昨天半夜,川普实施了他几天前承诺的,给予中国的关税惩罚!这么一个大手笔做出来,前无来者后无古人,估计他的感觉不错,很可能还在那个历史性的时刻大宴幕僚,大家吼叫着“万岁万岁万万岁”的不醉不归。生活在这样的时代,我们得以见识这样的特殊战争,也是一种福分。继续打下去,全世界最主要的是美国民众,为此付出的代价,会不会高于那场让全世界再次认识中国和中国领导者的朝鲜战争,只有事后经济学家的深刻分析,才能回答。唯一可以肯定的是,这一次付出的生命代价远低很多。但是在气势上,在对中国政府的居高临下的态势上,我看不出,美国这一次的领导者,真正的进步了多少。 兵怂怂一个,将怂怂一窝。一直以来以强势著称和自豪的川普总统,不怂。在霸气上,估计不输给楚霸王。他一直很享受自己拥有的权力,对于幕僚,说解雇就解雇,说让你滚蛋就得立马滚蛋。很多时候还是以羞辱对方的方式。如果再早几年,很多人的人头落地,恐怕也是经常看到的血景。在内心深处,他一方面指责习总有机会获得独裁权力(中国修改宪法的初衷,我怀疑真的像外界想的那么邪恶!),同时,估计自己也暗中嫉妒:为什么自己没有那样的命运? 于是乎,他就以世界国国王的姿态,一次次的居高临下,用羞辱自己下属的态势,来命令和羞辱中国的领导者和中国人民!在背后杀气腾腾之时,还做笑面虎,嘴里有词:我很欣赏,喜爱。言不由衷到了如此地步,我都觉得有点脸红。 贸易战,表面上的东西先不谈,那些不着边际,极度缺乏水准的理解,先放在一边。说说从他幕僚嘴里讲出的赤裸裸的,必须惩罚中国政府的 深层次原因,也是觉得,这批人似乎真的还停留在百来年前对中国和世界的理解上。 这里是前白宫军师的分析,代表了川普喜爱的一批人的价值观和世界观。 中国是共产党领导的,和美国的民主制度背道而驰,美国对抗的是一种制度,而不仅仅只是一个国家!消灭这个和自己差异极大的,让自己很不喜欢的制度的最好办法,就是釜底抽薪,将它赖以存在的经济基础摧毁掉!而对于中国共产党,经济基础就是那些赢利能力很强的国营企业,也就是共产党拥有的企业。同时,则指责中国政府在消灭异己上极不人道! 而消灭这些企业的最好办法,就是逼着他们不再继续享受特殊的权利,不再接受国家的补贴。同时,让大门敞开,让更多的外国企业进入市场参与竞争,将这些老帽慢慢的消灭掉。而美国自己,很多时候也会基于自己更加利益的需要做必须的补贴! 为了确保这种歼灭战的彻底胜利,中国政府必须按照美国的要求来做,具体到执行的细节,都得接受美国政府的安排。而且,还必须由美国政府指派“党代表”进驻监督,就像监督朝鲜和伊朗是不是旅行去核义务(!)一样。结果,中国政府和重要的部门,实际上就成为美国政府的分支机构!我估计,美国联邦政府,对于作为联邦成员的州政府,也很难有这样的权威!君不见,有多少次,来自联邦政府的“指示”,都被州政府给踢回去! 况且,还有一项极为有趣的要求:如果你违规,我可以罚你,你却不可以反击!这一条与其说是协商的条款,还不如说就是直接对对方的羞辱:你就是奴才,我想怎么罚你就罚你,你还不准反击。这到底是在表现自己的实力,还是在显示自己的不自信?国家和国家之间的协议,我不知道有多少,最终是不折不扣按照当初的意愿执行的。形势在变,力量在此消彼长,哪里来的一辈子的优势!对于这一条,如果中国政府真的答应了,中国国民会怎么想?全世界会怎样看中国?
再者,川普突然的大发火,像个极为任性的少年:半夜睡不着,突发奇想,就不能自主必须公告世界。对于他发火的原因,看了半天才感觉到:是因为,中国政府不答应改变法律条款,而只是想通过行政执行来实现谈好的条款。 川普可能觉得,只有写进法律,才是永久的保障!可是在中国,写进法律的价值远不如行政条款,这点中国特色,川普的团队没有人懂?再者,一直津津乐道法制和法治的美国总统,难道不明白,改变法律条款,需要很长的时间,不是政府几个大佬几天几个星期就能搞掂的。即使是在美国,来自政府的涉及到巨大司法改变的事情,也需要参、众议院研究批准。川普这是在确认中国政府的独裁程度,还是在考验中国政府的的独裁效率? 经济学家一直强调说:最好的契约,就是双方都不太满意,同时双方都能接受的平衡状态。估计读书比较少的川普和他的团队,没有人能够明白这个道理。一边倒的一厢情愿,即使写下来,一方不服,又能够持续多久?即使写入法律甚至是宪法,历史上不也是有很多的案例,后来者全盘推翻!川普的世界,只有以大欺小,恃强凌弱的狼性文化!这种文化,在现代文明社会,在两个大国之间,是不可能行得通的! 我不想评价谁的要求合理谁的不合理,只是谈谈我觉得必须面对的现实。要求谁都可以提,梦想谁都可以做。至于坚持到什么程度,应该顽固到何种地步,就是考验智慧的事。如果只是赌一把,也没有太大的问题。 问题是,川普的行为和强势,在美国目前看来,已经获得了很大的支持率。即使那些直接遭受贸易战伤害的多数农民,也多数选择支持川普的强势,他们觉得,自己自身利益的短暂牺牲,对于人类文明的进步,对于“理想”的实现,值得! 这,是不是有点当初共产党人为了主义,可以牺牲一切,包括生命的态势? 这,才是可怕的地方! 但愿,新时代的希特勒,不会就此产生和壮大。人类的和平,需要更多的包容和耐心。川普已经将爱面子的中国领导者逼得无路可退,最终的结果,大概率的是适得其反。 就像当年的朝鲜战争!温和的中国人,一旦逼急了,也会变成吼狮。 当年的日本人吃了自大的亏,让美国人变成吼狮。今天的川普团队难道不明白历史? 改变中国,需要时间,更需要策略和智慧,可惜,我看不到美国领导者的智慧! Steve Bannon: We’re in an economic war with China. It’s futile to compromise. By Stephen K. Bannon, May 6 Stephen K. Bannon served as chief strategist for President Trump from January 2017 to August 2017. Getting tough with China to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States was the linchpin of President Trump’s electoral march through the Rust Belt during his 2016 victory. Today, the goal of the radical cadre running China — the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — is to be the global hegemonic power. The president’s threatened tariffs on Sunday demonstrate the severity of this threat. But as Washington and Beijing wrap up months of negotiations on a trade deal this month, whatever emerges won’t be a trade deal. It will be a temporary truce in a years-long economic and strategic war with China. These are six “understandings” that highlight why it is futile to compromise with this regime. The first understanding: The CCP has been waging economic war against industrial democracies ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, and now China has emerged as the greatest economic and national security threat the United States has ever faced. As a framework for the current trade talks, China must agree to end forced technology transfers; intellectual property theft; cyberintrusions into business networks; currency manipulation; high tariff and nontariff barriers; and unfair subsidies to state-owned enterprises. However, if the CCP agrees to the United States’ demands in an enforceable manner, it would amount to a legal and regulatory dismantling of Chinese state capitalism. The second understanding: The trade deal under negotiation this month is not a deal between two similar systems seeking closer ties, as its cheerleaders on Wall Street and in the media and academia argue. Rather, this is a fundamental clash between two radically different economic models. The best U.S. result is a detailed document in which China renounces its predatory, confiscatory and mercantilist practices while providing ample means to monitor and promptly enforce the agreement. The best CCP result is to get the tariffs lifted by filing reams of paper with false, unenforceable promises that will allow it to run out the clock on the Trump administration and hope for a less antagonistic Democratic alternative. The third understanding: Chinese state capitalism is highly profitable for its owners — the members of the CCP. Stagnant state-owned enterprises gain a competitive edge through massive government subsidies and the cost savings won by stealing the intellectual property, technology and innovations of foreigners. If China halted such grand theft, its enterprises would be rapidly outcompeted by the Germans, South Koreans, Japanese and especially the United States. This fact explains much about internal Chinese politics today. President Xi Jinping faces a palace sharply divided between reformers led by chief trade negotiator Liu He and a swarm of hawks who have profited and gained power from the status quo. Within China itself, it is both gallows humor and even money as to whether Liu He will be celebrated as the next Deng Xiaoping or end up in a Chinese gulag. The fourth understanding: Certain Trump advisers inside and outside the White House are playing on the president’s well-earned pride in a rising stock market and a fear he might lose the Farm Belt to try to box him into a weak deal. But it is a decidedly false narrative that any failure to reach a deal will lead to a market meltdown and economic implosion. In fact, there is no better argument for Trump keeping his bold tariffs on China than the latest report that the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter. Anything less than a great deal will subject the president to relentless criticism from the Charles E. Schumer and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party. In addition, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) might use it to get to the right of Trump on China — potentially setting up a later primary challenge. For these reasons, the president’s best political option is not to surrender, but rather to double down on the tariffs — they have been highly effective in pressuring the Chinese without harming the U.S. economy. The fifth understanding: Even the toughest agreement needs effective monitoring, which is difficult even with accommodating partners and perhaps impossible with China. The danger is for the president to sign what appears to be a reasonable deal and find out several years later that the United States was hoodwinked. The United States failed to adequately monitor China’s entry into the WTO in 2001. Instead of access to a billion Chinese consumers, the United States lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. The sixth understanding: The world now bears witness to a rapidly militarizing totalitarian state imprisoning millions in work camps; persecuting Uighurs, Christians and Buddhists; and spying on, and enslaving, its own population. This is history in real time; and the world is a house divided — half slave, half free. Trump and Xi are facing off to tip the scales in one direction or the other. One way leads to the benefits of freedom, democracy and free-market capitalism. The other leads to a totalitarian and mercantilist power run on state capitalism with Chinese characteristics. The United States’ fight is not with the Chinese people but with the CCP. The Chinese people are the first and continuous victims of this barbarous regime. The central issues that must be faced are China’s intentions on the world stage and what those ambitions mean for U.S. prosperity. With our country at a crossroads, it is more important than ever that Trump follow his instincts and not soften his stance against the greatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.
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