《纽约时报》(New York Times) 是美国最有影响力的报纸。每天早上总统和国会议员吃早餐的时候,必定是一面喝咖啡,一面阅读《纽约时报》。最近该报著名专栏作家克里斯托夫发表了一篇文章,在日本引起非常大的反响。他在文章中说,美国不可能为了钓鱼岛而与中国开战,何况美国并没有认定钓鱼岛是日本的。他还指出,日本人自己在二百多年前印行的地图就标明钓鱼岛是中国的。
“In reality, of course, there is zero chance that the U.S. will honor its treaty obligation over a few barren rocks. We’re not going to risk a nuclear confrontation with China over some islands that may well be China’s.”
“So which country has a better claim to the islands? My feeling is that it’s China. Chinese navigational records show the islands as Chinese for many centuries, and a 1783 Japanese map shows them as Chinese as well. Japan purported to “discover” the islands only in 1884 and annexed them only in 1895 when it also grabbed Taiwan.“
克里斯托夫于是反驳说,那个时候中国很弱,连整个台湾省都丢了。难道还会为几个岩石岛去和日本争?日本人的说法真是够荒唐的。
It seems silly to say that China didn’t protest the seizure of a few barren rocks, when it was so weak that it had lost the entire province of Taiwan (原文)