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美駐華大使受訪談中國：“遠比蘇聯強大” https://t.co/mLmNBYTBPN pic.twitter.com/hAbsVFPoxC
— RFI 華語 – 法國國際廣播電台 (@RFI_Cn) April 29, 2023
每周，美國“政客”新聞網（POLITICO）的記者都會分享對全球思想家、政治家、權力人物或名人的采訪。本周，“政客”新聞網中國問題記者林海（PhelimKine）與美國駐華大使伯恩斯 (Nicholas Burns)對話討論了作為拜登政府在北京的最高外交官所麵臨的挑戰。伯恩斯表示，在他看來，今天的中國，遠比當年的蘇聯強大。
據“政客”新聞網報道，伯恩斯於1988年隨當時的美國國務卿舒爾茨（George P.Shultz）首次訪華。當時，中國國內生產年總值（GDP）為3120億美元，中國政府已開始試行村級民主選舉，而習近平正擔任福建省廈門市常務副市長。34年後，當伯恩斯抵達北京出任美國駐華大使時，中國的國內生產總值已達到17.5萬億美元，習近平已成為中國穩固的最高領導人，領導著日益壓製性的威權政府。
拜登政府認為中國“既有重塑國際秩序的意圖，也有越來越多的經濟、外交、軍事和技術力量來實現這一目標”。
“政客”新聞網稱，伯恩斯於去年4月開始在北京工作，當時正值中國嚴苛的疫情政策的嚴厲階段。他作為拜登政府在中國的核心人物的角色恰逢雙邊關係因與台灣有關的緊張局勢、新疆的侵犯人權行為以及2月份在美國大陸上空發現並隨後被摧毀的中國間諜氣球而陷入困境。這些緊張局勢的一個可能反映是：習近平讓伯恩斯等了一年多才在本周二接受他遞交國書。
伯恩斯的外交生涯長達數十年。他於1980年代在裏根總統的冷戰時期政府任職，並於1990年代初擔任老布什政府的蘇聯事務主任。他還曾擔任美國國務院發言人和美國駐北約大使。
據“政客”新聞網采訪記者稱，與伯恩斯談到了21世紀美國對華外交的壓力、兩國之間令人不安的溝通差距，以及將與蘇聯的舊冷戰與更複雜的美中競爭進行比較的麻煩。
該網站解釋，為清楚起見，對這位美國駐華大使的采訪作了濃縮和編輯。
清零及其後果如何影響您管理大使館的能力？
它影響了我們工作的方方麵麵。它影響了我們在這裏的生活方式，影響了我們的家庭和在這裏上學的美國孩子。在北京，當然還有上海、廣州、武漢、沈陽即我們有領事館的地方。在封城期間，商店有時會關門。政府辦公室是禁區。很難乘坐公共交通工具。在北京春季和秋季的封城期間，甚至連公園也曾在某些時候關閉。
抵達中國時有檢疫要求。所以，如果你到了，即使你的檢測結果呈陰性，你也必須隔離。當我到達中國時，我和我的妻子在隔離區度過了21天。我想在頭九個月裏，我在三次不同的回中國旅行中總共度過了40天的隔離期。
我們也不能在中國國內旅行。這意味著我們駐北京大使館和四個領事館的很多官員無法真正做好他們的工作。如果你在這裏為美國食品藥品監督管理局工作，你必須查訪（製造）工廠，但做不到。如果你是公共外交官員或政策官員，你想去雲南、四川、廣東，也都做不到。
我們開始達到某種程度的正常狀態，但這是一個艱難而奇怪的開始。
美國人對中國有哪些誤解，反之中國人對美國有哪些誤解？
這裏的主要問題是，由於新冠病毒，美國人民與中國人民在很大程度上隔絕了。又因為三年沒有來回通航。在疫情大流行前，我們有成千上萬的商務旅客在兩國之間來回穿梭，現在已經基本斷絕。而且由於目前航班稀缺，很難獲得從一個國家到另一個國家的價格合理的商業航班。我們看到的是商務旅客的涓涓細流，但不是潮水湧流。
學生是（美中）這一關係的壓艙石之一。就在10年前，每年有14000名至15000名美國學生在中國學習。目前在中國的美國學生隻有大約350人。那是因為新冠疫情，美國學生無法獲得學生簽證。在過去的三年裏，許多大學交流項目不得不關閉。我們現在沒有過去那樣的民間之間的聯係。
在中國方麵，由於審查製度和網絡防火牆，我們很難真實地反映我們政府的信仰、美國正在努力做的事情、國會正在做的事情，或者普通美國人關於中國的想法。Google、Facebook和YouTube不允許在這裏運營。作為美國駐華大使，我不被允許在《人民日報》上發表未經編輯的評論文章，就像中國駐美大使被歡迎在我們的媒體上發表評論文章那樣。所以我們這裏的所有人都擔心，由於所有的這些障礙，中國人往往無法得到我們美國社會是怎樣的真實寫照。
是什麽讓您夜不能寐？
我們顯然想避免意外的衝突。我不認為有發生衝突的可能或可能性很大，但顯然是可能的。因此，這導致我們在美國政府方麵關注在兩國政府之間建立可靠溝通渠道的必要性。
我們許多最重要的渠道在2022年8月美國眾議院議長佩洛西（NancyPelosi）訪問台灣後，被北京政府暫停。我們認為恢複軍事渠道是非常重要的，這些渠道將我們從五角大樓，從我們在夏威夷的司令部和美國印太司令部連接到中華人民共和國政府。在過去的一兩年裏，我們的外交渠道一直在斷斷續續。我們希望看到它們獲得可靠地加強，以便我們能夠一起工作，避免任何意外的衝突，任何誤解，並處理日常的政府事務。
中國政府讓您的工作有多難？
我們在這裏的活動確實麵臨許多限製，這些限製是在莫斯科服務的美國外交官所熟悉的，例如，或前幾代美國外交官在冷戰最糟糕的年代在蘇聯服務（時所熟悉的）。
但在中國的美國外交官通常被限製訪問中國的大學校園。這方麵有一些例外情況。但我們希望在不久的將來，美國各級外交官有可能訪問大學校園，與教師和學生交談。
能夠與省級領導人交談很重要，因為他們是這裏治理結構的重要組成部分。我認為這將改善（美中）這一關係的健康，但我們已經受到了一些限製。這並不罕見，因為在過去20或30年的大部分時間裏，美國在這裏的外交官都會遇到這種情況。但在過去一兩年裏，這些限製可能越來越嚴重。
您認為蘇聯的舊式威權主義和中國共產黨領導下的威權主義之間有什麽相似或不同之處？
當我想到蘇聯從1940年代末到90年代初的力量時，它與中國在世界舞台上展現的力量和實力完全不同。這就是為什麽我認為人們在舊的冷戰和我們現在的大國競爭與中國之間所做的這種比較，有時會對思考比較有幫助，但它們並不準確。
蘇聯曾是一個巨大的力量。它的核規模。以及它的軍事層麵，當時蘇聯在東德有幾十萬軍隊在富爾達缺口和德國北部平原上與美國人對峙。但是，中華人民共和國的力量比蘇聯曾經的力量無限的強大得多。而它是基於中國經濟的非凡力量，其科學和技術研究基地，其創新能力，以及其在印度-太平洋成為未來主導力量的雄心。我確實認為來自中國的挑戰更加複雜，更加根深蒂固，對我們未來的考驗更大。
China ‘is infinitely stronger than the Soviet Union ever was’
By PHELIM KINE
Welcome back to Global Insider’s Friday feature: The Conversation. Each week a POLITICO journalist shares an interview with a global thinker, politician, power player or personality. This week, D.C.-based China Correspondent Phelim Kine talks to U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, about the challenges of being the Biden administration’s top man in Beijing.
Follow Phelim on Twitter | Send ideas and insights to pkine@politico.com
THE CONVERSATION
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attends a plenary session for the World Peace Forum on July 4, 2022, in Beijing. | Ng Han Guan/AP Photo
Nicholas Burns made his first trip to China in 1988 accompanying then-Secretary of State George Schultz. At that time, China had an annual gross domestic product of $312 billion, the Chinese government had begun experimenting with village-level democratic elections and Xi Jinping was toiling as the executive vice-mayor of the city of Xiamen in Fujian province. Thirty-four years later, when Burns landed in Beijing to become U.S. ambassador, the value of China’s GDP had hit $17.5 trillion and Xi had become China’s unchallenged paramount leader at the top of an increasingly repressive authoritarian government that the Biden administration views as having “both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.”
Burns began work in Beijing last April in the depths of the country’s draconian zero-Covid policy. His role as Biden’s point person in China has coincided with bilateral relations cratering over tensions related to Taiwan, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and the discovery — and subsequent destruction — of a Chinese spy balloon over the continental U.S. in February. A possible reflection of those tensions: President Xi made Burns wait more than a year before accepting his credentials on Tuesday.
Burns’ diplomatic career has spanned decades. He served in President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War era administration in the 1980s and was President George H.W. Bush’s director of Soviet Affairs in the early 1990s. He also did stints as State Department spokesperson and U.S. ambassador to NATO.
I spoke with Burns about the rigors of 21st century U.S. diplomacy in China, the troubling communication gap between the two countries and the trouble with comparing the old Cold War with the Soviet Union with the much more complex U.S.-China rivalry.
The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How did Zero-Covid and its aftermath affect your ability to run the embassy?
It affected every aspect of our work. It affected the way we could live here, and affected our families and affected American kids in schools here. There were times here in Beijing and certainly in Shanghai, in Guangzhou, in Wuhan, Shenyang — where we have our consulates — that during the lockdown stores were closed. Government offices were off limits. It was hard to get on public transportation. Even the parks were closed at some points during the Beijing spring and autumn lockdowns.
There were quarantine requirements on arrival. So if you arrived, even if you tested negative, you had to quarantine. When I arrived, my wife and I spent 21 days in quarantine. I think in my first nine months, I spent a total of 40 days in quarantine on three different trips back into China.
We also could not travel internally. And that meant that a lot of our officers here at the Embassy in Beijing and our four consulates couldn’t really do their jobs. If you’re working for the Food and Drug Administration here, you have to inspect [manufacturing] plants, and they couldn’t do that. If you’re a public diplomacy officer or a political officer, you want to go to Yunnan, to Sichuan Province, to Guangdong Province, but we couldn’t do that.
We’re beginning to arrive at some degree of normalcy, but it’s been a difficult, strange beginning.
What misconceptions do Americans have about China, and vice versa?
The major issue here is that the American people have been largely cut off from the Chinese people — because of Covid. And because of three years of a lack of travel back and forth. We had thousands of business travelers going back and forth between the two countries pre-pandemic and that has largely dried up. And because of the paucity of flights right now, it’s very difficult to get a commercial flight that’s reasonably priced from one country to the other. We’re seeing a trickle of business travelers, but not a flood.
Students are part of the ballast of this relationship. As recently as 10 years ago, there were 14,000-15,000 American students in China on an annual basis. There are now only about 350 American students in China. And that’s because of Covid —student visas were not available to American students. A lot of the university exchange programs had to shut down for these last three years. We don’t have the people-to-people connections right now that we’ve had in the past.
On the Chinese side, because of censorship and because of the Great Firewall, it’s very difficult for us to project the true sense of what our government believes in, what it’s trying to do, what Congress is doing, or what the average American is thinking about China. Google and Facebook and YouTube are not permitted to operate here. And as the American ambassador, I am not allowed to print an unedited op-ed in the People’s Daily, the way that the Chinese ambassador to the United States is welcome to print op-eds in our press. So all of us here worry that the Chinese people often aren’t able to get a true picture of who we are as a society because of all these because of all these barriers.
What keeps you up at night?
We obviously want to avoid an accidental conflict. I don’t think one is probable or likely but it’s obviously possible. And so that leads us on our side in the U.S. government to focus on the need for reliable channels between the two governments.
Many of our most important channels were suspended by the government here in Beijing in the wake of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. We think it’s very important to resurrect the military channels that connect us from the Pentagon, from our command and Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii to the PRC government. Our diplomatic channels have been kind of on and off for the last year or two. We’d like to see them reliably stronger so that we can work together to head off any accidental conflict, any misunderstandings and deal with the normal business of government on a daily basis.
How difficult does the Chinese government make it to do your job?
We do face many restrictions in our activities here that are familiar to American diplomats serving in Moscow, for instance, or previous generations of American diplomats serving in the Soviet Union during the worst years of the Cold War.
American diplomats here in China are routinely restricted from visiting university campuses in China. There are some exceptions to that. But we would hope that in the near future, it’d be possible for American diplomats at all levels to be able to visit a university campus and talk to faculty and students.
It’s important to be able to talk to provincial leaders because they’re so much a part of the governing structure here. I think it would improve the health of this relationship, but we’ve had a number of restrictions put on us. It’s not unusual — it’s happened to American diplomats here for the better part of the last 20 or 30 years — but the restrictions have probably been growing in intensity over the last year or two.
What similarities or differences do you see between the old Soviet authoritarianism and authoritarianism under the Chinese Communist Party?
When I think about the power that the Soviet Union had from the late 1940s into the early 90s, it was nothing like the power and the strength that China is exhibiting on the world stage. That’s why I think this comparison that people have made between the old Cold War and our present great power rivalry [with China] can be helpful at times to think about the comparisons, but they’re not exact.
The Soviet Union was a colossal power. Its nuclear dimensions. Its military dimension when it had hundreds of thousands of troops in East Germany facing Americans in the Fulda Gap and on the north German plain. But the power of the People’s Republic of China is infinitely stronger than the Soviet Union ever was. And it’s based on the extraordinary strength of the Chinese economy — its science and technology research base, its innovative capacity, and its ambitions in the Indo-Pacific to be the dominant power in the future. I do think the challenge from China is more complex and more deeply rooted and a greater test for us going forward.
Thanks to editor Heidi Vogt and producer Andrew Howard.
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