0 $
2,500 $
5,000 $
1,400 $
12 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE END OF SEPTEMBER

With Tensions Escalating Over Ukraine And Taiwan, Will The New Cold War Evolve Into A New Global War?

Support SouthFront

With Tensions Escalating Over Ukraine And Taiwan, Will The New Cold War Evolve Into A New Global War?

Illustrative Image

Washington ambitions include a new global NATO

Written by Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi provocation, tensions have escalated, with China firing missiles near the island in drills on August 4 and, for the first time, five Chinese missiles landed in Japanese waters. Washington’s new pro-secessionist instance on this issue violates its own “One China” foreign policy and brings the world closer to further conflict. These developments are unfolding while the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war threatens global food security. For a number of reasons, the US-led West is largely to blame for the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and this is still the case regarding the current proxy war between Washington and Moscow in Ukraine. According to University of Chicago political science Professor John Mearsheimer, NATO enlargement was and is the tap root of the trouble. Now, many concerned observers fear that recent history could somehow repeat itself in Asia over Taipei. Could this double crisis crystallize the current new Cold War into a new bipolarity, thus bringing the world closer to global war?

Washington has broadened its engagement in South Asia as part of its wider Indo-Pacific vision to counter Beijing. Tensions have also been on the rise on the Korean peninsula amid concerns over a “new Asian NATO”. Moreover, in May, US President Joe Biden pledged to militarily defend Taiwan against China. In addition, Washington has been selling arms to Taipei (as it has been doing with Kiev).

Meanwhile, the June NATO Summit in Madrid has made it clear that the military Alliance seeks to completely encircle Russia. The Atlantic Alliance has been expanding east since 1999, and now, with Swedish and Finnish membership, its reach will expand as far out as the Arctic, another geopolitical hot point. The same Summit also has openly addressed Beijing as a threat, which is unprecedented.

So, such an ill-conceived “siege policy” on Russia and China at once has the collateral effect (from an American perspective) of boosting cooperation between these two great powers. This situation, however, brings many challenges to all actors involved and for global peace. For one thing, it is hard to conceive how Washington can possibly have the resources and political will to keep encircling Beijing and Moscow simultaneously for too long.

According to US National Guard Bureau Gen. Dan Hokanson, the Guard is considering a major training program expansion in the Indo-Pacific. These partnerships aim to boost a regional anti-China coalition, in the context of American-Chinese competition for influence among the small island nations. This is mostly about military considerations, as the recent Solomon Islands episode has made clear.

Dmitry Suslov, a Higher School of Economics US-Russia relations expert, claims that, since the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington has also “intensified its confrontational approach towards China”. According to the scholar, the US is trying to build a global integrated system of alliances while simultaneously confronting both Moscow and Beijing. He describes such a project as aiming at a “global, truly consolidated, tightly integrated system of alliances, and not just vertically integrated.” It would involve “horizontal interconnection”, with European and Asian alliances. This explains why the latter were also invited to the Madrid Summit. The Summit’s Declaration also acknowledged that there has been an “unprecedented level of cooperation with the European Union”, and vowed to strengthen this strategic partnership.

Thus, while much has been talked about a “new Asian NATO” (pertaining to the QUAD or even the so-called “new QUAD”), American ambitions in fact include what one could describe as a new “global NATO”, comprising allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This bloc’s raison d’être is to counter the “threat” of Russian-Chinese cooperation, a “threat” that is the result of Washington’s own encirclement policies against two great powers.

While for now there is no reason to believe that China will go so far as to militarily intervene in Taiwan in the near future, on the other hand, if any provocation or escalation of tensions between these great powers spirals out of control, then there is a risk of world war, as many analysts have warned since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war on February And, worse, such a scenario could involve nuclear war – in this case, there would be no winners.

American unipolarity is coming to an end, no matter how much the White House would like to maintain it. Because the American Establishment sees multipolarity as a kind of an existential challenge, it would seem that the US, in a kind of “plan B”, would prefer to push for a new bipolarity rather than to welcome the emergence of new polycentric world order.

In doing so, Washington tries to coopt partners into full alignment, thus attempting to perpetuate the new Cold War and threatening global peace. This is a false dilemma, though. There are signs the age of non-alignment and multi-alignment has come to stay, as African nations, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil have shown. These emerging powers have been successfully avoiding the trap of alignment, while pursuing their own interests.

To sum it up, Russian-Chinese cooperation will increase, and so will multi-alignment amid regional emerging powers. These new configurations have the potential to foster new forums and new systems. While much is talked about BRICS and new (non-dollar-based) market mechanisms and institutions, right now the planet badly needs new diplomatic mechanisms and structures, not only to avoid bipolarity and build multipolarity, but to minimize the risk of a global nuclear war and literally save the world.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

Support SouthFront

SouthFront

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
8 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Vanya

It takes two to tango. Clearly Russia and China lack the will, technology, or military capability to conduct any type of meaningful offensive actions. They can’t even take care of business right on their borders. Both Nations were more sovereign and presented more of a threat to the West in the 1950s.

hash
hashed
Bal- baleg

US forces are nothing but a bunch of decadent assholes, those bastards’ cowardice was reflected by the performance of the police at the recent Uvalde school mass shooting incident where almost a hundred policemen were deployed in the area to confront an 18 years old lone gunman, but all the police despite in full combat gear wearing protective body armour and covered with bulletproof shields hesitated to come close to the teenager who’s still heard actively firing at the school children, unbelievably trembling in fear for more than an hour just waiting on each other who among them would dare to lead an assault.. That’s the perfect definition of cowardice demonstrated by armed law enforcers of USA.

Zelensky remains waiting for US forces to help AFU currently being pummelled by RF forces. Imagine the combined power of the Chinese & Russians. Awesome!

Last edited 2 years ago by Bal- baleg
Xcalibur

I think you’re projecting. My country, the US, has become the leader of a decadent empire in a state of spiritual decay. Russia & China have caught up with the West and then some. Maybe they don’t have our aircraft carriers, but they’re still quite capable. This has already been proven in Ukraine, where Russia is winning without even fully committing their forces. It looks as though the long-awaited Chinese invasion of Taiwan will happen as well, and I expect similar results.

We’re headed for Cold War 2.0, and I predict that the Russia-China bloc will win, helped along by the Globalist American Empire (GAE) doubling down on its hubristic policies. This may surprise you, but I think the main reason they’ll win is simply because they have greater self-confidence. Unlike the West, they don’t embrace degeneracy, or debate about race/gender/identity, or flagellate themselves for their own history. While their governments are autocratic, it’s really no worse than the WEF & Western oligarchs at this point.

tl;dr: The West won the first Cold War, but the East will win the second, and it’ll be a bumpy ride!

Last edited 2 years ago by Xcalibur
USA #1 lgbt

the lgbt sperm you swallow is the clearest substance available in your nebraska trailer park

Blek

It’s unlikely. The US knows that China is no longer 1950’s China and a blockade to Taiwan exports would cripple the United States (and the world) massively. The supply chain disruption that it would cause would make inflation far worse than already is. China would be affected too but the Chinese have been through much more hardships than the Americans who don’t know how to live without comfort. Let’s not forget the Ukraine conflict. If Russia also decides to close the fuel taps to West Europe, the economic collapse would build even more pressure to the US. The best bet for the US is to play nice and let them have Taiwan so they continue to supply chips even if they get invaded because a war in Taiwan against China is defeat for the US. If the US loses a war against China there, South Korea, Japan and Australia will have a massive problem.

hash
hashed
USA #1 lgbt

soon vast territories in ukropidstan will be permanently RF….NATO weak cowardly incompetent—WILL DO ZERO…hopefully Russia will microwave the entire nazi lgbt USA cesspool

hash
failed
8
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x