《纽约客》：美朝峰会最大赢家：中国（无评论） [美国媒体]

The Biggest Winner at the U.S.-North Korea Summit: China

美朝峰会最大赢家：中国



Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things,” President Trump told reporters in Singapore on Tuesday night, after signing a page of loose declarations with Kim Jong Un. “I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.” Perhaps no truer words were spoken at the Singapore summit, where Donald Trump, with a handshake and a shrug, opened a new phase in Asia that will eventually reveal him to be either a visionary who saw a path to peace where others did not or a dupe who squandered American credibility. He announced the opening of contact with North Korea with the bonhomie of a developer at a groundbreaking: he hailed an “excellent relationship” with a “talented” counterpart, and shooed away questions about timetables and the risk of default. He made no mention of Kim’s accelerated testing of missiles and nuclear weapons, or of his own threats, via Twitter last year, to “totally destroy” North Korea. He handed off the substantive work to his Cabinet, a team that is already sharply divided between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has expressed high hopes for peace, and the national-security adviser, John Bolton, who has argued for years that North Korea cannot be trusted.

“坦白说，我认为他会这么做，” 周二晚特朗普和金正恩签署了一份松散的声明后，在新加坡告诉记者，“六个月后，我可能会站在你面前说，‘嘿，我错了’我不知道我究竟会不会承认，但我肯定会找些借口。” 也许这是美朝新加坡峰会上最真诚的一句话了，特朗普在新加坡握个手、耸耸肩就掀开了亚洲的新篇章，最终，时间将证明，这场美朝峰会，特朗普要么成为引领和平之路的远见之人，要么成为消费美国信誉的大骗子。他以突破性事件温和开拓者的身份宣布开始与朝鲜进行接触：他称赞对手“有才华”，而且“关系非常好”，清除了解决朝鲜问题的日程问题，以及违约风险。他没有提到金正恩加速测试导弹和核武器，也没有提到自己在推特上威胁要“彻底摧毁”朝鲜。他将实质性工作交给了自己的内阁，可是内阁在朝鲜问题上已经产生了严重的分歧，一派以国务卿迈克•庞贝为代表，希望实现和平；另一派以国家安全顾问约翰•博尔顿为代表，认为美国不能信任朝鲜。

Compared with the expectations for the summit—or with previous agreements—there was much that Trump failed to get. There was no exchange of liaison offices and no pledge to improve human rights. “I do not see what can really possibly hold in this remarkably imprecise and nonbinding document,” Andrei Lankov, a longtime North Korea watcher at Kookmin University, in Seoul, said. “It is truly remarkable how Donald Trump, being in such a strong negotiating position, has managed to get so little from the North Koreans.” For Trump, the goal, apparently, was the handshake itself. In his view, cheerful patter is easy and inexpensive, and he can renounce the positive vibes on a whim, as needed. In the annals of diplomacy, though, the risks of casual declarations abound. Most apropos in this case is George W. Bush’s first official trip to Europe as President, when he was asked if he trusted Vladimir Putin, and famously replied, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy—I was able to get a sense of his soul.” (Condoleezza Rice later lamented that response, writing, “We were never able to escape the perception that the President had naïvely trusted Putin and then been betrayed.”)

对比这次对峰会的期望，以及之前美朝之间的协议，许多人都认为特朗普不会成功。协议没有提到互相建立联络处，朝鲜也没有做出改善人权的承诺。首尔国民大学朝鲜问题观察家兰科夫说：“我没看出这份不准确而没有约束力的文件到底能约束什么。特朗普在谈判立场上有这么大优势，竟然从朝鲜得到了如此少的东西，简直不可思议。”对特朗普来说，很显然就是与朝鲜握手言和这么简单。在他看来，愉快地聊天简单又经济，他可以根据需要一时冲动地放弃现在营造的积极氛围。可是，外交史上非正式声明存在风险的例子比比皆是。和这种情况最接近的是小布什当选总统后第一次正式方位欧洲，当被问到是否相信俄罗斯总统普京时，小布什给出了着名的答案”我会透过眼睛去看一个人，这次我看到的是一个坦诚、可信的人“（后来赖斯对小布什的回答表示遗憾，她写道”我们无法理解总统先生天真地信任普京，却受到了背叛“）

Trump appears to have decided that the chance of a breakthrough is worth the risk of looking naïve. “I do trust him, yeah,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, in answer to the inevitable question about Kim. “He really wants to do a great job for North Korea. He’s de-nuking the whole place, and I think he’s going to start very quickly. He really wants to do something, I think, terrific for their country.”

特朗普决定为了获得突破性进展的机会，甘愿冒着幼稚的风险。美国广播公司的乔治•斯特凡诺普洛斯采访特朗普时，不可避免问到了这个问题，他说：”我当然信任他，他真的想为朝鲜做点事。他正在实现朝鲜的无核化，我认为他很快就会开始行动。他真的想做事，对自己国家非常好的事。“

What Kim really wants, however, may not be what Trump has in mind. “North Korean media wrote at remarkable length about Kim Jong Un’s trip to Singapore,” Lankov told me. State cameramen made a point of filming attentive, prosperous Singaporeans, a montage that will be used to fortify Kim’s image and to promote the prospect of economic reforms. The Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s major official newspaper, dedicated a large part of its front page to celebrating Singapore’s authoritarian capitalism. “The island state was praised on a scale one seldom sees in the North Korean newspapers,” Lankov added. But, in its early reports, North Korean media made conspicuously little mention of the substance of the summit, and Pyongyang gave no sign that the state is preparing its public to stop celebrating nuclear weapons as a singular achievement.

然而，金正恩真正想要的可能并不是特朗普想得。兰科夫告诉我：”朝鲜媒体以大量篇幅报道了金正恩的新加坡之行。“国家摄影师特别注意拍摄新加坡的繁荣景象，用蒙太奇的手法巩固了金正恩的形象，以促进经济改革的前景。朝鲜的主要官方报纸《劳动新闻》，头版头条的大部分版面都在赞扬新加坡的威权资本主义。兰科夫补充道，”很少能看到朝鲜报纸会对给予一个岛国这么大规模的赞扬。“但是，在前期报道中，朝鲜媒体几乎没有提到这次峰会的实质内容，平壤没有把公开停止核武器成为国家的非凡成就。”

In fact, as expected, North Korea made no specific commitments about dismantling its nuclear program. In the joint statement, Kim “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”—a reference to previous agreements, going back to 1992, which have not held. By far, the largest concession in the talks came from Trump, who announced his willingness to freeze joint military exercises with South Korean forces. For months, Trump’s aides described a freeze as a non-starter, but, on Tuesday, he adopted North Korea’s view that the exercises are, as he put it, “very provocative” and said that the suspension would “save us a tremendous amount of money.”

事实上，正如预期的，朝鲜并没有就拆除核项目做出具体承诺。在联合声明中，金正恩“承诺努力实现朝鲜半岛的完全无核化”，声明还提到了1992年的协议，而这份协议并没有执行。到目前为止，谈判中最大的让步来自特朗普，他宣称自己期待停止美韩联合军演。几个月来，特朗普的助手们都称停止军演是不可能的，但是周二，特朗普直接采纳了朝鲜的观点，认为军演“非常具有挑衅性”，还称停止军演将“为我们节省大量资金”。

That is no minor concession. The next round of war games with South Korea was scheduled to take place in August. After the announcement, Patrick Cronin, an Asia specialist at the Center for a New American Security, told me that joint exercises are designed to deter North Korea from attacks on the South, such as the sinking, in 2010, of the Cheonan, a naval vessel, which killed forty-six seamen. Deterrence relies on “a degree of professionalism and readiness for crisis response that can only come through military training and exercises,” he said. “If North Korea is not moving toward significant disclosure of its nuclear forces and then taking significant, verifiable steps in the direction of denuclearization, then we should resume pressure, including major exercises, by next spring.”

这不是一个小让步。下一轮美韩军事演习计划在8月举行。声明发布后，“新美国安全中心”亚洲项目主任克罗宁告诉我，联合军事演习的目的是打消朝鲜攻击韩国的念头，比如2010年的天安号军舰沉没事件，该事件导致了46名船员丧生。他提到，对朝鲜的威慑依赖“一定程度的专业精神和对危机的应对能力，而这些只能通过军事训练和军事演习来实现，如果朝鲜不能详细披露其核能力，不在无核化方面采取重大的、可验证的行动，那么明年春天我们就会恢复针对朝鲜的压力，包括重大军事演习。”

More surprising still, Trump raised the previously taboo prospect of withdrawing some of America’s nearly thirty thousand troops in South Korea. “I want to get our soldiers out. I want to bring our soldiers back home,” he said. That may have been improvisation. Hours earlier, Defense Secretary James Mattis had told reporters, “I don’t believe” that troops were up for negotiation. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and usually a Trump defender, said on NBC that he would “violently disagree” with any removal of troops from South Korea.

更让人吃惊的是，特朗普竟然提到了之前的禁忌，即撤回美国3000多名驻韩美军。“我想让士兵们离开韩国，我想要让他们回家，”他说。这可能是特朗普的即兴想法。几小时前，国防部长詹姆斯•马蒂斯对记者说，“我不相信”军队已经做好了谈判准备。南卡罗莱纳州共和党参议员，特朗普的拥护者林赛•格雷厄姆在《美国全国广播公司》的节目中说，他“强烈反对”从韩国撤军的行为。

Nobody greeted the news from Singapore with more delight than China. For years, Chinese officials have urged Trump to freeze military exercises in South Korea, which Beijing regards as a threatening gesture in its neighborhood. Shortly after the announcement, the Global Times, a nationalist state newspaper in Beijing, hailed Trump’s move in an editorial headlined “End of ‘War Games’ Will Be a Big Step Forward for Peninsula.” Elizabeth Economy, a China specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me, “The Chinese are breathing a deep sigh of relief. They got what they most wanted.” She added, “And, best of all, it came out of President Trump’s mouth. The Chinese didn’t even have to rely on Kim Jong Un to do their bidding.”

对于来自新加坡的消息，没有人比中国更高兴了。多年来，中国官方一直敦促特朗普停止美韩联合军事演习。北京方面认为，这是对邻国的威胁。停止联合军事演习的消息宣布后不久，中国《环球时报》在一篇题为“美韩若停止军演 半岛局势将再迈大步”。美国外交学会中国问题专家伊丽莎白•伊科诺米告诉我，“中国人长出了口气。他们得到了最想要的东西。最重要的是，这些话出自特朗普总统之口。中国甚至不需要金正恩听命于他们。”

Any negotiations in the months and years ahead will be fraught: the United States will need to get Kim to provide a full declaration of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. International inspectors will seek to verify them. Only then can the U.S. begin to imagine dismantling them. But, more immediately, Trump may have also precipitated an outcome that he does not fully grasp: by suspending military exercises, and alluding to removing troops from South Korea, he will stir doubts about the strength of America’s commitment to its allies in Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. They will have no choice but to begin to reimagine America’s role in the region, and their relationships to Beijing. From Trump’s perspective, the encounter with Kim was an end in itself. For those who bear the consequences of his words and actions, this is just the beginning.

之前几个月或者几年的任何谈判都充满了风险：美国要求金正恩全面申报朝鲜的核武器，国际核查人员要对实际情况进行核实。只有到了那个时候，美国才认为朝鲜真正拆除了核设施。但是，这个很直接，特朗普可能也促成了一个他没有完全没有想到的后果：停止军事演习，并暗示从韩国撤军。这将引起包括日本、台湾和澳大利亚等亚洲盟友对美国承诺产生怀疑。他们别无选择，只能重新构想美国在该地区的角色，以及与北京的关系。在特朗普看来，与金正恩见面才是自己的目的。而对于那些承担他的言论和行动后果的人来说，这仅仅是个开始。