Heading Toward a Cold War, or Even a Hot One

 The United States and China, the word's mightiest military and economic powers, are currently heading toward a Cold War, or even a hot one, with potentially disastrous consequences. But an alternative path is available and could be taken.

Beginning in 2018, U.S. government policy toward China turned sharply hostile, bringing relations between the two nations to their lowest point in the last four decades. The Trump administration fostered military confrontations with China in the South Sea, initiated a trade war with the Asian nation, blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic, and sharply denounced its human rights record. In a July 2020 public address, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for "a new alliance of democracies" to resist China, declaring: "The free word must triumph over this new tyranny."

For the most part, the Biden administration has continued this hard-line policy. Soon after taking office in 2021, U.S. officials stepped up political and military engagement with Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken used his first meeting with Chinese officials to publicly berate China. At the beginning of June, the U.S. Senate passed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, explicitly designed to compete with China by pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into advanced U.S. technology. This action followed the release of a proposed Pentagon budget that identified China as "the greatest long-term challenge to the United States." 

The Chinese government has not shied away from confrontation, either. XI Jinping, taking office in 2012 as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and in 2013, as President of China, has launched his nation on a 'more assertive nationalist course' in world affairs. This has included turning disputed islands in the South China Sea into Chinese military bases, and steadily building up Chinese military forces. The latter have been employed for dangerous confrontations with U.S. warships in the South China Sea, and for flights into Taiwan's airspace.

The dangers of this growing confrontation are enormous. The United States and China have developed unprecedented military might, and a conventional war could easily spiral into a catastrophic military conflict. Even if war were averted, their escalating arms race, which already accounts for more than half the world's military expenditures, would be a colossal waste of resources.

Fortunately, though, there is plenty of opportunity on the world scene for the United States and China to cooperate and, thereby, not only avert disaster, but serve their common interests.

Avoiding climate catastrophe is certainly a key area in which they would be well-served by cooperation. Not only are the people of China and the United States threatened by climate change, but, as the two nations are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, they can make or break world climate agreements.

Moreover, both countries have a great deal to gain, as does the world, by their agreement on a nuclear arms control and disarmament program. Minimally, they could increase the transparency of their nuclear holdings, develop arms control verification procedures, and freeze China's nuclear stockpile in exchange for further cuts in U.S and Russian nuclear arsenals.

Other area are also ripe for cooperation. Economic agreements could reduce global poverty, outlaw multinational malfeasance, and regulate trade while crime-fighting measures could address cyberattacks and piracy.

Cooperation between the two nations is not as far-fetched as it might seem. In past decades, the U.S. and Chinese governments worked together on projects like stopping Ebola, reducing the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons, averting global financial catastrophe, and assuring food safety. Furthermore, there has recently been agreement by the governments of both nations on U.S.-China cooperation in fighting climate change.