日志
李世谟 中国来一场颜色革命？保持红色吧
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纽约时报 中国来一场颜色革命？保持红色吧！
核心提示：如果这意味着奥斯陆和平奖领奖者的座位会再空着数十年或几代人，就让它空着吧。其它选项将更为糟糕。
作者：Eric Li 2010年12月6日
译者：@lawrence2020\@xiaomi2020
译者：@lawrence2020\@xiaomi2020
上海——毫无疑问，12月10日在奥斯陆诺贝尔和平奖颁奖仪式上所准备的空椅子将会是西方政治家和评论员谴责中国的独裁政权的理由之一。
把诺贝尔和平奖颁给中国被关押的异议人士刘晓波的挪威诺贝尔委员会代表了一些持有以下观点的西方人：一场类似于曾经发生在东欧的颜色革命可以让中国走上西式自由民主的道路。
从这一点上看，他们完全忽视了中国的历史和现代中国的本质。他们所期望的革命若真的发生的话，会带来的不会是自由和责任。而他们完全忽视了一场正在发生的革命。
鉴于政治制度的缺乏透明度和对幕后决策的偏好，在北京的不少微妙和重要的信号在传递时常常让人摸不清方向。这样的情况似乎就出现在执政的中国共产党在十月份举行的全会中。西方把关于本次会议的焦点在中共对最高权力接班人的决定上，把习近平被宣布为接班人视为这次全会最重要的一个结果。一个甚至更为重要的有关政治发展却完全被忽视了：最后公报。
从表面上看，公报似乎充满了官方的陈词滥调和充斥着“中国特色的社会主义”的老调重弹。但这并非是一句空洞的口号，这句话体现了始终如一的发展和政治战略，该战略力求取得一个艰难的平衡——实现市场经济下高增长率，同时以一党政治体制为依托确保社会公平与稳定。这一战略可以使中国相对平稳地融入全球秩序。
持有怀疑态度的人自然会问，这种战略是否能实现目标，他们指出中国与日俱增的不平等、腐败、社会动乱和国际冲突。但是他们忘了问的是“假如？”比如说，“假如一场颜色革命真的席卷了中国，推翻了一党政权话又会怎样？”
革命狂欢后又会发生什么？一个后共产主义的中国能给中国人民带来更大的自由和繁荣吗？它会是民族主义色彩更少、更负责的大国吗？
当前中国的一党统治的党国体制尽管有着各种缺点，但让中国能维持当前的强国状态，，它起着两方面重要的作用：第一、中共是让中国取得了巨大的自由市场发展模式成功的发起者和保护者。在今日世界，史上最大的讽刺之一就是最亲市场的党要属中国的共产党。不错，中国的经济成功是为了保证该党的政治生命的长存，但是它也同样确保了社会和平，还提升了千千万万普通中国人的生活水平、个体自由和个人尊严。
其次，尽管中共最近给人独断的印象，但是共产党不想寻求全球霸权，甚至也没有追求区域统治地位的企图。其外交政策是基于实用主义和现实的国家利益之上，而不是基于意识形态的自我美化的宏伟工程。原因很简单：考虑到中国与世界在经济上相互依赖，它又要靠经济表现来获得合法性，党有着世界上最大的动力来维持实用的外交政策。中国可能是当今现状的最大受益人，为什么要改变它呢？
当然，持怀疑观点的人可能会反驳说，中国正在增长的民族主义就是北京最终要挑战西方国家营造的现状的明证。但这种疑惑混淆了民族主义言辞上的喧嚣和实际攻击。尽管有这些（中文网络上随处可见的）民族主义言辞，中国政府的实际的外交政策行动一直相当温和节制的。如果一场颜色革命推翻了共产党的话，谁能保证这样的现状会持续，特别是极端民族主义者在民主信条上在后共产主义政权中掌权了又会发生什么？
只有让中国沿着“有中国特色的社会主义”道路前进，中国的发展才能为人民带来不断提升的自由和繁荣，才能在世界舞台上让中国成为一个和平的、负责任的大国。
正是这种讽刺，这种矛盾让许多西方观察者晕头转向：中国共产党是中国的自由市场发展的守护者；中共实施的社会主义保护了自由和繁荣；党是唯一的权威才能确保中国在国际关系中保持温和。
要理解这些，人们必须深入了解中国文化历史和现代中国的立国本质。
那些从外面看中国的人常常看到的是僵化的儒家等级。他们常常忽略了儒家道德强调的平等主义价值观。
“耕者有其田。”这一最原始的共产主义价值观深植于中国文化之中。几乎每个王朝的初期，新皇帝都会没收大地主的土地，再平均分配给人民。这就是每一个新王朝是如何赢得道德权威的。随着时间流逝，土地的所有权重新集中，这个王朝就被推翻，然后再次开始循环。1949年毛泽东领导的共产主义革命可以被看做是平均地权的又一次开始。
另一相关方面则是现代中国自身的本质。
第二个方面是中国现代建国的性质。西方国家的民族国家是资产阶级建立起来的，提倡和保护自由与私有财产是西方现代建国的基本内容。中国从来没有过真正的资产阶级。中国是被西方的军事力量强迫卷入现代化进程的。中国的民族建国是在二十世纪由知识分子领导农民完成的，不是维护自由和财产，而是平等主义和均贫富成了中国现代建国的道德基础。
形成现代西方社会的个人自由和私有财产从来没有成为中国现代建国的核心内容。相反，中国的国家主权是在反抗外国侵略的武装斗争中建立起来的。只有懂得了中国的这个历史背景，才能理解邓小平在三十年前发动的改革在中国创造了多大的奇迹。
事实上，中国共产党运用它的平民道德权威抑制着普通中国人的平等主义冲动，同时引导着个人自由和私人财产权以前所未有的速度扩展。
而且，由于中共首次从西方列强和日本侵略者的羞辱和征服中重建中国而形成的无容置疑的道德地位，它具有独特的能力使中国对外的民族主义力量温和化。
保持中共现在的道德立场——社会主义和民族主义，是中国在既定道路上发展的关键。由西方和中国国内一些人倡导的西方式民主选举，只能把中国引向民粹主义的暴政和它的孪生兄弟——极端民族主义。
今天，中国社会对自由和私有财产的尊重达到了历史上的最高点。像中国这样一个大国以如此迅速地和平崛起是世界上前所未有的。让中国在这条道路上继续走下去吧。如果这意味着奥斯陆和平奖领奖者的座位会再空着数十年或几代人，就让它空着吧。其它选项将更为糟糕。
作者简介：李世默（Eric Li）是上海一家业内领先的风险投资公司的创始人兼常务董事。他是Aspen研究所的Henry Crown项目成员，以及复旦大学国际关系和公共政策学院的博士研究生。
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A Color Revolution in China? Keep It Red
SHANGHAI — The empty chair at the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo on Dec. 10 will no doubt be a cause for Western politicians and commentators to again condemn China’s authoritarian regime.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee that awarded the Peace Prize to the jailed dissident Liu Xioabo represents those in the West who believe a color revolution such as those that took place in Eastern Europe would lead China down the path of Western-style liberal democracy.
In this, they are utterly ignorant of China’s history and the nature of modern China. The revolution they seek, if it happened, would bring anything but liberty and responsibility. The revolution that is taking place they miss completely.
Given the opacity of its political system and penchant for behind-the-scenes decision-making, subtle but important signals in Beijing often get lost in transmission. Such appears to be the case with the plenary session of the ruling Chinese Communist Party held in October. Predictably, the West focused its attention on the promotion of Mr. Xi Jinping, the heir designate, as the most notable accomplishment of the meeting. An even more consequential political development was completely overlooked: The final communiqué.
On the surface, the communiqué seemed to be full of official clichés and a return to a strident claim of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” But rather than an empty slogan, the phrase embodies a consistent developmental and political strategy that seeks to strike a difficult balance — achieving high growth rates through a market economy while relying on one-party political institutions to ensure social justice and peace. This strategy is the anchor of China’s relatively peaceful emergence into the global order.
Skeptics may justifiably question whether the strategy is achieving its objectives, pointing out rising inequality, corruption, social unrest and international conflicts. But they forget to ask, “What if?” For example, “What if a color revolution does sweep across China and overthrows its one-party regime?”
What happens after the euphoria is over? Will a post-Communist China deliver greater liberty and prosperity to the Chinese people? Will it be a less nationalist and more responsible power?
For all its shortcomings, the current one-party state in China is a status-quo power in two important respects. First, it is the initiator and protector of China’s enormously successful free-market development model. One of history’s greatest ironies is that in today’s world, the most pro-market party is the Communist Party in China. True, China’s economic success ensures the party’s political survival, but this has also ensured social peace in addition to improving the livelihoods, individual liberty and personal dignity of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
Second, in spite of the recent perceptions of an assertive China, the Communist Party is not seeking global hegemony or even regional domination. Its foreign policy is based on pragmatism and realistic national interests, not grandiose projects of ideological self-glorification. The reason is quite simple: Given China’s economic interdependence with the rest of the world, and its dependence on economic performance as a source of legitimacy, the Party has all the incentives in the world to maintain a pragmatic foreign policy. China is perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the status quo, so why change it?
Of course, skeptics may counter by pointing to China’s rising nationalism as evidence that Beijing will be forced to challenge the Western-made status quo. But this is confusing nationalist barking with aggressive biting. For all its nationalist rhetoric (there is plenty of it in China’s cyberspace), actual Chinese government behavior on foreign policy has been by and large moderate and restrained. Should a color revolution overthrow the Communist Party, who can guarantee the continuation of such a course, especially if extreme nationalists — with democratic credentials — gain power in a post-Communist regime?
Only by staying the course of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” can China’s development lead to ever enhanced liberty and prosperity for the Chinese people, and its ascendancy lead to a largely peaceful and responsible power on the global stage.
It is this irony, this oxymoron, that is disorienting to many Western observers: that the Chinese Communist Party is the guardian of China’s free-market development; that the socialism it deploys is the protector of liberty and property; that the Party is the only authority that can ensure moderation in China’s international relations.
To understand this, one must look deeper into Chinese cultural history and the nature of the modern Chinese nation state.
Those who look at China from the outside often see a rigid Confucian hierarchy. What they tend to miss is the deeply egalitarian values underlining Confucian morality.
“Those who want to farm are entitled to land.” This most primitive communist value is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. Almost every dynasty began with the new emperor confiscating land from big landowners and evenly distributing it to the population. This is how each new dynasty gained moral authority. Over time, land ownership would again become more concentrated, the dynasty would be overthrown and the cycle would begin anew. The 1949 Communist revolution led by Mao Zedong could be viewed as another beginning of such a cycle.
The second pertinent aspect is the nature of modern China itself. The Western nation-state was shaped by bourgeois revolutions that aimed to advance and protect “liberty and property.” China never had such a bourgeoisie. It was literally dragged into modernity by the military powers of the West. The modern Chinese nation-state was built in the 20th century by the peasantry led by the intelligentsia. Rather than liberty and property, egalitarianism and communitarianism formed its moral foundation.
The respect for individual liberty and private property that informed the modern West were never within the core construct of the modern Chinese nation-state. Instead, China’s national sovereignty was the result of violent struggle against foreign aggression. Only with the knowledge of this historic background can one recognize how miraculous were the changes that Deng Xiaoping launched 30 years ago.
In effect, the Chinese Communist Party leveraged its moral authority as the vanguard of the common man to hold back the egalitarian impulses of the Chinese people and guide a rapid and unprecedented expansion of individual liberties and private property rights.
Further, its unquestioned role in redeeming China first from the humiliating subjugation by Western powers and then from Japanese aggression gives it the unique ability to moderate Chinese nationalism toward the outside world.
Maintaining this moral standing — hence the slogans of socialism and nationalism — is crucial for China to continue on this path. Western-style electoral democracy, as advocated by the West and some inside China, could only lead to tyrannical populism and its twin brother, extreme nationalism.
Today, respect for liberty and private property are at their highest in China’s entire history. It is unprecedented that the rise of a nation of China’s size at such speed is taking place largely in peace. Let’s allow it to continue. If it means that the chair in Oslo will remain empty for decades and generations, so be it. The alternative is far worse.
Eric Li is founder and managing director of a leading venture capital firm in Shanghai. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a doctoral candidate at Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Policy.
