Any reassurance the world may have derived from Beijing’s repeated emphasis on China’s “peaceful rise” has long since been swept away by increasingly threatening rhetoric, most notably towards Japan over the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands. Indeed, the Pacific region looks set to become the testing ground for an old theory that has enjoyed a striking comeback thanks to globalisation: the notion that economic interdependence is conducive to peace. 中国政府反复强调自己谋求“和平崛起”，或许曾让世界感到些许安慰，但这种安慰早已被其威胁性日益加大的言辞荡涤一空。最显著的莫过于在存有争议的钓鱼岛（日本称之为尖阁诸岛(Senkaku)）问题上针对日本的态度。事实上，太平洋地区似乎即将成为一条古老理论的试验场：经济相互依赖有助于维持和平。在全球化的推动下，这一理念早已惊人地再度流行。

Historically, the idea is associated with Montesquieu, the French Enlightenment thinker who believed moralistic philosophy and religious precept had failed to restrain man’s destructive passions, but that these passions could be harnessed by the pursuit of material self-interest. In De l’esprit des lois, he declared that “the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace”. 历史上，这一理念与法国启蒙运动思想家孟德斯鸠(Montesquieu)有关。他认为，道德哲学与宗教戒律未能抑制住人们的毁灭性冲动，但对自身物质利益的追逐，能够使人们驾驭这些冲动。孟德斯鸠在《论法的精神》(De l’esprit des lois)中宣布，“商业的自然结果是带来和平”。

In the 19th century, the economic liberal Richard Cobden extended the argument, saying that the principle of free trade would not only remove the desire to build empires, armies and navies but lead to benign global government. Such thinking was dealt a devastating blow by the outbreak of the first world war. 19世纪的经济自由主义者理查德•科布登(Richard Cobden)引申了这一论点，指出自由贸易的原则不仅将消除人们建立帝国、陆军和海军的欲望，还能引领人们实现良好的全球治理。然而一战爆发沉重打击了这一思想。

The blow was not quite fatal. After 1945, the proposal by Robert Schuman for a Franco-German coal and steel community, which later morphed into the EU, specifically aimed to bind France and Germany so close as, in the statesman’s words, to make war “not only unthinkable but materially impossible”. 这场打击并不是那么致命。在1945年以后，罗伯特•舒曼(Robert Schuman)提议成立法德煤钢共同体（后来演化成为欧盟(EU)），其确切的目的是把法国与德国紧紧地捆绑在一起，用政治家的话说，就是要让战争“不仅是不可想象的，而且在物质上也是不可能的”。

Perhaps the most powerful recent statement of this liberal internationalism comes from the Yale economist, Robert Shiller, who argues in his book, Finance and the Good Society, that financial interconnectedness may help prevent war because it provides “a civilised stage for the playing out of aggressive impulses ... Thus financial development may lead to a kinder and gentler – if not altogether kind and gentle – society.” 近年来对这种自由国际主义做出最有力的陈述的，或许莫过于耶鲁大学(Yale)经济学家罗伯特•席勒(Robert Shiller)。他在自己的著作《金融与美好社会》(finance and the good society)中主张，金融上的相互依赖可能有助于防止战争，因为这“为消耗攻击性的冲动提供了文明的舞台……因此金融发展可能引领我们走向更加宽容友善的社会（即便并非绝对宽容友善）。”

If this argument has proved resilient, it might be because there is something in it. Developed countries no longer engage in wars of plunder against each other, although the developing world is another matter. It seems inconceivable, too, that German tanks will once again sweep into France, the Netherlands or Belgium. Yet whether that is down to economic interdependence or to the complex EU political ecosystem is moot. Moreover, the cold war provided France and Germany with a common enemy and a nuclear context that were conducive to a psychological shift away from militarism and nationalism. 如果说这种论点已被证明是站得住脚的，可能是因为得到了一些史实的支持。发达国家不再卷入相互劫掠的战争，尽管发展中国家则是另一回事。看上去，德国坦克再次横扫法国、荷兰或者比利时也是不可想象的。然而，这是归因于经济方面的相互依赖，还是欧盟复杂的政治生态系统，尚待商榷。此外，冷战让法国和德国树立起了共同的敌人，两国都置身于一场核战背景之下，这有利于心理上摆脱军国主义和民族主义。

China presents an overwhelming difficulty. It is highly interdependent. Between 2009 and 2011, trade accounted for 53 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with just 28 per cent for the US. Its pursuit of a mercantilist exchange rate policy has boosted official reserves to more than $3tn, which are substantially invested in the IOUs of its strategic rival. It is a big recipient of direct investment from the US, Japan and Europe. 中国使这一观点面临巨大的挑战。中国与外界之间的依存度很高。2009-2011年，中国对外贸易占国内生产总值(GDP)的53%，相比之下美国只有28%。中国执行重商主义的外汇政策，推动官方外汇储备超过3万亿美元，其中大部分投资于战略对手的国债。中国也是美国、日本和欧洲重要的直接投资对象国。

In a phrase used by Prof Shiller, its “conflictual tendencies have space to roam”. Yet it is far from clear that this has led to a kinder, gentler society in China. To the modest extent that the country has become more liberal since 1978, interconnectedness has played a part. But this has stemmed more from the internet, which has proved hard for Beijing to control, than from trade. 用席勒的话说，中国的“对外冲突倾向有回旋的余地”。然而，这是否能引导中国走向更加宽容友善的社会，还远未可知。自1978年以后，中国在很有限的程度上变得更加自由，其中相互依存发挥了一定的作用。但这主要源自于互联网，而不是贸易。事实证明，对于中国政府而言，互联网更加难以控制。

More important, interdependence has done little to damp the nationalist instincts that have driven China’s new assertiveness and prompted nationalistic responses in Japan and elsewhere. And that is the most powerful counter-argument to Montesquieu et al. Modern wars are more often a product of tribalism and nationalism reinforced by deep insecurities and arms races. There is also the risk that the ruling elite will, quite rationally, put its own interests before those of the nation. Since its legitimacy derives primarily from high economic growth, its survival in an economic crisis may depend on whipping up nationalist sentiment to the point of using force against its neighbours. In that event, Japan’s US security guarantee will matter far more than economic links. 更重要的是，相互依存基本上没有削弱中国的民族主义本能。在这种民族主义情绪的推动下，中国政府近来变得很强硬，每在与日本或其他国家发生冲突时，都会立刻使民族主义情绪变得汹涌澎湃。这是对孟德斯鸠等人论点最有力的驳斥。现代战争往往是部落主义与民族主义的产物，而这两种情绪又因内心深处的不安全感以及军备竞赛而有所加强。其他风险还有，统治精英将很理性地把自身利益放在国家利益之上。由于其合法性主要源于经济高速增长，统治精英在经济危机中活下来的机会，可能系于能否煽动民族情绪高涨到要对邻国用武的程度。在这种情况下，美国对日本提供安全保障就比经济纽带重要得多了。

John Maynard Keynes, against Montesquieu and Cobden, argued in 1933 that free trade combined with capital mobility was likely to “set up strains and enmities” that were more likely to provoke war than inhibit warmongers. In the course of this century, China may yet tilt the argument in Keynes’s direction. 约翰•梅纳德•凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)反对孟德斯鸠与科布登的观点。他在1933年提出，自由贸易与资本流动相结合，很可能“引发紧张和敌对”，结果更有可能燃起战争，而不是抑制好战分子。在本世纪的发展进程中，中国很可能滑向凯恩斯这一论点所指的方向。