中国强大，则“长和平”可期

清华大学战略与安全研究中心研究员周波于《南华早报》撰文辨析两种“长和平”： 一是著名学者加迪斯所称冷战时期美苏未爆发大战的和平，二是中国自1978年改革开放以来近半个世纪的和平崛起。周波表示，冷战和平实为侥幸，期间代理人战争与核危机频现；相较之下，和平崛起在中国历代长期战争与冲突的历史背景下更显珍贵。文章进而提出，朝鲜战争结束以来中美未发生直接冲突的“第三种长和平”能否延续，将决定中国与世界的未来。

【文/周波，翻译/北京对话 肖予乐】

“长和平”（long peace）这一概念由耶鲁大学冷战史学者加迪斯（John Lewis Gaddis）在其1987年出版的著作《长和平：冷战史探究》（The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War）中首创。它所指的是：从1945年第二次世界大战结束到 20世纪80年代的四十余年间，美国与苏联之间未爆发第三次世界大战。而在1945年以前的数百年间， 大国之间大约每隔一代人的时间，就会爆发一次具有毁灭性的全面战争，如拿破仑战争、第一次世界大战和第二次世界大战。

加迪斯的判断大体成立，只是，冷战与“热战”，往往不过毫厘之差。冷战期间，以两大超级大国为首的阵营皆在备战——一场全面爆发的第三次世界大战。代理人战争遍布各大洲，随处可见，好几次核虚警误报事件更表明，人类曾多次与世界末日擦肩而过。此种“长和平”与其说是有意为之，不如说是侥幸所得。

真正意义上的长期和平，乃是中国自1978年改革开放以来所实现的和平崛起。纵观中国历史，长达半个世纪的和平实属罕见。历史上，不满于现实的农民群体以暴力推翻现政权，而后续农民起义又周而复始地颠覆新朝，如此循环往复，造成朝代不断更迭。即便在中华人民共和国成立之后，军事冲突仍约以每十年一次的频率发生，包括朝鲜战争、中印边界冲突和中越战争。

1978年后，中国将重心转向经济建设。此后即便遭遇北约轰炸中国驻前南斯拉夫大使馆、2001年中美南海撞机事件等外交危机，中国的战略定力也稳如泰山。这一和平时代堪称中华文明史上最为持久的稳定与繁荣期之一。

问题在于此种和平能否延续。答案部分取决于自朝鲜战争结束以来绵延至今的中美“第三次长和平”能否延续。在美国总统尼克松具有里程碑意义的历史性访华之前，中美关系被置于更宏大的冷战框架之下。尽管后续的双边关系难以以单一概念定义，但两国未再爆发直接军事冲突。

美国总统特朗普于五月对中国进行国事访问，标志着美国正式承认中国为对等大国。然而，双方所宣示的战略稳定能否具有“建设性”远未明朗。

此种稳定大概不会演变成冷战式核军备竞赛所维系的相互确保摧毁格局。中国很少公开谈及其核计划。即便北京如五角大楼断言，真的在2035年将核弹头库存扩充至1500枚，其规模仍将远远落后于美俄两国。

中国没有像美国和苏联那样先盲目扩充核武库，然后再削减核武器的动机。20世纪80年代，美苏两国核弹头总库存一度超过7万枚，后来又依据《新削减战略武器条约》（New START）削减核武器。

台湾海峡仍是中美直接冲突唯一可能的触发点，然而冲突并非不可避免。只要北京认为和平统一仍有可能，便不会为台湾问题设定时限。在这种情况下，美国也没有理由进行军事干涉。而华盛顿真的会介入一场海峡战争吗？

特朗普在接受福克斯新闻采访时谈及台湾表示：“我们得跋涉9500英里去打一场仗，我可不想那样。”同样，其继任者亦不得不扪心自问：美军何以要在远离本土、且可能战败的战场上与中国人民解放军交锋？

二十一世纪已经过去四分之一， 本世纪的和平能否比二十世纪持续更久？在二十世纪，两次世界大战之间仅仅相隔二十年。加迪斯所强调的核威慑因素解释了冷战时期大部分稳定局面的原因。

然而战争并未消亡，且很可能永远不会消失。哈佛大学心理学家史蒂文·平克（Steven Pinker）在《人性中的善良天使》（The Better Angels of Our Nature）中论证，人类暴力行为随同理性增长、自我约束增强及文明进步而持续递减。此番结论虽令人欣慰，却仍有争议。人类进步最切实的标志在于：时至今日，已鲜有人为任何形式的战争歌功颂德。

加迪斯所界定的大国间无直接军事冲突的长和平仍在延续。然而，当今世界两大强国正深陷与较小国家的冲突之中。美国、以色列与伊朗之间的的冲突将持续多久，面前尚难预料，但我们已知的是，俄罗斯于2022年发动的乌克兰战争在时间上已经超过第一次世界大战的长度，且有可能超过持续六年零一日的第二次世界大战。

中国的长期和平亦在延续。如果中国四十余年未启战端表明北京没有称霸的野心，那么一个更强大的中国有望为缔造更为持久的和平世界发挥独特作用。中国能否做到，又以何种方式做到？这是本世纪最具决定性的地缘政治考验。

A strong China is the best hope for the ‘long peace’ to endure

The “long peace” is a term coined by Yale professor and Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis in his 1987 bookThe Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War. It refers to the fact that, from the end of World War II in 1945 into the 1980s, more than 40 years passed without a third world war between the United States and Soviet Union. For centuries before 1945, great powers fought destructive general wars such asthe Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II roughly once every generation.

Gaddis is almost right, except that the divide between the Cold War and the outbreak of a hot war was razor thin. During the Cold War, people in the camps led by the two superpowers were preparing for a hot war: an all-out world war III. Proxy wars were easily found on every continent.Nuclear false alarmsshowed we had a narrow escape from doomsday. Such a long peace looks lucky rather than intentional.

The real long peace is China’s peaceful rise that began in 1978, when Beijing started its “reform and opening up” period. Peace lasting half a century has been a rarity throughout Chinese history. Chinese dynasties are punctuated with discontented peasant groups forcibly toppling reigning dynasties, only for subsequent peasant uprisings to overthrow the regime in a repeating cycle. Even in the early decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, military conflicts still occurred roughly once every decade, including the Korean war, the Sino-Indian war and the Sino-Vietnamese war.

After 1978, the nation shifted its core priority to economic development. Subsequent diplomatic crises, such as Nato’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the former Yugoslavia and the fatal Sino-US military aircraft collision in the South China Sea in 2001, didn’t distract it from this strategic focus. This era of peace represents one of the longest spans of stability and prosperity across Chinese civilisation.

The question is whether it can continue. In part, the answer lies in whether the third long peace between China and the US that stretches back to the end of the Korean war can continue. SinoAmerican ties before US presidentRichard Nixon’s landmark visitfell under the broader Cold War framework. Yet even if subsequent bilateral relations resist a simple oneword definition, direct conflict has never broken out between the two nations.

US President Donald Trump’sstate visit to Beijingin May marked Washington’s recognition of China as a peer power. Whether the announced strategic stability can be “constructive” is far from certain.

Presumably, it won’t turn destructive in the Cold War style of mutually assured destruction maintained by a nuclear arms race. China has rarely said much about its nuclear ambition. Even if Beijing expandsits nuclear warhead stockpileto 1,500 units by 2035, as the Pentagon claims it will, its arsenal will still lag far behind that of the US and Russia.

There is no incentive for China to blindly ramp up its nuclear stockpile, only toscale it back lateras the US and Soviet Union did with the New Start treaty when their combined nuclear warhead stockpile surpassed 70,000 in the 1980s.

The Taiwan Strait remains the sole plausible trigger for a direct SinoUS conflict, yet it is not inevitable. As long as Beijing believespeaceful reunificationis still possible, it won’t issue a deadline over Taiwan. Short of that, there is no reason for the US to get involved militarily. And would Washington really intervene in a war across the strait?

Trump saidof Taiwanin a Fox News interview, “we’re supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that.” Likewise, his successors would have to do some soul-searching and ask why the US military would fight the People’s Liberation Army in a war far away from its homeland, which it might lose.

A quarter of the 21st century has now passed. Can this peace be longer than the 20th century’s? In the 20th century, only two decades stood between the two world wars.Nuclear deterrence—the factor stressed by Gaddis—explains most of the period of stability during the Cold War.

Wars have not vanished, though, and they probably never will. InThe Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues that human violence has steadily declined throughout history, driven by growing empathy, self-control and civilised progress. Such a conclusion is comfortable but debatable. The most tangible sign of human progress is that, today, few people will glorify wars of any kind.

Gaddis’ long peace with an absence of direct conflict among major powers is continuing. However, two of the world’s foremost great powers are locked in conflicts against smaller states today. We don’t know how long the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran will drag on, but we do know thatRussia’s war in Ukraine—which began in February 2022—has already outlasted World War I and could exceed the length of World War II, which lasted six years and a day.

China’s own long peace is also holding. If its peaceful rise with more than four decades without waging war suggests Beijing rejects hegemonic ambitions, this raises hope that a stronger China can make a difference and foster a world with longer peace. Can China do that, and by what means? This is the defining geopolitical test of our century.

Club Briefing: Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, writes in theSouth China Morning Postand distinguishes between two forms of “long peace”: the Cold War peace defined by Gaddis as the absence of great-power war, and China’s peaceful rise since 1978. The author argues that the Cold War peace was largely fortuitous, marked by proxy wars and nuclear crises; by contrast, China’s peaceful ascent stands out against a historical backdrop of dynastic upheavals and frequent conflicts. The article further posits that the “third long peace”—the absence of direct Sino-American military conflict since the Korean War—will determine whether China’s path of peaceful development can endure. The Taiwan Strait remains the sole plausible trigger for conflict, yet it is not inevitable. The author concludes that if China’s four-decade peaceful rise signals its rejection of hegemonic ambitions, a stronger China may foster a more enduringly peaceful world.

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