The Chinese president warned of possible conflict if the issue of Taiwan is ‘handled poorly’.
中国总统警告称，如果“处理不当”，台湾问题可能引发冲突。
The initial top line emerging from the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing was that while the two leaders had talked trade, technology and the US war in Iran, the most potentially hazardous issue was Taiwan. The Chinese foreign ministry reported that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, told the US president, Donald Trump, that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations”.
北京特朗普-习近平峰会最初透露的要点是，尽管两位领导人讨论了贸易、技术以及美国在伊朗的战争，但最具潜在危险的问题是台湾。中国外交部报道称，中国国家主席习近平告诉美国总统唐纳德·特朗普，“台湾问题是中国—美关系中最重要的问题”。
Handled properly, China’s statement said, relationship between China and the US will remain stable. “If handled poorly”, Xi told the US president, “the two countries will collide or even clash, putting the entire US-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation.”
中国方面表示，如果处理得当，中国和美国的关系将保持稳定。“如果处理不当，”习近平告诉美国总统，“两国将发生冲突甚至碰撞，使整个中美关系处于极其危险的境地。”
A White House statement didn’t mention Xi’s warning over Taiwan, instead focusing on the two leaders’ agreement that the Strait of Hormuz must be kept open and the importance of China buying US agricultural produce and curtailing the flow of fentanyl precursors into the US.
白宫的一份声明没有提及习近平关于台湾的警告，而是重点关注了两位领导人就必须保持霍尔木兹海峡开放的共识，以及中国购买美国农产品和减少芬太尼前体流入美国的重要性。
In other words, the two sides’ reports neatly reflected their respective priorities.
换句话说，双方的报告清晰地反映了各自的优先事项。
So, despite the warm words and bonhomie at the subsequent banquet at which the two leaders raised glasses to each other over lobster, beef ribs and Beijing roast duck, there is clearly the potential for a serious misunderstanding over Taiwan. Last week a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the US president urging him to sign off on a US$14 billion (£111 billion) package of arms to Taipei. If he proceed with this, it would seriously hamper any efforts the two leaders might make to stabilise relations between the two countries.
因此，尽管在随后的宴会上，两位领导人举杯庆祝龙虾、牛排骨和北京烤鸭时言辞温暖，气氛融洽，但围绕台湾的严重误解的潜力是显而易见的。上周，一群两党参议员致信美国总统，敦促他签署一份价值140亿美元（1110亿英镑）的向台北提供武器装备的方案。如果他推进此事，将严重阻碍两位领导人稳定两国关系所做的任何努力。
The problem, write international affairs specialists Nicholas Wheeler and Marcus Holmes, is that the two sides come at the issue from completely different directions. For the US, continuing to provide Taiwan with state-of-the-art US defence weaponry is about deterring Chinese aggression. For China, US arms sales to Taiwan are themselves an aggressive move.
国际事务专家尼古拉斯·惠勒和马库斯·霍姆斯写道，问题在于双方从完全不同的角度看待这个问题。对美国而言，持续向台湾提供最先进的美国国防武器是为了威慑中国的侵略。而对中国而言，美国向台湾出售武器本身就是一种侵略行为。
The situation is fraught with possibilities for misunderstanding. But surely this is what summits are for, argue Wheeler and Holmes. They recall the crisis in 1983 sparked by a US military drill that the Soviet Union convinced themselves was a preparation for a real nuclear strike by the US. It was Ronald Reagan’s realisation that “maybe they are scared of us and think we are a threat” which led him to develop warm relations with the next Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, precipitating a new era in arms control.
局势充满了误解的可能性。但惠勒和霍姆斯认为，这正是峰会存在的意义。他们回想起1983年因一次美国军事演习引发的危机，苏联一度认为这是美国准备进行真正核打击的预兆。正是罗纳德·里根意识到“也许他们害怕我们，认为我们是威胁”，这促使他与下一任苏联领导人米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔发展了友好关系，从而开启了军备控制的新时代。
Maybe this week’s summit could help the pair to – as Xi put it – “make 2026 a historic, landmark year that opens up a new chapter in China-US relations”.
也许本周的峰会能帮助双方——正如习近平所说——“让2026年成为一个开创中国—美关系新篇章的历史性、里程碑式的一年”。
Where would this new era leave Taipei? Distinctly nervous, you’d have to think. As Trump prepared to leave for Beijing, he commented that he was planning to discuss US arms sales with Xi – which, as Andrew Gawthorpe notes – breaches one of the Six Assurances that has been part of America’s policy towards Taiwan since the 1980s.
那么，这个新时代会给台北留下什么？你不得不认为，会是相当紧张的。当特朗普准备前往北京时，他评论说，他计划与习近平讨论美国武器销售问题——正如安德鲁·高索普所指出的，这违反了自20世纪80年代以来一直作为美国对台政策一部分的“六项保证”之一。
Gawthorpe, an expert in US foreign policy at the University of Leiden, cautions that the Trump administration breaking one of these promises could embolden Xi to press Trump on the other five, which include a US commitment on Taiwanese sovereignty.
莱顿大学美国外交政策专家高索普警告说，特朗普政府打破其中一项承诺，可能会鼓动习近平在其他五项承诺上向特朗普施压，其中包括美国对台湾主权的承诺。
The fact is, Gawthorpe concludes, if US arms sales to Taiwan are on the table now, they a likely to stay there, which could prove perilous for Taiwan if the US wants any major concessions, say on China’s support for Iran.
高索普总结道，事实上，如果美国向台湾出售武器现在摆在了桌面上，它们很可能会一直留在那里，如果美国想要任何重大让步，比如在支持伊朗问题上，这对台湾来说可能会非常危险。
Xi talked about his hope that the summit could work towards “a new paradigm of major-country relations”. The importance of this bilateral relationship was a theme the Chinese president returned to several times in the meeting, at one point referencing what he called the “Thucydides trap”, which refers to the stresses that occur when a rising power challenges an established one. (You may recall Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made reference to the revered Greek historian in his widely praised Davos speech in February.)
习近平谈到了他希望峰会能够朝着“大国关系的新范式”迈进的希望。这种双边关系的重要性是中国国家主席在会议中多次提及的主题，甚至引用了他所说的“修昔底德陷阱”，指的是当一个崛起的大国挑战一个既有的大国时所产生的压力。（您可能还记得加拿大总理马克·卡尼在二月份备受赞誉的达沃斯演讲中提到了这位受人尊敬的希腊历史学家。）
But where was Russia in all this? Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham, observes that any stabilising of relations between Washington and Beijing is likely to come at Moscow’s expense and will certainly be a blow to Vladimir Putin’s aspiration to restore his country to great power status.
但俄罗斯在这其中处于什么位置？伯明翰大学国际安全学教授斯特凡·沃尔夫观察到，华盛顿和北京关系任何稳定化都可能会以莫斯科为代价，并且肯定会对弗拉基米尔·普京恢复其国家大国地位的愿望造成打击。
So as not to be left out, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced as Xi and Trump toured the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (an honour that has yet to be afforded to Putin) that preparations are underway for the Russian president to visit China “very soon”.
因此，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫宣布，当习近平和特朗普游览北京天坛时（这是普京尚未获得过的殊荣），正在为俄罗斯总统“很快”访问中国做准备，以免被排除在外。
That’s not to say that Putin’s “no-limits friendship” with Xi is at threat, writes Wolff. But he observes that “the Xi-Trump summit is a party to which Putin was not invited”, which “indicates that his efforts to make his presence felt have largely failed”.
沃尔夫写道，但这并不意味着普京与习近平的“无限制友谊”受到威胁。但他观察到，“习近平-特朗普峰会是一个没有邀请普京参加的场合”，这“表明他努力彰显自身存在感的工作在很大程度上失败了”。
Damp squib for Putin
对普京而言，一场“平淡收场”
It hasn’t been a great week for the Russian president, all things considered. On May 9, what has traditionally been a red letter day for Vladmir Putin – Russia’s Victory Day celebration – proved to be something of a damp squib.
考虑到所有因素，本周对俄罗斯总统来说并非一段顺利的时光。5月9日，传统上对弗拉基米尔·普京来说是值得纪念的日子——俄罗斯胜利日庆祝活动——却被证明是平淡无奇的。
Ukraine’s recent successes in long-range drone attacks, one of which successfully struck a luxury high-rise apartment block less than ten miles from Red Square, prompted Putin to scale back the parade. What is usually a showcase of Russia’s military might, parading tanks, ballistic missile launchers and an array of other state-of-the-art weaponry in front of invited world leaders, was reduced to a march past with a couple of Putin allies and assorted second world war veterans.
乌克兰近期在远程无人机攻击方面的成功，其中一次成功击中了红场不到十英里的一栋豪华高层公寓楼，促使普京缩小了阅兵规模。通常，阅兵式是展示俄罗斯军事实力的场合，会向受邀的世界领导人展示坦克、弹道导弹发射器和各种最先进的武器装备，但这次却只剩下一场由几位普京盟友和各种二战老兵组成的游行。
Russia-watcher Jennifer Mathers of Aberystwyth University has examined the Victory Day parades since the Ukraine war begin in 2022 and believes they reflect Russian national morale. This year’s, she says, saw Russia looks “fearful, diminished and isolated”.
观察俄罗斯局势的阿伯里斯蒂斯大学詹妮弗·马瑟斯（Jennifer Mathers）考察了自2022年乌克兰战争爆发以来的胜利日阅兵，并认为这些阅兵反映了俄罗斯的民族士气。她说，今年的阅兵显示出俄罗斯“恐惧、衰落和孤立”。
Caspian Sea
里海
With all the attention – understandably – on the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, little has been written about the Caspian Sea. But the world’s largest landlocked body of water has played an important role in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.
近几周以来，所有关注点（这可以理解）都集中在霍尔木兹海峡，很少有人写过关于里海的内容。但这个世界上最大的内陆水域，在伊朗和乌克兰两场战争中都发挥了重要作用。
During the Ukraine war, Iran used it to supply Russia with Shahed drones, now Russia is returning the compliment. The two countries have also found it useful in avoiding western sanctions on trade in all manner of other goods.
在乌克兰战争期间，伊朗利用里海向俄罗斯供应了“沙赫德”无人机，而现在俄罗斯正在回报这份“馈赠”。两国还发现，里海在规避西方对各种其他商品贸易的制裁方面也很有用。
Here’s a piece from maritime security expert Basil Germond, of Lancaster University on just how significant the Caspian Sea has become.
这里是兰卡斯特大学海洋安全专家巴斯尔·杰蒙德（Basil Germond）关于里海变得多么重要的文章。
