2017.05.31习近平的愿望

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What Xi Jinping Wants
China’s leader is determined to turn his country into “the biggest player in the history of the world.” Can he do it while avoiding a dangerous collision with America?

By Graham Allison
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Carlos Barria / Reuters)
MAY 31, 2017
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What does China’s President Xi Jinping want? Four years before Donald Trump became president, Xi became the leader of China and announced an epic vision to, in effect, “make China great again”—calling for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Xi is so convinced he will succeed in this quest that he has blatantly flouted a cardinal rule for political survival: Never state a target objective and a specific date in the same sentence. Within a month of becoming China’s leader in 2012, Xi specified deadlines for meeting each of his “Two Centennial Goals.” First, China will build a “moderately prosperous society” by doubling its 2010 per capita GDP to $10,000 by 2021, when it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. Second, it will become a “fully developed, rich, and powerful” nation by the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic in 2049. If China reaches the first goal— which it is on course to do—the IMF estimates that its economy will be 40 percent larger than that of the U.S. (measured in terms of purchasing power parity). If China meets the second target by 2049, its economy will be triple America's.

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What does China’s dramatic transformation mean for the United States and the global balance of power? Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, who before his death in 2015 was the world’s premier China-watcher, had a pointed answer about China’s stunning trajectory over the past 40 years: “The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.”

Lee’s analysis of what was happening in China, as well as the wider world, made him a sought-after strategic counselor to presidents and prime ministers on every continent—including every American head of state from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Lee spent thousands of hours in direct conversations with Chinese presidents, prime ministers, cabinet officers, and rising leaders of his “neighbor to the North.” Every Chinese leader from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping has called him “mentor,” a term of ultimate respect in Chinese culture. And Lee, who shared his insights with me for a book I co-authored in 2013, had seen up close China’s convulsions from the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in the 1960s to Deng’s capitalist pivot in the 1980s. Indeed, he had established serious working relationships with many of the people who governed China, including China’s future president, Xi Jinping.

Lee foresaw the 21st century as a “contest for supremacy in Asia.” And as Xi rose to the presidency in 2012, Lee announced to the world that this competition was accelerating. Among all foreign observers, Lee was the first to say of this largely unknown technocrat, “Watch this man.”

Many politicians and officials in Washington still pretend that China is just another big player. Lee knew Xi well, however, and understood that China’s unbounded aspiration was driven by an indomitable determination to reclaim past greatness. Ask most China scholars whether Xi and his colleagues seriously believe that China can displace the United States as the predominant power in Asia in the foreseeable future. They will duck the question with phrases like “It’s complicated ... on the one hand ... but on the other ...” When I put this question to Lee during a meeting shortly before his death, his eyes widened with incredulity, as if to ask, “Are you kidding?” He answered directly: “Of course. Why not? How could they not aspire to be number one in Asia and in time the world?”

* * *
The structural stress between a rising China and a ruling America is already severe. Decreasing the risk of a catastrophic collision neither side wants begins with a clear assessment of Beijing’s ends and means. When he took office, Xi Jinping declared his overarching ambition for China in a single phrase: “The greatest Chinese dream is the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” His “China Dream” combines prosperity and power — equal parts Theodore Roosevelt’s muscular vision of an American century and Franklin Roosevelt’s dynamic New Deal. It captures the intense yearning of a billion Chinese: to be rich, to be powerful, and to be respected. Xi exudes confidence that in his lifetime China can realize all three by sustaining its economic miracle, fostering a patriotic citizenry, and bowing to no other power in world affairs.

How will Xi “make China great again”?  After studying the man, listening to his words, and speaking to those who understand him best, I believe for Xi this means:

Returning China to the predominance it enjoyed in Asia before the West intruded;
Reestablishing control over the territories the Communist Party considers to be “greater China,” including not just Xinjiang and Tibet on the mainland, but Hong Kong and Taiwan;
Recovering its historic sphere of influence along its borders and in the adjacent seas so that others give it the deference great nations have always demanded;
Commanding the respect of other great powers in the councils of the world.
At the core of these national goals is a civilizational creed that sees China as the center of the universe. In the Chinese language, the word for China, zhong guo (中国), means “Middle Kingdom.” “Middle” refers not to the space between other, rival kingdoms, but to all that lies between heaven and earth. As Lee summarized the worldview shared by hundreds of Chinese officials who sought his advice, they “recall a world in which China was dominant and other states related to them as supplicants to a superior, as vassals that came to Beijing bearing tribute.” In this narrative, the rise of the West in recent centuries is a historical anomaly, reflecting China’s technological and military weakness when it faced dominant imperial powers during a “century of humiliation” from roughly 1839 to 1949. Xi Jinping has promised his fellow citizens: no more.

What is Xi Jinping’s program of action for restoring China to this lost position of grandeur? According to Xi’s political mentor Lee, a nation’s leader must “paint his vision of their future to his people, translate that vision into policies which he must convince the people are worth supporting, and finally galvanize them to help him in their implementation.” Having painted a bold vision of the China Dream, Xi is aggressively mobilizing supporters to execute a hugely ambitious agenda of action advancing on four related fronts.

As the primary driver of the entire venture, Xi’s first imperative in realizing the China Dream is to re-legitimize a strong Chinese Communist Party to serve as the vanguard and guardian of the Chinese state. Shortly after taking office, Xi told his Politburo colleagues that “winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the CCP’s survival or extinction.” And he bluntly warned them: “Corruption could kill the party.” Quoting Confucius, he vowed to “govern with virtue and keep order through punishments.” This was not an idle threat. Xi launched an anticorruption campaign of unprecedented scale led by his closest associate, Wang Qishan. The effort was dubbed the “tigers and flies” campaign since it promised to ensnare corrupt officials whether they were mere low-level “flies” or high-ranking “tigers.” Under Wang, 18 task forces headed by trusted lieutenants report directly to Xi. Since 2012, more than 900,000 party members have been disciplined and 42,000 expelled and prosecuted in criminal courts. Among those have been 170 high-level “tigers,” including dozens of high-ranking military officers, 18 sitting or former members of the 150-person Central Committee, and even former members of the Standing Committee.

And in contrast to Gorbachev’s glasnost—openness to ideas—Xi has demanded ideological conformity, tightening control over political discourse. At the same time, Xi has moved to cement the party’s centrality in China’s governance. Deng sought to separate party from government, and strengthen China’s state bureaucracy vis-à-vis the party. Xi has flatly rejected that idea.  Shortly after Xi took power, an op-ed in the state-run People’s Daily crystallized his position: “The key to running things well in China and realizing the China Dream lies in the party.”

Second, Xi must continue to make China wealthy again. He knows the Chinese people’s support for CCP rule still depends largely on its ability to deliver levels of economic growth no other nation has achieved. But continuing China’s extraordinary economic performance will require perpetuating a unique high-wire act. Xi is acutely wary of the middle-income trap that has ensnared many developing countries as rising wages erase their competitive edge in manufacturing, and his unambiguous promise of 6.5 percent growth per year through 2021 demands what some have described as “sustaining the unsustainable.”

However, there is general agreement about what China must do to continue growing at that pace for many years to come. The key elements are stated in China’s most recent five-year economic plan, including: accelerating the transition to domestic consumption-driven demand; restructuring or closing inefficient state-owned enterprises; strengthening the base of science and technology to advance innovation; promoting Chinese entrepreneurship; and avoiding unsustainable levels of debt.

Given the scope and ambition of Xi’s plan, most Western economists and many investors are bearish that he can deliver. But many of these economists and investors have lost money betting against China for the past 30 years. As the former chair of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, puts it: “Not all of these policies have to succeed. ... If enough of them succeed well enough, 6.5 percent growth over the next few years might not be out of reach.”

Third, Xi is making China proud again. Economic growth alone is not enough: Even as Deng’s market reforms broadened rapid economic growth after 1989, the party struggled to articulate its raison d’être when its titular communism was in name only. Why should the Chinese people allow it to govern them? The party’s answer is a renewed sense of national identity that can be widely embraced with pride among a billion Chinese.

Where once Mao’s Cultural Revolution tried to wipe out China’s ancient past and replace it with communism’s “new socialist man,” Xi has increasingly portrayed the party as the inheritor and successor to a 5,000-year-old Chinese empire brought low only by the marauding West. The phrase wuwang guochi (勿忘国耻), or “never forget our national humiliation,” has become a mantra that nurtures a patriotism grounded in victimhood and infused with a demand for payback. As the Financial Times’s former Beijing bureau chief Geoff Dyer has explained, “The Communist Party has faced a slow-burning threat to its legitimacy ever since it dumped Marx for the market.” Thus the party has evoked past humiliations at the hands of Japan and the West “to create a sense of unity that had been fracturing, and to define a Chinese identity fundamentally at odds with American modernity.”

This approach is working. During the 1990s when many Western intellectuals were celebrating the “end of history” with the apparent triumph of market-based democracies, a number of observers believed that China, too, was on a path to democratic government. Today, few in China would say that political freedoms are more important than reclaiming China’s international standing and national pride. As Lee put it pointedly, “If you believe that there is going to be a revolution of some sort in China for democracy, you are wrong. Where are the students of Tiananmen now?” He answered bluntly: “They are irrelevant. The Chinese people want a revived China.”

Finally, Xi has pledged to make China strong again. He believes that a military that is “able to fight and win wars” is essential to realizing every other component of the China Dream. “To achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation,” he has argued, “we must ensure there is unison between a prosperous country and strong military.” While all great powers build strong militaries, this “Strong Army Dream” is especially important to China as it seeks to overcome its humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.

Despite all the other challenges on his agenda, Xi is simultaneously reorganizing and rebuilding China’s armed forces in a manner that Russia’s foremost expert on the Chinese military, Andrei Kokoshin, calls “unprecedented in scale and depth.” He has cracked down on graft in the military and overhauled its internally focused organization to focus on joint warfighting operations against external enemies.

Such bureaucratic reshuffling is not usually a portentous event. But in Xi’s case it underscores Beijing’s deadly serious commitment to building a modern military that can take on and defeat all adversaries—in particular the United States. While Chinese military planners are not forecasting war, the war for which they are preparing pits China against the U.S. at sea. Xi has strengthened the naval, air, and missile forces of the People’s Liberation Army crucial to controlling the seas, while cutting 300,000 army troops and reducing the ground forces’ traditional dominance within the military.

Chinese military strategists, meanwhile, are preparing for maritime conflict with a “forward defense” strategy based on controlling the seas near China within the “first island chain,” which runs from Japan, through Taiwan, to the Philippines and the South China Sea. Fielding “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) military capabilities that threaten U.S. carriers and other capital ships, China has been steadily pushing the U.S. Navy out of its adjacent seas in case of conflict. An authoritative 2015 RAND study found that by the end of 2017 China will have an “advantage” or “approximate parity” in six of the nine areas of conventional capability that are critical in a showdown over Taiwan, and four of nine in a South China Sea conflict. It concludes that over the next five to 15 years, “Asia will witness a progressively receding frontier of U.S. dominance.”

As it slowly muscles the United States out of these waters, China is also absorbing the nations of Southeast Asia into its economic orbit and pulling in Japan and Australia as well. It has so far succeeded without a fight. But if fight it must, Xi intends China to win.

* * *

Will Xi succeed in growing China sufficiently to displace the U.S. as the world’s top economy and most powerful actor in the Western Pacific? Can he make China great again? It is obvious that there are many ways things could go badly wrong, and these extraordinary ambitions engender skepticism among most observers. But, when the question was put to Lee Kuan Yew, he assessed the odds of success as four chances in five. Neither Lee nor I would bet against Xi. As Lee said, China’s “reawakened sense of destiny is an overpowering force.”

Yet many Americans are still in denial about what China’s transformation from agrarian backwater to “the biggest player in the history of the world” means for the United States.

As a rapidly ascending China challenges America’s accustomed predominance, these two nations risk falling into a deadly trap first identified by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Writing about a war that devastated the two leading city-states of classical Greece two and a half millennia ago, he explained: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”


In 2015, The Atlantic published “The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?” In that essay I argued that this historical metaphor provides the best lens available for illuminating relations between China and the U.S. today. Since then, the concept has ignited considerable debate. Rather than face the evidence and reflect on the uncomfortable but necessary adjustments both sides might make, policy wonks and presidents alike have constructed a straw man around Thucydides’s claim about “inevitability” and then put a torch to it — arguing that war between Washington and Beijing is not predetermined. At their 2015 summit, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping discussed the trap at length. Obama emphasized that despite the structural stress created by China’s rise, “the two countries are capable of managing their disagreements.” At the same time, they acknowledged that, in Xi’s words, “should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.”

I concur: War between the U.S. and China is not inevitable. Indeed, Thucydides would agree that neither was war between Athens and Sparta. Read in context, it is clear that he meant his claim about inevitability as hyperbole: exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis. The point of Thucydides’s trap is neither fatalism nor pessimism. Instead, it points us beyond the headlines and regime rhetoric to recognize the tectonic structural stress that Beijing and Washington must master to construct a peaceful relationship.


Will the impending clash between these two great nations lead to war? Will Presidents Trump and Xi, or their successors, follow in the tragic footsteps of the leaders of Athens and Sparta or Britain and Germany? Or will they find a way to avoid war as effectively as Britain and the U.S. did a century ago, or the U.S. and the Soviet Union did through four decades of Cold War? Obviously, no one knows. We can be certain, however, that the dynamic Thucydides identified will intensify in the years ahead.

Denying Thucydides’s trap does not make it less real. Recognizing it does not mean just accepting whatever happens. We owe it to future generations to face one of history’s most brutal tendencies head on and then do everything we can to defy the odds.

This article has been adapted from Graham Allison's new book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Graham Allison is a former director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for policy and plans. He is the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?



全球
习近平的愿望
中国的领导人决心把他的国家变成 "世界历史上最大的参与者"。他能否在避免与美国发生危险碰撞的同时做到这一点？

Graham Allison报道
中国国家主席习近平与美国总统特朗普握手。
中国国家主席习近平与美国总统唐纳德-特朗普握手。(Carlos Barria / Reuters)
2017年5月31日
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中国国家主席习近平想要什么？在唐纳德-特朗普成为总统的四年前，习近平成为中国的领导人，并宣布了一个史诗般的愿景，实际上是 "让中国再次伟大"--号召 "中华民族的伟大复兴"。

习近平如此相信他将在这一追求中取得成功，以至于他公然藐视政治生存的基本规则：永远不要在同一句话中说明目标和具体日期。在2012年成为中国领导人后的一个月内，习近平为实现他的 "两个百年目标 "规定了最后期限。首先，中国将建立一个 "小康社会"，在2021年庆祝中国共产党成立100周年时，将其2010年的人均GDP翻一番，达到10,000美元。第二，到2049年人民共和国成立100周年时，它将成为一个 "充分发展、富裕和强大 "的国家。如果中国达到第一个目标--它正在实现这一目标--国际货币基金组织估计，其经济规模将比美国大40%（按购买力平价计算）。如果中国到2049年达到第二个目标，其经济规模将是美国的三倍。

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中国的戏剧性转变对美国和全球力量平衡意味着什么？新加坡的李光耀在2015年去世前是世界上首屈一指的中国观察家，他对中国在过去40年里的惊人轨迹有一个尖锐的答案。"中国对世界平衡的影响之大，使世界必须找到一个新的平衡。不可能假装这只是另一个大玩家。这是世界历史上最大的角色。"

李光耀对中国以及更广泛的世界正在发生的事情的分析，使他成为各大洲总统和总理的热门战略顾问，包括从理查德-尼克松到巴拉克-奥巴马的每一位美国国家元首。李光耀花了数千小时与中国总统、总理、内阁官员和他的 "北方邻居 "的新兴领导人进行直接对话。从邓小平到习近平的每一位中国领导人都称他为 "导师"，这在中国文化中是一个终极尊重的术语。李光耀在2013年与我合写的一本书中分享了他的见解，他近距离地看到了中国从1960年代的大跃进和文化大革命到1980年代邓小平的资本主义转折的惊涛骇浪。事实上，他已经与许多治理中国的人建立了认真的工作关系，包括中国未来的总统习近平。

李光耀预见到21世纪将是一场 "亚洲霸主之争"。而当习近平在2012年升任总统时，李光耀向世界宣布，这种竞争正在加速。在所有外国观察家中，李光耀是第一个对这个基本不为人知的技术官僚说："注意这个人。"

华盛顿的许多政治家和官员仍然假装中国只是另一个大玩家。然而，李光耀很了解习近平，他明白中国无限制的愿望是由一种不屈不挠的决心所驱动的，即重新获得过去的伟大。问问大多数中国学者，习近平和他的同事是否真的相信中国能在可预见的未来取代美国成为亚洲的主导力量。他们会用 "这很复杂......一方面......但另一方面...... "这样的短语来回避这个问题。当我在李光耀去世前不久的一次会议上向他提出这个问题时，他的眼睛瞪得大大的，似乎在问："你在开玩笑吗？" 他直接回答。"当然了。为什么不呢？他们怎么可能不渴望成为亚洲第一，并在一段时间内成为世界第一？"

* * *
一个崛起的中国和一个执政的美国之间的结构性压力已经很严重。减少双方都不希望发生的灾难性碰撞的风险，首先要明确评估北京的目的和手段。习近平上台后，用一句话宣布了他对中国的总体雄心："最伟大的中国梦是中华民族的伟大复兴。" 他的 "中国梦 "结合了繁荣和力量--相当于西奥多-罗斯福对美国世纪的肌肉愿景和富兰克林-罗斯福的动态新政。它抓住了十亿中国人的强烈渴望：致富、强大、受人尊重。习近平流露出信心，认为在他的有生之年，中国可以通过维持其经济奇迹、培养爱国公民和在世界事务中不向其他大国低头来实现这三个目标。

习近平将如何 "使中国再次伟大"？ 在研究了这个人，听了他的话，并与那些最了解他的人交谈后，我相信对习近平来说，这意味着。

让中国回到西方入侵之前在亚洲享有的主导地位。
重新建立对共产党认为是 "大中国 "的领土的控制，不仅包括大陆的新疆和西藏，还包括香港和台湾。
恢复其在边境和邻近海域的历史性势力范围，使其他国家给予其大国一贯要求的尊重。
在世界理事会中获得其他大国的尊重。
这些国家目标的核心是一个文明的信条，即把中国视为宇宙的中心。在中文中，"中国 "一词的意思是 "中等国家"。"中 "不是指其他敌对王国之间的空间，而是指天地之间的一切。正如李光耀所总结的数百名寻求他建议的中国官员的共同世界观，他们 "回忆起一个中国占主导地位的世界，其他国家与他们的关系就像对上级的祈求者，作为到北京进贡的诸侯。" 在这种叙述中，近几个世纪西方的崛起是一种历史反常现象，反映了中国在大约1839年至1949年的 "屈辱的世纪 "中面对占主导地位的帝国主义国家时的技术和军事弱点。习近平已经向他的同胞们承诺：不再有了。

习近平的行动纲领是什么，以使中国恢复这一失去的宏伟地位？根据习近平的政治导师李光耀的说法，一个国家的领导人必须 "向人民描绘他对未来的愿景，将这一愿景转化为他必须说服人民值得支持的政策，并最终激励人民帮助他实施这些政策。" 在描绘了 "中国梦 "的大胆愿景之后，习近平正积极动员支持者执行一项雄心勃勃的行动议程，并在四个相关领域取得进展。

作为整个行动的主要推动者，习近平在实现中国梦方面的首要任务是使一个强大的中国共产党重新获得合法性，成为中国国家的先锋和守护者。上任后不久，习近平告诉他的政治局同事，"赢得或失去公众支持是一个关系到中国共产党生存或灭亡的问题。" 他还直言不讳地警告他们。"腐败可能会杀死党"。他引用孔子的话，发誓要 "以德治国，以惩治为纲"。这并不是一个空洞的威胁。习近平发起了一场规模空前的反腐运动，由他最亲密的伙伴王岐山领导。这项工作被称为 "老虎和苍蝇 "运动，因为它承诺要抓捕腐败官员，无论他们是低级别的 "苍蝇 "还是高级别的 "老虎"。在王岐山的领导下，由亲信领导的18个专案组直接向习近平报告。自2012年以来，超过90万名党员受到纪律处分，4.2万人被开除，并在刑事法庭受到起诉。其中有170名高级别 "老虎"，包括几十名高级军官，18名现任或前任150人的中央委员会成员，甚至还有前常务委员会成员。

与戈尔巴乔夫的开放思想不同，习近平要求在意识形态上保持一致，加强对政治言论的控制。同时，习近平还采取行动，巩固党在中国治理中的核心地位。邓小平试图将党和政府分开，并加强中国的国家官僚机构与党的关系。习近平则断然拒绝了这一想法。 习近平上台后不久，国营《人民日报》的一篇专栏文章明确了他的立场。"办好中国的事情，实现中国梦的关键在于党。"

第二，习近平必须继续使中国再次富裕起来。他知道中国人民对中国共产党统治的支持在很大程度上仍取决于其实现其他国家没有达到的经济增长水平的能力。但是，要继续保持中国非凡的经济表现，就必须延续一种独特的高线行为。习近平对许多发展中国家陷入的中等收入陷阱非常警觉，因为工资的上涨削弱了它们在制造业方面的竞争优势，而他明确承诺到2021年每年增长6.5%，这就要求一些人将其描述为 "维持不可持续的发展"。

然而，人们普遍同意，中国必须做什么才能在未来许多年里继续以这种速度增长。中国最近的五年经济计划中提到了关键因素，包括：加快向国内消费驱动需求的转型；重组或关闭低效的国有企业；加强科技基础以推进创新；促进中国的创业精神；以及避免不可持续的债务水平。

鉴于习近平计划的范围和雄心，大多数西方经济学家和许多投资者都看淡他能否实现。但这些经济学家和投资者中的许多人在过去30年里，在与中国的对赌中都输了钱。正如里根总统的经济顾问委员会前主席马丁-费尔德斯坦所说。"并非所有这些政策都必须成功。... 如果这些政策足够成功，未来几年6.5%的增长可能并非遥不可及。"

第三，习近平正在让中国再次感到骄傲。仅有经济增长是不够的。即使邓小平的市场改革在1989年后扩大了经济的快速增长，但当其名义上的共产主义名存实亡时，该党仍在努力阐述其存在的理由。为什么中国人民要让它来管理他们？该党的答案是，在十亿中国人中，有一种可以被广泛接受的自豪的民族认同感。

毛泽东的文化大革命曾经试图抹去中国的古老历史，并以共产主义的 "社会主义新人 "取而代之，而习近平则越来越多地把党描绘成一个有5000年历史的中华帝国的继承者和继任者，只是被掠夺性的西方所压制。勿忘国耻 "这句话已经成为一个口头禅，它培养了一种以受害者身份为基础的爱国主义，并注入了一种报复的要求。正如《金融时报》前北京分社社长杰夫-戴尔（Geoff Dyer）所解释的那样，"自从共产党为市场抛弃马克思以来，它的合法性就面临着一种缓慢燃烧的威胁。因此，该党唤起了过去在日本和西方手中受到的羞辱，"以创造一种一直在分裂的团结感，并定义一个与美国现代性根本不一致的中国身份。"

这种方法正在发挥作用。在20世纪90年代，当许多西方知识分子以基于市场的民主国家的明显胜利来庆祝 "历史的终结 "时，一些观察家认为，中国也正走在通往民主政府的路上。今天，在中国很少有人会说，政治自由比重新获得中国的国际地位和民族自豪感更重要。正如李克强所言："如果你相信中国会有一场争取民主的革命，你就错了。天安门的学生现在在哪里？" 他直截了当地回答。"他们是无关紧要的。中国人民想要一个复兴的中国。"

最后，习近平承诺使中国再次强大。他认为，一支 "能打仗、打胜仗 "的军队对实现 "中国梦 "的其他每一个组成部分都至关重要。他认为，"为了实现中华民族的伟大复兴，""我们必须确保繁荣的国家和强大的军队之间的统一"。虽然所有大国都建立了强大的军队，但这个 "强军梦 "对中国特别重要，因为它要克服在外国势力手中的屈辱。

尽管他的议程上有所有其他挑战，但习近平同时正在重组和重建中国的武装部队，其方式被俄罗斯最重要的中国军事专家Andrei Kokoshin称为 "规模和深度都是前所未有的。" 他打击了军队中的贪污行为，并对其以内部为重点的组织进行了全面改革，以集中精力开展针对外部敌人的联合作战行动。

这种官僚机构的改组通常不是一个预兆事件。但在习近平的例子中，它强调了北京对建立一支能够对付和击败所有对手--特别是美国--的现代军队的严肃承诺。虽然中国的军事规划人员没有预测战争，但他们正在准备的战争是中国与美国的海上战争。习近平已经加强了对控制海洋至关重要的人民解放军的海军、空军和导弹部队，同时削减了30万陆军部队，并减少了地面部队在军队中的传统主导地位。

与此同时，中国的军事战略家们正在为海上冲突做准备，他们的 "前沿防御 "战略以控制中国附近的 "第一岛链 "海域为基础，该岛链从日本出发，经过台湾，到菲律宾和南海。中国拥有威胁美国航母和其他资本舰艇的 "反介入/区域封锁"（A2/AD）军事能力，在发生冲突时，中国一直在稳步地将美国海军赶出其邻近海域。兰德公司2015年的一项权威研究发现，到2017年底，中国将在九个常规能力领域中的六个领域拥有 "优势 "或 "大致持平"，这些领域在台湾问题的摊牌中至关重要，在南海冲突中的九个领域中拥有四个。报告的结论是，在未来5到15年内，"亚洲将目睹美国主导地位的边界逐渐消退"。

随着中国慢慢地将美国挤出这些水域，它也在吸收东南亚国家进入其经济轨道，并将日本和澳大利亚拉进来。到目前为止，它已经不战而胜了。但如果一定要打，习近平打算让中国赢。



习近平能否成功地发展中国，足以取代美国成为世界第一大经济体和西太平洋地区最强大的行为体？他能使中国再次伟大吗？很明显，有很多方法可以让事情变得很糟糕，这些非凡的野心在大多数观察家中产生了怀疑态度。但是，当这个问题摆在李光耀面前时，他评估的成功几率是五分之四。李光耀和我都不愿意和习近平打赌。正如李光耀所说，中国的 "苏醒的命运感是一种压倒性的力量"。

然而，许多美国人仍然否认中国从农业落后地区转变为 "世界历史上最大的参与者 "对美国意味着什么。

随着迅速崛起的中国挑战美国惯有的主导地位，这两个国家有可能落入一个由古希腊历史学家修昔底德首先确定的致命陷阱。他在写到两千五百年前一场摧毁古典希腊两个主要城邦的战争时解释道。"正是雅典的崛起以及由此给斯巴达带来的恐惧，使得战争不可避免。"


2015年，《大西洋》杂志发表了《修昔底德陷阱》。美国和中国是否正在走向战争？" 在那篇文章中，我认为这一历史隐喻为阐明今天中国和美国之间的关系提供了最好的视角。从那时起，这个概念引发了相当多的辩论。政策专家和总统们没有面对证据，思考双方可能做出的不舒服但必要的调整，而是围绕修昔底德关于 "不可避免性 "的说法构建了一个稻草人，然后用火把点燃它--认为华盛顿和北京之间的战争并不是预先确定的。在2015年的峰会上，巴拉克-奥巴马总统和习近平总统详细讨论了这个陷阱。奥巴马强调，尽管中国的崛起造成了结构性压力，但 "两国能够处理好他们的分歧"。同时，他们承认，用习近平的话说，"如果大国一次又一次地犯下战略误判的错误，他们可能会为自己制造这样的陷阱"。

我同意。美国和中国之间的战争不是不可避免的。事实上，修昔底德会同意，雅典和斯巴达之间的战争也不是。从上下文来看，很明显，他对不可避免性的说法是夸张的：为了强调而夸张。修昔底德的陷阱的重点既不是宿命论，也不是悲观主义。相反，它指出我们要超越头条新闻和政权辞令，认识到北京和华盛顿要构建和平关系必须掌握的结构性压力。


这两个大国之间即将发生的冲突会导致战争吗？特朗普总统和习近平总统，或他们的继任者，会不会步入雅典和斯巴达或英国和德国领导人的悲剧性后尘？或者他们会找到一种方法，像一个世纪前的英国和美国，或者美国和苏联通过四十年的冷战那样有效地避免战争吗？很显然，没有人知道。然而，我们可以肯定的是，修昔底德所指出的动力将在未来几年内加强。

否认修昔底德的陷阱并不意味着它不那么真实。认识到这一点并不意味着只接受发生的一切。为了子孙后代，我们有责任直面历史上最残酷的趋势之一，然后尽我们所能来抵制这种可能性。

本文改编自格雷厄姆-艾利森的新书《注定的战争：美国和中国能否摆脱修昔底德的陷阱？

格雷厄姆-艾利森是哈佛大学肯尼迪学院贝尔弗科学与国际事务中心的前主任，也是美国负责政策和计划的前助理国防部长。他是《注定的战争：美国和中国能否摆脱修昔底德的陷阱？