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I’m not going to lie, I had a weird Republican (actual US Republican Republican, not “I support a non-monarchy form of government”, even though I’m not American) phase, where I admired the Southern United States in particular.The espoused values and culture, in particular, were quite attractive to me, at the time:Family valuesHard, honest work, usually rural, no big city bankers here mate!Politeness and hospitalitySmall government, you do you!LibertarianismHunting, gun cultureGod-fearing folks, which church do y’all attend?Screw reverse-racism, none of that !@$% down here, we don’t see colour down here folksLaid-back, unlike those city folk that were always in a rushSo for a while, it was an (extremely weird in context for a Hong Kong-Southern Brit raised urbanite) dream of mine to migrate legally to the Southern US, to become a redneck farmer. I think the states in the running were Texas and one of the Carolinas.Like this, but Asian.This was in no small part to the Trump-MAGA (this was in about 2015–2017) and edgy Lost Cause-related (Keep y’all Confederate money, the South shall rise again!) media I encountered online telling us how the Democrats and their brand of PC/support of illegal immigration was not merely an enemy of America, but the world.I was a stupid kid and brought into that without reading the other side or thinking about it or any of the implications. Are those ideas necessarily bad? No, but one must always look at both sides.(Hmm… was the Civil War actually about states’ rights? Considering the CSA constitution literally restricts states’ rights to ban slavery, and pretty much existed only to expand the institution of slavery, probably not.)I’d say I’ve matured quite a lot since then. Read more about a lot of things. Realised that yes, places often fall short of their ideals. I’ve reversed my position on a lot of things too.Now, I would be extremely hesitant to move to the US, both for political and socio-economical disagreements I have with the system there, no matter how fat of a paycheck any job might offer me. Move to America? Hell’naw!Don’t misunderstand me though, I still admire many things about American culture, and the US, and would undoubtedly like to visit someday, I’ve heard the food in particular down South is amazing, but just not move there; not temporarily, not for life.

The scenario of both Shenzhen and Shanghai surpassing Hong Kong as global financial hubs will likely happen sooner than the 5-10 year time frame. The recent protests that have erupted in the city will accelerate the decline of Hong Kong and there’s no turning back.Hong Kong is not even safe for visitors and if the riots continue onwards they may spread across all parts of the city, which would pose serious challenges to public safety. The police and all emergency personnel must focus their full attention on the protesters and that has resulted in major disruptions to the lives of ordinary residents.Apparently, the protesters have not yet stormed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) yet, but they have already pillaged and looted HK’s Legislative Council building (LegCo), as well as causing temporary shut downs to the city’s international airport. So it’s only a matter of time before they will target the HKSE unless the protests are stopped beforehand.When peaceful protesters resort to violence that demonstrates desperation on their part. Perhaps, they think the Western media has been ignoring them so just like a criminal seeking publicity and notoriety they will act in a more shocking manner assuming that committing to terrorism will make the world listen to them.And if that strategy fails, they will just march into very public places in the city so it’s impossible to ignore them. Storming the HKSE could be a likely scenario, since that could spark massive disruptions to the city’s banking and financial industries.But should the protesters act in such a foolish manner that will backfire. The bankers and financiers in the city will consider moving elsewhere since the HKSE would face unscheduled shut downs.The Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange will attract more people and investors from Hong Kong. Additionally, Beijing has changed laws and introduced new measures to open up the financial and banking sectors in China.The Central government will make it easier for foreign banks and financial firms to conduct business in Shanghai and Shenzhen as well. In other words, Hong Kong’s attractiveness as a financial hub will become a non-factor, while more international companies will expand operations in Shanghai and Shenzhen.Let’s take a closer look at how Beijing will open up China’s financial sector to foreign firms. You can read more about it from an article posted by the Global Times. The link is here:http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1158491.shtmlAs reported by the Global Times:“Foreign institutions are allowed to have a type A bond settlement agent license, a move to facilitate foreign institutions to invest in the inter-bank bond market.The central bank also encouraged foreign institutions to set up or invest in money management companies of Chinese commercial banks and allow them to set up or purchase stake in pension fund companies.The bank also scrapped limits in the share-holding ratio for foreign investors, who used to hold below 25 percent.On the stake-holding ratio limit for securities, asset management and future firms, foreign firms will no longer see restrictions by 2020.”That’s very good news and we can expect deeper market reforms for China in the near future. Therefore, Hong Kong’s demise will not lead to China’s economy crashing or headed for a recession.Hong Kong’s economy is already witnessing a downturn and we should anticipate that local GDP figures for the third quarter this year will be disastrous. And don’t expect Hong Kong to rebound anytime soon.

Short answer: No and it’s complicated.Long answer:We should first clarify what we mean here. “Cold War” is a very specific historical term that has been conscripted as an analogy to describe what’s going on between the US and China.And it should not be. Chinese academics themselves don’t use “Cold War” to describe their current rivalry with the US. They use the term “Competitive Co-Existence”. This is a far less hawkish term than what the Americans are using. And it’s a correct term.What the US and China have is a rivalry. This is INCREDIBLY different from what a cold war is. The Cold War in the US meant an overall foreign policy that was Zero Sum. There was no space for co-existence with the USSR. It was an entity that was considered (at least initially) as weak and destined to be destroyed overtime by the US, if the US pursued certain policy actions such an “containment”.Rivals however, compete with each other, they don’t try to destroy each other.The use of the term “Cold War” as an analogy to describe the state of US and China relationships comes specifically from policy making think tanks in the US. Even US historians reject using it as either an analogy or a framework for defining the US-China relationship.These US policymakers are holdovers from the Cold War era who seek to beef up their profile and maintain relevance in the 21st century by drawing parallels between the US and USSR cold war and the current US-China relations (perhaps hoping for renewals of their tenure). Kissinger, the current war criminal in US hire, is one of the biggest proponents of using “Cold War” to describe US-China relations (“We are in the foothills of a new cold war” is what he said).If the US chooses to let these holdovers define US policy towards China today, then it won’t be any surprise if the US creates a self-fulfilling prophecy and drags the US into an unnecessary confrontation with a rival that never needed to turn into an escalated frozen conflict.The other major error of using the Cold War as an analogy for the current US-China relations is because the context of the Cold War was so astronomically different from what you have today that it’s lazy and criminally irresponsible to apply this analogy to US-China rivalry unless you are Bolton and WANT a war.1. The Cold war occurred in the aftermath of nearly 30 years of 2 major global conflicts and a great depression. Current US-China relations are in the aftermath of 30 years of peace under the declining US Hegemony.2. The Cold war was in the aftermath of 30 years of rising tariffs and closed economic systems. Currently, we are seeing a downward trends on tariffs overall and open economic integration.3. The Cold war was in the aftermath of 30 years of USSR economic isolation. Currently, the US-China rivalry is under the shadow of 30 years of Chinese economic systems in the global economy.4. The Cold War was in the aftermath of vast destruction across Europe and Asia with Germany and Japan completely decimated and occupied. China was in a civil war. Huge vacuums of power surrounded the Soviet Union. And in these vacuums of power, massive revolutionary and de-colonization movements were emerging that were ridding the old powers of their holdings in the soon to be ex-colonies.Today, China is surrounded by a resurgent Japan, a major regional power in the form of India, an assertive Russia and a wealthy, industrialized South Korea.5. The Cold War came when capitalism was in disrepute as it was blamed for 2 world wars and a great depression. French and Italian communist parties were on the verge of winning elections in their respective countries. Marxist Leninist ideas and central planning that led to rapid economic growth and industrialization were immensely popular as ideas in revolutionary movements sweeping across Asia and Africa. The Cold War was under the shadow of socialism’s mass appeal. The Labor party was voted into power in the UK as it called for the nationalization of major industries and implementation of social welfare programs. The USSR had vast ideological appeal as an entity promoting social justice and equality.This is not what is the case today. China does not offer ideological appeal of the same kind and it’s message is one of nationalist, not Globalist, ethos: “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.6. The Geo strategic threat today is completely different. Back during the cold war the key policy message was the following: The US must not allow an adversary to gain power in Europe and Asia. This is because during WW2, Germany and Japan’s conquest of vast land holdings in Europe and Asia allowed them to amass enormous resources and industrial material and human labor that allowed them to wage an effective war against the US. The USSR after WW2 appeared to be able to present the same threat as it’s ideological appeal in vast power vacuums, its military strength and (then) impending US withdrawal from Germany and China appeared to give it a close chance of gaining control of similar vast economic resources.This is not China. It is nowhere the same geostrategic threat of the USSR during the 40s and 50s. The South China sea islands are not the same as the USSR’s contest for power in Poland and Romania. The Spratly island dispute is not the same as the tense movements to control Germany.7. The risks taken during the cold war were much larger due to the higher stakes (control of Europe and Asia) at play. Containment of the USSR as a policy was pursued due to the belief that the USSR was making major inroads across the world especially when China fell to the Reds after the Chinese civil war ended.This is not what China is doing today, nor can it do this today.8. The Cold War, being a rivalry of political and economic systems, also resulted in the US and USSR competing to form systems that improved the quality of life for their citizens so they could show case the ideological appeal of their citizens over the others. Kennen himself stressed that the US needs to demonstrate, at a time when democratic capitalism was considered weaker to communism and central planning, that Japan, Germany, the US and the UK could establish democratic capitalism and improve the lives of their citizens immensely. The USSR was doing the same with Communism and Central Planning.The US has not responded to the rise of China by somehow trying to adopt policies that improve the lives of their citizens at a time when their political institutions are faltering, mostly because they don’t see China’s system as having vast appeal beyond their borders.The two axioms of the cold war that drove containment policy of the US towards the USSR were:The US and USSR were such ideological opponents that there could be no co-existence between them. Both believed the other was out to destroy their way of life.George Kennen believed that the USSR was fundamentally a weaker entity that would back down in the face of strong US resolve and containment.Neither of these are true today. China is not seeking to destroy the US way of life. Nor is it weak as an entity the way the USSR was (at least that’s what Kennen believed based on his observations of the inner workings of the USSR economy and political system).The Cold War was also something that integrated ideology-geopolitics-economics into one over arching struggle between the USSR and US. The USSR was also feared as a threat by the US because it was able to create massive geopolitical opportunities due to it’s immense ideological appeal (you don’t have to take my word for it, this is what US leaders believed and documented in various public sayings in the 1940s and 50s). And the USSR had intentions to exploit those geopolitical opportunities.To think that China has similar ideological appeal across the Globe that can be exploited as geopolitical opportunities is almost delusional.Similarly, Kennen believed that the US could push ahead with major risks like the Berlin Airlift and containment because 1) He believed the USSR was much weaker 2) the US had a nuclear monopoly 3) There were no economic interconnections between the US and USSR.While China’s military still lags behind the US to an extent, all 3 of the above are not true today. And to base US risk taking off of them with respect to China is a major disaster waiting to happen. Instead of realizing the fundamental common interests between the US and China on preventing pandemics, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, preventing a conflict in Korea or South Asia and preventing Climate change, this Cold War analogy sets both up for an unnecessary conflict.To double down on the above points about how the Cold War analogy is so false, I think we need to acknowledge that the period of the Cold war was the tail end of a period of time when the world was gripped by major insecurities due to scarcity.We seem to have forgotten about Malthusian ideas that the world population was growing so rapidly and so out of pace with agricultural output that we would soon face global starvation on an unprecedented scale.There were massive wars of conquest over land and resources during this period of time, with ideology serving as the mobilizing basis for such conflicts, all the way from the French Revolution to the 1960s and 70s.As Dr. Francis Gavin puts it, this period of scarcity and crises has been replaced since then by a period where the problem is a problem of plenty. We have too much now. Whether it’s the climate change crises (rooted in too much industrialization and consumption), the obesity crises, the opioid crises.So the institutional framework or the political institutions that were developed during the cold war or that rely on the cold war as an analogy will look at the world through the lenses of great power conflicts that were fueled by scarcity.Which is not the nature of our world today and the nature of the US-China rivalry. Why wouldn’t you use political institutions here to resolve these issues that are geared to deal with the problem of too much consumption, too much information, too much free flow of money, too much trade and so on.I might be beating a dead horse at this point but I just want to give an example of how dangerous it can be and how badly the US can get it wrong if they frame China of today with the same cold war lens as the 1945–1991 period.For this example, lets take Hong Kong.If it was the 1950s and the Chinese wanted to take Hong Kong, they probably would have just invaded and taken over. They had the military muscle and proximity for it.So why doesn’t modern day China do that as well?Hong Kong is one of the 3 primary capital markets in the world today besides NY and London. Its the go-to place in the world when you want to raise significant capital.The primary power of Hong Kong is the trillions of dollars in capital that the Hong Kong Banks sit on and it’s draw as a financial center in the world. Its the fact that Goldman Sachs is there. Its the fact that if you’re a exec in the financial world, you would probably chose to live in Hong Kong and raise a family there cause its a great city and it has a powerful, well integrated financial system there.Invading Hong Kong means Goldman Sachs leaves. It means capital flight. It means no more fancy bankers choosing to live there.The CPC knows this which is why all of it’s political moves towards Hong Kong are carefully calibrated to ensure Hong Kong’s capital stays put and it remains a financial center. Because the CPC is under no delusions that if that money leaves, its gonna come to Shanghai. It wont, It’s gonna go to London or NYC. Which the CPC wants to avoid at all costs.Think of this for a minute and understand how differently the CPC is acting here compared to the CPC that was dealing with Taiwan during the island crises of the 1950s which I also wrote an answer about:Usama Ahmad's answer to What is the most ridiculous war ever fought in our history?If you were still stuck on the cold war analogy, you would be advising the US president a few years ago or back in the 90s that the Chinese were going to invade Hong Kong by force to retake it.And you would have been completely off the mark in your advice because that never happened. Because the CPC of today is not the CPC of the Cold War and using the Cold War analogy to understand China today and think of it as a USSR substitute for the modern day is a recipe for disastrous foreign policy mistakes.There was a time for International Relations when they could be shaped by John Mearsheimer and Kenneth Waltz who defined ways of thinking in IR under the framework of scarcity. But that time is long gone and we live in a new age now.We cannot define US-China relations through outdated Great Power competition frameworks that were beginning to get out dated even in the 1970s as they were defined by the US-USSR and old European power rivalry.We need to define US-China relations in the new age of plenty, where we have Climate Change, free flows of information (to an extent), massive movements of people and financial flows.The Cold War analogy is primarily used in the US by hawks who are interested in turning China from a rival to an enemy, mostly because it would reinforce the systems of US militarization that provide them with their domestic economic clout.A bit of a segue, but to be honest, even the definition of what the “Cold War” was is a bit murky and people who have studied it in depth have vastly different time frames for when the Cold War actually began and ended, timeframes that vary significantly from the standard 1946–1991 timeline. There are academics who have posted detailed thesis framing the cold war as starting much eelier (1917 or even the late 1800s). Others have pushed the date forward and consider the Cold War to begin more around the time of the 1949–1950 timeline when you had a series of crises such as the detonation of the USSR’s nuclear weapon, the Korean war and the Chinese intervention in it.History itself is a pretty complex subject and as people in the present, we have retrospective bias when looking at the past. What that means is that when we look back at the Cold War, we tend to project our bias on what living through it must have been like based on how we know things turned out in the end.But for the people who actually lived and died through the Cold War, the experience would have been very different.A good example is how we in the present think of the Cold War as a continuous historical episode. But for people living through it, it would have been more like periods of intense crises islanded between business as usual.The 1949–1953 and 1958–1962 periods of intense crises. 1953–1958 was pretty relaxed even as the McCarthyism period gripped America. 1963 to the 1970s was characterized by close cooperation on nuclear issues.There is a lot of interesting uncertainty when discussing the Cold war and to be honest, the more confident I hear someone talking about the Cold War in the present the more I suspect that they only have a surface level understanding of it.Seasoned Historians have different answers as to why the Cold War lasted so long when most of the Geo Political issues were somewhat settled by the 1960s. They also have different answers on why and how a Hot War was avoided if the Cold war was so bad in the first place. And more importantly: Was the Cold War inevitable.We don’t even have definitive answers around why the Cold War ended. Was it the driving of the USSR bankrupt through US actions under the Carter-Reagan administration? Or was it the internal contradictions of the USSR’s political and economic system itself?I love Dr. Francis’s analogy on the circular nature of how our view of history can be shaped by the present and how our present can be shaped by our view of history in some ways.Imagine you had to write a text book about international politics from 1945 to 1990. And you had to update the edition every 10 years. So your first edition would be in 1990, next in 2000, next in 2010 and next in 2020 and so on. And you only had 300 pages.Historians know that that volume would look different every 10 years.That 1990 volume would have maybe 2 pages on China at most.The 2020 one would have a 100 pages on China.The 2040 one might not even mention China but talk about how much GDP the US lost when Florida went below sea level and California turned into a desolate, burned out desert thanks to Climate Change.The Global Forces that drive world politics often look different in retrospect than in real time.And this analogy is extremely important for us to understand because it leads us to the next question:Was the Cold war even the most important global force driving world politics between 1945–1991? Or do we think this way because of a centralization of history around the US first and Europe second?There were other seismic events that shaped the world that do not get as much attention but might actually rival the Cold war in terms of importance if not exceed it clearly.The European Integration project for one. Tony Judt has work written around how he believes that the most important event after 1945 was the resolution of European tensions and the creation of the European integration project.Then we have decolonization: The vast majority of the Earth’s population experienced that period not as a rivalry or conflict between the US and USSR, but as the creation of new national identities in South Asia, Africa, East Asia, South East Asia.Similarly, post 1945 can also be regarded as the history of the Nuclear Age rather than the cold war (oh yea, they are both distinct and separate from each other).Alternatively, we could say that the beginning of Globalization in the 1960s and 70s, its acceleration in the 1990s and it’s intersection with the rise of China could be the deciding global force shaping world politics.Of course, it could also be that all these historical threads intersected in complex ways to shape the history of the world during this period of time.This was a bit of a long segue bit it was important for a core reason: The struggle to understand and answer these questions, the struggle to understand the nature of history gives you far more insight into the present and positions you better to understand and act in the present.And allows you to avoid these lazy, false narratives of there being a “Cold War” between the US and China that are being pushed by Kissinger himself or Kissinger wannabes who want to get appointments or tenure in DoD or Pentagon positions because a war between US and China is good for their pockets.The Chinese have acted smart so far and understood that in this day and age, what they have with the US is “competitive co-existence” and not a Cold War. And have quietly continued to build on their economic strengths by investing in AI, human resources, infrastructure, education, healthcare and so on. Because these are the foundational pools of power in the 21st century.The US cold-war analogy pushers have been most frustrated perhaps by the Chinese refusal to accept the Cold War as an analogy and invest in nuclear weapons, command and control systems, hard military assets the way the Americans do in order to trigger an arms race that diverts China away from the economic well being of her citizens.To conclude: No, I do not think there is a cold war between the US and China and I understand that this is an anaology pushed by policymakers, not historians, in the US who are either trained in outdated IR techniques that do not apply to the modern world (ignorance) or because they want there to be intense tensions and near conflict between the US and China because it serves their domestic interests (malice).We are in a different age now, and need to understand history better if for no other reason than to understand our present better. Our present circumstances call for new political and IR ideas that are based around the issues we face today because those issues will reveal a far more common stance between the US and China on the major crises facing the world today (Climate Change, Pandemics, Unstable regions). And puts them both on the path to cooperation rather than conflict.Academic sources: Emma Bates, Dr. Francis Gavin , Dr. Melvyn Leffler