你說：
翻譯成中文，並條列出重點筆記。
The Once and Future China
How Will Change Come to Beijing?
Rana Mitter
May/June 2025
Published on April 22, 2025
Yiran Jia
RANA MITTER is S. T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism.
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If you dropped in to China at any point in its modern history and tried to project 20 years into the future, you would almost certainly end up getting it wrong. In 1900, no one serving in the late Qing dynasty expected that in 20 years the country would be a republic feuded over by warlords. In 1940, as a fractious China staggered in the face of a massive Japanese invasion, few would have imagined that by 1960, it would be a giant communist state about to split with the Soviet Union. In 2000, the United States helped China over the finish line in joining the World Trade Organization, ushering the country into the liberal capitalist trading system with much fanfare. By 2020, China and the United States were at loggerheads and in the midst of a trade war.
Twenty years from now, Chinese leader Xi Jinping might still be in power in some fashion even into his 90s; Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader from 1978 to 1989, retained considerable influence until his death at 92, in 1997. Since taking the reins in 2012, Xi has pushed China in directions that have increasingly placed it at odds with its neighbors, regional powers, and the United States. At home, authorities are widening and deepening systems of surveillance and control, clamping down on ethnic minorities and narrowing the space for dissent. On its maritime borders, China engages in ever more confrontational acts that risk sparking conflicts not just with Taiwan but also with Japan and Southeast Asian countries. Farther afield, Beijing has tacitly supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is widely believed to be responsible for major cyber-interference in Western infrastructure. This trend is hardly promising, and things could get even worse were China to take the bold step of starting a war over Taiwan, an operation for which the Chinese military has long been preparing.
And yet another China remains possible—one that would allow a degree of coexistence with the United States and its allies and partners without requiring the sacrifice of essential global interests or values. To be sure, China may never become the kind of country many Western optimists imagined in the early post–Cold War decades: a gradually more liberal and obliging member of the U.S.-led international order. That horse bolted the stable long ago. But in 20 years, a version of China could emerge with which the West and the wider world can coexist, as long as both China and Western governments avoid the policies that would make conflict inescapable.
That coexistence would not be especially warm, but it would have shed the kind of friction and animosity that loom over relations today. The generation of Chinese leaders after Xi, many of whom came of age during the modest openings of the 1980s, 1990s, and the first decade of this century, might well want to return the country to the promise of those periods. They may also realize that entanglement in any significant military or geoeconomic confrontation will prevent China from achieving its other aims, such as reviving the economy to achieve middle-class growth at home and spread the country’s influence abroad. Beijing cannot wage a big war and still attain economic security. Its aging society and the imperatives of greater regional economic integration to sustain its growth make it harder to endure the consequences of a major conflict—or even just a more confrontational regional and global posture.
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But even if China avoids triggering immense conflicts with its neighbors and the West in the near future, it will not simply become a placid member of a steadily eroding liberal international order. Its global influence could grow significantly, in ways that will cause Western countries and liberal democracies considerable angst. The United States and its allies, however, will have to determine whether a China that is a softer incarnation of its current self should be regarded as a legitimate part of a changing global order—or still be treated as an existential threat.
THE RETURN OF THE QING
To understand where China might be going, it’s worth examining a much older pattern that underpins Chinese foreign policy. When the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912, had to grapple with European imperial powers in the late nineteenth century, prominent officials crafted two slogans that defined how China should deal with the Western challenge: fuguo qiangbing, or “rich country and strong army,” and zhongti xiyong, or “Chinese for essence, Western for usage.” The ideas behind these phrases have remained constant across the century and a half since they first came to prominence during the late imperial decline of the Qing.
The first drew from famous rhetoric during China’s Warring States period over two thousand years ago. The slogan distilled the country’s abiding material ambitions, its need to attain power through militarized national security and prosperity. In the last century, other great powers have deprioritized the quest for military strength, whether because of defeat in war (as was the case with Germany and Japan) or imperial decline (as with the United Kingdom, which went from being a great power at the start of the twentieth century to a middle power by its end). China has not.
The second phrase denoted the idea that a non-Western country could adopt some of the frameworks of Western modernity—such as particular kinds of military technology or constitutional and legal reforms—without sacrificing its authentic cultural self. In 1865, Qing officials discussed the opening in Shanghai of the Jiangnan arsenal, China’s first modern weapons factory, in this language. Many non-Western societies embraced similar views, including Japan, a country that modernized rapidly in the twentieth century to compete with Western states while still retaining a distinct sense of its own identity. The challenge they set for themselves was to achieve material progress and improve state capacity without becoming “Western.”
The Qing dynasty ended, but the debate about how to achieve these two national goals did not. The Chinese Communist Party always believed that forging a militarily strong and economically secure China was one of its fundamental objectives. By the 1990s, the CCP wondered whether it should follow the model of Singapore: a country that won global admiration while producing stable governance, a balance between consensus and coercion, and the ostensible adherence to what its longtime leader Lee Kuan Yew called the “Asian values” of deference to authority and communitarianism.
In 20 years, a version of China could emerge with which the West can coexist.
The dual aspirations of these slogans are visible today. China has long wanted to become a wealthy and strong country, but only in the present has it come close to achieving this goal; it now has the world’s second-biggest economy and its second-biggest military. Becoming a great power has coincided with the need to underline the indigenous sources of Chinese greatness. Since at least the 1980s, the CCP has nurtured a modernized, authoritarian version of Confucian culture, stressing the importance of “harmony” in public life, a quality very much at odds with the churning revolution of Mao’s rule from 1949 until his death in 1976. Under Xi, significant resources have been poured into initiatives such as the Confucian canon project, which reached a 20-year milestone in 2023 by classifying over 200 million characters’ worth of texts from China’s cultural traditions.
The core aim of fuguo qiangbing, of becoming wealthy and militarily strong, will define Chinese policy in the years and decades to come. But it could prove tricky for Beijing to attain. Unlike in the imperial age of the nineteenth century, the assertion of military strength in the interconnected twenty-first century can jeopardize the search for prosperity. Precisely because China is not an old-style empire, its growth largely depends on its expansion of supply chains, its investments in other countries, and its unceasing quest to embed itself in new markets. That economic ambition can easily be undone if China engages in alarming military actions. Irredentist adventurism, notably in pursuit of territorial claims in Taiwan, the South China Sea, and along the disputed border with India, could make current and potential partners wonder whether they can truly rely on China.
China may well become more confrontational in its approach to the world. Appeals to economic rationality won’t convince nationalists in the party or on social media who want to see the country assert itself on the international stage. But if China uses force to transform its regional geography, it will change the way that others see it. China might argue that its ambitions are limited, that Taiwan or the South China Sea are exceptions to its general policy of nonconfrontation. But neighbors would find it harder to trust a China that chooses to define its own boundaries and fails to demonstrate any constraints on its own power. China would not be isolated, but it would struggle to build trust and encourage other governments to accept the norms it wants to define the world: untrammeled state power and the subordination of civil rights and freedoms to economic and development goals.
DIRE STRAITS
China would struggle even more to chart a better path were it to choose to wage a war over Taiwan. Such a war would be motivated, in China, by a politics of identity that is largely impervious to economic rationality and other strategic considerations. Still, such a war would create a lose-lose scenario for everyone.
A violent seizure of Taiwan would be hard to accomplish, but China could probably pull it off. The aftermath of such aggression, however, would be deeply damaging for Beijing. The use of military force and the human and economic cost of violence would make all of Asia nervous about Chinese intentions regarding regional maritime routes and provoke many of these countries to ramp up security measures and reject opportunities for greater regional integration. Asian states will worry that China might decide—much as Russia has done since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—that some countries are more sovereign than others and that the domestic actions and preferences of neighboring states can somehow constitute a violation of sovereignty. Chinese officials may reject comparisons with Russian actions in Ukraine or the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but decision-makers in Southeast Asia will find it difficult to trust Beijing.
Even if the seizure of Taiwan does not lead to a wider regional confrontation, any number of powerful economic actors in the global North might impose sanctions that would hurt China, and Asia more broadly. Beijing’s ideological coercion or “reeducation” of a conquered island under a regime like that in place in Xinjiang or Tibet would destroy the high-tech, export-oriented economy of the island, which is highly dependent on extensive interactions with the wider world.
ChatGPT 說：
以下是Rana Mitter於《Foreign Affairs》2025年5/6月號發表的〈The Once and Future China: How Will Change Come to Beijing?〉一文之中文翻譯與重點筆記：
🌏《未來的中國，與其過往：變革將如何到來？》
作者：拉納·米特（Rana Mitter）
哈佛甘迺迪學院美亞關係S. T. Lee講座教授、《中國的正義之戰》作者
發表時間：2025年4月22日
📌【重點筆記】
歷史的不可預測性：
中國的現代史充滿劇變，從清末、民國、共產政權到當前的強權姿態，20年後的發展同樣難以預測。
習近平有可能在90多歲仍掌權，仿效鄧小平的長期影響力。
中國當下的戰略走向：
國內持續強化監控體制、壓制異議與少數民族。
對外則在台海、東海、南海與西方展開日益對抗的姿態。
支持俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭，並疑似參與針對西方基礎設施的網攻。
另一種中國的可能：
若避免與西方發生衝突，中國仍可能轉向更務實、但非自由主義的共存模式。
這種中國未必「民主化」，但可能讓西方得以容忍、共處。
歷史思想的回歸：
清末「富國強兵」與「中體西用」兩大思想今日仍有深遠影響。
中共承襲這套思維，在不放棄中國文化主體性的前提下吸收西方技術與現代治理工具。
儒家復興與文化工程：
中共大力推動儒家文化工程，如《儒藏》計畫，旨在為政權提供文化正當性。
經濟與軍事的矛盾：
軍事冒險（如台灣）可能毀掉中國對全球市場的依賴關係，尤其在供應鏈整合與外資投資方面。
年老社會與經濟放緩使中國更難承擔長期衝突代價。
若武力犯台的後果：
雖具備武統能力，但代價將極其高昂：
對亞洲鄰國造成巨大不安，導致安全合作擴張。
台灣經濟、特別是高科技產業將崩潰，外部制裁與去風險化風潮恐全面爆發。
中國會被視為亞太版的俄羅斯，難以重建信任。
關鍵抉擇：
中國與西方能否共存，取決於是否避免軍事冒險與擴張主義。
西方需思考，面對一個溫和版本的中共政權，是接受其作為新國際秩序一員，還是堅持視其為存亡威脅？
📖【全文中文翻譯（第一部分）】
如果你在中國現代史上的任何一個時間點介入，並試圖預測未來20年，那你幾乎一定會錯得離譜。
1900年，滿清朝廷的官員不會料到20年後中國會淪為軍閥割據的共和國；
1940年，中國正因日本侵略搖搖欲墜，沒人能預見1960年的它會是一個龐大的共產政權，並即將與蘇聯決裂；
2000年，美國協助中國加入WTO，象徵其融入自由資本主義秩序；
到了2020年，中美卻已陷入貿易戰與全面對峙。
到了2045年，中國領導人習近平或許仍會以某種形式掌權，正如鄧小平在去世前仍持續影響政局。自2012年上台以來，習大幅調整中國對內對外走向：
他在國內擴大監控與壓制空間；
對外則在東海、南海與台海持續挑釁，與鄰國及美國日益對立；
他默許俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭，並被廣泛指責干預西方基礎設施網路。
然而，另一種中國仍有可能出現：
一種能在不犧牲核心價值下，與美國與其盟友共處的版本。
這樣的中國不會變成西方理想中的自由民主夥伴——那個希望早已破滅——但若中國與西方都避免導向不可避免的衝突，也許仍可建立某種冷和平的共存秩序。
如你需要，我可繼續翻譯全文後半段，或將此文章濃縮成專業簡報／評論框架。是否需要延伸？
你說：
翻譯成中文，並條列出重點筆記
Xi at a meeting with foreign business leaders in Beijing, March 2025
Florence Lo / Reuters
The conquest of Taiwan would also deal a huge blow to Chinese soft power. In Asia, the story would take hold that Beijing was never able to peacefully persuade its compatriots to join a greater China. A China that can’t convince a culturally similar territory to join it will struggle to persuade others that it can create a meaningful wider “community of common destiny,” to use CCP terminology. In the region, East Asian and Southeast Asian countries would divert spending away from consumption to building up their militaries, and they would seek to disentangle their supply chains from China.
This post-conflict version of China would become increasingly ostracized. Sanctions from wealthy countries would disrupt the Chinese economy over the medium to long term. Russia was able to turn to China to limit the damage of sanctions after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but China will not have any similar benefactor to provide new, lucrative supply chains or markets, even if it retains its access to much of the global South. Countries in wartime conditions that are cut off even partially from global flows often suffer significant inflation, as Russia has seen since 2022. Chinese policymakers in the 1990s who rejected the “shock therapy” visited on post-Soviet Russia remembered that hyperinflation under the predecessor Nationalist regime had helped usher in a Communist victory in 1949. In the 1980s, even more modest inflation of 20 to 30 percent led to widespread demonstrations and ultimately fueled the political protests that ended bloodily in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Were Beijing to attack Taiwan, it would risk another devastating inflationary period, with similar effects on social stability.
China will not abandon its claim to Taiwan, as Xi’s 2025 New Year message showed when he declared that “no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification.” The CCP’s close control over media and propaganda, however, means that it could easily choose to deprioritize the quest for unification. That action alone would have tremendous benefits for Beijing. Taiwan is important to Chinese citizens, but they care more about day-to-day issues such as the stability of the economy and jobs. Xi has built up forces on the mainland across from the island and ratcheted up rhetoric targeting Taipei. But China would bolster trust in its position in the region if it toned down its rhetoric and actions related to Taiwan and its maritime claims in the South China Sea, making it clear that these issues can be resolved at some point in the future. Lowering the temperature would go some way toward removing one of the most powerful causes for concern in the wider world about Chinese intentions.
GENERATIONAL SHIFT
Under Xi, China has become more authoritarian in its control of its citizens, more confrontational in its conduct with its neighbors, and more open in its desire to challenge U.S. supremacy. The next generation of Chinese leaders may pull the country in a different direction. In 20 years, the CCP officials now in their 40s will form the bulk of the leadership. Xi could still be in charge, but he will be in his early 90s and likely the only remaining leader whose teenage years were shaped by the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, an experience that seems to have given him an abiding desire for order above all. Instead, the remaining top leaders will be those who grew up in the 1990s and in the first decade of this century. The China of their youth was one where Chinese broadcasting and the press were significantly more open than they are now, where daring journalism was sometimes possible, and where there were still real debates about how China could reform its political system. Those who came of age in the early twenty-first century also experienced a decade of relatively free discussion on social media until that, too, was suppressed.
Just as the Cultural Revolution shaped the very top leaders today, the memories of a more open China will be powerful among leaders in the coming decades—not just high party officials but also figures in business, media, and the parastatal organizations, such as the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, that substitute for civil society. Many of these leaders won’t be liberal in the Western sense of that term; if the wider world expects committed Americanophiles in the Chinese leadership, it will wait in vain. But some are likely to be far more open-minded than they would admit in public today. Indeed, in private, many people in the business, media, and think-tank worlds are frustrated with and despondent about the atmosphere in China. Like their elders, they will remain wary of the United States, but they may not, for instance, be as interested in partnering with Russia, a country they regard as offering no serious economic opportunities. Xi’s father loved Russia because of its cultural and political influence on the revolution that would drive the Communists to power in China in 1949, and many Chinese citizens today tolerate Russia because it is vigorously anti-Western. But the public does not have a strong bond with the country. One 2024 survey suggested that around 120,000 Chinese are learning Russian; over 300 million are learning English.
The transfer of power to this jiulinghou (post-1990s) generation could encourage decision-makers in China to recognize that less is more. The country need not change its goals in the coming decades: it will still want to be a global power with a strong army and to see the world in the communitarian, authoritarian terms that suit the CCP. But future leaders may see value in moderating China’s authoritarianism in ways that would make it more powerful. Beijing’s attempts to expand its influence have been damaged by its encroachment on others and its lack of transparency and prickliness in international diplomacy. In contrast, countries such as India, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have taken pains to project themselves as cooperative actors on the international stage even when their internal politics have moved in illiberal directions. These countries have frequently pursued goals not aligned with those of Western countries, such as India’s purchase of Russian oil and weapons, but the perception that they do not seek to reshape the world order to suit themselves has in fact magnified their influence.
Future Chinese leaders could well be nostalgic for the China of the late 1990s that was able to create a more favorable, global image for itself after the disaster of Tiananmen Square. This China would still strive for prosperity and strength, but it would assume that relative openness to the world is the best way to get to prosperity and strength. Even as it eschews any aspiration to be Western, it would be keen to acknowledge that Chinese identity has always been pluralistic and draws on many external influences. At home, it would recognize that would-be totalitarian surveillance states are never guaranteed survival—see, for instance, East Germany. It would relax the kinds of controls and systems of surveillance and censorship that it is now tightening, not just with the hope of producing greater social harmony and stability but also presenting a China that is more appealing to the world.
A more moderate but still authoritarian China will not be the pluralist democratic country once dreamed of by Western politicians, such as U.S. President Bill Clinton, and senior CCP figures from earlier eras, such as former Politburo members Li Rui and Zhao Ziyang. But it may be a realistic medium-term outcome. Such a China may also resemble much of the rest of the world, as the drift toward authoritarianism in global politics seems likely to continue into the 2030s and beyond. By that time, many countries in the West, never mind the rest of the world, may have adopted more illiberal policies at home, restricting personal freedoms and the movement of people. Few countries, not even the United States, will be in a rush to advance a global campaign for liberal democracy in the years to come. In that environment, a China under less sharp-edged leadership could very well seem more compatible with the future international system. A more illiberal global atmosphere, ironically, could allow China to loosen up in areas in which doing so might expand its global influence and in which it no longer feels vulnerable to liberal counterattacks.
A TALE TO TELL
In this scenario, China would still need to overcome immense global skepticism about its intentions. A 2023 Pew survey across a variety of countries concluded that, despite international concerns about U.S. interference, impressions of the United States were still much more favorable than those of China. During the Cold War, the United States managed to create a persuasive vision of itself as a leader of a liberal world order that ultimately triumphed over a rival Soviet order. China will need to conjure something similarly attractive if it wants to cement its global power and economic and political preeminence. It will want the world, particularly the countries of the global South, to see it as an economically robust and militarily strong country, one that remains rooted in its own core cultural identity while also serving as an exemplar for other societies seeking prosperity in difficult circumstances.
It would not be necessary for all of China’s ideological messages to be comprehensible across different cultures and societies. After all, it’s often said that the United States has a story that can resonate far beyond its shores, and that story helps create the country’s soft power, but in reality, the United States sells a highly particular version of itself abroad. Many aspects of American life—for instance, the view held by many Americans that freedom and the right to bear firearms are inextricable—do not resonate outside the United States. China’s internal debates, such as arguments about whether Communists or Nationalists were more instrumental in the defeat of Japan in World War II or reformulations of Marxist-Leninist theory (Xi calls himself a “twenty-first-century Marxist”), are of little interest to those outside the country. But China can still offer a vision of itself that appeals to the outside world.
There is a precedent. Modern China has produced a global ideology in the recent past: Maoism. It’s often forgotten how influential this strand of thinking was just over half a century ago. In India, in Peru, and on the streets of Paris, different rebel groups found the package of convictions that went under Mao’s name to be a potent source of ideological power. Many of the specifics of Mao’s thought were geared toward China’s own realities of peasant revolution and the search for a post-Qing political settlement. But Maoism seemed to fit a 1960s moment, when wealthy and developing countries alike were exploding in revolution against their existing systems. The vision of youthful rebellion against a calcified, aging system and of a revolutionary future anchored in the countryside offered more than enough for people outside China to use for their own purposes.
Of course, in the decades to come, China will not export a violent revolutionary cult. Instead, Beijing could succeed by offering a plausible story about itself in the turbulent 2030s, when liberal pluralist democracy may well have become a minority taste. By then, the majority of global political regimes could range from hybrid illiberal democracies to authoritarian states. As a stable, economically productive, and technologically innovative polity, China could comfort and even inspire elites and ordinary people in other countries. It already does so. As much as many Indians mistrust China’s intentions, for instance, many Indian political and business elites evince increasingly open admiration for the Chinese system and its undeniable material achievements. In selling its example and worldview, China could draw on Confucian ideas, including the notion that collective values are more meritorious than individualistic ones. China could champion “authoritarian welfarism,” in which governments combine coercive top-down control with significant social spending to provide public goods and reduce inequality—and in so doing, highlight the perceived failures of liberal free-market capitalism. Versions of this politics have already gained adherents in the United States, Europe, and Latin America in the past decade, as liberal individualism has been increasingly called into question. China could make the case that the endpoint for a prosperous and stable society looks like what is on offer in Beijing rather than in Paris and New York.
ChatGPT 說：
以下是原文的中文翻譯，以及重點筆記整理：
中文翻譯：
習近平與外資領袖會晤，2025年3月，北京
Florence Lo / 路透社
若中國武力奪取台灣，將對其軟實力造成重大打擊。屆時，亞洲各國將認為北京從未能說服文化相近的台灣和平統一，這也代表「命運共同體」的理念失去說服力。東亞與東南亞國家將削減消費開支，轉而強化軍備，並尋求從中國供應鏈中脫鉤。
戰後的中國將日益遭到國際孤立。富裕國家的制裁會在中長期內擾亂中國經濟。俄羅斯2022年全面入侵烏克蘭後，尚可依靠中國以緩衝制裁壓力，但中國若發動對台戰爭，將找不到類似的靠山，即使與「全球南方」仍有部分聯繫。處於戰爭狀態、被切斷全球經濟流動的國家，往往會面臨高通膨。這是1990年代中國政策制定者拒絕蘇聯式「休克療法」的原因之一，他們記得國民黨時期的惡性通膨助長了1949年共產黨的勝利。1980年代即使只是20%-30%的通膨，也已引發大規模抗議，最終演變成1989年血腥鎮壓天安門事件。若北京攻台，將冒著再次陷入高通膨與社會動盪的風險。
中國不會放棄對台主權聲索，習近平2025年元旦講話再次強調「沒有人能阻擋歷史統一的潮流」。但由於中共牢牢掌握宣傳機器，它完全能選擇將統一議題降級處理，這將帶來重大正面效益。對中國人民而言，台灣固然重要，但民眾更在意的是經濟穩定與就業機會。若北京放低對台與南海主權的強硬姿態，並釋出「這些議題可留待未來解決」的訊號，將可提升區域信任、降低國際社會對中國意圖的警戒心。
世代轉移
在習近平治下，中國對內更專制、對外更對抗，並公開挑戰美國霸權。但下一代中共領導人可能會導向不同的路。再過20年，目前40多歲的中共官員將成為權力核心。習屆時若仍在位，也將是唯一一位其少年時代仍歷經文革的領袖。這段經歷塑造了他對秩序的強烈渴望。相比之下，新一代領袖在1990年代與21世紀初成長，那時中國新聞媒體尚有空間，社群媒體上仍有一定自由討論，甚至曾有政治改革的辯論。
就如文革形塑今日中共高層，過去「較開放中國」的記憶，也將影響未來的政治菁英。他們未必是西方意義上的自由派，但在私下卻往往更開明。目前中國的企業、媒體與智庫圈內部普遍對現狀感到壓抑與沮喪。未來領導層仍會對美國保持戒心，但對俄羅斯的熱情將遠不如前。2024年一項調查指出，學習俄語的中國人僅約12萬，而學習英語的則高達3億人。
**90後世代（jiulinghou）**可能認為「少即是多」，中國可在不改變目標的前提下，選擇降低威權程度以擴張實力。中國目前在外交上因不透明與咄咄逼人而受損，反觀印度、卡達、土耳其、阿聯酋即便國內威權化，對外仍力圖展現合作姿態。未來的中國領導人或許會懷念1990年代末那個成功重塑國際形象的中國。此一中國仍然追求國力與繁榮，但更懂得透過開放與多元來達成目的。
未來的中國不會變成克林頓或趙紫陽曾夢想的多元民主國家，但這樣一個溫和威權體制或許更符合2030年代後的世界潮流。屆時，全球多數國家可能已採取不自由的政策，對個人自由與人員流動加以限制。屆時，一個較為溫和、務實的中國反而會更能融入國際秩序。全球自由主義退潮，反而讓中國在不被自由派批判的情況下，適度放鬆國內管控以擴張其全球影響力。
說好中國故事
要在未來贏得全球信任，中國仍須克服外界對其意圖的高度懷疑。2023年Pew調查指出，儘管國際社會也擔心美國干預，但對美國印象仍遠優於中國。冷戰時期，美國成功地將自己塑造成自由秩序的捍衛者，最終擊敗了蘇聯。中國若想在全球占據主導地位，也須講出一個有說服力的故事。
這個故事無需完全被全球理解。美國的「自由故事」雖然響亮，但很多美式價值（如擁槍權）在其他文化並不通用。同理，中國的內部辯論（如共產黨與國民黨對抗日貢獻的爭論，或習近平「21世紀馬克思主義」）也未必能吸引外國聽眾。但中國仍可塑造自身為一種發展模式的代表。
毛主義曾是中國輸出思想的先例。1960年代，不少國家（如印度、祕魯、法國）出現仰賴毛思想的激進群體。雖然毛思想是為中國農民革命量身打造，但其「年輕反叛舊體制」的精神，在當時全球蔚為風潮。
未來中國不會輸出暴力革命，但若能在2030年代這個「自由民主式微」的世界中講出自己是穩定、有生產力、科技進步的國家故事，便有機會吸引其他國家的菁英與民眾。印度政商菁英就對中國成就抱持某種程度的欽佩。
中國可主打「威權福利主義」，即政府在強勢統治下大力投入公共服務、縮小貧富差距，藉此對比自由資本主義的失靈。這類思想在過去十年間已在美國、歐洲、拉丁美洲獲得一些支持。中國可藉由孔子思想（如集體價值優於個人）與社會福利模式，提出「繁榮與穩定的終點」不是巴黎或紐約，而是北京。
重點筆記整理：
一、攻台風險
會重創中國軟實力，打破「和平統一」敘事。
東亞國家將軍事化、供應鏈去中國化。
國際制裁與通膨風險高，可能重演天安門前夕社會動盪。
二、中共選擇：低調處理台灣議題的利益
可穩定區域信任、降低外界對中國意圖的警戒。
台灣議題可暫時「冷處理」，重點轉向經濟與民生。
三、世代轉移與內部變化
90後菁英記得較自由的中國，可能更務實開放。
對俄熱情下降，對西方文化仍具認同（如語言學習差距）。
可能學習印度、卡達等「威權外交友善」模式。
四、未來中國的定位與故事
講好「中國故事」關鍵於塑造穩定與進步形象，而非輸出意識形態。
毛主義曾是全球潮流，未來中國可藉「威權福利主義」再塑吸引力。
可凸顯自由資本主義失敗、社會不平等，反襯中國的「有秩序、有福祉」。
五、國際氛圍與機遇
2030年代將是民主倒退潮，中國反而可放鬆控制、擴大影響。
「不再怕自由批判」，可主動輸出新型威權治理典範。
若你需要我把這些筆記整理成簡報、政策備忘錄或投稿初稿，也可以告訴我格式需求。
你說：
翻譯成中文，並條列出重點筆記
A portrait of Mao on the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, March 2025
Go Nakamura / Reuters
China can give substance to its global appeal by concentrating on one key issue, the green energy transition, portraying itself as a leader when the United States has turned in another direction. In 20 years, China could reach the apex of its current strategy of becoming the world’s dominant player in facilitating the transition by continuing to export electric vehicles and the components to make green energy more widely available and by increasingly shifting to cleaner sources of energy production at home. By providing global public goods, it can link the values of collective striving embedded in “authoritarian welfarism” with the moral imperatives of energy transition. If the West is split, with Europe more interested in green technology than a United States still significantly committed to fossil fuels, China will find it easier to make pragmatic clean energy partnerships with European states. China would be both an exemplar and a provider for growing, energy-hungry countries elsewhere, too, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. China will find it much easier than liberal Western states to speak to the needs of people in large countries susceptible to mounting environmental disasters, such as Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, whose large populations have rising consumer demands. It can frame its green offerings not just as a matter of practical necessity but also of justice, supplying what the Western countries principally responsible for this crisis cannot.
But to cast itself as such a savior, China will need to create a society that is at least broadly prosperous and stable and whose large armed forces are capable but seldom stray from the barracks or port. That sort of China could promote the idea that the country has a unique system of political and economic thinking and strategy (zhongti, “Chinese for essence”) that nonetheless can be used elsewhere by those who care to learn from it. As China courts middle powers with this narrative, the West could find it hard to push back.
China could also emerge as a hub for new technology by the 2030s, with considerable autonomy from the United States, should the trend toward technological and trade “decoupling” continue. Fewer Chinese young people will likely be studying in the West, and the already small number of Westerners who do so in China will remain limited. China and the United States will likely grow further apart as their ecologies of technology diverge further over time.
But even as China’s scientific development in fields such as artificial intelligence becomes more distinct from that of Western countries, tech developers and entrepreneurs will want to participate in both spheres. By the 2030s, technological norms might meet and compete in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America, sometimes forming hybrid tech cultures that mix elements from China and the West. China will seek to draw more people into its tech orbit. Chinese universities and research institutes will host a growing number of students and researchers from Southeast Asia and beyond. Some of the most creative scientific work might well happen in third countries, where researchers and entrepreneurs are freer to mix and match what they learn. Decoupling, which would force scientific research and development into separate silos, would be bad for the Western and Chinese science bases but might be the making of several emerging middle powers.
CHINA IN THE CRYSTAL BALL
In 20 years, China could be a very different geopolitical actor than it is now. It could have moderated its authoritarianism, possess but not use military force, and be constrained as well as enabled by its major trade and technology links. This China would still be a country whose norms are different from those of the ever-shrinking liberal world, and its capabilities would still undoubtedly make neighbors and rivals nervous. But Western countries would find such a China manageable and also harder to posit as an existential geopolitical rival.
To reach that point, China will have to change. It will need to convince other countries that it does not seek to resolve issues through confrontation, whether through conventional military means or the use of cybertechnology. It will have to wean itself from its tendency to switch between saccharine rhetoric about its own place in the global order and, on the other hand, harsh screeds and coercive trade and military tactics when countries don’t fall in line. Such rhetoric works in the closed media environment at home: it has little global appeal, even among countries that profess some sympathy with China’s worldview.
Change is inevitable in China over the next 20 years, but external factors will likely be secondary in shaping that change. Instead, long-term domestic trends will define China’s future. These include the country’s need to care for an older and sicker population, the rise to maturity of a generation that did not grow up with the belief that the United States is China’s primary enemy, and the need to create stable higher-value jobs with a shrinking working-age population. The current downturn in domestic professional middle-class employment can be solved only by long-term solutions that involve China doing a lot more work to become a trusted and cooperative actor in the global economy.
By the 2030s, liberal pluralist democracy may be a minority taste.
China and the United States should both note that by the middle of the twenty-first century, the powers of the global South will be much stronger political, economic, and technological actors in their own right, not chess pieces in someone else’s game. The wider world is unlikely to take the West’s negative assessments of China as gospel; many outside the West will see the benefits of a China whose economic power, huge markets, and capacity to innovate in green energy and artificial intelligence is useful to them. But China’s military buildups and mercantilist economics will rebound on the country, reminding its partners that they should not become dependent on Beijing. A version of China that the world, including the global South, can live with would not have to be democratic or liberal. But it would need to be one that acknowledges its own errors, is much more transparent, and understands that any use of military or other coercive force (including in cyberspace) will fundamentally damage trust in its international relations.
China may well succeed in fulfilling the paired aspirations of the Qing era, the quest for geopolitical and economic power, along with the retention of a fundamental “Chinese essence.” But it will not do so if it chooses to start major military conflagrations in Asia. As long as a plausible case can be made that China is a military threat, Beijing gives the Western world an argument that can be used against it. By taking a less confrontational and militarist posture, however, China will give the West greater dilemmas to solve. Some Western countries may find Chinese-style welfarist authoritarianism attractive. Western policymakers and thinkers will have to determine whether a powerful state that is a geoeconomic and ideological challenge but not a military one still deserves to be treated as an existential danger.
A China that looks like the creator of a peaceful order in the 2040s will be much harder to argue against in the West and the wider world than its current confrontational incarnation. It is unclear whether China can really take that path. Still, over the past century, the least reliable way to predict what China will look like in 20 years has always been to extrapolate in a straight line from where it is now.
ChatGPT 說：
以下是這段《Foreign Affairs》2025年5/6月號〈The Once and Future China〉文章段落的中文翻譯與重點筆記整理：
📘中文翻譯：
天安門上的毛像，北京，2025年3月
攝影：Go Nakamura / 路透社
中國可以透過聚焦一項關鍵議題——綠能轉型，來賦予其全球號召力具體內容，藉此塑造自己為一個在美國選擇相反方向時仍堅守此路的領導者。若持續出口電動車及綠能技術元件，並在國內大力轉向清潔能源，中國在20年內有可能登頂其策略目標：成為全球綠能轉型的主導者。透過提供全球公共財，中國得以將「威權福利主義」中所體現的集體奮鬥價值，與能源轉型的道德使命相結合。
若西方世界出現分歧——歐洲重視綠能，而美國仍倚賴化石燃料——中國將更容易與歐洲國家建立務實的清潔能源夥伴關係。對於其他能源需求不斷上升、且容易受氣候變遷影響的國家（如印尼、奈及利亞、巴基斯坦），中國也能成為榜樣與供應者。中國比自由主義國家更能對這些大國人民的需求發聲，並將其綠能產品包裝成一種正義的實踐——是西方無法提供的補償。
然而，若要扮演救世主角色，中國必須打造一個大致繁榮且穩定的社會，軍隊需強大卻不干政。這樣的中國，將能推廣「中國本體論」（zhongti）的政治經濟思維，吸引願意學習的其他國家。當中國以此故事吸引中等強國時，西方將更難有效反制。
如果技術與貿易的「脫鉤」趨勢持續到2030年代，中國也可能成為科技創新的樞紐，與美國保持自主性。到時中國留學生會減少赴西方，而願意到中國留學的西方人也仍屬少數。隨著中美科技生態系的差異擴大，雙方距離將越來越遠。
但即便中國的AI等科學發展日益獨特，科技創業者與研發人員仍會想參與兩個世界。到了2030年代，技術標準將在中東、東南亞、南美洲交會與競爭，可能形成中西合璧的混合技術文化。中國將爭取更多人才進入其科技圈，例如吸引東南亞學生與研究人員赴中國高校與研究機構。最具創造力的科研成果，或許會在第三國出現，那裡允許更自由的技術混搭。儘管脫鉤對中西方科研都是傷害，卻可能成就多個新興中等強權的科技躍升。
📌重點筆記整理：
🌍 一、中國的綠能策略：
綠能轉型是中國全球魅力的關鍵切入點。
中國可能在20年內主導全球綠能供應與轉型。
將威權福利主義與能源轉型的道德論述結合。
能與歐洲建立清潔能源合作，取代美國角色。
有潛力成為南方國家（如印尼、奈及利亞、巴基斯坦）的綠能典範與供應者。
🛡️ 二、中國需塑造一種「和平強國」形象：
維持大致穩定與繁榮的社會。
軍隊強大但不干政。
推廣「中國本體論」（zhongti）作為對外思想出口。
吸引中等強國與其建立共識，削弱西方反制力。
🧠 三、科技與教育脫鉤：
2030年代，中美技術生態大幅分離。
中國留學生赴西減少，反向流動仍稀少。
技術規範將在南方世界交會與競爭。
中國積極吸引東南亞與第三世界科研人才。
最具創造力的技術可能出現在非中美地區。
🔮 四、2040年代中國的可能樣貌：
某種程度溫和的威權主義、較低軍事侵略性。
若能去軍事對抗、增強透明與自省，將變得「可共存」。
中國無須成為民主國家，但需避免強制與武力外交。
若展現和平秩序創造者形象，將使西方更難圍堵。
🧭 五、改變的動力主要來自內部：
應對老齡化與健康危機。
新生代不再以美國為宿敵。
勞動人口萎縮下須創造高價值穩定職位。
將中產階級危機轉化為長期全球合作的動力。
⚖️ 六、全球南方的新態度：
南方國家將在2050年成為政治與技術的主體，而非棋子。
他們不會盲從西方對中國的負面評價。
對中國的市場規模、綠能與AI創新能力感到實用價值。
但中國軍備擴張與經濟國族主義會讓這些國家保持警覺。
印度政商菁英對中國成就抱持某種程度的欽佩，主因在於中國展現出「強國崛起」的替代路徑——不需完全仰賴西方式自由民主制度，也能達成經濟發展、基礎建設、科技創新與全球影響力的迅速躍升。以下是幾個具體例子與脈絡：
1. 基礎建設的速度與規模
印度許多企業家、工程師與官員對中國在基建上的效率印象深刻。
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例子：比爾拉集團（Aditya Birla Group）與塔塔集團（Tata Group）官員
在多次論壇上指出，中國能夠在極短時間內興建高鐵、機場與智慧城市，這與印度冗長的行政程序、土地徵收困難形成對比。 -
2019年印度NITI Aayog（國家轉型研究院）主辦的基建會議中，就有多位印度學者與官員引用中國的高鐵模式作為「應學之範」。
2. 製造業政策與產業升級
中國「中國製造2025」雖具爭議，但在印度被不少政策制定者視為值得參考的戰略規劃。
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例子：Narayana Murthy（印孚瑟斯 Infosys 創辦人）
曾公開表示，中國對製造業與教育的戰略投資，值得印度學習。中國能打造世界級供應鏈，而印度仍在突破「組裝與外包」階段掙扎。 -
印度2020年推出的「生產聯動獎勵計劃（PLI Scheme）」某種程度上即模仿中國政策風格——以國家補貼支持特定製造業升級。
3. 國家治理效率與長期規劃
中國雖非民主體制，卻展現出長期規劃的能力，這在民主政體中難以實現。
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例子：Shivshankar Menon（前印度國安顧問、外交部長）
在其回憶錄與訪談中曾提及，中國在制定對非洲、東南亞的經貿與外交戰略上，具有一種「穩定的國家意志」，而印度則常受選舉與黨派輪替牽制。 -
印度外交界對中國「一帶一路」雖有警惕，卻也承認其規模與協調能力令人佩服。
4. 科技創新與國企－民企融合
中國能將國家資源導向AI、5G、量子科技等關鍵產業，並結合阿里巴巴、華為等民間創新動能。
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例子：Infosys與Wipro等印度科技公司高層
在與中國企業的競爭中，公開表示對中國在AI與電信基礎研發上的投入感到「壓力」與「敬佩」——例如華為的全球佈局，讓印度企業無法等量齊觀。
結語：
對印度菁英而言，中國是一種「值得警惕但無法忽視」的現代化樣本。他們未必認同中國的體制，但對其治理能力、產業動員、科技實力與國際雄心，抱持一種競爭中的欽佩與複雜情緒。
若未來中國能穩定度過內部壓力與地緣挑戰，其「有秩序、高效率、具科技感的威權資本主義模式」可能會在印度等全球南方菁英間產生更大吸引力。
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