妖魔化中国，美国玩不起（附英文原文）_风闻

本文转自微信公众号学术plus（caeit-e）

编者按

近年来，美国媒体和战略界弥漫着一股妖魔化中国之风。2018年6月29日，“外交政策”网站发表文章《美国无法承受妖魔化中国的后果》，对美国妖魔化中国的原因、危害和后果进行了分析，并为双方停止争吵、对话合作提出了建议。现全文中英对照仅供参考**。**

文章版权归原作者所有

观点不代表本机构立场

美国无法承受

妖魔化中国的后果

原载：《外交事务》网站

编译：学术plus

网址：https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/29/the-u-s-cant-afford-to-demonize-china/

美国和中国延续已久的建设性接触正在以惊人的速度瓦解，双方需要进行重大修正。尽管特朗普说和中国领导人建立了“伟大”关系，中国领导人也强调“双赢”，但最近的政策和行动（尤其是美国方面）已经对双方关系造成极大的破坏。

在美国，这种动向最明显的驱动因素是充满敌意的过度批评，包括权威的美国战略文件（如最近发布的国家安全和国防战略），美国高级官员的类似声明，以及美国的经济政策转变（包括严重不良的关税），所有人都认为北京是威胁到所有美国人的“修正主义者”大国。

美国的专家和记者强化了美中关系的这种朦胧观点。几乎每天，专家们都会揭示中国背信弃义的新案例，从中国企图破坏美国大学的知识分子自由，到中国旨在煽动和控制发展中国家的邪恶债务陷阱。

这种批评态度能够蛊惑人心的基本假设是：**每一个中国人的收益都是以美国为代价的，过去的美国政策制定者和专家长期以来一直忽略了中国政权的敌意。**而这些批评的结论则是，**要通过一切可能的手段来抵御日益严重的威胁，任何与中国的合作都必须服从于此。**正如“华盛顿邮报”专栏作家约什·罗金去年12月所写的那样，这种表达的夸张程度简直突破云霄：

华盛顿正在意识到中国共产党在美国境内影响行动的巨大范围和规模，这些行动渗透到美国各种机构中。中国的最低目标是捍卫其体制免遭袭击，最高目标则是要踩着美国走向世界。

如果北京不在火上浇油，这种语言也不会那么受欢迎。尽管北京不断声称中国不会对任何人构成威胁，但它采取的行动有时暗示着相反的情况。中国对在华经营的外国公司施加了不公正的限制，继续对西方国家实施商业盗窃，加强了国内的政治和意识形态控制，加大了反外国人的宣传力度，并在对待其海上邻国时更加自信。

这些行动当然令人不安，在许多情况下需要更有效的对策。但其程度还不至于为此重新评估美中政策，发表激烈的言辞，以及我们现在看到的“大棒式”、“零和式”的美国政策。

在很多情况下，事实并不支持这样的绝对和片面的结论。例如接触政策从不是现在许多人说的那样，要把中国变成西方民主国家。它起源于一种战略上的需要，即与中国一起制衡前苏联，让中国社会更开放地接受外界的影响，当然也为西方的商业利益服务。我们都忘记了中国以前是什么样子：直到20世纪70年代和80年代初，基本上是一个封闭的、敌对的大国，渴望将毛泽东主义推广到其他国家。而中美合作在所有这些领域都取得了很大的成功，尽管最近遇到了一些挫折，但毫无疑问，今天的中国与接触之前相比更加开放、全球化和包容。

**另一个非常普遍的严重扭曲的概念是，中国试图将美国逐出亚洲，并征服该地区。**事实上，没有确凿的证据表明中国有这样的目标。那些坚持自己观点的人，要么是基于特例(比如中国在南中国海影响力的扩大)的胡乱推断，要么是由不具任何权威的所谓中国观察人士发表的声明，要么是基于现实主义的假设，即大国所谓的无限制权力最大化。如果中美两国关系恶化到一定程度，北京最终可能会选取这种灾难性的目标，但据此认为两国关系已经恶化至此，则是鲁莽和不负责任的。

**认为中国决心颠覆全球秩序的观点，同样引发了一种以民主为中心的、极为狭隘且值得怀疑的秩序认定，从而严重扭曲了对中国批评。**实际上，北京方面支持现有秩序的许多要素，包括当前美国政府拒绝或破坏的一些要素，如对抗气候变化的斗争和多边经济协定的价值。尽管中国存在一些保护主义措施(例如，在电信和金融服务方面)，政策要求加强对经济部门的控制，以及对国有企业的压力，但中国的经济增长仍然主要由私营企业和一个基本开放的贸易体系驱动。当然世界贸易组织(World Trade Organization)的体系需要改革，而北京方面基本上一直是在遵守该体系的宗旨和精神。

这些极端的记者和官员提供一种引人注意的故事,无疑会增加国防支出,增加报纸销量，把美国人的注意力从他们所面临的许多国内问题，如巨额预算赤字、收入不平等、的基础设施崩溃等等问题上吸引开来。

这种对中国的过度敌视的观点与20世纪70年代开始的美中关系“改革开放”时代的实用主义大不相同。那是立足于现实而不是现在的一维方式，重视在与北京解决问题合作的必要努力之间取得平衡，以谨慎对冲和有限竞争来处理共同关切。这种双管齐下的方式现在已经被遗弃（至少在亚洲），**取而代之的是零和式的”印度太平洋战略”，**这个战略迄今为止主要是一个空洞的口号，呼吁亚洲民主国家联合起来对付中国。

是什么原因导致美国出现了中国妖魔化的新常态呢?除了上述狭隘的官僚和政治利益之外，**最重要的因素是源自美国政治心态中根深蒂固的“偏执风格”，借用历史学家理查德•霍夫施塔特(Richard Hofstadter) 1964年发表的一篇开创性文章中的一句话，这种带有“强烈夸张、怀疑和阴谋幻想感”的性格，**被特朗普煽动起来，他把美国几乎所有的弊病都归咎于外人。尽管特朗普声称自己与中国领导人有着良好的关系，并预言未来会有一段“伟大”的双边关系，但事实上，他对美国不安全感的玩世不恭的操纵，为他的下属找到了一个合乎逻辑的目标。

更重要的是，在特朗普定义的政治背景下，**这些敌对言论和行动完全掩盖了华盛顿和北京之间继续合作解决共同问题和关切，**包括气候变化，大规模毁灭性武器扩散，流行病，全球经济体系的状况以及亚洲的稳定。华盛顿现在甚少提到这种必要性。

中国人的自信，与美国对中国的不安全感正在创造一个前所未有的挑战，而这种挑战无法通过否认和妖魔化来实现。**如果华盛顿继续集中精力在几乎所有方面遏制和削弱北京，它将进一步孤立自己（就像它与盟友在贸易问题上所做的那样），并将注意力和资源从处理其他许多问题上转移开。**而如果北京采取针对美国在该地区及其他地区的利益的行动，只会进一步加剧华盛顿的不安全感和偏执，可能引发与美国的冲突，同时疏远外交和贸易伙伴。

当此关键时期，两国需要通过实质性(而不仅仅是口头上的)保证和在关键问题上的妥协，创造积极的势头，从而扭转两国关系的螺旋式下降趋势，而不损害至关重要的国家利益。就当前的美国和中国政府而言，短期内这一艰巨的任务几乎是不可能完成的，但如果我们要避免未来发生严重危机甚至冲突，那么这一任务仍将是当务之急。**首先它需要基于事实的目标与资源的长期匹配，关键利益与次要利益的区分，以及明确认识到，任何一个国家都不会主宰亚洲或整个世界。**随着相互依存的加深和资源的紧张，全球权力正在扩散。这需要努力平衡和合作，而不是排斥和削弱。

**其次华盛顿必须认识到，尽管中国领导人现在占据了主导地位，但中国政府并不是铁板一块。**需要为体制内更大改革、开放和和解的支持者创造积极的激励。这些人存在于许多部门，如果政策造成严重的社会和经济动荡，他们的影响力可能会增加。但目前对中国政府动机和行为的妖魔化，只会削弱他们的地位，帮助那些在中国扮演“外国威胁”幽灵的人，为自己的敌意政策辩护。

**同样，如果北京只是继续强调“双赢”的说辞，不断担忧外国渗透，而不认识到中国日益增长的实力造成的不安全感，那么将在对美交往时一无所获。**只有中国通过向外国(尤其是亚洲国家)提供实质性的政治、经济和安全保障，并以有意义的行动为后盾，才能解决这种不安全感。

这种改变并非不可能，但双方都需要停止装腔作势，着手建立一种稳定的关系，使双方都从中受益。

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The United States and China’s lengthy track record of constructive engagement is disintegrating at an alarming rate, requiring a major correction by both sides. Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s occasional talk of his “truly great” connection with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Xi’s constant references to “win-win” outcomes all round, recent policies and actions — especially on the U.S. side — have created an enormously destructive dynamic in the relationship.

In the case of the United States, this dynamic is most clearly driven by excessively critical, often hostile, authoritative U.S. strategy documents such as the recently issued National Security and National Defense Strategies, similar statements by senior U.S. officials, and U.S. economic policy shifts — including grossly ill-conceived tariffs — that all envision Beijing as a “revisionist” power that threatens all Americans hold dear.

American journalists reinforce this dim view of U.S.-Chinese relations. Almost daily, pundits unveil new aspects of China’s perfidy, ranging from Chinese attempts to undermine intellectual freedom at U.S. universities to China’s sinister debt traps designed to ensnare and control developing countries.

This steady drumbeat of criticism assumes that every Chinese gain comes at American expense, and that past U.S. policymakers and experts have long overlooked the hostility of the Chinese regime. These critics conclude that any cooperation with China must take a back seat to the imperative of pushing back against the growing threat through all means possible. This hyperbole often reaches stratospheric heights, as Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin wrote last December:

Washington is waking up to the huge scope and scale of Chinese Communist Party influence operations inside the United States, which permeate American institutions of all kinds. China’s overriding goal is, at the least, to defend its authoritarian system from attack and at most to export it to the world at America’s expense.

Such language would be less popular if Beijing did not also add fuel to the fire. While endlessly asserting that China poses no threat to anyone, Beijing takes actions that sometimes suggest otherwise. China is unjustly increasing constraints on foreign corporations operating there, continuing commercial theft directed against Western countries, growing its domestic political and ideological controls while increasing anti-foreigner propaganda, and becoming more assertive in its maritime neighborhood.

These actions are certainly troubling and in many cases require more effective counter-policies. However they do not come close to justifying the calls for a fundamental reassessment of U.S.-China policy, the heated rhetoric, and the sledgehammer-like, zero-sum U.S. policies we now see.

Never mind that in many cases the facts don’t support such categorical and one-sided conclusions. For example, engagement was never intended to turn China into a democracy, as many now assert. It originated from a strategic imperative to join with Beijing to balance against the former Soviet Union, to end China’s revolutionary impulses, to make its society more open to outside influence, and, of course, to serve Western business interests. We forget what China was until the 1970s and early 1980s: a largely closed, hostile power with a desire to spread its Maoist, Stalinist model to others. Engagement has largely succeeded in all of these areas. Despite recent setbacks, China remains vastly more open, globalized, and tolerant today than it was prior to engagement, no question.

Another hugely distorted notion is the now all-too-common assumption that China seeks to eject the United States from Asia and subjugate the region. In fact, no conclusive evidence exists of such Chinese goals. Those who assert it base their arguments either on wild extrapolations from individual actions (such as the extension of Chinese influence in the South China Sea), statements by decidedly not authoritative Chinese observers, or problematic realist-based assumptions about the supposedly open-ended power maximization behavior of large nations. Beijing might eventually adopt such disastrous goals if the Sino-U.S. relationship deteriorates sufficiently, but to assume they already exist is reckless and irresponsible.

Similarly, the notion that Beijing is committed to overturning the global order invokes an exceedingly narrow and questionable democracy-centered definition of that order and thus grossly distorts the scope of the Chinese criticisms. Actually, Beijing supports many elements of the existing order, including some that the current U.S. administration rejects or undermines, such as the fight against climate change and the value of multilateral economic agreements. On the latter point, despite some significant protectionist measures (e.g., in telecommunications and financial services), policies calling for increased party controls in economic sectors, and a resurgent stress on state-owned enterprises, China’s economic growth remains driven primarily by private companies and a largely open trading system. Although the World Trade Organization system certainly needs reforming, Beijing has largely complied with the letter, if not always the spirit, of that regime.

What the most extreme among these journalists and officials are providing is an arresting narrative that will no doubt increase defense outlays, sell papers, strike a contrast with the allegedly “failed” China policies of previous administrations, and distract Americans from the many domestic problems they face, such as huge budget deficits, income inequality, and collapsing infrastructure.

This excessively belligerent perspective on China departs greatly from the pragmatism of the “reform and opening” era of U.S.-China relations that began in the 1970s. Based far more in reality, both then and now, than the current one-dimensional stance, this view recognized the need to balance necessary efforts at problem-solving cooperation with Beijing in handling common concerns with prudent hedging and bounded competition. Such a two-pronged approach has now been rejected — at least for Asia — in favor of a zero-sum Indo-Pacific strategy that is thus far mostly an empty slogan calling for a supposed alliance of democratic Asian nations against China.

So what accounts for the emergence in the United States of the new normal of China demonization? Aside from the narrow bureaucratic and political interests noted above, the most significant factor derives from a deep-rooted “paranoid style” evident within the U.S. political mindset, to borrow a phrase from a seminal 1964 article by historian Richard Hofstadter. This disposition, characterized by a “sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy,” to quote Hofstadter, is stoked by Trump, who blames outsiders for almost all of America’s ills. Although Trump claims to have a wonderful relationship with Xi and predicts a “great” bilateral relationship in the future, in fact, his cynical manipulation of America’s insecurities finds a logical target for his subordinates, if not always for himself, in Xi’s China.

More importantly, within the Trump-defined political context, these hostile words and actions completely overshadow the obvious and pressing need for continued cooperation between Washington and Beijing in addressing common problems and concerns, including climate change, weapon of mass destruction proliferation, pandemics, the state of the global economic system, and stability in Asia. These imperatives are rarely if ever even mentioned by Washington now.

The intersection of Chinese assertiveness and both U.S. and Chinese insecurity is creating an unprecedented challenge that cannot be met by denial and demonization. If Washington continues to focus on containing and undermining Beijing on virtually all fronts, it will simply further isolate itself — as it is doing with its allies on trade issues — and divert attention and resources away from handing its many other problems. On the other hand, if Beijing pursues actions that target U.S. interests in the region and beyond, it will simply further fuel Washington’s insecurity and paranoia, possibly courting conflict with the United States while alienating both diplomatic and trading partners.

At this critical moment, both nations need to reverse the downward spiral in relations by creating positive momentum through substantive (and not merely rhetorical) assurances and compromises on key issues, without, however, undermining vital national interests. This difficult task is virtually impossible over the near to medium term under the current U.S. and Chinese governments, but it will nevertheless remain an imperative if we are to avoid serious crises or even clashes in the future. It requires, first, a fact-based matching of goals with resources over time, a differentiation between vital and secondary interests, and a clear-eyed recognition that neither country will dominate either Asia or the world at large. Power is now diffusing across the globe as interdependence deepens and resources are strained. This demands efforts to balance and cooperate rather than exclude and weaken.

Second, Washington must recognize that despite Xi’s now-dominant position, the Chinese government is not a monolithic entity and motivating it requires creating positive incentives for supporters of greater reform, openness, and accommodation within the system. Such individuals exist in many sectors, and their influence could grow if the Xi regime’s more repressive policies create serious social and economic unrest. But the current demonization of Beijing’s motives and behavior will simply weaken their position by helping those in China who play to the specter of the “foreign threat” to justify their own hostile policies.

Similarly, Beijing will get nowhere with U.S. officials if it continues to mouth platitudes about win-win outcomes and stoke domestic fears of foreign infiltration instead of recognizing that its growing strengths create insecurities that can only be addressed through the offering of substantive political, economic, and security assurances — backed by meaningful actions — to outsiders, especially in Asia. Such changes are not impossible, but both sides need to stop the posturing and get down to the business of creating a stable relationship from which both can benefit.