美国冷淡回应朝鲜释放美国公民

U.S. Gives North Korea the Silent Treatment

美国冷淡回应朝鲜释放美国公民

WASHINGTON — President Obama took the unusual step of sending the nation’s top spy, instead of a senior diplomat, to win the release of two American prisoners in North Korea, administration officials said Sunday, specifically to signal that he would not reward the North with sanctions relief or a new round of negotiations in return for the freedom of the latest Americans to be locked up during visits to the isolated nation.

华盛顿——奥巴马总统采取了不同寻常的做法，派出美国最高情报官员，而不是资深外交官，让朝鲜释放了它关押的两名美国人。奥巴马政府官员上周日表示，这是一个具体的信号，显示出他不会为美国人重获自由一事，通过放宽对朝鲜的制裁，或通过启动新一轮谈判，向朝鲜给予回报。这两名美国人在朝鲜期间遭到了关押。

“It was not to pursue any diplomatic opening,” a senior administration official said aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama departed for China, and as the two Americans sentenced to hard labor in the North, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, were landing near Seattle.

“此行不是要寻求任何外交机会，”空军一号(Air Force One)上的一位高级政府官员在奥巴马启程前往中国时说。当时，这两名在朝鲜被判处苦役的美国人，肯尼斯·裴(Kenneth Bae)和马修·托德·米勒(Matthew Todd Miller)，正要在西雅图附近降落。

The official said the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., was dispatched in response to the North’s request, made in backchannel communications with the administration, for a senior official of the United States government to oversee the release. But Mr. Clapper, a retired general whose career has spanned many conflicts with three generations of North Korean leaders, never met Kim Jong-un, the young dictator whose health, hold on power and progress in developing a deliverable nuclear weapon have all been sources of intense scrutiny to American intelligence officials.

该名官员表示，朝鲜通过秘密渠道与奥巴马政府取得联系，要求美国政府派出一名高级官员，来监督两人的释放，于是总统将国家情报总监小詹姆斯·R·克拉珀(James R. Clapper Jr.)派往朝鲜。克拉珀是一位退役将领，其职业生涯中经历了美国与三代朝鲜领导人的多次冲突，但他从来没有见过金正恩。这个年轻独裁者的健康、掌权状况，以及可投放的核武器的研发进展，都是美国情报官员密切关注的问题。

As a matter of diplomatic tactics, the gambit worked: Mr. Bae, a 46-year-old missionary who had been held for two years, and Mr. Miller, 25, were reunited with their families at an Air Force base. But as a matter of strategy, it is unclear that Mr. Clapper made any progress: His message was that for a resumption of relations with the United States, North Korea had to deliver on its past promises to dismantle a nuclear program now believed to have six to a dozen weapons.

从外交手法来看，此举效果不错：46岁的传教士肯尼斯·裴已被关押了两年，他和25岁米勒已经在一座空军基地与各自的家人团聚了。但从策略层面来看，目前还不清楚克拉珀是否取得了进展：他传达的信息是，要想恢复与美国的关系，朝鲜必须履行早前的承诺，解除核计划。据信该国已经拥有六到十二件核武器。

That question has frozen North Korea’s discussions with the United States for six years, and all the indications are that the North is accelerating its nuclear and missile programs, rather than backing off.

这个问题，已经让朝鲜与美国之间的谈判冻结了六年之久，所有的迹象都表明，朝鲜正在加速推进其核计划和导弹计划，而不是退让。

It is extraordinarily rare for a president to send one of his most senior intelligence officials into the capital of a declared American adversary, so the choice of Mr. Clapper, probably the most hardened veteran of the Cold War now serving in Mr. Obama’s inner circle, was a surprise. It may have also been welcome. “In a national security state like North Korea, they got someone who they think runs the country,” said Christopher Hill, who ran the last set of serious negotiations with North Korea, an experience of frustration and deception that he described in a memoir, “Outpost.”

总统派出最高级别的情报官员，前往美国公开宣称的敌对国家的首都，这样的情况非常罕见，所以奥巴马的小圈子里阅历最丰富的冷战老手克拉珀被选中执行这个任务，不免令人惊讶。此举也可能会受到欢迎。“在朝鲜那种国家安全体制下，他们认为是这样的人在掌管国家，”克里斯托弗·希尔 (Christopher Hill)说。他参与了与朝鲜最后几次的重要谈判，还在回忆录《前哨》(Outpost)中讲述了那期间经历的挫折和欺骗。

“My sense of the Obama administration is that they are less averse to talking to the North Koreans” than the Bush administration was, he said, “but are pretty convinced there is nothing there to talk about.”

“我对奥巴马政府的感觉是，与布什政府相比，他们没那么反感与朝鲜会谈，”他说，“不过他们坚信，与朝鲜无话可谈。”

The White House’s handling of the North Korean prisoner release and its negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are a study in contrast. Mr. Clapper traveled to North Korea with a brief letter from the president stating that the intelligence chief was his designated representative to retrieve the Americans. It had none of the specifics or the outlook contained in his recent letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.

在对待朝鲜释放囚犯和伊朗核谈判时，白宫的态度形成了对比。克拉珀前往朝鲜时，带着总统写的一份简短信函，称委派这名情报主管为代表，负责接回美国人。奥巴马最近给伊朗最高领袖阿亚图拉阿里·哈梅内伊(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)写的信里，则没有阐述这样具体的细节和意图。

The difference in approach reveals much about how Mr. Obama views the threats posed by the two adversaries, and the strategies needed to counter them.

这种差异传达出了很多信息，有助于理解奥巴马如何看待这两个对手构成的威胁，以及需要用什么策略来应对。

If Iran got nuclear weapons, Mr. Obama has often told his aides, a “containment” policy would not work; Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated Arab states would rush to do the same. A regional arms race would ensue, he has said, in one of the most volatile corners of the earth. North Korea, much further along than Iran, has already detonated three nuclear tests.

如果伊朗拥有了核武器，奥巴马经常告诉他的助手们，“遏制”政策是行不通的;沙特阿拉伯等逊尼派主导的阿拉伯国家，也会急于取得核武器。他说，随之而来的情景是，地球上最动荡的地区之一出现军备竞赛。朝鲜已经进行了三次核试验，在这方面远远领先于伊朗。

But in Mr. Obama’s view, the country can be contained: China is already a nuclear power, and Japan and South Korea are treaty allies with the United States, meaning that the United States would be legally bound to act as their ultimate protector against the North.

但在奥巴马看来，朝鲜是可以遏制的：中国已经是一个有核国家，而日本和韩国是美国的盟友且签订了条约，这意味着在两国受到朝鲜威胁时，美国有保护它们的法律义务。

So Mr. Obama has reacted mildly to many types of North Korean provocation: The seizing of American tourists, the launching of missiles and nuclear tests. The warning about broken promises that Robert M. Gates described as defense secretary — “I am tired of buying the same horse twice” — has outlasted his tenure. There appears to be no enthusiasm in Washington for resuming the “Six Party Talks” with the North — the Asian equivalent of the multination negotiations now underway with Iran — until Pyongyang begins to dismantle nuclear facilities it has promised to take apart.

所以，面对朝鲜关押美国游客、试射导弹、开展核试验等诸多挑衅行为，奥巴马的反应比较温和。罗伯特·M·盖茨(Robert M. Gates)担任国防部长时，曾警告朝鲜不要违背承诺，他说“我厌倦了两次购买同一匹马”。尽管盖茨已经卸任，但这番话的效果仍在持续。华盛顿对于重启 “六方会谈”毫无热情，除非平壤开始兑现承诺，拆除核设施。“六方会谈”是亚洲举行的多边谈判，类似于目前正在进行的伊朗核谈判。

So while Mr. Obama could have sent a looming political figure like former President Bill Clinton, who negotiated a previous prisoner release, his decision to turn to Mr. Clapper was rooted in the conclusion that entering a negotiation now would ultimately violate the Gates rule.

因此，尽管奥巴马可以派出有影响的政治人物，比如前总统比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)，但是他这次决定派出克拉珀，是因为现在举行谈判就会最终背离盖茨的原则。克林顿曾通过谈判赢得了上一次囚徒释放。

But it also raises the question of whether the United States is missing Mr. Kim’s first real effort to signal that he wants to resume some kind of dialogue.

但这也提出了一个问题：美国是否错过了金正恩首次真正想要恢复某种对话的努力。

There are several theories in Washington about why the North Korean leader would make that attempt now.

至于朝鲜领导人为什么会作出这种尝试，华盛顿有几种说法。

One is economic. There are recent indications that the North is concluding that China may not be its supplier, buyer and protector forever. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, who has followed North Korea’s economic, demographic and political strategies for several decades, noted in a recent essay that there are reports that a military academy near Pyongyang is “displaying placards calling China a ‘turncoat and our enemy,’ ” and that the state-run news services criticized China for its condemnation of recent missile tests. That comes at a time when the North Korean economy, he notes, is more dependent on China than ever before.

一种说法是经济。最近的迹象显示，朝鲜越来越觉得中国可能不会永远充当它的买家、保护国和资源供应国。美国企业研究所(American Enterprise Institute)的尼古拉斯·埃伯施塔特(Nicholas Eberstadt)关注朝鲜的经济、人口状况和政治战略已经有几十年之久，他在最近的一篇文章中写道，有报道称，平壤附近的一所军事院校“打出标语，说中国是‘叛徒和我们的敌人’，”而且中国对其最近的导弹试射给予了谴责，也因此遭到了朝鲜官方新闻机构的批评。他又指出，发生这种情况之时，朝鲜经济比以往任何时候都更加依赖中国。