中国为何经略缅甸？ | 纽约时报
As U.S. Attention Wanes in Southeast Asia, China Woos Myanmar
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — When Myanmar’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, wanted to hold a peace conference to end her country’s long-burning insurgencies, a senior Chinese diplomat got to work.
缅甸内比都。缅甸领导人昂山素季想通过一场和平会议结束国内持续白热化的叛乱，一名资深的中国外交官就着手开始工作了。
The official assembled scores of rebel leaders, many with longstanding connections to China, briefed them on the peace gathering, and flew them on a chartered plane to Myanmar’s capital. There, after being introduced to a beaming Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, they wined, dined and sang rowdy karaoke late into the night.
该官员召集了数十名叛军领导人，就和平会议吹风，并包机将他们送到缅甸首都，其中许多人长期与中国保持联系。他们结识了笑脸相迎的昂山素季女士，一起喝酒、吃饭，吵嚷着K歌到深夜。
A cease-fire may still be a long way off, but the gesture neatly illustrates how Myanmar, a former military dictatorship that the United States worked hard to press toward democracy, is now depending on China to help solve its problems.
距离停火还有很长的路要走，但这一姿态显然表明，过去的军事独裁国家缅甸在美国的推动下走向民主，如今却需要中国帮忙来解决自身的问题。
The pieces all fell into place for China: It wanted peace in Myanmar to protect its new energy investments, it had the leverage to press the rebels, and it found an opening to do a favour for Myanmar that the United States could not.
对中国而言，一团乱麻变得有条不紊：中国希望缅甸实现和平，以保护其在缅甸新的能源投资，中国有办法压制反对派，中国找到帮助缅甸的机会，这是美国无法完成的。
When Myanmar began to adopt democratic reforms in 2011, the Obama administration quickly reciprocated, loosening sanctions as part of a broader effort to strengthen relationships with Southeast Asian nations as a bulwark against China’s rise.
2011年缅甸启动民主改革时，奥巴马政府迅速做出回应，放松了对缅制裁，这是进一步强化对东南亚国家关系的一部分，旨在将其当做遏制中国崛起的堡垒。
As Myanmar’s relations with China cooled, the result of what many saw as heavy-handed intervention by Beijing, Barack Obama became, in 2012, the first American president to visit the country. He came again in 2014, promoting stronger trade and security relations, and counted the country’s opening as a foreign policy coup.
缅中关系变冷，很多人认为这是中国高压干涉缅甸的后果，2012年，奥巴马访问缅甸，成为第一位访缅的美国总统。2014年，奥巴马再赴缅甸，推动两国贸易和安全关系发展，将该国的开放视作外交的巨大成就。
But the United States did little to build on the new relationship, and now the tables have turned. As the Trump administration pays little attention, China is exercising strategic and economic interests that come from geographic proximity, using deep pockets for building billion-dollar infrastructure and activating ethnic ties with some of the rebel groups, all areas where the United States cannot compete.
但美国对构建两国新型关系毫无建树，现在风头变了。就在特朗普当局漫不经心时，中国正发掘与缅甸地理相邻带来的战略和经济利益，运用雄厚的财力修建价值数十亿美元的基础设施，与某些叛军加强族裔联系，而在所有这些领域，美国难及项背。
“China wants to show: ‘We are doing our best at your behest,’” said Min Zin, executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy in Myanmar, who attended the peace gathering in May. “As the United States recedes, Aung San Suu Kyi is relying more and more on China in Myanmar and on the international stage.”
“中国想要表达的是：我们尽力有求必应，”参加了五月和平会议的缅甸战略与政策研究所执行主任敏辛说，“随着美国撤退，昂山素季在本国和国际舞台上都越来越依赖中国。”
And not only Myanmar. Across Southeast Asia, China is energetically bringing nations into its orbit, wooing American friends and allies with military hardware, infrastructure deals and diplomatic attention.
不仅在缅甸，在整个东南亚，中国都积极将各国置入自己的影响力范围，以武器、基础设施交易及外交关注拉拢美国的朋友和盟友。
In the Philippines, an American ally, President Rodrigo Duterte is leaning strongly toward Beijing. The military government in Thailand, another American ally, has bought submarines from China and, at China’s request, deported Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group that China accuses of fomenting violence in China. In Malaysia, China is offering Prime Minister Najib Razak lucrative deals like high-speed train projects.
在美国盟国菲律宾的总统杜特尔特明显倒向中国。另外一个美国盟友泰国军政府，从中国购买潜水艇，并应中国请求驱逐突厥族裔的维吾尔人，中国指控他们在中国煽动暴力。在马来西亚，中国向首相纳吉布·拉扎克提议签订利润丰厚的交易，例如高铁项目。
After the Obama administration made big gains in Myanmar, China’s president, Xi Jinping, was reported to have asked, “Who lost Myanmar?” The message has gotten through, as China is now pushing on multiple fronts to bring the country back into its fold.
奥巴马政府在缅甸收获颇丰，据称习近平问：“谁把缅甸丢了？”这一信息得到贯彻，中国正在各个战线将缅甸拥抱入怀。
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi seems receptive. She has visited Beijing twice since becoming Myanmar’s de facto leader last year. In contrast, she skipped an invitation from Washington to attend a conclave of Southeast Asian foreign ministers — she is also foreign minister of Myanmar — organised by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson.
昂山素季女士似乎乐于接受，成为缅甸事实领导人后她两次访华。相比之下，她拒绝美国政府的邀请，没有出席美国国务卿雷克斯·蒂勒森组织的东亚外交部长闭门会议，而她同时也兼任缅甸外交部长。
China and Myanmar have also found common cause in their hard line on Muslims. At the United Nations several months ago, China blocked a statement supported by the United States on the persecution of the Rohingya, the Muslim minority in Myanmar.
中国和缅甸在穆斯林问题上的强硬立场同样一拍即合。几个月前，中国在联合国反对美国支持的关于罗兴亚人遭迫害的一份声明，罗兴亚是缅甸的穆斯林少数族裔。
But nowhere is China’s effort to win over Myanmar clearer than as mediator in Myanmar’s ethnic civil wars, the mission Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi says is dearest to her heart.
可在所有中国获得缅甸支持的努力之中，没有哪一件比作为中间人斡旋缅甸内战更为显著，昂山素季女士对这一使命最是感念于心。
“I do believe that as a good neighbour China will do everything possible to promote our peace process,” she said during a visit to China last year. “If you ask me what my most important aim is for my country, it is to achieve peace and unity among the different peoples of our union.”
“我相信，作为友好邻邦，中国将尽其所能推动我们的和平进程，”她去年访问北京时表示。“如果你问我，我为祖国所做的事中，其最重要的目标是什么，那就是实现联邦内不同民族间的和平与团结。”
China is well positioned to help. Among the armed groups, most resistant to peace talks are the United Wa State Army and the Kokang Army, both of which have been tacitly supported by China for years in their battles with the Myanmar military.
中国处于提供帮助的有利位置。在所有的武装组织中，对和平谈判抵制最为强烈的是佤邦联合军和果敢同盟军，过去多年中，两军同缅甸政府军的战斗都得到中国心照不宣的支持。
The Wa, whose army is said to have 20,000 members, use Chinese currency in their autonomous region, where illegal narcotics are made and peddled into China. Two Wa arms factories produce weapons with the help of former Chinese Army officers, and the Wa have received Chinese armoured combat vehicles and tank destroyers, probably through Chinese middlemen, experts say. A third group, the Arakan Army, uses Chinese arms and vehicles provided by the Wa.
佤邦军队据称有20000人，在其自治区内使用中国货币，他们生产毒品再贩卖到中国去。有专家称，两家佤邦军工厂在中国军队前任长官帮助下生产武器。可能通过中国掮客，佤邦军队获得了中国装甲战车及反坦克装甲车。另一支武装阿拉干军使用佤邦提供的中国武器及装甲车。
China’s special envoy for Asian affairs, Sun Guoxiang, brought the leaders of all three to the peace conference, as well as the leaders of four other rebel groups, most of whom use Chinese weapons.
中国亚洲事务特使孙国祥，将三支军队的领导人带上和平会议，与他同来的还有其他四支叛军领导人，多数使用了中国武器。
“China wants quiet in Myanmar,” said Maung Aung Myoe, an expert on the Myanmar military at the International University of Japan. “It hurts their interests to have fighting because it disrupts China’s trade. China now owns the peace process. The Myanmar military knows that.”
“中国希望缅甸安定，”日本国际大学缅甸军事问题专家貌昂妙说，“打仗有损他们的利益，因为那扰乱了中国贸易，中国现在主导着和平进程，缅甸军方也知道这一点。”
China has a particular interest in pressing the Arakan rebels to the peace table. They operate in the Western state of Rakhine, where they can wreak havoc with the Chinese-built pipelines that carry oil and natural gas from the Bay of Bengal to southern China. Keeping Rakhine free of unrest may have also been a factor in China’s blocking the United Nations from issuing a statement on the allegations of atrocities committed by Myanmar’s army there.
中国尤其愿意将阿拉干叛军拉入和平谈判，叛军在若开邦西部活动，那可能破坏中国从孟加拉湾到中国南部输送石油和天然气的管线。防止若开邦动荡可能也是中国反对联合国发表声明指控缅甸军队在当地实施暴行的一个因素。
The stakes are rising as a Chinese state-owned corporation negotiates final permissions to build a $7.3 billion deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu, a port town in Rakhine that will give China highly prized access to the Indian Ocean.
中国在缅的利益关切越来越多，一家中国国有企业正谋求获得最终批准，在若开邦港的口城市皎漂建设一座价值73亿美元的深海港，这将是中国进入印度洋的宝贵入口。
Citic Construction of China is to start building the port early next year, having won the contract by covering 85 percent of the cost, said Oo Maung, vice chairman of the Kyaukpyu special economic zone management committee. Citic also won the right to build a $3.2 billion industrial park nearby, he said.
“中信建设签下合同，承担85%的费用，明年初开始兴建港口。”皎漂经济特区管理委员会副主席乌蒙说，“中国还获权在附近建设一个价值32亿美元的工业园。”
The port is a signature project of China’s global “One Belt, One Road” initiative, a $1 trillion global infrastructure campaign, which ensured preferential financing, said Yuan Shaobin, vice chairman of Citic Construction.
中信建设副董事长袁绍斌说，这个港口是中国“一带一路”倡议的标志性项目。“一带一路”是投入高达一万亿美元的全球性基建项目，可以保证该港口项目获得优惠贷款。
The United States generally leaves construction projects and other investments abroad to private companies, and Myanmar, a frontier economy fraught with risks, is considered an unattractive destination, said Mary P. Callahan, associate professor of international studies at the University of Washington.
华盛顿大学国际研究副教授玛丽·P·卡拉汉表示，美国通常把建设项目和其他海外投资交给私营公司，而缅甸是一个充满风险的边远经济体，美国公司认为那里没有吸引力。
“American companies haven’t come because of the high price of land, and a difficult approval process,” she said. “The labour force is cheap but not skilled.”
“美国公司没来这里，因为这里地价高，审批困难，”她说。“虽然这里的劳动力很便宜，但是他们缺乏劳动技能。”
America’s loss may be China’s strategic gain. China’s ownership of the port — Citic will have the right to operate it for 50 years, with a possible 25-year extension — hands Beijing a giant boost in its long-term plans for supremacy in the Indian Ocean, analysts said.
美国失利，中国却可能捞到战略好处。分析人士表示，中国对该港口的所有权可大力推动中国政府在印度洋取得优势这一长期计划。中信将拥有该港口50年的运营权，可能还会延长25年。
Once completed, “Kyaukpyu will be a Chinese naval base,” said Mr. Maung Aung Myoe, the military analyst. “China desperately needs access on the eastern side of the Indian Ocean.”
港口一旦建成，“皎漂将变成中国海军基地，”军事分析人士貌昂妙说，“中国迫切需要获得印度洋东部的入海口”。
China is already building Indian Ocean ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and it is seeking approval for one in Bangladesh.
中国已经在巴基斯坦和斯里兰卡修建了两座印度洋港口，还申请在孟加拉国兴建一个港口。
Some hurdles remain. Frustration with China roils the scruffy town of Kyaukpyu, among the poorest in Myanmar. After a decade of Chinese pipeline construction in the area, ordinary people say they received few benefits. The schools built by China as part of a corporate responsibility project were empty shells, they said.
现在依然存在一些障碍。皎漂这个脏乱的城镇对中国感到失望，这里是缅甸最贫穷的一个地方。当地普通民众说，中国修建管道已经十年了，他们获得的好处甚少。他们说，作为公司社会责任项目的一部，中国修建的学校只是空壳。
“I got a few cents a day for digging the pipeline and about $250 for the five-year use of my land,” said Tun Aung Kyaw, 56, a farmer who was walking to herd his six cows in bare feet, a thin tarpaulin tied across his bare chest to protect him from the monsoon rain.
“我挖管道每天只挣一点小钱，我的地被租用五年，只给大概250美元，”56岁的农民吞昂觉说。他赤着脚，赶着六头母牛，赤裸的胸膛上系着一块薄防水布，用来抵御季风季节的暴雨。
Citic is aware of the hostility and is working with nongovernmental organisations in Kyaukpyu to avoid past mistakes, Mr. Yuan said. Citic will train Myanmar workers for 3,000 jobs for the park and the port, he said.
袁绍斌说，中信知道民众对它抱有敌意，公司正与皎漂当地非政府组织合作，避免再犯过去的错误。他说中信会培训缅甸工人，园区和港口为他们提供3000个岗位。
China also faces suspicions among Myanmar’s politicians, many of whom opposed a Chinese-financed dam planned at Myitsone, on the Irrawaddy River, to provide power to China. The previous government, yielding to public opposition, suspended the $3.6 billion project. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has appointed a commission to decide the dam’s fate.
中国也面临缅甸政客的怀疑，很多人反对中国出资在伊洛瓦底江上修建密松大坝，该计划可为中国提供能源。前任政府迫于民众反对，叫停了耗资36亿美元的项目。昂山素季政府任命了一个委员会，决定大坝的命运。
A confidant of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s and a member of her political party, Mi Khun Chan, said China viewed aiding the peace process as part of the cost of winning a green light for the dam.
昂山素季的心腹、所在政党成员米坤参说，中国协助推进和平进程，以换得大坝兴建许可。
For all the misgivings among her people about China, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi seems impressed with Beijing’s power to assist in peace.
尽管民众对中国抱有疑虑，但昂山素季看来对北京协助推动和平进程的实力印象深刻。
Her father, Aung San, the leader of Burma after World War II, dreamed of a united country. He almost got there, presiding over an agreement with ethnic leaders in 1947 for a federation of states. Six months later he was assassinated.
她的父亲、二战后缅甸领袖昂山曾梦想实现国家统一。他离梦想只有一步之遥。1947年，他主持与民族领导人谈判，旨在组建一个联邦政府。六个月后，他遭到暗杀。
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi wants to finish the job.
昂山素季女士想完成这项工作。
“Our goal is the emergence of a democratic federal union based on democracy and federalism,” she said at the opening of the peace conference here.
“我们的目标是基于民主和联邦制建立一个民主联邦国家，”她在和谈会议开幕时说。
For the moment, she has China at her side.
暂时，中国站在她这一边。
译者 江霞
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