美国《赫芬顿邮报》新闻评论网站《世界邮报》2014年4月1日刊载观察者网供稿《赫尔穆特•施密特：“我不会向中国推销民主”——第一部分》。观察者网李楚悦翻译全文如下：

《赫芬顿邮报》刊载观察者网供文

近日，中国学者汪晖在汉堡与德国政治家赫尔穆特•施密特进行了会谈。

汪晖曾担任颇具影响力的学术期刊——《读书》杂志的主编，2007年卸任。他曾进行开创性研究，著有四卷本《现代中国思想的兴起》。95岁的赫尔穆特•施密特，于1974年至1982年任德国（西德）总理，曾多次访华会见毛泽东和邓小平。

第一部分——“我不会向中国人推销民主”

汪晖：有一个问题我想向你请教。在中国，不仅在知识分子群体之中，而且在共产党党内一直存在关于政治体制改革的争论。众所周知，政治体制改革是必要的，但是要如何进行改革？你对中国的政治体制改革有什么建议？

赫尔穆特•施密特：（笑）幸好我不是坐在习近平的位置上！有太多问题需要同时解决。一方面，让我吃惊和很受鼓舞的是，中国现在每10年都会进行领导层的换届，新老交替。没人再像毛泽东或者邓小平执政那么长时间。

另一方面，作为一个外国人，一个欧洲人，我不太熟悉习近平，也不了解他身边的同僚。

汪晖：那关于政党体制呢？

施密特：我认为邓小平的“建设有中国特色的民主国家”没有把话讲清楚。含义不够清晰。什么是中国特色？我认为你们必须找到自己的道路，无论如何，中国已经成为世界经济的重要因素。

事实上，目前依靠出口发展经济的中国无法停下改革开放的步伐，一旦停下，就会造成数千万人失业。中国庞大的贸易盈余对世界经济发展的伤害程度只比德国好一点。德国在贸易差额中的盈余比中国更甚。这简直荒谬。

汪晖：你说习近平处于非常复杂的环境之中，同时有许多事情需要解决，很难办。但中国的一些人对政治体制改革有不同的观点。

有人想要复制西方的多党制体系，也有人主张中国需要的民主是基层民主和一些顶层机制，而不需要国家层面的选举制度。你对此有什么看法？

施密特：民主并非人类的终极目标。在未来的几个世纪里，人类或许会朝许多不同的方向发展。始于美国《独立宣言》的民主制度至今只存在了大约200年，而美国人的思想来自欧洲，主要来自法国、荷兰和英国。

民主也存在许多严重的问题，比如，必须每隔四年进行选举，候选人就会专挑公众爱听的说。多党制体系不是政治进程的最高点，只是我们目前最好的制度。我会为了维持民主制度而奋斗，但我不会将它推销给中国人。

英国人曾经将它推销给印度人和巴基斯坦人，而荷兰人曾经试图将其强卖给印度尼西亚人。民主制度在印度并不奏效。我不会向埃及人介绍民主，也不会将其抛给其他穆斯林国家，比如马来西亚、伊朗和巴基斯坦。民主是西方创造而生，不是孔子发明的，而是由孟德斯鸠这样的法国人、约翰•洛克以及一些荷兰人发明的。

汪晖：很少有西方领导人像你这样谈论这些问题。

施密特：这不能证明我就是错的。

西方民主制较为关键的一点是，不需流血就能实现政权的更迭。这是一个巨大的优点，但从历史上说，民主仍是近代西方的产物。它未曾在古罗马实行过，在古希腊也只实行了不到200年，民主制度没有在世界上任何其他国家实行过，直至美国脱离英国君主制宣告独立。

甚至在古希腊的伯利克里时代，都是存在奴隶的。只有希腊公民才有投票权，每一个希腊公民，就有三个没有投票权的希腊人，而且其中至少有一个是奴隶。

甚至在美国，奴隶制直至19世纪中期才被官方废除，南北战争也是关于奴隶制。但别忘了，到本世纪中叶，墨西哥人和非裔美国人以及他们的子女将构成美国一半选民。届时无论是谁总统都得听从他们的选民。美国会从一个世界大国变成其他模样，中国也会改变。而中国是否会变成民主国家还尚待观察，我认为是不会的。

汪晖：西方的多党制和中国共产党领导下的多党合作制，其政党的代表性都已减弱。今天的大多数政党看上去都像是国家政党，政党将好处分给俘获国家的若干特殊利益集团。政党不再具有代表各类社会力量的政治性组织。

比如，中国共产党已经不再是20世纪意义上的共产党，而是一个国家政党，这意味着其已几乎完全与国家架构相融合。政党的功能也与国家行政机构类似，而不是一个政治组织。这样的现象在世界各地发生，我们现在看到的是政治体制在脱离社会。

我们需要创造另一种政治。虽然民主制度极具价值，但其并不适合所有人。在这个意义上，我既不赞同社会民主党，也不认同传统的社会主义。

许多人可能认为共产党仍然正视社会主义，我们能将这个党转回原先的传统。这是不可能的，因为党内有太多特殊利益集团。当共产党不再代表人民，我们需要自发性的工农组织，以及其他社会组织，在公共领域内制定政策时为人民发声。我称之为“后政党”，我们所有的政策不仅需要由党来制定，还需要人民代表大会来代表广泛的利益。

你是否认为我们能看到一个“后政党”体系的出现？

施密特：你们已经处于后共产主义体系之中了，但是你们尚未进入一个新时代。我怀疑你们是否还会保持一党执政。将来说不准有什么大事儿。在中国历史上经历许多重大的变化，我确信在未来也同样也会经历。

汪晖：你对现代社会的媒介力量如何评价？

施密特：当下的媒介极具权势。我认为在议会民主制国家，媒介正侵蚀着民主制度的根基，尤其是自互联网时代到来，媒体的影响力剧增，印刷书籍和印刷媒介的重要性式微。如果一个人能用谷歌搜索，还读什么老子、孔子？

汪晖：媒体的发展似乎使政治更加复杂。在互联网上做什么都会得到即时回应，这对中国的官员们来说也是一个巨大挑战。这是个悖论，一方面微博上的强烈抗议让中国政府看上去似乎冥顽不化，反应迟钝。但另一方面，有时政府为了取悦民意又做出太多妥协，其结果未必好。

施密特：在中国，政府也要取悦民意。

汪晖：现今尤甚。

（翻页请看英文原文）

Helmut Schmidt: 'I Would Not Sell Democracy To The Chinese' -- Part I

Guancha.cn | by Wang Hui

Recently, the Chinese scholar Wang Hui sat down for a conversation with Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s elder statesman, in Hamburg.

Until 2007, Wang Hui was editor of the influential journal, Dushu, and is author of the seminal four-volume study, “The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought.” Helmut Schmidt, 95, was chancellor of Germany from 1974-1982 and visited China several times to meet Mao and Deng Xiaoping.

A version of this conversation appeared in Chinese in Guancha.cn

PART I: “I Would Not Sell Democracy to the Chinese”

WANG HUI: I need your wisdom on this issue. The debate over political reform is raging not only among intellectuals, but within the Communist Party itself. Everybody knows that political reform is needed. But how can it be carried out? What will be your suggestion for the political reform in China?

HELMUT SCHMIDT: (Joking) Thank God I am not in the place of Xi Jinping! There are too many problems at the same time. On the one hand I think it is astonishing and encouraging that you are required to change the leadership every 10 years and that you replace the elder leaders by younger ones. Nobody stays in power any more as long as Mao of Deng.

On the other hand as a foreigner, as the European as I am, I really have no in depth knowledge of Xi Jinping, and I don’t know what kind of people he has surrounded himself with.

WANG: What about the political party system?

SCHMIDT: I think that Deng was not clear enough when he said “yes we want a democratic nation, but with Chinese characteristics.” What that meant was unclear. What are the Chinese characteristics? I think you have to find your own way, and you are already an important factor of the world’s economy whether you like it or not.

It is a fact and you cannot stop your reform and opening up which relies for now by growing through exporting. If you try, you will create tens of millions of unemployed people. What you are doing wrong to the world’s economy with your trade surplus is only a little less wrong than the Germans. We have a greater surplus in our balance of trade than you. It’s ridiculous.

WANG: You said that it is very difficult for Xi Jinping because he is in a very complicated situation with so much that needs to be done at the same time. Some people in China have different views about political reform.

Some want to copy the Western multi-party system. Others argue that China needs democracy at the local level and some mechanism on the top level, but not necessarily elections at the national level. What is your suggestion in this respect?

SCHMIDT: Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in the coming centuries. Democracy has only existed for about 200 years. It started out with the American Declaration of Independence. The Americans got their ideas from the Europeans, in the main from the French, the Dutch and the British.

But democracy has a number of serious failures. For instance, you have to be elected every four years and you have to be re-elected after the next four years. So you try to tell the people what they would like to hear. The multi-party system is not the crown of progress, but it is the best we have right now. I would fight for maintaining it, but I would not sell it to the Chinese.

The British have sold it to the Indians and to the Pakistanis and the Dutch tried to sell it to the Indonesians. Democracy is not really working in India. I would not tell the Egyptians to introduce democracy; nor would I pitch it to the other Muslim countries like Malaysia, Iran and Pakistan. It is a Western invention. It was not invented by Confucius. It was invented by Montesquieu and by other Frenchmen. It was invented by John Locke and by the Dutch people.

WANG: Very few Western leaders talk about these issues like you do.

SCHMIDT: That does not necessarily mean that I am wrong.

The critical thing about Western democracy is the fact that you usually have a transition of power without bloodshed. That is an enormous advantage. But still democracy as we know it was only invented recently in the West, historical speaking. It did not really work in ancient Rome. It functioned for less than 200 years in ancient Athens. And then it had not functioned in any other country in the world until the Americans declared independence from the British monarchy.

Even in the time of Pericles in ancient Athens you had slaves. You had to be a citizen of Athens, and for every citizen of Athens there were at least three people who did not have the right to vote and at least one third were slaves.

Even in America, slavery was officially accepted until the middle of the 19th century. The Civil War in the American democracy was about slavery. Don’t forget that. And by the middle of this century you will see that the Mexicans and their children and the Afro-Americans and their children will together be one half of the American electorate. And whoever is president will have to play to the ears of these electors. America will change from a world power into something different. China will also change. And whether you become a democracy or not remains to be seen. My feeling is that you will not become a democracy.

WANG: In both the multiparty system in the West and the system of multiparty cooperation under one party rule in China, the representative-ness of political parties have diminished. Most parties today look like state-parties where the spoils are doled out tot he organized special interests that have captured the state. Parties are no longer politial organizations representing various social forces.

The Chinese Communist Party, for instance, is no longer the Communist Party in its 20th century sense. It is a state party in the sense that it is almost completely integrated into the framework of the state, and functions as such, rather than as a political organization. And this has occurred across the world. What we witness is the political system detaching itself from society.

We need to think of a different kind of politics. Democracy is a very positive value, but it is not for everybody. In this sense, I do not align myself with liberal democrats, nor traditional socialism.

Many might believe that the Communist Party still recognizes socialism as positive, and that we can convert the Party back to its earlier tradition. This is impossible, because there are so many different interest groups within the Party. When the Party is no longer the representative of the people, we need autonomous organizations of workers and peasants and other social organizations to express their voice in policy-making in the public sphere. I call these “post-parties.” And we need all policy to be made not only by the Party, but also by the Congress that represents broader interests.

Do you think that we may see the emergence of a “post party” system?

SCHMIDT: You are certainly in a post-communist system but you have not entered the new era. I also doubt that you will remain a one party system either. A great event can always happen. In the history of China you endured many enormous changes and I'm sure you will in the future as well.

WANG: What is your comment on the power of the media in the contemporary world?

SCHMIDT: Right now, they are too powerful. I believe in the representative type of democracy. The media are undermining that type of democracy. Particularly since the computerization of the world, the impact of media has grown enormously. The printed books and the printed media have become less important. Why should somebody read Laozi or Confucius if he can Google?

WANG: Developments in the media seem to have made politics more difficult. With the internet you get the instant reaction to what you did. This is also a big challenge for Chinese politicians. There is a paradox. On the one hand, because of the outcry on Weibo the Chinese government may sound stubborn and unresponsive. But sometimes the government has made too many compromises, the results of which were not necessarily good, in order to please public opinion.

SCHMIDT: Also in China, the government needs to please the people.

WANG: Now very much so.