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查斯·弗裏曼大使：中美分裂
https://peacediplomacy.org/2021/09/10/ipd-remarks-ambassador-chas-freeman-sino-american-split/
作者：查斯·弗裏曼 2021 年 9 月 10 日
弗裏曼大使是一位職業外交官（已退休），曾於 1993-94 年間擔任負責國際安全事務的助理國防部長。 弗裏曼曾擔任美國駐曼穀（1984-1986）和北京（1981-1984）大使館副團長和臨時代辦。 1979年至1981年，他擔任美國國務院中國事務主任。 1972年已故總統尼克鬆開創性訪華期間，他擔任首席美國翻譯。
以下是查斯·弗裏曼大使在和平與外交研究所主辦的一對一討論中的開場白。 此次對話由IPD顧問薑文然博士主持，大使就華盛頓努力維持其全球秩序願景中美中競爭中的錯誤假設發表了看法。
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美國憲政民主的侵蝕似乎是多種因素悲劇性結合的結果，其中包括：
當代美國政治中令人發指的唯利是圖、詭計多端和厚顏無恥。
最近出現了一個主要是世襲的美國富豪和受過教育的精英階層。
隨著機會平等和社會流動性明顯從美國社會消失，那些美國夢最底層的人的幻想破滅了。
精英們對未受過教育的人和新舊美國“下層階級”的其他成員的觀點表現出居高臨下和漠不關心。
社交媒體和利基媒體寡頭壟斷的興起，其商業計劃依賴於共同偏見社區的創建和維護。
這種媒體培育的社會微觀世界是由基於共同不滿、“另類事實”、陰謀論和其他政治相關親和力的共同錯覺所定義的。
該組織通過社交媒體組織了日益暴力的抗議活動，抗議者包括心懷不滿的白人民族主義者、社會和警察偏見的黑人受害者、最近從中產階級中降級的人以及其他邊緣化的美國人。
利用專家係統通過“不公正劃分選區”以及操縱選民的人工智能和“大數據”來鞏固政治特權。
精英們在一些問題上堅持自命不凡的政治正確性標準，而那些更傳統和不幸的人則認為這些問題既不寬容，又在道德上令人反感。
對政治正確性的反應和那些致力於消失的現狀的人的抗議。
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美國和中國不再有任何關係。 拋開外交不談，這兩個大國一邊謾罵，一邊擺出軍事姿態，準備戰爭，唯一確定的結果就是台灣的毀滅。但美國和中國之間的競爭主要不是軍事或意識形態的。這是關於相對國力和表現。中國似乎比美國更關注這一現實。
冷戰早已結束, 美國的單極時代已經過去，美國治下的和平已不複存在。隨著它的消亡，美國世界觀的兩個變化為美中（以及美俄）關係陷入敵對對抗提供了地緣政治背景。第一個是華盛頓的安全官員聲稱可以通過提及“大國競爭”來理解世界並組織美國的外交政策。第二個是智庫自由幹涉主義者聲稱，掠奪性威權主義對民主的攻擊已成為曆史和世界事務的中心動力。 拜登政府接受了這兩個論點。它將它們呈現為堅定的信念，而不是假設。它們共同催生了美國的新目標，即由美國及其冷戰盟友精心設計和領導的21世紀“受規則約束的秩序”，這不可能獲得國際關注。
“大國競爭”是國際關係核心特征的觀念最好被理解為美國軍國主義的升華。這是一個軍工聯合體的幻想。“大國競爭”這一概念通過將國家之間的互動比作戰場上的互動，為無限製的國防開支提供了理由。它將外交政策簡化為大國之間的零和博弈，同時否認中等和較小國家在塑造世界秩序或決定自身命運方麵的代理權。將“大國競爭”作為世界事務的核心特征，表達了對冷戰時期全球封建主義的懷念，當時較小的國家必然陷入相互競爭的霸主之間，被迫服從外國議程。毫不奇怪，這個前提在國外並沒有受到太多歡迎。
“大國競爭”這一概念通過將國家之間的互動比作戰場上的互動，為無限製的國防開支提供了理由。它將外交政策簡化為大國之間的零和博弈，同時否認中等和較小國家在塑造世界秩序或決定自身命運方麵的代理權。
現在也很清楚，“大國競爭”並不是能夠治愈後美國治下全球和地區混亂的辯證法，正在出現的是一個國家之間多維互動的世界，其中幾乎所有國家更多地是出於對自治的渴望，而不是與美國或其指定的大國競爭對手結盟。當被要求選擇一個超級大國作為讚助人時，中等和較小的國家幾乎總是對衝並堅持追求自己認為的利益。
基於對過去霸權的懷念和對當代軟弱的誤解的外交政策注定會失敗。它們是一種幻覺，阻礙了世界新變化的地緣政治的成功航行，使那些采用它們的人感到沮喪，並使那些適用它們的人煩惱。它們不是重申美國全球領導地位的基礎。
至於所謂民主受到“威權主義”攻擊的說法，這是好的政治，但卻是政治扭曲的分析。 它出於多種原因吸引美國人。 它似乎將美國民主規範的惡化完全歸咎於外國人，從而免除了美國人對其自身政治文化日益頹廢的任何責任。它體現了一個未明說的預設，即民主是人類默認的政治製度，隻有當堅持假定的“威權主義”意識形態的反對者否認民主時，民主才不存在。
但早在政客們準備冒被其他在民意調查中獲得更多支持的政客取代的風險之前，就已經存在由軍閥、國王、獨裁者和其他強人領導的社會了，仍然有。
民主並不因其決策的智慧而受到讚揚。它被尊為社會和政治壓迫的解毒劑，在法治的調節下，可以實現其他製度無法比擬的個人自治水平和有序的繼承過程。 民主規範似乎需要許多代人才能在人類社會中建立起來。20世紀和21世紀提供了許多例子，說明這些規範可以如何迅速而徹底地被拋棄。
世界上的強人幾乎都是權力狂的自戀者，他們除了害怕被推翻之外沒有任何共同點。 他們很高興獲得外國支持，但在國外尋找並找不到他們的個人崇拜或本國獨特的民族主義的市場。盡管嘴上說得很高調，但美國一直像中國、俄羅斯和其他大國一樣願意向獨裁政府出售武器和內部安全設備，而且事實上，在這些市場上，美國的銷量超過了所有其他國家。
為俄羅斯製造持續的惡意，為中國製造掠奪性的意識形態願望，符合美國國內的政治目的。它將原本令人困惑的國際政治重新納入了激發第二次世界大戰和冷戰的摩尼教框架中。美國人過去常常批評中國對其他國家是否民主和是否致力於法治漠不關心。現在，我們發現很容易扭轉路線，將一場基於價值觀的十字軍運動歸因於中國，這與我們的十字軍運動相當，但又相反。但沒有證據表明習近平和他領導的9200萬共產黨員正在試圖消除中國境外的民主。他們對可疑的本土和外國企圖抹黑他們、顛覆他們的政治經濟成就並推翻他們權力的行為采取防禦措施。
關於美國人或其他國家應該生活在什麽樣的政治製度上，中國和美國正在進行殊死的爭論，這一論點經不起哪怕最起碼的審查。 民主可能在各地發揮作用，但沒有外國獨裁者聯盟或“獨裁意識形態”試圖抹殺民主。中美之間的實際競爭不是政治理想之間的競爭，而是兩國運用財富和權力、維護國內安寧以及激發其他國家和人民效仿的能力之間的競爭。這是一場雙方都不會“獲勝”的競賽。向中國拋出政治上方便但錯誤的理論不會改變這一點。
關於美國人或其他國家應該生活在什麽樣的政治製度上，中國和美國正在進行殊死的爭論，這一論點經不起哪怕最起碼的審查。 民主可能在各地發揮作用，但沒有外國獨裁者聯盟或“獨裁意識形態”試圖抹殺民主。
諷刺的是，美國在《經濟學人》年度全球“民主指數”中剛剛跌至第 25 位，現在被歸類為“有缺陷”且可能失敗的民主國家。 這令人沮喪。 美國人更願意指責俄羅斯和其他外國惡棍，而不是審視我們衰落的內部原因，這是可以理解的。 但諷刺的是，拜登政府竟然選擇這個時刻“為民主挺身而出”，並宣稱全球範圍內存在著民主與“威權主義”之間的鬥爭。 國外很少有人這樣看待事情。
美國憲法將決策權幾乎全部授予國會中的人民代表，但美國總統和選民基本上放棄了立法部門。 總統越來越多地通過法令進行統治，並獲得了比任何國王都更大的權力，可以對其他國家發動戰爭並屠殺國外的假定敵人。
美國憲政民主的侵蝕似乎是多種因素悲劇性結合的結果，其中包括：
- 當代美國政治中令人發指的唯利是圖、詭計多端和厚顏無恥。
- 最近出現了一個主要是世襲的美國富豪和受過教育的精英階層。
- 隨著機會平等和社會流動性明顯從美國社會消失，那些美國夢最底層的人的幻想破滅了。
- 精英們對未受過教育的人和新舊美國“下層階級”的其他成員的觀點表現出居高臨下和漠不關心。
- 社交媒體和利基媒體寡頭壟斷的興起，其商業計劃依賴於共同偏見社區的創建和維護。
- 這種媒體培育的社會微觀世界是由基於共同不滿、“另類事實”、陰謀論和其他政治相關親和力的共同錯覺所定義的。
- 該組織通過社交媒體組織了日益暴力的抗議活動，抗議者包括心懷不滿的白人民族主義者、社會和警察偏見的黑人受害者、最近從中產階級中降級的人以及其他邊緣化的美國人。
- 利用專家係統通過“不公正劃分選區”以及操縱選民的人工智能和“大數據”來鞏固政治特權。
- 精英們在一些問題上堅持自命不凡的政治正確性標準，而那些更傳統和不幸的人則認為這些問題既不寬容，又在道德上令人反感。
- 對政治正確性的反應和那些致力於消失的現狀的人的抗議。
其中一些因素顯然使美國比以前更容易受到外國對其內政的幹預，但它們無一例外地源於國內，而不是外國。 它們隻能由美國人來解決。 把俄羅斯或中國當作替罪羊並不能解決問題。
世界理所當然地不相信美國突然提出的論點，即推動曆史的辯證法是民主與專製之間的矛盾。 那些以其民主傳統而自豪的社會尤其致力於容忍國內外的政治多樣性。 沒有人將推翻非民主政權視為生存的當務之急，也不相信民主國家擁有宣布、強加和執行其偏好的製度以取代國際法和共識的神聖權利。
對世界上的許多人來說，今年六月在康沃爾召開的“七國集團”會議及其對定義不明確的“受規則約束的秩序”的神聖性的談論，看起來就像是一個由已過時的帝國主義者組成的俱樂部召開的會議，決心重新獲得他們與帝國一起失去的規則製定中的主導地位。 七國集團成員占世界人口的11%、按購買力平價計算的GDP的30%和累積財富的62%。 七國集團沒有提出任何理由支持其成員國重新管理全球秩序，但似乎聲稱這是一種主權權利。 但“非西方”——即非歐洲-大西洋——社會構成了全球的絕大多數，並且不再準備被視為附庸。 當他們擺脫貧困時，幾乎所有人都把注意力集中在擺脫西方帝國主義和殖民主義過去屈辱的創傷上。
七國集團沒有提出任何理由支持其成員國重新管理全球秩序，但似乎聲稱這是一種主權權利。 但“非西方”——即非歐洲-大西洋——社會構成了全球的絕大多數，並且不再準備被視為附庸。
如今，後殖民應激障礙已成為每個受帝國主義影響地區外交政策的主要推動力，其中包括東歐和中歐，俄羅斯主導的蘇聯對這些地區實施了羞辱。 它在印度教民族主義和大漢沙文主義中發揮著巨大的作用。 後殖民宿醉是 1979 年伊朗伊斯蘭革命和 2011 年阿拉伯起義等現象的主要解釋。
歐洲殖民主義使非洲與其殖民者又愛又恨，而現在這些殖民者正通過非法移民而回歸家園。 拉丁美洲仍然對“北方巨人”對玻利維亞、古巴和委內瑞拉等地的持續幹預感到不滿，盡管該地區的許多人向北尋求更好的生活。 東南亞人民也飽受歐美日帝國主義壓迫的傷痕。 美國和歐洲以外的世界大多數國家都將以色列在巴勒斯坦正在進行的種族清洗和定居點活動視為種族主義殖民主義的最後一搏。 伊斯蘭主義者將其視為“西方”，並將其視為通過恐怖主義進行報複的理由。
全球政治的有效分歧顯然不是民主與專製之間的分歧，而是前殖民者與被殖民者之間的分歧。 長期以來通過工業化致富的主要西方國家與現在正在努力實現工業化的國家之間的差異也成為了這一推動力。 富人可以保護他們的人民免受流行病等現象的影響。 欠發達國家和窮人隻能受苦和死亡。
氣候變化也是如此。 最早實現工業化的國家能夠忽視汙染和溫室氣體排放。 他們現在不願意讓那些著手開發的人也這樣做。 窮國要求對其前殖民統治者兩個世紀以來累積的氣候退化給予補償，但這些要求卻被置若罔聞。 發展中國家無法預防或補救氣溫和海洋上升、洪水和幹旱、饑荒和瘟疫帶來的災難性影響，這將給其居民帶來難以忍受的未來。 結果將是混亂擴大。
出於所有這些原因，對於世界上大多數人來說，拜登政府現在提出的重新製定“受規則約束的秩序”的論點聽起來很空洞。 它呼籲其他國家尊重大國競爭並與想象中的獨裁掠奪者作鬥爭，但沒有什麽吸引力。 為了與中國或其他崛起和複興的大國競爭塑造未來世界，美國需要提出與當前現實相關的案例。 目前，中國似乎比美國更能適應這些現實。
對於世界上大多數人來說，拜登政府現在提出的重新製定“受規則約束的秩序”的論點聽起來很空洞。 它呼籲其他國家尊重大國競爭並與想象中的獨裁掠奪者作鬥爭，但沒有什麽吸引力。
這確實是不幸的。 世界上有許多問題，如果沒有最強大國家的領導就無法解決，而在美國推卸領導責任的同時，中國仍然專注於自身的重建、複興、技術進步和自利性的經濟擴張。 北京幾乎沒有表現出領導其他國家的意願，而且迄今為止也沒有表現出這樣做的能力。 美國不希望中國取代其全球領導地位。 在大多數情況下，世界也沒有。 但是，如果美國以及中國、印度、日本和其他大國之間沒有至少某種程度的與中國的妥協和合作，美國和中國都無法對人類目前麵臨的全球性挑戰做出有效的反應。
中國現在似乎過於自信，而美國則陷入自我懷疑。 如果像《箴言》中所說的那樣，“驕傲在毀滅之前出現，傲慢的精神在失敗之前出現”，那麽中國似乎已經成熟了。 與此同時，美國的社交媒體和小眾媒體將美國人分割成幻滅且互不信任的子社區，這些子社區對美國的過去和未來抱有不相容的願景，甚至彼此之間也不再有話可說。 由於缺乏團結，美國在政治上似乎四分五裂、心不在焉，除了必須反對中國之外，在很多事情上都無法達成一致。
目前，中國和美國都不太容忍模棱兩可、細微差別或偏離普遍預設或偏見的情況。 兩國政府都熱衷於保護領導人免受批評，並對外國譴責或本土非傳統思想做出惡劣反應。 因此，在應該識別並糾正錯誤很長時間之後，兩者都容易繼續犯錯誤。
唯我論和相互蔑視的結合導致北京和華盛頓不再互相傾聽。 中國和美國公民現在幾乎所有的信息都是通過數字過濾器以經過媒體認證和旨在強化既定敘事的有針對性的判斷的形式獲得的。 兩國公民都沒有得到許多事實來反駁這種判斷。 每個國家都發現很難對涉及國家利益的趨勢和事件得出自己的結論。
在中國，信息流受到政府控製，對國內事務平淡但樂觀，對外交事務自以為是的民族主義，並計劃在政治上團結人民。 在美國，它是企業控製的、不和諧的、對國內和外交事務偏執的，並且是為了促進政治觀點以及商品和服務的營銷而量身定製的。 這兩個係統都將客觀性視為古怪且具有潛在顛覆性，並沉迷於嘩眾取寵的傳播，但美國的“媒體世界”中有更高比例的東西，專家們用技術術語恰當地描述了“奇怪的狗屎”。
在很大程度上，為了安撫國內的民族主義民眾，中國和美國似乎都決定效仿羅馬皇帝卡裏古拉的外交政策。 他的座右銘是 ODERINT DUM METUANT——“隻要他們還害怕我們，就讓他們恨我們吧。” 這就是前國務卿邁克·蓬佩奧的外交理念。 今天的中國似乎也是如此。 美國“交朋友、影響別人”，或者中國表現得“可信、可愛、值得尊敬”，就這麽多了！
中國執政的共產黨現在似乎認為，其意識形態的輝煌成就了中國驚人的經濟和技術成功。 但它的主要貢獻是拋開意識形態，開放中國市場，接受外國公司及其技術的競爭，用市場經濟和產業政策取代中央計劃，為企業家、地方和國有企業掃清道路，削減浪費性的國防開支，並鼓勵中國家庭儲蓄進行生產性再投資。 通過放棄對經濟的微觀管理，黨解放了經濟。 隨後，中國人民開始了自19世紀美國以來從未有過的激烈經濟競爭。 這刺激了生產率的快速增長並壓低了價格，同時豐富了普通中國人的生活，使他們成為世界三分之一製成品的生產者。
這些確實是令人驚歎的成就。 但刺激他們的是明智地撤回國家控製，而不是維護國家控製。 現在控製似乎又重新開始了。 這就提出了這樣一種可能性：正如中國曆史上曾經發生過的那樣，不斷增長的繁榮可能會成為專橫的國家官僚機構的傲慢和腐敗的犧牲品。 如果發生這種情況，誰有勇氣告訴中國政治世界的主人，重新實行保姆國家可能會引發而不是防止動亂，並通過打擊龐大且不斷增長的中產階級自我實現的願望來逆轉中國的經濟進步？
中國通過接受意識形態上令人難以接受的現實而一躍走向繁榮。 現在，許多人認為北京似乎正在推翻先前被經驗駁斥的意識形態議程的裁決。 又回到政治掛帥了嗎？ 實事求是——“實事求是”或者以實踐為真理的唯一標準——“實踐是真理的唯一標準”變成了什麽？ 中國難道不需要這樣的原則和進一步的改革開放——“改革開放”——才能邁向下一階段的財富和威望嗎？
當然，中國現在擁有高度競爭、自給自足的經濟。 中國的發展可能會放緩，但很可能會持續足夠長的時間，讓不再癡迷於管製的新一代重新發現促進中國恢複財富和權力的開放心態。
可悲的是，無論中國是否動搖，美國目前與之競爭的條件都非常糟糕。 當代美國民主的弱點及其災難性地無法動員人們對這一流行病采取有效應對措施就說明了這一點。 但美國現在在軍事以外的幾乎所有與競爭相關的領域都被中國擊敗了（而且這也越來越不確定）。
- 中國經濟的大多數部門都是由多家競爭性企業提供服務，而美國經濟現在的常態是寡頭壟斷、壟斷或壟斷。
- 在中國，企業仍然將利潤投資於擴大工業產能。 在金融化、股東資本主義如今占主導地位的美國，利潤越來越多地流向股票回購、兼並和收購。
- 中國工業生產已占全球工業生產的 30% 以上，而美國僅略高於 16%。
- 中國是世界第一大貿易國，也是世界四分之三國家的最大經濟夥伴。
- 中國現在與美國爭奪外國直接投資的最大接受國。
- 中國的儲蓄和投資能力大約是美國的2.5倍，而且中國政府有剩餘資本可以出口。 美國已經變得依賴外國購買約 40% 的債務來維持現有的政府運作，更不用說啟動新計劃了。
- 中國在世界創新者的行列中迅速崛起，而美國雖然仍然強大，但正在緩慢下降。
- 中國學校學生的數學和科學排名世界第一，而美國學生分別排名第37位和第18位。
- 目前中國科學家、技術人員、工程師和數學家的數量是美國的八倍，如果不發生任何變化，到本十年末，這一數字將是美國的十五倍。
- 中國占本世紀全球研發支出增長總量的三分之一，而美國則占五分之一。 中國和美國各自約占全球研發支出的四分之一，但中國在 2019 年超過了美國，現在在基礎研究上的支出比美國多得多，而美國的大部分研發都是由企業資助的增量產品開發。
- 在中國，政府支出體現的是戰略計算； 在美國，它反映了既得利益者對國會遊說的載體。
- 中國的交通和通信基礎設施是世界上最新、最高效的，而美國道路、橋梁、鐵路、航空和海港的延期維護費用超過2.5萬億美元。 （國會現在正為五年內每年為基礎設施額外撥款約 1100 億美元而沾沾自喜——遠遠低於所需的數額。）
- 中國現在將其GDP的不到2%分配給軍事，而美國則為3.4%至5.25%。 （如果中國是北約成員國，美國就會指責它在國防上的開支太少。）中國可以大幅增加國防開支和生產，而美國卻不能。
美國最大的比較優勢是其專業化和高殺傷力的軍隊。 這使得美國人在政治上方便用軍事術語來描繪美國與中國的較量。中國正在表明它可以與美國匹敵並提出任何要求。但軍事姿態是徒勞的。中美之間因備受誤解的台灣問題而爆發的戰爭 — — 最有可能的宣戰理由 — — 將使台灣成為一片廢墟，並可能使中國和美國的家園都遭到毀滅。如果他們不徹底摧毀對方，那麽雙方都會從任何戰爭中輸掉。 他們會瘋狂地互相開戰。我們必須盡我們所能確保他們不會這樣做。
美國最大的比較優勢是其專業化和高殺傷力的軍隊，這使得美國人在政治上方便用軍事術語來描繪美國與中國的較量。中國正在表明它可以與美國匹敵並達到與美國一樣的水平，因此，軍事威懾是徒勞的。
中美之爭不在於哪一方能夠在軍事上勝過對方，或者在軍事上勝過對方。 它關係到國家實力和表現的根本來源。 這些目前都不利於美國。
美國增加國防開支或將武裝力量轉向東亞不會增強美國相對於中國的競爭力。 要應對這一挑戰，就需要對美國的未來進行一定程度的投資，如果不結束美國的狂妄自大、否認和自滿，這種投資水平是不可想象的，這些投資削弱了財政責任，將財富轉移給富豪，吸引最優秀和最聰明的人進入金融領域而不是真正的工程領域，使競爭市場窒息，工業萎縮，教育和衛生等部門製度化的低效率和回扣，擠壓中產階級，並削弱政府應對危機的能力s。 沒有什麽比這更有效的了。
這就是為什麽作為一個美國人，當我說雖然中國不會從中美分裂中獲益，但美國似乎可能會從中受損時，我感到很難過。
Ambassador Chas Freeman: The Sino-American Split
https://peacediplomacy.org/2021/09/10/ipd-remarks-ambassador-chas-freeman-sino-american-split/
BY: Chas Freeman SEPT 10, 2021
Transcript
The United States and China are no longer on speaking terms. Having put diplomacy aside, these two great powers are engaged in diatribe accompanied by military posturing and preparations for a war in which the only certain outcome is the devastation of Taiwan. But the contest between America and China is not primarily military or ideological. It is about relative national strength and performance. China seems more focused on this reality than the United States.
The Cold War is long over. America’s unipolar moment has passed, and the Pax Americana is no more. With its demise, two changes in the American worldview have provided the geopolitical context for the descent of US-China (and US-Russia) relations into adversarial antagonism. The first was the assertion by Washington securocrats that the world could be understood, and U.S. foreign policy organized, by reference to “great power rivalry.” The second is the claim by think-tank liberal interventionists that an attack on democracy by predatory authoritarianism has become the central dynamic of history and world affairs. The Biden administration has embraced both theses. It presents them as firm convictions, not hypotheses. Together, they have given birth to the new American objective of a 21st century “rules-bound order” crafted and led by the United States and its Cold War allies. This has no prospect of gaining international traction.
The notion that “great power rivalry” is the core feature of international relations is best understood as a distillation of American militarism. It is a fantasy of the military-industrial complex. “Great power rivalry” is a concept that provides a rationale for unbounded defense spending by analogizing interactions among nations to those on a battlefield. It reduces foreign policy to zero-sum games between great powers, while denying agency to middle-ranking and smaller powers in shaping the world order or determining their own destinies. Positing “great power rivalry” as the central feature of world affairs is an expression of nostalgia for the global feudalism of the Cold War when lesser nations were necessarily caught between competing overlords and forced to defer to alien agendas. Not surprisingly, this premise has not found much welcome abroad.
It is also now clear that “great power rivalry” is not the dialectic that will cure the entropy of post-Pax Americana global and regional disorder. What is emerging is a world of multidimensional interactions between countries in which almost all are driven more by their desire for autonomy than for alignment with the United States or its appointed great power rivals. Asked to choose a superpower as patron, middle-ranking and smaller powers almost invariably hedge and persist in pursuing their own interests as they see them.
Foreign policies based on wistful remembrance of past supremacy and the misperception of contemporary infirmities are doomed to fail. They are hallucinations that preclude successful navigation of the world’s newly fluid geopolitics, frustrate those who adopt them, and vex those to whom they are applied. They are not a basis on which to reaffirm U.S. global leadership.
As for the claim that democracy is under attack by “authoritarianism,” this is good politics but politically warped analysis. It appeals to Americans for many reasons. It appears to explain the deterioration of democratic norms in the United States as entirely the fault of foreigners and to thereby absolve Americans of any responsibility for the increasing decadence of their own political culture. It embodies an unstated presupposition that democracy is the default political system of humankind, absent only when denied to a people by opponents who adhere to a putative ideology of “authoritarianism.”
But long before there were politicians prepared to risk displacement from power by other politicians with more support at the polls, there were societies led by warlords, kings, dictators, and other strongmen. There still are.
Democracy is not celebrated for the wisdom of its decision-making. It is revered as an antidote to social and political repression that, when tempered by the rule of law, enables levels of individual self-governance and orderly succession processes that no other system can match. Democratic norms appear to require many generations to establish themselves in human societies. The 20th and 21st centuries provide many examples of how quickly and thoroughly these norms can be discarded.
The world’s strongmen are almost all power-mad narcissists who have nothing in common other than the fear of being overthrown. They are happy to receive foreign support but seek and find no market abroad for their personality cults or their countries’ idiosyncratic nationalisms. Lofty talk notwithstanding, the United States has been just as willing as China, Russia, and other great powers to sell weapons and internal security equipment to authoritarian governments and has, in fact, outsold all others in such markets.
Inventing persistent malevolence for Russia and predatory ideological aspirations for China serves domestic U.S. political purposes. It puts otherwise confusing international politics back into the sort of Manichean framework that animated World War II and the Cold War. Americans used to criticize China for its well-documented indifference to whether other countries were or were not democratic and devoted to the rule of law. Now, we have found it convenient to reverse course and attribute to China a values-based crusade equivalent to and opposed to our own. But there is no evidence that Xi Jinping and the 92 million Communist Party members he leads are trying to erase democracy beyond China’s borders. They are on the defensive against suspected homegrown and foreign efforts to discredit them, subvert their political economic achievements, and topple them from power.
The thesis that China and America are engaged in mortal contention over what political system Americans or others should live under does not survive even minimal scrutiny. Democracy may be doing itself in here and there, but there is no league of foreign autocrats or “authoritarian ideology” seeking to obliterate it. The operative contest between China and America is not between competing political ideals but between the two countries’ abilities to exercise wealth and power, maintain domestic tranquility, and inspire emulation by other states and peoples. It is a contest that neither side will “win.” Flinging politically convenient but erroneous theories at China will not change this.
Ironically, the United States has just fallen to number 25 on the Economist’s annual worldwide “Democracy Index,” and is now categorized as a “flawed” and possibly failing democracy. This is disheartening. It is understandable that Americans prefer blaming Russia and other foreign miscreants to examining the internal causes of our decadence. But it is ironic that the Biden administration should choose this moment to “stand up for democracy” and proclaim the existence of a global struggle between democracy and “authoritarianism.” Few abroad see things at all this way.
The American constitution assigned authority for policymaking almost entirely to the people’s representatives in Congress, but the U.S. president and the electorate have largely given up on the legislative branch. The president increasingly rules by decree and has acquired greater power than any king to make war on other nations and slaughter presumed enemies abroad.
The erosion of constitutional democracy in the United States appears to be the result of a tragic combination of many factors, including
- The outrageous venality, chicanery, and effrontery of contemporary American politics.
- The recent emergence of a largely hereditary American plutocracy and educated elite.
- The disillusionment of those farthest down with the American dream, as equality of opportunity and social mobility visibly disappear from American society.
- Elite condescension and indifference to the views of the uneducated and other members of the new and old American “underclasses.”
- The rise of social and niche media oligopolies with business plans dependent upon the creation and maintenance of communities of shared preconceptions.
- The nurture by such media of social microcosms defined by shared delusions based on common grievances, “alternative facts,” the embrace of conspiracy theories, and other politically relevant affinities.
- The organization through social media of increasingly violent protests by disgruntled white nationalists, black victims of social and police prejudice, those recently demoted from the middle class, and other marginalized Americans.
- The exploitation of expert systems to entrench political privilege through “gerrymandering” and artificial intelligence and “big data” that manipulate the electorate.
- Elite insistence on pretentious standards of political correctness on issues that the more traditional and less fortunate find both intolerant and morally offensive.
- Reactions to political correctness and protests by those devoted to the vanishing status quo.
A few of these factors clearly make the United States more vulnerable to foreign intervention in its internal affairs than before, but they are, without exception, domestic, not foreign, in origin. They can only be fixed by Americans. Scapegoating Russia or China won’t do a thing to remedy them.
The world is rightly disbelieving of the sudden American argument that the dialectic driving history is the contradiction between democracy and autocracy. Those societies proudest of their democratic traditions are notably committed to the tolerance of political diversity both at home and abroad. None sees the overthrow of undemocratic regimes as an existential imperative or believes in the divine right of democracies to proclaim, impose, and enforce their preferred dispensations as a replacement for international law and consensus.
To much of the world, the gathering of the “G7” in Cornwall this June and its talk of the sanctity of an ill-defined “rules-bound order” looked like the convening of a club of superannuated imperialists determined to regain the dominant role in rulemaking they lost along with their empires. The members of the G7 account for 11 percent of the world population, 30 percent of its GDP at purchasing power parity, and 62 percent of its accumulated wealth. The G7 made no case for its members’ renewed stewardship of global order but appeared to claim it as a sort of droit du seigneur. But “non-Western” – meaning non-Euro-Atlantic – societies constitute a very large global majority and are no longer prepared to be treated as vassals. As they rise from poverty, almost all are focused on escape from the trauma of past humiliation by Western imperialism and colonialism.
Post-colonial stress disorder is today a major driver of foreign policy in every region touched by imperialism, including Eastern and Central Europe, where the humiliation was done by the Russian-dominated Soviet Union. It plays an outsized role in Hindu nationalism and Great Han chauvinism. Post-colonial hangover is a major explanation for phenomena like the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the Arab uprisings of 2011.
European colonialism has locked Africa into a love-hate relationship with its colonizers that is now coming home to roost through illegal migration. Latin America continues to resent ongoing interventions by “the Colossus of the North” in places like Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela, even as many from the region look north for a better life. Southeast Asians, too, bear the scars of having been subjugated by European, American, and Japanese imperialism. Most of the world outside the United States and Europe sees the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing and settlement activity in Palestine as the last gasp of racist colonialism. Islamists identify “the West” with it and see it as justification for reprisal through terrorism.
The operative division in global politics is manifestly not that between democracy and autocracy but that between former colonizers and the colonized. This is joined as a driving force by the differences between those mainly Western nations who long ago became wealthy through industrialization and those now striving to do the same. The wealthy can protect their populations from phenomena like pandemics. The less developed and poor are left to suffer and die.
The same is true of climate change. The earliest countries to industrialize were able to ignore pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. They now prefer not to allow those embarking on development to do the same. Demands from poor countries that they be compensated for two centuries of accumulated degradation of the climate by their former colonial masters fall on deaf ears. The inability of developing countries to forestall or remediate the catastrophic impact of rising temperatures and seas, flooding and drought, or famine and pestilence promises to create an unbearable future for their inhabitants. The result will be widening chaos.
For all these reasons, to most of the world the arguments that the Biden administration is now making for a reformulated “rules-bound order” ring hollow. Its appeals to other nations for deference to great power rivalry and combat with imaginary authoritarian predators have little appeal. To compete with China or other rising and resurgent powers in shaping the world of the future, America needs to make a case that is relevant to current realities. At present, China seems better aligned with these realities than the United States.
This is truly unfortunate. The world has many problems that cannot be addressed without leadership by its greatest powers, and, as America shirks the burdens of leadership, China remains focused on its own reconstitution, rejuvenation, technological advancement, and self-interested economic outreach. Beijing shows little willingness to lead other nations and has so far demonstrated no competence to do so. America doesn’t want China to replace its global leadership. Neither, for the most part, does the world. But, without at least some degree of accommodation and cooperation with China by the United States and between China, India, Japan, and other great powers, neither the United States nor China will be able to mount an effective response to the planetwide challenges now facing humanity.
China now seems overconfident, while the United States is mired in self-doubt. If, as the Book of Proverbs puts it, “pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” China looks like it’s ripe for one or the other. Meanwhile, social and niche media in the United States have sliced, diced, and sorted Americans into disillusioned and mutually distrustful sub-communities that harbor incompatible visions of the American past and future and are no longer even on speaking terms with each other. Lacking unity, America seems politically splintered, scatterbrained, and unable to agree on much of anything except that China must be opposed.
Neither China nor America currently has much tolerance for ambiguity, nuance, or deviance from popular presuppositions or prejudices. Both have administrations that are obsessed with protecting leaders from criticism and that react badly to foreign censure or to homegrown unconventional ideas. Both are therefore prone to persist in error long after they should have been identified and corrected it.
A combination of solipsism and mutual disdain assures that Beijing and Washington no longer listen to each other. Both Chinese and American citizens now receive almost all information through digital filters in the form of media-certified and targeted judgments designed to reinforce established narratives. Neither citizenry is presented with many facts to contradict such judgments. Each finds it difficult to draw its own conclusions about trends and events touching national interests.
In China, the information flow is government-controlled, anodyne but upbeat about domestic matters, self-righteously nationalistic about foreign affairs, and calculated to unify the people politically. In America, it is corporate controlled, discordant, bigoted about both domestic and foreign affairs, and tailored to facilitate the marketing of political opinions as well as goods and services. Both systems treat objectivity as quaint and potentially subversive and indulge in the propagation of claptrap, but the “mediaverse” in America has a much higher percentage of stuff that experts aptly describe with the technical term, “weird shit.”
In large measure to placate nationalistic domestic audiences, both China and America appear to have decided to emulate the foreign policy of the Roman emperor, Caligula. His motto was ODERINT DUM METUANT – “let them hate us, as long as they fear us.” This was former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s idea of diplomacy. It appears to be that of today’s China as well. So much for America “making friends and influencing people” or China presenting itself as “credible, lovable, and respectable!”
China’s ruling Communist Party seems now to imagine that the brilliance of its ideology is responsible for China’s astonishing economic and technological success. But its major contributions were to set aside its ideology, open the Chinese market to competition from foreign companies and their technologies, replace central planning with market economics and industrial policies, get out of the way of entrepreneurs, localities, and state-owned enterprises, curtail wasteful defense expenditures, and encourage the productive reinvestment of Chinese household savings. By stepping aside from micromanagement of the economy, the Party liberated it. The Chinese people then launched themselves into a level of dog-eat-dog economic competition not seen since 19th century America. This spurred rapid productivity growth and deflated prices while enriching the lives of ordinary Chinese and enabling them to become the producers of one-third of the world’s manufactures.
These were truly amazing achievements. But they were stimulated by judicious withdrawals of state control, rather than assertions of it. Now the controls seem to be going back on. This raises the possibility that, as has happened before in China’s history, rising prosperity could fall victim to the arrogance and corruption of a domineering state bureaucracy. If this happens, who will have the courage to tell the masters of the Chinese political universe that the reimposition of the nanny state risks triggering rather than precluding unrest [亂] and reversing China’s economic advance by blighting the aspirations for self-fulfillment of its enormous and growing middle class?
China leapt into prosperity by embracing ideologically unpalatable realities. Now many see Beijing appearing to reverse verdicts on ideological agendas previously refuted by experience. Are we back to 政治掛帥 — politics in command? What became of 實事求是 –“seek truth from facts” or 以實踐為真理的唯一標準 – “practice is the sole criterion of truth”? Doesn’t China need such principles along with further 改革開放 – “reform and opening” – to advance to the next stage of wealth and prestige?
Of course, China now has a highly competitive, self-sustaining economy. China’s development may slow, but it is most likely to continue long enough for a new generation less obsessed with the need for regimentation to rediscover the open-mindedness that catalyzed China’s return to wealth and power.
Sadly, whether China falters or not, the United States is presently in remarkably poor condition to compete with it. The infirmities of contemporary American democracy and its catastrophic inability to mobilize an effective response to the pandemic are telling. But the United States is now overmatched by China or about to be in just about every realm relevant to competition other than the military (and that too is increasingly uncertain).
- Most sectors of the Chinese economy are served by multiple competitive enterprises whereas in the U.S. economy the norm is now oligopoly, monopoly, or monopsony.
- In China, companies still invest their profits in expanded industrial capacity. In the United States, where financialized, shareholder capitalism now dominates, profits increasingly flow into stock buybacks, mergers, and acquisitions.
- China already accounts for over 30 percent of global industrial production vs. America’s slightly more than 16 percent.
- China is the world’s largest trading nation and the top economic partner of three-fourths of the world’s countries.
- China now vies with the United States as the largest recipient of foreign direct investment.
- China has about 2.5 times the savings and investment capacity of the United States and its government has surplus capital to export. America has become dependent on foreign purchases of around 40 percent of its debt just to run existing government operations, let alone launch new programs.
- China is rapidly rising in the ranks of the world’s innovators while the United States, though still formidable, is slowly declining.
- Students in China’s schools rank 1st in the world in math and science, while American students rank 37th and 18th respectively.
- There are now eight times as many scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians in China as there are in the United States and if nothing changes, at the end of this decade, there will be fifteen times as many.
- China has provided one-third of the total global growth in research and development expenditures in this century vs. America’s one-fifth. China and the U.S. each account for about one-fourth of worldwide spending on R&D, but China passed the U.S. in 2019 and now spends much more on basic research than the United States, where most R&D is business-funded incremental product development.
- In China, government spending reflects strategic calculation; in America it reflects the vector of vested interests’ lobbying of Congress.
- Chinese transportation and communications infrastructure is the world’s newest and most efficient, while deferred maintenance on America’s roads, bridges, railroads, and air and sea ports is over $2.5 trillion. (The Congress is now crowing over having just allocated about $110 billion annually over five years to additional funding for infrastructure – far, far short of what is required.)
- China now allocates less than 2 percent of its GDP to the military vs. America’s 3.4 – 5.25 percent. (If China were a NATO member, the United States would be berating it for spending much too little on defense.) China can surge defense expenditures and production whereas the United States cannot.
The greatest comparative advantage of the United States has come to be its professional and highly lethal military. This makes it politically convenient for Americans to portray the contest the United States has launched with China in military terms. China is showing that it can match and raise anything the United States does. But military posturing is an exercise in futility. Sino-American war over the much-misunderstood Taiwan issue – the most probable casus belli – would leave Taiwan in ruins and could leave both the Chinese and American homelands devastated. Both would lose from any war if they did not destroy each other outright. They would be mad to go to war with each other. We must do what we can to ensure that they do not.
The Sino-American contest is not about which side can out-posture or out-arm the other militarily. It is about the underlying sources of national strength and performance. These do not currently favor the United States.
American competitiveness vis-à-vis China will not be enhanced by more American defense spending or the pivoting of U.S. armed forces to East Asia. Meeting the challenge will require a level of investment in the future of the United States that is unimaginable without an end to the American hubris, denial, and complacency that have gutted fiscal responsibility, diverted wealth to the plutocracy, attracted the best and brightest to financial rather than real engineering, suffocated competitive markets, atrophied industry, institutionalized inefficiency and rake-offs in sectors like education and health, squeezed the middle class, and decimated the capacity of the government to respond to crises. Nothing less will do.
And that is why it distresses me as an American to say that, while China will not gain from the Sino-American split, the United States seems likely to lose from it.
Chas Freeman
