On the production of hidden-flavored hadronic states at high energy

Abstract: I discuss the production mechanism of hidden-flavored hadrons at high energy. Using $e^+e^-$ collisions and light-meson pair production in high energy exclusive processes, I demonstrate that hidden quark pairs do not necessarily participate in short-distance hard scattering. Implications are then explored in a few examples. Finally, I discuss the production mechanism of $X(3872)$ in hadron collisions, where some misunderstandings have arisen in the literature.