When a student asked Sigmund Freud about the meaning of his cigar-smoking habit, the Austrian psychoanalyst is said to have replied: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” By the same token, sometimes a train crash is just a train crash. But the recent high-speed rail accident in China is not one of those.

　　一名學生問奧地利心理學家西格蒙德?弗洛伊德(Sigmund Freud)：你抽雪茄這個習慣有何意義？據說弗洛伊德是這樣回答的：“雪茄有時就只是雪茄。”同樣，列車相撞有時就只是列車相撞。但中國最近的動車事故不在此列。

　　For many Chinese, the crash and its subsequent mishandling – including what looked to some like an attempt to bury the evidence – have been a revelation. An outpouring of anger has exposed a profound cynicism about how China is governed.

　　對于許多中國人來說，撞車事故以及事故后的不當處理（包括在不少人看來像是在掩埋證據的企圖）頗能說明問題。人們渲泄憤怒，從中暴露出他們對中國管治方式的一種深刻狐疑。

　　The death of at least 40 people on a high-speed rail line that had become a totem of China’s sleek progress towards wealth, modernity and national prestige is symbolic on many levels. If the trains are not safe, what of the banking system or the management of the economy itself? The tragedy has become a public relations disaster for a Communist party leadership dominated by engineers and technocrats. Just as Mao Zedong sought to create an industrial revolution by force of will in the Great Leap Forward, so China’s present leaders seem to think they can leapfrog technology through modernising zeal alone.

　　動車曾是中國順利邁向繁榮富強和現代化的象征，導致至少40人喪生的動車事故，在很多層面上具有象征意義。如果列車不安全，那么銀行業體系或者經濟本身的管理呢？共產黨領導層官員大多為工程師或技術官僚出身，對他們來說，這場悲劇已變成了一場公關災難。正如在大躍進期間，毛澤東試圖憑借人的干勁創造一場工業革命，當今中國的領導層似乎認為，僅憑現代化熱情就能實現跨越式的技術飛躍。

　　China’s high-speed rail network, built in less than a decade, is the world’s longest. Its trains were supposed to travel at speeds that would put Japanese technology to shame. Instead, the crash has exposed hubris, incompetence and corruption in a single, tragic crunching of metal. Perhaps not since Tiananmen Square more than 20 years ago has the Communist party looked so naked in the face of public contempt.

　　中國的高速鐵路是全世界最長的鐵路，只用了不到十年時間建成。中國高速列車的速度，本應讓日本的技術相形見絀。然而，這次追尾碰撞悲劇性地暴露出傲慢、無能和腐敗。自20余年前的天安門事件以來，共產黨也許從未像現在這樣在公眾面前顏面掃地。

　　Certainly, previous scandals have exposed the rotten governance lurking beneath economic success. In the past few years alone, Chinese people have seen their children crushed by poorly constructed schools and poisoned with tainted milk. Both tragedies resulted from corruption and lack of regulatory control that the state subsequently sought to cover up by suppressing press stories and imprisoning the parents of affected children. The train crash is different in at least two respects. First, high-speed rail was explicitly a national project. The leadership took great pride in China’s ability to “digest” and “improve on” foreign technology. Officials had already laid out ambitious plans to sell the Chinese system to Malaysia, Brazil, the UK and the US.

　　當然，之前已經有一些丑聞揭示了隱藏在經濟成功背后的嚴重管治問題。僅在過去幾年中，中國人就曾目睹自己的孩子被建筑質量低劣的校舍壓死、被摻假的牛奶毒害。這兩起悲劇的根源都在于腐敗和監管不力，而悲劇發生后，政府通過壓制媒體報道和關押受害兒童的父母來試圖掩蓋真相。但是，動車追尾事故至少在兩個方面有所不同。首先，高速鐵路是明確的國家工程。中國“消化”和“改進”國外技術的能力，令領導層引以為豪。中國官員們曾經躊躇滿志地規劃，要向馬來西亞、巴西、英國和美國出口中國的高鐵設備和技術。

　　The national endorsement has made it difficult to pin the problems on local officials. Even before the fatal crash, the government sacked the rail minister on suspicion of corruption. A subsequent decision to lower the maximum speed from 350km per hour to 300km was a tacit admission of dangerous technological over-reach. We don’t yet know the reason for the crash. But pushing the system beyond its technical capacity and cutting corners to free up slush money are plausible factors.

　　因為有國家的支持，人們很難將問題歸咎于地方官員。即便在這場傷亡慘重的追尾事故發生之前，中國鐵道部長已經因涉嫌腐敗而下臺。之后將高鐵最高時速從350公里降至300公里的決定，等于含蓄承認了技術可能不到位的危險。我們還不知道這次追尾碰撞的原因。但是，讓系統在超出技術能力的參數下運行，以及為了充實小金庫而“走捷徑”，都是可信的因素。

　　Second, many of the crash victims must have come from China’s new wealthy elites given the, much-criticised, high price of tickets. When school buildings collapsed in Sichuan in the 2008 earthquake, the victims tended to be the children of poorer families. Melamine-tainted baby formula affected a broader cross-section of people. But wealthy urbanites would have had the knowledge and money to buy foreign formula if they chose. That made it slightly easier to quash the story, particularly in an Olympic year when the country was in celebratory mood – or else!

　　其次，由于票價高（這點飽受批評），此次動車事故的很多受害者肯定來自中國新富階層。當校舍在2008年四川大地震期間垮塌時，受害者一般是較貧困家庭的孩子。摻雜三聚氰胺的嬰兒配方奶粉影響到更廣泛的人群。但富有的城市居民會有知識和財力去購買外國配方奶粉。這讓事件的平息稍微容易一些，尤其是在北京奧運會之年，全國彌漫著慶祝氣氛之時——否則，結果難以想象！

　　Partly because the victims of this tragedy are members of the new middle class, it has been impossible to keep a lid on the story. Users of Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging site, have produced an outpouring of contemptuous comment. One posted photos of the rail minister’s fancy watch collection, an indication of his less than modest lifestyle. Weibo alone boasts 140m users, mostly from the urban middle class that the Communist party is supposed to have co-opted into its modernising project.

　　在一定程度上，正是因為這場悲劇的受害者來自中國新興中產階層，這次事件幾乎無法隱瞞。新浪微博（與Twitter類似的一個微博網站）上批評之聲四起。一位微博用戶張貼了中國鐵道部長戴著不同名表的幾張照片，這表明，他的生活決不樸素。新浪微博一家就宣稱擁有1.4億用戶，其中多數來自城市中產階層，共產黨本應爭取到他們的支持，讓他們加入黨的現代化努力。

　　A middle class revolt is particularly dangerous for the Chinese leadership. It undermines a recent truism of Chinese analysis, sometimes referred to as the Beijing consensus. This contends, among other things, that people don’t worry too much about democracy, freedom of expression and free markets so long as they have a technocratic leadership capable of delivering economic progress.

　　對中國領導層而言，中產階層的抗議尤其危險。它將削弱近年在分析中國時的一個公認看法，有時被稱為“北京共識”。根據這種“共識”，只要有一個技術官僚領導層能夠帶來經濟發展，人們就不會對民主、言論自由和自由市場過于操心。

　　The cult of GDPism appears no longer to hold. China grew at 10.3 per cent last year, and should clear at least 9 per cent this year. But while taxi drivers riot in Hangzhou over low wages, the revolt over the train crash has been over the more abstract concept of governance. China’s middle class wants a leadership that can contain corruption, ensure safety and not put pride above engineering principles. It wants, in the arresting words of a commentary in the People’s Daily – of all places – economic growth that is not “smeared in blood”.

　　對于GDP的狂熱迷戀似乎再也站不住腳了。去年，中國經濟增長10.3%，今年至少應會達到9%。但是，盡管杭州出租車司機因為收入低而罷工，但圍繞此次動車事故的抗議則是針對更為抽象的管治概念。中國的中產階層希望領導層能夠遏制腐敗、確保安全，不要讓驕傲凌駕于工程原則之上。用《人民日報》一篇評論文章中引人注目的話來說，中國要發展，但不要帶血的GDP。

　　The anger appears to breathe life into an old argument, all but abandoned in the face of China’s relentless economic progress, that a rising middle class will demand more accountability of its leaders. If that turns out to be true then, alongside the people who tragically lost their lives on the tracks outside Wenzhou, the Beijing consensus itself may also have perished.

　　在中國勢不可擋的經濟發展面前，有一種老說法曾經幾乎被拋棄，那就是日益壯大的中產階層將要求領導人在更大程度上對人民負責。動車事故后人們的憤怒似乎給這種說法注入新的生命力。若果真如此，那么在溫州郊外路軌上遇難者旁邊，北京共識本身或許也已夭折。