Drawing historical comparisons can be helpful and enlightening. It can also mislead. Whatever you think about China today, it’s important to understand the country as it is, not as something else to fit your preconceptions. Comparing it to the former Soviet Union and claiming it’s even more threatening definitely verges on the outlandish and the untenable. But that’s according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “What’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is in some ways worse,” he told the Czech senate. “The CCP is already enmeshed in our economies, in our politics, in our societies in ways the Soviet Union never was.” Gloves are off between China and US with latest arrests Perhaps that’s because the world and China, including until recently the United States, have free trade; and hence the “enmeshing”? Many political scientists believe trade is a good thing because it enhances mutual economic benefits and reduces potential hostilities. And while Xi Jinping may not be a nice guy, he is not Joseph Stalin, and China is not the USSR. Quite simply, China doesn’t want another cold or hot war with the US the way the old Soviets did. What’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is in some ways worse US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Lazy historical analogies can be dangerous, Michael McFaul, professor of political science and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, wrote in the latest Foreign Affairs journal. “Chinese citizens enjoy much greater autonomy over their own economic well-being than Soviet citizens did in the early days of the Cold War – a product of China’s more open, market-oriented, and globally integrated economy,” he wrote. “On this dimension, the comparison is not even close. Xi has not orchestrated the overthrow of a single regime. Hong Kong comes closest, considering Beijing’s expanding acts of repression there … Xi has yet to instigate a coup, arm insurgents, or invade a democracy and install a communist regime. “Little suggests that he seeks to subvert American democracy. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has been much bolder and more aggressive on that front.) And although the United Front Work Department – one of the CCP’s main agents of influence overseas – warrants close scrutiny, its efforts to export the Chinese system of government seem feeble and ineffective next to Soviet tactics. Is the West in decline? “Promoting a positive image of Xi’s China or proclaiming the economic benefits of its development model is not the same as invading countries or providing AK-47s and Katyusha rocket launchers to communist guerillas. If Xi and his comrades are actually trying to promote Marxism-Leninism-Maoism around the world, they are doing a bad job of it.” Ideologues such as Pompeo know they have only a small window of opportunity to impose their views on US foreign policy until the November election. They had long been held in check by an opportunistic Donald Trump, who just wanted to make the Chinese buy American. But as his mismanagement of the health crisis makes it possible for the pandemic to cause havoc with the US economy and undermines his chances of re-election, the president decided to play the “Red China” card. Here is a rare opportunity for the “hawks” to spread their wings. ‘Shameless and despicable’: Hong Kong decries US sanctions over security law By all indication, there has been little policy formulation or serious discussion among the honchos in Washington. The barrage of actions that was unleashed – whether it was sanctions against hapless officials in Hong Kong or kicking out any company that has a Chinese name – has no strategic rhyme or reason, or any method to the madness. It looks more like: let’s get China and anything that sounds Chinese. “The United States must understand China ‘as it is’, to quote Pompeo, not as some in Washington want it to be,” wrote Professor McFaul. “The Trump administration undoubtedly would like a Stalinist leader to be in charge in Beijing, if only to better mobilise and unite Americans against him. But China ‘as it is’ is not ruled by a new Stalin. “Asserting otherwise doesn’t change that fact and gets in the way of developing a sophisticated, successful US policy to contain, deter, and engage China over the long haul.” I couldn’t have put it better.