Victor Hanson 美中對抗在定義全球秩序

維克多·戴維斯·漢森：美中對抗將定義全球秩序

維克多·戴維斯·漢森 2019年5月20日

https://www.hoover.org/news/victor-davis-hanson-us-china-confrontation-will-define-global-order

美國正處於與日益咄咄逼人的中國的十字路口，這可能會決定未來幾十年美國的安全和國際秩序。

胡佛學者維克多·戴維斯·漢森表示，美國正處於與日益咄咄逼人的中國的十字路口，這可能會決定未來幾十年美國的安全和國際秩序。

漢森是胡佛研究所的馬丁和伊利·安德森高級研究員，研究軍事史和古典文學。去年，漢森榮獲埃德蒙·伯克獎，該獎項旨在表彰為捍衛西方文明做出重大貢獻的人士。他是2019年出版的《特朗普的理由》一書和2017年出版的《第二次世界大戰》一書的作者。他最近就美國對華政策接受了采訪：

特朗普這些關稅背後的短期和長期策略是什麽？

漢森：短期來看，特朗普認為他可以承受中國互惠關稅的打擊，因為他的反對派民主黨幾十年來一直在悄悄地抨擊中國的欺騙行為；其次，美國經濟規模龐大且多元化，中國根本無法造成嚴重損害。

別忘了，美國的國土麵積隻有中國的三分之一，但年國內生產總值卻是中國的兩倍多，擁有遠超中國軍隊的強大力量和遠超中國盟友——同時，美國還擁有遠超中國影響力的全球文化、遠超中國先進的高等教育和技術創新體係。中國的亞洲鄰國以及我們自己的歐盟盟友們暗自希望特朗普能夠遏製並遏製中國的重商主義，同時公開地、形式上地譴責甚至譴責特朗普的邊緣政策以及他訴諸關稅和高調勸說等僵化策略的做法。

特朗普認為，從長遠來看，如果目前的趨勢不逆轉，中國理論上可以趕上並超越美國。作為一個專製的、反民主的超級大國，中國的全球主導地位將不同於美國主導的戰後秩序，而是一種中國遵循一套規則，並把一套截然不同的規則強加於其他所有人的秩序——或許有一天，它會類似於在中國國內強加於本國人民的製度。

中國現在是否比冷戰時期的俄羅斯更強大？如果是，為什麽？

漢森：是的。它的人口甚至比前蘇聯帝國還要多五倍。中國的經濟規模遠超美國，超過一百萬中國學生和商界人士在歐美高校就讀，並受中國公司派駐海外。因此，與舊蘇聯不同，中國在文化、經濟和政治上都與西方融為一體。蘇聯——就像毛澤東時代的中國一樣——從未租借西方港口，從未與好萊塢爭奪不雅影片，從未偽裝成亞洲價值觀的可靠捍衛者，從未持有西方公司的大量股份，也從未積累過與西方國家的巨額貿易順差。與中國當前的努力相比，蘇聯的宣傳和間諜活動顯得粗暴無禮。

正如特朗普政府所說，中國在貿易和知識產權方麵究竟做了什麽欺騙行為？美國該如何阻止這種行為？

漢森：中國不尊重專利和版權法。它仍然出口仿冒品和假冒產品。它通過大量的間諜活動竊取研發投資。它操縱貨幣。

它的國有企業以低於生產成本的價格出口商品，以搶占市場份額。它要求外國公司交出技術，作為在中國做生意的代價。而且，最重要的是，它假定，甚至要求，西方國家不要效仿其在國際上的流氓行徑——否則後果自負。

結果形成了一個奇怪的悖論：美國和歐洲認為中國是國際商業的不法之徒，但補救措施卻被認為比疾病本身更糟糕。因此，許多西方公司通過合作項目在中國賺取了巨額利潤，許多學術機構依賴中國學生，許多金融機構在中國投資，以至於質疑其重商主義就會被嘲笑為古怪的民族主義者、危險的保護主義者或名副其實的種族主義者。中國是西方受害者學的敏銳學習者，總是擺出一副西方報複、種族主義或幼稚嫉妒的姿態。

補救措施？首先，我們必須放棄40年來的幻想，即中國越富裕，就會變得越西方化、越自由化；或者說中國越熟悉西方，就越欣賞和尊重西方的價值觀；或者說中國內部問題太多，不可能對西方構成威脅；或者說西方在外交政策上表現出的寬宏大量

中美關係和貿易關係將受到重視，並得到相應的回報。相反，更好的範例是1930年至1941年間的日本帝國。當時，東京吸納了亞洲盟友；派遣了25萬名學生和武官前往西方學習或竊取技術和理論；迅速西化；宣稱西方殖民列強和美國已經疲憊不堪，在太平洋地區沒有任何合法業務；並認為其自身的威權主義是自由市場資本主義更好的合作夥伴，遠勝於西方那些混亂笨拙的民主國家。

中國如今如何能夠利用其實力可能略遜一籌的軍事力量在全球範圍內與美國對抗？

漢森：中國近期還無法稱霸全球海軍。其海軍戰略更像1939年至1941年的德國海軍，後者試圖在不匹敵其全球影響力的情況下，阻止擁有巨大優勢的皇家海軍進入戰略要地。中國正在開辟一些區域，以便岸基炮台和沿海艦隊能夠發射密集的導彈，摧毀價值數十億美元的美國航母。中國租賃的50多個戰略要地港口，在全球緊張局勢下，或許可以作為武裝商船的中轉站。但目前，這些港口尚不具備美國航母、潛艇艦隊或遠征海軍陸戰隊的能力——因此，關鍵在於阻止美國擴張勢力範圍，而不是效仿其擴張範圍。

為什麽現任政府在多個不同方麵和層麵對抗中國時，其政策與過去不同？

漢森：特朗普認為，經濟實力是全球影響力的關鍵。沒有經濟實力，軍事力量就會枯萎。一個GDP年增長率達到3%、能源獨立、充分就業、勞動生產率不斷提高且貿易對稱的國家，可以重新與中國的重商主義進行談判，並讓中國的亞洲鄰國放心，他們無需姑息其侵略行為。曆屆政府或許都認同中國違反版權法和專利法、傾銷補貼商品、盜用技術，並運營著龐大的全球間諜機構，但他們認為補救措施要麽不可能，要麽危險，因此本質上是通過談判來減緩所謂的中國注定的全球霸權。特朗普願意與中國對抗，以實現公平貿易而非自由貿易，並承受隨之而來的指責，稱他是某種關稅戰的尼安德特人。

還有其他想法嗎？

漢森：我認為國務卿邁克·蓬佩奧領導的國務院是第一個公開質疑中國最終將統治世界這一觀點的政府，並提出了一項戰略計劃來製約其貿易和政治議程。在這方麵，胡佛研究所的多位學者目前正與胡佛研究員、美國國務院政策規劃主任基倫·斯金納合作，提出一些不同於美國過去正統做法的替代方案，但他們也指出，國家間關係中最危險的時期是從事實上的綏靖政策向對稱政策的轉變——鑒於過去的異常行為已被視為“正常”，而一個國家為重新調整關係而做出的正常努力卻被斥為危險的“異常”。

維克多·戴維斯·漢森也是胡佛研究所“軍事史在當代衝突中的作用”工作組主席。

Victor Davis Hanson: US-China Confrontation Will Define Global Order

Victor Davis Hanson  May 20, 2019

https://www.hoover.org/news/victor-davis-hanson-us-china-confrontation-will-define-global-order

The United States is at a crossroads with an increasingly aggressive China, which could define America’s security and the international order for decades to come.

The United States is at a crossroads with an increasingly aggressive China, which could define America’s security and the international order for decades to come, Hoover scholar Victor Davis Hanson says.
 
Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, studies military history and the classics. Last year, Hanson won the Edmund Burke Award, which honors people who have made major contributions to the defense of Western civilization. He is the author of the 2019 book The Case for Trump, and 2017's The Second World Wars. He was recently interviewed on US policy toward China:
 
What is the Trump strategy behind these tariffs, short term and long term?
 
Hanson: Short term, Trump feels that he can take the hit of reciprocal Chinese tariffs, given that quietly his opposition, the Democrats, have been raging about Chinese cheating for decades, and, second, that the US economy is so huge and diverse that China simply cannot cause serious damage. 

Remember the United States is a country one-third the size of China that produces over double China's annual gross domestic product and fields a military far more formidable with far more allies—while enjoying a far more influential global culture and a far more sophisticated system of higher education and technological innovation. China’s Asian neighbors and our own European Union allies quietly are hoping Trump can check and roll back Chinese mercantilism, while publicly and pro forma chiding or even condemning Trump's brinksmanship and his resort to fossilized strategies such as tariffs and loud jawboning.

Long term, Trump believes that if present trends are not reversed, China could in theory catch and surpass the US. And as an authoritarian, anti-democratic superpower, China's global dominance would not be analogous to the American-led postwar order, but would be one in which China follows one set of rules and imposes a quite different set on everyone else—perhaps one day similar to the system imposed on its own people within China.

Is China a more formidable rival now than Russia was during the Cold War, and if so, why?
 
Hanson: Yes. Its population is five times greater than that of even the old Soviet Empire’s. Its economy is well over twenty times larger, and over a million Chinese students and business people are in European and American universities and colleges and posted abroad with Chinese companies. So, unlike the old Soviet Union, China is integrated within the West, culturally, economically, and politically. The Soviets—like Maoist China—never leased Western ports, or battled Hollywood over   unflattering pictures, or posed as credible defenders of Asian values or owned large shares of Western companies or piled up huge trade surpluses with Western nations. Soviet propaganda and espionage were crude compared to current Chinese efforts.

What is China doing in terms of cheating on trade and intellectual property as the Trump administration says, and how can the United States stop this behavior? 

Hanson: China does not honor patents and copyright laws. It still exports knock-off and counterfeit products. It steals research and development investment through a vast array of espionage rings. It manipulates its currency.
 
Its government companies export goods at below the cost of production to grab market share. It requires foreign companies to hand over technology as a price of doing business in China. And, most importantly, it assumes, even demands, that Western nations do not emulate its own international roguery—or else. 
 
The result is a strange paradox in which the United States and Europe assume that China is an international commercial outlaw, but the remedy is deemed worse than the disease. So, many Western firms make enormous profits in China through joint projects, and so many academic institutions depend on China students, and so many financial institutions are invested in China, that to question its mercantilism is to be derided as a quaint nationalist, or a dangerous protectionist, or a veritable racist. China is an astute student of the Western science of victimology and always poses as a  target of Western vindictiveness, racism, or puerile jealousy.
 
Remedies? First, we must give up the 40-year fantasies that the richer China gets, the more Western and liberal it will become; or that the more China becomes familiar with the West, the greater its admiration and respect for Western values; or that China has so many internal problems that it cannot possibly pose a threat to the West; or that Western magnanimity in foreign policy and trade relations will be appreciated and returned in kind. Instead, the better paradigm is imperial Japan between 1930 and 1941, when Tokyo absorbed Asian allies; had sent a quarter-million students and attachés to the West to learn or steal technology and doctrine; rapidly Westernized; declared Western colonial powers and the US as tired and spent, and without any legitimate business in the Pacific; and considered its own authoritarianism a far better partner to free market capitalism than the supposedly messy and clumsy democracies of the West. 
 
How is China able now to leverage its arguably less powerful military to confront the United States globally?
 
Hanson: Global naval dominance is not in the Chinese near future. Its naval strategy is more reminiscent of the German Kriegsmarine of 1939 to 1941, which sought to deny the vastly superior Royal Navy access at strategic points without matching its global reach. China is carving out areas where shore batteries and coastal fleets can send showers of missiles to take out a multibillion-dollar American carrier. And its leasing of 50 and more strategically located ports might serve in times of global tensions as transit foci for armed merchant ships. But for now they do not have the capabilities of the American carrier or submarine fleet or expeditionary Marine forces—so the point is to deny America reach, not to emulate its extent.

Why are the current administration policies different than those in the past in confronting China on many different fronts and levels?
 
Hanson: Trump believes that economic power is the key to global influence and clout. Without it, a military wilts on the vine. A country with GDP growth at a 3 percent annual clip, energy independence, full employment, and increasing labor productivity and trade symmetry can renegotiate Chinese mercantilism and reassure China’s Asian neighbors that they need not appease its aggression. Past administrations might have agreed that China violated copyright and patent laws, dumped subsidized goods, appropriated technology, and ran a massive global espionage apparatus, but they considered remedies either impossible or dangerous and so essentially negotiated a slowing of the supposed predestined Chinese global hegemony. Trump was willing to confront China to achieve fair rather than free trade and take the ensuing heat that he was some sort of tariff-slapping Neanderthal.
 
Any other thoughts?
 
Hanson: I think Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s State Department is the first to openly question the idea that China will eventually rule the world and has offered a strategic plan to check its trade and political agendas. In this regard, a number of Hoover Institution scholars, currently working with Hoover fellow Kiron Skinner, director of policy planning at the US Department of State, are offering alternatives to orthodox American approaches of the past, with the caveat that the most dangerous era in interstate relations is the transition from de facto appeasement to symmetry—given that the abnormalities of the  past had become considered “normal,” and the quite normal efforts of a nation to recalibrate to a balanced relationship are damned as dangerously “abnormal.”
 
Victor Davis Hanson is also the chairman of the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group at the Hoover Institution.