There seems to be a bit of a red herring debate out there about whether the US and China are in a new cold war, or whether one is coming. I have yet to see a precise definition of the term and the historical analogy, like any other, cannot be exact. This seems to be splitting semantic hairs.
The more important questions are:
1) What are the likely behaviours of the United States and China?
2) How does each state's behaviour affect the other's?
3) For those of us who are not American or Chinese (I'm Canadian) how does each of those state's behaviour affect our state?
4) What should we third States do about it?
Four short, seemingly straightforward questions, but one could fill a small library trying to answer them. I guess I could ask a fifth question, why does any of this matter? My personal inclination is just to assume that it does, but given the chronic lack of seriousness which which my country seems to treat its national security and foreign relations, I seem to be in a minority here.
But so much seems focused on the unquestioned benefit of “free trade” as a lubricant for better relations, or a measure of how well we are achieving our potential
Whereas I think the Law of Second Best matters—in a climate where rogue actors and power-mad rulers set policies that aren’t in their nations’ best interests, unfettered free trade is part of the problem: ultra-nationalists will use trade as yet another destabilizing weapon
There seems to be a bit of a red herring debate out there about whether the US and China are in a new cold war, or whether one is coming. I have yet to see a precise definition of the term and the historical analogy, like any other, cannot be exact. This seems to be splitting semantic hairs.
The more important questions are:
1) What are the likely behaviours of the United States and China?
2) How does each state's behaviour affect the other's?
3) For those of us who are not American or Chinese (I'm Canadian) how does each of those state's behaviour affect our state?
4) What should we third States do about it?
Four short, seemingly straightforward questions, but one could fill a small library trying to answer them. I guess I could ask a fifth question, why does any of this matter? My personal inclination is just to assume that it does, but given the chronic lack of seriousness which which my country seems to treat its national security and foreign relations, I seem to be in a minority here.
Great piece, excellent overview
But so much seems focused on the unquestioned benefit of “free trade” as a lubricant for better relations, or a measure of how well we are achieving our potential
Whereas I think the Law of Second Best matters—in a climate where rogue actors and power-mad rulers set policies that aren’t in their nations’ best interests, unfettered free trade is part of the problem: ultra-nationalists will use trade as yet another destabilizing weapon