Ideology becomes irrelevant in new ‘Cold War’

A new “Cold War” is beginning to shape international politics but ideology is unlikely to be a decisive influence in this process. The US, China and to a lesser extent Russia are the key powers in this new “Cold War”, or scramble for global power and influence, but the forerunners in the contest are the US and China. However, they are not as ideologically divided as they may seem.

The ideological component of the Cold War, or the Old Cold War, which came into being at the end of World War Two and held sway until the early nineties was comparatively easy to define. Essentially it had to do with the contest for global supremacy between capitalism, whose champions were the US and its Western allies on the one hand, and communism, whose exponents were the USSR and its allies, on the other hand. As is known, the long-running struggle between these ideological blocs for power and influence ended with capitalism emerging victorious. That is, the US and the Western alliance, along with the socio-economic system they defended, became the world’s foremost powers and influencers.

But what are the lines of division between the US and China in the current international political and economic order? In terms of economic ideology there are none. China today is communist almost only in name although it emerged as a key communist power in the late forties and was a principal ally of the USSR at that time. To be sure, the Communist Party of China remains the sole governing entity of the country and its authority cannot be called in question within China. But are the Chinese authorities opposed to capitalism and free market enterprise? The answer is a clear “No”. Today, the Chinese authorities are in no way antagonistic to capitalist-led enterprise. In fact, they are for steady and unhindered market-led economic growth. Jack Ma’s rise to stardom in Chinese business is a case in point.

However, there is a point to which a business enterprise could grow in China. It could flourish but it cannot grow stronger than the central government and pose a threat to the latter’s standing as the key driver of economic growth. Once again, Jack Ma’s recent fortunes are a case in point. As noted by some commentators, Ma crossed the “red line”, so to speak, by becoming “the richest man in China”. Accordingly, businesses could grow as long as they do not pose a threat to the control the governing Chinese Communist Party exercises over the national economy.

Therefore, on the economic policy front there are no significant differences between China and the US today. They are both champions of the free market system, but in the case of China, the central authorities are for flourishing the system provided its control over the polity is not eroded in the process. The conclusion is inescapable that on the issue of economic policy, China and the US are on the same page.

The question then arises:

How is it that the US and China are in a “Cold War” type of contest and confrontation, if in the matter of economic ideology they hardly have any differences? At this juncture, the rather preliminary point needs to be cleared up that the blurring of differences between these powers on economic policy does not in any way make them allies of any sort.

On the contrary, the US and China could be expected to be in the fiercest competition to secure their economic interests globally, although the US is likely to tread a relatively friction-free path on trade matters with China under a Biden administration.

What is of interest is that global economic growth in the days ahead would be driven in the main by the US and China. One may even say that the economic fortunes of the world depend greatly on the US and China. Spreading some light on this, the World Bank stated that global economic growth is expected to rise to 5.6 per cent this year, spearheaded by the US and China. Besides, the US and China are expected to account for around quarter of global economic growth in 2021. Thus, it is only a matter of time before there is stepped-up competition between the countries for global markets and investments, since every economic opportunity will matter to them in their contest for global economic supremacy.

However, it is in relation to political and military issues that US-China relations are likely to take on some of those Cold War dimensions which the world was familiar with in the decades of the US-USSR contest for supremacy. President Biden set the stage for debate on these questions when he was quoted saying that China is an “Authoritarian rival to Western democracy”. In the days of the Old Cold War the USSR and to a degree China were castigated by Western political circles and in popular discourse as authoritarian states that were the veritable anti-theses of ‘’Western democracy”. Such perceptions have continued into the present but current developments ought to prompt a questioning of these traditional notions at the heart of the Old Cold War.

Given the quality of democracy in the US in particular at present the above Biden pronouncement could prove contentious. It was left to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to put the record straight on the quality of Western democracy. Answering a question by the press subsequent to his summit with President Biden in Geneva recently, Putin made the astute observation that a person was shot in the back recently by law enforcers in a busy street in the US. In Afghanistan too ordinary citizens are killed in US and Western military operations with seeming impunity. What does this reveal about the quality of democracy in the US? Moreover, Guantanamo continues to be in existence in the US, Putin quipped.

Accordingly, the US cannot take the moral high ground, so to speak, on the question of the superiority of Western democracy to other political systems. If human rights is a controversial issue in China or Russia it is equally so in the US. Therefore, who is superior to whom from the viewpoint of democratic advancement becomes a non-issue in current world political discourse. In this sense too ideology becomes irrelevant.

However, there could be certainty over the fact that the decks have been cleared for a trial of strength, in the area of economic growth in particular, between the US and China in the years to come. This intense tussle for supremacy is set to define world politics and be its most prominent feature.