纽约时报对中国航母下水的报道.doc

（用谷歌帮忙，自己翻译，尽量忠于原文。）

BEIJING — In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.
北京 - 一个国家的最高领导人出席了仪式，中国将其首艘航母（星期二）投入服务，在附近海域的岛屿北京和其邻国之间的紧张局势升级时此举意在表明其不断增长的军事实力。

Officials said the carrier, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by China, would protect national sovereignty, an issue that has become a touchstone of the government’s dispute with Japan over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.
官员们说，航母（于1998年从乌克兰购买的废弃容器，由中国翻新），是维护国家主权。这个问题已成为政府与日本在东中国海的岛屿所有权的试金石。

But despite the triumphant tone of the launching, which was watched by President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and despite rousing assessments by Chinese military experts about the importance of the carrier, the vessel will be used only for training and testing for the foreseeable future.
但是，尽管这是国家主席胡锦涛和国务院总理温家宝亲临，尽管中国军事专家热烈的评估有关航母的重要性的胜利基调，航母将在可预见的未来只用于训练和测试。

The mark “16” on the carrier’s side indicates that it is limited to training, Chinese and other military experts said. China does not have planes capable of landing on the carrier and so far training for such landings has been carried out on land, they said.
航母在舰旁的标记“16”表明它是有限于训练的，中国和其他国家的军事专家说。中国没有飞机能够降落在航母上，至今只能在陆地上进行了这种着陆训练，他们说。

Even so, the public appearance of the carrier at the northeastern port of Dalian was used as an occasion to stir patriotic feelings, which have run at fever pitch in the last 10 days over the dispute between China and Japan over the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
即便如此，航母在东北部的大连港作为一个场合籍公开露面来激起爱国情怀，而这种爱国情怀在过去10天里因为中国和日本在东中国海的岛屿钓鱼岛（日称为尖阁列岛）之间的纠纷达到了狂热程度。

The carrier will “raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese Navy” and help China “to effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests,” the Ministry of Defense said.
国防部说：“航空母舰”，全面提升经营实力，并帮助中国“，以有效地维护国家主权，安全和发展利益。”

The Communist Party congress that will begin the country’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition is expected to be held next month, and the public unveiling of the carrier appeared to be part of an effort to forge national unity ahead of the event.
国家的共产党全国代表大会，将开始一次一个十年的领导层过渡，预计将于下月举行，并公开亮相的航空母舰似乎是制造国家团结进取的事件的努力的一部分。

For international purposes, the public unveiling of the carrier seemed intended to signal to smaller nations in the South China Sea, including the Philippines, an American ally, that China has an increasing number of impressive assets to deploy.
在国际目的来说，似乎航空母舰公开亮相是对周边在中国南海小国，包括菲律宾，美国的盟国，发出信号，传达中国有很多和强大的武器资产能够部署。

American military planners have played down the significance of the commissioning of the carrier. Some Navy officials have even said they would encourage China to move ahead with building its own aircraft carrier and the ships to accompany it, because it would be a waste of money.
美国军事规划者则对航空母舰下水的重要性看低。一些海军官员甚至表示，他们将鼓励中国继续推进建设自己的航母和船舶陪它，因为这将是浪费金钱。

Other military experts outside China have agreed with that assessment.
在中国以外的其他军事专家都同意这种评估。

“The fact is the aircraft carrier is useless for the Chinese Navy,” You Ji, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore, said in an interview. “If it is used against America, it has no survivability. If it is used against China’s neighbors, it’s a sign of bullying.”
“事实上航空母舰对中国海军是无用的，”You Ji，他是访问新加坡国立大学高级研究员，在接受记者采访时说。 “如果它是用来对付美国，它没有生存能力。如果它是用来对付中国的邻国，这会被认为是一个以大欺小迹象。“

Vietnam, a neighbor with whom China has fought wars, operates land-based Russian Su-30 aircraft that could pose a threat to the aircraft carrier, Mr. You said. “In the South China Sea, if the carrier is damaged by the Vietnamese, it’s a huge loss of face,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”
越南，一个和中国人打过战争的邻居，在陆地有俄罗斯苏-30飞机，对航母构成威胁。 “在中国南海，如果航空母舰被越南损坏了，那是巨大的没有面子，”他说。 “这是不值得的。”

Up to now, Chinese pilots have been limited to practicing simulated carrier landings on concrete strips on land in Chinese J-8 aircraft based on Soviet-made MIG-23s produced about 25 years ago, Mr. You said. The pilots could not undertake the difficult maneuver of landing on a moving carrier because China does not yet have suitable aircraft, Mr. You said.
截至目前，中国飞行员都被限制在内陆在混凝土条土​​地上练习模拟航空母舰上的降落操作，用的是中国仿制大约25年前生产的苏制米格-23S基础上的J-8型飞机，You先生说。飞行员不能在一艘航行移动中的航空母舰进行起飞降落的困难操作，因为中国还没有合适的飞机，You说。

The question of whether China will move ahead and build its own carrier depends in large part, he said, on whether China can develop aircraft to land on one. “It’s a long, long process for constructing such aircraft,” he said.
关于中国会不会自己建造航空母舰的问题在很大程度上取决于中国是否会开发能够降落航空母舰的飞机。“这是一个长期的，漫长的过程，构建这种飞机，”他说。

In contrast to some of the skepticism expressed by military experts outside China, Li Jie, a researcher at the Chinese Naval Research Institute, said in an interview in the state-run People’s Daily that the carrier would change the Chinese Navy’s traditional mind-set and bring qualitative changes to its operational style and structure, he said.
对于中国境外军事专家发表相反的怀疑态度，李杰，一个中国海军研究学院的研究人员，在接受国营的人民日报采访时说，航母将改变中国海军的传统心态，组和其运作的风格和结构带来质的变化，“

Although the Chinese military does not publish a breakdown of its military spending, foreign military experts say the navy is less well financed than the army and air force.
虽然中国军方并没有公布其军费开支的明细，外国军事专家说，海军比陆军和空军资助的要少得多