On Dec. 2, the United States announced a new round of export controls on advanced semiconductors to China, and more restrictions are expected soon. It was among the final pieces in an enduring legacy of the Biden administration: a significant expansion in the scale and scope of restricting China’s access to technology.

去年12月2日，美国宣布了新一轮限制向中国出口先进半导体的管制，而且预期很快将出台更多限制。这是拜登政府持久政治遗产的最后部分之一：限制中国获取技术的规模和范围大幅扩大。

To explain this policy over the past two years, including this month’s announcement, the administration repeatedly turned to one metaphor: a small yard with a high fence. It means that sensitive technologies should be kept within a yard protected by a high fence of trade and investment controls. But the yard should be small, limited to a narrow set of advanced technologies with military applications, while broader commercial trade and investment with China would continue.

拜登政府反复使用“小院高墙”这个比喻来阐明过去两年里的政策，上月宣布限制措施时也用了这个说法。它的意思是，应该将敏感技术放进一个院子，用贸易和投资限制的高墙保护起来。但是这个院子应该很小，只涉及少数有军事用途的先进技术，同时，美中之间更广泛的商业贸易和投资仍将继续。

As the Biden administration enters its final days, the contradictions of this “small yard, high fence” strategy are piling up. It is an attempt to achieve two goals that are inherently in conflict — pursuing a fundamental shift in the geopolitics of technology competition without upending the global economic order. The administration is falling short on both of these objectives. When Donald Trump takes office, his foreign policy team is likely to take the technology control tools that the Biden team developed but was reluctant to employ broadly and to unleash them at full force, resulting in significant economic disruption. So much for that manicured small yard.

随着拜登政府进入最后阶段，“小院高墙”战略的矛盾之处正在增多。这个战略试图达到两个本质上相互冲突的目的：在不颠覆全球经济秩序的同时，推进技术竞争地缘政治的根本改变。拜登政府在达到这两个目标方面都做得不好。特朗普上任后，他的外交政策团队可能会采用由拜登团队启用，但又不愿广泛使用的技术控制工具，并全力释放这些工具，这将给经济造成显著的干扰。别再提那个精心设定范围的小院子了。

The idea behind the “small yard, high fence” strategy made sense at first and reflected the Biden administration’s attempt to balance competing pressures in its relationship with China: the need to maintain, as the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, put it, “as large of a lead as possible” over its primary strategic rival in foundational technology without severing all meaningful economic links.

“小院高墙”战略背后的想法最初曾说得通，它反映了拜登政府在处理美中关系时试图平衡相互矛盾的压力：用国家安全顾问沙利文的话说，要让美国在基本技术领域，保持对主要战略竞争对手“尽可能大的领先优势”，但又不切断全部有意义的经济联系。

This has proved to be exceedingly difficult. When the administration unveiled the first round of sweeping semiconductor export controls on China in October 2022, Alex W. Palmer in The Times described it as amounting to “a declaration of economic war.” And it came with sharp economic and diplomatic costs. U.S. tech companies worried that the high fence might shut them out from the Chinese market. U.S. allies in Europe and Asia shared some of Washington’s concerns about China’s military modernization program but were wary of making a sudden break with Beijing.

事实证明，这非常困难。2022年10月，拜登政府宣布了第一轮针对中国的半导体出口全面限制后，亚历克斯·帕尔默在时报发表的文章中将其描述为“经济战的宣战书”。它带来了巨大的经济和外交代价。美国的技术企业担心，高墙可能会将它们挡在中国市场之外。美国在欧洲和亚洲的盟友对中国的军事现代化项目有一些与华盛顿一样的担忧，但对与北京突然决裂持谨慎态度。

To ease those concerns, the Biden administration tried to be cautious and deliberate in introducing restrictions. Just a week after the semiconductor export controls were announced, Mr. Sullivan deployed the “small yard, high fence” metaphor to explain the administration’s approach. After that, “small yard, high fence” appeared time and again in talking points and news releases as the administration rolled out controls and restrictions on advanced technologies.

为了缓解盟友们的担忧，拜登政府试图在采取限制措施时小心谨慎。就在宣布半导体出口管制措施的一周后，沙利文在阐明政府政策时使用了“小院高墙”的比喻。那之后，随着拜登政府推出更多控制和限制先进技术出口的措施，“小院高墙”的说法一次又一次地出现在讲话的要点和发布的新闻中。

While the administration wanted to portray its approach as narrow and targeted, the reality was more complicated. The administration never defined which technologies would be within the boundaries of its small yard, in part because it’s difficult to predict what products might pose security risks in the future. This left the door open for expansions.

尽管拜登政府想把自己的做法描述为小范围的、有针对性的，但现实情况要复杂得多。政府从未定义哪些技术属于小院之内，部分原因是，很难预测哪些产品可能会在未来带来安全风险。这为扩大院子留下了空间。

And even if the number of restricted technologies was limited, their impact was not. Semiconductors and artificial intelligence are foundational technologies with wide-ranging applications, so the effect of blocking them on China’s economic and technological development will be substantial.

而且，即使受限制技术的数量有限，但限制技术的影响并非有限。半导体和人工智能是应用范围广泛的基础技术，限制它们对中国经济和技术发展的影响将是巨大的。

Over the past two years, the administration has released a series of new export controls, restrictions on outbound investments and limits on transferring data to China. Although each individual measure was narrow and tailored, the cumulative effect was far larger.

拜登政府在过去两年里出台了一系列新的出口管制和对华投资限制，以及向中国传输数据的限制。虽然每项措施都是小范围的和特定的，但累积效应要大得多。

The “small yard, high fence” framing did help win over some skeptical U.S. allies and partners, and that’s an important victory for the Biden team. Some of them even appropriated the metaphor. When Britain announced a review of its National Security and Investment Act in November 2023, it described the new approach as a “small garden, high fence.”

“小院高墙”的总想法确实有助于赢得一些持怀疑态度的美国盟友和伙伴的支持，这对拜登团队来说是一个重大胜利。美国的一些盟友甚至借用了这个比喻。英国在2023年11月宣布修订《国家安全与投资法》时，将新做法描述为“小花园、高篱笆”。

But the extent of cooperation with allies remained limited, in part because these governments did not fully trust the Biden administration’s promise to stay within self-imposed and undefined limits. Allies also worried that in the absence of effective legal guardrails, the policy tool kit the Biden administration was developing would one day be turned over to a less restrained U.S. administration that might greatly expand the yard. They are now looking apprehensively to the coming Trump presidency.

但美国与盟友的合作程度仍然有限​​，部分原因是，拜登政府承诺其措施不会超出由它自己设定、没有定义的界限，盟国政府并不完全信任这一承诺。盟友们也担心，在缺少有效法律护栏的情况下，拜登政府正在开发的政策工具会在某天移交给一个不那么克制的美国政府，院子的范围可能会大为扩展。它们现在正忐忑地观望着即将上任的特朗普总统。

China, of course, never bought the “small yard, high fence” idea. It does not accept the premise that national security technology controls are distinct from broader economic competition between the two powers, and it could see the wide-ranging implications of these supposedly narrow restrictions. The Biden administration’s attempts at reassurance did not dissuade China from responding with retaliatory measures, including this month’s announcement that China would block the export of certain critical minerals to the United States.

中国当然从未接受“小院高墙”的想法。它不接受国家安全技术限制有别于两个大国之间更广泛的经济竞争这一前提，也能看出这些所谓的小范围限制的广泛影响。拜登政府试图作出的保证并未阻止中国采取反制措施进行报复，包括上个月宣布的禁止向美国出口某些关键矿产品。

Mr. Trump, for his part, does not seek to separate economic and security competition and has shown little interest in minimizing disruption or cooperating with allies. His administration is poised to severely curtail trade and investment with China and pressure allies to do the same.

就特朗普而言，他不寻求将经济竞争与国家安全区分开来，没有多少兴趣尽量减少经济干扰或与盟友合作。他的政府准备严厉限制与中国的贸易和对华投资，并向盟友施压，要求它们也这样做。

Will Mr. Trump’s more confrontational approach work better? His team will need to tackle the same challenges that the Biden administration faced, including strengthening enforcement tools to crack down on smuggling and evasion and cajoling allies to introduce their own controls. And the Trump administration will eventually need an answer to just how far it intends to go in decoupling the U.S. economy from China and how much economic disruption it is willing to tolerate in the process. Despite its flaws, the “small yard, high fence” strategy served as a necessary brake. The Trump team will need some limiting principle of its own.

特朗普更具对抗性的做法会更有效吗？他的团队将需要应对拜登政府同样面临的挑战，包括加强打击走私和躲避出口管制的执法工具，以及说服盟友采取自己的限制措施。特朗普政府最终需要回答的问题是，它打算在多大程度上让美国经济与中国脱钩，以及在这个过程中愿意容忍多大程度的经济扰乱。尽管“小院高墙”战略存在缺点，但仍起了必要的约束作用。特朗普团队将需要制定一些自己的限制原则。