安迪的观点至少有四分之一世纪以来，美国军事战略家们一直计算：如果中国对美国在亚洲的盟国采取进攻性举措——比如对台湾实施海上封锁，或威胁日本的重要海上通道——美国海军可以作为最后的手段，对北京实施石油武器化。
Andy’s view For at least a quarter of a century, US military strategists have calculated that if China moved aggressively against Washington’s allies in Asia — by imposing a naval blockade on Taiwan, or threatening Japan’s vital sea lanes — the US Navy could, as a last resort, weaponize oil against Beijing.
中国大部分海运石油进口通过马六甲海峡，这是印度洋和南中国海相连的狭窄水道。封锁这条通道，人们认为，中国的经济将陷入瘫痪。
Most of China’s seaborne oil imports flow through the Strait of Malacca, a narrow waterway that links the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Block that passage, the thinking went, and China’s economy would be crippled.
伊朗战争粉碎了这些假设。不仅是中国经济在石油供应中断中幸存下来，几乎毫发无伤，而且其庞大的石油储备、陆上管道、将煤炭转化为化学品的新技术，以及对绿色技术的拥抱，都赋予了北京战略杠杆。相比之下，环中国的岛国经济体，包括日本、台湾和菲律宾——这些国家几乎完全依赖能源进口——正面临挣扎。
The war in Iran has shattered those assumptions. Not only has China’s economy survived the oil supply disruption largely unscathed, but its enormous oil stockpiles, overland pipelines, new technologies to convert coal to chemicals, and embrace of green technologies have given Beijing strategic leverage. By contrast, the island economies around China, including Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines — all overwhelmingly reliant on imported energy — are struggling.
与此同时，特朗普政府正面临因能源冲击导致的通货上涨带来的日益严峻的经济和政治后果。
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is facing the increasingly fraught economic and political fallout of rising inflation as a result of the energy shock.
早在2003年，前中国领导人胡锦涛就曾提出对他所称的"马六甲困境"的担忧，暴露出一种深深的不安，这种不安此后一直是北京工业、军事和外交战略的关键驱动力。事实上，耗资千亿美元的 Belt & Road Initiative 在很大程度上是一种防御性战略，其出发点是希望通过向内陆的广阔 Eurasia 大陆转靠，从而降低中国对美国海上威胁的敏感性。
As long ago as 2003, former Chinese leader Hu Jintao raised concerns about what he called the “Malacca Dilemma,” revealing a deep insecurity that has been a key driver of Beijing’s industrial, military, and diplomatic strategy ever since. Indeed, the trillion-dollar Belt & Road Initiative is in large part a defensive maneuver, born of a desire to reduce China’s susceptibility to maritime threats from the US by looking inland to the vast Eurasia continent.
如今，北京已经将曾经的一种慢性脆弱转化为一种优势，并开始重新绘制其地区的地缘政治地图。
Today, Beijing has transformed what was once a chronic vulnerability into a source of strength and begun to redraw the geopolitical map of its region.
斯坦福大学胡佛研究院的研究员 Eyck Freymann 相信，如今美国的封锁将产生相反的效果。"你会先饿死你的盟友，然后才饿死中国，"他告诉我。
Eyck Freymann, a Hoover fellow at Stanford University and the author of , believes that now, a US blockade would have the opposite effect. “You’d starve out your allies before you starve out China,” he told me.
弗赖曼指出，过去几个月里，随着伊朗战争持续、能源危机不断加剧，中国也加强了对周边小国的“灰色地带”威慑手段，这绝非偶然。
It’s no coincidence, Freymann said, that China has intensified its “grey zone” intimidation of smaller neighbors over the past several months as war in Iran drags on, prolonging the energy crisis.
中国海警船近期增加了在台湾东海岸附近的巡逻频次，这是其试图强化对台湾周边航道执法管控的举措之一。这些行动引发了日本的警惕——日本经济高度依赖海上通道维持运转，而近期高市早苗首相有关台湾的言论又引发了中日间的外交争执。与此同时，北京方面也在不断强化对菲律宾海域的领土主张。
Chinese coast guard vessels have increased patrols off Taiwan’s east coast, part of a wider campaign to assert law enforcement control over shipping routes around the island. Those moves have alarmed Japan, whose economy is dependent for its survival on open sea lines and which recently has been embroiled in a spat with China over remarks that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan. Beijing has also been stepping up its territorial claims within Philippine waters.
弗赖曼称，北京传递的明确信号就是：如今“中国是老大”。即将出版的关于西太平洋“第一岛链”的著作作者詹姆斯·克拉布特里指出，这条岛链堪称全球最重要的地缘政治断层线；伊朗战争进一步暴露了美军在亚太地区基地的脆弱性——这些基地都在中国导弹的打击范围内，同时也给美国航母力量带来了巨大压力。数十年来，美国第七舰队首次在印太地区没有航母执行任务。
The blunt message that Beijing is sending, said Freymann, is that now, “China’s boss.”What’s more, noted James Crabtree, the author of the forthcoming — on the “First Island Chain” in the western Pacific that he describes as the world’s most important geopolitical fault line — the Iran war has further exposed the vulnerability of US bases in the Asia Pacific, all within easy reach of Chinese missiles, while putting pressure on the US aircraft carrier force. For the first time in decades, the US 7th Fleet has no carriers operating in the Indo-Pacific.
克拉布特里表示，伊朗冲突结束后，中国“整体处境相对有利”，而“美国如今必须就该地区的军事部署做出决策”。
With China emerging from the Iran conflict “looking relatively good,” said Crabtree, “the US now has decisions to make” on its military deployments in the region.
部分分析人士认为，美国对伊朗发动打击实际上重创了其主要地缘政治对手中国——后者正是伊朗石油的最大买家。哈德逊研究所研究员齐内布·里布阿写道：“通往太平洋的道路必经德黑兰。”事实上，中国已成功开辟了多条规避能源封锁的通道，切实解决了所谓的“马六甲困局”，并成功扭转了与华盛顿之间的战略态势。如今，随着伊朗战争削弱了美国在亚太地区的影响力，美国的盟友们也面临着自身的生存危机。
Some analysts argued that in striking Iran the US was actually delivering a devastating blow to China, its main geopolitical adversary and the primary customer of Iranian oil. Zineb Riboua, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, wrote that “the road to the Pacific runs through Tehran In reality, China has demonstrated it has built multiple routes to escape an energy blockade; in effect, it has resolved its “Malacca Dilemma” — and turned the tables on Washington. US allies now face their own existential predicament, just as war in Iran depletes American power in the region.
著名人物前印度驻沙特阿拉伯、阿曼和阿联酋大使撰文称：“马六甲海峡被货币化，甚至在必要时被武器化的可能性似乎正在增大”，这促使人们寻求绕过该海峡的创新举措，其中最为引人注目的便是泰国修建一条新的陆桥。
Notable The former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE writes that “the likelihood of Malacca being monetized and, if necessary, weaponized, appears to be growing” which has led to innovations that aim to bypass the strait entirely, most notably the construction of a new land bridge in Thailand.