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中國已經(jīng)登頂了嗎?

作者：帕拉格·卡納

譯者：吳萬偉

來源：作者授權 儒家網(wǎng) 發(fā)布

時間：孔子二五七零年歲次庚子九月初四日丙申

          耶穌2020年10月20日

中國研究了每個大國的崛起，但它是否漏掉了大國衰落那一課呢?

新加坡---2006年11月，中國公眾全神貫注地觀看12集紀錄片《大國崛起》。這是由一幫可敬的中國歷史學家參與制作的節(jié)目，每集都揭示了世界上包括英國、日本、俄羅斯和美國在內(nèi)的大國登上全球影響力頂峰的崛起之路。當時，無論在國內(nèi)還是國外，中國都被視為亞洲的核心力量和未來的超級大國，但不是主要的地緣政治故事---尤其在美國還處于充分的“超級強國”模式，深深卷入對伊拉克和阿富汗的無限占領。中國人更有理由坐下來認真研究一番那些國家是如何強大，并在全球施展其影響力的。

《大國崛起》實現(xiàn)了它的核心目標：現(xiàn)在輪到中國崛起并登上歷史上超級大國的頂峰之路了，這個觀念被社會化和合法化了。中國顯然聽從了紀錄片的教訓，這再合適不過：實踐進口替代戰(zhàn)略、強制技術轉(zhuǎn)讓、積蓄大量外匯儲備、囤積稀有金屬、部署商業(yè)艦隊、大肆放貸、在遙遠的地方進行基礎設施建設、建立強大的軍隊、保護供應鏈安全，在殖民地或附屬國收買精英等。如果世界歷史是《風險：統(tǒng)治世界的游戲》，每個世紀都要輪流坐莊，由大國輪流統(tǒng)治世界的話，現(xiàn)在這個刻度表終于朝著中國傾斜了。

或許并非如此。如果歷史真的能夠重復，我們自己都可能對預測感到吃驚。不過，這次可能有所不同。我們已經(jīng)積累了太多歷史經(jīng)驗來預防性地改變歷史的可能走向。據(jù)說西方人崇尚線性思維，而東方人喜歡循環(huán)思維。雖然兩者似乎都沒有抓住事物的復雜性，其中每一次的力量碰撞，每個作用和反作用都能產(chǎn)生分形分叉的結(jié)果，它們再通過體系不斷循環(huán)并向外逐漸延伸。如果中國不是充滿信心地重復過去的輝煌而是錯誤地重蹈現(xiàn)在的困境，會發(fā)生什么情況呢？

遺憾的是，中央電視臺并沒有拍攝《大國崛起》的續(xù)集來描述各個帝國的衰落：導致帝國腐敗、顛覆和功虧一簣的意識形態(tài)頑固性和戰(zhàn)略錯誤。不過，即便沒有關于帝國大肆擴張和傲慢自大的正式課程，中國電視臺仍然極為詳盡地逐一記錄密集傳播美國過去20年中在國際上的胡作非為和國內(nèi)的衰敗。但是，如果相信自己不會犯錯誤，中國的衰落可能在其崛起還沒有完成時候就已經(jīng)開始了。美國已經(jīng)在快速從其超級強國的頂峰地位滑落下來，而中國可能永遠也達不到那樣的巔峰狀態(tài)。

如果相信自己不會犯錯誤，中國的衰落可能在其崛起還沒有完成時候就已經(jīng)開始了。

當這個國家還在積蓄力量不斷壯大之時，就談及“中國峰值”似乎有些太早了。中國的經(jīng)濟增長已經(jīng)放緩，但在新冠病毒疫情開始之后，中國成為唯一經(jīng)濟仍然在增長的國家。中國是在快速老齡化，但它擁有的年輕人仍然比整個歐洲都多，而機器人能夠為自己和世界生產(chǎn)更多商品。其國內(nèi)債務像坐了火箭似地向上攀升，但它仍然擁有巨額外匯儲備，正在開設資本賬戶并部署全球性的數(shù)字加密貨幣。我們使用“峰值”類似于“石油峰值”或“美國峰值”：指的是相對值而不是絕對值。“石油峰值”理論的支持者錯過了龐大的額外全球儲蓄這個現(xiàn)實和其他的和可再生能源崛起的現(xiàn)實。因為我們已經(jīng)達到了石油需求的峰值，供應已經(jīng)變得沒有相關性了。

同樣，雖然有外交政策錯誤，無論2020年11月美國大選的結(jié)果如果，美國將仍然是世界上頭號強國，而且會持續(xù)到未來很長一段時間。其經(jīng)濟依然龐大，它仍然控制著世界上唯一可靠的儲蓄貨幣。其軍事實力可投射到全球任何一個角落，可支持其全世界的盟國，北美是唯一真正沒有沖突的大洲。隨著石油的興起，世人對美國領袖的需要達到頂峰。國家選擇自己的服務提供者，在買家和賣主的全球市場上獲得軍事援助、金融、技術和其他福利。

最近之前，大部分美國人認為，全世界都渴望像美國人一樣生活。到了現(xiàn)在，他們可能知道真相如何了。最近一些年，鑒于中國的內(nèi)部活力和外部積極性，通過一帶一路倡議在全球開始新一波的基礎設施，中國人一直在告訴自己類似的話。但是，就像美國通過勸誘盟國傾向于接受違背自身利益的政策，任意性地強行制裁伊朗和北朝鮮等被國際社會遺棄的國家，阻礙有意義的進步而揮霍濫用自己的特權地位一樣，中國也已經(jīng)很快越過了界限，從獲得他國兄弟般的善意轉(zhuǎn)向人家持續(xù)不斷的懷疑。

從喜馬拉雅山到南中國海，中國咄咄逼人地奪取微小領土的努力已經(jīng)確保三十多億亞洲人可能再也不相信它了。阿拉伯人、非洲人和拉美人正在修改其接納中國債務和項目的程度。而歐盟已經(jīng)剛剛宣稱中國是“系統(tǒng)性的對手”。中國一直忙于贏得個別戰(zhàn)斗的勝利，卻沒有認識到它可能正在失掉整場戰(zhàn)爭。

“國家選擇自己的服務提供者，在買家和賣主的全球市場上獲得軍事援助、金融、技術和其他福利?！?o:p>

美國和中國都已經(jīng)過高估計了自己的技術優(yōu)勢。美國將發(fā)明和革新混淆起來，忽略了技術傳播有多么快，而且被競爭的政府和企業(yè)多么迅速地修改和適應海外市場。因特網(wǎng)和基因排序是美國最先開發(fā)的，但日本、中國和其他國家已經(jīng)為本國公民提供最快的寬帶和基因療法了。5G和量子計算也是同樣的情況。

中國也錯誤地把市場優(yōu)勢當作壟斷。但是，華為被多國協(xié)同驅(qū)逐出關鍵的基礎設施網(wǎng)絡市場---諸如彈性供應鏈倡議之類努力來刺激日本、澳大利亞、印度和其他國家在半導體、醫(yī)藥、稀土礦產(chǎn)和汽車零部件等的產(chǎn)業(yè)潛能---所有這些都展現(xiàn)出其支配性優(yōu)勢能多么快地被消耗掉。當美國支持的印度公司提供的人工智能服務是第三方提供的大數(shù)據(jù)分析、機器學習和其他統(tǒng)計工具給客戶，無需大規(guī)模的自我導航投資，也沒有附加條件時，為什么要和獲取你數(shù)據(jù)的中國公司合作？歷史上最不可避免的力量不是帝國的循環(huán)而是技術分散。

同樣道理，當今世界的主要特征更多是地緣政治的無序狀態(tài)而不是集中。歐洲已經(jīng)作為金融、外交、和管理權威的獨立一極而出現(xiàn)。遠非沮喪地接受在美國和中國兩極的“新冷戰(zhàn)”中低人一等的地位，歐盟越來越明顯地要按照自己的方式與俄羅斯和伊朗打交道?！皻W盟-亞洲聯(lián)結(jié)倡議”是比美國想出的任何東西更合理得多的歐亞接觸途徑，歐洲與亞洲的貿(mào)易和投資紐帶很快可能比美國紐帶多一倍。

在亞洲內(nèi)部的互動也很快達讓中國版的美國“單極時刻”走到終點。日本已經(jīng)開啟了戰(zhàn)略復興，印度充滿信心地回避中國在喜瑪拉雅多個劇場的運作；就算新明朝的“珠寶艦隊”大軍也根本無法控制印度洋。與美國和澳大利亞一起，這些印太國家已經(jīng)組成戰(zhàn)略“四國聯(lián)盟”來為中國的弱小鄰國提供支持，以抗衡中國的擴張。今天的弱國渴望主權和自我實現(xiàn)，但不是新商業(yè)附屬國地位，強大的生命線已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)來確保他們?nèi)匀辉趶那暗牡缆飞隙乔诤笳摺?o:p>

當今世界的主要特征更多是地緣政治的無序狀態(tài)而不是集中。

無序狀態(tài)是復雜體系的內(nèi)在特征：權力冷酷無情地分散。我們從來沒有像現(xiàn)在這樣有全球性的權力分配：21世紀是人類歷史上第一次存在每個洲或地區(qū)都代表自己權力的獨立一極。這種復雜的全球體系比任何單一權力都更巨大：在其關系網(wǎng)絡中，任何一個國家都不能將意志強加于人而不引發(fā)其他國家組成聯(lián)盟與其抗衡。權力總存在邊界，但無序狀態(tài)可能沒有盡頭。

人口學特征和心理變化也是顯著的變量，推動我們走向未來的非循環(huán)切線。自從1945年以來，全球人口已經(jīng)增長了三倍，聯(lián)合國承認的國家數(shù)量達到193個，將近翻了兩番。大量人口生活在后殖民主義國家，他們對殖民主義和冷戰(zhàn)都有不愉快的記憶。他們不希望歷史重演，也不會允許歷史重演。本來可能需要幾十年或者幾個世紀才能形成的反中國的反沖作用在過去3年時間里竟然變成了現(xiàn)實。2020年將提供一個無情沖擊，讓人從2010年的“中國夢”中醒來。

所有這些都暗示當今的傳統(tǒng)智慧－－－美國利用這個智慧恢復其霸主地位或中國取而代之，而世界其他地方被迫在中美新冷戰(zhàn)中選邊站－－－代表了想象力的顯著缺乏。不過，我們最近的思想缺陷可能具有教育意義，教給我們世界政治新動態(tài)變化的教訓。更加古老的和越來越過時的學術傳統(tǒng)從簡單性中尋找安慰，將理論的吝嗇和蹩腳偽裝成嚴謹性。

不僅西方學者受其歷史模式的誘惑，具有諷刺意味的是，中國學者也是如此。畢竟，如果從北京的視角來看，如果不像西方當局那樣告訴你現(xiàn)在輪到你們統(tǒng)治世界了，會怎么樣呢？媒體一直在迫不及待地擁抱“修昔底德陷阱”，似乎美國哈佛大學肯尼迪學院貝爾福科學與國際事務中心的主任格雷厄姆·艾利森（Graham Allison）的偉大著作《注定走向戰(zhàn)爭：中美能擺脫修昔底德陷阱》的副標題中并沒有問號。

21世紀是人類歷史上第一次在每個洲或地區(qū)都有代表自己權力的獨立一極。

但是，實際上已經(jīng)公開透露的，體現(xiàn)了快速反饋就天然地存在于復雜的全球體系中：夸張地渲染中國威脅已經(jīng)激發(fā)出針對那種威脅的回應，引起地緣政治沿著新的矢量移動。有關全球人口，類似的現(xiàn)象已經(jīng)在出現(xiàn)：世界人口達到150億，將世界陷入馬爾薩斯式無政府狀態(tài)的恐懼求助于廣泛的措施來控制人口的瘋狂增長?，F(xiàn)有的估計暗示全世界的人口將在2050年達到100億人。

人們?nèi)滩蛔∠敕磳ο萑脒@種宿命論。它已經(jīng)被(市場消化了信息而)給出相應價格。就像克里斯托弗·諾蘭（Christopher Nolan）的科幻電影《信條》和亞歷克斯·加蘭（Alex Garland）的稍微更容易理解的微小系列《開拓者》（Devs），確認自由意志是戲劇頂峰的元素，但更多是我們無法逃避的主要情節(jié)的干擾（想象在《開拓者》中最后的電梯場景或者貓和老鼠，或肯尼思·布拉納（Kenneth Branagh）扮演的俄國軍火商安德烈（Andrei）和《信條》中約翰·大衛(wèi)·華盛頓（John David Washington）扮演的主角。）至少在科幻小說中，未來與現(xiàn)在交流，提供了依據(jù)其信息行動的顯著刺激。在現(xiàn)實生活中，我們維持一種控制的幻覺，將最糟糕場景放置在我們思想的某個角落。

新冠疫情已經(jīng)是悲慘的提醒，它讓我們意識到這個錯誤的心理狀態(tài)。當災難降臨的時候，世界上的所有先見之明都沒有多大意義。雖然科學家警告過病毒在全球傳播的指數(shù)級增長速度，民兵組織占領帝國大廈要求終止封城隔離措施，他們從來就沒有真正嚴肅地對待這些警告。因為沒有對過去疫情的機構(gòu)性記憶，西方社會大部分人沒有能吸取1918年西班牙流感的簡單教訓：居家隔離和戴口罩。同樣，過渡期誠信項目(Transition Integrity Project)模擬了美國大選結(jié)果引發(fā)爭議的場景，以便采取步驟預防可能出現(xiàn)的分崩離析，但意識形態(tài)分歧和我們沒有能力采取集體行動都只能確保那些場景無論如何都可能出現(xiàn)。

災難性戰(zhàn)爭的地緣政治循環(huán)難道不會同樣出現(xiàn)嗎？我們或許宣稱擁有先見之明來建議中國接受現(xiàn)實，美國在挑起戰(zhàn)爭之前忽略的現(xiàn)實，戰(zhàn)爭可能類似地削弱其好不容易贏得的崛起進程。但是，如果中國實際上想要這些戰(zhàn)爭作為其宏偉計劃的組成部分呢？其實，另一個擔憂來自現(xiàn)在：特朗普政府顯著提升美國與臺灣外交和軍事紐帶的做法－－加上限制臺灣半導體制造公司向中國大陸出售半導體產(chǎn)品的制裁措施－－－被認為是拆解盟國向中國大陸提供產(chǎn)品的供應鏈，但這些措施可能加快中國推進其武統(tǒng)臺灣的規(guī)劃，實際占領這些關鍵零部件生產(chǎn)基地。本來旨在打殘中國高科技產(chǎn)業(yè)的戰(zhàn)略反過來可能提升了它的產(chǎn)業(yè)能力，推動中國在戰(zhàn)場上占據(jù)支配地位的能力。

本來可能需要幾十年或者幾個世紀才能形成的反中國的反沖作用在過去3年的時間里就變成了現(xiàn)實。

雖然如此，即使中國預先考慮到未來行動的兩個步驟，它是否考慮未來的三步或四步呢？我感到有些懷疑。中國雖然機敏靈巧，但并非無所不知無所不能。它可能通過更加“和平的崛起”扭轉(zhuǎn)現(xiàn)在／未來的抗拒／反沖來適應自己的野心，但習近平主席的民族主義劫持了這個國家。這是歷史上的絕妙情節(jié)難以逃避的樞紐？或許。但是，中國不是第一個將發(fā)展勢頭當成永久特征的國家。民族主義和必勝主義都預示著沖突的極大可能性－－－其后續(xù)影響未必對中國有利。

現(xiàn)在需要來自未來的更多聲音。如果沒有了《信條》中的“時間鉗形攻勢”，我們肯定不斷遭遇場景并延伸出道路來避免最壞結(jié)果的出現(xiàn)。在1983年的熱門電影《戰(zhàn)爭游戲》中，戰(zhàn)爭操作計劃響應系統(tǒng)(WOPR)模擬循環(huán)了每一次可能的核戰(zhàn)爭場景，并意識到它們最終都導致僵局，發(fā)出的感慨非常有名，“一場怪異的游戲：唯一的贏家就是不開啟戰(zhàn)爭?！比绻麣v史是事先已經(jīng)編程完畢的算法，我們唯一的希望是維持自我管理自生系統(tǒng)的集體意志。我們與祖先有危險數(shù)量的共同性：驕傲、恐懼和貪婪。但真正重要的是其他一些東西：威懾、主權、共同的氣候威脅等等?，F(xiàn)在到了吹出不同哨音的時候。

作者簡介：

帕拉格·卡納（Parag Khanna），以數(shù)據(jù)和場景為基礎的戰(zhàn)略顧問公司“未來地圖”創(chuàng)始人和經(jīng)理合伙人，最新著作是《未來在亞洲：２１世紀的商業(yè)、沖突和文化》（2019）。本文的英文原稿發(fā)表在“Noemamag”雜志上。

譯自：Has China Peaked Already?By Parag Khanna October 13,2020
 
https://www.noemamag.com/has-china-peaked-already/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=Motherload__PKcom___Noema&utm_medium=email
 
Has China Peaked Already?
 
China has studied every great power’s rise—but did it miss the class about decline?
 
Shanghai.(Ashley Guo for Noema Magazine)
 
By Parag Khanna October 13,2020
 
Parag Khanna is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap,a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm.His latest book is“The Future is Asian:Commerce,Conflict and Culture in the 21st Century.”
 
SINGAPORE—In November 2006,the Chinese public was held rapt by a 12-part documentary series titled“The Rise of the Great Powers.”Curated by a team of respected Chinese historians,each episode revealed the pathways major empires took to reach the zenith of their global influence,including the United Kingdom,Japan,Russia and the United States.At the time,China was viewed—both at home and abroad—as Asia’s central force and a future superpower,but not the main geopolitical story—especially as the U.S.was in full“hyper-power”mode,deep into its indefinite occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.This was all the more reason for the Chinese to sit back and cautiously study how nations could become so powerful as to extend their might all across the planet.
 
“The Rise of the Great Powers”achieved its central objective:to socialize and legitimize the notion that it was China’s turn to rise into the pantheon of history’s superpowers.And China has clearly followed the documentary’s lessons to a tee:practice import substitution,force technology transfer,amass currency reserves,hoard precious metals,deploy merchant fleets,lend prodigiously,install infrastructure far and wide,build a powerful military,protect your supply chains,buy off elites in colonies and client states,and so forth.If world history were a game of Risk,then every century,the board is reset and another player gets its turn to rule the world.The scale is finally weighted in China’s favor.
 
Or maybe not.If history really did repeat itself,we’d marvel at our own predictability.But this time could also be very different.We have amassed enough history to preventively alter the course history seems to be taking us on.It is said that Westerners reason in linear terms and Easterners in circular concepts.Neither though seems to grasp complexity,in which every collision of forces,every action and reaction,produces fractal outcomes that recirculate and ripple through the system.What if,rather than confidently repeating the past,China is mistakenly repeating the present?
 
CCTV unfortunately never produced a sequel on imperial decline:the ideological rigidity and strategic blunders that corrupted,subverted and undermined the success of empires.But even without a formal curriculum on imperial overstretch and hubris,Chinese TV has beamed home blow by blow America’s past two decades of international flailing and domestic decay.Yet convinced it can do no wrong,China’s decline may have begun before its rise is complete.America has quickly fallen from its hyper-power apex.China may well never reach it.
 
“Convinced it can do no wrong,China’s decline may have begun before its rise is complete.”
 
It seems premature to speak of“peak China”when the country is still going from strength to strength.Growth has slowed,but in the wake of COVID-19,it is the only economy growing at all.It is rapidly aging,but still has more youth than Europe has people,while robots churn out enough goods for itself and the world.Its domestic debt has skyrocketed,but it still has enormous reserves,is opening its capital account and deploying a global cryptocurrency.But the sense in which to use“peak”is akin to“peak oil”or“peak America”:relative,not absolute.Proponents of“peak oil”missed the reality of vast additional global reserves as well as the phenomenal rise of alternative and renewable energy.Because we have reached peak oil demand,supply has become irrelevant.
 
Similarly,despite foreign policy blunders and irrespective of the November 2020 election,America will remain the world’s preeminent power long into the future.Its economy is gargantuan,and it controls the world’s only reliable reserve currency.Its military has global reach and can reinforce allies across the globe,and North America is the only truly conflict-free continent.Yet as with oil,the demand for American leadership has peaked.Countries choose their service providers for military assistance,financing,technology and other utilities from a global marketplace of suitors and vendors.
 
Until recently,most Americans thought the world wanted to be like them.By now,they probably know better.In recent years,the Chinese have been telling themselves similar things,given the country’s internal dynamism and external activism in building a new layer of global infrastructure through its Belt and Road Initiative.But much as America has abused its privileged status by cajoling allies toward policies counter to their own interests and imposing wanton sanctions that inhibit meaningful progress in rehabilitating pariah states such as Iran and North Korea,China has very quickly crossed the line from receiving fraternal goodwill to permanent suspicion.
 
From the Himalayas to the South China Sea,its aggressive pursuit of micro-territories has ensured that more than three billion Asians may never trust it again.Arabs,Africans and Latin Americans are trimming their exposure to Chinese debt and projects.For its part,the European Union has just declared China a“systemic rival.”China has been so busy winning battles that it doesn’t realize it may already have lost the war.
 
“Countries choose their service providers for military assistance,financing,technology and other utilities from a global marketplace of suitors and vendors.”
 
Both America and China have also overestimated their technological superiority.The U.S.has conflated invention with innovation,overlooking how rapidly technologies spread and are adapted to foreign markets by rival governments and their firms.The Internet and gene sequencing were pioneered in the U.S.,but Japan,China and others have delivered the fastest bandwidth and gene therapies to their citizens.The same goes for 5G and quantum computing.
 
China too has mistaken market prowess for monopoly.But the coordinated ejection of Huawei from critical infrastructure networks—and efforts such as the Resilient Supply Chain Initiative to boost the industrial capacity of countries such as Japan,Australia,India and others in semiconductors,pharmaceuticals,rare earth minerals and automobile parts—demonstrate how quickly dominance can be eroded.Why go with Chinese companies that harvest your data when U.S.-backed Indian firms offer AI-as-a-service is a third-party provision of big data analysis,machine learning and other statistical tools to clients without the need for large self-directed investment.,with no strings attached?The most inevitable force in history is not imperial cycles but technological diffusion.
 
In the same vein,today’s world is far more characterized by geopolitical entropy than concentration.Europe has emerged as an independent pole of financial,diplomatic and regulatory authority.Far from despondently accepting junior status in a U.S.-China bipolar“new Cold War,”it is increasingly going its own way in dealing with Russia and Iran.The“EU-Asia Connectivity Initiative”is a far more sensible approach to Eurasian engagement than anything the U.S.has come up with,and European trade and investment ties with Asia could soon be double America’s.
 
Dynamics within Asia itself are also hastily bringing an end to China’s version of America’s“unipolar moment.”Japan has mounted a strategic revival,and India is confidently parrying Chinese maneuvers in multiple Himalayan theaters;even a neo-Ming armada of“treasure fleets”will never control the Indian Ocean.Together with the U.S.and Australia,these Indo-Pacific powers have formed a strategic“Quad”to fortify the defenses of China’s weaker neighbors to limit Chinese expansionism.Today’s weak states aspire to sovereignty and self-actualization,not neo-mercantile subservience,and strong lifelines have emerged to ensure they remain on the former path rather than succumbing to the latter.
 
“Today’s world is far more characterized by geopolitical entropy than concentration.”
 
Entropy is inherent in complex systems:Power inexorably diffuses.Never before have we had such a global distribution of power:The 21st century is the first time in human history that every continent or region represents independent poles of power in their own right.This complex global system is far greater than any single power:Within its webs of relationships,no power can impose itself on the world without counter-coalitions forming.There are limits to power,but no end to entropy.
 
Demographics and psychology are also significant variables nudging us toward a non-cyclical tangent for the future.Since 1945,the global population has more than tripled and the number of states recognized by the U.N.has nearly quadrupled to 193.The vast majority of the human population lives in post-colonial countries with unhappy memories of both colonialism and the Cold War;they do not wish for history to repeat itself—and will not let it.The backlash against China that has materialized in just the past three years would have taken decades,centuries ago.The 2020s will provide a rude awakening from the“Chinese Dream”of the 2010s.
 
All of this suggests that today’s conventional wisdom—by which either the U.S.restores its primacy or China displaces it while the rest of the world is forced to choose sides in a new Cold War—represents a fairly spectacular failure of imagination.Nonetheless,our recent intellectual shortcomings can be instructive in teaching lessons in the emerging dynamics of world politics.An older and increasingly out-of-date scholarly tradition takes comfort in simplicity,with theoretical parsimony masquerading as rigor.
 
Not only have Western academics been seduced by their historical models but ironically,so too were the Chinese.After all,from Beijing’s perspective,what is not to like about Western authorities telling you it is your turn to rule the world?The media has been all too eager to embrace the“Thucydides Trap,”as if Graham Allison’s great book“Destined for War:Can America and China Escape Thucydides’Trap?”did not contain a question mark in the subtitle.
 
“The 21st century is the first time in human history that every continent or region represents independent poles of power in their own right.”
 
What has actually transpired,however,embodies the rapid feedback loops inherent in a complex global system:Hyping the China threat has inspired myriad responses to that threat,shifting geopolitics along new vectors.A similar phenomenon has been underway with respect to the global population:Fears that the world population would reach fifteen billion and plunge the world into Malthusian anarchy evoked widespread measures to control rampant population growth.Current estimates suggest the human population will reach about 10 billion people in 2050.
 
There is a tempting objection to this drift from fatalism:It’s all priced in already.Like Christopher Nolan’s film“Tenet”or Alex Garland’s slightly more comprehensible miniseries“Devs,”asserting free will is an element of the dramatic apotheosis,but merely a distraction from the master plot we cannot escape(think of the final elevator scene in“Devs”or the cat-and-mouse between Kenneth Branagh’s Andrei and John David Washington’s Protagonist in“Tenet”).In sci-fi at least,the future communicates with the present,providing a stark incentive to act on its message.In real life,we maintain the illusion of control and consign the worst-case scenario to a corner of our mind.
 
The pandemic has been a tragic reminder of this default mental state:All the foresight in the world meant very little when it struck.While scientists warned of its exponential global spread,militias occupied state capitol buildings demanding an end to lockdowns they never took seriously in the first place.With no institutional memory of past pandemics,most Western societies failed to heed the simple lesson of the 1918 Spanish flu:Stay at home and wear a mask.Similarly,the Transition Integrity Project ran scenarios of disputed U.S.election outcomes so that steps could be taken to prevent chaos,but ideological division and our incapacity for collective action all but ensure that one of those scenarios will come to pass anyway.
 
Isn’t it just the same with geopolitical cycles of cataclysmic wars?We may claim to have the foresight to advise China to accept realities America ignored prior to provoking wars that will similarly erode its hard-won ascent—but what if China actually wants these wars as part of its master plan?Indeed,another worrying example from the present:The Trump administration’s overt upgrading of diplomatic and military ties with Taiwan—combined with sanctions banning the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company from selling semiconductors to China—are meant to disentangle allied countries’supply chains from the Chinese mainland,yet they could very well be accelerating China’s plans to invade Taiwan and physically capture the production of these critical components.A strategy designed to cripple China’s high-tech industries would perversely enhance them,boosting China’s ability to dominate the battlespace.
 
“The backlash against China that has materialized in just the past three years would have taken decades,centuries ago.”
 
Still,even if China has thought two steps ahead,has it thought three or four?I have my doubts.China is nimble but not omniscient.It could have averted the present(and future)pushback to its ambitions through a more“peaceful rise,”but President Xi Jinping’s nationalism hijacked the country instead.An inescapable pivot in history’s master plot?Perhaps.But China would not be the first power to confuse its momentum for longevity.Both nationalism and triumphalism indicate a high likelihood of conflict—but not that its aftermath will necessarily favor China.
 
The present needs more voices from the future.Absent the“temporal pincer movements”of“Tenet,”we must constantly run scenarios and derive pathways to avoid the worst outcomes.In the 1983 hit film WarGames,the War Operation Plan Response simulator cycles through every possible nuclear war scenario and upon realizing they all end in stalemate,famously utters:“A strange game.:the only winning move is not to play.”If history is a pre-programmed algorithm,our only hope is a collective will to maintain a self-regulating autopoiesis.We have a dangerous amount still in common with our forefathers:pride,fear and greed.But what is different should matter more:deterrence,sovereignty,a common climate threat and more.It’s time to whistle a different tune.
 
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