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| Brittney Griner’s release, nearly a year after Russian authorities detained her, is once more forcing a difficult question in Washington and other capitals. What is the least bad option in dealing with hostage diplomacy? | 布兰妮·格林纳被俄罗斯当局拘留近一年后获释，这再次对美国和其他国家提出了一个棘手的问题。处理人质外交时，最不坏的选择是什么？ |
| The practice, which has grown somewhat more common in recent years, involves imprisoning a foreigner, usually on spurious or exaggerated charges, for the purpose of extracting concessions from that person’s government. | 人质外交的做法近年来变得愈发普遍，涉及监禁外国人，通常是以虚假或夸大的罪名，目的是从这个人的政府那里获得让步。 |
| For the victim’s government, giving in risks encouraging hostile states to take more hostages. But holding out prolongs the hostage’s suffering, as well as sending the message that citizens abroad cannot count on their governments’ doing whatever it takes to protect them. | 对于受害国政府而言，让步可能会鼓励敌对国家劫持更多人质。但坚持下去会延长人质的痛苦，并让海外公民觉得不能指望他们的政府会竭尽全力保护他们。 |
| And both options invite domestic backlash, either from hawks furious at the appearance of acquiescing to a foreign adversary or citizens angered at seeing one of their own, in Ms. Griner’s case a beloved basketball star, left to rot in some faraway cell. | 这两种选择都会招致国内的强烈反对，要么是鹰派对政府对外国对手行为的默许怒不可竭，要么是公民看到自己人——例如人们喜爱的篮球明星格里纳——被遗弃在遥远的牢房里受苦而愤怒。 |
| But Ms. Griner’s release, for which Moscow won the return of the arms dealer Viktor Bout, may be raising a similar question among the Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korean authorities who have pursued this practice. | 但格里纳的获释——莫斯科以此换回了军火商维克托·布特——可能会在追求这种做法的俄罗斯、中国、伊朗和朝鲜当局中引发类似的疑问。 |
| That question: Does hostage diplomacy work? Or does the damage to the hostage-taking country’s diplomatic relationships, global standing and tourist revenue end up exceeding the value of whatever narrow concession is gained? | 这个疑问就是：人质外交有效吗？还是说，劫持人质的国家的外交关系、全球地位和旅游收入受到的损害最终会超过逼对方做出一点点让步所获的的利益？ |
| In the case involving Ms. Griner, it may be too soon to say. Any diplomatic or economic damage it did to Russia is hard to distinguish from that caused by its invasion of Ukraine and standoff with the West. | 在格林纳的案件中，现在下结论可能还为时过早。很难从俄罗斯受到的外交和经济损害中分清哪些来自格林纳事件，哪些是由于入侵乌克兰和与西方对峙。 |
| And Moscow’s initial demands are unknown, making it unclear whether Mr. Bout’s return represents a triumph or a disappointment. Though high-profile, Mr. Bout had been out of commission since his arrest in 2008 and was already scheduled for release in 2029. | 莫斯科最初的要求不为人知，因此不清楚换回布特是代表胜利还是失望。尽管备受瞩目，布特自2008年被捕以来一直处于休业状态，并已计划于2029年获释。 |
| The recent history of hostage diplomacy suggests that its effectiveness is uncertain at best. That hardly means hostile governments will not be tempted to try it anyway, particularly in moments of desperation. But this may help explain why it remains, relative to the millions of Westerners abroad, uncommon. | 从最近的人质外交历史来看，只能说其有效性是不确定的。这并不意味着敌对政府就不会去尝试了，尤其是在绝望的时刻。但这可能有助于解释为什么它相对于海外的数百万西方人而言很罕见。 |
| A Time of Hostage Diplomacy? | 人质外交时代？ |
| Governments have attempted hostage diplomacy for as long as there has been a modern mass media to publicize victims’ plights. It’s what gives the practice its bite, creating political pressure within the targeted country, turning the fate of a single citizen into a top priority. | 自从有现代大众媒体来宣传受害者的困境以来，一些政府就一直在尝试人质外交。正是这个原因让这种做法产生影响，在目标国家内制造政治压力，将单个公民的命运变成头等大事。 |
| But it remained rare for most of the modern era. All governments have incentive to treat foreign visitors fairly, if only to ensure their own citizens receive similar treatment abroad. | 但在现代的大部分时间里，它仍然很少见。所有政府都有公平对待外国游客的动机，即使只是为了确保本国公民在国外也能得到类似的待遇。 |
| In a 1967-69 episode sometimes called the first of its kind, the Chinese authorities detained some two dozen British visitors and diplomats, demanding concessions from British authorities in Hong Kong. The British complied with some of the demands, releasing several protest leaders who supported China’s Communist Party and had been detained during riots in Hong Kong. | 在1967-69年发生过一次这样的事件，有时被称为此类事件的首例，中国当局拘留了大约20多名英国游客和外交官，要求英国当局在香港事件上做出让步。英国满足了部份要求，释放了数名支持中国共产党并在香港骚乱期间被拘留的抗议领导人。 |
| A decade later, Iran held dozens of American diplomatic staff for more than a year to pressure Washington to extradite Iran’s deposed dictator. Though it failed at its primary goal, the gambit inflicted severe political damage on then-President Jimmy Carter and allowed Iran’s revolutionary leaders to portray themselves as standing up to the hated Americans. | 十年后，伊朗关押了数十名美国外交人员一年多，以向华盛顿施压，要求其引渡伊朗被推翻的独裁者。虽然伊朗未能达到其主要目标，但这一策略对当时的总统吉米·卡特造成了严重的政治损害，而伊朗的革命领导人能够描绘自己在勇敢地对抗可恨的美国人。 |
| Both China and Iran were facing domestic unrest and widespread international hostility, underscoring hostage-taking’s reputation as a tactic reserved for governments with little to lose. | 中国和伊朗都面临着国内动荡和广泛的国际敌意，对于没什么可失去的政府来说，这凸显了劫持人质做法的名声是这些政府保留的策略。 |
| Its use has grown since the Cold War’s end, typically by rogue states with no superpower patron to anger and desperate for leverage against American threats of war. | 自冷战结束以来，它的使用有所增加，通常是由没有超级大国支持的流氓国家来激怒其他国家和迫切希望制约美国的战争威胁。 |
| When Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, his government captured hundreds of foreign citizens to deter Western powers from intervening. | 1990年萨达姆·侯赛因的伊拉克入侵科威特时，他的政府俘虏了数百名外国公民，以阻止西方大国的干预。 |
| A few years later, North Korea, amid escalating tensions over its nuclear program, began periodically detaining American visitors, often for months at a time. | 几年后，随着核计划紧张局势的升级，朝鲜开始定期拘留美国游客，通常一次拘留数月。 |
| Iran is also considered a leading culprit, for instance detaining a Washington Post reporter, Jason Rezaian, for over a year amid U.S.-led negotiations over that country’s nuclear program. | 伊朗也被认为是主要肇事国之一，例如，在美国主导的有关该国核计划的谈判中，伊朗拘留了华盛顿邮报记者杰森·雷扎安一年多。 |
| Many cases exist in a gray area, making it difficult to measure exactly how common the practice has grown. Washington has sometimes offered concessions to hostile governments, for instance, to release Americans whom those governments appear to sincerely consider spies or political troublemakers. | 许多案例存在于灰色地带，因此很难准确衡量这种做法的普遍程度。华盛顿有时会向敌对政府做出让步，例如，释放敌对政府真心认为是间谍或政治麻烦制造者的美国人。 |
| Clear-cut examples of hostage diplomacy remain rare, perhaps one or so per year. A tiny number relative to the millions of Westerners who travel and live abroad, but each is acutely felt, creating the sense of a rising global challenge. | 明目张胆的人质外交案例仍然很罕见，可能每年出现一例左右。相对于数以百万计旅居国外的西方人来说，这只是个很小的数字。但他们中的每个人都会深受震动，从而产生了这一全球性挑战日益严峻的错觉。 |
| By 2020, concern in Washington had grown enough for Congress to pass a law defining the phenomenon and establishing procedures for how to respond. | 到2020年，华盛顿已经担忧到让国会通过一项法律专门定义这一现象，并制定应对程序的地步。 |
| The next year, the scholars Danielle Gilbert and Gaëlle Rivard Piché warned in an academic study that “hostage diplomacy will likely become a more prevalent threat to the security of Western countries.” | 次年，学者丹妮尔·吉尔伯特和盖尔·里瓦德·皮歇在一项学术研究中警告称，“人质外交可能会成为对西方国家安全的更普遍威胁。” |
| The authors cited the rise in great power rivalry and the weakening of international norms. And they highlighted one practitioner in particular: China, whose power makes its growing embrace of this tactic, normally associated with weaker states, especially worrisome. | 这两名作者的依据是大国对抗的加剧和国际规范的弱化。他们还特别强调了一个行为者：中国，其实力使得它越来越多地采用这种通常与较弱国家相关的策略，尤其令人担忧。 |
| But China’s experiences also underscore the risks for the hostage taker, potentially to the point of backfiring catastrophically. | 但中国的经历也突显了劫持方面临的风险，甚至可能导致灾难性后果。 |
| Bad Incentives | 不良动机 |
| China took a major step toward adopting hostage diplomacy as a regular practice in 2018, when the authorities arrested two Canadians who were subsequently charged with espionage. | 2018年，中国当局逮捕了两名加拿大人，随后指控他们犯有间谍罪，朝着将人质外交行为常规化的方向迈出了重要一步。 |
| This was widely seen as intended to pressure Canada to release Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese telecom executive who faced possible extradition to the United States on fraud charges. | 外界普遍认为，此举旨在向加拿大施压，要求其释放可能因欺诈指控而被引渡至美国的中国电信业高管孟晚舟。 |
| But Canadian and American officials held out, allowing Ms. Wanzhou’s case to proceed, and the Canadians to remain detained, for nearly three years. | 但加美官员拒绝让步，允许孟晚舟案件继续审理，而两名加拿大人则被拘禁了近三年时间。 |
| In game theory terms, the hostage is an asset with only one potential buyer: their home government. If that government refuses to deal, the seller is left with nothing but self-inflicted costs that will only rise. | 在博弈论中，人质是一种资产，潜在买家只有一个：即人质的本国政府。如果其政府拒绝交易，卖方只会给自己徒增成本。 |
| Though Canada’s leaders faced political backlash as the case dragged on, outrage against Beijing ultimately proved more consequential. | 随着案件审理的拖延，加拿大领导人面临政治上的强烈反对，但最终的结果证明，北京所引发的愤慨后果更为严重。 |
| At the episode’s outset, Canada had been pursuing a sweeping trade deal with China. It was also the only member of the U.S.-led Five Eyes intelligence alliance considering having Huawei — Ms. Wanzhou’s firm — develop its 5G cellular network. | 事件发生时，加拿大一直在寻求与中国达成全面贸易协议。加拿大也是以美国为首的“五眼联盟”中唯一考虑让孟晚舟的公司华为开发其5G蜂窝网络的成员国。 |
| But Canadian voters and lawmakers soured on the idea of dealing with China, whatever the economic upside, eventually walking away from both. Canadian leaders, who had once sought warm ties with Beijing, began calling for international coordination to challenge that country. | 但不管能带来多少经济上的好处，加拿大选民和议员都对与中国做生意的想法感到不满，最终两层合作皆成空。曾寻求与北京建立友好关系的加国领导人开始呼吁通过国际合作来对抗中国。 |
| The loss of untold billions in trade, and of a diplomatic relationship in which Chinese leaders had invested years of work, was probably more than they had expected to pay for Ms. Wanzhou’s release, which finally came last year. But once Beijing seized the two Canadians, there was little it could do, short of acquiescing completely, but take the hit. | 数以十亿计美元的贸易损失，中方领导人多年来努力建立的外交关系也毁于一旦，这可能超出了他们为孟晚舟去年最终获释所预期的代价。但就在逮捕两名加拿大人的一刻，除了默然承受打击，北京基本无能为力。 |
| Such risks are inherent in hostage diplomacy. For the hostage-taker, the potential upside is typically small and fixed, like the release of a citizen arrested abroad, while the downsides are unpredictable and potentially large. It’s like putting up your house as collateral on a $100 bet. | 人质外交必然包含这样的风险。对于劫持方来说，潜在好处通常很少且固定，比如在国外被捕的公民获释。但坏处是无法预测，代价也可能很大。这就好比在100美元的赌注中押上了自己的房子。 |
| Beijing had tried this before. In 2014, Chinese officials arrested two Canadians, seemingly to deter Canada from extraditing to the United States a Chinese businessman accused of spying. But after two years, the businessman landed in U.S. custody and the Canadians returned home. | 北京以前也尝试过这种行为。2014年，中国官员逮捕了两名加拿大人，可能是为了阻止加拿大向美国引渡一名被控间谍罪中国商人。但两年后，这名商人还是被美国羁押，而两名加拿大人回到了祖国。 |
| Still, hostage diplomacy does not have to be effective or wise for governments to attempt it. There is little to stop them from trying, save the fear it might backfire. Governments that feel encircled and desperate may be especially likely to risk it — an isolated and paranoid Moscow, for example. | 尽管如此，政府进行人质外交并不一定是有效或明智之举。哪怕有适得其反的担忧，但还是几乎没什么能阻止这样的尝试。那些感觉四面楚歌的政府——比如一个孤立而偏执的莫斯科——尤其可能有冒险的意愿。 |
| Beijing, for its part, has not adopted the practice as widely as some had feared, suggesting that it may have learned from its two brushes with Canada. But it has so far not abandoned it, either. | 北京倒是没有如一些人担心的那样广泛采用这种做法，表明其可能从与加拿大的两次摩擦中吸取了教训。但就目前而言，它还没有彻底放弃。 |
| In 2020, Chinese officials privately warned Washington that, if prosecutions went forward against Chinese scientists in the United States accused of illicitly working for China’s military, then Chinese security forces might arrest Americans in China in retaliation. | 2020年，中国官员私下警告华盛顿，如果继续起诉被控为中国军方从事非法工作的在美华人科学家，中国国安部门可能会逮捕在华美国人作为报复。 |
| Two years later, Beijing has not made good on its threat — at least, not yet. | 两年过去了，北京并未兑现其威胁——至少现在还没有。 |
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