美国财长盖特纳本周到中国主要是希望中国加入美国阵营，减少对伊朗的石油依赖，参加美国发起的，没有联合国授权的对伊朗制裁。

   有的时候你真的不知道美国人的思维方式。因为就在一周前奥巴马总统和国防部长佩内塔公布的新的国防策略中明确表示要把新的重心放在亚太，而主要的目标是中国。

   想想看，上周把别人无缘无故说成敌人、对手，本周又求别人帮你，去抛弃自己的朋友和利益。中国是傻瓜吗，被你牵着鼻子走吗？你美国人可以做随时抛弃埃及穆巴拉克的不义之徒，中国人可不能过分不讲义气，不讲原则，被世人和祖宗耻笑。

    前天参加美国外交关系委员会的电话会议，那个Max Boot一如美国军事工业的代理人，把中国说成世界最大威胁。争辩美国应该继续独霸世界的空间和海洋，而不能有任何人提出挑战，一副霸道的专家样。而另一位Dick则有些争锋相对。我指出这样的好战论调只是对军方和充满民族主义情绪的人有利，对局势没有帮助。

   自从苏联解体，美国军事工业的代理人就觉得只有把中国描成敌人才是唯一可以继续维持巨额国防预算的手段。所以关于中国威胁的言论往往被夸大。

   同时在本周一的华尔街日报上，美国国际集团原负责人格林伯格撰文建议建立中美自由贸易区。这个大胆的提议对很多人来说如天方夜谭。但格林伯格认为谈自由贸易区只有好处，没有坏处。

   格林伯格90年就是上海市长国际企业家咨询会议的主席，当初拿到了外资保险公司第一家在中国营业的证书，我当时采访过他。到纽约后有在美国外交关系委员会上见他主持一些研讨会，是个有很高智慧的人。

   格林伯格为中美指的是一条合作之道，而美国国防修正案则是把冲突作为主题。

Path of cooperation over confrontation

By Chen Weihua

For the past week, I have seen Americans painting starkly different blueprints for relations between China and the United States.

On the one hand, Maurice Greenberg, chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co, wrote on the Wall Street Journal on Monday, arguing it’s time for a China-US Free Trade Agreement.

Greenberg also agrees that talks will not be easy and there will be numerous impasses. He believes that even if the two countries fail to reach an agreement on many issues, progress should be possible on some issues and that will create a better trade climate. He says that although negotiations may take up to 10 years, just the attempt to reach an agreement will have major benefits.

One major benefit he cites for the US is the possible Chinese direct investment in modernizing infrastructure in the US. “China does not have to invest here, but it is to our country’s advantage to have China invest here rather than in other countries,” he says.

Greenberg, the former chairman of American International Group (AIG), knows both countries well. He has made many trips to China and served as chairman of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai in 1990 and similar positions in China. I was deeply impressed by his wisdom whether interviewing him in Shanghai in the early 1990s or listening to him moderating talks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York the past two years.

What Greenberg has proposed is a bright path for strengthened cooperation between the two largest and complementary economies in the world. Despite the differences, China and the US must work together in the 21^st century to ensure peace and development. That will be a big boon not just for Chinese and Americans, but people all over the world.

On the other hand, messages released a week ago by US President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the new strategic review is quite disturbing. China has been singled out, along with Iran and North Korea, as a potential adversary as the US starts to shift its military plan to Asia-Pacific.

Without doubt this will be great news for the military industries, which are trying to secure more funding from the Congress and the government. After the Soviet Union dissolved, fear-mongering about China is probably the most effective way to keep the monstrous US military spending. Even Obama admitted that despite the $450 billion cuts in US defense spending over the next decade, the defense budget will continue to grow and be larger than the next 10 countries combined.

But other US experts, such as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Stephen Cheney and Joshua Foust of the American Security Project, have reminded people that the prospect of a major conflict with China is remote, and assuming one poses the danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Long-time US Congressman Barney Frank has dismissed the saying that China might block the South China Sea by saying that China’s economic prosperity depends on the free navigation in South China as much as anyone else.

Already, experts in Indonesia have cautioned their government not to take a stance that will be regarded as support for US policy in the Asia-Pacific.

I don’t think many Chinese have ever thought about military confrontation with the US. This is not just because US military superiority leaves China far behind. More importantly, any armed conflict will be disastrous for China, a nation which desperately needs peace and stability to develop trade and economy.

It seems that the one-week-old US strategic review should be reviewed again in order to correct the wrong and dangerous message.