When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 37 years, was killed by Israel on Feb. 28, in the opening airstrike of the war against the Islamic Republic, he was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba.

当伊朗最高领袖、执政长达37年的大阿亚图拉阿里·哈梅内伊于2月28日在以色列针对伊斯兰共和国战争的首轮空袭中丧生后，他的儿子穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊接替了他的位置。

But at 86, the ayatollah had wielded a level of influence that no replacement could soon match.

但86岁的哈梅内伊曾拥有的影响力是任何继任者短时间内都无法企及的。

Senior Iranian officials maintain that all key matters are run by the 56-year-old heir. Decision making, however, extends beyond one man, experts say, guided by a small, elite band of mostly current or former senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

伊朗高级官员坚称，所有重大事务现在都由56岁的继承人掌控。不过，专家指出，决策权实际上并非掌握在一个人手中，而是由一个由现任或前任伊斯兰革命卫队高级指挥官组成的精英小团体主导。

It is not the Guards as an organization that is exerting control, they say, but a hardened “band of brothers,” whose seminal experience was the brutal, eight-year war between Iran and Iraq that began in 1980.

他们表示，真正掌权的不是革命卫队这个组织，而是一个强硬的“兄弟连”。这群人都经历过两伊战争的洗礼，这场始于1980年的残酷战争持续了八年时间。

Founded in 1979 to safeguard the newborn revolution and its leader, the Guards promoted these commanders to generals while they were still in their late 20s or early 30s. Western support for Iraq in the war convinced them that Iran had to forge its own way no matter what the cost.

革命卫队成立于1979年，使命是捍卫新生的伊斯兰革命及其领袖。这批指挥官30岁左右便已被提拔为将军。两伊战争期间西方对伊拉克的支持使他们相信：无论付出多大代价，伊朗都必须走自己的路。

After the war, they went on to control intelligence or security services. Most are believed to have some personal connection with Mojtaba Khamenei from the long years that he directed his father’s office.

战后，他们继续控制着情报或安全部门。据信，他们中的大多数人在穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊掌管其父办公室的多年里与其保持着私人联系。

These men are among the hardest-line figures in the country — militants not only in terms of perpetuating the Islamic revolution, but also in the harsh methods they have championed while running the main organs of government repression.

这些人属于伊朗国内立场最强硬的一派：不仅在维系伊斯兰革命方面立场激进，更以铁腕手段主导着国家主要镇压机构的运作。

Their shared backgrounds, careers and ideological outlook are one reason the war has neither collapsed the government nor paralyzed it, despite the deaths of about 50 top political and military leaders, experts said.

专家认为，在约50名高层政治与军事领导人相继死亡后，伊朗政府既未崩溃也未陷入瘫痪的原因之一正是这种共同的背景、经历与意识形态。

Whatever jockeying may be taking place among these central figures over whether to seek a pragmatic end to the conflict remains largely opaque. Some shunned the limelight even before the war. Now they now remain hidden for fear of being targeted.

这些核心人物之间究竟在如何博弈、是否寻求以务实方式终结冲突，外界几乎无从知晓。其中一些人在战前便刻意回避公众视野，如今更是深藏幕后，唯恐成为打击目标。

Here are some of the most powerful figures in Iran today.

以下就是当今伊朗最具权势的几位人物。

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, 64

穆罕默德·巴盖尔·卡利巴夫，64岁

The speaker of the Iranian Parliament since 2020, Mr. Ghalibaf has served as commander of the Guards air force and chief of the national police, as well as the mayor of Tehran.

自2020年起担任伊朗议会议长的卡利巴夫曾任革命卫队空军司令、警察部队司令和德黑兰市长。

Mr. Ghalibaf once boasted that during anti-government demonstrations in 1999, despite his rank, he had ridden on the back of a motorcycle like an ordinary militiaman to beat protesters with sticks.

卡利巴夫曾夸口说，在1999年反政府示威期间，尽管身居高位，但他仍跟普通民兵一样骑着摩托车，用棍棒殴打抗议者。

In 2004, he ran for president and tried to change his image. “He showed up on election day looking like Don Johnson on ‘Miami Vice,’” donning a white suit and sunglasses instead of his uniform, said Afshon Ostovar, author of “Vanguard of the Imam,” a history of the Guards. It was a failed attempt to appeal to middle-class voters, and made some conservative supporters suspect his ambitions.

2004年，他竞选总统，试图改变自己的形象。革命卫队历史著作《伊玛目的先锋》的作者阿夫雄·奥斯托瓦说，“选举日那天，他看起来像《迈阿密风云》里的唐·约翰逊”，穿着白色西装，戴着太阳镜，而不是穿制服。这场拉拢中产选民的尝试以失败告终，也让一些保守派支持者怀疑他的野心。

Mr. Ghalibaf is something of a bridge between the political and military elite. Considered a pragmatic figure, he negotiated directly with the United States in Pakistan last month. Some detractors suspect that he seeks a peace deal that will make him an Iranian strongman.

加利巴夫被视为连接伊朗政治精英与军方精英的桥梁人物。他通常被视为务实派，上个月，他在巴基斯坦直接与美国展开谈判。但一些批评者怀疑，他谋求和平协议的目的是让自己成为伊朗的强人。

Ahmad Vahidi, 67

艾哈迈德·瓦希迪，67岁

Mr. Vahidi is a former intelligence officer who took over the Guards in March after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed his predecessor. A veteran, bellicose general, he previously served as both minister of defense and interior minister.

瓦希迪曾是一名情报官员，在美以空袭炸死其前任后，他于今年3月接管了革命卫队。作为一名好战的老将，他曾担任国防部长和内政部长。

Mr. Vahidi became prominent in 1988 as the first commander of the Quds Force, which built proxy regional militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon. He is suspected of embedding terrorism in their DNA. Attacks under his watch included the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that left 85 people dead, and a truck bomb targeting a U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996, killing 19 servicemen. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in both attacks.

瓦希迪于1988年成为圣城旅的首任指挥官，声名鹊起。该部队一手扶植建立了黎巴嫩真主党等地区代理武装，并被认为将恐怖主义基因植入其中。在他的任内发生的袭击包括1994年布宜诺斯艾利斯一个犹太社区中心爆炸案，造成85人死亡；以及1996年针对沙特阿拉伯宰赫兰的美国空军军营的卡车炸弹袭击，造成19名军人死亡。伊朗始终否认与这两起袭击有关。

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, 69

古拉姆侯赛因·穆赫辛尼·埃杰伊，69岁

The head of Iran’s judiciary since 2021, Mr. Mohseni-Ejei has a reputation as a hanging judge who has long used the courts to throttle dissent, including a torrent of recent executions of participants in anti-government protests early this year.

穆赫辛尼·埃杰伊自2021年起担任伊朗司法总监，以“绞刑法官”闻名，长期借助司法手段扼杀异见，包括在今年早些时候大量处决反政府抗议活动的参与者。

Mr. Mohseni-Ejei was the minister of intelligence during protests after the 2009 presidential election. The public perception of a fraudulent vote fueled the Green Movement, a nationwide wave of demonstrations that his ministry helped squash through imprisonment, torture and executions. He was a target of sanctions by both the United States and the European Union.

2009年总统选举后的抗议期间，他担任情报部长。当时公众普遍怀疑选举舞弊，引发绿色革命，在全国范围内掀起了示威浪潮，他领导的情报部通过监禁、酷刑和处决等手段帮助镇压了这场运动。他曾是美国和欧盟的制裁对象。

Hossein Taeb, 63

侯赛因·塔伊布，63岁

Mr. Taeb is a Shiite Muslim cleric who ran the brutal Basij militia and then government counterintelligence operations before heading the Guards’ own intelligence organization from 2009 to 2022. Notorious for crushing dissent, the organization during his tenure also imprisoned for ransom or other exchanges numerous Iranian American and other dual nationals, detailed in reports by both the Etemad, an Iranian daily newspaper, and Human Rights Watch.

塔伊布是什叶派穆斯林神职人员，曾掌管手段残酷的巴斯基民兵组织，之后又负责政府反情报工作，并于2009年至2022年间领导革命卫队自己的情报机构。他因镇压异议臭名昭著。在他任内，该情报机构曾扣押大量伊朗裔美国人及其他双重国籍人士，用作勒索或交换筹码。伊朗的日报《埃特马德报》及“人权观察”的调查报告均对此均有详细记录。

Government violence during the 2009 protests prompted public criticism, with one Parliament member writing in comments published online, “When we place management of the recent crisis in the hands of individuals like Taeb, who are more familiar with the baton than with thought, reason and prudence, the result will be exactly this.”

2009年镇压抗议期间的政府暴力行为曾引发公众强烈谴责。一名议员曾在网上公开写道：“当我们把处置近期危机的责任交给像塔伊布这样更熟悉警棍，而不是思想、理性与审慎的人手里时，结果便只能如此。”

Mr. Taeb remains a central figure, although in 2022 he lost his top intelligence post in the fallout over Israel wreaking havoc on the country’s nuclear program. He is believed to be close to Mojtaba Khamenei, having served in the same prestigious Habib Battalion of the Guards during the Iran-Iraq war.

虽然他在2022年因以色列对伊朗核计划的破坏行动而失去最高情报职位，但他至今仍被视为核心人物之一。人们认为他与穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊关系密切，因为两人在两伊战争期间曾同属革命卫队著名的哈比卜营。

Mohammad Ali Jafari, 68

穆罕默德·阿里·贾法里，68岁

Mr. Jafari, a two-star general, was a military adviser to the former supreme leader. Now lacking an official role, he commanded the Guards from 2007 to 2019, one of the longest tenures.

贾法里是一名两星上将，曾任伊朗前最高领袖的军事顾问。虽然现在没有正式职务，但他曾于2007年至2019年执掌革命卫队，是任期最长的指挥官之一。

Earlier, he had participated in a blatantly public foray by two dozen Guards commanders into political life, threatening President Mohammed Khatami with a letter in 1999 demanding that student protests be suppressed.

更早之前，他参与了二十余名革命卫队指挥官公然干预政治的事件——他们在1999年联名致信威胁总统穆罕默德·哈塔米，要求镇压学生抗议。

A bright tactician, Mr. Jafari, known as Aziz, is credited with developing the “mosaic strategy” of decentralized command, which enabled the force to continue fighting in the current war even as many key commanders were killed.

贾法里人称“阿齐兹”，以军事谋略见长，被认为是“马赛克战略”的设计者。在大批核心指挥官相继阵亡的情况下，这一分散指挥体系使革命卫队仍能在当前战争中保持持续作战能力。

Mr. Jafari also played a central role in creating the regional proxy forces confronting Israel. “The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime,” he was quoted as saying in 2015. “We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region’s geopolitics.”

贾法里还是组建对抗以色列的地区代理武装体系的重要人物之一。2015年有报道援引他的话说：“革命卫队将战斗到犹太复国主义政权终结的那一天。除非这个邪恶的化身彻底从地区地缘政治中被抹去，否则我们不会停下。”

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, 72

穆罕默德·巴盖尔·佐勒加德尔，72岁

Mr. Zolghadr is a prime example of what analysts consider the fusion of the military into the political class. A deputy commander of the Guards and a former deputy interior minister with a hard-line reputation, he was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in March, replacing Ali Larijani, a prominent conservative figure who was killed.

佐勒加德尔是分析人士眼中“军方与政治阶层融合”的典型代表。他曾任革命卫队副司令及内政部副部长，以强硬著称。今年3月，他被任命为最高国家安全委员会秘书，接替遇袭身亡的保守派重要人物阿里·拉里贾尼。

The council, uniting senior military and civilian officials, formulates security and foreign policy. Mr. Zolghadr’s new position involves ensuring that the government’s political, military, security and judicial arms all operate in tandem.

该委员会汇集了军事与文职高级官员，负责制定安全与外交政策。佐勒加德尔的新职责涉及确保政府的政治、军事、安全和司法部门协同运作。

‘A Brotherhood’

“兄弟会”

Over the course of almost 40 years, this intelligence fraternity first dominated the Guards, and has now become “a brotherhood running the country,” said Saeid Golkar, a Guards expert who is a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

田纳西大学查塔努加分校政治学教授、研究革命卫队的专家赛义德·戈尔卡尔表示，近40年来，这个情报系统出身的群体先是主导了革命卫队，如今已成为“一个掌管国家的兄弟会”。

“They had information and intelligence, they had a lot of information about how the system works, about the opposition, about reformists, even about hard-liners,” he said. “They survey, they control, they spy on each other. Because of that dominance over intelligence, they gradually became dominant in almost any aspect of politics in Iran.”

“他们掌握信息和情报，深知体制运作的内在逻辑，熟悉反对派、改革派，乃至强硬派的一切底细，”他说。“他们进行调查、控制、相互监视。正是凭借对情报领域的主导，他们逐渐在伊朗政治几乎所有层面都占据了支配地位。”

Plastic producers in Taiwan have scrambled to secure new supplies since the war in Iran disrupted petrochemical flows and tightened availability. Some producers have turned to the United States to purchase liquefied petroleum gas, another petrochemical used to make plastic. Others have sourced plastic goods from China, where many Taiwanese manufacturers have longstanding relationships.

自伊朗战争扰乱石化物流、导致供应收紧以来，台湾的塑料生产商一直在奋力寻找新的货源。部分生产商转而向美国采购液化石油气（另一种用于制造塑料的石化原料）；另一些则开始从中国进货——许多台商在那里有着深厚的长期合作关系。

Taiwan’s main plastic manufacturer, Formosa Petrochemical, imports two-thirds of its naphtha, the petrochemical used to make plastic, most of it from the Middle East. But in early March, the tankers carrying those supplies from the Persian Gulf stopped arriving.

台湾的主要塑料生产商台塑石化有三分之二的石脑油（制造塑料的关键原料）依赖进口，且大部分来自中东。但今年3月初，那些从波斯湾运来原料的油轮突然不再靠岸。

The shortage forced Formosa Petrochemical to shut one of its two production lines. The company’s production capacity has decreased about 42 percent from its normal level, its spokesman, Lin Keh-yen, said.

这场短缺迫使台塑石化关停了其两条生产线中的一条。发言人林克彦表示，公司的产能已从正常水平下降了约42%。

The disruption has been worse than the shocks that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the Covid-19 pandemic caused, he said.

他说，这次断供的冲击甚至超过了俄乌战争或新冠疫情时期。

In March, Formosa Petrochemical was still able to fill orders using stockpiled inventory. There was less to go around by April.

3月时，台塑石化尚能依靠库存维持订单交付；但到了4月，市面上的货源已变得捉襟见肘。

“Of course, we also looked for alternatives,” Mr. Lin said. “But it’s impossible to buy such a large quantity.”

“我们当然也在寻找替代品，”林克彦说，“但要买到这么庞大的数量，根本不可能。”

Even if tankers carrying naphtha resumed normal passage through the Strait of Hormuz, it would take at least a month for Taiwan’s plastic supplies to return to normal, said Jerry Pai, former chairman of the Supply Chain Management Institute, Taiwan, an industry group.

台湾的行业组织中华采购与供应管理协会前理事长白宗城表示，即便运载石脑油的油轮恢复通过霍尔木兹海峡，台湾的塑料供应恢复正常也至少需要一个月的时间。

But the supply crunch is already trickling down into everyday life in Taiwan.

然而，这场供应危机已经开始渗透到台湾的日常生活中。

At the Xizhou Public Market, one of the oldest traditional food markets in the Taipei area, Hung Ming-he manages a web of relationships. He leads the organization that runs the market and owns a nearby stall famous for its pork dumplings.

在台北地区最老的传统市场之一——溪洲公有市场，洪明鹤维持着一张复杂的关系网。他是这间市场的管理机构负责人，也在附近经营着一个以猪肉水饺闻名的摊位。

Plastic touches nearly every stage of making those dumplings. At the butcher’s stall, Mr. Hung picked up freshly ground pork in a bulging plastic bag — at the vegetable stand, vibrant green scallions in another.

塑料几乎贯穿了水饺制作的每一个环节。在肉摊前，洪先生用塑料袋装了满满一袋现绞的猪肉；在菜摊前，又用另一个袋子装起翠绿的小葱。

At a table in the heart of the market, sheltered from rain by overlapping awnings, Mr. Hung folded dumplings with two colleagues and described how the plastic shortage had weighed on his business. While he talked, he and his colleagues placed finished dumplings into clear plastic clamshell containers with individual indentations to keep each one separate.

在市场中央的一张桌子旁，遮雨棚层层叠叠地挡住了雨水。洪先生正和两位同事一起包着水饺，并讲述着塑料短缺给生意带来的压力。说话间，他们把包好的水饺放入透明的塑料盒中，盒内的分格确保每一个水饺都互不粘连。

The price of plastic bags and other plastic restaurant supplies had doubled from March to April, he said. It was not just his business feeling the squeeze. Other market vendors, already working on thin margins, were hurting, too. Yet most, like Mr. Hung, were reluctant to pass the costs on to consumers, many of them retirees with limited budgets.

他说，从3月到4月，塑料袋和其他餐饮塑料用品的价格已经翻了一番。感到压力的不仅仅是他一家。市场上其他本就利润微薄的小贩也同样苦不堪言。然而，像洪先生这样的人大都不愿把成本转嫁给顾客——这里的常客许多是预算有限的退休老人。

Some retailers, he added, were charging three times what they did before the war for plastic bags. His restaurant would not be able to keep absorbing the increases for much longer, he said.

他补充说，有些零售商售卖的塑料袋价格已经是战前的三倍。他表示，他的店恐怕撑不了多久了。

“If it goes any higher, we will have to start charging customers more,” he said. “Let’s see what Trump does.”

“如果价格再涨，我们就不得不向顾客涨价了，”他说，“看看特朗普会怎么做吧。”

Taiwan’s plastic use remains among the highest in the world. Last year, government data showed the island used 229,008 metric tons of plastic bags, which works out to about 50 billion four-gram bags. Some of those plastic bags may have been exported later.

台湾的塑料使用量仍位居世界前列。政府数据显示，去年全岛共消耗了229008吨塑料袋，换算下来约为500亿个4克重的标准袋。其中一部分塑料袋后来可能被出口到了其他地方。

Taiwan needs to do more to curb plastic use, said Mr. Pai, the former chairman of the Supply Chain Management Institute. “It’s destroying the environment for future generations,” he said.

供应管理协会前理事长白宗城表示，台湾需要采取更多措施来遏制塑料使用。“这正在破坏子孙后代的生存环境，”他说。

Part of the reason plastic products are so abundant is that Taiwan is home to the Formosa Plastics Group, one of the world’s largest plastic makers. The conglomerate is also a part-owner of Formosa Petrochemical, one of Asia’s largest oil refiners.

塑料制品如此泛滥的部分原因在于，台湾拥有全球最大的塑料制造商之一台塑集团。这家企业集团同时也是亚洲最大炼油商之一台塑石化的股东。

But researchers have found another reason plastic use is so entrenched. Taiwan’s recycling system is so pervasive that people don’t feel bad about throwing away a bag, bottle or utensil after a single use.

但研究人员发现了塑料使用如此根深蒂固的另一个原因：台湾的回收体系过于完善，以至于人们在单次使用后丢弃塑料袋、瓶子或餐具时，并不会感到良心不安。

Wang Ming-yuan has run her pharmacy for 20 years. Like many pharmacists and traditional Chinese medicine shops in Taiwan, she orders custom plastic bags printed with her shop’s name and space to write customers’ prescriptions and dosages.

王明媛经营药店已有20年。像台湾许多药房和中药店一样，她会定制印有店名的塑料袋，上面留有空白以便填写顾客的处方和剂量。

When Ms. Wang placed a new order in mid-March, her supplier warned that it did not know when the order could be filled. By April 12, she had run out. She has since switched to paper bags, though those contain plastic sleeves, and she worries they may disappear next.

3月中旬，当王女士再次下单订购塑料袋时，供应商警告她无法预估交货时间。到了4月12日，她的库存彻底告罄。此后她改用纸袋，但这些纸袋里仍含有塑料衬套，她担心接下来纸袋也会消失。

“Who would have imagined how essential these things are to our everyday lives?” she said.

“谁能想到这些东西对日常生活竟然如此不可或缺？”她说。

Ms. Wang, who is also a spokeswoman for a Taiwanese pharmacists association, said it was the worst supply shortage she had seen in all her years running the pharmacy.

身为台湾药师公会发言人的王女士表示，这是她经营药店多年来见过的最严重的供应短缺。

The plastic shortage was forcing other businesses to make some tough choices.

塑料荒也在迫使其他商家做出艰难抉择。

At the start of April, Yeh Pi-chiu, who manages a rice vermicelli noodle shop near the Xizhou market, started charging customers one Taiwan dollar — roughly 3 cents — for every plastic bag their order required.

4月初，叶碧秋（音）开始在她位于溪洲市场附近的面线店里向顾客收取每个塑料袋1新台币——约合人民币0.2元——的费用。

“Anything related to plastic has gone up in price,” Ms. Yeh said. The fee wasn’t about profit, she insisted, but was about encouraging customers to be more conscious of how much plastic they use.

“凡是跟塑料沾边的都涨价了，”叶女士说。她坚称收费并非为了盈利，而是为了提醒顾客关注自己的塑料用量。

Her noodle shop, which is festooned with cat pictures, was donating the proceeds to a local animal shelter.

她的这间挂满猫咪照片的面线店将这笔收入全部捐给了当地的动物收容所。

A few blocks away, the supply crunch was hitting at the source.

几个街区之外，供应危机正在冲击源头。

Yu Chih-ta and his mother have spent decades running a shop that sells plastic bags and containers to small businesses, including food vendors.

余志达（音）和他的母亲经营一家专门向小商户（包括食品摊贩）出售塑料袋和容器的店铺，至今已有数十年。

Since the war began, they said, new shipments have stopped arriving, leaving them to sell only what they had in stock. To stretch supplies, they have steadily raised prices and rationed how many bags customers can buy.

他们说，开战后货源就断了，现在只能卖库存。为了延长供货周期，他们不断提价，并开始限购。

The shelves are lined with signs that look decades old, except for the layers of fresh price stickers pasted over one another in recent weeks.

货架上的标价签看起来有些年头了，唯一的区别是最近几周上面层层叠叠地贴满了新的价签。

In the corner of Mr. Yu’s shop, a television on the wall showed President Trump discussing the war in Iran.

在余先生店铺的一角，墙上的电视机里正播放着特朗普总统谈论伊朗战争的画面。

The chief executives who accompanied President Trump to a meeting and grand banquet in China last week were seeking to curry favor with both the Trump administration and the Chinese government, keenly aware that the support of either could make or break their businesses.

上周陪同特朗普总统在中国参加会议和盛大宴会的首席执行官们正试图同时讨好特朗普政府和中国政府，他们敏锐地意识到，任何一方的支持都可能决定其企业的成败。

But the delegation — which included executives from Boeing, Apple, Nvidia, Cargill and other firms — arrived in Beijing with a variety of commercial complaints about doing business in China, some of which are public, some of which have not been previously reported.

但这个包括波音、苹果、英伟达、嘉吉及其他公司高管在内的代表团抵达北京时，却带着对在中国做生意的各种商业抱怨，其中一些是已经公开的，有些则是以前从未报道过的。

In recent weeks, the Chinese government has blocked exports of high-end solar manufacturing equipment from a Chinese supplier, Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, to Tesla, the Elon Musk-led automaker, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly. As part of its solar and energy storage business, Tesla had been looking to buy nearly $3 billion worth of manufacturing equipment from Suzhou Maxwell to build products that would further enable the transition to sustainable energy and bring about 100 gigawatts of solar capacity to the United States.

据一位不愿公开身份的知情人士透露，最近几周，中国政府阻止了中国供应商苏州迈为科技向埃隆·马斯克的汽车制造商特斯拉出口高端太阳能制造设备。作为其太阳能和储能业务的一部分，特斯拉一直希望从苏州迈为购买价值近30亿美元的制造设备，生产能够进一步推动向可持续能源过渡的产品，并为美国带来约100吉瓦的太阳能产能。

Tesla also has major business interests in China — its Shanghai factory is its largest — but Mr. Musk visited China with the hope of unblocking those solar manufacturing exports, the person said. There’s no indication yet that his efforts were successful. Mr. Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

特斯拉在中国也有重大的商业利益，其上海工厂是该公司最大的工厂，但该人士表示，马斯克访问中国是希望解封这些太阳能制造设备的出口。目前还没有迹象表明他的努力取得了成功。马斯克和特斯拉没有回应置评请求。

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said they weren’t familiar with the situation, but that China welcomed foreign companies to do business in China as long as they complied with laws and regulations.

中国驻华盛顿大使馆的一位发言人表示，他们不了解具体情况，但只要遵守法律法规，中国欢迎外国企业来华开展业务。

Other companies in attendance had their own complaints. Coherent, a Pennsylvania semiconductor firm that was included in the delegation, has been struggling to obtain indium phosphide, a material exported by China that is necessary to make photonic chips for data centers, other people said. China has also not yet approved purchases of Nvidia’s H200 chips, though earlier this year, the U.S. government approved the company to sell them to major Chinese tech firms including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance.

出席会议的其他公司也有各自的抱怨。代表团中的宾夕法尼亚州半导体公司Coherent一直难以获得磷化铟，这种由中国出口的材料是制造数据中心光子芯片所必需的。中国也尚未批准采购英伟达的H200芯片，尽管今年早些时候，美国政府已批准该公司将这些芯片出售给包括阿里巴巴、腾讯和字节跳动在内的中国主要科技公司。

Last year, China lifted an export ban it had placed on Illumina, a biotech company present in the delegation, after Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China last year. But the company is still on China’s “unreliable entity list,” meaning some of its products cannot be purchased in China without government approval.

去年在特朗普对中国征收关税后，中国解除了对代表团中的生物技术公司因美纳的出口禁令。但该公司仍在中国的“不可靠实体清单”上，这意味着如果没有政府批准，其部分产品无法在中国购买。

Chinese officials have ordered that Meta, also in attendance, unwind its acquisition of the artificial intelligence firm Manus, over concerns about A.I. expertise flowing out of China. It opened an antitrust investigation last year into the chip company Qualcomm. And the Chinese government has deemed products made by Micron, a semiconductor maker in attendance, to be a security risk, meaning Micron can’t sell to certain Chinese companies engaged in critical infrastructure.

中国官员已下令同样在代表团中的Meta公司取消对人工智能公司Manus的收购，因为担心人工智能专业技术流出中国。去年，中国对芯片公司高通发起了反垄断调查。此外，中国政府认定代表团中的半导体制造商美光生产的产品存在安全风险，这意味着美光不能向从事关键基础设施的特定中国公司销售产品。

Other issues have persisted longer. Boeing had not had a meaningful sale in China for roughly a decade, a result of geopolitical tensions and the company’s safety issues.

其他问题更是由来已久。由于地缘政治紧张局势和公司自身安全问题，波音公司在大约十年时间里在中国一直没有取得实质性的销售。

Visa, unlike its chief rival Mastercard, has never received a license to independently settle credit card transactions in Chinese currency — even though the World Trade Organization ruled more than a decade ago that China was discriminating against foreign credit card companies. Mr. Trump said in an interview last week that he had raised Visa’s issues in his talks with Chinese officials.

与主要竞争对手万事达不同，维萨从未获得过以人民币独立结算信用卡交易的牌照——尽管世界贸易组织在十多年前就裁定中国歧视外国信用卡公司。特朗普在上周的采访中表示，他在与中国官员的会谈中提出了维萨的问题。

BlackRock, another company in the delegation, has faced objections from the Chinese government to its bid to acquire dozens of ports from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison. Like many manufacturers, GE Aerospace is facing trouble obtaining rare earth elements needed for its engines, the supply of which China dominates. Cargill and other agricultural firms have seen their sales to China suffer as the country retaliated against Mr. Trump’s tariffs last year.

代表团中的另一家公司贝莱德因试图收购总部位于香港的长江和记旗下的数十个港口而面临中国政府反对。和许多制造商一样，通用电气航空航天也面临获取发动机所需稀土元素的困难，而中国主导着稀土的供应。随着中国对特朗普去年的关税政策进行报复，嘉吉和其他农业公司的对华销售也受到了冲击。

“They were there to solve specific bottlenecks,” Alison Szalwinski, vice president at the Asia Group, a Washington consulting firm, said of the chief executives.

“他们去那里是为了解决具体的瓶颈问题，”华盛顿咨询公司亚洲集团副总裁艾莉森·斯扎尔温斯基在谈到这些首席执行官时说。

“Some of those companies were dealing with licensing issues, market access and supply chain approvals, all being done on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “Many of them expect to be able to move the ball forward on several of those issues.”

“其中一些公司正面临许可问题、市场准入和供应链审批，所有这些都在逐案处理，”她说。“他们当中许多人希望能在其中几个问题上取得进展。”

Multinational companies that are trying to do business in both countries have often been the casualty of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. The Chinese government has taken some of these actions to protect its companies from foreign competitors, while others have come in response to U.S. tariffs, sanctions or penalties against Chinese firms.

试图在两国做生意的跨国公司往往成为美中地缘政治紧张局势的牺牲品。中国政府采取部分措施是为了保护本国企业免受外国竞争对手的冲击，另一些则是在回应美国针对中国企业实施的关税、制裁或处罚。

英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋在最后一刻收到了特朗普政府的邀请，加入此次行程。

China is one of America’s biggest trading partners, but also increasingly recognized as its main strategic rival. In the lead-up to the summit, U.S. officials debated whether doing more business with the country would help the United States or increase its vulnerabilities. But with Mr. Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, set to meet multiple times this year, some companies are hoping for steadier relations.

中国是美国最大的贸易伙伴之一，但也日益被视为其主要战略竞争对手。在峰会召开之前，美国官员曾就扩大对华贸易是否有助于美国或令美国脆弱而展开辩论。但随着特朗普与中国国家主席习近平定于今年进行多次会晤，一些公司希望两国能建立更稳定的关系。

So far, it’s not clear much has changed. After the meeting last week, the U.S. and China announced sales of American agricultural goods and airplanes to China — though the 200 Boeing airplanes that China committed to buying was lower than what some expected before the summit. Chinese regulators also appeared to have moved in recent days toward approving an application by Citi to set up its own securities firm in China. On other issues, nothing has yet been announced.

到目前为止，情况似乎并未发生太大变化。在上周的会晤之后，美中宣布了美国向中国出售农产品和飞机的消息，尽管中国承诺购买200架波音飞机低于一些人在此次峰会前的预期。中国监管机构近日似乎也在推进批准花旗集团在中国设立自己证券公司的申请。在其他问题上，目前尚未发布任何消息。

Industry executives say that many of the companies that were included in the trip had expressed their interest in joining or been contacted by David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, as well as Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, and Jamieson Greer, the trade representative.

行业高管表示，许多参与此次行程的公司都曾表达过加入的兴趣，或者被美国驻华大使庞德伟(David Perdue)、财政部长斯科特·贝森特以及贸易代表杰米森·格里尔联系过。

But a week before the high-level visit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi, no chief executives had yet received an invitation.

但在特朗普和习近平的此次高层会晤前一周，还没有任何首席执行官收到邀请。

On Monday, two days before the president departed, the White House announced a list of 17 attendees. Noticeably absent was Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, whose chip sales to China have been a source of controversy inside and outside the administration. But Mr. Trump noticed his omission, and put in a last-minute call to Mr. Huang on Tuesday. Mr. Huang then met Air Force One as it refueled in Alaska.

周一，也就是总统出发前两天，白宫公布了一份包括17人的名单。值得注意的是，英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋不在其列，这家公司对中国的芯片销售一直是政府内外的争议焦点。但特朗普注意到了他的缺席，并在周二最后一刻给黄仁勋打了电话。随后，黄仁勋登上了在阿拉斯加加油的空军一号。

While all of the companies that attended the summit have important commercial business in China, those familiar with the trip cautioned that many came simply to generate good will with the Chinese and American governments, or to act as a friend to the president — including Mr. Huang and Steve Schwarzman of the private equity firm Blackstone Group.

尽管所有出席峰会的公司在中国都有重要的商业业务，但熟悉此次行程的人士提到，许多人只是为了经营与中美两国政府的关系，或者以总统朋友的身份随行——包括黄仁勋和私募股权公司黑石集团的苏世民(Steve Schwarzman)。

Most were on the ground in China for less than 48 hours, but the events were not without drama. The chief executives in the delegation had been planning to attend a meeting on Thursday afternoon with a Chinese official, Li Qiang, then proceed straight to the grand banquet hosted in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.

大多数人在中国的停留时间不到48小时，但活动并非没有戏剧性。代表团中的首席执行官们原计划周四下午与中国官员李强举行会见，然后直接前往在天安门广场的人民大会堂举行的盛大晚宴。

But on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Trump was set to meet Mr. Xi in the heart of Beijing, assistants to some of America’s most powerful chief executives received a surprise late-night phone call from the White House.

但在周四上午，也就是特朗普准备在北京中心地带会见习近平的几个小时前，一些美国最有权势的首席执行官的助理意外接到了白宫深夜打来的一个电话。

The White House informed them that plans had changed: Mr. Trump wanted the chief executives to accompany him the next morning to his welcome ceremony meeting with Mr. Xi in the morning as well.

白宫通知他们计划有变：特朗普希望首席执行官们第二天早上也陪同他参加与习近平的欢迎仪式和会面。

The next morning, Tim Cook, Mr. Musk and others stood on the steps of the Great Hall of the People just behind the secretaries of state and Treasury and other officials, as they shook hands with Mr. Xi, then filtered into the great hall. Seated at a giant rectangular table, Mr. Trump said that he had brought “the greatest businessmen, the biggest, and I guess the best, in the world.”

第二天早上，蒂姆·库克、马斯克等人在与习近平握手后，站在国务卿和财政部长等官员身后的人民大会堂台阶上，然后鱼贯进入大会堂。坐在一张巨大的长方形桌子旁，特朗普说，他带来了“世界上最伟大、最大、也是我认为最好的商人”。

“I didn’t want the second or the third in the company, I wanted only the top, and they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Xi. “And they look forward to trade and doing business.”

“我不要公司里的二把手或三把手，我只要最大的那个。他们今天来到这里向你、向中国致敬，”特朗普对习近平说。“他们期待贸易和良好的商业往来。”

Because their attendance was arranged last minute, the executives were held up as they tried to enter the hall. The White House wanted to bring them into the meeting in groups, and officials from Boeing, GE Aerospace and Cargill were brought in first. Then, the rest of the executives were unexpectedly summoned together, a request that necessitated some being rushed from a separate waiting room.

由于他们的出席是临时安排的，这些高管在试图进入大厅时被耽搁了。白宫希望将他们分批带入会议室，来自波音、通用电气航空航天和嘉吉的高管被首先带入。随后，其余的高管被临时召集到一起，这一要求使得一些人不得不从另一间等候室匆忙赶来。

There weren’t enough chairs for all of them, so the executives had to stand. Each spoke in turn about their company and their issues. Mr. Xi responded with comments about the companies and their history, people with knowledge of the meeting said.

由于没有足够的椅子，高管们只能站着。每个人依次谈论了他们的公司及其面临的问题。据了解会议情况的人士透露，习近平对这些公司及其历史作出了回应和评论。

Back in Washington, Peter Navarro, the White House adviser, said in an interview on CNBC that “the Schwarzmans and the Finks and the Musks and the Apple guys that go over there on that trip, I mean, that was, that was embarrassing for those guys. I mean, they weren’t even let into the room at one point.”

在华盛顿，白宫顾问彼得·纳瓦罗在接受CNBC采访时表示，“这次去的苏世民们、芬克们、马斯克们以及苹果的人，我的意思是，这对他们来说太尴尬了。我是说，他们一度连进都不让进。”

“The Chinese do not view those folks as anything more than useful idiots,” he added. “They don’t have that kind of self-awareness, but that’s how they’re viewed, and it’s fraught when we take our technology over there.”

“中国人只把这些人看作是‘有用的傻子’，”他补充道。“他们没有那种自知之明，但这正是他们被看待的方式。我们把技术带到那里去就没好事。”

The executives disagreed. On Thursday, as some left the Great Hall of the People, reporters shouted questions asking how the meetings had gone. Mr. Cook flashed a peace sign, then a thumbs up.

高管们并不同意这种说法。周四，当一些人离开人民大会堂时，记者大声提问会议进行得如何。库克比了个表示胜利的“V”字手势，然后竖起了大拇指。

Mr. Musk said that they had achieved “many good things.”

马斯克说，他们取得了“许多好成果”。

“Mr. Xi and President Trump were incredible,” Mr. Huang added.

“习近平主席和特朗普总统太不可思议了，”黄仁勋补充道。

When President Trump announced late last year that Nvidia could sell one of its most powerful chips to China, the deal looked like a rare win-win in a fraying geopolitical relationship. It would provide a major boost for China’s artificial intelligence ambitions, while handing a win to America’s leading chipmaker.

当特朗普总统去年底宣布英伟达可以向中国出售其最强大的芯片之一时，这笔交易在日渐脆弱的地缘政治关系中看起来像是一个罕见的双赢。它将为中国的人工智能雄心提供重大助力，同时为这家美国领先的芯片制造商带来一场胜利。

Cutting-edge A.I. systems run on staggering amounts of computing power, and Nvidia’s chips are considered the gold standard worldwide. Chinese competitors have yet to build anything that rivals Nvidia’s best, and Mr. Trump’s decision undercut years of U.S. policy designed to keep those chips out of China’s reach.

尖端人工智能系统的运行需要依靠惊人的算力，而英伟达的芯片被公认为全球的金标准。中国的竞争对手尚未制造出任何能与英伟达最好的芯片相媲美的产品，而特朗普的决定削弱了美国多年来旨在让中国无法得到这些芯片的政策。

Former Biden and Trump administration officials warned the move could squander the lead that American A.I. companies held over Chinese rivals, by helping China close the gap until its own chipmakers could catch up to Nvidia.

前拜登和特朗普政府官员警告称，此举可能会断送美国人工智能公司对中国对手保持的领先优势，因为这会帮助中国缩小差距，直到其自身的芯片制造商能够赶上英伟达。

But six months on, Beijing has not allowed any of its companies to buy a single one.

但六个月过去了，北京没有允许其任何一家公司购买哪怕是一颗该芯片。

The impasse lays bare the depth of the mistrust between the world’s technological superpowers. For decades, U.S. and Chinese companies worked side by side to create products like the iPhone that upended industries. But the relationship has soured over the past decade as both governments came to see technology as the fulcrum of economic supremacy.

这种僵局暴露了这两个世界科技超级大国之间不信任程度之深。几十年来，美国和中国公司齐心协力创造了像iPhone这样颠覆行业的产品。但在过去十年中，随着两国政府都开始将技术视为经济霸权的支点，这种关系已经恶化。

Nvidia is trapped in the middle. The chipmaker became the world’s most valuable company by making its semiconductors indispensable to running A.I. systems. But Washington and Beijing increasingly view that technology as a matter of national security, especially after watching how it has been used to coordinate attacks in Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran.

英伟达被夹在中间。这家芯片制造商通过使其半导体成为运行人工智能系统不可或缺的一部分，成为了全球市值最高的公司。但华盛顿和北京越来越多地将该技术视为国家安全问题，尤其是在目睹了它如何被用来协调在加沙、乌克兰、委内瑞拉和伊朗的袭击之后。

Rather than turn to Nvidia, Chinese officials have pushed domestic companies toward homegrown alternatives from chipmakers like Huawei and Cambricon. After meeting last week in Beijing with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, Mr. Trump said that China’s lack of interest in the chip he had approved, known as the H200, had been driven in part by this push for industrial self-reliance.

中国官员没有转向英伟达，而是推动国内公司采用来自华为和寒武纪等芯片制造商的本土替代方案。上周在北京与中国领导人习近平会面后，特朗普表示，中国对他批准的H200芯片缺乏兴趣，部分原因正是这种对产业自主可控的推动。

“They chose not to. They want to try to develop their own,” he said.

“他们选择不买。他们想尝试开发自己的芯片，”他说。

华为人工智能超级计算机去年在上海展出。中国官员已引导企业转向华为和寒武纪等本土芯片制造商。

Chinese A.I. companies are hungry for more computing power. Kevin Xu, founder of Interconnected Capital, a hedge fund that invests in artificial intelligence technologies, recently spent nine days in China meeting with leading A.I. start-ups. Every one of them, he said, pointed to the lack of computing power as the biggest factor holding them back.

中国的人工智能公司极度渴望更多的算力。投资于人工智能技术的对冲基金互联资本创始人徐凯文最近在中国待了九天，与领先的人工智能初创公司会面。他说，他们每一个人都指出算力的缺乏是阻碍他们发展的最大因素。

But Chinese companies are now starting to build their A.I. systems around those constraints rather than waiting for them to ease. And Beijing wants them to keep doing exactly that.

但中国公司现在正开始围绕这些限制来构建他们的人工智能系统，而不是等待限制缓解。北京希望他们继续这样做。

“It’s a balancing act,” Mr. Xu said. The government knows its companies need more computing power, but it also wants to push domestic chipmakers to get better and faster.

“这是一种平衡之举，”徐凯文说。政府知道企业需要更多的算力，但它也想推动国内芯片制造商变得更好、更快。

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, who traveled to Beijing last week as part of Mr. Trump’s delegation, said he didn’t bring up the H200 chip with Chinese officials. But he remains optimistic that the market will eventually open, given China’s enormous appetite for A.I. chips.

英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋上周随特朗普代表团前往北京，他表示他没有向中国官员提及H200芯片。但鉴于中国对人工智能芯片的巨大胃口，他仍对市场最终将会开放保持乐观。

“The Chinese government has to decide — how much of their local market do they want to protect and how much of their local market do they want to expand with more A.I. capacity,” Mr. Huang said in an appearance on Bloomberg TV on Monday. “My sense is that over time, the market will open.”

“中国政府必须做出决定——有多少本土市场是需要保护的，又有多少是需要用更多的AI能力来扩张的，”黄仁勋周一在彭博电视台节目中表示。“我的感觉是，随着时间的推移，市场将会开放。”

In March, Mr. Xi laid out an ambitious plan to deepen China’s already decade-long push to rely on its own technology. Over the next five years, he wants the nation to pursue breakthroughs in fields like A.I., quantum computing and fusion energy.

今年3月，习近平提出了一项宏伟的计划，以深化中国已经进行了十年的自主技术推动。在接下来的五年里，他希望国家在人工智能、量子计算和聚变能等领域追求突破。

The drive for self-sufficiency is becoming more attainable as domestic chipmakers rapidly improve their offerings. Huawei, China’s tech giant, and Cambricon, a start-up, and others are now producing chips that perform on par with the H200.

随着国内芯片制造商迅速改进其产品，这种对自给自足的追求正变得更具可行性。中国科技巨头华为、初创公司寒武纪等现在生产的芯片性能已与H200旗鼓相当。

DeepSeek, the start-up that has come to symbolize China’s rising A.I. capabilities, has also become a sign of the country’s shift away from Nvidia.

已经成为中国日益增强的人工智能能力象征的初创公司深度求索也成为了该国告别英伟达的标志。

When it released its latest artificial intelligence model last month, the company said for the first time that its new system had been optimized to run on chips made by the Chinese tech giant Huawei — a small but meaningful milestone in China’s long-running effort to develop advanced technologies at home.

上个月发布其最新的人工智能模型时，深度求索首次表示，其新系统已针对在中国科技巨头华为制造的芯片上运行进行了优化——这是中国在本土开发先进技术的长期努力中一个微小但富有意义的里程碑。

Although Washington and Beijing have effectively blocked Nvidia’s most advanced products from the world’s largest chip market, the restrictions have done little to slow the chipmaker’s business. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported a quarterly profit of $58.3 billion. The company said it recorded no sales from its signature A.I. chips in China and does not expect that to change anytime soon.

尽管华盛顿和北京实际上已阻止了英伟达最先进的产品进入这个全球最大的芯片市场，但这些限制几乎没有减缓这家芯片制造商的业务。周三，英伟达报告季度利润达583亿美元。该公司表示，其标志性人工智能芯片在中国没有录得销售额，并且预计短期内不会改变。

MiniMax高管在1月该公司香港上市仪式上。

While Chinese tech companies now use domestic chips for some tasks, they still rely on Nvidia chips for training, the demanding process of teaching an A.I. model how to function. Part of the reason is that Chinese chipmakers have struggled to manufacture advanced chips at volumes sufficient to meet demand.

虽然现在在某些任务中使用国内芯片，中国科技公司仍在模型训练（教人工智能模型如何运行的严苛过程）上依赖英伟达芯片。部分原因在于，中国芯片制造商一直难以制造出足以满足需求的先进芯片产量。

Many Chinese A.I. companies are using a workaround to avoid buying their own Nvidia chips. They are renting remote access to chips housed in data centers operated by other companies, often outside the country. When two A.I. start-ups, MiniMax and Zhipu AI, went public in Hong Kong earlier this year, their disclosures showed the companies were spending several times their revenue to train their models using “cloud services.”

许多中国人工智能公司正在使用一种变通方法来避免购买自己的英伟达芯片。他们正在租用对安置在其他公司运营的数据中心（通常在境外）的芯片的远程访问权。当两家人工智能初创公司Minimax和智谱AI今年早些时候在香港上市时，其披露的信息显示，这些公司正花费数倍于其收入的资金来使用“云服务”训练他们的模型。

But this approach has drawbacks, said Jiang Tianjiao, an associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. It means slower processing times and a higher risk of data leaks. It makes Chinese companies reliant on third-party data center operators, which could cut them off at any time. They also face the risk that the United States could pass regulations to close off remote access to Nvidia chips altogether, a step that some officials in Washington have championed.

但复旦大学副教授江天骄表示，这种方法存在弊端。这意味着更慢的处理时间和更高的数据泄露风险。它使中国公司依赖第三方数据中心运营商，后者可能随时切断他们的连接。他们还面临着美国可能通过法规彻底封锁对英伟达芯片远程访问的风险，这是华盛顿一些官员所倡导的举措。

Even so, Chinese companies are spending far less on A.I. overall than their American rivals. They are expected to spend $123 billion on A.I. chips and data centers this year, according to Bernstein Research. U.S. tech companies, by contrast, are expected to spend about $1 trillion.

即便如此，中国公司在人工智能方面的整体支出仍远低于其美国对手。根据伯恩斯坦研究公司的数据，预计他们今年将在人工智能芯片和数据中心上花费123亿美元。相比之下，美国科技公司的花费预计约为1万亿美元。

The lighter spending reflects both ambition and means. Chinese companies have been slower than their American peers to bet their futures on A.I. and they have less revenue to put behind it. That restraint might ease the pressure on Beijing to clear the way for Nvidia purchases, said Chris McGuire, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked on chip export controls under President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

较少的支出既反映了雄心，也反映了财力。中国公司在将未来押注于人工智能方面比美国同行慢，且他们可投入其中的收入也较少。在美国总统小约瑟夫·R·拜登任内从事芯片出口管制工作的外交关系协会高级研究员克里斯·麦奎尔表示，这种克制可能也让北京不必急于放开英伟达芯片的购买。

黄仁勋在去年的一次主题演讲中手持一块Grace Blackwell NVL72晶圆。

Beijing may also be wary of allowing Nvidia purchases on national security grounds. Last July, the internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, summoned Nvidia to explain security risks associated with the chips it had developed for the Chinese market.

北京对采购英伟达的谨慎态度可能也有国家安全的考虑。去年7月，网络主管机构国家互联网信息办公室曾约谈英伟达，要求其解释与其专为中国市场开发的芯片相关的安全风险。

Nvidia has said that its products contain no back doors that would give anyone remote access. But Chinese suspicions have made it difficult to restart sales.

英伟达曾表示，其产品不包含任何能给任何人提供远程访问权限的后门。但中国的怀疑使得重启销售变得困难。

Mr. Huang has not given up on China. After a last-minute invitation to last week’s summit, he spent time in Beijing posing for photographs with people on the street and slurping noodles on the sidewalk, part of an effort to keep ties alive in the hope that Nvidia can one day return.

黄仁勋没有放弃中国。在最后一刻收到上周峰会的邀请后，他来到北京街头与行人合影，在路边吃面条，这是为了保持联系而做出的一份努力，寄望于英伟达有一天能够回归。

His shuttling between Washington and Beijing underscores the value he places on the Chinese market and the profits Nvidia could reap there, said Wendy Chang, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a think tank. But that eagerness, she said, may embolden Beijing to hold out for bigger concessions.

智库墨卡托中国研究中心资深分析师张文怡(Wendy Chang)表示，黄仁勋在华盛顿和北京之间的奔波凸显了他对中国市场的重视，以及英伟达在这里可以攫取到的利润。但她说，这种迫切性可能会让北京更有底气，从而要求得到更大的让步。

At Washington’s request, Nvidia has held back its most powerful chips from China, restricting sales to the United States and its allies. That chip, which Nvidia calls Blackwell, outperforms anything currently available in the Chinese market.

应华盛顿的要求，英伟达没有向中国出售其最强大的芯片，将这些芯片的销售限制在美国及其盟友。这款被英伟达称为Blackwell的芯片性能超越了目前中国市场上可获得的任何产品。

“By playing hard to get, Beijing may be hoping for more leverage in access to better chips,” Ms. Chang said.

“通过欲擒故纵，北京可能正希望在获取更好的芯片方面获得更多筹码，”张文怡说。

President Trump said this week that he would speak to Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, a move that would break longstanding diplomatic norms and risk retaliation from China.

特朗普本周表示，他将与台湾总统赖清德通话，此举将打破长期以来的外交惯例，并有可能引发中国的报复。

“I’ll speak to him,” Mr. Trump told reporters when asked whether he would call Mr. Lai before deciding on an arms sale to the self-governing democracy. “I speak to everybody,” he said, adding later, “We’ll work that, the Taiwan problem.”

当被问及在做出是否向这个自治民主政体出售武器的决定前会不会致电赖清德时，特朗普对记者表示：“我会和他通话。”他还说：“我跟所有人都通话。”随后他补充道：“我们会处理这件事、台湾问题。”

Responding on Thursday morning, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Mr. Lai would be happy to speak to Mr. Trump.

台湾外交部周四上午回应称，赖清德非常乐意与特朗普通话。

It was the second time in a week that Mr. Trump said he intended to speak to Taiwan’s leader. Mr. Trump first raised the possibility while returning from his summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping of China.

这是特朗普一周内第二次表示他打算与台湾领导人通话。特朗普首次提出这一可能性是在他从北京与中国国家主席习近平举行峰会后的返回途中。

“I have to speak to the person that right now is — you know who he is — that’s running Taiwan,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving China, in an apparent reference to Mr. Lai.

“我必须和那个现在——你们都知道他是谁——正在掌管台湾的人谈谈，”离开中国后，他在“空军一号”上对记者说，这显然是在指赖清德。

Mr. Lai’s office has not received communication from the United States regarding a phone call, his senior aide, Pan Men-an, said on Thursday in response to a lawmaker’s question at a legislative hearing in Taipei.

赖清德的高级幕僚潘孟安周四在台北的立法院听证会上回应立法委员提问时表示，赖清德办公室尚未收到美国方面关于通话的讯息。

Any such call would infuriate China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and opposes contact between Taiwanese and foreign leaders. It would also mark the first direct dialogue between sitting American and Taiwanese presidents in many decades, breaking with longstanding U.S. practices excluding top-level contacts with Taiwan.

任何此类通话都将激怒中国。中国声称台湾是其领土，反对台湾领导人与外国领导人之间的接触。这也将是数十年来美台两国在任总统之间的首次直接对话，打破了美国长期以来不与台湾进行最高级别接触的惯例。

No sitting U.S. president has spoken directly with a Taiwanese president since at least 1979, when Washington severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as part of recognizing the People’s Republic of China. Even before then, American and Taiwanese presidents generally communicated indirectly through aides or letters and telegrams. Taiwan’s authoritarian leader, Chiang Kai-shek, met President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Taiwan in 1960.

至少自1979年以来，美国在任总统从未直接与台湾总统通过话。那一年，华盛顿与台湾断绝外交关系，转而承认中华人民共和国。即便在那之前，美台总统通常也是通过助手或书信、电报进行间接沟通。台湾威权领导人蒋介石曾于1960年在台湾会见了美国总统德怀特·艾森豪威尔。

Mr. Trump last spoke with a Taiwanese leader in 2016, when he was president-elect and Tsai Ing-wen, then Taiwan’s president, congratulated him on his election victory by telephone. He was believed to be the first president or president-elect to speak with a Taiwanese leader since 1979.

特朗普上一次与台湾领导人通话是在2016年。当时他还是候任总统，时任台湾总统蔡英文致电祝贺他赢得大选。据信，他是美国自1979年以来第一位与台湾领导人通话的总统/候任总统。

The call drew surprise and disbelief from China. “We believe it’s a petty action by the Taiwan side,” Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said at the time.

那次通话让中国感到意外和难以置信。“这只是台湾方面搞的一个小动作，”中国外长王毅当时表示。

On Thursday, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters that China opposed the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan as well as any official exchanges between the two sides. The package includes missiles, anti-drone equipment and air defense systems intended to bolster the island against military threats from China.

周四，中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆对记者表示，中国反对美国对台军售，也反对美台之间的任何官方往来。此次军售方案包括导弹、反无人机设备以及防空系统，旨在增强该岛抵御中国军事威胁的能力。

During the summit, Mr. Xi warned that support for Taiwan would damage U.S.-China relations. He told Mr. Trump that if China’s concerns over the island were mishandled, the two countries could clash.

峰会期间，习近平警告，支持台湾将损害美中关系。他告诉特朗普，如果在台湾问题上处理不当，两国可能会发生冲突。

After leaving Beijing, Mr. Trump said that he had discussed the arms deal with Mr. Xi and described it as a “negotiating chip” that could be used against Beijing, remarks that raised questions about the reliability of American support.

离开北京后，特朗普表示，他曾与习近平讨论过这项军售协议，并称其为一个可以用来对付北京的“谈判筹码”，这一言论引发了外界对美国支持可靠性的质疑。

During China’s slow-moving housing crash, there have been brief stretches when prices stabilized, raising hopes that the multiyear slide was finally over. Each time, those reprieves have proved short-lived — pauses before the market resumed its decline.

在中国缓慢发展的房地产崩盘过程中，房价曾出现过短暂企稳短暂期，一度让人们重新燃起了长达数年的下滑势头终于结束的希望。但每一次，这些缓和最终都被证明是短暂的——不过是市场重拾跌势前的停顿。

After housing prices in several of China’s biggest cities leveled off in the first few months of the year, the market is again at a crossroads. Analysts and economists are split over whether this constitutes a bottom for a downturn that has eroded much of the country’s middle-class savings or merely another lull before the next leg down.

今年前几个月，中国几个最大城市的房价趋于平稳，但如今市场再次走到了十字路口。这是否意味着这场蚕食了中国中产阶级大量积蓄的低迷期已经触底？还是这只是下一次下跌前的另一个平静期？分析师和经济学家们意见不一。

Average prices for existing homes in China’s so-called Tier 1 cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou — ticked up 2 percent from February through April, according to data compiled by UBS, the Swiss financial institution, and Centaline, one of China’s largest real estate brokerage firms. The uptick followed a 38 percent plunge since 2021 that has rippled through the Chinese and global economies.

根据瑞士金融机构瑞银集团(UBS)和中国最大的房地产经纪公司之一中原地产汇编的数据，今年2月至4月，中国一线城市——北京、上海、深圳和广州——的二手房平均价格微涨了2%。此次微涨之前，自2021年以来这些城市房价暴跌了38%，并在中国和全球经济中引发了连锁反应。

The toll of the crash has been heavy at home and consequential abroad. Many Chinese families had poured the bulk of their savings into apartments, treating property as a safe bet for building wealth — only to discover, to their anger and dismay, that it was anything but.

这场崩盘带来的代价在国内十分沉重，在国外也产生了深远影响。许多中国家庭将大部分储蓄投入到公寓中，将房产视为积累财富的安全选择，结果却愤怒和沮丧地发现事实远非如此。

Timothy Liu, an office worker in China’s north-central Henan Province, is one of those buyers. He spent about $76,000 on a small apartment in his hometown in 2021, only to see its value drop by nearly a third. Like many in China, he lost his job two years ago and has struggled to find another as the economy has slowed, in part because of the housing downturn.

在中国中北部的河南省，上班族蒂莫西·刘（音）就是这样的购房者之一。他在2021年花了52万元人民币在老家买了一套小公寓，结果眼睁睁地看着它的价值缩水了近三分之一。和中国的许多人一样，他在两年前失业了，并且由于经济放缓（部分原因是房地产低迷）一直苦于找不到另一份工作。

His only consolation is that he paid cash for a modest home in a low-cost neighborhood rather than borrowing money to buy in a big city. “Although I managed to avoid taking on a huge mortgage in a first-tier city, my apartment has still dropped in value by nearly 30 percent — I’m really upset about it,” he said.

他唯一的安慰在于，他是用现金在低成本社区买了一套普普通通的房子，而不是借钱在大城市买房。“虽然我避免了在一线城市背上巨额房贷，但我自己的房子也还是跌了将近30%。我真的很伤心，”他说。

按百分比计算，中国房地产低迷期的跌幅几乎是美国当年引发全球金融危机的房地产崩盘的两倍。

Mr. Liu’s predicament is far from unusual. As home values have tumbled, consumers have slashed spending on cars, cosmetics and other nonessentials. With factories unable to sell enough goods at home, China unleashed a flood of exports, resulting in trillion-dollar trade surpluses.

刘先生的困境绝非个例。随着房屋价值跌落，消费者大幅削减了在汽车、化妆品和其他非必需品上的支出。由于工厂无法通过内销卖出足够的产品，中国释放了大量的出口，从而导致了万亿美元的贸易顺差。

Optimistic analysts now see a turning point, particularly in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Landlords still cannot charge enough rent to cover their mortgage payments, but the gap has narrowed sharply. Shanghai has also made it much easier for buyers to borrow money through a municipal housing fund that provides extra-cheap mortgages.

乐观的分析师现在看到了转折点，尤其是在上海和深圳。房东收取的租金仍不足以覆盖他们的抵押贷款月供，但差距已大幅缩小。上海还通过住房公积金提供超低息贷款，让购房者借钱变得容易得多。

“Effectively, you are seeing an interest-rate cut,” said Karl Choi, the head of Greater China property research at Bank of America Global Research.

美银全球研究大中华区房地产研究主管蔡崇嘉(Karl Choi)表示：“你看到的实际上是一次降息。”

Mr. Choi predicted that prices in major Chinese cities would stabilize in the second half of this year, and that the recovery would spread to smaller cities in 2027.

他预测，中国主要城市的房价将在今年下半年企稳，而这种复苏将在2027年蔓延到较小的城市。

In percentage terms, China’s housing market has fallen almost twice as far as America’s did two decades ago, when the U.S. real estate collapse caused banks to fail and triggered a global financial crisis.

从百分比来看，中国房地产市场的跌幅几乎是美国20年前的两倍，当时美国房地产的崩盘导致银行倒闭并引发了全球金融危机。

Many Americans had taken out large mortgages with little or nothing down, and they could not keep up with payments once prices stopped rising and began to fall.

许多美国人当时在极少或没有首付的情况下背负了巨额抵押贷款，一旦房价停止上涨并开始下跌，他们就无法维持还款。

Chinese banks, by contrast, have consistently demanded hefty down payments, which urban households can afford because they typically save up to two-fifths of their income.

相比之下，中国银行一直要求支付高额的首付，由于城市家庭通常会存下五分之二的收入，他们能够负担得起这些首付。

Those big down payments have cushioned China’s banking system. Prices have to fall a very long way before a mortgage is worth more than the home behind it.

这些高额首付为中国的银行系统提供了缓冲。价格必须下跌极大幅度，抵押贷款的金额才会超过其背后的房屋价值。

在中国，家庭大部分储蓄都放在房产上，四分之一的城市家庭拥有两套或以上住房。

Limiting mortgage losses, however, is not the same as reviving the housing market.

然而，限制抵押贷款损失并不等同于复苏房地产市场。

Other analysts dispute whether there are any real green shoots, pointing to the estimated 90 million empty or unfinished apartments and to the long delays sellers face in finding any buyers at all.

另一些分析师对是否存在任何真正的复苏迹象表示怀疑，他们指出估计有9000万套空置或未完工的公寓，卖家久久找不到任何买家。

Prices briefly stabilized a year ago, too, before plunging again.

一年前，价格也曾短暂企稳，随后再次跌落。

In addition, the four Tier 1 cities account for only 6 percent of China’s population, and prices have fallen even more steeply elsewhere.

此外，四个一线城市仅占中国人口的6%，而其他地方的价格跌幅甚至更加剧烈。

Over the past several years, big Chinese cities have allowed more apartments to be sold to residents of smaller cities. “That’s attracted more people from other parts of the country,” said John Lam, head of Asia property research at UBS.

在过去几年中，中国的大城市允许向较小城市的居民售出更多公寓。瑞银集团亚洲房地产研究主管林镇鸿(John Lam)表示：“这吸引了来自全国其他地区的更多人口。”

That migration has hollowed out smaller cities. In Yancheng, a town about 200 miles north of Shanghai, a resident who gave only his family name, Shao, said real estate prices had halved in the last few years as people left for larger cities.

这种迁徙掏空了较小的城市。在上海以北约300公里的盐城，一位只透露自己姓邵的居民表示，过去几年，随着人们离开前往更大的城市，当地的房地产价格已经腰斩。

“Locals aren’t keen on buying homes here anymore — many have moved to cities further south, like Suzhou or Shanghai, to buy property and don’t come back,” he said.

“本地人都不热衷在这买房子了，很多人都去了像苏州和上海这样更南边的城市买房安家，然后再也不回来了，”他说。

As prices have plummeted in China since 2021, the toll has fallen not on banks but on homeowners, who have watched much of their equity vanish.

自2021年中国房价暴跌以来，付出代价的并不是银行，而是目睹了自己大部分资产净值凭空消失的业主。

The nationwide China Household Finance Survey, conducted every two years by Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China, found that the average net worth of urban households had fallen to $130,000 by the summer of last year, down from $163,000 two years earlier.

由位于中国成都的西南财经大学每两年进行一次的全国性“中国家庭金融调查”发现，到去年夏天，城市家庭的平均净资产已降至88.9万元，低于两年前的111.6万元。

分析师在上海和深圳看到了房地产市场回暖的迹象，这得益于购房者更容易获得低成本抵押贷款。

Even these numbers may underestimate the damage. The survey found that homeowners typically guessed their homes had lost only a fifth of their value since the peak.

即使是这些数字也可能低估了损害。调查发现，房屋所有人一般估计他们的房子自峰值以来仅失去了五分之一的价值。

Surveys consistently find that Chinese households hold three-quarters of their savings in real estate, often buying an extra apartment as an investment rather than buying stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

调查一致发现，中国家庭将其四分之三的储蓄放在房地产中，通常会购买额外的公寓作为投资，而不是购买股票、债券或共同基金。

A quarter of Chinese urban households own two or more homes, compared with about 4 percent of Americans, said Sam Radwan, chief executive of Enhance International, a global real estate consulting firm in Chicago. Many Chinese families cannot find renters for these investment apartments because of the glut of vacant units. Even when they do, the rent is often far less than the monthly mortgage payment.

总部位于芝加哥的全球房地产咨询公司美商翰思(Enhance International)首席执行官萨姆·拉德万表示，四分之一的中国城市家庭拥有两套或以上的住房，在美国这一比例约为4%。由于空置房屋过剩，许多中国家庭无法为这些投资型公寓找到租客。即使找到了，租金也往往远低于抵押贷款月供。

For Mr. Liu, who is in his early 30s, the drop in his apartment’s value has wiped out all the savings he had built up since university.

对于30出头的刘先生来说，公寓价值的下跌已经抹去了他自大学毕业以来的所有积蓄。

“It feels like I’ve worked for nothing for a decade,” he said. “I can only try to comfort myself by thinking that if I had bought a home and settled in a first-tier city back then, the losses I’m facing now might be equivalent to working for nothing for 30 to 50 years.”

“我感觉自己到头来白干10年，”他说。“所以我现在只能尝试安慰我自己说，如果当初我在一线城市买房安家的话，可能要白干30到50年。”

The Justice Department announced charges on Wednesday against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, accusing him of murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens stemming from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of his country.

美国司法部周三宣布，起诉现年94岁的古巴前领导人劳尔·卡斯特罗，指控他犯有谋杀罪以及阴谋杀害美国公民罪，案件源于30年前古巴海域上空两架飞机被击落事件。

The indictment, issued in Federal District Court in Miami, was an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s multifaceted pressure campaign against Cuba’s Communist government at a moment when President Trump has been seeking to topple it.

这份由迈阿密联邦地区法院公布的起诉书标志着特朗普政府对古巴共产党政权多层面施压行动的一次重大升级，而特朗普本人一直试图推翻该政府。

The charges brought to bear on Mr. Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, the vast powers of the U.S. criminal justice system, saddling him with a possible maximum penalty of life in prison. They also raised the possibility that the United States could be paving the way for its military to remove him from the country through a means similar to how U.S. Special Operations forces used an indictment against Nicolás Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela, to swoop into Caracas in a brazen operation in January and capture him.

针对菲德尔·卡斯特罗的弟弟劳尔·卡斯特罗提出的这些指控使其面临美国刑事司法体系最严厉的追责力量，最高可能被判终身监禁。此举还引发了一种可能性，即美国可能正在为军方将其从该国清除出去铺平道路——其方式类似于今年1月，美国特种作战部队利用对委内瑞拉前领导人尼古拉斯·马杜罗的起诉书发动了一次大胆行动，突袭加拉加斯并将其抓获。

The indictment, which also accused five fighter pilots involved in the attack on the planes, was secretly returned last month by a federal grand jury and built on earlier charges, first filed in 2003, against one of them.

这份起诉书同时指控了参与袭击的五名战斗机飞行员，上月由一个联邦大陪审团秘密提交，其内容是在2003年首次针对其中一名飞行员提出的早期指控基础上发展而来的。

At a news conference in Miami, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, accused Mr. Castro and the pilots of killing four people when the Cuban military shot down the planes on the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996. The planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that often scoured the seas for Cubans fleeing the country.

在迈阿密举行的新闻发布会上，代理司法部长托德·布兰奇和佛罗里达州南区联邦检察官杰森·雷丁·基尼奥内斯指控，1996年2月24日下午，古巴军队击落两架飞机，劳尔·卡斯特罗与上述飞行员对四人的死亡负有责任。这两架飞机属于古巴流亡者组织“兄弟救援会”，该组织长期在海上搜寻逃离古巴的难民。

Fidel Castro took responsibility for downing the planes shortly after they were brought from the sky, claiming that the organization had been dropping anti-regime leaflets over Havana in earlier flights. The indictment said that Raúl Castro was also responsible because he and his brother were “the final decision makers” in the Cuban military chain of command.

菲德尔·卡斯特罗在飞机被击落后不久便公开承担责任，声称该组织此前曾多次驾机飞越哈瓦那上空投撒反政府传单。起诉书称，劳尔·卡斯特罗同样难辞其咎，因为兄弟俩是古巴军事指挥链中的“最终决策者”。

Mr. Blanche portrayed the charges against Mr. Castro as a historic step toward holding the leaders of Cuba’s government accountable for its past wrongs.

布兰奇将针对劳尔·卡斯特罗的指控描述为追究古巴政府领导人过往罪责的历史性一步。

“My message today is clear,” he said. “The United States and President Trump does not — and will not — forget its citizens.”

“我今天要传达的信息很明确，”他说。“美国和特朗普总统不会——也永远不会——忘记自己的公民。”

Mr. Blanche sidestepped questions about whether the indictment was a prelude to U.S. military action, saying that the decision rested with Mr. Trump and his foreign policy team. Mr. Trump himself refused to say on Wednesday whether he would use the military to extract Mr. Castro from Cuba, telling reporters, “I don’t want to say that.”

被问及起诉书是否为美国军事行动的前奏时，布兰奇避而不答，表示决定权在特朗普及其外交政策团队手中。特朗普本人周三也拒绝回应是否会动用军事力量将卡斯特罗带离古巴，仅对记者说：“我不想谈这个。”

Beyond military force, however, there were not many options to get Mr. Castro to the United States to face charges. Mr. Blanche said that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, though it was unlikely that the Cubans would turn him over. In a statement, Mr. Blanche nonetheless said he expected Mr. Castro to eventually show up in the United States, whether “by his own will or another way.”

不过，除了军事手段之外，美国其实几乎没有太多办法能让劳尔·卡斯特罗前往美国受审。布兰奇表示，法院已经签发了逮捕令，但古巴方面不太可能将他交出。不过布兰奇在声明中仍表示，他预计劳尔·卡斯特罗最终会出现在美国，“不管是自愿还是以其他方式”。

The Cuban government, in a statement, rebuked the United States.

古巴政府发表声明，对美国提出强烈谴责。

“It is highly cynical for this accusation to be made by the very same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from United States territory, through the disproportionate use of military force,” it said.

声明称：“提出这种指控极其虚伪，因为正是这个政府，在远离美国本土的加勒比海和太平洋国际海域过度使用军事力量，造成近200人死亡，摧毁了57艘船只。”

Since retaking office, President Trump has made no secret of his desire to expand U.S. territory and oust leaders he dislikes. After the successful military operation in Venezuela and the so far unsuccessful efforts to secure Greenland or the Panama Canal, Mr. Trump has made it clear that Cuba is his next target.

自重返白宫以来，特朗普总统从未掩饰自己扩大美国领土、赶走其不喜欢的领导人的意图。在成功对委内瑞拉采取军事行动，以及迄今尚未成功夺取格陵兰和巴拿马运河之后，特朗普已经明确表示，古巴将成为他的下一个目标。

Cuba is facing a moment of rising crisis as the country’s oil supplies for domestic use and power plants have been exhausted after Mr. Trump effectively imposed a blockade on fuel shipments from any country. On Wednesday, the aircraft carrier Nimitz and its escort warships entered the southern Caribbean Sea, where it is expected to remain for at least a few days, according to the military’s Southern Command and a U.S. official.

由于特朗普实质上切断了任何国家对古巴的燃料供应，古巴国内及发电厂的石油供应已经耗尽，该国正面临日益严重的危机。周三，美国“尼米兹”号航母及其护航舰队进入加勒比海南部海域。根据美军南方司令部和一名美国官员的说法，该航母预计将在当地停留至少数天。

The indictment also followed an unusual visit by John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, who met with senior Cuban officials, including Mr. Castro’s grandson, about a week ago. In the talks, he warned the government that it had to make economic changes and stop allowing Russia and China to operate intelligence posts on its soil.

此次起诉还发生在中央情报局局长约翰·拉特克利夫不寻常的古巴之行约一周后——他与古巴高层官员举行了会面，其中包括卡斯特罗之孙。在会谈中，他警告古巴政府必须推进经济改革，并停止允许俄罗斯和中国在其领土上运营情报站。

In the 30 years since the planes were downed, Cuban American lawmakers, exile activists, survivors of the episode and family members of the victims have called for Raúl Castro, who was the minister of defense at the time, to be criminally charged. But Mr. Blanche had little to say when asked by reporters why an indictment in the case had been returned now.

在两架飞机被击落后的30年里，古巴裔美国议员、流亡活动人士、事件的幸存者以及遇难者家属一直呼吁对当时担任国防部长的劳尔·卡斯特罗提起刑事指控。但当记者问及为何现在才对此案提出起诉时，布兰奇并未作出太多解释。

In a Feb. 13 letter to Mr. Trump, four Republican members of Congress requested that the Justice Department consider indicting Mr. Castro. The letter cited news reports indicating that he had approved the shoot-downs, which the members called “coldblooded murders.”

在2月13日致特朗普的一封信中，四名共和党国会议员要求司法部考虑起诉劳尔·卡斯特罗。信中援引新闻报道，称其批准了击落行动，并称其为“冷血谋杀”。

“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”

“我们毫不怀疑，劳尔·卡斯特罗应为这一令人发指的罪行承担责任，”议员们写道。“是时候将他绳之以法了。”

In an interview this year, José Basulto, who ran Brothers to the Rescue, complained that U.S. authorities had not yet acted to hold Mr. Castro accountable.

在今年的一次采访中，“兄弟救援会”的负责人何塞·巴苏尔托抱怨美国当局迟迟未采取行动追究卡斯特罗的责任。

“Believe me, the thing which is most true is that for 30 years that has elapsed since then, the delay in justice has been the biggest injustice that has taken place,” he said.

“相信我，这30年来最真切的现实就是，迟来的正义本身就是最大的不公，”他说。

Maggie Khuly, 80, the sister of one of the four dead Cuban Americans who were shot down on Feb. 24, 1996, called the charges bittersweet. “It’s good in that justice in our case seems to be progressing,” she said. “It’s bitter in the sense that it’s taking 30 years and you know no good justice would ever be achieved unless we have our dead people back, which is impossible.”

玛吉·库利今年80岁，是1996年2月24日遇难的四名古巴裔美国人之一的姐妹。她表示，指控让她百感交集。“就我们的案件而言，正义似乎在进展，这是好的方面，”她说。“令人心酸的是，这一等就是30年。而且，无论如何，真正的正义都不可能实现，除非我们的亲人能够回来——但那已经不可能了。”

Less than a week after holding talks with President Trump, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Beijing on Wednesday, casting the two countries’ relationship as a stabilizing force in a world thrown into tumult by the United States.

在与特朗普总统举行会谈后不到一周，中国最高领导人习近平周三在北京会见了俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京，将两国关系塑造成在一个被美国推入动荡的世界中的稳定力量。

“The tide of unilateral hegemony is running rampant,” Mr. Xi said to Mr. Putin, according to Chinese state media. It was an oblique reference to the United States, which this year launched a war in Iran and violently seized the leader of Venezuela.

据中国官方媒体报道，习近平对普京说，“单边霸权逆流横行。”这是在暗指今年发动了对伊朗的战争、并暴力抓捕了委内瑞拉领导人的美国。

Speaking to Mr. Putin inside the Great Hall of the People, Mr. Xi called for a “complete cessation of hostilities” in the Middle East, warning that it would be “unacceptable” if fighting renewed. The Trump administration has been considering relaunching strikes, which have been paused since a cease-fire was announced last month, to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

习近平在人民大会堂内对普京发表讲话时，呼吁在中东“全面止战”，并警告称重启冲突将是“不可取”的。特朗普政府一直在考虑重启自上个月宣布停火以来已暂停的打击行动，以迫使伊朗重新开放霍尔木兹海峡。

Mr. Xi acknowledged the pain the crisis is inflicting on China, which relies on the strategic waterway for about 40 percent of its oil imports. There is also growing concern that Iran’s ongoing shutdown of the strait could devastate global trade, the chief engine of China’s economy.

习近平承认这场危机给中国带来的痛苦，中国大约40%的石油进口依赖这一战略水道。人们也越来越担心，伊朗持续关闭该海峡可能会重创作为中国经济主要引擎的全球贸易。

“An early end to the conflict would help reduce disruptions to energy supply stability, the smooth operation of industrial and supply chains, and international trade order,” Mr. Xi said.

习近平说：“战事尽早平息有助于减少对能源供应稳定、产业链供应链畅通和国际贸易秩序的干扰。”

The two countries were eager to show they had enhanced ties. Mr. Xi hailed “a new phase of more active engagement and faster development” between the two countries.

两国急于展示他们强化了彼此的纽带。习近平赞扬两国关系进入了“更有作为、更快发展的新阶段”。

Mr. Putin was equally effusive and opened his remarks to Mr. Xi — whom he again called “my dear friend” — with a Chinese proverb expressing longing: “One day apart feels like three autumns.”

普京同样热情洋溢，他在向习近平——他再次称其为“我亲爱的朋友”——致开场白时，引用了一句表达思念的中国谚语：“一日不见，如隔三秋。”

The Russian leader also signaled that his relationship with Mr. Xi remained close, noting that they “constantly seek to coordinate our positions.” He cast the two countries as equals working together to forge “a more just and democratic world order.”

这位俄罗斯领导人还表明他与习近平的关系依然密切，指出他们“不断深化战略协作”。他将两国描绘为致力于共同构建“更加公正民主的世界秩序”的平等伙伴。

“A difficult process of shaping a polycentric world based on a balance of interests of all countries is underway,” Mr. Putin said, likely referring to what he argues is the erosion of U.S. global dominance.

普京说：“一个基于所有国家利益平衡的多极世界正在艰难地形成中，”这很可能是指他所认为的美国全球主导地位的削弱。

But beneath that show of solidarity lies an uneven relationship. Russia has become increasingly dependent on China since launching an invasion of Ukraine four years ago that has turned into a costly stalemate, as Russian soldiers struggle to gain ground and the country’s economy falters.

但在这种团结的表象之下，隐藏着一种不对等的关系。自从四年前发动对乌克兰的入侵并陷入代价高昂的僵局以来，俄罗斯对中国的依赖日益加深，俄罗斯士兵正艰难地争取地面进展，而该国的经济也在衰退。

Russia also relies heavily on China for dual-use technologies — civilian capabilities that can be applied to the battlefield. Mr. Putin will want to ensure that China maintains that supply.

俄罗斯在两用技术（可应用于战场的民用能力）上也严重依赖中国。普京希望确保中国维持这一供应。

At the same time, the oil shortage caused by the war in Iran has only enhanced Russia’s position as an energy supplier to China. Mr. Putin stressed that Russia “remains a reliable supplier of resources amid the Middle East crisis, while China acts as a responsible consumer of these resources.”

与此同时，因伊朗战争导致的石油短缺反倒巩固了俄罗斯作为中国能源供应商的地位。普京强调，俄罗斯“在中东危机中仍是可靠的资源供应商，而中国则是这些资源的负责任消费者”。

Mr. Putin, who is traveling with Russian energy executives, has been urging China for years to agree to open another major gas pipeline between the two countries. Known as Power of Siberia 2, the pipeline would link Siberian extraction sites with northwest China through Mongolia. Beijing is concerned the pipeline would make China too dependent on one nation for energy supplies. The project has been stalled amid disputes over key details, including how much China will pay for the gas.

与俄罗斯能源高管同行访问的普京多年来一直敦促中国同意开通另一条连接两国的重要天然气管道。这条被称为“西伯利亚力量2号”的管道将通过蒙古，将西伯利亚的开采点与中国西北地区连接起来。北京担心该管道会使中国在能源供应上过于依赖单一国家。由于在关键细节上存在争议（包括中国将为天然气支付多少费用），该项目一直停滞不前。

No agreement was signed on the proposed pipeline on Wednesday. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that “some nuances still need to be agreed upon.”

周三，双方未就拟建的管道签署任何协议。克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·S·佩斯科夫表示，“一些细节仍需要达成一致”。

The two countries did sign more than 40 documents, according to the Kremlin, the highlight of which seemed to be a joint declaration on “the emergence of a multipolar world and a new type of international relations.”

据克里姆林宫称，两国确实签署了40多份文件，其中的亮点似乎是一份关于“世界多极化和新型国际关系”的联合声明。

That document was heavy on lofty rhetoric laying out a vision of a post-U.S.-led world order that promises nations more equality and “mutual respect” — even as those stated ideals clash sharply with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s aggressive muscle-flexing across Asia.

该文件充斥着浮夸的措辞，描绘了一个非美国主导的未来世界秩序的愿景，承诺各国享有更多的平等和“相互尊重”——即便这些宣称的理想与莫斯科对乌克兰的入侵以及北京在亚洲各地的强势肌肉外交形成了鲜明的对比。

Mr. Putin seemed to offer a glimpse of how he might want that world to look. Speaking to a Chinese engineer whom he had met during his first visit to China in 2000, Mr. Putin told him: “We are ready to cooperate with all partners around the world, including the United States. We discussed this with President Xi today.”

普京似乎让人窥见了他所希望看到的那个世界的样貌。在与一位他在2000年首次访问中国时结识的中国工程师交谈时，普京告诉他：“我们愿意与世界上所有的伙伴合作，包括美国。我们今天与习近平主席讨论了这一点。”

The remark hinted at a vision in which Washington, Beijing and Moscow operate as great, equal powers managing the world among themselves rather than one in which the United States dominates the rest.

这一言论暗示了一种愿景，即华盛顿、北京和莫斯科作为平等的超级大国共同管理世界，而不是由美国主导其他国家。

“The recent interactions among the three major powers have indeed raised the possibility that the cooperation between China and Russia could provide some new space for the involvement of the United States,” said Zhang Xin, a professor at the Russian Studies Center of the East China Normal University.

华东师范大学俄罗斯研究中心教授张昕表示：“三大国之间最近的互动确实增加了这样一种可能性，即中俄之间的合作可以为美国的参与提供一些新的空间。”

“The construction of a multipolar world does not necessarily exclude the United States; what it rejects is specific hegemonic behaviors,” he said.

他说：“多极世界的构建并不一定排除美国；它所排斥的是具体的霸权行为。”

Yuri Ushakov, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy aide, said that Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump might meet in the Chinese city of Shenzhen in November, presumably on the sidelines of a regional economic forum. Mr. Ushakov also said that Russia was expecting Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s special envoys for peace talks, in Russia in “the coming weeks.”

普京的外交政策助理尤里·乌沙科夫表示，普京与特朗普可能会于11月在中国城市深圳会面，大概是在一个区域经济论坛的边会上。乌沙科夫还表示，俄罗斯预计特朗普的和平谈判特使史蒂夫·威特科夫和贾里德·库什纳将在“未来几周内”到访俄罗斯。

一张由俄罗斯国家媒体提供的照片显示，周二抵达北京的普京得到中国外交部长王毅的迎接。

Indeed, even as Mr. Xi deepens ties with Mr. Putin, he has invested heavily in courting Mr. Trump, whose tariffs, technology restrictions and support for Taiwan can hurt Beijing’s interests. The Chinese reception of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin reflected the balancing act Mr. Xi is striking.

事实上，即使在深化与普京的关系的同时，习近平也在拉拢特朗普方面投入了大量精力，因为特朗普的关税、技术限制以及对台湾的支持可能会损害北京的利益。中方对特朗普和普京两人的接待反映了习近平正在努力维持的平衡之举。

Mr. Putin’s red carpet welcome was similar to Mr. Trump’s, featuring an honor guard inspection, a 21-gun salute and a group of cheering children.

普京受到的红地毯欢迎仪式与特朗普相似，包括检阅仪仗队、21响礼炮和一群欢呼的儿童。

While Mr. Trump had been greeted at the airport by Han Zheng, China’s vice president, Mr. Putin was met by China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi. Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that in her view, Mr. Han was the more senior official, but Mr. Wang played a more active role in foreign policy.

前往机场迎接特朗普的是中国国家副主席韩正，而迎接普京的则是中国最高外交官王毅。位于华盛顿的斯廷森中心中国项目主任孙韵表示，在她看来，韩正的级别更高，但王毅在外交政策上扮演着更活跃的角色。

During last week’s summit with Mr. Trump, Mr. Xi was friendly, despite the frequent tensions between the United States and China. Mr. Xi took Mr. Trump inside the secretive Chinese leadership compound in Beijing known as Zhongnanhai on Friday, and seemed to signal that he was being granted rare access.

在上周与特朗普举行峰会期间，尽管中美之间经常关系紧张，习近平仍表现得十分友好。周五在北京，习近平将特朗普带进了被称为“中南海”的隐秘中国领导人驻地，似乎在暗示他获得了罕见礼遇。

Mr. Trump asked Mr. Xi if he had hosted other world leaders there.

特朗普问习近平是否在这里接待过其他世界领导人。

“Very rarely,” Mr. Xi said. “For example, Putin has been here.”

“极少，”习近平说。“比如说，普京来过。”

The Chinese government on Wednesday sought to draw a line on trade tensions with the United States, saying that both sides had agreed not to raise tariffs further while signaling that it could retaliate if Washington did so again.

周三，中国政府试图为中美贸易紧张局势划定底线，称双方已同意不再进一步提高关税，同时暗示若华盛顿再次提高关税，中方将采取报复措施。

China also confirmed for the first time that it would buy American beef and Boeing airplanes, two deals that President Trump touted after his summit with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, last week.

中国还首次确认，将采购美国牛肉与波音飞机。这两项交易是特朗普总统上周与中国国家主席习近平会晤后大力宣扬的成果。

In a statement on Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said that Beijing had agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes, a transaction that would mark the largest single Chinese purchase of the American manufacturer’s aircraft in nearly a decade. The ministry also confirmed that Beijing had approved American slaughterhouses to resume exporting beef to China, giving a green light to more than 600 U.S. companies after an initially muddled notice last week.

商务部周三发布声明称，中方同意购买200架波音飞机，这是近十年来中国对该美国制造商的最大单笔采购。商务部还确认，中方已批准美国屠宰场恢复对华牛肉出口，在上周一份最初令人困惑的通知后，为600多家美国企业开了绿灯。

The announcements came in a online posting by the Ministry of Commerce five days after the two leaders’ meeting in Beijing. Mr. Trump and other American officials have since hailed the summit’s success and the commercial commitments secured from Beijing.

上述公告由商务部在网上发布，距离两国领导人在北京会晤已过去五天。特朗普及美方官员纷纷盛赞此次峰会的成功，以及中方作出的商业承诺。

But critical points of friction remained unresolved, particularly over tariffs. Mr. Trump, for his part, told reporters afterward: “We didn’t discuss tariffs.”

但关键摩擦点仍未解决，尤其是关税问题。特朗普事后对记者称：“我们没有讨论关税。”

On Wednesday, China’s commerce ministry pushed back on that account, saying the U.S. and China had “engaged in in-depth discussions on tariffs” during the latest negotiations. The ministry added that it hoped Washington would “honor its commitments” and ensure that U.S. tariff levels on Chinese goods would “not exceed the level stipulated” during talks last fall in South Korea, when the two sides had agreed to a tariff truce.

周三，中国商务部对此予以反驳，称双方在近期谈判中“围绕关税问题深入沟通”。商务部并表示，希望美方“信守承诺”，确保对华商品关税水平“不能超过”去年秋季在韩国谈判时约定的水准——当时双方曾达成关税休战协议。

It was the second time a Chinese official said tariffs were discussed during last week’s talks, a sign that Beijing may be laying the groundwork for retaliation in the future, said Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group.

欧亚集团中国区主任王丹称，这是中国官员第二次提及上周会谈涉及关税议题，表明中方可能在为日后的报复做铺垫。

“It reflects a base line for China that tariffs cannot go up,” Ms. Wang said. “Trump tried to downplay it. China will likely retaliate if tariffs do go up.”

“这反映了中方的一个底线：关税不能上调，”王丹说。“特朗普试图淡化这件事。如果关税确实上调，中方很可能会报复。”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi agreed to a yearlong truce in October that left tariffs on Chinese goods at 30 percent. But in February, those tariffs, along with Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on other countries, were struck down after the Supreme Court ruled them illegal. The White House responded by imposing a 10 percent tariff on all imports under a temporary trade clause known as Section 122.

去年10月，特朗普与习近平达成为期一年的关税休战，将中国商品的关税维持在30%。但今年2月，美国最高法院裁定该关税及特朗普对他国所谓“对等关税”非法，相关措施随即失效。白宫随后援引被称为“第122条”的临时贸易条款，对所有进口商品加征10%关税。

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has since said the administration plans to revive the tariffs through investigations into forced labor and industrial overcapacity under Section 301, another trade provision. Experts have argued that the investigations are directed at China.

此后，美国财政部长贝森特表示，政府计划根据另一项名为“第301条”的贸易条款，通过调查强迫劳动与工业产能过剩，重新实施关税。专家指出，这些调查针对中国。

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has preferred to emphasize the handful of trade wins.

与此同时，特朗普更愿意强调少数几项贸易成果。

Boeing, in particular, has long sought to regain its footing in the Chinese market, and Kelly Ortberg, the company’s chief executive, was among the American business leaders who accompanied Mr. Trump to Beijing. Nearly one in seven commercial planes in operation today flies in China.

特别是波音公司，长期以来，它一直谋求重振在中国的市场地位，其首席执行官凯利·奥特伯格是随特朗普访华的美国商界领袖之一。目前全球运营的商用飞机中，每七架就有一架在中国飞行。

But Boeing’s relationship with Beijing deteriorated after the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft following two crashes less than five months apart that killed a total of 346 people. In 2020, citing the coronavirus pandemic, China canceled an outstanding order for 29 of the jets.

但在不到五个月内接连发生两起空难，造成346人身亡，导致波音737 MAX全球停飞后，波音与北京的关系急剧恶化。2020年，中方以新冠疫情为由，取消29架该机型的未交付订单。

Boeing resumed deliveries to China in 2024, but those shipments stalled last year as Mr. Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods.

波音2024年恢复对华交付，但随着特朗普提高对中国商品的关税，交付在去年陷入停滞。

It remains unclear which aircraft models Beijing has agreed to purchase.

目前尚不清楚北京同意采购的具体机型。

Mr. Trump and Boeing have said that Beijing would reopen its market to the American aerospace company. But Chinese officials initially avoided comment.

特朗普与波音称，中方将重新向这家美国航空企业开放市场，但中方官员起初对此避而不谈。

That changed on Wednesday. “Aviation is a key area for deepening mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States,” the commerce ministry said in its statement.

周三，情况出现转变。中国商务部在声明中表示：“航空是中美两国深化互利共赢合作的重点领域。”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump said that China had agreed to purchase “approximately 400, 450 engines, 200 planes and a promise of up to 750 if they do a good job.”

特朗普周五在“空军一号”上对记者称，中方同意采购“大约400至450台发动机、200架飞机，而且承诺如果它们表现好，就买最多到750架”。

It also remains unclear how much American beef China will ultimately buy after reinstating the registration of U.S. beef suppliers.

此外，在恢复美国牛肉供应商注册后，中国最终将购买多少美国牛肉，目前仍不明朗。

In the end, Beijing granted licenses to 690 American companies, after a confusing turn of events that briefly seemed as though official had reversed course and approved about 200.

最终，北京向690家美国企业颁发了许可证。此前出现了一段令人困惑的波折，官方似乎曾经短暂改变做法，只批准了约200家企业。

Still, the restoration of the U.S. beef trade may prove more symbolic than substantial. Beijing has been trying to shield domestic cattle farmers from a flood of imported meat.

尽管如此，美国牛肉贸易的恢复可能象征意义大于实质影响。北京一直试图保护国内养牛户不受进口肉类冲击。

Heavy rain and flash floods in southwestern and central China this week killed at least 22 people, forced tens of thousands to evacuate their homes and flooded cities and farmland, Chinese state media reported.

据中国官方媒体报道，中国西南部和中部地区本周遭遇强降雨和山洪暴发，已造成至少22人死亡，数万人被迫撤离家园，多个城市和大片农田被淹。

The storm — the most intense to hit China this year — began dumping rain in these areas on Friday, and up to 12 inches fell across seven provinces over about five days, state media reported. In Fangchenggang, a coastal city near Vietnam, total rainfall reached about 32 inches, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency.

据官方媒体报道，这场今年以来袭击中国的最强风暴于上周五开始给这些地区带来强降雨，在约五天时间里，七个省份的累计降水量高达约300毫米。据官方通讯社新华社报道，在靠近越南的沿海城市防城港，累计降水量达到约825毫米。

The rainfall and flooding were especially severe in Hunan, a mountainous southern province where five people died and 11 others went missing, state media reported. The storm forced more than 31,000 evacuations, the provincial government said. The floods damaged roads, bridges and other properties, according to Xinhua.

此次降雨和洪灾在湖南尤为严重。湖南是中国南部一个多山省份，据官方媒体报道，已有五人死亡，另有11人失踪。湖南省政府表示，强降雨已迫使超过3.1万人疏散撤离。新华社称，洪水还损坏了道路、桥梁及其他设施。

The authorities on Wednesday activated a national disaster relief response for the flooding in Hunan, Xinhua reported.

据新华社报道，当局周三启动了针对湖南洪灾的国家级救灾应急响应。

The heavy rain caused floods in large parts of towns and cities in southwestern China. In some areas, people had to wade through the brown, knee-deep water that filled streets and parking lots, photos from state media showed.

强降雨导致中国西南部多个城镇发生洪灾。官方媒体发布的照片显示，在一些地区，人们不得不涉水穿过齐膝深的浑浊污水，街道和停车场已被淹没。

In Guangxi, a region bordering Vietnam, 10 people died when a vehicle plunged into a river, Xinhua reported. In Guizhou, a southwestern province, four people died and five others went missing, according to People’s Daily, a state newspaper. CCTV, a Chinese state broadcaster, said three died and four others were missing in Hubei, a central province.

新华社报道，在与越南接壤的广西，一辆车辆坠河，造成10人死亡。据《人民日报》报道，西南省份贵州有四人死亡、五人失联。中央电视台报道，中部省份湖北有三人死亡、四人失联。

Forecasters issued a flood warning on Tuesday that was expected to last into Wednesday in parts of southeastern China as the storm moved across the region.

随着降雨带继续横扫该地区，气象部门周二发布洪水预警，预计预警将持续至周三，覆盖中国东南部部分地区。

The China Meteorological Administration said on Wednesday that about eight more inches of rain could still fall in the southern regions, including in Hong Kong, raising the risk of more flooding in cities.

中国气象局周三表示，包括香港在内的南方地区可能还会有约200毫米的降雨，城市洪涝风险进一步上升。

China’s rainy season typically runs from May to October, though in southern China it begins early, usually from April to September.

中国雨季通常为5月至10月，南方地区开始得更早，通常从4月持续到9月。

Days after Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials in the opening salvos of the war, President Trump mused publicly that it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country.

在以色列空袭炸死伊朗最高领袖和其他高官、拉开战争序幕几天后，特朗普总统公开表示，最好能由伊朗“内部的某个人”接管这个国家。

It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.

事实证明，美国和以色列在这场冲突伊始已经有了一个特定且非常出人意料的人选：马哈茂德·艾哈迈迪-内贾德，这位前伊朗总统以其强硬的反以和反美立场而闻名。

But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.

但据听取过相关简报的美国官员称，这个由以色列人制定、并曾征询艾哈迈迪-内贾德意见的大胆计划很快就出了岔子。

Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.

美国官员和艾哈迈迪-内贾德的一位副手表示，在战争的第一天，以色列对艾哈迈迪-内贾德位于德黑兰的住宅发动了空袭，意在将他从软禁中解救出来，但他却在空袭中受了伤。他们说，他在这场空袭中幸存，但死里逃生之后，他对政权更迭计划感到幻灭。

He has not been seen publicly since then and his current whereabouts and condition are unknown.

自那以后，他就再也没有公开露面，目前的下落和状况均不得而知。

2月28日，即美以联军对伊朗发动空袭的首日，德黑兰爆炸现场升起的浓烟。

To say that Mr. Ahmadinejad was an unusual choice would be a vast understatement. While he had increasingly clashed with the regime’s leaders and had been placed under close watch by the Iranian authorities, he was known during his term as president, from 2005 to 2013, for his calls to “wipe Israel off the map.” He was a strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, a fierce critic of the United States and known for violently cracking down on internal dissent.

说艾哈迈迪-内贾德是一个不同寻常的选择绝对是轻描淡写了。尽管他与该国领导人的冲突日益增多，并受到伊朗当局的严密监视，但在2005年至2013年担任总统期间，他曾因呼吁“将以色列从地图上抹去”而闻名。他是伊朗核计划的坚定支持者、美国的激烈批评者，并以暴力镇压内部异见而著称。

How Mr. Ahmadinejad was recruited to take part remains unknown.

艾哈迈迪-内贾德如何被招募参与其中，目前仍是个谜。

The existence of the effort, which has not been previously reported, was part of a multistage plan developed by Israel to topple Iran’s theocratic government. It underscores how Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel went into the war not only misjudging how quickly they could achieve their objectives but also gambling to some degree on a risky plan for leadership change in Iran that even some of Mr. Trump’s aides found implausible. Some American officials were skeptical in particular about the viability of putting Mr. Ahmadinejad back into power.

这项此前未被报道过的行动是以色列为推翻伊朗神权政府而制定的多阶段计划的一部分。它凸显了特朗普和以色列总理内塔尼亚胡在发起战争时不仅低估了实现目标所需的时间，而且在某种程度上将赌注押在一个危险的伊朗领导层更迭计划上，连特朗普的一些助手都觉得这个计划难以实现。一些美国官员尤其对艾哈迈迪-内贾德重新掌权的可行性表示怀疑。

“From the outset, President Trump was clear about his goals for Operation Epic Fury: destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles, dismantle their production facilities, sink their navy, and weaken their proxy,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in response to a request for comment about the regime change plan and Ahmadinejad. “The United States military met or exceeded all of its objectives, and now, our negotiators are working to make a deal that would end Iran’s nuclear capabilities for good.”

“从一开始，特朗普总统对‘史诗愤怒行动’的目标就很明确：摧毁伊朗的弹道导弹，拆除他们的生产设施，击沉他们的海军，削弱他们的代理势力，”白宫发言人安娜·凯利在回应关于政权更迭计划和艾哈迈迪-内贾德的置评请求时表示。“美军已达成或超额完成了所有目标，现在，我们的谈判代表正在努力达成一项能够彻底终结伊朗核能力的协议。”

A spokesperson for Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, declined to comment.

以色列对外情报机构摩萨德的发言人拒绝置评。

U.S. officials spoke during the early days of the war about plans developed with Israel to identify a pragmatist who could take over the country. Officials insisted that there was intelligence that some within the Iranian regime would be willing to work with the United States, even if those people couldn’t be described as “moderates.”

在战争爆发的最初几天，美国官员曾谈及与以色列共同制定的计划，旨在寻找一位能够接管伊朗的务实主义者。官员们坚称，有情报显示伊朗政权内部有些人愿意与美国合作，尽管这些人不能被称为“温和派”。

Mr. Trump was enjoying the success of the raid by U.S. forces to capture Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and the willingness of his interim replacement to work with the White House — a model that Mr. Trump appeared to think could be replicated elsewhere.

特朗普当时正沉浸在美军成功突袭抓获委内瑞拉领导人尼古拉斯·马杜罗的喜悦之中，同时也对马杜罗的临时继任者愿与白宫合作感到满意——特朗普似乎认为这种模式可以在其他地方复制。

In recent years, Mr. Ahmadinejad has clashed with regime leaders, accusing them of corruption, and rumors have swirled about his loyalties. He was disqualified from numerous presidential elections, his aides were arrested and Mr. Ahmadinejad’s movements were increasingly restricted to his home in the Narmak section of eastern Tehran.

近年来，艾哈迈迪-内贾德与伊朗政权领导人发生冲突，指责他们腐败，关于他忠诚度的谣言也四处流传。他多次被取消总统选举的参选资格，他的助手被捕，艾哈迈迪-内贾德的活动范围也日益被限制在他德黑兰东部纳尔马克区的家中。

2014年，伊朗前总统马哈茂德·艾哈迈迪-内贾德在德黑兰工人阶级聚居区纳尔马克的“72号广场”自家门外向支持者讲话，并接收求助信件。

That American and Israeli officials saw Mr. Ahmadinejad as a potential leader of a new government in Iran is further evidence that the war in February was launched with the hopes of installing more pliable leadership in Tehran. Mr. Trump and members of his cabinet have said that the goals of the war were narrowly focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear, missile and military capabilities.

美国和以色列官员将艾哈迈迪-内贾德视为伊朗新政府的潜在领导人进一步证明，2月发动的这场战争旨在扶植一个更易于控制的德黑兰领导层。特朗普及其内阁成员曾表示，战争的目标仅限于摧毁伊朗的核能力，以及导弹和军事能力。

There are many unanswered questions about how Israel and the United States planned to put Mr. Ahmadinejad in power, and the circumstances surrounding the airstrike that injured him. American officials said that the strike — carried out by the Israeli Air Force — was meant to kill the guards watching over Mr. Ahmadinejad as part of a plan to release him from house arrest.

关于以色列和美国计划如何让艾哈迈迪-内贾德掌权，以及导致他受伤的空袭的情况，还有许多未解之谜。美国官员表示，由以色列空军执行的这次空袭旨在杀死看守艾哈迈迪-内贾德的卫兵，这是将其从软禁中解救出来的计划的一部分。

On the first day of the war, Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. The strike at Ayatollah Khamenei’s compound in central Tehran also blew up a meeting of Iranian officials, killing some officials whom the White House had identified as more willing to negotiate over a change in government than their bosses.

在战争的第一天，以色列的空袭炸死了伊朗最高领袖阿亚图拉阿里·哈梅内伊。对哈梅内伊位于德黑兰市中心的官邸的空袭还打击了一个伊朗官员正在举行的会议，炸死了一些被白宫认为比其上司更愿意就政府更迭进行谈判的官员。

There were also initial reports at the time in the Iranian media that Mr. Ahmadinejad had been killed in the strike on his home.

当时伊朗媒体也有初步报道称，艾哈迈迪-内贾德在针对其住所的空袭中丧生。

The strike did not significantly damage Mr. Ahmadinejad’s house at the end of a dead-end street. But the security outpost at the entrance to the street was struck. Satellite imagery shows that building was destroyed.

空袭并没有对艾哈迈迪-内贾德位于一条死胡同尽头的房屋造成严重破坏。但位于街道入口处的安全哨所被击中。卫星图像显示该建筑被毁。

In the days that followed, official news agencies clarified that he had survived but that his “bodyguards” — in actuality Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members who were both guarding him and holding him under house arrest — were killed.

在随后的几天里，官方通讯社澄清说他幸存了下来，但他的“保镖”——实际上是负责看守并软禁他的伊斯兰革命卫队成员——被炸死了。

上个月，巴斯基准军事组织手持新任最高领袖穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊的旗帜和照片。

An article in The Atlantic in March, citing anonymous associates of Mr. Ahmadinejad, said that the former president had been freed from government confinement after the strike at his house, which the article described as “in effect a jailbreak operation.”

《大西洋》3月的一篇文章援引艾哈迈迪-内贾德匿名亲信的话称，在其住所遭到空袭后，这位前总统已被从政府的监禁中解救出来，这篇文章将空袭描述为“实际上是一次越狱行动”。

After that article, an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad confirmed to The New York Times that Mr. Ahmadinejad saw the strike as an attempt to free him. The associate said the Americans viewed Mr. Ahmadinejad as someone who could lead Iran, and had the capability to manage “Iran’s political, social and military situation.”

在那篇文章发表之后，艾哈迈迪-内贾德的一位副手向《纽约时报》证实，艾哈迈迪-内贾德将此次空袭视为一次解救他的尝试。这位副手说，美国人认为艾哈迈迪-内贾德是能够领导伊朗的人，并认为他有能力管理“伊朗的政治、社会和军事局势”。

Mr. Ahmadinejad would have been able “play a very important role” in Iran in the near future, the associate said, suggesting that the United States saw him as similar to Delcy Rodriguez, who took power in Venezuela after American forces seized Mr. Maduro and has since worked closely with the Trump administration, the person said.

这位副手表示，艾哈迈迪-内贾德本可以在不久的将来在伊朗“发挥非常重要的作用”，并暗示美国将他视为类似于德尔西·罗德里格斯的人物——这名知情人士称，在美军抓获马杜罗后，罗德里格斯在委内瑞拉上台，此后一直与特朗普政府密切合作。

During his presidency, Mr. Ahmadinejad was known both for his hard-line policies and his often outlandish fundamentalist pronouncements, such as his declaration that there was not a single gay person in Iran and his denial of the Holocaust. He spoke at a conference in Tehran called “A World Without Zionism.”

在其担任总统期间，艾哈迈迪-内贾德以其强硬政策和经常发表的古怪原教旨主义言论而闻名，例如他宣称伊朗没有一个同性恋者，以及否认犹太大屠杀。他曾在德黑兰举行的一个名为“没有锡安主义的世界”的会议上发表演讲。

After Mr. Ahmadinejad left office he gradually became something of an open critic of the theocratic government, or at least at odds with Ayatollah Khamenei.

卸任后，他逐渐成为神权政府的公开批评者，至少与阿亚图拉哈梅内伊存在分歧。

Three times — 2017, 2021, and 2024 — Mr. Ahmadinejad tried to run for his previous job, but each time Iran’s Guardian Council, a group of civilian and Islamic jurists, blocked his presidential campaign. Mr. Ahmadinejad has accused senior Iranian officials of corruption or bad governance and become a critic of the government in Tehran. While he never was an overt dissident, the regime began to treat him as a potentially destabilizing element.

2017年、2021年和2024年，艾哈迈迪-内贾德曾三次试图竞选他以前的职位，但每次均被由平民和伊斯兰法学家组成的伊朗宪法监护委员会阻止。艾哈迈迪-内贾德指责伊朗高级官员腐败或治理不善，并成为德黑兰政府的批评者。虽然他从未成为公开的异见人士，但该政权开始将他视为潜在的破坏稳定因素。

2012年，艾哈迈迪-内贾德在纽约联合国大会发表演讲前。

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s ties to the west are far murkier.

艾哈迈迪-内贾德与西方的关系则要模糊得多。

In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Ahmadinejad praised President Trump and argued for a rapprochement between Iran and the United States.

在2019年接受《纽约时报》采访时，艾哈迈迪-内贾德称赞了特朗普总统，并主张伊朗与美国实现和解。

“Mr. Trump is a man of action,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating cost-benefits and making a decision. We say to him, let’s calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be shortsighted.”

“特朗普先生是一个行动派，”艾哈迈迪-内贾德说。“他是个商人，因此他能够计算成本收益并做出决定。我们对他说，让我们计算一下我们两国的长期成本收益，不要目光短浅。”

In the past few years Mr. Ahmadinejad has made trips out of Iran that further fueled speculation.

过去几年里，艾哈迈迪-内贾德曾数次出访伊朗境外，这进一步引发了猜测。

In 2023, he traveled to Guatemala and in 2024 and 2025 he went to Hungary, trips detailed by New Lines magazine. Both countries have close ties to Israel.

《新线》杂志详尽报道了他2023年前往危地马拉、2024年和2025年前往匈牙利的出访。这两个国家都与以色列关系密切。

The Hungarian prime minister at the time, Viktor Orban, has a close relationship with Mr. Netanyahu. During the trips to Hungary, Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke at a university connected to Mr. Orban.

当时的匈牙利总理维克多·欧尔班与内塔尼亚胡关系密切。在访问匈牙利期间，艾哈迈迪-内贾德在一所与欧尔班有关联的大学发表演讲。

He returned from Budapest just days before Israel began attacking Iran last June. When that war broke out, he kept a low public profile and posted only few statements on social media. His relative silence about a war with a country that Mr. Ahmadinejad had long viewed as Iran’s main enemy was noted by many on Iranian social media.

去年6月，就在以色列开始攻击伊朗的前几天，他从布达佩斯回国。当战争爆发时，他保持着低调的公众形象，仅在社交媒体上发布了寥寥几条声明。他对这场与一个长期被他视为伊朗主要敌人的国家之间的战争保持着相对沉默，这一点引起了许多伊朗社交媒体用户的关注。

Discussion of Mr. Ahmadinejad on Iranian social media picked up after reports of his death, according to an analysis by FilterLabs, a company that tracks public sentiment. But the discussion declined in the weeks following, mainly amounting to confusion about his whereabouts.

一家追踪公众情绪的公司FilterLabs的分析显示，在有关他死讯的报道传出后，伊朗社交媒体上关于艾哈迈迪-内贾德的讨论开始增多。但在随后的几周里，这种讨论有所降温，主要是表达对他此时下落的困惑。

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a state visit in a position of relative weakness.

俄罗斯总统普京周二抵达北京，开始对中国进行国事访问。此时的他，处于一种相对弱势的位置。

His army is struggling to move in Ukraine. His seat of power, Moscow, has been increasingly vulnerable to Ukrainian drones. Russia’s economy is under severe strain. More Russians are growing tired of what increasingly looks like a fruitless and endless war.

他的军队在乌克兰举步维艰。他的权力中枢莫斯科日益暴露在乌克兰无人机的威胁之下。俄罗斯经济承受着严峻压力。越来越多的俄罗斯人对这场看似毫无成效、无休无止的战争感到厌倦。

Even in better times for Moscow, its relationship with Beijing has been defined by economic imbalance. “China has massive leverage and can dictate exactly what it wants from this menu of bilateral cooperation,” said Aleksandr Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

即便是在俄罗斯状况更好的时期，莫斯科与北京之间的关系也始终被经济上的不平衡所定义。位于柏林的卡内基俄罗斯欧亚中心主任亚历山大·加布耶夫说：“中国拥有巨大的筹码，可以在双边合作的菜单上明确地点出自己想要的一切。”

Still, Russia is not content being relegated to junior partner to China. Its nuclear arsenal, far larger than Beijing’s, could make it an important ally in any superpower conflict, including over Taiwan. The invasion of Ukraine has positioned Moscow as a leader of an emerging non-Western world order supported by Beijing.

不过，俄罗斯并不甘心沦为中国的小伙伴。俄罗斯拥有远比中国更庞大的核武库，足以使其在任何超级大国冲突中——包括围绕台湾的冲突——成为重要盟友。对乌克兰的入侵使莫斯科在北京支持下的新兴非西方世界秩序中占据了领军地位。

And then there is the opening provided by the war against Iran waged by the United States and Israel.

此外，还有美国和以色列对伊朗发动的战争所带来的契机。

Five days after an architect of that conflict, President Trump, left Beijing at the end of his own state visit, Mr. Putin will join the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, for a day of meetings on Wednesday.

在这场冲突的策划者之一、美国总统特朗普结束其国事访问离开北京五天后，普京将于周三与中国领导人进行为期一天的会谈。

The upheaval that Mr. Trump has caused in the Persian Gulf has disrupted energy supplies to China, and Russia has promoted itself as a reliable alternative. Russian officials hope to leverage the Middle East crisis to deepen energy ties with Beijing, including by moving ahead with a stalled pipeline project.

特朗普在波斯湾掀起的动荡扰乱了中国的能源供应，而俄罗斯趁机将自己标榜为可靠的替代来源。俄罗斯官员希望利用中东危机进一步深化与北京的能源合作，包括推进一项久拖未决的天然气管道项目。

Ivan Timofeev, the director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank co-founded by the country’s foreign ministry, said the Middle East conflict showed how Russia could “mitigate for China the risks associated with logistics and the Persian Gulf.”

由俄罗斯外交部参与创办的智库俄罗斯国际事务委员会总干事伊万·季莫费耶夫表示，中东冲突表明，俄罗斯可以“帮助中国缓解与物流及波斯湾相关的风险”。

“Russia retains a crucial strategic role here for China in the event of such escalations,” Mr. Timofeev said on Friday during a news conference in Moscow.

季莫费耶夫上周五在莫斯科的一次新闻发布会上表示：“在局势如此升级的情况下，俄罗斯对中国依然具有至关重要的战略作用。”

By hosting Mr. Putin just days after Mr. Trump’s visit, Mr. Xi is tending to his relationship with his most important strategic partner and casting China as an indispensable global power.

习近平在特朗普访问结束仅几天后就接待普京，一方面是在维护与其最重要战略伙伴的关系，另一方面也是在把中国塑造成一个不可或缺的全球大国。

Since December, Mr. Xi has welcomed to Beijing the leaders of France, Canada, Britain, Germany and the United States. In his summit with Mr. Trump, Mr. Xi argued that China and the United States were now peer powers and that they should avoid prioritizing competition.

自去年12月以来，习近平已在北京接待了法国、加拿大、英国、德国和美国领导人。在与特朗普的峰会上，习近平主张中美如今已是平起平坐的大国，双方应避免将竞争置于首位。

Mr. Putin has been working to position himself advantageously between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi.

普京一直致力于在特朗普与习近平之间谋求有利于自身的位置。

The Russian leader has tried to cultivate Mr. Trump, seeking his help in securing a favorable resolution to the invasion of Ukraine and reaping the benefits of renewed business relations after the war.

这位俄罗斯领导人一直试图拉拢特朗普，希望借助他的力量为俄乌战争谋得一个对俄罗斯有利的结果，并从战后恢复的商业往来中获得好处。

Mr. Putin’s ties to Mr. Xi, however, run far deeper. The Russian leader has worked to develop a well-documented bond with his Chinese counterpart, calling him his “dear friend” and “best bosom friend.”

然而，普京与习近平之间的纽带要深厚得多。普京长期致力于与这位中国领导人建立有目共睹的密切关系，称他为“亲爱的朋友”和“最好的知心朋友”。

Mr. Xi is expected to reaffirm that closeness on Wednesday.

预计习近平周三将再次重申这份亲密关系。

“Both sides will seize this opportunity to continue to promote the development of China-Russia relations to a deeper and higher level, injecting more stability and positive energy into the world,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said on Monday.

中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆周一表示：“双方将以此为契机，继续推动中俄关系向更深层次、更高水平发展，为世界注入更多稳定性和正能量。”

Mr. Putin struck a similar note in an address published by the Kremlin on Tuesday ahead of the visit. “The close strategic relationship between Russia and China plays a major, stabilizing role globally,” he said, adding, “Without allying against anyone, we seek peace and universal prosperity.”

普京在访问前于周二通过克里姆林宫发布的讲话中也表达了类似的观点。“俄中之间紧密的战略组合在国际舞台上发挥着重要的稳定作用，”他说，并补充道：“我们的友谊不针对第三方，而是追求和平与共同繁荣。”

In Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi sees a like-minded leader frustrated by American dominance of the global order, said Julian Gewirtz, a senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council in the Biden administration.

曾在拜登政府国家安全委员会负责中国与台湾事务的朱利安·格维兹表示，在习近平眼中，普京是一个“志同道合”的领导人，两人都对美国主导的全球秩序感到不满。

While Mr. Trump lavished praise on the Chinese leader during his visit to Beijing, “Xi’s embrace of Putin this week should be a reminder that Beijing’s closest international partners are connected by their shared emphasis on resistance to the United States,” Mr. Gewirtz said.

他说，尽管特朗普在访华期间对习近平大加赞美，但“习近平本周对普京的拥抱，提醒人们：北京最亲密的国际伙伴，正是那些在反美这一点上立场一致的国家。”

Russia and China declared a “no limits” strategic partnership in early 2022, weeks before Moscow invaded Ukraine.

2022年初，就在莫斯科入侵乌克兰数周前，俄中两国宣布建立“无上限”战略伙伴关系。

The economic asymmetry in the relationship is glaring. Beijing supplies more than a third of Russia’s imports and buys more than a quarter of Moscow’s exports, while Russia accounts for only about 4 percent of China’s international trade, a share smaller than Vietnam’s.

两国关系中的经济不对称十分明显。北京提供了俄罗斯超过三分之一的进口商品，并购买了莫斯科超过四分之一的出口产品；而俄罗斯只占中国国际贸易总额约4%，甚至低于越南。

Although Russia’s economic dependence — including for parts to power its war machine — constrains its actions toward China, the Kremlin has gone its own way at times.

尽管俄罗斯在经济上——包括维持战争机器运转所需零部件方面——越来越依赖中国，制约了其对华行动，但克里姆林宫有时也会按自己的路线行事。

While Western officials believe that Mr. Xi has been urging Mr. Putin not to use nuclear arms in Ukraine, Russia moved such weapons into neighboring Belarus in 2023, and Russian forces are currently holding nuclear exercises in Belarus even as Mr. Putin visits Beijing.

西方官员认为，习近平一直在劝说普京不要在乌克兰使用核武器；但俄罗斯却在2023年把核武器部署到邻国白俄罗斯。而就在普京访问北京期间，俄罗斯军队还正在白俄罗斯举行核演习。

But the advantages of a partnership with Moscow are clear to China, especially in comparison to the United States.

但对中国而言，与俄罗斯结为伙伴的好处是显而易见的，尤其是与美国相比。

“Russia remains a predictable partner, whereas the United States is not,” said Andrei Kortunov, an expert on international affairs with the Kremlin-linked Valdai Discussion Club. He added that Mr. Putin had been visiting China regularly, while Mr. Trump’s last visit occurred in 2017.

“俄罗斯仍然是一个可以预期的伙伴，而美国则不是，”瓦尔代国际辩论俱乐部的国际事务专家安德烈·科尔图诺夫表示，这是一个与克里姆林宫有关联的组织。他还指出，普京一直定期访问中国，而特朗普上一次访华还是2017年的事。

As the Chinese and Russian leaders have grown closer, so have their countries.

随着中俄两国领导人关系日益紧密，两国之间的关系也在不断深化。

Last year, both began to allow their citizens to conduct visa-free travel. Hundreds of thousands of Russians visited the Chinese island of Hainan in 2025, according to the Association of Russian Tour Operators, and the numbers have continued growing this year.

去年，两国开始互免签证。据俄罗斯旅游运营商协会的数据，2025年赴中国海南岛的俄罗斯游客达数十万人次，而今年这一数字还在继续增长。

俄罗斯赴华旅游人数大幅增长。图为一名俄罗斯游客在海南享受日光浴，摄于去年。

In Moscow, schools with Mandarin on the curriculum have been oversubscribed. One Russian governor has taken pride in the fact that his children can recite poems in Chinese dedicated to Russian-Chinese friendship. Highways in Moscow and other Russian cities are now filled with Chinese-made cars. Chinese restaurants pepper the streets.

在莫斯科，开设汉语课程的学校报名人数远超招生名额。一位俄罗斯州长对自己的孩子能背诵歌颂俄中友谊的中文诗歌感到自豪。莫斯科及其他俄罗斯城市的高速公路上如今充满了中国制造的汽车。中餐馆也在大街小巷遍地开花。

“The bilateral relation continues to thrive, and Russians are still very positive and curious about China,” Kirill V. Babaev, the head of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in response to written questions.

俄罗斯科学院中国与现代亚洲研究所所长基里尔·巴巴耶夫在回答书面提问时表示：“双边关系持续蓬勃发展，俄罗斯人对中国依然抱有非常积极的态度和浓厚的好奇心。”

“Surprisingly,” he added, “the conflict in the Middle East has made China even closer for Russians who turned to Chinese resorts instead of the Middle East.”

他还补充说：“令人意外的是，中东冲突反而让中国对俄罗斯人来说变得更加亲近，因为很多人放弃去中东度假，转而选择中国的度假胜地。”

Mr. Babaev also pointed out that Chinese and Russian companies had found ways to conduct payments that bypass Western sanctions. “A transaction from a sanctioned Russian bank to an account in China now takes less than half an hour,” he said, adding that in 2024 “it could take weeks.”

巴巴耶夫还指出，中俄两国企业已找到绕开西方制裁进行支付的途径。“从一家受制裁的俄罗斯银行向中国账户转账，现在不到半小时就能完成，”他说，还说在2024年，“有时要等好几个星期。”

While the conflict in the Middle East has seemingly reversed Russia’s economic fortunes, even if temporarily, it has more fundamentally turned Moscow into an increasingly indispensable energy supplier for China and other countries.

尽管中东冲突似乎逆转了俄罗斯的经济处境——即便只是暂时性的——但从更根本的意义上说，它使莫斯科成为中国及其他国家日益不可或缺的能源供应国。

For years, Russia has been trying to push China to go forward with a major new gas pipeline, known as Power of Siberia 2, that would link its Siberian extraction sites with China’s northwest through Mongolia. But Beijing has been hesitant, trying to push for lower energy prices and fearing that the pipeline would deepen its dependence on one supplier too much.

多年来，俄罗斯一直试图推动中国推进一条名为“西伯利亚力量2号”的大型新天然气管道项目。该项目计划通过蒙古，把俄罗斯西伯利亚气田与中国西北地区连接起来。但北京方面一直犹豫不决，试图压低能源价格，同时也担心这条管道会加深其对单一供应国的过度依赖。

The energy shock from the Iran conflict may have upended that dynamic, underscoring the importance for China, the world’s largest importer of natural gas, to diversify its supply options beyond the Middle East.

伊朗冲突引发的能源冲击可能已经打破了这一局面，凸显出作为全球最大天然气进口国的中国有必要将供应来源拓展到中东以外，以实现多元化。

“The war in the Persian Gulf is a new factor — it has influenced Chinese planning and the signals we are receiving from our Chinese colleagues,” said Vasily Kashin, the director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

莫斯科高等经济学院“综合欧洲与国际研究中心”主任瓦西里·卡申表示：“波斯湾战争是一个新的因素——它影响了中国的规划，也影响了我们从中国同行那里收到的信号。”

“As I see it, the chances of concluding a deal on Power of Siberia 2 will continue to grow for now.”

“在我看来，就‘西伯利亚力量2号’达成协议的可能性，眼下还将持续上升。”

When a Chinese court ruled late last month that a tech company had illegally laid off a worker after replacing him with artificial intelligence software, it delivered an implicit warning to other employers.

上月末，中国一家法院裁定，某科技企业在用人工智能软件替代员工后将员工非法辞退，这一判决也向其他雇主发出了隐含的警告。

“The development of artificial intelligence technology should be applied to liberating labor, promoting employment and improving people’s livelihood,” the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court wrote. “Labor law allows employers to undertake technological changes and upgrade their operations, but it should also take into account the protection of workers’ legitimate rights and interests.

“人工智能技术应用旨在解放劳动、提升效率、造福民生，”杭州市中级人民法院在判决书中写道。“劳动法允许用人单位承接技术变革进行更新转型，但亦应顾及保障劳动者的合法权益。”

The case — the third time the Chinese government has highlighted a ruling siding with workers displaced by A.I. — underscores how Beijing is contending with the need to balance its ambitions for the widespread use of A.I. with the unemployment that might accompany it.

这已是中国官方第三次公开表态支持因人工智能应用而失业的劳动者的相关胜诉判决，此事凸显出中国正面临的现实难题：既要雄心勃勃地推动人工智能广泛应用，又要应对其可能引发的失业问题，力求在二者之间寻求平衡。

China has invested billions to become an artificial intelligence superpower and raced to integrate the technology across a broad range of industries. But those aspirations have run headlong into a growing political problem: anxiety over the workers who could be displaced by the realization of Beijing’s technological drive.

中国已投入数十亿资金，力图打造人工智能强国，并争分夺秒地将该技术融入各行各业。但这一发展愿景正遭遇愈发突出的政治难题：社会普遍担忧，国家推进技术发展，会造成大批劳动者失去工作。

“The deeper tension is between this all-out push for A.I. diffusion into the economy, and wanting that to not actually impact any jobs,” said Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员马特·希恩表示：“更深层的矛盾在于，一方面要全力推动人工智能渗透实体经济，另一方面又不希望这项技术真正冲击任何就业岗位。”

Governments around the world are wrestling with how A.I. will disrupt labor markets. Officials in Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea have floated versions of a universal basic income for workers who have been replaced by technology.

世界各国政府都在努力应对人工智能对劳动力市场的冲击。日本、英国和韩国的官员已提出各种版本的全民基本收入计划，旨在帮助那些被技术取代的劳动者。

In China, the debate has become especially acute amid a sluggish economy and persistently high youth unemployment — about 17 percent — that has fueled disillusionment about opportunities for upward mobility. More than 200 million workers have already been pushed into low-paying, demanding jobs in the gig economy.

在中国，随着经济增长乏力、青年失业率居高不下（约17%），关于社会向上流动前景的失望情绪日益加剧，相关社会讨论也变得愈发激烈。已有超2亿劳动者涌入薪资微薄、劳动强度大的零工行业谋生。

Against that broader backdrop of economic anxiety, fears about A.I. technology replacing workers have intensified, especially after a robotaxi in Wuhan struck a pedestrian, Mr. Sheehan said.

希恩表示，在这种普遍的经济焦虑背景下，人们愈发担忧人工智能取代人工，尤其是发生了武汉自动驾驶出租车撞人一事后。

华为昇腾Atlas 900 A3超级集群的1:1实物展示，该集群专为训练和运行大规模人工智能模型打造。

“Despite being an authoritarian country, the Chinese government is actually very attentive to what people are thinking and feeling and saying on the internet, and they feel like they need to respond,” he said.

“尽管中国是威权国家，但政府实际上非常重视民众在网络上的所思所感以及他们在网上的言论，并且认为必须作出回应，”他说。

The trio of court rulings has offered an early glimpse of what that response might look like. In each case, the courts said employers remained responsible for keeping workers on the payroll, even if A.I. had rendered their jobs redundant. Judges have repeatedly ruled that replacing workers with A.I. is voluntary cost-cutting that does not justify mass layoffs.

这三起司法判决已然初步展现出官方的应对思路。在这些案件中，法院均判定，即便人工智能使得部分岗位变得多余，用人单位依旧有责任保留员工在册。法官多次明确，用人工智能取代工人属于自愿性成本削减，不能作为大规模裁员的理由。

Chinese policymakers appear eager for both workers and employers to get the message. The Hangzhou ruling in favor of the tech worker replaced by A.I. was given a special designation signaling that it should serve as a model for future cases.

中国政策制定者显然希望企业与劳动者都能领会这一信息。杭州这起针对被人工智能取代的技术工作者作出的胜诉判决被定为指导性案例，可供后续同类案件参照审理。

In that case, an employee identified in filings only by the pseudonym Zhou had worked as a quality assurance supervisor at an A.I. company until the technology replaced him. When the company offered him a new role that would cut his salary to 15,000 renminbi per month from 25,000, he refused and was fired. The court ruled his employer had failed to properly accommodate him.

该案中，文书中化名周某的员工曾任职于一家人工智能企业，担任质检工作，后续其岗位被人工智能取代。公司提出调岗，将其月薪从2.5万元降至1.5万元，遭周某拒绝后，公司将其辞退。法院最终认定，用人单位未能对员工作出合理安置，此举属于违法辞退。

Jiang Xiaotong, the lawyer who represented Mr. Zhou, said he “not only suffered a blow to their income but also experienced acute professional anxiety, becoming deeply apprehensive about their future career prospects.”

周某的代理律师姜小童表示，周某“不仅收入受到冲击，也产生了明显的职业焦虑，对未来就业发展充满了担忧。”

Mr. Zhou is “middle-aged and faces significant family and financial pressures,” she said. He is one of the midcareer professionals in China struggling to weather a difficult job market that prizes youth.

她介绍，周某“正值中年，家庭和经济压力都比较大”。作为中国众多中年专业人士中的一员，他正努力应对偏好年轻人的艰难就业市场。

Ms. Jiang said the court’s decision to designate the ruling as one that other courts can follow was significant.

姜晓彤认为，法院将该判决指定为其他法院可参照的判例具有重要意义。

“Now that a precedent-setting case has been established, people are far more willing to take up the weapon of the law to defend their legitimate rights and interests,” she said.

她表示：“如今有了典型案例，大家更加愿意拿起法律武器，维护自身正当权益。”

In a similar case in Beijing, an arbitration panel ruled in favor of a map data collector whose entire department was laid off and replaced with artificial intelligence. The panel found that the company’s adoption of A.I. was a voluntary move to remain competitive and did not warrant the employee’s firing.

在北京一起同类案件中，仲裁机构裁定支持一名地图数据采集员，该员工所在的整个部门被裁员，并被人工智能取代。仲裁机构认为，企业引入人工智能是为提升自身竞争力的自愿举措，不能以此为由辞退员工。

Companies that benefit from technology must, at the same time, adopt “social responsibilities” and protect worker rights, the panel ruled.

仲裁意见指出，享受技术发展红利的企业理应承担“社会责任”，保障劳动者合法权益。

机器人与人工智能正在重塑中国的劳动形态，截至2024年，中国工厂中已有超过200万台机器人投入运行。

Government rhetoric around the deployment of A.I. initially stressed the technology’s benefits to workers. Recently, however, official statements and commentaries by state news outlets have begun to acknowledge artificial intelligence as a potentially corrosive force in the job market.

政府关于部署人工智能的论调最初强调了该技术对劳动者的益处。而近期，官方表态以及官媒评论文章开始承认人工智能对就业市场可能造成的侵蚀性影响。

“The government was really pushing this diffusion agenda,” said Ruby Scanlon, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security. “Increasingly, there’s been a lot more rhetoric and nudges and policy documents to the idea of actually creating a backstop for employees.”

“政府此前确实大力推动这项普及议程，”新美国安全中心研究员露比·斯坎伦表示。“如今，越来越多关于为员工建立保障机制的言论、政策引导及文件正在涌现。”

In China, robots and A.I. have already played a disruptive role in two of the nation’s largest employment categories: manufacturing and food delivery.

在中国，机器人与人工智能已经对制造业与外卖配送行业这两个该国最大就业领域造成冲击。

More than two million robots were already working in Chinese factories as of 2024. And in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Meituan, the nation’s largest food delivery service, has experimented with using small autonomous robots to deliver food. In Shanghai, Meituan delivers over 1,000 meals a day using those robots, according to promotional materials published by Nvidia.

截至2024年，中国工厂投入使用的工业机器人数量已超200万台。在北京、上海、深圳等地，国内最大的外卖平台美团已试点投放小型自主机器人进行送餐。据英伟达发布的宣传资料显示，在上海，美团每日依靠这类机器人配送的订单量超过1000单。

With those changes in mind, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced in January that it would roll out policies to address “the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs,” including “targeted employment support for key industries.”

鉴于这些变化，中国人力资源和社会保障部在今年1月宣布，将出台相关政策应对“人工智能影响促就业”问题，包括“推出重点行业就业支持举措”。

A handful of party officials have proposed sweeping government intervention, such as encouraging employers to offer vocational training to help workers adapt to an A.I.-centric job market. Liu Qingfeng, a tech firm founder and member of the National People’s Congress, has called for a government led “A.I.-unemployment insurance program” to create a safety net for displaced workers.

一些党内官员提议出台全面的政府干预措施，例如鼓励雇主开展职业技能培训，帮助劳动者适应人工智能主导的就业市场。全国人大代表、科技企业创始人刘庆峰呼吁政府主导的“AI失业保险”，为失业人群提供安全网。

For now, though, the focus appears to remain on encouraging companies themselves to hold off on layoffs.

不过现阶段工作的重点似乎仍在于鼓励企业自身暂缓裁员。

“Truly visionary companies will leverage the technological advantages of A.I. to explore new avenues and create new jobs, making technology a driving force for corporate development,” a commentary in March from Xinhua, the state news agency, opined. “Those companies that equate A.I. with ‘reducing staff’ may seem to lower costs in the short term, but in reality, they lose the core competitiveness of talent accumulation and further erode employee trust.”

新华社今年3月发布的评论文章写道：“真正有远见的企业，会借助AI的技术优势开拓新赛道、创造新岗位，让技术成为企业发展的助力。那些把AI等同于‘减人’的企业，看似短期降低了成本，实则失去了人才积累的核心竞争力，更消解了员工对企业的信任感。”

“Taiwan Travelogue,” a love story presented as a rediscovered travelogue from 1930s Taiwan, on Tuesday won the International Booker Prize, the major award for fiction translated into English.

《台湾漫游录》以一部重见天日的1930年代台湾游记的形式展开，实际讲述了一段爱情故事，周二它荣获国际布克奖。该奖项是表彰被翻译成英文的小说作品的主要奖项。

The novel, written by Yang Shuang-zi and translated by Lin King, is the first book originally written in Mandarin to win the prize, as well as the first by a Taiwanese author.

这部由杨双子创作、金翎翻译的小说是首部荣获该奖项的华语原著作品，也是首部由台湾作家创作的获奖作品。

The award, which is presented in the United Kingdom, comes with 50,000 pounds, about $67,000, split equally between author and translator.

该奖项在英国颁发，奖金为5万英镑，由作者和译者平分。

The novel opens in 1938, when Japan occupied Taiwan. A young Japanese novelist arrives on the island hoping to experience life like a local, and particularly to eat her way through all of Taiwan’s culinary specialties. Soon, she falls for her female translator, but struggles to overcome the divide between colonized and colonizer.

小说的故事始于1938年日本统治台湾时期。一位年轻的日本女小说家来到岛上，希望体验当地人的生活，尤其是吃遍台湾所有的特色美食。不久后，她爱上了自己的女翻译，但却苦于难以克服殖民者与被殖民者之间的鸿沟。

Natasha Brown, an author and the chair of this year’s prize jury, said in a news conference that the novel “pulls off an incredible double feat: It succeeds as both a romance and an incisive post-colonial novel.”

作家兼本届评委会主席娜塔莎·布朗在新闻发布会上表示，这部小说“完成了一项令人难以置信的双重壮举：它既是一部成功的浪漫爱情小说，又是一部敏锐的后殖民主义小说。”

“Taiwan Travelogue” features several afterwords and numerous footnotes written by both fake and real translators. Although the book is “in some ways a love letter to translation,” Brown insisted that wasn’t the reason the jury selected it ahead of five other nominated titles. Aside from its literary flourishes, the novel is “a completely engrossing, completely delicious love story,” Brown said.

《台湾漫游录》包含了数篇后记以及大量由虚构和真实译者撰写的脚注。尽管这本书“在某些方面是写给翻译的一封情书”，但布朗坚称，这并不是评委会将其从其他五部提名作品中选出的原因。布朗说，除了文学上的华丽文采之外，这部小说还是“一个完全引人入胜、完全令人甘之如饴的爱情故事”。

Originally awarded to an author for an entire body of work, the International Booker Prize has since 2016 gone to a single book translated into English and published in Britain or Ireland during the previous 12 months. Recent winners have included David Diop’s “At Night All Blood Is Black,” translated by Anna Moschovakis, and Jenny Erpenbeck’s “Kairos,” translated by Michael Hofmann.

国际布克奖最初是为了表彰作家的终身成就而设立的，自2016年起，该奖项改为颁发给在过去12个月内被翻译成英文并在英国或爱尔兰出版的单本著作。近期的获奖作品包括由安娜·莫乔瓦基斯翻译的大卫·迪奥普作品《灵魂兄弟》(At Night All Blood Is Black)，以及由迈克尔·霍夫曼翻译的珍妮·埃彭贝克作品《卡伊洛斯》(Kairos)。

The other books shortlisted this year were “The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin; “The Witch,” by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump; “On Earth As It Is Beneath,” by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan; “The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran,” by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin; and “She Who Remains,” by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel.

今年入围短名单的其他作品包括：丹尼尔·凯尔曼著、罗斯·本杰明自德语翻译的《导演》(The Director)；玛丽·恩迪亚耶著、乔丹·斯图普自法语翻译的《女巫》(The Witch)；安娜·保拉·玛雅著、帕德玛·维斯瓦纳坦自葡萄牙语翻译的《如在地上，如在地下》(On Earth As It Is Beneath)；希达·巴兹亚尔著、鲁斯·马丁自德语翻译的《德黑兰的夜静悄悄》(The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran)；以及雷内·卡拉巴什著、伊齐多拉·安杰尔自保加利亚语翻译的《留下来的人》(She Who Remains)。

Yang is a writer of manga and video game scripts as well as novels. In a recent interview for the Booker Prize’s website, Yang said she began writing the novel with a desire to untangle Taiwan’s complex relationship with Japanese colonialism, which she called a “conflicted mix of distaste and nostalgia.”

除了小说，杨双子还是漫画和游戏剧本作家。在最近接受布克奖网站的采访时，杨双子表示，她开始创作这部小说的初衷是想理清台湾与日本殖民统治之间复杂的纠葛，她将这种关系形容为“厌恶与怀旧交织的矛盾融合”。

Researching its central themes of travel and food “changed my life in two obvious ways: My savings went down; my weight went up,” Yang added.

杨双子补充道，研究小说中旅行与美食的核心主题“在两个显而易见方面改变了我的生活：我的存款减少了；我的体重增加了”。

Before Tuesday’s ceremony, held at the Tate Modern art museum in London, “Taiwan Travelogue” was already one of the most acclaimed books among this year’s nominees.

在周二于伦敦泰特现代美术馆举行颁奖典礼之前，《台湾漫游录》就已经是今年获提名作品中备受赞誉的著作之一。

When the novel was published in Mandarin in 2020, it won a Golden Tripod award, one of Taiwan’s major literary honors. (It is not currently published in China, which claims Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island, as its territory.) The English-language translation published in the United States in 2024 won that year’s National Book Award for Translated Literature.

小说于2020年以中文出版时，曾荣获台湾主要的文学荣誉之一金鼎奖。（目前该书未在中国大陆出版。）其于2024年在美国出版的英文译本则荣获了当年的美国国家图书奖最佳翻译文学奖。

Critics have also lauded the novel. Ángel Gurría-Quintana, writing in The Financial Times, called it a “rich and heady” meditation on language and longing.

评论界对这部小说也赞誉有加。安赫尔·古里亚-金塔纳在《金融时报》上撰文，称其是对语言与渴望的一次“丰富且令人陶醉”的沉思。

Shahnaz Habib, writing in The New York Times Book Review, said that “Taiwan Travelogue” was “a delightfully slippery novel about how power shapes relationships, and what travel reveals and conceals.” It was, Habib added, a “virtuosic performance of literary polyphony.”

沙赫纳兹·哈比卜在《纽约时报书评》上写道，《台湾漫游录》是“一部令人愉悦、捉摸不定的小说，讲述了权力如何重塑人际关系，以及旅行所揭示和掩盖的东西”。哈比卜补充说，这是一场“文学复调的精湛表演”。

After her name was announced on Tuesday, Yang took to the stage, her hands covered in too much dessert to unfold her notes. She then gave an impassioned speech about the meaning of literature and its importance to Taiwan, with King translating.

周二颁奖礼上宣布她的名字后，杨双子走上舞台，因为手上有太多的甜点而无法展开她的演讲稿。随后，通过金翎的翻译，她就文学的意义及其对台湾的重要性发表了饱含深情的演讲。

“Literature has never ceded ground, nor given up on dialogue between people,” Yang said. “The century-old inquiries in Taiwan’s literature are in fact the century-old pursuit of freedom and equality by Taiwan’s people.”

“文学从来没有放弃坚守自己，也没有放弃与他人对话，”杨双子说，“台湾文学的百年探问实际正是台湾人对自由与平等的百年追求。”

The leaders of South Korea and Japan were not supposed to get along.

韩国和日本的领导人本不该相处得如此融洽。

President Lee Jae Myung earned his stripes in a political party that was long skeptical of rapprochement with Japan, which brutally oppressed Korea as a colonial ruler. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has a reputation for arguing that Japan’s wartime atrocities, including on the Korean Peninsula, have been exaggerated.

李在明总统是在一个长期对韩日和解持怀疑态度的政党中崭露头角的——日本作为殖民统治者曾对韩国实施过残酷的压迫。高市早苗首相则向来以辩称日本的战时暴行（包括在朝鲜半岛的暴行）被夸大而闻名。

Yet when the two leaders met in Andong, South Korea, on Tuesday — their third summit since October — both reaffirmed what Ms. Takaichi described as a “deepening friendship and trust.”

然而，周二这两位领导人在韩国安东会面时——这是他们自去年10月以来的第三次首脑会晤——双方都再次确认了高市早苗所形容的“不断加深的友谊与信任”。

Mr. Lee characterized the two nations as “strategic partners in jointly responding to the rapidly changing international environment.”

李在明将两国关系定性为“共同应对快速变化的国际环境的战略合作伙伴”。

Referring to shocks from the Iran war, he added, “In particular, we agreed that close bilateral cooperation is needed more than ever amid the instability in supply chains and energy markets arising from the recent situation in the Middle East.”

在谈到伊朗战争带来的冲击时，他补充道：“特别是，我们一致认为，在近期中东局势引发的供应链和能源市场动荡之中，比以往任何时候都更需要两国之间的紧密合作。”

Here’s what to know about Ms. Takaichi’s two-day trip.

以下是关于高市早苗为期两天的访问所需要了解的信息。

What is the history of Korean-Japanese ties?

韩日关系经历了怎样的变迁？

Although South Korea and Japan are both key U.S. allies, they have frequently clashed over historical and territorial disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945. The United States has long urged both nations to leave these grievances behind and to work together to help contain China’s expanding military and economic influence.

尽管都是美国的核心盟友，但由于1910年至1945年日本对韩国的殖民统治所引发的历史和领土争端，韩国和日本频繁发生冲突。长期以来，美国一直敦促两国摒弃这些历史恩怨，携手合作，以帮助遏制中国不断扩大的军事和经济影响力。

(Over the weekend, President Trump called both Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Lee to brief them on his talks with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing last week.)

（就在周末，特朗普总统致电高市早苗和李在明，向他们通报了上周他在北京与中国领导人习近平会谈的情况。）

Relations hit a low point around 2019 when the two governments revived a bitter dispute over the legacy of so-called comfort women — Korean women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II.

2019年左右，两国关系跌入低谷，当时两国政府再度因所谓的“慰安妇”——二战期间被强征为日本军队性奴隶的韩国女性——历史遗留问题爆发了激烈争端。

But Mr. Lee’s predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, repaired ties with Tokyo, arguing that historical differences should not hinder cooperation against security threats from North Korea and China. While Mr. Yoon won praise from Washington, he faced intense domestic backlash, especially from Mr. Lee’s Democratic Party, which was then the main opposition. Mr. Yoon was eventually removed from office following his brief imposition of martial law.

但李在明的前任尹锡悦修复了与东京的关系，他认为历史分歧不应阻碍两国防范来自朝鲜和中国的安全威胁。虽然尹锡悦赢得了华盛顿的赞誉，但他面临着国内的强烈反对，尤其是来自当时作为主要反对党的李在明所属的共同民主党。尹锡悦最终在他实施的那场短暂的戒严后被罢免。

Mr. Lee, a fierce critic of Mr. Yoon, won the presidency last June. Four months later, Ms. Takaichi became Japan’s first female prime minister.

曾对尹锡悦提出激烈批评的李在明在去年6月赢得了总统选举。四个月后，高市早苗成为了日本首位女性首相。

Observers in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington feared that Korean-Japanese relations were poised to turn frosty again.

首尔、东京和华盛顿的观察家此前一度担心，韩日关系可能会再次落至冰点。

How did the two leaders get along?

两位领导人是如何建立起良好关系的？

Mr. Lee and Ms. Takaichi surprised the skeptics.

李在明和高市早苗让质疑者们大跌眼镜。

Upon taking office, Mr. Lee championed pragmatism as a pillar of his diplomacy — an approach that involved strengthening the traditional alliance with Washington while simultaneously improving relations with China and North Korea. It also meant he would not allow historical grievances to stand in the way of a closer partnership with Japan.

执政后，李在明将务实主义奉为其外交政策的支柱——这包括在加强与华盛顿传统盟友关系的同时，改善与中国和朝鲜的关系。这也意味着他不会让历史恩怨阻碍与日本建立更紧密的伙伴关系。

Soon after Ms. Takaichi took office, she met with Mr. Lee in Gyeongju, South Korea. Mr. Lee visited her hometown, Nara, in January. A particularly symbolic moment of their developing relationship came when Ms. Takaichi, an amateur heavy metal drummer, invited Mr. Lee — who had no drumming experience — to join her in playing along to K-pop hits, including “Dynamite” by BTS and “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.”

高市早苗就职后不久便在韩国庆州与李在明会面。李在明随后于今年1月访问了高市的家乡奈良。两人关系发展中一个极具象征意义的时刻是：身为业余重金属鼓手的高市早苗邀请毫无击鼓经验的李在明加入她，共同为K-pop热门歌曲伴奏，其中包括防弹少年团的《Dynamite》以及出自《KPop猎魔女团》的《Golden》。

Mr. Lee later invited Ms. Takaichi to his hometown, Andong in central South Korea — an ancient city once renowned for the Confucian scholars who served in royal courts.

李在明随后邀请高市早苗访问他的家乡——位于韩国中部的安东。这是一座古老的城市，曾因出过许多在朝廷任职的儒家学者而闻名。

Within South Korea, and within Mr. Lee’s own Democratic Party, voices have grown in recent years calling for closer cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo to address global supply chain disruptions and deepening geopolitical uncertainty, including the rapidly shifting foreign policy of the Trump administration.

近年来，在韩国国内以及李在明所属的共同民主党内部，呼吁首尔与东京密切合作以应对全球供应链中断和日益加剧的地缘政治不确定性——包括特朗普政府快速转变的外交政策——的声音不断扩大。

“Geopolitically, South Korea and Japan have all the more reason to work together to uphold a rules-based international order in light of Russia and North Korea’s sanctions-violating military transactions, China’s expansionist policies in Asia, and trade uncertainties related to Trump’s tariffs and conflict in the Middle East,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

韩国首尔梨花女子大学国际研究教授雷夫-埃里克·伊斯利表示：“从地缘政治的角度来看，鉴于俄罗斯和朝鲜违反制裁的军事交易、中国在亚洲的扩张性政策，以及与特朗普关税和中东冲突相关的贸易不确定性，韩国和日本更有理由携手维护基于规则的国际秩序。”

What’s on the menu?

访问行程中还有哪些安排？

South Korean officials were eager to build on the good will between the two leaders, extending to Ms. Takaichi what they described as “honors and courtesies equivalent to those accorded during a state visit.” A traditional Korean honor guard — resplendent with trumpets and drums — escorted her limousine as it arrived for the summit.

韩国官员非常渴望巩固两位领导人之间的友好关系，向高市早苗提供了他们所形容的“相当于国事访问级别的礼遇和接待”。当高市的座驾抵达首尔参加峰会时，一支身着盛装、奏着小号和军鼓的韩国传统仪仗队为其护航。

After talks on weighty geopolitical issues, they shared a dinner featuring Andong-style braised chicken — a dish beloved in Korea — paired with Andong soju and Nara sake. They will then visit Andong’s Hahoe Folk Village, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its traditional tiled houses, to see performances of Korean music and a fire art display.

在就重大的地缘政治议题举行会谈后，他们共同享用了晚餐，菜品包括在韩国广受欢迎的安东炖鸡，并搭配了安东烧酒和奈良清酒。随后，他们将前往被列入联合国教科文组织世界文化遗产名录的安东河回民俗村——那里以传统的瓦房闻名，并欣赏韩国音乐演出和烟火艺术表演。

Ms. Takaichi said she looked forward to continuing shuttle diplomacy, asking Mr. Lee to keep in touch through frequent phone calls and to visit Japan again. “Shall we go to a hot spring the next time you are in Japan? Or where should we go?” she said, looking at Mr. Lee. “I assure you that I will take you to a beautiful place.”

高市早苗表示，她期待继续开展穿梭外交，并请李在明通过频繁的电话保持联系并再次访问日本。她看着李在明说：“下次您来日本时，我们去泡温泉怎么样？或者我们该去哪里呢？我保证会带您去一个美丽的地方。”

Elon Musk lost his bid to derail OpenAI. Few will feel sorry for him.

埃隆·马斯克试图阻止OpenAI的努力失败。很少有人会为他感到遗憾。

Unless you are a corporate chieftain or a venture capitalist, you might want to take a moment, however, to feel sorry for yourself. The juggernaut of artificial intelligence bearing down on the world is probably not your friend.

但如果你不是企业高管或风险投资家，你或许应该花点时间为自己感到遗憾。正在向全世界压来的这台人工智能巨无霸很可能并不是你的朋友。

If you are a clerk, a programmer, an administrator, a writer, an entry-level knowledge worker of any sort, you have already been warned that A.I. might replace you. Even if those worries prove overblown in the short term, the new technology could push down incomes.

如果你是一名文员、程序员、行政人员、作家，或任何初级知识工作者，你早已被警告说人工智能可能会取代你。即使这些担忧在短期内被证明言过其实，这项新技术也可能压低收入。

The speedy collapse of Mr. Musk’s legal case on Monday will not slow down the juggernaut. If anything, it will speed up. With rising emotions around the country, this could be a long, hot A.I. summer.

马斯克的诉讼在周一的迅速崩溃不会减缓这台巨无霸的前进速度。如果有什么影响的话，它只会加速。随着全国情绪不断高涨，这可能将是一个漫长而炎热的人工智能之夏。

A.I. critics dismissed the three-week trial in federal court in Oakland, Calif., as a power struggle between oligarchs that was of little concern to the masses. But it was also a rare glimpse into the seething maw of Silicon Valley as it makes a bid to transform, and possibly take over, the world.

人工智能批评者将这场在加州奥克兰联邦法院进行的为期三周的审判斥为寡头之间的权力斗争，与普通民众无关。但它也罕见地让我们一窥硅谷的血盆大口——它正试图改造世界，并可能接管世界。

OpenAI律师威廉·萨维特在周一胜诉后。

As the A.I. industry likes to remind us, the stakes could not be higher. “The worst-case situation,” Mr. Musk pointed out in his trial testimony, is one where A.I. will “kill us all.”

正如人工智能行业喜欢提醒我们的那样，此案至关重要。马斯克在庭审证词中指出，“最糟糕的情况”是人工智能会“杀死我们所有人”。

Mr. Musk was undoubtedly seeking to benefit Elon Musk in his pursuit of OpenAI, the leading A.I. company, and its chief executive, Sam Altman. Mr. Musk, 54, argued that OpenAI was trying to make as much money as possible from the beginning, a violation of its self-proclaimed mission as a charity putting humanity first.

马斯克无疑是在追求自身利益，他试图挑战领先的人工智能公司OpenAI及其首席执行官萨姆·奥尔特曼。54岁的马斯克辩称，OpenAI从一开始就试图尽可能多地赚钱，这违反了它自称的作为优先考虑人类的慈善机构的使命。

Was A.I. fundamentally a bait and switch? It’s a question that was emphatically worth asking. It would have been nice to have a court ruling that provided a definitive answer.

人工智能是否从根本上是在挂羊头卖狗肉？这是一个非常值得提出的问题。要是能从一份法庭裁决中得到明确答案就好了。

“The fundamental issue still stands,” said Oren Etzioni, a veteran A.I. researcher who was the founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for A.I., a nonprofit. “Can a nonprofit of any kind become a for-profit willy-nilly?”

“根本问题依然存在，”非营利机构艾伦人工智能研究所创始首席执行官、资深人工智能研究员奥伦·埃齐奥尼说。“一个非营利组织能否随意变成营利组织？”

The nine men and women of the jury did not consider the merits of Mr. Musk’s argument but decided the statute of limitations meant his lawsuit could not proceed.

陪审团的九名男女成员没有考虑马斯克的论述的价值，而是裁定诉讼时效已过，他的诉讼无法继续。

“The A.I. trial of the century ends with a whimper,” wrote Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist who is a prominent critic of A.I. companies. “And so there are some things we will never know.”

“这场人工智能世纪审判就这样虎头蛇尾地结束了，”著名人工智能公司批评者、认知科学家加里·马库斯写道。“因此，有些事情我们永远不会知道了。”

Mr. Musk’s challenge to OpenAI ended, at least for the moment, rather differently than the recent court cases against social media. Losses in Los Angeles and New Mexico in the last few months, and the specter of more trials to come later this year, are putting that part of the tech industry on the defensive.

马斯克对OpenAI的挑战至少在目前结束了，其结局与最近针对社交媒体的法庭案件相当不同。过去几个月，洛杉矶和新墨西哥的败诉以及今年晚些时候更多审判的临近正让科技行业的这一部分处于守势。

Any reckoning against A.I. will have to come in another form at another time.

对人工智能的任何清算都只能在另一个时间以另一种形式出现。

Mr. Musk tried his best. If one of his goals was to humiliate Mr. Altman, 41, once a buddy and now a nemesis, he managed to accomplish a bit of that in the court of public opinion. These revelations go to the center of people’s biggest concerns about A.I.: Can it be trusted? And can the people in charge of it be trusted?

马斯克已尽了最大努力。如果他的目标之一是羞辱41岁的前好友、现死敌奥尔特曼，那么他在舆论法庭上确实取得了一点成果。这些揭露直指人们对人工智能的最大担忧：它可信吗？负责管理它的人可信吗？

奥尔特曼在加利福尼亚州奥克兰联邦法院出席了由马斯克对OpenAI提起的诉讼庭审。

No one at OpenAI ended up looking particularly good in the trial. Mr. Musk had accused Mr. Altman of “perfidy” and “deceit” and said OpenAI’s leadership “unjustly enriched” themselves “to the tune of billions of dollars.”

在这场审判中，OpenAI没有哪个人的形象显得特别光彩。马斯克曾指责奥尔特曼“背信弃义”和“欺诈”，并称OpenAI的领导层将“数十亿美元”中饱私囊。

“Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity,” the OpenAI charter states. But if the company is acting in the people’s best interests, why is everyone who works there getting so rich? Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, confirmed his stake was now worth nearly $30 billion. Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder who has since left, said he had a $7 billion stake.

OpenAI的章程宣称：“我们的首要信托责任是对全人类负责。”但如果该公司是在为公众的最大利益行事，为什么那里的每个员工都变得如此富有？OpenAI总裁格雷格·布罗克曼证实，他的股份现在价值接近300亿美元。已离职的OpenAI联合创始人伊利亚·苏茨克维尔表示，他拥有价值70亿美元的股份。

(As for Mr. Altman, he has repeatedly maintained he has no direct stake in OpenAI. “I’m doing this because I love it,” he told a Senate subcommittee in 2023. It emerged during the trial, however, that he has stakes worth $2 billion in companies that directly do business with OpenAI. He said he was recused from negotiating the deals.)

（至于奥尔特曼，他一再坚称自己没有直接持有OpenAI的股份。“我做这个是因为我热爱，”他在2023年对参议院小组委员会如是说。然而，庭审期间透露，他在与OpenAI有直接业务往来的公司中拥有价值20亿美元的股份。他辩称，在谈这些交易时他都主动回避了。）

And then there is the question of safety — especially important with a technology so potentially dangerous.

接着便是安全问题——对于一项具有如此潜在危险的技术来说，这尤为重要。

“Obviously we’d comply with/aggressively support all regulation,” Mr. Altman told Mr. Musk in 2015 in an email that became an exhibit in the trial. But OpenAI, like nearly every tech company, did not end up a fan of regulation at all.

“显然，我们会遵守并积极支持所有监管，”奥尔特曼在2015年给马斯克的一封邮件中写道，这封邮件后来成了庭审证物。但最终，OpenAI就像几乎所有的科技公司一样，根本不希望受到监管。

Ross Gerber, the chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki, a wealth and investment management firm in Santa Monica, Calif., that invested in Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, said the lawsuit did not hurt Mr. Altman’s reputation or help Mr. Musk improve his public perception. “The good news is that people hate both of them,” Mr. Gerber said.

位于加州圣莫尼卡的财富与投资管理公司Gerber Kawasaki（该公司投资了马斯克的火箭公司SpaceX）的首席执行官罗斯·格伯表示，这场诉讼既没有损害奥尔特曼的声誉，也没能帮助马斯克改善公众对他的看法。“好消息是，这两个人都令人生厌，”格伯说。

“The public is already fearful of A.I.,” the investor added. “I don’t think they dispelled that in any way through this lawsuit.”

这位投资人补充道：“公众对AI已经心存恐惧。我不认为他们通过这场诉讼在任何程度上消除了这种恐惧。”

Out in the real world, that fear is rising almost by the day.

而在现实世界中，这种恐惧几乎与日俱增。

Many people seem to be uniting behind the idea that they don’t want power-hungry A.I. data centers in their community. Speakers who celebrate A.I. and expect their audiences to do so as well are getting a rude reception. And violence is beginning to flare: Last month, a man traveled to San Francisco to throw a Molotov cocktail at the Mr. Altman’s house. No one was hurt, and he was arrested.

许多人似乎正在达成一种共识，那就是他们不希望自己的社区里出现耗能巨大的AI数据中心。那些赞美AI并期待听众也随之喝彩的演讲者们正在遭遇粗暴的喝倒彩。暴力事件也开始显现：上个月，一名男子前往旧金山，向奥尔特曼的住宅投掷了汽油弹。所幸无人受伤，该男子已被逮捕。

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)

（《纽约时报》于2023 年起诉OpenAI和微软，指控其在AI系统中侵犯了新闻内容的版权。两家公司均否认了这些指控。）

A.I. has pretty much a green light from Congress, the Trump administration, the courts and Wall Street. There is a scattering of opposition among state regulators and isolated lawmakers, but so far it hasn’t amounted to much. All of which leaves the increasing anger felt by those clerks, administrators, writers and other citizens with pretty much nowhere to go.

如今，AI几乎获得了国会、特朗普政府、法院以及华尔街的一致认可。虽然州级监管机构和个别议员中存在零星的反对声音，但到目前为止还没有掀起什么风浪。这一切使得那些文员、行政人员、作家和其他普通公民心中日益高涨的愤怒，几乎无处宣泄。

Wall Street expects smooth sailing from here. “OpenAI can shift its strategic focus to capitalizing on the A.I. Revolution taking place front and center given its strong market position in the space,” Dan Ives, an analyst, wrote after the verdict.

华尔街预计此后将是一帆风顺。分析师丹·艾夫斯在判决后写道：“鉴于OpenAI在该领域的强劲市场地位，它可以将战略重心转向利用正处于核心地位的AI革命来变现。”

OpenAI’s public offering, which may be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion, is expected as soon as later this year.

OpenAI的公开上市预计最早将于今年晚些时候进行，其估值可能在1万亿美元左右。

Mr. Musk did not get a win on Monday, but he still has his lawyers and his Ahab-like quest to sink the OpenAI whale. He wrote on X, “I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”

虽然在周一没能拿到胜果，马斯克依然拥有强大的律师团队，并且依然像亚哈船长执迷于捕杀白鲸那样誓要击沉OpenAI。他在X上写道：“我将向第九巡回法院提起上诉，因为开创一个掠夺慈善机构的先例对美国的慈善捐赠事业有极大的毁灭性。”

Even the most capable autocrats cannot rule alone.

就算是最有能力的独裁者也无法独自统治。

In Russia, Vladimir Putin needs his circle of handpicked oligarchs; in Iran, the Revolutionary Guard and its allies in the business world protect the regime’s power; Viktor Orban transformed Hungary into an “elected autocracy” with the help of a few crucial judges, political enforcers and friendly tycoons. But to actually carry out the dirty work of consolidating and maintaining power, such leaders rely on help from a far greater number of lower- and midlevel people: military officers, secret police and bureaucrats.

在俄罗斯，普京需要他亲手挑选的寡头圈子；在伊朗，革命卫队及其商界盟友保护着政权的权力；欧尔班在几位关键法官、政治执行者和友好财阀的帮助下，将匈牙利转变为一个“民选专制政体”。但要真正执行巩固和维持权力的肮脏工作，这些领导人还依赖数量庞大得多的中下层人员：军官、秘密警察和官僚。

Yet until recently, researchers paid little attention to how leaders convince and recruit ground-level workers to go along with their demands. The incentives for elites to stay loyal have been studied extensively, but the rank and file have remained something of a black box. In the absence of real data, researchers have tended to assume that they cooperate because of ideological extremism, fear of persecution or some combination of the two.

然而，直到前不久，研究人员还很少关注领导人如何说服和招募基层人员来配合其要求。精英阶层保持忠诚的动机已经被广泛研究，但普通基层人员仍然像是一个黑箱。在缺乏真实数据的情况下，研究人员往往倾向于假设他们之所以合作，是因为意识形态极端主义、对迫害的恐惧，或者是两者的结合。

New research, drawing on an extraordinary data set from Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s and ’80s, suggests a very different explanation. It turns out that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality. The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead.

基于1970年代和80年代阿根廷“肮脏战争”的一组非凡数据，新的研究提出了一种截然不同的解释。研究发现，世界各地职场人士熟悉的职业压力——渴望重振停滞不前的职业生涯，或者获得一次小小的晋升——足以激励中下层官员违背职业义务、基本规范乃至最基本的道德。研究表明，做出这些决定的人既不是极端分子，也不是受害者。他们通常只是寻找出头之日的普通打工人。

“Making a Career in Dictatorship,” a new book by two German political scientists, Adam Scharpf and Christian Glassel, reads like what you might get if you crossed Hannah Arendt’s ideas about the “banality of evil” with a business school guide on how to get the most out of low performers.

德国政治学家亚当·沙尔普夫和克里斯蒂安·格拉塞尔合著的新书《在独裁政权中谋求职业发展》(Making a Career in Dictatorship)读起来就像是将汉娜·阿伦特关于“平庸之恶”的观点与商学院关于如何充分激发低绩效员工潜力的指南结合在一起。

Their in-depth study of Argentina’s military during that country’s era of coups and forced disappearances found that low performers — whom they refer to as “career-pressured” individuals — filled the ranks of the secret police. That service allowed them to “detour” around the ordinary military hierarchy, the book shows, achieving promotions and career success they could never have managed otherwise.

他们对阿根廷政变和强迫失踪时期的军队进行了深入研究，发现低绩效者（他们称之为“面临职业压力”的个人）充斥于秘密警察队伍。该书表明，这份工作使他们能够“绕过”常规的军队层级制度，获得他们原本无法企及的晋升和职业成功。

It turns out that would-be authoritarians don’t need to staff their regimes with ideological true believers, offer extreme enticements or impose draconian punishments in order to make successful power grabs. They just need to figure out how to target their ideal labor pool: the frustrated and mediocre.

事实证明，潜在的威权统治者不需要用意识形态上的死忠分子来充实政权，也不需要提供极端的诱惑或是施加严厉的惩罚，就能成功夺取权力。他们只需要弄清楚如何锁定他们理想的劳动力群体：那些受挫的平庸之辈。

Their conclusions have implications for countries around the world grappling with the stability of their democracies — including the United States.

他们的结论对世界上正在苦苦应对民主稳定性问题的国家（包括美国）具有启示意义。

A Data Set of Mediocrity

一份关于平庸的数据集

When he was a young doctoral student, Scharpf was conducting dissertation research in Buenos Aires when a government official dropped a fateful offhand comment during a conversation in a cafe. During the military dictatorship, the official said, the intelligence officers who did the regime’s worst dirty work were “essentially idiots.”

当沙尔普夫还是一名年轻的博士生时，他在布宜诺斯艾利斯进行论文研究。有一次，他在一家咖啡馆与一位政府官员交谈时，对方随口说出了一句决定性的话。这位官员说，在军事独裁时期，为政权干最肮脏勾当的情报官员“基本上都是白痴”。

At first, Scharpf thought the man was just being insulting. He soon realized that the official meant the comment literally — that the military junta’s secret police had been, in his view, incompetent losers.

起初，沙尔普夫以为这个人只是在骂人。但他很快意识到，这位官员说的是真话——在他看来，军政府的秘密警察确实是一群无能的失败者。

When he returned to his university in Germany, he mentioned the discussion to his colleague, Glassel. Both men saw a glimmer of social-science possibility. They decided to learn more. Argentina, it turned out, had published information on all of its military officers’ graduation ranks, promotions and retirements going back to the late 1800s, which meant that it was possible to identify and track the low performers. And because secret police work during the Dirty War was conducted primarily by army intelligence Battalion 601, the researchers could trace exactly which officers joined the unit, how long they stayed and what happened to their careers.

回到德国的大学后，他向同事格拉塞尔提到了这次讨论。两人都从中看到了社会科学研究的可能性。他们决定深入探究。后来，阿根廷公布了自19世纪末以来所有军官的毕业排名、晋升和退役信息，这意味着识别和追踪其中的低绩效者成为可能。而且，由于在“肮脏战争”期间，秘密警察工作主要由陆军601情报营负责，研究人员可以准确地追踪哪些军官加入了该部队、他们在那里待了多久，以及他们的职业生涯情况如何。

在“肮脏战争”期间，那些因国家安全部门而“失踪”者的母亲和亲属在抗议。

The data showed that the official’s offhand comment had been right. For the most part, the Argentine military operated under a meritocratic “up or out” system. Officers who underperformed early would fall behind their peers, and eventually be forced into retirement. But Battalion 601 offered a detour around that meritocracy: Low performers could transfer into the secret police, spend a few years earning promotions there and then return to the regular army, often leapfrogging over peers who had stayed with the regular forces. Men who took the detour ended up with longer careers, higher salaries and better pensions than similar individuals who stayed in the mainstream military units.

数据显示，那位官员随口说的话确实没错。在大多数情况下，阿根廷军队实行的是任人唯贤的“不进则退”制度。早期表现不佳的军官会落后于同龄人，最终被迫退役。但601营提供了绕过这套精英体制的迂回路径：低绩效者可以调入秘密警察部队，在那里待上几年时间，获得晋升，然后返回正规军，往往还能超越那些一直留在正规部队的同僚。走这条迂回路径的人，最终往往比留在主流军事单位的同类人员拥有更长的职业生涯、更高的薪水和更好的养老金。

How Regimes Rely on ‘Loyal Losers’

政权如何依赖“忠诚的失意者”

Ordinarily, of course, it is very difficult to get complete information on who a regime’s “dirty workers” are or what motivated them to take those jobs. So there aren’t really comprehensive data sets to compare with Glassel and Scharpf’s research on Argentina.

当然，在通常情况下，要全面了解一个政权里的“脏活执行者”究竟是谁、他们从事这些工作的动机是什么，是非常困难的。因此，实际上并不存在能够与格拉塞尔和沙尔普夫关于阿根廷的研究进行对比的全面的数据集。

However, available information suggests that other countries may have followed a similar pattern. For example, Glassel and Scharpf found that superiors in the Nazi bureaucracy skillfully exploited career pressures to recruit commanders for the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing squads that carried out the “Holocaust by bullets” in Eastern Europe. Many of the recruits had backgrounds that placed them at a disadvantage, such as records blemished by disciplinary proceedings, unclear “racial purity” or lack of military and policing experience. Zealous service in the killing squads helped them improve their careers.

然而，现有信息表明，其他国家可能也出现过类似的模式。例如，格拉塞尔和沙尔普夫发现，纳粹官僚体系构中的上级官员非常善于利用职业晋升压力，为别动队招募指挥官。别动队是在东欧执行“子弹大屠杀”的流动杀戮队。许多被招募者都存在某种劣势，例如因纪律处分而留下不良记录、“种族纯洁性”存疑，或者缺乏军事与警务经验。而在杀戮队中的卖力表现则有助于他们改善自己的职业前途。

In the Soviet Union, the NKVD, the secret police who killed hundreds of thousands of people during the so-called Great Terror of 1937, “deliberately recruited individuals with poor formal skills and knowledge,” Glassel and Scharpf write, often with no more than a primary school education. Senior commanders nurtured their subordinates’ fear of failure by instigating competition between different offices to see who could arrest more people.

格拉塞尔和沙尔普夫写到，在苏联，内务人民委员部——1937年“大清洗”期间杀害数十万人的秘密警察机构NKVD——“刻意招募那些正规技能和知识水平低下的人”，他们的教育程度往往不超过小学。高级指挥官通过在各个部门之间挑起竞争、看谁能逮捕更多人，来培植下属对失败的恐惧。

In the modern era, autocratic leaders often win power via elections, and then dismantle checks and balances to concentrate power in their own hands. That process tends to be far less violent than the acts carried out by the Argentine military junta or Stalin’s NKVD, but over time it sharply curtails political competition and freedom of expression.

在当代，威权领导人往往借助选举赢得权力，随后再逐步拆除制衡机制，将权力集中到自己手上。这一过程通常远不及阿根廷军政府或斯大林时期NKVD那样充满血腥暴力，但随着时间推移，它会对政治竞争和言论自由造成严重的压制。

1943年，在卡廷森林的一处万人坑中进行挖掘工作，斯大林领导的内务人民委员部曾将约2.2万名被其杀害的波兰战俘的遗体抛弃于此。

Although each country has its own idiosyncrasies, that process tends to follow a pattern, said Erica Frantz, a political scientist at Michigan State University who studies democratic backsliding. Initially, elected would-be autocrats often appoint “loyal losers” to important positions to rubber-stamp their power grabs, Frantz said. “The leader knows that people are going to be more likely to be loyal if they don’t have many other career options, so when I say losers, I kind of mean it literally,” she said.

密歇根州立大学研究民主倒退问题的政治学家埃丽卡·弗兰茨表示，尽管每个国家都各有特色，但这一过程往往遵循一种模式。弗兰茨说，最开始，当选的潜在威权者常常将“忠诚的失意者”任命到重要岗位，让他们对自己攫取权力的行为“盖章放行”。她说：“领导人知道，如果一个人没有太多别的职业出路，他就更容易保持忠诚。所以，所以当我说‘失意者’的时候，某种意义上真的是字面意思。”

The American Case

美国的情况

For Americans, this is not just an academic question. Many experts worry that democratic decay appears to be progressing especially quickly during President Donald Trump’s second term.

对美国人来说，这并非纯粹的学术问题。许多专家担心，在特朗普总统的第二任期内，美国民主制度的衰败迹象似乎正在明显加速。

Frantz sees parallels between Trump’s presidency and some of the elected authoritarian leaders she has studied elsewhere. Although Trump did not create the Republican Party, he has reshaped it over the last decade into an institution centered around himself. And a number of his Cabinet members and political appointees, particularly in his second term, appear to fit the paradigm of loyalists whose resumes would be unlikely to land them roles in any other administration.

弗兰茨认为，特朗普的执政方式与她研究过的一些“民选威权领导人”存在相似之处。虽然特朗普并不是共和党的创建者，但过去十年里，他已经把共和党重塑成了一个高度围绕个人运转的政治组织。而且，他的一些内阁成员与政治任命官员——尤其是在第二任期——看起来也符合那种忠诚失意者的模式：他们的履历不太可能在其他任何政府中为他们谋得类似职务。

匈牙利总理欧尔班在4月举行的最后一场竞选集会上。尽管他已在司法系统、新闻媒体等各个领域安插了亲信，还是在选举中落败。

So the Trump administration’s apparent attempts to secure political control over the armed services, as well as the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stand out as worrying even when compared with other cases, Frantz said. Elected leaders “tinkering with” the security services “tends to be something that we see once a system has already transitioned to authoritarianism,” she said, rather than when democracy is in decline.

弗兰茨说，正因如此，特朗普政府明显试图对武装部队、联邦调查局和移民与海关执法局进行政治控制的举动，即便与其他国家的情况相比，也显得尤为令人忧虑。她说，民选领导人对安全机构“动手脚”，“通常意味着一个体制已经完成向威权主义的转型”，而不仅仅是民主正在衰退。

Glassel and Scharpf are concerned that Trump’s planned expansion of ICE, in particular, could make it an ideal venue for “detouring” by ambitious underperformers who could be deployed for anti-democratic purposes. The worry is especially profound given the storming of the Capitol at the end of Trump’s first term, albeit by a less organized band of loyalists.

格拉塞尔和沙尔普夫担心，特朗普计划扩大移民与海关执法局的规模，可能会使其成为那些能力平庸但野心勃勃的人通过“绕道晋升”获得发展机会的理想场所，这些人可能继而被调遣用于反民主目的。这种担忧之所以格外强烈，也与特朗普第一任期结束时发生的国会山骚乱有关——尽管那次行动的参与者还只是一个组织较为松散的忠诚者群体。

The playbook for a leader to create a loyal security service, they said, is to set up or repurpose an institution that can become a “second ladder” for career promotions, resource it generously and ensure that the barriers to getting hired there are low, signaling that it offers career opportunities to those who cannot find them elsewhere. (Cutting other government jobs or squeezing budgets can create a larger pool of potential recruits.) The leadership then signals impunity for people on that second ladder, to assure them that they won’t face consequences for wrongdoing.

两位学者表示，一个领导人若想建立一支忠诚的安全力量，通常会采用这样一套剧本：首先，建立或改造一个机构，使其成为职业晋升的“第二阶梯”；
然后，为这个机构投入大量资源，同时降低进入门槛，以此向那些在别处谋不到出路的人发出机会信号。（削减其他政府部门职位或压缩预算，也会扩大潜在招募对象。）接下来，领导层再向这条“第二阶梯”上的人释放“免责”信号，让他们相信，自己不会因为不当行为而面临后果。

The administration seems to tick those boxes, even if Trump’s intentions are obscure. (The president has spoken openly of a third term in violation of the Constitution and disparaged the need for an election.) ICE remains an anti-immigration force, but it is set to be radically expanded, with a budget that would dwarf other federal law-enforcement agencies if the current funding bill passes. The Trump administration has drastically cut employment in other federal agencies, leaving thousands of people unemployed or fearful that they soon might be. And top officials in the administration, including Vice President JD Vance and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, explicitly assured ICE officers of “immunity” after immigration officers killed a protester in Minneapolis in January.

这届政府似乎正在一一对应，尽管特朗普的真实意图尚不明朗。（特朗普曾公开谈及违反宪法谋求第三任期，并贬低选举的必要性。）移民与海关执法局目前仍是针对移民的的执法力量，但正处于大规模扩张之中——若当前的拨款法案获得通过，其预算规模将使其他联邦执法机构相形见绌。特朗普政府已大幅裁减其他联邦机构的工作岗位，导致数千人失业，或人心惶惶地担忧自己即将步其后尘。政府高层官员——包括副总统万斯和特朗普的副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒——在移民官员于今年1月在明尼阿波利斯打死一名抗议者后，明确向移民与海关执法局官员人员承诺“豁免权”。

At the same time, it has become easier than ever to become an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Ryan Schwank, a former training academy instructor, testified to Congress in February that new cadets “are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.” ICE recruits must now complete only nine practical examinations to graduate from the training academy, compared with 25 exams that were listed in a training syllabus dated July 2021. It’s a good career opportunity for someone looking to get ahead.

与此同时，成为一名移民与海关执法局探员比以往任何时候都容易。前培训学院教官瑞安·施万克今年2月在国会作证称，新学员“毕业时，培训人员普遍担心，即便到了培训最后阶段，他们也依然无法证明自己真正掌握了执行任务所需的战术与法律知识”。如今，移民与海关执法局的招募对象只需完成九项实操考试即可从培训学院毕业，而根据2021年7月的培训大纲，列出的考试项目为25项。对于一个想要出人头地的人来说，这无疑是个不错的职业机会。

Until recently, making a hit microdrama — the soapy, short-form, made-for-mobile shows that have become wildly popular in China — meant hiring actors, renting sets and spending weeks filming and editing.

直到最近，制作一部热门微短剧——即在中国风靡一时的狗血剧情、短小、专为手机打造的剧集——还意味着需要雇佣演员、租赁场地，并花费数周时间进行拍摄和剪辑。

Now, some Chinese companies are churning them out for $30 a minute, with no cameras, no crew and no human performers.

如今，一些中国公司在没有摄像机、没有剧组、也没有真人演员的情况下，正以每分钟30美元（约合人民币200元）的成本成批生产这类剧集。

That’s thanks to artificial intelligence.

这得益于人工智能。

Dramas generated by the technology have suddenly become ubiquitous in China: In March alone, nearly 50,000 new A.I.-generated microdramas were uploaded to Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, according to DataEye, a Chinese consulting firm. That single month’s uploads nearly matched the platform’s total uploads for all of 2025.

依托该技术生成的微短剧在中国突然变得无处不在：据中国咨询公司DataEye的数据，仅在3月份，就有近5万部全新的AI生成微短剧被上传到抖音。单是这一个月的上传量，就几乎赶上了该平台2025年全年的总上传量。

The boom is being fueled by the widespread availability and increasing prowess of A.I. video tools, including Seedance 2.0, which was released in February by the Chinese parent company of TikTok. Production companies have been testing what these models can do, creating experimental clips of Chinese warriors in combat, an apocalypse or an idyllic countryside river.

这一热潮受到了AI视频工具广泛普及和能力日益增强的推动，其中包括TikTok的中国母公司于2月份发布的Seedance 2.0。影视制作公司一直在测试这些模型的能力，创作了中国武士激战、末日世界或田园乡村河流等实验性片段。

Most A.I.-generated microdramas, which under Chinese law are required to be labeled as such, attract little attention. But some clips have racked up hundreds of millions of views, in a country where people are generally more optimistic about A.I. than in the West. The Chinese market for A.I. microdramas is expected to be worth more than $3 billion this year, according to Chinese state media, out of a more than $14 billion market for microdramas in general.

根据中国法律，AI生成的微短剧需要贴上相应标签，这些剧集大多引不起太多关注。但在一个公众普遍对AI持有比西方更乐观的态度的国家，一些片段已经斩获了数亿次的播放量。据中国官方媒体报道，在超过140亿美元的微短剧整体市场中，今年中国AI微短剧的市场价值预计将超过30亿美元。

But recently, the surge has also set off an outcry in China. Actors say their work opportunities have dried up. Celebrities and ordinary people alike have threatened legal action after discovering their likenesses in A.I.-generated microdramas. (ByteDance has since introduced restrictions on using real people’s faces in Seedance.)

但近期，这一激增势头也在中国引发了强烈抗议。演员们表示他们的工作机会已经枯竭。许多名人和普通人在发现自己的肖像被用于AI生成的微短剧后，纷纷威胁要采取法律行动。（此后，字节跳动已对在Seedance中使用真人面孔做出了限制。）

We spoke to several people in China’s entertainment industry to hear how A.I. has changed their lives.

我们采访了中国娱乐行业的几位业内人士，听他们讲述了AI如何改变了他们的生活。

The Actor

演员

Li Jiao’e, 32

李焦尔，32岁

Li Jiao’e, via Douyin

When Li Jiao’e moved to Hengdian, a major filming hub in eastern China, in 2024, he had only bit parts in microdramas. Still, he was thrilled. After years of bouncing between unrelated jobs, he was finally chasing his dream of being an actor.

2024年搬到中国东部的重要影视基地横店时，Wang Yushun knew the importance of budgets in filmmaking. Before becoming a microdrama director, he had made television dramas and independent films, and he had seen projects that he had worked on for months or even years derailed by a skittish investor. Part of the reason he had turned to the shorter format — microdrama episodes are usually one or two minutes long — was for the quick returns.

王玉顺（音）深知预算在电影制作中的重要性。在成为一名微短剧导演之前，他曾拍摄过电视剧和独立电影，并且亲眼目睹过自己付出了数月甚至数年心血的项目因投资人临阵退缩而夭折。他转向这种较短形式（微短剧每集通常只有一两分钟长）的部分原因就是为了能够快速获得回报。

Still, when A.I. tools first became popular several years ago, he was skeptical of their quality, even as he saw how they could help him save money. He used them mostly to create mood boards, he said.

尽管如此，当几年前AI工具刚开始流行时，他对它们的质量仍然持怀疑态度，即使他看到了这些工具如何能帮他省钱。他说，他当时主要用它们来制作“情绪板”。

But last summer, he changed his mind. When he asked an A.I. tool to generate a scene of a horse charging into a trench to rescue a general, the result was far more detailed than he had expected or even asked for, including the horse crashing into an enemy soldier, the soldier falling and the general galloping away.

但在去年夏天，他改变了主意。当他让一个AI工具生成一个“骏马冲进战壕营救将军”的场景时，结果比他预期甚至要求的还要详细得多，包括马撞向敌方士兵、士兵倒地以及将军疾驰而去的画面。

“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this technology may really be able to replace some of the more difficult or expensive scenes,’” he recalled.

“我当时心想，‘哇，这项技术可能真的能够取代一些难度更大或成本更高的场景，’”他回忆道。

Since then, he has adopted A.I. extensively for visual effects, and started a company that makes A.I. microdramas in addition to ones using actors.

从那时起，他开始在视觉特效中广泛采用AI，并创办了一家除拍摄真人演员外，还制作AI微短剧的公司。

Still, Mr. Wang also has concerns about the industry’s rapid pivot to A.I. He has had to lay off employees who worked on live-action productions because demand for such content has fallen so precipitously. Turning to A.I. has been more a necessity than a choice, he said.

不过，王先生对该行业迅速转向AI也有所担忧。由于对真人内容的需求急剧下降，他不得不解雇了从事真人影视制作的员工。他说，转向AI更多的是一种被迫的选择，而不是一种自愿的决定。

He hopes to make projects that combine A.I. with live action. He is working on a project that he said is similar to “Stuart Little,” the film that featured an animated mouse alongside real actors.

他希望制作将AI与真人实景相结合的项目。他正在筹备一个项目，他说这个项目类似于《精灵鼠小弟》，也就是那部让一只动画老鼠与真人演员共同出镜的电影。

“If we could feel the warmth of a real performance, and also see the power of A.I. technology, I think that would be great,” he said.

“如果我们既能感受到真人表演的温度，又能看到AI技术的威力，我认为那就太棒了，”他说。

The Production Company Founder

制作公司创始人

Hou Xiaohu, 40

侯小虎，40岁

When Hou Xiaohu started a company that used A.I. to make videos two years ago, the technology was only good enough for corporate promotional videos. But last year, as A.I. video tools improved, and demand for microdramas was exploding, he shifted focus.

两年前，当侯小虎（音）创办一家利用AI制作视频的公司时，这项技术还只够用来制作企业宣传片。但去年，随着AI视频工具的改进以及微短剧需求的爆发式增长，他转变了业务重心。

Mr. Hou now has about a dozen employees, divided between creative work, similar to traditional screenwriting and directing, and the technical work of generating A.I. footage. His company focuses on stories involving traditional narratives, such as the story of a folk sea goddess or a superhero monk.

侯先生现在拥有大约十几名员工，分为从事类似于传统编剧和导演的创意工作组，以及生成AI镜头的技术工作组。他的公司专注于包含传统叙事的故事，例如民间的海神或神僧的故事。

Some of Mr. Hou’s creative employees have backgrounds in filmmaking, but others are simply people “who are obsessed with A.I.,” he said.

侯先生的一些创意员工拥有电影制作背景，但另一些人则纯粹是“对AI着迷的人”，他说。

“This work isn’t exactly traditional screenwriting. Part of it requires translating into a language that A.I. can understand,” he said. “People who don’t have a traditional directing or screenwriting background might actually be better at it.”

“这项工作并不完全等同于传统的编剧。其中一部分需要将其翻译成AI能够理解的语言，”他说。“没有传统导演或编剧背景的人，实际上可能更擅长这件事。”

Producing a 100-minute animated series takes about one month and three employees. Realistic ones take around five people, because it is more labor-intensive to create images that are good enough.

制作一部100分钟的动画系列剧大约需要一个月时间和三名员工。而写实风格的剧集则需要五个人左右，因为要创造出足够精细的图像需要耗费更多的劳动力。

Industry competition has become fiercer in recent months. But Mr. Hou predicted that many of the cheapest productions would fizzle out, as audiences demanded higher quality.

近几个月来，行业竞争变得更加激烈。但侯先生预测，随着观众对质量要求的提高，许多最廉价的制作将会逐渐淡出。

He also said he was not worried about the public backlash toward A.I.-generated microdramas. As government oversight increased, he said, improper uses of people’s likenesses would decrease.

他还表示，自己并不担心公众对AI生成微短剧的抵触情绪。他说，随着政府监管的加强，不当使用他人肖像的现象将会减少。

And people would gradually find ways to adapt to the employment pains, too, he said. He himself had previously worked for big tech companies in Beijing before he was forced out by cutbacks and pivoted to A.I. filmmaking.

他还表示，人们也会逐渐找到适应失业痛苦的方法。在因裁员被迫离职并转向AI电影制作之前，他自己曾在北京的大型科技公司工作过。

“The impact on employment — there definitely will be an impact,” Mr. Hou said. “But for individuals, what can you do? You can only embrace this new era and think about how to adapt.”

“对就业的影响——肯定会有影响，”侯先生说。“但对于个人来说，你能做什么呢？你只能拥抱这个新时代，并思考如何去适应它。”

The conflict in the Middle East provided a painfully awkward backdrop to this week’s meetings between President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

中东冲突为上周特朗普总统与中国领导人习近平的会晤提供了一个令人极为尴尬的背景。

Mr. Trump, waging war on Iran, is also trying to cut off Iran’s income from oil exports. China is by far the world’s biggest customer for that oil. Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has accused China of effectively financing terrorism by purchasing Iranian oil.

特朗普正在对伊朗发动战争，同时试图切断伊朗的石油出口收入。而中国目前是全球最大的伊朗石油买家。特朗普的财政部长斯科特·贝森特指责中国购买伊朗石油的行为实际上是在资助恐怖主义。

So last month, the U.S. Navy deployed a vast sea blockade, starting in the Gulf of Oman, giving it the power to decide which ships get through to China and other destinations in Asia.

因此，上个月，美国海军从阿曼湾开始部署了大规模的海上封锁，使其有能力决定哪些船只可以前往中国及亚洲其他目的地。

U.S. officials say the blockade has been very effective, having intercepted more than 70 vessels. Ships have been stopped off Iran’s coast and even far beyond. One China-bound ship carrying Iranian oil, the Majestic X, was recently seized in the Indian Ocean, more than 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Oman.

美国官员表示，封锁非常有效，已拦截超过70艘船只。这些船只在伊朗沿海甚至更远的地方被截停。最近，一艘名为“Majestic X”、运载伊朗石油驶向中国的油轮在距离阿曼湾3200多公里的印度洋遭到扣押。

A complete picture of ship traffic in the region is difficult to ascertain. Ships routinely turn off their location trackers, use spoofing to falsify positions and sail under false flags. Or they transfer Iranian oil from one ship to another smaller ship, making its origin hard to detect. Sometimes vessels deploy all of those tactics together. Between April 19 and May 3, there was a 600 percent increase in the number of ships engaged in deceptive tactics, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm.

要完整掌握该地区的船舶航行情况其实相当困难。船只经常关闭定位追踪器、利用“欺骗定位”伪造位置，或者悬挂虚假的船旗航行。还有些船会把伊朗石油从一艘船转运到另一艘更小的船上，从而掩盖石油来源。有时，一艘船会同时使用所有这些手段。海事情报公司Windward的数据显示，从4月19日至5月3日，使用欺骗手段的船舶数量增加了600%。

But what is clear, according to a New York Times analysis of satellite images and other shipping data, is that some ships carrying Iranian oil that left around the time or after the U.S. blockade was implemented are now nearing East Asia.

但根据《纽约时报》对卫星图像和其他航运数据的分析，可以明确的是，一些在美国实施海上封锁前后运载伊朗石油驶离的船只，目前正驶近东亚。

Here are three ships that illustrate how Iranian vessels are heading toward China.

透过下面这三艘船，可以看到伊朗船驶向中国的现实路径。

The Huge: A large Iranian ship operating with its location tracker off, taking an uncommon route

“Huge”号：一艘关闭定位追踪器、选择非常规航线的伊朗大型油轮

Sources: Kpler; Airbus; United Against Nuclear Iran; TankerTrackers.com; Planet Labs; Copernicus Sentinel-2.

The Huge, an Iran-flagged oil tanker, loaded oil at Kharg Island, Iran’s primary crude oil export terminal, and transited the Strait of Hormuz in early April, according to satellite images. It then appeared to have left the Gulf of Oman, passing the blockade around when it started on April 13.

A grand summit in Beijing is a natural time to assess the state of the U.S.-China competition, the dynamics of great power conflict, the balance of forces in this new Cold — or maybe just Cool? — War.

北京举行的盛大峰会正是审视中美竞争态势、大国冲突动态以及这场新冷战——或者只是“凉战”？——力量平衡的恰当时机。

It’s also a good time to revisit my own predictions. Six years ago, in the early days of the coronavirus, I argued that rather than a “Chinese century” we might be looking at a “Chinese decade,” a window when China’s power would hit a peak and the American position would be maximally endangered — but with a more favorable balance awaiting the United States in the later part of the century, if we could get through the Chinese maximum unscathed.

这也是重新审视我个人预测的好时机。六年前，在新冠疫情暴发初期，我曾提出，我们或将迎来的与其说是“中国世纪”，不如说可能是“中国十年”：在这个窗口期，中国国力将达巅峰，美国地位面临最大威胁；但只要我们能安然度过中国实力的鼎盛期，本世纪后半段的力量对比将对美国更为有利。

One part of that analysis was simply wrong. I was writing at a moment when the American response to the pandemic seemed much more shambolic than Beijing’s efficient containment strategy, and I assumed that there could be a kind of Covid dividend for China from that difference. In hindsight, America’s stumbling approach actually proved more effective than China’s in the long run, because the People’s Republic eventually found itself in a permanent-lockdown trap that yielded all kinds of social and economic damage.

我的分析中，有一部分显然错了。我写那篇文章时，美国应对疫情的举措看似比北京高效的防控措施混乱得多，我因此认为，这种差异会为中国带来某种新冠红利。事后看来，美国磕磕绊绊的应对方式从长远看实则比中国更有效，因为中华人民共和国最终陷入了长期封控的陷阱，造成了各类社会与经济创伤。

But in other ways, the 2020s have proceeded somewhat as I expected. The American imperium has been hard pressed on every front, and our leadership — slumping and senescent in the last presidency, obnoxious and bullying in this one — has gifted China a reputation for relative stability, notwithstanding Xi Jinping’s own aggressive and repressive moves.

但在其他方面，2020年代的局势发展大致如我所料。美国帝国在各条战线均承受巨大压力；我们的领导力——上届政府萎靡衰老，本届政府蛮横霸道——反而让中国赢得了相对稳定的声誉，尽管习近平本人亦采取了咄咄逼人和镇压性的举措。

There is a lot of talk about rebuilding American manufacturing, and the Trump era has seen a partial decoupling of the United States and China, a clear shift away from the “Chimerica” model that defined the 2010s. But the decoupling is taking place in the shadow of a profound Chinese industrial advantage and continuing Chinese scientific and technological success. We can debate what it means that China lags just behind Silicon Valley in the artificial intelligence race (that’s the topic of this week’s episode of my podcast, “Interesting Times”), but our edge in frontier models doesn’t feel like a definite hard-power advantage as long as China is radically outpacing us in building machine tools, robots, ships and drones.

当下，关于重建美国制造业的讨论层出不穷，特朗普时代也见证了美中部分脱钩，这明显背离了定义2010年代的“中美一体”模式。然而，脱钩进程始终笼罩在中国显著的工业优势与持续的科技成就阴影之下。中国在人工智能领域紧随硅谷之后意味着什么，对此我们各持意见（这是我的播客Interesting Times的本周话题）；但只要中国在机床、机器人、船舶与无人机制造领域远超我们，我们在前沿模型上的优势就难言是绝对的硬实力优势。

Six months ago, I was telling myself an optimistic story about the national security balance, where the United States maintained an edge in battlefield experience — with our support for Ukraine against Russia and our interventions in Iran and Venezuela serving as a testing ground for new weapons and A.I.-enabled tactics. But watching the American military stockpile collapse under the pressure of a regional war against Iran this year should make everyone skeptical that our advantages are adequate for a sustained conflict in East Asia. Fighting Iran to a stalemate seems like the kind of thing that happens just before you fight the Chinese and lose.

六个月前，我曾为自己描绘了一幅关于国家安全平衡的乐观图景：美国在战场经验上保持着优势——支持乌克兰对抗俄罗斯以及在伊朗和委内瑞拉的干预行动都成为测试新武器和人工智能战术的试验场。但今年，在与伊朗的地区战争压力下，美国军事储备捉襟见肘，这会让所有人怀疑：我们的优势是否足以支撑东亚的长期冲突？与伊朗的战争陷入僵局似乎正是与中国交战并败北之前会发生的那种事。

So the world of the 2020s does seem to have gone China’s way in very important respects. To the extent that comparisons to the actual Cold War are relevant, China is a more powerful material competitor than the Soviet Union ever managed to become, and our so-far-unsuccessful Iranian gamble has left the American hard-power position looking as parlous as it’s ever been.

因此，2020年代的世界在诸多关键领域确实朝着有利于中国的方向发展。若要与真实的冷战相比，中国的物质实力远超当年的苏联；我们在伊朗问题上迄今无果的豪赌也让美国的硬实力陷入史上罕见的岌岌可危境地。

But what about the world of the 2040s or 2060s? Six years ago I wrote that China’s growth rate might be slowing, making it less likely to achieve either the living standards of its East Asian neighbors or eclipse the United States as the world’s largest economy. Since then, the Chinese attempt to lock in a broad economic sphere of influence through its Belt and Road Initiative has hit repeated setbacks. And as it turned out, 2021 was the point of greatest nominal-G.D.P. convergence with the United States, and since then America has grown faster while China has struggled with its Covid hangover and various internal problems — raising the possibility that there will never be a moment when the Chinese economy is the biggest in the world.

但2040或2060年代又会如何？六年前我曾写道，中国的经济增长率可能正在放缓，使其既难以企及东亚邻国的生活水平，也难以超越美国成为全球第一大经济体。此后，中国试图通过“一带一路”倡议构建广泛经济影响力，却屡遭挫折。事实证明，2021年是中国名义GDP与美国差距最小的一年，随后美国增速加快，中国则受疫情后遗症与各类内部问题困扰——这使得中国经济更有可能永远无法成为世界第一。

Or maybe we should call it a likelihood rather than a possibility, since it’s incredibly difficult to generate high rates of growth under conditions of rapid population aging — and the other great trend of the last six years is that China’s demographic situation now looks much, much worse.

或许不是“可能无法成为世界第一”，而是“大概率无法成为世界第一”：在人口快速老龄化的背景下，维持高增长极其困难。而过去六年的另一大趋势是，中国的人口形势如今看起来要糟糕得多。

The end of the one-child policy in 2016 was supposed to boost birthrates. Instead the Chinese fertility rate has been crashing, hitting an average of 1.0 births per a woman’s lifetime in 2025, half the replacement level; it was the country’s fourth consecutive year of population decline. The grim social trends that attract justified attention in the United States — the alienation of the sexes from each other, a loss of interest in marriage and family — seem to have advanced much more rapidly in China. A new paper on attitudes among Chinese young people finds that 32 percent of those aged 18 to 24 reported “no desire for children,” up from 5 percent in 2012.

2016年独生子女政策终结本应提振生育率，结果却是中国的生育率持续暴跌：2025年，女性终身平均生育子女数仅为1.0，仅为人口更替水平的一半；这已是中国连续第四年人口负增长。在美国引发广泛关注的严峻社会趋势——两性关系疏离、对婚姻和家庭的兴趣减退——在中国似乎发展得更为迅速。一项关于中国年轻人态度的新研究显示，18至24岁群体中，32%明确表示不想要孩子，2012年这一比例仅为5%。

These patterns make a striking counterpoint to the evidence of increasing Chinese confidence, even arrogance and hubris, about the inevitability of American decline. Just how confident can Chinese people really be in their culture’s future if the rising generation is so disinclined to reproduce? Just how confident should China’s leaders be that they can outlast the United States if their population could be cut in half over the next few generations? How much power, hard or soft — and China’s global cultural influence remains notably limited — can a rapidly aging civilization expect to project?

这些趋势与中国日益高涨的自信——甚至自负与狂妄——形成鲜明对比：不少人坚信美国必然衰落。若年轻一代如此不愿生育，中国人对自身文化的未来究竟能有多大信心？若未来几代中国人口可能减半，中国领导人又怎能确信自己能比美国更长久地存续下去？一个快速老龄化的文明又能指望投射多少硬实力与软实力？何况中国的全球文化影响力至今仍相当有限。

At the very least, any scenario where Chinese power doesn’t ebb has to involve radical technological disruption. As in, a world where robots and A.I. take over an extraordinary share of economic and creative labor. Or a world where radical health improvement makes population aging far less economically significant. Or a world where technology revolutionizes human reproduction, making it possible for authoritarian states to engineer repopulation, like the World State with its hatcheries in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

至少，任何中国实力不会衰退的可能场景都必然伴随着颠覆性的技术变革：比如一个机器人与人工智能接管绝大部分经济与创意劳动的世界；或是一个医疗技术飞跃，大幅削弱老龄化对经济冲击的世界；又或者是一个技术彻底革新人类生殖方式的世界，让威权国家能像奥尔德斯·赫胥黎的《美丽新世界》中拥有孵化场的“世界国”那样进行人口工程。

In any of these scenarios, a potential Chinese age in human history will look like no era or imperium we’ve ever seen before. Whereas if you imagine a future that remains at least somewhat normal, somewhat human, it still seems reasonable to short the Chinese century and bet that Beijing’s power is peaking now or soon.

无论在哪种场景里，人类历史中可能的“中国时代”都将呈现出前所未有的面貌，与我们以往所见的任何时代或帝国都截然不同。反之，若设想一个至少在某种程度上仍保持着正常、多少具备人性的未来，那么看空“中国世纪”、押注北京的实力正在或即将达到顶峰，似乎仍是合理的。

Then the great question becomes whether Xi Jinping sees the world this way. To the extent that we believe in the narrative of Chinese confidence, a comfortable expectation in the Middle Kingdom that America’s problems are part of a long arc of Western decline, we should be hopeful that we can pass through this moment without a deadly confrontation.

那么，关键问题在于习近平是否以这种方式看待世界。若我们相信中国从自信角度出发的叙事——在这个中央王国，人们普遍认为美国的问题是西方长期衰落趋势的一部分——那么我们有理由期待，我们能够平安度过这一时刻，避免发生致命的对抗。

Chinese hubris, in this sense, might be the best guarantor of world peace, ensuring that Beijing will wait and wait to test its power against ours, wait and wait to claim Taiwan … and find, in waiting, that its best chance has passed it by.

从这个意义上说，中国的自负或许是世界和平的最大保障：它会确保北京一再推迟与我们较量实力的时机，暂不统一台湾……在等待中，发现最佳时机已经错过。

But presumably Xi and his circle can see all the trends that I’ve just described. And if they don’t have perfect confidence in technological revolution, if they aren’t self-deceived about the prospects for American collapse, then I would expect them to have a plan for potential confrontation very, very soon.

但可以想见，习近平及其核心圈子同样能看清我刚才描述的所有趋势。若他们对技术革命并非绝对自信，对美国崩溃的前景没有自欺欺人，那么我预计，他们很快——非常、非常快——就会针对潜在的对抗制定出计划。