所謂的七大工業國集團（G7）外長會議上周發布聯合公報，首次明文提出支持台灣「有意義地」參與國際組織，包括世衛和WHA。美國務卿布林肯Antony Blinken 其後也呼籲譚德塞邀請台灣以觀察員身分參會。在此之前，美國聯邦參、眾兩院外交委員會亦發起以LetTaiwanHelp讓台灣幫忙 為主題的全球社交媒體聯合活動。但美國和七國集團始終沒有在世衛聯合提案。
世衛在其現有體制下，只有主權獨立國家才可以參與大會。 大多數國家堅定支持一個中國原則，不會支持美國的霸道做法。歐美等國仍以自身利益為優先考量，包括衡量與北京關係的影響，因此，挺台僅停留在口惠而實不至，美國與G7等沒有一個國家向WHA提出相關正式提案，只是通過發聲獲取政治利益。布林肯Blinken的聲明嚴重違背「一個中國」。
最後，第74屆世界衛生大會（WHA）(將於5月24日至6月1日在瑞士日內瓦以視像方式舉行)並未對台灣作出邀請，西方表面上扶持台灣的嘗試未有得逞。這是自2017年至今，台灣第五度被世衛拒於門外。
筆者認為，世衛總幹事譚德塞秉持專業中立的立場，否定了西方少數反華政客叫囂，反對分裂中國，拒絕台灣出席今年的大會，令人高與。台民進黨當局堅持台獨分裂，否認九二共識，導致台灣參加WHA的政治基礎不復存在，責任在民進黨當局。台灣問題事關中國核心利益，中方沒有任何妥協退讓的餘地，美方應自重，否則引火燒自己。
若民進黨不承認九二共識，就沒有正面互動的兩岸關係，台灣很難像馬英九時期參與世衛，天天製造對抗情緒，對台灣未來沒有一點好處。
陳志怡 注冊護士 資深護師
香港建設專業聯會理事
香港建設專業聯會
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Washington is playing a losing game with China
9 May 2021
Author: Chas W Freeman Jr, Brown University. "Chas" W. Freeman, Jr. In Chinese: 傅立民, is an American retired diplomat and writer. He served in the United States Foreign Service, the State and Defense Departments in many different capacities over the course of thirty years. Most notably, he worked as the main interpreter for Richard Nixon during his 1972 China visit and served as the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992, where he dealt with the Persian Gulf War, and the assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. The points he made in the following are highly likely that they can stand the test of time.
America’s latest policies toward China will prove self-defeating. US–China relations now exemplify Freeman’s third law of strategic dynamics: for every hostile act there is a more hostile reaction
Washington would be easy to spot in a game of chess. It’s the player with no plan beyond an aggressive opening. That is no strategy at all. The failure to think several moves ahead matters.
Washington developed some well-founded complaints about Chinese economic behaviour — and launched a trade war. Washington was alarmed about China’s potential to outcompete America — and tried to cripple it with an escalating campaign of ‘maximum pressure’. Washington saw China as a threat to US military primacy — and sought to contain it.
US farmers have lost most of their US$24 billion Chinese market. US companies have had to accept lower profits, cut wages and jobs, defer wage hikes, and raise prices for American consumers. The US shift to managed trade has cost an estimated 245,000 American jobs, while shaving about US$320 billion off US GDP. American families are paying as much as US$1,277 more a year on average for consumer goods. There has been almost no reshoring of American jobs outsourced to China. The United States can expect job losses of 320,000 by 2025 and a GDP US$1.6 trillion less than it would have been.
China’s overall trade surplus rose to a new high of US$535 billion in 2020. Beijing improved its position by lowering barriers, striking free trade deals with countries other than the United States, and sponsoring a trade dispute-settlement mechanism to replace the US-sabotaged WTO.
China is not breaking stride. It is investing 8 per cent more each year in education. China already accounts for a quarter of the world’s STEM workforce. Its science investment is almost on par with that of the United States and rising at an annual rate of 10 per cent as America’s falls. Its infrastructure is universally envied. China accounts for 30 per cent of global manufactures, versus America’s 16 per cent, and the gap is growing. It became the world’s largest consumer market in 2020. Its economy is ferociously competitive. China has many problems, but it has its act together and appears on top of them.
The principal challenge that China presents is not military but economic and technological. But the United States is geared only to deal with military threats. China has become the antidote to the US post-Cold War-enemy-deprivation syndrome and a gratifying driver of US defence spending. There are US aircraft and ships aggressively patrolling China’s borders, but no Chinese aircraft and ships off America’s coast. US bases ring China. There are no Chinese bases near America. Still, Washington ups its defence budget to make its ability to overwhelm China more credible. Yet, in the long run, the United States cannot outspend China militarily and cannot hope to beat it on its home ground.
Competitive rivalry can raise the competence of those engaged. But antagonism, seeking to hamstring one other, is not beneficial. It entrenches hostility, justifies hatred, injures, and threatens to weaken both sides.
Without exception, countries want multilateral backing to cope with the challenge, not unilateral US confrontation. They want to accommodate China on terms that maximise their sovereignties, not make China an enemy. If the United States persists in confrontation, it will find itself increasingly isolated. Given the state of US democracy, if its China policy is defined as a moral effort, most other nations will be alienated, not attracted.
There are many issues that cannot be addressed without Chinese participation. Chinese capacity needs to be leveraged to serve those US interests.
The United States should let market forces play the major part in governing trade and investment, creating a framework for trade in sensitive sectors that safeguards defence interests while taking advantage of China’s contribution to supply chains.
The United States needs to cooperate with China to reform global governance and address global problems of common concern like the mitigation of environmental degradation, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, global economic and financial instability, global poverty, and set standards for new technologies.
The United States should work with China to ease the inevitable transition from dollar hegemony to a multilateral monetary order in ways that preserve American influence; leverage not boycott China’s Belt and Road Initiative to benefit from its opportunities and connectivities; promote cross-Strait negotiations and mutual accommodation rather than China–Taiwan confrontation; and expand consular relations, restore exchanges, and promote Chinese studies to enhance understanding of China.
Doubling down on military competition gives China a reason to up the ante and call the bluff, leading to a mutually impoverishing arms race.
Stoking China’s neighbours’ dependency on the United States rather than helping countries be more self-reliant implicates them in US conflicts of interest with China without addressing their own. They need US diplomatic support more than military backing to work out a stable modus vivendi with China.
US China policy should be part of a new, broader Asia strategy — not the determinant of relations with other Asian nations or the driver of policies in the region. To hold its own with China, the United States must renew its competitive capacity and build a demonstrably better governed, better educated, more egalitarian, more open, more innovative, healthier, and freer society.
Chas W Freeman Jr is a Visiting Scholar at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, and a former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
In the article, 傅立民說，"中國給美國帶來的挑戰主要是經濟和技術上的，並不是軍事上的。但現實是，美國的飛機和戰艦總在中國邊界周圍活動，中國的飛機和戰艦並沒有在美國的海岸外巡邏；中國周圍到處是美軍的基地，而美國附近卻沒有中國的基地”。so, Washington ups its defence budget to make its ability to overwhelm China more credible. Yet, in the long run, the United States cannot outspend China militarily and cannot hope to beat it on its home ground. The role the US played just like Soviet Union, defeated by the US, Whereas China plays the role as the US then, funny, just shifted, not noted, interesting? Interested?
S. L. LI Engineer
HKFDP
