Current affairs perspective
There is no doubt that the new cold war has now become a popular concept and is used to analyze the trend of relations between China and the United States.The rise of this concept is obviously a simple set of U.S. -Soviet Cold War.In their opinion, the political system and ideology owned by the Soviet Union are similar to China. Therefore, when the relationship between the United States and the United States is tense and confrontation, the Cold War statement has spread freely; the new Cold War has become an analysis framework.
This conceptual application can arouse people's memory of the old times, especially for ordinary Americans, the public has more reason to hostility China, regarding China as the root cause of the current global problem.This is in line with Trump's argument since the epidemic became popular in the United States, and it is obviously more in line with Trump's appetite.
However, this simple concept application ignores the true difference between China and the Soviet Union, and also ignores the development and change of globalization and global order since 1945.If the concept of the Cold War is used to pack Sino -US relations and analyze its direction, it will fall into the trap of the Cold War and push yourself to unnecessary dangerous situation.
Just as now, the emergence of double aircraft carriers in the United States in the South China Sea created enough dangerous imagination, which quickly associates that the battle between China and the United States is destined to come.In the year, a strong stroke was added.
Although China still claims to be a socialist country, compared with the changes in the system of China and the Soviet Union, there is a huge difference between the two.Even from the 1950s to the 1970s, the so -called planned economy in China was just the command economy or sports economy of the leadership -based order. Behind it was based on the needs of ideology and system construction, it was a need for power desire.At that time, the Chinese economic indicators and development directions and paths were just wearing communist coats.
Today, the Chinese economy cannot be compared with the past Soviet Union; as for the ideology, if the leadership of China still believes in the set of ideology of the Soviet Union, it can compete with the public's identity and belief with the mainstream ideology under globalization. Obviously, obviouslyIt is not a lesson that he has not learned the failure of the Soviet Union, because the set of ideology no longer exists.
In other words, if the current Sino -US competition is based on the Cold War of the past American -Soviet ideology competition, it can now assert that China has no chance of winning.History does not need to re -prove how it fails.It was not far from the present in 1991, and the images and memories were still clear and brand new.
As for the competition of Sino -US relations at the moment, a more realistic description is obviously a competition for the political strength of the great power. Who can better dominate or affect the global order and development trend.This is a great power competition based on realistic power, not ideology.It is more like the era of competition in European powers in the 19th century, rather than the ideological competition of poles in the 20th century.In a sense, it is why it is difficult for the United States to persuade traditional allies to stand firmly on the United States.
Therefore, we should not consider the current competition between China and the United States as the resurrection of the ideology of the old era. The wrong positioning will distort the public's judgment of reality, arouse unnecessary national emotions, and make populism prevail in danger.The direction of history may move towards the wrong track again.
If we still remember how the British and French countries punished Germany through the Versailles Treaty after the end of World War I, and how this caused Germany to rise again in the 1930s and launch a second world war with the help of nationalist hatred.It is this wrong treatment method that laid the root of the world's future peace.When the three giants of the United States and the Soviet Union gathered again in Potsdam, Germany, Truman, Stalin, and Edry were trying to avoid it. It was such a wrong way that could lead to the end of the world to another disaster.
Perhaps this history is not very appropriate with the present, but at such a critical moment, it clearly shows the burden of responsibility and history.We do not have enough reasons to believe that the competition and confrontation of Sino -US relations at present is the resurrection of the ideology of the Old Cold War; therefore, the development of global order cannot be reversed and under the wrong time and space.
The Trump administration has a strong aggressive policies and measures to China. It has the usual hatred components of conservative eagles in the United States, and Trump is also facilitated in the face of elections.The global leadership of the United States has been threatened and challenged by China, as well as the consolidation of power under the unilateral order since the 1990s.Faced with the rise of China, they re -possess a clear strategic competitor and regarded them as enemies in the Soviet -style ideology, so that they could mobilize all domestic forces to launch attacks.
We do not deny some problems existing in China's internal governance and external output influence, but if the US Secretary of State Pompeo, it simply believes that the policy of contact with China has failed since Nesheson. It will undoubtedly ignore it.China changed after 1978.Compared with China from the 1950s to the 1970s, what this change means is clear and simple to many Chinese people.
The competition between the great powers is not terrible. The terrible thing is that the wrong label is hit on the wrong country, which will cause unnecessary conflict and confrontation.If it has been calculated since 1949, China and the United States have had two obvious turns.One was the Korean War in 1950, and the other was the trip to China in 1972.If the former happened at a wrong war at the wrong time, the latter made a correct choice at the right time and place.Pompeo and other Trump government members insist on the Cold War signal and tone issued now, and I am afraid it will be another wrong decision.
At such a critical moment, the great powers should bear the historical responsibilities, not the trap of the old Cold War.
The author is Beijing Freelance
