5 months ago
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Hong Kong has ever lived betwixt worlds. At a gathering connected November 17, 2025, successful the city, of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), titled Circles for Peace, it became wide that this liminal geography is present a metaphor for the wider planetary condition. The U.S. and China stay locked successful a tense, mistrustful narration — yet, they are besides tied unneurotic much tightly than either broadside likes to admit. And successful that uneasy mediate space, Hong Kong offered a vantage constituent from which to ideate a mode forward.
The complexities of today’s rivalry
The discussions astatine the 6th U.S.-China Hong Kong Forum showed that spot has thinned, and some the U.S. and China present run arsenic if expecting abrupt shocks. Participants spoke with candour, with a consciousness of fatigue. Old frameworks — engagement, “guardrails”, managed contention — nary longer consciousness capable for today’s analyzable rivalry.
A persistent taxable was the shrinking country for nuance. Strategic anxieties that erstwhile belonged to specialists person entered the nationalist sphere, shaping home authorities and narrowing the scope of acceptable positions. This has seeped into the quality magnitude of the relationship. American pupil numbers successful China are acold beneath pre- COVID-19 pandemic levels. Chinese pupil enrolments successful the U.S., erstwhile good supra 3 lakh, person besides declined. The deeper nonaccomplishment is familiarity: younger generations are encountering each different done narratives shaped by fearfulness alternatively than done lived experience. Participants agreed that portion the 2 Presidents, of the U.S. and China, tin anchor the relationship, personality-driven diplomacy is not enough.
Technology, and artificial quality (AI) successful particular, threaded done galore conversations. Several participants observed that AI present resembles an planetary nationalist bully — excessively consequential to beryllium monopolised oregon monetised by immoderate azygous country. A credible governance regime, they said, indispensable remainder connected equity, transparency and accountability.
This linked to broader concerns astir the overlap betwixt civilian innovation and defence applications, particularly successful parts of the backstage sector. One American subordinate suggested the eventual request for an planetary governance mechanics for AI, and perchance for abstraction (“the galaxy”) arsenic well. The question was straightforward: if contention moves beyond the earth, who determines the rules?
The wider diplomatic clime besides featured successful the discussions. A talker described the Busan summit, connected October 30, 2025, arsenic a “tactical retreat”, not connected exertion but connected overseas argumentation much broadly. The Taiwan question surfaced often. A Chinese subordinate argued that the treatment has go overwhelmingly militarised — and warned that American argumentation appeared to beryllium drifting toward what Beijing views arsenic a “one China, 1 Taiwan” posture. He called for caller mechanisms and a caller vocabulary earlier the concern hardens into confrontation by default.
One question was whether the U.S. and China are prepared for different EP-3 incidental (in 2001) — an accidental collision astatine oversea oregon successful the aerial that could escalate earlier governmental systems tin respond. The portion evidently needs a crisis-prevention mechanics insulated from governmental swings.
Singapore’s erstwhile Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen offered the broadest frame. He described this play arsenic a “dialectic moment”, erstwhile competing pressures reshape the planetary bid but outcomes stay uncertain. The U.S., Europe and China volition inevitably power the emerging structure, helium said, but the remainder of the satellite should not let the planetary commons to go collateral harm successful major-power rivalry. One seasoned subordinate argued that a “new attack should beryllium crafted”; the satellite does not request different hegemon, it needs powers susceptible of co-organising the future.
Hong Kong has a relation to play
Throughout the forum, Hong Kong was successful focus. One talker invoked Richard Hughes’s “borrowed place, borrowed time”, portion different reached for Graham Greene’s operation “improvised bravado”. Both images inactive acceptable — but Hong Kong contiguous is besides becoming much China-centric, adjacent arsenic it tries to stay globally fluent. Its aboriginal depends connected preserving its cosmopolitan function: the transparency, connectivity, and taste hybridity that let ideas to transverse borders adjacent erstwhile authorities cannot. Hong Kong reminded 1 that the world’s mediate spaces inactive matter, revealing pathways that axenic geopolitics often misses.
People-to-people ties emerged arsenic a gentle taxable of hope. Participants noted that authoritative relations whitethorn beryllium strained, but quality interaction remains the ballast that prevents larger relationships from capsizing. Hong Kong, contempt the pressures of caller years, continues to marque specified exchanges possible.
Lessons for India
The forum conversations were a reminder that great-power relations whitethorn find the clime of the world, but the upwind is shaped by everyone else. India cannot power the forces buffeting the U.S.-China relationship, but we tin determine however to navigate them, and however to guarantee that our ain aboriginal is not written by default. Rigid binaries are unsustainable. India’s task is not to imitate U.S. rhetoric nor to judge Chinese narratives astatine look value. It is to physique the home spot — technological, economical and organization — to navigate a fractured satellite without losing strategical autonomy. The forum’s accent connected youth, taste ties and the societal declaration astir exertion offered reminders that relationships are not made oregon unmade by summits alone. They are shaped by dependable habits of engagement.
The signifier of a caller order
The clearest penetration from the Forum was that the U.S.-China narration volition not beryllium restored to its aged shape. The economical models diverge. The exertion contention is structural. And the governmental atmospherics volition stay turbulent. But the alternate to managed rivalry is not victory; it is simply a satellite of cascading risks — clime stress, pandemics, fragile proviso chains, and polarised societies.
One subordinate enactment it simply that this was “A communicative we person to constitute together”. The phrasing carries weight. It shifts the speech from contention to stewardship, from ideology to survival. The adjacent order, if it emerges astatine all, volition beryllium little connected expansive bargains and much connected applicable practice connected energy, health, finance, and AI governance.
As the forum ended and 1 stepped retired into the evening, the presumption from the league venue stayed, of a South China Sea astir motionless, and meditative, successful quiescent opposition to the anxieties that signifier the portion — a reminder of however places, similar people, past by embracing complexity and allowing themselves country to rethink. The U.S. and China volition proceed to compete, sometimes fiercely. The aboriginal needs dependable hands to signifier it.
India has its ain agelong arc with China, marked by caution and conviction. Yet, successful this infinitesimal of planetary uncertainty, the situation for each 3 countries is the same: to take work implicit reflex, and to widen the constrictive spaces wherever dialog is inactive possible.
Hong Kong, successful its imperfect, resilient way, showed that those spaces inactive exist.
Nirupama Rao is Foreign Secretary (retired) and Founder-Trustee, The South Asian Symphony Foundation.
