I have been arguing publicly since early 2019 that we find ourselves in Cold War II. The analogy seems to me more appropriate by the day. Under Xi Jinping's leadership, the Chinese Communist Party increasingly behaves like the Soviet regime between the late 1940s and the late 1980s. Beijing explicitly sees itself engaged in a "great struggle" with the West.
True, there are differences between the two cold wars. There is a much higher level of economic interdependence between the U.S. and the PRC than was ever the case between the U.S. and the USSR. China is a bigger economic challenger than the Soviet Union ever was. There is much more cultural interchange today than in Cold War I. Technology has changed so that it is harder for each side to conceal military activity from the other, and also much easier for China to access U.S. private- and public-sector data. China does not actively promote socialist revolution around the world. China does not control a significant number of neighboring states. I do not expect nuclear brinkmanship. I do not expect proxy wars.
But the similarities are far more numerous. Like the Soviet Union, China is engaged in systemic technological catch-up, employing espionage to acquire Western technology. In Cold War I, the competition was in nuclear weapons and space (including satellites), but also in information warfare and biological and chemical weapons. Today, China is seeking parity not just in software and hardware but also in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and even vaccines.
Like the USSR, China has both regional and global ambitions. Regionally, it seeks predominance in East Asia, and it is systematically turning the South China Sea into a vast Chinese naval base. Globally, its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative looks a lot like the old Soviet imperialism, with aid and infrastructure in return for political loyalty.
Like the USSR, too, China has an ideological objective, which is to curb the spread of Western ideas such as representative government and the rule of law. At home, China is a one-party state with a leadership that, under Xi, has increased its commitment to the Marxist-Leninist view of both internal power and international relations. It is building an even more comprehensive system of surveillance than Orwell imagined in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It ruthlessly deploys repressive methods, including mass internment, reeducation, and population control, against internal minorities such as the Uyghurs of Xinjiang. It is determined to end the semi-autonomy of Hong Kong and the de facto democracy and independence of Taiwan.
As in Cold War I, there is an arms race. And China, like the Soviet Union, only worse, is an environmental and health hazard to the rest of the world. Not only was COVID-19 a kind of super Chernobyl; 48 percent of the increase in CO2 emissions since the Paris agreement is due to China.
Finally, as in Cold War I, a significant number of Western academics are in denial about the fact that we are in a Cold War!