上个世纪90年代中美关系最困难的时候，您依然与中国外文局合作，发起了《中国文化与文明》大型出版项目，我想您当时一定压力很大。你能做到这一点，是出于什么样的信念和动力？
有大的原因，也有小的原因。先说大的原因，从60年代我开始积极思考中美关系，我认为美国的对华遏制政策存在着巨大的历史不公。从1949开始，遏制或孤立中国的政策没有取得任何好的效果，不仅对中国不利，也无益于美国。
人们会时常问我，特别在90年代中美关系最困难的时期，他们问：“你是在试图让中国开放吗？”我回答说：“不，中国开不开放由中国人决定，我是在试图让美国开放。”我为什么这么说，因为如果美国人不去了解中国，不能接受中国的革命、发展与独立，他们就不会理解这个世界最基本的构成元素。所以广义上，这是我做这个项目时的政治环境。
在90年代，美国再一次迅速展开对华施压的行动并敌视中国。可如果美国只是因为别国不根据美国的意愿行事，就敌视这个国家，那么将有更多人不再愿与美国对话。所以我认为，中美之间的友好交往不能断。同时我也认为，对中国的研究和思考被西方人大大垄断了。可有多少西方人知道任何一个中国著名的历史学家？有多少西方人知道任何一个中国著名的画家？所以，我做这个出版项目的原因，并不止在于加强中美文化本身的联系，还有一个信念，就是让美国和西方世界记住那些中国学者的名字，那些中国学者才是最了解中国的人。在那个年代，写中国的人都是西方人，这就造成了写作内容的失衡。所以我的另一部分初衷，就是和中国外文局一道突破这一巨大障碍。
但是，正如你讲，虽然这个项目在美国敌视中国这一大环境下成形，但是通过外文局编辑和我在耶鲁的共同努力，我们自己创造出一个环境，一个基于平等和相互尊重的环境。在这个环境下，我们共同寻找当时所面临问题的解决方法，尊重与平等的精神支撑我们面对现实挑战。这种精神很重要，因为你还是能在美国政府上下的对华态度中看到优越感和傲慢自大，他们总说要找控制中国的办法，质问中国是否担起国际责任，但美国却没有问自己，如何管理好自己，自己是否履行了国际责任。所以做这个项目也是想在中美间开辟出一条尊重平等的新路。
并且，在和中国外文局的合作中我认识了一批人，他们坚定、有想法、思路开阔，他们教会我很多我需要去明白的事，也让我在做这个项目时深受启发，这个出版项目中涉及的书种类烦杂，所以项目汇集了来自于世界很多地方的学者，不只有美国人，还有欧洲人，包括俄罗斯人。这虽然是一个非常复杂的项目，但它成功了，因为在工作和协调中，参与该项目的中国团队发扬了尊重与平等的精神，这虽然只是部分中国精神的缩影，但我相信在广义上，它将大大有益于中美关系。
[Transcript]
Well, there are big factors and there are small factors. The larger one was, I, from the 60s on when I first became active, had thought that there was enormous historic injustice involved in the US policy towards China- its containment policies, its policies since 1949 that nothing good had come out of such containment or the isolation. And part of what were so bad about it was not just about China; it was also what it meant for the US.
Because sometimes people would ask me particularly in the difficult years in the 90s, “are you trying to open up China? ”, I said “no, that’s the decision for the Chinese to make. I’m trying to open up America.” Because in part, if Americans can't understand, if they can’t come to terms with the Chinese revolution, the Chinese development, the development of independent China, if they can’t come to terms with that, they’re not going to understand very basic elements in the world. So there was the broad sense of the political context.
And I felt that Americans were very quick to move towards once again in the 90s trying to pressure and show hostility towards China. And after all, if you simply take it stand towards a country on the basis of things you don’t like, there would be an awful lot of people that didn’t talk to the US, given what it does in the world. So I felt the important thing was that the links be continued. Now within that, I also felt that the study and thinking about China had been much too monopolized by Westerners. How many westerners knew a famous Chinese historian? How many westerners knew a famous Chinese painter? So part of the idea of the project was not simply to develop cultural links per se, it was also predicated upon the believe that some of that certainly I believed in, that it was time that the Chinese scholars who knew their country best should become names known in my country and the western world. After a most people who were writing about China were westerners, and there was no balance in those years. So part of the original hope in working together was to break that barrier as well, because it was a profound barrier.
But it was done as you say in a hostile environment initially, and yet, we were able by creating a milieu here with editors at CIPG and the work I did in regards to Yale, to create an environment, which was based I think on a real spirit of trust and mutual respect and equality. And within that, figuring out how to solve of the problems we had to confront, which were many, and yet which were in a way, given the spirit, a real challenge. The spirit is important because the tone that you still often find in American policy towards China, all the way up and down, is still a rather condescending in my opinion, an arrogant tone - we have to know how to manage China, we have to question is it living up to its responsibilities in the world, we don’t ask these question in the US, we should, but we don’t. So the project was designed to also cut through all of that as well.
And I found, in working with CIPG, a group of people who were committed, thoughtful, open to try all sorts of different ways, and they partly educated me into what I needed to understand to make a project like this work - this very multi-dimensional project of all these books, bringing together all these scholars from so many parts of the world, not just Americans, but there were Europeans and Russians. There were various scholars that were brought in. This was an enormously complicated project, but it worked because the Chinese team here working and interacting, was able to develop in miniature the kind of spirit that I think actually would be far more helpful in a broad sense, I’ve always believed, in US-Chinese relations.
