霸权异化与贸易政策的选择

2018年以来美国联合欧盟和日本强力推动“高标准”贸易规则,使其贸易政策呈现出显著的修正主义特征和偏执性。对此,霸权周期理论、国内经济周期变化、权势集团的操控和国际经济体系的特征等分析视角难以就其贸易政策倾向和风格的选择进行有效解释。资本和霸权的关系是影响美国贸易政策的核心因素,其主线是资本向霸权渗透并利用霸权力量寻租,以此为理论基础可以构建霸权异化与贸易政策选择的分析框架。霸权异化包括两个维度,即资本向霸权渗透的结构性或制度性路径和霸权国家的经济集中或分散嵌入国际生产体系的方式。其中,渗透路径影响贸易政策的风格,嵌入方式影响贸易政策的倾向。制度性渗透带来灵活性,而结构性渗透带来偏执性政策。集中式嵌入带来维护现状政策,而分散式嵌入则会刺激修正主义政策。从现实经验看,1986年至今美国对待跨国投资保护规则和“高标准”贸易规则的政策,经历了从灵活地修正到偏执地修正国际经济秩序的转变。霸权异化的分析框架揭示了美国在霸权优势动摇时期贸易政策选择的复杂性,有助于新兴大国有针对性地应对美国贸易政策调整带来的挑战。

Hegemonic Alienation and the Change of Trade Policy

Since 2018, the United States has united the EU and Japan to promote “high standard trade rules”, driving its trade policy towards revisionism and paranoia. In this regard, the hegemonic cycle theory, domestic economic cycle, power groups and the influence of international economic system are difficult to effectively explain the tendency and style of U.S. trade policy. Built on the capital penetration into hegemony for rent-seeking, this article constructs an analytical framework of hegemonic alienation and trade policy choice. Hegemonic alienation includes two latitudes, namely the structural or institutional path of capital penetration, and the concentrated or dispersed way of hegemonic economy embedded in the international production system. Among them, the capital penetration path affects the style, and the embedding way affects the tendency of trade policy. Specifically, institutional path brings flexibility, while structural path leads to paranoid policy, centralized way brings status quo, and decentralized way will stimulate revisionism. The U.S. policy on the rules of transnational investment protection and the “high standard trade rules” since 1986, systematically verified the impact of hegemonic alienation. The framework of hegemonic alienation helps to understand the style of trade policy of the hegemon when its advantage has been diminishing, and helps emerging powers to respond to and adapt to the challenges brought by the hegemony.