汤姆·福迪:什么是新“黄祸论”?看看英美情报头子演讲

2022-07-12 08:30     观察者网

【文/汤姆·福迪 译/观察者网 宁栎】

最近,在泰晤士河畔的英国军情五处伦敦总部举行的一次演讲中,美国联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷会见了英国同行肯·麦卡勒姆,他们在演讲中共同介绍了他们所称的来自中国前所未有的经济威胁。 这次演讲风格和蓬佩奥很类似,全面指控中国"偷窃","欺骗"和从事"工业间谍"活动,声称中国的目标是主宰世界,控制每一种产业的全产业链并操纵市场份额。虽然约翰逊政府就要倒台,这次演讲还是得到了英国媒体的积极渲染。

这篇讲话只不过是美国对中国最恶劣的种族偏见、文化偏见和麦卡锡主义等要素的集合。这些要素已经毒害了有关中国的讨论,比如在联邦调查局臭名昭著的"中国倡议"下掀起的种族仇恨浪潮和对合法中国学者和科学家的无辜迫害,虽然媒体报道时略去了该计划。尽管所有说法都是虚假或极度夸张的,但其后果无疑会毒化中国和西方机构之间研究、交流、合作和商业的合法关系。

克里斯托弗·雷和肯·麦卡勒姆在伦敦同台演讲(来源:PA Wire)

自特朗普时代以来,美国长期利用针对中国人的种族印象和偏见,同时再套上一层反共主义的欺骗性外衣,来推销在技术领域的地缘政治遏制行动。然而,人们可以发现,这样的偏见,特别是认为中国人天生不诚实,"欺骗"和"偷窃"的观念,早在中共领导中国之前就存在了。

一幅19世纪澳大利亚臭名昭著的种族主义漫画,被称为"蒙古章鱼",曾发表在悉尼一家报纸上。作为一个历史基准,这幅漫画能展示当代有多少对中共的攻击是从种族主义话语演变而来的。这幅漫画将中国人描绘成不诚实的,是骗子、小偷,贬低为"廉价劳动力",并将疾病归咎于种族传统。在这方面,至今几乎没有什么变化。

在此基础上,将中国人描述为全球威胁还能系统化和理论化,这就是"黄祸论",它将中国及其人民框定为破坏"文明"和西方世界价值观的威胁。同样,在现代,这样的话语已经从明确的种族主义演变为反共思潮来自我掩盖,但所有意图和目的是一样的。这两位所导演的讲话作为整体缺乏事实,但极端煽动、泛化、歇斯底里,激起人们的偏执。如果一个人不了解这一背景,他可能会认为与中国的任何合法互动都是不可能的,同时它渲染这样一种印象,即每一个中国人都在以各种手段从事颠覆和非法行动。

最糟糕的是,这种仇恨言论故意贬低和否定中国在过去50年取得的成就,并描绘了一种虚假的叙事,即中国经济崛起是以零和博弈里西方承受损失为代价的(尽管事实上,中国每年发表的科学论文和专利比世界上任何其他国家都多)。这个说法源于特朗普政府。它推动了这样一种假设:中国无法创新,中国对外出口增长仅仅是偷窃或"抢走西方工作"的产物,在西方的每一个中国人都是代理人或间谍,所有这些人都是一场由恶意推动的协同阴谋的一部分,当然,西方国家本身在与中国接触中从未获得任何真正的好处。

最重要的是,这次演讲充满了谎言,令人厌恶。它是煽动性的,让人不可接受,缺乏事实。无论是联邦调查局还是军情五处,这两个机构都不以诚信行事而闻名,更不用说代表普通民众的利益和关切了。这篇演讲最终将成为西方与中国关系的一个低点,并成为一个示范性例子,说明"西方深层国家"是如何故意制造仇恨和恐惧的有毒气氛,操纵公众舆论反对中国的。

(本文是作者赐稿,英文原文见下页。)

FBI-MI5 'Presentation' Represents Extreme McCarthyism and Yellow Peril

By Tom Fowdy

In a speech hosted at MI5's London Headquarters on the bank of the River Thames, director of the US FBI Christopher Wray met with his UK counterpart, Ken McCallum, where they proceeded to give a joint presentation on what they claimed heralded an unprecedented economic threat from China. In a style not too distinct from the likes of Mike Pompeo, Wray proceeded to make sweeping allegations that China "steals", "Cheats" and engages in "industrial espionage"- claiming the country was on a mission to dominate the world by obtaining the ins and outs of every industry and then claiming their market share. The event was given uncritical and favourable coverage by the British press, even if overshadowed by the ongoing collapse of the Boris Johnson government.

This speech was nothing more than the accumulation of the worst racial, cultural and McCarthyist prejudices against China originating in the United States which has poisoned discourse concerning the country, as well as having accumulated in a tidal wave of racial hatred and the innocent persecution of legitimate Chinese scholars and scientists under the FBI's notorious "China Initiative"- of which was also conveniently omitted from coverage of this "presentation". Whilst everything said is either false or extremely exaggerated, its consequences will undoubtedly poison legitimate avenues of research, exchange, collaboration and business between Chinese and Western institutions.

Since the Trump era, the United States has longstanding utilized racial caricatures and prejudices against Chinese people in order to market support for geopolitical containment on the front of technology, masking it with the acceptable façade of anti-Communism. However, one can find that such prejudices, in particular the notion that Chinese people are inherently dishonest, "cheat" and "steal", existed long before Communist rule in China. An infamous racist cartoon from 19th century Australia known as the "Mongolian Octopus", published in a Sydney Newspaper, stands as a historical benchmark on how many contemporary attacks levelled at the "Communist Party" have evolved from racist discourse, the cartoon also depicting Chinese people as dishonest, cheats, thieves, deriding "cheap labour" and also attributing racial scapegoating for diseases. In this respect, little has changed.

Building upon this, the depiction of such activities by Chinese people as a global threat is known as a wider body of discourse referred to as the "Yellow Peril", which frames China and its people as undermining "civilization" and the values of the western world. Again, in the modern era such discourse has evolved from explicit racism to masking itself around the banner of Communism, yet for all intents and purposes it is the same. The address by both directors as a whole was short on facts, but extremely fear on high, generalization, hysteria and the invocation of paranoia. If one listened to it without knowing this context, one might assume that no legitimate forms of interaction with China could feasibly exist, and it leans on the impression that every single Chinese person is pursuing subversive and illicit action in some shape or form.

What is worst of all, is this hate speech intentionally degrades and dismisses China's achievements over the past 50 years and paints a falsified narrative that China's economic rise has been at the zero-sum expense of the west (despite the fact that China authors more scientific papers annually, and publishes more patents annually than any other country in the world), a line originating with the Trump administration. It pushes the assumption that China cannot innovate, that China's own trade successes are merely the product of theft or "taking western jobs", that every Chinese person in the west is an agent or spy all acting as part of a coordinated conspiracy fuelled by ill intent, and that of course western countries themselves have never had any true benefits in engagement with China.

Above all, this joint address was filled to the brim with falsehoods, was hateful, inflammatory, unacceptable and thin on facts. Neither of these institutions, the FBI or MI5, are known for acting in good faith, let alone representing the interests and concerns of ordinary people. This speech will ultimately go down as a low point in the west's relations with China and send as a demonstrative example as to how "western deep states" are deliberately cultivating an poisonous atmosphere of hate and fear in manipulating public opinion against China.

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