This piece was written by a contributing Tsinghua student for The Future of U.S.–China Relations, a joint special issue by The Yale Politic and Tsinghua Youth Voice.
On March 5, 1946, the modest college gymnasium in a small Midwestern town was transformed into a global stage, as Winston Churchill, accompanied by President Harry Truman, delivered his most iconic post-World War II speech—The Sinews of Peace.
In the grand narrative of Cold War history, Winston Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” speech,also often referred to as the “Iron Curtain Speech”， is often simplified into a neat historical starting point. This ‘Iron Curtain Speech’ is commonly treated as the symbolic opening of the Cold War. While logically coherent, this narrative of symbolization can easily lead later generations to overlook a crucial reality: in its authentic historical context, the speech was neither a singular act of creation nor an isolated event. On one hand, Churchill’s address responded to several key questions surrounding the postwar international order; on the other hand, it rapidly ignited an international dialogue and debate (which we will explore in detail later). Both the speech itself and the conversations it sparked—concerning questions of responsibility, historical memory, and mechanisms for international cooperation—remain frequently discussed within the field of international relations today.
Though we all know now that the Cold War broke out shortly after World War II, the political decision-makers of that time likely lacked the hindsight to see that they were “entering the Cold War.” The year 1946 can be described as an era of profound uncertainty. In the wake of two world wars, the balance of international power among nations had undergone a profound transformation, and people across the globe perceived this structural shift in vastly different ways. Correspondingly, the new international norms and order had not yet come into operation: the United Nations had only just been founded, and relations among the great powers remained malleable.
Churchill’s speech was like a pebble cast into the water, stirring up ripples that were widespread andtriggering adverse responses across the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. In the United States, a domestic divide emerged over whether to assume global leadership responsibilities.
The Soviet Union, recognizing the speech’s anti-Soviet implications, refuted Churchill’s definition of the criteria for democracy and freedom.The push back by the Soviet Union was done. by invoking the enormous sacrifices the USSR had made in the anti-fascist war，derived legitimacy from the tripartite alliance between the UK, the US and the USSR Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist leadership resisted a bipolar narrative, proposing an “intermediate zone” of powers, while the Nationalist government viewed the United Nations as a fragile yet potentially exploitable political instrument.
Together, these responses constituted a multi-sided debate centered on the United Nations, democratic standards, leadership, and the legitimacy of international order.
Against the resurgence of “New Cold War” rhetoric and growing skepticism toward the UN, returning to the dialogue of 1946 may not be about uncovering historical “answers.” It tends to be about understanding what was genuinely being debated at a moment before the Cold War became structurally affirmed—and what alternative possibilities were once imagined but never realized. This perspective remains relevant for a world that still operates within the postwar order while confronting new, yet oddly familiar, challenges.
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The central questions of 1946 were strikingly focused. The World War II had ended, yet the question of “responsibility for the world” remained unresolved. What emerged after World War II was not a stable new order, but rather a structural vacuum.
For the United Kingdom, this vacuum was particularly acute. The decline of the British Empire, already apparent after World War I, became impossible to ignore after World War II. Fiscal collapse, the loosening of colonial control, and the growing mismatch between global responsibilities and actual capabilities made it increasingly difficult for Britain to continue acting as a singular global power.
The United States faced a distinct kind of dilemma. While its military and economic strength had reached unprecedented levels, a deeply rooted tradition of isolationism remained domestically, causing hesitation in taking on the responsibility of “running” the world.
The Soviet Union, which had faced containment and hostility from European powers following the establishment of the Soviet government after World War I, now demanded recognition of its security concerns and international status after having suffered immense wartime losses.
As a newly established institution, the legitimacy of the United Nations had yet to be tested through practice.
It was against this backdrop that Churchill’s speech could be understood—one of a political proposal concerning how the United Nations might be made to function in reality.
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In his speech, Churchill consciously positioned himself as both a political elder and a witness to history. He repeatedly invoked the experiences of both World War I and World War II, emphasizing the failure of excessive faith in the League of Nations after World War I.
“I was a high minister at the time of the Versailles Treaty and a close friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was the head of the British delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with many things that were done, but I have a very strong impression in my mind of that situation, and I find it painful to contrast it with that which prevails now. In those days there were high hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars were over, and that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not see or feel that same confidence or even the same hopes in the haggard world at the present time”, said Churchill.
This historical lesson served to underscore his argument that institutions lacking material power support could not automatically guarantee peace.
When addressing the Soviet Union, Churchill acknowledged the Soviet Union’s immense contribution to the anti-fascist war, but attributed postwar risks to differences in power structures and institutions. He proposed a set of democratic and liberal standards rooted in the Anglo-American experience, and it was clear that the Soviet Union could not align with this set of experiences. This provided a rationale for Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” metaphor.
Even more crucial, though often overlooked, is the fact that Churchill’s core proposal concerning the United Nations was not to bypass it, but to offer it material support through an Anglo-American alliance. He posed a direct question to his audience: would such a “special relationship” be “inconsistent with our over-riding loyalties to the World Organization?” Churchill’ answer was unequivocal: on the contrary, it was “probably the only means” by which that organization could “achieve its full stature and strength.”
By openly acknowledging that the United States now stood at the apex of global power and repeatedly emphasizing that power inevitably entails responsibility, Churchill effectively articulated a vision of a “non-war” transfer and sharing of global leadership through alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Notably, at least in Churchill’s perspective, the Anglo-American alliance and peaceful relations with the Soviet Union were not incompatible within the framework of the UN. He believed that preventing another world war required reaching a comprehensive understanding with Russia under the United Nations framework—an understanding that could only be sustained over time if backed by the full strength of the English-speaking world through the UN as the central instrument.
The Soviet response, in turn, firmly anchored itself in the historical significance of the anti-fascist war, emphasizing that wartime sacrifices constituted the legitimate basis of its postwar international status. It also launched institutional comparisons to reject the legitimacy of a single model of democracy.
Domestic reactions in the United States were similarly complex. As observed in Nationalist Chinese internal reports, American society had become aware of the responsibilities implied by its growing power, but remained deeply divided on whether to accept them.
Meanwhile, Chinese Communist leadership began articulating the concept of a “vast intermediate zone”, emphasizing that the world is not a black-and-white dichotomy; even amid the confrontation between the two powers, there were still numerous capitalist countries across Asia, Europe and Africa, as well as the colonial and semi-colonial nations of the time. This insight appears particularly suggestive in today’s increasingly multipolar world.
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If we view the 1946 speech and the multi-faceted responses as an international political dialogue not yet structurally solidified, its value lies not in predicting the Cold War, but in how it framed key, unresolved issues in the reconstruction of the post-war order.
These issues were temporarily frozen by the bipolar confrontation, but have resurfaced in new forms today, especially during the current period of adjustment in China-U.S. relations.
I.The Misalignment of Leadership, Responsibility, and Legitimacy Within the UN Framework
Churchill emphasized a warning: the concentration of power inevitably demands a concentration of responsibility.
This was not a moral appeal, but rather a realist understanding of the international system. In his view, the post-World War II world no longer allowed major powers to maintain order by shirking responsibility, especially within the nominally universal framework of the UN. When the United Kingdom power could no longer support such “responsibility,” Churchill proposed “Anglo-American alliance” as the logic for providing the “force support” for the UN’s operation, essentially completing a vision for constructing a “shared” or “divided” model of leadership power and responsibility as an integrated whole.
However, American society in 1946 had not reached a consensus on sharing global responsibility.
As observed in the Kuomintang internal reference of “Nerve War between the US and the USSR,” significant domestic divisions existed over whether to “accept” the global responsibilities Britain was gradually transferring.
This divergence reveals a significant structural contradiction. Though the
U.S. possessed unprecedented influence, its political culture and institutional design were not fully prepared for the undertaking of a long-term responsibility of maintaining world order.
If that dilemma sounds familiar, it is because the same question is being asked in Washington today. In recent years, domestic debates over international commitment have intensified once again—this time, with “anti-hegemony” and “anti-burden imbalance” deployed as rallying cries. But as the history of 1946 reveals, the issue was never simply about whether a country “wants hegemony.” It is about what happens when a pivotal power, at a critical juncture, can neither fully embrace its responsibilities nor decisively pursue absolute leadership—either path, history suggests, can be equally disruptive to order.
One concrete example of this reluctance to shoulder international responsibility can be seen in the recent United States’ reduction and withholding of funding to the United Nations. In 2025, the U.S. significantly cut voluntary contributions and postponed mandatory payments to the UN’s core and peacekeeping budgets, creating a severe financial strain on the organization and prompting warnings from UN leadership about potential cash shortfalls. These developments illustrate how even the largest contributor to the UN system can reassess its commitments under domestic political pressures, complicating efforts to sustain collective global action.
While the U.S. grapples with these dilemmas, China’s rising influence presents a different set of challenges, one where the expectations of responsibility grow alongside its strength
In contrast, China is not being placed in a similar structural position as it rapidly gains international influence. On one hand, China itself emphasizes that it does not seek hegemony; on the other hand, due to its rising strength, expectations from the international community for it to exert more influence and shoulder more responsibility on regional and even global issues are continuously increasing.
Recently, in a New York Times article titled The World Is in Chaos. What Comes Next?, Dr. Duffy Toft (Dr. Duffy Toft is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.) revealed a perception of the current U.S. situation.
Rush Doshi also vaguely expressed in the article a concern that the U.S. seems to
be”passing the torch” of some responsibilities and power to China. (Mr. Doshi was
the deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security
Council under President Joe Biden. He is a scholar at Georgetown University and the
Council on Foreign Relations.)
And as Professor Odd Arne Westad observed in the interview：”They have to understand that things have changed and that they have to adjust themselves to a new reality, even if they don’t like it very much in terms of what the situation is like. So that’s what I would say is sort of the main lesson, and in other words, particularly a lesson for the united states today, that united states has been transitioning from a year and right after the group will wear, you notice this was the predominant, or harmonic, if you like, world power to a situation today where that is no longer true ah where there are many powers and that adjustment is hard to do. It is very difficult for a great power to get used to a new coin, those situations. So I think we can learn a bit from how Britain handled that in the middle of the twentieth century to avoid two excessive conflicts.”
Within an institutional framework, how to view the relationship between power and responsibility is a question that all international situations likely need to face when reaching a certain stage.
As for how to handle a more peaceful and effective adjustment of power and responsibility, this requires considerable wisdom and a profound understanding of a country’s own developmental reality and needs.
The perspective advanced by Wu Xinbo—that China should assume greater responsibility in global economic governance and Asia-Pacific security—aligns with the declining willingness of the United States to sustain global hegemony and resonates with the logic of major powers bearing “integrated responsibility,” as outlined in Churchill’s 1946 speech.
In a lecture on January 31, 2026, Professor Da Wei from Tsinghua University observed that the process through which a rising power establishes an international order typically lags behind its rise. The United States, for instance, did not become the world’s strongest economy until decades after its initial ascent. In this sense, it is only natural to allow China more time to develop its own approach to international order.
China may not directly succeed the United States for a considerable period, as any power transition requires time along with the accumulation of capability and experience. In earlier studies of the United States, scholars often employed concepts such as the “hidden empire” (reflecting new forms of soft power), “empire by invitation,” the “visible and invisible empire,” or the notion of a “reluctant great power.” Should China eventually assume a leadership role, it may do so not through deliberate ambition, but out of necessity—driven by the combined effects of its hard power, soft power, and unforeseen new forms of influence, thereby making the construction of a new international order an inevitable outcome.
II. The Role of the UN: Institutional Buffer or Power Tool?
Building on the previous discussion, another long-neglected proposition Churchill raised in the “Iron Curtain” speech was the “non-opposition” between the Anglo-American alliance’s mechanism for sharing full responsibility and cooperation with the Soviet Union—they could coexist within the UN framework.
In his conception, the UN was not an autonomously functioning peace machine; it needed the support of real nation power. The existence of such power, however, did not mean exclusive bloc confrontation.
While this vision did not come to fruition with the onset of the Cold War, the awareness of the issue it raised may still be relevant. During the Cold War, the UN, may have become an arena for major power confrontation, though it was originally intended to serve as a platform for coordination.
However, even during the most tense periods, it still provided a minimal institutional buffer to avoid all-out war.
In current China-U.S. relations, the UN once again faces the challenge of role positioning. On one hand, it is frequently criticized as inefficient and ill-equipped to handle major power competition; on the other hand, in the absence of alternative global institutions, it remains the only international framework with universal legitimacy. Dialogue and negotiation under its mechanisms and rules still provide a viable platform for resolving contradictions and conflicts.
III. The Asymmetry of Historical Memory as an International Political Resource
In the multi-party dialogue of 1946, the historical memory of the anti-fascist war carried extremely high political density. Churchill, Stalin, and Chinese Communist Party leaders all repeatedly invoked this shared history as a resource for argumentation.
For the Soviet Union, wartime sacrifice was the core source of legitimacy for its international status and security concerns; for Churchill, historical experience was used to warn of the dangers of appeasement; for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the victory in the anti-fascist war provided an important reference for assessing the world’s power structure.
However, the political function of this “shared history” shows clear differentiation in the contemporary era decades later.
On one hand, Chinese political discourse still highly values the shared memory of WWII anti-fascism, viewing it as one of the historical foundations for the legitimacy of the contemporary international order, frequently appearing in leaders’ public speeches. However, in American society, that does not appear to be the case.
As Professor Da Wei pointed out: “During WWII, we in China would say we were allies with the U.S., and indeed we were, that’s correct. But actually, from the American perspective, China’s role in WWII is not prominent… Regarding the memory of WWII, the Chinese remember it very deeply, while the Americans remember it very faintly.”
This distinction, in addition to stemming from practical perspectives, cannot simply be attributed to which side “attaches greater importance to history.” It seems more readily traceable to the different roles that history plays within their respective political cultures.
In the Chinese political context, historical experience and collective memory are frequently mobilized as sources of legitimacy and moral justification in official discourse and national identity construction. In contrast, the American context does not emphasize history in the same way; historical references are not as consistently used to justify current political actions or leadership, and do not serve as a persistent moral resource in the same manner.
This difference often leads to a misalignment of signals when both sides attempt to communicate through “shared history”: one side expects history to serve as a basis for consensus, while the other side struggles to receive this information on the same level.
Whether in 1946 or the present, historical memory does not naturally possess cohesive force. Its political effect depends on whether all parties assign it practical meaning within the same context.
Understanding this is particularly important for the current divergence in messages conveyed through historical narratives between China and the U.S.
IV. Historical Imaginative Space That Transcends the “New Cold War” Narrative
By reviewing history, we can also gain more confidence from many contemporary positive signals that differ from the early Cold War era. Unlike the bloody, high-stakes competition for global dominance during the Cold War, today’s international system clearly exhibits the basic characteristic of multipolarity. The singular hegemonic form, like that of the Anglo-American powers, may be difficult to replicate; instead, a world of coexisting multipolar powers is gradually taking shape.
It is worth noting that Churchill’s “Iron Curtain speech” already revealed a clear reconsideration of the traditional logic of international politics. He pointed out that we cannot work on the old-fashioned balance of power theory, and that we should not be tempted to venture on a course of repeated trials of strength – that is to succumb to the lure of an arms race.
This statement, in fact, constituted a clear negation of traditional balance-of-power politics and the Anglo-German style arms race path.
Today, revisiting the debates sparked by Churchill’s speech, we can easily perceive that Europe’s current strategic autonomy initiatives seem inherently connected to postwar reflections on Europe’s future trajectory. As Professor Arne Westad emphasized in the interview, compared to the world just after WWII, today’s international configuration in some aspects is closer to Anglo-German relations from the late 19th to early 20th century, where multiple powers are strengthening simultaneously,without forming a stable unipolar structure.
This judgment echoes the historcal understanding of the “intermediate zone” proposed by CCP leaders on the eve of the civil war against the backdrop of an escalating U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Above the bipolar confrontation eighty years ago, a vast number of “intermediate zone” countries existed as Third World forces, which helped prevent direct war between the two superpowers. Eighty years later, the landscape has shifted. The intensity of ideological confrontation has significantly faded, while economic competition has increasingly come to the forefront. Even though their security still relies on U.S.-led NATO guarantees, most EU member states have expressed the intent to pursue strategic autonomy. Against this backdrop, the prospect of a multipolar world appears even more worthy of anticipation.
More importantly, the institutional framework of the United Nations still exists today. Even though the Cold War divided the world, it never escalated into a full-scale hot war—and that relative restraint owed something to the UN’s existence as a platform for dialogue, however imperfect. In today’s multipolar configuration, the dispersion of leadership across multiple centers of power also implies a broader sharing of responsibility. Taken together, these conditions suggest that multipolarity may open up institutional space for a more stable and inclusive international future.
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In summary, the 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech and the multi-faceted responses it provoked were not an ideological declaration destined to lead to the Cold War, but rather an unfinished dialogue centered on how to assume, transfer, and share global leadership responsibility within the UN framework.
What Churchill envisioned was not the establishment of a new hegemony through war or coercion, but a possible path towards a “non-warlike sharing” of leadership through institutions, alliances, and the sharing of responsibility.
And the Cold War did not dissolve the awareness of this problem. Eighty years later, today, as a singular hegemony becomes unsustainable, the trend of multipolarity becomes increasingly apparent, and the UN still exists as a minimal institutional buffer, the significance of re-examining this historical moment lies in this: the adjustment of the international order is not a forced choice only between hegemonic struggle and comprehensive confrontation. How to achieve the redistribution of power and responsibility within an institutional framework remains an unavoidable and still unresolved historical issue in contemporary major power politics.