美国外交政策：骆家辉就是一个香蕉
Gary Locke is a banana
原文作者 Clyde Prestowitz
原文链接 http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/10/gary_locke_is_a_banana
任命商务部长骆家辉为新任美国驻华大使这件事，被金融时报等人吹捧为白宫一项精明的举措。这些人认为这是事半功倍的一个决定——奥巴马把一个美籍华人作为特使派往中国，这样可以讨好中国人；而把一个一流CEO任命为商务部长的同时可以讨好美国商界。
实际上，这是一个优劣并存的举措。好处是终于让他离开了商业界，不好之处是把他派往北京，西雅图或许更适合他。
金融时报热捧美籍华人骆家辉，当他在北京亮出大使国书时，他会被当作是“归国的游子”。感情因素会让骆获取一些特权、得到更多在尊重、收获更多的感谢，仅仅是因为他的中国血统。这种论调反应出西方评论界人士对亚洲普遍的误解，他们认为中国人、日本人或者韩国人，对于那些具有自身种族背景的美国人，或多或少都怀有亲近感。
实际上，与此截然相反的例子比比皆是。作为一个在亚洲生活、工作过很长一段时间的人，作为一个与美籍华人已经组成家庭的人，我可以确认，亚洲人一般都会把亚裔美国人看作是香蕉——外表是黄的，内在是白的。当然，这种观点有也有等级的不同，但很不幸，骆恰好落在等级最低的范围中。他不会说中文，不认识中国字，从未在中国或亚洲其它地方长期生活和工作过，也未在中国读过书。他的那张中国面孔完全代表了美国的全球化策略和外交政策的企图，他或许会因此得到中国一些信任，但也会得到同样多的不信任。
驻华大使是仅次于国务卿的美国最重要的外交职位，因此需要有一个完全清楚自己在做什么的人来任职。比如Chas Freeman大使，曾经在尼克松总统与毛泽东会面时担任翻译，曾任国防部副部长和驻沙特阿拉伯大使，他与中国有着长期、亲密、广泛的关系，他才是明智的人选。他会让中国人了解，白宫在严肃对待中美关系。以此来看，对骆的任命似乎更像是对中国人的某种侮辱。
当然，好消息是他终于离开了商务部和华盛顿，他在那里的作用完全是可有可无的。
从另一方面来看，我发现似乎有些人认为这是对骆的提升。我曾经在商务部中任职于部长Malcolm Baldrige的顾问，的确，商务部已经从二级重要部门逐渐沦落成三级、甚至四级部门。但是这种评论其实主要是针对骆和他最近的继任者，而不是这个部门。
商务部经常被描述为一个众多不同机构组成的大杂烩，前商务部长、白宫的幕僚长Bill Daley也是这么认为。这其中有美国专利局、国家海洋大气司、人口统计局、外国商务服务处等等。经常会有一些建议出现，要求商务部放弃这些职能，让它们组建独立的机构，然后与美国贸易商务代表办公室合并成为一个超级国际贸易机构。
这种评论实在是不着调。国防部也是由众多职能的机构组成，但是大家认为国防是一项庞大的工作，需要很多职能。那么提升美国的商业竞争力也同样是件庞大的事情，也需要众多部门的支持。
举个例子，评论人士经常嘲笑国家海洋大气司和美国天气预报处也是商务部的一部分。要知道，海洋大气司管理外国渔船在美国水域打捞水产品的数量。当我在商务部工作期间，我们曾经利用日本渔业大量依赖美国水域捕捞量的事实作为理由，成功要求日本开放本土的半导体和其它市场。
而且，认为商务部的工作仅仅是促进出口和商务谈判的想法是错误的。在Herbert Hoover任部长期间，商务部是一个相当强大的部门，因为它全面提升了基础设施建设的发展、美国本土的投资和美国国家竞争力。为了达成奥巴马总统把美国出口额翻倍的目标，首要的任务是找到一些可以出口的东西。这才是商务部的工作。
骆家辉的可悲之处在于他从未真正理解自己的工作和商务部可以达成这些目标的潜在力量。当前，失业率超过15％；失业造成的贸易赤字超过GDP的3％，而且还在上升；美国本土投资占GDP的比率在所有主要国家中最低；美国生产业对GDP的贡献即将低于10％。商务部应当与国防部和财务部一起，发挥出顶级重要部门的强大力量。商务部长有权力自主决定针对不公平贸易展开反倾销和惩罚性关税的行动，这会让他/她手中握有巨大的谈判优势，同时还可以压迫美国企业提高效率。商务部长可以针对美国支持国防的产业能力展开调查，并且有各种各样的方法让企业和政府合作，组成联合体来提升研发能力、促进最优方案的推广、为提高生产力的规模经济制定标准。
总统正在寻找继任骆家辉的商务部长人选，就像很多政治界人士所指出的，只把目光放在选择一个商业领袖方面以彰显白宫鼓励商业的态度，是完全错误的。奥巴马目前唯一重要的任务是通过刺激投资和就业来全面复苏美国的生产能力。运作商务部和在华盛顿内阁中就职，与经营一个企业完全不同。经营企业的人完全不了解美国国家竞争力的必要性，更不用提去提升它了。
商务部需要的是一个眼界广阔的领袖，这个人要理解全球经济的现状、如何使用政策来创造利于竞争力提升的环境，以及如何让这些政策有效实施。像Jeff Bingaman参议员这种从事过长期研究美国竞争力、能源自主和美国出口政策的人，是一个好的人选。像他这样的人还有很多。
重点是，我们的确不需要在北京安排一个香蕉，而我们的商务部需要一个聪明的家伙来让大家忙起来。
原文：
The appointment of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the new U.S. Ambassador to China is being hailed as an astute White House move by the Financial Times (FT) and others who see it as a twofer -- Obama gets to curry favor with the Chinese by sending them a Chinese-American as his envoy and he gets to curry favor with American business by appointing a big time CEO as the New Secretary of Commerce.
In fact, it's a good/bad move. It's good to get him out of Commerce, but bad to send him to Beijing. Seattle would have been a better destination.
The FT enthuses that Locke, who is Chinese-American, will be welcomed as a "returning son" when he presents his Ambassadorial credentials in Beijing. The sentiment being expressed here is that Locke will have some special entrée and enjoy greater respect and appreciation in China because he is of Chinese ancestry. This kind of thinking is a common misperception of western commentators with regard to Asia. They think the Chinese or Japanese or Koreans, as the case may be, feel a greater affinity for Americans of their own ethnic background.
In fact, the opposite is usually the case. As someone who has lived and worked extensively in Asia and who is also married to a Chinese-American, I can confirm that Asians tend to think of Asian-Americans as bananas -- yellow on the outside but white on the inside. Of course there are gradations of this perception, but unfortunately Locke fits into the bottom category. He doesn't really speak Chinese, doesn't read it at all, and has never lived or worked for any extended period in China or anywhere else in Asia, nor is he a student of China. That he has a Chinese face masking a very typically orthodox American perspective on globalization and foreign policy is as likely to make him distrusted as trusted in China.
Since the U.S. Ambassador in China is America's most important diplomat after the Secretary of State, it would be nice to have someone in the post who knows what he or she is doing. Someone like Ambassador Chas Freeman, who interpreted for President Nixon during his talks with Mao Tse Dung, was Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing, Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and who has extensive, intimate, and long standing contacts in China would have been a brilliant choice. It would have shown the Chinese that the White House takes them seriously. In that context, the appointment of Locke might even be seen as a bit of an insult to the Chinese.
But, of course, the good news is that it gets him out of the Commerce Department and out of Washington where he has had all the impact of a feather on granite.
On the one hand, I can see how some might see this move as a promotion for Locke. It is true that the Commerce Department, where I served as Counselor to Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, has sunk from what was always considered a second tier department to the third or fourth tier. But that is more of a commentary on Locke and his recent predecessors than on the department.
Commerce is often described, even by some former Secretaries such as current White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, as an incoherent grab bag of agencies such as the U.S. Patent Office, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) the Census Bureau, the Foreign Commercial Service, and others. From time to time proposals surface to spin most of these off as independent agencies and to consolidate Commerce with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative into a kind of super international trade agency.
This critique is really wide of the mark. On the one hand, the Defense Department is also an assemblage of a vast range of agencies. But providing defense is a big job and requires a lot of agencies. Just so, promoting American commerce and competitiveness is a big job with a lot of different requirements.
For example, critics often scoff at the notion of NOAA and its U.S. weather service in the Commerce Department. But NOAA also administers the fishing quota for foreign fishermen in U.S. waters. When I was a Commerce official, we were able to use the fact that Japan's fishing industry depended significantly on its catch in U.S. waters as leverage to achieve market opening in Japan's semiconductor and other industries.
Moreover, it is a mistake to think that export promotion and trade negotiation are the main jobs of the department. Under Herbert Hoover, Commerce was a powerhouse department because it was deeply involved in promoting infra-structure development, investment in American, and U.S. competitiveness. To achieve President Obama's objective of doubling American exports, it is first necessary that America make something to export. That is the job of the Commerce Department.
The tragedy of Gary Locke is that he never understood the job or the potential power of the Commerce Department to do it. At this moment in time, when real unemployment is over 15 percent, the job killing trade deficit is over 3 percent of GDP and rising again, U.S. investment as a percent of GDP is among the lowest of the major countries, and U.S. manufacturing will soon be less than 10 percent of GDP the Commerce Department should be a powerhouse top tier agency along with the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury. The Secretary of Commerce has the authority to self-initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases in instances of unfair trade. This gives him/her enormous leverage to influence negotiations as well as to pressure U.S. industry to improve its performance. The Secretary can launch investigations of U.S. capability to sustain defense production and in a thousand ways can pull business and government together in consortia and joint undertakings to promote R&D, encourage widespread use of best practices, and set standards to encourage economies of scale that enhance productivity.
As the President searches for a new Secretary of Commerce to succeed Locke, it would be a mistake to focus on selecting a major business leader as a way of demonstrating that the White House is not anti-business, as some political operatives are suggesting. President Obama's single most important task right now is to launch a renaissance of American productive capability by promoting investment and creation of jobs in America. Running the Commerce Department and operating in Washington as a cabinet office is not at all like running a business. Running a business has nothing to do with an ability to even understand the needs of American competitiveness, let alone effectively promote it.
What Commerce needs is a leader with a broad understanding of the realities of the global economy and of how policies operate to create the right environment for establishing competitiveness and of how to get those policies adopted. Someone like Senator Jeff Bingaman who has long studied and championed U.S. competitiveness and U.S. energy independence and U.S. exports would be a good candidate. And there are others like him.
The point is that we really don't need bananas in Beijing and we really do need smart cookies at Commerce who know how to make the place hum.
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