Trump Rolls Out Red Carpet for Xi as China Has NEVER Been Stronger

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So, before we get started, make sure to subscribe to support the show. Alright, let's bust into it. President Trump is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington for Xi's first U.S. State visit and nearly a decade. The two leaders had a lot on the table, tariffs, AI, Taiwan, rare earths, and the broader question of whether the U.S. and China can actually manage their rivalry. Ahead of Xi's arrival, Treasury Secretary Scott Bassant said that the two countries have extended their trade truce until January. Trump personally welcomed Xi at Andrews, the first U.S. President since JFK to receive a foreign counterpart there. There's a literal red carpet rolled out, a state dinner, and the full diplomatic spectacle. But underneath all the pageantry are many more consequential questions. Alice, let's start with the summit itself. Give us your high-level thoughts on what you think she actually wanted to get out of this trip. Also, what do you think Trump is looking for? Well, firstly, thanks so much, Scott. It's great to be here. I want to put this in context. This is the second state visit that Xi has taken to America. The first was in 2015 when President Obama was in the White House, and he's the only Chinese President in history to have two state visits under his leadership. This is, again, is to reiterate how important symbolic this visit is. My sense, and I just actually watched his speech in the White House, is that he came with three main items on the agenda. Number one, he does want an extension or rather a delay on the 14 billion arm sales that was originally intended for Taiwan. This has become, I think, a big issue in China, not spoken about as much in the US context, but certainly in China, it's a prime issue. Number two is an extension, which he did get rather on raeraths and tariffs. Scott Besson just announced the other day. We're going to get a two-month extension on those issues. And number three is the AI issue, which came up more in Xi's speech than Trump's. She was talking about the fact that both countries are leaders in AI and that they have both the capabilities and responsibilities to work together, to put in controls in place for humanity. I think that is quite significant for Xi to come out and say that during his speech. Again, I think this is going to be one of the top issues for the Chinese. For Trump, it's a bit more simple, and here I really refer to the geopolitical impulse that Trump has. He hasn't had a great year, as you know, Scott, on the foreign policy front. The Middle East is a mess. We've got Brent North of a hundred diesel prices are flaring, not just in the States, but globally for American allies. So he needs a win on China, and he needs to show that this bilateral relationship is good and stable and friendly under his leadership. That, I think, is his main murderous operandi going into the summit. So Xi's position looks very different than in 2017. Xi has now a major player in AI, EVs, renewables, robotics, advanced manufacturing and even space. How much. It strikes me that the balance of power is dramatically different. Coming on that. Yeah. I mean, I ran the numbers, actually, from Xi's last visit, state visit in 2015 with Obama. The GDP, nominal GDP has doubled from around 11 trillion to 20, north of 20 trillion today. And the defense budget spending has almost doubled. China isn't, as you mentioned, Scott, in a very different position economically, militarily, geopolitically and technologically than it was in 2017 and even 2015. And that changes, I think, the balance of power in the relationship. It means that right now, compared to 2017, the relationship looks more like peer competitors as opposed to the US being clearly the dominant figure. And I think is what is motivating Xi to again address the relationship very much in terms of these two leading partners, these two leading powers that decide the fate of the universe of the planet. That is very different rhetoric from 2017 or in 2015. And one last thing that I will end on, which is that compared to 2017, China has found a way to achieve a degree of supply chain resiliency and really a rerout trade so that it is not as asymmetrically exposed to US sanctions, to US tariffs, to US technological export controls. That, I think, has been a big quantum shift in the relationship and means that China is less likely to make concessions than it did say in 2017. We have a tendency. And one of the stats that I always think about is that in Europe, TV or BBC or whatever the local kind of iconic network is, spends about 70% of the show talking about international and 30% talking about domestic politics and in the US, it's flipped. We have a tendency to look at everything through the lens of how Americans feel about it, what it means for America. So what I want to do is I want to go through some kind of hot topics and have you talk, speak to these issues from a Chinese to a Chinese lens. First, let's talk about the war in Iran. It strikes me, well, one, what is China's position on it and two, the thesis I would prefer to you is that the biggest winner in this war is not the IRGC repelling a superpower. It's pretty easy to agree. It's probably not going to be America. It feels like the biggest winner hands down is China here. What is China's view on the war there and what is it meant for them in terms of how it's played out? I would look at it across a number of domains. Firstly, China doesn't like geopolitical instability, especially affecting energy. It is an energy dependent country unlike the Americans. It imports a great deal, you know, almost half of its net gas and oil from the Middle East largely through the Strait of Hormuz, so it is quite exposed on that front. But it's shown that it has enough buffer through strategic reserves and stockpiling to withstand that. There's that energy piece where it is somewhat vulnerable, but it has found work around to protect itself. In that regard, it doesn't like the conflict. On the geopolitical front, I think in general, this is going to be great for China if we extend it to medium to long-term, because it means that now or not only do the Middle East potential partners in the region, here I'm talking about Saudi Arabia. I'm talking about the UAE, I'm talking about Qatar. They are going to be questioning whether or not they should put all their eggs in one basket, whether it regards the America relationship. And here again, I suspect that there's going to be more bilateral trade investment flows between China and Middle East golf partners that Chinese technology companies will fare well, that Chinese AI stack will be preference to some extent by these partners, and that that's going to be a big geopolitical, call it technological trade when for China. And the third issue I think will also be a good point in China's favor, which is the allies around the Middle East, here I think about the European Union, I think or so about other energy dependent Asian allies to the Americans, South Korea, some extent Japan, Australia, they're going to be re-looking at their relationship with the Americans, because they are, right, they're wrongly blaming the oil supply shock on the Americans, and they will believe that more now, more than ever, they need to find workarounds either by improving the relationship with China, as you've seen, Kanye's done that, the Australians have done that, or by setting up, you know, multilateral frameworks without the Americans here, I point to EU plus Canada talks, for instance. So in general, I think if we zoom out beyond this year, call it the next two years or more, geopolitically trade-wise, technology-wise, this is going to be great for China, and it's probably is a negative point to the Americans. - It's just staggering when you think about. It's a pretty short path to figuring out that every nation must be thinking about how they diversify away from fossil fuels into renewables, not only for economic reasons, but for defense reasons. And what are the stats now? 70% of global EVs, 80% of solar panels, 80% of windmills all produced in China. It just feels as if they are exactly in the right place at exactly the right moment. - Yeah, I didn't even mention that. You completely spot on correct Scott. The one of the big industry or sector winners of this conflict is a Chinese green tech. You're seeing in a number of countries, the UK, for instance Australia, Chinese companies are coming at top three. I wouldn't be surprised that by next year, China's dominating a lot of these countries and the G7 and beyond in the West as the biggest automobile exporter, which who would have thought 10 years ago that that would happen, but here we are. And with oil prices remaining elevated potentially for longer, this really incentivizes your consumer to shift towards cheaper Chinese EVs and hybrids. - Do the same for the war in Ukraine now. What is China's view on it? What's their perspective and their role in it? - So here I sense within China and the elite circles, there is a lot of constanation and conflict because again, this is based on regular travels to China talking to people closer to policy. My sense is that President Xi Jinping has invested a lot personally in this relationship with Putin in Russia that some elites in China may not agree with the extent to which he has hitched himself to the Russia cart. But the Chinese also don't want to give up on what they consider to be a strategic partner in the region, mainly a partner that is distracting the West, Europe, call it an America, from focusing or fixating too much on China as the threat. There has been a level I do believe of cooperation in some categories and aspects of dual use technologies here. I point to trucks to drone parts even though the Chinese categorically deny it. But I do think that that relationship, even you expand it to semiconductors to other technological devices, has been designed to help the Russians withstand some parts of the conflict or find workarounds because, as you know, a lot of countries have put in export restrictions and sections on Russia. If I zoom out, I don't think that Chinese, even though they talk about wanting to be involved in a multilateral peace deal or frameworking, that they want to be too involved in this. They have their own crosses to bear, so to speak. They're fixated on East Asia, mainly the Taiwan question, making sure that they have supply chain resilience, technological wherewithal and dominance in the arena, militarily across the Taiwan Strait. So I don't suspect that China will invest more than it currently has. I think we've reached the status quo. We won't see any more commitments from the Chinese, but I will again reiterate the fact that she and Putin have a very close relationship. She is met with Putin more than any other leader, foreign leader in his time in office. So that shows you the extent to which the two committed partners. - Talk a little bit about Taiwan. My understanding is one of the informal agreements coming out of the summit is that the US is going to delay arms shipments to Taiwan and exchange for an agreement on AI, which feels to me entirely asymmetric that we're, that we didn't ask China. I mean, my understanding is indirectly China or directly is China helping Iran and their war with the US. And meanwhile, we're cutting off defensive supplies or what I think would largely be used as defensive, defensive arms to Taiwan. One, give us a sense for how amenable or not amenable certain aspects of the population in Taiwan. What is their complexion towards China? And two, if and if and when you think there's some sort of invasion, you know, acquiescence, joining at the hip, whatever it might be, I get the sense it's not going to be a hot war here. Give us some nuance that we lack around China's ambitions with respect to Taiwan. - Yeah, I agree that swapping Taiwan for AI controls is a very asymmetric deal. I doubt that that happens. I think it is in the US's interest to some extent to delay the 14 billion that they promised in arms sales to Taiwanese because remember Scott, you know, we're in this world in which many conflicts coexist and American munitions, as well as arms are being depleted in the Middle East conflict. So my understanding is that there is a delay partially because of what's happening in Iran. I do think that on the Taiwan issue that people in the West are very fixated on the analogy of what's happening in Iran or what's happening in Ukraine. But, you know, you've got to understand China and the context of its own political and intellectual context. And the Chinese looked to 1997, 1997 as a success story of peaceful handover of Hong Kong to the mainland. If you recall, this was the British government handing over effectively through political means. Hong Kong has a special administrative region to the mainland. And I do still believe that in elite circles in China, that is what they hope to do, that there is some kind of a political negotiation and deal whereby Taiwan becomes a Hong Kong 2.0. The things change a little bit when we think about American power relative to China, especially if you buy the idea that America is in decline, and then American deterrence is in question, which is something that we are actively debating as you know, Scott and the West. Even then, I don't think that Trump is the same kind of risk taking profile as say a Putin. He and the short term will be incentivized to help or you know, through political interference or through a rhetorical spot. The KMT party, if you recall, the KMT tends to be the more pro- mainland pro-cross-street relations party. They haven't been party for quite a bit. There is an election early in 2028. And the Chinese and the short term, I think, are putting most of their eggs in the basket of trying to get them re-elected. The odds are not high, pretty slim. I think they're still in the favor of the opposing incumbent party, the DPP in Taiwan. But in the short term, that means that the Chinese are focused on political tactics as opposed to military ones. Beyond that, I think it really is an open-ended question and will rest quite heavily on what Chinese perceive to be American military capabilities in the region and deterrence credibility. And if Trump shows that he is willing to give over Taiwan to say something else that comes down the line, maybe, or not only maybe then, will I think China act? The good thing about being president for life in shoes cases that you have the luxury of time. He's about, he's 72 this year. I believe that he will want to obviously renew the next five years at the next party congress in October, 2027, that gives him a bit more runway. The Taiwanese have understood for quite some time that they can't 100% rely on the Americans. And so they've been finding workarounds in terms of weapons from Europeans, for instance, from other partners in South Korea and Japan to try to bolster their defense capabilities. I think they've also been quite smart to make sure that they are still a porcupine in the sense that 90% of high-end chips are still made by one company, largely TSMC in Taiwan. This is the high-end under 3 nanometer-nile chips. This means that if Taiwan falls, it's not just the U.S. falling, it's the global economy effectively. You look at the way the S&P's constructed the AI cat-backs. It all is heavily reliant on TSMC being able to continue to produce chips. So the Taiwanese are banking that that alone will help them ensure that there is some degree of deterrence from the West. It strikes me that America may not be the decider here. And that is even if Trump were to say, I don't care about Taiwan, I respect you. She, Green Flag, have at it. You don't need to worry about us coming to Taiwan's rescue. That may not be enough because, or the link I would make, and I'm curious if you see the same link, is that every success on the battlefield by Ukraine sends a pretty strong signal to China that a sophisticated, motivated, small army that is technically deft can create a lot of havoc for an invading army. And then I look at all my YouTube and TikTok videos of how an invasion might play out of Taiwan. It would be really ugly, at least all the scenarios I've seen for the invading force. Also, a fact I didn't fully appreciate. There isn't a single person in the two or three or whatever is five million strong Chinese military that has a single day of combat experience. That I just wonder if what's happened in Ukraine has really reduced the likelihood of a hot war, a military invasion? My sense is yes. In the short term, they look to that and they look at the fact that the short war is a fallacy. I mean, if we think about Ukraine, we think about Iran, some of the markets, as you know, Scott, people in the business like to think this is going to be over and done because it's a way too costly for both sides to continue. But there is a, you know, you go back to classmates. There is a center of gravity that leads towards conflicts going on for a longer period of time until either or both parties' political will dies. And my sense is to your point, Scott, that an amphibious assault is going to be way harder, and you talk to anyone smart on this issue in the military or in military circles. It's way harder than a land invasion or incursion, because here you've got to make sure that you've got enough troops to land on what is quite a rocky promontory at the cliff side facing, from Taiwan facing the mainland, to make sure that they're entrenched enough to allow for the safe convoy of ships and PLA onto Taiwanese soil. You've also got multiple actors in the region, remember you've got South Korea, you've got Japan. This may force Japan to nuclearize in terms of its defense capabilities fairly quickly. The smart people on the street are saying that the Japanese have reduced their lead times to get basically nuclear weapons to a couple of weeks, not a month. So this, again, is something to take into consideration. It's not going to be an easy conflict. The Chinese haven't launched a major military conflict since the Vietnam War, when the Americans left in the late '70s. There was a remember sign of Vietnamese border conflict, and they are getting rid of their top brass military officials through the latest perches. So all these signs point to the fact that I think in the short term, the Chinese are banking more in the political movement, political manipulations, interference, as opposed to military moves. Now, they will continue to do the military exercises to, again, show the Taiwanese, they show the hand of force and to show the Americans and the Japanese and Koreans. But I just don't think, given what is happening all around the world, that the Chinese think this is a good time and that they have the ability to make this a swift victory. I mean, is that one of the lessons of China's success story is that war is just a bad idea? I mean, I mean, I look at, I think you could argue one of the best arguments against to make the case against ever going to war is China, arguably the most successful society and economy of the last 50 years. And what is central to that? They just don't go to war. Yeah, they're not spending a lot of their treasure and blood on foreign conflicts. And that is, I think, one of the historical lessons that the Chinese have basically learnt from the Americans and the British before that is any imperial overreach that costs you blood and treasure is probably not worth the squeeze. You go back to Chinese imperial history. Again, the Chinese don't tend to launch foreign conquests. They tend to have a tributary system in which countries come to them and offer them riches in exchange for Chinese trade. In the case, it was silicon spices and porcelain. The only time China really had history of military conflict was the Mongols coming in and capturing China becoming sinusized effectively, becoming the Yuan dynasty. So to your point, Scott, the Chinese understand their history. They look to their own history in the West. And they just do not believe that conflict, unless it can be achieved intelligently swiftly is worth the squeeze. Hong Kong is a great example of this. They did not send in PLA troops in 1997 to take over Hong Kong. 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Synced with my kids, Nanny, who's with them throughout the day, so I can be here talking to you on Raging Moderates. It is absolutely incredible. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendar by going to myskylight.com/moderates. Go to myskylight.com/moderates for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That is m-y-s-k-y-l-i-g-h-t.com/moderates. We're in the AI era. For agents, access data, use tools, make decisions, and automate work across the enterprise. One, the CrowdStrike helps solve. CrowdStrike. We secure AI. We stop reaches. Let's return to AI, which may be the most consequential part of the relationship. This week, Bernie Sanders, Senator Sanders introduced a bill to ban artificial superintelligence and establish a cabinet-level agency to regulate AI. We also saw the FBI get hacked by an AI agent. The US and China are competing intensely to lead in this space, but both governments are also increasingly worried about what the technology can do. Do you think there's an opportunity here can the two countries cooperate on AI safety while also continuing to be fierce competitors? They can talk about cooperating while not cooperating. That is what I think will end up happening. They will both say, "Hey, we're going to work towards humanity because we're the two main powers pretty much, I would say, most of the AI capabilities at this point." This will be great for world peace and for our bilateral relationship. I do know for a fact that there are some members of the US administration, here I point to Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, who I think would want the legacy of being a Kissinger on AI arms controls in the way that Kissinger and his excesses were over the salt nuclear talks between the Soviets and the Americans. But he is fighting an uphill battle because both Trump and certain key members around him still believe that AI regulations a bad thing, we should allow innovation at all costs. As a result, we're unlikely to see the kind of regulations needed to even help a bilateral governance structure. Then I go to the Chinese side where it's almost kind of the polar opposite. The Chinese care a lot about regulation, especially domestically. We've seen them as a first mover on a lot of deep fake AI technologies, just recently they announced legislation that's put into law about regulating AI agents because they don't want them to be rogue or amorphous or anonymous agents. They need to have a registration with the Chinese government. There is concern of these misalignment in AI. There's going to be draft regulation, I think, coming down the pipeline in the coming year or so, to mitigate those risks internally because now we've taken the we've opened the Pandora box in terms of these rogue autonomous agents. We just saw this hack from open AI into Australian Medicare health care records. That's probably the first major open AI hack into a foreign government. So the Chinese are very concerned and want to regulate and they want to say that they're working with the Americans, but neither side is willing to agree on a framework. Even though I think the low hanging fruit is for them to come together and talk about some level of arms controls or controls over what they call CBR and risks here are point to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear risks that may be attendant to the use of AI or AI agents. That would be a low hanging fruit, but I don't think we get there until we have some major biological disaster or call it AI version of COVID, COVID 2.0. Only then will we see, I think both sides forced to take a stance, but we're in this very difficult situation where it's all rhetoric and no substance. So you're, I mean, I'm in again, I might be naive here, but I thought maybe similar to where we cooperate around nuclear weapons and bio weapons that this might be an opportunity to reconnect some tissue between China and the U.S. and then there's a pretty strong van overlap of interests around whether it's, you know, our teens getting depressed or a middle power rising to build a nuclear weapon much faster than we'd like, that there's a lot of areas for cooperation that not symbolically, but tangibly would make sense for us to report to one another, you know, accidents, coordinate, go after bad guys together. certain aspects of technology, you think that's mostly going to be hand-waving. It's unlikely to result in anything tangible. Well, you understand human history and human psychology. Scott, most of the people who were very passionate about nuclear arms controls had lived through experience what we're to, had seen what nuclear weapons do. And again, I call me a cynic or an old person. I just don't think we get there until we see some major accident. It could be biological. It could be chemical and nuclear. And then it will force the two main superpowers and AI to come together and issue some kind of governance structure. Because the Chinese, none of them are incentivized to lead on global AI governance. And then one party here and talked about the Americans don't even care that much about AI regulation. Even if Bernie Sanders is calling for it, the key person, Trump, doesn't really believe in it. And we'll have to wait until we see a major incident, which is sad. So the big political story this week is Trump's fight with the press. A federal judge ordered the White House to restore access for CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, calling the ban likely and constitutional. Major TV networks also declined to film Xi's arrival. Do you know how you think this is this press man is landing with the Chinese? Well, it hasn't really gotten that much coverage at mainland, to be honest. They've, in most of the mainland coverage is about how, you know, she is a strong leader coming to America. This is the second state visit he's had in under his leadership that he's coming and the two countries will have, you know, want to ensure AI peace and stability. That has been the main sort of coverage of the issue. Some discussion about Taiwan. I think it's kind of flown over the heads of most Chinese people, but I will say, and here I'm pointing to the midterms, that that Chinese media and sort of call it the intellectual elite, understand that after the midterms, Trump's kind of in gridlock, especially if the dams take the house, there will be a lot of impeachment, you know, risks. Maybe nothing really gets done legislatively. And the Chinese are hoping that that take some oxygen or air out of any kind of attempt to, you know, launch legislation against China. And there's some discussion going back to AI, I think, quite early day discussion about how do the Americans make sure that China isn't using offshore data centers training. Basically, it's models on chips in Southeast Asia and the Middle East that they get access to via those data centers, there's also discussion about whether or not they can legislate restrictions on American companies using open source models coming out of China. I think the Chinese hope that if the midterms outcome isn't favorable to Trump, that the domestic issues will be so dominant that there won't be a lot of legislative actions against the Chinese. This week, AOC teased again that she's running. JB Prisker shares his weight loss journey in Kamala Harris was campaigning with Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed. What is running or what do you think is running through the mind of the Chinese thinking about elections in 2028 and the shift that might come from a new political era? For at least a year, every time I go to China, people have said to me, hey, Trump might actually be good for China. And it might be a narrow period of time in which we get what we want. We continue to rise technologically, economically, militarily under his watch because, hey, anyone coming after him, whether it's Rubio or JD Vance on the Republican side or who knows on the Democratic side, any candidate that comes out there, they're going to be harder on us than Trump has been. And I would agree with that assessment. I think we're in a narrow period of time until 2028, where generally speaking, Trump is the biggest dove that China could have asked for in a period in which American politics have largely swayed towards a hawkish position on both sides of the aisle towards China. So if you think about it from the Chinese policy makers vantage point, you're going to try to make the most of that period get the most you can in terms of concessions, get the most you can done without American regulation and oversight. And then the hope that you don't get a super hawkish candidate come 2028, it's such an open field right now. But the Chinese, I think, top level understanding is that anyone taking over from Trump is going to be way more hawkish. Yeah, it's interesting, though, because while Trump is, you know, I don't want to call him pro-China because it's less anti-China, I've always found that in geopolitics and business, you think in business when you want to deal with a dumb partner, I used to think that when I was saying, I can sell my company to a stupid big company or a stupid client will pay me more than, you know, then I should get for the strategy engagement. And what you find is the best partners or the best, not adversaries, but clients, people on the other side of the table are when they're really smart and consistent. That's how you get deals done. And while Trump is more, I guess, benign as the term toward China, I find his policy is so sclerotic and difficult to understand that I would believe, and again, this is reflecting a bias against Trump, that the CCP looks at Trump and says, okay, maybe they like us, maybe they want to slap us on the back, but we can't get anything done with this guy because he doesn't, the counterparty here is inconsistent. And I would argue, not that, not that intelligent. Can I push back on that Scott? Because another way to look at that is, hey, we're not going to get anything done, but he's not going to do anything stupid to, you know, reduce our technological, economic, military rise. He's not going to get the allies aligned to contain China, which was the real risk they've actually saw growing under Biden. He's not going to put in huge, or escalate the sanctions on a further ad sanctions on chips and technologies that will kneecap our domestic industry. They're playing for time. And they're just hoping that the promise of continued glad handing and back slapping will mean that Trump won't take the opposite direction of really going hard on China, exercising all of American power to do so and allied power. Because as you know, Scott, so many of these allies, you know, Karni, even to some extent, the Europeans are just fed up with what Trump is doing in Europe, in the Middle East globally. And like, it's kind of crazy, the way in which Germany is letting China eat its lunch with this massive, and Europe too, massive trade surplus. But that is because of the geopolitics of it all. They do not want to completely alienate Chinese because they can't trust the Americans either. I mean, it's in the biggest gift to China, not Trump's relationship with them, but his frank relationship with all these allies who would have never previously considered working with China. Yeah. And the global South countries too, which China sees increasing. I don't think the West, people in the West, because there is a naval gazing bias, think too much about the global South, you know, the Southern hemisphere countries. You got pretty big heavy hitting players in the form of Brazil, South Africa, India. They all have demography and GDP growth on their side. They are going to be, you know, they're 40% of GDP now, like 60 or 70% of population. They are pretty much the future of the planet. Because people in the West are just not having babies and growth is slowing down. And the Chinese are hoping that with the global South's rise, if they look to America being in decline, then, you know, hey, buying more Chinese EVs is not a bad thing or buying China's AI open source models or data centers or cloud companies is not a bad thing. That gives them a huge, even though the market looks small now in the global South, they have time and growth on this side. Are you a pet owner? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill over a thousand dollars. Always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats. According to ConsumerAdvocate.org, you get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the US and Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to FetchPet.com/save right now for your free quote. That's FetchPet.com/save. 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So you delegate the work and on the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the AMLA 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI, tailored for law. Learn more at Harvey.ai Who do you think the Chinese least want to see get the nomination on other side of the oil? Oh, of the people and here I want, I defer to you who you think are the credible candidates on the downside. I'm not yet sure, although for the record, I'm a big fan of ourselves. Don't ask me why, on the Republican side, on the Republican side, you like that, you like that Kennedy energy, you like Hot Lanter. Yeah, a little bit. It's more JFK junior energy than JFK. Fair enough. Fair enough. I think a lot of people feel that way. But on the Republican side, I think they worry about a Rubio who has a discipline and the focus and historically has been very anti-China, even before it was fashionable. That I think would be the most worrying one. JD Vance is also worrying, but to a different degree because, remember, he's also more of a protectionist. He doesn't want to be involved in foreign campaigns. I think Rubio is probably that prime fear. But who do you think on the downside? Well, I need a giant asterisk here because the candidates I have supported in order. I had a Mondale poster in my fraternity room. Then I supported Ducakis. I went door to door for Hillary Clinton. I supported and through fundraisers for Michael Bennett. I have the worst track record picking candidates. So what I defer to is the following. The Democratic primary process is this unbelievable, unpredictable process that produces a warrior. I think of it as like Navy SEALs training. You just don't know who's going to get through it. You don't know who's up for eating fried snickers at a aisle with fair and not looking ridiculous who can hold their own with a hostile press corps, who can get on stage and deflect gotcha moments from cable news networks looking to make them look stupid, who can raise a shit ton of money. I mean, just to give you a sense for some of the candidates who are pulling number one on the Republican side, you're too young to remember these guys. But Fred Thompson from law and order was pulling number one. Herman Cain, Rudy Giuliani, and two people who didn't even register weren't even in the polls at this point in the Democratic process. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. So the process when we let it run not only services the right person, but the right person for the moment. So, you know, I like, I think we're a highly-look system sexist country. So I think AOC and Newsom in my mind have a real shot because I think people just are drawn, us off. I think people are really drawn to that. Uplet portrait camera profile. So I think that there's, and again, I'm biased here. I think that the Democratic, the one thing I will say, I think the Democratic bench is stronger than it's ever been. Well, no Michael Jordan has emerged. We have eight Scotty Pippens. We just have, I think eight or nine, whereas I think the Republican side is not nearly as deep. I don't think the bench is nearly as deep. I think you kind of, you go, "Vance, unlike a bull, rubio-qualified." And then like, who's third? It's like when you compare, we talk about London and New York, two best cities in the world. Everything's fighting. Everything's a distant number, three in my view. I just don't, I don't think there is deep on the Republican side. Anyways, that's my, it's a long-winded way, Alice is saying, I don't know, and I've never been able to figure this one out. If you had to speculate where the relation where U.S.-China relations are in ten years, someone said, I thought the best description was, we're not in a cold war, we're in a cold peace. Do you think there's a thaw? Do you think things get worse or do you think things mostly get sideways? If you had to say, right, sitting here in ten years, when I'm interviewing Alice Hanigan, hopefully, where do you think we are? I think a lot of it, this is why 2028 Maddars is predicated on who's in the White House after Trump, because that will set the course for call at the next five, maybe even ten years if they get two terms. Then I would say that we end up with a kind of understanding between the two of my, my, my senses co-opitation, but there will be in certain areas, more conflict and here I'm pointing to supply chain areas, technology areas, even potentially military areas, generally because China doesn't want to see major flare up in the relationship. It is happy to some extent with the status quo of this kind of managed peace or co-opitation because it allows them to continue growing their economy and their technology stack. The Americans, I think, are facing, you know, multiple conflicts around the world in Europe and the Middle East. I don't think it's in their incentive to flare up conflict in Asia, but who am I to say this? I'm not an American expert. I do think, however, and this is the sort of bare case call it, beyond co-opitation, there will be a center of gravity in Congress and the Senate, regardless of who's president, to see China as this long term strategic threat. And they may use legislation aimed at curtailing Chinese AI, Chinese robotics in the same way that they have put tariffs on 100% tariffs on Chinese EVUs to obstruct them in the same way they put export restrictions on chips going to China. I think we're going into a new call it tech world 2.0, which is going to be launched by the Americans to try to contain China's technological rise. Beyond that, the big question mark is going to be Taiwan. In here, if I were to bet, I don't think we get a Taiwan invasion, you know, in 10 years time, Scott, when we talk. But this will be the damacles saw that continues to hang over the relationship and create some degree of disturbance and destabilization. But I do not think we end up with hot war proxy conflicts. We end up with this kind of somewhat stable co-opitation framework, but with periods in which, you know, there's intense legislation and restrictions on technology, maybe some areas of trade and supply chain. Let's end on a thunder note, Chinese cars. I have an owned a car in five years, and I'm sort of jonesing for a car, and so I'm getting served all these videos about cars. And you can't help but watch these videos on some of the models coming out of China right now. And I believe that there's a real non-zero probability that the US is no longer an automobile manufacturer in 10 years. I just look at the way I would describe it is I want to get a, you know, an SUV. The right now China is producing the equivalent of a Range Rover that would cost $120,000 for $50,000, and they accept it's faster and has longer range and it's better engineering, and has more technology. I got into a BYD when I was in Brazil, and I thought, wow, I thought it was a Tesla model Y, and I said, wow, this is nice. And I said, and then I realized I saw the logo on it. Costum $16,000. I mean, this isn't incremental gains, and eventually no matter how many tariffs you put up, eventually you have to face global competition. Chinese cars, I am absolutely blown away by the price to quality ratio of these things. Any thoughts on advanced manufacturing and the Chinese automobile industry? Yeah, I just reluctant the numbers for Chinese total auto sales in the first quality eight months of a year. And what people don't really understand is, yes, we've had record sales exports of Chinese vehicles, but that over 50% of those sales actually have been in regular ICE cars. People have this, I think, still illusion that China is an EV superpower. But China is also, you know, exporting a shit ton of, forgive my French, ICE. So, you know, combustible vehicles that use, yeah, yeah. And that changes the game because now for the first time in countries like where I'm from in Australia, China is like the top two exporting countries and still now just behind, but very minorly so are the Japanese. It's not going to be long before China is the biggest car exported to most countries in the world, both EVs and hybrids and ICEs. So we're going to live in a world in which we are driving BWIDs and cherries. Iran has made that, I think, a more palatable future for a lot of these countries in the West because the price just speaks for itself. I was also, maybe this is what my feed is becoming. I was just seeing a video of an RV van, a Chinese version where it sort of, or you can basically live, sleep, watch TV, do hot part, do all kinds of things in the space, the equivalent of the size of a small RV or an SUV. Everything folds out so you can sleep on the top bunk. It's incredible just the design and ingenuity. But we are living in a future where China is now an auto superpower and that is not something we would have expected a decade ago. So I wouldn't be surprised if maybe you were a car or some of these other people end up driving some BWID in the near dot to distant future because that is the future that we're living in. And one flip side to that, which I don't think people understand, is that the cheap EVs are at a cost to the Chinese economy because remember in order to get those cheap EVs, the country needs to massively subsidize the sector. You know, a lot of these companies are not making profits. They have to price cut to compete domestically. So, you know, we're hollowing out parts of the Chinese economy. We're making sure that it's less likely that it will successfully rebalance in the way that it wants to. At the cost of creating these huge, cheap EV cars. And then the next thing to watch, maybe I think we'll be discussing this Scott in 10 years, is that robots will be the new EVs China is going to super, you know, is going to just flood the world with not just humanoid robots, but other parts of the robotic installation system that I think is going to be a trend that we're going to be talking about in a decades time. Alice, we were talking about Democratic candidates in the term that's thrown around a lot, is generational talent. Mamdani, AOC, Assoff, because they are so talented for their age. I think you are a generational talent in geopolitics. I think our listeners would be frightened to know how young you are. I just love listening to you. You are one of the fastest hours in podcasting. Really appreciate your time today. Thanks, Scott. I'm hoping that I'll keep disrupting the sector of all white men. So thanks for giving me the opportunity. Have out it. That's where Odo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform, no messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Try for free today at odu.com/vox. That's oduo.com/vox. 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