3 November 2024

The Cold War’s Strategic Significance Today: Is China A Sea Power Or A Land Power In Disguise? – OpEd

Bruce A. Elleman

China has a pivotal decision to make soon. Will it continue to back the continentalist Putin? Or will Xi Jinping take advantage of Russia’s sudden weakness to reclaim China’s “lost territories,” thereby deescalating rising maritime tensions with the Anglo-American-led sea powers?

It is often overlooked that during the Cold War China was the biggest prize for the West, tying up as it did a quarter of the Soviet armed forces. To defeat the USSR, the U.S. and UK even helped build the modern Chinese Navy. This created new threats to the West, however, including encouraging the emergence of an imperialist China intent on satisfying its historical ambitions to dominate Southeast Asia.

Interestingly, on 10 April 1974, Deng Xiaoping foresaw this possible danger when he told a special session of the United Nations General Assembly: “If one day China should change her colour and turn into a Superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the peoples of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.”1

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