[ 美国 外交官 ] 中国的常胜之道 [美国媒体]

China and theGeopolitics of Knowledge: Winning the Long Game
Beijing has proven itself adept atplaying the long game, and its efforts are coming to fruition.
  By Dawisson BelémLopes February 27, 2018

常胜：中国的地缘智慧
中国已证明自己眼光长远，自身的努力正转变为成果



Image Credit: Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

An important piece of news went practicallyunnoticed in January 2018: according to Nature, China surpassed the UnitedStates in the number of articles published on Elsevier’s Scopus, one of theworld’s top scientific databases. Although on average, Chinese publications arenot as influential as North American and European studies, they do help settrends for many some disciplines, and might well push the Western world into apeer-to-peer dialogue that would not be happening otherwise. As recent figuresshow, there has been a sharp increase of 37 percent in the number of citationsof China-based authors in academic articles over the last five years. Thatserves as a telling proxy indicator for who is now massively investing inknowledge and will, in all probability, harvest the power of that knowledgein the future.

2018年1月，有条几乎没怎么引起人们注意的重要新闻：据《自然》杂志透漏，在世界顶级科学引文数据库——埃尔塞维尔数据库中，中国文章发表的数量远超美国。中国出版文章的影响力，平均来看,虽达不到欧美的学术水准，但这些文章确实为很多学科发展提供了方向，很可能迫使西方世界进行一场无法规避的平等对话。最新数据显示，在过去五年里，论文中引用中国作者文章的数量迅速上涨37%，这个指标明确表明，现在是谁在求知的道路上大量投入，谁最有可能成为未来的知识强国。

China’s scientific leap forward comesaccompanied by a persistent effort to catch up with the best and the brightestin at least two related fields: innovation and higher education. When it comesto innovation, the World Economic Forum reports that China is now thesecond-largest R&Dinvestor in theworld, after the United States. In many metrics, such aspatents, China is rapidly catching up to the United States.

中国科学发展，需至少在两个相关领域不断追赶，奉献智慧，既：创新与高等教育。对于创新，世界经济论坛报告中说道，中国为目前世界上仅次于美国的第二大投资研发国。在很多指标中，例如专利，中国正迅速赶上美国。

In the domain of higher education, Chinahas now four universities which stand among the world’s top 100 research-ledinstitutions – namely Tsinghua (24th), Peking (39th), Fudan (43th) and JiaoTong (61st) – according to Quacquarelli Symonds, Britain’s education consultingcompany. Just a decade ago, there were no Chinese institutions among the top100.

据英国Quacquarelli Symonds教育咨询公司统计，在高等教育领域，世界大学前100强当中，中国有四所大学跻身其中，即清华大学(排名24)、北京大学(排名39)、复旦大学(排名43)和交通大学(排名61)。

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This consistent drive to position thecountry in more favorable ways within the global academic and educational mapsalso manifests in both inbound and outbound student flows. While almostone-third of all Chinese educational emigres leave the country to study in theUnited States (around 225,000 every year), China is itself becoming anattractive destination for students, especially those coming from South and SoutheastAsia. China’s mainstreaming endeavors have brought the country up to sixthplace in the QS 2017 World University Rankings for overall higher educationperformance – a remarkably steep rise.

以上排名可使该国在全球学术以及教育水准占有一席之地，占有先机，具体体现在出入境学子求学流向上。尽管几乎有近三分之一的中国学子留学美国(每年约225000人)，但中国本身正成吸引学生的目的地，特别是那些来自南亚和东南亚的学生。中国主流趋势是努力使中国在2017年全球高等教育总排名中升至第六--这是一个巨大进步。

Another interesting dimension concernsChina’s aggressive policy on English-language learning. Several years ago, itwas suggested by a Cambridge University Press report that China had as many as350 million English language learners, surpassing not only India but also theUnited States (which has a total population of over 323 million). Curiouslythough, China remains a country where English is not well or widely spoken —thus the country’s levels of idiom proficiency are low. While there are goodhistorical, as well as linguistic, reasons to account for this relativehandicap, one should be not doubtful of Beijing’s determination to completelyalter this state of affairs within one or two decades.

有趣的是，中国在学习英语方面的积极对策。几年前，剑桥大学发表的一篇报道指出，中国有多达三亿五千万英文学习者，不但超过印度，还超过了美国（美国人口总和至少三亿两千万）。然而，奇怪的是，中国人英文水平仍旧低下，也不流行。因此该国英语应用较差。相对于这种缺陷，虽然有较好的历史与语言原因来解释，但我们不应怀疑北京在一二十年内彻底改变这种状况的决心。

Take the case of research-led think tanksin China. An almost nonexistant entity in the country a few years back, theyare now a relevant part of China’s foreign policy establishment and lookactively engaged in the mission of making the “Chinese way” more palatable toforeign peoples and governments. Ideas such as “panda diplomacy,” “human rightsas social harmony,” and the Belt and Road Initiative — which has proven usefulfor the sake of boosting China’s soft and hard power — are the products ofingenious political engineering and marketing, and definitely relied oncutting-edge social research methodology and large-scale opinion polls to cometo life.

以研究为主的中国智库为例。几年前，中国几乎不存在这样的一个实体，现在他们已成为中国外交机构的重要组成部分，肩负向外国人民与政府推广“中国道路”职责，并积极参。比如“熊猫外交”、“人与和谐社会”、以及“一带一路”，事实证明，这对提升中国软硬实力卓有成效，以上都属于高明的政治工程和市场营销的产物，而且肯定都是依靠高端社研方法以及通过大规模调查民意来实现的。

What’s more, China’s approach to knowledgeis already bearing fruit in terms of making foreign policy. A collection oftopics as cognitively sophisticated and even futuristic as the exploration anduse of outer space, global demographics and big data analytics, informationtechnology and connectivity, cybersecurity and espionage, sustainability andrisk management, renewables and energy governance, financial economics,robotics and artificial intelligence, new materials, quantum physics andwarfare, and so on, have become the bread and butter of Chinese careerdiplomats, thus catering to the country’s most urgent present and future needs.

更为重要的是，中国智慧在制定外交政策方面已经取得了成果。对于探索高精尖甚至未来可能所面对的一系列问题，譬如探索利用外层空间、全球人口统计和大数据分析、信息互联、网络间谍与安全、可持续性和风险管理、可再生能源和能源治理、金融经济学、机器人和人工智能、新材料、量子物理学和战争等等。已经成为中国职业外交人的工作日常，以满足中国当前及未来最紧迫的需求。

China’s bet on knowledge is already payingoff; but this game, which requires lots of strategic thinking and stamina, isto be played in the long run. In many ways, that sounds even better and morepromising news for the Chinese decisionmakers, who are traditionally not givento fast cooking.

中国在知识上的投入已卓见成效；但这场需要大量战略思考和毅力的游戏需长期进行。从多方面来看，这对中国决策者来说，听起来不错，也更有希望，因为传统上，他们反感快餐。