According to our politicians, the United States is in a new Cold War, this time against China. Like the previous one, both sides are competing for favor with smaller countries and periodically issuing hawkish pronouncements. And as with the Soviet Union before it, China's record on human rights is dismal, as we've seen in its treatment of both dissidents in Hong Kong and Uyghur minorities in the far reaches of the northwest.
But you know what's missing this time around? There are no Vietnams, no Afghanistans, no Nicaraguas, and no Pragues. There is no Iron Curtain. There is no realistic fear of thermonuclear war. There's a bit of skirmishing over economic zones in the South China Sea, but that's about it. The two sides are lashed together in an economic marriage that neither one can afford to break.
This is a pretty pale imitation of our original Cold War. Instead of hiding under their desks during duck-and-cover drills, our kids are hiding under their desks playing with their Foxconn-made Nintendos.
If this isn't progress, I don't know what is.
We are slowly extricating ourselves from that entwined disaster, thankfully.
The entwined disaster of world trade and world peace.
Lovely. What are you going to replace it with?
An anarchist collective!
The fact that we enabled China's (Thanks to middle class job losses) and now see them as a threat has got to be worst policy failures of the century. Worse, even, than the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Good luck.
Job losses were a consequence of our economic system. The mistake was to not allocate enough resources for rehabilitating the people affected by it. As for Iraq and Afghanistan (beyond the initial actions), nothing is worse other than perhaps Vietnam. In fact Trump, Iraq and the Great Recession are the tragedies of Nixon, Vietnam and the Great Depression being repeated as farce this century.
The fact that we enabled China's...
"We" (the US, or the west) didn't enable squat. The Chinese switched from a system that pretty much guarantees slow growth and dismal living standards (Maoist central planning) to one that has worked extremely well (state-guided capitalism), especially given the traditional work ethic, cleverness and entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese (as well as the highly favorable, growth-friendly demographics China enjoyed in the 80s-90s). Of course, had the entire outside world simply refused to trade with the fifth of humanity inside mainland China, the PRC would no doubt have seen a lot less progress. But that was never in the cards*. Many countries had already normalized relations with Beijing when the US finally broke down and did so in 1979. It's America, not China, that would have missed out had Washington refrained from forging economic ties.
This notion that the US is a puppet master pulling the planet's geopolitical strings (and we get to "choose" which countries succeed and which ones don't) is truly rich.
*And needless to say, even if possible to effect, keeping hundreds of millions of people in grinding poverty is pretty damn evil.
You might redo the charts using median income instead of per capita which is mean. I think that the median (adjusted for inflation) would should much less growth.
I have traveled a fair bit in the western Pacific and Indo-Pacific area, and I am struck by how unpopular Chinese tourists are. They are often viewed as the new "ugly Americans", traveling in groups, oblivious about local norms and obsessed with their cell phones and taking selfies. This stereotype feeds into a tension already present in some countries between central governments eager for aid from the People's Republic, and state and local governments who have traditionally received aid from Taiwan. Not to say Chinese policy might evolve in the future, but right now I sense they face an uphill struggle competing for favor with smaller nations.
I have said for a long time that the Chinese attitude is not that far from the American (center of the universe what can you do about it?) But the Chinese have 1000 years more practice.
... And the fact that they do have thousands more years of practice in the Middle Kingdom suggests they are probably right.
A thousand more years, except for that 50 years of colonial exploitation by the western powers (and Japan). In the U.S. we are still fighting the Civil War. One senses Chinese leaders are still fighting the war for independence.
And the fact that, as tourists go, they are. Chinese tourists are the ones who get to violate their homes' norms, and so more often, don't care about others's.
As a cyclist in SF, I've never almost been struck by a pedestrian that wasn't one. And locals are pretty oblivious to bikes, but they do at least let you use the bike track.
So Norman Angell was right, eh?
I'd like to believe this, but I'm not sure politics works that way. In particular, I think that people born into a world of peace and plenty assume that the universe naturally delivers this, and that they can engage in whatever stupid puffery and fighting against anyone else appeals to them without endangering that peace and plenty.
(cf the enthusiasm in the US, on both sides, for destroying various aspects of the liberal consensus that has got us so far...)
More the Great Game, where the objects are grandiosity for China and prosperity for everyone else.
North Korea?
Cyberwarfare sucks, but it's way better than the thermonuclear kind.
Agreed, Kevin.
Even more, seen from a world perspective, by giving higher paid work to people in rural China, hundreds of millions have been pulled out of dire poverty in a span of just a few decades. That higher pay means longer lives, better healthcare, stronger families, more education (especially for women), and more choice about how one lives one's life. Which is not to say China's government is all (or even any) good. And the money saved by making products cheaper in the US (and profits higher for US companies, such as, especially, Apple) should be spread around a lot more in the US. But Chinese people making lots more stuff is, in lots of ways, really good.
One note is that we are still in a long term struggle to win the future. Will the countries of the world ultimately end up democratic or authoritarian/totalitarian? We of course want democracy to win. China is trying to present an alternative model for other countries, one without all the noisy turmoil of democracies.
So we should not think of the conflict with China as minor. A big challenge going forward is to figure out how to deal with the regimes ruling over China. Long term of course we want China to democratize. The path to that is awfully vague right now. They are moving in the opposite direction, which is sad to see.
No Prague? I’d think Hong Kong fills that role nicely.
This isn't going to age well to the ROC.
"Instead of hiding under their desks during duck-and-cover drills, our kids are hiding under their desks playing with their Foxconn-made Nintendos."
Yeah, but those underdesking drills are for domestic terrorism incidents, where some freedumb-lovin' yay-hoo decides he needs to shoot up an elementary school or two, just because. While international relations may be improving, we're losing big on the domestic tranquility front.
There is no realistic fear of thermonuclear war.
I usually appreciate Kevin's optimistic take on things (or at least his lack of cynicism and pessimism), but this is one of the most Pollyannaish things he's ever written.
We're easily living in the most dangerous times since the mid 80s.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-06-03/china-taiwan-war-temptation
Thermonuclear war doesn't get either side what they want.
Which is a good reason to avoid it. Unfortunately, the universe hasn't outlawed miscalculations. Pretty sure Britain, France and Germany didn't didn't "get what they wanted" from their participation in WWI.
Kevin's vision of the "new" cold war as just being a bit of irritable elbow-throwing over trade is immensely comforting. I really wish it were valid. But things are a whole lot more dangerous than he thinks.
It's my understanding that England and Germany were very involved trading partners prior to the Great War. Economic ties do not assuage war war war even though we think they would encourage talk talk talk.
Bingo
Not really, they competed more than they were intertwined.
Yes, really. Competitors often engage in large-scale trade. The USSR was sending Nazi Germany largescale trade shipments on the eve of the latter's invasion in 1941. No serious person can deny the United States and China are competitors. But they also do about $600 billion in annual bilateral trade.
Nuclear armed Pakistan & Gujarati ethnic cleanser Morendra Modi have entered the chat.
(Remember: technically, China can assert control of 10% of Kashmir.)
You omitted the Korean War in your list of Cold War hot wars. Why? It was the biggest of them all in terms of casualties, Maybe because China intervened on the side of our enemy?