The 'Cool War' With China Is Unseen, But Comes With Consequences

[kalu_miah]

The 'Cool War' With China Is Unseen, But Comes With Consequences
by ELISE HU

June 06, 2014 3:47 AM ET
Morning Edition

Chinese paramilitary police march at Tiananmen Square in Beijing during winter 2014.
Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images

The days of the Cold War are long gone — no more zero-sum showdowns against communism, no duck-and-cover lessons in propaganda videos. But some scholars argue that something else has taken that conflict's place: a "cool war," pitting the U.S. against China.



That war is flaring up, and it's high stakes for American industry.

"We're acting in a lot of ways as though we were at war," says Harvard scholar Noah Feldman, the author of Cool War: The Future of Global Competition.

"But at the same time, we're also trading with each other and cooperating with each other in a wide range of economic areas, and it's that strange combination of competition and cooperation that's a cool war."

Unlike the Cold War, the cool war is largely fought economically. It involves not bombs, but server space. And the cool war is being waged not by secret agents wearing disguises, but by faceless hackers thousands of miles away, who break into vast data systems.

On May 19, the U.S. escalated by bringing its first ever charges against foreign government officials for cyberspying, indicting Chinese military agents for hacking into computer systems of American firms. U.S. companies have become both the targets and the proxies in the cool war: According to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Chinese have been hacking Westinghouse, U.S. Steel, Alcoa and more than 60 other companies for half a decade.


The Two-Way
U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Chinese Officials Over Cyberspying
"The alleged hacking appears to have been conducted for no other reason than to advantage state-owned companies in China at the expense of businesses here in the United States," Holder said at his press conference announcing the charges.

The Chinese deny the charges. And this spring, leaked NSA documents showed the U.S. previously infiltrated Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qing Gang reminded the public of that on state-run CCTV.

i
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced indictments against Chinese military hackers on cyber-espionage charges May 19.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

"It is known to the world what the U.S. has done in cyberspying and surveillance. On cybersecurity issues, we would like the whole world to judge who should be put on the defendant's stand legally and morally," Qing said.

So the U.S. called out China for spying on American companies. The Chinese say the U.S. has been doing spying all along, on Chinese companies. China is now retaliating economically. It's requiring American tech firms like Cisco to go through cybersecurity vetting, and failure to pass vetting could mean a ban.

China is also taking Windows 8 operating systems off all government computers, saying Microsoft is stealing personal data of Chinese citizens. No duck-and-cover, but lots of business-related back-and-forth.

"It affects our lives as Americans in a wide range of ways that aren't immediately obvious to us," Feldman says. Unseen as it may be, this cool war represents an ongoing power struggle with geopolitical consequences — and plenty of present-day problems for American companies whose trade secrets are at stake.

"It's a reminder to tech companies — many of them already know this, if they're big enough — that they need to keep their heads up and be aware that their data is not secure, and it's not just Big Brother, Uncle Sam that's listening — it's also Beijing that's listening in," Feldman says.

 

[BoQ77]

China is not ready for their imperialism.

 

[dlclong]

I don't know when that exposed PRISM,
The United States where the courage to blame others.

Bitch blaming someone else does not keep the ”women duty“-----this is American

 

[l'ingénieur]

China is going hard.

 

[kalu_miah]

Cool War : NPR

Excerpt: Cool War

Chapter One

Bound Together

Who won the Cold War?

For twenty years now—almost half the length of the war itself—the Western democracies have assumed that they did. For the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe grew vastly in the absence of their greatest strategic challenger. The United States generated the information revolution. Europe increased mutual cooperation, united its currency, and incorporated the choicest bits of the former Soviet empire into the European Union. There was good historical precedent for both growth and unity: after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Britain, the main winner, initiated the industrial revolution, and the Concert of Europe represented the efforts of the European states to cooperate and manage their security affairs.1

But in the second decade after the Cold War, two surprising things happened. First, the United States, with European participation, invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and then spent trillions of dollars, enormous diplomatic capital, and thousands of its soldiers' lives in the effort to build functioning states in each. The results were a very partial success in one case and something very much like failure in the other. The economic downturn that began toward the end of the decade was not caused by these misadventures, but taken together they signaled the possibility of imperial decline.2

At the same time, China, which had been a secondary player in the Cold War, deepened the experiment it had already begun with state-managed market reform. The result was sustained economic growth of stunning proportions. China became the world's second-largest economy, outstripping Japan and all individual members of the European Union. The pace of its growth has declined from the consistent 10 percent or more of the post–Cold War era to something more like 7.5 percent in 2012, and further slowing remains possible.3 Yet China weathered the global financial crisis much better than the United States and Europe. Serious observers believe that the Chinese economy could become the biggest in the world in a decade—or even sooner.4

Suddenly, the assumption of Western, democratic victory in the Cold War has had to be reexamined. On the level of ideas, capitalism indeed won a significant victory. The communist ideal of a totally nonmarket economy no longer has many adherents outside North Korea and perhaps Cuba. The Communist Party of China has formally welcomed capitalists—defined to include owners of private businesses—into party membership. The Chinese state still owns huge enterprises and guides the economy by controlling banks and by regulating some industries, but the basic theory on which it acts is market capitalism, not communism or even socialism.5

Democracy, however, has not won in the way its promoters had hoped.6 China's ruling elite rejects both elections and individual rights, and it has been able to achieve fast growth and de facto legitimacy without either. After a largely unsuccessful experiment with democracy, Russia has reverted to the rule of a strongman. Much of its public seems to accept, even embrace, this result, notwithstanding some protest. The U.S. experiments with democratic nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq went poorly, not because of any inherent problem with Islam but because of the extreme difficulty of establishing democracy without a strong, functioning state to keep order. Mass demonstrations demanding the end of autocracy deposed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, yet the Arab Spring has struggled.

Meanwhile, the position of the United States looks much weaker than it should if the Cold War was a definitive victory. The Pax Britannica lasted from 1815 to 1914 before the rise of Germany brought the century of British dominance to an agonizing end. By contrast, in 2013, the rise of China was making the U.S. position as the sole global superpower look tenuous. The United States has arguably been overstretching itself as Britain did over the nineteenth century.7 The hard fact is that alongside China's extraordinary growth, the U.S. economy has been growing slowly if at all—to the point where 2 percent annual growth would have been considered a victory in 2012.

China's rise—and the relative decline of the United States—sets the stage for the possibility that the real winner of the Cold War could turn out to have been China. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping rejected glasnost and insisted on maintaining party rule.8 And unlike the Soviet Union, China abandoned communist ideology in time to avoid collapse. The emergent party-directed capitalist state is now poised to take its place as a global superpower comparable to the United States.

Interdependence

Yet a powerful argument can be mounted that despite its economic rise, China will not try to challenge the position of the United States as the preeminent global leader. The argument begins with the fact that China's spectacular growth did not take place in isolation. To the contrary, China achieved much of it through export to the United States and other consumer economies. Today trade accounts for half of China's GDP, with exports significantly outstripping imports. The United States alone accounts for roughly 25 percent of Chinese sales.9 Total trade between the countries amounts to a stunning $500 billion a year.10

U.S.-China economic ties go beyond the sale of goods. The United States, a debtor nation, depends on China as the largest purchaser of its bonds. The government of China holds some $1.2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt, or 8 percent of the outstanding total. Only the Federal Reserve and the Social Security Trust Fund, both arms of the government, hold more; all U.S. households combined hold less.11

This profound degree of economic interdependence reflects the geostrategic realities of the post–Cold War world, in which the United States largely took responsibility for assuring global stability and open seas. Against the backdrop of a world safe enough for trade, China and the United States began to engage each other on broader and broader scales. Today they and their citizens cooperate not only in the international system but across a wide and repeated range of economic and cultural interactions.

As of the most recent count, 194,000 Chinese students attend U.S. universities and succeed at all levels, from basic undergraduate education to the most advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.12 Some 70,000 Americans live and study and work in mainland China.13 U.S.-based architects have taken advantage of China's building boom and now design thousands of remarkable buildings in China that could not be built anywhere else in current economic conditions. American and Chinese businesses invest in each other on a daily basis, to the tune of many billions of dollars. We are not in the realm of ping-pong diplomacy: we are in the world of economic and cultural partnership.

These many cooperative projects require trust, credibility, and commitment—all of which were lacking between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the only meaningful sense in which the antagonists cooperated was in maintaining an international system designed to manage their competition, and in their implicit (though unstable) agreement not to attack each other. Even at the height of détente, cooperation was focused on reducing the likelihood of nuclear conflict and recognizing stable borders. Otherwise the sides were implacably opposed.14

A major reason for the relative absence of Cold War cooperation was that the United States and the Soviet Union barely traded with each other. For each side, improving the economic status of the other would have meant weakening its own relative position. The Western and Eastern blocs were divided by borders and ideology but also by economics. Neither the Americans nor the Soviets (nor anyone else) could be confident of access to markets everywhere in the world.

By contrast, the United States and China constantly cooperate to facilitate their mutually advantageous economic relationship. Working together is the only way forward for an interdependent world built on trade. A manufacturer must care about the health of its customers. A debtor needs to worry about the state of its creditors, at least so long as it hopes to continue borrowing. The more the trade, the deeper the cooperation needed. If, for example, the United States wants to sell products in China that rely on intellectual property—films, videogames, computer programs, and pharmaceuticals—it needs China's cooperation to avoid systematic theft.15 If China wants to invest in American companies, it must have assurances that it will be treated as well as any other investor.

Competitive Cooperation

It may seem odd to depict the economic relation between the United States and China as essentially one of cooperation. After all, American and Chinese firms compete intensely for business. The two countries compete to attract investment and create new jobs. In both places, the rhetoric of politicians often suggests the metaphor of economic warfare, with each side racing to beat the other.

The basis for treating economic competition as a form of cooperation goes back to the observation that the economic growth of some countries need not necessarily reduce the wealth of others. As the philosopher David Hume put it 250 years ago, the "jealousy of trade" is thoroughly groundless. I should not be bothered if another country gets rich. "The encrease [sic] of riches and commerce in any one nation, instead of hurting, commonly promotes the riches and commerce of all its neighbors."16 Economic competition can make everybody better off.

In this sense, countries that participate in the international network of trade do compete, but they compete against the backdrop of collective cooperation that creates mutual benefits. The definition of a freely chosen bargain is that each side is better off making the trade than not making it. What is more, some basic rules of exchange must apply for agreement even to be possible: the parties must agree on a currency, and they must trust each other to make payment. The participants in an international trade system can thus be compared to citizens within one country. They compete with each other to get rich while also jointly cooperating in governance that leaves them all better off than they would be without it.

This close, interdependent relationship makes war between the participants seem unlikely because it would be irrational. Should a creditor nation attack a debtor, it would destroy the value of its own assets. Invading your trading partners would mean the end of trade until the war was over, and beyond.

This observation was first made famous by a British journalist named Norman Angell, who in 1909 published The Great Illusion, an enormously popular, widely read book, arguing that the arms race between Britain and Germany was the result of a fundamental mistake.17 Each side seemed to believe that economic success was dependent upon military dominance. But modern economic power derived from a capitalist system based on credit. In a world of debt, conquering another country was useless, because the wealth of the conquered country would evaporate at the moment of conquest.


(Continues...)

 

[Beast]

China is not ready for their imperialism.

China is never about imperalism but more like vietnam is interested in joining US imperialism.

 

[kalu_miah]

China is not ready for their imperialism.

Not sure what you mean, what these articles are saying is that in this "cool war" between China and the US, there is no possibility of war, as this is different from last "cold war" between the US and Soviet Union. Why it is different, because US and SU had no economic engagement, but in this new "cool war" both are full partners in global economy and mutual trade. So this cool war now is more of a economic competition than the previous more dangerous rivalry between US and SU. Several times there was risk of nuclear wars during past cold war era between US and SU, but very little possibility of this happening between China and US in this new "cool war".

 

[Aepsilons]

@kalu_miah ,

Thanks for offering your input. Also, what is the meaning of your username "kalu_miah" ?

 

[kalu_miah]

@kalu_miah ,

Thanks for offering your input. Also, what is the meaning of your username "kalu_miah" ?

Kalu Miah is a common Bangladeshi name, often popular with rickshaw (from Japanese Jinrikisha) drivers:
Rickshaw - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mainly I took this name in honor of our hard working Rickshaw pullers/drivers:

Literal meaning of Kalu is black and Miah is Muslim honorific name.

 

[Aepsilons]

Kalu Miah is a common Bangladeshi name, often popular with rickshaw (from Japanese Jinrikisha) drivers:
Rickshaw - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mainly I took this name in honor of our hard working Rickshaw pullers/drivers:

Literal meaning of Kalu is black and Miah is Muslim honorific name.

He he he, seems like you have a fondness for the working man in your country @kalu_miah ! That's to be respected. Btw, i've ridden these before when I was in New Delhi last year. lol.

PS. You have awesome knowledge of Japanese words ! I'm impressed.

 

[kalu_miah]

He he he, seems like you have a fondness for the working man in your country @kalu_miah ! That's to be respected. Btw, i've ridden these before when I was in New Delhi last year. lol.

PS. You have awesome knowledge of Japanese words ! I'm impressed.

Thanks for the kind words. But to be honest I don't know too many Japanese words. I just know this one word because I knew about Rickshaw history and that it was invented in Japan.

 

[Aepsilons]

I know this a bit off topic, but i remember a lot of Indian rickshaw drivers always yelling out loud, "Chalte Chalte!"

I never really asked what that meant. Do you happen to know the meaning ?

 

[IND151]

Long article but a must read.

 

[kalu_miah]

I know this a bit off topic, but i remember a lot of Indian rickshaw drivers always yelling out loud, "Chalte Chalte!"

I never really asked what that meant. Do you happen to know the meaning ?

I would welcome Indians like @hinduguy to answer that question. I think it means "lets go" as "chal" is a verb that means "go".