David Nyhan - The Most Important Speech of the Century 汉译

We learned how far up he’s come on New Year’s Day when every Chinese newspaper heralded a 6000-word speech in which Deng signaled the end of thousands of years of Chinese xenophobia.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

It may eventually come to be regarded the most important speech of the century. For in it, the Maximum Leader of the nation that comprises one-fourth of mankind served notice that China is joining the rest of the world (save Albania) in the 20th century.

“No country can develop by closing its door,” said Deng. “We suffered from this, and our forefathers suffered from this.” Reversing thousands of years of official hostility to the world outside the Great Wall, Deng said simply: “Isolation landed China in poverty, backwardness and ignorance.”

This startling admission contradicts thousands of years of Chinese policy, going back beyond the Ming Dynasty to the Chin Dynasty, when the wall was erected to keep barbarians on horseback out in the wilds where they belonged.

Deng’s message: Do not renounce Marxism, but adopt capitalist ideas where they make sense—“it cannot harm us.” Economic reform, spearheaded by younger leaders, is the single most important bulwark for the nation’s security, for only with economic strength can bombs, missiles and planes be purchased.

If China is trying to catch up to the rest of the world in the 20th century, maybe the 21st century will belong to them. They have people, brains and they can be impressively disciplined. And their industrial potential is awesome.

It may come to be commonly accepted in the next century that the most significant speech ever given by a fellow with a cowboy hat came not from Ronald Reagan but from an 80-year-old Chinese man.