US is an open nation with a close mind; but China is a close nation with an open mind.

There is an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as the international hegemon.

US-China relations are at their lowest point in decades. The Trump Administration ramped up its confrontation with Beijing this week, ordering the Chinese consulate in Houston to close over concerns about economic espionage.

It's the latest step in a downward spiral in relations between the duelling economic powers which have sunk to the lowest level in decades.

The US has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas - a move described as "political provocation" by Beijing.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision was taken because China was "stealing" intellectual property.

The move triggered retaliation from Beijing: it ordered the US to close its consulate in the western Chinese city of Chengdu, dealing a further blow to the diplomatic infrastructure that channels communication between the two countries.

It's probably the most significant development yet in the deterioration of relations over the past months, which have included visa restrictions, new rules on diplomatic travel, and the expulsion of foreign correspondents. Both sides have imposed tit-for-tat measures, but it is the United States that has largely been driving this latest cycle of confrontation.

Tensions have been rising between the US and China over several key issues. President Donald Trump's administration has clashed repeatedly with Beijing over trade and the coronavirus pandemic, as well as China's imposition of a controversial new security law in Hong Kong.

An apparent tendency towards war

A few days ago, one of the US fighter jets’ electronic control devise was jammed by the Chinese while flying over the Chinese territory in the South China sea.  

一山难容二虎 This old Chinese saying literally means one hill cannot have 2 tigers. This reminds of me of a great ancient Greek historian called Thucydides.

Thucydides, (born 460 BC or earlier?—died after 404 BC?), greatest of ancient Greek historians and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. His work was the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s war policies.

The Thucydides Trap, or Thucydides's Trap, is a term coined by American political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as the international hegemon.

Historian Graham Allison says this power shift has played out 16 times over the past 500 years — and on 12 occasions, it has ended in war. Yet, time again we fail to heed history's lesson.

In 1914, the shifting balance of power between rising Germany and Britain sparked World War I.

The world thought it couldn't happen. Germany and Britain were each other's single biggest trading partners; the royal families were blood relatives — yet it did.

In his book Sleepwalkers, historian Christopher Clarke observed that political leaders of the day became hostage to events, helpless in the drift to catastrophic conflict.

"Causes trawled from the length and breadth of Europe's pre-war decades are piled like weights on the scale until it tilts from probability to inevitability," he wrote.

My opinion

I am reading a book called Xi Jin Ping-The Governance of China. There is a chapter on Strengthen the People’s Armed Forces and Be Combat Ready.

A few days ago, China has launched the BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System which can guide long range missiles with nuclear war head to hit any target in the US.  

Although US President Trump is a stupid idiot but I do not think he is mad enough to declare war on China without US Senate approval.