2021年是美国遭遇空前危机的关键一年,内有百年不遇的新冠疫情、第二次世界大战结束以来最严重的经济衰退、罕见的供应链危机和深层次的社会危机;外临中国的快速发展和全球气候变化的挑战。这六大危机相互交织,层层叠加,成为拜登政府必须直面的难题。拜登政府以对华战略竞争为抓手,对内践行拜登经济学,对外回归地缘经济战略,谋求系统解决这六大危机。尽管拜登经济学和地缘经济战略的诸多政策措施仍在酝酿、讨论或实施过程中,但从已实施政策的结果来看,拜登政府的2021年成绩单好坏参半。究其原因,在于拜登政府政治资本严重不足,雄心太大,外部环境变化太快,政府内部存在分歧,以及美国与其盟友之间存在难以协调的矛盾。随着拜登经济学和地缘经济战略的逐步落实,中美之间将出现全面脱钩不现实、局部脱钩难免的结果。长期来看,即使是在两套平行体系下,中美仍将保持一定限度联系,有望实现竞争性共存。
2021 was a crucial year for the U.S. to encounter unprecedented crises. Domestically,the nation was suffering from the once-in-a-country Pandemic,the worst economic recession since the end of the Second World War,a rare supply chain disruptions,and a deep-rooted social crisis. On the global front,the rise of China and global climate change has brought about tremendous challenges. The above six intertwined and multi-layered crises have become the difficult problems the Biden administration must face. To systematically resolve these six crises,the Biden administration uses the strategic competition with China as a trigger to buoy the “Bidenomics” at the domestic level and restore geoeconomic strategy externally. Although more concrete policies of “Bidenomics” and geoeconomic strategy are still under consideration or discussion,judging from the actions that have been taken,the 2021 scorecard of Biden administration was a mixture of good and bad. The main causes lie in the administration’s lack of political capital,overly ambitious goals,unexpected changes in the external environment,conflicting views within the government,and irreconcilable discrepancies with its allies. As the “Bidenomics” and geoeconomic strategy gradually carried out,a complete Sino-U.S. decoupling would not be feasible,but a partial decoupling in certain sectors is likely to be inevitable. In the long term,even under the two parallel systems,China and the U.S. will remain connected to a certain extent and hopefully achieve competitive coexistence.