洛杉矶时报 未来不是中国的

传统的智慧认为中国在崛起，美国在走下坡路。按照这种观点，美国21世纪的外交政策挑战就是当东方新势力上青天之时尽可能优雅地处理我们不可避免的衰落。传统的智慧听起来几乎总是很聪明，但几乎总是错的。美国不需要牵制中国，也不需要与中国对抗。它也不需要优雅地让中国取代美国称为世界领导力量。

　　第一个理由很简单。中国的崛起只是一个更恢宏的故事的一个部分——亚洲的崛起。中国不是在真空中上升的，不是注定以美国主导西半球或德国一度主导欧洲的方式主导它的地区。中国在崛起，但印度也在崛起。越南、印尼、泰国和韩朝（南北统一可能不用等太久）。在可见的将来，日本将仍然是一个强大的经济、军事和技术力量。台湾不是沉入大海；澳大利亚前所未有的繁荣。孟加拉国开始工业化；甚至缅甸可能通过全球经济一体化走上繁荣道路。

　　新亚洲太大、太多样化、太独立、太富有，没有一个单一的国家可以统治。中国不能，美国不能，印度不能。亚洲三巨头——中国、印度和日本——处于大致的平衡。当中任何两国在经济和军事上的强大都足以阻止第三国主导该地区。印度和日本可以平衡中国。中国和日本可以平衡印度。日本主导亚洲的梦死于1945年。美国还要为捍卫亚洲势力平衡而准备，而中国或其他任何国家似乎都不可能浪费金钱和时间来推翻它。

　　中国将继续军事现代化和测试它的势力极限。但对它来说，建立一个可以对抗美、印、日联合势力的武装部队如今（而且很可能永远）不是一个可行的计划。

　　在世界势力方面，将会有五大玩家——美国、欧盟和亚洲三巨头。但美国将继续扮演一个独特的角色，因为它是亚洲势力平衡以及欧洲势力平衡的一个重要部分。

　　看亚洲的未来，必须意识到数字不能代表一切。在1700年，中国、印度和法国的人口和经济都比英国大，但称为世界大国的却是英国。当今的美国比以前的英国更大、更强、更富有；我们占世界国内生产总值的份额是英国在顶峰时期的三倍。

　　由于独生子女政策，中国的人口可能抵达了顶峰——而美国仍然快速增长。如果人口统计学家的说法是对的，到2050年，将有大约14亿中国人，而美国人将有4亿。两国在劳动力方面的比照更为惊人。如今中国大约有9.48亿处于工作年龄段的人，而美国大约有2.02亿。由于独生子女政策，中国的人口将比美国的老化得快，到2050年，将有大约2.48亿处于工作年龄阶段的美国人，而中国的数字大约是8.60亿。

　　美国人常常全神贯注于他们自己的问题和关切，常会忽视其他国家的问题有多严重。中国的人口危机意味着它将面临一个重大的危机：以较少的劳动力照顾老龄化的人口。该国的其他问题也很可怕，令该国在未来数十年忙得不可开交：清理它的环境、发展一个跟得上现代化经济的金融体系并创造一个有效的卫生保健体系。然后还要制定一个强大得足以管理中国这样庞大的国家同时又灵活得足以满足当地需求的政治体系，允许异见和政治竞争但又不至陷于分裂。

　　还有其他因素。自从美国在尼克松领导下与中国重修关系以来，它就一直试图说服中国和国际体系接触——行为更像一个“正常”国家。这项政策一直是一个壮观的成功。尽管转变还没有完成，但中国已经变得相信加入地区组织和峰会，参与世界贸易组织等组织最有利于自己的利益。

　　中国举行2008年夏季奥运的自豪就是这项转变有多深入的一个迹象。就在四十年前，中国人邀请一群美国人打乒乓球就可以称为新闻。如今中国有能力——有意愿——举行世界上最高规格、最昂贵和最复杂的国际体育盛事。

　　促进亚洲的和平发展，确保较小的国家不受大邻居的威胁，并帮助亚洲超级大国找到一套经济和安全关系，在历经世界历史上最伟大的经济和社会转变之时保持该地区的和平——这些应该是美国本世纪的亚洲政策目标。

　　如果我们做得对，如果我们保存国内的社会活力（这是我们全球角色的基础），我们将促进亚洲民主和繁荣的崛起，并建设一个更好的未来世界。（作者 Walter Russell Mead）

China doesn't own the future
Overall growth in Asia will balance any threat China may pose to U.S. prominence.
By Walter Russell Mead
October 14, 2007
The conventional wisdom is that China is rising and the United States is on its way down. According to this view, the 21st century challenge for U.S. foreign policy is to manage our inevitable decline as gracefully as possible as the new superpower of the East reaches for the stars.

The conventional wisdom almost always sounds smart -- and is almost always wrong. The U.S. doesn't need to contain China, and it doesn't need to fight China either. Nor does it need to prepare to gracefully let China replace the United States as the world's leading power.

The first reason is simple. The rise of China is only part of a much bigger story -- the rise of Asia. China isn't ascending in a vacuum, destined to dominate its region the way the U.S. dominates the Western Hemisphere -- or the way Germany once tried to dominate Europe.

China is rising, but so is India. So are Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Korea (where South and North may be united before too much longer). Japan will remain a powerful economic, military and technological force for the foreseeable future. Taiwan is not sinking into the sea; Australia is prospering as never before. Bangladesh is beginning to industrialize; even Myanmar, or Burma, may possibly follow the road to prosperity through global economic integration that has made East and South Asia growth rates the envy of the world.

Some Americans look at this picture and think that the other rising Asian powers can help the U.S. contain China. This is a mistake not only because other Asian countries are uninterested in hostile relations with a rich and powerful country like China but because it looks less and less as though the U.S. will need to contain Beijing.

The new Asia taking shape is too big, too diverse, too independent and too rich for one country to rule. Not China, not the United States, not India.

Asia's Big Three -- China, India and Japan -- are in rough balance. Any two of them are economically and militarily strong enough to prevent the third from dominating the region. India and Japan could balance China. China and Japan could balance India. And Japan's dreams of dominating the Pacific died in 1945. With the U.S. also prepared to defend the balance of power in Asia, it seems unlikely that China, or any other nation, will waste time and money in the effort to overturn it.

China will continue to modernize its military and test the limits of its power. But for it to build armed forces that could overcome the combined might of the U.S., India and Japan is not now, and probably never will be, a feasible project.

In terms of world power, there will be five big players -- the U.S., the European Union and the Asian Big Three. But of these, the U.S. will continue to play a unique role because it will be a vital part of the Asian balance of power as well as of the European one.

In looking to Asia's future, it's important to realize that numbers aren't everything. In 1700, China, India and France all had more people and bigger economies than Britain -- but it was Britain that became a world power. The U.S. today is bigger, stronger and richer than Britain ever was; our share of world gross domestic product is three times Britain's share at its peak.

Thanks to the one-child policy, China's population may have peaked -- and the U.S. is still rapidly growing. If demographers are correct, by 2050 there will be about 1.4 billion Chinese (up from 1.3 billion) and about 400 million Americans (up 100 million).

The comparison between the two countries is even more dramatic in terms of labor forces. Today, there are about 948 million working-age people in China and about 202 million in the United States. Because of the one-child policy, China's population will age faster than in the U.S. and, in 2050, there will be about 248 million working-age Americans -- and 860 million Chinese.

Preoccupied with their own problems and concerns, Americans often miss how serious other countries' problems are. China's population crisis means that it will face a greater crisis caring for an elderly population with a smaller workforce. The country's other problems are formidable as well and will keep it busy for decades: cleaning up its environment, developing a financial system that can keep pace with a modernizing economy and creating an effective healthcare system. Then there is the question of devising a system of government strong enough to administer a country the size of China yet flexible enough to meet local needs -- and that allows dissent and political competition but does not fly apart into disunity.

There is one other factor at work. Ever since the U.S. moved to rebuild relations with China under President Nixon, it has been trying to persuade China to engage with the international system -- to behave more like a "normal" country. That policy over time has been a spectacular success. Although the transition is not yet complete, China has come to believe that its interests are best served by participating in regional organizations and summits and by joining such organizations as the World Trade Organization.

China's pride at hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics is a sign of how far this transformation has gone. Just 40 years ago, it was news when the Chinese invited a group of Americans to play ping-pong. Now China has the ability -- and the will -- to host the most high-profile, expensive and complex festival in the world of international sport.

Promoting the peaceful development of Asia, ensuring that smaller countries are not threatened by their large neighbors and helping the Asian superpowers to find a set of economic and security relationships that can keep the region peaceful as it passes through the greatest economic and social transformation in world history -- those should be the goals of U.S. policy in Asia this century.

If we get that right, and if we preserve the social dynamism at home that is the basis of our global role, we will promote the rise of democracy and prosperity in Asia and build a better world for the future.

Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World."