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沈联涛、肖耿:多极世界考验拜登(中英文)

2022-04-01 20:49 沈联涛、肖耿
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明年将是美国总统尼克松访华50周年。1972年,时任美国总统尼克松访问中国,会见了当时的中国共产党主席毛泽东和总理周恩来,这个历史事件是中美疏远和敌意几十年后又恢复关系的重要“破冰之旅”。可惜,半个世纪后,他们发起的中美合作进程几乎付诸东流,而美国总统乔·拜登对此负有部分责任。

Next year will mark 50 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon travelled to China to meet with Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai – a major step toward restoring relations after decades of estrangement and hostility. A half-century later, the progress they launched has been all but lost, and U.S. President Joe Biden is partly to blame.

1972年,中美两国意识形态差异存在鸿沟,但双方都认识到缓和中美关系能带来巨大好处。通过孤立苏联,美国和中国相互隔绝的局面被打破,加速了冷战的结束。中国将发展重点转为和平与经济建设,在随后的几十年里中美促进了全球和平与经济繁荣。

The ideological differences between the United States and China in 1972 could not have been starker. But both sides recognized the vast benefits of a détente. By isolating the Soviet Union, they hastened the end of the Cold War. And by enabling China to shift its focus to peaceful economic development, they bolstered global prosperity for decades to follow.

得益于庞大的劳动力基数和丰富的土地资源,中国成为制造强国,使得跨国公司能够大幅削减生产成本,为全球消费者提供价廉物美的消费品。随着时间的推移,中国人的收入增加了,低成本消费品的生产开始转移到其它地区。但中国的经济发展,尤其是其庞大的不断增长的国内市场需求继续使世界其它地区受益。

Thanks to a large labour force and abundant land, China became a manufacturing powerhouse, enabling international firms to slash their production costs and deliver more affordable goods to consumers. Over time, Chinese incomes grew, and low-cost production began to move elsewhere. But China's economic progress – in particular, growing demand from its massive domestic market – has continued to benefit the rest of the world.

事实上,正如查尔斯·古德哈特(Charles Goodhart)和马诺杰·普拉丹(Manoj Pradhan)提出的对全球“大稳健”时期(从1980年代到2007年之间)的解释,世界在这一时期能够摆脱宏观经济大幅波动的困扰,主要应该归功于中国融入了全球经济。在此期间,美国从中国的崛起中获得了丰厚的回报。

In fact, as Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan have pointed out, the world owes the Great Moderation – the period of decreased macroeconomic volatility that lasted from the 1980s until 2007 – largely to China's integration into the global economy. The U.S. reaped rich rewards from China's rise during this period.

但美国也犯了几个战略性错误。冷战的结束为美国提供了一个前所未有的机会,可以在一个充满新挑战和竞争的时代升级更新全球治理与秩序。但是,正如理查德·哈斯(Richard Haass)所悲叹的那样,美国不但浪费了这个机会,还将8 万亿美元投入到一系列设计有缺陷而且执行失败的反恐战争中。

But the U.S. also made several strategic mistakes. The end of the Cold War gave the country an unprecedented opportunity to update the world order for an era defined by new challenges and rivalries. But, as Richard Haass has lamented, it squandered that opportunity, instead of dedicating itself – and $8 trillion – to a War on Terror that was flawed in design and a failure in practice.

与此同时,美国也未能适应不断变化的全球经济。尽管技术创新发挥了更大的作用,当数百万美国人失去制造业工作时,美国政府却将责任归咎于贸易,尤其是美国与中国的贸易。中产阶级收入下降和收入差距拉大更是加剧了美国社会不满情绪。

Meanwhile, the U.S. failed to adapt to a changing global economy. When millions of Americans lost manufacturing jobs, they blamed trade, especially with China, even though technology played a far bigger role. Declining middle-class incomes and rising inequality exacerbated discontent.

2008年的金融危机将美国的挫折感推向了高潮。这场危机不仅凸显了美国政府在管控金融业方面的彻底失败,还表明美国在全球经济排名中的领先地位不再是无懈可击。尽管美国引发了危机并经历了经济衰退,但期间中国的经济增长速度从未低于6%。2009 年中国通过大规模经济刺激政策推高了全球大宗商品价格,帮助推动了全球经济复苏。

The 2008 financial crisis sent these frustrations into overdrive. Beyond highlighting the government's utter failure to keep the financial sector in check, the crisis showed that America's position atop the global economic pecking order was no longer unassailable. Whereas the U.S. triggered the crisis and suffered through a recession, China's growth never dipped below 6%, and the country's massive 2009 stimulus package helped fuel the global recovery by driving up commodity prices.

2016年,特朗普入驻白宫,他赢得总统选举的一个重要原因是他意识到选民日益增长的恐惧和沮丧,并通过把这种情绪推向高潮,将美国主导地位的丧失归咎于中国对美国生存的威胁。但特朗普根本没有做到“让美国再次伟大”,相反,他放弃承诺、疏远盟友、也未能制定任何可以应对全球共同挑战的连贯战略,实际上进一步削弱了美国在全球的地位。他发起美国与中国的贸易战原本希望帮助美国,但却适得其反,就是一个很好的例子。

Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 by sensing – and then stoking – voters' growing fears and frustrations, and by portraying the loss of American primacy as an existential threat for which China was to blame. But far from "making America great again," Trump eroded the country's global standing further by abandoning commitments, alienating allies, and failing to devise anything close to a coherent strategy for tackling shared challenges. His counterproductive trade war with China is a case in point.

然而,在美国,并非只有特朗普一个人视中国为主要威胁,认为必须加以遏制。尽管拜登政府改变了特朗普的许多政策,美国对中国保持强硬这一点并没有变化,这已经非常清楚了,拜登政府甚至试图建立一个民主国家联盟来遏制中国。

Yet Trump was hardly alone in viewing China as a major threat that must be contained.That much has become clear under the Biden administration, which, despite reversing many of Trump's other policies, has maintained a hard line on China, and is even attempting to create a coalition of democracies to contain it.

在特朗普动荡的四年执政后,拜登本有机会与中国和俄罗斯建设性地接触从而重新设计,找出如何管理多极世界的新全球治理模式。拜登没有抓住这个机会,而是营造了一种气氛,即各国需要在中美竞争中选边站队。

After Trump's tumultuous four years in office, Biden had an opportunity to engineer a reset, engaging constructively with China, as well as with Russia, to figure out how to manage a multipolar world. Instead of seizing it, he has created the sense that countries may need to pick a side in the U.S.-China rivalry.

鉴于美国的全球声誉已经受损,拜登很可能会发现美国目前的做法不会完全对美国有利。即使看欧洲大国,其对中国的态度也比较温和,他们愿意与中国保持重要的经济联系,并希望避免过度军事化的国际战略。

Given America's battered global reputation, Biden may well find that this approach does not produce an entirely favorable outcome. Even European powers have struck a softer tone toward China – with which they maintain crucial economic ties – and have expressed a desire to avoid an overly militarized strategy.

无论美国喜欢与否,多极世界秩序在许多方面已经存在。哈佛大学贝尔弗中心最近的研究表明,尽管美国在金融、研发、教育和全球人才获取方面仍处于领先地位,但中国在技术和军事能力方面正在迅速赶上美国。

Whether the U.S. likes it or not, a multipolar order is in many ways already here.As recent studies by Harvard's Belfer Center show, China is rapidly catching up with the U.S. in terms of technology and military capabilities, though the U.S. still leads in finance, research and development, education, and access to global talent.

此外,与冷战时期不同的是,全球主要大国尤其是美国和中国目前是紧密的经济贸易伙伴。另外,正如1988年兰德的一项研究表明,苏联的GDP巅峰时期(在1977年)达到了美国GDP的60%。然而苏联在国防上的支出却占到了其GDP的15-17%,是美国的三倍,而其人均收入却只有美国的一半。

Moreover, unlike during the Cold War, the leading global powers – especially the U.S. and China – are economic peers. As a 1988 Rand study showed, the Soviet Union's GDP peaked at 60% of U.S. GDP in 1977. While the Soviet Union was spending 15-17% of GDP on defense – three times the share in the U.S. – its per capita income amounted to just half of America's.

相比之下,按当前美元计算,中国和俄罗斯两国GDP合计占美国GDP的77%左右,如果按购买力计算则占到137%。此外,美国目前还受到债务的拖累,其债务已膨胀至28.4万亿美元。美国的债务与GDP之比目前已经达120%,已超过其在二战期间债务与GDP比例为114%的峰值。

By contrast, China and Russia together account for about 77% of U.S. GDP in current dollar terms and 137% by purchasing power parity. Furthermore, the U.S. is weighed down by debt, which has swelled to $28.4 trillion. At 120% of GDP, America's debt-to-GDP ratio now exceeds its World War II peak of 114% of GDP.

19 世纪德国政治家奥托·冯·俾斯麦(Otto von Bismarck)观察到,在由五个国家主导的世界秩序中,成为其中三个合作国家小团体中的一员总是可取的。正如美国前国务卿亨利·基辛格所指出的,这意味着在三国秩序中,每个国家都想结合为二对一的形势。

The nineteenth-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck observed that in a world order dominated by five states, it is always desirable to be part of a group of three. As former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has pointed out, this implies that in a three-country order, one should want to be in the group of two.

美国不应通过疏远俄罗斯和中国来孤立自己,而是应该平等地与两者接触——最迫切的是澄清与这两个大国的边界及缓冲区有关的敏感的国家安全问题。美国应该理解俄罗斯为何如此关心乌克兰加入北约,中国为何不会接受台湾宣布独立或将台湾在外国势力主导下军事化。其中逻辑就像1962年美国不会容忍苏联将导弹部署在古巴。

Instead of isolating itself by alienating Russia and China, the U.S. should engage with them as equals – most immediately to clarify sensitive issues relating to buffer lands and borders. The U.S. should understand well why Russia is so concerned about Ukraine joining NATO, and why China will not accept any declaration of independence by Taiwan or its militarization by foreign powers. The U.S. was not going to tolerate Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, was it?

美国霸权主义时代已经结束。但稳定的全球战略平衡依然可以实现。就看拜登下一步如何行动了。

American hegemony is over. But a stable global balance of power is achievable. It is Biden's move.

文章来源:深高金政策与实践研究所

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