A new round of trade negotiations between China and the United States were held in Shanghai. Although the two sides believed that the talks were sincere, the substantive progress seemed to be small.U.S. President Trump also said that from September 1st, it will tax the remaining $ 300 billion in Chinese goods from September 1.The root cause of the U.S. -US trade friction seems to originate from the theory of disappointment with China and the betrayal of Chinese betrayal, that is, the tone of the United States policies in China after the Cold War is contact, and through contact, China has made China a member of the free international order.However, from the perspective of the United States, in the past 30 years, China's economy has become the second largest economy in the world, but it has adopted national capitalism and businessist policies in economic operations, occupying the cheap of the United States. In terms of domestic governThe role of management and guidance is increasingly prominent.
The US National Security Strategy in 2017 pointed out that it is necessary to re -consider the strategy of being built in the past and looking forward to entering the international mechanism to become a goodwill actor and partner, because it has proven that this is often wrong.
Strong opponent.
Therefore, we can see that in recent years, labels such as weakening the amendmentist country or even destroying the freedom of the post -war after the war seem to be a major discourse system for the United States to China.As a great country, the United States can understand to a certain extent for China, which has been rising, and is understood, but the United States has gradually formed the tendency of Intellectual University in international relations after the Cold War.It may cause the danger of rigidity and confrontation to the Chinese language system and the policies of China.
After the Cold War, American knowledge unilateralism expands
The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have made the United States the only superpower in the world. How to be the only superpowers, and what kind of international order of the Cold War is not only a major issue in the thinking of American politicians, but also the American strategic and academic circles.The hot spots of disputes.In the early 1990s, political scientist Francis Fukuyama proposed a historical end conclusion that the development of human society will take the US democratic politics and market economy as the ultimate template to achieve free international order.Some scholars boldly propose the theory of stability and democracy and peace in the monocular world, that is, the international order of democratic countries such as the United States, and promoting democracy and market economy in the world, and a stable world new order will come.
Since the 1990s, many discussions and various foreign policy experiences have occurred in the United States, such as the Kosovo War, Afghanistan, Iraq war, etc., and the above -mentioned single -world stability theory of the United States absolute dominance of the United States and international order supremacy.The mainstream knowledge foundation of the US international strategy has formed a corresponding discourse system based on this.
In fact, this is not the first time that the United States and Asian countries have collided with knowledge.At present, the Chinese and American cultural conflicts proposed by some people in the United States can actually be said to be the third round of the international discourse system and the third round of Asian countries after the war.
The first round was the 1980s.Japan -US trade frictions are serious. The United States has criticized Japanese socio -economic structure closed, and the Liberal Democratic Party has long -term one -party uniqueness, and has formed an iron triangle bundled with the bureaucratic bureaucratic bureaucracy.The government supports and subsidizes some enterprises, encouraging exports but restricting imports, leading to huge deficits in US trade.In terms of technology transfer and market access, the United States believes that Japan has not given corresponding mutual benefit and is an unfair trading partner.In terms of monetary policy, Japan has long relying on the measures of the yen exchange rate to lower and obtain the export advantage.In short, Japan is a heterogeneous developed country (now looking back, the United States accusations with Japan that year is similar to the current accusation of China).In the early 1990s, Japan's bubbles collapsed, and economic development was obviously weak, and it entered the so -called lost ten years.
In the 1990s, Japan was still criticized by the United States. The United States believed that Japan was slow in the process of integrating globalization and poor structural reform.On the one hand, Japan cleverly used the pressure of the United States to carry out some reforms that could not be pushed, and on the other hand, they did not fully embrace globalization according to the requirements of the United States.For example, Japan does not have a large -scale outsourcing manufacturing industry like the United States, does not rely on the financial industry to drive growth, and does not accept a lot of immigration.Japan follows a managed global path.Japan does not become the United States, nor can it be the United States.Now that the Japanese see the Trump phenomenon, Brexit, French yellow vest movement, and populist Western world, it is estimated that many people secretly ecstatic has not become the United States.
The second round was from the 1980s to 1990s.The four small dragons in Asia have developed at a high speed, but from the perspective of the United States, Southeast Asian countries have not become an ideal country in their minds, and they are also considered to be heterogeneous rising countries.In the early 1990s, we saw that Southeast Asian countries had a fierce debate with Western values against Asian values.From the perspective of Southeast Asian countries, after the war, in the era of colonization, an independent emerging nation -state is obtained in the face of the situation where multi -ethnicity, multi -cultural, national identity, and economic and social levels are low.To build the country's strong guidance and top -level design is essential.
Judging from the situation in Southeast Asia, although this model has a disadvantage, it has brought about the successful experience of economic growth and living standards for 2030, so it cannot be said at least wrong.For example, the governance model of Singapore at that time was questioned by too much government management, from the design planning of economic and industrial policies to the development of sanitary habits of daily life.However, in just decades, Singapore has become the first economic power of Asia's per capita GDP, indicating that Singapore's governance model is at least in line with its national conditions.For another example, Singapore's original street vendors, under the strong guidance of the government, became a healthy, economical, and delicious hawker center, and now they are applying for entering the world's intangible cultural heritage list.
Now is the third round.As China has a large volume and fast rise, and the comparison of the Chinese system and the West is more prominent, from the perspective of the United States, China's rise is more heterogeneous than the above two rounds.The above -mentioned American mainstream international relations knowledge foundation and discourse system, we look forward to that China is more like the United States in the domestic governance model and worldview through the international economic system led by the United States, and it is expected to be more homogeneous in China.
Some people in the United States look forward to the responsible stakeholders who can be the responsible stakeholder of the United States that maintain the United States.This cognition in the United States is based on the single -pole world of allies in Western Europe and Japan in its dominant alliance system, and has achieved successful experience in economic prosperity and stability.This shows that the above -mentioned understanding does not come completely out of thin air, but it should be noted that the successful experience of the United States is the cognitive result in the small circle of its allies. To promote it to the non -all -all -all countries, especially a large country like China, it will beproblem appear.
In the new era requires cooperation between heterogeneous countries
After the Cold War, the knowledge foundation and discourse system of American strategic ideas was based on American experience, and the knowledge foundation and discourse system of other countries, which are also based on their own successful experience.After the Cold War, China actively integrated into the world economic system, but China's national conditions and historical experience determined that China could not become the United States.The 40 years of reform and opening up in China has brought about high economic growth, becoming the world's second largest economy, a significant reduction in the poor, and the significant improvement of people's living standards, which has made China confident in its own development and governance model.
In some Americans, heterogeneous ChinaThe rise will threaten the original order and even lead to chaos in the world.This is actually a prominent manifestation of knowledge unilateralism.In essence, this is that the United States has not fully recognized the achievements of emerging countries including China.
The problem is that members of the global new governance framework represented by the 20th Group of Twenty Group are becoming more and more obvious. If the US international strategic knowledge foundation and discourse system, the United States still aims to pursue homogeneous.International cooperation is difficult to carry out.How to enable different countries to cooperate is an important issue, especially when the power of these countries has grown.
The United States is still the most powerful country in the world. No one will deny that in many aspects of the United States, there are still many places worth learning from other countries.However, the United States must also be more confident and modestly work hard to learn to listen to the logic of other countries.The United States should respect and face China's achievements, and at the same time respect China's logic, learning results, and experience summary. On this basis, respecting each other and conducting equal dialogue will have consensus and mutual trust.
The main problem of the existing world view in the United States is that overheading the cooperation of homogeneous countries, in terms of how to make more better cooperation in heterogeneous countries, imagination and creativity are insufficient.The conservative and rigidity of this kind of knowledge can easily cause unilateral knowledge construction and look at the world as a ruler. The future of international relations is not optimistic.
What is gratifying is that some thinkers in the United States are gradually starting the flexibility of strategic thinking. For example, at the beginning of this year, Professor Joseph Na, a scholar of international relations, wrote an article that he puts out the word of freedom to remove free international order in order to better gather global public products.If Sino -US relations can strive to tap the cooperation between heterogeneous countries that adapt to the new era in accordance with new ideas, and the momentum of heterogeneous cultural exchanges and mutual learning, the future of Sino -US relations will be bright.
(The author is an associate professor at the National Niigata University in Japan, a senior researcher at the regional and global institute of Global Governance of Beijing Foreign Studies University)
