2017翻译考试英语笔译初级模拟题：中国近代史的开端
【汉译英】
中国近代史的开端
1840年英国无耻地对中国发动了战争，其罪恶目的在于保护他们在中国的鸦片贸易。119世纪初，英国东印度会司向中国大量走私产自当时英国的殖民地印度的鸦片。2这种不法贸易不仅耗费了中国大量的钱财，而且极大地损害了鸦片吸食者的身心健康。3所以，清政府中林则徐等一批头脑清醒的官员，力主全面禁止鸦片贸易。4清政府的统治者们也意识到鸦片泛滥的危害，1838年，任命林则徐为钦差大臣，命其到广州实行禁烟。当时，广州是大多数英国烟贩停留、交易的地方。51839年初，林则徐到任广州，随即采取了坚决措施，严令禁止鸦片贸易。6勒令英国烟贩们上缴全部鸦片，总计22000箱(每箱约120斤鸦片)，并且在离广州不远的虎门当众销毁。7在英国的鸦片贸易利益集团强烈要求下，英国政府决定向中国发动战争。他们向中国派出舰队，共战船四十多条，军队四千，逼近中国海域。8林则徐带领当地军民做了充分的准备，在广东痛击了侵略者。9腐败无能的清廷统治者们畏惧英国的先进武器，又担心人民力量的壮大，是战是和始终举棋不定。10最后，为了结束战争，接受了英国提出的所有条件。林则徐被贬官，流放新疆。
1842年八月，在南京城外停泊的英国战船上，第一个由西方势力强加给中国的不平等条约——《南京条约》签署了。条约规定中国赔偿英国2100万银圆;割让香港给英国，开放5个通商口岸(广州，厦门，福州，宁波和上海)，对英国进出口货物征收的关税必须由两国协商决定。翌年，英国又强迫中国签订了两个协议，允许英国领事对在中国犯罪的英国公民按照英国法律审理，中国给其他国家的贸易优惠也必须给予英国。11换言之，中国要给予英国领事裁判权和片面最惠国待遇。
中国在鸦片战争中战败，暴露了她在军事上的软弱和政治上的落后。西方列强发现迫使中国接受不平等条件是轻而易举的。因而，战后，英国和其他西方国家，包括法国、德国、俄国和美国，还有东方的日本，或单独或联合对中国发动侵略战争，以不同的方式欺凌中国，以获取优惠、特权、赔偿、租界.甚至领土。12一般来说，他们的目的都能达到。19世纪后半叶的中国历史就充满了这样的屈辱。由此，中国从一个有主权的封建国家，开始逐渐沦为一个半封建、半殖民地的国家。13
【参考译文】
The Beginning of the Modern History of China
In 1840 Britain shamelessly launched a war on China for a criminal purpose - to protect their opium trade.
In the early nineteenth century, the British East India Company smuggled to China large quantities of opium produced in India, which was then a British colony. This illegal trade not only cost China enormous sums of money, but did great harm to the health and moral quality of those who were addicted to the drug. So clear-headed officials in the Qing government like Lin Zexu wanted to have the trade completely banned. The Qing rulers also saw the danger of the spread of opium, and in 1838 appointed Lin High Commissioner and entrusted him with the task of banning the opium trade in Guangzhou, where most British opium dealers were staying and doing business.
After arriving in Guangzhou early in 1839, Lin took resolute and strict measures to ban the trade. He compelled the British merchants to surrender all their opium, totaling 22, 000 chests (one chest containing about 120 jin of opium) and had it publicly burned in Humen, not far from Guangzhou.
The British government, urged by the interest groups connected with the opium trade, decided to wage war on China. They sent a fleet of over 4,0 battleships with 4,000 troops to Chinese seas.
The invaders were repelled by the army and people of Guangdong, where Lin Zexu had made necessary preparations. The decadent and corrupt Qing rulers were so frightened by the superior weapons of the British, and so afraid of the rise of the people, that they had wavered all along between fighting and suing for peace, and finally decided to accept the British demands so as to end the war. Lin Zexu was demoted and exiled to Xinjiang.
In August 1842, the Treaty of Nanjing, the first unequal treaty imposed on China by a Western power, was signed on board a British battleship anchored near Nanjing. The treaty stipulated that China should pay Britain an indemnity of 21,000,000 silver dollars, cede Hong Kong to Britain, open five ports (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai) to foreign trade, and tariffs on British goods should be fixed by mutual agreement. In the following year Britain forced on China two new agreements, which allowed British consuls to try British people who had committed crimes in China according to British law, and made China give Britain all the privileges in trade that China would give to any other country. In other words, China gave Britain the right of consular jurisdiction and unilateral most-favoured-nation treatment.
China's defeat in the Opium War exposed her military weakness and political backwardness.
Western powers saw that it was easy to force her to accept unequal conditions. So after the war Britain and other Western countries, including France, Germany, Russia and the United States, and Japan in the east, jointly or separately started aggressive wars on China, or bullied China in different ways, to demand privileges, special rights, indemnities, concessions and even territory, and generally they got what they wanted. Chinese history in the second half of the nineteenth century was full of such humiliating events. They marked the turn of China from a feudal country into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country.
