Hello? Hello? Washington finds it hard to get through to Beijing.

The poor state of Beijing’s communications with Washington is making some U.S. officials nostalgic for the Cold War, when shared rules kept the peace with Moscow.

What the world needs now is a new Cold War.

Yes, you read that right.

And jarring though it will sound to those who remember Cold War I, it is that thought that is motivating intensified U.S. efforts to prevent a contentious relationship with China from becoming steadily – perhaps dangerously – worse.

This is not about pining for a reprise of the U.S-Soviet Cold War. It is simply acknowledging that Washington and Beijing are already locked in superpower competition, but they lack Cold War-style “guardrails” around their rivalry to prevent it from breaking down into hot war.

What’s still largely missing from the U.S.-China relationship is what might be called the “good” part of the old Cold War: the intricate shared architecture of state-to-state interaction and crisis management built up with Moscow; the arms talks and hotlines; the latticework of political and diplomatic and military exchanges; the regular summits and other high-level meetings that preserved the peace.