袁莉2026年8月14日中国前总理朱镕基于周三去世。人们在北京悼念他。 Maxim Shemetov/ReutersIn 1998, Zhu Rongji, then China’s premier, told the staff of an investigative news program that he was a devoted viewer. He went so far as to say that the broadcast had given him ideas for reforms.1998年，时任中国总理朱镕基告诉一档调查新闻节目的工作人员，自己是该节目的忠实观众。他甚至表示，该节目为他提供了改革的思路。He then challenged the Communist Party’s doctrine that the media should emphasize what it called positive reporting. “Did ‘mainly positive reporting’ mean that 99 percent of reports had to be positive?” he asked rhetorically. “Wouldn’t 51 percent be enough?”随后，他对中共关于媒体应该强调所谓“正面报道”的宣传原则提出了质疑。“‘什么叫以正面报道为主，是指99%都应该正面报道吗？”他反问道。“我看51%不也行吗？”“Without such programs, how can the people’s voices be heard?” he asked.“没有这样的节目，群众的声音反映不出来，”他说。Mr. Zhu was not calling for an independent press, which the party did not permit. The investigative show, after all, was aired by the state broadcaster. But he made clear that he regarded critical reporting not as a threat to the government, but as essential to effective government.朱镕基并不是在呼吁建立独立的新闻媒体——这是党所不允许的。毕竟，那档调查节目是由国家电视台播出的。但他明确表示，他认为批评性报道不是对政府的威胁，而是实现有效治理不可或缺的一部分。After Mr. Zhu’s death on Wednesday at 97, Chinese people circulated that story alongside many others portraying him as a straight talker, an independent thinker and, in the words of one commentator, “the finest premier in China’s march toward modernity.”周三，97岁的朱镕基去世后，中国民众纷纷转发这个故事，以及许多其他事迹，将他描绘成一个直言不讳、独立思考的人，用一位评论家的话来说，他是“中国迈向现代化进程中最杰出的总理”。Mr. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 under former President Jiang Zemin, was the forceful technocrat behind some of China’s most consequential economic changes. He pushed the country deeper into the market economy and the global trading system, laying the foundations for two decades of extraordinary growth. Those changes also caused mass layoffs, strengthened the central government and left enduring social and economic problems.朱镕基曾于1998年至2003年在前国家主席江泽民任内担任总理。作为一名强势的技术官僚，他是中国一些影响最为深远的经济变革背后的推手。他推动中国更深入地融入市场经济和全球贸易体系，为随后20年的非凡增长奠定了基础。但这些改革也导致了大规模的下岗潮，加强了中央政府的权力，并留下了持久的社会和经济问题。1991年，朱镕基访问汉堡。他的在位时期标志着中国向世界开放的时代。 Photo Ambor/ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesThe grief was about more than Mr. Zhu himself. It was also about what he had come to represent: an era when China was opening to the world, officials could publicly acknowledge the country’s problems and the future seemed more prosperous and hopeful. In remembering that era, many people were also passing judgment on present-day China, which has become more closed to the world, less tolerant of criticism and far less confident about what lies ahead.人们的哀悼不仅仅是为了朱镕基本人，也包含了他所代表的那个时代：那时的中国向世界敞开大门，官员们可以公开承认国家存在的问题，未来似乎更加繁荣和充满希望。在怀念那个时代的同时，许多人也在对当今的中国做出评判——如今的中国变得对世界更加封闭，对批评的容忍度更低，人们对未来也远没有过去那么有信心。On WeChat Moments, the semiprivate equivalent of a Facebook timeline, my feed filled with tributes from former journalists, entrepreneurs and professionals.在微信朋友圈——相当于Facebook时间线的半私密社交平台——我的信息流里充满了前记者、企业家和专业人士的悼念。An investment banker posted a black-and-white photo of Mr. Zhu and remembered “an era when the country was on the rise,” a shared memory, he wrote, that seemed “extraordinarily precious today.” “We were lucky just to have lived through it,” a real estate developer replied.一位投资银行家发布了一张朱镕基的黑白照片，并回忆起“那个国家正处于上升期的时代”。他写道，这段共同的记忆似乎“在今天显得格外珍贵”。“能亲身经历那个时代，我们已经很幸运了，”一位房地产开发商回复道。Others posted photos of Mr. Zhu and his boss, Mr. Jiang, leaning toward each other, whispering and laughing heartily. Some comments said that Chinese leaders in that era still showed a human touch. The images evoked a political atmosphere that appeared more relaxed, collegial and human than the rigid one under Xi Jinping, the current president.还有人发布了朱镕基和他的上司江泽民的照片，两人俯身靠近，低声交谈、开怀大笑。一些评论说，那个时代的中国领导人仍然展现出人情味的一面。这些画面令人回忆起一种政治氛围，比起现任国家主席习近平治下僵化的氛围显得更加宽松、融洽、更有人情味。Many of the WeChat posts came from people I know or have interviewed. I’m withholding some of their names for fear of causing them trouble. One lawyer asked me to stop contacting him on WeChat and to use encrypted messaging apps such as Signal instead.微信上的许多帖子来自我认识或采访过的人。为了避免给他们带来麻烦，我隐去了其中一些人的姓名。一名律师甚至要求我不要再通过微信联系他，转而使用Signal等加密通讯应用。朱镕基的改革导致数千万工人失业，当时中国尚未建立起真正意义上的社会保障网。 Natalie Behring/ReutersOn China’s more public social-media platforms, searches for Mr. Zhu’s name on Weibo and Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, produced sparse results dominated by state media. On Wednesday afternoon, a search I conducted on RedNote returned only 25 results. Some ordinary users omitted his name, posting only a photograph or referring elliptically to “that era” or “him.”在中国更公开的社交媒体平台上，通过微博和小红书搜索朱镕基的名字得到的结果寥寥无几，且主要来自官方媒体。周三下午，我在小红书上搜索，只返回了25个结果。一些普通用户隐去了他的名字，只发布了一张照片，或者含蓄地提到“那个时代”，或者“他”。Nearly three decades after Mr. Zhu called the media “the people’s voice” and “a mirror for the government,” the public discussion of his own death appeared to be carefully managed.在朱镕基将媒体称为“群众喉舌”和“政府镜鉴”近30年后，关于其本人去世的公众讨论似乎受到了严密的管控。The authorities have seen how mourning for former leaders could turn into criticism of the current one. After Mr. Jiang died in 2022, people remembered the relative openness and optimism of his era, drawing thinly veiled comparisons with Mr. Xi. Weibo restricted comments and deleted a popular post thanking Mr. Jiang for allowing Chinese people to watch “Titanic.”当局深知，对前领导人的哀悼可能演变成对现任领导人的批评。2022年江泽民去世后，人们追忆起他那个时代相对的开放和乐观，隐晦地与习近平进行比较。微博限制了评论，并删除了一条感谢江泽民允许中国民众观看《泰坦尼克号》的热门帖子。When former Premier Li Keqiang died unexpectedly the next year, videos of him promising that China would remain open to the world were deleted. Comments calling him “a good premier for the people” were censored.次年，前总理李克强意外去世，他承诺中国将继续向世界开放的视频遭到删除。称他为“人民好总理”的评论也遭到了审查。By the time Mr. Zhu died, the censors appeared determined not to let nostalgia for another leader from the reform era become a public referendum on Mr. Xi’s China.到了朱镕基去世时，审查机构似乎下定决心，不能让人们对另一位改革时代领导人的怀念演变成对习近平治下中国的公投。1999年，朱镕基与克林顿总统。朱镕基推动中国更深入地融入了市场经济和全球贸易体系。Lu Yiheng, a Chinese political commentator based in Toronto, saw a bitter irony in that nostalgia. Chinese people once dwelled on the failings of the reform era and imagined that a new generation of leaders would build something better. “But who could have imagined,” he wrote on X, “that today we would be grateful simply not to be heading toward another Cultural Revolution?”常驻多伦多的中国政治评论员卢以恒（音）认为，这种怀旧情绪中蕴含着苦涩的讽刺。中国人曾经纠结于改革时代的种种弊病，设想新一代领导人能建设一个更美好的国家。“但谁能想到，”他在X上写道，“今天，只因为我们没有走向另一场文化大革命，就已经让我们感激涕零？”That reversal in expectations animated many of the tributes. Amid pervasive job insecurity, slumping consumption and the party’s tightening grip on private enterprise, what some people seemed to miss most was not prosperity itself but the belief that hardship would eventually produce something better.这种预期的逆转激发了许多悼念之情。在就业普遍不稳定、消费低迷以及党对私营企业加强管控的背景下，一些人似乎最怀念的并不是繁荣本身，而是那种相信艰苦终将带来更好未来的信念。In a WeChat post, an executive recalled graduating from college in 1998, when jobs were scarce and the government was shedding workers. As he looked back, he wrote, that year may have marked the bottom for China’s economy. “Hardship is not frightening,” he wrote, “as long as there is hope.”一位高管在微信帖文中回忆起自己在1998年大学毕业时的情景，当时就业岗位稀缺，政府正在裁员。他写道，回过头来看，那一年可能标志着中国经济的谷底。“艰苦并不可怕，”他写道，“只要还有希望。”The nostalgia fogs over the brutality of Mr. Zhu’s reforms. Yasheng Huang, an economist at M.I.T., told me that more than 30 million state-sector workers had lost their jobs, many before China had established a meaningful social safety net. He argues that Mr. Zhu later used wrenching reforms to address problems aggravated by some of his earlier policies.然而，这种怀旧情绪掩盖了朱镕基改革的残酷性。麻省理工学院经济学家黄亚生告诉我，当时有超过3000万国企工人失去了工作，而其中许多人下岗时，中国尚未建立起真正意义上的社会保障网。他认为，朱镕基后来通过痛苦的改革来解决某些被他的早期政策所加剧的问题。“His economic legacy was very complicated,” he said. “He used his right hand to solve problems created by his left.”“他的经济遗产非常复杂，”他说。“他用左手创造问题，右手解决问题。”在北京的一个报摊上，陈列着刊登了朱镕基讣告的报纸。A Shenzhen resident surnamed Jin wrote on WeChat about how family members lost their jobs or were hounded by creditors during the Zhu years.一位姓金（音）的深圳居民在微信上写到：在朱镕基时代，他的家人不仅失去了工作，还被债主不断逼债。Yet popular culture of the period urged workers to accept their suffering as a necessary sacrifice. A hit song told them to “start over,” while a nationally televised comedy sketch declared, “If I don’t get laid off, who should?”然而，那个时期的流行文化却敦促工人们将他们所受的苦难视为一种必要的牺牲。一首热门歌曲告诉他们要“从头再来”，而一部在全国播出的喜剧小品则宣称：“我不下岗谁下岗？”Mr. Zhu once said he hoped to be remembered as “a clean official” who had accomplished a few practical things. Mr. Jin saw another side to such ambition. “Throughout history,” he wrote, “some of those who make ordinary people suffer most are clean officials determined to get things done.”朱镕基曾说，他希望人们记住他是一个做成了几件实事的“清官”。而金先生看到了这种抱负的另一面。“纵观历史，”他写道，“那些让老百姓受苦最深的，往往是那些决心办大事的清官。”袁莉为《纽约时报》撰写“新新世界”专栏，专注中国及亚洲科技、商业和政治交叉议题。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。