Strategic competition

And the whole rest of the world, including the West, including the United States, is going to have to do something to make some... absolutely fundamental change to their society and their forms of government to try and keep up with that.

But if we don't live in that future, if we don't live in that timeline, and I think you're right that we don't, if they're just going to be a developing middle income country that has, you know, again, a communist, Leninist party state system, then the shape of strategic competition looks completely different.

It's like, okay, there are specific sectors that matter.

You're going to have to, you want to be able to build your own rare earth magnets or whatever.

And it's the trajectory that matters.

Yes.

And the whole point is that if you think that this is fundamentally changed over the last few years, but that China hasn't really adjusted their strategy, that is a moment of opportunity in which you can actually negotiate over a different kind of managed decoupling of the global economy and a relaxation of strategic competition, because both sides basically think that things are going very well for them.

Um, at the same time.