北约再转型悖论及中国与北约关系

Paradoxes Confronting NATO’s Retransformation and the China-NATO Relations

当今世界正处于百年未有之大变局,中国日益走近世界舞台的中央,美国公开将中国视为战略敌手,北约开始寻求利用中国这一新的话题来增强其合法性。北约在伦敦首脑峰会中首次将中国议题纳入议程,凸显了其对中国崛起的关注,中国与北约关系的走向备受瞩目。北约自冷战结束后一直寻求通过转型应对生存危机,应对中国崛起能否成为其再转型过程中解决合法性危机的新选择。传统与非传统安全的双重回归,中国崛起的"威胁感知"的确使北约开始重新审视自己的战略并思考再转型之路,但是北约的再转型却面临三大悖论,涉及北约扩大的悖论(即不扩大,合法性不足;扩大,合法性受损),欧洲追求战略自主与美国保持战略优势的悖论,以及北约核心任务的全球扩张与聚焦成员安全的悖论。在面临再转型悖论的情况下,北约很可能将中国当成特定领域的竞争对手,而非整体上的敌人。中国要灵活主动地处理与北约的关系,在合作中趋利避害,共同解决人类面临的安全威胁,以人类命运共同体超越集体安全与军事联盟的逻辑。

Major changes unseen in a century are taking place in our world,and China is increasingly approaching the center of the global stage.The US regards China as a strategic rival,and NATO begins to resort to new agendas about China to enhance its legitimacy.At the London Summit,NATO brought China issue into the agenda for the first time,highlighting its concern about the rise of China,and the future development of China-NATO relations has attracted much attention.Since the end of the Cold War,NATO has been resorting to transforming from the military alliance to a political-security organization to cope with its survival crisis.Could coping with China’s rise be a new way to solve the legitimacy crisis in the process of NATO’s retransformation?The paper holds that concerns over both traditional and non-traditional security and the threat perception of China’s rise indeed give rise to NATO’s reexamination of its strategy and path of retransformation.However,the retransformation faces three paradoxes:1)The paradox on NATO’s expansion:expansion would cause damage to its legitimacy while the legitimacy would be insufficient otherwise;2)The paradox that Europe pursues strategic independence while the US tries to keep its strategic advantages;3)The paradox that the global expansion of NATO’s core task would be hard to coordinate with its efforts to concentrate on member states’security.Faced with the paradoxes of retransformation,NATO is likely to regard China as a competitor in specific fields rather than the enemy as a whole.China should flexibly and actively handle its relations with NATO,make the most of the favorable conditions while averting unfavorable ones in cooperation,jointly solve security threats faced by mankind,and transcend the logic of collective security and military alliance with the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind.