中資在柬埔寨引發(fā)民間不滿

Casinos including the Oriental Pearl and the New Macau line the streets of Sihanoukville, a Cambodian port and resort town.

柬埔寨港口城市和度假勝地西哈努克市(Sihanoukville，簡稱：西港)有不少賭場，包括Oriental Pearl和New Macau。

This city of fewer than 100,000 people will soon boast 30 casinos, with 10 built last year alone, according to local officials.

據(jù)當(dāng)?shù)毓賳T介紹，這個人口不足10萬的城市很快將擁有30家賭場。僅去年一年就建成10家。

But with Cambodians prohibited from gambling, the complexes primarily serve Chinese tourists and often employ Chinese staff, angering locals in a poor country where jobs are scarce. An estimated 120,000 Chinese visited Sihanoukville last year, double the number of 2016.

但由于柬埔寨禁止本國人賭博，這些綜合性賭場主要服務(wù)中國游客，往往也都雇傭中國員工。這讓當(dāng)?shù)厝藨嵟驗榧砥艺且粋€就業(yè)機(jī)會少得可憐的窮國。據(jù)估計，去年有12萬中國人光顧西港，較2016年翻了一番。

Sihanoukville’s casino boom is one of the most vivid consequences of the forthright embrace of China by Hun Sen, the prime minister. Beijing backs the authoritarian leader politically and has extended loans for the construction of dams and roads, even as his crackdown on the opposition, media and civil society groups has been condemned by the EU and the US.

西港的賭場繁榮是柬埔寨首相洪森全面擁抱中國的最鮮明后果之一。中國在政治上支持這位威權(quán)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人，還為柬埔寨修建大壩和道路提供貸款，即便洪森打壓反對黨、媒體和公民社會團(tuán)體的行為受到歐盟和美國譴責(zé)。

The Chinese tourist influx has boosted the city’s property prices and spawned a growing number of high-rise buildings but it has also brought problems.

中國游客蜂擁而入，推高了西港的房價，越來越多的高樓拔地而起，但也帶來了問題。

“The Chinese don’t go out in the daytime; they go out at night,” says Sok Song, a Cambodian hotel owner and vice-president of the Sihanouk Province Chamber of Commerce. While he stresses that the Chinese presence is “more positive than negative”, he says that “at night, sometimes they have a drink and they fight and shout at each other”.

“中國人白天不出門;他們晚上出門，”柬埔寨一家酒店的老板、西哈努克省商會(Sihanouk Province Chamber of Commerce)的副會長Sok Song說道。盡管他強(qiáng)調(diào)，中國人的到來“積極影響大于負(fù)面影響”，但他形容，“到了晚上，有時他們一喝酒就開始互相斗毆叫罵”。

Ma Lin, a manager at a beachfront café whose lease will be taken over by a Chinese investor at the end of this month, says that because he “can’t speak Chinese . . . it’s hard for me to get a job with Chinese owners”.

馬林(Ma Lin，音譯)是海邊一家咖啡館的經(jīng)理。這家咖啡館本月底租約期滿，之后將由一位中國投資者接手。他表示，由于“不會說中文……他很難在中國老板手下找到工作”。

Expanding Chinese influence is a fact of life across Southeast Asia. China is the biggest source of tourists in Thailand, and Beijing is financing infrastructure projects from Myanmar to the Philippines.

中國影響力的不斷擴(kuò)大已成為東南亞的一個普遍現(xiàn)實。中國目前是泰國旅游業(yè)最大的客源國。從緬甸到菲律賓，中國為很多基建項目出資。

Cambodia is not alone in weighing the mixed blessings of Chinese investment, which elsewhere has been welcomed for its scale and relative lack of conditions attached but criticised for leaving construction and other jobs in Chinese hands.

柬埔寨并不是唯一對中國投資喜憂參半的國家。其他地方歡迎中國相對沒那么多附帶條件的大手筆投資，但批評中國把建筑及其他工作崗位留給中資企業(yè)。

What is unusual about Sihanoukville’s transformation is that tension in the town has coalesced into a public backlash — unusual in a country where personal freedoms are fading — and drawn a stern response from Cambodian authorities as well as from China’s ambassador.

西港大變樣的不尋常之處在于，這里的氣氛已緊張到引發(fā)公眾強(qiáng)烈不滿的程度——這在個人自由日漸式微的柬埔寨實屬罕見——并促使柬埔寨當(dāng)局和中國大使都作出嚴(yán)肅回應(yīng)。

Xiong Bo, Beijing’s envoy, this month acknowledged that “a small amount of low-educated people” from his country were breaking Cambodian laws. His rare press conference came after a document emerged in which the governor of the province where Sihanoukville sits listed both the “positive” and “negative” impacts of Chinese money and people.

中國駐柬埔寨大使熊波本月承認(rèn)，“一些素質(zhì)不高”的中國公民違反了柬埔寨法律。在他召集這次罕見的媒體吹風(fēng)會之前，一份文件泄露——西哈努克省省長在文件中列出了中國資金和中國人帶來的“正面”和“負(fù)面”影響。

“The price of renting rooms has risen, and that affects the standard of living of government officials, workers, and other people,” he wrote in a letter to the interior minister that was leaked to Cambodian media. He said “mafia groups” were behind kidnappings and “insecurity in the province”, and that tension between Chinese visitors and locals would give the opposition ammunition to attack the Cambodian-Chinese relationship, or to claim that Sihanoukville was becoming “a second Shanghai”.

“房租上漲，影響了政府官員、工人及其他人群的生活水平，”這名省長在寫給柬埔寨內(nèi)政部長的信中寫道;該信被泄露給了柬埔寨媒體。信中稱，該省許多綁架、不安全事件背后都有“黑社會團(tuán)伙”的身影，而中國游客與當(dāng)?shù)厝酥g的緊張關(guān)系會讓反對黨獲得口實，借以攻擊柬中關(guān)系，或稱西港正成為“第二個上海”。

“We want them to invest but we need more local people to have a chance to work, to get more money from this growth,” says Tang Sochetkresna, director of the provincial tourism department. He says the city is eager for investment beyond casinos and hotels, in attractions that can draw in tourists from other countries.

“我們希望他們來投資，但也需要更多本地人得到工作機(jī)會，以便從這種增長獲得更多實際利益，”西哈努克省旅游局局長Tang Sochetkresna表示。他表示，西港迫切需要賭場和酒店業(yè)以外景點的投資，以吸引其他國家的游客。

Sok Song, the chamber of commerce official, says Chinese companies are building garment, footwear and other factories in Sihanoukville’s special economic zone.

前述西哈努克省商會副會長Sok Song表示，中國企業(yè)正在西哈努克港經(jīng)濟(jì)特區(qū)建造服裝、鞋及其他商品的生產(chǎn)廠。

He says Cambodia’s interior ministry dispatched a task force to the town to study the problem of visitors who “do not obey the law”, and met Chinese embassy officials in January.

他表示，柬埔寨內(nèi)政部派出一個工作組到西港調(diào)研“不守法”游客的問題，并在1月份會晤了中國使館官員。

The Chinese are only the latest group of foreign tourists to throng Southeast Asia’s beach towns, bringing welcome money but also tension to poor countries with conservative societies. Western travellers engaging in behaviour deemed lewd or disrespectful continue to create periodic scandals from Cambodia and Laos to Malaysia and Thailand.

中國游客不過是最新一波蜂擁而至東南亞海濱城鎮(zhèn)的外國游客，給這些民風(fēng)保守的貧窮國家既帶來了受歡迎的金錢，也帶來了緊張。從柬埔寨到老撾，從馬來西亞到泰國，那些舉止下流或無禮的西方游客仍不時制造丑聞。

But the Chinese presence has a stronger geopolitical component, given China’s growing economic foothold in Cambodia and its continued support for Hun Sen at a time when he is flouting democratic rights.

但鑒于中資在柬埔寨的經(jīng)濟(jì)地盤與日俱增，并在洪森公然藐視民主權(quán)利之際繼續(xù)支持他，中國人的身影具有更強(qiáng)的地緣政治色彩。

“There is a narrative at the elite level that points out the positive effects of the relationship with China but you are seeing some cracks in the enforcement of this overarching narrative,” says a western diplomat in Phnom Penh. “Sihanoukville is a one-country town, so it’s a stark example.”

“精英階層有一種敘述，它會指出對華關(guān)系的積極影響，但你看到了，強(qiáng)迫人們接受這種主旋律敘述的邏輯出現(xiàn)了一些裂紋，”常駐柬埔寨首都金邊的一位西方外交官表示。“西哈努克市是一個中資主導(dǎo)的城鎮(zhèn)，所以它是一個鮮明的例子。”

Follow John Reed on Twitter: @JohnReedwrites 譯者/何黎