US president Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing today will highlight the role of an elite group of think-tank analysts, diplomats and scholars struggling to help Beijing’s leadership make sense of Washington.
美国总统唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)今日对北京的访问将突显一个精英圈子的角色，这个圈子的智库分析师、外交官和学者正在帮助北京领导层搞懂华盛顿的任务上犯难。
The reign of an erratic US president who threatens nuclear war and thumbs his nose at diplomatic politesse has made the jobs of such experts both harder and more important. Above all, Beijing craves stability, a commodity in short supply in its most important foreign relationship.一个反复无常的美国总统主政，威胁要打核战争，同时对外交礼仪不屑一顾——这使得这些专家的工作变得更加困难，也更加重要。最重要的是，北京方面渴求稳定，而在其最重要的对外关系中，稳定眼下是难以觅得的东西。“When they are making decisions about policy they are always very interested in how the US will respond,” said Andrew Scobell, an expert on China at the Rand Corporation. “They want a predictable response, whether it is good or bad, they just want predictable.“当他们做出政策决定时，他们总是对美国将会如何回应非常感兴趣。”兰德公司(Rand Corporation)中国问题专家施道安(Andrew Scobell)表示，“他们想要一种可预测的回应，无论好坏，他们只是想要可预测。“In that sense, President Trump is a real enigma, because he is rather unpredictable.”“就此而言，特朗普总统是一个真正的谜，因为他是相当不可预测的。”Many of China’s “Americanologists” hold doctorates from top US universities, and their speciality is one of the best-funded of the social sciences in China. However, many say privately that they struggle to be heard by a leadership in Beijing that does not trust them, while their US colleagues say their public and private personas are markedly different.中国的许多“美国问题专家”拥有美国顶尖大学的博士学位，他们的专业是中国社会科学领域资金最充足的专业之一。然而，很多人在私下里表示，他们很难向北京的领导层进言，因为领导层不信任他们。与此同时，他们的美国同事透露，他们在公共和私下场合表现出明显不同的人格。“You’ll often find someone who has one set of views in a one-on-one chat sounds very different when they are writing a column in a Chinese newspaper. They will be much more hawkish,” said Mr Scobell. “They feel like they have to inoculate themselves from being considered too pro-American.” The election of Mr Trump created a conundrum for many of the Chinese Americanologists, who failed — along with most US political experts — to predict it.“你往往发现某个人在一对一聊天期间表达的一套观点，与他们在中国报纸上撰写的专栏文章听起来有很大不同。他们会鹰派得多，”施道安表示，“他们觉得他们不得不保护自己，以防被认为过于亲美。”特朗普当选给中国的很多美国问题专家带来一个窘境：与大多数美国政治专家一样，他们未能预测到这一结局。“There was a lot of initial panic in China when Trump was elected, a lot of ‘how do we handle this guy and who do we need to contact to establish communications?’,” said Yanmei Xie of Gavekal Dragonomics, a Beijing consultancy. “But China’s management of Trump has been mature. They have a good reading of Washington.”“特朗普当选后，中国最初有很大恐慌，有很多‘我们如何对付这个家伙，我们需要联系谁来建立沟通渠道？’之类的问题。”北京咨询公司龙洲经讯(Gavekal Dragonomics)的谢艳梅表示，“但是中国对于同特朗普打交道的把握迄今是成熟的。他们对华盛顿有很好的理解。”Shen Dingli, a professor of American studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said Mr Trump “says he is making America great again, but he defines greatness in a very narrow sense, in money. He cares only about money, exports and jobs. That makes it very easy for China to handle him.”上海复旦大学的美国研究教授沈丁立表示，特朗普“声称他要让美国再度伟大起来，但他对伟大的定义非常狭义，只是用金钱来衡量。他只关心金钱、出口和就业。这让中国很容易对付他。”China has not always understood the US. Mao Zedong mistakenly thought that the US would not send troops to defend South Korea when it was invaded by the North in 1950, although the US also miscalculated the possibility that China would also invade.中国并不总是了解美国。1950年，毛泽东错误地以为，在韩国遭到朝鲜入侵后，美国不会出兵保卫韩国，尽管美国也误判了中国是否也会出兵的可能性。Much attention has again focused on the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula, fuelled by Mr Trump’s militaristic language. He has threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea and has regularly taken to Twitter to issue threats against Pyongyang.现在，在特朗普狠话的助燃下，各方再度关注朝鲜半岛爆发战争的可能性。他已威胁要对朝鲜倾泻“火与怒”，并经常在Twitter上向平壤方面发出威胁。“There is always an element of confusion in China over who speaks for the US,” said Scott Harold, an expert on Asian security affairs at Georgetown University.“对于谁在代表美国说话，中国总是存在一些困惑。”乔治敦大学(Georgetown University)亚洲安全事务专家斯科特?哈罗德(Scott Harold)表示。“And that is amplified in the era of a US president who is on Twitter a lot.”“在美国总统经常上Twitter表态的时代，这种困惑被放大了。”Shi Yinhong, a US specialist at Renmin University, said Mr Trump’s tweeting “has boiled the US-China relationship down into one issue that is not solvable: North Korea”.中国人民大学的美国问题专家时殷弘表示，特朗普发表的推文已把美中关系的关键归结为一个解决不了的议题：朝鲜。Both the US and China see the other as the problem in North Korea. According to China, Pyongyang would not be making such dramatic efforts to acquire weapons if the US had not threatened it with military force.美国和中国都把对方视为朝鲜问题的症结。按照中国的说法，如果美国没有威胁使用武力对付平壤方面的话，后者就不会为了获取核武而付出如此夸张的努力。On the US side, many appear to see China as North Korea’s chief enabler and as having a great deal of leverage over Pyongyang which it is not using. China says it does not possess much leverage.
在美国这方面，很多人似乎认为中国是朝鲜的主要后台，对平壤有极大支配力，只是不愿使用。中国表示，它并没有太大的支配力。The conundrum for Beijing is whether to take seriously Mr Trump’s threats and apply more pressure to North Korea, in order to head off a confrontation. “There is a major debate in the US right now about whether the US president is really a risk taker or just playing a risk taker,” said Mr Harold. “They are having the same debate in China too.”对北京方面来说，难题在于，要不要认真对待特朗普的威胁，向朝鲜施加更大压力，以阻止一场对抗。“美国国内正在展开一场重大辩论，焦点问题是美国总统真的是冒险者，还是只是在扮演一个冒险者。”乔治敦大学的哈罗德表示。“中国方面也在展开同样的辩论。”