失衡时代的美国盟友与对手
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失衡时代的美国盟友与对手
How America's friends and enemies have adjusted to the age of Trump
Several US presidents have proclaimed a new world order. Today most of us remember only the one that George HW Bush called for at the end of the cold war. “That new world order is struggling to be born — a world quite different to the one we've known,” said Bush Senior in 1990. Minus the Soviet Union, it was in fact roughly the same one we had known for the previous half-century. With a few ups and downs, Pax Americana held for about another decade.
历史上，多位美国总统都宣告过新世界秩序的到来。但如今，我们大多数人只能记得老布什(George HW Bush)在冷战结束时呼吁的新世界秩序。1990年，老布什称：“新的世界秩序正在艰难形成——一个与我们了解的世界完全不同的世界。”除了没有苏联，这个新世界秩序实际上和我们在之前半个世纪知晓的世界几乎一样。几经兴衰，美国治下的和平(Pax Americana)又维持了大概10年。
Since the attacks of 9·11, however, the fissures have begun to show. In the past few months, it has become possible to imagine a crack-up. For obvious reasons, not even Donald Trump would dream of boasting about ushering in a new world disorder. Yet Bush's words may inadvertently have foreshadowed what is happening today. “
然而，自9·11恐怖袭击以来，种种裂隙已开始显现。过去几个月，甚至可以想象一场大崩溃。出于显而易见的原因，连唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)也不敢吹嘘自己将引发一场新的世界失序。然而，老布什的话可能无意中预言了今天正在发生之事。“美国一直以身作则，”他说，“那么，我们美国人中间谁来以身作则？在接下来的美国世纪，哪一位美国公民将领导我们？”他不可能已经猜到了答案。
History, as they say, is lived forwards but written backwards. Two decades before Bush Senior's declaration, Dean Acheson, the former US secretary of state, wrote his classic, Present at the Creation. It set out in epochal detail how America had created the postwar system that Bush rebranded the new world order. Bodies that today seem to be in the natural scheme of things — the United Nations, Nato, the International Monetary Fund and the forerunner to the World Trade Organization — were assembled against the odds by the Truman administration in which Acheson served. It was a unique historical flurry of global institution-building that could only have been undertaken by America. No other country had the self-belief — or wherewithal — to remake the world in its own image.
正如他们所言，历史是向前发展的，书写历史却要回溯。在老布什发表那番宣言之前20年，美国前国务卿迪安·艾奇逊(Dean Acheson)撰写了经典之作《创世亲历记》(Present at the Creation)。这本书用具有时代意义的细节讲述了美国如何创建了那个被老布什重新命名为新秩序的战后体系。一些如今看起来理所当然的机构——联合国(UN)、北约(Nato)、国际货币基金组织(IMF)以及世界贸易组织(WTO)的前身——都是由艾奇逊效力的杜鲁门(Truman)政府克服重重困难建立起来的。这是人类历史上一场独一无二的全球机构建设浪潮，只可能由美国承担。其他任何国家都没有按照自身形象重塑世界的自信——或必要的财力物力。
Today, in the era of Donald Trump, it feels as though we may be living history backwards. America has a president who disdains his country's handiwork. For most of the past seven decades, it was America's enemies, led by the Soviet Union, that attacked the liberal order. Much of the world saw the UN Security Council and other bodies as neo-imperial instruments of US power. Every now and then, US presidents complained that others were not paying sufficient dues. None ever questioned their existence. America's detractors could carp at the global order secure in the knowledge that it wasn't in any danger. Since January 20, that assumption no longer feels safe.“We forget how unnatural the US-created liberal world order always was,” says Robert Kagan, a trenchant conservative critic of Trump. “It is hard to imagine who will sustain it when the US president himself is actively undermining it.”
如今，在特朗普时代，感觉好像我们正在让历史倒退。美国选出了一位对本国创造的杰出成就不屑一顾的总统。过去70年的大多数时间，攻击自由秩序的是美国的敌对国家——以苏联为首。世界许多国家将联合国安理会及其他机构视为美国权力的新帝国主义工具。美国总统时不时地抱怨其他国家未缴纳足够的会费。但没有一位曾质疑过这些机构的存在。美国的批评者可以对全球秩序吹毛求疵，因为他们知道这一秩序固若金汤。但自今年1月20日起，这种假设不再保险。“我们忘记了美国创建的自由世界秩序一直以来是多么勉强，”尖锐批评特朗普的保守派人士罗伯特·卡根(Robert Kagan)说，“很难想象，当美国总统本人对它进行积极破坏时，谁还会维系它。”
In one way or another, all of America's closest allies are now wrestling with that quandary. Even those who have traditionally been reluctant to voice their misgivings in public are speaking out. Last month, Angela Merkel said it was time for Germany and Europe to take their “fate into their own hands”. She said this shortly after Trump had declined to offer his support for Nato's Article 5 mutual defence clause, despite his recent unveiling of a plaque to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the only time America's allies had invoked the clause. “The times in which we could rely on others —they are somewhat over,” said Merkel with her trademark understatement.
不管怎样，如今，所有美国最亲密的盟友都在绞尽脑汁应对这一窘境。即使那些过去不愿公开表达疑虑的国家也在大声疾呼。今年5月，安格拉·默克尔(Angela Merkel)表示，现在是德国和欧洲把“命运掌握在自己手中”的时候了。默克尔发表此番言论前，特朗普刚刚拒绝为北约共同防务条款第五条(Article 5)提供支持——虽然他不久前为一块9·11恐袭遇难者纪念碑揭幕，而那次恐袭是美国的盟友们唯一一次启动该条款。“我们可以依赖别国的时代——某种程度上已经结束了，”默克尔招牌式轻描淡写地说。
Earlier this month, Chrystia Freeland, Canada's foreign minister, gave a speech in which she asked what Canada should do in a world in which the US was no longer reliable. Thanking America for decades of global leadership, Freeland (a former colleague at the Financial Times), said it was time to act as though that age was passing. “The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Freeland told Canada's House of Commons.
6月初，加拿大外长克里斯蒂娅·弗里兰(Chrystia Freeland)在一次演讲中问道，在一个美国不再可靠的世界里加拿大应该做什么。在对美国几十年来领导全球表示感谢后，弗里兰（我在英国《金融时报》的前同事）说，是时候把那个时代当作过去时来行动了。弗里兰对加拿大国会下议院说：“我们的朋友和盟友已经开始质疑其全球领导角色的真正价值，这让我们更应关注确立我们自己清晰和独立路线的必要性。”
Her speech elicited no reaction from the Trump administration. Plenty of other US figures approved of what she said. “If I were advising on national security in any other country, I would be asking exactly the same questions,” said Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior official in several Republican administrations. “Something fundamental seems to be breaking. If America can do it once [under Trump], why can't it happen again?”
她的讲话并未引起特朗普政府任何反应。许多美国政界人士同意她的说法。“如果我在为任何其他国家的国家安全问题提供建议，我也会问同样的问题，” 曾在多届共和党政府担任高官、现任外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)主席的理查德·哈斯(RichardHaass)说，“一些根本性的东西似乎正在破裂。如果美国能（在特朗普的领导下）做一次，为什么不会再次发生呢?”
Then there are America's potential adversaries, chief among them China and Russia, who are a bit like the proverbial dog that caught the car. Having railed against the so-called “unipolar moment” that followed the cold war, they find it has ended far quicker than they expected. For both China and Russia, Trump's presidency is an unimagined geopolitical windfall.
此外，还有美国的潜在对手，尤其是中国和俄罗斯，他们就像达到目的却不知道下一步该怎么做的人。曾经抨击冷战后所谓“单极时刻”的中俄两国发现，这一时刻的结束比他们预期的要快得多。对中国和俄罗斯而言，特朗普当上总统是一笔他们从未设想过的地缘政治横财。
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The response from Trump's shrinking circle of apologists is to point to the acknowledged“globalists” he has put in the biggest roles. The shorthand for these is “MMT”— James Mattis, US secretary of defence, HR McMaster, national security adviser, and Rex Tillerson, secretary of state. This so-called “axis of adults” will keep Trump honest, they say, and prevent him from taking steps to detonate the global order. There are two glaring problems with this Panglossian account. The first is that Trump keeps ignoring their advice. His decision to undercut Nato last month reportedly caught most of his advisers by surprise. The fact that he casually uttered that missing Nato pledge a few days later was only mildly reassuring. He has done so before, only to reverse himself. “When Trump says the right thing, it's like one of those Snapchat images,” says the Washington ambassador of a US ally. “It seems to vanish straight after you've seen it.”
特朗普不断缩小的辩护者圈子的回应是，指向被他赋予最大责任的公认的“全球主义者”。这些人的缩写是“MMT”——国防部长詹姆斯·马蒂斯(James Mattis)、国家安全顾问赫伯特·雷蒙德·麦克马斯特(HR McMaster)和国务卿雷克斯·蒂勒森(Rex Tillerson)。他们说，这个所谓的“成年人轴心”(Axis of Adults)将让特朗普保持诚信，防止他做出炸毁全球秩序的举动。这一过分乐观的说法存在两个突出问题。第一个是，特朗普一直忽视他们的建议。据称，他5月做出的削弱北约的决定令他的多数顾问大吃一惊。几天后，他随意表示自己忽略了对北约的承诺，这一事实只起到了些许安慰作用。他以前曾这么做过，然后推翻了自己。“当特朗普说对了某件事，这事儿就像是Snapchat的一张图片，”一个美国盟国的驻华盛顿大使说，“在你看到之后，它就立刻消失了。”
Trump also spurned MMT's unanimous counsel not to pull out of the Paris agreement on global warming. The same willingness to overrule those around him is evident in Trump's loud support for the Persian Gulf states' decision to sever ties with Qatar— a measure just short of war — even though Qatar plays host to 11,000 US troops. While Tillerson was trying to mediate, Trump was goading the Saudis and its allies to go further. Whom should the world take seriously? Tillerson or Trump? “I don't buy this theory about the axis of adults,” says Kagan. “Even Obama was able to overrule his senior generals. We have no evidence to show that the so-called adults can stop Trump from being Trump.”
特朗普还拒绝了MMT提出的不要退出巴黎全球气候协定的一致建议。特朗普否决周围人士的意志，在他不顾卡塔尔驻扎着1.1万美军而大声支持波斯湾国家与卡塔尔断交——仅次于战争的手段——的决定时也表现得很明显。尽管蒂勒森在努力调解，但特朗普在刺激沙特阿拉伯及其盟国走得更远。世界应当认真对待他们中的哪一个？蒂勒森还是特朗普？“我不接受成年人轴心这个理论，”卡根说，“就连奥巴马也能否决他的高级将领的意见。我们没有证据证明这些所谓成年人能够阻止特朗普做他自己。”
The second drawback is that Trump's world view is deeply at odds with most of his senior officials (Stephen Bannon, the anti-globalist White House chief strategist, is the big exception). For more than 40 years, Trump has consistently seen the rest of the world as a hostile place — foes and allies alike. Phrases such as“They are laughing at us” and “We are being ripped off” have tripped off his tongue since the 1980s. At 71, it seems unlikely he will change his instincts. On his first trip abroad last month, Trump again berated Germany for paying less than its fair share to Nato, and for its alleged cheating on trade.“Trump believes all foreigners are playing us for suckers — he sees the world as a dark place,” says Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to Nato. “How can you lead alliances when you keep telling your allies they are ripping you off?”
第二个问题是，特朗普的世界观与他手下多数高级官员的世界观严重冲突（反对全球主义的白宫首席战略师史蒂夫·班农(Steve Bannon)是个重大例外）。40多年来，特朗普始终把世界其他地区视为一个敌对的地方——敌人和盟友都一样。自1980年代以来，“他们在嘲笑我们”和“我们正遭到剥削”这样的句子，不断地从他嘴里说出来。今年71岁的他似乎不大可能改变自己的本能。上任后在5月首次出访国外时，特朗普再次严责德国承担的北约开支低于公平的份额，并涉嫌在贸易上耍诈。“特朗普认为所有外国人都把我们当傻瓜一样戏弄——他把世界看成一个黑暗之地，”前美国驻北约大使伊沃·达尔德(Ivo Daalder)说，“如果你不断告诉盟国说，它们正在剥削你，那你如何能够领导联盟呢？”
Some insist Trump is a “realist” — a refreshing contrast to the neoconservatives around George W Bush. But such an approach only works with a nuanced grasp of whatmotivates other countries. Trump makes no effort to seek out their opinion.America’sallies were particularly shocked last month when HR McMaster and Gary Cohn, thepresident’s senior economic adviser, wrote a Wall Street Journal column setting out Trump's diplomatic principles. “The world is not a 'global community' but an arena where nations, non-governmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage,” they wrote. “Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.”
有些人坚称，特朗普是一个“现实主义者”——跟小布什(George W Bush)周围的新保守主义者构成鲜明对比。但是，现实主义仅仅在细致入微地理解其他国家的激励因素时才有用。而特朗斯丝毫没有努力去了解其他国家的意见。5月，当麦克马斯特和总统的高级经济顾问加里·科恩(Gary Cohn)，为《华尔街日报》(WSJ)撰写一篇专栏文章介绍特朗普的外交原则时，尤其令美国的盟国感到震惊。“世界并非一个‘全球社会’，而是一个各个国家、非政府力量和企业彼此交战、争夺优势的竞技场，”他们写道，“我们并不否认国际事务的这一根本特征，而是接受它。”
So much for realism. What McMaster and Cohn depicted was a brutalist world in which there were no shared values. The fact that it was a carefully penned message delivered by two of Trump's more seasoned advisers, rather than a casual tweet by the president himself, was particularly striking. “These are the people who are supposed to be moderating Trump,” says one European diplomat. “The message we took was, 'You're on your own now.'”
原来他的现实主义不过如此。麦克马斯特和科恩所描述的是一个野兽主义的世界，人们在其中根本没有共同的价值观。这是特朗普的两位更老练的顾问笔下认真写出的内容，而不是总统本人随意发的推文，此事实尤其令人吃惊。“他们本该是让特朗普温和化的人，”一名欧洲外交官说，“但我们得到的信息是，‘现在你们得靠自己了’。”
An added complication is that it is by no means clear Trump's top three cabinet officials even agree with each other. Mattis and McMaster are widely rumoured not to get along, while Tillerson's world view is still largely unknown. Of the three, outsiders place most faith in Mattis, who has found it increasingly hard to justify Trump's stances in public. “It would be a big surprise to me if Mattis is still in his job a year or two from now,” says Javier Solana, the former top diplomatic envoy for the EU.
让情况变得更为复杂的是，就连特朗普的三名顶级内阁官员之间是否意见一致，也完全是个未知数。大范围的传言称，马蒂斯和麦克马斯特之间合不来，而蒂勒森的世界观仍基本上不为人知。在这三人中，外人最信任马蒂斯，而马蒂斯已发现为特朗普的立场公开辩护变得越来越难。“如果从现在开始的一两年后，马蒂斯仍然在职，我将会感到非常惊讶，”前欧盟共同外交与安全政策高级代表哈维尔?索拉纳(Javier Solana)说。
Trump's next big test will come in early July when for the first time he will meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. The visual takeaways from such confabulations often speak louder than the statements. At the G20 in Australia in November 2014, shortly after Russia had annexed Crimea, Putin was photographed alone, shunned by his fellow leaders. He left the meeting early. His departure symbolised Russia's isolation. Trump's decision to take a golf cart rather than join the other six leaders on foot at the G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, last month also spoke volumes, prefiguring his withdrawal from the Paris agreement a few days later. “He could not even be bothered to walk for a few minutes with his fellow leaders,” says Solana. “It said so much about him.”
7月初，特朗普将迎来他的下一个重大考验，届时他将在德国汉堡的二十国集团(G20)峰会上首次会见俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京(Vladimir Putin)。这种会谈产生的一些视觉画面常常比声明更能说明问题。2014年11月在澳大利亚举行的G20峰会上，由于那时俄罗斯刚刚吞并克里米亚不久，其他领导人都有意回避普京，普京只能自己照相。他很早离开了会议。他的离开象征着俄罗斯被孤立。在5月的西西里陶尔米纳(Taormina)七国集团(G7)峰会上，特朗普决定乘坐一辆高尔夫球车，而不是跟其他6位领导人一起步行，也说明了很多问题，预示了他将在几天之后退出巴黎协定。“他甚至不愿跟其他领导人一起走上几分钟，”索拉纳说，“这很能反映他的想法。”
Will Trump be pictured chatting happily with Putin in Hamburg? Or will he be alone? “The more Trump emphasises America First, the more it turns into America Alone,” says Daalder. Those who know Putin say he will use the meeting to do a forensic probe of Trump's strengths and weaknesses. How the former KGB officer reads the US president will shapeRussia's actions in the coming months.
特朗普将被拍到在汉堡与普京愉快地交谈吗？还是他会独自拍照？“特朗普越是强调美国优先，就越会变成美国孤立，”达尔德说。那些认识普京的人表示，他将利用这次会议仔细探查特朗普的强项与弱点。这位前克格勃(KGB)官员如何解读美国总统，将影响俄罗斯在未来几个月里的动作。
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But the highest-stakes Trump mind-reading is taking place in China.Russia may present an immediate threat to America's allies in Europe. Beijing poses the transcendent challenge. Those who made the case that Trump was “normalising” pointed to his meeting in April with Xi Jinping, China's president, at Mar-a-Lago. In contrast to the election campaign, in which he accused China of “raping”America, Trump struck a convivial tone at this first meeting with his Chinese counterpart and discarded all talk of launching a trade war. In exchange he enlisted Xi's help in supposedly rolling back North Korea's nuclear programme. In practice, China has done little more than it was already doing — not very much — to rein in North Korea's Kim Jong Un. But Xi's charm offensive was well judged.
但最卖力读懂特朗普内心的是中国。俄罗斯或许对美国在欧洲的盟友构成直接威胁。但北京方面才是最大的挑战。那些认为特朗普正在“正常化”的人，指出的一个证据是4月特朗普与中国国家主席习近平在海湖庄园(Mar-a-Lago)的会面。特朗普在竞选时曾指责中国“强奸”美国，但与之形成对比的是，特朗普在与习近平首次会面时语气颇为友好，把关于发动贸易战的所有说法也都抛诸脑后。作为交换，他赢得了习近平在阻止朝鲜核项目上的所谓帮助。然而实际上，除了之前已经采取的并不太多的措施外，中国几乎没有付出任何行动去制止朝鲜的金正恩(Kim Jong Un)。但是习近平的魅力攻势得到了很好的评价。
Not only did he travel to Trump's Florida club, which is where the US president feels most at home but China also approved dozens of pending Trump trademarks. His visit also coincided with a flurry of approvals for Ivanka Trump's line of accessories. Xi, in other words, came bearing gifts for the president and his family. Kagan describes this as “bringing fruits to the volcano”. It worked. Trump duly sang Xi's praises — and has done so ever since.
除习近平前往特朗普在佛罗里达的俱乐部（这位美国总统在这里最自在）外，中国还批准了几十个特朗普原本等待批准的商标。习近平访美时，伊万卡·特朗普(Ivanka Trump)的配饰品牌碰巧也获得了商标批准。换句话说，习近平是带着送给特朗普及其家人的礼物来的。卡根将之形容为“带着水果来到火山”。这招很有效。特朗普适时地对习近平大加赞赏——并且从那之后一直如此。
Others of whom Trump has spoken glowingly include the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and the Philippines. Barring the last, which is run by the pugilistic Rodrigo Duterte, each is an autocracy. Trump rarely has a good word to say about his fellow democratically elected leaders.
同样令特朗普大加赞赏的还包括沙特阿拉伯、俄罗斯、埃及、土耳其和菲律宾的领导人。除菲律宾（目前由铁腕的罗德里戈·杜特尔特(Rodrigo Duterte)领导）外，其他国家都是独裁统治。但特朗普很少对和他一样民主当选的领导人有积极评价。
It is not only Canada and Germany that are seeking insurance against a wayward US. Others re-evaluating their place in the world include France, Australia and Mexico. Meanwhile, the clutch of smaller allies that play host to US military bases, such as Singapore and Djibouti, will be watching Qatar's fate with interest. Does hosting US troops buy you any loyalty in Washington? “In every interaction with a foreign power, especially an ally, you have a US president asking: 'What's in it for us?'” says Haass. “It is only natural that allies will follow suit and drift into Japan First, France First, Canada First — and so on.”
不止加拿大和德国正在寻求保障来抵御美国任性而为的风险。法国、澳大利亚和墨西哥等国都在重新评估自己在世界的位置。与此同时，那些为美国军事基地提供驻地的少数较小盟友——比如新加坡和吉布提——将饶有兴趣地关注卡塔尔的命运。为美军提供驻地是否能让你获得华盛顿的忠诚？“在与其他大国、特别是盟友的每一次互动中，这位美国总统都会问：‘对我们有什么好处？’”哈斯说，“盟友自然只会纷纷效仿，渐渐走向日本优先、法国优先、加拿大优先等等。”
Long before Trump's victory, Australians were also debating whether their country should distance itself from the US to accommodate a rising China— a more important economic partner than the US. Now such arguments have gone mainstream. Former prime ministers, such as Paul Keating, make the case that Australia should hedge its bets. “The 'equidistance' argument used to be made on the fringes of academia and the media,” says Andrew Shearer, who was national security adviser to Tony Abbott, Australia's last prime minister.“Trump has made their case so much more respectable.”
早在特朗普胜选很久以前，澳大利亚也曾讨论过自己是否应该远离美国而迎合崛起的中国——对于澳大利亚来说，中国是比美国更重要的经济伙伴。如今这类讨论成了主流。保罗·基廷(Paul Keating)等前总理认为澳大利亚应该两边下注。“‘中立’观点曾经处于学术界和媒体界的边缘，”曾为澳大利亚前总理托尼·艾伯特(Tony Abbott)担任国家安全顾问的安德鲁·希勒(Andrew Shearer)表示，“特朗普使得人们大大提高了对这一观点的尊重。”
Meanwhile, the UK, which is likely to be absorbed in Brexit deliberations for years to come, is no longer an active player. America's circle of reliable allies is dwindling. Even before Brexit, the UK was scaling back. The British army is now smaller than the US marine corps. “For the foreseeable future, the US-UK special relationship is irrelevant,” says Thomas Wright, a Brookings scholar of foreign policy. “Britain has decided to remove itself completely from the chessboard.”
与此同时，未来几年可能专注于退欧深思的英国不再是活跃选手。美国可信赖的盟友圈越来越小。即便在退欧前，英国已经在后撤了。如今英国军队人数比美国海军陆战队人数还少。“在可预见的未来，美英特殊关系将不再重要，”布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)学者托马斯·赖特(Thomas Wright)表示，“英国已经决定彻底退出棋局。”
America's friends would be more sanguine about the health of the world order if they saw Trump as an aberration. But he is more of a symptom —albeit an alarming one — than a cause of America's retreat from its postwar role. With some reason, US leaders have for years beseeched their allies to spend more on defence. To little avail. Since the end of the cold war, it has become ever harder for US leaders to convince voters of the old Kennedy exhortation to “pay any price, bear any burden”. The very notion that an aspiring US president could urge Americans to sacrifice on behalf of other countries seems fanciful. Perhaps they are on to something. If the world order collapsed, Americans would probably be the last to feel it. “We would pay the lowest price,” says Kagan.
如果美国的朋友认为特朗普的出现是一次失常的话，他们会对世界秩序的健康更乐观。但他更像是美国放弃战后角色的症状——尽管是个骇人的症状——而不是病因。出于一些原因，美国领导人多年来一直恳请盟友在国防上增加支出。收效甚微。自冷战结束后，美国领导人更难以说服选民认同老肯尼迪“不惜一切代价、承受一切负担”(pay any price, bear any burden)的劝诫了。有抱负的美国总统会敦促美国人为了其他国家作出牺牲——这种观点就像是异想天开。或许美国人明白了些什么。如果当今世界秩序坍塌，美国人可能会是最晚感觉到的。“我们付出的代价会最少，”卡根表示。
In reality, America's global retrenchment began to really take hold under Barack Obama — albeit in a highly different style to Trump. It was during Obama's second term that China overtook the US as the world's largest economy on a purchasing power parity basis. It is likely to overtake the US in dollar terms within the next presidential term, regardless of who is in office.
事实上，美国的全球后撤在巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)执政时期即已开始——尽管以一种与特朗普截然不同的方式。正是在奥巴马第二任期内，按购买力平价计算，中国超过美国成为全球最大经济体。在下一个总统任期内，无论谁执政，中国的经济规模按美元计算都很有可能超过美国。
The world was already making adjustments before Trump announced his candidacy. Almost two years before the UK's Brexit referendum, David Cameron, Britain's then prime minister, rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping on a state visit to the UK. Britain also enraged Obama's White House by rushing to join China's Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, which was set up as an explicit rival to the US-created Bretton Woods system. Others, such as Australia and Germany, hesitated but then followed suit. Almost every western power sent delegations, among them 29 heads of state, to China's recent “One Belt, One Road”summit in Beijing. When China speaks, foreign governments listen. When Trump tweets, they find a senior US official to check whether he really meant it. “You could ask whether the UK was an outlier, or whether it was an early adopter,” says Wright. “It is not yet clear which.”
世界各国在特朗普宣布参选前已在作出调整。在英国进行退欧公投前近一年，时任英国首相戴维·卡梅伦(David Cameron)铺开红毯隆重欢迎习近平对英国进行国事访问。英国急切加入中国主导的亚洲基础设施投资银行（AIIB，简称：亚投行）也激怒了奥巴马政府。成立亚投行显然是为了与美国创建的布雷顿森林(Bretton Woods)体系竞争。澳大利亚、德国等国虽有所犹豫，但随后都纷纷效仿英国。几乎所有西方大国都派代表团出席了中国近期在北京举行的“一带一路”峰会，而且共有29位国家元首出席。当中国发声时，外国政府会倾听。当特朗普发布推文时，他们会找一名美国高官核实特朗普是不是真是这个意思。“你可以问一问，英国是局外者，还是早期接受者，”赖特说，“目前还不清楚是哪一个。”
The big imponderable is whether Trump will inflict irreparable damage on the world order before he leaves office. He has been in power for just over 150 days, which is barely 10 per cent of his allotted first term. The world could respond in two different ways. The troubling scenario is that we are indeed present at the early stages of the destruction. One of the reasons Xi played nice with Trump in April was to keep things calm until the next Communist Party Congress, which takes place in September. Once Xi has cemented his hold on the presidency for another five years, he will be freer to pursue his foreign policy goals. Chief among these is consolidating China's control of the disputed South China Sea islands. Taiwan is also in Xi's sights. “It is a fair bet that US-China relations will get a lot more testy after September,” says Wright. “Next year is likely to be a year of US-China tensions.”
最难以估量的是，特朗普在离任之前是否会对世界秩序造成无法挽回的破坏。他掌权刚过150天，这仅仅是其第一任期10%的时间。世界各国可以以两种不同的方式作出回应。令人不安的一幕是，我们实际上正处于这场破坏的早期阶段。习近平今年4月对特朗普表示友好的原因之一是要保持各种因素的稳定，直至今秋中共十九大召开。一旦习近平巩固了未来五年的主席之位，他将更加不受限制地追求自己的外交政策目标。其中的首要目标是强化中国对有争议的南中国海诸岛的控制。台湾也是习近平的目标之一。“可以肯定，美中关系在中共十九大之后将变得更加一波三折，”赖特说，“明年可能是美中关系紧张的一年。”
It is an open secret that China now has the capacity to threaten America's battle groups with its anti-ship missiles and submarines, which means the US can no longer intimidate in the way it once did. Indeed, some see the aircraft carriers as sitting ducks. The scope for accident, and miscalculation, is high. Will Xi call Trump's bluff? Does he, like Putin, see Trump as a paper tiger? Worse, could they misread Trump as a paper tiger when in fact he would prove trigger-happy in a showdown? There is no way of telling. Therein lies the rub. In his book, Acheson set out how a global leader should above all be predictable and uphold the rules. Whatever happens during Trump's watch, we can be sure those precepts are off the table.
中国如今有能力利用反舰导弹和潜艇威胁美国的航母战斗群已是公开的秘密，这意味着美国无法再像以前那样对中国进行恫吓。实际上，有些人视美国的航母为“活靶子”。美中之间发生意外事件及误算的风险很高。习近平会看穿特朗普的虚张声势吗？他会像普京一样把特朗普视为一只“纸老虎”吗？更糟糕的是，他们会不会在特朗普事实上将证明自己在摊牌时喜欢乱开枪的时候，误把特朗普视为一只纸老虎？我们无从知晓。症结就在于此。艾奇逊在书中说明了，作为一名全球领导人，首先其行为应该可以预见，并且要维护规则。无论特朗普任期内发生什么，我们可以肯定的是，这些告诫都会被无视。
The rosier path is one in which other nations step into the breach vacated by Trump's America: the rest of the world, in other words, might finally take ownership of Acheson's creation. The strongest sign of that came from Xi in January, when he told the Davos gathering of global elites that China was prepared to uphold the world economic order in the teeth of US protectionist rhetoric. “Some people blame economic globalisation for the chaos in our world,” said Xi. “We should not retreat into a harbour whenever we encounter a storm; otherwise we will never reach the other side.”
更光明的道路是其他国家填补特朗普治下的美国腾出的缺口：换句话说，世界其他国家或许最终将掌控艾奇逊当年参与创造的体系。这方面的最强烈信号来自习近平。今年1月，习近平在汇聚全球精英的达沃斯(Davos)论坛上表示，中国已准备好维护世界经济秩序，无论美国的保护主义论调多么甚嚣尘上。“有一种观点把世界乱象归咎于经济全球化，”习近平说，“不能一遇到风浪就退回到港湾中去，那是永远不能到达彼岸的。”
Likewise,China and India showed restraint in response to Trump's decision to quit the Paris deal last month. Both Li Keqiang, China's prime minister, and Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, visited European capitals in the same week and agreed with EU counterparts that they would stick to their Paris carbon pledges. “It is striking how often European leaders and China seem to agree with each other nowadays,” says Solana.
同样，在回应特朗普上月退出巴黎气候协定的决定时，中国和印度都表现出了克制。中国总理李克强和印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪(Narendra Modi)在同一周到访欧洲，并与东道国政府首脑就坚持各自的减排承诺达成了一致。索拉纳说:“如今，欧中领导人看上去如此频繁地认同彼此的观点实在令人震惊。”
Another hopeful sign is the warm relationship between French president Emmanuel Macron and Merkel. If they can rekindle the Franco-German motor, Europe could take on greater responsibility for its own defence. Ironically, this is just what Trump and his predecessors have been urging. There is even talk of an independent European nuclear deterrent, though many still see that as far-fetched. Likewise, Freeland's speech to Canada's parliament included a pledge to step up the country's defence spending. If the universe has a sense of humour, Trump's accidental legacy could be to convince the rest of the world to step into America's shoes.
另一令人鼓舞的迹象是法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)与默克尔之间的友好关系。如果他们能重启法德引擎，欧洲将可以为自身防御承担更大责任。具有讽刺意味的是，这正是特朗普及其前任们一直在敦促的。甚至还有一支独立的欧洲核威慑力量的说法，尽管许多人仍视之难以置信。弗里兰对加拿大议会的演讲同样包括承诺增加国防支出。如果宇宙有幽默感的话，特朗普的意外遗产可能是说服世界其他国家接替美国的角色。
Edward Luce is the FT's chief US columnist and commentato. 爱德华·卢斯(Edward Luce)是英国《金融时报》驻美国首席专栏作家和评论员
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