北京的大躍退

[前言] Bret Stephens 是美國新聞記者，編輯和專欄作家。他於2017年4月下旬開始在《紐約時報》工作，並於2017年6月擔任NBC新聞的資深撰稿人。他曾在《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal）擔任外交事務專欄作家和副社論頁面編輯，並負責其歐洲和亞洲版的編輯頁面。

他以其新保守主義 (neo-con) 的外交政策見解而出名，是偏自由派《紐約時報》少數比較偏保守派專欄作家之一。此次撰文聲援他曾任職的《華爾街日報》。值得注意的是美國主流媒體，不論自由派或保守派，與居美國主要政黨的民主黨與共和黨，對中國沒有好話的立場頗為一致。

[譯文]

北京的大躍退

驅逐《華爾街日報》的記者使中國回到了更黑暗的時代。

布雷特·斯蒂芬斯（Bret Stephens）

《紐約時報》意見專欄作家

美國東部時間 2020年2月20日，下午3:44

幾年前，在北京一個過熱的房間裡，我被迫忍受一位中國外交部官員的嚴厲口頭訓斥。我的罪過是：作為負責《華爾街日報》的的海外輿論部分編輯，我顯然因同意發表「著名恐怖分子」熱比亞的文章侮辱了整個中國人民。

我不得不咬緊牙關，以壓制我可提出的反駁說：「中國最著名的暴君毛澤東的肖像，正俯瞰著被稱為天安門廣場的殺戮場」。

當週三聽到消息，中國政府決定驅逐駐華的三位《華爾街日報》記者-兩名美國人和一名澳大利亞人，以報復沃爾特·拉塞爾·米德（Walter Russell Mead）發表的觀點專欄的標題：「中國是真正的亞洲病夫」，我想到了前面所述的事件。中國外交部用一種使我想起自己經歷的方式發表聲明，聲稱：「中國人民不歡迎媒體發表種族主義言論，並向中國施以惡意攻擊。」，我想到了前面所述的事件。中國外交部用一種使我想起自己經歷的方式發表聲明，聲稱：「中國人民不歡迎媒體發表種族主義言論，並向中國施以惡意攻擊。」

任何對Mead的專欄，標題和文本都感興趣的讀者都將注意到，其中沒有種族主義的痕跡，儘管它對新冠病毒流行病暴露了中國系統更廣泛的脆弱性給出了破壞性極大的論據。那些熟悉《華爾街日報》的人會知道，與《紐約時報》一樣，該報在新聞和意見欄目之間進行了嚴格的分隔，這意味著面臨被驅逐的記者Mead專欄的撰寫和出版完全沒有關係。

但是，事實的準確性與找政治上的替罪羔羊毫無關係，這就是打擊《華爾街日報》的全部目的。這更多地坐實了Mead關於中國固有弱點的更廣泛觀點，而並無矛盾。

這些弱點是什麼？人口統計學家指出中國的出生率下降，人口高齡化和性別差距。經濟學家援引其逐步不振的生產率。虛假的統計數據以及巨大的債務炸彈。政治分析人士指出，北京採取了越來越多的鎮壓政策，導致香港到新疆的不滿情緒加劇。

但是，新冠病毒危機暴露出了更深層次的弱點：中國政權擔心訊息。

正如我的同事紀思道（Nick Kristof）所指出的那樣，正是這種恐懼促使政府抑制有關新病毒的消息，並懲罰舉報的醫生，而這本應迅速採取相反的措施，以便更好地控制其傳播。結果是喪失與疾病抗爭的關鍵時間，幾乎可以保證隨後發生的全球健康危機。

對於中國政府而言，這種行為並不是什麼新鮮事：它以幾乎相同的方式處理了2003年SARS疫情。這個問題也不是中國獨有的：任何依靠操縱或製造「真相」來維持自身生存的政權都必須採取類似的行動。這就是Donald Trump不停撒謊和錯誤陳述事實的原因之一，這不僅是不道德的，而且是危險的。真理驅動的地下活動不會消失，它反而會蔓延。

但是對於中國人來說，問題更加嚴重，原因很簡單，因為他們沒有真正獨立的國內新聞媒體。這意味著普通民眾無法獲得及時、準確和全面的信息，而中國的統治者也無法獲得。結果是危險的謠言滿天飛，可能是致命的無知以及可能是災難性的錯誤的估算。

對付《華爾街日報》的舉動將加劇該政權的問題，因為外國新聞機構的報導對於填補疏漏和糾正中國官方媒體的歪曲往往至關重要。《華爾街日報》做了一些最具開創性的工作，以揭示該國環境災難的規模，就像《紐約時報》（The Times）暴露了中國領導金字塔頂端的貪污程度。其他新聞媒體，特別是路透社，對中國經濟中的欺詐和欺詐行為進行了重要報導。

禁止此類報導，而首當其衝的是信息盲人是中國領導人。每個獨裁者都需要訂閱《華爾街日報》和《紐約時報》，即使它們像過去的骯髒雜誌一樣裝在不起眼的棕色信封中。

政權總是有可能會更好地考慮驅逐記者的舉動，或者至少在幾週後讓他們安靜地返回。明智的領導者面對自己非理性的不信任信息所帶來的巨大危機，至少會吸取他們愚蠢的教訓。但是，中國可能有一個比新冠病毒還要可怕的愚蠢的統治者。為此，尚未發明疫苗使其免疫。

自2017年4月以來，布雷特·史蒂芬斯（Bret L. Stephens）一直是 《紐約時報》（Times）的觀點專欄作家。他於2013年在《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal）上獲得了普利策獎評獎，此前曾擔任《耶路撒冷郵報》的主編。

[原文]

Great Leap Backward

Expelling Wall Street Journal reporters returns China to a darker age.

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

Feb. 20, 2020

Several years ago, in an overheated room in Beijing, I was forced to endure a stern lecture from a Chinese foreign ministry official. My sin: As the editor at The Wall Street Journal responsible for the paper’s overseas opinion sections, I had apparently insulted the entire Chinese people by publishing the work of a “well-known terrorist” — the courageous Uighur human-rights activist Rebiya Kadeer.

I had to clench my jaw to suppress the rejoinder that China’s best-known tyrant, Mao Zedong, has his portrait overlooking the killing field known as Tiananmen Square.

I thought of that episode this week on hearing Wednesday’s news that the Chinese government has decided to expel three Wall Street Journal reporters based in China — two Americans and an Australian — in retaliation for the headline of an opinion column by Walter Russell Mead, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.” In a style reminiscent of my own experience, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement claiming, “The Chinese people do not welcome media that publish racist statements and smear China with malicious attacks.”

Any reader of Mead’s column, headline and text alike, will note that there isn’t an iota of racism in it, though it makes a devastating case about the ways in which the coronavirus epidemic has exposed the broader fragility of the Chinese system. And those familiar with The Wall Street Journal will know that the paper, like The Times, enforces a strict separation between its news and opinion sections — meaning the reporters facing expulsion had absolutely nothing to do with the writing and publication of Mead’s column.

But factual accuracy is irrelevant in a political scapegoating exercise, which is what this strike on the Journal is all about. And this does more to underscore Mead’s broader point about China’s inherent weaknesses than it does to contradict it.

What are those weaknesses? Demographers point to China’s falling birthrate, aging population and gender gap. Economists cite its faltering productivity, its made-up statistics and its giant debt bomb. And political analysts point to ever more repressive policies from Beijing, leading to ever greater discontent from Hong Kong to Xinjiang.

But the coronavirus crisis has exposed a far-deeper weakness: The Chinese regime fears information.

It was just this fear that, as my colleague Nick Kristof pointed out, led the government to suppress news about the new virus — and punish whistle-blowing doctors — when it should have done the opposite, swiftly, so as to better contain its spread. The result was the loss of the critical time in fighting the disease, all but guaranteeing the global health crisis that followed.

This sort of behavior is nothing new for the Chinese government: It mishandled the 2003 SARS epidemic in much the same way. Nor is the problem specific to China: Any regime that depends on the manipulation or manufacture of “truth” for its own survival is bound to act in similar ways. That’s one of the reasons Donald Trump’s nonstop lying and misstatements of fact aren’t just immoral but also dangerous. Truth driven underground doesn’t vanish. It stalks.

But the problem for the Chinese is much more acute, for the simple reason that they don’t have genuinely independent domestic journalism. That means that ordinary people have no access to timely, accurate and comprehensive information — and neither do China’s rulers. The result is rumor, which can be dangerous; ignorance, which can be fatal; and miscalculation, which can be catastrophic.

The move against The Wall Street Journal will compound the regime’s problems, since reporting by foreign news organizations has often been critical in filling the omissions and straightening the distortions of China’s official media. It was The Journal that did some of the most pathbreaking work to expose the scale of the country’s environmental catastrophes, just as it was The Times that exposed the extent of graft at the top of the Chinese leadership pyramid. Other news outlets, particularly Reuters, have done vital reporting on the frauds and scams endemic in China’s economy.

Suppress this kind of reporting, and the first people who will suffer information blindness are China’s leaders. Every dictator needs subscriptions to The Journal and The Times, even if they come — like smutty magazines of yore — in inconspicuous brown envelopes.

It’s always possible that the regime will think better of its move to expel the reporters, or at least quietly let them return in a few weeks’ time. Wise leaders, facing a monumental crisis brought on by their own irrational distrust of information, would at least learn the lessons of their folly. But there might be a truth in China even more frightening than the coronavirus — foolish rulers. For that, no vaccine has ever been invented.