New cold war: are we ready?

Are we ready to navigate through the complex geo-political environment dominated by competition between China and US?

The visit by president Nixon to China almost 50 years ago was said to aim, among other things, at providing Beijing an opportunity to integrate with the Western world. That expectation seems to have faded over all these decades, at a faster speed during the past 10 years generally, and during the current Trump administration particularly. The argument put forward by those who recommend a tougher stance towards China is that we expected China to introduce political reforms in the country in conformity with the American-led liberal order and work towards building convergences with the Western world on geo-strategic and economic issues. That dream, they say, has gone sour. Therefore, according to them, China needs to be ‘contained’. Containment reminds us of the Cold War of the last century, in which the Western world was pitched against the former Soviet Union. Containment consisted of an arms race, occasional military confrontations in different parts of the world, economic strangulation, and assertion of cultural superiority.

The Western world, under the American leadership, joined by allies in Asia, the Americas, Africa and Australia, seem all set to cooperate for ascendency in the new cold war. The United States has made it clear that it is determined to contain China. Containment will likely follow the same patterns, methods and strategies, but the new cold war will likely be more lethal, with far-reaching consequences. This is so considering the fact that we now live in an age where cyber warfare, and states’ capability to inflict harm through the use of information technology, used for economic objectives, add new dimensions to modern strategy and conflict.

Smaller and mid-level countries will have to align with one bloc or the other exactly as they did during the Cold War of the previous century. The process of making difficult choices in the new cold war is already upon these countries. The picture which emerges presently vis-á-vis the emerging blocs looks like this: the American-led Western bloc consists of the US, Canada, European countries with some exceptions, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, and the Gulf Arab kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and their smaller allies in the Middle East and North Africa. On the other side of the divide are China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and so on. Turkey, being a NATO ally, and with a complicated background in claiming its Western identity, coupled with a level of its security and economic integration with the West, has to make difficult choices.

Pakistan, right from its creation, has stood with the West. Reasons for this include its security concerns as it had to deal with a much bigger neighbour, India, in the context of its bilateral disputes with New Delhi, including the issue of Kashmir. Moreover, the policymakers in Pakistan were convinced that in the given circumstances, in which the USSR and the West sought each other’s annihilation with respect to the conflicting ideologies that they subscribed to, and which they sought to expand, their natural station rested in the West. Furthermore, Pakistan was in need of economic assistance so it could build basic infrastructure in the nascent state, and the West seemed to be willing to extend the same as was evident from its huge economic push in Europe under the Marshal plan. That is why Pakistan, soon after its inception, joined the Western-led security arrangements such as SEATO and CENTO.

But what now, with China as a global power, competing with the West for ascendency? A lot has changed in the international arena after the collapse of the USSR. China and India compete for bigger share in international power. Both China and India are Pakistan’s neighbours. Pakistan has yet to settle its serious disputes with India. The US has decisively tilted in favour of India. New Delhi and Kabul blame Pakistan for state-sponsored terrorism. The US and the West lend an ear to what these countries have to say about Pakistan. Policymakers in Islamabad find it extremely difficult to choose between the complex sets of options. One such option seems to be that of a choice between the US and China. In the past, the natural choice in Islamabad has always been to stand with the West as their political and economic models are compatible, while culturally Pakistanis find themselves more at ease in Western countries than anywhere else. But then there is hard politics, which is determined by a country’s national interests. In Pakistan’s case, faced with a much larger, and increasingly aggressive neighbour, it finds itself pushed into the Chinese camp, where it gets its security and economic problems addressed more easily.

What is the ideal situation? It will be one in which Pakistan can maintain a balance between China and the US. Pakistan needs, more than anything else, friendly relations with all actors in the international system, including the US, China, Europe, Russia, the Gulf kingdoms, and Iran. This is easier said than done, but no other option is free of risks. Are we ready to navigate through the complex geo-political environment which seems to be increasingly dominated by competition between China and the US?

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2020.

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