纪思道2026年9月21日President Xi Jinping of China is throwing his weight around as he prepares to arrive in Washington.中国国家主席习近平在准备抵达华盛顿之际，正在展示其影响力。When Chinese and American leaders gathered for summits in the past, it was the American president who held the cards. Not so this time. What’s sobering about Xi’s visit to the United States in the coming days — and a reflection of the way President Trump has diminished America — is that this may be the first China-U.S. summit in which China appears in the lead role.过去中美领导人举行峰会时，掌握主动权的往往是美国总统。但这次情况不同。引人注目的是，习近平在未来几天对美国的访问可能成为首次由中国主导的中美峰会，这也反映了美国的地位如何在特朗普总统治下被削弱。“In the past, American leaders generally drove the relationship, but now Xi is in the driver’s seat,” Julian Gewirtz, a China scholar at Columbia University who served in the Biden White House, told me. “Trump sees Xi as a peer and China as a superpower and is generally quite deferential to him.”“过去通常是美国领导人主导这种关系，但现在习近平掌握了主动权，”曾在拜登政府白宫任职的哥伦比亚大学中国问题学者朱利安·格维尔茨告诉我。“特朗普将习近平视为同等的人物，将中国视为超级大国，且通常对他相当顺从。”For his part, Xi has demonstrated his strength by almost thumbing his nose at the United States.就习近平而言，他通过对美国近乎轻蔑的态度展示了自己的实力。Trump said he asked Xi in May, at their last meeting, to free Jimmy Lai, a media mogul who is among the most courageous advocates for democracy. Xi spurned the request. Instead, a Hong Kong court this month sentenced three other dissidents to harsh prison sentences, and one of the most famous of Hong Kong’s democracy campaigners, Joshua Wong, 29, is facing up to a life sentence for supposed crimes.特朗普表示，在今年5月两人最后一次会面时，他曾要求习近平释放传媒大亨、最勇敢的民主倡导者之一黎智英。习近平拒绝了。相反，一家香港法院本月将另外三名持不同政见者判处重刑，而香港最著名的民主活动人士之一、29岁的黄之锋正因一些所谓的罪名面临最高终身监禁的刑罚。China, whose per capita income of more than $14,000 came within a whisker in July of achieving “high-income” status at the World Bank, also appears to be brazenly violating sanctions on North Korea this year. It buys Iranian oil and reportedly supports Iran’s war effort. And despite having officially suspended strict export controls on rare-earth elements, it has continued to exert control over them in ways that create problems for Western companies.中国今年7月人均收入超过1.4万美元，距离世界银行的“高收入”标准仅一步之遥，然而同样是这个国家，今年似乎也在公然违反针对朝鲜的制裁。中国购买伊朗石油，并据报道支持伊朗的战争行动。此外，尽管已正式暂停对稀土元素的严格出口管制，中国仍继续以给西方企业制造麻烦的方式对其施加控制。Asked about reports that Chinese organizations supplied intelligence that Iran used in an attack in July that killed three American soldiers, Trump was strikingly reticent. He seemed to downplay any suggestion that China had done something wrong.有报道称，中国机构提供的某些情报被伊朗用于7月份的一场袭击，该袭击导致三名美国士兵丧生。当被问及此事时，特朗普显得异常沉默。他似乎在淡化任何关于中国存在过错的暗示。Xi has leverage in the relationship partly because the suspension of those export controls expires in November. If no deal is reached with Trump, then Beijing could further tighten access to rare earths that are vital for manufacturing everything from cars to submarines.习近平在双边关系中拥有筹码，部分原因是这些出口管制的暂停将于11月到期。如果未能与特朗普达成协议，北京可能会进一步收紧稀土供应，而稀土对于制造从汽车到潜艇的所有产品都至关重要。The United States is weakened in part because Trump started a trade war with China last year, which he then effectively lost when China weaponized its control over rare earths. In addition, America’s war with Iran has depleted weapons stockpiles, reducing our ability to defend Taiwan or project power in the Pacific or the Middle East. We have antagonized allies and backtracked on democracy and freedom, and according to U.N. investigators, we may have committed war crimes in Iran — and all of this has tarnished our global image and reduced our influence and soft power worldwide.美国的实力有所削弱，部分原因是特朗普去年挑起了对华贸易战，但随后在中国将稀土控制武器化时，他实际上输掉了这场战争。此外，与伊朗的战争耗尽了美国的武器库存，降低了我们保卫台湾或在太平洋及中东地区投射力量的能力。我们惹恼了盟友，在民主和自由问题上出现倒退，而且根据联合国调查人员的说法，我们可能在伊朗犯下了战争罪——这一切都玷污了我们的全球形象，削弱了我们在全球的影响力和软实力。Trump is seen in much of the world as reckless and unpredictable, while Xi has tried to project an image of stability and maturity, soothing global oil markets that had been inflamed by Trump’s war on Iran. A new poll from the Rockefeller Foundation finds that Canadians, Indonesians, Brazilians, Turks, Mexicans and others all see the United States as more of a “major threat” than either Russia or China.在世界大部分地区，特朗普被视为行事鲁莽且不可预测，而习近平则试图展现出稳定成熟的形象，安抚了因特朗普对伊战争而动荡不安的全球石油市场。洛克菲勒基金会的一项最新民意调查发现，加拿大人、印度尼西亚人、巴西人、土耳其人、墨西哥人等等均认为美国构成的“主要威胁”超过了俄罗斯或中国。“The U.S. is in retreat,” Phillips P. O’Brien, an American historian, wrote this month. “It is watching bases of great strategic importance get destroyed and cannot protect them, it is abandoning allies that heretofore it considered of the highest priority, and it is making it clear that it cannot look after its own interests in some of the most important places of the world.”“美国正在后退，”美国历史学家菲利普斯·P·奥布莱恩本月写道。“它眼睁睁看着具有重大战略意义的基地被摧毁却无力保护，它正在抛弃一直以来被其视为最优先的盟友，而且它正在表明，自己无法在世界上一些最重要的地方维护自身利益。”O’Brien adds that “this is clearly the end of the American age” — but I’m not so sure about that. The United States still has strengths, not least its tech sector, while China, Europe and Japan all have significant weaknesses of their own, including demographic and economic challenges. Despite its propaganda, China remains an oppressive regime with no clear successor after Xi, while there is some prospect that American democracy will show its resilience in November’s elections.奥布莱恩还说“这显然是美国时代的终结”——但我对此并不完全确信。美国依然拥有优势，尤其是其科技领域，而中国、欧洲和日本也都面临着自身显著的弱点，包括人口和经济挑战。尽管有其宣传，中国仍是一个在习近平之后缺乏明确继任者的专制政权，而美国的民主则有望在11月的选举中展现其韧性。If it is humbling to have Xi arrive in a position of strength, at least there may be an opportunity ahead. Both Xi and Trump seem to want to lower the temperature and stabilize the relationship, which would be a good thing.如果习近平以强势姿态到访令人感到难堪，那么至少前方可能还存在着机遇。习近平和特朗普似乎都有意为局势降温并稳定双边关系，这将是一件好事。I hope that might also leave an opening for a sliver of progress on artificial intelligence, one of the most important topics the two leaders will discuss. It’s difficult to see how the world can make much progress on improving A.I. governance if America and China resist cooperation on safety.我希望这也能为人工智能领域的一丝进展创造契机，这是两位领导人将要讨论的最重要议题之一。如果美中两国拒绝在安全问题上开展合作，很难想象世界能在改善人工智能治理方面取得多大进展。A major deal on safety is very unlikely, for Trump has called A.I. concerns “a hoax,” while Xi apparently thinks the problem is potential American abuse of the technology to target the Chinese regime, rather than A.I. itself. In China, A.I. is portrayed as a threat not to human existence but to Communist Party rule.双方达成一项关于安全的重大协议可能性微乎其微，因为特朗普已将对人工智能的担忧称为“一场骗局”，而习近平显然认为问题在于美国可能滥用该技术来针对中国政权，而非人工智能本身。在中国，人工智能被描绘为对共产党的统治构成威胁，而非对人类生存构成威胁。Still, perhaps there is space for a modest cooperative step forward. Rajiv Shah, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which is working on A.I. issues, told me that there may be an opportunity for progress on A.I. safety as it relates to specific, narrow domains such as reducing the risk of terrorist attacks using bioweapons.尽管如此，或许双方仍有空间迈出适度的合作步伐。致力于研究人工智能相关议题的洛克菲勒基金会主席拉吉夫·沙阿告诉我，在涉及特定狭窄领域的人工智能安全问题上，可能存在取得进展的机会，例如降低利用生物武器发动恐怖袭击的风险。That’s a real concern as synthetic biology and A.I. together create new perils: Imagine terrorists assembling a deadly virus, or engineering an animal ailment like cowpox or horse pox to be deadly and virulent like smallpox. It should be possible for China and America, working through both governments and unofficial channels, to collaborate on protocols to reduce risks like that.这是一个切实的担忧，因为合成生物学与人工智能的结合带来了新的危险：想象一下恐怖分子合成一种致命病毒，或者将牛痘或马痘等动物疾病改造成像天花一样致命且极具传染性。中美两国应当可以通过政府和非官方渠道在降低此类风险的协议上展开合作。That would at least be a major sign that A.I. safety cooperation is possible. “Doing one thing, even if it feels like it’s not solving the whole problem, at least creates a repeatable playbook,” Shah said.这至少将成为人工智能安全合作具备可行性的一个重大标志。“做成一件事，即使感觉它无法解决所有问题，至少也创造了一个可复制的模式，”沙阿说。China and the United States should also create some kind of hotline to discuss and defuse A.I.-related incidents that threaten to create military or diplomatic crises. After all, what if Open A.I. agents had hacked not Hugging Face but rather units of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army? Or generated deepfake video of Xi renouncing claims over Taiwan?中美两国还应建立某种热线，以讨论并化解可能引发军事或外交危机的人工智能相关事件。毕竟，如果OpenAI智能体黑入的不是Hugging Face，而是中国人民解放军的部队呢？又或者生成了习近平宣布放弃台湾主权主张的深度伪造视频呢？Right now, at a time when America has blown up the geopolitical order that we ourselves created after World War II, modest steps may be the best we can hope for.眼下，在美国破坏了自己在二战后建立的地缘政治秩序之际，采取适度步骤或许是我们所能期盼的最好结果。纪思道(Nicholas Kristof) 2001起成为时报专栏作家，曾两次获得普利策奖。他最新出版的回忆录名为《追逐希望：一名记者的报道生涯》(“Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life”)。欢迎在X上关注他：@NickKristof。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。