2011年8月26日，《纽约时报》在全球采访了3位学者和3位政府官员，就利比亚重建问题进行了一次多视角的讨论。他们是北京大学傅军教授、美国MIT的Daron Acemoglu教授、英国牛津大学Paul Collier教授以及阿富汗过渡委员会主席Ashraf Ghani先生、巴西国防部长Celso Amorim先生和英国议员Rory Stewart先生。采访内容的纸面版刊登在8月27日《纽约时报》国际版面《国际先驱报》。

傅军教授的采访内容原文如下。

【The New York Times】: In Libya, we have upon us the world’s newest country in need of rebuilding: devoid of institutions and civil society, scarred by violence, traumatized by its own past. What is your advice, for Libyans, in terms of what they should focus on as they begin rebuilding?

【纽约时报】：在利比亚，我们已经面临世界上最新的国家的重建问题：缺乏制度和公民社会，暴力之下伤痕累累，被过去重重伤害过。您认为对利比亚来说，在重建的开始他们应该把重点放在哪些地方？

【Fu Jun】: First of all, let me say diminuendos to passions; crescendos to rationality. One should be keenly aware that it is easier to destroy than to build. Institutions being historically and socially conditioned, new ones usually do not come about automatically; they evolve over time. The peril of a violent revolution to overthrow a dictatorship is easily to slide back into another form of dictatorship, and often in the name of the people. The risks are particularly large when passions are running high. Economic recovery aside, the Libyans will soon face the daunting task of both nation-building and state-building. In terms of the former, they must lose no time in learning and practicing the merits of reconciliations, and resist the temptations of revenge. In terms of the latter, they must exercise principled pragmatism to build a government powerful enough to govern, but not powerful enough to suppress. In other words, they must put together a program of building a sophisticated political system of checks and balances, sensitive to their own social and historical conditions.

【傅军】：首先，要多点理性，少点激情。千万不要忘记摧毁容易，建设不易。由于制度都深嵌于历史和社会之中，新制度通常不会自动出现，而需要时间而演化。靠暴力革命推翻独裁政权，很容易滑落到一种新的专制形态，并往往以“人民”的名义。激情高涨，风险尤大。除了复苏经济，利比亚要面临的艰巨任务是民族建设和国家建设。关于民族建设，他们必须抓紧学会和实践族群间的和解，警惕复仇的诱惑。关于国家建设，他们必须把实用与原则相结合，建立一个强大到足以有效治理的政府，但不足于镇压人民。换言之，他们必须建立一个有权力制约和平衡的政治体系，而且符合自己的社会和历史条件。

【The New York Times】: What is your advice to the West about the appropriate way to help and be involved in Libya and across the new democracies of the Arab world, without taking on the impossible?

【纽约时报】：您对西方的帮助和参与利比亚和阿拉伯世界的新民主国家的适当方式有何建议，不考虑没可能性的那些？

【Fu Jun】: The West should continue to engage, but not to impose. Human learning is an evolutionary process. This is especially true of collective learning as it involves complex co-ordinations of large numbers of people in terms of values, norms, and actions. I would also suggest that human rationality is a function of prevailing social and economic conditions. Such being the case, new institutions stand a better chance to survive and thrive when imported than rather exported. The West should stand ready to help rather than to impose.

【傅军】：西方应该积极继续地参与，但不是强加。人类学习是个进化过程。集体学习尤其如此，因为当学习涉及大量人群的不同的价值观、规范和行动时，协调将变得十分艰难和复杂。我还想提醒的是，人的理性是现行的社会和经济制度的函数。在这种情况下，自愿进口的新制度相对于出口强加的新制度更有存活率。因此，西方应该作好准备去帮助，而不是强加。

【The New York Times】: What have we learned, say, in the last ten years about the ability of some countries to change others? Should the West be more humble about its ability to bend the trajectories of faraway lands, or should it remain confident?

【纽约时报】：在过去的十年里，我们关于一些国家改变其它国家的能力学到了什么？西方国家是否应该对其转变遥远国度的轨道的能力更为谨慎，或者说它应该保持自信？

【Fu Jun】: The record is mixed. A salient and positive example is the continued engagement with China through mechanisms such as the WTO, bilateral strategic dialogues, trade and investment, cultural and educational exchanges. As a result, millions and millions of Chinese have been lifted out of absolute poverty. This is no small achievement in human history, and provides a basis for human dignity and social progress. We, in the East and in the West, should be both proud of what we have achieved thus far by working together. On the other hand, often times when the West did not do well is when it became overly confident about turning what should be a facilitating hand into a bending hand, and especially when that hand is armed with hard power rather than soft power. There are lessons to be learnt. The West should be more patient and more sensitive to local conditions in faraway lands. To facilitate changes effectively, one must simultaneously have global vision and local knowledge.

【傅军】：过去的记录有好有坏。一个明显的好的例子是西方和中国的关系，通过世贸组织、双边战略对话、贸易投资、文化教育交流等方面的持续合作，使成千上万的中国人脱离了绝对贫穷。脱贫决非小事，因为它为人类尊严和社会进步提供了基础。不论是东方还是西方，我们都应为我们迄今所取得的成就感到骄傲。另一方面，当西方过度自信，从一个帮助者的角色变成一个强加者时，特别是使用武力这种硬实力而不是软实力时，往往就容易犯错误。需要汲取经验教训。对于遥远的国度，西方应更具有耐心，更多地考虑当地的约束条件。展开行之有效的变革，既要有全球视野，又需要当地知识。

【The New York Times】: It seems as though many of the countries that have most succeeded in changing of late — India, China, Brazil, the nations of the Arab Spring — have done so by changing from within rather than through Western intervention. And yet they have all done so by taking advantage of the systems that the West has built. Talk a bit about that duality of countries that benefit from the Western-built world order but ultimately do the changing required on their own.

【纽约时报】：成功的后发展国家，比如印度、中国、巴西和“阿拉伯之春”的国家，似乎变革都是从内部开始而不是源于西方干预。尽管他们都是受益于西方已经建立的国际体系才做到这些。请您谈一谈关于那些从西方建立世界秩序中受益，但最终还是靠自身要求的变革的国家的两面性吧。

【Fu Jun】: As I said, although institutions are historically and socially conditioned, they also evolve over time. However, when not just a few but millions and millions of people are involved in a complex and condensed process of transition, the reality has to be that some would inevitably adapt to new institutions more quickly than others --- here the new institutions being a modern market economy based on universal rule of law as against an autarkic village or tribal system based on particularistic social relations. Such being the case, one size DOES NOT fit all, so to speak. You need to manage what has to be a dynamic process of nuanced duality for all people involved. How to manage that successfully? Phase-in and phase-out is the key here. By the way, it has taken centuries for the West to build its own system. Historically the West did not put up its own system overnight. It built markets and rule of law first, and then it gradually expanded political participation.

【傅军】：正如我说过的，制度是受历史和社会条件约束的，其变化需要随着时间的推移而演化。当密集和复杂的转型所涉及的不只是几个人而是数百万人时，能适应新制度的人数一定是有先有后的，这是不可避免的。这里说的新制度是指现代法治和现代市场，即在更大时空内与陌生人交道的市场，这不同于传统上自给自足的村落和熟人社会的集市。在这种情况下，很难有唯一的标准答案。管理的挑战一定是个保持微妙平衡的动态过程，关键在于在新旧两者之间的逐步推进和逐步淘汰。顺便提一下，回顾历史，西方建立自己的体系时，也非一蹴而就，也花了几个世纪的时间。顺序是先建立市场和法治，然后逐步扩大政治参与。

【The New York Times】: President Obama has said to the Libyan people that “your revolution is your own.” Does this signal the end of a certain kind of Western faith in the power to remake other societies? If so, is it in your view a healthy or dangerous modesty?

【纽约时报】：奥巴马总统对利比亚说：“你们的革命是你们自己的。”这是某种在西方强国的重塑其它社会的信心的终结的信号吗？如果是这样的话，您认为这是一种健康还是危险的谦虚？

【Fu Jun】: In a globalized age of information, it does make sense to play up soft power and play down hard power. A proper mix of both is called smart power, is it not? Given the mixed record of its experience in the past decade, the United Sates does need to recalibrate the power spectrum. This is healthy modesty.

【傅军】：在全球化的信息时代，强调软实力，淡化硬实力，是有道理的。所谓"聪明实力"是两者之间适度混合，不是吗？鉴于过去十年的表现好坏都有，美国的确有必要重新校准两者间的比例。这是健康的谦虚。