在冲绳和台湾之间，选择大致处于中间位置、无人居住的一个小岛群。安排一位中国拖网渔船船长——此人认为这片水域属于中国领海，决心在这里捕鱼。再来一艘捍卫本国对这些岛屿实际控制的日本巡视船。最后，把这位中国渔民关上两周（最好是在一个日本拘留所里）。瞧，这样就足以制造出一起伤害亚洲大片地区感情、乃至引起美国不安的外交纠纷。
让人惊慌的直接原因是：当该船长在有争议的尖阁诸岛（中国称钓鱼岛）附近水域被捕后，中国执意把事情闹大的做法。中方不仅坚决要求立即释放该船长——对此日方最终做了让步，而且还进一步升级争端。中国逮捕了4名日本国民；禁止出口日本电子企业所需的稀土；取消外交交流活动；允许国内反日示威者涌上街头抗议。（中国甚至取消了日本男孩乐队SMAP的中国行。）即使日方释放了该船长也没有平息中方怒气——中国要求日本道歉并赔偿。
根本的忧虑源自更深层面。外交界察觉到，中国的行为变得更加自信——有些人称之为“咄咄逼人”。如果说经济实力依然强大、拥有先进国防力量的日本尚且不能站起来与中国对抗，那些与中国存在领土争议的众多小国还有什么希望？这些争议大部分已沉寂几十载。迄今为止，中国一直乐于把这些争议放在不太重要的位置上，倾向采取魅力攻势，力图使邻国相信，中国崛起不会构成任何威胁。
这样的日子恐怕已经结束了。中国开始更加强有力地追逐自己的地区利益。中国海军大张旗鼓地展开军事演习。中国政府告诫西方企业（包括埃克森美孚Exxon Mobil），在越南做生意不要涉足中国也宣称拥有主权的海域。中国的退休将军们开始把南海——《经济学人》杂志把这片海域称作“中国主权的一条拖得长长的舌头”——称为中国的核心利益之一。
虽然官方还没有这么表述，但这引发了中国把南海（这里的航线通往马六甲海峡）问题提高到与西藏和台湾问题同等规格的可能。那将使南海主权问题变得不可协商，从而给越南、菲律宾、印尼、马来西亚、新加坡和文莱等国带来一个问题，这些国家都宣称在南海拥有主权。这堪称一种“中国式的门罗主义”。门罗主义源自美国崛起时期，主张美国在其拉美后院拥有权利。
中国显得趾高气扬的架式引起了某些人士的恐慌。口无遮拦的东京都知事石原慎太郎(Shintaro Ishihara)把中国比作一个扩张势力范围的犯罪组织。华盛顿某简报主编克里斯•纳尔逊(Chris Nelson)生造了一个不太雅观（但有用）的词汇：“普京化”(Putinizing)。他说，与弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)当政时期的俄罗斯一样，为迎合国内的民族主义情绪，中国对邻国的态度正从以往的友好转向日趋强硬。夏威夷大学东西方中心(Hawaii university’s East-West Center)的高级研究员邓尼•罗伊(Denny Roy)表示，中国对亚太地区的看法，归根结底“已容不下美国保有当前这种程度的影响力”。这可能使双方走上“碰撞的路线”。
中国立场变得强硬，部分原因可能是受到美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)近期言论的刺激。希拉里表示，南海关系到美国国家利益，并提出美国愿意调停领土争议。在驳回美方观点的同时，中国或许也认为，邓小平“韬光养晦”的训条如今已不适用。用罗伊的话来说，中国或许觉得，现在是“推动整个体系重塑，使其更合中国之意”的时候。
随着中国的经济发展大潮滚滚向前，中国寻求增强地区影响力是自然而然的——即使不是明显可取的。美国从上世纪崛起为强国以来，从不羞于在海外追逐利益：在巴拿马开凿和控制着一条运河，资助伊朗、智利等国政变，在印度支那和中东拉开战事。直至今日，美国海军仍把太平洋视作美国的一个湖。按照这些标准衡量，中国在地区影响力方面的雄心绝对是适度的。
美国是一个有吸引力、有一个梦想可以兜售的民主国家，这对它有利，足以使人接受其治外法权活动（即便不总是欣然接纳）。“针对美国的强权，人们有许多问号，但它是我们习以为常的强权。”曾撰文论述美国在亚洲影响力下降的新加坡人戴尚志(Simon Tay)表示，“美国奠定了现行体系的基础。”
当前引起惊慌的正是以下这种想法：亚洲可能正向一种新的权力分享格局过渡。相对于中国（一个依然贫穷的威权国家），亚洲许多地方的人们仍然更加信赖美国。没有人能够说清，中国要是掌握了美国长期以来享有的这种实力，将会如何行事。亚洲之所以密切关注中日外交纠纷这类事情，正是出于这个缘故。各国要从中寻找线索，推断未来将是何种局面。
译者/杨远
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034896
Take a handful of uninhabited islets roughly equidistant between Okinawa and Taiwan. Add a Chinese trawler captain, determined to fish in what he regards as Chinese waters. Then mix in a Japanese patrol boat defending Tokyo’s control of the islands. Finally, leave the Chinese fisherman to stew (preferably in a non-stick Japanese jail) for two weeks. Voilà. You have just created a diplomatic row to traumatise much of Asia and rattle even Washington.
The immediate cause of alarm is Beijing’s rough-house tactics following the captain’s arrest in waters near the disputed Senkaku islands, known as Diaoyu islands in Chinese. Not only did Beijing insist on the captain’s immediate release, a demand to which Tokyo eventually capitulated. It also escalated the dispute. It arrested four Japanese nationals; blocked exports of rare earths used by Japanese electronics companies; cancelled diplomatic exchanges; and allowed anti-Japanese demonstrators to pour on to Chinese streets. (It even canned the tour of SMAP, a Japanese boy-band.) Even the release of the captain did not mollify Beijing, which demanded an apology and compensation.
The underlying concerns go deeper still. Diplomats detect a pattern of more assertive – some say aggressive – Chinese behaviour. If Japan, with its still-powerful economy and sophisticated defence force, cannot stand up to Beijing, what hope for the many smaller countries that have territorial disputes with China? Most of these have lain dormant for decades. Beijing has hitherto been happy to put them on the back-burner, favouring a charm offensive aimed at convincing neighbours that its rise poses no threat.
Those days may be over. Beijing has begun to pursue its regional interests more forcefully. Its navy has conducted boisterous war games. Its government has warned off western companies, including Exxon Mobil, from doing business with Vietnam in waters that China also claims. Retired generals have started referring to the South China Sea – a body of water The Economist calls a “great lolling tongue of Chinese sovereignty” – as a core interest.
Although not yet official terminology, this raises the prospect of Beijing putting the South China Sea, with its shipping lanes stretching to the Malacca Straits, on a par with Tibet and Taiwan. That would make the sovereignty issue non-negotiable, a problem for the several nations, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, that have overlapping claims. It would be akin to a Chinese Monroe Doctrine, which asserted the rights of a then-rising US to its Latin American backyard.
These signs of Chinese swagger have provoked panic in some quarters. Shintaro Ishihara, the admittedly mouth-frothing Tokyo governor, compared China to a crime outfit expanding its turf. Chris Nelson, editor of a Washington newsletter, coined the ungainly (but useful) term “Putinizing”. Like Russia under Vladimir Putin, he said, China was playing to domestic nationalism by hardening previously friendly attitudes to its neighbours. Denny Roy, senior fellow at Hawaii university’s East-West Center, said China’s view of the Asia-Pacific ultimately “doesn’t have room for the degree of American influence we see today”. That could put the two sides on a “collision course”.
Part of the explanation for China’s harder tone may be a recent speech by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, in which she declared the South China Sea part of the US national interest and offered to mediate in territorial disputes. As well as pushing back against Washington, Beijing may believe it has outgrown Deng Xiaoping’s exhortation to “hide our capabilities and bide our time”. It may feel, in Mr Roy’s words, that now is the time to “push the system into a shape more to China’s liking”.
As China’s economic bandwagon rolls on, it is only natural – if not self-evidently desirable – for it to seek more regional influence. Since the US emerged as a great power last century, it has hardly been shy about pursuing its interests abroad. It built and controlled a canal in Panama, funded coups from Iran to Chile, and went to war in Indochina and the Middle East. To this day, its navy treats the Pacific as an American lake. By these standards, China’s ambitions for regional influence look decidedly modest.
The US has the advantage of being an attractive democracy with a dream to sell. That has been enough to win acceptance, if not always joyful embrace, of its extra-territorial activities. “There have been many question marks against US power, but it is the power we’re used to,” says Simon Tay, a Singaporean who has written about the loss of US influence in Asia. “The US is the foundation of the existing system.”
It is precisely the sense that Asia may be in transition towards a new power-sharing arrangement that is causing angst. China – a still-impoverished, authoritarian state – remains less trusted than the US in much of the region. No one really knows how Beijing would behave if it gained anything like the power Washington has so long enjoyed. That is why Asia looks so closely at incidents such as China’s diplomatic brawl with Japan – for clues as to what the future might hold.
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