When a US warship steamed through the South China Sea the other day China protested and her neighbours applauded. Washington said it was upholding freedom of navigation in the face of Chinese land reclamation projects that are turning disputed rocks into artificial islands. Beijing warned against provocation from an outsider with no claims of its own in the region. The rest of us were reminded of the dismal determinism of Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian war.
幾天前，當(dāng)一艘美國軍艦駛過南中國海時(shí)，中國方面表示了抗議，它的鄰國則表示歡迎。美國政府表示，自己的行為是面對中國填海造島工程而采取的維護(hù)航行自由的舉措——這些填海造島工程正在將有爭議的礁石變成人造島嶼。中國政府則警告稱，在該地區(qū)沒有主權(quán)聲索的局外人不要采取挑釁行為。這令我們其他人想起修昔底德(Thucydides)的《伯羅奔尼撒戰(zhàn)爭史》中的可悲宿命論。
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