Satellite photo released this week showing a mockup U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in Xinjiang, China, possibly built as a training target. Credit: 2021 Maxar Technologies/Handout
If the United States is to deal effectively with China’s growing threat, it would be a good idea to define our current situation accurately.
The truth is, we are already in a ‘cold war’ with the People’s Republic of China.
I take no pleasure in pointing this out. Given a choice, I would prefer to live in the world that more phlegmatic China-watchers describe, the latest being the highly-respected Joseph Nye in his recent op-ed in The New York Times (With China, a ‘Cold War’ Analogy Is Lazy and Dangerous). Unfortunately that world is a fantasy.
The similarities between the ‘Cold War’ (a long-term, strategic competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that spanned more than four decades) and the current ‘cold war’ (a long-term, strategic competition between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America) are much closer than many admit.
This is more than just an academic debating point. We risk serious errors a
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