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美国承认：正研究在中国领土上与中国交战
美国《国家利益》杂志网站10月19日文章，原题：中国综合征 中华人民共和国不久前庆祝其建国60周年，纪念昔日贫穷的农耕社会迅速向工业大国的惊人转变。但最令美国许多决策者担忧的不是经济而是军事安全。
尽管中国不久前的阅兵式场面壮观，但北京的军力仍远远落后于美国。美军的训练、装备和备战均优于中国军队。这样看来，谈论中国在近期、中期所构成的安全威胁近乎不着边际。但这并不意味着北京不会给华盛顿带来挑战。中国很快将威胁到美国在东亚的主导地位。
前五角大楼官员查斯·弗里曼认为，中国“无意在美国境内交战，但我们做了许多策划，研究如何在他们的领土上跟他们作战。”但是，拥有攻击中国的能力并不等于能抵御来自全方位的挑战。随着华盛顿后冷战优势地位的削弱，美国代表别国介入的难度将大为增加。
目前美国的安全保障似乎是免费午餐。华盛顿只需威胁发动战争，潜在对手估计都会退缩。但中国打造的军力能阻遏美国插手。北京不具备击败美国的能力，但中国甚至无需达到跟美军势均力敌，仅需制造足够的风险就可以防止华盛顿使用其优势兵力。
为了应对未来美国可能的干预，中国正在建设足以防止华盛顿使用核恫吓的核力量，研发可击沉美国航母的导弹和潜艇，及打造可使美国卫星失灵的不对称作战能力。用美国企业研究所丹尼尔·布鲁门撒尔的话来说，最终结果将是提高“我们进入地区保护盟友和协助维和的代价”。
这种代价已经在上升。如路透社就曾报道，“美国海军战略家担心中国可能研发一种反舰弹道导弹，迫使美国航母在台海爆发战事时远离战场。”
华盛顿有至关重要的利益需要保护，但并非所有利益都至关重要。保卫美国的领土、自由和人民是必须的，确保美国在半个地球以外的霸主地位则不然。以可接受的代价从事后者现在变得越来越困难。中国凭借投入只有美国防务预算一小部分的资金，就能阻遏美国干预反对中国。要制服这股阻力，美国将不得不投入它所承受不起的巨资。要求美国人为保卫自己国家而牺牲是一回事，要求美国付出更高财力保护人口众多、繁荣发达的盟国则完全是另一回事。特别是考虑到，中国的财富和影响力日益增加，它不太可能甘于退却，接受美国的永久霸权。
随着中国不断前进，五角大楼认为美国将密切关注进展并相应调整政策。但是，最终的调整应是缩小美国的国际野心，而非扩大军费。当奥巴马寻求改善华盛顿与北京的关系之际，美国应以防御取代控制作为外交政策的核心。▲（作者道格·班多，汪析译）
The China Syndrome
by Doug Bandow
10.19.2009
When President Barack Obama visits the People’s Republic of China (PRC) next month, he hopes to expand the military relationship between the two nations. The PRC recently celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, marking the amazing transformation of a once impoverished agrarian society which is fast becoming an industrial giant. But it is not economics that most worries many U.S. policy makers. It is military security.
For most of the twentieth century, China was an international nullity. The sordid remains of a once proud imperial court were pushed overboard by a nationalist revolution, but the result was divided warlord rule rather than a modern democratic state. Decades of conflict ensued among the murderous Japanese invaders, incompetent and corrupt nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek, and brutal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, headed by Mao Zedong. The new regime’s international influence was limited. Mao’s bizarre economic theories and bitter political feuds convulsed party, state, and people. Once Beijing fell out with the Soviet Union, China’s foreign reach shrank even further.
But the PRC’s potential remained. The nation possessed the world’s largest population and its people were entrepreneurial successes around the world. China boasted an ancient and proud civilization which once had dominated East Asia. All that was necessary was to release China’s people from the strictures of totalitarian communism. Mao’s death more than thirty years ago began that process.
Today the PRC is a dramatically different country. Hundreds of millions of people have moved out of immiserating poverty. Private businesses have proliferated. An independent sector has arisen. Although the authorities maintain the CCP’s political monopoly, other aspects of the once totalitarian system have weakened: even religious liberty has expanded, despite continuing persecution.
But Beijing’s growth poses a significant challenge. The economic benefits of China’s integration into the international trading system have been enormous. However, the PRC is presenting an alternative authoritarian model rather than joining the democratic West. And Beijing increasingly is asserting itself—and building a military to match.
The Pentagon annually issues a report on Chinese military outlays. Although the Department of Defense has eschewed alarmism, its latest publication noted: “much uncertainty surrounds China’s future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used.” The latest National Intelligence Strategy warned that China’s “increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization are among the facts making it a complex challenge.”
Yet however impressive the PRC’s recent military parade—involving 8,000 personnel and 151 planes—Beijing remains far behind the United States. Washington starts at a much higher base. The American armed forces are the most capable on earth. U.S. ground forces are better trained, equipped, and prepared than those of China.
Washington’s nuclear arsenal is far larger and more sophisticated. U.S. air power is without peer. America possesses eleven carrier groups compared to none for Beijing.
Nor will it be easy for China to catch up. Especially since PRC military outlays remain far behind those of America. U.S. defense spending in 2009 (the fiscal year ended September 30) ran roughly $700 billion. That’s about seven times estimated Chinese expenditures. Subtract war outlays and the U.S. government still devotes roughly five times as much to the military as does Beijing. Even if the latter accelerates its military modernization, it will take years if not decades to match America’s outlays, let alone move into the lead.
Thus, to talk about China as a security threat in the near- to mid-term verges on the bizarre. That doesn’t mean Beijing poses no challenge to the U.S. government. The PRC will soon threaten American domination of East Asia.
The real issue is America’s ability to attack the PRC. Observes former–Pentagon official Chas Freeman, the Chinese “have no intentions of fighting a war in the United States, but we have done a lot of planning about fighting them on their territory.”
But possessing the ability to attack China at will is not the same as the ability to defend America against all comers. The latter is the military’s central mission. The former is convenient, not essential, and mostly benefits America’s friends and allies rather than America. As Washington’s post–Cold War dominance ebbs, it will be much harder for the United States to intervene on behalf of other nations.
Today America’s security guarantees appear to offer a free lunch. Washington need merely threaten to go to war, and any potential adversary is expected to back off. But China is creating a military that can deter U.S. intervention.
Beijing doesn’t have to be able to defeat America. The former doesn’t even have to match the U.S. military. China merely need create sufficient risk to prevent Washington from using its superior forces. There has, for instance, been near hysteria in some circles about the possibility that Beijing might equip one carrier. Notes Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution: “the military dynamic in the Pacific is changing. But it is not because the Chinese may one day gain a small number of their own, far-worse aircraft carriers. It is what they are planning to do to overcome our own aircraft carriers and other traditional strengths.”
To forestall American intervention, the PRC is developing nuclear force sufficient to prevent Washington from attempting nuclear coercion, an arsenal of missiles and subs to sink U.S. carriers, and asymmetrical warfare capabilities to blind American satellites and fry American electronic systems. The ultimate result, in the words of Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, will be to raise “the costs to us of accessing the region to defend our allies and help keep the peace.”
That price already is rising. For instance, Reuters reports: “American naval strategists are concerned that China may have developed an anti-ship ballistic missile, a Dongfeng 21-D, that could force U.S. aircraft carriers to keep their distance in the event of an attack on self-ruled Taiwan.” Similarly, notes the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, “China is very aggressive in the cyber-world.” To acquire these capabilities Beijing need spend far less than Washington will have to spend to overcome China’s growing capabilities.
But a U.S. retreat need not leave America’s friends helpless. Rather, they should do much more on their own behalf. For instance, though current bilateral relations have been improving, Taiwan is the most likely target of an attempt at Chinese coercion. But Taipei need not sit naked next to its big neighbor. Taiwanese Prime Minister Wu Den-yih recently observed: “Taiwan needs to ensure it has strong defense (against China), so it is necessary to continue to procure weapons to achieve that goal.” The United States should fulfill its promises to sell Taiwan the necessary weapons.
Japan, with an economy that remains larger (on an exchange rate basis, at least) than that of the PRC, could do far more. In recent years Tokyo has been adopting a tougher stance towards Beijing. With a new party taking power, the Japanese government has a unique opportunity to reconsider Japanese foreign policy. The Democratic Party of Japan appears inclined to tilt more towards the PRC, but a shift in U.S. policy might change the DPJ’s attitude. Paul Giarra and Michael Green, of the group Global Strategies & Transformation and the Center for Strategic and International Relations, respectively, recently observed: “U.S. officials will have to lay out constructive thinking in Tokyo about how to add more capability in the U.S.-Japan alliance. The U.S. should have serious talks with its allies about gaps in strategic defenses caused by the Chinese military’s build-up.”
But these negotiations should emphasize devolution. The U.S. should suggest that Tokyo consider its options in a world in which Washington no longer maintains bases, troops, and fleets on station to fight for the security of prosperous, populous nations that have grown used to being subsidized and protected by America.
So, too, South Korea. The Republic of Korea (ROK) enjoys about forty times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea. As the ROK looks beyond the Korean peninsula, it should work with Japan and the ASEAN states to create an environment which encourages the PRC to rise peacefully, as Beijing has promised. Historically China has been cautiously assertive, not recklessly aggressive. The better armed and more willing to cooperate with their neighbors, the more likely America’s friends will be to deter conflict—without relying on the U.S.
The outcome of the twenty-first century depends much on the nature of the relationship between the globe’s superpower, the United States, and the globe’s likely next superpower, China. America’s rise transformed the international order without causing world conflict, while Germany’s ascent triggered two global conflagrations. Will the existing international order—and particularly the United States—successfully accommodate the PRC’s growing influence?
Washington has vital interests to protect, but not all of its interests are vital. Defending American territory, liberties and people at home is essential; ensuring dominant American influence half a world away is not. And doing the latter at acceptable cost will grow ever more difficult. By spending a fraction of America’s defense budget Beijing is constructing a military able to deter U.S. intervention against China. To overcome this force Washington will have to spend far more, money which it does not have. It is one thing to ask the American people to sacrifice to defend their own nation. It is quite another to demand ever higher financial exactions to protect populous and prosperous allied states. Especially since an increasingly wealthy and influential China is unlikely to retreat gracefully and accept perpetual U.S. hegemony.
With China on the move, DoD observes that “The United States continues to work with our allies and friends in the region to monitor these developments and adjust our policies accordingly.” But the resulting policy adjustment should be to reduce America’s international ambitions rather than increase America’s military spending. Even as President Obama seeks to improve Washington’s relations with the PRC, the United States should replace dominance with defense as the core of its foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire (Xulon Press).
美国承认：正研究在中国领土上与中国交战
美国《国家利益》杂志网站10月19日文章，原题：中国综合征 中华人民共和国不久前庆祝其建国60周年，纪念昔日贫穷的农耕社会迅速向工业大国的惊人转变。但最令美国许多决策者担忧的不是经济而是军事安全。
尽管中国不久前的阅兵式场面壮观，但北京的军力仍远远落后于美国。美军的训练、装备和备战均优于中国军队。这样看来，谈论中国在近期、中期所构成的安全威胁近乎不着边际。但这并不意味着北京不会给华盛顿带来挑战。中国很快将威胁到美国在东亚的主导地位。
前五角大楼官员查斯·弗里曼认为，中国“无意在美国境内交战，但我们做了许多策划，研究如何在他们的领土上跟他们作战。”但是，拥有攻击中国的能力并不等于能抵御来自全方位的挑战。随着华盛顿后冷战优势地位的削弱，美国代表别国介入的难度将大为增加。
目前美国的安全保障似乎是免费午餐。华盛顿只需威胁发动战争，潜在对手估计都会退缩。但中国打造的军力能阻遏美国插手。北京不具备击败美国的能力，但中国甚至无需达到跟美军势均力敌，仅需制造足够的风险就可以防止华盛顿使用其优势兵力。
为了应对未来美国可能的干预，中国正在建设足以防止华盛顿使用核恫吓的核力量，研发可击沉美国航母的导弹和潜艇，及打造可使美国卫星失灵的不对称作战能力。用美国企业研究所丹尼尔·布鲁门撒尔的话来说，最终结果将是提高“我们进入地区保护盟友和协助维和的代价”。
这种代价已经在上升。如路透社就曾报道，“美国海军战略家担心中国可能研发一种反舰弹道导弹，迫使美国航母在台海爆发战事时远离战场。”
华盛顿有至关重要的利益需要保护，但并非所有利益都至关重要。保卫美国的领土、自由和人民是必须的，确保美国在半个地球以外的霸主地位则不然。以可接受的代价从事后者现在变得越来越困难。中国凭借投入只有美国防务预算一小部分的资金，就能阻遏美国干预反对中国。要制服这股阻力，美国将不得不投入它所承受不起的巨资。要求美国人为保卫自己国家而牺牲是一回事，要求美国付出更高财力保护人口众多、繁荣发达的盟国则完全是另一回事。特别是考虑到，中国的财富和影响力日益增加，它不太可能甘于退却，接受美国的永久霸权。
随着中国不断前进，五角大楼认为美国将密切关注进展并相应调整政策。但是，最终的调整应是缩小美国的国际野心，而非扩大军费。当奥巴马寻求改善华盛顿与北京的关系之际，美国应以防御取代控制作为外交政策的核心。▲（作者道格·班多，汪析译）
The China Syndrome
by Doug Bandow
10.19.2009
When President Barack Obama visits the People’s Republic of China (PRC) next month, he hopes to expand the military relationship between the two nations. The PRC recently celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, marking the amazing transformation of a once impoverished agrarian society which is fast becoming an industrial giant. But it is not economics that most worries many U.S. policy makers. It is military security.
For most of the twentieth century, China was an international nullity. The sordid remains of a once proud imperial court were pushed overboard by a nationalist revolution, but the result was divided warlord rule rather than a modern democratic state. Decades of conflict ensued among the murderous Japanese invaders, incompetent and corrupt nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek, and brutal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, headed by Mao Zedong. The new regime’s international influence was limited. Mao’s bizarre economic theories and bitter political feuds convulsed party, state, and people. Once Beijing fell out with the Soviet Union, China’s foreign reach shrank even further.
But the PRC’s potential remained. The nation possessed the world’s largest population and its people were entrepreneurial successes around the world. China boasted an ancient and proud civilization which once had dominated East Asia. All that was necessary was to release China’s people from the strictures of totalitarian communism. Mao’s death more than thirty years ago began that process.
Today the PRC is a dramatically different country. Hundreds of millions of people have moved out of immiserating poverty. Private businesses have proliferated. An independent sector has arisen. Although the authorities maintain the CCP’s political monopoly, other aspects of the once totalitarian system have weakened: even religious liberty has expanded, despite continuing persecution.
But Beijing’s growth poses a significant challenge. The economic benefits of China’s integration into the international trading system have been enormous. However, the PRC is presenting an alternative authoritarian model rather than joining the democratic West. And Beijing increasingly is asserting itself—and building a military to match.
The Pentagon annually issues a report on Chinese military outlays. Although the Department of Defense has eschewed alarmism, its latest publication noted: “much uncertainty surrounds China’s future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used.” The latest National Intelligence Strategy warned that China’s “increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization are among the facts making it a complex challenge.”
Yet however impressive the PRC’s recent military parade—involving 8,000 personnel and 151 planes—Beijing remains far behind the United States. Washington starts at a much higher base. The American armed forces are the most capable on earth. U.S. ground forces are better trained, equipped, and prepared than those of China.
Washington’s nuclear arsenal is far larger and more sophisticated. U.S. air power is without peer. America possesses eleven carrier groups compared to none for Beijing.
Nor will it be easy for China to catch up. Especially since PRC military outlays remain far behind those of America. U.S. defense spending in 2009 (the fiscal year ended September 30) ran roughly $700 billion. That’s about seven times estimated Chinese expenditures. Subtract war outlays and the U.S. government still devotes roughly five times as much to the military as does Beijing. Even if the latter accelerates its military modernization, it will take years if not decades to match America’s outlays, let alone move into the lead.
Thus, to talk about China as a security threat in the near- to mid-term verges on the bizarre. That doesn’t mean Beijing poses no challenge to the U.S. government. The PRC will soon threaten American domination of East Asia.
The real issue is America’s ability to attack the PRC. Observes former–Pentagon official Chas Freeman, the Chinese “have no intentions of fighting a war in the United States, but we have done a lot of planning about fighting them on their territory.”
But possessing the ability to attack China at will is not the same as the ability to defend America against all comers. The latter is the military’s central mission. The former is convenient, not essential, and mostly benefits America’s friends and allies rather than America. As Washington’s post–Cold War dominance ebbs, it will be much harder for the United States to intervene on behalf of other nations.
Today America’s security guarantees appear to offer a free lunch. Washington need merely threaten to go to war, and any potential adversary is expected to back off. But China is creating a military that can deter U.S. intervention.
Beijing doesn’t have to be able to defeat America. The former doesn’t even have to match the U.S. military. China merely need create sufficient risk to prevent Washington from using its superior forces. There has, for instance, been near hysteria in some circles about the possibility that Beijing might equip one carrier. Notes Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution: “the military dynamic in the Pacific is changing. But it is not because the Chinese may one day gain a small number of their own, far-worse aircraft carriers. It is what they are planning to do to overcome our own aircraft carriers and other traditional strengths.”
To forestall American intervention, the PRC is developing nuclear force sufficient to prevent Washington from attempting nuclear coercion, an arsenal of missiles and subs to sink U.S. carriers, and asymmetrical warfare capabilities to blind American satellites and fry American electronic systems. The ultimate result, in the words of Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, will be to raise “the costs to us of accessing the region to defend our allies and help keep the peace.”
That price already is rising. For instance, Reuters reports: “American naval strategists are concerned that China may have developed an anti-ship ballistic missile, a Dongfeng 21-D, that could force U.S. aircraft carriers to keep their distance in the event of an attack on self-ruled Taiwan.” Similarly, notes the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, “China is very aggressive in the cyber-world.” To acquire these capabilities Beijing need spend far less than Washington will have to spend to overcome China’s growing capabilities.
But a U.S. retreat need not leave America’s friends helpless. Rather, they should do much more on their own behalf. For instance, though current bilateral relations have been improving, Taiwan is the most likely target of an attempt at Chinese coercion. But Taipei need not sit naked next to its big neighbor. Taiwanese Prime Minister Wu Den-yih recently observed: “Taiwan needs to ensure it has strong defense (against China), so it is necessary to continue to procure weapons to achieve that goal.” The United States should fulfill its promises to sell Taiwan the necessary weapons.
Japan, with an economy that remains larger (on an exchange rate basis, at least) than that of the PRC, could do far more. In recent years Tokyo has been adopting a tougher stance towards Beijing. With a new party taking power, the Japanese government has a unique opportunity to reconsider Japanese foreign policy. The Democratic Party of Japan appears inclined to tilt more towards the PRC, but a shift in U.S. policy might change the DPJ’s attitude. Paul Giarra and Michael Green, of the group Global Strategies & Transformation and the Center for Strategic and International Relations, respectively, recently observed: “U.S. officials will have to lay out constructive thinking in Tokyo about how to add more capability in the U.S.-Japan alliance. The U.S. should have serious talks with its allies about gaps in strategic defenses caused by the Chinese military’s build-up.”
But these negotiations should emphasize devolution. The U.S. should suggest that Tokyo consider its options in a world in which Washington no longer maintains bases, troops, and fleets on station to fight for the security of prosperous, populous nations that have grown used to being subsidized and protected by America.
So, too, South Korea. The Republic of Korea (ROK) enjoys about forty times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea. As the ROK looks beyond the Korean peninsula, it should work with Japan and the ASEAN states to create an environment which encourages the PRC to rise peacefully, as Beijing has promised. Historically China has been cautiously assertive, not recklessly aggressive. The better armed and more willing to cooperate with their neighbors, the more likely America’s friends will be to deter conflict—without relying on the U.S.
The outcome of the twenty-first century depends much on the nature of the relationship between the globe’s superpower, the United States, and the globe’s likely next superpower, China. America’s rise transformed the international order without causing world conflict, while Germany’s ascent triggered two global conflagrations. Will the existing international order—and particularly the United States—successfully accommodate the PRC’s growing influence?
Washington has vital interests to protect, but not all of its interests are vital. Defending American territory, liberties and people at home is essential; ensuring dominant American influence half a world away is not. And doing the latter at acceptable cost will grow ever more difficult. By spending a fraction of America’s defense budget Beijing is constructing a military able to deter U.S. intervention against China. To overcome this force Washington will have to spend far more, money which it does not have. It is one thing to ask the American people to sacrifice to defend their own nation. It is quite another to demand ever higher financial exactions to protect populous and prosperous allied states. Especially since an increasingly wealthy and influential China is unlikely to retreat gracefully and accept perpetual U.S. hegemony.
With China on the move, DoD observes that “The United States continues to work with our allies and friends in the region to monitor these developments and adjust our policies accordingly.” But the resulting policy adjustment should be to reduce America’s international ambitions rather than increase America’s military spending. Even as President Obama seeks to improve Washington’s relations with the PRC, the United States should replace dominance with defense as the core of its foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire (Xulon Press).
