英国高官麦克•贝茨TED演讲：中国奇迹是如何发生的？

2017年9月30日，解读中国工作室以“中国道路与前景”为主题，邀请斯洛文尼亚前总统达尼洛·图尔克、埃及前总理伊萨姆·沙拉夫、吉尔吉斯斯坦前总理卓奥玛尔特·奥托尔巴耶夫、英国国际发展部国务大臣麦克·贝茨进行了TED演讲。

4位学者的演讲题目分别是：麦克•贝茨：中国奇迹是如何发生的？卓奥玛尔特•奥托尔巴耶夫：“一带一路”将给世界带来什么？伊萨姆•沙拉夫：什么是中国梦？达尼洛•图尔克：中国道路与发展前景。

微信公众号“解读中国”（ID：ChinaReview2015），10月18日全文翻译了首篇TED演讲《中国奇迹是如何发生的？》，演讲者为英国国际发展部国务大臣麦克•贝茨。

麦克•贝茨是谁？

他曾先后担任英国保守党副主席、英国上议院副议长、内政部国务大臣等要职。尤其值得一提的是，他还是一个标准的“中国女婿”，夫人李雪琳是旅居英国近30年的浙江妹子。

2015年，麦克•贝茨曾在中国进行为期三个月的徒步旅行。2015年10月20日，习近平主席在英国议会演讲中对麦克•贝茨徒步中国的行为给与高度评价——最近，英国议会上院议员贝茨勋爵在中国开展了为期两个多月的慈善徒步行走，他顶着烈日步行约1700公里，将募捐来的善款投入中国慈善事业，并呼吁人们珍爱和平。

正是在中国三个多月的徒步旅行中，麦克•贝茨对中国有了更深刻的认识，他对中国奇迹的真正原因也有了自己的答案。

在他眼中，这个答案是什么？让我们通过他的TED演讲来了解吧！

图：解读中国

演讲全文：

Well, thank you very much and it’s a great privilege to share the platform with such inspirational speakers as you’ve already heard this evening. Of course as it was mentioned I have a particular perspective on China. I’ve fallen in love with China in particular one part of it occupied by Xuelin Li and my wife.

非常感谢大家，我很荣幸能在今晚与这些鼓舞人心的演讲者们同台。当然刚刚也提到了，我对中国有与众不同的看法。我爱上了中国，其中的一部分原因是我的妻子李雪琳。

Of all the statistics that are presented about China, the one which always inspires me is that no country in human history has ever lifted more people out of poverty than China. Seven hundred million, three quarters of the total lifted out of poverty between 2000 and 2010 were here in China. That should make us celebrate and take note and try to understand. My perspective of understanding was not analysis of the economics. It was to walk through China, to walk a thousand miles.

所有关于中国的数据中，让我最受鼓舞的是，人类历史上没有任何一个国家的脱贫人口数量超过中国，整整七亿人。2000年至2010年，中国的脱贫人口占世界脱贫人口总数的四分之三。这是值得我们庆祝的，我们要加以关注并深入了解。我不是从经济学角度加以分析理解的，我选择走遍中国，在中国徒步行走一千英里。

Originally, it was meant to be from Beijing, the northern capital to Nanjing, the southern capital. But I walked a little bit too fast and I got there three weeks early and Xuelin said you’ve arrived three weeks early, well, now you can walk on to my home city, which is Hangzhou and that’s how it became that we walk for peace to Nanjing and love for Hangzhou. And that was an amazing time.I remember one afternoon, we’ve been walking for three weeks out of Beijing, I have to say many things that are said about walking, but often walking as I found when I set off through Beijing, I was overtaking the traffic as I walked down through the various ring roads to the five, six ring road.

最初，我们打算从北京一路走到南京。但我走的太快了点，我提前三周走完了全程。雪琳说既然我提前了三周完成目标，我可以继续往南去她的家乡杭州。这也是为什么我到南京的这段旅程是和平之旅，而后又开启了前往杭州的爱情之旅。这是一个很棒的时刻。我记得有一天下午，那时候我们已经从北京出发走了三周了，我得说一说我走出北京以后的一些事。我一路走来发现我的速度比北京路上的各种交通工具更快。我沿着各种环形路走到五环六环。

And we walked about three weeks and it was during the August, so it was very hot temperatures.We started to climb high to the Taian mountains in Shandong province and we moved into Shandong province and into the Taian mountains. And it was beautiful countryside. It’s one of the things worth remembering about China is, of course, that a lot of people are looking China and saying, well, it’s an economic miracle, well, it’s already been mentioned. This miracle has actually been happening almost every century for the past three thousand years. We arrived in a small village called Shenjiatun, I just pictured in the mountains nowhere around, hardly a road to be seen.

我们走了大约三周，那时候是八月份，气温很高。我们开始爬山东省泰安的山脉。我们进入山东省，进入泰安山脉。那是一个非常美丽的乡村。关于中国,不可不提的当然是很多人都认为中国是一个经济奇迹，这已经被多次提到。在过去的三千年里，这个奇迹几乎在每个世纪都会发生。我们来到一个叫沈家屯的小村庄。它位于山中，比较偏僻，几乎看不到路。

图：解读中国

A few local houses around a local square. In the middle of the square, a great tree, an oak tree. And beside the oak tree, there was a well. We sat down from the heat of the temperatures of about 40 degrees. Xuelin and I sat down beside the well and underneath the tree, and not long before people start coming to join us and start to talk about what we were doing, why we were doing, what we were doing.And as we sat there, they explain that the tree that was providing the shade was some five hundred years old, that the well just beside this was seven hundred years old. And we were getting very nostalgic about this and I said to the few people over there. I said have you had many visitors to your village? Many foreigners come to your village? And they looked at each other and they said no.

有一些房屋建在当地的一个广场上。广场中央有一棵巨大的橡树。橡树旁边有一口井。我们坐在橡树下躲避40度左右的高温。我和雪琳在井边坐下来，就在树下。过了一会儿人们开始加入到我们中间来，问我们在做什么以及为什么这样做。当我们坐在那里时，他们说提供树荫的树已经有五百年的历史了，它旁边的那口井已经有七百年的历史了。我觉得很怀旧，我和那边的几个人开始攀谈。我问他们是不是有很多游客，很多外国人到他们村子里来。他们相互看了看，告诉我说没有。

And I start really excited.I thought I discovered somewhere new and they said but we were not quite sure. But the person who would know is the old man of the village. He’s 95 years old. He’s lived here all of his life, apart from two years in 1943 when he went off to fight to liberate Jinan which was under Japanese occupation at the time, but he’s lived here all his life. So they went into the field and they brought him and he sat under the tree and they said has anybody, any foreigner visited at this village before. He said no, no, this man is the first.

我开始感到很兴奋。我觉得我发现了新大陆。他们告诉我他们不是很确定。但是村里有个老人会知道。老人已经95岁了，在这里住了一辈子，除了1943年的时候，他外出两年去解放当时在日本占领下的济南，他一辈子都住在这里。他们就到田间去把他领过来。他坐在树下，他说这个村子以前没有外国人来过。这个外国人是第一个。

I was amazed. I felt like Marco Polo. And to capture the moment, I said to Xuelin, I said do you think that they will be OK if we actually took a photograph, a photograph. I thought hang on, they will get a little bit worry, perhaps they don’t know what a camera is, let alone the camera can now be found on the phone. And so they all lined up and Xuelin ask him to take a photograph and they took a photograph with her phone.

我很惊讶。我觉得自己就像是马可波罗。为了捕捉这一刻，我对雪琳说，你认为他们会愿意拍一张照片吗？我一直觉得他们会有一点担心，也许他们不知道相机是什么，更不用说在手机上的相机了。他们都站好队，雪琳用自己的手机给他们拍了一张照片。

And this was an amazing time. I thought I will give talks about this, just this experience in Shenjiatun for many many years to come. And then as the photograph has finished, everybody, including the old man, pulled out their smart phones and started to go to Shelin to ask her for her QS code, so they could join her WeChat group and get copies of the photograph. I thought that were amazed. But to me it was the perfect beautiful illustration of the ancient and the modern, the old and the new resting together here in China. It was an extraordinary thing.

这是一个惊人的时刻。我想我会在许多年后谈到自己在沈家屯的经历。拍完照片后每个人，包括那个老人，都拿出自己的智能手机，开始问雪琳的微信号，想要加她微信，接收照片。我感到很惊讶。但对我来说这是古代与现代的完美勾勒，新旧事物共存于中国。这是一件非同寻常的事。

As we continued walking, we visited many of the places that the previous speakers talked about the Confucian tradition which is so important I think to help people understand what China is about and where those traditions come from, just as much as trying to understand European civilization without understanding the importance of the Greek philosophers, Socrates, Aristoteles, Plato, all the Christian religion in that part of our culture development. Confucius is critical.

我们继续赶路，参观了许多地方。前面的发言者们谈到儒家传统。我想儒家思想非常重要，它能帮助人们了解中国以及那些传统的来源。就像试图理解欧洲文明就不能不了解希腊哲学家，如苏格拉底、亚里士多德和柏拉图以及基督教在我们的文化发展中的重要性。孔子至关重要。

And so when we were in Qufu, and we actually saw the place where he was born, the beds where he was raised and the place where he was finally laid to rest. We began to understand the importance which is put not on self, but on others. And this was important to remember. It was this drive to serve others, to work hard to be good for others, which was a really important lesson to learn. Everywhere we went, as we walked through small villages, often at the end of a hard day of walk, Xuelin and I would wonder where we were staying and we were going to search some dumplings or some tea in the local market square.

当我们在曲阜的时候，我们看到了孔子出生的地方，长大的地方和他最后安息的地方。我们开始认识到儒家思想注重的不是自我，而是别人。这一点很重要。积极为他人服务，努力为他人带来福祉，这是我们学到的重要一课。我们四处走走看看，穿过各个小村庄。常常在一天辛苦的徒步结束后，我和雪琳会思考接下来要待在哪里，我们会在当地市场的广场上找地方吃饺子或喝茶。

And in the local square, what would we see. Well, in western countries often you won’t see anyone other than young people, because the squares are associated with alcohol and pubs and often they will be places that the very old and very young wouldn’t go. But not so in China. We would see the line dancing. In fact, we used to join in with various dancers dancing in the squares with the more senior experienced dancers at the front and the less experienced watching and taking the note and the children sitting there in front of them and the man sitting to the side playing chesses. It was a wonderful picture. But what reminded us was that young people and children are the center of attention for the Chinese.

在广场上，我们会看到一些景象。在西方国家，我们通常不会在广场上看到年轻人以外的任何人，因为广场和酒精以及酒吧有关，老年人和小孩子往往不会去这些地方。但在中国不是这样的。我们会在广场上看到人们在跳舞。事实上，我们常常加入到他们中间。资深的舞者在前面，经验不足的则在一旁看着。孩子们坐在他们前面。男人们坐在一旁下棋。这是一个美好的画面。但这提醒我们，对于中国人而言，年轻人和孩子是重点关注对象。

We know how investment in young people and in children pays off multiple multiple times if you can get it. And so the fact that you would see children not just playing with other children, not just on their own, but actually surrounded by adults all fighting for the opportunity to look after the child. You realize this is very important in understanding China. They invest in their future. They invest in their children. And you see that then reflected in education.You see the education performance, PISA, which is the international ranking of educational performance looks at all of the countries around the world and where does it find the math and science performance is the best in Shanghai. Amazing. That out of all of the countries in the world, China, which still in nominal GDP terms, is only 72nd in the world should come top because of the importance of education.

我们知道，如果在年轻人和孩子身上进行投资，你会得到好几倍的回报。你会看到孩子们不仅仅是在和其他孩子一起玩耍，不仅仅是自己玩耍，实际上他们被大人们包围着，他们都在争先恐后地照看孩子。要了解中国，知道这一点非常重要。他们对自己的未来进行投资。他们对他们的孩子进行投资。这一点在教育问题上得到了反映。

你可以看一看教育方面的表现，国际学生评估项目（PISA）是国际教育成果排行榜，考察世界各国的教育成果。它发现在数学和科学方面上海学生得分最高。太神奇了。在世界上的所有国家里，中国这个名义GDP只排全球七十二位的国家居然位于榜首，这是由于对教育的重视。

I remember going through Suqian, and we were walking through Suqian and at the end of the day I would stop and talk to people who was there with Xuelin.And we were talking to an old man who was raking the sides of the road, the sides of the road, the way that they maintained in China is wonderful and we saw a lot of these people always working, looking after and keeping the road very tidy and free from litter. And this man was working in the heat of the day and I started talking and said is this your piece of land. He said no. I said is this your job and you paid to do this. He said no. I said so why are you doing it. And he said because work is good for you. Work is good for you. I agree with that. I agree with that.

我记得在宿迁，我们结束一天的徒步后，我和雪琳会停下来和人们聊天。我们跟一位老人聊天，他在清洁道路。中国的道路清理地很干净。我们看到很多人都在劳动，保持路面干净整洁。这个人在炎热的天气里工作，我问他这是你的地吗？他说不是。我又问他这是你的工作吗，你做这个会有酬劳吗?他说没有。我就说那你为什么这么做？他说，因为劳动对你有好处。劳动对你有好处，我同意这一点。我确实同意这一点。

图：解读中国

Hard work, so education, investing in the young. Hard work, these are all important lessons for the future. But there was another element. You see, China is actually quite a sentimental country. It’s very optimistic. There was a YouGov opinion poll which is carried out and it said that do you believe the world is getting better. Most of the countries in the world it was either negative or very slightly positive. The UK came in about 4%. In China, 41% thought the world was getting better. Amazing. So 41% think the world is getting better.

努力工作，重视教育，对年轻人进行投资。这些都是实现未来发展的重要经验。但是还有一个元素。中国实际上是一个相当富有感情的国家。他们非常乐观。YouGov的一个民意调查，受访者被问到是否相信世界正在变得更好。世界上大多数国家给出的答案是否定的或是稍稍肯定的。英国仅有4%的受访者给出积极回答。在中国，41%的人认为世界正变得越来越好。太神奇了。41%的人认为世界正在变得更好。

There is a saying. It says this, we see the world not as it is, but as we are. If you are pessimistic, then you won’t see the value in investing in the future and investing in yourself. If you are optimistic, you are excited about the future. You want to invest in the future. Important lesson No.3 about China, it’s an optimistic world. If you come here as a pessimist, you’ll never understand China. You need to be positive to understand China.

有一种说法，叫做我们所看到的世界其实就是我们自己的模样。如果你悲观，那么你就看不到对未来和对自己进行投资的价值。如果你是乐观的，你对未来感到兴奋。你想对未来进行投资。这是关于中国的第三条重要经验。中国是一个乐观的国度。如果你作为一个悲观主义者来到这里，你根本不会了解中国。你需要变得积极，这样才能了解中国。

That investment in children feeds through into infrastructure. So many people have talked about the importance of infrastructure. The massive growth of high speed rail lines around the country is quite amazing and there is still a queue of people trying to get on them. There is no empty seats on the train. Such is the demand. There is twice as much high speed rail track in China already than there is across the whole of Europe. That’s quite amazing.

对孩子进行投资延伸到了基础设施领域。很多人都谈到了基础设施的重要性。中国各地高铁的高速增长令人惊叹，人们出行都想坐上高铁。火车上没有空座位。这就是需求。中国的高铁轨道长度是整个欧洲铁轨长度的两倍。真是太神奇了！

The investment in infrastructure we heard about One Belt One Road is important in road ways which have doubled in size of the last five to six years. It’s in the growth of airports which have also increased in size. Just take ports for example, because that is a very instructive issue. Ports, of the ten busiest ports in the world, how many do you think are in China. Well, let me tell you, seven. How many do you think are in the United States? None. How many do you think are in the Europe? None. It’s remarkable what is happening here. Now, is it remarkable in some senses, yes, of course it is.

中国在基础设施建设方面的投资，正如我们知晓的，“一带一路”倡议，其中陆路交通非常重要，其规模在过去的五、六年间翻了一番。机场规模也有所扩大。仅仅以港口为例，因为这是一个非常具有代表性的问题。世界上最繁忙的十个港口中，你们认为有几个在中国？好吧，让我告诉你，有七个。有几个你认为是在美国的？一个也没有。你认为在欧洲有几个？一个也没有。中国的发展真是太了不起了。从某种意义上说，这是很了不起的。

But we go back to this point that China has been a dominant economic power through human history. It comes because of the central plain which I was walking right across between the Yellow River and Yangtze River. It’s an immensely fertile plain. It’s surrounded by hills which protect it from invaders. So not surprisingly, it was always going to be a place where civilization would flourish. It was so fertile that farmers could actually get two crops per year. One crop that they could use to feed their family. Another crop that they could trade. The prosperity that you see.

我们回到这一点上，中国自古以来是一个主要经济体。这是由于黄河和长江之间的中原地区，我徒步走过这一片平原。这是一片非常肥沃的平原。它的四周群山环抱，保护它免受入侵。所以，毫不意外，它将永远是一个文明繁荣的地方。它是如此肥沃，农民每年可以收获两次，一次可以用来养活他们的家庭。另一次则作为产品进行交易。你可以看到这种繁荣。

That passion for education of course continues with young people beyond school age. It goes into universities. Two thirds of the population of overseas population of universities around the world are made by Chinese. There are 17,000 students attending UK universities from the United States. There are 19,000 that are attending UK universities from India. The figure for China is 90,000.

当然，对教育的热情一直延续到学龄以上的年轻人身上，直到进入大学。中国留学生的数量占世界各个大学留学生数量的三分之二。有17000名美国学生来英国留学，有19000名印度学生来英国留学，而中国留学生的数量是90000人。

What’s more, 78% of those young people come back. They come back to China. They don’t stay in the west. They come back. They go and get their education and then they come back, the so-called turtles who come back because the opportunities are so immense here. Now, the opportunities are fantastic.

更重要的是，这些年轻人中有78%选择回国。他们回到中国。他们没有留在西方，他们回来了。他们去接受教育，然后回国，就是所谓的海龟。他们选择回国是因为这里的机会很多。这些机会都很棒。

But that leads us to our next lesson for understanding China from my walk. As I walked through towns and villages, I would see everywhere no matter what time of day, people would be working, but often they will be working for themselves. You know, enterprises is very much part of the Chinese dream. The idea of setting up your own business is an incredibly powerful dream that people have. Many advanced economies have failed because of this reason that as it gone through the industrial revolution, the big industries have sucked in all of the talent to a few small employers and when those industries decline and companies fail as they will, there’s no new growth left to take its place. Therefore, perhaps one of the most telling statistics that you could find about the new China is this, is that a number of new enterprises that started in China doubled between 2010 and 2016, ok, that’s fine.

我从徒步旅行中学到了另一条关于了解中国方面的经验。当我走过城镇和村庄，无论什么时候我都能看到人们在劳动，但他们往往会为自己的梦想而劳动。大家都知道，企业是中国梦的重要组成部分。建立自己的企业是人们拥有的一个远大理想。许多发达经济体会失败是因为在其经历工业革命时期。一些大型产业把所有的人才吸引到一些小雇主那里。当这些行业衰退，公司倒闭，却没有新的增长点取而代之。这也许是你能发现的关于新中国的最有意义的一个统计。在2010和2016年之间，中国一批新的企业纷纷成立,并且在数量上实现翻倍。

But let me tell you what a double, too. 1.6 million, still not impressed, let me put that in context. 1.6 million new businesses created in China is more than all the new businesses created in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, all those together. It’s incredible investment in the future, because people are optimistic, because people are working hard and because they have invested in the future of themselves and of others.

让我告诉你另外一点。160万这个数字可能不会给你留下深刻的印象，让我把它放在特定背景中。中国新成立的160万家新企业超过了德国、英国和美国所有新企业加在一起的数量。这是对未来的一项大投资，因为人们很乐观，努力工作，愿意为自己和他人的未来进行投资。

And among those 1.6 million new businesses will be the future Alibaba, the future Huawei, the future Wanda and perhaps the people running them are in this room today. That’s what comes when you have a dynamic economy, confident about the future.

在这160万个新企业中会有未来的阿里巴巴、未来的华为和未来的万达。或许这些企业的运营者就在你们中间。这就是当你拥有一个充满活力的经济并且对未来充满信心的时候所能取得的成就。

Let me come back to where I started, my passion, my passion for prosperity, for global growth and for people to be lifted out of poverty. We share that passion, I’m sure, but another one is this peace. Everything which China has achieved over the past remarkable thirty years of its growth has come through peace and prosperity.It is important that peace is the other side to the continue prosperity. So on behalf of Xuelin and I can we thank you for this opportunity and wish you long peace and prosperity, which you can share with the world. Thank you.

让我回到开头，我的热情，我对繁荣、对全球增长以及帮助人们摆脱贫困的热情。我敢肯定我们都有这样的热情。另一个是对和平的热情。中国在过去三十年里取得的显著增长是通过和平与繁荣实现的。和平能帮助我们实现繁荣，这一点很重要。所以，我要代表雪琳以及我个人感谢大家给我演讲的机会，希望你们实现长期和平与持续繁荣，与世界共享和平繁荣。谢谢大家。