作者：David Dollar  来源：中美印象

    英国宣布脱离欧盟之后，全球股票市场产生了很大的震荡，唯独中国是个例外——上海的股票市场在跌了1%之后很快就恢复正常了。这首先得益于当今中国国内的经济形势——内需已经成为中国经济增长的主要动力，而对外投资也在稳步增长，英国脱离欧洲之后对中国的对外投资是一个好处，因为英国脱离了欧洲之后，可以灵活处理中国的市场经济地位等问题，中英合作有了进一步加强的空间。

    Brexit has little direct effect on the Chinese economy though it does increase the risk of financial volatility. In the long run it is hard to see it as anything but a plus for China as the West continues to decline and China continues to rise.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, stock markets all over the world tanked. The interesting exception was China: The Shanghai market fell 1 percent on Friday and then more than recovered it on Monday. In the short run, Brexit is a modest negative as Europe’s gross domestic product (GDP) and trade are likely to grow less rapidly, and the EU is China’s largest trading partner. But the Chinese economy is simply not that export-oriented anymore. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the contribution of net exports to China’s GDP growth has averaged around zero. China initially made up for lost external demand with a massive stimulus program aimed at investment. This has now led to excessive capacity in real estate, manufacturing, and infrastructure. As a result, investment growth is slowing (see figure below). But China’s GDP growth has held up well because consumption is now the main source of demand. It consistently delivers more than 4 percentage points of GDP growth and its contribution has been on an upward trend.

    China has developed a virtuous circle in which wages are rising at a healthy rate (more than 10 percent over the past year), consumption is growing, consumption is mostly services so the service sectors expand, and they are more labor-intensive than industry so sufficient jobs are created to keep the labor market tight. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, but maintaining consumption is the big challenge for China, not the external sector.

    Another feature of China’s new growth pattern is that there is a steady outflow of capital as investment opportunities at home diminish. The U.K. had been one of the favored destinations for China’s outward investment, seen as a welcoming location that could be used as a jumping off point for the rest of Europe. Chinese firms will now need to rethink that strategy but this should not be too difficult an adjustment. The United States has been the destination for the largest share of China’s overseas investment and it is likely that that trend will strengthen in the wake of Brexit.

    Brexit does complicate China’s currency policy. The dollar and the yen have strengthened while the pound and euro decline. In past global crises, China has been a source of stability but the yuan fixing on Monday suggests that the central bank does not want to follow the dollar up if it is going to keep rising. Ideally they would like relative stability against a basket. There continues to be a risk that this policy will excite accelerating capital outflows so in that sense financial risks have increased somewhat. But probably the central bank will be able to manage the capital outflows so that the trade-weighted exchange rate is stable.

    Finally, from a larger geostrategic perspective, it would seem that China is the big winner from Brexit. Europe is likely to be a less influential player on the world stage and will be absorbed with internal issues of negotiating the British exit, controlling immigration, and keeping the periphery inside the eurozone. The United States is also likely to be distracted by these European challenges. This gives China more scope to pursue its reclamation activities in the South China Sea and to play divide and conquer with European states on various issues. For example, China would like to be recognized as a market economy, which is both symbolic and a practical matter for adjudicating anti-dumping cases. It is also negotiating investment treaties with both the United States and the EU, though so far China’s offers have not been very attractive in the sense that they exempt many important sectors from open investment. A U.K. no longer in the European Union will presumably be anxious to strengthen its ties with China so it may well be willing to make compromises on market-economy status and investment deals that a unified Europe would not have made. Brexit itself may not be that important but it may prove to be a good signal of the decline of Europe and the rise of China.

链接：http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2016/06/27-brexit-aftermath-chinas-rise-dollar

来源时间：2016/6/29   发布时间：2016/6/29

旧文章ID：10731

作者：Jonathan D. Pollack  来源：中美印象

    中美之间就南海争端存在很深的误解，中美应该私下里通过各自官员的的会谈相互明确相互的意图，不然，两者对对方的误判将是南海海域失序的最重要原因，这个过程不能通过国际会议及媒体来进行，而只能通过私下的面对面的沟通解决。

    To judge by media accounts from last weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the United States and China are headed into very troubled waters. Beijing’s accelerated efforts to fortify reefs and shoals in the South China Sea and the U.S. Pacific Command’s surveillance of these activities—including press leaks that China has positioned two “motorized artillery pieces” on an unspecified location in the Spratly Islands—dominated news coverage. For many observers, this action-reaction cycle portends more worrisome possibilities.

    Controversy and potential conflict represent the very lifeblood of print journalism and mass media. But policy makers, not media, are responsible for policy, and should not let media coverage or hyper-ventilation dictate their actions. Unfortunately, governments increasingly rely on media to buttress their policy positions and actions. In the run-up to the Shangri-La Dialogue, the U.S. Pacific Command unwisely enlisted CNN in its strategic messaging, and invited a CNN correspondent and camera crew on board the P-8 reconnaissance aircraft. Ample sensitivity and risk attaches to these missions, which (at least historically) U.S. military leaders treated as highly secret. However, the command concluded that the opportunity for widespread publicity—replete with recorded warnings from Chinese personnel for U.S. surveillance to desist from its actions near Beijing’s fortification efforts—was too good to pass up.

    Don’t worry, be pacific

    Are circumstances as worrisome as some seem to believe? Are the U.S. and Chinese governments equally mindful of the stakes and risks, and how do they propose to manage them? In the Singapore meeting, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and China’s Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Admiral Sun Jianguo, presented their respective cases to a large audience of senior officials, scholars, and corporate representatives.

    It is doubtful that either Secretary Carter or Admiral Sun changed many minds. Though the tone of both speeches was measured and not designed to inflame sentiment in either capital or in either military, neither budged from well entrenched positions. The United States insisted it was fully within its rights to protect freedom of navigation and overflight and “to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.” China argued that “there has never an issue with freedom of navigation in the South China Sea…these construction projects fall well within the scope of China’s sovereignty and are legitimate, justified and reasonable.”

    Both countries insist that their actions accord fully with their respective interpretations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The United States unambiguously insists that UNCLOS permits close-in surveillance in a given country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) without informing the state in question. China categorically rejects this position, as do some other coastal states, most prominently India.

    The U.S. further asserts that it is neither a party to nor does it take a stand with respect to the disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea. By flying outside a 12 nautical mile limit surrounding these newly fortified positions, the United States appears to tacitly acknowledge China’s physical control of these locations, if not Chinese claims of undisputed sovereignty. Media reports suggest that the U.S. is contemplating reconnaissance missions inside these 12 nautical mile zones, which would deeply agitate China. But the risks of such missions outweigh any potential benefits.

    Ominous possibilities

    The key question is how far might China’s fortification efforts go? A benign interpretation holds that China is undertaking actions that other claimants have undertaken before them, even though Beijing’s activities over the past eighteen months are much more extensive in scope and scale. Admiral Sun and other Chinese officials insist that China is fulfilling its larger responsibilities for maintaining regional order, including maritime search and rescue, disaster prevention and relief, scientific research, and safety of navigation. By building facilities on multiple locations in the Spratlys, China is creating possibilities that it heretofore lacked.

    Though not singling out China by name, Secretary Carter has raised more ominous possibilities. He called for “an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation by all claimants. We also oppose any further militarization of disputed features.” China is the most capable and most active of any of the claimants, and his message was surely directed first and foremost at Beijing.

    But Secretary Carter’s reference to militarization reflects deeper, longer-term U.S. concerns. Will the building of airfields ineluctably lead to the deployment of Chinese military power in newly fortified locations? Admiral Sun argued that the construction efforts are intended “mainly” for improving working and living conditions, with military activity limited to “necessary defense needs.” China has yet to disclose how it conceptualizes its military requirements in the South China Sea. At the same time, the publication of a photograph purportedly revealing two artillery pieces hardly represents a worst case indicator of larger scale deployment of air or naval power in inherently vulnerable locations.

    Recent developments do not imply an imminent crisis. But the biggest risk would be if neither the United States nor China sees the need to candidly air their respective concerns to each other and explore the possible means to prevent ugly outcomes. This should be done in private, official conversation, not in international conferences or through exploitation in American or Chinese media. There are multiple opportunities for precisely such discussions in the near-term future, including the impending arrival in the United States of General Fang Fenghui, the ranking general in China’s armed forces; this summer’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue; and (most important) the September visit of China’s President Xi Jinping to Washington, DC.

    These pending events should matter very much to both leaderships, but especially to President Obama, as he approaches his final year and a half in office. Where does China fit in the president’s foreign policy legacy? Which way are both countries headed in their longer term relationship, and what can be achieved to bridge potential divides by those with decision making responsibilities? It is to these realities, and not to media needs, that attention must turn without delay.

链接：http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/06/03-regional-order-south-china-sea-pollack

来源时间：2016/6/29   发布时间：2016/6/29

旧文章ID：10730

作者：Michael E. O’Hanlon  来源：中美印象

    美国虽然不满于中国的南海主张，但是必须认识到，中国在南海的一系列行为是其力量增长的自然表现，美国应该认识到中国在南海适度的力量扩张对美国的国家利益来说并不是一个威胁。所以，美国的目标应该是促进中国南海政策与行为的透明性、适度性。此外，需要明确的一点是中国人工建造的岛是不具有领土意义的，美国应该学着塑造、改变中国那些基激进的行为。

    With President Xi Jinping’s pending visit to the United States, it is important to take stock of the subjects uniting China and America and those over which disagreement is inevitable. The latter subjects include cybertheft and China’s continued repression of various elements of free speech, personal freedoms, and minority rights within its own territory. The former include most elements of the trade relationship and cooperation on environmental sustainability, among other matters.

    Where does the South China Sea fit in? For some American strategists, this is the place where right now China is showing the most worrisome tendencies towards great-power brutishness. It is reclaiming reefs and sand bars and turning them into islands with potential military capabilities, while occasionally winding up in skirmishes with neighbors like Vietnam and the Philippines （the latter a formal U.S. ally） over specific reefs, shoals, and the like.

    It is true that we need to keep a close eye on Chinese behavior in this region. In particular, Beijing’s establishment of a “nine-dash line” that encompasses almost all the South China Sea （with its key trade routes）， islands, and seabeds （with their own associated economic resources） is very worrisome. If China literally intends to enforce sovereign claims to all these zones and assets, we are in for a very difficult period ahead. The United States should stand firm in opposing any such claims, and also in insisting that China pursue its claims in the region peacefully and with full respect for the rights of all nations to use the crucial sea lanes in this busy body of water.

    Separating the wheat from the chaff

    But in another sense, I believe there is a way to defuse some of the problems with China in this region. The United States should not view every development of an artificial island, or even a modest military airfield, as a threat to our interests or those of other states. To some extent, this is expected behavior for a new great power. It is also in a sense hard for us to object to. In a way, China is building “stationary aircraft carriers” that are analogous to our actual aircraft carriers. We sail our ships to the region from thousands of miles away; they base some military assets on artificial islands from a homeland hundreds of miles away.

    It is not entirely clear how our actions can be legal and legitimate and theirs fundamentally illegitimate. To be sure, international convention has long condoned the rights of any nation to use international waterways for its naval and commercial vessels. Island reclamation is a new phenomenon. But that does not, to my mind, make it automatically threatening.

    What we can demand of Beijing is transparency, and moderation, in how much it builds up militarily in this region, and a commitment to the non-use of force in how it pursues its interests in the region. China also must not be allowed to claim broad territorial waters and economic rights around these artificial islets; again, they can and should be treated like ships, not land formations. But we would be better advised not to push back equally hard against all aspects of Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. Some aspects of China’s rise in that region are nearly inevitable, and so we should focus our attention on trying to shape or change those aspects of China’s behavior that are truly objectionable and threatening.

    链接：  http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/09/18-south-china-sea-us-policy-ohanlon

来源时间：2016/6/29   发布时间：2016/6/29

旧文章ID：10729