白衬衫 | 金正恩的轮盘赌
Korean roulette 金正恩的轮盘赌 Kim Jong Un has raised the stakes; it is time to get tougher with the nastiest regime on the planet 既然金正恩已经加大了赌注,那么现在就该是对这个最龌龊的政权更加强硬的时候了 Apr 6th 2013 |From the print edition EVEN by its own aggressive standards, North Korea's actions over the past couple of weeks have been extraordinary. Kim Jong Un, the country's young dictator, has threatened the United States with nuclear Armageddon, promising to rain missiles on mainland America and military bases in Hawaii and Guam; declared a “state of war” with South Korea; announced that he would restart a plutonium-producing reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear site, while enriching uranium to build more nuclear weapons; and barred South Korean managers from entering the Kaesong industrial complex, almost the only instance of North-South co-operation. All this comes after the regime set off a nuclear test, its third, in February. Tensions are the worst on the peninsula since 1994, when North Korea and America were a hair's breadth from war. 即便以其自身那种好斗的习性来衡量,北韩在过去几周内的行为也是非常罕见的。该国年少轻狂的独裁者金正恩以核末日来威胁美国,甚至叫嚣要将导弹倾泻到美国本土以及夏威夷和关岛的军事基地;他宣称已与南韩处于“战争状态”;他一边宣布重启宁边核设施的钚反应堆,一边进行铀浓缩以制造更多的核武器;他还禁止南韩管理人员进入作为北南合作唯一成果的开城工业园。上述所有行为都是这个政权于今年2月进行了第三次核试验之后发生的,当前这种紧张气氛是朝鲜半岛自1994年——当时北韩与美国差一点爆发战争——以来最为严重的一次。 The questions are what to make of all this, and how to respond. Neither is easy. The White House has tried to play down the aggression, talking of a “disconnect between rhetoric and action”, and some parts are pure bluster. The nuclear threat against mainland America is patently hollow: it will be years before the North has the technology to dispatch nuclear-tipped missiles. North Korea has yet to order a large-scale mobilisation of its 1.1m-strong army. Pyongyang, the capital, does not seem like a city that is about to go to war (see article)
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