Where does that leave us? The result is an ostensibly zero-sum competition for wealth, power, and influence between the world’s two biggest powers, which have fundamentally opposing political and economic systems, and both of which are seeking international support for those systems. Moreover, the internal political dynamic on both sides all but guarantees that neither Beijing nor Washington will actively pursue—or at least be the first to pursue—a more reasonable or accommodative approach to the other than now prevails. Compromise is deemed risky and politically untenable, and mutual understanding and mutual trust are deemed futile or chimerical. Instead, both sides will focus primarily on seeking strategic, structural, and competitive advantages over the other. But they will at least endeavor to avoid outright military conflict, because both sides recognize the potentially disastrous costs of that—and neither is wholly confident of its ability to prevail.

This has all the earmarks of Orwell’s “peace that is no peace.” A cold war between the United States and China is obviously not desirable, nor is it necessarily inevitable. But it is very difficult to see how Beijing and Washington, either individually or jointly, are going to take the steps necessary to avert it. Neither side appears ready or able to overcome its fundamental misunderstanding and mistrust of the other, or to overcome the internal dilemmas that are helping to fuel that misunderstanding and mistrust. Do leaders on either side have the wisdom, courage, and political will to redirect history toward a different path?

Paul Heer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. He is the author of Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

Image: Reuters.