Symbolically, Pompeo’s July 23 talk at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, calling for a new “alliance of democracies” to confront the Communist Party, evokes former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech of more than 70 years ago and seems to highlight a new cold war with China.

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US-China relations: Joe Biden would approach China with more ‘regularity and normality’

US-China relations: Joe Biden would approach China with more ‘regularity and normality’

To set the decoupling of bilateral relations in motion, Washington has taken concrete actions such as closing the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston, sending its health secretary to Taiwan, attempting to ban Chinese social media apps TikTok and WeChat in the US, and restricting Chinese apparel and tech goods allegedly produced by forced labour in Xinjiang.

Obviously, the US has launched a new cold war with China – but whether it succeeds depends on the response from Beijing and other countries.

China has said “no” to the ideological antagonism between communism and democracy. While the US explicitly targeted the Communist Party and the communist ideology, China has refrained from doing the same towards democracy.

In an interview with Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua on August 5, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi firmly rejected the idea of a new cold war by saying that “today’s China is not the former Soviet Union. We have no intention of becoming another US. China does not export ideology”.

In other words, China does not plan to take part in an ideological struggle with the US for the hearts and minds of the world’s other countries, although it continues its own way of pursuing the communist ideology and Communist Party rule inside China.

When it comes to the start of a new cold war, it will take two to tango – so if China does not fight back in the same way, the US will fall into an ideological trap, alone but for its dream of a democratic crusade.

Since August, top diplomats from the US and China have been busy with their respective “charm offensive” agendas. While US secretary of state Pompeo worked hard to sell a hardline policy on China – especially concerning 5G technology and Huawei – in Europe, Wang Yi conducted a diplomatic tour of five European countries.

European nations might be sympathetic to Pompeo’s calls for democracy, and share deep concerns over the human rights issues in China, but they have hesitations over blindly following the Trumpian cold-war strategy of decoupling with China – simply because China is their largest trading partner and an indispensable player in the global supply chain.

More importantly, China seems to have no intention of exporting communism to other countries, unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The upgrading of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – the informal strategic forum known as the Quad – between the US, Australia, Japan and India seems to be an emerging Asian equivalent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).

The policymakers in New Delhi and Beijing have tried to keep cool heads, as evinced by the recent joint statement calling for more confidence-building measures after their foreign ministers met in Moscow during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting.

An Asian Nato is not impossible, but it is more likely to be driven by China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy than the US’ democracy-based ideological appeal.

It sounds like a cliché to say that other countries in Asia do not want to pick sides between the US and China. It would surely be nice to bet on both sides, if possible.

However, the wait-and-see or hedging approach adopted by most Asian countries against the backdrop of intensifying US-China strategic competition will not be good enough to prevent a new cold war.

It is passive and even dangerous because both Washington and Beijing may be encouraged to take a risk-acceptant move, including a small-scale conflict, to lure these important players into their respective camps. Therefore, the indifferent attitude of other Asian countries might accelerate, rather than circumvent, a new cold war between the US and China in Asia.

It is time for Asian countries to revisit the “Bandung spirit” that inspired the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War. It is imperative for other countries to proclaim clearly that it is not in anyone’s interest to have a new, ideology-driven, cold war.

It should not be forgotten that the Bandung spirit is about peaceful coexistence among nations. The thought that “the end of history” can be brought about with an ideological victory is a great, but dangerous, delusion. ■

Kai He is professor of International Relations at Griffith Asia Institute & Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Australia