此篇是蔡衍明接受華盛頓郵報之後刊出原文，而中文為其翻譯，若中文譯文與原文有岐意時一切以原文為主。
原文鏈結
標題：拉攏兩岸靠攏的商場企業家
Shortly before Taiwan's presidential election last weekend, Tsai Eng Meng, a local billionaire who spends most of his time in China, jumped in his Gulfstream 200 corporate jet and flew home to cast his vote.
一位絕大部分時間都待在中國的台灣本地富豪蔡衍明在台灣總統大選的前一周，搭乘他的 Gulfstream 200 專機從中國返台投票。
More than 200,000 other Taiwanese businessmen based in China also rushed back, contributing to a comfortable victory by an incumbent president committed to rapprochement with China.
其他還有 20 萬名以上的大陸台商也返台投票，為現任親中的政黨提名總統候選人拱上總統寶座。
Tsai's role in prodding Taiwan closer to China, however, is far bigger than just his ballot. He not only has dozens of factories churning out rice crackers on the Chinese mainland but also controls a string of media properties in Taiwan that champion ever-closer ties between this boisterous island democracy and authoritarian but increasingly prosperous China.
蔡衍明把台灣往中國的方向推，他所扮演的角色重要性遠遠大於他手中那一張票。蔡衍明在中國不只有幾十座米果工廠，在台灣他也有一把抓的媒體，將擁有喧騰熱鬧民主的台灣和威權但日益繁榮的中國拉向前所未有的緊密關係。
「Whether you like it or not, unification is going to happen sooner or later,」 said Tsai, the chairman of Want Want Group, a sprawling conglomerate comprising a giant food business, media interests, hotels, hospitals and real estate.
「不管你喜不喜歡，兩岸統一是遲早的事」旺旺集團董事長蔡衍明回答。旺旺集團是個龐大發展中的企業，旗下包括食品業、媒體、酒店和房地產等。
While opinion polls show that only a tiny minority of people in Taiwan want a swift merger with China, Tsai says he can't wait: 「I really hope that I can see that.」
雖然台灣民調顯示目前只有少數人希望能盡速統一，但是蔡衍明表示他不能等:「我真的希望我可以看到統一那一天到來。」
Many Taiwanese tycoons now look to China for most of their profits, and the island's wealthy cheered the election victory last Saturday of President Ma Ying-jeou against a rival who favors keeping Beijing at arm's length. 「Praise the Lord for showing that he cares about Taiwan,」 Cher Wang, a devout Christian and multibillionaire businesswoman, told local media.
現在台灣許多的企業家，都為了利益向大陸往錢看。上週六總統大選，馬英九的勝選，讓台 灣的富豪齊聲歡呼，因為馬的對手蔡英文，是希望能與北京保持距離的。「感謝上帝，天佑
台灣！」王雪紅對台灣媒體表示。
But only Tsai, Taiwan's third-richest person according to a Forbes magazine ranking, has poured so much money into trying to shape opinion through media that, critics say, often echo the views of Beijing. He controls three Taiwan newspapers, a television station, various magazines and a cable network. A bid for a second, bigger cable operator is now under review by Taiwan's National Communications Commission.
輿論指出台灣只有排名第三富豪(富比世雜誌排行)的蔡衍明，經常花費大量資金去透過媒體回應北京的說法。他握有的媒體掌控權，包含三份報紙、一個電視台以及一些雜
誌和有線電視。目前還有仍在 NCC 審查中的全臺第二大的有線系統業者的併購案。
When China Times, a leading Taiwan newspaper Tsai purchased in 2008, published an article that described China's top negotiator on Taiwan as 「third rate,」 the editor was promptly fired. Want Daily, a tabloid Tsai launched in 2009, provides a daily digest of mostly upbeat stories about China and the benefits for Taiwan of closer cooperation.
蔡衍明 2008 年買下中國時報的之後，當時形容陳雲林為 C 咖的編輯立刻被解僱。蔡衍明於 2009 年發行的旺報，提供每日大陸新聞摘要以及兩岸雙邊合作的益處。
Journalists, said the tycoon in an interview in a Taipei hotel that he also owns, are free to criticize but 「need to think carefully before they write」 and avoid 「insults」 that cause offense. The dismissed editor, he said, was a talented writer but 「hurt me by offending people, not just mainlanders. On lots of things, people were offended.」
蔡衍明在他擁有的飯店中接受訪問時表示記者有批評的自由，但是「寫之前要好好想一想」，也應避免寫一些冒犯別人「侮辱」的話。蔡衍明還說那位被解僱的編輯很有天分，「但是他得罪別人而我也受波及，他不只是傷害到大陸人，在很多方面上也得罪了很多人。」
Taiwan still has a vibrant press. The biggest-selling paper is Apple Daily, which is owned by Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong-based Taiwan mogul and pro-democracy advocate who is detested by Beijing.
台灣的媒體還是存在不同的聲音，目前銷量最大的是蘋果日報，以香港為基地的企業家黎智英所有，黎智英是反共份子，不受北京當局討喜。
Freedom House, a U.S. group that monitors liberties around the world, said in a report last year that 「Taiwan's media environment is one of the freest in Asia,」 while China's is 「one of the world's most restrictive.」 But it also warned that growing commercial links across the Taiwan Strait, the narrow band of water between Taiwan and China, 「raised concerns that media owners and some journalists were whitewashing news about China to protect their financial interests.」
一個在美國監測媒體自由度的團體自由之家在一份去年的報告中指出「台灣是擁有亞洲最自由的媒體環境的國家之一」，而中國為「世界上限制最多的國家之一。」此份報告也警告，隨著兩岸經貿成長，兩岸將一水之隔，「讓人憂心的是某些媒體的金主和記者試圖粉飾中國的消息，以保護相關投資。」
Economics first
經濟第一
Tsai denied currying favor with Chinese officials to advance his business and said he wants only to help Taiwan get over its wariness of the mainland. China 「is very democratic in lots of places. Lots of things are not what people outside think,」 he said, adding that it is 「constantly moving forward」 while 「Taiwan progresses very slowly.」
蔡衍明否認有拉攏中國當局而讓發展事業一事，他並表示他只是希望幫助台灣對大陸降下心防。中國「很多地方是非常民主的，很多事情不是局外人想的那樣」並且還補充「中國不斷往前邁進」而台灣「進步緩慢」。
Elections, he said, are fine, but economics should come first: 「Most of us don't want to become some sort of chairman or president. . . . From the standpoint of ordinary people, the most important thing is to eat a little better, sleep a little better and be a little happier.」
他說，選舉是很好，但是經濟應該擺在第一「由普通人的觀點來看，我們大部分人都不想成為董事長或總裁…一般人在乎的是吃得好一點、睡得好一點、活得快樂一點。」
Tsai said he, too, used to fear China's ruling Communist Party and didn't want to risk doing business on the mainland, but that changed after the 1989 military assault on student protesters in Tiananmen Square. While the crackdown outraged most in Taiwan, Tsai said he was struck by footage of a lone protester standing in front of a People's Liberation Army tank. The fact that the man wasn't killed, he said, showed that reports of a massacre were not true: 「I realized that not that many people could really have died.」
蔡衍明說他也曾經很害怕中國的共產黨，不想到大陸冒險做生意，但在 1989 年天安門事件後，他的想法變了。當時這事件使台灣人群起激憤，但蔡衍明說他看到的影片中，是一個孤獨的抗議份子，站在解放軍坦克車前方。他說其實那個人沒死，而且證明當時媒體報導的大屠殺不是真的：「我發現到可能沒那麼多人死。」
The party's own propaganda apparatus made the same argument at the time, citing the tank incident as evidence of the military's 「humanity.」 What happened to the unidentified man who faced down the tank is still not known. Hundreds of others were killed by the army elsewhere in Beijing on June 3-4, 1989.
當時共產黨的回應也有類似的論調，他們說坦克車事件代表著軍隊的「人性」。那個站在坦克車前面的男子之後下場如何，卻沒有人知道。1989 年 6 月 3 日到 4 日，數百人在北京被軍隊殺死。
Tsai has since moved most of Want Want's operations to China, where the company employs more than 50,000 people, compared with 6,000 in Taiwan. It has 331 sales offices in China. In Taiwan, it has two. His corporate jet is painted bright red. Focused on selling food, Want Want 「needs mouths,」 Tsai said. 「Taiwan has only 23 million people, but China has more than a billion. . . . The most important thing is that the mainland market is so big.」 It generates more than 90 percent of his profits.
自此蔡衍明將旺旺的營運移到中國，在中國的職員超過 5 萬人，台灣只有 6 千人。在中國有 331 個營業辦公室，台灣卻只有 2 個。他的專機是鮮紅色的。蔡衍明說旺旺聚焦在食品業「需要嘴巴」，「台灣只有 2 千 3 百萬人，中國卻超過十億…不可忽視是中國大陸市場非常大」，佔旺旺 90% 的獲利。
A more pro-China line
親中路線
When Tsai first bought China Times and an affiliated television station, rumors spread that he had received encouragement and even money from Beijing, which was wary of the media group falling into the hands of Lai, the owner of Apple Daily.
當蔡衍明第一次買下中國時報和電視台的時候，就有傳言說他有收到北京的指示、甚至是錢，謹防媒體集團落入頻果日報的黎智英手中。
Lai was near to signing a deal but lost out at the last minute when Tsai offered more money.
黎智英差點就能買下，但最後一刻蔡衍明提出更高的金額。
Tsai denied getting any help from Beijing. 「I've already got money,」 he said. 「Why would I go and take their money?」
蔡衍明否認得到北京的幫助「我已經很有錢了」，「我何必去拿他們的錢？」
Since the takeover, the paper has nonetheless veered sharply toward a more pro-China line, say journalists who have worked there and media analysts. The goal, according to Want Want's own company brochure, is to make China Times 「the most influential Chinese-language daily」 so as to 「benefit the public」 and 「promote peace and harmony across the Strait.」 Flora Chang, a professor at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of Journalism, said Tsai's media 「are very biased」 in favor of positive news about China.
曾在中時工作的記者及媒體分析師表示自從收購後，中時大幅親中。旺旺公司的簡介中指出，目標是要讓中時成為「最有影響力的華語日報」 以及「 嘉惠大眾」和「提倡兩岸和平關係」。台大新聞所的教授 Flora Chang 指出蔡衍明的媒體是「非常偏頗」地報導中國正面的新聞。
Wuerkaixi, a former Tiananmen Square student leader who now lives in exile in Taiwan, said he used to regularly get asked to write columns in China Times but not anymore.
Wuerkaixi，目前流亡台灣的一位天安門事件學生領袖說他以前經常被中時邀請寫專欄，但現在已經沒有了。
When a provincial Communist Party boss traveled to Taiwan from China in 2010, he got an effusive greeting from Tsai on the front page: 「On behalf of colleagues at Want Want, I welcome the Hubei Province (Party) Committee Secretary.」 The Chinese official, who visited CtiTV, a cable channel owned by Tsai, was invited to 「give guidance.」
當 2010 年共產黨的省主席來台時，他受到蔡衍明在中時頭版的熱情歡迎「謹代表旺旺的同事，歡迎湖北省黨委書記」而一位中國官員受邀到中天電視台參訪，受邀做「指導」。
Tsai said he was just being polite and denied being obsequious to boost his business in China. 「I don't stroke the horse's bottom,」 he said, using a Chinese phrase for flattery.
蔡衍明說，他只是禮尚往來而已，並且否認他是在拍馬屁，以換取中國業務。「我不拍馬屁」他說。
