There is no Sino-American cold war, and if we're careful we can keep it that way.
There are always many models for understanding the world, and one of the worse ones I’ve seen crop up lately is the ‘New Cold War’. I’ve argued before that the idea that the 21st century will inevitably be defined by the Sino-American cold war is not just too convenient a framing for old politicians who would rather take analytical shortcuts, but an actively destructive model which actively serves to increase the risk of a Sino-American conflict. Unfortunately, the idea of the grand, second cold war seems to remain somewhat popular, and I’ve even seen a writer at the Heritage Foundation accusing China of “greenlighting” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which reduces the nuances of diplomacy and politics in post-Soviet eastern Europe to a simple US-China proxy war à la Vietnam. There is no Sino-American cold war, but by thinking that there is American and Chinese policy makers can create one, which is why it is so important to keep in mind the differences between today and the back half of the 20th century.
The ‘Cold War’ model of viewing the international power struggle between the USSR and the USA was based in no small part of US diplomat George Kennan’s so-called long telegram, and his predictions and suggestions ended up influencing US policymaking profoundly. In the end Kennan was broadly right in his prediction that the USSR would eventually collapse, but it’s important to understand that while history looks inevitable in retrospect it never was. Kennan framed the conflict in a way which gave way to the cold war model of understanding Soviet-American relations which framed any interaction between the two superpowers and their allies as a fundamentally zero-sum competition for power. Bu the time that model became entrenched in the minds of American policy makers it made them predisposed to act aggressively towards the Soviets which leads to a natural and predictable escalation. In my last post about why the cold war model is a poor fit for current Sino-American relationship I referenced the ‘Thucydides Trap’; the idea that it was the rise of Athens and the fear that struck in the hearts of Spartans which made war inevitable. Essentially, it was the fear of being overtaken by a rising power which made the hegemonic power act in a way which lead to war. By subscribing to the idea that there already is a cold war active or brewing it constricts our thinking to a point which makes said war inevitable (though the temperature is yet to be decided).
I strongly believe that the world is currently multi-polar, meaning that there are three or more great powers which have different spheres of influence where they are the dominant power. Unlike in a bipolar international system a multipolar world doesn’t necessarily mean that the powers are on comparable footing, only that they are powerful enough to have their own sphere of influence. In a genuinely bipolar world with Peking and Washington as the two poles it doesn’t make sense for Russia to be winning in Ukraine, or for Turkey to abstain from criticising China on its treatment of Uyghurs. Just because Russia is bogged down in Ukraine doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great power in its own right, or that it won’t recover the perceived power and international prestige it lost due to its war in Ukraine.
All models are necessarily simplified abstractions of reality, and simple ones like the new cold war model is easy to spin into a compelling narrative with bravery and treachery, heroes and villains. It also makes for simple easily explained policy prescriptions. But models are simplifications and abstractions of reality, and in notoriously complex and complicated endeavours like international relations details and nuance matters. The new cold war might be a great political tool for campaigning for a certain type of politician but make no mistake in thinking that it is a useful tool for understanding the world. Historical parallels can be illuminating but also a crutch relying on an ability to spot surface similarities rather than causal similarities. I wouldn’t mind if the new cold war story was just that, a story. But the stories we tell have real power and the way we understand the world can have real world implications. If we understand the international system to be a bipolar cold war conflict between China and the US we could accidentally overlook something important; or worse, we could accidentally manifest that very cold war.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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