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美司法部长全面声讨中国, 是冷战檄文?

作者:吉尔  来源:美国之音

  中国设立新疆集中营、迫害其他宗教、隐瞒新冠疫情、盗窃知识产权、强推港版国安法等种种做法遭到美国政府高级官员的连续炮轰,美国司法部长巴尔星期四(7月16日)更是对中国的种种做法发出了的激烈抨击,令人思考这篇讲话是不是全面讨伐中国的冷战檄文。

  巴尔星期四(7月16日)在密西根州杰拉尔德·福特总统博物馆的一场演讲中说:“为使竞争场地有利于自己,中国的共产党政府把一系列掠夺性而且经常是不合法的战术掌握得炉火纯青:货币操纵、关税、配额、国家主导的战略投资和收购、盗窃与强制转让知识产权、国家补贴、倾销、网络攻击和工业间谍。”

  他说,中共正在以全社会的方式发动经济闪电战,试图取代曾有世界“民主兵工厂”之称美国的领导地位,以使中国成为世界“独裁兵工厂”。

  背后的战略考量

  政治分析人士认为,巴尔这篇讲话并不是个人即兴之作,而是反映了美国政府对中国的战略思考。

  近几周来,美国政府官员加强了对中国的抨击。国家安全顾问罗伯特·奥布莱恩(Robert O’Brien)谈及了中国共产党的意识形态和全球野心。美国联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷(Chris Wray)则在一次演讲中阐述中共如何通过邪恶甚至是违法的行为来追求其野心的。美国国务卿蓬佩奥也将在下星期总结美国和自由世界面临的危险。

  华盛顿智库传统基金会亚洲研究中心主任洛曼(Walter Lohman)对美国之音说,虽然美中关系一直是我们每次选举的主题,“但现在并不是美国的政治体制导致了与中国的冲突,而是中国的政治体制,以及中国人对待包括我们在内的其他国家利益的侵略性”。

  他说,特朗普政府与往届政府相比更加决心要直接应对中国的各项威胁。

  他还对美国之音说:“这也是向北京发出的一个信号,即美国正在应对一些对我们的安全和价值观的长期威胁,而这些威胁在过去没有得到充分解决。”

  华盛顿智库威尔逊国际学者中心基辛格中美关系研究所主任戴博(Robert Daly)认为,巴尔部长的这番讲话旨在说服美国人中国是一个严重的战略威胁,中共是包括新冠疫情在内的一些美国主要问题的根源。

  他说,“中国是美国在地缘战略领域面临的最大挑战。特朗普政府对中国共产党的很多批评都是正确的,而且早就该这样做了。"

  中国问题专家、前白宫官员包道格(Douglas Paal)对美国之音说,巴尔演讲还希望“让人们对任何与中国做生意的人产生怀疑,希望减少与中国的业务往来,拒绝给中国机会,同时把工作和机会还给美国。”

  冷战会否重演?

  巴尔部长的讲话中谈到,美国对中国“全球野心”的回应是目前最重要的问题之一。他呼吁自由世界用有一个“自己的全社会方式”,让公共和私营部门在保持必要分工的同时能够共同合作来抵制控制,赢得掌握全球经济制高点的竞争。

  在纽黑文大学东亚安全中心主任麦考密克(Brett McCormick)教授看来,巴尔的这番言论似乎预示着一场冷战或类似冷战的到来。

  他对美国之音说:“自由世界采取‘全社会’的方式‘赢得争夺制高点的竞争’,就像‘美国以前做到过的’一样,这是对冷战的明确召唤。”

  他还表示:“中国人呼吁美国超越这种‘冷战思维’,但在其他方面,他们也同样倾向于冷战,甚至更倾向于冷战。”

  麦考密克还担心这种要求新冷战的呼声可能很容易升级为更直接的冲突。

  不过包道格则认为,由于冷战时期和现在的结构性差异,一场新冷战不可能出现。但他也说,华盛顿的领导人似乎是在创造一种冷战氛围。

  美国企业研究所研究员库珀(Zack Cooper)则认为,这更像是中国与大部分民主国家之间的竞争,而不是冷战的重演。

  这位前美国国安会和国防部官员在接受美国之音采访时说:“在曾经的冷战时期,我们的经济体系基本上是独立的。但在这场竞争中,我们的体系相互交织,即使出现脱钩,也将是一组更加复杂的关系。”

  他还指出,现在的中国与前苏联不同,“中国共产党没有一种在国外特别有吸引力的意识形态”。

  戴博则表示,“新冷战”是一个误导性的历史类比,似乎是一个流行于媒体、政治和大众想象中的词语。

  中国的反应

  中国外交部发言人华春莹在星期五(7月17日)的记者会上表示巴尔部长的讲话是对中国的“无端指责”和“污蔑攻击”。她还引用了苏轼的一句词来形容中国对这些“污蔑”的应对:“莫听穿林打叶声,何妨吟啸且徐行。”

  她指出美国部分人是出于意识形态的偏见,把中国渲染成对手甚至敌人并变本加厉地抹黑攻击中国,并称这种行为对美国自身和世界都造成了严重伤害。

  华春莹说,“中国从来无意挑战或者取代美国,无意与美国全面对抗”,“我们愿意本着善意和诚意发展中美关系”。

  担任过负责东亚与太平洋事务副助理国务卿的福克斯(Michael Fuchs)告诉美国之音:“面对来自中国的挑战,美国需要务实有效的策略,而不是一系列制造恐慌(fear-mongering)的演讲。”

来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/7/18

旧文章ID:22368

魏加宁:如何应对中美博弈?对抗,还是合作?

作者:魏加宁  来源:长江创创社区

  魏加宁教授,现任国务院发展研究中心宏观部研究员和国务院参事室金融研究中心研究员,同时还兼任着西南财经大学博导,长江商学院兼职教授等多项职务,长期从事宏观经济领域的研究,近年来还承担了国务院发展研究中心的基础课题《国际经济金融治理研究》。下面就请魏老师介绍一下他们的研究成果,以及他对中美贸易战的一些看法。

  1、有关中美贸易战的几个误区

  误区一:“中美关系回不去了?”

  对于这个观点,我们需要反思两点。

  第一,中美关系是如何走到今天这一步的?首先需要反思我们自己出了哪些问题。因为我们决定不了美国应该怎么做,但是却能够改进自己的不足。

  第二,中美关系究竟是回不去了,还是不想回去?这完全是两回事。如果你根本就不想回去,那就怎么做也回不去了,就像你永远也叫不醒一个装睡的人一样。

  误区二:“脱钩无所谓,中国有巨大的市场”

  需要不等于需求,有效需求是指“有支付能力的需求”。最近一个时期,一些官媒的论点都是:“脱钩无所谓”,“我们有14亿人的巨大市场,我们怕谁?”。但这种观点实际上犯了一个常识性错误。经济学讲的不是你想要什么,需要什么,而是指“有效需求”,也就是有支付能力的需求。如果中美真的脱钩了,出口下来了,生产下来了,收入下来了,老百姓都没钱了,那么“巨大的市场”从何而来?

  误区三:“特朗普是个商人,是现实主义者,没有什么了不起的”

  我们说,特朗普是商人,是现实主义者,并不是说就可以小看他。正因为他是商人,说明我们过去用来对付那些政治家出身的美国总统的办法不灵了。说他是现实主义者,就是说他已经转移阵地了,把以往的意识形态之上变成了国家利益之上,所谓“美国第一”、“美国优先”,就是要把美国的国家利益放在第一位。于是提出的问题是我们该怎么办?

  这些年伴随着中国的崛起,美国竞争力的下降,美国的霸权地位受到了挑战,原来的“平衡状态”被打破了。那么,按照现实主义的逻辑,特朗普的做法就一定是来挖我们的墙角,强化它的阵营,以便重新达成新的“平衡”,实际上就是继续维持美国的霸权地位。所以特朗普首先就去拉北朝鲜,其次是拉台湾,最近又是香港。面对这种变化,如果我们不及时调整战略,继续坚持意识形态至上,那么这些阵地就都会丢掉。

  误区四:“特朗普是最难对付的美国总统”

  其实,特朗普虽然是过去40年最难对付的美国总统,但很可能是今后40年最容易对付的美国总统。因为现在在美国,在对华问题上,已经形成了两党共识、政企共识和官民共识。尽管特朗普刚上来时,并没有想跟中国打贸易战,但是经过一番火力侦察后发现,只有在对中国经贸关系上,能够有所作为,能够得到美国国内各界的广泛支持。

  当然,这其中也有我们应对不当的原因。采取“硬碰硬”策略的结果,必然会刺激美国人民,而美国是一个民主国家,没有民意的话,政府是什么事情也做不成的。

  2、中美之间的三个层次博弈

  中美博弈,表层是贸易之争,中层是老大之争,深层是体制之争。

  表层博弈:贸易之争

  中美贸易战直接影响到预期,影响到进出口贸易。日本专家曾经说过,打贸易战就是一种美国病,美国的慢性病。因为美国的竞争力在下降,但又要维持他的霸权地位,所以一定是谁露头就打谁。当年日本露头就打日本,现在日本缩下去了,中国露头了,所以就打中国。所以,在中美贸易战方面,我们一定要做好打持续战的思想准备,正确应对。其中有以下几个点值得参考:

  (1)要拉美国的朋友来对付美国。

  拉他的朋友毕竟还属于朋友之间的“内部矛盾”,拉他的敌人就变成“敌我矛盾”了,于是我们自己也成了他的敌人。中美之间打贸易战会严重影响到日本经济,因为我们的一部国产手机中有60%的零部件是从日本进口的。所以,如果我们拉日本、拉欧盟、拉加拿大等合作,他们也会有积极性,对美国影响也更大。

  (2)要用美国的方式来对付美国。

  案例一,1985年签订《广场协议》时,美国曾经向日本、西德等5个主要发达国家施压,要他们减少对美国的出口,实行宽松的货币政策,下调利率来扩大内需。

  当美国压日本的时候,由于日本的中央银行没有独立性,所以美国一压日本政府,日本政府就压中央银行,日本中央银行不得不把利率下调到2.5%的历史最低水平,于是出现了巨大的房地产泡沫和股市泡沫。等到1990年日本中央银行因物价开始上涨而不得不提高利率时,连续5次上调利率,结果导致房地产泡沫破裂,股市泡沫破裂,形成一大堆不良资产,金融机构纷纷倒闭,90年代末爆发金融危机,日本“失去了十年、二十年”。

  但当美国用同样的方法压德国的时候,德国的政府官员对美国人说,不行,我德国中央银行是独立的,货币政策是由货币政策委员会投票表决,政府官员不能干预,最重要的是:这套做法是你美国教我的!结果用一个“软钉子”把美国人给顶回去了。德国中央银行于1988年果断上调利率。结果,虽然同样是本币大幅升值,但是德国就没有出现泡沫经济。

  第二个案例就是日本的农产品市场

  战后日本,连国防都交给了美国,但是农产品市场却寸步不让。每一轮日美贸易谈判,美国一定卡在汽车上,而日本一定卡在农产品市场上。

  日本为了保护农产品市场可以说是无所不用其极,神学、科学、政治学一起上,就是要保护日本的农产品市场。但是国际舆论压力太大时,他也要做做样子,于是就把各国的粮食参展商请来举办粮食博览会。但是,就在开幕式的头一天,在电视镜头下,日本卫生部门的政府官员就找到美国的2个参展商,跟他们说,你们的展品不符合我日本的卫生标准,迫使美国的2个参展商夹着展品气哼哼地走出展厅,据说回去就去找美国总统,但是,找谁也没有用,这是美国人认可的国际规则。

  再有,竞争政策是一把“双刃剑”,对内可以推动改革,对外就可以用来对付美国人。你看欧洲人,从来都是用反垄断来对付美国人;日本当年在应对日美贸易战时,一边弱化产业政策,一边强化竞争政策;台湾80年代面临的情况跟我们现在一样,也是美国人要求他货币升值,减少对美出口,台湾人也是一边弱化产业政策,一边制定《公平交易法》,成立“公平交易委员会”,以此来对付美国人,并倒逼自己的产业结构升级,淘汰落后产能,发展IT产业。

  所以,一定要用美国人的办法来对付美国人。

  (3)日本对美关系的经验教训。

  战前教训:千万不要刺激美国人民

  美国是一个民主国家,没有民意什么事都做不了。二战时,日本偷袭珍珠港之前,日本人要偷袭珍珠港的情报就在罗斯福总统的桌上。但是为什么罗斯福总统按兵不动呢?一个重要的原因是,当时美国国内盛行的是孤立主义情绪,美国人民既不想参加欧洲战场也不想参加亚洲战场,罗斯福总统看到了日本的威胁想对日本宣战但没有借口,于是就按兵不动,等着日本人“偷袭”珍珠港,等日本人偷袭珍珠港之后,炸死那么多美国人,把美国人民彻底激怒了,于是罗斯福总统乘机对日宣战,一个一个法案在国会上迅速获得通过。战争的最终结果是日本惨败。

  战后经验:用“线”换“绳子”

  70年代初,日本以牺牲整个纤维产业(“线”)为代价,换来了冲绳岛(“绳子”)的回归,所以称之为“用线换绳子”。因为当时日本的纤维产品物美价廉,出口到美国以后,美国的企业破产了,工人失业了,所以要求日本政府自主限制对美国的纤维产品出口。于是,日本放弃了整个纤维产业,不仅换来了冲绳岛的“回归”,而且还倒逼国内的产业结构升级,倒逼出电子产业、汽车产业。现在,美国最害怕的就是开放汽车市场,如果放开汽车市场,美国的汽车根本没有办法和日本的汽车业抗衡。

  (4)80年代台湾的经验

  20世纪80年代,台湾面临的情况和我们今天一模一样,也是美国要求台湾汇率升值,减少对美产品出口。台湾人的做法也是以退为进,顺势推进自由化、市场化、国际化、制度化,汇率自由浮动,利率自由浮动,用市场化的办法来倒逼岛内的产业结构升级,淘汰落后产业,倒逼出一个具有高度竞争力的IT产业。

  所以,对美贸易战的正确对策应当是以退为进,倒逼自己产业结构升级,并把中美博弈尽可能地拖在贸易博弈的层面上。

  这是我想澄清的几个误区。

  中层博弈:老大之争

  所谓“老大之争”,就是指中国的崛起是否会挑战美国的霸权地位?如果我们在贸易之争层面上应对不利,就会过早地把“老大之争”提到美国的议事日程上来。美国就会想方设法来抑制中国的发展,这对我们会非常不利。

  究竟应对如何对待中美关系,我认为,无论是左派,右派,还是中间派,我们都必须理性地思考问题,在对美关系上,无非是三种境界。

  (1)保守境界

  所谓“保守境界”就是指,1979年1月邓小平到美国访问时,在飞机上社科副院长李慎之问邓小平:我们为什么要这么重视和美国的关系?邓小平的答复是:回顾一下二战后的历史,凡是和美国搞好关系的都富起来了。

  邓小平搞定了中美关系之后,我们得到了中国国家利益的最大化。比如香港能够不费一枪一弹顺利回归,就是得益于当时的中美关系。

  (2)中间境界

  有人说,中国现在已经是第二大经济体了,我们要和美国平起平坐。平起平坐没有问题,问题是如何平起平坐?是对抗,还是合作?对抗的话,是打热战还是冷战?

  打热战?当初美苏之间为什么要打冷战?就是因为有了核武器以后,热战打不起了。如果两个核大国之间爆发核战争,现有的核武器足以把地球毁灭几遍,谁能够承担得起这个责任?!

  打冷战?如果打冷战,那么新的冷战和上次冷战最大的区别就是中苏(俄)换位了,打冷战明显不合算。

  热战打不起,冷战不划算,那么就只有合作。上一届政府时期,在美国,无论是学术理论界还是政府官员,都提出“G2”的概念,也就是所谓“中美共治”。

  现实主义认为世界最大的问题就是无政府状态,于是就会不断地打仗,弱肉强食。如果有两个大国愿意携手合作,共同维持世界秩序,而这两个大国的特点又是互补的,一阴一阳,一文一武。如果能实现这个构想,那恐怕将是世界的福音。可以少打多少仗?!少死多少人?!

  (3)激进境界

  所谓最激进的想法,无非是:美国在衰落,中国在崛起,我们要取代美国成为世界霸主。

  问题是,迄今为止,在世界历史上,老二取代老大成为世界霸主的,成功的有几个?——只有一例,就是美国取代英国成为世界霸主。问题是美国是怎么做到的?

  按照刘劲副院长的说法,早在1905年,美国的人均GDP就已经超过了英国,可是,美国人做了什么?美国人是帮着英国去打仗。等二战结束时,英国的工业一败涂地,美国的工业世界第一;英国的经济惨不忍睹,美国的经济世界第一;英国的国库都空了,黄金都跑到了美国的国库里;英国成为最大的债务国,美国成为最大的债权国。等到布雷顿森林会议上,在讨论战后国际货币体系时,最佳方案实际上是英国的著名经济学家凯恩斯提出的,叫作“班克方案”,就是根据各国的贸易状况来决定国际货币。但是会议就是没有接受凯恩斯的最佳方案,而是接受了美国财政部的“怀特方案”,也就是以美元为霸权的不合理方案。为什么会是这样?就是因为到二战快结束时,英国已经没有话语权了。

  道理很简单,如果你在企业里是二把手,想要接一把手的班,你是挑战他的胜算大呢?还是跟他搞好关系的胜算大?道理其实都是一样的。更何况,中国当前最需要的,不是什么争老大,而是如何确保国泰民安,实现民主法治。

  深层博弈:体制之争

  国家之间比拼的是什么?——归根到底是体制之争,是体制效率之争。体制中最重要的是什么?——是决策机制,决策效率,看谁的决策错误少。而决策机制中最重要的是什么?——是纠错机制,能否及时纠错;而纠错机制中最重要的是什么?——是信息机制,看信息渠道是否通畅,决策者能否听到真话,能否把握真实情况。

  现在看来,特朗普有一个扁平化、短平快的决策团队,参加决策的人有很多都是出过书的,出过书就意味着他对中美关系的某一领域做过系统性研究,所以决策效率非常高。而我们中国则是纵向决策体制,决策链条非常长,最熟悉情况的往往是下面的处长,但是决策时这些处长根本说不上话。所以,当务之急是如何尽快改革我们的体制,包括决策机制,纠错机制,信息机制,让参与决策的人,能够听到真话,掌握真实情况,否则的话,我们就没有办法做出正确的决策,也不可能做到及时纠错。

  3、反思与出路:对方的失误≠自己的实力

  日本当年为什么敢偷袭珍珠港?主要是因为经过了前面两次侥幸胜利的之后出现了自我膨胀:一次是甲午海战意外地打败了大清的北洋水师;第二次是意外的打败了俄罗斯的舰队。于是,在许多高层军官明明知道跟美国开战是打不赢的,但在举国狂热的氛围下,只有去偷袭珍珠港,结果导致惨败。

  90年代以来,日本和美国先后都发生了金融危机,于是我们一些人开始瞧不起日本,瞧不起美国,以为自己很了不起了,认为中国不会爆发金融危机,等等。但是,对方的失误并不等于我们的实力,并不意味着中国不会发生金融危机。其实,我们的财政风险、金融风险都不小,现在消费在降级、服务在降级,经济下行的风险已经越来越明显了。所以我们一定要保持清醒头脑,要认真吸取别人的教训,把我们自己的事情做好。

  对国际金融危机成因的反思

  2008年,国际金融危机爆发时,许多专家分析原因时,都认为是由于中美经济之间的“镜像关系”导致了这场危机,于是就提出所谓的“脱钩论”。记得有一位外国专家就提醒过,说中美脱钩的结果,很可能将会导致战争。当时没有人能够理解。现在看来这种风险在增大。

  决策者首先要防止最恶情形——中美脱钩

  作为决策者,首要任务不是追求最优,然后追求次优。而是应当首先防止最恶,防止最恶事态的发生。从中国国家利益的角度来讲,当前最要防止的就是中美脱钩。中美一旦脱钩,早晚都会打起来。一旦打起来,中国的“和平红利”就会消失。

  过去40年,中国经济实现了高速增长,不仅得益于“人口红利”,“改革红利”,更重要的是得益于“和平红利”——40年没有打仗,这是多大的“和平红利”啊!可是,如果我们把今天的和平生活当作理所当然的东西,你就很容易失去它。一旦失去了和平红利,就意味着我们中国的现代化进程将再次被战争中断。这才是我们中国最大的国家利益所在,也是老百姓的最大利益所在。

来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/7/17

旧文章ID:22367

Susan Thornton: US-China Relations: Mistakes and Missed Opportunities

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作者:Susan Thornton  来源:中美印象

[Editorial note: These are remarks made by Susan Thornton at the China-US Think Tank and Media Forum on July 9 2020.]
     -I’ve been involved with U.S.-China relations over the last 20 years, not as long as many of you.

-But even in this short period of time, I have seen the U.S. and China come together and do important things for the world on non-proliferation efforts, environmental efforts, public health efforts, global economic growth, technological advancement and more.

-Relations between the U.S. and China have always been complicated.  As Chinese colleagues often say, “characterized by many twists and turns.”  We should not let revisionist narratives of starry-eyed engagement for the last 40 years stand.  We have worked hard to maintain a constructive relationship because it served both our peoples and the world.  It was not easy and it took visionary statesmanship.

-Unfortunately, though, we have missed many opportunities to make this relationship produce even more dividends for ourselves and the world.  And these missed opportunities cause great frustration.

-Why couldn’t the U.S. and China have done more together to counter trans-national terrorism after 9/11?  Why haven’t the US and China worked more effectively together to bring North Korea into the community of nations? Why didn’t the U.S. and China work together on meeting infrastructure needs in developing countries?  Why didn’t we work together on standards for digital data flows or cooperate on space exploration?  Our two militaries are more estranged than the US and Soviet militaries during the Cold War and are now carrying out large exercises simultaneously in the South China Sea.  And perhaps most crucially, why has the conversation about our economic relationship gone so off track?

-Each of these issues and many more have their histories and complexities, and I am not interested in assigning blame.  But I think we can identify points along the way where, perhaps because of domestic political considerations, timing, exogenous events or misperceptions, opportunities to get a productive long-term frame for the relationship were missed. 

-And we cannot overstate the importance of narrative in US-China relations.  In order to keep relations that are so complex, interconnected and competitive from descending into hostility, we need to have a story, a big picture, an overarching common direction. 

-I’ll mention here two such missed opportunities.

-First, in the post-9/11 period, George W. Bush was looking to make China more of a partner on the global stage, and Robert Zoellick issued a call for the “responsible stakeholder” relationship. 

-Maybe China did not understand that this was a sincere effort on the part of the U.S. to help effect a change in the international system toward a more multipolar arrangement.  Maybe China thought it was not ready, did not want to expend energy that could be directed domestically on global public goods.  In any case, the invitation seemed to fall flat.

-Then, following Xi Jinping’s elevation as Chairman of the CCP, when he and President Obama met at Sunnylands in 2013, there was a clear effort to work toward a relationship that would be cooperative and avoid conflict in “a new type of major power relations.” 

-But this effort was soon also subsumed by events, misperceptions and, what many in the US felt was a change in China’s approach to relations with the US. 

-In both cases, it seemed that entrenched suspicions in the two governments overwhelmed any efforts by leaders toward a more productive path.

-This perhaps demonstrates just how important it is that leaders in both countries state clearly the direction that they want this relationship to go in and the objectives that their governments are to work toward.

-Amid insecurity and difficulties in both countries, such leadership has been lacking.

-Yet, the logic of cooperation is obvious, as the world currently faces the COVID-19 pandemic. 

-I am optimistic and like to think about how to address the future rather than looking for the mistakes of the past.  In this case, though, I hope that leadership in both countries might not be too proud to identify opportunities to right the wrongs of the past. 

来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/7/9

旧文章ID:22364

《外交事务》– 中国不再韬光养晦:北京克制的外交政策终结?

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作者:Kurt M. Campbell & Mira Rapp-Hooper/文, 胡一鸣/编译  来源:中美印象

“印象观智库”第十期

【编者按:本文原文于715日发表于《外交事务》(Foreign Affairs),库尔特·坎贝尔(Kurt M. Campbell):亚洲集团董事长、首席执行官,美国前助理国务卿;米拉·拉普胡珀(Mira Rapp-Hooper)美国外交关系委员会亚洲安全问题高级研究员。"中美印象"的学生记者胡一鸣翻译。】

在这场新冠病毒危机中,分析人士观察到美中关系螺旋下降至历史最低点,复苏希望渺茫。造成这种下滑的原因有很多,但北京与往常不同,在国际舞台上采取了比平时更强硬的路线,以至于连最有经验的观察人士都在怀疑中国的外交政策是否已经从根本上改变了。

当然,中国对待世界的态度从来都不是铁板钉钉的。一个国家的外交战略由许多因素决定,其中包括其历史、文化、地理、以及其政权的性质和相对的国际地位。如果一个政府意识到这些因素中的一个或多个发生了变化,那么它的外交政策也可能发生变化。但随着新冠病毒蹂躏全球,中国的习近平主席似乎一下子违背了中国长期奉行的外交政策原则。现在下定论还为时过早,但中国国内民族主义不断引发危机,且对其持续崛起充满信心,并愿意承担比过去大得多的风险,很可能正反思其外交政策,这一改变将在全世界引起反响。
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图片说明:库尔特·坎贝尔(Kurt M. Campbell)

中国从2020年初就处于不利地位,但很快就扭转了局势。由于被指责对冠状病毒大流行的起源缺乏透明度,北京匆忙捍卫其全球形象。一旦控制了国内的疫情,它就开始了一场声势浩大的"口罩外交"运动,把自己塑造成一个新的全球卫生领导人。

但北京并没有就此止步。自新冠病毒席卷全球以来的几个月里,中国政府几乎在每一个外交政策领域都展开了前所未有的外交攻势。它加强了对香港的控制,加剧了南海的紧张局势,开始不断对澳大利亚施压,在与印度的边境争端中使用了致命武力,并更为响亮地批评西方自由民主国家。

在过去,中国通常寻求维持一个相对稳定的安全环境,偶尔会抓住机会来推动国家目标,而不会在国际上引起剧烈反弹,并在国际社会过度反应时谨慎地重新调整。然而,北京最近的行动并没有显示出这种保守或谨慎。中国可能只是在利用大流行带来的混乱和美国政府从国际事务中抽身出来造成的全球权力真空。但我们有理由相信,一场更深刻、更持久的转变正在进行。世界或许正初步感受到中国真正强势的外交政策是怎样的。

外交用语的不同

中国的转变在一定程度上是外交用语和外交风格的转变。从历史上看,北京在官方外交声明中,尤其是在批评华盛顿时,一直坚持使用含蓄的语言。例如,2015年,在南海僵局最严重的时候,中国外交部副部长张业遂敦促美国"珍惜南中国海的总体和平与稳定,珍惜中美关系来之不易的积极发展势头",这不是尖锐的批评。但随着流感大流行,一种新的、更严厉的言辞出现了。在中国被发现向几个欧洲国家交付了不合格的医疗用品后,一位外交部发言人在推特上说,"如果有人声称中国出口的产品有毒,那就停止戴中国制造的口罩和防护服,或者使用中国出口的呼吸机"。中国外交官批评西方民主国家对危机处理不当,并要求接收中国物资的政府给予表扬。这些做法在欧洲和非洲的反弹如此之大,以至于中国一家主要智库在4月份警告中国政府,其咄咄逼人的作风有可能损害中国的全球地位。

中国在一系列外交路线上的改变,对于一个通常不愿改变其公共立场的政府来说是不寻常的,这同样表明其信心大增。过去,北京方面因为担心"丢脸"而避免政策反转。但在最初拒绝国际社会调查中国疫情爆发的想法后,中国在5月的世界卫生大会上表示,一旦大流行消退,世界卫生组织(WHO)应开展调查。尽管中国最初拒绝加入20国集团的承诺向经济危机中不断挣扎的低收入国家提供债务减免,但后来它改变了主意并签署了协议。
""
图片说明:米拉·拉普胡珀(Mira Rapp-Hooper)美国外交关系委员会亚洲安全问题高级研究员

外交实质上的不同

北京在外交上的改变并不局限于大胆的言辞。在过去的几个月里,它在几乎所有的领土争端中都加大了赌注,甚至挑起了新的争端,这又一次背离了以往的做法。政治学家傅泰林(Taylor Fravel)认为,中国在领土争端方面只会单次对个别国家施压,而避免挑起更大规模的紧张局势。这种克制似乎已经过时了。自今年3月以来,中国加强了在东海钓鱼岛(日本称尖阁诸岛)附近的巡逻,并在南海的海上主张上投入更多,包括派遣船只在印度尼西亚、马来西亚和越南沿海徘徊。它在台湾附近进行了空中侦察,有效地结束了香港的半自治地位,与不丹形成了新的边界争端,以及引发了与印度的致命边界冲突,这是人民解放军30年来首次在国外使用武力。北京方面的任何一项举措,拆分来看都可能不足为奇。然而,把它们放在一起,就相当于一场非同寻常的全线紧逼。

备受争议的新《国家安全法》几乎剥夺了香港独特的法律地位。这项法律包含的条款可能超越国界,并将中国的判例扩展到全球,标志着中国从传统的防御性主权观念转变为更具攻击性的方式,以扩大北京的权威。长期以来,中国一直抵制它认为危及国家主权的国际努力,例如,拒绝了旨在防止种族灭绝和人道主义危机的保护责任(R2P)理论。

即使在邻国之外,中国现在似乎也愿意挑起争端,甚至表现出公开的敌意。它对澳大利亚的态度就是一个很好的例子。在堪培拉呼吁对流感大流行的起源进行独立调查后,北京方面发出严厉谴责,并对澳大利亚实施贸易制裁。它似乎还对澳大利亚政府服务器和企业发动了一系列网络攻击。澳大利亚舆论因此迅速转向反对中国,支持强硬外交政策的人越来越多,堪培拉也宣布了增加国防开支的计划。北京似乎在这一问题上非常坚定,也许是因为它希望让地区内其他国家在反对中国之前三思而后行。

中国在对待澳大利亚问题上表现出的强硬态度,象征着更全面的改变。早在2015年,在中国在南中国海的人工岛引发了其他地区国家愤怒之后,北京感觉到自己做得过火了,改变了策略。它暂时缩减了岛上的建筑,开始投入更多时间在地区外交和"一带一路"倡议上。相比之下,几乎没有明显迹象表明,中国这次正在重新考虑其做法,至少目前为止是这样。六月,全国人大宣布了全面的香港国家安全法后,全世界都处于警戒状态。但是,在这一法案宣布之后,全球的一致谴责并没有阻止中国共产党实施这项新法律,也没有阻止中国共产党正式指控两名被关押了18个月的加拿大公民从事间谍活动。
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图片说明:五月卫星照片,位于中印边界加尔万谷地的中国营房,中印部队6月中旬在这里发生冲突。

越是改变,越是一样的结果?

所有这些转变的最终方向仍然存在争议。有人会说,中国的战略没有改变,只是像以前一样抓住了时机:中国领导人利用美国在危机时刻放弃全球领导地位,在许多方面推进自己的利益。冠状病毒外交只是中国长期以来外交政策机会主义传统的最新例证,而这种机会主义和即兴发挥只是为了填补美国留下的漏洞。而特朗普政府三年来的单边、零和外交或许鼓励北京在力所能及的情况下推动外交政策的胜利,尤其是在美国忙于准备11月的总统选举之际。

但是,美国在中东战争最激烈的时候和2008年的全球金融危机期间,同样处于分裂和分心状态,但当时我们没有看到中国在外交政策上有强势的动作。毫无疑问,美国目前缺乏领导地位部分造成了这样的后果,但习近平的权力巩固和他认为中国地缘政治时刻已经到来的信念也很重要。这些是推动北京采取行动的真正力量。美国退出世界仅仅是给了中国它需要的空间。

清楚的是,北京的新外交政策已经留下了印记。中国与澳大利亚的关系处于低谷,欧洲对中国的舆论可能在未来数年内受到影响。最近在喜马拉雅山发生的致命的边界冲突可能会使印度在该地区成为一个更坚定的制衡中国的力量。中国政府的危机外交正在不断付出代价。

应对中国的外交攻势肯定会成为未来美国政府的首要任务。无论是前副总统拜登还是特朗普当选,下一届政府都需要准备好与北京在多个战线上的开展强硬双边外交。从香港到南海、印度和欧洲,中国的施压都可能会继续下去。尽管习近平本人表现出更冷静、更具建设性,美国领导人将会面对言辞更加强硬的中国外交官。他们应该期待着与一个保持着一个新兴大国的信心的中国政府打交道。

幸运的是,对于下一任美国总统来说,更有效的美国对华政策已经初现轮廓。美国必须告别惩罚性的单边主义,这种单边主义近年来已成为一种常态,对贸易和国家安全毫无益处。它必须重新调整与欧洲和亚洲盟国的关系,这些盟国在未来几十年里为平衡中国提供了仅存的机会。美国必须对国际组织进行再投资,例如联合国、七国集团和世界卫生组织,这些机构对于危机管理不可或缺,中国非常乐意在美国缺席的情况下领导这些机构。美国必须恢复国内的国民健康和经济繁荣,才能在全球舞台上继续成为一个有力的竞争对手。


来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/7/18

旧文章ID:22363

Michael Pompeo: Europe and the China Challenge

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作者:Michael Pompeo  来源:美国国务院网站

MR RASMUSSEN:  It’s a great pleasure for me to welcome our next speaker, the American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.  Good morning, Mr. Secretary.  I think it’s morning in your time zone.

I know you’ve been traveling from Hawaii where you met a high-ranking Chinese official.  Earlier this year I listened to your speech at the security conference in Munich, and I enjoyed your upbeat message that the free world is winning.  So we look very much forward to listening to you today.  Please, join me in welcoming the 70th United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Anders, thank you very much.  Thanks for that warm greeting.  It’s great to be with you all today, and hello to the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.  It’s an honor to be with you and with Secretary General Rasmussen, a friend of freedom-loving people all across the world.

I don’t know if you all know this, but when it comes to strengthening transatlantic relations, Anders really walks the walk.  His son and three beautiful grandchildren live here in the United States.  They’re United States citizens.  Glad to have Rasmussen on both sides of the Atlantic bringing us together.  Thanks for having me today.

When Anders sent the invitation to me, I said yes immediately.  So many of these conferences that you all participate in talk about what’s wrong with the world.  I want to focus on what’s going right in the world today, what we’ve got right, and that’s democracy, and we know it.  It’s how to preserve it that is the challenge.  There is no nobler goal for all of us.

I spent a few years of my life – it’s been decades, when I was a young soldier serving in Germany – patrolling along the Iron Curtain.  I’ve seen tyranny firsthand, and I have dealt with all manner of unfree regimes in my previous role as director of the CIA and now in my current role as Secretary of State of the United States of America.

First principle:  There’s nothing brave or visionary about oppressing your fellow men or women.  Democracy is the only system of government that honors human dignity and personal freedom and progress for mankind.  The corollary is that capitalism is the greatest anti-poverty program in all of history.

I want to make a few brief remarks and then I’m looking forward to taking questions.

First: the idea that Europe is being forced to choose between the United States and China.  I want to talk about that at some length.

Second: the belief that it’s costless to compromise your values.

Everywhere I go – everywhere I go, I talk to my counterparts and audiences like this about the reality of what we see in the world – especially in China.  I’ve done it in Europe, done it in the Arctic, done it in Central Asia, done it in Africa – I’ve done it in the Pacific islands.

For many years, the West, in an era of hope, believed we could change the Chinese Communist Party and improve the lives of the Chinese people along the way.  That was the bargain.  That was the bet.

The rising tide of democracy in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union 30 years ago made us believe – perhaps reasonably – that the spread of freedom in every nation was inevitable.  So we engaged.  We opened ourselves to an authoritarian regime that we knew was hostile to democratic values.

Along the way, the Chinese Communist Party made a bet.  It bet that it could take advantage of our goodwill while assuring us they wanted a cooperative relationship.  As Deng Xiaoping said, “Hide your strength,” and “bide your time.”

I’ve talked about why this has happened.  It’s a complicated story.  Fault is not material here.  It’s not important.

Over decades, Americans and European companies invested in China with enormous optimism.  I ran a small business; we had an operation in China ourselves.  We outsourced our supply chains to places like Shenzhen.  We opened our education institutions to PLA-affiliated students.  We welcomed Chinese state-backed investment in our own countries.  Now we’re deeply intertwined.

But even so – even so, we must acknowledge a set of facts about who and what we’re dealing with, and I think we’re seeing this.  I think all across the world this is becoming more apparent each and every day.

The Chinese Communist Party decreed an end to freedom in Hong Kong, violating a UN-registered treaty and the rights of its citizens – one of just many international treaties that the Chinese Communist Party has violated.

General Secretary Xi has greenlighted a brutal campaign of repression against Chinese Muslims, a human rights violation on a scale we have not seen since World War II.

The PLA has escalated border tensions – we see it today in India, the world’s most popular – populous democracy.  And we watch as it militarizes the South China Sea and illegally claims more territory there, threatening vital sea lanes, a promise they broke again.

But the CCP isn’t just a rogue actor in its own neighborhood.  If it was, we might think differently about it.  It impacts us all.  It lied about the coronavirus, and then let it spread to the rest of the world while pressuring the World Health Organization to assist in a coverup campaign – by the way, a failure of transparency that continues even today.  Now hundreds of thousands of people have died and the global economy is decimated.  Even now, months into the pandemic, we don’t have access to a live virus, we don’t have access to facilities, and information about patients in December in Wuhan remains unavailable.

It’s pushing disinformation and malicious cyber campaigns to undermine our governments to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, and is saddling developing nations with debt and dependency.

You’ve seen this all.  Everyone in this room knows that the Chinese Communist Party strongarms nations to do business with Huawei, an arm of the CCP’s surveillance state.  And it’s flagrantly attacking European sovereignty by buying up ports and critical infrastructure, Piraeus to Valencia.

We must take off the golden blinders of economic ties and see that the China challenge isn’t just at the gates; it’s in every capital, it’s in every borough, it’s in every province.

Every investment from a Chinese state-owned enterprise should be viewed with suspicion.

Europe faces a China challenge, just as the United States does, and as – just as our South American, African, Middle Eastern, and Asian friends do too.

And I had a chance earlier this week on Monday to speak with my EU counterparts.  I know that there’s fear in Europe that the United States wants you to choose between us and China.

But that’s simply not the case.  It’s the Chinese Communist Party’s that’s forcing this choice.  The choice isn’t between the United States; it’s between freedom and tyranny.

The party wants you to throw away the progress we in the free world have made, through NATO and other institutions – both formal and informal institutions – and adopt a new set of rules and norms to accommodate them within Beijing.

I don’t believe that there’s a uniquely “European” or “American” way to face this choice.  There’s also no way to straddle these alternatives without abandoning who we are.  Democracies that are dependent on authoritarians are not worthy of their name.

Look, the good news is my European friends – even this week I could see it.  It’s not uniform.  There are different thoughts of different countries.  But they’re waking up to this challenge.  And I heard some of them, they questioned whether the democratic way of life can win.

And Beijing relishes this uncertainty.  They shouldn’t be confident.  We’re winning.  This is what you talked about in my remarks in Munich.

One CCP diplomat in France recently said, quote, “Some Westerners are beginning to lose confidence in liberal democracy,” end of quote, and “some [Western countries] have become psychologically weak.”

But democracy isn’t fragile in the way the Chinese Communist Party believes it is.  Democracy is strong.  We defeated fascism.  We won the Cold War.

It is authoritarianism that is fragile.  CCP propagandists work hard to control information flows and speech to maintain their grip on power.  They won’t be satisfied until the digital firewall extends to our nations too.  In some ways, it already does.  We could talk about this at some length, Anders.

While I do not believe for a moment democracy is fragile, it does require careful stewardship and constant vigilance.  I’ve been encouraged recently in private conversations with European allies who are taking their responsibilities seriously.  We had a vigorous discussion earlier this week, as I mentioned earlier.  We debated what democracies ought to be engaged in, and that’s what we do.  That’s precisely the kind of debate we should have.  It was a good meeting, and we’ll continue our dialogue with the Europeans on China.

Meanwhile, positive steps abound.  The new Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – substantially comprised of European leaders – is adding new members weekly.  Denmark has bravely stood up to the CCP’s attempts to censor Danish newspapers.  The United Kingdom is moving towards securing its networks from Huawei.  The Czechs are standing up to the PRC’s coercive diplomacy.  The Swedes have closed all of their Confucius Institutes that reside on their soil.  And our NATO allies have committed to increase defense spending by a cumulative $400 billion between now and 2024.

And Anders’s successor in Brussels, General Secretary[1] Stoltenberg, recently gave visionary remarks about the alliance’s mandate to “stand up for a world built on freedom and democracy” and to counter China’s malign influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

I’ll end here so Anders can speak.  We all know – we’ve lived it – democracy’s not easy.  It’s messy.  The whole world can see how we have tough debates, like my country’s having right now.  But that struggle reflects commitment to fundamental values and our constant striving towards a more perfect union.  It’s who we are, and we share those values with our European friends.

I hope I’ll hear more public statements from Europe about the China challenge, because all of our people deserve to know about it, and America is ready to stand with you.  Let’s speak clearly, and more importantly, let’s act decisively.  Let’s not leave any confusion about the choice between tyranny and freedom.

Anders, I look forward to our conversation.  God bless you all.

MR RASMUSSEN:  Thank you very much, Mike.  Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and I also appreciate your willingness to answer some questions.  My first question is regarding China.  A few days ago, you met with the Chinese State Councilor Yang, who is considered one of the architects of China’s foreign policy.  China’s news agency, Xinhua, put a positive spin on the meeting.  They wrote both sides “fully elaborated on their stances, agreeing that this was a constructive dialogue,” and you agreed to maintain contact and communication.

When I read texts like this, I might be thinking something is going on.  So my question to you is:  Could it be that the United States and China secretly are preparing new initiatives to reduce tensions while publicly you are maintaining a tough stance?  And one in the audience has asked the question whether we could expect the U.S. to take new initiatives vis-a-vis China.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  So Anders, it was a long overdue meeting.  It was a long meeting.  We met for some six hours or so.  Each side staked out what I think for each was pretty familiar positions.  As for me, I articulated that day just exactly what I articulated here this morning.  America is engaging in a response to Chinese Communist Party and aggression in a way that America has not done for the past 20 years.  It’s not political.  We’ve had Republican presidents, Democrat presidents who simply allowed China to have deeply nonreciprocal relationships, not just on trade – which of course is true, but we responded to their military – use of military force by moving back.  We responded to their use of diplomatic coercion via retreating.  Donald Trump is not going to permit that, and we made that clear.

You referenced statements.  Those are statements.  What I spent a good deal of my time speaking with Yang Jiechi about was the fundamental idea that we’re just watching actions.  It’s no longer enough to listen to what the Chinese Communist Party is saying.  We can see their actions.  I ticked through a few of them: Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, what they’re doing in India, what they’ve done in the economic zones along the Philippines and Malaysia and Indonesia and Vietnam, the coercion on Australia – when they had the audacity to demand that there would be an investigation of how this virus got from Wuhan to Milan, how this virus got from Wuhan to Tehran, how this virus got from Wuhan to Oklahoma City, and to Belgium and to Spain, and decimating the global economy.

Look, we had to – we were – it was a very frank conversation.  We still don’t have the answers the medical professionals, epidemiologists need to take on this challenge.  If the Chinese Communist Party can’t rise to that – forget what they say – if they can’t rise to that level, what every democratic nation would have done in response to a virus that began in our nation, we would have participated in a global response where we shared information openly, we learned together, and we resolve the problem set together.  Instead, they did what authoritarian regimes do: they disappeared doctors, they squirreled information away, and they denied the world the access it needed to respond to this virus in a way that could have reduced a lot of risk and a lot of costs.

That’s the nature of the conversation that we had.  I think, as America’s most senior diplomat, that it is always useful to be in a room together, to have a conversation, and to share the (inaudible).

MR RASMUSSEN:  (In progress.) – you indicated that the United States might consider to withdrawal the special status for Hong Kong.  Which measures could you imagine regarding trade, travel, currency exchange, et cetera?  Will Hong Kong be treated like all other Chinese cities?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, it appears that that’s China’s intention.  And I always – when I hear my European counterparts say, well, we don’t want to choose, I always remind them the other side gets to choose, too.  So when you ask, will Hong Kong be treated as any other Chinese city, it will be to the extent that the Chinese choose to treat it that way.  Look, I haven’t seen what happened overnight, but the Chinese Communist Party appeared intent on passing a national security law that will deny significant amount of freedoms that the Chinese Communist Party had promised to the people of Hong Kong would last 50 years.

There are a set of elections scheduled for September.  We should all watch closely.  That’s not that far off now.  We should all watch very closely whether those elections are permitted to take place in a free and fair fashion.  To the extent those elections are delayed, postponed, canceled, or somehow not treated in a way that is fair and open, I think that will tell us everything we need to know about the Chinese Communist Party’s intentions with respect to freedom in Hong Kong.  President Trump – as for our policy, President Trump has made very, very clear to the extent that the Chinese Communist Party treats Hong Kong as it does Shenzhen and Shanghai, we will treat them the same.  We have many agreements that are unique between the United States and Hong Kong, separate and different from those we have with Beijing.  We will move away from every one of those.

And then second, the President’s made clear, too, we have a responsibility to hold accountable those inside of China who fail to live up to those agreements as well.  So we are working our way through a decision-making process to determine who those decision-makers were and what the appropriate mechanism is to hold them accountable.  We don’t want to harm the people of Hong Kong.  They’re freedom-loving people that we aim to get the benefit of the bargain they made with the United Kingdom.  To the extent the Chinese Communist Party denies that, we’re responsible to hold the relevant parties accountable.

MR RASMUSSEN:  Right.  What will happen if the security law leads to imprisonment of democracy activists, et cetera, in the autumn?  What could you imagine to do?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Anders, I just don’t want to get into particular decisions – I don’t want to foreclose anything that the President may choose to do or not do.  We’re still working our way through that process.  Two things to think about, though.  One is:  What will the people of Hong Kong do?  We’ve watched them.  They’ve simply asked for the mainland Chinese to live up to the commitments that were made.  We’re on year 27 of a 50-year deal.  You wouldn’t take that.  You signed up for a deal for 50 years, somebody walks away at the halfway point, you’d not be happy – or year 23, I guess it is.

So it will be interesting to see how the people of Hong Kong respond, and frankly the people – the freedom-loving people in the mainland as well.  They’re watching, too.  Never forget that while we see a unitarian face from the Chinese Communist Party, that that billion and a half people also have ideas that are different and they will be watching how this transpires as well.  I know the people of Taiwan are certainly watching how this transpires.

And second, as for how the United States will respond, I want to leave open the range of possibilities, but the President has made clear:  To the extent Hong Kong is treated by the Chinese Communist Party as just another piece of mainland China, there’s no reason for the United States to treat them any differently as well.  And we have a law that requires that as well.

MR RASMUSSEN:  You also mentioned Taiwan.  I think we agree that Taiwan is a beacon of democracy, a real contrast with mainland communist China.  What more do you think we could do to defend the Taiwanese democracy?  And shouldn’t Taiwan be allowed, for instance, to join WHO and maybe other international organizations?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  So it’s widely known how hard many countries, the United States amongst them, worked diligently to allow the Taiwanese Government to participate at least as an observer as part of this most recent World Health Assembly.  There’s another scheduled for November.  We think it both appropriate for them to do so, and perhaps even more importantly, very useful.  They have a great deal of knowledge.  They handled this coronavirus very, very well; they have high-end technology and high-end pharmaceutical capabilities, high-end scientists.  We think it would be very useful for them to be part of the conversation that surrounds how the world is going to respond to the continuing pandemic.

As for how we deal with Taiwan, the United States has had a clear set of policies that extend back to – depending where you want to start to clock – back to the early 1990s is a reasonable place to start.  President Trump has adhered to those commitments and will continue to do so.  We – they’re set out very clearly and we will continue to abide by them.

MR RASMUSSEN:  If I may, let’s turn to Europe.  The White House has announced an intention to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Germany.  May I ask you:  Will a possible reduction in Germany be compensated by an increase in the U.S. presence in Eastern Europe, for instance in Poland?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  So as for troop deployments and numbers, I will leave that to my colleague Secretary Esper to talk about.  I try to maintain these boundaries.  But as for U.S. policy, I can speak to that very clearly.  I’ve been here as the Secretary of State now for just over two years.  I’ve been part of the administration since the beginning.  We set out back in early 2018 – excuse me, back in early 2017, in the spring of 2017 – to evaluate our entire – the entire structure about how engaged in the world.  And that certainly has a component about troop stationing, where we will put people, how we will deploy them.

It has two dimensions.  One, their location, and second, a dimension of should these be permanent bases or are we better off in a more modern world to have rotational deployments where we can get the right equipment at the right time.  We always think about soldiers on the ground; much, much of modern conflict today involves things disconnected from – I was a tanker; I was a Army guy.  I loved that dearly.  I wish the whole world just revolved around M1 tanks.  It would make me happy.  But it doesn’t.  It now revolves around big air forces, big cyber capabilities, big capabilities that are in different pockets.  We’ve tried to – we’re trying to make sure we get all of this right.  So it’s no longer reasonable just to think about hey, do we have a thousand soldiers or 5,000 soldiers or 10,000 soldiers, but what’s the threat that’s posed to the United States of America and our friends and allies, and how is it that we collectively can best respond.

So what you saw the President announce the other day was part of that review process.  It is extensive.  It extends not only to Europe but throughout the Middle East.  We’re thinking – you’ve seen decisions the President has made there about how it is that we can do the right things to meet the challenges of the day.

And then lastly, this very much connects up to the topic I spoke about today.  Make no mistake about it:  The United States does believe that it has a real responsibility to show that we have the capability and the capacity to challenge any threat that the Chinese Communist Party should make militarily to the United States of America.  So we are constantly thinking about how we engage diplomatically, economic, and militarily to meet that challenge.  So as the President thinks about Europe and the Middle East and our soldiers that are stationed in Africa, we are ever mindful that a free and open Indo-Pacific matters to all of us, including to Europe, and we want to make sure that we have allocated resources appropriately to address those concerns.

MR RASMUSSEN:  I got a question from the audience.  I’ll read it:  “Do you understand if European friends and allies see a threat to democracy generate from the U.S. due to a slow and dangerous breakdown of state institutions and democratic principles?”

SECRETARY POMPEO:  No.

MR RASMUSSEN:  That’s a clear answer.  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY POMPEO:  No, I – look, 200-plus years on, we have the most – and I should be careful because I tend to want to brag about the United States – but this is a democracy that has withstood enormous challenges throughout its history and our institutions have withstood enormous challenges.  And as the world changes, I am confident we will still have challenges.  But I know this:  Our founders nailed it.  Our founders got it right.  The principles, the laying down a set of God-given rights for the American people, saying that the United States government is designed and purposed to preserve those rights, has provided both a textual and a structural mechanism for democracy in the United States to survive each and every one of these challenges.

Doesn’t mean it happens automatically.  I now as the Secretary of State am a steward for this very set of rights.  I have a responsibility, a duty to ensure that I do everything every day to be part of furthering the capacity for our republic to continue to remain strong.  But if you ask the question can I understand how anyone would stare at this and think that American democracy was at risk, it’s a really simple answer.

MR RASMUSSEN:  Very often we see the Chinese Government use divide and rule tactics where they single out individual countries for punishment if they don’t listen to Beijing, follow the instructions from Beijing, or are going against Beijing.  I will ask you:  Shouldn’t the world’s democracies form a united front, an alliance of democracies that can stand up against the autocracies, protect each other, and promote freedom and prosperity?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Anders, it’s an incredibly important question.  A number of thoughts, but I’ll start with this:  You’ll recall – you said should we create a united front.  This is China’s name, the united front.  This is what is in your countries (inaudible) united front.  So maybe we’ll choose just a slightly different name, but conceptually you nailed it.  You’ve got it exactly right.  And I think the wonderful news for democracies and freedom-loving peoples is that I see that happening.  I can tell you that when I met with my Chinese counterpart, he could see it happening while we were sitting in the room.  While we were meeting a statement from all G7 members came out about Hong Kong.  The timing I’d love to claim was intentional and very well thought out, but the truth of the matter is we were just doing what freedom-loving peoples do, continuing to demand an ever more expansive conception of freedom and forcing as best we can other countries to honor commitments that they’ve made.

So your core point – China’s objective is in fact to single out and indeed to threaten to single out more directly.  It’s not just European countries.  We’ve seen them do it in the Middle East.  We’ve seen them do it in Africa.  We’ve seen them do it in Southeast Asia, closer to their own nation.  What I have begun to see over my two and a half years as Secretary of State is the world awakening to this threat.  Right now, many of these conversations about just what you described are happening to me privately.  The calls are, “Hey, Mike, here’s what we’re observing the Chinese Communist Party engaged in here.  How can you help?”  We do our best in each case to provide them the type of assistance that makes most sense.

We need to raise this to another level, to where countries are prepared and in position to respond to these things in a public way.  When we do that, the Chinese Communist Party will be more isolated, and I hope – because my objective isn’t bad things for the Chinese people – I hope that the Chinese Communist Party will begin to recognize that if they want to rise, if they want to continue to build out their nation, that they need to do so on a Western rule set, a rule set that honors the rule of law and honors freedom and respect for sovereignty.  If they can flip, if they can make that difference because the rest of the world demands that of them, just like we do of every other nation with which we interact – it’s not unique; it’s simply reciprocal.  We don’t ask the Chinese Government to do anything we don’t ask the Belgian Government to do.  Just honor sovereignty, engage in the rule of law, compete fairly around the world without subsidization of state-owned enterprises – if they will do those things, then I think the world will be in a better place if freedom-loving nations could be secure in their freedoms.

MR RASMUSSEN:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.  Thank you, Mike, for taking time to talk to us.  It’s a very important conclusion of two days democracy summit here in Copenhagen.  We appreciate very much your support for freedom and democracy and your dedication to American leadership, so I feel confident that my three grand – American grandchildren will be raised in a much better world.  Thank you very much.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Anders, thank you very much, sir.  And thanks to everyone for giving me this time.  So long.

[1] Secretary General

来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/6/19

旧文章ID:22362

Mike Pompeo talks about China in interview with the Hill

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作者:Mike Pompeo  来源:美国国务院网站

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Bob Cusack, Editor-in-Chief of The Hill INTERVIEW, WASHINGTON, D.C. JULY 15, 2020 (excepts)
     QUESTION:  Thanks, Jimmy and Steve, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us.  I want to jump into the news.  Just recently, Mr. Secretary, you said that the U.S. may ban TikTok and other Chinese apps.  Is there going to be a decision on that this summer?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, Bob, thanks.  First of all, thanks for having me on here as well.  Jimmy, thanks for that very, very generous introduction.  Yeah, I made a comment about TikTok.  We’ve got to go back to first principles.  The mission set is to protect American national security, and in this case, the information of American citizens.  And so whether it’s TikTok or any of the other Chinese communications platforms, apps, infrastructure, this administration has taken seriously the requirement to protect the American people from having their information end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

And so we are working through a process where all the relevant agencies and the private sector are getting to say their piece.  We hope to have a set of decisions shortly which will reflect this central understanding.  We’ve been working on ZTE.  We’ve been working on Huawei.  We’re pleased to see the United Kingdom make its announcement that it’s going to pull out Huawei technology from its telecom infrastructure.  We’ve watched telecom companies all across the world, from Orange and others, to say no, we understand.  We want to make sure that our data flows only across trusted vendors.  That’s the mission set, and that’s certainly the mission set when it comes to applications that our kids may be touching.

When I made those remarks (inaudible) I got lots of notes from mothers saying, “Please, please take it away, make it go away.”  That’s for the parents to decide their kids’ usage on their cell phones.  It’s our task to make sure that their children’s information doesn’t end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, you and others have said that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election.  You faulted the Obama administration for not doing more back then.  Is Russia meddling in the 2020 election?  And if so, are you being successful in stopping it?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yes, I’m confident that many countries will do their level best to have an impact on our election.  This isn’t new.  I was reading a book the other night talking about Senator Kennedy dealing with this issue back when he was running for president.  Foreign efforts to interfere in American elections are something that we constantly must contend with.  We’ll contend with that here.  We did a good job in 2018 during the midterm elections.  I’m very hopeful we’ll do a really good job.  I have seen the work that’s gone in largely from the Department of Homeland Security, a little bit of work done by the State Department as well, to make sure that our foreign counterparts understand the costs that will be imposed if they choose to engage in malign activity related to our election.

I think the American people should rest assured that whether it’s threats of Chinese interference, Iranian interference, Russian interference, or North Korean interference, any country, or even non-state actors who now have capabilities to try to meddle in our elections, know that this administration takes seriously its responsibility to make sure every American’s vote is counted, counted properly, and that foreign influence is minimized in its ability to impact an outcome of an American election.  I am confident we’ll achieve that successfully.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We talked about the global mission set to secure American freedom.  If you’d asked me what the biggest challenge is going to be for the second term from a national security perspective, it’s certainly going to be the Chinese Communist Party.  It’s something that we have been focused on since the beginning of the Trump administration.  It’s something that the previous administration allowed us to get just rolled by them in every dimension, whether it was intellectual property theft that they allowed to go on, whether it was the massively unfair trade relationship we had, whether it was China’s advancement in the South China Sea.  The previous administration simply refused to take the actions necessary to secure freedom for the American people from the threat that the Chinese Communist Party presents, and President Trump has told our team we need to do everything we can to preserve that freedom and push back to make sure we have a fair and reciprocal set of relationships with the Chinese Communist Party.

QUESTION:  On China, it is a tense time with the South China Sea, Hong Kong, conflict there.  What is the status of the U.S.-China relationship?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’re engaged in dialogue.  I traveled to Honolulu now two, three weeks back to meet with Yang Jiechi.  But sadly, they want to talk about cooperation, they want to talk about being a global power that complies with the rule of law, and yet everyplace we see their actions, their actions belie that.  Examples:  General Secretary Xi promised he would not militarize the South China Sea in 2015, in the Rose Garden.  He militarized the South China Sea.  They made a promise, a 50-year commitment, an internationally recognized agreement between China and the United Kingdom in Hong Kong, that there would be one country and two systems, and he’s now fundamentally violated that.

Everyplace the Chinese Communist Party – they make commitments under the Paris Climate Accord that they’re not remotely close to complying with.  This is a Chinese Communist Party that is acting in a way that poses real threats to the world, and the United States is going to respond each – in each of those venues to make sure that we preserve American national security and impose costs on the Chinese Communist Party in order to achieve the change in behavior that will have a good outcome.  So we want a free and open Indo-Pacific; the Chinese Communist Party continues to treat that body of water as its own maritime empire.  We’re not going to allow that to happen.

QUESTION:  There is bipartisan legislation in the House and the Senate that would give certain Hong Kong residents refugee status.  Is that legislation a good idea?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  The President hasn’t made a decision on this yet.  I’m very confident that if there are people who are coming from anywhere in the world who seek asylum, the United States has always been a place that welcomes those people.  We – it’s been a little bit slower, fewer people seeking asylum, and our capacity to process asylum claims has been a little slowed down by the virus that emanated from China.  We’ll be back at it shortly, and I’m sure there’ll be people from Hong Kong – the United Kingdom has graciously allowed some 3 million people to come from Hong Kong.  Australia has set up a set of rules, Canada too.  The Western world – democracies understand what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to those of us who believe in freedom and liberty, and we will make sure and take care of those freedom fighters who want to travel, who don’t feel like they’re safe, and can continue to do good work inside of Hong Kong or in any other country for that matter.

QUESTION:  On the coronavirus, how sure are you that it originated from a lab in Wuhan, and what is the proof of that?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, so what I can say is that we know this much:  We know that it began in Wuhan, China.  The scientific community is quite confident of that.  We don’t know precisely from where it emanated.  As I’ve said before, there’s evidence that it came from a laboratory.  We’ve seen other people who have said that it came from other places.  And finally, we know this:  The Chinese Communist Party has prevented anyone from finding out the answer to that question.  They denied access to the laboratory, they’ve – to the World Health Organization, anyone who wanted to talk about it who was inside of that laboratory, whether they were a journalist or a doctor, has been precluded from talking about that.  They’ve either been told they can’t talk or worse.  And indeed, the scientific community who desperately needs still to figure out where patient zero came from has been unable to get that information.  This is a result of the Chinese Communist Party hiding the data.

Bob, you know this.  Countries that want to be global powers, countries that want to participate on the global stage, have a corresponding obligation to comply to the promises they make.  China made a promise to the World Health Organization.  There’s a set of rules about disclosure, and when you have an incident in your country that could potentially lead to a pandemic, you have an obligation to report that and to allow others to come in and help you be transparent about it.  The Chinese Communist Party chose differently.  They co-opted the World Health Organization to achieve that coverup, and the result today is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who have died and trillions of dollars in global damage as a direct result of the Chinese Communist Party’s decision that resulted following their knowledge about what was happening in Wuhan.

QUESTION:  Should China pay a price for that, financially or otherwise?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I think the world will absolutely make them pay a price.  You can see it.  Everyplace I go, every foreign minister that I talk to, they recognize what China has done to the world, and I’m very confident that they will – that the world will look at China differently and engage with them on fundamentally different terms than they did before this catastrophic disaster that could well have been mitigated had China behaved in a way that was consistent with the promises that they had made.


QUESTION:  The UK reversed itself on Huawei and 5G.  What – was that an intense lobbying campaign that you and others in the U.S. Government did to get them to reverse?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’ve been working everywhere in the world to make sure that every nation has trusted vendors for their information technology systems.  Not just the United Kingdom, but 190 countries – we want every one of them to make sure that their citizens’ data isn’t in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.  We are pleased with the United Kingdom’s decision.  We think they came to it after having reviewed the same data that we have seen about the risk of privacy of the facial recognition, data sets, all of that that transits across Huawei’s systems, inevitably being made available to the Chinese Communist Party.  They concluded that wasn’t in their nation’s best interest and made the decision you saw this week.  We were happy about that outcome because we think it helps the United States as well, because you have Americans that have their information transiting across those systems when they travel to the United Kingdom as well.


来源时间:2020/7/18   发布时间:2020/7/15

旧文章ID:22361

Wang Yi: Stay on the Right Track and Keep Pace with the Times to Ensure the Right Direction for China-US Relations

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作者:Wang Yi  来源:中国外交部网站

Distinguished Guests, Friends,

Greetings to you all.

At the outset, I would like to congratulate you on the opening of the Forum. I also wish to use this opportunity to thank and pay tribute to the people from all sectors who have long been committed to China-US relations. I want to thank Dr. Kissinger for supporting this Forum. Every time I talked with him, I was most impressed by his profound, strategic thinking on the world and on China-US relations.

Today’s Forum is highly important. As we speak, COVID-19 is raging across the globe. People’s lives are under grave threat. The world economy is in deep recession. The undercurrent against international cooperation is gathering momentum. Unilateralism and bullying are forcing their way in the world. An international disorder is more possible than ever.

More alarmingly, China-US relations, one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, is faced with the most severe challenge since the establishment of diplomatic ties. Some in the US with ideological biases are resorting to all possible means to portray China as an adversary, and even an enemy. They seek relentlessly to frustrate and contain China’s development, and to impede interactions between China and the US.

Will the giant ship of China-US relations be able to stay on the right course in the future after more than four decades of voyage? The question matters not only to the interests of the Chinese and American peoples, but also to the future of the world and humanity.

How to set things right and get China-US relations back on track toward long-term, sound and steady development? I would like to offer three observations.

First, China and the US should not seek to remodel each other. Instead, they must work together to find ways to peaceful coexistence of different systems and civilizations.

Every country takes its development path on the basis of its cultural and historic traditions. China’s path of socialism with Chinese characteristics suits its own national conditions, and it is the choice of the Chinese people. Facts have proved that this has been the way out of poverty and backwardness for the 1.4 billion Chinese people, and that it has enabled the Chinese nation to make important contribution again to the progress of mankind. International public opinion surveys have indicated over and again that Chinese people’s approval ratings of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the government rank the highest worldwide. No one has the right to rebuff the development path of other countries. And no country will remold its own system to the liking of other countries. After all, it should be the people of the country concerned to adjudicate whether their country’s choice of system and path is right or not.

One particular view has been floating around in recent years, alleging that the success of China’s path will be a blow and threat to the Western system and path. This claim is inconsistent with facts, and we do not agree with it. Aggression and expansion are never in the genes of the Chinese nation throughout its 5,000 years of history. China does not replicate any model of other countries, nor does it export its own to others. We never ask other countries to copy what we do. More than 2,500 years ago, our forefathers advocated that "All living things can grow in harmony without hurting one another, and different ways can run in parallel without interfering with one another". This is part of the Oriental philosophy, which remains highly relevant today. The American people have long pursued equality, inclusiveness and diversity. The world should not be viewed in binary thinking, and differences in systems should not lead to a zero-sum game. China will not, and cannot, be another US. The right approach should be to respect, appreciate, learn from, and reinforce each other. In its reform and opening-up, China has learned a lot of useful experience from developed countries. Likewise, some of China’s successful experiences have also been quite relevant for some countries in tackling their current challenges. In this diverse world, China and the US, despite their different social systems, have much to offer each other and could well co-exist peacefully.

Second, China’s US policy remains unchanged. We are still willing to grow China-US relations with goodwill and sincerity.

Some friends in the US might have become suspicious or even wary of a growing China. I’d like to stress here again that China never intends to challenge or replace the US, or have full confrontation with the US. What we care most about is to improve the livelihood of our people. What we deem as the most important is to realize national renewal of the Chinese nation. And what we hope for most is to maintain peace and stability of the world. To this end, China has maintained a highly stable and consistent policy toward the US. And China stands ready to develop a China-US relationship featuring no conflict and confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation based on coordination, cooperation and stability.

To achieve that goal, China and the US must work in the same direction, respect international law and international rules, and engage in equal dialogue and consultation. While the US unscrupulously encircles and smears China around the world, and meddles in China’s domestic affairs, it should not demand unrealistically that China show understanding and support to the US in bilateral and global affairs. As an independent sovereign country, China has every right to uphold its sovereignty, security and development interests, safeguard the achievements that the Chinese people have made through hard work, and reject any bullying and injustice imposed on it.

Third, it is important to have a correct view of the historical experience of China-US relations, and stay the course of dialogue and cooperation.

Some in the US have claimed that the engagement policy over the past decades has been a failure, and that the US has been ripped off in its cooperation with China. That is a comment that disrespects history and conflicts with the fact.

China and the US were allies who fought side by side during WWII. In the 1970s, the two sides reopened the door toward establishing diplomatic ties on the basis of respecting the different systems of each other. That our dialogue and cooperation have come a long way is attributable to the political wisdom and strenuous efforts by one generation after another. It reveals the inherent law of China-US relations, and also represents the trend of the times.

In the past 40 years and more since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China and the US have made the best use of their complementarity, and their interests have become highly integrated. China’s success is attributable to its opening-up to and cooperation with the US and the world. And China’s development has provided the US with sustained growth impetus and a huge market. From regional hotspots to counter-terrorism and nonproliferation, from international financial crisis to disease prevention and control, China and the US have jointly accomplished many great things to the benefit of not only the two countries but also the world.

Some say that China-US relations will not be able to return to its past. But that should not mean ignoring the history altogether and starting all over again, let alone impractical decoupling. It should mean building on past achievements and keeping pace with the times. As you may have noted, despite the impact of COVID-19, 74 percent of US businesses in China said they plan to make more investment here. Recently, 191 agricultural organizations sent a joint letter to President Donald J. Trump, calling for continued implementation of the phase one trade agreement. Many US universities have openly expressed their support for closer China-US educational exchanges. And many global leaders have called on China and the US to increase dialogue and cooperation and avoid confrontation and decoupling. These are the advice we must heed. More important, they are also the goals we must work for.

Friends,

President Xi Jinping has underlined on many occasions that we have a thousand reasons to make the China-US relationship a success, and none whatsoever to wreck it. As long as both sides have the positive will to improve and grow this relationship, we will find ways to steer this relationship out of the difficulties and bring it back to the right track. To that end, I want to make three suggestions for you to discuss:

First, activate and open all the channels of dialogue. The current China policy of the US is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculation, and is fraught with emotions and whims and McCarthyist bigotry. Its suspicion about China, totally uncalled-for, has reached a point of paranoia. It seems as if every Chinese investment is politically driven, every Chinese student is a spy, and every cooperation initiative is a scheme with hidden agenda. If the US lacks confidence, openness and inclusiveness to such an extent, and chooses to conjure up "China Threats" of various kinds, its paranoia may turn into self-fulfilling prophecies at the end of the day.

Only communication can dispel falsehoods. Only dialogue can prevent miscalculation. Slandering others does not clear one’s own name, and finger-pointing cannot resolve any problems. Let me reaffirm that China’s door to dialogue remains open. As long as the US is ready, we can restore and restart the dialogue mechanisms at all levels and in all areas. All issues can be put on the table. And all differences can be addressed properly through dialogue. In the meantime, as long as the US does not set restrictions, we are also ready to promote exchanges and interactions between government departments, localities and social sectors, so as to enable the two peoples to know and understand more of each other.

Second, review and agree on the lists of interactions. Given the inter-connectedness and complexity of issues, it is useful for the two sides to sit down together, run over them, and draw up the following three lists:

The first is a list of cooperation areas. It should specify all areas, bilateral and global, where China and the US need to and can work together. The longer this list goes, the better. Cooperation on this list should be immune to the impact of other issues.

The second is a list of dialogues. It should itemize the issues of differences that could be solved through dialogues. They should be designated to the existing dialogue mechanisms and platforms as soon as possible.

The third is a list of issues that need proper management. It should identify the few tough issues that the two countries have little chance to agree on in the near future. The two sides should manage them well in the spirit of seeking common ground while putting aside differences, so as to minimize their impact on and harm to the overall China-US relations.

I encourage the think tanks of the two countries to start exploring the three lists ahead of others.

Third, focus and cooperate on COVID-19 response. Nothing is more precious than human lives. Nothing is more pressing than saving lives. We have deep sympathies for the American people for their unfortunate experiences, and have provided the US an enormous amount of badly-needed medical supplies. In the face of the virus, cooperation should be the first-order priority. China is ready to share with the US information about COVID-19 prevention and containment as well as our response experience. And we are also ready to have closer exchanges with the US on diagnostics and therapeutics, vaccines, and economic recovery.

The US, for its part, should immediately stop its acts of politicization and stigmatization. It should work with China to promote a global response to save more lives and live up to our international responsibility as two major countries.

Friends,

There is an ancient Chinese axiom, which says, "Practice enriches knowledge, and more knowledge leads to better practice."

The China-US relationship is one of the world’s most important bilateral relations. There needs to be more positive messages and energy from this relationship. I hope the US will develop more objective and cool-headed perceptions about China, and a more rational and pragmatic China policy. This is in the fundamental interests of the Chinese and American peoples. It is also what the world expects from the two countries.

Thank you.

来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/7/9

旧文章ID:22360

美司法部长巴尔7月16日讲话全文

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作者:威廉·巴尔  来源:VOA

很荣幸今天来到这里谈谈可能被证明是对我们国家和21世纪的世界来说最为重要的问题,那就是,美国对中国共产党全球野心的回应。中共用铁腕统治着世界伟大古老文明之一。它试图利用中国人民巨大的力量、生产率和创造力来推翻基于规则的国际秩序,让独裁安身于世界。美国对这一挑战如何回应,将带来历史性的后果,并将决定究竟是由美国及其自由民主盟国继续塑造自身的命运,还是由中共及其专制朝贡国来掌控未来。

至少自从1890年代以来,美国一直是全球的技术领军者。我们的繁荣、历代美国人的机会和我们的安全均来自这种超凡的技术实力。正因如此,我们得以在世界历史上发挥关键的作用,击退了法西斯主义的威胁和共产主义的威胁。如今,摆在我们面前的利害攸关问题是,我们是否能够维持这一领导地位和那种技术领导地位。我们会不会成为让这一切被盗窃走、实际上是让我们子孙的未来被盗窃走的一代人?

几个星期前,国家安全顾问罗伯特·奥布莱恩谈到了中共的意识形态和全球野心。他宣布,而且我同意,“美国在中华人民共和国问题上表现出被动和天真的日子一去不返了。”上星期,联调局局长克里斯·雷描述了中共如何通过邪恶甚至是违法的行为来追求其野心的,包括工业间谍、盗窃、敲诈勒索、网络攻击和恶意影响活动。在今后几天,你们会听到国务卿麦克·蓬佩奥的讲话,他将总结摆在美国和自由世界前的利害攸关是什么。

在他上星期讲话之后,克里斯·雷对我说,中国共产党的一位领导人宣称他的讲话“尤其令人厌恶”。我对他说,我本来今天要达到的目标是被说成令人鄙视,但我现在要达到“尤其令人厌恶”。但不管中方如何试图形容,我确实希望我的讲话和蓬佩奥的讲话将鼓励美国人民重新评估他们与中国的关系,只要中国还继续处在中国共产党的统治之下。

我们今天来到福特总统博物馆非常适合。杰拉德·福特在美国与中华人民共和国重新接触的黎明来临之际,位居我们政府的最高层。重新接触是由尼克松总统在1972年开启的。三年之后,在1975年,福特总统访问中国,与包括毛泽东在内的中华人民共和国领导人举行峰会。

当时,无法想象中国在冷战之后将成为一个几乎可以与美国匹敌的竞争者。然而,即使是在那个时候就有显示中国巨大潜能的迹象。众议院多数党领袖黑尔·博格斯和时任少数党领袖的杰拉德·福特在有关他们1972年中国之行的联合报告中写道:“如果她能够实现她的愿望,在下半个世纪里,中国可以成为一个拥有10亿人口的自给自足的强国…最后的这一印象,也就是中国有着巨大潜力的现实,也许是我们此行最为生动的。在我们的小团队穿越在那无边的土地之际,那种一个巨人正在动起来、一条龙正在醒来的感觉,不由让我们浮想联翩。”

邓小平的经济改革启动了中国令人瞩目的崛起,他有句著名的座右铭,叫做“韬光养晦”。中国完全是照这句话做的。中国的经济从1980年占世界国民生产总值的大约2%悄然增长到了今天的将近20%。按照某些统计,根据购买力平价来计算,中国的经济规模已经超过了我们。将权力集中到了自毛泽东独裁时代以来从未有过的程度的中共总书记习近平如今公开表示中国在走近“世界舞台中央“,“建设比资本主义优越的社会主义”;以“中国方案”取代美国梦。中国不再韬光,也不再养晦。在共产党统治者看来,中国的时代已经到来。

中华人民共和国目前正在进行一场经济闪电战—一种咄咄逼人、精心策划、全政府、实际上是全社会的运动,意图夺取全球经济的制高点,并超越美国成为世界独占鳌头的科技超级大国。这一努力的核心是共产党的“中国制造2025”倡议,这是中华人民共和国控制机器人、先进信息技术、航空和电动车等高科技产业的计划。在数千亿美元补贴的支持下,这项倡议对美国的技术领导地位构成了真正的威胁。虽然世界贸易组织的裁决禁止为国内产出制定配额,但“中国制造2025”为机器人和电信这类产业的核心部件与基础材料的国内市场份额制定了目标(有时高达70%)。显然,中华人民共和国不仅仅是寻求跻身于其他先进工业化经济体之列,而是要彻底取而代之。

“中国制造2025”是中华人民共和国政府主导的重商主义经济模式的最新版本。对于国际市场的美国公司来说,与中国进行自由和公平的竞争,长期以来一直是个幻想。为使竞争场地有利于自己,中国的共产党政府把一系列掠夺性而且经常是不合法的战术掌握得炉火纯青:货币操纵、关税、配额、国家主导的战略投资和收购、盗窃与强制转让知识产权、国家补贴、倾销、网络攻击和工业间谍。在所有的联邦经济间谍起诉案中,有大约80%据称从事了给中国政府谋取好处的行为,在所有商业秘密盗窃案中,有大约60%与中国有关联。

中华人民共和国还试图控制欧亚、非洲和太平洋的关键贸易通道和基础设施。例如,在大约三分之一的世界海上贸易必经之地南中国海,中华人民共和国对几乎整个水道提出了大范围的、历史根据可疑的声索,蔑视国际法庭裁决,修建人工岛并在上面设置军事哨所,骚扰邻国船只和渔船。

另一个扩展其实力与影响的野心勃勃的项目是中华人民共和国的“一带一路”基础设施倡议。虽然名为“外援”,事实上,这些投资看来是为中华人民共和国的战略利益和国内经济需求服务而设计的。例如,中华人民共和国一直被批评让贫穷国家背负沉重的债务,拒绝重新谈判条件,然后接过该基础设施的控制权,就像它2017年在斯里兰卡的汉班托塔港所做的一样。这只不过是现代殖民主义的一种形式。

然而,同样后果严重的是中华人民共和国通过“数字丝绸之路”倡议控制世界数字基础设施的计划。我之前用过很长的篇幅谈到过对让世界最强大的独裁政权来建造被称为5G的全球下一代电信网络的严重风险。也许相对来说不那么普遍为人所知的是中华人民共和国在人工智能等其它尖端领域超越美国的企图。通过机器学习和大数据这样的创新,人工智能让机器模仿人类功能,比如面孔识别、解读语音、驾驶车辆、进行需要技巧的博弈,比如象棋和中国的博弈游戏围棋。2017年,北京推出了“新一代人工智能发展规划”,这是到2030年在人工智能领域领先世界的蓝图。不管哪个国家涌现成为人工智能的全球领军者,这个国家将处在最佳的位置,不仅开启相当大的经济潜力,而且还能掌握一系列的军事应用,比如利用计算机视觉来收集情报。

中华人民共和国争取技术主导地位的努力得到了其垄断稀土材料的助益。稀土材料对诸如消费类电子产品、电动汽车、医疗设备和军事硬件等产业至关重要。根据国会研究处的信息,从1960年代到1980年代,美国居世界稀土生产之首。“从那以后,生产几乎全部转向中国,”主要是因为劳动力成本较低以及经济和环境法规较松。

美国如今危险地要依赖中华人民共和国来获取这些关键材料。总体来说,中国是美国的首要供应国,占我们进口的大约80%。这种依赖的风险是真真切切的。比如,2010年,在发生了一次与东中国海岛屿纠纷有关的事件后,北京切断了对日本的稀土出口。中华人民共和国也可以对我们做出同样的事情。

中国在这些关键领域的进步表明,中国人民共和国掠夺性的经济政策正在取得成功。在一百年的时间里,美国曾是世界最大的制造业国家,这使得我们可以担任世界的“民主兵工厂”。中国2010年在制造业产出方面超过了美国。如今,中华人民共和国是世界的“独裁兵工厂”。

中国是怎么取得所有这些成就的呢?任何人都不应当低估中国人民的创造力和勤奋。与此同时,任何人也不应当怀疑是美国使中国的飞升成为可能。中国通过美国援助与贸易的自由流通获取了巨大的收益。1980年,国会给予中华人民共和国最惠国待遇。1990年代,美国公司强烈支持中华人民共和国加入世界贸易组织并给予其永久正常贸易关系。如今,美中贸易额总计大约7千亿美元。

去年,《新闻周刊》发表了一篇题为《美国最大型的公司们如何让中国再次伟大》的封面文章。这篇文章详细说明了中国的共产党领导人如何以允诺市场准入来诱惑美国工商界,然后,在从美国的投资和技术中得益之后,态度就变得越来越敌对了。中华人民共和国利用关税和配额向美国公司施加压力。监管部门然后使用不发放许可证等手段,歧视美国公司。然而,没有几家公司,哪怕是跻身财富500强的巨头,愿意正式提出贸易投诉,因为他们害怕惹恼北京。

就像美国公司已经变得依赖中国市场一样,整个美国现在也依赖中华人民共和国提供许多至关重要的商品和服务。新冠病毒大流行已使人们更加关注这种依赖性。举例说,中国是世界上最大的某些防护设备的生产国,比如口罩和医用防护服。今年3月,随着大流行病在世界各地的蔓延,中国给自己囤积口罩,阻止包括美国公司在内的生产商将其出口到有需要的国家。它然后试图利用这些物资的短缺来进行宣传,向一些国家运送数量有限而且经常有缺陷的设备,并要求外国领导人公开感谢北京运送这些物资。

中国在全球医疗产品市场上的主导地位不仅仅限于口罩和医用防护服。它已成为美国最大的医疗设备供应商,同时对在华的美国医疗公司进行歧视。中国政府针对外国公司进行更严格的监管审查,指示中国医院购买在中国生产的产品,并向美国公司施加压力,要求它们在中国建立工厂,在这些工厂里他们的知识产权更容易被盗。正如一位专家所观察到的那样,美国医疗器械制造商正在有效地“创建自己的竞争对手”。

在其他关键的行业,尤其是医药行业,美国也依赖中国的供应链。美国仍然是药物发现领域的全球领军者,但中国现在是全球最大的被称为“API”的活性药物成分生产商。正如一位国防卫生局官员所提到的:“如果中国决定减少或是限制向(美国)运送API”,这“可能会导致国内和军用两方面药品的严重短缺。”

为了在制药业占据主导地位,中国的统治者们使用了与摧毁美国其他行业相同的剧本。 2008年,中华人民共和国将药品生产定为“高附加值产业”,并通过补贴和出口退税来壮大中国公司。同时,中华人民共和国有系统地掠夺美国公司。美国公司在中国医疗保健市场面临着众所周知的障碍,包括药品审批延迟、不公平的定价限制、知识产权盗窃和假冒产品。在制药公司工作的中国人在美国和中国都有因盗窃商业秘密而被抓住的例子。中共长期以来一直在从事网络间谍活动,并对美国的学术医疗中心和医疗保健公司发动黑客攻击。

实际上,与中华人民共和国有关联的黑客已经将美国大学和公司作为攻击目标,以窃取与冠状病毒治疗和疫苗相关的知识产权,有时会扰乱我们研究人员的工作。北京已经被发现掩盖了冠状病毒的爆发,因此急于得到公关方面的重大胜利,并希望它能够对任何医学突破宣称有自己的一份功劳。

所有这些例子都应该清楚地表明,中国统治者的终极企图心不是与美国进行贸易。它是抢掠美国。如果你是一位美国商业领袖,那么讨好中华人民共和国可能会带来短期回报。但最终,中华人民共和国的目标是取代你。正如美国商会的一份报告所说,“外国公司所认为的大量金融投资、专业知识的共享和重大技术转让将导致中国市场不断开放的想法正在被董事会内部流传的一种笑话所取代,那就是,双赢在中国意味着中国赢两次。”

尽管美国人曾希望贸易与投资将促使中国的政治体制自由化,但这个政权的根本性质从未改变过。它对香港的无情镇压再次证明,与1989年坦克在天安门广场对付民主抗议人士相比,中国并没有距离民主更近。它仍然是一个威权的、一党统治的国家,共产党掌握着绝对权力,不受全民选举、法治或独立司法的制约。中共监视自己的人民,给他们打出社会信用分数,雇用政府内容审查大军,酷刑折磨异议人士,迫害宗教人士和少数民族,包括将一百万维吾尔人关押在思想灌输和劳动营里。

如果中国发生的一切只局限于中国,这已经是相当糟糕的了。然而,不是美国在改变中国,而是中国在利用经济实力试图改变美国。就像本届行政当局的中国战略所认识到的那样,“中国共产党强制统一意识形态的运动并没有止于中国的边界”。而且中共试图在全球扩大影响,包括在美国土地上。

太多的时候,美国公司为了短期利益而屈服于这种影响—甚至以美国的自由与开放为代价。悲哀的是,美国企业向北京低头的例子数不胜数。

以好莱坞为例。好莱坞的演员、制片人和导演为他们宣扬自由和人文精神而自豪。每年,在奥斯卡金像奖颁奖典礼上,美国人都会听到有关这个国家如何没有达到好莱坞的社会正义理想的说教。但是,好莱坞现在经常审查自己的电影,以安抚中国共产党这个世界上最强大的人权侵犯者。这种审查不仅会影响到在中国发行的电影版本,而且还会影响到在美国剧院向美国观众放映的许多电影。

例如,热门电影《僵尸世界大战》描述了一个由病毒引起的僵尸末日景象。据报道,这部电影的最初版本包含了一个片中人物推测该病毒可能起源于中国的场景。(在小说中,“零号病人”是一个来自重庆的男孩。)但这部影片的制片厂—派拉蒙影业公司据报要制片人删除这个有关中国的提法,希望达成在中国发行这个影片的协议。这笔交易从未实现。

在漫威影业的大片《奇异博士》中,电影制片人把漫画书中一个被称为“古一法师”的藏僧这个主要人物的民族从藏人改为凯尔特人。当他们因此而受到质疑时,一位编剧解释说,“如果你承认西藏是一个地方,而且他是藏人,就有可能疏远十亿人。”或者,就像中国政府可能会说的那样,“我们不会放映你的电影,因为你决定卷入政治。”

这些只是为适应中共的宣传而进行了各种修改的诸多好莱坞电影中的两个例子。国家安全顾问奥布莱恩在他的讲话中提供了更多的例子。但是更多的脚本可能因为作家和制作人知道甚至不去测试这个极限而从未得见天日。中国政府的审查人员无需说一个字,因为好莱坞正在替他们做事。这是中国共产党一个极大的宣传胜利。

电影业向中共屈服是一个耳熟能详的故事。在过去的二十年中,中国成为全球最大的票房。中共长期以来一直严格控制进入这个有利可图的市场的渠道,包括对美国电影实行配额制以及严格的审查制度,而配额制的实施违反了中国加入世界贸易组织的义务。好莱坞越来越多地依靠中国的资金来筹集资金。 2018年,与中国投资者合作的电影占美国票房收入的20%,而五年前仅为3%。

但从长远来看,与其它中国的产业一样,中华人民共和国更感兴趣的不是与好莱坞合作,而是收买利用好莱坞,而且最终用国产电影取而代之。为了实现这个目标,中共一直遵循其通常的作法。通过对美国电影设置配额,中共向好莱坞电影制片厂施压,要求它们与中国公司组建合资企业,然后中国公司可以获取美国的技术和专长。正如一位中国电影高管最近所说的那样,“我们所学的一切都源于好莱坞。”值得注意的是,2019年,中国票房最高的十部电影中有八部是在中国制作的。

向中国叩头的远不止好莱坞。美国的大科技公司也让自己成为中国影响力的棋子。

在美国与中国实现贸易关系正常化的2000年,克林顿总统将这个新世纪称为“自由将通过手机和电缆调制解调器传播的世纪”。相反,在接下来的十年中,思科等美国公司帮助中国共产党人建立了中国的防火长城,这是世界上最复杂的互联网监视和审查系统。

多年来,像谷歌、微软、雅虎和苹果之类的公司已经显示出来,它们过于乐意与中共勾结。例如,最近,在中国政府对有关香港民主抗议活动的报道提出抱怨后,苹果公司在其中国应用商店中删除了新闻应用Quartz。苹果还删除了允许用户绕过防火长城的虚拟专用网络的应用程序,并从其中国音乐商店中删除了宣扬民主的歌曲。同时,该公司宣布将把部分的苹果云数据转移到中国的服务器上,尽管人们担心此举将使中共更容易接触到存储在云中的电子邮件、短信和其他用户信息。

最近,我们得以打开在彭萨科拉海军航空基地开枪射击了八名美国人的基地组织恐怖分子用过的两部手机。在与他展开的枪战中,他停下来,停止交火,并放下他的手机,并试图摧毁它们,将一枚子弹射入他的两部手机之一。我们当时认为,这可能意味着这些手机里可能含有涉及恐怖活动的非常重要的信息。在四个半月的时间里,我们一直试图在没有苹果公司的任何帮助下打开这些手机。苹果未能给我们提供任何帮助。我们最终侥幸的找到了一个我们今后可能复制的解决办法。我们找到了他与基地组织在中东的特工之间的通信联络,包括直到袭击发生前一天的信息。你认为当苹果在中国销售手机时,在中国的苹果手机不会被中国当局渗透吗?如果它们完全不受中国当局的渗透,它们就不会被出售。我们当时要的是一个搜查令。如果我们有法院的搜查令,那么我们就应该可以打开这些手机。这是美国科技公司中已经出现的双重标准。

中共长期以来一直利用公开报复的威胁和禁止进入市场来施加影响。然而最近,中共也加大了发展和胁迫美国企业高管来实现其政治目的的幕后努力—这些努力更加有害,因为它们很大程度上隐藏在公众视野之外。

随着中国政府在全球范围内失去信誉,司法部已经看到越来越多的中华人民共和国的官员及其代理人与公司领导人接触,并诱使他们拥护中共所偏爱的政策和行动。他们的目标各不相同,但是他们的推销思路却基本相同:商人在中国有经济利益,而且暗示,取决于他们对中华人民共和国的要求所做出的回应,他们的处境会更好(或更糟)。私下向美国公司领导人施压或讨好以推动政策(或美国政治人物)构成了重大威胁,因为躲在美国声音的背后可以使中国政府提高它的影响力活动,并给亲政权的政策安上一个“友好面孔”。从这些美国商人那里听取看法的立法者或决策者会更加认同他的这个选民,而不是一个外国人。通过掩盖其对我们政治进程的参与,中华人民共和国避免了如果游说活动被揭露而需要对影响活动承担的责任以及由此可能引起的公愤。

美国的企业领导人可能不会把自己视为游说者。例如,你可能会认为,建立一个互惠的关系只是与中华人民共和国开展业务所必需的“关系”—也就是一个有影响力的社交网络系统的一部分。但是你应该警惕可能会被利用,以及你代表外国公司或政府所做的努力可能涉及《外国代理人注册法》。该法不禁止任何言论或行为。但它确实要求那些充当外国负责人“代理人”的人通过在司法部注册,公开披露这个关系以及他们的政治或其他类似活动,允许受众在评估一个演讲的可信度时考虑到这个演讲的来源。

当然,聚焦美国商业领袖,我并不是想暗示他们是中国影响力行动针对的唯一目标。但是,他们如今已成为中国在美国影响力行动的主要目标。中国共产党还试图渗透、审查或利诱美国的学术和研究机构。例如,数十所美国大学开设了中国政府资助的“孔子学院”,这些学院被指控迫使主办大学避免讨论或取消有关北京认为有争议的话题的活动。大学必须互相支持;拒绝让中共决定研究工作或压制各种不同的声音;支持希望发表意见的同事和学生;并考虑以牺牲任何学术诚信或自由为代价来满足中共的要求是否值得。

在一个全球化的世界中,美国公司和大学等可能将自己视为全球公民,而不是美国的机构。但是他们应该记住,当初使他们成功的是美国的自由企业制度和法治以及美国的经济、技术和军事实力所提供的安全。

全球化并不总是引导世界走向更大的自由。一个随着共产中国的鼓点行军的世界容不下依赖自由市场、自由贸易或自由思想交流的机制。曾几何时,美国的企业是明白这一点的。他们视自己为美国人,并自豪地捍卫美国的价值观。

例如,在二次世界大战中,具有标志性的美国公司迪斯尼为政府制作了数十部政府公益信息影片,包括训练美国水兵导航技巧的视频。在战争期间,迪斯尼90%的雇员都在从事制作训练和公益信息影片的工作。为了提高军队的士气,迪斯尼还设计了出现在飞机、卡车、飞行服以及美国和盟军使用的其他军事设备上的徽章。

我猜想沃尔特·迪斯尼如果看到他创立的公司如何与当今的外国独裁者做交易会感到寒心的。当迪斯尼公司制作《达赖喇嘛的一生》—一部1997年制作的讲述中国压制达赖喇嘛的电影时,中共对这个项目表示反对,并且向迪斯尼施压,要求将其放弃。最终,迪斯尼决定不能让一个外国强权来决定它是否在美国发行一部电影。

然而这种勇敢时刻没有持续多久。当中共在中国禁止所有的迪斯尼电影后,迪斯尼为重获准入而大力游说。该公司的首席执行官为《达赖喇嘛的一生》道歉,称之为“愚蠢的错误“。迪斯尼随后开始说服中国在上海建造一个主题公园。做为交易的一部分,迪斯尼同意让中国政府官员参与管理。在这个主题公园的1万1千名全职雇员中,有300人是活跃的共产党员。据报道他们在办公桌上摆放锤子与镰刀的党徽,并且在营业时间在设施内参加党的讲座会。

像其他美国公司一样,迪斯尼最终可能会认识到在原则上妥协所付出的代价。就在上海迪斯尼开业不久,一个中方拥有的主题公园就在距离几百英里的地方冒了出来。媒体报道说,这个主题公园里的人物看上去令人生疑地与白雪公主和其他迪斯尼商标相似。

美国公司必须明白其中的风险。中国共产党思考的是几十年和几百年,而我们倾向于聚焦下一个季度的盈利报告。但是如果迪斯尼和其他美国公司继续向北京低头,他们所带来的风险不仅是破坏自己的未来竞争力与繁荣,还会破坏使它们得以兴盛的传统自由秩序。

在冷战期间,后来成为鲍威尔大法官的路易斯·鲍威尔向美国商会发出了一份重要的备忘录。他提到,自由企业体系正受到前所未有的攻击,并呼吁美国公司要更加努力来维护这个体系。“是时候了,”他写道,“的确,这是早就应该做的—要把美国企业的智慧、创造力和资源调动起来,对抗那些企图摧毁它的人。”

今天也是这样。美国人民比以往任何时候都更认识到中国共产党不仅对我们的生活方式,而且对我们的生命和生计构成的威胁。他们会更越来越多地公开批评企业的绥靖行为。

如果公司害怕独自挺身而出,那么集体行动就会有力量。就像鲍威尔大法官说的:“力量来自于组织,来自于细致的长期规划和实施,来自于无限期的多年行动的一致性,来自于只有通过共同努力才能得到的融资规模,来自于只有通过团结行动和全国性的组织才能获得的政治力量。”

虽然多年来都在默默接受中国的共产党当局,美国科技公司可能终于通过集体行动找到了勇气。在中国最近对香港强制实施严厉的国安法以后,据报道许多大型科技公司,包括脸书、谷歌、推特、Zoom、领英宣布将暂停遵守政府提出的提供用户资料的要求。和以往一样,共产党官员威胁要监禁不服从的公司的雇员。我们要观察这些公司会不会坚持到底。我希望它们会。如果它们能够团结在一起,它们会给其他美国公司树立一个抵抗中国共产党腐败和独裁统治的好榜样。

中共发动了一场触角遍及中国政府和社会每一个角落、精心策划的行动,来利用我们的机构的开放性,其目的是摧毁它们。为了确保我们的子孙后代能拥有一个自由和繁荣的世界,自由世界需要有一个自己的全社会方式,让公共和私营部门在保持必要分割的同时能够共同合作来抵制控制,赢得掌握全球经济制高点的竞争。美国曾经做到过这一点。如果我们重新点燃对我们的国家和我们相互之间的爱和奉献,我相信我们—美国人民、美国政府和美国企业一道可以再次做得到。我们的自由有赖于此。


来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/7/17

旧文章ID:22359

Robert C. O’Brien: The Chinese Communist Party’s Ideology and Global Ambitions

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作者:Robert C. O’Brien  来源:白宫网站

Remarks delivered by National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien on June 24, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona.
     Well, thank you Governor.  That was an extraordinarily kind introduction and for thinking of Kayla and her parents. We had them at the State of the Union. That was a very special occasion for the President and for all of us as Americans. What happened to Kayla should never happen to anyone, especially Americans. Thank you for remembering her today and for the support you have given her family.  It is great to be here in Phoenix. Congratulations on the TSMC factory that is coming to Arizona.  I can tell you there are 49 other governors that are a little jealous of Governor Ducey at this point. What a tremendous accomplishment for your administration and it’s great for our national security to bring our supply chain home, especially when we are dealing with critical technology, computer chips, dual-use chips, that are not only important to our civilian world—the phones we use, the computers we use, the dishwashers, the refrigerators we use—but also to our military.  You have some great aerospace companies who are doing work in Arizona that are going to benefit from having their suppliers closer to home. Congratulations to the people of Arizona.

It is wonderful to be here at the Arizona Commerce Authority. Congratulations to you as well for the excellent support you gave the governor and his administration in not only bringing the Taiwanese here but also many other manufacturing companies returning to America are coming to Arizona—great weather, sunshine.  It is wonderful again to be back here on the west coast.  Other folks around the world are coming to Arizona and the American West to see there is a whole other part to this country outside of Washington, D.C. and New York. As manufacturing returns to this country, Arizona will be at the top of their list. So congratulations, Governor.

I bring you greetings from the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. I know he was here yesterday.  It is privilege to follow in his wake.  I think there is some other good news; you will be having the Vice President of the United States Mike Pence, my close friend, whose office is down the hall, will be here next week.

I appreciate the kind invitation to come discuss an issue of great importance to American national security with you, Governor and your colleagues here in Arizona:—the challenge the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United States and our allies is of critical importance to us right now. My remarks are the first of several speeches senior Administration officials will give on this matter over the next few weeks. You will soon hear from Secretary of State Pompeo, Attorney General Barr, and FBI Director Chris Wray on the subject.

America, under President Trump’s leadership, has finally awoken to the threat the Chinese Communist Party’s actions and the threat they pose to our very way of life. For decades, conventional wisdom in both U.S. political parties, the business community, academia, and media, has held that it was only a matter of time before China would become more liberal, first economically and, then, politically. The more we opened our markets to China, the thinking went, the more we invested capital in China, the more we trained PRC bureaucrats, scientists, engineers, and even military officers, the more China would become like us.

It was under this premise that we welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 with vast concessions and trade privileges. We downplayed China’s gross human rights abuses, including Tiananmen Square. We turned a blind eye to China’s widespread technology theft that eviscerated entire sectors of the American economy.

As China grew richer and stronger, we believed, the Chinese Communist Party would liberalize to meet the rising democratic aspirations of its people.  This was a bold, quintessentially American idea, born of our innate optimism and by the experience of our triumph over Soviet Communism.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be very naïve.

We could not have been more wrong—and this miscalculation is the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s. How did we make such a mistake? How did we fail to understand the nature of the Chinese Communist Party?

The answer is simple: because we did not pay heed to the CCP’s ideology. Instead of listening to what CCP leaders were saying and reading what they wrote in their key documents, we closed our ears and our eyes. We believed what we wanted to believe—that the Party members were communist in name only.

Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization. The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor. In fact, as the journalist and former Australian government official John Garnaut has noted, the Chinese Communist Party is the last “ruling communist party that never split with Stalin, with the partial exception of North Korea.” [1] Yes, Stalin – the man whose brutal dictatorship and disastrous policies killed roughly 20 million Russians and others through famine, forced collectivization, executions, and labor camps. As interpreted and practiced by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, communism is a totalitarian ideology.

Under communism, individuals are merely a means to be used toward the achievement of the ends of the collective nation state. Thus, individuals can be easily sacrificed for the nation state’s goals.  Individuals do not have inherent value under Marxism-Leninism. They exist to serve the state; the state does not exist to serve them.

These ideas sound remote and outdated to us. They are, after all, old ideas—they were born a century and a half ago in Europe. They were implemented a century ago by Russia, and then discarded 30 years ago as the most costly failed political experiment in history. But in China, these ideas remain as fundamental to the Chinese Communist Party as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do to us as Americans.

The Chinese Communist Party seeks total control over the people’s lives. This means economic control, it means political control, it means physical control, and, perhaps most importantly, it means thought control.

“In Classical Chinese statecraft,” Garnaut has noted, “there are two tools for gaining and maintaining control over ‘the mountains and the rivers’: the first is wu (武), weapons and violence, and the second is wen (文), language and culture. Chinese leaders have always believed that power derives from controlling both the physical battlefield and the cultural domain.” [2] “For Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Xi,” Garnaut writes, “words are not vehicles of reason and persuasion. They are bullets. Words are for defining, isolating, and destroying opponents.” [3]

Propaganda plays a central political role for the CCP. Beijing’s efforts to dominate political thought are stated openly and pursued aggressively. In 1989, the party began organizing itself around ‘ideological security,’ a term repeated frequently since then by CCP leaders. More recently, in April 2013, the Party issued a policy on what they call the “current state of ideology.” [4] It held that there should be, “absolutely no opportunity or outlets for incorrect thinking or viewpoints to spread.” [5]

So within China, this approach means mandatory study sessions on Communist ideology and the required download and use of smartphone apps that teach so-called “Xi Jinping Thought.” It means complete control of all state media. Outside sources of information are banned—from foreign newspapers to Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. All content generated within China is censored. It means jailing everyone from citizen bloggers, reporters, and lawyers to activists and religious believers for expressing any views contrary to the Party line.

And indeed, just recently, between January 1 and April 4 of this year, nearly 500 individuals were charged with crimes just for speaking out about the Wuhan coronavirus, its effects upon the Party, and the Party’s cover-up of the disease. [6]

The Chinese Communist Party reinterprets religious texts, including the Bible, to support communist party ideology. It locks up millions of Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities in reeducation camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and forced labor, while their children are raised in Party-run orphanages. This process annihilates family, religion, culture, language, and heritage of the people who are caught up in these camps. Under the Chinese Communist Party, information is tightly controlled and expression is constantly surveilled, so that it can be quashed or shaped by the state.

Americans should be concerned. We should not be concerned only for the Chinese people but for ourselves. Xi Jinping’s ambitions for ideological control are not limited to his own people. The CCP’s stated goal is to create a “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind,” and to remake the world according to the CCP. The effort to control thought beyond the borders of China is well under way.

Over the past decade, the Party has invested billions of dollars into overseas propaganda operations to great effect.[7] The CCP has moved to eliminate ‘unfriendly’ Chinese language media outlets worldwide, and is close to succeeding. Nearly every Chinese language news outlet in the U.S. is either owned by, or works closely with the Party—and it is making inroads into English language media as well. There are more than a dozen radio stations in cities across the country where Americans hear subtle pro-Beijing propaganda on their FM radio.

Recently, Chinese propaganda persuaded so many Americans that a U.S. solider had brought the coronavirus to Wuhan—as opposed to Wuhan sending the virus to the rest of the world (a complete fabrication by the CCP) that this soldier and her family needed a personal security detail to protect them from death threats. This situation occurred in Maryland.

On TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform with over 40 million American users—probably a lot of your kids and younger colleagues– accounts criticizing CCP policies are routinely removed or deleted.

Last week, Twitter announced the suspension of more than 23,000 CCP linked accounts for spreading propaganda on Hong Kong and COVID-19. This latest suspension was in addition to last August’s removal of more than 150,000 CCP linked accounts that were used to spread anti-American disinformation and generate the illusion of popular support for Beijing’s policies in the United States.  These are just the accounts Twitter caught. How many are still out there undetected?

In March, the CCP expelled American journalists working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, almost fully eliminating independent reporting from within China on the Wuhan virus.

In addition to influencing what information American citizens receive regarding China, the CCP is increasingly using its leverage to police American speech. When the University of California at San Diego hosted the Dalai Lama as a commencement speaker in 2017, Beijing banned Chinese students from visiting UCSD on government funds.

When the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for the peaceful Hong Kong protesters, the CCP announced its team’s games would not be shown on Chinese TV and used its economic power to pressure others in basketball, including star players, to criticize the tweet on behalf of Beijing.

Under pressure from the CCP, Marriott, and American, Delta, and United Airlines all removed references to Taiwan from their corporate websites. Mercedes Benz even apologized for posting an inspirational quote from the Dalai Lama on social media.

Beijing has used its financial might and market access to pressure Hollywood into self-censorship, incentivizing directors and producers to avoid topics that might not make it past the country’s censors in China. For example, the Japanese and Taiwanese flags were dropped from Tom Cruise’s flight jacket in the upcoming Top Gun sequel “Maverick.” MGM digitally changed the identities, post-production, of the invading military from China to North Korea in the “Red Dawn” remake.

The CCP is seeking leverage over individual Americans as well. The Party is collecting your most intimate data—your words, your actions, your purchases, your whereabouts, your health records, your social media posts, your texts, and mapping your network of friends, family, and acquaintances.

The CCP accomplishes this goal, in part, by subsidizing hardware, software, telecommunications, and even genetics companies. As a result, corporations such as Huawei and ZTE undercut competitors on price and install their equipment around the globe at a loss. This has the side effect of putting out of business American manufacturers of telecom hardware and has made it very difficult for Nokia and Ericsson.  Why do they do it? Because it is not telecom hardware or software profits the CCP are after, it is your data.  They use “backdoors” built into the products to obtain that data.

When the Chinese Communist Party cannot buy your data, it steals it. In 2014, the CCP hacked Anthem insurance, collecting sensitive information on 80 million Americans. In 2015, the CCP hacked the Office of Personnel Management, which holds security clearance information, acquiring sensitive data on 20 million Americans who work for the federal government. In 2017, it hacked Equifax, obtaining the names, birthdates, social security numbers, and credit scores of 145 million Americans.

In 2019, the CCP hacked Marriot, gathering information on 383 million guests, including their passport numbers.  And, in 2016, a Chinese company even bought the dating app Grindr to harvest its data, including the HIV status of users, before the U.S. government forced a divestiture on national security grounds.  These are just a few of the instances we know about.

How will the Chinese Communist Party use this data? In the same way it uses data within China’s borders: to target, to flatter, to cajole, to influence, to coerce, and to even blackmail individuals to say and do things that serve the Party’s interests. This is ‘micro targeting’ beyond an advertiser’s wildest dreams. China, unlike advertisers, will not be stopped by government regulations. The Chinese Communist Party simply wants to know everything about you—just as it likes to know almost everything about every individual living in China.

In addition to propaganda and influence operations, the Chinese Communist Party  uses trade to coerce compliance with its dictates. When Australia called for an independent investigation of the coronavirus’ origins and spread, the Chinese Communist Party threatened to stop buying Australian agricultural products and to prevent Chinese students and tourists from traveling to Australia. When Australia refused to relent, Beijing put these threats into force, imposing an 80% tariff on Australian barley exports.

International organizations are also part of China’s plan. China has sought leadership positions within many global bodies. China now heads four out of fifteen UN specialized agencies, more than the U.S., UK, France, and Russia, the other members of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, combined. The PRC uses these leaders to force the international bodies to parrot Beijing’s talking points and to install Chinese telecommunications equipment in their facilities.

For example, since Zhao Houlin of the International Telecommunications Union took his post he began to aggressively promote Huawei sales. Secretary-General Fang Liu of the International Civil Aviation Organization has blocked Taiwan’s participation in General Assembly meetings and covered up a Chinese hack of the organization. The Party has used China’s membership on the UN Human Rights Council to prevent criticism of its abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

The CCP’s reach extends to heads of international organizations who are not themselves Chinese officials.  Under Beijing’s thumb, and at an unacceptable cost to human life, Director-General Tedros of the World Health Organization dutifully used Chinese talking points on the Wuhan virus. As late as mid-January, he claimed there was no human-to-human transmission of the disease. He opposed international travel restrictions. At the same time, Tedros praised China’s own domestic travel restrictions on Wuhan residents. In other words, they could travel overseas, but they could not travel and potentially take the virus to Beijing or Shanghai. These CCP tactics in international organizations, as we have seen with the coronavirus, are a major cause of concern not just for the United States, but to the world.

The good news is that under President Trump’s leadership, we know what the CCP is doing, we are calling it out, and we are taking decisive action to counter it across the board. [8]

First, President Trump prevented certain companies that answer to the CCP’s intelligence and security apparatus—such as Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei—from accessing our personal and private data. [9] The Administration also imposed restrictions on U.S. semiconductor technology from going to Huawei.[10]

Second, the State Department designated the U.S. operations of 9 Chinese state-controlled propaganda outlets as foreign missions.[11] These organizations are the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party. This designation places reporting requirements and visa restrictions on these so-called media outlets.

Third, President Trump imposed export restrictions on 21 Chinese government entities and 16 Chinese companies complicit in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs and other minorities, and we have blocked officials complicit in these abuses from travelling to the United States. [12] The Administration has also stopped the illegal import of goods produced by Chinese companies known to use Uyghur forced labor.[13]

Fourth, President Trump left the United Nations Human Rights Council to protest its cooptation by China.[14] He has terminated the U.S. relationship with the World Health Organization, because its response to the pandemic showed that it is beholden to China.[15] Instead of funding the corrupt WHO in Geneva with over $400 million per year, the United States and its generous taxpayers will send that money directly to where it is needed most—frontline healthcare workers serving in developing countries around the world.

Fifth, President Trump limited the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to use student visa programs to place its officers and employees in our colleges and universities to steal U.S. technology, intellectual property, and information.[16]

Sixth, the President moved to halt the investment of U.S. federal employee retirement funds into PRC companies, including Chinese military contractors and manufacturers of surveillance equipment used to oppress religious minorities. [17] He is examining the opaque accounting practices of Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. [18]

This week, the Defense Department is submitting to Congress a list of People’s Liberation Army-linked companies with operations in the United States so that the American people are fully informed about exactly with whom they are doing business.

Now, these steps are just the start as America corrects 40 years of a one-sided, unfair relationship with China that has severely affected our nation’s economic and, recently, political well-being. Just like the tariffs that were imposed by the President on unfair trade practices early in his Administration, there is more to come.

President Trump understands that lasting peace comes through strength. We are the strongest nation on earth, and we will not bend to the CCP. As the foregoing actions demonstrate, the Trump Administration is countering CCP malign activity. The Trump Administration will speak out and reveal what the Chinese Communist Party believes, and what it is planning—not just for China and Hong Kong and Taiwan, but for the world.

Together with our allies and partners, we will resist the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to manipulate our people and our governments, damage our economies, and undermine our sovereignty. The days of American passivity and naivety regarding the People’s Republic of China are over.

We will stay true to our principles—especially freedom of speech—which stand in stark contrast to the Marxist-Leninist ideology embraced by the CCP. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will encourage diversity of thought, resist efforts to police speech or encourage self-censorship, protect Americans’ personal data, and above all, continue to proclaim that all women and men are entitled by right of God to liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

As I close, let me be clear – we have deep respect and admiration for the Chinese people. The United States has a long history of friendship with the Chinese nation. But the Chinese Communist Party does not equal China or her people.

To the Chinese Communist Party, I say, as the recent Phase One trade deal has shown, it is possible for our governments to have a productive relationship. We want good relationships with China, but we do not want relations on the terms currently on offer from Beijing.

As Americans, I am certain that we will rise to successfully meet the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party, just as we have responded to all the great crises over our history. President Trump is leading the way. And like President Trump, I firmly believe that our best days as a country remain ahead of us.

Again, thank you for joining me here today. It is a privilege to be here in Phoenix, Arizona.  May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.


[1] John Garnaut, “Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China,” January 16, 2019, https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in

[2] John Garnaut, “Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China,” January 16, 2019, https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in

[3] John Garnaut, “Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China,” January 16, 2019, https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in

[4] “Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” November 8, 2013, https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

[5] “Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” November 8, 2013, https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

[6] Bradford Betz, “China has arrested hundreds for speaking out about coronavirus, reports show,” May 13, 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-arrested-hundreds-speaking-out-coronavirus/

[7] Hoover Institution, 2018, “Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance,” https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/chineseinfluence_americaninterests_fullreport_web.pdf

[8] White House, “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” May 20, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.20.20.pdf

[9] White House, “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain,” May 15, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/ and White House, “Executive Order on Establishing the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector,” April 4, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-committee-assessment-foreign-participation-united-states-telecommunications-services-sector/

[10] Department of Commerce, “Commerce Addresses Huawei’s Efforts to Undermine Entity List, Restricts Products Designed and Produced with U.S. Technologies,” May 15, 2020, https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/05/commerce-addresses-huaweis-efforts-undermine-entity-list-restricts

[11] Department of State, “Designation of Additional Chinese Media Entities as Foreign Missions,” June 22, 2020, https://www.state.gov/designation-of-additional-chinese-media-entities-as-foreign-missions/

[12] White House, “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” May 20, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.20.20.pdfhttps://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/05/commerce-department-add-nine-chinese-entities-related-human-rights

[13] U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, “CBP Issues Detention Order on Hair Products Manufactured with Force Labor in China,” May 1, 2020, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-issues-detention-order-hair-products-manufactured-forced-laborhttps://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-issues-detention-order-hair-products-manufactured-forced-labor-0 and October 1, 2019,

[14] White House, “President Donald J. Trump is Standing Up for Human Rights at the U.N.,” June 21, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-standing-human-rights-u-n/

[15] White House, “Remarks by President Trump on Actions Against China,” May 30, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-actions-china/

[16] White House, “Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers from the People’s Republic of China,” May 29, 2020,  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-nonimmigrants-certain-students-researchers-peoples-republic-china/

[17] Blake Burman, “Trump orders federal retirement money invested in Chinese equities to be pulled,” May 11, 2020, https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/trump-orders-federal-retirement-money-invested-in-chinese-equities-to-be-pulled<

[18] White House, “Remarks by President Trump on Actions Against China,” May 30, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-actions-china/


来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/6/24

旧文章ID:22358

William P. Barr Delivers Remarks on China Policy at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum

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作者:William P. Barr  来源:美国司法部网站

Thank you, Andrew for that very kind introduction and for the excellent work that you and your team have done in protecting the people of the Western District of Michigan.  I would like to thank the leadership and staff of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum — especially Director Elaine Didier — for hosting today’s event.  I’d also like to offer a special thanks to the Ford Presidential Foundation and Executive Director Joe Calvaruso.  Even under normal circumstances, hosting an event can be a challenge, but these days, I know it is especially challenging.  Thank you for accommodating us.  I am also grateful to you, the audience, for honoring me with your presence today.    (点击这里查看讲话中文译文)
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It is a privilege to be here to speak about what may prove to be the most important issue for our nation and the world in the twenty-first century — that is, the United States’ response to the global ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party.  The CCP rules with an iron fist over one of the great ancient civilizations of the world.  It seeks to leverage the immense power, productivity, and ingenuity of the Chinese people to overthrow the rules-based international system and to make the world safe for dictatorship.  How the United States responds to this challenge will have historic implications and will determine whether the United States and its liberal democratic allies will continue to shape their own destiny or whether the CCP and its autocratic tributaries will control the future. 

Several weeks ago, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien spoke about the CCP’s ideology and global ambitions.  He declared, and I agree, that “[t]he days of American passivity and naivety regarding the People’s Republic of China are over.”[1]  Last week, FBI Director Chris Wray described how the CCP pursues its ambitions through nefarious and even illegal conduct, including industrial espionage, theft, extortion, cyberattacks, and malign influence activities.[2]  In the coming days, you will hear from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will sum up what is at stake for the United States and the free world.  I hope these speeches will inspire the American people to reevaluate their relationship with China, so long as it continues to be ruled by the Communist Party.          

It is fitting that we are here today at the Ford Presidential Museum.  Gerald Ford served at the highest echelons of our government at the dawn of America’s reengagement with the People’s Republic of China, which began with President Nixon’s historic visit in 1972.  Three years later, in 1975, President Ford visited China for a summit with PRC leaders, including Mao Zedong.    

At the time, it was unthinkable that China would emerge after the Cold War as a near-peer competitor of the United States.  Yet even then, there were signs of China’s immense latent power.  In the joint report of their visit to China in 1972, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and then-Minority Leader Ford wrote:  “If she manages to achieve as she aspires, China in the next half century can emerge a self-sufficient power of a billion people …. This last impression—of the reality of China’s colossal potential—is perhaps the most vivid of our journey.  As our small party traveled through that boundless land, this sense of a giant stirring, a dragon waking, gave us much to ponder.”[3]  It is now nearly fifty years later, and the prescient ponderings of these two congressmen have come to pass. 

Deng Xiaoping, whose economic reforms launched China’s remarkable rise, had a famous motto: “hide your strength and bide your time.”[4]  That is precisely what China has done.  China’s economy has quietly grown from about 2 percent of the world’s GDP in 1980 to nearly 20 percent today.  By some estimates, based on purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy is already larger than ours.  The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, who has centralized power to a degree not seen since the dictatorship of Mao Zedong, now speaks openly of China moving “closer to center stage,” “building a socialism that is superior to capitalism,” and replacing the American Dream with the “Chinese solution.”[5]  China is no longer hiding its strength, nor biding its time.  From the perspective of its communist rulers, China’s time has arrived.

The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent superpower.  A centerpiece of this effort is the Communist Party’s “Made in China 2025” initiative, a plan for PRC domination of high-tech industries like robotics, advanced information technology, aviation, and electric vehicles.  Backed by hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, this initiative poses a real threat to U.S. technological leadership.  Despite World Trade Organization rules prohibiting quotas for domestic output, “Made in China 2025” sets targets for domestic market share (sometimes as high as 70 percent) in core components and basic materials for industries such as robotics and telecommunications.  It is clear that the PRC seeks not merely to join the ranks of other advanced industrial economies, but to replace them altogether. 

“Made in China 2025” is the latest iteration of the PRC’s state-led, mercantilist economic model.  For American companies in the global marketplace, free and fair competition with China has long been a fantasy.  To tilt the playing field to its advantage, China’s communist government has perfected a wide array of predatory and often unlawful tactics: currency manipulation, tariffs, quotas, state-led strategic investment and acquisitions, theft and forced transfer of intellectual property, state subsidies, dumping, cyberattacks, and espionage.  About 80% of all federal economic espionage prosecutions have alleged conduct that would benefit the Chinese state, and about 60% of all trade secret theft cases have had a nexus to China. 

The PRC also seeks to dominate key trade routes and infrastructure in Eurasia, Africa, and the Pacific.  In the South China Sea, for example, through which about one-third of the world’s maritime trade passes, the PRC has asserted expansive and historically dubious claims to nearly the entire waterway, flouted the rulings of international courts, built artificial islands and placed military outposts on them, and harassed its neighbors’ ships and fishing boats. 

Another ambitious project to spread its power and influence is the PRC’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.  Although billed as “foreign aid,” in fact these investments appear designed to serve the PRC’s strategic interests and domestic economic needs.  For example, the PRC has been criticized for loading poor countries up with debt, refusing to renegotiate terms, and then taking control of the infrastructure itself, as it did with the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota in 2017.  This is little more than a form of modern-day colonialism.     

Just as consequential, however, are the PRC’s plans to dominate the world’s digital infrastructure through its “Digital Silk Road” initiative.  I have previously spoken at length about the grave risks of allowing the world’s most powerful dictatorship to build the next generation of global telecommunications networks, known as 5G.  Perhaps less widely known are the PRC’s efforts to surpass the United States in other cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence.  Through innovations such as machine learning and big data, artificial intelligence allows machines to mimic human functions, such as recognizing faces, interpreting spoken words, driving vehicles, and playing games of skill such as chess or the even more complex Chinese strategy game Go.  AI long ago outmatched the world’s chess grandmasters.  But the PRC’s interest in AI accelerated in 2016, when AlphaGo, a program developed by a subsidiary of Google, beat the world champion Go player at a match in South Korea.  The following year, Beijing unveiled its “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Plan,” a blueprint for leading the world in AI by 2030.  Whichever nation emerges as the global leader in AI will be best positioned to unlock not only its considerable economic potential, but a range of military applications, such as the use of computer vision to gather intelligence.
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The PRC’s drive for technological supremacy is complemented by its plan to monopolize rare earth materials, which play a vital role in industries such as consumer electronics, electric vehicles, medical devices, and military hardware.  According to the Congressional Research Service, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the United States led the world in rare earth production.[6]  “Since then, production has shifted almost entirely to China,” in large part due to lower labor costs and lighter environmental regulation.[7] 

The United States is now dangerously dependent on the PRC for these materials.  Overall, China is America’s top supplier, accounting for about 80 percent of our imports.  The risks of dependence are real.  In 2010, for example, Beijing cut exports of rare earth materials to Japan after an incident involving disputed islands in the East China Sea.  The PRC could do the same to us.

As China’s progress in these critical sectors illustrates, the PRC’s predatory economic policies are succeeding.  For a hundred years, America was the world’s largest manufacturer — allowing us to serve as the world’s “arsenal of democracy.”  China overtook the United States in manufacturing output in 2010.  The PRC is now the world’s “arsenal of dictatorship.”

How did China accomplish all this?  No one should underestimate the ingenuity and industry of the Chinese people.  At the same time, no one should doubt that America made China’s meteoric rise possible.  China has reaped enormous benefits from the free flow of American aid and trade.  In 1980, Congress granted the PRC most-favored-nation trading status.  In the 1990s, American companies strongly supported the PRC’s accession to the World Trade Organization and the permanent normalization of trade relations.  Today, U.S.-China trade totals about $700 billion. 

Last year, Newsweek ran a cover story titled “How America’s Biggest Companies Made China Great Again.”[8]  The article details how China’s communist leaders lured American business with the promise of market access, and then, having profited from American investment and know-how, turned increasingly hostile.  The PRC used tariffs and quotas to pressure American companies to give up their technology and form joint ventures with Chinese companies.  Regulators then discriminated against American firms, using tactics like holding up permits.  Yet few companies, even Fortune 500 giants, have been willing to bring a formal trade complaint for fear of angering Beijing.

Just as American companies have become dependent on the Chinese market, the United States as a whole now relies on the PRC for many vital goods and services.  The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a spotlight on that dependency.  For example, China is the world’s largest producer of certain protective equipment, such as face masks and medical gowns.  In March, as the pandemic spread around the world, the PRC hoarded the masks for itself, blocking producers — including American companies — from exporting them to countries in need.  It then attempted to exploit the shortage for propaganda purposes, shipping limited quantities of often defective equipment and requiring foreign leaders to publicly thank Beijing.

China’s dominance of the world market for medical goods goes beyond masks and gowns.  It has become the United States’ largest supplier of medical devices, while at the same time discriminating against American medical companies in China.  China’s government has targeted foreign firms for greater regulatory scrutiny, instructed Chinese hospitals to buy products made in China, and pressured American firms to build factories in China, where their intellectual property is more vulnerable to theft.  As one expert has observed, American medical device manufacturers are effectively “creating their own competitors.”[9] 

America also depends on Chinese supply chains in other vital sectors, especially pharmaceuticals.  America remains the global leader in drug discovery, but China is now the world’s largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, known as “APIs.”  As one Defense Health Agency official noted, “[s]hould China decide to limit or restrict the delivery of APIs to the [United States],” it “could result in severe shortages of pharmaceuticals for both domestic and military uses.”[10] 

To achieve dominance in pharmaceuticals, China’s rulers went to the same playbook they used to gut other American industries.  In 2008, the PRC designated pharmaceutical production as a “high-value-added-industry” and boosted Chinese companies with subsidies and export tax rebates.[11]  Meanwhile, the PRC has systematically preyed on American companies.  American firms face well-known obstacles in China’s health market, including drug approval delays, unfair pricing limitations, IP theft, and counterfeiting. Chinese nationals working as employees at pharma companies have been caught stealing trade secrets both in America and in China.  And the CCP has long engaged in cyber-espionage and hacking of U.S. academic medical centers and healthcare companies. 

In fact, PRC-linked hackers have targeted American universities and firms in a bid to steal IP related to coronavirus treatments and vaccines, sometimes disrupting the work of our researchers.  Having been caught covering up the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing is desperate for a public relations coup, and may hope that it will be able to claim credit for any medical breakthroughs.

As all of these examples should make clear, the ultimate ambition of China’s rulers isn’t to trade with the United States.  It is to raid the United States.  If you are an American business leader, appeasing the PRC may bring short-term rewards.  But in the end, the PRC’s goal is to replace you.  As a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report put it, “[t]he belief by foreign companies that large financial investments, the sharing of expertise and significant technology transfers would lead to an ever opening China market is being replaced by boardroom banter that win-win in China means China wins twice.”[12]

Although Americans hoped that trade and investment would liberalize China’s political system, the fundamental character of the regime has never changed.  As its ruthless crackdown of Hong Kong demonstrates once again, China is no closer to democracy today than it was in 1989 when tanks confronted pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.  It remains an authoritarian, one-party state in which the Communist Party wields absolute power, unchecked by popular elections, the rule of law, or an independent judiciary.  The CCP surveils its own people and assigns them social credit scores, employs an army of government censors, tortures dissidents, and persecutes religious and ethnic minorities, including a million Uighurs detained in indoctrination and labor camps.  

If what happened in China stayed in China, that would all be bad enough.  But instead of America changing China, China is leveraging its economic power to change America.  As this Administration’s China Strategy recognizes, “the CCP’s campaign to compel ideological conformity does not stop at China’s borders.”[13]  Rather, the CCP seeks to extend its influence around the world, including on American soil.

All too often, for the sake of short-term profits, American companies have succumbed to that influence—even at the expense of freedom and openness in the United States.  Sadly, examples of American business bowing to Beijing are legion. 

Take Hollywood.  Hollywood actors, producers, and directors pride themselves on celebrating freedom and the human spirit.  And every year at the Academy Awards, Americans are lectured about how this country falls short of Hollywood’s ideals of social justice.  But Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party, the world’s most powerful violator of human rights.  This censorship infects not only versions of movies that are released in China, but also many that are shown in American theaters to American audiences.

For example, the hit movie World War Z depicts a zombie apocalypse caused by a virus.  The original version of the film reportedly contained a scene with characters speculating that the virus may have originated in China.  (In the novel, Patient Zero is a boy from Chongqing.)  But the studio, Paramount Pictures, reportedly told producers to delete the reference to China in the hope of landing a Chinese distribution deal.  The deal never materialized.

In the Marvel Studios blockbuster Dr. Strange, filmmakers changed the nationality of a major character known as the “Ancient One,” a Tibetan monk in the comic books, from Tibetan to Celtic.  When challenged about this, a screenwriter explained that “if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people.”[14]  Or, he continued, the Chinese government might say “[w]e’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.”[15]

These are just two examples of the many Hollywood films that have been altered, one way or another, to conform to CCP propaganda.  National Security Advisor O’Brien offered even more examples in his remarks.  But many more scripts likely never see the light of day, because writers and producers know not to even test the limits.  Chinese government censors don’t need to say a word, because Hollywood is doing their work for them.  This is a massive propaganda coup for the Chinese Communist Party.    

The story of the film industry’s submission to the CCP is a familiar one.  In the past two decades, China has emerged as the world’s largest box office.  The CCP has long tightly controlled access to that lucrative market—both through quotas on American films, imposed in violation of China’s WTO obligations, and a strict censorship regime.  Increasingly, Hollywood also relies on Chinese money for financing.  In 2018, films with Chinese investors accounted for 20 percent of U.S. box-office ticket sales, compared to only 3.8 percent five years earlier. 

But in the long run, as with other American industries, the PRC may be less interested in cooperating with Hollywood than co-opting Hollywood—and eventually replacing it with its own homegrown productions.  To accomplish this, the CCP has been following its usual modus operandi.  By imposing a quota on American films, the CCP pressures Hollywood studios to form joint ventures with Chinese companies, who then gain access to U.S. technology and know-how.  As one Chinese film executive recently put it, “[e]verything we learned, we learned from Hollywood.”[16]  Notably, in 2019, eight of the 10 top-grossing films in China were produced in China.

Hollywood is far from alone in kowtowing to the PRC.  America’s big tech companies have also allowed themselves to become pawns of Chinese influence. 

In the year 2000, when the United States normalized trade relations with China, President Clinton hailed the new century as one in which “liberty will be spread by cell phone and cable modem.”[17]  Instead, over the course of the next decade, American companies such as Cisco helped the Communist Party build the Great Firewall of China—the world’s most sophisticated system for Internet surveillance and censorship.

Over the years, corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple have shown themselves all too willing to collaborate with the CCP.  For example, Apple recently removed the news app Quartz from its app store in China, after the Chinese government complained about coverage of the Hong Kong democracy protests.  Apple also removed apps for virtual private networks, which had allowed users to circumvent the Great Firewall, and eliminated pro-democracy songs from its Chinese music store.  Meanwhile, the company announced that it would be transferring some of its iCloud data to servers in China, despite concerns that the move would give the CCP easier access to e-mails, text messages, and other user information stored in the cloud. 

The CCP has long used public threats of retaliation and barred market access to exert influence.  More recently, however, the CCP has also stepped up behind-the-scenes efforts to cultivate and coerce American business executives to further its political objectives — efforts that are all the more pernicious because they are largely hidden from public view. 

As China’s government loses credibility around the world, the Department of Justice has seen more and more PRC officials and their proxies reaching out to corporate leaders and inveighing them to favor policies and actions favored by the Chinese Communist Party.  Their objective varies, but their pitch is generally the same: the businessperson has economic interests in China, and there is a suggestion that things will go better (or worse) for them depending on their response to the PRC’s request.  Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies (or politicians) presents a significant threat, because hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence and put a “friendly face” on pro-regime policies.  The legislator or policymaker who hears from a fellow American is properly more sympathetic to that constituent than to a foreigner.  And by masking its participation in our political process, the PRC avoids accountability for its influence efforts and the public outcry that might result, if its lobbying were exposed. 

America’s corporate leaders might not think of themselves as lobbyists.  You might think, for example, that cultivating a mutually beneficial relationship is just part of the “guanxi” — or system of influential social networks—necessary to do business with the PRC.  But you should be alert to how you might be used, and how your efforts on behalf of a foreign company or government could implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  FARA does not prohibit any speech or conduct.  But it does require those who are acting as the “agents” of foreign principals to publicly disclose that relationship and their political or other similar activities by registering with the Justice Department, allowing the audience to take into account the origin of the speech when evaluating its credibility.[18] 

These requirements are designed not to stifle your rights to free expression, which are protected by the First Amendment, but rather to ensure that the American public and their legislators can discern what or who is the true source of speech on matters of public concern.

By focusing on American business leaders, of course, I don’t mean to suggest that they are the only targets of Chinese influence operations.  The Chinese Communist Party also seeks to infiltrate, censor, or co-opt American academic and research institutions.  For example, dozens of American universities host Chinese government-funded “Confucius Institutes,” which have been accused of pressuring host universities to silence discussion or cancel events on topics considered controversial by Beijing.  Universities must stand up for each other; refuse to let the CCP dictate research efforts or suppress diverse voices; support colleagues and students who wish to speak their minds; and consider whether any sacrifice of academic integrity or freedom is worth the price of appeasing the CCP’s demands.   

In a globalized world, American corporations and universities alike may view themselves as global citizens, rather than American institutions.  But they should remember that what allowed them to succeed in the first place was the American free enterprise system, the rule of law, and the security afforded by America’s economic, technological, and military strength. 

Globalization does not always point in the direction of greater freedom.  A world marching to the beat of Communist China’s drums will not be a hospitable one for institutions that depend on free markets, free trade, or the free exchange of ideas.  

There was a time American companies understood that.  They saw themselves as American and proudly defended American values.

In World War II, for example, the iconic American company, Disney, made dozens of public information films for the government, including training videos to educate American sailors on navigation tactics.  During the war, over 90 percent of Disney employees were devoted to the production of training and public information films.  To boost the morale of America’s troops, Disney also designed insignia that appeared on planes, trucks, flight jackets, and other military equipment used by American and Allied forces.

I suspect Walt Disney would be disheartened to see how the company he founded deals with the foreign dictatorships of our day.  When Disney produced Kundun, the 1997 film about the PRC’s oppression of the Dalai Lama, the CCP objected to the project and pressured Disney to abandon it.  Ultimately, Disney decided that it couldn’t let a foreign power dictate whether it would distribute a movie in the United States.   

But that moment of courage wouldn’t last long.  After the CCP banned all Disney films in China, the company lobbied hard to regain access.  The CEO apologized for Kundun, calling it a “stupid mistake.”[19]  Disney then began courting the PRC to open a $5.5 billion theme park in Shanghai.  As part of that deal, Disney agreed to give Chinese government officials a role in management.  Of the park’s 11,000 full-time employees, 300 are active members of the Communist Party.  They reportedly display hammer-and-sickle insignia at their desks and attend Party lectures during business hours.

Like other American companies, Disney may eventually learn the hard way the cost of compromising its principles.  Soon after Disney opened its park in Shanghai, a Chinese-owned theme park popped up a couple hundred miles away featuring characters that, according to news reports, looked suspiciously like Snow White and other Disney trademarks. 

American companies must understand the stakes.  The Chinese Communist Party thinks in terms of decades and centuries, while we tend to focus on the next quarterly earnings report.  But if Disney and other American corporations continue to bow to Beijing, they risk undermining both their own future competitiveness and prosperity, as well as the classical liberal order that has allowed them to thrive.

During the Cold War, Lewis Powell — later Justice Powell — sent an important memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  He noted that the free enterprise system was under unprecedented attack, and urged American companies to do more to preserve it.  “[T]he time has come,” he said, “indeed, it is long overdue—for the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshaled against those who would destroy it.”[20]

So too today.  The American people are more attuned than ever to the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses not only to our way of life, but to our very lives and livelihoods.  And they will increasingly call out corporate appeasement. 

If individual companies are afraid to make a stand, there is strength in numbers.  As Justice Powell wrote: “Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.”[21]  Despite years of acquiescence to communist authorities in China, American tech companies may finally be finding their courage through collective action.  Following the recent imposition of the PRC’s draconian national security law in Hong Kong, many big tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Zoom, and LinkedIn, reportedly announced that they would temporarily suspend compliance with governmental requests for user data.  True to form, communist officials have threatened imprisonment for noncompliant company employees.  We will see if these companies hold firm.  I hope they do.  If they stand together, they will provide a worthy example for other American companies in resisting the Chinese Communist Party’s corrupt and dictatorial rule.      

The CCP has launched an orchestrated campaign, across all of its many tentacles in Chinese government and society, to exploit the openness of our institutions in order to destroy them.  To secure a world of freedom and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, the free world will need its own version of the whole-of-society approach, in which the public and private sectors maintain their essential separation but work together collaboratively to resist domination and to win the contest for the commanding heights of the global economy.  America has done that before.  If we rekindle our love and devotion for our country and each other, I am confident that we—the American people, American government, and American business together—can do it again.  Our freedom depends on it.  




[1] Robert C. O’Brien, National Security Advisor, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Ideology and Global Ambitions,” June 24, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/chinese-communist-partys-ideology-global-ambitions.

[2] Christopher A. Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “The Threat Posed by the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party to the Economic and National Security of the United States,” July 7, 2020, https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/the-threat-posed-by-the-chinese-government-and-the-chinese-communist-party-to-the-economic-and-national-security-of-the-united-states.

[3] Hale Boggs & Gerald R. Ford, “Impressions of the New China,” H.R. Doc. No. 92-337, at 3 (1972), https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0358/035800376.pdf.

[4] Evan Osnos, “Making China Great Again,” January 1, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/making-china-great-again.

[5] Id.; Department of Justice, “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference,” February 6, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-keynote-address-department-justices-china.

[6] Valerie Bailey Grasso, “Rare Earth Elements in National Defense: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress,” at 1 (2013), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41744.pdf.

[7] Id.

[8] Bill Powell, “How America’s Biggest Companies Made China Great Again,” June 24, 2019, https://www.newsweek.com/how-americas-biggest-companies-made-china-great-again-1445325.

[9] Rosemary Gibson et al., “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine,” at 124 (2018).

[10] Hearing Exploring the Growing U.S. Reliance on China’s Biotech and Pharmaceutical Products Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Comm., 116 Cong., at 25 (2019) (written testimony of Christopher Priest, Principal Deputy, Deputy Assistant Director, Healthcare Operations Defense Health Agency), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/July%2031,%202019%20Hearing%20Transcript.pdf.

[11] U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Comm., “2019 Report to Congress,” 116 Cong., at 253 (2019), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/2019%20Annual%20Report%20to%20Congress.pdf.

[12] James McGregor, “China’s Drive for ‘Indigenous Innovation’—A Web of Industrial Policies,” at 6 (2010), https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/documents/files/100728chinareport_0_0.pdf.

[13] White House, “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” at 5 (2020), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.24v1.pdf.

[14] Edward Wong, “‘Doctor Strange’ Writer Explains Casting of Tilda Swinton as Tibetan,” April 26, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/world/asia/china-doctor-strange-tibet.html.

[15] Id.

[16] Sean O’Connor & Nicholas Armstrong, Esq., “Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China: How China’s Censorship and Influence Affect Films Worldwide,” at 6 (2015), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Directed%20by%20Hollywood%20Edited%20by%20China.pdf.

[17] James Griffiths, “The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet,” at 42 (2019).

[18] Department of Justice, “The Scope of Agency Under FARA,” May 2020, https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/page/file/1279836/download.

[19] David Barboza & Brooks Barnes, “How China Won the Keys to Disney’s Magic Kingdom,” June 14, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/business/international/china-disney.html.

[20] Lewis F. Powell, Jr., “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” at 9 (August 23, 1971), https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf.

[21] Id. at 11.

来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/7/16

旧文章ID:22357

坎贝尔、胡珀:中国“韬光养晦”的外交政策彻底结束了吗?

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作者:坎贝尔&胡珀;昀舒/译  来源:钝角网

在这场新冠疫情引发的全球危机中,分析人士目睹了美国和中国之间的关系急剧下滑到历史最低点,并且复苏的希望渺茫。原因有很多,有一点是中国在国际舞台上采取了比以往强硬得多的外交方针,这与它的此前的外交风格大相径庭,以至于即使是最老练的观察家也在怀疑中国的外交政策是否已经发生了彻底的转向。

当然,中国对待世界的方式从来都不是一成不变的。从历史、文化、地理到政权性质和相对全球实力,许多因素决定着一个国家的外交战略。如果一个政府认为这些因素中的一个或多个发生了变化,那么它的外交政策也会随之而变。然而,在新冠疫情肆虐全球之际,中国似乎一下子背离了长期奉行的许多外交政策原则。现在这样判定还为时过早,但中国正充斥着由危机引发的民族主义情绪,且对自身的持续崛起充满信心,愿意承受比过去更多的风险。中国很可能正在重新调整其外交路线,这将在全世界引起反响。

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这是五月份拍摄的一张加尔万山谷的中国军事基地的卫星图片,上个月中印士兵在那里发生了冲突

2020年伊始,由于被指责对新冠疫情大流行的起源不够透明,中国处于不利地位,但这并没有持续太久。北京迫切捍卫其全球形象。在控制住本土疫情后,中国开始了一场“口罩外交”,将自己塑造成新的全球卫生的领导者。不止于此,自疫情首次席卷全球以来的几个月里,北京几乎在每一个外交政策领域都展开了前所未有的攻势,加强了对香港的控制,加剧了南中国海的紧张局势,对澳大利亚发起了外交施压行动,在与印度的边境争端中动用了致命武力,并对西方自由民主国家的批评越来越强烈。

过去,中国通常寻求维持一个相对稳定的安全环境,偶尔会抓住机遇推进目标,而避免引发不适当的国际反应,一旦行为过度,就会谨慎地进行调整。然而,北京最近的行动并没有显示出这种保守或谨慎。中国可能只是在利用疫情造成的混乱和美国政府缺席留下的全球权力真空。但我们有理由相信,一场更深远、更持久的转变正在发生。世界或许已经初步见证了中国真正自信的外交政策是什么样子。

话语转变

中国的转变在一定程度上是语言和外交风格的转变。从历史上看,北京一直在官方外交声明中使用含蓄、拐弯抹角的语言,尤其是在批评华盛顿的时候。例如,2015年,在中国在南中国海的岛屿建设引发最激烈的国际争议时,中国外交部副部长张业遂敦促美国“珍惜整个南海的和平与稳定,珍惜来之不易的中美关系积极发展的势头”,这几乎谈不上是尖锐的批评。但随着疫情的蔓延,中国的基调出现了新的、更为严厉的变化。“如果有人声称中国出口的东西是有毒的,那就停止戴中国制造的口罩和防护服,或者使用中国出口的呼吸机,”在中国被发现向几个欧洲国家提供了不合格的医疗用品后,外交部发言人在推特上这样写道。中国外交官也批评西方民主国家对危机处理不当,并要求接受中国物资的国家给予赞扬。欧洲和非洲对此的反应非常强烈,以至于中国的一个重要智库在4月份警告北京,其咄咄逼人的风格可能会损害中国的全球地位。

这样的建议似乎无人理睬。如果说有什么不同的话,那就是北京似乎不像过去那样注意形象。领导人因“战狼”外交名誉受损,却可能认为中国通过展示其军事和经济实力将获得更多好处,即使在这一过程中失去了一些软实力。

中国一系列外交方针的改变也显示出了新的信心。对于一个不愿在世界上公开改变立场的政府来说,这是不寻常的。在过去,北京避免这样的改变,因为担心“丢脸”。但在最初拒绝对中国作为新冠病毒源头进行国际调查后,中国领导人在5月份的世界卫生大会说,一旦疫情消退,世界卫生组织(WHO)应该进行调查。尽管中国最初拒绝加入二十国集团的一项承诺,即向深陷经济危机的低收入国家提供债务减免,但后来它改变了主意并签署了协议,尽管附带了一些警告。这些变化表明,中国领导人相信其能够以维护中国利益的方式处理这两个棘手的过程。

行为转变

北京并不局限于大胆的言辞。在过去几个月里,中国几乎在所有的领土争端中都加大了赌注,甚至引发了新的争端,这又一次背离了以往的做法。政治学家泰勒?弗拉维尔指出,中国长期以来一直把领土争端放在优先位置,推进一些议程,搁置其他争端,以避免立即造成太大紧张。这种克制的做法似乎已经不被采用了。

自三月以来,中国加强了在东海钓鱼岛(日本称为“尖阁列岛”)附近的巡逻;加大了在南中国海的主权声索力度,派出船只在印度尼西亚、马来西亚和越南海岸附近徘徊;还在台湾附近进行了空中侦察;有效地结束了香港的半自治地位;引发了与不丹之间新的边界争端;还引发了与印度之间一场致命的边境冲突,从各方面来看,这是中国人民解放军30年来首次在海外使用武力。北京采取的任何一项行动本身都可能不足为奇。然而,把它们放在一起,就构成了一种极不寻常的“四面出击”。

……

甚至在其邻近地区之外,中国现在似乎也愿意挑起争议,甚至公开敌对。中国对澳大利亚的做法就是一个很好的例子。在堪培拉方面呼吁对疫情的起源进行独立调查后,北京方面对澳大利亚发出了严厉谴责,并对其实施了贸易制裁。它似乎还对澳大利亚政府服务器和企业实施了一系列网络攻击。因此,澳大利亚公众舆论正迅速转向反对中国,越来越多的人支持更加强硬的对华外交政策。澳大利亚政府还宣布了增加国防开支的计划。北京方面似乎没有被吓倒,或许是因为它希望该地区其他国家在反对它之前要三思而后行。但这不会很快赢得对堪培拉的胜利。

中国在对待澳大利亚问题上所表现出的强硬态度——不愿重新调整态度,而是坚持到底——象征着一种广泛的转变。回到2015年,中国在南中国海的造岛行为激起了其他区域参与者的愤怒,北京感觉自己做得过火了,于是改变了策略,暂时缩减了其岛屿建设的规模,并开始将更多时间用于区域外交和“一带一路”倡议。相比之下,至少到目前为止,没有明显迹象表明中国正在重新考量这次的做法。

……

一些最重要的变化发生在中国决策最高层的内部。过去,当政府遇到不可预见的外交政策挑战时,会有一个可以被外界理解的清晰的审议程序。当下的情况并非如此。据说,许多最重要的决策都将由中国领导人亲自做出,甚至没有可信赖的顾问团队。这或许有助于解释为什么中国的外交政策变得不那么规避风险:参与的声音越来越少,一个毫不畏惧的强势领导人会持续推进他的目标。这与过去的领导人相信集体领导的制度化过程不同。世界已经开始见证中国新的决策风格的影响。

还要怎么变?

所有这些转变在总体上意味着什么,仍是一个有争议的问题。有些人会说,中国的战略并没有改变,只是抓住了时机,就像它以前多次做过的那样;利用美国在危机时刻令人震惊地放弃全球领导地位,在许多方面推进自身的利益。强硬的“疫情外交”只是中国外交政策长期以来的机会主义和即兴发挥传统的最新例证——只不过是为了填补美国留下的权力真空。或许,特朗普政府三年的单边零和外交政策,鼓励了北京竭尽所能争取外交政策上的胜利,尤其是在美国忙于为11月有争议的总统选举做准备之际。

但是美国以前也有过分裂和注意力分散的时候,比如在中东战争最激烈的时期和2008年的全球金融危机期间,中国没有采取这么多激进的行动。毫无疑问,美国领导力的缺乏是重要的因素,但中国领导人权力的巩固和其对中国地缘政治胜利到来的信念也关系甚多。这些才是推动北京采取行动的真正力量,美国退出世界仅仅是给中国提供了它得以行动的空间。

很明显,北京的新外交政策已经留下了印记。与澳大利亚的关系处于低谷,欧洲对中国的公众舆论在未来几年可能会受到影响。最近在喜马拉雅山区发生的致命边境冲突,可能会使印度更坚定地在该区域成为制衡中国的力量。不管是不是能预料到,北京陡转的外交线路正以新的方式付出持久的代价。

中国的外交攻势肯定也将成为未来美国政府的头等大事。无论在前副总统拜登还是特朗普的领导下,下一届政府都需要同时在许多方面准备迎接与北京的强硬双边外交,从香港到南中国海、印度和欧洲,中国的施压很可能会继续下去。

美国领导人应该准备好面对和平建设性的话语之下中国外交官的“话语炸弹”,他们应该会期待与中国打交道,尽管中国在国际上受到了打击,但它仍保持着一个新兴大国的自信,甚至依然大胆。

对于下一任美国总统来说,幸运的是,一段时间以来,美国如何对中国采取更好的做法已经很明确。美国必须拒绝惩罚性的单边主义,这种做法近年来已成为常态,没有带来任何贸易或国家安全利益;必须重新调整与欧洲和亚洲盟友的关系,这是未来几十年制衡中国的唯一机会;必须重新支持联合国、七国集团和世界卫生组织等国际机构,这些机构对于危机管理来说是不可或缺的,而中国也非常乐意在美国缺席的情况下领导这些机构。另外,美国必须恢复国内的健康和繁荣,才能在全球舞台上保持竞争力。

如果说在当前的危机漩涡中,还能看到一线希望的话,那就是北京已经拉开了自己的帷幕,让世界预览了一下不受约束的中国力量是何种模样。通过在世界最黑暗的时刻留下权力真空,美国给中国留下了足够的空间去超越它——证明了中国没有资格获得全球唯一的领导地位。

然而,如果华盛顿不尽快重返世界,那么世界如何看待中国傲慢的外交政策可能并不重要——在没有好选项的情况下,世界可能一片糟。

库尔特·坎贝尔(Kurt M.Campbell):亚洲集团董事长、首席执行官,美国前助理国务卿;米拉·拉普-胡珀(Mira Rapp-Hooper)美国外交关系委员会亚洲安全问题高级研究员。本文选译自《外交事务》官网,原文网址:https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-07-15/china-done-biding-its-time

来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/7/16

旧文章ID:22356

老配方的新用场——浅论与美周旋之策

作者:天下明珠  来源:常在能言善听自在部落

小说《大秦帝国》张仪说齐威王一段很是精彩,在一番试探之后,两人开始坦诚相待,张仪说出了为齐国制定的十六字战略:

“霸业长策,首在三强周旋,次在四国捭阖。我有十六字,齐王思之:联魏锁秦,和秦敬魏,北结燕赵,南遏楚韩。”

齐王听后茅塞顿开。高人的高明就在于能把一团乱麻的关系用简洁明了的方法说清楚。虽然这是小说中“张仪”的说辞,但还是颇有道理的。对于齐国来讲,秦国是真正的敌人,齐秦两国早晚要决战,只不过是什么时候摊牌的问题,在摊牌之前,一锁一和,是对秦战略。对于魏国,是统一战线和战略合作伙伴,对于燕赵,则是友好国家,实行合作共赢、互不侵犯的战略,而对于楚韩,则是实行遏制战略。

张仪的战略,充分考虑了各个国家的地缘政治关系、自身的国力等情况,也符合齐威王称霸远图的核心诉求,可谓高论!

读《大秦帝国》,有一种很熟悉的感觉,那就是,秦国和当今的美国非常像。因此,当看到这十六字长策时,很自然会联想到当今的中美关系。对于中国来说,这十六字是不是也适用?

联魏锁秦,此处的魏如俄罗斯,俄罗斯继承自前苏联,素有霸志,只是现在力不能逮,经济实力欠缺,历史上和美国缺少信任,从主导国家的核心人口主体来看,一个是斯拉夫人,一个是盎格鲁-撒克逊人,在我们看来都是洋人,其实差异很大,同样是洋,一个是北冰洋,一个是大西洋。

和秦敬魏。对于美国,要在斗争中求和平。对于俄罗斯,尊重其大国雄心,承认历史上前苏联曾经给予我们的理论支持和实质支持,在对付美国方面,双方有共同的利益。北约东扩,嗜酒的叶利钦被美国骗了一把,相信俄罗斯不会忘记。轰炸南斯拉夫,伤其斯拉夫兄弟(俄罗斯是东斯拉夫),搞颜色革命,相信俄罗斯会记仇的。所以,在相当一段时期内,与俄罗斯都有合作抗美的需求。

北结燕赵。此处的燕赵就是欧盟国家。这是美国的传统盟国,但也是正在觉醒的有自尊的国家。除了英国这个美国的日不落跟班以外,法国、德国都希望在外交、经济上有自己的独立性。轰炸南斯拉夫,把欧洲变成战场,对欧盟来说没得到什么好处,反而使欧元受到影响。欧洲曾经是统一的,欧盟的前身是欧共体,他们的梦想就是一体化,提高整体的竞争力和抗风险能力,但会比较难。这些国家应该尽量争取成为朋友,至少是经济上的朋友,互惠互利,从而增强相互信任和了解,减少对我国作出不利的举动,在美国的战略包围圈中撕开若干口子。从历史上看,欧洲很多国家和我国友好,包括在冷战时期。与大国增进了解、相互帮衬,与小国做好生意、相互尊重,有利于创造良好的发展环境。

南遏楚韩。那就是对于那些不友好的南方国家予以遏制。从战略上讲,与美国的矛盾和斗争是主要的,与印度、南中国海周边国家、大洋洲国家的斗争是次要的。我看到有高人剖析近期与印度的斗争,采取既坚决打击又总体克制的态度是符合我国整体利益的,很有见地。长期看,中印人口加起来30亿,友好合作对双方都有利,但成不成取决于印度能不能解决自己的内部问题和有没有足够的外交智慧。近期看,对此不必抱希望,能维持现状就可以。对南中国海周边国家的“遏制”是有效的,大家一起发财最开心,这是这些国家经过教训之后的认识。至于澳大利亚,是美国的跟屁虫,上新闻主要是为了寻找存在感,对这种糊涂虫实行必要的遏制有助于让它稍微清醒一点。

那么,如何“联魏锁秦”呢?小说中,张仪说:

“齐魏相王,齐秦通商。”

这八个字也很妙。与俄罗斯在核心利益方面相互支持,与美国做好生意,不就是“相王”和“通商”吗?

需要注意的是,站在美国的立场,也可以有“联魏锁秦”的战略,它的目的就是要锁住我国进入高科技发达国家的可能性,跟俄罗斯眉来眼去,是醉翁之意不在酒,目的是弄住我们。老配方可以用,但不是说当作推背图预言书那样照搬,而是有所借鉴和启发。

治大国如烹小鲜。大国要成为强国,必定要有正确的战略,并坚持足够长的时间。制定正确战略的前提是一定要抓住牛鼻子,聚焦主要矛盾,分清楚谁是我们的敌人,谁是我们的朋友,搞明白特定情况下谁会转变为敌人,谁会转变为朋友。

好的战略,即使是阳谋,对方也无奈我何。战略确定后执行就是关键。从齐国的情况看,最后也没有真正实行这个十六字战略,没有用扎实的国力来支撑这个战略。这是需要我们警醒的。口号是需要的,也是有用的,但美好的未来绝不是仅仅靠喊口号就能实现的。

老配方,调得好,照样有新味道。

2020.07.13.

来源时间:2020/7/17   发布时间:2020/7/13

旧文章ID:22355