储百亮 2023年11月14日
中国领导人习近平在白宫与美国总统奥巴马一起举行记者会，摄于2015年。 GARY CAMERON/REUTERS
When President Xi Jinping of China made his first state visit to the United States in 2015, he wrapped his demands for respect in reassurances.
2015年，中国国家主席习近平首次对美国进行国事访问时，曾要求美国保证给予中国尊重。
He courted tech executives, while defending China’s internet controls. He denied that China was militarizing the disputed South China Sea, while asserting its maritime claims there. He spoke hopefully of a “new model” for great power relations, in which Beijing and Washington would coexist peacefully as equals.
他试图取悦科技高管们，同时为中国对互联网的控制做辩护。他否认中国正在将有主权争议的南中国海军事化，同时坚称中国在那里拥有海事主权。他对构建“新型大国关系”充满希望，在这种关系下，中美将以平等的地位和平共处。
But back in China, in meetings with the military, Mr. Xi was warning in strikingly stark terms that intensifying competition between a rising China and a long-dominant United States was all but unavoidable, and that the People’s Liberation Army should be prepared for a potential conflict.
但在回国后主持军队会议时，习近平却以截然不同的严厉措辞发出警告，称正在崛起的中国与长期占主导地位的美国的竞争加剧几乎不可避免，中国人民解放军应该为可能的冲突做好准备。
In Mr. Xi’s telling, China sought to rise peacefully, but Western powers would not accept the idea that a Communist-led China was catching up and could someday overtake them in global primacy. The West would never stop trying to derail China’s ascent and topple its Communist Party, he said in speeches to the military that are largely unreported by the media.
按照习近平的说法，尽管中国寻求和平崛起，但西方列强不会接受共产党领导的中国正在追赶、并在有朝一日取代它们全球霸主地位的想法。他在向军队发表讲话时说，西方永远不会停止试图阻挠中国的崛起和推翻中共，但这些讲话基本上没有见诸媒体。
“Beyond doubt, our country’s growing strength is the most important factor driving a profound readjustment of the international order,” he told top commanders in November 2015, two months after his visit to the United States. “Some Western countries absolutely never want to see a socialist China grow strong under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.”
“毫无疑问，我国发展壮大是推动国际格局和国际体系深刻调整最重要的一个因素，”他在访美两个月后，也就是2015年11月对解放军高级指挥官发表讲话时说。“一些西方国家是绝对不愿意看到中国共产党领导的社会主义中国发展壮大的。”
习近平与奥巴马在白宫玫瑰园，摄于2015年。 DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Despite his assurances to President Obama not to militarize the South China Sea, Mr. Xi told his senior commanders in February 2016 that China must bolster its presence there, saying: “We’ve seized the opportunity, eliminated intervention and sped up construction on South China Sea islands and shoals, achieving a historic breakthrough in maritime strategy and defending maritime rights.” (In the years that followed, China quickly expanded its military infrastructure in the area.)
虽然习近平曾向美国总统奥巴马保证不会将南中国海军事化，但他在2016年2月对解放军高级指挥官们说，中国必须加强在南中国海的存在，他说：“我们抓住时机、排除干扰，加快推进南海岛礁建设，取得了经略海洋、维护海权的历史性突破。”（中国在接下来的几年里迅速扩大了在那里的军事基础设施。）
Mr. Xi’s remarks are among collections of speeches that Mr. Xi made to the People’s Liberation Army and Communist Party officials, published by the military for internal study by senior officers, and seen and corroborated by The New York Times. The volumes, “Xi Jinping’s Selected Major Statements on National Defense and Military Development,” cover his initial years in power, from 2012 to February 2016.
习近平对中国人民解放军和中共官员发表的这些讲话经整理成集后由军方出版印发给高级军官供内部学习之用。《纽约时报》看到并核实了这些讲话。《习近平关于国防和军队建设重要论述选编》包括了他上台初期的2012年到2016年2月发表的讲话。
The speeches offer a new, unvarnished view into the leader at the center of a superpower rivalry that is shaping the 21st century. They show how at times he has voiced an almost fatalistic conviction — even before Beijing’s ties with Washington took a steep dive later in the Trump administration — that China’s rise would prompt a backlash from Western rivals seeking to maintain their dominance.
这些讲话提供了一个未经修饰的新视角来了解这名处于超级大国竞争中心的领导人，而这场竞争正在影响着21世纪的进程。这些讲话表明，甚至在中美关系在后来的特朗普政府时期急剧下降之前，习近平有时就已在表达一种近乎宿命论的坚定信念，那就是，中国的崛起必将引起寻求维持主导地位的西方竞争对手的强烈反对。
“The faster we develop, the bigger the external shock will be, and the greater the strategic blowback,” Mr. Xi told Chinese Air Force officers in 2014.
“我们发展得越快，对外部的影响冲击就越大，受到的战略反弹力就越强，”习近平2014年对中国空军军官们说。
In Mr. Xi’s worldview, the West has sought to subvert the Chinese Communist Party’s power at home and contain the country’s influence abroad. The Communist Party had to respond to these threats with iron-fisted rule and an ever-stronger People’s Liberation Army.
在习近平的世界观中，西方寻求颠覆中共在国内的权力，遏制中国在国外的影响力。中共必须用铁腕统治和日益强大的人民解放军来应对这些威胁。
中国在南沙群岛修建的人工岛，岛上有机场和各种建筑物，摄于2022年。中国长期以来一直力求加强本国在该海域的存在。 EZRA ACAYAN/GETTY IMAGES
As Mr. Xi prepares to meet with President Biden in California this week, the question of how the two powers will manage their rivalry hangs over the relationship.
在习近平准备本周在加州与拜登总统会面之际，这两个大国将如何处理之间的竞争，仍是让人们对双方关系忧心忡忡的问题。
Mr. Xi has been trying to stabilize relations with Washington, apparently pressed by China’s economic troubles and a desire to reduce Beijing’s diplomatic isolation. “We have a thousand reasons to grow the relationship between China and the United States, and none at all to ruin it,” Mr. Xi told American lawmakers in Beijing recently.
习近平已在试图稳定与华盛顿的关系，这似乎是受中国经济困境的压力，以及希望减少中国在外交上遭受孤立愿望的影响。“我们有一千条理由把中美关系搞好，没有一条理由把中美关系搞坏，”习近平最近在北京对到访的美国立法者说。
But with mutual distrust running deep, any easing of antagonism between the two sides could be tenuous.
但由于双方的相互怀疑根深蒂固，两国对立情绪的任何缓和可能都很脆弱。
Mr. Xi underscored that his judgment of the challenge posed by the United States remains unchanged, saying with rare public bluntness in March: “Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-around containment, encirclement and suppression of China.”
习近平强调，他对美国带来的挑战的判断没有改变，他曾在今年3月罕见地公开表示：“以美国为首的西方国家对我实施了全方位的遏制、围堵、打压。”
Doubts About American Might
对美国实力的怀疑
Mr. Xi’s views of the world and the United States bear the imprint of China’s turbulent years when he was preparing to assume power. China had grown quickly, but the reforms that boosted that growth had slowed, and official corruption was rampant. The security state had expanded, but so had protest and dissent.
习近平的世界观以及他对美国的看法带有他当年为掌权做准备的那段动荡时期的印记。虽然中国经济在那段时期增长迅速，但促进经济增长的改革步伐已放缓，官员腐败猖獗。虽然国家扩大了安全措施，但抗议和异见也在扩大。
As Mr. Xi emerged as the country’s leader-in-waiting in 2007, some diplomats, experts and well-connected Communist Party veterans predicted that he would be a pragmatist who might restart China’s efforts toward economic liberalization. Some even saw in him a chance for political change after a long period of stagnation.
随着习近平将成为中国下任领导人的迹象在2007年变得清晰起来，一些外交官、专家和党内关系广泛的中共元老们曾预测，他会是一名实用主义者，可能会重启中国的经济自由化进程。有些人甚至在他身上看到了长期停滞的政治改革的机会。
担任上海市委书记时的习近平，摄于2007年。 NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
They cited Mr. Xi’s pedigree as the son of a revolutionary leader who had helped oversee China’s economic overhaul in the 1980s and the decades Mr. Xi had spent as an official in the commercial coastal provinces of eastern China, including 17 years in Fujian, where he courted investors from neighboring Taiwan. Li Rui, a retired senior official who had once served as Mao Zedong’s aide, recorded in his diary a conversation in 2007 about the relatively unknown Mr. Xi.
他们指出，习近平是参加过中国革命的领导人的儿子，那名领导人曾在20世纪80年代帮助指导中国的经济改革。他们还指出，习近平曾在中国东南沿海的商贸省份担任过几十年的官员，包括在福建省工作了17年，在那里，他曾试图吸引与福建一海之隔的台湾的投资者。曾担任毛泽东秘书工作的退休高级官员李锐在日记中记下了2007年他与别人谈起当时还相对无名的习近平的一段对话。
“I asked what Xi Jinping was like, and the answer was four words: ‘governing by doing nothing,’” Mr. Li wrote. “That would be good,” Mr. Li added, “letting everyone play to their strengths with less meddling.” (Mr. Li died in 2019; his diaries and correspondences are held by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.)
“问习近平如何，答四个字：‘无为而治’，”李锐写道。“这就不错，”李锐补充道，“发挥大家的长处，少干涉。”（李锐已于2019年去世；他的日记和信件保存在斯坦福大学的胡佛研究所。）
But Mr. Xi’s upbringing and family background left a more complex imprint than many assumed: He was, above all, proud of the party and the Communist revolution. And skepticism about American might and wariness about its intentions toward China were becoming more mainstream in Beijing as Mr. Xi prepared to take the reins of power.
但习近平的成长经历和家庭背景给他留下的印记比许多人想象的更复杂：最重要的是，他对中共和共产主义革命感到自豪。随着习近平为掌权做准备，中国政府当中对美国实力的怀疑、警惕美国对华意图的思想变得越来越主流。
The global financial crisis of 2007-08 had shattered official Chinese assumptions that Washington’s economic policymakers were competent, even if Beijing disagreed with them. Chinese officials quizzed American officials like Hank Paulson, then the Treasury secretary, about their mishandling of the situation. For many in Beijing, the lessons extended beyond the financial system.
2007-08年的全球金融危机打破了中国官员对美国经济政策制定者能力的假设，尽管中国官员持有与他们不同的意见。中国官员曾问过时任美国财政部长保尔森等美国官员他们处理不当的问题。对中国政府里的许多人来说，那次危机的教训不仅限于金融体系。
在福建省会福州工作时，习近平骑自行车带女儿出行。照片由中国国家通讯社提供，未注明日期。 XINHUA, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
“It was a defining moment,” said Desmond Shum, a businessman whose memoir, Red Roulette, describes those years, when he mingled with China’s political elite. “After that point, the entire Western model was questioned much more. There was also this growing belief that the world would need China to lead the way out of the mess.”
“那是一个决定性的时刻，”商人沈栋说，他的回忆录《红色轮盘》讲述了他在那些年里与中国政治精英交往的经历。“那个时刻之后，人们对整个西方模式有了更多的怀疑，越来越相信世界需要中国领导，才能走出困境。”
Specter of ‘Color Revolution’
“颜色革命”的幽灵
As Mr. Xi prepared to become China’s leader, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was emerging as a model of an authoritarian strongman pushing back against American pre-eminence.
就在习近平准备成为中国领导人时，俄罗斯总统普京以反对美国霸主地位的独裁铁腕人物的榜样出现了。
“These two men have a shared mental map of the world — not perfectly the same, but shared,” said Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Both want to return their countries to a lost inheritance of greatness; both want to reclaim key territories; both have a shared sense of the trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
“这两个男人对世界有一种共同的思维——虽然不完全一样，但有相同之处，”战略与国际研究中心中国问题专家白明(Jude Blanchette)说。“他们都想把失去的伟大遗产归还给自己的国家；他们都想收复关键领土；他们对苏联的解体有共同的创伤感。”
In particular, Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, who met in 2010, shared a suspicion that the United States was bent on destabilizing its rivals by instigating insurrection in the name of democracy. Mr. Xi and other Chinese leaders adopted Mr. Putin’s conception of “color revolutions” to describe such unrest.
具体来说，2010年相识的习近平和普京都怀疑，美国决心以民主为名在对手国家煽动叛乱、破坏稳定。习近平和其他中国领导人采用了普京的“颜色革命”概念来描述这种骚乱。
2010年，普京在莫斯科与习近平会面。专家们说，这两名领导人有与他们各自国家的伟大复兴有关的共同世界观。 MISHA JAPARIDZE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
In the mid-2000s, official Chinese fears of an eruption of anti-party protests did not seem so far-fetched. Flagrant corruption and official scandals had incensed many people. The internet opened up new channels for amplifying grievances.
本世纪前十年的中期，中国官方对爆发反党抗议活动的担忧似乎不无道理。骇人听闻的腐败和官员丑闻已激怒了许多人。互联网为放大这些不满提供了新渠道。
Chinese Communist Party leaders have long sought to mobilize support by citing a miasma of external threats. Warnings of an American conspiracy to overthrow the party and transform China into a capitalist country by “peaceful evolution” go back to the Mao era. But Mr. Xi has evoked those warnings with distinct urgency.
中共领导人长期以来一直试图用各种各样的外部威胁论来动员国内的支持。有关美国阴谋推翻中共、通过“和平演变”把中国变成资本主义国家的警告可追溯到毛泽东时代。但习近平发出这些警告是带着明显紧迫感的。
“He’s somebody who spent years of his life lacking security and, as he said later, learning from his father about the fickleness of human relationships and power,” said Joseph Torigian, a research fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University who has examined Mr. Xi’s speeches to the military. “Now he becomes the named successor, and he’s looking around the world and seeing ‘color revolutions’ and United States meddling and, for him, it’s this idea that, ultimately, power is the last guarantor of security and strength.”
“他是在人生很多年里缺乏安全感的那种人，而且正如他后来说的，他从父亲那里学到了人际关系和权力的变化无常，”斯坦福大学胡佛历史实验室研究员唐志学(Joseph Torigian)说道，他读了习近平对军队的讲话。“现在他成了指定继任者，他观察世界时看到的是‘颜色革命’和美国的干预，对他来说，一个最终想法是，权力是安全和力量的最后保证。”
Mr. Xi saw lessons in the “Arab Spring” uprisings that had toppled corrupt authoritarian leaders across the Middle East. The overthrow of Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, in 2011, left a deep impression on Chinese leaders, who saw parallels with the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, said John K. Culver, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who followed Mr. Xi’s rise.
习近平从“阿拉伯之春”中汲取了教训，在中东许多地方，腐败的独裁领导人为此下台。埃及领导人穆巴拉克2011年的倒台给中国领导人们留下了深刻的印象，他们认为那与1989年的北京天安门广场民主抗议活动有相似之处，曾任中央情报局官员的约翰·K·卡尔弗说道，他曾密切关注习近平的职业生涯。
穆巴拉克2011年宣布辞去埃及总统职务后，开罗民众举行了庆祝活动。 MOISES SAMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
“What really scared them was Egypt, because Hosni Mubarak rose as an officer in the Egyptian military, and yet the military turned on him,” Mr. Culver said. Chinese leaders, he added, “saw that and asked themselves: ‘If Tiananmen Square happened today, would the army again save the party?’”
“真正让他们害怕的是埃及，因为穆巴拉克是从埃及军队一路升上来的，但军队却对他翻了脸，”卡尔弗说。他还表示，中国领导人们“看到了这个后自问道：‘如果天安门广场的抗议发生在今天，军队会再次救中共吗？’”
Xi’s Military Renovation
习近平的军队改革
Within weeks of taking power in late 2012, Mr. Xi met with officials and sounded a warning: The collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, was a cautionary tale for China. It had fallen, he lamented, because its military had lost its nerve. He warned officials that China could suffer the same fate unless the party recovered its ideological backbone.
2012年底上台后没几周，习近平就在与官员们见面时发出警告。他说，苏联的解体对中国来说是个警示故事。他哀叹道，苏联之所以解体，是因为苏联的军队失去了勇气。习近平警告官员们，中国可能会遭受同样的命运，除非中共找回自己的意识形态支柱。
Months later, he issued an internal edict to roll back the influence of what he called Western ideas, such as the concept of universal human rights and the rule of law, in universities and the news media.
几个月后，他在一份内部文件中下令，在大学和新闻媒体中抵制他所谓的西方思想，如普世价值、人权、法治等概念。
From his first presidential summit with Mr. Obama in 2013, Mr. Xi had shown himself to be a “much more assertive and confident leader” than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, setting aside his talking points to press his views, according to Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama.
自从2013年与奥巴马举行首次元首峰会起，习近平就把自己表现为比前任胡锦涛“更坚定自信的领导人”，为强调自己的观点，他会不顾谈话要点，曾在奥巴马手下担任副国家安全顾问的本·罗兹说。
“This was a guy who was not just the frontman of a party, he was his own man,” Mr. Rhodes said in an email.
“他不仅仅是一个政党的头面人物，他是个独立自主的人，”罗兹在电子邮件中写道。
Mr. Xi, who leads the military as chairman of the Central Military Commission, reserved some of his bluntest warnings about the West for his commanders.
身为中共中央军委主席的习近平也是军队领导人，他的一些对西方最直截了当的警告是说给军队的指挥官们听的。
习近平在香港的一个军营检阅中国人民解放军，摄于2017年。 DALE DE LA REY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
“The ‘laws of the jungle’ of international competition have not changed,” he told military delegates to China’s national legislature in 2014. He pointed to the growing presence of American jets, ships and aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific region as evidence that the United States was seeking to contain China.
“国际竞争的‘丛林法则’并没有改变，”习近平2014年对出席人大会议的军队代表们说。他指出，美国的飞机、舰艇和航空母舰在亚太地区的频繁出现证明，美国正在寻求遏制中国。
He also said that the pro-Western protests that were then sweeping across Ukraine were a warning for Beijing. “Some Western countries are fanning the flames there and secretly scheming to achieve their geopolitical goals there,” he said. “We must take heed of this lesson.”
他还说，当时席卷了乌克兰的亲西方抗议活动是对中国政府的警告。“一些西方国家为了实现其地缘战略目标在那里煽风点火、密谋策划，”他说。“我们要引为镜鉴。”
To prepare for the threats Mr. Xi saw ahead, he said, China needed to urgently overhaul its military. From late 2015, he initiated a sweeping reorganization of the People’s Liberation Army, seeking to make it an integrated force capable of extending Chinese power abroad, especially through air, sea and space forces. His warnings about the West helped underscore the urgency of those changes.
习近平说，为了应对他预见到的威胁，中国迫切需要进行军队改革。从2015年底起，他开始对中国人民解放军进行大规模重组，力求将其打造成一支能够将中国的力量扩展到海外，尤其是能在空中、海上和太空投射力量的综合部队。他对西方的警告帮助强调了这些改革的紧迫性。
“Speeches to people within the system are attempts to mobilize,” said Mr. Blanchette, the researcher in Washington. “You don’t do that by just saying that the world is getting a little bit complicated; you need a narrative that is going to allow you to smash vested interests to achieve change.”
“体制内的讲话是为了把人们动员起来，”在华盛顿工作的研究员白明说。“要动员的话，就不能只是说世界正在变得有点复杂；需要一个能打破既得利益的叙事，才能实现改革。”
参加中国2018年在西太平洋举行军事演习的“辽宁号”航空母舰（中）。 REUTERS
Mr. Xi warned that the People’s Liberation Army was still dangerously backward, and could fall behind if it did not seek to innovate, particularly in upgrading its weaponry and command organization. In these speeches, Mr. Xi did not say that war was unavoidable. But he made clear that without a formidable military, China would not be able to assert its will.
习近平警告称，人民解放军仍危险地落后于时代，如果不寻求创新，尤其是武器装备和指挥机构升级上的创新，就会更落后。虽然在这些讲话中，习近平没有说战争不可避免。但他明确表示，没有一支强大的军队，中国就不能坚持自己的意愿。
“In international contestation, political operations are very important, but ultimately it comes down to whether you have strength and whether you can use that strength,” he told the commanders on the Central Military Commission in November 2015. “Relying on a silver tongue won’t work.”
“在国际较量中，政治运筹很重要，但说到底还是要看有没有实力，会不会用实力，”他2015年11月对中央军委指挥官们说。“光靠三寸不烂之舌是不行的。”
