风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
二十年来，美国一直误会中国
通过 Tom Plate 2022-12-15
https://koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2022/12/197_341699.html?utm_source=fl
你知道吗，在美国话里，一群会飞的 COVID 不叫“flock”，而是叫“murder”？
眼下，在南加州温暖的拉古纳地区，聪明的乌鸦已经展开翅膀，期待春天的到来。
他们没有武装飞行计划来俯冲轰炸在他们后院烧烤的人。 相反，这些受传统束缚、以家庭为导向、勤奋工作的幸存者将很快通过强有力的空中监视寻找可靠的食物来源和补给线。
是的，用羽毛装饰它们的巢穴可能会很吵闹，但总的来说，这里的定居者 Homo sapiens 很好地接受了它们的需求，因此在这个太平洋社区，鸟类与人类之间存在着稳定的和平。
在智人物种中并非如此：将南中国海巢穴中的“狡猾”中国人与周围军事基地的“侵入性”美国人以及具有“航行自由”海上突袭的咄咄逼人的第七舰队进行对比。 谁是侵略者，谁是可接受的嵌套者？
在这个难题上，超过四分之一个世纪以来，我与坚持认为我们应该能够做我们想做的事情的美国人持不同意见。 诸如《中国即将崩溃》等令人厌恶、刻薄的书籍，或者甚至是被嘉年华标题玷污的扎实书籍，如《命中注定》，都表明美国缺乏足够的常识和情感平衡来应对 21 世纪最大的地缘政治困境 .
几十年来，新加坡教授兼外交官马布巴尼 (Kishore Mahbubani) 一直在警告所有人，美国在情感上或理智上都没有准备好在一定范围内处理和接受中国的历史性重现。 这位十字军思想家的地位如何。
我自己在亚洲和美洲的报道工作使我同意我们对中国的政策方向已经变得被动和错误。 美国媒体从来没有提供过多少帮助，它们总是用美国例外主义和冷战复仇主义的陈旧破烂来包装自己的报道。 很少有美国政客有敏锐或勇气呼吁在与崛起中的亚洲核超级大国的高风险关系中进行路线修正（甚至是微小的重新调整）。
历史不会善待美国过去二十年的对华政策。 知识分子和政策上的懒惰阻碍了洞察力。 不了解中美关系 关系可以寄希望于闲置或按兵不动的信誉和可持续性。 这就是“北京与华盛顿”、“有特色的社会主义”与“美国例外主义的资本主义”的问题。 它们是双输的、面对面的公式。
我需要重新校准，因为我看到了一本鲁莽但紧迫的新书，书名是《超越：中国如何脱离和平崛起的轨道》。 这是一本自认为对中国足够了解的人都应该读一读的书，因为他们并不了解。
作者是加州大学圣地亚哥分校的 Susan Shirk 博士，她知识渊博。 作为我们最有洞察力的学者之一，她在美国西海岸享有盛誉，在克林顿政府期间，她作为前国务院官员在中国、台湾、香港和蒙古赢得了广泛的声誉。 这是一个短暂的、被遗忘的时代，当时美国的对华政策往往是务实的，有时甚至接近于明智的。 这是一段值得铭记的过去。
Shirk 对政策重新调整的贡献在于，她将深度思考的学术巧妙地运用到对必要的撤退和新的新方向的双重需求中。 这适用于北京和华盛顿。
她首先让中国——尤其是其现任领导层——承担扩大问题清单的责任：北京的过度扩张（其战狼外交、南海霸凌等等）加剧了现有的紧张局势或引发了新的紧张局势。 西方因其顽固的政策思维缺陷而受到阻碍，认为它必须以某种方式做出反应——制裁、增加军费开支、新的联盟结构。
Shirk 将中国此前宣称的“和平”崛起脱轨的根源追溯到 2006 年至 2009 年左右，并尖锐地指出现任中央政府：“中国的习政策成本正在增加，”她总结道。 解决方案难以捉摸：中国将需要“找到自我约束的机制。这个问题没有明显的解决方案或简单的答案。”
更糟糕的是，如果中国对一个人来说是一项不可能完成的大工作，那么它是否有合适的人选来担任这个在政治上呼唤对不懈的实用主义的无限热情的角色？
是的，中国在历史上一直遭受着令人厌恶的、冷酷无情的西方干涉和对霸权的无礼刺伤； 但是，试图通过强硬的言辞和咄咄逼人的政策来解决地缘政治的不公正，只会激励敌人并制造新的疑虑和怀疑者。
是的，从某些指标来看，美国很可能正在失去动力，但将中国的战略思想强加在一艘据称正在沉没的船的桅杆上是一场惊人的巨大赌博。
谢克教授的下台似乎比冷战时期的热风更新鲜，因为她对美国政策的批评几乎同样尖锐，在这个过程中向双方发出了严厉的、成人级别的警告，要求双方共同生活，以避免危及整个物种。
为什么中国领导人认为它必须在世界舞台上像狼一样跳舞？ 为什么华盛顿-纽约的权力精英这么长时间以来一直拒绝为中国更明智的乌鸦制定更好的美国政策这一崇高挑战？ 相反，唉，它似乎只能像老鹰一样观察它们。
洛杉矶洛约拉马利蒙特大学亚太研究杰出学者汤姆·普拉特(Tom Plate)是太平洋世纪研究所副所长。 他的第一本书《理解世界末日，论核军备竞赛》于 1971 年出版。他的文章由《南华早报》发行。
By Tom Plate 2022-12-15
Did you know that, in American-speak, a group of flying COVIDs is not called a "flock" but a "murder"?
Right now, amid the warm Laguna area of southern California, whip-smart crows are already spreading their wings in anticipation of spring.
They're not armed with flight plans to dive-bomb people barbecuing in their backyards. Instead, these tradition-bound, family-oriented, hard-working survivors will soon be scoping out reliable food sources and supply lines with assertive aerial surveillance.
Yes, feathering their nest can get to be quite a racket, but, on the whole, their needs are well accepted by the settler Homo sapiens here, so that in this Pacific neighborhood, a steady peace prevails between birdkind and mankind.
Not so much within the Homo sapiens species: Contrast the "cunning" Chinese in their South China Sea lair, and the "intrusive" Americans with their surrounding military bases and pushy Seventh Fleet with those "freedom of navigation" sea-swoops. Who's the aggressor and who's the acceptable nester?
On that conundrum, for more than a quarter of a century, I have differed with Americans who insist that we should be able to do pretty much what we want. Loathsome, mean-spirited books such as The Coming Collapse of China or even otherwise solid books sullied by a carnival title, such as Destined for War, suggest that America lacks enough common sense and emotional balance to handle the biggest geopolitical dilemma of the 21st century.
For decades now, Singaporean professor and diplomat Kishore Mahbubani has been warning everyone that America was not emotionally or intellectually prepared to process and accept, within bounds, the historic resurfacing of China. How spot on this crusading thinker has been.
My own reporting efforts on Asia and America led me to agree that our policy direction with China had become reactive and wrong. Scant help ever comes from the U.S. media, always wrapping its reporting in the old rags of American exceptionalism and Cold War revanchism. Few American politicians had the acumen or courage to call for course corrections (or even minor recalibrations) in the high-stakes relationship with the rising Asian nuclear superpower.
History will not judge American policy towards China over the last two decades kindly. Intellectual and policy laziness have blocked out insight. No understanding of China-U.S. relations can hope for credibility and sustainability that lies fallow or stands pat. This is the problem of "Beijing versus Washington," and with "Socialism with Characteristics" versus "Capitalism with American Exceptionalism." They are lose-lose, in-your-face formulations.
The need for recalibration came to me in coming across a brash but urgent new book titled Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise. This is a volume that everyone who thinks they know enough about China should read, because they don't.
The author is Dr. Susan Shirk of the University of California in San Diego, and she knows plenty. Famed on the U.S. west coast as one of our most insightful scholars, she earned a large international reputation as a former State Department official with the remit of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia during the Clinton administration. This was a brief, forgotten epoch when U.S. China policy was often practical and sometimes close to sensible. It's a past worth remembering.
Shirk's contribution to policy recalibration is in her sophisticated parlaying of deep-thinking scholarship into the twin need for necessary retreats and fresh new directions. This applies to both Beijing and Washington.
She starts up by taking China ― especially its current leadership ― to task for extending the list of problems: Beijing's overreach (its Wolf-Warrior diplomacy, South China Sea bullying, and so on) heats up existing tensions or flares up new ones. The West, handicapped by the defects of its implacable policy thinking, feels it must react somehow ― with sanctions, increased military expenditures, new alliance configurations.
Shirk traces the origins of China's derailing of its own previously proclaimed "peaceful" rise back to around 2006-2009, and pointedly calls out the current national government: "The costs to China of Xi's policies are adding up," she concludes. A solution is elusive: China will need to "find mechanisms to restraint itself. The problem has no obvious solution or simple answer."
Worse yet, if China is an impossibly big job for one man, does it have the best man in place for a role that cries out politically for the infinite zest of relentless pragmatism?
Yes, China has historically suffered from obnoxious and callus Western meddling and ham-fisted stabs at hegemony; but seeking to square geopolitical injustice by overreaching via punchy rhetoric and pushy policy only incentivizes enemies and creates new doubts and doubters.
Yes, America by some metrics may well be on a power losing momentum, but to lash China's strategic thinking onto the mast of an allegedly sinking ship is one breathtakingly colossal gamble.
Professor Shirk's takedown seems more fresh air than cold-war hot air, because her critique of U.S. policies is almost as searing, in the process offering a stern, adult-level warning to both sides to live together to avoid endangering the entire species.
Why does the Chinese leadership believe it has to dance like wolves on the world stage? Why has the Washington-New York power elite so long resisted the noble challenge of a better US policy for China's more sensible crows; instead, alas, it only seems capable of watching them like, well, hawks.
Tom Plate, distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, is the Pacific Century Institute's vice-president. His first book ― "Understanding Doomsday, on the nuclear arms race" ― was published in 1971. His article was distributed by the South China Morning Post.
