外交政策：我们不应该为G-2流泪对于虚幻的“G-2”的追求已经浪费了大家太长的时间

nicholasxw

编者：本文的英文题目为“Time to Defriend China”，被译作“是时候把中国从美国友好国家名单中剔除了”。其实，这两位作者一年前就合作过一篇文章，那篇文章已有译文，发表在《国外理论动态》2010年第7期，题目是“‘中美共治’的幻象：——为什么中美两国提升关系的时机还未成熟？”既然这样，我们觉得这篇续文的题目应该叫“中美共治的幻想：II”。读了文章，觉得还是用其中的一句话更好：“我们不应该为G-2流泪”。
　　“没有G-2”。美国副国务卿斯坦伯格(James Steinberg)5月11日终于在布鲁金斯学﹙Brookings Institution）对备受吹捧的——即便是误导性的——“G2”说法敲响了丧钟。“G-2”这一想法认为中国和美国会绑在一起去解决世界的各类问题。
　　“G-2”是由彼得森国际经济研究所（Peterson Institute for International Economic）主任弗雷德·伯格斯坦（C. Fred Bergsten）所首先引入的一个想法，作为一种促进双边协作的机制来主要解决国际经济问题。但是，在基辛格（Henry Kissinger）和布热津斯基（Zbigniew Brzezinski）这些华盛顿政坛老手的支持下，这一机制转变成了战略议题的协商。这个想法得到了白宫和国务院的共鸣，这两个机构都对中美联合努力去解决金融危机以及致力于解决气候变迁问题抱有很高的希望。正如国务卿希拉里·克林顿)在2009年2月访问北京时所讲的那样，“我们合作的机会是世界任何其他地方都无法比拟的。”
　　那种希望是短命的。在欧巴马行政当局的第一年期间，由于有着不相称的利益、价值观和能力，华盛顿终于发现很难与北京合作一起应对全球性挑战。中国不愿意与美国坐下来谈，且它与印度、巴西和南非一起耍花招破坏哥本哈根协议，这明白显示：想与中国建立特别关系，不是一件容易的事。尤其，美国在今年一月份同意对台湾销售武器及欧巴马总统会晤****，都触及到了敏感议题，也使双方退回到互相怀疑的原点。
　　尽管现在我们在美中关系不是什么上有了更为现实主义的评估，但我们仍然对美中关系究竟是什么样或从现实主义角度来讲应该变成怎么样缺乏一种积极的政策制定。二零一零年五月底，美方国务卿希拉里·克林顿及财政部长盖特纳（Tim Geithner）与**方面的副总理王岐山及国务委员戴秉国会面，展开“美中战略和经济对话”（U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue，简称为S&ED）。这是每年经济及政治问题的高层对话。然而，今年的对话也无望在制定大的合作框架方面取得进展。事实上，它将使问题更为复杂。
　　事实上，在会议的前置作业阶段，美国官员已经会谈议题作了全盘的规划。美国国务院的官员已经罗列出至少二十个具有战略重要性的问题，要在北京与中方讨论。财政部策划了包括贸易和投资障碍、平衡增长 、财政改革，以及加强国际经济与金融架构的涵盖范围广阔的议程。同时，一些白宫官员提及了具体目标，例如人民币币值重估；其他人主张将目标放在致力于涵盖面更广的战略议题框架的发展上；还有人说他们希望通过把像自制率要求这样富有争议性的议题放在议程里，以便让中国最高层官员在那些往往在官僚作风中消失于无形的议题上做出决策来。
　　这些全都是值得讨论的目标以及有价值的结果，但类似对话平淡无奇的历史经验告诉我们，利用相同的时间和努力，可以做出成果更大的事情来。以往这类对话只在实现具体目标上获得了有限的成功。的确，上次美中战略和经济对话的成果是双方经由以前的对话达成了生态伙伴关系的协议，以及双方在汽车标准和发展智能电网方面的合作。事实上，数十年以来，美国在能源和环境议题的讨论方面，都是只能达到这种小规模的合作成果。为了上述几个狭隘的目标，实在不用劳师动众派出十二个美国内阁成员和相关机构首脑横渡太平洋。
　　让我们实际一点：美国在核心战略利益上的进展很大程度上源于这类会谈以外的事情。例如，在哥本哈根，中国在两个关系到其气候变迁协议立场的核心议题上改变了其姿态：建立自愿性的减排目标，以及转而支持提供国际资金援助。然而这些转变，是对发展中世界关切所做出的回应，而不是对美国压力的回应。同样，北京撤销拟议中的政府采购战略中最具争议部分——将大部分中国市场封闭而不像外国技术开放——的明确意愿来自全球的广泛抗议，而不仅仅是美国的反对。最近中国支持美国对伊朗的制裁决定，主要是因为俄国已经支持了美国的决定，中国没有政治资本继续反对。
　　美国已经花费相当多的时间及精力去创造这场包罗万象的双边对话。欧巴马行政当局很可能还会继续每年的美中战略和经济对话，并把对话的议题向所有方面迈进，并会努力找出问题所在。如果议题并不是事关紧要的并且我们的决策人士有着无限的时间和耐心，这是无妨的。但是，这不切实际。
　　雷默（译注：Joshua Cooper Ramo，“北京共识”这个概念的提出者）是基辛格协会（Kissinger Associates，一家战略顾问公司）的董事总经理，曾任《时代》杂志的助理执行主编。他在《时代》杂志的文章建议了第二个选择：解散美中战略和经济对话。取而代之的是：双方围绕真正具有战略利益的议题建立照菜单点菜似的对话模式，双方可以任意建立和解散那种类型的对话。这将使得原本绑在美中战略和经济对话上的数百人力，能够转而处理其他的紧迫问题，同时消除华盛顿在高层对话中一贯以来几乎不可避免的患得患失。但是，这种做法也会意味着机构延续性和双方对话人员关系上的损失，这两项都是双边关系中一个重要的部分，尤其是在危机时期。
　　另一派的看法是，最好继续维持美中战略和经济对话、但缩减规模。让财政部长和国务卿与他们的中国对手在涉及双方关系的广泛战略问题方面继续进行讨论，但是其他所有的人都应该留在国内。具体议题的讨论，应该由各自代表依照自己的时间表完成：联合商务和贸易联合委员会（Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade）将继续处理在创新方面的协商，以及执行相关的工业政策；而能源部、环境保护局（EPA）和国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）也可以继续做好能源和气候变迁方面的工作。
　　降低层级后的对话更近于美中关系的真实状态。如果双方的价值观、利益和能力有着汇合点的话，这将是一个更大的合作可能性的象征。这样的对话一方面能帮助双方体认到双边关系的重要性，但也同时能让双方了解到：只靠华盛顿与北京对话，所能达成的成果十分有限。美中关系的胶着点，其实也代表中国与许多其他国家的关系现状。例如，欧盟与日本发现，与中国协商贸易、气候变迁、网路冲突和****等议题都十分困难。因此，将时间与精力花费在世界其他地区培养盟友，美国将发现可能会获得更多进展。我们不应该为G-2流任何眼泪。G2退出历史舞台使我们能够将眼光移向他方，从而在与中国的关系上取得真正进展。
　　作者：易明﹙Elizabeth Economy﹚、Adam Segal
　　作者介绍：易明﹙Elizabeth Economy﹚，外交关系协会亚洲研究部门主管；Adam Segal，与研究中国的资深研究员。
　　文章来源：《外交政策》杂志杂志2010年5月24日文
    编译：叶淑贞
    补充翻译：@Freeman7777
　　校对：@Ytblf

英文原文：
Time to Defriend China
The quest for the illusory “G-2” has wasted everyone's time for long enough.
BY ELIZABETH ECONOMY, ADAM SEGAL | MAY 24, 2010
“This is not a G-2.” With those words, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg finally sounded on May 11 at the Brookings Institution the death knell for the much-touted, if misguided, idea that China and the United States would band together to solve the world's problems.
The idea of a “G-2” was first introduced by C. Fred Bergsten, director of Peterson Institute for International Economic, as a mechanism for promoting agreement between the two sides primarily to address international economic issues. However, it migrated to strategic issues, championed by old Washington hands like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The idea resonated with the White House and Foggy Bottom, where hopes were high for joint efforts to solve the financial crisis and address climate change. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked in a February 2009 visit to Beijing, “The opportunities for us to work together are unmatched anywhere in the world.”
That hope was short-lived. It has become painfully clear during the first year of Barack Obama's administration that mismatched interests, values, and capabilities make it difficult for Washington and Beijing to work together to address global challenges. China's unwillingness to sit down with the United States and its maneuverings with India, Brazil, and South Africa to undermine a larger agreement at Copenhagen were clear signs that building a special relationship would not be easy. America's approval of arms sales to Taiwan in January and the Dalai Lama's visit with Obama in February returned both sides to old suspicions and sensitivities.
But while we now have a more realistic assessment of what the U.S.-China relationship is not, we still lack a positive formulation of what it is -- or should realistically become. Next week's U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the annual high-level dialogue on economic and political issues led by Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on the U. S side and Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo on the Chinese, is unlikely to address this lack of a larger framework. In fact it will compound the problem.
In the run-up to next week's meetings, U.S. officials have been all over the map in framing the topics for discussion. State Department officials have identified at least 20 issues of strategic importance to discuss in Beijing. The Treasury Department has laid out an equally broad agenda that includes trade and investment barriers, balanced growth, financial reform, and strengthening the international economic and financial architecture. Meanwhile, some White House officials have mentioned specific goals, such as RMB revaluation; others have said the goal is the development of a larger framework to address strategic issues; still others have said they hope that by putting controversial issues like local content requirements on the agenda, they can get the most senior Chinese officials to make decisions on topics that would typically disappear within the bureaucracy.

These are all worthy objectives and outcomes, but the lackluster history of similar dialogues suggests there are better ways to spend our time and effort. Past such dialogues have achieved only modest success delivering on specific goals. Yes, it's true that the last S&ED yielded agreements on EcoPartnerships, collaboration on electric vehicle standards, and development of smart grids. Yet such small-scale cooperation and capacity-building have been a staple of U.S. energy and environmental talks for decades. These narrow goals would hardly seem to merit flying more than a dozen U.S. cabinet members and agency heads crossing the Pacific.
Let's be realistic: Progress on core U.S. strategic interests largely emanates from outside such talks. For instance, at Copenhagen, China reversed its stance on two core issues related to its climate change negotiation position, establishing voluntary emission reduction targets and offering to move to the back of the line for international funding assistance. Both of these moves, however, were a response to concerns in the developing world, not U.S. pressure. Similarly, Beijing's apparent willingness to rescind the most controversial portions of a proposed government procurement strategy that would have closed off a large portion of the Chinese market to foreign technologies arose from widescale global protest, not simply U.S. objections. And China's recent decision to support the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran depended largely on Russia folding first and leaving China without political cover to maintain its opposition.
Having expended significant time and energy creating this overarching bilateral dialogue, the temptation for the Obama administration will be to keep the S&ED, move forward on all fronts, and see what sticks. This would be fine if the issues didn't actually matter and our policymakers had unlimited time and patience. Neither is the case.
Joshua Cooper Ramo, Kissinger Associate Managing Director, has suggested a second option: disband the S&ED. In its place, the two sides would build à la carte dialogues around issues of real strategic interest that can be established and disbanded at will. This would free hundreds of people to work on other pressing issues, as well as eliminate the almost inevitable cycle of Washington defending what it did or did not get from high level dialogues. But it would also mean the loss of institutional continuity and personal connections that are an important part of the bilateral relationship, especially in times of crisis.
Going forward, it makes the most sense to keep the S&ED, but to downsize it. The Treasury secretary and the secretary of State should continue their discussions with their Chinese counterparts about the broad strategic issues in the relationship, but everybody else should stay home. Issue-specific discussions should be carried out by individual agencies on their own timelines: The Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade will continue conducting negotiations on innovation and industrial policy will carry on in; and the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the National Science Foundation will continue their good work on energy and climate change.
Downgraded dialogues would also more closely resemble the true state of U.S.-China relations. It would be a symbol of the possibility of greater cooperation when, and if, there is a convergence of the values, interests, and capabilities of the two sides. It would recognize the importance of the bilateral relationship, but simultaneously acknowledge that less is likely to be accomplished just by Washington talking with Beijing.
The sticking points in U.S.-China relations are mirrored in China's relations with much of the rest world. The European Union and Japan, for example, find it no easier to negotiate with China on issues such as trade, climate change, cyber conflict, and the Dalai Lama. As a result, the United States is more likely to make progress when it spends time and energy cultivating allies throughout the rest of the world. We shouldn't shed any tears for the G-2. Its demise enables us to make real progress with China by looking elsewhere.

Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director of Asia studies and Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman senior fellow for counterterrorism and national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They blog at Asia Unbound.
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