米尔斯海默：不可避免的对抗——美国、中国与大国政治悲剧
I am the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, where I have taught since 1982.
Above all else, I am an international relations theorist. More specifically, I am a realist, which means that I believe that the great powers dominate the international system and they constantly engage in security competition with each other, which sometimes leads to war.
Although I have dedicated my life to scholarship, I have also tried to engage in the policy debates of the day. For example, I was one of the most outspoken opponents of the 2003 Iraq War before it happened. I firmly believe that social science theories are invaluable for making and analyzing foreign policy.
By 米尔斯海默 (John J. Mearsheimer)
芝加哥大学政治学教授，《大国政治的悲剧》
【导读】 今年是中国加入世界贸易组织20周年。
1999年11月15日，中美签订协议；2001年11月10日，世界贸易组织批准我国为正式成员；12月11日，中国正式加入。对中国具有重要意义的“入世”，年底将迎来纪念活动的高潮。
但20年后的今天，中美关系却处于低谷。美国政界、学界在进行所谓的“反思”：接触政策究竟出了什么问题？
美方近期一方面屡屡挑战中国核心利益，另一方面又表示美中关系“不是新冷战”，不再寻求改变中国体制，应该如何理解这种对“接触”政策核心目标的背离？
著名现实主义学者米尔斯海默在《外交》杂志11/12月刊上发表文章《不可避免的对抗——美国、中国与大国政治悲剧》，批评“接触”政策，认为美国迷信“自由民主必胜”，违背了现实主义逻辑。
然而，这位现实主义学者，并未能从当时国际与美国国内政治、经济的现实出发，客观分析中国融入全球市场的过程，只是一味归结于政策失误。他还将中国入世，视为美国的“允许”，而无视那是艰苦谈判后、至少在当时看来互惠互利的结果。
米尔斯海默作为严肃学者，长期坚持其“现实主义”理论，但也要看到，部分美方政客试图进一步恶化中美关系，有可能借用其理论作为“依据”。了解其新近论述，仍有现实意义，观察者网翻译本文，谨供读者参考。
The Inevitable Rivalry
America, China, and the Tragedy of Great-Power Politics
By John J. Mearsheimer
November/December 2021
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-10-19/inevitable-rivalry-cold-war
Nov 9, 2021
Jack Goldsmith sat down with John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science department at the University of Chicago, to discuss his recent article in Foreign Affairs, called “The Inevitable Rivalry: America, China, and the Tragedy of Great-Power Politics.” In that essay, Mearsheimer argues that America’s engagement with China following the Cold War, and its fostering of the rise of China’s economic and thus military power, was the worst strategic blunder any country has made in recent history. They discussed why he thinks this, why he believes we currently are in a cold war with China that is more dangerous than the one with the Soviet Union, and what concretely the U.S. government should do now to check China’s power.
【文/ 米尔斯海默 译/ 观察者网 傅洛拉】
这是一个重大的选择。三十年前，冷战结束，美国赢了。它当时是这个星球上唯一的超级大国。扫视四界的威胁，美国的决策者似乎没有什么值得担心的——尤其是中国，一个十多年来一直与美国共同对抗苏联的弱小国家。
但也有一些不祥的迹象：中国的人口几乎是美国的五倍，而且其领导人已经接受了经济改革。人口规模和财富是军事力量的主要组成部分，因此中国很有可能在未来几十年内变得更加强大。由于一个更强大的中国肯定会挑战美国在亚洲乃至其他地区的地位，因此美国合乎逻辑的选择应该是很明确的：减缓中国的崛起。
相反，美国鼓励中国。民主党和共和党政府都被关于“自由主义必胜”和“大国冲突过时”的错误理论所迷惑，都奉行接触政策，旨在帮助中国变得更加富裕。
华盛顿推动对华投资，欢迎中国加入全球贸易体系，认为中国将成为一个爱好和平的“民主”国家和美国主导的国际秩序中负责任的利益相关者。
当然，这些幻想从未实现。中国不但没有在国内接受“自由价值观”，没有在国外接受现状，反而在崛起时变得更加野心勃勃。接触并没有促进北京和华盛顿之间的和谐，反而未能阻止竞争，并加速了所谓“单极时刻”的结束。
今天，中美陷入一场只能称为“新冷战”的激烈的安全竞争，涉及双方关系的方方面面。与最初的冷战相比，这种竞争对美国政策制定者的考验更大，因为中国很可能是比鼎盛时期的苏联更强大的竞争对手。而且，这场冷战更有可能升温
这一切都不足为奇。中国正在按照现实主义的预测行事。谁能指责中国领导人谋求主导亚洲，并成为地球上最强大的国家？当然不是美国，它追求类似的进程，崛起成为本地区的霸主，并最终成为世界上最安全和最有影响力的国家。
今天，美国的行为也正如现实主义逻辑所预测的那样。长期以来，它反对其他地区霸权的出现，将中国的野心视为直接威胁，并决心遏制中国的持续崛起。不可避免的结果是竞争和冲突。这就是大国政治的悲剧。
然而，本可以改变的是中国崛起的速度和程度。如果美国决策者在单极时期考虑均势政治，他们会试图减缓中国的增长并最大限度地扩大北京和华盛顿之间的实力差距。但一旦中国富裕起来，美中“冷战”就不可避免了。
“接触”可能是任何国家在近代历史上犯下的最严重的战略失误：一个大国积极促进同等的竞争对手崛起，你找不到可以相提并论的例子。现在要再去做很多事情来改变，已经太晚了。
现实主义的基本知识
1960年代中苏分裂后不久，美国领导人明智地将中国融入西方秩序并帮助其经济增长，认为一个更强大的中国将能够更好地帮助遏制苏联。但随后冷战结束，提出了一个问题：既然不再需要盯着莫斯科，美国决策者应该如何与中国打交道？
该国的人均GDP是美国的75分之一。但鉴于中国的人口优势，如果其经济在未来几十年快速增长，它可能会在纯粹的经济实力上超过美国。简而言之，日益富裕的中国对全球力量平衡的影响是巨大的。
从现实主义的角度来看，中国作为经济巨人的前景是一场噩梦。这不仅意味着单极的终结；一个富裕的中国肯定也会建立强大的军队，因为人口众多的富裕国家总是将其经济实力转化为军事实力。中国几乎肯定会利用这支军队在亚洲谋求霸权，并将力量投射到世界其他地区。一旦这样做，美国将别无选择，只能遏制（如果不是试图削弱）中国的力量，从而引发危险的安全竞争。
为什么大国注定要竞争？首先，没有更高的权威来裁决国家之间的争端或在受到威胁时保护它们。此外，任何国家都无法确定对手——尤其是拥有强大军事力量的对手——不会攻击它。竞争对手的意图很难预测。
各国认为在无政府世界中生存的最佳方式是成为最强大的参与者，这在实践中意味着成为自己地区的霸主，并确保没有其他大国主导该地区。
这种现实主义逻辑从一开始就影响了美国的外交政策。早期的总统及继任者们努力使美国成为西半球最强大的国家。在二十世纪初取得地区霸权后，美国在阻止四个强国称霸亚洲或欧洲方面发挥了关键作用：它帮助在一战中击败了德意志第二帝国，在二战中击败了日本帝国和纳粹德国，并在冷战期间遏制了苏联。
美国对这些潜在的霸主忧心忡忡，不仅因为它们可能变得强大到足以涉入西半球，还因为这将使华盛顿更难在全球范围内投射力量。
中国正在按照同样的现实主义逻辑行事，实际上是在模仿美国。它想成为其后院最强大的国家，并最终成为世界上最强大的国家。它希望建立一支蓝水海军，以保护其从波斯湾获取石油的路径。它希望成为先进技术的领先生产商。它想建立一个对它的利益更有利的国际秩序。一个强大的中国放弃追求这些目标的机会是愚蠢的。
大多数美国人不承认北京和华盛顿遵循相同的剧本，因为他们认为美国是一个崇高的“民主”国家，与中国等国家的行为不同。但这不是国际政治的运作方式。
所有大国，无论是否“民主”，都别无选择，只能在根本上是零和游戏中争夺权力。这一迫切需要在冷战期间激励了两个超级大国。它激励着今天的中国，即使它是一个“民主”国家，也会如此。这也激励了美国领导人，使他们决心遏制中国。
即使有人拒绝这种强调结构性力量推动大国竞争的现实主义说法，美国领导人仍然应该认识到，在所有国家中，将中国变成大国是一种会招来麻烦的做法。
毕竟，它长期以来一直寻求以对自己有利的条件解决与印度的边界争端，并在东亚怀有广泛的“修正主义”目标。中国政策制定者一直表示希望解决台湾问题，从日本收回钓鱼岛（日本称为尖阁列岛），并控制南海大部分地区——这些目标注定会遭到中国邻国的猛烈抵制，更不用说美国了。中国一直有“修正主义”的目标；错误在于，让它变得强大到足以针对这些目标采取行动。
未选择的道路
如果美国政策制定者接受现实主义的逻辑，他们本可以采取一套直接的政策来减缓中国的经济增长，并保持中美之间的贫富差距。1990年代初期，中国经济极不发达，未来的增长在很大程度上取决于进入美国市场，获得美国的技术和资本。作为当时的经济和政治巨人，美国处于阻碍中国崛起的理想位置。
从1980年开始，美国总统授予中国“最惠国待遇”地位，这一称号赋予中国最好的对美贸易条件。这种偏袒本应随着冷战而结束，取而代之的是，美国领导人本应通过谈判达成一项新的双边贸易协定，对中国施加更严厉的条款。即使协议对美国不利，他们也应该这样做；鉴于中国经济规模较小，它受到的打击将比美国经济大得多。
相反，美国总统不明智地每年都给予中国最惠国待遇。2000年，美国将这一地位永久化，使错误进一步加重，这显著降低了华盛顿对北京的影响力。第二年，美国再次失误，允许中国加入世界贸易组织（WTO）。随着全球市场的开放，中国企业扩张，产品更具竞争力，中国变得更加强大。
除了限制中国进入国际贸易体系，美国还应该严格控制美国尖端技术的出口。出口管制在1990年代和后一个十年的初期会尤其有效，当时中国公司主要是复制西方技术，而不是自己创新；拒绝中国获得航空航天和电子等领域的先进技术几乎肯定会减缓其经济发展。
但华盛顿让技术不受限制地流动，允许中国挑战美国在关键创新领域的主导地位。美国政策制定者也犯了降低美国对华直接投资壁垒的错误，在1990年投资规模还很小，但在接下来的30年里迅速增长。
如果美国在贸易和投资上采取强硬态度，中国肯定会转向其他国家寻求帮助。但它在1990年代所能做的事情是有限的。
美国不仅生产了世界上大部分最尖端的技术，而且还拥有多种手段——包括制裁和安全保障——它本可以用来说服其他国家对中国采取更强硬的立场。作为限制中国在全球贸易中作用的努力的一部分，华盛顿本可以集结日本和台湾地区等盟友，提醒他们强大的中国将对其构成生存威胁。
鉴于其市场改革和潜在的大国力量，尽管美国采取这些政策中国仍会崛起，但它会在更晚的时候成为一个强国。而当这一幕实现时，它仍将明显弱于美国，因此无法谋求地区霸权。
因为在国际政治中，相对而非绝对的实力才是最重要的。现实主义的逻辑表明，美国决策者应该将减缓中国经济增长的努力，与维持（最好是加强）对中国的领先地位结合起来。
美国政府本可以在研发上投入巨资，为保持美国掌握尖端技术所需的不懈创新提供资金。它本可以积极阻止制造商转移到海外，以加强美国的制造业基础并保护其经济免受脆弱的全球供应链的影响。但这些谨慎的措施都没有被采纳。
美国的幻想
鉴于1990年代华盛顿建制派普遍存在的“自由主义必胜”的观念，现实主义思想几乎不可能影响美国的外交政策。相反，美国政策制定者认为，通过传播“民主”，促进开放的国际经济，以及加强国际机构，可以最大限度地促进全球和平与繁荣。
这种逻辑应用于中国时，定下了一种接触政策，即美国将中国融入全球经济，希望它变得更加繁荣。最终，人们认为，中国甚至会成长为尊重权利的“民主”国家和负责任的全球行动者。与担心中国经济增长的现实主义不同，“接触”政策乐见中国增长。
对于这样一个冒险的“接触”政策，支持的广度和深度是超乎寻常的，跨越了四届政府。美国总统乔治·H·W·布什甚至在冷战结束之前就致力于与中国接触。在政治风波后的新闻发布会上，布什辩称，美中“商业往来（已）在本质上导致了更多的对自由的追求”，并且经济激励使民主化“不可阻挡” 。两年后，当他因更新中国最惠国地位而受到批评时，他为接触政策辩护，声称这将“有助于为民主变革创造氛围”。
比尔·克林顿批评布什在1992年总统竞选期间“溺爱”中国，并在进入白宫后试图对北京采取强硬态度。但他很快改变了方向，在1994年宣布美国应该“加强和扩大与中国的接触”，这将有助于中国“发展成为一个负责任的大国，不仅在经济上不断发展，而且在政治上不断成熟，以便保护人权”。
克林顿率先说服国会给予中国永久最惠国待遇，为中国加入世贸组织奠定了基础。 “如果你相信中国人民会有更大的开放和自由，”他在2000年坚持说，“你应该支持这个协议。”
乔治·W·布什也支持将中国带入全球经济圈，作为总统候选人承诺“与中国的贸易将促进自由”。在上任的第一年，他签署了给予中国永久最惠国地位的公告，并为引导中国加入世贸组织迈出了最后一步。
奥巴马政府更是如此。“自从我担任总统以来，我的目标一直是以建设性的方式与中国接触，管理我们的分歧并最大限度地扩大合作机会，”奥巴马在2015年表示，“而且我一再说过，我相信中国的发展符合美国的利益。”
有人可能认为，时任国务卿希拉里·克林顿2011年公布的“转向亚洲”政策代表着从接触向遏制的转变，但这是错误的。她是一位坚定的接触支持者，她在《外交政策》上的文章为“转向亚洲”给出了些理由，其中充满了关于开放市场优点的自由主义言论。“繁荣的中国对美国有利。”她写道。此外，除了在澳大利亚部署2500名美国海军陆战队外，没有采取任何有意义的步骤来实施严肃的遏制战略。
美国商界也广泛支持接触政策，他们将中国视为制造基地和巨大的市场，拥有超过10亿的潜在客户。美国商会、商业圆桌会议和全国制造商协会等贸易团体进行了时任美国商会主席托马斯·多诺霍（Thomas Donohue）所说的“不间断游说闪电战”，以帮助中国加入世贸组织。
媒体的领军人物也接受了接触政策，包括《华尔街日报》、《纽约时报》和《华盛顿邮报》的编辑委员会。专栏作家托马斯·弗里德曼写道：“随着时间的流逝，如果没有其他机构、组织的参与——从有效的证券和交易委员会到获得法治支持的自由和负责任的媒体，中国领导人根本无法控制和监管其蓬勃发展的自由市场，或者防止小人物受骗后参与反政府暴动。而这些机构是和自由市场天然在一起的。”
接触政策在学术界同样受欢迎。很少有中国专家或国际关系学者质疑，帮助北京变得更强大是否。要观察外交政策机构对接触的压倒性支持，最佳指标也许是兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基和亨利·基辛格。他们分别是民主党和共和党冷战时期最杰出的鹰派人物，但都支持该战略。
接触政策的捍卫者辩称，他们的政策有失败的可能性。克林顿在2000年承认：“我们不知道它会走向何方。”乔治·W·布什同年说：“没有任何保证。”然而，像这样的怀疑很少见。
更重要的是，没有一个接触支持者预见到失败的影响。他们相信，如果中国拒绝“民主”化，那只会是一个能力较弱的国家。没有民主化却变得更强大的前景似乎并未出现在他们的计算中。此外，他们认为现实主义政治是旧思想。
一些接触支持者现在认为，美国是两面下注，在与中国的友谊没有蓬勃发展的情况下，同时寻求遏制和接触。克林顿政府期间曾在五角大楼任职的约瑟夫·奈在2018年这样写道：“只是为了安全，我们制定了保险的政策，以免接触政策赌输了。”这与美国决策者经常表示他们没有遏制中国的说法不符。例如，1997年，克林顿将他的政策描述为“不是遏制和冲突”而是“合作”。但即使美国决策者悄悄遏制中国，接触也会破坏他们的努力，因为这项政策最终将全球力量平衡转向了有利于中国的一方。创造一个同等级别的竞争对手与遏制很难保持一致。
失败的实验
没有人可以说，接触政策未得到足够多的发挥作用的机会，也没有人可以说中国之所以成为威胁是因为美国未给其提供足够的空间。随着岁月的流逝，很明显，接触政策是失败的。
中国经历了前所未有的经济增长，但并没有变成“自由民主”国家或负责任的利益相关者。相反，中国将自由主义价值观视为对其国家稳定的威胁，并且正如新兴大国通常所做的那样，正在推行越来越激进的外交政策。
没有办法解决这个问题：接触政策是一个巨大的战略错误。库尔特·坎贝尔（Kurt Campbell）和伊利·拉特纳（Ely Ratner）是两位承认接触政策失败的前奥巴马政府官员，现在正在拜登政府任职，正如他们在2018年所写的：“华盛顿现在面临着现代历史上最具活力和最强大的竞争对手。”
奥巴马在担任总统期间誓言对北京采取更强硬的立场，对其海洋主张提出异议，并在世贸组织内对其提起诉讼，但这些半心半意的努力收效甚微。直到2017年，政策才真正改变。唐纳德·特朗普成为美国总统后，他迅速放弃了前四届政府所采用的接触战略，转而寻求遏制。
正如当年发布的一份白宫战略文件所解释的那样，大国竞争卷土重来，中国现在寻求“挑战美国的实力、影响力和利益，企图侵蚀美国的安全和繁荣”。特朗普决心阻止中国取得成功，于2018年发起贸易战，试图削弱威胁美国技术主导地位的科技巨头华为和其他中国企业。他的政府还与台湾地区建立了更密切的关系，并挑战了北京在南海的主张。第二次冷战正在进行中。
May 20, 2021
考虑到拜登总统在担任参议院外交关系委员会主席和在奥巴马政府里担任副总统时，曾坚定地支持接触政策，有人可能会预期他放弃遏制，恢复接触。事实上，作为总统，他已经接受了遏制政策，并且和他的前任一样对中国的态度强硬，在上任后不久就承诺与中国进行“极端竞争”。
国会也是如此。6月，参议院在两党的支持下通过了《美国创新与竞争法》。该法案将中国称为“美国外交政策面临的最大地缘政治和地缘经济挑战”。美国公众似乎也认同这一观点：2020年皮尤研究中心的一项民意调查发现，十分之九的美国人认为中国的实力是一种威胁。美中新的竞争不会很快结束。事实上，无论谁入主白宫，这种情况都有可能加剧。
热战的危险
接触政策剩余的捍卫者，现在将美中关系的螺旋式下降归咎于那些一心想要制造美苏式对抗的个人——前小布什政府官员罗伯特·佐利克把他们叫作“新冷战斗士”，一切都是他们个人行为的结果。
在接触支持者看来，进一步经济合作的动机大于大国竞争的需要。共同利益胜过利益冲突。遗憾的是，接触政策的支持者徒劳无功。第二次冷战已经来了，当人们比较两次冷战时，很明显，美中对抗比美苏对抗更有可能导致一场热战。
两种冲突之间的第一个对比点关乎能力。就潜在实力而言，中国已经比苏联更接近美国。1970年代中期，在其国力鼎盛时期，苏联对美国的人口优势很小（不到1.2比1）；以国民生产总值作为粗略的财富指标，几乎是美国的60%。相比之下，中国现在的人口是美国的四倍，财富是美国的70%左右。如果中国经济继续以每年约5%的惊人速度增长，它最终将拥有比美国更大的潜在力量。
据预测，到2050年，中国将拥有大约3.7比1的人口优势。如果中国在2050年人均GDP达到美国的一半——大致相当于今天的韩国，那么中国的富裕程度将是美国的1.8倍。如果它做得更好，到那时达到美国人均GDP的五分之三——大致相当于今天的日本，它将是美国的2.3倍。凭借所有这些潜在的力量，北京可以建立一支比美国强大得多的军队，美军还不得不从6000英里外来与中国军队比拼。
苏联不仅是比美国穷；即使在冷战高峰期，它也仍然在试图从纳粹德国造成的可怕破坏中恢复。二战期间，这个国家失去了2400万公民，更不用说7万多座城镇和村庄、3.2万家工业企业和4万英里的铁路。它没有能力与美国作战。相比之下，中国上一次打仗是在 1979 年（对越南），并在随后的几十年中成为经济巨头。
对苏联国家力量的另一个拖累，就中国而言基本上是不存在的：麻烦的盟友。在整个冷战期间，苏联在东欧保持着庞大的军事存在，并深入参与了该地区几乎每个国家的政治。它不得不与东德、波兰、匈牙利和捷克斯洛伐克的叛乱作斗争。阿尔巴尼亚、罗马尼亚和南斯拉夫经常挑战莫斯科的经济和安全政策。苏联人也忙于与中国打交道，后者在冷战中途改变了立场。
这些盟友让莫斯科头疼，它使苏联领导人分心，不能集中精力应对主要对手——美国。当代中国几乎没有盟友，除了在朝鲜问题上，中国与朋友的联系远不如苏联与他们的朋友那么紧密。总之，北京在国际上有更大的灵活性。
意识形态动机呢？与苏联一样，中国名义上由共产主义政府领导。但正如冷战期间的美国人错误地将莫斯科主要视为共产主义威胁，正决心在全球传播其“邪恶”的意识形态一样，今天将中国描绘成意识形态威胁也是错误的。
苏联的外交政策只受到共产主义思想边缘性的影响。约瑟夫·斯大林是一个铁杆现实主义者，他的继任者也是如此。美国人倒应该希望中国是“共产主义”的；那么它的经济就会沉睡下去。
但中国确实存在一种“主义”，一种可能会加剧其与美国竞争的“主义”：民族主义。通常作为世界上最强大的政治意识形态，民族主义在苏联的影响有限，因为它与共产主义相悖。然而，自1990年代初以来，中国民族主义一直在蓄势待发。
中国强调“百年国耻”，这使其民族主义特别危险。那一时期始于第一次鸦片战争，此后，中国成为大国的牺牲品，尤其是日本，但在中国的叙述中，美国也是加害者。这一强有力的民族主义叙述的影响，在2012-2013年得以展现，当时中国和日本在钓鱼岛（日本称“尖阁诸岛”）发生小规模冲突，引发了中国各地的反日抗议活动。未来几年，东亚地区安全竞争的加剧必将提升中国对日本和美国的敌意，增加爆发热战的可能性。
中国的地区野心也增加了战争的可能性。忙于从二战中恢复并管理东欧帝国的苏联领导人基本上满足于欧洲大陆当时的局面。相比之下，中国坚定地致力于东亚的扩张议程。尽管中国的主要目标对其来说当然具有战略价值，但它们也被视为神圣领土，这意味着它们的命运与中国民族主义息息相关。台湾地区尤其如此：中国人对该岛有一种情感依恋，这是苏联人对柏林从未有过的感觉，如果让华盛顿承诺捍卫它，会使战争风险变大。
最后，新冷战的地理环境比旧冷战更容易发生战争。尽管美苏对抗的范围是全球性的，但其重心是欧洲的铁幕，双方都拥有配备数千枚核武器的庞大陆军和空军。欧洲发生超级大国战争的可能性很小，因为双方的决策者都了解核升级的可怕风险。没有一个领导人愿意引发一场可能会摧毁他自己国家的冲突。
在亚洲，没有像铁幕那样清晰的分界线来锚定。相反，有一些潜在的冲突是有限的，并且会涉及常规武器，这使得战争成为可考虑的选项。它们包括争夺对台湾、南海、钓鱼岛以及中国与波斯湾之间的海上航线的控制权。这些冲突将主要发生在敌对的空中和海上力量之间，在开阔水域进行；在争夺岛屿控制权的情况下，小规模的地面部队可能会参与其中。即使是可能让中国投入两栖部队的台湾地区争夺战，也不会涉及庞大的核武装的相互碰撞。
这并不是说这些有限的战争情景是可能的，但它们比假设北约和华沙条约组织之间的大规模战争更合理。尽管如此，人们不能假设如果北京和华盛顿因台湾地区或南海而发生冲突，不会升级到核战争。
的确，如果一方损失惨重，至少会考虑动用核武器来挽救局面。一些决策者可能会得出结论，只要袭击发生在海上并且不影响中国和美国及其盟国的领土，就可以使用核武器而不会出现不可接受的升级风险。在新冷战中不仅更有可能发生大国战争，而且核力量的使用也是如此。
美国制造的竞争对手
尽管人数减少了，但接触政策的倡导者仍然存在，他们仍然认为美国可以与中国找到共同点。直到2019年7月，100名中国观察人士还签署了一封致特朗普和国会议员的公开信，拒绝接受北京构成威胁的观点。“许多中国官员和其他精英都知道，与西方采取温和、务实和真正合作的方式符合中国的利益，”他们写道，然后呼吁华盛顿“与我们的盟友和伙伴合作，创造一个更加开放和繁荣的世界，其中中国会获得参与的机会”。
但大国就是不愿意让其他大国以牺牲自己为代价而变得更强大。这种大国竞争背后的驱动力是结构性的，这意味着无法通过明智的决策来消除这个问题。唯一可能改变潜在动态的，将是一场阻止中国崛起的重大危机——考虑到该国长期以来的稳定性、能力和经济增长，这种可能性似乎不太会实现。因此，一场危险的安全竞争几乎是不可避免的。
充其量，可以通过避免战争来管理这种竞争。这将需要华盛顿在东亚维持强大的常规力量，以说服北京相信一场武装冲突最多只能带来得不偿失的胜利。通过说服对手无法快速取得决定性胜利，从而阻止战争。
此外，美国决策者必须不断提醒自己——以及中国领导人——战时核升级的可能性始终存在。毕竟，核武器是终极威慑力量。
华盛顿还可以努力为这种安全竞争制定明确的道路规则——例如，避免海上事故或其他意外军事冲突的协议。如果每一方都明白越过对方的红线意味着什么，战争的可能性就会降低。
这些措施只能最大限度地减少美中日益激烈的竞争所固有的危险。但这是美国为曾经无视现实主义逻辑、将中国变成决心在各个方面挑战它的强国，而必须付出的代价。
【视频】拜登：须确保中美关系不滑向冲突 习近平强调相互尊重
11/16/2021
中美两国元首在拜登政府上任10个月后，今早（16日）首次举行视频会晤。中国国家主席习近平强调，中美应该加强沟通和合作，既办好各自国内的事情，又承担起应尽的国际责任。中美也应该相互尊重、和平共处、合作共赢。美国总统拜登则认为，两国领导人必须确保美中关系不滑向冲突。
Nov 15, 2021
综合中国央视新闻、新华社、路透社、美国公共电视台（PBS）以及美国全国广播公司商业频道（CNBC）报道，中美两国元首视频会晤早上8时46分许开始，习近平和美国总统拜登就中美关系和双方共同关心的问题交换意见。会晤分上下半场举行，下午12时24分全部结束。
会议开场的气氛友好，拜登首先发言，他面带笑容地说，很高兴见到习近平，并希望两人下一次能面对会议开场的气氛友好，拜登首先发言，他面带笑容地说：“很高兴见到你，主席先生。我希望下次就能够像以前一样，就是我到中国访问的时候，能够亲自面对面地跟您交谈。因为我们过去已经有很多对话的机会，我希望今天我们也能够本着这样的这个做法，进行开诚布公的对话。”
拜登接着低头看着笔记，说：“我期望继续我们好像以前那样的坦诚直率的讨论。就好像以前我也曾经说过的，做为美中两国的领导人，也应该做到的就是，我们的责任是确保竞争不会滑向冲突，无论有意的或是无意的，我们的竞争应该是坦率、直接的。”
他强调，美中需要建立涉及竞争的、合乎常理的护栏，“清晰坦诚地对待我们之间的分歧，在我们利益交汇的领域一道努力，特别是在诸如气候变化等重大的全球问题上。这样做其实并不是给对方施舍什么恩惠，或者是卖什么人情，而是我们对世界的责任担当。作为两个大国，美国的领导和中国的领导，都应该做到这一点。”
“因为我们两个大国之间的关系，不但是攸关于我们两个国家，也攸关于全世界。我们的责任不单是对我们各自两国的人民，也对于世界。也就是为什么今天我们在对话的时候，我们也认识到，所有的国家都必须恪守同样的道路规则，为什么美国永远捍卫我们的利益和价值观，捍卫我们的盟友和伙伴们。也因此我们将讨论存在我们之间的一些关切的领域，从人权到经济，以及确保一个自由开放的印太地区。”
拜登说到“捍卫我们的利益和价值观，捍卫我们的盟友和伙伴们”时，左手拿起桌子上的黄色荧光笔，将之抓紧。
他把黄色荧光笔从左手转到右手，放到桌上文件的右边，接着说：“我其实跟世界不同的领导说到我们两国关系时，我都说到这一点，也就是，非常重要的就是对我们之间的问题，关乎我们双边关系的问题，进行坦诚直接的沟通和讨论，我们从不回避问题。我们在进行对话之后，对于各自的想法都是非常清晰的。对于我们的当务之急和意图，我们有非常直接坦诚的对话。因此，我期待着今天晚上跟你着手围绕着广泛而实质的议程展开讨论。”
习近平在开场时也是面带笑容地说：“看到老朋友我感到很高兴”。他接着说，当前中美发展都处在关键阶段，人类的“地球村”也面临诸多挑战。中美作为世界前两大经济体和联合国安理会常任理事国，应该加强沟通和合作，既办好我们各自国内的事情，又承担起应尽的国际责任，共同推进人类和平与发展的崇高事业。这是中美两国和世界各国人民的共同愿景，也是中美两国领导人的共同使命。
习近平强调，推动中美各自发展，维护和平稳定的国际环境，包括有效应对气变、冠病疫情在内的全球性挑战，都需要一个健康稳定的中美关系。中美应该相互尊重、和平共处、合作共赢。他愿同拜登一道，形成共识，积极行动，引领中美关系积极向前发展。这是造福两国人民的需要，也是国际社会的期待。
习近平发言时全程抬头，面向视频中的拜登，没有看稿。
央视新闻在习拜会结束后报道，习近平在会上强调，中美两国是两艘在大海中航行的巨轮，“我们要把稳舵，使中美两艘巨轮迎着风浪共同前行，不偏航、不失速，更不能相撞。 ”
习近平提出新时期中美相处应该坚持的三点原则：一是相互尊重，二是和平共处，三是合作共赢。地球足够大，容得下中美各自和共同发展。要坚持互利互惠，不玩零和博弈，不搞你输我赢。
双方也就事关中美关系发展的战略性、全局性、根本性问题以及共同关心的重要问题进行了充分、深入的沟通和交流。
美国记者获准在习拜会开始时观察10分钟，记者们在白宫西厢会议室观察。
习拜会中国会场则位于北京人民大会堂。央视新闻引述消息人士报道，陪同习近平出席的中国官员有中共中央办公厅主任丁薛祥、副总理刘鹤、中央外事工作委员会办公室主任杨洁篪、外长王毅、副外长谢锋。
美国方面则有国务卿布林肯、国家安全顾问沙利文、财长耶伦、国家安全委员会印太政策协调员坎贝尔（Kurt Campbell）、国家安全委员会中国事务高级主任罗森伯格（Laura Rosenberger），以及国家安全委员会中国事务主任乔恩·钦（Jon Czin）。
（视频来源：中国央视新闻）
中国学者和美国前政要警告 以“竞争”定义中美关系加剧冲突风险
来自 / 联合早报 | 文 / 杨丹旭
10/26/2021
中国军方学者、退役少将姚云竹在香山论坛专家视频会上，抨击美国以“竞争”定义中美关系，“是一个消极的以零和逻辑推导出来的互动模式”，也令其他国家面对更大的选边站压力。美国前驻华大使芮效俭也重申不认同以“竞争”定义中美关系的立场。
中国学者和美国前政要呼吁，避免以“竞争”定义中美关系，否则将加剧两国冲突风险，令其他国家面对更大的选边站压力。
中国军方学者、退役少将姚云竹前晚在北京香山论坛专家视频会上，抨击美国以“竞争”定义中美关系，“是一个消极的以零和逻辑推导出来的互动模式”。
她指出，受竞争框架影响，双方都会担心合作产生的好处会对对方更有利，因此很难有合作意愿。“即使在符合双方共同利益、符合全球利益的问题上，中美也会倾向于各行其是，而不是协调合作。”
美国拜登政府提出对华关系“竞争、合作、对抗”三分法，但主张要确保两国之间的竞争是负责任的；北京则反对用“竞争”定义中美关系，也拒绝拜登政府提出的三分法，而是强调两国关系应为互利共赢。
姚云竹批评美国以“竞争”凝聚国内共识，刺激中国的民意向负面方向发展，导致政策选择余地缩小。“如果要采取任何合作的政策，都会不得不面对更多、更大的国内压力。”
她也指，中美的所谓战略竞争已引起很多国家紧张和忧虑，担心中美关系越紧张，其他国家同中美各自发展双边关系会越困难，“难道中美真的要逼得其他国家选边站吗？”
中美元首9月通话时，讨论了两国确保竞争不演变为冲突的责任，为日益加剧的中美博弈设下护栏。
姚云竹认为，相较于竞争，双方合作的状态和对合作的期待，会更有利于避免冲突、预防和管理危机，因此中国反对以“竞争”来定义中美关系。
美国前驻华大使芮效俭（Stapleton Roy）在同一场围绕“大国关系与亚太安全”的讨论中也提出：“如果我们任由战略竞争主导双边关系，这会造成巨大伤害，不仅损害两国利益，也会更广泛地损害东亚地区乃至世界的利益。”
芮效俭：任何大国都负有特殊责任
芮效俭在1991年至1995年担任美国驻华大使。他在问答环节中，重申不认同以“竞争”定义中美关系的立场。芮效俭说，所有大国关系都会有竞争元素，但任何大国都负有特殊的责任，不应简单地掉入以“战略竞争”定义大国关系的模式。
中美关系目前正处于两国建交42年来的低谷。芮效俭不讳言，美国民众现在对中国有强烈敌对情绪，中国对美国所做的行为也让美国民众更易敌视中国，并倾向认为中国正与美国对抗，目标是把美国赶出西太平洋。
芮效俭认为，当前的局面双方都有责任，未来中美关系往哪个方向发展，取决于两国领导人，尤其是他们在管控分歧和构建共同利益上的技巧。
芮效俭说：“如果华盛顿和北京无法调和各自的利益和雄心，军事冲突的风险将加剧，资源会从经济发展转移至危险、昂贵的军备竞赛，也有可能导致核扩散，让东亚国家面对更大的选边站压力。”
（记者是《联合早报》北京特派员）
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson: Competition Should Not Be Used to Define the Overall Picture of the China-US Relations
The Paper: It is reported that on 15 October EST, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman stated in her remarks in Washington that with regard to China, the position of the US is clear, and that the US will compete with China where necessary, work with China when it will be in the interests of the US and the world, and challenge China when necessary. Do you have any comment?
Zhao Lijian: The relevant remarks by the US side are the repetition of the old rhetoric of the so-called approach of “competition, cooperation and confrontation”. What the US stated is in essence a cover-up for its containment and oppression against China under the pretext of competition, the root cause of which lies in the wrong perception by the US side who stubbornly views China as a strategic rival.
How the US and China understand and get along with each other bears on the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and draws attention from the regional countries and the international community. China holds the view that China and the US share extensive common interests and profound cooperation potential. Competition does exist in some areas such as trade, but it should not be used to define the overall picture of the China-US relations. We must point out that US’ constant slandering and smearing against China is not “competition”; decoupling and suppressing Chinese enterprises by using national security as an excuse is not “competition”; still less should it be “competition” to level up military deployment around China or form various anti-China cliques.
The US side should forego Cold War zero-sum mentality, view China and China’s development from an objective perspective, form a deep understanding of the mutually beneficial nature of China-US relations, and adopt rational and practical China policies. It should enhance dialogue and communication with China, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, properly handle differences, and embark on a path of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.
(Source: Foreign Ministry Regular Press Conference on Oct. 18, 2021 )
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傅立民文章：中美竞争最终将如何收场
5/12/2021
核心提示：文章指出，如果美国被中国和“世界其他国家的崛起”逼下台，那也是因为自满的美国人未能让一种曾经成功过的制度去适应解决政治和经济积弊，并为新突破奠定基础。中国和其他国家与此毫不相干。
参考消息网 5月11日报道 俄罗斯《全球政治中的俄罗斯》双月刊网站5月3日发表题为《中美对抗将如何收场》的文章，作者为美国布朗大学沃森国际与公共事务研究所客座研究员、美国前助理国防部长傅立民。全文摘编如下：
现在，美国在所有方向上开始与中国竞争，人们不清楚这种竞争将把我们带向何方。在我们开展深入探讨之前，应当先思考几个关键问题：中美的赌注有多大？双方在已开始的斗争中将动用哪些现有战术能力和未来战略能力？长期竞争会对双方造成何种可能的影响？这场斗争最终将如何收场？
中美各有核心利益诉求
那么，让我们把过去视为客观现实并努力专注于未来。
中国政治精英认为，有五样基本的东西值得一赌：
一是彻底打消欧洲和日本帝国主义肢解中国的企图，以及美国以冷战方式实施干涉并策动台湾独立的念头；
二是为弥补过去中国国家尊严所受屈辱而争取地位和尊严；
三是严格防范可能破坏中国稳定并损害中国利益和领土完整的行动以及外国军事干预的发生；
四是让中国顺利重返其在遭受欧洲帝国主义干涉前所占据的经济和技术高地；
五是在地区和全球事务中扮演符合中国体量及其日益增强的国力的角色。
美国的政治精英也在五个方面投下赌注：
一是让美国维持其在全球和地区的政治、军事、经济和金融领先位置；
二是保住美国作为印太等地区中小国家可靠军事保护国的所谓“声誉”；
三是维护美国在所谓“世界秩序”中的优越性；
四是通过降低对不受美国及其盟国控制的供应的依赖来获得经济安全；
五是实现再工业化、提高高收入岗位的就业率，并恢复国内平静的社会经济形势。
现在，中美两国间的力量平衡正在迅速变化，而且趋势对美国不利。今天的中国拥有比美国更广泛的国际联系。它已成为包括欧盟在内的世界上大多数经济体的最大贸易伙伴，在全球贸易和投资中的领先优势不断扩大。中国在全球科技创新中发挥的作用越来越大，而美国的阵地却越来越小。
盟友未必唯美马首是瞻
中国崛起首先带来的是经济而非军事方面的挑战。自冷战结束10年后至今，我们从未在中美关系中看到过类似今天的敌对状态。今天的中国军队有能力保卫自己的国家免遭任何外国攻击。
值得庆幸的是，中国依旧竭力通过谈判而非军事手段的方式解决台湾问题。而这样的谈判可以确保和平的延续。目前，中国的战略目标是提高美国向亚太地区投射力量的成本，但并不直接威胁美国。
拜登承认：为了有效与更加强大的中国开展协作，需要强化自己的立场并争取别国的帮助。为此，他在政府测试国会有关消除美国自身弱点的意愿并与盟友及伙伴进行磋商前，迟迟未出台有关对华政治经济和军事路线的决策。
但如果美国当局听从那些希望与中国对抗的人士的意见，那么它会意外地发现，并不是很多人赞成这么做。拜登可能面临复杂的政治选择：要么弱化对中国的敌意以争取第三国支持，要么坚持对抗立场而不惜疏远大多数欧洲和亚洲盟国。
现实情况是：欧洲人感受不到来自中国的所谓“军事威胁”，而东南亚和南亚国家认为台湾问题是中国人的内部事务并竭力置身事外。甚至像日本这种对台当局“地位”有着直接战略关切的国家也不想冒险介入冲突。
实力对比正向中国倾斜
中美实力不对称状况的转变可能让形势变得更复杂，过去长期为美国带来优势的经济、技术和军事力量对比现在正向有利于中国的方向发展。
在社会转型初期，迎来了基于科学的新产业浪潮。这些产业包括人工智能、量子计算机、云分析、数据库、安全区块链等等。中国向科研和教育设施及开发和应用这些技术的劳动力资源投入巨资。相反，美国目前则面临长期预算赤字，因为政治僵局和没完没了的战争让华盛顿背上沉重的财政负担。这种局面如不扭转，中国和其他国家将很快令美国失去一个世纪以来在科技和教育领域的全球主导地位。
即使美国克服当前政治机能失调和财政赤字，中国在科技、工程和数字领域的崛起也将对美国全球和地区主导权构成挑战。这是一个多方面的问题，美国在解决这个问题时，有时会弄巧成拙。比如，将北京排除在国际太空合作之外，结果，中国发展自己的航天能力。
今天，美国极力阻止中国在5G网络占据优势，反倒促使中国建立有竞争力的半导体产业。人类历史表明，任何技术突破迟早都会以这样或那样的方式被复制，而且成果只会比原先更好。
最大威胁并非来自对手
付出的大量战略努力扩大和升级了中美之间不可调和的矛盾。双方都认为对手是其崩溃的可能原因。然而，最大威胁实际上来自国内趋势和事件，而非外国势力的行动。中美的世界地位取决于它们在国际舞台上如何行事，而非对手的行动。
如果美国被中国和“世界其他国家的崛起”逼下台，那也是因为自满的美国人未能让一种曾经成功过的制度去适应解决政治和经济积弊，并为新突破奠定基础。
美国在全世界的声望下降和追随者减少，与美国的国内政治事件、战略失误、对盟国和伙伴的公然蔑视、虚伪专断的制裁、作为主要外交工具的胁迫和低效外交有关。中国和其他国家与此毫不相干。
现在，为了与中国竞争，美国在很多方面也在借鉴北京建立的制度。华盛顿呼吁实行工业化政策，大幅增加科研开支，以及设立基础设施投资的特别银行和基金等。
Sino-American Antagonism: How Does This End?
Remarks to the Confucius Institute, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By video link from Washington, D.C.
15 April 2021
Fifty-three years ago, as a young foreign service officer, I helped ensure that Taipei rather than Beijing continued to represent China in the United Nations Security Council and elsewhere internationally. Since then, I have seen relations between China and the United States evolve from mutual ostracism based on stereotypes that bore little resemblance to reality to varying degrees of cooperation and mutual understanding and back again. Now we’re once again off to the races in all sorts of struggles with China with nary a clue where any of them will take us.
It seems to me that before we get too far along this path, we ought to pause to think a bit about a few key questions. These have been strikingly absent from our policy debate. Specifically:
- What are the stakes for China and for the United States respectively?
- What current tactical and future strategic capabilities does each bring to the fight we’ve now begun?
- What are the likely consequences for each side of protracted struggle with the other?
- How are these struggles most likely to turn out?
So, in my remarks today, I’ll take the past as given and try to focus on the future.
The Chinese political elite appears to believe that five main things are stake:
- A final reversal of the carve-up of China by European and Japanese imperialism, warlordism, the Chinese Civil War, and America’s Cold War intervention to separate Taiwan from the rest of the country.
- Status and “face” (self-esteem fed by the deference of others) that offset past foreign insults to national dignity.
- Assured defense against foreign “regime change” operations or military interventions that could threaten the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s return to wealth and power, or the consolidation of China’s claimed frontiers.
- China’s uninterrupted return to the high economic and technological status it enjoyed before its eclipse by European imperialism.
- A role in the management of the affairs of the Indo-Pacific region and the world commensurate with China’s size and burgeoning capabilities.
The American political elite also appears to believe that what’s at stake[1] is five things:
- U.S. retention of global and regional politico-military, economic, technological, and monetary primacy.
- America’s reputation as the reliable military protector of lesser states in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.
- American paramountcy in a world order guided by the liberal democratic norms professed by the European Enlightenment and the American Revolution
- Economic security through reduced dependence on supply chains not controlled by the United States or countries beholden to it.
- Reindustrialization, higher levels of well-paying employment, and the restoration of domestic socioeconomic tranquility.
The People’s Republic of China came into being seventy-two years ago. For over one-third of its existence, the United States has been actively committed to the overthrow of its “Communist” government. That appears once again to be a hope, if not an explicit objective, of U.S. policy.
China and the United States have never been evenly matched except in self-righteousness, unwillingness to admit error, and a tendency to scapegoat each other. But, in many respects, the balance between the two countries is now rapidly shifting against America. The world expects China to regain its historical position as one-third to two-fifths of the global economy. China already has an economy that produces about one-third of the world’s manufactures and that is – by any measure other than nominal exchange rates – larger than that of the United States. President Trump’s trade and technology wars convinced the Chinese that they had to reduce reliance on imported foreign technologies, develop their own autonomous capabilities, and become fully competitive with America.
China is now in some ways more connected internationally than the United States. It is the largest foreign trade partner of most of the world’s economies, including the world’s largest – the European Union (EU). Its preeminence in global trade and investment flows is growing. The 700,000 Chinese students now enrolled in degree programs abroad dwarf the less than 60,000 students from the United States doing the same American universities still attract over one million foreign students annually but nearly half a million international students now opt to study in China. China’s role in global science and technological innovation is growing, while America’s is slipping. Chinese have come to constitute over one-fourth of the world’s STEM workers. They lead the world in patent applications by an increasingly wide margin.
Only four percent of American schools offer classes in Mandarin, but (with increasing competence) all Chinese schools teach English – the global lingua franca – from the third grade. America’s xenophobic closure of Chinese government-sponsored “Confucius Institutes” promises to cripple even the current pathetic level of student exposure to the Chinese language in U.S. schools. Meanwhile, the increasingly unwelcoming atmosphere on U.S. campuses has reduced applications by Chinese and other foreign students to American universities, especially in the physical sciences and engineering.[2]
The challenges posed by the rise of China are clearly more economic than military, but China and the United States are now locked in a level of armed hostility not seen since the first decade of the Cold War. Back then, U.S. forces dedicated to “containing” the People’s Republic and championing the rival Chinese regime on Taiwan were incomparably more modern and powerful than the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Chinese forces were arrayed to resist an anticipated American attack they knew they could not defeat. The U.S. Cold War policy of containment blocked China from effectively asserting ancient claims to islands in its near seas, while opening the way for other claimants to occupy them.
The Chinese military can now defend their country against any conceivable foreign attack. They also appear to be capable of taking Taiwan over American opposition – even if only at tremendous cost to themselves, Taiwan, and the United States. It is disquieting that Beijing now judges that intimidation is the only way to bring Taipei to the negotiating table. But it is reassuring that China still strives for cross-Strait accommodation rather than military conquest of Taiwan and its pacification. The U.S. forces deployed along China’s coasts are there to deter such a conquest. But their presence also has the effect of backing and bolstering Taiwan’s refusal to talk about – still less negotiate – a relationship with the rest of China that might meet the minimal requirements of Chinese nationalism and thereby perpetuate peace.
The danger is that, with the disappearance of any apparent path to a nonviolent resolution of the Taiwan issue, China could conclude that it has no alternative to the use of force. It would not be surprising for it to calculate that to hold America at bay, it must match U.S. threats to it with equivalent threats to the United States. This is, after all, the strategic logic that, during the Cold War, led the Soviet Union to match the missiles the United States had deployed to Turkey with its own in Cuba. No one should rule out the possibility that Sino-American relations are headed toward an eventual reprise of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
America has long been in China’s face. The way things are going, in the future, China may also be in America’s. In the meantime, the aim of Chinese strategy is to raise the costs of American trans-Pacific power projection against it, not to threaten the United States.
President Biden has recognized that to deal effectively with an increasingly formidable China, the United States must strengthen itself as well as enlist the help of other countries. He has therefore deferred immediate decisions about what politico-economic and military China policies he should adopt until his administration can test the willingness of Congress to redress American weaknesses and can consult with allies, partners, and friends abroad. But, if Washington listens to those it seeks to recruit as auxiliaries in its opposition to China, it will discover that few of them share the all-out animus against China to which so many Americans have become committed. President Biden may well find he faces a hard political choice between whether to moderate American hostility to China to garner third country support, or to stick with confrontational policies that separate the United States from most of its European and Asian allies.
The awkward reality is that Europeans do not feel militarily threatened by China. Southeast and South Asians see Taiwan as a fight among Chinese from which they should keep their distance. By contrast with Taiwanese, they fear intimidation, not conquest by China. Even those countries, like Japan, with a direct strategic interest in the status of Taiwan don’t want to risk being drawn into a fight over it.
The Taiwan issue is a legacy of the Chinese civil war and U.S. Cold War containment policies. America’s allies look to Washington to manage it without reigniting conflict between the island and the rising great power on the Chinese mainland. If the U.S. does end up in a war with China, America is likely to be on its own or almost so.
To further complicate matters, past asymmetries are in the process of reversing themselves as balances of economic, technological, and military power that long favored Washington shift in favor of Beijing. The Greeks invented the concept of a “Europe” distinct from what they called “Asia.”[3] Chinese connectivity programs (the “Belt and Road”) are recreating a single “Eurasia.” Many countries in that vast expanse see an increasingly wealthy and powerful China as an ineluctable part of their own future and prosperity. Some seem more worried about collateral damage from aggressive actions by the United States than about great Han chauvinism. Few find the injustices of contemporary Chinese authoritarianism attractive, but fewer still are inclined to bandwagon with the United States against China.
By 2050, China is predicted to have a GDP of $58 trillion – almost three times larger than America’s today and more than two-thirds greater than the then-projected U.S. GDP of $34 trillion. China’s rapidly aging population leaves it with no apparent alternative to Japanese-style domestic automation and the offshoring of labor-intensive work to places that still have fast-growing working-age populations, like Africa. China is investing heavily in robotics, medicine, synthetic biology, nanobot cells and other technologies that can enhance and extend the productive lives of the aged. It is also adjusting and expanding its social security and public health systems. The United States faces analogous challenges, aggravated by increasingly xenophobic immigration policies, acceptance of mediocrity in education, crumbling infrastructure, and the pyramiding of national debt to finance routine government operations as well as correctives to damage from past self-indulgence. Americans talk about these problems but have yet to address them.
A wave of new science-based industries is in the early stages of transforming human societies. Examples include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cloud analytics, blockchain-protected databases, microelectronics, the internet of things, electric and autonomous vehicles, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, biopharmaceuticals, 3D/4D and bio-printing, virtual and augmented reality, nuclear fusion, and the synergies among these and other emerging technologies.
China is making major investments in the scientific and educational infrastructure and workforce needed to lead the development and deployment of most of these technologies. By contrast, at present, the United States is in chronic fiscal deficit, immobilized by political gridlock, and mired in never-ending wars that divert funds needed for domestic rejuvenation to the Pentagon. America’s human and physical infrastructure is already in sad condition, and it is deteriorating. If these weaknesses are not corrected, China and others will soon eclipse the century-long U.S. preeminence in global science, technology, and education. Or, as President Biden put it, China “will eat our lunch” and “own the future.”
Even if the United States overcomes its current political dysfunction and fiscal malnutrition, the upsurge in Chinese science, technology, engineering, and mathematics capabilities promises to challenge America’s retention of global as well as regional primacy. The competition is not limited to the Asia-Pacific region. It is multifaceted, and, in attempting to deal with it, the United States has sometimes been too clever by half – for example, excluding Beijing from international cooperation in space. This has led to an increasingly robust set of indigenous Chinese space-based capabilities, many of which are of military relevance.
Similarly, the U.S. effort to head off Chinese dominance of 5-G communications is now spurring the creation of a globally competitive semiconductor industry in China. In the short term, the Chinese microelectronics manufacturing sector faces great difficulties. It is always easier to buy things than to learn to make them. But, in the longer term, China has the will, the talent, the wherewithal, and the market to succeed. Human history is full of proofs that, one way or another, sooner or later, every technological advance can and will be duplicated, often with results that surpass the original.
The PLA has copied American practice by harnessing commercial technological innovation to military purposes. Its 军民融合 or “military-civil fusion” program recognizes that market-driven research and development and university-led innovation frequently outpace in-house efforts by the military establishment. As the United States did before it, China is linking industry and academia more closely to its national defense. The pace at which China develops innovative military applications from civilian-developed technology now promises to accelerate.
In response to U.S. military dominance of its periphery, China has invested in anti-ship, anti-air, counter-satellite, electronic warfare, and other capabilities to defend against a possible American attack. Some Chinese weapons systems break new ground – among them terminally-guided ballistic missile systems to kill carriers, quantum communications devices, naval rail guns, and stealth-penetrating radar. In the event of armed conflict, the PLA can now effectively block U.S. access to China’s near seas, including Taiwan.
The PLA Navy has many more hulls than the United States, its ships are more modern, some of its weapons have greater range, and its home-based battlefield support is much closer to the potential war zone. Chinese industry’s surge and conversion capacities now vastly exceed those of the United States. In any future war with China, the U.S. armed forces cannot expect to enjoy the technological superiority, information dominance, peerless capacity to replenish losses, and security of bases and supply lines they have had in past wars.
The strategic effects of the broadening and escalating antagonism between the United States and China have already been considerable. Let me cite some examples.
- It is dividing the world into competing technological ecospheres that are beginning to produce incompatible equipment and software, a reduction in globally traded goods and services, and an accelerated decline in American dominance of high-tech industries.
- It is generating an active threat to the U.S. dollar’s seven-decade-long command of international trade settlement. Increased use of other currencies menaces both the efficacy of U.S. sanctions and the continued exemption of the American economy from balance of trade and payments constraints that affect other countries.
- It has distorted and possibly destroyed the global “rules-bound order” for trade, helping to proliferate sub-global, non-inclusive free trade areas and forcing the development of ad hoc rather than institutionalized multilateral trade dispute resolution mechanisms.
- It is hampering global cooperation on planetwide problems like pandemics, climate change, environmental degradation, and nuclear non-proliferation. (For a time, scapegoating of China served to divert attention from a pathetically ineffectual U.S. domestic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
- It is pushing China and Russia into a broadening entente (limited partnership for limited purposes). It may now be driving Iran into affiliation with this dyad.
- It has helped to replace diplomacy with offensive bluster, blame games, and bullying that lower respect for both China and America in other countries, while imposing painful collateral damage on nations like Canada and Australia.
- It has brought about an alarming rise in the danger of a war over Taiwan, while accelerating both conventional and nuclear arms races between China and the United States.
There is no sign that either side intends to change course. Nine-in-ten U.S. adults are now hostile or ill-disposed toward China. Chinese hostility to the United States has risen to comparable levels.
To be sure, popular views are both ill-informed and fickle. And at least as many things could go wrong as go right for both China and the United States. The January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol is a reminder that scenarios that once seemed preposterous can yet occur. Both China and the United States face internal as well as external challenges. This is a moment of fragility in the life of both countries. Game-changing events are not impossible to imagine.
In the near term, for example:
- A reversal of progress in countering the global pandemic could bring about a collapse in the global economy and lead to widespread unemployment and political unrest in both China and the United States.
- The death of the Dalai Lama could destabilize Sino-Indian relations. Beijing might find itself at war with New Delhi, which lusts to reverse its 1962 humiliation by the PLA, and which is once again aggressively probing the de facto border between the two countries. A Chinese defeat in the Himalayas could catalyze a disruptive change in China’s leadership. A victory could lead to Chinese strategic ebullience as well as Indian abandonment of nonalignment in favor of entente with the United States.
- A war in the Middle East or a crisis in Korea could challenge America while offering China an apparent opportunity to strike at Taiwan with relative impunity.
- The emergence of less prudent leadership in Taipei could lead to decisions there that impel Beijing to invoke its 2005 anti-secession law and use force to recover Taiwan despite an expectation that the United States would intervene.
- Other events involving Taiwan, such as a return of U.S. forces and installations to the island or the revelation of yet another Taiwanese nuclear weapons program, could trigger a Chinese use of force.
- The division, disorder, demoralization, partisanship, political gridlock, and uncontrolled immigration now troubling the United States could force Washington to focus on restoring domestic social order at the expense of attention to foreign commitments.
- The death or incapacitation of the top leader in either China or the United States could lead to disputes over succession that weaken government authority and decision-making, distracting and inviting miscalculation by one or the other side.
Of course, none of these things may happen, but the fact that they are not unimaginable underscores the shakiness of current strategic realities.
In the somewhat longer term, still other developments could alter the course of the contest. For example:
- Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomacy and economic bullying may so thoroughly alienate other countries that, to the extent they can, they turn their backs on China and join the United States in opposing it.
- Beijing’s obsession with political control could – not for the first time in China’s long history – suffocate its private sector and stifle innovation.
- China’s semiconductor, artificial intelligence, and robotics companies will either succeed or fail in their drive to outperform their American, Taiwanese, and other competitors. If they succeed, their competitors’ industries could be hollowed out and China could dominate cyberspace and related domains. If they fail, China will fall behind.
- Aging in China and a reversion to xenophobic immigration policies in the United States could reduce working-age populations, damage productivity, slow growth, and increase the welfare burden in either or both societies, forcing reductions in “defense” outlays and generating pressure for mutual disengagement from military confrontation.
- Chinese and other experiments with digital currency trade settlement could dethrone the dollar from its post-World War II global hegemony, force the United States to bring its balance of payments and trade into equilibrium, lower U.S. living standards, and greatly reduce American international power.
- Beijing’s brutal efforts to assimilate minorities to Han culture may not only fail but alienate Muslim and other foreign partners, while remaining a cause célèbre in the West, and empowering a broad international effort to ostracize China.
- The cognitive dissonance between Washington and allied capitals about China and other issues could effectively gut America’s alliances, leaving the United States isolated in its hardline decoupling from China.
- Japan might go nuclear, altering the calculus of deterrence in Northeast Asia, and enabling it to declare strategic autonomy from the United States without forgoing American non-nuclear protection.
- The United States and the Russian Federation could replace their current mutual hostility with an entente directed at balancing and constraining Chinese power.
- Climate change could not only inundate major Chinese and American coastal cities (like Shanghai and New York) but also lead to natural disasters like crop failures, super storms, floods, forest fires, and the devastating displacement of populations, leaving little enthusiasm and fewer resources in either country for competition with the other.
- Conversely, disunity at home could lead demagogues in either China or the United States to rally patriotic support by pursuing aggressive policies abroad.
- A failure to reforge mechanisms for international cooperation on public health issues could allow new pandemics to overwhelm national capacities to resist them.
- The PLA Navy could match the U.S. Navy’s deployments along China’s coasts with its own deployments along America’s, deterring U.S. intervention in China’s near abroad while creating the preconditions for an agreement by which each side would pull some or all of its forces back to its own side of the Pacific.
Few or none of these game-changing developments may happen. But they reveal the stakes both sides and the world at large have in finding ways to wind down the adversarial antagonism that has now gripped Sino-American relations.
Each side has come to see the other as the possible cause of its downfall. But each is actually more menaced by trends and events in its homeland than by what any foreign power might do to it. The position of each in the world depends more on how it conducts itself internationally than on how the other does. In a world in which power and influence are unevenly distributed not just between the U.S. and China but also among lesser players in world affairs, neither China nor the United States can expect to exercise unchecked dominance at either the regional or global level. China will not displace America from international primacy, but neither will America be able to retain primacy.
If China falters, it will not be because the United States has opposed it but because Beijing has adopted self-corroding policies and practices that obviate the successes of “reform and opening,” alienate foreign partners, and impair further progress. Mao’s China was a failure in terms of returning China to wealth and power but laid the basis for Deng Xiaoping to set aside ideological rigidities and sponsor the eclectic adaptation of international best practices to Chinese circumstances. Changes in Beijing’s domestic policies, the entrepreneurial energy these released, and the foreign relationships they enabled explain the differences between China from 1949 to 1979 and China from 1979 forward. Policies can determine outcomes.
To develop, Beijing has declared, China needs a “peaceful international environment.” It is bordered by 14 countries, four of which are nuclear-armed and four of which harbor unresolved territorial disputes with it. Its civil war with recalcitrant forces on Taiwan has not concluded. Japan and the United States, two countries with which China has been at war in still-living memory, are unreconciled to its renewed wealth and power. These factors place China on the defensive and constrain any impulse on its part to project its power beyond its periphery. To practice market Leninism successfully, China needs friends.
Deportment helps determine friendships. “Friends” are either (1) the rare comrades you would yield your own life to save and whom you expect would do the same for you; (2) partners who will go out of their way to do you a favor as you would for them; (3) companions whose presence you enjoy but with whom you share no real commitment; (4) sycophants who want something from you and strive to ingratiate themselves with you to get it; and (5) parasites who seek cunningly to exploit their association with you for their own interests without regard to yours.
The Chinese people are widely admired abroad. But there is no enthusiasm for either global or regional leadership by China’s government. Others acknowledge its accomplishments, but few find it appealing. As the Chinese phrase puts it, 笑里藏刀—their smiles conceal daggers. Insincere attachments that rest on sycophancy or parasitism are flattering but do not embody respect and are neither reliable nor steadfast. They can conceal disdain, create liabilities, and invite perfidy.
If China continues to allow its security services and diplomats to browbeat foreigners and treat other countries in the arrogantly abrasive and bullying manner it has recently adopted, the only international relationships it will have will be hypocritical, scheming, and untrustworthy. Many abroad will fear China, but none will faithfully support it, few will follow it, and some will opt to oppose it. China will “lose face.” And, when “face” is at stake, China has a well-established record of irrational reactions that make it its own worst enemy.
Similarly, if the United States is eclipsed by China and “the rise of the rest,” it will be because Americans, mired in complacency, failed to adjust a once brilliantly successful system to address accumulated politico-economic problems and lay a basis for resumed advance. China can neither compel America to reform nor stop it from doing so. Americans alone can reaffirm their constitution, fix their broken politics, restore competence to their government, strengthen their society by reducing its economic and racial inequities, rejuvenate the competitiveness of their capitalism, abide by the norms of international conduct they seek to impose on others, respect international diversity and other countries’ sovereignty, and discard militarism in favor of diplomacy.
The ongoing slippage in U.S. prestige and followership internationally owes far more to self-disfiguring American domestic developments, strategic blunders, open contempt for allies and partners, sanctimoniously high-handed sanctioneering, offensively coercive foreign policies, and self-implemented diplomatic disarmament than it does to an imagined onslaught on the preexisting global order by China or others. The Punch and Judy show put on by senior American and Chinese diplomats at Anchorage played well back home in both countries. It did not inspire foreign confidence in the wisdom or capacity for empathy of either side.
China achieved much of its post-Mao developmental success by applying ideas learned from America. In many respects, in the name of competing with China, the United States is now turning to copying elements of the resulting Chinese system. Politicians in Washington are calling for industrial policies; major ramp-ups in spending on science and technology; the creation of specialized banks and funds dedicated to infrastructure investment; national security-derived protectionism, subsidies; and preferential licensing for key technologies and national champion companies; and what amounts to currency manipulation to produce a cheaper dollar.
The United States also appears to be progressively adopting aspects of Beijing’s intolerant and intrusive definitions of political correctness and “national security,” even if Washington still leaves internet censorship and the manipulation of public opinion to corporate oligopolies rather than imposing government controls. But there is no need to point this out to those attending this session of the Confucius Institute at the University of Idaho. Some of you have personally experienced the “cancel culture” built into the latest round of Sinophobia in the United States.
American populism’s strategic dementia now competes with Chinese exceptionalism’s imperious demeanor. To one degree or another, in both countries, groupthink has become the enemy of constructive engagement. Each side’s resentment of its alleged past or current victimization at the hands of the other adds bitterness to the equation. Only Beijing’s habitual risk aversion now averts a bloody U.S. rendezvous with Chinese nationalism in a war over Taiwan.
All things being equal, if there is no war over Taiwan or other game-changing event, current trends – American protectionism, decoupling from supply chains connected to China, and cognitive dissonance with allies and partners – seem more likely to continue than to halt. This suggests a future in which:
- China’s neighbors and the many dozens of countries participating in its Belt and Road Initiative draw steadily closer to Beijing economically and financially. Brave talk notwithstanding, the United States no longer has the open markets, financial resources, or engineering capabilities to counter this. Washington has shown no capacity to sustain the level of diplomatic engagement with the countries of the Indo-Pacific, Central Asia, East Africa, Russia, or EU members states needed to match Beijing. It is failing to do so even in Latin America. You can’t best something with nothing other than rhetoric and, for now, that’s effectively all the United States is offering.
- As the division of the global market into separate trade and technological ecospheres proceeds, China will take the global lead in a widening list of consequential new technologies. Its scientific and technological achievements will attract foreign investors and corporate collaborators regardless of their misgivings about China’s political system. Where markets remain open to them, Chinese companies – state-owned and private – will compete successfully for market share with American, European, Japanese, and Korean companies.
- The growth in Chinese power – combined with persistent concerns about erratic behavior by America’s wounded democracy – will cause major regional powers like India, Indonesia, and Japan to develop regional coalitions, defense industrial cooperation projects, and collaborative diplomacy designed to balance China — with or without the United States.
- As its naval and air power expand, China will consolidate its military dominance of its periphery. Americans will be forced to think twice about intervening to protect Taiwan from PLA coercion or controlling China’s near seas. Armed clashes with the Chinese Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Forces are conceivable. These could either undermine or stiffen American willingness to escalate hostilities with China.
- The domestic and foreign purchasers of U.S. government debt could conclude that it is backed by little more than “modern monetary theory” and cease to buy it. This alone would end the “exorbitant privilege” of the United States, deprive Washington of the ability to enforce unilateral sanctions, and make the American dominance of the Indo-Pacific economically unsustainable.
- Taiwan’s increasing military vulnerability and dependence on mainland Chinese markets for its continued prosperity could compel it to negotiate a relationship with the rest of China sufficient to appease the demands of Chinese nationalism.
China seems confident that some of these or similar scenarios will unfold in the decades to come. Its strategic confidence and resolve contrast with a lack of similar conviction in America, where short-term cluelessness, enforced by fiscal fecklessness, still rules the day. The challenges to American status and presuppositions from China are real. They will not be overcome with fantasy foreign policies based on unrealistic assessments of current and future circumstances.
A deeply imbedded faith in liberal democratic ideology led some Americans to theorize that, given enough exposure to the United States, Chinese political culture would inevitably evolve into a version of America’s. That this did not happen was not a failure of “engagement,” as American Sinophobes would have it. China’s retention of its own authoritarian political culture reflects its system’s delivery of results that more than satisfied the material needs of the Chinese people while restoring their pride in their nation. What’s happened in China may or may not disprove theories about the inevitability of political liberalization in middle-class societies. This deserves reflection. But so does the thesis that, without fundamental domestic reform, the United States can outcompete a China that is rising on its own terms, not America’s, in a world in which the United States no longer calls the shots.
The future of China will be made or unmade in China. The future of the United States will be made or unmade in America. Neither is foreordained.
[1] See, e.g., Senator Tom Cotton’s articulation of U.S. objectives vis-à-vis China: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/210216_1700_China%20Report_FINAL.pdf
[2] https://www.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimonies/116-session-1/maintaining-us-leadership-in-science-and-technology
[3] https://chasfreeman.net/the-challenge-of-asia/
Source: https://chasfreeman.net/sino-american-antagonism-how-does-this-end/
China beating US by being more like America
Cultivating human capital will be essential if the US rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution
By BRANDON J WEICHERT
4/25/2021
The United States transitioned from an agrarian backwater into an industrialized superstate in a rapid timeframe. One of the most decisive men in America’s industrialization was Samuel Slater.
As a young man, Slater worked in Britain’s advanced textile mills. He chafed under Britain’s rigid class system, believing he was being held back. So he moved to Rhode Island.
Once in America, Slater built the country’s first factory based entirely on that which he had learned from working in England’s textile mills – violating a British law that forbade its citizens from proliferating advanced British textile production to other countries.
Samuel Slater is still revered in the United States as the “Father of the American Factory System.” In Britain, if he is remembered at all, he is known by the epithet of “Slater the Traitor.”
After all, Samuel Slater engaged in what might today be referred to as “industrial espionage.” Without Slater, the United States would likely not have risen to become the industrial challenger to British imperial might that it did in the 19th century. Even if America had evolved to challenge British power without Slater’s help, it is likely the process would have taken longer than it actually did.
Many British leaders at the time likely dismissed Slater’s actions as little more than a nuisance. The Americans had not achieved anything unique. They were merely imitating their far more innovative cousins in Britain.
As the works of Oded Shenkar have proved, however, if given enough time, annoying imitators can become dynamic innovators. The British learned this lesson the hard way. America today appears intent on learning a similar hard truth … this time from China.
By the mid-20th century, the latent industrial power of the United States had been unleashed as the European empires, and eventually the British-led world order, collapsed under their own weight. America had built out its own industrial base and was waiting in the geopolitical wings to replace British power – which, of course, it did.
Few today think of Britain as anything more than a middle power in the US-dominated world order. This came about only because of the careful industrial and manipulative trade practices of American statesmen throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century employed against British power.
The People’s Republic of China, like the United States of yesteryear with the British Empire, enjoys a strong trading relationship with the dominant power of the day. China has also free-ridden on the security guarantees of the dominant power, the United States.
The Americans are exhausting themselves while China grows stronger. Like the US in the previous century, inevitably, China will displace the dominant power through simple attrition in the non-military realm.
Many Americans reading this might be shocked to learn that China is not just the land of sweatshops and cheap knockoffs – any more than the United States of previous centuries was only the home of chattel slavery and King Cotton. China, like America, is a dynamic nation of economic activity and technological progress.
While the Chinese do imitate their innovative American competitors, China does this not because the country is incapable of innovating on its own. It’s just easier to imitate effective ideas produced by America, lowering China’s research and development costs. Plus, China’s industrial capacity allows the country to produce more goods than America – just as America had done to Britain
Once China quickly acquires advanced technology, capabilities, and capital from the West, Chinese firms then spin off those imitations and begin innovating. This is why China is challenging the West in quantum computing technology, biotech, space technologies, nanotechnology, 5G, artificial intelligence, and an assortment of other advanced technologies that constitute the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can focus on making cheaper cars and better roads?
Since China opened itself up to the United States in the 1970s, American versions of Samuel Slater have flocked to China, taking with them the innovations, industries, and job offerings that would have gone to Americans had Washington never embraced Beijing.
America must simply make itself more attractive than China is to talent and capital. It must create a regulatory and tax system that is more competitive than China’s. Then Washington must seriously invest in federal R&D programs as well as dynamic infrastructure to support those programs.
As one chief executive of a Fortune 500 company told me in 2018, “If we don’t do business in China, our competitors will.”
Meanwhile, Americans must look at effective education as a national-security imperative. If we are living in a global, knowledge-based economy, then it stands to reason Americans will need greater knowledge to thrive. Therefore, cultivating human capital will be essential if America rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution.
Besides, smart bombs are useless without smart people.
These are all things that the United States understood in centuries past. America bested the British Empire and replaced it as the world hegemon using these strategies. When the Soviet Union challenged America’s dominance, the US replicated the successful strategies it had used against Britain’s empire.
Self-reliance and individual innovativeness coupled with public- and private-sector cooperation catapulted the Americans ahead of their rivals. It’s why Samuel Slater fled to the nascent United States rather than staying in England.
America is losing the great competition for the 21st century because it has suffered historical amnesia. Its leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as its corporate tycoons and its people must recover the lost memory – before China cements its position as the world’s hegemon.
The greatest tragedy of all is that America has all of the tools it needs to succeed. All it needs to do is be more like it used to be in the past. To do that, competent and inspiring leadership is required. And that may prove to be the most destructive thing for America in the competition to win the 21st century.
Source: https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/china-beating-us-by-being-more-like-america/
Feb 18, 2021
Aug 4, 2020
