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两年前呢，一帮子欧美学者聚在一起忧心忡忡地讨论中国问题。现场的布置都还挺美美哒，但气氛却沉重得不行。
为啥呢？因为他们发现，习大大执政之后，
中国的态度似乎愈发强硬了起来——
Two years into Xi Jinping’s presidency, China’s politics were turning away from the liberalising trend of the previous three decades, towards a hard-edged nationalism that was discomfiting China’s immediate neighbours and their western allies.
“hard-edged”字面意义为“硬边”，于是也不难联想到它的引申意思“有棱角的”“锋芒毕露的”。
而“discomfit”则表示“使……为难”。几个词就刻画出了一个张牙舞爪的中国形象，嗯，外媒最爱干的事儿。
这些学者们讨论得很焦心啊……如果中国在经济上继续牛叉、政治上继续强硬、世界影响力还进一步提升，感觉貌似不太妙啊……
他们的脑洞不可避免地打开了——
The group discussed whether China could succeed. What might go wrong? Would China reset the world’s economic and security arrangements
in its favour
?
后面这句读起来迷之魔幻呢。
学者们的脑洞还没有结束，开始
期盼他们的美国爸爸能拯救一下
——
What could the US do to defend its norms and values beyond concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the huge US-led Pacific trade initiative, and shoring up political security guarantees to its close regional allies, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, to limit the growth of China’s influence?
“shore up”表示“加固”，看字面也很容易感受出来。
这一段若是写在两年前、这群学者正在讨论的时候，那估计没人笑得出来：这的的确确就是美国及其盟友们在认真思考的问题啊！
但现在看来呢？TPP什么的感觉就跟一个笑话似的——还指望美国利用TPP来遏制中国？人特朗普童鞋自己就先不和TPP玩了好么！
真是讽刺极了
无论读者还是这篇评论的作者，咱们都只能算是事后诸葛亮——
毕竟谁也没想到特朗普真的这么能作。
所以现在回想起当时这群学者的讨论，颇有种“你们千算万算都没想到的事真的发生了”之感——
The one scenario not discussed was that the US would tear up its own rules, leaving the field open to China to consolidate its dominance of the Asia Pacific and extend its global influence.
Nobody even imagined such a far-fetched possibility.
“far-fetched”：遥远的、不靠谱的、牵强附会的、八竿子打不着的。
