PROLOGUE
By the twenty first century, the two largest economies in the world – China and the USA - confront each other in the latest phase of a global great power struggle.
The onset of the second Cold war emerges.
The article on the “Second Cold War”, published in Geopolitics by the team of the Second Cold War Observatory is an interesting piece on the emerging conflict relating to its historical location.
In The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks
published 2023, Open Access in Geopolitics
by Seth Schindler, Ilias Alami, Jessica DiCarlo, Nicholas Jepson, Steve Rolf, Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ, Louis Cyuzuzo, Meredith DeBoom, Alireza F. Farahani, Imogen T. Liu, Hannah McNicol, Julie T. Miao, Philip Nock, Gilead Teri, Maximiliano Facundo Vila Seoane, Kevin Ward, Tim Zajontz, and Yawei Zhao - they dissected the
Relations between the US and China have deteriorated to their lowest point since their rapprochement i!n the 1970s.
To make sense of contemporary geopolitics, our objective in this article is two-fold. First, we historically situate contemporary US-China rivalry to conceptualise the Second Cold War (SCW). We argue that in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, both the US and China launched ‘restorative’ political projects that harked back to imagined pasts. These projects are mutually exclusive and animate contemporary geopolitics.
Second, we conceptualise the spatial logic of great power rivalry in the Second Cold War. In contrast to the first Cold War, when great powers sought to incorporate territory into blocs, the US and China currently compete on a global scale for centrality in four interrelated networks that they anticipate will underpin hegemony in the 21st century: infrastructure (e.g. logistics and energy), digital, production and finance.
We review the state of competition in each network and draw two broad conclusions:
(1) this mode of competition makes it difficult for either side to conclusively ‘win’ the Second Cold War, and
(2) many countries are likely to remain integrated with both the US and China.
On a related issue, there is another book:
The Rise of the Infrastructure State: How US-China Rivalry Shapes Politics and Place Worldwide
where
Tensions between the US and China have escalated as both powers seek to draw countries into their respective political and economic orbits by financing and constructing infrastructure. Wide-ranging and even-handed, this book offers a fresh interpretation of the territorial logic of US-China rivalry and explores what it means for countries across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. The chapters demonstrate that many countries navigate the global infrastructure boom by articulating novel spatial objectives and implementing political and economic reforms. By focusing on people and places worldwide, this book broadens perspectives on the US-China rivalry beyond bipolarity. It is an essential guide to 21st-century politics.
“A must-read for those interested in how transformations in geopolitical power are fought over with steel and concrete as pivotal weapons.” - Dr. Erik Swyngedouw, The University of Manchester.
“While the world is fast-changing, this book helps us makes sense of processes that will shape the future for decades to come.” - Dr. Giles Mohan, The Open University
“A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the global impacts of US-China rivalry. These extraordinarily rich and detailed case studies offer fascinating new insight into how states around the world are navigating the current era of growing geoeconomic competition.” - Dr. Kristen Hopewell, University of British Columbia.
EPILOGUE
That aside, by 2023 the escalation of violence around the world has intensified, as FT remarked:
The anecdotal evidence that war is surging round the world is confirmed by the numbers. A recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies documented 183 ongoing conflicts around the world, the highest number in more than three decades. And that figure was arrived at before the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
which points to various causes, such as failures of intelligence and deterrence, weakening state power and the perception that Western power is waning and fading, especially in the case of the sole hegemon under strain with multilateralism and the challenging geostrategical power prominence from socialist China.