SEVEN years ago Beijing’s government set a target of making the city a “liveable” one by 2020, with “fresh air and a beautiful environment”. Few praise its progress. Complaints abound about its congestion, pollution, desperate shortage of water and hugely expensive housing. Even in the state-controlled media, suggestions are sometimes made that it is time to build a new capital.

　　七年前，北京政府曾定下目标，要在2020年之前将北京建设成“空气清新、环境优美”的“宜居城市”。至今这方面鲜有进展。相反，对于北京拥挤的交通、严重的污染、极度的缺水和比天高的房价，人们却是怨声载道。现在即使是国家控制的媒体也开始提出迁都的建议。

　　Beijing has been China’s capital for most of the past 600 years. Since the Communist victory in 1949, the Chinese have been taught to revere the city as an embodiment of China’s power, the party’s might and their country’s glorious history. To propose a move strikes many as heretical. In recent years, however, some have broken ranks. In 2000 even China’s then prime minister, Zhu Rongji, joined the sceptics. The capital, he declared, might have to move if measures to curb its sandstorms failed.

　　北京在过去600年的大部分时间里一直是中国的首都。自从1949年共产党胜利，中国人一直受到了某种引导，把北京尊为中国国力、党威和光辉历史的象征。对很多人来说，迁都这种提议简直就是异端。然而最近几年，终于有人发出了不同的声音。2000年，中国当时的总理朱镕基也加入了“异端”队伍。他指出，如果沙尘暴问题不能得以妥善处理，迁都只是时间问题。

　　Since then officials have claimed some success in reducing the frequency of these lung-clogging calamities. But other problems have grown. Beijingers fed up with traffic gridlock sometimes pronounce the word shoudu, meaning capital, in a different tone so that it sounds like “the most congested”. For much of the year a grey blanket of pollutants shrouds the city. The rate of birth dects has doubled over the past decade. The environment is thought to be a contributory factor. Several scholars have suggested, in newspapers as well as online, that these and other problems would best be solved by relocating the central government.

　　从那时起，对这些简直能使肺部堵塞的灾害的治理开始初见成效。但与此同时，其他的问题也在滋长。受够了交通大堵塞的北京人有时在说“首都”时，会故意换个调子说成“首堵”，讽刺北京是堵塞最严重的城市。一年里多数时候，北澳际都为一层灰蒙蒙的污染物所笼罩。过去十年里，北京的新生儿出生缺陷率增加了一倍。环境问题无疑是一个重要的影响因素。报纸和网上已经有好几位学者提议，要解决这些问题以及很多其他的问题，最好的办法就是迁都。

　　Yet apart from Mr Zhu, officials have kept quiet on the subject. Hu Xingdou of the Beijing Institute of Technology says there has been no official response to an open letter he wrote to the Chinese leadership in 2006. In it he suggested that the capital should be built anew in central China. Mr Hu says this position would have the advantage of being harder to attack (he sees Beijing as perilously exposed to assault from the sea). The building of a new and much smaller capital, he says, could also send a positive political message: that the party has turned its back on Beijing’s “feudal” past and embraced small government. Mr Hu proposes to call it Zhongjing, or “central capital” (Beijing means the northern one).

　　然而，除了朱镕基，大部分的官员在此问题上都保持缄默。北京理工大学的胡星斗教授说他在2006年给中国政府写了一封公开信，至今还未收到官方回复。在这封信里，他建议中国应该在中部地区择地另建新都。胡教授说如果在华中建都，对防范外来袭击较为有利(他认为北京容易受到来自海上的侵略)。他还说，新建一个更小的首都，也会发出一个积极的政治讯息：共产党告别大北京“封建”的历史，转而拥抱小政府。胡教授主张把这个新首都叫做“中京”，意为“中部的首都”(北京意为北部的首都)。

　　Yuan Gang of Peking University describes Beijing as a city of “special privileges” that is literally sucking neighbouring regions dry. He says the billions of dollars now being spent to channel water from China’s south to the arid north around Beijing could have been better spent moving the capital to where the water is. The first of these diversion schemes is due to be launched next year, but the extra water provided will still be far from enough to satisfy Beijing’s demand. The resident population of Beijing, including its rural areas and satellite towns, reached 20m last year. Even with the increase in supply, the city would have adequate water resources only for a population of 18.3m, says the city’s Commission of Population and Family Planning (see chart).

　　北京大学教授袁刚认为北京是一个拥有“特权”的城市，为了自身的发展，毫不客气地吸干了周围地区的水资源。中国政府现在正花费几十亿美元从南部调水，以缓解首都周围干旱的北部地区的水荒。袁教授说，把钱花在调水上，还不如用这笔钱直接把首都迁到水资源丰沛的地方。此次调水方案一期工程将于明年建成通水，但是它所提供的额外水源仍然远不能满足北京的需求。去年北京的常住人口，包括郊区和卫星城在内，达到了2000万。北京市人口和计划生育委员会的数据显示，即使加上增加的外部供水，北京的水资源最多也只能支持1830万人(见上图)。

　　Beijing’s bureaucrats are unlikely to be persuaded. Their privileges, common to all those registered as Beijing citizens (ie, not migrants from other provinces), include readier access than most other Chinese have to some of the country’s best educational and medical facilities. Some local officials in places favoured by scholars as potential capital sites have been proclaiming their merits. But given the allure of Beijing’s amenities, it is little wonder that the central authorities keep quiet.

　　尽管如此，北京的官僚们还是不太可能被说动。他们和所有拥有北京户口的居民(即非外省进京务工人员)一样，享有各种特权，包括比其他地区的居民优先享有中国最好的教育和医疗设施。一些被学者们提名为候选新都地址的城市已经开始为自己做起了广告。但北京的澳际条件仍然具有无与伦比的吸引力，难怪中央政府对迁都的提议至今缄口不谈。

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