2025年对世界许多地区来说将是动荡的一年。但现有的格局会不变吗？变化越多，现有的格局就越保持不变？我们会看到世界变得更好还是更糟？
《韦氏字典》最近选了“两极化”作为2024年年度词汇。选择这个词是因为这似乎完美地描述了西方国家当下的政治、经济和文化状况。
根据定义，“两极化”即两个截然不同的对立面之间的分裂越来越明显，导致一种情况，即一个群体或社会的意见、信仰或利益不再沿著共识范围变化，而是集中在对立的两端。
2024年及更早时期的地缘政治和民族国家两极化，也可归因于这种社会分化。来到2025年，美国及其盟友会面对怎样变局，将取决于特朗普总统新任期内所做的事情以及其实现方式。
目前看来，特朗普执政下的美国政策，将集中在恢复美国社会的保守观念；废除民主党所掌控的，他所认为的“深层国家”；透过移民限制和大规模驱逐非法移民出境来保卫边境。
特朗普第一次掌权时经济政策特点是个人和企业减税、贸易保护主义以及放宽能源和金融部门管制。
这些可能会继续下去并进行微调。
在外交政策方面，特朗普政策是显而易见，尽管特朗普最近在墨西哥、加拿大、格陵兰和巴拿马运河课题上大放厥词，并宣称关税是他最喜欢的词和“字典中最美丽的词”，但他将发现自己不可能同时在国内和国外开启两条战线。
一些将中国视为美国头号敌人的好战政府成员可能希望维持拜登政策，即利用盟友来维持美国在政治和经济领域领先地位的政策，但特朗普可能不赞成这样的策略。
2025年世界秩序预测
观察未来，以下是2025年世界前景的预测
● 美国虽然试图对盟友和非西方国家使用软硬手段，但美国将遭遇阻力，进而削弱美国在全球地缘政治中的主导地位。面对著美国威胁，墨西哥和巴拿马已经表明，尽管他们在全球经济中的地位微弱，但他们不会轻易屈服。其他国家在关键地缘政治争议上与美国打交道时，也将展现出强大的意志。
● 一般预期乌克兰战争的和平解决方案，可能是以克里米亚地区加入俄罗斯联邦为条件下取得，这将使欧盟国家不得不面对一个复兴的俄罗斯。
● 各国将更认同已故美国前国务卿亨利基辛格在国际关系中经常被引用的名言：“成为美国敌人可能很危险，但成为美国朋友则是致命的。”重建的巨大负担，以及付出的金钱与人命成了要充当美国的“法治与全球秩序”代理人不可避免代价，这将使欧洲民众对北大西洋公约组织的看法发生改变。这会对欧洲及世界其他地区的和平与安全问题，引发连锁反应。
● 在中东，以色列的军事胜利为犹太复国主义阵营带来了暂时的欣喜。但他们只会使该国远离和平与安全。希望以色列人能认识到，只有政治解决方案和允许巴勒斯坦国建立，才能为该地区带来和平，这可不是通过战场上的胜利能带来的。
● 在亚太地区，中国最近展示了其在空中、海上和陆上的尖端军事力量，引发了一些方面认为全球军事力量会出现结构性转变。这一发展，加上中国似乎不可抑制的全球经济影响力，将影响区域和全球联盟，并加速金砖国家和中国“一带一路”倡议，成为一股重要的政治和经济抗衡力量。
G3出现？
2025年令人关注的问题是特朗普将如何应对中国。总统拜登曾在2022年警告称，“如果我们（美国）不齐心协力，他们（中国）就会吃掉我们的‘午餐’”。
再加上俄罗斯在战场上的胜利，其强大的军事力量和自然资源使其成为一股足于抗衡任何敌人的危险势力，这将使全球有一股强大混合力量，挑战美国和西方对当前世界秩序的主导地位。
拜登过往试图以贸易、经济和冷战式对抗政策击垮中国的策略，会进一步加强还是缓和？或者，被视为卓越的现实主义者和交易主义者的特朗普，会否与中国和俄罗斯，这两个被美国智库视为阻碍了美国在全球地缘政治中再次伟大的敌人，达成妥协？
特朗普知道，2009年，中国在美国发生雷曼兄弟投资银行破产和股市崩盘后，发挥了关键但鲜为人知的作用，帮助美国和世界经济从由此引发的全球金融危机中复苏。
当年，在中国帮助世界经济摆脱潜在的全球萧条后，也引出建议，即美国和中国应寻找共识，如何分享影响力和权力，以造福世界。
不喜欢北约或七国集团的特朗普，是否能借鉴早期金融危机经验，从地缘政治格局中看到美国的最大利益——也许美国、俄罗斯和中国可组成新三国集团？
这将为特朗普赢得时间，使美国再次伟大，而不是在世界各地煽动战争。如果这可成为现实，或许可以为一个更加多极的世界铺平道路，在这个世界中，金砖四国的开放、平等、合作、互利与和平共处的原则，可以成为变革的主要推动力。
林德宜《预见2025年》原文：Reading The Tea Leaves for 2025
2025 promises to be a tumultuous year in many parts of the world. But will the status quo remain? Will the more things change, the more they remain the same? Will we see changes for a better or worse world?
Merriam-Webster recently chose polarization as its word of the year for 2024. This word was selected because it appeared to perfectly describe the state of politics, economics and culture that dominates in countries of the west.
According to the definition, there is an increasing division between two sharply distinct opposites resulting in a situation in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.
We can add to this societal division the polarization between nation states driving and defining geopolitics in 2024 and earlier.
In 2025, much of what will happen in the US, and by extension, its allies, will depend on what and how President Donald Trump's new term of office will achieve.
For now it appears that his policy plans within the US will focus on restoring the conservative conception of American society; dismantling the Democratic Party control of what he sees as the deep state; and defending the borders through immigration restrictions and mass deportation.
The economic policy of the first Trump administration was characterized by individual and corporate tax cuts, trade protectionism, and deregulation in the energy and financial sectors.
These are likely to continue and be fine tuned.
On foreign policy, what's clear is that Trump, despite his latest blustering on Mexico, Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, and pronouncement that tariff is his favourite word and “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, will find it impossible to fight wars on both home and external fronts.
Some of his war belligerent administration members who see China as the US enemy number 1 may want to maintain Joe Biden's policy of using allies to maintain the US's leading position in the political and economic sectors but Trump himself may not favour this strategy.
Predictions for the World Order for 2025
Looking into the tea leaves, here are predictions for what lies ahead in the world for 2025
● The US attempts to alternately bully and sweet talk allies and the non west will encounter resistance and pushback undermining the US dominant position in global geopolitics. Mexico and Panama are already showing that, despite their lightweight in the global economy, they will be no pushovers. Other countries will show that they have a stronger spine in dealing with the US on key geopolitical controversies.
● European Union (EU) countries will have to deal with a resurgent Russia following a widely expected Ukraine peace settlement which is likely to end with the Crimea region joining the Russian federation.
● Countries will find greater agreement with Henry Kissinger's much quoted warning on international relations: "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy but to be America's friend is fatal.” The huge costs of reconstruction and knowledge that money and bloodshed are the inevitable price to pay for being proxies in the US concept of ‘rule of law and global order’ will see a reshaping of European public opinion on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Its impact on peace and security issues will have ripple effects in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
● In the Middle East, Israel's military victories have brought temporary euphoria to the Zionist camp. But they have only taken the country further away from peace and security. Expect Israel's public to realise that only a political solution and the creation of a Palestine state can provide the elusive peace settlement for the region that number of battlefield victories can bring.
● In the Asia Pacific region, the recent demonstration by China of cutting edge advances in its air, naval and land based military power has given rise to what some see as a tectonic shift in global military power. This development, together with what appears to be China's irrepressible global economic clout, will influence regional and global alliances and accelerate the more rapid arrival of BRICS and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as countervailing forces in politics and economics.
Emergence of G3?
The intriguing question for 2025 is how Trump will deal with China. President Joe Biden had warned in 2022 that “if we (the US) don't get our act together, they (China) will eat our lunch”.
Add to this a victorious Russia whose formidable military power and natural resources endowment make it a dangerous countervailing force against any enemy, and we have a potent cocktail to challenge US and western dominance of the present world order.
Will Biden’s strategy to push back and bring down China with trade, economic and Cold War style confrontation policies be hardened or moderated? Or will Trump, seen as the realist and transactionist par excellence, reach compromises with China and Russia, the two enemies identified by the foremost US think-tanks as standing in the way of making America great again in global geopolitics?
Trump knows that in 2009 China played a key but little publicised role in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and stock market crash by helping the US and world economy recover from the resultant global financial crisis.
The Chinese response in enabling the world economy to escape from a potential global depression had, at that time, led to suggestions that the US and China should agree between themselves on how they would share influence and power for the benefit of the world.
Is it possible that Trump, who is not a fan of NATO or G7, may see the US’s best interest in a geopolitical configuration borrowing from the experience of the earlier financial crisis -perhaps a new G3 comprising the US, Russia and China?
This will buy him time to make America great again without instigating wars around the world. And if that were to happen perhaps it can pave the way to a more multipolar world in which BRICs principles of openness, equality, cooperation, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence can be the main drivers of change.
公共政策分析学者
