傳上 The New York Times 文章，不是文內有特別議題，
讀一次，是知識累積
【按：以的一篇「美國報導」，內容都確有其事，但用甚麼方式去解讀，在在反映美國「如何看待中國」。很典型，是「有趣」的，值得花時間一讀。感受一下美國傳媒及政府的心態。
請注意一些「詮釋」及「串連」事件的字眼。
從中一看，美國傳媒，而且是為數不少的傳媒人如何「扭橫折曲」、惡人先告狀 ←，注意，這是我們角度下的批評。於他們的美國角度，中國：野蠻、「樣衰」而惡搞！例如，中國對貿易及貨幣「不負責任」（美國不會提「量化寬鬆」──這是必須的）；中國軍方又整天「惡到死」兇巴巴地唬人（美國傳媒會認定黃海軍演、第一及二島鏈、甚至關島加碼都是必須的。是為了「參與國際事務」，負責任地維護世界平衡。／最新：希拉莉2010-10-28便在河內東盟鋒會說「美國沒有圍堵中國的政策」。有美國傳媒便說：令中國軍方不要緊張，是中國的責任）。美國政府已委屈地「忍」不講理的中國好久了。……
畢竟，世上不可能存在心中沒有國家利益的「國際人」。不同角度的背後，是國家利益的考慮。──由殖民地走過來，又未有空間做歷史清理及教育的部份香港人，也許，要認知，世界很難有廣泛範圍下的「國際公民」。如下文ＮＹＴ的記者，他不一定是「大壊蛋」；只是，他是徹頭徹尾從美國利益、大美國主義的角度來解讀中美關係而已。這，是他標準下的「客觀解讀」。
下文這一篇，已是較溫和的一篇了。其他？於自己是中國人而言，坦白說，多讀是心寒的，也有謎思。為何會有那麼多的「扭橫折曲」（打橫來講）、怨懟、敵意，心理不平衡的呢？！也明白的，畢竟，當中國不再是男人留長辮，女人扎腳，全民吸鴉片……西方世界、尤其是美國真的不習慣。那怕美國在可見的將來仍是宇宙最強。
另，近年從閱讀中深感，美國愈來愈「狹隘化」。美國連抽象層面的實力也在滑落。克魯明之外（克魯明的「經濟分析」，可以因配合奧巴馬政府而十天之內有完全不同的看法），本屆的諾貝爾經濟學得獎主彼得．戴蒙得（Peter Diamond），又做黨派的發聲器──談美國失業時，堂堂一個大學者，竟然說美國的失業不是結構性的（？！），是短期的供求問題；有跟美國新聞者一聽便知道，是曲筆撐「印銀紙」（美其名為「量化寬鬆」政策）。兩個諾貝爾獎得主都沒有學術堅持。得獎，卻不可信！】
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/world/asia/26china.html
Taking Harder Stance Toward China, Obama Lines Up Allies
By MARK LANDLER and SEWELL CHAN
Published: October 25, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, facing a confrontational relationship with China on exchange rates, trade and security issues, is stiffening its approach toward Beijing, seeking allies to confront a newly assertive power that officials now say has little intention of working with the United States.
In a shift from its assiduous one-on-one courtship of Beijing, the administration is trying to line up coalitions — among China’s next-door neighbors and far-flung trading partners — to present Chinese leaders with a unified front on thorny issues like the currency and their country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The advantages and limitations of this new approach were on display over the weekend at a meeting of the world’s largest economies in South Korea. The United States won support for a concrete pledge to reduce trade imbalances, which will put more pressure on China to allow its currency to rise in value.
But Germany, Italy and Russia balked at an American proposal to place numerical limits on these imbalances, a step that would have further isolated Beijing. That left the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to make an unscheduled stop in China on his way home from South Korea to discuss the deepening tensions over exchange rates with a top Chinese finance official.
Administration officials speak of an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the United States over the past two years, forcing them to scale back hopes of working with the Chinese on major challenges like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation and a new global economic order.
The latest source of tension is over reports that China is withholding shipments of rare-earth minerals, which the United States uses to make advanced equipment like guided missiles. Administration officials, clearly worried, said they did not know whether Beijing’s motivation was strategic or economic.
“This administration came in with one dominant idea: make China a global partner in facing global challenges,” said David Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. “China failed to step up and play that role. Now, they realize they’re dealing with an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country.”
To counter what some officials view as a surge of Chinese triumphalism, the United States is reinvigorating cold war alliances with Japan and South Korea, and shoring up its presence elsewhere in Asia. This week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit Vietnam for the second time in four months, to attend an East Asian summit meeting likely to be dominated by the China questions.
Next month, President Obama plans to tour four major Asian democracies — Japan, Indonesia, India and South Korea — while bypassing China. The itinerary is not meant as a snub: Mr. Obama has already been to Beijing once, and his visit to Indonesia has long been delayed. But the symbolism is not lost on administration officials.
Jeffrey A. Bader, a major China policy adviser in the White House, said China’s muscle-flexing became especially noticeable after the 2008 economic crisis, in part because Beijing’s faster rebound led to a “widespread judgment that the U.S. was a declining power and that China was a rising power.”
But the administration, he said, is determined “to effectively counteract that impression by renewing American leadership.”
Political factors at home have contributed to the administration’s tougher posture. With the economy sputtering and unemployment high, Beijing has become an all-purpose target. In this Congressional election season, candidates in at least 30 races are demonizing China as a threat to American jobs.
At a time of partisan paralysis in Congress, anger over China’s currency has been one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement, culminating in the House’s overwhelming vote in September to threaten China with tariffs on its exports if Beijing did not let its currency, the renminbi, appreciate.
The trouble is that China’s own domestic forces may cause it to dig in its heels. With the Communist Party embarking on a transfer of leadership from President Hu Jintao to his anointed successor, Xi Jinping, the leadership is wary of changes that could hobble China’s growth.
There are also increasingly sharp divisions between China’s civilian leaders and elements of the People’s Liberation Army. Many Chinese military officers are openly hostile toward the United States, convinced that its recent naval exercises in the Yellow Sea amount to a policy of encircling China.
Even the administration’s efforts to collaborate with China on climate change and nonproliferation are viewed with suspicion by some in Beijing.
Mr. Obama’s aides, many of them veterans of the Clinton years, understand that especially on economic issues, there are elements of brinkmanship in the relationship, which can imply more acrimony than actually exists.
But the White House was concerned enough that last month it sent a high-level delegation to Beijing that included Mr. Bader; Lawrence H. Summers, the departing director of the National Economic Council; and Thomas E. Donilon, who has since been named national security adviser.
“We were struck by the seriousness with which they shared our commitment to managing differences and recognizing that our two countries were going to have a very large effect on the global economy,” Mr. Summers said.
Just before the meeting, China began allowing the renminbi to rise at a somewhat faster rate, though its total appreciation, since Beijing announced in June that it would loosen exchange-rate controls, still amounts to less than 3 percent. Economists estimate that the currency is undervalued by at least 20 percent.
Meanwhile, trade tensions between the two sides are flaring anew. The administration recently agreed to investigate charges by the United Steelworkers that China was violating trade laws with its state support of clean-energy technologies. That prompted China’s top energy official, Zhang Guobao, to accuse the administration of trying to win votes — a barb that angered White House officials.
Of the halt in shipments of rare-earth minerals, Mr. Summers said, “There are serious questions, both in the economic and in the strategy realm, that are going to require close study within our government.”
Beijing had earlier withheld these shipments to Japan, after a spat over a Chinese fishing vessel that collided with Japanese patrol boats near disputed islands. It was one of several recent provocative moves by Beijing toward its neighbors — including one that prompted the administration to enter the fray.
In Hanoi in July, Mrs. Clinton said the United States would help facilitate talks between Beijing and its neighbors over disputed islands in the South China Sea. Chinese officials were livid when it became clear that the United States had lined up 12 countries behind the American position.
With President Hu set to visit Washington early next year, administration officials said Mrs. Clinton would strike a more harmonious note in Asia this week. For now, they said, the United States feels it has made its point.
“The signal to Beijing ought to be clear,” Mr. Shambaugh said. “The U.S. has other closer, deeper friends in the region.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 26, 2010, on page A4 of the New York edition..
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【按：美國在第二島鏈上加碼。日後，世界又多一個火藥庫。】
Monday, October 25, 2010 8:32 PM
美斥125億美元關島建超級軍事基地
美國斥資125億美元（975億港元）在太平洋關島興建一座超級軍事基地，目的是要圍堵中國，抗衡中國愈來愈強大的軍力。這座超級軍事基地將包括一個可供核動力航空母艦停泊的大型碼頭、多個實彈訓練場，而島上現有的空軍基地也會擴建。
這是自從第二次世界大戰以來，美國在軍事基地上作出的最大筆投資，也是美國在過去數十年來最大宗的海軍基建工程。新的基地建成後，將容納19000名海軍陸戰隊隊員。部分現時派駐在日本沖繩島的美軍，可能會被調到關島部署。
這個超級基地將設有大型碼頭，供核動力航空母艦停泊，又會部署導彈防衛系統，並設有多個實彈訓練場。
不過，關島居民擔心這項龐大工程會破壞當地的生態環境和旅遊業，從而對當地經濟造成衝擊。
有一點可以肯定的是，這項大工程可以創造大量就業機會。關島目前只有大約17萬3000人口，估計當工程展開及進入高峰期時，會有大量工人去到當地工作，人口會大幅上升50%。
美國環境保護局指出，這個大型軍事基地可能會令關島出現嚴重水荒，而航空母艦碼頭也可能會對28公頃（71畝）珊瑚礁造成破壞。
環保局發表的報告稱，關島現時的生態環境本來已不合乎標準，現在再興建這麼大規模的軍事基地，勢必令情況加劇。
不過，由於美國當局高度重視美、中兩國之間的戰略性競爭，關島居民所關注的問題和憂慮已經變成次要。
過去10年，中國已大大增強了海上軍事力量，萬一台灣海峽將來爆發軍事衝突，美國也不敢貿然作出軍事介入行動。
許多專家都認為，中國目前仍未有足夠的實力，去挑戰美國在太平洋和印度洋的軍事霸權地位。
澳洲戰略政策研究所分析家昂格雷爾說：「中國的胃口很大，但仍未有足夠的牙齒。」不過，中國銳意增強海軍力量，是不容置疑的。
除了在關島興建超級軍事基地外，美國也斥資近2億美元（15億6000萬港元）改善及提升斯里蘭卡以南1100公里、位於印度洋的迪戈加西亞島上的軍事基建設施，預計於2013年竣工，到時有能力為核導彈潛艇進行維修。
英國《每日電訊報》
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