罗伯特·劳伦斯：历史将会感谢中国在世界抗击疫情中起到的先锋作用

文/罗伯特·劳伦斯·库恩（Robert Lawrance Kuhn）

习近平主席和特朗普总统通电话是件好事。这样的合作对于抗击疫情，维持、促进全球经济发展都是迫切且至关重要的。在全球范围内抗击疫情和促进全球经济发展一样，都依赖于中美的合作。

当下，世界各国面临的局面是：合则两利，斗则俱伤。

中共中央政治局常委会——中国最高决策机关将这次疫情称为“对我国治理体系和能力的一次大考”。我在中国30多年来，还没有过这样的经历。

我来解释下我为什么相信中国能战胜疫情，有三个原因：中国的投入、中国的国力以及改变和进步的意愿。

中国通过动员全国，阻止扩散，展现了在疫情方面的重大投入。政府发布了严格的指令，全国上下都步调一致。中国全社会的投入是历史性的，中国的动员能力在全球医疗史上也是空前的，其他地方都不可能像中国一样。而中国之所以能做到，跟党的制度有关。中国共产党在脱贫攻坚战时也展现了同样的投入和动员能力。自2012年来，中国让超过一亿人脱离贫困线。

中国对疫情的有效遏制展现在全国上下的身体力行中：封闭了1100万人口的武汉以及湖北省内外的城市，总人口数超过6000万；仅仅十几天在一片空地上建起了1000个床位的医院；挨家挨户测量体温，网格化的社会监督管控，推迟数亿人春节假期后的复工时间。

It is good that President Xi and President Trump spoke and agreed. Never has such cooperation been needed more urgently to battle and contain the pandemic and to sustain and bolster the world economy. Containing the global pandemic, like bolstering the global economy,depends on US-China cooperation.

Truly, nations will fight the virus and collectively win,or fight each other and collectively lose.

I take it seriously when the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, China’s highest authority, called the epidemic “a major test of China’s system and capacity for governance” — a phrase of such signi ficance that in my 30-plus years of watching China, I do not recall the like.

Let me explain why I was confident that China would overcome the epidemic. Three reasons: China’s commitment, China’s competence, and readiness to change and improve.

China’s commitment to fight the coronavirus was exemplified by the country’s astonishing mobilization to stop the spread. The government issued strict and resolute directives and the whole country marched to this music. This is China’s monumental “whole of society” commitment. China’s mobilization is unprecedented in global health history. Nowhere could it work like it works in China. And the reason it works relates to how the Party system works. It is the same commitment and mobilization that the Party has been using to win the battle against poverty, since around 2012, lifting the final 100 million poor people out of absolute poverty.

美国库恩基金会主席、中国改革友谊奖章获得者罗伯特·劳伦斯·库恩

中国改变和进步的意愿是他们治理体系中至关重要的一部分。

我在说到过去四十年来中国突飞猛进发展的主要原因时，总会提到中国共产党愿意主动认错并且改正，虽然有时对自己过于苛刻。国家领导人坦率地承认“缺点和不足”，我很敬佩。

要阻止疫情扩散，一定要尽早行动。但怎么建立预警体系？真正的挑战在于如何处理大量的、来源不一、质量参差不齐的信息。习近平主席呼吁，“以公开透明的方式抗击疫情”。透明是关键。

面对疫情，习近平主席不断强调构建“人类命运共同体”这一造福全球的愿景。七年来，该理念推动了以“一带一路”倡议为代表的中国外交政策，促进了全球平衡发展。能够对抗疫情、控制传染，是“共同未来”愿景的优势之一。除此之外，还有其他益处，比如气候控制、防止恐怖主义、禁止毒品等等。几乎没人能想到疫情会这样地迅速恶化。但随着全球各国对疫情逐渐重视起来，“共同未来”这一理念的重要性便不言而喻。

China’s competence to fight the virus is exemplified by the country’s implementation of its commitment:locking down Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people,and other cities, perhaps 60 million or more people in Hubei province and other places; constructed hospitals of 1000 beds, literally on green fields and literally in just days; house-to-house temperature checks; the Party’s grid management system of social control; postponing the return to work after the Lunar New Year break of hundreds of millions of travelers.

China’s readiness to change and improve is a critical part of its governance system.

When I discuss the five or so primary reasons for China’s remarkable development over the past four decades, I always include the Party’s willingness, albeit sometimes out of necessity, to admit and correct errors.I admire leadership’s forthright acknowledgement of“shortcomings and de ficiencies”.

To stop the spread of virulent diseases, early action is essential. But how to develop an early warning system? The challenge is handling an avalanche of information, from diverse public and private sources and of variegated and uncertain quality. President Xi called for “fighting the outbreak in an open and transparent manner”. Transparency is the key. Apropos of the pandemic, President Xi’s repeated call to build “a community with a shared future for all humanity” is a grand vision with multiple applications. For seven years,it has driven foreign policy, especially the Belt and Road Initiative, helping to rectify global imbalances.

While fighting disease or controlling pandemics have always been a “shared future” benefit, it was always tucked within lists of other benefits, such as climate control, preventing terrorism, interdicting drugs, and the like. Few ever imagined that a real pandemic could become so grave so fast. But as the pandemic has burst into planetary consciousness, it demonstrates viscerally the global criticality of "shared future" thinking.

By sending “battle-tested” medical teams to countries suffering under the siege of contagion, China brings to bear experts with contemporary, front line, epidemic experience. China’s evolved know-how in fighting and containing the novel coronavirus, especially the sel fless work of dedicated Chinese healthcare and logistics professionals, can enable other countries to bene fit from China’s experience.

There is a problem, though. Emotions worldwide are frayed, rubbed raw by the pandemic’s daily-life disruptions, with economic devastation threatening to exceed that of the 2008 global financial crisis. In this toxic psychological environment, when non-stop news, especially in social media, amplifies scurrilous,unsubstantiated rumors by insensitive of ficials or blockbrained conspiracy theorists, attitudes harden and antagonisms ossify. Indigenous nationalism flares in vicious circles.

Rational people must work together, not allow fringe invective to erode the capacity to fight a common enemy.

Containment of the polemic will be more challenging than containment of the coronavirus. If so, Chinese views of America, and American views of China, are only going to deteriorate further, to the detriment of all. Enlightened leadership should temper, not in flame,indigenous nationalism. We cannot allow mutual exhaustion to be our last hope. This is why the recent Xi-Trump phone call was so important.

China’s vision of “a community with a shared future for humanity”, exhorting all nations to act for the common good, fits our turbulent times. China’s vision is a universal message shared by many cultures. To be clear, read literally and without bias, a “community with a shared future for humanity” should bene fit the world. This is why the phrase should be protected and enriched by also allowing other, diverse English phases to represent the original Chinese.

The objective is to enable the global community to take collective ownership of the grand vision. Given the global pandemic, the global community must take collective ownership. What China seeks behooves people of goodwill everywhere to work together to transform rhetoric into reality.

Future historians may well look upon China’s fight against the coronavirus as a turning point in worldwide efforts to contain outbreaks of novel diseases and stop their spread, which globalization and ubiquitous air travel has made vital.

History may well thank China for pioneering how to deal with virulent contagions in a globalized world.

中国派“久经沙场”的医疗团队到别国支援抗疫，为当地带来了具备当代流行病前沿经验的专家。中国在对抗、控制新冠疫情方面的经验不断深化，尤其是医护人员、后勤人员的无私奉献，使其他国家也从中获益。

但问题依然存在。目前全球的情绪都很紧张。疫情对日常生活造成影响，加上可能比2008年更严重的经济危机，大家都很脆弱。在情绪如此紧张的环境下，新闻的不断轰炸，尤其是社交网络上将官员无心的言论放大为谣言，或是冥顽不化的阴谋论者都让人们变得冷漠、敌对，极端国家主义滋生。

理性的人们要联起手来，不要让仇恨的言论影响对疫情的抗争。

控制争端将比控制新冠疫情更具挑战性。如此下去，中美之间彼此的看法只会恶化，从而危及全球。优秀的领导人应该缓和而不是煽动极端国家主义。我们不希望看到两败俱伤。这就是为何习近平主席和特朗普总统的通话至关重要。

中国构建“人类命运共同体”的愿景，呼吁所有国家共同发展，正是动荡的当下急需的。中国的这个愿景也得到了许多文化的认可。客观公正地解读“人类命运共同体”能让全世界受益。因此要保护、发扬好这个理念，同时用多样的英语翻译表达中文原本的意思。

这个理念旨在呼吁国际社会共同致力于实现这个伟大愿景。考虑到当下的疫情，国际社会也必须如此。尤其是疫情当前，世界各地的友好民众也都应该齐心协力实现这个愿景。

未来的历史学家会将今天中国对疫情的斗争视为全球范围内遏制新冠肺炎疫情暴发、扩散的重要转折点。

历史将会感谢中国在世界抗击疫情中起到的先锋作用。（孙晔供稿）