Michael Pillsbury的《百年馬拉松》

【Comment】

英文報導摘要如下：

習近平的「強國夢」，顯示將更走民族主義路線，且沿襲中國國防大學教授解放軍上校劉明福在2010年出版的暢銷書《中國夢》。

1990年代末期Pillsbury受國防部與CIA委託，對中國欺騙美國的能力進行史無前例的檢視計劃。中國欺騙與誤導美國政策制定者以取得情報、軍事、科技與經濟協助，從而幫助中國崛起。

中國計劃取代美國的時間是2049，即中國建政100週年。美國對中國許多假設，是錯的。而且低估中國鷹派的影響力，而鷹派正在引導中國的戰略思想。

原先以為商業會促使中國開放、合作與政治轉變，但這幻覺在1989年之後被質疑了。1997年，當他受邀觀察地方選舉，則徹底幻滅——候選人不准批評中共支持的對手或政策。

中國口說雙贏，卻不斷在全球領域破壞美國政策。美國不應指望中國在伊朗與朝鮮事務上的幫助。

中國在玩圍棋，就是包圍對手。也在玩戰國時代的和戰遊戲。

與季辛吉不同，Pillsbury認為中國（而不是美國）主導開放的行程。Pillsbury分析中國鷹派有獨步之處。

2003年Pillsbury獲知中國政府高官的反美言行興盛。戰國時代的句踐，隱蔽自己的動機、秘密行動且欺騙對手，直到戰略機遇出現，一舉打垮對手。很少西方人知道句踐復國的故事，但中國學者卻極端珍視其教訓，表示「若要控制全世界，要韜光養諱；若顯示意圖，就會被發現」。這就是中國正在對西方做的事情。

Pillsbury不認為中國已經取勝並成為超級大國。相反的，美國仍有12招。包括發戰更有效的經濟競爭戰略與支持更民主的改革。中國仍有溫和與改革者，但被嚴格打壓不敢出聲。

Pillsbury說這不是新冷戰，美國與中國在許多領域仍有合作空間。但要更勤快的監督美中關係，以及中國實踐國際協議的程度。

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美中接近，Michael Pillsbury說原來是美國軍方建議：防止中國被蘇聯併吞。其實，這個觀點不新。在季辛吉的書中也有呈現。

只能說外交與國防的觀點一致，所以白宮的政策轉變一拍即合。這樣，中國遊說團鄭重美國「下懷」，無堅不摧了。

Pillsbury觀察到的中國30-40年的策略是：取得西方科技、發展強力經濟、取代美國超強地位。然後就不費一兵一卒達成目標。

美國已經覺得透過經濟——將中國拉入全球經濟系統——必然導致中國的民主自由，從而真正的裂解共產集團的想法。現在證明完全不切實際了。

理解這點，當然可以體會馬改選擇山姆的心思。

百年取代美國 中國機密戰略曝光○聯合 (2015.02.04) http://udn.com/news/story/6809/684748-%E7%99%BE%E5%B9%B4%E5%8F%96%E4%BB%A3%E7%BE%8E%E5%9C%8B-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%A9%9F%E5%AF%86%E6%88%B0%E7%95%A5%E6%9B%9D%E5%85%89

中國制訂了一項百年現代化的機密戰略計畫，試圖蒙蔽美國政府，不知不覺地幫助中國實現其宏偉戰略目標。五角大廈長期研究中國的專家白邦瑞(Michael Pillsbury)在本周出版的新書「百年馬拉松」中指出，中國的長遠戰略目標，就是用中國的經濟和政治制度取代美國領導的世界秩序。

白邦瑞的中文流利，現任哈德遜研究所的中國戰略研究中心主任，自尼克森總統以來，就為歷屆美國總統提供中國政策與情報的分析報告。華盛頓自由燈塔報報導，白邦瑞說，中國領導人過去40年故意讓美國總統和高官對中國做出誤判，以為中國是離不開美國支持的友邦。但中國戰略的宗旨是占據全球經濟的主導地位，軍事發展只是其長期戰略的一部分，中國需要全面施展經濟、政治和軍事實力，才能實現全球霸權，輸出中國式的反民主制度和掠奪型的經濟模式。

白邦瑞的新作在聯邦調查局、中央情報局和國防部審查後，獲准出版，書中有已經解密的美國總統命令、中國叛逃者的證詞，和中國軍方與政界鷹派的論述，但敏感部分在審查時被刪除。

中國在天安門鎮壓發生後，受到許多西方國家制裁，但中國政府1990年代末每年在美國發動有效的遊說，以促使國會批准中國的最惠國貿易待遇。而中國的幕後遊說成功，美國做出了戰略性的重大貿易讓步。

書中舉例說，美國1970年代初實行的與中國接觸政策，其實不是尼克森總統當時的國家安全顧問季辛吉首先提出，而是中國軍方高層的建議，主要是為了對蘇聯打美國牌，以防中國被莫斯科吞併。白邦瑞也承認，為防中國被併入蘇聯的勢力範圍，當年他也強烈主張與中國的建設性接觸。

他表示，1989年六四事件後，他開始逐步放棄親近中國的主張。他說，原以為美國的援助可幫助中國實現民主，成為沒有地區和全球野心的和平力量，但這種看法不但錯誤，而且危險。白邦瑞表示，他的書就是向中國發出明確訊息：「美國已察覺到你們的戰略目的」。

'The Hundred-Year Marathon' outlines a long-term Chinese strategy to replace the US as world leader○The Christian Science Monitor (2015.02.02) http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2015/0202/The-Hundred-Year-Marathon-outlines-a-long-term-Chinese-strategy-to-replace-the-US-as-world-leader

Long considered one of the top China experts in the US government, Pillsbury says he no longer believes that China is pursuing a 'win-win' policy with the US. 

Serving in various senior national security positions in the United States government, Michael Pillsbury has been meeting for decades with Chinese military planners and civilian strategists in an effort to figure out what they think.

In the process, Pillsbury says he’s detected a long-term Chinese strategy: First, to acquire Western technology, then to develop a powerful economy, and finally – three to four decades from now – to replace the United States as the world’s superpower.  And if Chinese planners get their way, Pillsbury says, China may achieve its ultimate goal without firing a shot.

In his book The Hundred-Year Marathon, Pillsbury argues that successive US administrations have been led to believe that as China develops economically, it will embrace a more open economy and liberal democratic ideas.

But it has become increasingly obvious that under China’s President Xi Jinping, things haven’t worked out that way, and Pillsbury attempts to explain why.

In foreign policy, says Pillsbury, Xi has been promoting a military build-up and pursuing much more nationalist actions than his immediate predecessors, particularly when it comes to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Pillsbury says that Xi’s call for a “strong nation dream” can be traced back to "The China Dream," a book published in China in 2010 and written by an army colonel named Liu Mingfu.  The book was a bestseller in China.

It was there that Pillsbury first spotted a reference to “the Hundred-Year Marathon”.

Fluent in Mandarin, Pillsbury is a veteran China analyst who has served in senior positions in the Defense Department and on the staff of US Senate committees.  In the late 1990s, during the Clinton administration, he was tasked by the Defense Department and CIA to conduct what he describes as “an unprecedented examination of China’s capacity to deceive the United States”.

In the course of his work, Pillsbury says he discovered proposals formulated by Chinese hawks (ying pai), and apparently accepted by China’s leaders, to “mislead and manipulate American policymakers” with the aim of obtaining US intelligence and military, technological, and economic assistance that would contribute to China’s rise.

China’s leaders would thereby avenge what they have long regarded as a century of “past foreign humiliations” by replacing the US as the economic, military, and political leader of the world by the year 2049 – the 100th anniversary of the Communist takeover of China in 1949.

Pillsbury says that a number of assumptions about China that have long been accepted by American diplomats and scholars – and for many years by Pillsbury himself – have turned out to be false.

Making matters worse, he says, the US has “underestimated the influence of China’s hawks,” who in his view are now leading China’s strategic thinking.

As a reporter for The Washington Post in Beijing from 1985 until 1990, I should state upfront that I accepted some of those same assumptions about engagement leading to more openness and cooperation when I first arrived in China.

But any remaining illusions about commerce leading to political change that I had were shattered when the Party used the People’s Liberation Army to repress peaceful pro-democracy protests in the Beijing massacre of early June 1989.

Pillsbury says that his own wake-up call came in 1997 when he was invited to witness a local “democratic” election in a village in southern China.  In that village the “unwritten rules of the game soon became clear.”  Candidates weren’t allowed to criticize opponents favored by the Communist Party or any policy implemented by the Party.

If Pillsbury is correct in his conclusions, the United States can expect China to keep talking about “win-win” cooperation with the US while covertly undermining US foreign policy goals around the world.

As he sees it, the US should not expect significant help from China in dealing with Iran or North Korea.  According to Pillsbury, Beijing will continue to support both regimes as counters to the United States.

China for years has been playing a game that resembles wei qi, the Chinese board game that involves encircling one’s opponent, he says.

In addition to the numerous interviews and meetings that he’s conducted with Chinese military strategists, Pillsbury has had access to US intelligence, defectors, and unpublished Chinese documents.

Citing these documents and interviews, and supporting his analysis with 65 pages of footnotes, he argues that China is drawing on arts of warfare and deception dating from the country’s ancient Warring States period.

Some scholars and former US diplomats are likely to question Pillsbury’s main themes.  But it will be difficult to refute his argument entirely.  Beijing’s recent arrests of Chinese critics, journalists, and lawyers and its state-controlled media’s demonization of the West point clearly to a failure of constructive engagement.

Through the use of memoirs and oral histories, Pillsbury has also formulated a provocative counterpoint to Henry Kissinger’s version of the origins of President Nixon’s opening to China in 1971.  China, and not the United States, drove that opening process, Pillsbury says.

Pillsbury is at his best when he describes China’s military hawks, who have been dismissed by many in the past as a radical fringe group.  In the acknowledgments section of his book, Pillsbury thanks 35 Chinese “scholar-generals” for sharing their thoughts and insights even if they didn’t agree with all of his conclusions.

In 2003, Pillsbury heard that anti-Americanism was rife within senior levels of the Chinese government from a female Chinese defector whom he calls Ms. Lee.  Lee shared a vignette about the Warring States period with a group of American officials.

Between 490 and 470 BC, the story goes, Goujian, the rising challenger aspiring to rule the Chinese world, operated with stealth and secrecy, making false promises and concealing his motivations until he found the right moment to strike down the ruling hegemon or tyrant.

The heads of those two warring states were like China and America today, she said.

According to Pillsbury, few Westerners know the Goujian allegory, but when he asked Chinese scholars who held it up as valuable guidance, one of them said, “if you want to control the whole world, you better not appear as ambitious….  If you appear as having an agenda you will be revealed”.

This Ms. Lee maintained, was “exactly what China is doing with the West.”

Pillsbury doesn’t go as far as some commentators in contending that China has already won the big power game.  Instead, he argues that the US still has time to take 12 practical steps to prevent this from happening.

These steps include, among others, the development of a more effective economic competitiveness strategy and better support for the country’s pro-democracy reformers.  Moderates and reformers still exist in China, he says, but they’re keeping their heads down.  Many of them have been silenced.

Pillsbury doesn’t call for a new Cold War.  And he leaves room for continuing US cooperation with China in a number of areas.

But he does call for more diligence in monitoring the US-China relationship as well as China’s implementation of international agreements.

Despite dealing with a weighty subject, Pillsbury says everything that he wants to say within the 233 pages of this highly readable book.  It deserves to be widely read and debated.

Dan Southerland, executive editor of US-government funded Radio Free Asia, is a former Asia correspondent for the Monitor and former Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post.