亚洲将迎来核武对峙

Nine national leaders have the power to unleash nuclear devastation but, if it were not for the actions of a traitorous Taiwanese colonel in 1988, that number would be at least 10.

9个国家的领导人有能力启动核毁灭，但是，如果不是因为1988年一名台湾叛逃军官的举动，这个数字至少将是10个。

Chang Hsien Yi at 73 years old enjoys a quiet life in Idaho. For years he lived in secrecy in the US because of fears he would be assassinated by Taiwanese agents for revealing the full extent of Taiwan’s secret nuclear weapons programme. His defection gave Washington the evidence it needed to force Taipei to shut down the project.

73岁的张宪义(Chang Hsien Yi)如今在爱达荷州享受着宁静的生活。他曾经在美国隐居了很多年，因为他当初向美国和盘托出了台湾的核武计划，因此害怕遭到台湾特工的暗杀。他的叛逃向美国提供了证据，使美国得以迫使台湾停止该项目。

After decades of silence, Mr Chang has recently written a book on his role in this fascinating and little-known chapter of history. One of the revelations is that his actions, carried out mostly for idealistic reasons, halted Taiwan’s project when it was just one or two years away from producing the bomb.

在几十年的沉默之后，张宪义不久前写了一本书，讲述了他在那个令人神往、但外界知之甚少的历史章节中扮演的角色。书中披露的内容之一是，他主要出于理想主义原因而采取的行动，叫停了台湾的核武计划，而当时台湾还差一两年时间就能造出核弹。

Most worrying of all is the fact that Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China has sworn to “reunify” with the mainland, by force if necessary, could secretly restart its programme at any time and probably produce a weapon within a similar timeframe.

最令人担忧的事实是：台湾这个自治岛屿——中国大陆誓言要将其“重新统一”，在必要情况下将使用武力——可能在任何时候悄悄重启核武计划，并很可能在相似的时间框架内开发出核武器。

North Korea’s sabre-rattling and headlong race to build a warhead that could reach the US has brought the modern arms race into sharp focus in recent months. Presented with the ignoble example of Muammer Gaddafi, killed eight years after agreeing to abandon his nuclear weapons, the youthful dictator Kim Jong Un is unlikely to follow suit in response to threats or bribes.

近几个月来，朝鲜的炫耀武力以及不顾一切地开发可以打到美国的核弹头，使这场现代军备竞赛成为人们关注的焦点。穆阿迈尔?卡扎菲(Muammer Gaddafi)在同意放弃利比亚核武计划的8年后被杀，面对这个不光彩例子，年轻独裁者金正恩(Kim Jong Un)在面对威胁或“贿赂”时不太可能仿效卡扎菲。

That means, unless the US and its allies are willing to risk a devastating war to remove Mr Kim, regional governments will soon have to ask whether America is willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Tokyo or Seoul.

这意味着，除非美国及其盟国现在就愿意为除掉金正恩而冒险打一场毁灭性战争，否则地区各国政府很快将不得不问：美国是否愿意为了东京或首尔而牺牲洛杉矶？

As the Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan points out, the answer is obviously “no”. So the outcome is that Japan and South Korea will soon be forced to develop nuclear deterrents. As in the case of Taiwan, Japan has the capability to develop such weaponry very quickly — and is likely to do so even if Donald Trump does not follow through on his campaign promise to lift the US nuclear umbrella from over east Asia. Seoul will not be far behind.

正如新加坡外交官比拉哈里?考西坎(Bilahari Kausikan)所指出的，答案显然是“不愿意”。那么结果就是，日本和韩国很快将被迫发展核威慑手段。就像台湾的情况一样，日本拥有很快开发出核武器的能力，并且很可能真会这么做——即便唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)不兑现从东亚撤掉美国核保护伞的竞选承诺。韩国也将不会落后很多。

If this scenario is now unavoidable, the question is what that means for peace and stability. Under the theory of deterrence made popular during the cold war, the prospect of mutually assured destruction dissuaded all sides from acting rashly.

如果说目前这一局面已不可避免，那么问题在于，这对和平与稳定而言意味着什么？依据冷战期间盛行起来的威慑理论，相互确保摧毁(MAD)的前景劝阻了各方鲁莽行事。

Mr Kausikan uses this same logic to argue that a nuclear arms race in north-east Asia would lead to a similar uneasy equilibrium. He believes a nuclear balance of terror would have the added benefit (from the perspective of Washington, Tokyo and Seoul) of freezing the status quo in the region and thwarting Beijing’s revanchist goal of recreating an east Asian order with China at its apex.

新加坡的考西坎根据相同的逻辑提出，东北亚核军备竞赛将导致一种类似的不稳定均衡状态。他认为，一种核恐怖平衡将带来额外的好处（从美日韩的视角看），即固化地区现状，挫败北京方面重建一个由中国主导的东亚秩序的复仇主义目标。

Mr Kausikan is correct that a nuclear-free North Korea is now a very unlikely prospect. The regime in Pyongyang will probably collapse — one day — in full possession of its nuclear arsenal, a terrifying prospect but one that the world has seen before with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Unless that happens soon, nuclear build-up in the region is almost inevitable. Faced with this prospect, it is tempting to be sanguine and gamble on the logic of deterrence.

考西坎正确地认为，朝鲜弃核现在已经不太可能。拥有完整核武库的平壤政权有朝一日很可能会崩溃，这种前景很恐怖，但之前苏联的解体让世界看到过这种局面。除非朝鲜很快崩溃，否则地区核军备竞赛几乎是不可避免的。面对这种情景，诱惑是采取既来之则安之的态度，押注于威慑逻辑。

Taiwan’s nascent nuclear programme should make everybody pause. Beijing has sworn to carry out pre-emptive strikes if it believes Taipei is close to deploying its own weapon. But in a neighbourhood where everyone else has gone nuclear, could the world really expect Taiwan — or Singapore or Malaysia or Indonesia or Australia — to restrain themselves?

台湾半途而废的核武计划应当让所有人三思。北京方面誓言，如果其认为台湾接近部署自己的核武器，将发起先发制人打击。但在其他所有人都已拥核的东亚地区，世界真的可以期待台湾——或新加坡、马来西亚、印尼、澳大利亚——自我克制吗？

Unfortunately, the days when a single idealistic traitor could halt the advance of mass destruction are far behind us.

遗憾的是，那种一名理想主义的叛变者就能叫停大规模杀伤性武器发展的日子，早已一去不复返了。