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US-China Special Report: Intensifying Geopoltical Rivarly will Worsen in 2019, outlasting any trade deal

In a report dated 21 October, the Eurasian Group, a New York-based geopolitical consultancy, prefers not to call the intensifying US pushback against China a new Cold War. It postulates that -

"This is not the start of a new cold war. That framework is more misleading than explanatory....and overstates the degree to which this latest pushback is finely orchestrated or a true departure from existing policy. Pence’s speech was quickly cobbled together as administration officials scrambled to publicly explain Trump's earlier charges of Chinese interference in US politics. Recent actions taken had long been in the works in various parts of the bureaucracy and are largely extensions of the policies of past US administrations. 

Rather than a cold war, we are at an inflection point in which the great power rivalry between the two countries is intensifying and overwhelming the more cooperative aspects of the relationship. The US political and business establishment has concluded that past modes of engagement with China have failed to check the increasingly assertive policies of President Xi Jinping. With the ballast of a vocal and effective pro-China lobby gone, there is little to mitigate against US policies that confront China as a strategic competitor across a growing range of fields and geographies. This shift would have taken place even under a Hilary Clinton presidency, but the potential for extreme volatility is particularly high under a Trump administration that is eager to project strength against China and is less encumbered by concern for the multilateral system and its rules. 

This dynamic will likely cause continued deterioration in the relationship in 2019, even if Trump and Xi are able to reduce near-term tensions at the G20 meeting in late November. That is bad news for a lasting solution on trade and technology disputes and creates the more acute risk of a full-blown foreign policy crisis if either side miscalculates over flashpoints such as the South China Sea and Taiwan."

Download US China relationship_Eurasia Groupa 21 October 2018

Call it what you will. There is more than one way to skin a cat. While the stress in US-China relations has been building up before the Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence's Hudson Institute speech drops all pretense of any possible amicable relationship with China. It's unprecedented in its breadth and intensity, far more than what needs to simply justify Trump's earlier accusation of Chinese interference in US politics.

At the start, Pence paid tribute to Michael Pillsbury, Hudson Institute senior fellow and Director for China Strategy who chaired the event. His 2015 book "The Hundred Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower" is widely held to have inspired almost all of Pence's fiery rhetoric. Pillsbury is no stranger to the White House. The sober Pence was unlikely to fire way on all fronts without clearing the lines beforehand with his boss. Click here Moreover, the US is now pushing back against China not only on trade, finance and economics, but militarily and ideologically. 

The Eurasia Group rightly emphasizes that US-China rivalry is unlikely to subside before Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. Even by that time, the fundamental rivalry between the two Great Powers is likely to persist. Many of the worries about a rising China will remain bipartisan. This turning of the tide in US-China relations lends itself to increasing confrontation with "All Measures Short of War " Click here

Is this situation similar to the US-USSR Cold War in potential military conflict and multi-regional rivalry? Perhaps not. But is this declaring a new Cold War against China in all but name? It takes two to tangle and China remains anxious to avoid an all-out Cold War with the United States. But China's rise is unlikely to be successfully derailed any time soon. Click here So US-China power rivalry is likely to sustain and possibly intensify in coming decades. The Thucydides Trap has sprung, at least short of a hot war. The term New Cold War is not as far-fetched as it may first appear. 

Hong Kong rejects visa of British journalist

Exclusive radio interview with BBC World Service News Hour on 6 October, 2018

Trump's foreign policy is all branding

An article dated 3 October, 2018 by Judah Grunstein, Editor-in-Chief of World Politics Review, a New York-based bipartisan publication, points out that President Trump's much-hyped transformational foreign policy initiatives are beginning to look like old wine in a new bottle bearing his name. Examples include his latest declared triumph on reinventing NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement), his tactic on NATO members to pay more, his deal on North Korea, and his trade talks with the European Union which borrow heavily from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which he has torn up. 

The article contends - 

"That means that the other major crises on Trump’s docket, rather than escalating, might end up being defused in a similar fashion. Certainly China will try to wind down its own trade war with the U.S. by offering enough superficial concessions to allow Trump to declare victory and come home. Iran, too, might begin to see the appeal of pursuing a Trump-rebranded nuclear accord that differs only marginally from the one he withdrew from in May."

"On the more worrying side, NAFTA and NATO both have long-standing constituencies in the U.S. that make tearing them up politically costly".

"It’s possible that the U.S. might have benefited from the approach that fueled Trump’s rise in the early years of his public life. A brash risk-taker who questioned sacred cows and challenged conventional wisdoms might have reinvigorated U.S. foreign policy in the face of a rising China and resurgent Russia. Instead, the later Trump has prevailed, promising much, delivering little and making sure his name is featured prominently on the marquee."

Whether the article's assertions turn out to be fully substantiated remains to be seen. The litmus tests are over North Korea, Iran and China. Nevertheless, evidence shows that there is already more than a grain of truth in Grunstein's observations.