On September 11, Esprit de Corps Magazine published a byline article titled THE COLD WAR MUST NOT RESUME：Future Generations Need Not Experience Such Fear by the Chinese Ambassador to Canada, H. E. CONG Peiwu. Here is the full text:

More than three decades have passed since the Cold War ended, yet its shadow still lingers. The recently concluded NATO Summit Vilnius 2023 seemed to be a formal gathering to advocate for a New Cold War. NATO not only attacked and defamed China in their Communiqué, but the Alliance members also constantly reached beyond their geographical scope as laid down in its treaty to accelerate NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. After stirring up turmoil in Europe, NATO is now attempting to disrupt the Asia-Pacific region and the entire globe.

Besides, the recent trilateral summit of leaders of the US, Japan and the ROK at Camp David was also widely regarded as an attempt to stoke a new Cold War in the Asia-Pacific Region.

In fact, such moves should not be surprising as it simply aligns with recent rhetoric for a New Cold War against China coming from senior leaders and pundits in the United States and other Western countries.

This idea of a New Cold War should garner no support. The world today is undergoing both transformation and upheaval, with changes unseen in a century, are unfolding at a faster pace.  As a result, human society faces unprecedented challenges. However, the international community still shares a common aspiration for peace, cooperation, and development. At the behest of the US, NATO is attempting to start a New Cold War in the Asia-Pacific region, which faces widespread opposition from those countries in the region. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen has warned that NATO’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region “brings concerns”. Retno Marsudi, the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, and the current Chair of ASEAN, stated that "ASEAN will never be a proxy in great powers' rivalry”.

The US and NATO have been assembling exclusive blocs and promoting group politics to intensify ideological and bloc confrontation. This runs counter to the current world trends and is an act intended to turn back the clock of history. Their intentions should receive no support and are hopefully doomed to fail.

Initiating another New Cold War will harm all and benefit none. Some voices in the US clamour for this New Cold War and play up the ‘China as a threat theory’, hoping to incite ideological divisions. These individuals are acting out of self-interest under the banner of ‘democracy and freedom’. Their aim is to coerce countries, including their allies, into picking sides, politicizing and idealizing economic and technological issues so that the US can maintain its current hegemony in the world. This will come only at the expense of the interests of those same US allies and other aligned countries. But the world will not easily go back to the days of mutual exclusiveness and division. Research by the American Enterprise Institute indicates that an iPhone made entirely in the US would cost as much as $2,000. This is more than twice the cost of Apple's most advanced and priciest iPhone at today's prices. This is only one example which shows that decoupling and severing supply chains and de-synchronization will only shift such costs to average consumer.

Seeking a New Cold War is the wrong course of action. Those advocating such a course not only show ignorance of history but also lack imagination for the future. A recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine suggested that such obsession with a new Cold War has led US foreign policy makers into “the Cold War Trap”, essentially immersing them in a shallow historical debate. As a result, the US constantly finds itself mired in “the rigidity of the Cold War’s binaries”, and therefore unprepared for the advent of a multipolar world.

China is the only country in the world that pledges to ‘keep to a path of peaceful development’ in its Constitution, and the only one among the five Nuclear-Weapon States that is committed to no-first-use of nuclear weapons. China has become the major trading partner for more than 140 countries and regions, and its annual contribution to global economic growth has reached or exceeded 30 percent.

Some people intend to revive the old weapons of diplomacy that were used during the Cold War. These measures include; containment policies, economic blockades, and bloc confrontation, all aimed at containing China. This is a total miscalculation of the actual situation and as a result it is bound to fail.

The Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum, is located on the outskirts of Ottawa. Although this doomsday bunker was built for the Cold War it is no longer in use. The massive and sturdy nuclear blast doors, the maze-like enclosed structure, and the unsettling radiation protection equipment still illustrate the level of fear invoked during the Cold War. To prevent future generations from experiencing this again, the international community should unite, be vigilant against and resist all conspiracies to instigate a New Cold War. We should join hands to build a community with a shared future for mankind and strive for a brighter tomorrow.