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United States
美國版塊
Lexington
萊克星頓專欄
Back to the future
回到未來
Joe Biden sets out to restore American leadership with an old team in a new world
喬·拜登著手利用舊的團(tuán)隊恢復(fù)美國在新世界的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)地位
Not since George H. W. Bush in 1989 has America inaugurated a president so well-known in world affairs as Joe Biden. A former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then vice-president for eight years, he has had a role in, or a say on, most foreign policy since the cold war. His chosen foreign-policy team, dominated by other veterans of Barack Obama’s administration such as John Kerry and Tony Blinken—a former secretary of state and a prospective one who has briefed Mr Biden for decades—is almost as well-known. Yet for all these familiar elements Mr Biden’s foreign policy is cloaked in uncertainty.
自1989年喬治·布什就任總統(tǒng)以來，美國就再未出現(xiàn)過像喬·拜登那樣在世界事務(wù)中享有盛名的總統(tǒng)。拜登曾任參議院外交關(guān)系委員會主席，隨后擔(dān)任副總統(tǒng)8年，他在冷戰(zhàn)之后的大多數(shù)外交政策中都發(fā)揮了作用，或者說擁有發(fā)言權(quán)。他選擇的外交政策團(tuán)隊由奧巴馬政府的諸多資深人士主導(dǎo)，比如幾乎是眾所周知的曾經(jīng)的國務(wù)卿約翰·克里以及曾向拜登做了數(shù)十年簡報的副國務(wù)卿托尼·布林肯。然而，盡管有這么多熟悉的元素，拜登的外交政策仍籠罩在不確定性之中。
This reflects the altered circumstances in which he has returned to the White House. Having launched his campaign as a continuity candidate, drawn from retirement to defend Mr Obama’s legacy, he faces huge problems that will make his administration very different from the “third Obama term” he initially seemed to promise. One is the bungled covid-19 epidemic, which has produced misery at home and more proof of America’s abandonment of global leadership. In the depth of the Iraq war many Europeans thought better of the superpower than they do now. The crisis will also hamper Mr Biden’s ability to repair the damage, by ensuring he is largely consumed by fighting fires at home.
這反映出拜登回到白宮后的情況發(fā)生了變化。作為一名延續(xù)性候選人，拜登從離任后開始競選，去守護(hù)奧巴馬的遺產(chǎn)，他面臨著的巨大的問題將使他的政府與他最初似乎承諾的“第三屆奧巴馬任期”截然不同。問題之一在于治理失敗的新冠疫情，它不僅導(dǎo)致美國水深火熱，還進(jìn)一步證明美國放棄了全球領(lǐng)導(dǎo)地位。許多當(dāng)時處于伊拉克戰(zhàn)爭深淵中的歐洲人對美國這個超級大國的看法比現(xiàn)在要好。新冠危機(jī)還將阻礙拜登修復(fù)創(chuàng)傷的能力，因為他要確保自己大部分時間都在國內(nèi)“滅火”。
The second problem, what to do about China, is more daunting. The president and his team all subscribe to the new consensus view that it is a formidable, long-term competitor. Contrary to Republican fears, there is no prospect of them reverting to the Obama administration’s relatively benign vision of coexistence with China. Even those who are in retrospect least critical of that approach, such as Mr Blinken, a suave and understated diplomat, now sound hawkish by 2016 standards. And Mr Biden has appointed his most China-sceptical advisers to the top Asia jobs at the National Security Council and Pentagon. Foremost among this second group—categorised as “the 2021 Democrats” in an astute analysis of Mr Biden’s team by Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution—is Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. Yet quite how these Democratic hawks will push back at China, how far Mr Biden will back them, and to what effect, remain to be seen.
第二個更令人望而生畏的問題是，該怎么對待中國。拜登總統(tǒng)和他的團(tuán)隊都達(dá)成了新的共識，即中國是一個強大的、長期的競爭對手。與共和黨的擔(dān)憂相反，拜登政府不可能重啟奧巴馬政府相對溫和的對華共存愿景。回首過去，即便是那些最少批判這種對華態(tài)度的人，比如溫文爾雅的外交官布林肯，按照2016年的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來看，他們現(xiàn)在的對華說法也很鷹派。拜登還任命了對中國最持懷疑態(tài)度的顧問來擔(dān)任處理亞洲事務(wù)的國家安全委員會和五角大樓的高層職位。布魯金斯學(xué)會的托馬斯•賴特通過對拜登團(tuán)隊的敏銳分析，將其團(tuán)隊歸類為“2021級民主黨人”，其中助手團(tuán)隊中最重要的是國家安全顧問杰克•沙利文。然而，這些民主黨鷹派將如何對抗中國，拜登將在多大程度上支持他們，以及效果如何，仍有待觀察。
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