外交官杂志：北京“脆弱”的崛起

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　　美国对中国应做好坚持自己立场的准备。不管它怎样迎合北京都不会得到相应的尊重。
　　孔子说：“君子贞而不谅。”（君子持守真道，但并不固执，而懂得随机应变）。中国认为国家对外关系也是如此。
　　希拉里克林顿竞选美国总统时要求当时的布什总统DIZHI北京奥运会开幕式，以此表示对中国西藏政策以及处理苏丹问题缺乏合作的不满。
　　担任国务卿后，希拉里态度完全转变。因为所有地缘政治分析家都指出，美国在几乎每个重要的国际事务上--从遏制伊朗核野心到气候变化，到稳定全球金融系统免于崩溃--都需要中国的支持。
　　确实，从毫无意义的对抗只是提高获取中国支持的成本来看，希拉里在2008年夏天“强硬”的主张显然是错误的。
　　但从另一方面讲，中国并不重视 “绝望的”友谊，乞求或讨好都无济于事。中国外交决策的上述特点意味着美国不能只是简单默许中国的所有要求以期获得良好回应。
　　最近在北京度过的一段既无事先计划、也非政府安排的短暂时间里，我发现普通中国人及中国政府高层与华盛顿的中国观察家们在政治决心方面的态度及考量截然不同。
　　中国政府领导人一向青睐模糊而排斥透明。谨慎总有回报而冒险则经常吃亏。最重要的是，当这些中国的政策建筑师们赢得尊敬并掌握权力时，他们将热情和摇摆看作是软弱。
　　中国在决策过程中对实力的判断对美中关系的走向至关重要。可以说，一个犹豫是否指责中国是货币操纵国、在美中战略与经济对话中避免任何争议问题而只讲中国想听的话（如2009年7月首轮中美战略与经济对话中那样），或允许中国不断反对东北亚海域重要军事演习的美国是一个软弱的美国。
　　不错，中国一直关注以色列--美国的依附国--如何管束白宫。但不管幕后的现实是什么，美国公众、以色列以及全世界都看到，相比较以色列需要美国的青睐而言，奥巴马政府更需要积极的美以关系。与此同时，中国注意到美国的军事能力因在阿富汗和伊拉克的扩张而消弱，且注意到美国的盟国们似乎不像以前一样依赖美国的支持。美国的很多盟国因认为美国实力在下降而开始争取获得中国的支持、投资和战略对话。
　　具有讽刺意味的是，中国并不希望美国的实力下降过快。它希望美国继续成为重要的、全球性的力量，并与之保持深层的结构关系。
　　原因何在？中国担心自己内部的脆弱想免费利用美国在全球的影响。中国很清楚自己仍处于高度集中的新重商主义的自我利益模式，还不能承担维护全球稳定的责任，也没有打算成为全球公共物品的提供者。
　　中国担心奥巴马政府过于软弱，而世界将继续挑衅美国以了解美国实力究竟如何。事实上，中国也正在挑衅美国--试探美国的决心，包括 6次反对美韩国联合军事演习。当然，尽管中国反对，军事演习仍将进行（最近中方的态度有软化了不少）。
　　中国还谴责奥巴马政府会见****，强烈抗议美对台军售，并因后者推迟与美国的多项高级别的军事交流并暂拒美国防部长盖茨访华。用双方高级官员的话来讲，“中国刺激美国看其如何反应。”
　　北京认为美国亟需中国的支持，且害怕挫伤它所迫切需要的中美关系。但据很多中国和住在海外的华裔专家都认为，尽管中国在某些纠纷上的会通过不断升级造成双边关系濒临破裂的危险，但最终北京还是会尊重决心而不破坏中美之间的合作。
　　中国认为，（在中美发生冲突时）美国总是首先示弱，并努力获取中国的注意，而中国则不那么想要获取美国的注意。这使中国在双方关系上具有一定的优势。但中国政府很多人实际上并不特别喜欢这种优势，他们想看到一个更加强大、富有远见的美国，一个愿意继续设立使中国得以欣欣向荣的全球秩序的美国。
　　不幸的是，他们看到的却是一个束手无策、在两极摇摆不定的国家，它一边极力满足中国地缘经济和地缘政治需求，一边又因恐惧而试图抑制、惩罚或附加额外条件给中国。
　　具有讽刺意味的是，这两个极端使得中国认为美国正在丧失其在国际体系中的主导地位，而中国则越来越重要及“不可一世”。不过，北京也有很多人认为这种傲慢其实是脆弱的，中国的黄金时代尚未到来。
　　Steve Clemons，其政治博客广受欢迎，The Washington Note 作者，Talking Points Memo自由撰稿人，负责新美利坚基金会美国战略项目，中间派智囊。

英文原文：


Beijing's Fragile Swagger
July 22, 2010
By Steve Clemons
The US should be more ready to stand its ground with China. It won't get any respect in Beijing for trying to appease it.
Confucius said 'The superior man is firm in the right way, and not merely firm.'  From a Chinese perspective, the same can probably be said about other nations.
When Hillary Clinton was running for the US presidency, she encouraged then President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to signal US frustration over China's treatment of Tibet and lack of cooperation on Sudan.
Her posture, reversed since she became Secretary of State, was remarkably un-presidential as any serious geopolitical analyst would have noted that the United States needed China's support on virtually every one of its major international objectives-from redirecting Iran's nuclear aspirations to climate change to stabilizing a global financial system near meltdown.
Indeed, gratuitous gut punches simply raise the cost of China's support, underscoring the fact that Clinton's approach in the summer of 2008 was simply the wrong way to be 'firm.'
But there's also another side to China, and it's one that doesn't respect 'desperate' friendship, grovelling or appeasement.  It's this element to Chinese foreign policymaking that means the United States can't simply acquiesce to all of China's demands and expect China to respond in kind.
After just a short time in Beijing recently, with an unscripted schedule and no government handlers, the most significant gap in attitudes that I've found between average Chinese up to senior state officials on the one hand, and Washington's Mandarins on the other, is a different calculation about political firmness and resolve.
Those leading the Chinese government, for the most part, put a premium on opaqueness and disdain transparency.  Cautiousness is rewarded; risk-taking often punished. But perhaps most importantly, while these architects of China's rise respect and respond to power, they view solicitousness and vacillation as weakness.
The implications of this power dynamic in Chinese calculations are vital for US-China relations.  In other words, a United States that dithers on the release of a report on currency manipulation, or that offers a US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that buries all controversial issues and offers only what China wants to hear (as happened in July 2009), or that allows China to repeatedly veto key military exercises in the seas of Northeast Asia is, put simply, a weak United States.
Indeed, China has watched Israel-a client state of the United States-discipline the White House.  No matter what the realities are behind the scenes, the publics in the US, Israel and around the world see an Obama presidency that seems to need positive relations with Israel more than Israel needs or wants US presidential affection. Meanwhile, China sees America's military capacity overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq and notes US allies behaving as if they can't count on the United States for the same level of support they once could.  This has contributed to a situation whereby many of these same allies are now courting China for support, investment and strategic dialogue as they perceive a United States in decline.
The irony of all of this is that China doesn't want US power to fall away rapidly-it wants the United States to remain a vital, global force with which China has deep structural relations.
The reason? China wants to free-ride on US global power because it fears its own internal fragility. China knows that it's not ready to carry the burden of global stability and isn't ready to position itself as a provider of global public goods while it's still in a mode of highly concentrated neo-mercantilist self interest.
China fears the Obama administration is weak, very weak-and that the world will keep provoking the United States to see where its power begins and ends.  In fact, China is doing the same thing-testing US resolve, including rejecting six times US-Republic of Korea joint military exercises that will now go on despite Chinese objections (which they have themselves recently softened).

China has also rebuked the Obama administration for arranging a meeting with the Dalai Lama and protested vehemently over arms sales to Taiwan, a move that prompted it to suspend military-to-military exchanges and block a trip to China planned by Defense Secretary Gates.  In the words of both a senior US interlocutor with the Chinese government and a senior Chinese official, 'China is poking the US to see how America will respond.'
The impression in Beijing is that the United States is desperate for China's support and fears upending a relationship it badly needs.  The reality, according to both Chinese and informed foreign expatriate voices here is that while China will escalate to near breaking point a dispute of some sort, ultimately China will respect resolve and won't break the compact of cooperation.
The Chinese experience is that the US regularly blinks first-and works harder for Chinese attention than China is willing to work for US attention. This gives it an edge in the Sino-American relationship that many in the Chinese government actually aren't particularly comfortable with.  They want a stronger United States, one with vision and one that's willing to continue to set the terms of the global order that China is prospering in.
Unfortunately, what they see instead is a desperate country that swings between appeasement of China's geoeconomic and geopolitical appetite on one side, and fear of China and talk about containing or punishing or imposing surcharges on it on the other.
It's ironic then that these two extremes, which China believes demonstrate the United States is forfeiting its dominance in the international system, validate China's sense of importance and evolving swagger, one which many in Beijing actually believe is a ‘fragile swagger' that's not yet ready for primetime.
Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note and is editor-at-large of Talking Points Memo.  He also directs the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation, a centrist think tank.
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