【题记】本文是万维网友汤安推荐的一篇文章。原文载《基督教科学箴言报》。这个标题是该报的原题“China's political system is more flexible than US democracy”照译。因为这个报纸历来以客观，公正，和“to injure no man, but to bless all mankind”的宗旨著称，在美国媒体中也算是有些影响的报纸。而该文的观点有些出奇，所以我想翻译介绍给中文读者。只是译到最后，发现作者（Eric X. Li）可能是一位中国人，使得这篇文章的意义打了折扣。我并不同意本文的所有观点，但是以为这样的时候，这样的文章被介绍给民主体制下的美国人，有一些令人感兴趣的东西在。各位读者可以见仁见智，有砖尽管砸，我可能参与讨论，但请恕我不能为原作者回应您。为避免误解，特将英文原文附于每段译文之后。拖拽鼠标可看。  

【原文提要】许多人认为，西方的民主制度是一种比一党制优越的体制，因为政治权力的轮换赋予政府以灵活性，以达成所必需的政策变化。 但随着时间的推移，中国的一党制已经明显证明其适应时代变化的巨大能力（Many people believe the Western democracy is superior to a one-party system because the rotation of political power gives government the flexibility to make needed policy changes. But China’s one-party system has proven over time to be remarkably adaptable to changing times.） 

变革无处不在。 通过革命，选举，和其他方法，整个世界的政府都在轮换。而这中间，只有美中这一对世上最重要的国家，是显著的和平继承。 在接下来的13个月，美国的两党制民主选举将选出一位总统和新一届国会，而一党制的国家中国也将产生新的领导班子。 （Change is in the air. By revolutions, elections, and other methods, governments are changing hands across a wide swath of the world. Two of the most notable peaceful successions are occurring in none other than the most important pair of countries in the world, the United States and China. In the next 13 months, America’s two-party electoral democracy will elect a president and a new Congress, and China’s one-party state will also produce new leadership.） 

当世界各地的人类社会面临种种似乎无尽的棘手问题的时候，人们再次激烈辩论：什么是“最好的”管治制度？ ( With the myriad of seemingly intractable problems facing human societies everywhere, people are again hotly debating: What is the “best” system of governance?) 

连像福山（Francis Fukuyama）这样的思想大师都加入了论战 。 在他的新大部头《政治秩序的起源》及其相关著作中，福山先生指出，中国的一党制的明显成功，还是不能解决“坏皇帝”这个问题。就是：你如何让皇帝在变“坏”之后离开历史舞台？（Intellectual giants no less than Francis Fukuyama are entering the fray. In his new tome, “The Origins of Political Order” and in related writings, Mr. Fukuyama points out that the obvious success of China’s one-party system does not solve the “bad emperor” problem: How do you make the emperor go away if and when he turns “bad”?） 

一位报纸评论员曾经指出，尽管根据民意调查的结果，中国共产党享有广泛的民意支持，（中共一党体制）的致命缺陷是，当它失去人民支持的时候，没有办法“诱导”党放弃权力（A newspaper commentator has gone so far as to pronounce that despite the wide popular support (as measured by opinion surveys) enjoyed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the fatal flaw in the system is that there is no way to “induce” the party to give up power if and when it loses the people’s support.） 

但是，这是一个虚假的命题。 中国有句古话：“夫君者舟也，人者水也。水可载舟，亦可覆舟。”今天，民族国家已经取代了帝国和皇帝。 在这个比喻中，水仍然是人民。 然而，舟已不再仅仅是一个皇帝和他的王朝，而是一个构成了现代民族国家的更大，也更为复杂的政治制度。（But this is a faux proposition. There is an old Chinese saying: “The people are like water, the ruler is a ship on that water. Water can carry the ship; water can overturn the ship.” Today, nation-states have replaced empires and kingdoms. In this analogy, water is still the people. The ship, however, is no longer just an emperor and his dynasty, but the larger and far more sophisticated political system that constitutes the modern nation-state.） 

中国的一党统治，是由其宪法所规定的，正如美国的民主选举制度是其宪法所规定的一样。始终体现在独立公众舆论调查中的，中国人民压倒性和持续性的对共产党的领导的支持，正是体现了这个国家的一党政治宪法的情形，因此也只能被解释为对这个基本政府体制的支持。（China’s one-party rule is enshrined in its constitution, just as America’s electoral democracy is in its. The Chinese people’s overwhelming and sustained support for the Communist Party’s leadership, as consistently reflected in independent public opinion surveys, is within the context of the nation’s one-party political constitution, and therefore can only be interpreted as support for this fundamental system of government.） 

美国人民对共和党或民主党的支持，潮涨潮落，但它并非必然表现了对美国选举民主这个根本制度的普遍支持。 目前，（中美）这两个国家的人民都支持各自的政治宪法。（Americans’ support for either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party ebbs and flows, but it is not necessarily linked to popular support for its fundamental system of electoral democracy. At the moment, both nations’ peoples support their respective political constitutions.） 

有人说，在假设的情况下，比如中共失去民心，它就应该下台。只有确保了这一点，党在目前享有的人民的支持才具有合法性。 按照这样的说法，从逻辑上推论下去，其结论就意味着，在假设的情况下，如果美国现有的民选的统治者失去了人民的支持，那么美国就必须停止选举，取消“人权法案 “，并实行专制或别的什么统治制度。（Some say that in the hypothetical situation in which the CCP lost popular support, it should step down from power, and only when this is ensured could the support of the people the party currently carries be rendered legitimate. Such an argument, if pushed to its logical conclusion, would mean that if, in a hypothetical situation, the current electoral regime in America lost the people’s support, the US must do away with elections, cancel the Bill of Rights, and install an authoritarian or some other system of governance. ） 

这当然是荒谬的。 在一个已经巩固了的体制内，统治者可能成功地和平传承或者轮换。但是 政治制度本身不可能迅速改变。 几乎没有例外，政治制度只有通过革命才可能突变。 在美国的短暂历史上，在其领土上就有过两次暴烈的战争，才建立和巩固了它目前的统治体制。（This, of course, is absurd. Rulers may be succeeded or rotated peacefully within established systems of governance. Political systems themselves cannot be changed on a dime. With few exceptions, political systems change quickly only through revolutions. In America’s short history, it took two violent wars on its soil to establish and consolidate its current governing system.）

许多人认为，西方的民主制度更加优越。因为通过投票的政党轮换允许政府要求的灵活性，使政策得以改变，满足不断变化的时代需求，从而更好地体现人民的意志。 相比之下，中国的一党制是刚性的，中共的权力垄断使它与人民相分离。（Many argue that Western democratic regimes are superior because the rotation of political parties by voting allows the flexibility required for the government to make policy changes that meet the demands of changing times and thereby better reflect the will of the people. In contrast, China’s one-party system is rigid, and the CCP’s monopoly on power disconnects it from the people.） 

做一点最简单的思考就可以知道这样的说法十分荒谬。 自从共产党于1949年建立中华人民共和国以来，在共产党一党领导下，中国政府的政策和政治环境的变化可谓天翻地覆。 从最初的所谓“新民主主义”联盟，到20世纪50年代初的激进的土地改革，从大跃进到20世纪60年代初的农田准私有化，从文化大革命到邓小平的“市场改革”、和江泽民的“三个代表”理论对党的重新定位，中国的国内政治从一个时期到另一个时期几乎面目全非。（The simplest exercise in intellectual diligence would show such argument to be preposterous. Since the party established the People’s Republic in 1949, under the leadership of a single political party, changes in China’s government policies and political environment have covered the widest possible spectrum. From the so-called “New Democratic” coalition at the beginning to the dramatic land reforms of the early 1950s, from the Great Leap Forward to the quasi-privatization of farmland in the early 1960s, from the Cultural Revolution to Deng Xiaopin’s market reform and Jiang Zemin’s redefinition of the Party through his “Theory of Three Represents,” China’s domestic politics are almost unrecognizable from one period to another.） 

在外交政策方面，中国实现了从20世纪50年代与苏联的紧密联盟关系，到20世纪7、80年代与美国的事实结盟以遏制苏联的转变。今天，它所追求的，是在一个日益多极化的世界里，与他国不同的、独立的道路。 没有人能够否认，其领导人，从毛泽东到邓小平，从江泽民到胡锦涛，以及明年的习近平，无论是从政治前景还是政策的优先次序上，都存在着巨大的不同。比起其它政治制度下在政坛上下出入的政治家们的不同来，也毫不逊色。（In foreign policy, China moved from a close alliance with the Soviet Union in the 1950s to a virtual alliance with the United States in the 1970s and ’80s to contain the former. Today, its pursuit of an independent course in an increasingly multi-polar world is distinctive among the nations of the world. No one could deny that its leaders, from Mao to Deng, from Jiang to Hu and to Xi next year, differ as widely in political outlooks and policy priorities as those who move in and out of power under any other political systems.） 

经过六十年来，已经出现了许多失误和相应的纠正。 文化大革命这场灾难受到广泛的批判。 国家从它破碎的状态，走到我们都知道的今天的中国。 事实证明了一党制自我纠错和变革的非凡能力。（Through six decades, there have been many blunders and corresponding course corrections. The Cultural Revolution – a disaster – was outright condemned. And the country went from its shattered state to the China we know today. The facts demonstrate the extraordinary capability of a one-party system for change and self-correction.） 

另一方面，世界各地的选举制度的记录表明，通过选举的政党轮换可能无法提供所需的灵活性或自我纠正。 在美国，选举可能产生新的总统和新的国会多数党，但他们似乎在对付美国的长期挑战上，成就寥寥。（On the other hand, the records of electoral regimes around the world indicate that party rotation through elections may not provide the needed flexibility or self-correction. In the United States, elections may have produced new presidents and congressional majorities, but they do not seem to have done much to tackle America’s long-term challenges.）

在欧洲 ，各国政府在定期的选举中，你方唱罢我登场。但没有选举产生哪怕最小的一点改变，以解决他们的现实的巨大窘迫。 在一年换一任总理的日本，选举和政党的轮替也未能解除其国家20年的停滞。 这也许可以解释为什么，在这些国家，由选举产生的政府的民众认可率总是远远低于50％。而中国的一党政府几十年来都保持了80％以上的认可率。（In Europe, governments regularly get voted in and out, but no elections have produced even the minimal corrections required to address their monumental distress. In the one-prime-minster-per-year Japan, elections and party rotations have failed to lift the country out of its 20-year stagnation. Perhaps this could explain why governments produced by elections routinely fall substantially below 50 percent approval rating in their countries, and China’s one-party government has retained approval rates above 80 percent for decades.）

在新一季世界各地的政局变化中，在中国，在西方，在日本和阿拉伯世界，是水载舟呢，还是水覆舟呢？ 什么样的舟是水所真正想要承载的？ 少一点意识形态的偏见，多几分理性的诚实，可能会告诉我们一些简单的的真理：选举轮换并不一定会产生灵活性和合法性；一党统治并不意味着僵化或缺乏民众的支持。（In this season of political change around the globe, in China, in the West, in Japan, and the Arab world, is water carrying the ship? Is water overturning the ship? What kind of ship does the water truly want to carry? A little less ideological bias and a little more intellectual honesty might tell us some simple truths: Electoral rotations do not necessarily produce flexibility or legitimacy; one-party rule does not mean rigidity or lack of popular support.） 

也许，只是也许，如果那些相信自己的政治制度的道德优越感的人们愿意从或者口沫横飞，或者以势压人的道德说教中分出些精力，做一点自我反省，说不定甚至可能会有助于他们自己的国家。 到底是谁真正有“坏皇帝”的问题？（Perhaps, and just perhaps, if those who are convinced of the moral superiority of their political system would spare the energy from lecturing, verbally and militarily, and spend it on some self-reflection, it might even help their own countries. Who is really having “bad emperor” problems?）