴于这些现实，中俄长期结盟的前景无疑是暗淡的。但由于中国长远的战略眼光和精湛的外交手腕，以及美国和西欧自身的笨拙，俄罗斯和中国这两个本应成为地缘政治对手的两个国家，互相产生了强烈的联系。

In international relations, an elementary proposition states: “the enemy of my enemy is a friend.” The balance of power—military, economic, intelligence, diplomatic—between rivals is critical. To the extent that China persuades Russia to sit on its side of the see-saw, this adds to China’s heft, a nuclear superpower alongside an economic superpower.

在国际关系中，有一个基本真理:“敌人的敌人就是朋友。竞争对手之间的力量平衡——军事、经济、情报、外交——至关重要。在某种程度上，中国说服俄罗斯站在自己的一边，这无疑增加了中国的分量——即一个核超级大国与一个经济超级大国并存。

American presidents since Bill Clinton have not only neglected the formation of this grievance coalition; unintentionally but undeniably, they have nurtured it. Russia emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 with a leader eager to “bury Communism,” as Boris Yeltsin put it, and join the West. The story of how we reached the depth of enmity today is a long one, strewn with mistakes by all parties. The Clinton administration’s decision in 1996 to expand NATO toward Russia’s borders, Kennan observed, was the “most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” He predicted that the consequence would be a Russia that “would likely look elsewhere for guarantees of a secure and hopeful future for themselves.”

自比尔·克林顿以来的美国总统不仅忽视了这种联盟的形成;他们更是在无意中加快了了这一进程。1991年苏联解体后，俄罗斯出现了一位渴望“埋葬GC主义”(叶利钦)，想要加入西方的领导人。
而当时的克林顿政府却决定将北约扩大到俄罗斯边境，这无疑是“冷战后美国政策中最致命的错误”。
美国着名外交家、大战略家和历史学家乔治·凯南曾预测，这将使得俄罗斯“可能会从其他地方寻求保障，为自己争取一个安全、充满希望的未来”。

Vladimir Putin and Xi have watched the U.S.-led war in the Balkans (including the “accidental” bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade in 1999), Western-supported “color revolutions” topple governments in Georgia and then Ukraine, and even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton encourage street protests in 2011 against Russia’s parliamentary elections. Putin would not have to suffer from paranoia to imagine that the United States was seeking to overthrow him.

中俄两国领导人都亲眼目睹了美国领导的巴尔干战争(1999年中国驻南希拉夫大使馆“意外”遭受美国轰炸)，西方支持的“颜色革命”推翻了格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的政府，甚至连国务卿希拉里·克林顿也鼓励在2011年举行反对俄罗斯议会选举的街头抗议活动。
而对于美国一直寻求推翻普京这一点，普京早就心知肚明。

Official U.S. national security documents designate Russia and China America’s “strategic competitors,” “strategic adversaries” and even “enemies.” Increasingly, they are discussed in the same sentence, as if they were twins. According to the Trump National Security Strategy: “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” Both are accused of conducting major “influence operations” against the United States and interfering in U.S. elections.

美国官方的国家安全文件也把俄罗斯和中国列为美国的“战略竞争对手”、“战略对手”，甚至是“敌人”。越来越多的人把中俄放在同一个句子里讨论，就好像他们是双胞胎一样。
根据特朗普的国家安全战略:“中国和俄罗斯在挑战美国的权力、影响力和利益，试图侵蚀美国的安全和繁荣。”两个国家都被指控对美国进行了重大的“影响行动”，并干涉美国选举。

In their diplomacy, Russia and China mirror the relationship between the two leaders. On major international issues, they coordinate their positions. For example, when voting in the United Nations Security Council, they agree 98 percent of the time. Russia has backed every Chinese veto since 2007. The two have worked together to create and strengthen new organizations to rival traditional American-led international organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICs. For a Russian who wants to visit China, getting a visa takes one day; to visit the United States it takes them three hundred days to obtain a visa application interview.

两位领导人之间的关系也反应了俄罗斯和中国的外交关系。两国通常会在重大国际问题上协调立场。例如，在联合国安理会投票时，他们98%的时候意见一致。自2007年以来，俄罗斯支持中国的每一项否决权。两国共同努力，建立和加强新的组织，与美国领导的传统国际组织竞争，包括上海合作组织和金砖国家。对于一个想要访问中国的俄罗斯人来说，获得签证只需要一天的时间;而他们去美国则要花300天时间才能得到签证面谈。

Economically, Russia is slowly but surely pivoting east. China has displaced the United States and Germany as Moscow’s number one trading partner. Today, China is the top buyer of Russian crude oil. A decade ago, all gas pipelines in Russia flowed west. With the completion of the Power of Siberia pipeline in 2019, China will become the second largest market for Russian gas, just behind Germany.

在经济上，俄罗斯正在缓慢而坚定地转向东方。中国已经取代美国和德国成为莫斯科最大的贸易伙伴。如今，中国是俄罗斯原油的最大买家。十年前，俄罗斯所有的天然气管道都向西输送。随着西伯利亚管道于2019年竣工，中国将成为仅次于德国的俄罗斯天然气第二大市场。

When U.S.-led Western sanctions excluded Russia from American-dominated dollar-denominated markets, its relationship with China has allowed it to continue to buy and sell. In the current U.S. push to prevent Iran selling oil to the world, Russia is trading goods for Iranian oil and then selling it on to international markets, including China.

当以美国为首的西方制裁体系把俄罗斯排除在美国主导的美元计价市场之外时，俄罗斯与中国的关系使得他能够继续在国际层面上交易。在美国阻止伊朗向世界出售石油的努力中，俄罗斯用伊朗石油交换商品，然后再卖给包括中国在内的国际市场。

Meanwhile, Russian elites continue to look west Wealthy Russians buy second (and third) homes in London, New York and on the French Riviera. They speak English and travel to Paris, New York or London to shop. Many have children who live in the West.

与此同时，俄罗斯精英们继续把目光投向西方，富裕的俄罗斯人在伦敦、纽约和法国里维埃拉接二连三地购买住宅。他们说英语，然后去巴黎、纽约或伦敦购物。他们中许多人的孩子也生活在西方。

But oligarchs who now find themselves the targets of sanctions that prevent them doing business in the United States are exploring alternatives. The Honorary Chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Sergey Karaganov maintains that “the ‘westernizer’ today is a thing of the past. Those looking forward to the future most show interest in the East.” Surveys this year show that 69 percent of Russians hold a negative view of the United States, while the same percentage of Russians hold a positive view of China. When asked “who their enemies are,” two-thirds of Russians point to the United States, ranking it as Russia’s greatest foe. Only two percent of Russians view China as their enemy.

但俄罗斯的寡头们现在发现自己成了制裁的目标，这些制裁阻止他们在美国做生意，所以他们开始探索替代方案。俄罗斯外交和国防政策委员会名誉主席谢尔盖卡拉加诺夫认为，“今天俄罗斯的‘西方化’已经成为过去。”俄罗斯对未来最感兴趣的是东方。
今年的调查显示，69%的俄罗斯人对美国持负面看法，同样比例的俄罗斯人对中国持正面看法。当被问及“谁是他们的敌人”时，三分之二的俄罗斯人指向美国，认为美国是俄罗斯最大的敌人。只有2%的俄罗斯人视中国为敌人。

In Putin’s mind, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century was the break-up of the Soviet Union. In Xi’s mind, China’s “century of humiliation” only ended once the Communist Party defeated the Nationalist Party in a bloody civil war.Against the backdrop of this history, as we reflect on what the United States is now doing, we should ask whether Brzezinski’s warning about the “most dangerous scenario” could soon become a fact.

在俄罗斯看来，20世纪最大的地缘政治灾难是苏联解体。在中国看来，中国的“百年屈辱”只有在中国真正完成统一的那一天才会结束。在这段历史的背景下，我们应该反思美国现在正在做的事情，并扪心自问，布热津斯基关于“最危险的情况”的警告是否会很快成为现实。