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过度透露：中国如何脱轨和平崛起
苏珊·雪尔克（Susan L. Shirk）（作者）2022年10月18日
几十年来，中国的权力崛起的特征是它放心，这种崛起将是和平的。 然后，正如苏珊·L·希克（Susan L. Shirk）在当今中国的这一清醒，清晰的叙述中所展示的那样，发生了一些变化。
在1976年毛泽东去世后的三十年中，中国领导人采取了限制的外交政策方法。 他们确定对自己权力的任何威胁以及中国共产党的威胁不是来自国外的，而是来自内部的，这是由1989年天安门危机的结论。 为了促进该国不可避免的经济上升，并防止强烈反对，他们放心了中国和平意图的外界。
然后，正如苏珊·希克（Susan Shirk）在这本启发性，令人不安和完全有说服力的新书中所展示的那样，发生了变化。 中国从脆弱的超级大国变成了全球重量级，威胁台湾及其在南中国海的邻国，收紧了对香港的控制，并公开挑战美国的优势，不仅在经济和技术上，而且在军事上而且在军事上。 中国开始推广。 在世界上最受尊敬的中国政治专家之一Shirk结合了数十年的研究和经验，认为我们现在完全卷入了一场新的冷战中。
为了解释发生了什么事，Shirk Pries打开了中国政治体系的“黑匣子”，并研究了其和平崛起的原因。 正如她所表明的那样，向对抗的转变始于2000年代中期，在温和的胡金托（Hu Jintao）下，首先是集体领导层。 随着中国经济的蓬勃发展，特别是在2008年全球金融危机之后，胡和其他领导人失去了克制，对外界的侵略和未经检查的国内社会控制。 当习近平在2012年掌权时，他利用了广泛的官方腐败，并在领导层中开放了分裂，以使最高权力更加集中。 在接下来的十年中，到今天（第20 ccp国会的前夕，他打算宣称第三任期）比毛泽东以来的任何领导人都积累了更大的权力。 那些实施XI指令的人互相竞争，在中国在中国的全球强烈反对和激烈的jingoism的规模而不是自从文化大革命以来就可以看到。
这是当今中国毁灭性的清醒肖像。 Shirk的广泛访谈和细致的分析揭示了推动过度的动态。 她认为，应对这一点，尤其是世界其他地区最严重的错误可能是反应过度。 了解中国行动的国内根源将使我们避免可能导致战争的错误。
Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. They determined that any threat to their power, and that of the Chinese Communist Party, came not from abroad but from within―a conclusion cemented by the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendence, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions.
Then, as Susan Shirk shows in this illuminating, disturbing, and utterly persuasive new book, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight, threatening Taiwan as well as its neighbors in the South China Sea, tightening its grip on Hong Kong, and openly challenging the United States for preeminence not just economically and technologically but militarily. China began to overreach. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war.
To explain what happened, Shirk pries open the "black box" of China's political system and looks at what derailed its peaceful rise. As she shows, the shift toward confrontation began in the mid-2000s under the mild-mannered Hu Jintao, first among equals in a collective leadership. As China's economy boomed, especially after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, Hu and the other leaders lost restraint, abetting aggression toward the outside world and unchecked domestic social control. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he capitalized on widespread official corruption and open splits in the leadership to make the case for more concentrated power at the top. In the decade following, and to the present day―the eve of the 20th CCP Congress when he intends to claim a third term―he has accumulated greater power than any leader since Mao. Those who implement Xi's directives compete to outdo one another, provoking an even greater global backlash and stoking jingoism within China on a scale not
seen since the Cultural Revolution.
Here is a devastatingly lucid portrait of China today. Shirk's extensive interviews and meticulous analysis reveal the dynamics driving overreach. To counter it, she argues, the worst mistake the rest of the world, and the United States in particular, can make is to overreact. Understanding the domestic roots of China's actions will enable us to avoid the mistakes that could lead to war.
书评：超越：中国如何破坏其和平崛起
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/review-overreach-china-derailed-peaceful-rise/
由 Bryce Wakefield 博士于 2023 年 1 月 24 日审核
最近在华盛顿和其他国防和外交政策机构中流行将中国视为永远狡猾的人。 Susan Shirk 否认这是历史修正主义，强调国内政治如何将中国推向过度扩张。
鉴于日益加剧的国际紧张局势，一些人现在猜测，中国和平崛起并可能被说服自由化的时期始终是中国政府的捏造。 根据这种观点，中国设法让美国及其盟友产生一种虚假的安全感，而北京的代理人则专注于增强国家实力以争夺全球主导地位。
在她的新书《越界：中国如何使和平崛起脱轨》中，舍克转而指出了中国外交和安全政策的国内决定因素。 她与那些纯粹根据习近平将中国置于世界舞台中心的使命来定位北京行为根源的人持相反的观点。 相反，她指出，分析人士现在经常与习近平联系在一起的相同问题上的摩擦早在他任期之前就开始了。 在习近平的领导下，这些紧张局势有所恶化，但这不仅仅是他领导下的产物。 她认为，习近平也没有完全掌控局面。
Overreach 是对中国近期在世界舞台上的行为的丰富实证描述，通常与作者的实地见解交织在一起。 由于章节按主题排列以突出 Shirk 的论点，因此有少量重复，尽管这是一个次要的批评。 这本书写得很好，将吸引政策制定者、学生或任何有兴趣了解中国国际和国内安全运动背后动机的人。
Shirk 认为，一直在推动中国行为并使其经常反复无常的是一套制度性规则，首先是在衰落的“集体领导”制度下，然后是在“强人统治”制度下。 虽然习近平现在的影响力肯定很大，但谢克反对将中国视为理性单一行为体的概念。 国家的行为方式不受领导人的指挥，有时甚至与领导人的偏好不一致，特别是在卫权（捍卫主权）和维稳（维护稳定）领域，或者更广泛地说，国际和国内安全领域。
这在习近平的前任胡锦涛领导下最为引人注目。 胡继承了中国“改革开放”时期的设计师邓小平最初建立的集体领导制度。 集体领导通过在中共中央政治局常务委员会周围分配决策责任并通过制定 领导受任期限制。 这导致中国决策更加务实，从 1980 年代开始，分析人士可能对中国的自由化持合理乐观态度。 将国家与党分开并鼓励私营企业的理性改革也为技术官僚和企业家提供了更多空间来影响中国的政策。
尽管如此，在谢克看来，集体领导体制仍然需要一个相对强大的核心人物来优先考虑利益并协调国家议程。 虽然集体领导在邓及其继任者江泽民的领导下运作良好，但胡缺乏个人魅力或领导技巧来避免 Shirk 所说的“互怼”。 胡锦涛领导下的常委会成员没有集体管理国有企业，而是强烈主张与自己的投资组合相关的利益，从而让“各种利益集团可以自由发挥，追求自己的议程，而不考虑中国和平崛起的后果”（第 119 页） . 他们不会围绕集体审议制定基于共识的决定，否则他们会努力远离彼此。
2002 年，江泽民决定将常委会成员从 7 人扩大到 9 人，这让胡的软弱领导雪上加霜。这可能让江泽民在 2004 年换届后得以在委员会中留住更多他的支持者。 这无疑使委员会更加笨拙。 此外，这两个新位置被授予警察和宣传部门的领导人，成员谢克将其标记为“控制联盟”的一部分。
在 Shirk 看来，中国的“分水岭”年不是习近平上台的 2012 年，而是 2008 年。全球金融危机严重削弱了向美国寻求公司治理模式的温和派的地位，事实上， 美国全球领导地位的总体概念。 国家官僚打出了经济安全牌，并“转向了本土创新的民族主义战略”（第 175 页）。 与此同时，控制联盟利用北京奥运会加强国内安全，镇压西藏的抗议者，并执行严格的文化服从政策，这将成为后来在新疆行动的典范。
2008 年之后，各机构经常对他们可能认为是国际轻视的事件反应过度，以便获得更多资源。 胡对日本采取相对和解的态度，并成功讨好台湾领导人马英九。 然而，从2009年开始，海事机构可能独立行动，在南海骚扰美国和其他船只。 美国外交官对这种反复无常和自相矛盾的行为感到困惑，而他们的中国同行往往表现出对在他们自己部门的职权范围之外发生的活动一无所知。 谢克当时援引中国分析人士的话说，该系统处于混乱状态。
习近平在 2012 年上台时，国内外许多人都认为他会掌控利益集团，引导中国朝着更加自由的方向发展。 相反，习近平利用改革软化集体领导和公众对反腐败措施清除政治对手的渴望。 与此同时，他巩固了对人民解放军的控制，确保军队首先忠于他自己和党，消除了军事挑战他统治的威胁。 简而言之，习已成为完美的强人。
然而，在舍克的讲述中，中国现在已经屈服于极权主义的经典陷阱。 国家和党的机构竭尽全力遵循习近平的广泛指示，并在摇摇欲坠的集体领导体系留给他的国际紧张局势领域加倍努力。 这导致他们夸大对领导人的忠诚度，而这些方式可能超出了他的意愿，并且通过加深对北京的强烈抵制而损害了中国的国际地位。 Shirk 指出战狼外交是这种现象的一个明显例子，但也表明其他政策，例如在南中国海的地物上建设军事基地也符合要求。
这在习近平的前任胡锦涛领导下最为引人注目。 胡继承了中国“改革开放”时期的设计师邓小平最初建立的集体领导制度。 集体领导通过在中共中央政治局常务委员会周围分配决策责任并通过制定 领导受任期限制。 这导致中国决策更加务实，从 1980 年代开始，分析人士可能对中国的自由化持合理乐观态度。 将国家与党分开并鼓励私营企业的理性改革也为技术官僚和企业家提供了更多空间来影响中国的政策。
尽管如此，在谢克看来，集体领导体制仍然需要一个相对强大的核心人物来优先考虑利益并协调国家议程。 虽然集体领导在邓及其继任者江泽民的领导下运作良好，但胡缺乏个人魅力或领导技巧来避免 Shirk 所说的“互怼”。 胡锦涛领导下的常委会成员没有集体管理国有企业，而是强烈主张与自己的投资组合相关的利益，从而让“各种利益集团可以自由发挥，追求自己的议程，而不考虑中国和平崛起的后果”（第 119 页） . 他们不会围绕集体审议制定基于共识的决定，否则他们会努力远离彼此。
2002 年，江泽民决定将常委会成员从 7 人扩大到 9 人，这让胡的软弱领导雪上加霜。这可能让江泽民在 2004 年换届后得以在委员会中留住更多他的支持者。 这无疑使委员会更加笨拙。 此外，这两个新位置被授予警察和宣传部门的领导人，成员谢克将其标记为“控制联盟”的一部分。
在 Shirk 看来，中国的“分水岭”年不是习近平上台的 2012 年，而是 2008 年。全球金融危机严重削弱了向美国寻求公司治理模式的温和派的地位，事实上， 美国全球领导地位的总体概念。 国家官僚打出了经济安全牌，并“转向了本土创新的民族主义战略”（第 175 页）。 与此同时，控制联盟利用北京奥运会加强国内安全，镇压西藏的抗议者，并执行严格的文化服从政策，这将成为后来在新疆行动的典范。
2008 年之后，各机构经常对他们可能认为是国际轻视的事件反应过度，以便获得更多资源。 胡对日本采取相对和解的态度，并成功讨好台湾领导人马英九。 然而，从2009年开始，海事机构可能独立行动，在南海骚扰美国和其他船只。 美国外交官对这种反复无常和自相矛盾的行为感到困惑，而他们的中国同行往往表现出对在他们自己部门的职权范围之外发生的活动一无所知。 谢克当时援引中国分析人士的话说，该系统处于混乱状态。
习近平在 2012 年上台时，国内外许多人都认为他会掌控利益集团，引导中国朝着更加自由的方向发展。 相反，习近平利用改革软化集体领导和公众对反腐败措施清除政治对手的渴望。 与此同时，他巩固了对人民解放军的控制，确保军队首先忠于他自己和党，消除了军事挑战他统治的威胁。 简而言之，习已成为完美的强人。
然而，在舍克的讲述中，中国现在已经屈服于极权主义的经典陷阱。 国家和党的机构竭尽全力遵循习近平的广泛指示，并在摇摇欲坠的集体领导体系留给他的国际紧张局势领域加倍努力。 这导致他们夸大对领导人的忠诚度，而这些方式可能超出了他的意愿，并且通过加深对北京的强烈抵制而损害了中国的国际地位。 Shirk 指出战狼外交是这种现象的一个明显例子，但也表明其他政策，例如在南中国海的地物上建设军事基地也符合要求。
与此同时，批评习近平领导的动机如此强烈，以至于习近平一方面无法接触到关键信息，另一方面也无法相信支持的表达是真诚的。 这导致了一个偏执狂和永恒清洗的系统，任何人都可能成为潜在的敌人。 这也导致习近平加倍关注维文——维稳。
对于我们这些对这对未来与中国的关系可能意味着什么的前景感到沮丧的人，谢克在本书的结尾提供了一系列快速的政策建议。 也许有趣的是，对于澳大利亚人来说，她拒绝将“至高无上”的概念作为美国外交政策的明智目标，因为它“有点像操场上的斗争，而不是对和平与秩序的原则性支持”（第 301 页）。 外交是可能的，但应该通过高级行为者密切关注的定期对话来进行。 在某种程度上，它将依靠首脑会议来获得真正的承诺。
那么预后不一定都是坏的。 Shirk 指出，中国的制度最终可能会在软威权集体领导和强人统治之间摇摆，而不是无情地滑向越来越极权主义，或转向自由化的中国。
毛泽东的“个人崇拜”和邓小平的“改革开放”制度在 1949 年中华人民共和国成立后各持续了大约 30 年。习的统治还不到十年，所以我们可能要等待时机 .
Book Review: Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/review-overreach-china-derailed-peaceful-rise/
It has recently become fashionable in Washington and other defence and foreign policy establishments to view China as eternally devious. Susan Shirk rejects this as historical revisionism, emphasising how domestic politics have pushed China towards overreach.
In light of increasing international tension, some now surmise that a period where China was rising peacefully and might be persuaded to liberalise was always a fabrication of the Chinese state. According to this view, China managed to lull the United States and its allies into a false sense of security, while agents in Beijing focused on augmenting national power for a bid at global primacy.
In her new book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise, Shirk points instead to the domestic determinants of Chinese foreign and security policy. She takes a contrary view to those who would locate the source of Beijing’s behaviour purely in terms of Xi Jinping’s mission to centre China on the world stage. Instead, she notes that friction over the same issues analysts now frequently associate with Xi began much earlier than his term. These tensions have worsened under Xi, but they are not merely a product of his leadership. Nor, she argues, is Xi totally in control.
Overreach is an empirically rich account of China’s recent behaviour on the world stage, often interlaced with the author’s on-the-ground insights. As chapters are arranged thematically to highlight Shirk’s argument, there is a small amount of repetition, though this is a minor criticism. The book is well written and will appeal to policymakers, students, or anyone interested in understanding the motivations behind Chinese movements on international and domestic security.
What has been driving China’s behaviour and rendering it often erratic is, according to Shirk, a set of institutional imperatives, first under a declining system of “collective leadership,” and then under a system of “strongman rule.” While Xi now certainly has outsized influence, Shirk argues against the notion of China as rational unitary actor. The state behaves in ways that are not directed by and are sometime at odds with the preferences of the leader, particularly in the areas of weiquan (sovereignty rights defence) and weiwen (stability maintenance), or, broadly, international and domestic security.
This was most notable under Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor. Hu inherited a system of collective leadership initially established by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s “reform and opening” period. Collective leadership addressed the excesses of the Mao era, with its cult of personality, purges, and disastrously chaotic and ideological policies, by distributing responsibility for decision making around the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and by making leadership subject to term limits. This led to more pragmatism in Chinese decision making and a period from the 1980s where analysts could be reasonably optimistic about Chinese liberalisation. Rational reforms that cleaved the state off from the party and encouraged private business also allowed more room for technocrats and entrepreneurs to shape Chinese policy.
Nevertheless, according to Shirk, the system of collective leadership still required a relatively strong central figure to prioritise interests and coordinate a national agenda. While collective leadership worked well under Deng and his successor, Jiang Zemin, Hu lacked the charisma or leadership skills to avoid what Shirk has described as “logrolling.” Instead of managing state business collectively, Standing Committee members under Hu advocated strongly for interests relevant to their own portfolios, thus giving “free rein to various interest groups to pursue their own agendas without considering the consequences for China’s peaceful rise” (p.119). Instead of crafting consensus-based decisions around collective deliberation, they would otherwise work to stay out of each other’s way.
Hu’s weak leadership was compounded by Jiang’s decision to expand the Standing Committee from seven members to nine in 2002. This may have allowed Jiang to keep more of his supporters on the committee after the 2004 transition. It certainly made the committee more unwieldy. Further, the two new slots were awarded to leaders of the police and propaganda departments, members Shirk labels as part of the “control coalition.”
In Shirk’s view, the “watershed” year for China was not 2012, when Xi took power, but 2008. The global financial crisis severely undermined the position of moderates who looked to the United States for models of corporate governance, and, indeed, the notion of US global leadership in general. State bureaucrats played the card of economic security and “pivoted to a nationalist strategy of indigenous innovation” (p.175). At the same time, the control coalition seized on the Beijing Olympics to make a case for greater internal security, clamping down on protesters in Tibet and enforcing strict cultural obedience policies that would be a model for later operations in Xinjiang.
After 2008, agencies often overreacted to incidents they could construe as international slights in order to make the case for more resources. Hu took a relatively conciliatory approach to Japan and successfully courted Taiwan’s leader, Ma Ying-jeou. Nevertheless, from 2009, maritime agencies, probably acting independently, harassed American and other ships in the South China Sea. American diplomats were left confused by such erratic and contradictory behaviour, and their Chinese counterparts often displayed no knowledge of activities that were taking place outside the remit of their own ministry. Shirk quotes Chinese analysts at the time as noting that the system was in disarray.
When Xi took power in 2012, it was assumed by many in China and abroad that he would get a handle on the interest groups and steer China in a more liberal direction. Instead, Xi took advantage of reforms to soften collective leadership and a public thirst for anti-corruption measures to purge political rivals. At the same time, he consolidated his control over the People’s Liberation Army and made sure it was loyal above all to himself and the party, eliminating the threat of a military challenge to his rule. In short, Xi has become the consummate strongman.
In Shirk’s telling, however, China has now succumbed to the classical pitfalls of totalitarianism. State and party agencies fall over themselves to follow Xi’s broad directives and have doubled down in the areas of international tension left to him by a crumbling system of collective leadership. This leads them to exaggerate their loyalty to the leader in ways that may well be beyond what he wants, and which have come to harm China’s international position by entrenching a backlash against Beijing. Shirk points to wolf warrior diplomacy as an obvious example of this phenomenon, but also suggests that other policies, such as the construction of military bases on features in the South China Sea also fit the bill.
Meanwhile, the disincentive to criticise Xi’s leadership is so strong that Xi is isolated from critical information on the one hand and, on the other, cannot trust expressions of support as sincere. This has led to a system of paranoia and eternal purging, where anyone could be a potential enemy. It has also led Xi to double down on weiwen — stability maintenance.
For those of us depressed about the prospects for what this might mean for future relations with China, Shirk offers up a quick series of policy proposals at the end of the book. Interestingly, perhaps, for Australians, she rejects the notion of “primacy” as a sensible goal of US foreign policy, as it “smacks of a playground fight instead of principled support for peace and order” (p.301). Diplomacy is possible, but it should be conducted through tightly focused, regular dialogues by senior actors. To some degree, it will be reliant on summit meetings to garner true commitment.
The prognosis is then not necessarily all bad. Shirk notes that instead of an inexorable slide towards ever more totalitarianism, or a shift toward a liberalised China, the Chinese system may eventually be one that oscillates between soft authoritarian collective leadership and strongman rule.
Mao’s “cult of personality” and Deng’s system of “reform and opening” each lasted roughly three decades after the People’s Republic was founded in 1949. We’re under a decade into Xi’s rule, so we may want, however, to bide our time.
This is a review of Susan Shirk, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (Oxford University Press, 2022). ISBN: 9780190068516 (Hardback)
Dr Bryce Wakefield is the National Executive Director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
This review is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution
