“特金会”缘何变数不定：美朝误读对方信息

A while back, there was a hit movie entitled “Lost in Translation.” It was set in Japan.

多年前，一部名为《迷失东京》(Lost in Translation)的影片上映。该片的故事发生在日本。

It probably should have been set on the Korean Peninsula.

或许这部电影该以朝鲜半岛为背景。

That became clear Thursday when President Donald Trump abruptly canceled the highly anticipated summit meeting he had agreed to hold with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It’s unclear whether this cancellation is a short-term blip—an “Art of the Deal” negotiating tactic designed to get North Korea to behave better before meeting—or a long-term rupture in what the president clearly hoped was going to be a fruitful personal relationship.

周四美国总统特朗普(Donald Trump)突然取消原本答应与朝鲜领导人金正恩(Kim Jong Un)举行的备受外界期待的峰会。尚不清楚这次取消是短暂的插曲（也就是一种谈判策略，类似《交易的艺术》(Art of the Deal)一书），还是长期的决裂，特朗普原本希望双方能建立富有成效的个人关系。

What is clear is that the meeting hit the rocks because each side didn’t fully understand what the other was saying in the run-up. In that translation gap, tensions built up rapidly, and then erupted.

显然，峰会触礁是因方美国和朝鲜在峰会举行前的准备阶段都没完全搞懂对方在说什么。这种理解上的差异使气氛迅速变得紧张，直到爆发。

For starters, the two sides didn’t mean the same thing when they said the meeting would be to discuss the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

首先，美朝在提到峰会将讨论朝鲜半岛无核化时，双方所指的并不是一回事。

To the American side, that meant a rapid, if not instant, North Korean abandonment of its nuclear program, to be followed later by relief from economic sanctions and, ultimately, real economic assistance. To North Korea, denuclearization meant a gradual process in which it slowly backed away from its considerable advances in nuclear and missile development, while the U.S. reciprocated by reducing its military commitment to South Korea and began providing some immediate economic relief.

在美国看来，无核化意味着朝鲜迅速（最好是立即）弃核，然后美国才放松经济制裁，最终给予切实经济援助。而对朝鲜来说，无核化是一个渐进过程，在此期间将慢慢停止推进核和导弹开发计划，作为交换，美国降低对韩国的军事承诺，并开始提供一些直接经济援助。

A series of statements from North Korea’s Mr. Kim, some made publicly and others conveyed by South Korean leaders, fueled the belief on the American side that Mr. Kim was prepared to make a sharp and immediate pivot away from nuclear arms. Yet in recent days it became clear that hope was misplaced. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has met Mr. Kim twice to try to lay the groundwork for the summit, “knew instantly” that the North Koreans weren’t willing to go as far or as fast as their public statements implied, said one official briefed on his meetings.

金正恩的一系列声明（部分公开、部分由韩国领导人转述）增强了美方的信念，即金正恩准备直接快速弃核。然而近日来的情况显然表明美国的希望并不现实。一位听取美国国务卿蓬佩奥(Mike Pompeo)会谈简报的官员称，蓬佩奥很快明白朝鲜不愿意像其声明所暗示的那样彻底、迅速地弃核。蓬佩奥此前两次会晤金正恩，努力为美朝峰会铺路。

“When Secretary Pompeo tried to pin down the North Koreans, they balked,” said Michael Green, who has dealt with North Korea as both a White House and Pentagon official. The North Koreans, he added, “were always going for sanctions relief and de facto recognition as a nuclear weapons state in exchange for minimal symbolic steps on their part.”

曾以白宫官员和国防部官员身份与朝鲜打过交道的Michael Green表示，当蓬佩奥试图让朝鲜作出确切承诺时，朝鲜退缩了。他说，朝鲜总是要求减轻制裁以及被正式承认为拥核国家，但只采取最低限度的象征性举措作为交换。

Amid that disconnect, each side also seemed to misread the other’s rhetoric. When national security adviser John Bolton referred to using the model of Libya in unwinding North Korea’s nuclear program, he meant replicating Libya’s example of fully opening up sites involved in its nascent nuclear program to Western observers to verify they were shut down.

在存在这种理解差异的情况下，美朝双方似乎还误解了对方的言辞寓意。当美国国家安全顾问博尔顿(John Bolton)提到用利比亚模式来实施朝鲜的去核方案时，他的意思是要仿效在利比亚去核问题上的相关做法，即向西方观察员完全开放该国刚起步的核项目以证实这些项目已经被关闭。

North Korean officials, by contrast, appeared to read comparisons to Libya as a sign the U.S. was interested in seeing Mr. Kim and his regime suffer the same fate as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who, after forsaking his nuclear program, eventually was deposed and then killed in an American-endorsed revolt.

而朝鲜官员则似乎把利比亚模式理解成了一个信号，即美国有意让金正恩及其政权遭受与利比亚领导人卡扎菲(Moammar Gadhafi)相同的命运。在放弃核计划后，卡扎菲政权最终被推翻，并在由美国支持的叛乱中被杀。

From there, the rhetoric escalated on both sides. North Korea publicly stated what was being signaled privately: that if the only point of the meeting was to talk about disarming Pyongyang rather than giving it economic relief, it might not be interested. Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea not to try to “play” the president. North Korea called Pence a “dummy.”

在美国提及利比亚模式之后，美朝之间的言辞交锋就出现了升级。朝鲜公开表达了原本是私下暗示的信息：如果此次峰会的唯一目的是讨论废除朝鲜的核项目，而不是给予该国经济援助，那么朝鲜可能不会感兴趣。美国副总统彭斯(Mike Pence)警告朝鲜不要试图“愚弄”特朗普。朝鲜将彭斯称为“政治傀儡”。

Chung-in Moon, a professor at South Korea’s Yonsei University and adviser to South Korea’s government, said the North Koreans weren’t trying to put obstacles on the path to a meeting, but rather to signal that they were seeking “mutual respect before the summit,” and warning that they shouldn’t be asked to “surrender” economically. For his part, though, Mr. Trump cited “tremendous anger and open hostility” in North Korean statements as a reason for canceling the summit.

韩国延世大学(Yonsei University)教授、韩国政府顾问文正仁(Chung-in Moon)说，朝鲜并没有企图在峰会前制造障碍，只想暗示双方在峰会前应该彼此尊重，且不要逼迫朝鲜在经济上“投降”。但特朗普却以朝鲜在声明中表现出“极大的愤怒和公开的敌意”为由取消了峰会。

Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump seemed to believe something fundamental had changed in North Korea, which may not have been as true as he hoped. The president—along with others—appeared to think Mr. Kim’s willingness to publicly discuss backing away from his nuclear programs suggested he had a fundamentally different view of the world and his country than did his father and grandfather, who preceded him as leader. The young Mr. Kim, they hoped, had a greater grasp of how much his country needed economic development to avoid falling further behind the rest of the world, and was more willing to put economic development before military advances. Skeptics doubt the North Korean playbook has really changed.

也许最重要的是，特朗普似乎相信朝鲜发生了根本性的变化，而实情恐怕并非如此。此前，不仅是特朗普，许多人似乎也认为，金正恩能够摆出愿意公开探讨放弃核计划的姿态，说明他对世界局势和他自己国家的看法都在根本上不同于把权力交给他的父亲和祖父。他们希望年轻的金正恩能够更清醒地认识到朝鲜多么需要发展经济，避免进一步被其他国家甩下，并且更愿意把经济发展置于军事发展之上。但有人怀疑，朝鲜的思路其实一直没变。

Now, says Mr. Green, “the reality is that we will have to be prepared for a less glamorous and more disciplined strategy of containing, deterring and steadily rolling back this threat with our allies.”

Green说，从现在开始，美国要面对现实，要准备用一种不那么炫目却更有章法的战略，与盟友一起来遏制、威慑并逐步化解来自朝鲜的威胁。