《东亚论坛》6月5日刊登新加坡国立大学教授、高级顾问、前外交官马凯硕文章《“黄祸论”再生，刺激西方恐惧中国崛起》
文：Kishore Mahbubani
译：王紫霄
人们在做地缘政治判断时，靠的仅仅是冷静理性的分析吗？如果情绪影响了我们的判断，我们对此意识得到吗？还是说它是在潜意识层面里起作用？如果诚实地回答这些问题，就必须承认：非理性因素总会发挥某种作用。所以，西方媒体对美国国务院政策规划主任凯润•斯金纳的污蔑是错误的，她指出在中美地缘政治竞争中，种族嫌恶是发挥作用的因素之一。
斯金纳没有说错：“苏联以及那场竞争（译注：指美苏冷战），从某种角度来看是西方大家庭的内斗。”而当谈及中美竞争时，她说：“这是我们首次面对非高加索人种的强国竞争者。”中国不是高加索人种的国家，这本就是地缘政治竞争的一个因素，而且它或许也能解释为什么西方国家在情感上对中国崛起反应如此激烈。
就拿中美之间当前的贸易争端来说，批评中国的人宣称中国窃取了知识产权，偶尔也会欺负美国公司，迫使它们共享技术，这种批评当然有它理性和正确的一面，但真正冷静理性的描述应该加上一句，中国作为一个新兴经济体有这样的行为很正常。
在美国经济处于近似中国今天的发展阶段时，它也窃取知识产权，特别是从英国偷。还有一点也同样重要，那就是美国当年既然同意中国以“发展中国家”的身份加入世贸组织，就表示它认可发达国家在世贸组织知识产权协议之下，有“义务”鼓励本国公司向欠发达国家传授技术。不久前，世界银行前经济学家黄育川曾在《纽约时报》上撰文指出这一点。
西方把中国看作一个新兴强国，但大多数此类描述却失之偏颇。中国崛起是多维度的，西方倾向于突出渲染其中负面的东西，省略其正面的东西。2018年10月4日，美国副总统迈克•彭斯发表了关于中国的综合性讲话，他说：“在过去的17年里，中国的国内生产总值增长了九倍，变成了世界第二大经济体。（中国）之所以能取得这项成就，主要靠美国在华投资的推动。”这种说法在事实上站不住脚。推动中国走向经济成功的力量，主要是中华民族的复兴，而不是美国的投资。
尽管华盛顿自诩为一个冷静理性的战略思想中心，但如此片面的讲话竟然没有自由派媒体站出来批评。相反，许多人甚至为美国副总统叫好，因为他攻击了中国。
当前恶毒的反华舆论环境不禁令人回忆起上世纪80年代中期西方媒体对日本的凶狠攻击。西方对黄种人的不信任感再次浮出水面。正如美国前大使查斯•弗里曼（傅立民）在不久前的讲话里所说：“很多美国人在看待中国时，下意识地将一些印象拼凑在一起，包括阴险的傅满洲博士；上世纪80年代在工业、金融领域对霸主美国构成挑战的日本；以及一种认为中国威胁美国生存的恐华症，堪比当年引发反华工和排华法案的情形。”
美国人民需要扪心自问，自己对中国崛起的反应有多少来自清醒理性的分析，又有多少源于对非白人文明的强烈不适感。由于理智和情感的碰撞与斗争发生在人的潜意识深处，我们可能永远无法得到真实的答案。尽管如此，我们仍然要感谢凯润•斯金纳，因为是她提醒我们注意潜意识在其中发挥了作用。现在是时候坦诚地谈论“黄祸论”在中美关系里扮演的角色了。弗洛伊德告诉我们，对待潜意识里的恐惧最好的办法，就是让其暴露在光天化日之下，然后解决它。
A ‘yellow peril’ revival fuelling Western fears of China’s rise
Do we arrive at geopolitical judgements from only cool, hard-headed, rational analysis? If emotions influence our judgements, are these conscious emotions or do they operate at the level of our subterranean subconscious? Any honest answer to these questions would admit that non-rational factors always play a role. This is why it was wrong for Western media to vilify Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department, for naming racial discomfort as a factor at play in the emerging geopolitical contest between the United States and China.
Skinner was correct in saying that ‘the Soviet Union and that competition, in a way it was a fight within the Western family’. Referring to the contest with China, she said: ‘it’s the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian’. That China is not Caucasian is a factor in the geopolitical contest and it may also explain strong emotional reactions in Western countries to China’s rise.
Take the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China as an example. Critics of China are rational and correct when they state that China has stolen intellectual property and occasionally bullied US firms into sharing their technology. But a calm, rational description of China’s behaviour would also add that such behaviour is normal for an emerging economy.
The United States also stole intellectual property, especially from the British, at a similar stage of its economic development. Equally important, when the United States agreed to admit China into the WTO as a ‘developing country’, it agreed that ‘under the WTO’s agreements on intellectual property, developed countries are under “the obligation” to provide incentives to their companies to transfer technology to less developed countries’. This is a point that Yukon Huang, a former World Bank economist, has pointed out.
Most Western portrayals of China’s emergence as a great power lack balance. They tend to highlight negative dimensions of China’s rise but omit the positive dimensions. When US Vice President Mike Pence gave a comprehensive speech on China on 4 October 2018, he said: ‘Over the past 17 years, China’s GDP has grown nine-fold; it’s become the second-largest economy in the world. Much of this success was driven by American investment in China’. This is a factually incorrect statement. China’s economic success has been primarily driven by the rejuvenation of the Chinese people, not US investment.
Though Washington prides itself as a centre of calm and rational strategic thinking, such an unbalanced speech was not attacked in the liberal media. Instead, many cheered the US Vice President for attacking China.
This virulent anti-China atmosphere is reminiscent of the mid-1980s when Western media attacked Japan ferociously. The distrust of yellow-skinned people has resurfaced again. As former US ambassador Chas Freeman has observed: ‘In their views of China, many Americans now appear subconsciously to have combined images of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Japan’s unnerving 1980s challenge to US industrial and financial primacy, and a sense of existential threat analogous to the Sinophobia that inspired the Anti-Coolie and Chinese Exclusion Acts’.
The people of the United States need to question how much of their reactions to China’s rise result from hard-headed rational analysis and how much are a result of deep discomforts with a non-Caucasian civilisation. We may never know the real answer as these titanic struggles between reason and emotion are probably playing out in deep subconscious terrains. Still, we should thank Kiron Skinner for alluding to the fact that such subconscious dimensions are at play here. The time has come for an honest discussion of the ‘yellow peril’ dimension in US–China relations. As Freud taught us, the best way to deal with our subconscious fears is to surface them and deal with them.
(End)
转自官方翻译
