Is China and the U.S. headed for a Cold War?
The Lowy Institute's Michael Wesley pours some cold water on the idea:
Today's US and China are not the same as America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The US and the USSR were superpowers, a word that's used so much these days that many have forgotten its original meaning: a power so much larger than all other types of state that collectively they would be no match for it. With this sort of power lead, any sudden change in relations between Washington and Moscow â?? for better or worse â?? had a decisive effect on world politics.America and China do not possess that kind of power gap with other classes of states. Unlike just after the Second World War, today the rest of the world is much richer and much better armed.
Furthermore, the Cold War was driven by ideology as much as by power. Today, America and China do not represent powerful, universalist ideologies that speak to the development and doctrinal issues that confront many of the world's societies. Neither state can meaningfully be said to have ideological followers that see the other state and the doctrine it represents as an existential threat to their way of life.
I'd say that many politicians and analysts in America would vigorously contest that last point. America, they would argue, does represent a universalist ideology. Indeed, many of the strongest proponents of that notion believe we cannot live securely in a world populated with political systems that do not share our views and thus have a positive obligation to go forth and spread the revolution. Granted, this idea does not seem to have many takers in the current administration - but administrations change.
We also can't predict how China will ultimately behave as (if?) it continues to close the power gap with the United States.
(AP Photo)
