说这个新的中国一切还是老样子，这不是十足的无知就是意识形态在作怪，或者两者兼而有之。
随着本周末北京奥运会拉开序幕，你可能认为这将是对中国进行严肃分析和反思———如何理解这个国家及其变化的社会，如何应对这个政权———的时机。但是，我们听到的基本上还是陈词滥调。保守派抨击“正在崛起的独裁国家”，对中国的军事实力极尽夸大之能事。共和党参议员萨姆•布朗巴克则称，中国政府可能“窃听任何人的通信和记录”。而仅在一个月前，这位参议员力挺授权美国政府做同样事情的《外国情报监视法》修正案。
《新共和》杂志上月刊登了一篇封面文章，标题是“迎接新中国（一成不变）”，称“我们最终团结的”不应是北京的“可憎政府”，而是“在世界上最大独裁政权下长期受罪的10亿男女”。只是中国人（顺便说一句，是13亿，不是10亿）似乎不这样看。几乎是在《新共和》上市的同时，皮尤调查中心发布了其“2008年全球态度调查”报告。结果显示，在被调查的24个国家里，中国人对本国发展方向的支持率达到最高的86%。近2/3的中国受访者表示北京政府在他们认为重要的问题上做得不错。类似的调查已做过多年，而中国人对其政府的支持率随着经济的增长而水涨船高。
中国是个复杂的国家。其政治体系封闭，但经济开放，社会越来越充满活力。它确实在迅速扩充武器系统，但并非直接针对美国军力。它在与朝鲜的谈判中施以援手，却庇护穆加贝和苏丹政权。理解这些现实不容易，但我们仍需去努力尝试。认为这个新中国还是老样子（意指毛时代的极权国家）不是出于无知就是意识形态在作怪，或者两者皆是。许多气势汹汹谩骂中国的人甚至很少踏足过这个国家，而这绝非偶然。
对当今中国的无知会造成严重的政策后果。我们不晓得这个国家如何运转，不了解中国民众的看法是什么。其实，在包括台湾和西藏在内的许多问题上，他们甚至比政府的态度还要强硬，他们似乎也更加反美。
我们没有找到一条途径与像中印这样的新兴大国共处，多哈贸易谈判的破裂就是明证。我们习惯于批评这些国家的短处，但事实上，我们应让他们感到权力的享有，这样他们才会自视为规则制定者，而不是全球体系的搭便车者。
China Shouldn’t Be Inscrutable
To say that this new China is the same as the old is to be utterlyignorant or ideological—perhaps both.
Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:09 PM ET Aug 2, 2008
With the Beijing Olympics starting at the end of this week, youmight think this would be an occasion for serious analysis andreflection about China—how to understand the country and itschanging society, how to handle the regime. Instead, we've mostlyheard a familiar recitation of clichés. Conservatives rail againsta "rising autocracy" and exaggerate China's military strength.Republican Sen. Sam Brownback went to Beijing anddiscovered—surprise!—that the Chinese government engaged inespionage. He fumed to CNN that the authorities could "listen toanybody and everybody and their communications and theirrecordings." One month earlier the senator had enthusiasticallyvoted for the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the U.S. governmentto do pretty much the same thing.
China bashing is not just a right-wing phenomenon. The NewRepublic, mostly left of center, ran a cover story last month withthe headline, MEET THE NEW CHINA (SAME AS THE OLD). Inside, themagazine thundered that "our ultimate solidarity" should lie notwith the "odious government" in Beijing but "the billionlong-suffering men and women of the world's largestdictatorship."
Except that Chinese people (who, by the way, number 1.3 billion,not 1 billion) seem to disagree. About the same time as The NewRepublic hit the stands, the Pew Research Center released thefindings of its 2008 Global Attitudes Survey. Of the 24 countriessurveyed, the Chinese people expressed the highest level of supportfor the direction in which their country was heading, 86 percent.Nearly two out of three said that the Beijing government was doinga good job on issues that mattered to them. The survey questionedmore than 3,212 Chinese, face to face, in 16 dialects across thecountry. And while Chinese might not always speak freely topollsters, several indications suggest that these numbers expresssomething real. Such polls have been done for years and the numbersapproving of the Chinese government have risen as the economy hasgrown (which should be expected). Those polled did complain aboutcorruption, environmental degradation and inflation. And theseattitudes—general approval of the country's direction coupled withmany specific criticisms—are also the ones reported by mostscholars and journalists who have traveled in China.
China is a complicated country. It has a closed political systembut an open economy and an increasingly vibrant society. It isbuilding up weapons systems at a fast clip, yet is not directlycompeting against American military power. It has been helpful inthe negotiations with North Korea but callous in shielding RobertMugabe and the Sudanese regime. Capturing these realities isdifficult, but still we have to try. To say that this new China isthe same as the old (meaning Mao's totalitarian state) is to beignorant or ideological, or both. It is not an accident that manyferocious China bashers have rarely visited the country.
This ignorance of today's China has serious policy consequences. Wedon't understand how the country works. We don't know what to makeof the views of the Chinese people ("our true allies" The NewRepublic tells us), who are more aggressive than their governmenton many issues, including Taiwan and Tibet, and who often seem moreanti-American. A recent essay in The New Yorker by Evan Osnosbrilliantly captures the complexity of the rise of nationalism inChina—simultaneously Western and anti-Western—through the eyes ofone intellectual, an expert in Western philosophy, who is also thecreator of a wildly popular nationalist Web video.
The collapse of the Doha trade round—the first breakdown of globaltrade talks since the 1930s—is vivid evidence that we have notfound a way to partner with newly rising powers like China andIndia. If this pattern of misunderstandings, disunity and stalematecontinues, there will be little progress on all kinds of urgentglobal issues—energy, food, environment, human rights,security.
There is enough blame to go around for the collapse of Doha. TheIndians, Chinese and Americans were too obstinate in protectingtheir farmers. But the United States and Europe have not adjustedto the new balance of power. The last set of trade talks, inCancún, was derailed by Brazil. These were blocked largely byIndia. (Dealing with these democracies has often proved as complexas with the Chinese dictatorship.) Our impulse is to criticizethese countries for all their shortcomings, but in fact our goalshould be the opposite. We should be making them feel empowered sothey see themselves as rule makers, not free riders on the globalsystem.
The greatest failure of Western foreign policy since the cold warended has been a sin of omission. We have not pursued a foreignpolicy toward the world's newly rising powers that aims to createnew and enduring relations with them, integrate them into existingstructures of power and lay out new rules of the road to securepeace and prosperity. If the emerging countries grow strong outsidethe old order, they will freelance and be unwilling to help build anew one. The new world might well be the same as the old—the19th-century world, that is, marked by economic globalization,political nationalism and war.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/150460
