【英语中国】中国：自豪与踌躇

Each time I visit China I am struck by the hesitation. The world watches in awe and, if truth be told, with considerable apprehension, as China reclaims a place as a great power. Yet those steering the country's rise betray a strange ambivalence.

In Beijing, pride jostles with insecurity; studied diffidence sits alongside brisk self-confidence. Insistence that others, particularly the US, should be properly respectful of China's new status co-exists with a nervous inwardness.

The Olympics, it has been said many times, taught China more about the world and the world more about China. That is probably true. Yet there is little sign that the success of the games will recast Beijing's global outlook. China has still to decide what sort of power it wants to be. This matters greatly to the rest of us.

The inauguration in January of a new US president promises a fresh chapter in that nation's politics. The sunny confidence in laissez faire capitalism of the Reagan era has been lost to the convulsions in financial markets. The Iraq war demands a welcome humility as to the efficacy of US military power. To my mind, though, this election also closes the curtain on the Roosevelt/Truman era. The post-war global order, shaped in America's image, is nearing the end of its natural life.

This column has argued many times that the decisions taken by the next US president will be critical in determining what replaces it: a wider, more inclusive set of international rules and institutions; or a return to great power competition. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history will hope it is the former.

The choices made in Washington are a necessary but insufficient condition for a new international architecture. The decisions taken in Beijing will be as important. There will be no more pivotal relationship in coming decades than that between the US and China. As things stand, though, America is struggling to adjust to the passing of its unipolar moment while China is reluctant to admit the implications of its rise.

Twice during recent months I have sat in on lengthy and learned discussions between western and Chinese politicians, policymakers and scholars. Most recently I attended an excellent Sino-British event sponsored by the Great Britain-China Centre and the international department of China's Communist Party.

On one level, the impulses driving Chinese policymakers seem clear enough. This is a country with a ruthless sense of narrowly defined national interest. Beijing does not eschew multilateralism per se – it understands its new-found prosperity rests on a rules-based global trading system – but it remains a jealous guardian of national sovereignty. The bit of the United Nations charter that counts above all others is the one that proscribes interference in the domestic affairs of other states.

This China, rooted in the self-confidence that comes with being the world's oldest surviving civilisation, sees no reason to take lectures from the US or Europe on its human rights record or on its political system. It eschews the universalism claimed for western democracy and resents the implication that its own political and social order is inferior. The legitimacy of the Communist Party, runs the refrain, lies in its success in lifting out of poverty hundreds of millions of its citizens.

In this frame of mind, Beijing is always exasperated with, and often angered by, demands that Tibet should be given significant autonomy, if not independence. “We solved the Tibet problem in the 1950s,” I heard one ranking official say. “The Dalai Lama left.” As for Taiwan, we should be in no doubt: Beijing will stop at nothing to prevent its independence. China's unity is inviolable.

This China defends a Westphalian view of sovereignty by refusing to put human rights at the centre of its relationships with Burma, Sudan or Zimbabwe. Non-interference is a vital source of geopolitical stability, an official told me during an earlier visit. I should ask China's small regional neighbours whether they want Beijing to imitate the US by overturning regimes deemed hostile.

Some of these arguments are tactical, of course. China has strategic reasons to prop up the regimes in Burma and North Korea, economic ones to keep close to Sudan and Zimbabwe. In any event, to demand that these countries end repression of their citizens might validate outside interference in China's affairs.

There is, though, the other China. Here, certainties are replaced by doubts and ambiguities, the desire to walk tall on the international stage by an abiding fear that if the domestic economy slows the country will fall to social and political disorder.

This China has begun to wake up to the implications of its new-found status – to the idea that the price of being a great power is closer scrutiny of its governance at home and its actions abroad. Hence, it has steered the six-party talks to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and has backed three UN sanctions resolutions aimed at dissuading Iran from building the bomb. It has shown willing to nudge, if not push, the Sudanese government over Darfur.

We should not expect too much. For all its new-found status, visitors are ever reminded that China's national income per capita is barely more than one-twentieth that of Britain's; hundreds of millions of Chinese still live on a dollar a day; safeguarding stability in a nation of 1.3bn people does not allow for the luxury of multi-party elections.

This China argues with itself, weighing where its interests collide, or coincide, with western demands that it should act as a responsible global stakeholder. It wants international approval – hence the huge investment in the Olympics – but not at the expense of domestic control. It sees popular nationalism both as a tool of diplomacy – a warning to outsiders not to push it too hard – and a hazard – things might get out of hand.

Tensions crop up too between the short term and long term. So, yes, China can see that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a strategic threat to global oil supplies; but, yes too, it wants to secure Iranian oil this year and next. Sanctions, it judges, are unlikely anyway to cool Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

My sense is that the internal debates around all these issues are more fluid and more intense than it might seem on the surface. But everyone agrees that the trajectory will depend critically on whether China sustains its economic miracle. I often hear western policymakers worry about Beijing's new-found power. But perhaps they should be more fearful of a faltering China.

每次访问中国，我都深深地感受到那种踌躇。全世界都充满敬畏(说实话，也颇为忧惧地)看着中国重新崛起为一个强国。而引领这个国家崛起的领导人，却表现出一种令人奇怪的矛盾态度。在北京，自豪感与不安全感交织在一起，刻意的谨慎与强烈的自信同时存在。中国人一方面坚称，其它国家（尤其是美国）应对中国的新地位给予应有的尊重，而同时内心却又焦虑不安。

人们说过很多遍，奥运会让中国更加了解世界，也让世界更加了解中国。这或许是对的。但几乎没有什么迹象表明，奥运会的成功举办将重塑中国政府的全球视野。中国仍需抉择，自己希望成为什么样的大国。这对我们其他人十分重要。

明年1月份美国将会有一位新总统就任，这有望给美国的政治翻开新的篇章。在金融市场的动荡之中，里根(Reagan)时代自由资本主义的乐观自信已难觅踪影。伊拉克战争则迫使美国意识到其军力并非万能。不过，在我看来，此次大选还将宣告罗斯福(Roosevelt) /杜鲁门(Truman)时代的终结。按照美国意愿建立的战后全球秩序，也即将寿终正寝。

我在本专栏多次指出，下任美国总统的决策，对于确定谁来取代当前全球秩序将非常关键：是建立一套范围更广、包容性更强的国际规则和制度，还是回归强权竞争？任何稍有历史知识的人都会希望是前者。

对于建立国际新秩序而言，美国的决策是必要的前提，但那也是不够的。中国的决策将同样重要。未来几十年中，最重要的就是中美两国之间的关系。不过，从目前来看，美国正努力适应其单极时代的终结，而中国在承认自身崛起的影响上犹豫。

近几个月，我出席了两次冗长的学术讨论，与会者有西方与中国的政客，决策者和学者。最近我出席了一场由英中协会(Great Britain-China Centre)和中共中央对外联络部(International Department, C.P.C)联合主办的中英交流活动，非常精彩。

从一定程度上讲，推动中国政策制定者的力量似乎已足够明显。中国坚定奉行狭义的国家利益。就其自身而言，中国并不排斥多边主义——它明白，其新得来的繁荣有赖于建立在规则基础上的全球贸易体系——但它仍小心地捍卫着国家主权。在《联合国宪章》中，有一条原则凌驾于其它所有原则之上，那就是禁止干涉他国内政。

这个中国有着深深的自信，这种自信源于它是世界尚存最古老的文明。中国认为，没有必要接受美国或欧洲对其人权记录或政治体制的说教。中国不理会西方民主普遍性之说，并对认为其政治和社会秩序不如西方的暗示表示愤慨。重弹一次老调，共产党执政的正统性，就在于它成功带领亿万民众摆脱了贫困。

在这种心态下，中国政府总是被西藏应高度自治（如果无法独立）的要求所激怒。我曾听一位高官表示：“我们在上世纪50年代就解决了西藏问题。达赖喇嘛离开了。”至于台湾，我们不应怀疑：中国政府会不惜一切代价阻止台湾独立。中国的统一神圣不可侵犯。

这个中国支持威斯特伐利亚主权观(Westphalian sovereignty)，拒绝将人权问题作为与缅甸、苏丹和津巴布韦交往时的核心问题。在早些时候的一次访问中，一位官员告诉我，不干涉原则是保持地缘政治稳定的一个重要根源。我应当问问中国周边地区的那些小国，它们是否希望中国像美国那样，去推翻那些被认为怀有敌意的政权。

当然，其中一些原因是策略需要。中国支持缅甸和朝鲜政权是出于战略原因，而与苏丹和津巴布韦交好则是有经济动机。在任何情况下，要求这些国家停止镇压其国民，都可能会使外部干涉中国内政合法。

可是，还有另外一个中国。在这里，疑虑和不确定取代了确然无疑，昂首走上国际舞台的渴望让位于一种挥之不去的忧虑：担心如果国内经济放缓，整个国家将陷入社会和政治动荡。

这个中国开始意识到其所处的新地位的意义——它意识到成为强国的代价，是在国内统治和国际行动方面受到更为严格的审视。因此，中国主持了试图说服朝鲜放弃核武器的六方会谈，也对联合国(UN)旨在劝阻伊朗放弃构建核威慑的三项制裁决议表示支持。中国还表现出就达尔富尔问题劝说（如果说不是推动）苏丹政府的意愿。

我们不应该有过高的期待。尽管中国地位有所提升，中国官员仍不断提醒造访中国的人士：中国人均国民收入仅为英国的十二分之一，数亿名中国人每天生活费只有1美元，在一个有着13亿人口的国家，要维护稳定，不能允许多党选举这样奢侈的制度。

这个中国在问自己，权衡自己的利益在何处与西方的要求相抵触或相符合，西方认为中国应作为一个负责任的利益相关方。中国需要国际社会的认可(因此对奥运会投入巨资)，但又不希望以对国内的控制作为代价。中国将盛行的民族主义视为一种外交工具(警告外来者不要得寸进尺)，但同时也视其为一种风险，因为它有可能使事态失控。

在短期与长期利益之间，也出现了紧张局面。所以，的确，中国知道拥有核武器的伊朗将对全球石油供应构成战略性威胁；但同样，中国也希望能确保今年和明年来自伊朗的石油供应。中国觉得，无论如何，制裁不太可能扼制伊朗政府的核雄心。

我的感觉是，围绕这些议题的国内争论比表面看来更加活跃，也更为激烈。但大家一致认为，中国的发展轨迹关键取决于它能否保持经济增长的奇迹。我经常听到西方决策者对中国国力的提升表示忧虑。但是，他们或许应该更加担心一个衰落的中国。

译者/何黎