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.
When politicians, pundits, and academics speak of a growing competition, or even a New Cold War, between the United States and China, one thing that is not asked enough is what is being competed for. Likewise, when we speak of an “American” or “Western” model, in contrast to a “Chinese” one, it is worth asking what or who exactly is being modelled, and to what end.
The Ogaden War (1977–1978) between Somalia and Ethiopia upended the Cold War geostrategic balance in the Horn of Africa, and bore tragic consequences for the region that linger today. While many observers associate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Eve of 1979 with the end of détente, historians now recognize that it was the Soviet intervention in the Ogaden conflict that precipitated the end of this era.
Neruda’s saga marks one of the 20th century’s greatest literary chase scenes, and the Cold War’s first global manhunt. It wasn’t a hunt for a nuclear engineer, a spy, or even a dissident journalist but for a poet—a poet!—whose love poetry had won him acclaim and book sales around the world, and later earned the 1971 Nobel Prize.
What started as a trade war between the United States and China is quickly escalating into a death match for global economic, technological, and military dominance. If the two countries’ leaders cannot manage the defining relationship of the twenty-first century responsibly, the entire world will bear the costs of their failure.
In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, economics has enjoyed a kind of intellectual hegemony. It has become first among equals in the social sciences and has dominated most policy agendas as well. Economists have been much sought after by businesses, governments, and society at large, their insights seen as useful in every sphere of life…That hegemony is now over.
It feels like déjà vu all over again. Reports of an Indian arms deal with Russia. Concerns in the United States about said deal, with threats about punitive measures and warnings about implications for U.S.-India relations. Voices in India insisting that the government go through with the deal and not succumb to American pressure. This is not a Cold War story, but, rather, a summary of the state of play over the last few months.
