尼克松首席翻译傅立民（Chas W. Freeman, Jr.）：美国在把中国逼成敌人
美国前驻华公使、尼克松访华时美方首席翻译傅立民（Chas W. Freeman, Jr.）在其个人主页发表了2019年6月13日在布朗大学外交政策协会百年纪念讲座上的发言稿：《中美脱钩及其影响》
文：Chas Freeman 译：周枝萍
我们美国人正在费尽心思地制造排外情绪。如今每天都有消息传来，部分美国民众间歇性的本土主义情绪爆发实在令人感到尴尬。当代美国人对这个世界本来就十分无知，再加上社交媒体和非主流小报的胡乱揣测、臆想和幻觉，问题就更加严重。在这些被编出来的故事里，主角多半是中国，当然还有俄罗斯、伊朗和古巴等另外几个“邪恶国家”，而且据说上述几国的影响力最近都已进入委内瑞拉这个距美国南部海岸1600英里之遥的蹩脚“社会主义国家”了。
委内瑞拉出美女，这是世人皆知的，然而除非我们的军队主动打过去，否则这个国家并没有资格成为美国的敌人。不过，我们美国人最终还是在中国那里找到了解药，身患“敌人缺乏综合症”（enemy deprivation syndrome）的美国军工复合体终于还是有救了。
由于前苏联出人意料地举手投降，美国军工复合体不仅失去了“魔鬼般”的对手，也失去了充裕的资金和良好的状态。苏联虽然倒下了，可中国又顶上来了！真是感谢上帝，快把弹药给我们吧！对了，还有钱，否则这点弹药怎么够用呢？
然而，令人遗憾的是，莫斯科在与华盛顿之间的冷战中意外出局并不能为我们预测美中对抗的结果提供任何可靠的参考。只和一个共产党国家打过交道并不能说明你就了解了所有的共产党国家。与俄式的马克思列宁主义不同，东亚的“市场列宁主义”卓有成效。中国不但没有解体，反而持续不断地在经济和国家实力上提升自己在世界上的地位。美国在制定政策时，似乎只有国防预算随着中国崛起相应提高，却没有优先考虑美国的公司、消费者和技术专家。
欧洲人、美国人和日本人曾在19世纪和20世纪初让中国人尝到了屈辱的滋味，虽然现在没人能够确定中国将以多快的速度或多稳的步伐崛起，但中国似乎注定会重新夺回它曾保持了数千年的领先地位。这意味着美国已经保持了140年之久的全球最大经济体的地位将落入中国人的手中。失去“第一”光环的美国将不得不与中国以及其他曾受西方压迫的国家一道分享权力。
中国人的确做过一些令美国人反感的事，比如他们在知识产权领域的一些做法。然而正如哥伦比亚大学历史学者斯蒂芬·韦特海姆（Stephen Wertheim）所说的那样：“美国在过去一年里出现的反华浪潮，更多地是由美国人自身的焦虑情绪，而不是中国人的所作所为导致的”。退一步说，美国政治中的民粹主义对美国恐华症爆发所起的作用，至少与中国“不良行为”所起的作用是不相上下的。
在美国，富裕的精英阶层执掌着能够左右美国经济命脉的银行和大公司，而许多美国人感觉自己一直在受到那些精英的轻侮。当前美国社会流动性陷入停滞，财富集中在“百分之一”的人手中，民众生活水平不见提高甚至出现了下滑，企业高管和金融精英中饱私囊达到骇人听闻的程度，此类现象让来自不同种族背景的美国人痛恨不已。他们指责那些精英把收入不错的制造业工业岗位转移到了海外。
欧洲裔的美国中下阶层民众认为近年来的美国领导人看上去和他们不一样，因此特别担心自己沦为少数群体。美国的政治正确致力于保护形形色色的美国人免遭无心冒犯，唯独不照顾中下层白人和他们的信仰，甚至将他们贬损为“可怜虫”（译注：希拉里·克林顿称特朗普的支持者一半都是“可怜虫”），这一切让他们怒火中烧。他们很容易受到舆论的蛊惑，认为自己的痛苦是只顾私利的美国公司与中国勾结造成的结果。把责任推给中国的确有助于缓和他们的负面情绪。然而令人遗憾的是，这并不能从根本上解决问题。
美国国内问题重重，再加上国际威望日益下降，这些都对美国民众的心理造成了严重的压力。当下这种情况是对美国人的韧性、务实精神和意志力的一场考验。我们知道，我们必须改革和调整税收政策、投资政策、劳资关系和教育政策来使这个国家振作起来。
有些人没有选择应对现状，而是选择了反抗现状，他们坚持认为这种挑战是对美国的威胁。在他们的想象里，中国一定十分渴望像二战后的美国那样去主宰世界。然而当你花时间倾听中国人对内谈论他们的抱负时，你会发现他们想要的是尊重，是让曾经看不起他们的外国人能够懂点礼貌。今天的中国人和他们的祖先一样，所要求的都是一种威严的地位，让其他国家不敢造次，使中国得以在安宁的环境中走向繁荣。
面对中国的要求，美国显得有些无所适从，随着中国变得越来越富强，它不再向美国的地区和全球霸权低头。中国人不再认为卑躬屈膝来换取闷声发大财的机会是值得的。而美国似乎铁了心要维持自己的超然地位——不是通过改正自身的问题，而是通过给中国下绊子、上镣铐——但是这份偏执和自满是无济于事的。美国一面在要求中国更加开放的同时，自己却日益走向封闭。
这种变化可不是什么好兆头。无论是美国放过中国，还是美国通过削弱中国来保全自己的全球主导地位，这两者成为现实的可能性都微乎其微。试图打倒中国更有可能削弱和拖垮美国经济，而不会阻止中国的前进。那么，未来的美中关系会是什么样呢？
首先，我要对杰里米·哈夫特（译注：Jeremy R. Haft，美国企业家、畅销书作家、学者、对华贸易事务媒体评论员）2019年为“伟大决策”计划所写文章中提到的关键一点表示赞同。他指出，拿不同国家的GDP作比较等于是把苹果和橘子一起作比较，其结果不足以反映国际竞争的真实情况。GDP完全没有反映出经济活动的国际分工。如果我们把挖沟的工人或推卸责任的金融工程师带来的价值增量，与钢铁工人或诺贝尔奖得主为国家资本带来的增量混为一谈，那么我们便忽略了非常重要的信息。GDP作为一种指数，用处在于让我们知道一个国家经济总体规模有多大，增长速度有多快，但它基本不能——甚至完全不能——帮我们预测国与国之间竞争的结果。
虽然不能说经济总量无关紧要，不过一个国家的精神、自豪感、意志和耐力才是决定经济总量能发挥怎样作用的关键因素。1941年12月7日，日本偷袭珍珠港试图削弱美国在太平洋的军事力量时，其GDP规模仅为美国的十分之一。然而日本却牵制了美国将近四年，最终也只是因为缺乏发动核反击的能力才宣告投降。
因此，无论是按名义汇率计算还是按购买力平价标准计算，比较中美两国的经济总量指标都没有切中问题的关键。中国的工业产值现在占全球的四分之一， 比美国的1.5倍还多，甚至超过美国、德国、韩国工业产值的总和，这一点才是更加重要的。此外，在中国从事科学、技术、工程和数学类工作的劳动者已经占到了全世界同类劳动者总数的四分之一，是美国的八倍，而且从业人员数量的增长速度也是美国的三倍以上，这一点同样是非常重要的。
与美国和苏联不同，中国在意识形态上没有充当救世主的欲望，这可能会成为它的一大优势。如果有其他国家试图模仿中国的制度，中国人自然觉得脸上有光；但其实中国人并不介意其他国家内部如何治理。中国在其国内施行的是一党执政的制度。尽管美国的意识形态旗手宣称中国在海外推广专制、反对民主，但其实中国并没有这样做。
在冷战结束后秩序混乱的新世界里，意识形态联盟已经高度弱化，几近荡然无存。一种政治体制有多受欢迎，几乎完全取决于它能在多大程度上带来有效的领导、繁荣的经济、安宁的社会。你无法再强迫小国向大国效忠。各国可以自由选择国际伙伴和竞争对手，并就事论事地与它们打交道。
中国的财富和实力与日俱增，邻国们无不担忧自己将不得不顺从中国，然而没有哪个国家真的担心中国入侵。尽管美国费劲心思地去设想东亚海域出现一个类似富尔达缺口（译注：冷战期间，富尔达这座城市靠近东德和西德的分界线，该地一处山谷被命名为“富尔达缺口”，美国认为若战争爆发，富尔达缺口最有可能遭受苏军进攻）的地方，但实际上东亚并不存在“富尔达缺口”。一些美国人兜售的那套过分夸大的“中国威胁论”在国内比在国外更加受到欢迎。即使在那些早就对中国有戒备心理的国家，美国的这套说辞也没有产生很强的吸引力，也许是因为那些国家看不到迫于美国压力在美中之间选边站队能为自己带来什么好处，反而很可能损失巨大。美国指望靠危言耸听来冲淡中国的正面宣传，这根本算不上什么外交。
中国是其所有邻国最大的贸易伙伴。中国正在成为这些国家最大的外资来源地和投资目的地。对这些国家来说，中国近在咫尺，而且永远也不会离开。这些国家不想在中国面前惹事生非，也不会跟美国一道挑衅中国。
中国数百年来一直对分布在东海和南海的岛屿、礁石和岛礁提出主权声索。只是由于冷战期间中国受美国遏制，其他主权声索国才趁机占领了大部分岛礁。直到30年前，中国才占领了其他声索国尚未占领的少数地貌。
中国在马来西亚、菲律宾和越南的周边构筑据点来建立固定存在，但这些国家并不寻求把中国赶走。尽管中国同美国海军在如何划定领海基线方面存在分歧，但它并未威胁到南海商贸航行的自由。毕竟，该海域三分之二的过往船舶要么来自中国，要么驶向中国。若不是美国媒体利用失之偏颇的言论来混淆视听，这些事实可谓显而易见。
目前，中国只要求邻国以礼相待、互相开放贸易和投资，不与第三方合谋威胁中国安全，除此之外并不索要什么其他的东西。无论这些邻国过去是不是美国的盟友，它们现在都没有加入美国阵营来孤立中国。它们之所以寻求获得美国的支持，目的不是为了与中国对抗，而是希望借助美国的力量寻求与中国之间保持一种平衡的、可持续的和解状态。
这种目标上的不一致，就解释了为什么特朗普政府排斥中国的行动迄今对中国的损害还不如对美国与盟友和国际伙伴之间的关系损害大。这些行动非但没有削弱中国的影响力，反而破坏了美国的领导地位。
在双边层面上，当前美国发起的贸易战已经让中国经济付出了代价。中国的反击对美国也造成了同样的影响。等待美国零售企业和消费者的是逐步升级的冲击。特朗普贸易战的短期影响是显而易见的。那么它的长期影响又是什么呢？
首先，供应链和贸易模式遭到永久性脱节。具有讽刺意味的是，当中国生产商为了避免美国关税而转投东南亚、东非和拉丁美洲的时候，他们在国内价值链上的地位得到了提升。与此同时，加大对其他国家的生产投资促进了中国在当地的影响力。俄罗斯、乌克兰和其他国家的农业当前获得了蓬勃发展，这都是以牺牲美国农民利益为代价换来的结果。
美国已然向中国证明了自己是一个善变的、不可靠的贸易伙伴。这使得中国人有充分的理由去购买其他国家的产品。中国曾经是美国增长最快的出口市场。华盛顿方面在试图限制中国资本流入美国之时，也在破坏自己的对华出口。
由于中国公司基本不能用赚来的美元直接在美国投资，中国政府以前一直用这些外汇购买美国国债，从而补贴了美国政府的财政赤字，使它可以靠信贷转期来避免政府关门。本来，中国企业在美国基础设施、工业和农业领域的投资有可能创造就业和出口，结果却只能被动地为美国财政的挥霍买单。而时至今日，中美关系转向对立甚至导致这种共生关系也陷入了危机。如果像某些人预测的那样，中国将成为一个净资本流入国而不是流出国，它也将在全球范围销售债务，直接与美国竞争。
撇开中国为美国预算赤字融资不谈，单说阻止中国投资美国私营企业给美国经济造成了怎样的机会成本。以日本为例，日本是美国的盟友，但上世纪80年代，日本公司在美国投资面临着相似的困境，尽管没有这么严重。与反对中国投资一样，当年反对日本投资的人也提出了一些莫须有的国家安全考量。但是，在日本流入美国的资金减少之前，日本为美国创造了70万个就业岗位，并在美国建立了许多工厂，每年为美国创造了超过600亿美元的出口额。中国资金本来可以发挥同样作用，却由于行政命令和国会法案的出台而被导向其他地方。美国的损失成全了他人坐收渔翁之利。
美国给中国公司投资设置了极高的障碍，这种做法对美国经济的影响不难估测。长期以来，美国每年吸引了大约全球15%的对外直接投资（FDI）。15年前，中国的对美投资也差不多占了其对外投资总额的15%。但是，随着华盛顿方面提高了中国参与美国经济的门槛，这一比例已经下降到中国对外直接投资总额的2%左右。同期，中国对欧洲的投资已经上升到中国对外直接投资总额的30%多。
如果我们没有禁止中国公司投资美国，这些中国公司每年将会拿出800亿美元用于扩大美国私营部门，这将为美国创造大量就业岗位。如今中国不再将储蓄交给我们，我们美国人也就得不到这笔钱。如此一来我们就只能指望美国自身储蓄率的提高了。
特朗普-彭斯政府的仇外心理也提醒我们，科学技术的进步需要各国之间加强合作，没有国家能够闭门造车。在美国，我们每年大约有65万从事科学和工程专业的学生毕业，其中超过三分之一是外国人。在某些学科，如工程学和计算机科学，新颁发学位的一半给了外国学生。在人工智能领域，这个比例达到60%。美国近三分之一的外国学生来自中国。如果我们像特朗普-彭斯政府威胁的那样排挤中国人，那么中国人就不会来到美国与我们一起工作。
如今，中国每年有180万毕业生从事科学、技术、工程和数学领域的工作。中国在这些领域授予的博士学位数量即将超过我们。从2016年到2017年，中国的知识产权价值增长了19%，而美国仅增长了10%。目前谁在科学、技术、工程和数学方面的发展势头更加强劲是显而易见的。
到2025年，中国所拥有的熟练技术工人的数量预计将超过经合组织所有成员国的总和。通过与中国脱钩，我们美国人正在疏远这个世界上科学家、技术专家、工程师和数学家数量最多的国家。中国企业在研发方面的支出正以每年20%的速度增长，远远超过其他任何国家。切断中美科技交流与其说会阻碍中国的进步，倒不如说似乎更将损害美国的创新力。
中美关系走向分裂是特朗普政府一手策划的，其潜在影响除了我在上文中提到的以外还有很多。最后，我将简要地再阐述一些此类内容以供大家思考：
1我们目前在中国南海问题上无异于同中国玩谁是懦夫的游戏。在美方的支持下，日本正在中国东海的钓鱼岛发起同样的挑衅行动。我们距离与中国爆发海战只有一步之遥。如果战争爆发，这将是我们自1945年以来的第一次海上冲突，也是我们第一次与拥核国家发生冲突。
2中国内战1950年因美国第七舰队驶进台湾海峡而宣告停火，但是这并不意味着内战已经结束。现在我们的政策似乎正促使台湾的一些政客认为他们手持一张空白支票，随时能重新发动内战。与此同时，我们与中国人民解放军之间的对话机制和我们在冷战时期与苏联军队的对话机制无法相比。我们目前还没有制定华盛顿与北京的危机管控机制。我们对中国的政治军事战略无非就是希望不要卷入战争。
3 我们正与北京展开军备竞赛。中国最近测试了航母杀手弹道导弹、电磁炮、高超音速滑翔弹头、量子卫星通信系统、反隐身雷达以及射程空前的远程反舰导弹和空地导弹等等，其中一些武器已经部署。我们未必能够在这样一场军备竞赛中取胜。
4同时，我们在太空领域与中国之间的竞争也已经开始。到目前为止，我们是龟兔赛跑中的兔子，中国是那只乌龟。当我们梦想着在火星上进行华丽的冒险时，中国正在为开采月球和一些小行星上的资源有条不紊地做着准备，以便能够在地球和月球之间引力平衡的拉格朗日点建造驻留地和工厂。
5我们正试图摧毁中国大型科技企业，比如华为，我们希望将其排除在全球5G网络之外。但是，即便美国不再对其提供一些技术支持，中国拥有庞大的国内市场，国际市场也亟需物美价廉的设备，借此契机，中国的科技巨头将有能力在美国境外主宰这个世界。
6中国原本想利用国家管理的局域网来分割美国管控的全球互联网世界，美国并不想互联网世界遭到分割。然而多亏了美国的民族主义和对网络安全隐私的偏执，北京现在实现了他的目的，数字世界正在遭到不同网络主权的分割。
不管特朗普总统会不会像他承诺的那样，让美国再次伟大起来。至少目前为止，他没有达成交易，而是破坏了交易；他没有扩大美国的国际影响力，反而削弱了美国的国际影响力。我赞同互通有无的自由贸易观点，不要想着什么都自己造。但没有人能否认，总统及其追随者们正在从根本上改变他所接手的这个世界。许多外国人现在都认为美国是一个流氓超级大国，铁了心要摧毁前几代美国人辛辛苦苦创造的世界秩序。中美关系的脱钩是造成全球政治和科技动荡最重要的原因之一，但它绝非唯一的原因。
几十年前，哈佛大学教授约瑟夫·奈（Joseph Nye）指出，如果美国将中国视为敌人，那么中国就会变成美国的敌人。现在事实证明他的观点是完全正确的。欢迎来到21世纪，在这个世纪里，全球治理的工具正越来越多地从美国手中流失，大国之间的竞争变得越来越激烈，美国的同盟正在瓦解，美国争取其他国家合作的能力正在下降。尽管美国拥有无与伦比的军事力量，但美国并不具备明确的策略来遏制或扭转这些趋势。
所有这些对美国人来说都是不可接受的：比如不经审慎的战略思考，半夜荷尔蒙飙升就开始推特治国；比如放弃国与国之间的相互妥协和交易，试图通过军国主义、贸易制裁以及蛮横无理的要求来达成目的；比如对外交往过程中全然丧失礼节，尽是威胁、侮辱和谩骂。这些做法并没有取得任何效果。
中国是世界上实力最强的崛起中大国，美国最大的失败在于没有处理好与中国的关系。我们当前的做法不但不能说服中国为了共同利益改变我们不喜欢的政策和做法，无助于解决问题，反而会使问题变得更加棘手。两国之间的友谊正在迅速蜕变成敌意。
为了能够有效地与中国这样的崛起大国以及俄罗斯这样的复兴大国竞争，为了能够带着我们国家一直以来所体现的自信和乐观态度去竞争，我们不仅必须修正我们的外交政策，我们还必须修正当下正在分裂我们、削弱我们的国内政策。历史证明，我们的宪政民主可以保障变革有序地进行。为了调动美国人民的巨大的才智和精力来应对我国目前面临的前所未有的挑战，我们必须适应新的国内和国际现实。我们曾经做到过，我们现在也可以做到。
Sino-American Interactions, Past and Future
A Paper Prepared for a January 2019 Conference at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
December 15, 2018[1] will mark the fortieth anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s and Deng Xiaoping’s politically courageous agreement to “normalize” the relationship between Washington and Beijing.[2] This resulted in the replacement of China’s demand for revolutionary overthrow of the world order with pragmatic accommodation of it.[3] Two days later, at the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),[4] Deng launched China on a path of eclectic borrowing of foreign ideas, policies, and practices called “reform and opening” [改革开放]. This liberated the Chinese people – who were then almost a fourth of humanity – from the most suffocating aspects of Soviet Marxist-Leninist dogma and released their formidable entrepreneurial imaginations and energies.
The consequences of Deng’s twin decisions for both China and the world have been immense. He saw US-China normalization and “reform and opening” as parts of a single bold gamble with his country’s future. His vision enabled China to risk a search for inspiration in America and other capitalist democracies, to which the Chinese elite promptly entrusted its sons and daughters for education.
“Dengism” reinvigorated China’s political economy by progressively abandoning major elements of its Soviet-derived model of central planning, state monopolization of commerce and industry, and collectivized agriculture. The results were explosive economic growth amidst rocketing living standards, the rebirth of Chinese science and technology, the emergence of a Sino-centric regional order in East Asia, and the debut of China as a major actor on the global stage. American policy had aimed only at altering China’s external relationships and behavior. The tremendous changes inside China were a welcome but entirely unexpected bonus.
Contemporary China is the improbable child of neo-Confucian Leninism and the Pax Americana. The defining characteristics of the liberal global order crafted by the United States were a universal commitment to multilateral rule making, quasi-judicial dispute resolution, the progressive removal of tariffs and quotas as barriers to trade, open investment flows, some level of selfless development assistance, humanitarian relief, and the principle of PACTA SUNT SERVANDA.[5] China has prospered in this international environment and remains comfortable in it.
Despite oft-repeated accusations[6] that Beijing wants to do away with the rule-bound international order, China now seems far more committed to preserving it than its American progenitor. Under the Trump administration, the United States has come to stand explicitly for mercantilist bilateralism and protectionism, economic coercion, an end to support for foreign economic development or refugees, and the unilateral abrogation of international agreements. By contrast, Chinese dissatisfaction with the international status quo has not been about its rules. China, like many other emerging market economies, has complained about the inability of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (IBRD), World Trade Organization (WTO), and regional banks like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to expand their reach, funding, and inclusiveness.
When legacy institutions have not risen to the challenges before them,[7] China has worked with others to create parallel structures. American disquiet at seeing countries other than the United States like China emerge as rule-makers and institution-builders obscures but does not obviate the fact that the new Chinese-sponsored multilateral institutions have without exception cooperated with existing bodies and conformed to the norms and practices they espouse. To the extent that U.S. China policy aimed at curbing China’s revolutionary zeal and incorporating it into the international system created by the Pax Americana, it has been and remains a success rivaled only by the integration of post-revolutionary France into the conservative order managed by the Concert of Europe.
But, to the disappointment of naïve American ideologues, as China modernized, it refused to participate in “the end of history” by embracing either democracy or laissez-faire economics as principles of governance. Instead, Beijing remained stubbornly obsessed with the avoidance of anarchy through authoritarianism. China shows no sign of abandoning the policy and investment-directed market economy that kindled and then sustained the ferocious competition between its enterprises (whether state or privately owned). Entrepreneurship guided by preferential access to capital (rather the tax exemptions commonly used in the U.S.) continues to propel China toward technological innovation and ever greater wealth and power.
Those Americans who criticized U.S. policies of engagement with Beijing as slighting efforts to democratize China and westernize its human rights and economic practices now cite the failure of engagement to meet their expectations as proof of policy failure. But the success of policies can only be measured in terms of their objectives. However much Americans may have hoped or expected that China would Americanize itself, U.S. policy was almost entirely aimed at changing China’s external behavior rather than its constitutional order. The sole exception was the first fifteen months of the Clinton administration (1993-1994), when Washington attempted to coerce change in China by linking it to the terms of Chinese foreign trade. When it became apparent that this approach was a dead end, Washington abandoned it,[8] never to resume it.
Irreconcilable ideological contradictions between America and China still bedevil the relationship. Chinese accept that foreigners govern themselves differently and should be left alone to do so. Americans see any political system other than constitutional democracy as inherently illegitimate. They will not accept moral equivalence with any authoritarian regime. The U.S. has concluded that it must, in practice, deal with the CCP, but it does so as a politically awkward expedient, not as approval of the CCP’s legitimacy.
As an added complication, “democratic peace theory” (a recent addition to American ideology) asserts that democracies don’t fight each other, while wars are – by implication – to be expected with nations of other political dispensations. This hypothesis translates the absence of democracy in China into a potential menace to U.S. national security.[9] This, in turn, provides a threat that is a welcome alternative to tiresome low-intensity conflicts in West Asia and North Africa. It makes China a potential “peer competitor” that poses the sort of high-tech challenges to U.S. primacy that the U.S. military-industrial-congressional complex can profitably forfend. Postulating a vague but dreadful menace from China is the latter-day equivalent of paranoia about the supposed “yellow peril.” It transforms China’s modernization into a reliable driver of increased U.S. spending on complex new weapons systems.
So ideological values are back as a source of conflict in Sino-American relations. But, by contrast with the Cold War, most of the world no longer sees the American system as self-evidently superior to its competitors. And, unlike the USSR, which sought to export its model, China does not. Instead, the CCP is on the ideological defensive, as its overwrought reactions to perceived challenges to its authority repeatedly demonstrate. It espouses no ideology other than self-absorption and studied indifference to how other countries govern themselves. In short, Sino-American rivalry does not fit the Cold War pattern. It cannot be managed in the same manner as rivalry with the USSR.
“Containment,” the American grand strategy proposed by George Kennan in 1947, assumed that, if the Soviet system were walled up by sanctions and defensive alliances, it would eventually collapse of its own defects. That turned out to be correct, though it took forty-three years to prove it. Such “containment” is irrelevant to any contest with China.[10] The Soviet model exalted autarky.[11] China has come to epitomize globalization and broad-based economic interdependence with other nations. It cannot be isolated from a world order in which it is so thoroughly integrated and in which other countries increasingly look to it for leadership as well as shared prosperity.
Nor is China’s economic system irrational, inflexible, enervated, or burdened by unsustainable levels of military spending, as the Soviet Union’s was. China has no reason to reenact Moscow’s humiliating decision to default on its rivalry with Washington or to accept supervision by Wall Street bankers, carpet-bagging Harvard professors, or democracy promoters. Both the Cold War and post-Cold War eras were so different from those of today that they provide no useful counsel for dealing with China’s very real challenges to American pride and primacy.
Finally, in many parts of the world, this is an age of pessimism and contraction in the human spirit. But in China, optimism is still in command. Confidential polling reveals little of the destabilizing distrust in government in China that has seized so many parts of the West. The Chinese people’s approval of their government and the directions in which it is taking their country is exceptionally high. Chinese may not love the CCP, but very few think their country would be better off without it in charge.[12] They can’t help contrasting the relatively effective performance of their government with what they, like others, see as devastating political incoherence and dysfunction in the contemporary United States.
So, an obnoxious symmetry has come to pervert Sino-American relations. Neither side shows much empathy in its approach to the other. As it looks at its rival, each sees itself, attributing its own motivations and reasoning processes to the other. Self-righteous American contempt for the legitimacy of the Chinese political system is more than matched by hubristic Chinese disdain for the incompetence of governance in the contemporary United States. American politicians have become aggressively accusatory about China. Chinese struggle to restrain comparably impolitic and counterproductive rhetoric about the United States. These differences are a problem that is likely to persist until the United States gets back its groove, China suffers a sobering setback, or both. Neither development seems imminent.
It is said that Chinese plan in years, decades, and centuries, while Americans calculate what must be done in terms of weeks and months. The Sino-American relationship, till now, has advanced by a series of U.S. finesses of Chinese grievances that left them to fester unresolved. Taiwan is at the center of this pattern.
Taiwan’s political relationship with the rest of China, now under the governance of the People’s Republic, remains in doubt. In managing this issue, the United States has expediently evaded long-term strategic choices in exchange for short-term gains, while the CCP has made tactical compromises but held firm to its strategic goal of bringing Taiwan under its dominion. To Chinese nationalists, their inability to resolve the Taiwan question symbolizes their country’s ongoing humiliation by foreign interventions intended to divide and weaken it. To the CCP, American protection of Taiwan represents insulting unwillingness by the world’s greatest power to respect the People’s Republic’s political legitimacy.
The balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and adjacent areas continues to shift against the island and the United States, making the use of force by China and war between China and the United States both more plausible and more perilous. The mainland’s political system is becoming less open. This has further reduced the appeal of peaceful reunification to the already skeptical citizens of Taiwan’s democracy. The United States might still use its power to move the Taiwan issue toward resolution before Taiwan’s bargaining position is fatally weakened and China’s capabilities decisively outweigh those of the United States. But, in practice, Washington has consistently chosen complacency over strategy. Against ever worsening military and economic odds, Americans continue to prefer impasse to evolution in cross-Strait relations.
This strategy-free U.S. approach inadvertently encourages Taipei to ignore its declining negotiating leverage and rapidly diminishing ability to resist coercion from Beijing without invoking American intervention. It makes Taiwan a disaster waiting to happen. In effect, the United States has opted to ignore ever more adverse circumstances, deferring an explosion until actions by Taipei or decisions in Beijing eventually trigger one. Recent moves by the Trump administration to bolster Taipei’s defiance of Beijing make such an explosion more, rather than less likely.
The Taiwan issue is part of a larger unacknowledged problem in U.S. strategic interaction with China. The People’s Republic is the only nuclear-armed great power whose frontiers are challenged by the United States. There are no established mechanisms for escalation control between Beijing and Washington. Each has a record of misreading the other in times of crisis. And, if Taiwan is the most plausible casus belli in a war neither side wants or can survive without grave damage, it is no longer the only possible trigger of Sino-American conflict.
Both Taipei and Beijing regard the Senkaku (or Diaoyu / 钓鱼) Islands – uninhabited and barren rocks in the East China Sea – as rightly part of Taiwan, though they are administered by Japan. The modus vivendi that kept arguments over sovereignty from becoming a flash point between China and Japan collapsed in 2010. The dispute now risks dragging Americans into a bloody rendezvous between Chinese and Japanese nationalism.
In any conflict with China, the United States is committed to back Japan. As in the case of Taiwan, exclusive reliance on military means – deterrence – to deal with the Senkaku dispute ensures that it is perpetuated rather than resolved. There is no American diplomatic strategy for mitigating the risks of war over the issue, and no apparent thought of developing one. Few Americans are aware of the issue. Still fewer have considered the consequences that would flow from an accidental clash or a failure of deterrence.
The year 2010 also marked the outbreak of escalating naval contention between China and the United States in the South China Sea. China (including Taiwan) has long claimed islets, rocks, and reefs there. Beijing did nothing to enforce its claims until rival claimants – Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam – began to do so. It then grabbed whatever they had not, winding up with the least desirable landmasses in the Spratly Islands. After some time, China enlarged these into artificial, fortified islands from which it cannot be dislodged. Meanwhile, Beijing’s inability to muster an internal consensus on the basis and extent of its claims left both ambiguous. This ensured that Americans and others would presume the worst, inadvertently embracing and acting to counter the most extreme positions advocated by Chinese chauvinists.
The United States is not itself a counter-claimant to any territory claimed by China. It has objected to several of China’s interpretations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).[13] If accepted, these Chinese assertions could restrict U.S. naval operations in the South China Sea.
The initial confrontations between the two sides were over whether China could require prior notification or approval of military reconnaissance activities in its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This argument faded away once China realized that it had an interest of its own in conducting such operations in other countries’ EEZs, including in U.S. waters.
The concrete (as opposed to conjectural) point of difference between the Chinese and U/S. navies now concerns China’s use of straight baselines[14] to define the territorial seas around the archipelagoes and islands it controls. The U.S. Navy has mounted frequent “freedom of navigation” operations (FONOPs) to challenge the Chinese practice. But Washington has failed to articulate clear objectives for these operations, allowing the media to portray them as challenges to Chinese sovereignty rather than to how China exercises it. Naval interactions in the South China Sea have become a test of wills, punctuated with emotional accusations by each side against the other. Americans charge China with scofflaw behavior. Chinese denounce what they see as an apparent U.S. effort to bully them. There are no diplomatic processes in place to resolve either the territorial disputes among the various claimants or U.S. differences with China over the law of the sea. Both sides are leaving it to might to make right.
China’s presence in the South China Sea began as a response to the encroachment of other claimants on previously unenforced Chinese claims. It has become a matter of strategic defense of the Chinese homeland that pits U.S. views of international law against Chinese security interests. Two-thirds of the shipping in the South China Sea is on its way to or from China, giving China a huge stake in defending shipping against interdiction by foreign warships, e.g. the U, S. and Japanese navies in Taiwan or Senkaku contingencies. The island bastions China has built in the Spratly Islands facilitate early warning, air and undersea surveillance operations, and the emplacement of land-based missiles to counter wartime foreign intrusions.
Given the nationalist passion and self-righteousness now at play on both sides, it is hardly surprising that the specific issues at stake in China’s near seas have been subsumed in wider Sino-American rivalry. The U.S. desire to continue to call the shots in the Western Pacific, as it has since World War II, now contends with the reality that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has already deployed many more warships off China’s shores than the U.S. has worldwide.[15] This quantitative gap is widening even as the quality and range of the PLAN’s weaponry approaches and, in some cases, exceeds the U.S. Navy’s. Trends in the South China Sea now drive antagonisms that are broadening and going global.
For many years, there was a striking disconnect between the increasingly contentious Sino-American military relationship and the growing interdependence of the two countries’ economies. Although it has a military dimension, China’s challenge to U.S. global primacy is mainly economic, not military or political. (China’s international appeal, such as it is, does not derive from admiration for Leninism with Chinese characteristics.) The perceived eclipse of American economic primacy by China played a role – though it was not the only factor – in the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States in 2016.
President Trump is a mercantilist, with a view of economics that harks back to the era before David Ricardo (whose proof of “comparative advantage” was published in 1817). Trump’s economic nationalism has led him to an obsession with bilateral rather than global trade balances, a preference for “managed” rather than free trade, an effort to protect the U.S. industrial base through reviews of both inbound and outbound investments based on their presumed implications for U.S. technological leadership, unilateral withdrawal from both plurilateral and multilateral institutions of international economic governance, and reduced immigration. To realize this vision, he has launched a war on trade and investment with China (as well as all other significant U.S. trading partners).
Links between American and Chinese businesses have long provided the ballast keeping Sino-American relations on an even keel. Trump’s trade wars aim to alter the terms of trade and investment so that economic cooperation through supply chains is succeeded by antagonism. Some of his advisors see this as fostering national economic self-sufficiency in the United States. (Of course, it will also promote self-reliance and sufficiency in China and could transform what had been “ballast” for the relationship into deadweight that drowns jobs and businesses in both countries.) There is no clear path to a negotiated retreat from economic conflict on either side.
The American position is an incoherent blend of unrelated and mutually incompatible demands – the foreign policy equivalent of a haggis.[16] Some on the Trump team want to crush China’s economic model. Others want to punish it for alleged transgressions against the intellectual property of American companies. Still others want the two governments to manage trade to ensure that U.S. imports do not exceed U.S. exports to China. There are those who seek the full opening of China’s financial sector. Many see a halt in Chinese investment in the United States and to American investment in high-tech enterprises in China as essential to preserve American leadership in science and technology, especially as it relates to weaponry.
China has been unable to make sense of this fantastic American blend of baneful demands. But Chinese negotiators are concerned that, were they to accommodate one or more of them, the proponents of competing theses would sabotage any deal because it had not addressed their particular agendas. Chinese officials are left to hope that, as Mr. Trump has done in the past, he will seize on minor concessions to declare a preposterous victory. But, were he to do so with China, the president would risk embarrassing revolts by disgruntled members of his notoriously fractious entourage, some of whom have long favored all-out confrontation with Beijing.
There are those on the Chinese side who, similarly, see political advantage in confrontation with the United States. It is a handy excuse to drag their feet on economic reform, undercut American ideological influence in China, favor Chinese over foreign companies, indigenize science and technology, and diversify China’s international relationships to reduce reliance on the United States in favor of cooperation with Russia and other less politically erratic and demanding foreign partners. The prospects for a fruitful end to Trump’s economic warfare against China do not look good. It is more likely to prove counterproductive in terms of its objectives than to succeed – stimulating Chinese innovation, self-sufficiency, defense spending, and global economic influence while accelerating the decline of science and technology in the United States, impoverishing it, and reducing its role in global governance.
Even if there is some sort of deal struck, economic truculence has now joined military antagonism as an engine of Sino-American hostility. As China takes advantage of America’s alienation of its foreign allies, partners, and friends, we can expect political antipathy to intensify. It’s hard to think of any country anywhere that will not wish to avoid entanglement in long-term Sino-American confrontation. Even regional rivals of China, like India and Japan, see a need to work with Beijing to advance common interests. They do not want the United States to impose its own problems with China on theirs (or China to impose an anti-American agenda on them). No nation is now willing to be forced, Cold War-style, into allegiance to one hyperpower against another.
The 21st century is increasingly characterized by entente rather than alliance, ad hoc coalition rather than broad partnership, and transactional rather than relational commitments to cooperation. By failing to adapt to these post-Cold War realities, Washington is placing its century-old economic primacy in jeopardy. There is no discernable support abroad for the U.S. repudiation of multilateralism in favor of aggressive unilateralism, whether political, economic, or military. There is widening resentment of perceived American abuses of inherited privilege through acts of omission as well as commission.
The United States’ increasing resort to unilateral sanctions based on dollar sovereignty incentivizes others, including major U.S. allies, to find ways to avoid transactions in dollars.[17] A dollar-free monetary system would protect their companies from extraterritorial punishment by the U.S. Treasury. It would also weaken American dominance of global governance. Building such an alternative system is a project that will draw active support from China, India, and Russia as well as the E.U. (which, on September 12, 2018, committed itself to this objective).[18] It has a good chance of eventually knocking the props out from under the “exorbitant privilege” the U.S. has enjoyed through its unilateral control of the global medium of exchange.
The world to come promises to be one in which the United States no longer enjoys many of the advantages to which it has been accustomed: lessened prestige and ability to inspire foreign nations to follow it, declining centrality to global finance and commerce; a greatly diminished role in global governance; and fewer alliances and partnerships to magnify and extend its military capabilities. The U.S. will have few, if any allies willing to join it in the event of a war with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea. It will also be alone in its intervention in support of Japan in the event of an accidental outbreak of conflict in the Senkaku Islands.
For its part, Beijing has no allies. It has always seen them as unnecessary liabilities rather than assets. Despite a growing partnership with Russia, China seeks to acquire enough power to balance America both economically and militarily on its own. In a universe of transactionalism and à la carte relationships, the relevant questions are whether each country will be able to find partners on specific issues and who these will be. Meanwhile, the U.S. withdrawal from both plurilateral and multilateral arrangements leaves the United States and China with no obvious ways to cooperate in setting the global agenda or its rules, managing worldwide challenges like climate change, or settling disputes through processes that limit bilateral confrontation.
Ideology, including religion, inhibits Realpolitik but does not prevent it. We have entered an age of unrealism. Diplomacy shows every sign of devolving toward cynical patterns of pre-Enlightenment statecraft in which values count only to the extent they can be exploited to charge interests with energy. This is a world in which self-discipline and mental rather than military agility will be the major determinants of events. China has fewer vested interests to overcome as it adjusts to change than the United States.
The new world disorder is an ecosystem in which no established alignments can be taken for granted. China’s “belt and road” initiative has the potential to reengineer not just the Eurasian but the global economy and China’s role in both. Middle-ranked powers like Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey occupy strategic positions that enable them to reorient themselves internationally. They are gaining bargaining power vis-à-vis both China and the United States. So are Japan and NATO members. Strategically stranded countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Ukraine can and will offer temporary fealty to foreign powers willing to back their regional agendas. Nothing will be true, and everything will be possible.[19]
Over the forty years that followed the Carter and Deng decisions of December 1978, China and the United States developed a relationship of cooperation within which competition could take place without significant adverse consequences. That relationship is being succeeded by one of malicious coexistence, in which the two sides must find ways to transcend antagonism that permit ad hoc cooperation and limit conflict. In a sense, despite the huge growth in interdependence of markets, bureaucracies, companies, and individuals that has taken place, Beijing and Washington are conceptually back where they were before the Nixon opening of 1972: separated by ideological preconceptions and popular stereotypes uncorrected by any strategic rationale for collaboration in support of common interests, oblivious to the existence of such interests, and politically enjoined from exploring alternatives to military antagonism. They are again hostage to the decisions and actions of third parties like Taipei and Tokyo, Pyongyang and Seoul, Delhi and Islamabad, on peace and war between them. But the international context is radically different, with Chinese power rising as that of the United States declines and China now in possession of assured means of devastating nuclear retaliation against any American threat to it.
In this difficult context, the two must grapple with some of the same dilemmas they did forty years ago: how can they create a dynamic favorable to the peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question? What role should opposition or partnership with Russia play in their respective national security policies? How can they revise the global and regional balances of power to limit the risks of conflict? What relationships should each seek to develop to develop and sustain relationships with present and potential regional powers like India, Indonesia, Japan, and the Koreas? Should they isolate or engage each other?
There are new questions as well: how should China and the United States respond to nuclear and missile proliferation in South, West, and Northeast Asia? How can they accommodate differing interpretations of international law, including the law of the sea? What balance should each strike between exchanges of goods and services to boost prosperity and the relevance of technology to national security? What reforms of institutions and practices would best address emerging challenges to global governance? How are these to be funded or governed and by whom?
This is a potent list of issues that the two countries can handle cooperatively or competitively. What choices will each make? What, if anything, might increase the prospects for mutually beneficial choices by both sides?
Finally, the shifting balances of power and prestige impose a need for adjustments in U.S. policy. In circumstances in which Chinese capabilities and clout are both rising relative to its own, is a confrontational approach by Washington more likely to induce cooperation or to entrench antagonism in Beijing? Is leaving problems to future resolution, when China is more likely to be able to prevail on the battlefield, a wiser approach than trying to resolve them now, however difficult it might be to do so? Should the United States seek to counter or benefit from the reality that all roads in Eurasia and adjacent areas will increasingly lead to Beijing? What sorts of policies would opposition or support for China’s promotion of infrastructure connectivity entail, and where would the resources to implement such policies come from? How can the United States reduce the danger that those to whom it has made defense commitments will do things that risk recklessly embroiling Americans in unwanted wars? What nuclear deterrent posture and arms control policies are most likely to reduce the possibility of catastrophic damage to the American homeland from China as well as Russia?
The absence of informed discussion of these issues in and between China and the United States is a clear and present danger to both as well as to others. As the fortieth anniversary of their rapprochement nears, the two countries are badly in need of innovative strategic vision and statesmanship comparable to those they displayed in December 1978. How China and the United States respond to this challenge will determine not only their own futures but the shape of the world to come.
Bristol, Rhode Island, September 2018
[1] December 16 in Beijing.
[2] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=30308
[3] The Maoist slogan “People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs!” immediately disappeared. The assertion that “countries want independence, nations want liberation, the people want revolution” was heard no more. And “we will certainly liberate Taiwan” was replaced with initiatives aimed at peaceful reunification with the island.
[4][4] December 18 – 22, 1978 in Beijing.
[5] “Agreements must be kept.”
[6] Usually accompanied by repetitions of allegations about Chinese strategic objectives and behavior that have been repeated often enough to pose as axiomatic but by no new analysis or concrete evidence to back these assertions.
[7] Often, it must be said, because of U.S. foot dragging.
[8] http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-27/news/mn-62877_1_human-rights.
[9] The parallels between “democratic peace theory” and past hopes that Christians wouldn’t fight Christians, Muslims wouldn’t fight Muslims, and socialists wouldn’t fight socialists – none of which proved true — cry out for examination. Count me skeptical, to say the least.
[10] But the Chinese word used for “containment” is fundamentally misleading. “遏制” does not accurately convey the sense of a policy of isolation intended to allow an enemy to do itself in through its own ideological rigidity and bureaucratic misdirection of resources. But this very concept of allowing the Soviet warfare state to exhaust itself and die was the core of Kennan’s grand strategy of “containment.” Applied to contemporary Sino-American relations, “containment,” as misunderstood, evokes Chinese fears that U.S. policy is directed at the strangulation of Chinese modernization rather than at balancing China’s growing power and deterring its possible abuse in bullying of others in the region. To date, U.S. policy has sought both to engage China and to constrain its external behavior, not to isolate it, suppress it, or overthrow single-party rule in it.
[11] Autarky is a system or policy of economic self-sufficiency aimed at removing the need for imports
[12] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/02/surprise-authoritarian-resilience-china/
[13] Ironically, China has ratified the Convention, while the United States has not. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy has been accustomed to acting as the regulator of the global and regional maritime commons. It has seen China’s emergence as a major, independent naval power as an unwelcome challenge to its primacy in the Western Pacific.
[14] A baseline is a contour from which to measure the seaward limits of a state’s territorial sea. Normally, a baseline follows the undulations of the low-water mark, but, when a coast is too deeply indented for a smooth contour to follow it, “straight baselines” can be drawn between its outermost points. UNCLOS authorizes “archipelagic states” (countries that consist of one or more archipelagoes) to use straight in lieu of normal baselines. China is not an archipelago. It nonetheless uses straight baselines to enclose the archipelagoes it claims. This enlarges the territorial seas it claims. That is of concern to the U.S. Navy and others defending the existing order in the maritime commons.
[15] As of 2018, the U.S. Navy deploys 280 vessels worldwide, 60–70 of which are assigned to the 7th Fleet, whose mission is the projection of U.S. power to the Indo-Pacific region. The PLAN has about 280 deployable battle force ships plus another 200 or more missile and gunboats and 230 support vessels available to defend the approaches to the Chinese coast in support of what Americans term its “anti-access, area-denial” (A2/AD) strategy. By 2020, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence forecasts that the PLAN will have 313 – 342 warships.
[16] Those who have not encountered this signature creation of traditional Scottish cuisine may well hope they never do. A haggis is a pudding made of the heart, liver, etc., of a sheep or calf, minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned, and boiled in the stomach of the animal.
[17] The most egregious case in point is the U.S. repudiation of its commitments under the Iran nuclear deal and its effort to strangle Iran’s foreign economic relations. See the August 2018 remarks of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reporting on urgent efforts to end U.S. payments dominance, as reported by the Deutsche Welle at https://www.dw.com/en/germany-urges-swift-end-to-us-payments-dominance/a-45242528.
[18] See President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker’s September 12, 2018 statement of resolve to turn the euro into a reserve currency to rival the dollar. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5724_en.htm.
[19] Apologies to Peter Pomerantsev, whose excellent book of this title is about Russia but might as well be about the world of today as a whole.
来源：昆仑策 2019年7月19日
