华府中国
一杯茶， 一台电脑， 时间悄悄从指间流逝；一句话， 一个玩笑，阳光偷偷沿帘缝偷视
转载者按:
两个作者根据自己在中国二十年的经历, 很及时的提醒美国人, 要认识真实的中国, 崛起但也危机重重. 文中提到中国是所有发达国家没有经历过的. 未富先老(想到计划生育的后果吗? 以及最近的民工荒), 以及极端的水资源短缺和污染.
两位作者认为美国媒体最近大力宣扬中国的实力和威胁, 借以唱衰美国, 是少数政治家别有用心. 有意思的是, 中国媒体, 似乎也很热衷唱衰美国, 并自以为已挤身发达国家行列. (国家整体实力达到发达国家水平比人均生活水平达到发达国家水平应该是两个完全不同的概念. 如果论打仗, 国家整体实力是很有关联的, 但居家过日子, 还是用人均比较合理.) 从这方面讲, 两个国家都需要更多了解真实的对方. 就像孙子兵法里说的, 知己知彼, 才能百战不殆.
两位作者
Steven Mufson and John Pomfret, are reporters on the national
staff of The Washington Post and former Post Beijing bureau chiefs. They
will be online to chat with readers on Monday, March 1, at 12 p.m.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
附原文:
There's a new Red Scare. But is China really so scary?
By Steven Mufson and John Pomfret
Sunday, February 28, 2010
With the American economy struggling and the political system in gridlock, there is one thing everyone in Washington seems to agree on: The Chinese do it better.
Cyberspace? China has an army of hackers ready to read your most intimate e-mails and spy on corporations and super-secret government agencies. (Just ask Google.) Education? China is churning out engineers almost as fast as it's making toys. Military prowess? China is catching up, so quickly that it is about to deploy an anti-ship ballistic missile that could make life on a U.S. aircraft carrier a perilous affair. The economy? China has gone from cheap-clothing-maker to America's banker. Governance? At least they can build a high-speed train. And energy? Look out, Red China is going green!
This new Red Scare says a lot about America's collective psyche at this moment. A nation with a per capita income of $6,546 -- ensconced above Ukraine and below Namibia, according to the International Monetary Fund -- is putting the fear of God, or Mao, into our hearts.
Here's our commander in chief, President Obama, talking about clean energy this month: "Countries like China are moving even faster. . . . I'm not going to settle for a situation where the United States comes in second place or third place or fourth place in what will be the most important economic engine in the future."
And the nation's pundit in chief, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, even sees some virtue in the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly on political power: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages."
In the past, when Washington worried about China, it was mainly in terms of a military threat: Would we go to war? Would China replace the Soviet Union as our rival in a post-Cold War world? Or we fretted about it as a global workshop: China would suck manufacturing jobs out of our economy with a cheap currency and cheaper labor. But today, the threat China poses -- real or imagined -- has flooded into every arena in which our two nations can possibly compete.
And it's not just in Washington. Asked in a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month whether this century would be more of an "American century" or more of a "Chinese century," many Americans across the country chose China. Respondents divided evenly between the United States and China on who would dominate the global economy and tilted toward Beijing on who would most influence world affairs overall.
"We have completely lost perspective on what constitutes reality in China today," said Elizabeth Economy, the director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There is a lot that is incredible about China's economic story, but there is as much that is not working well on both the political and economic fronts. We need to understand the nuances of this story -- on China's innovation, renewables, economic growth, etc. -- to ensure that all the hype from Beijing, and from our own media and politicians, doesn't lead us to skew our own policy."
Having lived in China during the past two decades, we have witnessed and chronicled its remarkable economic and social transformation. But the notion that China poses an imminent threat to all aspects of American life reveals more about us than it does about China and its capabilities. The enthusiasm with which our politicians and pundits manufacture Chinese straw men points more to unease at home than to success inside the Great Wall.
This is not to say that China isn't doing many things right or that we couldn't learn a thing or two from our Chinese friends. But in large part, politicians, activists and commentators push the new Red Scare to advance particular agendas in Washington. If you want to promote clean energy and get the government to invest in this sector, what better way to frame the issue than as a contest against the Chinese and call it the "new Sputnik"? Want to resuscitate the F-22 fighter jet? No better country than China to invoke as the menace of the future.
Take green technology. China does make huge numbers of solar devices, but the most common are low-tech rooftop water-heaters or cheap, low-efficiency photovoltaic panels. For its new showcase of high-tech renewable energy in the western town of Ordos, China is planning to import photovoltaic panels made by U.S.-based First Solar and is hoping the company will set up manufacturing in China. Even if government subsidies allow China to more than triple its photovoltaic installations this year, it will still trail Germany, Italy, the United States and Japan, according to iSuppli, a market research firm.
China does have dozens of wind-turbine manufacturers, but their quality lags far behind that of General Electric, not to mention Europe's Vestas and Siemens. And although a Chinese power company has some technology that might be useful for carbon capture and storage, which many companies see as the key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants, it has built only a tiny version to capture carbon dioxide for making soda, rather than exploring needed innovations in storage.
If not for our economic distress, we might be applauding China's clean-energy advances; after all, one first-place position we have ceded to China is in greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting those emissions is a job big enough for both of our economies to tackle.
But domestic anxieties have morphed into anxiety about China. "Every day we wait in this nation, China is going to eat our lunch," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this month. Arguing for nuclear power, as well as renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal, Graham said: "The Chinese don't need 60 votes. I guess they just need one guy's vote over there -- and that guy's voted. . . . And we're stuck in neutral here."
Like others, Graham emphasizes the China threat to propel his fellow lawmakers into action. "Six months ago, my biggest worry was that an emissions deal would make American business less competitive compared to China," he said on a different day. "Now my concern is that every day that we delay trying to find a price for carbon is a day that China uses to dominate the green economy."
In other areas, politicians and pundits also have a tendency to overestimate China's strengths -- in ways that leave China looking more ominous than it really is. Recent reports about how China is threatening to take the lead in scientific research seem to ignore the serious problems it is facing with plagiarism and faked results. Projections of China's economic growth seem to shortchange the country's looming demographic crisis: It is going to be the first nation in the world to grow old before it gets rich. By the middle of this century the percentage of its population above age 60 will be higher than in the United States, and more than 100 million Chinese will be older than 80. China also faces serious water shortages that could hurt enterprises from wheat farms to power plants to microchip manufacturers.
And about all those engineers? In 2006, the New York Times reported that China graduates 600,000 a year compared with 70,000 in the United States. The Times report was quoted on the House floor. Just one problem: China's statisticians count car mechanics and refrigerator repairmen as "engineers."
We've seen this movie before, and it didn't end in disaster for the United States. Some decades ago, Americans were obsessed with another emerging Asian giant: Japan. People were so overwrought about the "threat" that autoworkers smashed imported Japanese cars. On June 19, 1982, a Chrysler supervisor and his stepson, who had been laid off from a Michigan auto plant, killed a Chinese American man they apparently thought was Japanese. Author Michael Crichton's 1992 potboiler "Rising Sun" summed up the nation's fears. In 1991, 60 percent of Americans in an ABC News/NHK poll said they viewed Japan's economic strength as a threat to the United States.
But then something happened. Japan's economy lost its game. The 1990s became a "lost decade," so much so that during the toughest days of the recent financial crisis, Japan was invoked as a cautionary tale, lest we not do enough to jump-start our economy.
Now, some experts, such as Kenneth Lieberthal, a former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council and a man who has taught us a lot about China, say using China's green-tech rise as an excuse to whip America into shape isn't such a bad idea, because the result -- a cleaner environment or a more high-tech workforce -- makes a lot of sense. And certainly it's better to compete on that than on the size of our respective militaries.
But there is a certain irony to the new Red Scare. When we reported from China in the 1990s, some Chinese neoconservatives achieved rock-star popularity there for promoting the notion that the United States was conspiring to contain China, militarily and economically. They argued that global economic growth was a zero-sum game and that China's gain would be America's loss; as a result, Beijing had to be more assertive in its dealings with the United States.
Legions of U.S. diplomats and business leaders said no, no, no. They assured China that the two nations could grow together. Americans tried to teach Chinese the meaning of the expression "win-win."
And that is the way introductory economics courses teach it. As N. Gregory Mankiw, a former chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, writes in his popular textbook: Trade "is not like a sports contest, where one side wins and the other side loses. In fact, the opposite is true. Trade between two countries can make each country better off."
And yet a sports contest -- or worse -- is exactly what the U.S.-Chinese relationship sounds like these days. In discussing energy at the Feb. 3 meeting with governors, Obama warned: "We can't afford to spin our wheels while the rest of the world speeds ahead."
Speeding ahead is a worthy goal, but the United States does not need a bogeyman on its tail to get moving. What may seem like a throwaway line here could damage U.S. relations there, and there are enough reasons for tension with China without manufacturing new ones. As the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu said: "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril."
China is no enemy, but inflating the challenge from China could be just as dangerous as underestimating it.
Q & A on There's a new Red Scare. But is China really so scary?
华盛顿邮报周日刊登题为“新一轮红色恐慌，但中国真那么可怕吗？”的文章，指出中国不是敌人，夸大来自中国的挑战正如低估其一样危险。文章摘译如下：
美国经济举步蹒跚、政治陷入僵局之际，似乎在华盛顿人们达成一种共识：中国人做得较好。
新一轮的红色恐慌说明了美国人当下的集体心理。互联网上，中国骇客会读到你的私人电子邮件、刺探商业情报及政府机密；教育方面，中国生产工程师就像制造玩具那么快；军事力量呢，中国正快速赶上，中国将要部署反舰导弹足以令美国航空母舰官兵身处险境；经济层面，中国已不再是廉价服装生产商，而是美国的银行家；政府管制方面，至少中国有能力建设高速铁路；能源呢，红色中国正在发展绿色能源。
从前，华盛顿主要担忧中国军事威胁，又或为中国成为世界工厂而烦恼，忧心抢走制造业工作机会。然而现在，中国在所有方面，不管是真实的还是想象出来的，均对美国构成竞争。
这种想法不仅出现在华盛顿。本月，华盛顿邮报与美国广播公司的最新民意调查发现，当被问题本世纪将是“美国世纪”还是“中国世纪”，更多美国人选择了后者。被问及哪个国家将主宰全球经济，受访者各半选择美国或中国，倾向北京将更多影响国际事务。
将中国视为美国人各生活层面迫在眉睫的敌人，这更多揭示我们自身而非中国。我们的政治家和权威们热衷于制造“中国稻草人”旨在安抚国内不安，多于针对中国的成功。
这并不是说中国没有处事正确或我们不从中国学点儿什么。但是，在很大程度上，政治家、活动家和评论家为新一轮“红色恐慌”推波助澜，目的是推动其在华府的个别议程。比如，若要复活F-22战机，还有那个国家比中国更适合援引为未来威胁。
美国外交关系委员会的亚洲研究主任伊丽莎白.埃克诺米认为，美国对中国的真实情形并不了解，中国经济发展确实相当好，然而政治经济运作也存在问题。我们应该了解中国故事的各层面的细微差别，以令来自中国和美国媒体和政客的炒作不会曲解我们的政策。
美国国内的忧虑已经演变为对中国的忧虑。
这个经济危机是自由经济的通病。 处理措施现在愈来愈多， 政府的监管是需要的。
但并不是什么都是政府主导。
打仗是为了secure将来的能源， 以及战略部署， 而且打仗是在其他国家打。
中国举办奥运盖得那些庞然大物， 既占地， 又没用。在自己家门口， 每天看着都
碍事。
得了.那些战争,以及军事上的开销,都够开无数个奥运了.别跟我说战争给我们带来好处,那个伊战打了那么多年,油价也没下来.工作机会也没增加,我作为一个普通老百姓日子比九十年代差远了.还好美国有很多明白人,这个国家才有希望
"崇尚自由经济"的恶果就是从2008到现在的差点要了美国命的经济危机
美国政府的花费一大部分是医疗， 教育， 退休保险， 这些都是又直接回到老百姓
手里。 美国政府虽然赤字， 但是穷政府， 捉襟见肘， 不会大手大脚花钱， 其实
很多时候纳税人的钱是不能花的， 比如参加世博和举办奥运， 这两点中国政府可
是花了大钱。
如果美国政府象你所说的那么节约的话,哪来那么赤字,O8今年的财政预算,是税收的1.6倍,这叫节约?还好美国有象Peter Schiff这样的明白人,而不是单单象你这样只会唱赞歌的人
我觉得你的回答是很典型的转换话题。 我说得是中国国家主导， 不完全市场经济下
造成的贪污浪费， 利用率很低的工程项目， 以及投资一窝风造成的烂尾楼等等。
我在美国很少看到浪费， 尤其是政府， 花钱是很小心的。
你说的华尔街， 是指金融领域， 在集资方面出的问题。 这个问题， 中国银行及
民间集资， 照样会出问题。 大家比较， 最好是苹果比苹果， 桔子比桔子， 不要
为了赢而偷换话题， 这是小儿科的把戏。
任何事情都不能极端
中国的面子工程是极端集权经济
席卷资本主义世界的经济危机何尝不是极端自由经济缺乏监管
另外，以现在的经验看，钱并不是有限的,货币可以无限发行
看津巴布韦就知道了，整个国家最不缺的就是"钱" (废纸)
现在已经不是金本位时代了
中国领导人崇尚集中力量办大事, 人多力量大. 大家虽然看到很多基础设施的建立
, 但也看到很多面子工程, 过分豪华的建筑以及造成的浪费, 还有也许不少很多不
该上马的大工程项目, 建成之后没有达到理想的应用价值.
但美国人很早就认识到, 国家主导的投资, 是效率最低的, 包括可能的贪污腐败和
浪费. 他们崇尚自由经济, 让私人企业和个人决定如何花钱和投资. 其实不管是国
家, 还是个人做决定, 一个国家的钱就那么多, 经济学上讲究的就是如何更有效的
分配这笔钱, 以达到最大的利用率.
, 至少在美国官员看来, 都加深了美国人的感觉: 中国想对抗美国.
另外, 关于对台湾售武以及会见达赖, 中国的反映也是想要立竿见影. 其实, 中国
也应该从历史的角度, 影响要慢慢地建立, 而不是给人强硬和霸道的口气, 限制人
家不许做这做那. 西方对人的自由和自己行事的权力, 确实是很看中的, 不是在中
国, 可以对人颐指气使, 盛气凌人.
觉得中国对外施加影响力, 应建立自己有效的软实力, 这个真的要大智慧和远见卓
识, 弄个孔子学院未必就能达到效果. 当然, 自己最好内外一致, 自己搞出来的东
西自己首先要相信, 要在国内行得通, 比如建立真正的公民社会和真正保障人民当
家作主的权力, 等等
, 狼来了"的情绪, 在关键时刻送来及时的毛毛雨, 让大家都冷静点. 过分地炒作
中国的威胁, 过长时间地把中国当成假象敌, 结果有可能自己搞出一个真的敌人和
对手. 如果两个在地球上面积和人口都是很领先的大国, 真的发生正面冲突, 也许
不光对两国不利, 对整个人类也不是好事. 而且, 美国和中国, 到如今, 也没有真
正的利益冲突, 更多的倒是利益互补和互惠互利. 中国和美国在更多时候利益是一
致的. 中国买很多美国国债, 但中国对美国的出口也提供中国很大部分人的就业机
会. 所以, 如果两国有远见的政治家, 能够带领两国人民, 走上和平共处, 互惠互
利的共同发展道路, 将是两国人民之福, 也是世界和平的稳定性基石. 要做到这一
点, 两国最需要的是加强更多了解和文化交流. 中国和美国都需要更多的理解和尊
重双方文化上的不同和制度上的差异. 当然如果能在好的方面互相学习和进步, 求
同存异, 两国间的隔阂会愈来愈减少. 两国对双方文化都精通的人士在这一过程中
将起到穿针引线, 提供重要的化解危机和冲突的桥梁作用.
以下摘自：http://campus.chsi.com.cn/xy/news/rd/200905/20090527/24684668-2.html
“据有关数据显示，全国普通高校每年近500万毕业生中(2008年毕业生总数预计将达到559万人)，学工科的仅占30%，而这30%的工科生中，有一多半学的是回报较高的热门高科技工科专业，如计算机、生物工程、通讯、信息、电子、新材料等。在传统工科专业中，最热门的是建筑专业，招生与毕业人数在传统工科中一直居前。另外，电力和石油因为垄断行业，专业报考也比较热。而剩下的机械、造船、钢铁、化工、纺织、煤炭、汽车、制药、地质、水力水电等传统工科专业，每年毕业生人数仅50多万，占全国普通高校每年毕业生总数的1/10。随着我国纺织、机械、造船、钢铁、化工等传统工业的迅速发展，对传统工科专业毕业生需求成几倍、十几倍的迅猛增长。用人单位蜂拥到学校去抢毕业生也不能满足需要。”
我这里抽几个问题给大家看看：
Q
China's fault?
Great article, many thanks for attempting to debunk the mass anxiety regarding
China. My question: Can some of this "new Red Scare" be legitimately blamed
on China? That is to say, is there something new/unusual/"wrong" that they
are doing to rile the American psyche?
━
March 01, 2010 11:33 AM
A.
John Pomfret writes:
Good question. China's tone over the past year or so has become increasingly
strident, according to US officials. So they haven't actually been helping
their cause. Their reactions to the recent Taiwan arms sales or President
Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama have been generally more strident and
pointed than before.
━ March 01, 2010 12:06 PM
Q.
China
China may be thriving, and we might not be, but can we really say that China
is "well governed?" Would you like your children to go to a Chinese elementary
school? Would you put your ailing parents in a Chinese nursing home? Will
you drink water out of the tap in Chongqing? I am happy that China is doing
better than ever, and I hope that we can start do better than ever too...
━
February 28, 2010 4:43 AM
A.
Steven Mufson writes:
I think you've hit the nail on the head. That's a variation of what we're
saying. Yes, China is making incredible progress and will be a bigger and
bigger factor in world economics and politics. But...it still has a ton
of problems.
━ March 01, 2010 12:27 PM
Q
China
As someone who lives in Asia and travels to Beijing on a regular basis,
make mistake that the Chinese do see the world right now in a zero sum game
━
February 28, 2010 6:10 AM
A.
John Pomfret writes:
I think the zero-sum mentality in Beijing is a powerful one.
━ March 01, 2010 12:31 PM
Q.
China's "Place in the Sun"
Given your many years experience in China, please address the issue of any
lingering sense among Chinese that they have been kept down by malevolent
outside powers and that they must seize what they are entitled to.
Mao Tse Tung, at his moment of triumph, famously declared that "China has
stood up," suggesting that his revolution and seizure of power established
China among nations.
A sense of denied entitlement prevailed in Germany in the last 20 years
before World War 1, German policy makers and public opinion felt that the
other powers has denied Germans their "place in the sun."
The naval race with Britain, the Agadir incident, the belated rush to colonies
in Africa, all were manifestations of this and contributed to the tensions
that led to WWI. Do you see similar public and official opinions in China
today?
━
February 28, 2010 10:30 AM
A.
John Pomfret writes:
I think there are two competing strains in Beijing right now. On one side
there are people who believe that China should continue taking a low profile
in international affairs and hide from the spotlight. There are others,
however, who embrace this "now is China's time" view. They believe China
should be bolder and more assertive. It's unclear which side will hold sway.
More broadly, the world has always had a difficult time managing the rise
of a new power. Britain handled America's rise well. It was tough but they
made room -- but again we were very close to them culturally. Germany and
Japan were disasters. I think it's an open but very important question how
we will handle China's rise. So far, the US has done pretty well, though.
But it's still early days.
━ March 01, 2010 12:36 PM
Q
Democracy and Living Standards
One of the most interesting aspects of China's economic success has been
the demise of the idea that living standards could only flourish in a democracy.
The so called Chinese economic model has become attractive to despotic regimes
such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, and the Chinese leadership, with their policy
of not interfering in the political leadership of other countries, could
actually encourage more such despotic regimes.
I suppose that time will tell if China becomes more democratic or if it
will suffer an economic impasse like Japan, but don't you think that the
accendency of China in it's current state will alter the geopolitical realities
and expectations around the world?
━
March 01, 2010 10:38 AM
A.
John Pomfret writes:
This is a great topic. With China's rise you now hear people talking about
the China model or the Beijing Consensus -- a road map for continued authoritarian
government with market-oriented reforms.
That's what's been so successful in China, so far.
The issue though is will it be able to propel China up the value chain.
Will a political system that doesn't allocate capital very efficiently and
controls information flow be able to ride heard over an economy in the information
age?
━ March 01, 2010 12:39 PM
Q.
Is China really so scary?
Steve and John, Good piece that brings some balance to the issue. Rather
than look at different asopects of China's current conditions, would it
not be much better to looks at the long term trends? For example in higher
education where was China 20 years ago and where will they be in 10 years?
Snapshots of now look either bad or good depending on where and from what
anglke the picture is taken.
━
February 28, 2010 4:36 PM
A.
Steven Mufson writes:
Snapshots can be limited, but trend lines can be misleading. We tend to
see trendlines as straight lines when that's rarely the case. Moreover,
there is the fact that improvement from a very low base is relatively easy,
but it becomes harder and harder to improve at the same rate from a higher
base.
A word on education: You hear a lot of complaints these days about access
to good schools. Chinese people have higher standards / expectations for
their children but there are only so many top schools.
━ March 01, 2010 12:50 PM
Q
Things May Not Be What They Seem To Be
I'm Chinese-American, and I know both cultures. It's difficult for Americans
to understand Chinese. Chinese media will publish mostly praise and good
news, but the American media will be contentious. For a person, American
people wear their clothes so that they are comfortable, but Chinese emphasize
how their clothes look to others, even if they are uncomfortable.
━
February 28, 2010 6:41 PM
A.
John Pomfret writes:
I am always kind of leery about people saying how different the Chinese
are from the Americans. Actually, I believe as big continental countries
we have a lot more in common than people from other countries. As for the
media, China's will change with the times.
━ March 01, 2010 12:54 PM
多观察一下西方媒体，其实唱衰，抨击中国，认为中国将会崩溃的文章在几年前还是绝对主流（其实现在也是主流），只不过这几年才出现了一些少数不同的声音。给读者造成西方媒体捧杀中国印象的一个主要原因是，中文媒体往往把捧中国的文章翻译刊登，随着“客观”评价中国的文章在西方媒体里稍一增加，中国读者就会觉得西方媒体里到处都是赞美中国的声音。
再次，中国媒体总体上并不热衷唱衰美国，对美国的评论报导中，其论调大致与西方媒体相似，并没有什么出格的地方。中国领导人及老百姓也清楚中国与西方的差距不是短期能够追上的。
此外，对于计划生育政策，本人也认为应该适当放宽。但环境污染问题，我倒不担心，这一点全国上下都有共识，随着经济的发展，污染会逐步解决的。