【按：《卫报》显然不打算与英国政府缓和。不仅在斯诺登事件上如此，当卡梅伦终于回头是岸，谦恭访问中国时刻，《卫报》依然用严辞批评卡梅伦此前的表演。不过忠言逆耳，这样的批评显然不应该只有卡梅伦来承受，对西方各国领导人来说都不失为一个提醒。作者罗思义为前英国伦敦经济与商业政策署署长，英文原文发表于《卫报》，作者授权观察者网独家首发中文版。观察者网王杨翻译】

历史上鲜有哪个英国首相的夸张表演像大卫·卡梅伦的对华政策这样，无比沉重和耻辱，被弄得颜面扫地。中国领导人的外交技巧太高超，因此没有在卡梅伦的访华行程中当面直说。但是世界各国，包括英国的评论家们，都知道卡梅伦干了什么。

去年卡梅伦会见达赖喇嘛，这就像习近平会见亚历克斯·萨尔蒙德（观察者网译注：苏格兰首席大臣、苏格兰民族党领袖）并祝他在苏格兰独立的竞选中“顺利”，或者戴高乐1967年的“魁北克自由万岁”演讲一样。不出意外地，中英关系随后降至“冰点”——英国大臣与中方会面的请求遭拒。

卡梅伦似乎相信中国的领导人会在对峙时先软下来——好像世界的第二大经济体，经济增速7.8%，会需要英国的帮助，而英国的GDP还没赶上5年前的水平。可惜这并没发生，而正如西蒙·詹金斯所说：“卡梅伦卑躬屈膝到了极点。唐宁街消息称英国如今‘翻过了一页’而且‘着眼于未来’；这将展示‘相互尊重和理解’。”一个再清楚不过的事实是，中国如今是个超级大国，英国不是。

遗憾的是，卡梅伦的无节操不可避免地给他领导的国家蒙羞。但是，寻求中英互利最大化的政策应当恢复。

卡梅伦微博发自己与李克强出席签字仪式

这样的关系不仅仅是“双赢局面”这种陈词滥调。英国需要中国的基建投资，中国的出口正好面临放缓；此外中国1亿游客将出国旅游，英国能从中分一杯羹就够了。中国需要英国的高科技，比如生命科学，还需要将伦敦这一世界最大的外汇交易中心作为人民币国际化的基地。

而卡梅伦之前的所作所为就是让这些关系更加艰难。连英国政府都不相信他的官方论调，认为其早期的政策对经济毫无裨益。要是卡梅伦的说辞是真的，他如今可能不用这么低声下气地领着史上最大的经贸团访华。

从这件事中，我们可以学到一些普遍的教训。

在中国看来，英国在两国关系中企图夺取道德高点的做法毫无诚信可言。英国自己都干了些啥？它跟中国的第一次接触就是派军队过去强迫中国进口英国的鸦片。接着它夺取香港岛——也许中国政府应夺取怀特岛作为补偿。后来它的军队毁掉了北京的圆明园——也许中国解放军应当洗劫并烧毁白金汉宫。英国敦促中国在香港实行民主，而它统治香港期间严禁民主政府，直到它意识到殖民地保不住了。就说现在，英国是美国入侵伊拉克的第一大盟友。当他们在伊拉克杀死数万人时，中国让6亿人脱贫，这比欧盟总人口还多。

大卫·卡梅伦的政治生涯将很快画上句号。等他输了2015年的普选，托利党（英国保守党——观察者网注）为落选的领袖办完砍头仪式后，新首相艾德·米利班德（Ed Miliband）访问北京时，或许会对卡梅伦对华政策的惨败好好琢磨，这是更普遍的教训。

世界想从英国获得很多，对此我们颇为自豪——投资、莎士比亚、科学、幽默、流行音乐和贸易，等等。但是有些是世界不想要的，对此我们最好道歉或远离——坐武装直升机访问、鸦片、夺岛和干涉别国内政。

假如这个更加普遍的教训能被吸取，那卡梅伦目前在北京收到的教训多少还是有好处的。

（翻页请看英文原文）

Harsh lessons for Cameron in Beijing

Rarely have the exaggerated pretensions of a British prime minister been so harshly and humiliatingly brought crashing to earth as with David Cameron's policy on China. China's leaders are too skilled in diplomacy to state it bluntly during Cameron's current Beijing visit, but the rest of the world, including numerous British commentators, knows exactly what has occurred.

Last year Cameron met the Dalai Lama, which in China's terms has about the same level of subtlety as Xi Jinping meeting Alex Salmond to "wish him well" in his campaign for Scottish independence or de Gaulle's notorious 1967 "Vive le Québec libre" speech. It was predictably met with the "big freeze" – British ministers being refused meetings with their senior Chinese counterparts.

Cameron seems to have believed that China's leaders would blink first in the ensuing standoff – as though the world's second largest economy, with 7.8% growth, needed help from a UK whose GDP has not even regained its level of five years ago. It didn't happen and, as Simon Jenkins put it, "Cameron could hardly have grovelled lower. Downing Street sources say Britain has now 'turned a page' and is 'looking to the future'; it will show 'mutual respect and understanding'." The lesson that China is now a great power and Britain is not was forcibly driven home.

This humiliation for Cameron regrettably inevitably reflects on the country he leads. But the policy of seeking the best mutually beneficial ties between Britain and China should be resumed.

These relations are in reality, not just as a trite phrase, a potential "win-win situation". Britain needs China's investment in its infrastructure, China as a market for faltering exports, and to grab a small proportion of the 100 million Chinese tourists who will soon be travelling abroad. China needs Britain's hi-tech knowledge in areas such as life sciences, and London, the world's biggest foreign exchange trading centre, as a base for its currency's internationalisation.

All Cameron did was to make these relations more difficult. Not even the British government believes its official rhetoric that its earlier policies had no effect on economic ties. If that were true, Cameron would not feel the need to eat political humble pie and lead the biggest ever group of business leaders to China.

Some general lessons can be drawn from this episode. Seen from China, Britain's attempts to claim some moral high ground in its dealings with the country have no credibility. What is Britain's record? Its first major encounter with China was to send troops to force the country to import British opium. Then it seized the island of Hong Kong – perhaps the Chinese government will ask for the Isle of Wight in compensation. Then its troops destroyed the summer palace in Beijing – perhaps the People's Liberation Army should loot and burn Buckingham Palace. Britain lectures China on democracy in Hong Kong when, in the whole time the UK ruled the island, it never allowed democratic government until it realised it would be forced to return its colony to China. Or, to come up to the present, Britain was the chief US ally in an invasion of Iraq, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths while China raised more than 600 million people – more than the EU's entire population – out of poverty.

David Cameron's political career is coming to an end. After he loses the 2015 general election, and the Tory party has carried out the ritual slaughter of the failed leader, the new prime minister, Ed Miliband, may want to ponder the more general lessons of Cameron's Chinese fiasco for British foreign policy as he plans his Beijing visit.

There are many things people all over the world want from this country in which we can take pride – investment, Shakespeare, science, humour, pop music and trade, to name but a few. But it would be good to apologise for, and stay out of, things the world did not want to receive from this country – visits from gunships, opium, seizure of islands and interference in their internal affairs.

If that more general lesson can be absorbed, Cameron's current humiliation in Beijing will have served a useful purpose after all.

英文原文链接：http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/03/david-cameron-humiliation-beijing-china