美国《外交事务》杂志最近在若干美国外交专家中做了个调查，问他们中美能否相容，大家可以从意识形态、社会制度、民意、经济文化军事所有方面考虑。比如美国西方觉得个人自由是个人生活目的的最基本最高级的准则，美国保证个人自由，中国基本剥夺了个人自由，代之以生活水平的不断提高和社会稳定（包括领土完整），然而在美国看来这不是民众真正希望的，美国坚持所有国家，自然包括其他国家，也必须给本国公民充分的自由，否则，一个以压制自由为目标的国家必然会跟美国成为敌对双方，导致冲突。这是诸多考虑中一个达到中美必不相容的情形。
出乎意料的是，说相容和不相容的人数一半多，也就是意见分歧。我把该杂志的全文附在下面，大家可以过目。这是几个大V的态度。艾利森（Graham T. Allison），就是那个写大国崛起必然导致跟老老大决斗的那个和米尔斯海默（John Mearsheimer，《大国政治的悲剧》，《大幻灭》）都强烈相信两国难容。奈尔（Joseph Nye）说得诙谐，“啥不相容，大家没想好”。
值得一提的两个华人，“中国民主”的裴敏新和布鲁金斯学会的李成。裴敏新民运时就是在美国的积极分子，是中国必须西化民主的权威。李成在上海长大，成为布鲁金斯学会中国问题研究主力，也不简单，被中国外交学院当成“美国外交研究界四十能人”之一。李成的态度较为务实，能理解中国的环境、出发点。
无独有偶，布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）也组织一个同样话题的辩论，
方式是听众态度的转变，辩论前大部分听众觉得中美间的冲突不是敌对的，辩论会，很多人改变了态度，觉得是个问题，但依旧相信非敌对的人数略占多数。
Are U.S. and Chinese National Interests Incompatible?
We at Foreign Affairs have recently published a number of pieces dealing with the clash of U.S. and Chinese national interests. To complement these articles, we decided to ask a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, we approached dozens of authorities with deep specialized expertise relevant to the question at hand, together with a few leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion; the answers from those who responded are below:
Debate Statement
U.S. and Chinese national interests are fundamentally incompatibl
Elliott Abrams
Disagree, confidence level 6
Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
We must distinguish between Chinese national interests and those of the regime. A China not ruled by the Communist Party would have not only different domestic policies but quite different foreign policies as well.
Graham Allison
Agree, confidence level 9
Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
China and the United States share some vital national interests, for example no general war between them, but have conflicting national interests, for example over who will be the predominant power in the Western Pacific.
Yuen Yuen Ang
Strongly Disagree, confidence level 8
Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and the author of How China Escaped the Poverty Trap
The belief that U.S. and Chinese national interests are fundamentally incompatible is dangerously self-reinforcing. If American and Chinese policymakers hold this belief, they will make policies that undermine each other, and the more they do so, the more the two nations will appear to be incontrovertible enemies. This is exactly what’s happening in the ongoing trade war. In fact, both the United States and China are economically interdependent; neither can do without the other. It is not possible to benefit from an open, globalized economy, and, at the same time, build walls around it. No nation can have it both ways.
Michael Auslin
Agree, confidence level 8
Williams-Griffis Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Washington and Beijing have similar national interests, including territorial integrity, national security, regional stability in the Americas and Asia, domestic economic growth, and a healthy global economy, to mention but a few. Yet they view many of these increasingly in zero-sum terms and therefore incompatibly vis-à-vis each other at the present time. With Beijing determined no longer to occupy what it considers to be a subordinate role globally, areas of cooperation are shrinking as China seeks to forge rival regional and global institutions where it has a preponderance of influence while at the same time countering the United States, particularly in Asia. On questions of trade fairness, respect for intellectual property, international arbitration, territorial integrity in disputed areas, the right of political self-determination, human rights, and the like, the two capitals are clearly at odds.
Salvatore Babones
Disagree, confidence level 8
Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney
Despite all the "trade war" rhetoric, China is rapidly integrating into a trans-Pacific technological ecosystem centered on Silicon Valley.
Richard K. Betts
Agree, confidence level 6
Director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
It depends on which category of interests is meant. My answer is about the most important: political, strategic, national security interests. Regarding economic interests, the answer is probably different.
Bill Bishop
Agree, confidence level 8
Publisher of Sinocism
Dean Cheng
Neutral, confidence level 6
Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
It depends very much on which interests, and what time-frame is being considered. In the short run, for example, both sides presumably have an interest in avoiding a full-blown trade war. In the long run, both sides presumably have a shared interest in avoiding a thermonuclear war. But there are many areas where we do have incompatible interests, so it depends.
Bridget Coggins
Disagree, confidence level 8
Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Their interests may come to a point of fundamental incompatibility in the years to come, but that outcome is contingent on the nature and pace of China’s rise and the American response—especially in Asia.
John Delury
Disagree, confidence level 5
Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, Yonsei University
Compatibility depends on the willingness of both sides to accept an imperfect, but viable, accommodation with the other.
Jamie Fly
Strongly Agree, confidence level 10
Senior Fellow and Director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia Programs, German Marshall Fund
Richard Fontaine
Disagree, confidence level 7
President of the Center for a New American Security
Fundamentally, they are not incompatible, and there are win-win outcomes conceivable between the big powers. But in practice the default position is far likelier to be competition. So what is theoretically possible may be simply academic, as each side pursues advantage and fears the other's exertions.
Lindsey Ford
Disagree, confidence level 7
Director of Political-Security Affairs at the Asia Society Policy Institute
Carla P. Freeman
Disagree, confidence level 8
Associate Research Professor and Executive Director of the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University
A Sino-American relationship that is mutually and globally beneficial is possible. There are, however, significant areas of mistrust and friction, including a number of potentially irreconcilable differences between the two countries that put relations between the United States and China at high risk of deterioration if not deftly managed. The two countries' national interests are fundamentally incompatible only if both decide to contend for regional and global primacy.
Bonnie Glaser
Disagree, confidence level 7
Senior Adviser for Asia and Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Patricia Kim
Neutral, confidence level 8
Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
Cheng Li
Strongly Disagree, confidence level 8
Director, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
There is a palpable sense of urgency in the United States to protect and advance American security, prosperity, and credibility on the world stage. The fear is that unless the United Sttes unveils a new and effective approach to dealing with China, this formidable rival will surpass the United States in many important aspects and gain a substantial competitive edge within a couple of decades, if not sooner. Paradoxically, even as the United States and China become increasingly suspicious of one another’s strategic intentions, contact between the two nations has never been broader, deeper, and more frequent than it is today—whether it be at the head of state, military, think tank, sub-national, commercial, educational, cultural, or tourism level. The United States and China both confront increasingly daunting—and largely common— challenges in terrorism, nuclear proliferation, cyber security, international refugee flows, climate change, and global pandemics. In the area of global economic and financial stability, as the two largest economies in the world, the incentives for cooperation are much greater than those for confrontation. Most importantly, leaders of both countries should soberly recognize that a military conflict between the United States and China would be catastrophic. It would upend the world economy and force many other countries to take sides, thus raising the prospects of WWIII. In terms of national interests of both countries, a Sino-American war would be too calamitous to yield a winner, and thus it should never be fought.
Rebecca Friedman Lissner
Agree, confidence level 9
Research Fellow at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Policy Research Center
Although the United States and China share certain interests on matters of global governance, they have opposing interests in the Asian regional order. Whether and how these competing interests are managed will be the defining geopolitical question of twenty-first century geopolitics.
Oriana Skylar Mastro
Agree, confidence level 8
Assistant professor of Security Studies at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Evan S. Medeiros
Agree, confidence level 7
Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies, Professor of Practice at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
The United States and China each have a diversity of national interests; some converge and some diverge with each other. The divergence is growing and on key issues related to national security and economic policy-making. Yet both have an interest in avoiding a major bilateral conflict and that will provide a modicum of stability, for now.
John Mearsheimer
Strongly Agree, confidence level 10
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
China's principal foreign policy goal is to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. In other words, China wants to become a regional hegemon, which is a wise goal from their perspective. Unsurprisingly, there is an abundance of evidence that they are pursuing that aim. The United States, on the other hand, has a profound interest in preventing China from dominating Asia and instead maintaining the present balance of power in that region. Thus, it seems clear that the interests of China and the United States are fundamentally incompatible.
Rana Mitter
Neutral, confidence level 7
Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, St. Cross College, Oxford University
Andrew J. Nathan
Disagree, confidence level 10
Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
Each country can in principle be secure and prosperous without detracting from the security and prosperity of the other. But whether their leaders will find their way to that happy state of affairs is uncertain.
Joseph Nye
Neutral, confidence level 8
University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
It depends on how the cards are played.
Minxin Pei
Agree, confidence level 9
Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College
The root cause of the clash of national interests between China and the United States is the difference in their political regimes. Their national interests could converge if China were to have a more liberal political regime.
John Pomfret
Neutral, confidence level 10
Journalist and Former Washington Post Bureau Chief in Beijing
It's a very mixed picture. In some areas, there's natural compatibility. In other areas, the interests diverge.
Mira Rapp-Hooper
Disagree, confidence level 7
Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center and Senior Research Scholar, Yale Law School
Ely Ratner
Agree, confidence level 8
Vice President and Director of Studies, Center for a New American Security
In Asia, where the strategic competition is most consequential and immediate, U.S. and Chinese aspirations are irreconcilable, despite shared interests on international economic and transnational issues.
Danny Russel
Disagree, confidence level 8
Vice President for International Security and Diplomacy, Asia Society Policy Institute
The Venn diagram of U.S. and Chinese national interests displays significant overlap and their differences have and can be largely reconciled if both nations have competent leadership.
Orville Schell
Agree, confidence level 10
Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
The climate of antagonism has turned markedly since President Xi Jinping took office and basically undermined the most basic suppositions of "engagement."
Loren DeJonge Schulman
Disagree, confidence level 7
Deputy Director of Studies and the Leon E. Panetta Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
David Shambaugh
Agree, confidence level 8
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the China Policy Program, George Washington University
Yun Sun
Agree, confidence level 9
Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center
Jessica Chen Weiss
Strongly Disagree, confidence level 9
Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University
China and the United States have different but still compatible national interests. Homeland security, economic prosperity, combating pollution and climate change, and a peaceful Asia-Pacific—these are shared American and Chinese interests that do not vitally threaten the other’s survival and well-being. We are seeing and will continue to see friction over major issues, including trade, Taiwan, and sovereignty disputes between China and U.S. allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific. But to assume fundamental incompatibility is to accept the inevitability of war or capitulation, should the two nations continue on their present trajectories.
