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A visitor is reflected in a puddle along the East Side Gallery in Berlin. The lack of a geopolitical focal point akin to Berlin during the Cold War is one of several reasons that drawing parallels between US-China and US-Soviet-Union competition misses the mark. Photo: EPA
Opinion
Opinion
by Gregory Mitrovich
Opinion
by Gregory Mitrovich

US-China relations: invoking the Cold War ignores the Covid-19 pandemic and wider context

  • The lack of an ideological conflict or clear geopolitical point of contention, as well as the presence of Covid-19, are differences that must not be overlooked
  • The looming threat of multiple waves of the pandemic, as in the 1918 influenza outbreak, could ultimately force the US and China into a more cooperative relationship
The deterioration of US-China relations has many fearful that conflict is inevitable as the two nations are increasingly entangled in a new cold war. However, these cold-war comparisons do more harm than good as they fail to consider critical differences between the two eras of competition.

The first difference is that the US-China rivalry lacks an ideological conflict that even remotely resembles the ferocity of US-Soviet relations from the 1940s to 1960s. Second, US-China competition lacks a geopolitical point of contention on the magnitude of the “German problem” that heightened the risk of conflict during the early Cold War. Third, there exists a common danger – the Covid-19 pandemic – that should encourage cooperation that didn’t exist during the Cold War.

This isn’t to say there are no important sources of tension that divide the two powers. Rather, they are not as grave as those that made the Cold War so deadly, providing us with more hope for the future.
Though some argue China is promoting an ideological replacement for Western liberalism, Beijing’s alternative offers little of the ideological fervour of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought following World War II. How could it when China’s entrepreneurs seek to emulate the wealth of their Western counterparts?

Unlike the Soviet Union, China is heavily integrated into the world economy and its businesses have expanded globally. There is no comparison with the Soviet Union’s socialist system, which quickly became an economic bloc with its member nations cut off from the rest of the world.

China does not control an economic bloc as the Soviets did, at least for now, so its rivalry with the West isn’t zero sum but it is competitive with a lower possibility of escalation to armed conflict.

04:12

Are Xi Jinping’s China and Donald Trump’s US destined for armed conflict?

Are Xi Jinping’s China and Donald Trump’s US destined for armed conflict?
While ideology defined the Cold War, geopolitics turned it into an existential threat and the key geopolitical point of contention was the future of Germany. The rise of Germany following unification in 1871 caused a fundamental shift in the European balance of power, eventually leading to two world wars.

Not surprisingly, the German problem lay at the crux of the US-Soviet confrontation in Europe. Both sides feared that whichever way a united Germany might tilt would determine the future of Europe. When efforts at reuniting the nation failed, the US, Britain and France fused their zones to form West Germany while the Soviets created a communist East Germany.

The Kremlin grew increasingly concerned about the future of West Germany, especially after the United States and its Nato allies decided to rearm West Germany in 1950 and brought it into the transatlantic security alliance in 1955.

A series of crises over the status of a divided Berlin threatened war on several occasions, but it was the possibility of a nuclear-armed West Germany that especially alarmed the Soviets.

As historian Marc Trachtenberg argues, West Germany’s adoption of non-nuclear status in 1963 ultimately resolved the European crisis and led to a settlement over Berlin in 1971. However, by then, the conflict over Germany had led to the military rearmament of Europe and ignited a dangerous nuclear arms race that would last another 30 years.

China’s failing foreign policy needs an urgent reboot

One would have to delve into fantasy to offer a modern parallel to the German problem – only a contest over Japan might fit that bill. China’s increasing threats regarding Taiwan do risk turning it into a flash point similar to Berlin. However, the United States hasn’t been formally obliged to defend Taiwan as it was obliged to defend West Berlin following Germany’s entry into Nato.

Even so, the Berlin example offers important lessons, namely that the US should respond to Chinese challenges as creatively as it did Soviet provocations against Berlin. Instead of direct military intervention, its famous airlift brought tens of millions of tonnes of supplies that kept West Berlin from succumbing to the Soviet blockade.

Though not as dangerous as the earlier conflict, the US-China relationship will remain contentious for the near future. One reason is rising Chinese expectations. Many Chinese see the US as a nation in decline and some increasingly view the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity for their country to seize the reins of world power.

02:32

Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions

Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions
This is evident with China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy, such as its new national security law in Hong Kong, its increasing belligerence towards Taiwan, and its military clashes with India. It hopes to become a dominant player in East and Central Asia and spread its influence among autocratic elites in Africa and southwest Europe.
However, Covid-19 could ultimately force the US and China to return to a more cooperative stance should Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election. Though the pandemic has become a foreign policy weapon used by each side, if the virus follows the example of the 1918 influenza, the world will face future waves with ever greater mortality rates.

International cooperation would be vital to lessen their potentially devastating impact. One might hope this possible cooperation proves lasting in the decades ahead.

Gregory Mitrovich is a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University

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