Vladimir Putin’s trip to Beijing this week, where he will meet with Xi Jinping and top Chinese officials, is another clear demonstration of the current closeness between Russia and China.
在本周的北京之行中，弗拉基米尔·普京将与习近平和中国高级官员会晤，再次明确展现俄中两国目前的亲密关系。
Yet many in the West still want to believe that their alliance is an aberration, driven by Mr. Putin’s emotional anti-Americanism and his toxic fixation on Ukraine. Once Mr. Putin and his dark obsessions are out of the picture, the thinking goes, Moscow will seek to rebuild ties with the West — not least because the bonds between Russia and China are shallow, while the country has centuries of economic and cultural dependence on Europe.
然而，许多西方人还是愿意相信，他们之间的联盟不过是一种错乱，是普京情绪化的反美主义和他对乌克兰的不良执念所驱动的。这种想法认为，一旦普京和他的阴暗偏执消失，莫斯科将寻求重建与西方的关系——尤其是因为俄罗斯与中国之间的交情不深，而俄罗斯对欧洲有着数百年的经济和文化依赖。
This wishful view, however appealing, overlooks the transformation of Russia’s economy and society. Never since the fall of the Soviet Union has Russia been so distant from Europe, and never in its entire history has it been so entwined with China. The truth is that after two years of war in Ukraine and painful Western sanctions, it’s not just Mr. Putin who needs China — Russia does, too.
这种一厢情愿的观点尽管吸引人，却忽视了俄罗斯在经济和社会上的转型。自苏联解体以来，俄罗斯从未与欧洲如此疏远，纵观其历史，它也从未像今天这样与中国如此紧密地交织在一起。事实是，在经历了两年的乌克兰战争和痛苦的西方制裁之后，不仅普京需要中国，俄罗斯同样需要中国。
China has emerged as Russia’s single most important partner, providing a lifeline not only for Mr. Putin’s war machine but also for the entire embattled economy. In 2023, Russia’s trade with China hit a record $240.1 billion, up by more than 60 percent from prewar levels, as China accounted for 30 percent of Russia’s exports and nearly 40 percent of its imports.
中国已成为俄罗斯最重要的伙伴，它不仅为普京的战争机器提供生命线，也为整个陷入困境的俄罗斯经济提供支持。2023年，俄中贸易额达到创纪录的2401亿美元，与战前相比增长了60%以上，中国占俄罗斯出口的30%，进口的近40%。
Before the war, Russia’s trade with the European Union was double that with China; now it’s less than half. The Chinese yuan, not the dollar or the euro, is now the main currency used for trade between the two countries, making it the most traded currency on the Moscow stock exchange and the go-to instrument for savings.
战前，俄罗斯与欧盟的贸易额是与中国的两倍；现在还不到一半。人民币，而不是美元或欧元，现在是两国之间进行贸易所使用的主要货币，因此成为莫斯科证券交易所交易量最大的货币，也是储蓄的首选工具。
This economic dependence is filtering into everyday life. Chinese products are ubiquitous and over half of the million cars sold in Russia last year were made in China. Tellingly, the top six foreign car brands in Russia are now all Chinese, thanks to the exodus of once dominant Western companies. It’s a similar story in the smartphone market, where China’s Xiaomi and Tecno have eclipsed Apple and Samsung, and with home appliances and many other everyday items.
这种经济依赖正渗透到日常生活中。中国产品无处不在，去年在俄罗斯售出的100万辆汽车中，有一半以上是中国制造。值得一提的是，由于曾经占主导地位的西方公司纷纷撤离，俄罗斯市场排名前六位的外国汽车品牌现在都来自中国。智能手机市场也是如此，中国的小米和传音已经超越了苹果和三星，还有家电和许多其他日常用品也是如此。
These shifts are tectonic. Even in czarist times, Russia shipped its commodities to Europe and relied on imports from the West of manufactured goods. Russia’s oligarchs, blacklisted by most Western countries, have had to adapt to the new reality. Last month, the businessman Vladimir Potanin, whose fortune is estimated at $23.7 billion, announced that his copper and nickel empire would reorient toward China, including by moving production facilities into the country. “If we’re more integrated into the Chinese economy,” he said, “we’ll be more protected.”
这些变化是结构性的。即使在沙皇时代，俄罗斯也是将商品运往欧洲，并依赖从西方进口制成品。被大多数西方国家列入黑名单的俄罗斯寡头不得不适应新的现实。上个月，身价估计达到237亿美元的商人弗拉基米尔·波塔宁宣布，他的铜镍帝国将针对中国做重新调整，包括将生产设施搬到中国。“如果我们更多地融入中国经济，”他说，“我们就会变得更安全。”
From the economy, education follows. Members of the Russian elite are scrambling to find Mandarin tutors for their kids, and some of my Russian contacts are thinking about sending their children to universities in Hong Kong or mainland China now that Western universities are much harder to reach. This development is more than anecdotal. Last year, as China opened up after the pandemic, 12,000 Russian students went to study there — nearly four times as many than to the United States.
经济如此，教育也是如此。俄罗斯的精英们正在争先恐后地为子女寻找汉语普通话老师，我接触的一些俄罗斯人正在考虑把孩子送到香港或中国大陆的大学，因为西方大学现在变得非常难进。这种情况不仅仅是传闻。去年，随着大流行之后中国的开放，有1.2万名俄罗斯学生前往中国学习，几乎是赴美留学人数的四倍。
This reorientation from West to East is also visible among the middle class, most notably in travel. There are now, for example, five flights a day connecting Moscow and Beijing in under eight hours, with a return ticket costing about $500. By contrast, getting to Berlin — one of many frequent European weekend destinations for middle-class Russians before the war — can now take an entire day and cost up to twice as much.
这种从西方转向东方的重新定位在中产阶级当中也很明显，尤其是在旅行方面。例如，现在每天有五班飞机往返莫斯科和北京，航程不到八个小时，往返机票只需约500美元。相比之下，现在去柏林（战前俄罗斯中产阶级周末常去的欧洲目的地之一）可能需要整整一天，费用可能是这个数字的两倍。
What’s more, European cities are being replaced as Russian tourist destinations by Dubai, Baku in Azerbaijan and Istanbul, while business trips are increasingly to China, Central Asia or the Gulf. Locked out of much of the West, which scrapped direct flights to Russia and significantly reduced the availability of visas for Russians, middle-class Russians are going elsewhere.
此外，迪拜、阿塞拜疆的巴库和伊斯坦布尔正在取代欧洲城市，成为俄罗斯人的旅游目的地，而商务旅行则越来越多地转向中国、中亚或海湾地区。西方国家取消了直飞俄罗斯的航班，大幅减少发放给俄罗斯人的签证，被西方拒之门外的俄罗斯中产阶级纷纷转向其他地方。
Intellectuals are turning toward China, too. Russian scientists are beginning to work with and for Chinese companies, especially in fields such as space exploration, artificial intelligence and biotech. Chinese cultural influence is also growing inside Russia. With Western writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman withdrawing the rights to publish their work in Russia, publishers are expanding their rosters of Chinese works. Supported by lavish grants for translators from the Chinese government, this effort is set to bring about a boom in Chinese books.
知识分子也开始转向中国。俄罗斯科学家开始与中国公司合作或为中国公司工作，特别是在太空探索、人工智能和生物技术等领域。中国文化在俄罗斯的影响也越来越大。随着斯蒂芬·金和尼尔·盖曼等西方作家撤回在俄罗斯的出版权，出版商正在扩大他们的中文作品书目。在中国政府对翻译人员的慷慨资助下，这一努力将带来中国图书的繁荣。
Chinese culture will not replace Western culture as Russians’ main reference point any time soon. But a profound change has taken place. From the other side of the Iron Curtain, Europe was seen as a beacon of human rights, prosperity and technological development, a space that many Soviet citizens aspired to be part of.
中国文化不会很快取代西方文化，成为俄罗斯人的主要参照系。但深刻的变化已经发生。当年在铁幕的另一侧，欧洲曾被视为人权、繁荣和科技发展的灯塔，是许多苏联公民向往加入的地方。
Now a growing number of educated Russians, on top of feeling bitterness toward Europe for its punitive sanctions, see China as a technologically advanced and economically superior power to which Russia is ever more connected. With no easy way back to normal ties with the West, that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
而现在，越来越多受过教育的俄罗斯人除了对欧洲的惩罚性制裁感到不满之外，还把中国视为一个与俄罗斯联系越来越紧密的技术先进、经济上更强大的大国。由于与西方恢复正常关系并不容易，这种情况短期内不太可能改变。
In his dystopian novel “Day of the Oprichnik,” Vladimir Sorokin describes a deeply anti-Western Russia of 2028 that survives on Chinese technology while cosplaying the medieval brutality of Ivan the Terrible’s era. With every passing day, this unsettling and foresighted novel — published in 2006 as a warning to Russia about the direction of travel under Mr. Putin — reads more and more like the news.
弗拉基米尔·索罗金在他的反乌托邦小说《骑兵横行的日子》(Day of the Oprichnik)中描述了2028年一个极度反西方的俄罗斯，它依靠中国技术生存，同时又在上演“恐怖的伊凡”时代的中世纪暴行。随着一天天的过去，这部令人不安且富有远见的小说（出版于2006年，旨在警示俄罗斯在普京的领导下会走向何方）读起来越来越像新闻。