林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

吳泓勲，”談判桌大翻轉 美國衰老 陸年輕”

旺報 2018.05.23 P.A6

風水百年轉。

Thomas Friedman, "Is the U.S. Becoming Like China"

International New York Times May 11, 2018 p.11

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/us-china-more-alike.html

●"世界是平的"作者在紐約時報發表短文"美國變得像中國了嗎?"

*"...in both Beijing and Washington, self-censorship, and biting one's tongue, is more rife than ever-- but for different reasons. In Beijing it's so you won't get arrested. In Washington it's so you won't get into a fight. In both cases, the net results are fewer people talking truth across ideological lines."

●"在北京和華府，言論自我省察以及有話不敢說比過去都嚴重，只是原因不同。在北京是為了怕被逮捕。在華府是為了怕和人爭鬥。但最後結果都一樣:願意和政治看法不同的人對話的愈來愈少了。"

*“In the 466 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That’s an average of nearly 6.5 claims a day.

I suspect President Xi has a far higher truth batting average in his public statements than President Trump.”

●"川普上任466天以來，發表過3,001件錯話或謊言, 平均每天6.5件。"

*"I suspect President Xi has a far higher truth batting average in his public statements than President Trump."

●"我懷疑習主席公開發言裡說實話的成分高於川普總統。"

*"But Trump clearly wants us to act like China: 'Don't show me your values. Show me your money and arms purchases."

●川普明顯的要美國學中國：別跟我說你的價值和信念是什麼。給我看你的錢，告訴我你要買什麼武器。

*Trump, who was surely not 100 percent joking when he said in March of President Xi: “President for life. … I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll want to give that a shot someday.”

●川普顯然不是在開玩笑，當他今年三月談到習主席時曾說： "元首終身職...我認為太好了。也許哪天我們也該試試看。"

林中斌 試摘譯 2018.5.16

The U.S. and China: More Alike Than We’d Like?

By Thomas L. Friedman Opinion Columnist May 8, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/us-china-more-alike.html

accessed May 16, 2018

Image

A billboard in Beijing noted achievements of President Xi Jinping.CreditKyodo News, via Getty Images

It is impossible to visit China these days and not compare and contrast the drama playing out in Beijing politics with the drama playing out in Washington politics. While the differences are many, I am sorry to report that some of the parallels are getting too close for comfort.

Let’s start with the fact that the anti-corruption crackdown by President Xi Jinping has created a climate of fear in China these days — whether about interacting with foreigners or saying the wrong thing or behaving too extravagantly so as to attract the state “anti-corruption” detectives.

But because “corruption” has not been clearly defined — and can be used to get rid of anyone for any reason — people don’t know where the line is, so they’re extra cautious. That’s why during a week in Beijing the most frequent expression I heard was, “You’re not quoting me on this, right?”

But if the Chinese are afraid to talk to one another, in America we’ve forgotten how to talk to one another.

In Washington these days it is not uncommon for people to be invited to a dinner or a public gathering and think to themselves: “I hope none of them will be there.” And the them people are talking about is not someone of a different faith or race — which would be awful enough — but it’s someone just from a different political party.

In other words, in both Beijing and Washington, self-censorship, and biting one’s tongue, is more rife than ever — but for different reasons. In Beijing it’s so you won’t get arrested. In Washington it’s so you won’t get into a fight. In both cases, though, the net results are fewer people talking truth across ideological lines.

At the same time, in China today, if you’re a Communist Party official or senior bureaucrat, you have to toe the ruling party’s line or you could be quickly purged or imprisoned. In America today, if you’re a Republican Party congressman or senator, you, too, have to toe the ruling party’s line or you could be quickly purged or primaried — or get a tweet in the back from the president.

But there is one difference: In China’s ruling Communist Party, it’s never safe to criticize the president. In America’s ruling Republican Party, you can criticize the president, or vote your conscience, if you’re dying, retiring or whispering.

Or, as a dying Senator John McCain observed in his new book: “This is my last term. … I’m freer than colleagues who will face the voters again. I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much. And I can vote my conscience without worry.”

The Chinese government will not hesitate to put out propaganda to support the government or defend China’s interests, whether the facts are true or not. Ditto Donald Trump and his White House. Last week The Washington Post reported: “In the 466 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That’s an average of nearly 6.5 claims a day.”

I suspect President Xi has a far higher truth batting average in his public statements than President Trump.

The fawning and lack of skepticism with which China Central Television covers Xi, though, is indistinguishable from the fawning and lack of skepticism by “Fox & Friends” and Sean Hannity when discussing Trump.

That probably partially explains why more and more Chinese do not think that we are as “exceptional” a nation as we think we are — and they are now ready to say so: loudly. I was struck by how many officials and experts at a Tsinghua University seminar I attended were so willing to baldly state that their top-down, one-party system of governance and state-directed capitalism was superior to our multiparty, democratic, free-market system.

And the two big pieces of evidence they always cited was that they never went through the kind of 2008 economic meltdown that we did, and their system never put up a leader as undisciplined, dishonest and unstable as Donald Trump (at least not since Mao).

On this I often pushed back on my Chinese interlocutors to be humbler and warier of what the future may hold. Their one-party, one-man decision-making system can make big decisions fast. But it can also make big wrong decisions fast. For instance, Bloomberg News reported in February: “In 2008, China’s total debt was about 141 percent of its gross domestic product. By mid-2017 that number had risen to 256 percent. Countries that take on such a large amount of debt in such a short period typically face a hard landing.”

But Xi and the Chinese Communist Party at least stimulated their economy in order to avoid a real economic crisis — for themselves and the world. Trump and his Republican Party just added $1.5 trillion to America’s debt to pay for tax cuts for businesses and individuals at a time when our economy was already on the rise. Trump did so knowing that he would be here to take credit for any boom — and be long gone when we have to do the belt-tightening necessary so that interest on the debt doesn’t devour all nondefense spending and lead to a bust.

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One contrast, Chinese are ready to sacrifice to make China great again. Trump wants to make America great again without asking us to do anything hard — just cut taxes and regulations for rich people and corporations and keep pumping fossil fuels, and not invest in public goods like education and infrastructure, which have been the real engines of China’s resurgence.

Chinese foreign policy has always been transactional, saying to neighbors, “Give us access to your markets and we will build you infrastructure that we can both use — then we will be allies.” U.S. foreign policy, while it has always had its cynical, transactional side, particularly in the Cold War, has tended more toward, “Share our values and then we can be allies.”

But Trump clearly wants us to act more like China: “Don’t show me your values. Show me your money and your arms purchases. Don’t think of me as your ally. Think of me as your landlord. Pay for our protection and we can be friends.”

Fortunately, for now, one big difference remains: While Xi has cowed his news media, Trump, despite all his efforts to discredit our free press, has actually ended up invigorating it. Fox aside, it’s feistier than ever. And while institutions and the rule of law in China have always been a weak restraint on its leaders, institutions built over 250 years in America have continued to restrain Trump — for now.

But they will have to hold for at least another two and a half years, and that will not be easy with a president like Trump, who was surely not 100 percent joking when he said in March of President Xi: “President for life. … I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll want to give that a shot someday.”

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國防部前副部長多年失聰　「奇蹟」復原竟是這原因（動畫）

https://tw.appledaily.com/new/realtime/20180514/1352749/

國防部前副部長、兩岸專家林中斌是政壇耆宿，但鮮少人知，原來他左耳早在10多前已失聰，且去年10月去踏青時淋雨後，竟連右耳也聽力也大減，原本已準備戴助聽器，今年1月到亞東醫院檢查，僅抽出積水，雙耳聽力竟奇蹟復原，感嘆「聽到老婆正常講話，還覺得太大聲」，並在臉書寫下這段經歷，分享他波折的「失聰復得記」。
 
《蘋果》日前赴林中斌家，76歲的他除精神奕奕，對於《蘋果》以正常音量訪問，且兩人相距1公尺以上，他仍聽得萬分清楚，實在很難想像他在數月前幾乎全聾。
 
林中斌表示，他的左耳聽力從20多前開始退化，10多年前已失聰，這些年都靠右耳聽人講話，想不到去年10月他去宜蘭桃源谷步道，途中淋了一些雨、有點感冒，幾天後右耳聽力竟也急速衰退，嚴重影響他生活，不但聽話困難，還有主持會議、媒體受訪等活動，讓他非常頭大，一度認為是時候戴助聽器了。
 
林中斌曾赴住家附近的醫學中心給醫師檢查，但1個多月內4次就診，最後被醫師宣告「內耳神經老化、受損」，後半輩子都得戴助聽器，讓他一度確信自己聽力已一去不回。
 
今年1月時，林中斌在一名學生力勸下，前往亞東醫院給人工耳蝸中心主任陳光超看診，當時他心中已不抱任何希望，但陳聽了他的敘述後，做了一系列的檢查診斷，便說「來抽個水吧」，想不到雙耳抽出積水後，除右耳外，連10多年來幾乎全聾的左耳也能聽見聲音，讓他直呼：「實在太神奇！」
 
陳光超表示，50歲以上成人一半以上聽力會退化5成，但林中斌雙耳則是因中耳積水導致暫時性聽力喪失，原因是中耳有積水時，負責接收聲音的毛細胞「就像泡在水中」，震動會減少，耳膜、三塊聽小骨接受到的聲音訊號也大打折扣，進而影響聽力，這只要抽除積水，聽力即可回復。
 
至於他院醫師為何未確診，陳光超解釋，中耳積水通常呈現偏黃的琥珀色，但林中斌的耳內積水透明，才會多次檢查仍無法發現；感冒、中耳炎等都可能讓耳咽管阻塞，產生中耳積水，而年長者因聽力已退化，一旦中耳積水，影響聽力的情形會更嚴重，建議家中若有長輩突然聽不清，要懷疑有可能只是中耳積水，正確處理便能改善。
 
北榮耳鼻喉頭頸醫學部主任蕭安穗則提醒，中耳積水要小心也可能是鼻咽癌，因患者的腫瘤若塞住耳咽管、導致中耳積水；陳光超說，如果僅有單側中耳積水，確實最好連鼻咽部位也一併檢查。（黃仲丘／台北報導）

林泉忠，”台日關係的中國因素”

自由時報2018年5月13日

王輝生，”力挺安倍 台灣竟輸中國”

自由時報2018年5月13日

陳君碩，”防尼克森震撼重演 安倍向陸示好”

旺報2016年8月7日

2018.5.13 自由時報評論已不諱言中日關係加溫，臺日關係相反。

*自從中日關係於去年下半年開始出現明顯和緩勢頭後，(日本)這些強化與台灣政治關係的舉措就不再出現。

*...因此在東京有求於中國的氣氛下，難以期待日本會在此期間進一步提升與台灣關係。(林泉忠博士教授)

*有史以來對台灣最友善的安倍首相，...政權岌岌可危...中國頻頻向日本伸出橄欖枝...李克強於選前...適時來訪，給正身處冰雪中的安倍送上溫暖的炭火...。(王輝生理事長)

*"安倍與北京改善關係是一種未雨綢繆" (2016.8.7 林中斌)

林蒼生, “清富，順自然的企業家”

聯合報 2018年5月13日

*應該把精力放在優點的延伸 ，而非缺點的糾正。

*靜靜祈禱然後思考的習慣，是很重要的日常功課。

Robert E. Rubin , “Philosophy Pays Off” 

International New York Time May 2, 2018

*作者羅拔特.魯賓是柯林頓總統的財政部長。之前在高盛董事及副董事長。
*這是他回憶在哈佛大學最寶貴的心得：哲學。
*一共兩重點，來自一位他的教授(雖然從未正式見面)的授課，和在校園咖啡館的討論。
*柏拉圖：要證明任何念頭徹底的真實無疑是不可能的。
*魯賓演譯出的結論：重要決定都是根據可能率。比較好，比較不好等等。
*存在主義："現在"固然重要，但在時空的整體，"此時此地"是微不足道的。
林中斌試摘譯 2018.5.12

Robert E. Rubin: Philosophy Prepared Me for a Career in Finance and Government
By Robert E. Rubin

Mr. Rubin was secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999.

April 30, 2018

When I arrived at Harvard in 1956 as a freshman, I felt overwhelmed academically. Unlike many of my classmates who had gone to rigorous private schools, I graduated from a Florida public school that in those days rarely sent kids to elite colleges in the North. Even after four years of high school French, I couldn’t pass the exam to get out of the entry-level class at Harvard. In math, I was relegated to the remedial course.

The dean tried to reassure us at orientation by noting that only 2 percent of the class would fail out. I thought my classmates were lucky: I’d somehow manage to fill the quota all by myself.

My tenuous feeling about being at Harvard would never fully dissipate. But to my surprise, and that of my advisers, my grades were quite good at the end of the year. The upside of entering Harvard with less academic preparation than many of my classmates was that it forced me to rethink much of what I thought I knew.

So, too, did Raphael Demos. Professor Demos, an authority on Greek philosophy, was Harvard’s Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Policy. But to me, when I took a class with him my sophomore year, he was a genial little man with white hair and an exceptional talent for engaging students from the lecture hall stage, using an overturned wastebasket as his lectern.

Professor Demos would use Plato and other great philosophers to demonstrate that proving any proposition to be true in the final and ultimate sense was impossible. His approach to critical thinking planted a seed in me that grew during my years at Harvard and throughout my life. The approach appealed to what was probably my natural but latent tendency toward questioning and skepticism.

I concluded that you can’t prove anything in absolute terms, from which I extrapolated that all significant decisions are about probabilities. Internalizing the core tenet of Professor Demos’s teaching — weighing risk and analyzing odds and trade-offs — was central to everything I did professionally in the decades ahead in finance and government.

At the same time that I was processing Professor Demos’s class, one of the big ideas floating around coffeehouses in Cambridge, Mass., was existential philosophy. In time, I arrived at my own interpretation of that way of thinking. To me, existentialism is an internalized sense of perspective. I came to believe that on one hand, the present matters a great deal, but on the other hand, in the totality of space and time, the here and now becomes insignificant.

I’m asked from time to time which undergraduate courses best prepared me for working at Goldman Sachs and in the government. People assume I’ll list courses in economics or finance, but I always answer that the key was Professor Demos’s philosophy course and the conversations about existentialism in coffee shops around campus. For me, embracing these two perspectives brought me a sense of calm in what were incredibly stressful situations.

There was a point in the early 1980s when the Goldman Sachs arbitrage department, which I led, lost more money in one month than it had made in almost any one year, driven by severe declines in the equity markets. Given the vicissitudes of markets, there was no way to tell whether we’d reached the nadir and recovery was around the corner — or whether we were about to go over a cliff. Despite the immense pressure, and the emotional state of the markets, I drew on an existential perspective, and my colleagues and I made careful, probabilistic decisions to adjust our portfolio, and we weathered the storm.

During my time in the Clinton White House, my colleagues and I tackled similarly complex situations. One extraordinarily complicated issue was the 1995 budget battle, which transformed into a debt-limit crisis and two government shutdowns. Compounding the severity of this policy debate for me was the experience of being personally vilified. Despite the complexity of the issues and the emotions involved, we managed to keep our balance and stand our ground. The Republican-controlled Congress eventually raised the debt limit, as we had advocated.

In both of those situations — one on Wall Street, the other in Washington — I drew from Professor Demos’s philosophy class and the existentialist lessons from the coffeehouses, which shaped my thinking on how to make decisions and helped me build a durable sense of remove and perspective.

Despite having such a profound impact on my way of thinking, I never actually met Professor Demos. I was just one of a hundred or so young faces sitting in a lecture hall, taking in his every word. If I had the chance, I would thank him for challenging me all those many years ago. He crystallized for me the power of critical thinking: asking questions, recognizing that there are no provable certainties and analyzing the probabilities. And that, coupled with my coffeehouse lessons, was the best preparation one could have — not just for a career but also for life.

Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999, is senior counselor to Centerview Partners.

習莫強勢 戰將受制 中印和緩

accessed May 11, 2018

●中印和緩尚有另一因素：習近平與莫迪皆為心靈修行者。

●2014年7月兩人首次見面，莫迪提出請求：修護中印邊境之22公里極端危險的乃堆拉山口朝聖道路。

●2015年5月莫迪首次訪中國後不久於6月22日乃堆拉朝聖新路線正式開通。

林中斌

名人堂稿件

日期：20180510   本文字數：1100    目標字數:1100

「我們相信美國嗎？不大可能」

這是印度退休大使Rajiv Dogra在Sunday Times of India報紙二○一一年三月廿日的評論標題。理由是：「美國自我為中心，容易撿起新盟友，也隨意丟棄老朋友。…美國對印度的興趣是我們廣大的市場讓他賺錢，和我們重要的戰略地位，可幫他對付崛起的中國。如此而已。」當時四個月前，美總統歐巴馬剛訪印。

今年四月廿七日，印度總理莫迪二度訪問中國，廿二日才臨時宣布。他與習近平交談六次，其中三次兩人密會。雙方達成加強經濟戰略合作多項共識。莫迪原已計劃六月前往青島參加國際會議時見習近平。為何先多此一舉？此外，印度是去年十一月美國川普總統宣示「亞太戰略」(圍堵中國)美、日、澳、印四民主核心國之一。為何，莫迪向非民主的中國示好？

原因有三。一，如Dogra大使所示，印度對美國的殷勤懷有戒心。二，川普以美國國內為優先，東亞各國開始擔心，而程度不同的轉向北京，印度也不例外。三，更重要是：習莫強勢戰將受制。而且，習贏得莫的信任。

一四年九月十八日，是剛上台的印度總理莫迪生日。他盛情在故鄉家中設晚宴招待來訪的習近平。當日下午，一千名解放軍進駐拉達克中印未定界，一千五百名印軍立即向前對峙，情勢緊張。

宴席中，莫迪調侃的說，謝謝習主席送我的「意外生日禮物」。習只好說將盡速處理，顏面盡失。

根據九月廿三日Forbes Asia報導，雙方領袖顯然都遭遇內部軍人的扯肘。習回京後下令撤軍，訓令將領改進指揮鏈，服從他領導，並取消負責紀律的劉源和張幼俠原定撰昇軍委會副主席的計畫。

一三年五月，剛與習一起上任總理李克強訪問印度。而解放軍四月跨越拉達克未定界實際控制線，造成兩軍對峙近三週，事先破壞李訪印的外交成果。

負責中印邊境的成都軍區與圖謀奪習李政權的薄熙來關係深厚。軍區中的十四集團軍為其父薄一波創建。據說，一二年薄熙來曾策反十四集團軍流產。一六年，習近平趁軍區改戰區時裁撤十四軍。

一七年九月五日印度媒體Hindustan Times報導：一七年夏天，中印軍隊於洞朗對峙七十三日，在八月廿八日雙方達成協議同時後撤。同一天，習近平拔除聯合參謀部參謀長房峰輝。顯見，房峰輝曾阻礙和解，可能想藉由與印度打一仗，拉抬自己聲勢。

一七年十月中共十九大後，習近平對軍隊掌握更上層樓，對控制中印邊境解放軍應更到位。

一般來說，軍人靠打仗立功，不樂見與鄰國和解。中印皆然。

莫迪上任以來，政績斐然。一八年一月民調顯示，他的支持度高達五十三趴。他已是印度獨立以來歷任總理支持度比較下最高的，達廿八趴，遠超過第二位Indira Gandhi的廿趴。

相當於印度陸軍總司令的Bipin Rawat一七年初，號稱可同時進行兩個戰爭。莫迪壓得住鷹派將領，不只在一七年九月三日任命的鴿派女性國防部長，後者十月初尚且親赴中印邊境合什向解放軍祝福問候。

中印和緩序幕拉開了。

作者為前華府喬治大學外交學院講座教授，曾任國防部副部長

中國的一帶一路是新殖民主義嗎? Is China's Silk Road project the new colonialism? ~ New York Times May 4, 2018

accessed May 9, 2018

*作者華府喬治城大學歷史系教授James Millward說不是。

*巧的是"環遊世界80天"作者Jules Verne在1893年寫過小說有內容是橫貫歐亞的鐵路直通北京!!(中斌按:他也寫過在下世紀，即廿世紀，美國將在Florida發射太空火箭)

*本文作者說一帶一路是超越國界為他國謀福利，至少比川普的保護主義和西歐排外主義好。

*他又說西方長期在非洲，卻不比中國減少非洲貧窮做得多。

*控訴中國陰險計劃統治世界，太一概而論了。

韓國半島的骨牌效應

accessed May 9, 2018

●韓國半島局勢轉變像推骨牌般的一發不可收拾。

●5/7-8習金二會秘密舉行，事後宣佈。

●之前說北京被邊緣化。嚴重誤判。

●兩韓統一，勢不可擋。

●北韓經濟第一，南韓安全第一。互補性高。

●北京已改念，支持兩韓統一。

●北京將獲半島無核化，薩德部署停滯或撤除。

●中日加速和解。

●東北亞趨勢中升美降。

http://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20180508003899-260408?from=fb_share_mobile

Is Democracy Dying? ~ Foreign Affairs May/June 2018

accessed May 4, 2018

- 最新美國權威的"外交事務"雙月刊(2018年5/6月)整本主體是

"民主在死亡?全球報告"。

-- 主要文章有

*"大轉變:美國民主如何失敗?"

*"無安全感的時代:美國民主仍能自救嗎?"

*"民主世紀結束:專權政治在全球昇起"

*"有中國特色的專權政治:北京幕後的改革"

*"東歐的非自由式革命:一條走向民主墜落的漫長道路"

林中斌 試譯 2018.5.4

意涵：

-- 這本"民主在死亡?全球報告""外交事務"雙月刊彰顯了一項新趨勢：

-- 民主不再是理所當然的最好政治制度。民主是最好政治制度的說法在民主的西方也有爭議。

-- 即使在一度為世界民主模範的美國，即使在美國高層政治菁英圈子中，民主不再是毫無疑問天經地義的最好制度了。

-- 巧合的是與亓樂義先生合作的拙作"撥雲見日"，去年8月出版，已打光到這些主題包括

*美國民主問題

*東歐匈牙利總統奧班所提倡的"非自由式民主"

*中國特色的政體，即"北京模式"，外表專權，幕後改革。

林中斌 補充 2018.5.4