America Must Prepare for the Coming Chinese Empire
美國必須為即將來臨的中華帝國做好準備
The last thing American policymakers or strategists should assume is that
somehow Americans are superior to the Chinese.
美國政策制定者或戰略家不該假定，美國人在某種程度上優於中國人。
原文(The National Interest)：https://tinyurl.com/y3pm8qz3
原文PDF檔下載(免付費)：https://tinyurl.com/y2z8ej7l
部分翻譯(觀察者)：
https://www.guancha.cn/LuoBoTe-D-KaPuLan/2019_07_09_508683_s.shtml
(其餘部分由po文者翻譯)
Robert D. Kaplan
Before one can outline a grand strategy for the United States, one has to be
able to understand the world in which America operates. That may sound
simple, but a bane of Washington is the assumption of knowledge where little
actually exists. Big ideas and schemes are worthless unless one is aware of
the ground-level reality of several continents, and is able to fit them into
a pattern, based not on America’s own historical experience, but also on the
historical experience of others. Therefore, I seek to approach grand strategy
not from the viewpoint of Washington, but of the world； and not as a
political scientist or academic, but as a journalist with more than three
decades of experience as a reporter around the globe.
在為美國勾勒出一項宏大的戰略之前，我們必須先瞭解美國所身處的世界。這聽起來可能
很簡單，但華盛頓的一個禍根就是在實際瞭解得很少的情況下假定我們瞭解了全局。除非
我們能瞭解幾個大陸的基礎現狀並能夠根據其他國家的歷史經驗（而非美國自身的歷史經
驗）將它們歸納成一種模式，否則偉大的思想和計畫都是毫無價值的。因此，我希望從世
界的角度而不是從華盛頓的角度去理解大戰略，同時，不是作為一名政治科學家或者學者
，而是作為一名擁有30多年經驗的記者去研究。
After covering the Third World during the Cold War and its aftershocks which
continue to the present, I have concluded that, despite the claims of
post-colonial studies courses prevalent on university campuses, we still
inhabit (in functional terms, that is) an imperial world. Empire in some form
or another is eternal, even if European colonies of the early-modern and
modern eras are gone. Thus, the issue becomes: what are the contours of the
current imperial age that affect grand strategy for the United States? And
once those contours are delineated, what should be America’s grand strategy
in response? I will endeavor to answer both questions.
在報導了冷戰時期的第三世界國家及其持續至今的餘波後，我的結論是，儘管後殖民主義
研究課程在大學校園裡盛行，但就實際運作而言，我們仍然生活在一個帝國主義的世界。
即使早期和現代的歐洲殖民地已經不復存在，帝國卻在以某種形式永恆地存在著。因此，
問題則變成了：當前帝國時代對美國大戰略的整體影響是什麼？一旦這些影響的輪廓被勾
勒出來，美國的大戰略應該如何應對？我將盡力回答這兩個問題。
Empire, or its great power equivalent, requires the impression of permanence:
the idea, embedded in the minds of local inhabitants, that the imperial
authorities will always be there, compelling acquiescence to their rule and
influence. Wherever I traveled in Africa, the Middle East and Asia during the
Cold War, American and Soviet influence was seen as permanent； unquestioned
for all time, however arrogant and overbearing it might have been. Whatever
the facts, that was the perception. And after the Soviet Union collapsed,
American influence continued to be seen for a time as equally permanent. Make
no mistake: America, since the end of World War II, and continuing into the
second decade of the twenty-first century, was an empire in all but name.
帝國，或與之相當的強國，需要給人一種它將永遠存在的印象：這種帝國當局將永遠存在
的想法若根植於當地居民的心中，就會迫使他們默認這個帝國的統治和影響力。冷戰期間
，無論我走到非洲、中東或亞洲的哪裡，人們都認為美國和蘇聯的影響是永久性的。無論
它看起來多麼傲慢和專橫，這都是毋庸置疑的。不管事實如何，這種感覺都存在。在蘇聯
解體後，美國的影響力在一段時間內仍然被視為是永久性的。毫無疑問：美國自二戰結束
一直到21世紀的前二十年以來，除了名稱之外，實際上就是一個帝國。
That is no longer the case. European and Asian allies are now, with good
reason, questioning America’s constancy. New generations of American
leaders, to judge from university liberal arts curriculums, are no longer
being educated to take pride in their country’s past and traditions. Free
trade or some equivalent, upon which liberal maritime empires have often
rested, is being abandoned. The decline of the State Department, ongoing
since the end of the Cold War, is hollowing out a primary tool of American
power. Power is not only economic and military: it is moral. And I don’t
mean humanitarian, as necessary as humanitarianism is for the American brand.
But in this case, I mean something harder: the fidelity of our word in the
minds of allies. And that predictability is gone.
但現在情況已經不同了。歐洲和亞洲已成為盟友並有充分的理由質疑美國的穩定性。從大
學通才教育課程來看，新一代的美國領導人不再為他們國家的過去和傳統感到自豪。自由
貿易等其他自由海上帝國賴以生存的基礎正在被拋棄。自冷戰結束以來，美國國務院，這
個美國權力的重要工具，一直在走下坡路，甚至在被逐漸掏空。權力不僅是經濟和軍事上
的，也是道德上的。我不是說人道主義，因為人道主義的標籤對美國來說是必要的。在這
個問題上，我指的是更重要的東西：我們諾言的忠誠度在盟友心中開始變得不可預測。
Meanwhile, as one imperium-of-sorts declines, another takes its place.
與此同時，隨著某種帝國的衰落，另一種“帝國”將取而代之。
China is not the challenge we face: rather, the challenge is the new Chinese
empire. It is an empire that stretches from the arable cradle of the ethnic
Han core westward across Muslim China and Central Asia to Iran； and from the
South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, up the Suez Canal, to the eastern
Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea. It is an empire based on roads, railways,
energy pipelines and container ports whose pathways by land echo those of the
Tang and Yuan dynasties of the Middle Ages, and by sea echo the Ming dynasty
of the late Middle Ages and early-modern period. Because China is in the
process of building the greatest land-based navy in history, the heart of
this new empire will be the Indian Ocean, which is the global energy
interstate, connecting the hydrocarbon fields of the Middle East with the
middle-class conurbations of East Asia.
中國不是我們面臨的挑戰：相反，我們所面臨的挑戰是一個新的中華帝國。它從以漢族為
核心的可耕地搖籃向西延伸，橫跨中國的西部和中亞，直達伊朗；從南海，穿過印度洋，
到蘇伊士運河，再到東地中海和亞得里亞海。它是一個以公路、鐵路、能源管道和集裝箱
港口為基礎的大國。其陸路路線與中世紀唐元時期的路線相呼應，海上路線則與中世紀晚
期和近代早期的明朝相呼應。由於中國正在建設歷史上最大的陸基海軍，這個“新帝國”
的核心將是印度洋，一個連接著中東的油氣田和東亞的中產階級城市的全球能源洲際中心
。
This new Indian Ocean empire has to be seen to be believed. A decade ago, I
spent several years visiting these Chinese ports in the making, at a time
when few in the West were paying attention. I traveled to Gwadar in the bleak
desert of Baluchistan, technically part of Pakistan but close to the Persian
Gulf. There, I saw a state-of-the-art port complex rising sheer above a
traditional village. (The Chinese are now contemplating a naval base in
nearby Jawani, which would allow them to overwatch the Strait of Hormuz.) In
Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, I witnessed hundreds of Chinese laborers literally
moving the coast itself further inland, as armies of dump trucks carried soil
away. While America’s bridges and railways languish, it is a great moment in
history to be a Chinese civil engineer. China has gone from building these
ports, to having others manage them, and then finally to managing them
themselves. It has all been part of a process that recalls the early days of
the British and Dutch East India companies in the same waters.
我們必須相信這個新的印度洋大國的存在。十年前，我花了幾年時間參觀這些正在建設中
的中國港口，而當時西方很少有人注意到這一點。我去了位於俾路支省荒涼沙漠中的瓜達
爾港。在那裡，我看到一座最先進的港口綜合設施聳立在一個傳統村落之上。（中國人正
在考慮在Jawani附近建造一個海軍基地，這將使他們能夠覆蓋霍爾木茲海峽。）在斯里蘭
卡的漢班托塔，我親眼目睹了數百名中國勞工沿著海岸向內陸移動，以及震撼如軍隊般的
砂石車是如何把泥土運走的。中國已經從建設這些港口，到讓別人管理它們，最後再轉變
到自己管理它們。這一切的過程都讓人回想起英國和荷蘭東印度公司早期在同一水域的作
為。
Newspaper reports talk of some of these projects being stalled or mired in
debt. That is a traditionally capitalist way to look at it. From a mercantile
and imperialist point of view, these projects make perfect sense. In a way,
the money never really leaves China: a Chinese state bank lends the money for
a port project in a foreign country, which then employs Chinese state
workers, which utilize a Chinese logistics company, and so on.
據報導，其中一些項目已被擱置或陷入債務泥潭。這是傳統的資本主義觀點。但從商業和
帝國主義的角度來看，這些項目絕對是有意義的。在某種程度上，資金從未真正離開過中
國：一家中國國有銀行貸款給外國的一個港口項目，然後該項目僱用中國工人，這些工人
再僱傭一家中國物流公司，以此類推。
Geography is still paramount. And because the Indian Ocean is connected to
the South China Sea through the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits, Chinese
domination of the South China Sea is crucial to Beijing. China is not a rogue
state, and China’s naval activities in the South China Sea make perfect
sense given its geopolitical and, yes, its imperial imperatives. The South
China Sea not only further unlocks the Indian Ocean for China, but it further
softens up Taiwan and grants the Chinese navy greater access to the wider
Pacific.
地理仍然是最重要的因素。由於印度洋通過馬六甲海峽、巽他海峽和龍目海峽與南海相連
，中國對南海的控制至關重要。中國不是一個流氓國家，鑑於地緣政治以及其帝國的迫切
需要，中國在南海的海軍活動完全合情合理。南海不僅進一步為中國打開了印度洋的大門
，而且進一步軟化了台灣，使中國海軍有更多的機會進入更廣闊的太平洋。
The South China Sea represents one geographical frontier of the Greater
Indian Ocean world； the Middle East and the Horn of Africa represent the
other. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski once wisely said in conversation that
hundreds of millions of Muslims do not yearn for democracy as much as they
yearn for dignity and justice, things which are not necessarily synonymous
with elections. The Arab Spring was not about democracy: rather, it was
simply a crisis in central authority. The fact that sterile and corrupt
authoritarian systems were being rejected did not at all mean these societies
were institutionally ready for parliamentary systems: witness Libya, Yemen
and Syria. As for Iraq, it proved that beneath the carapace of tyranny lay
not the capacity for democracy but an anarchic void. The regimes of Morocco,
Jordan and Oman provide stability, legitimacy, and a measure of the justice
and dignity that Brzezinski spoke of, precisely because they are traditional
monarchies, with only the threadbare trappings of democracy. Tunisia’s
democracy is still fragile, and the further one travels away from the capital
into the western and southern reaches of the country, close to the Libyan and
Algerian borders, the more fragile it becomes.
南海代表大印度洋世界的一個地理邊界；中東和非洲之角代表另一個。已故的茲比格涅夫
·布熱津斯基曾在談話中明智地表示，數以億計的穆斯林並不像他們渴望尊嚴和正義那樣
渴望民主，這些東西不必然是選舉的同義詞。阿拉伯之春不是關於民主的：相反，它只是
中央集權的一場危機。無效和腐敗的獨裁制度被人民拒絕的事實並不意味著這些社會在制
度面上為議會制做好準備：看看利比亞，也門和敘利亞。至於伊拉克，事實證明，在暴政
的背後，不是民主的能力，而是無政府主義的空虛。摩洛哥，約旦和阿曼的政權提供了穩
定，合法性和衡量布熱津斯基所說的正義和尊嚴，正是因為它們是傳統的君主制，只是披
上民主的破舊外衣。突尼斯的民主仍然是脆弱的，而隨著越來越遠離首都進入該國的西部
和南部地區，靠近利比亞和阿爾及利亞的邊界，它變得越脆弱。
This is a world tailor-made for the Chinese, who do not deliver moral
lectures about the type of government a state should have but do provide an
engine for economic development. To wit, globalization is much about
container shipping: an economic activity that the Chinese have mastered. The
Chinese military base in Djibouti is the security hub in a wheel of ports
extending eastward to Gwadar in Pakistan, southward to Bagamoyo in Tanzania,
and northwestward to Piraeus in Greece, all of which, in turn, help anchor
Chinese trade and investments throughout the Middle East, East Africa and the
eastern Mediterranean. Djibouti is a virtual dictatorship, Pakistan is in
reality an army-run state, Tanzania is increasingly authoritarian and Greece
is a badly institutionalized democracy that is increasingly opening up to
China. In significant measure, between Europe and the Far East, this is the
world as it really exists in Afro-Eurasia. The Chinese empire, unburdened by
the missionary impulse long prevalent in American foreign policy, is well
suited for it.
這是一個為中國人量身定做的世界。中國人不會就一個國家應該擁有什麼樣的政府發表道
德說教，而是為其經濟發展提供助力。也就是說，全球化在很大程度上與集裝箱運輸有關
：這是一項中國人已經掌握的經濟活動。位於吉布提的中國軍事基地是通往巴基斯坦瓜達
爾東部的港口安全中心，向東延伸至坦桑尼亞的巴加莫約，向西北延伸至希臘的比雷埃夫
斯，所有這些都有助於中國的貿易和投資。中東，東非和地中海東部。吉布提是一個虛擬
的獨裁政權，巴基斯坦實際上是一個由軍隊管理的國家，坦桑尼亞越來越專制，希臘是一
個制度化程度很低的民主國家，越來越多地向中國開放。在很大程度上，這是一個在歐洲
和遠東之間，真實存在於非洲 - 歐亞大陸的世界。中華帝國的外交政策不像美國政策那
樣帶有傳教性質，也因此使其擺脫了沉重的負擔。
More to the point, when it comes to China, we are dealing with a unique and
very formidable cultural organism. The American foreign policy elite does not
like to talk about culture since culture cannot be quantified, and in this
age of extreme personal sensitivity, what cannot be quantified or
substantiated by a footnote is potentially radioactive. But without a
discussion of culture and geography, there is simply no hope of understanding
foreign affairs. Indeed, culture is nothing less than the sum total of a
large group of people’s experience inhabiting the same geographical
landscape for hundreds or thousands of years.
更重要的是，當談到中國時，我們面對的是一個獨特而強大的文化有機體。美國的外交政
策精英不喜歡談論文化，因為文化無法量化，在這個極端個人感知的時代，無法用一段註
解來量化或證實的東西只能具有潛在的放射性(無實際作用)。然而，若沒有對文化和地理
的討論，我們就無法真正理解外交事務。事實上，文化只不過是居住在同一地域數百年或
數千年的一大群人的經驗總和。
Anyone who travels in China, or even observes it closely, realizes something
that the business community intuitively grasps better than the policy
community: the reason there is little or no separation between the public and
private domains in China is not only because the country is a dictatorship,
but because there is a greater cohesion of values and goals among Chinese
compared to those among Americans. In China, you are inside a traditional
mental value system. In that system, all areas of national activity—
commercial, cyber, military, political, technological, educational—work
fluently toward the same ends, so that computer hacking, espionage, port
building and expansion, the movement of navy and fishing fleets, and so on
all appear coordinated. And within that system, Confucianism still lends a
respect for hierarchy and authority among individual Chinese, whereas
American culture is increasingly about the dismantling of authority in favor
of devotion to the individual. Confucian societies worship old people；
Western societies worship young people. One should never forget these lines
from Solzhenitsyn: “Idolized children despise their parents, and when they
get a bit older they bully their countrymen. Tribes with an ancestor cult
have endured for centuries. No tribe would survive long with a youth cult.”
任何在中國旅行或者密切觀察過中國的人都能意識到：商界比政策界更能直觀地把握一些
事情。中國公共領域和私人領域之間很少或根本沒有分離的原因不僅僅是因為這個國家是
獨裁，而是中國人在價值觀和目標上比美國人更有凝聚力。在中國，你處於傳統的心理價
值體系中。在該系統中，國家活動的所有領域——商業、網絡、軍事、政治、技術、教育
——都能順利地朝著同一目的，因此計算機黑客攻擊，間諜活動，港口建設和擴展，海軍
和捕魚船隊的運動等等，看起來都很協調。在這個體系中，儒家思想仍然尊重中國個人的
等級制度和權威，而美國文化則越來越傾向於廢除權威，致力於個人。儒家社會尊重老年
人；西方社會尊重年輕人。人們永遠不應該忘記索忍尼辛的這段話：“偶像化的孩子鄙視
他們的父母，當他們變老時，他們欺負他們的同胞。擁有祖先崇拜的部落已經存活了數世
紀。沒有一個部落會因為青年崇拜而長期生存。
Chinese are educated in national pride； increasingly the opposite of what
goes on in our own schools and universities. And Chinese are extraordinarily
efficient, with a manic attention to detail. Individuals are certainly more
concrete than the mass. But that does not mean national traits simply do not
exist. I have flown around China on domestic airlines with greater ease and
comfort than I could ever imagine flying around America at its airports. And
that is to say nothing about China’s bullet trains.
中國人受的是民族自豪感的教育；這與我們自己的學校和大學的傾向越來越相反。中國人
非常有效率，狂熱地注重細節。個人肯定比群眾更具體。但這並不意味著國家特徵根本就
不存在。我乘坐”國內航空”飛越中國，比起在美國機場間飛來飛去更容易和更舒適