经济学人阅读11月29日

China ,Barriers to Sinology

As China’s power waxes, the West’s study of it is waning. That is worrying

一看标题，中心句，barrier，worrying，就知道这篇文章应该在说中国的一些坏话了

首先，通读全文，熟悉骨架

首段：

America’s president-elect, Joe Biden, says China is his country’s “biggest competitor”. Yet China’s centrality in the calculations of foreign-policy experts in Washington and throughout the West is hardly matched by the interest shown in academia. Despite China’s efforts to promote interest in the language—and a surge of attention to it in Western schools a few years ago—enthusiasm for China studies at university level remains lacklustre. Fear of China, and restrictions imposed by it, are in part to blame.

尾段：

For Western governments and firms coping with China is an ever more pressing concern. To respond wisely, they need to
understand what makes China tick. If there are not enough Sinologists to guide them, they will surely make mistakes.

对一些单词先不查字典啊，根据大意理解一下，大概是国外对中国的研究遭到了某些困难，导致一些*和企业在与中国合作的过程中会很容易犯错。

那是什么困难呢，我们看首段最后一句：Fear of China, and restrictions imposed by it, are in part to blame.

各段的关键句：（一般在段首或是段尾）

（二）In Britain the number of people studying China at university has dipped each year since 2017.（这是背景）

（三）Those who study Chinese at school often learn jonly enough to discover just how challenging mastery of the language is.（研究中国的语言困境）

（四）（首）A related problem is that many native speakers of Mandarin graduate from universities in China and the West with a fluent command of English.（尾）People who have grown up in China often have an advantage, not only with language but also in their ability to open doors in China for their employers.（同上文，都是说语言难题）

（五）（首）More recently, China’s increasingly repressive political climate has become a powerful deterrent to those mulling the subject.（尾）China’s soft power is weaker. Its censorship of the internet and other media and the polluted airof its cities put students off, academics say.（中国的政治问题，一个小总结）

（六）（尾）We don’t want anything to do with China—look at what’s going on there.’” Having lost hope, for the time being, of pursuing any rewarding work on China “given everything that is going on”, Mr Entwistle now works as a headhunter.（引出下面的内容，作为政治问题的背景）

（七）（尾）Archives and databases in China became harder to access; visas and interviews more difficult to arrange.（政治问题之一，资源难以获取）

（八）（首）In 2018 a survey of China-studies scholars in several Western countries as well as * found that, in the previous decade, one-third of them had been denied either entry to China or permission to use its archives.（同上，也是资源问题）

（九）（首）Some scholars now stay away from China because of the risk of being detained there.（政治问题之一，受逮捕）

（十）（首）The risks are even greater for Chinaborn academics, who make up a growing share of staff in China-studies departments.（同上，受逮捕）

那么就此画一个思维导图：

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长难句分析 （整理生词+掌握语法+翻译重点语句）：

Yet China’s centrality（/sɛn’træləti/，中心，集中性） in the calculations（ /ˌkælkju’leʃən/，计算，预估）of foreign-policy experts in Washington and throughout the West is hardly matched by the interest shown in academia（/ˌækə’dimɪə/，学术界）.

• 对中国的集中研究，华盛顿以及全世界的外国政策专家的预估与学术界的兴趣很难保持一致。

At American universities enrolments(/ɪn’rolmənt/,入学人数) in Chinese-language programmes reached 60,000 in 2013.

• 在美国的大学，汉语有关的项目入学人数在2013年达到了60,000.

• At Amercian universities 做地点状语

The first is one that has always plagued(/pleɡ/,瘟疫，使感染瘟疫) this academic field.

• plague在这里作阻碍发展比较好
• 第一点就经常阻碍这块学术领域的发展（从下文看是汉语的难度23333）
• that 后面的从句作后置定语

The two men’s continuing detention(/dɪ’tɛnʃən/, 拘留) has been interpreted by many Western observers as a sign of growing willingness by China to use flimsy（/'flɪmzi/，浅薄的） national-security charges against foreigners from countries with which it has quarrels.

• to use…作 willingness 的后置定语, against…作charges的后置定语，with which 引导的定从修饰countries
• 这两个人的持续拘留被西方的观察家解释为是对一个中国面对有争端的国家的外国人们使用浅薄的与国家安全指控信号的正在增长的证据。（自己翻译太烂。。。。这段明白意思但不知道怎么准确翻译。。。）