US’ failure to learn Cold War lessons will be to China’s benefit

Many scholars date the Cold War from 1947, starting with the Truman Doctrine which aimed to contain the Soviet Union, to 1991, when the USSR collapsed. In those intervening years, the conflict touched billions of lives, with nearly every significant historical development connected in some way, directly or indirectly.

Today, it is worth reviewing American and Chinese assessments of the Cold War as these two countries find themselves on the brink of a new one. American narratives typically underscore three points.

First, the Soviets were committed to an inferior political economy. Second, they made major mistakes, such as the invasion of Afghanistan and the Chernobyl catastrophe, that accelerated a deep and irreversible rot. Third, a reinvigorated American resolve, personified by US president Ronald Reagan and backstopped by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pushed Moscow to its breaking point.

Chinese assessments are not as succinct. First, and perhaps most importantly, Mao Zedong predicted an eventual Soviet collapse in 1956 following Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech” initiating de-Stalinisation.

As Mao put it, the Soviets had thrown away the two “swords” of Karl Marx – Josef Stalin threw away the sword of Vladimir Lenin and Khrushchev, the sword of Stalin. Mao believed this would make them prone to bureaucratic entrenchment and resistant to self-discipline and change, producing stagnation and decline.

Second, whether pushed by Leninist internationalism, post-war opportunism or the existential requirements of increasing great power competition, the Soviets fell into unsustainable, self-defeating imperialism and hegemony. This global power projection would be impossible to maintain even under the best circumstances, and all the more so as stagnation eroded capacity at home and abroad.

Third, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made two fatal mistakes. As a direct political descendant of Khrushchevian idealism, he attempted political reforms before economic reforms. According to Marxist theory, this will produce failure because politics is determined by the economic base, not vice versa.

Also, when push came to shove in 1991, he did not shove so he was pushed. His idealism lacked a militant resolve to defend the material interests of the nation or the Communist Party. In fact, the Chinese view these mistakes as two sides of the same coin and consistent with their first two assessments.

Both sides often neglect three additional points. The first is Mao’s elevation of class struggle from the national to the international level, starting in 1968, when he declared the Cultural Revolution complete and demobilised the Red Guards.

This was followed in 1969 with overtures to the United States, producing visits to Beijing by national security adviser Henry Kissinger and US president Richard Nixon. It was also followed by the concept of international class struggle, expressed in a speech written by Mao and delivered by Deng Xiaoping to the United Nations in 1974.

In short, Mao helped set the table for reform and opening up by drawing close to the US as a counter against one superpower – the Soviet Union – to facilitate vital technology and capital transfers from the other to speed China’s modernisation. This helped close the yawning tech gap that had left China vulnerable to foreign aggression since the mid-19th century.

The second point is contained in the first – that is, the significance of the Soviets “losing” China. While the Sino-Soviet split is traceable to 1956, its crucial tipping point came in 1959 with the Tibetan uprising.

After the Dalai Lama fled to India, the Soviets sided with him, inviting him to Moscow. Relations deteriorated, culminating in the Sino-Soviet border war in 1969, not coincidentally the same year Mao was reaching out to the US.

How Mao and Khrushchev fought over China-India border dispute

This lesson is not lost entirely on the US today. Having more or less abandoned Pakistan to the Chinese sphere and embraced India, Washington is now seeking the right mix of costs and benefits to flip Russia against China.

The goal is to do unto China what was done unto the USSR and avoid at all costs Moscow using its strong relationship with New Delhi to improve Sino-Indian relations. For the moment at least, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears committed to leaning towards Beijing in some respects but effectively triangulating to maximise Russian advantages.

The third point is the most contentious. Whether one believes the US won the Cold War or the Soviets lost it, one can also argue that the only real winner was China. The fact is that China emerged stronger, much stronger relative to the US, than the Soviets ever were.

Today, China is the world’s second-largest economy, one of the top technological societies in the world and is expected by American intelligence assessments to equal the US militarily and economically in the 2030s. However, it is possible the two countries’ different experiences with Covid-19 have accelerated this timetable and put more pressure on the US to advance while it still holds some competitive advantages.

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, and it is reasonable to say it likewise marks the first anniversary of the second cold war. Some will argue that the US never really exited a Cold War mindset, so it’s unsurprising to find Washington continuing global crusades. Perhaps Chinese strategic thinkers foresaw this eventuality decades ago, in broad outlines at least, and prepared accordingly.

That said, the risks facing the US now are not dissimilar from those the Soviets faced. While the US has learned a few lessons along the way, it’s not clear Washington has learned the deeper lessons of history, including how the past and present are different or why Beijing has so far avoided the Soviet Union’s fate.

Josef Gregory Mahoney is professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University in Shanghai