经济学人：欧洲，如何一步步成了“美国附庸”

作者：经济学人    来源：一天一篇外刊

It wasn’t long after blue jeans, Hollywood blockbusters and Big Macs crossed the Atlantic last century that some worrywarts started fretting about Europe falling prey to American dominance. What was once a concern about cultural hegemony has of late morphed into panic over commercial dependency. With some justification: the commanding heights of the modern European economy have quietly been captured by American firms. Apple and Google power the mobile phones used from Dublin to Dubrovnik. Other Silicon Valley titans have spawned cloud computers storing Europeans’ data, and from which American artificial-intelligence models are being deployed deep inside the continent’s businesses. Visa and MasterCard, two American firms, are often required for Europeans to pay other Europeans. Increasingly the continent’s lights are being kept on by American liquefied gas, replacing an erstwhile reliance on Russian energy.

上个世纪，牛仔裤、好莱坞大片、和麦当劳巨无霸风靡欧洲后不久，不少忧思之士便开始担忧，欧洲会日渐受制于美国。昔日针对文化霸权的隐忧，如今已然演变为对商业依附的深切焦虑。而这份担忧并非空穴来风：当代欧洲经济的核心命脉，已然悄然落入美国企业之手。从爱尔兰都柏林到克罗地亚杜布罗夫尼克，全欧的移动设备都依托苹果与谷歌的技术体系运行。硅谷巨头搭建的云端服务器存储着欧洲民众的数据，美国各类人工智能模型也借此深度渗透欧洲本土企业。欧洲境内的跨境支付，大多都绕不开美国visa、万事达两大支付巨头。欧洲大陆的能源供给也日渐依赖美国液化天然气，以此取代此前对俄罗斯能源的长期依赖。

This form of economic vassalage, which comes on top of dependency on security matters, is hardly new. “Why can’t Europe build its own Google?” has long been a predictable lament at Brussels confabs. But in an age when such entanglements can be weaponised—not least by Donald Trump and his MAGA clan in America—it also raises geopolitical questions. If Mr Trump really wants Greenland, say, could he threaten to cut off Europeans’ ability to pay in shops, or switch off their iPhones en masse? Could some perceived slight from the German chancellor result in the Mittelstand being shunted off cutting-edge AI models, hobbling their prospects? The possibilities seem, alas, endless.

欧洲如今这种经济附庸地位，本就建立在安全依附的基础之上，并非新近才出现。“欧洲为何不能拥有自己的谷歌？”，长久以来都是布鲁塞尔高层会议上反复被提及的感慨。在当今时代，国家间的深度依存关系极易被用作地缘博弈工具，美国特朗普及其保守阵营尤为擅长此类手段，由此也滋生出一系列地缘安全隐患。举例而言，若特朗普执意觊觎格陵兰岛，他能否以中断欧洲民众支付服务、关停苹果设备功能相胁迫？若德国总理某些言辞引发特朗普不满，德国本土中坚企业是否会被剥夺接入前沿人工智能模型的资格，发展之路由此受阻？遗憾的是，此类潜在风险数不胜数。

Tech is where the dependency seems most acute. Europe has few firms at the forefront of AI, space or high-end computing (one notable exception is ASML, a Dutch firm globally vital to chipmaking). Even governments often have little choice but to use the likes of Microsoft or Amazon for cloud services, Palantir to sift through data or SpaceX to launch military satellites. Quixotic attempts to shake off big tech abound, for example by having civil servants ditch Windows for some clunky substitute. Too often the European alternatives are lacking anyway. It turns out that boasting about regulating AI before the public had made their first ChatGPT query—as the European Union did in 2021—is not conducive to home-growing AI champions

科技领域的依附困境表现得最为明显。欧洲在人工智能、航天航空与高端算力领域几乎没有头部企业脱颖而出（荷兰芯片巨头阿斯麦是为数不多的例外，掌控着全球芯片制造的核心环节）。就连各国政府部门，也不得不选用微软、亚马逊的云服务，借助Palantir进行数据筛查，依靠SpaceX 完成军用卫星发射。欧洲曾多次开展脱离美国科技体系的尝试，大多流于空想，比如要求公务系统放弃 Windows，改用功能简陋的自研系统。但欧洲本土的替代技术普遍实力不足，欧盟在2021 年，大众尚未普及使用 ChatGPT 之时就急于标榜自身AI 监管领先，终究难以培育出自主可控的本土人工智能领军企业。

Yes, EU rules often applied to American firms, insofar as they wanted to offer their wares in the bloc. But regulation in practice hit European firms harder. The costs of administering complex data-protection rules, say, could easily be absorbed by a Google or OpenAI, with their hordes of compliance staff. Not so their European rivals, which have usually lacked scale (if only because the EU’s fragmented single market made it harder for them to grow beyond their home country). The EU thus generated barriers to entry that often ended up protecting American giants.

诚然，但凡美国企业想要进入欧盟市场开展业务，就必须遵循欧盟各项监管规则。然而实际执行层面，欧洲本土企业承受的监管压力要远大于美方企业。以严苛复杂的数据保护合规成本为例，谷歌、OpenAI 凭借庞大的专业合规团队，可以轻松消化相关支出。欧洲本土企业却不具备这样的规模优势，加之欧盟内部市场长期割裂，本土企业难以跨区域扩张壮大。最终，欧盟搭建的各类行业准入壁垒，反倒在无形中成就了美国科技巨头的优势地位。

作者：经济学人       来源：一天一篇外刊