Why the New Cold War is Inherently Different
From the elderly being beaten to the common citizen being harassed with racist remarks, we have seen an alarming uptick in Asian-American hate across the nation over the past year. Understandably, the Asian and Asian-American population are noticeably perturbed. Why, many wonder, are Asians becoming the target of so many social attacks?
Sadly, we have seen such inflammatory sentiments before, most notably in the mid twentieth century during the notorious Red Scare. As the US remained embroiled in a tense Cold War with the USSR, anxiety and fear spiked through the bodies of many American citizens. Domestically, resentment towards Soviets and “communists” grew while political tensions compounded between the international powers abroad.
We are sadly witnessing a similar circumstance today. The US and China remain deadlocked in a political and economic battle that crosses national boundaries, thereby stimulating the unwarranted anti-asian sentiment today. While many argue that we are progressing into a twenty-first century variant of the Cold War, it is integral to note that the situation at hand today differs from that of the late twentieth century—and networks explain why.
The original Cold War was marked by a battle of varying political ideologies and imperialist desires. The USSR sought to expand their influence deeper into the European sphere, while the US sought to protect the institutions of democracy worldwide. As imperialism and the spreading ideologies were the core to the conflict, a simple network where countries are nodes and the edges represent alliances.
The two graphs below represent this scenario. Note that these graphs are simplified versions of reality.
As we can see, all of the nodes on the left graph are allied with the democratic ideologies of the US, whereas those on the right graph are satellites of the USSR. The American graph has a degree of 10. Similarly, the USSR graph has a degree of 10. These values are comparable, and thus represent the underpinning of the international tensions between the nations.
Now, we can analyze the relationships between the US, China, and their allies in what some call the present day Cold War. Unlike the original Cold War, this conflict does not have its roots in imperialism, but rather is driven by political, economic, and technological competition. As such, China is not particularly seeking to spread outwards like the USSR or the US; rather, the nation seeks to improve internally as much as possible. Understandably, the relationship graph between the US, China, and their allies will reflect a degree of disparity between the two sides.
The graphs below show these relationships. Again, these graphs are simplified versions of reality.
The degree of the American alliance graph is 15 while the degree of the Chinese alliance graph is 0. The original Cold War had comparable degrees for both parties, but this conflict has uneven degrees between the two parties; in particular, the US has far more allies than China. This falls directly in line with the natural difference between the two conflicts: the former had its roots in the imperialist spread of ideology while the current conflict has its roots in national advancement. This reasoning, in conjunction with the differences in the graphs above, is why I believe the two global conflicts cannot be directly compared.
We can further consider the case of China through additional network concepts. According to Minqi Li, a professor of economics at the University of Utah, China is “best-described as a semi-peripheral country.” A semi-peripheral country is a country that has considerable influence over others, but does not exhibit the strength of the major global world powers.
Under this light, we can consider the power of China. As a semi-peripheral country, China likely has relationships with a few weaker countries (specifically South Asian and African countries, as Professor Li highlights), but fails to exert the same influence as larger powers like the US or the UK. As a core nation, the US harbors more power.
Sources: