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William Moloney 经济和政治潮流是否正在从美国转向中国
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经济和政治潮流是否正在从美国转向中国？
作者：威廉·莫洛尼，观点撰稿人 - 04/20/23
威廉·莫洛尼是科罗拉多基督教大学百年研究所保守思想高级研究员，曾在牛津大学和伦敦大学学习，并获得哈佛大学博士学位。他曾担任科罗拉多州教育专员。
有趣的是，当今世界军事学院中研究最广泛的战争论文之一是由 27 个世纪前的一位中国将军撰写的。 《孙子兵法》中最著名的名言是“不战而屈人之兵”，但还有很多其他格言值得那些想预测中国意图并将该国战略与美国战略进行对比的人关注。特别相关的是“欲胜必先利”及其推论“没有一个国家能从长期战争中受益”。
自朝鲜战争结束以来，中国已有 70 年没有派军队参战。相比之下，在同一时期，美国几乎一直在直接或通过代理人参战。除了极少数例外，中国和俄罗斯一样，历史上只在与其有着长期民族和/或文化联系的边境地区展示军事力量。美国与其前身大英帝国一样，经常试图通过军事手段将自己的意志强加到世界各个角落。
美国与其前身大英帝国一样，长期以来一直能够凭借其巨大的经济实力在全球发挥非凡影响力，而直到最近，中国——在现代社会中从未成为富裕或经济上占主导地位的国家——一直更加谨慎，宁愿炫耀武力，也不愿动用武力。
现在，正当中国的经济和军事实力不断飙升、全球影响力迅速扩大之际，美国却越来越受到长期战争累积效应的拖累，并被英国历史学家保罗·肯尼迪在 1987 年所说的“帝国过度扩张”所削弱。
中国实力的增强和美国实力的衰落并没有被忽视，美国的敌人和盟友最近都采取了大胆的独立举措，而这些举措在几年前似乎是不可想象的。中国成功促成伊朗与沙特阿拉伯和解，随后俄罗斯又支持沙特与另一个宿敌叙利亚举行会谈，这打乱了美国建立共同阵线打击伊朗支持的恐怖主义的努力。在不安的美国盟友中，日本直言不讳地拒绝遵守对俄罗斯的能源制裁，以维护自己的国家利益，震惊了华盛顿；随后法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙在访华期间发表讲话，暗示北约可能不会在加强台湾防御方面形成统一阵线。
美国两党政客对马克龙的言论表达了强烈的愤慨，却忽视了一个事实，即法国总统表达的情绪很可能是许多欧洲公民的共同感受，欧洲外交关系委员会 2019 年的一项民意调查显示，当时的受访者坚信他们的国家应该在中美之间的任何冲突中保持中立。显然，团结欧洲人对抗近在咫尺、历史上威胁欧洲的俄罗斯是一回事，但争取支持与遥远的中国发生潜在军事冲突则完全是另一回事，因为中国与欧洲之间没有侵略历史，而且对每个欧洲国家的经济都至关重要。
值得注意的是，欧洲人对美国领导层的质量和可靠性的怀疑日益增加，尤其是考虑到最近美国在从阿富汗撤军时没有征求意见，而且毫无准备，这令人痛苦不已。因此，如果一些欧洲人认为美国人有点傲慢，认为他们应该忠诚地、毫无疑问地跟随美国卷入另一场亚洲冲突——这一次的对手比塔利班强大得多，这也并非不合理。
令美国的老朋友感到担忧的是，如今的美国似乎被日益恶性的内斗政治所困扰——用亚伯拉罕·林肯的一句经典名言来说，“内部分裂”——因此，与那些可能对世界有更清晰认识的盟友进行理性对话时，美国的反应较弱。马克龙可能就是这样一个值得尊重而不是谴责的朋友。
Are economic and political tides turning away from America and toward China?
BY WILLIAM MOLONEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/20/23
It is interesting that one of the most widely studied treatises on war in the world’s military academies today was written by a Chinese general who lived 27 centuries ago. The best-known quotation from “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) is, “[The] supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” but there are many other maxims that should merit the interest of those who would divine the intentions of China and contrast the strategy of that country with that of the United States. Of particular relevance is,“Who wishes to win must first consider the cost” and its corollary, “There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged war.”
China has not sent its armies to war in 70 years, since the end of the Korean War. In contrast, the United States, over the same period, has been at war directly or by proxy almost constantly. With rare exception, China, like Russia, has historically flexed its military muscle only in areas on its borders with which it has longstanding ethnic and/or cultural ties. The United States, like its imperial predecessor, Great Britain, has regularly sought to impose its will militarily in far-flung corners of the world.
The United States, again like its British forebear, has long been able to exert extraordinary global leverage owing to the immense might of its economy, whereas until quite recently, China — never in modern times a wealthy or economically dominant nation — has been more cautious, preferring to rattle its sabers rather than use them.
Now, at the very moment when China’s economic and military might is surging and its global influence rapidly expanding, the United States is increasingly being weighed down by the cumulative effect of prolonged war and weakened by what British historian Paul Kennedy described in 1987 as “imperial overstretch.”
The waxing of Chinese power and the waning of America’s has not gone unnoticed and U.S. enemies and allies alike have recently undertaken bold independent initiatives that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. China’s success in brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia — soon followed by Russia’s sponsoring talks between Saudis and another longtime foe, Syria — has unhinged U.S. efforts to build a common front against Iran-backed terrorism. Among disquieted U.S. allies, Japan stunned Washington by asserting its own national interest by bluntly refusing to honor energy sanctions against Russia, and then French President Emmanuel Macron made remarks while visiting China that signaled there may be no united NATO front in efforts to bolster the defense of Taiwan.
The intemperate expressions of indignation over Macron’s remarks by U.S. politicians of both parties blithely overlooks the fact that the French president is voicing sentiments likely shared by the many European citizens, as revealed by a 2019 poll done by the European Council on Foreign Relations that showed respondents strongly believed then that their countries should remain neutral in any conflict between the United States and China. Clearly, it is one thing to rally Europeans against a nearby and historically threatening Russia, but an entirely different proposition to enlist support for potential military conflict with distant China, with whom there is no history of aggression and which is vitally important to the economies of every European country.
It is pertinent to note the context of growing European doubts about the quality and reliability of American leadership, particularly in light of the recent painful memory of being unconsulted and blindsided regarding the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Accordingly, it is hardly unreasonable if some Europeans see more than a touch of arrogance in Americans who think they should loyally and unquestioningly follow the United States into yet another Asian conflict — this time against an adversary vastly more formidable than the Taliban.
Also of concern to America’s longtime friends is the United States today appears as a nation deeply distracted by its increasingly vicious internecine politics — in Abraham Lincoln’s timeless phrase, “A house divided against itself” — and thus less responsive to reasoned discourse with allies who might see the world a little more clearly. Macron may be one such friend deserving of respect, not condemnation.
