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Comment by lq9AJ8yrfs | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain the root of tension between the US and China? Is it just vanity and inevitable that two major powers will fight? Resource scarcity?

Beneath a few layers of culture it seems the internal values of the two countries are very similar and fairly compatible.

Maybe that breeds contempt but seems like there is plenty of room for the two countries to play together nicely especially if they make progress on their faults. In spite of the online acrimony, each side seems to understand well enough its own and the other's faults, and they generally seem to be trying to work on their own faults as much as working on each others'.

This seems like a relationship that may come to blows but should be salvageable, especially if the blows can be softened or avoided perhaps altogether.

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Perhaps one reason is that US thought that the globalized free trade world system will always benefit it more than other nations. However in the last few years China grew big, and figured out how to make that system work in a manner advantageous to them. So US is under-cutting that system, or in other words changing the rules of the game so that China can't make progress easily.

Fundamental question is will US be ever able to come to terms with a world in which US is not the dominant world power?

Practically if you look at the British or Russians, it doesn't seem to make much difference to the lives of ordinary people, the losing of 'world power' status.

In history class I was taught in the 60s and 70s the US preferred and encouraged China to develop itself, partly (or mainly I guess depending on your view) as a foil to the Soviet Union, partly because of internal humanistic values and belief that prosperity is good for people.

From a 50+ year historical standpoint it seems even more than philosophy that the two should get along.

Not confident in my understanding though, isn't there more to current politics than recent events and the last 30 years? Wondering if and suspecting there's something with more predictive value than online headlines and pundits.

Demographics clearly -- TFR types of analysis seem compelling, although that's on a longer time frame than current tensions.

> Fundamental question is will US be ever able to come to terms with a world in which US is not the dominant world power?

I think one missing key aspect is: will the US be ever able to come to terms with _an authoritarian_ power being the dominant world power?

There was a lot of optimism around China (much like there is today with Japan) in the 2000's and early 2010's, but their continued lean towards authoritarianism and regional aggression (Taiwan, South China Sea, Philippines, etc) has definitely soured that view.

When you can't beat an authoritarian power while remaining democratic and peacefully supporting other nations in your region, the obvious next step is to discard those constraints.

It is kind of puzzling. Obviously there's alot of hypocrisy involved but nothing more complicated that the historical US relationships with South Korea, the Philippines, or Indonesia. And our interests should align, we don't really have competing strategic objectives, unlike with the Soviets. A "Co-Dominion" if you want to look at it like that should have been most likely.

Maybe Red Dawn had it right.

Col. Tanner: Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later they gonna fight. Jed: That simple? Col. Tanner: Maybe somebody just forgot what it was like.

There really is little commonality between the two cultures.

What commonalities do you think there are?

President Xi's writings are full of humanism that would make at least one of the US political parties blush. Versus his tactics seem to be the envy of the other -- and in spite of the polarization in the US they probably could be brought to admire Xi's values.

Have you ever lived in China, or spent time with Chinese? Or are you basing this solely on the propaganda?

I have not spent time in mainland China but I have spent time in Hong Kong and while there sought out and immersed in Chinese "propaganda" there. Which was conspicuous and omnipresent. Have had a good amount of exposure to Chinese nationals professionally and socially, probably in the vicinity of 10% overall of each.

Culture in the home is not that.

And HK culture is not mainland culture, though the party is trying to make it so. Not that there is a single mainland culture. Hokkien != Shanghainese != Beijing, etc.

If you strip things down to the rawest motivations, then sure everyone is similar. But all the details will look extremely different to most Americans, even CNY, filial piety, meals and family structure, etc.

A lot of this is "legacy" from the anti-communist era. China is now Communist in name only, but people haven't updated their thinking from the 1950s.

Some of it is the unresolved territorial dispute over Taiwan.

Some of it is opposing economic competition.

Some of it is bi-directional; there used to be a lot more rapprochement until relatively recently, but changes in internal CCP politics have led to China using an external enemy to bolster internal unity. An exact mirror of the US in this regard.

Hopefully it will remain no hotter than the odd "shoving war" that Chinese and Indian border guards engage in, at a remote border post where neither side is allowed guns.

China is "communist" in name only, but they are still a one-party totalitarian state, which is a big reason liberal democracies and "communist" countries weren't friends in the first place.

In fact, if "the state/people own the means of production" had been the only aspect of communism (and not the totalitarian dictatorial governments), I doubt the Cold War would've been as serious.

The US supported Chaing Kai Shek and the Nationalists over Mao and the Communists after WWII. Also, Mao was a staunch Stalinist so there is the holdover tension there. Mao continued with that even more so after Stalin died and was determined to be basically the Stalin of Asia.

Also China was abused by the west prior to that, though mostly Europe so there is probably no love lost there.

I would recommend Frank Dikötter books on China, The Tragedy of Liberation, Mao's Great Famine, and The Cultural Revolution.

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