王缉思：理解国际政治的关键是理解其他社会与文明（中英文对照）

王缉思

清华大学战略与安全研究中心学术委员

北京大学国际战略研究院院长、中外人文交流研究基地高级顾问

很高兴能和我的同事、朋友以及年轻一代的学者们一起探讨至关重要的议题，也祝贺论坛的组织者举办如此意义重大的活动。很多演讲者将在这里呈现他们的实质性观点。在接下来的10分钟里，请允许我分享我个人作为一位资深学者的观察体悟，如果我可以这样冒昧自称的话。我很高兴在我之前发言的董云裳女士分享了她作为外交官的一些有趣的经历。

I'm very happy to join my colleagues, friends, and scholars of the younger generations to discuss very important issues. I would also like to express my congratulations to the organizers for holding this significant event. Many speakers will present their substantive views. So please allow me to use my own 10 minutes to share some of my personal observations as a veteran scholar, if I could be presumptuous enough to identify myself as such.  I'm happy that Susan Thornton before me says something intriguing about her experiences as a practitioner.

我的第一点感悟是，理解国际政治的关键是理解其他社会与文明。昨天，在准备这次演讲的时候，我收到了傅高义教授的新书《中国和日本》。在中文版的序言中，傅高义教授提到了大概65年前他的哈佛博导说的一句话——理解我们社会的最佳方式是走出国门感受文化差异。傅高义的教授告诉他，要想大体了解一种不同的文化，就必须真正走近一些被那种文化滋养的人，并试着透过他们的眼睛看世界。

My first observation is that the key to understanding international politics is to understand other civilizations and societies. Yesterday, when I was preparing today's presentation, I received a copy of professor Ezra F. Vogel’s new book: China and Japan. In the preface to the Chinese translation, Professor Vogel released a comment made by his PhD advisor at Harvard about 65 years ago, that the best way to understand our own society was to go abroad to feel cultural differences. Ezra’s professor told him that to get those general understanding of a different culture, we had to really know some people nurtured by that culture and try to look at the world the way they do.

就我个人而言，我经历过一些文化冲击。例如，1984年，我作为加州大学伯克利分校的访问学者第一次访美。在到达伯克利的第二天，我就遇上了校园附近的一场大示威。我看到了一张同性恋者反对种族隔离的大幅海报，非常震惊。过了一会儿我才意识到同性恋和种族隔离，或者说种族歧视之间的关联。当时我是刚从中国来的一个青年学者，对这些概念都很生疏。这些年，我一直在持续关注美国的社会和文化变化。现在理解美国的黑人人权运动之类的概念就比较容易了。但是你们觉得这些与外交政策或是中美关系有关联吗？我认为绝对有。虽然今天没有时间解释个中原因。

In my own experiences, I have encountered cultural shocks. For example, my first visit to United States, dated back to 1984, when I was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. The second day I arrived at Berkeley, I witnessed the big demonstration near the campus. I was shocked to see a big poster saying gays and lesbians against apartheid. It took me a few moments to catch the connection between gays, lesbians, apartheid or racial discrimination. These concepts were alien to me as a younger scholar coming from China. Following the societal and cultural changes in the States over all these years, it would not be hard for me today to comprehend things like black lives matter in the US. But are these things relevant to you as foreign policy or US China relations? My answer is a definite yes. Although I don't have time to explain why and how.

△ 5月间29日，抗议人群向位于亚特兰大市的CNN总部聚集。美联社图片

我们要学习的文明的另一部分就是宗教。因为我们大多数都是汉族，都不信教或者是无神论者。在去伯克利之前，我曾在牛津大学待过一年。我参加了牛津的圣经研究项目，出于某种原因加入了一个名为基督复临安息日会的非常保守的教会。这个教派相信安息日是周六而不是周日。到美国之后，我继续研习宗教，前往中东地区时也是如此。这对研究世界政治大有裨益。因为如果不懂基督教，就无法真正理解莱因霍尔德·尼布尔、塞缪尔·亨廷顿或者像沃尔特•拉塞尔•米德这样的当代国际关系学者的思想。

Another part of civilization we should learn is religion, because most of us, Han Chinese, are non religious or atheist. Before I went to Berkeley, I had spent a year at Oxford university. I entered the bible studies program at Oxford, and was somehow affiliated with the church called the 7th day Adventist, a very conservative denomination. They believe that the sabbath is Saturday instead of Sunday. I continued my learning of religion in America and while making tours to the Middle East. And that is very helpful for studying world politics.Without the knowledge of christianity, we will never catch the true thoughts of political thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr, Samuel Huntington or contemporary IR scholars like Walter Russell Mead.

上世纪九十年代，有些政府机构想让我帮忙说服美国人，中国的计划生育政策不仅对中国有益，对全世界都有好处，因为减少了出生人口就能节约资源，促进经济发展。但是，我了解到当时美国争论的热火朝天的议题是堕胎问题，这个问题至今还是一个热点。所谓的主张胚胎生存权和主张妇女有权选择堕胎其实和宗教信仰有关。一些反对堕胎的美国人相信，每一个出生的和正在孕育中的人类生命都是按着上帝的形象被创造出来的。因此，这些美国人认为个体的人权和生存权比中国这样一个国家的繁荣更重要。这就是为什么我们当时没能让美国人相信中国计划生育政策的公平性，尤其是强制堕胎的公平性。讽刺的是，在这次疫情中，很多中国人认为美国人不应该颠倒主次，把恢复经济放在救人前面。这让我觉得很矛盾。

In the 1990s, some Chinese government agencies wanted me to help them convince Americans that China's one child birth control policy was not only beneficial to China, but also to the whole world, because the reduction of births would save resources and promote economic growth. However, I got to know that the heatedly debated issue in America was, and still is, abortion and the so called PRO life versus PRO choice debate is related to religious faith. Because some Americans who opposed abortion believe that human life is based on the idea that each human being born and preborn is created in the image of god. In this sense, these Americans didn't think the prosperity of a nation like China was more important than individual human rights lives. That's why we failed at the time to convince Americans of the justice of China's birth control practices, especially forced abortion. Interestingly, at this time of the pandemic, many Chinese argue that Americans should not put economic recovery ahead of saving human lives from the Covid19. The whole thing sounds very confusing to me.

我的第二点感受是我们应该向有政治经历的人士学习，比如这次的三位演讲嘉宾，于先生、董云裳女士和傅高义教授。我们都有学术追求，也都在研究国际政治理论。在伯克利，我结识了声誉斐然的理论学家肯尼思·华尔兹教授。他曾于1988年访问北京大学。当时，有中国学生问他，他的理论会对美国的外交政策产生多大影响。听到这个提问，他不太高兴，但还是回答说，“我为了求知而求知。我不在乎我的知识是否能影响政策”。但私底下，我觉得他是在乎的。

My second observation is that we should try to learn from those who have had political experiences like the three speakers on this panel. Mr.Yu, Ms. Thornton, and Professor Vogel. Of course we all pursue scholarship and study IR  theories. At Berkeley, I got to know very well Professor Kenneth Waltz,  a very respectable theorist. When he visited Beida in 1988, some Chinese students asked him to what extent his theory would influence US foreign policy. He did not appear very happy to hear the question, but responded: “I pursue knowledge, for knowledge’s  sake. And I don't care whether my knowledge is making any impact on policy.” Privately, however, I think he did care.

1989年10月，我和一些同事与尼克松总统在北京进行了一次谈话。尼克松的助理是迈克·奥森伯格，一个著名的中国通。尼克松问我，我的研究领域是什么。我告诉他我研究的是政治科学。他说：“政治科学？我在大学里也学的是类似的，但不实用。政治可不是科学。政治是一门艺术。”从那时起，我就更多地把政治作为艺术来看待，但从来没有勇气从政。我希望我这番偏离主题的话没有浪费大家的时间。谢谢听取我的发言！

In October 1989,  a few colleagues and I had a chance to chat with president Richard Nixon in Beijing. Nixon was assisted by Mike Oksenberg, a distinguished China head. Nixon asked me what was my subject? I told him I was studying Political Science. He said: “Political Science? I also studied something like that at university, but it was not useful. Politics is not a science. It's an art.” From that time on, I have understood politics more as an art, but have never had the courage to play with it. I hope I'm not wasting your time by saying something deviating from the major theme of this conference.Thank you very much for listening.

本文为王缉思在《环球时报》社、美国卡特中心、北京大学中外人文交流研究基地于2020年6月30日至7月3日共同主办的“第五届中美青年学者论坛”上的主旨演讲。2020年9月17日发表于北京大学中外人文交流研究基地公众号。