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Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China has deteriorated since July 1997. Yet, for more than 150 years, colonial Hong Kong and China not only coexisted with but benefited each other. This Element shows how the porous boundary between Hong Kong and China defies many assumptions about nationalism, colonialism, and decolonization.

This Element presents an overarching analysis of Chinese visions and practices of soft power. Maria Repnikova's analysis introduces the Chinese theorization of the idea of soft power, as well as its practical implementation across global contexts. The key channels or mechanisms of China's soft power examined include Confucius Institutes, international communication, education and training exchanges, and public diplomacy spectacles. The discussion concludes with suggestions for new directions for the field, drawing on the author's research on Chinese soft power in Africa.

Many believe the recent deterioration in US-China relations represents a 'New Cold War' rooted in ideological differences. However, such differences did not prevent the two countries from pursuing economic integration and geopolitical cooperation in the 1990s and 2000s. Ho-fung Hung argues that what underlies the change in US-China relations is the changing relationship between US-China corporations. Following China's slowdown after 2010, state-backed Chinese corporations turned increasingly aggressive when they expanded in both domestic and global markets. This was at the expense of US corporations, who then halted their previously intense lobbying for China in Washington. Simultaneously, China's export of industrial overcapacity has provoked geopolitical competition with the United States. The resulting dynamic, Hung argues, resembles interimperial rivalry among the great powers at the turn of the twentieth century.

In less than half a century (1978-2020), China has transformed itself from a country that barely fed itself to a powerful player in the global food system, characterized by massive food imports, active overseas agricultural engagement, and the global expansion of Chinese agribusiness. This Element offers a nuanced analysis of China's global food strategy and its impacts on food security and the international agri-food order. To feed a population of 1.4 billion, China actively seeks overseas agri-food resources whilst maintaining a high level of domestic food production. This strategy gives China an advantageous position in the global food system, but it also creates contradictions and problems within and beyond the country. This could potentially worsen global food insecurity in the long term.

How did Hong Kong transform itself from a 'shoppers' and capitalists' paradise' into a 'city of protests' at the frontline of a global anti-China backlash? CK Lee situates the post-1997 China-Hong Kong contestation in the broader context of 'global China.' Beijing deploys a bundle of power mechanisms - economic statecraft, patron-clientelism, and symbolic domination - around the world, including Hong Kong. This Chinese power project triggers a variety of countermovements from Asia to Africa, ranging from acquiescence and adaptation to appropriation and resistance. In Hong Kong, reactions against the totality of Chinese power have taken the form of eventful protests, which, over two decades, have broadened into a momentous decolonization struggle. More than an ideological conflict between a liberal capitalist democratizing city and its Communist authoritarian sovereign, the Hong Kong story, stunning and singular in its many peculiarities, offers lessons about China as a global force. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.