刘小枫 中国人民大学
Liu, Xiaofeng, Renmin University of China
原文Original
重识“美国在中国的失败”——华侨汉学的视角初探
“汉学”这个指称已经扩大为泛指所有在中国之外、用外国语文研究中国的学科。过去并不包含在“汉学”（其原义指西方学人对中国传统文化的研究）之内的“现代中国研究”，如今也成了“汉学”的重要组成部分。这样一来，本来主要指称西人学术的“汉学”，现在实际上包括相当一部分在西方国家——尤其美国——定居的中国学者的中国研究。这些中国学者在美国接受大学教育和学术训练，随后在美国大学任教、用英文发表学术成果，其学术研究完全融入美国文教体制，问题意识也受美国学界意识形态牵制，但因自己是中国人，他们又与研究中国的西方学者确实有所不同——为行文方便，我暂且称这类中国人的中国研究为“华侨汉学”。
学术和文教体制从属于国家，受国家利益支配——如果一个中国人在国外（比如美国或日本）接受大学教育和学术训练并进而获得教职，接下来的生涯就得为所在国的文教体制效力。倘若所在国的国家利益与中国的国家利益并不一致，华侨汉学家的学术位置就面临某种尴尬，这种情形尤其见于社会科学领域——最突出的莫过于政治学的汉学研究。
《美国在中国的失败》[1]是已故的芝加哥大学政治系教授邹谠的成名作，这个书名实际隐含着一个问题：美国为什么在中国失败——邹谠先生用五百五十页篇幅（按中译本计）对这一问题做出了透彻解答。作者邹谠是中国人，但本书出发点是美国利益，实际上在替美国政府总结教训。让我们感兴味的问题来了：作者会有国家利益冲突的尴尬吗？中国人的历史感觉会影响到作者的学术判断吗？无论如何，这本书应该是我们了解华侨汉学的难得范本。
十月革命一声炮响那年，邹谠出生于广州，1951年在芝加哥大学政治系获得博士学位，文革爆发那年起任该系教授直到退休。《美国在中国的失败》出版于邹谠获得教授教席之前的三年（1963），当时美国与中华人民共和国仍处于敌对状态，外加冷战意识形态风云密布，该书力图为美国利益作出学术贡献，当属题中应有之意。不过，作者采取当时美国政治学界流行的行为主义政治学方法（所谓“条件-反应”模式，参见“前言”，页2-3），并不避讳美国政府制定对华政策时的判断失误和错误决策。美国在中国的失败，自然包含国民党在中国的失败——虽然作者是国民党元老邹鲁之子，却未见有为尊者讳之嫌。[2]因此，该书虽然明显在为美国政府总结对华战略意识的失误，我们也可以当作一面棱镜来读，在认识美国的“国家理由”的同时，认识我们中国自己的“国家理由”。
《美国在中国的失败》从十九世纪最后一年美国政府宣布关于中国的“门户开放”政策开始下笔，一直写到1950年冬天中国志愿军让美军在朝鲜半岛遭遇惨败为止。引人兴味的是，美国作为“大国”的崛起与中国作为“大国”的崛起的历程纠结在一起。虽然这并非邹谠教授当年的外交政策研究的问题意识着眼点，我们在半个世纪后的今天来回顾这段中美关系的恩怨，该书就成了政治哲学研究不可多得的个案，有助于我们认识中国的现代问题。
如果从中国的国家理由来读《美国在中国的失败》，首先会涉及重新认识作者设立的论述框架。作者当年基于美国的国家理由总结出来的若干具体教训，比如：美国对日本的态度、美国“使中国成为大国”的愿望、美国政治家对中共的认识，以及美国陷入中国内战的程度和结局等等，都会因视角的敌我变化而需要重新认识。
1899年9月，美国国务卿海约翰向德、俄、英、日、意、法等国发送照会，提出了美国政府关于“对华门户开放”的政策。这一外交声明对上述各国提出两点要求：保障在中国的所有外商享有均等待遇；保持中国的领土与主权的完整。这一声明被美国政治家看作美国的国家理念尊重别国领土与主权完整的体现，有人甚至将这一政策声明与美国的独立宣言精神联系在一起，以此证明美国的国家精神具有“道义上的优势”（页512）。《美国在中国的失败》以这一政策声明为基点，考察美国最终“丧失中国”这一对美国人的“集体的自我意识来说”“真正的创伤经验”（摩根索语，见“序”，页2），由此构成了全书的基本论述框架。声明的两点要求成了“美国在以后的五十年中间断性地、并不十分有效地遵循的两个目标”（页2），美国在中国的失败意味着这两个目标最终未能实现。
如果从中国的国家理由角度来看，这一论述框架的立论并不符合所谓社会科学的“中立化”原则——以至于我们可以进一步质疑，社会科学是否真的能做到“中立化”，不过，这是另一个问题。从中国人的立场来看，我们很难认同美国政府的这一政策声明具有“道义上的优势”，反倒可以看到：美国的“帝国意识”发蒙较迟，当美国觉得自己也可以更多占有中国资源时，欧洲和亚洲的列强已然在竭力扩大夺取到的中国资源的份额。“对华门户开放政策”的第一个要点“各国贸易机会均等的原则”无异于说，作为后来者的美国在占有中国的利益方面，应该与其他列强平起平坐，利益均沾（海约翰的传记作者的评语说得几乎毫无掩饰，页512）。所谓保持中国的领土与主权的完整的主张，听起来的确让我们觉得，美国是个道义国家，对中国领土没有图谋，事实上，这一主张保障的恰恰是美国能够与其他先到的列强在中国利益均沾：如果列强瓜分了中国，美国在中国可能获取的利益便成了泡影。
1899年美国政府的这一对华政策实际表明，美国的大国意识刚刚在萌生。事实上，这种意识直到二战初期仍然并不强烈。《美国在中国的失败》一书的论述主线支撑了我们的这一论断：当中国的领土和主权的完整一次又一次受到日本的实际损害时，美国并没有担当“道义”角色，派出自己的武装力量捍卫中国的领土和主权完整，而美国的国际战略学家清楚知道，“中国在军事上处于绝对无法自救的境地，与中国结盟当然并不意味着会增加我们的力量，相反会成为我们必须履行的额外义务”（页512）。美国没有适时地和切实地履行自己的“义务”，如邹谠教授所述，最重要的有两次：
一，没有阻止日本逐步侵占中国——
二，对战后的国共对峙局面没有采取“武装干涉中国的办法”（页304）。对这一次美国为何没有履行“义务”的决策分析，是《美国在中国的失败》的重心所在，其中的纠葛颇值得细嚼慢咽。我们不难发现，作者关于这一问题的支撑性论点实际上相互矛盾：一方面，美国的对华政策据说具有一个“长远目标”，这就是“建立一个强大的、统一的、民主的中国”，书中以第一部分（含三章）的标题形式“使中国成为大国”来突出美国的这一意愿；另一方面，美国两次放弃武装干涉中国事态（日本入侵和国共内战）的原因，都是“基于一种广泛的、共同的看法，即认为美国的在华利益不值得诉诸战争”（页304）。
我们的问题是：美国真的觉得自己有“义务”“使中国成为大国”？从《美国在中国的失败》中可以看到，美国自己尚未想要成为一个“大国”，二战才把美国拖入非当“大国”不可的境地。我们必须注意书中仅蜻蜓点水提到的情形：美国提出“使中国成为大国”的主张，时在美国被迫两线作战的阶段。此时，美国自然有理由担心自己无法同时应付东西两个战场——鉴于扭转欧洲战场局势对美国来说更为迫切，美国为了自己的国家利益提出了“使中国成为大国”的主张，战略目的是为了拖住日本。“使中国成为大国”的提法在今天听起来可能会让我们兴奋和感激：在1943年冬的德黑兰会议期间，罗斯福曾向斯大林建议，由苏联、美国、英国、中国组成“四警察”机构，“充当国际警察，防止或遏制侵略行为”（页54）——实际上，有虚荣心的中国人才会为这样的建议感到兴奋：比如，蒋委员长因能与西方首脑一起开会而兴奋，此时日军正发起新一轮中南战役，委员长再次不顾战场态势，让中国军人在湖南打面子仗。最能说明“使中国成为大国”这一提法的真实意图的是：在一年多后的雅尔塔会议上，为了换取苏联出兵我国东北压制日本精锐的关东军，美国与苏联签订了损害中国的主权和领土完整的秘密协定——连邹谠教授都忍不住说：雅尔塔协定“象征着对中国的‘背叛’、对共产主义的‘绥靖’和不道德的秘密外交”（页213）。其实，早在三十年代末，美国就与日本做过类似的“不道德的秘密外交”，“背叛”过中国。
中国并未凭靠美国而成为“大国”，反倒是靠装备低劣的自愿军与技术精良的美军在朝鲜半岛上打成平手而自己成为“大国”——美国有的政治家曾公允地评论说：倘若中国志愿军在两次奇袭得意忘形的美军大获全胜之后停在三八线上，句号就划得完美无缺了。不过，对我们来说，即便这样也未必完美。中国出动自愿军之前，美国已经动用第七舰队介入台海，最终实现了对中国内政的武装干涉。板门店谈判并未把要求美军撤离台海作为一项诉求，以至于几年前，美军太平洋战区司令在北京（！）演讲时竟然说：台海是公海，美军航母想什么时候过就什么时候过——笔者在电视上见到，现为美国防长的此公说这句话时，脸上掠过一丝皮笑肉不笑的表情，也许他突然想到了一百多年前美国的“对华门户开放”政策……
注释：
[1]邹谠，《美国在中国的失败》，王宁、周先进译，上海人民版1997，以下凡引此书仅随文注页码。
[2]改革开放以后，邹谠教授是最早回到大陆担任客座教授的华侨教授之一，并一直跟踪研究中国的改革开放。
译文Translation
Re-reading ‘America’s Failure in China’: Preliminary Remarks on the Perspective of Sinology of Overseas Chinese
The meaning of the term “sinology” has already been extended to any discipline which does research on China outside of China and in a foreign language (the word originally denoted the research of western scholars who tried to understand Chinese traditional culture). The “modern China studies” have become an important part of “sinology” although they were not included in the former concept of “sinology”. In this way, the originally mainly western academic “sinology” has now become the China studies of a good number of Chinese scholars who have settled down in the western nations, especially in the USA. These Chinese scholars have received university education and academic training in the USA, they teach at American universities, use English to write down their studies, and their academic research is fully integrated into the American cultural and education system. Their awareness of problem based learning is also shaped by the ideology of American scholarship, but since they are Chinese they are still different from the western scholars who do research on China – in order to have a simple term, I will for now just call the China studies of these Chinese scholars “Sinology of Overseas Chinese”.
The academia, the culture system and the education system are subordinated to the nation and controlled by state interests – if a Chinese person receives university education and intellectual training abroad (for example in the USA or in Japan), and if he or she obtains a position as a teacher, then the result is that for the rest of their lives they have to serve the cultural and educational system of the host country. If the state interests of the host country would be in conflict with the state interests of China, then the academic efforts of the Overseas Chinese Sinology would be in an awkward position, especially in the area of the social sciences – the most exposed discipline would be the sinological studies of political science.
America’s Failure in China:1941-1950 (by Zou Dang, trsl. into Chinese by Wang Ning, Zhou Xianjin, published in 1997 under the title “Meiguo zai Zhongguo de Shibai”, quotations are according to the Chinese version) is a book written by Zou Dang, professor at the department of political science of Chicago University. Prof. Zou has died already, but his book has made him famous. The title of the book contains this question: Why did America fail in China? Prof. Zou Dang used 550 pages (according to the Chinese translation) in order to thoroughly answer this question. The author, Mr. Zou, was a Chinese, but his point of departure are American interests, in fact the author sums up the lessons that have to be learned for the American government. Here arises a very exciting question: Would the author have a feeling of awkwardness concerning state interests? Would the historical sentiments of Chinese people influence the academic judgment of the author? Whatever the answer would be, this book may be a wonderful example for our understanding of Overseas Chinese Sinology.
In the year of the October Revolution Zou Dang was born in Canton. In 1951 he obtained the PhD. at the department of politics of the University of Chicago, and in the year of the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution he started to teach at that university until his retirement. America’s Failure in China was published three years before the author became a professor (1963), at that time America and the Republic of China were still harboring attitudes of mutual enmity, and the dark clouds of the cold war ideology covered the outside world. This book wanted to make an academic contribution to the American state interests as is obvious from the title. However, the author used the method of behaviourist politology so popular in the political sciences of that time (the so-called “conditions – reflex” model, see “Preface”, pages 2-3), and the author does not avoid the mistaken judgments and wrong strategies which beset the policy of the American government towards China. The failure of America in China – this of course included the failure of the Guomindang in China – although the author was the son of one of the founders of the Guomindang, Zou Lu; there is not a trace of a respectful silence (After 1978, Prof. Zou Dang was one of the earliest overseas Chinese professors to come back to China and become a guest professor, and he always did research in the opening policy of China). Therefore, this book obviously lists up the strategic mistakes in the policy of the USA towards China, and we can take it as a prism through which we may understand the “raison d’etat” of the USA as well as the “raison d’etat” of our China.
America’s Failure in China starts with the last year of the 19th century, when the USA announced the “open door policy” for China, and it ends with the winter of 1950, when the Chinese volunteer army crushed American contingents on the Korean peninsula. What is of interest is that the historical processes of the USA becoming a “great nation” and the emergence of China as a “great nation” are interlinked. Although the study of diplomatic policies was not in the center of Prof. Zou Dang’s attention, we today – half a century later - can look back to the ups and downs of the Sino-American relations, and this book becomes a precious case of political philosophy, it can help us to understand the present problems of modern China.
If we would read the book America’s Failure in China from the point of Chinese national interests, then we should first clarify the theoretical framework which the author established. Based on the American raison d’etat the author summed up some concrete lessons to learn, for example: the attitude of the USA toward Japan, the hope that the USA “may let China become a great country”, the knowledge that American politicians have of the Chinese Communist Party, and the degree to which the USA would be involved by a civil war in China and the results of this, etc. All these questions need a new approach if we change the perspective of “we” and the “enemy”.
In September of 1899 the Secretary of State of the USA, John Hilton Hay sent a note to Germany, Russia, England, Japan, Italy, France and other countries, and in this note he mentioned the American “open door policy towards China”. This diplomatic statement asked two things from the above nations: to ensure that all the foreign traders enjoy equal treatment, and to keep the Chinese territory and Chinese sovereignty untouched. American politicians saw in this statement the principle that the American idea of the state respects the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of other countries, and some people even associated this statement with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and this would prove that the national spirit of the USA is one of “moral superiority” (p. 512). Based on the policy announced by “America’s Failure in China”, one can observe that the fact that the USA finally “lost China” produced a “real experience of a wound” in the “collective self-consciousness” of the American people (an expression of Morgenthau, see “Preface”, p. 2). This made up the basic theoretical framework of the whole book. As to the two demands of the statement, they became “two aims which the USA kept at times but did not observe very effectively during the following 50 years” (p. 2). The failure of America in China implied that the two demands could finally not be implemented.
If seen from the perspective of China’s national interests, this theoretical framework does not at all comply with the so-called principle of “neutrality” of the social sciences – so that we may even doubt whether the social sciences can be neutral at all, but this is another problem. Seen from the Chinese perspective, we can hardly agree that this policy of the USA really shows “moral superiority”, we would rather observe that the “imperialist consciousness” of the USA developed rather late. Once the USA discovered that they could also obtain some more resources in China, the European and Asian powers had already tried to exploit the Chinese resources as much as they could. Article number one of the “open door policy” (“the principle of equal trade opportunity of all nations”) was nothing else than to say that the USA who came late in occupying Chinese resources should have an equal position with the other great powers, their interests should be equal to the others (the author of the biography of John Hay puts it in hardly concealed words, p. 512). The demand that China’s sovereignty and territory should be untouched could really make us feel that the USA were a moral nation who has no interest in China’s soil, but this demand exactly ensures that the USA can equally share China’s resources together with the other nations: if the big powers would really have divided China, then the dream of the USA to share in China’s resources would have become an illusion.
The American policy towards China of 1899 shows that the “big nation” awareness of the USA was just beginning to sprout. In fact this consciousness was not very strong even until the early phase of the Second World War. The main narrative of The American Failure in China also supports this view: as the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of China were offended again and again by Japan and suffered real damage, the USA did actually not fulfill their “moral” duties, they did not send a military force to ensure the integrity of China’s territory and sovereignty, but the American experts of international strategies knew clearly that “China was in a position where it impossibly could protect herself, and an alliance with China would certainly not increase our power, it would on the contrary constitute an additional duty which we would have to fulfill” (p. 512). The USA did not fulfill their “duty” in time and thoroughly; in the words of Prof. Zou Dang, the most important issues in this respect were the following two:
First, the USA did not stop Japan from invading China – the USA declared war on Japan on the 8th of December 1941 after the stealthy bombing of Pearl Harbor, but “at this time the war between Japan and China had been going on for 4 years already” (p. 44). In other words, the American government had been an onlooker for four years. We know that the fighting in Shanghai was a war of face which Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek) led in the face of the foreign embassies and foreign traders of Shanghai (the First Bank Magazine is a famous example). Seen from a military point, the bankers knew right from the beginning that the war plans meant that they would not get adequate remuneration for their losses.
Secondly, the USA did not pursue the “way of military intervention in China” during the time of the conflict between the Guomindang and the Communist Party after the war (p. 304). The analysis of the policy why the USA did not fulfill their “duty” forms the main concern of “America’s Failure in China”, and the entanglements of this question deserve a careful study. We will easily discover that the supporting arguments of the author in this point are actually contradictory: on the one hand, the China policy of the USA has a “long-term aim” which is to “build up a strong, united, and democratic China”, and the author uses the headline of the first part of the book (with three chapters) “Make China a Big Country” to highlight this wish of the USA; on the other hand, the USA omitted military interventions in China twice (Japanese aggression and civil war in China between Guomindang and the Communists), and the reason for this was the “broad and common conviction that the interests of the USA in China could not be safeguarded by war” (p. 304).
Our question is this: did America really feel it had the “duty” to “make China a great country”? As can be observed in The American Failure in China, the USA had not yet considered becoming a “big power” themselves, only the Second World War placed the USA in a position where it was unavoidable to be a “big power”. We should pay attention to a fact that is only mentioned in passing in the book: Only when the USA was forced to lead a war with two frontlines, they came out with the suggestion to “make China a great country”. At that time the USA had understandable worries about how they could cope with two different fighting areas at the same time – for the USA it was more urgent to change the military developments in Europe. The USA proposed to “make China big” because they wanted to achieve the strategic aim of wearing down Japan.
The proposal of “making China a big power” may possibly make us feel enthusiastic and grateful, if we hear it today. In 1943, at the Conference of Tehran, Roosevelt had suggested to Stalin that the Soviet Union, the USA, England and China should form a “four policemen” organization “to be the international police force, to prevent or restrain aggressive behavior” (p. 54) – in fact only the Chinese in their vanity would feel enthusiastic about such a suggestion: for example Jiang (Chiang Kaishek), the head of the representative committee felt enthusiastic because he could have a meeting with the leaders of the west. At that time the Japanese army started a new campaign in southern China, but Jiang again did not care about the military needs, he let the Chinese army lead a “face-saving war” in Hunan. The most telling event of the real intentions of “making China a big nation” was the Conference of Jalta: more than one year later the USA and the Soviet Union signed a secret convention at Jalta which offended against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China – even Prof. Zou Dang could not help saying, the Jalta Conference “symbolizes the ‘betrayal’ of China, an ‘appeasement’ toward communism and immoral secret diplomacy” (p. 213). In fact, the USA had “betrayed” China by some “immoral secret acts of diplomacy” as early as the 1930s.
China did by no means rely on the USA to become a “big nation”, on the contrary, it relied on poorly equipped volunteer soldiers who fought out an even outcome against the technologically superior American soldiers on the Korean peninsula, and in this way China became a “big nation”. Some American politician has made a fair judgment, saying that if the Chinese volunteer army stopped at the line of the 38th degree of latitude after two wonderful attacks the over-confident USA soldiers, then they made a perfect full stop after the story. However, as for us this is not yet perfect. Before China had mobilized the volunteer soldiers, the USA had already sent the seventh fleet to the Sea of Taiwan and finally realized the military intervention in China’s internal affairs. The negotiations at Banmendian (Korea) did not demand that the American army should withdraw from the Sea of Taiwan. Even several years ago one of the commanders of the American army of the war in the Pacific area said at a speech in Beijing (!): The Sea of Taiwan is a free sea (mare liberum, open to all), and whenever the aircraft carriers of the USA want to pass it, they can pass it – I have seen this on TV, and as this American defense officer openly said this, there was a strange superficial smile on his face, perhaps he suddenly remembered the “open door policy” which the USA proclaimed more than 100 years ago…