纽约时报：一位中国官员讨论禁忌：民主本站编辑部对原文有删节和修改。

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　　在只有一党领导、权利高度集权的国家倡导民主似乎很难。
　　俞可平先生就是这样一个“知难而进”的人。
　　多年来，这位温和派政策研究者始终高唱民主赞歌，在其最为著名的文章《民主是个好东西》里，他慷慨激昂地力证中国直接选举之必然性，将民主描述为“人类最好的政治制度”。
　　今年四月，他在另一篇文章中公开呼吁依法治党。在一个政府官员经常宣称司法工作也要服从党的意志的国家，这实在非同小可。
　　难道俞先生是个不知死活、惹事生非的愤青？非也非也。
　　各大书店都能买到俞先生的著作；他在党内也是有头有脸的高官，现任中央编译局副局长--这个低调的机构负责翻译中国领导人著作及世界各地重要的马克思主义论著。他还分管局内从事政策研究的比较政治与经济研究中心，为中央提供政策建议。
　　即使中国专家都很难确定，俞先生是改革的大胆谏言者，还是个应时应景的托儿。
　　俞先生今年51岁，说起话来轻声细语，却酷爱枪支和越野驾驶。对于自己的角色定位，他不置可否。“我只是个爱好学术研究的学者，”他在北京办公室接受采访时笑着说，周围摆放着上千册图书。
　　中国极少数公共知识分子已学会洞悉可能的危险地带。他们所扮演的角色可借助对俞先生的观察窥知一二：他们提出的问题看似激进，甚至可能推动变革，但最终其作品很少对中国一党专制的根基构成威胁。
　　甚至俞先生笔下的“民主”也不是它表面的意思。中国领导人常常在言谈间将“民主”当做值得追求的目标，但实践中他们却似乎无意让领导权力收到限制。事实上，俞先生倡导的也绝不是西方式的多党制民主。
　　研究过俞可平生平的人会发现，俞先生的角色要微妙得多。他们称，俞确实是民主的忠实信徒，但他就像在走钢丝，小心翼翼地推动中国政治精英在不牵动全局的条件下进行民主改革。
　　克莱蒙特-麦肯纳学院(Claremont McKenna College)中国政治专家裴敏欣认为，俞可平是位独特的公众人物。他试图通过字斟句酌的文章和恰到好处的偷换概念来影响整个体制。
　　“从某种意义上说，他还是很灵活的。如果政治气氛变得更宽容，他就多往前走一点，”他说。“但他知道，走得太远对自己和他所推行的更伟大的事业都没有任何好处。”
　　近期的一系列访问中，俞可平表现得轻松自如，滔滔不绝，但所有回答都紧扣他的文章，提倡“在条件适当的时候”更多地引入民主。官方宣称中国已享受广泛的政治自由，而俞可平在采访里对民主的论述则更进一步。
　　当被问及他是否认为中国政治体制可称为民主时，他举了几个乡镇改革的例子，但还补充道：“我们仍然有很长的路要走。”
　　和许多同龄人一样，俞可平出生在**动乱年代，普遍权利、言论自由在那时都被视为西方资本主义流毒。阶级斗争是那个年代的口号。出生在浙江一个粮农家庭的俞可平被任命为他们学校红卫兵的队长。当时他还不满10岁。
　　他回忆起批斗会上腰别木制手枪、恐吓地主商人的情景，说道：“我当时太小，必须站在凳子上。”
　　1978年，也就是毛**去世的两年后，局势逐渐恢复正常，学校重新开放。俞可平成了恢复高考后的第一代大学生。
　　“我几乎是从稻田里爬出来去参加高考的，”说起这段回忆，俞可平面带微笑地摇着头。
　　1989年春，俞可平在北京大学任教。“我很担心那些学生。”他说，并用“令人遗憾的悲剧”形容事件的结局。
　　但他说这些事让他明白，中国必须给予公民表达对社会不公的蔑视或对变革的诉求的合法渠道。
　　“在任何一个国家，当人民要求改革，这便是其繁荣富强的标志，”他说。“忽视这些诉求就会带来不安定。”
　　俞可平说，他在杜克大学做过访问学者，对美国印象很深。他享受美国课堂的教学相长和新闻媒体自由无拘的活力。
　　“我非常喜欢美国人开拓进取的精神、平等正义的价值取向和很强的环境意识，”他说。
　　对于美国人的心态开放，他有所保留--他还记得一些美国人在得知他是共产党员后的冷嘲热讽。
　　最让他印象深刻的，还是离开杜克大学后乘“灰狗巴士”（Greyhoundbus）环游30州的经历。他说，他看到巨富与赤贫者的严重差距，对老人的不敬，还有选举日美国人特别是“普通人”的政治冷淡--他们照理说最期待政治变革。
　　俞先生本人也见证了所谓“充分自由”的另一面。他说他被抢了两次，其中一次是在印第安纳波利斯的公共厕所被人用刀抵着背。
　　“我装作不会说英语；有人进来之后，歹徒就逃走了，”他说着大笑起来。
　　那段经历让他对枪的兴趣一发不可收拾。有时，俞先生会到北京的射击场解压。
　　他的另一个爱好是越野驾驶。“她很怕我开车，”他说的是妻子徐秀丽，一名教中国经济史教授。
　　结束采访前，他又有新的想法。他说，童年的故事包含着一个教训，这反过来成就了他的激QING。
　　“每当忆起**的日子，它就会提醒我一个真理，”他说。“只有民主法治才能帮助中国永不重蹈覆辙。”

英文原文：


　　A Chinese Official Praises a Taboo: Democracy
　　By ANDREW JACOBS
　　Published: July 23, 2010
　　Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
　　"In any nation, when people are demanding reform, this is a sign of prosperity. To ignore these demands is to invite instability."
　　Yu Keping
　　ADVOCATING democracy in a single-party, authoritarian state would seem to be a fool's errand.
　　Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most ardent pro-democracy dissidents, spent over a decade in jail for demanding multiparty elections. Last year, the writer Liu Xiaobo was given an 11-year sentence after he wrote a manifesto calling for an end to the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power.
　　Then there is Yu Keping, a mild-mannered policy wonk who has been singing the praises of democracy for years. In his most famous essay, "Democracy Is a Good Thing," he made an impassioned argument for the inevitability of direct elections in China, describing democracy as "the best political system for humankind."
　　In April, he published another treatise calling on the Communist Party to abide by the Constitution, not a small matter in a country where government leaders often argue that the law should be subservient to the party.

　　A cynical troublemaker playing with fire? Hardly.
　　Mr. Yu's writings are sold in state-owned bookstores, and he is a ranking Communist Party official in charge of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, an obscure agency dedicated to translating works by Chinese leaders and Marxist tracts from around the world. He also runs a policy research organization, China Center for Comparative Politics and Economics, that provides advice to China's leadership.
　　Even China experts have a hard time determining whether Mr. Yu is a brave voice for change or simply a well-placed shill.
　　Mr. Yu, 51, a deceptively soft-spoken man who is fond of guns and off-road driving, does little to clarify his role. "I am only a scholar interested in academic research," he said with a grin, surrounded by hundreds of books in his Beijing office.
　　A closer look at Mr. Yu provides a small window into the role of those few public intellectuals who have learned to navigate what would appear to be treacherous terrain. They tackle seemingly provocative subjects and can even function as a force for change, but in the end their writings rarely challenge the underpinnings of China's single-party, authoritarian rule.
　　Even Mr. Yu's use of the word "democracy" is not what it seems. China's leaders frequently talk about it as a worthy goal, but in practice they have virtually no intention of ceding the Communist Party's monopoly. In fact, Mr. Yu never advocates Western-style multiparty democracy.
　　 "What he writes might sound good, but he is misleading the Chinese people into thinking the government is moving toward democracy," said Guo Tianguo, a former rights lawyer from Shanghai who was forced into exile five years ago and now lives in Canada. "He owes his job to President Hu Jintao, and if he ever pushed too hard he would lose everything. He's a coward."
　　YET to some who have followed his career, Mr. Yu's role is far more nuanced. They say that he is a true believer in democracy, but that he walks a tightrope, trying to nudge China's political elite toward reform without upsetting the apple cart.
　　Minxin Pei, a specialist in Chinese politics at Claremont McKenna College, said that Mr. Yu is a uniquely Chinese public figure who tries to influence the system through carefully choreographed words and well-placed obfuscation. "He's flexible in the sense that if the atmosphere were more tolerant, he'd go further," he said. "But he knows that going too far won't do any good for him or the larger cause he's promoting."
　　During a series of recent interviews, Mr. Yu was relaxed and loquacious, but his responses hewed closely to his writings, which call for the incremental introduction of democracy "when conditions are right." But he also stepped beyond the vague pronouncements on democracy that have been uttered by Mr. Hu, who has suggested that China already enjoys widespread political liberties.
　　Asked whether he thought the Chinese political system could be described as democratic, Mr. Yu offered up a few examples of reforms that have been tried in rural townships or small provincial cities but then added, "We have a long way to go."
　　Like many of his peers, Mr. Yu grew up in the tumult of Mao's Cultural Revolution, the decade between 1966 and 1976 when concepts like universal rights and free speech were viewed as bourgeois contaminants from the West. Class struggle was the watchword of the day, and Mr. Yu, the son of rice farmers from coastal Zhejiang Province, was anointed the leader of his school's Red Guard battalion. He was not quite 10 years old.
　　He recalled terrorizing landlords and merchants during so-called struggle sessions, a wooden revolver tucked into his pants. "I was so small I had to stand on a chair," he said.
　　In 1978, two years after the death of Mao, during the gradual return to normalcy and the reopening of schools, he was one of the first of his generation to go to college. "I literally crawled out of the paddies to take the entrance exam," he said, smiling and shaking his head at the memory.
　　Mr. Yu was a teacher at Peking University during the spring of 1989, and he said he went to Tiananmen Square several times to look after his students, who were part of the throngs protesting corruption and inflation and demanding democratic reforms. "I was so worried about them," he said, recalling the denouement - a bloody military crackdown in which hundreds died - as "a regrettable tragedy."
　　 But he said those events taught him that China must have legal avenues for its citizens to express their disdain for injustice, or their desire for change. "In any nation, when people are demanding reform, this is a sign of prosperity," he said. "To ignore these demands is to invite instability."
　　Mr. Yu said he was impressed by the United States, where he was a visiting scholar at Duke University. He relishes memories of the intellectual give-and-take in the classroom and the unencumbered vigor of the news media. "I really loved the American can-do spirit, the values of equality and justice, and the way people cared about the environment," he said. For all the open-mindedness of Americans, he still winces when he recalls the barbed reactions of people when they learned he was a member of the Communist Party.
　　HIS most indelible experiences came after he left Duke to travel across 30 states on a Greyhound bus. He said he saw the chasm between the grotesquely rich and the abjectly poor, the lack of respect for the elderly, and the apathy on Election Day, especially among the "common people" who would seem to be the most invested in political change.
　　Mr. Yu also had a personal brush with a downside of abundant liberty. He said he was mugged twice, once by a man who put a knife to his back in a public restroom in Indianapolis. "I pretended I didn't speak English; someone else came into the bathroom and the man ran away," he said with a laugh.
　　That experience set off his interest in guns, and Mr. Yu sometimes lets off steam at a shooting range in Beijing. His other distraction from the esoteric is off-road driving. "She's terrified of my driving," he said of his wife, Xu Xiuli, a professor of Chinese economic history.
　　Before ending the interview, he had one parting thought. The story about his childhood, he said, contained a lesson, and it came back to his passion. "When I think about those days of the Cultural Revolution it reminds me of one truth," he said. "It is only democracy and the rule of law that can save China from ever again falling into that kind of fate."
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