中国和西方学者都认为，当代中国外交政策的一直以来都事与愿违，这种共识虽然重要，但在两方面具有局限性。首先，它聚焦于中国最易引起不和的政策立场——例如扩张领土的主张、在东盟的破坏性外交、越来越多地进行单方面经济制裁。这种关注于有争议的政策虽然重要，但是也忽视了那些有助于地区稳定的较少争议的政策。其次，研究中国外交政策的分析者专注于中国与大中型国家的关系——例如日本、印度、越南或菲律宾——或是诸如东盟这样的地区组织。这样又忽视了中国与较小的、发展中国家的关系，如柬埔寨、老挝、蒙古或缅甸，然而，在许多方面，这些国家正是构成中国周边安全的组成部分。
文章认为，多年来被视为中国国际交往中最稳定的核心——与周边小国、发展中国家的经贸往来——现在已经成为了造成中国当代外交政策事与愿违的一个原因。北京依靠经济联系加强与亚洲发展中国家关系的方式，已远远无法确保邻国对中国抱有好感，相反，还可能产生负面作用。例如，与中国开展经贸往来的发展中国家，由于此类经济活动导致了内部的负面结果，政府和社会都开始拒绝中国。同时，在处理与这些国家的关系时，中国无意从根本上改变这种经济先行的方式。这导致这种经济外交战略开始瓦解。
尽管这些小国自身的政治、经济、社会组织不尽相同，但是中国与亚洲小国间事与愿违的经济互动模式非常一致。中国的企业，无论是国有还是私有，都会首先通过贸易、投资、海外发展援助（ODA）和贷款，与小国建立经济联系。随后，它们在这些小国的经济活动又导致了负面结果，如环境恶化、掠夺性开发资源，或是贸易过度依赖中国。
这种经济交往模式会导致小国内部及其与中国关系的不稳定。对内，因政府和社会间的矛盾，导致小国政局不稳。当中国经济活动的负面影响增大时，社会开始向政府施压，要求政府对中国更加强硬。由于限制中国参与该国经济发展，往往不符合政客的最大利益，他们会反对制定相应的政策，这样冲突就会随之而来。但是当小国真的实施限制中国经济影响力的政策时——例如蒙古2012年制定的《战略实体外资投资法》，就旨在限制中国国有企业购买和经营该国重要的矿区——就会导致与中国的关系紧张。对外，为平衡中国的影响，当这些小国选择与其他国家，如美国，加强合作时，外部不稳定同样会发生。因此，内部及外部动荡可单独或同时出现。
对中国来说，上述两种不稳定的最终结果是一样的：周边环境不那么安全了。中国依靠与这些国家的经济纽带，来获取更大利益，但却不愿或无力减少其经济活动带来的负面效应，从而使这种外交政策导致事与愿违的结果。
为论证上述过程，本文探讨了中国与四个亚洲小国的关系，即蒙古、柬埔寨、老挝和缅甸。研究这四国是有意义的，因为她们在地理上接近中国，并与其有密切的经济联系，还都被中国视为维持周边稳定的基本要素。因此，对中国来说，任何恶化与上述四国关系的举措，都不是出于本意的。
当优势变成劣势
虽然在应对与中国经济关系消极方面的过程中，本文研究的四国各自处在不同的阶段，但显而易见的是，变化正在发生。蒙古对中国经济影响力的忧虑情绪，从社会蔓延到政府。因此，乌兰巴托通过立法减轻本国经济对中国的依赖。虽然，中国在柬埔寨的具有破坏性的经济活动导致柬埔寨政府和社会间的不稳定，但还没有使金边的政治倾向发生改变。对于中国的负面经济影响，老挝决策者深感忧虑，这使老挝政府渴望更加多元化的合作关系。对中国破坏当地社会、环境的经济活动，缅甸社会的反应则促使该国政府尝试政治改革和开放。
中国参与亚洲发展中国家的经济建设，曾被视为中国影响力或中国“软实力”增强的源泉之一，然而现在令人困惑的是，在上述四国中，经济收益是否足以弥补环境破坏、社会动荡和政局不稳的成本？如果随中国和这四国的经济联系日益密切而来的是上述问题的出现——过去的发展明显呈现出这一趋势——那么未来中国与这四国的关系可能更加不稳定。
中国必须认真对待这种情况。中国与上述四国关系的恶化可能意味着，长期以来被视为中国势力范围内的国家，可能与北京决裂，或更容易受到该地区以外力量的影响。缅甸再次印证了这种可能性的存在，因害怕中国在其境内的经济活动会刺激国家内部发生改变，缅甸在2012年欢迎美国总统奥巴马访问。许多中国人担心此举会影响中国的地区影响力并阻碍其自由进入缅甸国内市场和获取其资源，因此将缅甸与美国走近视为中国的战略损失。为了阻止这一势头继续发展，中国在与亚洲小国经济交流中，将被迫消除负面因素。在中国各项外交政策理念中已经清晰显现的“双赢”模式，可作为新的起点，直接套用于此类经济交流活动。与其让中国公司的经济活动破坏这些小国的环境、掠夺其资源和扰乱其政局，还不如北京强化监控这些公司的活动，打破在中国周边国家中已出现的政府与社会间矛盾的恶性循环。这么做可以帮助北京在与其接壤的国家中重获影响力和软实力。否则，将导致与之前一样的结果：外交政策实施的效果是事与愿违。
(“第一智库”网站初步编译，仅供参考）
China’s Unraveling Engagement Strategy
The growing consensus among Chinese analysts, both in China and theWest, that elements of China’s contemporary foreign policy have been self-defeating is important but limited in two significant ways. First, it focuses on China’s most divisive policy stances—such as its expansive territorial claims, disruptive diplomacy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or growing use of unilateral economic sanctions. This focus on controversial policies, while important, ignores less litigious policies which are also now contributing to regional instability. Second, analysts who look at China’s foreign policy largely confine their work to China’s relations with large or medium powers—such as Japan, India, Vietnam, or the Philippines—or with regional organizations such as ASEAN. This focus ignores China’s relations with smaller, developing states—such as Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, or Myanmar—which are, in many ways, the building blocks of China’s periphery security.
This article argues that what for years has been seen as the core of China’s most stable relations—namely, economic exchanges with small and developing states on its periphery—has now become a source of China’s self-defeating contemporary foreign policy. Far from assuring goodwill toward China on its periphery, Beijing’s reliance on economic ties to advance its relations with developing states in Asia can be counterproductive. Where economic exchange with China results in negative consequences within the developing state, for example, governments and societies have started to push back against Beijing’s presence. As China shows little inclination to fundamentally alter its economics first approach to its state relations, this aspect of foreign engagement is unraveling.
The self-defeating pattern of economic interaction between China and small states in Asia is remarkably uniform despite the variation of political, economic, and social structures among the small states themselves. Chinese businesses, whether state owned or private, first establish economic ties with the small state through trade, investment, overseas development aid (ODA), and loans. Their economic activity in the small state then results in negative outcomes such as environmental degradation, exploitation of resources, or overdependence on China for trade.
This pattern of economic involvement translates into instability both internally in the small state and externally between China and the small state. Internally, small states experience instability resulting from state–society tensions. As these negative aspects of China’s economic presence grow, society starts topressure the state to take a firmer stand against China. Because it is often not in politicians’ best interest to pursue policies that limit China’s economic involvement in their state, they resist and tensions ensue. But when small states do enact policies designed to limit China’s economic influence–such as Mongolia’s 2012Strategic Entities Foreign Investment Law that sought to limit Chinese state-owned enterprises’ ownership of and operation in the country’s key mining sites–tension with China occurs. External instability also occurs when the small state opts for greater cooperation with other foreign actors, such as the United States, to balance China’s presence. Internal and external instability can occur either singularly or together.
For China, the end result of both types of instability is the same: a less secure periphery. China’s reliance on economic ties with these states to advance its greater interests, together with its inability or unwillingness to mitigate the negative effects of its economic presence, is therefore a self-defeating foreign policy.
This article will demonstrate this process by examining China’s relations with four small Asian states—Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. All four states are relevant in that they are geographically close to China, have extensive economic linkages with it, and are all states China views as essential to maintaining stable environment on its periphery. Any deterioration in relations for China is, therefore, unintentional.
When Strengths Become a Weakness
While all four states examined here are in different stages of dealing with the negative aspects of economic relations with China, it is clear in each instance that a change is taking place. For Mongolia, concern over China’s economic presence has spread from society to the state, with Ulaanbaatar enacting legislation to curtail the country’s economic dependency on China. China’s damaging activities in Cambodia have not forced a change in Phnom Phen’s political alignment, although they have contributed to instability between the state and Cambodian society. Laotian policymakers’ concerns over China’s negative economic influence drive the state’s desire for more diverse partnership. And social reaction to China’s environmentally and socially damaging economic activity in Myanmar has helped push the country’s tentative political reform and opening.
Whereas Chinese economic involvement in developing states in Asia was once seen as a source of growing Chinese influence or Chinese “soft power,” it is now questionable in the four states examined above whether the economic benefits are sufficient to outweigh the social, environmental, and political costs. If these issues continue in tandem with increased economic linkages between China and the four states examined here—a trend evident in past development—it is likely that future relations could be more unstable.
The implications for China are serious. Such a breakdown in relationscould mean that states long-considered firmly in China’s sphere of influence could break with Beijing or become more susceptible to external influence. Myanmar is again a prime example of this potential, as fear of China’s economic footprint spurred domestic change in the country that culminated with U.S. President Barak Obama’s visit in 2012. Many in China see this development as a strategic loss for China in terms of its regional influence and unfettered access to Myanmar’s domestic resources and market. To arrest this momentum, China will come under pressure to address the negative components of its economic exchanges with small states in Asia. One place to start would be to simply follow the “win-win” prescription to economic exchange it has so clearly laid out in its various foreign policy concepts. Rather than allowing Chinesebasedcompanies to engage in environmentally damaging, exploitative, and politically destabilizing economic activity, Beijing may actively monitor these companies’engagement more frequently to break the state-society cycle that has erupted onChina’s periphery. Doing so would help Beijing regain its influence and soft power in thestates on its borders. Failure to do so would lead to more of the same: a foreign policyapproach that is inherently self-defeating.
全文链接：http://csis.org/files/publication/TWQ_13Winter_Reeves.pdf
