Over the past few months, Jennifer Lawrence, World Series fans and right-wing influencers have all confessed to it. And now, the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary are getting into the act.

过去几个月里，詹妮弗·劳伦斯、职棒“世界大赛”的球迷和右翼网红都承认做过这样的事。现在，《牛津英语词典》的编纂者们也参与了进来。

Oxford University Press has chosen “rage bait” — defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive” — as its 2025 Word of the Year.

牛津大学出版社将“引战”(rage bait)选为其2025年的年度词汇，它指的是“故意通过令人沮丧、挑衅或冒犯的方式引发愤怒或愤慨的网络内容”。

“Rage bait,” which triumphed over the more upbeat “biohack” and “aura farming,” goes back at least to 2002, when it appeared in a post on a Usenet discussion group to describe a particular kind of driver reaction to being flashed by another driver seeking to pass. Since then, it has become an increasingly common slang term for an attention-seeking form of online behavior.

“引战”打败了更乐观的“健康整活”(biohack)和“培养人设”(aura farming)，这个词至少可以追溯到2002年，当时它出现在Usenet的一个讨论组中，用来描述某类司机对超车者闪灯示意时的反应。从那时起，它成了一个越来越普遍的俚语，用于指代一种寻求关注的网络行为。

Over the past year, according to Oxford’s data, frequency of use spiked by a factor of three. The two-syllable open-compound word lands with blunt force. It also sparks an immediate “aha.”

根据牛津大学的数据，在过去的一年里，这个词的使用频率飙升了三倍。这个双音节开放式复合词具有强烈的冲击力，能让人瞬间恍然大悟。

“Even if people have never heard it before, they instantly know what it means,” Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, said in an interview. “And they want to talk about it.”

“即使以前从未听说过这个词，也能立刻知道它的意思，”牛津语言协会主席卡斯珀·格拉斯沃在接受采访时说。“大家都想讨论这个词。”

Oxford’s Word of the Year, which began in 2004, is based on usage evidence drawn from its continually updated corpus of some 30 billion words, which is compiled from news sources across the English-speaking world. The idea is to identify new or emerging words with social and cultural significance, backed by data.

《牛津词典》的年度词汇评选始于2004年，其依据是从其不断更新的约300亿词语料库中提取的用法证据，这些语料库汇集了英语世界新闻来源的语言数据，旨在通过数据来识别具有社会和文化意义的新词或新兴词汇。

As in the past few years, Oxford’s experts chose a short list, and then invited the public to weigh in. This year, there was a new twist: The entries were turned into personified candidates, who sold themselves in on-trend vertical videos by the creative studio Uncommon. (Sample pitch: “What rage bait lacks in empathy, nuance or class they make up for in absolutely nothing.”)

和过去几年一样，牛津大学的专家们筛选出候选词短名单，然后邀请公众参与。今年有了一个小变化：入围词被变成了拟人化的候选人，由创意工作室Uncommon制作成时髦的竖屏视频为自己拉票。（举个例子：“‘引战’确实没同理心、没分寸、没格调，但它好在别的地方也一无是处。”）

The winner was chosen by Oxford’s committee, based on the vote (more than 30,000 people weighed in), public conversation and data analysis.

获奖年度词汇由牛津大学委员会根据投票（超过3万人参与）、公众讨论和数据分析选出。

“The point of the Word of the Year is to encourage people to reflect on where we are as a culture, who we are at the moment, through the lens of words we use,” Grathwohl said. “The whole point is to create conversation.”

格拉斯沃说：“评选年度词汇的目的是鼓励人们通过我们使用的词汇来反思当下文化图景与自我定位，其核心价值在于激发社会对话。”

Over the years, winners have included “selfie” (2013), “post-truth” (2016), “toxic” (2018) and “vax” (2021). In the past few years, they have tended to have a distinctly Gen Z, very-online cast.

历年获奖词汇包括“自拍”（selfie，2013年）、“后真相”（post-truth，2016年）、“有毒”（toxic，2018年）和“疫苗”（vax，2021年）。近几年的词汇往往带有鲜明的Z世代特征，极具网络属性。

Some winners, like 2023’s “rizz” (short for “charisma”) give a zingy new name to a familiar thing. “It’s sometimes about the intangible pleasure of saying and speaking a word,” Grathwohl said.

一些获奖词汇，比如2023年的“rizz”（charisma的简写，即魅力。——译注）给一个熟悉的事物起了一个活泼的新名字。格拉斯沃解释说：“有时纯粹是出于说出某个词语时那种难以言喻的愉悦感。”

Others, like the 2024 winner, “brain rot” (the supposed deterioration of mental capacity brought on by overconsumption of trivial online content), describe a new experience that many are feeling without knowing what to call it. And whether or not “brain rot” is real, the word is still going strong, with usage continuing to surge.

还有一些词，比如2024年的获奖词“脑腐”（brain rot，指过度浏览琐碎的网络内容导致的智力退化），描述了一种很多人都不知道该怎么称呼的新体验。不管“脑腐”是不是真的，这个词仍然很流行，使用频率持续飙升。

This year’s finalists, Grathwohl said, reflect the ways that 2025 has been defined by “questions about who we really are, both online and offline,” and the ways the internet both manipulates us emotionally, and allows us to manipulate others.

格拉斯沃说，今年的入围作品反映了2025年被定义为“关于我们自我认知的问题，无论是线上还是线下”，以及互联网如何操纵我们的情感，也允许我们操纵他人。

“Aura farming,” defined as the careful “cultivation of an impressive, attractive or charismatic persona or personality,” arose around 2023, according to Oxford’s research. Usage nearly doubled over the past year, spiking in July in connection with a viral video of a young boy in Indonesia doing a motivational dance on the prow of a racing boat.

根据牛津大学的研究，“培养人设”的定义是精心“培养令人印象深刻的、有吸引力的或有魅力的人物或个性”，这一概念在2023年左右出现。在过去的一年里，它的使用量几乎翻了一番，并在7月因一个印尼少年在竞速艇船头跳励志舞的热转视频而激增。

Linguistically, it merges a somewhat mystical Latin borrowing, aura, with a 15th-century word relating to the cultivation of crops. “What I love is the banal and the sublime put together,” Grathwohl said.

在语言学上，该词融合了略带神秘色彩的拉丁语借词aura（光环）与15世纪指代农作物培育的词汇。格拉斯沃说：“我喜欢的是这种平凡与崇高的结合。

“Biohack,” a verb describing attempts to “improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity or well-being,” was first recorded around 2011. Its usage also doubled in the past year, aided by growing conversation among “broligarchs,” as Grathwohl put it, and other powerful people. (He noted an incident in September, when Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic talking about organ transplants and the possibility of living to 150.)

“健康整活”是一个动词，描述的是“改善或优化一个人的身体或精神表现、健康、长寿或幸福”的尝试，最早出现在2011年左右。过去一年间，这个词的使用量翻倍增长。格拉斯沃指出，这得益于“兄弟寡头”（broligarchs）等权势阶层间日益活跃的讨论。（他提及九月的一则新闻：普京与习近平在一场无意中被录下的对话中谈论器官移植及活到150岁的可能性。）

“Rage bait” appeared in the headlines in early November after Jennifer Lawrence confessed to creating an anonymous TikTok handle so she could fight with movie fans online. And it’s something even lexicographers have been accused of peddling.

11月初，詹妮弗·劳伦斯承认创建了一个匿名抖音账号，以便在网上与影迷打架，之后“引战”这个词出现在头条新闻上。甚至连词典编纂者都被指责在兜售这类内容。

In 2015, when Oxford chose the tears-of-joy emoji, some old-school wordniks were … not happy.

2015年，当牛津选择了“笑哭”表情符号时，一些老派的词汇爱好者表示……不满。

“People feel so passionately, there’s no way to avoid rage-baiting a portion of the word-loving public,” Grathwohl said. “No matter what we choose, a bunch of people are going to flame out online.”

“人们的情绪如此激烈，以至于无法避免激怒一部分热爱文字的公众，”格拉斯沃说。“无论我们选择什么，都会有一群人在网上大肆攻击。”

The economic relationship between the United States and China is as fraught as it has been in recent memory, but that has not stopped a wave of Chinese food and beverage chains from moving aggressively into the United States for the first time.

尽管近年美中经济关系前所未有地紧张，但并未阻挡一波中国餐饮连锁品牌首次大举进军美国市场。

Chinese tea shops in New York and Los Angeles are offering consumers drinks topped with a milk or cheese foam. Fried chicken sandwich joints are trying to lure diners in California with affordable fast food. Restaurant and drink brands, some with thousands of stores in China, are taking root in American cities to escape punishing competition at home.

纽约和洛杉矶的中式茶饮店带来了奶盖或芝士顶饮品。在加州，来自中国的炸鸡三明治店铺试图以亲民价格吸引食客。为了逃离国内残酷的竞争，这些中国餐饮品牌——其中有一些在国内已经拥有了数千家门店——正在美国城市扎下根来。

HeyTea, a tea chain originating in Jiangmen, a city in southern China, has opened three dozen stores nationwide since 2023, including a flagship operation in Times Square, in New York. Two other rival tea brands, Chagee and Naisnow, opened their first U.S. stores this year. Luckin Coffee, a chain with three outlets for every one Starbucks in China, opened several spots across Manhattan.

起源于中国南方城市江门的喜茶，自2023年以来已在全美开设了30多家门店，包括一家位于纽约时报广场的旗舰店。另两家茶饮竞争对手霸王茶姬与奈雪的茶也于今年登陆美国市场。在中国门店数量三倍于星巴克的瑞幸咖啡已在曼哈顿开设多家分店。

Wallace, one of China’s largest fast-food chains with more than 20,000 stores selling fried chicken and hamburgers, landed in Walnut, Calif., for its first shop. Haidilao, China’s largest hot-pot chain, is redoubling its efforts in the United States after entering the market more than a decade ago.

中国最大西式快餐品牌之一、有两万余家炸鸡和汉堡门店的华莱士在加州核桃市开了美国首店。进入美国市场十余年后，中国最大火锅连锁海底捞如今正加倍推进在这里的扩张。

The American expansion comes at a challenging moment for China’s food and beverage industry. The Chinese economy is no longer growing at a breakneck pace, hampered by a long-running real estate crisis and sluggish consumer spending. To survive, restaurant chains are undercutting one another on prices, inciting an unsustainable, profit-killing race to the bottom.

中国餐饮业向美国市场的扩张正值一个面临严峻挑战的时刻：受长期房地产危机与消费疲软拖累，中国经济已告别高速增长时代。为了生存，餐饮连锁竞相压价，引发了一场不可持续、吞噬利润的恶性竞争。

“China’s food service industry is suffering from severe oversupply,” said Bob Qing, the founder of Tomato Capital, a Chinese firm that invests in restaurants.

“中国餐饮业正遭受严重供过于求的问题，”投资餐饮企业的番茄资本创始人卿永说。

In China, there are three times more food and beverage establishments per capita than there are in the United States, according to Mr. Qing. And half the new restaurants that open in China close within a year.

据他介绍，中国的人均餐饮门店数量是美国的三倍，且新开业餐厅中有半数撑不过一年。

时报广场的喜茶旗舰店内，员工正在制作茶饮。这家连锁品牌起源于中国南方城市江门。

Many Chinese fast-food restaurants have expanded internationally in recent years, especially in Asia, but the United States, according to Mr. Qing, holds significant appeal because it is “the only market as mature and large as China.”

近年来，许多中国快餐品牌已走向国际市场，尤其是在亚洲。但在卿永看来，美国市场独具魅力，因为这是“唯一与中国同样成熟且规模庞大的市场”。

But a U.S. expansion is not without its challenges. Chinese brands must walk a geopolitical tightrope because of China’s position as an economic rival — or adversary — to the United States. While their global expansion is celebrated in China as a sign of the country’s progress and development, it can be viewed as a threat to America’s local businesses.

但进军美国市场并非没有挑战。由于中国被美国视为经济竞争对手乃至敌手，中国品牌必须在地缘政治上谨慎行事。虽然它们在全球的扩张在中国被视为国家进步与发展的象征，但在美国却可能被视为对本土企业的威胁。

Chinese food and beverage chains are moving into the United States as many American brands that stormed into China decades earlier are pulling back.

当中国餐饮连锁大举入美之际，那些几十年前大举进入中国市场的美国品牌却在收缩战线。

This month, Starbucks sold a controlling stake in its China operations to a Chinese investment firm, Boyu Capital. The fast-food conglomerate Restaurant Brands International sold most of Burger King’s China business to a Chinese private equity firm.

11月，星巴克将中国业务的控股权出售给中国投资公司博裕资本。餐饮巨头餐饮品牌国际公司也将汉堡王中国业务的大部分股权售予一家中国私募股权公司。

Domestic competition is especially fierce in China, where milk tea shops have sprouted up over the last decade. According to some estimates, there are 420,000 milk tea shops in China. Some stores have started selling drinks for less than $1, while others offer free online orders. Many of these brands carry an upscale version of bubble tea, which has been wildly popular for years. They brew loose tea leaves instead of using tea bags or powder and add fruit slices, fresh milk or whipped cream cheese foam on top.

中国本土市场竞争格外激烈，过去十年间，奶茶店如雨后春笋般涌现。据估算，目前全国奶茶店数量已达42万家。部分门店饮品售价已跌破7元人民币，还有品牌提供线上点单免单。多个主打高端新式茶饮的品牌近年来风靡市场。它们坚持使用原叶茶汤而非茶包或粉末，佐以鲜果切片、鲜奶或特调芝士奶盖。

HeyTea, which helped pioneer the trend and has about 4,000 stores in China, stopped accepting new franchise applications earlier this year. The company started its American expansion two years ago as the battle among tea brands intensified.

作为该趋势的引领者之一，在中国市场拥有约4000家门店的喜茶于今年初停止接受新的加盟申请。随着茶饮品牌竞争白热化，该企业于两年前启动了美国扩张计划。

At HeyTea’s store in Times Square one recent afternoon, lines stretched out the door with groups of customers waiting for elaborate drink concoctions such as a signature fruit tea topped with cheese foam.

近日的一个午后，纽约时报广场的喜茶门店外排起长龙，顾客们等待着购买精心调制的特色饮品，比如有芝士奶盖的招牌鲜果茶。

“They are getting so big now,” said Farida Abdelaziz, 20, who waited up to 30 minutes with her friends for drinks.

“它家生意太火爆了，”排队近半小时的20岁顾客法里达·阿卜杜勒阿齐兹感叹道。

Naisnow, a smaller Chinese tea brand, opened its first U.S. store in Flushing, a predominantly Asian neighborhood in New York, in October. The lines were long and sales were brisk. Its most popular items were avocado and kale-based drinks made for the United States. The company said it aimed to expand to 500 stores over the next three to five years.

规模小一些的中国茶饮品牌奈雪的茶于10月在纽约亚裔聚居区法拉盛开设美国首店。开业以来门庭若市，其中专为美国市场打造的牛油果羽衣甘蓝系列成为最畅销单品。该企业宣布未来三至五年计划拓展至500家门店。

在纽约法拉盛，一名奈雪的茶门店员工正在整理展示柜。法拉盛的这家店是奈雪的茶在美国的首店，该公司计划在未来几年内在美国扩张至500家门店。在以亚裔为主的法拉盛社区，奈雪的茶门店外顾客大排长龙购买牛油果羽衣甘蓝饮品。

Jerry Yao, Naisnow’s deputy manager in charge of overseas development, said one difference was already apparent: “The margins are definitely better than in China.”

奈雪的茶海外事业部副总经理姚杰（音）指出，美中市场有一个差异显而易见：“这里的利润率绝对高于中国。”

The transition to the United States is not always smooth. The hot-pot chain Haidilao, which has a cultlike following in China, struggled when it first entered the market in 2013.

进军美国市场并非总是一帆风顺。在中国拥有狂热粉丝的火锅连锁海底捞在2013年首次进入美国市场时就遇到了困难。

It did not provide English-language menus. The prices were higher than customers had expected. And its trademark over-the-top service came across as intrusive.

当时未提供英文菜单，定价超出顾客预期，其标志性的极致服务反被视作侵扰。

In China, Haidilao’s staff provides free manicures to customers waiting for a table, performs noodle-making dances to entertain guests and even peels shrimp by hand for diners. But the staff’s attentiveness was initially perceived as “eavesdropping” in the United States, said Qu Cong, the chief financial officer of Super Hi International Holdings, Haidilao’s overseas business entity.

在中国，海底捞员工会为等位顾客提供免费美甲服务，表演拉面秀来娱乐客人，甚至亲手为食客剥虾。但据海底捞海外业务主体特海国际首席财务官瞿骢透露，这种无微不至的服务最初被美国顾客视为“窥探隐私”。

“For American customers, there’s a strong sense of boundaries, so simply copying the practices used in China might not work,” Ms. Qu said.

“美国顾客边界感很强，完全照搬中国模式可能适得其反，”瞿骢表示。

Haidilao provided more guidance, in English, on how to navigate the hot-pot dining experience, in which diners dip various raw ingredients into a pot of boiling broth at the table. It tweaked the spice levels on some soup bases and expanded the beef selection.

为此海底捞增加了英文指引，帮助顾客理解火锅的用餐方式——食客需要将各种生食材放入桌上的沸汤中涮煮。它还调整了部分锅底的辣度等级，并丰富了牛肉品类选择。

The chain generated social media buzz over the summer when one of its restaurants appeared in the final episode of “And Just Like That…,” the sequel to “Sex and the City.” In the episode, the hostess sees that Carrie Bradshaw is dining alone and brings out “Tommy Tomato,” a plush doll, to fill the empty seat.

今年夏天，它的一家门店出现在《欲望都市》续集《就这样……》的大结局里，女服务员见凯莉·布拉德肖独自用餐，拿出一只名为“汤米·汤米拖”的番茄玩偶陪坐，引发社交媒体热议。

Chinese brands must weigh how much to cater to local tastes. When Wallace, the fast-food chain, opened its first U.S. store last year, it stripped down its sprawling menu to focus mainly on fried chicken sandwiches.

中国品牌还需权衡本地化程度。华莱士去年在美国开首店时，大幅精简菜单，集中主打炸鸡三明治。

Ricky Chen, the president of Wallace USA, said the standard chicken sandwich the company served in China came with lettuce and mayonnaise. For American diners, Wallace removed the lettuce and added a pickle, which is something Chinese customers “don’t really eat.” It also made its food saltier.

美国区总裁里奇·陈表示，中国版经典鸡腿堡带生菜和蛋黄酱，美国版去掉生菜，加了中国顾客“不怎么吃”的腌黄瓜，并把整体口味调得更咸。

Mr. Chen likes Wallace’s chances in the new market. “American fast food is getting too expensive,” he said. At its location in California, Wallace offers three full-size chicken sandwiches for $10. By comparison, a single chicken sandwich at Chick-fil-A or KFC sells for about $6.

他看好在这个新市场的前景。“美国快餐已经太贵了，”在其加州门店，三份足量鸡腿堡只需10美元。相比之下，Chick-fil-A或肯德基单份就要约6美元。

Wallace does not hide its Chinese roots, Mr. Chen said. But it also does not promote them. At first, most of his customers were Asian because they were familiar with the brand. That has since changed.

华莱士并不掩饰中国背景，里奇·陈说。但也没有刻意宣传。开业初期，顾客多是认识品牌的亚裔。但现在情况已经不同。

Wallace said it planned to open 10 more locations by the end of 2026.

华莱士称计划2026年底前再开10家店。

Chagee, a tea brand that started selling shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange in May, said customers did not perceive it as a Chinese brand. It derives its name from an ancient Chinese love story. Its logo features a concubine in a Beijing Opera costume, faintly resembling the Starbucks two-tailed mermaid logo.

5月在纳斯达克上市的霸王茶姬表示，顾客并未将其视作中国品牌。品牌名取自中国古代爱情故事，商标采用京剧旦角形象，隐约有点像星巴克双尾美人鱼。

Emily Chang, Chagee’s chief commercial officer in North America, said she was hired to develop the company as an ABC, or American-born Chinese, brand. She said that it had more than a dozen stores “in the pipeline” and that it planned to move beyond California. Chagee started in Los Angeles in April.

霸王茶姬北美首席商务官艾米莉·张说，她得到的任务就是把霸王茶姬打造成一个“ABC（美国出生的华人——译注）品牌”。她说目前已有十多家店在“筹备中”，并且计划走出加州。霸王茶姬4月在洛杉矶开设首店。

Mr. Qing, the restaurant investor and consultant, said that despite geopolitical tensions, the United States had welcomed China’s food and drink brands. He said the U.S. embassy in Beijing invited him and chain restaurant owners to tour various American cities earlier this year.

餐饮投资人卿永表示，尽管地缘政治紧张，美国对中国的餐饮品牌依然持欢迎态度。今年早些时候，美国驻北京大使馆还邀请他和多家连锁品牌负责人赴美多城市考察。

“This is one of the few industries in which people are still willing to engage in that kind of exchange,” he said.

“这是目前少数几个两国人民仍愿意相互交流的行业，”他说。

For a compound that hosted one of the largest cyberscam and human-trafficking hubs in Southeast Asia, KK Park operated in plain sight. It was pretty clear that this was no ordinary business — the heavily fortified compound in Myanmar was flanked by armed guards. It was all visible from neighboring Thailand.

作为东南亚规模最大的网络诈骗与人口贩卖据点之一，KK园区的运作可谓明目张胆。这座位于缅甸的据点显然绝非普通商业场所，它戒备森严，四周有武装警卫驻守，从邻国泰国境内就能清晰望见这一切。

The vast complex, estimated to be around 520 acres, contained high-rise buildings, dormitories, offices, restaurants, a hospital and villas, suggesting an industrial-scale operation in the town of Myawaddy.

这片庞大的园区面积约208公顷，内部建有高楼、宿舍、办公楼、餐厅、医院和别墅群，昭示着妙瓦底镇存在工业规模的犯罪运作。

Last week, some of the activity abruptly ended. The Myanmar junta moved in to detain thousands of foreigners at KK Park and Shwe Kokko, another notorious cyberscam hub. For good measure, it also deployed a stunning tactic: demolishing entire buildings with explosives, part of what the junta has called a broader crackdown on scam centers.

上周，园区内的部分活动突然戛然而止。缅甸军政府出动人员，突袭KK园区及另一臭名昭著的网络诈骗据点水沟谷，扣押了数以千计的外籍人员。为示威慑，军政府还采取了令人震惊的手段：用炸药炸毁整栋建筑。军政府称，这是针对诈骗园区开展的大规模打击行动的一部分。

But workers and experts say the crackdown is performative.

但从业者及专家均表示，此次打击行动纯属作秀。

Satellite imagery shows that only 13 percent of the total area of KK Park has been demolished, according to Nathan Ruser, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The Myanmar junta said it was committed to destroying the more than 500 buildings that remain, but workers say they have moved on to other compounds, where they continue to defraud people.

澳大利亚战略政策研究所分析师内森·鲁瑟指出，卫星图像显示，KK园区被拆除的面积仅占总面积的13%。缅甸军政府宣称，将致力于摧毁剩余的500多栋建筑，但园区的人透露，他们已转移至其他据点，继续从事诈骗活动。

“Just blowing up a bunch of empty buildings in an angry, haphazard fashion might be demonstrative of a show of force, but, practically, it’s nothing,” said Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center and an expert on transnational crime. “They haven’t done an actual raid on these compounds. No kingpins of KK Park have been turned over.”

“愤怒且随意地炸毁一堆空楼或许能彰显武力，但实际上毫无意义，”哈佛大学亚洲中心访问学者、跨国犯罪问题专家雅各布·西姆斯表示。“他们并未对这些园区展开真正的突袭，KK园区的核心头目无人落网。”

10月，缅甸妙瓦底镇KK园区发生爆炸，浓烟滚滚升腾。

The demolition, along with the crushing of hundreds of computers with a steamroller, was broadcast on state media for days. It was proof, according to Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the junta, that the army would “completely eradicate online scam activities from their roots.”

军政府还动用压路机碾碎了数百台电脑，相关画面连续数日在缅甸国家媒体播放。军政府发言人绍敏通少将表示，这证明军方将“彻底根除网络诈骗活动，斩草除根”。

“We worked to prevent any chance of online gambling operations re-establishing themselves,” he said, according to The New Light of Myanmar newspaper. “To achieve that, we destroyed 100 percent of the buildings in that area.”

缅甸《新光报》报道，他宣布：“我们已采取措施，杜绝网络赌博活动死灰复燃。为实现这一目标，我们彻底摧毁了该区域100%的建筑。”

A key person behind the scam compounds along the border of Myanmar and Thailand is Col. Saw Chit Thu, a warlord and businessman who controls the Karen Border Guard Forces, known as the B.G.F., a subdivision of the Myanmar army, the United States and Britain say.

美国和英国指出，缅泰边境诈骗园区的核心幕后人物是军阀兼商人苏奇督上校。他掌控着克伦边境部队，该武装是缅甸军方的下属分支。

In January 2023, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, conferred an honorary award on Colonel Saw Chit Thu for “outstanding performance” and loyalty. Satellite imagery shows that KK Park is surrounded by at least four armed outposts, according to Mr. Ruser. Workers inside say the compound was guarded by soldiers from the B.G.F.

2023年1月，军政府首脑敏昂莱大将还因苏奇督的忠诚和“卓越表现”，为其颁发了荣誉勋章。鲁瑟称，卫星图像显示，KK园区周边至少设有4个武装哨所。园区内部人员表示，守卫园区的正是克伦边境部队的士兵。

2月，苏奇督出现在妙瓦底，他是幕后操纵诈骗中心的权势军阀兼商人。

The B.G.F. works with Chinese mafia groups to operate some 40 scam compounds that are home to as many as 100,000 people along the 124-mile stretch of the Myanmar-Thailand border, according to Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

全球打击跨国有组织犯罪倡议组织高级专家杰森·托尔称，克伦邦边境部队与中国黑帮团伙勾结，在缅泰边境约200公里的地带运营着约40个诈骗园区，被困人员多达10万人。

Starting in 2023, the junta came under pressure from China, its closest ally, to quell the scam centers because Chinese citizens were being defrauded and trafficked. But even then, the crackdown was selective. Beijing cared only about its own citizens, Mr. Tower said.

自2023年起，军政府在最亲密盟友中国的压力下开始打击诈骗中心，因为大量中国公民遭到诈骗和拐卖。但托尔表示，即便如此，缅甸的打击行动仍带有选择性，而北京只关心本国公民的安危。

The recent involvement of the United States, which set up a Scam Center Strike Force, put new pressure on China. “That’s why you’re seeing a push now by China for a stronger crackdown,” Mr. Tower said.

近期，美国介入并成立了诈骗园区特别行动队，这一举措进一步对中国形成了新的压力。托尔说：“这也是中国现在推动加大打击力度的原因。”

Naing Mg Zaw, a spokesman for the B.G.F., denied that the crackdown was because of U.S. or Chinese pressure. “We had already decided to crack down on scam centers, and the timing just happens to overlap,” he said. “Within a few days, we will clear them out until none are left.”

克伦边境警卫队发言人奈孟绍否认此次打击是迫于美中两国压力。“我们早已决定打击诈骗园区，行动时间纯属巧合。几天之内，我们将彻底清除所有诈骗据点，”他说。

But interviews with former workers show how difficult it will be to eradicate the criminal networks. Min Thu Win who worked in a scam center in Shwe Kokko, said his Chinese supervisors told workers to go home last week “because there might be raids coming.”

但对前园区工作者的采访显示，彻底根除这些犯罪网络难度极大。曾在水沟谷某诈骗园区工作的敏杜温表示，上周他的中国籍主管告知员工“可能即将有突袭行动”，让他们先回家避风头。

Sandy Lin, said she was working a night shift at a scam center in KK Park on Oct. 22 when people started running out, saying that soldiers were coming. Ms. Lin said her job was to target people over age 50 on Instagram, getting their contact details to pass on to “the chatting team.” She said she had to find two targets a day or have $1.60 deducted from her monthly salary of about $460.

桑迪·林（音）透露，10月22日她在KK园区某诈骗公司上夜班时，突然有人惊慌出逃，称士兵来了。她的工作是在Instagram上瞄准50岁以上人群，获取他们的联系方式后转交给“聊天组”。她表示，自己每天必须找到两名目标客户，否则就会从约460美元的月薪中扣除1.6美元。

“Our company has already rented a new building near Myawaddy, in a place called ‘25 Acre,’ and they’ve resumed operations,” she said. “Since everyone in our company is in the same Telegram group, all workers who want to continue working went to that new place,” she said, referring to the messaging app.

“我们公司已经在妙瓦底附近一个叫‘25英亩’的地方租了新楼，并且已经恢复运营了，”她说，“我们公司所有人都在同一个Telegram群里，想继续工作的员工都去了新据点。”

Than Soe said he fled KK Park without getting his salary. Now he is working at another scam compound called Apollo Park. “The military showed videos of destroying computers and phones, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “They can buy new ones anytime. KK Park wasn’t really shut down, it was just for show.”

丹索说，他逃离KK园区时没拿到工资，如今在另一个名为阿波罗园区的诈骗据点工作。“军方公布的销毁电脑和手机的视频根本毫无意义，他们随时可以买新的。KK园区根本没被真正关闭，这一切只是作秀，”他说。

For many Hong Kong families, they are the women who cook their meals, bathe their elderly parents and care for infants at home — often unseen, they are indispensable. More than 200 foreign domestic workers, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, were living in the Wang Fuk Court housing complex, the site of the deadliest fire in the city for decades that broke out last week.

在香港众多家庭中，她们是准备三餐、为年迈父母沐浴、看护幼儿的女性——虽常隐于幕后，却是不可或缺的存在。上周，香港数十年最严重的火灾在大埔宏福苑爆发，这处屋邨内居住着200多名外籍家庭佣工，其中绝大多数来自菲律宾和印度尼西亚。

In one 16th-story apartment, Cucu Susilawati, a worker from Indonesia, ran down the stairs with nothing but the clothes she was wearing. Elsewhere in the complex, Carren Dadap, a Filipina worker, rushed out the door with the 5-year-old boy in her care. In another home, Rhodora Alcaraz, who had just arrived in Hong Kong a day earlier from the Philippines, clutched a three-month-old baby as smoke filled the room around them.

在16楼的一间公寓里，印尼佣工古古·苏西拉瓦蒂仅穿着身上的衣服，从楼梯狂奔逃生；屋邨另一处，菲律宾佣工卡伦·达达普抱起她照料的五岁男童，仓促冲出家门；还有一户人家中，前一天刚从菲律宾抵达香港的罗多拉·阿尔卡拉兹在浓烟弥漫的房间里紧紧护住怀中三个月大的婴儿。

Their stories reveal how foreign domestic workers, who help form the backbone of the city’s economy, also bore a significant share of the danger. There are almost 370,000 such workers in Hong Kong, the vast majority of whom are women, and they do the housework and provide child care for millions of residents.

她们的经历揭露了一个事实：作为支撑香港经济运转重要力量的外籍家庭佣工在这场灾难中同样承受了巨大风险。目前香港约有37万名外籍家庭佣工，几乎全为女性，她们为数百万居民承担家务和育儿工作。

Government rules mandate that they live with their employers, forcing many women to occupy cramped spaces in already crowded high-rise apartments. Workers who lose their jobs must find a new employer within two weeks or return to their home countries. Many of those affected by the fire are worried about losing their jobs, as their employers, who have lost their homes, may not be able to afford their wages, said Sring Sringatin, secretary of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union.

香港政府规定她们必须与雇主同住，这使得许多女性只能挤在本就拥挤的高层公寓的狭小空间里。印尼移工工会秘书斯林·斯林加廷表示，此次受灾的佣工中不少人担心失业，因为她们失去住所的雇主可能无力支付工资。

Last Wednesday, fires swept through seven high-rise apartment towers in a residential complex in the northern district of Tai Po. As of Sunday, the authorities said at least 146 people have died, 40 were reported missing, and thousands have been displaced.

上周三，大火席卷了大埔区北部这处屋邨的七栋高层公寓楼。截至周日，官方通报称火灾已造成至少146人遇难、40人失踪，数千人无家可归。

周四，大埔一处收容所发生火灾，导致年长居民无家可归。

At least 230 foreign domestic workers — 140 from Indonesia and 90 from the Philippines — were living and working in Wang Fuk Court, according to estimates provided by the two consulates.

据菲印两国领事馆统计，宏福苑内共有约230名外籍家庭佣工居住和工作，其中印尼籍140人、菲律宾籍90人。

As of Saturday evening, seven Indonesian domestic workers were confirmed dead, two were hospitalized and 45 were still unaccounted for, according to the Indonesian Consulate in Hong Kong. At least one domestic worker from the Philippines had died and seven people were unaccounted for, according to the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong.

截至周六晚间，印尼驻港领事馆确认七名印尼籍佣工遇难、二人住院治疗，另有45人下落不明；菲律宾驻港总领事馆则表示，至少一名菲律宾籍佣工遇难，七人失联。

On a typical Sunday, thousands of these workers spill into public parks and pedestrian bridges to relax on their only day off. This week, the mood was markedly somber as many dressed in black to honor the victims. A popular Filipino influencer urged workers to observe a day of silence, and to refrain from dancing or singing in parks. At the Indonesian Consulate, the flag was lowered to half-staff.

往常每个周日，数以千计的外籍家庭佣工会涌向公园和人行天桥，享受一周仅有的休息日。但本周，这里的氛围格外沉重——许多人身着黑衣悼念遇难者。一位知名菲律宾网红呼吁同行默哀一日，不在公园内跳舞、唱歌；印尼驻港领事馆也降半旗致哀。

“I feel really sad,” said Dwi Astuti, who lives and works in Tai Po, a few minutes away from the site of the fire. “We are all here doing the same thing: earning a living for our families back home.”

“我心里特别难过，”在大埔工作生活、距火灾现场仅几分钟路程的德维·阿斯图蒂说。“我们所有人来这里都是为了同一个目的：挣钱养活家乡的家人。”

In the afternoon, more than 1,000 Indonesian women gathered on the lawn at Victoria Park, on Hong Kong Island, to honor the victims. Some held up their hands in prayer. Others bowed their heads and wiped tears from their eyes.

当天下午，1000多名印尼女性聚集在香港岛维多利亚公园的草坪上悼念遇难者。有人握住双手祈祷，有人低头拭泪。

“I’m getting emotional now. It’s too heavy for me,” said Sringatin, one of the organizers of the event, who goes by a single name as is common among Indonesians. “Domestic workers come here not just for themselves. They are also thinking about their family back home. They are the backbone of their families. They are mothers.”

“我现在情绪很难平复，这件事实在太沉重了，”活动组织者之一斯林加廷说。“外籍佣工来香港打工，不只是为了自己，心里更牵挂着家乡的家人。她们是家里的支柱，她们是母亲。”

周五，救援人员在大埔宏福苑公寓大厦现场。

‘Help us, we’re burning’

“救救我们，我们快被烧死了”

Rhodora Alcaraz was inside her employer’s apartment on the 13th floor when the fire broke out. She had been in Hong Kong only for a day, after arriving from the Philippines to start her new job as a nanny and housekeeper, said her sister, Jacqueline Tuñacao.

火灾发生时，罗多拉·阿尔卡拉兹正在雇主位于13楼的公寓内。她的姐妹杰奎琳·图尼亚索说，阿尔卡拉兹刚从菲律宾来到香港，即将开始保姆和管家的新工作。

Just after 3 p.m., Ms. Alcaraz sent an audio message to her family in the Philippines. She sounded calm. “Our building is burning,” she said. “We’ve gotten stuck in the room. The smoke is coming in and I’m holding the baby.”

下午三点刚过，阿尔卡拉兹给菲律宾的家人发送了一条语音消息，语气似乎还很平静：“我们住的楼着火了，我们被困在房间里，烟已经漫进来，我正抱着孩子。”

A few minutes later, she sent another message. This time, she was in tears. “Help us, we’re burning,” she said, according to her sister.

几分钟后，她又发来一条消息，这次已泣不成声。图尼亚索回忆，她在消息里哭喊：“救救我们，我们快被烧死了。”

“I told her to be strong, to find a way out,” said Ms. Tuñacao. “She said she couldn’t leave the baby, and I didn’t know how to help her when she was so far away.”

“我让她坚强点，想办法逃出去，”图尼亚索说。“她说她不能丢下孩子，而我距离遥远，根本不知道该怎么帮她。”

Minutes later, her family members received a message with just the sounds of the baby wailing in the background.

几分钟后，家人收到了一条消息，背景音里只有婴儿不停的哭声。

Ms. Alcaraz remained trapped until the evening when she, the baby and the baby’s mother were rescued by firefighters, Ms. Tuñacao said. She did not suffer any burns but was sent to the intensive care unit of a hospital where she was put on a ventilator. As of Saturday, she was in critical condition but responding to treatment, according to a statement posted on social media by the Filipino government unit that manages overseas workers.

图尼亚索称，阿尔卡拉兹一直被困到傍晚，最终，她和婴儿以及婴儿的母亲一起被消防员救出。她虽未被烧伤，但被送往医院重症监护室，依靠呼吸机维持呼吸。菲律宾海外劳工管理部门在社交媒体发文称，截至周六，她病情危急，但对治疗已有反应。

Carren Dadap, another domestic helper from the Philippines, was caring for a 5-year-old boy at home when one of his parents called to say that the building next door was on fire. No fire alarm had sounded. But soon, the smell of smoke filled the hallway and crept into the apartment. “I didn’t even think about taking my belongings or my passport or my money, as long as my charge and I could get out,” Ms. Dadap said in a video posted on social media by her employment agency.

另一位菲律宾籍佣工卡伦·达达普当时正在家中照看五岁男童，孩子的父母突然来电告知隔壁楼栋着火。当时火警并未响起，但很快，浓烟就弥漫到走廊，钻进公寓。“我什么都没想，没拿行李、没拿护照，也没拿现金，只想着赶紧带着孩子逃出去，”达达普在其雇佣机构发布的社交媒体视频中说。

周五，志愿者们在大埔整理捐赠的衣物和食物。

Debris fell on them as she told the child to run down the stairs. “We need to go down or else both of us will die,” she said. When they emerged from the building, Ms. Dadap said she saw firefighters swarming the complex trying to extinguish the fire next door. But the flames were spreading quickly and had reached their building.

她让孩子跟着自己往楼下跑，途中不断有碎片砸向他们。“我们必须赶紧下楼，不然两人都会死，”她说。逃出大楼后，她看到消防员正全力扑救隔壁楼栋的大火，但火势蔓延极快，很快就烧到了她们住的楼。

Cucu Susilawati, 43, a domestic worker from Indonesia, did not hear an alarm either. She was eating lunch inside her apartment on the 16th floor when she heard a loud bang and the sounds of fire trucks. She peered out of the bathroom window and saw a fire blazing below. “I left right away. I didn’t bring anything, just the clothes I was wearing,” she said in an interview in Mandarin.

43岁的印尼籍家政工古古·苏西拉瓦蒂也没听到火警警报。当时她正在16楼的公寓里吃午饭，突然听到一声巨响，紧接着传来消防车的鸣笛声。她从浴室窗户往外一看，发现楼下已是一片火海。“我立刻就跑了，什么都没带，就穿着身上的衣服，”她用普通话接受采访时说。

Ms. Susilawati escaped. But two of her neighbors — fellow caregivers looking after elderly women at Wang Fuk Court — died in the fire. They saw each other almost daily, she said, while grocery shopping or at a local park.

苏西拉瓦蒂成功逃生，但她的两位邻居——同样在宏福苑照料老人的外籍佣工却在火灾中丧生。她说，她们平时买菜或在附近公园散步时几乎每天碰面。

Ms. Susilawati is facing pressure to find a new job quickly. The woman she was caring for has moved to a nursing home, where she will remain full-time. Her employers have told her that her services are no longer needed.

如今苏西拉瓦蒂正面临尽快找新工作的压力。她之前照料的老人已搬入养老院长期居住，雇主告知不再需要她的服务。

Sringatin urged the Hong Kong government to make special arrangements to ensure that foreign domestic workers affected by the fire can remain in the city while they look for work. The Hong Kong government did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

斯林加廷呼吁香港政府出台特殊政策，允许受灾的外籍家庭佣工在港停留期间寻找新工作。截至发稿，香港政府尚未对此事作出回应。

“I don’t want to leave my job but there’s no way I can stay,” Ms. Susilawati said.

“我不想失去这份工作，但我确实没办法再留下来了，”苏西拉瓦蒂说。

The images on social media this week showed Chinese fire engines parked at the border, their lights flashing as they waited to be dispatched toward the inferno that was raging eight miles away in northern Hong Kong.

本周社交媒体上流传的画面显示，中国消防车停在边境，警灯闪烁，等待被派往约13公里外香港北部肆虐的大火现场。

The trucks never entered the city.

这些消防车最终并未进入香港。

On Chinese social media, people questioned why Hong Kong did not take the firefighting help even as its own fire trucks struggled to extinguish the blaze that burned for more than a day and eventually resulted in at least 128 deaths. The moment underscored the delicate political challenge for the city’s Beijing-backed chief executive, John Lee.

在中国社交媒体上，人们质疑为什么香港不接受内地的消防支援，即使香港自己的消防部门奋力扑救超过一天仍难以控制大火，最终造成至少128人死亡。这一时刻凸显了由北京支持的行政长官李家超所面临的微妙政治考验。

Mr. Lee needs to demonstrate that his government, under tighter control by Beijing after a sweeping political overhaul, can manage a crisis of this magnitude on its own. If mainland emergency crews had crossed into Hong Kong, it risked being seen as undermining the city’s promise of running its own affairs.

李家超需要证明，在经历了彻底的政治改革、北京加大对香港政府控制力度之后，他的政府仍能自行应对如此规模的危机。如果内地的应急人员跨境进入香港，可能被视为削弱香港管理自身事务的承诺。

“People should be sensitive to the image that may arise that the Hong Kong people are unable to deal with matters within Hong Kong,” said Ronny Tong, a senior adviser to Mr. Lee.

“大家应该注意，这可能会给人留下香港人无法处理香港内部事务的印象，”李家超的高级顾问汤家骅说。

周六，香港行政长官李家超和其他官员为火灾遇难者默哀。

Hong Kong said on Thursday that it had not asked for firefighting assistance from the mainland. Mr. Lee said that his government was gradually getting the fire under control and thanked China’s top leader and his boss, Xi Jinping, for his concern.

港府周四表示并未向内地提出消防援助请求。李家超表示，政府正逐步控制火势，并感谢国家最高领导人、他的上司习近平的关心。

The system that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong after antigovernment protests of 2019, with a sweeping national security law that has silenced dissent, has altered the face of the city’s crisis response. Opposition politicians are in jail, the media operates under new restraints, street demonstrations are a thing of the past and many civic groups have been forced to close. The question is whether the remade political order can deliver in a crisis, rather than merely muzzle criticism of how it is handled.

2019年的反政府抗议活动后，北京在香港实施的新制度——包括一部严厉的国安法——压制了异见，也改变了这座城市应对危机的方式。反对派政治人物入狱、媒体受到新的约束、街头示威已不复存在、许多公民团体被迫解散。问题在于：这套重构的政治秩序是否具备处理危机的能力，而不仅仅是压下对危机处理方式的批评。

His government has a gargantuan task ahead. The death toll on Friday rose sharply above 100 after firefighters were finally able to enter the remains of the seven charred buildings at the Wang Fuk Court complex. Hundreds of shocked and tired residents have piled into shelters. Families are still looking for some 200 missing loved ones. Bodies need to be identified. Around $38 million of government funds have been allocated for victims and the government began disbursing around $1,300 in subsidies for affected families.

李家超的政府面临着一项艰巨的任务。周五，消防员终于进入宏福苑七栋被烧毁的建筑废墟后，死亡人数急剧上升至100多人。数百名惊魂未定、疲惫不堪的居民涌入庇护所。约200名失踪者的家人仍在寻找亲人。遇难者遗体需要辨认身份。政府已拨款约3亿港元用于救济受害者，并开始向受影响的家庭发放1万港元的补助。

Even though China’s crackdown wiped out many independent activist groups, a remarkable wave of volunteerism has risen up to help those in need after the blaze.

尽管北京的打压摧毁了许多独立活动团体，但火灾之后涌现出了一股令人瞩目的志愿者热潮，帮助那些有需要的人。

周五，志愿者在宏福苑整理捐赠的衣物和食物。

Volunteers, including students and small business owners, have distributed food, water and warm clothing, transforming local shops into donation centers and forming human chains to move supplies efficiently. Online chat groups and live trackers have helped coordinate efforts. Social workers and therapists have reached out to attend to those in need.

包括学生和小企业主在内的志愿者们分发食物、水和保暖衣物，将当地的商铺改造成捐赠中心，并组成人链高效地运送物资。在线聊天群和实时追踪系统帮助协调各方工作。社工和心理咨询师也主动联系有需要的人。

The authorities are apparently wary of independent organizing even in crisis. On Saturday, security officials could be seen patrolling the area near the apartment complex, and the South China Morning Post reported that the city’s national security police have ramped up surveillance “against potential seditious and secessionist activities in response to residents mobilizing to help victims of the fire.”

即使在危机时刻，当局显然也对独立的组织行动保持警惕。周六，可以看到安保人员在公寓楼附近巡逻。《南华早报》报道称，由于居民组织起来帮助火灾受害者，香港的国安警察已加强了对“潜在的煽动和分裂活动”的监控。

Hundreds of residents who lost their homes will be placed into hostels and hotels temporarily. But longer-term resettlement is probably one of the tougher tasks: Hong Kong’s housing market is among the world’s most expensive, and affordable units are in chronically short supply.

数百名失去家园的居民将被暂时安置在旅馆和酒店。但长期安置可能是最棘手的任务之一：香港是世界上房价最贵的城市之一，可负担住房长期短缺。

For displaced residents like Poon Kai Tak, 63, and his wife, Cynthia Lau, 68, housing is the top concern. They are staying at a hotel an hour away by train, and Ms. Lau said the government had offered to relocate them to a rural area outside of Tai Po because her husband gets dialysis treatment three times a week at a hospital there. “It’s still very far,” she said. “Many of us need to be in the area for medical checkups.”

对63岁的潘启德（音）和他68岁的妻子辛西娅·刘这样流离失所的居民来说，住房是首要关切。他们目前住在距离家一个小时火车车程的酒店里。刘女士说，政府提出让他们搬到大埔以外的乡郊地区，因为她丈夫每周要去那里的一家医院做三次透析治疗。“但还是很远，”她说。“我们很多人都有医疗需求，需要住在附近。”

数百名惊魂未定、疲惫不堪的居民涌入庇护所。

The government will also need to restore confidence in the city’s construction industry, and in its supervision of it. The police will begin a multiweek investigation inside the buildings, reviewing CCTV footage and trying to piece together what happened. Eight more people were arrested on Friday in a separate investigation by the anti-corruption bureau, on top of an earlier three arrested by the police for gross negligence and manslaughter in connection to a contractor that was conducting renovations on the buildings.

政府还需要重塑公众对香港建筑业及其监管体系的信心。警方将对事发大楼的内部展开为期数周的调查，审查监控录像，力图还原事件真相。警方已经逮捕了与负责大楼维修工程的承包商有关的三人，罪名是严重疏忽和误杀。周五，廉政公署在另一项调查中又逮捕了八人。

As Mr. Lee begins the hard work of coordinating different government agencies in this aftermath, he will also be expected to use the moment to showcase both the softer side of the government and the “superiority of Hong Kong’s new political order,” said Lau Siu-kai, a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, a Beijing-backed research group.

北京支持的研究机构——全国港澳研究会的顾问刘兆佳表示，在协调不同政府部门处理善后时，外界也期待李家超借此展现政府温情的一面以及“香港新政治秩序的优越性”。

As a consoler in chief, Mr. Lee, who spent most of his career in security services and led the crackdown on the protests, is relatively untested. On Wednesday night, he visited people who were being treated at a hospital and inspected a shelter. At news briefings, Mr. Lee has focused on detailing the measures taken by the government. On Saturday, he led government officials in observing three minutes of silence for victims of the fire. It was not immediately clear if he had met with families whose loved ones had perished.

作为这个时候最该站出来安抚市民的人，李家超对担任这样的角色并无多少经验，他职业生涯的大部分时间都在安保部门任职，并曾牵头对抗议活动的镇压。周三晚间，他探望了在医院接受治疗的伤者，并视察了一处庇护所。在记者会上，他着重详述了政府所采取的措施。周六，他带领官员为火灾遇难者默哀三分钟。尚不清楚他是否已与罹难者家属见面。

For the government, questions about how such an inferno occurred cast a heavy shadow over the city’s earlier hopes of getting more people to vote in legislative elections on Dec. 7. The poll has largely been met with public indifference since Beijing imposed an overhaul that allowed only people deemed “patriots” to run for seats.

港府此前希望提高12月7日立法会选举投票率，火灾原因所引发的质疑已经给这一愿望蒙上阴影。自北京进行改革、只允许被认为是“爱国者”的人参选以来，公众对此次选举普遍态度冷漠。

Campaigning efforts were put on hold this week, but it was not clear yet whether Mr. Lee would postpone the election.

本周竞选活动已暂停，但李家超是否会推迟选举尚不明确。

周四，位于大埔火灾现场的消防员。

Public anger is growing as signs of safety lapses have started to emerge. After survivors complained that there was no warning of the fire, officials confirmed that none of the alarms had gone off in any of the eight buildings in the housing estate. People questioned how the building contractor was allowed to cover windows in highly flammable foam and wrap the high-rise apartments in netting that appeared to catch fire easily.

随着更多安全漏洞浮现，公众的愤怒情绪升温。幸存者抱怨火灾时没有收到任何警示，官方随后证实，该住宅区所有八栋大楼内的警报均未响起。人们质疑，为何建筑承包商被允许用易燃泡沫覆盖窗户，并用明显极易燃烧的网状物包裹高层公寓。

Mr. Lee might be scrutinized by Beijing for his government’s investigations into wrongdoing, and some officials may have to shoulder responsibility.

李家超开展的失职调查可能受到北京的密切关注，一些官员可能需要承担责任。

“When we observe mainland practices of dealing with crises, usually individual officials are held accountable,” said Sonny Lo, a political analyst in Hong Kong who is an expert on the relationship between Hong Kong and China. “So the question is whether the mainland practice will be observed here.”

“观察内地处理危机的做法，通常会追究个别官员的责任，”香港政治分析家、研究中港关系的专家卢兆兴说。“所以问题就是，内地的做法会不会在香港也适用？”

Each year in December, Hong Kong’s chief executive travels to Beijing to present a report to the central government. The expectation was no different this year, only Mr. Lee will be expected to have something substantial to report on the crisis, Mr. Lo said.

每年12月，香港行政长官都会前往北京向中央政府述职。卢兆兴表示，今年本该一样，只是李家超预计必须就这场危机提交一份实质性的报告。

Beijing will also expect Mr. Lee to take on more support from the central government as part of a longstanding practice by the Chinese government during moments of crisis, experts said.

专家表示，北京也会期望李家超按照内地惯常的危机处理方式，在此期间更多地接受中央政府的支持。

But such help could be politically fraught for Mr. Lee. During one news conference, a reporter asked Mr. Lee if the presence of senior Chinese officials in the city — who had arrived to offer support — reflected shortcomings in the work of his government.

但这样的援助对李家超来说可能充满政治风险。在一次记者会上，有记者问他，中央派人救灾是否反映出政府的工作存在不足。

Mr. Lee avoided the implication and instead emphasized that it was a gesture of Mr. Xi’s “great concern” — a reminder of whom his performance in this crisis ultimately matters most to.

李家超回避了这种暗示，强调这是习近平对香港“高度关注”的体现，这也提醒外界，他在这场危机中的表现最终是要向谁作出交代。

得知亲人被困在公寓楼内身亡的家属质疑，为什么允许建筑承包商用泡沫覆盖窗户，并用非阻燃网包裹高层建筑。

William Li had no idea there was a fire ripping through his building when it started on Wednesday afternoon. There were no fire alarms and no signs of smoke inside his apartment.

周三下午火灾刚开始时，李威廉(William Li)完全不知道他所在的大厦起火了。既没有火灾警报响起，他的公寓内也看不到任何烟雾迹象。

Then, he got a call from his wife, who heard about the blaze while she was at work. “You need to go,” she said.

然后，他接到正在上班的太太的电话，她说外面已经知道着火了：“你快点走！”

Mr. Li, 40, has lived in the Wang Fuk Court complex since he was born. He knew the building’s layout like the back of his hand, but escaping was far from simple. Mr. Li and two neighbors were trapped in his apartment for more than two hours before they were rescued by firefighters.

40岁的李先生从出生起就住在宏福苑，闭着眼睛都知道大楼的格局，但逃生一点都不简单。他和两位邻居被困在家里超过两个小时，最后才被消防员救出。

Mr. Li, a father of two, wrote about his ordeal in a Facebook post that has resonated with thousands of people in Hong Kong as the city responds to the deadliest blaze in decades. We spoke by phone after he was released following two days in a hospital.

作为两个孩子的父亲，李先生在Facebook发文讲述自己的惊险经历，在香港引发数千人共鸣——这是香港几十年来最致命的一场大火。出院两天后，我们通过电话对他进行了采访。

Here is Mr. Li’s story and the photographs he captured. The interview, conducted in Cantonese, has been condensed and edited for clarity.

以下是李先生的自述和他拍下的照片。采访以粤语进行，现已精简并编辑以便阅读。

‘No Fire Alarm’

“完全没有火警铃”

It was my day off. I wasn’t feeling well, so I was home. At 3:02 p.m., I got a call from my wife. She wasn’t very nervous; she just said, “There’s a fire, you need to go.”

那一天我放假，身体不舒服，所以留在家里。下午3点02分，太太打电话来。她当时不算很惊慌，只是说：“着火了，你快点走。”

I didn’t think it was very serious. There was no fire alarm. I couldn’t smell smoke.

我当时没觉得很严重，因为完全没有火警铃，也闻不到烟味。

I took a few minutes to change and prepare to leave the apartment. When I opened the door, the smoke rushed in. My first reaction was to shut the door right away.

我换了衣服、收拾了一下准备离开。开门的一瞬间，浓烟瞬间涌进来，我第一反应就是马上把门关上。

I called my wife back to say I couldn’t leave. That’s when she started crying uncontrollably. She was thinking of the worst-case scenario: I was going to die.

我再打给太太说走不了，她听到后立刻崩溃大哭，她脑子里想的是最坏的情况：我死定了。

I got some towels and used them to block the gap under the doors. I was pacing around my home looking for things when I heard voices coming from the corridors. I covered my mouth with a damp piece of clothing and rushed out. After just a minute, my throat was stinging and my eyes were watering uncontrollably.

我拿毛巾把门底的缝隙堵住，在屋里走来走去想办法，后来听到走廊有人声。我用湿布掩住口鼻冲出去，才一分钟，喉咙就辣得痛，眼泪不停流。

‘We’ll Find a Way Out’

“我们一定会出去”

The hallway was pitch dark. I tried turning on my phone’s flashlight, but it didn’t make a difference.

走廊一片漆黑，我打开手机电筒也完全没用。

I walked toward the voices and found a couple in their 60s. I led them through the smoke back to my apartment, using the wall to trace my steps. I plugged in the digital code to my apartment and shut the door.

我循声走去，找到一对60多岁的夫妇，我摸着墙带他们穿过浓烟回到我家，用电子密码锁开门，把门关上。

“Why were you there?” I asked them. “Were there other people in the corridor?”

我问他们：“你们怎么会在走廊？”“还有其他人吗？”

They explained that the window in their unit had burst into flames so they rushed out into the hallway. There, they heard a domestic worker calling out for an elderly woman she was caring for. Then suddenly the voice stopped.

他们说他们家的窗户突然爆出火舌，所以冲到走廊。那里听到一个家佣在喊她照顾的老婆婆，但喊着喊着声音就突然停了。

After living here for 40 years, I know the building’s layout well. There are two sets of staircases on every floor. One goes down to the lobby, and there’s another set of back stairs. My neighbors said the back door was usually locked. My wife, who was now standing in front of the building, said the lobby was already engulfed in flames.

我在这里住了40年，大楼布局我很熟。每层有两组楼梯，一组通向大堂，另一组是后楼梯。邻居说后楼梯门平时是锁上的。我太太已经站在大厦下面，她说大堂已经全是火。

My friends told me to call the police. I called 999, and they transferred me to the firefighters. I told them what floor I was on and in which unit. They said, “OK, we’ll arrange for someone to come and rescue you.”

朋友叫我报警。我打999，转接到消防，他们问我在哪一层哪一单位，我说了之后，他们说：“好，我们会安排人来救你。”

One firefighter told me to stay close to the ground and preserve my energy. From our window, we could see the fire hoses pointed at the higher floors. We waved at the firefighters, but they couldn’t see us.

有个消防员叫我贴着地面，保存体力。我们从窗口看到水枪对着高层的楼喷，我们拼命挥手，但他们看不到我们。

At first, we were calm. I spoke to the couple’s daughter on the phone and tried to reassure her. “We’ll find a way out,” I said. “We won’t die.”

一开始我们还算镇定。我跟那对夫妇的女儿通电话，安慰她说：“我们一定会出去的，不会死的。”

Saying Goodbye

跟家人说再见

I started to smell the smoke and the stench of something burning. The couple, who had been resting in my bedroom, came outside and said the polystyrene foam surrounding the window had caught fire.

后来开始闻到烟味和烧焦的臭味。那对夫妇从我房间走出来，说窗户周围的发泡胶已经着火了。

At that moment, I really thought I might die. I share a bedroom with my wife and two kids. There are three mattresses in there and lots of blankets. I knew that if the windows burst, the fire would spread quickly.

那一刻我真的觉得自己要死了。我和太太、两个孩子睡的主卧有三张床垫，很多被子。我知道一旦窗户爆裂，火会一下子烧进来。

I started calling and texting my friends on WhatsApp to say goodbye. I told them to help me look out for my family. We started flashing our lights at the firefighters and caught their attention. I pointed to the window that was on fire. They immediately directed the fire hoses at the window and put out the fire.

我开始在WhatsApp逐个给朋友打电话、发信息道别，请他们以后帮我照顾家人。我们拼命用手机灯光照向消防员，终于引起他们注意。我指着着火的窗户，他们立刻把水枪对准，把火扑灭了。

At first, they struggled to get the fire ladder to our unit — the scaffolding was in the way, and debris was falling from higher floors. A little after 5 p.m., they finally got to our window.

一开始云梯升不上来，因为有棚架挡着，上面还有杂物不断掉下来。下午5点多，终于升到我们窗口。

The woman told me to go first, but I said, “No, you go first. I am younger.” She was rescued first, then her husband.

那对夫妇的太太叫我先走，我说：“不，你们先走，我年轻。”太太是先获救的，然后是她先生。

For a few minutes, I was waiting alone in the apartment. It felt really somber. I looked around to see what I could take with me. I wanted to bring everything, but I couldn’t bring anything. The window was very narrow — just enough space for one person to slide out diagonally.

最后几分钟，我一个人在屋里，气氛很沉重。我四处张望想带点东西走，但什么都带不了。窗户很窄，只能斜着身子一个人滑出去。

Turning to Dust

一切化为乌有

I grabbed my wife’s watch and some cash and stuffed them into my bag. I rushed outside and climbed onto the ladder. The firefighter told me to crouch down and hold my head down because of the falling debris.

我抓起太太的手表和一些现金塞进包里，冲出去爬上云梯。消防员叫我弯腰、低头，防止上面掉东西砸到。

Once I was on the ladder, I felt like time slowed down. I was sad to leave my home behind. I was drenched from the fire hoses and I felt very cold.

一踏上云梯，感觉时间都慢下来了。离开这个家我很难过，水枪喷得我全身湿透，好冷。

It felt like the sky was falling. Everything I owned was turning to dust. I felt a rush of emotions. Once I got down to the ground, the firefighters put us to one side and gave us some Pocari [a sports drink].

感觉天都塌下来了，我拥有的一切都在化为灰烬，心里百感交集。落到地面后，消防员把我们安置在一旁，给了我们宝矿力。

All the roads were blocked, so the ambulances couldn’t come to where we were. The firefighters said we could walk out on our own. The couple and I exchanged numbers and parted ways.

四周道路全部封锁，救护车进不来。消防员说我们可以自己走出去。我和那对夫妇交换了电话号码，就分开了。

I went to buy some new clothes and reunited with my family. My kids were crying a lot. All their toys were gone.

我去买了几件衣服，和家人团聚。两个小孩哭得很厉害，他们所有的玩具都没了。

More than a year before a fire devoured a complex of high-rise towers in Hong Kong, residents alerted officials about potential fire safety violations on a renovation project there.

在熊熊烈火吞噬香港的这些高层住宅楼的一年多前，居民们曾就维修工程中可能存在的消防安全隐患向官方发出过警示。

This week, their worst fears came true in one of the deadliest infernos in Hong Kong’s history.

本周，他们最担心的事成了现实——这是香港历史上最致命的火灾之一。

The fire that started on Wednesday at Wang Fuk Court, a housing complex with about 2,000 apartments, killed at least 128 people by Friday’s tally and injured 78 others. About 200 people are unaccounted for.

截至周五，这场周三发生在拥有约2000个住宅单位的宏福苑的大火已造成至少128人死亡、78人受伤，另有约200人下落不明。

What ignited the ferocious fire is not yet known. But as investigators comb through the buildings’ charred shells in search of evidence, they are asking whether negligence played a role in the devastation.

大火的起因目前尚未查明。但随着调查人员于烧焦的楼体废墟中搜寻证据之际，他们正试图厘清，这场灾难是否为人祸所致。

Investigators have focused on the quality of construction materials used for the renovation, such as netting that covered bamboo scaffolding to keep objects from falling on passers-by and polystyrene foam panels installed to protect window glass from breaking.

调查重点集中在维修工程中所使用的建筑材料是否合格，例如为防止坠物伤人而覆盖竹棚架的防护网，以及为保护窗户玻璃而安装的发泡胶板。

As far back as September 2024, the estate’s residents had raised concerns to the city government about those materials.

早在2024年9月，屋苑居民就已向市政府反映过对这些材料的担忧。

They wrote to the city’s Labor Department saying that the netting may be flammable, according to the residents’ emails reviewed by The New York Times.

根据《纽约时报》看到的住户邮件，他们曾致函香港劳工处，指出这些防护网可能不符合阻燃标准。

They also raised concerns about the foam panels, according to Jason Poon Chuk-hung, a civil engineer-turned-activist who teamed up with the residents in raising their complaints.

他们还提到了使用泡沫板的风险，曾经担任土木工程师、现为社会活动人士的潘焯鸿说，他与屋苑居民一起提出了这些关切。

On Friday, city officials told reporters that the foam boards were highly flammable and had helped the fire spread at a terrible speed.

周五，市政府官员告诉记者，发泡胶板为高度易燃材料，助长了火势以惊人的速度蔓延。

The Labor Department, which oversees workplace safety issues, at first wrongly dismissed the residents’ concerns about the netting, claiming that there were no rules on the use of flammable materials on scaffolding, the department acknowledged in a statement. Later, it told residents the materials on the construction site met fire safety requirements, citing documents filed by the contractor, Prestige Construction and Engineering.

负责监管工作场所安全问题的劳工处在声明中承认，最初曾错误驳回居民对防护网的担忧，声称现有规定并不涵盖脚手架上所用材料的阻燃标准。其后又根据承建商宏业建筑工程有限公司提交的文件，告知居民施工现场材料符合消防安全要求。

发生在拥有约2000个住宅单位的宏福苑大火，其起因尚未查明。

In its statement to The Times, the Labor Department confirmed that it had received complaints from residents about the construction netting. It said that it had conducted 16 inspections at Wang Fuk Court since July 2024, most recently a week before the fire. It found multiple violations and warned the contractor about unsafe working conditions on the site, the department said.

劳工处在向《纽约时报》提供的声明中确认，曾收到居民关于施工防护网的投诉。该处表示，自2024年7月起已对宏福苑进行了16次巡查，最近一次是在火灾发生前一周。声明指出，巡查发现多项违规，并就现场不安全施工的情况向承建商发出警告。

The department did not answer questions about what violations it discovered. Its statement said, without providing details, that it had started three “prosecutions” and issued six notices “urging improvement” at Wang Fuk Court before the fire.

关于具体违规内容，劳工处未予回答。其声明称火灾前已启动三宗“检控”，并发出六张“敦促改善”通知书，但未提供细节。

Earlier, officials had said that the netting that enveloped scaffoldings at the complex may not have met fire safety standards, which require all scaffolding covers to be made of material that can slow down a fire. On Friday, however, they said the netting was in line with the city’s code, according to preliminary tests. They did not provide details.

早些时候，官员曾表示，覆盖大厦棚架的防护网可能未达到消防标准，该标准要求棚架遮蔽物必须采用阻燃材料。然而，周五他们根据初步检测结果又表示，这些防护网符合本港相关规范，但没有提供具体细节。

They said the blaze raised the temperature inside the building to as high as 930 degrees Fahrenheit and ignited the bamboo scaffolding, which fell and blocked fire exits.

他们表示，大火使建筑内部温度飙升至约500度，引燃的竹棚架坍塌后堵塞了消防通道。

The police arrested two directors and one consultant for the contractor, accusing them of manslaughter and gross negligence, and seized evidence including tender documents, computers, phones and a list of the contractor’s employees.

警方拘捕了承建商两名董事及一名工程顾问，指控他们误杀与严重疏忽，并扣押了标书文件、电脑、手机及员工名册在内的证物。

On Friday, an anticorruption agency arrested eight more people, including four consultants, three subcontractors of scaffolding works, and an intermediary.

周五，廉政公署再逮捕八人，包括四名工程顾问、三名棚架工程分包商及一名中间人。

Last month, when Chinachem Tower, a commercial building in central Hong Kong, caught fire, some Wang Fuk Court residents took their fears to a Facebook group. Firefighters had found netting and bamboo scaffolding at that building that looked similar to what was used at their complex.

上个月，中环的商业楼宇华懋大厦发生火灾后，宏福苑的一些居民在Facebook群组里表达了他们的担忧。消防员当时在那栋大楼发现了与宏福苑类似的防护网和竹棚架。

“Everyone must be extra careful with fire during the winter,” one resident wrote.

“大家冬天一定要小心火种，”一位居民写道。

“There are so many flammable items outside.”

“外面全部都是易燃物品。”

‘They refused’

“他们拒绝了”

Renovation works on the complex began last summer. Its eight towers, which were completed in the early 1980s, were undergoing maintenance to comply with a government rule requiring repairs on structures older than 30 years.

该屋苑的大维修工程始于去年夏天。宏福苑的八座大楼建于上世纪80年代初，为配合楼龄逾30年建筑须强制维修的政府法规而启动维护工程

The renovation was initially slated to cost nearly $40 million, to be borne mainly by the nearly 2,000 households there. Prestige Construction and Engineering, which was incorporated in Hong Kong in 2004, won the contract.

维修工程原本预算为3亿多港币，费用主要由近2000户住户承担。2004年在香港注册成立的宏业建筑工程有限公司中标。

But some residents fretted that the contractor was inflating costs while compromising on safety. They filed a complaint with the Labor Department in September 2024, two months after the scaffolding went up, according to the department and Mr. Poon.

但部分居民担忧承建商在抬高造价的同时偷工减料。据劳工处及潘焯鸿的说法，居民在棚架搭设完成两个月后的2024年9月向劳工处提交了投诉。

They complained about the foam panels that covered the windows, Mr. Poon said.

潘焯鸿指出，居民投诉了覆盖窗户的泡沫板。

早期调查把重点放在了保护窗玻璃的泡沫板上。香港官员表示，这是一种高度易燃材料，助长了火势以惊人的速度蔓延。

Such panels are used on construction sites to provide insulation, fill voids and as temporary protection, according to Tony Za, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ building division. What is not clear in this case, he said, is the grade of material the contractor used.

香港工程师学会建造分部前任主席谢伟正说，这类泡沫板通常在工地用于隔热、填缝及临时防护。但他说，在这次事件中，承建商具体使用的是哪种等级的材料仍属不明。

Pictures shared online and interviews with residents show that many windows at Wang Fuk Court were completely sealed with the material. In one building, the police found windows of the elevator lobby were covered by foam boards on every floor.

网上流传的照片及对居民的采访显示，宏福苑许多单位的窗户几乎被这种材料完全封死。在其中一栋大楼里，警方发现所有楼层的电梯厅窗户均被泡沫板封住。

Because of the boards, people could not see out their windows and realize they were in danger when the fire broke out, said Lau Yu Hung, a 78-year-old resident.

78岁的居民刘汝雄（音）表示，由于泡沫板遮挡，火灾发生时居民无法透过窗户察觉险情。

Another point of contention was the netting that enveloped the scaffolding erected all around the buildings. At first, the department told the residents, erroneously, that current regulations “do not cover flame retardant standards for scaffolding netting.”

另一争议焦点是包裹整栋楼宇脚手架的防护网。起初，劳工处曾错误告知居民，现行法规“并没有涵盖关于棚网或任何物料的阻燃标准”。

Frustrated, the residents reached out to Mr. Poon, who runs a nonprofit group, Chinat Monitor, that tracks allegations of corruption in the city’s construction industry and lobbies the government for better oversight.

屡次交涉未果后，居民转而求助潘焯鸿，他是非营利组织中科监察的负责人，专门追踪香港建筑业中的贪腐指控，并推动政府加强监管。

One of Mr. Poon’s causes is flammable netting, which poses a particular risk in Hong Kong because buildings stand very close to one another and winds can spread fires easily. Residents of housing complexes such as Wang Fuk Court, who tend to be older, are less able to flee to safety or hear fire alarms, he said.

防护网的阻燃性是潘焯鸿持续关注的问题之一——在香港，这类隐患风险尤甚，因为楼宇之间距离极近，加上风势容易让火势迅速蔓延。他说，像宏福苑这样的屋苑住户多为长者，逃生能力较弱，也往往听不到火警警报。

Out of concern for older residents, Mr. Poon said he had been trying to raise awareness about such issues. He even inspects constructions sites on his own, at times cutting off netting and setting it on fire to prove that the material violates safety rules.

出于对年长居民的关切，潘焯鸿表示，他一直试图提升社会对此类问题的认知。他甚至亲赴建筑工地，有时会剪下防护网点燃，以证实材料违反安全规范。

Mr. Poon said he had been pushing city officials for about a year and half to pay attention to the issue. “But they refused,” he said.

潘焯鸿透露，他在约一年半的时间里不断敦促市政府官员重视此事。“但他们拒绝了，”他说。

When the residents of Wang Fuk Court came to him, Mr. Poon eagerly took on their case.

当宏福苑居民前来求助时，他当即接手此案。

He admonished officials at the Labor Department for misstating the fire risks at the construction site and pointed them to the applicable ordinances they had missed.

他批评劳工处官员对工地火灾风险的误判，并援引被对方遗漏的适用法规条文。

Later, the department corrected the mistake Mr. Poon had pointed out, acknowledging that its response to the complaints had been “unclear and caused misunderstanding,” it said in its emailed statement to The Times.

之后，劳工处在发给《纽约时报》的电邮声明中承认错误，早前对居民投诉的回应“表述不清引发误解”。

Still, it found no fault with the netting that was worrying some residents, according to emails seen by The Times. Staff members had reviewed quality certificates submitted by the contractor, it said in a written response to residents in December, and the netting was in line with the city’s standard.

然而，根据《纽约时报》看到的邮件，劳工处还是认为居民担忧的防护网不存在问题。该部门在去年12月回信居民时表示，工作人员已经提交了承建商提交的质量证明文件，认为防护网符合香港标准。

“If any violations of occupational safety and health laws are found, we will take action,” one official wrote in an email.

一名官员在邮件中写道：“如果发现有违反职业安全与健康法规的情况，我们会采取行动。”

火灾时的高温足以点燃竹棚架，棚架倒塌后堵住了逃生通道。

The finding appears to rely on the contractors’ own submissions. The department did not respond to questions on whether it conducted its own tests to verify the quality of materials.

目前看来，这些结论似乎依赖于承建商自行提交的文件。对于是否曾独立检测材料质量的问题，劳工处未予回应。

Construction professionals say fraud is a common problem with such certificates in Hong Kong, though there was no evidence so far that this was the case with the Wang Fuk construction.

建筑专业人士表示，在香港，质量证明文件造假是常见问题，尽管目前没有证据表明宏福苑施工中存在此类情况。

“Whether the contractor purchased the same material to be used on the site is another issue that needs to be investigated,” said Mr. Za, the former head of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ building division.

前香港工程师学会建造分部主席谢伟正表示：“承建商是否在实际施工中采购了同等标准的材料，这是需要调查的另一关键问题。”

It is that time of year in Russia again, when a special type of popular, celebrity pinup calendar for the coming year can be bought at newspaper kiosks, bookstores and the like.

在俄罗斯，又到了每年的这个时候，人们可以在报刊亭、书店等地方买到一种特别受欢迎的明星挂历，用于迎接新的一年。

The leading man? Why, it’s President Vladimir V. Putin, of course, starring in his multifaceted role as father of the nation — strong leader, religious believer, extreme sportsman, historian, dog lover and lifestyle coach.

挂历上的男主角？没错，当然是弗拉基米尔·普京总统——他以多重身份出演国家之父：强势领袖、虔诚的信徒、极限运动爱好者、历史学者、爱犬人士与生活方式的导师。

The calendars, of which there are a variety, follow the same basic format. Each month shows a different picture of Mr. Putin and includes a short quote from his speeches or other public remarks from the previous year.

这些挂历有不同版本，但遵循基本相同的格式：每个月都会配上一张普京的照片，并附上他在去年的公开讲话中精选出来的语录。

“It’s the idea of a man for every season,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who ran the Russia desk at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration. “They are positioning Putin as this iconic figure, reminding everybody how cool he is, how much in charge he is, how much he’s kind of the living symbol and embodiment of literally everybody’s days.”

“背后的理念是，这是一个‘四季皆宜的男人’，”美国布鲁金斯学会高级研究员、曾在特朗普第一任期担任白宫国家安全委员会俄罗斯事务主管的菲奥娜·希尔说。“他们把普京塑造成一个偶像式人物，不断提醒大家他有多酷、多么江山在握，仿佛他就是所有人每天生活的象征与化身。”

There are no pictures linking Mr. Putin to the war he started against Ukraine in February 2022, mirroring the official line that the conflict is a distant distraction. Lest anyone get the wrong impression, however, some quotes reflect Russia’s muscular perspective in trying to swallow its smaller neighbor.

挂历中没有任何将普京与他在2022年2月发动的乌克兰战争联系起来的照片，呼应了官方将冲突淡化为一个遥远的、与日常无关的分心之事。但为了避免任何误解，挂历中的一些引语仍然反映了俄罗斯对吞并其较小邻国的强硬视角。

January shows Mr. Putin in a parka astride a snowmobile. That month’s quote: “Russia’s border never ends.” February has him flipping a judo partner onto his back. “I am a dove, but I have very powerful iron wings,” is the chosen quote.

1月的画面中，普京身着派克大衣，跨坐在雪地摩托上，配文写道：“俄罗斯的边界永无止境。”2月的照片里，他施展柔道技艺，将对手掀翻在地，对应的引言是：“我本是和平鸽，但拥有坚不可摧的钢铁之翼。”

In some calendars, Mr. Putin appears to be trying to justify the war in Ukraine, with one quote reading, “I think Russia has become much stronger in the last two or three years because we are becoming a truly sovereign country.”

部分挂历中，普京的引言似在为俄乌战争辩解，其中一句写道：“我认为，过去两三年俄罗斯变得愈发强大，因为我们正成为一个真正拥有主权的国家。”

The calendars, commercial ventures from different publishing houses, retail for the equivalent of about $3.50 each. They end up hanging in schoolrooms, post offices and other government facilities, not to mention homes. No matter how many editions, the calendars deliver a certain bland sameness, said Maxim Trudolyubov, a former newspaper editor who left Russia amid the war and now edits The Russia File, a political analysis blog published by the Kennan Institute in Washington.

这些挂历由不同出版社推出，属于商业产品，每本售价约合3.5美元。最终会出现在学校教室、邮局等政府机构，更走进了千家万户。曾为俄罗斯报纸编辑、战争期间离开俄罗斯的华盛顿肯南研究所旗下政治分析博客《俄罗斯档案》编辑马克西姆·特鲁多柳博夫表示，无论推出多少版本，这类挂历都透着一种千篇一律的乏味感。

2024年莫斯科报摊上出售的去年的普京日历之一。

“This genre is its own kind of art,” he said, noting that Mr. Putin, 72, first became president of Russia almost 26 years ago. “It’s an empire with this ancient emperor who’s been around for decades, so it is supposed to be boring; it is supposed to signal stability, predictability, even if the reality is nothing of the kind.”

“这种题材本身就是一种独特的艺术，”他指出，72岁的普京近26年前首次出任俄罗斯总统。“这就像一个由在位数十年的古老君主统治的帝国，这类挂历理应如此乏味——它要传递的是稳定、可预测的信号，即便现实并非如此。”

The calendars exude a certain Ken-doll vibe, with Mr. Putin sporting different outfits for different roles. For July, he sits at a piano in a dark suit and tie with a dreamy look in his eye, quoting a Bolshevik song about doing things with your own hands. Come August, he is sporting a hunter’s uniform to offer lifestyle advice: “My recipe for energy: Sleep little, work a lot and don’t whine.”

挂历中的普京透着一股肯娃娃般的精致气质，为适配不同角色换上各式装扮。7月的照片里，他身着深色西装、系着领带坐在钢琴前，眼神悠远，配文引用了一首布尔什维克歌曲的歌词，歌颂亲力亲为的精神。8月的他换上猎装，分享起生活心得：“我的精力秘诀：少睡觉、多做事，别抱怨。”

Another piece of advice in the calender offers an example of Mr. Putin’s salty humor: “It’s counterproductive to bury your head in the sand because something else will still stick out.”

挂历中还有一句引言尽显普京粗俗的幽默：“把头埋进沙子里毫无用处，因为会有别的东西露在外面。”

Fortunately or unfortunately, Mr. Putin seems to have kept his shirt on in public over the past year, so as male pinup calendars go, this year’s versions have no shots of Mr. Putin shirtless on horseback or fishing.

无论幸或不幸，过去一年普京在公开场合始终衣着整齐。因此，今年的男性写真挂历中，没有出现他赤膊骑马或钓鱼的经典画面。

Nor were there any of the action-hero images of earlier years, with Mr. Putin piloting a motorized hang glider among migratory birds in Siberia or donning scuba gear to “discover” a Greek urn in the depths of the Black Sea — an infamously staged shot.

早年那些动作英雄式的形象也消失不见——比如在西伯利亚驾驶动力滑翔机与候鸟同行，或是身着潜水装备在黑海深处“发现”希腊古瓮（那是一张臭名昭著的摆拍）。

The calendars began to appear soon after he first assumed the presidency, in 2000, but they really seemed to have taken off around 2011. That year, 12 female journalism students from Moscow State University made one of their own, each posing in lingerie with a line about Mr. Putin.

这类挂历早在2000年普京首次出任总统后不久就已出现，但真正风靡似乎是在2011年左右。当年，莫斯科国立大学的12名女性新闻系学生自制了一本挂历，她们每人身着内衣出镜，旁边配上一句与普京相关的文字。

“All woman need a man like Putin,” read the quote for January. Young women critical of the Russian leader created a counter calendar online, posing in black with their mouths taped shut.

1月对应的配文写道：“每个女人都需要一个像普京这样的男人。”而批评这位俄罗斯领导人的年轻女性则在网上推出了一本反击挂历，她们身着黑衣出镜，嘴上贴着封口胶带。

Ms. Hill suggested this type of branding was part of the “populist, strong man” approach to everything. “Trump does exactly the same,” she said, while noting that it would be hard to imagine the leaders of Canada, Germany or Britain appearing on T-shirts or other such merchandise. “Those people are not so self-reverential and they are in a different political environment.”

希尔认为，这种个人形象塑造是“民粹主义强硬领袖”行事风格的体现。“特朗普也是这么做的，”她还说。同时她还强调，很难想象加拿大、德国或英国的领导人会出现在T恤等周边商品上。“这些国家的领导人没那么自我推崇，而且他们所处的政治环境也截然不同。”

Trying to get a jump on the competition, at least one Russian newspaper released a 2026 calendar of Mr. Putin in September.

为抢占先机，至少有一家俄罗斯报纸已于9月抢先推出了2026年的普京挂历。

For anyone who cannot decide if a Putin calendar is quite the right purchase this year, he has manipulated the Constitution in order to remain president at least until 2036, meaning there are more than 4,000 shopping days left to get one.

如果有人今年还在犹豫要不要买一本普京挂历，不妨想想，普京早已通过修改宪法，确保自己至少能执政到2036年。也就是说，未来还有超过4000个日子可以购买。

In decades of war against terrorist and insurgent groups, the military and spy agencies learned that to take down a network, they had to first understand it.

在数十年打击恐怖组织和叛乱势力的战争中，军方和情报机构认识到：要摧毁一个犯罪网络，首先必须了解它。

That often meant rounding up low-level people who could lead them to more important people.

这通常意味着先抓捕底层人员，再通过他们顺藤摸瓜锁定更核心的目标。

While the United States had successes, it also made mistakes, sometimes hitting the wrong target or causing collateral damage, angering local populations and creating more opponents than were eliminated.

美国在这方面虽取得过一些成效，却也犯下不少错误——有时会误击目标或造成附带伤亡，这不仅激怒了当地民众，还使得新产生的敌人超过消灭的数量。

As a result of those errors, the United States worked to create detailed intelligence dossiers so that civilians approving the strikes could have confidence in who was being targeted and more clearly see the potential unintended consequences of a strike.

正是这些失误促使美国开始建立详尽的情报档案。这样一来，批准打击行动的文职官员能确信目标的准确性，也能更清晰地预判行动可能带来的意外后果。

But those lessons of the long war against terrorism appear to have been cast aside as the Trump administration attacks boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that it says are carrying drugs.

然而，特朗普政府在加勒比海和东太平洋地区打击其所称的运毒船只时，似乎完全抛弃了这些从长期反恐战争中吸取的教训。

杰拉尔德·R·福特号航空母舰已于9月进入加勒比地区。

The U.S. military has killed more than 80 people since the campaign began in early September. But it does not know who specifically is being killed, and the strikes were not designed to take out high-ranking cartel leaders.

自9月初启动这项行动以来，美军已造成80多人死亡。但军方根本不清楚被击毙者的具体身份，而且这些打击行动的目标并非贩毒集团高层头目。

Instead, the military has killed, at best, low-level people, whose role in the drug trade may have been taking a payment for moving cocaine from one spot to another. (At worst, some of the people killed could have been fishermen, migrants or others who had nothing to do with the drug trade.)

相反，军方击毙的充其量只是些底层人员——他们在贩毒活动中可能仅负责转运可卡因并获取少量报酬。（更糟糕的是，部分遇难者或许是渔民、移民等与贩毒活动毫无关联的无辜人员。）

“Traditionally, our counternarcotics efforts have always been targeted at the head of the snake,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “This is obviously the opposite of that. Now we’re going after the tail of the snake. We’re going after some, you know, poor ex-fishermen who took 300 bucks to run a load of cocaine to Trinidad.”

“传统上，我们的禁毒行动向来直击蛇头，瞄准贩毒集团的核心人物，”美国众议院情报委员会民主党领袖、康涅狄格州众议员吉姆·海姆斯表示。“而现在的做法显然背道而驰。我们不去打蛇头，反而盯着蛇尾不放。抓捕的都是些贫苦的前渔民，他们可能收了300美元报酬就帮人把一批可卡因运往特立尼达岛。”

The strikes are also at odds with any effort to understand the cartels moving the drugs. Taking apart a network, experts said, requires capturing people and interrogating them to find out the financiers and leaders. By blowing up the boats, the United States is also destroying the intelligence and evidence.

此外，这些打击行动也不利于摸清贩毒集团的运作模式。专家指出，要瓦解一个犯罪网络，就必须抓获相关人员并进行审讯，进而揪出背后的资金提供者和头目。而美军炸毁运毒船只的同时，也毁掉了关键的情报和证据。

“If what you wanted was to stop the drug trade, obviously this isn’t what you’d be doing,” said Annie Pforzheimer, a former senior U.S. diplomat who specialized in counternarcotics during her career. “Because you’d be capturing the people in the boats, turning them to get the next level of the organization, turning those people to the next level and getting to the top.”

“如果真的想遏制贩毒活动，显然不该采取这种做法，”前美国资深外交官安妮·普福尔茨海默说道，她的职业生涯长期专注于禁毒领域。“正确的做法是抓获船上人员，使其供出组织中层，再通过中层追查高层，最终锁定头目。”

The military knows that someone on the boats has a connection to a drug cartel, and it has some level of confidence that drugs are on the vessels, according to people familiar with the military’s classified briefings. But in most, if not all, of the strikes, the Pentagon does not know precisely whom it is killing, those people said.

据了解军方机密简报的人士透露，军方知晓船上人员与贩毒集团存在关联，且对船上载有毒品有一定把握。但他们表示，在绝大多数——甚或全部——打击行动中，五角大楼都无法确切知晓被击毙者的身份。

And Democratic lawmakers say that presents a real danger.

民主党议员称，这构成了实质性危险。

“There are two reasons you’re really super careful about this stuff,” Mr. Himes said. “One would hope that you might have some qualms about killing innocent people — there’s the moral dimension, and I’d like to believe that still matters. And then No. 2, there’s the blowback issue.”

“在这类行动中必须极度谨慎，原因有二，”海姆斯表示。“首先，人们会期待你在误杀无辜者方面有所顾虑——这涉及道德层面，而且我愿意相信道德准则至今仍有分量。其次，这还存在反噬风险。”

During America’s long fight against terrorism, the C.I.A. and the military learned that when they killed terrorism suspects, the family members of those people could become radicalized, turning against the country that had killed their brother or son.

在美国长期的反恐战争中，中央情报局和军方发现，击毙恐怖嫌疑人后，其家属可能会因此变得激进化，转而敌视杀死他们兄弟或儿子的美国。

Mr. Himes said each and every boat strike carried the same risk.

海姆斯指出，每一次打击运毒船只的行动都存在同样的风险。

“These are guys who made a bad decision to take 500 bucks to run a fast boat up to Trinidad,” Mr. Himes said. “They’re the street-corner hustlers. And if the United States is sending the signal that life doesn’t matter, that’s coming back to us, that is absolutely coming back to us.”

“这些人不过是为500美元的酬劳，做出驾驶快艇前往特立尼达的糟糕决定，”海姆斯说。“他们就像是街头小混混。如果美国传递出‘生命毫无价值’的信号，这种负面影响一定会反噬我们，绝对如此。”

Supporters of the strikes have noted that overhead surveillance by both drones and satellites has improved in recent years and that there is less chance of collateral damage from striking boats at sea compared with targets on land.

支持这类打击行动的人士称，近年来无人机和卫星的空中监控技术不断进步，相较于打击陆地目标，袭击海上船只造成附带伤亡的概率更低。

Trump administration officials have also pointed out that their Democratic predecessors approved counterterrorism strikes even when they were unsure exactly who was being killed.

特朗普政府官员还指出，其前任民主党政府在反恐行动中，即便不确定被打击者的具体身份，也会批准行动。

During the Obama administration, the C.I.A. conducted antiterrorism strikes in cases in which the United States did not know specifically whom it was killing. Instead, the strikes were based on intelligence assessments from a “pattern of life” and other information that showed connections between the targeted people and known terrorists.

奥巴马政府时期，中情局曾实施过在不明具体目标身份的情况下发动的反恐打击。这些行动基于情报评估，通过“生活规律”及其他信息显示目标人员与已知恐怖分子的关联性。

These attacks were called signature strikes because they were based on actions that looked like terrorism, or had a terrorism “signature,” but were not backed up by specific knowledge about who was at a site being targeted or what exactly they might have been planning.

这类袭击被称为特征打击，因其依据是目标人员的行为符合恐怖主义行为，或是带有恐怖主义“特征”，但美方并不确切知晓目标地点人员的身份，也不清楚他们具体在策划什么行动。

The term, however, was tainted from the beginning. Critics maintained that strikes on large groups of unidentified people suspected of being militants did little to stop terrorist attacks but risked mistakes that could lead to civilian deaths and turn local populations against the United States.

然而，这一术语从一开始就蒙上污点。批评人士认为，针对大批身份不明的疑似武装分子实施打击，对阻止恐怖袭击收效甚微，反而容易出错导致平民死亡，进而引发当地民众对美国的敌视。

Because of the controversy, restrictions were placed on signature strikes. And when the Obama administration later began targeting militants in Yemen whose identify they did not know, it started calling the operations “terrorist attack disruption strikes.”

迫于争议，“特征打击”受到了限制。后来奥巴马政府开始打击也门境内身份不明的武装分子时，便将这类行动改称为“恐怖袭击阻断打击”。

While there are some similarities between the boat strikes and the old signature strikes, the military has rejected the idea that the attacks on the boats are signature strikes. In briefings with members of Congress, military officers have asserted that they are confident there are drugs on the boats — and that the drugs are the real target of the attacks.

尽管此次打击运毒船只的行动与以往的“特征打击”存在一些相似之处，但军方否认这些海上打击属于“特征打击”。在向国会议员做简报时，军方官员坚称，他们确信船上载有毒品，而这些毒品才是打击行动的真正目标。

But lawmakers say that means the people on the boats are, in effect, collateral damage.

但议员们表示，这意味着船上人员实际上沦为了附带伤亡。

“They told us it is not a signature strike, because it’s not just about pattern of life, but it’s also not like they know every individual person on the boats,” said Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California and a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

“军方告诉我们，这不是特征打击，因为它不仅依据生活规律。但他们也并非认识船上的每一个人，”加利福尼亚州民主党众议员、众议院军事委员会成员萨拉·雅各布斯说。

Ms. Jacobs said she believed the strikes were wrong.

雅各布斯明确表示，她认为这些打击行动是错误的。

“I didn’t hear any evidence that convinced me that these weren’t extrajudicial killings,” she said.

“我没有听到任何证据能让我相信，这些行动不属于法外处决，”她说。

The married couples filed into a federal building in San Diego last week for green card interviews that they believed would secure their future together in the United States. Half of each pair was American. Stephen Paul came with his British wife and their 4-month-old baby. Audrey Hestmark arrived with her German husband, days before their first wedding anniversary. Jason Cordero accompanied his Mexican wife.

上周，数对已婚夫妇陆续走进圣迭戈的一栋联邦政府大楼参加绿卡面谈，他们原本以为这将确保自己与伴侣在美国共同生活的未来。这些夫妇中的一方是美国公民。斯蒂芬·保罗带着英国妻子和四个月大的婴儿前来。奥黛丽·赫斯特马克在结婚一周年纪念日前夕与德国丈夫共同到场。与杰森·科尔德罗同来的是他的墨西哥妻子。

It was supposed to be a celebratory milestone, the final step in the process to obtain U.S. permanent residency. Instead, as each interview with an immigration officer wrapped up, federal agents swooped in, handcuffed the foreign spouse and took him or her away.

这本该是个值得庆祝的大事——获得美国永久居留权的最后一步。然而，在每位申请人与移民官的谈话结束后，联邦探员便突然现身，将外籍配偶铐上手铐带走。

“I had to take our baby from my crying wife’s arms,” Mr. Paul, 33, said, recalling the moment that agents said they were arresting his wife, Katie.

“我不得不从哭泣的妻子怀中接过我们的孩子，”33岁的保罗回忆探员宣布逮捕他的妻子凯蒂时说道。

Ms. Paul was sent to an immigration detention center with hundreds of other people swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown. Her husband had to take a leave from his job at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to care for their child and try to secure her release.

保罗的妻子被押送至一处移民拘留中心，那里还有数以百计同样在特朗普政府严厉打击行动中被捕的移民。保罗在圣迭戈县警署工作，他不得不请假照顾孩子，并设法争取让妻子获释。

“It’s insane to have them rip our family apart,” Mr. Paul said. “Whoever is directing this has completely lost touch with their mission to the country.”

“他们这样拆散我们的家庭，简直疯了，”保罗说。“指挥这一切的人已经完全背离了服务国家的使命。”

In recent weeks, immigration lawyers in several cities have seen a surge in arrests of foreign spouses of Americans during interviews at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices.

近几周来，多个城市的移民律师发现，在美国公民及移民服务局面谈过程中被捕的美国公民外籍配偶数量大幅上升。

In San Diego alone, immigration lawyers in the region estimate that several dozen foreign-born spouses have been detained since Nov. 12, when the new tactic first surfaced, according to Andrew Nietor, an immigration lawyer. A former chair of the San Diego chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Mr. Nietor said the estimate was based on members’ communications about their clients. The exact number of spouses detained is unclear because many couples attend the routine interviews without lawyers, who would alert colleagues. The government has not disclosed a tally of such detentions.

据移民律师安德鲁·尼托尔称，圣迭戈的移民律师估计自11月12日这种新手段首次出现以来，仅该地区就已经有数十名外籍配偶被拘留。曾任美国移民律师协会圣迭戈分会主席的尼托尔指出，这一估算是基于协会成员间关于客户情况的交流得出的。被拘留配偶的确切人数尚不明确，因为许多夫妇在参加例行面谈时不会请律师——而律师通常会向同行通报此类情况。政府尚未披露相关拘留数据。

In every case, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the applicants that they had overstayed tourist or business visas. An arrest warrant, reviewed by The New York Times, states that “there is probable cause to believe” that the named spouse is “removable from the United States.”

在所有案例中，美国移民和海关执法局(ICE)的探员均告知申请人其旅游或商务签证已逾期。《纽约时报》查阅的一份逮捕令称，“有合理理由认定”被列名的配偶“应被驱逐出美国”。

“Apprehensions at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices may occur if individuals are identified as having outstanding warrants; being subject to court-issued removal orders; or having committed fraud, crimes or other violations of immigration law while in the United States,” said Matthew J. Tragesser, an agency spokesman, noting that the arrests were typically carried out by ICE.

ICE发言人马修·特拉格瑟表示：“若发现当事人身负未执行的逮捕令、法院签发的驱逐令，或在美期间存在移民欺诈、犯罪及其他违反移民法行为，那么有可能在美国公民及移民服务局办公室实施拘捕。”他强调逮捕行动通常由ICE执行。

“从业25年来，我还从未见过这样的事情，”保罗夫妇的律师乔安娜·基米说。周一，在圣迭戈的5号州际公路沿线，人们举行示威游行，抗议近期的ICE突击行动。

But the couples and their lawyers said they had followed the required steps: They had submitted extensive paperwork and paid fees. The foreign spouses had been fingerprinted and passed medical exams. None had criminal records. None had entered the country illegally. They had already been granted employment authorization.

但这些夫妻及其律师表示，他们已经遵循了所有的必要步骤：他们提交了大量文件并缴纳了相关费用。外籍配偶已经进行指纹录入并通过了体检。无人有犯罪记录。无人系非法入境。他们甚至已经拿到了工作许可。

“In 25 years of practice, I have never seen anything like this,” Johanna Keamy, the Pauls’ lawyer, said, echoing the view of other lawyers.

“从业25年来，我还从未见过这样的事情，”保罗夫妇的律师乔安娜·基米与其他律师都表达了同样的观点。

“The proper procedure was exactly what they did,” she said. “What’s next? Revoking green cards from millions who followed these same steps?”

“他们完全遵循了正规流程，”她说。“接下来要怎样？是要撤销数百万遵循同样步骤获得绿卡者的身份吗？”

Green-card applicants’ temporary visas often lapse while their “adjustment-of-status” proceeds over several months or longer.

在为期数月或更长的“身份调整”程序进行期间，绿卡申请人的临时签证往往已经过期。

An immigration statute passed by Congress in 1986 allows a spouse who entered the country lawfully to be eligible for a green card through marriage even if the person’s visa has expired.

国会在1986年通过的一项移民法案允许合法入境的配偶即使签证已过期，也有资格通过婚姻关系获得绿卡。

“Congress was unambiguous — these people are eligible for green cards,” said Doug Rand, who was a senior official at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration.

“国会的立场非常明确——这类人完全有资格获得绿卡，”曾在拜登政府担任公民及移民服务局高级官员的道格·兰德表示。

While federal law does not prohibit spouses with expired visas from being detained and placed in deportation proceedings, in the past they have rarely been detained while applying for green cards.

虽然联邦法律并未禁止对签证过期的配偶实施拘留并启动递解程序，但过去这类申请人在办理绿卡期间遭到拘留的情况非常少见。

The Trump administration is carrying out such detentions without having announced any change in policy.

特朗普政府在未宣布任何政策变更的情况下正在执行此类拘留。

The recent spate of arrests comes amid a leadership shake-up at ICE, including the San Diego region, designed to accelerate and advance the president’s agenda.

近期大规模拘捕事件发生之际，ICE正在进行领导层大调整以加速推进总统的移民议程，其中包括包括圣迭戈地区的ICE。

Ordinarily, foreign spouses of Americans are approved for U.S. permanent residency during or shortly after the in-person interview.

通常情况下，美国公民的外籍配偶会在面谈过程中或不久之后获批美国永久居留权。

Audrey Hestmark, 38, and her husband, Thomas Bilger, 40, reported to the government office in San Diego on Nov. 20, hopeful he would have his green card for their first wedding anniversary two days later.

38岁的奥德丽·赫斯特马克和40岁的丈夫托马斯·比尔格于11月20日前往圣迭戈的政府办公室，满心期待两天后的结婚周年纪念日时他能拿到绿卡。

Mr. Bilger, a robotics engineer, had met and fallen in love with Ms. Hestmark during his business trips from Germany. After dating for four years, they were married on Nov. 22, 2024.

比尔格是一名机器人工程师，他在从德国到美国出差期间遇见并爱上了赫斯特马克。经过四年的交往，两人于2024年11月22日结为连理。

“Tom was super excited to become a U.S. resident, so much so that he had insisted on a cowboy-themed wedding,” said Ms. Hestmark, a registered nurse.

“汤姆对成为美国居民兴奋不已，甚至坚持要办一个牛仔主题的婚礼，”注册护士赫斯特马克回忆道。

They immediately hired a lawyer and assembled documents from Germany and the United States to support their petition.

他们立刻聘请律师，并从德国与美国搜集各种证明文件来支持他们的申请。

奥德丽·赫斯特马克说，“我们按照所有该做的步骤去做了，而现在汤姆却在遭罪。我们所有人都在遭罪。”奥德丽·赫斯特马克和她的丈夫汤姆·比尔格在他们2024年的婚礼上。

At the interview, they brought requisite evidence that their marriage was legitimate — photos of a vacation to Hawaii with his parents; leases, bank statements and utility bills in both names; and other records.

面谈时，他们带来了证明婚姻真实性的必要材料——与他父母一起去夏威夷度假的照片、两人共同名下的租约、银行账单与水电账单，以及其他记录。

The officer asked routine questions. But the last one, according to Ms. Hestmark, was whether her husband had ever overstayed his visa. He responded truthfully and cited their lawyer’s assurance that this was a nonissue.

移民官循例提问，但赫斯特马克表示最后一个问题直指她丈夫是否曾逾期居留。比尔格如实回答，并引用律师的保证称这并不构成障碍。

“Suddenly, we were ambushed by three masked men in bulletproof vests with guns who told Tom they had a warrant for his arrest, that he is here unlawfully,” Ms. Hestmark recalled.

“突然，三名蒙面、穿防弹背心、持枪的男子将我们围住，他们告诉汤姆有逮捕令，说他在这里是非法居留，”赫斯特马克回忆说。

The agents handcuffed her husband, gave her a card with a QR code for the ICE website and took him away. She did not hear from him again until the next morning. He has been bounced between a basement in downtown San Diego and an immigration detention center, where he remains.

探员给她的丈夫戴上手铐，递给她一张带有ICE官网二维码的联系卡，然后把他带走。直到第二天早上她才再次听到丈夫的消息。他先后被押送至圣迭戈市中心的一个地下室和一个移民拘留中心，至今仍关在拘留中心。

Some U.S. citizens have hired lawyers to seek the release of spouses, through actions such as posting bond. Once released, the foreign spouses must try to pursue green cards through immigration court, where judges are grappling with yearslong backlogs.

部分美国公民已聘请律师通过缴纳保释金等方式争取配偶获释。一旦获释，这些外籍配偶须转而通过移民法庭申请绿卡，而当前移民法官正疲于应付积压多年的案子。

Mr. Nietor, the immigration lawyer, said that the government’s strategy appeared to be to induce the couples “to give up and abandon their cases and accept the foreign spouse’s deportation.”

移民律师尼托尔表示，政府的策略似乎是想让这些夫妇“放弃、撤回他们的案件，并接受外籍配偶被驱逐出境”的事实。

Jason Cordero, 26, whose wife, Ludmila, a Mexican national, was detained last week during their interview, said she had been suffering from severe anxiety and having panic attacks in the detention facility.

26岁的杰森·科尔德罗说，其墨西哥籍妻子卢德米拉上周在面谈时遭到拘留，目前在拘留所饱受严重焦虑症与惊恐发作的折磨。

Mr. Cordero hails from a family of modest means, he said, and he had been working two jobs to get them on a stable footing since they married early this year. The couple had recently upgraded from a studio to a one-bedroom apartment in Oceanside, Calif., he said.

科尔德罗表示自己出身清寒，自从今年初结婚后一直打两份工维持家计。这对夫妇刚在加州欧申赛德从单间公寓搬进了一居室。

“Little by little we were moving up,” said Mr. Cordero, who works for a beverage distribution company and a fast-food chain. When three ICE agents took Ms. Cordero into custody for overstaying her visa, she began to weep, as did the Citizenship and Immigration Services officer who had been interviewing her, according to Mr. Cordero.

“我们正一步步改善生活，”在饮料分销公司和快餐连锁店工作的科尔德罗说。据他描述，当三名ICE探员以逾期居留为由拘留卢德米拉时，她当场泣不成声，连负责面谈的移民局官员也随之落泪。

The ICE agents instructed his wife to remove her bracelets, earrings and wedding band, which she placed in her small brown purse and handed to her husband.

ICE探员要求他的妻子取下手镯、耳环和婚戒，她将这些物品放进一个棕色的小手袋里交予丈夫。

“I was shocked and heartbroken,” Mr. Cordero said. “We tried to be respectful because of everything about immigration we’d been seeing on the news.”

“我既震惊又心碎，”科尔德罗说，“那些关于移民的新闻我们已经看到了，所以我们一直尽量保持尊重。”

Katie and Stephen Paul met on a gaming platform more than two years ago. Their friendship flourished into a romance, and she visited Mr. Paul several times under the visa-waiver program for British nationals, which permits stays of up to three months at a time. She joined Mr. Paul’s family on a trip to Japan, and the couple married last October. Two days later, they discovered she was pregnant with Alan, now 4 months old.

凯蒂和斯蒂芬·保罗是在两年多前通过一个游戏平台认识的。他们的友谊发展成恋情，她多次通过英国公民免签计划来探望保罗，该计划允许一次入境最长停留三个月。她还与保罗的家人一起去日本旅行，这对夫妻于去年10月结婚。两天后，他们发现她已经怀上了现在四个月大的儿子艾伦。

They filed their green-card petition in July.

今年7月，他们正式提交了绿卡申请。

Their interview last week was going smoothly, he said, until three ICE agents walked in and informed them that Ms. Paul, who was holding her infant, was under arrest.

他说，他们上周的面谈原本进行得很顺利，直到三名ICE探员走进来，告知正抱着婴儿的凯蒂，她被逮捕了。

Their lawyer, Ms. Keamy, who was participating by telephone, objected, saying this had never happened before.

通过电话参与面谈的律师基米当即提出异议，指出以前从未发生过这样的事情。

“I was completely dumbfounded,” she said. “I went numb.”

“我完全惊呆了，”她说。“整个人都僵住了。”

Mr. Paul said the agents had told him that they disagreed with the directive to arrest Ms. Paul but that they had to follow orders.

保罗说，探员对他讲，他们并不认同逮捕保罗夫人的指令，但他们必须服从命令。

“They are having them grab everyone they can,” Mr. Paul said. “This is just not right.”

“他们现在是能抓一个算一个，”保罗说。“这是不对的。”

妻子遭ICE拘留期间，在圣迭戈县警署工作的斯蒂芬·保罗不得不请假，以便照顾他们的孩子。斯蒂芬和凯蒂·保罗在他们2024年于加州拉荷亚举行的婚礼上。

After Mr. Paul learned from his wife that the authorities were threatening to deport her without a hearing, he said, their lawyer filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Diego to halt her removal and secure her release.

保罗说，在他从妻子那里得知当局威胁要在没有听证的情况下驱逐她后，他们的律师马上在圣迭戈的联邦法院提起诉讼，以阻止她被遣返，并争取让她获释。

In response, the government approved Ms. Paul’s green card on Tuesday and freed her.

作为回应，政府于周二批准了保罗太太的绿卡申请，并将其释放。

In Hong Kong, a city where millions of residents sleep, eat and work high above the ground in towers pressed together like books on a shelf, there has long been the threat that a massive fire could trap people inside their high-rises.

在香港，楼群密密匝匝如同书架上的书本，这座城市的数百万居民就在高楼里睡觉、吃饭、工作，一场滔天大火让住在高楼里的人无处可逃的威胁一直存在。

By Thursday, the scale of that nightmare emerged, as an inferno that had begun a day earlier with one 32-story building and quickly engulfed six other towers at an aging apartment complex became the deadliest fire in Hong Kong’s modern history. On Friday morning, the authorities said that at least 83 people had died in the blaze and dozens of others were still unaccounted for.

至周四，这场噩梦的惨烈程度逐渐显现。此前一天，始于一栋32层建筑的烈火迅速吞噬老旧屋苑的另外六栋高楼，酿成香港现代史上最致命的火灾惨剧。周五早晨，官方确认至少94人罹难，另有数十人下落不明。

Hundreds of firefighters worked to put out flames that continued to burn in three buildings of the Wang Fuk Court complex in Tai Po district 24 hours after they were first reported on Wednesday afternoon. They searched for survivors who had been trapped inside the buildings, pulling both people and corpses out.

周三下午爆发的大埔宏福苑火灾持续逾24小时后，仍有三栋建筑存在火情，数百名消防员仍在努力扑救。他们在楼内搜救受困者，不断抬出幸存者与遇难者遗体。

More than 70 others were in the hospital, some in critical condition. Outside a nearby community center, dozens of people whose relatives were missing waited in line within a police cordon to see if their loved ones were among those whose bodies had been found.

还有70多人正在医院救治，其中一些人情况危急。在附近一个社区中心外，数十名失踪者家属在警戒线内排队，焦急等待确认已寻获的遗体中有无至亲。

Investigators began piecing together how the flames had moved so swiftly, homing in on the green construction netting that had shrouded the buildings slated for renovation, as well as polystyrene foam that had apparently been installed on windows. The police arrested two directors and a consultant linked to a construction company that had installed the construction materials, saying they were suspected of manslaughter and gross negligence.

调查人员开始努力还原火势急速蔓延的轨迹，重点关注包覆待翻新建筑的绿色施工防护网，以及发现安装在窗框上的发泡胶。警方已逮捕涉事建筑工程公司的两名董事及一名顾问，称他们涉嫌误杀和严重疏忽。

宏福苑附近临时安置点的居民。

Residents, many of them older, described narrowly escaping and complained that they had been given no warning, not even by a fire alarm. Public anger rose over whether Hong Kong’s building-safety system has kept pace with the vulnerabilities of one of the world’s fastest-aging populations.

该屋苑的住户（其中许多是老年人）描述了死里逃生的经历，并抱怨事发时完全没有收到任何警示，连警报器都没有响。公众的愤怒情绪不断上升，他们想知道作为全球老龄化速度最快的城市之一，香港的建筑安全体系是否跟得上。

Some observers and local politicians began to ask whether the disaster was the result of corruption and a lack of accountability, as residents raised questions about perceived collusion between housing committees that oversee maintenance and renovations of such estates and contractors.

一些观察人士和当地政界人士开始质疑，这场灾难是否是腐败和缺乏问责的结果。居民们对负责监督此类楼宇维护和修缮的房屋管理委员会与承包商之间相互勾结的现象提出了质疑。

The latest death toll surpassed that of a tenement fire in Kowloon that killed 59 people in 1957, as well as the blaze that broke out at Grenfell Tower, an apartment block in central London in 2017, in which 72 people were killed.

最新的死亡数字已超过1957年九龙一场造成59人死亡的出租楼大火，也超过了2017年英国伦敦格伦费尔公寓造成72人死亡的火灾。

“This is absolutely scandalous, this is not what Hong Kong is known for,” said Emily Lau, a longtime pro-democracy politician and former lawmaker who now hosts an interview show on YouTube. She said the scale of the tragedy pointed to insufficient government supervision: “This has opened up a can of worms about misconduct.”

“这绝对是骇人听闻的，这不是香港该有的样子，”长期从事民主运动的政治人物、前立法会议员刘慧卿说，她目前在YouTube上主持一档访谈节目。她说，这场悲剧的规模突显了政府的监管不足：“挤破了行为不当的脓疮。”

In the face of mounting questions and pressure from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, for “all-out efforts” to respond to the disaster, the Hong Kong government moved to show it was taking swift action.

面对不断增长的质疑以及来自中国领导人习近平要求“全力以赴”应对灾难的压力，香港政府随即采取行动，试图展示其正在迅速应对。

大埔火灾次日，数百消防员仍在现场全力扑救。摄于周四。

John Lee, the Beijing-backed chief executive of Hong Kong, visited the site and later told reporters that the fires were under control. He announced a 300 million Hong Kong dollar or $38 million, fund for victims. His government also kicked off a citywide inspection of housing estates currently under renovation. The city’s anticorruption bureau also announced it was setting up a task force to investigate potential corruption related to the construction work on the complex.

北京支持的香港特首李家超视察了火灾现场，随后向记者表示火势已得到控制。他宣布设立一笔3亿港元的灾民援助基金，特区政府同时启动对全港正在进行翻新的屋邨的排查。香港廉政公署也宣布成立专项工作组，调查该楼群翻新工程中可能存在的贪腐问题。

The fire was the latest crisis for Mr. Lee’s government, which already faces demands from Beijing to fix Hong Kong’s housing market, one of the least affordable in the world, and shore up the economy.

这场火灾是李家超政府面临的又一场危机。此前，北京已要求其解决香港住房市场问题——香港楼市是全球房价可负担性最低的市场之一——同时还需着力提振经济。

And as public distrust swells, with people posting videos and photos online expressing concern about what they feared was flammable construction materials on other buildings, the political fallout could be significant.

随着公众疑虑日益加剧，民众纷纷在网上发布视频和照片，担忧其他建筑上使用的建筑材料存在易燃风险，此次火灾可能引发重大政治影响。

“A bigger question is this: Should a senior official take overall responsibility for this horrendous fire?” said Wang Xiangwei, an associate professor of journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University.

“更大的问题在于：面对这场惨烈的火灾，是否应有高级官员承担全面责任？”香港浸会大学新闻系副教授王向伟表示。

The authorities said that a preliminary investigation revealed that protective nets, tarpaulin and other materials used for the renovation may not have met fire-safety standards. They identified the registered contractor for the building complex as Prestige Construction and Engineering Company.

当局初步调查显示，翻新工程中使用的防护网、防水帆布及其他材料可能不符合消防安全标准，并确认翻新工程的注册承建商为宏业建筑工程有限公司。

志愿者正在整理捐给灾后无家可归者的物资。

The mesh netting was probably a factor in how quickly the fire spread, said Tony Za, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers Building Division. Typically made of fibers and plastic, such netting is used to keep construction materials and other objects from falling off bamboo scaffolding — which companies in Hong Kong commonly use when repairing a building’s exterior — and hitting the ground below.

香港工程师学会建筑分部前主席谢伟正指出，防护网或许是火势快速蔓延的原因之一。这类防护网通常由纤维和塑料制成，用于防止建筑材料及其他物品从竹棚架上坠落伤人——香港企业翻新建筑外墙时普遍使用这种棚架。

Bamboo scaffolding may have also contributed to the blaze, experts said. The government announced earlier this year that it would phase out the use of the material and replace it with steel scaffolding, for greater safety. Last month, another bamboo scaffolding caught fire in Hong Kong’s central business district. That incident along with the devastating fire this week would likely accelerate the construction industry’s switch to metal scaffolding, Mr. Za said.

专家表示，竹棚架也可能助长了火势。香港政府今年早些时候已宣布，将逐步淘汰竹棚架，改用安全性更高的钢棚架。上月，香港中环商务区曾发生另一起竹棚架起火事件。谢伟正称，此次重大火灾叠加此前的事故，大概率会加速建筑行业向金属棚架的转型。

The government’s investigation also pointed to foam boards that had been found installed on windows.

政府调查还指出，发现窗户上安装了泡沫板。

One Wang Fuk Court resident, Lau Yu Hung, a 78-year-old resident, said that many of the windows in his building were covered with a thin layer of polystyrene foam, and that he had heard that it was meant to protect the glass from the repairs being done to the facade.

宏福苑78岁的居民刘余洪（音）表示，他所住楼栋的许多窗户都被一层薄薄的泡沫板覆盖，他听闻此举是为了在立面翻新期间保护玻璃。

The material blocked much of the light and prevented residents from seeing outside, he said. It was only because of a small gap in the foam covering his bathroom window that he had been able to see that a neighboring building was on fire and escape in time, he said.

他说，这种材料遮挡了大部分光线，导致居民无法看清窗外情况。万幸的是，他家浴室窗户的泡沫板留有一道小缝隙，正是通过这道缝隙，他才发现邻近楼栋起火，并及时逃生。

初步调查显示，宏福苑翻修使用的防护网、防水布及其他材料可能未达到消防安全标准。

The blaze spread quickly in this complex of about 2,000 units, which housed many retirees. Some residents had lived there for decades after having purchased their apartments through a government-subsidized homeownership program in the 1980s. Mr. Lau said he had lived there for 20 years.

这座屋邨共有约2000个单位，居住着大量退休人士。部分居民在上世纪80年代通过政府资助的居者有其屋计划购入公寓，在此居住已数十年。刘余洪本人也已在此居住了20年。

Near the complex, dozens of family members still searching for their loved ones gathered outside to file slowly into a community center where they viewed photos of victims.

屋邨附近，数十名仍在寻找亲人的家属聚集在一处社区中心外，依次进入场内辨认遇难者照片。

S.F. Chiang, 68, had gone there to see if her missing 62-year-old brother and 24-year-old niece were among the victims. But she did not find them among the photos that the police provided. “My heart hurts to think about them,” she said.

S·F·蒋（音）来到这里，希望能在遇难者名单中找到她失踪的62岁弟弟和24岁侄女，但她并未在警方提供的照片中看到二人的身影。“一想到他们，我就好心痛，”她说。

(This story was originally published in May.)

（本文最初于5月发表。）

As a truckload of bamboo poles pulled into a narrow street, Daisy Pak stubbed out a cigarette, pulled a safety harness over her paint-streaked leggings and began blasting Prince from a Bluetooth speaker.

当一卡车竹竿驶入狭窄街道，黛西·白（音）掐灭香烟，将安全带绕过沾着油漆痕迹的紧身裤，开始用蓝牙音箱大声放“王子”的歌。

After maneuvering a loaded cart into an elevator, she opened a tiny window on the ninth floor and ducked out onto a narrow pipe, a bunch of zip ties sashaying behind her back like a bushy tail. She called for mid-length bamboo poles that she tied into a latticework clinging to the outside of the building.

她将满载竹竿的推车推进电梯，抵达九楼后推开一扇小窗，弯腰踏上狭窄的管道——背后一束扎带像蓬松的尾巴一样晃来晃去。她喊着要来中等长度的竹竿，将它们捆扎成格栅状结构，牢牢固定在建筑外墙。

Ms. Pak, 31, is one of the few female bamboo scaffolding workers in Hong Kong, using an ancient Chinese practice that is synonymous with the city even as its use has faded elsewhere in China. She turned to the industry for a fresh start in 2021, after a hardscrabble upbringing and falling into drug addiction and debt. There was a demand for skilled construction workers, it paid relatively well, and she had a passion for the time-honored craft. “It’s so special, to build something completely all out of bamboo,” she said.

31岁的黛西·白是香港为数不多的女性搭棚工。这种古老的中国工艺如今在中国其他地区已日渐式微，却仍是香港的标志性符号。2021年，在经历了艰辛的成长历程、染上毒瘾又深陷债务后，她投身这一行寻求新生。当时熟练建筑工人紧缺，薪资相对优厚，而她本身也对这项历史悠久的手艺非常热忱。“纯粹用竹子搭建出一样东西，这种感觉太特别了，”她说。

Traditionally, workers learn their craft by shadowing one master with knowledge passed down through generations. But Ms Pak learned any way she could, working with different bosses to broaden her skills and techniques, and overcoming taunts about her ability as a novice and her 5-foot-1 stature. While dismantling a scaffold, a colleague once tossed her poles to catch instead of passing them downward. Contractors have tried to pay her less than she was promised. Her arms and legs were constantly bruised, but she carried on.

传统上，竹棚工人需要拜师学艺，掌握代代相传的技术。但是黛西·白想尽一切办法学习：为拓宽技能与技法，她先后跟随多位老板干活；别人嘲笑她是新手，还有她只有约1米55的身高，她咬牙坚持。拆棚时，曾经有同事直接把竹竿扔给她而不是递下来；有些承包商还试图克扣承诺的薪资。她的胳膊和腿上常年带着淤青，却从未放弃。

黛西·白是香港棚架行业中为数不多的女性从业者之一。黛西·白用扎带将竹竿捆扎在杉木立柱上。

“I was born with the will to prove people wrong, to do things that they say cannot be done,” she said.

“我生来就要证明别人是错的，别人说我做不到，我偏要做到，”她说。

But the industry that helped transform her life now faces its own uncertain future. Some, like Ms. Pak, are worried after Hong Kong’s development bureau issued a memo in March requiring at least half of government projects to use metal scaffolding in an effort to gradually widen its use to keep pace with modern industry practices and improve safety.

然而，这个改变了她人生的行业如今正面临不确定的未来。今年3月，香港发展局发布备忘录，要求至少一半的政府项目使用金属棚架，旨在逐步推广现代工艺适用范围、提升安全性。这让包括黛西·白在内的从业者忧心忡忡。

The city is one of the last bastions of an art — and later industry — that was first depicted in scroll paintings from the Han dynasty around 2,000 years ago, and it has thrived in bamboo-rich regions in China. But in the past two decades, the rest of China pivoted toward metal amid an overproduction of steel.

香港是这项古老技艺——后来发展为产业——最后的阵地之一。早在约2000年前的汉代，画轴中就已出现竹棚的身影，它在中国竹子资源丰富的地区曾盛极一时。但过去20年间，随着钢铁产能过剩，中国其他地区纷纷转向金属棚架。

Lattices of bamboo poles bound together by intricate knots regularly rise across the city to build and renovate apartment blocks and commercial skyscrapers that can be dozens of stories high.

在香港，错综复杂、由绳结捆绑而成的竹棚随处可见，用于建造和翻新数十层高的公寓楼与商业大厦。

Advocates of the material, including Ms. Pak, say it is lighter and cheaper than metal to transport and carry in Hong Kong’s tight urban spaces. Builders particularly favor the material when erecting platforms that support workers who patch up building exteriors and replace old pipes and window sills.

包括黛西·白在内的竹材支持者表示，在香港拥挤的城市空间里，竹材的运输和搬运比金属更轻便、成本更低。尤其在搭建用于修补外墙、更换旧管道和窗台的作业平台时，建筑方更青睐竹棚。

The government development bureau wrote in a statement that metal scaffolds offered better fire resistance and were more rigid and durable. But it added that it had no intention to phase out bamboo scaffolds entirely, “particularly in special circumstances including limited working space on site.”

香港发展局在声明中称，金属棚架防火性能更佳，且更坚固耐用。但该局还说，并无完全淘汰竹棚架的打算，“尤其是在工地环境狭窄等特殊情况下。”

竹棚架是这座高密度都市的景观的一部分。

Tony Za, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ building division, said that a spate of industrial accidents involving bamboo structures had prompted safety concerns. Metal scaffolds are more suitable for large-scale construction projects as skyscrapers grow taller and building materials change to include more glass, Mr. Za said.

前香港工程师学会建筑分部主席谢伟正表示，一系列涉及竹结构的工业事故引发了安全担忧。随着摩天大楼越来越高，建筑材料也更多地采用玻璃，金属棚架更适合大型建设项目。

For metal scaffolding, engineers can make decisions such as how thick a pole to use and how far apart to space the ringlocks based on calculations accounting for load and extreme weather, Mr. Za said. But that cannot be done for bamboo scaffolds, because the poles do not come in uniform shapes, requiring the discretion of bamboo masters.

谢伟正解释说，对于金属棚架，工程师可根据荷载和极端天气等因素计算确定管材厚度、环锁间距等参数；但竹棚架无法做到这一点，因为竹竿形状不规则，全凭竹棚师傅的经验判断。

Ms. Pak had the foresight to get licensed to work with metal scaffolds last year, saying she already used some metal components, such as platforms. “They reinforce one another, like brothers scaling a mountain together,” she said.

颇具远见的黛西·白去年已考取金属棚架操作资质。她说自己早已在使用平台等金属构件：“它们相辅相成，就像兄弟携手登山。”

But her love for bamboo, bordering on sentimentality, has only grown. “The material is so dynamic and resilient,” she said. “It’s just like the spirit of Hong Kong.”

但她对竹子近乎感伤的热爱却愈发深厚，“这种材料充满活力且韧性十足，就像香港精神。”

Passers-by often do a double take when they watch her haul a bundle of seven-foot bamboo poles with ease.

路人常常会驻足侧目，惊讶于她能轻松扛起一捆长约二米的竹竿。

Raised by a single mother, Ms. Pak worked in a seedy nightclub for a while but moved into construction during the pandemic. The daily rate for novices was about $90 and could go up to $250 for a skilled worker.

黛西·白由单亲母亲抚养长大，一度在一家低档夜总会工作，疫情期间转行进入建筑行业。在这个行业，新手日薪约90美元（约合640元人民币），熟练工人最高可达250美元（约合1700元人民币）。

With no connections in the industry, she trawled scaffolding groups on Facebook, asking if anyone would hire a female worker. Many contractors responded out of curiosity, she said. For the first year, she stayed on the ground, passing tools and bamboo poles several times her height to more seasoned workers dangling from rooftops and balconies.

由于在业内毫无人脉，她在Facebook的棚架工人群组里四处打听，询问是否有人愿意雇佣女性工人。她说，许多承包商出于好奇回应了她。第一年，她一直在地面工作，将工具和比自己高出许多的竹竿递给悬挂在屋顶和阳台的资深工人。

She said she earned greater acceptance as she became more experienced. She amassed several qualifications in the industry, including what is nicknamed the “master license.”

她说，随着经验日渐丰富，她获得了更多认可，还考取了行业内多项资质，包括被戏称为“大师执照”的高级认证。

“I am now respected,” she said.

“现在我得到了尊重，”她说。

肯尼·李是一位资深棚架工匠，数十年来一直为宗教庆典和粤剧演出搭建戏台。

On a recent day off, she traveled to the outlying Po Toi Island to visit Kenny Lee, a veteran builder of open-air bamboo theaters outside temples used for religious celebrations and Cantonese opera performances. The technique for making such structures has been designated by the government as an intangible part of the cultural heritage.

前不久的一个休息日，她前往远离市中心的蒲台岛拜访肯尼·李（音），一位资深的露天竹戏棚搭建师傅。这种戏台用于宗教庆典和粤剧演出，搭建技艺已被政府列为非物质文化遗产。

In recent weeks, Mr. Lee and his crew of about 10 builders constructed a theater at a cliff-side temple ahead of performances marking the birthday of Tin Hau, the goddess of seafarers. With minimal direction, the builders worked in synchrony: hauling heavy wooden logs and bamboo poles, and clambering up and down the theater’s soaring rooftop. It was built upon uneven rocks; in high tide, the fir pillars slanted into the waters.

近几周来，为筹备庆祝海神“天后”诞辰的演出，肯尼·李和他的10人团队在一座悬崖边的寺庙旁搭建了一座戏台。工人们无需过多指令便配合默契：搬运沉重的原木和竹竿，在戏台高耸的屋顶上攀爬作业。戏台建在崎岖的岩石上，涨潮时，杉木支柱会斜插入水中。

“There’s joy and there’s sorrow in this work,” Mr. Lee, 57, said, recounting days when he worked through typhoons to meet deadlines, even as hurricane-force winds hurled flower pots from neighboring buildings.

“这份工作有苦也有乐，”57岁的肯尼·李说。他回忆曾有台风天为赶工期坚持作业，飓风般的狂风甚至将邻近建筑的花盆掀落。

In his heyday, Mr. Lee would build and dismantle as many as 30 bamboo theaters across the city every year. But the pandemic hit the business, and there is more profit to be made with the construction jobs that he needs to make ends meet, he said.

在鼎盛时期，肯尼·李每年要在全港搭建和拆除多达30座戏棚。但疫情重创了这个行业，如今靠建筑工程谋生才能维持生计。

游客在蒲台岛悬崖边寺庙周围的临时竹棚剧场观看粤剧演出。游客们在蒲台岛的庙宇里参加祈福仪式。

“You can’t really make money,” he said. “I do it for the gods, then for the brothers.”

“其实赚不到什么钱，我做这个，先是为神明，再是为兄弟，”他说。

Ms. Pak has ideas on how to make the industry more accessible to newcomers and the public. She has taught high school students how to build a small scaffold and is preparing to launch a YouTube channel with tutorials on basic skills, such as tying knots with zip ties.

黛西·白在考虑如何让更多新人加入这个行业，让公众了解这项工艺。她曾指导高中生搭建小型竹棚，目前正筹备开通YouTube频道，传授用扎带打结等基础技艺。

Ms. Pak bought sour plum juice on the way to the temple to give to the crew and traded stories with them. She worked up the gumption to ask Mr. Lee to hire her for his next bamboo theater project.

前往寺庙的路上，黛西·白买了酸梅汤分给工人们，还和他们交流心得。她鼓起勇气，向肯尼·李提出，希望能参与他的下一个戏棚项目。

这座临时竹制剧场建在悬崖边的寺庙周围，不过肯尼·李表示，由于土地填海工程，如今这类场地越来越少了。

“It would be a shame if the tradition dies in our hands,” she said.

“如果这项传统在我们手中消亡，那就太可惜了，”她说。

Three weeks ago, it looked like Japan’s prime minister had made the biggest blunder of her early tenure with an off-the-cuff comment that ignited a diplomatic showdown with China.

三周前，日本首相的一句即席发言看上去好像是她执政初期最大的失误，导致与中国的外交对峙。

Now Sanae Takaichi is in a position of strength at home, even though neither Japan nor China is backing away from the dispute.

而现在，高市早苗在国内地位稳固，尽管日本和中国都没有在争端中退缩。

Ms. Takaichi caused the row by signaling her country’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese military action. China, which regards the island democracy as its territory, responded by curtailing trade and tourism to Japan.

高市早苗因表态愿在中方采取军事行动时保卫台湾而引发争端。视该民主岛屿为其领土的中国随即做出回应，采取措施削减对日贸易和旅游。

But the economic costs have not dented her popularity among Japan’s voters. If anything, they have increased her appeal as a conservative strong on defense.

但经济代价并没有影响她在日本选民中的受欢迎程度，反而巩固了她在国防问题上态度强硬的保守派形象。

Young citizens in particular have praised her stance, in a sign that she has struck a cord with a Japanese electorate that has been increasingly willing to question the nation’s longstanding pacifism. And she has been backed by Japanese, American and Taiwanese officials.

尤其是年轻公民对她的立场表示赞赏，这表明她与日益质疑日本长期以来和平主义的日本选民达成了一致。她还得到了日本、美国和台湾官员的支持。

It is too early to say how the spat with China will color Ms. Takaichi’s legacy — she has been in office for less than six weeks. But it is likely to prove a defining early moment of her prime ministership.

高市早苗上任还不到六周，现在评价与中国的争端将如何影响她的政治遗产还为时过早。但这可能是她担任首相早期阶段的一个决定性时刻。

The furor began on Nov. 7. in the Diet, Japan’s Parliament. An opposition lawmaker asked Ms. Takaichi how her administration would designate an effort by China to blockade or invade Taiwan. She said that would constitute a “survival-threatening situation,” implying that in such a scenario Japan would deploy its military in Taiwan’s defense.

这场风波始于11月7日日本国会。一名反对党议员询问高市早苗，日本政府将如何界定中国封锁或入侵台湾的行为。她表示这将构成“存亡危机事态”，暗示日本将在这种情况下派遣自卫队保卫台湾。

While she was repeating what has long been Japan’s prevailing, if rarely verbalized, policy, her remarks caused an uproar in Beijing. The ensuing diplomatic row has brought streams of vitriol, military posturing in contested waters and appeals to the United Nations and President Trump.

尽管这只是重申日本长期以来鲜少明言的主流政策，但她的言论在北京引起了轩然大波。随后的外交争端带来了一连串的尖刻言辞、在争议水域的军事姿态，以及向联合国和特朗普总统的申诉。

Many political analysts and administration officials believe that Ms. Takaichi’s comment was not a calculated move, but rather spontaneous and possibly provoked by the questioner.

许多政治分析家和政府官员认为，高市早苗的言论并非经过深思熟虑，而是脱口而出，可能是被提问者激起。

“The consensus is it wasn’t really a deliberate move on her part,” said Tobias Harris, the founder of Japan Foresight, a political risk advisory firm. “But once you’ve said that, it’s very difficult to concede anything, because then it’s a question of whether it’s Japan’s prevailing policy or is it not?”

“普遍共识认为这并非她的刻意之举，”政治风险咨询公司日本前瞻的创始人托比亚斯·哈里斯说。“但是一旦这么说了，就很难做出任何让步，因为接下来的问题是，这是否是日本的主流政策？”

“That is why I feel very bearish about this being resolved anytime soon,” Mr. Harris said.

“正因如此，我非常不看好这个问题会在短期内得到解决，”哈里斯说。

The sparring comes at a time when anti-China sentiment has increased in Japan, influenced by narratives of Chinese over-tourism, military expansion near Japanese islands and reports blaming Chinese nationals for driving up rents and land prices by buying assets in Japan.

这场争吵发生之际，日本国内的反华情绪正有所上升，原因是有关中国的过度旅游、在日本岛屿附近的军事扩张，以及指责中国公民通过在日本购买资产推高租金和地价的报道。

This attitude is especially shared among younger generations, a key demographic for Ms. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party, whose popularity has weakened because it has strained to appeal to younger voters.

这种态度在年轻一代中尤其普遍，而这一群体对于高市早苗所在的自民党至关重要，该党因难以吸引年轻选民而出现支持率下滑。

A nationwide poll conducted last weekend by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, showed that 64 percent of those aged 18-39 approved of the Takaichi government’s stance toward China. That compared to a 43 percent approval rate from those over 60, while the overall approval was 56 percent.

日本最大的报纸《读卖新闻》上周末进行的一项全国民意调查显示，在18岁至39岁的受访者中，64%的人赞成高市政府对中国的立场。相比之下，60岁以上人群的支持率为43%，而总体支持率为56%。

5月，在冲绳训练的日本士兵。部分日本选民似乎质疑该国二战后奉行的和平主义政策。

On Tuesday evening, Mai Hosoda, 23, and Rino Nakatani, 24, were on their way home from work at a bank in Nara, a city near Kyoto famous for free-roaming deer that inhabit its parks. They both said they were supportive of the tough stance Ms. Takaichi, who hails from Nara, has taken toward China.

周二晚上，23岁的细田麻衣（音）和24岁的中谷里乃（音）从奈良的一家银行下班回家。奈良位于京都附近，以公园里自由漫步的鹿群而闻名。两人均表示支持出身奈良的高市早苗对华强硬立场。

Ms. Nakatani said she had recently seen a smattering of social media posts of Chinese tourists feeding strange things to the Nara deer, and that her perception of China had worsened because of the diplomatic spat.

中谷里乃说，她最近在社交媒体上看到一些中国游客用奇怪食物喂奈良鹿的帖子，由于外交争端，她对中国印象更差了。

Ms. Hosoda agreed. “It’s a good thing as a leader to have a firm stance about their own country,” she said.

细田麻衣表示同意。“作为领导人，对自己的国家有坚定的立场是一件好事，”她说。

On the world stage, allies have rallied to Ms. Takaichi’s defense. Taiwan has lifted all restrictions on imports of Japanese food, including those on seafood that have been in place since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Taiwan’s president posted a video of himself eating sushi that included Japanese scallops and yellowtail.

在世界舞台上，盟友们团结起来支持高市早苗。台湾已经取消了对日本食品进口的所有限制，包括自2011年福岛核灾难以来实施的海产品进口限制。台湾总统发布视频，展示自己食用含日本扇贝和鰤鱼的寿司。

The top American diplomat in Japan also voiced support. “Directly from the president and from myself and from the embassy for the Prime Minister, we have her back,” U.S. Ambassador George Glass said last week.

美国驻日本最高外交官也表示了支持。美国大使乔治·格拉斯上周称：“总统本人直接表示，我和大使馆也表示，我们支持她。”

For some observers, an incendiary comment about China from Ms. Takaichi has always been in the cards given her long-held nationalist leanings and public statements.

对于一些观察人士来说，鉴于高市早苗长期以来的民族主义倾向和公开声明，她对中国发表煽动性言论早就有迹可循。

Like many right-wing Japanese lawmakers, Ms. Takaichi has been a frequent visitor to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan’s war dead, including some war criminals, are commemorated. Her visits have consistently sparked official protests and condemnation from China, where Japanese troops committed atrocities during World War II, as well as South Korea, a former colony of Japan.

与众多日本右翼议员相似，高市早苗频繁参拜东京靖国神社，该神社供奉着日本战死者，其中包括部分战犯。她的参拜行为一直引发中国和韩国政府的抗议与谴责——二战期间，日军在中国犯下暴行，韩国则曾是日本的殖民地。

高市早苗2014年参拜东京靖国神社，她的频繁参拜引发中国和韩国的谴责。

However, some fear that tensions have risen too high. A former prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, criticized Ms. Takaichi, telling a local news station this week that Japan’s response to a Taiwan contingency was not a matter to be discussed so openly.

然而，一些人担心紧张局势已经升级。日本前首相石破茂批评了高市早苗，他本周在接受当地一家新闻台采访时表示，日本对台湾突发事件的反应不应该如此公开地讨论。

“Successive administrations have handled this with the utmost caution. That is how sensitive the Japan-China relationship is,” he said. “This is not about being able to say whatever one wants. Nor is it about simply gaining higher approval ratings.”

“历届政府都以极其谨慎的态度处理此事，日中关系就是这么敏感，”他说。“这并非关乎能否随心所欲地发言，更不是为了单纯提升支持率。”

Beijing’s reactions have included asking the United Nations to distribute a strong criticism of Ms. Takaichi’s remarks to member countries. On Tuesday, Japan said it scrambled fighter jets after detecting a drone, believed to be Chinese, near an island in its south where it is planning to deploy antiaircraft missiles.

北京的反应包括要求联合国向成员国散发一份对高市早苗言论的强烈批评。周二，日本表示，在日本南部一个岛屿附近发现一架据信是中国的无人机后，日本战斗机紧急升空。日本计划在该岛屿部署防空导弹。

Beijing has also sought to ratchet up economic pressure. It has halted seafood imports from Japan and advised its citizens to avoid traveling to the country, warning that visiting it now poses risks to their safety. Hong Kong authorities have also urged residents to exercise vigilance in visiting Japan.

北京还试图加大经济压力。中国已停止从日本进口海产品，并建议其公民避免前往日本，警告当前赴日存在安全风险。香港当局也敦促居民在访问日本时提高警惕。

Visitors from mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for over a quarter of all foreign arrivals to Japan last year. The dispute with Beijing could cost Japan as much as $1.2 billion in tourist spending by the end of the year, according to China Trading Desk, a research firm.

去年，来自中国大陆和香港的游客占日本外国游客总数的四分之一以上。据研究机构China Trading Desk称，到今年年底，与北京的争端可能会使日本的旅游支出减少多达12亿美元。

上周，东京热门观光地浅草寺迎来了大批中国游客。有机构估算，此次争端可能导致日本损失逾10亿美元的游客消费。

Yoshitsugu Tone runs a dried-foods shop in Nara that he said is frequented by Chinese tourists, who come to buy Goji berries. He is worried business will be hurt by a drop off in Chinese visitors and said that Ms. Takaichi shouldn’t have provoked China.

奈良的干货店店主利根义嗣（音）说，经常有中国游客来他的店里买枸杞。他担心中国游客减少会影响生意，并说高市早苗不应该激怒中国。

“Japan also did wrong things in the past against China and Korea,” said Mr. Tone, 85. The prime minister “stepped on the tail of the tiger, when she should have just left things untouched.”

“日本过去对中国和韩国也做过错事，”85岁的利根义嗣说。首相“本来不该惹事，偏要踩到老虎尾巴”。

Earlier this month, a Chinese diplomat in Japan attacked Ms. Takaichi directly, posting a call on social media to cut off her “filthy head.” Chinese state media has started releasing cartoons depicting her in outfits linked with wartime Japan.

本月早些时候，一名中国驻日外交官直接攻击高市早苗，在社交媒体上发帖呼吁砍掉她“肮脏的头颅”。中国官方媒体开始发布她穿着与战时日本相关服装的漫画。

“The Chinese side believes that the more pressure they apply to Japan, the more submissive the Japanese will become — the more difficult Ms. Takaichi’s position will become,” said Ichiro Korogi, a China expert and professor at Kanda University of International Studies.

“中国方面认为，他们对日本施加的压力越大，日本人就会变得越顺从——高市早苗的处境就会变得越困难，”神田外语大学的中国问题专家兴梠一郎教授说。

The problem is that Ms. Takaichi has already clarified that she will not retract her statements, Mr. Korogi said. Beijing’s recent actions, he said, are boosting Ms. Takaichi’s popularity.

兴梠一郎说，问题在于高市早苗已经澄清了她不会收回自己的言论。他认为北京近期的行动反而提升了高市早苗的民意支持度。

He added: “The more pressure China puts on Japan, the more Japanese people actually unite.”

他还说：“中国对日本施加的压力越大，日本人实际上就越团结。”

Tong PingMoon said he first smelled smoke around 3 p.m. on Wednesday, and soon after, a firefighter banged on the door of his 10th floor apartment in Hong Kong to tell him a nearby building was on fire. Mr. Tong, 74, and his wife refused to evacuate then, thinking they would be all right, but the smoke soon got worse.

唐平满（音）说，最初是在周三下午约3点，他闻到了烟味。随后不久，一名消防员敲响了他位于10楼公寓的门，告知附近一栋建筑起火了。74岁的唐平满和妻子起初拒绝疏散，认为不会有危险，但烟雾很快变浓了。

The couple, residents of Wang Fuk Court in the city’s Tai Po district, then called for help and hid in the bathroom, using wet towels to cover their faces and guard against smoke coming through the gap under the door. They were rescued by firefighters around 6 p.m. and were staying at a school being used as a temporary shelter.

这对居住在香港大埔区宏福苑的夫妇随后拨打了求助电话，并躲进浴室，用湿毛巾捂住口鼻，防范从门缝渗入的浓烟。他们在晚上6点左右被消防员救出，目前暂住在一所作为临时庇护所的学校里。

“We were so lucky. It was pitch dark,” Mr. Tong said. “We wouldn’t have made it if we had to head out by ourselves.”

“我们太幸运了。当时漆黑一片，”唐平满说。“如果我们靠自己逃生，可能就没命了。”

The fire in Tai Po started in one high-rise building in the midafternoon, and residents recounted how quickly it spread, forcing many to flee or seek help from firefighters. An unknown number of residents were trapped in the burning building, the officials said.

大埔火灾始于周三下午，从一栋高层建筑开始，居民描述火势迅速蔓延，迫使许多人仓皇逃生或等待救援。官员们表示，目前仍有不明数量的居民被困在燃烧的大楼内。

一些居民在消防员的帮助下成功逃生。

Some of those who escaped stood outside around midnight, watching firefighters try to tame the inferno.

一些已逃离的居民午夜时分仍站在外面，注视着消防员与烈焰搏斗。

“How can I go to sleep while my home is being burned down?” said Sze Kam Sang, a retiree in his 70s, quietly clutching a small cotton blanket and watching the fire in the crowd. He has been living in Wang Fuk Court for about 40 years and was at a doctor’s appointment when he heard about the fire from his wife, who was working nearby.

“家都着火了，我怎么睡得着？”70多岁的退休人员施锦生（音）静静抱着一条小棉毯，在人群中注视火势。他在宏福苑住了约40年，火灾发生时正在看医生，当时在附近工作的妻子打电话告诉他这一消息。

He hoped the fire hadn’t wiped out his 19th-floor apartment yet. The lower floors were clearly ablaze.

他希望大火尚未吞没他位于19楼的公寓，楼下几层已火光冲天。

周四凌晨，大火仍在燃烧，距起火已近12小时。

Mr. Sze added that a few small fires had been reported over the years, but not on this scale. He said the building was undergoing its first major maintenance project in four decades. It was encased in bamboo scaffolding, which is commonly used in Hong Kong for construction projects.

施锦生说，这些年来小区也曾发生过几起小火，但从未达到如此规模。他透露，这栋楼正在进行40年来的首次大规模维修，外围搭满了香港建筑项目常用的竹脚手架。

Early Thursday, the fire was still burning through the 32-story apartment towers, sending smoke into the sky. The bamboo scaffolding cracked and burst with showers of sparks. Dozens of fire trucks and ambulances were parked, their lights blinking.

周四清晨，大火仍在吞噬这座32层高的公寓楼，浓烟直冲天际。竹脚手架噼啪作响，迸发出阵阵火花。现场停着数十辆消防车和救护车，警灯闪烁。

Lam Chi -Tong, a 71-year-old cleaner, was working in a police station near her home at Wang Fuk Court when she got a call from her son around 4 p.m. on Wednesday to tell her that a nearby building had caught fire. She hurried back to her complex, only to find that her building, along with others, was also ablaze.

71岁的清洁工林智彤（音）周三下午4点左右正在家附近的警察局工作，接到儿子电话告知附近建筑起火。她匆忙赶回小区，却发现自己居住的大楼以及其他几栋楼也已陷入火海。

“I’ve lived here for 30 years. I just want to sit here and watch,” she said with a sigh as the fire continued to burn into the night.

“我在这里住了30年，现在只想坐在一边看着，”她望着持续燃烧至深夜的大火，叹了口气。

建筑物被竹制脚手架包裹，这种脚手架在香港的建筑工程中很常见。

President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan said his government would introduce a $40 billion special budget for military spending that will focus on acquiring more of the nimble, mobile weapons from the United States that it needs to deter and outsmart China’s far larger military forces.

台湾总统赖清德表示，他的政府将提出一项400亿美元的特别军事预算，从美国采购更多灵活、机动的武器，以威慑并智胜规模远大于台湾的中国军队。

The proposed spending, which would be in addition to the main annual military budget, is politically important for Mr. Lai’s government, which has come under pressure from the Trump administration to increase defense outlays. Beijing asserts that Taiwan is its territory, and says that it could use armed force to take the island if it deems necessary.

这项拟议支出将作为年度国防预算之外的特别预算，对赖清德政府来说具有重要政治意义，因为特朗普政府一直向台施压，要求其增加国防开支。北京声称台湾是中国领土，并表示如有必要可动用武力夺取该岛。

Mr. Lai announced the military spending goal at a news conference in Taipei on Wednesday and laid out other proposed steps to counter what he described as a growing threat posed by China’s military intimidation and political infiltration.

赖清德于周三在台北举行的新闻发布会上公布了这个特别军事预算，并提出了其他拟议措施，以应对他所称的中国的军事恫吓与政治渗透所带来的日益严重的威胁。

“History demonstrates that compromising with aggressors ultimately brings only endless aftermaths of war and subjugation,” Mr. Lai said, citing the example of Western appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War II. Defending Taiwan, Mr. Lai said, “must be the shared responsibility of the government, opposition parties and all Taiwanese people.”

“历史证明，向侵略妥协，最后只会换得无止境的战祸和奴役，”赖清德引用了二战前西方对纳粹德国绥靖的例子。赖清德表示，守护台湾“必须是政府、朝野以及全体台湾人共同的责任”。

He said that the special budget, which amounts to 1.25 trillion Taiwanese dollars, would also be used to build up the island’s domestic weapons industry by 2033. Mr. Lai’s proposal must be approved by Taiwan’s legislature, where it may be blocked by opposition parties.

他说，这项金额达新台币1.25兆的特别预算也将用于在2033年前加强台湾自己的武器制造产业。赖清德的提案必须获得台湾立法院的批准，而在野党可能会加以阻挠。

Mr. Lai’s government has also proposed increasing the regular defense budget for 2026. In total, the additional spending could take Taiwan’s military outlays to 3.3 percent of its economic output next year, Mr. Lai said. The Trump administration has pressed Taiwan to spend at least 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, up from its current level of about 2.45 percent. Mr. Lai said that he is committed to meeting the Trump administration’s target by 2030.

赖政府还提议提高2026年的常规国防预算。赖清德表示，总体来看，这些额外支出可能使台湾明年的国防开支达到其经济产出的3.3%。特朗普政府一直要求台湾将国防支出提高至其国内生产总值的至少5%，高于目前约2.45%的水平。赖清德表示，他承诺将在2030年前达成特朗普政府设定的目标。

2023年台湾军队在八里区演习。赖清德政府提议明年将军费开支提高到台湾经济产出的3.3%。

Mr. Lai’s announcement underscores the growing pressure on Taiwan by China, which in recent days has also sought to punish Japan for supporting Taiwan. China has mounted a ferocious campaign of denunciations and travel boycotts after Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told Parliament that an effort by China to blockade or invade Taiwan could force Japan to deploy its military forces.

赖清德的声明凸显了中国对台日益增长的压力，而中国近日也试图因日本支持台湾而惩罚日本。日本新首相高市早苗在国会表示，如果中国试图封锁或入侵台湾，日本可能被迫动用自卫队，这之后，中国发起了猛烈的谴责和抵制旅游的行动。

Previous Japanese prime ministers had avoided specifying how they would respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan for fear of provoking a domestic political backlash, but Ms. Takaichi’s tough stance has so far been met with strong public approval.

历任日本首相为了避免引发国内政治反弹，一直不明确说明如果中国攻击台湾他们将如何回应，但高市早苗的强硬立场迄今获得了广泛的民众支持。

Taiwan’s defense minister, Wellington Koo, said that the proposed increases in military spending would be used to build a multilayered missile defense system and acquire more drones and unmanned boats. American military officials and experts have been urging Taiwan to focus on these kinds of weapons, instead of conventional ships and fighter aircraft, to better deter China.

台湾国防部长顾立雄表示，拟议增加的军费将用于打造多层防空系统，并采购更多无人飞机与舰艇。美国军方官员和专家一直敦促台湾将重点放在这类武器上，而不是传统的舰船和战斗机，以更好地威慑中国。

Even with sufficient funding, such an upgrade in military hardware would be a challenge because the armed forces would require specialized training to operate the new and more sophisticated weapons, said Lin Ying-yu, an associate professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan who specializes in military issues. “I believe this area still requires considerable work on our part,” he said.

台湾淡江大学研究军事问题的林颖佑副教授指出，即使有足够的资金，军事装备的升级也是一个挑战，因为军队需要经过专门训练才能操作这些更先进、更精密的新武器。他说：“我会觉得这一块我们还会需要一些努力。”

Mr. Lai’s proposal faces potential obstacles in the legislature, where his Democratic Progressive Party is outnumbered by the main opposition party, called the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, as well as a smaller group, the Taiwan People’s Party.

 赖清德的计划在立法院可能面临来自主要反对党国民党以及规模更小的台湾民众党的阻力。民进党在立法院的席次少于国民党。  

The Nationalist Party said in a statement that it was concerned that the extra spending proposed by Mr. Lai would require heavy borrowing by the government. It also criticized Mr. Lai for having announced his proposal to the media without first raising it with the legislature.

国民党发表声明，表示担心赖清德提出的国防特别预算将迫使政府大量举债。声明还批评赖清德在没有向立法院说明的情况下，就直接投书媒体公布了这一计划。

Opposition lawmakers have criticized the Lai administration for not doing enough to address serious delays in the delivery of U.S. weapons already ordered, including F-16 fighter jets. They have also criticized a project by Mr. Lai’s administration to build a new fleet of submarines, calling it a waste of money.

反对党立委批评赖政府未能采取足够措施解决从美国订购的武器（包括F-16战机）交付严重延迟的问题。他们还批评赖政府打造新潜舰舰队的计划，认为那是在浪费资金。

The recently elected chairwoman of the Nationalist Party, Cheng Li-wun, has objected to sharply increasing Taiwan’s military spending. Ms. Cheng is not a member of the legislature, but her views could hold sway over some Nationalist lawmakers.

国民党新当选的党主席郑丽文反对大幅增加台湾的国防开支。郑丽文虽然不是立委，但她的观点可能会影响部分国民党立委。

In an interview this week, Ms. Cheng said she agreed with “reasonable” levels of military outlays for Taiwan, but maintained that dialogue with Beijing was the way to ensure the island’s security against China’s much larger armed forces. “I believe the priority lies in a political approach, not through substantial increases in military spending,” she said.

在本周的一次采访中，郑丽文表示，她同意台湾应有“合理的”国防支出，但仍坚持认为，与北京对话才是确保台湾在面对中国更庞大军力时维持安全的方式。她说：“我认为优先的解决方法是政治上面的解决方法，而不是透过大幅提高军备预算。”

Raymond Greene, the United States’ de facto ambassador in Taipei, welcomed Mr. Lai’s announcement and urged the island’s opposition parties to back the increase in military spending.

美国在台事实上的大使谷立言(Raymond Greene)对赖清德的宣布表示欢迎，并敦促台湾在野党支持增加军费。

“Just as support for Taiwan is a longstanding U.S. bipartisan priority, I expect Taiwan’s political parties will find similar common ground,” he said in a social media post.

他在社交媒体上发贴称：“正如支持台湾一直是美国两党长期以来的优先事项，我期待台湾的各政党也会达成共识。”

A deadly fire that tore through several high-rise apartment towers in Hong Kong was still burning into the early morning on Thursday, 10 hours after it started. The fire killed at least 36 people and left 279 missing, said Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee.

一场致命的大火席卷了香港数栋高层公寓，截至周四凌晨，火势仍在蔓延，距离起火已过去10个小时。香港特首李家超表示，这场火灾已造成至少36人死亡，另有279人失踪。

The officials said 29 people were hospitalized, with seven in critical condition.

官员称有29人被送医，其中七人情况危急。

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Hundreds of firefighters struggled to contain the inferno, which apparently started in one building in the Tai Po district around 2:50 p.m. local time.

火灾原因尚未查明。数百名消防员奋力扑救。火势似乎始于当地时间下午2点50分左右，起火处位于大埔区的一栋建筑物内。

The flames spread across multiple high-rise towers and sent smoke billowing across the city’s northern New Territories.

火势蔓延至多栋高层建筑，浓烟笼罩了香港北部的新界地区。

The towers are in a dense complex known as Wang Fuk Court that includes about 2,000 apartments. Built in the early 1980s, they were sheathed at the time of the blaze in bamboo scaffolding, which is widely used in Hong Kong to construct and repair buildings.

这些高楼位于一个名为“宏福苑”的密集住宅区，这里约有2000个住宅单位。这些高楼建于20世纪80年代初，火灾发生时外墙包覆着竹制脚手架，这种脚手架在香港被广泛用于建筑物的建造和维修。

A government spokeswoman had said earlier that three of the first five injured people treated at hospitals were in critical condition, according to a report from the city’s hospital authority.

据香港医院管理局的报告，一位政府发言人早些时候表示，最先送往医院的五名伤者中，有三人情况危殆。

The authorities raised their most severe fire alarm for the first time in nearly two decades.

当局启动了近20年来首次最高级别火警警报。

Officials with the police and fire services said they had received numerous calls for help from residents trapped inside the buildings. Herman Yiu Kwan-ho, a former district councilor in Tai Po, said that he was in touch with a group of local residents, some of whom live in one of the buildings that caught fire. “More than 10 residents said their family members are still at their homes,” he said by phone.

警方和消防部门官员表示，他们接到了大量被困居民的求助电话。大埔区前区议员姚钧豪表示，他已与一些当地居民取得联系，其中一些人就住在着火的楼宇中。“超过10名居民说，他们的家人仍在家中，”他在电话中说。

The Hong Kong Fire Services Department said that it had sent 760 rescuers to the site. John Lee, the city’s chief executive, said that he was activating the city’s Emergency Accident Monitoring and Support Center.

香港消防处表示，已派遣760名救援人员到现场。特首李家超表示，他已启动全市紧急事故监察与支援中心。

Here’s what else to know:

以下是其他值得关注的情况：

• Bamboo scaffolding: Bamboo scaffolding is often used for renovations to older buildings in Hong Kong, which typically have many senior residents. The Hong Kong government announced plans last spring to begin phasing out the use of bamboo in scaffolding in favor of steel, which it said posed less of a fire risk. In October, the fire department attributed the rapid spread of a fire at an office building in Hong Kong’s central business district, which injured four people, to scaffolding around the building. The authorities have not publicly said that the scaffolding contributed to the Tai Po fire.

• 竹制脚手架：竹制脚手架常用于香港老旧建筑的翻新工程，这些建筑内通常居住着许多老人。香港政府于春天宣布计划逐步淘汰竹制脚手架，改用钢制脚手架，理由是后者的火灾风险更低。今年10月，消防处将中环商业区一栋办公楼大火的迅速蔓延（造成四人受伤）归咎于大楼外部的脚手架。当局尚未公开表示竹制脚手架是否助长了大埔火灾的蔓延。

• Rescue effort: Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of the fire service department, told reporters at the news briefing that the rescue effort was hindered by falling debris and scaffolding as well as high temperatures inside the buildings, making it difficult to access units where residents might be trapped. The ladders of two fire trucks appeared to reach only about halfway up the sides of the 32-story towers, and the tallest flames were far higher than where the water was being sprayed.

• 救援行动：消防处副处长陈庆勇在新闻发布会上告诉记者，由于坠落的残骸和脚手架，以及楼内高温，救援工作受到阻碍，救援人员难以进入可能有居民被困的单位。现场两辆消防车的云梯似乎只能达到32层大楼的一半高度，而最高处的火焰远高于喷水的位置。

• Shelters: The government said it had opened temporary shelters at nearby community centers and a school to accommodate residents. Local news media published photos of some older residents being helped away from the fire and gathering at the shelters, and described police officers going door to door to urge residents to leave.

• 临时庇护所：政府表示，已在附近的社区中心和一所学校开放临时庇护所。当地媒体发布的照片显示，一些年长居民在协助下撤离并聚集在庇护所内，还有报道称警员正挨家挨户上门劝说居民撤离。

The day before Halloween, President Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews after spending nearly a week in Japan and South Korea. He was then whisked to the White House, where he passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. Allies crowed over the president’s stamina: “This man has been nonstop for DAYS!” one wrote online.

万圣节前一天，在结束了对日本和韩国近一周的访问后，特朗普总统的专机降落在安德鲁斯联合基地。他被迅速送往白宫，在那里向“不给糖就捣蛋”的孩子们分发糖果。盟友们对总统的体力大加赞赏：“这个人已经连续好几天连轴转了！”其中一人在网上写道。

A week later, Mr. Trump appeared to doze off during an event in the Oval Office.

一周后，特朗普在椭圆形办公室的一次活动中似乎睡着了。

With headline-grabbing posts on social media, combative interactions with reporters and speeches full of partisan red meat, Mr. Trump can project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina. Now at the end of his eighth decade, Mr. Trump and the people around him still talk about him as if he is the Energizer Bunny of presidential politics.

凭借引人注目的社交媒体帖子、与记者的激烈交锋以及充满党派色彩的煽动性演讲，特朗普能够展现出全天候的精力、旺盛的活力和强健的体力。现在虽已年近八旬，但他和周围的人仍然将其描绘成总统政治中的“劲量电池兔”。

The reality is more complicated: Mr. Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging. To pre-empt any criticism about his age, he often compares himself to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who at 82 was the oldest person to hold the office, and whose aides took measures to shield his growing frailty from the public, including by tightly managing his appearances.

现实情况则没那么简单：79岁的特朗普以有史以来最大的年龄当选，而且他正在衰老。为了先发制人地应对任何关于其年龄的批评，他经常将自己与拜登总统相提并论。拜登卸任时82岁，是担任该职位的最年长者，其助手曾采取措施向公众掩盖其日益衰弱的状况，包括严格管理他的露面活动。

特朗普在他于白宫柱廊设置的“总统星光步道”上，把原本属于拜登总统的位置换成了一张自动签名机的照片。

Mr. Trump remains almost omnipresent in American life. He appears before the news media and takes questions far more often than Mr. Biden did. Foreign leaders, chief executives, donors and others have regular access to Mr. Trump and see him in action.

特朗普在美国生活中仍然几乎无处不在。他在新闻媒体面前露面并回答提问的频率远高于拜登。外国领导人、首席执行官、捐款人等等各界人士都能经常接触到特朗普，并亲眼见证他的实际状态。

Still, nearly a year into his second term, Americans see Mr. Trump less than they used to, according to a New York Times analysis of his schedule. Mr. Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips.

尽管如此，根据《纽约时报》对其日程安排的分析，在他第二任期即将满一年之际，美国民众见到特朗普的机会比过去少了。与2017年首个任期的同一时间节点相比，特朗普日程上的公开活动减少了，国内出行也大幅下降，尽管他进行了更多的出访。

He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average.

他的公开日程也比过去缩短了。平均而言，他的大部分公开露面都集中在中午到下午5点之间。

And when he is in public, occasionally, his battery shows signs of wear. During an Oval Office event that began around noon on Nov. 6, Mr. Trump sat behind his desk for about 20 minutes as executives standing around him talked about weight-loss drugs.

当他在公共场合露面时，偶尔也会表现出精力不济的迹象。在11月6日中午左右开始的一场椭圆形办公室活动中，当环立四周的企业高管们讨论减肥药时，特朗普在办公桌后坐了大约20分钟。

At one point, Mr. Trump’s eyelids drooped until his eyes were almost closed, and he appeared to doze on and off for several seconds. At another point, he opened his eyes and looked toward a line of journalists watching him. He stood up only after a guest who was standing near him fainted and collapsed.

某一刻，特朗普的眼皮耷拉下来，直到眼睛几乎闭上，似乎断断续续地打了几秒钟瞌睡。在另一刻，他睁开眼睛，看向注视着他的一排记者。直到站在他附近的一位客人晕倒在地，他才站起身来。

Mr. Trump has prompted additional questions about his health by sharing news about medical procedures he has had, but not details about them. While in Asia, Mr. Trump revealed that he had undergone magnetic resonance imaging at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in early October.

特朗普分享了他接受医疗处置的新闻，但未提供细节，这引发了关于他健康状况的更多疑问。在亚洲之行期间，特朗普透露他于10月初在沃尔特·里德国家军事医疗中心接受了核磁共振检查。

“I gave you the full results,” Mr. Trump told reporters, mischaracterizing the summary that was released by his physician, which did not say that Mr. Trump had an M.R.I. scan and contained few other details.

“我给了你们完整的结果，”特朗普告诉记者，但这与医生发布的内容摘要存在出入，该摘要并未提及特朗普进行了核磁共振扫描，别的细节也寥寥无几。

Mr. Trump also applies makeup to a bruise on the back of his right hand, adding speculation about a medical condition that his physician and aides say is caused by taking aspirin and shaking so many hands. In September, the bruising on his hand, coupled with swollen ankles, caused observers on the internet to speculate wildly about his health.

特朗普还在右手背的淤青上涂抹遮瑕膏，这加剧了对其健康状况的猜测。他的医生和助手称这是服用阿司匹林和频繁握手造成的。9月，他手上的淤青加上脚踝肿胀，曾引发互联网观察人士对其健康状况的疯狂猜测。

In response to a list of questions about Mr. Trump’s health, including about the results of his M.R.I. and whether or not he was falling asleep in the Oval Office, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, praised the president’s energy and pointed to Mr. Biden.

针对一系列关于特朗普健康状况的质疑，包括其核磁共振结果以及是否在椭圆形办公室睡着，白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·利维特赞扬了总统的精力，并将矛头指向了拜登。

“Unlike the Biden White House, who covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and hid him from the press, President Trump and his entire team have been open and transparent about the president’s health, which remains exceptional,” Ms. Leavitt said in a statement.

“不像拜登白宫那样掩盖乔·拜登的认知衰退并让他躲避媒体，特朗普总统及其整个团队一直对总统的健康状况保持公开和透明，他的健康状况依然非常出色，”利维特在一份声明中说。

Later Starts, Fewer Events

开始得更晚，日程安排更少

2020年10月，特朗普在沃尔特·里德国家军事医疗中心接受新冠治疗后返回白宫，他在白宫阳台上摘下了口罩。

For years, concerns and questions about Mr. Trump’s health have often been met with obfuscation or minimal explanation from the people around him. Mr. Trump’s physicians have not taken questions from reporters in years, including when he was seriously ill with Covid in 2020. There were no medical briefings held after an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pa., last summer.

多年来，对于特朗普健康状况的担忧和质疑往往只会得到其身边人员含糊其辞或三言两语的解释。特朗普的医生多年来未接受过记者的提问，包括他在2020年因感染新冠病毒而病情严重时。去年夏天他在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒遇刺未遂后，也没有举行任何医疗简报会。

Many of the facts that concerned critics about Mr. Trump’s physical health during his first term are present now. He does not get regular exercise, in part because he has a long-held theory that people are born with a finite amount of energy and that vigorous activity can deplete that reserve, like a battery. He enjoys red meat and is known to eat McDonald’s by the sackful.

特朗普首个任期内引发批评者担忧的诸多健康隐患至今依然存在。他不进行规律锻炼，部分原因是他长期持有一种理论，认为人出生时能量是有限的，剧烈运动会像电池一样耗尽这种储备。他喜欢红肉，并以大量吃麦当劳而闻名。

According to his physician, however, he has lost weight. In 2020, Mr. Trump tipped the scales at 244 pounds, a weight formally deemed obese for his 6-foot-3 frame. This year, Mr. Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, said in a summary of the president’s health that he weighed 224 pounds.

然而，据他的医生说，他体重减轻了。2020年，特朗普的体重达到244磅（合约110公斤），对于他6英尺3英寸（约合190厘米）的身高来说，这达到了肥胖标准。今年，特朗普的医生肖恩·P·巴巴贝拉博士在总统健康摘要中称，他的体重为224磅（约合102公斤）。

“President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the commander in chief and head of state,” Dr. Barbabella wrote in April.

“特朗普总统表现出极佳的认知和身体健康状况，完全适合履行总司令和国家元首的职责，”巴巴贝拉在4月份写道。

10月，特朗普在进行为期一天的中东之行后离开埃及。

Still, in his second term, Mr. Trump’s schedule shows some significant changes.

尽管如此，在他的第二任期里，特朗普的日程安排显示出一些显著变化。

According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.

根据《纽约时报》对Roll Call维护的数据库中总统官方日程的分析，特朗普的首场官方活动的时间明显推迟了。在2017年，即他第一任期的第一年，特朗普的预定活动平均于上午10:31开始。相比之下，特朗普在第二任期的预定活动平均于下午开始，时间为12:08。他的活动结束时间平均与第一任期第一年大致相同，即下午5点刚过。

The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.

特朗普的官方露面总数减少了39%。2017年，特朗普在1月20日至当年11月25日期间主持了1688场官方活动。而在今年的同一时期，特朗普出席了1029场官方活动。

Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work.

据一位熟悉其日程安排的人士透露，特朗普仍经常在上午11点之后才来到椭圆形办公室。这是他在第一任期就有的习惯：在抱怨上午日程安排过满后，特朗普会先在白宫住所安排所谓的“行政时间”，然后再下楼办公。

Mr. Trump has kept up frequent international travel, often with tight turnarounds, including a one-day trip to Israel and Egypt in October. Mr. Trump has logged more international travel than he did the first year of his first term; he took four international trips that year and has taken eight so far this year.

特朗普保持着频繁的国际出访，且行程往往非常紧凑，包括10月份对以色列和埃及进行的一日访问。特朗普的国际出行次数超过了他第一任期的第一年；那一年他进行了四次出访，而今年到目前为止已进行了八次。

Mr. Trump holds frequent Oval Office events, posts regularly on social media, and is often at his golf clubs on the weekend, though most of what he does there is shielded from the public.

特朗普频繁在椭圆形办公室举行活动，定期在社交媒体上发帖，并经常在周末前往他的高尔夫俱乐部，不过他在那里的大部分活动都不对公众公开。

过去几个月里，人们在特朗普右手的手背上看到了遮瑕霜的痕迹，官员称那是用来遮盖握手造成的瘀伤。

Mr. Trump has long rambled in his speeches; during his 2024 campaign and in his second term, the meandering has often been noticeable. He can veer off script to share stories that are sometimes riddled with untruths, such as his false claim that his uncle, John Trump, had taught the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski at M.I.T.

特朗普在演讲中一直有漫谈的习惯；在他的2024年竞选活动和第二任期中，这种话题游离的现象往往显而易见。他会偏离讲稿去分享一些有时充斥着不实之词的故事，例如他错误地声称他的叔叔约翰·特朗普曾在麻省理工学院教过本国恐怖分子泰德·卡辛斯基。

“I said, ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump?’ He said, ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said, ‘seriously good.’ He said he’d go around correcting everybody,” Mr. Trump said during a speech in Pennsylvania in July. “But it didn’t work out too well for him, didn’t work out too well, but it’s interesting in life. But I will say this that we have the greatest brains, we have the greatest power and we are going to have more electric.”

“我说，‘约翰叔叔，约翰·特朗普博士，他是个什么样的学生？’他说，‘什么样的学生？’然后他说，‘相当出色。’他说他会到处纠正每个人，”特朗普在7月宾夕法尼亚州的一次演讲中说。“但这对他来说结果不太好，结果不太好，但这在生活中很有趣。但我要说的是，我们要有最伟大的头脑，我们有最伟大的力量，我们将拥有更多的电力。”

特朗普与前任一样，在任内几乎没有透露体检情况。最近特朗普在弗吉尼亚州诺福克视察“哈里·S·杜鲁门”号航空母舰。他在第二任期中更多地谈及来世。

With his approval rating falling among voters and more Americans reporting dissatisfaction with the economy, Mr. Trump’s allies have urged him to direct his focus back to domestic affairs. The president’s aides say they expect him to do more travel through the United States ahead of the midterms, but Mr. Trump is also considering a trip to Davos, Switzerland, to attend a conference alongside global leaders and corporate titans in the winter.

随着他在选民中的支持率下降，以及更多美国人对经济表示不满，特朗普的盟友敦促他将重心转回国内事务。总统的助手表示，他们预计他在中期选举前会有更多国内出行，但特朗普也在考虑前往瑞士达沃斯，在冬季与全球领导人和企业巨头一起出席会议。

There is one thing Mr. Trump is doing more of in his second term: talking about the afterlife. He has brought up heaven — and the question of whether he would get in — half a dozen times since taking office for the second time.

特朗普在其第二任期内有一件事做得更多：谈论身后事。自第二次上任以来，他已经不下六次提及天堂——以及他是否能进入天堂的问题。

Central Vietnam has become the latest epicenter of a deadly rainy season in Asia that has been supercharged by climate change, and seems to drag on without end.

越南中部成为亚洲致命雨季的最新重灾区。受气候变化影响，这场雨季强度空前，而且仿佛看不到尽头。

More than 90 people in the nation have been killed in the past week from flooding and landslides, and around a dozen more are missing, government officials reported Sunday.

越南政府官员周日通报称，过去一周内，该国已有超90人因洪水和山体滑坡丧生，另有约十几人失踪。

In one province, more than six feet of rain has fallen over the past few days. Peak coffee harvesting has been delayed. One government report noted that at least 200,000 homes have been flooded from the weekend’s heavy rains.

在其中一个省份，过去几天的降雨量累计超过约1.8米。咖啡收获季被迫推迟。一份政府报告显示，仅周末的强降雨就导致至少20万户家庭被淹。

10月会安遭遇连日暴雨，居民们背着食物前行。

“It’s never happened like this before,” said Dao Dang Cong Trung, 44, the leader of a small rescue team from Hoi An who took his speedboat to the most damaged areas. “Local residents told me the floodwater rose too fast and they didn’t have time to do anything, so the damage is severe to their houses and many people died.”

“以前从未发生过这样的事，”44岁的陶登公忠（音）是会安一支小型救援队的负责人，他驾驶快艇前往受灾最严重的区域救援。“当地居民告诉我，洪水涨得太快，他们根本来不及反应，所以房屋损毁严重，还有很多人遇难。”

Vietnam has been hit by 14 typhoons this year. Five was the average a few decades ago. The rain from the past few days did not even come from a cyclone — but to add inundation on top of injury, a 15th major storm has just formed off the country’s south central coast.

今年越南已遭遇14次台风侵袭。而几十年前，该国平均每年仅有五场台风。过去几天的强降雨甚至并非由气旋引发——更雪上加霜的是，第15场强风暴又已在越南中南部海岸附近形成。

Images of this year’s relentless battering — of thick, soupy brown water sloshing over homes, shops, coffee plantations, tourist hotels and family tombs — have become both ubiquitous and disorienting. They can be hard to place in time, for many, because even as the rainy season is supposed to fade (as of this month), the floods have spread.

今年越南持续遭受灾害侵袭，触目惊心的画面随处可见，浑浊浓稠的泥水淹没了房屋、商铺、咖啡种植园、旅店和家族墓地。这些场景让很多人感觉难以分辨时间——因为按照往年规律，本月雨季本应逐渐消退，但如今洪水却仍然在持续蔓延。

强风将树木吹弯。台风卡吉克于8月登陆后，倒下的树木阻塞了宁平省的一条道路。

Central Vietnam has been the hardest hit, from around Da Nang last month to more than 300 miles south, near Nha Trang, where the suffering is concentrated now.

越南中部受灾最为严重。上月灾情集中在岘港一带，如今向南蔓延至约500公里外的芽庄附近区域。

But Ho Chi Minh City flooded in August and again in early November. Hanoi was underwater last month, in a two-week period when three typhoons hit Vietnam. The rivers around Hue, a onetime royal capital, rose by 17 feet during a wet stretch of October, carrying muck into carefully restored historic buildings.

此外，胡志明市在8月和11月初先后遭遇洪水；上月越南连续遭遇三场台风袭击，首都河内被洪水淹没；10月多雨期内,昔日的皇城顺化周边河流水位上涨了约5.2米，浑浊的泥水涌入了精心修复的历史建筑。

Frequent wars and hardship, along with a forward-looking culture, have made the Vietnamese people extremely resilient. Standing on tables to stay dry and pushing motorbikes through sludge, few have complained or assigned blame.

频繁的战乱与磨难，加之积极进取的文化氛围，造就了越南民众极强的韧性。他们或站在桌子上躲避洪水，或推着摩托车在淤泥中前行，鲜有人抱怨或指责他人。

本月早些时候，一辆摩托车在胡志明市被洪水淹没的街道上疾驰而过。上周在越南达克拉克省和盛乡，人们卸下一名洪水遇难者的棺木。

Donors in drier areas have been quick to mobilize. In Ho Chi Minh City, metro stations became collection sites Sunday for mountains of food and clothing to help those farther north.

降水较少地区的捐赠者迅速行动起来。周日，胡志明市的多个地铁站成了物资收集点，堆积如山的食品和衣物将被送往北部受灾地区。

Online and in private, however, some Vietnamese have begun to criticize the government’s lack of preparedness and slow response. Natural disasters have left nearly 300 people dead or missing in Vietnam and caused more than $2 billion in damage between January and October, according to the national statistics office.

不过，在网络上和私下场合，已有部分越南民众开始批评政府防灾准备不足、救灾响应迟缓。越南国家统计局数据显示，今年1月至10月，自然灾害已造成该国近300人遇难或失踪，经济损失超20亿美元。

Why, many ask, aren’t alarm and evacuation systems providing more help to residents as rivers rise? Why aren’t mitigation systems stronger, guiding water away from population centers?

许多人质疑：为何河流水位上涨时，警报和疏散系统未能给居民提供更多帮助？为何防洪系统不够有力，无法将洪水引离人口密集区？

10月，一名男子在会安的洪水中涉水而行。本月早些时候，越南顺化市翠山中村一户人家在受淹的家中吃午餐。

Huynh Ngoc Phuong, 51, said the discharge from dozens of reservoirs for irrigation and hydropower seemed to contribute to the flooding.

51岁的黄玉芳（音）表示，数十座灌溉和水力发电水库的泄洪操作，似乎是加剧洪水灾情的原因之一。

To save his family from waters that rose by three feet in 20 minutes on the night of Nov. 19, he said he had to punch a hole in the roof of his home in the central province of Khanh Hoa. One of his children almost drowned. At least three of his neighbors were killed.

11月19日夜间，他家所在的庆和省洪水在20分钟内就上涨了约一米。为了救家人，他不得不砸破自家屋顶。他的一个孩子险些溺水身亡，至少三位邻居在洪灾中丧生。

“The whole village is destroyed — trash, TVs, fridges and mud are everywhere,” he said in an interview Monday after the waters receded but government aid had still yet to arrive. “Everyone was turned upside down. I don’t know where and how to begin to start life again.”

“整个村子都毁了——到处都是垃圾、电视机、冰箱和淤泥，”洪水退去后的周一，黄玉芳在接受采访时说道，而此时政府的救援物资仍未送达。“所有人的生活都被彻底打乱了。我不知道该从哪里、该如何重新开始生活。”

Officials say the government is investing in advanced weather forecasting and alert systems.

官员表示，政府正在投入资金建设先进的天气预报和警报系统。

Climate scientists stress that Vietnam — along with many other nations — needs to move faster to get ahead of rapid change caused by global warming.

气候科学家则强调，越南和其他许多国家一样，必须加快行动，以应对全球变暖引发的快速环境变化。

越南芽庄市，11月，被洪水淹没的车辆停在泥水中。进入民宅的洪水。

The old standards, for rain, storms or how high rivers will rise, no longer fit an era when research shows that once-in-a-century extremes can happen far more often than that.

研究表明，如今百年一遇的极端天气出现频率已远超以往，而过去针对降雨量、风暴强度和河流最高水位设定的标准已不再适用。

Geographically, Vietnam is especially vulnerable. A 2024 study identified it as a climate change “hot spot,” showing that warming temperatures adding moisture to the atmosphere and heating up the South China Sea would combine with typhoon patterns to create a vortex of risk.

从地理上看，越南极易受气候变化影响。2024年的一项研究将其列为气候变化“热点地区”，该研究指出，气温升高导致大气湿度增加、南海海水升温，再叠加台风活动规律变化，多重因素交织形成了高风险漩涡。

“We wrote that in 2024, thinking it would be something that would play out over the next few decades, not the next 12 months,” said Benjamin P. Horton, Dean of the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong, and a co-author of the report.

“我们在2024年撰写这份报告时，本以为这些情况会在未来几十年内逐渐显现，而非短短12个月内，”该报告的合著者之一、香港城市大学能源与环境学院院长本杰明·P·霍顿说。

“You’d expect rain anyhow, but it’s becoming more extreme,” he added. “When you have natural variation, when it should be wetter, climate change takes it to the next level.”

“雨季下雨本是常态，但现在的降雨强度越来越极端，”他补充道，“即便是自然气候变化导致降水增多的时期，气候变化也会让情况雪上加霜。”

Mr. Trung, the rescuer with the boat, said he was still trying to process the disasters that no longer seem natural.

驾船救援的陶登公忠表示，面对这些早已超出自然范畴的灾害，他至今仍难以平复心情。

“I didn’t know what to feel,” he said. “I tried to rescue as many as I could. But there were many that I was not able to help.”

“我当时不知所措，”他说，“我拼尽全力去救人，但还是有很多人没能帮到。”

10月，会安街头的积水。

If anyone needed evidence that a critical moment is developing in Asia-Pacific diplomacy, look no further than the phone call on Monday between Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, and President Trump.

若需证据证明亚太外交正迎来关键时刻，只需看看周一中国最高领导人习近平与特朗普总统的通话。

Mr. Xi reached out to Mr. Trump because a Japanese leader is taking her country’s strongest stance since World War II to assert that Taiwan’s security is also Japan’s security. While that has long been apparent to military planners, given Taiwan’s proximity to southern Japan — and also to U.S. bases there — Japan’s new strategic posture has alarmed Beijing’s leaders.

习近平主动致电特朗普，是由于日本领导人正以二战以来最强硬姿态宣称台湾有事即日本有事。尽管对军事规划者而言，鉴于台湾毗邻日本南部及美军基地，这一关联早已不言自明，但日本的新战略姿态仍令北京高层警觉。

China has been doing everything possible in recent years to isolate Taiwan, an island democracy, and persuade other countries to accept Beijing’s claim to sovereignty there. Most countries have switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, leaving Taiwan increasingly friendless. Countries like Lithuania and the Czech Republic that dare to contact Taiwan informally face swift retribution from Beijing. Chinese air and naval patrols circumnavigate Taiwan with increasing frequency.

近年来，中国竭尽全力孤立台湾这个民主岛屿，并试图说服其他国承认北京对台湾的主权主张。多数国家已将外交承认从台北转向北京，使台湾在国际上日益孤立。立陶宛、捷克等敢于非正式接触台湾的国家均迅速遭到北京的报复。中国环绕台湾的海空巡逻频率日益增加。

So few observers expected Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, to immediately take a tough stand toward China. But on Nov. 7, she told Parliament that an effort by China to blockade or invade Taiwan would be a “survival” issue for Japan, a term that has legal implications in Japan by permitting an overseas deployment of its military Self-Defense Forces.

几乎没有多少观察人士预料到日本新上任的首相高市早苗会立即对华强硬表态。但11月7日她在国会称，中国若封锁或入侵台湾，将成为日本的“存亡危机”问题——该表述在日本具有法律效力，意味着可授权自卫队海外部署。

日本首相高市早苗周二在东京官邸与特朗普总统通电话后向媒体发表讲话。

Ms. Takaichi’s comments were among the strongest ever by a Japanese leader about helping to defend Taiwan, although former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made similar remarks four times while in office.

高市早苗的言论是日本领导人迄今为止关于协防台湾的最强硬表态之一，尽管美国前总统拜登在任期间曾四次发表类似言论。

China responded with a series of economic, military and diplomatic measures against Japan. But Japanese officials are not backing down. During a trip on Sunday to a military base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni, located about 70 miles east of Taiwan, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi confirmed his country’s intention to proceed with plans to deploy medium-range antiaircraft missiles at the outpost.

中国对日本采取了一系列经济、军事和外交措施作为回应。但日本官员并没有退让。日本防卫大臣小泉进次郎周日视察了与那国岛军事基地，证实了日本打算在该前沿阵地部署中程防空导弹的计划。与那国岛位于日本南部，距离台湾以东约110公里。

The call on Monday by Mr. Xi to President Trump “comes amidst arguably the most serious crisis in China-Japan relations in over a decade — China is exerting an enormous amount of pressure on Japan, likely out of a belief that Tokyo will blink,” said David Sacks, a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

习近平周一与特朗普的通话“正值中日关系遭遇十余年来最严峻危机——中国正对日本施加巨大压力，可能是认为东京会服软”，美国外交关系委员会亚洲研究学者戴维·萨克斯指出。

President Trump, apparently relishing his role being sought after by Japan and China, had a phone call with Ms. Takaichi hours after his conversation with Mr. Xi. Mr. Trump avoided tipping his hand publicly on whether he would yield to Chinese pressure to shift decades of American support for Taiwan, saying only that he planned to travel to Beijing next April.

特朗普总统显然乐于扮演被中日两国争相拉拢的角色，在与习近平通话数小时后又与高市早苗通话，特朗普没有公开透露他是否会屈服于中国的压力，改变美国数十年来对台湾的支持，只是说他计划明年4月访问北京。

日本防卫大臣小泉进次郎周日视察了位于日本南部石垣岛的军事基地。同日，他还访问了位于日本另一座岛屿与那国岛的军事基地。

Mr. Xi and his foreign minister, Wang Yi, have swiftly ratcheted up the diplomatic stakes by presenting China as the guarantor of the post-World War II global order — and by portraying Taiwan and its defenders as challengers to that order.

习近平主席及其外交部长王毅迅速加码外交博弈，将中国塑造成二战后全球秩序的守护者，并将台湾及其捍卫者描绘成该秩序的挑战者。

“It is shocking that Japan’s current leaders have publicly sent the wrong signal of attempting military intervention in the Taiwan issue, said things they shouldn’t have said, and crossed a red line that should not have been touched,” Mr. Wang said on Sunday.

“令人震惊的是，日本现职领导人竟然公开发出试图武力介入台湾问题的错误信号，讲了不该讲的话，越了不应碰的红线，”王毅周日表示。

According to a statement from Beijing, Mr. Xi emphasized to Mr. Trump that “China and the U.S. fought side by side against fascism and militarism; now, they should work together to safeguard the achievements of the victory in World War II.”

根据北京的声明，习近平向特朗普强调：“中美曾并肩抗击法西斯和军国主义，当前更应该共同维护好二战胜利成果。”

John Delury, an historian of Northeast Asia who is a senior fellow in Seoul for the Asia Society, said that Mr. Xi “is trying to get out a big narrative of Beijing as the guardian of the postwar international order.”

东北亚历史学家、亚洲协会驻首尔高级研究员鲁乐汉(John Delury)说，习近平“正着力塑造北京作为战后国际秩序守护者的宏大叙事”。

After months of feuding with the United States over President Trump’s tariffs, China and Japan now both want American support for their respective positions on Taiwan. That has strengthened the bargaining position of President Trump, who has sought Beijing’s help this autumn to buy American soybeans, supply rare earth metals and limit China’s financial and industrial support for the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

​在因特朗普总统的关税政策与美国争执数月后，中日两国如今都希望美国支持其各自在台湾问题上的立场。这加强了特朗普总统的谈判筹码。他在今秋一直寻求北京的帮助，购买美国大豆，供应稀土金属，并限制中国对俄罗斯在乌克兰战争中提供金融和工业支持。

Beijing has halted seafood imports from Japan, canceled concerts in China by Japanese performers, halted many flights to Japan and discouraged Chinese tourists and students from visiting Japan. Three Chinese warships sailed past a Japanese island four days after Ms. Takaichi’s remark, and four Chinese armed coast guard ships have since passed close to Japanese-administered islands north of Taiwan. And China has asked the United Nations to distribute a strong criticism of Ms. Takaichi’s remark to member countries.

北京已经停止从日本进口海产品，取消了日本艺人在中国的演出，暂停了许多飞往日本的航班，并劝阻中国游客和学生前往日本。在高市早苗发表上述言论四天后，三艘中国军舰驶过一个日本岛屿，四艘中国武装海警船此后驶过了台湾以北日本管辖岛屿附近。中国还要求联合国向成员国分发一份强烈谴责高市早苗言论的文件。

上周，北京的一家日本超市。北京已暂停从日本进口海产品。

Japan has pushed back. It has submitted a written riposte to the U.N. and insisted that its planned missile deployment — which Japanese officials say is for the country’s own defense rather than projecting force — will proceed on Yonaguni Island, east of Taiwan. Public sentiment in Japan seems to support the country’s leader.

日本进行了反击。日本向联合国提交了一份书面回应，并坚持计划在台湾以东的与那国岛进行的导弹部署。日本官员说，导弹部署是为了日本自身的防御，而不是投射军力。日本的国内民意似乎也支持该国领导人。

“The more pressure China exerts on Japan, the more Japan feels compelled to prepare, recognizing the growing danger — Prime Minister Takaichi’s approval ratings are rising, and the Japanese people’s sense of crisis is also increasing,” said Ichiro Korogi, a professor of international studies at Kanda University of International Studies.

“中国对日本施加的压力越大，日本就越觉得有必要做好准备，意识到日益增长的危险——高市早苗首相的支持率正在上升，日本民众的危机意识也在增强，”神田外语大学的国际研究教授兴梠一郎说。

The tensions come as China has taken a long series of measures to strengthen its strategic position not just against Taiwan but also toward Japan and South Korea. China has built the world’s largest navy, part of a rapid military buildup that also includes intercontinental ballistic missiles and advanced airborne and underwater drones. China sent two aircraft carrier task forces last summer through part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

在紧张局势出现之际，中国采取了一系列措施来加强其战略地位，不仅针对台湾，还针对日本和韩国。中国已经建立了世界上规模最大的海军，这是其快速军事建设的一部分，其中还包括洲际弹道导弹和先进的机载和水下无人机。去年夏天，中国派出了两艘航空母舰编队，穿越日本部分专属经济区。

Mr. Xi welcomed the leaders of Russia and North Korea to a military parade in Tiananmen Square in early September, then sent his premier, Li Qiang, to a military parade six weeks later in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Both events showcased that three countries with nuclear weapons — China, Russia and North Korea — were united as they face Japan, South Korea and Taiwan — none of which, at the insistence of the United States, has developed its own nuclear weapons.

习近平主席于9月初在天安门广场阅兵式上欢迎俄罗斯和朝鲜领导人，六周后又派遣总理李强出席朝鲜首都平壤的阅兵仪式。这两场活动彰显出，面对在美国的坚持下均未发展核武器的日本、韩国和台湾，拥有核武器的中国、俄罗斯和朝鲜三国正在联合起来。

习近平（中）、金正恩（右）与普京共同出席9月在北京天安门广场举行的阅兵式。

Chinese naval vessels have been operating with increasing frequency around the circumference of Taiwan in the past several years. The Japanese antiaircraft missiles have less than half the range to reach Taiwan, much less mainland China. But they could be a concern for China in providing air cover for activities east of Taiwan.

在过去的几年里，中国海军舰艇越来越频繁地在台湾周边活动。日本的防空导弹射程不足抵达台湾的一半，更不用说中国大陆。但在为台湾以东的活动提供空中掩护时，它们可能会成为中国的一个担忧。

On Monday, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, criticized Japan’s missile-deployment plans.

周一，中国外交部发言人毛宁批评了日本的导弹部署计划。

“Japan’s deployment of offensive weapons in southwest islands close to China’s Taiwan region is a deliberate move that breeds regional tensions and stokes military confrontation,” she said. “Given Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks on Taiwan, this move is extremely dangerous and should put Japan’s neighboring countries and the international community on high alert.”

她说：“日方在与中国台湾邻近的西南诸岛部署进攻性武器，刻意制造地区紧张、挑动军事对立。联系到日本首相高市早苗涉台错误言论，这一动向极其危险，需引起周边国家及国际社会高度警惕。”

Her comments, along with Mr. Xi’s and Mr. Wang’s evocation of Japan’s World War II sins, seemed to be another open effort to persuade Mr. Trump to start looking at security questions from China’s perspective.

她的言论，加上习近平主席和王毅外长对日本二战罪行的重提，似乎是又一次公开努力，试图说服特朗普开始从中国的角度看待安全问题。

In fact, China’s leaders are now presenting themselves so strongly as guardians of the existing international order that they sometimes sound like former President Biden, Mr. Delury, the Northeast Asia scholar, said. And in the phone call on Monday, he added, Mr. Xi was “using Biden’s language in appealing to Trump for some level of support.”

东北亚问题学者鲁乐汉说，事实上，中国领导人现在以现有国际秩序捍卫者的姿态表现得如此强烈，以至于有时听起来很像前总统拜登。他还说，在周一的通话中，习近平“运用拜登式的措辞向特朗普寻求某种程度的支持”。

With sushi lunches and chocolate bars adorned with the face of Japan’s new prime minister, Taiwanese businesses, officials and citizens are rallying to support their neighbor as it faces pressure from Beijing over remarks that Tokyo could intervene militarily to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.

随着寿司午餐和印有日本新首相头像的巧克力引发热议，台湾企业、官员和民众正在团结起来支持自己的邻居。东京方面此前表示，日本可能会在中国对台发动攻击时进行军事干预，引发了北京强烈反弹。

After Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan said this month that an attempt by Beijing to take over Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan, Beijing has sent military ships to patrol disputed waters near Japan, advised its citizens not to travel to the country, and signaled that it would restrict imports of Japanese seafood.

日本首相高市早苗本月表示，若北京企图夺取台湾可能会引发日本的军事回应。此后，北京派出军舰在靠近日本的争议水域巡逻，发布赴日旅游警告，并释放将限制日本海产品进口的信号。

This is painfully familiar territory for Taiwan, which has faced increasing economic and military threats as China has sought to isolate it from international support. And Japan has seen a resumption of public support for Taiwan in the face of Beijing’s insistence that the island democracy is part of China’s territory.

这对台湾而言是痛苦的熟悉境遇——随着中国试图切断其国际支持，台湾面临日益加剧的经济与军事威胁。而面对北京坚持将这个民主岛屿视为中国领土的立场，日本民众对台湾的支持也在重新高涨。

When Beijing banned imports of Taiwanese pineapples in 2021, Japan ordered a record 19,000 tons of the fruit that year, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — Ms. Takaichi’s political mentor — posed with a Taiwanese pineapple.

当北京在2021年禁止进口台湾凤梨时，日本在那一年订购了创纪录的1.9万吨凤梨，日本首相安倍晋三——高市早苗的政治导师——还与台湾凤梨合影。

Now Taiwan is eager to return the favor. The government in Taipei has lifted all restrictions on imports of Japanese food, including seafood, that had been in place since the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in 2011. A day before that announcement on Friday, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, posted a video of himself eating a plate of sushi that included scallops from the Japanese island of Hokkaido and yellowtail from Kagoshima in southern Kyushu.

现在台湾热切地投桃报李。台北政府已经取消了自2011年福岛核事故以来对日本食品进口的所有限制，包括海产品。就在周五宣布解禁的前一天，台湾总统赖清德发布了一段自己品尝寿司的视频——其中包含日本北海道产的扇贝和九州南部鹿儿岛产的