Cool War: The Future of Global Competition.

• Author: Kuersten, Andreas
• Position: Book review

1. INTRODUCTION

   The image on the cover of Noah Feldman's latest book (1)--a dragon rising below a soaring eagle--is an apt representation of the rise of China in a world that has been dominated by the United States since the end of the Cold War. (2) The rapport between these two countries will likely determine their courses and that of international law and relations in general for decades to come. Will they interact more or less cooperatively? Or will they slip into the chilled, zero sum, and vicious competition that characterized the U.S.-U.S.S.R. relationship? In Cool War: The Future of Global Competition {"Cool War '), Feldman presents a situation closer to the latter scenario, along with predictions for how and where this contest will play out and strategies for how relations can and should be managed under modern and evolving international law and institutions.

   In reviewing Feldman's book, it is important to place it within the scholarship and debates taking place over the impact of the U.S.-China relationship on international law, politics, and the international system generally. Feldman occupies a position warning of coming conflict--though not necessarily military--in a bipolar world. This view stands farther along the line of change from present circumstances than those predicting continued U.S. dominance and a Chinese collapse (3) or a more peaceful bipolar structure managed effectively by international institutions. (4) Feldman does not, however, go so far as those foreseeing a coming Chinese unipolar world (5) or a world without superpowers at all. (6)

   In presenting his vision and prescriptions for the future, Feldman organizes the book into three sections: "Cool War," (7) "The Sources of Chinese Conduct," (8) and "Global Competition." (9) The first two seek to outline the situation between the United States and China and provide a glimpse of the machinery of Chinese leadership and motivations. The third section then uses the information presented in earlier sections to construct various predictions for how the Cool War will play out and recommendations for both sides on how to manage the coming confrontation.

   Feldman professes his purpose as being to provide a clear and realistic view of present and future U.S.-China relations as well as ideas for the mitigation of confrontation. (10) While Cool War makes some interesting and provocative points, its analysis and recommendations appear aimed more at fighting the predicted Cool War than mitigating it. The work is therefore contradictory as to one of its stated purposes. Feldman also remains tightly focused on comparing the present day to the Cold War and his evaluations present these eras as becoming fundamentally identical but for some nuances as to the influences keeping the sides from open and more destructive conflict. Just as the United States and U.S.S.R. had to skirt around military encounters and nuclear weapons in their confrontation, the United States and China must do the same while also heeding their dense economic entanglement and interdependence. Thus, rather than offering recommendations for conflict management, Feldman presents the key factors that will influence present and future U.S.-China relations and methods for each side to proceed to their advantage.

   Furthermore, the work as a whole lacks necessary degrees of nuance and extrapolation. It would have benefited greatly from additional length and cohesiveness given its complicated and important target material. As a result, while clearly crafted by a professor with enviable knowledge of government and international affairs, readers are ultimately left with a book that takes a narrow and somewhat disjointed look at the future of U.S.-China relations and pushes for aggravating policy from both sides while claiming to advance the opposite. While Cool War is still an interesting and unique read due to its pragmatic combination of political theory and cross-Pacific analysis, it is unlikely to be a defining work on the coming era of international politics or U.S.-China relations.

2. COOL WAR

   Feldman begins by presenting how unique the U.S.-China relationship is in history and exactly what the Cool War entails. From there he moves on to showing these countries should not be concerned with the internal affairs of others. (50) The ideological conflict is therefore two-sided, with the United States' "responsible sovereignty" on one side and China's "pure sovereignty" on the other. This situation serves to make ideology an even more potent force pushing towards confrontation than Feldman presents.

   With the cooperative forces of MAD, MAED, and favorable debt and trade figures pushing against the confrontational influences of realism, nationalism, and ideology, Feldman outlines the interesting balancing act that the Cool War entails. These are the general factors policy makers on both sides of the Pacific must be aware of and navigate in managing relations going forward.

   Sidelight on Taiwan

   Beyond sources of cooperation and confrontation, Feldman offers what he considers a likely scenario for how China may establish itself as a superpower. Key to displaying and asserting this status, he puts forth, is Taiwan. (51) Since the Kuomintang fled to the island following the Chinese Civil War, China has had a deep interest in its reabsorption. (52) Feldman contends that this can be done while simultaneously establishing China as a global superpower through a gradual military buildup resulting in "a situation where the United States would not consider war as a serious option." (53) Essentially, China would ratchet up the cost of war in the eyes of the United States to the point where it was no longer tenable.

   This tactic, Feldman insists, has been used by China in the past, in the case of Flong Kong. In that situation, British "Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher intended to maintain some sort of British administration even after her country's ninety-nine- year 'lease' on Hong Kong expired in 1997." (54) But "China's military capacity meant the British could not seriously contemplate fighting China the way Britain had fought (and defeated) Argentina." (55) Similarly, if China increased its military capacity, promised the "one country, two systems" solution it applied to Hong Kong, and the United States was able to save face with its allies and the world by claiming "Taiwan was in a basic sense different from the rest of Asia," this, to Feldman, could resolve the situation around the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan would accept reabsorption and this would simultaneously "mean that China was on a par with the United States as a global superpower." (56) In establishing this hypothetical as plausible, Feldman asks a simple question: "Would the president of the United States go to war with China over Taiwan absent some high-profile, immediate crisis capable of mobilizing domestic support?" (57) The costs of physical conflict would be too high, he concludes, and, given the scenario above, the United States would likely accept Chinese reabsorption of Taiwan. (58)

   The prediction above--or recommendation for China's Taiwan policy--is a bold one. The situation across the Taiwan Strait is one of the most contentious in the world, and, as such, has many layers. Feldman's analysis is interesting and offers a highly plausible general scenario. He is convincing in arguing that the maintenance of America's place and security guarantees in Asia is key to any U.S. acceptance of Taiwan's reabsorption into China. The United States would be highly interested in ensuring that its Asian allies remained confident in its promises of protection and that a costly and dangerous arms race did not develop. A problem with Feldman's examination, however, is that he sees the state of affairs across the Taiwan Strait as involving only two actors: the United States and China. (59) He completely ignores the agency of Taiwan. In addition, there is an argument for possible Chinese restraint in the face of U.S. absence and Feldman's likening of Taiwan's possible reabsorption by China to Hong Kong's transition appears problematic.

   Feldman ventures that, "[a]fter the United States signaled its inability or unwillingness to defend Taiwan, the people of Taiwan would, presumably, publicly acquiesce in their own reabsorption into China's sovereign sphere." (60) But Taiwan is not simply a pawn sitting between the United States and China. It has consistently exercised its autonomy in pushing the situation in directions it wishes and forcing the two larger powers to react. (61) Furthermore, it is--functionally, if not legally--its own state, and significantly more Taiwanese support independence when forced to choose between that and unification. (62) This support is influenced by the threat of Chinese retaliation against any such declaration, and even more would endorse independence without such coercive influence. (63) Segments of Taiwan's population have also shown their willingness to engage in violent protest against strengthening economic ties between the island and China. (64) In addition, China's recent limitations on democracy in Hong Kong and resulting civil unrest, despite the "one country, two systems" assurances it gave at the time of Hong Kong's reabsorption, have probably increased resistance in Taiwan to closer relations with the mainland. (65) It is therefore not a given that Taiwan and its people would accept Chinese rule peacefully if overtly coerced, whether this means militarily defending themselves or the public reacting violently against their own government under a "one country, two systems" arrangement or an installed government from the mainland.

   There is also an argument to be made that China may exercise restraint in a situation where it knows the United States will not provide security for Taiwan. Much of China's discomfort and anxiety concerning the island comes from fears that Taiwan will declare independence and...