Second Cold War (part 4): Conflicts and Compromises

In the world full of weird geopolitical games played by the two super-powers and their respective allies, there are places for conflicts. And to resolve conflicts, there will be compromises. The Economic Warfare might be used, or some countries might threaten to use to play them in their advantage.

Photo: London Summit 2009

For instance, how the United States might push North Korea to give up their hope for nuclear weapon?

North Korea is a strange place indeed. There is probably no other country that the power is inherited, and information is so controlled by the state that the citizens of the country has no idea about what is happening outside. There was one a rumour which says that Kim Jong-il claimed he is an internet expert. The problem was, his fellow citizens probably have no access to the internet, which makes the claim more like a joke for a big laugh. In the World Cup earlier this year, there are also rumours that if their football team loses the game, the entire team will be sent to be coal miners. Of course they lost the game tragically, and whether the team became coal miners is not quite clear now.

North Korea is extremely anti-US. Or perhaps they are anti-everyone. North Korea wants to have nuclear weapon, although their fellow citizens cannot eat well, and their stupid failed missile tests were promoted as a success within its country. The United States will want China’s help to fix this erratic regime, and there will be occasions for the United States to make compromise with China. Perhaps they cannot push China to let Chinese Yuan to appreciate if they want China to do the things they want.

Not only does the United States want to get something done with the help of China, China will sooner or later want to get something done with the help of the United States. The sovereignty over East China Sea, for example, is one of the very hot topic these days after the diplomatic fight between China and Japan.

Chinese people are still taught very much about the Massacre in Nanjing during the Second World War, a serious war crime committed by the Japanese forces, not much different from the crime committed by the Nazis. However Japanese has not, at least in Chinese people’s view, sincerely apologise for what they have done. And when the United States handed over Okinawa back to Japan in 1972, they handed the Diaoyu Islands/Senkaku Islands to Japan, which made China angry for decades. China wants the Islands, but they are without military means. The only hope is Economic Warfare as Japan is increasingly dependent on China. And even though the United States seems to be behind Japan, now Japan can perhaps no longer hope that the United States will always help them, because there are more diplomatic games between China and the United States.

Just to wrap up the whole series, I have written about the history of Globalisation, particularly the often-ignored first age globalisation in the early 20th Century and how globalisation after the cold war changes the world and brings new conflicts, particularly after the economic crisis. In the previous part, I wrote about what sort of economic warfare would China play, and point out that China is not the first one to play an economic card. In this final part, I pointed out a few more examples of what would trigger these super-powers to clash each other with economic warfare and diplomacy.

The whole series is kind of imaginative in a sense that no one really knows what will happen. I do not pretend to be an expert in predicting political events, but I do see an overall context for more tensions between countries after the financial crisis. We might be disguised by the name of trade war, currency war, etc, but in the heart, they are cold wars: wars without gunboats and missiles.

~ THE END ~

PART I

PART II

PART III

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About Zarathustra

Zarathustra: Founder and Managing Editor of Also sprach Analyst. Once an analyst, now an investor and entrepreneur. Based in Hong Kong, but Londoner at heart.