分析：谷歌凸显中美关系困局
两个月前，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)首次访问中国，在长城和故宫对着镜头礼貌地微笑，在解决全球性问题上向中国东道主表现出空前的合作姿态。
“我们知道，当大国之间合作而非碰撞时，大家都能得到更大收获，”他说道。美中“两国集团(G2)”的概念由是流传开来。
然而，仅仅过了八周，中美构建一个调和国际争端联盟的想法，似乎就越来越不可信。一系列冲突削弱了期待中的和谐关系，谷歌(Google)因审查制度和黑客入侵而威胁退出中国，仅是其中最新的一例。
“这是一次高风险的对抗，今年美中关系将远比去年更为艰难，而谷歌可能只是今年开出的第一枪，”美国亚洲协会中美关系中心主任奥维尔•斯科勒(Orville Schell)谈到谷歌声明时表示。此次冲突不仅事关谷歌，而且“可能影响中美关系，以及互联网的未来。”
中美政府仍然对哥本哈根气候变化会议的明显失败耿耿于怀。中国官员觉得自己在会议上遭到了埋伏，尤其是奥巴马政府提出要对中国的气候变化政策进行国 际审查。中国自己也激起了一些怒火。据报道，当时一位中国官员曾用手指着奥巴马并对他提高了嗓门，此外中国还曾派遣一位副部长去参加了一次政府首脑会议。 正如布鲁金斯研究所(Brookings Institute)的李侃如(Kenneth Lieberthal)所说，这是“精明的中国政府通常不会使用的笨拙战术”。
上周，五角大楼批准对台出售导弹的决定激怒了中国人，同时，中国政府面对奥巴马会晤达赖喇嘛的可能性。另外，对于美国及其它国家要求人民币升值的呼吁，中国也予以了强硬的反击。中国国家总理温家宝最近表示：“我们不会屈服于任何迫使我们升值的压力。”
中 国反对对伊朗实施更严厉制裁的鲜明立场，也令奥巴马政府深感失望。中国驻联合国大使张业遂上周表示，要找到伊朗问题的解决方案，需要“更多的时间和耐 心”。此外，去年12月25日，中国判处异议人士刘晓波有期徒刑11年，引发了中国与西方国家有关人权问题的一波新的争论，谷歌因审查制度威胁退出中国， 延续了这场争论。
奥巴马政府的官方立场是，这些是两个相互关联的重要国家之间的正常分歧。美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)周三表示：“我们正努力构建一种成熟的关系，不会因为我们或另一方做了一些令对方不满意的事情就中断。”
一 些驻北京的外交官猜测，中国最近一些言辞上的强硬，可能是在国内为一些政策上的变动铺路，比如汇率问题，或是伊朗问题。但中国学者表示，西方国家对仍然自 视为发展中国家的中国施加的诸多要求，令领导层颇为恼火。北京大学(Peking University)中美关系专家王栋表示：“由于西方国家最近在如此多的纠纷上施加的压力，中国也深感失望。中美之间存在认知差，因此它们的预期和现 实之间总是存在巨大差异。”
对于华盛顿与中国如此密切接触将会收获什么，美国政策界产生了越来越强烈的幻想破灭感。华盛顿彼得森国际经济研 究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)中国专家尼古拉斯•拉迪(Nicholas Lardy)表示：“在美国政府内部，越来越多最高层或接近最高层的官员真的开始怀疑，与中国在重大全球问题上密切合作的前景是什么，以及它是否仍有可能 转变成一种更为敌对的关系。”
“我们正处于一个潜在的引爆点——基于中国的实际行为，那些原本认为中国会融入体系并在其中扮演积极角色的人，越来越难让自己的观点站得住脚。”
在 北京工作的美国乔治•华盛顿大学(George Washington University)教授沈大伟(David Shambaugh)表示，如此复杂的外交关系经历波动很正常。但他表示，北京的做法体现了一种“强硬的态势”。他表示：“体系中正在发生一些事情，似乎 已促使中国退出对外接触，变得更加自闭。”
译者/何黎
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China at Odds With Future in Internet Fight
BEIJING — At the elite Tsinghua University here, some students were joking Friday that they had better download all the Internet information they wanted now in case Google left the country.
Can Google Beat China?
Is it just a matter of time before technologists find a way to defeat censorship?
But to many of the young, well-educated Chinese who are Google’s loyal users here, the company’s threat to leave is in fact no laughing matter. Interviews in Beijing’s downtown and university district indicated that many viewed the possible loss of Google’s maps, translation service, sketching software, access to scholarly papers and search function with real distress.
“How am I going to live without Google?” asked Wang Yuanyuan, a 29-year-old businessman, as he left a convenience store in Beijing’s business district.
China’s Communist leaders have long tried to balance their desire for a thriving Internet and the economic growth it promotes with their demands for political control. The alarm over Google among Beijing’s younger, better-educated and more Internet savvy citizens — China’s future elite — shows how wobbly that balancing act can be.
By publicly challenging China’s censorship, Google has stirred up the debate over the government’s claim that constraints on free speech are crucial to political stability and the prosperity that has accompanied it. Even if it is unlikely to pose any immediate threat to the Communist Party, Google’s move has clearly discomfited the government, Chinese analysts say.
“The average age of Chinese netizens is still very young,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. “This is a matter of the future and whether the government’s Internet policy wants to fight with the future.
“If this process goes on, more and more people are going to realize that their freedom of information is being infringed upon, and this could bring changes down the line.”
Google may rank a distant second to the Baidu search engine, but its estimated 80 million users are comparatively better educated and wealthier. Surveys show that roughly two-thirds are college educated. A Beijing technology consultant, Kaiser Kuo, describes them as “a potentially very noisy constituency.”
An Internet expert who insisted on anonymity for fear of repercussions from the government said: “They have bought into the bargain of get rich, have a good job, life gets better, just don’t mess with the Communist Party.”
If Google leaves, he said, “they may start asking, ‘What’s wrong with my country that it doesn’t let me do this?’ ”
“It is not like they are going to take to the streets,” he added. “But it further erodes the legitimacy of what the Communist Party is doing. This is a group the party doesn’t want to lose any more than it already has.”
On the other hand, the Chinese government managed to cut off nearly all Internet access to an entire region of 19 million people for half a year without encountering any significant political resistance. The blackout, imposed in the western Xinjiang region after deadly riots in July, is only now being gingerly lifted.
Other Internet users argue that Google must respect the Chinese government’s policies if it wants to do business here.
“I think government control of this is quite reasonable,” said Liu Qiang, 29, a Tsinghua University mechanical engineer graduate student. “Our party needs to stabilize its governance.”
Some predict that any inconvenience caused by Google’s exit will be short-lived. “The Internet is really big,” said Wang Quiya, a 27-year-old worker in Beijing’s financial district. “Something will take its place, right?”
The government’s recent efforts to tighten Internet controls have already cost some Chinese some pleasures. In the name of rooting out pornography and piracy, Chinese authorities have shut down hundreds of Web sites offering films, music downloads, video games and other forms of entertainment since November.
Li An, a Tsinghua University senior, said she used to download episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy” from sites run by BT China that are now closed. “I love American television series,” she said with frustration during a pause from studying Japanese at a university fast-food restaurant on Friday.
The loss of Google would hit her much harder, she said, because she relies on Google Scholar to download academic papers for her classes in polymer science. “For me, this is terrible,” Ms. Li said.
Some students contend that even after Google pulls out, Internet space will continue to shrink. Until now, Google has shielded Baidu by manning the front line in the censorship battle, said a 20-year-old computer science major at Tsinghua.
“Without Google, Baidu will be very easy to manipulate,” he said. “I don’t want to see this trend.”
A 21-year old civil engineering student predicted a strong reaction against the government. “If Google really leaves, people will feel the government has gone too far,” he insisted over lunch in the university cafe.
But asked whether that reaction would influence the government to soften its policies, he concentrated on his French fries. “I really don’t know,” he said.
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