Is a Cold War Breaking Out between the Two Great Powers?

The two great powers of our time are the United States and China. Is a cold war breaking out between them? Objectively: Yes. Subjectively: No, since no power confronts another outside a sound diplomatic framework, despite the gradual increase of conflicts between them, usually over matters of international affairs. We recently heard an American complaint about China in Africa from the lips of the Assistant U.S. Secretary of State, who said it employs “immoral” methods in the Dark Continent. Nonetheless, “friendly” communications between the two sides are ongoing, from the expected visit of the Chinese President to Washington in several days to the visit of the U.S. Minister of Defense to Beijing to improve military relations.

The United States lost the advantage of “unilateral power” after what is referred to as the “collapse” of the Soviet Union — the truth is that white European Russia decided to avoid the burdensome confrontation with the liberation of its “colonies” in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, like the rest of the large European states such as Britain and France, which freed themselves from their colonies and reshaped their futures in the shadow of European unity. Russia also liberated itself from the socialist ideology, which it adopted at the start of the 20th century to provide political and ideological cover and the moral justification for the rule of those colonies, and perhaps after a while Moscow discovered that its inclusion in unified Europe was the natural historical alternative.

In short, the United States lost the advantage of unilateral power in the world with the rise of China and a group of large powers like Europe, Russia, India and Brazil — according to natural logic, human society or divine religion, no power can remain alone in our world. Even small worms, in nature, split into two, and in human thought that discusses the dialectics of society and history, whether Hegelian idealism and Marxist materialism, rests on opposites, or as the Arab Tawfiq al-Hakim called it, “equilibrium.”

China recently confided in some of its Arab friends, who encouraged it to “confront” the pro-Israel America, that it wasn’t inclined toward this kind of confrontation. It was also made clear from WikiLeaks cables that China does not oppose Korean reunification under the authority of South Korea if Washington exchanges some economic benefits.

Today China is behaving like a power more pragmatic than ideological (and here is possibly its importance in the world), for, as they say in Beijing these days, it doesn’t matter what color the cat is if it hunts mice.

If China had blocked the Security Council’s condemnation of North Korea, it would have contradicted the “flexibility” it evinced toward its southern neighbor, and the noticeable “détente” in that region.

There is a global consensus that China is a power that is rising “smoothly,” and that it maintains this “smooth” style by virtue of the viewpoints and given facts of the regional environment of East Asia and the international stage, especially vis à vis the American presence in the Asian East.

However, some Western studies on China don’t expect this Chinese “smoothness” to continue, and they argue that there is another side to this that will appear when the time they feel to be “right” comes. Similarly, major American strategists, like Brzezinski, today believe in the “containment” method.

Not too long ago the American administration wanted to send the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to Beijing for talks with the leaders of China’s Liberation Army. But Beijing’s response wasn’t “smooth” enough. Washington was told that the time “wasn’t right” for the American Secretary of Defense to come, and that they would have to knock on their door again in a month or two when the leaders of the Chinese army felt they were ready to meet him. Only now has their anticipated visit arrived.

Recently, news of America’s and the West’s increasing concern over China’s military development has been circulating, as China’s Minister of Defense was quoted as saying that his country is preparing for war in every direction.

Also, some time ago the periodical Foreign Affairs, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations and believes it reflects the opinions of U.S. foreign policy — despite its assurances that, according to the traditions of publishing, what it prints represents the opinion of its owner and when another of its writers disagrees, it’s not “responsible” — displayed on the cover of a recent issue the main article about China with the writer’s question, “China’s Grand Map: How Far Will Beijing Reach on Land and at Sea?”

Is this an expression of American “concern” about the issue of Chinese expansion, or is it merely an “objective” study?”

From its “objective” start, this article ultimately reflects an American concern that is impossible to disregard. Its author believes that China no longer sets its positions and policies with an ideological starting point, but rather with a “pragmatic” one — namely, to quench its thirst and the thirst of its developing industries for minerals, raw materials and energy sources, upon which its economic power relies. Perhaps this “thirst” is leading it to extend a friendly hand to the neighboring countries that possess those raw materials.

And thus we return to “the eternal story,” which is in its essence the use of military power for economic reform, as happened with Europe’s capitalism, whose antagonism was for the sake of “markets” and “raw materials.”

China has a geographical presence in the nearby countries of Central Asia, from which Soviet influence has receded, opening them up for others to entering through that door today. The Foreign Affairs study doesn’t rule out a Chinese incursion based on its population density in a country falling to its north under Russian influence — that is, Mongolia, rich in raw materials and poor in population, with just a few million residents. It’s possible to explain the American-Russian “rapprochement” and the attempt to minimize the “discovery” of a Russian spy network in the United States as an attempt to face Chinese ambitions, as the American journal claims. The American administration’s keenness to implement the START treaty with Russia also follows this trend.

India is the one neighboring state which China has not changed toward yet; its border conflicts have encouraged it to strengthen its position in support of America and its alliance with Japan on the first level, and to support Russia on the second level, then making “quiet” contributions to the side of the other states bordering the South China Sea (the Yellow Sea).

The American president visited India recently. He gave indications of support for it, leading to a strengthening of the China/Pakistan axis, a relationship that involves some nuclear support from China to Pakistan, which has surrounded it with objective conditions that distance it from American policy.

As a result, the Chinese built a military base in Gwadar, which is not far from the Arabian Gulf. Because China doesn’t want escalation or polarization in Asia, it made a diplomatic response to India, its Prime Minister going on a goodwill visit to New Delhi that could yield important economic results. The Russian president responded with economic and military support as well.

However, the “expansion” to the sea was not so easy; as part of this expansion, China extended a friendly hand to the island of Taiwan across the strait between them, though the Pentagon’s most recent report about the Chinese military says that it is secretly on the way to “the Battle of Taiwan,” anticipated to be the first Chinese military battle where the “mother nation” will not plunge into a military battle beforehand. Then, Japanese forces are lying in wait for Chinese maritime expansion, and this is what is producing the conflict between the two powers there.

It remains that China, even though it is defending what it considers its sphere of influence and its “vital economic” area, is not about to clash with Western powers, and to this moment is proceeding with balanced diplomacy to reconcile its ambitions with the necessities of accepted international conduct. It is presently content with this economic influence and with leaving the issue of military hegemony in the area to Washington, and it is nearly neutral in the conflict between the two Koreas, even though it has expressed an inclination toward North Korea.

Then China, with its rapidly growing economy and industry, is about to present a new theoretical model to the world — that it is possible to achieve meaningful development without adhering to classical democracy.

This is without regard to any consequences of the growing gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the human depths of China, and its impact on its future in the long term.

And it remains that China, with its current experience, continues to offer an encouraging precedent in the history of the Eastern nations, especially for the Arabs who live in fragmentation, conflict and decline.