亚洲为何需要“亚盟”？

The decision to award the EU the Nobel Peace Prize elicited understandable merriment. More than one comedian said that at least the Nobel committee had refrained from awarding the Europeans the prize for economics.

诺贝尔委员会将诺贝尔和平奖(Nobel Peace Prize)授予欧盟(EU)的决定引发一片揶揄之声，这是可以理解的。不只一个喜剧演员说过，至少他们没有将经济学奖授予欧洲人。

Still, it is worth asking which institution in Asia, where tension from previous wars still festers, has performed a similar role? The answer is none. Asia has a plethora of overlapping organisations. But not one of them has the breadth or depth to have played anything like the same role as the EU – let alone Nato – in a region far more complex, diverse and populous than Europe.

然而，我们有必要问的是，在亚洲这样一个因旧日战争引发的紧张局势仍时时被激化的地区，哪家机构扮演了与欧盟类似的角色？答案是一个也没有。亚洲有着太多职能重叠的机构，但没有一家机构具备必要的广度和深度，来发挥欧盟——更别提北约(Nato)了——那样的作用。亚洲地区的复杂性、多样性和人口数量都远远超过欧洲。

There are good reasons for the institutional gap. First, Asia is not so much a region as a European invention. Since Herodotus, the term has been used to refer vaguely to the world east of Europe. Second, for much of the period after 1945, Asia was frozen into ideological camps. Defeated Japan became a client state of the US. It sat on one side of the cold war divide. Communist China was on the other. That put Asia’s equivalent of Germany and France in different blocs, making anything like a European project a non-starter.

亚洲出现这种机制上的差距情有可原。首先，亚洲地区是自然形成的，不像欧洲有那么多人为的因素。自希罗多德(Herodotus)以来，亚洲这个词语一直被用来粗略地指代欧洲以东的世界。其次，在1945年以后的很长时间里，亚洲根据不同的意识形态被分为两大阵营。处于冷战阵营一端的是战败后成为美国附庸的日本，而另一端则是共产主义中国。这就好比在欧洲，如果德国和法国分属于不同的阵营，欧盟之类的项目自然就无从谈起。

Some effective Asian institutions have been formed. The underrated Association of Southeast Asian Nations has done much to foster co-operation between 10 southeast Asian countries. Yet it includes neither China nor Japan. Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation has a much broader membership but it is a strictly economic grouping with no diplomatic pretensions.

亚洲也组建了一些富有成效的组织。东盟(ASEAN)做出了很多努力来促进东南亚10国之间的合作，但它的作用被低估。然而，东盟并不包括中国和日本。亚太经合组织(APEC)虽然成员广泛，但它在严格意义上是一个经济组织，没有任何外交职能。

Until now, the vacuum has been filled by the Pax Americana. US involvement in the Vietnam war – which it extended to Cambodia and Laos through secret bombing campaigns – undermines the bald claim that Washington has always guaranteed the peace. However, in recent decades US naval presence has provided a stable backdrop against which many Asian nations have been able to map their startling economic ascendancy. As China rises, though, Asia’s institutional weaknesses are becoming more obvious. Witness the Sino-Japanese dispute over the uninhabited islands called the Senkaku by Tokyo and the Diaoyu by Beijing. With no mechanisms to deal with the stirring of old nationalisms, the two sides are left to slug it out bilaterally. Anti-Japan demonstrations have erupted on China’s streets and there have been several potentially dangerous maritime skirmishes. Nationalists on both sides have called for war.

到目前为止，这一真空一直由“美国治下的和平(Pax Americana)填补。美国卷入越战，并通过秘密轰炸行动，将战争扩大到柬埔寨和老挝，这让美国政府关于始终保证和平的干巴巴的声明不攻自破。不过，最近几十年，美国的海军基地为许多亚洲国家提供了稳定的发展环境，使得它们的经济飞速增长。然而，随着中国的崛起，亚洲缺乏一个强有力地区组织的问题日益明显。看看中日之间围绕一个无人居注日本称之为尖阁诸岛(Senkaku)、中国称之为钓鱼岛的争议吧。由于缺乏调解旧日民族主义争端的机制，中日双方只能互相攻讦。中国国内爆发了反日游行活动，海上也出现了一些可能引发战争的冲突。双方的民族主义者都叫嚣着要开战。

The new dynamic poses a dilemma for Beijing. As China grows more powerful, should it abide by what the world calls “international law? Or would it be justified – as Pankaj Mishra, the Indian essayist, suggests – to “balk at being a stakeholder in someone else’s global order? In practice, Beijing has often preferred bilateral to multilateral dialogue. One option would be to seek to impose a Chinese version of the Monroe doctrine, which declared Latin America off-limits to Europeans. Mr Mishra argues that, unlike the US, China lacks a proselytising impulse. It has never sought to impose Confucianism or communism on others. China’s neighbours, though, are unlikely to rely on Beijing’s goodwill. Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and India have all tacked closer to the US in response to China’s rise. Washington has pledged to maintain 60 per cent of its naval power in the Pacific. Even so, Pax Americana will become less tenable with each passing year.

这一新局面使北京陷入两难：随着中国变得日益强大，北京方面是否应该遵守所谓的“国际法？或者如印度评论家潘卡吉·米什拉(Pankaj Mishra)所说的那样，中国不愿成为其他国家制定的全球秩序的利益相关者，它的这种想法是否合理？在实践当中，北京更愿意搞双边对话而非多边对话。一个办法就是实行中国版的“门罗主义——门罗主义指当年美国人禁止欧洲人染指拉丁美洲。米什拉辩称，与美国不同，中国缺乏传教的冲动，它从不寻求将儒家或共产主义思想强加给其他国家。然而，中国的邻国不太可能相信北京方面的善意。越南、菲律宾、日本和印度全都因为中国崛起而向美国靠拢。美国政府已经承诺将美国60%的海上力量部署在太平洋地区，但是即便如此，“美国治下的和平还是变得一年比一年更难维持。

What could replace it? In a recent speech in Singapore, Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister, proposed an Asian-based system that he called Pax Pacifica. Its core objective would be to avoid regional instability and prevent war between China and the US. Its starting point would be that Washington accepts the legitimacy of China’s rise and Beijing accepts the US’s continued regional presence. Asean nations would play a central role to ensure it was not simply a US-Sino carve-up.

谁能取代它？澳大利亚前总理陆克文(Kevin Rudd)最近在新加坡的一次演讲中，提出了一个基于亚洲的体系，他将这一体系称为“太平洋治下的和平(Pax Pacifica)。其主旨是避免地区不稳定并防止中美之间发生战争。该体系的前提是美国认可中国崛起的正当性，同时中国接受美国继续在亚洲地区的存在。东盟国家将在该体系中扮演主要角色，以确保它不会简化为中美两国的利益瓜分。

Mr Rudd says territorial arguments should be frozen. Countries should seek to develop disputed resources jointly. New protocols and hotlines between nations’ militaries should ensure clashes at sea do not escalate. Militaries could learn to co-operate through joint operations to fight crime and manage natural disasters.

陆克文表示，各国应搁置领土争议，寻求共同开发争议地区的资源。各国签署的新协议以及各国军方开通的热线应会确保海上冲突不会升级。各国军方可以通过联合打击犯罪和应对自然灾难学会合作。

It is not an idea plucked from thin air. Last year the US joined the East Asia Summit, a relatively new body with broad membership and, crucially, a security mandate. For the first time all the main actors, including China, the US, Japan, India, the nations of Asean and even Russia, are members of a broad regional group with bold ambitions. Mr Rudd hopes it could evolve into a grouping with a name something like the Organisation for Security Co-operation in Asia.

上述建议并非凭空产生。去年，美国加入了东亚峰会(East Asia Summit)。东亚峰会是一个相对新兴的组织，成员国众多，而且重要的是它负有安全使命。所有主要国家（包括中国、美国、日本、印度和东盟，甚至还有俄罗斯）第一次全都加入了一个有着大胆抱负的广泛的区域组织。陆克文希望它可以发展为一个亚洲安全与合作组织(Organisation for Security Co-operation in Asia)之类的机构。

These are very early days. Beijing’s response to any attempt to create an Asian institutional framework will be important. It could plausibly put its weight behind an initiative that, at least theoretically, recognises the need to remake the regional order in response to China’s rise. Equally, it may conclude that Pax Pacifica is simply Pax Americana in disguise – containment by another name. We know one thing. Vacuums are dangerous. Asia needs an institution worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

这些都是最初期的阶段。北京方面对建立一个亚洲机构框架如何反应至关重要。对于一个至少在理论上承认由于中国崛起而需要重新安排地区秩序的机构，北京都将有可能表示支持。同样，中国也可能认为“太平洋治下的和平仅仅是伪装的“美国治下的和平，其目的还是遏制中国。无论如何，有一点是清楚的，即真空状态是危险的，亚洲需要一个值得颁发诺贝尔和平奖的地区组织。