1.媒体来源:
New York Times
2.完整新闻标题:
North Korea’s Nuclear Strength, Encapsulated in an Online Ad for Lithium
3.完整新闻内文:
North Korea’s Nuclear Strength, Encapsulated in an Online Ad for Lithium
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROADAPRIL 3, 2017
WASHINGTON — The online ad reads like something only a metallurgist could
love: an offer to sell 22 pounds of highly pure lithium 6 every month, set
for delivery from the port of Dandong, China.
华盛顿——这则网络广告似乎只有冶金学家会感兴趣：每月出售22磅（约合10公斤）高纯
度锂6，从中国丹东港发货。
But it caught the attention of intelligence agencies around the world for a
simple reason: Lithium 6 offers a fast way to turn an ordinary atom bomb into
a hydrogen bomb, magnifying its destructive power by up to 1,000 times. The
seller listed in the ad — who even provided his cellphone number — was
identified in a recent United Nations report as the third secretary in the
North Korean Embassy in Beijing.
但它引起了全球情报机构的注意，原因很简单：锂6能迅速让普通的原子弹变成氢弹，将
其破坏力最高放大1000倍。在最近的一份联合国报告中，广告中标明的卖方——此人甚至
提供了自己的手机号码——身份被确认为朝鲜驻北京大使馆三等秘书。
When President Trump meets with President Xi Jinping in Florida this week,
administration officials say, his top agenda item will be pressing China to
sign on to the most powerful set of economic sanctions ever imposed on North
Korea over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Mr. Trump has
repeatedly vowed to stop the North’s nuclear efforts, telling The Financial
Times in an interview published on Sunday: “If China is not going to solve
North Korea, we will. That is all that I am telling you.”
联邦政府官员称，本周在佛罗里达州会见中国国家主席习近平时，川普总统的首要议程将
是向中国施压，让其同意一系列针对朝鲜的经济制裁措施。它们将是朝鲜因核武器和弹道
导弹计划而受到的最严厉制裁。川普多次发誓要阻止朝鲜的核计划。在《金融时报》
(The Financial Times)周日刊登的采访中，川普说：“如果中国不解决朝鲜问题，我们
解决。我只能告诉你这么多。”
But experts say the offer to sell excess lithium is evidence that North Korea
has produced so much of the precious material that it is too late to prevent
the nation from becoming an advanced nuclear power.
但专家称，那则销售多余的锂的广告证明，朝鲜已经大量生产了这种珍贵原料，现在阻止
该国成为先进的核国家为时已晚。
If that is the case, Mr. Trump may find little success in borrowing from the
playbook of the four presidents before him, who fruitlessly tried, with
differing mixes of negotiations, sanctions, sabotage and threats of
unilateral strikes, to force the North to give up its program. And it remains
unclear exactly what the president meant when he said he would “solve” the
problem of North Korea.
如果是这样的话，川普借鉴四位前任的策略也许会效果欠佳。为了逼朝鲜放弃核计划，川
普的前任们对谈判、制裁、故意破坏和威胁进行单边打击进行了不同的组合，但未果。尚
不清楚川普说他会“解决”朝鲜问题究竟是什么意思。
While experts doubt the declaration last year by Kim Jong-un, the North’s
leader, that the country had tested a hydrogen bomb, intelligence estimates
provided to Mr. Trump in recent weeks say the mercurial young ruler is
working on it. The acceleration of Mr. Kim’s atomic and missile programs —
the North launched four ballistic missiles in a test last month — is meant
to prove that the country is, and will remain, a nuclear power to be reckoned
with.
尽管专家对朝鲜领导人金正恩(Kim Jong-un)去年宣称朝鲜已进行氢弹试验的说法持怀疑
态度，但最近几周提供给川普的情报评估报告认为，这位反复无常的年轻统治者正致力于
氢弹研发。金正恩的原子弹和导弹计划加速——朝鲜在上月的一次试验中发射了四枚弹道
导弹——是为了证明朝鲜现在是、并且将来依然是一个不容小觑的核国家。
For Mr. Trump, that reckoning is coming even as his strategy to halt the North
’s program remains incomplete and largely unexplained, and as some experts
say the very idea of stopping Pyongyang’s efforts is doomed to failure. Mr.
Trump’s budget is expected to include more money for antimissile defenses,
and officials say he is continuing a cyber- and electronic-warfare effort to
sabotage North Korea’s missile launches.
对川普来说，在朝鲜要求受到重视的同时，他在阻止朝鲜核计划上的策略却仍是不完整的
，且基本上没有给出解释，还有一些专家称阻止平壤核计划这个想法注定会失败。川普的
预算应该会增加对反导弹防御系统的投入，且官员称他正在继续进行一项网络和电子战行
动，以破坏朝鲜的导弹发射。
The president’s insistence that he will solve the North Korea problem makes
it hard to imagine a shift toward acceptance of its arsenal. But in private,
even some of his closest aides have begun to question whether the goal of “
complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament” — the policy of the Obama
and Bush administrations — is feasible anymore.
川普坚称自己会解决朝鲜问题，让外界难以想像他会转而接受朝鲜核武库的存在。但私下
里，就连他最亲密的一些助手都已经开始怀疑“完全、可核查和不可逆转地拆除”这个目
标——欧巴马和布什政府的政策——是否可行。
“We need to change the fundamental objective of our policy, because North
Korea will never willingly give up its program,” Michael J. Morell, a former
deputy director of the C.I.A., and James A. Winnefeld Jr., a retired admiral
and a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote last week on
the website The Cipher Brief.
“我们需要改变最基本的政策目标，因为朝鲜永远不会自愿放弃核计划，”中情局(CIA)
前副局长迈克尔·J·莫雷尔(Michael J. Morell)和退役海军上将、前参谋长联席会议副
主席小詹姆斯·A·温内费尔德(James A. Winnefeld Jr.)上周在The Cipher Brief的网
站上写道。
“Washington’s belief that this was possible was a key mistake in our
initial policy thinking,” added the two men, experienced hands at countering
the North. The United States and China, they argue, should abandon the idea
of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and turn to old-fashioned deterrence.
“我们最初的政策思路中的一个关键性错误，就是华盛顿相信这是有可能的，”他们写道
，两人在朝鲜问题上有着丰富经验。他们认为，美国和中国应放弃让朝鲜半岛无核化的想
法，转向老式的威慑。
Similarly, Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department nonproliferation
expert, writes in a new report for the Brookings Institution that a “
dual-track strategy involving both pressure and negotiations” would be more
likely to “bring China on board.” The technique is reminiscent of what was
used to push Iran into nuclear negotiations.
同样，前国务院高级防扩散专家罗伯特·艾因霍恩(Robert Einhorn)在为布鲁金斯学会
(Brookings Institution)撰写的一份新报告中写道，“既施压又谈判的双轨战略”更有
可能“让中国加入”。这样的手法让人想起了当初用来逼迫伊朗参加核谈判的策略。
But Mr. Einhorn cautioned that “while the complete denuclearization of North
Korea would be the ultimate goal of negotiations, there is virtually no
prospect that it could be achieved in the near term.”
但艾因霍恩告诫称，“尽管朝鲜完全无核化是谈判的最终目标，但在近期实现这个目标的
希望几乎没有。”
The Chinese appear unlikely to make more than token efforts to squeeze North
Korea, fearing the repercussions if the regime were to collapse, and Mr. Kim
has made it clear that he is not about to negotiate away what he sees as his
main protection against being overthrown by the United States and its allies.
由于害怕朝鲜政权崩溃的后果，除象征性的措施外，中国似乎不太可能采取其他逼迫朝鲜
的动作。金正恩已表明不会通过谈判放弃核计划，在他看来那是防止被美国及其盟友推翻
的主要保护措施。
“China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t,” Mr.
Trump said in the Financial Times interview. If the Chinese fail to act, he
added, “it won’t be good for anyone.”
“中国要么决定帮助我们解决朝鲜问题，要么不帮，”川普在《金融时报》的采访中说，
并接着表示，如果中国不行动起来，“对谁都不好”。
It is unclear how close North Korea is to constructing a hydrogen bomb. But
Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford University professor who once directed the
Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, and has visited the North’s
main nuclear complex, said the ad for lithium 6, while surprising, was a
reminder that North Korea, though a backward country, was still capable of
major technical advances.
尚不清楚朝鲜离制造一枚氢弹的目标有多近。但曾担任新墨西哥州洛斯阿拉莫斯武器实验
室主任，并参观过朝鲜主要核设施的坦福大学教授西格弗里德·S·赫克(Siegfried S.
Hecker)称，销售锂6的广告令人意外，同时也提醒我们，尽管是一个落后的国家，朝鲜依
然有能力取得重大技术进步。
“I can’t imagine they’re not working on true thermonuclear weapons,” Dr.
Hecker said in an interview.
“他们要是没有在研制真正的热核武器，我会很惊讶的，”赫克在采访中说。
As Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi meet on Thursday and Friday, Mr. Kim, on the other
side of the world, may have a plan of his own for the summit meeting:
Satellite photographs suggest he is preparing for a sixth nuclear test.
Workers have dug a deep tunnel, which can block radioactive leaks if
carefully sealed, leaving intelligence experts struggling to estimate the
North’s progress.
在川普和习近平在周四、周五两天举行会面时，在世界的另一端，金正恩也许为这次首脑
会谈安排了自己的计划：卫星照片显示，他正在准备第六次核试验。工作人员已经挖好了
一条幽深的隧道。如果仔细密封，这条隧道可以封锁泄漏的放射性物质，让情报专家难以
估计朝鲜的进展。
American intelligence officials, and their South Korean and Japanese
counterparts, are debating whether the next blasts will mark major steps down
the road to a true thermonuclear weapon.
美国情报官员正在和韩国及日本的情报官员讨论，接下来的爆炸会不会标志着朝鲜在制造
真正的热核武器的道路上取得了重要进步。
The lithium 6 ad is evidence that Mr. Kim is following a road map that the
United States drew up back in 1954. That was when it tested its first
thermonuclear weapon fueled by the isotope. The blast, code-named Bravo, was
the most powerful the United States ever detonated. In minutes, its mushroom
cloud rose to a height of 25 miles.
锂6的广告证明，金正恩正在按照美国1954年制定的路线图行事。当时，美国试验了第一
枚以同位素为燃料的热核弹。代号为“布拉沃”(Bravo)的那次爆炸，是美国引爆的威力
最大的。几分钟内，蘑菇云便升到了25英里（约合40公里）的高度。
Though difficult to make, hydrogen bombs became the symbol of Cold War power
— they are awesomely destructive and relatively cheap. The weapon relies on
a small atom bomb, inside a thick metal casing, that works like a match to
ignite the hydrogen fuel. For decades, bomb makers have used lithium 6 as a
standard way of making hydrogen fuel for nuclear arms.
尽管难以制造，但氢弹成了冷战中的实力象征。它们极具破坏性，同时又相对廉价。这种
武器依靠的是一枚小型原子弹。它被一个厚厚的金属外壳包裹着，用于像火柴一样点燃氢
燃料。几十年来，炸弹制造者一直把锂6作为制造用于核武器的氢燃料的标准方式。
Last month, two Los Alamos scientists argued that the rocky North Korean test
site the United States monitors could confine explosions of up to 282
kilotons — roughly 20 times as strong as the Hiroshima blast. Although a
hydrogen bomb can be that powerful, so can large atom bombs. Previously, the
largest blasts at the site were in the Hiroshima range.
上月，洛斯阿拉莫斯的两位科学家认为，美国监视的那个布满岩石的朝鲜试验场，可以承
受威力高达282千吨的爆炸——大致相当于广岛爆炸威力的20倍。尽管氢弹可以达到这样
的威力，但大型原子弹也可以。以前，该试验场进行的威力最大的爆炸和广岛的水平相当
。
When Mr. Kim declared last year that the North had set off a hydrogen bomb,
there was no evidence to back up the claim, such as enormous shock waves felt
around the globe. More likely, experts said, Mr. Kim’s scientists had
created a “boosted” atomic bomb in which a tiny bit of thermonuclear fuel
resulted in a slightly higher explosive yield but fell well short of a true
hydrogen bomb.
在金正恩去年宣称朝鲜已引爆一枚氢弹后，没有证据支持这一说法，比如全球都能感受到
的强烈冲击波。专家称，更有可能是金正恩组织起来的科学家制造了一枚“加强版”原子
弹，里面的少许热核燃料导致爆炸威力略微变大，但还远远没达到真正的氢弹水平。
“It’s possible that North Korea has already boosted,” said Gregory S.
Jones, a scientist at the RAND Corporation who analyzes nuclear issues. Like
other experts, he pointed to the nation’s two nuclear blasts last year as
possible tests of small boosted arms.
“可能朝鲜已经进行了加强，”兰德公司(RAND Corporation)分析核问题的科学家格雷戈
里·S·琼斯(Gregory S. Jones)说。和其他专家一样，他也认为朝鲜去年的两次核爆可
能是在试验小型的加强版武器。
A next logical step would be for the North to turn the material it was
advertising online, lithium 6, into a more complex kind of thermonuclear fuel
arrangement for a much more powerful bomb. The first Soviet thermonuclear
test, in 1953, used that method. It was more than 25 times as strong as the
Hiroshima bomb.
朝鲜的下一步理应是把它在网上做广告的锂6变成一种更复杂的热核燃料，用于威力大得
多的炸弹。苏联在1953年进行的第一次热核试验用的就是这个办法。那枚热核弹的威力是
投在广岛那枚原子弹的25倍多。
“It’s a big step,” Dr. Hecker, the Stanford professor, said of a true
hydrogen bomb, adding that it was perhaps beyond the North’s skill. But over
all, he said, the North has shown technical savvy in carefully pacing its
nuclear tests, suggesting that it would eventually learn the main secrets of
nuclear arms.
“那是很大的一个跨越，”前述史丹佛大学教授赫克说到真正的氢弹时说，并接着表示它
或许超出了朝鲜的能力范围。但总体上，他说，朝鲜已经表现出了慎重把握核试验节奏的
技术实力，这表明，它最终可能得到核武器的主要祕密。
“They’ve done five tests in 10 years,” he said. “You can learn a lot in
that time.”
“十年时间里他们试验了五次，”他说。“在这期间，可以学到很多。”
4.完整新闻连结 (或短网址):
https://nyti.ms/2n3vvxo
5.备注: