2019年3月26日星期二

美国「应对中国当前危险委员会」关注中国威胁日增(Cold war is back: Steve Bannon helps revive US committee to target ‘aggressive totalitarian foe’ China)

美保守派人士成立应对中国威胁的委员会

 


在美中战略竞争加剧的大背景下,美国的一些中国问题专家和活动人士星期一在华盛顿宣布成立一个新的委员会。该委员会认为,中国对美国和自由理念构成了攸关生死的威胁,美国需要立即警觉起来,就战胜这一威胁所需的政策和优先事项达成新的共识。
美国战略集团的主席肯尼迪(Brian Kennedy)是这个叫做" 应对中国威胁委员会"(Committee on the Present Danger: China)的主席。他在星期一举行的新闻发布会上表示,建立这个委员会的目的是要帮助美国意识到中国对美国所构成的各种常规和非常规威胁并思考如何抵御这种威胁。
他说:"' 应对中国威胁委员会'是一个完全独立和跨党派的努力,以教育美国民众和政策制定者了解来自中共统治下的中国的生存性威胁。它的目的是解释中国的军力建设、他们积极展开的信息战与政治战、他们的商业战、网络战以及经济战所带来的范围广泛的威胁。"
担任过保守智库克莱蒙特研究所所长的肯尼迪说,尽管中国对美国构成的威胁不怎么为人所了解,但是特朗普总统几十年前就清楚地意识到这个威胁。
该委员会的副主席、安全政策中心的执行主席加夫尼(Frank Gaffney)在会上特别强调了中国对美国构成威胁的程度之大与范围之广。
他说:"今天,我们希望从中国问题专家的角度来表达我们这个国家,而且坦率地说,自由世界甚至是不那么自由的世界从中共那里所面临的危险的程度。"
这位同时也是"拯救受迫害的基督徒"组织的负责人说,他希望这个委员会通过今天的发布会,能够真正帮助美国就中国以及它对美国构成的威胁展开严肃的全国性辩论奠定基础,并一道为减轻和解决这个危险而共同努力。
主持这次发布会的加夫尼邀请了20来位委员会的创始成员发表讲话,介绍中国在政治、经济、军事、技术、意识形态、宗教、人权等各个领域的做法对美国构成的威胁,并呼吁美国保持高度警惕。
前中央情报局局长伍尔西在会上提到的来自中国的威胁包括中国对美国电网可能发动的袭击以及华为的5G网络。
与该委员会的看法所不同的是,美国哈佛大学著名的国际关系学者、前肯尼迪政府学院院长约瑟夫·奈教授最近接受美国之音专访时表示,中国并不对美国构成生存性的威胁。
中国总理李克强在最近举行的人大会议期间谈到美中关系时表示,中美两国之间的共同利益远大于分歧。
" 应对中国威胁委员会"目前有40多位创始会员,包括前政府官员、国会议员、智库成员以及宗教和人权活动人士。在冷战时期,美国的一些保守派人士也成立过类似的委员会,只不过那时候针对的是苏联。


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美国「应对中国当前危险委员会」关注中国威胁日增

美国「应对中国当前危险委员会」成员美国中央情报局前局长伍尔西(James Woolsey)。(马立克 摄)
美国「应对中国当前危险委员会」成员美国中央情报局前局长伍尔西(James Woolsey)。(马立克 摄)
在中美两国对峙的情况下,由美国各方专家组成的「应对中国当前危险委员会」(Committee on the Present Danger: China)宣布启动,讨论反制来自中国的威胁。有学者认为,这个委员会令中美关系更加紧张。(RFA 黄乐涛 报道)
美国「应对中国当前危险委员会」周一(25日)在华盛顿宣布启动,委员会成员表示,中国当局在各方面都存有野心,呼吁美国各界以举国之力击退中国威胁。委员均认为,中国正在向全球推广其一党专政的高压模式,它的政治和经济影响力正逐渐扩张到世界每一个角落,委员会希望能够透过教育及宣传等,抵御中国造成的各种威胁。
中国外交及政治学者李京周二(26日)对本台表示,在中美关系紧张的情况之下,委员会针对中国,一定会引起中方不满,他认为若果中美双方在外交及贸易上互不相让,两国关系定会越来越差。
李京说︰美国社会现在对中国有一种警惕或者说不信任,那么因此中美关系未来摩擦肯定会越来越多,中国也不可能完全屈服于美国,中国并不愿意和美国摊牌,肯定会千方百计的维持这种关系,表面上当然不会直接对抗,但是暗中肯定也会采取一些措施,包括现在搞甚么一带一路、亚投行,就是要即使离开美国,我也能够发展。
委员会的成员包括对华援助协会主席傅希秋、美国中央情报局前局长伍尔西(James Woolsey)及白宫前首席策略师班农(Steve Bannon)等等。
伍尔西说︰我们必要有能力,去扭转中国的主导,这包括对我们的互联网、整体的能力、服务器及其他等等。(中国)透过华为及其他途径,他们非常密集地在这样做。对我们来讲,将会导致失败,在任何一个可能的领域失败。

「当前危险委员会」成员、美国哈德逊研究所客座研究员韩连潮向本台表示,前几届危险委员会,没有把危险国家具体化,当前委员会就是针对中国的威胁而启动。

韩连潮说︰今天在场的很多成员,都是有比较深的对中国问题的研究,长期研究中国问题。有美国背景、有美国安全从业人士,这些人他们的专业知识,他们对中共的了解,也是比较深刻的。第一步,我们这个委员会有一些定期的会议,定期会议主要是讨论下一步怎么做。重点在甚么地方,我觉得是一步步来进行的。
美国在上世纪50年代发起「当前危险委员会」,其时主要针对冷战中苏联对美国产生的威胁向当局提供策略。其后分别在70年代及2004年重新启动,提供反恐等方面的外交政策参考。
傅希秋在会议上书面发言时指,中国政府正在营造自己成为世界的另一种模式,一个非民主治理系统的模式,他呼吁国际社会不要对中国有任何姑息。
另外,无国界记者组织周一(25日)发表有关中国媒体在全球影响的报告,内容指中国近十年来致力建立并主宰世界传媒新秩序,又指中国意图阻止来自国内外的批评,而中国数十名记者或博客,被指蒐集或散布当局控管的资讯而入狱。
无国界记者更点名中国国家主席习近平,引述他曾称中国记者的使命为「成为党的旗手」、「在思想、政治与行动上忠贞追随党的领导」。报告指,习近平在五年内强力压制记者与博客,不仅在国内推行媒体集权主义,现在更要输出世界。
不过,曾在中国报章任职总编辑的刘开明表示,虽然中国近年来在国内对媒体的打压严重,但他认为这种打压要「输出世界」,就不容易了。因为西方国家多年来媒体都会严格遵守报道新闻的准则,不会轻易受到中国影响。
刘开明说︰因为全世界媒体,它们有媒体记者基本的准则,要报道真实的事情,媒体来说他们有选择自由,所以我觉得未来来说,(中国对全世界媒体)影响是很少的,现在全世界主流的媒体是西方媒体,中国媒体影响是很少的。
报告建议,中国立即释放遭关押的记者,要尊重新闻自由和对国内外传达资讯自由。同时,又建议民主国家政府要求中国当局停止骚扰海外记者、媒体、出版社、学者等,要求中国媒体对其股东和资金来源,包括广告商,全面透明公开等。

Cold war is back: Steve Bannon helps revive US committee to target 'aggressive totalitarian foe' China
Wendy Wu Wendy Wu Published: 1:17pm, 26 Mar, 2019

  • Former White House strategist among founders of a new version of group whose past incarnations focused on the Soviet Union
  • Members say China poses 'existential and ideological threat to the United States and the idea of freedom'
A group of Washington policy advisers and former US government officials including Steve Bannon have revived a cold war-era advocacy organisation to take aim at China, which it called "an aggressive totalitarian foe".
The Committee on the Present Danger: China, or CPDC, will be launched to facilitate "public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers" posed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, the group said in an announcement on Monday.
The committee's latest iteration underscores the growth of opposition to Beijing in Washington's policymaking circles, which has helped to fuel a bilateral tariff war started by US President Donald Trump last year and a new law that will tighten oversight of Chinese investments in the United States.
The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) was first established in the early 1950s as a bulwark against the influence of communism in the US. The group disbanded after some leading members were drafted into the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, but in 1976 was reformed by US foreign policy hawks to counter the Soviet Union during the cold war.
The committee members warned at a press event in Washington on Monday that China had posed a broad range of threats to the US: expanding military power, strengthening strategic nuclear capability, stealing US technology, repressing religions, human rights and minority groups, initiating "chemical warfare" by being the prime source of 
fentanyl reaching the US and influencing US campuses and corporations.
"As with the Soviet Union in the past, communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom – one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat," the committee's announcement said.
The group's vice-chairman Frank Gaffney, a defence adviser to former president Ronald Reagan, said the committee hoped to "set the stage for a series of national debates about China" to address the threats the country posed. Gaffney has spent much of his time since leaving government in the 1980s propagating stridently anti-Islamic views.
Even if Beijing faithfully kept its commitments under a trade agreement that Washington is trying to negotiate with China, the US would still face serious threats in other areas and must address those, Gaffney said.
"China's arsenal for global supremacy includes economic, informational, political and military warfare," read a statement by James Fanell, a former US Navy intelligence official focusing on Pacific security affairs. The US "has witnessed already China's expansion into the vacuum of a diminishing US presence in East Asia", he said.
Fanell argued that Washington needed to regain a military deterrence position in the Indo-Pacific. "We already have slipped," he said. "If we fall any further, we may not recover."
Sasha Gong, also a member of the new CPD, said China was "waging an ideological war" against the US, which was "losing ground" and should consider it "as urgent as military defence".
"We are disarming ourselves; meanwhile Chinese are taking our ground, broadcasting here, taking our people and winning hearts and minds," said Gong, adding that the US' response to China's aggression was "very inadequate".
Gong is the former chief of Voice of America's Mandarin service. She was sacked by the US government-funded broadcaster along with two others in November for their involvement in a live-streamed 2017 interview with Chinese fugitive tycoon Guo Wengui, who has used social media to make corruption accusations against senior Chinese officials including Vice-President Wang Qishan.
In a faxed reply to the South China Morning Post, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had not heard about the organisation and that it was a "dead end" to revisit the cold war-era zero-sum mindset.
"We have repeatedly stated our stances with regard to the 'China threat' cliché," the ministry said.
"We hope some people in the United States view China's development in proper perspective, stop groundless accusations and defamation against China, and instead, be more engaged in deeds that would benefit China-US relations, the peace, stability and prosperity of the world," the ministry said.
Although the committee boasts a roster of China experts, it also features a number of US public figures not known primarily as authorities on the country's affairs.
The founders of the committee also include Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and co-founder of
far-right news outlet Breitbart, which he described in an interview with American magazine Mother Jones as a "platform for the alt-right".
Bannon is also known for being a former vice-president of
Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct data analysis firm that harvested the data of millions of Facebook users to predict and influence political movements.
The CPD gained notoriety in its first iteration when it issued NSC 68, a policy directive that called on Congress to triple the US defence budget to counter the Soviet Union's expansion, according to a 2004 report by US political newspaper The Hill.
The second CPD was formed in 1976 by hawks from the Democratic and Republican parties who believed that "detente [had] lulled everybody into complacency", The Hillquoted Yale University cold war scholar John Gaddis as saying.
The report described that CPD's members as the original "neoconservatives" – former liberals who became disillusioned with the Democratic Party during the Jimmy Carter administration and advocated that the US initiate an arms build-up.
Additional reporting by Owen Churchill, Robert Delaney and Laura Zhou
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: U.S.

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