刘强东与中国镀金时代的“摇滚明星” | 时报专栏
京东创始人刘强东一直以来很受中国媒体的关注。他最近在明尼苏达州被捕加强了这一点。 SIM CHI YIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
（本文刊登于时报科技专栏“新新世界”，作者是袁莉。该专栏旨在通过科技视角看待现代中国的纷繁复杂。你可以在时报中文网阅读该专栏更多文章。）
Richard Liu, the Chinese technology executive arrested in the United States on suspicion of sexual misconduct, has returned to China — where he is the No. 1 topic of conversation.
由于涉嫌性行为不端在美国被捕的中国科技企业高管刘强东已经回到中国，眼下他是那里的头号话题。
Chinese news outlets and social media users were consumed on Monday by details of Mr. Liu’s arrest. His mug shot, taken by law enforcement officials in Minnesota, was everywhere online. Chinese netizens speculated about how his wife — a celebrity in her own right, known as Sister Milk Tea — might respond, and parsed unfamiliar legal terms.
周一，中国新闻媒体和社交媒体用户都在关注刘强东被捕的细节。他被明尼苏达州执法官员拍下的嫌犯大头照在网上到处都是。中国网民猜测他的妻子——她也是名人，被称为奶茶妹妹——会做出怎样的回应，他们还详细分析那些陌生的法律条款。
The intense reactions to Mr. Liu’s legal troubles reflect the public’s fascination with China’s self-made tech tycoons, who have become symbols of the country’s rise as a global power and its upward social mobility. Their books are best sellers. Their private lives are tabloid fodder. Their speeches on success and entrepreneurship are perpetually running on TV screens at airports.
对刘强东陷入法律麻烦的强烈反应，说明了公众对本土白手起家的科技巨头的迷恋，他们已成为中国崛起为全球大国，以及中国社会地位向上流动的象征。他们的书成了畅销书。他们的私人生活成了小报的素材。他们关于成功和创业的演讲在机场的电视屏幕上滚动播出。
In effect, they are the rock stars of China’s Gilded Age, and Mr. Liu is one of the brightest. His company, JD.com, courts the country’s growing middle class with quality brand products instead of the shoddy copycats that are common on the Chinese internet. Today, its shares trade on the Nasdaq at a market value of about $50 billion.
事实上，他们是中国镀金时代的摇滚明星，刘强东是他们当中最聪明的之一。他的公司京东用优质的品牌产品来讨好这个国家不断壮大的中产阶级，而不是出售中国互联网上常见的假冒伪劣产品。如今，京东的股票在纳斯达克交易，市值约为500亿美元。
On Friday, Mr. Liu — whose Chinese name is Liu Qiangdong but who goes by Richard in the English-speaking world — was arrested over allegations of sexual misconduct. Police officials in Minneapolis said they were treating the case as an active investigation. In Minnesota, the term “criminal sexual conduct” covers a range of nonconsensual sexual contact.
上周五，刘强东——英文名理查德(Richard)——因涉嫌性行为不端而被捕。明尼阿波利斯的警方表示，他们正在积极调查此案。在明尼苏达州，“刑事性行为”一词包括一系列非合意性接触。
JD.com has maintained that Mr. Liu was falsely accused, and on Monday said he had been released without being charged and without having to post bail. The executive has hired lawyers but has returned to work in China, the company said, without saying when he arrived in the country.
京东一直声称，刘强东受到不实指控，并且于周一表示，他已被释放，没有被起诉，而且不需要保释。该公司称，这位高管聘请了律师，但已经回到中国工作，不过没有说他的回国时间。
John Elder, a spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department, said Monday that the investigation was “really in its infancy.”
明尼阿波利斯警察局发言人约翰·埃尔德(John Elder)于周一表示，调查“确实处在起步阶段”。
“We are trying to ensure his rights while respecting the rights of the person who made the complaint,” he said of Mr. Liu. Mr. Elder said the police had no legal authority to keep Mr. Liu from leaving the country as the investigation continued, but he expressed a “very strong belief we will be able to connect with him later.”
“我们努力确保他的权利，同时尊重申诉者的权利，”他谈起刘强东一案时说。埃尔德还表示，随着调查继续，警方没有合法权力让刘强东不能离开美国，但他表示“坚信我们以后能和他联系上”。
Chinese internet users have obsessed over the minutiae of the case, many of them getting a crash course in the American legal system in the process.
中国互联网用户痴迷于案件的各种细枝末节，很多人在这个过程中上了一堂美国法律体系的速成课。
“This photo of Liu Qiangdong is called a mug shot,” a blogger and journalist who goes by the name Michael Anti wrote on WeChat, the ubiquitous Chinese messaging and social media platform. He went on to explain that mug shots were considered public information in the United States, and can be released to the media.
“刘强东的这个照片叫mug shot，一位名叫安替的博主和记者在微信上写道，微信是一个无处不在的中文短信和社交媒体平台。他还解释说，在美国，嫌犯大头照被认为是公共信息，可以向媒体发布。
Descriptions of “probable cause” and “released pending complaint” were also widespread. There were even photographs and audio recordings of Mr. Elder.
对此案有“合理根据”和“取保等候正式起诉”的描述也广泛流传开来。甚至还有埃尔德的照片和录音。
Others speculated over Mr. Liu’s marriage to Zhang Zetian, who rose to fame as a student when a photo of her holding a cup of milk tea was widely shared on social media. Nicknamed “Sister Milk Tea,” Ms. Zhang met Mr. Liu while she was studying in the United States, and they married in 2015. The couple have been both praised and criticized in China for cataloging online the intimate details of their lives, including their wedding and Ms. Zhang’s pregnancy.
还有人对刘强东与章泽天的婚姻做出猜测，后者在学生时代成名，她有一张拿着奶茶的照片在社交媒体上广为流传，绰号“奶茶妹妹”。章泽天在美国留学期间遇到了刘强东，他们于2015年结婚。这对夫妇在网上分享日常生活中的私密细节，包括他们的婚礼和章泽天的怀孕，因此在中国既受到称赞，也受到批评。
Mr. Liu’s arrest also prompted derision. In a previous video interview, he had insisted he had not married Ms. Zhang for her looks. “I am face blind,” he said. “I can’t tell who is pretty and who is not.”
刘强东的被捕也引发了嘲笑。在之前的一次视频采访中，他坚称自己和章泽天结婚不是因为她的外表。“我这人脸盲，”他说。“就是说根本分不清楚谁漂亮不漂亮。”
Referring to those remarks, one online user joked, “Maybe he mistook the other woman as Sister Milk Tea. He is face blind, after all.”
一名网友开玩笑时谈到这些言论，“也许他把另一个女人当成了奶茶妹妹。他毕竟脸盲。”
Beyond online comments, the case also put a spotlight on JD.com’s fierce rivalry with the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and in particular the clash of personalities between the companies’ founders.
除了网上的评论，这个案子也让人们关注到京东与中国电商巨头阿里巴巴的激烈竞争，尤其是两家公司创始人之间的个性冲突。
If the most intense reality show in the United States is national politics, business feuds take top billing in China. The workings of the government are carried out in a black box, off limits to media scrutiny and public discussion, but antagonism in the business world is carried out in the open. Among the business tycoons, the heads of China’s internet companies are the hottest stars, the leaders of JD.com and Alibaba chief among them.
如果说美国最激烈的真人秀是国家政治，那么商场上的不和在中国则是最热门的话题。政府的运作是在黑箱中进行的，不允许媒体审查和公众讨论，但商界的敌对情绪是公开的。在商业大亨中，中国互联网企业的掌门人是最炙手可热的明星，其中包括京东和阿里巴巴的掌门人。
Where Mr. Liu is like an aggressive boxer — a straight talker and a formidable disciplinarian — Alibaba’s executive chairman, Jack Ma, is more of a tai chi master, skillful at gentle maneuvering. Even before his arrest in Minnesota, Mr. Liu was in the news a lot with a colorful private life and blunt speaking style.
刘强东就像一个好斗的拳击手——一个直言不讳、厉行纪律的人；阿里巴巴董事局主席马云更像是一个太极大师，擅长温和的策略。早在他于明尼苏达州被捕之前，刘强东就因其丰富多彩的私人生活和直言不讳的讲话方式而成为新闻人物。
In July, a judge in Australia rejected his request to prevent the release of his name in connection with a case in which a sexual assault was said to have taken place after a 2015 party at his Sydney penthouse. That case has not generated as much online attention as the recent arrest, largely because Mr. Liu was not charged with a crime or accused of any wrongdoing. Still, at the time, JD.com reposted a lawyer’s statement on Chinese social media platforms that aimed to quell any rumors tied to the Sydney case.
今年7月，澳大利亚一名法官驳回了刘强东的请求，他申请在一起性侵案件中不公布他的名字，这起案件据称发生在2015年刘强东在他悉尼顶层豪华公寓举办的一个派对之后。此案在网上引起的关注没有最近的逮捕那么多，主要是因为刘强东当时没有被控犯罪或任何不当行为。不过，当时京东在中国社交媒体平台上转发了一份律师声明，来平息与悉尼案件有关的任何谣言。
Born in a poor part of the eastern province of Jiangsu, Mr. Liu has made much of his Everyman credentials. Able to afford meat only once or twice a year, his family typically ate sweet potatoes and corn as dinner staples. Until recently, he would put on a helmet and JD.com’s red uniform to make deliveries on a three-wheeled electric bike. He calls the 100,000-odd deliverymen who work for JD.com his “brothers,” and often trumpets how much better they are paid than those employed by competitors.
刘强东出生在中国东部省份江苏的一个贫困地区，爱强调自己的“普通人”身份。他的家人一年只能吃一两次肉，平时只有红薯和玉米可吃。直到最近，他还会戴上头盔，穿上京东的红色制服，骑着电动三轮车送货。他把为京东工作的10万多名快递员称为自己的兄弟，并经常吹嘘他们的薪酬比被竞争对手雇佣的快递员高得多。
As it has grown, JD.com has become a serious competitor to Alibaba and, increasingly in recent years, the two are going head to head, vying for the attentions of growing numbers of affluent online shoppers in China.
随着京东的发展，它已成为阿里巴巴的一个重要竞争对手。近年来，双方的正面交锋越来越激烈，争夺中国越来越多富裕在线购物者的关注。
Both companies have tried to lure popular brands to open virtual stores on their sales platform, a battle playing out most aggressively in fashion, traditionally Alibaba’s stronghold. Mr. Ma’s company scored a major victory in 2015 when Uniqlo, the Japanese casual wear company, quit JD.com to sell its wares on Alibaba’s platform. Last year, a group of apparel merchants also made the jump, a move that JD.com’s chief financial officer said on a recent earnings call that the company was still recovering from. (Alibaba has denied it pressured any brands into exclusive arrangements.)
这两家公司都试图吸引流行品牌在其销售平台上开设网店，这场争斗在时尚界展开得最为激烈——传统上这一块是阿里巴巴的大本营。2015年，日本休闲服饰品牌优衣库(Uniqlo)退出京东，加入阿里巴巴的销售平台，马云的公司取得了重大胜利。去年，一批服装商家也从京东跳到淘宝。京东首席财务官在最近的财报电话会议上表示，该公司仍在从此事中恢复。（阿里巴巴否认曾向任何品牌施压来签订排他协议。）
There is no love lost between the two men, either. Mr. Ma famously once said that JD.com would eventually end as a “tragedy,” because its business model was excessively labor and capital intensive. Mr. Liu, for his part, has accused Alibaba of not doing enough to fight fakes on its platform, a charge Mr. Ma has denied.
马云和刘强东并不喜欢对方。众所周知，马云曾说京东将来会成为“悲剧”，因为它的商业模式过于劳动和资本密集型。刘强东则指责阿里巴巴在其平台上打击假货方面做得不够，马云对此予以否认。
It is little wonder, then, that many Chinese internet users responded to the news of Mr. Liu’s arrest by posting photographs of Mr. Ma laughing.
因此，许多中国网民以发布了马云大笑的照片来回应刘强东被捕的消息，也就不足为奇了。
作者：袁莉
Dave Philipps对本文有报道贡献。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
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