中国政策研讨会开幕致辞
查斯·弗里曼 2024-07-24
查斯·W·弗里曼大使（美国林务局，退役）
2024年7月24日
我花了六十年时间观察和与中国打交道。坦白说，我并不认同那些驱动我们现行政策的既定或不言而喻的预设。我不认为这些预设构成了一个连贯的战略。我认为它们无助于美国应对中国或正在形成的、力量平衡不断转变的世界秩序，在这个秩序中，美国已无法再仅凭财富和武器在国际上竞争。
我经历过几场战争，华盛顿在这些战争中将他们并不具备的目标强加于对方。
与基于经验验证的现实进行归纳推理相比，通过类比进行演绎推理的做法记录不佳。虽然我们花了一段时间才最终意识到，朝鲜战争和越南战争并非——正如我们之前所想——是中国或苏联的征服战争。它们是内战，很容易演变成代理人战争。正因为这些战争并非由其他大国对我们的战略挑战所驱动，我们才能够限制它们。
中国不是纳粹德国、日本帝国或苏联。中国渴望看到我们傲慢的全球霸权消失。但它无意承担我们所承受的负担。它并非寻求生存空间，并非吞并邻国，亦非将其难以理解的意识形态强加于我们或他们，更非用自身或任何其他霸主的意识形态取代我们的全球主导地位。“今天台湾，明天世界”的口号并不适用。中国特色的列宁主义是内向的，与雄心勃勃的全球苏联共产党不同。中国要求邻国尊重它。它并不要求他们或任何其他人屈服。
我们挑起了与中国的战争。我们正与中国正面交锋。目前，中国还不在我们的地盘。任何战争都将主要在中国的地盘上进行，而不是在我们自己的地盘上。
类比推理和自我实现的偏执都是危险的。两者都否认现实，而且，如果施加足够的个人魅力，就会具有传染性。我们声称要保护中国的邻国免受其害，但我们不得不付出巨大努力才能说服他们同意他们需要我们这样做。大多数人更希望我们在他们努力应对中国重返富强的过程中支持他们。
在许多方面，中国现在不仅超越了我们，而且差距还在不断扩大。它生产了全球36%的制成品，而我们只占六分之一。其国内经济的购买力比我们高出三分之一。它每年向世界提供1万亿美元甚至更多的贷款，而我们仅仅为了维持政府运转和经济运转就借入了更多资金。中国已成为其所在地区经济无可争议的中心。它在世界更多地方拥有外交代表，数量也比我们多。当然，它现在拥有更强大的海军、极具竞争力的空军以及世界上最强大的火箭部队。当然，中国在力量投射能力上无法与我们匹敌，但这无关紧要。它专注于保卫其主权、领土完整和周边地区，而不是跨越太平洋来攻击我们。为了应对与我们摊牌，它正在打造非常可靠的二次核打击能力。
无需多言。
公开的政策和实际的政策很少相同。我们并非对其他国家的虚伪视而不见。我们也不应假设他们对我们的虚伪视而不见。就我们目前的对华政策目标而言，我们的实际目标似乎是：
延缓或扭转中国崛起，包括其科技进步，从而防止我们自身的衰落。
阻止中国在亚太地区建立势力范围，或在其他地区和国家施加政治或经济影响。
通过公开的军事威慑和暗中破坏任何两岸统一谈判，使台湾与中国其他地区在政治和战略上永久分离。
限制中国向俄罗斯出口军民两用产品，用于生产可能部署在乌克兰的武器。
使中华人民共和国及其执政党共产党失去合法性，并期待北京政权更迭。
政策的成败不在于其政治正义性，而在于其结果。迄今为止，我们对中国的强烈对抗：
培育了中俄战略伙伴关系，这种伙伴关系与美国战略家们一直以来所构建的欧亚霸权联盟非常相似。
担心并试图阻止。这一伙伴关系如今引领着金砖国家集团和上海合作组织（SCO），它们正在合并成为一个迅速扩张的全球反美联盟。
俄罗斯加强向中国转让武器和军事技术，并加强中俄联合研发武器系统和太空活动，以中俄联合月球基地计划为标志。我们不能再排除俄罗斯积极支持中国人民解放军（PLA）针对台湾的军事行动的可能性。
将美国在塑造亚太地区不断发展的贸易和投资体制方面的角色转移给了中国、日本和东盟。我们抛弃了跨太平洋伙伴关系协定（TPP）及其日本发起的后续协定，无视区域全面经济伙伴关系协定（RCEP），破坏世界贸易组织（WTO），同时采取基于国家安全的保护主义，拒绝谈判双边或多边自由贸易协定（FTA）。
显著增加了中美因台湾爆发战争（包括可能爆发核战争）的风险。美国现行政策缺乏外交手段，没有留下任何和平解决台湾问题的明显途径，完全依赖对台北的军事支持，这显然是在挑衅而非遏制北京。
将南海主权声索国之间的领土争端转化为中美海军对抗的焦点，有可能意外爆发敌对行动，同时又未努力推动这些争端的和平解决。
增强了中国争夺科技霸权的努力。澳大利亚战略技术研究所（ASTI）的“关键技术追踪”报告称，中国目前已在其追踪的44项技术中的37项中占据领先地位。
促使越来越多的国家加紧寻找在贸易结算中避免使用美元的方法。如果他们得逞，美国的全球霸权将崩溃，美国人的生活水平将急剧下降，国内通胀将达到灾难性的水平，美国国债将变得完全不可持续。
我们应该尊重“洞”的法则。当洞越来越深时，就停止挖掘。我们的对华政策并非在压制中国，也不是在将其推回。相反，它们正在逐步重塑世界秩序，使其对我们不利。
我们不能再继续傲慢自满。
认为中国政策可以脱离美国的整体大战略而得到解决是错误的。战略是一种行动计划，旨在通过投入尽可能少的精力、资源和时间，将自身造成的不利后果降至最低，从而实现预期目标。目前，我们决心维持我们的全球主导地位以及二战后在亚太地区的势力范围，但目前还没有实现这一目标的战略。加倍军费开支并不能实现这一目标。用更高的关税将我们的经济与国际竞争隔离开来也同样不行。我们不仅要考虑什么才能维持我们的全球和地区霸权，还要考虑它是否真的可持续，如果不能，除了尝试这样做之外，还有什么其他方法能够“确保国内安宁，提供共同防御，促进普遍福利，并保障我们自己和子孙后代享有自由的幸福”。
在我看来，这才是我们应该在这个论坛上讨论的内容。
Opening Remarks to a Workshop on China Policy
https://chasfreeman.net/opening-remarks-to-a-workshop-on-china-policy/
Chas Freeman Opening Remarks to a Workshop on China Policy
https://chasfreeman.net/opening-remarks-to-a-workshop-on-china-policy/
[As delivered. Introductory comments omitted.]
I’ve spent sixty years watching and dealing with China. Full disclosure. I do not share either the stated or unstated presuppositions that are driving our current policies. I do not believe that they form part of a coherent strategy. I do not think they will help Americans deal with China or the emerging world order of shifting power balances, in which the United States can no longer compete internationally with wealth and weaponry alone.
I have lived through several wars in which Washington attributed objectives to the other side that they didn’t have.
Deductive reasoning by analogy as opposed to inductive reasoning from empirically verified reality has a bad track record. It took a while but, in the end, we came to realize that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were not – as we had supposed – wars of conquest by either China or the Soviet Union. They were civil wars that lent themselves to becoming proxy wars. The fact that they were not in fact motivated by a strategic challenge to us by other great powers is why we were able to limit them.
China is not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union. China would love to see our hubristic global hegemony disappear. But it has no desire to assume the burdens we bear. It is not in search of Lebensraum, the annexation of its neighbors, or the imposition of its largely incomprehensible ideology on them or on us, still less the replacement of our global dominance by its own or that of any other overlord. “Heute Taiwan, morgen die Welt” does not compute. Leninism with Chinese characteristics is introverted, unlike the globally ambitious Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). China demands respect from its neighbors. It does not demand subservience from them or anyone else.
We’ve picked a fight with China. We are in its face. For now, it is not in ours. Any fight will be mostly on China’s turf, not ours.
Both deductive reasoning by analogy and self-fulfilling paranoia are dangerous. Both deny reality and, with enough charismatic effort, can be contagious. We profess to be defending China’s neighbors against it, but we have had to make a significant effort to persuade them to agree that they need us to do that. Most would rather we backed them as they come to grips with China’s return to wealth and power.
In many respects, China now not only overmatches us, but is widening the gap. It produces thirty-six percent of the world’s manufactures to our one-sixth. Its domestic economy is one-third larger than ours in purchasing power. It lends the world $1 trillion or more each year, while we borrow more than that just to keep our government operating and our economy afloat. China has become the undisputed center of its region’s economy. It has more diplomatic representation in more places around the world than we do. And, of course, it now has a larger navy, a highly competitive air force, and the world’s most capable rocket force. China is, of course, no match for us in power projection capability but that is irrelevant. It is focused on defending its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and periphery against us, not crossing the Pacific Ocean to attack us. In anticipation of a showdown with us, it is building a very credible nuclear second-strike capability.
Enough said.
Declared policy and actual policy are seldom the same. We are not blind to the hypocrisy of others. We should not assume that they are blind to ours. To the extent that our China policy now has identifiable goals, our de facto objectives appear to be:
- To retard or reverse China’s rise to wealth and power, including its scientific and technological progress, thereby preventing the eclipse of our own.
- To deny China a sphere of influence in Pacific Asia or political or economic influence in other regions and countries.
- To perpetuate the political and strategic separation of Taiwan from the rest of China through a combination of overt military deterrence and covert subversion of any cross-Strait negotiation of unification.
- To limit Chinese dual-use exports to Russia for use in the production of weapons it might deploy in Ukraine.
- To delegitimize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its ruling Communist Party (CPC) in hopeful anticipation of regime change in Beijing.
- Nurtured a strategic partnership between China and Russia that looks very much like the Eurasian hegemonic coalition that U.S. strategists have always feared and sought to preclude. This partnership now leads the BRICS grouping and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which are merging into a rapidly expanding global coalition against U.S. hegemony.
- Boosted transfers of Russian weapons and military technology to China as well as joint Sino-Russian research and development (R&D) of weapons systems and activities in space, as symbolized by the plan for a joint Sino-Russian lunar base. We can no longer rule out the possibility that Russia will actively support a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military operation against Taiwan.
- Transferred the U.S. role in shaping the evolving trade and investment regimes in Pacific Asia to China, Japan, and ASEAN. We have abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its Japanese-sponsored successor, ignored the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and sabotaged the World Trade Organization (WTO) while adopting national security-based protectionism and refusing to negotiate bilateral or multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs).
- Significantly increased the danger of a Sino-American war, including a possible nuclear exchange, over Taiwan. Current U.S. policies are diplomacy-free, leave no apparent path to peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue, and rely exclusively on military support for Taipei that demonstrably provokes rather than deters Beijing.
- Turned territorial disputes between rival claimants in the South China Sea into a focus of Sino-American naval confrontation that risks the accidental outbreak of hostilities, while making no effort to promote the peaceful resolution of these disputes.
- Supercharged the Chinese effort to achieve scientific and technological supremacy. The Australian Strategic Technology Institute’s (ASTI’s) “critical technology tracker” reports that China has now seized the lead in thirty-seven of the forty-four technologies it tracks.
- Stimulated an intensified search by ever more nations for ways to avoid the dollar in trade settlement. Should they succeed, U.S. global hegemony will collapse, the American standard of living will abruptly fall, domestic inflation will reach catastrophic levels, and the U.S. national debt will become utterly unsustainable.
We cannot afford continued hubris and complacency.
It is a mistake to imagine that China policy can be fixed in isolation from overall U.S. grand strategy. A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a desired objective through the lowest possible investment of effort, resources, and time with the fewest adverse consequences for oneself. At the moment we have a determination to sustain our global primacy and our post-World War II sphere of influence in Pacific Asia but no strategy to accomplish this. Doubling down on military spending will not do so. Neither will isolating our economy from international competition with higher tariffs. We must consider not only what might sustain our global and regional hegemony but whether it is, in fact, sustainable, and, if not, what alternatives to attempting to do so will yet “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
In my view, that is what we should be discussing in this forum.
