Counting The Ways Trump’s China Trip Is Likely to Go Off The Rails

sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other undisclosed locations

across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to Deep State Radio, I am David Roscoff, you're host in this week. We're here to talk a little bit about the President's trip to China, with us, of course, we have Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law Center, how are you doing today, Rosa? I'm good, David, is that a Chinese communist vase you have behind you in the history?

Yes, in fact, that is a Chinese Communist Party vase behind me, I discovered it in my mother's old storage unit and it has a beautiful picture of Chairman Mao inspecting the troops. Well, that ought to be a source of great pride for you and your family.

We also have prepared to celebrate our new Chinese overlords, I thought it would be an appropriate

small gesture of respect. No, no, no, no, you're good thinking.

“That's why people are tuning in to find out how we're supposed to behave around them.”

And we also have with us our friend, Ali Wein, who is Senior Research and Advocacy Advisor on U.S. China at the International Crisis Group, Ali reports on an analysis developments of U.S. policy towards China in the U.S. Congress and in the executive branch, Harry doing Ali. I'm doing well.

Thanks very much for having me. It's good to be back. It's great to have you back. And so, let's do some expectations setting here, and Ali, we will go with you.

First, the President, as we record this, is in Beijing.

He's got a group of more than a dozen, you know, billionaires traveling with him and keeping with the themes of the administration, including many who are very influential in the tech sector. I heard that the President is spending the night at the four seasons hotel in Beijing,

“lovely place, been there myself, at course, what matters most, although, you know, usually”

he's up all night posting things on social media, that doesn't seem to be case tonight. What matters most is, of course, what his meetings start in the morning, what are your expectations, Ali? I think I have pretty modest expectations for the summit, and I should be clear, I don't think the modest, I'm not using modest in a pejorative sense.

I've spoken to a number of folks who say that the less eventful the meeting is probably the better. So I think what can we reasonably expect? I think that President Trump wants to maintain a congenial working relationship with President Xi, so I think we'll be watching to see how their interpersonal dynamics, I would

imagine that the two leaders would extend the trade troops that they agreed to in South Korea this past October. I hope that they make some agreement at least rhetorically to coordinate more closely and more intentionally to de-escalate the crisis in the Middle East, but I wouldn't expect major moves on a number of other issues that have been broached as potential areas of conversation.

I don't think we'll see an official change of U.S. policy on Taiwan. If there is a conversation around AI guardrails, I can't imagine that it would really go beyond

“nascent stages, so I think that if the two leaders agree to have a not too eventful”

in some of it, we don't have major surprises, I would consider the meeting not a best case scenario, but not a worst case scenario either, so I think I've modest expectations. Well that sounds like what a lot of people are saying, whereas in my own expectations are kind of fluffy on the outside juicy on the inside, and by that I mean, you know, kind of what Ali was talking about on the outside, everybody's going to want it to look good,

be positive, and so on and so forth, nice photo ops, Trump likes she, she likes to well make it looks like he likes Trump, and you know, behind the scenes who knows what's going to happen, because a lot on the Taiwan could be what is said, what isn't said, a wink and a nod, this isn't important, you know, a lot can be communicated in that kind of thing, and I think while there'll be announcements of some deals on some soybeans and

some airplanes, what's really going to be important is sort of the deals on the down low on things like AI, and of course, because they are really at the vanguard of U.S.

government, but we do have Don Jr. and Eric, and so I suspect some of the juicy bits will

be things we never know about that benefit Don Jr. and Eric. Anyway, that's my take on

this. I wrote a column on this the other day for the Daily Beast, in which I said, this week, a summit will take place between the world's most powerful man and Donald Trump, and that it's kind of the first time a U.S. President had visited Beijing, and it's a remarkable that he wasn't the most powerful leader in the room, and I'm wondering what you think of that premise to begin with?

“I think that premise is absolutely right. I think that for reasons having nothing to do”

with Donald Trump, obviously U.S. power and influence has been declining globally for some time, partly as a result of other powers rising, and as somewhat more level international playing field, under Trump, I think U.S. global influence and power have plummeted. We're right now in a particularly vulnerable position. We're, we're, we appear to be stuck in terms of our conflict with Iran. We don't have an obvious way out. The Iranians don't seem

particularly interested in giving us an easy out. Trump is unpopular at home. We have depleted

our supplies of critical weapons that we need for which we need Chinese control, rare

earth minerals to replenish. Our stockpiles, we are economically weaker, we are militarily more vulnerable, and we are politically entangled in ways that make it difficult for us to focus on any other problem around the globe, even if we had a competent bench of leaders who were likely to be successful at doing that in the first place. So for all kinds of reasons, the United States is a far, far weaker than we were even even three years ago, that's

the weaker than we were a decade ago or 15 or 20 years ago, and the Chinese know that.

“I think that they will do something that they do extremely well, which is hospitality. There”

will be lots of banquets. Everybody we made to feel very important and very special and Donald Trump, we know that that does at least in the near term, work with Donald Trump. So I think everybody will be very happy, but I certainly do not expect that we will get any particular concessions from China if anything, maybe the other way around. It may be, you've tracked on the hill, and for a while China has been one of those issues

where Democrats and Republicans have had a degree of alignment because their China hops on both sides, and having said that, Donald Trump doesn't really seem to care. Before he left for China, he says he doesn't care about the economy, which is kind of a doozy

“of the statement, but in terms of China policy, I think Donald Trump's number one priority”

is that she makes him feel important, and that his number two policy is that nothing or his number two policy go is that nothing happens that makes things worse, because since he took office, almost everything has been going wrong, and so you'll probably get a bunch of statements, all the lines that you said, where they say, we agreed to work together to achieve peace in the Middle East. It won't mean anything, but they will say that,

because the Chinese are on opposite sides for us, or we agree to have more access for you as companies in our markets, and Trump will say, can we announce that you buy billions worth, and Chinese will go, "Yes, sure, we did that the last time, how many billions you want?" And that, of course, they don't actually follow through, they know they don't have to. So, you know, we're kind of good in the Trump era of creating the illusion of

a positive relationship. Do I sound too cynical to you? No, and let me, I'll make two points one, just to underscore, I think the premise of your comments and the premise of roses

intervention, just now I just want to amplify what you both said, and then the second point

is just to try and get a sense of what Trump's animating views are on China policy. The first is, I think that when I think that the United States right now is undertaking competitive sell sabotage. If you're sitting in China right now, and you look at an ill-advised tariff gambit that is boomeranged in China's favor, the fallout from the U.S. War in Iran,

at the beginning of the year. If you look at a U.S. steep tariffs on allies and partners, repeated humiliations of allies and partners, and we can make that list much longer. But the United States, again, it's undertaking competitive sell sabotage, which means from a diplomatic perspective. China doesn't have to assuage the misgivings that our allies and partners have about China's own conduct. China simply has to say to U.S. allies and partners, "Look,

you can call us a bully, but we are predictable." The United States, on the other hand, your erstwhile ally, your erstwhile partner, it is fundamentally now unreliable and unpredictable. And as in life, as in business, in geopolitics, predictability, and stability are very important. And so I think that a lot of allies and partners, they say, "Yes, we will continue de-risking from China. We also, in parallel, have to work as a serious leave, not more to de-risks from the United

States." And I think a contextual point as well, when President Trump made his first official

state visit to China at this point now, almost a decade ago, the Chinese delegation invested an enormous amount of effort to convey the impression that President Xi and President Trump were geopolitical equals the China had arrived as America's most capable and confident competitor. What I'm struck by this time around is the Chinese delegation, excuse me, it doesn't need to invest or doesn't need to make any such effort, not only because of how significantly

China's power has grown in the intervening years, but also because President Trump is the first American commander-in-chief who, of his own volition, has recognized China's a near-peer.

“You'll remember that before the two leaders met in South Korea this past October, it was President”

Trump, unprompted, who said, "The G2 is set to convene." And then, and I think that that

constant kind of gets to the second point that I wanted to make, which is what exactly,

what is President Trump's China policy? For as unpredictable as he is, for as prone to vastly. By the way, that's very charming. I love people who still think he has policies, but keep going. I'll tell you. Hope springs eternal. I should say, maybe he has impulses. He is maybe to be impulses or better. Better. Better, better. I think that's right. Trump's China impulses. His impulses are persuasions. So, it is true. He vaculates a lot. He's very unpredictable,

but there are two, let's say impulses are persuased as if he's that actually are, I think, actually fairly longstanding and actually dating back to his first term. The first of those, which, which David, you were getting at, is he does have a genuine affinity for, for President Xi. And that, that affinity is, is longstanding. And the second, the second impulse or persuasion of his is, I think the most folks in Washington, they take a rather

expansive view, strategic competition between Washington and Beijing. President Trump takes a very narrow view as far as I can tell, a strategic competition. He has, as far as I can tell, two principal grievances against China, the size of its trade surplus and its export of fentanyl precursors. But if you run through the longer list of issues that have long dogged the relationship, Taiwan, China's human rights abuses, the security architecture of

the Indo-Pacific, those issues don't particularly animate him. And so, those two views, the ones that I just, or those two persuasions that I just mentioned, they really make him

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Now, no, no question that is an iconoclast, but Rosa, I think one of the other differences between Trump and other US leaders who've met with Chinese leaders whether they're

or year or elsewhere, is that almost always our discussion, when we have a summit like this,

is about the US-China relationship. And almost all is the president of the United States, as they are to advance US interests, and it's concerned about the US-China relationship.

“But I think the distilled version of what Ali is saying here is that Trump's viewpoint is not”

about the US-China relationship. It's about the Trump-China relationship. It's about how it reflects on him, how it can advance his interests, how he can assure that it doesn't hinder his interest. It's all very personal. It's an extension of most of what he does. And so the G relationship is important because, you know, he views she in the same way that I think

around him, I'm going to look a little cooler. And, you know, I know this makes the president sound shallow. And the president has said that anybody who makes him sound bad and a podcast is guilty of treason. So I'm a little worried. But it was over to you to complete the crime.

Yes. Well, we know that President Trump has always admired authoritarian leaders. He envies them.

He would like this is what he wants. He thinks, wow, you know, this guy just gets to fire generals and wave his arms and people do what he says. And he gets to have giant military parades with big tanks. That's so cool. And that's, you know, his aspiration is to be just like just like Putin,

“just like she. I think you're entirely right David, but this Trump's views everything through”

the lens of what's good for Donald Trump, not what's good for the United States much less. What's good for the rest of the world or or all of humanity got forbid. That's part of the reason that we see Don, you're an Eric coming along on this little joint. You know, they obviously

contribute nothing whatsoever from the perspective of adding policy expertise. But it's a great opportunity

to make business contacts. And so on, it's another great opportunity for the Trump family business to to become a little bit more lucrative. And that's often behind a great deal of what Donald Trump seems to do. I have a question for both of you, actually, in particular, but, you know, I'm interested in what do you think they are? The Chinese are thinking right now about Taiwan. Because I don't know that Donald Trump cares, you know, one little teensy tiny bit about Taiwan.

Indeed, Trump's view of the world seems to be one that relates to spheres of influence. Spears of influence, plus don't make me look bad or I'll have to go and drop bombs on you. It's like the little sort of asterisk, which thus or what or whatever bombs we have, whatever bombs we have. We have that we are meeting at this particular adventure. But, but, you know, this is why cute, but, you know, this is why Venezuela, this is why Greenland,

you know, that their hours, their hours fear of influence, their hour hemisphere. And he doesn't think anybody else should get to bust them around when we could bust them around or maybe maybe the case of Venezuela make them our 51st state or something ridiculous like that. But that he by and large does seem perfectly content to let, you know, Putin do whatever he can manage to do in Ukraine. And it's not particularly fair to me that it would trouble his mind or his heart one

little tiny bit if the Chinese took over Taiwan. Yeah, there's that little sort of semiconductor chip thing, but, you know, we could work a deal on that. And I wonder, I wonder to what extent, you know, the Chinese are thinking, this is a real opportunity for us. You know, maybe we could get a wink, wink, you know, we could work something out on Taiwan. You know, you guarantee us access

“to the technologies that we need. And, you know, if you want to turn, if you want to turn Taiwan”

into Hong Kong, that's kind of okay. Because certainly if I were she, I would be thinking, you know, the US is really, even leaving aside Trump's personal, total lack of interest in any tree obligations or promises or longstanding alliances, I would be thinking, you know, the US is uniquely vulnerable. This is, this is a great moment for us to get away with something that at any other moment might cause a real configuration, a dangerous conflict that no one can afford

to be in. If ever, where there was a moment where we might be able to get away with something in Taiwan with minimal, minimal repercussions, this is it. But I'm curious to see what the two of you think about that. I've been grappling with this, I've grappling with this question of

Fairbits. So I'll offer, I think, two thoughts. And the second one, I think might be a bit

sort of counterintuitive, even provocative, but it'll make hopefully for a more spirited conversation.

“So the first thought is how Trump responds to this question. And Trump, I think, perhaps he,”

sort of he fancies himself, the master of strategic ambiguity, sort of no pun intended in the context of talking about Taiwan. But Trump tends to offer one of two answers. When he's, when he's asked explicitly, Mr. President, if China were to make a move on Taiwan, what would you do? And he tends to alternate between one of two answers. The first is, and I think he said this, he gave this answer very recently, he said, President, she knows that I'm crazy. Trump's word, not mine.

He said, President, she knows that I'm crazy. He knows that I would be very unhappy if China were

but he won't do a while in president because he would, he would make me very unhappy.

The second answer that he tends to give is a kind of an answer of resignation that is to say,

so Josh Rogan relates this anecdote in his book Chaos Under Heaven. And he relates a conversation between Trump and a Republican senator in 2019. And this Republican senator was exhorting Trump to be more publicly and substantively supportive of Taiwan. And when he brought up the specter of a Chinese move on Taiwan, Trump reportedly said, well, China's a lot closer to Taiwan than the United States. And so it will be a catastrophic scenario, but if China were to make a move,

there wouldn't really be much we could do. So he tends to oscillate between those explanations. The second point that I would make, and here I'm going to be a bit counterintuitive,

“I actually think that it is because of Trump's seeming, and I think actual disinterest”

in Taiwan's security. It's one of many factors that I actually think that in the short term

reduces the likelihood of a Chinese move on Taiwan and here's why. First, I mean, the

Pete you mentioned, Rosa, just the firings of all the generals that have been taking place. The PLA right now, I think, has no, because it's been so gutter, especially at the top brass. I don't think that it has anywhere near the operational capacity that it would need to curstage a successful invasion of Taiwan. Certainly not by the end of 2027. But the second reason is, and I like, here I like the formulation of John Culver.

He gave an interview to Max Booth the other day. Spent 35 years in the intelligence community, one of America's foremost intelligence authorities on China and East Asia, and John Culver's formulation is that for she, Taiwan is a crisis to be avoided, not an opportunity to be seized, because she recognizes that the one outcome that could potentially do more than any other to jeopardize China's present trajectory would be a failed invasion attempt of Taiwan with all

of the attendant consequences for the PLA, for China's economy, for his grip on power.

“And so I think that if you're President Xi, you say to yourself, "Look, it's going to take”

me time to reconstitute the top brass of the PLA. I have a U.S. commander in chief who is seemingly disinterested in Taiwan's security. I have a chairperson of the KMT and Taiwan who's becoming a more prominent voice, a more prominent voice advocating negotiations between Taiwan and China. It would be much lower cost and much lower risk for me to essentially just double down on this strangulation campaign, this pressure campaign against Taiwan, which is what China's doing

right now. So, continue to ratchet up the pressure on Taiwan, continue to maintain a good relationship with President Trump, amplify certain political currents in Taiwan that are now questioning

America's reliability with the result that at the end of Trump's second term, even if China has

made a move on Taiwan, I think the China will have increased pressure on Taiwan substantially. I think the chaos within Taiwan's political elites will have intensified. And so China can say, "She will be able to say at the end of Trump's second term, I have made significant significant progress towards the objective of reunification without having had to fire a shot, without having to incur for the risk." So, I think that actually counterintuitively,

it's Trump's disinterest in Taiwan's security that makes you think, "You know, I don't need to make a gamble now. Just ratchet up that pressure and Trump is not going to push back." No rush. My view of this is a cousin of that view. And I think in terms of this trip, you know, I'd analyze it a little bit like I'd analyze it, I'd pinter play. You know, the plays of Harold Pinter, if you watch them, a lot of the drama and substance of the

“plays are in the silence. And I think that as you watch this, you know, what will be important”

is what is instead about Taiwan. And what formulations are not used. And the degree to which it is not emphasized as a sticking point between the two countries. And the degree to which Trump communicates a desire for more economic interdependence between the U.S. and the Chinese. All of these things, now, by the way, you know, some of them have a subtext. And the subtext is growing ties between U.S. technology companies and Chinese technology companies

and the presence of Jensen Wong in this trip at the last minute about, you know, and his interest in, you know, Nvidia's ties there. And the fact that Nvidia has been pressing for the ability to sell more chips there, all are things that suggest that Taiwan's relevance as a semiconductor manufacturer could be diminished over time. The less Taiwan matters as a semiconductor manufacturer, the less it matters. The whole argument about democracy is obviously not

element of this thing. And I'd just like to end with then get your reaction to a rose up. But I

think there's one element to this thing that is not, I don't know, almost ever properly analyzed in U.S. China discussions. There's such a big community of China hawks in Washington fed by a military industrial complex that has very little raise on debt rate. If China is not the kind of pure threat that they suggested. That people tend to vilify, tend to minimize the interdependence, tend to minimize how different this is from the Cold War relationship. And they tend to fail to

“recognize what's in China's interests. And I think what's in China's interests with Taiwan”

is peaceful reunification. And I think the Chinese would very much, and the Chinese are pretty

patient about this stuff as we saw with the transition with Hong Kong. And if the KMT could gain a little more traction, I mean if you listen to the visit of the KMT chairwoman, it was very much we have shared interest. Let's try to find a peaceful way to advance them. I think, you know, for for she or for she's successor, the ultimate goal is like, I'm not going to get to the details, but let's say, you know, a 30-year deal, 10 years of autonomy and mutual assured safety,

10 years where China helps relieve Taiwan. I'm certain security burdens by helping and protected shores and allow it to invest more in its people. And 10 years of integration into

“another, you know, one country to systems approach or something, you know, something that's so”

far in the future that American political minds can't put their head around it feels kind of okay to the Taiwanese, say, well, that's in the distant future to worry about it, feels kind of okay to the Chinese. Nobody wants a war. The Taiwanese don't want to war, they'll lose it and all their productive capacity will be destroyed. The world doesn't want to war. It'll lose productive capacity and chips that can't afford to use, lose right now. And the Chinese don't want to war.

So why does everybody think there's going to be a war? I don't know, it was a, I'd be interested in your reaction to our reaction. So I don't think there's going to be a war because I don't think the US is, is, would respond, frankly, if, if China did move militarily against Taiwan, notwithstanding all those China hawks, at least not, not under the Donald Trump administration. That being said, I'm also, I'm, I'm feeling much better listening to Ali, who, in both of you, persuaded me that

the Chinese are more patient than we are, which, of course, is not particularly surprising. And then that makes a ton of sense, right? And in part, it's our good luck that the Chinese militaries in a state of relative disarray at the same time, our militaries in the state of relative disarray. You know, that's, that's, that's, that's our good fortune and we didn't do anything to deserve it. But just, but, but, but, I mean, when you say nobody wants a war,

“you would have said that about Donald Trump too, I think. And Donald Trump claimed that he didn't”

want to war and yet he's entered into wars with choice. So on the one hand, I'm never entirely,

I'm never, never entirely suits when people say, well, it's obvious that war is not in any base interest, because typically it's not. And yet they happen, we've got, you know, they haven't anyway for all kinds of reasons, including the sort of inadvertent escalation that we've seen so many times. But no, I mean, everything that you and Ali say makes a ton of sense, that, that, from, at this moment in time, it's more in China's interest and one of the, one of the advantages

of their form of government is that, unlike ours, where we have sort of political whipsaw, you know, every few years, they are, they are able to engage in longer-term planning for better for worse, and that they can wait us out and they could probably wait the time when he's out. And then the longer run, you know, the, the, the wins of history may be on their side. Okay, so to wrap up, a little one question, a bar for each of you, I saw a story today, Ali,

in my news feed, so take that for what it may mean. Quoting Sebastian Gorka, okay, another, another person whose comments should be taken with a pillar of salt,

a note that in case the Chinese killed him, what J.D. Vance should do, or if he happens to die according to Gorka statement, something like, because there's something in the air over there, what the fuck does that mean, you know, and, and, and, and it was, it was so weird and that's so typically weird from this administration that quite apart from its substance, it is a reminder that these guys constantly do weird stuff, and that Trump seems to be declining, can't get any sleep,

send, you know, is, is, is true, social, pictures of Democrats and shit filled, reflecting pools, and all sorts of weird stuff, and, and I'm just, I'd like each of you to tell me, what kind of weird

crap, you worried about on this trip, Rosa, do you want to go first, and then I can, I don't know if

you've seen that story, I had not, I had not seen that story, I had not seen that story, it's there, it can go, I suspect that Trump will survive this trip, which may be disappointing to someone

“in some administration, but I do suspect he's, he's going to survive this trip, I think the Chinese won't be the only thing that we're listening to, yeah, the only thing I will say about that is I think I think Trump's”

longevity and continued tenure as U.S. president is far more in the interest of the Chinese than it is in the interest of the American people, so they have no incentive whatsoever, off. Well, I think that's true, you can address that, Aliory, just say I'm afraid that Trump's going to true social something in the middle of the night, or say something goofy, while standing next to Xi Jinping or you know, to some reporter that's going to end up becoming the lead story of this.

So if I, so I'll, I'll set, I'll put aside my, my disposition as a congenital optimist, if I'm thinking of a worst case scenario, a couple of elements, a couple of scenarios that come to mind. One is, and, and both of you, and Rosa, you know, rightly underscore the

highly personalistic approach that Trump takes into plomacy, we saw during his first administration that when

when the coronavirus pandemic broke out in earnest, and when Trump began to appreciate correctly in retrospect, that it could sabotage his reelection prospects, he felt that she had personally betrayed him, and so up until COVID-19, there had been essentially parallel China policies. There were policies that Trump pursued in advance of his paramount objective of getting a trade deal with Xi, and then there were policies on the part of his advisors that he either ignored or permitted.

When COVID-19 happened, and he felt that Xi had loosed this pathogen upon the world to prevent Trump from getting re-elected, he felt personally betrayed, he went to his advisors and said,

“whatever confrontational measures you have on the books, have added, and that's why in the last”

year of Trump's first term, we saw real fire and theory of vis-a-vis China. So a worse case scenario for me would be, if there is some comparable personal rupture, if there's a comparable, if Trump and Xi managed to maintain some congeniality in their working relationship, there's cautious grounds for optimism that the United States and China can maintain kind of a fragile truth for the remainder of Trump's second term. If there is a rupture between the two of them, then I think all bets are off, so I would worry about

the possibility of a personal rupture, and the other concern that I have, maybe it's less dramatic, but I think no less important. I actually think that some of Trump's instincts when it comes

to China are sensible. I want the leaders of the world's two most powerful countries to talk.

I do believe that sustained high-level diplomacy is important. What I worry about, though, is that because Trump has so gutted the national security apparatus of his own of the U.S. government, because he isn't bringing on board with him senior officials with deep China expertise, deep cross-trade expertise, it's the job of bureaucrats with significant expertise to translate

“sensible instincts into durable policy. And I think that those transmission channels are”

afraid because Trump has gutted the bureaucracy, and he is really demoted, or in some cases fire, advisors who could help him channel his instincts more sensibly. So what I worry about is, in an off-the-cuff moment, when he's sitting across from President Xi and President Xi and his advisors, whatever else you might say about them, they will come impeccably prepared. I worry that in an off-the-cuff moment, Trump might make a concession that he doesn't even realize is a concession. And if he doesn't

have senior advisors around him to say Mr. President don't make that statement, if President Xi and his

the Trump doesn't even realize our concessions, and if they don't offer anything return,

“I think that that possibility is a real one because Trump is improvisational, he's unscripted,”

he likes to break with president, and if he's not being flanked by individuals who can dissuade him, then again, there's a risk that we end up having sensible instincts that actually end up

resulting in a very counterproductive policies. That's very charitable. It's a really charitable

that you're saying it's going to come from sensible instincts, and I think you're neglecting one thing in your analysis, which otherwise is impeccable, and that is that Trump doesn't know anything about the US-China relationship. He's completely ignorant as to whether Shanghai protocol or any of

“this kind of stuff, and so I believe the odds of something like what Ali is describing taking place”

are 100 percent. I don't know what's going to happen in the next two days, but at some point

within the next week, you will see people in the United States government walking back something Trump said because that happens every day. It's not a big risk for me to say that. Rosa, would you like a last word before we sign off? I truly value your optimism and generosity of heart, Ali,

“and I hope you are. I'm perhaps, I'm perhaps, can generally optimistic to my own detriment,”

but I appreciate the condor. We need the optimism. We need the optimism these days. We need it that we need it that little lift. Can I ask in our conclusion that you turn around and get that vase that you have and show it to the cameras. I can't even see it. Hold on. Hold on. So our viewer is catching this. This is one of those artifacts. Oh, and my camera appears to be frozen. Can you see this vase? I can't even see. There we go. Now where you are. There you are. There you are.

There we go. I look at that. Beautiful. Very, very nice. I had to use Google translate to make it all out, but. Well, it shows how far we've come in our relationship. That pretty soon, the US government will be producing just such vases. With Donald Trump. With Donald Trump. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you very much, Rosa. Thank you very much, Holly. Thank you very much, everybody. If something big and exciting happens in China in the next couple of days,

we will come up with a new podcast to cover it. If nothing big and exciting happens, we'll cover it all of our regular daily podcasts and our other weekly podcasts and uh, uh, uh, uh, editor that need to know Substack and elsewhere. Uh, but for now, we will remain informed by all these perspective, uh, cautiously optimistic. So thank you, everybody. See you soon.