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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Its not clear what the ideological lines are though. With USSR, it was a very clear Capitalism v/s Communism ideological battle. Its not clear to me that the rivalry would escalate to the same levels as it did during the Cold War.

There is one thing that does give a lot of hope to me personally: the close economic relationship between the US and China has created a tight bond between the countries even if they are unwilling to admit it openly.

Its not inconceivable for world powers to co-exist in peace. There will be a lot more frontiers in the future that can be competed on without wanting to destroy one another.

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There need not be an ideological conflict. Ideology was a mobilizing idea in the 20th century but has lost mindshare. France and Britain vied for centuries having similar societies and economies. There can be a tribal aspect to conflict, as well as simply a competition for the spoils of world dominance, which are many.

> Ideology was a mobilizing idea in the 20th century but has lost mindshare.

Ironic then that it is called the Thucydides trap then, since the ideological lines between Athens and Sparta were very stark indeed.

The "ideological" battle is largely just a matter of how conflict is packaged and sold to the general population, which doesn't have clear and obvious reasons to support empire building for its own sake. Such perceived conflicts are usually just pretense for the realpolitik, and can come and go as the empire's interests evolve.

Agreed, all other data points we have of the theuclydes traps did not have countries with as interconnected economies or cultures. Maybe I am over playing it a bit since I live in a densely Chinese populated area in US

Oh man. Your question really hits the nail on the head and what I think most people fail to realize about China's threat. China represents a form of capitalism divorced from democracy. Their message to the world is this: you can have a thriving, well-off authoritarian state at scale. We've had small successful authoritarian capitalistic states for a while now (Gulf States and Singapore). China is managing to do it at scale -- at Chinese scale at that. China is basically saying a model when people trade individual liberty and guaranteed human rights for security and prosperity is not only workable but even preferred. They're saying concentration of power in the hands of the few as long as those in power can give wealth and security to everyone else is the winning model. This to me is the real danger of China because of this allure of authoritarianism coupled with capitalism. I think people often forget that capitalism doesn't have to be tied to democracy and classical Western liberal ideas. There only needs to be just enough rule of law, property protection, and economic freedom for capitalism to flourish -- at least for the short term.

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