四叶草财经夜读
中美贸易紧张关系升级之际，美国社会中的精英开始重新反思过去的对华贸易政策，他们在问自己，是谁再次跟丢了中国？
有媒体报导说，川普（特朗普）政府对华政策转变是急需的纠正还是灾难性的逆转，很大程度上取决于如何看待将中国吸纳入世这一最初决定。
美国科技智库信息技术与创新基金会（ITIF）主席阿特金森（Rob Atkinson）日前在《国家评论》上撰文说："谁跟丢了中国？"（Who Lost China?）
他说，在第二次世界大战结束后，美国外交政策机构陷入激烈争论，"谁跟丢了中国？"
"现在我们听到一场新的辩论'谁第二次跟丢了中国？'"他说，中国正朝着全球技术领先地位迈进，并在经济和军事上日益挑战美国，那么谁应当对这件事负责？
阿特金森认为，从历届美国政府和华盛顿的贸易经济机构、到中国本身，每一个人都有责任。
美高级谈判代表：我非常失望
2000年，克林顿政府通过给予中国永久性最惠国待遇，结束对中国的年度审查程序，助推中国加入世界贸易组织（WTO）。次年12月11日，中国就正式入世。
当时在克林顿政府中担任中国高级谈判代表的卡西迪（Robert B. Cassidy）今年已73岁，他仍被这个问题困扰着：当初美国帮助中共加入世界贸易组织是否错了？
"当你退休时，你会想自己取得了很多成就。"他告诉《纽约时报》说，"但是我没日没夜地工作，获得了怎样的结果？"
他说，他的工作只帮到了大企业，而不是普通工人。"我非常失望。"
18年后，克林顿宣扬的中国入世对美国"百利无一害"的情景非但没有出现，更是在短时间内养肥了新对手。
当时克林顿政府的美国官员们认为，他们跟中国官员进行了艰难的讨价还价，迫使北京同意削减关税、允许外国投资中国工业，并给予外国银行更多的自由经商权利，甚至让北京同意，如果在12年时间内确认因进口中国商品激增对美国造成伤害，美国可对中国采取特殊保障措施。最后这条是克林顿政府认为的"保命绳"。
中国开出的交换条件是，"只要"美国放弃一年一度决定是否给予中国"最惠国"贸易伙伴关系的法律程序，改为永久性最惠国待遇。
但是在中国入世18年后，既没有达到当初倡导其入世时的乐观预期，更没有在政治和市场上变得更开放。克林顿政府当初万无一失的买卖为何失败？
中国最惠国待遇之殇
任何一个国家要加入世界贸易组织，都需要和所有成员国达成协议，但最重要的是与美国这个世界上的主导经济体达成协议。而获得美国对中国永久最惠国待遇的承认是最关键的一环。
永久最惠国待遇是指《1974年美国贸易法》中的《杰逊−凡尼修正案》规定。该规定拒绝授予限制移民的非市场经济国家最惠国待遇，但规定了总统有权每年对某一特定国家放弃适用《杰逊−凡尼修正案》，同时保留说，这种放弃可以被国会的联合决议推翻。
也就是说，每年美国总统都必须遵循这一规定，考虑授予中国最惠国待遇、放弃适用《杰逊−凡尼修正案》。但从1989年之后，国会每年都就是否要推翻总统的放弃适用决定发生激烈辩论，但没有哪一次推翻过。
情况一直到2000年前，克林顿在中国入世问题上发表过多次的乐观演说。
《纽约时报》周五（7月27日）报导说，克林顿关于中国入世的理想主义言论，当时被华盛顿的大多数精英接受，但有一位贸易律师对此持怀疑态度。
更在几年前，这位律师就在《纽约时报》专栏文章中发出警告，如果允许中国加入WTO，重商主义的中国将成为一个"主导"贸易国，那时候，"几乎没有哪个（美国）制造业工作是安全的"。
这位律师就是莱特希泽（Robert Lighthizer），川普政府的现任贸易代表。
莱特希泽
有意思的是，川普（特朗普）本人在2000年曾调侃说要竞选总统，并著书《美国：值得我们拥有》（The American We Deserve），书中说中国是美国的"最大长期挑战"。
他还说，会任命自己的美国贸易代表，并取得更好的谈判交易。
纽时的文章还说，对2001年中国入世的评估决定了当今对华贸易激辩中的川普政府立场。
根据川普总统的年度贸易议程报告，针对中国的贸易举措是川普政府贸易议题的一部分，同时包括更广泛地纠正美国长期贸易政策以及对国际贸易机构WTO进行改革。
18年前的两大入世警言成真
第一，18年后回头看，当时警告美国会流失大量制造业工作机会是对的。在克林顿政府2000年同意让中国加入世贸组织时，美国国内的劳工、环境和人权组织联盟都表示反对。
经济政策研究所（Economic Policy Institute）的经济学家斯科特（Robert Scott）曾在2000年预测，如果允许中国入世，美国制造业将丢失近百万的工作岗位给中国竞争对手。
在美国同意中国入世后，对华外国投资从2001年的470亿美元迅速增长到十年后的1,240亿美元。放开的投资和进口限制，以及中国庞大的市场前景，大批跨国公司进驻中国，中国快速跃升为世界制造业大国，对美出口出现飙升。
麻省理工学院经济学家奥托尔（David Autor）等的一项研究估计，仅1999年至2011年间，受中国商品的竞争影响，美国损失了大约240万个工作岗位，尤其是制造劳动密集型产品的城镇地区受到的冲击最大。
回顾18年前，在美国制造业就业问题上，最早批评者的判断是正确的。
第二，当时美国国会激辩中，警告中国不会因为经济变得更开发自由的警言也成真。
克林顿当时打出的"中国自由愿景"获得很多精英的认同，他曾说随着互联网的发展，中国会变得更自由。但是18年后，中国表现让人失望。
如果将互联网本身变成控制国家的工具。"这是奥威尔式的。"纽约大学法学教授兼中国专家科恩（Jerome Cohen）告诉纽时。
中国经济的改革力度有减无增
另一方面，中国经济改革的力度已经开始减弱。它签署的入世协议中有明确遏制国有企业发展的条款，它当时也许诺只会以商业条款来运营国有企业，但18年来一直没有很好履行这一承诺。
彼得森国际经济研究所的中国问题专家拉迪（Nicholas Lardy）估计，目前中国国有企业仅占中国工业总产值约20%。但在过去几年，中国国有经济的投资增长速度是私人投资的三倍，国有企业再次成为中国经济决策的核心。
他介绍说，中国指望这些公司成为半导体、电动汽车、机器人和其它高科技领域的全球领导者，并通过国有银行的补贴和融资为其提供资金。
中国支持龙头企业的举措引起了美国公司的抗议，现在这些公司发现自己正在与一个国家竞赛。例如，在太阳能和风能方面，中国的国家投资造成了行业产能过剩，导致许多这一行业的外国公司倒闭。
还有，中国至今未完全遵守世贸组织规定，允许外国银行开展人民币业务。而它承诺不会强迫外国公司转让他们的技术，根据7月份上海美国商会的调查，大约五分之一的在华外国公司——主要是航空航天和化学工业，表示他们已经被强迫交出技术，才能在中国做生意。
同时，中国也利用世贸组织机制本身钻空子。纽时的报导说，比如在一个案例中，它阻止了高科技产业所需的稀缺原材料出口，损害外国公司的利益；但当世贸组织通过一系列限制、准备对北京进行裁决时，它就取消障碍，但随后又下令阻止了另一种原材料出口。
哈佛大学的吴教授表示，"核心问题不在于中国是否履行广泛的（WTO）义务，而是它能否遵从协议的精神。"
美国政治历史学者伯恩斯（James MacGregor Burns）曾表示："中国的政策制定者都是欺诈能手，可以创造性地利用举措在WTO和其它国际贸易规则的漏洞中自由穿梭。"
过去美国政府的不作为也是问题所在.
到2005年之后，美国企业干脆停止了向小布什政府申请援用保障措施，因为美国政府在可以用的时间内，拒绝提供这类救济。在奥巴马八年任期内，也只批准了一起数量激增救济案例。
对后任美国政府的不积极作为，就连克林顿政府时期担任美国贸易代表的巴尔谢夫斯基（Charlene Barshefsky）都指责说，她的继任者本可以利用世界贸易组织起诉中国，让后者履行协议。
一位前小布什政府的高级官员对此的回答是，"通过提高保护主义壁垒无法实现国家利益。"这位前官员表示，进口增长并不意味着中国行为不当。而奥巴马政府的官员也提出了类似观点。
另一方面，对制造业工作机会流失导致失业的美国工人，过去17年中，美国政府几乎没有为他们提供再培训计划或给失业职工的社会安全网项目投入资源。
2001年中国加入世界贸易组织，当年美中贸易逆差是812亿美元，处于可控阶段；到小布什时期，中国对美国出口出现激增，2008年美中贸易逆差达到2,790亿美元，是双边贸易的第一个历史高点。
到奥巴马时期，因受金融危机的影响，美中贸易短期下滑，随后再次出现第二轮猛涨，到2015年美中贸易逆差最高到了3,558亿美元。
现在到了川普上任，从钢铝税到301知识产权调查关税，中美双方的贸易角力在继续。
那位当年强烈质疑允许中国入世的律师、现任美国贸易代表莱特希泽本周四（7月26日）出席国会听证时说，解决中共贸易问题需要时日。
贸易代表办公室（USTR）在2018年1月的一份报告中写道；"解决我们与中国的问题，靠依赖只有在世界贸易组织提起更多案件，这种想法充其量是天真的，而且最糟糕的是会让政策制定者分散注意力，意识不到挑战的严重性。"它建议说，美国必须依靠自己的经济实力。
莱特希泽曾说过，美国应该单枪匹马，以严厉的关税威胁中国，甚至考虑在WTO中持极为激进的立场解决对华贸易赤字。
"我相信有些问题能在短时间内得到解决，但大体上看，跟中国的贸易问题将持续多年。"他告诉国会议员。
—— 四叶草财经夜读
Who Lost China?
After World War II, the American foreign-policy establishment was caught up in an intense debate: “Who lost China?” Someone had to be blamed for Mao’s takeover. Today we are hearing the stirrings of a new debate: “Who lost China a second time?” China is marching toward global technological leadership and increasingly challenges the United States both economically and militarily in what Michael Lind has termed Cold War II. Who was responsible for letting this happen?
At one level, China lost China. As Michael Pillsbury writes in The Hundred-Year Marathon, China has had a strategy to supplant the United States as the dominant military and economic power since 1949. Now China seeks not just economic growth but technological leadership. President Xi Jinping himself has stated that China wants to be “master of its own technologies.” Indeed, China seeks not only mastery but global dominance in a wide array of advanced-technology products including artificial intelligence, computers, electric vehicles, jet airplanes, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, robots, and semiconductors.
It would be one thing if China did this through “fair” means, such as support for university research or a generous research-and-development tax credit. But as my organization, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), has documented, China has deployed a vast panoply of “innovation mercantilist” practices that seek to unfairly advantage Chinese producers. These include requiring foreign companies to transfer their technologies to Chinese firms in order to access the Chinese market; theft of foreign intellectual property; manipulation of technology standards; massive subsidies; and government-backed acquisitions of foreign enterprises.
But U.S. policy (or lack thereof) has both enabled China to run faster in that marathon and done little to slow it down.
As Pillsbury writes, “for more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China’s rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade.” Clearly that has not happened. But it’s worse, for China now seeks not just economic growth but technological leadership.
In addition, the U.S. has done virtually nothing to prevent China from deploying its mercantilist arsenal for almost three decades. The story begins with Richard Nixon, who, on the advice of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, opened the path to normalized relations with China in order to widen the emerging Sino–Soviet split. Nixon’s gambit created the political space in China for major economic reforms, which would prove crucial to Chinese economic growth and enable it to establish closer economic ties with the United States. Opening up was inevitable, but by doing it then, Nixon accelerated China’s rise by at least a decade.
Seven years later, Jimmy Carter, in an effort to normalize relations with China, signed a far-reaching science-and-technology cooperation agreement that over the last 40 years has helped China close its technology gap with the United States. This agreement led to tens of thousands of Chinese students’ enrolling in science and engineering programs at American universities, with much of the expense paid for by the United States, and to programs to transfer U.S. technology to China in areas such as energy, space, and commerce. The administration also established and paid for the development of the National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, in Dalian, to train future managers of Chinese state-owned companies in Western management practices. Michel Oksenberg, who was a senior staff member of Carter’s National Security Council, justified these efforts on the grounds that “over the long run, we are participating in the training of China’s future scientific community . . . and this should have profound and (on balance) favorable consequences for the United States.” In hindsight, he was partly right: This did have profound consequences, but by enabling direct competitors to U.S. advanced-industry firms, it had unfavorable consequences for the United States.
Next in line is Bill Clinton, who championed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and supported establishing Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. The hope — and, in hindsight, naïveté — was enormous. Clinton called China’s accession “a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes to the economic consequences,” arguing that the agreement “meets the high standards we set in all areas” and that “it is enforceable and will lock in and expand access to virtually all sectors of China’s economy.”
But, as the ITIF’s Stephen J. Ezell and I showed in a 2015 report, China failed to fully comply with most of its WTO-accession commitments and membership requirements. Indeed, China has skillfully used its WTO membership as blanket immunity from prosecution for its innovation-mercantilist policies. For example, Chinese officials know they would risk a WTO case if they put their forced-technology-transfer policies in writing, and so the policies are enforced informally but no less strictly. Yet the United States can no longer take unilateral action against China without triggering a WTO complaint and finding of violation of WTO rules (as we will likely see in response to President Trump’s recent decision to impose tariffs on Chinese goods).
Next up is George W. Bush. The Bush administration made it quite clear to U.S. firms, and to China, that moving jobs to China was not only acceptable but laudatory. Greg Mankiw, Bush’s top economic adviser, called the offshoring of jobs to China a “good thing.” Mankiw believed this because, according to conventional trade theory, all trade and foreign investment improve economic welfare. But since much of this offshoring was done because China was artificially suppressing the value of its currency (making its exports cheaper) and requiring U.S. companies to invest there to gain market access, at least some of the U.S. offshoring was not part of the working of the global free market, but reflected mercantilist distortions that harmed U.S. economic welfare. Bush’s Commerce Department actually hosted conferences for U.S. companies to help them figure out how to invest in China. The light was green for businesses wanting to move jobs and investment to the Middle Kingdom.
The Bush administration gave the same signal to China when it rejected petitions to put tariffs on Chinese-subsidized exports to the U.S. One provision in China’s WTO-accession agreement, Section 421, allowed the U.S. to levy tariffs to limit harm to U.S. industry from Chinese import surges. When the Bush administration rejected a 421 product safeguard in its first term, it sent a very clear message to the Chinese that the U.S. would not risk disrupting the economic and political relationship between the two countries over unfair trade practices. Beijing understood that it could continue export-dumping and other unfair practices with impunity.
In Bush’s second term, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson established the Strategic Economic Dialogue with China, a formal process by which officials could discuss topics related to economic relations between the two nations. This was done not to force China to roll back its mercantilist practices but to defuse tensions at home, where many in Congress wanted China labeled a currency manipulator for pegging the yuan to the dollar. When the Treasury secretary says that we “need China to get ahead of [China’s] growing economic challenges, which now threaten to interrupt its truly remarkable record of economic success in recent decades,” and that “we want China to become more of a technology innovator,” it’s clear this is a not an official who will confront China.
When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, it appeared that things would change upon his election. Obama promised action on Chinese currency manipulation. He promised to bring many more Section 421 cases. He promised to ban toy imports from China and to open up Chinese markets fully to American goods. But once in office, he brought just one 421 case (on tires) and did next to nothing else to change the course of Chinese economic and trade policy. In fact, it was during the eight years of the Obama administration that China radically shifted its economic strategy: No longer happy being the global assembly line, it aimed to become the global advanced-industry powerhouse. Perhaps the Chinese government was on to something when it stated, the day after the election, that it was “elated” Obama had beaten McCain.
Indeed, Chinese leaders realized early on that while Obama might talk loudly on China, he carried at best a very small stick. A signal moment came during Obama’s first official trip to Beijing, in November 2009, when he downplayed the United States’ economic and political grievances and instead stressed how important it was for China to help America fight climate change, emphasizing that he was looking forward to deepening the partnership “in this critical area.” But this wasn’t all: Obama actually agreed to increase cooperation on civil aviation (e.g., to help the Chinese compete with Boeing); to conduct joint research on biotech innovation (to help the Chinese compete with our life-sciences industry); and to cooperate with China in other technology areas (even though China lagged the U.S. on virtually every technology at the time). The administration believed — wrongly, as it turned out — that if it cooperated in these technology areas, somehow the Chinese government would be more willing to respond to U.S. concerns over unfair Chinese trade practices. Obama even stated that the two nations should “respect each other’s choice of a development model” (even though the Chinese model was and is mercantilist). Chinese leaders must have thought they had died and gone to heaven. It was at this point that they knew they could take advantage of this president. And so they did.
As the years went on, the principal way the Chinese were able to avoid any real challenge to their agenda was to dangle the promise of “dialogue.” Indeed, the Obama administration was proud that it had expanded the dialogue established by the Bush administration into the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (which now formally included “strategic” matters related to issues such as North Korean nuclear weapons). But the Chinese government used the S&ED to implement its rope-a-dope strategy of obfuscation and delay. Each S&ED proclamation just kicked the can down the road, containing largely meaningless “commitments” by the Chinese government, which it generally proceeded to ignore with little consequence. For example, in the 2010 and 2012 S&ED meetings, China “reaffirmed its commitment that technology transfer is to be decided by firms independently and not to be used by the Chinese government as a pre-condition for market access,” a commitment the country continues to ignore.
Why didn’t the Obama administration do more? As noted, one reason was that the administration put saving the planet’s climate ahead of defending the American economy. A second was that administration officials sincerely believed that, through dialogue and experience, the Chinese government would see the light and finally embrace the one true path: the Washington Consensus model of development, with its pillars of free trade, light-touch regulation, financial liberalization, and low or zero tariffs.
However, these administrations didn’t act alone. They were cheered on by the stifling groupthink of the Washington trade and economics establishment, which, almost without exception, refused even to consider the possibility that Chinese economic and trade policies might pose a threat to the United States. The Washington elite-consensus view was and is that trade is always good (even one-sided free trade in which the other side is mercantilist); that while trade might hurt individual workers, it can’t hurt the overall economy; and that there is no difference between challenging foreign mercantilism and naked protectionism.
Coupled with this rigid adherence to a strict free-trade ideology came the argument that China simply could not succeed with a state-run economy. Wasn’t it obvious? The Chinese leadership had clearly never bothered to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.
With the election of President Trump and plainer signs of what is going on in China, it has become fashionable to engage in revisionist history. We did the best we could. We couldn’t have known. We made a bet and it didn’t pay off. Even recent converts who are now critical of past U.S. naïveté toward China still don’t seem to understand. One case in point is a recent article in Foreign Affairs, by former Obama-administration officials Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner, called “The China Reckoning.” They counsel that the U.S. government should just stop trying to change China, “instead focus[ing] more on its own power and behavior, and the power and behavior of its allies and partners.” So, keep letting them steal, cajole, or coerce away our valuable technology. Keep letting them bestow massive market-distorting subsidies on their advanced-industry firms, taking market share from U.S. firms. Keep letting them limit exports from U.S. firms and deny our firms fair access to their markets.
That brings us to today. China is feeling its oats and understands that it can now be much more assertive, both militarily and economically. President Trump, to his credit, is the first U.S. president to forcefully confront China over its unfair economic practices. But when all is said and done, it is anything but clear that the Trump administration will succeed in rolling back these egregious practices. Indeed, the administration has made two strategic mistakes.
First, it has not appreciated that the odds of winning this “war” against China and having it roll back its mercantilist policies are extremely low without the support and commitment of our allies. As one top-level Chinese official told me, “We don’t fear the G-2 [U.S. and China] or the G-20; we fear the G-3, where the U.S. and Europe join forces against us.” But by levying steel and aluminum tariffs on our allies, threatening automobile tariffs on Japan and Europe, and recently isolating the United States at the G-7 ministerial meeting, Trump has thrown away any opportunity for an alliance of the willing. Indeed, the administration seems to believe that it is possible to fight a multi-front trade war and prevail. Moreover, when you have a president who believes, or at least says publicly, that “the EU is worse than China on trade,” you have a president who is not focused on the real problem. In terms of mercantilism, there is no question that China is an order of magnitude worse.
And second, even if unilateral action could in theory be effective, which is doubtful given that the Chinese authoritarian state can take much more pain from a trade war than can America’s democratic system, the seeming lack of consensus in the Trump administration would still make success unlikely. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin seeks a resolution to the conflict with China at almost any cost; Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the president are focused on reducing the trade deficit; U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer appears to be more concerned with rolling back unfair practices stemming from the “Made in China 2025” initiative: This sends a message to the Chinese that the administration can’t agree on what it wants. More troubling is the fact that the administration appears to be considering a deal whereby we stop pressuring China if it reduces our trade deficit with it by buying more soybeans and natural gas. Such a deal would actually be in China’s interest, as it would reduce upward pressure on the yuan, making Chinese advanced-industry exports cheaper.
COMMENTS
The U.S. government should have one and only one major trade-policy goal at this moment: rolling back China’s innovation-mercantilist agenda, which threatens our national and economic security. Only this can enable the United States to stay ahead of China militarily, technologically, and economically, at least for the next several decades. Unfortunately, after decades of capitulation and failure, success does not look much more likely today.
So who lost China this time? Pretty much everyone.
