https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-chinese-hackers-working-ministry-state-security-charged-global-computer-intrusion

The cold war has returned, this time with new players, although Russia's role can never be relegated to a distant third place - due to its military and energetic power. The geopolitical picture is different from that which dominated the greatest period of the classic Cold War: a) there is greater access to information; b) some technologies are spread around the world; and c) other countries are strong and are strengthening outside the old bipolarity.

I'm hoping better sense will prevail among the two leaders and the situation will de-escalate. It is a war between the two Governments, the people of the two countries are not at war.

It is premature to say a new Cold War has started. We are not there yet but are getting uncomfortably close to the point where it will become difficult to turn back. The Cold War involved not just a competition and confrontation between two superpowers, the USA and the USSR but the division of the world into two blocs, each under the leadership of one of the superpowers, and the two blocs were largely economically separated. This is not the conditions we have today. The Chinese economy remains highly integrated into the global economy and the 'decoupling' is at an early stage. The Trump Administration is incapable of rallying support from other democracies. The Xi Administration tries to build up a bloc via China's 'Belt and Road Initiative' but that is nothing like the Eastern bloc under the Soviet Union.

The danger is that the Trump may 'bake' into the political establishment in the USA an approach that deepens decoupling and the division of the world into two blocs. Given that Xi Jinping will continue to strengthen China's capacity to make the Belt and Road countries China's informal bloc and uses Chinese economic power to support authoritarianism globally whatever US policy may be, the direction of travel is not good. The risk that the USA and China end up pushing the world in the direction where a Cold War can become a reality is getting higher and higher.

Declaring a new Cold War is already in place before it is can only become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since a new Cold War will reverse the globalization and thus undermine many of the advantages of globalization, it is not in the interest of the world to see it emerge, if it can be avoided.

Note first that technically speaking, there had never been cold war between the US and Russia, but it was between the US and the Soviet Union (USSR). Russia was only one of the republics that made up USSR. The situation between these two was more of military than economic, though difficult to separate the two.

Now coming to the issue of US/China conflict, it is more economic than military. Although language of economic paradigm is universal, China will have limited reach in recruiting the rest of the world on her side due not only to her economic system, but also language and culture exclusiveness. The culture and language of the West is more universal and more amenable as it is today. Before the US/USSR cold war, Soviet Union was already an entity of federated nations. This will be difficult for China to achieve in today's global politics, although we may find some nations sympathetic to China, not because China is good, but as a protest to United States' "domination".

I don't know if there is any country that has it's lingual Franca as Chinese. That's a minus on the side of China. The US on the other hand has most of the European countries as her allies.

China compomises standards in production of goods for exports and has lost integrity in that regard. China has weakened growth in Africa having made the continent a dumping ground for her sub standard products. This will also count against China.

Suffice it to say that, the magnitude of cold war people are expecting to happen between the US and China may not be feasible. The world is already globalized (not isolated as in the case of US/USSR era); unwinding the thread that joins the world in this global era may not be as easy as people would imagine. Both countries (US and China) have huge investments in each other's country that they cannot afford to recall home those investments without shooting themselves in the foot. In terms of trade, they share huge figures between them. Therefore, at the end of the day, I forsee compromise between them rather than cold war.

Roberto - Minadeo

You are right. It seems that the cold war is returned. it is unfortunate, but the signs are unmistakable. The question is why at this time? does the US election has anything to do with this timing?

Emmanuel V Murray

for most politicians sometimes common sense makes no sense!

It all depends on their agenda. they will do anything to win. The end justifies the means.

Steve Tsang

Thank you for your comments

At this rate, the world will be divided into blocs soon!

China's investment in Africa, Latin America (140 billion so far), and Asia are moving on smoothly. while China is working very hard to win hearts and minds the US is hardly working! . some in the current US government think the world ends at American shores.

James Stephen-Zira

Thank you for your informative comments. excellent observations

The current US government pulled out of many international agreements that even friends are questioning the motives and the wisdom for these actions.

Nafta, Iran agreement, Paris agreement, Trans-Pacific agreement, and so on.

The rest of the countries are working together without The US. So it will not be difficult to form new blocs.

I agree that the world moved too far in globalization direction and that it is not easy to untangle. However, it is very worrisome looking at the events of the past ten days and seeing how easy it is to start an international crisis by the teams at the Whitehouse.

I keep praying there will be better understanding among the two parties, and even the atmosphere will de-escalate. It is just a conflict between two States, the two countries' people are never at the battle.

I think the cold war is emanating from the aggressiveness of China in expanding her global market territory. America which has the colonial mentality of wanting to remain domineering has been bypassed while sleeping. On waking up, China has already run some metres ahead of them. This has forced America starting to throw the panic to China as a scapegoat of her too much sleep. In the long run what will be the outcome?, I guess other countries in the world are going to realign to China and others to America hence two blocs that may not want to see each other. Then we are going to have the world being colonized by these two countries. Any slight provocation may result into the third world war. May God intervene

It would be interesting to see how the Democrats (if they got into the office) cooperate with China in global environmenal issues while still holding a hard line on trade and ideology.

Abrar Hossain Tasin

The conflict and confrontation between two countries never benefit either side. dialog is always a better option. the conflict between the two giants will adversely affect the entire world in one form or another. The economies of this two countries are so intertwined that they can not afford confrontation in either side. China is forging ahead and The US can not play second Henlay Magara .

Let us hope that cool heads prevail and the two countries back off from this path before it is too late to do so.

Jiliang Chen

Anyone can do better than the current team in the white house!. let us hope it will not be too late by then.

I think distrust and verify is a good approach to having dialogues with China. China has been applying such approach since it opened dialogue with the US.

Jiliang Chen

Any form of dialog is better than confrontation path that is pursued currently.

International politics are usually a function of domestic politics and political and social structures. This is especially the case when the geopolitical issues concern larger global or regional hegemonic powers.

Societies are held together through positive and negative produced solidarity and cohesion. Positive cohesion arises when people feel a unity or communality with each other. In nation states such a positive solidarity usually arises shared ethnicity, religion and/or culture.

Negative cohesion is achieved from the presence of an outside threat whether real or imagined. People unite to face a common threat which arises or is said to arise from another nation..

The United States has been from the beginning one of the most racially, ethnically, religious and materially divided societies. It has almost from the beginning secured any internal cohesion from an outside threat. The outside threat results in an inflated military sector which then survives at its current level or increased level of public expenditure only if the population can be persuaded to believe it is necessary for protection and security.

The United States as a society does, and will always, need a cold war to prevent it from breaking apart.

China has pursued a policy of export-oriented industrialization (EOI) in which it has exploited its people and environment in order to secure surpluses generated from international trade to create industry and infrastructure. This suited he USA which imported Chinese goods which were basically consumed by the poor and very poor. This enable the USA government to postpone welfare provisions for these group and dampen possible social unrests. The EOI phase of Chimes development was about to end whether or not pushed by the USA.

The end of Chinese EOI brings with it, as in other countries, social unrest unless funds are diverted to more national infrastructure and development. At the moment it is not clear whether this will happen. If not, China may also use negative cohesion to secure social calm.

In which case there will a mutual interest in China and USA for a cold war. For the rest of the world a cold war may be an advantage to hot war but there will always be proxy wars in which smaller countries will suffer as in the previous cold war.

Interesting discussion but I think that the notion of "Cold War" here is misleading:

https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2020C35_Connectivity.pdf

I agree with Karoline that the notion “the Cold War” is misleading. I would call the current state of US-China relations a struggle for leadership. The US is gradually losing its position in the world, China will soon become the world's first economy, and the US is trying to prevent this.

The period of undivided political domination of the United States is also ending. Russia has become stronger, India and other countries try to pursue an independent policy without looking at Washington, pool their efforts within BRICS and the SCO.

Western European countries are still hesitant to contradict the United States, since most of them have very close economic ties, and the UK, Poland and the Baltic States provide Washington with political support. At the same time, they are not happy about having to comply with American laws of extraterritorial effect and incur economic losses.

Two poles are being formed now: one around the US, the other around China and Russia. The trade war between the US and China is just the beginning of a more serious upheaval, and I am not sure that the US will emerge victorious.

I agree with Niklay Revenko and Karoline Postelvinay. USA are loosing many positions in terms of hard and soft power, and China will be the first mundial economy soon. The struggle between USA and China must be interpreted by the superb theory of Durossele "Every empire will perish", i.e, decandence of forms to the exercise the international power. E.g: 5G, one the theather of struggle USA/China don't envolve any american company, but chinese-european.

Cold War as we witnessed it in the twentieth century is unlikely to be repeated. The complex interdependencies that are now woven into the core of global economies rule out total de-linking of States from each other. We will see the world operate in greys with underlying tensions born off multiple competitions, continuing distrust and suspicion, feeding this tension. It is a world in which paradoxical forces will have to learn to co-exist.

There will most probably be a cold war however it is defined between USA and China as I explained it is in both their interests to have one. There has never been a total delinking between states not even the most extreme autarkists have claimed that. Since the end of the World War in 1945 the capital exporting countries and in generally materially dominant states have created ideologies and practices to assist in their main objective which is to achieve unimpeded access to the land, labour and resources of less powerful states. After 1945 it was called “internationalism” but soon after multinationals corporations became more powerful in inter-state relations so the next attempt was called “ transnationalism” this was followed by “complex interdependency” then by “globalization” and now it appears “connectivity” according to Karoline Postel-Vinay in an article published by a think tank 100 percent funded by the German Government. The connectivity idea is also published and promoted by the OECD and the World Bank, two of the most neo-liberal of the international organizations. Connectivity will die the same death as all the others as thinking people and leaders realize that these are imperial constructs designed to secure the status quo of continued extraction from the global south.

Nasim Zehra "The complex interdependencies that are now woven into the core of global economies rule out total de-linking of States from each other"

Totally agree with you provided, you are dealing with rational decision-makers. When they can use the sanction sticks without any remorse, delinking will not be difficult. it is only a matter of time.

I think as the US is withdrawing from Afganistan and the middle east, they are now looking for a new enemy. Without an enemy the mighty US military industry complex can't survive. So that's why they are trying to create disharmony with China. I hope China understands this situation and doesn't engage and won't start doing things that would inflate the situation. China should be patient and keep calm. Then they can prevent themselves from doing what the US military industry complex wants them to do.

This kind of international trade "Cold War" is usually mainly aimed at protecting the national economy. On the other hand, international cooperation is falling, and thus economic development may also fall. If the "Cold War" is waged between the largest economies, then the effects of these interventionist economies also appear in many other countries. Usually, these are mostly negative effects.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Any war brings devastation in terms of man, material and money. Lets all pray for peace.

Why do we talk only about Us-China covid war only ? In reality it economic war between many nations globally vs. China; the latter has been held responsible for spreading Corona virus globally without any word of prior caution to other nationals which are known to be worst affected both in terms of ecology and human infections and unprecedented human morality. This act of China to crumble of economies of many nations must be universally condemned and is bound to result in economy and military wars.

"You can not start a fire without a spark"; we have now seen many sparks - but no fire. Why is that?

Lou

B K Sharma

China will be taken to account for a lack of transparency about COVID-19. The devastation caused by this pandemic is tremendous and China/ChCP must clarify their actions when first discovered the human/human transmission of COVID-19.

This is not to exonerate the political leaders of other countries that, for winning elections sacrificed their own peoples. the wearing of the mask becomes a political statement!

China trade war continues: US blacklists key Apple supplier

https://www.idgconnect.com/analysis-review/1505800/china-trade-war-continues-us-blacklists-key-apple-supplier?

The former head of the World Bank has warned the world could look like it did in 1900 if countries don’t work together to tackle the current crisis.

Robert Zoellick pointed to the rift between the US and China as a serious threat to the global economic recovery.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54023163#:~:text=The%20former%20head%20of%20the,to%20the%20global%20economic%20recovery.

Tensions between the US and China came to the fore of the annual UN General Assembly in New York, with US President Donald Trump blaming China for the spread of coronavirus.

bbc.com/news/world-54253408?xtor=AL-72-[partner]-[bbc.news.twitter]-[headline]-[news]-[bizdev]-[isapi]&at_custom4=D5C25324-FCE3-11EA-907B-E1DC923C408C&at_custom1=[post+type]&at_medium=custom7&at_custom2=twitter&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld

Yes, the war began, but its rules are not clear yet, and its effects are unknown.

Wisam Nimat Al Saadi

The effect of this cold war is already evident by the way the two superpower are handling the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is unfortunate that on a critical issue such as this Virus which so far killed more than 1000000, there is no sign of cooperation between the two superpowers.

A "Cold War" may appear in the future. For now, it is a specific form of the so-called trade war. However, with the economic crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic, the scale of the trade war may temporarily decrease. Moreover, these two large economies are largely dependent on each other and are economically and financially related. At present, the scale of the so-called trade wars.

Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

I think the Cold War situation will fizzle out when Trump has gone. Not too many people could cooperate with a president who called the virus as "China virus".

That is quite possible! It has already been having some complications in many countries worldwide with different impacts and outcomes.