The chronicle of François Brousseau: “The new cold war”

The first contact, since the arrival of Joe Biden, between high-ranking American and Chinese officials, Thursday and Friday in Alaska, ended in a spat coupled with a dialogue of the deaf.

“Who are you to teach democracy lessons? You are a country in decline, which the world no longer follows! Thundered Chinese defense and diplomacy officials.

“You have for decades stolen the technologies of others, practiced one-way free trade, crushed minority peoples. Today is Hong Kong; tomorrow, the Taiwanese threatened with an invasion, ”retorted in substance their American counterparts. “We won’t let that happen!” “

We are witnessing the preliminary phase of the new cold war of the XXI^e century: where you place your pawns and gauge your opponent, hoping to impress or intimidate him.

The question of knowing if this new antagonism will lead to a real war, or if it will be expressed less brutally and in a channeled way… this question remains entirely open.

Where the great rivalry of the XX^e century (USSR against the United States) was played out with nuclear weapons, a “balance of terror”, well-defined classical alliances and local proxy wars – but not in the economic or commercial sphere – the founding one of the XXI^e is played out through commerce, cyber warfare, high technology, new networks and “influence” at large.

Of course, nations and armies are still there, interstate rivalries and loyalties still have a role, we continue to invest in anti-missile devices and aircraft carriers … A “hot war”, physical, between China and the States United – with their clients or allies, for example Japanese or Taiwanese – remains possible.

China, on the rise for 30 years, now believes that it has won its place at the top, and that its breathtaking economic and commercial boom must now “pay” … and be reflected in all spheres: political, diplomatic, ideological, strategic.

Xi Jinping embodies this desire for power. It is the first Chinese leader to say explicitly: we challenge the preeminence of the United States and the Western world. The first one who says: there are no universal democratic values; pluralism and the separation of powers are deleterious. By adding that the Chinese system provides effective and superior answers to the problems of the XXI^e century.

China, he proudly says, is an unprecedented decline in mass poverty (true). The most massive investment in research and advanced technologies (true). The world’s largest currency reserves (true).

What he does not say is that China is also a neo-totalitarian state which monitors and supervises its citizens to a point that Orwell or Mao would never have imagined, dedicated to making a “citizen.” model ”that we hope to be 100% docile.

A state which assimilates, through forced sterilization, “re-education camps” and massive immigration, nations like the Uighurs and the Tibetans. Who explicitly challenges the separation of powers, and where, for example, the judgments against the two Canadians taken hostage will be dictated by the political body … in a way that is assumed and claimed.

Faced with this, what can the United States, a former imperial power occupied in healing its internal wounds, do? This sick democracy whose last episodes made the rest of the world sneer (or frightened)?

President Biden is betting that a rebound is possible, that Chinese supremacy is not inevitable and that the United States has not said its last word.

But to do this, it will take a clever mix of modesty (we are not going to redo the XX^e century), realism (on the means to be taken), fair measure of the adversary, and a return to often flouted values ​​which, to be credible in the face of the world, must first be defended at home.

François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]

–