Dmitri Alperovitch: Call a spade a spade. The U.S. is in a cold war with China.
Author and philanthropist says he sees parallels between the U.S.-China relationship today and the U.S.-Russia relationship during the Cold War
Dmitri Alperovitch, a cofounder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a national security think tank, has a message for the national security elite: The U.S. is not approaching a cold war with China; it’s already in one.
It’s the argument of Alperovitch’s new book, World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century.
“If you’re in a bar fight, you may not want to decide you’re in a bar fight, but you’re either going to get punched or you’re going to surrender,” he said when asked about why using the term “cold war” was important. “I don’t think we want to surrender to China, so I think we should acknowledge the fight we’re in.”
Alperovitch laid out his case at a recent Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center event.
Why it’s clear the U.S. is in a cold war
Alperovitch said he was struck while researching the book to see the parallels between the current China-U.S. relationship and the U.S.-Soviet relationship during the Cold War.
China, he said, is spreading its ideology by opening schools in Africa and supporting authoritarian regimes in Europe, such as Hungary and Serbia. There’s also an arms race and a space race between the two nations.
“One of the defining moments of the first Cold War was the space race,” the security expert said. “What are we doing right now, we’re trying to get to the moon before the Chinese do, and then potentially Mars.”
Why the definition matters
For Alperovitch, acknowledging a cold war between the U.S. and China would lead to smarter policies.
“If you acknowledge the new cold war, it becomes a very clarifying thing,” he said. “You’re not debating ‘should we provide them with advanced AI technology that could help build their military and economic advantage?’ If you’re in a cold war, the answer is no.”
What the U.S. should do next
The most important action the U.S. can take in this cold war, Alperovitch said, is to prevent China from invading Taiwan. China’s President Xi Jinping has directed the country’s military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, and China has conducted military exercises around the island nation this year and last.
Claiming Taiwan would change trade routes in a beneficial way for China and allow it to dominate Asia, he explained.
“It would have immediate consequences for us with Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and others,” he said. “If China takes Taiwan, they will be the new sheriff in town.
But, Alperovitch said, this future isn’t certain. Taiwan’s terrain and location make it uniquely difficult to invade, he said.
Still, he cautioned U.S. leaders not to get complacent.
“The reason why this is so dangerous right now is that we have so far taken our eye off the ball,” he said.