美国的命运笼罩在中国的霸权主义阴影之下

The news has recently hit the press that China's economy, measured on the purchasing-power basis that adjusts for price differences between nations, may surpass the U.S. in only another five years or so.
最近有新闻对大众报道说, 中国的经济，如果以在考量国与国之间价格差异为前提，以购买力为衡量标准，或许将在下个五年超越美国
Surprisingly, China has still shown no signs of morphing into the cuddly liberal and democratic nation,devoted to American ways from Coca-Cola to democracy, whose eventual appearance has been assumed by American policy for thirty years now.
令人惊讶的是，中国仍然没有丝毫向民主国家演变的迹象。从美国的可口可乐公司就可以看出美国政府一贯致力于民主进程的推广（美国可口可乐公司把原汁运送到其他国家，兑水后就能变成产品销售），而且该民主推广政策已经维持了30年。
Our policy during this period has, after all, enthusiastically cooperated with China's efforts to build up its economic power--which entails,of course, every other kind of power, including the military kind. So our assumption of a benign China had better be right, or else we have been abetting the creation of a monster. A hostile China will be arguably even worse than the USSR, because it will not do us the favor of sabotaging its economy by adhering to a dysfunctional economic ideology.
在这段时期内，我们的政策积极的配合了中国经济力量的建设，当然也包括其他力量，例如中国的军事力量。因此，我们设想中国是一个比较温和的国家，否则，在舆论的影响下中国早就变成了一个怪物。苏联曾经是我们的敌人，但中国可能有过之而无不及，因为它永远也不会允许我们去干预它的经济发展。
The above realities are the subject of Eamonn Fingleton's book In The Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate Under Chinese Hegemony. Fingleton is a Tokyo-based Irish journalist who has lived in East Asia for over 25 years, and he has a long and distinguished record of telling truths about the region's politics and economics that the establishment (on both sides of the Pacific!) would rather the public did not learn. This is one of those books that one wishes the President would read.
以上所述的就是埃蒙-芬格尔顿《在巨龙的咽喉之下》一书中的一些内容：美国的命运在笼罩在中国霸权主义的阴影之下。芬格尔顿是一名常驻于东京的爱尔兰新闻工作者，并且在东亚地区已经生活了25年之久，他在政治和金融界的新闻报导工作中享有很高的声誉。这是唯一一本我希望美国总统能抽出时间来看的书。
While it is hardly news that America is facing a Chinese challenge, the seriousness of this challenge is still poorly appreciated. For example--this was my big takeaway from the book--China is not just another despotism. It is the implementer of a systematic and sophisticated political philosophy, which Fingleton calls Confucianism, which will almost certainly constitute a serious threat to liberal democracy in the years ahead.
当然，我不愿意看到美国正面临着中国的挑战，但问题的严重性在于很多人还没有意识到这种挑战的存在。举个例子，从这本书我意识到，中国不仅仅是一个独裁国家，而且还是这种独裁政治体制富有经验的制订者和实施者。芬格尔顿所说的儒家思想，将来很有可能会对西方自由民主体制构成威胁。
Confucianism, as the reader may recall from a comparative religions class taken long ago, is the political philosophy derived from the ancient Chinese sage Confucius. It was the official ideology of the state in Imperial China for thousands of years.
说道儒家思想，也许读者们依稀还能记得很久以前学过的“比较宗教学”。这种儒家思想起源于中国古代的一位圣人孔夫子，这种意识形态已经存在于中国帝制长达几千年之久。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
Now Confucius wasn't a bad man, but he did base his political philosophy on taking authoritarian government as a given and trying to civilize it. He did not, as Western political thinkers since the dawn of democracy in Ancient Greece have done, base his political ideology on trying to prevent despotism in the first place. As a result, he simply wasn't that interested in concepts like individual freedom or limited government.
我并不否认孔夫子是一位圣人，他把他的毕生学术所得献给了当时的统治阶级，试图以此来引导他们变的更加文明。但是他没有借鉴西方思想家有史以来在古希腊所获得的成功。他的政治意识形态只是为了维护当时统治阶级的封建独裁统治。看起来他对自由开放的民主思想丝毫不感兴趣。
The bottom line, after a few thousand years of history and some astonishing ideological twists and turns, is an approach to politics that is systematically opposite to liberal democracy.
经过几千年的历史积累和惊人的思想转变之后，他们已经学会了有系统的来反对自由民主体制。
It is the velvet glove on the iron fist, and increasingly a very sophisticated one. It has tamed capitalism and mastered modern media. It is not headed for collapse or metamorphosis any time soon. If anything, it is currently more successful at imposing its will on us than we are at the reverse.
他们外柔内刚，而且手段运用地越来越驾轻就熟。他们让资本主义制度变的毫无脾气可言，而且他们还控制了一些现在的主流媒体。当然，他们的目的不是为了推翻资本主义制度。就现在来看，他们比我们更成功更具有活力。这让我们怀疑我们目前的政治体制是不是已经落后了。
To be fair to poor old Confucius, the political system of contemporary China is not a direct extrapolation of any blueprint he drew up, and its flaws should not blind humanity to the genuinely civilizing aspects of his teachings (which are real). But, as Fingleton shows in considerable detail, a Confucian mentality underlies the politics of not only China, but also, in a soft-authoritarian version that has mastered the surface rituals of democracy, the politics of neighboring nations like Japan, Korea, and Singapore.
从公平的角度来说，我真的为孔子感到惋惜。中国目前的政治体制已经不以孔子所规划的蓝图为基础了。而孔子的儒家思想的缺陷就在于不应该盲目地，教条主义地引导人类走向文明。但是正如芬格尔顿所提出的一些重点，以儒家思想为基础的政治体制不仅仅只存在于中国，一些表面上看起来很民主，但其实是变相地，相对温和的独裁政府也一直存在，诸如中国周边的日本，韩国和新加坡。
Make no mistake: East Asia is on a fundamentally different civilizational track than the U.S., and it isn't going to get off any time soon. And why should it, when East Asians are currently watching America decline?
保守中庸：东亚文明的发展轨迹和美国是截然不同的。但这并不意味这种文明就应该退出历史舞台。也许这就是东亚人只是在静静的看着美国衰退的原因吧。
If the U.S. had not chosen, by its unconditional embrace of economic globalization by means of (one way) free trade, to render itself vulnerable to China, the above might not matter very much. After all, for most of its long history, China has maintained a civilization upon principles very different from those of the West, and it didn't do us much harm.
由于无条件的接受全球经济自由和贸易一体化，美国别无选择，这导致了美国很容易遭受中国的侵害。上面说的看起来或许不是很重要，毕竟，由于有着悠久的历史，中国维持自己文明的方式与西方有很大不同，而且看起来对我们并没有什么威胁。
Unfortunately, the U.S. has, in fact, chosen the opposite course, with the result that our own government is increasingly slipping under the control of an ethically alien and geopolitically hostile power.
不幸的是，美国作出了一个错误的选择，其结果就是我们的政府在一个我们永远也无法猜透的敌对强国控制下变得越来越弱不禁风。
To take just the most obvious example: because political bribery is, by way of political action committees, essentially legal in the U.S., Beijing can manipulate the U.S. Congress and the presidency almost at will. Why? Because it can manipulate the profits of the Fortune 500 companies that do business in China, and they do its bidding as lobbyists here. Because they are still headquartered in the U.S., they find welcome on Capitol Hill, but it is Beijing that is calling the shots.
举一些很明显的例子：通过对美国政治委员会的政治贿赂，北京可以操控美国国会甚至总统。为什么北京要这么做？因为他可以操纵世界财富500强的公司跟中国做生意，为中国的利益服务。这些公司的总部设在美国，他们接受美国国会的保护，但他们只听命于中国。
Americans sometimes puzzle over why their government doesn't "get" the Chinese threat. The answer is simple: because it has been bribed not to by China.
美国人有时候会感到很困惑，为什么他们的政府感受不到来自中国的威胁。答案很简单，因为他们已经被收买了。
The most important issue on which our government has been bribed is, of course, trade. China runs astronomical trade surpluses with the U.S. In fact, a majority of our trade deficit is now with China. This is no accident: it is the product of China's aggressive embrace of predatory mercantilism plus America's government being bribed not to take defensive measures.
最重要一条是，我们的政府一直在接受贿赂，当然，只是在贸易方面。事实上，中国天文数字般的贸易盈余都和美国有关，而美国多数的贸易赤字也都和中国有关。这绝不是偶然的，
这是中国重商主义的掠夺，侵略和美国政府被贿赂后的不作为所造成的。
To find an historical parallel, one would probably have to go back to something like the suicide of the old Polish state in the 18th century, carved up by its adversaries after its domestic politics was paralyzed by foreign bribery.
相类似的情况，可能要追溯到18世纪的波兰，当时的政府由于接受了来自国外的政治贿赂而导致整个波兰被敌对势力瓜分。
America's defense against Chinese mercantilism is further sabotaged by the fact that, despite our using similar policies earlier in our own history, mainstream American economists are largely blind to the fact that mercantilism even works. Trapped in the same "free" market thinking that led to the 2008 financial crisis, they don't believe that China's policies can possibly be a winning move for that country.An economy that has gone from peasant agriculture to superpower in 30 years doesn't seem to persuade them.
美国对中国重商主义的防御措施进一步被现实所破坏，我们无视历届政府早先用过的类似政策，大部分美国主流经济学者无视重商主义的危害。由于陷入了所谓的自由贸易市场的错误思想导致了2008年巨大的金融危机。美国人不相信中国的政策法规会为中国带来巨大的进步。30年来，中国已经从一个农业国家逐渐向一个全方位的超级大国转变，这难道还不具有说服力吗？
Why are China's economic policies so effective? The aggressive pursuit of exports is a game other nations, like Germany and Japan, also play well. But these are both medium-sized high-wage nations that are already developed, not gigantic low-wage nations still on the early stage of their development path. (China is an economic superpower because it has so many workers, but their per capita output still only qualifies China as a middle-income nation globally, behind nations like Jamaica.)
为什么中国出台的政策法规会如此有效？具有侵略性的商品出口就像一场游戏，像德国和日本也很善于玩这场游戏。在规模上来看，德国和日本都只能属于中型国家，而且是属于那种高薪水收入的发达国家，而不是那种还处于初级发展阶段的大规模低薪水收入的国家。（中国是一个经济大国，但是他的人均收入在全球范围内还只能处于中等的水平，甚至还排在牙买加的后面。）
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
China is unique because it combines standard-issue (if exceptionally cynical) mercantilism with other policies, like forced savings and systematic technology acquisition, made possible by its despotic ex-Marxist political system. For example, it has, by deliberate state fiat, a savings rate close to 50%, while America's is close to zero. This gives China a tidal wave of investment capital to put into everything from factories to freeways. (It is also enabling China to accumulate ownership of American government securities and private-sector assets.)
中国是独一无二的，因为他把重商主义和其他一些政策相结合，例如强迫储蓄和有系统有计划的获取技术资源，这些都出自于他的马克思主义政治体系。举个例子，通过中国政府深思熟虑后所颁布的法令，当美国的储蓄率几乎接近于0的时候，中国的储蓄率已经接近50%了。从工厂到高速公路，中国掀起了资本投资的巨大浪潮。（这也使中国有机会掌握了一部分美国国债和一些私人资产的所有权。）
Japan never took over the world, so some people dismiss the Chinese threat as yet another big wolf-cry. But China has ten times Japan's population, nuclear weapons, and a hard-authoritarian rather than soft-authoritarian political system. This time, it's different.
日本永远也不会有能力来接管这个世界，所以有些人认为中国的威胁只是另一个狼来了的故事。但是中国有十倍于日本的人口，拥有核武器，一个冷酷的独裁政府。这次，真的不同于以往。
Beijing is already extending its political tentacles everywhere from the Middle East to Latin America. Now that Uncle Sam worships democracy (at least in principle) and doesn't cut dictators the slack he did during the Cold War so long as they were anti-communist, China is the new best friend of despots everywhere. China's voracious demand for natural resource imports alone guarantees that this rivalry will not remain trivial forever.
中国已经把他的政治触角延伸到了中东和拉丁美洲。由于山姆大叔对民主体制的崇拜和反共冷战期间对独裁统治的疏忽，导致中国成为了所有独裁统治政权的好朋友。
If worst does come to worst, don't say you weren't warned. This is a readable and very important book.
如果发生最坏的情况时，不要说我没有警告过你们，这是一本非常有价值和重要的书。
评论翻译:
网民评论：

1楼
Because meeting and interactin-g with the average Chinese citizen is pleasant experience-, so many Westerners confuse this with meeting and interactin-g with the Chinese government-, for whom lies are considered wise tactical moves and brutality is excused. How can anyone ignore Tibet, when HH Dalai Lama is such a believable messenger. The holocaust of 1940's is its only equal. And it continues to this day. Please wake up people, soon it will be too late.
由于和普通的中国人民的接触和互动是一次令人愉快的经历，所以很多西方人拒绝和用谎言和暴行来蒙蔽，镇压其人民的中国政府进行交流。当达赖喇嘛变为一个如此可信的人的时候，人们怎么可能无视西藏的存在？这和1940年的大屠杀没什么区别。快点醒悟吧中国人，不然就太晚了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
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2楼
Despite the fact that the US stopped official recognitio-n of Taiwan since Nixon's visit to China, Taiwan sees itself as a strong ally of the US. This is not the government-al position but public opinion in general. It is in Taiwan and not China, that Confucianism is actively taught. Taiwan considers itself truer to Chinese tradition, as indeed they are. To put one up one of the cultural bedrocks of ROC as a strawman is fighting against the wrong party.
自从尼克松访华后，美国就停止了和台湾的外交政治活动，但是台湾还是把自己视为美国最坚实的盟友。这不是政治立场上的而是一种公众的想法。在台湾，孔子的儒家思想非常盛行。台湾认为自己较之中国更好的保留了中国的传统文化，他们也的确是这么做的。
3楼
True enough, but this doesn't disprove my argument. Taiwan is still an authoritarian society beneath its facade of democracy, and their motivation for cosying up to the US is obvious military realpolitik, not ideological sympathy. I never said Confucianism is anti-American per se, just that it's contrary to liberal democracy. The US has had ideologically contrary allies ranging from Louis XVIth's France to contemporary Saudi Arabia.
没错，但是我不会否定我自己的论点。在其虚假的民主体制之下，台湾其实仍旧是一个独裁主义社会，他们亲美的动机只是为了得到美国的军事保护，而不是真正意识形态上的亲近。我从没有说过儒家细想的本质是反美的，只是说它与我们所提倡的自由民主是背道而驰的。
4楼
I wonder why I never felt oppressed all the years I lived in Taiwan? I wonder why the people were so open? I wonder why there were so many different points of view being published and discussed on the media? I wonder why people talked very openly and frequently about democratic concepts?
引用3楼回复
我想知道为什么我在台湾生活这么多年但是从来没有感受到压迫？我想知道为什么人们如此开放？我想知道为什么这么多不同的观点和见解可以被出版和在公众媒体间讨论？我想知道为什么人们可以如此自由的频繁的讨论民主体制？

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5楼
Mao said he hated Confucius since he was a boy. Under his rule, Confucius and Confucianism were surpressed. In the 1990's, Beijing unofficially invited a leading Confucian from Taiwan to discuss Confucian education. Those in Beijing decided it wouldn't fit their plans. Daniel Bell's "China's New Confucianism" discusses the reemergence of Confucius in the general discourse of China. Several months ago, a statue of Confucius appeared in Tiananmen Square, which no explanation. Speculation was China was thinking of making Confucianism a state philosophy. A few weeks, the statue was removed with no fanfare. Speculation was that pro-Maoist factions had protested too strongly.
引用4楼回复
毛曾经说过，在他还是个孩子的时候他讨厌孔夫子。在他的统治时期，孔子和儒家思想是被禁止的。1990年，北京以非官方的形式邀请了一位台湾有名的儒家学者探讨儒学的教育。丹尼尔-贝尔的“中国的新儒家思想”论述了儒家思想在中国的再度出现。几个月前，一尊孔夫子的雕像悄然的出现在天安门广场。猜想是中国想让儒家思想变成变成一种正式的理念。但是几个星期以后，那尊雕像没有任何官方声明的被拆除了。可能是由于挺毛派系的抗议太强烈了。
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6楼
I say 'more power to China'. Why? Well, America doesn't have 1.3 billion people to feed. I'm not sure why that's important, but I think it's important to consider. These folks have had to make some 'magic' happen, and US know-how and technology have helped to make them who they are today, much as China has helped us to become who we are today, roughly, a symbiosis of sorts. China has helped keep material costs down, here in America. Some people really resent that, and say 'buy American' all the way down, but who really and honestly wants to pay $300 for a pair of shoes, when a pair from China will cost you $30-50, or even less? They've taken what was successful about America in the past, manufacturing, and gone BIG with it. Of course, you have lectures from moralist in this country talking about sweatshops and so forth, but the sources of those lectures are in some cases, college grade liberals who never had to lift a finger growing up.   In some ways, China's helped us to become pretty spoiled here in America, which is not so good, kids aren't so familiar with the connection of working regularly, and having those shoes, as they maybe might be otherwise. Then again, fair apportionment of the blame for that situation might as well be laid at the feet of the parents, as at the feet of one of America's most influential modern-day trading partners. There's pluses and minuses, to be sure, but one thing is for sure, China's not going back to the stone age or some past dynasty to suit the whimsy of foreigners-. It's been said before that the 21st century could well be the Chinese century, and there's no reason to believe that that's not what's on the menu. Hard work and diligence pay off...
我认为中国未来将拥有更多的权利。为什么？好吧，美国不需要养活13亿人口。我不能肯定为为什么这很重要，但是我可以肯定对于考虑问题来说这是很重要的。中国人正在让奇迹发生，我们的技术信息和工艺科技成就了中国的今天，就像中国帮助我们变成了今天这个样子，大致来说，就是各种各样的合作关系。中国一直在降低生产成本。一些美国人真的很厌恶中国货，他们说我们只买美国货！但是当一双来自中国的只需要30-50美元的鞋摆在你面前的时候，还有谁还愿意花300美元买一双美国产的鞋？显然，他们已经借鉴了美国过去的成功模式，那就是制造业，而且不断扩大它的规模。当然，你可以听到美国道德学家的关于种种中国工厂如何剥削劳动力的演讲，但是在一些情况下，这些演讲都来自于那些只有理论知识的学院派自由主义者。
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7楼
Chinese communist party has implemented economic freedom combined with socialist controls to prevent the immense suffering which occurs during the transition to capitalism-.
A historical parallel ( on much smaller scale) was NEP economic model implemented by the Soviets in the '20s.
This wise societal model should be an example to all developing nations.
中国共产党一直实行经济自由和政府控制相结合的政策一防止向资本主义制度过渡。与此类似的新型经济模式在苏联也曾经推行过。
这种新型的经济模式是所有发展中国国家的榜样。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
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8楼
1 '80s--Americans demand China plays by American economic capitalist rules.
'90s --China reforms itself to do just that.
'10s-- Americans demand China stops playing by American economic capitalist rules.
Be careful what you wish for because it might come true. Trite but true.
80年代，美国人要求中国遵循美国的资本主义经济规则。
90年代，中国人在自身改革的时候顺从了美国人意愿。
现在，美国人要求中国不需要再遵循美国的资本主义经济规则。
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9楼
"America's defense against Chinese mercantilism is further sabotaged by the fact that, despite our using similar policies earlier in our own history, mainstream American economists are largely blind to the fact that mercantilism even works."
美国对中国重商主义的防御措施进一步被现实所破坏，我们无视历届政府早先用过的类似政策，大部分美国主流经济学者无视重商主义的危害。
Please correct. The vast majority of economists realize that mercantilism NEVER worked to expand and grow an economy. It did work to funnel money to special interests and support those in power. It did not and can not support economic growth. China growth is directly tied to increased economic freedom even if political freedom is not increasing.
这里帮你纠正一下，绝大多数的经济学者已经意识到重商主义对扩大经济规模和经济成长不起任何作用。它只对一些特殊集团的利益有益，他对经济的发展没有任何帮助。中国的发展壮大与其政治的自由度没有太多关系，而是与其经济自由度的增加息息相关。
The massive economic growth that occured over the last 200 years ($3/day to $30/ day per person) was caused by respecting private property and the resulting explosion in innovation and the resulting creative destruction. Not by supporting existing industries and protecting them from competition.
过去200年中国巨大的经济增长主要是由于对私有财产的尊重和不断的具有创造新的革新。而不是仅通过支持现有产业来保护他们免受竞争。
There is an argument for allowing a tax holiday for new businesses to further support business creation, but there is an even stronger argument for elimination of business taxes altogether.
目前不少人都赞成应该为了推动某些新型商业的发展而实行免税政策，但是有更多的人赞成应该完全免除商业税收。。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：AkimotoThe news has recently hit the press that China's economy, measured on the purchasing-power basis that adjusts for price differences between nations, may surpass the U.S. in only another five years or so.
最近有新闻对大众报道说, 中国的经济，如果以在考量国与国之间价格差异为前提，以购买力为衡量标准，或许将在下个五年超越美国
Surprisingly, China has still shown no signs of morphing into the cuddly liberal and democratic nation,devoted to American ways from Coca-Cola to democracy, whose eventual appearance has been assumed by American policy for thirty years now.
令人惊讶的是，中国仍然没有丝毫向民主国家演变的迹象。从美国的可口可乐公司就可以看出美国政府一贯致力于民主进程的推广（美国可口可乐公司把原汁运送到其他国家，兑水后就能变成产品销售），而且该民主推广政策已经维持了30年。
Our policy during this period has, after all, enthusiastically cooperated with China's efforts to build up its economic power--which entails,of course, every other kind of power, including the military kind. So our assumption of a benign China had better be right, or else we have been abetting the creation of a monster. A hostile China will be arguably even worse than the USSR, because it will not do us the favor of sabotaging its economy by adhering to a dysfunctional economic ideology.
在这段时期内，我们的政策积极的配合了中国经济力量的建设，当然也包括其他力量，例如中国的军事力量。因此，我们设想中国是一个比较温和的国家，否则，在舆论的影响下中国早就变成了一个怪物。苏联曾经是我们的敌人，但中国可能有过之而无不及，因为它永远也不会允许我们去干预它的经济发展。
The above realities are the subject of Eamonn Fingleton's book In The Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate Under Chinese Hegemony. Fingleton is a Tokyo-based Irish journalist who has lived in East Asia for over 25 years, and he has a long and distinguished record of telling truths about the region's politics and economics that the establishment (on both sides of the Pacific!) would rather the public did not learn. This is one of those books that one wishes the President would read.
以上所述的就是埃蒙-芬格尔顿《在巨龙的咽喉之下》一书中的一些内容：美国的命运在笼罩在中国霸权主义的阴影之下。芬格尔顿是一名常驻于东京的爱尔兰新闻工作者，并且在东亚地区已经生活了25年之久，他在政治和金融界的新闻报导工作中享有很高的声誉。这是唯一一本我希望美国总统能抽出时间来看的书。
While it is hardly news that America is facing a Chinese challenge, the seriousness of this challenge is still poorly appreciated. For example--this was my big takeaway from the book--China is not just another despotism. It is the implementer of a systematic and sophisticated political philosophy, which Fingleton calls Confucianism, which will almost certainly constitute a serious threat to liberal democracy in the years ahead.
当然，我不愿意看到美国正面临着中国的挑战，但问题的严重性在于很多人还没有意识到这种挑战的存在。举个例子，从这本书我意识到，中国不仅仅是一个独裁国家，而且还是这种独裁政治体制富有经验的制订者和实施者。芬格尔顿所说的儒家思想，将来很有可能会对西方自由民主体制构成威胁。
Confucianism, as the reader may recall from a comparative religions class taken long ago, is the political philosophy derived from the ancient Chinese sage Confucius. It was the official ideology of the state in Imperial China for thousands of years.
说道儒家思想，也许读者们依稀还能记得很久以前学过的“比较宗教学”。这种儒家思想起源于中国古代的一位圣人孔夫子，这种意识形态已经存在于中国帝制长达几千年之久。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
Now Confucius wasn't a bad man, but he did base his political philosophy on taking authoritarian government as a given and trying to civilize it. He did not, as Western political thinkers since the dawn of democracy in Ancient Greece have done, base his political ideology on trying to prevent despotism in the first place. As a result, he simply wasn't that interested in concepts like individual freedom or limited government.
我并不否认孔夫子是一位圣人，他把他的毕生学术所得献给了当时的统治阶级，试图以此来引导他们变的更加文明。但是他没有借鉴西方思想家有史以来在古希腊所获得的成功。他的政治意识形态只是为了维护当时统治阶级的封建独裁统治。看起来他对自由开放的民主思想丝毫不感兴趣。
The bottom line, after a few thousand years of history and some astonishing ideological twists and turns, is an approach to politics that is systematically opposite to liberal democracy.
经过几千年的历史积累和惊人的思想转变之后，他们已经学会了有系统的来反对自由民主体制。
It is the velvet glove on the iron fist, and increasingly a very sophisticated one. It has tamed capitalism and mastered modern media. It is not headed for collapse or metamorphosis any time soon. If anything, it is currently more successful at imposing its will on us than we are at the reverse.
他们外柔内刚，而且手段运用地越来越驾轻就熟。他们让资本主义制度变的毫无脾气可言，而且他们还控制了一些现在的主流媒体。当然，他们的目的不是为了推翻资本主义制度。就现在来看，他们比我们更成功更具有活力。这让我们怀疑我们目前的政治体制是不是已经落后了。
To be fair to poor old Confucius, the political system of contemporary China is not a direct extrapolation of any blueprint he drew up, and its flaws should not blind humanity to the genuinely civilizing aspects of his teachings (which are real). But, as Fingleton shows in considerable detail, a Confucian mentality underlies the politics of not only China, but also, in a soft-authoritarian version that has mastered the surface rituals of democracy, the politics of neighboring nations like Japan, Korea, and Singapore.
从公平的角度来说，我真的为孔子感到惋惜。中国目前的政治体制已经不以孔子所规划的蓝图为基础了。而孔子的儒家思想的缺陷就在于不应该盲目地，教条主义地引导人类走向文明。但是正如芬格尔顿所提出的一些重点，以儒家思想为基础的政治体制不仅仅只存在于中国，一些表面上看起来很民主，但其实是变相地，相对温和的独裁政府也一直存在，诸如中国周边的日本，韩国和新加坡。
Make no mistake: East Asia is on a fundamentally different civilizational track than the U.S., and it isn't going to get off any time soon. And why should it, when East Asians are currently watching America decline?
保守中庸：东亚文明的发展轨迹和美国是截然不同的。但这并不意味这种文明就应该退出历史舞台。也许这就是东亚人只是在静静的看着美国衰退的原因吧。
If the U.S. had not chosen, by its unconditional embrace of economic globalization by means of (one way) free trade, to render itself vulnerable to China, the above might not matter very much. After all, for most of its long history, China has maintained a civilization upon principles very different from those of the West, and it didn't do us much harm.
由于无条件的接受全球经济自由和贸易一体化，美国别无选择，这导致了美国很容易遭受中国的侵害。上面说的看起来或许不是很重要，毕竟，由于有着悠久的历史，中国维持自己文明的方式与西方有很大不同，而且看起来对我们并没有什么威胁。
Unfortunately, the U.S. has, in fact, chosen the opposite course, with the result that our own government is increasingly slipping under the control of an ethically alien and geopolitically hostile power.
不幸的是，美国作出了一个错误的选择，其结果就是我们的政府在一个我们永远也无法猜透的敌对强国控制下变得越来越弱不禁风。
To take just the most obvious example: because political bribery is, by way of political action committees, essentially legal in the U.S., Beijing can manipulate the U.S. Congress and the presidency almost at will. Why? Because it can manipulate the profits of the Fortune 500 companies that do business in China, and they do its bidding as lobbyists here. Because they are still headquartered in the U.S., they find welcome on Capitol Hill, but it is Beijing that is calling the shots.
举一些很明显的例子：通过对美国政治委员会的政治贿赂，北京可以操控美国国会甚至总统。为什么北京要这么做？因为他可以操纵世界财富500强的公司跟中国做生意，为中国的利益服务。这些公司的总部设在美国，他们接受美国国会的保护，但他们只听命于中国。
Americans sometimes puzzle over why their government doesn't "get" the Chinese threat. The answer is simple: because it has been bribed not to by China.
美国人有时候会感到很困惑，为什么他们的政府感受不到来自中国的威胁。答案很简单，因为他们已经被收买了。
The most important issue on which our government has been bribed is, of course, trade. China runs astronomical trade surpluses with the U.S. In fact, a majority of our trade deficit is now with China. This is no accident: it is the product of China's aggressive embrace of predatory mercantilism plus America's government being bribed not to take defensive measures.
最重要一条是，我们的政府一直在接受贿赂，当然，只是在贸易方面。事实上，中国天文数字般的贸易盈余都和美国有关，而美国多数的贸易赤字也都和中国有关。这绝不是偶然的，
这是中国重商主义的掠夺，侵略和美国政府被贿赂后的不作为所造成的。
To find an historical parallel, one would probably have to go back to something like the suicide of the old Polish state in the 18th century, carved up by its adversaries after its domestic politics was paralyzed by foreign bribery.
相类似的情况，可能要追溯到18世纪的波兰，当时的政府由于接受了来自国外的政治贿赂而导致整个波兰被敌对势力瓜分。
America's defense against Chinese mercantilism is further sabotaged by the fact that, despite our using similar policies earlier in our own history, mainstream American economists are largely blind to the fact that mercantilism even works. Trapped in the same "free" market thinking that led to the 2008 financial crisis, they don't believe that China's policies can possibly be a winning move for that country.An economy that has gone from peasant agriculture to superpower in 30 years doesn't seem to persuade them.
美国对中国重商主义的防御措施进一步被现实所破坏，我们无视历届政府早先用过的类似政策，大部分美国主流经济学者无视重商主义的危害。由于陷入了所谓的自由贸易市场的错误思想导致了2008年巨大的金融危机。美国人不相信中国的政策法规会为中国带来巨大的进步。30年来，中国已经从一个农业国家逐渐向一个全方位的超级大国转变，这难道还不具有说服力吗？
Why are China's economic policies so effective? The aggressive pursuit of exports is a game other nations, like Germany and Japan, also play well. But these are both medium-sized high-wage nations that are already developed, not gigantic low-wage nations still on the early stage of their development path. (China is an economic superpower because it has so many workers, but their per capita output still only qualifies China as a middle-income nation globally, behind nations like Jamaica.)
为什么中国出台的政策法规会如此有效？具有侵略性的商品出口就像一场游戏，像德国和日本也很善于玩这场游戏。在规模上来看，德国和日本都只能属于中型国家，而且是属于那种高薪水收入的发达国家，而不是那种还处于初级发展阶段的大规模低薪水收入的国家。（中国是一个经济大国，但是他的人均收入在全球范围内还只能处于中等的水平，甚至还排在牙买加的后面。）
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
China is unique because it combines standard-issue (if exceptionally cynical) mercantilism with other policies, like forced savings and systematic technology acquisition, made possible by its despotic ex-Marxist political system. For example, it has, by deliberate state fiat, a savings rate close to 50%, while America's is close to zero. This gives China a tidal wave of investment capital to put into everything from factories to freeways. (It is also enabling China to accumulate ownership of American government securities and private-sector assets.)
中国是独一无二的，因为他把重商主义和其他一些政策相结合，例如强迫储蓄和有系统有计划的获取技术资源，这些都出自于他的马克思主义政治体系。举个例子，通过中国政府深思熟虑后所颁布的法令，当美国的储蓄率几乎接近于0的时候，中国的储蓄率已经接近50%了。从工厂到高速公路，中国掀起了资本投资的巨大浪潮。（这也使中国有机会掌握了一部分美国国债和一些私人资产的所有权。）
Japan never took over the world, so some people dismiss the Chinese threat as yet another big wolf-cry. But China has ten times Japan's population, nuclear weapons, and a hard-authoritarian rather than soft-authoritarian political system. This time, it's different.
日本永远也不会有能力来接管这个世界，所以有些人认为中国的威胁只是另一个狼来了的故事。但是中国有十倍于日本的人口，拥有核武器，一个冷酷的独裁政府。这次，真的不同于以往。
Beijing is already extending its political tentacles everywhere from the Middle East to Latin America. Now that Uncle Sam worships democracy (at least in principle) and doesn't cut dictators the slack he did during the Cold War so long as they were anti-communist, China is the new best friend of despots everywhere. China's voracious demand for natural resource imports alone guarantees that this rivalry will not remain trivial forever.
中国已经把他的政治触角延伸到了中东和拉丁美洲。由于山姆大叔对民主体制的崇拜和反共冷战期间对独裁统治的疏忽，导致中国成为了所有独裁统治政权的好朋友。
If worst does come to worst, don't say you weren't warned. This is a readable and very important book.
如果发生最坏的情况时，不要说我没有警告过你们，这是一本非常有价值和重要的书。
评论翻译:
网民评论：

1楼
Because meeting and interactin-g with the average Chinese citizen is pleasant experience-, so many Westerners confuse this with meeting and interactin-g with the Chinese government-, for whom lies are considered wise tactical moves and brutality is excused. How can anyone ignore Tibet, when HH Dalai Lama is such a believable messenger. The holocaust of 1940's is its only equal. And it continues to this day. Please wake up people, soon it will be too late.
由于和普通的中国人民的接触和互动是一次令人愉快的经历，所以很多西方人拒绝和用谎言和暴行来蒙蔽，镇压其人民的中国政府进行交流。当达赖喇嘛变为一个如此可信的人的时候，人们怎么可能无视西藏的存在？这和1940年的大屠杀没什么区别。快点醒悟吧中国人，不然就太晚了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
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2楼
Despite the fact that the US stopped official recognitio-n of Taiwan since Nixon's visit to China, Taiwan sees itself as a strong ally of the US. This is not the government-al position but public opinion in general. It is in Taiwan and not China, that Confucianism is actively taught. Taiwan considers itself truer to Chinese tradition, as indeed they are. To put one up one of the cultural bedrocks of ROC as a strawman is fighting against the wrong party.
自从尼克松访华后，美国就停止了和台湾的外交政治活动，但是台湾还是把自己视为美国最坚实的盟友。这不是政治立场上的而是一种公众的想法。在台湾，孔子的儒家思想非常盛行。台湾认为自己较之中国更好的保留了中国的传统文化，他们也的确是这么做的。
3楼
True enough, but this doesn't disprove my argument. Taiwan is still an authoritarian society beneath its facade of democracy, and their motivation for cosying up to the US is obvious military realpolitik, not ideological sympathy. I never said Confucianism is anti-American per se, just that it's contrary to liberal democracy. The US has had ideologically contrary allies ranging from Louis XVIth's France to contemporary Saudi Arabia.
没错，但是我不会否定我自己的论点。在其虚假的民主体制之下，台湾其实仍旧是一个独裁主义社会，他们亲美的动机只是为了得到美国的军事保护，而不是真正意识形态上的亲近。我从没有说过儒家细想的本质是反美的，只是说它与我们所提倡的自由民主是背道而驰的。
4楼
I wonder why I never felt oppressed all the years I lived in Taiwan? I wonder why the people were so open? I wonder why there were so many different points of view being published and discussed on the media? I wonder why people talked very openly and frequently about democratic concepts?
引用3楼回复
我想知道为什么我在台湾生活这么多年但是从来没有感受到压迫？我想知道为什么人们如此开放？我想知道为什么这么多不同的观点和见解可以被出版和在公众媒体间讨论？我想知道为什么人们可以如此自由的频繁的讨论民主体制？

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5楼
Mao said he hated Confucius since he was a boy. Under his rule, Confucius and Confucianism were surpressed. In the 1990's, Beijing unofficially invited a leading Confucian from Taiwan to discuss Confucian education. Those in Beijing decided it wouldn't fit their plans. Daniel Bell's "China's New Confucianism" discusses the reemergence of Confucius in the general discourse of China. Several months ago, a statue of Confucius appeared in Tiananmen Square, which no explanation. Speculation was China was thinking of making Confucianism a state philosophy. A few weeks, the statue was removed with no fanfare. Speculation was that pro-Maoist factions had protested too strongly.
引用4楼回复
毛曾经说过，在他还是个孩子的时候他讨厌孔夫子。在他的统治时期，孔子和儒家思想是被禁止的。1990年，北京以非官方的形式邀请了一位台湾有名的儒家学者探讨儒学的教育。丹尼尔-贝尔的“中国的新儒家思想”论述了儒家思想在中国的再度出现。几个月前，一尊孔夫子的雕像悄然的出现在天安门广场。猜想是中国想让儒家思想变成变成一种正式的理念。但是几个星期以后，那尊雕像没有任何官方声明的被拆除了。可能是由于挺毛派系的抗议太强烈了。
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6楼
I say 'more power to China'. Why? Well, America doesn't have 1.3 billion people to feed. I'm not sure why that's important, but I think it's important to consider. These folks have had to make some 'magic' happen, and US know-how and technology have helped to make them who they are today, much as China has helped us to become who we are today, roughly, a symbiosis of sorts. China has helped keep material costs down, here in America. Some people really resent that, and say 'buy American' all the way down, but who really and honestly wants to pay $300 for a pair of shoes, when a pair from China will cost you $30-50, or even less? They've taken what was successful about America in the past, manufacturing, and gone BIG with it. Of course, you have lectures from moralist in this country talking about sweatshops and so forth, but the sources of those lectures are in some cases, college grade liberals who never had to lift a finger growing up.   In some ways, China's helped us to become pretty spoiled here in America, which is not so good, kids aren't so familiar with the connection of working regularly, and having those shoes, as they maybe might be otherwise. Then again, fair apportionment of the blame for that situation might as well be laid at the feet of the parents, as at the feet of one of America's most influential modern-day trading partners. There's pluses and minuses, to be sure, but one thing is for sure, China's not going back to the stone age or some past dynasty to suit the whimsy of foreigners-. It's been said before that the 21st century could well be the Chinese century, and there's no reason to believe that that's not what's on the menu. Hard work and diligence pay off...
我认为中国未来将拥有更多的权利。为什么？好吧，美国不需要养活13亿人口。我不能肯定为为什么这很重要，但是我可以肯定对于考虑问题来说这是很重要的。中国人正在让奇迹发生，我们的技术信息和工艺科技成就了中国的今天，就像中国帮助我们变成了今天这个样子，大致来说，就是各种各样的合作关系。中国一直在降低生产成本。一些美国人真的很厌恶中国货，他们说我们只买美国货！但是当一双来自中国的只需要30-50美元的鞋摆在你面前的时候，还有谁还愿意花300美元买一双美国产的鞋？显然，他们已经借鉴了美国过去的成功模式，那就是制造业，而且不断扩大它的规模。当然，你可以听到美国道德学家的关于种种中国工厂如何剥削劳动力的演讲，但是在一些情况下，这些演讲都来自于那些只有理论知识的学院派自由主义者。
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7楼
Chinese communist party has implemented economic freedom combined with socialist controls to prevent the immense suffering which occurs during the transition to capitalism-.
A historical parallel ( on much smaller scale) was NEP economic model implemented by the Soviets in the '20s.
This wise societal model should be an example to all developing nations.
中国共产党一直实行经济自由和政府控制相结合的政策一防止向资本主义制度过渡。与此类似的新型经济模式在苏联也曾经推行过。
这种新型的经济模式是所有发展中国国家的榜样。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto
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8楼
1 '80s--Americans demand China plays by American economic capitalist rules.
'90s --China reforms itself to do just that.
'10s-- Americans demand China stops playing by American economic capitalist rules.
Be careful what you wish for because it might come true. Trite but true.
80年代，美国人要求中国遵循美国的资本主义经济规则。
90年代，中国人在自身改革的时候顺从了美国人意愿。
现在，美国人要求中国不需要再遵循美国的资本主义经济规则。
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9楼
"America's defense against Chinese mercantilism is further sabotaged by the fact that, despite our using similar policies earlier in our own history, mainstream American economists are largely blind to the fact that mercantilism even works."
美国对中国重商主义的防御措施进一步被现实所破坏，我们无视历届政府早先用过的类似政策，大部分美国主流经济学者无视重商主义的危害。
Please correct. The vast majority of economists realize that mercantilism NEVER worked to expand and grow an economy. It did work to funnel money to special interests and support those in power. It did not and can not support economic growth. China growth is directly tied to increased economic freedom even if political freedom is not increasing.
这里帮你纠正一下，绝大多数的经济学者已经意识到重商主义对扩大经济规模和经济成长不起任何作用。它只对一些特殊集团的利益有益，他对经济的发展没有任何帮助。中国的发展壮大与其政治的自由度没有太多关系，而是与其经济自由度的增加息息相关。
The massive economic growth that occured over the last 200 years ($3/day to $30/ day per person) was caused by respecting private property and the resulting explosion in innovation and the resulting creative destruction. Not by supporting existing industries and protecting them from competition.
过去200年中国巨大的经济增长主要是由于对私有财产的尊重和不断的具有创造新的革新。而不是仅通过支持现有产业来保护他们免受竞争。
There is an argument for allowing a tax holiday for new businesses to further support business creation, but there is an even stronger argument for elimination of business taxes altogether.
目前不少人都赞成应该为了推动某些新型商业的发展而实行免税政策，但是有更多的人赞成应该完全免除商业税收。。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：Akimoto