数字时代的中美战略竞争

US-China Strategic Competition in the Digital Age

随着新一轮科技革命的发展,国际关系也进入了新的时代,需要突破地缘政治和阶级分析等传统思维来理解当前的国际关系。虽然当前中美战略竞争与冷战时期美苏战略竞争本质上都是实力差距缩小的两个大国对于国际权力的争夺,但数字经济时代的中美竞争的特殊之处在于:数字经济成为财富主要来源,网络技术迭代速度快,技术垄断和跨越式竞争,技术标准制定权的竞争日益成为国际规则制定权的重点。这些特点对大国领导的改革能力提出了新要求。根据道义现实主义理论,讲道义的政治领导具有较强的改革能力,中美两国政府谁能集中更多力量于科技创新,谁能通过改革使有限的资源发挥出最大的创新成果,谁就有较大的希望胜出。当今数字时代的特殊性意味着,中美战略竞争需要减少意识形态领域的资源投入,更多集中资源于科技创新。数字经济时代下的中美两国战略竞争犹如逆水行舟,不进则退,改革慢和倒退的一方同样会失败。

With the emergence of a new round of technological revolution,international relations have entered a new era,which requires new analytical methods beyond traditional ones,such as analysis of geopolitics and social class,to understand current international relations. Both of the current US-China strategic competition and that between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War are rivalry for international power mainly due to the reduced strength gap between a status power and a rising power. However,the US-China competition is in the era of digital economy,which makes it different from US-Soviet competition. First,network technique has become the major source of wealth;second,technology upgrade speeds up;third,telecommunication business falls into monopolistic and leapfrog competition. The characteristics of digital economy increasingly make the major power competition focuses on technology standard making. These characteristics also require better reform ability of national leaders in great powers’ competition. According to Moral Realism,moral leaders refer to those with stronger ability to reform,which means,in China-US competition,the one who is able to concentrate more on technological innovation and make greater innovations with limited resources will have greater hope to win. The particularity of the digital age means that the side will have better chance to win if it devotes less resource in ideology and concentrates more on technological innovation. The US-China strategic competition in the era of digital economy shares the similarity with rowing upstream,namely the outcome is either keeping forging ahead or falling behind. The slower or more regressive actor is destined to fail.