美国副国务卿关于美中关系设想的演讲

2009年9月24日，美国副国务卿詹姆斯．斯坦伯格（James B. Steinberg）以“本届美国政府关于美中关系的设想”为题在新美国安全中心（Center for a New American Security）发表主题演讲。以下是演讲的全文：

Administration's Vision of the U.S.-China Relationship
—Keynote Address at the Center for a New American Security
James B. Steinberg
Deputy Secretary of State
Washington, DC
September 24, 2009

本届美国政府关于美中关系的设想
——在新美国安全中心发表主题演讲
美国副国务卿詹姆斯．斯坦伯格
华盛顿哥伦比亚特区
2009年9月24日
 
 

Well, thank you, Nate, for that kind introduction.

纳特，感谢你的热情介绍。

It’s a great pleasure to be back and to be here at this CNAS event. It’s great to see, although I had no doubt about it, that CNAS is still thriving despite the Obama Administration’s best efforts to deprive you of each and every one of your leading lights. And every meeting I go to seems to be populated by so many of the good people – not only Kurt and Michele, obviously, but Jim Miller and so many others who made CNAS so successful, and the really remarkable achievement in such a short period of time that CNAS has become an indispensable feature on the Washington landscape, no mean feat with the number of competitors that you all have out here, including some that I used to work for. And I think that this study that you’re launching today really is a reflection of the continued critical role that CNAS plays in creative and timely work that you do.

我很高兴能再次来到这里参加新美国安全中心的这次活动。尽管奥巴马政府不遗余力地挖走了你们的每一位精英人物，但贵中心仍能蓬勃发展，我对此深为赞佩，而且从未产生过怀疑。在我参加的每一次会议上，似乎都能见到贵中心如此众多的博学多才之士——不仅有库尔特和米歇尔，当然还有吉姆．米勒和其他很多帮助贵中心取得如此巨大成功的人士。贵中心在短时间内成为华盛顿地区一个不可或缺的景观，的确是一个可观的成就，尤其是你们的竞争对手如林，我还为其中一些机构工作过，能够脱颖而出实为不易。我认为，今天你们发布的这项研究报告确实体现了贵中心的工作富于创新，善于抓住时机，始终发挥着重要作用。

Obviously, as everyone in this audience knows, and we will be seeing a lot of it in the coming week or so, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, which, of course, is part of the reason you scheduled this event now. As we think back on those 60 years, for about half of them – for about 30 – the relationship between the United States was not exactly the best, ranging from hostile at its worst, to nonexistent through much of the time.

当然，在座的各位都知道，我们下个星期还会看到很多有关活动，因为今年是中华人民共和国成立60周年，这当然也是你们将本次活动安排在此时进行的原因之一。回顾这60年，其中一半时间——大约有30年——与美国的关系并不好，关系最紧张的时期相互敌对，有很长一段时期互不往来。

And so in some ways, from a policymaker’s perspective and from a U.S. perspective, the more significant and momentous anniversary is not so much the 60 years since the founding of the PRC, but the 30 years since the United States and China normalized relations under President Carter and Deng Xiaoping in 1979. And I think it’s not entirely coincidental that if you look for a date, that you could roughly time the rise of China and its remarkable transformation – it’s about that time as well that the rise began – part of which having to do with the bilateral relationship and obviously largely to do with decisions China made about its own internal developments.

因此，从某些方面讲，从决策者的角度和美国的角度来看，意义更重大、影响更为深远的不是中华人民共和国成立60周年，而是美国和中国于1979年在卡特总统和邓小平主政时期实现关系正常化30周年。我认为，从时间上讲，这个时期大约也是中国崛起并经历巨大转型的时期，这并不完全是巧合——中国的崛起大约从这个时候开始——两国建立双边关系是原因之一，但在很大程度上显然是中国根据本国国内形势做出的决策。

I think it’s fair to say that despite – I know, the great ambitions and hopes of Kurt and Michele, I don’t think even they, perhaps, would have guessed how far CNAS has come. And in the same way, I think those who were present in 1979 probably could not imagine how far China has come in those 30 years. It’s really truly a remarkable story. And for those of us who have been visiting China over the years, it’s just amazing, each time you visit, how much change you see happening right before our eyes.

我认为，可以恰当地说，尽管——我知道库尔特和米歇尔才识过人，很有远见，但我认为即使他们可能也没有预见到新美国安全中心能有如此良好的发展。同样，我想人们在1979年可能也没有想到中国30年来能取得如此长足的进步。这段历程的确不同凡响。对于我们这些多年来经常访问中国的人来说，每次去都会看到巨大的变化就出现在眼前，令人赞叹不已。

It is a remarkable period to reflect back on and the decisions that were made during that period and the transformation of the U.S.-China relationship, and the great insight that began with President Nixon and followed through by President Carter was the fundamental recognition that the long-term interests of the United States were better served not by trying to thwart China’s ambitions, but rather to explore the possibility of whether China could become a partner with the United States. And while the motivations for those decisions in the 1970s were largely rooted in the dynamics of the Cold War, when we were focused on getting Chinese help encountering the Soviet Union, it is even more important in today’s reality that we recall that basic insight.

回首这段不平凡的时期，重温当时的种种决策和美中关系转变的历程及以尼克松总统为开端，后由卡特总统实现的远见卓识，人们从根本上认识到，更有利于美国长期利益的不是试图挫败中国的抱负，而是探求中国能否与美国结为伙伴的可能性。尽管20世纪70年代的有关决策主要出于对冷战形势的考虑，因为当时我们的重点是争取中国的帮助制衡苏联，但面对今天的现实，重提上述基本认识甚至尤为重要。

Secretary Clinton described that reality recently in her Council on Foreign Relations speech as a reality characterized by two inescapable facts, and I’m quoting her: “First, no nation can meet the world’s challenges alone,” and “Second, most nations worry about the same global threats.”

国务卿克林顿最近在对外关系委员会发表讲话时谈到，有两种不可回避的事实决定了今日之现实。她是这样说的，“首先，没有一个国家能单独应对世界上各种挑战”，“其次，大多数国家对共同的全球威胁感到担忧”。