The likelihood of a new cold war between China and the United States is increasing due to tensions mounting in line with Beijing’s growing power and ambition and Russia’s relationship with the West souring due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. However, a cold war between the US and a Sino-Russian bloc could be more dangerous and costly than the original standoff between the US and the Soviet Union. This is due to the fact that China poses a more formidable rival than the Soviet Union ever was. The country’s economy is on a trajectory to overtake that of the US during the next decade, and it has a high-tech sector that rivals that of the US.
However, China lags behind the US in terms of geopolitical reach and heft. If a new cold war scenario were to arise, the West would likely face an autocratic bloc stretching from Europe to the Pacific, which could result in the US having to split its forces between two distant theaters.
The world has become more multipolar in recent years, making geopolitical competition much harder to predict and manage. It is now the case that many countries, including several emerging powers, will refuse to take sides despite any new bout of East-West rivalry. Many countries trade more with China than with the US, so relationships with China will be important.
The United States must consider its own political weakness too, as automation and globalization have had a detrimental impact on the economic welfare of Western workers, undermining the social contract of the industrial era. The days in which ideological moderates and centrists prevailed in liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic are long gone, and the prevailing mood is uncertain and volatile.
