作者：扎卡里·卡拉贝尔 （Zachary Karabell）2012年10月14日 华盛顿邮报
现代美国总统竞选中有两件事是肯定的：其一，候选人会花尽心思攻击对方而不是提出建设性的解决之道；其二，总有一方或双方都攻击中国。
1992年，比尔克林顿指责时任美国总统的乔治·布什过度放任中国。2004年，总统候选人约翰·克里强烈指责“本尼迪克特·阿诺德似的总裁们”（Benedict Arnold CEOs， 注：Benedict Arnold是美国独立战争时期将领，后投降英军并逃往英国），包括乔治·W·布什政府内的一些盟友让大量工作机会流向中国。如今，共和党总统候选人罗姆尼抗衡奥巴马，强调自己当选后第一件事就是给中国贴上“汇率操纵国”标签，打击中国的“欺骗行为”，包括所谓的“侵犯美国知识产权”和各种贸易欺骗行为，并裁减某些“不值得从中国借钱为其埋单”的项目的政府开支。
和往常不同，这些对于中国的指责并没有收到预期的效果，反而事与愿违。歪曲了中美健康及日益密切的经济关系，而忽略了美国公司面临的真正挑战。这些挑战和中国无关，却和美国经济体制的长久活力、竞争性和创新性密切相关。
对于美国公司来说，中国是一个比以前任何时期都庞大和重要的市场。尽管中国的经济发展有所放缓，中国消费人群仍然对美国的大品牌一呼百应，如肯德基、通用电气、因特尔、沃玛特、imax和苹果。
你如果问其原因，许多总裁们会告诉你现在在中国做生意比10年前容易多了（尽管比5年前难一些），而且在中国比在世界其他地方容易，如印度。然而，对于普通美国人来说，他们的对于中国的看法由于美国疲软的经济发展有些夸大。2005年的美国更为自信，对于中美贸易之间的障碍不是很在意，而如今的美国较之前变得焦虑，竭力的想要减少障碍却困难重重。
美国对于中国的敌意最好的解释就是美国是两党制。为了不让罗姆尼在竞选中占据上风，奥巴马政府已经对中国的贸易和投资加压。下令禁止中国公司购买位于俄勒冈境内的风能发电场。因为该发电厂靠近美国一所海军基地的海军设施，可能会“采取行动，威胁美国国家安全”。这是20年来美国首次以这样的理由禁止中国的购买计划。
和此次禁令同步的是华盛顿在中国购买美国资产方面的强硬态度，最引人瞩目的莫过于美国国会对于中国电信巨头华为和中兴的猛烈抨击。华为正在构思如何在美国公开发行却遭遇了民主党人和共和党人的批评说辞，华为在他们的口中只比纳粹德国时期的武器制造商克虏伯公司好上那么一点点儿。
这种事件在美国国会并不是初次亮相。2005年，一番潜在威胁美国安全的言论之后，中国能源公司中国海洋石油总公司被迫撤回其对加利福尼亚能源公司优尼科公司的收购计划。当前中国海洋石油总公司以151亿美元收购加拿大油气开采商尼克森公司的计划也收到了美国和加拿大方面的不同往常的严格的审查。
中国也有自己的反美故事。公共投票显示，大批中国人认为美国想要遏制中国的经济崛起，华盛顿并不是追求公平、透明、依法的竞争，而是被一种暗藏的帝国主义驱动，企图遏制中国，防止中国成为一个地方军事力量及发展成为全球经济大国。
诚然，这种紧张气氛在过去一年里有所加剧。许多在华的美国商人抱怨，中国的商业伙伴变得不如以前友善，越来越多的条例限制他们在华的投资和交易，还有相对于美国在华公司，中国政府越来越照顾本国企业和其他外国竞争者。
对于这种抱怨我们的回答是：那又怎么样呢？
历史上哪个国家把外国竞争者摆在本国企业前面？---可能除了纯粹的贸易国家如新加坡或者是很久以前的汉萨同盟吧。哪个国家没有限制外国进入的条条框框或优惠政策，无论是明说的还是暗示的?
的确，美国欢迎外资，但和大多数国家一样也只是到某一程度。和中国及世界上其他所有国家一样，美国政府禁止外国公司拥有航空、电信和能源产业。中国相对于印度、印度尼西亚甚至是巴西来说，对外资的开放度要大得多，但是仍然对过多外资参与国内经济的负面影响存在担心。
尽管有各种疑虑和批评说辞，中美贸易关系仍然呈现欣欣向荣的发展态势。美国人认为来自中国的进口造成了美国国内的失业，反映了中国在美国过大的影响力。预计2012年，美国从中国的进口总额将从2007年的3210亿美元增长至4800亿，但与此同时，美国对中国的出口额同比增长的更多，预计从2007年的620亿增长至今年的1200亿。因此，虽然双方贸易逆差在扩大（中美经济规模在过去5年也同样扩大），中国作为美国公司的市场也变的越来越重要。
然而那些进口的数据---虽然庞大且引人注意---却扭曲了贸易了不平衡。因为进口产品中的大多数都是在华的美国公司生产的。
以备受关注的苹果事件为例。位于深圳的富士康科技集团负责生产苹果手机和芯片。这些工厂的劳工纠纷一直广为诟病。但是现实更加复杂。因为工厂的员工的工资远远高于普通中国工人，而且富士康的经理们相比19世纪末20世纪初美国公司城的公司老总们和20世纪90年代墨西哥短暂但繁华的加工出口区的许多公司，办事更透明，对于国际上的批评和压力反应也更为迅速和灵活。因此没有理由再存在虐工现象。但是劳工纠纷事件既反映出这些工厂的实际工作环境，也反映出了美国对于以中国为货源的矛盾心理。
究竟谁从贸易中获益? 这些手机抵达美国加州南部的长滩港后，就成为从中国进口的产品。但是其实中国只获得很少一部分价值。苹果5的零售价为每台649美元，但制造成本费才不到10美元每台。零件需200美元。大部分的收益流向美国和外国科技公司，如德州仪器和拥有苹果设计和专利的英飞凌公司。
同样的计算也可以应用到耐克鞋、蔻驰包包和沃尔玛商品。在2012年度耐克鞋135亿美元的销售额中，1/3的鞋子在中国制造的，造价约为18亿美元。简而言之，美国从中国的进口中一大部分都使美国公司受益而非中国。
美国工人是否也从巨大的进口收益中分得一杯羹现在仍有所争议但也合情合理。美国的制造业工作机会近几年一直在流失，先是流向台湾、韩国和日本，而后20世纪90年代流向墨西哥，到21世纪有流向中国。但是现在美国加工业一是在向中国出口高端产品。那虽然没有停止工作机会的减少，却减缓了减少的速度。
后来，有公司指控中国搞歧视，侵犯外国知识产权，没有可信的法律支持。这些都有价值。但是考虑到当前中美经济的紧密联系，美国只能是抱怨抱怨。双方可能会进行针锋相对的你来我往，但是最终会认识到这样下去，两败俱伤。正在进行的中美战略经济对话机制由布什总统建立，经奥巴马总统和国务卿希拉里进一步完善和深化，现在成为中美双方定期进行有效沟通和倾诉苦水的平台。由于今年是美国的大选年，加之中国也要进行领导人的换届，虽然都向对方施压，但双方都没有采取大的动作。
最终，中美之间的博弈不是由专利仲裁法院决定的，也不是由听他们抱怨的世界贸易组织决定的，更不是由那些相互发表严令警告的老生常谈的中国理论家和美国白宫人士决定。真正的决定因素是双方的经济体制。
如果像苹果这样的美国公司继续发明和生产能丰富个人生活，吸引黄童白叟，那么他们肯定会在中国找到有钱人的市场。
如果美国企业家和公司，无论大小，继续给出符合双方利益的解决之道---无论是生产能量的新方法，加工产品更有效的新途径，亦或是更好地管理体系---中国都会继续过去20年所做的事：做一个伙伴，提供一个市场。
如果中国通过贸易流积累财富，美国继续保持透明的投资环境，成为有吸引力的市场，那么这些财富会流回美国，可能以购买国库证券的形式，但是更好的是中国直接在美国投资。这些已经成为现实。美国的一些市长和政府官员回避华盛顿抨击中国的言论，因为他们认识到他们又多么需要中国这些有价值有发展潜力的投资。
中国是不是一个长久的隐患，这取决于中国的决定，也取决于美国的选择。美国人对中国的所作所为也只能是简单的指手画脚，却能在最大程度上左右美国的未来。
如果继续追求创新，对未来的无限可能保持乐观，那么中国对于美国的繁荣更多的是一个机遇。如果只是不停的争论，就不会发现上述的结论，有可能的是今天的严辞变成明天的严策，双方的关系毁于一旦，这些机会也随之烟消云散。我们还远没有到那种地步。但是最好在到达我们不想到达的地方之前改变行驶方向。
美国未来几十年的繁荣不会由北京的决定或中国政治和社会进程左右，而是取决于美国如何融入21世纪的全球经济。如若美国支持带来20世纪繁荣的乐观，动力和技术优势，那它将蓬勃发展；但如若对来自东方的潜在威胁耿耿于怀，就可能进入经济发展的迟暮期。选择权在我们手上。
札克利•卡拉贝尔 现任李佛．特怀斯经济研究与顾问公司（River Twice Research）总裁，著有《超融合—中美经济合体如何决定世界繁荣》。
中美国:从激烈对抗到超级融合
扎卡里•卡拉贝尔
出版日期: 2010年5月5日
《中美国:从激烈对抗到超级融合》中，作为对中美经贸关系领域的权威专家，扎切里·卡拉贝尔在书中追溯了中美近20年的发展历程。在这20年中，中国进行了积极的经济改革，吸引美国企业来中国投资、经营。书中讲述了像联邦快递、肯德基、雅芳和沃尔玛这样的美国企业在华发展的历程，《中美国:从激烈对抗到超级融合》讲述了它们对于中国经济成功起到的积极作用，也讲述了中国为它们提供的发展机遇。
中国作为经济超级大国的崛起现在已经得到了广泛认可，中国经济奇迹在国际政治领域引起的变化正在显现。作为全球唯一的超级大国，美国已经感受到中国崛起所带来的挑战。
但正如扎卡里·卡拉贝尔所揭示的，这只是故事的一个方面。过去10年，中美两国经济已经融合为一个统一体。未来几十年，世界将会日益繁荣还是会更加不稳定？这将取决于中美两国处理相互关系的方式。可以预见，随着中国综合国力日益强盛，中美两国贸易摩擦还会日渐增多。但是，作者认为，这种摩擦应该被限制在可控制的范围内，不能任由摩擦升级，因为中美两国互有需要互相依赖。
《中美国:从激烈对抗到超级融合》作者不仅首次向我们展示了中美两国经济融合的全景，同时也提供了充分的理由，来证明为什么未来中美融合的继续发展对于世界的繁荣稳定至关重要。任何对中美经贸关系感兴趣的读者，都应该认真阅读这部系统梳理中美融合进程的著作。
中美经贸关系已经到了相当危险、严峻的时期！在较量中融合，在融合中较量？美国重蹈英国覆辙，中国取而代之？全面、深入解读全球最重要的大国经济关系，探讨未来金融合作趋势。
矛盾？斗争？较量？摩擦？谈判？融合？
中国作为经济超级大国的崛起现在已经得到了广泛认可，中国经济奇迹在国际政治领域引起的变化正在显现。作为全球唯一的超级大国，美国已经感受到中国崛起所带来的挑战。
但正如扎卡里·卡拉贝尔所揭示的，这只是故事的一个方面。过去10年，中美两国经济已经融合为一个统一体。未来几十年，世界将会日益繁荣还是会更加不稳定？这将取决于中美两国处理相互关系的方式。可以预见，随着中国综合国力日益强盛，中美两国贸易摩擦还会日渐增多。但是，作者认为，这种摩擦应该被限制在可控制的范围内，不能任由摩擦升级，因为中美两国互有需要互相依赖。
《中美国:从激烈对抗到超级融合》作者不仅首次向我们展示了中美两国经济融合的全景，同时也提供了充分的理由，来证明为什么未来中美融合的继续发展对于世界的繁荣稳定至关重要。任何对中美经贸关系感兴趣的读者，都应该认真阅读这部系统梳理中美融合进程的著作。
中美经贸关系已经到了相当危险、严峻的时期！在较量中融合，在融合中较量？美国重蹈英国覆辙，中国取而代之？全面、深入解读全球最重要的大国经济关系，探讨未来金融合作趋势。
矛盾？斗争？较量？摩擦？谈判？融合？
为什么中美之间会出现那么多剪不断、理还乱的矛盾与纷争？中美两国的融合不是传统经济学理论可以解释的！
Two things seem certain in modern presidential campaigns: Candidates will spend more time attacking each other than offering constructive alternatives, and one or both will attack China.
In 1992, Bill Clinton accused President George H.W. Bush of coddling Chinese dictators. In 2004, John F. Kerry assailed “Benedict Arnold CEOs,” and by extension their allies in President George W. Bush’s administration, for shipping jobs to China. Now, Mitt Romney is challenging President Obama by pledging that if elected he will “on day one” label China a currency manipulator, crack down on Chinese “cheating” on everything from intellectual property violations to trade practices, and determine what should be cut from federal spending based on whether it merits “borrowing from China to pay for it.”
More than ever, these attacks are counterproductive, distort a robust and ever more entwined China-U.S. economic relationship, and distract from the real challenges facing U.S businesses, which have little to do with China and everything to do with the continued viability, competitiveness and innovation of the American economic system.China is a larger and more important market for U.S. companies than ever. Even as the pace of growth in China moderates, Chinese consumers flock to U.S. brands as diverse as KFC and General Motors, Intel and Walmart, IMAX and iPhones.
If you ask, many executives will say it is easier to do business in China than it was a decade ago (though harder than it was five years ago) and is still much more straightforward than in many other parts of the world, such as India. For Americans in general, however, views of China are amplified by anxiety about the slow economic recovery in the United States. A more confident America in the mid-2000s was less troubled by hurdles to doing business in China than a more anxious America is about lower — but still formidable — hurdles today.
The best that can be said for American hostility to China is that is it bipartisan. Not to be outflanked by Romney, the Obama administration has intensified its pressure on Chinese trade and investments. It halted the purchase of wind farms in Oregon by Ralls, a Chinese-owned company, because the proximity of the farm to a naval facility could enable Ralls to “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” It was the first time in 20 years such a justification was used to halt a Chinese purchase.
Such opposition is in sync with Washington’s hard line about Chinese purchases of U.S. assets, notably the storm of criticism in Congress of the Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE. Huawei is contemplating a public offering on Wall Street but has run into a gantlet of rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans that paints the company as something just slightly better than the arms manufacturer Krupp at the height of Nazi Germany.
This is hardly the first time such a storm has erupted in Congress. In 2005, Chinese energy company CNOOC was forced to withdraw its bid for California energy company Unocal after a similar uproar about dark threats to national security. CNOOC’s current $15.1 billion bid for Nexen, an oil and gas explorer, has drawn unusual scrutiny both in the U.S. and in Canada.
China has its own anti-American narrative. In public polling, large numbers of Chinese say they believe that the United States wants to impede China’s economic rise and that Washington is motivated not by a desire for a level playing field, transparency and the rule of law but by a thinly veiled imperialism that seeks to contain China, prevent it from becoming a regional military power and undermine its emergence as a global economic giant.
To be sure, the climate has grown more chilly in the past year or so. Many Americans doing business in China tell stories of less-genial relations with business partners, more rules designed to slow the pace of investment and deals, and increasing government favoritism of Chinese enterprises over American or other foreign competitors.
To which the reply should be: So?
What country in history has preferred foreign competition to domestic enterprises — except perhaps for purely trading states such as Singapore or the Hanseatic League of days past? What country does not have a web of regulations and preferences that create hurdles to foreign entry, whether explicit or implicit?
Yes, the United States is open to foreign investment, but like most countries only to a point. The U.S. government restricts foreign ownership of airlines, telecommunications and energy, as does China and almost every other country in the world. But China is far more open to investment than India, Indonesia or even Brazil, all democracies but still deeply suspicious of the negative consequences of too much foreign involvement in their domestic economies.
Even more, the U.S.-China trade relationship has blossomed in spite of misgivings and rhetoric. Imports generate hostility in the U.S. as a symbol of lost jobs and China’s outsize influence. But while imports from China have grown from $321 billion a year in 2007 to an estimated $480 billion in 2012, U.S. exports to China have proportionally grown even more, from $62 billion in 2007 to a projected $120 billion this year. So while the trade deficit has increased (as have the size of the U.S. and Chinese economies during the past five years), China as a market for U.S. companies has grown much more significant.
Even that import figure — large and attention-grabbing as it is — distorts the imbalance, because many of those are goods produced in China by U.S. companies.
Take the controversial case of Apple making its phones and tablets at Foxconn factories in Shenzhen. Labor issues at those plants have come under intense criticism. But the reality is more complicated, given that wages at those plants are well above average for Chinese workers and that Foxconn’s managers have been more transparent and more responsive to international criticism and pressure than American companies were in the company-town days of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or many Mexican companies were during the brief heyday of the maquiladoras in the 1990s. That is no excuse for abusive labor practices, but the issue of labor conditions speaks as much to American ambivalence about sourcing in China as it does to actual conditions at these factories.
As for who benefits from the trade, when those phones enter the port of Long Beach, Calif., they show up as imports from China. But only a fraction of the stated value actually goes to China. The full retail price of the iPhone 5 may be $649, but manufacturing costs are less than $10 per phone. Components are another $200, and most of those revenues go to U.S. and foreign tech firms such as Texas Instrument and Infineon that produce the designs and intellectual property.
You can do similar calculations for Nike shoes, Coach bags and Walmart supplies. Of the $13.5 billion in Nike footwear sales in fiscal 2012, a third of the shoes were made in China, at a cost of about $1.8 billion. In short, a huge portion of U.S. imports from China benefits not China but U.S. companies.
Whether they benefit U.S. workers is a heated and legitimate question, to which the answers are mixed. U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost over recent decades, first to Taiwan and South Korea and Japan, then to Mexico in the 1990s, and to China in the 2000s. But today, U.S. manufacturing is shipping high-end goods to China. That hasn’t replaced lost jobs, but it has slowed their decline.
Then there are charges against China of discriminatory practices, rampant theft of intellectual property and no reliable rule of law. All of those have merit, but given the degree of economic entwinement, the United States can only do so much. It can engage in tit-for-tat retaliation, but both Chinese and Americans eventually recognize that only harm to both sides ensues. The ongoing U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, begun under the George W. Bush administration and accelerated and deepened by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, provides a regular and effective forum to air grievances. Because it is an election year in the U.S. and a regime-change year in China, little movement has occurred, allowing pressures to build.
Ultimately, what is framed as contest between the United States and China will be determined not in courts of law adjudicating patents, not by the World Trade Organization hearing complaints, and not by Chinese ideologues or Congress and the White House alternating platitudes with injunctions. It will be determined by the vibrancy of each economic system.
If American companies such as Apple continue to invent and produce devices that enrich individual lives and enthrall consumers young and old, they will find riches in China.
If American entrepreneurs and businesses large and small continue to offer solutions that everyone wants and needs — whether new ways of producing energy, more efficient ways of manufacturing goods or better systems of management — then the Chinese will do what they have been doing for two decades: be a partner and a market.
If China accumulates dollars based on the flow of trade, and if America remains a place where investments are transparent and markets are attractive, those dollars will flow back into the United States, perhaps in the form of buying Treasury securities but far more preferably in the form of China investing directly here. It already has, and mayors and governors across America shy away from the rhetoric of Washington because they recognize how needed, valuable and potent such investment is.
Whether China is a long-term threat, therefore, has as much to do with choices made by Americans as decisions made by the Chinese. Americans can only marginally affect what China does, but Americans can maximally determine the future arc of the United States.
If innovation is nurtured and a sense of optimism about the limitless possibilities of the future is maintained, then China represents only more of an opportunity for U.S. prosperity. You wouldn’t glean that from the content of the debate, and it’s possible that if today’s harsh words translate into tomorrow’s harsh policies, the relationship will be damaged so severely that those opportunities evaporate. We are not there yet, by a long shot, but it would be better to steer in a different direction before we end up somewhere we do not want to be.
American prosperity over the next decades will not be determined by decisions made in Beijing or by China’s political and social peregrinations. It will be shaped by how America approaches the global economy of the 21st century. If the U.S. focuses on nurturing the optimism, drive and skills that yielded such results in the 20th century, it will thrive; if Americans obsess about looming threats from the East, it may indeed enter the economic twilight. The choice is ours.
Karabell is president of River Twice Research and the author of “Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends on It.”
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