尼尔·弗格森 谈与中国的第二次冷战

第二次冷战：尼尔·弗格森谈与中国正在出现的冲突

https://www.hoover.org/research/cold-war-ii-niall-ferguson-emerging-conflict-china

尼尔·弗格森 (Niall Ferguson) 是胡佛研究所的米尔班克家族高级研究员，也是多本书的作者，包括《末日：灾难的政治》和《基辛格，1923-1968：理想主义者》。 在这次对话中，我们将讨论台湾问题上的冲突：为什么它是一场冷战，它何时开始，如何避免让它变成热战，以及如何缓和甚至赢得它。

2023 年 5 月 1 日星期一 0 分钟阅读尼尔·弗格森访谈

英国：尼尔·弗格森
第二次冷战：尼尔·弗格森谈与中国正在出现的冲突
合著者：尼尔·弗格森

要查看本集的完整文字记录，请阅读以下内容：

彼得·罗宾逊：与中国正在出现的冲突到底有多严重？ 它已经变成了第二次冷战。 历史学家尼尔·弗格森现在谈论不常见的知识。

彼得·罗宾逊：欢迎来到非凡知识，我是彼得·罗宾逊。 尼尔·弗格森是胡佛研究所的研究员，在牛津大学获得本科和研究生学位。 在来到斯坦福大学之前，他曾在牛津大学、剑桥大学、纽约大学、哈佛大学和伦敦经济学院任职。 弗格森博士是十几部主要历史著作的作者，包括《战争的怜悯，解释第一次世界大战》、《金钱的崛起》、《帝国，英国如何创造现代世界》，我们来 现在我们今天的主题是《理想主义者基辛格》，这是他的两卷本亨利·基辛格传记的第一卷，亨利·基辛格是第一次长期冷战中最重要的人物之一。 弗格森博士目前正在完成亨利·基辛格两卷传记的第二卷。 完成它，是的，尼尔？

尼尔·弗格森：是的。 这就是计划。

彼得·罗宾逊：明白了。 好吧。 尼尔·弗格森在《国家评论》中写道：“第一次世界大战发生了。然后又发生了第二次世界大战。它们并不完全相同。但它们非常相似，以至于没有人会争论命名法。同样，还有第一次冷战。现在我们 正处于第二次冷战时期。” 好吧，这就是我对冷战这个词的理解，与中国的冲突将持续两到三代人。 代际冲突。 我们将发现自己再次生活在核威胁之下，我们文明的生存受到威胁。 我是在夸张，还是这是对冷战的一个公正的总结？

尼尔·弗格森：哦，情况比这更糟糕，因为你假设它会非常漫长。 我的冷战确实是一个四年的事件。 它实际上比大多数专家预期的要早结束，但不能保证第二次冷战会持续那么久，因为中国是一个比苏联更强大的对手。 在经济上，以一项指标（基于购买力平价的国内生产总值）衡量，中国几乎已经赶上了美国。中国在 2014 年超过了美国。在这一指标上，苏联从未接近过美国。 他们的巅峰时期有美国面积的 44%。 因此，纯粹从经济角度来看，第二次冷战更糟糕。 从技术角度来看，情况也更糟，因为我们拥有第一次冷战时期的核武器。当然，我们拥有比他们在第一次冷战开始时拥有的武器更先进的武器，但我们也有很多他们没有的东西 在第一次冷战中，从人工智能到量子计算，都没有。 因此，第二次冷战正在以比第一次冷战更多的技术和更多的火力进行。你想让我继续下去吗？

彼得·罗宾逊：继续吧。

尼尔·弗格森：我再给你一个担心的理由。

彼得·罗宾逊：我会在节目剩下的时间里努力寻找欢乐的基调。

尼尔·弗格森：好吧，让我们面对现实吧。 第一次冷战时期，苏联人想要了解美国的情况确实相当困难，因为整个美国的苏联公民数量很少，而且我们知道他们是谁、在哪里。 美国的制度也有一定的渗透，但与第二次冷战相比，那算不了什么。 在第二次冷战中，社会和经济之间存在着巨大的相互渗透。 中国人可以通过各种方式了解我们相对开放的社会和经济。 不仅仅是因为他们在这里（尽管他们的数量肯定比苏联人多得多），而且还通过电子方式。 所以我确实认为，在我们假设，哦，第二次冷战在持续时间方面有点像第一次冷战之前，我认为这是不能保证的。 也不能保证我们会赢，因为我们当然赢得了第一次冷战。我们不应该假设我们会赢得第二次冷战。

彼得·罗宾逊：好的。 我们稍后再讨论这一点。 力量对比这句话是谁说的？

尼尔·弗格森：这是斯大林的一句话。 这当然是马克思主义的一句话。

彼得·罗宾逊：但是基辛格，这实际上是一个明智的分析起点，他们的经济，我们的经济。 你刚刚带领我们经历了这一切。 我们将回到这一点。

尼尔·弗格森：这是一个马克思列宁主义的概念，你可以用这些术语来思考权力。 我的意思是，如果亨利·基辛格坐在这里，他会说除了物质维度之外，总是存在道德维度，这就是我将该传记第一卷称为理想主义者的原因之一。 但我们把他养大是件好事，因为你不需要从我这里得知我们正处于第二次冷战之中。 只要问问亨利·基辛格就知道了，他已经 99 岁了，对冷战略知一二。 我告诉你一个小轶事，彼得，当我2018年第一次开始思考这个问题时，我不得不鼓起勇气问基辛格，我们是否处于冷战之中？ 我在 2019 年底在中国的一次会议上问过他，他给出了很好的答复。 他说：“我们正处于冷战的山脚下。” 一年后，他在 2020 年将其升级为冷战时期的山口。 当我去年问他这个问题时，他几乎理所当然地认为我们正处于第二次冷战，新的冷战会更糟糕，准确地说，会比第一次冷战更危险。 所以我并不是即兴发挥，而是部分基于他的见解。

彼得·罗宾逊：尼尔，我认为你本身就是权威，但现在我真的对此感到震惊。 台湾位于中国沿海，是一个面积相当于马里兰州、苏格兰面积一半的岛屿，人口 2300 万，是一个真正运转良好的民主国家，拥有蓬勃发展的自由市场经济。 中国共产党的立场是，台湾不是独立的，但正确地说，台湾是中国的一部分，因此应该受到中国共产党的控制。 一个事件和一段引言。 事件是这样的：上个月，台湾总统访问了美国。 拜登政府中没有人见过她，但众议院议长凯文·麦卡锡见过她。 中国在台湾周围进行了军事演习作为回应，其中包括，现在我引用中国发布的内容，“配备实弹导弹的核轰炸机和军舰进行演习，以形成一个岛屿包围的封锁局面。” 我不确定包围岛封锁的情况是什么，但听起来不太好。 这是您在彭博新闻的常规专栏中引用的内容。 ” 几年前，“失去甚至不为台湾而战将被整个亚洲视为美国在该地区主导地位的终结。这肯定会引起美元和美国国债的挤兑。 苏伊士运河。” 苏伊士运河事件，1957 年英国未能阻止埃及人占领苏伊士运河。 就在那时，包括英国人自己在内的所有人都意识到，英国不再是一个全球大国。 好的？

尼尔·弗格森：正确。

彼得·罗宾逊：对于美国人来说，为什么我们要面临如此大的风险？ 为什么我们要冒着美国苏伊士运河危机与世界另一端岛屿的风险呢？

尼尔·弗格森：嗯，这是一个很好的问题，因为回到你刚才所说的，我们曾经接受台湾是中国的一部分。 事实上，我们仍然正式奉行一个中国政策，所以台湾的奇怪之处之一是，中国声称拥有它并没有真正的争议，而且我们不承认它是一个独立国家。 事实上，即使你在某些圈子里将其称为一个国家，也会被责备。 那么发生了什么变化呢？ 因为在半个世纪的大部分时间里，实际上自从亨利·基辛格和理查德·尼克松与毛泽东和周恩来制定《上海公报》以来，我们一直相信台湾是中国的一部分。 自 20 世纪 70 年代末以来，我们一直存在所谓的战略模糊性。 这种含糊之处在于，国会中那些不太确定基辛格和尼克松做了什么的人说，好吧，我们必须对台湾做出一些承诺。 这项承诺是国会的一项法案，规定如果中国试图通过武力改变现状，我们基本上保留采取军事行动的权利。 但这是我们50年来政策的模糊之处，我们有点接受中国的说法，即台湾是中国的一部分。 但我们也表示，如果他们试图通过武力主张这一主张，我们可能会采取行动。 过去几年发生的变化是，第二次冷战已经开始，尽管美国人不这么称呼它。 自 2018 年左右以来，美国（共和党和民主党都是如此）对中国、特别是台湾采取了越来越强硬的立场。 拜登总统似乎至少在三次、或许四次场合否认战略模糊性。 一些领先的政策知识分子，前外交关系委员会大潘詹德鲁姆理查德·哈斯 (Richard Haas) 在 2020 年表示，“为什么我们要继续这种战略模糊的胡言乱语？

让我们明确对台湾的承诺。”前众议院议长南希·佩洛西访问台湾时，她的所有意图和目的都表现得好像台湾是她访问的一个独立国家。所以我认为 这是我们对中国的总体态度和对台湾的具体态度的重大转变。而中国人反过来也加大了赌注。你举了一个例子，最近议长麦卡锡会见台湾总统时进行的封锁演习 ……但他们在南希·佩洛西在台湾时做了非常相似的事情。因此，在经历了大约半个世纪的战略模糊之后，我们正在快速朝着台湾问题摊牌的方向前进。

彼得罗宾逊：所以让我问这个问题，让我给你几个场景，看看你如何处理它们。 这是一个香港的例子。 中国刚刚占领了香港，这就是我们对此所做的事情，拜登总统发表了一些尖锐的声明，仅此而已。 没有其他的。 香港民众有何反应？ 嗯，学生示威了，示威结束了，他们被镇压了。 有趣的是，至少对我来说，据我在商界所知，恰好有两个香港人站出来反对。 黎智英入狱了。 然后是马丁·李（如果我没记错的话），还有一位著名的律师和商人也站出来反对他。 我不确定他的身份，但香港这个庞大的社区非常富有，几乎绝大多数是男性，他们允许交易继续进行。 现在我们来到台湾，中国正在加大赌注，他们肯定正在互相交谈。 我想到另一个被敌对势力包围的小国，以色列。 以色列将其GDP的5%以上用于国防，而台湾仅略高于2%。 从某种意义上来说，感觉好像缺乏严肃性，缺乏以某种方式达成交易的意愿。 我们在这里的商界，我们可以相处，我们可以解决这个问题。 毕竟，我们感兴趣的是商业，而北京如今也了解商业。 所以它会以某种方式缓慢地发生，而我们对此却无能为力。 这对我们来说是苏伊士运河吗？

Niall Ferguson：这和香港不一样，我们要明确一点。

彼得·罗宾逊：纠正整个类比。

尼尔·弗格森：嗯，状态完全不同。 作为前英国殖民地，香港不是民主国家，从来没有民主。 实际情况是，中国国家主席习近平只是加快了对香港的接管，而这本来应该在本世纪晚些时候发生。 国会没有任何法案要求美国政府对此大加关注。 这就是为什么当美国人抱怨香港发生的事情时，几乎总是一种非常微弱的反射行为。 英国应该大声抱怨，因为中国实际上违反了与英国达成的协议。 台湾不一样。 我的意思是，自从军事独裁统治结束以来，台湾一直是一个成功、充满活力的民主国家。 它是世界上最成功的经济体之一。 它的成功部分归功于它现在是最先进半导体生产的领先中心。 张忠谋在那里设立的台积电（TSMC），即台湾半导体公司，已成为世界领先者。 因此，在经济上，控制台湾比控制香港对全球经济更重要。 现在要注意的关键点是，台湾不是以色列，也不是乌克兰。 你没有提到乌克兰，但我们需要谈谈它，因为它是第二次冷战的一个重要次要情节。 但从短期来看，请考虑以下一系列事件。 台湾明年一月将举行选举。 目前还不清楚谁会获胜。 中国人已经称其中一位候选人为支持独立的候选人。 因此，存在一种非同寻常的情况，即在那次选举过程中，中国的干预甚至比 2020 年选举还要多。2020 年 1 月我在台湾，中国人的干预程度令我极为震惊。 试图影响那次选举，但他们取得的成果却微乎其微。 为什么？ 因为这些年来台湾人口一直在稳步远离大陆。 记得有一次，有很多人从大陆来到那里。

彼得·罗宾逊：是的，当然。

尼尔·弗格森：他们是蒋介石的人民，他们输掉了中国内战，输掉了1949年的革命，撤退到了台湾。 他们仍然与大陆保持着密切的联系。 好吧，时间已经过去了。 今天的台湾人，特别是年轻的台湾人，与中国共产党控制的大陆没有真正的亲和力。

他们与在那里享受到的非常成功和充满活力的民主制度有着密切的关系。 因此，我认为从北京的角度来看，一个大问题是台湾正在以 20 世纪 70 年代没有人预见到的方式渐行渐远。 我想很多七十年代的人都认为台湾纳入大陆的怀抱只是时间问题。 但这种情况并没有发生，中国人也无法想出任何政治方法来阻止这种分歧的发生。 我要说最后一件事，理解这一点非常重要。 习近平打破惯例，延长了作为中国共产党和中国国家领导人的国家主席任期。 为什么？ 他延长任期的主要论点是台湾。 习近平对他身边的人说过，从公开声明中也可以清楚地看出，他认为把台湾置于中共的控制之下是他事业的基石、顶峰、最高成就，也是他继续掌权的原因。 比他的前任们持续的时间更长。 所以这对他来说是一个非常高风险的问题。 当然，我们反过来也将其视为一个高风险问题。 我们对台湾的承诺越明确，习近平的问题就越大。

彼得·罗宾逊：所以我只是给了你一个场景，在这个场景下我们可以分散这一切，然后转过头让这一切消失。 你说不，不，不，不，不。 台湾根本不像香港。

尼尔·弗格森：还有彼得，我们要记住，在民意调查中，美国人现在比以前更关心这个问题。 芝加哥议会在 2021 年进行的一项民意调查显示，首次有超过一半的美国人认为，如果中国对台湾采取行动，美国应该部署军队予以回应（52%）。

彼得·罗宾逊：好的。 这让我们想到了习近平现在如何开始他的第三个八年任期的问题。 我说得对吗？

尼尔·弗格森：等等。 不，那是不对的。

彼得罗宾逊：他没有任期限制，因为他或多或少可以做他想做的任何事情，但有一个期望。

尼尔·弗格森：五年加五年。

彼得·罗宾逊：好的。 个位数的年数。 然而，让我引用去年泄露的这份泄露的备忘录，空军上将迈克·米纳汉（Mike Minahan），“我的直觉告诉我”，这是他过去的军官的，对不起，那是今年一月份。 “我的直觉告诉我，我们将在 2025 年战斗。美国总统选举将于 2024 年举行，中国国家主席习近平将成为一个心烦意乱的美国。台湾总统选举将于 2024 年举行，将为习近平提供攻击的理由。” 您补充一下，他现在是个位数，第三个任期。 我们现在谈论的是1、2、3、4、5、6，或者如果Minahan可信的话，两年或更短的时间，对你来说是否感觉那么紧迫？

尼尔·弗格森：是的。

彼得·罗宾逊：我仍在适应我们正处于冷战山区的想法。 现在你说，等一下，我们必须在几年后做出是否保卫台湾的决定。

尼尔·弗格森：嗯，我认为第二次冷战比第一次冷战发生得更快。让我试着说明一下这一点。 当乔治·奥威尔 (George Orwell) 1945 年首次使用“冷战”一词时，几乎没有人明白奥威尔那篇关于未来将出现核超级大国的非凡文章准确地指出了这一点。 他将冷战定义为一种没有和平的和平，并预测拥有核武器的超级大国将出现三个，即美国、苏联和中国。 他说，在这个世界上，这当然是他的伟大小说《1984》中的一个预期，会有这种永久武装的和平，但不是和平。 美国人花了很多年才明白这一点。 当温斯顿·丘吉尔在密苏里州富尔顿发表著名的铁幕演讲时，《纽约时报》对这次演讲提出了严厉批评，并指责他是好战分子。 大多数美国人直到 1950 年朝鲜入侵韩国才明白这一点。这就是我想向你们建议的乌克兰的类比。 乌克兰战争是第二次冷战中的第一场热战。 正如朝鲜战争是第一次冷战的第一场热战一样，美国人民也开始意识到事情的严重性。 请记住，如果没有习近平的批准，普京不会入侵乌克兰。 如果没有从与中国的贸易中获得的大量经济支持，他将无法继续进行战争。 所以我认为我们应该想象一下朝鲜战争、乌克兰战争的类比，它们让我们回到了 20 世纪 50 年代。 那是五十年代初的样子。 这场战争将会像朝鲜战争一样展开，一年的战斗非常激烈，来来回回，然后消耗，一切都会陷入僵局。 最终，你开始某种停战进程，但你永远不会真正实现和平。

我可以看到这一切正在上演。 但我们正在谈论的关于台湾的问题相当于古巴导弹危机，彼得，你知道，这场危机发生在 1962 年。我认为我们可以比第一次冷战时更快地到达 1962 年，而且我们 我们称之为台湾半导体危机。 这是这场危机的有趣之处。 我不知道它是否会在明年发生、是否会在 2025 年发生、是否要到 2028 年才会发生，但很有可能在这十年发生。 这里至关重要的变量是中国尚未在军事上做好成功两栖入侵的准备。 如果他们现在这样做，他们将冒巨大的风险，但我认为他们不会。 我认为他们有能力封锁该岛，但我不确定如果我们决定实施封锁并与他们对抗，他们是否准备好承受后果。 所以我认为他们还没有准备好迎接黄金时段，但他们不能无限期地等待。 为什么？ 因为回到我们之前的讨论，每一年都让美国有时间让台湾做好保卫自己的准备。 现在不是，但我们知道这就是问题所在，我们有一个连贯的战略，我们可以执行该战略，使台湾比现在更难入侵。 这就是为什么我认为这个时间框架可以用个位数年来衡量。 这不是习近平可以说，哦，我会在2030年处理的。这对他来说不是一个选择。

彼得·罗宾逊：不过我回来了，你谈到了有关台湾人民的各种有趣的事情。 我知道我们认为台湾是中国的一部分，中国显然也认为台湾是中国的一部分。 但你的意思是，无论这种外交，我都不会称之为虚构，但这种外交形式的言辞，即使我们现在知道，由于俄罗斯入侵，乌克兰已经成为一个 真正的民族。 它存在于人们的心中。 他们现在以一种以前可能含糊不清的方式认为自己是乌克兰人。 台湾是某种实体。 我不知道该用什么民族这个词，但在台湾人民的心目中，他们不是中国人。 那么问题来了，为什么他们不花更多的时间和资源呢？ 为什么他们不花费更多的资源来让自己变得更难对付呢？ 这是我无法解决的难题，蔡总统来到这里，她很勇敢，她坚持民主，坚持自由市场，与凯文·麦卡锡会面时知道这会在国内造成各种混乱，事实上 确实如此。 然而他们只花费了2.1%的国防费用，战略家爱德华·勒特韦克显然表示，台湾的战略是让我们在他们的孩子玩电子游戏的时候保卫他们。 我的意思是，这不合适。

尼尔·弗格森：嗯，这对德国很有效。 我的意思是，想想自第一次冷战以来所有在美国安全保障上搭便车的国家。这不是一个错误，而是冷战的一个特点，即美国是压倒性的安全提供者。 只有像以色列这样的国家在 1973 年才艰难地发现自己不能完全依赖美国，当时美国是，好吧，我们会帮助你，但首先，你必须进行谈判。 我认为对于以色列人来说，73 年是关键时刻，他们意识到美国可能是他们未来安全的重要组成部分，但他们必须能够自力更生，因为山姆大叔并不完全可靠。 乌克兰也没什么不同。 我的意思是，在俄罗斯入侵前夕，乌克兰还没有准备好迎接黄金时段。 它不得不紧急紧急起飞，并且在对基辅的最初袭击中勉强幸存。 它抵御最初攻击的能力让所有人都感到惊讶。

彼得·罗宾逊：泽连斯基在这方面发挥了重要作用，不是吗？

尼尔·弗格森：我不知道这是否真的都是泽伦斯基造成的。 我认为普通的乌克兰人，去年年底我在基辅，无论我走到哪里，普通民众都完全致力于抵抗俄罗斯的入侵，这一事实令我感到非常震惊。 我们不知道台湾将如何应对中国的封锁。 我们不知道台湾人将如何应对企图进行的两栖入侵。 去年2月22日之前，大多数人都会预测乌克兰很快就会崩溃。 因此，我认为人们不应该认为台湾在某种程度上是非典型的，作为美国对其做出安全承诺的国家，它的行为实际上相当理性。 我去过乌克兰和台湾，我想说，很难想象台湾人在过去的一年里能像乌克兰人那样顽强地战斗，并承受如此沉重的代价。 但毫无疑问，在我看来，他们认为自己走在独立之路上，我认为这是非常重要的。 当你看看台湾关于国家未来的民意调查时，实际上存在相当大的一致性。

很少很少台湾人认为它是被中共征服的谎言。

彼得·罗宾逊：乌克兰与台湾的问题，有一些评论员，我们共同的朋友埃尔布里奇·科尔比也许是最引人注目的，他担心乌克兰会分散注意力。 美国的资源就这么多，包括精神资源。 你要求五角大楼担心台湾和乌克兰，五角大楼说，他们不会正式说，但实际上他们会说，等一下，哪一个才是真正的战斗？ 好吧，乌克兰可能是一个干扰因素。 然后其他人则认为，我们在胡佛研究所的同事斯蒂芬·科特金（Stephen Kotkin）会认为台湾的防御贯穿乌克兰。 是哪一个？

尼尔·弗格森：冷战的问题在于你无法选择。 事实上，你遇到了我所说的三个水体问题。 也就是说，你必须做好开战的准备，或者至少要威慑你的敌人，在欧洲、北大西洋，你必须能够在太平洋和东亚威慑他们，我们不要忘记波斯湾 。 美国没有选择说，哦，我要把重心转向亚洲。 你们在欧洲和中东能不能规矩点？ 比第一次冷战更严重。冷战的问题是全球性的。 中国现在可以在全球范围内发挥作用，它现在是中东的一个参与者，所以美国没有能够选择的奢侈。 它必须准备好同时遏制中国在这三个方面的扩张。 这就是我对这个问题的回答，这不是一个选择。 现在我认为埃尔布里奇·科比在一件事上是正确的，在这里，他和我完全同意，美国在乌克兰战争中投入的资源越多，它消耗的标枪、毒刺和海马斯库存就越多，可用的资源就越少。 对于东亚的任何摊牌，因为我们没有过去的军事工业综合体。 也就是说，这些库存的补充需要很长时间。 华盛顿一家智库最近发布了一份关于空垃圾箱的非常有趣的报告，指出如果现在爆发台湾战争，我们的东西很快就会耗尽，尤其是精确导弹， 当今美国战争方式的重要组成部分。 关于台湾战争的问题，吉姆·斯塔夫里迪斯（Jim Stavridis）在他写的一本关于这个主题的书中很好地阐述了这一点，那就是它可能会变得非常大、非常快。 针对台湾的有限战争有点难以想象，就像针对古巴的有限战争很难想象一样。 我想尝试向您提出我的类比中非常重要的部分。 请记住，我们说过第一次冷战和第二次世界大战并不完全相同，就像第一次世界大战和第二次世界大战并不完全相同一样，但你并没有真正争论是否存在世界大战。 所以在第二次冷战中，古巴导弹危机和台湾半导体危机之间有一个非常重要的区别。 那就是，在第二次冷战中，我们是苏联，因为在第二次冷战中，实施封锁的是共产党，而封锁古巴的是约翰·F·肯尼迪。 我们称之为隔离，但本质上是封锁，是苏联人、赫鲁晓夫不得不向古巴派遣海军。 那是整个第一次冷战中最危险的时刻。只是这一次，靴子在另一只脚上，中国可以选择封锁台湾。 然后我们将不得不派遣一支海军部队来执行封锁。 我们会陷入赫鲁晓夫的境地，这就是让我最紧张的地方。 我的意思是，一般来说，重演古巴导弹危机是一个坏主意。 这是整个冷战时期最危险的时刻，也是距离第三次世界大战最近的时刻。 从很多方面来说，这只是运气，纯粹是运气，它没有演变成第三次世界大战。 有一位苏联潜艇指挥官下令向美国海军水面舰艇发射核鱼雷。 只是因为偶然，一名上级军官在潜艇上并且能够否决他，所以这种情况才没有发生。 如果它发生了，我们就会迎来世界末日。 您为什么要重新运行该游戏并期望结果总是好的？ 因此，我们不应该再次上演古巴导弹危机，但当我们与苏联比赛时，我们当然不应该再次上演。 因为记住最后发生的事情，赫鲁晓夫不得不让步。 他与肯尼迪兄弟达成了一项协议，但并未公开。 所以看起来他受到了羞辱，那时他的职业生涯几乎就结束了。 但这对苏联来说也是一个重大挫折。 我们不想把自己置于那样的境地。 因此，我的观点是，我们必须履行对乌克兰做出的承诺。 我们现在的处境是不能让乌克兰输掉的。 问题是中国不能承受俄罗斯的损失。

这就是为什么这场战争会继续下去，因为两个超级大国现在基本上都在支持战斗中的一只狗。 在这种情况持续下去的同时，我们必须对这个问题找到一个好的答案：我们如何阻止中国入侵或封锁台湾？ 因为现在我们所拥有的是一些很好的言辞和一些非常糟糕的战略选择。 战争游戏的结果并不总是那么好。 最近有一篇文章强烈暗示这对美国来说将是非常糟糕的。 我认为我们只有很短的时间来对这个问题给出一个好的答案。 如果我们不这样做，那么我们就会面临虚张声势的风险。 我的意思是，现在，在台湾问题上，我们基本上是大声说话，拿着小棍子，每个人都知道这是错误的做法。

彼得·罗宾逊：好吧，从台湾退一步。 三个大问题，我们可以用一整套程序来解决每一个问题。

尼尔·弗格森：所以请保持简短的回答。

彼得·罗宾逊：我想是的。 我想我就是这么说的。 他们相信什么？ 这里引用几段话。 盖伊·索尔曼在《城市日报》中写道：“在什么意义上，中国共产党仍然是共产主义？它代表了一种人人背诵但无人相信的马克思主义礼拜仪式。” 斯蒂芬·科特金就坐在这个节目中，引用道：“我们都认为他们是愤世嫉俗者，他们只是宣扬共产主义意识形态。但他们中的一些人相信这一点。不仅他们中的一些人相信这一点，而且共产主义是这个体系固有的。 ” 好吧，即使在第一次冷战期间，也有这种不断的来回，不，不，不，这只是另一个帝国势力。 这是大国斗争的又一次迭代，我们大致知道对它们的期望。 相反，不，不，他们是共产主义者。 他们对人与政府、人与上帝、一个社会与另一个社会的关系有着根本不同的看法，他们的最终目标是认真对待他们的礼貌，这是书面的，他们希望共产主义在整个世界取得胜利。 世界。 今天我们与中国也有同样的来回。 他们相信什么？

尼尔·弗格森：好吧，科特金教授总是对的。

彼得·罗宾逊：这是一个很好的起点。

尼尔·弗格森：这是第一条规则，第二条规则参见第一条规则，在这个问题上，他当然是对的。 准确地说，他们是马克思列宁主义者。 我认为习近平尤其应该被认真地、字面地理解为马克思列宁主义者。 但同样，我在大流行之前在中国呆过一段时间。 我是清华大学的客座教授。 我记得有一次会见了中国共产党的研究主任，他确实是一个相当重要的人物。 他在那次会议中说,哦对了,政治局常委正在重读马克思和恩格斯。 所以我认为你应该假设第二次冷战有一个意识形态部分。 很多天真的人以为不是这样的，因为他们到北京、上海去，看到的都是商业大亨的样子，他们的行为就像商业大亨一样，他们看到了高楼大厦，看起来很眼熟。 但你确实需要明白，在资本主义的光辉背后，仍然有一个共产党在掌权。 如果你看看习近平在北京而不是在达沃斯所说的话，或者只是看看其他共产党的宣传，就会发现意识形态问题已经变得非常惊人。 他明确禁止在中国大学教授民主、法治和西方思想。 我在清华的时候，气氛发生了明显的变化。 我在课堂上谈论文革不再那么容易了。 因此，让我们打消这样的想法：他们只是假装是共产主义，这只是中国的资本主义政党。 那是无稽之谈。 这篇意识形态文章解释了这样一种信念，即与西方帝国主义之间不可避免的冲突，我认为这确实是中国战略的基础。 我认为习近平已经告诉党和国家做好战争准备。 我在政策知识领域读过相当多的书，我和史蒂芬·科特金在中国的对应领域，他们谈论了很多关于中国取代美国成为主导帝国的角色。 因此，请记住，马克思列宁主义不是一种冲突的意识形态，而是一种具有历史决定论操作系统的意识形态。 这就是他们预计会发生冲突的原因。

彼得·罗宾逊：彼得·泰尔在他的书《从零到一》中，我们谈论的是一本已有十年历史的书。 我什至不知道彼得今天是否会重申这一点，但这是他在《从零到一》中所说的，“中国人一直在直接复制发达国家的一切：19世纪的铁路，20世纪的空调， 甚至整个城市。他们可能会跳过几个步骤，直接使用无线网络，

例如，不安装固定电话就直接使用无线网络，但他们仍然在复制。”好吧，这是很重要的一点，因为有一种观点认为，我们拥有的东西，他们的数量超过了我们。您刚刚至少解释了这一点 一方面，他们的经济已经比我们大了。他们的人数超过了我们。如果他们选择这样做，他们的国防开支就可以超过我们。这就是我们所拥有的，民主资本主义，这意味着创新能力。我们可以领先一步 其中，这就是我们拥有的战略后备力量。布鲁金斯学会的艾米丽·韦恩斯坦（Emily Weinstein），“围绕中国作为战略竞争对手的讨论是由这样一种观念所影响的，即只有民主才能促进创新。 中国每天都在反驳这种想法。”

尼尔·弗格森：他们比苏联更具创新性，因为他们的经济很大一部分是市场经济。 中国互联网公司追逐全球最大的美国互联网公司是有原因的。 欧洲也没有什么互联网公司值得一提。 这是因为在互联网的发展，特别是其商业化方面，市场发挥着作用。 如果我们看一下人工智能或量子计算等领域正在进行的研究，就会发现这是美国与中国之间的较量。 这场比赛没有其他选手，他们甚至不会颁发铜牌。 这就是人们公认的第二次冷战的原因之一，因为在技术上有两个超级大国。 现在我认为中国队仍然是银牌得主。 看看疫苗，他们彻底失败了，尽管他们在 2020 年吹嘘说他们会开发出针对新冠病毒的疫苗，但他们没有。 我们做到了，这令人鼓舞。 我基本上同意你的观点，即我们的系统很可能赢得创新竞赛，但我有一些警告。 第一，我们必须认真对待。 对美国来说，第一次冷战进展顺利的原因是，我们明白我们正在与一个共产主义超级大国进行一场技术竞赛，而这个共产主义超级大国决心窃取我们的技术并最终埋葬我们。 当我在 2018 年开始谈论第二次冷战时，当时华为成为人们谈论的话题，我最初引起了怀疑的反应。 我还记得当我在旧金山的一次会议上第一次说出这句话时埃里克·施密特的表情。 我对他说，你看，我这么说的原因是我们必须明白我们正处于冷战之中，否则我们就会输掉冷战。 如果我们有开放获取的研究，如果谷歌或斯坦福大学的人工智能实验室可以被中共特工免费访问，那么我们就完成了。 因此，谈论这个问题的一个原因是让美国人意识到我们正处于一场竞赛中，我们不能简单地将所有内容发布到网上而不担心。 我们必须保护我们的知识产权。 他们会偷它，他们一直在偷它，因为正如你所说，这就是共产主义方式。 复制技术然后粘贴它，无论是电动汽车还是巨大的在线市场。 如果阿里巴巴在某种程度上不是亚马逊的山寨品，那它是什么？但还有第二个警告。 自 20 世纪 90 年代中期以来，这个国家创建的价值十亿美元的独角兽公司中，大约有一半是由移民创立的。 埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）并非本土企业，这样的例子不胜枚举。 如果我们不为非常有才华、雄心勃勃的人的合法移民开放渠道，我们就无法赢得技术竞赛。 这就是我们的超级大国，引进人才并给予资本，这才是美国真正的魔力。 我的意思是你可以谈论民主资本主义以及其他所有内容。 你知道美国真正的秘密武器是吸引人才。 以下是埃隆在南非或加拿大无法获得的资源。 只有在这里，您才有可能实现这些梦想。 美国，我将其归咎于特朗普和拜登政府，它的合法移民制度确实搞砸了。 民主党似乎已经决定非法移民就可以了，我们实际上已经开放了南部边境。 这是最糟糕的移民方式。 我们需要回到我们所拥有的体系，这个体系从 20 世纪 80 年代以来一直对我们作为一个对人才开放的国家起到了很好的作用。 如果我们不这样做，那么我认为中国有一个很好的机会。 如果我们能让人才回流美国，那就完了，因为没有人愿意移民到中国。 你只要问世界各地的人，你想去哪里？ 本质上是美国或最发达的欧洲国家或英国。

彼得·罗宾逊：好的，这给我带来了另一个重大问题。 弗朗西斯·福山在第一次世界大战结束后写下了《历史的终结》，他的著作遭到了各种误解。 但有一种观点认为民主资本主义是一个自然的终点。 一旦你到达那里，你就进入了我们所知的最好的社会。

好吧，现在中国人出现了，他们似乎有了一些东西，他们似乎有了某种新的模式。 他们似乎发明了一种将独裁中央控制与至少足够的自由市场相结合的方法，使数亿人摆脱贫困，获得世界地位，而就在 20 年前，他们还没有做到这一点。 因此，在第一次冷战中，对我们的危险之一、威胁之一是苏联体系在智力上具有吸引力。 美国各地都有共产主义同路人。 我试图避免麦卡锡主义的术语，但它们很有吸引力。 中国似乎没有吸引力，正如你所说，没有人愿意移民到中国。 但话又说回来，我们有第三世界，沙特阿拉伯和伊朗刚刚通过中国达成了一项协议。 中国有财富，有蛮力，有智力吸引力吗？ 它是否创造了一种对第三世界真正有吸引力的新模式？

尼尔·弗格森：嗯，我们不再称其为第三世界。

彼得·罗宾逊：我们没有。 我们现在叫它什么？

尼尔·弗格森：我们称之为全球南方，我宁愿用这个词，因为几乎没有人居住，事实上在南半球。 但你知道我们的意思。 看，这个问题有两个答案。 一，今天有同路人，有人觉得中国共产党的制度有吸引力，其中很多人是前马克思主义者或现在的马克思主义者。 并非所有人都是。 我的意思是阅读马丁·雅克的书《当中国统治世界》，或者阅读丹尼尔·贝尔最近关于中国制度的著作，他公开钦佩中国制度。因此，我们不要假设没有人被中国模式所吸引。

Peter Robinson：这个名单变得越来越糟糕。

尼尔·弗格森：在美国，实际上并没有多少人被苏联共产主义所吸引。 你可以从投票中看到这一点。 即使其中一些人担任有影响力的职位，但人数确实很少。 所以我不认为情况有什么不同，但真正关键的一点是，第二点是中国模式在撒哈拉以南非洲、拉丁美洲、中东、中亚乃至整个世界的吸引力。 - 称为发展中国家或新兴世界。 如果你管理着一个经济贫困、混乱的非洲国家，中国人会为你提供解决人群控制问题的解决方案，这比之前任何可用的解决方案都要好。 你有监控技术，你有人工智能，你有摄像头，你可以锁定你的平民人口，而中国人可以为你提供第二件事，那就是基础设施。 你们没有路吗？ 我们会修路，你没有电信吗？ 我们有华为。 如果你看一下华为的世界地图，你就会发现中国的吸引力在哪里最强。 世界上相对贫困的地区需要华为的硬件，因为它比任何其他硬件都便宜，而且他们需要华为可以提供的融资。 我开始谈论第二次冷战的原因是我看到了那张地图，这是华为在 2017 年或 18 年绘制的世界地图，当时美国决定将华为拒之门外，而其他一些国家（例如澳大利亚）也在效仿我们的做法 。 我看了一下世界地图，有些国家对华为说“不”，那就是美国及其亲密盟友，有些国家对华为说“是”，那就是你所说的第三世界 。 然后还有不结盟国家，我们可以两者兼得吗？ 那是一张非常冷战的地图。 当你看到它的时候，你会想，天哪，这看起来真熟悉。

彼得·罗宾逊：好吧，这有什么区别呢？ 给我十年后的世界，如果快进的话，第二次冷战就会结束。 中国人会怎样——让我退后一步。 在整个冷战期间，我们都知道如果对方获胜，生活会是什么样子，因为我们只需将目光投向东欧。 你只需站在西柏林的柏林墙前，就能俯瞰东柏林。 你只需要看看朝鲜与韩国的对比。 知道这意味着什么是比较棘手的。 假设他们真的赢了，中国队的胜利会是什么样子？ 你的孩子们的生活会怎样，嗯，不，我们正在谈论发生得如此之快的事情，不仅仅是我们的孩子，还有我们。 如果他们赢了，生活会有什么不同？ 有什么风险？

尼尔·弗格森：首先，让我们记住，有三种路径可供考虑。 这是一条灾难性的道路，第三次世界大战的道路，我们在台湾或其他地方针锋相对，事态不断升级。 在你意识到之前，那些核武器已经飞起来了。 这不能立即被驳回。 我认为美中战争的一大危险是无法阻止其升级。 所以这是我们当然想要避免的未来，就像我们在第一次冷战中想要避免它一样。

还有第二种可能的情况，即摊牌，我们弃牌。 那是我的美国苏伊士运河，那一刻我们突然发现，哦，美国不再是一把手了。 它实际上无法维持其在印太地区的主导地位。 这也是不受欢迎的事情。

彼得·罗宾逊：顺便说一句，在英国苏伊士运河事件之后，在苏伊士运河事件之后，英国的生活仍在继续，生活水平继续提高。

尼尔·弗格森：好吧，我们不要得意忘形，因为帝国的终结要付出巨大的代价。 作为美国人最令人愉快的特征之一是，您是世界储备货币的发行者，并且是几乎所有国际交易中都受到青睐的货币。 你可以把你的10年期国债卖给世界其他地方，世界其他地方就会购买它们，因为他们愚蠢地认为这是一种无风险资产。 因此，如果你像 20 世纪 50 年代末的英国那样在地缘政治上失败，那么你的货币贬值速度会令人惊讶。 我的意思是，就在不久前，英镑兑换 1.07 美元，那是在 Liz Truss 惨败期间。 当大英帝国建立并运行时，它的价格是 4.86 美元，这一点值得认真对待。 美国会发现成为第二梯队的成本很高。 人民币不是可兑换货币。 但正如我刚才在彭博社观点的一篇新文章中指出的那样，人民币是一种在中国贸易伙伴的交易中越来越多地使用的货币。 如果美国不再是可信的全球第一超级大国，我们不应低估国际金融体系结构变化的速度。 但还有一个更广泛的问题，我认为这就是你真正从彼得那里得到的问题。 如果中国是第一，世界会怎样？ 我认为这不是一个非常适合生活的世界，因为中国对个人权利、人权的态度已经展现出来，你不需要去另一个星球。 你只需要去看看维吾尔人在新疆受到的待遇，那里有劳改营，大约一百万人被拘留，有再教育计划，有很容易描述的生育政策 并被定性为种族灭绝。 因此，我们不要忘记，这个体系的核心是旧的极权主义魔鬼，这是我们在第一次冷战中曾经非常了解的旧黑暗力量，当时我们不得不直面苏联体系并想象它的延伸是什么 喜欢。 我不确定中国力量的扩张无论在哪里遇到阻力都会有显着不同。 如果中国能够将其社会控制和国家监视模式输出到非洲，而非洲几乎所有的人口增长都将持续到本世纪剩余时间，那么越来越多的人类就会发现自己处于北京的圆形监狱之下。 因此，我认为我们需要以至少一些我们过去看待苏联主导世界的欺诈者的态度来看待未来，即中国主导下的世界。 但我可以谈谈第三种情况吗？ 第三种情况，我认为是可能的，是我们发现自己试图阻止中国力量在多个战区的扩张。 遏制不是我们必须使用的词，因为那是乔治·凯南的话，但我们已经在这样做了。 在不承认这一点的情况下卷入冷战确实很有趣。 但如果你看一下拜登政府刚刚出台的国家安全战略，它说我们没有处于新冷战，没有新冷战，但里面的一切都暗示我们正处于冷战之中。 他们目前追求的目标是什么？ 为了限制中国在技术上赶上我们的能力，美国商务部去年就采取了这种做法，切断最先进的半导体以及制造这些半导体所需的人员和技术。 因此，我们是事先对中国实施制裁，而不是等待摊牌。 这是冷战的一个非常重要的部分。 领先国家通过阻止崛起国家追赶来保持其技术领先地位的努力。 我认为这是我们必须在多个地区奋斗的合理未来，但最重要的是，我们必须努力保持我们的技术领先地位。 我认为这就是我们所处的未来。

彼得·罗宾逊：好吧，最后，我很抱歉，在我们离开之前，他们为什么不称其为冷战呢？

尼尔·弗格森：我知道为什么。

彼得·罗宾逊：我想起约翰·肯尼迪的就职演说，“我们将承担任何负担，反对任何敌人。” 他的收视率也上升了。 在某些方面，这令人难以置信，让这个国家感到兴奋的是，它正在捍卫自己和自由。 那么为什么不呢？ 拜登为什么不在国会面前说，我的美国同胞们，现在就是时候了。

尼尔·弗格森：我们总有一天会找到一位能够做到这一点的总统。

但请记住，我们目前正处于冷战的早期阶段，我们不想面对它，我们认为如果我们直呼它的真名，我们会以某种方式让事情变得更糟，因为我们会感到不安 习近平。 我认为，从某种意义上说，公开称其为冷战是相当不外交的，但它非常普遍。 你和国务院的人，特别是欧洲外交部的人交谈，你就会听到这样的内容。 “哦，别叫尼尔，你真的会让他们不高兴的。” 这就是典型的冷战早期。 还记得 1945 年至 1950 年间我们如何担心乔叔叔，这种感觉可以从《纽约时报》对密苏里州富尔顿演讲的反应中得到。 我们就处于这样的心态。 因此，我希望下一任总统能够更坦诚地谈论我们的处境，但还有另一个原因。 另一个原因是，本届政府更感兴趣的是追击内部的敌人，即“让美国再次伟大”的共和党人，他们喜欢将他们描绘成对美国的生存威胁。 他们更愿意出于政治原因关注这一点，而不是关注中国构成的威胁。 我认为这是不幸的，因为第一次冷战的教训之一是我们的脆弱性是我们内部分裂的能力。 事情在冷战时期最糟糕，当时美国在越南问题上分歧最大，从六十年代末到七十年代初，这个国家的分裂确实非常非常严重。 这在中国不是问题，我认为这是需要牢记的事情。

Peter Robinson：最后一个问题，给我一点时间来设置，然后我就把它扔给你，但我需要一点时间来设置它。 这是乔治·凯南，您刚才提到了乔治·凯南。 乔治·凯南 (George Kennan) 在 1953 年写道，我们不是在谈论 46 年的长电报，这是 1953 年。冷战正在进行中，朝鲜已经发生了。 乔治·凯南（George Kennan），“深思熟虑的观察者不会对克里姆林宫对美国社会的挑战有任何抱怨。他宁愿去经历”，再也没有人这样写了。 “他宁愿对上帝怀有一定的感激之情，上帝通过为美国人民提供了这一无情的挑战，使他们作为一个国家的整个安全依赖于他们团结起来并接受历史明确要求他们承担的道德和政治领导责任。 忍受忍受。” 好吧，你回顾一下第一次冷战的历史，你至少可以看到美国确实团结起来的几个时刻。 其中之一是当凯南写作时，杜鲁门已经阻止了朝鲜的共产党，我们发明了北约，继续下去，这是一个巨大的外交创造力和军事实力增强的时刻。 然后，我们在 20 世纪 80 年代再次团结起来。 好的，所以我们的想法是，如果我们以前做过，我们可以再做一次。 还有一句引言，这次是来自投资者雷·达利奥(Ray Dalio)，他在中国拥有数十亿美元的资产，人们倾向于听一个拥有某种利害关系的人的话。 雷·达里奥 (Ray Dalio) 表示：“美国正面临财政问题、内部冲突和外部挑战。中国人的收入超过支出，他们有国内秩序，他们在教育、生产力、 贸易。我不能说民主是否比独裁更好。” 相当令人惊叹的入场就在那里。 “我不能说民主是否比专制更好。但中国不像美国，面临着内战的风险。” 那里的争论是，也许我们曾经能够团结一致，但那是一个不同的美国。

尼尔·弗格森：好吧，在我们向中国的新霸主鞠躬之前，让我对两个截然不同的人的两个截然不同的引文提出两个想法。 首先，凯南是对的，冷战至少在一段时间内团结了美国人。 在 20 世纪 50 年代，对此几乎没有什么异议。 正如我已经提到的，直到 20 世纪 60 年代末，存在着一段深刻的分裂时期。 然后，令人惊奇的是，美国人又重新团结起来。 甚至在 20 世纪 80 年代之前，罗纳德·里根 (Ronald Reagan) 成为总统的原因之一就是他对缓和关系的批评确实击中了要害。 当我阅读基辛格第二卷的材料时，我感到非常非常震惊，到了 1976 年，美国人很快就确信，天哪，在安哥拉问题上的缓和关系被证明是一个错误。 正是苏联和古巴对安哥拉的干预导致基辛格的支持率直线下降，而里根则成为全国性人物，成为共和党可靠的潜在候选人。 所以我谈论第二次冷战的原因之一是我确实认为这个国家需要一个外部敌人，这确实有帮助。 如果我们没有，我们就会四分五裂，把彼此撕成碎片。

非常有趣的是，在过去一百年中，当美国人没有明确的地缘政治计划、没有明确的地缘政治对手时，往往是分裂变得最严重的时期。 六十年代末，当我们不再相信苏联的威胁并决定我们才是真正的问题时。 我们确实是越南的问题所在，事情变得最有毒。 所以也许这只是我对移民的看法，但我确实认为我的美国同胞们，当存在明显的外部威胁时，你们确实会表现得更好。 因此，我们不要低估这可能有多大帮助。 请注意，两党合作又回到了一个问题上，而且只针对一个问题，那就是中国。 这是一件非常不寻常的事情，当你会见迈克·加拉格尔(Mike Gallagher)新任众议院中国共产党委员会的成员时，民主党人和共和党人在很多事情上达成了一致，但并不是在所有事情上都达成了一致，但两党真正有一种感觉，即中国是最重要的国家。 重大战略挑战。 因此，如果您担心的是两极分化，我有个好消息给您，因为如果您在法案的标题中加入反对中国的内容，它将在参议院和众议院获得通过。 这就是为什么我们必须进行移民改革。 只要是针对中国，就可以做到。 这是我的第一反应。 我们一定能复活炮魂。 对于雷·达里奥，我要说的是，如果我们能够玩足够长的时间，中国将输掉第二次冷战，因为它的人口结构是一场灾难。 彼得，从现在到本世纪末，中国人口很可能会减少一半，肯定会减少至少三分之一。 我认为，生育率远低于更替率，这并不是一个健康社会的标志，而是一个未来非常渺茫的标志。 其次，经济深陷困境。 中国约29%的经济活动是房地产。 整件事很糟糕，因为无人居住的塔楼并不是一个好的商业提议。 第三，我认为存在一个重大的合法性问题，习近平理解这一点，这正是他们在台湾采取鹰派姿态的原因。 这是他们知道的为数不多的事情之一，如果经济增长降至较低的个位数，他们可以真正动员其人口支持。 正如你之前所说，冷战的关键是美国作为一个自由社会应该在创新上超越极权主义政权。 因此，最终，如果我们能够在未来几年尚未准备好迎接黄金时段时避免鲁莽的摊牌，那么美国将成为赢得技术竞赛的热门人选，而这似乎实际上是缓和关系的一个论据。 罗纳德·里根把缓和变成了一个肮脏的词，但你知道吗？ 越南惨败后，缓和关系对美国大有裨益。 你不可能是1970年的罗纳德·里根，你只能是1980年的罗纳德·里根。那十年发生的事情，实际上美国为从越南灾难中恢复过来做了很多事情。 我认为我们现在需要慢慢来。

彼得·罗宾逊：亨利·基辛格买了十年，而这正是我们需要的十年。

尼尔·弗格森：当然。

彼得·罗宾逊：这是正确的吗？

尼尔·弗格森：当然。 这将是我的传记第二卷提出的关键论点，即在那个时期，美国不仅无法摆脱越南的可怕创伤，而且在这十年里，史蒂夫·乔布斯和比尔·盖茨发明了名为 苹果和微软。 这是硅谷真正开始的时候，也是美国在 20 世纪 70 年代开始恢复魔力的时候，即使直到 80 年代它才在政治上表现出来。 这是因为缓和关系赢得了时间，我坚信我们现在应该赢得时间，而不是为了一个距离美国很远、距离中国很近的岛屿而争相摊牌。

彼得·罗宾逊：但我们必须同时避免放弃这一点。

尼尔·弗格森：我认为英国的经验教训是，一定要努力阻止你的大国对手。 英国曾两次试图阻止德国发动世界大战，但均以失败告终，我认为美国必须吸取教训。 不支付威慑的前期成本是非常诱人的。 根据当前的财政预测，国防预算预计将在本十年晚些时候的某个时候缩减至低于联邦债务的利息支付。 当一个超级大国在偿债上的支出超过国防支出时，我认为它的日子已经屈指可数了。 你必须投资于威慑。 这比打世界大战要便宜，这是英国历史上的教训，美国人需要学习。

彼得·罗宾逊：尼尔·弗格森，非常感谢你。

尼尔·弗格森：谢谢你，彼得。

彼得·罗宾逊：对于不寻常的知识、胡佛研究所和福克斯国家，我是彼得·罗宾逊。

11 条评论

罗伯特·沃克
6 个月前
我听了大约一半的讨论，想知道为什么这位嘉宾将台湾问题视为美国的第二次冷战？

拜登今天正在与菲律宾的马科斯进行访问； 日本和澳大利亚对台独有着强烈的感情。 昨天的报纸显示，印度的莫迪被视为与中国更紧密的盟友。 这些其他国家难道不会援助台湾的防御并在一定程度上改变军事平衡吗？

乔治·T·汉密尔顿·罗伯特·沃克
6 个月前
是的，这些其他亚洲国家正在协助保卫台湾和更广泛地遏制中国。 日本正在突破宪法限制，阻止其他地方提供军事支持； 菲律宾向美军提供了多个基地，并刚刚在台湾打击范围内的北部岛屿周围完成了联合军事演习； 四国（美国、印度、日本和澳大利亚）正在协调防御措施； 澳大利亚已承诺从美国和英国购买核动力潜艇； 这些国家对自信的中国都有各自的重点关注和共同的防御。 然而，他们目前增强台湾防御能力的能力非常有限。

雅各布·罗伯特·沃克
6 个月前
冷战从未结束。

汤姆·尼科尔斯
3个月前编辑过
尼尔，你忽略了中国占领台湾的一大要点。 习近平也是如此——事实上，中国“小皇帝”、独生子女家庭的父母不会允许习近平让他们的一个孩子受到伤害。 由此产生的中国内部斗争，习近平也无法幸免。

汤姆·尼科尔斯
3个月前
尼尔，剑桥五君子几十年来对英国情报造成了巨大损害。 希望英国在审查军情五处和军情六处方面做得更好。

汤姆·尼科尔斯
3个月前
尼尔，不仅彼得·泰尔今天是正确的，而且像 GS 这样的华尔街公司也直接与中国政府合作，收购斯坦福大学附近的美国公司，比如 4 年前在普莱森顿收购的工业公司，中国人会收购这些公司。 否则无法访问（用 GS 自己的话说）。 这是一只信天翁。 为什么你和其他人不谈论那个公开盟友——华尔街投资公司仍然与中国政府勾结的事实？

安德鲁·鲍德温
6 个月前
从积极的一面开始。 尼尔开头很好，他说：“按照一项标准，按照购买力平价计算的国内生产总值，中国在 2014 年超过了美国。” 他可能会考虑国际货币基金组织基于购买力平价的GDP估算，这确实表明中国在2014年超过了美国，当时乔·拜登担任美国副总统。 现在，国际货币基金组织对 2023 年的预测显示，按购买力平价计算的中国 GDP 超过美国、墨西哥和中国的总和。 所谓的世界上最重要的自由贸易区并不像中国那么重要。
人们可以对尼尔的后续行动提出一些质疑。 “苏联人从未接近过这一标准。 他们的巅峰时期有美国面积的 44%。” 我不确定 PPP 估计他在看什么。 中央情报局的估计无疑表明苏联做得比这更好。 他们估计 1960 年苏联的国民生产总值是美国国民生产总值的 48%，1987 年则为 53%。 （参见尤里·迪哈诺夫 (Yuri Dikhanov) 1999 年发表的论文，“从 Gerschenkron 的角度对中央情报局对苏联表现的评估进行批评。”这可能反映了他嘲笑俄罗斯人的自然倾向，但这并没有改变他的基本信息，即中华人民共和国是一个 也许尼尔正在降低中央情报局的估计，因为正如尤里指出的那样：“由于自然而然地关注苏联的军事支出，中央情报局可能夸大了其价值，这并非不可能。”中央情报局的估计 与国民生产总值（GNP）相关，而不是国内生产总值（GDP），因为在此期间，国民生产总值（GNP）是衡量国民产出最常用的指标。
彼得·罗宾逊（Peter Robinson）由此得出结论：“至少从一项衡量标准来看，他们的经济规模已经超过了我们。” 这就是进步。 然而，这不仅仅是一项措施，彼得。 这是最好的措施。 这就是为什么在联合国、国际货币基金组织、世界银行、经济合作与发展组织和欧盟委员会认可的2008年《国民账户体系手册》中，该手册仅简单提及通过使用市场汇率将名义GDP估算值调整为美元来对国民经济进行排名。 汇率，然后转向首选的基于购买力平价 (PPP) 的 GDP 衡量标准。 所以中国是世界第一大经济体，俄罗斯是第六大经济体。 科特金教授佩斯·尼尔 (Pace Niall) 并不总是正确的，当他在 2018 年表示俄罗斯经济规模约为美国的十五分之一时，他错得离谱，因为他没有依赖基于购买力平价 (PPP) 的 GDP 估算。
现在来说说大的负面因素。 尼尔说：“看看疫苗。 他们（中国人）彻底失败了，尽管他们在 2020 年吹嘘自己将开发出针对新冠病毒的疫苗，但他们没有。” 这是错误的。 中国科兴疫苗已在世界多个国家普遍使用。

科兴疫苗对于塞尔维亚成为欧洲国家中疫苗推出速度第二快的国家至关重要。 我的塞比利亚姐夫和塞尔维亚总统亚历山大·武契奇都接种了科兴疫苗，尽管辉瑞和俄罗斯人造卫星疫苗也在塞尔维亚获得了授权。 他本可以重复医学专家的论点，即两剂科兴疫苗的效果不如两剂辉瑞（参见英国《金融时报》的报道“科学家敦促中国更换其摇摇欲坠的新冠疫苗”），但他远远超出了这一点。 我想从这次采访中了解西方应该如何对待中国，但遇到这样的事情让我自然而然地不相信尼尔关于中国的其他一切。
彼得为罗纳德·里根撰写演讲稿的人会鄙视尼尔的必胜主义观点，即美国赢得了冷战，俄罗斯输了。 他认为这是民主的胜利，这应该会给东欧带来更大的自由。 不幸的是，“我们赢得了冷战”的心态似乎给那些决定美国外交政策的人们灌输了一种不计后果的傲慢态度，从而使世界进入了一个血腥暴力的21世纪。
彼得精心挑选了乔治·凯南 (George Kennan) 的一句话，不是 1946 年的，而是 1953 年的。他走得还不够远。 1998 年，乔治·凯南 (George Kennan) 在谈到北约扩张时曾这样说道：“我认为俄罗斯人将会做出相当不利的反应，这将影响他们的政策。 我认为这是一个悲剧性的错误。 这是没有任何理由的。 没有人威胁其他人。 。 。 这种扩张将使这个国家的开国元勋在坟墓里翻身。 我们已经签署了保护一系列国家的协议，尽管我们既没有资源也没有意图以任何认真的方式这样做。 我对俄罗斯作为一个渴望攻击西欧的国家的说法感到特别困扰。 人们不明白吗？ 我们在冷战时期的分歧在于苏联共产党政权。 现在我们却背弃了那些发动历史上最伟大的不流血革命以推翻苏维埃政权的人们。”

阿凡达
保罗·奥斯汀
6 个月前
与我非常敬佩的尼尔·弗格森的谈话非常发人深省。 弗格森多次提到“台积电之战”。 我参与过半导体行业，人们错过的一件事是半导体工厂是多么脆弱。 玻璃器皿不能承受例如震动。 一枚导弹在一英里外降落，一旦晶圆厂成为洁净室地板上的一堆碎玻璃，就需要很长时间才能将其清理干净，并使洁净室恢复到纳米级的洁净度。 更糟糕的是，工厂的经营者在压力下表现不佳。 他们犯了错误，收益就被扔进了厕所。 如果中国试图“占领”台湾，他们将把它击垮至无法挽回的地步。
1997年，英国首相约翰·梅杰（John Major）宣扬英国有义务尊重向香港公民发放的英国护照，从而背叛了香港华人。 这样做，他就错失了一次重要的机会。 如果他用英国口音说“你们都来”，那么丰富的专业知识、精力和商业头脑将极大地丰富英国。
作为对中国对台湾威胁的回应，美国应该邀请台湾移民到美国。 受过教育、精力充沛的人民会帮助我们，让中国变成一座空岛。

阿凡达
雅各布·保罗_奥斯汀
6 个月前
1984年，撒切尔夫人背叛了香港。

乔治·T·汉密尔顿
6 个月前
是的，中国希望重新获得台湾，或许还有其他以前属于中国的领土。 是的，它希望在适合全球超级大国的世界结构和机构中拥有发言权。 是的，它希望在经济上与美国持平，而不是依赖美元。 但悬而未决的问题是，中国是否像之前的苏联一样，要求其邻国和世界建立类似于中共的政府结构，并接受北京的指导？ 被人民军用刺刀强制执行。 换句话说，它是追求世界统治还是影响世界？ 忘记了我们可能盲目地支持台独，我们能否生活在一个中国观点与我们观点相似的世界中？

雅各布
6 个月前
巴顿是对的——我们“与错误的敌人作战”。

Cold War II: Niall Ferguson On The Emerging Conflict With China

https://www.hoover.org/research/cold-war-ii-niall-ferguson-emerging-conflict-china

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist. In this conversation, we cover the conflict over Taiwan: why it’s a cold war, when it started, how to avoid allowing it to become a hot war, and how to de-escalate and even win it.

Monday, May 1, 2023  0 min readinterview with Niall Ferguson

Cold War II: Niall Ferguson On The Emerging Conflict With China

Co-Author(s): Niall Ferguson

To view the full transcript of this episode, read below:

Peter Robinson: Just how serious is the emerging conflict with China? It has already turned into Cold War II. Historian Niall Ferguson on Uncommon Knowledge now. 

Peter Robinson: Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge, I'm Peter Robinson. A fellow at the Hoover Institution, Niall Ferguson received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Oxford. Before coming here to Stanford, he held posts at Oxford, Cambridge, New York University, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. Dr. Ferguson is the author of more than a dozen major works of history, including "The Pity of War, Explaining World War I", "The Ascent of Money", "Empire, How Britain Made the Modern World", and we come now to today's topic, "Kissinger, the Idealist", the first volume of his two volume biography of Henry Kissinger, one of the most important figures of the first long Cold War. Dr. Ferguson is now completing his second volume of the two volume biography of Henry Kissinger. Completing it, yes, Niall?

Niall Ferguson: Yes. That's the plan.

Peter Robinson: Got it. Alright. Niall Ferguson in National Review, "There was a First World War. Then there was a second. They were not identical. But they were sufficiently similar for no one to argue about the nomenclature. Similarly, there was Cold War I. And now we are in Cold War II." Alright, here's what I take the term Cold War to mean, the conflict with China will last two or three generations. Generational conflict. We'll find ourselves living under nuclear threat again, and the very existence of our civilization is at stake. Am I being melodramatic, or is that a fair summary of what Cold War is?

Niall Ferguson: Oh, it's much worse than that because you are assuming that it's gonna be very protracted. Cold War I was really a four decade affair. It ended actually rather sooner than most experts anticipated, but there's no guarantee that Cold War II will last as long because China is a far more formidable adversary than the Soviet Union was. Economically, it has all but caught up by one measure, gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity, China overtook the United States in 2014. The Soviets never got close by that measure. Their peak was 44% the size of the United States. So purely from an economic vantage point, Cold War II is worse. From a technological vantage point, it's also worse because we have the nuclear weapons of Cold War I. Of course we have superior weapons to the weapons they had at the beginning of Cold War I, but we also have a lot of things that they didn't have in Cold War I from artificial intelligence to maybe quantum computing. And so Cold War II is taking place with a great deal more technology, a great deal more firepower than Cold War I. And do you want me to keep going?

Peter Robinson: Go ahead.

Niall Ferguson: I'll give you one more reason for being worried.

Peter Robinson: I'll spend the rest of the show trying to find a note of cheer.

Niall Ferguson: Well, let's stare reality in the face. In Cold War I, it was really quite hard for the Soviets to find out things about the United States, because the number of Soviet citizens in the United States was pretty small throughout, and we knew who they were and where they were. And there was some penetration of American institutions, but by comparison with Cold War II, it was nothing. In Cold War II, you have massive social and economic interpenetration. There are all kinds of ways in which the Chinese can find out things about our relatively open access society and economy. And not just by being here, though they certainly are here in much larger numbers than the Soviets were, but also electronically. So I do think before we just assume, oh, Cold War II will be a bit like Cold War I in terms of duration, I don't think that's guaranteed. Nor is it guaranteed that we win, because of course we won Cold War I. We shouldn't assume that we'll win Cold War II.

Peter Robinson: Alright. We'll come back to this. Whose phrase is it, the correlation of forces?

Niall Ferguson: That was a Stalin phrase. It was certainly a Marxist phrase.

Peter Robinson: But your man Kissinger, it's actually a sensible analytical starting point, their economy, our economy. You've just taken us through that. We'll return to that.

Niall Ferguson: It's a Marxist-Leninist concept that you can think of power in those terms. I mean, if Henry Kissinger were sitting here, he would say that there was always a moral dimension in addition to the material dimension, that's one of the reasons I called volume one of that biography, the idealist. But it's good that we've brought him up because you don't need to take it from me that we're in Cold War II. Just ask Henry Kissinger, who at the age of 99 knows a thing or two about Cold Wars. I'll tell you a little anecdote, Peter, when I first started thinking about this in 2018, I had to summon up the courage to ask Kissinger, are we in a Cold War? And I asked him, actually in China at a conference in late 2019, and he gave a great reply. He said, "We are in the foothills of a Cold War." A year later, he upgraded that in 2020 to the mountain passes of a Cold War. When I asked him about it last year, he said, almost taking it for granted that we're in Cold War II, that the new Cold War would be worse, would be, to be precise, more dangerous than the first Cold War. So I'm not just winging this, I'm basing this partly on his insights.

Peter Robinson: I take you as an authority in your own right, Niall, but now I'm truly staggered by this. Taiwan, just off the coast of China, an island about the size of Maryland, half the size of Scotland, population 23 million, a genuine functioning democracy with a thriving free market economy. The position of the Chinese Communist Party is that Taiwan is not independent, but properly speaking, a part of China that therefore should be under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. An event and a quotation. Here's the event: last month, the President of Taiwan visited the United States. No one in the Biden administration met her, but House speaker Kevin McCarthy did. China responded with military exercises around Taiwan that included, and now I'm quoting from a Chinese release, quote, "Nuclear capable bombers armed with live missiles and warship staging drills to form an island encompassing blockade situation." I'm not sure what an island encompassing blockade situation is, but it doesn't sound good. Here's the quotation, you in your regular column for Bloomberg News. This is a couple of years ago, "Losing or not even fighting for Taiwan would be seen all over Asia as the end of American predominance in the region. It would surely cause a run on the dollar and US treasuries. It would be an American Suez." Suez, the 1957 British failure to keep the Egyptians from taking Suez. And that's the moment when everybody, including the British themselves realized, Britain is no longer a global power. Okay?

Niall Ferguson: Correct.

Peter Robinson: And Americans, why should we have so much at stake? Why should we be risking an American Suez with an island on the other side of the world?

Niall Ferguson: Well, it's a great question because going back to something you said a moment ago, we used to accept that Taiwan was part of China. And indeed we still officially do have a one China policy, so one of the oddities about Taiwan is that it's not really controversial that China claims it, and we do not recognize it as an independent state. In fact, you'll get told off even for referring to it as a country in some circles. So what's changed? Because for the better part of half a century, really since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon figured out the Shanghai Communiqué with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, we have gone along with the fiction that Taiwan is part of China. We've had something called strategic ambiguity since the late 1970s. And that ambiguity was that people in Congress who weren't so sure about what Kissinger and Nixon had done, said, well, we have to have some commitment to Taiwan. And the commitment was an act of Congress that said, if China tried to change the status quo by force, we essentially reserve the right to take military action. But this is the ambiguity of our policy for 50 years, we kind of accept the Chinese claim that Taiwan's part of China. But we also say that if they try to assert that claim by force, we may do something about it. What's changed in the last few years is that Cold War II has begun, even if Americans don't call it by that name. Increasingly since around 2018, the United States, and this is true of both Republicans and Democrats, has taken a tougher stance on China generally and on Taiwan specifically. President Biden on at least three, maybe four occasions, has seemed to repudiate strategic ambiguity. A number of leading policy intellectuals, Richard Haas, former Grand Panjandrum of the Council On Foreign Relations said in 2020, "Why do we carry on with this strategic ambiguity nonsense? Let's be unambiguous in our commitment to Taiwan." Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, paid a visit to the island in which she acted to all intents and purposes as if Taiwan was an independent state she was visiting. So I think there's been a significant shift in our general attitude towards China and our specific attitude towards Taiwan. And the Chinese in turn have been upping the ante. And you gave one example there, the recent blockade exercise at the time of speaker McCarthy's meeting with the Taiwanese president. But they did something very similar when Nancy Pelosi was in Taiwan. So we are moving quite fast in the direction of a showdown over Taiwan after more or less, half a century of strategic ambiguity.

Peter Robinson: So let me ask this, let me give you a couple of scenarios and see what you do with them. Here's one, the example of Hong Kong. China just took Hong Kong and here's what we did about it, a couple of sharpish statements from President Biden and nothing else. Nothing else. How did people in Hong Kong respond? Well, students demonstrated, the demonstrations are over, they've been suppressed. And interestingly enough, to me at least, as best I can tell in the business community, exactly two Hong Kong people stood up against it. Jimmy Lai is in jail. And then Martin Lee if I have his first name correct, there was a prominent lawyer and businessman who also stood up against him. I'm not sure of his status, but you have this large Hong Kong community of very wealthy, almost overwhelmingly men, and they permit the deal to go forward. Now we come to Taiwan, China's upping the ante, surely they're talking to each other. I think of another small country surrounded by hostile powers, Israel. Israel devotes more than 5% of its GDP to its defense, Taiwan, barely over 2%. There's some sense in which it feels as though there's a lack of seriousness, a willingness one way or another to do the deal. We in the business community here, we can get along, we can sort this out. What we're interested in, after all, is commerce, and Beijing understands commerce these days. So it happens one way or another by slow degrees, and we do nothing about it. Is that a Suez for us?

Niall Ferguson: It's not the same as Hong Kong, let's just be clear.

Peter Robinson: Correct the whole analogy.

Niall Ferguson: Well, the status is completely different. As a former British colony, Hong Kong was not a democracy, never had democracy. And what's happened is that Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has simply expedited the takeover of Hong Kong, which was supposed to happen somewhat later this century. There's no act of Congress that obliges the US government to give a hoot about that. And that's why it was always pretty much a very faint reflex action when Americans complained about what was happening in Hong Kong. Britain should have been complaining a lot louder because it was actually an agreement with Britain that the Chinese were violating. Taiwan's different. I mean, Taiwan has been a successful, vibrant democracy since the end of the military dictatorship there. It's one of the most successful economies in the world. Part of its success is due to its being now the leading center for the production of the most sophisticated semiconductors. TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Company, set up by Morris Chang there, has become the world leader. And so economically, control of Taiwan matters a lot, much more than the control of Hong Kong in terms of the global economy. Now the critical point to notice here is that Taiwan's not Israel, nor is it Ukraine. You haven't mentioned Ukraine, but we need to get to that because it is an important subplot in Cold War II. But just in the short run, think of the following sequence of events. There is an election coming up in Taiwan in January of next year. It is not at all clear who is going to win. The Chinese are already calling one of the candidates a pro-independence candidate. There is therefore a non-trivial scenario in which in the course of that election, China interferes even more than it did in the election of 2020. I was in Taiwan in January of 2020 and it was extremely striking to me how much the Chinese were trying to do to influence that election and how little they achieved. Why? Because the Taiwanese population over the years has moved steadily away from the mainland. Remember at one point, a very large number of people had come there from the mainland.

Peter Robinson: Yes, of course.

Niall Ferguson:  They were Chiang Kai-shek's people who'd lost the Chinese Civil War, lost the revolution in 1949, retreated to Taiwan. They still retained strong affinities with the mainland. Well, time has passed. Today's Taiwanese, particularly young Taiwanese, have no real affinity with the mainland controlled, as it is, by the Chinese Communist Party. They have a lot of affinity with the very successful and vibrant democracy that they have come to enjoy there. And so I think a big problem from the vantage point of Beijing is that Taiwan is drifting away in ways that nobody in the 1970s foresaw. I think many people in the seventies thought it would only be a matter of time before Taiwan was folded into the embrace of the mainland. That is not happening and the Chinese haven't been able to devise any political way of stopping this divergence from happening. And I'll say one final thing that is very important to understand. Xi Jinping has broken with convention by extending his time as president, as leader of the CCP and of the Chinese state. Why? His main argument for having that extension of term was Taiwan. Xi Jinping has said to those close to him, and it's pretty clear from public statements too, that he regards bringing Taiwan under the control of the CCP as the keystone, capstone, the crowning achievement of his career, the reason that he's staying in power for longer than his predecessors. So it's a very high stakes issue for him. And we of course, in turn have made it a high stakes issue for us. The more unambiguous we are about our commitment to Taiwan, the more of a problem that is for Xi Jinping.

Peter Robinson: So I just gave you a scenario under which we could sort of diffuse it all and turn our heads and let it all go away. And you said no, no, no, no, no. Taiwan is not at all like Hong Kong.

Niall Ferguson: But also Peter, we bear in mind that on polling, Americans now care about this issue way more than they used to. The Chicago Council did a poll in 2021 that showed that for the first time, more than half of Americans thought that if the Chinese moved against Taiwan, the US should deploy its military in response, 52%.

Peter Robinson: Okay. So that brings us to this question of how Xi Jinping is now beginning his third term of eight years. Have I got that right?

Niall Ferguson: Wait. No, that can't be right.

Peter Robinson: He's not term limited because he gets to do more or less whatever he wants to do, but there is an expectation.

Niall Ferguson: Five years plus five years.

Peter Robinson: Okay. Single digit number of years. However, let me quote to you from this leaked memorandum leaked last year, Air Force General Mike Minahan, "My gut tells me", and this is to his own officers this past, excuse me, it was this year, in January. "My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. United States presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Chinese President Xi Jinping a distracted America. Taiwan's presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi Jinping a reason to attack." To which you add, he's now in a single digit, third term. We're now talking about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or if Minahan is to be believed, two years or less, does it feel that urgent to you?

Niall Ferguson: Yes.

Peter Robinson: I'm still adjusting to the idea that we're in the mountain passes of Cold War. And now you are saying, wait a moment, we have to make a decision whether to defend Taiwan in some small number of years.

Niall Ferguson: Well, I think Cold War II's happening faster than Cold War I. Let me try and illustrate the point. When George Orwell first used the term Cold War in 1945, almost nobody got the point that Orwell's extraordinary essay about the future in which there would be nuclear superpowers nailed it. He defined Cold War as a peace that is no peace and predicted that nuclear armed superpowers, he said there would be three, the United States, the Soviet Union and China. And he said, in this world, this is, of course,  an anticipation of his great novel, "1984", there would be this permanently armed peace that is no peace. It took years for Americans to get the point. When Winston Churchill gave the famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, the New York Times was highly critical of the speech and accused him of being a warmonger. Most Americans didn't get it until North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. And that's the analogy I'd like to suggest to you with Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is the first hot war of Cold War II. And just as the Korean War was the first hot war of Cold War I, it's the moment of revelation in which people in the United States begin to see that this is serious. Remember, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine without a green light from Xi Jinping. He would not still be able to prosecute his war without the substantial economic support he gets from trade with China. So I think we should imagine the Korean War, Ukraine War analogy, that gets us to the 1950s. That's the sort of early fifties. And the war is gonna play out pretty much like the Korean War did, a year of really serious fighting and back and forth and then attrition and it all gets bogged down and stalemate. And then eventually, you start some kind of armistice process, you never actually get to peace. I could see all of that playing out. But what we are talking about with respect to Taiwan is the equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happened as you know, Peter, in 1962. I think we could get to 1962 a lot faster than they did in Cold War I, and we'll call it the Taiwan semiconductor crisis. And here's the interesting thing about this crisis. I do not know if it happens next year, if it happens in 2025, if it doesn't happen until 2028, but it is highly likely to happen this decade. The variables that are crucial here are the Chinese are not ready militarily to achieve a successful amphibious invasion. They would be taking immense risk if they did that now, and I don't think they will. I think they're in a position to blockade the island, but I'm not sure they're ready for the consequences if we decide to run that blockade and take them on. So I think they're not quite ready for prime time, but they cannot wait indefinitely. Why? Because to go back to our earlier discussion, every passing year gives the United States time to get Taiwan ready to defend itself. It's not now, but we know that this is the issue and we have got a coherent strategy which we could execute to make Taiwan much harder to invade than it currently is. And that's why I think the timeframe is measurable in single digit years. It's not something that Xi Jinping can say, oh, I'll take care of it in 2030. That is just not an option for him.

Peter Robinson: I return though, you were saying all kinds of fascinating things about the people of Taiwan. I understand that we consider Taiwan part of China, China obviously considers Taiwan part of China. But what you're saying is that whatever this diplomatic, I won't go so far as to call it a fiction, but this diplomatic form of words, even as we now know as a result of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has become a real nation. It exists in people's minds. They now think of themselves as Ukrainian in a way that may have been ambiguous before. Taiwan is some kind of entity. I don't know that the word to use is nation, but in the minds of the Taiwanese people, they are not Chinese. Question then, why aren't they spending more time and resources? Why aren't they spending quite a lot more resources making themselves harder to take on? This is the piece of the puzzle I cannot, President Tsai comes over here, she’s courageous, she insists on democracy, insists on free markets, takes that meeting with Kevin McCarthy knowing that it's gonna cause all kinds of mayhem back at home, and indeed it does. And yet they only spend 2.1% of defense, the strategist Edward Luttwak says apparently, the Taiwan strategy is to let us defend them while their children play video games. I mean, this doesn't fit.

Niall Ferguson: Well, it's worked for Germany. I mean, think of all the countries that have been free riding on a US security guarantee since Cold War I. This is not a bug, it's a feature of Cold War that the United States is overwhelmingly the dominant supplier of security. And it's only in a country like Israel that discovered the hard way that it couldn't rely entirely on the United States in 1973 when the United States was, well, we'll kind of help you, but first, you have to negotiate. I think for the Israelis, '73 was the moment of truth when they realized that the US might be an important part of their future security, but they'd have to be able to fend for themselves, because Uncle Sam is not entirely reliable. Ukraine isn't that different. I mean, Ukraine was not ready for primetime on the eve of the Russian invasion. It had to scramble and only barely survived the initial assault on Kyiv. It surprised everybody by its ability to withstand that initial assault.

Peter Robinson: Zelensky made the difference there, didn't he?

Niall Ferguson: I don't know if it was really all Zelensky. I think ordinary Ukrainians, I was in Kyiv late last year and I was very struck by the fact that wherever I went, ordinary people were wholly committed to resisting the Russian invasion. We don't know how Taiwan would respond to a blockade by China. We don't know how the Taiwanese would respond to an attempted amphibious invasion. Most people before February 22nd last year would've predicted that Ukraine would fold quite quickly. So I don't think one should assume that Taiwan is somehow atypical, it's actually behaving quite rationally as something as a country that the US has made a security commitment to. Having traveled in both Ukraine and Taiwan, I would say it's hard to imagine the Taiwanese fighting as tenaciously and sustaining as heavy costs as the Ukrainians have in the past year. But there's no doubt in my mind that they see themselves as on a road to independence, and that's something that is quite important, I think. There's considerable unity actually when you look at Taiwanese polling about where the country's future lies. Very, very few Taiwanese think it lies as being subjugated by the CCP.

Peter Robinson: So the Ukraine-Taiwan question here, there are some commentators, our mutual friend Elbridge Colby perhaps is the most notable who worries that Ukraine is a distraction. The United States has only so many resources including mental resources. You ask the Pentagon to worry about Taiwan and Ukraine and the Pentagon says, and they won't say it formally, but they'll say in effect, wait a minute, which is the real battle? Alright, so Ukraine is a distraction, possibly. And then others argue, our colleague here at the Hoover Institution, Stephen Kotkin would argue that the defense of Taiwan runs through Ukraine. Which is it?

Niall Ferguson: Well the thing about Cold Wars is that you don't get to choose. You have in fact what I call the three bodies of water problem. Namely that you have to be ready to go to war, or at least to deter your foes, in Europe, the North Atlantic, you have to be able to deter them also in the Pacific and East Asia, and let's not forget the Persian Gulf. And the US doesn't have the option to say, oh, I'm just gonna pivot to Asia. Can you guys all just behave yourselves in Europe and the Middle East? Any more than it did in Cold War I. The problem about Cold War is it's global. China can now play globally, it is now a player in the Middle East, so the US doesn't have the luxury of being able to choose. It has to be ready to contain Chinese expansion in all three at once. That's my answer to this question, it's not a choice. Now I think Elbridge Corby is right about one thing and here, he and I agree entirely, the more resources the United States puts into the Ukraine War, the more it runs down its stocks of Javelins and Stingers and HIMARS, the less it has available for any showdown in East Asia because we don't have the military industrial complex we used to have. That's to say, it takes a long time to replenish these stocks. There's an extremely interesting report on empty bins that came out recently from one of the Washington think tanks, pointing out that if there were to be a war over Taiwan now, we would run out of stuff very rapidly, particularly the precision missiles which are such a crucial part of the American way of war today. The problem about a war over Taiwan, Jim Stavridis makes this point very well in a book he wrote on the subject is that it could get very big, very fast. A limited war over Taiwan is a little hard to imagine, just as a limited war over Cuba was very hard to imagine. I want to try and suggest to you a very important part of my analogy. Remember we said Cold War I and Cold War II are not exactly the same anymore than World War I and World War II were exactly the same, but you didn't really argue about there being world wars. So in Cold War II, there's a very important difference between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Taiwan semiconductor crisis. And that is that in Cold War II, we are the Soviet Union, because in Cold War II, it's the communist party that gets to impose the blockade, whereas it was John F. Kennedy who blockaded Cuba. We called it a quarantine, but it was essentially a blockade, and it was the Soviets, it was Khrushchev who had to send a naval force to Cuba. That was the most risky moment in the whole of Cold War I. Only this time around, the boot is on the other foot, it's China that has the option to blockade Taiwan. We would then have to send a naval force to run that blockade. We would be in the Khrushchev situation, and that's what makes me the most nervous about this. I mean, generally speaking, rerunning the Cuban Missile Crisis is a bad idea. It was the most dangerous moment, the nearest we came to World War III in the whole of the Cold War. And in many ways it was just luck, sheer luck that it didn't become World War III. There was a Soviet submarine commander who gave the order to fire a nuclear torpedo at US naval surface ships. And it was only because by chance, a superior officer was on the submarine and able to overrule him that that didn't happen. If it had happened, we would've had Armageddon. Why would you want to rerun that game and expect the outcome always to be good? So we shouldn't be running the Cuban Missile Crisis again, but we certainly shouldn't be rerunning it when we get to play the Soviet Union. Because remember what happened in the end, Krushchev had to back down. He took a deal with the Kennedy brothers, but it wasn't public. And so it looked like he'd been humiliated and it was pretty much curtains for his career at that point. But it was also a major setback for the Soviets. We don't want to put ourselves in that position. So my view is we have to follow through with the commitment we made to Ukraine. We are now in a position where we cannot afford for Ukraine to lose. Problem is China can't afford for Russia to lose. That's why this war is gonna keep going because both superpowers are essentially now backing one of the dogs in the fight. While that carries on, we have gotta come up with a good answer to the question, how do we deter China from invading or blockading Taiwan? 'Cause right now, what we've got is some good rhetoric and some very poor strategic options. The war games don't always turn out very well. There was a recent one which strongly suggested it would go very badly for the United States. I think we've got a very short period of time to come up with a good answer to that question. If we don't, then we run the risk of having our bluff cold. I mean, right now, we are basically talking loudly and carrying a small stick when it comes to Taiwan and everybody knows that that's the wrong way around.

Peter Robinson: Alright, step back from Taiwan. Three big questions, each one of which we could devote an entire program to.

Niall Ferguson: So keep your answers short.

Peter Robinson: I suppose so. I suppose I am saying that. What do they believe? A couple quotations here. Guy Sorman in the City Journal, "In what sense is the Communist Party of China still communist? It represents a Marxist liturgy that everyone recites and in which no one believes." Stephen Kotkin seated right there on this program, quote, "We all thought they were cynics, that they just mouthed communist ideology. But some of them believe it. Not only do some of them believe it, but communism is inherent in the system." Okay, so even as during Cold War I, there's this constant back and forth between, no, no, no, it's just another imperial power. This is another iteration of great power struggles, we know roughly what to expect of them. As against, no, no, they're communists. They have a fundamentally different view of the relation of man to government, of man to God, of one society to another, and their ultimate aim, do them the courtesy of taking them seriously, it's in writing, they want communism to triumph throughout the world. We have the same back and forth today with China. What do they believe?

Niall Ferguson: Well, Professor Kotkin is always right.

Peter Robinson: That's a good starting point.

Niall Ferguson: That's rule one, and rule two is see rule one, and on this issue, of course he's right. They are Marxist-Leninist to be precise. I think Xi Jinping in particular should be understood both seriously and literally as a Marxist-Leninist. But again, I spent time in China prior to the pandemic. I was a visiting professor at Tsinghua. I remember having a meeting with the director of research at the Chinese Communist Party who's really rather an important figure. And he said in the course of that meeting, oh by the way, the Standing Committee of the Politburo is rereading Marx and Engels. And so I think you should assume that there is an ideological piece to Cold War II. Many naive people think that that is not the case because they pay a visit to Beijing or Shanghai and they see what appear to be business tycoons behaving much as business tycoons do, they see tower blocks, it looks familiar. But you really need to understand that behind this patina of capitalism, there is still a communist party in charge. And if you look at what Xi Jinping says, not at Davos, but in Beijing, or just look at other communist party propaganda, it's very striking how ideological things have become. He has explicitly prohibited the teaching of democracy, rule of law, Western ideas like that at Chinese universities. In the time I was at Tsinghua, there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere. It no longer became easy for me to talk in the classroom about the cultural revolution. So let's lay to rest the idea that they're just pretending to be communist, that it's just the Chinese capitalist party. That's nonsense. And the ideological piece explains the belief that there is an inevitable collision coming with the imperialist West, which I think does underlie Chinese strategy. Xi Jinping, I think it's pretty clear, has told the party and the country to prepare for war. I've done a fair amount of reading in the kind of policy intellectual space, the sort of Chinese equivalence of me and Stephen Kotkin, they talk a lot about China's role to displace the United States as the dominant empire. So remember Marxism-Leninism isn't an ideology of conflict, it's an ideology with a historical determinist operating system. And that's a reason to expect them to expect conflict.

Peter Robinson: Peter Thiel in his book "Zero to One", and we're talking about a book that's now a decade old. I don't even know whether Peter would restate this today, but here's what he said in "Zero to One", "The Chinese have been straightforwardly copying everything that has worked in the developed world: 19th century railroads, 20th century air conditioning, and even entire cities. They might skip a few steps along the way, going straight to wireless without installing landlines for instance, but they're copying all the same." Okay, this is an important point because there is an argument that what we have, they outnumber us. You've just explained that by at least one measure, their economy is already bigger than ours. They outnumber us. If they choose to do so, they can outspend us on defense. Here's what we have, democratic capitalism, which means the ability to innovate. We can stay a step ahead of them, that's the strategic fallback that we have. Emily Weinstein of the Brookings Institution, "Discussions surrounding China as a strategic competitor have been shaped by the notion that only democracy can promote innovation. Every day, China is disproving this line of thinking."

Niall Ferguson: They're a lot more innovative than the Soviets were because they have a substantial part of their economy that is a market economy. There's a reason why Chinese internet companies are after American internet companies, the world's biggest. And there are no European internet companies worth talking about. And that's because the market operated when it came to developing the internet, particularly commercializing it. If one looks at the research that goes on in fields like artificial intelligence or quantum computing, it's the US v. China. There are no other players in this race, they won't even award a bronze medal. And that's one of the reasons that it's recognizably Cold War II because there are two superpowers technologically. Now I think the Chinese are still silver medalists. Look at vaccines, they utterly failed despite their boasts in 2020 that they would develop the vaccines against COVID, they didn't. And we did, and that's encouraging. And I basically agree with your view that our system is likely to win the innovation race, but I've a couple of caveats. Number one, we have to mean it. What made Cold War I go well for the United States was that we understood we were in a technological race with a communist superpower that was determined to steal our technology and ultimately to bury us. When I started talking about Cold War II back in 2018, at the time when Huawei was the talk of the town, I elicited initially skeptical reactions. I can remember Eric Schmidt's face when I first said this at a meeting in San Francisco. I said to him, look, the reason I'm saying this is we have to understand that we are in a Cold War or we will lose it. If we have open access research, if the AI labs at Google or for that matter at Stanford, are freely accessible by CCP operatives, then we're done. So one reason for talking about this is to make Americans realize that we are in a race and we can't simply post it all online and not worry. We have to protect our intellectual property. They will steal it, they have been stealing it because as you said, that's the communist way. Copy the technology and then paste it, whether it's electric cars or for that matter, giant online markets. What is Alibaba if not an Amazon knockoff at some level, but there's a second caveat. About half the billion dollar unicorn companies created in this country since the mid 1990s were founded by, that's right, immigrants. Elon Musk, not homegrown, and the list goes on. If we don't keep the channel open for legal immigration of very talented, ambitious people, we will not win the technological race. That's our superpower, importing talent and giving it capital, that's the real magic of the United States. I mean you can talk about democratic capitalism and all of the rest of it. You know the real secret sauce of the United States is magnet for talent. Here are the resources that you couldn't get Elon in South Africa or Canada. Only here is it possible for you to build those dreams. The United States, and I blame both the Trump and the Biden administrations for this, has really screwed up its system of legal immigration. The Democrats seem to have decided that illegal immigration will do and we've effectively opened our southern border. It's the worst kind of immigration. We need to get back to the system we had and which really served us well from the 1980s of being the country open to talent. If we don't do that, then I think China has a decent chance. If we can get the talent flowing back into the United States, they're done, because nobody wants to immigrate to China. You just ask people all over the world, where would you like to go? It's essentially the United States or the most developed European countries or the UK.

Peter Robinson: Okay, so that brings me, this is another one of these big thing questions. Francis Fukuyama writes "The End of History" after the end of the first World War, and he's been misinterpreted in all kinds of ways. But there is this notion that democratic capitalism is a natural end point. Once you get there, you've gotten to the best kind of society of which we know. Alright, now the Chinese come along and they seem to have something, they seem to have a new model of some kind. They seem to have invented a way of combining authoritarian central control with at least enough free markets to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty to achieve world standing, which they did not have just 20 years ago. So in Cold War I, one of the dangers, one of the threats to us was that the Soviet system was intellectually attractive. There were communist fellow travelers throughout the United States. I'm trying to avoid McCarthyite terms, but they were appealing. China doesn't seem to be appealing, just as you said, nobody wants to immigrate to China. But then again, we have the third world, Saudi Arabia and Iran just did a deal together through China. China has wealth and it has brute power, does it have intellectual appeal? Is it creating a new model that will be of real appeal to the third world?

Niall Ferguson: Well, we don't call it the third world anymore.

Peter Robinson: We don’t. What do we call it now?

Niall Ferguson: We call it the global south, which is a term I'd rather arbor since hardly any people live, in fact in the Southern hemisphere. But you know what we mean. Look, there are two answers to that question. One, there are fellow travelers today, there are people who find the Chinese Communist Party system attractive, many of them are former Marxists or current Marxists. Not all of them are. I mean read Martin Jacques' book, "When China Rules the World'' or read Daniel Bell's recent writing on the Chinese system, which he openly admires. So let's not assume that there are no people attracted by the Chinese model.

Peter Robinson: The list gets worse and worse.

Niall Ferguson: There weren't that many people actually in the United States attracted by Soviet Communism. You can see that from voting. It's really quite a small number of people, even if some of them were in influential positions. So I don't think the situation's that different but the really critical point, the second point is the appeal of the Chinese model in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, indeed all over the so-called developing or emerging world. If you are running a chaotic African country, which is poor economically, the Chinese offer you a solution to the crowd control problem, which is better than anything yet available prior to this time. You have surveillance technology, you have the AI, you have the cameras, you can nail down your civilian population and the Chinese have a second thing to offer you and that is infrastructure. You don't have roads? We'll do roads, You don't have telecoms? We have Huawei. If you look at a map of the world according to Huawei, you can see where the Chinese appeal is strongest. It's in the relatively poor parts of the world that need to have Huawei's hardware because it's cheaper than any other hardware, and they need the financing that Huawei can offer them. The reason I started talking about Cold War II was that I saw that map, the map of the world according to Huawei back in 2017 or 18 at a time when the US decided to shut Huawei out and some other countries were following our lead like Australia. And I looked at the map of the world and there were the countries that were saying no to Huawei, that was the US and its close allies, and there were the countries that were saying yes to Huawei and that was what you called the third world. And then there were the non-aligned countries were like, can we maybe have a little bit of both? And that's a very Cold War map. As soon as you see it, you think, oh man, this looks really familiar.

Peter Robinson: Okay, what difference does it make? Give me the world a decade from now, if on fast forward, Cold War II ends. What would a Chinese - let me step back. We knew throughout Cold War I what life would look like if the other side won because we only had to look to Eastern Europe. You only had to stand at the Berlin Wall in West Berlin and look over into East Berlin. You only had to look at North Korea versus South Korea. It's trickier to know what it would mean. Suppose they did win, what would a Chinese victory look like? How would life for your children, well, no, we were talking about something happening so quickly that it's not just our children, it's us. How would life be different if they won? What's at risk?

Niall Ferguson: Well, first of all, let's remember that there are a kind of three paths to think about. There's the disastrous path, the World War III path, where we go head to head over Taiwan or somewhere else and things escalate. And before you know it, those nuclear weapons are flying. That is not to be dismissed out of hand. I think one of the big dangers about a US-China war is that there would be no stopping it from escalating. So that's a future we certainly want to avoid just as we wanted to avoid it in Cold War I. And there's a second plausible scenario in which there's a showdown and we fold. That's my American Suez, that's the moment when we suddenly discover, oh, the United States is not numero uno anymore. It can't actually uphold its dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. And that is also something that would be undesirable.

Peter Robinson: By the way, and after the British Suez, after the Suez Suez, life went on in Britain, living standards continued to rise.

Niall Ferguson: Well, let's not get carried away here because there were significant prices to be paid for the end of empire. One of the most enjoyable features about being an American is that you are the issuer of the world's reserve currency and the currency that is favored in almost all international transactions. And you can sell your 10 year treasuries to the rest of the world and the rest of the world will buy them because they foolishly think it's a risk free asset. So if you lose at geopolitics as Britain did in the late 1950s, it's amazing how rapidly your currency can depreciate. I mean, it's not that long ago that it was $1.07 to the pound, that was during the Liz Truss fiasco. It was $4.86 when Britain's empire was up and running, and that's to be taken very seriously. The United States would find it expensive to be a second tier power. The RMB is not a convertible currency. But as I just pointed, in a new piece for Bloomberg Opinion, it is a currency that is being used more and more in transactions by China's trading partners. We should not underestimate how quickly the structure of the international financial system would change if the US was no longer the credible number one global superpower. But then there's a broader question, which I think is what you are really getting at Peter. What's the world like if China is number one? I think that's not a very agreeable world to live in because China's attitude towards individual rights, human rights is on display, you don't need to go to another planet. You just need to go and see the way in which the Uyghurs are treated in Xinjiang, where there are labor camps, where perhaps a million people are under detention, there are reeducation programs, there are policies with respect to fertility that could easily be characterized and have been characterized as genocidal. So let's not forget that at the heart of this system is the old totalitarian devil, the old dark force that we once understood so well in Cold War I, when we had to stare the Soviet system in the face and imagine what its extension would be like. I'm not sure the expansion of Chinese power would be significantly different wherever it encountered resistance. If China's in a position to export its model of social control and state surveillance to Africa where almost all the population growth is going to be for the rest of this century, then a rising share of humanity finds itself under the great Beijing panopticon. So I think we need to regard the future, the world under Chinese dominance, with at least some of the frauder with which we used to regard a Soviet dominated world. But can I come to my third scenario? The third scenario, which I think is the plausible one, is that we find ourselves trying to prevent the expansion of Chinese power in multiple theaters. Containment is not the word we necessarily use because that was George Kennan's word, but we're already doing it. And it's funny really to be engaged in a Cold War without acknowledging that. But if you look at the Biden administration's national security strategy that just came out, it says we're not in a new Cold War, no new Cold War, but everything in it implies that we're in a Cold War. What is the goal that they're currently pursuing? To limit China's ability to catch up with us technologically by cutting it off, that's what the Commerce Department did last year from the most sophisticated semiconductors and the people and technology you need to make them. So we've kind of put the sanctions on China ex-ante rather than waiting for a showdown. That's a really important part of Cold War. The effort of the leading power to preserve its technological leadership by preventing the rising power from catching up. I think that's the plausible future that we have to fight in multiple geographies, but above all, we have to fight to maintain our technological leadership. That's the future I think we're in.

Peter Robinson: Okay last, I'm sorry, before we leave, why don't they call it a Cold War?

Niall Ferguson: I know why.

Peter Robinson: I think of John Kennedy's inaugural address, "We will bear any burden, oppose any foe." And his ratings increased. In some ways, it was beyond bracing, it was thrilling to the country to feel that it was defending itself and liberty. So why not? Why wouldn't Biden go before Congress and say, my fellow Americans, this is the moment.

Niall Ferguson: We will at some point get a president who does that. But we're currently, remember, in that early phase of the Cold War when we don't want to face it and we think that if we call it by its real name, we'll somehow make matters worse because we'll upset Xi Jinping. And I think that in the sense that it would be rather undiplomatic to call it a Cold War in public, it's very widespread. You talk to people in the State Department or particularly in the European foreign ministries and that's what you'll hear. "Oh, don't call it that Niall, you'll really upset them." And that's classic early Cold War. Remember how we used to worry about Uncle Joe in the period between 1945 and 1950, that sense that you got from the New York Times reaction to the Fulton, Missouri speech. We're in that state of mind. So the next president, I hope, will be able to speak more candidly about where we are, but there's another reason. And the other reason is that this administration is much more interested in going after the enemy within, the MAGA Republicans whom they like to portray as the existential threat to America. They far rather focus on that for political reasons than focus on the threat posed by China. I think that's unfortunate because one of the lessons of Cold War I is our vulnerability is our capacity for internal division. Things went most wrong in the Cold War when the United States was most divided over Vietnam in that period from the late sixties to the early seventies when the country was really very, very deeply riven. That is not a problem they have in China, and that's, I think, something to bear in mind.

Peter Robinson: The last question, give me a moment to set this up and then I'll just toss it to you, but I'll need a moment to set it up. Here's George Kennan, you mentioned George Kennan a moment ago. George Kennan writing in 1953, we're not talking about the long telegram in '46, this is 1953. The Cold War is now underway, Korea's already happened. George Kennan, "The thoughtful observer will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience", nobody writes like this anymore. "He will rather experience a certain gratitude to Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear." Alright, you look back at the history of Cold War I, and you can see at least a couple of moments when the United States really did pull itself together. One is when Kennan is writing, Truman has stopped the communists in Korea, we've invented NATO, on it goes, a moment of enormous diplomatic creativity and ramping up the military as well. And then again, we pulled ourselves together during the 1980s. Okay, so the thought there is, if we did it before, we can do it again. One more quotation, this time from investor Ray Dalio who has billions of dollars at stake in China and one tends to listen to a man who has something at stake. Ray Dalio quote: "The United States is having financial problems, it is having internal conflicts and it is facing outside challenges. The Chinese are earning more than their spending, they have domestic order and they've had rapid improvement in education, productivity, trade. I can't say whether democracy is better than autocracy." Rather breathtaking admission right there. "I can't say whether democracy is better than autocracy. But China's not like the United States, which is at risk of a type of civil war." And the argument there is maybe we used to be able to pull ourselves together, but that was a different America.

Niall Ferguson: Well, before we bow down before our new Chinese overlords, let me offer two thoughts about those two very different quotations from two very different men. First of all, Kennan was right, the Cold War, at least for a time, united Americans. It was something about which there was remarkably little dissent in the 1950s. And right through until the late 1960s, there was a period of deep division, as I mentioned already. And then to an amazing extent, Americans came back together. And even before the 1980s, one reason Ronald Reagan became president was that his critique of détente really struck home. I'm very, very struck as I read my way through the materials for Kissinger volume two, how quickly by 1976, Americans were convinced that détente had turned out to be a mistake over Angola, for heaven's sake. It was Soviet and Cuban intervention in Angola that caused Kissinger's ratings to plummet and Reagan to emerge as a national figure, a credible potential candidate for the Republican party. So one reason that I'm talking about Cold War II is that I do think this country needs an external foe, it really helps. If we don't have one, we just fall apart, we just tear one another pieces. And it's very interesting to see how in periods in the past a hundred years when Americans haven't had a clear geopolitical project, haven't had a clear geopolitical rival, tends to be the period when the division gets nastiest. It was when we stopped believing in the Soviet threat and decided in the late sixties that we were really the problem. We were really the problem in Vietnam, that things became most toxic. So maybe this is just the immigrants I view, but I do think my fellow Americans, you do play better when there is a clear external threat. So let's not underestimate how much that probably helps. Notice, bipartisanship is back on one issue and one issue alone, and that's China. It's quite an extraordinary thing that when you meet with members of Mike Gallagher's new House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Democrats and Republicans agree on a surprisingly large number of things, not on everything, but there's a real bipartisan sense that China is the major strategic challenge. So if it's polarization you worry about, I have good news for you, because if you put against China in the title of your bill, it'll get through the Senate and the House. That's why we have to do immigration reform. As long as it's against China, it can be done. So that's my first response. We can definitely revive the cannon spirit. To Ray Dalio, I have this to say, China will lose Cold War II if we can play a long enough game, because its demographics are a disaster. It's quite possible, Peter, that the population of China could halve between now and the end of the century, it'll certainly fall by at least a third. The fertility rate is well below replacement and that's a sign not of a healthy society, I think, but one that has a very foreshortened future. Secondly, the economy is in deep trouble. Around 29% of Chinese economic activity is real estate. The whole thing sucks because tower blocks for nobody are not a good business proposition. Thirdly, I think there's a major problem of legitimacy, which Xi Jinping understands, and that is precisely why they're striking hawkish postures in Taiwan. It's one of the few things they know they can really mobilize their population behind if growth is going down to the low single digits. The key to Cold War, as you said earlier, is that the US as a free society ought to out-innovate the totalitarian regime. So ultimately, the US is the favorite to win a technological race if we can avoid a reckless showdown when we are not ready for primetime in the next few years, and this seems to be an argument actually for détente. Ronald Reagan made détente into a dirty word, but you know what? Détente served the United States pretty well after the debacle of Vietnam. You couldn't have been Ronald Reagan in 1970, you could only be Ronald Reagan in 1980. And what had happened in that decade, actually the US had done a lot to recover from the disaster of Vietnam. I think we need to take our time right now.

Peter Robinson: Henry Kissinger bought a decade, and it was a decade we needed.

Niall Ferguson: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: Is that correct?

Niall Ferguson: Absolutely. And that will be the key argument that volume two of my biography makes that in that time, not only does the US cannot get over the terrible trauma of Vietnam, it's also the decade where Steve Jobs and Bill Gates invent little companies by the names of Apple and Microsoft. It's when Silicon Valley really begins, and the US starts in the 1970s to get its mojo back, even if it's not until the 80s, that it politically manifests itself. And that's because détente bought time and I strongly believe we should be buying time right now and not racing for a showdown over an island that is a long way away from the United States and very close to China.

Peter Robinson: But that which we must somehow avoid surrendering at the same time.

Niall Ferguson: I think the lesson from the British experience is do try and deter your great power rival. Britain tried and failed twice to deter Germany from starting a world war, and I think the United States has to learn that lesson. It's very tempting not to pay the upfront costs of deterrence. Defense budget is projected to shrink below the interest payments in the federal debt at some point later this decade on current fiscal projections. When a superpower is spending more in debt service than defense, I think its days are numbered. You have to invest in deterrence. It's cheaper than fighting a world war, that's the lesson in British history, Americans need to learn it.

Peter Robinson: Niall Ferguson, thank you very much.

Niall Ferguson: Thank you, Peter.

Peter Robinson: For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation, I'm Peter Robinson.

11 Comments

Robert Walker
6 months ago
I've listened to about half this discussion and wondered why the guest saw the Taiwanese issue as just America's Cold War II? Biden was visiting with Marcos of the Philippines today; Japan and Australia have strong feelings about Taiwanese independence. Yesterday's newspaper showed Modi of Indian being considered more closely as an ally vis-a-vis China. Wouldn't these other nations aid in the defense of Taiwan and alter the military balance somewhat?

George T Hamilton Robert Walker
6 months ago
Yes, these other Asian nations are aiding in the defense of Taiwan and broader containment of China. Japan is breaking out of its constitutional constraint preventing military support elsewhere; The Philippines has provided a number of bases to the US military and just completed joint military exercises around northern islands within striking range of Taiwan; The Quad (US, India, Japan and Australia) are coordinating defensive measures; Australia has committed to purchase nuclear powered submarines from the US and UK; etc. Each of these countries has its own focused concern with an assertive China as well as common defense. However, they currently have very limited capabilities to add to the defense of Taiwan.

Jacob  Robert Walker
6 months ago
The Cold War never ended.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago edited
Niall, you are missing one big point about China taking Taiwan. And so is Xi - the fact that the Chinese mom and dads of the "little emperors," the one child families, will not permit Xi to put their one child in harm's way. The resulting internal struggle within China would not be one Xi would survive, either.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago
Niall, the Cambridge 5 did great damage to British intelligence for decades. Let's hope the British do a better job in vetting MI5 and MI6.

Thom Nichols 
3 months ago
Niall, not only is Peter Thiel correct today, but Wall Street companies like GS are also working directly with the Chinese State to buy American companies around the corner from Stanford, like the industrial company it purchased in Pleasanton 4 years ago, companies the Chinese would not otherwise be able to access (in GS's own words). It's an albatross. Why do you and others not talk about that public ally - the fact that Wall Street investment companies are still in bed with the Chinese State?

Andrew Baldwin 
6 months ago
Start with the big positive. Niall begins well, saying: “By one measure, by one measure, gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity, China overtook the United States in 2014.” He is likely looking at the IMF estimates for GDP on a PPP basis, which did show China overtaking the US in 2014, when Joe Biden was Vice-President of the United States. Now the 2023 IMF projections show the Chinese GDP on a PPP basis exceeding that of the US, Mexico and China combined. The alleged most important free trade area in the world is not as important as China alone.
One can quibble a bit with Niall’s follow-up. “The Soviets never got close by that measure. Their peak was 44% the size of the United States.” I am not sure what PPP estimates he was looking at. The CIA estimates certainly show the Soviet Union doing better than that. For 1960, they estimated that Soviet GNP was 48% of US GNP, and for 1987 it was 53%. (See the 1999 paper by Yuri Dikhanov, “A Critique of CIA Estimates of Soviet Performance from the Gerschenkron Perspective.” It probably reflects his natural tendency to sneer at the Russians, but it doesn’t change his essential message that the PRC is a more formidable rival than the Soviet Union was. Perhaps Niall is downgrading the CIA estimates since, as Yuri notes: “it is not improbable that, being naturally focused on Soviet military expenditures, the CIA could have been exaggerating their value.” The CIA estimates relate to GNP, not GDP, since, for this period, GNP was the most commonly referenced measure of national output.
Peter Robinson takes from this, that “by at least one measure, their economy is already bigger than ours.” Which is progress. However, it is not just one measure, Peter. It is the best measure. This is why, in the 2008 System of National Accounts Manual, endorsed by the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the European Commission, the manual only briefly mentions ranking national economies by adjusting nominal GDP estimates to US dollars using market exchange rates, before moving onto the preferred measure of GDP on a PPP basis. So China is the number one economy in the world and Russia is number six. Pace Niall, Professor Kotkin is not always right, and when he said, in 2018, that Russia’s economy was about a fifteenth the size of America’s, he was farcically wrong, all because he did not depend on estimates of GDP on a PPP basis.
Now for the big negatives. Niall says: “Look at vaccines. they [the Chinese] utterly failed despite their boasts in 2020 that they would develop the vaccines against COVID, they didn't.” This is false. The Chinese Sinovac vaccine has been commonly used in many countries of the world. The Sinovac vaccine was key to Serbia having the second fastest vaccine rollout of any European country. My Sebian brother-in-law received the Sinovac vaccine, as did the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vu?i?, although Pfizer and the Russian Sputnik vaccines are also authorized in Serbia. He could have repeated arguments of medical specialists that two doses of Sinovac are less effective than two doses of Pfizer (see the FT report “Scientists urge China to replace its faltering COVID vaccines”) but he went way beyond that. I wanted to learn something about how the West should deal with China from this interview, but running into something like this made me automatically distrust everything else Niall had to say about China.
The man Peter wrote speeches for, Ronald Reagan, would have disdained Niall’s triumphalist view that Americans won the Cold War and the Russians lost. He saw it as a victory for democracy, that should lead to greater freedom in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the “We won the Cold War” mentality seems to have instilled a reckless arrogance in the people determining American foreign policy that set the world up for a bloody and violent 21st century.
Peter cherry-picked a George Kennan quote, not from 1946, but from 1953. He didn’t go far enough ahead. This was what George Kennan had to say in 1998 about NATO expansion: “I think the Russians will react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else . . . This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed on to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.”

Avatar
Paul_Austin 
6 months ago
A very thought-provoking talk with Niall Ferguson, who I admire immensely. Ferguson repeatedly mentioned "the war for TSMC". I've been involved in the semiconductor industry and one thing that people miss is how -fragile- semiconductor plants are. The glassware doesn't stand the shock of e.g. a missile landing a mile away and once the fab is a pile of broken glass on the floor of the clean room, it takes a very long time to sweep it up and return the clean room to the nanometer level of cleanliness. Even worse, the -people- who run the fab don't do well under stress. They make mistakes, the yields go in the toilet. If China attempts to -take- Taiwan, they will break it beyond recovery.
In 1997, British PM John Major betrayed the Hong Kong Chinese by welshing on Britain's obligation to honor British passports issued to HK citizens. In doing so, he missed a major opportunity. If he had instead said "Y'all come" in a British accent, the wealth of expertise, energy and business acumen would have enriched GB tremendously.
As an answer to China's threat to Taiwan, the US should invite Taiwanese immigration to the US. An educated, energetic people would help -us- and leave China with an empty island.

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Jacob  Paul_Austin
6 months ago
Thatcher had betrayed Hong Kong in 1984.

George T Hamilton
6 months ago
Yes, China wants to reacquire Taiwan and perhaps other territories which had previously been Chinese. Yes, it wants a say in the world structure and institutions appropriate for a global superpower. Yes, it wants to be on an economic par with the USA and not dependent on the US dollar. But the unanswered question is whether China, like the USSR before it, requires its neighbors and the world to institute governmental structures similar to that of the CCP and subject to direction from Beijing? Enforced at the point of a bayonet by the Peoples Army. In other words, does it seek world domination or world influence? Forgetting that we may have blindly slid into backing independence for Taiwan, could we live in a world where China's opinions weighed similarly to ours?

Jacob 
6 months ago
Patton was right - we "fought the wrong enemy".