Are We Officially in Cold War II?
The Chinese Communist Party, like the old Soviet party, is a Marxist–Leninist regime.
by FRANCIS P. SEMPA
June 4, 2023, 10:52 PM
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The prolific historian and Hoover Institution Fellow Niall Ferguson gave a tutorial about our new cold war with China on the Hoover Institution’s web series Uncommon Knowledge, which is hosted by Peter Robinson. Ferguson compared Cold War II with Cold War I and concluded that Cold War II will be much more dangerous for the United States than Cold War I — and in Cold War II, unlike Cold War I, the United States may lose. (READ MORE: G7 and China–Central Asia Summits Show Two Opposing Directions for the World)
Ferguson is the author of acclaimed books on the First World War (The Pity of War), the Second World War (The War of the World), a history of the British Empire (Empire), and is completing the second volume of his magnificent biography of Henry Kissinger. He told Robinson that Kissinger, who just turned 100, also believes that we are in the early stages of a cold war with China.
A Second Ideological Rivalry
Both cold wars, Ferguson notes, combined geopolitical and ideological rivalries. The Chinese Communist Party, like the old Soviet party, is a Marxist–Leninist regime committed to the worldwide triumph of socialism over capitalism. The United States and the West won Cold War I, in part due to our economic and technological superiority over the stagnant Soviet system. In a very real sense, our Cold War victory over the Soviets was an economic victory. President Ronald Reagan understood that the Soviet Union was in a systemic crisis and he pursued policies in the 1980s that put further strains on that system. We have no such superiority in these realms vis-à-vis China in Cold War II. We are not in a position where we can outspend China into collapse the way we did against the Soviet Union.
https://spectator.org/are-we-officially-in-cold-war-ii/