作者：布拉马·切兰尼（Brahma Chellaney） 2011年12月6日Project Syndicate
美国很快地利用了亚洲地区由中国日渐增长的实力自信所触发的担忧情绪，强化了与原有亚洲盟国的军事关系，并打造了一批新的安全伙伴。但美国回归亚洲中心舞台的风光面临着中国战略雄心的制约，其充当亚洲主要安全锚所要面对着诸多关键性的挑战。
挑战之一是阻止美国相对实力的滑落，而这反过来需要全面的国内革新，包括财政整合。但削减支出的需要也让人感觉美国可能无法为其将军事重心转向亚太地区的转变融资，甚至可能被迫减弱这方面的支出。
奥巴马治下的美国一再对中国让步，这一趋势其实从布什政府陷入阿富汗和伊拉克战争泥淖就开始了。这激起了关于美国是否有能力通过更高层次的亚太地区承诺（美国在该地区已有320,000驻军）支持这一战略“重心”的能力的质疑。美国计划在澳大利亚增加2,500名海军驻军基本上只是象征性的行动。
事实上，在提高了亚洲人民对美国针对中国崛起的稳健反应的预期后，奥巴马政府开始减少其“重心”的军事部署，转而强调美国的经济参与。这一变化让亚洲地区担心必须在美国和中国之间二选一的国家舒了口气。但是，对于承受着中国关于领土和领海纠纷的坚决主张压力的国家来说，美国的强调经济参与激发了对其承诺的新疑虑。
事实上，美国“重心”的经济再定位纠正了过度强调军事内容、让美国和中国走上冲突之路的政策。国务卿希拉里·克林顿在河内2010年东盟地区论坛措辞强硬，表达出美国对中国的鹰派立场；如今，她的语气缓和了许多，在访问亚洲国家期间敦促贸易和投资。
奥巴马也在强调美国“重心”的经济方面，将其亚洲之行描述意在为通过增加对“世界增长最快、最有活力的地区的出口”来早就更多国内制造业岗位。即使是他对缅甸的历史性访问——他是第一个访问该国的美国总统——对贸易的关注也将不亚于促使这个具有战略地理重要性的资源丰富国家摆脱中国的影响。
将注意力转向贸易和经济问题还促使华盛顿推出了泛太平洋伙伴关系协定，该协定意在打造一个不包括中国的亚太自由贸易集团。此外，美国还在强调东亚峰会和东盟的重要性，后者的峰会与奥巴马将出席的金边东亚峰会重叠。
美国路线的调整也受到其他考虑因素的影响：对于中国和邻国的争端问题，站队对美国来说没有任何好处——当然，除非美国的直接利益受到了影响，南海问题便是如此，美国的领海主张威胁到某些世界最繁忙的海运路线。
对其自身国家里的关心可以解释为何美国在中印领土纠纷重燃——包括中国突然重新提出对广袤的印度喜马拉雅山区的阿鲁纳恰尔邦的领土主张——时保持中立。类似地，美国也在敦促中国和日本和平解决日本控制的钓鱼岛的争端。美国的主要目的是防止僵局发展到它不得不站到日本一边的程度——这与其自身利益不符。
美国国防部长帕内塔与中国领导人习近平9月份会面时，他听到了“令人吃惊的要求”——美国应该置身中日纠纷之外，事实上，在9月份精心安排的中国反日游行期间，帕内塔并没有建议中国压制通常导致暴力的示威活动，而是公开重申美国在钓鱼岛纠纷中的中立态度。
美国政策的修正事实上已经扩展到了用语方面。美国外交官已经不再使用“重心”一词，因为暗含军事动向，转而使用“再平衡”。
不管你如何称呼它，新政策方针的唯一目标就是中国，美国在强化中国周边的盟友和友邦，包括印度、日本、菲律宾、越南、印尼和韩国。但奥巴马政府继续否认中国是其战略核心，事实上，奥巴马政府不愿意说、也不愿意做任何可能引起中国反感的事情。
亚太地区将在奥巴马的第二个任期日程表中占据更加重要的位置，特别是美国将在2014年完成撤军结束阿富汗战争。但奥巴马必须给出更加明确的美国政策，遏制独裁统治中国的快速崛起，对外积极主张领土要求，对内激发民族主义情绪。美国和亚洲其他国家不能被中国牵着鼻子走，它们必须寻求让中国遵守规则。
作者為新德里政策研究中心战略研究教授。
America’s Unhinged “Pivot”
by Brahma Chellaney Nov. 16, 2012 Project Syndicate
President Barack Obama’s first foreign trip since winning a second term highlights Asia’s new centrality to America’s economy and security. But Obama’s Asian tour also underscores the main question about American policy in the region: Will the United States’ “pivot” to Asia acquire concrete strategic content, or will it remain largely a rhetorical repackaging of old policies?
The United States, quick to capitalize on regional concerns triggered by China’s increasingly muscular self-assertion, has strengthened its military ties with its existing Asian allies and forged security relationships with new friends. But the heady glow of America’s return to center stage in Asia has obscured key challenges in remaining the region’s principal security anchor in the face of China’s strategic ambitions.
One challenge is the need to arrest the erosion of America’s relative power, which in turn requires comprehensive domestic renewal, including fiscal consolidation. But the need for spending cuts also raises the prospect that the US might be unable to finance a military shift toward the Asia-Pacific region – or, worse, that it will be forced to
The US under Obama has increasingly ceded ground to China, a trend that admittedly began when the Bush administration became preoccupied with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has spurred doubts about America’s ability to provide strategic heft to its “pivot” by sustaining a higher level of commitment in the Asia-Pacific region, where it already maintains 320,000 troops. The proposed deployment of an additional 2,500 Marines in Australia is largely symbolic.
In fact, after raising Asians’ expectations of a more robust US response to China’s growing assertiveness, the Obama administration has started to tamp down the military aspects of its “pivot,” emphasizing instead greater US economic engagement. That change has come as a relief to those in the region who fear being forced to choose between the US and China. But, for the countries bearing the brunt of China’s recalcitrant approach to territorial and maritime disputes, this emphasis raises new doubts about America’s commitment.
In fact, the economic reorientation of the US “pivot” corrects a policy that had overemphasized the military component and put the US on a path toward conflict with China. It was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who signaled a more hawkish US stance on China with her tough talk at the 2010 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Hanoi; now she is moderating that position by promoting trade and investment during her visits to Asian countries.
Obama, too, is highlighting the economic aspects of the US “pivot,” portraying his Asia tour as an effort to generate more domestic manufacturing jobs through higher exports to “the most rapidly growing and dynamic region in the world.” Even his historic visit to Myanmar – the first ever by a US president – is as much about trade as it is about weaning a strategically located, resource-rich country from Chinese influence.
The refocus on trade and economic issues has also prompted Washington to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which aims to create a new Asia-Pacific free-trade group that excludes China. Moreover, the US is emphasizing the importance of the East Asia Summit and ASEAN, whose summit overlaps with the EAS meeting in Phnom Penh that Obama will be attending.
The US course correction is being dictated by another consideration as well: America has nothing to gain from taking sides in China’s disputes with its neighbors – unless, of course, US interests are directly at stake, as in the South China Sea, where Chinese maritime claims threaten freedom of navigation in some of the world’s most heavily trafficked shipping lanes.
Concern for its own national interest explains why America has charted a course of tacit neutrality regarding the revival of Sino-Indian territorial disputes, including China’s sudden resurrection of a claim to the large Himalayan Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Similarly, the US has urged both China and Japan to resolve peacefully their dispute over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. America’s main goal is to prevent the standoff from escalating to the point that it would be forced – against its own interests – to take Japan’s side.
When US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in China in September, he got “an earful” that the US should stay out of the Sino-Japanese dispute. Indeed, amid the orchestrated anti-Japanese protests in China in September, Panetta – instead of advising China to rein in the often-violent demonstrations – publicly reiterated America’s neutrality in the struggle over control of the islands.
The correction in US policy actually extends even to terminology. American diplomats have now abandoned the term “pivot” altogether, owing to its military connotation, in favor of “rebalancing.”
Whatever one calls it, the new policy approach is all about China, with America bolstering alliances and friendships with countries around China’s periphery, including India, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Korea. Yet the Obama administration continues to deny that China is at the center of its strategy. In fact, it is reluctant to say or do anything publicly that might raise China’s hackles.
The Asia-Pacific region will loom larger in Obama’s second-term agenda, especially as the ongoing US troop withdrawal ends the Afghanistan war by 2014. But Obama will have to define a clearer US policy, addressing China’s rapid rise under an authoritarian regime that aggressively pursues border claims and whips up nationalism at home. The US and the rest of Asia must not merely adjust to China; they must seek to shape a China that plays by the rules.
Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, is the author of Asian Juggernaut and Water: Asia’s New Battleground.
