US media article: The Cold War is the wrong way to explain the current situation between China and the United States

The New York Times website published an article on October 17 titled "Washington Hears Echoes and Worries from the 1950s: Is This the Cold War with China?" ), written by David Sanger. The full text is excerpted below:

Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister and longtime expert on China, recently told a German news magazine that a Cold War between China and the United States is "very likely, not just possible." His remarks reverberated strongly at the White House, and U.S. officials have been looking for ways to dispel that contrast.

The Cold War mentality exaggerates opposition

U.S. officials acknowledge that China is indeed emerging as a more extensive strategic adversary than the Soviet Union did. While U.S. President Joe Biden insisted at the United Nations last month that "we are not looking for a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs," he has repeatedly spoken this year of the struggle between "authoritarianism and democracy," reminiscent of the ideological struggle of the 1950s and 1960s.

Governments caught up in a Cold War mentality exaggerate every conflict as part of a larger struggle. They may miss opportunities for cooperation, as the United States and China may do in their fight against COVID-19, and possibly on climate issues.

As to whether this was a Cold War or something else, the question is hidden in escalating tensions over economic strategy, technological competition and military redeployment.

The situation in recent weeks has undoubtedly echoed the afterglow of past Cold War practices. The United States announced that it will provide Australia with nuclear submarine technology, so that Australian submarines may suddenly appear off the coast of China in the future without the Chinese side being aware of it. Chinese commentators have also noted that the last time the United States shared the technology with other countries was in 1958, when Britain adopted the U.S. Navy's nuclear reactor technology as part of an operation against the Soviet Union's expanding nuclear arsenal.

The United States is not yet certain

Still, Biden's top aides say the old Cold War was the wrong way to articulate the status quo, and that the use of the term could end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In July, Kurt Campbell, the Biden administration's indo-Pacific coordinator, told the Asia Society that comparing the current situation to the Cold War "is not so much a clarification of the problem as a cover-up" and that "fundamentally does not contribute to resolving some of the challenges posed by China."

The close ties between the two economies were unprecedented in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall not only drew a clear line between spheres of influence, freedom, and despotism, but also prevented most communication and trade. In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, the United States exported $4.3 billion worth of goods to the Soviet Union and imported $709 million, making it irrelevant to both economies.

All of these lines are blurred in the current superpower standoff, with Huawei and China Telecom's equipment managing data from NATO countries, China's TikTok app active on tens of millions of U.S. phones, and the Chinese government's concern that Western crackdowns on the sale of advanced semiconductors to China could seriously affect the operations of domestic leading players, including Huawei. However, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of "decoupling" of the U.S.-China economy, the United States exported $124 billion of goods to China last year and imported $434 billion from China. This makes China the largest supplier of goods to the United States and the third largest consumer of U.S. exports after Canada and Mexico.

Be wary of the two countries sliding into conflict

Still, another biden consultant said a few days ago that mental state is no less important in superpower politics than statistics. Whether or not the two countries want to refer to the current situation as the Cold War, the official said, they tend to act as if "we are already caught up in it."

This is the central argument of those who see a new Cold War rapidly dominating engagement between the United States and its core adversaries. Paul Hill, a CIA analyst who has been following Asian affairs for years, said: "People think that the only definition of the Cold War is the U.S.-Soviet model, but it is not." ”

He agreed with White House officials that the new dynamics were not largely defined by a nuclear stalemate or by an ideological battle in which only one side could prevail. He recently wrote in National Interest magazine that the world would not "split into two camps, the United States and China." But the core elements of the old Cold War — what Hill called "hostilities without armed conflict" — are already evident as both sides seek to expand their influence and obstruct the other from doing so.

Whatever one calls this era, there is reason to fear that the current conflict is more likely than ever. Joseph Nye, known for his terms of "soft power," argues that the current situation should not be likened to the Cold War, noting that "it is wrong to think that we can decouple the economy from China completely without paying a huge economic price."

Source: Reference News Network