榕树下

Kim family saga: third and final act
金氏传奇：第三幕（终幕）
Jun 18th 2009
From The Economist print edition

North Korea’s dictator is on the way out; take aim at his successor
朝鲜大独裁者金正日渐行渐远，谁会是其继任者？

BRUTAL, pot-bellied and unpredictable: the same adjectives are always together on the larder shelf when editorial writers describe Kim Jong Il. But how helpful are they any more? There’s no quibbling over Mr Kim’s brutality. He runs his country like a gulag, and a Kim-made famine killed a twentieth of the population in the 1990s. As for pot-bellied, the description no longer holds, since, after a presumed stroke last summer, the Dear Leader looks frail, and as gaunt as his underfed subjects.

提到金正日，报刊社论主笔不约而同地用到这几个形容词：野蛮残忍、大腹便便、捉摸不透。可这几个词现在还适用吗？金正日的野蛮残忍毋庸置疑。朝鲜在他统治之下无异于一座集中营，20世纪90年代金氏政权治下的大饥荒夺去了朝鲜1/20人口的生命。至于金正日大腹便便，不再适用了，去年夏天中风之后，这位敬爱的领袖看起来虚弱不堪，骨瘦如柴，一如他食不果腹的子民们。

And unpredictable? The word has always been unhelpful, for it misses how foreseeably Mr Kim’s Communist dynasty has blackmailed the outside world, defying the odds and the end of the cold war to cling to power. The notion of unpredictability is based on the tantrums North Korea throws. The latest began earlier this year with bellicose rhetoric, missiles and, last month, a presumed nuclear explosion (though spooks are puzzled at the lack of radiation, and wonder if this was simply a mountain-full of TNT). Yet ever since the North’s push for a nuclear capability caused increasing concern in the early 1990s these hissy fits have been routine. Each time North Korea has cranked up the tension only to try to exploit it, usually by returning to multilateral negotiations on better terms—more aid goodies and respect.

那捉摸不定呢？这个形容词从来就不适用。想想金氏共产王朝是怎样讹诈西方世界的，想想他们怎样化不可能为可能，在冷战结束后还牢牢掌握着政权，这些是完全可以看清楚的。说朝鲜捉摸不定，是指其喜怒无常。最近一次发作是年初的时候，言辞强硬、发射导弹，一直到上个月所谓的核试验（但情报人员困惑地没有发现核辐射，他们怀疑山体里填装的不是核弹，而是TNT炸药）。自从20世纪90年代初朝鲜寻求核武受到国际社会普遍关注以来，这种发作已是家常便饭。每次朝鲜制造局势紧张，然后利用这种紧张带来的更好的条件——更多物资援助和更加尊重朝鲜——回到多边谈判桌上

With the latest nuclear test, Mr Kim has raised the stakes higher than usual. To many that belongs to the familiar wearisome pattern of abuse. President Barack Obama, who has yet to articulate a North Korean policy, has begun to talk of the country as if it were an ill-behaved toddler that should not be rewarded for bad behaviour. Robert Gates, his defence secretary, says that America is “tired of buying the same horse twice”. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea has reversed his predecessors’“sunshine policy” of unconditional aid. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again (and again), shame on me.

有了这次核试验，金正日大幅提高了谈判筹码。许多人都熟稔金氏这种恶习。奥巴马总统虽然尚未公布朝鲜政策，但在谈到朝鲜时表示，朝鲜就像个不守规矩的小破孩，如果再干坏事，就不会有奖赏了。奥巴马政府国防部长罗伯特•盖茨也表示，美国“烦透了花两次钱买同样一匹马”。韩国总统也调整了前总统卢武铉坚持的“阳光政策”，这项政策将无条件给予朝鲜援助。第一次耍我，你真可耻；第二次耍我，我真可耻！

Yet now a growing band of North Korea-watchers, even in China, divines a new unpredictability which, they say, is more disturbing than the tired old blackmail. This band says North Korea no longer intends to return to the table. After the United Nations Security Council imposed fresh sanctions on June 12th, as punishment for the nuclear test, the North said it would not just make more plutonium bombs, but enrich uranium too. Unlike earlier bellicosity, today’s rhetoric lacks calibration. When North Korea now says it does not mean to give up its bid to be a nuclear-weapons power, blimey, perhaps it means it. This week Mr Lee was in Washington to seek Mr Obama’s reassurance that South Korea sits under American protection, and to make it clear that neither country would accept North Korea as a nuclear state.

眼下越来越多的朝鲜观察家（甚至中国的观察家）认为出现了新的捉摸不定，这种捉摸不定比原来的讹诈更加令人不安。他们认为朝鲜将不会回到谈判桌了。在联合国安理会6月12日针对此次核试验做出新的制裁后，朝鲜表示，将不仅仅制造更多钚弹，而且将进行铀浓缩活动。不同于以往的挑衅性言论，这次完全没有比对标准。朝鲜声称将不放弃成为核武国家的努力，也许他们是认真的。本周李明博访问华盛顿，要求奥巴马重申韩国将处于美国保护之下，美韩双方都将不接受朝鲜为核武国家。

It was always wishful thinking to suppose that Mr Kim was developing his nukes in order to trade them away. His dynasty has spent half a century trying to acquire them, and the deal on offer from the outside world is unalluring. In essence it offers North Korea development aid and recognition in return for nuclear disarmament. Neither side of this bargain is in Mr Kim’s interests. He would lose two powerful, related tools of totalitarian control: the claim to be holding the line against an outside world bent on war and destruction; and the enforced isolation of his benighted people. A nuclear deal would make a nonsense of the first claim, while development would bring much more knowledge about the outside world.

认为金正日发展核武只是为了卖出去的想法，简直是一厢情愿。金氏王朝在长达半个世纪的时间里努力发展核武，不为西方世界提供的交易方案所动。实际上这些交易给予了朝鲜发展援助和外部承认，作为交换，朝鲜必须同意进行核裁军。金正日不关心这项交易的任何一面。他将失去极权统治的两件利器：誓死坚持反对西方世界路线，战争和和毁灭不可避免；强制推行与世隔绝的愚民政策。如果和西方世界达成核武交易，前面的誓言将成为一纸空文，而发展也将给人民带来太多关于外界的信息

Now his own poor health and the looming succession make even the pretence of a negotiated process too risky. The alternative to the status quo is not gradualist modernisation, as in China. Rather, it is collapse and unification on South Korea’s terms. Already, the broad population is profoundly embittered with the corrupt tinpot despotism. If Mr Kim and his cronies are not tried for crimes against humanity, it may be because they have already been strung up from lampposts. In trying to ensure his dynasty’s survival, the hard line is the 68-year-old Mr Kim’s only option. He is digging his regime in for the long term. Quite literally: the country is a vast network of tunnels and underground complexes for the leaders. Starved of cash, North Korea is drawn to other pariahs for business—even selling tunnelling advice to Myanmar’s junta, another bunch of totalitarian troglodytes.

如今，鉴于金正日糟糕的健康状况以及即将到来的权力交接，假装进行磋商将十分危险。要改变现状，不是要进行中国式的渐进式改革，而是实现韩国所谓的“政权倒台、祖国统一”。朝鲜广大人民早已怨恨腐败的极权统治。如果金正日和他的同僚不被判以反人类罪的话，那也许是因为他们已经在路灯下被施以绞刑。为了让金氏王朝苟活下去，68岁的金正日必将选择强硬路线。在长期看来，他是金氏王朝的掘墓人。确实，朝鲜现在到处是为领导人修建的地道网和地下设施。为了挣钱，朝鲜被迫和其他无赖做生意——甚至为缅甸军阀提供开挖隧道咨询服务。这些缅甸军阀不过是朝鲜极权“穴居”领导人的同类。

Un-likely to succeed
继位,不太可能

After him is another matter. This Mr Kim has anointed as successor his 26-year-old third son, Kim Jong Un. The older Kim relied for his legitimacy on the strength of his father, Kim Il Sung. From his father he assumed the mantle of a neo-Confucian sun king, not unlike Emperor Hirohito before the war. The irony is rich since Kim and his fellow band of guerrillas swore oaths of fealty to each other when fighting the Japanese (and Japan remains a bogey). They became North Korea’s ruling elite. The oaths passed with Mr Kim to the second generation, which holds all important posts of power. But now his pot belly is gone, his left arm looks nearly paralysed, and intimations of his mortality abound.

金正日身后还是一团乱麻。他已经指定26岁的小儿子金正云作为继承人。金正日依靠父亲金日成取得了政权的合法性。从金日成那里，金正日接过新儒家“太阳王”的斗篷，一如二战结束前的裕仁天皇。想想金日成和他的游击队战友们在打日本鬼子时彼此做的忠诚宣誓（当然，日本现在还是鬼子），一切是多么讽刺。他们后来成为朝鲜的统治阶层精英。这些誓言后来又传到第二代金正日那里，这第二代几乎占据了所有国家机器的权力。但如今，他的大肚子瘪了下去，他的左臂似乎已经瘫痪，关于他死亡的消息也满天飞。

Can the third generation hang together? More likely, they will hang separately. These days other temptations distract the elite, which travels widely. Take Mr Kim’s eldest son, accosted this month by Japanese television crews in Macau. Yes, he had also read the reports about his younger brother. Yes, the decision was his father’s, with unerring judgment. No, he hadn’t spoken to his father for a while. And (the subtext): could he please go gambling now? This generation of Kims does not look promising, and that is great news. At his Swiss boarding school, where he passed as the son of a chauffeur, Kim Jong Un was known for bossing players around on the basketball court. It is a start, but hardly adequate training for an absolute dictator. And that is just why the outside world should not give up on North Korea but stick with its inducements. They will yet prove the regime’s undoing.

第三代能团结一致吗？他们很可能将四分五裂。如今，诱惑让极权统治精英分神分心，他们到处旅游。这个月日本电视台有人在澳门和金日成的大儿子进行了攀谈。他承认也读到了关于他弟弟的报道，他承认这是父亲伟大光荣正确的决定。他有一阵没有和他父亲交流了。而且（潜台词）：可以停下采访，放他去赌博了吗？金氏这代没什么前途，真是个好消息。金正云以司机的儿子的身份进入瑞士一家寄宿学校。金正云以篮球场上的拼命三郎著称。这是个好的训练开始，可离大独裁者还差得很远。所以，外界不应该对朝鲜不抱希望，应该关注第三代所受的诱惑。他们终将证明金氏政权的失败。

《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
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meiyongchun：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=20071&highlight=