奧斯本訪問烏魯木齊意在擴大英中貿易
George Osborne embarked on Tuesday night on a controversial trade mission to Urumqi in the far north-west of China, amid concern that he risked turning a blind eye to Beijing’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population.
週二晚，英國財政大臣喬治攠斯本(George Osborne)啓程前往中國西北城市烏魯木齊進行一次具有爭議的貿易訪問。外界擔心，他可能會對中國對待信仰伊斯蘭教的少數民族維吾爾族的方式不聞不問。
Mr Osborne wants Britain to win construction contracts in Urumqi and the surrounding Xinjiang region, as Beijing builds a development corridor along a 21st-century Silk Road connecting China with Europe.
奧斯本希望，在中國政府打造連接中歐的21世紀絲綢之路開發走廊之際，英國能贏得烏魯木齊、乃至新疆地區的一些建設合同。
The chancellor set a target of making China Britain’s biggest trading partner after the US by 2025, replacing Germany, an ambitious target that even Treasury officials admit will be a “challenge”.
奧斯本設定的目標是到2025年時讓中國取代德國成爲英國的第二大貿易伙伴（僅次於美國）。這是一個雄心勃勃的目標，就連英國財政部官員也承認這將是一項“挑戰”。
Mr Osborne believes that building trade links to cities such as Urumqi is the key to achieving his goal. But the White House is more circumspect; one senior US official recently said Britain was involved in a “constant accommodation” of China.
奧斯本認爲，建立與烏魯木齊等城市的貿易往來是實現上述目標的關鍵。但美國的態度則較爲謹慎；一位美國高官最近表示，英國正“不斷遷就”中國。
In a further sign of Mr Osborne’s enthusiastic wooing of Beijing, he announced a 10m fund to increase the teaching of Mandarin in English schools, a programme he said would benefit 5,000 pupils by 2020.
奧斯本還宣佈將設立一個1000萬英鎊的基金，擴大英國學校的漢語普通話教學。他表示，到2020年，該計劃將令5000名英國中小學生受益。這進一步表明，奧斯本正熱情洋溢地向中國示好。
“I want to give more young people the opportunity to learn a language that will help them succeed in our increasingly global economy,” Mr Osborne wrote in a Spectator magazine blog post.
奧斯本在《旁觀者》(Spectator)雜誌的一篇博文中寫道：“我希望讓更多的年輕人有機會學習一門將幫助他們在我們這個日益全球化的經濟中取得成功的語言。”
However, Mr Osborne’s modest 5,000 increase pales in comparison with David Cameron’s aspiration — made after a trip to China in 2013 — to double the number of Mandarin learners to 400,000 by the end of this parliament. Some 3,710 pupils in the UK took the GCSE Chinese exam this year while 157,699 sat GCSE French and 54,037 took German.
然而，在英國首相戴維慍蕓倫(David Cameron) 2013年訪華後提出的、在本屆議會任期屆滿前將英國漢語普通話學習者的數量增加一倍至40萬人的目標面前，奧斯本的5000人目標相形見絀。今年，英國有大約3710名學生參加了普通中等教育證書(GCSE)中文考試，157699名學生參加了GCSE法語考試，54037名學生參加了GCSE德語考試。
Mr Osborne has planned his China visit to maximise its effect. His itinerary on Tuesday started with a symbolic show of solidarity with China at the Shanghai stock exchange, before flying five hours north-west to Urumqi.
奧斯本的訪華安排意在使這次訪問實現最大效果。他週二行程的第一項，是在上海證交所(SSE)發表演講，表示要與中國攜手發展，而後飛行5個小時趕赴烏魯木齊。
He is the first serving British minister to visit the city, which suffers from ethnic violence and does not normally feature on the agenda of visiting western dignitaries. Beijing says it is waging a fight against religious extremism, terrorism and separatism.
他是首位訪問烏魯木齊的英國在任部長。烏魯木齊存在民族暴力衝突問題，一般不會出現在西方要人的訪華行程中。中國政府表示，它正在打擊宗教極端主義、恐怖主義和分裂主義。
But Kate Allen, Amnesty UK director, said: “Mr Osborne must not trade away his ability to talk out on human rights in China.” Ms Allen called on the chancellor to raise the issue of the life sentence given to Uighur academic Ilham Tohti a year ago.
然而，大赦國際(Amnesty)英國負責人凱特縠倫(Kate Allen)表示：“奧斯本決不能放棄在中國談論人權問題的機會。”艾倫呼籲奧斯本提及維族學者伊力哈木土赫提(Ilham Tohti)一年前被判無期徒刑一事。
Chinese treatment of the Uighurs, most of whom follow a moderate branch of Sufi Islam, is becoming a sore point with Muslims overseas — particularly in Turkey, whose language is closely related to Uighur.
中國對待維族的方式正成爲海外穆斯林羣體的心頭之痛，特別是在土耳其，土耳其語跟維吾爾語存在密切的聯繫。多數維族信仰伊斯蘭教中溫和的蘇菲派(Sufi)。
Native to resource-rich Xinjiang, many Uighurs feel discriminated against in education and employment in China, while some also chafe under restrictions on Muslim religious practice. China maintains that Uighurs seeking to leave the country are trying to join extremist groups overseas.
許多維族人在資源豐富的新疆地區土生土長，他們覺得在中國，維族人在教育和就業方面受歧視，還有一些維族人對穆斯林宗教活動受到的限制感到不滿。中國方面認爲，尋求離開中國的維族人是在試圖加入海外的極端組織。
Mr Osborne surprised his hosts by proposing the visit — the most sensitive part of his five-day trade mission to the country — himself. British journalists based in Beijing were advised by the Chinese authorities not to cover it.
奧斯本本人提出訪問新疆，着實出乎中方的意料——這是他爲期5天的對華貿易訪問中最爲敏感的一段行程。中國有關部門建議駐北京的英國記者不要報道這段行程。
But the chancellor says he wants to show Britain is interested in investing in every region of China, arguing that he hoped that the money spent on the One Belt, One Road project to revive historic trade routes would improve the situation in Xinjiang.
但奧斯本表示，他希望表明英國有意投資中國的每一個地區，並辯稱他希望這些投資於“一帶一路”項目以復興歷史商道的資金將會改善新疆的狀況。
“I think it’s actually much better that we engage and, after all, one of the things we can bring to Xinjiang is economic development, rising prosperity and higher living standards,” he told the BBC.
他向英國廣播公司(BBC)表示：“我認爲我們參與進去其實要好得多，畢竟，我們能爲新疆帶來的一樣東西就是經濟發展、日益的繁榮和生活水平提高。”
Privately, British officials were more blunt. “It’s no good saying sorry, we’re not going there, and then turn up in 10 years’ time and find there’s a huge German skyscraper in the middle of Urumqi,” said one.
英國官員私下裏更爲直言不諱。一位官員表示：“說不好意思、我們不到那兒去了，結果十年後再去，發現在烏魯木齊市中心矗立着一座巨大的德國摩天大樓——這有什麼好？”
Mr Osborne denies his trip to Xinjiang is a sign that he endorses China’s security crackdown and says he raised human rights issues privately with his hosts during meetings in Beijing on Monday.
奧斯本否認此次新疆之旅表明他認可中國爲保障社會安全而展開的打壓，並表示，週一在北京與東道主會晤期間，他私下裏提出了人權問題。
By visiting parts of China that do not normally feature on the diplomatic circuit, Mr Osborne also hopes to persuade Chinese investors to look beyond London and put money into his “northern powerhouse” project in the north of England.
奧斯本還希望，通過訪問中國一些通常不在外國要人訪華行程上的地區，可以說服中國投資者將目光投向倫敦以外的英國其他地區、並投資於他在英格蘭北部的“北方經濟引擎”(northern powerhouse)項目。
The Treasury announced that a group based in Xinjiang, the Hualing Industry and Trade Group, had agreed to invest money “to unlock three major property projects in Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield with a gross value of 1.2bn”. The statement did not say how much money Hualing was putting into the scheme, which is led by the UK’s Scarborough Group; a Treasury official later said it was 60m.
英國財政部宣佈，中國新疆華凌工貿集團(Hualing Industry and Trade Group)已同意投入資金“啓動曼徹斯特、利茲和謝菲爾德的3個大型房地產項目，項目總價值爲12億英鎊”。該聲明並未透露華凌向該項目投入多少資金——該項目由英國斯卡伯勒集團(Scarborough Group)牽頭；英國財政部一位官員後來表示，華凌投資了6000萬英鎊。
Some doubt whether British companies will win construction contracts in Xinjiang, a region with sensitive security issues, although Mr Osborne is keen for investment to flow both ways.
一些人懷疑英國公司能否在存在敏感安全問題的新疆贏得建築合同，儘管奧斯本熱切希望投資能有來有往。
The US administration has been critical of Chinese handling of ethnic tensions in Xinjiang. Speaking last month, Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights, said China was at risk of “conflating terrorism with peaceful expression of dissent or religious belief” in Xinjiang.
美國政府一直對中國處理新疆民族緊張關係的做法持批評態度。負責民主和人權事務的美國助理國務卿湯姆氠利諾夫斯基(Tom Malinowski)上月在發表演講時表示，在新疆，中國可能會把“恐怖主義與和平表達異見和宗教信仰混爲一談”。
