Odd Arne Westad Photo: Li Aixin/GT

Editor's Note:

A lot of people have been saying that China and the US are in a new Cold War - it's nonsense, claimed Odd Arne Westad (Westad), professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Over the past year, the escalated confrontation between the two countries has been continuously termed by quite a few observers and media outlets as the prelude to Cold War 2.0. Even though the two sides are now edging closer to a trade deal, there are few signs of a letup in tensions. What is the nature of the competition or rivalry between China and the US? Where is such competition headed? As an expert on the Cold War, Westad shared his insights in an exclusive interview with Global Times (GT) reporters Li Aixin and Bai Yunyi.

GT: What do you think is the biggest difference between current China-US relations and US-Soviet Union relations during the Cold War?

Westad: There are two very big differences. The world is becoming more multipolar. It has many different powers that are rising at the same time. The US is probably solidifying its position, but is not as predominant as it has been before. So instead of bipolar competition between the US and Soviet Union, we now have a number of different countries that are rising at the same time. 

The other big difference is that there is much less emphasis on competing ideologies. There are lots of differences between the US and China. But they both work, broadly speaking, within the same economic system on a global scale. That was not the case for the Soviet Union and the US. 

The Soviet Union wanted to destroy the economic system of the time and replace it with another economic system. That made some of the confrontations grow more intense. 

GT: Where do you think is the current China-US competition headed? Some say is it hard for major powers to escape the Thucydides' Trap.

Westad: In most historical periods, there have been rivalries between great powers. It's quite normal. The question is how do they compete and what is the outcome. 

The US and China have a number of issues where they disagree, and they have a number of issues where they agree. So the point is to try to build on the issues of relative agreement to see if we could develop that further, while at the same time prevent disagreements from becoming so strong so as to lead to conflict between the two sides. 

At the moment, the US-China relationship really needs some kind of breakthrough. I am hoping that a trade agreement could be a starting point. It will be a significant step forward, better than what we have now. But it's not enough to hold the two countries together. I think they need something more tangible, more specific in terms of international affairs, something that is more strategic. I'm still very hopeful that some kind of resolution to the North Korea nuclear issue can be a basis for that solution. 

But you can also put it differently. If there is no solution to that problem, I'm very worried that it could be one of those issues that would drive the US and China further apart. So (North) Korea at the moment in this region is the key, the big key that could unlock a lot of other things. 

GT: The US is cracking down on China's tech giant Huawei, which is considered by a number of international media outlets as a "high-tech cold war." What is your take?

Westad: It has nothing to do with a cold war. It is about other kinds of great power rivalries. The situation reminds me much more about the relationship between the US and Japan when Japan was becoming a global power in the 1970s and 1980s. For geopolitical reasons, the US and Japan are allies. So Americans had to be a bit more careful with how they dealt with Japanese companies as they grew. But they still had a very confrontational attitude toward Japan, particularly Japanese companies, because Americans believed Japanese companies used their technological progress unwarrantedly to get advantages in markets and technology. 

This is what's happening now between the US and China. It's much more similar to that than any kind of cold war. This is about economic advantage within the same system.

GT: You said that the current international system is more like the late 19th century system, in which many powers are competing for influence. Could you please elaborate on what the "19th century system" will look like in the 21st century?

Westad: To me, what is significant here is that it will be multipolar. There will be many different powers that interact. These powers may be connected to alliances, but in reality, they will be independent of each other. This is now happening on a global scale that is much wider than was the case in the late 19th century. But it seems to me to have some of the same systemic qualities to it. 

To understand how the future will develop, one key issue is regionalism. Regions, on a broad scale, like South America, South Asia or East Asia are going to be incredibly difficult to handle because they are going to go with their own directions. They will be different from what you've seen in the past when there was one predominant power, the US. 

In the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends Report released in 2017, a report about what US intelligence community thinks the world will look like in 20 years time, they said they are pretty sure that within that time period, one or more nuclear weapons would be used. It's a possible conclusion. It's also quite possible that the use of a nuclear weapon would not be between the US and China, but could easily be between India and Pakistan or some other regional situation like that. 

It is very reminiscent of the late 19th century, when there were regions of instability becoming really difficult for the bigger powers to handle. So, I think in order to avoid conflict between the US and China, it's very important to start talking about those kinds of issues now, not because the US and China can resolve them, but because they need to know what the thinking is on the other side.

GT: Can you predict the nature of the competition or rivalry in the 21st century?

Westad: I think it is going to be rivalry with elements of partnership. At least as long as the idea of a joint global economic system is in place, and people benefit from working with each other in an integrated economic system. 

The important thing is to avoid this - there is an ideological divide between the US and China, which tells leaders on both sides that there has to be a conflict between the two. That's when things get dangerous. It's not necessarily in a cold war sense, but more of a 1914 WWI sense. In 1912, no one predicted a war between Germany and France, Germany and Britain, but they knew there was a lot of rivalry. In the summer of 1914, when this went from being a rivalry to being a cataclysmic war, the image of the other side was very much influenced by a sort of quite vague idea of ideological differences - Germany was centralized, authoritarian, very driven in terms of its economic development, while Britain and France and the US were liberal countries that had different preoccupations in terms of domestic politics and economy. 

There were differences, but not on a massive scale. Germany had institutions that were actually moving very strongly in the democratic direction. In some areas, Germany was perhaps even ahead of Britain when it came to social policy and social institutions, but still that ideological divide could be constructed. I see some of the same things happening now between the US and China. 

I think it's wrong on both sides. In the US, a lot of people start to say China is a threat because it is ideologically different. My view to this would be, there are very significant differences. But I knew China when it was much more authoritarian than what it is now. I first came to Beijing 40 years ago. And if the US and China could cooperate then, why not now? 

From the Chinese perspective, some people are saying there is something unique about the Chinese model of development, which Americans and Westerners dislike. There is a fear here in some circles that the US is about to undo China's government. The term that is often used is "color revolutions." That is completely far-fetched, particularly now. Donald Trump could not care less about how China is governed. But even if a Democrat were to be elected, who would put more emphasis on this, I think everyone I know in the US realizes that the opportunities for the US to influence what  kind of government China has is close to zero. No one actually believes that that [the Chinese government] would change. 

GT: You said "powers may be connected to alliances, but in reality, they will be independent of each other." In that case, how will US alliance system, a product of the Cold War, develop in this era? 

Westad: I think we are already in a period of tremendous change on this. The kind of alliance system that US had during the Cold War is already disappearing. The future is happening now. The former framework will probably stay in place. But in reality, the ability to reach political agreement and cooperation will be so much more narrow between the US and EU and between US and Japan. In both cases, the room for cooperation is narrowing, unless there is some kind of global crisis that will push them together again, which could happen. But even though that happens, it would be a different form of alliances. It will be more like the alliances of the late 19th century that were oriented not toward common goals, but toward shared interests. 

The Cold War system has outlived itself. It was useful for the Cold War, perhaps even in the post-Cold War era to some extent, because it kept some degree of stability in place. But it doesn't fit this era where much of the emphasis is on economic competition, not only between the US and China, but also between the US and Germany or France or Japan. There are some interests in common and there are some interests that are not in common. 

Reason No.2. It has to do with domestic change in the US. During the Cold War and the period immediately after the Cold War, the US was systemic power, so it integrated everywhere. It put itself at the center of economic development and didn't always emphasize its own economic interest in a narrow sense. This is what dominant powers do. 

Now as other countries have become stronger and the US relatively weaker internationally, a lot of Americans are concluding that this is not good for the US. The US has to look after its own interest first and foremost. 

GT: Do you think the multilateral framework, established after the WWII, will be shattered against this backdrop?  

Westad: This is a very difficult question to answer. I think that depends very much on China. China has a really significant interest, not in everything in terms of that framework, but in a lot of it. 

There was very little that China doesn't like about this. China wants perhaps a little bit more influence in global financial and monetary institutions. That's very understandable because of China's position. But on a lot of other things, from reform of the UN Security Council to the idea of how the WTO works, China wants things to stay the way they are now. 

That's really interesting, particularly for those who are saying that China will be a kind of revisionist power. I am sure China is not a revisionist power. I just wish sometimes Chinese leaders can say that a little more clearly. In your newspaper, for instance, there is a lot of talk about China having found its own model of development, which is different from Western model of development. In some areas, it is, but in other areas, it's very very similar. The current international system it lives within was built by the West.

Sometimes powers can be very different in their starting point, and take over the whole system, change it a bit in terms of how it is presented. But keep the basic format intact.

That's what happened when ancient Rome took over part of Greece. The best example is a course from China, the Ming Dynasty-Qing Dynasty transition. By then people thought barbarians came and they were gonna destroy everything. What did they create? A world that looks remarkably like the world they had replaced. 

GT: Where do you think is the current geopolitical landscape of East Asia, including Korean Peninsula and South China Sea headed? What impact will the current China-US conflicts and the not-so-optimistic prospects of their relationship have on East Asia's geopolitical pattern? 

Westad: I am worried about what is going to happen in this region. If the US and China are going to drive toward conflict, it will be an issue connected to the East Asian region, not bilateral relationship between the US and China. No one is going to go to war over trade differences, even cyber attacks. 

Sometimes historians think that concrete obstacles can have major consequences if the great powers stumbled into a conflict, like the WWI.

Korea is very much like that. I think there is still a real risk of war on the Korean Peninsula. It could happen very fast and could happen to some extent by misperceptions and misunderstandings. I do think that's the most dangerous situation in the region. 

I often had this question asked now in Beijing — What should China do? Even though it's true that China does not dominate North Korea the way many Americans think, China still needs to do more to make sure that there is a continuity of the process we saw after the last summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

As my friend Graham Allison likes to say, China's strategic setting is really difficult. It's not like the US where its neighbors are Canada and Mexico. Here we see Vietnam and Japan and Korea. It's not easy to handle that. But China has to start somewhere, it has to attempt to twist things in a more positive direction for itself. I think the starting point has to be the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Part of the key on this issue is the Chinese relationship with South Korea.

Under the current administration in South Korea, China has an opportunity to work with the friendliest government in South Korea toward China that you will ever gonna get. I can guarantee you that. There has been no major Chinese initiative at all since the Moon administration came into power, to transform the relationship with South Korea. That's a mistake. A lot of people now in South Korea are saying, Chinese are interacting with us more and more directly. Is it because they're afraid that that could loosen Chinese connections with North Korea? From a Chinese strategic point of view, that's very bad. Ten years ago, young South Koreans were looking at China as a very important partner in the future. But it's not the case now. China needs to become more active in its own region. Instead of sitting around and just looking at what the American or Japanese are doing.