Beijing and Washington can each point to a few successes over the past year or two, but for the most part both seem to be perfecting the art of the own goal. Citizens of both countries have reason to be grateful; given how poorly their leaders have performed, it’s a small miracle the other side hasn’t taken better advantage.
Observers of US-China relations increasingly talk of a new cold war. On top of a long-running trade war, the two countries now find themselves in a destructive cycle of mutual sanctions, consulate closings, and increasingly bellicose official speeches. Efforts to decouple the US economy from China’s are underway as tensions mount in both the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
The Cold War lasted 40 years. For most of that period, victory was uncertain. For Washington to be successful in what may be an even longer contest, it must diagnose the severity of the threat precisely and calibrate efforts to contain and deter Beijing accordingly. False analogies from the Cold War hurt both of these efforts.
There no longer seems any doubt that the United States and China have embarked on a period of aggressive confrontation. A brisk war of words has quickly escalated to tit-for-tat consulate closures, and now Chinese sources say a US warplane has flown close to Shanghai: these are initial skirmishes in a much more serious conflict that is likely to worsen at least until the US elections in November, and probably beyond. The question is, how will this confrontation play out in the rest of Asia?
The United States is launching a cold war against China, according to almost two thirds of Chinese researchers in a survey conducted by a Beijing-based think tank. A total of 62 out of the 100 respondents to the survey published by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University agreed when asked “is the US launching a new cold war against China?”
China’s decision to demolish the “one country, two systems” arrangement in Hong Kong appears to be a fait accompli, and in fact seems to have been preordained. Viewed in a broader context, the move represents a major salvo in a new cold war that is already playing out across three critical dimensions.
Xi Jinping’s China is displaying a superpower’s ambition. Only a few years ago, many American observers still hoped that China would reconcile itself to a supporting role in the liberal international order or would pose—at most—a challenge to U.S. influence in the Western Pacific… Now, however, the signs that China is gearing up to contest America’s global leadership are unmistakable, and they are ubiquitous.
The COVID-19 pandemic has opened the world’s eyes to the true nature of the Chinese regime, countless articles have told us in recent weeks. And perhaps they are right. But in Europe, it is the U.S. response to the virus, even more so than China’s, that is deeply unsettling politicians and the wider public.
The United States and China are locked in a rivalry over trade, technology, military control of the South and East China seas, and increasingly over ideology and human rights. The two countries have been in a cyberwar for years already, featuring Chinese attacks on the Pentagon’s personnel system and the U. S. Navy’s ship maintenance records. There is a military build-up on both sides in the direction of great power conflict. Yet, neither side sees it remotely in its self-interest to initiate a violent clash. In short, this is a cold war, but vastly different from the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
This second cold war, conducted on a teeming planet whose anxiety is intensified by the passions and rages of social media, is only in its beginning stages. The aim, like in the first Cold War, is negative victory: not defeating the Chinese, but waiting them out, just as we waited the Soviets out.
