【作者：包道格，美国政治人物、外交人员。曾在1986年至1993年间，担任美国总统隆纳·雷根与乔治·赫伯特·华克·布希的国家安全局职员、总统行政办公室特别助理。亦曾在2002年至2006年间，担任美国在台协会台北办事处处长 。】
无论导致中美未能达成贸易协定的幕后原因是什么，现实是，双方的强硬派现在在国内都占了上风，而那些寻求和解的声音则在不断减弱。最终的结果将是，双方不仅在与贸易有关的问题上，而且会在更敏感和更危险的问题上发生摩擦，而不再像以前那样还有所克制。
历史学家将辩论中国是否违约在前，而美国总统唐纳德·特朗普认为从政治连任的角度考虑，抨击中国而不是捍卫一份其政治对手可能会大加批判的协议能够给自己带来更大的政治收益。
其他因素也会有影响，比如双方对自身的影响力都过于自信。但在谈判破裂几天后，你就能感觉到华盛顿的风向已经发生了变化，特朗普连续发布了行政命令，禁止华为进入美国市场，然后又将其列入美国的“实体清单”，阻止该公司获得来自美国的技术。
考虑到贸易谈判，这些行动已经被美方推迟了数月。尽管之前看起来像是天方夜谭，但是现在美国将华为做为典型，开始与中国脱钩。主张与中国脱钩的人士赢得了胜利，他们认为与其相信美国的竞争力最终会超过中国，不如主动阻止中国追赶美国先进技术的步伐——美国应遏制中国而不是与其竞争。
与此同时，针对中国间谍和窃取知识产权的法律案件激增，美国国立卫生研究院等实力雄厚的大学和研究机构接到警告应对华裔学生和工作人员的活动加强检查。赴美签证正受到严格审查，而且经常遭到拒签，这是自美中建交以来从未出现过的情况。一些不属于强硬派阵营的美国官员继续抱有希望，认为特朗普总统和习近平主席可能会在6月底日本大阪举行的G20峰会之前达成协议。然而除非特朗普本人再次彻底转变立场（这并非毫无可能），否则似乎已经没有足够的时间来解决余下的分歧。
美国贸易代表罗伯特·莱特希泽有一个完整的方案，用来处理其它不断恶化的贸易协定和争端。贸易谈判破裂后，美国迅速推迟了加征新关税并取消了一些对其他贸易伙伴加征的现有关税，这一系列动作表明美国正在腾出手来准备与中国展开长期对抗。
就中国而言，它已经加强了自己的措辞，同时展现出一种姿态：如果美国缓和其要求，那么中国愿意重启谈判。但中国对政府补贴、国有企业、技术转让和执法等问题闭口不谈，这也使得谈判失去了意义。
习近平最近访问了中国江西省，这是一个具有象征意义的访问。他和他的首席贸易谈判代表在那里参观了稀土生产设施并强调了中国内战里特别是“长征路”上中国共产党人坚韧的精神,这显然象征着牺牲和坚决抵抗外国压力的精神。
随着两国贸易关系的恶化，美国加快了应对航行自由挑战的步伐，邀请盟友驶入南海，并公布了此前未公开的台湾海峡国际水域的过境情况。
一位有关美国官员公开呼吁，与台湾有外交关系的国家不要屈从于大陆的甜言蜜语，转而承认一个中国，这显然与华盛顿自己承认的“一个中国”正式立场相矛盾。美国国会正积极推动立法，确认台湾的重要性。
特朗普政府中相当多的高级官员长期以来一直主张扩大美国与台湾的交往范围，但特朗普本人似乎还在克制与台湾的交往，但是他没有说明原因。与此同时，北京还在定期加大对台湾的政治、外交、军事和经济等各方面的压力。
在这种氛围下，如果美国强硬派在提升美台关系方面取得突破，北京原先因担心经济后果而做出的克制就会减弱。爆发冲突的潜在范围会从台湾延伸到南海和其他中国主张的领域，包括中国沿海地区的侦察海域以及其他一些地区。
在我看来，虽然我们目前还没有陷入新的冷战，但冷战思维在背后起作用。这种思维将削弱双方有效管理危机的能力。伊朗和委内瑞拉这两个不相干但同时发生的例子，并没有让我对特朗普团队的能力产生信心。
台湾即将举行的大选将使得现在的情况更加戏剧化，中国大陆和台湾的关系如此重要，所以很多候选人正在努力试图用政策“灵丹妙药”来赢得公众的支持，但是这些所谓的“灵丹妙药”并不能获取大众的信任，特别是在两岸关系未来走向的问题上。
贸易谈判的结束似乎预示着一个更糟糕局面的开始。
——网友推荐，下为英文原文：
The US and China Take Their Rivalry into More Dangerous Waters After Collapse of Trade Talks
Washington and Beijing are not in a new cold war yet, but there is definitely a cold-war mentality at work that may diminish both sides’ capacity to manage crises effectively.
Whatever the behind-the-scenes sequence of events that produced a failure to conclude a trade agreement between the US and China, the new reality is that hardliners on both sides have now gained the upper hand over those seeking to find an agreed way forward.
The net result will be fewer inhibitions on both sides about provoking the other not only on trade-related issues, but also on more sensitive and dangerous subjects.
Historians will debate whether China reneged on understandings reached between the negotiators, or US President Donald Trump decided it was politically more in his interest to campaign for his re-election by railing against China rather than defending a compromise agreement his opponents would pick apart.
Other considerations may prove to have been factors as well, such as overconfidence on both sides about their leverage over each other. But you could feel the winds shift in Washington within days of the failure of the talks, as Trump consecutively issued an executive order barring the Huawei telecommunications firm from the US market and then adding it to the US “entity list”, denying it access to US-related technologies.
These actions had been delayed for months as the trade talks played out. The argument for trying seriously to delink the US and Chinese economies, improbable as it has seemed, now has a starting point and exemplar with Huawei.
Advocates of delinking who believe China must be actively prevented from catching up with US advanced technology won the day, rather than trusting that US competitiveness would eventually outpace China’s. Containment beat out competition. Meanwhile, legal cases proliferated against Chinese agents for espionage and theft of intellectual property. Universities and research organisations like the powerhouse National Institutes of Health were warned to check on the activities of their Chinese-origin students and personnel. Visas are being scrutinised and often denied in ways not seen since the US and China established relations. Some US officials who are not in the hardliner camp continue to hold out hope that Trump and President Xi Jinping might reach agreement before the upcoming G20 meeting in Osaka , Japan, at the end of June.
But barring another radical turnabout by Trump himself – not impossible – there does not appear to be enough time to work through the remaining disagreements.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has a full agenda dealing with other festering trade agreements and disputes. After the trade talks collapsed, the rapid postponement of new tariffs and ending of some existing tariffs on other important trade partners indicated that US hands are full managing what is likely to be a long-term dispute with Beijing, and Washington is trying to declutter the trade front to concentrate on China.
China, for its part, has toughened its rhetoric while posturing that it is ready to resume talks if the US will moderate its demands. But Beijing has also taken subsidies , state-owned enterprises, tech transfer and enforcement off the table, making talks probably pointless.
Fortunately for the US, these steps are also likely to make the Chinese economy less competitive over time After the talks fell apart, Xi made an emblematic trip of defiance to Jiangxi province, accompanied by his chief trade negotiator, where he visited a rare earths production facility and invoked the spirit of the Communist Party’s famous “Long March” against adversity in the Chinese civil war, evidently symbolising a will to sacrifice and persevere against foreign pressure.
If Xi used the rare earths visit to send a signal that China can deny American industry what it needs when the US denies Huawei what it requires, then I am even more worried. The rare earths saga is complicated and worth separate attention, but in sum China does not have more than a transient hold on the supply as market forces are moving to reduce dependency on this singular source.
It is troubling that Xi decided to do this or received and accepted advice to do so when it is likely to prove a hollow threat.
The US and Chinese leaders are wilful, strong men, who often do not appear to be getting the best advice, nor do they routinely listen to it. This, too, is a bad omen.
Coincident with the downward turn in trade relations, the US has picked up the pace of its freedom-of-navigation challenges, inviting willing allied partners to show their flags in the South China Sea, and publicising previously unpublicised transits of the international waters of the Taiwan Strait.
A responsible US official publicly called on states that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan not to succumb to mainland blandishments to recognise Beijing instead, an obvious contradiction with Washington’s own formal stance of recognising Beijing.
The US Congress is becoming very active in promoting legislation to affirm the importance of Taiwan.
Quite a few senior officials in the Trump administration have long advocated expanding the scope and level of US interaction with Taipei, yet Trump himself seems to have kept a lid on ties with Taiwan, for reasons he has not articulated.
Meanwhile, Beijing has regularly increased its political, diplomatic, military and economic pressure on the island.
In this atmosphere, if the American hardliners achieve a breakthrough in elevating US-Taiwan ties, the inhibitions on Beijing responding for fear of adverse economic consequences have been reduced.
And the potential for confrontations extend beyond Taiwan to the South China Sea and other Chinese territorial claims, reconnaissance missions along the China coast, and other areas.
We are not in a new cold war yet, in my opinion, but there is definitely a cold-war mentality at work that may diminish both sides’ capacity to manage crises effectively.
The unrelated but concurrent examples of Iran and Venezuela do not give me confidence in the Trump team’s capacity.
How John Bolton became US foreign policy’s ‘devil incarnate’ Finally, this dicey situation is further dramatised by an upcoming presidential election in Taiwan where cross-strait relations are an important issue and the various candidates are struggling to win public support with policy nostrums that do not entirely inspire confidence in their ability to manage cross-strait ties.
The end of the trade talks seems likely to be the beginning of something much worse.
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