In Washington, a decade of rancorous polarization just gave us the longest ever government shutdown. But one belief has endured on both sides of the aisle: that the world order, built and led by the United States, is under threat from China, which aims to usurp America’s rightful place atop it.

在华盛顿，长达十年的激烈政治两极化刚刚导致了美国历史上最长的政府停摆。但两党却存在一个罕见的共识：由美国建立并主导的世界秩序正面临中国的威胁，中国意图取代美国在全球的正当领导地位。

There’s a phrase that encapsulates the theory: the Thucydides trap, referring to the violent clash that comes when a rising power challenges the ruling hegemon. In Thucydides’ time, it was Athens that successfully challenged the pre-eminence of Sparta. But it is a pattern that has played out repeatedly through history, with the ambition and aggression of the challenger almost always ending in bloodshed.

有一个词精准概括了这一论调——修昔底德陷阱，特指新兴大国挑战现存霸权国时引发的激烈冲突。在修昔底德所处的时代，是雅典成功挑战了斯巴达的霸主地位。而这一模式在历史上反复上演，新兴大国的野心与扩张几乎无一例外以流血冲突收场。

President Trump’s second term has upended this assumption. With its litany of chaos, the administration has pursued all on its own a root-and-branch destruction of the global order America made — threatening invasions, deploying punitive tariffs indiscriminately and all but abandoning longstanding alliances. China, by contrast, has responded mostly with a steely insistence on the status quo. In a startling reversal, it is America, not China, that seems determined to spring Thucydides’ trap. At the world’s summit, America is overthrowing America.

特朗普的第二任期彻底颠覆了这一预设。在一片混乱中，本届政府单方面对美国亲手建立的全球秩序展开了彻底破坏——威胁发动侵略、滥用惩罚性关税、近乎抛弃长期盟友。相比之下，中国的回应大多是坚定维护现状。局势出现惊人逆转：如今执意触发修昔底德陷阱的，似乎是美国而非中国。在世界之巅，美国正在自我颠覆。

The bipartisan consensus, now showing signs of strain, was built on a misreading of China’s intentions. That, at least, is the argument of a provocative paper published recently in the M.I.T. journal International Security by three East Asia scholars. “China is a status quo power concerned with regime stability,” the authors write, “and it remains more inwardly focused than externally oriented.”

两党此前的这一共识如今已显露裂痕，而这一共识本身建立在对中国意图的误读之上。至少，三位东亚问题学者近期发表在麻省理工学院《国际安全》(International Security)期刊上的一篇颇具争议的论文是这样认为的。作者写道：“中国是一个关注政权稳定、维护现状的大国，其对内政策重心远高于对外战略诉求。”

This cleareyed analysis was based on an examination of a vast corpus of Chinese documents and publications, from official speeches to school curriculums. The conclusions were striking. China’s stated territorial concerns, the authors found, do not extend beyond its long-held claim to Taiwan and relatively small border areas. “China’s aims are unambiguous; China’s aims are enduring; and China’s aims are limited,” they write.

这一清醒的分析基于对海量中国文献资料的深入研究，涵盖官方讲话、学校课程等各类文本。研究结论令人瞩目：作者发现，中国公开宣称的领土关切从未超出其长期主张的台湾地区及相对狭小的边境地带。“中国的目标明确无误；中国的目标持久不变；中国的目标是有限的，”他们写道。

Much of China’s foreign policy, rather than exporting its ideology abroad, is aimed at shoring up the power of the Communist Party at home. What outside observers take to be aggressive moves are often aimed at solving internal problems. Take its Belt and Road Initiative, which some see as a quasi-imperial effort to win the loyalty of developing nations. One of the paper’s authors, Zenobia Chan, a scholar of international relations who teaches at Georgetown University, said that the initiative was driven more by internal considerations than global ambition.

中国的大部分外交政策并非向外输出意识形态，而是旨在巩固执政党在国内的执政根基。外界眼中所谓的激进举措，往往是为解决国内问题而采取的行动。以“一带一路”倡议为例，一些人将其视为中国通过准帝国主义手段争取发展中国家支持的举措。但论文作者之一、乔治敦大学国际关系学者泽诺比亚·陈（音）表示，该倡议的背后更多是国内考量，而非全球野心。

“A lot of it is driven by domestic needs, excess industrial capacity after the global financial crisis,” she told me. China has for the most part not sought to use these investments as leverage for its global ambitions, she added, beyond its longstanding demand that its partners adhere to a One China policy and avoid recognizing the independence of Taiwan. It certainly has not asked developing nations to choose between itself and the United States.

“这在很大程度上是受国内需求推动的，全球金融危机后，中国出现了严重的工业产能过剩，”她告诉我。她还说，除了长期坚持要求合作方恪守一个中国政策、不承认台湾独立外，中国基本上并未将这些海外投资用作实现全球野心的杠杆，更没有强迫发展中国家在美国和中国之间选边站队。

China, to be sure, is hardly a virtuous or even benign actor on the global stage. Its aggression in the South China Sea, vicious repression in Xinjiang, crackdown on Hong Kong and implacable desire to claim Taiwan — no matter what the Taiwanese people want — pose serious challenges to peace and order in Asia and challenge basic principles of human rights. Its escalating diplomatic spat with Japan, suspending seafood imports and advising Chinese citizens to avoid travel there, demonstrates China’s capacity for menace.

当然，中国在全球舞台上绝非高尚甚至善意的角色。其在南海的强硬姿态、在新疆的残酷镇压、对香港的整治行动，以及不顾台湾民众意愿、执意要吞并台湾的顽固诉求，都对亚洲的和平稳定构成了严峻挑战，也违背了基本人权原则。近期中国与日本的外交争端升级——暂停日本海鲜进口并建议中国公民避免赴日旅游——更是彰显了中国的施压能力。

But these actions, however brutal, fall far short of a fundamental reordering of the world. China seems to be asserting what it views as historical claims and domestic prerogatives within the existing system, bending the rules in ways the United States, especially under Trump, is hardly in a position to protest. The distinction matters: A power defending the status quo, even aggressively, poses different challenges than one seeking to remake the world in its image.

但无论这些行为多么残酷，都远未达到重构世界秩序的程度。中国似乎只是在现有体系内维护自身认为的历史诉求和内政主权，以一种美国（尤其是在特朗普执政时期）几乎没有资格指责的方式曲解规则。这一区别至关重要：一个即便手段强硬但以维护现状为目的的大国，还是一个试图按自身形象重塑世界的大国，这两者所构成的挑战有着本质不同。

It may be outmoded, in any case, to think of a single power superintending the world. “It is not simply that the United States is in relative decline, or even that China is rising, but rather that compared with earlier decades, power is held more widely and by a variety of powers in different regions,” Emma Ashford writes in her bracing new book, “First Among Equals.” “The United States and China are ahead of the pack, but by far less than their Cold War counterparts.” Multipolar complexity, not bipolar confrontation, is the future.

无论如何，认为全球应由单一霸权国主导的想法或许早已过时。“这并非单纯的美国相对衰落或中国崛起，而是相较于前几十年，权力分布更加广泛，由不同地区的多个大国共同掌握，”艾玛·阿什福德在其发人深省的新书《群雄之首》(First Among Equals)中写道。“美国和中国虽领先于其他国家，但领先优势远不及冷战时期的两个超级大国。”多极格局下的复杂平衡而非两极对峙才是未来的趋势。

Trump, it’s fair to say, is not responding well to this reality. Of his wild threats, the recent one suggesting military action against Nigeria — on the grounds that it “continues to allow the killing of Christians” — is perhaps the most symptomatic of his frustration. The United States, of course, has always played by its own set of rules. But Trump has abandoned even a fig leaf of fealty to principle. “It’s one thing to say: There’s some rules of international law that don’t apply to us,” the political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta told me. “It’s another thing to say: I really don’t care what international law is.”

可以说，特朗普并未妥善应对这一现实。在他一系列疯狂威胁中，近期以“持续纵容杀害基督徒”为由扬言对尼日利亚动武的言论或许最能体现他的挫败感。美国向来按自己的规则行事，但特朗普甚至抛弃了表面上对原则的尊重。政治学家普拉塔普·巴努·梅塔对我说：“声称‘某些国际法规则不适用于我们’是一回事，而宣称‘我根本不在乎国际法是什么’则是另一回事。”

Trump or no, the military adventurism of the past two decades has become an unmistakable sign of decline. “If we’re having to maintain primacy by invading this country that’s not posing a threat to us and launching a global campaign of antiterror, clearly, we’re on the decline,” Van Jackson, a progressive foreign policy scholar and an author of “The Rivalry Peril,” told me. “It has always been the case in these cycles of history that when the dominant power starts investing and playing this military role globally, you have rising powers who are stepping up, playing a more important economic role globally.”

无论有没有特朗普，过去20年的军事冒险主义都已成为美国衰落的明显标志。“如果我们必须通过入侵这个并未对我们构成威胁的国家、发动全球反恐战争来维持霸权，那显然我们正在走下坡路，”进步派外交政策学者、《对抗危机》(The Rivalry Peril)作者范·杰克逊指出。“历史周期反复证明，当主导大国开始在全球范围内投入资源，扮演这种军事角色的时候，新兴大国就会崛起，在全球经济中发挥更重要的作用。”

History is littered with examples of the dangers of aggression for declining powers — Spain’s crusading military folly in the 16th century, the late Ottoman Empire’s embrace of ethnic nationalism, Britain’s vain attempt to cling to its unsustainable imperial position between the world wars. Each ended the same way: an astonishingly rapid loss of power and prestige on the global stage.

历史上不乏衰落大国因侵略扩张而覆灭的案例：16世纪西班牙军事圣战式愚行、奥斯曼帝国晚期对民族主义的追捧、两次世界大战之间英国维系摇摇欲坠的帝国地位的无谓尝试。这些案例的结局如出一辙：在全球舞台上迅速丧失权力与声望。

This might not be exactly what’s happening. For all Trump’s threats of military action abroad, with the exception of the brief airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and the bombing of small boats in the Caribbean, he seems most interested in deploying the military to police American citizens. In part, this may be training troops — as he told the military brass — for adventures abroad. But it’s hard not to think that waging battles against people who live in Democrat-governed cities is an end in itself.

当下的局势或许并非完全如此。尽管特朗普频频威胁在海外采取军事行动，但除了对伊朗核设施发动短暂空袭、轰炸加勒比海小型船只外，他似乎更热衷于动用军队管控美国公民。正如他对军方高层所言，这在一定程度上可能是为海外军事冒险练兵。但人们很难不认为，对民主党执政城市的居民发动战争本身也是一个目标。

Likewise, Trump’s aggressive tariff warfare has less to do with the world than it seems. The volley was supposedly about leveling the playing field with countries that are “ripping off” America and punishing countries whose policies harm Americans. (Fentanyl is a prime example.) But the recent Supreme Court arguments over Trump’s use of tariffs made clear that these levies raise cash mostly from Americans, bypassing the constitutional power of the purse vested in Congress. The tariffs, in short, looked global but hit locally.

同样，特朗普激进的关税战与世界关系远不如表面看起来那么密切。这场关税战表面上是为了与那些“欺诈”美国的国家公平竞争，惩罚那些政策损害美国利益的国家（芬太尼问题就是典型例子）。但近期最高法院就特朗普关税政策展开的辩论明确显示，这些关税的成本大多由美国民众承担，同时还绕过了宪法赋予国会的财政决策权。简而言之，这场关税战看似针对全球，实则伤害的是本国。

This leads to an irresistible irony. Far from beating back China, America under Trump may come to resemble it. The country is on its way: obsessed with regime stability and willing to use almost any means to keep its people under control; jealously guarding its near periphery while remaining largely uninterested in leading the world; and building a cult of personality around its autocratic leader in an atmosphere of ethnonationalist triumphalism.

这就形成了一种难以抗拒的讽刺：特朗普政府领导下的美国，非但没有遏制中国，反而可能变得越来越像中国。美国正朝着这个方向发展：痴迷于政权稳定，不惜动用一切手段管控民众；小心翼翼地守护周边势力范围，却对领导全球毫无兴趣；在民族主义的狂热氛围中，围绕专制领导人塑造个人崇拜。

Trump, despite his vituperative campaign rhetoric, has never really been a China hawk, even if some around him have led the charge for more aggressive policies to blunt China’s might. Indeed, he has often lavished praise on Xi Jinping, a man who has the kind of virtually limitless power Trump clearly craves. “President Xi is a great leader of a great country,” Trump cooed at their meeting in South Korea last month.

尽管特朗普在竞选时言辞激烈地抨击中国，但他从未真正成为对华强硬派，即便其身边部分人士一直主张采取更激进的政策遏制中国崛起。事实上，他常常对习近平主席大加赞赏，习近平所拥有的那种近乎不受限制的权力正是特朗普梦寐以求的。“习主席是一个伟大国家的伟大领导人，”上月在韩国会晤时，特朗普曾这样献殷勤。

This praise comes as the United States is retreating from the multilateral bodies that it helped create — the United Nations, the World Health Organization and more. As for the Group of 20 meeting starting this weekend in South Africa, Trump announced months ago that he would not attend and would dispatch Vice President JD Vance instead. Vance has played the role of finger-wagging attack dog, lecturing Europeans about free speech and dressing down President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. One can only imagine what he might have said in Johannesburg.

特朗普的赞美发生在美国接连退出自己协助创立的多边机构（联合国、世界卫生组织等）之际。至于本周末在南非召开的二十国集团峰会，特朗普数月前就宣布不会出席，派遣副总统万斯代为参会。万斯在此前的国际场合一直扮演着严厉批评者的角色，说教欧洲国家要维护言论自由，还当面斥责乌克兰总统泽连斯基。不难想象，他若在约翰内斯堡参会，又会发表怎样的言论。

But we will never know, because Trump abruptly announced this month that the United States would boycott the meeting entirely, preposterously claiming that white South Africans were the victims of persecution and genocidal violence at the hands of the country’s Black majority. “No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue,” Trump wrote on social media. Then on Thursday, the administration changed course again, asking to send a small, low-level delegation after all, though it would not participate in the summit discussions.

但我们永远无从知晓了，因为特朗普本月突然宣布美国将全面抵制此次峰会，还荒谬地声称南非白人正遭受黑人多数群体的迫害和种族灭绝式暴力。“只要这些侵犯人权的行为持续下去，美国政府官员就不会出席峰会，”特朗普在社交媒体上写道。然而在周四，美国政府又突然改口，表示派遣一支规模小、级别低的代表团参会，但该代表团不会参与峰会讨论。

China is playing a much longer and more sophisticated game. Premier Li Qiang, Xi’s top emissary, will be in Johannesburg, accompanied by a vast retinue of officials, ready to talk with the world’s major economies about the problems and possibilities of the emerging multipolar order.

中国则在进行一场更具长远眼光、更精妙的博弈。作为习近平主席的首席特使，中国总理李强将率领庞大的官员代表团出席约翰内斯堡峰会，准备与全球主要经济体探讨新兴多极秩序下的挑战与机遇。

As its primacy fades, the United States now faces a choice: meet rising nations as respected partners in building a new, more equitable multipolar world or seek the costly, brittle power that comes from domination. Trump has chosen the latter; China, it seems, seeks the former. History tells us which path leads to peace and prosperity, and which is the road to ruin.

随着美国的霸权地位日渐衰落，如今它面临着一个抉择：要么以受尊重的伙伴身份，与新兴国家携手构建一个更公平的新型多极世界；要么执意追求通过霸权统治获得的、代价高昂且脆弱不堪的权力。特朗普选择了后者，而中国似乎选择了前者。哪条道路通向和平与繁荣，哪条道路终将走向毁灭，历史已经告诉我们。