Image credit: Thomas Peter-Pool / Getty Images
August 07, 2019
America should apply Cold War lessons to China: Compete hard, hold fast to our values
As global stock markets gyrate in response to mounting economic tensions between Washington and Beijing, the specter of a U.S.-China Cold War looms large. The intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing has already provoked a wave of anxiety among former officials, academics and pundits. Former U.S Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warns that America’s tougher approach risks creating a new "economic iron curtain." Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf says it could turn “a manageable, albeit vexed, relationship into all-embracing conflict, for no good reason.”
The alarmists have it wrong. As China has become more repressive at home and assertive abroad, the United States needs more Cold War thinking — not less. It is imperative that Washington learn the lessons from the Cold War, both positive and negative, in order to rise to the challenge that Beijing poses to American security, prosperity and values.
Read the full article in USA Today.
More from CNAS
-
Opportunities and Challenges for Trade Policy in the Digital Economy
This hearing addresses digital trade, and I will focus my testimony on the national-security problems in this area posed by China – specifically, concerns about China’s open a...
By David Feith
-
Taking on China and Russia
Today Washington has chosen, perhaps by default, to compete with—and if necessary, confront—both Russia and China simultaneously and indefinitely....
By Richard Fontaine
-
Crafting Transatlantic Responses to BRI, with Lisa Curtis, Jacob Stokes, Josh Fitt, Carisa Nietsche, and Nicholas Lokker
Nine years after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s flagship global infrastructure investment program is at a critical juncture. While many countries were ini...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, Lisa Curtis, Carisa Nietsche, Joshua Fitt & Nicholas Lokker
-
To defeat autocracy, weaponize transparency
Democracies have a significant advantage in weaponizing transparency at scale to highlight autocratic activities that break international norms or inflict damage on local econ...
By Ryan Fedasiuk & Garrett Berntsen