新冠病毒危机与西方文化傲慢

The Coronavirus Crisis and Western Cultural Arrogance

The Western world is on the verge of embarrassing itself to the bone in fighting a health crisis of historic proportions.

在与一场具有历史意义的健康危机的斗争中，西方世界令自己难堪得连底裤都快没了。

Even though we are only in phase two of a four-stage coronavirus crisis, it is never too early to start learning the lessons that were missed and hence contributed to the widening of the crisis.

尽管我们仅处于四阶段新冠病毒危机的第二阶段，但开始吸取之前被忽视的经验教训，进而应对危机的扩大是越早越好。

In case you wonder: When I say “only stage two,” here are stages 3 and 4: The corona epidemic (= stage one) and the ensuing current financial crisis (=stage two) are followed by a deflationary shock for the real economy (=stage three) – and then, in stage four, the question is whether our monetary and economic system really still works.

假如你好奇的话，当我说“仅第二阶段”的时候，第三阶段和第四阶段是这样的：冠状病毒传染病（相当于第一阶段）以及紧接着发生的眼下的金融危机（相当于第二阶段），会带来对实体经济的通缩冲击（相当于第三阶段）——然后，在第四阶段，问题就在于我们的货币系统和经济系统还能否运行。

Stage 1: The epidemic that did not have to become a crisis第一阶段：不必变成危机的传染病

We initially had an outbreak of the new virus in China. After severe initial failures at the local level, Chinese central government authorities decided to initiate a battle plan against the virus that appears to be successful. Infections are now declining.

最初的新型病毒是在中国爆发的。在地方层面最初的严重挫败之后，中国中央政府的权威人士决定制定一项针对病毒的作战计划，这项计划看来是成功的。感染现在正在下降。

Of course, the virus has not actually been defeated in China, but it has been subdued. The coronavirus will remain active, infect the population and be a factor of Chinese life for years. But, crucially, the authorities have gained time.

当然，病毒在中国还没有被实际打败，但它已经被抑制了。冠状病毒会保持活跃，感染人群并在数年时间里成为中国生活的一个因素。但关键在于，当局已经赢得了时间。

Those Chinese: An arrogant Western response

那些中国人：傲慢的西方反应

And what did the Western countries do? Watch with amazement at the radical steps the Chinese took to fight the virus.

西方国家干了些什么？用吃惊的眼光看着中国人抗击病毒所采取的激进措施。

Otherwise, the Western world at that stage was mostly characterized by a sense of remote curiosity. China is far – and haven’t we always known about the poor sanitary conditions in Chinese (and indeed Asian) livestock poultry markets?

除此以外，在那个阶段的西方世界大多带着一种遥远的好奇感。中国很遥远——我们不是一直以来都知道中国（甚至亚洲）鲜活禽畜市场的糟糕卫生状况吗？

Our political leaders had other concerns. The carnival season was in full force and had to be enjoyed as always. And, of course, there is always soccer and the games had to be played.

我们的政治领导者有过其它的担心。狂欢季蓄势待发，必须要像以前一样乐在其中。当然，还有足球和要打的比赛。

Germany thankfully no longer has a royal house – but, make no mistake about it, nobody dares interfere with “King Soccer.”

谢天谢地德国不再有王室——但别误会，没人敢干涉足球这个“国王”。

Those Italians: An arrogant intra-European response

那些意大利人：欧洲内部的傲慢反应

When the virus suddenly appeared in Italy, deeply ingrained prejudices were quick at hand. Haven’t we always known about Italian laxness?

当病毒突然出现在意大利的时候，根深蒂固的偏见立刻浮现。我们不是一直都知道意大利的懒懒散散吗？

Aren’t their politicians – and society – basically incapable with regard to dealing with serious matters? And isn’t the Italian health care system very creaky and underfunded? It is certainly not as good as ours.

他们的政客——还有社会——不是基本上没能力处理严肃的事情吗？还有，意大利的医疗系统不是陈旧不堪并且资金不足吗？肯定没我们的好。

A self-fulfilling prophecy

自我实现的预言

Now the virus is everywhere, including in Germany. Instead of being prepared to learn from the experiences of other countries in time, our politicians moved from arrogance to dalliance.

现在病毒到处都是，包括德国在内。我们的政客不是去做好准备从其它国家及时学习经验，而是把心态从傲慢发展成了视同儿戏。

The sense of the remoteness of the crisis and of an astounding level of relaxation among our political leaders gave way to rounds of arguing about school closings and empty-headed men of principle like Michael Müller, the Berlin mayor, who fought to keep the clubs and theaters open.

我们政治领袖之间对危机的遥远感以及惊人的放松感，导致了数轮对关停学校园的争论，以及像柏林市长麦克·米勒那样的无脑坚持原则者对俱乐部和剧院开放的坚持。

Others continued to shake hands and even make fun of the virus. Assuaging statements about it being only as deadly as a normal flu virus were to be heard.

其他人继续握手，甚至拿病毒开玩笑。人们能听到安慰性声明说它仅像普通流感一样致命。

Donald Trump’s catastrophic crisis management

唐纳德·特朗普灾难性的危机管理

It provides no comfort to Europeans that the response in the United States, led by the vacuous and vain Donald Trump, was even worse than that of the Berlin mayor.

由空话连篇而虚荣的唐纳德·特朗普所领导的美国的反应，比那个柏林市长干的还糟糕。这无法令欧洲人感到宽慰。

Trump had engaged in acts of outright idiocy such as dissolving the White House pandemic team shortly after taking office in 2017. Then, in all his pomposity and grandiosity as Master of the Universe, he chose to downplay the risks of the virus.

2017年入主白宫后不久，特朗普就采取了彻头彻尾的愚蠢行动，例如解散白宫流行病团队。接着，以作为宇宙主宰的浮夸和傲慢，他选择淡化处理该病毒的风险。

Test kits were unavailable for days in the world’s most expensive healthcare system. And its health insurance system still does not cover close to 30 million people. The number of unreported infections in the United States is correspondingly high.

在世界上最昂贵的医保体系内，很多天以来都没有测试试剂盒可用。而且其医保仍然不能覆盖约三千万人。相应地，美国未报告的感染数量很高。

Only after weeks of delay did Mr. Trump resolve to declare a national emergency, while steadfastly and explicitly refusing to accept any responsibility for the outcome of his own mismanagement. But at least he got in his jibes against the European countries.

在数周的拖延之后，特朗普先生才决心宣布全国紧急状态，同时坚定且明确地拒绝为他管理不当的后果承担任何责任。但至少他找到了时间嘲弄那些欧洲国家。

Culture shock: Asia works?

文化震撼：亚洲有办法？

As it stands, China’s neighboring countries in Asia appear to show how to do crisis management successfully. Vietnam and Singapore took decisive and consistent measures right at the beginning of the epidemic to keep the number of cases low.

就目前情况来说，中国的亚洲邻国看起来都展现了成功的危机管理。越南和新加坡在疫情初期立刻采取了果断而一致的措施，令病例数量保持较低水平。

Even though most of these countries border directly on China, the number of infected people, when put in relation to the size of their populations, is significantly lower than in Europe.

尽管这些国家的大多数都与中国相邻，其感染人数以人口规模来看，要显著低于欧洲。

South Korea, although it was particularly affected by the epidemic (partly due to a mass wedding), is proving to be the test case for how an OECD country can deal with the crisis. The death rate is significantly lower than in other countries.

尽管特别受到疫情影响（部分原因是一场集体婚礼），韩国正被证明是经合组织国家能应对这场危机的验证案例。其死亡率显著低于其他国家。

This Asian success is no accident. These countries had the close-up experience with SARS in 2003 and they have drawn the correct policy conclusions from it.

亚洲成功并非意外。这些国家有2003年应对SARS的密切经验，并且从中得出了正确的政策结论。

Our Western politicians and societies, meanwhile, apparently do not think it necessary to learn from other countries. The current experience is teaching us otherwise.

相比之下，我们西方的政客和社会显然不认为有必要向其他国家学习。当前的经验正在教育我们并非如此。