Chas Freeman 美國用原子彈 與 中國拚命

美國與中國的競爭力如何？

https://chasfreeman.net/how-competitive-is-the-u-s-with-china/

查斯·弗裏曼 2025年4月18日和19日

致波士頓社區教會和東灣和平公民的講話
馬薩諸塞州波士頓和羅德島州布裏斯托爾 2025年4月18日和19日

我們美國人把未來押注在與中國的競爭上。贏得這場競爭的關鍵在於國內經濟和技術的革新，以及增強海外影響力。到目前為止，證據表明我們兩者都沒有實現，但我們剛剛與中國開始了一場永無休止的經濟戰爭。正在發生的事情讓我想起一句諺語：“神欲毀滅，必先使其瘋狂。”

我們的國家現在輕視公共服務。它正在用鏈鋸摧毀它的機構。這種自我破壞削弱了我們的國家能力，降低了我們的態勢感知能力，模糊了我們的決策，降低了基本的政府服務，並加劇而非緩解了民眾的不滿。這些趨勢促使對手利用美國的衰落。它們也使我們失去了盟友和朋友的尊重與支持。

長期以來，我們美國人一直否認我們麵臨的諸多國內外問題。如今，這些問題明顯惡化。潛意識裏，我們似乎理解這一點，但卻把責任推卸給所有人，而不是我們自己。我們的盟友和朋友看到我們混亂地發出威脅、征收關稅、覬覦領土。他們認為，我們的掠奪性行為是我們對很大程度上是我們自己造成的挑戰做出的非理性且不連貫的回應。

近30%的美國人選擇唐納德·J·特朗普作為我們的總統，希望他能“讓美國再次偉大”。但他和他那些未經選舉的億萬富翁夥伴、一群評論員以及網絡惡棍們所做的，非但不能糾正拜登政府笨手笨腳的遺產，反而損害了我們的長期競爭力和海外地位。

讓我來數一數：

我們的盟友。我們正在驚擾和疏遠那些曆史上對我們最友好、最忠誠的國家。我們威脅加拿大進行惡意收購；我們威脅要從丹麥手中奪取格陵蘭島（就像加拿大一樣，加拿大是北約盟友）。民意調查顯示，許多盟友現在把我們視為威脅，而不是夥伴或保護者。當我們把自己與全球貿易隔絕開來時，我們對待他們並不比對待敵人好。在一個關係日益鬆散的世界裏，這幾乎注定了其中一些國家會試圖將他們的命運與我們分開。

我們的朋友。我們正以經濟戰和軍事打擊的威脅欺淩墨西哥。對從墨西哥進口的產品征收關稅將使其進一步貧困化。失去生計的墨西哥人將逃離自己的國家，絕望地在我們國家尋求更好的生活。軍事威脅更有可能將墨西哥推向對手的懷抱，而非確保其合作。我們已將巴拿馬從一個可靠的朋友和其運營的運河的管理者變成了我們武裝部隊潛在侵略的可怕目標。通過疏遠鄰國，我們正在將我們曾經在西半球安全的勢力範圍向其以外的大國開放。
我們的道德立場。以色列對巴勒斯坦人進行的肆無忌憚的殲滅戰已經取代了歐洲猶太人大屠殺，成為全球邪惡的縮影。我們是以色列種族滅絕、虐待狂、土地掠奪和其他戰爭罪行的無恥幫凶。

我們作為仁慈國際行為者的聲譽。我們已經終止了對人道主義和發展援助的支持。曾經依附於我們和我們所宣稱的價值觀的國家現在認為我們既不道德又無情地自私。他們正在尋找其他的靈感和支持來源。他們會發現我們的對手渴望提供這兩者。中國和俄羅斯領導了最近曼德勒地震後的救援工作。我們缺席了。

我們作為一個光榮、守法國家的地位。我們因不尊重《聯合國憲章》及相關條約和公約、以站不住腳的借口入侵其他國家、不惜犧牲盟友和朋友的利益擴張領土、無原則地背棄莊嚴承諾以及懲罰那些試圖執行國際法的人而臭名昭著。現在其他人把我們的行為視為黑手黨老大，而不是國際社會負責任的成員。

我們在全球問題上的領導地位。我們退出了越來越多的國際規則製定機構，並且缺席了越來越多的多邊會議。我們放棄了外交和軍備控製作為加強全球穩定與和平的手段。我們的政府不再參與全球減緩或緩解氣候變化的努力。

我們的研發能力。美國大學長期以來一直是全球最強大的人才聚集地。聯邦政府削減研發支持，並限製簽證,現在，美國的目標明確地是削弱其文化影響力。美國的學術霸權正在消亡。

我們的經濟和技術競爭力。保護主義明確承認，我們當前經濟結構中的許多要素已無法抵禦外國競爭。我們禁止其他地方的技術創新進入我們市場的新習慣更是有害。這補貼並維持了缺乏競爭力的落後狀態。（以鋼鐵行業、電動汽車、TikTok、DeepSeek、太陽能電池板、風能和電信為例。）通過拒絕享受他人知識進步帶來的好處，我們選擇了一條必然導致技術劣勢的道路。

我們領先公司的市場。拒絕美國IT公司進入其最大的海外市場中國，剝奪了它們保持領先於中國和其他競爭對手所需的收入。

俗話說，當變革之風吹起時，有人築牆，有人造風車。美國不注重自我提升和抓住機遇，而是選擇在國際上炫耀我們日漸衰落的影響力。我們依賴強硬的經濟、金融或軍事脅迫來迫使其他國家就範。這絕非與中國或任何其他崛起或複興的大國競爭的良方，也絕非“為我們自己和子孫後代確保自由的福祉”的良方。

與此同時，盡管麵臨重重困難和不少錯誤政策，中國仍在繼續強勢發展。當我們把別人當作替罪羊並欺負他人時，中國人卻一心一意地專注於提升自身的經濟、科技實力。他們準備好、願意並且能夠與我們正在疏遠的外國夥伴接觸。中國經曆了幾個世紀的低迷，但它已經回歸——並且正在重拾其千年來世界最大經濟體的地位。[幻燈片2]

中國的經濟增速有所放緩，但其增速仍然是美國的兩倍。按購買力平價計算——這避免了美元高估造成的嚴重扭曲——中國經濟規模已比美國經濟規模大三分之一。[幻燈片3] 中國生產了全球超過三分之一的製成品。[幻燈片4] 中國是世界最大的貿易國，也是100多個國家的主要貿易夥伴。全球超過四分之一的STEM（科學、技術、工程和數學）從業人員是中國人，而且這一比例還在不斷增長。目前，全球近一半的專利申請來自中國。[幻燈片5]

美國的出口管製、製裁以及其他旨在阻礙或扭轉中國進步的舉措顯然並未奏效。這些舉措的主要效果是促使中國加倍努力實現自給自足，加大對科技的投入，進一步提高其本已強大的教育水平，並探索應對美國金融霸權的方法。最新的“自然指數”將哈佛大學評為自然科學和健康科學領域世界第一，麻省理工學院位列第十。中國大學則占據第二至第九位。[1]

中國對我們全球領先地位的挑戰來自經濟、科學和技術層麵。我國沿海沒有中國軍艦或轟炸機。中國不主張對我國提出任何領土主張。但是，根據我們高度軍事化的外交方針，我們對中國複興的回應幾乎完全是軍事性的。我們在中國周圍設立了針對中國的軍事基地。[幻燈片6] 我們每天在其海岸和島嶼堡壘進行三到四次積極巡邏。

75年前，我們進行了軍事幹預，將中國內戰的失敗方與中國其他地區隔離開來，以保護失敗方。自那時起，台灣問題就成了中美之間潛在的戰爭借口。我們拒絕透露是否會使用武力來對抗北京收複台灣的企圖。但中國人卻認為我們會這麽做。他們正在采取相應的行動。

其結果是中美緊張局勢升級，軍備競賽也隨之加劇，而我們的軍事指揮官認為我們正在走向失敗。當然，我們無法確定這是否隻是他們慣用的誇大威脅手段，目的是進一步增加預算，並滿足他們退役後期望加入的軍工複合體。

盡管如此，中國的軍事創新確實令人印象深刻。

擁有龐大的高精度導彈庫，其中一些能夠遠距離打擊海軍艦艇，另一些是高超音速導彈，還有許多是公路機動導彈。

擁有迄今為止世界規模最大的海軍，包括性能日益強大的飛機和航母，以及潛艇、世界一流的無人機、創新型登陸艇、遠程艦對艦導彈和電磁炮。

擁有世界第三大空軍，包括第五代和原型“第六代”飛機。先進的防空、電子戰以及網絡攻擊能力。

任何中美戰爭的初始戰場都將在中國，包括台灣及其近海。中國將在自家門口作戰，擁有極短的通信線路和補給線。美國將向距離我國西海岸超過7000英裏的戰場投射兵力。中國將享有采取防禦態勢的諸多優勢。從北京的角度來看，這場戰爭將是為了收複中國領土並保衛其免受外來攻擊——而這些事情中國人比美國人更關心。

多項兵棋推演預測，中美因台開戰可能使雙方損失大部分海軍和飛機。中國擁有更新艦艇和飛機的工業升級能力，而我們沒有。如此大規模的損失不僅會使其失去在亞太地區長達80年的主導地位，還將削弱美國作為全球強國的地位。

一場圍繞台灣政治地位的戰爭，其必然結果將是摧毀台灣的民主、繁榮和工業基礎。台灣先進電子工業的毀滅將對世界經濟造成巨大的附帶損害。即使戰爭沒有升級到核戰爭（雙方都認為有這種可能），也不會有贏家。

盡管如此，美國目前在太平洋和南亞的政策重點是準備與中國進行跨太平洋戰爭，並說服美國在該地區的盟友允許美國使用其領土上的軍事基地對抗中國。作為回應，中國正在準備與美國開戰。

美國和中國的國防預算結構差異巨大，難以進行比較。兩國都省去了大量的軍事相關支出，並將其納入其他預算。然而，總體而言，中國目前的國防支出似乎不到其GDP的2%，而僅美國國防部的預算就約占GDP的3.6%。如果將美國軍事相關支出納入其他部門和機構的預算，美國軍事支出總額將達到美國GDP的約5.4%。

這種支出水平的差異反映了許多因素，其中最重要的因素是中國人民解放軍專注於維護中國本土及周邊地區的安全，而美國的軍事力量結構旨在通過將美國力量投射到世界各個角落來維護美國的全球主導地位，而不是保衛美國本土。我們的“國防部”名稱不實。實際上，它是一個“進攻部門”。如果美國人的關注點真的僅限於保衛自己，我們的支出就會少得多。我們還會將外交視為一種更經濟、更可靠的方式，可以結交更多朋友，減少敵人。

當然，國防預算並不能決定戰爭的結果。但熱情的平衡往往可以，正如我們阻止越南統一或平定阿富汗的努力失敗所提醒我們的那樣。如果美國與中國民族主義因台灣問題展開血腥交鋒，那麽狂熱的天平將大大有利於中國。軍事平衡也將日益有利於中國。雙方準備戰爭的程度越高，戰爭爆發的可能性就越大。

美國的政策已經從支持和平解決台北與北京之間的分歧，轉變為事實上支持台灣無限期地脫離中國大陸。這種做法拒絕外交手段，完全依賴軍事姿態對抗中國。這直接挑戰了中國的主權、領土完整、國家安全以及自尊心。

中國認為，美國對烏克蘭戰爭的政策演變與美國對烏克蘭戰爭的政策演變有著令人不安的相似之處。美國的目標並非促進烏克蘭的福祉或國內安寧——更不是拯救烏克蘭人的生命——而是反擊、“孤立和削弱俄羅斯”。

同樣，在台灣問題上，美國似乎更關心的不是台灣及其居民，而是向中國表明誰才是真正的主人，削弱中國，並遏製其在海外的影響力。中國反對戰略性地利用台灣來對抗自身，就像俄羅斯反對將烏克蘭納入敵對聯盟，或美國反對蘇聯在古巴島上的威脅性存在一樣。

俄羅斯在烏克蘭的“特別軍事行動”一直受到謹慎的限製。這似乎表明超級大國可以在不訴諸核武器的情況下進行代理人戰爭。但圍繞台灣的戰爭並非在朝鮮、越南或烏克蘭等第三國進行的代理人戰爭，而是在公認的中國領土——台灣和中國大陸——上，美中兩國軍隊直接進行的戰爭。這樣的戰爭不可能也不會是“有限的”。

中國人必然會以反擊我們來回應美國對其部分領土的破壞。雙方都可能試圖使用核武器來使對方喪失能力

美國目前正在進行一項大規模的核力量現代化計劃，其明確目的是在與中國的戰爭中取得勝利。

美國仍然是唯一一個對其他國家使用過核武器的國家。美國的核理論明確授權對敵人進行先發製人的核打擊，無論其是否擁有核武器。過去，我國政府至少三次威脅要對中國發動核攻擊。我們從未保證過不會再次這樣做。

此事以及中美因台海爆發戰爭的可能性日益增加，促使中國核戰略發生了變化。長期以來，中國滿足於最低限度的核能力——一種能夠通過對敵人造成足夠打擊，使其三思而後行，以應對核攻擊的核打擊，使其在使用核武器攻擊中國任何地區之前三思而行。但現在，中國正在擁抱“相互確保摧毀”的理念，並正在打造一支核力量，如果美國使用核武器攻擊美國，這支力量足以摧毀美國。

一場不僅無法取勝，而且可能危及生死的戰爭顯然不應該打。我們的外交重點應該確保它永遠不會發生。因此，像我們目前的政策那樣，不依賴外交手段、全程軍事部署的美國對華政策毫無意義。

中國的軍事態勢是防禦性的。我們的軍隊就在中國的麵前。而中國人民解放軍卻不在我們的麵前。除非我們迫使它以牙還牙，否則它不會出現在我們的海岸或西半球。我們目前的政策最終可能會促使中國也這麽做。

這凸顯了美國人應對中國重返千年財富和強國的荒謬性。中國對美國全球主導地位和亞太地區主導地位的衰落，其根源在於其日益增長的科學、技術和經濟活力。 [幻燈片 7] 即使中華人民共和國如今已建立了強大的自衛能力，它也並非軍事力量。

與蘇聯不同，中國不會占領其他國家，也不會試圖將其威權主義意識形態強加於其他國家或我們。與納粹德國不同，中國並非尋求“生存空間”。與日本帝國或歐洲帝國主義不同，中國不追求對外國自然資源或勞動力的軍事殖民控製。中國也不尋求複製過去帝國的市場偏好和重商主義。

這些類比是錯誤的。但源於對美國衰落的焦慮的群體思維，已將這些類比以及缺乏證據的推測轉化為公認的“公理”，不斷被重申，不容置疑。我們目前的對華政策建立在基於推測的“政治正確”假設之上，而非它們所歪曲的現實。這些假設教條主義、妄想且危險，並且伴隨著高昂的機會成本。

這種情況下的諷刺之處比比皆是。

我們美國人指責中國試圖用自己的世界秩序取代美國主導的世界秩序。但中國對戰後世界秩序的核心理念——自由貿易和多邊主義——的堅持遠勝於我們現在。中國已融入該秩序，並利用其規則推進中國利益。與我們不同，中國沒有退出世界貿易組織（WTO），沒有發動貿易保護主義戰，也沒有譴責國際法院（ICJ）等國際機構履行職責。中國參與創建的新機構，例如亞洲基礎設施開發銀行，是對世界銀行等布雷頓森林體係機構的補充，並借鑒了它們的規則。它們補充而非取代了既有的世界秩序。中國是《聯合國憲章》及其旨在規範的威斯特伐利亞秩序的最堅定支持者之一。

我們指責中國“侵略”。中國確實捍衛了其長期以來對近海島嶼、島礁和漁場的主權，對抗其他聲索國，以及與印度存在爭議的邊界。但它並沒有像我們一樣對其他國家發動全麵戰爭、入侵、肢解或占領。它並不尋求吞並這些領土或占領其他國家的運河。與我們不同，中國沒有支持以色列等其他國家發動殲滅戰和領土擴張戰爭。相反，它積極充當和平締造者和調解人，尤其是在沙特阿拉伯和伊朗之間。

我們指責中國試圖阻撓我們“孤立和削弱”俄羅斯的行動。但中國既不承認克裏米亞和其他俄語州脫離烏克蘭，也不承認北約強行將科索沃從塞爾維亞分離。中國繼續與烏克蘭和俄羅斯進行貿易。如果中國肯定不是“與我們同在”，那它就不一定是“與我們為敵”。

我們指責中國“惡意行為”。實際上，這似乎意味著，我們國際影響力的任何削弱，無論發生在何處，都

始終是中國經濟發展的最大貢獻者。中國已成為亞洲、非洲和拉丁美洲國家經濟發展的最大貢獻者。它現在或許會試圖填補我們突然擁抱保護主義和惡意停止對外援助所造成的真空，也或許不會。其他國家正準備要求它這樣做。我們將拭目以待，看看它會如何回應。

中國及其政治體製有很多值得批評的地方。中國的問題也遠不止於此。但解決這些問題的是中國人，而不是我們。在這種背景下，試圖通過鏡像來描繪一幅世界大多數人認為更能描述我們的中國畫像，不僅是錯誤的政策依據，而且會適得其反。

將中國描述為對我們當前內部混亂和頹廢、財政匱乏、寡頭和富豪統治的經濟、自滿的優越感、沙文主義外交政策、剝奪就業機會的金融資本主義以及崩潰的教育水平的“係統性挑戰”是完全正確的。但對美國人來說，關鍵問題是該如何應對這些事情。中國體製的許多方麵或許值得我們借鑒，但我們現在正在不經意間效仿的威權主義和對法治的漠視，不應成為其中之一。

我們不能重複“遏製”戰略，該戰略曾成功孤立了蘇聯，直至其因自身缺陷而屈服。試圖對中國采取這種戰略，隻會讓我們孤立貧困，而不是讓中國陷入困境。中國的表現遠超我們。它麵臨著諸多挑戰，但社會穩定，經濟高效，科技實力不斷增強，創新意識日益增強，國際參與度也不斷提升。我們或許會對全球化發出咆哮，但全球化仍在繼續，即使沒有我們。中國既是全球化的中心，也是全球化的主要受益者。

試圖通過切斷與中國乃至世界的聯係來維護我們的全球主導地位和亞太霸權，是在逃避改革我們體係、使其更具競爭力的迫切需要。專注於限製中國而不是齊心協力，必然會付出巨大的機會成本。

我們依賴信貸展期和金字塔式的債務，卻拒絕接受來自中國的投資。中國資本雄厚，準備資助我們破敗的基礎設施建設，在美國建立新工廠，並幫助擴大美國農業生產，以確保我們和其本國人民的糧食供應。中國擁有我們實現電力化所需的可再生能源技術，但我們似乎執意阻撓或禁止我們的公司進口或采用這些技術。我們的經濟是互補的，正如我們相互依存關係充分證明的那樣。我們需要與中國重新建立聯係。

在這方麵，謾罵並不能取代外交對話。它會疏遠我們，卻無法說服我們。特朗普政府至少有一件事非常正確。美國的安全並非依賴於強迫外國人認同我們的價值觀。我們可以通過摒棄那種不切實際地強迫他人認同我們日益不切實際的自我形象的思維模式，從而“讓美國真正地再次偉大”。相反，我們應該努力理解其他民族——包括中國人，尊重他們的本質和身份，並盡最大努力利用他們的繁榮和技術進步來提升我們自身的繁榮和技術進步。

How Competitive is the U.S. with China?

https://chasfreeman.net/how-competitive-is-the-u-s-with-china/

Chas Freeman April 18 & 19, 2025

Remarks to the Boston Community Church & East Bay Citizens for Peace
Boston, Massachusetts & Bristol, Rhode Island April 18 & 19, 2025

We Americans have bet our future on competition with China.  The keys to winning this competition are domestic economic and technological renewal as well as enhanced influence abroad.  So far, the evidence suggests that we are achieving neither, yet we have just started an economic forever war with China.  What is happening reminds me of the saying: QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE, PRIUS DEMENTAT.  “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”  

Our country now disparages public service.  It is taking a chain saw to its institutions.  Such self-sabotage weakens our state capacity, reduces our situational awareness, clouds our decision making, degrades essential government services, and fuels rather than alleviates popular discontent.  These trends invite adversaries to exploit American decline.  They also cost us the respect and support of allies and friends.

We Americans have long been in denial about our many domestic and foreign problems.  They are now visibly getting worse.  Subconsciously, we appear to understand this, but we blame it on everyone but ourselves.  Our allies and friends see us chaotically making threats, imposing tariffs, and coveting territory.  They view our predatory behavior as an irrational and incoherent response by us to challenges that are largely of our own making.

Just short of 30 percent of Americans chose Donald J. Trump as our president in the hope that he would “make America great again.”  But what he and his unelected billionaire buddies, band of talking heads, and digital delinquents are doing is not correcting the bumbling Biden administration’s legacy but undermining both our long-term competitiveness and our standing abroad.

Let me count the ways:

• Our alliances. We are alarming and alienating those countries historically most friendly and loyal to us.  We menace Canada with hostile takeover    We threaten to seize Greenland from Denmark (like Canada, a NATO ally).  Polls show that many allies now regard us as a threat rather than a partner or protector.  As we shut ourselves off from global trade, we treat them no better than our foes.  In a world of loosening relationships, this all but guarantees that some of them will seek to separate their fates from ours.
• Our friends. We are bullying Mexico with threats of economic warfare and military attack.  Tariffs on imports from Mexico would further impoverish it.  Deprived of their livelihood, more Mexicans will flee their country in a desperate search for a better life in ours.  Military threats are more likely to drive Mexico into the arms of our adversaries than to secure its cooperation.  We have transformed Panamá from a reliable friend and manager of the canal it operates into a fearful target of potential aggression by our armed forces.  By alienating neighbors, we are opening our formerly secure sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere to inroads by great powers beyond it.
• Our moral standing. Israel’s cynical war of annihilation against the Palestinians has supplanted the European Jewish Holocaust as the global epitome of evil.  We are shameless accomplices in Israel’s genocide, sadism, land grabs, and other war crimes.
• Our reputation as a beneficent international actor. We have ended our support for humanitarian and development assistance.  Countries that once clung to us and our professed values now see us as both amoral and heartlessly selfish.  They are looking for alternative sources of inspiration and support.  They will find our adversaries eager to supply both.   China and Russia led the relief effort that followed the recent earthquake in Mandalay.  We were absent.
• Our stature as an honorable, law-abiding nation. We have become infamous for our disrespect of the UN Charter and related treaties and conventions, our invasions of other countries on flimsy pretexts, our pursuit of territorial aggrandizement at the expense of both allies and friends, our unprincipled abandonment of solemnly contracted commitments, and our punishment of those attempting to enforce international law.  Others now see our behavior as that of a Mafia don, not a responsible member of the international community.
• Our leadership on planetwide problems. We have withdrawn from an increasing number of international rule-setting bodies and are absent from ever more multilateral meetings.  We have abandoned both diplomacy and arms control as means by which to bolster global stability and peace.  Our government is no longer part of the global effort to retard or mitigate climate change.
• Our research and development capabilities. U.S. universities have long been the world’s most powerful magnets for global talent.  Cuts in federal support for R&D and visa restrictions now aim explicitly to debase their cultural influence.  American academic hegemony is on the way out.
• Our economic and technological competitiveness. Protectionism is an explicit admission that many elements of our economy as currently structured can no longer stand up to foreign competition.  Our new habit of banning technological innovations made elsewhere from our market is even more damaging.  This subsidizes and preserves uncompetitive backwardness.  (Consider the steel industry, electric vehicles, TikTok, DeepSeek, solar panels, wind power, and telecommunications as examples.)  By denying ourselves the benefits of intellectual advances by others, we have chosen a path that leads inexorably to technological inferiority.
• Our leading companies’ markets. Denying U.S. IT companies access to China, their largest overseas market, deprives them of the revenue they need to stay ahead of their Chinese and other competitors.

As the saying goes, when the winds of change blow, some people build walls, while others build windmills.    Rather than focusing on self-improvement and seizing opportunities, Americans have chosen to throw our declining weight around internationally.  We rely on brute-force economic, financial, or military coercion to bring other countries to heel.   This is no way to compete with China or any other rising or resurgent great power.  And it is no way to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Meanwhile, despite many difficulties and not a few mistaken policies, China continues to power ahead.  While we scapegoat and bully others, the Chinese remain single-mindedly focused on enhancing their economic, scientific, and technological prowess.  They are ready, willing, and able to reach out to the foreign partners we are alienating.  China had a couple of bad centuries, but it is back – and in the process of resuming its millennial position as the world’s largest economy.  [slide 2]

China’s growth has slowed, but it is still growing twice as fast as the United States.  In purchasing power terms – which avoid the significant distortions imposed by an overvalued U.S. dollar – the Chinese economy is already one-third larger than ours.  [slide 3] China produces more than one third of the world’s manufactures.  [slide 4] It is the world’s largest trading nation and the principal trading partner of more than 100 countries.  Over one-fourth of the world’s STEM workers are Chinese.  That proportion is growing.  Nearly half of the world’s patent applications now originate in China. [slide 5]

U.S. export controls, sanctions, and other efforts to hamstring or reverse Chinese advances are demonstrably not working.  Their main effects have been to stimulate China to redouble its efforts to become self-sufficient, to boost its commitment to science and technology, to further improve its already formidable educational standards, and to explore ways to counter U.S. financial hegemony.   The latest “Nature Index” rates Harvard as the world’s number one university in natural and health sciences, with MIT in tenth place.  Chinese universities hold places two through nine.[1]

China’s challenges to our global preeminence are economic, scientific, and technological.  There are no Chinese warships or bombers off our coasts.   China espouses no territorial claims against us.  But, in accordance with our heavily militarized approach to foreign affairs, our response to China’s resurgence is almost entirely military.  We have ringed China with bases aimed at it.  [slide 6] We conduct three or four aggressive patrols of its coasts and island bastions daily.

Seventy-five years ago, we intervened militarily to protect the losing side of the Chinese civil war by separating it and Taiwan from the rest of China.  Since then, the Taiwan issue has been an embryonic Sino-American casus belli.  We refuse to say whether we would use force to counter an attempt by Beijing to recover it.  But the Chinese assume we would.  They are acting accordingly.

The result is escalating Sino-American tension and an arms race that our military commanders suggest we are in the process of losing.  Of course, we can’t be sure this isn’t just their usual use of threat inflation to further inflate their budgets and gratify the military-industrial complex they expect to join upon retirement.

Still, Chinese military innovations are indeed impressive.

• A huge arsenal of very accurate missiles, including some capable of striking naval vessels at long distances, others that are hypersonic, and many that are road mobile.
• By far the world’s largest navy, including ever more capable aircraft and carriers for them as well as submarines, world-beating drones, innovative landing craft, long-range ship-to-ship missiles, and rail guns.
• The world’s third largest air force, including both fifth generation and prototype “sixth generation” aircraft. Advanced air defenses and electronic warfare as well as cyber-attack capabilities.

The initial battleground in any US-China war would be in China, including Taiwan, and China’s near seas.  China would be fighting on its own doorstep, enjoying very short lines of communication and supply lines.  The United States be projecting power to a battlefield over 7,000 miles away from our West Coast.  China would enjoy the many advantages of being on the defensive.  From Beijing’s perspective, the war would be about recovering and defending Chinese territory against foreign attack – about things that Chinese care much more about than Americans do.

Multiple wargames predict that a US-China war over Taiwan could cost both sides the bulk of their navies and aircraft.  China has the industrial surge capacity to replace its ships and aircraft, but we do not.  Losses on the scale predicted would cripple the United States as a global power, not just cost it its eight-decade-old dominance of Pacific Asia.

The one certain outcome of a war over the political status of Taiwan would be the destruction of its democracy as well as its prosperity and industrial base.  The ruin of Taiwan’s advanced electronic industries would ensure huge collateral damage to the world economy.  Such a war would have no winners even if it did not escalate to the nuclear level (which both sides assume it could).

Notwithstanding this, the focus of U.S. policy in Pacific and South Asia at present is on preparing for a trans-Pacific war with China and on persuading U.S. allies in the region to let Americans use bases on their territory against China.  In response, China is preparing for war with America.

The U.S. and China’s defense budgets are structured so differently that it is hard to compare them.  Both omit significant amounts of military-related spending and cover them in other budgets.  All in all, however, China now appears to be spending less than 2 percent of its GDP on national defense, while the U.S. defense department’s budget alone is about 3.6 percent of GDP.   Including U.S. military-related spending in other departments’ and agencies’ budgets brings total U.S. military spending to about 5.4 percent of U.S. GDP.

The disparity in spending levels reflects many factors, not least of which is the People’s Liberation Army’s exclusive focus on the security of the Chinese homeland and adjacent areas versus a U.S. military force structure designed to preserve U.S. global primacy by projecting American power to every corner of the world rather than to defend the American homeland.  Our “defense department” is misnamed.  In reality, it is  an “offense department.”   If Americans’ concern were truly limited to defending ourselves, we would spend a lot less.  We would also consider diplomacy as a cheaper and more reliable way to make more friends and fewer enemies.

Of course, defense budgets do not decide the outcome of warfare.  But the balance of fervor often does, as the failure of our effort to prevent the unification of Vietnam or to pacify Afghanistan should remind us.  In a bloody American rendezvous with Chinese nationalism over Taiwan, the balance of fervor would strongly favor China.  So, increasingly, would the military balance.  The more both sides prepare for war, the more likely it becomes.

U.S. policy has shifted from favoring a peaceful settlement of the divisions between Taipei and Beijing to de facto support for Taiwan’s indefinite separation from the China mainland.  This approach rejects diplomacy to rely entirely on military posturing against China.  It is a direct challenge to China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security as well as to its amour-propre.

China sees unsettling analogies to the evolution of U.S. policy toward the war in Ukraine.  The U.S. objective has not been to promote Ukraine’s wellbeing or its domestic tranquility – still less to save Ukrainian lives – but to counter, “isolate, and weaken Russia.”

Similarly, in the case of Taiwan, the U.S. seems less concerned about Taiwan and its inhabitants than about showing China who’s boss, weakening it, and containing its influence abroad.  China is as opposed to the strategic use of Taiwan against it as Russia has been to the incorporation of Ukraine into an alliance hostile to it, or as the United States was to a menacing Soviet presence on the island of Cuba.

Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has been carefully limited.  It may seem to demonstrate that superpowers can conduct a proxy war without resorting to nuclear weapons.  But a war over Taiwan would not be a proxy war fought in a third country like Korea, Vietnam, or Ukraine but a war conducted directly between U.S. and Chinese forces on territory universally acknowledged to be Chinese – Taiwan and the China mainland.  Such a war could not and would not be “limited.”

The Chinese would inevitably respond to U.S. devastation of parts of their homeland by counterattacking ours.  Each side would be tempted to employ nuclear weapons to incapacitate the other.  The United States is currently engaged in a massive program of nuclear force modernization aimed explicitly at prevailing in a war with China.

The United States remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons against another people.  U.S. nuclear doctrine explicitly authorizes a nuclear first strike on enemies, whether nuclear-armed or not.  In the past, on at least three occasions, our government has threatened to launch a nuclear attack on China.  We have provided no assurance that we will not do so again.

This and the mounting likelihood of a Sino-American war over Taiwan have catalyzed a change in Chinese nuclear strategy.  China was long content with a minimal nuclear capability – a force de frappe – one able to respond to a nuclear attack by taking enough of a bite out of the enemy to cause it to think twice about using nuclear weapons to attack any part of China.  But China is now embracing “mutually assured destruction” and building a nuclear force that could destroy the United States, if Americans use nuclear weapons to attack it.

A war that not only cannot be won but that also risks becoming existential should obviously never be fought.  Our diplomacy should focus on ensuring that it never is.  A diplomacy-free, all-military-all-the-time U.S. policy toward China like our current policy therefore makes no sense.

China’s military posture is defensive.  Our military is in China’s face.  The People’s Liberation Army is not in ours.  It will not appear off our coasts or in our hemisphere unless we drive it to reciprocate our threatening presence on its borders.  Our current policies risk convincing China eventually to do just that.

This underscores the absurdity of how Americans are dealing with China’s return to its millennial wealth and power.  China’s eclipse of U.S. global primacy and dominance of Pacific Asia is grounded in its growing scientific, technological, and economic dynamism.  [slide 7]   It is not military, even if the People’s Republic has now built a formidable capacity to defend itself.

Unlike the Soviet Union, China does not occupy other countries or seek to impose its authoritarian ideology on them or us.  Unlike Nazi Germany, China is not in search of “Lebensraum.”  Unlike Imperial Japan or European imperialists, China does not pursue military-colonial control of foreign natural resources or labor.  Nor does China seek to replicate the imperial market preferences and mercantilism of past empires.

These analogies are false.  But groupthink born of anxieties about American decline has transformed them and evidence-free conjectures into accepted “axioms” that are constantly reiterated and that cannot be questioned.  Our present China policies are based on “politically correct” assumptions born of conjectures rather than the realities they misdescribe.  They are dogmatic, delusional, and dangerous.  And they come with high opportunity costs.

The ironies in this situation abound.

We Americans accuse China of seeking to replace the US-sponsored world order with its own.  But China is far more committed to the post-war order’s core ideas of free trade and multilateralism than we now are.  It has integrated itself into that order and used its rules to advance Chinese interests.  Unlike us, China has not withdrawn from the World Trade Organization (WTO), launched protectionist trade wars, or condemned international institutions like the World Court (ICJ) for doing their job.  The new institutions China has helped create, like the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, complement Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and mirror their rules.  They supplement rather than replace the pre-existing world order.  China is among the staunchest supporters of the United Nations Charter and the Westphalian order it is meant to regulate.

We accuse China of “aggression.”  China has indeed defended its longstanding claims to islets, reefs, and fishing grounds against other claimants in its near seas and its disputed border with India, but it has not made all-out war on, invaded, dismembered, or occupied other countries as we have.  It does not seek to annex the territories or take possession of the canals in other countries.  Unlike us, China has not backed others, like Israel, in wars of annihilation and territorial aggrandizement.  Instead, it has made itself available as a peacemaker and mediator, most notably between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

We accuse China of attempting to thwart our campaign to “isolate and weaken” Russia.  But China has not recognized the separation of Crimea and other Russian-speaking oblasts from Ukraine any more than it has recognized NATO’s forced separation of Kosovo from Serbia.  China continues to trade with both Ukraine and Russia.  If China is definitely not “with us,” it is not necessarily “against us.”

We accuse China of “malign behavior.”  In practice, this seems to mean any reduction in our international influence, wherever it occurs, whatever the cause.  China has emerged as the largest contributor to the economic development of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  It may or may not now attempt to fill the vacuum that our sudden embrace of protectionism and our mean-spirited cessation of foreign assistance have created.  Other countries are poised to ask it to do so.  We shall see how it responds.

There are lots of things to criticize about China and its political system.  China also has more than its fair share of problems.  But it is for Chinese, not us, to deal with them.  In this context, mirror-imaging to produce a portrait of China that much of the world would say better describes us is not just a faulty basis for policy but counterproductive.

It is entirely correct to describe China as a “systemic challenge” to our current internal disorder and decadence, fiscal improvidence, oligopoly- and plutocracy-dominated economy, complacent sense of superiority, jingoistic foreign policy, job-stripping financial capitalism, and collapsing educational standards.  But the operative question for Americans is what to do about these things.  There are many elements of the Chinese system from which we might usefully draw inspiration, but China’s authoritarianism and disrespect for the rule of law, which we are now inadvertently emulating, should not be among them.

We cannot replay the strategy of “containment” that successfully isolated the Soviet Union until it succumbed to its own defects.  Attempting to do so with China will isolate and impoverish us rather than the Chinese.  China is outperforming us.  It faces many challenges, but it is socially stable, economically productive, ever more scientifically and technologically capable, increasingly innovative, and internationally engaged.  We may snarl at globalization, but it is continuing without us.  And China remains both at its center and a major beneficiary of it.

Attempting to perpetuate our global primacy and Pacific-Asian hegemony by cutting ourselves off from China and the world is an evasion of the pressing need to reform our system to make it more competitive.  Focusing on hamstringing China rather than getting our own act together entails huge opportunity costs.

We live on credit rollovers and pyramiding debt, yet we refuse to accept investment from China, which is capital rich and prepared to finance improvements in our failing infrastructure, establish new factories here, and help expand U.S. agricultural production to assure food supplies for its own population as well as ours.  China has the renewable energy technologies we need to go electric, but we seem determined to obstruct or ban our companies from importing or adopting them.  Our economies are complementary, as their interdependence has amply demonstrated.  We need a reset with China.

In this connection, diatribe is no substitute for diplomatic dialogue.  It alienates and does not persuade.  The Trump administration has at least one thing very right.  U.S. security does not depend on coercing foreigners into conformity with our values.  We could “make America [truly] great again” by moving away from a mindset that quixotically insists on compelling others to conform to our increasingly unrealistic self-image.  Instead, we should seek to understand other peoples – including the Chinese, respect them for who and what they are, and do our best to leverage their prosperity and technological advances to enhance our own.

[1] https://www.nature.com/nature-index/research-leaders/2024/institution/academic/all/all