How to understand NATO designating China as 'systemic challenge'?

如何理性看待北约视中国为“系统性挑战”

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Wang Xinjuan
Time
2021-06-17 17:09:56

孙成昊

By Sun Chenghao

北约30个成员国14日在布鲁塞尔北约总部举行会议。从峰会达成的联合公报看,联手盟友一致对华已成为拜登欧洲行的最重要议题之一。

Thirty NATO member states held a summit at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on June 14. According to the joint communiqué reached at the summit, working with allies to unanimously deal with China has become one of the most important topics of Biden's Europe trip.

本次北约峰会的召开有两个重要背景。一是拜登执政后急于修复跨大西洋关系,并在多个场合强调美国对北约的投入和重视,一改前任特朗普对北约的轻蔑态度。二是拜登政府继续力推与中俄的“大国竞争”战略,要求北约盟国齐心协力,避免美国陷入单打独斗的不利境地。在这两大背景下,本次北约峰会聚焦两大目标。

As for the backgrounds for the convening of this NATO summit, there are two noteworthy points. First, Biden has been eager to repair transatlantic relations after taking office, and he emphasized on many occasions that the US valued NATO. This is different compared with his predecessor Trump's contempt for NATO. Second, the Biden administration continues to push forward its strategy of "major power competition" with China and Russia and requires NATO allies to work together to avoid the US from falling into the disadvantaged position of fighting alone. In this case, this NATO summit focused on two major goals.

一是通过推出“北约2030”议程重振同盟实力。“北约2030”议程虽然并未处处剑指中国,但实际上为与中国的全面竞争预埋伏笔,包括深化北约内部政治协商与协作,强化威慑和防御能力;保持技术优势,提高在关键科技等方面的跨大西洋合作;维护所谓“基于规则的国际秩序”等。

The first is to revitalize the alliance's strength by launching the NATO 2030 agenda. Although the agenda does not point to China everywhere, it actually foreshadows full-scale competition with China, including deepening NATO's internal political consultation and cooperation, strengthening deterrence and defense capabilities, maintaining technological advantages, improving transatlantic cooperation in various aspects, including key technologies, and maintaining the so-called "rules-based international order ".

二是通过协调针对中俄的政策加强同盟团结。北约峰会发表的联合公报多次提及俄罗斯与中国,认为两国对“以规则为基础的国际秩序”构成挑战,包括中国崛起“从根本上改变了力量平衡”、中国对北约构成“系统性挑战”等。北约秘书长斯托尔滕贝格曾在多个场合表示,北约与中国的价值观截然不同,在与中国保持对话的情况下,必须正视中国挑战。

The second is to strengthen the unity of the alliance by coordinating policies against China and Russia. The joint communiqué issued by the NATO summit mentioned Russia and China many times. The document believes that the two countries pose a challenge to the "rules-based international order", including the rise of China that "fundamentally shifts the balance of power " and that China presents "systemic challenges" to NATO. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has stated on many occasions that NATO and China have completely different values, and NATO must face up to China's challenges while maintaining dialogue with China.

在美国对华“最严峻战略竞争对手”定位及“大国竞争”战略的推动下,北约正不可避免地沦为美国对华同盟体系中的一环。北约将中国定位为“系统性挑战”尚属首次,但也应理性看待这一表述。

Driven by the positioning of the "most severe strategic competitor" and the strategy of "great-power competition" by the US, NATO is inevitably becoming a part of the US alliance system against China. It is the first time that NATO has positioned China as "systemic challenge", but this statement should also be viewed rationally.

一方面,将中国抬升到“系统性挑战”证明北约正日益被美国吸入到对华竞争的战略轨道。从当前态势看,拜登政府正在全球推动建立分门别类的反华同盟体系,如在基础设施领域发起针对“一带一路”倡议的“重建更好世界”倡议;在意识形态领域推动召开“全球民主峰会”;在军事领域升级美日印澳“四方安全对话”机制;在科技领域打造美欧技术联盟等。只有强调中国对北约构成全方位的“系统性挑战”,美国才能顺理成章地将北约纳入这一针对中国的体系。

On the one hand, raising China to "systematic challenge" proves that NATO is increasingly being sucked into the strategic track of competition against China by the US. Judging from the current situation, the Biden administration promotes the establishment of a categorized anti-China alliance system around the world. For example, the US launched the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative targeting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the field of infrastructure; proposes a global summit of democracies in the ideological field; upgrades the US-Japan-India-Australia Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) mechanism in the military field; builds a US-Europe technology alliance in the scientific and technological field. Only by emphasizing that China poses all-round "systemic challenges" to NATO can the US logically incorporate NATO into this system against China.

另一方面,从北约联合公报的措辞来看,“系统性挑战”并不意味着北约已将中国视为迫在眉睫的威胁。相比中国,联合公报中将俄罗斯定位为“威胁”,且出现次数远远超过中国,可见从传统的地缘政治角度,北约的主要安全关切源自俄罗斯而非中国。同时,公报也强调应当与中国保持建设性对话,并在诸如气候变化等与同盟相关的领域对华接触,这体现了北约内部欧洲盟国平衡美国对华强硬姿态的考量,也预示着未来北约真正落实对华决策时将会遭受的阻力。

On the other hand, judging from the wording of the NATO joint communiqué, "systematic challenges" do not mean that NATO has regarded China as an imminent threat. Russia is positioned as a "threat" in the joint communiqué, and the number of occurrences far exceeds that of China. It can be seen from the traditional geopolitical perspective that NATO's main security concerns originate from Russia, not China. At the same time, the communiqué also emphasizes that NATO should maintain a constructive dialogue with China and engage with China in fields such as climate change that concern the alliance. This reflects the consideration of NATO's European members to balance Washington's tough stance towards Beijing. It also indicates that NATO will encounter resistance in implementing the China-related decisions in the future.

冷战结束以来,有关北约前途命运的争论从未停歇过。冷战期间应运而生的北约理应寿终正寝,美国政府却始终不愿放弃以此统领跨大西洋关系的重要机制,而安享和平红利的欧洲也难以终结对美国的安全依赖。

The debate about NATO's future and destiny has never stopped since the end of the Cold War. NATO, which came into being during the Cold War, should end its mission. However, the US has always been reluctant to give up the important mechanism that governs transatlantic relations, and Europe, which enjoys the peace dividend, can hardly end its security dependence on the US.

然而,中国不是冷战时期的苏联,从未对北约构成任何挑战和威胁。北约更不能简单地将中国定性为“系统性挑战”而因此忽略双方可以对话合作的领域,通过制造假想敌维系同盟团结只会让北约进一步迷失方向。

However, China is not the Soviet Union during the Cold War and has never posed any challenge or threat to NATO. NATO cannot simply characterize China as "systemic challenge" and therefore ignore the areas where the two sides can have dialogues and cooperation. Creating imaginary enemies to maintain the alliance will only make NATO lose its direction.

北约遭遇的最大危机是其生存的合法性不断遭到质疑,将中国列为“系统性挑战”并不能为北约“续命”。与此同时,其目前面临的最大挑战不是冷战时所面临的外部威胁或潜在侵略,而是北约内部难以化解的深层矛盾。

The biggest crisis encountered by NATO is that the legitimacy of its existence is constantly being questioned, and listing China as "systematic challenge" does not revive its life. At the same time, the biggest challenge it currently faces is not the external threat or potential aggression it faced during the Cold War, but the deep-seated contradictions that are difficult to resolve within NATO.

自奥巴马政府以来,美国就逐渐降低了跨大西洋关系在其全球战略中的地位,实施了撤出欧洲、转向亚太的战略,北约作用同步下降。拜登执政后虽强调北约的重要性,但他明显更重视“服务于美国中产阶层的外交”,盟友成为拜登政府提升美国全球竞争力的工具与帮手。同时,欧洲“战略自主”意识觉醒,加快建设自主防务的脚步,以免“特朗普式”的美国总统卷土重来。

Since the Obama administration, the US has gradually reduced the status of transatlantic relations in its global strategy, implemented the strategy of withdrawing from Europe and shifting to the Asia-Pacific region, and NATO's role has decreased simultaneously. Although Biden emphasized the importance of NATO after taking office, he obviously paid more attention to "diplomacy for the middle class of the US". Therefore its allies have become the tools and helpers of the Biden administration to enhance the US's global competitiveness. At the same time, Europe's awareness of "strategic autonomy" has been awakened, and the pace of building autonomous defenses has been accelerated, lest the "Trump-style" American president makes a comeback.

冷战期间,大西洋两岸都明白为什么需要这样一个军事联盟,但世界变化很快,北约却无法与时俱进。如果北约故步自封、抱残守缺,陷入以外敌求团结的窠臼,之前特朗普认为北约已经过时的观点恐怕才是一语中的。

During the Cold War, both sides of the Atlantic understood why such a military alliance was needed. However, the world is changing rapidly, and NATO could not keep up with the times. If NATO still lets go of itself mired in obsolete thinking, rejects any change, and falls into the quarrel of resorting to foreign enemies to seek unity, Trump's previous view that "NATO is now obsolete " may be true.

(作者是中国现代国际关系研究院美国研究所学者)

 (The author is a scholar from the Institute of American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.)

Editor's note: This article is originally published on huanqiu.com.cn, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.

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