本帖最后由 j小蜜蜂 于 2009-5-19 12:36 编辑
【原文标题】Why Bow to China?
【中文标题】为何要向中国低头？
【登载媒体】NEWSWEEK
【来源地址】http://www.newsweek.com/id/197899/page/1
【译者】aha
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-165914-1-1.html
【译文】
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2 小时前
许多国际领袖看来已经准备好放弃亚洲的领导权，拱手让给北京了——可是中国或许还没到那个位置。
不管是在亚洲还是西方，越来越多的专家学者们高唱凯歌，宣称中国的时刻终于到来了。谁能责备他们呢？美国已经焦头烂额，一边要应对严重的经济萎缩，一边还要修补因两场似乎打不完的仗而受损的形象，与此同时，中国的经济在持续增长，并不断的扩张其影响力。自信的情绪在整个中央王国显露无遗。上个月在博鳌论坛（北京的达沃斯），数位中国的发言者，丢掉了他们常见的谦虚，大肆嘲笑华盛顿金融管理者的错误，呼吁建立新的储备货币来替代美元的地位，并要求在全球经济体系中拥有更多的影响力。几天之后，中国海军成立六十周年的纪念日，北京首次展示了它的两艘核潜艇，并誓言在不久的将来，其蓝水海军将能成功投射至太平洋，及太平洋以外。
关于中国的崛起，特别不可思议的一点是，很少有人质疑中国作为亚洲第一的传说地位。甚至日本，其经济规模比中国大十倍，也对此很少质疑。中国在全球峰会扮演重要角色的景象，被广泛视为一次迟到的晋升，而日本在这样的峰会上几乎无人注意得到。越来越多的世界领袖们悄悄的向中国这个手中握有所有经济动能的强权低头致意。上个月前，这还是个不被声张的消息。而上个月，法国总统萨科齐就其与达赖喇嘛会面向中国国家主席胡锦涛道歉，美国则静悄悄的停止了对于中国操控汇率的指责。世界各地的报纸，从伦敦到首尔，都在传诵着中国崛起成世界强权的消息，记者Martin Jacques更是在卫报上预言，上海不久就将超越纽约成为“世界金融中心”。他甚至并未提起地区内的其他对手，如东京、新加坡或首尔。
像UCLA（加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校）的David Kang这样的学者甚至开始论称，一个以中国为中心的世界秩序的崛起将是一个积极的，稳定的进步。因为在过去的两千年里，他说，亚洲国家将中国的统治视为既定事实。并且这一统治行为大体上是良性的：中华帝国要求其邻居们承认其统治地位，并向其进贡，除此之外，中国几乎不加干涉。中国的强权被证明是相当的稳定和有弹性。Kang还说：“如果研究一下历史，你可能就不会机械的认为，越强大的中国危险越大。”
这或许没错。但我们不妨打一个问号，中国是不是真的准备好要接手了，哪怕是地区领袖。当代亚洲是一个杂乱的，多极强权的区域，不会轻易的向等级制度俯首称臣。在经济规模上，中国是比其邻国大得多，但在其他方面，如科技，人均GDP或其社会机构的实力等，中国远不是最好的。亚洲观察家Bill Emmott在他的新书《对手》中写道，中国的增长充满各种各样的问题，如重复投资、大量资金外流、外汇储备膨胀以及污染严重等等。中国自己的总理温家宝最近也称，中国的结构性问题导致其发展“不稳定、不均衡、不协调及不可持续”。
要做亚洲领袖，中国模式与其对手相比还很难称得上优秀。日本的腐败问题远没有中国严重，而日本社会也管理的更好，日本还具有巨大的科技优势。虽然日本的出口导向型经济受全球衰退的影响相当严重，但是日本的公司现金充裕，不管是电子企业还是钢铁业，都持续投入大量研发资金。由此，日本现在在绿色汽车领域处于世界领先地位，而中国毫无赶超的迹象。美国绿色汽车公司Ener1的CEO Charles Gassenheimer说，在顶级电池发展方面，1998年之后十年日本的投资比美国每年的投资高出十倍，而相比中国，才刚刚踏入这一领域（尽管其步伐很快）。
哪怕是韩国（这个国家，常常担忧其设想中的地位——夹在鲸鱼中间的虾米）也已经兴起成为一股力量。韩国是全世界最具活力，最具创新性和科技含量的经济体之一。根据最近的国际创新指数，韩国位列世界第二，而中国只排在第27位。韩国的例子显示，当今的亚洲，在各种不同的领域有不同的领袖：中国的优势是生产大量的廉价产品，而日本和韩国的优势是在创新和高科技产品上。
从许多方面看，这整个的“老大”的想法已经变得过时了。一些专家解释说，亚洲国家对这一想法的着迷源于其儒家传统，强调对阶级和秩序的尊重。不过，看看新加坡如何在信息技术方面进行探索并具备了日益增长的重要性，使其在全球拥有一个和其面积不成比例的地位。再看看中国，全球贸易和网络如何令北京维持秩序的努力日益艰难。在全球化时代，儒家等级制度不再受到尊重。
外交政策的现实主义者乐意指出，在这个地区从未有过一个时代，中国和日本同时都很强大。他们担心现在的发展将会导致冲突，他们担心中国的海军力量，一旦发生冲突，中国海军将被封锁在日本岛链之内，然而如今，中国海军已经开始刺探日本的海洋防卫。同时，东京也在争端岛屿的海域增加了海岸巡逻的部署，并安排了直升机对中国的海上钻探进行监控。普林斯顿的政治学者Aaron Friedberg将当代亚洲比作19世纪的欧洲，当时欧洲的列强还在相互争夺统治地位。
然而这一点正显示了中国离地区王者地位还有一段很长的距离。没有一个单一国家能够统治19世纪的欧洲，同样，中国未必能打赢同日本的一场哪怕是小型的战争，更不用说日本还有一个强大的盟友作为后盾。尽管数年来，中国军费持续了两位数的增长，然而距北京建造出第一艘航母，至少还要十年时间。航空母舰标志一个真正的能够投放军力的海军的成型（美国有11艘）。
当然，中国否认任何成为军事强权或索要经济贡品的野心，或许我们应该相信它的话。关于中美之间宿命性的彼此依赖，作为债权人和债务人、销售者和购买者，已经被说得很多了。中日之间其实也如此。2007年中国超过美国成为日本第一大贸易伙伴。一个衰老的日本得益于中国的廉价劳工，同时那些位于珠江三角洲的工厂也要依赖日本制造的机器零件和技术。对两国来说，国际合作和地区合作是他们彼此的利益所在。
这并不是说，周边国家就不应该防范一个更加激进的中国。组建一个地区性防卫组织的努力受限于各国的财富及意识形态的差异，并害怕会因此激怒北京。不过，有很多方式可以推动一个多极的亚洲。奥巴马政府似乎胸有成竹：二月份希拉里访问亚洲的时候，从她的访问顺序就可见一斑，第一站是日本，然后首尔，敦促他们彼此合作。接着她去了印度尼西亚，一个新的民主大国。这之后她才去了北京，在北京，她呼吁中日应携手合作，应对气候变化。气候变化正属于那种跨国议题，那种重要性日益增加的、大家共同面临的问题，这些问题需要彼此合作，但不需要强权间的竞赛，也不需要在意谁才是老大。
Many world leaders seem ready to cede Asian supremacy to Beijing— but China may not be ready for the role.
A growing chorus of pundits in Asia and the West is declaring that China's moment has finally arrived. Who can blame them? While the United States is trying to fight a massive economic contraction and to restore an image tarnished by two seemingly endless wars, China is growing and extending its influence. Throughout the Middle Kingdom, the confidence is palpable. Last month at the Boao Forum (Beijing's answer to Davos), a series of Chinese speakers dispensed with their usual modesty and derided Washington for its financial mismanagement, calling for the establishment of a new reserve currency to replace the dollar and demanding more influence in the global economic system. A few days later, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Navy, Beijing debuted two nuclear subs and vowed that its blue-water force would soon project power into the Pacific and beyond.
What's particularly striking about the rise of China is how little anyone questions its purported status as the first nation of Asia. That's true even in Japan, which has an economy 10 times larger. The spectacle of Beijing's playing a lead role at global summits, where Tokyo is generally invisible, has been almost universally greeted as an overdue promotion. More and more, world leaders are quietly bowing to China as the superpower with all the economic momentum. This was the unspoken message when, last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy apologized to Chinese President Hu Jintao for meeting with the Dalai Lama, or when the U.S. quietly stopped accusing China of manipulating its currency. Newspapers from London to Seoul have begun heralding China's emergence as a global hegemon, and journalist Martin Jacques recently predicted in The Guardian that Shanghai would soon replace New York as "the world financial center." He did not even mention regional rivals like Tokyo, Singapore or Seoul.
Scholars like UCLA's David Kang even argue that the rise of a Sinocentric world order could be a positive, stabilizing development. For much of the past two millennia, he notes, Asians took Chinese dominance as a fact of life. And that dominance was generally benign: while imperial China expected its neighbors to acknowledge its supremacy and pay it tribute, it otherwise mostly left them alone. Chinese hegemony proved remarkably stable and elastic, Kang says: "If you look at history, you may not automatically conclude that the bigger China gets, the more dangerous it is."
Perhaps. But it's worth asking whether China is really ready to call the shots, even regionally. Modern-day Asia is a messy, multipolar place that doesn't lend itself to hierarchies. China is much bigger than its neighbors in terms of the size of its economy, but by other measures—technology, per capita GDP or the strength of its institutions—it's far from supreme. Asia watcher Bill Emmott writes in his recent book, Rivals, that China's growth has been plagued by wasteful investment, massive capital export, bloated foreign-exchange reserves and crippling pollution. China's own prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said recently that structural problems are causing "unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development."
The China model is hardly superior to its rivals for Asian leadership. Japan is far less corrupt and better managed, and holds a vast technological lead. While Japan's export-oriented economy has taken a huge hit from the global slowdown, its cash-rich companies have continued to spend heavily on R&D in everything from electronics to steel. Thus Japan now leads the world in green-car technology, and China is not likely to catch up. Charles Gassenheimer, CEO of the U.S. green-car firm Ener1, says that Japan's total investment in the development of state-of-the-art batteries was 10 times greater than America's every year in the decade after 1998, while China, by contrast, is only just entering the game (albeit at a rapid pace).
Even South Korea—a country that loves to fret over its supposed status as a "shrimp between whales"—has emerged as a force, with one of the world's most dynamic, innovative and high-tech economies. In the recent International Innovation Index, South Korea scored second in the world, while China landed in 27th place. The Korean example suggests that Asia today has multiple leaders in different fields: China excels at producing huge volumes of low-cost products, but Japan and South Korea are tops in innovation and high-tech goods.
In many ways, the whole idea of a No. 1 is becoming passé. Some experts argue that Asians remain wedded to the idea because Confucian tradition emphasizes respect for hierarchy and order. But look at how Singapore is exploiting the growing importance of information technology to command a global role out of proportion to its tiny size. Or at how global trade and the Internet make it increasingly tough for Beijing to maintain order at home. The global age does not respect Confucian hierarchies.
Foreign-policy realists like to point out that the region has never before known a period when both China and Japan were strong at the same time. They worry that this development could lead to conflict, and fret that China's naval forces, which could be bottled up by the Japanese island chain in a conflict, have already taken to probing Japan's defenses. Meanwhile Tokyo has been beefing up its Coast Guard forces around disputed islands and staging surveillance flights over Chinese drilling rigs. Princeton political scientist Aaron Friedberg compares modern Asia to Europe in the 19th century, with great powers still jockeying for control.
Yet this point underlines just how far China is from regional supremacy. No single nation was able to dominate 19th-century Europe. Similarly, it's not clear China would win even a small conflict with Japan, much less a larger one that drew in Japan's main ally. Consider: despite years of double-digit increases in China's defense budget, it will be at least a decade before Beijing launches its first aircraft carrier—the mark of a serious navy able to project power. (The United States has 11.)
Of course, China disavows any desire for military supremacy or economic tribute, and perhaps it should be taken at its word. Much has been made of how China and the U.S. are now fatefully tied to one another as creditor-to-debtor and seller-to-buyer. But the same is true of China and Japan. China surpassed the United States as Japan's No. 1 trading partner back in 2007. An aging Japan benefits from low-wage Chinese workers, while those factories in the Pearl River Delta often rely on machine tools and technology made in Japan. Global and regional cooperation are very much in both countries' self-interest.
That doesn't mean there's no reason for neighbors to prepare for a more aggressive China. Efforts to create a regional self-defense organization have been stymied by differences in wealth and ideology and by fear of provoking Beijing. But there are ways to promote an Asia of many powers. The Obama administration seems to get this: when Hillary Clinton visited Asia in February, she made a point of hitting Japan first and then Seoul, urging them to work together. Then came Indonesia, a big new democracy. Only then did she stop in Beijing, where she called on the Chinese and Japanese to work together on climate change. That's just the kind of transnational issue that demands cooperation, not great-power jockeying—the kind of increasingly common problem that pays no attention to who's on top.
With Mary Hennock in Beijing |
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发表于 2009-5-17 22:43
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