American and Chinese diplomats plan to meet later this month to begin what amounts to the first, tentative arms control talks over the use of artificial intelligence.

美国和中国的外交官们计划在本月晚些时候会面，就人工智能的使用问题开启相当于试探性的首次军备控制谈判。

A year in the making, the talks in Geneva are an attempt to find some common ground on how A.I. will be used and in which situations it could be banned — for example, in the command and control of each country’s nuclear arsenals.

这些将在日内瓦举行的谈判已筹备了一年，美中将试图在一些问题上找到共同点，包括如何使用人工智能，可能在哪些情况下（例如，在各自国家的核武库指挥和控制系统中）禁止使用等。

The fact that Beijing agreed to the discussion at all was something of a surprise, since it has refused any discussion of limiting the size of nuclear arsenals themselves.

中国政府会同意讨论这些问题，这件事本身就有点令人惊讶，因为它一直拒绝任何有关限制核武库规模的讨论。

But for the Biden administration, the conversation represents the first serious foray into a new realm of diplomacy, which Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke about on Monday in a speech in San Francisco at the RSA Conference, Silicon Valley’s annual convention on both the technology and the politics of securing cyberspace.

但对拜登政府来说，这次对话意味着首次认真涉足一个外交新领域，国务卿布林肯周一在旧金山举行的RSA大会上发表讲话时提到了这点。RSA大会是硅谷就保护网络空间的技术和政治问题举行的年度会议。

拜登政府的战略超出管理网络冲突规则的范围，重点是美国确保控制如海底电缆等有形技术的努力，这些技术将国家、公司和个人用户连入云服务。

“It’s true that ‘move fast and break things’ is literally the exact opposite of what we try to do at the State Department,” Mr. Blinken told the thousands of cyberexperts, coders and entrepreneurs, a reference to the Silicon Valley mantra about technological disruption.

“没错，‘快速行动，打破陈规’的确与我们在国务院试图做的事情完全相反，”布林肯对数千名网络专家、程序员和企业家说，他用的是硅谷有关技术颠覆的口号。

But it is that disruption — from a quickening pace of sophisticated cyberattacks, to the vulnerability of undersea cables, to the battle for control of the internet and the influence operations it enables — that has driven agencies across the government to design strategies for dealing with emerging technology threats.

但正是这种颠覆已促使政府的各个部门设计应对新兴技术威胁的战略，这些威胁来自更加活跃的复杂网络攻击、海底电缆的脆弱性、互联网控制权之争，以及互联网带来的影响力行动机会。

The Biden White House issued a national strategy for dealing with cyber. The Pentagon has written one focused on deterring attacks. The Department of Homeland Security homed in on resilience. But the last formal State Department strategy for diplomatic engagement on the topic was written a dozen years ago, in President Barack Obama’s first term.

拜登政府发布了应对网络问题的国家战略。国防部已撰写了一个着重于阻止网络攻击的战略。国土安全部的战略重点是恢复能力。但国务院上次就这个主题制定正式的外交战略是在十几年前，即奥巴马总统的第一个任期内。

Ransomware was not yet a scourge, and the technology behind Chat GPT was still years away. While cyberattacks were well underway — including some launched by U.S. intelligence agencies — they had not become a daily staple of geopolitical competition.

那时，勒索软件还未成为祸患，Chat GPT背后的技术还需要数年时间才出现。虽然网络攻击已在进行中，包括美国情报机构发起的一些攻击，但它们尚未成为地缘政治竞争的日常重要部分。

But the new strategy comes at a time when the early optimism about a “global internet” connecting the world has been shattered. What is left is what Nathaniel C. Fick, the State Department’s first ambassador for cyberspace and digital policy, who is expected to play a key role in the discussions with China, refers to as a “fragmented system” that is unlikely to ever be sewn back together.

国务院新战略的出台是在人们对“全球互联网”连接世界的早期乐观情绪早已破灭的时候。人们现在对互联网的看法，用国务院首任网络空间和数字政策大使纳撒尼尔·菲克的话说，是一个“支离破碎的系统”，而且不太可能被缝合起来。预计菲克将在与中国的讨论中起关键作用。

“Just about everyone is willing to acknowledge that technology is an important element of foreign policy, but I would argue that tech is not just part of the game — it’s increasingly the entire game,” Mr. Fick said in an interview.

“几乎每个人都愿意承认技术是外交政策的一个重要组成部分，但我认为，技术不仅是外交活动的一部分，而是正越来越多地成为全部活动，”菲克在接受采访时说。

“Think about it — asymmetric advantage in the war in Ukraine, global competition with China on key technologies, the ability of Israel and its allies to intercept Iranian aerial attacks. All tech,” he said. “The international order will be defined by whose metaphorical operating system dominates.”

“其实，俄乌战争中的不对称优势，在关键技术上与中国的全球竞争，以色列及其盟友拦截伊朗空袭的能力，所有这些都是技术，”他说。“国际秩序将由——用个比喻的说法——谁的操作系统占主导地位来决定。”

Mr. Fick’s strategy, written with Adam Segal, a Council on Foreign Relations expert on cyber whom Mr. Fick brought into the State Department’s new cyber and digital bureau to help write the strategy, focuses on the concept of “digital solidarity” with allies and partner states that have a common view of the rules that should govern technology and information flows.

菲克的战略是与外交关系委员会的网络专家亚当·西格尔共同撰写的，菲克将西格尔带到国务院新成立的网络空间和数字政策局来帮助制定战略。战略的主要概念是与对管理技术和信息流动的规则有共同看法的盟友和伙伴国家建立“数字团结”。

“We have to hang together with allies and partners, truly investing in digital solidarity, or we’ll get picked apart by those who have a very different view of tech’s role in the world,” Mr. Fick said, a clear reference to the growing partnership of Russia and China.

“我们必须与盟友和合作伙伴们团结在一起，对数字团结进行真正的投资，否则我们将被那些对技术在世界上的作用有截然不同看法的国家分解，”菲克说，他明显是指俄罗斯和中国不断发展的伙伴关系。

As a result, the strategy goes beyond the rules of managing cyberconflict and focuses on American efforts to assure control over physical technologies like undersea cables, which connect countries, companies and individual users to cloud services.

因此，新战略超出管理网络冲突规则的范围，重点是美国确保控制如海底电缆等有形技术的努力，这些技术将国家、公司和个人用户连入云服务。

Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, has been seeking to dominate the laying of cables across the Pacific and, increasingly, around the world. But Mr. Fick maintains that American, Japanese and European firms still dominate the market, and that “this remains one area where we can compete vigorously.”

中国电信设备巨头华为一直在寻求主导太平洋地区的海底电缆铺设业务，并越来越多地在全球寻求主导地位。但菲克坚持认为，美国、日本和欧洲公司仍主导着市场，“这仍是我们可以激烈竞争的一个领域。”

Mr. Blinken, in his speech, made clear that part of the diplomacy he envisions involves persuading nations not to rely on undersea cables, data storage or cloud computing supplies from Chinese suppliers, or other states in China’s technological orbit. He describes an increasingly zero-sum competition, in which countries will be forced to choose between signing up for a Western-dominated “stack” of technologies or a Chinese-dominated one.

布林肯在讲话中明确表示，他对外交工作的展望包括说服各国不依赖中国供应商或处于中国技术轨道上的他国供应商来提供的海底电缆、数据存储或云计算服务。他描述了一种日益激烈的零和竞争，各国将被迫在西方主导的“大量”技术或中国主导的技术之间做出选择。

“In these arenas, the United States currently leads the world, but providers from authoritarian states are increasingly competitive,” Mr. Blinken told the RSA Conference. “It’s critical we work with trusted vendors and exclude untrustworthy ones from the ecosystem.”

“在这些领域，美国目前处于世界领先地位，但来自威权主义国家的供应商越来越具竞争力，”布林肯在RSA大会上说。“至关重要的是，我们要与值得信赖的供应商合作，将不值得信赖的供应商排除在生态系统之外。”

Mr. Blinken made clear, by implication, that it was China’s firms he was labeling as untrustworthy.

布林肯虽然没有挑明，但被他贴上不值得信任标签的显然是中国公司。

He cited a U.S.-backed effort, along with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan, to link up 100,000 people living in the Pacific islands — a tiny population, but one that China has targeted because of its strategic location — in its effort to expand its influence in the South Pacific.

他给了一个美国在这方面努力的例子。美国正在与澳大利亚、日本、新西兰和台湾一起，将居住在太平洋岛屿上的10万人连接起来，虽然这是很少的人口，但由于这些岛屿的战略位置，它们正在成为中国扩大其在南太平洋影响力努力的目标。

“Any disruption — or compromise — could isolate a country, threaten national security or lead to billions of dollars in damage,” Mr. Blinken said.

“任何颠覆——或破坏——都可能让一个国家陷入孤立，威胁国家安全，或导致数十亿美元的损失，”布林肯说。

The new State Department strategy acknowledges that cyberweaponry and a range of digital tools were central to Russia’s effort to take over Ukraine in 2022 — starting with the attacks on the Viasat satellite system that kept the country’s government agencies connected. And it notes that Ukraine was kept connected because of technology provided by Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Elon Musk’s Starlink, which enabled the embattled authorities in Kyiv to move their records and communications to the cloud, just days or weeks ahead of Russian attacks that destroyed computer servers around major cities.

美国国务院的新战略承认，网络武器和各种各样的数字工具是俄罗斯2022年控制乌克兰努力的核心，其第一步是攻击Viasat卫星系统，该系统让乌克兰此前得以保持政府机构之间的联系。新战略特别提到，乌克兰之所以能保持网络连接是因为微软提供的技术、亚马逊的网络服务，以及埃隆·马斯克的星链，这些技术让处境艰难的基辅当局能在俄罗斯的袭击摧毁了乌克兰主要城市周围的计算机服务器几天或几周前将它们的文件和通信转移到云端。

But the new strategy says surprisingly little about how to deter state-directed attacks, a focus of the Obama-era strategy and a source of continuing frustration for American officials. It also acknowledges the degree to which China has penetrated American utility and water supply networks, installing malware that U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed are designed to trigger chaos and slow an American military response if Beijing decided to invade or choke off Taiwan.

但令人惊讶的是，新战略几乎没提如何阻止国家主导的网络攻击，这方面曾是奥巴马时代战略的重点，也是让美国官员持续感到懊丧的原因之一。新战略也承认了中国渗透美国供电和供水网络的程度，中国在这些网络中安装了恶意软件，据美国情报部门的评估，其目的是，如果中国政府决定入侵或封锁台湾的话，它能用这些恶意软件在美国国内引起混乱，放慢美国做出军事反应的速度。

The strategy describes that operation, which Microsoft’s investigators have named “Volt Typhoon,” in unusually stark terms. It characterizes China as capable of “launching cyberattacks that could disrupt oil and gas pipelines, rail systems and other critical infrastructure services within the United States or its allies and partners.”

新战略用异常严酷的措辞描述了被微软调查人员称为“伏特台风”的渗透，称中国有能力“发起网络攻击，可能搅乱美国或其盟友和合作伙伴境内的石油和天然气管道、铁路系统和其他关键基础设施服务”。

“Attempts to compromise critical infrastructure by PRC actors are designed in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict,” the State Department report, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China, continued, “to either prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia, or to affect our decision-making during a crisis by instigating societal chaos inside the United States.”

“PRC活动者破坏关键基础设施的尝试，部分是为在发生冲突时能破坏或摧毁关键基础设施设计的，”美国国务院在新战略中写道，文中用的是中华人民共和国的英文首字母缩写。“为的是阻止美国向亚洲投射力量，或通过在美国国内煽动社会混乱来影响我们在危机期间的决策。”