十问中国的未来继承人

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2012年2月10日，就在中国国家副主席习近平即将访美的前夜，《纽约时报》发表【特邀评论员社论】《十问中国的未来继承人》，作者沈大伟（David Shambaugh）是美国乔治•华盛顿大学中国政策研究室的主任。

Ten Questions for America’s Leader Presumptive

By Ping Chen

I am surprised by the New York Time Op-Ed “Ten Questions for China’s Heir Presumptive” by David Shambaugh, published on Feb.10, 2012, on the eve of China’s Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States.

As a China expert, Prof. Shambaugh at Georgetown University certainly knows the minimum international curtsey for high level exchanges. But it is not this time for me or even the New York Time editors to dwell on this issue. As a Chinese saying goes“It is impolite not to reciprocate （来而不往非礼也）,” I would like to raise ten questions here in the similar tune of David Shambaugh. I would apologize in advance if my questions are somewhat provocative to some American readers. American media always lecture the world since the end of WWII that the US President is legitimate through election, but people around the world are deeply skeptical about the courage and wisdom of American leaders in dealing with world affairs and regional peace about their self-appointed role as world judges and police. This will be a good opportunity for Chinese people to familiarize with America and vice versa. As American policy inconsistency is well known in the United States, but not quite clear in China and other Asian countries.

Here are 10 questions America observers would like to know about the leaders of the United States, including the President Obama and his Republic challengers:

•1. Will American leaders return to a politically reformist path for the American political system?

Since 2008 financial crisis, the world economy had been dragged into a recession. As Simon Johnson, the former IMF Chief Economist and now a MIT professor, pointed out: the root cause was financial oligarchs who captured the American government. The only way to save American economy is to break-up financial oligarchs. Paul Volcker, the Former Chair of Federal Reserve and former economic advisor to President Obama, also suggested the breaking-up of financial oligarchs. However, we only see the Obama administration injecting 1 trillion dollars into financial giants, but without doing anything to discipline crisis creators.

Can American leader stand up to the powerful interest groups that have blocked financial and political reforms — the financial oligarchs, the military-industry complex, the lobby groups for large multi-national enterprises — or will he be beholden to them, as George W. Bush has been? Will any reformers in both Democrat and Republican be elected to top leader positions at the coming election in November?

• 2. Can the American leaders turn the rhetoric of budget “rebalancing” into reality?

Many official speeches have been made over the past two years calling for a reorientation of the deficit budget away from the entitlement and the military adventure to domestic restructuring as the basis for a new and more sustainable growth model for the United States. To date the reality of budget reform has not matched the rhetoric. •3. Will American leader be able to devise a more humane policy toward Native American Indians, when their population had steadily dropped from tens of millions before Western colonists invaded the North America and now has disappeared from America’s political stage?

American government did have some courage to apologize to Japanese American citizens who were put in concentration camp during the world war two. However, American government owes an apology to Chinese Americans who built two thirds of transcontinental railway, but unlike Irish workers, Chinese immigrants were barred by the racist Chinese Exclusion Act from 1882 to 1965. As the Canadian government has political courage to offer an apology and some compensation, will American leaders have the similar courage to face their historical debt in human rights?

•4. Can American leaders reign in the hegemonies that are pushing the American power to the edge of war on China’s neighbors, to “dominating” the world and behaving aggressively internationally?

• 5. Will American leaders be sufficiently confident to all the relaxation of tightened controls on world internet infrastructure and international financial flow so that American intelligence apparatus could manipulate any country’s information system at any time including their allies?

•6. Can the American people reign in their leaders, which have demonstrated a worrisome tendency since the cold war to undertake invasions around the world, act independently of United Nations and international laws?

7. Will American leaders conduct a foreign policy that is more about substance than rhetoric?

America’s diplomatic platitudes have become increasingly incredulous in a dangerous world where real action is needed from Washington. One hopeful indicator in this regard is a speech President Obama gave at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum on Dec.10, 2009. Did he make any historical contribution to make less America-led wars and invasions?

•8. How American leaders handle the growing discontent across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America over America’s rapacious and imperialist energy, security and trade policies?

We know American and other western powers have only 10 percent of the world population, but control near 90 percent of resources, and consume near half of produced energy. Now, the US is rich but deep in the debt. Why could the US simply follow the market convention to sell your assets to pay the debt or reach agreement for a debt-equity swap and international cooperation in financial crisis and peaceful development?

•9. Will the American leaders begin to take more active and less passive, more supportive and less obstructionist, roles in global governance?

American virtual economy is ten times the world GDP and near fifty times of the US real economy. The US originated hot money ignited financial crisis in Latin America, East Asia, Russia, Southern Europe and the US itself. Will US continue to stand with financial oligarchs in the G20 meeting against the majority of other nations on issues like global warming, international financial regulation, and anti-trust law against international oligarchs? American’s military budget is near half of the world and more than the next top 20 nations combined. The United State was also the first nation to use the atomic bomb. Will US become part of solution instead of part of the problem in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America in preventing war and arm race?

•10. Will American leaders have the strategic foresight to invest in advancing the relationship with China?

There is no more important relationship for either country in the world today, yet strategic mistrust permeates the current relationship. Advancing the relationship requires the active engagement of China’s leaders — and the American leaders — to build strategic trust between the two great nations.

Historically, China and the US have no geopolitical conflicts except the Taiwan issue. To remove the mistrust between China and United States, there is a simple solution: to abolish the Taiwan Relation Act in exchange for economic cooperation in Pacific and world affairs. The United States did not ask France to be a broker during American Civil War. By the same token, Chinese people on the both sides of Taiwan Straits do not need American supervision for China’s peaceful unification. The US policy is more a problem than a solution in China’s peaceful development and unification.

I believe that most of American businessmen and state governors would love to participate in the open Chinese market and make friends with Chinese people. Only a few cold war veterans are reluctant to open their mind to a changing world.

That is o.k. We Chinese people have patience. We fought a hundred year war to regain China’s independence from West Powers. People’s Republic waited 21 years to return to the United Nations, and joined WTO through 15 year negotiation. Based on the 2200 year history of a united China, we have confidence to wait until American leaders finally realize that the United States needs China as much as China needs the United States, since we all live in the same small village of the earth.

As Xi’s visit is not likely to get all the answers to these 10 questions, time will tell if the United States finally has a “transformational” leader who embraces and shapes positive changes for America at home and abroad, or whether America just elect another risk-averse showman in American politics.

Dr.Ping Chen, is the Professor at National School of Development, Peking University in Beijing and Senior Fellow at Center for New Political Economy at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He got Ph.D. in physics at University of Texas at Austin by study of business cycles and economic chaos.