U.S.-China Relations: Is there a Cold War 2.0?

Diplomacy has always been a backburner in American politics, particularly during presidential elections. For instance, when debating whether to revive the Cold War-esque approach towards Russia or not, President Obama famously mocked Governor Romney. Romney argued that Russia posed a threat to American interests; meanwhile, Obama shrugged it off as an antiquated point of view: “the Cold War is over.” 9 years later, instead of challenging Russia, the Democratic and Republican parties have assumed a hawkish and neo-conservative–the belief that it is the role of the United States to defend and combat nations that it deems inherently evil aggressively–stance towards China. Senator Sanders, the author of the Foreign Affairs article, argues that there should be no new Cold War with China and attempts should be made to de-escalate potential conflicts. Despite this, both Democrats and Republicans have incentives to increase tensions with China, notably by slamming key issues such as trade and culture. In many ways, the ‘new Cold War’ is already here, yet the United States still does not take the rivalry seriously on a global scale.

In a hyper-partisan and polarized time in American politics, the one thing both parties can form a consensus around is viewing China as a threat to American interests and warrants combatting. There is an incentive on the part of members of Congress to increase the ‘new Cold War’ tensions through both their rhetoric and policy positions. In the article, Sanders mentions that Senator Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) has directly compared the Soviet Union’s goals of conquest to China’s and argues for a Cold War-style response to counter totalitarianism. There are salient issues from the American electorate to turn the heat up regarding tensions between China and the United States, especially regarding commerce, culture, and censorship. While the new Cold War posturing is undoubtedly here, it is hardly comparable to the United States’ confrontation with the Soviet Union.

The ‘new Cold War’ and historic Cold War cannot be more different in strategies and objectives between the conflicting superpowers. The standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States from 1945 to 1989 was rooted in hegemony, mutually assured destruction, military might, and proxy wars. Neither nation made a concerted effort to favor soft power, cultural and economic levers, to spar with one another. In stark contrast, the ‘new Cold War’ is rooted almost entirely in clashes over soft power with deep and intimate multilateral interactions. China and the United States have utilized commerce, culture, and economics as their primary means of engaging in the ‘new Cold War.’  This duel over persuasive diplomacy is seeping quickly into American politics and has become a crucial wedge issue for the electorate, leading to further escalation of discourse from US politicians.

Trade agreements and rights are the most visible points of contention between China and the United States. Even though Senator Sanders has consistently been on the dove wing of US politics, he has been a part of the growing consensus favoring an aggressive economic position against China. Ever since he was in the House of Representatives, he has opposed trade agreements and unsuccessfully sought to repeal the permanent normal trade relations with China in 2005. For the past 50 years since Nixon’s trip to China, presidents from both parties have utilized a diplomatic liberalism strategy to expand trade, cooperation, and democratization. The historic tip of the spear for American policy was commerce, as Republicans and Democrats once favored increased economic and cultural ties with China. What was once a bipartisan consensus in United States has now completely flipped. In 2016, the then GOP candidate Donald Trump fiercely came out against NAFTA, the TPP, and trade with PR China. Trump stated, “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Both Sanders and Trump have played a crucial role in turning both the American electorate and political actors against trade relations with China. The only real difference is that they disagree on the use of harsh rhetoric. Other senators on the political spectrum have come out in favor of ending trade agreements with China or revising them. Politicians as radically different as the right-wing populist Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and the pro-labor union Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have also pushed the American electorate towards a consensus that trade with China is harmful to the United States and its workers. The ‘new Cold War’ rhetoric is certainly existent, but I believe the electoral consensus is more geared towards salient economic disputes than purely geopolitical clashes. In this regard, Senator Sanders does an excellent job of acknowledging how commercial ties with China are a crucial element in domestic politics across the political spectrum. In practice, many politicians have utilized the clash with China as a campaign strategy to garner votes. Trade is not the only issue that has taken the American electorate by storm.

Culturally, censorship and political correctness have taken the forefront of the American right’s wedge issue. It may initially appear to be a niche internal debate in the United States, but it has significant foreign affairs and soft power repercussions. Republicans, in particular, find Chinese influence on media and free speech as hot topics a. In late May, when American actor John Cena promoted the latest Fast and Furious movie, Cena accidentally referred to Taiwan as a “country.” Following his slip of the tongue, Cena released an immediate and profuse apology in Mandarin. His gaffe made him the target of criticism from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other Republican politicians. Conservatives saw Cena surrendering his free speech to appease Chinese markets and attack the First Amendment. This kind of incident is hardly the first controversy in which American conservatives rallied its base around fears of free speech encroachment from China. Other notable clashes include when the Houston Rockets’ basketball coach Daryl Morey voiced support for Hong Kong on Twitter, leading to internal disputes amongst the NBA over its future in China. This incident also resulted in a lash back from conservatives across America, as many Republicans believed the NBA was sacrificing principles for profit. Nonetheless, the culture war over political correctness has taken front and center as a new means of soft power quarrel between the United States and China. Even though political correctness carries no severe weight of their actual policy, it has served as a rallying message for the American elite to organize a more coherent anti-China stance that transcends beyond traditional geopolitical clashes. In essence, China’s discourse over speech and political correctness has allowed US politicians to garner support to escalate the ‘new Cold War’ rhetoric.

American history holds many incidents of geopolitics and global events spilling into sentiments at home, usually at the cost of ethnic minorities. The ‘new Cold War’ rhetoric has had and will continue to have dire consequences for the Chinese abroad and in the United States. Senator Sanders’ made an important point in his op-ed regarding national unity and a certain degree of xenophobia intertwined with geopolitics. He warns that any rallying effect can increase hostility towards certain groups. America is only one diplomatic or geopolitical crisis away from a reawakening of hostile sentiments towards those who are perceived as disloyal. Throughout American history, the United States has racialized conflict at home and abroad. The War on Terror, the Pacific War, and even the First World War saw various degrees of retaliation against ethnic groups.

It is crucial to address our history to acknowledge its relationship with anti-Asian sentiments right now and the unique nature China plays in challenging American hegemony. During the first year of the Trump Administration, Kiron Skinner, who ran the State Department Policy Planning shop, once said that China is unique because it is “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.” ^[2] In this sense, the antagonism with China is incomparable to the Cold War, since the Soviet Union was a ‘white’ superpower that challenged the United States. It is difficult for Americans to fully separate race or national origins from current affairs. For example, World War II saw a vastly different treatment and portrayal of Japanese abroad and domestically than Germans or Italians. From the Japanese internment, collection of body parts from dead soldiers, a greater willingness to inflict civilian casualties, and brutal dehumanization of their opponents, we can very clearly see in American history how conflict is quickly racialized. Sanders is right to point out a certain level of caution must be exercised when forging national unity through hostile sentiments and fear.

The combination of global affairs and inflammatory rhetoric from politicians has already created a hostile environment for Chinese descendants. There is a mistrust of Chinese-Americans in academia as industrial spies and blame for the COVID-19 pandemic placed upon East Asians. Diplomacy and skepticism of the Chinese are already profoundly intertwined as a result of global affairs. In many ways, the competition between China and the United States has already escalated beyond just simple rhetoric and has taken on institutional forms of jousting.

As a recent college graduate, I do not have to go far on a college campus to see the effects of the ‘new Cold War’ rhetoric. For instance, sentiments trickle down into debates in universities over the roles of the Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes. At William and Mary, my alma mater, the Confucius Institute offered lessons in the Chinese language and culture as a part of a geopolitical mission to improve China’s image abroad through soft statesmanship. Those opposed to the establishments argue that the Confucius Institutes are propaganda machines engaging in academic censorship that warrants removal. As a result of the mistrust of the Confucius Institute, the State Department under the Trump Administration labeled the center as a diplomatic mission aimed at influencing American students. In addition, Republican members of Congress have sought to utilize the culture war and censorship debate as a means to regulate colleges from hosting the Confucius Institutes.  The ‘new Cold War’ rhetoric and mechanisms for soft power diplomacy have permeated the classrooms, demonstrating that this cultural rivalry is seeping into virtually all levels of American society. 

As described by Sanders, the ‘new Cold War’ requires a new form of thought and strategy to handle effectively. Most current American leaders are not engaging in severe or creative thinking to either counteract China’s rise. 2016 and the rise of Trumpism uncovered more to gain from criticizing China than formulating substantive strategies. In essence, the China rhetoric is a repackaged campaign strategy of attacking political correctness and America’s debates at home over the role of liberal democracy and backsliding into authoritarianism. Senator Sanders cautions about democratic backsliding and argues that the US will need to address its flaws to challenge China appropriately.  Yet this exposes perhaps the greatest weakness in America’s approach to the ‘new Cold War’: The United States focuses far too much on its bilateral points of contention with China rather than China’s influence across the globe.

American leaders in domestic politics have made a crucial oversight in that they have focused too much energy on subjects that are simply not sufficient to win the ‘new Cold War.’ Many politicians have claimed China is an existential threat to worldwide democracy and American hegemony but are not treating it as such. Soft power is certainly more difficult to counter than hard power, but the narrative of a Chinese threat is actively catered towards American electoral politics. Renegotiating trade agreements with China is a real and proactive step towards addressing Chinese influence, but is limited in its scope. It would have been unthinkable for the United States to remain disengaged during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Yet, it is relatively non-responsive to actual soft power approaches from China in the 21^st Century. The Belt and Road Initiative, acquisition of strategic ports in the Indian Ocean, and investments in Africa are all examples of an aggressive diplomatic approach from China, and the United States does not have comprehensive strategies for countering these policies. America lacks a modern Marshall Plan, a Truman Doctrine, or any other Cold War scale commitments abroad aimed at countering China. If American elites and voters genuinely felt that China is an existential threat in the same vein as the Soviet Union, then there would be a massive mobilization of resources akin to the original Cold War. The United States relies too much on its naval might and saber rattling to intimidate China, which Sanders acknowledges as ineffective. The ‘new Cold War’ is not fought in battlefields, but in trade, culture, and diplomacy. Quite simply, the United States of America is not motivated to fight the ‘new Cold War’ and is more concerned with how China plays a role in the culture war than preserving its geopolitical hegemony through practical and serious means.