人物 | 金正恩的时代
Kim Jong-un: the tyrant’s son who wants to be loved and feared
It is possible to believe almost anything about Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s erratic, unpredictable and little-known leader. And people do. In line with the regime’s tradition of obsessive secrecy, firm facts about the 33-year-old who rules the world’s last Soviet-style totalitarian state are as rare as a Pyongyang apology.
怪异无常、鲜为人知的金正恩，任何事发生在他身上都不足为怪，人们的确也信以为真。他33岁就统治着世界上最后一个苏联式极权主义国家，考虑到这一政权讳莫如深的偏执传统，对他的确切所知和平壤政府做出道歉一样稀罕。
Thus one of the most chilling tales about Kim is also largely unsubstantiated: how the young dictator, having inherited power and determined to be his own man, deliberately set about eliminating the senior apparatchiks who had grown rich and powerful under the tutelage of his late father, .
最令人发指的故事也影影绰绰：这个年轻的独裁者承继大统并决心亲政，他设计清洗了高级干部，这些人在已故父亲金正日的庇护下财权双收。
As if unwitting actors in a devious, internecine plot from a Godfather movie, the pall-bearers who carried the elder Kim’s coffin during an elaborate state funeral ceremony in the capital in December 2011 have disappeared, died of unknown causes, or been purposefully eliminated, one by one, in the past five years.
殊不知他们就像教父电影中诡计多端、相互残杀的故事主角，在2011年12月首都举行的盛大国葬上给老金抬棺材的人在过去五年中，一个接一个消失了，或死因不明或被刻意清除。
One of them, Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, former mentor and reputedly the second most important official in the country, was denounced, publicly humiliated and .
金正恩的姑父、顾命大臣张成泽是其中之一，他曾高居国家二把手，2013年却被声讨，公开羞辱，并被处死。
State media condemned Jang as a “traitor to the nation for all ages” and “despicable human scum”. Chinese newspapers that he was stripped naked and thrown into a cage with 100 starving dogs. It now seems more likely that he was shot by firing squad.
国家媒体谴责张成泽是“通古今的民族叛徒”、“狗不如的人间渣滓”。中国报纸欢欣地报道他被剥光，扔进有100条恶狗的笼子里。现在看来，他更有可能被行刑队射杀。
Exactly what he had done wrong was never explained – except that perhaps, like , he was a holdover from the dead patriarch’s time and his presence was no longer congenial to the tyrant’s tyrannical successor. A defector to South Korea later said Jang’s wife, Kim’s aunt, was also .
他究竟做错了什么从来没有解释——可能除了像《教父》中的弗莱多-柯里昂尼一样，他是父权时代的遗老，他的存在对暴君的残暴继承者而言不再友善。叛逃韩国的一个人后来说张成泽的妻子、金正恩的姑姑也被处决。
Other pall-bearers met similarly unpleasant fates. Hyon Yong-chol, head of North Korea’s military, was by blasts from an anti-aircraft gun last year. The reason, again according to hearsay, was that he dozed off during one of Kim’s speeches.
其他抬棺者也遭遇相似的霉运。朝鲜军队领导人玄永哲据说被高射炮炸碎。原因仍然是传言，据说他在金正恩发言时打盹。
Kim Chol, a vice-minister in the army and a Jang associate, is said to have been forced to walk across a shooting range during a live-fire mortar exercise. He was, unsurprisingly, “obliterated”. Another supposed coup-plotter was incinerated with a flame-thrower.
军队的副部长、张成泽的同伙金哲据称被迫在一次迫击炮实弹演习中在射程中漫步。他毫不令人吃惊地被“彻底抹除了”。另外一个据称策划政变的人被火焰喷射器烧死了。
Such gruesome stories of expedience and vengeance have proliferated as fast as North Korea’s missile programmes during Kim’s five-year reign. They are complemented by rumours of his monstrous behaviour, lascivious sexual preferences, indulgence in drugs and alcohol, chain-smoking, bizarre illnesses, love of western rock music, and his unstable mental state.
金正恩当权五年间，这等残暴的权术和复仇故事，扩散得和朝鲜的导弹项目一样迅速。此外还有谣言说他行为骇人听闻，生活糜烂，沉迷烟酒毒，有怪疾，喜爱西方摇滚乐，精神状态不稳定。
In the Alice Through the Looking Glass world of Pyongyang, it is all but impossible to tell truth from fiction. Some tall tales may be wholly or partly true, others are almost certainly fabricated by the regime’s many enemies.
在平壤的“爱丽丝镜中游”的世界中，真真假假无法辨别。有些荒诞的故事可能确有其事，或者部分属实，其他则肯定是政权的众多敌人编造的。
But neither can such colourful accounts of life and death in modern North Korea be entirely discounted. Claims that Kim has repeatedly shown a ruthless, even homicidal, streak when dealing with perceived rivals have more than a germ of truth.
但对现代朝鲜这些生生死死的生动叙述却都不能完全忽视，宣称金正恩在处理其潜在的对手时反复表现出来的残酷甚至嗜杀的特性不只有几分真实。
They fit with his continuation of the regime’s systemic human rights abuses, its pitiless prison labour camp system including enslavement, forced abortions and systemic rape, its abductions and foreign hostage-taking, and its aggressive defiance of its neighbours.
这符合该政权持续、系统性践踏人权的历史，符合其无情的劳改营制度，包括奴役、强制堕胎和系统性强奸，此外还有诱拐、绑架外国人质以及对邻国进行挑衅。
According to the South Korean intelligence agency NIS, as of last year about 70 top officials have been purged and killed since 2011. It is an appalling record for a partly Swiss-educated, un-academic political neophyte who, in another life, and coming from a more normal family, might happily have spent his time eating too much fast food, playing computer games and cheering on his favourite.
韩国情报部门称，2011年到去年为止，约70名高级官员被清洗或处死。对于一个在瑞士受过教育、非学术性的政治新手而言，这是令人发指的纪录。和他相仿人，如果来自正常家庭的，可能仍在快乐地大吃快餐，玩电脑游戏，为最爱的篮球队加油。
Without slipping into psychological analysis, it seems plain that Kim’s need to establish himself as a worthy, and possibly superior, heir to his father and , North Korea’s “founding father”, Kim Il-sung, is key to his behaviour.
如果不搞什么心理学分析，很显然，金正恩要将自己打造成值得信赖、兴许更高明的父亲和爷爷（朝鲜国父金日成）的继承人，这是其理解其行为的关键。
Having been handed power unexpectedly early, Kim may have felt conflicting emotions: one, the urge to be as good or better than his unyielding taskmaster dad; the other, a crippling fear of failure, of being inadequate to the task. For five years Kim has been trying to prove himself. This weekend marks the culmination of that dangerous process.
他出乎意料地早登大宝，因此感情矛盾：打算和强硬的监工父亲干得一样好甚至更棒，还是因为惧怕失败而无法完成大业。五年来，金正恩想证明自己——这个周末标志着这一危险过程的高潮。
Proving Kim’s leadership and power, regional analysts say, is exactly what the rare – the first in 36 years – national Workers’ party congress in Pyongyang is principally about. The congress may, to a degree, be about economic reform, as signalled in advance.
地区问题分析者说，证明金正恩的领导力和权力正是本周五在平壤召开的劳动党大会的首要目的，大会相隔36年后才召开。
North Korea’s mainly agrarian economy is in a parlous state, famine is a recent memory, and the country’s financial indebtedness to its only real ally, China, is significant. Kim has talked about reform in the past, although his limited measures, such as allowing workers on collective farms to keep part of their harvest and giving autonomy to some state enterprises, have not amounted .
朝鲜以农业为主的经济摇摇欲坠，饥荒的记忆尚未远去，国家对唯一真正的盟友中国的财政债务高企。金正恩过去几年谈及改革，尽管措施有限，效果不大，例如允许集体农场的工人保留部分收成，给予一些国有企业以自主权。
The congress may also focus on expanding the public sphere in North Korean life, and supporting the needs and aspirations of the people, as pre-congress state media reports suggested.
会前国家媒体报道，大会还将研究扩大朝鲜人生活的公共范围，支持人民的需求和渴望。
But any hopes that Kim might inaugurate a Gorbachev-style period of perestroika and glasnost, or relax state controls after the manner of Deng Xiaoping, should be set aside. He has shown no interest in liberalisation.
但希望金正恩开启戈尔巴乔夫式的“改革”和“公开化”或仿效邓小平放松对国家的管制，这将空欢喜一场，他对自由化毫无兴趣。
More likely, the four-to-five day meeting will primarily be about cementing his unchallenged leadership role, and entrenching the personality cult in which he has cloaked himself like some kind of paunchy, latterday Superman.
四到五天的大会更有可能致力于夯实他无可挑战的领导地位，确立个人崇拜，他将自己包装成某种大腹便便的后期超人。
Insecure he may be, and vicious to boot, but it would be foolish to under-estimate Kim. This Kim is not his father, the much lampooned skinny figure in a badly-cut Mao suit with weird hair and a dose of gout. This Kim is not the satirised buffoon whose submarines sink and whose favourite dancing girls defect at the first opportunity.
尽管他摇摇欲坠，又很邪恶，可低估金正恩是愚蠢的。小金不是老金——那个屡被嘲讽的瘦子，穿一身不合身的毛主席装，发型怪异，患有痛风。小金不是受人嘲笑的小丑，他的潜水艇不会沉没，也不会让最喜欢的舞女一有机会就叛逃。
This third-generation Kim already holds the titles of supreme leader, first secretary of the party, chairman of the military commission and supreme commander of the army – but he wants even more. This Kim wants recognition, vindication and authentication.
金三代已经获得最高领导人的头衔——劳动党第一书记、军事委员会主席和军队最高司令，可他还想要更多。小金需要得到认可。
He wants to be loved and feared, all at the same time. This Kim, as Dear Leader redux, is intent on strutting his stuff before a captive nation and the entire world. This makes him a very dangerous young man indeed.
他希望人们对他既爱又怕。敬爱的领袖小金抱定决心在一个被迷住的民族和全世界面前大摇大摆，这让他成为非常危险的年轻人。
Kim has coined a word for his new era: byungjin, meaning the parallel development of the economy and nuclear weapons. If the experts are correct, he will elaborate this homespun philosophy before a necessarily adoring congress, confirming that it replaces his father’s songun (“military first”) mantera.
金正恩为他的时代造了个新词：并行发展，意味着经济和核武器的平行发展。如果专家是对的，他将在大会上阐述这一朴素哲学，确认取代其父的“先军”咒语，令众人仰慕。
Kim can be expected to continue to pay obeisance to North Korea’s original governing concept of juche, self-reliance. But his audience will be left in no doubt that his updated outlook represents the national way forward.
预计金正恩会继续遵循朝鲜最初的“自主”治国理念。但听众毫无疑问会明白他的新观点代表了国家的发展方向。
Economic development is not something Kim can much influence without abandoning the Marxist-Leninist tenets of centralised control and direction dating back to North Korea’s post-1945 beginnings as a Soviet satellite. This seems an improbable leap.
若不放弃马列主义集权控制和战后作为苏联卫星国的方向，经济发展是金正恩难以施加影响的，这看上去是不可能的一跃。
If the pre-eminence of the military really is in question, this could explain internal opposition to Kim that resulted in the purges of people like Uncle Jang. The expensive militarisation pursued by Kim Jong-il has made ever more dependent on Beijing, undermining the concept of self-reliance.
如果军队优先真的有问题，这可以解释军内对金正恩的反对，结果导致对姑父张成泽等人的清洗。金正日推动的昂贵的军事化让朝鲜更加依赖北京，损害了自主方略。
Yet, given Kim’s behaviour in recent months, the more probable shift he envisages is not of a pacific nature. It means putting more resources into North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, its long-range ballistic missiles and its submarine launch capabilities, and less into conventional military forces.
但考虑到金正恩近几个月的行为，他心中最可能的转变并非和平性质的。向核武器项目、远程弹道导弹和潜艇发弹能力投入更多资源，更少依赖传统的军事力量。
Almost everything he says and does comes back to this single overriding ambition: to confirm and proclaim North Korea’s “eternal” status as a nuclear weapons state. This, it seems, is both his holy grail and his .
几乎他所有所说所做都回到同一个压倒一切的野心：确认和宣称朝鲜是“永久”的核武器国家地位。看起来这既是一个“圣杯”，也是他将要留下的遗产。
In pursuit of this aim, Kim has defied the UN security council again and again, not least through multiple illegal weapons tests. He has alarmed Beijing, which, while it resents US regional meddling, is deeply uneasy about his direction of travel.
为了这一目标，金正恩一再挑战联合国安理会，尤其通过多次非法的武器试验。他让北京惊慌，尽管后者厌恶美国在该地区多管闲事，却对金正恩的路子感到深切不安。
In conducting a fourth nuclear test in January and promising another soon, in repeatedly firing missiles over the Sea of Japan, and in practising submarine launches that could one day threaten California, Kim has provoked the normally unflappable Barack Obama to palpable anger.
1月进行第四次核试验并表示很快还将进行，反复在日本海试射导弹，进行潜艇发射试验，可能某天会威胁到加州——金正恩让通常镇定自若的奥巴马拍案而起。
In doing all this and more, he has dragged inter-Korean relations down to a new low, set Japan racing to build missile defences, and alienated the Russian government, historically North Korea’s .
如此一来，半岛关系被拉到新低，让日本参与导弹防御竞赛，分化了历史上朝鲜的老朋友俄罗斯政府。
What is Kim trying to prove? The answer seems straightforward, if disturbing. He wants recognition and respect from the international community, just as he wanted it (and probably did not get it) from his overbearing father and dysfunctional mafia family.
金正恩意欲何为？答案看起来很简单，尽管令人担忧。他想获得国际社会的认同和尊重，正如他想获得不可一世的父亲和无能的黑手党家庭的认同和尊重，可能他没有得到。
He wants to prove that he really is as special as, from a very early age, everybody told him he was. Kim wants the world to make him whole inside, to make him feel better about himself.
他想证明，自己打年轻起就真的和别人吹捧的那样与众不同。金正恩想要世界真正接纳他，让他自我感觉更加良好。
But it cannot. And that, in a nutshell, is his and his country’s tragedy – and the genesis of the rapidly growing North Korean nuclear threat.
结果恰恰相反。一言以蔽之，这是他的悲剧，也是他的国家的悲剧，更是快速增长的朝鲜核威胁的始作俑者。