https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-14/china-and-the-u-s-are-in-a-new-cold-war

America’s Cold Warriors Hold the Key to Handling China

The West needs a plan like it had against the Soviet Union.

By Hal BrandsJanuary 14, 2019, 7:30 AM PST

''First, the Cold War analogy shows that multidimensional challenges require multidimensional responses. What made the Soviet menace so potent was that it combined a military threat to areas that were critical to the global balance of power with an ideological threat to the supremacy — perhaps even the survival — of liberal ideas. As a result, the U.S. and its allies responded not just with military and geopolitical containment of Soviet power, but with policies — from the Marshall Plan to public diplomacy initiatives — meant to fortify the democratic core of the Western bloc and demonstrate that communism offered a false answer to the world’s political and economic problems.

Today, the China challenge is commonly seen to be primarily geopolitical and economic, and there is indeed growing evidence that Beijing seeks to replace Washington as the leading power not just in the Asia-Pacific but globally. Yet China has also thrown down the ideological gauntlet. Chinese leaders have declared that Beijing’s model of authoritarian capitalism is superior to America’s model of liberal democracy. They are supporting authoritarian regimes from Cambodia to Zimbabwe, using corruption and other influence operations to impair the functioning of democracies in the Asia-Pacific and beyond, and constructing a high-tech police state at home.

Any strategy for competing with China will therefore require efforts to fortify the balance of ideas — by strengthening democracies under pressure and making the case that liberal political systems can deliver the goods — and to fortify the balance of power. The Trump administration’s formal policy statements, particularly the National Security Strategy, offer a good start, but the president himself has shown scant interest in this dimension of the competition.

Second, the history of the Cold War reminds us that the U.S. needs a theory of victory that can be sustained over a generation or more. The value of George Kennan’s concept of containment was that it identified what the U.S. sought to achieve — containing Soviet influence until the Kremlin regime mellowed or crumbled — and how it would do so, by denying Moscow the fruits of expansion and increasing the pressure under which it operated. That strategy was simple enough that it could be replicated across presidential administrations, but flexible enough that it could be adapted as political and geopolitical circumstances changed.

The U.S. today finds itself in search of such a concept. There is broad consensus that engagement has failed to tame a rising China, and that a more competitive approach is required. Yet U.S. officials have not really clarified America’s long-term strategic goal. Is it regime change? Holding the line against further expansion of Chinese geopolitical and ideological influence? Cutting a comprehensive deal that will resolve U.S.-China tensions?

Nor have they explained how Washington will get there. And while the Trump administration deserves credit for raising public awareness of the challenge, it has also politicized the debate in unhelpful ways. In October, for instance, Vice President Mike Pence argued (rather dubiously) that China was interfering in America’s midterm elections because it “wants a different American president” — the sort of partisan rhetoric that is unlikely to solidify long-term support for any U.S. strategy.

Finally, the Cold War analogy reminds us that a decisive factor in competition with China will be how well America tends to its alliances and partnerships. Those relationships were critical to what Secretary of State Dean Acheson called “situations of strength” in the competition with Moscow. They bound some of the world’s most important and dynamic nations to Washington and ensured that the communist world could never outstrip the collective strength of the free world.

Alliances and partnerships will play a similarly critical role in the coming years. If the U.S. remains tightly linked to countries ringing China’s periphery, it will be devilishly difficult for Beijing to dominate its geopolitical neighborhood. If the U.S. maintains solidarity with the world’s democracies — particularly in Europe and the Asia-Pacific — it will find it far easier to cope with the economic, ideological and geopolitical threat China poses.''

http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/beginning-of-new-cold-war

''The Trump administration regards “Made in China 2025” as a challenge to U.S. national security; China regards that blueprint as the basis for its transition out of low-end manufacturing.

The Soviet Union had pretensions to a universal ideology and fomented revolution across the world. China, too, believes in its own exceptionalism, and is “exporting” some elements of the surveillance apparatus that it is developing to cement the Communist Party’s grip on power—telecommunications company ZTE, for example, is helpingVenezuela develop a system to monitor its citizens—but it has yet to manifest a missionary zeal.

The Soviet Union was firmly opposed to and largely excluded from the U.S.-led order. China, however, has been one of the principal beneficiaries of that system, and has thus far contested it selectively, not frontally.

...

Finally, Washington and Moscow had little in the way of economic or cultural exchanges. Two-way trade between the United States and China, by contrast, totaled U.S.$635 billion last year and is on track to reach U.S.$650 billion this year. The two countries are also bound together by a dense network of global supply chains.

...

while not a battle between communism and capitalism, there is an ideological component to the competition—autocracy vs. democracy. China may not be trying deliberately to challenge the United States ideologically, but its practices and policies have made the world safer for autocrats: it provides economic assistance with no demands on good governance, protects rogue regimes from punishment in international institutions, and teaches other countries best practices for internal repression. Also, the United States under the Trump administration has begun to emphasize the ideological division between the two countries.

...

U.S.-China competition is over two interrelated concepts: power and order. Washington and Beijing are both competing to effectively utilize all elements of national power to influence other nations and assert their national interests. That’s fairly direct and easy to understand, and power competition is playing out both in traditional arenas like trade and military investment, as well as in new frontiers like space and in emerging technologies such as AI.

The U.S. seeks to use its power to preserve its own influence and access in Asia while sustaining a liberal international order based on laws, norms, and institutions that have been developed by the international community for decades. China, for its part, seeks to establish itself as the dominant power in Asia and to circumscribe the regional role of the United States in the region. Beijing also seeks to rewrite some aspects of the established international order—or at least carve out exemptions for itself—in ways it believes to be more conducive to its interests.''

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/us-china-new-cold-war-tensions

The 2015 Xi-Obama cyber ceasefire did not halt cyber espionage by any means, but it did lead to a drastic reduction in the wholesale theft of intellectual property by the Chinese state for the competitive benefit of Chinese industry. That truce is now well and truly over, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of the CrowdStrike cybersecurity firm.

“CrowdStrike can now confirm that China is back (after a big drop-off in activity in 2016) to being the predominant nation-state intrusion threat in terms of volume of activity against Western industry,”

The US meanwhile has stepped up its counter-measures, moving from playing defence – patching vulnerabilities and identifying Chinese cyber assailants – to going on the offence.

...

On 30 September, however, Beijing tried something different and a lot more risky. As the destroyer USS Decatur was sailing through the Spratly Island chain, a Chinese warship overtook it and abruptly cut in front of it, coming within 45 yards, and forcing the Decatur to make an emergency turn to avoid collision.

“It’s a big jump in China’s reaction to freedom of navigation operations,” said retired Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, who commanded a US aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific. “What this suggests to me is that Beijing is fed up with freedom of navigation operations and elected to violate the memorandum of understanding that the US and China agreed to three years ago about how they behave when warships are around each other.”

Every government agency strives to increase its budget and authority. According to the Department of Education, there is never enough money for teachers and school supplies; for NASA intelligent life is just beyond our reach, if only we would give them a few more billions. And for the Department of Defense, American interests are threatened by anyone anywhere with the capacity to make anything more dangerous than a spear.

Additionally,

Historically, democratic governments have been hostile to dictatorial/aristocratic governments. Thucydides details in his book, The History of the Peloponnesian War, how every time democratic Athens took over a rival city or region they forced it to adopt a democratic form of government, while their wartime rival aristocratic-Sparta would force their conquests to adopt their aristocratic form of government.

So, as you suggest, China will be low-hanging-fruit and easy-pickings for the people at DOD use to justify more tanks, planes and carriers.

The underlying moral impetus is what it most interesting of all. On our liberal side we will never feel like we are spending enough on helping the poor and taking down the rich a notch or two....

And on the conservative side no one will ever say, please don't give the troops another pay-raise, they make enough.

We are "morally-insatiable." Probably for our own good.

We can never provide enough or protect enough to be satisfied.

Dear Stephen

S:''Historically, democratic governments have been hostile to dictatorial/aristocratic governments. ''

I do not think this statement can be historically supported. The US always had plenty of extremely dictatorial allies: China, Saudis, Sadam Hussein, Bin Laden, Shaw of Iran, the list is so long and in many cases help overthrow democratically elected government in order to install a dictatorial puppet state such Mosaddegh (1953). All that while the official major goal/flag of the american foreigh policy has always been the defence of democracy.

S:''So, as you suggest, China will be low-hanging-fruit and easy-pickings for the people at DOD use to justify more tanks, planes and carriers.''

Military technologies are too advance and destructive to be use for political purposes. It is actually a miracle that we did not have a large scale nuclear war so far. Military force only work against very tiny military power. It can't work against a country like Iran or Vietnam. We are so economically interconnected and also more a more fragile. One hundread years ago, an electrical outage was not a problem while today it brings everything to an halt.

Regards,

- Louis

Louis Brassard Dictatorships and democracies are generally hostile "in principle" to each other. Though there are many reasons to cooperate with dictatorships or be in competition with other democracies.

Those in democracies are forever patting themselves on the back for living under the best form of government and feeling sorry for those who don't have one of their own.

There are instances where "more-or-less" democratically elected government are opposed, as in Venezuela now or Mosaddegh (though there still was a Shah in Iran at the time.) Even today in Iran, the country has "elected" officials but it is not presented as a "democracy." The Ayatollahs effectively just replaced the Shahs.

So, the transition from autocracy to democracy is halting ... two steps forward and one back. But with increasing production and trade these nation will transition eventually.

As far as your observation that military technologies are too advanced to be used politically. ...

I hope you are right but I think you will be proven wrong over time.

When the machine gun was first developed there was talk that it was so effective and efficient that it would make war fighting obsolete.

And no weapon, once developed, has ever NOT been used eventually.

Recall, atomic weapons have already been used in war by the U.S.

Most wars are started by over-confident and over-righteous politicians who dream they will be short and victorious...

Look at Athens attacking Sicily

Look at WWI

Look at Hitler attacking the U.S.S.R.

Look at George W. Bush in Iraq & Afghanistan

Look at Castro during the Cuban missile crises. He was an ideologue and openly prepared to have his nation incinerated in a thermonuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. for the good of the world-wide communist movement!

My guess (and I hope I am wrong) is that someday, some other fanatic will come to power in a nation that has a nuclear capability and he will convince himself and his people that a quick attack with nukes will assure them an easy victory.

Who knows who that will be or what nation he will be leading.

And my guess is, when that happens, most of his people will be waiving flags and cheering him on...

Will you elaborate ""As far as your observation that military technologies are too advanced to be used politically"".

''Those in democracies are forever patting themselves on the back for living under the best form of government and feeling sorry for those who don't have one of their own.''

Of course when I look at China, especially the case of ethnic minorities in this empire, I am glad to live in Canada. What is the proportion of Chinese participating in forum of discussion like this. Even most of those chinese that are not citizen of china are afraid to express their true political ideas not only on public platform but in their private house with me. I have a lot of chinese clients here in Vancouver and some I know for a long time. But yes feel good with the comparison but feel quite bad when I see the trend of control of information and the trend of surveillance capitalism. I can still express myself without fear but if this trend continue , I do not know how long it will be possible. I am not paranoid but a realist and wondering how to counter this trend.

Mosaddegh was really for the people but unfortunatly british petrolium had his way and convinced the US to support its overthrow and to put a puppet: the shaw which was overthrow in 1979 by a truly popular uprising which was later instrumentalized by the old religious power . At least this power is not a foreigh power but it is autocratic. They are the only power in the middle east that is not a puppet one and of course the power that the US , Israel and its puppet are aligned against now and we do not know how this show down will turn out. I am 100% for the iranians in spite of the fact that I do not like their brand of religious autocracies. I have a lot of iranian friends. Here there is a huge iranian communities, mostly very rich and former Shaw supporters.

Regards,

- Louis

The political transition from autocratic to democratic government generally takes about 200 years. The British and French went back and forth between representative government and strong-man autocracies for well over a century.

Why do we expect China or Russia to take less time?

The problem is that we have a brief time horizon. Each of us has only one short human lifetime to judge what is happening in the world.

Cold-warriors who died in 1988 probably would never have imagined the collapse of the Soviet Union only a few months later.

American military involvement in the Middle East will slow down that process there. Though American commercial involvement there will speed it up.

Democracy is but the political veneer of a commercial society. As Chinese, Iranian or African commercial involvement grows, sooner or later there will be too many millions of independent people making to many tens of millions of economic decisions for these governments to snoop into, control, corral, and reject. And democracy will occur.

Vertical government will topple into horizontal government.

The transition may not be peaceful, Charles the I and Louis XVI lost their heads in the transition.

Why some people sense COLD world war against China? See the perception , feel the change.

Dear Chandra,

A slow economic US China uncoupling is now taking place and will soon accelerate.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/What-a-socialist-hero-truck-maker-reveals-about-the-China-US-clash

''The stable U.S. consensus that supported engagement with China for four decades is dead.

What exactly will replace it, says Arthur Kroeber of research firm Gavekal, will take time to hash out. "But the broad Trump administration stance is clear: China is a strategic rival in every dimension and it is in the U.S. interest to thwart its technological rise, constrain its ability to compete with the U.S. economically and politically and reduce the value of China's participation in global institutions," Kroeber adds.

What promises to be a lengthy process of economic decoupling has started. China's share of U.S. total trade peaked at just over 16% in 2017 and declined by nearly a percentage point in 2018. A similar dynamic is visible in China's share of U.S. imported goods; having peaked at 22% in March 2018, it has fallen by almost two percentage points since then.

The impact on Chinese investment flows have been more dramatic. China's direct investments into the U.S. plunged to just $5 billion in 2018 from $29 billion in 2017 as tighter U.S. scrutiny took hold.

However, U.S. investments in China are much more deeply entrenched and more difficult to unravel. The supply chains that underpin the assembly of some 220 million iPhones or 100 million Alexa-enabled Amazon devices involve vast networks of suppliers in China. These cannot be easily transferred to other countries such as Vietnam or Thailand.

All this means that the decoupling process between the U.S. and China is likely to be tectonic in nature -''

Regards.

-Louis

Dear Stephen,

''Cold-warriors who died in 1988 probably would never have imagined the collapse of the Soviet Union only a few months later.''

No the exact timing of this type of event can'nt be predicted but these events had been predicted decade earlier. Take the prediction by Tocqueville made at the end of the first volume of Democracy in America 1835:

:

''All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained by the plowshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.''

The future can be predicted up to a point because it follows along long time scale historical development. Identifying these is difficult but people like Tocqueville can and from this predicted hundred of year ahead.

To return to the current discussion , lets say that period predicted by Tocqueville which correspond to the period of the cold war is over. The very brief moment when america thought that the age of one hegemon was beginning is over as well and now we have the biggest power, the US which ''continue to advance with extreme difficulty'' and China which ''proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived'' . Do not need to be a genius to forecast a new cold war between these two.

Regards,

- Louis

I too love Tocqueville. He was such a great writer, don't you think Louis Brassard

But he wrote in the shadow of Alexander I's conquest of Napoleon - and Russia's march to the Atlantic. And he wrote before he could witness America's war against Mexico where it annexed half of the other's country and claimed it as its own.

Except in response to invasion, the Russian army has left its borders infrequently and returned rather quickly.

I'm not saying the Russians would not love to overrun Europe and Asia, they simply lack the means to do it. And will continue to lack the means for a long time.

America, through its commercial and market-oriented democracy gives its government the material means to fund all sorts of adventurism from sending ships to the moon and stars to exploring the bottom of the seas, to sending her armies all over the world.

China and the West will be at odds with each other philosophically, but as long as China wishes to advance commercially it will have to open its markets and deal with the USA and Europe.

The democratization of China may come in 100 years and world leadership may pass from England, to America, to China ... but when that happens we will all continue to grow richer....

It will simply be a passing of the baton of commercial democracy from one to another.

Dear Stephen,

Long time no see. Happy New Year. A lot happen since our last posts. It is a time that some called 'dark'' but such dark time are time of revelation, such dark time of revelation used to be called in antiquity: apocalyptic times. Now I will respond to your last post.

''But he wrote in the shadow of Alexander I's conquest of Napoleon - and Russia's march to the Atlantic. And he wrote before he could witness America's war against Mexico where it annexed half of the other's country and claimed it as its own.''

Of course but does it render its writing obsolete? Two century of history happened since he wrote and we are much better place today to judge his writing. What came to pass and that he wrote about as a possibility which at the time nobody else has even considered. A lot more is almost going to pass in the near future and we do not need to be a genius of his level to see it coming fast. And of course he did not see a lot of thing coming since he was focus and not everything could be included in it. And he made certain errors and he was certainly biaised like all of us are from his own tradition and birth place, etc but he is examplar on how much one can go beyond of the geigeis of the time. A lot of great music was created since Beethoven wrote his music. Did he originated all the music that came after? Is Beethoven obsolete since he composed his stuff more than 3 century ago. Socrates who said his stuff 2 and half millenium ago. He is less obsolete than 99.99999% of the stuff writen in the media in the last 24 hrs. That stuff we will know in 2 millenia.

''I'm not saying the Russians would not love to overrun Europe and Asia, they simply lack the means to do it. And will continue to lack the means for a long time.''

I agree. Just stopping the tide against them and just to survive more than a few decade is what they focus on currently and it is a tough goal to achieve. Dreaming to big stuff , they do not have such luxury and so it explain they can'nt be as stupid as the bigger bullies around. They have to play their few card smartly since they will be gone.

""America, through its commercial and market-oriented democracy gives its government the material means to fund all sorts of adventurism from sending ships to the moon and stars to exploring the bottom of the seas, to sending her armies all over the world.""

I agree though I disagree it is market-oriented. It is only so at the margin, everything important is eventually control by monopolists which are own by only a few banking families.

''China and the West will be at odds with each other philosophically, but as long as China wishes to advance commercially it will have to open its markets and deal with the USA and Europe.''

Being at odd philosophically!!!! Nobody in powers in all of these places do not give a shitt about ideologies except for propaganda purposes. No China do not absolutly need the US market . If we from one day to the next break all trades between the US and China who will suffer most in the short terms? Obviously the US. It got itself out of most industry while China got them all in the process. Who would be more in trouble? Given the obvious answer, it should be a clear red light about what has driven the US to this industrial suicide and dependency.

,,,The democratization of China may come in 100 years and world leadership may pass from England, to America, to China ... but when that happens we will all continue to grow richer....''

IF YOU BELEIVE THIS BULLSHIT , YOUI WILL DRINK THE WHOLE CULLAID AND IT IS NOT AN HAPPY STORY.

Regard,

- Louis

It is almost always, the US politicians are aggressive against any regime or leader seeking real independence , freedom and prosperity. If there is no small country to attack, they start talking and moving aggressively against Russia or China!!. No Eurpean organization or government try to say some thing against them!! It is that bad feeling that they are the best and most powerful! Regards.

Dear Medhat,

It has always been like that in history. The most powerfull bully their small neighboors and respect (are afraid) only other big bullies wich do exactly the same. The style, the rhetoric might be different but all big powers play essentially the same game and all small powers try to get a protection from one of these bullies from another one. This is the game of the big bullies to force all the small powers goes either on their side (best option) or on the other side.

The worst scenario is a single hegemon or world government and it is what we were heading in the period after the last Cold War but this has failed and now the second worse scenario is a new Cold War where like in the last Cold War the competition is in between two main powers : US and allied and China and allied. The Third Scenario which is not perfect but better than the last one for the small powers and also for the majority of population in the big powers is a large number of big powers competing with each other. Yes they will keep on trying to push the small powers but it would much more easy to keep distances and created an equilibrium with many big powers. We are entering a Cold War , the only question is will it be a bipolar or multipolar one. The later scenario is the only one moving us away from centralisation of all power or world government and total slavery.

Regards,

- Louis

Dear Dr Louis Brassard . It could be. But each country try to get the highest economical benefits for itself .

Dear Aref,

''each country try to get the highest economical benefits for itself .''

I would rather say it is only true for the big powers. Almost all the small power are not independent of one or two big power and so their government has to compromise the best for their country with what they are forced to accept. In the case of the puppet states, the government in there is totally oblivious to the interest of their country as a whole but only serve the interest of the puppet elite and the dominating state pulling the string. Very few small power like Cuba is fully independent. Even case such as Iran, a middle size power is rare in having such independence but Iran has a very very strong culture and historry of independence and also a difficult geography. India is much too powerfull for it to be totally submitted , in fact it is even too diverse to be totally centralized and have never been. So India has nor been forced to totally submitted, and would in fact never been able to since it would desintegrate if it would do that. My hope is that European states would ensure their own military protection and have the american out of there and the Asian powers would also do the same etc and so a lot of more independent middle size and small powers could exist.

Regards,

- Louis