【文/观察者网专栏作者 周波】

对于那些关注俄乌局势并对台海爆发类似冲突表达所谓担心的人，我的回应很简单：笨蛋，是南海！

随着台海局势日益紧张，南海问题似已平息，事实并非如此。2022年12月21日，一架中国战斗机和一架美国侦察机在南海上空擦肩而过，相距仅仅数米。两方都发布了视频片段，并指责对方。

南海比台海要危险得多。中美如在台海开战，不太可能是因为意外事件。而在南海，我们已经目睹了意外的发生。

鉴于台湾问题的高度敏感，北京和华盛顿的每句表态都会被各方仔细研判。美国总统拜登声称美国将“军事保卫台湾”的几次"口误"很快就被白宫工作人员澄清，后者坚称白宫没有改变其“一个中国“政策。

如果在空中再发生一次致命碰撞，就像2001年的那一次，会怎么样？二十多年来，两国军队之间关于减少风险的会谈一直围绕“安全”两字针尖对麦芒。

中方指出，美国的侦察损害中国的安全，而美国则希望讨论如何确保舰机相遇时的安全。美国要求中国的军舰和军机保持安全距离，中国则反驳道："你如果根本不来，肯定就会安全"。

现在发生的事情与冷战时期颇有类似之处。在冷战初期，有100多名美国和苏联飞行员因空中冲突而死亡。两国因此最终签署了1972年的《防止海上意外事件协定》。

中国和美国也签署了类似的协议来缓和紧张局面。但是，无论美苏还是中美的协议都没有完全发挥其控制风险的作用。

如何避免中美的空中冲突成为亟待思考的问题（作者供图）

为了避免事故发生，最终的解决方案在于双方军事力量的平衡。冷战的真正教训不是两个超级大国建立了一系列信任措施来避免事故，而是因为军力的平衡，双方才愿意坐下来谈。

美国和苏联曾是旗鼓相当的敌人，而中国和美国是竞争对手，军事差距正在迅速缩小。中国誓言要在本世纪中叶将中国人民解放军建设成为世界一流军队，现在正加速这一进程。

问题是：在此之前会发生什么？军事力量尚未平衡的时候可能是最危险的时候。

有几个建议已经摆到桌面上了。首先，中国可以派遣军舰在美国水域进行对等的监视和侦察任务。历史上，中国军舰确实几次曾在关岛、夏威夷和阿留申群岛附近水域航行。

但是，在没有前沿军事基地存在的情况下，中国海军如何能常态化在美国沿岸监视和侦察？再说，既然中国的战略重心是维护其在西太平洋的合法权益，为什么要常态化在美国沿海监视和侦察？

第二，中国可以修改其海洋法。世界上大多数国家，包括美国，都允许外国军舰在其领海内无害通过。中国是否有朝一日会允许外国军舰在自己的领海内无害通过吗？如果中国这样做，美国会放弃其“航行自由”行动吗？

在1988年发生的黑海撞船事件中，两艘苏联护卫舰奉命将一艘美国巡洋舰和一艘驱逐舰撞出苏联领海。之后，即1989年，美国和苏联发表联合声明，同意所有船只，包括军舰，享有无害通过对方领海的权利，几十年的海上争霸就此结束。

最容易办到的则是恢复两军对话。在美国前众议长佩洛西窜访台湾后，中国取消了该对话。如果恢复，则不应该老调重弹。

自1998年以来，两国海军一直在磋商，并至少进行过三次旨在培养海上“良好船艺”的演习。现在亟需的是进行飞行员空中相遇时专业操守的演习。鉴于飞机的速度，要在特别近的距离内避免碰撞是非常困难的。

根据中美关于《空中和海上相遇安全行为规则》的备忘录，双方的飞行员在飞行时有责任使用专业的方式飞行，并适当顾及对方飞机的安全。

两军还应探索在差距不大的新领域中建立信任。在我参加的一次专家对话中，双方专家一致认为，通常用来形容美苏之间核武器数量平衡的“战略稳定”一词， 并不适用于当下的中美关系。

相反，中美之间的战略稳定必须包括外太空、网络和人工智能等新领域。沟通可以先从专家层面开始。清华大学战略与安全研究中心和布鲁金斯学会正在开展的关于减轻人工智能的军事风险的探讨，是朝着正确方向迈出的大胆一步。

冷战变成了长长的和平，这并非单纯的运气，而是两个超级大国一心想要避免热战的结果。同样，中国和美国面临的真正挑战不是避免新的冷战，而是避免很可能由意外引发的冲突。南海的最新事件告诉我们，和平不会从天而降，和平是需要努力争取的。

翻译：李泽西

英文原文：

For those watching the war in Ukraine and worrying that a similar conflict might occur in the Taiwan Strait, my response is simple: it’s the South China Sea, stupid.

With tensions in the Taiwan Strait rising, the South China Sea issue has seemingly died down. This is not the case. On December 21, a Chinese fighter jet and a US surveillance plane flew within metres of each other over the South China Sea. Both sides released video clips and pointed fingers at each other.

The South China Sea is far more dangerous than the Taiwan Strait. A war in the Taiwan Strait between China and the US, if it is likely at all, is very unlikely to be triggered by an accident like we have seen in the South China Sea.

The Taiwan issue is so flammable, every word from Beijing and Washington would be scrutinised. US President Joe Biden’s “gaffes” on defending Taiwan were quickly walked back by his aides, who insisted that the White House had not changed its one-China policy.

What if another fatal collision occurred in the air, like the one in 2001? For over two decades, bilateral talks on risk reduction between the two militaries have been just tit-for-tat, focusing on safety versus security.

The Chinese side points out that the United States’ reconnaissance is detrimental to China’s security while the US wishes to discuss ways to ensure safe encounters. The Americans ask Chinese ships and aircraft to keep a safe distance and the Chinese say, “You are certainly safe if you don’t come at all.”

What is happening today is very much like what happened during the Cold War. In the early decades of the Cold War, more than 100 American and Soviet pilots died as a result of air clashes. This led to the 1972 US-Soviet Incident at Sea agreement.

China and the US have similar agreements to reduce tension. But, in both cases, the agreements didn’t fully play their roles in risk reduction.

To avoid an accident, the eventual solution lies in an equilibrium of military strength. The real lesson from the Cold War is not the two superpowers establishing a litany of confidence-building measures to avoid accidents but that, because of the balance of power, both were willing to sit down to talk.

While the US and the Soviet Union were enemies of almost equal strength, China and the US are competitors with a military gap that is quickly closing. China has vowed to speed up building the People’s Liberation Army into a world-class military by mid-century.

The question is: what could happen before that? Short of an equilibrium, this might turn out to be the most dangerous time.

A few suggestions are already on the table. First, China could send ships on reciprocal surveillance and reconnaissance missions in American waters. Historically, Chinese ships did sail sporadically in the waters off Guam, Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands.

But how can the PLA Navy do that routinely along the American coast without a forward military presence such as bases? And why should it do that at all if China’s focus is on maintaining its legitimate rights and interests in the Western Pacific?

Second, China could amend its maritime law. Most countries in the world, including the US, allow innocent passage of foreign vessels in their territorial waters. Will China allow innocent passage in its own territorial waters one day? And if China does, would the US give up its freedom of navigation operations?

This is what happened after the 1988 Black Sea bumping incident in which two Soviet frigates were ordered to push an American cruiser and a destroyer out of Soviet territorial waters. In 1989, the US and USSR issued a joint statement agreeing that all ships, including warships, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea of another. The decades-old rivalry at sea came to an end.

The easiest thing to do is to resume the military-to-military dialogues that China cancelled in the wake of former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. But it should not be business as usual.

The two navies have been talking to each other since 1998 and have done at least three exercises aiming for good seamanship. What is sorely needed are exercises to ensure good airmanship in an air-to-air encounter. Given the speed of today’s aircraft, it is extremely difficult to disengage in proximity.

According to the China-US memorandum on rules of behaviour for safety of air and maritime encounters, the pilots of both sides are responsible for operating with professional airmanship and paying due regard to the safety of the other side’s aircraft.

The two militaries should explore building confidence in new fields where the gaps are not huge. In a track II dialogue I attended, experts from both sides concurred that strategic stability, which normally refers to US-Soviet nuclear equilibrium, won’t be applicable to China-US relations.

Instead, China-US strategic stability has to include new fields such as outer space, cyber and artificial intelligence. Talks could start at the track II level first. The ongoing talks between the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and the Brookings Institution on mitigating the risks of artificial intelligence in the military domain are a bold step in the right direction.

That the Cold War turned out to be a long peace is not sheer luck, but the result of the two superpowers being hell-bent on preventing a hot war. Similarly, the real challenge for China and the US now is not to avoid a new Cold War, but avoiding conflict most likely triggered by an accident. The latest incident in the South China Sea tells us that peace has to be earned.