【英语国际】如何看朝鲜

One can't help feeling sorry for North Koreans. In addition to what, by all accounts, is a pretty rough life, short on political freedoms and Michelin-starred restaurants, they have a dearth of television channels. Pyongyang keeps trying to launch a satellite – which the US and Japan perversely insist is some kind of long-range missile – but it has not managed to get one into orbit. It tried in 2006 but, far from reaching Alaska as the Americans claim it can, it disintegrated 35-40 seconds after launch, plopping harmlessly into the sea. That mishap has deprived the isolated country's 23m people of the range of viewing options they deserve. For the moment, at least, they must do without Pyongyang, 90210 and North Korean Idol.Perhaps it is lack of anything to do in the evenings that is making Pyongyang's leaders particularly short-tempered these days. This week, they cut the military hotline to Seoul and put their million-man army on war-readiness in protest at South Korea's joint military exercise with the US. They have wheeled out standard language threatening to reduce their southern neighbour to “a sea of fire” and have said they can no longer guarantee the safety of civilian airliners overflying their territory.

Kim Jong-il and his merry men appear to be upset at the harder line being adopted by the South Korean government of Lee Myung-bak, which has replaced its predecessors' “sunshine policy” with something rather more blustery. The North Korean regime may also be going through some kind of internal adjustment after the reported stroke of Mr Kim last year, although recent footage suggests he has recovered. After this week's elections, in which Mr Kim happily scored 100 per cent – though there was no political-junkie channel on which to watch the results come in live – moderates dealing with Seoul have been sidelined.

More important still may be the change of administration in Washington and Barack Obama's suggestion that he stands ready to engage even the roguest of nations. North Korea had been talking to the administration of George W. Bush on and off from 2003 but generally in the context of six-party talks, not bilaterally as it craves. Perversely, Pyongyang's show of recent hostility could be a signal that it wants to take up Mr Obama's implied offer. Seasoned observers of North Korean antics note that it tends to ramp up tensions as an entrée to negotiations.

Mike Chinoy, whose recent book Meltdown charts North Korea's slide during the Bush years to nuclear statehood, says that, in trying to interpret North Korea, it is not helpful to think of it as an “eccentric communist state”. Better to regard it as a “religious camp grafted on to a very conservative, inward-looking society steeped in Confucian tradition, where the purpose of life is to glorify the reigning deity”.

Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader and first absolute ruler, “brainwashed his countrymen into worshipping him as a god”, Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state, writes in her memoirs. His son, today's Dear Leader, has carried on that personality cult. North Koreans still wear “Eternal Leader” badges, sing songs in praise of Kim Jong-il, and even tend to their Kimjongilia, a hybrid begonia created by a doting botanist. State propaganda plays on Confucian traditions, alluding to his “mandate of heaven”.

No analogy is perfect but that view of North Korea as Confucian cult, not communist state, might shed some light on its behaviour. Rather than seeking to project power, Pyongyang appears to want weapons principally for self-preservation. To the regime, nothing is more important than maintaining power. Mr Kim is said to have taken a morbid interest in the fate of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian leader who in 1989 was shot after a two-hour trial. Not only does possessing weapons – or possibly possessing them – make an attack less likely, Pyongyang can sell them for precious foreign currency, something else it desperately needs.

Seeing North Korea less as Upper Volta with nukes and more as Branch Davidians with nukes may not seem all that comforting, especially if one remembers how the Waco siege of 1993 ended. But if North Korea can be convinced its security is guaranteed, that the west does not aspire to regime change and that there is food, technology and cash to be had if it puts down its weapons, there must be a slim chance it will hand them in.

Of course, furnishing all those guarantees would not be easy even if the US could agree with South Korea, China, Japan and Russia – the other members of six-party talks – to take the distasteful step of rewarding a country for threatening to go nuclear. Yet there is a precedent: only this week, the new US ambassador to Libya raised the possibility of one day selling arms to that formerly renegade state. Perhaps Washington could even sell Pyongyang some satellites. Then North Koreans might finally get to watch Big Brother.

人们不由地为朝鲜人民感到难过。除了如大家所说过着相当艰苦的生活、缺乏政治自由和米其林(Michelin)星级餐厅以外，他们的电视频道也很稀少。朝鲜政府一直试图发射一颗卫星——美国和日本执迷不悟地坚持认为这是某种远程导弹——但尚未成功将卫星送入轨道。2006年朝鲜进行了试射，然而，卫星非但没有像美国人声称的那样到达阿拉斯加，反倒在发射升空35至40秒后便爆炸解体，落入大海，没有造成任何破坏。这场事故使得这个被孤立国家的2300万民众无法享用他们本应享用的一系列电视节目选择。至少在目前，他们必须忍受没有《飞越平壤》(Pyongyang, 90210)和《朝鲜偶像》(North Korean Idol)的生活。

也许正是晚上无所事事导致朝鲜领导人这些日子特别暴躁。上周，他们切断了朝韩军事热线，并让其百万规模的军队进入战备状态，以抗议美韩联合举行的军事演习。他们发布官方声明威胁称，要让韩国陷入“一片火海”，并表示不再保证经过朝鲜领空民用飞机的安全。

金正日(Kim Jong-il)及其部下似乎对韩国李明博(Lee Myung-bak)政府采取更为强硬的路线感到不安。李明博政府用更具威吓性的态度取代了前任的“阳光政策”。去年金正日据报道中风之后，朝鲜政权可能也进行了某种内部调整，尽管最近的电视镜头表明他已经康复。在上周选举之后，对韩政策的中间派已被排挤出局。金正日在选举中满意地获得了百分之百的支持率——尽管没有政治频道现场直播选举结果。

更为重要的是华盛顿的政府更迭以及巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的暗示——他愿意与任何国家对话，哪怕是最无赖的国家。朝鲜从2003年开始与乔治•布什(George W. Bush)政府进行了断断续续的谈判，但一般是在六方会谈的背景下，而不是其一直渴望的双边谈判。平壤方面最近表现出的敌意可能是其愿意接受奥巴马含蓄提议的一个信号。对朝鲜哗众取宠的伎俩经验丰富的观察人士指出，朝鲜打算加剧紧张关系，以获得谈判的权利。

迈克•奇诺伊(Mike Chinoy)的新书《熔毁》(Meltdown)记述了朝鲜在布什任内逐渐成为核国家的内幕。他表示，要试着了解朝鲜，将其看作一个“古怪的共产党国家”无济于事，最好是视其为“与一个浸淫于儒家传统、非常保守内向的社会相融合的宗教集团，在这个社会中生活的目的就是颂扬占据统治地位的神明”。

美国前国务卿马德琳•奥尔布赖特(Madeleine Albright)在自传中写到，朝鲜的“伟大领袖”及第一位专制统治者金日成(Kim Il-sung)“对其国民进行洗脑，让他们把自己当作神灵来崇拜”。金日成的儿子金正日——今日的“亲爱的领袖”——继续推行个人崇拜。朝鲜人仍佩戴着“不朽领袖”的徽章，为金正日歌功颂德，甚至不忘打理他们的“金正日花”(Kimjongilia)——一位痴迷的植物学家培育的一种杂交秋海棠。国家宣传机构在儒家传统上做文章，暗指金正日是“上天的旨意”。

没有哪一种类比是完美的，但把朝鲜看作信奉儒家思想的国家，而非共产主义国家的观点或许能帮助我们理解这个国家的行为。朝鲜政府希望拥有核武器似乎主要是为了自我防御，而并非为了运用武力。对该政权而言，没有什么比保有权力更重要。据说金正日对罗马尼亚前领导人尼古拉•齐奥塞斯库(Nicolae Ceausescu)的命运有着病态的兴趣，后者于1989年在经过两个小时的审判后被枪决。拥有核武器——或者可能拥有——不仅使朝鲜遭到攻击的可能性下降，平壤当局还可以出售武器以换取宝贵的外汇——这是该国迫切需要的另一样东西。

不将朝鲜看作拥有核武器的上沃尔特（Upper Volta，现名布基纳法索(Burkina Faso)，西非内陆国，借指区域小国——译者注），而更多地将其看作拥有核武器的大卫教派（Branch Davidians，美国基督教极端教派——译者注），或许并不那么令人放心，尤其是如果人们记得1993年围攻韦科事件是如何结束的话（1993年美国联邦调查局围攻德克萨斯州韦科镇大卫教的庄园，最后庄园起火，造成86名信徒丧生——译者注）。但如果能让朝鲜相信，其安全可以得到保证，西方并不希望更换其政权，而且放弃核武器就可以得到食物、技术和现金，那么应该就有让朝鲜交出核武器的一线希望。

当然，即使美国与六方会谈的其它国家——韩国、中国、日本和俄罗斯——取得一致意见，采取令人不快的举措，回报一个威胁发展核武器的国家，要提供上述所有担保也并不容易。不过这里有一个先例：就在上周，美国驻利比亚新任大使增加了美国向这个曾经的叛逆国家出售武器的可能性。或许美国甚至会卖给朝鲜一些卫星。那么朝鲜人民就终于能够看到“老大哥”(Big Brother)节目了。

译者/君悦