US-China tensions fuelled by lack of interaction, former US ambassador to Russia says

The US is ‘not doing enough with either China or Russia … and that can lead to dangerous conflicts’, Stanford University professor Michael McFaul says

All three powers should learn from the mistakes of the Cold War to avoid a military conflict, he says

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Michael McFaul says he is “really frightened” by the lack of interaction between the US and Chinese governments. Photo: Handout

Published: 10:00pm, 25 Sep 2020Updated: 4:57am, 26 Sep 2020

A former US ambassador to Russia has warned that the lack of communication between Washington and Beijing could lead to misunderstanding and increase the risk of military conflict.

Speaking at an online meeting of the Asia Society in Hong Kong on Friday, Michael McFaul, who is now a professor of international studies at Stanford University, said the United States, China and Russia should learn from the mistakes of the Cold War if they wanted to avoid armed combat.

World leaders needed to engage in both cooperation and confrontation, as well as proper crisis prevention and management, he said.

“We’re [the US] not doing enough with either China or Russia today and that leads to misperceptions between capitals that can lead to dangerous conflicts,” McFaul said.

“I am really frightened by how little interaction there is between my government and the government of China and the government of Russia.”

China’s rise as a military power would be the most important foreign policy challenge facing the United States for the rest of the century, McFaul said. But he added there was “a negative consequence to over-exaggerating that threat, and that is a lesson I think we need to learn from the Cold War”.