究竟是谁在主导中共外交决策？Dispute with Japan highlights China's foreign-policy power struggle
尽管中日外交危机远未落幕，美国媒体却已发表文章开始对危机过程中北京的外交决策进行总结和分析。
据华盛顿邮报2010年9月24日的长篇新闻分析，近期就钓鱼岛主权所爆发的中日冲突“集中暴露出中国外交决策过程中不同利益集团的激烈角逐”。该文作者为 “华盛顿邮报”著名专栏作家约翰•波姆福莱特(John Pomfret)。文章已经被许多报章转载，以下是其概要译文。
中日就钓鱼岛主权新一轮的对峙、以及在这一过程中北京当局的表现，令国际社会满腹狐疑：究竟是谁在主导中国的外交决策？
从过去四周的中日关系看，是中国的许多利益集团而不仅仅是中国外交部在北京的外交决策中施加影响。在这些势力中，新一代军方将领、中共和国务院所属部门、国营企业甚至官方媒体，都在试图就对外关系做出界定。随着中国经济的巨大发展，这些势力的头面人物正以一种前所未有的能量影响中国外交。
于是，从华盛顿到东京，人们都在感叹与这些利益集团及其外交政策观抗衡是何等困难。正如一位美国外交官声称，“现在我们应对的是北京的各个部委，而不单单是一个外交部，关系变得错综复杂”。另一位日本外交官则说，“我们也是一样。我们常常弄不清，在中国对外关系中到底是谁在发号施令”。
日本政治观察家和驻北京外交官指出，就中日在争议海域所发生的矛盾，过去中国外交部的态度都比较温和，从来没有像这次这样强硬，因为这次是中国军方在推波助澜。
其他的一些事例，诸如中国核工业集团以及中化总公司等大型国有企业在巴基斯坦核电站工程和对伊朗石油贸易等问题上的表现，也凸现利益集团在中国对外关系中的实际影响。
这些互相竞争的利益集团造成了中国外交思维的逻辑混乱，而这一现象的确事出有因。胡锦涛在中共总书记这个位子上已经坐了八年，然而外界至今仍不知道他是否真正握有实权。在出任中共总书记之后，他的前任江泽民又继续担任了两年中央军委主席。尽管胡锦涛目前是中共中央政治局九人常委的首领，但政治局九人常委中至少有五人是江派成员。上海复旦大学美国研究中心的一位专家说，这一情势造成中共政府软弱无力，各种政治势力因此而不受约束。
与此同时，中国外交部的外交决策影响力又在不断下降。主管对外关系的国务委员戴秉国目前被认为是“中国外交政策的掌门人”，不过他根本无缘中共中央二十五人政治局。在政治局中，军方占有两个席位，国营企业也至少拥有一席之地。
西方媒体还注意到，解放军将领最近几个月在与外交政策相关的问题上不断发表评论，这些评论试图就大陆周边海域的利益做出界定，比较著名的是解放军副总参谋长马晓天将军对美韩军演的猛烈抨击。
这种解放军将领介入外交事务的情形甚至引起外交部的不满。前驻法国大使、现任全国政协外事委员会副主任和外交学院院长的吴建民对媒体表示，“看到解放军的将军公开就对外政策发表评论，使我很吃惊”；“可这就是中国的现实”。他呼吁建立“思想库”用于协助中南海进行外交决策。清华大学的一位教授则进一步说， “军人虽不代表国家，军队高级将领的言论却会造成重大国际影响”。
此外，中共中央宣传部和官方媒体在此次中日外交危机中，多少都扮演了影响北京对日外交的角色。
阿波罗网编者注：军方和宣传系统都在江系的影响中。
Dispute with Japan highlights China's foreign-policy power struggle
尽管中日外交危机远未落幕，美国媒体却已发表文章开始对危机过程中北京的外交决策进行总结和分析。
据华盛顿邮报2010年9月24日的长篇新闻分析，近期就钓鱼岛主权所爆发的中日冲突“集中暴露出中国外交决策过程中不同利益集团的激烈角逐”。该文作者为 “华盛顿邮报”著名专栏作家约翰•波姆福莱特(John Pomfret)。文章已经被许多报章转载，以下是其概要译文。
中日就钓鱼岛主权新一轮的对峙、以及在这一过程中北京当局的表现，令国际社会满腹狐疑：究竟是谁在主导中国的外交决策？
从过去四周的中日关系看，是中国的许多利益集团而不仅仅是中国外交部在北京的外交决策中施加影响。在这些势力中，新一代军方将领、中共和国务院所属部门、国营企业甚至官方媒体，都在试图就对外关系做出界定。随着中国经济的巨大发展，这些势力的头面人物正以一种前所未有的能量影响中国外交。
于是，从华盛顿到东京，人们都在感叹与这些利益集团及其外交政策观抗衡是何等困难。正如一位美国外交官声称，“现在我们应对的是北京的各个部委，而不单单是一个外交部，关系变得错综复杂”。另一位日本外交官则说，“我们也是一样。我们常常弄不清，在中国对外关系中到底是谁在发号施令”。
日本政治观察家和驻北京外交官指出，就中日在争议海域所发生的矛盾，过去中国外交部的态度都比较温和，从来没有像这次这样强硬，因为这次是中国军方在推波助澜。
其他的一些事例，诸如中国核工业集团以及中化总公司等大型国有企业在巴基斯坦核电站工程和对伊朗石油贸易等问题上的表现，也凸现利益集团在中国对外关系中的实际影响。
这些互相竞争的利益集团造成了中国外交思维的逻辑混乱，而这一现象的确事出有因。胡锦涛在中共总书记这个位子上已经坐了八年，然而外界至今仍不知道他是否真正握有实权。在出任中共总书记之后，他的前任江泽民又继续担任了两年中央军委主席。尽管胡锦涛目前是中共中央政治局九人常委的首领，但政治局九人常委中至少有五人是江派成员。上海复旦大学美国研究中心的一位专家说，这一情势造成中共政府软弱无力，各种政治势力因此而不受约束。
与此同时，中国外交部的外交决策影响力又在不断下降。主管对外关系的国务委员戴秉国目前被认为是“中国外交政策的掌门人”，不过他根本无缘中共中央二十五人政治局。在政治局中，军方占有两个席位，国营企业也至少拥有一席之地。
西方媒体还注意到，解放军将领最近几个月在与外交政策相关的问题上不断发表评论，这些评论试图就大陆周边海域的利益做出界定，比较著名的是解放军副总参谋长马晓天将军对美韩军演的猛烈抨击。
这种解放军将领介入外交事务的情形甚至引起外交部的不满。前驻法国大使、现任全国政协外事委员会副主任和外交学院院长的吴建民对媒体表示，“看到解放军的将军公开就对外政策发表评论，使我很吃惊”；“可这就是中国的现实”。他呼吁建立“思想库”用于协助中南海进行外交决策。清华大学的一位教授则进一步说， “军人虽不代表国家，军队高级将领的言论却会造成重大国际影响”。
此外，中共中央宣传部和官方媒体在此次中日外交危机中，多少都扮演了影响北京对日外交的角色。
阿波罗网编者注：军方和宣传系统都在江系的影响中。
Dispute with Japan highlights China's foreign-policy power struggle
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China's government cancels high-level talks with Japan, following Japan's announcement that it will hold a Chinese fishing boat captain for another ten days.
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Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010; 7:43 AM
The increasingly bitter dispute between China and Japan over a small group of islands in the Pacific is heightening concerns in capitals across the globe over who controls China's foreign policy.
A new generation of officials in the military, key government ministries and state-owned companies has begun to define how China deals with the rest of the world. Emboldened by China's economic expansion, these officials are taking advantage of a weakened leadership at the top of the Communist Party to assert their interests in ways that would have been impossible even a decade ago.
It used to be that Chinese officials complained about the Byzantine decision-making process in the United States. Today, from Washington to Tokyo, the talk is about how difficult it is to contend with the explosion of special interests shaping China's worldview.
"Now we have to deal across agencies and departments and ministries," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ties with China. "The relationship is extraordinarily complex."
Said a senior Japanese diplomat: "We, too, are often confused about China's intentions and who is calling the shots."
Japanese officials said the People's Liberation Army is responsible for the friction over the disputed island chain, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China. In early September, Japan's coast guard detained the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler, accusing him of ramming a Japanese coast guard vessel. In previous crises, China's Foreign Ministry has acted as a calming influence, but this time, Japanese diplomats said, the military led the charge.
China responded by demanding the captain's release, suspending talks, canceling the visits of Japanese schoolchildren and on Thursday arresting four Japanese who allegedly were taking photographs near a Chinese military installation.
In an apparent effort to defuse the escalating tensions, Japan announced Friday that it would release the Chinese captain.
Washington signaled to Beijing on Thursday that it would back Japan in the territorial dispute. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters: "Obviously we're very, very strongly in support of . . . our ally in that region, Japan."
Other examples
The island dispute is the latest instance of players other than the party's central leadership driving China's engagement with the outside world.
Throughout this year, officials from the Ministry of Commerce, who represent China's exporters, have lobbied vociferously against revaluing China's currency, the yuan, despite calls to the contrary from the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance.
In Iran, China's state-owned oil companies are pushing to do more business, even though Beijing backed enhanced U.N. sanctions against Tehran because of its alleged nuclear weapons program. The China National Offshore Oil Co. is in talks to ramp up its investment in the massive Azadegan oil field just as Japanese companies are backing out, senior diplomatic sources said. The move by CNOOC would have the effect of "gutting" the new sanctions, one diplomat said. U.S. officials have stressed to China that they do not want to see China's oil companies "filling in" as other oil companies leave, a senior U.S. official said.
China's main nuclear power corporation wants to build a one-gigawatt nuclear power plant in Pakistan even though it appears to be a violation of international guidelines forbidding nuclear exports to countries that have not signed onto the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or do not have international safeguards on reactors. Pakistan has not signed the treaty.
"We have never had this situation before," said Huang Ping, the director of the Institute for American Studies at China's Academy of Social Sciences. "And it is troubling. We need more coordination among all agencies, including the military."
U.S. reaction
The U.S. government is trying to adapt to this new China with a mixture of honey and vinegar.
In July, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talked tough with China about its claims to the whole of the South China Sea, joining with Vietnam and 10 other Southeast Asian nations to criticize China's recent aggressive behavior in that strategic waterway.
That message - that China should ensure freedom of the seas and negotiate disputed claims peacefully - is expected to be reinforced Friday when President Obama meets in New York with leaders from Southeast Asian nations. Several U.S. officials said the People's Liberation Army and China's state-owned oil companies had been driving China's more forceful claims to the sea.
U.S. officials have also moved to establish more personal connections with Chinese officials. Last month, Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat, spent a full day with Cui Tiankai, one of 12 assistant Chinese foreign ministers, taking him to the Inn at Little Washington, a restaurant in Virginia. The entourage proceeded to a 30-acre farm belonging to a senior State Department official, where Cui took a ride on a tractor. And in an attempt to engage more Chinese stakeholders than in the past, Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner led the largest-ever delegation of U.S. officials to Beijing in May.
Several factors account for the rise of competing interests. President Hu Jintao has led the Communist Party for eight years, but it is not clear that he has ever been fully in control. After Hu took power in 2002, his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, stayed on as chief of China's military for two years. And Hu was the top man in a nine-member Politburo standing committee, but at least five of the seats were occupied by Jiang's allies.
"This is a time when the Chinese government is weak," said Shen Dingli, the executive dean of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "As a result, different interest groups have been unleashed in a less coordinated and less centralized way."
Simultaneously, the influence of China's Foreign Ministry is waning. Dai Bingguo, the current foreign policy supremo has no seat on the powerful 25-member Politburo; the military has two, and the state-owned sector has at least one.
While there is competition across ministries in China, U.S. officials have focused on the gap between the civilian side of the government and the People's Liberation Army.
In recent months, military officers have begun to air their views on foreign policy matters, seeking to define China's interests in the seas around the country.
Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the army's general staff, has blasted the United States for its involvement in the South China Sea. And in August, Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan lashed out at the United States for reportedly planning to deploy the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea for joint exercises with South Korea. (The George Washington was subsequently sent to the Sea of Japan, farther from China.)
Countering military
China's government cancels high-level talks with Japan, following Japan's announcement that it will hold a Chinese fishing boat captain for another ten days.
Your browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem.
Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Not all of the military statements went over well in China. In recent weeks, the Foreign Ministry has begun to push back against the military. In recent interviews in Beijing, officials and senior advisers to the government excoriated the military for making policy pronouncements.
"For me, it is surprising that I'm seeing a general from the People's Liberation Army making a public statement regarding foreign policy, but this is China today," said Wu Jianmin, a former ambassador who helps run a think tank and advises China's leadership on foreign policy.
"This is not something the military should do," said Chu Shulong, professor of international relations at Tsinghua University. "These people don't represent the government, but it creates international repercussions when they speak out."
China's media is another factor in the fracturing of China's foreign policy. Another foreign policy player, the Ministry of Propaganda, has allowed the state-run press to criticize foreign governments as a way to bolster the Communist Party's position at home. As a result, China's newer publications, such as the mass-circulation Global Times, cover international affairs - in particular relations with the United States and Japan - with all the verve that People magazine pours into the adventures of Paris Hilton.
"We are not happy about many of the stories published today," Wu said. "We Foreign Ministry people have told them you shouldn't do that, but they say, 'So what? Let the Americans hear a different voice.' "
Shen, the American studies scholar, said some in China's leadership may support the idea of sending mixed messages on foreign policy as a way of testing the United States or Japan.
"The civilian government may think it does no harm," he said. "After all, if they succeed, it may advance China's interests."
China's government cancels high-level talks with Japan, following Japan's announcement that it will hold a Chinese fishing boat captain for another ten days.
Your browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem.
Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010; 7:43 AM
The increasingly bitter dispute between China and Japan over a small group of islands in the Pacific is heightening concerns in capitals across the globe over who controls China's foreign policy.
A new generation of officials in the military, key government ministries and state-owned companies has begun to define how China deals with the rest of the world. Emboldened by China's economic expansion, these officials are taking advantage of a weakened leadership at the top of the Communist Party to assert their interests in ways that would have been impossible even a decade ago.
It used to be that Chinese officials complained about the Byzantine decision-making process in the United States. Today, from Washington to Tokyo, the talk is about how difficult it is to contend with the explosion of special interests shaping China's worldview.
"Now we have to deal across agencies and departments and ministries," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ties with China. "The relationship is extraordinarily complex."
Said a senior Japanese diplomat: "We, too, are often confused about China's intentions and who is calling the shots."
Japanese officials said the People's Liberation Army is responsible for the friction over the disputed island chain, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China. In early September, Japan's coast guard detained the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler, accusing him of ramming a Japanese coast guard vessel. In previous crises, China's Foreign Ministry has acted as a calming influence, but this time, Japanese diplomats said, the military led the charge.
China responded by demanding the captain's release, suspending talks, canceling the visits of Japanese schoolchildren and on Thursday arresting four Japanese who allegedly were taking photographs near a Chinese military installation.
In an apparent effort to defuse the escalating tensions, Japan announced Friday that it would release the Chinese captain.
Washington signaled to Beijing on Thursday that it would back Japan in the territorial dispute. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters: "Obviously we're very, very strongly in support of . . . our ally in that region, Japan."
Other examples
The island dispute is the latest instance of players other than the party's central leadership driving China's engagement with the outside world.
Throughout this year, officials from the Ministry of Commerce, who represent China's exporters, have lobbied vociferously against revaluing China's currency, the yuan, despite calls to the contrary from the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance.
In Iran, China's state-owned oil companies are pushing to do more business, even though Beijing backed enhanced U.N. sanctions against Tehran because of its alleged nuclear weapons program. The China National Offshore Oil Co. is in talks to ramp up its investment in the massive Azadegan oil field just as Japanese companies are backing out, senior diplomatic sources said. The move by CNOOC would have the effect of "gutting" the new sanctions, one diplomat said. U.S. officials have stressed to China that they do not want to see China's oil companies "filling in" as other oil companies leave, a senior U.S. official said.
China's main nuclear power corporation wants to build a one-gigawatt nuclear power plant in Pakistan even though it appears to be a violation of international guidelines forbidding nuclear exports to countries that have not signed onto the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or do not have international safeguards on reactors. Pakistan has not signed the treaty.
"We have never had this situation before," said Huang Ping, the director of the Institute for American Studies at China's Academy of Social Sciences. "And it is troubling. We need more coordination among all agencies, including the military."
U.S. reaction
The U.S. government is trying to adapt to this new China with a mixture of honey and vinegar.
In July, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talked tough with China about its claims to the whole of the South China Sea, joining with Vietnam and 10 other Southeast Asian nations to criticize China's recent aggressive behavior in that strategic waterway.
That message - that China should ensure freedom of the seas and negotiate disputed claims peacefully - is expected to be reinforced Friday when President Obama meets in New York with leaders from Southeast Asian nations. Several U.S. officials said the People's Liberation Army and China's state-owned oil companies had been driving China's more forceful claims to the sea.
U.S. officials have also moved to establish more personal connections with Chinese officials. Last month, Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat, spent a full day with Cui Tiankai, one of 12 assistant Chinese foreign ministers, taking him to the Inn at Little Washington, a restaurant in Virginia. The entourage proceeded to a 30-acre farm belonging to a senior State Department official, where Cui took a ride on a tractor. And in an attempt to engage more Chinese stakeholders than in the past, Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner led the largest-ever delegation of U.S. officials to Beijing in May.
Several factors account for the rise of competing interests. President Hu Jintao has led the Communist Party for eight years, but it is not clear that he has ever been fully in control. After Hu took power in 2002, his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, stayed on as chief of China's military for two years. And Hu was the top man in a nine-member Politburo standing committee, but at least five of the seats were occupied by Jiang's allies.
"This is a time when the Chinese government is weak," said Shen Dingli, the executive dean of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "As a result, different interest groups have been unleashed in a less coordinated and less centralized way."
Simultaneously, the influence of China's Foreign Ministry is waning. Dai Bingguo, the current foreign policy supremo has no seat on the powerful 25-member Politburo; the military has two, and the state-owned sector has at least one.
While there is competition across ministries in China, U.S. officials have focused on the gap between the civilian side of the government and the People's Liberation Army.
In recent months, military officers have begun to air their views on foreign policy matters, seeking to define China's interests in the seas around the country.
Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the army's general staff, has blasted the United States for its involvement in the South China Sea. And in August, Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan lashed out at the United States for reportedly planning to deploy the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea for joint exercises with South Korea. (The George Washington was subsequently sent to the Sea of Japan, farther from China.)
Countering military
China's government cancels high-level talks with Japan, following Japan's announcement that it will hold a Chinese fishing boat captain for another ten days.
Your browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem.
Discussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Not all of the military statements went over well in China. In recent weeks, the Foreign Ministry has begun to push back against the military. In recent interviews in Beijing, officials and senior advisers to the government excoriated the military for making policy pronouncements.
"For me, it is surprising that I'm seeing a general from the People's Liberation Army making a public statement regarding foreign policy, but this is China today," said Wu Jianmin, a former ambassador who helps run a think tank and advises China's leadership on foreign policy.
"This is not something the military should do," said Chu Shulong, professor of international relations at Tsinghua University. "These people don't represent the government, but it creates international repercussions when they speak out."
China's media is another factor in the fracturing of China's foreign policy. Another foreign policy player, the Ministry of Propaganda, has allowed the state-run press to criticize foreign governments as a way to bolster the Communist Party's position at home. As a result, China's newer publications, such as the mass-circulation Global Times, cover international affairs - in particular relations with the United States and Japan - with all the verve that People magazine pours into the adventures of Paris Hilton.
"We are not happy about many of the stories published today," Wu said. "We Foreign Ministry people have told them you shouldn't do that, but they say, 'So what? Let the Americans hear a different voice.' "
Shen, the American studies scholar, said some in China's leadership may support the idea of sending mixed messages on foreign policy as a way of testing the United States or Japan.
"The civilian government may think it does no harm," he said. "After all, if they succeed, it may advance China's interests."