But such concerns are overblown. Here are four big reasons why.

1. The historical backdrops of the two relationships are very different

When the Cold War began, the U.S.-Soviet relationship was fragile and tenuous. Bilateral diplomatic relations were barely a decade old, U.S. intervention in the Russian Revolution was a recent memory, and the Soviet Union had called for the overthrow of capitalist governments into the 1940s. Despite their Grand Alliance against Nazi Germany, the two countries shared few meaningful diplomatic, economic or institutional links.

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In 2019, the situation between the United States and China is very different. Since the 1970s, diplomatic interactions, institutional ties and economic flows have all exploded. Although each side has criticized the other for domestic interference (such as U.S. demands for journalist access to Tibet and China’s espionage against U.S. corporations), these issues did not prevent cooperation on a host of other issues. Yes, there were tensions over the past decade, but these occurred against a generally cooperative backdrop.

2. Geography and powers’ nuclear postures suggest East Asia is more stable than Cold War-era Europe

Unsurprisingly, the Soviet Union also feared that the United States might attack and wanted to deter U.S. adventurism. Concerns that the other superpower might use force and that crises could quickly escalate colored Cold War politics.

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As for geography, East Asia is not primed for tensions akin to those in Cold War Europe. China can threaten to coerce its neighbors, but the water barriers separating China from most of Asia’s strategically important states make outright conquest significantly harder. Of course, as scholars such as Caitlin Talmadge and Avery Goldstein note, crises may still erupt, and each side may face pressures to escalate. Unlike the Cold War, however, U.S.-Chinese confrontations occur at sea with relatively limited forces and without clear territorial boundaries. This suggests there are countervailing factors that may give the two sides room to negotiate — and limit the speed with which a crisis unfolds.

3. The Cold War had just two major powers

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The Cold War took place in a bipolar system, with the United States and Soviet Union uniquely powerful, compared with other nations. This dynamic often pushed the United States and the U.S.S.R. toward confrontation and contributed to more or less fixed alliances; moreover, it encouraged efforts to suppress prospective great powers, such as Germany.

In 2019, it’s not at all clear we are back to bipolarity. Analysts remain divided over whether the U.S. unipolar era is waning (or is already over) — and, if so, whether we are heading for a new period of bipolarity, modern-day multipolarity or something else. Regardless, most analysts accept that other countries will play a central role in East Asian security affairs.

Russia, for example, still benefits from legacy military investments, India is developing economically and militarily, and Japan is beginning to build highly capable military forces to complement its still-significant economic might. Even if these nations aren’t as powerful as the United States or China, their presence makes for more fluid diplomatic arrangements and more diffuse security concerns than during the U.S.-Soviet competition. The resulting security dynamics are therefore likely to look very different.

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4. Ideology plays less of a role in U.S.-Chinese relations

Many people see the Cold War as an ideological contest between U.S.-backed liberalism and Soviet-backed communism. But that’s not the whole story.

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Likewise, while a clearer Chinese ideological “brand” may eventually emerge, it is unclear whether the ideology would claim universal applicability.

This is not to deny that there are tensions between the United States and China. What we are seeing, however, is not a new cold war but a reversion to a pre-1945 form of great power politics. What changed? Put simply, the United States no longer enjoys preeminence as the only superpower, as it did in the immediate post-Cold War era.