作者Gal Luft, 经士智库特约研究员，全球安全分析研究所联席主任。原文于2022年1月8日首发于《南华早报》，授权经士智库独家翻译发表。链接：https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3162409/why-china-has-reason-wish-trump-presidency-2024
· 特朗普对共和党的控制使他重返白宫的可能性并不遥远。
· 尽管我们可以预见到对华鹰派将会在特朗普的团队中占据主导地位，但他对盟友和军事冒险的蔑视，以及对生意的偏好，与中国对于缓和紧张局势的期望不谋而合。
在一年前，当唐纳德·特朗普的支持者们冲进国会大厦之时，我们很难想象他会重返白宫。但是，如今距离2024年美国总统大选还有不到三年的时间，乔·拜登和特朗普在民调中并驾齐驱，我想现在是时候思考这种情况的影响了，特别是对美中关系的影响。
如果特朗普参选并获胜，他的任期将会受到美国宪法的约束——仅为一个任期。倘若放弃寻求连任，他将能摆脱掉处在第一任期的总统通常所需要面对的政治压力的困扰。这也可能使得他比之前其第一个任期时更加标新立异。
此外，他或许会拥有共和党对国会一或两个议院的控制权。这意味着，比起卸任时，他将会拥有更多的权力。在2016年特朗普当选美国总统时，共和党虽然控制着参议院和众议院，但该党内的大部分人都不待见他。
从那以后，特朗普逐渐接管共和党并使得当权派的共和党人逐渐边缘化。等到2024年时，共和党将会坚定地支持他。当上第二任总统时的他，将拥有前所未有的政治权力。
到了2025年1月，疫情或许会得到控制，但多年以来的经济摧残、臃肿的国债以及急剧的通货膨胀所带来的后果将随处可见。特朗普将兑现他在第一个任期时所作出的经济奇迹承诺——“让美国再次伟大”——恢复法律和秩序并撤销拜登的革新政策。
（图：Craig Stephens）
他的第二个任期不仅是一次自证之旅，也是一次报复之旅。特朗普希望向那些在他第一个任期内折磨他的华盛顿权力中心去追究责任——媒体、情报界和大型科技公司抛弃了他和他的盟友。可谓是刀下无情。
这对中美关系来说意味着什么？在第二个任期内，特朗普对中国的态度不会比第一个任期时更温和。他会奖励那些忠于他的人，尤其是在他2020年11月大选失败后的黑暗日子里还忠于他的人。而这些人都是对华鹰派。
不妨设想一下，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯作为副总统，彼得·纳瓦罗作为商务部长，迈克·蓬佩奥回到国务院，参议员汤姆·科顿入驻五角大楼，马特·波廷杰作为国家安全顾问。对中国来说，这样的阵容看起来似乎是不吉利的，但事实未必如此。
特朗普的强硬言论以及其夸张的语言倾向将再次得到充分展示，中国也不能幸免。但他对美国联盟体系的蔑视，他对促进民主、人权和气候变化的漠不关心，以及最重要的是他对挑起新战争的普遍厌恶，也都会出现。
这些可能会为中美关系的缓和提供一个真正的机会。到了2025年，美国那储存着射向中国的外交箭矢的箭囊，将会空空如也。
按照目前美国国会发起反华立法的速度，在不久的将来，被列入黑名单的中国企业会变少，会被征收关税的中国产品会变少，也将没有什么可以削弱 "一带一路 "倡议和中国的技术优势的不切实际的想法。
待特朗普上任时，美国已经不再会幻想着能否以某种方式阻止中国成为世界上最大的经济体以及21世纪当下一些最重要技术的全球领导者。如果美国想再次变得伟大，只能通过提升自己，而不是拉踩中国。
那么特朗普会怎么做呢？在军事方面，在投入大量资源提升美国能力，特别是在太空、网络和核领域的能力的同时，特朗普将对他手下的军官和间谍机构深表怀疑，对他们关于“中国威胁论”的警告持保留态度。
除非美国首先受到攻击，否则他不愿意被拖入到印太地区的军事冒险。他也将对美国会在台湾遭受攻击时保卫台湾的承诺保持战略模糊。
特朗普对台湾不抱幻想。据报道，他曾在2019年表示: “美国在8000英里之外，如果台湾遭受入侵，我们对此无能为力。”当被问及他可能会采取何种行动时，他便会用他最喜欢的句子去回答：“让我们拭目以待。”
在经济方面，特朗普将会如预料中那样打破拜登对贸易协议的厌恶态度。他希望能够恢复他在卸任前几天签署的第一阶段贸易协议，并从他在第二阶段问题上中断的地方继续下去，而不是在与印度和日本谈判自由贸易协定之前以加强他在与中国谈判中的筹码。
他还将重拾他的美国“能源主导”理论，该理论强调扩大美国对中国等地的能源出口。
最后，相较于拜登，特朗普更渴望能在个人层面上与习近平主席接触。在12月的一次采访中，特朗普表示:“我真的相信他曾喜欢我，我喜欢他。”通过这样的个人接触以达到平息事态的效果，是很有必要的。
尽管特朗普有其个性独特之处，但他也提出了美中关系中断的可能性——这正是今天所需要的。停留在当前的轨道只会导致紧张局势的加剧，直到在某个节点，防止大国关系走向冲突的护栏会断裂，向着武装冲突而演变的道路将会开启。
如果特朗普能成功做到这一点，他将是美国历史上最有影响力的总统之一。
附英文原文：
Why China has reason to wish for a Trump presidency in 2024
· Trump’s grip on the Republican Party makes his return to the White House a not-so-far-fetched possibility
· While we could expect China hawks to dominate his team in any comeback, his disdain for allies and military adventures, and penchant for deal-making, will chime with a Beijing hoping to cool tensions
When Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol a year ago, it was hard to imagine him ever returning to the White House. But with under three years left before the 2024 US presidential election and with Joe Biden and Trump running neck-and-neck in the polls, it is time to ponder the implications of such a scenario, especially for US-China relations.
If Trump were to run and win, he would be limited by the constitution to one term. Not having to seek re-election would free him from the political pressures typically haunting first-term presidents. This could also make him even more unconventional than he was in his first term.
In addition, he would be likely to enjoy Republican control of either one or both chambers of Congress, which would give him more power than he had when he left office. When Trump was elected in 2016, Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House but large swathes of the party rejected him.
Since then, he has gradually taken over the party and marginalised establishment Republicans. By 2024, the GOP will be solidly behind him. As second-term president, he would have more political power than he has ever had.
By January 2025, the pandemic may be under control but the fallout of years of economic carnage, bloated national debt and biting inflation will be felt everywhere. Trump would run on the promise of returning the economic miracle of his first term – “Make America Great Again, Again” – restoring law and order and undoing Biden’s progressive policies.
His second term would not only be a vindication tour but also a vindictive one. Trump would want to hold to account all of those Washington power centres that tormented him in his first term – the media, the intelligence community, and big tech companies which deplatformed him and his allies. The knifing would be relentless.
What does this mean for US-China relations? In his second term, Trump would not be softer on China than he was in the first. He would reward those who were loyal to him, especially in the dark days after he lost the election in November 2020, all of them China hawks.
Think Governor Ron DeSantis as vice-president, Peter Navarro as secretary of commerce, Mike Pompeo back in the State Department, Senator Tom Cotton at the Pentagon and Matt Pottinger as national security adviser. For China, such line-up may look ominous but this may not necessarily be the case.
Trump’s tough talk and his penchant for hyperbole would be back on full display, and China would not be spared. But so would his disdain of America’s alliance system, his disinterest in democracy promotion, human rights and climate change and, most important, his general aversion to new wars.
These could offer a real opportunity for detente in US-China relations. By 2025, America’s diplomatic quiver of arrows fired at China will have been emptied.
At the current rate of anti-China legislation initiated by Congress, there will soon be few Chinese companies left to blacklist, few Chinese products to impose tariffs on, and few unrealised ideas left on how to cripple the Belt and Road Initiative and China’s technology ascendance.
By the time Trump entered office, America would have been disabused of the notion that China could somehow be prevented from becoming the world’s largest economy as well as a global leader in some of the most important technologies of the 21st century. If America is to be great again, it can only be so by lifting itself up, rather than pulling China down.
So what would Trump do? On the military front, while investing considerable resources in upgrading US capabilities, particularly in the space, cyber and nuclear domains, Trump would be deeply suspicious of his generals and spy agencies, taking their warnings about China’s aggression with a pinch of salt.
He would be reluctant to be dragged into military adventures in the Indo-Pacific unless America was attacked first. He would maintain strategic ambiguity about US commitment to defend Taiwan if attacked.
Trump has no illusions about Taiwan. “We are 8,000 miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a f****ing thing we can do about it,” he reportedly said in 2019. Asked what he might do, he would resort to his favourite answer: “We’ll see what happens.”
On the economic front, Trump would be expected to break from Biden’s aversion to trade deals. He would want to revive the phase-one trade deal he signed just days before he left office and continue from where he left off on phase-two issues, not before negotiating free trade agreements with India and Japan to strengthen his hand in the negotiations with Beijing.
He would also revive his US “energy dominance” doctrine that emphasises the expansion of US energy exports to, among other places, China.
Finally, he would be much more eager than Biden to engage with President Xi Jinping on a personal level. In a December interview, Trump said: “I really believe he liked me, I like him.” Such a personal touch is very much needed to calm things down.
For all his peculiarities, Trump offers the possibility of discontinuity in US-China relations – which is exactly what is needed today. Staying on the current trajectory will only lead to more tension until, at some point, one of the guardrails that keeps the powers from veering into conflict will snap, paving the road to an armed conflict.
If Trump could this, he would be one of America’s most consequential presidents.
About Author:
Gal Luft is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Global Governance Institution. His latest book is De-dollarization: The Revolt Against the Dollar and the Rise of a New Financial World Order (2019).
翻译：莫祖明，经士智库研究助理；庄媛，经士智库实习生
编辑：莫祖明，经士智库研究助理
