尼克松首席翻譯：美國在把中國逼成敵人_風聞

美國前駐華公使、尼克松訪華時美方首席翻譯傅立民（Chas W. Freeman, Jr.）在其個人主頁發表了2019年6月13日在布朗大學外交政策協會百年紀念講座上的發言稿：《中美脱鈎及其影響》

文：Chas Freeman

譯：周枝萍

我們美國人正在費盡心思地製造排外情緒。如今每天都有消息傳來，部分美國民眾間歇性的本土主義情緒爆發實在令人感到尷尬。當代美國人對這個世界本來就十分無知，再加上社交媒體和非主流小報的胡亂揣測、臆想和幻覺，問題就更加嚴重。在這些被編出來的故事裏，主角多半是中國，當然還有俄羅斯、伊朗和古巴等另外幾個“邪惡國家”，而且據説上述幾國的影響力最近都已進入委內瑞拉這個距美國南部海岸1600英里之遙的蹩腳“社會主義國家”了。

委內瑞拉出美女，這是世人皆知的，然而除非我們的軍隊主動打過去，否則這個國家並沒有資格成為美國的敵人。不過，我們美國人最終還是在中國那裏找到了解藥，身患“敵人缺乏綜合症”（enemy deprivation syndrome）的美國軍工複合體終於還是有救了。

由於前蘇聯出人意料地舉手投降，美國軍工複合體不僅失去了“魔鬼般”的對手，也失去了充裕的資金和良好的狀態。蘇聯雖然倒下了，可中國又頂上來了！真是感謝上帝，快把彈藥給我們吧！對了，還有錢，否則這點彈藥怎麼夠用呢？

然而，令人遺憾的是，莫斯科在與華盛頓之間的冷戰中意外出局並不能為我們預測美中對抗的結果提供任何可靠的參考。只和一個共產黨國家打過交道並不能説明你就瞭解了所有的共產黨國家。與俄式的馬克思列寧主義不同，東亞的“市場列寧主義”卓有成效。中國不但沒有解體，反而持續不斷地在經濟和國家實力上提升自己在世界上的地位。美國在制定政策時，似乎只有國防預算隨着中國崛起相應提高，卻沒有優先考慮美國的公司、消費者和技術專家。

歐洲人、美國人和日本人曾在19世紀和20世紀初讓中國人嚐到了屈辱的滋味，雖然現在沒人能夠確定中國將以多快的速度或多穩的步伐崛起，但中國似乎註定會重新奪回它曾保持了數千年的領先地位。這意味着美國已經保持了140年之久的全球最大經濟體的地位將落入中國人的手中。失去“第一”光環的美國將不得不與中國以及其他曾受西方壓迫的國家一道分享權力。

中國人的確做過一些令美國人反感的事，比如他們在知識產權領域的一些做法。然而正如哥倫比亞大學歷史學者斯蒂芬·韋特海姆（Stephen Wertheim）所説的那樣：“美國在過去一年裏出現的反華浪潮，更多地是由美國人自身的焦慮情緒，而不是中國人的所作所為導致的”。退一步説，美國政治中的民粹主義對美國恐華症爆發所起的作用，至少與中國“不良行為”所起的作用是不相上下的。

在美國，富裕的精英階層執掌着能夠左右美國經濟命脈的銀行和大公司，而許多美國人感覺自己一直在受到那些精英的輕侮。當前美國社會流動性陷入停滯，財富集中在“百分之一”的人手中，民眾生活水平不見提高甚至出現了下滑，企業高管和金融精英中飽私囊達到駭人聽聞的程度，此類現象讓來自不同種族背景的美國人痛恨不已。他們指責那些精英把收入不錯的製造業工業崗位轉移到了海外。

歐洲裔的美國中下階層民眾認為近年來的美國領導人看上去和他們不一樣，因此特別擔心自己淪為少數羣體。美國的政治正確致力於保護形形色色的美國人免遭無心冒犯，唯獨不照顧中下層白人和他們的信仰，甚至將他們貶損為“可憐蟲”（譯註：希拉里·克林頓稱特朗普的支持者一半都是“可憐蟲”），這一切讓他們怒火中燒。他們很容易受到輿論的蠱惑，認為自己的痛苦是隻顧私利的美國公司與中國勾結造成的結果。把責任推給中國的確有助於緩和他們的負面情緒。然而令人遺憾的是，這並不能從根本上解決問題。

美國國內問題重重，再加上國際威望日益下降，這些都對美國民眾的心理造成了嚴重的壓力。當下這種情況是對美國人的韌性、務實精神和意志力的一場考驗。我們知道，我們必須改革和調整税收政策、投資政策、勞資關係和教育政策來使這個國家振作起來。

有些人沒有選擇應對現狀，而是選擇了反抗現狀，他們堅持認為這種挑戰是對美國的威脅。在他們的想象裏，中國一定十分渴望像二戰後的美國那樣去主宰世界。然而當你花時間傾聽中國人對內談論他們的抱負時，你會發現他們想要的是尊重，是讓曾經看不起他們的外國人能夠懂點禮貌。今天的中國人和他們的祖先一樣，所要求的都是一種威嚴的地位，讓其他國家不敢造次，使中國得以在安寧的環境中走向繁榮。

面對中國的要求，美國顯得有些無所適從，隨着中國變得越來越富強，它不再向美國的地區和全球霸權低頭。中國人不再認為卑躬屈膝來換取悶聲發大財的機會是值得的。而美國似乎鐵了心要維持自己的超然地位——不是通過改正自身的問題，而是通過給中國下絆子、上鐐銬——但是這份偏執和自滿是無濟於事的。美國一面在要求中國更加開放的同時，自己卻日益走向封閉。

這種變化可不是什麼好兆頭。無論是美國放過中國，還是美國通過削弱中國來保全自己的全球主導地位，這兩者成為現實的可能性都微乎其微。試圖打倒中國更有可能削弱和拖垮美國經濟，而不會阻止中國的前進。那麼，未來的美中關係會是什麼樣呢？

首先，我要對傑里米·哈夫特（譯註：Jeremy R. Haft，美國企業家、暢銷書作家、學者、對華貿易事務媒體評論員）2019年為“偉大決策”計劃所寫文章中提到的關鍵一點表示贊同。他指出，拿不同國家的GDP作比較等於是把蘋果和橘子一起作比較，其結果不足以反映國際競爭的真實情況。GDP完全沒有反映出經濟活動的國際分工。如果我們把挖溝的工人或推卸責任的金融工程師帶來的價值增量，與鋼鐵工人或諾貝爾獎得主為國家資本帶來的增量混為一談，那麼我們便忽略了非常重要的信息。GDP作為一種指數，用處在於讓我們知道一個國家經濟總體規模有多大，增長速度有多快，但它基本不能——甚至完全不能——幫我們預測國與國之間競爭的結果。

雖然不能説經濟總量無關緊要，不過一個國家的精神、自豪感、意志和耐力才是決定經濟總量能發揮怎樣作用的關鍵因素。1941年12月7日，日本偷襲珍珠港試圖削弱美國在太平洋的軍事力量時，其GDP規模僅為美國的十分之一。然而日本卻牽制了美國將近四年，最終也只是因為缺乏發動核反擊的能力才宣告投降。

因此，無論是按名義匯率計算還是按購買力平價標準計算，比較中美兩國的經濟總量指標都沒有切中問題的關鍵。中國的工業產值現在佔全球的四分之一， 比美國的1.5倍還多，甚至超過美國、德國、韓國工業產值的總和，這一點才是更加重要的。此外，在中國從事科學、技術、工程和數學類工作的勞動者已經佔到了全世界同類勞動者總數的四分之一，是美國的八倍，而且從業人員數量的增長速度也是美國的三倍以上，這一點同樣是非常重要的。

與美國和蘇聯不同，中國在意識形態上沒有充當救世主的慾望，這可能會成為它的一大優勢。如果有其他國家試圖模仿中國的制度，中國人自然覺得臉上有光；但其實中國人並不介意其他國家內部如何治理。中國在其國內施行的是一黨執政的制度。儘管美國的意識形態旗手宣稱中國在海外推廣專制、反對民主，但其實中國並沒有這樣做。

在冷戰結束後秩序混亂的新世界裏，意識形態聯盟已經高度弱化，幾近蕩然無存。一種政治體制有多受歡迎，幾乎完全取決於它能在多大程度上帶來有效的領導、繁榮的經濟、安寧的社會。你無法再強迫小國向大國效忠。各國可以自由選擇國際夥伴和競爭對手，並就事論事地與它們打交道。

中國的財富和實力與日俱增，鄰國們無不擔憂自己將不得不順從中國，然而沒有哪個國家真的擔心中國入侵。儘管美國費勁心思地去設想東亞海域出現一個類似富爾達缺口（譯註：冷戰期間，富爾達這座城市靠近東德和西德的分界線，該地一處山谷被命名為“富爾達缺口”，美國認為若戰爭爆發，富爾達缺口最有可能遭受蘇軍進攻）的地方，但實際上東亞並不存在“富爾達缺口”。一些美國人兜售的那套過分誇大的“中國威脅論”在國內比在國外更加受到歡迎。即使在那些早就對中國有戒備心理的國家，美國的這套説辭也沒有產生很強的吸引力，也許是因為那些國家看不到迫於美國壓力在美中之間選邊站隊能為自己帶來什麼好處，反而很可能損失巨大。美國指望靠危言聳聽來沖淡中國的正面宣傳，這根本算不上什麼外交。

中國是其所有鄰國最大的貿易伙伴。中國正在成為這些國家最大的外資來源地和投資目的地。對這些國家來説，中國近在咫尺，而且永遠也不會離開。這些國家不想在中國面前惹事生非，也不會跟美國一道挑釁中國。

中國數百年來一直對分佈在東海和南海的島嶼、礁石和島礁提出主權聲索。只是由於冷戰期間中國受美國遏制，其他主權聲索國才趁機佔領了大部分島礁。直到30年前，中國才佔領了其他聲索國尚未佔領的少數地貌。

中國在馬來西亞、菲律賓和越南的周邊構築據點來建立固定存在，但這些國家並不尋求把中國趕走。儘管中國同美國海軍在如何劃定領海基線方面存在分歧，但它並未威脅到南海商貿航行的自由。畢竟，該海域三分之二的過往船舶要麼來自中國，要麼駛向中國。若不是美國媒體利用失之偏頗的言論來混淆視聽，這些事實可謂顯而易見。

目前，中國只要求鄰國以禮相待、互相開放貿易和投資，不與第三方合謀威脅中國安全，除此之外並不索要什麼其他的東西。無論這些鄰國過去是不是美國的盟友，它們現在都沒有加入美國陣營來孤立中國。它們之所以尋求獲得美國的支持，目的不是為了與中國對抗，而是希望藉助美國的力量尋求與中國之間保持一種平衡的、可持續的和解狀態。

這種目標上的不一致，就解釋了為什麼特朗普政府排斥中國的行動迄今對中國的損害還不如對美國與盟友和國際夥伴之間的關係損害大。這些行動非但沒有削弱中國的影響力，反而破壞了美國的領導地位。

在雙邊層面上，當前美國發起的貿易戰已經讓中國經濟付出了代價。中國的反擊對美國也造成了同樣的影響。等待美國零售企業和消費者的是逐步升級的衝擊。特朗普貿易戰的短期影響是顯而易見的。那麼它的長期影響又是什麼呢？

首先，供應鏈和貿易模式遭到永久性脱節。具有諷刺意味的是，當中國生產商為了避免美國關税而轉投東南亞、東非和拉丁美洲的時候，他們在國內價值鏈上的地位得到了提升。與此同時，加大對其他國家的生產投資促進了中國在當地的影響力。俄羅斯、烏克蘭和其他國家的農業當前獲得了蓬勃發展，這都是以犧牲美國農民利益為代價換來的結果。

美國已然向中國證明了自己是一個善變的、不可靠的貿易伙伴。這使得中國人有充分的理由去購買其他國家的產品。中國曾經是美國增長最快的出口市場。華盛頓方面在試圖限制中國資本流入美國之時，也在破壞自己的對華出口。

由於中國公司基本不能用賺來的美元直接在美國投資，中國政府以前一直用這些外匯購買美國國債，從而補貼了美國政府的財政赤字，使它可以靠信貸轉期來避免政府關門。本來，中國企業在美國基礎設施、工業和農業領域的投資有可能創造就業和出口，結果卻只能被動地為美國財政的揮霍買單。而時至今日，中美關係轉向對立甚至導致這種共生關係也陷入了危機。如果像某些人預測的那樣，中國將成為一個淨資本流入國而不是流出國，它也將在全球範圍銷售債務，直接與美國競爭。

撇開中國為美國預算赤字融資不談，單説阻止中國投資美國私營企業給美國經濟造成了怎樣的機會成本。以日本為例，日本是美國的盟友，但上世紀80年代，日本公司在美國投資面臨着相似的困境，儘管沒有這麼嚴重。與反對中國投資一樣，當年反對日本投資的人也提出了一些莫須有的國家安全考量。但是，在日本流入美國的資金減少之前，日本為美國創造了70萬個就業崗位，並在美國建立了許多工廠，每年為美國創造了超過600億美元的出口額。中國資金本來可以發揮同樣作用，卻由於行政命令和國會法案的出台而被導向其他地方。美國的損失成全了他人坐收漁翁之利。

美國給中國公司投資設置了極高的障礙，這種做法對美國經濟的影響不難估測。長期以來，美國每年吸引了大約全球15%的對外直接投資（FDI）。15年前，中國的對美投資也差不多佔了其對外投資總額的15%。但是，隨着華盛頓方面提高了中國參與美國經濟的門檻，這一比例已經下降到中國對外直接投資總額的2%左右。同期，中國對歐洲的投資已經上升到中國對外直接投資總額的30%多。

如果我們沒有禁止中國公司投資美國，這些中國公司每年將會拿出800億美元用於擴大美國私營部門，這將為美國創造大量就業崗位。如今中國不再將儲蓄交給我們，我們美國人也就得不到這筆錢。如此一來我們就只能指望美國自身儲蓄率的提高了。

特朗普-彭斯政府的仇外心理也提醒我們，科學技術的進步需要各國之間加強合作，沒有國家能夠閉門造車。在美國，我們每年大約有65萬從事科學和工程專業的學生畢業，其中超過三分之一是外國人。在某些學科，如工程學和計算機科學，新頒發學位的一半給了外國學生。在人工智能領域，這個比例達到60%。美國近三分之一的外國學生來自中國。如果我們像特朗普-彭斯政府威脅的那樣排擠中國人，那麼中國人就不會來到美國與我們一起工作。

如今，中國每年有180萬畢業生從事科學、技術、工程和數學領域的工作。中國在這些領域授予的博士學位數量即將超過我們。從2016年到2017年，中國的知識產權價值增長了19%，而美國僅增長了10%。目前誰在科學、技術、工程和數學方面的發展勢頭更加強勁是顯而易見的。

到2025年，中國所擁有的熟練技術工人的數量預計將超過經合組織所有成員國的總和。通過與中國脱鈎，我們美國人正在疏遠這個世界上科學家、技術專家、工程師和數學家數量最多的國家。中國企業在研發方面的支出正以每年20%的速度增長，遠遠超過其他任何國家。切斷中美科技交流與其説會阻礙中國的進步，倒不如説似乎更將損害美國的創新力。

中美關係走向分裂是特朗普政府一手策劃的，其潛在影響除了我在上文中提到的以外還有很多。最後，我將簡要地再闡述一些此類內容以供大家思考：

我們目前在中國南海問題上無異於同中國玩誰是懦夫的遊戲。在美方的支持下，日本正在中國東海的釣魚島發起同樣的挑釁行動。我們距離與中國爆發海戰只有一步之遙。如果戰爭爆發，這將是我們自1945年以來的第一次海上衝突，也是我們第一次與擁核國家發生衝突。

中國內戰1950年因美國第七艦隊駛進台灣海峽而宣告停火，但是這並不意味着內戰已經結束。現在我們的政策似乎正促使台灣的一些政客認為他們手持一張空白支票，隨時能重新發動內戰。與此同時，我們與中國人民解放軍之間的對話機制和我們在冷戰時期與蘇聯軍隊的對話機制無法相比。我們目前還沒有制定華盛頓與北京的危機管控機制。我們對中國的政治軍事戰略無非就是希望不要捲入戰爭。

我們正與北京展開軍備競賽。中國最近測試了航母殺手彈道導彈、電磁炮、高超音速滑翔彈頭、量子衞星通信系統、反隱身雷達以及射程空前的遠程反艦導彈和空地導彈等等，其中一些武器已經部署。我們未必能夠在這樣一場軍備競賽中取勝。

同時，我們在太空領域與中國之間的競爭也已經開始。到目前為止，我們是龜兔賽跑中的兔子，中國是那隻烏龜。當我們夢想着在火星上進行華麗的冒險時，中國正在為開採月球和一些小行星上的資源有條不紊地做着準備，以便能夠在地球和月球之間引力平衡的拉格朗日點建造駐留地和工廠。

我們正試圖摧毀中國大型科技企業，比如華為，我們希望將其排除在全球5G網絡之外。但是，即便美國不再對其提供一些技術支持，中國擁有龐大的國內市場，國際市場也亟需物美價廉的設備，藉此契機，中國的科技巨頭將有能力在美國境外主宰這個世界。

中國原本想利用國家管理的局域網來分割美國管控的全球互聯網世界，美國並不想互聯網世界遭到分割。然而多虧了美國的民族主義和對網絡安全隱私的偏執，北京現在實現了他的目的，數字世界正在遭到不同網絡主權的分割。

不管特朗普總統會不會像他承諾的那樣，讓美國再次偉大起來。至少目前為止，他沒有達成交易，而是破壞了交易；他沒有擴大美國的國際影響力，反而削弱了美國的國際影響力。我贊同互通有無的自由貿易觀點，不要想着什麼都自己造。但沒有人能否認，總統及其追隨者們正在從根本上改變他所接手的這個世界。許多外國人現在都認為美國是一個流氓超級大國，鐵了心要摧毀前幾代美國人辛辛苦苦創造的世界秩序。中美關係的脱鈎是造成全球政治和科技動盪最重要的原因之一，但它絕非唯一的原因。

幾十年前，哈佛大學教授約瑟夫·奈（Joseph Nye）指出，如果美國將中國視為敵人，那麼中國就會變成美國的敵人。現在事實證明他的觀點是完全正確的。歡迎來到21世紀，在這個世紀裏，全球治理的工具正越來越多地從美國手中流失，大國之間的競爭變得越來越激烈，美國的同盟正在瓦解，美國爭取其他國家合作的能力正在下降。儘管美國擁有無與倫比的軍事力量，但美國並不具備明確的策略來遏制或扭轉這些趨勢。

所有這些對美國人來説都是不可接受的：比如不經審慎的戰略思考，半夜荷爾蒙飆升就開始推特治國；比如放棄國與國之間的相互妥協和交易，試圖通過軍國主義、貿易制裁以及蠻橫無理的要求來達成目的；比如對外交往過程中全然喪失禮節，盡是威脅、侮辱和謾罵。這些做法並沒有取得任何效果。

中國是世界上實力最強的崛起中大國，美國最大的失敗在於沒有處理好與中國的關係。我們當前的做法不但不能説服中國為了共同利益改變我們不喜歡的政策和做法，無助於解決問題，反而會使問題變得更加棘手。兩國之間的友誼正在迅速蜕變成敵意。

為了能夠有效地與中國這樣的崛起大國以及俄羅斯這樣的復興大國競爭，為了能夠帶着我們國家一直以來所體現的自信和樂觀態度去競爭，我們不僅必須修正我們的外交政策，我們還必須修正當下正在分裂我們、削弱我們的國內政策。歷史證明，我們的憲政民主可以保障變革有序地進行。為了調動美國人民的巨大的才智和精力來應對我國目前面臨的前所未有的挑戰，我們必須適應新的國內和國際現實。我們曾經做到過，我們現在也可以做到。

The Sino-American Split and its Consequences

We Americans are working hard at making xenophobia great again.  Every day now brings reminders that few phenomena are as discomfiting as the sight of the American people in one of our periodic fits of nativism.  Contemporary Know-Nothingism is enriched by the guesstimates, conjectures, a priori reasoning from dubious assumptions, and media-generated hallucinations that populate our social and niche media.  These fantasies now largely star China, along with a cast of lesser demons — Russia, Iran, Cuba – all of whom are said to have recently taken up residence in Venezuela.  That is, of course, a socialist snotbag a mere 1,600 miles from our southern shores.  It is famous for beautiful women, and not terribly credible as an enemy – unless you invade it.

But, finally, in China, we Americans have a cure for enemy deprivation syndrome – the sick feeling that affects military-industrial complexes when their adversaries unexpectedly throw in the towel, leaving them without a diabolical enemy to keep them in shape and in the money.  The Soviet Union is dead, but China is having a comeback!  Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition — and the cash to buy more of it!

Sadly, however, Moscow’s surprise default on its Cold War contest with Washington is not a reliable predictor of how a struggle with Beijing will turn out.  If you’ve seen one communist, you’ve not seen them all.  Unlike Russian Marxism-Leninism, East Asian Market-Leninism works.  Rather than collapsing, China is more likely to continue to gain in wealth and power.  Washington’s policies seem designed to ensure that China’s rise benefits U.S. defense budgets much more than American companies, consumers, and technologists.

No one can be sure how fast or how steadily China will rise, but it seems destined, in time, to resume the preeminent position on the planet that it enjoyed in the millennia before Europeans, Americans, and Japanese humiliated it in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  This means that China will displace the United States from the international primacy our country has enjoyed over most of the past 140 years, when we became the world’s largest economy.  No longer unmatched, Americans will have to engage and share power, including with Chinese and others previously under the Western thumb.

China has been guilty of some highly objectionable behavior, including the sometimes-brazen theft of corporate intellectual property.  But, as Stephen Wertheim, a historian at Columbia University, put it Sunday, “the anti-China turn of the past year has been triggered more by American anxieties than by Chinese actions.”[1]   American Sinophobia has at least as much to do with the factors that fuel populism in U.S. politics as it does with Chinese transgressions.

Many Americans feel slighted by the well-to-do elites who govern them and run the banks and corporations that dominate the U.S. economy.  Americans of all ethnicities resent the collapse of social mobility in the United States, the concentration of wealth in the “one percent,” the stagnant or declining standards of living they are experiencing, and the obscene extent to which the U.S. corporate and financial elite now feathers its own nests.  They blame that elite for abolishing well-paying industrial jobs and transferring them to workers overseas.  Lower-middle class Euro-Americans are particularly unnerved by their imminent reduction to minority status in an America with leaders who often no longer look like them.  They are angered by political correctness that protects every other sort of American from inadvertent offense while dismissing them and their beliefs as “deplorable.”  They are vulnerable to demagoguery that attributes their distress to selfish corporate collusion with China.  Blaming China for their distress may alleviate it.  Sadly, it will not fix it.

The combination of domestic malaise and the ongoing eclipse of our international authority is a severe strain on the American psyche.  It is also a test of American resilience, realism, and willpower.  We know we must reform and redirect tax, investment, labor-management relations, and education policies to reinvigorate America.  Some insist on calling this challenge a threat and fighting the scenario rather than coping with it.  They imagine that China must long to dominate the world as the United States has since World War II.  But, when you take the time to listen to what Chinese say among themselves about their aspirations, it appears that what they want is respect and a bit of courteous consideration by formerly scornful foreigners.  Like their ancestors before them, they demand a status of dignity that induces others to let them prosper in domestic tranquility.

Americans’ difficulties in dealing with this demand arise from China having become rich and strong enough to have stopped kowtowing to U.S. regional and global primacy.  The Chinese no longer see doing so as an acceptable price for being left alone.  It doesn’t help that, in a unique combination of paranoia and complacency, the United States seems determined to retain its supremacy – not by correcting its own deficiencies – but by tripping up and immobilizing China.  While insisting that China become more open, America is itself becoming more closed.

This is an inauspicious dynamic.  The chances that the United States will either leave China alone or that Americans can retain global dominance by crippling China are poor to nonexistent.  Attempting to bring China down is more likely to weaken and impoverish America than to halt China’s advance.

So, what’s now in prospect in Sino-American relations?

Let me begin by agreeing with a key element of the piece Jeremy Halt wrote for the 2019 “Great Decisions” program.  GDP does indeed fail to compare like with like in ways that are relevant to international competition.  It tells us nothing about how economic activity is distributed.  It misses something important when it equates the value added by ditchdiggers or buck-passing financial engineers to additions to national capital by steel workers or Nobel Prize winners.  GDP has its uses as an index of gross economic size and rates of growth, but it doesn’t predict much, if anything, about how a contest will turn out.

Relative economic size is not irrelevant, but national fervor, pride, will, and stamina decide how determinative it is.  When Japan attempted to cripple U.S. military power in the Pacific with its December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, its GDP was barely ten percent of America’s.  And yet Japan held the United States at bay for nearly four years, succumbing at last only to nuclear attacks it could not then answer in kind.

So, whether stated at nominal exchange rates or in purchasing power parity (PPP), comparisons of gross economic indicators between China and America are mostly beside the point.  It is far more relevant that Chinese industrial production, now a fourth of the entire world’s, is over one-and-a -half times that of the United States – more than America, Germany, and south Korea combined.  And it matters that the Chinese workforce involved in so-called “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) work is also already one-fourth of the world’s, eight times larger than America’s and growing more than three times faster.

It probably is also an advantage for China that, unlike the United States or the late, unlamented USSR, it is not ideologically messianic.  Chinese do not seem to give a hoot how foreigners govern themselves, though they are, of course, flattered if non-Chinese seek to emulate them.  China is for autocracy at home.  Propagandistic assertions by American ideologues notwithstanding, it does not push autocracy or oppose democracy abroad.

The Cold War is long over.  In the new world disorder that has succeeded it, ideological alignments are weak to non-existent.  The appeal of systems of government depends almost entirely on how well they deliver effective leadership, prosperity, and domestic tranquility to those they govern.  And countries can no longer be forced into allegiance to a great power.  They are free to choose their international partnerships and rivalries and to deal with their foreign partners and adversaries issue by issue.

Without exception, China’s neighbors are apprehensive about the degree to which its rising wealth and power will require them to defer to it, but none fears invasion by China.  Despite American efforts to imagine one, there is no Fulda Gap with East Asian maritime characteristics.  Overwrought American threat-mongering about China is selling much better at home than abroad.  Even in countries traditionally suspicious of China, it has little traction, perhaps because they see next to no benefit and considerable harm from yielding to U.S. pressure to choose between China and the United States.  Tempering alarmism with sycophantic presidential flattery of Xi Jinping and other autocrats is not turning out to be much of a substitute for diplomacy.

China is the largest trading partner of all its neighbors.  It is becoming their biggest source and destination for investment.  It is in their region.  It is not going away.  They don’t want to pick a fight with it.  They won’t join the United States in doing so.

China has century-old claims to islets, rocks, and reefs in the East and South China Seas.  Other claimants to these seized most of them during the Cold War, when China was contained by the United States.  Thirty years ago, China finally occupied the few land features other claimants had not.

For their part, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam do not seek to dislodge China from the strongholds it has built to establish an immovable presence alongside them.  Despite differences with the United States Navy over how to draw territorial baselines around its bastions, China does not threaten freedom of commercial navigation in the South China Sea.  After all, two-thirds of the shipping there is en route to or from Chinese ports.  It’s hard to ignore these facts unless the prejudicial narratives of the American media miasma prevent one from seeing them.

China makes no demands on its neighbors at present, other than respectful politesse, mutual openness to trade and investment, and the avoidance of collusion with third parties in active threats to its security.  Whether they are historic American allies or not, not one of China’s neighbors has signed onto the current U.S. campaign to isolate China.  They want to use backing from America not to confront China but to strike a balanced and sustainable accommodation with it.

This disconnect in objectives is why the Trump administration’s campaigns to ostracize China have so far been more disruptive of U.S. alliances and international partnerships than harmful to China.  Rather than curbing Chinese influence, these campaigns have undermined American leadership.

Bilaterally, the current US-initiated trade war has imposed immediate costs on the Chinese economy.  Chinese retaliation has done the same to the United States.  American retail businesses and consumers can expect an escalating hit.  The short-term effects of Trump’s trade war are hard to miss.  What’s its long-term impact likely to be?

For one, supply chains and trading patterns are being permanently dislocated.  Ironically, as Chinese producers seek to avoid U.S. tariffs by relocating to Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America, they are being pushed up the value chain at home.  Meanwhile, their added investment in production in other countries is boosting China’s influence there.  Russian, Ukrainian, and other countries’ agriculture is getting a big boost at the expense of American farmers.

The United States has just shown China that it can be a remarkably fickle and unreliable trading partner.  This gives Chinese compelling arguments for buying everything elsewhere.  China had been America’s fastest growing export market.  Washington is writing it off even as it seeks to curtail Chinese capital flows to the United States.

With Chinese companies largely unable to reinvest the dollars they earn from sales of goods and services in America, the Chinese government has been using them to buy treasury bonds.  In this way, China has subsidized the deficits and credit rollovers that the U.S. government now depends upon to stave off shutdown.  So, what might have been job and export-creating Chinese corporate investments in American infrastructure, industry, and agriculture have become passive support for U.S. fiscal profligacy.  The current turn toward Sino-American hostility puts even this symbiotic relationship in jeopardy.  If as some predict, China is about to become a net importer rather than exporter of capital, this will make it a competitor of the United States in global sales of debt.

Chinese financing of U.S. budget deficits aside, we can look at the example of Japan to get a sense of the opportunity costs that excluding Chinese investment in the U.S. private sector will impose on the American economy.  Japan is a U.S. ally.  But, in the 1980s, Japanese companies faced comparable, though less formidable, obstacles to investment in the United States.  As in the case of China, those opposed to Japanese investments based their objections on fanciful national security considerations.  But, before the flow of Japanese capital to the United States declined, it created 700,000 jobs for Americans and built factories that generate well over $60 billion in U.S. exports annually.  By both executive orders and acts of Congress, the Chinese capital that might do the same is now being directed elsewhere.  America’s loss is others’ gain.

It isn’t hard to guesstimate the effects on the U.S. economy of making investment by Chinese companies next to impossible.  The United States has long attracted about fifteen percent of the world’s annual foreign direct investment (FDI).  A decade and a half ago, about that same percentage of Chinese overseas investment came here.  But, as Washington has raised barriers to Chinese participation in the American economy, that percentage has fallen to about two percent of China’s overall FDI.  Over the same period, Europe’s share of global Chinese investment has risen to over thirty percent.

Had we not barred Chinese companies from putting their money to work in our economy, they would be pumping about $80 billion annually into expanding the U.S. private sector and creating jobs in America.  Now, as China ceases to export its savings to us, we Americans won’t see that money.  We better get our own savings rate up.

The Trump-Pence xenophobia is also reminding us that science and technology advance through collaboration, not the sequestration of knowledge.  In the United States, we graduate about 650,000 scientists and engineers annually, over one third of whom are foreigners.  In some disciplines, like engineering and computer science, foreign students account for about half of new U.S. degrees.  In artificial intelligence, the figure is sixty percent.  Almost one third of all foreign students here are from China.  If we make them unwelcome, as the Trump-Pence administration threatens to do, they won’t come here to work alongside Americans.

On its own, China now graduates 1.8 million scientists, engineers, and mathematicians annually.  It is about to overtake us in the number of doctorates it confers in these fields. From 2016 to 2017, the value of intellectual property grew 19 percent for China.  It grew 10 percent for the United States. It’s clear who has the momentum in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at present.

By 2025, China is expected to have more technologically skilled workers than all members of the OECD combined.  By severing ties with the Chinese, we Americans are isolating ourselves from the largest population of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians in the world.  Chinese corporate spending on research and development is growing at twenty percent each year, much faster than anywhere else.  Cutting the United States off from scientific and technological intercourse with China seems more likely to disadvantage American innovation than to retard Chinese progress.

The Sino-American split the Trump administration has engineered has many potential consequences beyond those I’ve mentioned.  I’ll close by briefly pointing out a few more issues for Americans to ponder.

We’re playing games of chicken with China in the South China Sea. Backed by us, Japan is doing something similar in the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.  We are only one misstep away from a naval battle with China.  This would be our first naval conflict since 1945 and our very first with a nuclear power.

The Chinese civil war was suspended, not ended, by U.S. insertion of the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait in 1950. Our policies now seem to be encouraging some politicians in Taiwan think they have a blank check to take actions that would almost certainly reignite that war.  Meanwhile, we have no dialogue with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army comparable to that we had with the Soviet Army during the Cold War, and there are no mechanisms in place for crisis management or escalation control between Washington and Beijing.  Our politico-military strategy for China amounts to hoping we don’t get into a fight.

We’re well into an arms race with Beijing. China has recently tested or fielded carrier-killing ballistic missiles, rail guns, hyper-gliding warheads, quantum satellite communications systems, stealth-penetrating radars, and unprecedentedly long-range anti-ship and air-to-ground missiles, to name a few developments in an ongoing competition we do not appear to be winning.

​We’re in a competition with China in space too. So far, we’re playing the role of the hare to China’s tortoise  While we dream of flashy adventures on Mars, China is methodically laying a basis for the mining of the moon and asteroids to build habitats and factories at the LaGrange points – gravitationally stable parking places between the Earth and the Moon.

We’re trying to smash China’s great technology companies, like Huawei, which we want to exclude from global 5G networks. But there is a good chance that Chinese tech giants, drawing on China’s huge domestic market and the eagerness of international markets for cheap, state-of-the-art equipment, will be able to dominate the world beyond our borders even as inferior U.S. technology retreats within them.

China, not the United States, wanted to balkanize the global architecture of the US-managed internet with nationally managed domains. But thanks to American nativism and cyber paranoia, Beijing is now getting what it wanted. The digital universe is being subdivided into sovereign compartments.

President Trump may or may not be making American great again, as he promised.  So far, he has undone deals, not done them, and contracted, not expanded, America’s international reach.  I am among those who think we’re better off trading what we have for what we don’t than trying to make everything ourselves.  But no one can deny that the president and the America Firsters in his entourage are fundamentally altering the world he inherited.  Many abroad now see the United States as a rogue superpower bent on destroying the world order earlier generations of Americans worked hard to create.  The Sino-American split is one of the most consequential elements of global political and technological upheaval, but far from the only one.

A couple of decades ago, Joe Nye, a Harvard professor, observed that, if the United States treated China as an enemy, it would become one.  He’s now being proven right.  Welcome to a 21st century in which the instruments of global governance are increasingly passing from American hands, the competition between great powers is ever more cut-throat, American alliances are decaying, the U.S. ability to enlist the cooperation of other nations is declining, and, despite unmatched military power, the United States has no apparent strategy for halting or reversing any of these trends.

None of this should be at all acceptable to Americans.  It reflects the replacement of strategic deliberation with tweeted decisions generated by apparent midnight hormonal surges, the substitution of militarism, sanctions, and non-negotiable demands for mutual accommodation through international give-and-take, and the repudiation of courtesy in communication with foreign nations in favor of threats, insults, and temper tantrums.  This approach has registered no successes.  Among its most notable failures is the management of relations with China, the world’s most formidable rising power.  Rather than persuading China to change objectionable policies and practices to mutual advantage, what we’re doing promises not just to entrench these but to exacerbate them.  Outright enmity is rapidly succeeding comity.

To be able to compete effectively with rising powers like China and resurgent nations like Russia; to be able to do so with the confident optimism our country has always embodied, we must fix not only our diplomacy but the domestic policies and practices that now divide and weaken us.  We have a constitutional democracy that history has shown can facilitate orderly change.  To bring the immense talents and energies of the American people to bear on the unprecedented challenges our country now faces, we must adapt to new domestic as well as foreign realities.  We Americans have done this before.  And we can do it again.