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I’ve had allot of conversations regarding this topic. Yes there’s a passive battle between USA and China. But that’s normal to have between Empires. One day all Empires that want to continue to exist eventually end up going to war. It’s a Highlander situation at the end of the day there can only eventually be one top Empire. That being said, hot war could be avoided if one Empire is willing to bend the knee to another. I just don’t see China or the USA ever doing that.
There is a political and economic rivalry between
China and the US which in some ways resembles the Cold War, in other ways it is more like the pre-ww1 great power rivalries. I don’t see any evidence that a hot war in likely in the near to medium term unless us politicians really wanted it to happen >

We are each other's biggest trading partners. Never going to let war upset the apple cart. >

There is, however, efforts on both sides to weaken that trade reliance though.
China wants to open up more of the world (especially Africa) to its markets, and the US wants to become less dependent on Chinese products.
But, we're going to probably remain too intertwined to go to war any time in the next 50-100 years. >

Nations do irrational things in times of crisis. I doubt a hotwar is coming aswell, however the CCP has been leaning on nationalism to maintain control over their population for a long while now and I imagine sooner or later they're going to be forced to demonstrate action to support their rhetoric. We saw that China was gearing up for a campaign against Taiwaan, I wonder what the new strategy will be now that those ambitions have been squashed. >

For better or for worse, our economic interdependence will prevent us from getting into a Soviet-style Cold war in the near future. All bets are off if we decouple and the world goes multi-polar. China has their 2049 plan of, essentially, supplanting the US as the world's military and economic hegemon. So they're quite open about playing a long game. >

Can there be a cold war without at least proxy military conflicts? The term was developed specifically to characterize the US/Soviet rivalry and it seems like the word war wouldn't have been part of it if it was just propaganda and economic competition, but also involved arming and training military forces in other countries for proxy wars. >

Valid point. Empires doing what Empires do does not  necessarily mean a Cold War. Take into to mind we have a proxy situation in Korea. North Korea is supported by China, South Korea is supported by USA. >

Very good point about Korea and that conflict has been hotter recently but as far as I know it hasn't approached anything like the US/Soviet supported conflicts of the Cold War. >

It’s just handled differently now. The hotter part of the conflict in Korea already happened. Its namely just saber rattling at this point, propaganda/influence is a import aspect and necessary tool used by all Empires. “Hearts and Mind” initiatives help keep things in line. A good example of this is for every negative thing said about North Korea on our side of things, there’s a positive thing said about it on China’s side. Both sides of Korea are heavily locked into their respective regimes of the Empires over them. >

Absolutely valid. and my initial argument was definitely semantic only because I think there is some value in having clarity through terminology. The propagandizing both internally and through allies is hot and heavy. I'm inclined to argue that it's a little fiercer in countries that have no protection for free speech, but honestly with outlets like OANNN and Newsmax I'm not sure if that argument holds water. >

No and no.
I see more of the status quo; where our governments don't like each other but still just live with each other. >

Yeah, there is never going to be a hot war and there isn't even a Cold War happening.
There is a bit of a rivalry between Economic powers that results in attempts at gaining advantage.
Anyone calling this a Cold War really doesn't understand what a Cold War is. >

The U.S. importa $540 billion dollars worth of goods per year from China. Separately China buys U.S. bonds. An economically healthy United States is good for China. So I think think talk of confict between the U.S. & China is mostly just partisan rhetoric to vilify the opposition.. >

No and no.  China relies on US trade and any war, cold or hot with the US would result in additional reduced food and energy security— not to mention China has a massive demographic problem. >

A lot of confident opinions in here. I wonder how many said a year ago that Russia would never all out attack Ukraine. Personally I believe it’s naïve to say that open war can’t happen. Many of the reasons people give for saying that war can’t happen were true in 1914. Germany and Britain were each other’s biggest trading partners and contemporary opinions of that era believed a general European war to be impossible because of how interlocked the economies of the world powers were. And yet that’s exactly what happened when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in July 14.
The truth is that wars don’t always make sense because nations and governments are made up of people. People who are not perfect, who make mistakes, and can act irrationally. Who’s to say that Xi, who spent his entire career saying Taiwan must be taken back by force if necessary, would never actually make a move. And if a Taiwan invasion or even just a blockade were to happen, regardless of how illogical an open war with China would be, the US might not have much of a choice. >

I don't quite see it that way. There are certainly some major disagreements on policy, especially toward the South China Sea, but the rest is just normal jockeying for influence between world powers. So far there aren't proxy wars bubbling up, and frankly both sides seem to be dead set against getting into that kind of thing anyhow. The economies aren't quite as joined at the hip as they used to be, but there is still an insane amount of trade between the two, which wasn't the case during the original Cold War. The only area where I could see a true Cold War kind of mentality going on is in the cyberspace realms. Both countries have a crazy amount of data they scoop up and they are using that information to fence on policy. >

I think the possibility of the US and China directly going to war is near zero, if not zero.
There’s a variety of ways to think about this…
Try from the Hot War perspective. Assuming nuclear weapon. Both countries have enough nukes to destroy the other. So at a bare minimum, that’s mutually assured destruction.
Ok, assumed no nukes. So who invades who? China won’t invade the US. It doesn’t have a deep sea fleet and has never wanted one. Ok, so the US has to go into China. China’s army is as large. Like 200 million men strong. Also, China’s terrain is brutal. (It’s a lot like Vietnam’s terrain). Assuming a one on one conflict between the US and China… it would be a slog and there’s no guarantee that the US wins against China. 
Ok, other reasons why a hot war is bad: it’s bad for business. China is the world’s “Workshop”. It makes products for the entire planet, including the US. The economic relationship being severed would be devastating for both nations. The only difference now, is China can retool its manufacturing base to build armaments. Where the US has no manufacturing base, or one as big as China’s.
In short: any war with China would be a slog. It would be painful, difficult and expensive. Without any real gain. Never mind the losing of a major trade partner. A war with China benefits no one. >

China is certainly growing a huge blue-water fleet. They’re expanding their power projection capabilities, and building new carriers, large surface combatants, auxilaries, and amphibious transports. The PLAN is arguably already capable of blue-water operations, something they’ll need to blockade Taiwan against Western reinforcements. On top of this, they need something to protect their sea lanes. Compared to the 1980s PLAN, and modern Chinese Navy is significantly more capable, and not just because of technology.
I’m less inclined to think China would invade Taiwan rather than go after the Spratley Islands. That will be their first target, because it would further help them blockade Taiwan, suppress other regional powers, and guarantee direct oil access. >

It's an economic war, and China is winning. China has been stealing intelledtual sedcrets from the West for decades.
Look at how many Chinese agents worked in the offices of our Senators and Congressmen maybe even private businessmen as well.
How much US property is owned by Chinese? And I don't mean American citizens of Chinese extraction.
How many universities and colleges in the US (like UPenn Biden Center) are getting substantial donations from China? Is the US funding any colleges and universities in China?
Now, how many intellectual secrets has the West stolen from China?
Do we have any spies having sex with Chinese government people? >

Cold War… definitely.  
Hot war… not a chance.  
Maybe proxy wars, but not a direct conflict.  
This isn’t a MURICA #1 statement, but there is not a country in the world that comes close to the military power of the US. Nobody would win that war, but whoever fought the US would lose the worst and everyone knows that.  
The play now is to fight proxy wars and use social manipulation to destabilize your enemies from the inside by getting some percentage of them to support far right (or far left) fascism. Usually it’s the right, though, as they make more of a practice out of shielding themselves from reason ands accurate information, which leaves them more susceptible to strong men and charismatic charlatans. >

Pick your heads up. We are definitely not allies. They absorb goodwill and give nothing back. They have a One China / China First policy. >

Unlike our political system, the Chinese are not stupid.  They are gaining world dominance without a shot fired. Why in the world would they put themselves through the monetary and human cost of war and jeopardize what they've gained?  Our politicians, bought and paid for by big business, will talk a big game, but in reality, the almighty dollar will win, and China will continue to grow on our dime. >

No . China isn't even a threat . It is facing severe economic and social problems as well as the worst demographic problem in the world and it's power peaked a decade ago . Whatever succes is shown in china is due to International companies who invested in the Coastal areas and that succes would evaporate when they leave . You still have a large part of chinese society still living in subsistence level economy . 
China have no capacity to rival or compete against U.S . >

Yes it is a cold war, I'm not sure how anyone can deny this. It is obviously different from the US-Soviet Cold War, because America and China are much more economically intertwined (although they are decoupling), but geopolitically they definitely are in a cold war. 
Will there be a hot war? Probably not, but if there was, it would be started by China (probably because of invading Taiwan), because they are the emerging power, if there was a major crisis in China. But there will definitely be proxy conflicts, you might even say the Russo-Ukraine war is one. >

We have learned we need to be less reliant on China. The question is how long a process that will take plus all the powerful US companies operating in China. Computer chips is a huge deal. Set China back who knows how far. I think we will continue to try to pry India to our side. I unfortunately think Modi wants to consolidate power to be the Indian version of Putin. >

For the last 40 years, The US has had a policy of engagement with China, where we thought that through trade, China would join the civilized world. They've done the opposite. Now that we have made China  rich, they are engaging in more oppression of their people, and are threatening Taiwan. China is trying to cut their people off from the outside world, and used covid as an excuse.  It makes sense that US companies should manufacture elsewhere, and that we should stop funding their military plans. It's more of a slow disengagement than a cold war, but we are moving in that direction. >

China lacks the military capability to go toe to toe with the US. Especially after Russia revealed its hand in the Ukrainian "special military operation". But I highly doubt Russia would've stick its neck out for China anyway. 
As for trade and tech, integrated circuitry (chips) is a staple in literally everything and globalised that literally no single country could develop and manufacture chips on their own (including the US). So it's also highly implausible that China would sever trade with the world, and fall 15-20 years behind in technology.