- Intro: The changing world order is in a state of flux. With American hegemony on the decline and the middle kingdom’s ambitions on the rise, in the words of Robert D Kaplan -A new cold war has begun ranging from semi conductors to submarines and from blockbusters to lunar explorations.
- scholars’ take:
Mearsheimer blames the liberals in USA for their delusions . Liberals like clinton worked on the idea that economic engaement will ensure peaceful rise of china. They were working on the logic of political modernisation. That is as it modernises it will eventually move towards democracy. Mearsheimer in his book: The tragedy of great power politics had predicted that the rise of china will not be peaceful. Beacuse as per his theory of offensive realism- chinese aim is not to maximise its security(as per waltz’s defensive realism) but to establish its hegemony overthrowing USA. China was only hiding its capability and biding time. Because of huge geographical distance between USA and China, Suggests USA to go for offshore balancing and buck passing to contain the rise of china. | Samual huntington’s clash of civilisations says that the chinese challenge to USA is bigger than Islamic challenge as the islamic countries are divided. | |
Huawei issue: techno globalism giving way to technological nationalism. the contest over 5G has been referred to as “digital iron curtain.” | China is by far the biggest security challenge to America's position in the world today. |
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Stephan M Walt- China seeks a world order that is “safe for autocracy,” where universalist claims about individual rights do not jeopardize the authority of the Chinese Communist Party or inspire criticism of its internal policies. The United States, by contrast, has long promoted a world order where liberal values—based on the bedrock claim that all humans have certain inalienable rights—are favored. | Kishore Mahbubani- The US made a major mistake in abandoning realist pragmatism and switching to liberal idealism. A return to kissingerian realist pragmatism would be the best way to manage a rising China | Jake Sullivan(NSA) in Foreign Affairs- The era of engagement with China has come to an unceremonious close.” |
- In recent years, the U.S. - China relationship moved from cooperation to competition; and now with trade and technology wars, it is moving steadily to confrontation.
- Facets of new cold war-
- Trade war
- 5G
- Blame game over COVID19
- Middle east- USA and Iran confrontation and China and Iran cooperation
- Taiwan
- U.S. policy known as “strategic ambiguity”, where Washington helps build Tai wan’s defences but does not explicitly promise to come to the island’s help in the event of war. The policy is de signed to deter a Chinese invasion and also discourage Taiwan from formally declaring independence
- US has been dented due to messy exit from Afghanistan. On the other hand Russia has manufactured a crisis at the Ukraine and Belarus borders, further making US’s European allies anxious. China can utilize the opportunity to unify Taiwan and fulfill the china dream of unifying China by 2049.
- Recently US passed the Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA). It would make it official United States policy that the succession of Tibetan Buddhist leaders, including the succession of the Dalai Lama, be left solely to Tibetan Buddhists to decide, without interference from the Chinese government.
- USA leaving Afghanistan and china planning to increase its presence through BRI
- Quad and Indo pacific
- USA has proposed enlargement of G7 to include democracies
- Also UK (traditional ally of USA) has suggested D-10, an alliance of democracies against Chinese 5G.
- Recent issue of Hong Kong where USA has criticized China’s national security law curbing dissent in Hong Kong
- USA’s support to India as a balancer to rising India through signing of 4 foundational agreements.
- Mao Zedong: in the eyes of the Chinese people the American imperialists look powerful and scary but unable to withstand the wind and the rain, they are nothing but a “paper tiger.”
- It wants to overtake US economically,technologically,diplomatically and militarily
- Xi jinping —> Chinese dream to make china world’s largest economic power by 2035.
- Pompeo calling the Communist Party of China "the central threat of our times".
- China-Russia axis is getting stronger with china becoming the market for Russian military and oil and gas.
- Saudi which is USA's close ally has made BRI a part of its Saudi vision 2030 plan.
- Trade war:
- involves 5G
- Tariffs over Steel and aluminium imports
- USA labelled china as currency manipulator
- china calls US actions as naked economic terrorism
- China challenging USA in:
- Hard power:
- Mao had said that power flows through the barrel of a gun. USA has come out of INF treaty due to the fear of china developing mid range missiles. For the first time since 2010 USA has increased its military spending
- China is spending money on modernisation of armed forces and gaining fast edge in defence tech
- China has developed a credible second strike capability, SLBM.
- The no of warships china has > USA
- China is building naval ports
- North Korea is a client state of china that always keeps US on the edge because of its nuclear missile tests.
- Economic power
- China is second largest economy and largest in terms of PPP
- china a major trading nation with Canada,Mexico and Latin america. America’s backyard is turning into china’s front-yard.
- China is the largest exporter country, the largest trading nation in the world
- BRI represents 70 partner countries representing 70% of the world population , 55% of GDP
- AIIB:
- A paradigm shift in global governance
- It does not put conditionalities like human rights, democracy
- It can replace dollar as global currency
- AIIB is a signpost of the broader shift in the world order- Easternisation of global finance
- Technological challenge:
- Made in china 2025 to make china a global hub for high tech product manufacturing as china has world’s largest rare earth metals reserve
- It believes that only through high value technology it can avoid the middle income trap
- USA has already lost to Chinese goods in cheap markets. USA ‘s advantage is cutting edge technology , where china is going to challenge
- Cultural basis of hegemony
- Xi rejects the clash of civilisation theory
- says all civilisations are equally respectable (multi cultural approach)
- Only through civilisational exchanges we can build much needed global community
- Said civilisations need not clash but understand the beauty of each other.
- for liberal scholars remarking current state of affairs as new cold war shows ideological bankruptcy in IR theory.
- they say the clash is not of ideologies. Not only do both countries follow capitalist system but are under heavy economic interdependence.
- for others, current state is a state of transition and the middle powers would play a major role in pushing and pulling the levers of global order
- the new Cold War is now being reflected in a new geopolitical rivalry - The Indo pacific vs the Eurasia
- China is projecting its authoritarian system as an alternative to USA’s liberal democratic way of life. As a counter, Biden is pushing for “democracy vs autocracy” as the new ideological debate . USA recently hosted the “summit of democracy”in an effort to “catalyse action toward the goal of renewing global democracy”.
- Grand strategy of USA-
- To achieve hegemony
- Global hegemony is impossible
- Acc to Mearsheimer, pursuit of global hegemony is not a wise choice because sea power creates obstacles
- Hence the best choice is offshore balancing. offshore balancing works more in a multipolar world
- Rise of multipolairty in west Asia and Indo pacific
- Hence US is going for offshore balancing
- Mechanisms for offshore balancing -
- Alliances- AUKUS
- Minilaterals/Lose alliances- Quad
- Antony Blinken-
- Over relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be an adverse serial when it must be. And we will engage China from a position of strength
- USA’s relationship with China “Will be the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”
- Biden wants to create what Dean Acheson, postwar US secretary of state, called “situations of strength”where like-minded nations co-operated to tackle threats.
- Biden issued his “interim national security strategic guidance”, which said China was “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system”.
- way ahead-
- USA can follow what many scholars have called as congagement- containment with engagement
- Theories WRT USA-china:
- Hegemonic stability theory- Robert Gilpin and Kharles Kindleberger proposed that to avoid war, a hegemon is needed who will ensure in intl political economy
- power transition theory- Kenneth Organski
- thucydides trap- Graham Allison
- Graham Allison points out, in 12 out of 16 cases when there has been a case of Thucydides’s Trap , it resulted in a war.
- tragedy of great power politics- Mearsheimer
- Kindleberger trap
- Impact on INDIA:
- The current Geostrategic competition between the two countries creates strategic space for India to manouvre.
Shivshankar menon: b/w the us and china India must ensure it does not end up becoming the sacrificial lamb. In his book “India and Asian Geopolitics” says India’s goal should be to be closer to both China and US than they are to each other | Nirupama Rao-This is an opportunity for India to align its interests much more strongly and unequivocally with the U.S. as a principal strategic partner and infuse more energy into its relations with Japan, Australia, and the ASEAN. | Shyam saran has said good relations with US give India space to manouvre vis a vis china. An isolated India is a vulnerable one. |
- Even former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru acknowledged this reality in December 1962 by observing that there is no nonalignment vis-à-vis China.
- Tanvi Madan says between non alignment and an alliance, alignment with US a more pragmatic option
- C Raja mohan
- Conclusion: cold war 2.0: Like its predecessor this one will feature two superpowers that disagree on how the world order should be organised, but agree that there can be only one superpower.