China should be a concern but not an obsession
To those on the receiving end, it sometimes seems as if the US foreign policy machine deserves the gibe once directed at Gerald Ford, the president who “couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time”. Since September 11 2001, three years of monomania about Islamic terror have reinforced the notion in foreign capitals that the US is incapable of focusing on two overseas issues at once.
That has changed since the start of President George W. Bush's second term in January. Washington has discovered or rather, rediscovered another international obsession besides the Middle East: the rising power of China.
US spymasters, admirals and members of Congress are fretting noisily about the modernisation of the Chinese navy and the threat to Taiwan. The Pentagon is reinforcing ties with Japan, the main US ally in Asia, and improving battlefield communications with the Taiwanese military.
The commerce department and the Treasury are worrying about China's trade surpluses with the US and the interdependence of the two economies. Beijing's accumulation of more than $600bn (￡313.3bn) of foreign reserves, much of it in US Treasury bills, has left the US deeply in debt to China.
At the state department, there is a drive to re-engage with Asia and counter the growing regional influence of Beijing resulting from China's economic growth. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, this week began a tour of Asia's great powers, including India, China and Japan. In the words of an Asian ambassador to the United Nations, the US is making a “course correction” as it shifts some attention away from terrorism towards larger strategic issues, such as the relationship with China. The need to engage reflects the commercial, economic and strategic realities of China's rising power.
This renewed interest in Asia is overdue and is welcomed by Asian experts in Washington as well as by America's neglected friends in south-east Asia. Even at the height of the US invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon and state department officials watching Asia were alarmed by the way China and North Korea took advantage of Mr Bush's single-minded attention to Saddam Hussein.
In retrospect, it needed a curious sense of priorities to spend so much blood and money on countering an Iraqi nuclear threat that turned out not to exist, while allowing North Korea to proceed with the development of real nuclear weapons. It was equally odd to give China's authoritarian leaders free rein simply because they presented themselves as allies in the war on terror.
China, hungry for oil and other resources to feed its industrial revolution, has undoubtedly been extending its influence in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Some of its diplomacy is clumsy but, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it wields a veto and is prepared to risk US anger by using it to protect Chinese oil interests in Iran and Sudan.
Before Mr Bush was elected in 2000 and before terrorism came to dominate the US agenda, Mr Bush and Ms Rice identified China as a “strategic competitor”. Broadly speaking, they were right. China is a future superpower.
But there is a risk that the US will lurch from one extreme to the other. Just as it was wrong to ignore China and east Asia for the last few years, it would be foolish to be overawed by China's power or listen too obsessively to the mutterings about the “China threat” now doing the rounds in Washington.
The fact that the $1.75bn purchase by Lenovo, the Chinese group, of IBM's not-very-high-tech personal computer division was referred to the secretive US inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment is an ominous indicator of the mood in Washington, even if the deal was eventually approved with some minor conditions.
Conservative US commentators are likening the emergence of China today to the rise of the nationalist, militarist Japan of the 1930s. That is a prematurely harsh judgment. Beijing is indeed using its economic clout to tighten its grip on Asia but has also thrown open its markets to trade and investment and is so far concentrating more on its own development than on foreign adventures. Ignoring China is bad, but demonising it is worse
不要妖魔化中国实力
在美国外交的对象看来，人们嘲笑杰拉尔德?福特(Gerald Ford )总统的话(“无法同时走路和嚼口香糖”)有时似乎也适用于美国外交机器。自2001年9月11日以来，对伊斯兰恐怖主义长达3年的执着关注，已经使国际上更倾向于认为美国没有能力同时关注两项海外事务。
自乔治?沃克?布什总统1月连任以来，这种状况已经发生了改变。华盛顿发现，抑或是重新发现中东以外的另一个心结：中国实力的崛起。
美国间谍机构首脑、海军上将以及国会议员正公开评述中国海军现代化以及对台湾构成的威胁。五角大楼正加强与其亚洲主要盟国日本的关系，同时改进与台湾军方的战场通联机制。
美国商务部和财政部对中国对美贸易顺差，及两国经济的相互依赖程度表示忧虑。中国总额超过6000亿美元的外汇储备中，很大一部分是美国国债，这使美国深陷对华债务。
美国国务院正开始对亚洲采取“重新接触”政策，以抗衡中国因经济实力增长而日渐强大的地区影响力。国务卿康多莉扎?赖斯(Condoleezza Rice)于本周开始对印度、中国和日本三个亚洲强国进行访问。按照亚洲某国驻联合国大使的说法，美国目前正在着手“修正路线”，要将部分注意力从打击恐怖主义转移到对华关系等更为重要的战略问题上来。“接触”政策的出台，反映出中国实力增强后的商业、经济和战略现实。
尽管美国对亚洲的关注姗姗来迟，但此举还是受到了华盛顿亚洲问题专家和被美国忽视的东南亚盟友的欢迎。即使在美国全力入侵伊拉克时期，五角大楼和国务院负责亚洲事务的官员就对中国和朝鲜得益于布什对萨达姆的专注感到震惊。
现在看来，美国的战略重心安排令人不解：把这么多鲜血和金钱抛洒到伊拉克，去制止最终证实并不存在的伊拉克核威胁，却让朝鲜着手开发真正的核武器。同样令人费解的是，美国仅仅因为中国的威权领导人在反恐战争中声称自己是盟友，就任由中国自由行事。
由于中国缺乏工业化所需的石油和其他资源，因此它无疑正在亚洲、拉丁美洲、非洲和中东扩大影响。中国有些外交政策比较笨拙，但作为联合国安理会常任理事国，它拥有否决权，并且准备动用否决权来保护本国在伊朗和苏丹的石油利益，而不惜惹怒美国。
早在布什2000年当选美国总统，以及恐怖主义尚未主导美国政府工作议程之前，布什和赖斯就将中国认定为“战略竞争对手”。从广义上讲，他们的观点是正确的。中国是未来的超级大国。
然而，美国也面临着从一个极端转向另一个极端的危险。正如美国近年忽略中国和东亚是错误的，如果美国现在被中国的实力吓倒，或沉迷于目前在华盛顿鼓噪一时的“中国威胁论”，那将是愚蠢的。
中国联想集团出资17.5亿美元收购IBM公司技术含量并不高的个人电脑业务，却被提交神秘的美国跨部门“外国投资委员会”(Committee on Foreign Investment)进行审查。尽管在附加了一些条件后，该笔交易终获批准，但此事显示出华盛顿的阴暗心态。
美国保守派评论员将中国当今的崛起与20世纪30年代日本民粹主义和军国主义甚嚣尘上相提并论。这是一种轻率尖刻的判断。中国固然在运用经济实力强化在亚洲的影响，但同时也全面开放自己的市场，欢迎贸易和投资，而且迄今中国专注于自身发展，并未将重点放在海外冒险上。忽略中国不对，但妖魔化中国更糟。
