译者 mhw1111
I went to Burma to see whether the reforms I’d heard about were truly transforming one of the most isolated nations on earth. Yet what many of my Burmese friends wanted to talk instead about was my place of residence: China.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completed her historic visit to Burma, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2, amid a glow of good-news headlines about the country’s nascent reforms. Nevertheless, some Burmese warned me that far from true changes, what their government really wanted was to follow a path of development perfected by the country’s northern neighbor. The China model, at first glance, is an attractive one for repressive, autocratic leaders: by applying one foot on an economic accelerator and another on a political brake, a regime can bring a better standard of living to citizens without threatening its grip on power. The story of China’s rise over the past two decades has been one of both exuberant growth rates and nonexistent political change. Neat trick, that is.
我去缅甸，为的是要看一看那里的改革是否像传说中的有了进展，但我的很多缅甸朋友所谈的话题，却离不开我居住的那个地方：中国。
11月30日至12月2日，美国国务卿希拉里.克林顿对缅甸的历史性访问，旨在鼓励缅甸初显端倪的改革。然而，一些缅甸人却告诫说，这与真正的变革还相距甚远，政府心里的真正想法，是一步不差地走他们的北方邻国的发展路子。乍看上去，中国模式对独裁型领导人非常有吸引力：一脚踩经济油门，一脚踩政治刹车，便可以在为其国民带来较好的生活水平的同时，又不至于让自己的统治受到威胁，繁荣的经济增长掩盖了几近停滞的政治变革，这就是过去20多年演绎的中国发展故事——非常高明的技巧。
But if China lite is what Burma’s leaders want, they may have a tough time following Beijing’s lead. For as much as we dismiss it as a pariah state, Burma is already a far more political place than China is. Burma boasts political parties and a charismatic opposition leader in Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. China lacks any such political infrastructure. And as much as we talk about Burma’s hundreds of political prisoners, at least most people know they exist. China, by contrast, has locked up plenty of prisoners of conscience, but apart from a few high-profile inmates like Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, they tend to be faceless and forgotten. Even Liu is hardly known in China.
但是，如果缅甸领导人想让这个国家成为中国的简化版，那他们或许会因为效仿北京而面临一种困境：即使缅甸被我们忽略成一个次等小国，但它仍拥有比中国多得多的政党。缅甸人为拥有多个政党以及一个具有超凡领导气质的反对党领袖、诺贝尔和平奖得主昂山素季而自豪。而中国则缺乏这样政党基础。我们所关注的缅甸的几百个政治犯，至少多数人知道他们的存在。相比之下，中国虽然也有大量的政治犯，但除了少数几个高调者如诺贝尔和平奖得主刘**，其他人要么不为人知，要么已被遗忘，即使刘在中国也只有少数人知道。
Then there’s the issue of access to information—a key political right. Arriving in Burma, I met up with a friend who also lives in China. Even as other foreigners complained about the molasses speed of the Burmese Internet, he and I were happily checking Facebook and reading news sites blocked in China. Had we really come to Burma to experience a liberated Internet? A couple months ago, Burma’s Internet czars relaxed Web censorship; in contrast, it feels like the Great Firewall of China is blocking more information with each passing month. (Both countries, however, have problems with pliant judiciaries, restive minorities and corruption.)
另外还有一个信息渠道畅通的问题—— 重要的政治权力之一。到达缅甸后，我碰到了一位同样也住在中国的朋友。虽然住在缅甸的其他外国人抱怨这里网速极慢，但我和他仍然非常开心地登录了脸谱网站，浏览了在中国被屏蔽的新闻。我们真的成了到这里来体验开放的因特网吗？几个月前，缅甸刚刚放松了网络审查制度，相比之下，中国巨大的防火墙对信息的屏障却似乎在逐月增强。（两个国家都存在着司法不独立、少数民族矛盾和贪腐问题。）
Politics aside, the crucial difference between Burma and China is that the Chinese government has unleashed economic reforms that have enriched the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Around 130 million of China’s 1.3 billion citizens may live under the official poverty line (an assessment of $1 a day, which is lower than the World Bank’s $1.25 a day), but one-third of Burma’s 50 million-plus people subsist in poverty. In a single generation, the economic trajectory of many Chinese lives has gone from grim to upbeat. Elderly Burmese, however, remember how their country used to be one of Asia’s richest and wonder how the ruling generals so thoroughly wrecked the economy. The Burmese government’s spending on health care and education ranks among the world’s lowest, and there’s little indication that such paltry spending will change anytime soon. A child could design a better banking system than Burma — farmers, who make up the bulk of the population, can’t even borrow from an official financial institution. The bulk of revenues from the country’s natural resources — like hydropower, jade, timber and natural gas — end up in just a few cronies’ pockets. Yes, some economic reforms, like privatization and the legalization of labor unions, are now being instituted. But it will be years before any of this makes a difference to the average Burmese peasant.
撇开政治不谈，中国和缅甸之间的主要区别，还在于中国政府实施的经济改革改善了几亿人的生活，13亿国民中有1亿3千万人生活在贫困线以下，而三分之一的缅甸国民、即5千多万人仍生活在贫困中。只用了一代人的时间，很多中国人便从艰难的经济状况中走出。老一代缅甸人仍然记得缅甸曾经是亚洲最富俗的国家之一，他们不明白那些治国的将军们是怎样将这个国家的经济彻底摧毁的。缅甸政府用于医疗和教育的开支跻身于世界最低之列，而且尚没有迹象表明这种状况会很快得到改变。小孩子都能建一个比缅甸更好的银行体系—— 占人口大多数的农民居然无法从官方的金融机构获得贷款。经济收入主要来自于自然资源贸易——如水电、玉石、木料、天然气等，其中的大部份进了贪官们的腰包。不错，一些经济改革举措，如私有化、工会合法化等，目前得到了确立，但这些措施真正能让农民的状况得到改善还需要很长的时间。
If Burma truly wants to heed the China model, it will have to distance itself from, well, China. Burma’s hybrid military-civilian rulers are growing increasingly wary of Beijing’s geopolitical sway — not to mention China’s economic dominance over Burma’s natural resources. But sanctions precluded the U.S. and other Western powers from providing Burma’s leaders with a counterbalance to China. Hence a charm campaign — consisting of market reforms, political prisoner releases and a modicum of political liberalizations, among other measures — that culminated in Clinton’s landmark visit, which the Burmese hope will eventually lead to a lifting of Western sanctions.
缅甸如果真要想效仿中国模式，那它反倒必须与中国保持距离。缅甸的军方与非军方的联合政权正越来越担心北京的地缘势力，更别提中国经济对缅甸自然资源的支配地位。但是美国等西方势力对缅甸的制裁，又使缅甸领导人无法从他们那里获得抗衡中国控制的力量。因此，一连串玄妙的举动——包括市场改革，释放政治犯，以及些许的政治宽松等措施，终于获得了希拉里的里程碑式到访，缅甸希望这能最终让西方放宽对它的制裁。
Growing unease over China’s footprint in Burma also explains why President Thein Sein took the astonishing step in September of suspending a Chinese-backed dam in northern Burma, which would have sent most of the power over the border to China. Back when that hydropower deal was signed, Burma was internationally isolated, a seclusion that was only heightened by its army’s bloody crackdown on the 2007 monk-led protests. The Chinese helped ward off disapproval for Burma in the U.N., and a dam may have seemed a fair trade for that protection. But for now, at least, that’s changed. Burma’s army men, many of whom spent their early careers fighting ethnic rebels backed by China’s People’s Liberation Army, are standing up to Beijing.
踩着中国的脚印走多少让缅甸心里有些不安，这也解释了缅甸总统吴登盛于9月做出的一个惊人举动——暂停了缅甸北部的一个由中国支援的大坝建设项目，该项目建成后，大部分的发电量将输送至中国。当初签署该水电项目时，缅甸在国际上正十分孤立，闭关锁国，唯一引人注目的是其以武力血腥镇压了2007年的僧人抗议示威活动。中国帮助缅甸对抗其在联合国所遭受的反对压力，因而一个水电项目似乎是对中国保护的公平回报。但是现在，至少这方面的情形变了。早年与中国解放军支持的少数民族反叛军打了多年仗的缅甸军方，如今也摆出反对中国的姿态。
Here’s another, final difference between Burma and China. In China, the superiority of democratic governance is hardly a given among smart, educated people. In fact, there’s a sense among some Chinese that a proud, 5,000-year-old civilization possesses within its own traditions a more suitable form of leadership — some version of an incorruptible, wise ruler who has been endowed with the “mandate of heaven.” By contrast, I’d wager that most intellectual Burmese are committed to the primacy of Western-style democracy. Burma’s regime, which says it wants to encourage a “discipline-flourishing democracy,” will have to address the fact that the populace yearns for democratic rule. China’s leaders may not bear quite such a burden.
缅甸与中国之间的最后一个不同在于，在中国，民主管理的优越性能否被高素质、受过教育的人群所认可尚未可知，事实上，在为拥有5千年悠久历史而自豪的中国人心目中，仍习惯于”天降大任于斯人”的清官式的传统领导。而在缅甸，我敢断定多数知识分子的首选将是西方式的民主。既然缅甸政府声称将支持建立一个“有序而繁荣的民主”，那它将不得不遵从民众追求民主的意愿。而中国领导人或许不需要承受这样的一付重担。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/173454/238837
