[2022-11-30] 纽约时报 - 观点：中国如何输掉武肺战争
![]() By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
专栏作家 - 保罗克鲁格曼
Do you remember when Covid was going to establish China as the world’s dominant power? As late as mid-2021, my inbox was full of assertions that China’s apparent success in containing the coronavirus showed the superiority of the Chinese system over Western societies that, as one commentator put it, “did not have the ability to quickly organize every citizen around a single goal.”
您还记得武汉肺炎何时将中国确立为世界主导力量吗？ 直到 2021 年年中，我的收件箱里还满是断言中国在遏制武汉肺炎方面取得的明显成功表明中国制度优于西方社会，正如一位评论员所说，“(西方国家)没有能力为了一个目标迅速组织起每个公民。”
At this point, however, China is flailing even as other nations are more or less getting back to normal life. It’s still pursuing its zero-Covid policy, enforcing draconian restrictions on everyday activities every time new cases emerge. This is creating immense personal hardship and cramping the economy; cities under lockdown account for almost 60 percent of China’s G.D.P.
然而，在这一点上，尽管其他国家或多或少正在恢复正常生活，但中国仍在挣扎。 它仍在奉行其动态清零政策，每次出现新病例时都对日常活动实施严厉限制。 这正在造成巨大的个人困难并阻碍经济发展； 处于封城状态的城市占中国 GDP 的近 60%。
In early November many workers reportedly fled the giant Foxconn plant that produces iPhones, fearing not just that they would be locked in but that they would go hungry. And in the last few days many Chinese, in cities across the nation, have braved harsh repression to demonstrate against government policies.
据报道，11 月初，许多工人逃离了生产 iPhone 的巨型富士康工厂，他们不仅担心自己会被关在家里，还担心自己会挨饿。 在过去的几天里，全国各地城市的许多中国人冒着严厉的镇压示威反对政府的政策。
I’m not a China expert, and I have no idea where this is going. As far as I can tell, actual China experts don’t know, either. But I think it’s worth asking what lessons we can draw from China’s journey from would-be role model to debacle.
我不是中国专家，我不知道这是怎么回事。 据我所知，真正的中国专家也不知道。 但我认为值得一问的是，我们可以从中国从准榜样到崩溃的历程中吸取哪些教训。
Crucially, the lesson is not that we shouldn’t pursue public health measures in the face of a pandemic. Sometimes such measures are necessary. But governments need to be able to change policy in the face of changing circumstances and new evidence.
至关重要的是，教训并不是说我们不应该在疫情前采取公共卫生措施。 有时这些措施是必要的。 但是，面对不断变化的环境和新的证据，政府需要能够改变政策。
And what we’re seeing in China is the problem with autocratic governments that can’t admit mistakes and won’t accept evidence they don’t like.
我们在中国看到的问题是专制政府不能承认错误，也不会接受他们不喜欢的证据。
In the first year of the pandemic, strong, even draconian restrictions made sense. It was never realistic to imagine that mask mandates and even lockdowns could prevent the coronavirus from spreading. What they could do, however, was slow the spread.
在疫情的第一年，严格甚至严厉的限制是有道理的。 想象强制佩戴口罩甚至封锁可以防止武汉肺炎传播是不现实的。 然而，他们能做的就是减缓传播速度。
At first, the goal in the U.S. and many other countries was to “flatten the curve,” avoiding a peak in cases that would overwhelm the health care system. Then, once it became clear that effective vaccines would become available, the goal was or should have been to delay infections until widespread vaccination could provide protection.
起初，美国和许多其他国家/地区的目标是“拉平曲线”，避免出现会使医疗保健系统不堪重负的病例高峰。 然后，一旦明确可以使用有效的疫苗，目标就是或应该是延迟感染，直到广泛的疫苗接种可以提供保护。
You could see this strategy at work in places like New Zealand and Taiwan, which initially imposed stringent rules that held cases and deaths to very low levels, then relaxed these rules once their populations were widely vaccinated. Even with vaccines, opening up led to a large rise in cases and deaths — but not nearly as severe as would have happened if these places had opened up earlier, so that overall deaths per capita have been far lower than in the United States.
你可以在新西兰和台湾等地看到这种策略在发挥作用，这些地方最初实施了严格的规定，将病例和死亡人数控制在非常低的水平，然后在民众广泛接种疫苗后放宽了这些规定。 即使有了疫苗，开放也会导致病例和死亡人数大幅上升——但远没有这些地方更早开放时发生的情况严重，因此总体人均死亡人数远低于美国。
China’s leaders, however, seem to have believed that lockdowns could permanently stomp out the coronavirus, and they have been acting as if they still believe this even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.
然而，中国领导人似乎相信封锁可以永久消灭武汉肺炎，而且即使面对压倒性的相反证据，他们的表现也好像他们仍然相信这一点。
At the same time, China utterly failed to develop a Plan B. Many older Chinese — the most vulnerable group — still aren’t fully vaccinated. China has also refused to accept foreign-made vaccines without unreasonable conditions that were rejected by the manufacturers, even though its homegrown vaccines, which don’t use mRNA technology, are less effective than the shots the rest of the world is getting.
与此同时，中国完全没有制定 B 计划。许多中国老年人——最脆弱的群体——仍然没有完全接种疫苗。 中国还拒绝接受外国制造的疫苗，但没有被制造商拒绝的不合理条件，尽管其不使用 mRNA 技术的本土疫苗的效果不如世界其他国家/地区接种的疫苗。
All of this leaves Xi Jinping’s regime in a trap of its own making. The zero-Covid policy is obviously unsustainable, but ending it would mean tacitly admitting error, which autocrats never find easy. Furthermore, loosening the rules would mean a huge spike in cases and deaths.
所有这一切都让习近平政权陷入了自己制造的陷阱。 动态清零政策显然是不可持续的，但结束它就意味着默认承认错误，而独裁者绝不会轻易承认错误。 此外，放宽规定将意味着病例和死亡人数激增。
Not only have many of the most vulnerable Chinese remained unvaccinated or received inferior shots, but because the coronavirus has been suppressed, few Chinese have natural immunity, and the nation also has very few intensive care beds, leaving it without the capacity to deal with a Covid surge.
不仅许多最脆弱的中国人仍未接种疫苗或注射了劣质疫苗，而且由于武汉肺炎已被抑制，很少有中国人具有天然免疫力，而且该国的重症监护病床也很少，因此无力应对武汉肺炎病例激增。
It’s a nightmare, and nobody knows how it ends. But what can the rest of us learn from China?
这是一场噩梦，没有人知道它是如何结束的。 但我们其他人能从中国学到什么？
First, autocracy is not, in fact, superior to democracy. Autocrats can act quickly and decisively, but they can also make huge mistakes because nobody can tell them when they’re wrong. At a fundamental level there’s a clear resemblance between Xi’s refusal to back off zero Covid and Vladimir Putin’s disaster in Ukraine.
首先，专制实际上并不优于民主。 独裁者可以迅速果断地采取行动，但他们也可能犯下巨大的错误，因为当他们犯错时没有人能告诉他们。 在基本层面上，习近平拒绝放弃动态清零与弗拉基米尔·普京 (Vladimir Putin) 在乌克兰的灾难之间有着明显的相似之处。
Second, we’re seeing why it’s important for leaders to be open to evidence and be willing to change course when they’ve been proved wrong.
其次，我们明白为什么领导者对证据持开放态度并在被证明错误时愿意改变路线很重要。
Ironically, in the United States the politicians whose dogmatism most resembles that of Chinese leaders are right-wing Republicans. China has rejected foreign mRNA vaccines, despite clear evidence of their superiority; many Republican leaders have rejected vaccines in general, even in the face of a huge partisan divide in death rates linked to differential vaccination rates. This contrasts with Democrats, who have in general followed something like New Zealand’s approach, if much less effectively — restrictions early on, relaxed as vaccination spread.
具有讽刺意味的是，在美国，教条主义最像中国领导人的政客是右翼共和党人。 尽管有明显的优势，但中国拒绝了外国 mRNA 疫苗； 许多共和党领导人总体上拒绝接种疫苗，即使面对与不同疫苗接种率相关的死亡率的巨大党派分歧。 这与民主党人形成鲜明对比，民主党人总体上采取了类似新西兰的做法，但效果要差得多——早期限制，随着疫苗接种的普及而放松。
In short, what we can learn from China is broader than the failure of specific policies; it is that we should beware of would-be autocrats who insist, regardless of the evidence, that they’re always right.
简而言之，我们可以从中国学到的东西比具体政策的失败更广泛； 我们应该提防那些不顾证据坚持自己永远是对的准独裁者。标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。
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