中国与泰国：坦克车辙和列车车轨 [美国媒体]

China and Thailand: Tank Tracks and Train Tracks

中国与泰国：坦克车辙和列车车轨



While Thailand undergoes a sensitive transition with the October funeral for its head of state, the widely respected and revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the Southeast Asia constitutional monarchy, home to 70 million and one of the strongest regional economies, continues forward with solid footing in its, and the region’s realignment with its neighbours and East Asia, particularly China.

尽管泰国在其国家元首——广受尊敬和爱戴的国王普密蓬·阿杜德——十月份的葬礼之后面临着一场敏感的转型，这个拥有7000万人口、作为该地区最强大经济体的东南亚立宪君主制国家继续迈着坚定的步伐向前发展，并再度与它在该地区的邻国以及东亚国家——特别是中国——保持着密切的关系。

The Royal Thai Army took delivery this month of the first 28 Chinese-built VT4 main battle tanks (MBTs), with possibly over 100 additional tanks to be acquired in the near future. The growing fleet of VT4 MBTs joins other Chinese-built armoured vehicles in Thailand’s inventory including over 30 VN-1 and over 450 Type 85 armoured personnel carriers.
泰国皇家陆军这个月接收了首批28辆中国制造的VT4主战坦克，在不久的未来可能还要再获得100多辆这一型号的坦克。除开这个数量不断增加的VT4主战坦克车队，泰国的存货清单中还出现了中国制造的其他装甲战车，包括30多辆VN1和450多辆85型装甲运兵车。

The acquisition of Chinese military equipment by Thailand’s armed forces also includes 3 submarines as well as joint-development of multiple rocket launchers. There is also a growing number of joint Thai-Chinese military exercises including Blue Strike 2016, which followed Falcon Strike 2015. The exercises involved both nation’s marine and air forces respectively and represent an alternative to what was once the United States’ exclusive domain in Southeast Asia.

泰国武装军队所获得的中国军事装备还包括了3艘潜水艇，以及联合开发的多管火箭炮。泰国与中国之间的联合军事演习也在不断增加，其中包括了蓝色突击2016联合军演，在此之前则是猎鹰突击2015联合军演。两个国家的海军和空军部队分别参加了这几次演习，代表着曾经作为美国在东南亚地区独享的领地已经有了一个新的选择。

In addition to growing Thai-Chinese military ties, both nations are moving forward with infrastructure projects including massive railway initiatives. Construction is set to start in November of this year on the Thai-Chinese high-speed rail network. The first stage will link Thailand’s capital of Bangkok to the northeast province of Nakhon Ratchasima. Eventually, China and its Southeast Asian neighbours plan to create a high-speed rail network running from China all the way to Singapore via Laos, Thailand and Malaysia. Construction in Laos is already underway.

除开泰国军队与中国军队之间日益紧密的联系纽带，两个国家在基础设施项目方面也在向前发展，其中包括了大规模的铁路计划。泰国至中国的高速铁路网预计在今年11月份开工建设。首阶段工程将会把泰国首都曼谷与其东北部省份呵叻府连接在一起。最终，中国和它的东南亚邻国们计划建设一个从中国一路经过老挝、泰国和马来西亚，抵达新加坡的高速铁路网络。老挝段的铁路已经动工建设。

American Counterstrokes 

美国的回击

It is clear that Bangkok benefits from its growing relationship with Beijing. Washington, which openly and for decades has sought to hinder Beijing’s regional and global rise, has little to offer as an alternative. Worse still, Washington has filled the void left by its inability to offer constructive military and economic ties with a regiment of political interference, coercion and even confrontation.

显然，曼谷方面正在从它与北京日益紧密的关系中受益。在过去几十年中公然试图阻止北京方面在地区层面和全球层面崛起的华盛顿方面却拿不出什么备选计划。更糟糕的是，华盛顿充斥着无能之人，他们无法通过一系列的政治干预、胁迫甚至是冲突提供建设性的军事和经济纽带关系。

Bangkok is home to numerous foreign governmental organisations posing as “independent” nongovernmental organisations (i.e. Prachatai, Thai Netizens, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, the New Democracy Movement and iLaw) fully funded by the United States government and a number of private US and European-based foundations, serving US and European interests. These foreign fronts seek to pressure the Thai government to adopt a system of economics and government that interlocks with and is subservient to US and European institutions, while overwriting Thailand’s own independent institutions, particularly the military and the constitutional monarchy.

曼谷是摆出"独立的"非政府组织姿态、但却完全由美国政府以及一些总部位于美国和欧洲的私人基金会资助、为美国和欧洲利益服务的众多外国政府组织（如“泰国人民”、“泰国网络公民”、“泰国人权律师协会”、“新民主运动”和“我法律”等）的总部所在地。这些外国阵线试图对泰国政府施压，迫使它采用一种与美国和欧洲机构密切关联并臣服于后者的经济和政府制度，并覆盖泰国自己的独立机构与制度，特别是军队和立宪君主制。

Additionally, the US has attempted to push through one-sided free trade agreements including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which eventually unravelled and was abandoned by Washington itself.

另外，美国还曾试图推动单边的自由贸易协定，包括最终结构趋于松散并被华盛顿自己抛弃的跨太平洋伙伴协定。

Thailand, which possesses a unified population, a formidable military and a strong, resilient economy, has weathered multiple attempts by the United States and its European partners to impose a client state through politicians like the recently ousted Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.

拥有统一的人口构成、一支强大的军队和强有力并具备很强适应性的经济的泰国经受住了美国及其欧洲伙伴通过政客——比如近年来被赶下台的英拉及其长兄他信——将它变成一个附庸国的图谋的考验。

However successful Thailand has been at thwarting these attempts, the Shinawatra’s political party, Pheu Thai Party (PTP), still enjoys impunity from the law, both because of the wealth and influence the Shianwatra family and its political allies still hold within Thailand through their many and immense business holdings, as well as the party’s foreign backing, primarily through the large and growing network of foreign governmental organisations posing as nongovernmental organisations in Thailand.

然而，尽管泰国已经成功地挫败了这些图谋，西那瓦家族的政党为泰党仍然享有法律的豁免权，这都是因为西那瓦家族所拥有的财富与影响力，它在泰国境内的政治盟友通过他们大量的商业产业以及这个政党在海外的靠山——他们主要是通过伪装成泰国的非政府组织的外国政府组织庞大且还在不断发展的网络来施加影响——而屹立不倒。

It is likely that attempts to once again install a PTP-led government and roll back progress the Kingdom of Thailand has made out from under US hegemony over the past decade will begin in earnest after October when funeral rites for King Bhumibol Adulyadej are completed.

看起来，在十月份泰国国王普密蓬·阿杜德的葬礼仪式结束之后，再度扶植一个由为泰党领导的政府，挫败泰王国在过去十年中为了摆脱美国霸权影响而作出的努力的尝试正变得急切起来。

US and European funded organisations have already spent the last year attempting from various axes to find and exploit various divides in Thailand’s sociopolitical landscape, including through student groups, sectarian divides and tired “pro-democracy” themes that have long since played out elsewhere around the world as an insincere fa?ade used by special interests to advance their own agenda, not the agenda of actual representative governance.

美国和欧洲资助的组织已经花费了最后一年时间来试图从不同轴心寻找和利用泰国社会政治图景当中的各类分歧，包括利用学生群体、教派分歧和令人厌倦的"支持民主制度"的主题，这些把戏作为一种虚伪的外表已经在世界其他地方应用了很长时间了，特别是给予特殊利益被用于推动他们自己的议程，而不是实际所代表的统治方的议程。

With the relative success for US and European interests in Myanmar in hindering joint Chinese progress, including the reversal or delay of several major infrastructure projects and the ongoing violence in Rakhine state precisely where Beijing had hoped to create one of many hubs for its One Belt, One Road initiative, Washington, London and Brussels perhaps believe there is still time to replicate similar obstacles in neighbouring Thailand as well as in Cambodia, and even Laos.

随着美国和欧洲的利益在缅甸阻止其与中国联合项目方面取得了相对的成功，包括几个重要基础设施项目的撤消或延迟，以及若开邦正在延烧的暴力冲突——北京的确希望在这里为一带一路计划建立其中的众多枢纽之一——华盛顿、伦敦和布鲁塞尔可能相信它们仍然有时间在相邻的泰国以及柬埔寨，甚至是老挝复制一些类似的障碍。

What the Success of Thai-Chinese Relations Will Mean for Asia Pacific 

对于亚太地区而言，泰国与中国关系的成功将意味着什么？

In essence, Thai-Chinese ties represent constructive but cautious steps toward creating a new political order in Asia Pacific, one in which nations in the region, not beyond it, determine the socioeconomic norms within and between each nation.

在本质上，泰国和中国的纽带关系象征着在亚太地区创建一种新的政治秩序的富有建设性但却谨慎的步伐，在这种政治秩序中，决定国家内部和国家之间社会经济范式的是区域之内而不是之外的国家。

Infrastructure projects will transform the face of Asia much in the way they have transformed China itself. The creation of ultra-modern mass transportation, energy projects, the economic growth that will result from both, coupled with local, efficient and modern defence technology will first incrementally force foreign influence from Washington, London and Brussels to the peripheries of Asia Pacific’s socioeconomic landscape, before permanently pushing them out all together.

基础设施项目将会改变亚洲的面貌，正如它们也改变了中国自己的面貌一样。极其现代的大规模交通运输系统、能源项目、经济发展要成为现实都将因两国而起，其本国有效的现代防御技术将首先越来愈多地迫使来自华盛顿、伦敦和布鲁塞尔的外国影响力在被全部永久的驱逐出去之前，先退缩至亚太社会经济版图的边缘地带，

In the future that Thai-Chinese relations represents, Washington, London and Brussels will approach Asia Pacific with mutual respect and for mutual benefit, with the poor habits established by centuries of first European, then American colonisation finally exorcised from the policies executed by each nation’s respective foreign affairs offices, and their embassies dotting the Asia Pacific map.

在泰国和中国的关系所代表的未来里，华盛顿、伦敦和布鲁塞尔必须得通过相互尊重和互惠的方式与亚太地区打交道，与此同时，在数个世纪的时间里首先是由欧洲殖民，接着是由美国殖民所养成的一些糟糕习惯也将从每个国家格子的外交事务官职以及驻于亚太地区的大使馆中被清理出去。

More than that, the rise of Asia illustrates how alternative economic circles of power in turn create alternative political circles of power. It illustrates the necessity of nations acquiring and leveraging technology to drive economic progress, a process essential both for prosperity, but also in terms of national security and peace. It also illustrates how the rise of Asian corporations, institutions and enterprises (both state and private) and the preservation of well organised national institutions like those in Thailand have created the very sort of global balance of power unipolar globalisation had promised but ultimately, and some may say predictably, failed to deliver.

不仅如此，亚洲的崛起也表明了不同的权力经济圈子如何转而创造出不同的权力的政治圈子。它表明了国家通过获取技术来驱动经济发展的必要性，这一过程不仅对于经济繁荣至关重要，对于国家安全与和平同样如此。它还表明了亚洲的大公司、机构和企业（不管是国有的还是私人的）以及组织良好的国家制度的保存——比如泰国的——如何创造出这种权力的全球平衡——这种平衡正是单极的全球化曾经允诺要实现的，但最终——正如某些人所预言的——却无法实现的。

For China and Thailand, both nations face concerted efforts by the Western proponents and chief benefactors of globalisation to hinder real progress and instead perpetuate their existing international political order. Thai-Chinese cooperation, and similar cooperation within Asia Pacific will continue this shift and balance of power, one that even Washington policymakers are beginning to admit is inevitable and who are already shifting from preventing it, to merely delaying it for as long as possible.

对于中国和泰国来说，这两个国家都面对着全球化的西方倡导者和主要赞助者的联合行动，这种行动旨在阻止真正的发展，并试图让他们现存的国际政治秩序长久持续下去。泰国与中国的合作，以及亚太地区内部的类似合作，将会继续这种权力的转变与平衡，甚至连华盛顿的政策制定者们都开始承认这种趋势是不可避免的，他们已经从试图阻止它转向了尽可能地延缓它的发生。