BOTH America and China seem to have been suffering crises of political faith.
A府和C府最近似乎都陷入了信仰危机。
As a massive investor in American sovereign debt, China’s government will be as relieved as other observers that last-ditch agreement has been reached in Washington, DC, to avoid a technical default. Some commentators in the official press, however, may rather miss the opportunity to highlight the perceived flaws in America’s political system.
After all, a crackdown on coverage of the high-speed rail disaster on July 23rd, in which at least 39 people died, inhibits them from discussion of some of the flaws in China’s.
拖了好久，A君终于答应欠债还钱。C君是A君的最大债主，很是松了口气。但C君府上的姨太太们很怅惘，A君又少了件她们可指摘的事儿，自个儿府上出了三十九尸命案，又不好说。
China’s press loves to point out the failings and hypocrisies of the “advanced democracies”. The China Media Project at Hong Kong University has noted coverage of the phone-hacking scandal gripping Britain that gloats over the “deficit of professional ethics among news professionals in Western media”.
C府的姨太太平时爱拿「众治」说事儿。「哎哟喂！那叫一个虚伪！」「办不成事儿！」香江书院的华媒社说，伦敦府上回的德律风案，愣是让C府的婆娘唠叨了一天，「西洋报人道德败坏！」
Even last month’s massacre in Norway, home of the Nobel peace prize awarded to both the Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo, a jailed dissident, was grist to this mill. The official Xinhua news agency produced a commentary entitled “the Nordic version of September 11th to break the myth of Nordic peace”.
就连挪威府血案她们也不放过。那新华房的大奶奶说了，「瞧那血流的，九一一似的，真不清静。」造孽，人家不就是对您不待见的喇嘛和秀才好些嘛。
But it was the spectacle of American political gridlock, along with fear of the dreadful consequences it might have for the world as a whole, that provided the best opportunity for what, during the Cultural Revolution, was called “teaching by negative example".
可是呀，还是A府上的事儿讲起来有嚼头。这A君要是翻脸不认人，天下还不乱套了啊。这事儿就是，按照蓝苹年间的话说，最佳「反面教材」啊。
After all, even Barack Obama has said America risked having its credit rating downgraded because “it didn’t have a Triple-A political system to match”.
但A府做得也不地道。A府的大管家欧阳巴马不也说了，这太损A府的声誉了，「不配三甲的评级。」
For Chinese observers, the showdown highlighted some structural difficulties: the checks and balances that hinder swift, decisive action; the tendency, between elections, for political parties to pander to their hard-core activists and neglect the moderate centre; and the lack of influence of those without votes, such as the future generations who will have to pay off America’s debts—and the outside world.
C府可是传出话了。A府演的这一出，说明了A府患结构性症状。制衡妨碍决策，门客中的帮派为了竞选，只顾激进选民，无视温和中立派，而且，也不问问A府小孩的意见，毕竟A府这债还是小孩那一代来还。
Xinhua raised these points in two succinct questions: “How can Washington shake off electoral politics and get difficult jobs done more efficiently? And how can US politicians improve their mindset so that they will care at least a bit more about the rest of the world when handling domestic affairs with global reverberations?”
新华房的大奶奶喊出来了，「A府啥时候才能摆脱选举政治，办大事来点效率呢？A府的那群门客，啥时候长点脑，做事也不替其他府想想。」
But the first of these questions also helps explain why it is hard for even the most nationalist Chinese commentators to go to town at the moment about the superiority of the “Beijing model”. One of its supposed advantages is precisely that it “gets difficult jobs done more efficiently”. And one example often pointed to as a source of wonder and pride is the rapid development of a world-beating high-speed rail system.
放在以前，C府的死忠门客可以就头一个问题大书特书「帝都模式」有多么好，还可以拿个天下第一的高铁作例证。可现在还这么说，就是掌自己嘴了。
That is why this disaster seems to have provoked even more outrage than previous scandals—such as those in 2008 over the shoddy building that made schools especially vulnerable to the Sichuan earthquake and the revelation that some baby-formula was tainted with melamine.
Both involved presumed corruption and official connivance. But neither undermined a central pillar of the party’s and government’s own claimed achievements.
这也是为什么三十九尸命案比C府这几年的任何风波都要命，搅得全府不安宁。戊子川震渣楼案、奶粉毒婴案虽则一样是官府贪污、官官相护，但都赶不上这回的事态，也没有触及C君的根基。
All three scandals showed the limits to dictatorship—the lack of openness and accountability; the shortage of public scrutiny over government decisions; and the absence of public debate about them among politicians, however ugly that debate may sometimes look.
不过这三件事儿都说明了专制的不足：不开放，不问责，大伙儿没法监督官府，连门客都不敢讨论。A府门客的讨论是乱哄哄，但好歹是有啊。
