原创翻译——China\'s Military Rise: The Dragon\'s New ...

经济学人4月7日刊

原文链接：http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

cd上有人发过这期专题的另外一篇文章 China's Military Rise: Asia's Balance of Power

http://lt.cjdby.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1364856

好久没写过中文文章了，翻译尽量信与达，雅是谈不上了。睡前两小时翻译的，估计有不少错别字。。。大家先将就看。

我的感觉这篇文章基本可以代表西方，尤其是英国媒体对中国的视角，某些地方旁征博引，展现自己的专业journalism，同时夹杂着根深蒂固的偏见，春秋笔法甚至是直接罔顾事实。BBC的稿件经常也是这样。

尽管如此，经济学人毕竟是英国知识分子读物的代表作，这篇文章还是能在很大程度上，以一定的系统性反映英国知识分子以他们自以为的客观角度对中国军事建设的看法。

经济学人网站上的评论我粗略看了下，大笔免费自带干粮五毛。。。等我睡醒了找几个most recommonded翻译一下。



China’s military rise
中国的军事崛起
The dragon’s new teeth
中国龙的新牙               
A rare look inside the world’s biggest military expansion
对世界上最大规模军备扩张的一次罕见的深入调查

AT A meeting of South-East Asian nations in 2010, China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi, facing a barrage of complaints about his country’s behaviour in the region, blurted out the sort of thing polite leaders usually prefer to leave unsaid. “China is a big country,” he pointed out, “and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.” Indeed it is, and China is big not merely in terms of territory and population, but also military might. Its Communist Party is presiding over the world’s largest military build-up. And that is just a fact, too—one which the rest of the world is having to come to terms with.

在一次2010年与东盟国家的会议上，中国外交部长杨洁篪面对一片对中国在东南亚行为的指责，说了句政治家们通常不会直接说出来的大实话：“中国是个大国，东南亚其他国家都是小国，这是事实。”确实，中国，不仅仅是人口大国，疆域大国，同时也是一个军事大国。中国共产党指挥着世界上最大规模的军备建设。这，也是个事实，而整个世界都必须适应这一事实。

That China is rapidly modernising its armed forces is not in doubt, though there is disagreement about what the true spending figure is. China’s defence budget has almost certainly experienced double digit growth for two decades. According to SIPRI, a research institute, annual defence spending rose from over $30 billion in 2000 to almost $120 billion in 2010. SIPRI usually adds about 50% to the official figure that China gives for its defence spending, because even basic military items such as research and development are kept off budget. Including those items would imply total military spending in 2012, based on the latest announcement from Beijing, will be around $160 billion. America still spends four-and-a-half times as much on defence, but on present trends China’s defence spending could overtake America’s after 2035 (see chart).

毫无疑问的，中国在迅速地实施军备现代化。当然对于具体的支出数字一直仍有争议。中国的国防预算在过去20年间基本保持了两位数的增长率，根据SIPRI(就是那个说中国军事技术落后美国20年的)的数字，中国军事开支从2000年的300亿美元上升到2010年的将近1200亿。SIPRI认为实际数字通常是官方数字的150%，因为一些基本支出，比如武器装备的研发，都没有列入官方预算。如果包括这些项目，在2012年中国的军事支出应该接近1600亿美元。美国现在的支出仍然是中国的4.5倍，但是按现在的趋势，中国防务支出会在2035年超过美国。

All that money is changing what the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can do. Twenty years ago, China’s military might lay primarily in the enormous numbers of people under arms; their main task was to fight an enemy face-to-face or occupy territory. The PLA is still the largest army in the world, with an active force of 2.3m. But China’s real military strength increasingly lies elsewhere. The Pentagon’s planners think China is intent on acquiring what is called in the jargon A2/AD, or “anti-access/area denial” capabilities. The idea is to use pinpoint ground attack and anti-ship missiles, a growing fleet of modern submarines and cyber and anti-satellite weapons to destroy or disable another nation’s military assets from afar.

这些经费正在大幅提升中国人民解放军的能力。20年前，中国的军事实力可能主要依赖人数优势。他们的主要任务仍然是面对面的对抗敌人或者占领土地。中国人民解放军仍然是世界上规模最大的军队，现役人员230万，但是中国真正的军事实力逐渐依赖于其他方面。五角大楼的参谋们认为中国着力于取得A2/AD，即反介入/区域隔断能力。其构想是利用精确地面打击，反舰导弹，不断扩张的潜艇舰队，网络战，反卫星武器，在远程摧毁或者使敌方的军备失能。

In the western Pacific, that would mean targeting or putting in jeopardy America’s aircraft-carrier groups and its air-force bases in Okinawa, South Korea and even Guam. The aim would be to render American power projection in Asia riskier and more costly, so that America’s allies would no longer be able to rely on it to deter aggression or to combat subtler forms of coercion. It would also enable China to carry out its repeated threat to take over Taiwan if the island were ever to declare formal independence.

具体到西太平洋，这就意味着以摧毁或破坏美军航母战斗群，以及在冲绳，南朝鲜，关岛的空军基地为目标。其目的是使美国在亚洲的力量投放更加的昂贵且有风险，这样美国的盟国就无法依靠美军的力量来吓阻进攻性行为或者抵御恐吓/讹诈。这样一旦台湾独立，中国就有能力实施他一贯以来武统台湾的威胁。

China’s military build-up is ringing alarm bells in Asia and has already caused a pivot in America’s defence policy. The new “strategic guidance” issued in January by Barack Obama and his defence secretary, Leon Panetta, confirmed what everyone in Washington already knew: that a switch in priorities towards Asia was overdue and under way. The document says that “While the US military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific region.” America is planning roughly $500 billion of cuts in planned defence spending over the next ten years. But, says the document, “to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged.”

中国的军备建设已经在亚洲范围内引起警戒，并导致了美军防御政策的调整。Obama一月份发表的战略指南确认了华盛顿人尽皆知的事情：把战略重点转向亚洲早已应该实行，而且正在进行中。这份文件声称：“虽然美国军队会一直致力于全球安全，我们会根据需要，向亚洲倾斜。”美国在未来10年内，计划削减5000亿美元的港务开支，但是根据这份文件：“为了有效遏止潜在敌人，防止他们达到他们的战略目的，在介入和行动能力受到挑战的区域，美国必须保留投放军力的能力。”

It is pretty obvious what that means. Distracted by campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, America has neglected the most economically dynamic region of the world. In particular, it has responded inadequately to China’s growing military power and political assertiveness. According to senior American diplomats, China has the ambition—and increasingly the power—to become a regional hegemon; it is engaged in a determined effort to lock America out of a region that has been declared a vital security interest by every administration since Teddy Roosevelt’s; and it is pulling countries in South-East Asia into its orbit of influence “by default”. America has to respond. As an early sign of that response, Mr Obama announced in November 2011 that 2,500 US Marines would soon be stationed in Australia. Talks about an increased American military presence in the Philippines began in February this year.

这句话的指向十分明显。受到伊拉克和阿富汗两场战争的干扰，美国忽视了世界上经济最有活力的区域。尤其是，美国对于中国的军力扩张，以及政治上的逐渐自信反应不够充分。根据美国资深外交家们，中国有雄心，而且逐渐有能力成为区域霸权。中国坚定的致力于将美国排除在亚洲之外，而自从Teddy罗斯福以来历任美国政府都宣称，这一区域事关美国安全的核心利益。中国也正在把东南亚国家拖入他的默认势力范围。美国必须做出反应。作为这一回应的前期信号，奥巴马 2011年11月宣布将在澳大利亚驻扎2500名美军海军陆战队。今年2月份，双方开始对在菲律宾增加驻军展开谈判。

The uncertainty principle
不确定原则
China worries the rest of the world not only because of the scale of its military build-up, but also because of the lack of information about how it might use its new forces and even who is really in charge of them. The American strategic-guidance document spells out the concern. “The growth of China’s military power”, it says, “must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region.”

中国使世界其他国家感到忧虑，不只是因为他的军备扩张规模庞大，同时也是因为在他如何使用这些军力，甚至于到底是谁控制这些力量方面缺乏信息。美国战略指南明确的提出了这一顾虑：“随着中国军力的增长，中国的战略意图也必须更加透明，这样才能在区域中避免摩擦。”

Officially, China is committed to what it called, in the words of an old slogan, a “peaceful rise”. Its foreign-policy experts stress their commitment to a rules-based multipolar world. They shake their heads in disbelief at suggestions that China sees itself as a “near peer” military competitor with America.

官方上，中国致力于其宣称的和平崛起。他的外交专家们强调中国致力于一个建立在规则上的多级世界。听到中国认为自己已经在军力上与美国接近对等这一说法，他们都纷纷摇头，表示不能接受。

In the South and East China Seas, though, things look different. In the past 18 months, there have been clashes between Chinese vessels and ships from Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines over territorial rights in the resource-rich waters. A pugnacious editorial in the state-run Global Times last October gave warning: “If these countries don’t want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sounds of cannons. We need to be ready for that, as it may be the only way for the disputes in the sea to be resolved.” This was not a government pronouncement, but it seems the censors permit plenty of press freedom when it comes to blowing off nationalistic steam.

在南海与东海，事情看上去则有些不同。在过去的18个月里面，中国的船只与日本，越南，南朝鲜，菲律宾在这片资源丰富的海域上发生过领土争端。官方的环球时报在去年10月发表了一篇措辞强硬的社论，声称：“如果这些国家不改变与中国打交道的方式，他们最好准备听到炮声。我们需要为此准备，因为这可能是解决这片海域争端的唯一方式。”这并不是一份官方声明，但是看起来官方的审查在宣扬民族主义方面给报社很大的出版自由。

Smooth-talking foreign-ministry officials may cringe with embarrassment at Global Times—China’s equivalent of Fox News—but its views are not so far removed from the gung-ho leadership of the rapidly expanding navy. Moreover, in a statement of doctrine published in 2005, the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy did not mince its words. Although “active defence is the essential feature of China’s military strategy,” it said, if “an enemy offends our national interests it means that the enemy has already fired the first shot,” in which case the PLA’s mission is “to do all we can to dominate the enemy by striking first”.

说好话的外交部官员可能觉得环球时报的说法让他们很尴尬--环球时报就是中国版的Fox News(美国右派大本营)。但是环球与快速发展的人民海军的热切的领导层之间并没有太大的分歧。在一份2005年发表的纲领性文件中，人民解放军的军事战略学说并没有含糊其辞：“尽管主动防御是中国军事战略的核心，但如果敌人损害了我们的国家利益，那意味着敌人已经开了第一枪，这时人民解放军的任务就是尽一切能力，先发制人，战胜敌人。”

Making things more alarming is a lack of transparency over who really controls the guns and ships. China is unique among great powers in that the PLA is not formally part of the state. It is responsible to the Communist Party, and is run by the party’s Central Military Commission, not the ministry of defence. Although party and government are obviously very close in China, the party is even more opaque, which complicates outsiders’ understanding of where the PLA’s loyalties and priorities lie. A better military-to-military relationship between America and China would cast some light into this dark corner. But the PLA often suspends “mil-mil” relations as a “punishment” whenever tension rises with America over Taiwan. The PLA is also paranoid about what America might gain if the relationship between the two countries’ armed forces went deeper.

让事情更值得警惕的是，在到底是谁控制这些军备方面缺乏透明度。中国人民解放军在名义上并不是国家的一部分，人民解放军对党负责，由党的中央军委管理，而不是国防部。在这一点上，中国与其他大国都不同。尽管中国的党和政府很明显非常接近，党组织更加的令人捉摸不透。这样就使得外部人士很难确定人民解放军到底效忠于谁，任务为何。中美之间更好的军队间关系可以加深外界对这一方面的了解，但在中美两方就台湾问题产生分歧的时候，人民解放军经常中止军方间往来，以此作为对美方的“惩罚”。人民解放军也十分担心如果军队间关系深入的话，美国能从这一关系中得到什么。

The upshot of these various uncertainties is that even if outsiders believe that China’s intentions are largely benign—and it is clear that some of them do not—they can hardly make plans based on that assumption alone. As the influential American think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) points out, the intentions of an authoritarian regime can change very quickly. The nature and size of the capabilities that China has built up also count.

这些不确定性的结果，就是即使外界人士相信中国的出发点大体是人畜无害的—很明显有些方面并不是—他们也并不能单独基于这一假设而进行规划。正像美国一个很有影响的智库，战略与预算研究中心所指出的，专制国家的意图可以很快改变，中国军力发展的性质与规模也要加以考虑。（什么叫原罪，你说你人畜无害不好使，你有能力，你就有害）

History boys
一点历史

The build-up has gone in fits and starts. It began in the early 1950s when the Soviet Union was China’s most important ally and arms supplier, but abruptly ceased when Mao Zedong launched his decade-long Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s. The two countries came close to war over their disputed border and China carried out its first nuclear test. The second phase of modernisation began in the 1980s, under Deng Xiaoping. Deng was seeking to reform the whole country and the army was no exception. But he told the PLA that his priority was the economy; the generals must be patient and live within a budget of less than 1.5% of GDP.

中国军力建设有起有落。这一进程始于1950年代早期，当时苏联是中国最重要的盟友，也是最大的军火供应商。这一关系在1960年代中期戛然而止，当时毛泽东发动了长达10年的文革（典型逻辑混乱）。这两个国家由于边界纠纷险些开战，而后中国进行了第一次核试验。第二阶段的军事现代化始于1980年代，在邓小平的指挥下。邓小平试图改革整个国家，军队当然也不能例外。但是他告诉军队，经济优先，军队必须要耐心，忍耐，靠着不到1.5%GDP的预算过日子。

A third phase began in the early 1990s. Shaken by the destructive impact of the West’s high-tech weaponry on the Iraqi army, the PLA realised that its huge ground forces were militarily obsolete. PLA scholars at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing began learning all they could from American think-tanks about the so-called “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), a change in strategy and weaponry made possible by exponentially greater computer-processing power. In a meeting with The Economist at the Academy, General Chen Zhou, the main author of the four most recent defence white papers, said: “We studied RMA exhaustively. Our great hero was Andy Marshall in the Pentagon [the powerful head of the Office of Net Assessment who was known as the Pentagon’s futurist-in-chief]. We translated every word he wrote.”

第三阶段始于1990年代早期。目睹了西方高技术武器在伊拉克的杀伤力，人民解放军意识到他的大规模地面部队已经过时。军事科技研究院的解放军学者们开始尽全力从美国学习“新军事变革”，即由大幅提升的计算能力带来的战略与武器方面的革新。在与《经济学人》在国防大学的一次会面中，最近4份中国国防白皮书的作者，陈舟将军说：“我们深入，彻底的研究了新军事变革，五角大楼的Andy Marshall是我们的大英雄（此人是自尼克松时代以来“基本评估办公室”的主任，被认为是五角大楼的愿景设计师（Futurist-in-chief太不好翻了）），我们翻译了他写的每一个字。”

In 1993 the general-secretary of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, put RMA at the heart of China’s military strategy. Now, the PLA had to turn itself into a force capable of winning what the strategy called “local wars under high-tech conditions”. Campaigns would be short, decisive and limited in geographic scope and political goals. The big investments would henceforth go to the air force, the navy and the Second Artillery Force, which operates China’s nuclear and conventionally armed missiles.

在1993年，时任中国中央总书记江泽民把新军事变革放在了中国军事战略的核心位置。现在，人民解放军已经转型成为了一支有能力打赢“高技术条件下的局部战争”的力量。这样的冲突短暂，有决定性意义，在地缘政治和政治目标上都是有限度的。有鉴于此，投资的主要部分流向空军，海军，以及负责中国战略与常规导弹的第二炮兵。

Further shifts came in 2002 and 2004. High-tech weapons on their own were not enough; what mattered was the ability to knit everything together on the battlefield through what the Chinese called “informatisation” and what is known in the West as “unified C4ISR”. (The four Cs are command, control, communications, and computers; ISR stands for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; the Pentagon loves its abbreviations).

在2002和2004年，改革进一步深化。高技术武器本身已经不够了，至关重要的是把这些装备整合的能力，中国称之为“信息化”，而西方称为“统一C4ISR”(4个C是命令，控制，通信，计算机，ISR是情报，监视与侦查；五角大楼最喜欢缩写了。。。)

General Chen describes the period up to 2010 as “laying the foundations of modernised forces”. The next decade should see the roll-out of what is called mechanisation (the deployment of advanced military platforms) and informatisation (bringing them together as a network). The two processes should be completed in terms of equipment, integration and training by 2020. But General Chen reckons China will not achieve full informatisation until well after that. “A major difficulty”, he says, “is that we are still only partially mechanised. We do not always know how to make our investments when technology is both overlapping and leapfrogging.” Whereas the West was able to accomplish its military transformation by taking the two processes in sequence, China is trying to do both together. Still, that has not slowed down big investments which are designed to defeat even technologically advanced foes by making “the best use of our strong points to attack the enemy’s weak points”. In 2010 the CSBA identified the essential military components that China, on current trends, will be able to deploy within ten years. Among them: satellites and reconnaissance drones; thousands of surface-to-surface and anti-ship missiles; more than 60 stealthy conventional submarines and at least six nuclear attack submarines; stealthy manned and unmanned combat aircraft; and space and cyber warfare capabilities. In addition, the navy has to decide whether to make the (extremely expensive) transition to a force dominated by aircraft-carriers, like America. Aircraft-carriers would be an unmistakable declaration of an ambition eventually to project power far from home. Deploying them would also match the expected actions of Japan and India in the near future. China may well have three small carriers within five to ten years, though military analysts think it would take much longer for the Chinese to learn how to use them well.

陈将军把2010年之前这段称为“为现代化军队打基础”。而后的十年将有“机械化”与“信息化”同步推行。两个进程在装备，整合，训练方面应该在2020年之前完成。但是陈将军认为中国在此之后很久仍不会完全实现信息化。“一个重要难点”，他说，“是我们现在仍然仅仅是部分机械化。在技术既有交叠，又有跳跃的情况下，我们很难决定如何投资。”西方可以先机械化，后信息化，从而完成军事转型。中国则要尝试同时进行两个进程。而这并没有减慢中国在“集中己方优势，攻击敌方弱点”，从而击败技术更加先进敌手的能力上面大笔投入。在2010年，战略与预算研究中心按照当前发展趋势，指明了中国在未来10年能够部署的核心军事装备：卫星与侦查无人机，数以千计的地对地以及反舰导弹，超过60艘静音常规潜艇以及至少6艘核动力攻击潜艇，隐形作战飞机（有人与无人），太空战与网络战能力。除此之外，海军还要决定是否转型成为极端昂贵的类似于美国的以航空母舰为核心的力量。航空母舰是明白无误的志在远程投放力量的宣言。发展航母也与未来日本与印度的预期行动相匹配（可能是说两国也意在航母，话说的比较含糊）。在未来5到10年内，中国很可能拥有3艘小型航母（瓦良格也small了，皇家方舟那号的难道直接就是玩具么），但是军事分析家认为中国学会用好航母要用长的多的时间。

A new gunboat diplomacy
新炮舰外交

This promises to be a formidable array of assets. They are, for the most part, “asymmetric”, that is, designed not to match American military power in the western Pacific directly but rather to exploit its vulnerabilities. So, how might they be used?

这些将是令人生畏的一系列装备。它们的大部分，是“不对称”的，就是说它们并不是设计用来与美国军力在西太平洋正面对抗，而是针对其薄弱环节。那么，它们可能在什么情况下上场呢？

Taiwan is the main spur for China’s military modernisation. In 1996 America reacted to Chinese ballistic-missile tests carried out near Taiwanese ports by sending two aircraft-carrier groups into the Taiwan Strait. Since 2002 China’s strategy has been largely built around the possibility of a cross-Strait armed conflict in which China’s forces would not only have to overcome opposition from Taiwan but also to deter, delay or defeat an American attempt to intervene. According to recent reports by CSBA and RAND, another American think-tank, China is well on its way to having the means, by 2020, to deter American aircraft-carriers and aircraft from operating within what is known as the “first island chain”—a perimeter running from the Aleutians in the north to Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo (see map).

台湾是中国军事现代化的主要推动。在1996年，针对中国在台湾港口附近的导弹演习，美国派出两个航母战斗群进入台湾海峡。从2002年起，中国的战略很大程度上就是围绕着海峡冲突设计的。在这冲突中，中国的军队不止要面对台湾的抵抗，还要干扰，延缓，直至于击败美国的干预企图。根据最新的CSBA和兰德的报告，在2020年前，中国将有有效遏阻美军航母在第一岛链内行动的能力。

In 2005 China passed the Taiwan Anti-Secession Law, which commits it to a military response should Taiwan ever declare independence or even if the government in Beijing thinks all possibility of peaceful unification has been lost. Jia Xiudong of the China Institute of International Studies (the foreign ministry’s main think-tank) says: “The first priority is Taiwan. The mainland is patient, but independence is not the future for Taiwan. China’s military forces should be ready to repel any force of intervention. The US likes to maintain what it calls ‘strategic ambiguity’ over what it would do in the event of a conflict arising from secession. We don’t have any ambiguity. We will use whatever means we have to prevent it happening.”

在2005年中国通过了反分裂法，明确支出一旦台湾宣布独立，甚至于北京认为一切和平统一的路都已经走不通，中国将以军事手段应对。中国国际关系研究所的贾秀东说：“台湾问题是第一要务，大陆是有耐心的，但是台湾独立是没有前途的。中国的军事力量应该准备好反抗任何外部干预。在一旦冲突发生，做何反应方面，美国喜欢保持“战略模糊”，我们则没有任何好模糊的，我们会用一切手段阻止台湾独立。”

If Taiwan policy has been the immediate focus of China’s military planning, the sheer breadth of capabilities the country is acquiring gives it other options—and temptations. In 2004 Hu Jintao, China’s president, said the PLA should be able to undertake “new historic missions”. Some of these involve UN peacekeeping. In recent years China has been the biggest contributor of peacekeeping troops among the permanent five members of the Security Council. But the responsibility for most of these new missions has fallen on the navy. In addition to its primary job of denying China’s enemies access to sea lanes, it is increasingly being asked to project power in the neighbourhood and farther afield.

如果说台湾政策是中国军事规划的直接焦点，中国所取得的军事能力范围之广，之深，使得中国有了更多的选项，也充满诱惑。在2004，中国国家主席胡锦涛说中国人民解放军要有能力履行“新的历史使命”。其中之一是联合国维和行动。在最近几年中，中国是5常之中对于维和人员贡献最多的。但是这些新的历史使命很大程度落在了海军的肩上。在其主要任务，保卫中国海疆之外，中国海军还越来越多的被要求在近邻与远海投放力量。

The navy appears to see itself as the guardian of China’s ever-expanding economic interests. These range from supporting the country’s sovereignty claims (for example, its insistence on seeing most of the South China Sea as an exclusive economic zone) to protecting the huge weight of Chinese shipping, preserving the country’s access to energy and raw materials supplies, and safeguarding the soaring numbers of Chinese citizens who work abroad (about 5m today, but expected to rise to 100m by 2020). The navy’s growing fleet of powerful destroyers, stealthy frigates and guided-missile-carrying catamarans enables it to carry out extended “green water” operations (ie, regional, not just coastal tasks). It is also developing longer-range “blue water” capabilities. In early 2009 the navy began anti-piracy patrols off the Gulf of Aden with three ships. Last year, one of those vessels was sent to the Mediterranean to assist in evacuating 35,000 Chinese workers from Libya—an impressive logistical exercise carried out with the Chinese air force.

海军把自己视为中国不断扩张的经济利益的保护伞，从支持国家领土诉求（比如说视南海的绝大部分为中国专属经济区），到保护中国的庞大海上运输，维护中国的能源与原材料进口，保护与日俱增的中国海外公民安全（现在只有500万，但是预计到2020年将增至1亿）。由不断增加的强大驱逐舰，隐身护卫舰，以及导弹双体船组成的舰队，使得中国海军可以执行“绿水”（即区域性，而不仅仅是岸防）任务。海军也在发展长距离“蓝水”能力。在2009年初，海军的三艘舰艇开始在亚丁湾执行反海盗巡逻任务。去年，这些舰艇中的一艘被派入地中海辅助疏散在利比亚的35000中国工人——这一疏散行动是对中国空军运输能力的一次精彩演习。



经济学人4月7日刊

原文链接：http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

cd上有人发过这期专题的另外一篇文章 China's Military Rise: Asia's Balance of Power

http://lt.cjdby.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1364856

好久没写过中文文章了，翻译尽量信与达，雅是谈不上了。睡前两小时翻译的，估计有不少错别字。。。大家先将就看。

我的感觉这篇文章基本可以代表西方，尤其是英国媒体对中国的视角，某些地方旁征博引，展现自己的专业journalism，同时夹杂着根深蒂固的偏见，春秋笔法甚至是直接罔顾事实。BBC的稿件经常也是这样。

尽管如此，经济学人毕竟是英国知识分子读物的代表作，这篇文章还是能在很大程度上，以一定的系统性反映英国知识分子以他们自以为的客观角度对中国军事建设的看法。

经济学人网站上的评论我粗略看了下，大笔免费自带干粮五毛。。。等我睡醒了找几个most recommonded翻译一下。



China’s military rise
中国的军事崛起
The dragon’s new teeth
中国龙的新牙               
A rare look inside the world’s biggest military expansion
对世界上最大规模军备扩张的一次罕见的深入调查

AT A meeting of South-East Asian nations in 2010, China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi, facing a barrage of complaints about his country’s behaviour in the region, blurted out the sort of thing polite leaders usually prefer to leave unsaid. “China is a big country,” he pointed out, “and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.” Indeed it is, and China is big not merely in terms of territory and population, but also military might. Its Communist Party is presiding over the world’s largest military build-up. And that is just a fact, too—one which the rest of the world is having to come to terms with.

在一次2010年与东盟国家的会议上，中国外交部长杨洁篪面对一片对中国在东南亚行为的指责，说了句政治家们通常不会直接说出来的大实话：“中国是个大国，东南亚其他国家都是小国，这是事实。”确实，中国，不仅仅是人口大国，疆域大国，同时也是一个军事大国。中国共产党指挥着世界上最大规模的军备建设。这，也是个事实，而整个世界都必须适应这一事实。

That China is rapidly modernising its armed forces is not in doubt, though there is disagreement about what the true spending figure is. China’s defence budget has almost certainly experienced double digit growth for two decades. According to SIPRI, a research institute, annual defence spending rose from over $30 billion in 2000 to almost $120 billion in 2010. SIPRI usually adds about 50% to the official figure that China gives for its defence spending, because even basic military items such as research and development are kept off budget. Including those items would imply total military spending in 2012, based on the latest announcement from Beijing, will be around $160 billion. America still spends four-and-a-half times as much on defence, but on present trends China’s defence spending could overtake America’s after 2035 (see chart).

毫无疑问的，中国在迅速地实施军备现代化。当然对于具体的支出数字一直仍有争议。中国的国防预算在过去20年间基本保持了两位数的增长率，根据SIPRI(就是那个说中国军事技术落后美国20年的)的数字，中国军事开支从2000年的300亿美元上升到2010年的将近1200亿。SIPRI认为实际数字通常是官方数字的150%，因为一些基本支出，比如武器装备的研发，都没有列入官方预算。如果包括这些项目，在2012年中国的军事支出应该接近1600亿美元。美国现在的支出仍然是中国的4.5倍，但是按现在的趋势，中国防务支出会在2035年超过美国。

All that money is changing what the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can do. Twenty years ago, China’s military might lay primarily in the enormous numbers of people under arms; their main task was to fight an enemy face-to-face or occupy territory. The PLA is still the largest army in the world, with an active force of 2.3m. But China’s real military strength increasingly lies elsewhere. The Pentagon’s planners think China is intent on acquiring what is called in the jargon A2/AD, or “anti-access/area denial” capabilities. The idea is to use pinpoint ground attack and anti-ship missiles, a growing fleet of modern submarines and cyber and anti-satellite weapons to destroy or disable another nation’s military assets from afar.

这些经费正在大幅提升中国人民解放军的能力。20年前，中国的军事实力可能主要依赖人数优势。他们的主要任务仍然是面对面的对抗敌人或者占领土地。中国人民解放军仍然是世界上规模最大的军队，现役人员230万，但是中国真正的军事实力逐渐依赖于其他方面。五角大楼的参谋们认为中国着力于取得A2/AD，即反介入/区域隔断能力。其构想是利用精确地面打击，反舰导弹，不断扩张的潜艇舰队，网络战，反卫星武器，在远程摧毁或者使敌方的军备失能。

In the western Pacific, that would mean targeting or putting in jeopardy America’s aircraft-carrier groups and its air-force bases in Okinawa, South Korea and even Guam. The aim would be to render American power projection in Asia riskier and more costly, so that America’s allies would no longer be able to rely on it to deter aggression or to combat subtler forms of coercion. It would also enable China to carry out its repeated threat to take over Taiwan if the island were ever to declare formal independence.

具体到西太平洋，这就意味着以摧毁或破坏美军航母战斗群，以及在冲绳，南朝鲜，关岛的空军基地为目标。其目的是使美国在亚洲的力量投放更加的昂贵且有风险，这样美国的盟国就无法依靠美军的力量来吓阻进攻性行为或者抵御恐吓/讹诈。这样一旦台湾独立，中国就有能力实施他一贯以来武统台湾的威胁。

China’s military build-up is ringing alarm bells in Asia and has already caused a pivot in America’s defence policy. The new “strategic guidance” issued in January by Barack Obama and his defence secretary, Leon Panetta, confirmed what everyone in Washington already knew: that a switch in priorities towards Asia was overdue and under way. The document says that “While the US military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific region.” America is planning roughly $500 billion of cuts in planned defence spending over the next ten years. But, says the document, “to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged.”

中国的军备建设已经在亚洲范围内引起警戒，并导致了美军防御政策的调整。Obama一月份发表的战略指南确认了华盛顿人尽皆知的事情：把战略重点转向亚洲早已应该实行，而且正在进行中。这份文件声称：“虽然美国军队会一直致力于全球安全，我们会根据需要，向亚洲倾斜。”美国在未来10年内，计划削减5000亿美元的港务开支，但是根据这份文件：“为了有效遏止潜在敌人，防止他们达到他们的战略目的，在介入和行动能力受到挑战的区域，美国必须保留投放军力的能力。”

It is pretty obvious what that means. Distracted by campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, America has neglected the most economically dynamic region of the world. In particular, it has responded inadequately to China’s growing military power and political assertiveness. According to senior American diplomats, China has the ambition—and increasingly the power—to become a regional hegemon; it is engaged in a determined effort to lock America out of a region that has been declared a vital security interest by every administration since Teddy Roosevelt’s; and it is pulling countries in South-East Asia into its orbit of influence “by default”. America has to respond. As an early sign of that response, Mr Obama announced in November 2011 that 2,500 US Marines would soon be stationed in Australia. Talks about an increased American military presence in the Philippines began in February this year.

这句话的指向十分明显。受到伊拉克和阿富汗两场战争的干扰，美国忽视了世界上经济最有活力的区域。尤其是，美国对于中国的军力扩张，以及政治上的逐渐自信反应不够充分。根据美国资深外交家们，中国有雄心，而且逐渐有能力成为区域霸权。中国坚定的致力于将美国排除在亚洲之外，而自从Teddy罗斯福以来历任美国政府都宣称，这一区域事关美国安全的核心利益。中国也正在把东南亚国家拖入他的默认势力范围。美国必须做出反应。作为这一回应的前期信号，奥巴马 2011年11月宣布将在澳大利亚驻扎2500名美军海军陆战队。今年2月份，双方开始对在菲律宾增加驻军展开谈判。

The uncertainty principle
不确定原则
China worries the rest of the world not only because of the scale of its military build-up, but also because of the lack of information about how it might use its new forces and even who is really in charge of them. The American strategic-guidance document spells out the concern. “The growth of China’s military power”, it says, “must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region.”

中国使世界其他国家感到忧虑，不只是因为他的军备扩张规模庞大，同时也是因为在他如何使用这些军力，甚至于到底是谁控制这些力量方面缺乏信息。美国战略指南明确的提出了这一顾虑：“随着中国军力的增长，中国的战略意图也必须更加透明，这样才能在区域中避免摩擦。”

Officially, China is committed to what it called, in the words of an old slogan, a “peaceful rise”. Its foreign-policy experts stress their commitment to a rules-based multipolar world. They shake their heads in disbelief at suggestions that China sees itself as a “near peer” military competitor with America.

官方上，中国致力于其宣称的和平崛起。他的外交专家们强调中国致力于一个建立在规则上的多级世界。听到中国认为自己已经在军力上与美国接近对等这一说法，他们都纷纷摇头，表示不能接受。

In the South and East China Seas, though, things look different. In the past 18 months, there have been clashes between Chinese vessels and ships from Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines over territorial rights in the resource-rich waters. A pugnacious editorial in the state-run Global Times last October gave warning: “If these countries don’t want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sounds of cannons. We need to be ready for that, as it may be the only way for the disputes in the sea to be resolved.” This was not a government pronouncement, but it seems the censors permit plenty of press freedom when it comes to blowing off nationalistic steam.

在南海与东海，事情看上去则有些不同。在过去的18个月里面，中国的船只与日本，越南，南朝鲜，菲律宾在这片资源丰富的海域上发生过领土争端。官方的环球时报在去年10月发表了一篇措辞强硬的社论，声称：“如果这些国家不改变与中国打交道的方式，他们最好准备听到炮声。我们需要为此准备，因为这可能是解决这片海域争端的唯一方式。”这并不是一份官方声明，但是看起来官方的审查在宣扬民族主义方面给报社很大的出版自由。

Smooth-talking foreign-ministry officials may cringe with embarrassment at Global Times—China’s equivalent of Fox News—but its views are not so far removed from the gung-ho leadership of the rapidly expanding navy. Moreover, in a statement of doctrine published in 2005, the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy did not mince its words. Although “active defence is the essential feature of China’s military strategy,” it said, if “an enemy offends our national interests it means that the enemy has already fired the first shot,” in which case the PLA’s mission is “to do all we can to dominate the enemy by striking first”.

说好话的外交部官员可能觉得环球时报的说法让他们很尴尬--环球时报就是中国版的Fox News(美国右派大本营)。但是环球与快速发展的人民海军的热切的领导层之间并没有太大的分歧。在一份2005年发表的纲领性文件中，人民解放军的军事战略学说并没有含糊其辞：“尽管主动防御是中国军事战略的核心，但如果敌人损害了我们的国家利益，那意味着敌人已经开了第一枪，这时人民解放军的任务就是尽一切能力，先发制人，战胜敌人。”

Making things more alarming is a lack of transparency over who really controls the guns and ships. China is unique among great powers in that the PLA is not formally part of the state. It is responsible to the Communist Party, and is run by the party’s Central Military Commission, not the ministry of defence. Although party and government are obviously very close in China, the party is even more opaque, which complicates outsiders’ understanding of where the PLA’s loyalties and priorities lie. A better military-to-military relationship between America and China would cast some light into this dark corner. But the PLA often suspends “mil-mil” relations as a “punishment” whenever tension rises with America over Taiwan. The PLA is also paranoid about what America might gain if the relationship between the two countries’ armed forces went deeper.

让事情更值得警惕的是，在到底是谁控制这些军备方面缺乏透明度。中国人民解放军在名义上并不是国家的一部分，人民解放军对党负责，由党的中央军委管理，而不是国防部。在这一点上，中国与其他大国都不同。尽管中国的党和政府很明显非常接近，党组织更加的令人捉摸不透。这样就使得外部人士很难确定人民解放军到底效忠于谁，任务为何。中美之间更好的军队间关系可以加深外界对这一方面的了解，但在中美两方就台湾问题产生分歧的时候，人民解放军经常中止军方间往来，以此作为对美方的“惩罚”。人民解放军也十分担心如果军队间关系深入的话，美国能从这一关系中得到什么。

The upshot of these various uncertainties is that even if outsiders believe that China’s intentions are largely benign—and it is clear that some of them do not—they can hardly make plans based on that assumption alone. As the influential American think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) points out, the intentions of an authoritarian regime can change very quickly. The nature and size of the capabilities that China has built up also count.

这些不确定性的结果，就是即使外界人士相信中国的出发点大体是人畜无害的—很明显有些方面并不是—他们也并不能单独基于这一假设而进行规划。正像美国一个很有影响的智库，战略与预算研究中心所指出的，专制国家的意图可以很快改变，中国军力发展的性质与规模也要加以考虑。（什么叫原罪，你说你人畜无害不好使，你有能力，你就有害）

History boys
一点历史

The build-up has gone in fits and starts. It began in the early 1950s when the Soviet Union was China’s most important ally and arms supplier, but abruptly ceased when Mao Zedong launched his decade-long Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s. The two countries came close to war over their disputed border and China carried out its first nuclear test. The second phase of modernisation began in the 1980s, under Deng Xiaoping. Deng was seeking to reform the whole country and the army was no exception. But he told the PLA that his priority was the economy; the generals must be patient and live within a budget of less than 1.5% of GDP.

中国军力建设有起有落。这一进程始于1950年代早期，当时苏联是中国最重要的盟友，也是最大的军火供应商。这一关系在1960年代中期戛然而止，当时毛泽东发动了长达10年的文革（典型逻辑混乱）。这两个国家由于边界纠纷险些开战，而后中国进行了第一次核试验。第二阶段的军事现代化始于1980年代，在邓小平的指挥下。邓小平试图改革整个国家，军队当然也不能例外。但是他告诉军队，经济优先，军队必须要耐心，忍耐，靠着不到1.5%GDP的预算过日子。

A third phase began in the early 1990s. Shaken by the destructive impact of the West’s high-tech weaponry on the Iraqi army, the PLA realised that its huge ground forces were militarily obsolete. PLA scholars at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing began learning all they could from American think-tanks about the so-called “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), a change in strategy and weaponry made possible by exponentially greater computer-processing power. In a meeting with The Economist at the Academy, General Chen Zhou, the main author of the four most recent defence white papers, said: “We studied RMA exhaustively. Our great hero was Andy Marshall in the Pentagon [the powerful head of the Office of Net Assessment who was known as the Pentagon’s futurist-in-chief]. We translated every word he wrote.”

第三阶段始于1990年代早期。目睹了西方高技术武器在伊拉克的杀伤力，人民解放军意识到他的大规模地面部队已经过时。军事科技研究院的解放军学者们开始尽全力从美国学习“新军事变革”，即由大幅提升的计算能力带来的战略与武器方面的革新。在与《经济学人》在国防大学的一次会面中，最近4份中国国防白皮书的作者，陈舟将军说：“我们深入，彻底的研究了新军事变革，五角大楼的Andy Marshall是我们的大英雄（此人是自尼克松时代以来“基本评估办公室”的主任，被认为是五角大楼的愿景设计师（Futurist-in-chief太不好翻了）），我们翻译了他写的每一个字。”

In 1993 the general-secretary of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, put RMA at the heart of China’s military strategy. Now, the PLA had to turn itself into a force capable of winning what the strategy called “local wars under high-tech conditions”. Campaigns would be short, decisive and limited in geographic scope and political goals. The big investments would henceforth go to the air force, the navy and the Second Artillery Force, which operates China’s nuclear and conventionally armed missiles.

在1993年，时任中国中央总书记江泽民把新军事变革放在了中国军事战略的核心位置。现在，人民解放军已经转型成为了一支有能力打赢“高技术条件下的局部战争”的力量。这样的冲突短暂，有决定性意义，在地缘政治和政治目标上都是有限度的。有鉴于此，投资的主要部分流向空军，海军，以及负责中国战略与常规导弹的第二炮兵。

Further shifts came in 2002 and 2004. High-tech weapons on their own were not enough; what mattered was the ability to knit everything together on the battlefield through what the Chinese called “informatisation” and what is known in the West as “unified C4ISR”. (The four Cs are command, control, communications, and computers; ISR stands for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; the Pentagon loves its abbreviations).

在2002和2004年，改革进一步深化。高技术武器本身已经不够了，至关重要的是把这些装备整合的能力，中国称之为“信息化”，而西方称为“统一C4ISR”(4个C是命令，控制，通信，计算机，ISR是情报，监视与侦查；五角大楼最喜欢缩写了。。。)

General Chen describes the period up to 2010 as “laying the foundations of modernised forces”. The next decade should see the roll-out of what is called mechanisation (the deployment of advanced military platforms) and informatisation (bringing them together as a network). The two processes should be completed in terms of equipment, integration and training by 2020. But General Chen reckons China will not achieve full informatisation until well after that. “A major difficulty”, he says, “is that we are still only partially mechanised. We do not always know how to make our investments when technology is both overlapping and leapfrogging.” Whereas the West was able to accomplish its military transformation by taking the two processes in sequence, China is trying to do both together. Still, that has not slowed down big investments which are designed to defeat even technologically advanced foes by making “the best use of our strong points to attack the enemy’s weak points”. In 2010 the CSBA identified the essential military components that China, on current trends, will be able to deploy within ten years. Among them: satellites and reconnaissance drones; thousands of surface-to-surface and anti-ship missiles; more than 60 stealthy conventional submarines and at least six nuclear attack submarines; stealthy manned and unmanned combat aircraft; and space and cyber warfare capabilities. In addition, the navy has to decide whether to make the (extremely expensive) transition to a force dominated by aircraft-carriers, like America. Aircraft-carriers would be an unmistakable declaration of an ambition eventually to project power far from home. Deploying them would also match the expected actions of Japan and India in the near future. China may well have three small carriers within five to ten years, though military analysts think it would take much longer for the Chinese to learn how to use them well.

陈将军把2010年之前这段称为“为现代化军队打基础”。而后的十年将有“机械化”与“信息化”同步推行。两个进程在装备，整合，训练方面应该在2020年之前完成。但是陈将军认为中国在此之后很久仍不会完全实现信息化。“一个重要难点”，他说，“是我们现在仍然仅仅是部分机械化。在技术既有交叠，又有跳跃的情况下，我们很难决定如何投资。”西方可以先机械化，后信息化，从而完成军事转型。中国则要尝试同时进行两个进程。而这并没有减慢中国在“集中己方优势，攻击敌方弱点”，从而击败技术更加先进敌手的能力上面大笔投入。在2010年，战略与预算研究中心按照当前发展趋势，指明了中国在未来10年能够部署的核心军事装备：卫星与侦查无人机，数以千计的地对地以及反舰导弹，超过60艘静音常规潜艇以及至少6艘核动力攻击潜艇，隐形作战飞机（有人与无人），太空战与网络战能力。除此之外，海军还要决定是否转型成为极端昂贵的类似于美国的以航空母舰为核心的力量。航空母舰是明白无误的志在远程投放力量的宣言。发展航母也与未来日本与印度的预期行动相匹配（可能是说两国也意在航母，话说的比较含糊）。在未来5到10年内，中国很可能拥有3艘小型航母（瓦良格也small了，皇家方舟那号的难道直接就是玩具么），但是军事分析家认为中国学会用好航母要用长的多的时间。

A new gunboat diplomacy
新炮舰外交

This promises to be a formidable array of assets. They are, for the most part, “asymmetric”, that is, designed not to match American military power in the western Pacific directly but rather to exploit its vulnerabilities. So, how might they be used?

这些将是令人生畏的一系列装备。它们的大部分，是“不对称”的，就是说它们并不是设计用来与美国军力在西太平洋正面对抗，而是针对其薄弱环节。那么，它们可能在什么情况下上场呢？

Taiwan is the main spur for China’s military modernisation. In 1996 America reacted to Chinese ballistic-missile tests carried out near Taiwanese ports by sending two aircraft-carrier groups into the Taiwan Strait. Since 2002 China’s strategy has been largely built around the possibility of a cross-Strait armed conflict in which China’s forces would not only have to overcome opposition from Taiwan but also to deter, delay or defeat an American attempt to intervene. According to recent reports by CSBA and RAND, another American think-tank, China is well on its way to having the means, by 2020, to deter American aircraft-carriers and aircraft from operating within what is known as the “first island chain”—a perimeter running from the Aleutians in the north to Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo (see map).

台湾是中国军事现代化的主要推动。在1996年，针对中国在台湾港口附近的导弹演习，美国派出两个航母战斗群进入台湾海峡。从2002年起，中国的战略很大程度上就是围绕着海峡冲突设计的。在这冲突中，中国的军队不止要面对台湾的抵抗，还要干扰，延缓，直至于击败美国的干预企图。根据最新的CSBA和兰德的报告，在2020年前，中国将有有效遏阻美军航母在第一岛链内行动的能力。

In 2005 China passed the Taiwan Anti-Secession Law, which commits it to a military response should Taiwan ever declare independence or even if the government in Beijing thinks all possibility of peaceful unification has been lost. Jia Xiudong of the China Institute of International Studies (the foreign ministry’s main think-tank) says: “The first priority is Taiwan. The mainland is patient, but independence is not the future for Taiwan. China’s military forces should be ready to repel any force of intervention. The US likes to maintain what it calls ‘strategic ambiguity’ over what it would do in the event of a conflict arising from secession. We don’t have any ambiguity. We will use whatever means we have to prevent it happening.”

在2005年中国通过了反分裂法，明确支出一旦台湾宣布独立，甚至于北京认为一切和平统一的路都已经走不通，中国将以军事手段应对。中国国际关系研究所的贾秀东说：“台湾问题是第一要务，大陆是有耐心的，但是台湾独立是没有前途的。中国的军事力量应该准备好反抗任何外部干预。在一旦冲突发生，做何反应方面，美国喜欢保持“战略模糊”，我们则没有任何好模糊的，我们会用一切手段阻止台湾独立。”

If Taiwan policy has been the immediate focus of China’s military planning, the sheer breadth of capabilities the country is acquiring gives it other options—and temptations. In 2004 Hu Jintao, China’s president, said the PLA should be able to undertake “new historic missions”. Some of these involve UN peacekeeping. In recent years China has been the biggest contributor of peacekeeping troops among the permanent five members of the Security Council. But the responsibility for most of these new missions has fallen on the navy. In addition to its primary job of denying China’s enemies access to sea lanes, it is increasingly being asked to project power in the neighbourhood and farther afield.

如果说台湾政策是中国军事规划的直接焦点，中国所取得的军事能力范围之广，之深，使得中国有了更多的选项，也充满诱惑。在2004，中国国家主席胡锦涛说中国人民解放军要有能力履行“新的历史使命”。其中之一是联合国维和行动。在最近几年中，中国是5常之中对于维和人员贡献最多的。但是这些新的历史使命很大程度落在了海军的肩上。在其主要任务，保卫中国海疆之外，中国海军还越来越多的被要求在近邻与远海投放力量。

The navy appears to see itself as the guardian of China’s ever-expanding economic interests. These range from supporting the country’s sovereignty claims (for example, its insistence on seeing most of the South China Sea as an exclusive economic zone) to protecting the huge weight of Chinese shipping, preserving the country’s access to energy and raw materials supplies, and safeguarding the soaring numbers of Chinese citizens who work abroad (about 5m today, but expected to rise to 100m by 2020). The navy’s growing fleet of powerful destroyers, stealthy frigates and guided-missile-carrying catamarans enables it to carry out extended “green water” operations (ie, regional, not just coastal tasks). It is also developing longer-range “blue water” capabilities. In early 2009 the navy began anti-piracy patrols off the Gulf of Aden with three ships. Last year, one of those vessels was sent to the Mediterranean to assist in evacuating 35,000 Chinese workers from Libya—an impressive logistical exercise carried out with the Chinese air force.

海军把自己视为中国不断扩张的经济利益的保护伞，从支持国家领土诉求（比如说视南海的绝大部分为中国专属经济区），到保护中国的庞大海上运输，维护中国的能源与原材料进口，保护与日俱增的中国海外公民安全（现在只有500万，但是预计到2020年将增至1亿）。由不断增加的强大驱逐舰，隐身护卫舰，以及导弹双体船组成的舰队，使得中国海军可以执行“绿水”（即区域性，而不仅仅是岸防）任务。海军也在发展长距离“蓝水”能力。在2009年初，海军的三艘舰艇开始在亚丁湾执行反海盗巡逻任务。去年，这些舰艇中的一艘被派入地中海辅助疏散在利比亚的35000中国工人——这一疏散行动是对中国空军运输能力的一次精彩演习。