經濟學人「榕園論壇」： On the Antlers of a Dilemma 困境中的鹿茸

原文：On the Antlers of a Dilemma	翻譯：困境中的鹿茸
THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.	他乾淨俊美的臉龐已經因擔任總統職務而畫上了皺紋。他把流暢的英文拋在一旁，改以流利的中文回應，以保持尊嚴。不厭其煩卻好似已經回應過無數次似的，軟弱的回答著各種問題。已進入任期第六年的馬英九，頭髮依然梳得烏黑油亮，跟其他中國中央政委的髮型並無二致，而且，雖然是在台北的總統辦公室內談話，他跟北京任何一個領導人一樣，不願意承認自己的策略有任何根本上的謬誤。
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.	馬先生或許是受到孫中山的感召。孫是馬所屬的執政黨─國民黨的創始人，並且在1912年創立中華民國，也是目前台灣國號的來源。不只國民黨，台灣海峽對岸的中國共產黨也尊孫中山為民族英雄。馬先生可能也期待可以達成歷史性的和解，以和平領導者的身分得到來自海峽兩岸的尊崇。但截至目前為止，台灣與中國之間的和解依然遙遙無期。而曾經是國民黨最受歡迎的政治人物的馬先生，被對手譏為 「九趴總統」，反應了去年秋天民調的支持率。
Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.	改善與中國之間的關係一直是他執政的主調，在傾向宣布正式獨立的民主進步黨(DPP）執政八年後。馬先生以他與中國之間簽下的二十一項協議自傲。他可以侃侃而談兩個經濟體快速整合的各種數據：六年來大陸到台灣的觀光客成長了十倍，在2013年達到二百八十五萬；海峽兩岸航班從零成長到每天118班次；雙向貿易，包括香港，每年達到將近一千六百億。
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.	中國吸收台灣的策略很直接。隨著島嶼的經濟與大陸越來越密集交流，中國認為台灣對統一的抗拒會逐漸消失。接著台灣就會成為中國的一個「自治區」，跟香港一樣，雖然台灣有自己的軍隊。台灣會在不需要用到導彈或進一步的武嚇就能夠回歸祖國。但從馬先生的角度看來，兩岸的「和解」是抵抗中國武力的第一道防線，因為「來自大陸片面以非和平方式改變現狀，意味著昂貴的代價」。台灣內部有許多獨立或統一的辯論，但實際上都是為了維持兩岸現狀。
The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.	與中國和解的下一個步驟，會是政治領導人之間的會晤。二月份在南京，這個曾經是國民黨政府治理中國時的首都，來自中國和台灣的部長在此舉行了自1949年以來的第一次正式會議。馬先生期待今年11月到北京，在亞太經濟合作組織（APEC）高峰會期間，與中國國家主席習近平會面。為納入香港和台灣，APEC的會員不是「國家」，而是「經濟體」。因此習先生和馬先生可以用「經濟領袖」的身分見面，迴避通常因為中國視臺灣為轄下的一省，而造成關係緊張的棘手程序問題。但中國表示反對。但是馬先生認為在某個地方會面「並非完全不可能」。
This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.	這樣的背景說明了為什麼反對與中國簽署服務貿易協定的抗議運動對於馬而言並非只是小小的內部障礙而已。學生佔領了立法院，訴諸不民主的手段，且許多學生與DPP提出的關於服貿的論點似是而非。但學生們已經碰觸到大眾對於馬先生以及與中國大陸經濟整合的不信任。在島上已經代代相傳的本土台灣人與1940年隨著打輸內戰來到台灣的國民黨外省人（如馬先生）之間的分裂已持續相當時間。抗議群眾要不是將馬先生形容為中國跟屁蟲，就是無能而與現實脫節的人。在佔領國會的學生裡面，學生以漫畫將他頭上畫上鹿角，影射他先前的口誤，把中藥裡面的鹿茸說成是鹿耳朵裡面的毛。
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.	馬先生說民意支持「馬習會」。但民進黨的吳昭燮則認為馬習會面只會對國民黨的2016總統選舉選情造成傷害。他認為，馬先生想要的，是個人的歷史定位。DPP在民調中領先，該受到警示的不只是中國政府，也包括美國，少一個危險地區的火花，就少一點麻煩。中國越強大，台灣在安全上就更為仰賴美國的承諾。美國在1979年改與北京建交，但國會在其後通過了台灣關係法，依法需協助台灣自衛。
All political lives end…	所有的政治生命都會結束…
Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.	馬先生表示台灣與美國的關係比自1979年斷交以來是前所未有的好，甚至比斷交之前還要好。其他人則表示存疑。雖然美國每每稱台灣為美國在亞洲的「樞紐」，美國對台灣的承諾鮮少被提及。當美國學者 John Mearsheimer在National Interest這本政策期刊中提出「放棄臺灣，讓北京強迫台灣接受統一是一個合理的策略，是美國決策者最終會得出的結論」的時候，引起許多台灣人的關注。對某些人而言，放棄臺灣已經是事實，統一只是早晚的事情。「在戰略上、外交上、政治上，沒有人站在我們這邊；我們必須仰賴中國的善意，」一位台北的學者這樣認為。
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.	在這種失敗主義與那些想要挑戰中國的DPP內成員的冒險主義之間，馬先生試著找出一條中間的路線。但是他聽來相當疲憊，台灣人民也已經對他感到厭倦。台灣人的務實主義，與DPP內部兩敗俱傷的內鬥可能讓2016繼續讓KMT執政。但若馬先生還奢望著在卸任之前穩定兩岸關係，達成他想要受到兩岸認同，成為促成兩岸和解的領導人的歷史定位，他恐怕是想得太美了。