约瑟夫·奈: 普京习近平不懂软实力

choi

VOA Chinese, Mar 10, 2015
www.voachinese.com/content/joseph-nye-on-china/2674027.html

Quote:

"外交关系协会最近举行美国未来实力和影响研讨会，两位演讲人对美国的未来都保持乐观看法，但又不尽相同。《偶然的超级大国》作者彼得·瑟汉认为美国世纪刚刚开始；而哈佛大学肯尼迪学院教授、《美国世纪结束了？》作者约瑟夫·奈则认为美国世纪还未结束。

"彼得·瑟汉对未来20年中国是否能保持稳定不表乐观。他认为，中国存在着和俄罗斯同样糟糕的人口问题。 '过去4年高中生减少了27%。一胎化政策导致生育低谷。' 他说，'实际上中国人口萎缩现在比俄罗斯更严重。' 因此瑟汉认为，中国 '向内需转型的经济政策是不可能奏效的。' 他说，更别提金融体制了，用中国的金融体制衡量，象征欺诈、堕落的破产美国公司安然会 '看上去经营得令人难以置信的好。'


Note:
(a) Peter Zeihan, The Accidental Superpower; The next generation of American preeminence and the coming global disorder. Twelve, 2014.
(b) Unfortunately, the VOA report is too brief about Zeihan's commentary.
(c) I googled and could not find latest reports on Zeihan's perceptions, or his own writings, about China. The following, though old, is representative of him.

China: Crunch Time. Geopolitical Weekly, Stratfor, Mar 30, 2010
www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100329_china_crunch_time

Quote:

"The driving force behind both the 1990 Japanese Crisis and the 1997 East Asian Crisis was that the countries involved did not maintain free capital markets. Those states managed capital to keep costs artificially low, giving them tremendous advantages over countries where capital was rationally priced. Of course, one cannot maintain irrational capital prices in perpetuity (as the United States is learning after its financial crisis); doing so eventually catches up. And this is what is happening in China now.

"It's also amazing how unprofitable such a country can be. The Chinese system, like the Japanese system before it, works on bulk, churn, maximum employment and market share. The U.S. system of attempting to maximize return on investment through efficiency and profit stands in contrast. The American result is sufficient economic stability to be able to suffer through recessions and emerge stronger. The Chinese result is social stability that wobbles precipitously when exposed to economic hardship. * * * There is, of course, the issue of inefficient capital use

"There is also the issue of consumption. Chinese statistics have always been dodgy, but according to Beijing's own figures, China has a tiny consumer base. This base is not much larger than that of France, a country with roughly one twentieth China's population and just over half its gross domestic product (GDP). China's economic system is obviously geared toward exports, not expanding consumer credit.

"STRATFOR sees a race on, but it isn't a race between the Chinese and the Americans or even China and the world. It's a race to see what will smash China first, its own internal imbalances or the US decision to take a more mercantilist approach to international trade.

* The last clause--America turning more mercantilist--was explained earlier in the essay: "the National Export Initiative (NEI) the White House[president Obama] is promulgating is much more mercantilist. It espouses doubling US exports in five years, specifically by targeting additional sales to large developing states, with China at the top of the list."
* There is no need to read the rest.