China’s relations with the US are at their lowest for 30 years, but don’t call it a new cold war

Far-flung proxy wars and ideological competition that defined US-Soviet competition after World War II are missing in current landscape
Deterring where necessary and bolstering international institutions are preferable to drawing another iron curtain across the world

Christian Le Miere

Published: 1:00am, 3 Jun 2020

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It has become increasingly fashionable to refer to the Sino-US relationship as a “new cold war,” but this term is neither accurate nor helpful. Relations are certainly tense between the two powers and at their lowest point for 30 years. However, mislabelling the current situation as a cold war makes it more challenging to devise effective policy and shoehorns the protagonists into roles they might not otherwise inhabit.

This is not to be naive about China and its behaviour. China is the United States’ most powerful rival. In its current guise, China seems intent on at least reforming if not overturning the current US-led post-war order to ensure it has a greater, preferably dominant role.

Beijing has supported corporate espionage, made a mockery of intellectual property laws and disregarded international law in areas such as the South China Sea. It has used economic and quasi-military coercion to bully smaller states in disputes and undermined the rules-based order.

In its bid to develop influence worldwide, it has often supported autocratic governments with poor human rights records and even regimes antagonistic to the United States.

But this is a far cry from the Cold War, a geopolitical competition fought between two ideologically opposed superpowers. The Soviet Union sought, particularly in the early years, to transform the global order through a series of national communist revolutions that would enable a worldwide communist utopia.

China ended its support for such insurgencies in the 1960s. The Soviet Union united vast swathes of the world into formal alliances diametrically opposed to the United States, such as the Warsaw Pact. China’s limited number of close friends – from Iran to North Korea to Venezuela – are a diverse group of states with no uniting philosophy that would prove difficult to corral effectively.

The United States and the Soviet Union fought a series of proxy wars throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. By contrast, the US and China have not yet engaged in any proxy wars.

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In fact, China and the United States are often more likely to agree on issues of national security than disagree. For example, China is, much like the US, vehemently opposed to Islamic militancy, fearing the effects might spill over into its own backyard of Xinjiang. As such, the conflict in Yemen is an illuminating counterfactual.

Currently, China’s ally Iran is arming the Houthi insurgents against a government supported by two US allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. During the Cold War, it would have been inconceivable for this not to develop into a more direct proxy war, with Soviet munitions being funnelled through Iran to the Houthis and the United States offering materiel to the internationally recognised government.

China has not assumed this adversarial position, though, determined instead to protect its growing relationship with Riyadh by remaining aloof from the conflict.

Accurately defining the problem is important. China is a potential threat, and kinetic war is a feasible path in the future. Mislabelling the current situation as a cold war could only make that unfortunate possible future more likely. Good policymaking requires clear thinking; misdiagnosing an issue will prevent strategic coherence.

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There is a new-found bipartisan agreement in Washington that a tougher line should be taken with China. Many of the policies being suggested are a positive step in this direction of deterring China from aggressive or rule-breaking behaviour.

Politicians should be aware of the battle they are fighting. The United States is not yet in a cold war but rather a “hot peace”. Trying to emulate the Cold War by drawing an iron curtain across the world will alienate potential allies, damage the US economy and make it harder to curry favour worldwide.

It is better to maintain a wary engagement, deter as necessary and build international institutions and US-centred alliances to support the rules-based order.

Christian Le Miere is the founder of Arcipel, a strategic consultancy, and has worked as a senior adviser to an Abu Dhabi entity. He was formerly a senior fellow at the IISS, a London-based think tank, and the editor of various publications for Jane’s, a global defence intelligence firm

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