美國禽獸 Chas Freeman 如何擊敗中國

中國政策研討會開幕致辭

查斯·弗裏曼 2024-07-24
查斯·W·弗裏曼大使（美國林務局，退役）
2024年7月24日

我花了六十年時間觀察和與中國打交道。坦白說，我並不認同那些驅動我們現行政策的既定或不言而喻的預設。我不認為這些預設構成了一個連貫的戰略。我認為它們無助於美國應對中國或正在形成的、力量平衡不斷轉變的世界秩序，在這個秩序中，美國已無法再僅憑財富和武器在國際上競爭。

我經曆過幾場戰爭，華盛頓在這些戰爭中將他們並不具備的目標強加於對方。

與基於經驗驗證的現實進行歸納推理相比，通過類比進行演繹推理的做法記錄不佳。雖然我們花了一段時間才最終意識到，朝鮮戰爭和越南戰爭並非——正如我們之前所想——是中國或蘇聯的征服戰爭。它們是內戰，很容易演變成代理人戰爭。正因為這些戰爭並非由其他大國對我們的戰略挑戰所驅動，我們才能夠限製它們。

中國不是納粹德國、日本帝國或蘇聯。中國渴望看到我們傲慢的全球霸權消失。但它無意承擔我們所承受的負擔。它並非尋求生存空間，並非吞並鄰國，亦非將其難以理解的意識形態強加於我們或他們，更非用自身或任何其他霸主的意識形態取代我們的全球主導地位。“今天台灣，明天世界”的口號並不適用。中國特色的列寧主義是內向的，與雄心勃勃的全球蘇聯共產黨不同。中國要求鄰國尊重它。它並不要求他們或任何其他人屈服。

我們挑起了與中國的戰爭。我們正與中國正麵交鋒。目前，中國還不在我們的地盤。任何戰爭都將主要在中國的地盤上進行，而不是在我們自己的地盤上。

類比推理和自我實現的偏執都是危險的。兩者都否認現實，而且，如果施加足夠的個人魅力，就會具有傳染性。我們聲稱要保護中國的鄰國免受其害，但我們不得不付出巨大努力才能說服他們同意他們需要我們這樣做。大多數人更希望我們在他們努力應對中國重返富強的過程中支持他們。

在許多方麵，中國現在不僅超越了我們，而且差距還在不斷擴大。它生產了全球36%的製成品，而我們隻占六分之一。其國內經濟的購買力比我們高出三分之一。它每年向世界提供1萬億美元甚至更多的貸款，而我們僅僅為了維持政府運轉和經濟運轉就借入了更多資金。中國已成為其所在地區經濟無可爭議的中心。它在世界更多地方擁有外交代表，數量也比我們多。當然，它現在擁有更強大的海軍、極具競爭力的空軍以及世界上最強大的火箭部隊。當然，中國在力量投射能力上無法與我們匹敵，但這無關緊要。它專注於保衛其主權、領土完整和周邊地區，而不是跨越太平洋來攻擊我們。為了應對與我們攤牌，它正在打造非常可靠的二次核打擊能力。

無需多言。

公開的政策和實際的政策很少相同。我們並非對其他國家的虛偽視而不見。我們也不應假設他們對我們的虛偽視而不見。就我們目前的對華政策目標而言，我們的實際目標似乎是：

延緩或扭轉中國崛起，包括其科技進步，從而防止我們自身的衰落。

阻止中國在亞太地區建立勢力範圍，或在其他地區和國家施加政治或經濟影響。

通過公開的軍事威懾和暗中破壞任何兩岸統一談判，使台灣與中國其他地區在政治和戰略上永久分離。

限製中國向俄羅斯出口軍民兩用產品，用於生產可能部署在烏克蘭的武器。

使中華人民共和國及其執政黨共產黨失去合法性，並期待北京政權更迭。

政策的成敗不在於其政治正義性，而在於其結果。迄今為止，我們對中國的強烈對抗：

培育了中俄戰略夥伴關係，這種夥伴關係與美國戰略家們一直以來所構建的歐亞霸權聯盟非常相似。

擔心並試圖阻止。這一夥伴關係如今引領著金磚國家集團和上海合作組織（SCO），它們正在合並成為一個迅速擴張的全球反美聯盟。

俄羅斯加強向中國轉讓武器和軍事技術，並加強中俄聯合研發武器係統和太空活動，以中俄聯合月球基地計劃為標誌。我們不能再排除俄羅斯積極支持中國人民解放軍（PLA）針對台灣的軍事行動的可能性。

將美國在塑造亞太地區不斷發展的貿易和投資體製方麵的角色轉移給了中國、日本和東盟。我們拋棄了跨太平洋夥伴關係協定（TPP）及其日本發起的後續協定，無視區域全麵經濟夥伴關係協定（RCEP），破壞世界貿易組織（WTO），同時采取基於國家安全的保護主義，拒絕談判雙邊或多邊自由貿易協定（FTA）。

顯著增加了中美因台灣爆發戰爭（包括可能爆發核戰爭）的風險。美國現行政策缺乏外交手段，沒有留下任何和平解決台灣問題的明顯途徑，完全依賴對台北的軍事支持，這顯然是在挑釁而非遏製北京。

將南海主權聲索國之間的領土爭端轉化為中美海軍對抗的焦點，有可能意外爆發敵對行動，同時又未努力推動這些爭端的和平解決。

增強了中國爭奪科技霸權的努力。澳大利亞戰略技術研究所（ASTI）的“關鍵技術追蹤”報告稱，中國目前已在其追蹤的44項技術中的37項中占據領先地位。

促使越來越多的國家加緊尋找在貿易結算中避免使用美元的方法。如果他們得逞，美國的全球霸權將崩潰，美國人的生活水平將急劇下降，國內通脹將達到災難性的水平，美國國債將變得完全不可持續。

我們應該尊重“洞”的法則。當洞越來越深時，就停止挖掘。我們的對華政策並非在壓製中國，也不是在將其推回。相反，它們正在逐步重塑世界秩序，使其對我們不利。

我們不能再繼續傲慢自滿。

認為中國政策可以脫離美國的整體大戰略而得到解決是錯誤的。戰略是一種行動計劃，旨在通過投入盡可能少的精力、資源和時間，將自身造成的不利後果降至最低，從而實現預期目標。目前，我們決心維持我們的全球主導地位以及二戰後在亞太地區的勢力範圍，但目前還沒有實現這一目標的戰略。加倍軍費開支並不能實現這一目標。用更高的關稅將我們的經濟與國際競爭隔離開來也同樣不行。我們不僅要考慮什麽才能維持我們的全球和地區霸權，還要考慮它是否真的可持續，如果不能，除了嚐試這樣做之外，還有什麽其他方法能夠“確保國內安寧，提供共同防禦，促進普遍福利，並保障我們自己和子孫後代享有自由的幸福”。

在我看來，這才是我們應該在這個論壇上討論的內容。

Opening Remarks to a Workshop on China Policy

https://chasfreeman.net/opening-remarks-to-a-workshop-on-china-policy/

Chas Freeman  Opening Remarks to a Workshop on China Policy

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) July 24, 2024

https://chasfreeman.net/opening-remarks-to-a-workshop-on-china-policy/

[As delivered.  Introductory comments omitted.]

I’ve spent sixty years watching and dealing with China.  Full disclosure.  I do not share either the stated or unstated presuppositions that are driving our current policies.  I do not believe that they form part of a coherent strategy.  I do not think they will help Americans deal with China or the emerging world order of shifting power balances, in which the United States can no longer compete internationally with wealth and weaponry alone.

I have lived through several wars in which Washington attributed objectives to the other side that they didn’t have.

Deductive reasoning by analogy as opposed to inductive reasoning from empirically verified reality has a bad track record.  It took a while but, in the end, we came to realize that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were not – as we had supposed – wars of conquest by either China or the Soviet Union.  They were civil wars that lent themselves to becoming proxy wars.  The fact that they were not in fact motivated by a strategic challenge to us by other great powers is why we were able to limit them.

China is not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union.  China would love to see our hubristic global hegemony disappear.  But it has no desire to assume the burdens we bear.  It is not in search of Lebensraum, the annexation of its neighbors, or the imposition of its largely incomprehensible ideology on them or on us, still less the replacement of our global dominance by its own or that of any other overlord.   “Heute Taiwan, morgen die Welt” does not compute.  Leninism with Chinese characteristics is introverted, unlike the globally ambitious Soviet Communist Party (CPSU).  China demands respect from its neighbors.  It does not demand subservience from them or anyone else.

We’ve picked a fight with China.  We are in its face.  For now, it is not in ours.  Any fight will be mostly on China’s turf, not ours.

Both deductive reasoning by analogy and self-fulfilling paranoia are dangerous.  Both deny reality and, with enough charismatic effort, can be contagious.  We profess to be defending China’s neighbors against it, but we have had to make a significant effort to persuade them to agree that they need us to do that.  Most would rather we backed them as they come to grips with China’s return to wealth and power.

In many respects, China now not only overmatches us, but is widening the gap.  It produces thirty-six percent of the world’s manufactures to our one-sixth.  Its domestic economy is one-third larger than ours in purchasing power.  It lends the world $1 trillion or more each year, while we borrow more than that just to keep our government operating and our economy afloat.   China has become the undisputed center of its region’s economy.  It has more diplomatic representation in more places around the world than we do.  And, of course, it now has a larger navy, a highly competitive air force, and the world’s most capable rocket force.  China is, of course, no match for us in power projection capability but that is irrelevant.  It is focused on defending its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and periphery against us, not crossing the Pacific Ocean to attack us.  In anticipation of a showdown with us, it is building a very credible nuclear second-strike capability.

Enough said.

Declared policy and actual policy are seldom the same.  We are not blind to the hypocrisy of others.  We should not assume that they are blind to ours.  To the extent that our China policy now has identifiable goals, our de facto objectives appear to be:

• To retard or reverse China’s rise to wealth and power, including its scientific and technological progress, thereby preventing the eclipse of our own.
• To deny China a sphere of influence in Pacific Asia or political or economic influence in other regions and countries.
• To perpetuate the political and strategic separation of Taiwan from the rest of China through a combination of overt military deterrence and covert subversion of any cross-Strait negotiation of unification.
• To limit Chinese dual-use exports to Russia for use in the production of weapons it might deploy in Ukraine.
• To delegitimize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its ruling Communist Party (CPC) in hopeful anticipation of regime change in Beijing.

The successes or failures of policies do not depend on their political righteousness but on their results.  So far, our vociferous antagonism to China has:

• Nurtured a strategic partnership between China and Russia that looks very much like the Eurasian hegemonic coalition that U.S. strategists have always feared and sought to preclude. This partnership now leads the BRICS grouping and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which are merging into a rapidly expanding global coalition against U.S. hegemony.
• Boosted transfers of Russian weapons and military technology to China as well as joint Sino-Russian research and development (R&D) of weapons systems and activities in space, as symbolized by the plan for a joint Sino-Russian lunar base. We can no longer rule out the possibility that Russia will actively support a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military operation against Taiwan.
• Transferred the U.S. role in shaping the evolving trade and investment regimes in Pacific Asia to China, Japan, and ASEAN. We have abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its Japanese-sponsored successor, ignored the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and sabotaged the World Trade Organization (WTO) while adopting national security-based protectionism and refusing to negotiate bilateral or multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs).
• Significantly increased the danger of a Sino-American war, including a possible nuclear exchange, over Taiwan. Current U.S. policies are diplomacy-free, leave no apparent path to peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue, and rely exclusively on military support for Taipei that demonstrably provokes rather than deters Beijing.
• Turned territorial disputes between rival claimants in the South China Sea into a focus of Sino-American naval confrontation that risks the accidental outbreak of hostilities, while making no effort to promote the peaceful resolution of these disputes.
• Supercharged the Chinese effort to achieve scientific and technological supremacy. The Australian Strategic Technology Institute’s (ASTI’s) “critical technology tracker” reports that China has now seized the lead in thirty-seven of the forty-four technologies it tracks.
• Stimulated an intensified search by ever more nations for ways to avoid the dollar in trade settlement. Should they succeed, U.S. global hegemony will collapse, the American standard of living will abruptly fall, domestic inflation will reach catastrophic levels, and the U.S. national debt will become utterly unsustainable.

We should honor the rule of holes.  When in a deepening hole, stop digging.  Our China policies are not keeping China down or pushing it back.  They are doing the opposite, and they are at the same time progressively reordering the world to our disadvantage.

We cannot afford continued hubris and complacency.

It is a mistake to imagine that China policy can be fixed in isolation from overall U.S. grand strategy.  A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a desired objective through the lowest possible investment of effort, resources, and time with the fewest adverse consequences for oneself.  At the moment we have a determination to sustain our global primacy and our post-World War II sphere of influence in Pacific Asia but no strategy to accomplish this.  Doubling down on military spending will not do so.  Neither will isolating our economy from international competition with higher tariffs.  We must consider not only what might sustain our global and regional hegemony but whether it is, in fact, sustainable, and, if not, what alternatives to attempting to do so will yet “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

In my view, that is what we should be discussing in this forum.