如何与中国争夺未来？靠特朗普关税可能没用

WASHINGTON — Behind the White House’s plan to punish China with tariffs and other restrictions is a growing concern that Beijing is using industrial policy to dominate industries of the future, at the expense of the United States and other nations.

华盛顿——在白宫计划用关税和其他限制规定惩罚中国的背后，人们愈发担心北京方面正在利用产业政策来主宰未来行业，而代价则是牺牲美国和其他国家的利益。

On Thursday, the Trump administration laid out its case in a 35-page report entitled “How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World.” It exhaustively details the steps Chinese officials take to protect and promote their domestic industries and disadvantage foreign competitors, including the use of government subsidies, cyberespionage and forced intellectual property transfers to Chinese companies from American and other foreign firms.

周四，特朗普政府在一份长达35页、题为《中国的经济侵略如何威胁美国及世界的技术和知识产权》(How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World)的报告中阐明了这一情况。该报告详尽列举了中国官员为保护和促进国内产业，并使竞争对手居于劣势所采取的措施，包括利用政府补贴、网络间谍活动，以及强迫美国和其他外国公司向中国企业转让知识产权。

The United States is trying to derail China’s dominance by punishing Beijing. But it has yet to detail how it plans to build America’s dominance in industries that will power economic and job growth in the future, or cultivate what the administration officials call the “crown jewels of American technology and intellectual property.”

美国正试图通过惩罚北京来破坏中国的优势，但尚未详细说明它将计划如何在未来推动经济和就业增长的行业中建立美国的主导地位，或是如何培育出被政府官员称为“美国技术和知识产权皇冠上的明珠”。

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, a senior administration official said Mr. Trump’s tariffs are designed to benefit American high-tech industries from the sort of “predation” China has used in the past.

周二，一名政府高级官员在接受记者采访时表示，特朗普的关税旨在通过中国曾使用过的“掠夺”行为来惠及美国的高科技产业。

Many economists say those steps are insufficient — and possibly counterproductive — to position American companies to compete in emerging, high-tech, globalized industries. They say the administration needs a proactive strategy to bolster American innovation and technology. That includes investing in federal research and development spending, worker skills and attracting more high-caliber foreign students to American graduate programs and fostering advanced industries such as biodefense and artificial intelligence.

许多经济学家认为，这些措施不足以让美国公司在新兴的全球化高科技行业中站得住脚，可能还会起反作用。他们表示，政府需要积极的战略来支持美国的创新和技术，包括投资联邦研发支出、工人技能，并吸引更多高素质外国学生参与美国研究生项目，打造生物防卫和人工智能等先进行业。

Whether industries like semiconductors thrive going forward in the United States “will depend not on America’s success in curbing China’s progress, but rather on its ability to sustain and support innovation by U.S. companies,” Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a former top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, wrote this week.

未来美国的半导体等行业能否茁壮成长“并不取决于美国能否成功遏制中国的进步，而在于美国维系和支持美国公司创新的能力”，曾任比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)总统高级经济顾问的劳拉·丹德烈亚·泰森(Laura D'Andrea Tyson)本周写道。

Instead of targeting innovation, the administration’s policy efforts to date have focused largely on supporting legacy industries like coal mining and steel production, which have shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent decades, and which few economists expect to generate significant job growth in the years to come.

迄今为止，政府的政策措施主要集中支持煤炭开采和钢铁制造等传统行业，而非创新。这些行业在近几十年内已经减少了数十万个工作岗位，也没什么经济学家预计这些行业会在未来几年带来显著的就业增长。

China, meanwhile, targets support to companies that demonstrate a winning strategy for growth. The government forces subsidized and protected firms to compete on the global marketplace, shutting down those that are unable to perform, said Ann Harrison, an economist who specializes in industrial policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

与此同时，中国的目标则是支持表现出了成功增长战略的企业。宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)沃顿商学院(Wharton School)专攻产业政策的经济学家安·哈里森(Ann Harrison)说，中国政府强制受资助和受保护的企业参与全球市场竞争，而那些没有业绩的企业则会被关闭。

“Firms are supported, but if it’s not working, they cut it out,” she said. “That’s really different from Trump’s industrial policy. What we’re really doing now is, we’re not supporting emerging industries. We’re bailing out failing industries.”

“公司会得到支持，但如果没有绩效，他们就会把它裁掉，”她说。“这和特朗普的产业政策非常不同。我们现在在做的其实不是在支持新兴行业，而是在救助衰退行业。”

Many experts worry the United States is not doing enough to help its own advanced industries compete — not just against China, but the rest of the world.

许多专家担心美国所采取的行动不足以帮助本国的先进行业参与竞争——不只是与中国竞争，而是与世界竞争。

Experts in artificial intelligence say the administration should push for more investment in academic and government research, instead of cutting back on scientific research across the government. They say administration immigration policies have spooked many foreign-born artificial intelligence researchers based in the United States.

人工智能领域的专家表示，政府应增进学术和政府研究的投资，而不是在政府内削减科学研究。他们表示，政府的移民政策已经吓到了许多在外国出生但是在美国工作的人工智能研究人员。

Canada, South Korea, France and Britain have ramped up government spending in an effort to ensure that they retain and attract top talent and promote artificial intelligence research. China has unveiled a plan to become the world leader in the field and create a domestic industry worth $150 billion by 2030, committing billions of dollars to the effort.

加拿大、韩国、法国和英国为确保能留住并吸引顶尖人才、促进人工智能研究，都已加大了政府开支。中国也已经公布了一项成为该领域世界领导者的计划，将在2030年前创造出价值1500亿美元的国内产业，并将为此投入数十亿美元。

At the tail end of the Obama administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House began to address the industry’s development. But after Mr. Trump took office, the office’s work in that area seemed to stagnate. The administration has yet to name a director for the office, which is currently run by its deputy chief technology officer, Michael Kratsios, who used to work with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel. It recently convened a meeting of companies working in artificial intelligence at the White House, in which Mr. Kratsios indicated the administration would take a hands-off approach to the industry’s development.

在奥巴马政府的末期，白宫的科学和技术政策办公室(Office of Science and Technology Policy)开始关注科技行业的发展。但特朗普上台后，该办公室在这个领域的工作似乎停滞不前。特朗普尚未任命该办公室的主管。目前，该办公室由副首席技术官迈克尔·克拉齐奥斯(Michael Kratsios)管理，他曾与硅谷风险投资家彼得·蒂尔(Peter Thiel)共事。前不久，该办公室召集人工智能公司在白宫举行了一次会议，克拉齐奥斯在会上表示，政府将对该行业的发展采取不干涉的态度。

“If we don’t have the government setting big goals, then we will just see business as usual: The private sector will continue to optimize for its own problems, pulling people out of universities and not really giving back to government because that is not its priority,” said Jack Clark, who oversees policy for OpenAI, an independent artificial intelligence lab based in San Francisco. “Academia will get left behind and the government will have no clear mandate in this very important area.”

“如果政府不设立宏大的目标，那么，该行业的情况会一如往常：私营部门将继续重点解决自己的问题，把人才从大学吸引出来，不回馈政府，因为那不是政府的重点考虑事项，”旧金山独立人工智能实验室OpenAI的政策主管杰克·克拉克(Jack Clark)说。“学术界将被抛在后面，政府在这个非常重要的领域将没有明确的授权。”

The United States has a long history of industrial policy, including the Obama administration’s bailout of the automotive industry during the financial crisis and its subsequent efforts to foster advanced manufacturing.

美国的工业政策历史悠久，奥巴马政府在金融危机期间对汽车行业进行了救助，随后又为培育先进制造业做出了努力。

“We sought to have a strategic focus,” said Gene Sperling, who directed the National Economic Council for much of the Obama administration, “that did accept that there were strong positive impacts for innovation and jobs in not just protecting the manufacturing base — as was done with the auto rescue — but making the U.S. the attractive place to build what comes next in manufacturing as well.”

“我们希望有一个战略重点，”在奥巴马政府的大部分时间领导国家经济委员会(National Economic Council)的吉恩·斯珀林(Gene Sperling)说。“它的确会对创新和工作机会产生强烈的积极影响，不仅能保护制造业根基——例如对汽车行业的救助——而且能使美国成为吸引未来制造业的地方。”

Policymakers in Washington have a large array of tools to tilt the economic playing field to help particular industries. Mr. Trump signed a tax law in December that reduced the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, a move that disproportionately helped banks and real estate companies. He has relaxed regulations for fossil fuel exploration and other industries. But he has not singled out emerging growth industries for support, as Mr. Obama did.

华盛顿的政策制定者拥有大量工具，可以改变经济环境，帮助特定的行业。去年12月，特朗普签署了一项税法，将公司税税率降至21%，这项政策对银行和房地产公司特别有利。他放松了对化石燃料勘探等行业的监管。但他并没有像奥巴马那样，挑出打算支持的新兴增长行业。

That is not China’s approach.

中国的做法不是这样的。

Trump administration officials outlined 53 examples of China’s “economic aggression” that they contend have lifted the Chinese to domination of traditional manufacturing and positioned China to beat the world in industries like artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and blockchain technology.

特朗普政府的官员们列举了中国“经济侵略”的53个例子。他们认为，这些侵略行为使中国在传统制造业中占据了主导地位，并使中国在人工智能、自动驾驶汽车和区块链技术等行业立于不败之地。

The administration is trying to counter that rise with tariffs, and it also supports a bipartisan bill moving through Congress that would give the federal government greater leeway to block Chinese investments in American companies, a practice that the administration official called “colonization by purchase.”

特朗普政府正试图通过提高关税来抵制中国的上升趋势，并支持国会通过一项两党共同提出的法案，该法案将赋予联邦政府更大的回旋余地，阻止中国对美国企业进行投资。特朗普政府官员称，中国的投资是“通过收购进行殖民”。

Many economists and lawmakers applaud the administration’s efforts to crack down on Chinese intellectual property theft.

许多经济学家和议员赞赏特朗普政府打击中国盗窃知识产权行为的努力。

Fighting Chinese intellectual property theft is critical to supporting American industries. “It is something that is very real,” said Chang-Tai Hsieh, an economist who focuses on growth and development issues at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “It happens all the time. It is generally viewed by many of these firms as just the way you do business in China.”

打击中国的知识产权盗窃行为对支持美国的产业至关重要。“这是非常真实的事，”芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)布思商学院(Booth School of Business)关注增长和发展问题的经济学家谢昌泰(Chang-Tai Hsieh)说，“这种事一直在发生。这些公司中的很多人普遍认为，这是在中国做生意的方式。”

But he said that fight may be best waged in American courtrooms, not trade negotiations, and that the administration may have missed a potential victory on that front by recently deciding to soften penalties on Chinese smartphone maker ZTE.

但他表示，这种斗争最好在美国的法庭上进行，而不是通过贸易谈判，特朗普政府前不久决定减轻对中国智能手机制造商中兴通讯的处罚，可能错失了在这条阵线上获胜的机会。

The Commerce Department had previously barred the company from selling into the United States for seven years because of violations of American sanctions. That earlier decision, Mr. Hsieh said, had Chinese companies “terrified.”

此前，美国商务部曾因违反美国制裁规定，禁止该公司在七年内向美国销售产品。谢昌泰表示，早前的这项决定令中国企业“感到恐惧”。