By Nazim Uddin
The Cold War between the US and the Soviets was carried out in a world that was radically different from today’s digitalized world. There was, then, an unending sense of zero-sum victory in any conceivable domain. A hefty amount was spent on proxy wars, economic aid, military training and above all space race at the cost of their own population. On both sides, the propaganda machine was in full swing and uninformed people were given the doses of conspiracy theories at nauseam.
While the Soviets were giving tough time to the mighty USA at the beginning, the former was never on a par with the latter. The US, after the end of WW2, had no less than half of the world’s wealth, in contrast to the Soviets going through economic crunch every now and then. Militarily, both were comparable, which could have been seen at the standoff in Cuba. Where the US and Soviets stood in diametrical opposition was related to their respective societies and ways of governance, it, however, goes without saying that the US was the freest county on earth; the Soviet Union was ruled with an iron fist and under huge oppression.
Although the New Cold War with its sense of déjà vu depicts some semblance with the past, the fact is that today neither the US is the old US, nor China is like the Soviets. Whereas the Soviets were never integrated with the global economic system, China seems to be deeply immersed in the economic endeavor of the globalized world. China is only second to the USA in its size of economy, has emerged as a powerful exporting nation after the 2000s, and trades in all five continents. For the records, the trade between the US and China stands at almost $700 billion, which is too important to ignore for both countries. The Soviet Union was never part of the US led economic system, however.
Apart from economics, there are some serious issues which can only be solved by collective efforts of all countries: Nuclear, Artificial Intelligence and climate change to name a few. In this regard, China has taken some steps against the expectation of the west. For instance, it put a ban on North Korea on the missile system, led climate change initiative when Mr. Trump walked away from the Paris Agreement, has been investing in developing countries and has never initiated any arm conflict with any country given its stupendous power.
Against this backdrop, it is easy to say that China doesn’t play the role of a spoiler in the current de facto system. As China is reaping the fruits of the system economically and to some extent politically, it would be a pure disaster for China to shake the system, let alone obliterate it. If ideological moorings outweigh the economic fruits, no one will be the winner in the end. A titanic like China can destroy the whole ecosystem, to say the least. But nevertheless, the US is in no mood to engage with China on pressing issues. Despite some caution, US president Joe Biden is doing what Trump did in his term.
China doesn’t have good human rights records, which plays against it. What happens in Hong Kong, Taiwan and most importantly Uighur Muslims speaks volumes. China with its formal ally Pakistan wants to counter the stupendous US whose allies are virtually every other country in the world. Of course, China is leaving some indelible imprints in Latin America and Africa, yet it fails to find any relation on broad-based issues with its neighbors. South Korea and Japan in tandem with ASEAN countries are in no mood to deepen their ties with China despite deep economic ties. Needless to say, India has been hailed as an important power to counter China. In a sense, what the US did to the Soviets seems anything but alien when one sees how countries are standing against China in spite of their proximities.
The New Cold War has come overtly when the alliance in the Indo-Pacific region like The Quad and AUKUS was announced. In this perspective, if Australia, a member of AUKUS, denies access to China, almost $95 billion will be at risk for Australia. AUKUS informs that there will be information sharing, joint capabilities, cyber security and artificial intelligence among three member counties.
With the rapid growth in technological advancement and hyper-globalization, the new Cold War will be deeply chaotic. On the one hand, there is much more to damage; on the other, social media is ready to pave the way for misinformation, disinformation and all-out suffering of people. Nuclear non-proliferation will be put on the back-burner and there will be potential danger for the world to repeat the déjà vu of the 1960s.
There are, however, three ways in which the New Cold War can erupt: predictability, unpredictability and surprises. All these three traits epitomized the Cold War where the collapse of the Soviet Union for its Communist hollowness coupled with its economic meltdown was inevitable, at least to some serious scholars. The sheer speed and proportion of the collapse, nevertheless, was somehow unpredictable; it goes without saying that surprises specifically the Cuban Missile Crises and other doomsday scenarios also characterized the first Cold War. Indeed, there are ways by which the Chinese can surprise the US; the ball is for now in the court of the US for it possesses everything China is seeking to match for better or for worse.
For Pakistan, the lessons of the past have to be as clear as possible. The faulty alliance and its repercussions in the Cold War are still haunting our whole national psyche even to this very day. There should be no question of becoming anyone’s pawn against the other because the same proxy becomes Frankenstein’s monsters sooner than later. It is patently obvious that given our geographic location and all-weather friendship with China, we shouldn’t put down their request to coöperation, but if history is any guide we would tread warily and show our concerns to the Chinese. The latter has no record of interfering in another country, which the US is infamous for. At last, Pakistan while managing its relations with powerful country mustn’t sacrifice its national interest.
