[Bilingual] No need for buyer's remorse: realism key to Australia's engagement with China

没必要买完后悔：澳大利亚与中国交往应务实为先

芮捷锐博士，前澳大利亚驻华大使，西悉尼大学澳中艺术与文化研究院顾委会主席

原文发表在《澳大利亚经济评论日报》

中文翻译：西悉尼大学澳中艺术与文化研究院研究员 任翔

Download the English-Chinese bilingual PDF version (opens in a new window). 点击下载中英双语PDF版本 (opens in a new window)。

与美国不同，澳大利亚从未要求中国变得与我们一样。这就是为什么双边关系始终是为彼此繁荣和安全所作的优质投资。

如今对中国的诸多指责之一是，中国没有如西方所期待的那样成为一个自由民主国家，也没有成为由美国领导的国际秩序中的合格一员.这被认为是西方在数十年的孤立、落后和停滞之后欢迎中国重回国际体系的隐含条件。

这是目前华盛顿共和民主两党的普遍看法。这种观点对堪培拉也有所影响，只是更加不开诚布公，也更有机会主义之嫌。

美国政客们毫无保留地拥护美国例外论，并因此相信美国有道德义务来按照自己的模式塑造及重塑这个世界。毫无疑问，随着美国越来越多地表现出失败国家的明显特征，有不少人对此的信心受到动摇。

修正主义的历史观强辩说，过去40年与中国保持联系是个失败。1979年邓小平改革开始后，中国的经济发展超出了任何人的预期，尽管按人均计算，中国仍是一个相对贫穷的国家。中国没有趋同于西方盛行的经济和社会组织规范，而是一直作为一个与西方规范相距甚远的专制国家出现。此外，它日益增长的财富、军事和技术实力可能对国际秩序形成威胁。

中国今天不仅是以名义美元和平价购买力来衡量的世界第二大经济体，它更是东亚的主导国，堪培拉一直不愿意承认这一点。随着经济的增长，中国扩张军力并实现了军事现代化，足以抵御美国对其包括台湾在内的沿海水域的军事行动。通过南中国海的珊瑚礁人工岛，中国也实现了对该区域的有效控制，其合法性值得怀疑； 当然，还有一系列侵犯人权的行为，特别是在新疆和西藏等边境地区。

所有这些行为都强化了这样一种观点，即跟中国交往而不遏制是一个深刻的历史错误。美国国务卿迈克*庞佩奥（MikePompo）非常明确地提出一套不仅遏制中国，而且削弱中国目前地位的纲领。

澳大利亚在经合组织中最早认识到中国早期改革所带来的经济转型潜力，由此为澳大利亚创造了巨大的机会。澳大利亚的政治家和外交官没有像美国同行那样把意识形态的负赘置于两国关系中。澳大利亚同中国交往时自有一套务实而现实主义的目标。

首先是鼓励中国向外国贸易和投资开放市场，为澳大利亚创造了经济机会。（在20世纪80年代刚开始的时候，没有人预料到其经济规模和中国为提高澳大利亚生活水平做出的巨大贡献。）

澳大利亚决策者的每一个目标.都得以实现，而且远远超出了1980年代的预期。

其中之一就是，鼓励和协助中国从中央计划的资源配置模式转向更多依赖市场调节，以提高效率，促进经济增长。中国发展得越快，澳大利亚的潜在经济利益就会更大，条件是澳大利亚必须进行一些必要的改革，成为中国市场的高效且有竞争力的供应商。如此，澳大利亚与中国的交往也有助于推动澳大利亚必要的政策改革，目的还是为了提升澳大利亚的生活水平。需要注意到的是：自身利益高于意识形态。

第二，人们都知道，一个更加繁荣的中国也是政治上更加平稳和安定的中国。在20世纪80年代，当西方与中国开始交往时，中国刚刚经历了近一个世纪的动荡与混乱，从满清衰亡、到国民革命、日本侵略和共产主义混乱，一直持续到1976年。这些在中国内外的很多人中都记忆犹新。

第三，一个不稳定、危机四伏的中国，会带来涌入该地区的难民大潮。直到1980年代，难民潮仍然是这一地区的主要政策关注点。所有国家当时都设有难民营，用以收容印度支那冲突的难民。澳大利亚是一个主要的、慷慨的收容国。如果大量难民来自中国，就会能破坏该地区的稳定，并损害许多国家的安全。幸运的是，这种情况从未发生过，但是如果中国出现经济、政治和社会崩溃，这一风险会依然存在。

今天看来，澳大利亚决策者（不包括那些意识形态的狭隘主义者）决定与中国交往，他们制定的每个目标都已经实现，并远远超出了20世纪80年代合理预期的范围。

对澳洲而言，这是一笔极为成功的投资，而不是买完后悔的交易。让中国变成和我们一样根本不在交易条件中。中国会为澳大利亚的繁荣和安全作出重大贡献，过去是这样，今天依然如此。

No need for buyer's remorse: realism key to Australia's engagement with China

By Geoff Raby

Published on 30 August 2020 on Australian Financial Review

Australia, unlike the US, never expected China to become like us. That's why the relationship continues to be an outstanding investment in our prosperity and security, writes Geoff Raby.

Among the many things China is accused of today is that it did not live up to its side of an implicit bargain with the West to become a liberal democracy and a fully paid up member of the US-led international order in return for the West’s welcoming China into the international system after decades of isolation, obscurity and stagnation.

This is the prevailing view in Washington these days on both sides of the aisle, among Republicans and Democrats alike. Perhaps more disingenuously and opportunistically, this view holds sway these days in Canberra as well.

US politicians unreservedly embrace the notion of US exceptionalism and accordingly a belief that the US has a moral duty to make and remake the world in its own image. No doubt, confidence in that has been shaken in some quarters as the US increasingly adopts many of the advanced characteristics of a failed state.

A revisionist history now argues that the past 40 years of engagement with China was a failure. China has developed economically beyond anyone’s expectations when Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began in 1979, although in per capita terms it is still a relatively poor country. Rather than converging towards the norms of political and social organisation prevalent in the West, China has remained an authoritarian state that stands far apart from Western norms. Moreover, its growing wealth, military and technological might have made it a threat to the international order.

Beyond having the second-largest economy in the world today in nominal dollar terms and the largest in purchasing power parity terms, China has become the dominant power in east Asia, something Canberra has trouble recognising. It has expanded and modernised its military as its economy has grown, to a point where it can defend its coastal waters, including Taiwan, from US incursion. It has established effective control over several reefs and islets in the South China Sea, albeit of doubtful legality, and is a serial abuser of human rights, particularly in its border areas of Xinjiang and Tibet.

All of these behaviours reinforce the view that it was a profound historical error to have engaged rather than to have contained China. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has articulated a doctrine of not just containing China but of diminishing its present standing.

Australia was among the first in the OECD to recognise the profound potential of China’s early reforms to transform the country economically, creating enormous opportunity for Australia as a result. Australian politicians and diplomats did not carry ideological baggage into the relationship like their US counterparts. The Australians had a pragmatic and realist set of objectives for engaging China.

First was to encourage China to open its markets to foreign trade and investment, which would create economic opportunities for Australia. (At the time this was happening in the 1980s, no one had any sense of the scale this would eventually take and the huge contribution China would make to raising Australian living standards.)

Each of the objectives of Australian policymakers ... have been achieved and well beyond what might reasonably have been expected in the 1980s.

As part of this, China was to be encouraged and assisted in moving from centrally planned allocation of resources to more market allocation so as to increase efficiency and hence economic growth. The faster China could grow, the greater the potential economic benefit for Australia would be, provided Australia itself would undertake the necessary reforms needed to make itself an efficient and hence competitive supplier to the Chinese market. In this way, Australia’s engagement with China also helped to push necessary policy reforms in Australia, again to the benefit of Australia’s living standards. Note the prevalence of self-interest over ideology.

Second, it was understood that a more prosperous China would become a more stable and settled China politically. When the West’s engagement with China began in the 1980s, China had endured more than a century of turbulence and instability during the fading Qing Empire, nationalist government, Japanese occupation and communist chaos lasting until 1976. Much of this was within living memory of people within and outside China.

A more prosperous and settled China would also be less of a threat to stability along the 22,000 kilometres of land borders it shares with 14 other countries. Apart from three highly contained clashes with India since the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, the last military conflict occurred in 1979 when China invaded Vietnam, only to retreat after a few months. By and large, China’s borders have been peaceful for more than 40 years.

Third, an unstable, crisis-ridden China would have seen a huge outflow of refugees into the region. By the 1980s, large refugee movements in the region were still of major policy concern. Across the region, countries hosted camps of refugees from the Indo-China conflicts. Australia had been a major and generous destination. Mass refugee outflows from China could have destabilised the region and harmed security for many countries. Fortunately, this never happened but remains an ever-present risk were China to experience economic, political and social collapse.

Viewed from today, each of the objectives of Australian policymakers – free of ideological blinkers – when they decided to engage China, have been achieved and well beyond what might reasonably have been expected in the 1980s.

Far from buyer’s remorse, it has proved to be an outstandingly successful investment for Australia. China’s becoming like us was never part of the bargain. That China would contribute substantially to Australia’s prosperity and security was, and that is still the case today.