海外知乎：当中国不是威胁时，美国是否让中国看起来像威胁？

在海外问答网站Quora上，有外国网友提问，当中国不是威胁时，美国是否让中国看起来像威胁？这个问题涉及多个方面，我们一起来看看外国网友是怎么回答的。

亚裔美国人，居住在新加坡

When someone says someone is a threat, I ask what that person has done to be considered a threat. If it’s just simply existing, then it is ridiculous.

当有人说某人是威胁时，我会问那个人做了什么被认为是威胁。如果它只是简单地存在一个威胁二字，那可就太荒谬了。

If the person is a threat because they are a competent person and that is threatening, then I also consider that ridiculous. In such a case, I am just a normal dude, and I have never shied away from competition. Competition makes me better, competition makes me more capable, and makes me more able to address my flaws. How then can the world’s most powerful country cower from competition?

如果这个人是一个威胁，因为他们是一个有能力的人所以这是威胁，那么我也认为这很荒谬。在这种情况下，我只是一个普通人，我从不回避竞争。竞争让我变得更好，竞争让我更有能力，让我更能弥补自己的不足。那么世界上最强大的国家怎么能在竞争中退缩呢？

Competition is not a bad thing, especially if you believe in capitalism as a system that sustains your current world, economy, and lifestyle. When we choose or force a winner, we choose for the market what a winner is and that may not be the best for the market.

竞争不是坏事，尤其是如果你相信资本主义是一个可以维持你当前世界、经济和生活方式的系统。当我们选择或强迫赢家时，我们为市场选择了赢家，而这对市场来说可能不是最好的。

For example, if your government forces Huawei out of the 5G market in America, your next option is less competitive, not just in terms of cost, but technology as well. Choosing not to compete can have serious negative consequences. Maybe the entity you chose makes money, but your market and citizens lose. You end up paying more for vastly inferior product and services - something that has been a long-time issue in America for telecommunications.

例如，如果你的政府迫使华为退出美国的 5G 市场，那么你的下一个选择将缺乏竞争力，不仅在成本方面，而且在技术方面也是如此。选择不竞争会产生严重的负面后果。也许你选择的实体赚了钱，但你的市场和公民却输了。您最终会为劣质的产品和服务支付更多费用——这在美国的电信领域一直是一个长期存在的问题。

The long-term effect is that you become stagnant and technologically inferior, something that is starting to happen in front of our very eyes. Right now, the US leads in many areas, but the Chinese are getting very close. For example, their chip know-how will soon match America’s and best it within the next decade. The only way to ensure we can stay competitive is to compete, get better.

长期的影响是你变得停滞不前并且在技术上处于劣势，这正在我们眼前开始发生。目前，美国在许多领域处于领先地位，但中国已经非常接近了。例如，他们的芯片技术将很快赶上美国，并在未来十年内超越美国。确保我们保持竞争力的唯一方法是竞争，变得更好。

What we are doing now is closing off competition and just dumping money into large corporation’s pockets, much of which will really just enrich that small group of people. It won’t make us competitive. It will, however, force China to be even more competitive because to them it is a matter of survival, not merely a protectionist stance.

我们现在正在做的是关闭竞争，只是把钱扔进大公司的口袋，其中大部分实际上只会让那一小群人致富。它不会让我们有竞争力。然而，这将迫使中国更具竞争力，因为对他们而言，这是生存问题，而不仅仅是保护主义立场。

We already know what we have to do, we just decided we’re not going to do it. Saying China is a threat here is rather very silly when we’re choosing to cede competitiveness to them. That’s our choice.

我们已经知道我们必须做什么，只是决定不去做。当我们选择将竞争力让给他们时，说中国在这里是一个威胁是相当愚蠢的。那是我们的选择。

So where does that leave us for threats. The military?

那么，这会给我们留下什么威胁。军队？

Ok, the US government likes to make claims about how everyone and their grandmother is a threat to America. Is China waging wars anywhere, and are they doing anything that would make us believe they are a threat, besides having a large military?

好吧，美国政府喜欢宣称每个人和他们的祖母是如何对美国构成威胁的。中国是否在任何地方发动战争，除了拥有庞大的军队之外，他们是否正在做任何让我们相信他们是威胁的事情？

Let’s be realistic, and not bring up fishing boats as an example of China’s “aggression” in a hotly contested area of the world (South China Seas) by half a dozen claimants. Fishing boats and fist fights in a ravine are not realistic or good examples of how you would assess someone’s threat to your world order. That’s just not competent risk assessment.

让我们现实一点，不要拿渔船作为中国在世界上有六个声索国的激烈争夺地区（南中国海）“qinlue”的例子。渔船和峡谷中的拳打脚踢不是现实的，也不是您如何评估某人对您的世界秩序的威胁的好例子。那只是不合格的风险评估。