尼古拉斯·伯恩斯大使
Ambassador Nicholas Burns
2023年10月23日
October 20, 2023
衷心欢迎各位。Libby 和我怀着无比欣喜的心情迎接大家。我们今天齐聚一堂是为了庆祝这栋宅邸的命名，我们用这种方式向半个世纪前来到这里的第一对居民，也就是已故的乔治·H·布什总统以及第一夫人芭芭拉·布什表示崇敬之意。
A very warm welcome to everyone. Libby and I are absolutely delighted that you are all here to celebrate the dedication of this house in honor of two of its very first inhabitants a half century ago, the late President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush.
今晚我们非常荣幸能邀请到老布什夫妇的外甥，从马萨诸塞州波士顿市远道而来的Alexander Hap Ellis 三世。Hap 是乔治与芭芭拉·布什基金会董事会的主席。
We are honored this evening by the presence of their nephew, Alexander Hap Ellis III of Boston, Massachusetts. Hap is the Chairman of the George and Barbara Bush Foundation Board.
我们的老朋友Max Angerholzer也在这里。Max是乔治与芭芭拉·布什基金会的首席执行官
Our old friend, Max Angerholzer is also here. Max is the Chief Executive Officer of the George and Barbara Bush Foundation.
让我感到特别高兴的是今晚中华人民共和国外交部的常务副部长马朝旭以及同行的外交部人员拨冗光临。他的出席展示了对老布什总统在华事迹的敬意。谢谢您，副部长。
I am also especially pleased by the presence of the Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Ma Zhaoxu and his delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His participation this evening honors the legacy of President Bush here in China. Thank you, Vice Foreign Minister.
在我的致辞结束后，各位将能听到这三位尊敬的嘉宾分别致辞。
You will hear from all three of these honored guests following my remarks.
我要特别介绍一下今晚还有几位我们要致敬的嘉宾，那就是两位已经退休的中国籍同事，曾经在美国驻华联络处工作过并且在乔治·H·W·布什大使在华期间认识他的杨更琪先生，以及当时也在联络处工作过的郭德才先生。
I want to single out other honored guests –two of our retired Chinese colleagues, Mr. Yang Gengqi –who worked at the old U.S. Liaison Office and knew Ambassador George H.W. Bush when he was here in China and Mr. Guo Decai who also worked at the Liaison Office at that time.
这栋宅邸是美国在1973年，也就是距今五十年前的一个夏日，在暌违24年之后回到了中国时的落脚之地。那是一个跟今天完全不一样的时代，在1949年后美中两国之间以及两国人民之间已经有一整个世代可说是完全没有任何接触。
This is the house to which the United States returned to China in 1973—fifty years ago this summer—after an absence of 24 years at a very different time when our two nations and peoples had virtually no contact with each other for a generation after 1949.
我们今晚要庆祝的是一项在美国外交界行之已久的传统，也就是采用过去的总统以及举国闻名的人物的大名来给大使官邸冠名。从前我担任驻希腊大使的时候，Libby 和我在雅典住的房子叫做杰弗逊官邸，而我在担任美国驻北大西洋公约组织大使的时候，住的地方是位在比利时佛兰德斯郊区的杜鲁门官邸
With our celebration this evening, we honor a long tradition in the American Foreign Service of naming our Ambassadorial residences after past Presidents and figures of national renown. When I was Ambassador to Greece, Libby and I lived in Jefferson House in Athens and in Truman Hall in the Flemish countryside of Belgium when I served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
因此，当我在2022年那个因为新冠疫情而黯淡的冬季来到中国，在这栋宅邸里隔离21天的时候，要给这里冠名的想法油然而生。问题是，我们要给这栋宅邸冠上谁的名字呢？
So, the idea of naming this house was rambling around in the back of my mind when the two of us were quarantined here for 21 days – following our arrival in Beijing during the dark Covid winter of 2022. But, for whom should we name this house?
在那个冬季的某一天，我找到了一份罗列了所有在我之前美国驻华大使的名单。包括第一任美国驻华大使，来自波士顿的义华业。他是在1846年来到中国，然而三个月后就因病过世了。从那份大使名单上我得到了一个显而易见的心得，那就是在这180年当中有许多位令人崇敬的大使，然而当中只有一位后来成了美国总统。这显然是把这里更名为布什故居的一个好理由。
One day that winter, I came across a list of all of my predecessors as U.S. Ambassador to China. They included our very first Ambassador, Alexander Hill Everett of Boston, who arrived here in 1846 and perished from disease three months later. One obvious takeaway from that list stretching back 180 years is that only one of those august figures subsequently become President of the United States. That was certainly a good reason to name this Bush House.
还有另一个原因，那就是乔治·H·布什是现代美中关系的元勋之一。
A second reason was that George H.W. Bush was one of the Founding Fathers of America’s modern relationship with China.
当他和芭芭拉·布什在1974年到达这里的时候正是文化大革命的尾声，他的主要任务就是和毛泽东主席、周恩来总理以及邓小平一起合作，仔细呵护在那些年间美国与中华人民共和国之间才刚成型，脆弱且并不容易进行的非官方关系。
When he and Barbara Bush arrived here in 1974, during the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, his major task was to work with Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, Premier Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping to nurture the young, brittle, and somewhat uneasy unofficial relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China in those years.
当年乔治·布什的职位是美国驻华联络处主任。他就住在办公楼的隔壁，而当时的办公楼不叫“大使馆”，因为当年我国跟中国之间并没有全面的外交关系。
George Bush was Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China. He could not call this house and the office building attached to it an “embassy” as we did not have at that time full diplomatic relations with China.
当时是周恩来说服了基辛格，他说，即便是如此，美国跟中国之间也应该互相派遣外交人员驻在彼此的首都。1972年周恩来下令建造了此处的建筑。布什夫妇是在一个至关重要的时间点上来到这里服务，呵护着这个如同新生儿一般的两国关系。用迪安·艾奇逊的话来说，就是真正目睹了它的创生。
It was Zhou Enlai who convinced Henry Kissinger that, despite this fact, the U.S. and China should send diplomats to each other’s capitals. Zhou ordered the construction of this compound in 1972. The Bushes thus served here at a critical time in the development of that nascent relationship and were, to paraphrase Dean Acheson, truly present at its creation.
其实，还有第三个，也是最终的理由要给这栋宅邸更名，那就是Libby和我都非常仰慕并且尊敬乔治和芭芭拉·布什，他们二位身体力行了公共服务的精神，而那正是身为一个外交人员生命中不可或缺的元素。
There is a third and final reason for our renaming of this house this evening—and that is Libby and my deep admiration and respect for both George and Barbara Bush who personified the spirit of public service that is an essential element in the life of a diplomat.
乔治·布什应该算是美国历史上最具有国际性的一位总统。
George Bush was perhaps the most international of all our Presidents in American history.
他曾经在二次世界大战期间担任美国空军飞行战斗人员在太平洋战区服役，曾经在中国担任过驻华大使，曾经是美国中央情报局局长，美国驻联合国大使，在担任副总统的八年当中走遍了世界，而且，在我心目中，他是美国在二战以后在外交政策方面做得最出色也最成功的总统之一。
A combat pilot and veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces here in the Pacific in World War Two, Ambassador here in China, Director of the CIA, Ambassador to the United Nations, a globe- trotting Vice President for eight years; and, in my own view, one of the most accomplished and successful Presidents in foreign policy since the Second World War.
在1989至1991年间，是他带领着我们的国家有效地、和平地度过了华沙条约组织阵营瓦解的过程。
He steered our country—effectively and peacefully—through the fall of the Warsaw Pact monolith in Eastern Europe in 1989-91.
他是在柏林围墙被推倒之后，促成两德在1991年统一不可或缺的功臣。
He was an indispensable champion of German Unification in 1990 following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
他恪守法治原则和联合国宪章，带领着前所未有的全球联盟在1991年将科威特从邪恶的暴君手中解放出来。
He upheld the rule of law and the United Nations Charter in leading an unprecedented global coalition to liberate Kuwait from an evil despot in 1991.
而我因为曾经身为他的白宫苏联事务顾问之一而有幸亲眼见证他是如何在日渐失势的米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫以及日益壮大的鲍里斯·叶利钦之间保持平衡，终于在1991年圣诞日那天苏联解体，那也意味着冷战正式结束了。而最令人叹服的是，做到这一切从来不曾发射过一发子弹。不论是拿任何标准去衡量，这都是历史性的外交成就。
And I had a front-row seat, as one of his White House advisors on the Soviet Union, as he balanced a descending Mikhail Gorbachev and an ascending Boris Yeltsin in seeing an end to the USSR on Christmas Day 1991 and thus the old Cold War –all remarkably—without a shot being fired. It was, by any standard, a truly historic diplomatic accomplishment.
最后，这位全球性的伟人过着谦卑低调的日子，一直到他与世长辞。
Finally, it is rare that such a great global figure walked this earth so humbly until his very last days.
Libby和我有机会看见他们的日常生活模式，因为2001年时，乔治·H·布什总统和第一夫人芭芭拉·布什曾经造访希腊，当时他们在大使官邸住了四天。那次造访的行程当中包括重要演说、和希腊的政要会面、还有拜访以色列和俄罗斯的领袖们。然而，布什总统和夫人每天都会客客气气的来问我们：我们可以帮你遛狗吗？午餐过后请让我们来收拾餐桌吧。我们能怎么帮到你们？
Libby and I saw this up close when former President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush came to stay with us for four days in the Ambassador’s residence in Greece in 2001. In between a major speech and meetings with Greek and visiting Israeli and Russian leaders, President and Mrs. Bush asked us—every day: Can we walk your dogs? Please let us clean up after lunch. How can we be helpful?
或许Hap比我更了解，那就是他们二位真实的面貌。而只要是曾经有幸在他们身边工作过的人都会自然而然地对他们产生崇敬之心，并且真心喜爱他们。
As Hap knows far better than me, that is who they both were. And all of us who had the privilege of working for them respected them and loved them for it.
今晚的致辞还有最后一个注记。也就是这次的官邸冠名并不仅仅是向一位美国总统致敬，也是向一位第一夫人致敬。
A final note on tonight’s program. This house is being named this evening for an American President but also for a First Lady.
芭芭拉·布什是一位在美国和国际舞台上都不容小觑的重要人物。而她当年和她丈夫一起住在这栋宅邸里的时候，就如同所有美国驻外人员的配偶一般，不论是男是女，最终都成为了为美国政府奉献的，没有薪水的志愿者。因此，在数十年后的今天，她的名字也该被放在即将要挂到大门口的纪念牌上。
Barbara Bush was a force in her own right in the United States and on the international stage and, like all spouses overseas, female or male, an unpaid volunteer for the U.S. government when she and her husband lived in this house. She deserves, decades later, to have her own name on the plaque honoring them outside the front door.
乔治·赫伯特·沃克·布什和芭芭拉·皮尔斯·布什至今依然是我们敬仰的对象，他们都是具有专业精神、尊严和气度的领袖。
George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce Bush inspire us still today—leaders of professionalism, of dignity and of grace.
今晚我们在这里向他们致敬。
We honor them this evening.
我们要感谢他们为我们的国家所贡献的非凡成就。
We thank them for their extraordinary service to our country.
我们要谨记他们曾经身为外交的先锋住在这栋宅邸里。
We remember them as diplomatic pioneers in this house.
我们希望我们能够跟随他们树立的典范，在我们的任期当中做细心呵护美中关系的照顾人，这个关系在当年对于世界的稳定与和平如此重要，今天依然如是。
We hope that we might follow their example in our own time of being careful stewards of the U.S.-China relationship, so vital then, as it is now, for stability and for peace in our world.
谢谢各位。
Thank you.