区分美国和中国的经济政策对于赢得民心很重要

区分美国和中国的经济政策对于赢得民心很重要

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/distinguishing-us-economic-policy-from-chinas-is-important-to-win-hearts-and-minds/?

约书亚·梅尔策 2023 年 5 月 8 日

2023 年 4 月 20 日，美国财政部长珍妮特·耶伦在美国华盛顿尼茨大厦约翰·霍普金斯大学主办的论坛上讨论“美中经济关系”。 REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger

@约书亚PMeltzer

亿晶中国

随着美国制定一套与中国相关的更加强有力的国际经济政策，美国政府面临的一个关键挑战将是如何令人信服地将美国政府对经济的更多参与及其国际经济政策的新方针与中国区分开来。

可以说这是赢得人心，但如果美国要让其他国家政府相信，美国的做法不仅仅是披着国家安全外衣的自身利益，那么创造真正且可以理解的差异就很重要。 美国需要向盟友保证，美国政府在经济中的作用存在符合民主价值观的原则性限制，让市场发挥关键作用，并带来有利于美国及其盟友的结果。

美国对中国的态度

财政部长珍妮特·耶伦 (Janet Yellen) 4 月 20 日的讲话和国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文 (Jake Sullivan) 一周后的讲话阐述了美国对华政策。 他们谈到了美国将如何应对经济政策与国家安全日益交织的问题，以及沙利文所说的“现代美国产业战略”将与中国的经济政策有何不同。

首先，耶伦对美国和中国经济的未来发展轨迹做出了预期，阐述了美国经济的实力，并概述了中国经济面临的挑战和日益疲软的情况。 当政府和企业根据对未来十年或更长时间各国市场规模（以及延伸的国家实力）的预期来评估如何应对中美紧张局势时，这一点很重要。 耶伦认为，美国经济强劲，而中国经济可能会步履蹒跚。 在这方面，印度人口规模现已超过中国的说法以及联合国最近对中国本世纪人口急剧下降的估计都是重要标志。

其次，耶伦概述了美国对华经济方针的目标，即确保美国及其盟国的国家安全利益和保护人权、与中国公平竞争、互利共赢、合作应对气候变化等全球挑战。

美国及其盟国的国家安全

耶伦强调经济政策的国家安全目标，例如出口管制、投资审查以及即将出台的对外投资行政命令，试图表明这些措施首先是为了安全，而不是为了获得经济优势。 鉴于有人指责中国政府干预其经济是为了获得相对于外国竞争对手的不公平经济优势，这一点至关重要。 正如耶伦明确表示的那样，“这些国家安全行动并不是为了我们获得竞争性经济优势或扼杀中国的经济和技术现代化。 尽管这些政策可能会产生经济影响，但它们是出于直接的国家安全考虑。” 沙利文在演讲中更加简洁地重申了这一点，并指出“我们的专家控制将继续集中于可能倾斜军事平衡的技术。”

公平竞争

耶伦还用她的演讲勾勒出美中之间公平竞争的愿景。 然而，这需要中国进行重大的经济改革才能实现。 特别是，中国需要放弃旨在倾斜竞争环境的经济政策，以牺牲外国竞争为代价来支持中国企业。 耶伦表示，美国非常反感的中国经济政策是对国有企业和国内私营企业的大规模补贴和支持，旨在消除外国竞争，加上市场准入壁垒、盗窃知识产权和专有技术以及强制技术转让。

美国新产业战略

耶伦和沙利文强调国家安全是美国对华经济政策的关键驱动力，因此阐述了所谓的美国新产业战略的针对性和合理性。 耶伦认为，在解决特定的市场失灵问题时，政府对工业的补贴是合理的。 沙利文对此进行了扩展，指出当私营部门无法自行进行所需投资以确保美国国家雄心时，就需要美国的产业战略——这是比纠正特定市场失灵更广泛的类别。 沙利文接着表示，这一战略的关键要素是公共投资，以释放市场和私营部门投资人群，而不是挑选赢家或输家。 沙利文还强调了与国际伙伴合作建设能力的重要性。

拜登政府能否成功地在国内和全球范围内为美国新产业战略赢得支持，对于与中国的长期战略竞争而言至关重要。

拜登政府能否成功地在国内和全球范围内为美国新产业战略赢得支持，对于与中国的长期战略竞争而言至关重要。 中国政府不会按照耶伦概述的路线进行改革并成为美国的公平竞争对手。 那么，当世界第二大经济体做出在经济和安全方面代价高昂的行为时，美国应该如何应对？ 应对这一挑战需要调整经济政策以考虑对国家安全的影响，以及美国与其盟友在一系列经济政策问题上的持续合作。 耶伦和沙利文的讲话为此类合作奠定了基础。 尽管如此，为了确保美国与中国竞争的方式（包括新的美国产业战略）仍然受到限制并专注于核心国家安全优先事项，在言辞和实践上仍有许多工作要做。 同样重要的是找到方法最大限度地减少盟友和合作伙伴的经济成本，并找到与其他政府沟通和合作的方法，以便美国政府的政策在全球范围内扩大机会。 在此方面的成功将表明，以国家安全为驱动力的美国经济政策不一定是零和博弈，并将与中国日益加强的保护主义措施和对经济的广泛控制形成鲜明对比。

Distinguishing US economic policy from China’s is important to win hearts and minds

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/distinguishing-us-economic-policy-from-chinas-is-important-to-win-hearts-and-minds/?

 May 8, 2023

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discusses "U.S.-China Economic Relationship" during a forum hosted by the Johns Hopkins University at the Nitze Building in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger

@JoshuaPMeltzer

As the U.S. develops a more robust and muscular set of international economic policies related to China, a key challenge for the U.S. government will be to convincingly distinguish greater U.S. government involvement in the economy and its new approach to international economic policy from that of China.

Call it winning hearts and minds, but creating a real and understandable difference is important if the U.S. is going to convince other governments that the U.S. approach is not just self-interest wrapped up in national security garb. The U.S. needs to reassure allies that there are principled limits to the role of the U.S. government in the economy that are consistent with democratic values, leave a key role for markets, and deliver outcomes that benefit both the U.S. and its allies.

The US approach to China

A speech by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on April 20 and one by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan a week later laid out the U.S. approach to China. They touched on how the U.S. will navigate the increasing intertwining of economic policy and national security and how the “modern American industrial strategy” as dubbed by Sullivan will be different from China’s economic policy.

To begin with, Yellen set future expectations about the trajectories of the U.S. and Chinese economies, making the case for the strength of the U.S. economy and outlining the challenges and growing weakness in the Chinese economy. This matters as governments and businesses assess how to navigate U.S.-China tensions based on expectations about the size of each country’s market (and by extension national power) over the coming decade or more. Yellen argued that the U.S. economy is strong, and China’s is likely to falter. In this regard, the claim that India has now surpassed China in terms of population size and recent U.N. estimates about China’s rapid population decline this century are important markers.

Second, Yellen outlined the objectives of the U.S. economic approach to China, namely, securing the U.S. and allies’ national security interests and protecting human rights, fair competition with China so that each side benefits, and cooperation on global challenges such as climate change.

National security for the US and its allies

Yellen’s emphasis on the national security objectives of economic policies such as export controls, investment screening, and a forthcoming executive order on outbound investment sought to make clear that these measures are about security first and foremost and not about obtaining an economic advantage. This is critical given the accusation that Chinese government intervention in its economy is about obtaining unfair economic advantage over foreign competitors. As Yellen made clear, “these national security actions are not designed for us to gain a competitive economic advantage or stifle China’s economic and technological modernization. Even though these policies may have economic impacts, they are driven by straightforward national security considerations.” Sullivan in his speech reiterated this point even more succinctly, noting that “our expert controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance.”

Fair competition

Yellen also used her speech to outline a vision of fair competition between the U.S. and China. However, this would take significant Chinese economic reform to achieve. In particular, China would need to abandon economic policies aimed at tilting the playing field in support of Chinese companies at the expense of foreign competition. According to Yellen, the Chinese economic policies the U.S. finds so objectionable are the large-scale subsidies and support for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and domestic private firms aimed at eliminating foreign competition, combined with barriers to market access, theft of intellectual property (IP) and know-how, and forced technology transfer.

The new American industrial strategy

With the emphasis on national security as the key driver of U.S. economic policy toward China, Yellen and Sullivan made the case for how the so-called new American industrial strategy will be targeted and justified. According to Yellen, government subsidies for industry are justified when addressing a specific market failure. Sullivan expanded on this, stating that American industrial strategy is needed where the private sector can’t on its own make the investments needed to secure U.S. national ambitions—a somewhat broader set of categories than correcting for a specific market failure. Sullivan went on to say that the key element of such a strategy is public investment that unlocks markets and crowds in private sector investment, and not picking winners or losers. Sullivan also emphasized the importance of working with international partners to build capacity.

The success of the Biden administration in building support domestically and globally for the new American industrial strategy will be key when it comes to what will undoubtedly be long-term strategic competition with China.

The success of the Biden administration in building support domestically and globally for the new American industrial strategy will be key when it comes to what will undoubtedly be long-term strategic competition with China. The Chinese government is not going to reform and become a fair competitor to the U.S. along the lines outlined by Yellen. So, how should the U.S. respond when the world’s second largest economy is engaged in behavior that is costly in both economic and security terms? Meeting this challenge will require adjusting economic policies to account for the national security implications as well as sustained cooperation between the U.S. and its allies on a range of economic policy issues. The speeches by Yellen and Sullivan lay the foundation for this type of cooperation. That said, much remains to be done rhetorically as well as in practice to ensure that the way the U.S. competes with China, including the new American industrial strategy, remains bounded and focused on core national security priorities. As important will be finding ways to minimize the economic costs for allies and partners and finding ways to channel and cooperate with other governments so that these U.S. government policies expand opportunities globally. Success here will show that U.S. economic policies, which are driven by national security, need not be zero sum, and will clearly contrast with China’s increasingly protectionist measures and expansive control over its economy.

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