2020-10-23 16:09:05
For a few fleeting moments on Thursday night, it looked as though President Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. might actually debate the nation’s greatest foreign policy challenge: its relationship with China.
周四晚上的几个瞬间，特朗普总统和前副总统小约瑟夫·R.拜登(Joseph R. Biden Jr.)看起来好像真的是要就这个国家最大的外交政策挑战展开辩论：美国与中国的关系。
But Mr. Trump quickly pivoted the conversation to unsubstantiated allegations that Mr. Biden enriched himself through his son’s dealings with Chinese officials. Mr. Biden, seeking to assert his tough-on-China credentials, recalled a trip to Beijing in 2013 when he pushed back on China’s attempt to control a wide swath of airspace in the contested East China Sea by requiring foreign planes to identify themselves when they flew through it.
但特朗普迅速将对话转向未经证实的指控，即拜登通过其子与中国官员的往来敛财。寻求坚持其对华强硬形象的拜登则回忆起了2013年对北京的一次访问，当时他对中国通过要求外国飞机在飞经受东海一大片争议空域时表明身份，试图控制该区域的做法发起反击。
The move ignited tensions with Japan, a key American ally, and Mr. Biden warned President Xi Jinping to show restraint. On Thursday, Mr. Biden referred to Mr. Xi as a thug and accused Mr. Trump of cozying up to him.
中国的这一举动激起了与美国关键盟友日本的紧张关系，拜登则警告习近平主席要保持克制。周四，拜登提到习近平时将其称为“恶棍”，并指控特朗普巴结习近平。
That was as far as the candidates got in discussing what many analysts view as one of the world’s most dangerous flash points — a place where Chinese and American warships might someday fire on each other.
对于在许多分析师看来是世界上最为危险的冲突爆发点之一——中国和美国战舰可能有朝一日互相开火的地方，两位候选人就只讨论到了这里。
For the rest of the night, China became a watchword for allegations of shady business dealings, a deadly virus, and a carbon-glutted atmosphere, which Mr. Trump described as “filthy.”
当晚剩下的时间里，中国成为了对可疑商业交易、致命病毒，和一个碳排放过多的大气（特朗普将其描述为“肮脏的”）的指称的口号。
Their exchanges on trade captured the caricatured role that China has played in the campaign. Mr. Trump repeated his erroneous claim that China is paying the United States billions of dollars because of his tariffs. In fact, most of those costs are passed on to American consumers.
两人在贸易上的你来我往充分体现了中国在这场竞选里发挥的滑稽作用。特朗普重申了他错误的说法，即因为他的关税，中国正在向美国支付数十亿美元。实际上，关税的大部分代价都转嫁给了美国消费者。
Mr. Biden claimed that the American trade deficit with China had gone up, not down, during the Trump presidency — not true, given the protectionist measures that Mr. Trump imposed.
拜登则声称在特朗普担任总统期间，美国对华贸易逆差有所增加，而不是减少了——鉴于特朗普实施的那些保护主义措施，这个说法也是错误的。
The president said he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord because it did not impose the same demands on China, and other major developing economies, as it did on the United States.
总统表示他让美国退出了巴黎气候协议，因为该协议没有让中国和其他主要的发展中国家遵守像美国一样的要求。
Mr. Biden said he would rejoin the accord specifically to hold China to the pledges it made under that agreement. “We need to be having the rest of our friends with us saying to China — these are the rules,” Mr. Biden said. “You play by them or you’re going to pay the price for not playing by them, economically.”
拜登则表示他会重新加入该协议，正是为了让中国实现在该协议中做出的承诺。“我们需要让我们剩下的朋友和我们一起向中国说——这些是规定，”拜登说。“你要么遵守规定，要么就要为不遵守规定在经济上付出代价。”
Though China loomed large over trade, climate, and geopolitics, Mr. Trump kept the focus on allegations that Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, had tried to cash in with the Chinese on his father’s name.
尽管中国在贸易、气候和地缘政治上都很重要，特朗普仍将重点放在了针对拜登儿子亨特(Hunter)的指控上，称其试图利用其父的名号在中国人那里牟利。
Mr. Biden fired back, noting the report in The New York Times that Mr. Trump had an undisclosed bank account in China.
拜登则做出反击，指出《纽约时报》上的报道称特朗普在中国有一个未经披露的银行账户。
“I have many bank accounts and they’re all listed and they’re all over the place,” Mr. Trump replied. “I was a businessman doing business.”
“我有很多银行账户，都是公开的，哪儿都有，”特朗普回答道。“我是个做生意的商人。”
本文根据《纽约时报》报道节译。