Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Editor's Note:

The world has been undergoing dramatic changes as the US has soured its relations with both China and Russia, and wielded trade war stick against not only China, but US allies. Is a second Cold War imminent? How should China and Russia react to the changes? Global Times (GT) reporter Sun Xiaobo talked with Alexander Lukin (Lukin), head of Department of International Relations at Higher School of Economics in Moscow, about these issues.

GT: Dr. Sergey Karaganov, who has been presidential advisor to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, said we are experiencing a new Cold War. Given the current international situation, do you think a Cold War has already taken place or is looming?

Lukin: "Cold War" is just a symbolic term. You can call it a Cold War or not, it doesn't matter. But we do have a situation of a serious conflict of interests, which can lead to confrontation. In some cases it has already led to confrontation. I think in Russia most people believe this conflict has a geopolitical source because it's a struggle for power by the United States. Some experts in Russia call it "one-sided Cold War," as the US is waging a war against us but Russia doesn't want a war, since it does not struggle for world domination. Russia just wants to protect its own interests and territory.

The US is very clearly a declining power. It is still the world's strongest, but its influence is going down, such as on the economic front. As China and some other countries are growing, the US' comparative influence is much smaller than before. But they don't like it because after WWII until today, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they got used to being the most powerful country. They thought, as some people in the US like Francis Fukuyama wrote, that history had ended. They thought the world would be dominated by the "liberal" US, but suddenly they proved to be wrong because other countries try to protect themselves from American domination. It happened in 2014 when Russia tried to protect its interests in the Ukraine. And then we see it's beginning to happen with China because in general China is seen as a much more dangerous threat to the US domination than Russia because China is getting stronger with growing global influence. China has achieved what the Soviet Union failed to achieve: created an economically effective model without political dependence on the West. There are already countries which are interested in more cooperation with China than with the US and its allies.

Americans don't like it. They now try to limit China's growth because the sanctions and measures they take now, especially under (US President Donald) Trump, are not what they truly aim at. For example, some of their measures are against trade deficits. This looks more like looking for pretexts. Because what the US wants is that China change all its policies at once under foreign pressure, but no government can afford to do it. Americans would always find something else and you cannot fulfill it. It's the same with Russia.

GT: In the context of a deteriorating international situation, will China and Russia get closer? Your new book is about the new rapprochement between China and Russia. What do you mean by "new?"

Lukin: The two countries had a rapprochement in the 1950s, which was mostly ideological, and the relationship was not entirely equal because the Soviet Union was stronger and called the elder brother. Today Russia and China work together, with a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and they coordinate a lot of actions. But now we don't share any ideological goals. We just coordinate our policies because of the geopolitical situation and because the US is trying to limit the growth of China and Russia. We also cooperate with Iran and others such as the EU on some issues since Europeans are also not much satisfied with the US at the moment.

China and Russia have been close, but they won't come to the stage of formal alliance which means mutual defense obligations. It's not necessary for China and Russia to become formal allies, but we would cooperate very closely. The more pressure from the US we have, the closer we get. This is a geopolitical reality.

GT: Against the backdrop of the current international situation, will US-Russian relations worsen further?

Lukin: US-Russia relations won't worsen because they are already at the bottom. I can hardly imagine what can be worse, maybe a war. But I don't think there will be a war since that would destroy the world, which even Americans cannot afford. The US-Russia relationship is pretty bad. In the US there is very strong anti-Russia propaganda. Whatever bad happens in the world is attributed to Russia. It's similar with China, except that China is often blamed for economic "crimes."

GT: The US is trying to build a frontline to counter China. What do you think China can do about it?

Lukin: In this context, it's wise for China to improve its relations with neighboring countries such as India, Vietnam and Japan, which the US is wooing. In fact, the relationship with China has become an internal issue of many neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Sri Lanka where some political parties use the China threat theory to become more popular. China should not give them the pretext since that can be quite dangerous.

Trump has an unpredictable personal character. But the personality of a US president is not very important. What's important is that he represents a strong tendency of American internal politics - the rise of right-wing politics. The criticism of China is one of the main ideas of this ideology. Until the geopolitical reality of US decline and China's emergence becomes accepted by Washington, it will go on with its policy limiting China's power. China and Russia should be prepared for it.

I appreciate the Chinese idea that it doesn't overestimate itself but publicly underestimates its influence so as not to scare others. Your rhetoric should be less strong than your real power. This is a clever policy. Russia should learn from Chinese experience of this kind.

And China needs to maintain economic strength to keep its global influence. China's major soft power lies in its economic model that works effectively. Many countries in the world now think this model is more economically effective than the Western system. So if China stops economic development, you lose everything.

In this process China and Russia can coordinate efforts on military and political fronts. For instance, if we are to create some areas around our borders without American influence, Russia can provide security guarantees, such as in Central Asian countries, and China can provide more economic aid. We have long cooperated in the UN on international issues and will continue doing so.

GT: Given that global political dynamics are undergoing dramatic change, what do you think a new international order should be like?

Lukin: I don't think there was a liberal international order. This is an American myth. The liberal international order, which Western experts are talking about, never existed.

Harvard Professor Graham Allison also wrote an article about it. They (Americans) want an American dominated "liberal" international order, but never achieved it. It only existed like a utopian goal.

The US and its allies, so-called liberal countries, have never controlled the world. Instead of a unipolar world, what we see now is the emergence of multi-centers and a tendency of a multi-polar world taking shape. Multi-polarity is still a tendency because one pole - the US - is still stronger than others, but it is emerging. This is also the reason for conflicts because the strongest doesn't want to give its place to others. It's natural in a geopolitical view.

We just need to survive through this dangerous period and also to educate the US about living in such a multi-polar world. Americans need to understand that they may control quite a lot, but definitely not everything. Unfortunately, they don't want to believe it for now. Maybe they can change after one generation passes when young people come to understand it, like what Russians came through after the Soviet Union collapsed. And we are now used to the reality and don't want to return to the Soviet Union.