U.S. urged to forego Cold War mentality in ties with China

The United States needs to reject the Cold War framework, as it is at a crossroads in relations with China, and is unfortunately and dangerously going down the wrong path, according to a recent opinion piece.

In an article published in the Daily Beast last month, David Rothkopf, CEO of The Rothkopf Group, a U.S. media company, refuted U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines' allegation that China represents "the most consequential threat to the U.S. national security."

"Why is it such a great threat even though the country has no history of conquest beyond its region in 5,000 years of history and is far from being able or inclined to pose a direct threat of attack to the U.S.?" Rothkopf asked.

Calling for getting over "the idea that somehow the U.S.-China relationship is a zero-sum conflict," the author said, "Our economies are intertwined. Over 70,000 U.S. companies are active in China."

"There is not a single major global issue we can resolve without cooperating with China. On many of them, our interests intersect. On some of them, they overlap," he continued.

"Given the stakes, we owe it to ourselves to retrace our steps back to that fork in the road we seem to have passed through, to reject the Cold War framework that is no one's interests, and to seek new ideas and approaches for this new era," he added.