譯者按：本文作者為Ismail Bashmori伊斯梅爾·巴什莫里，他是一名旅居加拿大的埃及觀察家，這篇文章最早于2021年發(fā)表于美版問答網(wǎng)站Quora，問題名為《What do you?think about China?》（你對中國有什么看法？）并做自答，后被英國《每日快報》（Daily Express ）以《West can’t believe nor accept China’s progress》為題轉(zhuǎn)載刊發(fā)，引起巨大反響，之后又被中國駐巴基斯坦大使館文化參贊兼巴基斯坦中國文化中心主任張和清先生在社交平臺推薦。

這篇文章，是通過一名第三世界國家的年輕觀察家視角看到并描述的世界，包含了他對所有第三世界國家和對世界的期盼，個人認為實屬好文，特轉(zhuǎn)載翻譯，以饗共勉。

為了閱讀方便，沒有使用一段一段的對照

（問號向讀者致敬）

原文：

West can’t believe nor accept China’s progress

AS an Egyptian, I have been studying China intensely for the past year — its government, society, history, and transformation.

I’ve spoken to hundreds of Chinese and China-haters and heard everything they had to say. By now I’ve learned roughly as much about China as anyone can learn without knowing the language or living in the country, and I’ve reached my conclusion. China attracts a lot of haters, know-nothings and armchair experts.

The truth is that China is the greatest country on the face of the earth. It makes all other countries look insignificant and contemptible. It is the most brilliant, most industrious, most ambitious, most educated, meritocratic and technocratic, most modern, sophisticated, and civilised, and best-governed by far.?

It is the first nonwhite, non-Western country to reach this status since the 1600s. The determination of this country is indescribable. Supernatural. There is no force that can stop it from accomplishing anything it wants to do.?

Forty years ago a flush toilet in China was a luxury. Today it has its own Space Station. This is a tiny example of China’s capabilities.

It doesn’t matter who we are. Egyptians, Syrians, Pakistanis, Indians, Africans, even Americans. Next to the Chinese, we are pathetic. We can’t do what they do. We would have a mountain, an Everest of changes to make, and we would whine and bicker and fail at every one of them. China’s story since the 1980s has been one of an almost divine metamorphosis.?

Next to China the entire Western world from Alaska to New Zealand has stagnated. Next to China the entire developing world from Brazil to Madagascar has progressed only at a crawl.?

China is the mother of all gargantuan bullet trains. Every day it manages to create something new and astonishing. And unlike the United States, unlike the British Empire, unlike the French, Dutch, Germans, Spanish, Portuguese or any other Western nation that had its turn at being a superpower in the past four centuries, China doesn’t need to run anybody over or take something from somebody else, to rise majestically.

China is also standing up to the West all by herself. The West can’t believe their four-hundred-year-old global supremacy is being challenged. They hoped that the more China developed, the more it would submit to their influence, interests, and leadership. That didn’t happen. So now they will do anything possible, short of a nuclear war, to make China end.?

Their goal is to destroy this country. That’s why, although the United States has killed several million people and turned several regions of the earth into hellscapes.?

China is the worst fear of our planet’s Western masters. They want you to despise and dread a country that’s done nothing to you, that hasn’t invaded anyone, bombed or sanctioned anyone, that hasn’t overthrown any foreign government, or used its military on anything since 1979.

China is the only major country in the nonwhite developing world, to stand up to the West. To look it in the eye when challenged or threatened.

The Global South are simply Western puppets who submitted long ago. Even the most powerful ones. Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India.

The 1500s—1000s BC were Egypt’s time. Antiquity belonged to the Greeks and Romans. The 1700s belonged to France, and the 1800s to Britain. From 1945 to the present, the world has been under American overlordship. And they call it the Pax Americana but there isn’t much Pax in it.?

There’s plenty of Pax if you’re in Europe or Australia. But the Middle East? Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran and Yemen in the past 20 years. Latin America? They’ve destroyed that part of the world beyond any hope of recovery. Africa? It’s only been spared because of disinterest. The US sees Africa as nothing. The whole West does.

But in the twenty-first century, we are witnessing the rise of China. We are decades away from China becoming the greatest power on earth. This will be China’s time, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Attack China all you want, curse her and monger rumours and hysteria — but the truth is that none of your accusations are backed up by evidence. The Western press is under the thumb of Western governments that want to stay on top of the world for eternity. And the truth is that China is not affected by the noise and maneuvers of her enemies.?

For her first thirty years, from 1949 to 1979, China was basically blockaded and isolated economically and politically by the West. It didn’t even have a seat in the UN General Assembly. And it was dirt-poor in those days, barely a speck of the global economy, a tiny fraction of Japan’s or Germany’s GDP — not even able to prevent famine. And it still didn’t submit to pressure or take any orders. Why on earth would it do that now?

China will be the next global power. There’s nothing that can be done about that. The first stage is that its economy only needs to grow at 4.7 percent per year to become the world’s largest by 2035. That means the usual, historical bare-minimum of 6 percent is already overkill. The US can build as many bases as it wants, slap as many sanctions as it wants, recognise whatever bogus genocides it wants. That’s what it’s been doing all along. Has any of it made a difference? China can adapt to any situation. It took China a mere ten years to go from being barred by the US Congress from participating in the “International” Space Station, to building its own Space Station from zero.?

See, the US has an $800-billion war budget, 800 military bases, 13,000 aircraft, 500 warships, 6,000 nukes — but it doesn’t have what China has: invincible national resolve. It takes the US about 5 years to renovate a bridge, and it takes China 43 hours. There’s simply no competing with that.

China doesn’t need to be a military superpower or empire. That was never part of the plan. US troops, God bless their souls, will continue sitting in their bases, scratching their balls, costing their government $800 billion a year to do nothing. Meanwhile, China will continue to actually develop.?

That’s the part of the equation that America totally missed, because it has barely developed since Reagan’s day. China is a better place to live today than at any time in its previous 5,000 years; Americans saw their highest standard of living in the 1960s and those days will never come back.

So yes, China will be the next global power, and the Chinese are vastly superior to us in every way. This is a fact that everyone can attack but that nobody can change, like the theory of evolution.?

Look at you silly buggers, talking about China like it’s going to be the next Nazi Germany. Even many Middle Easterners I know fit in this foolish category. Did you notice when the US invaded or overthrew the governments of 20 countries in the past 32 years (my lifetime)? Did you even know? You think just because you’re ready to forget all that because of Beyoncé and Game of Thrones and Snapchat and other US cultural exports, it didn’t happen.??

Aren’t you at least curious to see what a world with a nonwhite, non-Western leader might look like, after 400 years? Because God knows that leader won’t be us. It won’t be Brazil or Africa, or the Middle East or India or Indonesia or Nigeria or Pakistan. We’re a mess.?

China was a mess too. But we remain a mess many decades after we achieved independence, and the Chinese went their own way, disentangled their mess and created their destiny. We’re not made of what the Chinese are made of.?

I see China as hope. Hope that a colonised, brutalised, primitive and humiliated country, can rise above its past — refuse to be weak any longer — rebuild itself from nothing, with iron resolve, and become too strong to be overrun by the West again!

Hope that a nonwhite, non-Western country can look deep within itself and find its own solutions to its problems — proving that (foolishly) trusting the West to guide us isn’t necessary! Proof that if we can do what the Chinese did, there will be no limits for us.

Imagine a world where the US, France, Britain, Australia, are no more important than Uzbekistan or Paraguay.?

A world where the World Court might be headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, the World Bank in New Delhi, the United Nations in Jakarta, the IMF in Cairo.?

A world liberated from the US banking system and the dollar as its reserve currency, so that Washington can no longer tell 200 other countries who they can and can’t trade with.?

A world where an American can be tried for war crimes at the Hague, not just an Iraqi or Liberian or Serb.

A world where we don’t hear about a non-Western-made vaccine and grunt to ourselves, Oh, it must be poison. A world where we don’t have to immigrate to the same countries that turned ours into hellholes, to work as sales clerks or taxi drivers, or even if we’re brilliantly employed — to drain our brains from our homelands in the best of cases, and use them to reinforce Western riches and supremacy in exchange for a fat paycheck, instead of using them to make our own countries semi-habitable.?

When I hear that China has built its own Space Station, landed a rover on Mars, ended extreme poverty, built the Earth’s biggest city, dam, telescope, 5G network, highway, air purifier, or whatever the heck it is that will come tomorrow — I feel the same pride as if I were Chinese.?

It’s not happening for all of us, but it’s happening for one of us and that’s a start. There’s got to be such a thing as developing-country nationalism — a common nationalism for all the countries that were colonised and plundered, and remain economically and politically captured by their ex-rulers.?

A nationalism for the Global South. We are too divided, too brainwashed, too fooled and weak — most of us still worship the countries that destroyed us, are non-Western on the outside and Western on the inside, are hating and fearing and buying all the lies about the only one of us that’s made it, and are leaving our countries in droves to let them burn while we “make a better life for ourselves” in the West.?

Do you want to live on a Western-dominated Earth for another 400 years? If you do, keep doing what you’re doing. But I don’t!

You know what’ll happen for all of us if America’s sick wishes come true and its global thuggery does make China collapse? Nothing. Eternal repetition of the status quo. More enslavement, hijacking of our resources and weak corrupt governments, neo-colonialism, invasion, regime change, sanctions, MISERY.?

Haven’t we already seen this? Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, the Soviet Union. Rest in peace. Even FRANCE and JAPAN for God’s sake. What does the United States do when any other country says NO, or simply becomes too powerful, too good at honest competition??

Japan was a Western-style democracy crawling with US troops, with a US-authored pacifist constitution and almost no military and an extremely pro-US government and populace, and it STILL got crushed when it looked like it would become the #1 economy in the 80s.

I remember 10–15 years ago when China was still relatively poor and impotent, and Bush and Obama would talk about China as sweetly as swans. In 2015, while in China, Obama called China a crucial partner of the United States and said the US welcomed China’s rise.; it was all horseshit.?

America has taken off its mask.

China made it, it wasn’t supposed to make it, so now it must die. What a difference 5 years can make. China went from “crucial partner” to “number one threat.”

We should be helping and supporting China to keep climbing to the top, and giving her some serious solidarity as she withstands the new Cold War of Western imperialism. It’s been a long 400 years. China is the first non-Western country to even come close to reaching a status of ultimate global importance. She is akin to the the first member of an impoverished family to go to university. That is our family of nations.?

And when China gets to the top, believe me, it won’t be a repeat of the French, British, or American Empire. Not a single developing country on earth will be worse-off because of China becoming #1. There will be something good in this for all of us, so let’s wake up.

- Ismail Bashmori is an Egyptian China watcher

翻譯：

《西方不能相信也不能接受中國的進步》

作為一個埃及人，在過去的一年里，我一直在深入研究中國——它的政府、社會、歷史和轉(zhuǎn)型。

我與數(shù)百名中國人和憎恨中國的人交談過，傾聽他們講述的所有事情。直至目前，我算是達到了不了解中國語言也不曾在中國生活的情況下，對于中國所能了解的最大程度，得出了結(jié)論——中國吸引了許多仇恨者、無知的人和“磚家”。

真相是，中國，是地球上最偉大的國家。它使所有其他國家看起來微不足道、不值一提。中國是迄今為止最輝煌、最刻苦勤奮、最具雄心壯志、受過最多教育、最按功績和技術才能選拔的、最現(xiàn)代且時尚、精細且復雜、文明且有禮、治理得最好的國家。

自17世紀以來，中國是第一個達到以上地位的非白人非西方的國家。這個國家的決心難以形容，不可思議，沒有任何力量可以阻止它完成任何它想做的事情。

在四十年前的中國，抽水馬桶是一種奢侈品，而今天，它擁有自己的空間站，當然這只是展示出中國能力的一個微不足道的小例子。

我們是誰并不重要。埃及人、敘利亞人、巴基斯坦人、印度人、非洲人，甚至包括美國人。在中國人旁邊，我們是可悲的。我們無法做到他們所做的事情。我們將面臨一座巨山，一座珠穆朗瑪峰般的變革之山，但我們只會抱怨，爭吵直至失敗?？墒侵袊?980年以后，卻已經(jīng)經(jīng)歷了一次神圣的變革。

從阿拉斯加到新西蘭的所有西方世界，從巴西到馬達加斯加的所有發(fā)展中國家，與中國相比像是爬行一樣緩慢。

中國擁有最宏偉的高鐵，驚人壯舉每天都在被創(chuàng)造出來。與過去四個世紀中曾經(jīng)是超級大國的西方諸國——美國、英國、法國、荷蘭、德國、西班牙、葡萄牙不同，中國并沒有通過碾壓和奪取他國來實現(xiàn)自己的崛起。

中國在完全靠自己的勇敢抵抗來面對西方世界，令西方世界難以置信的是，它們四百年以來的全球霸權(quán)正在面臨挑戰(zhàn)。它們原本希望中國發(fā)展得越多，就越會屈服于西方的影響、利益和領導。但是，這一切沒有發(fā)生?，F(xiàn)在，它們將除了動用核戰(zhàn)爭這一選項之外，不遺余力地采取任何可能的手段來終止中國崛起。

它們的目標是摧毀這個國家，這就是為什么盡管美國已經(jīng)殺死了數(shù)百萬人，將地球上的幾個地區(qū)變得如同地獄，它們?nèi)匀焕^續(xù)這么做的原因。

我們這顆星球的西方主宰的最大恐懼來源是中國。西方主人們希望你鄙視和懼怕中國，但中國沒有對你做過什么，沒有入侵任何國家、轟炸或制裁任何國家，自1979年以來也沒有對任何事情使用過其軍事力量。

中國是非白人控制的發(fā)展中國家，唯一個敢于對抗西方霸權(quán)的主要國家，在面臨挑戰(zhàn)和威脅時敢于直視西方的眼睛。

全球南方國家只是西方霸權(quán)的傀儡，早在很久以前就已經(jīng)屈服，即便是最強大的——沙特阿拉伯、巴西、印度也沒有例外。

公元前1500年到公元前1000年是埃及的盛世，之后屬于希臘和羅馬，18世紀屬于法國，19世紀屬于英國。從1945年到現(xiàn)在，世界一直處于美國霸權(quán)統(tǒng)治之下，人們稱之為“美國和平”，但實際上其中又有幾多“和平”。

如果你身處于歐洲或澳大利亞，那么你會感受到很多“和平”，但對于中東、阿富汗、伊拉克、利比亞、敘利亞、伊朗和也門，這些國家在過去20年中所遭受的破壞來說，就不會有太多的“和平”了。而對于拉丁美洲，它們已經(jīng)毀掉了那個地區(qū)，摧毀得無以復加。最后僅僅因為缺乏興趣，非洲才得以幸存，美國和整個西方認為非洲毫無意義和價值。

但是，在21世紀，我們正在見證到中國的崛起。距離中國成為世界上最強大的國家還有幾十年的時間。這將是中國的時代，沒人能改變這一點。不管你想怎么攻擊中國，詛咒她，散播謠言和恐慌，但事實是，你們的指責抹黑都沒有證據(jù)支持。西方媒體受到想要永遠保持世界領先地位的西方政府的控制，但是真相不會撒謊，中國不會受到敵人的這種噪音和手段的影響。

在她的前三十年，從1949年到1979年，中國被西方從經(jīng)濟和政治上封鎖和孤立。甚至沒有在聯(lián)合國大會上獲得席位。當時中國一貧如洗，在全球經(jīng)濟中不值一提，只占日本或德國的國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值的一小部分，甚至連饑荒都無法阻止。

但是，她仍然不屈服于西方壓力，不接受任何來自強權(quán)的命令。

那么，現(xiàn)在的她，又有何種理由放棄崛起？

中國將不可避免的成為下一個全球強國，第一階段，中國經(jīng)濟只需要每年4.7%的增長率，就能在2035年成為世界上最大的經(jīng)濟體。這意味著她根本用不著一直以來的最低的6%的增長率。

美國可以建造任意數(shù)量的軍事基地，實施各種各樣的制裁，宣傳任何它想要的虛假種族滅絕，當然這是它一直在做的事情。但這些產(chǎn)生過任何影響嗎？中國可以適應任何情況，她自從被美國國會禁止參與“國際”空間站，到從零開始建設自己的空間站，而這僅僅用了十年時間。

確實，美國擁有著8000億刀樂的戰(zhàn)爭預算、800個軍事基地、13000架飛機、500艘軍艦和6000枚核彈。但它沒有中國所擁有的：無敵的民族決心。對于美國來說，修復一座橋需要大約5年的時間，而中國只需要43個小時。美國根本不可能與中國競爭。

中國不需要成為一個軍事超級大國或帝國，這從來不是計劃的一部分。美國軍隊，上帝保佑他們的靈魂，它們將繼續(xù)坐在軍事基地里撓蛋玩，花費它們的政府每年的8000億刀樂來無所事事。與此同時，中國將繼續(xù)實打?qū)嵉匕l(fā)展。

是的，中國將成為下一個全球大國，中國人在各個方面都比我們優(yōu)越。就像進化論一樣是可以被攻擊卻又無法阻擋的事實。

你們這些愚蠢之人，把中國說得像是下一個二戰(zhàn)德國。甚至我認識的許多中東人也有這種愚蠢的想法。

難道你沒有注意到過去的32年里，美國入侵或推翻了20個國家的政府嗎？

知道嗎？僅僅因為塞到你腦子里的像碧昂斯、權(quán)游和閱后即焚（PS:美國社交軟件）等等美國的文化輸出，就可以忘記這一切了嗎？

難道你一點都不好奇，在400 年后，一個非白人、非西方所領導的世界會是什么樣子嗎？因為上帝知道，領導者不會是我們。它不會是巴西或非洲，也不會是中東、印度或印度尼西亞或尼日利亞或巴基斯坦，因為我們一團糟。

中國也曾是一團糟，但是我們實現(xiàn)獨立幾十年后還是一團糟，而中國人理清掉爛攤子走出了自己的路，改變了她的命運?？晌覀兣c中國人不同，沒那么堅強。

我看到了中國，她是希望，任何一個曾被殖民、殘酷、原始和羞辱的國家，能夠超越過去，拒絕再次變?nèi)?，從無到有地重建自己，用鋼鐵般的決心，變得足夠強大，不再被西方侵略！

希望任何一個非白人、非西方國家，能夠深入地自我反省，找到解決自身問題的方法——證明自己完全沒必要愚蠢盲目地信任西方，被它們所指導！證明我們?nèi)绻軌蛳裰袊四菢?，就不再有發(fā)展的極限！

可以想象這樣一個世界，在這個世界中，美國、法國、英國、澳大利亞和烏茲別克斯坦或巴拉圭同等地位。

這個世界中，世界法院總部設在吉隆坡，世界銀行設在新德里，聯(lián)合國設在雅加達，國際貨幣基金組織設在開羅。

這個世界中，已經(jīng)從美國銀行體系和美元作為儲備貨幣中解放出來，這樣華盛頓就不能再告訴其他200個國家他們可以和誰交易，不能和誰交易。

這個世界中，一個美國人可以在海牙受審，而不僅僅是一個伊拉克人、利比里亞人或塞爾維亞人。

這個世界中，我們不會一聽到疫苗是非西方國家研制的，就自言自語地嘟囔：“哦，這一定是毒藥”。

這個世界中，我們不必移民到那些將自己祖國變成地獄的國家，成為售貨員或出租車司機。

這個世界中，我們即使因為出色而成為高級人材，可以獲得優(yōu)渥的待遇，也不必將我們的智慧和能力從祖國抽離，用來增強西方的財富和霸權(quán)，僅僅只是為了換取一份豐厚的薪水——那樣最終只會使我們的祖國勉強在生存線上掙扎。

當我得知中國建造自己的空間站、探測器在火星登陸、消除了極端貧困、建造了世界上最大的城市、大壩、望遠鏡、5G網(wǎng)絡、高速公路、空氣凈化器或者無論明天會推出什么——我感覺我就像是一名中國人一樣的自豪。

崛起已經(jīng)開始發(fā)生，雖然沒有發(fā)生在所有國家身上，但是有的國家已經(jīng)站了出來。我們需要有一個發(fā)展中國家的民族主義——是所有曾經(jīng)被殖民掠奪、如今仍然在經(jīng)濟和政治上受到前任統(tǒng)治者掌控的國家的共同民族主義。

這是屬于全球南方國家的民族主義。

我們太過分裂、太過洗腦、太容易上當和軟弱了——我們大多數(shù)人仍然崇拜摧毀我們祖國的國家。

我們外表上是非西方人，內(nèi)心則是西方式。仇恨、恐懼并篤信“我們中有一個成功者”的謊言，成群結(jié)隊離開祖國，跑到西方“過上更好的生活”。

你想要在一個由西方主導的地球上再過400年嗎？如果你想，那你繼續(xù)，但我不想！

你要明白，如果美國的病態(tài)扭曲的愿望成真，其全球暴行真的使中國崩潰，那將會發(fā)生什么嗎？

回答是：什么也不會發(fā)生，只是現(xiàn)狀被永遠重復——更多的奴役、更多的資源被竊取、薄弱腐敗的政府、新殖民主義、入侵、政權(quán)更迭、制裁、苦難。

我們難道沒見過這些嗎？利比亞、古巴、委內(nèi)瑞拉、南斯拉夫、白俄羅斯、伊拉克、伊朗、越南、蘇聯(lián)，甚至包括法國和日本，安息吧。

想想吧，當其他任何國家說“不”，或者變得過于強大，在公正的競爭中勝出的時候，美國會怎么做？

日本，是一個到處爬滿了美軍的西式民主國家、擁有由美國制定的和平憲法、幾乎沒有軍隊、政府和民眾都極度親美。但在80年代，在它即將成為世界第一經(jīng)濟體時，仍然被玩垮碾碎。

我記得10-15年前，當時中國還相對貧弱，布什和奧巴馬就像天鵝一樣優(yōu)雅溫柔地談論中國。奧巴馬在2015年稱中國是美國的重要伙伴，并表示美國歡迎中國崛起，但這一切都是胡說八道。

美國已經(jīng)摘下面具——中國做到了她本不應該做到的事，所以她現(xiàn)在必須死。五年，可以帶來多么大的變化，中國可以從“關鍵伙伴”變成“頭號威脅”。

我們，應該為中國攀登到頂峰提供幫助和團結(jié)，并在她抵擋西方帝國主義的新冷戰(zhàn)時，給予她真正的支持。

漫長的400年，中國是第一個接近達到全球最重要地位的非西方國家。她就像一個貧困家庭中第一個上大學的成員，那就是由我們組成的國際大家庭。

當中國到達頂峰，相信我，它不會重復法、英或美帝國的覆轍。地球上沒有一個發(fā)展中國家會因為中國成為第一而變得更糟。

這對我們所有人都有好處，所以，讓我們醒來。

——伊斯梅爾·巴什莫里，一位埃及的中國觀察家。