Late-night comedians have had a field day with Donald Trump’s musings about his administration possibly seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hahahahahaha! That Trump — such a funny guy — you never know what will come out of his mouth next. Pay no attention. You know him, he’ll just say something else outrageous tomorrow!
深夜秀喜剧演员们对特朗普关于其政府可能夺取格陵兰岛和巴拿马运河的言论大肆嘲弄。哈哈哈哈哈哈！那个特朗普真是个有趣的家伙，你永远不知道他接下来会说些什么。不用理会。你知道他的，他明天还会说些更离谱的话！
Well, I’ll tell you who I am certain is paying attention: President Xi Jinping of China. If the U.S. president can decide that he wants to seize Greenland and explicitly refuses to rule out the use of force to do so, that is like a giant permission slip for China to seize Taiwan, which has strong emotional, historical, linguistic and national connections to mainland China.
好吧，让我来告诉你，我很确定谁在关注这件事：中国国家主席习近平。如果美国总统能够决定要夺取格陵兰岛，并明确拒绝排除使用武力的可能性，那么这就像是给中国夺取台湾的一张巨大的许可证，而台湾与中国大陆有着强烈的情感、历史、语言和民族联系。
It took only a few days after Trump’s remarks for this joke to start circulating among China specialists:
特朗普发表上述言论后仅仅几天，这句笑话就开始在中国问题专家中流传：
Question: “What does Xi Jinping feel when Trump starts talking about taking Greenland and the Panama Canal?”
问：当特朗普开始谈论夺取格陵兰岛和巴拿马运河时，习近平有何感想？
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Answer: “Hungry” — for Taiwan.
答案：“饥渴”——对台湾。
Trump’s remarks are reckless stupidity beyond belief. Imagine what happens when his choice for ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, takes up his post and, in response to some aggressive act by China toward Taiwan, goes to the Chinese Foreign Ministry to lodge a protest. What will the ministry say?
特朗普的言论简直愚蠢鲁莽至极，令人难以置信。试想一下，当他选定的驻华大使戴维·珀杜上任后，针对中国对台湾的某些挑衅行为向中国外交部提出抗议时，会发生什么？中国外交部会怎么说？
Presumably something like: “You come in here to protest our actions to reunite with Taiwan when your president is threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal by force? We believe Taiwan is an integral part of China — a belief that while you do not share it, you acknowledged in the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué. What is your connection to Greenland? The fact that Donald Trump Jr. went there on vacation once? Tell your president that China and Russia have as much a claim to Greenland as America does.’’
大概是这样的：“你们的总统威胁要用武力夺取格陵兰和巴拿马运河，你却来这里抗议我们统一台湾的行动？我们认为台湾是中国不可分割的一部分——虽然你们不认同这一观点，但你们在1972年的《上海公报》中承认了这一点。你们和格陵兰有什么关系？就凭小唐纳德·特朗普曾经去那里度过一次假？告诉你们的总统，中国和俄罗斯对格陵兰的主权主张与美国一样正当。”
Vladimir Putin is surely thinking the same thing. How does America get off telling him that by invading Ukraine he has violated international laws and norms by seizing the territory of another nation, while Trump muses about seizing Greenland and forcibly reimposing U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal? Ukraine’s territory was once part of Mother Russia, as was Crimea, which Putin has already fully taken back.
普京肯定也在思考同样的事情。美国凭什么告诉他，入侵乌克兰是违反国际法和国际准则夺取另一国领土的行为，而特朗普却在考虑夺取格陵兰岛，并强行重新施加美国对巴拿马运河的主权？乌克兰领土曾是俄罗斯的一部分，克里米亚也曾是——普京已经完全收回了克里米亚。
No wonder Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told CNBC on Thursday that Russia is “watching the rhetoric on these topics coming out of Washington with great interest.”
难怪普京的新闻秘书德米特里·佩斯科夫周四对CNBC表示，俄罗斯“正饶有兴趣地关注华盛顿关于这些问题的言论”。
Some may think Trump’s remarks on taking Greenland and the Panama Canal are just a joke from an attention-seeking leader with no filter. They are not a joke. They are a prescription for chaos. They have already done more damage than people realize. If Trump persists with them, the joke will be entirely on us and on the world order we established after World War II.
一些人可能认为特朗普关于占领格陵兰岛和巴拿马运河的言论只是一个满嘴跑火车、喜欢出风头的领导人的玩笑。这可不是玩笑。这是制造混乱的处方。它们造成的损害已经超出了人们的想象。如果特朗普坚持这些言论，我们和我们在“二战”后建立的世界秩序将完全沦为笑柄。