美国为什么会严重低估中国成为超级大国的潜力？他们现在是否仍然在低估中国？ [美国媒体]

Why did the USA underestimate China's potential as a superpower so much? Are they still currently underestimated?

美国为什么会严重低估中国成为超级大国的潜力？他们现在是否仍然在低估中国？



Anonymous
Because for US, China position should be:
1、GDP around Italy or Spain (low on GDP per capita)
2、Sweatshop and child worker everywhere
3、People still using bicycle
4、Only privilege few can buy cars and go vacation overseas
5、Just have few highway and port is over capacity
6、Smart phone is luxury
7、Slums at every cities
8、City infrastructure horrible and overcapacity
9、Hong Kong economy percentage is more or less same when UK handover
10、West, through NGO and charities give speech and lectured how to build modern cities, the importance of education, etc
11、Internet, what kind of food is that?? Is it delicious??
12、Superpower? Your people just barely eat. You just lucky to have nuclear arsenal
Every 2–3 years I always go to China to attend Exhibition. And i always go to some companies at outskirt / urban area. And every time I go, Always something new along the way. Highway, wider road, more amenities, new city center, new subway line, etc
That’s something US can’t comprehend, how a country can changed so rapidly so they just think it was lied or propaganda and underestimate China potential

因为对美国来说，中国的地位应该是：
1、GDP和意大利或西班牙差不多 （人均GDP更低低）
2、到处都是血汗工厂和童工
3、人们还在靠自行车出行
4、只有少数人才有特权买车和出国度假
5、只有很少的高速公路，并且港口是超负荷的
6、智能手机是奢侈品

7、所有城市都有贫民窟
8、城市基础设施糟糕，并且被过度使用
9、香港经济在全国经济中的占比与被英国移交时大致相当
10、西方，通过非政府组织和慈善机构向中国发表演讲，讲述如何建设现代城市，教育的重要性等等
11、网络，那是什么食物？？好吃吗？？
12、超级大国？你们的人民几乎食不果腹。你们有核武库是因为运气好

每两到三年我都会去中国参加展览。我经常去郊区/市区的一些公司。每次我去的时候，总会出现一些新的东西。高速公路、更宽的道路、更多的便利设施、新的城市中心、新的地铁线路等等
这是美国无法理解的事情：一个国家怎么能如此迅速地发生改变？以至于他们认为这是谎言或宣传，从而低估了中国的潜力

Norman Tan
I don't think the US has ever underestimated China. What happened was that US politicians thought that by helping China to grow its economy, it will become more compliant to Western interests.
The theory was, as China open and develop its economy with the help of the West, through investments and WTO membership, it will grow to become more aligned with Western interests.
They had hoped that a more prosperous and liberal China will be a more friendly and compliant state. One that will gradually adopt Western values.
The ultimate goal was to see a stable China that becomes an engine to drive the world economy and one that accepts and does not challenge US dominated global order.
It kinda happened that way for a while. China in the 1980’s and 1990’s opened up its market to Western investment. A lot of Western corporations made, and are still making, a lot of money in China using cheap Chinese labor. China did become an engine that drives the global economy. It also became more integrated into the world economic and political system.
And China during those times was more submissive and didn't attempt to challenge the US militarily. When the US bombed Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1991, China couldn't do much more than bitterly protest. The US claimed that it was a mistake due to an outdated map, but it wad the only bombing mission ordered by the CIA in the whole campaign. The US military planes also regularly flew spy planes very close to Chinese airspace. In 2001, a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese pilot died and the US spy plane had to make an embarrassing emergency landing on Chinese soil. Again, the Chinese couldn't do much about it.
Then 9/11 happened and the West became mired in the Global War on Terrorism ™ for the next decade. And in the middle of that we also had the financial crisis of 2008. So China kinda went under the radar for almost two decades and they kept building up their strength.
And unfortunately, for the West, it seems that the theory was wrong after all as the stronger China becomes, the more determined it gets to resist Western domination. Instead of becoming a friendly and submissive, it grows to be more independent and assertive.
It has acted on its claims on the South China Seas, it launched the OBOR imitative, invested heavily in places that the US has minimum presence like Africa, and even within traditional US sphere of influence like Latin America. And now the US is panicking over the Made in China 2025 imitative.
So I don't think the US has underestimated China. I think it's more about how the US overestimated the strength of its own soft power to shape China into a compliant actor.
US politicians thought that by supporting China gain entry into the WTO, open up its economy and labor market, it will develop into a state that will be more friendly and non threatening to US domination. They thought that as China grows to be more prosperous economically, it would not be able to resist Western values and leadership. They thought Western values have universal appeal.

我不认为美国低估了中国。真正的情况是美国政界人士过去认为，通过帮助中国发展经济，中国将变得更加顺从西方利益。
其理论是，随着中国在西方的帮助下开放和发展经济，通过投资和加入世贸组织，中国将变得更加符合西方利益。
他们过去希望一个更加繁荣和自由的中国会成为一个更加友好和顺从的国家。一个逐渐接受西方价值观的国家。

最终的目标是看到一个稳定的、成为推动世界经济的引擎的、接受并且不会挑战美国所主导的全球秩序的中国。
符合上述预期的情况持续了一段时间。中国在20世纪80年代和90年代向西方投资开放了国内市场。许多西方公司利用廉价的中国劳动力在中国赚了很多钱，现在仍然在赚。中国确实成为了推动全球经济的引擎。它也更加融入进了世界经济和政治体系。



Si Chen, lives in Edmonds, Washington 生活在华盛顿埃德蒙兹
Truman’s view of China and the Chinese set the tone of how Americans see China and its people, all the way to Obama and now Trump. Truman called us Chinese, ‘those little yellow bastards’. And Obama said openly in an Australian TV interview that he would not allow Chinese to have the same high living standards as Australians and Americans. They all underestimated China and thought that they could dictate what China had to do.
Actually it is not just the Americans. All other countries underestimated China. It is because none of them know much about China. They do not pay attention during History lessons. They all failed to realized that China had been for Centuries the World’s most advanced and powerful, economically and militarily, state. And it has over 5,000 years of civilisation, and trial and error.
An example of America’s shortsightedness happened in 1995 when our daughter was in Junior High School. I talked to the School Principal about the lack of Chinese lessons. His reply was that they had Japanese lessons but no Chinese lessons because China was not that important yet. I said to him that China had a quarter of the World’s population and that was not important.
Most of the Government’s so called China Expert and Advisors have never been to China and do not know Chinese. They do not know how Chinese think and do business. One of those advisors and experts that they all loved is a native Chinese called Gordon Chang who emigrated to the US at a young age and educated entirely in the US with PhD etc. He makes a living as a Chinese Expert by predicting China’s collapse every year starting 17 (?) years ago. I sometimes wonder whether he was actually someone China put into the US to create the wrong impression.
Because China was so weak and poor before and right after WW2, most of the world would not entertain the idea that China would have reached such an advanced stage in a matter of just 30 years. The World would think that if even a small country like Japan could invade and occupy half of China, there was no way that China could become strong as it were today. So, it is not just the Americans, I venture to say that practically everyone in the world except the Chinese ourselves and a few real China experts who have lived among us, underestimated us. Even among ourselves there are a lot of doubters but that is another story.

杜鲁门对中国和中国人的看法为美国人如何看待中国和中国人奠定了基调，这种看法一路传承知道奥巴马，现在是特朗普。杜鲁门称我们中国人为“那些黄色的小杂种”。奥巴马在接受澳大利亚电视台采访时公开表示，他不会允许中国人拥有与澳大利亚人和美国人一样高的生活水平。他们都低估了中国，并认为他们能指挥中国必须怎么做。

实际上不只是美国人。所有其他国家都低估了中国。因为他们都不太了解中国。他们没学好历史课。他们都没有意识到，几个世纪以来，中国一直是世界上在经济和军事方面最先进、最强大的国家。它有超过5000年的文明史，以及成败经验。

美国短视的一个案例发生在1995年，当时我们的女儿还在上初中。我和校长谈了缺乏中文课的问题。他的回答是，他们开设了日语课，但没有汉语课，因为中国（在当时）还没那么重要。我对他说，中国有世界四分之一的人口，它当前的表现并不重要（它总有一天会重要起来的）。

政府里的大多数所谓中国专家和顾问从未到过中国，也不懂中文。他们不知道中国人是如何思考和做生意的。其中一个他们都喜欢的顾问和专家叫做章家敦，他在年轻时就移民到了美国，完全就是在美国接受教育并获得博士学位的。他以“中国问题专家”的身份谋生，从大约17年前起就每年都预测中国会崩溃。我有时想知道，他是不是中国为了忽悠美国而派到美国来的。

因为在二战前后，中国是如此的弱小和贫穷，世界上大多数国家都不会相信中国会在短短30年内就发展到如此先进的水平。世界会认为，即使是像日本这样的小国也能入侵并占领中国的一半，因此中国不可能变得像今天这样强大。所以，不仅仅是美国人，我敢说，世界上几乎所有人，除了中国人自己和一些真正的中国专家，都低估了我们。甚至在我们中国人当中也有很多怀疑者，但那是另一回事了。



Sunny Dimalu
30 years back china was a dirt poor nobody thought that could go this far . we can see you are lying here China started to become a big player in early 2000’s.
Now China is on par or leading in almost everything with usa. They were behind in making fighter jets but they are catching there too with Chengdu j-20 and shengyong-31 they have shown they will soon be manufacturing stealth fighters too.
END OF UNIPOLARITY Yankees get used of it now

30年前，中国是一个非常贫穷的国家，没有人想到中国能走到今天这一步。我们能看出你在这里扯淡，中国在21世纪初开始成为一个大玩家。
今天的中国在几乎所有领域都与美国并驾齐驱。他们曾经在战斗机制造方面落后，但他们也在追赶——成飞的歼-20和沈飞的歼-31。他们已经表明，他们很快也会制造隐形战斗机（译注：可能指轰炸机吧，写错了）。
单极世界已经终结，扬基佬们学会习惯吧

William Shalhoub
Their military is decades behind the US. Even China knows that.

他们的军事落后美国几十年。就连中国也知道这一点。



Joseph Wang, studied at Ph.D Astronomy UT Austin, Physics MIT 在麻省理工大学奥斯汀分校攻读天文学博士学位
Depends on who. There are some American leaders who have taken a very far sighted view of the world. Like Richard Nixon.
The problem was that after the fall of the Soviet unx, a lot of people assumed liberal democracy had won, and that China was doomed.
The Opening of China » Richard Nixon Foundation——
But the reason why it has to be done — aside from Southeast Asia on which I won’t speculate — is that they are one-fourth of the world’s population. They’re not a military power now but in 25 years, they will be decisive. For us to not do now what we can do to end this isolation would leave things very dangerous. Even a total detente with the Soviets would mean nothing if the third power was isolated.
What does our moving do? It doesn't at all mean that we're with them. It means a dialogue, that's all. Looking to the future, the world will not be worth living in if we can't get the great potential explosive forces under control.
So it's not because we have illusions are euphoric. It's ironic that I'm the President who is the last euphoric about relations with the Communist countries. This isn't from hardline prejudice but from experience; I know that pleasant smiles and small talk about our grandchildren won't solve problems. Where vital interests are involved, great powers consult their vital interests -- or else they're played for suckers by those powers that do. But interests may coincide.
It's traumatic for both sides. We are talking this step not for the next year or the next four years, but for the next twenty. It may make the world a little safer.

这和领导人有关。有些美国领导人对世界的看法就很有远见。像理查德·尼克松。
问题在于，在苏联解体后，许多人以为自由民主赢得了胜利，而中国注定要GG。
节选自尼克松《中国的开放》——

“但必须这么做（与中国交流）的原因在于——除了东南亚（我不愿对此进行猜测）——他们占据了世界人口的四分之一。他们现在不是军事强国，但25年后，他们将成为决定性的军事力量。对我们来说，如果现在不尽我们所能来终结这种孤立，将会使事情变得非常危险。如果第三大国被孤立了，那么即使完全终结了与苏联的对抗也毫无意义。

我们的行动发挥了何种作用？这并不意味着我们和他们在一起。这意味着对话，仅此而已。展望未来，如果我们无法控制住巨大的潜在爆炸力量，那么这个世界也就没有了生存的价值。

所以这并不是因为我们有欣快的幻觉。讽刺的是，我是最后一个对与GC主义国家的关系感到欢欣鼓舞的总统。这不是来自强硬的偏见，而是来自经验；我知道愉快的微笑和关于我们孙子的闲聊不会解决问题。当涉及到重大利益时，大国就会就它们的重大利益进行磋商——否则，它们就会被那些有利害关系的大国玩弄于股掌之间。但利益可能是一致的。
这对双方都是创伤。我们讨论的这一举措不是为了下一年或四年，而是为了下一个20年。它可能会让世界更安全一点。”



Hal Liu
I wish people pay more attention to study all the rich previous , and also ancient , history , cultures , and writings around world .
Don’t focus just on very short period of wishes around our own life .
The finite existence of humanity on this planet depends on entire human destiny .

我希望人们能更多地关注世界各地丰富的历史、文化和着作。
不要只关注我们生活中短暂的愿望。
人类在这个星球上的有限存在取决于整个人类的命运。

Jerry Mc Kenna, I have voted in the US since 1972 自1972年以来，我一直在美国投票
I think the US was surprised at how quickly China moved from very little to growing economic and military power.
I do think that the US has looked at China through a lens of ideology. It will both worry about China’s developing powr and seem surprised when China uses its power. For example I’ve been hearing US politicians worry about China developing a ‘blue water navy’, yet show surprise about China’s actions in the South China Sea. What is China developing military power for if it won’t use it?
We need to look at China obxtively. China was never going to become a close ally of the US. China’s goal is to become a leading power. The concept ‘superpower’, is outdated. The US has had problems projecting power in the Middle East in part because it doesn’t seem to understand that. China doesn’t have a set of natural allies as the US did after WWII. So, China won’t become the kind of superpower that the US became. The world will be different in the future.

我认为美国对中国经济和军事实力的迅速增长感到惊讶。
我确实认为，美国是通过意识形态的视角看待中国的。它既会担心中国正在成长的实力，也会对中国使用其实力感到惊讶。例如，我一直听到美国政界人士担心中国发展“蓝水海军”，但又对中国在南中国海的行动表示惊讶。如果中国不使用军事力量，那它发展军事力量的目的何在呢？

我们需要客观地看待中国。中国永远不会成为美国的亲密盟友。中国的目标是成为一个领袖强国。“超级大国”的概念已经过时了。美国在中东投射实力方面存在问题，部分原因就在于它似乎不明白这一点。中国不像二战后的美国那样拥有一套天然盟友。因此，中国不会成为美国那样的超级大国。未来的世界将会不同。



Chin Koon Siang, former Consultant 前顾问
Actually very simple. Most Americans hasn't been to China and if they did, it was only to a few places. They therefore, view China through their own frxwork and when that happens, all the numbers don’t add up and the conclusions are totally different from reality in China. Take for example when the stock market drops. In US, the public and the government shows great concern as it is a barometer of the economy. But in China, it’s almost inconsequential as the stock market is like a casino and has little bearing or effect on the economy. So when the stock market drops in China, to the US, it’s an indication of a bad performing economy but nothing is further from the truth. So back to the original question, because US is still stuck by the cold war frxwork, they would have little appreciation of China’s potential and how far they have come and much more to go

其实很简单。大多数美国人没有去过中国，即使他们去过，也只是去了几个地方而已。因此，他们通过自己的框架来看待中国，当这种情况发生时，没有把所有的数字都加起来，得出的结论也就与中国的实际情况完全不同。以股市下跌为例。在美国，公众和政府表现出极大的关注，因为它是经济的晴雨表。但在中国，这几乎是无关紧要的，因为股市就像一个赌场，对经济几乎没有影响。因此，当中国股市下跌时，对美国来说，这是经济表现不佳的迹象，但事实并非如此。所以回到最初的问题上，因为美国仍然被冷战框架所困，他们对中国的潜力、对他们已经走了多远，以及还要走多远没有什么认识

Wayne Yu, Art of Healing, Technology Innovator, Father 愈合的艺术，技术创新者，父亲
To answer that question, one really has to be introspective and the answer may not please many Americans. One word, lack of foresight and understanding. As much as Americans like to think the US knows it all and is the greatest leader on this planet. Fact is, the number of policy mistakes and shortsighted actions are astounding. From Vietnam war to inaction over climate change. One can’t but to conclude that there’s some absolute arrogance and rock heads in the leadership and political system.

要回答这个问题，一个人必须真地自我反省，并且答案可能不会让很多美国人满意。一句话：缺乏远见和理解。就像美国人认为美国知道一切，并且是这个星球上最伟大的领袖一样。事实是，其政策失误和短视行为的数量令人震惊。从越南战争到对气候变化的不作为。人们不得不得出这样的结论：在领导和政治体系中存在着某种绝对的傲慢和顽固。



Kris Widla
I do not think that USA underestimates China.
It was Trump.
Most of US intelligence people have already knew what is going on in China, how powerful it has become, and what it is doing to continue to grow in power.

我不认为美国低估了中国。
是特朗普低估了中国。
我们大多数的情报人员已经知道中国正在发生什么，它变得多么强大，以及它正在做什么来继续增强力量。

Mark Marley, studied at Tamkang University 曾就读于淡江大学
Inevitable. Chinese are more hardworking and 4 times USA population. Unless American produce like rabbits.

这是不可避免的。中国人更勤奋，而且是美国人口的4倍。除非美国人像兔子一样生产。



JIasheng Xu
It’s “unable to understand” rather than “underestimate”.
China has never experience anything like “change in thought” about the west since its opening and reform in 1978.
It’s not China is too smart, it’s just the west is too stupid because of its monotheism tradition which tends to be always with child-like mentality.
Things like “The End of history” could only happen in the west.

应该是“无法理解”而不是“低估”。
自1978年改革开放以来，中国从未经历过与西方有关的“思想变革”。
不是中国太聪明了，而是西方太笨了，因为它的一神论传统总是带有孩子般的心态。
像“历史的终结”这样的事情只会发生在西方。