南中国海的叙事冲突 [美国媒体]

The Clash of Narratives in the South China Sea

南中国海的叙事冲突



This year saw the emergence of two competing narratives vis-à-vis the territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. This clash of narratives further complicates an already-combustible situation, since concerned parties can’t even agree on the exact nature of the problem, never mind coming up with an effective solution to the disputes.

今年见证了在南中国海的领土和海上争端问题上出现的两种相互矛盾的叙事。这种叙事的冲突进一步使本已紧张的局势变得更加复杂，因为有关各方甚至无法就问题的确切性质达成一致，更不用说提出有效的解决方案了。

In a strange twist of events, some Southeast Asian claimant states, particularly the Philippines, have, almost overnight, switched from one camp to the other by forwarding an increasingly China-leaning narrative, which obfuscates facts on the ground. The upshot is the erosion of international norms, which were precisely designed to keep expansionist appetite of revisionist powers in check.  

奇怪的是，一些东南亚国家——尤其是菲律宾——几乎在一夜之间就从一个阵营转移到了另一个阵营，它们开始越来越多地转述倾向于中国的叙事，这种叙事混淆了事实的真相。其结果是，国际准则遭到了破坏，而这些准则的目的正是为了遏制修正主义国家的扩张野心。

The New South China Sea Dispute

南中国海的新争端

Today, there isn’t only a dispute over resources and territories in the South China Sea, the world’s most important sea line of communications, but also a dispute over who is to be blamed for the uptick in maritime tensions.

如今，争端不仅在于南中国海这个世界上最为重要的海上交通线的资源和领土，争端还在于谁将被指责为导致海上紧张局势升级的罪魁祸首。

On the one hand, the United States and Japan, along other major Western allies, have criticized China for ignoring the Philippines’ landmark arbitration award at The Hague and continued reclamation activities in disputed areas. According to them, China is directly challenging the “rules-based order” in the Asia-Pacific region by unilaterally altering facts on the ground in open defiance of international law and principles, which undergird regional security.

一方面，美国和日本，以及其他主要的西方盟国，批评中国无视菲律宾在海牙的具有里程碑意义的仲裁结果，并在有争议的地区继续进行填海活动。根据它们的说法，中国正在对亚太地区的“基于规则的秩序”提出了直接的挑战，通过单方面改变现状，公然无视国际法律和原则，而这正是地区安全的基础所在。

For this camp, China is militarizing the disputes by placing increasingly advanced weapons system, state-of-the-art airstrips, and expanding military personnel on large-scale artificial islands in the high seas. They fear that over coming years, China will have requisite capability to squeeze out other claimant states from the area and impose a de facto exclusion zone across the South China Sea.

对于这一阵营来说，中国正在通过部署日益先进的武器系统、最先进的飞机跑道，以及在公海的人造岛屿上扩充军事人员来使得争端军事化。它们担心在未来几年里，中国将有能力把其他主权国家从该地区驱逐出去，在整个南中国海设立一个事实上的禁区。

Moreover, the United States and its key regional allies maintain that the Philippines’ arbitration case against China transcended the two involved parties, since the ruling directly questioned Beijing’s claim to almost the entirety of the South China Sea basin. Thus, Beijing’s rejection of and persistent non-compliance with the award is a direct assault on the very fabric of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which China is a signatory. (Though America hasn’t ratified the UNCLOS, thanks to intransigence of isolationists in the Senate, the United States Navy (USN) observes its relevant provisions as a matter of customary international law.)

此外，美国及其主要地区盟友坚持认为，菲律宾对中国的仲裁案超越了两方的范畴，因为该裁决直接质疑了中国对南中国海几乎整个海域的主权主张。因此，北京拒绝并坚持不遵守该裁决的举动便是对联合国海洋法公约的一种直接攻击，而中国是该公约的缔约国。(虽然美国还没有批准公约，但由于参议院中孤立主义者的不妥协，美国海军将遵守其相关规定，将其视为国际惯例。)

Japan and Australia, meanwhile, have consistently maintained that the arbitration award at The Hague is “final” and “binding”, thus China is effectively an international outlaw. For them, the only solution to the disputes is if China aligns its claims with international law and adopts the “three no’s”: namely, non-reclamation of disputed land features, non-militarization of occupied features, and non-threatening of smaller claimant states via coercion.

与此同时，日本和澳大利亚一直坚称海牙仲裁裁决是“最终的”和“具有约束力”的裁决，因此中国实际上已经成为国际法的违犯者。对它们来说，解决争端的唯一解决办法是让中国主张与国际法保持一致，并采取“三不”原则：即不开发有争议的土地，不进行带有占领性质的军事行动，不胁迫弱小的主权国家。

The New Great Scramble

新的激烈争夺

On the other hand, Beijing has put forward a diametrically opposed narrative, whereby the “general situation in the South China Sea is positive.” According to the Chinese point of view, it is working hard with other claimant states, including the Philippines and Vietnam, to “preserve peace” in the area. The source of tensions, Beijing maintains, is “outside parties”, which are supposedly bent on stoking tensions in the area via expanding their military footprint and coaxing and cajoling Southeast Asian countries against China.

另一方面，北京方面则提出了一种截然相反的说法，即“南中国海的总体态势是积极的”。根据中方的观点，中国正在努力与包括菲律宾和越南在内的其他国家展开“维护和平”的努力。北京方面认为，紧张局势的根源是“外部势力”，它们被认为通过扩大军事存在、哄骗和劝诱东南亚国家对抗中国的方式来煽动地区紧张局势。

For long, China was the sole proponent of this (highly unconvincing and self-serving) narrative, though many Southeast Asian countries rightly feared growing Sino-American rivalry in the area. This year, however, the Philippines, under President Rodrigo Duterte, openly defected to the second camp, maintaining that the situation is stable. To Beijing’s utmost delight, the Filipino leader openly suggested the prospect of “setting aside” the Philippines’ arbitration award in favor of stronger economic ties with China.

长期以来，中国是这一说法的唯一支持者(因此是高度不可信和自私的)，尽管许多东南亚国家担心中美在该地区的竞争日益加剧。然而，今年，在杜特尔特总统的领导下，菲律宾公开叛逃到了第二阵营，它声称保持局势稳定。这位菲律宾领导人公开表示，希望“搁置”菲律宾仲裁裁决，支持与中国建立更紧密的经济联系，这让北京方面感到非常高兴。

As the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, Duterte refused to raise the Philippines’ arbitration award, downplayed tensions in the area, and vetoed efforts by fellow claimant states such as Vietnam to rally the regional body against China. The Duterte administration also rejected calls by America, Australia and Japan to pressure China to abide by the arbitration ruling, insisting that it’s the sovereign prerogative of the Philippines to decide whether raise the issue or not in regional fora. Towards the end of the year, Duterte openly rejected any mediation efforts by non-claimant states such as the United States and Japan by insisting that the disputes are “better left untouched.”

今年，作为东盟的主席，杜特尔特拒绝高调宣扬菲律宾的仲裁结果，以淡化该地区的紧张局势，并否决了越南等其他国家以团结该地区反对中国的努力。杜特尔特政府还拒绝了美国、澳大利亚和日本提出的要求中国遵守仲裁裁决的建议，并坚持认为决定是否在地区论坛上提出这一问题是菲律宾的主权权力。在今年年底，杜特尔特公然拒绝了美国和日本等非索赔国家的任何调解努力，坚持认为“最好不要去触碰”这些争端。

Instead, the Philippines, along with other Southeast Asian countries, have placed their bets on negotiation of a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea. Yet, there are no assurances if the decades-old negotiations over the document will ever produce a legally-binding pact, which will constrain China’s maritime appetite.

相反，菲律宾和其他东南亚国家已将赌注押在了关于南海行为准则的谈判上。然而，现在还无法保证在围绕该文件的数十年谈判达成一项具有法律约束力的协议的情况下，它是否能够限制中国在海上的野心。

Frustrated by the ASEAN’s blatant acquiescence, under the chairmanship of the Philippines, the U.S. and its allies have begun hedging their bets by reviving the long-dormant idea of a quadrilateral “Quad” alliance composed of America, Australia, India and Japan. It’s precisely within this context that we should understand Washington’s increasing usage of the term “Indo-Pacific” in its diplomatic lexicon, which closely tracks the rhetoric of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and commander of the USN’s Pacific Command (PACOM) Admiral Harry Harris, who have been vocal advocates of a more robust pushback against Chinese maritime assertiveness.

受挫于作为轮值主席国的菲律宾领导下东盟公然的默许，美国及其盟友已经开始通过恢复长期搁置的、由美国、澳大利亚、印度和日本组成的“四方联盟”的设想来对冲它们的赌注。正是在这种背景下，我们应该了解华盛顿方面将“印度-太平洋”一词增补到其外交词汇当中的原因了，这一做法紧密追随了日本首相安倍晋三和美国海军太平洋司令部司令、海军上将哈里·哈里斯的措辞，后者一直口头主张采取一种更有力的针对中国海上自信的回击手段。

Amid ASEAN’s growing irrelevance in shaping the regional security architecture, big powers have stepped into the fray. The result is an even more combustible geopolitical landscape, where status quo power meets revisionist power rather than commonly accepted rules taming misplaced ambition. Thus, the South China Sea disputes could soon enter an even more dangerous phase of rivalry.

随着东盟在塑造地区安全架构方面变得越来越不重要，大国已经介入其中。其结果是一种更加易燃的地缘政治格局，在其中，现在的强国与修正主义的强国——而不是普遍接受规则来遏制其野心的国家——相碰撞了。因此，南海争端可能很快就会进入到一个更加危险的竞争阶段。