美学者文章：世界潮流正背离美国转向中国
2023-04-27 来源：海外网
参考消息网4月26日报道 美国《国会山》日报网站4月20日发表题为《经济和政治潮流正在背离美国并转向中国吗？》的文章，作者是美国科罗拉多基督教大学百年研究所高级研究员威廉·莫洛尼。全文摘编如下：
意味深长的是，今天在全世界的军事院校中，被最广泛研读的专著之一是2000多年前的一本中国军事著作。《孙子兵法》中最为人所熟知的一句话是“不战而屈人之兵，善之善者也”。然而书中还有其他许多格言，应当引起那些愿意猜测中国意图并把不同策略进行对比的人们的兴趣。
中国军队在数十年时间里没有大动干戈。相比之下，美国在同一时期却几乎不断地以直接或通过代理人的方式参与战争。与自己的帝国前辈大不列颠一样，美国常常寻求在世界遥远的角落通过军事手段强行施加自己的意志。
同样与其不列颠前辈一样的是，凭借自身强大的经济实力，美国长期以来能够发挥非同寻常的全球影响力。而一直到最近，中国始终表现得较为谨慎。
如今，在中国的经济和军事实力激增、全球影响力正迅速扩张的时刻，美国却越来越多地受到旷日持久战争的累积效应拖累，并被英国历史学家保罗·肯尼迪所描述的那种“帝国过度扩张”削弱。中国成功斡旋伊朗和沙特的和解，已经瓦解了美国建立共同战线以打击伊朗的努力。在感到焦虑的美国盟国中，法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙在访问中国时发表讲话，暗示可能不存在所谓“支持捍卫台湾的北约统一战线”。
美国两党政客对于马克龙言论毫无节制的愤慨表达，在不经意间忽视了这样一个事实，即法国总统表达了一种多半是许多欧洲公民共有的情绪，这种情绪在欧洲对外关系委员会2019年的一项民调中曾得到披露。该民调显示，受访者当时曾强烈认为自己的国家应当在美国与中国的任何冲突中保持中立。显然，团结欧洲人对抗身旁的俄罗斯是一回事，但为了与遥远中国的潜在军事冲突征集支持却是完全不同的命题——中国从来没有侵略的历史，而且对于每一个欧洲国家的经济而言都至关重要。
值得注意的是，欧洲对于美国领导层素养和可靠性的疑虑与日俱增，尤其是考虑到不久前在灾难性的美国从阿富汗撤军一事上未经协商和被蒙在鼓里的痛苦回忆。因此，如果一些欧洲人认为，那些要求他们忠实和毫无异议地追随美国加入又一场亚洲战争的美国人非常傲慢，那么这算不上缺乏理性。
同样令美国的长期友邦感到担忧的是，美国今天看起来像是一个由于日益险恶的内斗政治而陷入深度错乱的国家——即亚伯拉罕·林肯那句永恒名言中的“分裂之家”——并且因此会对或许能够更清醒地观察世界的盟友的理性论述缺乏共鸣。马克龙也许正是这样一个应该得到尊重而不是被谴责的朋友。
Are economic and political tides turning away from America and toward China?
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3953391-are-economic-and-political-tides-turning-away-from-america-and-toward-china/
BY WILLIAM MOLONEY, 04/20/23
The American and Chinese flags wave at Genting Snow Park ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 2, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.
It is interesting that one of the most widely studied treatises on war in the world’s military academies today was written by a Chinese general who lived 27 centuries ago. The best-known quotation from “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) is, “[The] supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” but there are many other maxims that should merit the interest of those who would divine the intentions of China and contrast the strategy of that country with that of the United States. Of particular relevance is,“Who wishes to win must first consider the cost” and its corollary, “There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged war.”
China has not sent its armies to war in 70 years, since the end of the Korean War. In contrast, the United States, over the same period, has been at war directly or by proxy almost constantly. With rare exception, China, like Russia, has historically flexed its military muscle only in areas on its borders with which it has longstanding ethnic and/or cultural ties. The United States, like its imperial predecessor, Great Britain, has regularly sought to impose its will militarily in far-flung corners of the world.
The United States, again like its British forebear, has long been able to exert extraordinary global leverage owing to the immense might of its economy, whereas until quite recently, China — never in modern times a wealthy or economically dominant nation — has been more cautious, preferring to rattle its sabers rather than use them.
Now, at the very moment when China’s economic and military might is surging and its global influence rapidly expanding, the United States is increasingly being weighed down by the cumulative effect of prolonged war and weakened by what British historian Paul Kennedy described in 1987 as “imperial overstretch.”
The waxing of Chinese power and the waning of America’s has not gone unnoticed and U.S. enemies and allies alike have recently undertaken bold independent initiatives that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. China’s success in brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia — soon followed by Russia’s sponsoring talks between Saudis and another longtime foe, Syria — has unhinged U.S. efforts to build a common front against Iran-backed terrorism. Among disquieted U.S. allies, Japan stunned Washington by asserting its own national interest by bluntly refusing to honor energy sanctions against Russia, and then French President Emmanuel Macron made remarks while visiting China that signaled there may be no united NATO front in efforts to bolster the defense of Taiwan.
The intemperate expressions of indignation over Macron’s remarks by U.S. politicians of both parties blithely overlooks the fact that the French president is voicing sentiments likely shared by the many European citizens, as revealed by a 2019 poll done by the European Council on Foreign Relations that showed respondents strongly believed then that their countries should remain neutral in any conflict between the United States and China. Clearly, it is one thing to rally Europeans against a nearby and historically threatening Russia, but an entirely different proposition to enlist support for potential military conflict with distant China, with whom there is no history of aggression and which is vitally important to the economies of every European country.
It is pertinent to note the context of growing European doubts about the quality and reliability of American leadership, particularly in light of the recent painful memory of being unconsulted and blindsided regarding the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Accordingly, it is hardly unreasonable if some Europeans see more than a touch of arrogance in Americans who think they should loyally and unquestioningly follow the United States into yet another Asian conflict — this time against an adversary vastly more formidable than the Taliban.
Also of concern to America’s longtime friends is the United States today appears as a nation deeply distracted by its increasingly vicious internecine politics — in Abraham Lincoln’s timeless phrase, “A house divided against itself” — and thus less responsive to reasoned discourse with allies who might see the world a little more clearly. Macron may be one such friend deserving of respect, not condemnation.
William Moloney is a senior fellow in conservative thought at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute who studied at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. He is a former Colorado Commissioner of education.
