America's Biggest Tech Mistake: Underestimating China's AI Ambition

As I told the community, we're so excited because we missed you last month. You were sick and everybody— by the way, Carl, I just want to let you know, you know how many comments I get just asking about you, hope, wishing you a speedy recovery? I want you to know that the community were asking about you. So, so what we are in for a great, great conversation and it's always, always a pleasure, a treat to have you here, Carl. I want to start first our conversation before we delve deeper into the current visit of the Prime Minister of the UK. All of a sudden he is in China. How the heck is this happening? What do you make out of this, Carl?

Well, I think what— I mean, thank, thank you, Comrade Trump. Trump has really made the life much easier for China. This— the mean is, you know, Xi Jinping do nothing but win. But of course, you know, China is just doing its own thing to shore up its own position. What Donald Trump is giving, the extra push on the world stage, um, you know, his, his cold Greenland gambit is, um, forcing the European leader finally, you know, to seek alternative to the US. This follows on the heel of Canadian Prime Minister, uh, Mark Carney's visit to China. And Mark Carney explicitly said his, his visit to China was to lessen dependency of Canada on United States. I mean, this is in a very similar vein. Starmer realized, okay, we have to do something very similar. And, and UK is also facing a whole slew of issues, uh, economic issues, economic stagnation, uh, in— it needs more economic cooperation with China, you know, like the French President Macron said during Davos, we need more direct Chinese investment in Europe. Uh, in essence, what Starmer is trying to do is he's trying to bring back the UK China relationship back to, uh, you know, reset back to 2015, you know, but to the time— same, same with Mark Carney, you know. Canada used to have a warm relationship with China under the Conservative, uh, Harper's government, uh, you know, before Trudeau came to power. And, and same thing in UK, you know, since for, you know, I think the COVID really scrambled people's brain, right? There's always a struggle, especially among Western and Anglophone countries, that there's a struggle between the business interest and the national security, uh, state. And, you know, the national security state has always been very suspicious of China, whereas the business, uh, interests wanted to take advantage of China's market and China's productive potentials. What happened was before, back in the days of what's his name, Gordon Brown, the UK— yeah, UK business interests won out. They— so that's why they pushed for the closer ties with China. But then, uh, during COVID the, the, the national security state won the debate. And, and I think in no, no small part was pushed by United States. You know, let's face it, UK is not really an independent country. Um, and, and, and during, you know, that was during Donald Trump's first term when the Sino-American relationship really took a nosedive. So US was also pushing or its quote-unquote allies to also go adopt a harder line on China. And now, uh, finally, you— finally Europe is finding themselves target of United States. You know, that wasn't supposed to happen, right? Like, Macron has sent a message to Trump, said, hey, we cooperating on Syria, you work out beautifully, we can work together on Iran, But what the heck are you doing on Greenland, man? That's not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to come after us. We're supposed to be united to go colonize other people, you know. We supposed to go after the brown people together. Um, so now, now the Europe is now finally have to find an alternative, and this is why they're turning to China. This is why Starmer is going to China, and I'm pretty soon the German chancellor is also going to China, and just by the sheer weight of China, they can no longer be ignored.

You're absolutely correct. The German Chancellor, and I got a word, it's coming in 2 weeks, he's gonna be in Beijing. And of course, in April, Donald Trump is gonna be there. Just for the community, I will be doing a livestream either tomorrow or the next day about this specific visit. I just wanted to not to miss the opportunity by asking Carl about this one. Even though, Carl, I must, I must share this with you. I had a survey question for the community in which I asked them about, do you believe, for example, the strategic partnership between China and Britain will return? And you know what? 70% said no and 22% said yes. And 8% say don't know. And I can see why, because how can Chinese will ever forget the Opium War and what the Brits have done to the Chinese? So anyway, I just wanted to get your take on this, uh, if you want to add something, Carl.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, China has, has, was already ready to move on. I mean, the Opium War, yes, that did happen, but surprisingly UK enjoy a pretty good reputation nowadays in China because the UK TV series on, on, uh, on Sherlock Holmes, stuff like that. Yeah, but, um, what really made the tide go frosty was when UK government, on the behest of United States, was accusing China of, you know, spying, being a national security threat to UK, which is completely ridiculous. Um, Uh, but right now this whole pivot to China in large part is due to the U.S. posturing. So if Donald Trump ever get out of the office, whether it's in 3 years or whether he get impeached, I think if, if there will, will be like, uh, another Democrat come to— or not even that, doesn't have to be a Democrat, establishment Republicans come to power, um, I think the European will flock back to the US. It was— the pendulum will swing the other way because, you know, the, the— right now they really had— the Europeans were forced to go to China, you know, because they had no choice. But, uh, once, you know, they're hoping— they're secretly hoping this whole Trump episode is just aberration. And once they can wait him out, maybe things will go back to normal. I actually don't think that will be the case because I think Trump has shifted the Overton window in United States so far. Uh, I, I don't think there's no going back to quote unquote normal, right, the, the pre-Trump normal. That, that's, um, so yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I The whole, the whole, uh, I mean, I wouldn't even call it a strategic partnership right now. What UK and Canada are trying to do, just try to have a normal trading relationship with China.

Yeah.

And I also, I have to remind people, like, during Mark Carney's trip to China, the Canadian side, they actually leaked their, um, uh, they, they have informed the US what trade agreement they were going to sign with China. And this is why Trump said, oh, good for them, you know, I think they, they, they made a good call, made a good deal with China, because Trump knew.

Yeah, but Carl, why would they say this to the America if they are a sovereign state? What would you want to—

they're not a sovereign state. That's the thing, they're not sovereign state. I mean, there's still a highly degree of coordination and subordination Uh, you know, they are still trying to keep, uh, you know, trying, trying to, trying to get on the U.S. good side. Um, and so this is why I don't put too much hope on the European leadership. I mean, in the past they haven't really shown any spine. This, this Greenland thing is, uh, it's just a kind of bridge too far from them, for them. But, um, I, I just don't see they can meaningfully, you know, push back against Trump.

Yeah, well, we shall see. So, all right, let's talk about the AI, the technology, where things are. Uh, just for the community, to those who might not be aware of what happened at the end of last year in December, that China completed an operational EUV lithography prototype, which is— it was, it was completed in a high-security facility in Shenzhen. Location. It's not about that. It's about— here is the thing: this one wasn't done through, for example, reverse engineering or through some sort of breakthrough. What it was done through, a far simpler aspect, is that the Chinese, you know, knew how to build the machine themselves. So within this, Carl, Do you believe, in your opinion, do you believe that China now is closing the gap with the US regarding technology at large, but specifically the AI domain?

Well, I think you, uh, you know, you, you now you're already seeing the headlines in mainstream media saying, oh, the, the AI gap between US and China is a myth. Um, you know, because you, you have seen those, uh, AI, um, AI companies in China like Deepseek, like Kymee, uh, like ByteDance. They, they're very— they move very fast. I mean, they're very, um, they were able to close the gap very quickly. Um, so right now they're not even talking about, um, leading China by innovation. They're talking about we're going to lead China by computing power because we denied China the, the best AI chips, and we're gonna— we have unlimited access to Nvidia AI chips, so we're just gonna build out shit tons of data centers, and by, by brutal computing power, we're gonna win this race. Um, but I, I, I Like you said, I don't think China, you know, China will be permanently behind in terms of, uh, semiconductor manufacturing, advanced semiconductor manufacturing. They're already making progress on all fronts. And this is, you know, give it, give, give it enough money and enough resources, enough human capital, China can make it happen. Um, and it's just a matter of time. Like, like you already pointed out, China have all these, uh, EUV prototype that's coming online. Uh, it's just a matter of time to make them into mass production and to have them produce at a scale that will be commercially viable. And this is why, uh, initially when Trump administration um, finally granted NVIDIA the license to sell H200 chips to China. Initially, China said no, no thank you, uh, because the, you know, Trump administration said explicitly the reason why we want to make this available to China is because we want to keep Chinese dependent on us for high-end AI chips. But China is already, um, Now the news came out that China have approved the H200 license for the top 3, uh, uh, big 3 companies like Baidu, um, I, I think it was ByteDance, um, but Huawei is catching up very quickly. And, and right now, uh, Deepseek is already working on deep integration, uh, to train their AI models and to— for inference on Huawei chips. So it's just a matter of time. It, it's just a matter of time. And another problem with, um, this, uh, idea of, okay, U.S., we can just brute force it by building up scale, you know, building up data center quickly, is these data centers are very energy hungry, and United States do not have that kind of energy grid that can scale quickly. You know, if we look at the, the, the power— electric power generation— the, you— the Chinese electric power generation looks like this. It goes straight up. And for United States, for the last 20 years, it has been essentially flat. Um, one way China was able to add a lot of— oh, by the way, China in the last 4 years added more electricity, uh, power generation than all of the United States, um, combined. So, and they're still adding, they're still very fastly scaling up. So China will have abundant source of cheap energy compared to United States, whereas in US all these data centers are starting to competing with the civilian use. They're starting to cannibalizing into, you know, uh, daily electric usage. And so I think that, that's a, that's a, that's going to be a challenge for the US bet on AI going forward, is US just simply lacks the infrastructure, uh, to, to have that, to have, have it as a sustainable development. Whereas China, you know, the only bottleneck China has right now is, um, on the side of making, you know, making most advanced, uh, chips. And, and I think that, that will be resolved in a few years' time. Uh, you know, I don't, I don't expect, uh, in the meantime, it's not even holding up AI development, uh, in companies like DeepSeq, who have been very innovative on how to optimize their model to, to be more efficient and use less compute. So yeah, I'm— this is not a— I have talked to many AI experts in China. They're not worried, you know. They, they, they feel China has got it handled in this, in this, uh, in this area. Uh, you might be on mute. I think you might be muted. I can't hear you. Uh, I, I can't, I can't hear you, uh, Dr. Oualaalou.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, I can hear you now.

Perfect. So as I said, the idea of the grid, uh, by domain and so forth. How do you see it playing out, especially in the military realm?

Yeah, I mean, one of the big push for AI, you know, from both Silicon Valley, bro, and Pentagon is the idea that, uh, you know, AI will fundamentally change the battlefield, right? Palantir, they're, they're one of the biggest proponent of, uh, using AI to weaponize the battlefield because they have Pentagon contract. Um, I, I think, uh, eventually, well, I mean, yeah, that it will make a difference because we, because, uh, we are already seeing a shift to our autonomous, um, uh, drones, you know, like we saw in Ukraine. For example. Um, but I think in the immediate future, there's gonna still gonna require a lot of human input. Um, you know, like even the drones in, uh, Ukraine, they still requires human operators. Uh, it's gonna take some time for them to, to iron out the, the details. But yeah, I think the future of warfare is likely to have you know, a bunch of robots powered by AI, you know, probably not so distant future. You know, maybe we're only like 5 or 10 years down the road.

Wow, that would be interesting to see. Let's shift the conversation to what just happened recently in the South China Sea. This is a Chinese Coast Guard vessel here. And the reason I'm sharing this with you, because a Chinese team rescued 11 Filipinos from drowning. That's what happened. And this happened on January 25th, and that's where the Chinese handed over the 17 Filipino sailors it rescued from the rickshaw. I got a picture of this one. This is where they were turned over to the Philippines, and this happened near the Hong Yandao. I hope I pronounced it correctly here. So what I wanted to ask your opinion, Carl, is what does it mean?

Well, first of all, this happened around the disputed Scarborough Shoal area. On one hand, it is actually a demonstration of sovereignty because the Chinese Coast Guard were operating in the area., and they would be, uh, have been very effective to conduct a search rescue mission. Um, another thing, by the way, those 17 Filipino sailors, they're working on a, uh, like a, a iron ore tanker ship that was shipping iron ore to China. So one of the things, uh, people might not know is, uh, Filipino actually make up the largest sailors, proportion of this world's sailors, they, they're number one, um, uh, and followed by China. So many of them do work on ships that's, that's heading to China, you know, part like, like this one, uh, it was iron ore ship carrying iron ore to China. So in many ways, China is demonstrating, uh, itself as a responsible power by, by, um, you know, conducting, um, what is required, which is, you know, uh, the search and rescue. But, but at the same time, there is also, like I say, it's also a demonstration of sovereignty. They are showing they had to have effective control of the area, and they were able to provide timely assistance.

Very interesting. Yeah, I was, I was very— I was surprised that I mean, that tells me something about the Chinese government as far as, you know, this is time where you put the differences aside and you rescue human, fellow human beings. So to me, it was, you know, worth addressing because of what it meant in the big picture.

I mean, you really showed that kind of the so-called maritime dispute in South China Sea. It's really Um, you know, it's, it's in the, in the larger scheme of things, it's, it's really, um, it is— there's no— China has never colonized Philippines, right? China never invaded Philippines. There's really no fundamental conflict between the countries, you know. The current flare-up is really due to the Filipino administration under Marco Jr., who is, you know, doing this on behalf of the United States to create a security confrontation with China in South China Sea. But, um, it doesn't mean this is a permanent state of affair, you know. Yeah, uh, you know, you can foresee— we saw that with the Duterte administration, you know, with the Philippines, that at that time the, the China and the Philippines did have, uh, cordial ties. I mean, we can foresee— we can foreseeably see, um, two sides return back to that state of relationship, uh, you know, when Marcos Jr. is removed from the picture.

Um, yeah, well, usually to me, I've always followed the issues that's going on in South China Sea, and, and what I always find it interesting is that the— some, some countries, not all They decided to, you know, have a conversation with the Chinese and resolve the issue. And it was resolved between them. No need for a third party to get involved, let alone that third party, it's not from the area to begin with. And I'm referring to the Vietnam case where Vietnam, and I believe Malaysia also, worked out their differences with the Chinese and the issue is resolved.

And now that corresponds to the new national security strategy.

Strategy.

Published by Pentagon where they deprioritize China. Now they have deport— they officially come out and say we're deprioritizing the, the China threat. Um, so, and, and that, that also is a signal to all the so-called US partner, or really vassal state in the region, you're on your own, buddy. Like, we're washing our hands.

That's true.

Yeah, that is true.

That is true. Let's shift to talk about Japan. There is an upcoming snap elections that's gonna be on February 8th, uh, to my knowledge. So what I wanted to ask on this, uh, uh, uh, Carl, first of all, I do know that China now restricts the exports of the dual-use rare earth elements. You know, first of all, how significant is this? By having now China restricting that.

Yeah, this is a big deal because a lot of the Japanese, uh, uh, equipment makers, and especially in the high-tech area, they do depend on rare earth as an input, uh, and, and rare earth, that means rare earth coming from China because China controls 90% of the processing of the rare earth. And so this, this is meant to, um, this is a— China did this as a retaliation against Japan for the very irresponsible remark by the Japanese Prime Minister, uh, Sanae Takaichi, who decided to insert herself and Japan into the Taiwan issue. Um, yeah, and which is totally unacceptable, uh, for China. And, and, and herself, she is also— I think she maybe did this in coordination with United States, but she also is doing this for domestic reasons because, you know, she's playing a very dangerous gamble here. Yeah, she knows by inflaming the tension between Japan and China, this will inflame the nationalist sentiment on both sides. What happened is, you know, China will be angry, Chinese citizens would be unhappy, and then, uh, then you also lead to, uh, uh, when China impose the sanction, for example, the dual, uh, use rare earth sanction against Japan, that will lead to a nationalistic backlash back in Japan, and, and that will propel her in the polls. And that's exactly what happened, and she's actually riding high in the popular polls right now. This is why he's calling a snap election, because he's hoping to gain, to profit from this. Um, it's all a game for these politicians, you know, like, like ultimately all politics is domestic, right? So that's true. She is— she, she— her calculus is that, uh, you know, it doesn't— like, she doesn't lose anything by antagonizing China, but she has everything to gain um, through the, the rising nationalism in Japan. And yeah, but she does forget that China do have several trump cards to play, particularly the rare earth issue. That, that's going to be— that, that's not— that's, that's an issue that's not going to easily go away because this happened before around 2010, 2012, um, when, uh, during the dispute over the Diaoyu Dao Island, uh,, dispute, and China had imposed a, a temporary rare earth ban to Japan. And at that time, Japan tried to find alternatives to Chinese, uh, rare earth supply chain. You know, what they ended up doing is they went to India, uh, to, to, to— but what, what India actually did was just acting as a middleman to for transshipment of Chinese rare earths. So, you know, India will import rare earths from China and then turn around and sell to Japan. So the dependence, the dependence on China was never resolved. They never resolved the issue of the— and, and now the Chinese export control is a lot more strict, uh, and they're going a lot smarter about this. So, so they're making sure there's going to be no more transshipment when they put a ban. So, so Japan is going to have, uh, you know, they're going to have to face some consequences. Of course, Japanese businessmen, Japanese businesses will suffer. And the, the question is whether Jap— those Japanese businesses will have, have enough pull to restrain the action of the, uh, the Japanese prime minister. Sanae Takeuchi. I mean, she could just make the calculation, you know what, economy might be bad, but my, um, my poll numbers are going up, so maybe that's more important to, to me, that, that my popularity is going up than, than tanking the Japanese economy.

Yeah, but it will be, uh, it will be interesting to see, uh, the developments regarding this issue because I am As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, Carl, the first one you mentioned about the pressure from the US, I got a confirmation that was the case. That was the case why she provoked the Chinese on that. And I got a confirmation of it, about it. So I wasn't surprised right there. So what happened for that? Let's see what happened on February 8th and how this might develop.

Of sense.

I want to switch to, uh, talk about India, especially vis-à-vis China. And to me, it's always— I keep an eye open, uh, on, on, on this particular country here because of the maneuver, the, the playing both sides and so forth. So, and my reference here, Carl, to how India recently, through its finance minister, has some sort of scrapped the 5-year-old restrictions on the Chinese firms to bid for Indian government contracts, while at the same time, simultaneously, India races to militarize the Himalayan borders with, with the infrastructure against China. How worried should China be? In other words, should China trust what India is saying?

Well, I mean, that's to be expected, uh, you know, that's what India has been doing all these years. What, what changed is really Trump's policy toward India. You know, Trump has adopted really hard line toward India in terms of trade. Um, this caught the Indian elite by surprise because, you know, what they have counted on American investment, right? So this is why they, you know, they were okay to ban Chinese investment into India because they were— they just decided to be completely dependent, uh, you know, they're throwing their lot with Washington, you know. There was— they were hoping for, for closer integration with American economy. So when, when Trump did this 180 on India, uh, the, the Indian elite Indian elite and leadership got caught flat-footed, and they're now scrambling to try to, um, you know, you know, this is why they're, they're now lifting some of the restrictions against Chinese investment and try to improve their bilateral ties with China, because they realize, okay, maybe America don't get our back, now we have to you know, make nice with China. Um, but the— in, in, in terms of, uh, they militarize the Himalayan frontier, this is actually India trying to catch up with China, uh, because China has built a lot of infrastructure on the Chinese side of the border. Uh, India is realizing, oh, we're, we're falling behind. So this is why they— this is India's effort to catch up with China. Um, and, and this is why there's a lot of also diplomatic activity between India and Europe, you know, because both India and Europe find themselves a target of Trump. This is why, uh, Ursula von der Leyen were in India just a few days ago and signing this, the mother of all deals between EU and India. Um, and And a lot of that is lifting of the tariffs, the mutual tariffs. And, uh, because they— Europe also realized, you know, we have to find alternative to United States, you know. You know, one approach is go to China, like, like, uh, Macron, uh, Starmer, and, uh, like Mertz. Uh, but they also try to leverage India because India is the world's— has the world's largest population. Um, it's a, it's a growing economy, um, and, and a potential market. And so yeah, I think I, I, I just don't expect too much out of India. I mean, India will— India, India will continue to grow, um, you know, by the, the sheer size of their population. You know, the, the, that, that by the sheer size of the Indian population, which continues growing, they will still be a, a, a, a growing economy that, that in aggregate, uh, you know, will be the, oh, the world's top economies. And this is why, um, you know, Europe is signing agreement with India, and, and also because they have a lot of people. So this is why in One of the agreements of EU-Indian deal is to allow Europe to leverage the labor resources of India. Yeah, I mean, China—

But at the same time, Carl, at the same time, it has a lot of population. Yeah, but that population is becoming a liability. This is not the same case as in China because you have the population, China has the same weight per se when it comes down to human capital, but in China, people are not living in a massive poverty. They're not living in this destitute environment. So India, its population is becoming a more liability for it than some sort of an advantage.

Right. Um, I mean, India is such a large country with a large population, you still have enough. Uh, yeah, you know, what India needs to do is very obvious. They need to improve their infrastructure, they need to invest their, uh, education, uh, and literacy, uh, but given such large population base, they still have— can produce enough educated workforce to serve, uh, the needs, business needs of Europe and, and, and, and North America. Uh, you know, so, so that's— I mean, you can call it brain drain even, you know, because a lot of these elite human capitals are actually leaving India. They're not, you know, contributing to, to the growth of India itself. Um, but anyway, when it comes to India-China relationship, you know, China has always maintained the door remains open, uh, to a more cooperative, uh, relationship with India. I mean, Chinese companies have always showed interest to invest in Indian market. It has been the Indian side, the Indian government and the Indian oligarchic elite that has been trying to hold the door shut. And now they are trying to crack the door open a little bit because they really have no choice. Um, it— you know what, I, I just don't expect any kind of a groundbreaking development coming out of India. India will kind of plodding along.

Yeah.

Uh, but, but it, it is what it is. Uh, you know, as you mentioned, India facing enormous, enormous obstacles in its development. Uh, yeah, there's so much that needs to be done domestically. Uh, I don't know. I mean, I mean, Indian government is not known for efficiency. Um, so yeah, it's, it's gonna— I think India will likely remain India for, for a long, long time.

Yeah, I agree with you on that assessment, Carl, and I'm not being negative here. I'm being pragmatic and realistic as far as the capabilities of a country like India vis-à-vis China in comparison to the— that's why I always said a few months ago, Carl, on the record, I said if truly, if India wanted to really cooperate with the Chinese, the first order of business is to put on the table the issue of the borders, and address it head-on. But India was never willing to do that. And I did ask some people when I was in China last time, will China be willing to do this? And the answer I got was yes, they will be willing to sit down and talk. But India never did. And this is why, to me, to me, it's my personality, I don't like wishy-washy people. If you got something, you say it straightforward. And that's my fear, is they playing these games with the Chinese because the moment the US gives India the carrots, they're going to flip on. It's the same argument I'll make about the Europeans. Yes.

This is why we see.

Yeah, this is why we're seeing now a Stammer there. Soon you're going to have a murmur of Germany, the chancellor, and even, you know, why all of a sudden Europeans are sort of flocking into Beijing all of a sudden. Only when circumstances change, they'll flip. And that's my word to Beijing, you know, those people, you have to deal with them. I'm not saying you don't, but you're gonna have to be very, very, very cautious in you dealing with them because they're fair, fair weather friends.

Fair weather friends.

That is true. And here is the thing why I am saying all this, God. For example, I don't know if you heard about the recent poll that was done about, uh, NATO, uh, uh, and its view on China. There were 8 countries in NATO, 8 countries: Slovenia, Luxembourg, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, Montenegro, Iceland, and Greece. All of those countries showed significantly higher approval rating above 10% for China, for China's leadership, over that of the US. So in your opinion, Carl, how this— in, in, in your judgments, is this a reflection of the new global order? How do you read it? How do you see it?

I think, yeah, I think the gravitational pull of the Chinese economy Chinese economy and Chinese market will increase. And you will— you— I mean, you know, already the, the Chinese soft power is already on the rise. And, you know, United States is not doing itself any favors by having a crazed president that's, uh, threatening war on the rest of the globe. And, uh, the, the thing with Europe is, uh, you know, like you say Opinion poll, popular opinion poll matters to a certain extent, but the problem is in Europe is the elite— there's an elite capture, you know. The European elite has been captured by, uh, all these transatlantic, uh, institutions, um, uh, you know, and, and they are not really working for the people, they're working for their own pockets. And, and a lot of the, uh, a lot of time that means working for Washington. Uh, you know, if you look at all these European leaders, uh, they were put in place, you know, to rule over the Europeans on behalf of Washington's interest. And, uh, until, you know, the, the European citizens do something about that, nothing is going to change.

For sure. It's, it's just how, how things are moving into that direction. How do you see, just to, for us to conclude our conversation here by asking the key question and moving into, we're already in 2026, how do you see it playing out this, this year and moving forward, not only from a geopolitical perspective but also from an economic aspect?

Well, it's, it's really hard to make a prediction, uh, Dr. O, because Right now we're barely one month into the year. It already felt like a whole year has passed because, you know, coming up there might be something happening in Iran, right? US has already signaled that it's ready to carry out some sort of military action toward Iran, whether that's just Donald Trump's bluff or, um, they are— have their, their dead set on it. You know, it's hard to say, but, um, it looks like U.S. is carrying out a coordinated campaign to target all the non-U.S.-aligned oil producers, right? So first it went after Venezuela, and now they go after Iran. Well, what do they all of them have in common? They, you know, all Both Venezuela and Iran, 90% of their oil exports goes to China, China, right? And, and this is, um, this is like what Alan Greenspan said about Iraq War. He said, you know, well, we didn't go there to get the oil per se, but we went to Iraq to control the flow of oil. And, you know, United States want to have an option, um,, you know, to be able to turn the tap off if he wants to, the energy tap to China. Um, so that's, that's what they're, they're aiming for right now. But on the other hand, uh, Trump is scheduled to visit China, uh, in April. So, um, I, I expect there will be some sort of détente until then, until April. Um, between U.S. and China. You know, this is— this, this goes in line with the national security strategy that was published that deprioritized China as a priority, and which, by the way, did not mention Taiwan even a single time. Um, and then, uh, we have, uh— but we're also going to have, you know, the, the deep state will be working furiously trying to sabotage the, the European approach, man, with China. You know, in UK, you already have the UK spy agency now releasing reports of how China is spying on UK, just to coincide with Starmer's, uh, China visit. Of course, uh, you know, it's so obvious what they're trying to do. Uh, you know, they, they're— because these, all these, uh, intelligence agencies, they're essentially being controlled by the United States. Through the Anglo-5 Eye network, and, and, and they are working furiously trying to, trying to stop any kind of warming of ties with China. So we're gonna, we're gonna see more, you know, propaganda being pushed into mainstream media in the next few months on how, how China is really a big threat to the West, etc., etc. Um, but I don't think in the, in the long longer scheme of things, you will amount to anything. Because, um, ultimately, you know, the hard power is your manufacturing strength, which China now is a manufacturing superpower. I mean, that's, uh, this is, this is why, this is also why the Europeans are heading over to China right now, because they, they realize they need China. And that's not going to change.

Well, you're absolutely correct, Carl. And especially when you put in perspective the concept of why we did what we did in Venezuela, what we're doing, what we're doing with Iran, you know, to, like you said, to turn the tap off, especially for energy. I mean, Venezuela versus Iran, Iran sends more oil to China than Venezuela does. But at the same time, between, I think Venezuela 2 to 4%, somewhere around that. Figure, which is not much in comparison to others. But you're absolutely correct, Carl. The whole objective was to undermine Chinese progress by any means. And now you're seeing the European— and to me, that's where my concern is. My concern is this flip-flopping. Today they'll shake your hand, tomorrow they'll stab you in the back.

That's I mean, I think China has been used to this for now, you know, like, yeah, you know, U.S. has been on and off, uh, having the hayboner against China since 1949. Uh, it's, you know, with, with some period of honeymoon in between, but for most of that history, U.S. is out there trying to sabotage China's progress. But for the last 70 years, he hasn't been successful. Um, and I don't expect to, uh, accept— and, and going forward, that means the, the United States will even have command less resources to do mischief. Like John Mearsheimer said, you know, intention doesn't matter, it's all about capability. Well, the US capability is degrading right now, year by year, especially vis-à-vis the relative strength of China. Yeah, so I mean, this is, uh, yeah, it's just, it's like I said time and time again, China— time is on China's side, you know. China can afford to just wait out the US decline.

Yeah, you know what I feel, Carl? You know what I feel right now? And then please correct me if I'm wrong. I feel that the Century of Humiliation now is being reversed. Will I be wrong? Will I be wrong?

Actually, actually, I— my argument is the US need its own century of humiliation in order to come to senses, right? It took China a century of humiliation to realize, okay, we gotta, we gotta open up, we gotta learn from the rest of the world, uh, how to modernize. You know, it will take a century of humiliation for United States to get off high horses, to, to, to get rid of the US primacy, uh, mind virus, and, and to learn how to function as a member of the international community. And, and I, I, I, and I think this is just a beginning. We are just, we're just at the very beginning of the century of humiliation of the United States, if US still have a century. We'll see.

Well, it is concerning given what's going on right now inside the US with what's going on in Minneapolis and Minnesota and all, uh, things are not, uh, that's— I'm, I'm looking over the horizon, I don't see anything good coming out of that. So that's, that's to me where, uh, where I see the concerns.

I'm so glad I'm in Bali right now. I mean, I, I didn't plan it, but I didn't plan the escape from LA, but I'm glad it happened.

Oh, LA, forget it, it's a nightmare over there with the massive amount of poverty where things are. I mean, you walk into certain street— I was just talking to someone over there and they're like, you won't believe that you are in, in the US. Red Lodge, you're walking—

there's a lot of places in US are like that right now. I even, even like, I remember even 10 years ago I was, when I was in Baltimore, that's how I felt. I'm like, wow, I'm in a third world country. This is a third world country.

It changed, it changed big time, it changed big time. So, well, Carl, I can't thank you enough, my friend, for really carving out time for us. So good to see you in good health as always, you know, very, very excited. And I look forward to having you again for some other conversations on a different subject. So on behalf of the entire community, I say thank you so much for your time, Carl. Truly, truly appreciate you for that.

Thank you, Dr. O.

My pleasure, my pleasure. For the community, uh, first of all, quickly, I want to say thank you to FU here for your super sticker. As a Filipino, I trust and have more faith in China than Zionist USA. Ah, you spot on, you hit the nail on the head. You know, to me, when truth matters You said you call a spade a spade. You're spot on, F.U. And thank you so much for your generosity in supporting the channel. So I'm very grateful to you for that. So, uh, tomorrow, if I am waiting on some piece of information, okay, if I get the information between now and tomorrow at 0900 hours, I will do the live stream for you at 12:15. If I don't I'll do the live stream on Saturday, especially about the, uh, the trip of Starmer, uh, because I'm gonna do a deep dive into really the Five Eyes assessment and the report. It's coming out vis-à-vis China and all this. So I will be able to provide you my own analysis about that. It's just whether I'll do it tomorrow on Saturday, I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know. Once I found out. Hope you enjoyed having Carl here, you learned something from this, and I look forward to seeing you next time. As always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, bye-bye.