[Bilingual] Why our China policy is based on a fundamental error

澳大利亚对华政策为什么存在根本性错误

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

原文于2019年8月19日发表在《澳大利亚经济评论日报》

西悉尼大学澳中艺术与文化研究院 刘婧琦翻译

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美国鹰派视中国为威胁，因为中国撕毁了形同一纸空文的协议，但我们没必要跟风。

自由党议员安德鲁∙海斯蒂宣扬 “中国威胁论”的言辞让人看到情报、安全和国防部门对澳大利亚对华政策的重要影响。海斯蒂毫不隐讳地列举了种种捕风捉影的、关于中国威胁的猜想。作为国会情报及安全事务联合委员会主席，海斯蒂这番言论，不能被解读为个人观点——尽管澳大利亚总理如此断言。

海斯蒂没有将中国与纳粹德国进行直接比较，但他耍了个小伎俩，用了 “马奇诺防线”一词加以影射。要知道在德国占领法国期间，法国是由纳粹政府统治的。海斯蒂的用意很明显，他认为应该处处给中国设坎儿。但是已经有人对“中国威胁论”的各种猜测提出了质疑，历史类比可以证明这一论断不可信。

海斯蒂版的“中国威胁论“无非是炒美国的冷饭，因为这正合澳大利亚保守派智库和媒体的胃口。去年10月份，美国副总统迈克∙彭斯在哈德逊研究所的演讲充满反华情绪，海斯蒂再次鼓动这一情绪，强调与中国的意识形态之战。

海斯蒂的很多言论源于美国头号对华鹰派人物迈克尔∙白邦瑞的书籍《百年马拉松：中国取代美国称霸全球的秘密战略》。海斯蒂认为，未来澳大利亚将面临“十年”的挑战，这一数据就来源于白邦瑞的推算。白瑞邦此书极具影响力，但存在着很多具有争议的猜测，其中最不足信的是“买家懊悔情绪“，而这却是海斯蒂深信不疑的。

该书认为，中国没有走向以经济改革促进政治民主的这条欧美所期望的转型之路。这是一些美国人的一厢情愿，但这不是中国的错。中国从未指出“中国特色的社会主义”意味着共产党将不再掌权。

如果美国的新保守主义理论家不明白这一点，那么这种一厢情愿的想法无助于改变对华关系。无论对澳大利亚，还是其他国家，都是如此。中国选择融入世界体系的原因是两害取其轻，当然这也为其带来经济利益。和任何合理的外交政策一样，中国决策当然是基于自身利益。成为自由民主国家并不是中国走向世界的协议内容。

澳大利亚政治圈盛行的观点是上世纪80年代提出的，即中国的政治体系将随着其经济的发展和在世界市场上不断提升的地位而演变，但中国终将找到具有自己特色的政治社会体系。澳大利亚希望中国可以更开放、更多参与国际事务，但鲜有人认为中国将建立一套具有竞争力的政治体系。

如今，澳大利亚政府中的大多数成员深信中国是澳大利亚的战略威胁，但这是未经验证的假设。海斯蒂认为没有必要详细探究，因为这已是不证自明的事实。随着主张抵制中国的鹰派议员安德鲁∙希勒被委任内阁秘书长一职，政府获得的政策建议也将会越来越狭隘，澳大利亚安全部门会四处鼓吹一个好战的中国形象。

反对党对安全部门对政府对华政策越俎代庖的行为似乎并无异议，仅交由影子国防事务发言人理查德∙马尔斯对海斯蒂的言论加以回应。

马尔斯提出对中国事务采取两党统一的策略，可事实上澳大利亚两党的对华策略并没有任何不同。自从莫里森政府停止自负吹嘘、攻击特恩布尔和毕晓普之后，他们试着更成熟理性地处理对华关系，而这与反对党政策如出一辙。

反对党的问题在于他们从根本上接受了情报部门对中国的猜疑，只不过反对党坚称其表述不同。然而政府可以轻易改变措辞，这样就使得工党的政策看起来像是不加思索的产物。

在澳大利亚历史上，可能从未有过如此狭隘的政府政策建议，工党在对华政策方面上也从未因官僚主义的胁迫而与执政党趋同。

澳大利亚的对华政策存在着如此深远和根本的矛盾，这样的情况不同寻常。澳大利亚与美国紧密的战线，让澳大利亚安全部门将中国视为战略性竞争对手，澳大利亚也因此认为中国不可信，应处处对其质疑和挑战——在太平洋地区，对抗中国通过“一带一路”和网络技术实现其称霸全球的野心；在印度洋地区，在大学校园和机构董事局里，都要防止中国势力的渗透。

澳大利亚在这些事务的立场是一致的，虽然这些政策来源于非常不可信的猜测，但是海斯蒂还是在想法设法地将其合法化。然而政策上的挑战是，中国并不是澳大利亚的战略性竞争对手，这点与美国是不同的。澳大利亚政府至少在公开场合承认了这一点。

如果中国真的是澳大利亚的战略性竞争对手，那么政府应该清晰地说明这一点，并指出其带来的后果，包括国家安全、商业机会减少、区域和国际影响受限、国防和安全支出增加等等。

政府需要解释为什么中国对澳大利亚存在威胁，而对我们的区域邻国新西兰、新加坡、印度尼西亚或马来西亚不存在威胁。这些国家皆实行民主制度，它们依赖中国的经济，同时也期望美国持续参与东亚事务，制衡中国。

澳大利亚的对华政策一团糟是因为自相矛盾。澳大利亚需要严谨地对构建“中国威胁论”的核心猜想进行探讨。同时需要保持公允的判断。澳大利亚的国家利益与美国截然不同。澳大利亚应该坦诚地承认这些差异。

Why our China policy is based on a fundamental error

By Geoff Raby

Published on 19 August 2019 on Australian Financial Review

US hawks view China as a threat because it broke a deal which never existed. But we have no need to follow them.

Andrew Hastie’s intervention on the China threat helpfully highlights the extent to which Australia’s intelligence, security and defence establishment is running Australia’s China foreign policy. In stark language he has laid out many of the assumptions that underlie the supposed Threat. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s assertion, as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, his is no mere private view.

Hastie’s dog-whistle invocation of the Maginot Line did not need him to compare China with Nazi Germany, which he did not. But when Germany overran France it was run by a Nazi Government. His implication was clear. China needs to be confronted at every turn. But the assumptions underlying the China threat are contested, as are the historical analogies used to support it.

Hastie has done little more than repackage the tired fare from the US China threat people, for which there is so much appetite among Australian conservative think tanks and media. Echoing the sentiments of Vice President Mike Pence from his Hudson Institute speech of October last year, Hastie’s main point is that this is an ideological struggle with China.

Most of Hastie’s assertions derive from arch-China hawk Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. Hastie’s reference to a “10-decade” struggle is based on Pillsbury’s maths. Of the many refutable assumptions underlying Pillsbury’s influential book, perhaps the most flimsy, which Hastie hangs his hat on, is a type of buyer’s regret.

It is asserted that China has welched on an implied understanding that as its economy grew and its people prospered through greater integration into the international system, China’s political system would become more liberal and democratic. It is not China’s fault if some in the US deluded themselves. China never indicated that “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” meant anything other than the Communist Party remaining in power.

If neo-conservative ideologues in the US didn’t understand that, then the same wishful thinking was never a serious premise for Australia’s, and just about everyone else’s, engagement with China. Engagement of China in the international system was because the alternative of not doing so would be potentially far worse, and for the economic benefits that have flowed. As with all sound foreign policy, it was based on self-interest as, of course, was the decision by China itself to engage. China’s becoming a liberal democracy was not part of the deal.

In Australian policy circles, the prevailing view from as far back as the 1980s was that China’s political system would evolve along with economic growth and an increasing role of markets, but that China would find its own form of political and social organisation. It was hoped that this would become more participatory and open, but few believed that a contestable political system would prevail.

The untested assumption of China as a strategic threat to Australia now dominates policy circles in Canberra. Hastie feels no need to make the case. It is enough simply to assert what is now widely seen as a self-evident truth. Discussion is closed. With the appointment of China hawk Andrew Shearer to Cabinet Secretary, policy advice will become even narrower and the security establishment’s bellicose view of China further entrenched.

The Opposition would appear to be as enamoured with the security establishment running Australia’s China policy as is the Government. It was left to Labor’s Shadow defence spokesman, Richard Marles, to respond to Hastie.

Disingenuously, Marles proposed a bi-partisan approach to China, as if there wasn’t one at present. Since the Morrison government moved away from the damaging, self-important, stridency of Turnbull/Bishop and tried to approach the relationship with China with a measure of maturity there has been no difference between the Government and the Opposition.

This is the problem for the Opposition when it essentially accepts the intelligence establishment’s assumptions about China and frames the difference between it and the Government in terms of messaging. It is easy for the Government to change its messaging, which it has done, leaving the Opposition with no thought-through policy.

Probably at no other time, has policy advice to government been so narrowly based, nor the Opposition so cowed by the bureaucracy into policy convergence with the Government, as it is at the present over Australia’s China policy.

This is a curious state of affairs as Australia’s China policy is caught in a deep, fundamental, contradiction. In aligning Australia so closely with the United States, the security establishment views China as a strategic competitor and hence to be treated with strategic mistrust and to be challenged on all fronts – be it in the Pacific, over its global ambitions with respect to the Belt and Road Initiative, technology and cyber, in the Indian Ocean, or on the campuses of our universities or in our board rooms.

All these positions are quite consistent, and Hastie has set out to legitimise those policies, albeit based on highly contestable assumptions. The policy challenge is, however, that unlike for the United States, China is not a strategic competitor of Australia. A view with which, in public at least, the Australian Government concurs.

If China is indeed a strategic competitor, then Government should say so clearly, with all the consequences identified, including diminished security, reduced economic opportunities, limited regional and international influence, much higher defence and security expenditures, among other things.

It would also be helpful if the Government explained why China was such a threat to Australia when it is not to our regional neighbours, such as New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia or Malaysia, all of which are democracies of a fashion, are overwhelmingly dependent on the Chinese economy and seek continued US engagement in East Asia to balance China.

Australia’s China policy is a mess because it is so conflicted. China policy needs to start with a rigorous discussion over the core assumptions that underlie the China Threat scenario. A sense of proportionality is also required. As is the definition of Australia’s interests as distinct from those of the US. An honest discussion would begin by acknowledging these differences.