The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks

Relations between the US and China have deteriorated to their lowest point since their rapprochement in the 1970s. To make sense of contemporary geopolitics, our objective in this article is two-fold. First, we historically situate contemporary US-China rivalry to conceptualise the Second Cold War (...

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Published inGeopolitics Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 1083 - 1120
Main Authors Schindler, Seth, Alami, Ilias, DiCarlo, Jessica, Jepson, Nicholas, Rolf, Steve, Bayırbağ, Mustafa Kemal, Cyuzuzo, Louis, DeBoom, Meredith, Farahani, Alireza F., Liu, Imogen T., McNicol, Hannah, Miao, Julie T., Nock, Philip, Teri, Gilead, Vila Seoane, Maximiliano Facundo, Ward, Kevin, Zajontz, Tim, Zhao, Yawei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 07.08.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
21st century
Cold War
Competition
Concept formation
Economic crisis
Finance
Geopolitics
Hegemony
Infrastructure
International relations-US
Logistics
Network centrality
Networks
Production
Public finance
Rapprochement
United States > US
China
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Summary:Relations between the US and China have deteriorated to their lowest point since their rapprochement in the 1970s. To make sense of contemporary geopolitics, our objective in this article is two-fold. First, we historically situate contemporary US-China rivalry to conceptualise the Second Cold War (SCW). We argue that in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, both the US and China launched 'restorative' political projects that harked back to imagined pasts. These projects are mutually exclusive and animate contemporary geopolitics. Second, we conceptualise the spatial logic of great power rivalry in the Second Cold War. In contrast to the first Cold War, when great powers sought to incorporate territory into blocs, the US and China currently compete on a global scale for centrality in four interrelated networks that they anticipate will underpin hegemony in the 21 st century: infrastructure (e.g. logistics and energy), digital, production and finance. We review the state of competition in each network and draw two broad conclusions: (1) this mode of competition makes it difficult for either side to conclusively 'win' the Second Cold War, and (2) many countries are likely to remain integrated with both the US and China.
ISSN:1465-0045
1557-3028
1557-3028
DOI:10.1080/14650045.2023.2253432