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COVID-19 and the Reification of the US-China “Cold War”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Giulio Pugliese
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Abstract

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The implications of the pandemic for US-China relations are relevant for global peace and prosperity, well beyond the Asia-Pacific. Rather than joining forces against the pandemic, COVID-19 is among the factors that have widened the rift between the United States and China, bringing bilateral relations to their lowest level since Nixon and Kissinger's overtures in 1971. In fact, US-China zero-sum interactions across the geopolitical, economic, technological and political domains have spiralled towards a dangerous race to the bottom. While it is too early to declare a US-China “Cold War”, China's assertiveness and the US maximalist pushback are working in lockstep to reify the Cold War trope past the 2020 US presidential elections.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 15 , August 2020 , e3
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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