The Cold War Never Ended in Asia

The Cold War in Asia was arguably fiercer and more ruthless than in Europe. Yes, in Europe the Soviet Union executed military interventions in Hungary (1956) and in Czechoslovakia (1968), but neither of them can be compared to the Korean war (1950–1953) or to the war in Vietnam (1965–1974) in their scale, length and losses of human lives. In each of the two Asian conflicts millions of people, mostly civilians died, and even more were displaced. Out of the third problems of divided nations—China, Korea, Vietnam—only the third one was successfully resolved. China was able to reintegrate Hong Kong, but is still working on Taiwan; a Korean reunification still looks as a pipe-dream.

Another difference between the Cold War in Europe and in Asia was that in Europe the old War had its ‘classical’ bipolar shape—the United States and the Soviet Union led two highly hierarchical, disciplined and well-structured military alliances opposing each other. True, there we dissidents and even defectors in both camps—Albania and Yugoslavia on the Soviet side and France on the US side. However, these were exceptions rather the general rule. In Asia, from early 1960s the balance became more complex, it was shaped not only by the US-Soviet confrontation, but also by very complicated relations between the main continental actors—that is the Soviet Union, China and India. There were a couple of direct military conflicts between these actors, like the China-India war of 1962 and the Soviet-China border clashes in 1969.

The complexities of the political and military balances in Asia also opened doors for conflicts of main actors with smaller autonomous centers of power that did not fit into the standard “European” bipolar pattern- Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999, the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, and the Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan of 1979–1989, in which China sided with the United States in supporting the Mujahideen resistance. On top of that, there were plenty of bloody civil wars in Asia and mass killings of civilians unseen in Europe of the second half of the XX century—it is suffice to mention the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia and the 1976–1978 genocide in Kampuchea.

Furthermore, strictly speaking, the Cold War has never ended in Asia, like it was the case in Europe in 1989. The main reason for the latter difference was evident—socialist countries in Asia (the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) never collapsed, imploded or converted to Western-style capitalism like socialist states in Eastern and Central Europe, including the Soviet Union, did. On top of that, in Asia traditionally there has been little appetite for signing complex legally binding agreements with intrusive verification mechanisms or entering multilateral alliances with significant limitations on national sovereignty.

During the heydays of the pan-European cooperation, many politicians, scholars and journalists trying to compare the experiences of Europe and Asia over the second half of the XX century usually put the former above the latter arguing that Asia suffered from a post-WW2 ‘institutional deficit’ that Asian nations failed to overcome even after the Cold War was declared terminated in 1989. However, today it would be inappropriate, if not preposterous to suggest that in the end of the day Europe turned out to be more successful in overcoming its tragic Cold War past than Asia. All the multiple post-Cold War European institutions—not only OSCE, but also the Council of Europe, the NATO-Russia Council, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and so on—have not prevented a new dramatic split of the European continent, which is likely to be with us for a long time. Today most of these institutions are either completely frozen or have lost their pan-European nature. The European arms control in its both nuclear and conventional dimensions is practically nonexistent, confidence—building measures like the Open Skies treaty or the Vienna Document of 2011 work no longer. Much more importantly, there is a large-scale military conflict flaring in the very center of the European continent for already more than two years, which is luckily not the case in Asia.

The undeniable fact that Europe has failed does not, however, mean that Asia will necessarily succeed. The situation in Asia today is less than stable—the continental arms race is accelerating, the NATO Alliance is actively expanding its activities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the trilateral Australia-UK-US block (AUKUS) is considering accepting new members, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue of the United States, India, Japan and Australia (Quad) acquires additional dimensions. A large-scale conflict might erupt at any point on the Korean Peninsula, in the Taiwan Strait, in the South China Sea, at the China-India border or at another location in or around Asia. One can suggest that many of these conflicts are fed and instigated from the outside, but it can hardly be denied that they also have many sources inside the Asian continent. Unfortunately, even a high level of economic interdependence should not be considered sufficient and reliable guardrails protecting the nations of the continent from falling into the abyss of a direct military standoff.

What does this mean for the future security in Asia? First and foremost, this means that it is not realistic to consider any robust and comprehensive security system in Asia to emerge anytime soon. If this model did not work out in Europe in 1990s under the best possible circumstances, it is unlikely to work out in Asia in 2020s or even in 2030s, when the circumstances are likely to be much less conducive for such ambitious designs. The great power competition in Asia will continue for a long time and this competition is going to set rigid constraints on multilateral institution-building.

Besides, Asia is simply too big and too small at the same time to have a continent-wide security system. In the modern interdependent world, the old principle ‘Asian solutions to Asian problems’ is not likely to work out in all the cases.

Right now, it might be premature to consider long term solutions for the Asian continent. The situation of strategic volatility here is likely to last for a significant period of time, which is going to complicate any attempts to define mutually acceptable rules of the game based on a stable balance of power. The anticipated volatility will increase the risks of an accidental, inadvertent military clash. The good news, however, is that nobody in Asia is interested in waging a large-scale war, as it was the case a century ago, when Japan was fully committed to building its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” by military means.

The experience of the Cold War teaches us of the importance of keeping communication lines among great powers open even if the relations go in a wrong direction. It is particularly important to maintain consultations between China and the United States, between India and China, between other major players in Asia. Even very small, incremental steps in the direction of more transparency, predictability, and mutual understanding in bilateral relations of potential adversaries would be a major success. In many cases, the first steps in the direction of confidence building could be made at the second track level paving the way for productive contacts between the officials.

in April 2022, Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping, speaking at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia, put forward the Global Security Initiative (GSI) in response to the growing conflicts and security challenges in the world. This proposal of the Chinese leader laid the foundation for the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper officially adopted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 21 February 2023. Though the principles outlined in GSI are universal and can be applied to various parts of the world, it would make perfect sense to test them in Asia, which is not only the most populous, but also the most vibrant and the most dynamic continent of our planet.

Hopefully, the time has come for Asia to give a lesson to Europe not only in economic development, but also in peace-building. Maybe, working together in a very pragmatic, persistent and responsible way, Asian leaders of today could do better than their peers in Europe or than their predecessors a century or half a century ago. The window of opportunity is not yet closed for Asia, history has not yet pronounced its verdict. It’s high time to finally put an end to the Cold War in Asia—not with a big splash as thy tried to do in Europe back in 1989, but through a well calibrated set of gradual, incremental and cautious steps towards the “community of common destiny”, as Chainman Xi put it. The responsibility lies with all of us. As they say, victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none.

The recent trip of President Putin to Harbin stirred up some of my personal memories and set up a train of thought regarding the long and complicated history of Russian-Chinese relations. I got to the lilac bush city for the first time in early 1990s; my impressions at that point were that Harbin was committed to do away with the last remnants of its Russian legacy as a symbol of European colonialism. Indeed, the city, which was founded in 1898 as a station to serve the Chinese Eastern Railway, for the first twenty years of its existence had a special extraterritorial status and was actually taken out of Beijing’s jurisdiction. For a long time, bitter recollections about this period of limited sovereignty remained very sensitive for the local Chinese, which we on the Russian side have to understand and to accept.

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However, in thirty plus years the attitudes seem to have changed completely. These days, the Russian historical heritage in the city is highly valued and carefully preserved. The central Saint Sophia Cathedral that I saw almost completely abandoned and neglected, has been fully restored and stands out as one of the architectural landmarks od the city. To the credit of municipal authorities, they have even torn down surrounding buildings to recreate the cathedral square in its initial splendor. The famous Harbin railway station, where in October of 1909 Korean nationalist An Jung-geun assassinated Ito Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of Japan, has got a new magnificent Nouveau style terminal modelled after the original 1899 Russian station. Harbin has every reason to position itself as the leading China’s national hub for economic, cultural, educational and human interaction with its northern neighbor.

Remembering WW2 in Asia

One of the items of Vladimir Putin agenda in Harbin was to lay flowers at the memorial to some twelve thousand of Soviet soldiers and officers who died during WW2 liberating Manchuria from the Japanese occupation. The Russia leader specifically noted the careful attitude of the Chinese authorities towards the memory of joint pages of military glory and brotherhood. This was an appropriate and timely reminder of the past addressed not only to the Chinese partners, but to Russians as well.

One has to confess that in Russia, like in many other countries, WW2 is often perceived as a primarily “European” war. If you ask an average Russian about when the deadliest and the most devastating conflict of the XX century started, he or she is likely to respond that it began on the 22^nd of June, 1941, when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. More knowledgeable or more educated Russian would probably argue that WW2 was in fact unleashed two years earlier, on the 1^st of September, 1939, when the Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Of course, if you take the Asian perspective, the WW2 chronology looks very different: Japan launched the large-scale invasion of China on July 7, 1937, while the first Japanize attacks against China, that was torn apart by a protracted civil war, go back to as early as 1931.

Likewise, we usually emphasize the scale the losses of human lives particularly in Europe. However, in terms of the overall numbers, China (up to 20 million dead) stands second only to the Soviet Union (up to 27 million) and a way above all of the European nations including Germany (up to 8.4 million), Poland (6 million) as well as above Japan (up to 3 million). It is worth noting that such high losses of both the Soviet Union and China were caused primarily by an extremely high level of civilians’ deaths resulting from an unprecedented cruelty of invaders that they demonstrated in our two countries. The massive war crimes committed by Japanese in China were in no way less atrocious than crimes committed by Nazis in the USSR. We in Europe know a lot about Auschwitz or Buchenwald, but we know much less about the Nanking massacre or about chemical and biological attacks on civilians conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service. Even less is known about the infamous Japanese “Unit 731”, which operated in a Harbin suburb and was responsible for the cruelest murdering of thousands of civilians, about 30% of whom were local Russians residing in the city during WW2.

However, in the end of the day, the question is not so much about WW2-related public perceptions or misperceptions in Russia or in other countries. It is more important to keep in mind that WW2 ended in Europe and in Asia in different ways. In Europe, Germany was forced not only to surrender, but also to go through a very fundamental and painful process of denazification. Furthermore, after the end of WW2 the country had to stay divided for more than four decades. In Asia, Japan was not exposed to such treatment in full—it has not been divided and the replacement of political elites there was arguably more limited and selective than in Germany. All the apologies for the war crimes that have been issued by senior Japanese government officials notwithstanding, the overall attitude in Japan to WW2 remains more controversial than in Germany. It seems that at least some people in Japan have a strong feeling that in this war their country was more a victim than an aggressor.

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To some extent, this sentiment is justified—Japan is the only nation in the world, against which closer to the end of WW2 they used nuclear weapons; it remains an open question to what extent this use was necessary and appropriate. However, when top members of the Japanese government pay visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors all Japanese war dead, including convicted war criminals, these acts raise concerns about how deep the WW2 remorse truly is in Tokyo these days. The apparent ease, with which the government of Fumio Kishida was able to pass a major shift in the national defense posture in the end of 2022 with the goal of turning Japan into the third largest military spender in the world by 2027, suggests that the Japanese society is now ready to reconsider some of the country’s basic post-WW2 foreign policy principles.

The Cold War—Asian Style

The Cold War in Asia was arguably fiercer and more ruthless than in Europe. Yes, in Europe the Soviet Union executed military interventions in Hungary (1956) and in Czechoslovakia (1968), but neither of them can be compared to the Korean war (1950–1953) or to the war in Vietnam (1965–1974) in their scale, length and losses of human lives. In each of the two Asian conflicts millions of people, mostly civilians died, and even more were displaced. Out of the third problems of divided nations—China, Korea, Vietnam—only the third one was successfully resolved. China was able to reintegrate Hong Kong, but is still working on Taiwan; a Korean reunification still looks as a pipe-dream.

Another difference between the Cold War in Europe and in Asia was that in Europe the old War had its ‘classical’ bipolar shape—the United States and the Soviet Union led two highly hierarchical, disciplined and well-structured military alliances opposing each other. True, there we dissidents and even defectors in both camps—Albania and Yugoslavia on the Soviet side and France on the US side. However, these were exceptions rather the general rule. In Asia, from early 1960s the balance became more complex, it was shaped not only by the US-Soviet confrontation, but also by very complicated relations between the main continental actors—that is the Soviet Union, China and India. There were a couple of direct military conflicts between these actors, like the China-India war of 1962 and the Soviet-China border clashes in 1969.

The complexities of the political and military balances in Asia also opened doors for conflicts of main actors with smaller autonomous centers of power that did not fit into the standard “European” bipolar pattern- Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999, the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, and the Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan of 1979–1989, in which China sided with the United States in supporting the Mujahideen resistance. On top of that, there were plenty of bloody civil wars in Asia and mass killings of civilians unseen in Europe of the second half of the XX century—it is suffice to mention the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia and the 1976–1978 genocide in Kampuchea.

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Furthermore, strictly speaking, the Cold War has never ended in Asia, like it was the case in Europe in 1989. The main reason for the latter difference was evident—socialist countries in Asia (the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) never collapsed, imploded or converted to Western-style capitalism like socialist states in Eastern and Central Europe, including the Soviet Union, did. On top of that, in Asia traditionally there has been little appetite for signing complex legally binding agreements with intrusive verification mechanisms or entering multilateral alliances with significant limitations on national sovereignty.

This is why, for instance, though economic integration in Southeast Asia was initiated only slightly later than in Western Europe (the European Economic Community goes back to 1957, while the Association of South East Asia Nations was announced in 1967), the European project already by 1992 evolved into a strong heavily institutionalized economic and political union (EU), while ASEAN even now remains a rather loose and relatively weakly institutionalized community of sovereign nations. It is also indicative that despite persistent efforts, the United States has not succeeded in building in Asia strong multilateral alliances like NATO in Europe. In the South, Washington created in 1954 the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to fight communism in Asia; the initiative ran into many problems from the very outset and fell apart after the US defeat in Vietnam. In the North, all US attempts to unite Japan and the Republic of Korea under a shared security umbrella were not successful due to complicated relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

Not surprisingly, in Asia there were no attempts to sign any Cold War final settlement document similar to the Charter of Paris for a New Europe (also known as the Paris Charter) of 1990, which was supposedly based on the communality of liberal democratic values and on a common understanding of what direction Europe should follow in future. Likewise, in Asia nobody ever seriously tried to launch any inclusive multilateral institution like the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE). Neither in Asia they committed themselves to proceed with conventional arms control similar to the original Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) signed in 1990 or its adapted version singed in 1999, or to proceed with nuclear arms control like the US-Soviet and later on US-Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) concluded in 1987. Even very focused multilateral initiatives in Asia, as the 2003–2007 six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program produced only very limited results and were soon terminated.

During the heydays of the pan-European cooperation, many politicians, scholars and journalists trying to compare the experiences of Europe and Asia over the second half of the XX century usually put the former above the latter arguing that Asia suffered from a post-WW2 ‘institutional deficit’ that Asian nations failed to overcome even after the Cold War was declared terminated in 1989. However, today it would be inappropriate, if not preposterous to suggest that in the end of the day Europe turned out to be more successful in overcoming its tragic Cold War past than Asia. All the multiple post-Cold War European institutions—not only OSCE, but also the Council of Europe, the NATO-Russia Council, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and so on—have not prevented a new dramatic split of the European continent, which is likely to be with us for a long time. Today most of these institutions are either completely frozen or have lost their pan-European nature. The European arms control in its both nuclear and conventional dimensions is practically nonexistent, confidence—building measures like the Open Skies treaty or the Vienna Document of 2011 work no longer. Much more importantly, there is a large-scale military conflict flaring in the very center of the European continent for already more than two years, which is luckily not the case in Asia.

Will Asia teach Europe a lesson?

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The undeniable fact that Europe has failed does not, however, mean that Asia will necessarily succeed. The situation in Asia today is less than stable—the continental arms race is accelerating, the NATO Alliance is actively expanding its activities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the trilateral Australia-UK-US block (AUKUS) is considering accepting new members, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue of the United States, India, Japan and Australia (Quad) acquires additional dimensions. A large-scale conflict might erupt at any point on the Korean Peninsula, in the Taiwan Strait, in the South China Sea, at the China-India border or at another location in or around Asia. One can suggest that many of these conflicts are fed and instigated from the outside, but it can hardly be denied that they also have many sources inside the Asian continent. Unfortunately, even a high level of economic interdependence should not be considered sufficient and reliable guardrails protecting the nations of the continent from falling into the abyss of a direct military standoff.

What does this mean for the future security in Asia? First and foremost, this means that it is not realistic to consider any robust and comprehensive security system in Asia to emerge anytime soon. If this model did not work out in Europe in 1990s under the best possible circumstances, it is unlikely to work out in Asia in 2020s or even in 2030s, when the circumstances are likely to be much less conducive for such ambitious designs. The great power competition in Asia will continue for a long time and this competition is going to set rigid constraints on multilateral institution-building.

Besides, Asia is simply too big and too small at the same time to have a continent-wide security system. It is too big because security challenges in the Northeast Asia, in the Southeast Asia, in the South Asia, in Central Asia are not the same; it is hard to imagine a comprehensive security arrangement based on the principle ‘one size fits all’. It is too small since many of security matters in Asia are inextricably linked to global security problems like US-China or US-Russia relations and therefore cannot be fixed without reaching an agreement at the globs level with major non-Asian powers (e. g. on strategic stability). In the modern interdependent world, the old principle ‘Asian solutions to Asian problems’ is not likely to work out in all the cases.

Right now, it might be premature to consider long term solutions for the Asian continent. The situation of strategic volatility here is likely to last for a significant period of time, which is going to complicate any attempts to define mutually acceptable rules of the game based on a stable balance of power. The anticipated volatility will increase the risks of an accidental, inadvertent military clash. The good news, however, is that nobody in Asia is interested in waging a large-scale war, as it was the case a century ago, when Japan was fully committed to building its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” by military means. Today, there are periodical clashes or dangerous incidents between China and India, between India and Pakistan, between DPRK and ROK, but these clashes and incidents so far have never escalated to the level of a large-scale military confrontation. The most recent European example is also a clear warning signal to Asian nations against a reckless saber rattling that can lead to a catastrophe.

The experience of the Cold War teaches us of the importance of keeping communication lines among great powers open even if the relations go in a wrong direction. It is particularly important to maintain consultations between China and the United States, between India and China, between other major players in Asia. Even very small, incremental steps in the direction of more transparency, predictability, and mutual understanding in bilateral relations of potential adversaries would be a major success. In many cases, the first steps in the direction of confidence building could be made at the second track level paving the way for productive contacts between the officials.

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Above all, the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership remains a cornerstone of strategic stability on the Asian continent as well as the global strategi stability at large. The recent trip of President Putin to China, his negotiations with Chairman Xi Jinping should create a new impulse for advancing this partnership further. This partnership should be complimented by an enhanced security focused cooperation within multilateral frameworks like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, APEC, etc. Neither of these interlocking institution offers a magic solution to all of security challenges in Asia, but working hand in hand with each other they can make sure that Asia will escape the European predicament.

in April 2022, Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping, speaking at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia, put forward the Global Security Initiative (GSI) in response to the growing conflicts and security challenges in the world. This proposal of the Chinese leader laid the foundation for the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper officially adopted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 21 February 2023. Though the principles outlined in GSI are universal and can be applied to various parts of the world, it would make perfect sense to test them in Asia, which is not only the most populous, but also the most vibrant and the most dynamic continent of our planet.

Hopefully, the time has come for Asia to give a lesson to Europe not only in economic development, but also in peace-building. Maybe, working together in a very pragmatic, persistent and responsible way, Asian leaders of today could do better than their peers in Europe or than their predecessors a century or half a century ago. The window of opportunity is not yet closed for Asia, history has not yet pronounced its verdict. It’s high time to finally put an end to the Cold War in Asia—not with a big splash as thy tried to do in Europe back in 1989, but through a well calibrated set of gradual, incremental and cautious steps towards the “community of common destiny”, as Chainman Xi put it. The responsibility lies with all of us. As they say, victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none.

First published in the Guancha.