【英语国际】日本哪里去了?

I have a question. Where is Japan? The world leaders and accompanying media hordes heading this weekend for the shores of Lake Toya need not turn to their atlases. The question is one of psychology rather than geography. Japan is still the world's second most powerful economy. Politically, it is all but invisible.

Next week's Toyako summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations promises a rare moment in the sun. Prime ministers and presidents will pronounce on everything from oil prices and global warming to nuclear proliferation and the fight against malaria. As many as 14 leaders from emerging powers will make cameo appearances. Lunch with the Chinese, coffee with the Senegalese?

The international media will devour every inconsequential cough and comma. Summit host Yasuo Fukuda will appear on front pages from Berlin to Buenos Aires. When it is all over Japan can slip back into the shadows.

The summit sherpas say we should expect nothing of great significance, though their political bosses must insist otherwise. Japan's preparations have won few plaudits. Ponderous planning has sometimes revealed as many divisions among ministries in Tokyo as among other capitals.

The goal is consensus: better bland accord than public discord. Others in the G8 have used their summits to promote pet projects – Britain trumpeted aid for Africa, Germany climate change. Japan seems to lack any burning priorities.

This is all of a piece with its barely visible profile in the global arena. I spend a fair part of my life on the international conference circuit. Never before have governments – of rising as well as mature powers – devoted as much time to peering into their crystal balls in search of a new geopolitical landscape. By and large – I can think of one recent exception – Japan is absent from such events. What is more, Japan's place in the new order rarely merits mention by its peers.

Scroll back to the late 1980s. Japan was the rising power. Academics and journalists fell over themselves in the rush to predict that its economic might was destined to eclipse that of the US. When foreign policy experts declared that the 21st century would belong to Asia, they were not thinking about China and India.

Politicians in Washington fulminated as Japanese companies snapped up such American icons as New York's Rockefeller Center and Hollywood's Columbia Pictures. US motorists swapped their Fords and Chevrolets for Toyotas.

And now? Well, western consumers still buy Toyotas; and Sony and Toshiba continue to produce all manner of electronic wizardry. But Japan has become an afterthought in the discourse about the fast-shifting balance of global power. The Asian century is about China and India.

There are some obvious explanations for this reversal. More often than not political presence mirrors economic performance. Before the ink was properly dry on those forecasts of an ineluctable march to economic hegemony, Japan entered the great deflation of the 1990s. The asset price bubble burst, banks went bankrupt and the economy went into free fall. Japan lost a decade.

The economy has regained its balance, though its growth rate remains low. An ageing and shrinking population holds little prospect of a return to the dynamism of the 1980s. For all that, Japan's disorientation is about more than the miscalculations of economic policymakers. Financial implosion robbed politicians of their confidence; the collapse of the Soviet Union remade Japan's geopolitical co-ordinates.

The aftermath of the second world war and the ensuing cold war with communism hitched Japan firmly to the US and Europe. Geography played second fiddle to ideology. A US security guarantee filled the gap left by the tight constitutional constraints on Japan's own military.

For all intents and purposes, this Japan was part of the west. It might have seemed different and, sometimes, economically threatening. But it was an ally against communism, like Europe sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella, and provided an Asian pillar for the market economy.

Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union weakened the glue in the transatlantic alliance, so it put a question mark over Japan's long-term relationship with Washington. The re-emergence of China then amplified the uncertainties. If the speed of China's rise has disconcerted Americans and Europeans, it has terrified Japan.

You can see why. This is a relationship steeped in historical rancour. Nationalist rivalries are never more than an inch below the surface. In two or three years China will displace Japan as America's closest economic rival. Within a decade it may have toppled the US as the pre-eminent power in east Asia.

Japan's reflex response has been to draw closer to the US. But China's rise also forces it to face up to an Asian identity it has always shunned. A few weeks back, Mr Fukuda tried to square the circle by turning a page in the atlas. Japan, he said, should be seen in the context not of east Asia but of the much greater number of nations bordering the Pacific. This community bound Japan to the US, Australia and New Zealand as well as to the countries of south-east Asia, China and Russia. It was a nice try, but to my mind dodged my question.

Some would say there is no answer. Japan confronts many overlapping options. It is patching up relations with Beijing after a dangerous confrontation in 2005. Simultaneously, it wants Washington to do more to contain China. A US presidential victory for the Republican, John McCain, could hold out the prospect of a new alliance of Australasian democracies. Japan, meanwhile, could abandon the constraints on its own military.

The most cogent answer I have heard is from a young Japanese diplomat who posits that his country's natural role is as a bridge between Asia and the west and between mature and rising powers. In this guise Japan would act as a stabiliser in a region that would otherwise be dominated by China: friends with Beijing but also balancing it.

For what it is worth, I think that Japan's pre-eminent interest lies in working to extend and strengthen the rules-based international order to draw in China and other rising powers. More than anything else, this part of the world needs a robust mutual security system.

As things stand, Japan looks like a nation without a compass. All of the choices mentioned above require decisions about its identity. Now there is something to ponder as the sun sets on Lake Toya

我有个问题：日本在什么地方？周一前往洞爷湖(Lake Toya)的各国领导人和随同前往的媒体大军不用去查看地图。这是一个心理层面的问题，而非地理问题。日本仍是全球第二大经济体。而在政治上，它却不太起眼。八国集团(G8)本周在洞爷湖町(Toyako)举行峰会，看来是天底下一个罕见的机会。首相和总统们将就各种问题发表意见——从油价、全球变暖到核扩散及应对疟疾等等。有14位新兴国家领导人将列席会议。与中国人共进午餐？与塞内加尔人一起来杯咖啡？

国际媒体将密切关注每一声异样的咳嗽和每一个蹊跷的停顿。此次峰会东道主福田康夫(Yasuo Fukuda)将登上从柏林到布宜诺斯艾利斯的各地报刊头版。而一切结束后，日本又能退回到阴影中。

峰会主办者表示，我们不应期待会发生什么重大事件，不过他们的政治领袖们肯定会另有说法。日本的筹备工作没赢得几声喝彩。冗长的计划过程有时暴露出，日本各部门之间的分歧与其他国家之间一样多。

目标是一致的：平淡乏味的和谐总比公开的不和要好些。其他G8成员国往往借举办峰会宣传得意之作——英国吹嘘对非洲的援助，德国大谈气候变化问题。而日本似乎没有什么迫在眉睫的要务。

这与它在国际舞台上不太起眼的形象完全相符。我一生中很多时间都在各地游走，参加各种国际会议。各国政府——无论是新兴还是发达国家——从未像现在这样花这么多时间注视水晶球，以寻觅一种新的地缘政治格局。对此类活动，日本基本是缺席的（我能想到的最近一次活动除外）。而且，日本在新秩序中的地位很少值得他国提起。

回想上世纪80年代末，当时日本是正在崛起的强国，学术界和媒体纷纷预言日本经济实力必将超越美国。当外交政策专家宣称21世纪将属于亚洲时，他们并没有想到中国和印度。

当日本公司出手买下纽约的洛克菲勒中心(Rockefeller Center)和好莱坞的哥伦比亚影业(Columbia Pictures)等美国象征性资产时，华盛顿的政客们对此大加谴责。美国的车主们把自己的福特(Ford)和雪佛兰(Chevrolet)都换成了日本产的丰田(Toyota)。

现在的情况如何呢？不错，西方消费者仍在购买丰田汽车，索尼(Sony)和东芝(Toshiba)继续生产各种新奇的电子产品。但是，在谈论迅速变化的全球力量平衡时，日本却被遗忘了。亚洲世纪指的是中国和印度。

对上述形势的逆转，有一些显而易见的解释。政治地位往往是对经济状况的反映。有关日本必将成为经济霸主的预测言犹在耳，日本就进入了90年代的严重通缩时期。资产价格泡沫破裂，银行破产，经济直线滑坡。日本失去了十年。

目前日本经济已回复平衡，但增长率仍较低。随着人口老龄化和日益缩减，日本恢复上世纪80年代那种活力的希望甚微。尽管如此，日本迷失方向不完全是因为经济决策的失误。金融内爆令政治家丧失了信心；前苏联解体改变了日本的地缘政治坐标。

二战的结果以及随之而来与共产主义阵营之间的冷战，使日本坚定地站到了美国和欧洲一边。地缘因素让位于意识形态。美国提供的安全保障，弥补了宪法严格约束所造成的日本自身军力不足。

就这样，战后的日本加入了西方阵营。日本也许看起来有些不同，有时还构成了经济上的威胁。然而，它是对付共产主义的一个盟友，就像躲在美国核保护伞下的欧洲一样，还成为了市场经济在亚洲的支柱。

前苏联解体削弱了跨大西洋联盟内部的凝聚力，也给日本与美国之间的长期关系打上了一个问号。中国的重新崛起又加大了这方面的不确定性。如果说中国崛起的速度引起了美国和欧洲的不安，那么它让日本受到了惊吓。

你可以想见其中的原因。双方历史上积怨很深。民族主义对抗历来一触即发。在两至三年内，中国将取代日本，成为经济势力最接近美国的对手。十年内，它可能会超越美国，成为东亚地区最显赫的力量。

日本对此的反射性反应，迄今一直是向美国靠拢。但中国的崛起，也迫使日本正视它的亚洲国家身份——以往它总是回避这一点。几周前，福田康夫试图通过地理概念上的创新来自圆其说。他表示，日本不应放在东亚的背景下看待，而应放在太平洋周边众多国家之中看待。这块区域将日本与美国、澳大利亚和新西兰，以及东南亚国家、中国和俄罗斯等联结起来。这是个不错的尝试，但在我看来，它绕开了我的问题。

有些人会说：那个问题没有答案。日本面临许多错综复杂的选择。自2005年与中国发生危险的对峙后，目前它正修补与北京的关系。同时，它希望华盛顿采取更多手段遏制中国。美国总统大选如果是共和党人约翰•麦凯恩(John McCain)获胜，或许有望打造一个新的澳大拉西亚(Australasia）民主联盟。与此同时，日本也可解除对其军事力量的制约。

我听过的最有说服力的答案来自一位年轻的日本外交官。他断言，日本的天然角色是充当亚洲与西方之间、发达国家与新兴国家之间的桥梁。如此，日本将是地区的稳定力量，否则这个地区将由中国主宰：日本与中国交好，但也对其予以制衡。

无论如何，我认为日本的首要利益在于扩大和加强以规则为基础、纳入中国及其他新兴国家的国际秩序。最重要的是，这一地区需要强有力的共同安全体系。

目前看来，日本就像一个没有方向的国家。上述所有选择都要求日本就其身份作出决定。现在，当太阳在洞爷湖上落下的时候，有些事情值得深思。

译者/岱嵩