Are We in A Cold War with China?

Relationships between nations can be strange. During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies fighting together against the Axis powers. However, there was tension in the relationship because Americans were wary of communism and Russians resented the U.S. for its delay in entering the war. About 1946 or 1947 -- soon after the end of World War II -- the grievances between the United States and Russia ripened into mutual distrust and enmity.

The Cold War between the United States and Russia lasted for more than half of my life. There were periods when the Cold War would heat up but then would cool down. There were lots of threats of a hot war – such as the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Kennedy administration, but the war stayed cold enough to protect the peace of the world.

Soviet influence grew in Eastern Europe and then waned. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and issued a challenge: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” “In 1989, every other communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one.” By November 1989, the Berlin Wall was destroyed. “By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.” 

Many Americans are now concerned about a war with China as that nation flexes its muscles in the world. The political class does not recognize China’s relationship with the United States as anything besides competition. However, Former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger believes differently.

Pottinger testified at a recent congressional hearing on China that things are not as the politicians would like us to believe. Even though America seeks peace and cooperation with China, “it does us little good to repeat again and again that we aren’t seeking a new Cold War with the [Chinese Communist Party] has been stealthily waging one against us for years.”

Andrew J. Harding, a research assistant in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, recently published an article in The Daily Signal about America’s relationship with China. He agreed with Pottinger assessment that China has been at war with America for years. 

It is time to acknowledge a simple reality: The Chinese Communist Party, both through its words and actions, has made it clear that it intends to overtake the United States and restructure the global order in its image.

The People’s Republic of China has viewed the U.S. as a strategic rival and long ago deployed cold war tactics against us, even as America opened its economy and its borders in a misguided engagement strategy.

The Heritage Foundation recently published a special report, “Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China.” The report “recognizes that China is an adversary and that the U.S. has entered a new cold war, though it will differ in important ways from the last one. China is, in some ways, a more capable adversary than the USSR ever was.” Harding continued with the following:

A cold war is defined as a “condition of rivalry, mistrust, and often open hostility short of violence,” generally applying to two global powers locked in an escalating rivalry across multiple domains – economics, technology, diplomacy, geopolitics – but absent direct military conflict.

“Winning the New Cold War” assesses the current situation between the U.S. and China and offers specific policy recommendations to deal with China’s increasing threat. The report consists of three parts.

Part I examines the state of the China-U.S. rivalry and the respective strengths and weaknesses of both countries….

In Part II, the report examines 48 fault lines within U.S.-China relations and offers over 100 specific policy recommendations meant to protect the homeland, secure and advance U.S. prosperity, reorient America’s defense posture, diminish the Chinese Communist Party’s influence and hold it accountable for its actions, and help the United States exercise global leadership….

In Part III, the special report examines steps necessary to implement the plan. It emphasizes cooperation and coordination between the executive and legislative branches, federal agencies and law enforcement, state and local governments, U.S. allies and partners, and the private sector.

Harding closes his article by reminding his readers that the “Chinese Communist Party has made it clear that it intends to restructure the global order in its image and its does not intend to let the United States stand in its way.” He explained, “Avoiding this fate will require a comprehensive plan of action, including going on the offensive to hold the People’s Republic of China accountable, diminish its capacity to harm the U.S., and win the New Cold War.” According to Harding, “America’s very future depends on” succeeding at the task as presented.

As I see it, America is already at a disadvantage because we have the Biden family who have been doing business with people in China connected to the communist party. We are in the beginning stages of discovering if President Joe Biden is compromised, and if he has sold America to China. The fact that hundreds of Chinese nationals are now crossing into the United States through our unsecured border does not bode well for us.

Great Leaders

From time to time we have the opportunity to see great leaders. In recent weeks we have glimpsed two examples of great leadership. U.S. Representative Paul Ryan continues to stand tall in defending and explaining his budget plan. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood tall when he addressed the United States Congress where he decreed where Israel will compromise and where his nation will not back down.

President Ronald Reagan was another great leader. He was the best United States President in my adult life because he stood tall in his leadership abilities, principles, love of country, and vision. The Foundry, published by The Heritage Foundation, considers Reagan to be “the greatest American president of the last 100 years.”

The Ronald Reagan Centennial Gala was held in Washington, D.C., on May 24, 2011. The Ronald Reagan Centennial Freedom Award was given to Lech Walesa, a leader who stood tall for Poland in her hour of need. Special keynote speakers were Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Dr. Liam Fox, M.P., United Kingdom Secretary of Defence.

Nile Gardiner [blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner…] shared some of the “brilliant speech” given by Dr. Fox as he “paid tribute to the powerful partnership between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.” He called the relationship between the two leaders “an unbreakable alliance that defeated the Soviet Empire and won the Cold War.” He wrote that Dr. Fox has been a “true friend of the United States for decades” as well as a “star performer” in the cabinet of David Cameron.

Gardiner reported that Dr. Fox won great applause when he said, “It is impossible to assess the contribution of Ronald Reagan to the history of the 20th century without considering another political giant of the era – Margaret Thatcher – his friend, ally, and intellectual soul mate.

“… At a time when leadership was so needed they brought values, vision, and valor. The Cold War did not end. It was won. It was not an accident. It came about because the leadership of the free world was committed politically, militarily, and morally to the defeat of totalitarian ideology and the triumph of liberty and freedom.

“It was not an exercise in expediency but the application of conviction. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher understood that our strength lay in people not governments and that liberated from the dead hand of the state – of the self-perpetuating bureaucracy –the innovation and drive of free people would triumph. They believed that competition is to be welcomed not feared – that it is the means by which we judge our talents, one against the other, without recourse to conflict.

“They understood that there is a difference between tolerance and surrender and that the moral relativism that blurs the distinction between right and wrong needs to be confronted. They knew what they believed to be right and had the courage to say so – and they knew what they believed to be wrong and had the fortitude to confront it.

“They knew that in a free society the market works – that the combined wisdom of millions of individuals, acting in their own interests, is always likely to trump the wisdom of the self-selecting elites of government.

“They were giants of history when history needed giants. We may never see their likes again in our lifetime. But living and nurturing their legacy is the greatest honour that any of us can do for their dreams, their endeavors, and their hopes. Let us not let them down.”

I am grateful for the reminder that the free world was once led by two truly great leaders. We are now in a time of political upheavals, economic distress, and great natural disasters. We need someone like Reagan and Thatcher – someone with courage, leadership, fortitude, vision, and good principles – to step forward to lead the free world once again. We need someone who will support members of Congress like Paul Ryan who are bravely and unwaveringly battling to save our nation. We need a President who will dare to stand beside men like Mr. Netanyahu in defending the rights of Israel to exist as a nation.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews [ifcy.org], quoted Thomas Jefferson as saying: “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

Paul Ryan, Benjamin Netanyahu, Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan have all shown us where to compromise and where to stand firm. They all showed true leadership.

The world has tremendous need for another great leader. Who will lead the free world through these difficult times? Is Netanyahu of the nation of Israel the next great leader of the free world? Can we find such a leader in the United States of America in our day? Where is the next Margaret Thatcher? Where is the next Ronald Reagan? Whoever you are and wherever you are hiding, please stand up now!

Cold War

The Cold War developed after World War II and lasted until 1992 when Russian President Boris Yeltsin and United States President George H. W. Bush declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies. The Cold War was an intense rivalry between groups of Communist and non-Communist nations. The Communist group consisted of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and its Communist allies. This group was often referred to as the Eastern bloc. The other group consisted of the United States and its democratic allies, usually referred to as the Western bloc. It was called the Cold War because there was no actual fighting on a wide scale. The Cold War was characterized by mutual distrust, suspicion and misunderstandings by both sides. There were numerous times that people thought World War III was likely to start. The United States accused the U.S.S.R. of trying to expand Communism worldwide. The Soviets accused the United States of practicing imperialism and with attempting to stop revolutions in other countries. When John F. Kennedy became President in January 1961, Cold War tensions were high - in Europe and Asia as well as in Cuba. The Fidel Castro government of Cuba became openly Communist in 1960. Castro condemned the United States and began to receive military aid from Communist countries. Millions of dollars' worth of American property was seized by Castro's government. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba ended in January 1961. Anti-Castro Cubans, sponsored by the United States, tried to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. The invasion was not successful. It strengthened Castro's control of Cuba and embarrassed the United States. Kennedy met Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet Party chief, in Vienna, Austria, in June 1961. The two leaders failed to reach an agreement about ending military occupation in Berlin. In July 1961 the U.S.S.R. increased military spending and cancelled cuts in its armed forces. Increasing numbers of East Germans were fleeing to West Germany. The East German Communists began building a wall of cement and barbed wire between East and West Berlin on August 13, 1964. The United States sent troops to West Berlin by highway. United States tanks were used to enter East Berlin without showing papers to Communist border guards to enforce Western rights to the city. Some East Germans escaped to West Berlin after the wall was built, but many died in the attempt. The Berlin Wall remained until the time of Ronald Reagan. The U.S.S.R. secretly installed missiles and missile bases in Cuba, about 90 miles from Florida, and the United States learned about it in October 1962. President Kennedy demanded that the U.S.S.R. remove them. He ordered a naval "quarantine" of Cuba. The U.S.S.R. offered to remove the missiles if the United States would dismantle its military bases in Turkey. The United States refused, and after a week of extreme tension Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. Some how the world managed to avoid World War III through a period of about 40 years of the Cold War. I remember the tension of this period of time. We were always wondering if we were going to have a nuclear bomb dropped on our nation. Facts for this post came from an article by Burton I. Kaufman in Burton I. Kaufman, World Book EncyclopediaVol. 4, pp 762-771.