最新書評: 中美之爭的真正價值
There is a tendency to view China's policies as part of a long-term strategic design, first for restoring its historic centrality in Asia and ultimately for displacing the U.S. as the world's top power. But as Geoff Dyer observes in his stellar book, 'The Contest of the Century,' the likelier explanation is More banal: Given its rapid economic growth, China is adopting a more expansive vision of its national interests and modernizing its military to match that vision. The challenge is to distinguish between those policies of Beijing that any other rising power would develop and those that could fundamentally alter the postwar global order.
中國的政策往往被視爲其長期戰略構想的一部分，首先是恢復歷史上它在亞洲的中心地位，最後是取代美國成爲世界頭號大國。然而，依照傑夫・戴爾(Geoff Dyer)在其傑作《世紀之爭》(The Contest of the Century)中的評述，較合理的解釋要更俗套一些：鑑於其經濟飛速發展，中國確定了更廣闊的國家利益願景，並推動軍隊的現代化以匹配這一願景。困難在於要將北京那些其他任何崛起強國都會制定的政策與那些會從根本上改變戰後世界秩序的政策區分開來。Chinese leaders insist that they will avoid the mistakes that Germany and Japan made in the first half of the 20th century: As Communist Party foreign-policy adviser Zheng Bijian wrote in a 2005 Foreign Affairs magazine article, Beijing would achieve a 'peaceful rise' by transcending 'ideological differences to strive for peace, development, and cooperation with all countries of the world.' Today that optimism seems misplaced. The more China attempts to push the U.S. back into the Pacific Ocean and resolve its territorial disputes, the more it stimulates the formation of a countervailing coalition in the Asia-Pacific.
中國領導人堅稱，他們會避免德國和日本在20世紀前半葉犯下的錯誤。如中共政府外交政策智囊鄭必堅2005年在《外交政策》(Foreign Affairs)雜誌一篇文章中所言，北京會超越“意識形態上的分歧，爭取和平、發展以及與世界各國的合作”，以此實現“和平崛起”。如今，這一樂觀態度似乎並不合時宜。中國越是試圖推動美國重返太平洋地區、越是試圖解決其領土爭端，就越會促成亞太地區對抗性力量的形成。Mr. Dyer, a journalist for the Financial Times, cites three recent events that have shaped China's current strategic predicament. In May 2009, the regime resurrected its 'nine-dash line'-a self-declared maritime border that encompasses some 80% of the South China Sea-in a communiqué to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Then, in 2010, China stood on the sidelines after North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. And when in the same year Tokyo detained the captain of a Chinese trawler that had collided with two Japanese military vessels in Japanese-controlled waters, Beijing imposed an embargo on the export of rare earths to Japan.
戴爾爲《金融時報》(Financial Times)的記者，他引述了造成中國當下戰略困境的最近三起事件。2009年5月，在一份提交給聯合國祕書長潘基文(Ban Ki-moon)的公報中，中國政府重新採用了“九段線”――這一自行宣告的海域邊界線囊括了南海約80%的海域。接下來在2010年，在朝鮮用魚雷擊沉一艘韓國軍艦、導致46名船員喪生後，中國又採取了袖手旁觀的態度。同一年，在東京方面扣留在日控海域與兩艘日本巡邏船相撞的中國拖網漁船的船長後，北京方面實施了禁止向日本出口稀土的禁令。
As Mr. Dyer shows, China's embattled position within the region also stems from immutable factors. It can't change its history as a regional hegemon, which continues to alarm its neighbors. It can't change its size-though former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was remiss to declare at a 2010 regional forum that 'China is a big country, and other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.' And it can't change its location: Mr. Dyer notes that it is encircled by 'successful and ambitious states who also believe this is their time.'
如戴爾所闡明的那樣，中國在該地區四面受困的處境也源自一些不可改變的因素。它無法改變其地區霸主的歷史，而且這一點還繼續警示着它的鄰居們。它也無法改變它的規模――中國前外交部長楊潔篪在2010年的一個區域論壇上曾不小心地宣稱“中國是大國，其他國家是小國，這是事實”。此外，中國也無法改變它的地理位置：戴爾指出它被“同樣認爲這是屬於它們的時代的雄心勃勃的繁榮強國”所包圍。Complicating matters is that numerous voices now shape China's foreign policy. Its leaders confront 'powerful vested interests within the party-state,' the author writes, as well as 'an officer class that has its own hawkish take on global affairs' and the 'nationalist views of a rising middle class.' There are marked divisions within these factions, and, because of the opaque nature of party decision-making, Beijing's conduct can appear malign and conspiratorial even when it isn't.
讓事情更復雜的是，現在對中國外交政策有影響力的意見有許許多多。戴爾寫道，它的領導人要面對“這個黨治國家內強大的既得利益集團”，以及“一個在國際事務上持有自己的強硬立場的軍官階層”。這些派系之間存在明顯的分化，另外也由於黨內決策的不透明性，北京的舉動會顯得邪惡和詭祕，即便事實並非如此。Momentum also undermines China's regional charm offensives. After three and a half decades of torrid growth, it has the world's second largest economy and is the largest trading country. Progress of such rapidity and scale is an invitation to scrutiny. China's leaders are acutely aware, moreover, that their legitimacy depends in large part on continuing to improve their citizens' livelihoods. The frenetic pace at which China is securing vital commodities around the world reflects this anxiety. As environmental degradation worsens, resource shortages grow and demographics deteriorate, China will become more dependent on outsiders to sustain its growth. Where its leaders discern vulnerability, however, many others see a Chinese dragon trying to buy the world.
發展勢頭也削弱了中國的區域魅力攻勢。在經歷35年左右的狂熱發展後，它成爲了全球第二大經濟體，同時也是全球最大貿易國。如此迅速和大規模的發展自然會招致審視的眼光。而且中國的領導人敏銳地意識到，他們的正統地位在很大程度上有賴於繼續改善國民的生計。中國在全球各地獲取重要大宗商品的瘋狂速度反映了這種焦慮感。由於環境惡化加劇，資源缺口擴大且人口狀況惡化，中國將變得更依賴外界來維持其發展。然而，在其領導人察覺出弱點的同時，許多人看到的卻是企圖買下世界的一條中國龍。But China's myriad challenges don't guarantee U.S. victory in the contest referred to by Mr. Dyer's title. According to an 'iron rule' that he says governs the region's geopolitics, Washington will lose if it tries to enlist China's neighbors in an effort to contain its rise. Instead, the U.S. must establish 'a convincing long-term economic agenda' that binds the American economy to that of the Far East. Thus stagnation in negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he writes, 'would be an enormous setback to the U.S.'s efforts to demonstrate that it has more to offer Asia than just its navy.' But demonstrating staying power carries a significant risk of its own: If China's neighbors conclude that the U.S. will protect them no matter what contingency arises, they may opt to free-ride on U.S. security guarantees rather than develop their own capabilities.
儘管如此，中國面臨的無數挑戰並不保證美國就能在戴爾著作標題所指的競爭中獲勝。根據戴爾指出的支配該地區地緣政治的一條“鐵律”，如果華盛頓方面試圖借力中國的鄰國來抑制它的崛起，則必將失敗。反之，美國必須制定將美國經濟與遠東地區的經濟綁定在一起的“令人信服的長期經濟議程”。他還寫道，因此關於跨太平洋夥伴關係的談判的僵局“對美國想證明它除了海軍之外還能爲亞洲提供更多的行動會是個巨大的阻礙”。另外，展示持久力本身也具有重大風險：如果中國的鄰居們推斷無論發生什麼意外事件美國都會保護它們，它們或許會坐享美國的安全保證，而不去提高它們自己的能力。Mr. Dyer is optimistic that the U.S. will 'win': that is, 'retain its role at the center of international affairs.' But he doesn't subscribe to unwarranted zero-sum logic. Given that China wasn't too long ago an isolated, impoverished backwater, vulnerable to predation from without and collapse from within, becoming the second most important pillar of the international system would scarcely constitute a 'loss.'
戴爾對美國能“獲勝”，即“保留其在國際事務中心的角色”很樂觀。不過，他並不認同毫無理據的零和邏輯。鑑於中國在不久前還是一個受孤立的貧窮落後的國家、易於遭到外部掠奪並容易從內部分崩離析，成爲國際體系的第二大支柱肯定算不上“失敗”。The real prize in U.S.-China competition would be the 'new model of great-power relations' that President Obama and President Xi have proposed. One hopes that historians of a century hence will commend the two countries for inaugurating a new era of international relations, one in which a pre-eminent power and its principal challenger were able to both compete and collaborate in service of the global interest.
美國與中國之爭的真正價值在於奧巴馬總統(Obama)與習近平主席提出的“新型大國關係”。希望這兩個國家能因開創一個大國關係的新時代而贏得今後一個世紀的歷史學家的稱頌。在這樣一個時代中，一個實力超羣的強國與其主要挑戰者均能在競爭與合作中服務於全球利益。
