中國(guó)：“小老虎”的挑戰(zhàn).

　　Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China’s internal security apparatus, was guilty of many sins. After a secret trial conducted in May in the port city of Tianjin, Zhou was sentenced to life in prison for abuse of power, corruption and divulging state secrets.

　　曾任中共中央政法委書記的周永康犯下了諸多罪行。今年5月，在港口城市天津舉行的一場(chǎng)不公開(kāi)庭審認(rèn)定他犯有濫用職權(quán)、受賄和故意泄露國(guó)家秘密罪，據(jù)此判處他無(wú)期徒刑。

　　For all his faults, however, Zhou never negligently stored hundreds of tons of highly volatile ammonium nitrate alongside sodium cyanide and other toxic chemicals in a populated area. When one such stockpile exploded in Tianjin on August 12, killing at least 114 people with another 65 still missing, it revealed the paradox at the heart of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. Months bore the Tianjin tragedy, I asked the father of a badly injured migrant factory worker what he thought of the anti-corruption drive and the downfall of powerful “tigers” such as Zhou. I expected Zhang Guangde to be impressed by the signature policy achievement of Mr Xi’s first three years in power.

　　不過(guò)，盡管犯下了種種罪行，但周永康從來(lái)沒(méi)有隨隨便便地把數(shù)百噸高度不穩(wěn)定的硝酸銨和氰化鈉及其他有毒化學(xué)品一起存放在人口密集地區(qū)。8月12日，存放在天津的這樣一批貨物發(fā)生了爆炸，導(dǎo)致至少114人喪生，還有65人依然失蹤。這次爆炸事件暴露出中國(guó)國(guó)家主席習(xí)近平發(fā)起的反腐運(yùn)動(dòng)的核心矛盾。在天津發(fā)生爆炸前幾個(gè)月，我曾問(wèn)過(guò)一位嚴(yán)重受傷的農(nóng)民工的父親，對(duì)于反腐及周永康等位高權(quán)重的“老虎”落馬有何看法。我的預(yù)期是，這位名叫張廣德的先生會(huì)對(duì)習(xí)近平掌權(quán)頭三年的標(biāo)志性政策成就印象深刻。

　　He was not. “The campaign hasn’t reached the grassroots,” said Mr Zhang, who had spent years battling his son’s employer for compensation. “The tiger hunt is a show — a show to be seen by the people. There are still so many mean little tigers at grassroots.”

　　可他并未覺(jué)得怎么樣。張廣德表示：“這場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)沒(méi)有觸及基層。打虎就是一場(chǎng)秀，讓人民觀看的一場(chǎng)表演?；鶎舆€是有很多卑劣的小老虎?！倍嗄陙?lái)，張廣德一直在與兒子的雇主作斗爭(zhēng)，爭(zhēng)取賠償。

　　Perceptions of the anti-corruption campaign’s success rest principally on the arrest and conviction of people such as Zhou, who once sat on the ruling Chinese Communist party’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee.

　　反腐運(yùn)動(dòng)給人的成功印象，主要源自對(duì)周永康這類人的逮捕和定罪。周永康曾是中共最高權(quán)力機(jī)構(gòu)——中共中央政治局常委之一。

　　But as Mr Zhang intuitively understands from his family’s own bitter experience, for most people in China it is corruption among rank-and-file civil servants that really matters. “Little tigers” include the principal who won’t enrol a student unless a bribe is paid, the doctor who won’t treat a patient without a backhander or, in the case of the Tianjin blasts, the former police chi’s son who is storing lethal chemicals in a populated residential and commercial area.

　　然而，自己家的苦難使張廣德直覺(jué)地認(rèn)識(shí)到：對(duì)中國(guó)多數(shù)人來(lái)說(shuō)，真正重要的是下層公務(wù)員的腐敗行為。這些“小老虎”包括那些沒(méi)有賄款就不讓學(xué)生報(bào)名入學(xué)的校長(zhǎng)，不收紅包就不為患者治療的醫(yī)生，或者(在天津爆炸案中)在人口密集的居民區(qū)和商業(yè)區(qū)存放致命化學(xué)品的原公安局長(zhǎng)之子。

　　Not only that, but required permits had been missing at various points in the warehouse’s history, although they appeared to be in order at the time of the blast. And while there is no evidence that the facility’s two owners bribed local officials to look the other way, they acted in a manner that suggested they had much to hide.

　　不僅如此，該倉(cāng)庫(kù)在運(yùn)營(yíng)歷史上的好幾個(gè)節(jié)點(diǎn)缺乏必要的許可證——盡管在爆炸發(fā)生時(shí)這些許可證似乎都已辦妥。雖然沒(méi)有證據(jù)表明這座倉(cāng)庫(kù)的兩名股東曾行賄當(dāng)?shù)毓賳T，讓后者睜一只眼閉一只眼，但這兩人的行為方式似乎表明他們有很多隱情需要隱瞞。

　　Ownership of the Tianjin chemicals warehouse was initially unclear, in part because the city’s online companies registry was suddenly unavailable after the blast. When it did come back up, there were curious gaps in its ownership record.

　　這家天津化學(xué)品倉(cāng)庫(kù)的所有權(quán)最初是含混不清的，這部分是由于爆炸發(fā)生后天津的企業(yè)在線登記網(wǎng)站突然無(wú)法連接。在該網(wǎng)站恢復(fù)運(yùn)行后，該公司的所有權(quán)記錄出現(xiàn)了離奇的空白。

　　The Tianjin chemicals warehouse was, in contravention of official regulations, situated within one kilometre of residential buildings. The explosion forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 people, many of whom had bought expensive properties in the area.

　　這座化學(xué)品倉(cāng)庫(kù)違反了安全法規(guī)，距離住宅樓不到1000米。這次爆炸迫使逾6000人疏散，他們中的許多人曾花費(fèi)巨資在該地區(qū)置辦物業(yè)。

　　Despite tight government controls over local media, some of China’s braver state publications began to assemble pieces of the puzzle. They established, for example, that the warehouse’s registered owners were frontmen for the real shareholders — or “ants” carrying crumbs for others.

　　盡管中國(guó)政府嚴(yán)密控制國(guó)內(nèi)媒體，但中國(guó)一些比較大膽的官方雜志順著零星的線索摸索真相。比如，他們證實(shí)，該倉(cāng)庫(kù)登記的所有者只是代人持股，或者說(shuō)是為人搬運(yùn)面包屑的“螞蟻”。

　　These revelations appeared to force the government’s hand, as the official Xinhua news agency then reported that the warehouse’s true owners were a former executive at a state chemicals group and the son of the port district’s former police chi. The police chi’s son told Xinhua that he wanted to keep a low profile because “my father worked in the public security bureau and there would be a negative impact if others knew about it”.

　　這些爆料似乎迫使政府有所作為。官方的新華社隨即報(bào)道稱，該倉(cāng)庫(kù)的真正所有者分別是一家國(guó)有化學(xué)集團(tuán)的前高管和天津港公安局原局長(zhǎng)之子。該公安局長(zhǎng)之子向新華社表示，他想保持低調(diào)是因?yàn)椤拔野衷诠簿秩温?，讓別人知道了影響不好”。

　　For Mr Xi and the Communist party, this comment and all the obfuscation that preceded it encapsulate the real political challenge arising from last week’s tragedy in Tianjin.

　　對(duì)習(xí)近平和中共來(lái)說(shuō)，這句話以及之前的一切敷衍搪塞，精辟概括了天津爆炸所引發(fā)的真正政治挑戰(zhàn)。

　　As China’s economic problems mount, the country’s unelected regime needs alternative sources of legitimacy. The anti-corruption campaign is an important such source, as it holds up Zhou and other corrupt officials as unrepresentative aberrations now being brought to heel by a just party-state. Another was the 70th anniversary of Japan’s second world war surrender on August 15, which the Tianjin blast overshadowed in spectacular style.

　　隨著國(guó)內(nèi)經(jīng)濟(jì)問(wèn)題越來(lái)越多，中國(guó)未經(jīng)選舉產(chǎn)生的政權(quán)需要尋找替代的合法性來(lái)源。反腐是一個(gè)重要的合法性來(lái)源，黨把周永康等腐敗官員列為不具有代表性的異?，F(xiàn)象，現(xiàn)在受到了正義的黨國(guó)體制的懲處。另一個(gè)合法性來(lái)源是8月15日日本二戰(zhàn)戰(zhàn)敗投降70周年紀(jì)念日，盡管天津的爆炸以戲劇化方式蓋過(guò)了這一紀(jì)念日的風(fēng)頭。

　　But the thousands of people rendered homeless by last week’s blast — and millions more watching the events unfold across China — may start to see things differently. They might just conclude that unfair advantage and corruption are in fact systemic in a society where officials at every level of government, together with their families and their friends, routinely parlay connections into cash, regardless of the risk to others.

　　但是，因天津爆炸而無(wú)家可歸的數(shù)千人——以及全國(guó)數(shù)以百萬(wàn)計(jì)的關(guān)注這些事件的其他人——也許會(huì)開(kāi)始產(chǎn)生不同的看法。他們也許會(huì)得出結(jié)論認(rèn)為，中國(guó)社會(huì)的不公平優(yōu)勢(shì)現(xiàn)象和腐敗實(shí)際上是系統(tǒng)性的，在這個(gè)社會(huì)，各級(jí)政府官員及其親友常態(tài)化地把人脈關(guān)系轉(zhuǎn)化為現(xiàn)金，毫不顧忌為他人帶來(lái)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。