作为世界上最大的发展中国家和发达国家，中国和美国的关系一直是西媒关注的焦点，有美媒在9日就讨论了中美能否和谐相处的问题，并提及克林顿曾批评江泽民站在历史错误的一边。
对于那些长期以来关注中国的人士来说，过去两年非常令人不安。尽管习近平和奥巴马举行了多次会晤，两国关系处在1989年以来关系的最高点。除了台湾、西藏、人权、知识产权等老问题外，新的问题也在产生。中国国内加大了对媒体等的控制;在中国外，中国在南海和东海上的主权声张因引发争议。
根据皮尤调查，只有38%的美国人对中国表示肯定，比四年前低了13%。根据在中国的美国商会最新民调显示，60%的调查人员认为，外国商业相比于过去受欢迎程度低了不少。
两个有着不同历史、制度、价值观的国家可以合作则源于两次峰会：一次是1972年，美国前总统尼克松访问中国大陆;另一次是1979年，邓小平访美与卡特会晤。但是，1989年的天安门风波又破坏了两国的进展。但是，在接下来的这几十年里，两国关系取得进步，双方都认为，通过更多的时间和经济自由、教育和人文交流，中国会渐渐成为一个更加开放的社会，也会成为一个更加负责任的大国。
克林顿曾批评江泽民“站在历史错误的一边(on the wrong side of history)”。对于习近平来说，历史现在站在了中国一边，因为中国重回到一个符合它古老文明的中心角色上来。
那么，美国应该如何应对这一挑战?首先就是，尽管美国欢迎中国崛起，但是，美国不会无理由地迎合中国。同时，需要表明的一点就是，美国更希望中美前方是一条合作的道路。为了给习近平访美搭台子，奥巴马应当向中国派出一名特使，然后要求习近平做出同登回应。然后，奥巴马应当在白宫内部建立一个由专家组成的中国智库，来检验政府对中国的基本政策。最后，参议院外交关系委员会应当举行特别的两党听证会，来选取更大范围的美国专家的意见。
为了取得任何突破，两国需要准备做出不同的妥协。美国要考虑下列问题：在处理与中国的关系时，要将气候变化和民主、人权问题同时看作要务;承认中国在南海上有一定范围内的影响力;对美国军机靠近南海采取一些新的限制;如果韩国和朝鲜统一，美国不会再朝鲜驻兵或者是安置核武器;给中国在国际货币基金会更大的权力。
而中国应该考虑以下问题：同意对海洋争议按照国际法来裁定;同意通过一种更有效的方式来制裁朝鲜等。
因为这些问题非常棘手，取得突破还需要假以时日。但是，还有另外的选择吗?让中国走上普京的道路吗，现在，美欧重启双边关系已经无望了。如果让中美关系也走入一种军事僵局将会非常可惜。可能，对于中美有积极乐观的情绪是有道理的，但是，唯一可能的结果就是遏制，甚至对抗。通过对中国60年的研究，在于外界打交道的时候，中国是一个违反常理、不可预测的玩家。
如果还有一条美国能够和平适应中国崛起的道路，这就会有一系列的妥协和反抗。正值中国股市困扰中共，是时候大胆、努力重塑两个国家交流的方式了。
以下为原文：
Can the U.S. and China Get Along?
FOR longtime observers of China, the last two years have been unsettling. Under Xi Jinping the Chinese Communist Party has made it more difficult than ever to hope that the People’s Republic is still dedicated to the agenda of“reform and opening up” that was the mantra of the Deng Xiaoping era. Instead, Beijing has served up a neo-Maoist cocktail of autocracy within and truculence without.
Despite meetings between Presidents Xi and Obama, and a yearly Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the level of discouragement and pessimism, especially among China specialists, about the future of Chinese-American relations is at its highest since the bloodshed of1989.
To the litany of the old problems— Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, intellectual property, currency policy— a host of new ones have been added. In China, advocates for civil and political rights have been arrested; civil society groups harassed; controls on free expression in academia, the media and civil society tightened; and“universal values” attacked. Outside China, Beijing’s new assertiveness has inflamed disputes in the East and South China Seas even as new controversies have multiplied over hacking and other cyberattacks, harassment of political and social activists, blockage of news media websites, and punitive denials of visa applications for American journalists, writers and scholars who want to work in China.
The Pew Research Center finds that only38 percent of Americans view China favorably, down from51 percent four years earlier. In a recent poll by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, a champion of closer relations,60 percent of respondents said that foreign businesses were less welcome than they used to be, up from41 percent a year earlier.
The idea that countries with such different political histories, systems and values could ever cooperate arose out of two summit meetings: in1972, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, visited Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai(with both countries alarmed about the Soviet Union) and in1979, Deng Xiaoping visited President Jimmy Carter(when both countries resumed full diplomatic relations). Sadly, these breakthroughs were followed by a breakdown, the suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and cities across China, in1989. Nonetheless, over the ensuing decades the relationship improved enough to allow many on both sides to imagine that, with more time, economic liberalization, and educational and social exchange, China might evolve into a more open society and a more responsible“stakeholder” in global affairs, giving us a common goal.
It is this inchoate hope that has now been arrested by Mr. Xi’s“Chinese Dream,” an indigenous reverie confected to rally his people not to the promise of greater openness and constitutionalism, but greater wealth, power, national unity and global clout.
President Bill Clinton once scolded President Jiang Zemin for being“on the wrong side of history.” As far as Mr. Xi is concerned, history is now on China’s side, as it returns to a central role befitting its ancient civilization and its status as the most populous country.
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How should America respond to this new challenge?
We should reaffirm in the most public way possible that while we welcome China’s“rise,” we will not accommodate unreasonable claims around the world and, if necessary, are even prepared for a latter-day strategy of“containment,” which Western democracies used to circumscribe the Communist bloc during the Cold War. However, at the same time, we must make it indelibly clear that we far prefer a collaborative path forward. Such a path needs a road map, and a personal presidential commitment.
To send such a signal, and to set the stage for their meeting in September, Mr. Obama should appoint a special envoy to China, and ask Mr. Xi to reciprocate.(The meetings between Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Vice Premier Wang Qishan, during President George W. Bush’s administration, are a model.)
Second, Mr. Obama should create a China think tank within the White House, composed of experts, to examine our government’s basic strategy toward China.
Third, to edify public discussion during an election season, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should hold special bipartisan hearings, as Senator J. William Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, held in the1960s on the conduct of the Vietnam War, to elicit views from an even broader range of American experts.
The threat of climate change presents both countries with, paradoxically, a fortuitous area of common interest that could catalyze the“new kind of major-power relationship” that Mr. Xi has called for. Last fall’s joint agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a potential game-changer.
But to achieve any kind of lasting breakthrough in the China-United States relationship, both sides must be prepared to make difficult concessions.
The United States should contemplate such previously unthinkable options as:
• Giving climate change at least as high a priority as democracy and human rights in the management of our relationship with China;
• Acknowledging that China is entitled to some kind of“sphere of influence” in the South China Sea, just as the United States has in the Caribbean, without completely yielding to all of its territorial claims;
• Imposing new limits on flyovers by American military intelligence aircraft near China’s coastal waters;
• Openness to discussing terms for the end of arms sales to Taiwan;
• Guaranteeing that, if Korea unifies, the United States will place neither troops nor nuclear weapons in the North;
• Exploring new ways of giving China a greater governing role in the International Monetary Fund and other institutions of global governance;
• Investigating how the United States could actively support Mr. Xi’s new economic reforms to spur domestic consumption, as the success of those policies is also in our national interest.
The Chinese side might contemplate such options as:
• Agreeing to allow maritime disputes to be adjudicated by international law;
• Consenting to support sanctions against the North Korean regime in a more effective way;
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• Discussing terms for a disavowal of the use of military force in the Taiwan Strait;
• Allowing Hong Kong more autonomy to work out its timetable for attaining universal suffrage.
Because these issues are so intractable, a breakthrough is a long shot. But what’s the alternative? Allow China to follow the path of Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia— which is now well beyond any hope of“reset”? It would be a great pity to let the Chinese-American relationship— of far more importance than the Russian-American relationship— reach a similar state of military impasse without a herculean effort to arrest the slide.
Perhaps the growing pessimism is justified, and the only possible outcome is containment, even confrontation. Am I optimistic? Not really. In China, there is too much paranoia— and talk about covert“hostile foreign forces” as the cause of China’s problems— to instill confidence. But if I have learned anything in my more than six decades of studying China, it is that when it comes to interacting with the outside world, China can be a counterintuitive and unpredictable player. I have learned to remain open to surprise.
If there is still a peaceful way for the United States to accommodate China’s rise, it will involve a judicious mix of resistance and compromise. Perhaps now, with China’s plummeting stock markets rattling the party’s nerves, is the moment for a bold, concerted effort to recast the way our two essential nations interact.
