尼爾·弗格森 談與中國的第二次冷戰

第二次冷戰：尼爾·弗格森談與中國正在出現的衝突

https://www.hoover.org/research/cold-war-ii-niall-ferguson-emerging-conflict-china

尼爾·弗格森 (Niall Ferguson) 是胡佛研究所的米爾班克家族高級研究員，也是多本書的作者，包括《末日：災難的政治》和《基辛格，1923-1968：理想主義者》。 在這次對話中，我們將討論台灣問題上的衝突：為什麽它是一場冷戰，它何時開始，如何避免讓它變成熱戰，以及如何緩和甚至贏得它。

2023 年 5 月 1 日星期一 0 分鍾閱讀尼爾·弗格森訪談

英國：尼爾·弗格森
第二次冷戰：尼爾·弗格森談與中國正在出現的衝突
合著者：尼爾·弗格森

要查看本集的完整文字記錄，請閱讀以下內容：

彼得·羅賓遜：與中國正在出現的衝突到底有多嚴重？ 它已經變成了第二次冷戰。 曆史學家尼爾·弗格森現在談論不常見的知識。

彼得·羅賓遜：歡迎來到非凡知識，我是彼得·羅賓遜。 尼爾·弗格森是胡佛研究所的研究員，在牛津大學獲得本科和研究生學位。 在來到斯坦福大學之前，他曾在牛津大學、劍橋大學、紐約大學、哈佛大學和倫敦經濟學院任職。 弗格森博士是十幾部主要曆史著作的作者，包括《戰爭的憐憫，解釋第一次世界大戰》、《金錢的崛起》、《帝國，英國如何創造現代世界》，我們來 現在我們今天的主題是《理想主義者基辛格》，這是他的兩卷本亨利·基辛格傳記的第一卷，亨利·基辛格是第一次長期冷戰中最重要的人物之一。 弗格森博士目前正在完成亨利·基辛格兩卷傳記的第二卷。 完成它，是的，尼爾？

尼爾·弗格森：是的。 這就是計劃。

彼得·羅賓遜：明白了。 好吧。 尼爾·弗格森在《國家評論》中寫道：“第一次世界大戰發生了。然後又發生了第二次世界大戰。它們並不完全相同。但它們非常相似，以至於沒有人會爭論命名法。同樣，還有第一次冷戰。現在我們 正處於第二次冷戰時期。” 好吧，這就是我對冷戰這個詞的理解，與中國的衝突將持續兩到三代人。 代際衝突。 我們將發現自己再次生活在核威脅之下，我們文明的生存受到威脅。 我是在誇張，還是這是對冷戰的一個公正的總結？

尼爾·弗格森：哦，情況比這更糟糕，因為你假設它會非常漫長。 我的冷戰確實是一個四年的事件。 它實際上比大多數專家預期的要早結束，但不能保證第二次冷戰會持續那麽久，因為中國是一個比蘇聯更強大的對手。 在經濟上，以一項指標（基於購買力平價的國內生產總值）衡量，中國幾乎已經趕上了美國。中國在 2014 年超過了美國。在這一指標上，蘇聯從未接近過美國。 他們的巔峰時期有美國麵積的 44%。 因此，純粹從經濟角度來看，第二次冷戰更糟糕。 從技術角度來看，情況也更糟，因為我們擁有第一次冷戰時期的核武器。當然，我們擁有比他們在第一次冷戰開始時擁有的武器更先進的武器，但我們也有很多他們沒有的東西 在第一次冷戰中，從人工智能到量子計算，都沒有。 因此，第二次冷戰正在以比第一次冷戰更多的技術和更多的火力進行。你想讓我繼續下去嗎？

彼得·羅賓遜：繼續吧。

尼爾·弗格森：我再給你一個擔心的理由。

彼得·羅賓遜：我會在節目剩下的時間裏努力尋找歡樂的基調。

尼爾·弗格森：好吧，讓我們麵對現實吧。 第一次冷戰時期，蘇聯人想要了解美國的情況確實相當困難，因為整個美國的蘇聯公民數量很少，而且我們知道他們是誰、在哪裏。 美國的製度也有一定的滲透，但與第二次冷戰相比，那算不了什麽。 在第二次冷戰中，社會和經濟之間存在著巨大的相互滲透。 中國人可以通過各種方式了解我們相對開放的社會和經濟。 不僅僅是因為他們在這裏（盡管他們的數量肯定比蘇聯人多得多），而且還通過電子方式。 所以我確實認為，在我們假設，哦，第二次冷戰在持續時間方麵有點像第一次冷戰之前，我認為這是不能保證的。 也不能保證我們會贏，因為我們當然贏得了第一次冷戰。我們不應該假設我們會贏得第二次冷戰。

彼得·羅賓遜：好的。 我們稍後再討論這一點。 力量對比這句話是誰說的？

尼爾·弗格森：這是斯大林的一句話。 這當然是馬克思主義的一句話。

彼得·羅賓遜：但是基辛格，這實際上是一個明智的分析起點，他們的經濟，我們的經濟。 你剛剛帶領我們經曆了這一切。 我們將回到這一點。

尼爾·弗格森：這是一個馬克思列寧主義的概念，你可以用這些術語來思考權力。 我的意思是，如果亨利·基辛格坐在這裏，他會說除了物質維度之外，總是存在道德維度，這就是我將該傳記第一卷稱為理想主義者的原因之一。 但我們把他養大是件好事，因為你不需要從我這裏得知我們正處於第二次冷戰之中。 隻要問問亨利·基辛格就知道了，他已經 99 歲了，對冷戰略知一二。 我告訴你一個小軼事，彼得，當我2018年第一次開始思考這個問題時，我不得不鼓起勇氣問基辛格，我們是否處於冷戰之中？ 我在 2019 年底在中國的一次會議上問過他，他給出了很好的答複。 他說：“我們正處於冷戰的山腳下。” 一年後，他在 2020 年將其升級為冷戰時期的山口。 當我去年問他這個問題時，他幾乎理所當然地認為我們正處於第二次冷戰，新的冷戰會更糟糕，準確地說，會比第一次冷戰更危險。 所以我並不是即興發揮，而是部分基於他的見解。

彼得·羅賓遜：尼爾，我認為你本身就是權威，但現在我真的對此感到震驚。 台灣位於中國沿海，是一個麵積相當於馬裏蘭州、蘇格蘭麵積一半的島嶼，人口 2300 萬，是一個真正運轉良好的民主國家，擁有蓬勃發展的自由市場經濟。 中國共產黨的立場是，台灣不是獨立的，但正確地說，台灣是中國的一部分，因此應該受到中國共產黨的控製。 一個事件和一段引言。 事件是這樣的：上個月，台灣總統訪問了美國。 拜登政府中沒有人見過她，但眾議院議長凱文·麥卡錫見過她。 中國在台灣周圍進行了軍事演習作為回應，其中包括，現在我引用中國發布的內容，“配備實彈導彈的核轟炸機和軍艦進行演習，以形成一個島嶼包圍的封鎖局麵。” 我不確定包圍島封鎖的情況是什麽，但聽起來不太好。 這是您在彭博新聞的常規專欄中引用的內容。 ” 幾年前，“失去甚至不為台灣而戰將被整個亞洲視為美國在該地區主導地位的終結。這肯定會引起美元和美國國債的擠兌。 蘇伊士運河。” 蘇伊士運河事件，1957 年英國未能阻止埃及人占領蘇伊士運河。 就在那時，包括英國人自己在內的所有人都意識到，英國不再是一個全球大國。 好的？

尼爾·弗格森：正確。

彼得·羅賓遜：對於美國人來說，為什麽我們要麵臨如此大的風險？ 為什麽我們要冒著美國蘇伊士運河危機與世界另一端島嶼的風險呢？

尼爾·弗格森：嗯，這是一個很好的問題，因為回到你剛才所說的，我們曾經接受台灣是中國的一部分。 事實上，我們仍然正式奉行一個中國政策，所以台灣的奇怪之處之一是，中國聲稱擁有它並沒有真正的爭議，而且我們不承認它是一個獨立國家。 事實上，即使你在某些圈子裏將其稱為一個國家，也會被責備。 那麽發生了什麽變化呢？ 因為在半個世紀的大部分時間裏，實際上自從亨利·基辛格和理查德·尼克鬆與毛澤東和周恩來製定《上海公報》以來，我們一直相信台灣是中國的一部分。 自 20 世紀 70 年代末以來，我們一直存在所謂的戰略模糊性。 這種含糊之處在於，國會中那些不太確定基辛格和尼克鬆做了什麽的人說，好吧，我們必須對台灣做出一些承諾。 這項承諾是國會的一項法案，規定如果中國試圖通過武力改變現狀，我們基本上保留采取軍事行動的權利。 但這是我們50年來政策的模糊之處，我們有點接受中國的說法，即台灣是中國的一部分。 但我們也表示，如果他們試圖通過武力主張這一主張，我們可能會采取行動。 過去幾年發生的變化是，第二次冷戰已經開始，盡管美國人不這麽稱呼它。 自 2018 年左右以來，美國（共和黨和民主黨都是如此）對中國、特別是台灣采取了越來越強硬的立場。 拜登總統似乎至少在三次、或許四次場合否認戰略模糊性。 一些領先的政策知識分子，前外交關係委員會大潘詹德魯姆理查德·哈斯 (Richard Haas) 在 2020 年表示，“為什麽我們要繼續這種戰略模糊的胡言亂語？

讓我們明確對台灣的承諾。”前眾議院議長南希·佩洛西訪問台灣時，她的所有意圖和目的都表現得好像台灣是她訪問的一個獨立國家。所以我認為 這是我們對中國的總體態度和對台灣的具體態度的重大轉變。而中國人反過來也加大了賭注。你舉了一個例子，最近議長麥卡錫會見台灣總統時進行的封鎖演習 ……但他們在南希·佩洛西在台灣時做了非常相似的事情。因此，在經曆了大約半個世紀的戰略模糊之後，我們正在快速朝著台灣問題攤牌的方向前進。

彼得羅賓遜：所以讓我問這個問題，讓我給你幾個場景，看看你如何處理它們。 這是一個香港的例子。 中國剛剛占領了香港，這就是我們對此所做的事情，拜登總統發表了一些尖銳的聲明，僅此而已。 沒有其他的。 香港民眾有何反應？ 嗯，學生示威了，示威結束了，他們被鎮壓了。 有趣的是，至少對我來說，據我在商界所知，恰好有兩個香港人站出來反對。 黎智英入獄了。 然後是馬丁·李（如果我沒記錯的話），還有一位著名的律師和商人也站出來反對他。 我不確定他的身份，但香港這個龐大的社區非常富有，幾乎絕大多數是男性，他們允許交易繼續進行。 現在我們來到台灣，中國正在加大賭注，他們肯定正在互相交談。 我想到另一個被敵對勢力包圍的小國，以色列。 以色列將其GDP的5%以上用於國防，而台灣僅略高於2%。 從某種意義上來說，感覺好像缺乏嚴肅性，缺乏以某種方式達成交易的意願。 我們在這裏的商界，我們可以相處，我們可以解決這個問題。 畢竟，我們感興趣的是商業，而北京如今也了解商業。 所以它會以某種方式緩慢地發生，而我們對此卻無能為力。 這對我們來說是蘇伊士運河嗎？

Niall Ferguson：這和香港不一樣，我們要明確一點。

彼得·羅賓遜：糾正整個類比。

尼爾·弗格森：嗯，狀態完全不同。 作為前英國殖民地，香港不是民主國家，從來沒有民主。 實際情況是，中國國家主席習近平隻是加快了對香港的接管，而這本來應該在本世紀晚些時候發生。 國會沒有任何法案要求美國政府對此大加關注。 這就是為什麽當美國人抱怨香港發生的事情時，幾乎總是一種非常微弱的反射行為。 英國應該大聲抱怨，因為中國實際上違反了與英國達成的協議。 台灣不一樣。 我的意思是，自從軍事獨裁統治結束以來，台灣一直是一個成功、充滿活力的民主國家。 它是世界上最成功的經濟體之一。 它的成功部分歸功於它現在是最先進半導體生產的領先中心。 張忠謀在那裏設立的台積電（TSMC），即台灣半導體公司，已成為世界領先者。 因此，在經濟上，控製台灣比控製香港對全球經濟更重要。 現在要注意的關鍵點是，台灣不是以色列，也不是烏克蘭。 你沒有提到烏克蘭，但我們需要談談它，因為它是第二次冷戰的一個重要次要情節。 但從短期來看，請考慮以下一係列事件。 台灣明年一月將舉行選舉。 目前還不清楚誰會獲勝。 中國人已經稱其中一位候選人為支持獨立的候選人。 因此，存在一種非同尋常的情況，即在那次選舉過程中，中國的幹預甚至比 2020 年選舉還要多。2020 年 1 月我在台灣，中國人的幹預程度令我極為震驚。 試圖影響那次選舉，但他們取得的成果卻微乎其微。 為什麽？ 因為這些年來台灣人口一直在穩步遠離大陸。 記得有一次，有很多人從大陸來到那裏。

彼得·羅賓遜：是的，當然。

尼爾·弗格森：他們是蔣介石的人民，他們輸掉了中國內戰，輸掉了1949年的革命，撤退到了台灣。 他們仍然與大陸保持著密切的聯係。 好吧，時間已經過去了。 今天的台灣人，特別是年輕的台灣人，與中國共產黨控製的大陸沒有真正的親和力。

他們與在那裏享受到的非常成功和充滿活力的民主製度有著密切的關係。 因此，我認為從北京的角度來看，一個大問題是台灣正在以 20 世紀 70 年代沒有人預見到的方式漸行漸遠。 我想很多七十年代的人都認為台灣納入大陸的懷抱隻是時間問題。 但這種情況並沒有發生，中國人也無法想出任何政治方法來阻止這種分歧的發生。 我要說最後一件事，理解這一點非常重要。 習近平打破慣例，延長了作為中國共產黨和中國國家領導人的國家主席任期。 為什麽？ 他延長任期的主要論點是台灣。 習近平對他身邊的人說過，從公開聲明中也可以清楚地看出，他認為把台灣置於中共的控製之下是他事業的基石、頂峰、最高成就，也是他繼續掌權的原因。 比他的前任們持續的時間更長。 所以這對他來說是一個非常高風險的問題。 當然，我們反過來也將其視為一個高風險問題。 我們對台灣的承諾越明確，習近平的問題就越大。

彼得·羅賓遜：所以我隻是給了你一個場景，在這個場景下我們可以分散這一切，然後轉過頭讓這一切消失。 你說不，不，不，不，不。 台灣根本不像香港。

尼爾·弗格森：還有彼得，我們要記住，在民意調查中，美國人現在比以前更關心這個問題。 芝加哥議會在 2021 年進行的一項民意調查顯示，首次有超過一半的美國人認為，如果中國對台灣采取行動，美國應該部署軍隊予以回應（52%）。

彼得·羅賓遜：好的。 這讓我們想到了習近平現在如何開始他的第三個八年任期的問題。 我說得對嗎？

尼爾·弗格森：等等。 不，那是不對的。

彼得羅賓遜：他沒有任期限製，因為他或多或少可以做他想做的任何事情，但有一個期望。

尼爾·弗格森：五年加五年。

彼得·羅賓遜：好的。 個位數的年數。 然而，讓我引用去年泄露的這份泄露的備忘錄，空軍上將邁克·米納漢（Mike Minahan），“我的直覺告訴我”，這是他過去的軍官的，對不起，那是今年一月份。 “我的直覺告訴我，我們將在 2025 年戰鬥。美國總統選舉將於 2024 年舉行，中國國家主席習近平將成為一個心煩意亂的美國。台灣總統選舉將於 2024 年舉行，將為習近平提供攻擊的理由。” 您補充一下，他現在是個位數，第三個任期。 我們現在談論的是1、2、3、4、5、6，或者如果Minahan可信的話，兩年或更短的時間，對你來說是否感覺那麽緊迫？

尼爾·弗格森：是的。

彼得·羅賓遜：我仍在適應我們正處於冷戰山區的想法。 現在你說，等一下，我們必須在幾年後做出是否保衛台灣的決定。

尼爾·弗格森：嗯，我認為第二次冷戰比第一次冷戰發生得更快。讓我試著說明一下這一點。 當喬治·奧威爾 (George Orwell) 1945 年首次使用“冷戰”一詞時，幾乎沒有人明白奧威爾那篇關於未來將出現核超級大國的非凡文章準確地指出了這一點。 他將冷戰定義為一種沒有和平的和平，並預測擁有核武器的超級大國將出現三個，即美國、蘇聯和中國。 他說，在這個世界上，這當然是他的偉大小說《1984》中的一個預期，會有這種永久武裝的和平，但不是和平。 美國人花了很多年才明白這一點。 當溫斯頓·丘吉爾在密蘇裏州富爾頓發表著名的鐵幕演講時，《紐約時報》對這次演講提出了嚴厲批評，並指責他是好戰分子。 大多數美國人直到 1950 年朝鮮入侵韓國才明白這一點。這就是我想向你們建議的烏克蘭的類比。 烏克蘭戰爭是第二次冷戰中的第一場熱戰。 正如朝鮮戰爭是第一次冷戰的第一場熱戰一樣，美國人民也開始意識到事情的嚴重性。 請記住，如果沒有習近平的批準，普京不會入侵烏克蘭。 如果沒有從與中國的貿易中獲得的大量經濟支持，他將無法繼續進行戰爭。 所以我認為我們應該想象一下朝鮮戰爭、烏克蘭戰爭的類比，它們讓我們回到了 20 世紀 50 年代。 那是五十年代初的樣子。 這場戰爭將會像朝鮮戰爭一樣展開，一年的戰鬥非常激烈，來來回回，然後消耗，一切都會陷入僵局。 最終，你開始某種停戰進程，但你永遠不會真正實現和平。

我可以看到這一切正在上演。 但我們正在談論的關於台灣的問題相當於古巴導彈危機，彼得，你知道，這場危機發生在 1962 年。我認為我們可以比第一次冷戰時更快地到達 1962 年，而且我們 我們稱之為台灣半導體危機。 這是這場危機的有趣之處。 我不知道它是否會在明年發生、是否會在 2025 年發生、是否要到 2028 年才會發生，但很有可能在這十年發生。 這裏至關重要的變量是中國尚未在軍事上做好成功兩棲入侵的準備。 如果他們現在這樣做，他們將冒巨大的風險，但我認為他們不會。 我認為他們有能力封鎖該島，但我不確定如果我們決定實施封鎖並與他們對抗，他們是否準備好承受後果。 所以我認為他們還沒有準備好迎接黃金時段，但他們不能無限期地等待。 為什麽？ 因為回到我們之前的討論，每一年都讓美國有時間讓台灣做好保衛自己的準備。 現在不是，但我們知道這就是問題所在，我們有一個連貫的戰略，我們可以執行該戰略，使台灣比現在更難入侵。 這就是為什麽我認為這個時間框架可以用個位數年來衡量。 這不是習近平可以說，哦，我會在2030年處理的。這對他來說不是一個選擇。

彼得·羅賓遜：不過我回來了，你談到了有關台灣人民的各種有趣的事情。 我知道我們認為台灣是中國的一部分，中國顯然也認為台灣是中國的一部分。 但你的意思是，無論這種外交，我都不會稱之為虛構，但這種外交形式的言辭，即使我們現在知道，由於俄羅斯入侵，烏克蘭已經成為一個 真正的民族。 它存在於人們的心中。 他們現在以一種以前可能含糊不清的方式認為自己是烏克蘭人。 台灣是某種實體。 我不知道該用什麽民族這個詞，但在台灣人民的心目中，他們不是中國人。 那麽問題來了，為什麽他們不花更多的時間和資源呢？ 為什麽他們不花費更多的資源來讓自己變得更難對付呢？ 這是我無法解決的難題，蔡總統來到這裏，她很勇敢，她堅持民主，堅持自由市場，與凱文·麥卡錫會麵時知道這會在國內造成各種混亂，事實上 確實如此。 然而他們隻花費了2.1%的國防費用，戰略家愛德華·勒特韋克顯然表示，台灣的戰略是讓我們在他們的孩子玩電子遊戲的時候保衛他們。 我的意思是，這不合適。

尼爾·弗格森：嗯，這對德國很有效。 我的意思是，想想自第一次冷戰以來所有在美國安全保障上搭便車的國家。這不是一個錯誤，而是冷戰的一個特點，即美國是壓倒性的安全提供者。 隻有像以色列這樣的國家在 1973 年才艱難地發現自己不能完全依賴美國，當時美國是，好吧，我們會幫助你，但首先，你必須進行談判。 我認為對於以色列人來說，73 年是關鍵時刻，他們意識到美國可能是他們未來安全的重要組成部分，但他們必須能夠自力更生，因為山姆大叔並不完全可靠。 烏克蘭也沒什麽不同。 我的意思是，在俄羅斯入侵前夕，烏克蘭還沒有準備好迎接黃金時段。 它不得不緊急緊急起飛，並且在對基輔的最初襲擊中勉強幸存。 它抵禦最初攻擊的能力讓所有人都感到驚訝。

彼得·羅賓遜：澤連斯基在這方麵發揮了重要作用，不是嗎？

尼爾·弗格森：我不知道這是否真的都是澤倫斯基造成的。 我認為普通的烏克蘭人，去年年底我在基輔，無論我走到哪裏，普通民眾都完全致力於抵抗俄羅斯的入侵，這一事實令我感到非常震驚。 我們不知道台灣將如何應對中國的封鎖。 我們不知道台灣人將如何應對企圖進行的兩棲入侵。 去年2月22日之前，大多數人都會預測烏克蘭很快就會崩潰。 因此，我認為人們不應該認為台灣在某種程度上是非典型的，作為美國對其做出安全承諾的國家，它的行為實際上相當理性。 我去過烏克蘭和台灣，我想說，很難想象台灣人在過去的一年裏能像烏克蘭人那樣頑強地戰鬥，並承受如此沉重的代價。 但毫無疑問，在我看來，他們認為自己走在獨立之路上，我認為這是非常重要的。 當你看看台灣關於國家未來的民意調查時，實際上存在相當大的一致性。

很少很少台灣人認為它是被中共征服的謊言。

彼得·羅賓遜：烏克蘭與台灣的問題，有一些評論員，我們共同的朋友埃爾布裏奇·科爾比也許是最引人注目的，他擔心烏克蘭會分散注意力。 美國的資源就這麽多，包括精神資源。 你要求五角大樓擔心台灣和烏克蘭，五角大樓說，他們不會正式說，但實際上他們會說，等一下，哪一個才是真正的戰鬥？ 好吧，烏克蘭可能是一個幹擾因素。 然後其他人則認為，我們在胡佛研究所的同事斯蒂芬·科特金（Stephen Kotkin）會認為台灣的防禦貫穿烏克蘭。 是哪一個？

尼爾·弗格森：冷戰的問題在於你無法選擇。 事實上，你遇到了我所說的三個水體問題。 也就是說，你必須做好開戰的準備，或者至少要威懾你的敵人，在歐洲、北大西洋，你必須能夠在太平洋和東亞威懾他們，我們不要忘記波斯灣 。 美國沒有選擇說，哦，我要把重心轉向亞洲。 你們在歐洲和中東能不能規矩點？ 比第一次冷戰更嚴重。冷戰的問題是全球性的。 中國現在可以在全球範圍內發揮作用，它現在是中東的一個參與者，所以美國沒有能夠選擇的奢侈。 它必須準備好同時遏製中國在這三個方麵的擴張。 這就是我對這個問題的回答，這不是一個選擇。 現在我認為埃爾布裏奇·科比在一件事上是正確的，在這裏，他和我完全同意，美國在烏克蘭戰爭中投入的資源越多，它消耗的標槍、毒刺和海馬斯庫存就越多，可用的資源就越少。 對於東亞的任何攤牌，因為我們沒有過去的軍事工業綜合體。 也就是說，這些庫存的補充需要很長時間。 華盛頓一家智庫最近發布了一份關於空垃圾箱的非常有趣的報告，指出如果現在爆發台灣戰爭，我們的東西很快就會耗盡，尤其是精確導彈， 當今美國戰爭方式的重要組成部分。 關於台灣戰爭的問題，吉姆·斯塔夫裏迪斯（Jim Stavridis）在他寫的一本關於這個主題的書中很好地闡述了這一點，那就是它可能會變得非常大、非常快。 針對台灣的有限戰爭有點難以想象，就像針對古巴的有限戰爭很難想象一樣。 我想嚐試向您提出我的類比中非常重要的部分。 請記住，我們說過第一次冷戰和第二次世界大戰並不完全相同，就像第一次世界大戰和第二次世界大戰並不完全相同一樣，但你並沒有真正爭論是否存在世界大戰。 所以在第二次冷戰中，古巴導彈危機和台灣半導體危機之間有一個非常重要的區別。 那就是，在第二次冷戰中，我們是蘇聯，因為在第二次冷戰中，實施封鎖的是共產黨，而封鎖古巴的是約翰·F·肯尼迪。 我們稱之為隔離，但本質上是封鎖，是蘇聯人、赫魯曉夫不得不向古巴派遣海軍。 那是整個第一次冷戰中最危險的時刻。隻是這一次，靴子在另一隻腳上，中國可以選擇封鎖台灣。 然後我們將不得不派遣一支海軍部隊來執行封鎖。 我們會陷入赫魯曉夫的境地，這就是讓我最緊張的地方。 我的意思是，一般來說，重演古巴導彈危機是一個壞主意。 這是整個冷戰時期最危險的時刻，也是距離第三次世界大戰最近的時刻。 從很多方麵來說，這隻是運氣，純粹是運氣，它沒有演變成第三次世界大戰。 有一位蘇聯潛艇指揮官下令向美國海軍水麵艦艇發射核魚雷。 隻是因為偶然，一名上級軍官在潛艇上並且能夠否決他，所以這種情況才沒有發生。 如果它發生了，我們就會迎來世界末日。 您為什麽要重新運行該遊戲並期望結果總是好的？ 因此，我們不應該再次上演古巴導彈危機，但當我們與蘇聯比賽時，我們當然不應該再次上演。 因為記住最後發生的事情，赫魯曉夫不得不讓步。 他與肯尼迪兄弟達成了一項協議，但並未公開。 所以看起來他受到了羞辱，那時他的職業生涯幾乎就結束了。 但這對蘇聯來說也是一個重大挫折。 我們不想把自己置於那樣的境地。 因此，我的觀點是，我們必須履行對烏克蘭做出的承諾。 我們現在的處境是不能讓烏克蘭輸掉的。 問題是中國不能承受俄羅斯的損失。

這就是為什麽這場戰爭會繼續下去，因為兩個超級大國現在基本上都在支持戰鬥中的一隻狗。 在這種情況持續下去的同時，我們必須對這個問題找到一個好的答案：我們如何阻止中國入侵或封鎖台灣？ 因為現在我們所擁有的是一些很好的言辭和一些非常糟糕的戰略選擇。 戰爭遊戲的結果並不總是那麽好。 最近有一篇文章強烈暗示這對美國來說將是非常糟糕的。 我認為我們隻有很短的時間來對這個問題給出一個好的答案。 如果我們不這樣做，那麽我們就會麵臨虛張聲勢的風險。 我的意思是，現在，在台灣問題上，我們基本上是大聲說話，拿著小棍子，每個人都知道這是錯誤的做法。

彼得·羅賓遜：好吧，從台灣退一步。 三個大問題，我們可以用一整套程序來解決每一個問題。

尼爾·弗格森：所以請保持簡短的回答。

彼得·羅賓遜：我想是的。 我想我就是這麽說的。 他們相信什麽？ 這裏引用幾段話。 蓋伊·索爾曼在《城市日報》中寫道：“在什麽意義上，中國共產黨仍然是共產主義？它代表了一種人人背誦但無人相信的馬克思主義禮拜儀式。” 斯蒂芬·科特金就坐在這個節目中，引用道：“我們都認為他們是憤世嫉俗者，他們隻是宣揚共產主義意識形態。但他們中的一些人相信這一點。不僅他們中的一些人相信這一點，而且共產主義是這個體係固有的。 ” 好吧，即使在第一次冷戰期間，也有這種不斷的來回，不，不，不，這隻是另一個帝國勢力。 這是大國鬥爭的又一次迭代，我們大致知道對它們的期望。 相反，不，不，他們是共產主義者。 他們對人與政府、人與上帝、一個社會與另一個社會的關係有著根本不同的看法，他們的最終目標是認真對待他們的禮貌，這是書麵的，他們希望共產主義在整個世界取得勝利。 世界。 今天我們與中國也有同樣的來回。 他們相信什麽？

尼爾·弗格森：好吧，科特金教授總是對的。

彼得·羅賓遜：這是一個很好的起點。

尼爾·弗格森：這是第一條規則，第二條規則參見第一條規則，在這個問題上，他當然是對的。 準確地說，他們是馬克思列寧主義者。 我認為習近平尤其應該被認真地、字麵地理解為馬克思列寧主義者。 但同樣，我在大流行之前在中國呆過一段時間。 我是清華大學的客座教授。 我記得有一次會見了中國共產黨的研究主任，他確實是一個相當重要的人物。 他在那次會議中說,哦對了,政治局常委正在重讀馬克思和恩格斯。 所以我認為你應該假設第二次冷戰有一個意識形態部分。 很多天真的人以為不是這樣的，因為他們到北京、上海去，看到的都是商業大亨的樣子，他們的行為就像商業大亨一樣，他們看到了高樓大廈，看起來很眼熟。 但你確實需要明白，在資本主義的光輝背後，仍然有一個共產黨在掌權。 如果你看看習近平在北京而不是在達沃斯所說的話，或者隻是看看其他共產黨的宣傳，就會發現意識形態問題已經變得非常驚人。 他明確禁止在中國大學教授民主、法治和西方思想。 我在清華的時候，氣氛發生了明顯的變化。 我在課堂上談論文革不再那麽容易了。 因此，讓我們打消這樣的想法：他們隻是假裝是共產主義，這隻是中國的資本主義政黨。 那是無稽之談。 這篇意識形態文章解釋了這樣一種信念，即與西方帝國主義之間不可避免的衝突，我認為這確實是中國戰略的基礎。 我認為習近平已經告訴黨和國家做好戰爭準備。 我在政策知識領域讀過相當多的書，我和史蒂芬·科特金在中國的對應領域，他們談論了很多關於中國取代美國成為主導帝國的角色。 因此，請記住，馬克思列寧主義不是一種衝突的意識形態，而是一種具有曆史決定論操作係統的意識形態。 這就是他們預計會發生衝突的原因。

彼得·羅賓遜：彼得·泰爾在他的書《從零到一》中，我們談論的是一本已有十年曆史的書。 我什至不知道彼得今天是否會重申這一點，但這是他在《從零到一》中所說的，“中國人一直在直接複製發達國家的一切：19世紀的鐵路，20世紀的空調， 甚至整個城市。他們可能會跳過幾個步驟，直接使用無線網絡，

例如，不安裝固定電話就直接使用無線網絡，但他們仍然在複製。”好吧，這是很重要的一點，因為有一種觀點認為，我們擁有的東西，他們的數量超過了我們。您剛剛至少解釋了這一點 一方麵，他們的經濟已經比我們大了。他們的人數超過了我們。如果他們選擇這樣做，他們的國防開支就可以超過我們。這就是我們所擁有的，民主資本主義，這意味著創新能力。我們可以領先一步 其中，這就是我們擁有的戰略後備力量。布魯金斯學會的艾米麗·韋恩斯坦（Emily Weinstein），“圍繞中國作為戰略競爭對手的討論是由這樣一種觀念所影響的，即隻有民主才能促進創新。 中國每天都在反駁這種想法。”

尼爾·弗格森：他們比蘇聯更具創新性，因為他們的經濟很大一部分是市場經濟。 中國互聯網公司追逐全球最大的美國互聯網公司是有原因的。 歐洲也沒有什麽互聯網公司值得一提。 這是因為在互聯網的發展，特別是其商業化方麵，市場發揮著作用。 如果我們看一下人工智能或量子計算等領域正在進行的研究，就會發現這是美國與中國之間的較量。 這場比賽沒有其他選手，他們甚至不會頒發銅牌。 這就是人們公認的第二次冷戰的原因之一，因為在技術上有兩個超級大國。 現在我認為中國隊仍然是銀牌得主。 看看疫苗，他們徹底失敗了，盡管他們在 2020 年吹噓說他們會開發出針對新冠病毒的疫苗，但他們沒有。 我們做到了，這令人鼓舞。 我基本上同意你的觀點，即我們的係統很可能贏得創新競賽，但我有一些警告。 第一，我們必須認真對待。 對美國來說，第一次冷戰進展順利的原因是，我們明白我們正在與一個共產主義超級大國進行一場技術競賽，而這個共產主義超級大國決心竊取我們的技術並最終埋葬我們。 當我在 2018 年開始談論第二次冷戰時，當時華為成為人們談論的話題，我最初引起了懷疑的反應。 我還記得當我在舊金山的一次會議上第一次說出這句話時埃裏克·施密特的表情。 我對他說，你看，我這麽說的原因是我們必須明白我們正處於冷戰之中，否則我們就會輸掉冷戰。 如果我們有開放獲取的研究，如果穀歌或斯坦福大學的人工智能實驗室可以被中共特工免費訪問，那麽我們就完成了。 因此，談論這個問題的一個原因是讓美國人意識到我們正處於一場競賽中，我們不能簡單地將所有內容發布到網上而不擔心。 我們必須保護我們的知識產權。 他們會偷它，他們一直在偷它，因為正如你所說，這就是共產主義方式。 複製技術然後粘貼它，無論是電動汽車還是巨大的在線市場。 如果阿裏巴巴在某種程度上不是亞馬遜的山寨品，那它是什麽？但還有第二個警告。 自 20 世紀 90 年代中期以來，這個國家創建的價值十億美元的獨角獸公司中，大約有一半是由移民創立的。 埃隆·馬斯克（Elon Musk）並非本土企業，這樣的例子不勝枚舉。 如果我們不為非常有才華、雄心勃勃的人的合法移民開放渠道，我們就無法贏得技術競賽。 這就是我們的超級大國，引進人才並給予資本，這才是美國真正的魔力。 我的意思是你可以談論民主資本主義以及其他所有內容。 你知道美國真正的秘密武器是吸引人才。 以下是埃隆在南非或加拿大無法獲得的資源。 隻有在這裏，您才有可能實現這些夢想。 美國，我將其歸咎於特朗普和拜登政府，它的合法移民製度確實搞砸了。 民主黨似乎已經決定非法移民就可以了，我們實際上已經開放了南部邊境。 這是最糟糕的移民方式。 我們需要回到我們所擁有的體係，這個體係從 20 世紀 80 年代以來一直對我們作為一個對人才開放的國家起到了很好的作用。 如果我們不這樣做，那麽我認為中國有一個很好的機會。 如果我們能讓人才回流美國，那就完了，因為沒有人願意移民到中國。 你隻要問世界各地的人，你想去哪裏？ 本質上是美國或最發達的歐洲國家或英國。

彼得·羅賓遜：好的，這給我帶來了另一個重大問題。 弗朗西斯·福山在第一次世界大戰結束後寫下了《曆史的終結》，他的著作遭到了各種誤解。 但有一種觀點認為民主資本主義是一個自然的終點。 一旦你到達那裏，你就進入了我們所知的最好的社會。

好吧，現在中國人出現了，他們似乎有了一些東西，他們似乎有了某種新的模式。 他們似乎發明了一種將獨裁中央控製與至少足夠的自由市場相結合的方法，使數億人擺脫貧困，獲得世界地位，而就在 20 年前，他們還沒有做到這一點。 因此，在第一次冷戰中，對我們的危險之一、威脅之一是蘇聯體係在智力上具有吸引力。 美國各地都有共產主義同路人。 我試圖避免麥卡錫主義的術語，但它們很有吸引力。 中國似乎沒有吸引力，正如你所說，沒有人願意移民到中國。 但話又說回來，我們有第三世界，沙特阿拉伯和伊朗剛剛通過中國達成了一項協議。 中國有財富，有蠻力，有智力吸引力嗎？ 它是否創造了一種對第三世界真正有吸引力的新模式？

尼爾·弗格森：嗯，我們不再稱其為第三世界。

彼得·羅賓遜：我們沒有。 我們現在叫它什麽？

尼爾·弗格森：我們稱之為全球南方，我寧願用這個詞，因為幾乎沒有人居住，事實上在南半球。 但你知道我們的意思。 看，這個問題有兩個答案。 一，今天有同路人，有人覺得中國共產黨的製度有吸引力，其中很多人是前馬克思主義者或現在的馬克思主義者。 並非所有人都是。 我的意思是閱讀馬丁·雅克的書《當中國統治世界》，或者閱讀丹尼爾·貝爾最近關於中國製度的著作，他公開欽佩中國製度。因此，我們不要假設沒有人被中國模式所吸引。

Peter Robinson：這個名單變得越來越糟糕。

尼爾·弗格森：在美國，實際上並沒有多少人被蘇聯共產主義所吸引。 你可以從投票中看到這一點。 即使其中一些人擔任有影響力的職位，但人數確實很少。 所以我不認為情況有什麽不同，但真正關鍵的一點是，第二點是中國模式在撒哈拉以南非洲、拉丁美洲、中東、中亞乃至整個世界的吸引力。 - 稱為發展中國家或新興世界。 如果你管理著一個經濟貧困、混亂的非洲國家，中國人會為你提供解決人群控製問題的解決方案，這比之前任何可用的解決方案都要好。 你有監控技術，你有人工智能，你有攝像頭，你可以鎖定你的平民人口，而中國人可以為你提供第二件事，那就是基礎設施。 你們沒有路嗎？ 我們會修路，你沒有電信嗎？ 我們有華為。 如果你看一下華為的世界地圖，你就會發現中國的吸引力在哪裏最強。 世界上相對貧困的地區需要華為的硬件，因為它比任何其他硬件都便宜，而且他們需要華為可以提供的融資。 我開始談論第二次冷戰的原因是我看到了那張地圖，這是華為在 2017 年或 18 年繪製的世界地圖，當時美國決定將華為拒之門外，而其他一些國家（例如澳大利亞）也在效仿我們的做法 。 我看了一下世界地圖，有些國家對華為說“不”，那就是美國及其親密盟友，有些國家對華為說“是”，那就是你所說的第三世界 。 然後還有不結盟國家，我們可以兩者兼得嗎？ 那是一張非常冷戰的地圖。 當你看到它的時候，你會想，天哪，這看起來真熟悉。

彼得·羅賓遜：好吧，這有什麽區別呢？ 給我十年後的世界，如果快進的話，第二次冷戰就會結束。 中國人會怎樣——讓我退後一步。 在整個冷戰期間，我們都知道如果對方獲勝，生活會是什麽樣子，因為我們隻需將目光投向東歐。 你隻需站在西柏林的柏林牆前，就能俯瞰東柏林。 你隻需要看看朝鮮與韓國的對比。 知道這意味著什麽是比較棘手的。 假設他們真的贏了，中國隊的勝利會是什麽樣子？ 你的孩子們的生活會怎樣，嗯，不，我們正在談論發生得如此之快的事情，不僅僅是我們的孩子，還有我們。 如果他們贏了，生活會有什麽不同？ 有什麽風險？

尼爾·弗格森：首先，讓我們記住，有三種路徑可供考慮。 這是一條災難性的道路，第三次世界大戰的道路，我們在台灣或其他地方針鋒相對，事態不斷升級。 在你意識到之前，那些核武器已經飛起來了。 這不能立即被駁回。 我認為美中戰爭的一大危險是無法阻止其升級。 所以這是我們當然想要避免的未來，就像我們在第一次冷戰中想要避免它一樣。

還有第二種可能的情況，即攤牌，我們棄牌。 那是我的美國蘇伊士運河，那一刻我們突然發現，哦，美國不再是一把手了。 它實際上無法維持其在印太地區的主導地位。 這也是不受歡迎的事情。

彼得·羅賓遜：順便說一句，在英國蘇伊士運河事件之後，在蘇伊士運河事件之後，英國的生活仍在繼續，生活水平繼續提高。

尼爾·弗格森：好吧，我們不要得意忘形，因為帝國的終結要付出巨大的代價。 作為美國人最令人愉快的特征之一是，您是世界儲備貨幣的發行者，並且是幾乎所有國際交易中都受到青睞的貨幣。 你可以把你的10年期國債賣給世界其他地方，世界其他地方就會購買它們，因為他們愚蠢地認為這是一種無風險資產。 因此，如果你像 20 世紀 50 年代末的英國那樣在地緣政治上失敗，那麽你的貨幣貶值速度會令人驚訝。 我的意思是，就在不久前，英鎊兌換 1.07 美元，那是在 Liz Truss 慘敗期間。 當大英帝國建立並運行時，它的價格是 4.86 美元，這一點值得認真對待。 美國會發現成為第二梯隊的成本很高。 人民幣不是可兌換貨幣。 但正如我剛才在彭博社觀點的一篇新文章中指出的那樣，人民幣是一種在中國貿易夥伴的交易中越來越多地使用的貨幣。 如果美國不再是可信的全球第一超級大國，我們不應低估國際金融體係結構變化的速度。 但還有一個更廣泛的問題，我認為這就是你真正從彼得那裏得到的問題。 如果中國是第一，世界會怎樣？ 我認為這不是一個非常適合生活的世界，因為中國對個人權利、人權的態度已經展現出來，你不需要去另一個星球。 你隻需要去看看維吾爾人在新疆受到的待遇，那裏有勞改營，大約一百萬人被拘留，有再教育計劃，有很容易描述的生育政策 並被定性為種族滅絕。 因此，我們不要忘記，這個體係的核心是舊的極權主義魔鬼，這是我們在第一次冷戰中曾經非常了解的舊黑暗力量，當時我們不得不直麵蘇聯體係並想象它的延伸是什麽 喜歡。 我不確定中國力量的擴張無論在哪裏遇到阻力都會有顯著不同。 如果中國能夠將其社會控製和國家監視模式輸出到非洲，而非洲幾乎所有的人口增長都將持續到本世紀剩餘時間，那麽越來越多的人類就會發現自己處於北京的圓形監獄之下。 因此，我認為我們需要以至少一些我們過去看待蘇聯主導世界的欺詐者的態度來看待未來，即中國主導下的世界。 但我可以談談第三種情況嗎？ 第三種情況，我認為是可能的，是我們發現自己試圖阻止中國力量在多個戰區的擴張。 遏製不是我們必須使用的詞，因為那是喬治·凱南的話，但我們已經在這樣做了。 在不承認這一點的情況下卷入冷戰確實很有趣。 但如果你看一下拜登政府剛剛出台的國家安全戰略，它說我們沒有處於新冷戰，沒有新冷戰，但裏麵的一切都暗示我們正處於冷戰之中。 他們目前追求的目標是什麽？ 為了限製中國在技術上趕上我們的能力，美國商務部去年就采取了這種做法，切斷最先進的半導體以及製造這些半導體所需的人員和技術。 因此，我們是事先對中國實施製裁，而不是等待攤牌。 這是冷戰的一個非常重要的部分。 領先國家通過阻止崛起國家追趕來保持其技術領先地位的努力。 我認為這是我們必須在多個地區奮鬥的合理未來，但最重要的是，我們必須努力保持我們的技術領先地位。 我認為這就是我們所處的未來。

彼得·羅賓遜：好吧，最後，我很抱歉，在我們離開之前，他們為什麽不稱其為冷戰呢？

尼爾·弗格森：我知道為什麽。

彼得·羅賓遜：我想起約翰·肯尼迪的就職演說，“我們將承擔任何負擔，反對任何敵人。” 他的收視率也上升了。 在某些方麵，這令人難以置信，讓這個國家感到興奮的是，它正在捍衛自己和自由。 那麽為什麽不呢？ 拜登為什麽不在國會麵前說，我的美國同胞們，現在就是時候了。

尼爾·弗格森：我們總有一天會找到一位能夠做到這一點的總統。

但請記住，我們目前正處於冷戰的早期階段，我們不想麵對它，我們認為如果我們直呼它的真名，我們會以某種方式讓事情變得更糟，因為我們會感到不安 習近平。 我認為，從某種意義上說，公開稱其為冷戰是相當不外交的，但它非常普遍。 你和國務院的人，特別是歐洲外交部的人交談，你就會聽到這樣的內容。 “哦，別叫尼爾，你真的會讓他們不高興的。” 這就是典型的冷戰早期。 還記得 1945 年至 1950 年間我們如何擔心喬叔叔，這種感覺可以從《紐約時報》對密蘇裏州富爾頓演講的反應中得到。 我們就處於這樣的心態。 因此，我希望下一任總統能夠更坦誠地談論我們的處境，但還有另一個原因。 另一個原因是，本屆政府更感興趣的是追擊內部的敵人，即“讓美國再次偉大”的共和黨人，他們喜歡將他們描繪成對美國的生存威脅。 他們更願意出於政治原因關注這一點，而不是關注中國構成的威脅。 我認為這是不幸的，因為第一次冷戰的教訓之一是我們的脆弱性是我們內部分裂的能力。 事情在冷戰時期最糟糕，當時美國在越南問題上分歧最大，從六十年代末到七十年代初，這個國家的分裂確實非常非常嚴重。 這在中國不是問題，我認為這是需要牢記的事情。

Peter Robinson：最後一個問題，給我一點時間來設置，然後我就把它扔給你，但我需要一點時間來設置它。 這是喬治·凱南，您剛才提到了喬治·凱南。 喬治·凱南 (George Kennan) 在 1953 年寫道，我們不是在談論 46 年的長電報，這是 1953 年。冷戰正在進行中，朝鮮已經發生了。 喬治·凱南（George Kennan），“深思熟慮的觀察者不會對克裏姆林宮對美國社會的挑戰有任何抱怨。他寧願去經曆”，再也沒有人這樣寫了。 “他寧願對上帝懷有一定的感激之情，上帝通過為美國人民提供了這一無情的挑戰，使他們作為一個國家的整個安全依賴於他們團結起來並接受曆史明確要求他們承擔的道德和政治領導責任。 忍受忍受。” 好吧，你回顧一下第一次冷戰的曆史，你至少可以看到美國確實團結起來的幾個時刻。 其中之一是當凱南寫作時，杜魯門已經阻止了朝鮮的共產黨，我們發明了北約，繼續下去，這是一個巨大的外交創造力和軍事實力增強的時刻。 然後，我們在 20 世紀 80 年代再次團結起來。 好的，所以我們的想法是，如果我們以前做過，我們可以再做一次。 還有一句引言，這次是來自投資者雷·達利奧(Ray Dalio)，他在中國擁有數十億美元的資產，人們傾向於聽一個擁有某種利害關係的人的話。 雷·達裏奧 (Ray Dalio) 表示：“美國正麵臨財政問題、內部衝突和外部挑戰。中國人的收入超過支出，他們有國內秩序，他們在教育、生產力、 貿易。我不能說民主是否比獨裁更好。” 相當令人驚歎的入場就在那裏。 “我不能說民主是否比專製更好。但中國不像美國，麵臨著內戰的風險。” 那裏的爭論是，也許我們曾經能夠團結一致，但那是一個不同的美國。

尼爾·弗格森：好吧，在我們向中國的新霸主鞠躬之前，讓我對兩個截然不同的人的兩個截然不同的引文提出兩個想法。 首先，凱南是對的，冷戰至少在一段時間內團結了美國人。 在 20 世紀 50 年代，對此幾乎沒有什麽異議。 正如我已經提到的，直到 20 世紀 60 年代末，存在著一段深刻的分裂時期。 然後，令人驚奇的是，美國人又重新團結起來。 甚至在 20 世紀 80 年代之前，羅納德·裏根 (Ronald Reagan) 成為總統的原因之一就是他對緩和關係的批評確實擊中了要害。 當我閱讀基辛格第二卷的材料時，我感到非常非常震驚，到了 1976 年，美國人很快就確信，天哪，在安哥拉問題上的緩和關係被證明是一個錯誤。 正是蘇聯和古巴對安哥拉的幹預導致基辛格的支持率直線下降，而裏根則成為全國性人物，成為共和黨可靠的潛在候選人。 所以我談論第二次冷戰的原因之一是我確實認為這個國家需要一個外部敵人，這確實有幫助。 如果我們沒有，我們就會四分五裂，把彼此撕成碎片。

非常有趣的是，在過去一百年中，當美國人沒有明確的地緣政治計劃、沒有明確的地緣政治對手時，往往是分裂變得最嚴重的時期。 六十年代末，當我們不再相信蘇聯的威脅並決定我們才是真正的問題時。 我們確實是越南的問題所在，事情變得最有毒。 所以也許這隻是我對移民的看法，但我確實認為我的美國同胞們，當存在明顯的外部威脅時，你們確實會表現得更好。 因此，我們不要低估這可能有多大幫助。 請注意，兩黨合作又回到了一個問題上，而且隻針對一個問題，那就是中國。 這是一件非常不尋常的事情，當你會見邁克·加拉格爾(Mike Gallagher)新任眾議院中國共產黨委員會的成員時，民主黨人和共和黨人在很多事情上達成了一致，但並不是在所有事情上都達成了一致，但兩黨真正有一種感覺，即中國是最重要的國家。 重大戰略挑戰。 因此，如果您擔心的是兩極分化，我有個好消息給您，因為如果您在法案的標題中加入反對中國的內容，它將在參議院和眾議院獲得通過。 這就是為什麽我們必須進行移民改革。 隻要是針對中國，就可以做到。 這是我的第一反應。 我們一定能複活炮魂。 對於雷·達裏奧，我要說的是，如果我們能夠玩足夠長的時間，中國將輸掉第二次冷戰，因為它的人口結構是一場災難。 彼得，從現在到本世紀末，中國人口很可能會減少一半，肯定會減少至少三分之一。 我認為，生育率遠低於更替率，這並不是一個健康社會的標誌，而是一個未來非常渺茫的標誌。 其次，經濟深陷困境。 中國約29%的經濟活動是房地產。 整件事很糟糕，因為無人居住的塔樓並不是一個好的商業提議。 第三，我認為存在一個重大的合法性問題，習近平理解這一點，這正是他們在台灣采取鷹派姿態的原因。 這是他們知道的為數不多的事情之一，如果經濟增長降至較低的個位數，他們可以真正動員其人口支持。 正如你之前所說，冷戰的關鍵是美國作為一個自由社會應該在創新上超越極權主義政權。 因此，最終，如果我們能夠在未來幾年尚未準備好迎接黃金時段時避免魯莽的攤牌，那麽美國將成為贏得技術競賽的熱門人選，而這似乎實際上是緩和關係的一個論據。 羅納德·裏根把緩和變成了一個肮髒的詞，但你知道嗎？ 越南慘敗後，緩和關係對美國大有裨益。 你不可能是1970年的羅納德·裏根，你隻能是1980年的羅納德·裏根。那十年發生的事情，實際上美國為從越南災難中恢複過來做了很多事情。 我認為我們現在需要慢慢來。

彼得·羅賓遜：亨利·基辛格買了十年，而這正是我們需要的十年。

尼爾·弗格森：當然。

彼得·羅賓遜：這是正確的嗎？

尼爾·弗格森：當然。 這將是我的傳記第二卷提出的關鍵論點，即在那個時期，美國不僅無法擺脫越南的可怕創傷，而且在這十年裏，史蒂夫·喬布斯和比爾·蓋茨發明了名為 蘋果和微軟。 這是矽穀真正開始的時候，也是美國在 20 世紀 70 年代開始恢複魔力的時候，即使直到 80 年代它才在政治上表現出來。 這是因為緩和關係贏得了時間，我堅信我們現在應該贏得時間，而不是為了一個距離美國很遠、距離中國很近的島嶼而爭相攤牌。

彼得·羅賓遜：但我們必須同時避免放棄這一點。

尼爾·弗格森：我認為英國的經驗教訓是，一定要努力阻止你的大國對手。 英國曾兩次試圖阻止德國發動世界大戰，但均以失敗告終，我認為美國必須吸取教訓。 不支付威懾的前期成本是非常誘人的。 根據當前的財政預測，國防預算預計將在本十年晚些時候的某個時候縮減至低於聯邦債務的利息支付。 當一個超級大國在償債上的支出超過國防支出時，我認為它的日子已經屈指可數了。 你必須投資於威懾。 這比打世界大戰要便宜，這是英國曆史上的教訓，美國人需要學習。

彼得·羅賓遜：尼爾·弗格森，非常感謝你。

尼爾·弗格森：謝謝你，彼得。

彼得·羅賓遜：對於不尋常的知識、胡佛研究所和福克斯國家，我是彼得·羅賓遜。

11 條評論

羅伯特·沃克
6 個月前
我聽了大約一半的討論，想知道為什麽這位嘉賓將台灣問題視為美國的第二次冷戰？

拜登今天正在與菲律賓的馬科斯進行訪問； 日本和澳大利亞對台獨有著強烈的感情。 昨天的報紙顯示，印度的莫迪被視為與中國更緊密的盟友。 這些其他國家難道不會援助台灣的防禦並在一定程度上改變軍事平衡嗎？

喬治·T·漢密爾頓·羅伯特·沃克
6 個月前
是的，這些其他亞洲國家正在協助保衛台灣和更廣泛地遏製中國。 日本正在突破憲法限製，阻止其他地方提供軍事支持； 菲律賓向美軍提供了多個基地，並剛剛在台灣打擊範圍內的北部島嶼周圍完成了聯合軍事演習； 四國（美國、印度、日本和澳大利亞）正在協調防禦措施； 澳大利亞已承諾從美國和英國購買核動力潛艇； 這些國家對自信的中國都有各自的重點關注和共同的防禦。 然而，他們目前增強台灣防禦能力的能力非常有限。

雅各布·羅伯特·沃克
6 個月前
冷戰從未結束。

湯姆·尼科爾斯
3個月前編輯過
尼爾，你忽略了中國占領台灣的一大要點。 習近平也是如此——事實上，中國“小皇帝”、獨生子女家庭的父母不會允許習近平讓他們的一個孩子受到傷害。 由此產生的中國內部鬥爭，習近平也無法幸免。

湯姆·尼科爾斯
3個月前
尼爾，劍橋五君子幾十年來對英國情報造成了巨大損害。 希望英國在審查軍情五處和軍情六處方麵做得更好。

湯姆·尼科爾斯
3個月前
尼爾，不僅彼得·泰爾今天是正確的，而且像 GS 這樣的華爾街公司也直接與中國政府合作，收購斯坦福大學附近的美國公司，比如 4 年前在普萊森頓收購的工業公司，中國人會收購這些公司。 否則無法訪問（用 GS 自己的話說）。 這是一隻信天翁。 為什麽你和其他人不談論那個公開盟友——華爾街投資公司仍然與中國政府勾結的事實？

安德魯·鮑德溫
6 個月前
從積極的一麵開始。 尼爾開頭很好，他說：“按照一項標準，按照購買力平價計算的國內生產總值，中國在 2014 年超過了美國。” 他可能會考慮國際貨幣基金組織基於購買力平價的GDP估算，這確實表明中國在2014年超過了美國，當時喬·拜登擔任美國副總統。 現在，國際貨幣基金組織對 2023 年的預測顯示，按購買力平價計算的中國 GDP 超過美國、墨西哥和中國的總和。 所謂的世界上最重要的自由貿易區並不像中國那麽重要。
人們可以對尼爾的後續行動提出一些質疑。 “蘇聯人從未接近過這一標準。 他們的巔峰時期有美國麵積的 44%。” 我不確定 PPP 估計他在看什麽。 中央情報局的估計無疑表明蘇聯做得比這更好。 他們估計 1960 年蘇聯的國民生產總值是美國國民生產總值的 48%，1987 年則為 53%。 （參見尤裏·迪哈諾夫 (Yuri Dikhanov) 1999 年發表的論文，“從 Gerschenkron 的角度對中央情報局對蘇聯表現的評估進行批評。”這可能反映了他嘲笑俄羅斯人的自然傾向，但這並沒有改變他的基本信息，即中華人民共和國是一個 也許尼爾正在降低中央情報局的估計，因為正如尤裏指出的那樣：“由於自然而然地關注蘇聯的軍事支出，中央情報局可能誇大了其價值，這並非不可能。”中央情報局的估計 與國民生產總值（GNP）相關，而不是國內生產總值（GDP），因為在此期間，國民生產總值（GNP）是衡量國民產出最常用的指標。
彼得·羅賓遜（Peter Robinson）由此得出結論：“至少從一項衡量標準來看，他們的經濟規模已經超過了我們。” 這就是進步。 然而，這不僅僅是一項措施，彼得。 這是最好的措施。 這就是為什麽在聯合國、國際貨幣基金組織、世界銀行、經濟合作與發展組織和歐盟委員會認可的2008年《國民賬戶體係手冊》中，該手冊僅簡單提及通過使用市場匯率將名義GDP估算值調整為美元來對國民經濟進行排名。 匯率，然後轉向首選的基於購買力平價 (PPP) 的 GDP 衡量標準。 所以中國是世界第一大經濟體，俄羅斯是第六大經濟體。 科特金教授佩斯·尼爾 (Pace Niall) 並不總是正確的，當他在 2018 年表示俄羅斯經濟規模約為美國的十五分之一時，他錯得離譜，因為他沒有依賴基於購買力平價 (PPP) 的 GDP 估算。
現在來說說大的負麵因素。 尼爾說：“看看疫苗。 他們（中國人）徹底失敗了，盡管他們在 2020 年吹噓自己將開發出針對新冠病毒的疫苗，但他們沒有。” 這是錯誤的。 中國科興疫苗已在世界多個國家普遍使用。

科興疫苗對於塞爾維亞成為歐洲國家中疫苗推出速度第二快的國家至關重要。 我的塞比利亞姐夫和塞爾維亞總統亞曆山大·武契奇都接種了科興疫苗，盡管輝瑞和俄羅斯人造衛星疫苗也在塞爾維亞獲得了授權。 他本可以重複醫學專家的論點，即兩劑科興疫苗的效果不如兩劑輝瑞（參見英國《金融時報》的報道“科學家敦促中國更換其搖搖欲墜的新冠疫苗”），但他遠遠超出了這一點。 我想從這次采訪中了解西方應該如何對待中國，但遇到這樣的事情讓我自然而然地不相信尼爾關於中國的其他一切。
彼得為羅納德·裏根撰寫演講稿的人會鄙視尼爾的必勝主義觀點，即美國贏得了冷戰，俄羅斯輸了。 他認為這是民主的勝利，這應該會給東歐帶來更大的自由。 不幸的是，“我們贏得了冷戰”的心態似乎給那些決定美國外交政策的人們灌輸了一種不計後果的傲慢態度，從而使世界進入了一個血腥暴力的21世紀。
彼得精心挑選了喬治·凱南 (George Kennan) 的一句話，不是 1946 年的，而是 1953 年的。他走得還不夠遠。 1998 年，喬治·凱南 (George Kennan) 在談到北約擴張時曾這樣說道：“我認為俄羅斯人將會做出相當不利的反應，這將影響他們的政策。 我認為這是一個悲劇性的錯誤。 這是沒有任何理由的。 沒有人威脅其他人。 。 。 這種擴張將使這個國家的開國元勳在墳墓裏翻身。 我們已經簽署了保護一係列國家的協議，盡管我們既沒有資源也沒有意圖以任何認真的方式這樣做。 我對俄羅斯作為一個渴望攻擊西歐的國家的說法感到特別困擾。 人們不明白嗎？ 我們在冷戰時期的分歧在於蘇聯共產黨政權。 現在我們卻背棄了那些發動曆史上最偉大的不流血革命以推翻蘇維埃政權的人們。”

阿凡達
保羅·奧斯汀
6 個月前
與我非常敬佩的尼爾·弗格森的談話非常發人深省。 弗格森多次提到“台積電之戰”。 我參與過半導體行業，人們錯過的一件事是半導體工廠是多麽脆弱。 玻璃器皿不能承受例如震動。 一枚導彈在一英裏外降落，一旦晶圓廠成為潔淨室地板上的一堆碎玻璃，就需要很長時間才能將其清理幹淨，並使潔淨室恢複到納米級的潔淨度。 更糟糕的是，工廠的經營者在壓力下表現不佳。 他們犯了錯誤，收益就被扔進了廁所。 如果中國試圖“占領”台灣，他們將把它擊垮至無法挽回的地步。
1997年，英國首相約翰·梅傑（John Major）宣揚英國有義務尊重向香港公民發放的英國護照，從而背叛了香港華人。 這樣做，他就錯失了一次重要的機會。 如果他用英國口音說“你們都來”，那麽豐富的專業知識、精力和商業頭腦將極大地豐富英國。
作為對中國對台灣威脅的回應，美國應該邀請台灣移民到美國。 受過教育、精力充沛的人民會幫助我們，讓中國變成一座空島。

阿凡達
雅各布·保羅_奧斯汀
6 個月前
1984年，撒切爾夫人背叛了香港。

喬治·T·漢密爾頓
6 個月前
是的，中國希望重新獲得台灣，或許還有其他以前屬於中國的領土。 是的，它希望在適合全球超級大國的世界結構和機構中擁有發言權。 是的，它希望在經濟上與美國持平，而不是依賴美元。 但懸而未決的問題是，中國是否像之前的蘇聯一樣，要求其鄰國和世界建立類似於中共的政府結構，並接受北京的指導？ 被人民軍用刺刀強製執行。 換句話說，它是追求世界統治還是影響世界？ 忘記了我們可能盲目地支持台獨，我們能否生活在一個中國觀點與我們觀點相似的世界中？

雅各布
6 個月前
巴頓是對的——我們“與錯誤的敵人作戰”。

Cold War II: Niall Ferguson On The Emerging Conflict With China

https://www.hoover.org/research/cold-war-ii-niall-ferguson-emerging-conflict-china

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist. In this conversation, we cover the conflict over Taiwan: why it’s a cold war, when it started, how to avoid allowing it to become a hot war, and how to de-escalate and even win it.

Monday, May 1, 2023  0 min readinterview with Niall Ferguson

Cold War II: Niall Ferguson On The Emerging Conflict With China

Co-Author(s): Niall Ferguson

To view the full transcript of this episode, read below:

Peter Robinson: Just how serious is the emerging conflict with China? It has already turned into Cold War II. Historian Niall Ferguson on Uncommon Knowledge now. 

Peter Robinson: Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge, I'm Peter Robinson. A fellow at the Hoover Institution, Niall Ferguson received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Oxford. Before coming here to Stanford, he held posts at Oxford, Cambridge, New York University, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. Dr. Ferguson is the author of more than a dozen major works of history, including "The Pity of War, Explaining World War I", "The Ascent of Money", "Empire, How Britain Made the Modern World", and we come now to today's topic, "Kissinger, the Idealist", the first volume of his two volume biography of Henry Kissinger, one of the most important figures of the first long Cold War. Dr. Ferguson is now completing his second volume of the two volume biography of Henry Kissinger. Completing it, yes, Niall?

Niall Ferguson: Yes. That's the plan.

Peter Robinson: Got it. Alright. Niall Ferguson in National Review, "There was a First World War. Then there was a second. They were not identical. But they were sufficiently similar for no one to argue about the nomenclature. Similarly, there was Cold War I. And now we are in Cold War II." Alright, here's what I take the term Cold War to mean, the conflict with China will last two or three generations. Generational conflict. We'll find ourselves living under nuclear threat again, and the very existence of our civilization is at stake. Am I being melodramatic, or is that a fair summary of what Cold War is?

Niall Ferguson: Oh, it's much worse than that because you are assuming that it's gonna be very protracted. Cold War I was really a four decade affair. It ended actually rather sooner than most experts anticipated, but there's no guarantee that Cold War II will last as long because China is a far more formidable adversary than the Soviet Union was. Economically, it has all but caught up by one measure, gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity, China overtook the United States in 2014. The Soviets never got close by that measure. Their peak was 44% the size of the United States. So purely from an economic vantage point, Cold War II is worse. From a technological vantage point, it's also worse because we have the nuclear weapons of Cold War I. Of course we have superior weapons to the weapons they had at the beginning of Cold War I, but we also have a lot of things that they didn't have in Cold War I from artificial intelligence to maybe quantum computing. And so Cold War II is taking place with a great deal more technology, a great deal more firepower than Cold War I. And do you want me to keep going?

Peter Robinson: Go ahead.

Niall Ferguson: I'll give you one more reason for being worried.

Peter Robinson: I'll spend the rest of the show trying to find a note of cheer.

Niall Ferguson: Well, let's stare reality in the face. In Cold War I, it was really quite hard for the Soviets to find out things about the United States, because the number of Soviet citizens in the United States was pretty small throughout, and we knew who they were and where they were. And there was some penetration of American institutions, but by comparison with Cold War II, it was nothing. In Cold War II, you have massive social and economic interpenetration. There are all kinds of ways in which the Chinese can find out things about our relatively open access society and economy. And not just by being here, though they certainly are here in much larger numbers than the Soviets were, but also electronically. So I do think before we just assume, oh, Cold War II will be a bit like Cold War I in terms of duration, I don't think that's guaranteed. Nor is it guaranteed that we win, because of course we won Cold War I. We shouldn't assume that we'll win Cold War II.

Peter Robinson: Alright. We'll come back to this. Whose phrase is it, the correlation of forces?

Niall Ferguson: That was a Stalin phrase. It was certainly a Marxist phrase.

Peter Robinson: But your man Kissinger, it's actually a sensible analytical starting point, their economy, our economy. You've just taken us through that. We'll return to that.

Niall Ferguson: It's a Marxist-Leninist concept that you can think of power in those terms. I mean, if Henry Kissinger were sitting here, he would say that there was always a moral dimension in addition to the material dimension, that's one of the reasons I called volume one of that biography, the idealist. But it's good that we've brought him up because you don't need to take it from me that we're in Cold War II. Just ask Henry Kissinger, who at the age of 99 knows a thing or two about Cold Wars. I'll tell you a little anecdote, Peter, when I first started thinking about this in 2018, I had to summon up the courage to ask Kissinger, are we in a Cold War? And I asked him, actually in China at a conference in late 2019, and he gave a great reply. He said, "We are in the foothills of a Cold War." A year later, he upgraded that in 2020 to the mountain passes of a Cold War. When I asked him about it last year, he said, almost taking it for granted that we're in Cold War II, that the new Cold War would be worse, would be, to be precise, more dangerous than the first Cold War. So I'm not just winging this, I'm basing this partly on his insights.

Peter Robinson: I take you as an authority in your own right, Niall, but now I'm truly staggered by this. Taiwan, just off the coast of China, an island about the size of Maryland, half the size of Scotland, population 23 million, a genuine functioning democracy with a thriving free market economy. The position of the Chinese Communist Party is that Taiwan is not independent, but properly speaking, a part of China that therefore should be under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. An event and a quotation. Here's the event: last month, the President of Taiwan visited the United States. No one in the Biden administration met her, but House speaker Kevin McCarthy did. China responded with military exercises around Taiwan that included, and now I'm quoting from a Chinese release, quote, "Nuclear capable bombers armed with live missiles and warship staging drills to form an island encompassing blockade situation." I'm not sure what an island encompassing blockade situation is, but it doesn't sound good. Here's the quotation, you in your regular column for Bloomberg News. This is a couple of years ago, "Losing or not even fighting for Taiwan would be seen all over Asia as the end of American predominance in the region. It would surely cause a run on the dollar and US treasuries. It would be an American Suez." Suez, the 1957 British failure to keep the Egyptians from taking Suez. And that's the moment when everybody, including the British themselves realized, Britain is no longer a global power. Okay?

Niall Ferguson: Correct.

Peter Robinson: And Americans, why should we have so much at stake? Why should we be risking an American Suez with an island on the other side of the world?

Niall Ferguson: Well, it's a great question because going back to something you said a moment ago, we used to accept that Taiwan was part of China. And indeed we still officially do have a one China policy, so one of the oddities about Taiwan is that it's not really controversial that China claims it, and we do not recognize it as an independent state. In fact, you'll get told off even for referring to it as a country in some circles. So what's changed? Because for the better part of half a century, really since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon figured out the Shanghai Communiqué with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, we have gone along with the fiction that Taiwan is part of China. We've had something called strategic ambiguity since the late 1970s. And that ambiguity was that people in Congress who weren't so sure about what Kissinger and Nixon had done, said, well, we have to have some commitment to Taiwan. And the commitment was an act of Congress that said, if China tried to change the status quo by force, we essentially reserve the right to take military action. But this is the ambiguity of our policy for 50 years, we kind of accept the Chinese claim that Taiwan's part of China. But we also say that if they try to assert that claim by force, we may do something about it. What's changed in the last few years is that Cold War II has begun, even if Americans don't call it by that name. Increasingly since around 2018, the United States, and this is true of both Republicans and Democrats, has taken a tougher stance on China generally and on Taiwan specifically. President Biden on at least three, maybe four occasions, has seemed to repudiate strategic ambiguity. A number of leading policy intellectuals, Richard Haas, former Grand Panjandrum of the Council On Foreign Relations said in 2020, "Why do we carry on with this strategic ambiguity nonsense? Let's be unambiguous in our commitment to Taiwan." Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, paid a visit to the island in which she acted to all intents and purposes as if Taiwan was an independent state she was visiting. So I think there's been a significant shift in our general attitude towards China and our specific attitude towards Taiwan. And the Chinese in turn have been upping the ante. And you gave one example there, the recent blockade exercise at the time of speaker McCarthy's meeting with the Taiwanese president. But they did something very similar when Nancy Pelosi was in Taiwan. So we are moving quite fast in the direction of a showdown over Taiwan after more or less, half a century of strategic ambiguity.

Peter Robinson: So let me ask this, let me give you a couple of scenarios and see what you do with them. Here's one, the example of Hong Kong. China just took Hong Kong and here's what we did about it, a couple of sharpish statements from President Biden and nothing else. Nothing else. How did people in Hong Kong respond? Well, students demonstrated, the demonstrations are over, they've been suppressed. And interestingly enough, to me at least, as best I can tell in the business community, exactly two Hong Kong people stood up against it. Jimmy Lai is in jail. And then Martin Lee if I have his first name correct, there was a prominent lawyer and businessman who also stood up against him. I'm not sure of his status, but you have this large Hong Kong community of very wealthy, almost overwhelmingly men, and they permit the deal to go forward. Now we come to Taiwan, China's upping the ante, surely they're talking to each other. I think of another small country surrounded by hostile powers, Israel. Israel devotes more than 5% of its GDP to its defense, Taiwan, barely over 2%. There's some sense in which it feels as though there's a lack of seriousness, a willingness one way or another to do the deal. We in the business community here, we can get along, we can sort this out. What we're interested in, after all, is commerce, and Beijing understands commerce these days. So it happens one way or another by slow degrees, and we do nothing about it. Is that a Suez for us?

Niall Ferguson: It's not the same as Hong Kong, let's just be clear.

Peter Robinson: Correct the whole analogy.

Niall Ferguson: Well, the status is completely different. As a former British colony, Hong Kong was not a democracy, never had democracy. And what's happened is that Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has simply expedited the takeover of Hong Kong, which was supposed to happen somewhat later this century. There's no act of Congress that obliges the US government to give a hoot about that. And that's why it was always pretty much a very faint reflex action when Americans complained about what was happening in Hong Kong. Britain should have been complaining a lot louder because it was actually an agreement with Britain that the Chinese were violating. Taiwan's different. I mean, Taiwan has been a successful, vibrant democracy since the end of the military dictatorship there. It's one of the most successful economies in the world. Part of its success is due to its being now the leading center for the production of the most sophisticated semiconductors. TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Company, set up by Morris Chang there, has become the world leader. And so economically, control of Taiwan matters a lot, much more than the control of Hong Kong in terms of the global economy. Now the critical point to notice here is that Taiwan's not Israel, nor is it Ukraine. You haven't mentioned Ukraine, but we need to get to that because it is an important subplot in Cold War II. But just in the short run, think of the following sequence of events. There is an election coming up in Taiwan in January of next year. It is not at all clear who is going to win. The Chinese are already calling one of the candidates a pro-independence candidate. There is therefore a non-trivial scenario in which in the course of that election, China interferes even more than it did in the election of 2020. I was in Taiwan in January of 2020 and it was extremely striking to me how much the Chinese were trying to do to influence that election and how little they achieved. Why? Because the Taiwanese population over the years has moved steadily away from the mainland. Remember at one point, a very large number of people had come there from the mainland.

Peter Robinson: Yes, of course.

Niall Ferguson:  They were Chiang Kai-shek's people who'd lost the Chinese Civil War, lost the revolution in 1949, retreated to Taiwan. They still retained strong affinities with the mainland. Well, time has passed. Today's Taiwanese, particularly young Taiwanese, have no real affinity with the mainland controlled, as it is, by the Chinese Communist Party. They have a lot of affinity with the very successful and vibrant democracy that they have come to enjoy there. And so I think a big problem from the vantage point of Beijing is that Taiwan is drifting away in ways that nobody in the 1970s foresaw. I think many people in the seventies thought it would only be a matter of time before Taiwan was folded into the embrace of the mainland. That is not happening and the Chinese haven't been able to devise any political way of stopping this divergence from happening. And I'll say one final thing that is very important to understand. Xi Jinping has broken with convention by extending his time as president, as leader of the CCP and of the Chinese state. Why? His main argument for having that extension of term was Taiwan. Xi Jinping has said to those close to him, and it's pretty clear from public statements too, that he regards bringing Taiwan under the control of the CCP as the keystone, capstone, the crowning achievement of his career, the reason that he's staying in power for longer than his predecessors. So it's a very high stakes issue for him. And we of course, in turn have made it a high stakes issue for us. The more unambiguous we are about our commitment to Taiwan, the more of a problem that is for Xi Jinping.

Peter Robinson: So I just gave you a scenario under which we could sort of diffuse it all and turn our heads and let it all go away. And you said no, no, no, no, no. Taiwan is not at all like Hong Kong.

Niall Ferguson: But also Peter, we bear in mind that on polling, Americans now care about this issue way more than they used to. The Chicago Council did a poll in 2021 that showed that for the first time, more than half of Americans thought that if the Chinese moved against Taiwan, the US should deploy its military in response, 52%.

Peter Robinson: Okay. So that brings us to this question of how Xi Jinping is now beginning his third term of eight years. Have I got that right?

Niall Ferguson: Wait. No, that can't be right.

Peter Robinson: He's not term limited because he gets to do more or less whatever he wants to do, but there is an expectation.

Niall Ferguson: Five years plus five years.

Peter Robinson: Okay. Single digit number of years. However, let me quote to you from this leaked memorandum leaked last year, Air Force General Mike Minahan, "My gut tells me", and this is to his own officers this past, excuse me, it was this year, in January. "My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. United States presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Chinese President Xi Jinping a distracted America. Taiwan's presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi Jinping a reason to attack." To which you add, he's now in a single digit, third term. We're now talking about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or if Minahan is to be believed, two years or less, does it feel that urgent to you?

Niall Ferguson: Yes.

Peter Robinson: I'm still adjusting to the idea that we're in the mountain passes of Cold War. And now you are saying, wait a moment, we have to make a decision whether to defend Taiwan in some small number of years.

Niall Ferguson: Well, I think Cold War II's happening faster than Cold War I. Let me try and illustrate the point. When George Orwell first used the term Cold War in 1945, almost nobody got the point that Orwell's extraordinary essay about the future in which there would be nuclear superpowers nailed it. He defined Cold War as a peace that is no peace and predicted that nuclear armed superpowers, he said there would be three, the United States, the Soviet Union and China. And he said, in this world, this is, of course,  an anticipation of his great novel, "1984", there would be this permanently armed peace that is no peace. It took years for Americans to get the point. When Winston Churchill gave the famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, the New York Times was highly critical of the speech and accused him of being a warmonger. Most Americans didn't get it until North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. And that's the analogy I'd like to suggest to you with Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is the first hot war of Cold War II. And just as the Korean War was the first hot war of Cold War I, it's the moment of revelation in which people in the United States begin to see that this is serious. Remember, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine without a green light from Xi Jinping. He would not still be able to prosecute his war without the substantial economic support he gets from trade with China. So I think we should imagine the Korean War, Ukraine War analogy, that gets us to the 1950s. That's the sort of early fifties. And the war is gonna play out pretty much like the Korean War did, a year of really serious fighting and back and forth and then attrition and it all gets bogged down and stalemate. And then eventually, you start some kind of armistice process, you never actually get to peace. I could see all of that playing out. But what we are talking about with respect to Taiwan is the equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happened as you know, Peter, in 1962. I think we could get to 1962 a lot faster than they did in Cold War I, and we'll call it the Taiwan semiconductor crisis. And here's the interesting thing about this crisis. I do not know if it happens next year, if it happens in 2025, if it doesn't happen until 2028, but it is highly likely to happen this decade. The variables that are crucial here are the Chinese are not ready militarily to achieve a successful amphibious invasion. They would be taking immense risk if they did that now, and I don't think they will. I think they're in a position to blockade the island, but I'm not sure they're ready for the consequences if we decide to run that blockade and take them on. So I think they're not quite ready for prime time, but they cannot wait indefinitely. Why? Because to go back to our earlier discussion, every passing year gives the United States time to get Taiwan ready to defend itself. It's not now, but we know that this is the issue and we have got a coherent strategy which we could execute to make Taiwan much harder to invade than it currently is. And that's why I think the timeframe is measurable in single digit years. It's not something that Xi Jinping can say, oh, I'll take care of it in 2030. That is just not an option for him.

Peter Robinson: I return though, you were saying all kinds of fascinating things about the people of Taiwan. I understand that we consider Taiwan part of China, China obviously considers Taiwan part of China. But what you're saying is that whatever this diplomatic, I won't go so far as to call it a fiction, but this diplomatic form of words, even as we now know as a result of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has become a real nation. It exists in people's minds. They now think of themselves as Ukrainian in a way that may have been ambiguous before. Taiwan is some kind of entity. I don't know that the word to use is nation, but in the minds of the Taiwanese people, they are not Chinese. Question then, why aren't they spending more time and resources? Why aren't they spending quite a lot more resources making themselves harder to take on? This is the piece of the puzzle I cannot, President Tsai comes over here, she’s courageous, she insists on democracy, insists on free markets, takes that meeting with Kevin McCarthy knowing that it's gonna cause all kinds of mayhem back at home, and indeed it does. And yet they only spend 2.1% of defense, the strategist Edward Luttwak says apparently, the Taiwan strategy is to let us defend them while their children play video games. I mean, this doesn't fit.

Niall Ferguson: Well, it's worked for Germany. I mean, think of all the countries that have been free riding on a US security guarantee since Cold War I. This is not a bug, it's a feature of Cold War that the United States is overwhelmingly the dominant supplier of security. And it's only in a country like Israel that discovered the hard way that it couldn't rely entirely on the United States in 1973 when the United States was, well, we'll kind of help you, but first, you have to negotiate. I think for the Israelis, '73 was the moment of truth when they realized that the US might be an important part of their future security, but they'd have to be able to fend for themselves, because Uncle Sam is not entirely reliable. Ukraine isn't that different. I mean, Ukraine was not ready for primetime on the eve of the Russian invasion. It had to scramble and only barely survived the initial assault on Kyiv. It surprised everybody by its ability to withstand that initial assault.

Peter Robinson: Zelensky made the difference there, didn't he?

Niall Ferguson: I don't know if it was really all Zelensky. I think ordinary Ukrainians, I was in Kyiv late last year and I was very struck by the fact that wherever I went, ordinary people were wholly committed to resisting the Russian invasion. We don't know how Taiwan would respond to a blockade by China. We don't know how the Taiwanese would respond to an attempted amphibious invasion. Most people before February 22nd last year would've predicted that Ukraine would fold quite quickly. So I don't think one should assume that Taiwan is somehow atypical, it's actually behaving quite rationally as something as a country that the US has made a security commitment to. Having traveled in both Ukraine and Taiwan, I would say it's hard to imagine the Taiwanese fighting as tenaciously and sustaining as heavy costs as the Ukrainians have in the past year. But there's no doubt in my mind that they see themselves as on a road to independence, and that's something that is quite important, I think. There's considerable unity actually when you look at Taiwanese polling about where the country's future lies. Very, very few Taiwanese think it lies as being subjugated by the CCP.

Peter Robinson: So the Ukraine-Taiwan question here, there are some commentators, our mutual friend Elbridge Colby perhaps is the most notable who worries that Ukraine is a distraction. The United States has only so many resources including mental resources. You ask the Pentagon to worry about Taiwan and Ukraine and the Pentagon says, and they won't say it formally, but they'll say in effect, wait a minute, which is the real battle? Alright, so Ukraine is a distraction, possibly. And then others argue, our colleague here at the Hoover Institution, Stephen Kotkin would argue that the defense of Taiwan runs through Ukraine. Which is it?

Niall Ferguson: Well the thing about Cold Wars is that you don't get to choose. You have in fact what I call the three bodies of water problem. Namely that you have to be ready to go to war, or at least to deter your foes, in Europe, the North Atlantic, you have to be able to deter them also in the Pacific and East Asia, and let's not forget the Persian Gulf. And the US doesn't have the option to say, oh, I'm just gonna pivot to Asia. Can you guys all just behave yourselves in Europe and the Middle East? Any more than it did in Cold War I. The problem about Cold War is it's global. China can now play globally, it is now a player in the Middle East, so the US doesn't have the luxury of being able to choose. It has to be ready to contain Chinese expansion in all three at once. That's my answer to this question, it's not a choice. Now I think Elbridge Corby is right about one thing and here, he and I agree entirely, the more resources the United States puts into the Ukraine War, the more it runs down its stocks of Javelins and Stingers and HIMARS, the less it has available for any showdown in East Asia because we don't have the military industrial complex we used to have. That's to say, it takes a long time to replenish these stocks. There's an extremely interesting report on empty bins that came out recently from one of the Washington think tanks, pointing out that if there were to be a war over Taiwan now, we would run out of stuff very rapidly, particularly the precision missiles which are such a crucial part of the American way of war today. The problem about a war over Taiwan, Jim Stavridis makes this point very well in a book he wrote on the subject is that it could get very big, very fast. A limited war over Taiwan is a little hard to imagine, just as a limited war over Cuba was very hard to imagine. I want to try and suggest to you a very important part of my analogy. Remember we said Cold War I and Cold War II are not exactly the same anymore than World War I and World War II were exactly the same, but you didn't really argue about there being world wars. So in Cold War II, there's a very important difference between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Taiwan semiconductor crisis. And that is that in Cold War II, we are the Soviet Union, because in Cold War II, it's the communist party that gets to impose the blockade, whereas it was John F. Kennedy who blockaded Cuba. We called it a quarantine, but it was essentially a blockade, and it was the Soviets, it was Khrushchev who had to send a naval force to Cuba. That was the most risky moment in the whole of Cold War I. Only this time around, the boot is on the other foot, it's China that has the option to blockade Taiwan. We would then have to send a naval force to run that blockade. We would be in the Khrushchev situation, and that's what makes me the most nervous about this. I mean, generally speaking, rerunning the Cuban Missile Crisis is a bad idea. It was the most dangerous moment, the nearest we came to World War III in the whole of the Cold War. And in many ways it was just luck, sheer luck that it didn't become World War III. There was a Soviet submarine commander who gave the order to fire a nuclear torpedo at US naval surface ships. And it was only because by chance, a superior officer was on the submarine and able to overrule him that that didn't happen. If it had happened, we would've had Armageddon. Why would you want to rerun that game and expect the outcome always to be good? So we shouldn't be running the Cuban Missile Crisis again, but we certainly shouldn't be rerunning it when we get to play the Soviet Union. Because remember what happened in the end, Krushchev had to back down. He took a deal with the Kennedy brothers, but it wasn't public. And so it looked like he'd been humiliated and it was pretty much curtains for his career at that point. But it was also a major setback for the Soviets. We don't want to put ourselves in that position. So my view is we have to follow through with the commitment we made to Ukraine. We are now in a position where we cannot afford for Ukraine to lose. Problem is China can't afford for Russia to lose. That's why this war is gonna keep going because both superpowers are essentially now backing one of the dogs in the fight. While that carries on, we have gotta come up with a good answer to the question, how do we deter China from invading or blockading Taiwan? 'Cause right now, what we've got is some good rhetoric and some very poor strategic options. The war games don't always turn out very well. There was a recent one which strongly suggested it would go very badly for the United States. I think we've got a very short period of time to come up with a good answer to that question. If we don't, then we run the risk of having our bluff cold. I mean, right now, we are basically talking loudly and carrying a small stick when it comes to Taiwan and everybody knows that that's the wrong way around.

Peter Robinson: Alright, step back from Taiwan. Three big questions, each one of which we could devote an entire program to.

Niall Ferguson: So keep your answers short.

Peter Robinson: I suppose so. I suppose I am saying that. What do they believe? A couple quotations here. Guy Sorman in the City Journal, "In what sense is the Communist Party of China still communist? It represents a Marxist liturgy that everyone recites and in which no one believes." Stephen Kotkin seated right there on this program, quote, "We all thought they were cynics, that they just mouthed communist ideology. But some of them believe it. Not only do some of them believe it, but communism is inherent in the system." Okay, so even as during Cold War I, there's this constant back and forth between, no, no, no, it's just another imperial power. This is another iteration of great power struggles, we know roughly what to expect of them. As against, no, no, they're communists. They have a fundamentally different view of the relation of man to government, of man to God, of one society to another, and their ultimate aim, do them the courtesy of taking them seriously, it's in writing, they want communism to triumph throughout the world. We have the same back and forth today with China. What do they believe?

Niall Ferguson: Well, Professor Kotkin is always right.

Peter Robinson: That's a good starting point.

Niall Ferguson: That's rule one, and rule two is see rule one, and on this issue, of course he's right. They are Marxist-Leninist to be precise. I think Xi Jinping in particular should be understood both seriously and literally as a Marxist-Leninist. But again, I spent time in China prior to the pandemic. I was a visiting professor at Tsinghua. I remember having a meeting with the director of research at the Chinese Communist Party who's really rather an important figure. And he said in the course of that meeting, oh by the way, the Standing Committee of the Politburo is rereading Marx and Engels. And so I think you should assume that there is an ideological piece to Cold War II. Many naive people think that that is not the case because they pay a visit to Beijing or Shanghai and they see what appear to be business tycoons behaving much as business tycoons do, they see tower blocks, it looks familiar. But you really need to understand that behind this patina of capitalism, there is still a communist party in charge. And if you look at what Xi Jinping says, not at Davos, but in Beijing, or just look at other communist party propaganda, it's very striking how ideological things have become. He has explicitly prohibited the teaching of democracy, rule of law, Western ideas like that at Chinese universities. In the time I was at Tsinghua, there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere. It no longer became easy for me to talk in the classroom about the cultural revolution. So let's lay to rest the idea that they're just pretending to be communist, that it's just the Chinese capitalist party. That's nonsense. And the ideological piece explains the belief that there is an inevitable collision coming with the imperialist West, which I think does underlie Chinese strategy. Xi Jinping, I think it's pretty clear, has told the party and the country to prepare for war. I've done a fair amount of reading in the kind of policy intellectual space, the sort of Chinese equivalence of me and Stephen Kotkin, they talk a lot about China's role to displace the United States as the dominant empire. So remember Marxism-Leninism isn't an ideology of conflict, it's an ideology with a historical determinist operating system. And that's a reason to expect them to expect conflict.

Peter Robinson: Peter Thiel in his book "Zero to One", and we're talking about a book that's now a decade old. I don't even know whether Peter would restate this today, but here's what he said in "Zero to One", "The Chinese have been straightforwardly copying everything that has worked in the developed world: 19th century railroads, 20th century air conditioning, and even entire cities. They might skip a few steps along the way, going straight to wireless without installing landlines for instance, but they're copying all the same." Okay, this is an important point because there is an argument that what we have, they outnumber us. You've just explained that by at least one measure, their economy is already bigger than ours. They outnumber us. If they choose to do so, they can outspend us on defense. Here's what we have, democratic capitalism, which means the ability to innovate. We can stay a step ahead of them, that's the strategic fallback that we have. Emily Weinstein of the Brookings Institution, "Discussions surrounding China as a strategic competitor have been shaped by the notion that only democracy can promote innovation. Every day, China is disproving this line of thinking."

Niall Ferguson: They're a lot more innovative than the Soviets were because they have a substantial part of their economy that is a market economy. There's a reason why Chinese internet companies are after American internet companies, the world's biggest. And there are no European internet companies worth talking about. And that's because the market operated when it came to developing the internet, particularly commercializing it. If one looks at the research that goes on in fields like artificial intelligence or quantum computing, it's the US v. China. There are no other players in this race, they won't even award a bronze medal. And that's one of the reasons that it's recognizably Cold War II because there are two superpowers technologically. Now I think the Chinese are still silver medalists. Look at vaccines, they utterly failed despite their boasts in 2020 that they would develop the vaccines against COVID, they didn't. And we did, and that's encouraging. And I basically agree with your view that our system is likely to win the innovation race, but I've a couple of caveats. Number one, we have to mean it. What made Cold War I go well for the United States was that we understood we were in a technological race with a communist superpower that was determined to steal our technology and ultimately to bury us. When I started talking about Cold War II back in 2018, at the time when Huawei was the talk of the town, I elicited initially skeptical reactions. I can remember Eric Schmidt's face when I first said this at a meeting in San Francisco. I said to him, look, the reason I'm saying this is we have to understand that we are in a Cold War or we will lose it. If we have open access research, if the AI labs at Google or for that matter at Stanford, are freely accessible by CCP operatives, then we're done. So one reason for talking about this is to make Americans realize that we are in a race and we can't simply post it all online and not worry. We have to protect our intellectual property. They will steal it, they have been stealing it because as you said, that's the communist way. Copy the technology and then paste it, whether it's electric cars or for that matter, giant online markets. What is Alibaba if not an Amazon knockoff at some level, but there's a second caveat. About half the billion dollar unicorn companies created in this country since the mid 1990s were founded by, that's right, immigrants. Elon Musk, not homegrown, and the list goes on. If we don't keep the channel open for legal immigration of very talented, ambitious people, we will not win the technological race. That's our superpower, importing talent and giving it capital, that's the real magic of the United States. I mean you can talk about democratic capitalism and all of the rest of it. You know the real secret sauce of the United States is magnet for talent. Here are the resources that you couldn't get Elon in South Africa or Canada. Only here is it possible for you to build those dreams. The United States, and I blame both the Trump and the Biden administrations for this, has really screwed up its system of legal immigration. The Democrats seem to have decided that illegal immigration will do and we've effectively opened our southern border. It's the worst kind of immigration. We need to get back to the system we had and which really served us well from the 1980s of being the country open to talent. If we don't do that, then I think China has a decent chance. If we can get the talent flowing back into the United States, they're done, because nobody wants to immigrate to China. You just ask people all over the world, where would you like to go? It's essentially the United States or the most developed European countries or the UK.

Peter Robinson: Okay, so that brings me, this is another one of these big thing questions. Francis Fukuyama writes "The End of History" after the end of the first World War, and he's been misinterpreted in all kinds of ways. But there is this notion that democratic capitalism is a natural end point. Once you get there, you've gotten to the best kind of society of which we know. Alright, now the Chinese come along and they seem to have something, they seem to have a new model of some kind. They seem to have invented a way of combining authoritarian central control with at least enough free markets to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty to achieve world standing, which they did not have just 20 years ago. So in Cold War I, one of the dangers, one of the threats to us was that the Soviet system was intellectually attractive. There were communist fellow travelers throughout the United States. I'm trying to avoid McCarthyite terms, but they were appealing. China doesn't seem to be appealing, just as you said, nobody wants to immigrate to China. But then again, we have the third world, Saudi Arabia and Iran just did a deal together through China. China has wealth and it has brute power, does it have intellectual appeal? Is it creating a new model that will be of real appeal to the third world?

Niall Ferguson: Well, we don't call it the third world anymore.

Peter Robinson: We don’t. What do we call it now?

Niall Ferguson: We call it the global south, which is a term I'd rather arbor since hardly any people live, in fact in the Southern hemisphere. But you know what we mean. Look, there are two answers to that question. One, there are fellow travelers today, there are people who find the Chinese Communist Party system attractive, many of them are former Marxists or current Marxists. Not all of them are. I mean read Martin Jacques' book, "When China Rules the World'' or read Daniel Bell's recent writing on the Chinese system, which he openly admires. So let's not assume that there are no people attracted by the Chinese model.

Peter Robinson: The list gets worse and worse.

Niall Ferguson: There weren't that many people actually in the United States attracted by Soviet Communism. You can see that from voting. It's really quite a small number of people, even if some of them were in influential positions. So I don't think the situation's that different but the really critical point, the second point is the appeal of the Chinese model in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, indeed all over the so-called developing or emerging world. If you are running a chaotic African country, which is poor economically, the Chinese offer you a solution to the crowd control problem, which is better than anything yet available prior to this time. You have surveillance technology, you have the AI, you have the cameras, you can nail down your civilian population and the Chinese have a second thing to offer you and that is infrastructure. You don't have roads? We'll do roads, You don't have telecoms? We have Huawei. If you look at a map of the world according to Huawei, you can see where the Chinese appeal is strongest. It's in the relatively poor parts of the world that need to have Huawei's hardware because it's cheaper than any other hardware, and they need the financing that Huawei can offer them. The reason I started talking about Cold War II was that I saw that map, the map of the world according to Huawei back in 2017 or 18 at a time when the US decided to shut Huawei out and some other countries were following our lead like Australia. And I looked at the map of the world and there were the countries that were saying no to Huawei, that was the US and its close allies, and there were the countries that were saying yes to Huawei and that was what you called the third world. And then there were the non-aligned countries were like, can we maybe have a little bit of both? And that's a very Cold War map. As soon as you see it, you think, oh man, this looks really familiar.

Peter Robinson: Okay, what difference does it make? Give me the world a decade from now, if on fast forward, Cold War II ends. What would a Chinese - let me step back. We knew throughout Cold War I what life would look like if the other side won because we only had to look to Eastern Europe. You only had to stand at the Berlin Wall in West Berlin and look over into East Berlin. You only had to look at North Korea versus South Korea. It's trickier to know what it would mean. Suppose they did win, what would a Chinese victory look like? How would life for your children, well, no, we were talking about something happening so quickly that it's not just our children, it's us. How would life be different if they won? What's at risk?

Niall Ferguson: Well, first of all, let's remember that there are a kind of three paths to think about. There's the disastrous path, the World War III path, where we go head to head over Taiwan or somewhere else and things escalate. And before you know it, those nuclear weapons are flying. That is not to be dismissed out of hand. I think one of the big dangers about a US-China war is that there would be no stopping it from escalating. So that's a future we certainly want to avoid just as we wanted to avoid it in Cold War I. And there's a second plausible scenario in which there's a showdown and we fold. That's my American Suez, that's the moment when we suddenly discover, oh, the United States is not numero uno anymore. It can't actually uphold its dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. And that is also something that would be undesirable.

Peter Robinson: By the way, and after the British Suez, after the Suez Suez, life went on in Britain, living standards continued to rise.

Niall Ferguson: Well, let's not get carried away here because there were significant prices to be paid for the end of empire. One of the most enjoyable features about being an American is that you are the issuer of the world's reserve currency and the currency that is favored in almost all international transactions. And you can sell your 10 year treasuries to the rest of the world and the rest of the world will buy them because they foolishly think it's a risk free asset. So if you lose at geopolitics as Britain did in the late 1950s, it's amazing how rapidly your currency can depreciate. I mean, it's not that long ago that it was $1.07 to the pound, that was during the Liz Truss fiasco. It was $4.86 when Britain's empire was up and running, and that's to be taken very seriously. The United States would find it expensive to be a second tier power. The RMB is not a convertible currency. But as I just pointed, in a new piece for Bloomberg Opinion, it is a currency that is being used more and more in transactions by China's trading partners. We should not underestimate how quickly the structure of the international financial system would change if the US was no longer the credible number one global superpower. But then there's a broader question, which I think is what you are really getting at Peter. What's the world like if China is number one? I think that's not a very agreeable world to live in because China's attitude towards individual rights, human rights is on display, you don't need to go to another planet. You just need to go and see the way in which the Uyghurs are treated in Xinjiang, where there are labor camps, where perhaps a million people are under detention, there are reeducation programs, there are policies with respect to fertility that could easily be characterized and have been characterized as genocidal. So let's not forget that at the heart of this system is the old totalitarian devil, the old dark force that we once understood so well in Cold War I, when we had to stare the Soviet system in the face and imagine what its extension would be like. I'm not sure the expansion of Chinese power would be significantly different wherever it encountered resistance. If China's in a position to export its model of social control and state surveillance to Africa where almost all the population growth is going to be for the rest of this century, then a rising share of humanity finds itself under the great Beijing panopticon. So I think we need to regard the future, the world under Chinese dominance, with at least some of the frauder with which we used to regard a Soviet dominated world. But can I come to my third scenario? The third scenario, which I think is the plausible one, is that we find ourselves trying to prevent the expansion of Chinese power in multiple theaters. Containment is not the word we necessarily use because that was George Kennan's word, but we're already doing it. And it's funny really to be engaged in a Cold War without acknowledging that. But if you look at the Biden administration's national security strategy that just came out, it says we're not in a new Cold War, no new Cold War, but everything in it implies that we're in a Cold War. What is the goal that they're currently pursuing? To limit China's ability to catch up with us technologically by cutting it off, that's what the Commerce Department did last year from the most sophisticated semiconductors and the people and technology you need to make them. So we've kind of put the sanctions on China ex-ante rather than waiting for a showdown. That's a really important part of Cold War. The effort of the leading power to preserve its technological leadership by preventing the rising power from catching up. I think that's the plausible future that we have to fight in multiple geographies, but above all, we have to fight to maintain our technological leadership. That's the future I think we're in.

Peter Robinson: Okay last, I'm sorry, before we leave, why don't they call it a Cold War?

Niall Ferguson: I know why.

Peter Robinson: I think of John Kennedy's inaugural address, "We will bear any burden, oppose any foe." And his ratings increased. In some ways, it was beyond bracing, it was thrilling to the country to feel that it was defending itself and liberty. So why not? Why wouldn't Biden go before Congress and say, my fellow Americans, this is the moment.

Niall Ferguson: We will at some point get a president who does that. But we're currently, remember, in that early phase of the Cold War when we don't want to face it and we think that if we call it by its real name, we'll somehow make matters worse because we'll upset Xi Jinping. And I think that in the sense that it would be rather undiplomatic to call it a Cold War in public, it's very widespread. You talk to people in the State Department or particularly in the European foreign ministries and that's what you'll hear. "Oh, don't call it that Niall, you'll really upset them." And that's classic early Cold War. Remember how we used to worry about Uncle Joe in the period between 1945 and 1950, that sense that you got from the New York Times reaction to the Fulton, Missouri speech. We're in that state of mind. So the next president, I hope, will be able to speak more candidly about where we are, but there's another reason. And the other reason is that this administration is much more interested in going after the enemy within, the MAGA Republicans whom they like to portray as the existential threat to America. They far rather focus on that for political reasons than focus on the threat posed by China. I think that's unfortunate because one of the lessons of Cold War I is our vulnerability is our capacity for internal division. Things went most wrong in the Cold War when the United States was most divided over Vietnam in that period from the late sixties to the early seventies when the country was really very, very deeply riven. That is not a problem they have in China, and that's, I think, something to bear in mind.

Peter Robinson: The last question, give me a moment to set this up and then I'll just toss it to you, but I'll need a moment to set it up. Here's George Kennan, you mentioned George Kennan a moment ago. George Kennan writing in 1953, we're not talking about the long telegram in '46, this is 1953. The Cold War is now underway, Korea's already happened. George Kennan, "The thoughtful observer will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience", nobody writes like this anymore. "He will rather experience a certain gratitude to Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear." Alright, you look back at the history of Cold War I, and you can see at least a couple of moments when the United States really did pull itself together. One is when Kennan is writing, Truman has stopped the communists in Korea, we've invented NATO, on it goes, a moment of enormous diplomatic creativity and ramping up the military as well. And then again, we pulled ourselves together during the 1980s. Okay, so the thought there is, if we did it before, we can do it again. One more quotation, this time from investor Ray Dalio who has billions of dollars at stake in China and one tends to listen to a man who has something at stake. Ray Dalio quote: "The United States is having financial problems, it is having internal conflicts and it is facing outside challenges. The Chinese are earning more than their spending, they have domestic order and they've had rapid improvement in education, productivity, trade. I can't say whether democracy is better than autocracy." Rather breathtaking admission right there. "I can't say whether democracy is better than autocracy. But China's not like the United States, which is at risk of a type of civil war." And the argument there is maybe we used to be able to pull ourselves together, but that was a different America.

Niall Ferguson: Well, before we bow down before our new Chinese overlords, let me offer two thoughts about those two very different quotations from two very different men. First of all, Kennan was right, the Cold War, at least for a time, united Americans. It was something about which there was remarkably little dissent in the 1950s. And right through until the late 1960s, there was a period of deep division, as I mentioned already. And then to an amazing extent, Americans came back together. And even before the 1980s, one reason Ronald Reagan became president was that his critique of détente really struck home. I'm very, very struck as I read my way through the materials for Kissinger volume two, how quickly by 1976, Americans were convinced that détente had turned out to be a mistake over Angola, for heaven's sake. It was Soviet and Cuban intervention in Angola that caused Kissinger's ratings to plummet and Reagan to emerge as a national figure, a credible potential candidate for the Republican party. So one reason that I'm talking about Cold War II is that I do think this country needs an external foe, it really helps. If we don't have one, we just fall apart, we just tear one another pieces. And it's very interesting to see how in periods in the past a hundred years when Americans haven't had a clear geopolitical project, haven't had a clear geopolitical rival, tends to be the period when the division gets nastiest. It was when we stopped believing in the Soviet threat and decided in the late sixties that we were really the problem. We were really the problem in Vietnam, that things became most toxic. So maybe this is just the immigrants I view, but I do think my fellow Americans, you do play better when there is a clear external threat. So let's not underestimate how much that probably helps. Notice, bipartisanship is back on one issue and one issue alone, and that's China. It's quite an extraordinary thing that when you meet with members of Mike Gallagher's new House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Democrats and Republicans agree on a surprisingly large number of things, not on everything, but there's a real bipartisan sense that China is the major strategic challenge. So if it's polarization you worry about, I have good news for you, because if you put against China in the title of your bill, it'll get through the Senate and the House. That's why we have to do immigration reform. As long as it's against China, it can be done. So that's my first response. We can definitely revive the cannon spirit. To Ray Dalio, I have this to say, China will lose Cold War II if we can play a long enough game, because its demographics are a disaster. It's quite possible, Peter, that the population of China could halve between now and the end of the century, it'll certainly fall by at least a third. The fertility rate is well below replacement and that's a sign not of a healthy society, I think, but one that has a very foreshortened future. Secondly, the economy is in deep trouble. Around 29% of Chinese economic activity is real estate. The whole thing sucks because tower blocks for nobody are not a good business proposition. Thirdly, I think there's a major problem of legitimacy, which Xi Jinping understands, and that is precisely why they're striking hawkish postures in Taiwan. It's one of the few things they know they can really mobilize their population behind if growth is going down to the low single digits. The key to Cold War, as you said earlier, is that the US as a free society ought to out-innovate the totalitarian regime. So ultimately, the US is the favorite to win a technological race if we can avoid a reckless showdown when we are not ready for primetime in the next few years, and this seems to be an argument actually for détente. Ronald Reagan made détente into a dirty word, but you know what? Détente served the United States pretty well after the debacle of Vietnam. You couldn't have been Ronald Reagan in 1970, you could only be Ronald Reagan in 1980. And what had happened in that decade, actually the US had done a lot to recover from the disaster of Vietnam. I think we need to take our time right now.

Peter Robinson: Henry Kissinger bought a decade, and it was a decade we needed.

Niall Ferguson: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: Is that correct?

Niall Ferguson: Absolutely. And that will be the key argument that volume two of my biography makes that in that time, not only does the US cannot get over the terrible trauma of Vietnam, it's also the decade where Steve Jobs and Bill Gates invent little companies by the names of Apple and Microsoft. It's when Silicon Valley really begins, and the US starts in the 1970s to get its mojo back, even if it's not until the 80s, that it politically manifests itself. And that's because détente bought time and I strongly believe we should be buying time right now and not racing for a showdown over an island that is a long way away from the United States and very close to China.

Peter Robinson: But that which we must somehow avoid surrendering at the same time.

Niall Ferguson: I think the lesson from the British experience is do try and deter your great power rival. Britain tried and failed twice to deter Germany from starting a world war, and I think the United States has to learn that lesson. It's very tempting not to pay the upfront costs of deterrence. Defense budget is projected to shrink below the interest payments in the federal debt at some point later this decade on current fiscal projections. When a superpower is spending more in debt service than defense, I think its days are numbered. You have to invest in deterrence. It's cheaper than fighting a world war, that's the lesson in British history, Americans need to learn it.

Peter Robinson: Niall Ferguson, thank you very much.

Niall Ferguson: Thank you, Peter.

Peter Robinson: For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation, I'm Peter Robinson.

11 Comments

Robert Walker
6 months ago
I've listened to about half this discussion and wondered why the guest saw the Taiwanese issue as just America's Cold War II? Biden was visiting with Marcos of the Philippines today; Japan and Australia have strong feelings about Taiwanese independence. Yesterday's newspaper showed Modi of Indian being considered more closely as an ally vis-a-vis China. Wouldn't these other nations aid in the defense of Taiwan and alter the military balance somewhat?

George T Hamilton Robert Walker
6 months ago
Yes, these other Asian nations are aiding in the defense of Taiwan and broader containment of China. Japan is breaking out of its constitutional constraint preventing military support elsewhere; The Philippines has provided a number of bases to the US military and just completed joint military exercises around northern islands within striking range of Taiwan; The Quad (US, India, Japan and Australia) are coordinating defensive measures; Australia has committed to purchase nuclear powered submarines from the US and UK; etc. Each of these countries has its own focused concern with an assertive China as well as common defense. However, they currently have very limited capabilities to add to the defense of Taiwan.

Jacob  Robert Walker
6 months ago
The Cold War never ended.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago edited
Niall, you are missing one big point about China taking Taiwan. And so is Xi - the fact that the Chinese mom and dads of the "little emperors," the one child families, will not permit Xi to put their one child in harm's way. The resulting internal struggle within China would not be one Xi would survive, either.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago
Niall, the Cambridge 5 did great damage to British intelligence for decades. Let's hope the British do a better job in vetting MI5 and MI6.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago
Niall, not only is Peter Thiel correct today, but Wall Street companies like GS are also working directly with the Chinese State to buy American companies around the corner from Stanford, like the industrial company it purchased in Pleasanton 4 years ago, companies the Chinese would not otherwise be able to access (in GS's own words). It's an albatross. Why do you and others not talk about that public ally - the fact that Wall Street investment companies are still in bed with the Chinese State?

Andrew Baldwin 
6 months ago
Start with the big positive. Niall begins well, saying: “By one measure, by one measure, gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity, China overtook the United States in 2014.” He is likely looking at the IMF estimates for GDP on a PPP basis, which did show China overtaking the US in 2014, when Joe Biden was Vice-President of the United States. Now the 2023 IMF projections show the Chinese GDP on a PPP basis exceeding that of the US, Mexico and China combined. The alleged most important free trade area in the world is not as important as China alone.
One can quibble a bit with Niall’s follow-up. “The Soviets never got close by that measure. Their peak was 44% the size of the United States.” I am not sure what PPP estimates he was looking at. The CIA estimates certainly show the Soviet Union doing better than that. For 1960, they estimated that Soviet GNP was 48% of US GNP, and for 1987 it was 53%. (See the 1999 paper by Yuri Dikhanov, “A Critique of CIA Estimates of Soviet Performance from the Gerschenkron Perspective.” It probably reflects his natural tendency to sneer at the Russians, but it doesn’t change his essential message that the PRC is a more formidable rival than the Soviet Union was. Perhaps Niall is downgrading the CIA estimates since, as Yuri notes: “it is not improbable that, being naturally focused on Soviet military expenditures, the CIA could have been exaggerating their value.” The CIA estimates relate to GNP, not GDP, since, for this period, GNP was the most commonly referenced measure of national output.
Peter Robinson takes from this, that “by at least one measure, their economy is already bigger than ours.” Which is progress. However, it is not just one measure, Peter. It is the best measure. This is why, in the 2008 System of National Accounts Manual, endorsed by the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the European Commission, the manual only briefly mentions ranking national economies by adjusting nominal GDP estimates to US dollars using market exchange rates, before moving onto the preferred measure of GDP on a PPP basis. So China is the number one economy in the world and Russia is number six. Pace Niall, Professor Kotkin is not always right, and when he said, in 2018, that Russia’s economy was about a fifteenth the size of America’s, he was farcically wrong, all because he did not depend on estimates of GDP on a PPP basis.
Now for the big negatives. Niall says: “Look at vaccines. they [the Chinese] utterly failed despite their boasts in 2020 that they would develop the vaccines against COVID, they didn't.” This is false. The Chinese Sinovac vaccine has been commonly used in many countries of the world. The Sinovac vaccine was key to Serbia having the second fastest vaccine rollout of any European country. My Sebian brother-in-law received the Sinovac vaccine, as did the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vu?i?, although Pfizer and the Russian Sputnik vaccines are also authorized in Serbia. He could have repeated arguments of medical specialists that two doses of Sinovac are less effective than two doses of Pfizer (see the FT report “Scientists urge China to replace its faltering COVID vaccines”) but he went way beyond that. I wanted to learn something about how the West should deal with China from this interview, but running into something like this made me automatically distrust everything else Niall had to say about China.
The man Peter wrote speeches for, Ronald Reagan, would have disdained Niall’s triumphalist view that Americans won the Cold War and the Russians lost. He saw it as a victory for democracy, that should lead to greater freedom in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the “We won the Cold War” mentality seems to have instilled a reckless arrogance in the people determining American foreign policy that set the world up for a bloody and violent 21st century.
Peter cherry-picked a George Kennan quote, not from 1946, but from 1953. He didn’t go far enough ahead. This was what George Kennan had to say in 1998 about NATO expansion: “I think the Russians will react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else . . . This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed on to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.”

Avatar
Paul_Austin 
6 months ago
A very thought-provoking talk with Niall Ferguson, who I admire immensely. Ferguson repeatedly mentioned "the war for TSMC". I've been involved in the semiconductor industry and one thing that people miss is how -fragile- semiconductor plants are. The glassware doesn't stand the shock of e.g. a missile landing a mile away and once the fab is a pile of broken glass on the floor of the clean room, it takes a very long time to sweep it up and return the clean room to the nanometer level of cleanliness. Even worse, the -people- who run the fab don't do well under stress. They make mistakes, the yields go in the toilet. If China attempts to -take- Taiwan, they will break it beyond recovery.
In 1997, British PM John Major betrayed the Hong Kong Chinese by welshing on Britain's obligation to honor British passports issued to HK citizens. In doing so, he missed a major opportunity. If he had instead said "Y'all come" in a British accent, the wealth of expertise, energy and business acumen would have enriched GB tremendously.
As an answer to China's threat to Taiwan, the US should invite Taiwanese immigration to the US. An educated, energetic people would help -us- and leave China with an empty island.

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Jacob  Paul_Austin
6 months ago
Thatcher had betrayed Hong Kong in 1984.

George T Hamilton
6 months ago
Yes, China wants to reacquire Taiwan and perhaps other territories which had previously been Chinese. Yes, it wants a say in the world structure and institutions appropriate for a global superpower. Yes, it wants to be on an economic par with the USA and not dependent on the US dollar. But the unanswered question is whether China, like the USSR before it, requires its neighbors and the world to institute governmental structures similar to that of the CCP and subject to direction from Beijing? Enforced at the point of a bayonet by the Peoples Army. In other words, does it seek world domination or world influence? Forgetting that we may have blindly slid into backing independence for Taiwan, could we live in a world where China's opinions weighed similarly to ours?

Jacob 
6 months ago
Patton was right - we "fought the wrong enemy".