[原创] Clashing with the foreign devils与国外列强的冲突

showcraft

http://www.economist.com/node/18175331
Clashing with the foreign devils
Why China has a long memory
19th-century China
与国外列强的冲突
为何中国噩梦记忆悠长
19世纪中国
Feb 17th 2011 | from the print edition


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The Scramble For China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914.By Robert Bickers. Allen Lane; 496 pages; £30. Buy from Amazon.com
掠夺中国：国外列强在清朝，1832-1914.罗伯特·别克斯著

AS NUMEROUS museums across China testify, the country dwells on its past in order to justify the present. A common theme is that of the “national humiliation” China says it suffered from the mid-19th century until the Communist Party came to power in 1949. To help prove that the party created a “new China” and has the right to rule it, schoolchildren are made to tramp around exhibits showing how foreigners scrambled to dismember China, how they poisoned it with opium, bullied (and sometimes butchered) its people and looted its treasures.
全中国的众多博物馆会告诉你，这个国家正在大力借古褒今。凭藉的主旋律便是“民族耻辱”，中国政府宣称从19世纪中叶直至1949年共产党掌权前中国皆罹此之难。为了强化没有共产党就没有“新中国”、共产党因此有权统治中国的信条，中小学生被安排漫步于上述博物馆中参观展览。这些展览展示了当年国外列强如何攫取瓜分中国，如何以鸦片毒害社会，欺凌（有些时候屠杀）国人并掠夺中国的珍宝。
As far as it goes, this outline of what happened is true enough, though opium was commonly used by the Chinese elite before the British started peddling their own produce from India. But the party forbids exploration of anything that might blur this picture. One taboo area is what Chinese nationalists at the time saw as the foreign nature of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing, which collapsed in 1911. Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary who helped topple it, held the ethnic Manchus who controlled the dynasty in more contempt than the Westerners who had forcibly set up colonial enclaves, the Russians who had carved off part of Manchuria, or the Japanese who had taken Taiwan after a war in 1895. To keep the story simple, the party prefers to view the Manchus as Chinese.
就事论事，尽管在英国人开始向中国倾销其在印度种植的鸦片之前此物早已在中国上层中广泛使用，那些展览所描绘的历史绝对真实。然而党禁止可能模糊这些印象的任何研究。一个禁区便是当时的中国民族主义者对末代王朝——1911年灭亡的满清的异族特质的看法。相比强行建立殖民地的西方列强，攫取部分满洲土地的沙俄以及在1895年夺取台湾的日本而言，协助推翻满清的革命党人孙中山对清朝的满族统治者抱有更强烈的蔑视。为了简单叙事，共产党倾向于选择视满族人为中国人。
In his history of the foreign scramble for China, Robert Bickers of Bristol University looks mainly at the story of west European and, to a lesser extent, American interaction with the country. The Japanese and Russian strands of this hugely complex tale of an evolving nation-state are picked out in less detail. The anglophone actors take centre stage—rightly, perhaps, at first, given the pioneering role played by the British in China’s history of humiliation. Mr Bickers takes 1832 as his starting point, the year when British ships sailed north from the Canton delta, carrying pamphlets, textiles and opium.
在列强侵华史一书中，布里斯托尔大学的罗伯特·别克斯主要关注了西方列强以及相对次要的美国与中国之间的互动影响。而在这个异常复杂的单一民族国家演化史叙事中日俄的相关部分则被更少的细节描述区分开来置于一边。鉴于中国屈辱史中英国人扮演的先锋队角色，恰恰可能是以英语为母语的演员们一马当先占据了舞台中央。别克斯先生选取了1832年为他的出发点，因为那年携带着礼品清单、织品以及鸦片的英国船队从珠三角地区起航北上。
As the 1800s unfold, the stage becomes more crowded and Mr Bickers sometimes appears to wander in the detail. His story ends well short of the communist victory that the party claims sent foreign intruders scuttling, although China’s ever-pragmatic nationalism allowed Britain to rule over Hong Kong and Portugal to control Macau until the end of the 20th century.
其后随着19世纪的展开，这舞台显得越来越拥挤。别克斯先生间或好似在枝桠琐事中徘徊迷途。尽管中国不断务实的民族主义认可直到20世纪末才终结的英国对于香港以及葡萄牙对于澳门的治权，作者的叙事远在共产党宣称赶跑帝国主义侵略者之前便结束了。
Mr Bickers specifies 1914 as his cut-off date (three years after the Qing’s demise), but he describes 1913 as the turning point when “as a multinational enterprise, the scramble for China started to unravel”. With the outbreak of the first world war, “the European concert in China was broken”, he writes. The story, however, did not reach its climax until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which lasted from 1931 to the end of the second world war.
别克斯先生明确指出1914年（清朝灭亡后三年）为他的中断线，但他形容1913年为转折点，因为从那时起“如同一个跨国公司，对中国的掠夺开始解体了”。他写道随着一战的爆发，“欧洲列强在中国的和谐一致分裂了”。而这段历史尚未达到高潮，直到日本侵略满洲，而这个高潮也从1931年起持续到二战末。
“The Scramble for China” is based largely on English-language sources, which leaves the reader sometimes yearning for more insight from other actors: the Germans and Russians, for example, whose response to the anti-foreign Boxer rebellion in 1900 was particularly brutal. British accounts provide rich illustrations of the clash between two civilisations whose early interactions were dogged by their respective convictions of their own superiority and the barbarity of the other.
“掠夺中国”一书很大程度上以英语文献资源为参考蓝本。这些资源有时会驱使读者渴望更多对其他演员的观察：比如说德国人和俄国人，他们对于1900年排外的义和团运动的反应尤其残忍。英国档案对于中英两个文明间的冲突提供了丰富的佐证。两个民族间的早期互动显得顽固不化，双方各自对于自身的优越感与对方的蛮横态度难辞其咎。
Described now as a humiliation, the establishment of foreign settlements was not always seen this way by the Chinese. Mr Bickers says the arrangement was “simply a variant of the long-established practice of allowing sojourning communities to organise their own affairs”. The term “unequal treaties”, now routinely used in China to describe the agreements reached between foreign powers and the Qing government after several military defeats, was unknown until 1923. Chinese nationalism, portrayed by the party in terms suggesting it had always been a force, was slow and fitful in its 19th-century awakening.
外国租界区的成立被塑造成了一种屈辱的标志，但中国人对此的看法并非一以贯之。别克斯先生表示这种安排“仅仅是一种历史悠久的旅居社群自治管理方式的变种”。当下在中国用来形容清朝在与列强的一些军事冲突失败后所签订条约的常用词“不平等条约”其实是从1923年开始才提出。根据党所采用的说法来形容，中国的民族主义始终是一种推进力量，这种力量在其19世纪的觉醒过程中缓慢行进且断断续续。
British nationalism, by contrast, was at its height. The author notes how “humiliation” narratives fortified the minds of the British as they made inroads into China in the 1840s (among them the tale of how China had curtly rejected the request for trade made by Britain’s first envoy to China, Lord Macartney, at the end of the 18th century). “They often talked, wrote and taught, as the Chinese came to talk, write and teach, about the lessons of history,” he says. This might not bode well for China’s future behaviour. As the West’s scramble for China showed, rising nations, eager to extend their global reach and easily riled by the slights of other powers, have a habit of behaving badly.
与之形成鲜明对照的则是当时的英国民族主义处于其巅峰。作者提到关于“屈辱”的渲染（这其中包括18世纪末中国人如何直截了当的回绝由马嘎尔尼勋爵率领的首个英国使团提出的通商请求）如何固化了当时英国人的思维并因此在1840年代对中国发动了侵略。作者说道，“当时他们不厌其烦的谈论、记述以及传授这些历史教训，正如中国人当时所做的一样”。这可能无法很好的昭示中国未来的行动。正如西方对中国的掠夺行径所揭示，崛起中的民族急于扩张自己在全球的影响力，容易为其他强权轻微的一丝怠慢冲冠一怒。这样的民族的行事习惯只能称为拙劣。
from the print edition | Books and Arts

showcraft

汗，现在看看不足太多，无所谓了，自娱自乐。

http://cul.sohu.com/20110225/n279525763.shtml
英刊：中国为何对近代耻辱史念念不忘？
来源：新华网 2011年02月25日10:51我来说两句(51)复制链接打印大中小大中小大中小　　　英国《经济学家》周刊网站2月17日文章 原题：中国为何如此念念不忘———评罗伯特·比克斯的《瓜分中国：清帝国的外国魔鬼》

　　中国各地的无数座博物馆证明，这个国家念念不忘过去，是为了表明今天的所作所为是正当的。博物馆的共同主题是中国在19世纪中期到共产党1949年执政之前所蒙受的“国耻”。共产党要求学童参观各种展览，了解外国人如何瓜分中国，如何用鸦片毒害中国，如何欺凌(乃至屠杀)中国人民并掠夺中国的财富。

　　就实际情况而言，这段历史确凿无疑，但在英国人开始贩卖从印度运来的鸦片之前，中国的精英阶层就普遍吸食鸦片。可是，探究与以上陈述不符的观点却被禁止。禁忌之一是，当时的中国民族主义者认为1911年垮台的最后一个朝代———清朝———属于外族统治。帮助推翻清朝的革命者孙中山更鄙视满族人，而不是强行划定殖民地的西方人，比如吞并满洲部分地区的俄罗斯人和在1895年的一场战争后占领台湾的日本人。

　　在讲述外国瓜分中国的历史时，布里斯托尔大学的罗伯特·比克斯主要探讨了西欧和美国(次要重点)与中国的关系。这个极其错综复杂的故事以一个逐渐形成的单一民族独立国家为主题。在这个故事里，日本和俄国的部分阐述得不太详尽。英语国家占据了中心位置———考虑到英国在中国屈辱史中扮演的领军角色，这也许是对的。比克斯把1832年作为起点。这一年，英国舰船装载着小册子、纺织品和鸦片，从珠江三角洲北上。

　　19世纪随着时间的推移，舞台越发拥挤。比克斯的叙述在共产党远未获得胜利之前就结束了。尽管共产党宣称赶走了外国侵略者，但出于务实考虑，还是让英国统治香港，让葡萄牙控制澳门，直到20世纪末。

　　比克斯把1914年(也就是清朝覆灭3年后)作为分界点，但他说，1913年才是真正的转折点，因为当时“各国列强瓜分中国的活动开始瓦解”。他写道，第一次世界大战爆发时，“欧洲各国在中国的协同行动宣告终结”。不过，故事直到日本入侵满洲才达到高潮。这次侵略从1931年持续到二战结束。

　　《瓜分中国》主要是基于英文史料撰写的，所以读者有时迫切希望了解其他参与者的看法：比如德国人和俄国人，因为他们对1900年仇外的义和团运动采取了尤为野蛮的报复行动。英国的史料详尽描述了两种文明之间的冲突。两国都深信自己是优越的，对方是野蛮的，而这种信念干扰了两种文明的早期交流。

　　中国人如今称之为耻辱，但当年并非始终如此看待外国在中国划定的租界。比克斯说，这种安排“只不过略微改变了一种由来已久的做法，让居留在此的群体管理自身事务”。中国现在经常用“不平等条约”这个字眼来描述清政府几次吃败仗后与外国势力达成的协议，而这个字眼在1923年之前是无人知晓的。按照共产党的说法，中国的民族主义始终是一股重要力量，但它在19世纪的发展是缓慢和断断续续的。

　　相形之下，英国的民族主义当时正处于顶点。作者指出，英国人19世纪40年代打入中国的时候，“屈辱”事件坚定了他们的决心(其中包括18世纪末，中国是多么唐突地拒绝了英国派往中国的第一位特使———马嘎尔尼勋爵———的贸易要求)。他说：“他们当年谈论、撰写和讲授历史教训的方式与中国当前的谈论、撰写和讲授方式如出一辙。”