‘We are still in the foothills of a cold war’: Kissinger warns the US and China risk armed conflict if their bitter 18-month trade war rumbles on
- Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, 96, spoke in Beijing on Thursday
- Kissinger said the outcome would be a conflict ‘worse than it was in Europe’
- He was instrumental in diplomatic relations with Beijing under Richard Nixon
- US relations with China have become strained during a lengthy trade war
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger attends a conversation at the 2019 New Economy Forum in Beijing, China
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned today an armed conflict could erupt between the United States and China if their bitter trade war rumbles on.
Kissinger, who strengthened ties with China under Richard Nixon, spoke at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing on the future of the two economic giants.
He said it was ‘especially important that a period of relative tension be followed by an explicit effort to understand what the political causes are … It is far from being too late for that, because we are still in the foothills of a cold war.’
He added: ‘If conflict is permitted to run unconstrained, the outcome could be even worse than it was in Europe.
‘World War One broke out because of a relatively minor crisis … and today the weapons are more powerful,’ the former top diplomat said.
China and the US have been caught in a trade dispute for 18 months, with the two sides struggling to reach an agreement despite a series of negotiations.
Tensions have also been running high on the diplomatic front.
Beijing has lashed out at Washington over US naval operations in the disputed South China Sea, US criticism of China’s mass detention of ethnic Uighurs and US Congress support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. The pair have been locked in a bitter 18-month trade war
‘China is a major economic country. And so are we,’ Kissinger said. ‘And so we are bound to step on each other’s toes all over the world.’
The 96-year-old said that during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, a plan to reduce the nuclear capacity of both countries was a top priority.
But because conflicts between the US and China have always been ‘passive’, he warned there is no framework for Washington to deal with Beijing as a ‘military power’.
If the two sides keep seeing ‘every issue in the world in terms of conflict’ with each other, it could be ‘dangerous for mankind’, he said.
Kissinger said the trade negotiations were just a ‘substitute’ for more substantial talks about conflicts between the two, including tensions over Hong Kong.
When asked if unrest in the semi-autonomous region of China could be the ‘flashpoint’ for a new Cold War, Kissinger said he hoped the ‘highly emotional’ issue would be ‘settled by negotiations.’
Former president Richard Nixon’s secretary of state flew secretly to Beijing in 1971 to begin talks on new relations between the US and Communist China.
Kissinger still has the ear of top Chinese officials, who give him the red carpet treatment when he visits Beijing.
Kissinger speaks during the New Economy Forum at China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) on Thursday in Beijing, China
He held a meeting with President Xi Jinping in the Chinese capital in November last year.
In a later session at the forum, former US treasury secretary Henry Paulson said he believed the US and China ‘are now headed in precisely the wrong direction.’
He warned of growing barriers on visas and the movement of people, restrictions on trade and technology, and that the ongoing economic tensions would ‘leave our countries and the entire world worse off.’
‘When the next crisis comes, and it will come because financial crises do come, we will regret it big time if the world’s two biggest economies do not have the mechanisms to cooperate,’ said Paulson, who was treasury secretary under former president George W. Bush.