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Below, is an English translation of excerpts of a speech by JIN Canrong, Deputy Dean of the School of International Studies, Deputy Director of the Center for American Studies, Renmin University of China. Jin is widely regarded as the C.C.P.’s top strategist, and a “national senior advisor” to the C.C.P. and Xi Jinping.
He was also once a Visiting Professor of Univ. of Michigan. He is a special advisor and expert for the C.C.P.’s Central Organization Department, Central United Front Work Department, the National Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and a member of the Economic Diplomacy Expert Group of the Ministry of Commerce, etc.
The speech was given in a two day conference in Guangzhou City, China, from July 23, 2016 to July 24, 2016. The original transcript was published at Jin Canrong’s fan page at http://www.jcrfans.com/html/2016-08-29-1024.html, an archived copy is available at https://archive.is/z5RMg.
曾錚注：以下英文翻譯及中文原文是中国人民大学国际关系学院副院长金燦榮2016年7月23日至24日的一次關於中美戰略的演講的節選。原文全文來自在金燦榮粉絲網，網址爲 http://www.jcrfans.com/html/2016-08-29-1024.html，網絡備份版在 https://archive.is/z5RMg。黑體字效果是我標註的重點，原文中沒有標註重點。
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We do not need to say to Americans directly about surpassing the United Kingdom and catching up with the United States. In fact, there is a standard official answer to this, and it is called the realization of two hundred-year goals. This is the goal of the national rejuvenation set by the 18th National Congress. In 2021, the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.), we should achieve the goal of building up a moderately prosperous society in all aspects. Our per capita income should be over 10,000 U.S. dollars. This has been achieved in Guangzhou. The rest of the country is falling behind a little bit, but in another five or six years the goal can be achieved. This is the first step. The second step is in 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, our per capita income should reach 30,000 U.S. dollars, and we should enter the club of developed countries. This should be the standard answer. In the future, when foreigners ask you what national rejuvenation is, you need to answer with the above two hundred-year goals. But I believe that for President Xi, national rejuvenation is to surpass the United Kingdom and to catch up with the United States, that is, to become the No. 1 boss.
大家以后也不用直接跟美国人说超英赶美，其实官方有一个标准答案，叫实现两个百年目标。这是十八大定的民族复兴目标，2021年中共100年的时候全面小康，全国人均要过一万美元，广州已经实现了，全国差一点，但是再过五六年应该可以，这是第一步。第二步是2049年共和国100年的时候人均要三万美元，进出发达国家俱乐部，这应该是标准答案。以后老外问你什么是民族复兴，你就用双百年来回答。但是我相信对习总来说民族复兴就是超英赶美，就是做一把手。
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So Mao Zedong solved the problem of survival for the new China. Deng Xiaoping solved the issue of development, because by the time Mao Zedong died the problem of survival had certainly been solved, so at that time we could work on development. Now President Xi wants to solve the issue of respect. After this issue is solved, we will learn from the United States, and enter the fourth stage. But that will be the task for our next generation. In our generation, we need to obtain a status that is equal to the U.S. The task of our next generation is to put the U.S. under our jurisdiction / management too. But the premise is that we need to do a good job in our generation.
所以毛泽东是解决新中国生存问题，邓小平解决发展，因为到毛泽东去世的时候生存问题肯定解决了，所以这个时间就可以发展。现在习主席要解决尊严的问题，尊严问题解决完了，我们学美国进入第四阶段，但是那是我们下一代的事，我们这一代跟美国取得平等地位，下一代的任务就把美国也管起来，但是前提是我们这一代要干好。
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President Xi’s global strategy has two pillars, one is the Belt and Road Initiative. This is looking westward mainly from the land. We hope to use physical means, (such as) railways, highways, oil pipelines, gas pipelines, fiber optic cables, ports, transportation hubs, airports, etc., using physical means to interconnect East Asia, West Asia, Africa, Europe, to make them into one economic entity. There is another pillar looking east, called the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which was proposed in the declaration of the APEC meeting in November 2014. We need to promote the whole Asia-Pacific FTA in the future. One of the ways is to use trade and compatible legal system arrangements to connect North and South America and Australia with us. One of them (the two pillars) is a little more concrete; one is a little less concrete. The one on the land is a little more concrete and real; the one on the ocean is a little less concrete. These two things are President Xi’s global strategy.
习主席的全球战略是两个支柱，一个是一带一路，以陆地为主往西看，希望用物理的方式，铁路部、公路、油管、气管、光缆、港口、交通枢纽、机场等等，用物理方式把东亚、西亚、非洲、欧洲互联互通，搞成一个经济体。还有一个支柱是往东看，叫亚太自贸区，这是2014年11月APEC会议宣言里面提出的，我们以后要推进整个亚太的自贸区。一个是准备用贸易的方法和相适应的法律制度安排把南北美洲和澳洲跟我们连在一起，一个实一点，一个虚一点，陆上实一点，海洋虚一点，这两个东西加起来就是习主席的全球战略。
There are only two global strategic players in the world today, the others are not. The United States is adopting a butterfly strategy. China adopts a sub-pillar strategy. Why can these two play? First, because of their mega-scales. We are huge. We have abundant resources. Second, because of the history of having been an empire. China has a history of empire. The Chinese people always feel inside themselves that they have a big country. No matter how bad this country is, it is still a big country. The United States has dominated the world for more than 100 years, its imperial mentality is very strong. Third, because of the industrial capacity, the two countries both have very strong industrial capacity, now the United States is a little weaker, but it was once very strong.
当今世界有全球战略的只有两家，其他都没有，美国是蝴蝶战略，中国是亚支柱战略。为什么这两家能玩？第一，超大规模，我们规模大，资源多；第二，帝国历史，中国还是有帝国历史，中国人内心总是觉得自己是大国，混的再不好也是大国。美国这一百多年横扫天下，他的帝国心理很强。第三，工业能力，两个国家工业能力都非常强，现在美国弱一点，但曾经非常强。
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Next, let me talk about the U.S.-China relations. What is the place of the U.S.-China relations in the whole of Chinese diplomacy today? It’s the biggest challenge for Chinese diplomacy because of the reasons I have mentioned above. The U.S. is very powerful. It is the number one right now, very capable. Frankly speaking, now the United States is still a middle-aged strong man. It has not reached retirement age yet. It is like someone in a workplace who is very good looking, very capable, and basically very popular among coworkers. WE are like the number 2 boss who just got promoted. We want to squeeze it (the U.S.) out, but we do not dare to fight it, so it is quite difficult. We in China are trying to come up with various ways. First, create conditions for it to make mistakes, so one day we get the inspection team to lock it up.
Publisher’s Note:
In China, the C.C.P.’s central government sometimes sends inspection teams to inspect how local officials are doing. If an official is found to have problems such as corruption, he/she will be punished. In Xi Jinping’s era, inspection system has become a tool to combat political opponents. Some Chinese commentators believe the hidden message here is that Jin Canrong is suggesting that the C.C.P. corrupt the U.S. politicians with money and women to have them compromised.
Second, we keep it (the U.S.) busy so that it will suffer from depression and want to quit the job itself. Third, we should get ourselves mixed together with the U.S., so that it can not fight us. We should create such a situation where you have me inside you, and I have you inside me.
下面切入中美关系，中美关系在当今整个中国的外交中占什么位置？它是中国外交最大的难题，原因我上面已经讲了，它很厉害，现在的一把手，能力很强。坦率讲现在美国还是一个壮年人，美国没有到退休年龄。美国属于单位里面颜值也很高，能力也很强，群众基本拥护的国家，我们是刚提拔不久的二把手，我们想把它挤走，又不敢打它，所以挺难的。我们中国正在想各种办法，第一，创造条件让它犯错误，有一天让巡视组把它给办了；第二，让它忙不过来，最后让它忧郁症，自己不想干了；第三，和美国搅在一起，让它打不了你，形成你中有我，我中有你。
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Initially our Chinese diplomacy had four pillars: great power diplomacy, neighboring country diplomacy, developing country diplomacy, and multilateral international organization diplomacy. Our internal positioning was that great power diplomacy was the key, the neighboring country diplomacy was the primary, developing country diplomacy was the foundation, and multilateral international organization diplomacy was our important stage. Today we still say the same, but we will add one more sentence after the original four sentences, that is, the China-US relations is the top priority of the entire Chinese diplomacy, because China-US relations are everywhere, the key relation among the relations with the great powers is the relationship between China and the United States. Whether we can do well with neighboring countries also depends on (our relationship with) the U.S. Whether we can influence developing countries also depends on (our relationship with) the U.S. And the U.S. is also the main target of activities of the international organizations. So the U.S. is everywhere in terms of our four diplomatic pillars. But now there is a change after President Xi came to power. President Xi wants to lower the relationship between China and the United States a little bit, and enhance that with the neighboring countries a little bit. This was a subtle change in the past few years. Although there was such a change, handling well the Sino-U.S. relations is still the first priority and the most difficult problem for Chinese diplomacy.
原来我们中国外交是四根支柱：大国外交、周边外交、发展中国家外交、多边国际组织外交。内部的定位是，大国是关键，周边是首要，发展中国家是基础，多边是重要舞台。今天还这么说，但是原来在四句话之后，还有一句话叫中美关系是整个中国外交的重中之重，因为中美关系无处不在，大国里面的关键是中美关系，周边搞不搞的好看美国，发展中国家影响推不推的下去也看美国，国际组织主要的活跃对象也是美国，我们外交四块，美国无处不在。但是现在习主席上台以后有变化，习主席现在想降低一点中美关系，而把周边外交提上去，这是这几年的微妙变化。虽然有这个变化，但是处理好中美关系仍然是中国外交第一大难题。
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In the past 30 years, Germany has given us the biggest help with our technology import. Germany’s help accounts for 46% of the imported technology. The Yankees have the best technology in the world, the world’s most cutting edge technologies in the past 30 years were all invented by the Americans. But they just do not sell them to us. If you don’t sell to us, we won’t be polite. In the past, there was no Internet, so we had nothing to do. Now since there is such a thing called the Internet, we of course will make good use of it. The United States now believes that China is the one who steals most from it. Everything is stolen, including even the personal files of public servants. What’s most important is of course the technology. They think many of our key technologies were stolen from them, including our J-20, Dongfeng 41, etc. Third, the national security law, we passed the national security law to restrict NGOs.
在过去30年，我们技术引进，给我们帮忙最大的是德国，德国占引进技术的46%。美国佬拥有世界上最好的技术，过去30年世界上的黑科技都是美国人发明的，但是它就不卖给我们。不卖，我们就不客气了，以前没有网络没办法，现在有网络了，当然要用。美国现在认为在网上偷它东西最多的就是中国，什么都偷，连公务员个人档案都偷，当然关键是技术。他们认为像我们的J-20、东风41很多关键技术就是从它那偷的。第三，国安法，我们通过国安法限制NGO。
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China’s long-term strategy has probably the following key points. I don’t know the long-term strategy of the United States. If Hillary comes to power, she will continue the current policy. If Trump comes to power, I do not know what the long-term strategy will be. Our long-term strategy has been very consistent. The first priority is to develop ourselves. This cannot be shaken. After we develop to a certain extent, the United States will have to accept us. Yesterday I also said this. The United States of America is in essence a nation that does things around business. Business people are not that stubborn or too emotional. So they will accept it if their opponent is strong to a certain extent. Now the United States is stronger than us, so they despise us. But in the future when we are particularly strong, he will say, hey, tuhao, let’s make friends. We are now going towards this direction.
中国长期战略大概是如下几个要点，美国长期战略我不知道，希拉里上台就是现行政策的延续，川普上台就不知道长期战略会怎么样。咱们中国的长期战略很稳定，第一，发展自己，这一点不能动摇，发展到一定程度，让美国不得不接受。昨天我也讲过，美国这个国家本质上还是一个商业民族，商业民族不是那么一根筋，不是那么情绪化，所以当对手强大到一定阶段是可以接受。现在美国比你强瞧不起你，但是以后你特别强大，他会说土豪我们交朋友。我们现在就是往这个方向走。
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In addition, we are actively expanding our layout (of national power) without direct conflicts with the United States. For example, in the past few years we have done some things, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Eastern Air Defense Identification Zone, the South China Sea island building, etc. In fact, we still tried to control our paces. We are not like Russia. Russia sometimes does things directly regardless of how the U.S. will feel. China basically still controls to what extent we do things.
For example, we built some islands in the South China Sea, which greatly irritated the United States. But we waited until the United States got itself into fights with Syria; we waited until it got itself involved in Ukraine. We only built the islands then. When the U.S. found that we had built such large islands by the end of last June, we immediately said to it, “Oh, my dear boss, we will stop it.”
As a matter of fact, it was not that we wouldn’t build it. Why did we only do it till the end of June? Because the typhoon was coming in July. (We had) more than 200 ships there, of which there were not many large ships, most of the ships were small. It was a little dangerous (for the ships to stay there), so we had hurry back. This was the first reason. The second reason was the scientific reason. We pumped up the sea sand to build the South China Sea islands. We mixed the sand with special water. After stirring them, they became the ground. This was a new technique, new to the whole world. So we needed to do some scientific tests for it. A bit like after we finish a project, we need to find a third party to inspect it.
This technique was great, but we still needed to have the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Engineering to check it. That was why we stopped to test it in the middle of the year. If it was OK after the test, we could continue with building it later.
So these were the two actual reasons (for us to stop building the islands), one was the typhoon, one was a scientific requirement.
But we reported to the United States, we said, hey, boss, we are not building it anymore. The United States was very happy for a few months. They thought, after all, we are still the boss. So you see, China controls things better than Russia.
另外我们在不与美国直接冲突的情况下，积极扩大我们的布局。比如这几年我们做的一些事，一带一路，金砖银行，亚投行，东方防空识别区，南海建岛，其实我们还是掌握节奏，跟俄国不一样，俄国有时候不管美国的想法直接干了，中国基本上还是把握度。比如说我们在南海建岛，这个事对美国刺激挺大，但是我们就是等美国去打叙利亚，卷入乌克兰的时候我们建岛。到去年6月美国发现我们建这么大的岛，我们马上报告领导我不建了。其实不是不建了，为什么建到6月底，因为7月份台风就来了，200多条船，其中大船也不多，多数船都是小的，有点危险，所以要赶紧回来，这是第一原因。第二原因是科学原因，南海建岛抽海沙，跟特制的水一搅拌变成地面，这是新工艺，世界上没有，然后要科学检验一下。有点像我们做完一个项目要找一个第三方检验一下，这个技术很棒，但是还要科学院、工程院来看一下，所以建到去年中就看一下，检验一下说行，以后再说。实际原因就是这两个，一个是台风，一个是科学要求，但是我们跟美国汇报说报告政府，我们不建了。美国曾经有几个月很开心，还是我有面子吧。所以中国肯定比俄国的掌握度好一点。
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Third, expand the scale of cooperation, dilute what we already have with what we add. This was Deng Xiaoping’s reform policy. Xiaoping’s reform was to add things… Now we are dealing with the relationship between China and the United States. We have a lot of problems. We can not solve them. So we should try to expand the scale of cooperation. Say, the competition (between China and the U.S.) used to account for 60%, the cooperation only accounted for 40%. At such a time, it was very difficult to solve problems with the competition. If through our efforts, we reduce the competition to 30%, 70% of it will be cooperation. Although we still haven’t solved anything in the competition area, its ratio will be reduced in the overall relationship. At this time the difficulty becomes smaller.
第三，扩大合作面，用增量淡化存量，这是邓小平的改革方针，小平改革就是增量改革…现在我们对付中美关系，我们问题很多，而且还解决不了，我们尽量把合作面搞大，竞争面占60%，合作面占40%，这个时候解决竞争面很难，如果通过努力，把竞争面减少到30%，合作面70%，虽然竞争的问题一个都没有解决，但是在整个关系当中占的比例下来了，这个时候你再去解决就难一点。
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There is also another strategy called getting deeper into the U.S. Now we are talking to the United States about something called BIT, Bilateral Investment Treaty, which may have a partial result before Obama leaves office. There is no chance to completely negotiate it (before that). We hope to have a partial result. That can be our foundation. After Hillary takes office, we can continue to talk. We are determined to get it done. We will give the United States better concessions, while we try to win very good terms for our investment in the United States, so that our domestic capital has somewhere to go. We can have a way out in the U.S. In the meantime, we can make money, and control the market.
There is also a political consequence, if China can finally get very fair treatment, I believe many Chinese capital will finally go to the United States. The United States investment opportunities are relatively good, relatively open, more open than Japan, Europe, the market capacity is relatively large, the legal system is transparent and predictable, the protection is also good. So the first value is in the economic area, the second is the political value.
另外还有一个战略叫深入美国，现在我们跟美国谈一个东西叫BIT，双边投资保护协定，这个有可能在奥巴马下来以前能有个局部的成果，完全谈成没戏。我们希望有个局部成果，有个底子，希拉里上来再接着谈，我们决心要谈成，会给美国提供更好的优惠，同时我们争取我们的投资在美国有很好的条件，这样我们国内资本有出路，因此我们资本到美国有出路，可以赚钱，控制市场。还有一个政治后果，如果中国最后能够得到非常公平的待遇，我相信有很多中国资本最后到美国去，美国的投资机会相对是好的，比较开放，比日本、欧洲开放，市场容量比较大，法制透明可预测，保护性也不错，所以第一是经济上有价值，第二是政治价值。
We in the Chinese government hope that in the end, every U.S. Congressman’s district will have Chinese investment, and China will be able to control one thousand or several thousand votes, and then we can influence his (the congressman’s) attitude.
In fact, the U.S. House of Representatives CAN BE controlled, because the United States has 312 million people, and 435 members of the House of Representatives. On average, a congressional district has about 750,000 people, 750,000 people’s voter turnout is only 30%, that is, about 200,000 votes can decide his fate (the fate of the congress candidate).
Generally speaking, the numbers of votes for the two candidates are very close, the gap won’t be particularly large. So in the end, I guess there is only a difference of 10 thousand or several thousand votes. Therefore, if you can have several thousand votes in your hands, you are as good as his father/master.
If China conducts good operations in the U.S., we may be able to buy it over, and turn the U.S. into our second Standing Committee of National People’s Congress. In that case, we will be jumping out of the Thucydides trap.
Of course we can also have other evil tricks, such as throwing the world into further chaos. The United States has a problem. It is really very diverse, and has the highest degree of democracy in the Western countries. Of course, diversity has an advantage, the people have the freedom, have a say. But it also has a disadvantage. It is very difficult to build consensus. For the United States, the best external scenario is to have a very clear enemy around which to mobilize politically.
我们中国政府希望最后每个美国国会众议员的选区都有中国投资，中国都可以掌握上千张或者几千张选票，那就可以影响他的态度。其实美国众议员可以控制，因为美国3.12亿人，435个众议员，平均一个众议员选区大概是75万人，75万人的投票率只有30%，也就是20万左右决定他的命运，一般来说两个人咬的很紧，不会差距特别大，最后我估计也就差了一万张票或者几千张票，所以你手上要有几千张票，你就是他爹。中国弄的好可以把美国买下来，把美国国会变成第二个人大常委会，那就跳出修昔底德陷阱。当然我们还可以有其他的邪招，比如说让世界的乱局进一步发展，美国有一个毛病，他真的多元，在西方国家当中民主程度最高，当然多元有一个好处，老百姓有自由度和发言，但是也有坏处，建立共识非常困难。对美国来说，外部最好的情况是有一个非常明确的敌人，围绕这个敌人进行政治动员。
If there are two enemies, the United States is dumbfounded/at a loss as to what to do. This was the case before World War II. There were two enemies (for the U.S.). One was the black threat of Nazi Germany, one was the red threat of the Soviet Union. At that time people inside the United States started to quarrel among themselves. One faction said he was the enemy, another said he was the enemy. They started fighting among themselves before they fought the enemies.
If there are three external enemies outside the United States, I reckon it will start to feel dizzy. If it has four enemies, it will completely get lost. So China’s strategic task is to ensure that there are four enemies (for the U.S.), terrorists are certainly one. Russia is very much like one, but not enough. China once wanted to foster Brazil (so that it can also become an enemy for the U.S.). Brazil actually has the potential to become a great power, but it is not up to it. We couldn’t do anything about it.
如果有两个敌人，美国就傻眼了，二战以前就是这个情况，有两个敌人，一个是黑色威胁纳粹德国，一个是红色威胁苏联。这个时候美国内部就吵，一派说他是敌人，一派说他是敌人，还没打，自己就打起来了。如果美国外面有三个敌人，我估计就开始晕，有四个就彻底找不着北。中国战略的任务就是确保有四个敌人，恐怖分子肯定是一个，俄罗斯很像一个，但是还不够，中国曾经想办法去扶植巴西，巴西实际上有潜力成为一个大国，但是他不上进，没办法。
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