由中国国际友人研究会、北京市人民对外友好协会、北京大学中国埃德加·斯诺研究中心、美国埃德加·斯诺纪念基金会共同主办的“第十九届斯诺研讨会”于9月15日在京成功举办。会上，中美嘉宾们的发言高潮迭起、精彩纷呈，我们将陆续推送，以飨读者。今天推送的第一篇来自美国共产党员、中国日报“新时代斯诺工作室”成员伊谷然的《缅怀先辈，开拓未来》。

缅怀先辈，开拓未来

（伊谷然发言中文译文）

首先感谢主办方的盛情邀请，很荣幸今天能有机会在此与大家交流。

我想谈谈我们这些外国人在中国的初衷，或者说我们应该怀着怎样的初衷。这是一个根本性的问题，如果我们期望有成效地展开工作，就需要先回答这个问题。这也是中国日报“新时代斯诺工作室”的主要志趣所在。作为工作室的成员，我很自豪。当然，我不敢代表整个工作室发言，但是，请容我就此谈一些个人看法。

为此，我想先回望那段历史岁月：一群外国人长途跋涉来到中国，目睹中国共产党在艰难的内战时期在根据地所取得的巨大成就。这些人当中，最为著名的便是埃德加·斯诺和海伦·福斯特·斯诺夫妇。

他们当时为此冒着极大的个人风险。因为那是革命的时代、战争的时代，国共双方孰胜孰负，尚未可知。如果革命事业失败，中国之行会为他们在自己的国家招致严重的后果，即使在革命胜利之后，一些人仍然付出了代价。

他们来时便知道可能有去无回。随着战事加剧，跟随红军的记者或观察员面临的危险也越来越大。像诺尔曼·白求恩大夫这样冲在前线的人士承担了更大的压力。在真正生与死的考验中，他们坚定地站在同志身边，有些人甚至付出了生命的代价。我们今天缅怀和珍惜他们的牺牲，就如同我们缅怀和珍惜所有为追求更美好世界而牺牲的仁人志士一样。正如毛泽东所说：“为人民利益而死的，他的死是比泰山还重。”我们站在他们的肩膀上……也沐浴在他们的光辉里。

当然，中国已经今非昔比。在过去100年里，中国共产党执政了72年，将中国建设成一个繁荣、稳定的国家。人均预期寿命增加了一倍多。文盲数量大幅减少，如今仅占全国人口很小的一部分。婴儿死亡率直线下降。人民收入不断增长，生活质量明显改善。

最重要的是，国家现代化发展的繁荣为全体人民所共享。这是生为中国人最好的时代，他们理所当然对国家和未来怀着坚定的信心。

在距今并不遥远的近代，外国侵略者侵占中国领土并试图奴役其人民，今天的中国已经完全改变了这种状态。在那个时代，殖民者依仗强大的工业力量和坚船利炮，从各个主权国家那里获得种种特权。

20世纪民族解放斗争运动轰轰烈烈，传统的殖民关系开始难以为继，而中国无论凭借其国家规模，还是以建立社会主义国家这一事实，当之无愧地成为其中最瞩目的国家之一。然而，一种新殖民主义体系开始形成，其特点就是西方国家凭借金融工具及其巨大影响力，促使全球财富从南方国家流向北方国家。

虽然这种关系的某些特征在新形势下发生了变化，但它帝国主义的本质仍然没有改变。军事实力仍然是一个国家实力的“硬基础”，但在新兴的冲突中，出现了一些新型武器，特别是信息武器。为了对抗那些工业充分发展，足以在公平竞争环境中与其同场竞技的国家，新殖民主义体系下的大国必须利用其在媒体业和出版业的先天优势，来传播并证明其主导全球格局的合法性。

中国也未能幸免。西方的媒体和政府，尤其是美国，步调一致地试图削弱中国，破坏中国的发展。他们期望把中国从一个拥有自己经济体系和发展道路的独立国家，变成一个完全依附于西方国家的制造基地，一个劳动力长期工资过低且劳动者过度工作的“世界工厂”。这几乎是不言而喻的事实。因此，他们心照不宣地形成一个阵营，压制任何与他们着力阐述的叙述相悖的信息或想法。这种有效的信息封锁如同往日的海上封锁，是大国按照他们的意愿塑造世界的工具。

这不是中国人民想要的，也不是中国共产党想要的。社会主义国家在诸多方面有别于资本主义国家，其中最重要的区别是它的经济沿着理性的路线发展，而不是放任资本主义生产的“无政府状态”。为此，中国欢迎外国投资，但绝不欢迎外国人的剥削。国家陷入中等收入陷阱，不符合人民的利益，而跨国企业对最先进技术或部分劳动力的长期垄断，也不符合人民的利益。实现共同富裕一开始就是中国共产党的追求，今天，它致力于创新和统筹发展，继续追求这一目标。

尽管与饱受战争蹂躏的年代相比，今天的中国更加强大，但是，我们这些外国观察者的任务仍然紧迫。可以说，“突破封锁”就是我们的工作。原因很简单：如果让这些新殖民主义者得逞所愿，中国取得的所有进步都将瞬间倒退。苏联解体后，那里的人民曾经历了一段悲惨岁月：预期寿命骤降，数百万人堕入贫困。如果社会主义中国落入21世纪“八国联军”的圈套，他面临的惨状将是前者的十倍不止。预防这样的大灾难至关重要。

斯诺夫妇、安娜·路易斯·斯特朗、伊斯雷尔·爱泼斯坦、白求恩医生、艾格尼丝·史沫特莱、马海德医生、路易·艾黎及其他许多外国友人当年来到中国，为中国做出贡献，是因为他们理解中国共产党的愿景，尊重中国共产党的明确目标。他们并非都是共产主义者，但他们都渴望世界工人阶级能过上更美好、更公平、更有尊严的生活。

我们必须尊重这一理想，将它铭刻心中。我们必须与那些企图剥削中国人民或掠夺中国资源的外国人划清界限。我们的使命不只是自私地追求个人财富。

那么，简而言之，我们在这里需要做什么呢？答案就是，尽我们所能，助力中国发展，讲述真实的中国故事，为捍卫革命成果尽一臂之力。我们谨以这种方式纪念先辈，继续走在他们多年前披荆斩棘为我们开辟的解放之路上。

我们必然为此事业鞠躬尽瘁。

Honoring Those Who Came Before,Forging a New Path for the Future

Ian Goodrum

First let me thank the organizers of this event for inviting me here. It’s an honor and a privilege to talk to you today.

I would like to discuss our aim as foreigners in China. Or rather, I would like to talk about what our aim should be. This is a foundational question, one which needs an answer if our work is to be effective. It is also the primary interest of China Daily’s Edgar Snow Newsroom, a project of which I am proud to be a member. While I cannot speak for the entire program here today, I can, with your indulgence, give my personal thoughts on the matter.

To do that, I’d like to go back. To a time when a group of foreigners, most notably Edgar and Helen Foster Snow, made the long journey to China to see what the Communist Party of China had accomplished in its base areas during the arduous period of civil war.

Those that traveled to China then did so at great personal risk. This was a time of revolution, of war, and victory was not assured. If the cause was lost, the consequences for such a trip would be dire in their home countries — a cost some still paid even after the revolution was won.

They came knowing they might never return. As the fighting intensified, so did the danger to those accompanying the Red Army as journalists or observers. Those who joined the front lines like Dr. Norman Bethune took on an even greater burden. They stood by their comrades in true life-and-death struggles, and some paid the ultimate cost. We honor and treasure their sacrifices today, as we do all martyrs who perished in pursuit of a better world. As Mao Zedong said, “To die for the people is weightier than Mt. Tai.” We stand on their shoulders…and in their shadows.

But the China of today is, of course, a very different place. In its 100 years, 72 of them with state power, the Communist Party has built a country that is thriving and secure. Life expectancies have more than doubled. Illiteracy has been whittled to a tiny percentage of the population. Infant mortality rates have plummeted. Incomes are growing, and quality of life is improving at a stunning pace.

Most importantly, the prosperity that has defined the country’s modern development has been shared, held in common and enjoyed by all. There has never been a better time to be Chinese, and the people of China rightfully possess an abiding confidence in themselves and their future.

This is a complete reversal of the circumstances China faced in the not-so-distant past, when foreign aggressors occupied its territory and attempted to force it into submission. In that time, colonizers could rely on their industrial might to leverage concessions from sovereign peoples at the barrel of a gun.

During the national liberation struggles of the 20thcentury — China among the most notable, both for its scale and its establishment of a socialist state — the traditional colonial form of relations could not continue. Instead, a neocolonial system of financial instruments and influence peddling characterized the extraction of value from Global South to North.

While features of this relationship have changed in new contexts, the nature of these relationships and of imperialism itself has remained the same. Military strength is still the "hard" foundation of a country's power, but there are new weapons being brought to bear in new conflicts — especially informational ones. To combat countries that have advanced their industries enough to compete on an even playing field, the neocolonial behemoths must use inborn advantages in media and publishing to disseminate narratives justifying their place at the top of the global hierarchy.

China is no exception. The media and governments of the West, particularly the United States, act in lockstep to undermine China and subvert its development. It is their desire, and this is hardly a secret, to see it turned from an independent country with its own economic system and path to a wholly subservient manufacturing base; the "world's factory" with a chronically underpaid and overworked labor force. To that end, they have fabricated an unspoken boycott on any information or ideas that run contrary to whichever narrative they wish to keep in focus. This effective embargo, like the naval blockades of yesteryear, is a tool used by the dominant powers to shape the world as they see fit.

That is not what the Chinese people want, nor what the CPC wants. Socialism distinguishes itself from capitalism in many ways, but one of the most important is the building of an economy along rational lines rather than the “anarchy” of capitalist production. To that end, foreign investment is welcome, but never foreign exploitation. It is not in the people’s interest for the country to stagnate in a middle-income trap, nor for multinational monopolies to keep a permanent stranglehold on the most advanced technologies or segments of the labor force. Building common prosperity for all has been the Party's pursuit from the beginning, and it continues that quest today through innovation and a commitment to balanced development.

So although the China of today is in a far stronger position than it was in its war-torn past, our task as foreign observers is no less urgent. It is our job to “run the blockade”, so to speak. The reason is simple: If those neocolonial usurpers got their way, all of China’s progress would be rolled back in an instant. The calamitous period witnessed after the end of the Soviet Union — which saw life expectancies nosedive and millions fall into penury —would be ten times more devastating if socialist China falls to the machinations of the 21stcentury’s own Eight-Nation Alliance. Preventing such a catastrophe is of paramount importance.

When the Snows, Anna Louise Strong, Israel Epstein, Dr. Bethune, Agnes Smedley, Dr. George Hatem, Rewi Alley and so many others came to China, they did so because they understood the CPC's vision and respected the Party’s clarity of purpose. Not all were communists, but they shared a desire to see a better, fairer, more dignified life for the workers of the world.

We must respect that ideal, and keep it etched on our hearts. We must distinguish ourselves from foreigners who come to China with underhanded intentions to exploit its people or its resources. Our mission must be more than the selfish pursuit of personal enrichment.

So, simply put, what are we here to do? We are here to help China's development however we can, tell the stories that need to be told and play our role in defending the gains of the revolution. This is how we can honor those who came before, and travel the long road to liberation on a path they carved out for us so many years ago.

Anything less is unacceptable.

作者：陈 医

编辑：刘鑫慧