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遏制中国的影响力操作

Nov 4, 2019 Orville Schell , Larry Diamond

纽约—美国与中国的贸易谈判步履蹒跚地迈向了不确定的结果，而世界大部对于世界两大经济体间的潜在冲突升级仍然心存疑虑。但狭隘地讨论以牙还牙、中国重商主义和知识产权偷窃并没有触及贸易战的总体意义：美国和中国正在失去避免对立的互动能力。

对美国来说，中国是一个迅速崛起的威胁——这种感觉部分来自巨大的双边贸易盈余以及肆无忌惮地捕获美国科技。但这也来自——也许这个源头更加重要——中国在亚太地区追求军事霸权，其迅速扩大的海外投资，其改变全球贸易争论格局的尝试，以及其对其他国家，包括美国本身在内施加影响的努力。

联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·赖（Christopher Wray）去年警告说，中国的这些所作所为包括用非传统行为人渗透民主机构，特别是学术界。从这个角度，赖总结道，“中国威胁”比“完全的政府威胁”还要大；这是一个“全社会威胁”。我们刚刚发布的报告《中国影响力和美国利益》（China’s Influence and American Interests）确认了这一担忧。这份报告由胡佛研究所（Hoover Institution）和亚洲学会（Asia Society）组织、我们联合主持的23人工作组完成。

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Orville Schell

Writing for PS since 1996
22 Commentaries

Orville Schell is Director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society and a co-editor of Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Engagement.

Larry Diamond

Writing for PS since 2017
2 Commentaries

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a co-editor of Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Engagement.

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j. von Hettlingen Nov 10, 2019

Orville Schell and Larry Diamond highlight China’s “influence operations” abroad, which involve infiltrating “a wide range of US institutions – from universities and think tanks to the mass media and state and local governments – as well as the Chinese-American community.” As the trade war rages on between China and the US, there is fear that the two countries might lose their “ability to interact in a manner that is anything but adversarial.”
Since China’s rise to the world’s second largest economy in 2011, accumulating huge trade surplus with the US, Americans have been criticising Chinese mercantilist policies in its global expansion in strategic areas in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. They also resent China’s “brazen efforts to capture” their technology, claiming its economic growth came at their expense. China has been accused of currency manipulation, export subsidies and other trade protection measures to improve its current account balance of payments to the detriment of its trading partners.
The authors focus on how China is deploying “non-traditional actors to infiltrate democratic institutions, especially in academia,” as part of their published report, “China’s influence and American interests.” They accuse the Communist Party of China (CPC) of promoting Chinese propaganda and influence abroad, and exploiting “the openness of Western liberal democracies to achieve its own ends.” They say the “only way to stop it is with a strategy of ‘constructive vigilance.’"
Although Russia also infiltrates other countries, its efforts focus on “electoral manipulation through disinformation,” according to the authors. China’s operations centre on “narratives about itself,” seeking to “shape how the world views China,” trivialising its territorial ambition in the South China Sea, the “repression of religious minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, pervasive surveillance of its citizens, and resistance to democratic reform in Hong Kong.”
Christopher Wray, FBI director speaks of China posing a threat not only to the US government, but also to its society, “burrowing into the soft tissue of American democracy.”
The US intelligence has been following closely the activities of the “United Front,” a CPC organisation designed to build broad-based domestic and international political coalitions to achieve party objectives. The CPC already controls the Chinese public at home and its social activities, its “United Front” targets members of the Chinese diaspora and promotes nationalism and patriotism, reminding them of their loyalty to “motherland,” even if they are not Chinese citizens. Uighurs and Tibetans living abroad have complained about Beijing’s intimidation and threats: “Think of your family” at home etc.
China’s Belt-and-Road infrastructure project across Asia and parts of Europe, its rapidly growing overseas investments, its attempts to reshape global policy debates, and its efforts to exert influence over other countries, compeling them to toe Beijing’s “rhetorical line and support its interests,” all aim to fulfil President Xi Jinping’s Chinese dream, a dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, to counter American and Western influences.
In order not to deepen the Sino-US conflict and further aggravate the bilateral relations, the authors propose that US institutions “must demand transparency in their dealings with prospective Chinese partners, including full disclosure of any ties they have to the Chinese state, the CPC, or the military.” They must also call for “more reciprocity” in dealing with their Chinese counterparts.
The authors also urge Americans to avoid “triggering racially driven attacks on Chinese in America,” seeing any Chinese as “a potential agent,” and upholding their “values of fairness and equality.” In September 2015, tens of thousands of Malaysian pro-government “red shirt” protestors thronged Kuala Lampur’s Chinatown, where they shouted slogans denouncing the country’s ethnic Chinese community and leaders.
Although China’s ambition to challenge the US and vie for global power and influence is reality, the two countries do not need to “maintain a dangerously adversarial relationship.” In fact they “should pursue a policy of constructive engagement – one that keeps the competition fair, enables mutually beneficial cooperation, and supports peace between the world’s two largest powers.”
The question is whether the two countries are going to do enough to avoid the Thucydides trap, in which a rising power threatens a ruling power, often with war as a result. It needs two to tango, requiring concessions from both sides to avoid a conflict.
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Paul Friesen Nov 5, 2019

This scare-mongering stuff is all too likely to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. It feeds the growing rift between societies.

I am certainly not supportive of everything China does, including its aggressive posture in the South China Sea, its suppression of Uighur culture, or its attempts to control what people say about such things. But China has, so far, shown no tendency to invade small countries on the other side of the world and leave them in ruin. I don't see it as more dangerous than the U.S.
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Petey Bee Nov 5, 2019

Checked under my couch cushions. Wouldn't you know, there were telltale signs that commies had been lurking there. We must be vigilant.
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