China-US tensions could be worse than the Cold War, academic says
- Situation facing Beijing and Washington is ‘sensationally more distressing’ than US-Russia freeze, Peking University professor Wang Jisi tells World Peace Forum
- US President Donald Trump might seek to further contain China as he bids for re-election in November, he says
“In the next four months, it is almost certain that China policy will be an issue of the US presidential campaign,” said Wang Jisi, dean of the school of international studies at Peking University in Beijing.
“Some Chinese analysts are concerned that the Trump camp may create a few incidents within this time frame to show its determination to contain China. That could be dangerous,” he said at the World Peace Forum, hosted by Tsinghua University on Wednesday night in the Chinese capital.
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One of the country’s leading experts on US-China relations, Wang said relations between the two countries may become worse than US-Soviet ties during the Cold War.
“Moscow-Washington relations remained essentially stable for more than four decades despite a few sporadic ‘hot’ moments like the Cuban missile crisis in 1962,” he said.
Tensions between China and the US, especially during the Covid pandemic, were “sensationally more distressing than the analogy of the Cold War”, he said.
“One question is whether the China-US rivalry will last longer and cost more on both sides than the Soviet-US competition,” he said. “Another is whether an unexpected event alongside the current China-US tensions will escalate into a deadly clash.”
Beijing should not “provide ammunition” to the China hawks in Washington, Wang said, though he noted that domestic priorities, like Hong Kong, seemed to outweigh issues related to the US.