Stephen Kotkin

The only reason China has Hong Kong is because after World War II, when Truman announced that Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists were going to accept the Japanese surrender in Hong Kong, the British sent their boats in and took Hong Kong back themselves.

so that when Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek, he didn't have Hong Kong.

The British had Hong Kong and they created this international financial system that Mao's successors would be able to use.

Had the British not done this, there would be no Hong Kong and there would be no Chinese miracle.

in the Deng Xiaoping and after period.

The other thing they have is they have overseas Chinese who know the culture, speak the language, and are going to do the FDI.

Again, routed through Hong Kong.

So you have Taiwan.

So ironically, the failure to win the civil war 100%,

We think of the Korean Peninsula as divided.

We think of this partition of the Korean Peninsula.

But China is also partitioned.

There's also Taiwan, still partitioned to this day.

And Taiwan is the FDI that's going to come in through Hong Kong, routed through into the special economic zones on a risk-reward capitalist market basis, not a communist basis.

And furthermore, they have the Japanese war guilt.

because the Japanese committed those atrocities in China.

So the Japanese are going to make up for what they did.

by helping rebuild China.

Again, the FDI and the tech transfer, like it's coming from Taiwan.

So Taiwan and Japan, this partitioned China and this guilty, the war guilt, through the British Hong Kong is going to go into the special economic zones, manufacture things like the Japanese, and then export them to the American domestic consumers.