China has greater economic might than the Soviet Union did. The emerging rivalry looks less predictable and harder to win.
It’s rightly being called a new cold war. But in comparison with the U. S.-Soviet conflict, the U. S.-China rivalry will be much harder to navigate. Still, a modus vivendi could ultimately emerge based on competition and cooperation.
Superficially, the two cold wars are similar. Both involve Communist-ruled states with nuclear arsenals and rival geopolitical ambitions.
But the USSR’s military power was offset by its inability to match the West economically and technologically. China is incomparably different. It is the world’s second-largest economy, with growing high-tech investment. It is an important consumer market. It is intricately entwined in global economic and financial systems.
Could all that be unraveled? Yes – in theory. But that would risk real pain to the U. S., China, and the world, as the escalating tariff war and disputes over the use of Chinese-owned Huawei’s technology suggest. That might hold another message. Washington has struggled to get members of the trans-Atlantic alliance to join in excluding Huawei from 5G networks. It bears remembering that the strength of that partnership, of which the U. S. is often dismissive, loomed large in the outcome of the first Cold War.
The timing is striking. Leading up to June 6, D-Day commemorations on the south coast of England and the beaches of Normandy will cast the world’s gaze back to World War II – and the Cold War with the Soviet Union that followed. And they’ll be held amid rumblings of what’s rightly being called a new cold war – with China.
Yet as that conflict has intensified, there are signs this cold war will be different: less predictable, potentially more destabilizing, and harder to win. Ultimately, a more likely outcome may see the world’s two main powers sealing some form of modus vivendi – a mix of competition and cooperation – with which neither side will be entirely happy.
