Latest / UK Column Radio / Trump’s Iran Strategy Is Collapsing — China Changes the Game | Silk and Steel

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Trump’s Iran Strategy Is Collapsing — China Changes the Game | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Silk and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Steel podcast. I'm your host, Carl Zha. Today, I welcome
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: back Dr. Warwick Powell from Australia, a very astute observer
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of the international geopolitics, especially when it comes to China.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot for us to talk about, Dr. Warwick.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: First of all, welcome back to my show.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good to be with you. There's always a
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: lot to talk about. And I think this is our
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: first chat since she got back from China. So I'll
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: ask you some questions myself later about your observations, actually.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure. I actually had a firsthand experience with the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Chinese medical system. We can talk about that, too.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I saw that. No, absolutely. I'd be fascinated to hear
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: some of your firsthand accounts from this last trip. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that your viewers would actually like to, well,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they've heard some of the stuff already, but
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: maybe we can cover off on some other dimensions of
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: all of that. So cool.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: All right, what are we going to talk about? What's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: been happening in the last four months? Well, let's start
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: from the big picture stuff. Trump just announced that he's
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: doing an economic D-Day on Iran. He's going to bring
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the the most excruciating pain on the Iranian economy that
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the world has ever seen. This obviously is because whatever
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: they have been doing is not working because the whole
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: reason they said they started the illegal war against Iran
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with Israel is because they said that their whole maximum
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: pressure economic sanction on Iran wasn't working. And now it
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: turns out they're military option wasn't working either. So they're
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: going back to the maximum pressure economically again. But this
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: particular time, the level of sanction that they're claiming they're
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: going to place secondary sanctions against nations that continue to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: do business with Iran. And of course, a lot of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that would have targeted China, being the largest trading nations
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: with iran um now the the question on everyone's mind
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: is okay is trump serious are they going to follow
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: through uh what does this mean and this is why
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: i want to pick your brain a little bit on
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: this on this topic is this just another empty gesture
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: just another uh trump administration's bluffing what are they trying
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to hope what what they're hoping to achieve here.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Look um I'm a little bit surprised that they're doing
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: this because I was under the impression that Iran in
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: every respect had been decimated at least 38 times over,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: over the course of the last 12 months. So I'm
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a little bit surprised that we're now entering into the D-Day.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: The world's never seen so big, bigger than Ben, isolation
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: of Iran sanctions. Seriously speaking, though, I mean, we know
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: that during the course of the last quarter of last year,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the United States actually worked overtime to create significant economic
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: hardships on Iran on top of the 40 plus years
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: of sanctions that have been ratcheted up progressively over that
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: period of time as well. And the aim was always
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: to generate social unrest, in the hopes that that would
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: lead to the overthrow of the government. It failed last year,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: which then laid the groundwork for the interventions and the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: attacks at the beginning of this phase of the war
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: at the end of February this year, which, of course,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: have not succeeded in achieving the assorted aims. And the aims,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: of course, have been changed from time to time, depending
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: on circumstance. But whether it was a change of government
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: slash regime change, whether it was ending the nuclear program
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: or what have you, the objectives clearly haven't been achieved.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So we're back to square one again. And the United
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: States in many ways, I think, is demonstrating that it
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: is lacking the capacity to bully its way around the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: world in the way that perhaps it believes it can,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: but more importantly, in the way that perhaps it once
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: could and is struggling to today. So the US political
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: elite are struggling to adapt to new circumstances, clearly not
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: coping well with the unfolding situation vis-a-vis Iran. They're not
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: getting their way. And that's obviously a problem politically, domestically,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: but also reputationally globally. The move to these new sanctions
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: does require them to try to coerce other countries to
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: come and join in as well. Now, of course, the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Europeans will more than likely fall into line as they
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: always do, but the Europeans don't really play that important
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: a role in the Iranian external account. The most significant
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: external account relationship that Iran's economic system has is with
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: the People's Republic of China. And unless the People's Republic
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: of China were willing to go along with Trump's isolation
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: of Iran so as to notionally avoid Trump's secondary sanctions,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: then I think it's fair to say that the American
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: strategy or the American playbook will be dead on arrival.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: You're not going to be able to coerce Iran if
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: China doesn't play ball. Add to that Russia, which I
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: doubt will play ball as well. And the American game
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: plan has some very serious problems. It's essentially a big
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: leaky ship. You know, smaller relationships with Iran might fall
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: into line for a little while. But unless you've got
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Russia and China on board with this particular game plan,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: I think Iran will be able to see these sanctions out.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: It's not like it's the first time that the country
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: has had to deal with significant economic pressures and coercion
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: from external forces, particularly the United States. And perhaps what
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: we're seeing here is a Trump administration in the lead
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: up to midterm elections, again, trying to buy some political
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: room and to buy some time because there is no
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: easy way out of the dilemmas that they have gotten
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: themselves into. And, uh, you know, I mean, we've spoken
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: about this before. I think we're starting to see the, uh, the,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the cost of gasoline and diesel in particular rise in
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the United States, and that will place real pressure domestically
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: on industries and enterprises. And of course, uh, through all
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: of that voters coming into the midterm elections and. The
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: need to be seen to be trying to do something
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  Speaker 2: about this without conceding ground is a very powerful political
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: imperative at the moment. And I think that that's where
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: we're at. A lot of the audience is very much domestic.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: The other interesting thing, Carl, is that despite the announcements,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: there's already talk that in parallel, at least to the
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: announcements about these, the great isolation of Iran is proposals
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: unverified being passed to the Iranians through Pakistan that the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: United States is willing to consider lifting sanctions, et cetera,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: et cetera, in return for Iran agreeing to open the
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz. So, you know, you really do need
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: to wonder whether, in fact, the Americans themselves believe that
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: these sanctions are long-term viable or whether in fact they're
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: just short-term bargaining chips that they're using to try to
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: re-engage Iran and force Iran back to the table?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: That's a trillion dollar question because uh, you know, Iran
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  Speaker 1: already said they seized Trump administration as agreement incapable, and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: now they have no trust in any kind of agreement
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they made with the Trump administration, you know, first typified
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: by Trump pouring up the JCPOA agreement in the first term,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and then their illegal attack on Iran. And I'm following that, um,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: breaking up the MOU, which they signed at Versailles. So, uh,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: which are legitimate concerns, legitimate questions about the Iranian side,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: whether the Trump administration can be trusted. But this is
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: also going to have a ripple effect on the China-U.S. relationship,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: because as you say, China is going to be the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Chinese companies or the Chinese banks that's going to be
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: potentially affected. And China already was very clear on what
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: their stance was. The Chinese foreign uh ministry released a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: statement uh that said you know basically iran china relationship
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: this is a sovereign issue for china china has a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: right to do business with any nation and that they
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: will take appropriate measures to defend their rights this is
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  Speaker 1: basically the same uh response that China gives to Washington
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and its allies when they try to pressure China to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: comply with the Russian sanctions. By saying, you know, China
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and Russia has a normal trade relationship. We have no
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: reason and we don't see any reason to change that. And,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you know, how we deal with Russia is our business.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Others can just butt out. Go ahead.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I think that there's a few issues worth unpacking there. One,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: as you outlined, China has made clear its position It
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: has no intent on complying with American secondary sanctions. It
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: actually made that position clear through legal means about three
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: months ago when it gave clear instructions to quite a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: number of the so-called teapot refineries. By the way, that's
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: a real misnomer these days. They were very small ones
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: when they first got the name teapot refineries, but these
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: are monstrous refineries, you know, providing up to about 40%
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: of China's refinery Anyway, they're still called teapot refineries. The
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: central government made it clear to those refineries that should
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: they be subjected to secondary sanctions, that the central government
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: would back them up. In other words, ignore American secondary sanctions,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: go and do business as usual, as you would normally
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: do every day. The second thing I think that's worth noting,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: and this is a slightly bigger picture with a slightly
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: longer time duration, I don't think that the only way
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: that we should be looking at this particular set of
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: issues in the Persian Gulf is simply to revolve around,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I guess, the tactical questions of the negotiation itself. The
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: focus that often draws attention is this question of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: status of the Strait of Hormuz. The United States cannot
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: abide by the Iranians having control of the Strait of Hormuz.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And the Iranians, of course, will not let go of
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  Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz because that is a significant leverage
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: point that they have. All of that's true, but I
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  Speaker 2: think that there is more at play now in the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: region than just the question of the Strait of Hormuz.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And what's at play in the region is actually the
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  Speaker 2: regional architecture going forward. What existed prior to February, the
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  Speaker 2: 28th of February this year, in the region was a
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: security architecture in which the United States dominated and in
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: which the principalities, the Gulf monarchies existed under the protective
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: umbrella of American bases located on their territories. That was
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the setup. And the promise was that the United States,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: by having those forward bases, would be able to quote,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: deter Iran, but also project power into the region. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: over time, prosecute the broader strategy of greater Israel. Since
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: the 28th of February this year, we now have a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: very different reality. And that reality is one of a
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: decimated American Ford-based architecture, American troops being pushed out, American
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: machinery being vacated from this region, and essentially the American
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: military being forced to locate 1,000 kilometres away. This is
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: quite a significant physical change, but it's also an institutional change,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: a political change. A symptom of that is this trilateral
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Many observers... observed
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that when that agreement was signed, that it was a
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: little bit of a nothing burger, that it didn't have
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: teeth because none of the countries would necessarily come to
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: the aid of the other should they come under attack. Again,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: all of that may well be true in the moment,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: but what we also need to understand is that this
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: trilateral agreement could never have been possible under the pre-
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: February 28th environment. So it is a sign of a
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: shift in the configuration of a region. It's not the endpoint.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: It's just a sign of a configuration. It's a vector
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: and it's a trajectory. The second thing we now know
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: is that Iran has been invited to also join this arrangement.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And Iran is giving consideration to that now. Now, that's
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: a very important move, whether or not Iran joins it
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: as it stands will be a different question. But the
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: fact that Iran is entertaining this invitation speaks to what
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: was outlined back in May this year when Iran's foreign minister, Arachi,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: visited Beijing. And coming out of those meetings, we had
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: both Wang Yi and Arachi spelling out separately but clearly
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: a common position that they discussed and arrived at, that
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: a preferred outcome for the region would be a new
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: security architecture created by the states of the region for
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the region, and that it would be premised on the
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: idea of good neighbourliness. What that implied was a future
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: arrangement that did not have American borders, military bases as
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a central feature. And this is starting to unfold. Again,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: it's not an end point at this moment, but it
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: is a trajectory and it's a vector where we are
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: starting to see the emergence of new relationships that hold possibilities.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: They haven't been stabilised yet. They remain unstable. They're fragile.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: There's moving pieces that haven't been bedded down yet. And
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: it will take quite a long time before any of
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: that begins to settle. But that's the reconfiguration that is
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: beginning to take place in the region. And what underpins
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: all of this, and this goes to this issue of
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: China's relationship to the region and China's willingness to play
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: along with American secondary sanctions or not, is that none
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: of these arrangements are conceivable if the People's Republic of China,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: if none of the players could be confident that the
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: People's Republic of China would be a significant economic backstop.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: let alone being a military guarantor and all those sorts
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: of things. And you've got to sort of wind, turn
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: your mind back just a little bit further. What, four
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: years ago, three years ago now, China facilitated a rapprochement
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Obviously, that's come under quite
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of strain in the last 12 months, but nonetheless,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: they were able to accomplish that around an economic program, actually,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of infrastructure development into connectivity, et cetera, et cetera. I
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if all of that's back on the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: table and is being contemplated behind the scenes as the
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: foundation stones for the new architecture. We go back to
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: the agreements that Iran had arrived at with China back
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: in 2021 from memory. And they also have had their
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: moments of up and down. But there is no doubt
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: now that Iran really is in a position where it
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: has no choice but to consolidate those economic relationships. And that,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: in fact, it's also in China's interest that those relationships
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: be consolidated as well. From the point of view of
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: energy security, but also from the point of geopolitical reconfiguration
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of that part of the Eurasian continent. So you start
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to add all of these elements together and you think
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: about this as a work in progress as opposed to
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: a series of endpoints. And I think we are starting
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to get a much clearer picture of what the states
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: in the region and Iran, together with China actually, and
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I suspect also Russia's in there as well, providing the
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: kind of military support and economic support, incidentally. I mean,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you were building the rail line, the agreements to build
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: a rail line from Russia to Iran, for instance. All
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: of these are aimed at a more fundamental shift in
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: the way the region is set up. It's not just
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: about who's the boss of the Strait of Hormuz. That's
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a tactical question because that gives leverage. The real issue
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: is whether or not Iran can stabilise a new configuration
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: and whether or not the Gulf states ultimately settle down
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: around a new configuration. The recent tensions between Israel and Turkey,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I think, are also quite an important part of this.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And Iran's made it clear as well that if Israel
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: attacked Turkey. that Iran won't sit idly by and I
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: think that there are it's quite clear that from Turkey's
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: point of view that the survival of the Iranian state
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: is also an important outcome even though they themselves have
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: their own tensions right but From Turkey's point of view,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Iran's survival is actually an important part of Turkey's own
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: ability to exert authority across the region. So what are
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: we witnessing here? Well, we're witnessing the beginnings, the birthing
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: of a post-US Persian Gulf security and economic architecture. Are
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: all the contours in place? Certainly not. Are the relationships
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: and institutions stabilised? Far from it. But there is no
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: doubt in my mind that that is what history is
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: trying to do at the moment. It's trying to give
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: birth to this. I don't know if it will succeed,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: but this is actually what's going on. And the United States,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: in many regards, Carl, has no means of stopping this
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: per se. And the reason it can't is because it
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: no longer has bases in the region and it can't
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: win a military conflict. And so it's trying one last gasp,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: which is to try and curtail Iran and crush Iran
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: through economic sanctions. But I doubt that that's going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: work either.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I feel like there has to be somebody in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Washington that's smart enough to understand all these. And there's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: got to be somebody who understands that the more US
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: is going down the current path of dismantling the present
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: international system, the worse it is for the U.S. empire's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: ability to maintain its own hegemony and building a stronger
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: case and motivation for people to build an alternative world
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: security framework. Why are they still doing this? Why do
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: they keep on shooting themselves in the foot? That is
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: my question.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it is an interesting situation because a reluctance
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: to come to terms with the changing nature of the
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: world means that the preferred approach is to try to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: hold back these changes or, in fact, turn the clock back.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: And the more that they try to do that, in fact,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the more they hasten the changes that they want to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: slow down. The dilemma, though, is that to accept these
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: changes requires an acceptance of a very fundamental change in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: obviously in America's position in the world, but also Americans'
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: understanding of America's position in the world, which is just
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: as important. The idea of being an exceptional country the
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: shining light, a country of and a people that is
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: meant to lead, you know, lead the world to civilisation.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: All of those ideas that are also bundled up with
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: a deep sense of entitlement are very difficult to let
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: go of, particularly for a set of political institutions and
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: organisations people involved in those institutions whose entire lives have
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: been wrapped up in the benefits of the old regime. Now,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I suspect that a younger generation of American would actually
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: have no problems with coming to terms with the fact
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: that the world has changed and that America is no
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: longer even first amongst equals. It's just one amongst a
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: bunch of the major countries and important countries. America is
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: not unimportant. America is not weak america's a powerful important
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: significant country it's just that it's no longer the entitled
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: country the exceptional country um you know to a point
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: where donald trump has for instance and i think he
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: embodies a lot of this you know and he's of
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: a generation that really holds these views quite you know
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: very much to the heart that that america that the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: world wouldn't exist if it wasn't for america um that
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: uh that america in effect gives gives life to the
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: world And letting all of that go and coming to
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: terms with a diminished relative status is, I think, almost
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: impossible for the current political culture to deal with. On
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: top of which, there are some very significant economic interests
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: wrapped up in all of this, which makes it incredibly
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: hard to untangle, whether it's financial interests, artificial intelligence, commercial interests,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the interests of the American oil and gas industry. all
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: of this is wrapped up in the political economy set-up
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: that is not going to let go easily. There is
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: actually quite a lot at stake, and if they can
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: prolong the life of the old regime and extract as
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: much as they can along the way, well, I'm sure
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: they will. And add to that, of course, the military-industrial
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: complex who never misses a heartbeat and never misses an
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: opportunity to, to talk up a reason why they need
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: more funding.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, right now with all these sanctions, tariffs
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that's rolling off the assembly line in White House that's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: aiming toward China, particularly at this juncture when Xi Jinping
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is supposedly have a planned visit of the United States
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: coming up in September. But that coincides of the slew
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of anti-China articles coming out in the U.S. media, partly,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: as you say, it's because of the election cycle. Now
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: China is a domestic American political issue. Everybody wants to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: appear tough on China. And I'm sure that will be, again,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: be played out if Xi Jinping do make it to
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the United States. How do you see this will affect
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the U.S., China relationship going on forward?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Look, in many ways, the more things change, the more
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: they stay the same. The cycle of intensifying rhetoric, applying
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: a bunch of or threatening to apply a bunch of
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: restrictive measures seems to intensify prior to a leadership summit.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And it comes basically from Washington, seeking to establish perhaps
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: some leverage in the lead up to the summits but
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: so far that approach actually hasn't really worked very well
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: at all they tried to do this prior to the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: meeting in may um and uh and that really didn't
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: get the united states very far and and again last
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: year as you'll recall you know with with the liberation
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: day tariffs um a lot of chess beating and then
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: eventually a uh a Amodus Vivendi arrived at the meeting
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: between Xi and Trump in Busan. So even though the
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: White House seems intent on a particular tactical approach, which
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: is to threaten all sorts of things in the lead
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: up to summits in the hopes of gaining leverage, the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: proof of the pudding has so far been in the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: eating and It hasn't really delivered the kind of outcomes
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: that I would think that Washington would have hoped to
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: have gotten out of all of this stuff. And I
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: suspect the same again. The, you know, these issues of
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: secondary sanctions, the Americans, I doubt, are going to actually
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: enforce any of them, even if they go through with them, notwithstanding,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: you know, the comments about how their backdoor channels to
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: talk about lifting sanctions and all of that. Put all
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: of that aside. If they did go ahead with imposing
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the full court press on Iran, they actually won't enforce
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: them when it comes to China. They won't enforce them,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: especially between now and September because they won't be game.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: And it's not just a tactical question. The economic pain
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: that could arise as a result of that in the
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: lead-up to midterm elections are things that I think the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: administration and Republicans will actually want to avoid. So from
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: a purely political theatre point of view, what they would
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: ideally like to achieve is to create a very powerful
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: impression that they're doing something, but at the same time
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: not really do anything at all. So the Chinese will
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: view the world as they're making a whole lot of
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: noise over there. principally for domestic political purposes, and we'll
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: ignore it and we'll just carry on. And, of course,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: in Washington, they'll talk tough about how they're, you know,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: really sticking it to the Chinese with a hope that
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: that will help hold a couple of the swing seats
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: and maybe even the odd spot in the Senate that's
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: now up for grabs. And that's probably where I think
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: things are going. there are lots of moving parts again.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: The state of the American economy, I think, is actually
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: far more fragile than than often headline numbers might suggest.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I saw some data yesterday or the day before on
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: capital investment in the United States by sector, and the
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: only sectors where there's actually growth in capex are AI-related.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Everything else has been shrinking. which means that a high
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: concentration of capital, finance capital flowing to that sector. We
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: know that there's lots of bottlenecks. We know that there's
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: actually growing public anxiety and, in fact, opposition to things
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: like data centres. But, yeah, it's the only thing keeping
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: the tills ticking over insofar as GDP accounting are concerned,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: and that's going to become a problem if they... if
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: the wheels start to fall off that particular wagon between
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: now and November. They're going to try to keep that going.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: And so these are some of the challenges that the
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: United States actually faces. Throw into that the, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: the self-induced complications and possibly some pain along the way
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: with the new breakout of the trade war with Canada.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: You know, you've really got to wonder what it is that,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: leads a political administration to sort of set off all
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: these butterflies all the time. Most political organizations aim to
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: calm the world down and be in control of things.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: This particular one seems to go out of its way
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: to stoke crises and problems.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually was kind of surprised by the US-Canadian
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: role because Why? What does the Trump administration hope to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: gain from this? The U.S.-Canada relationship has been one of
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the most stable bilateral relationships in the world. Canada pretty
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: much goes along with what the U.S. traditionally has demanded,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: as long as it's not too outrageous. For whatever reason,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Trump really liked to push the Canadians' envelope on this one.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. I lived in the U.S. for almost
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: 30 years. Personally, I don't think there's a great animosity
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: towards the Canadians. So I don't know why Trump is
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: doing what he's doing.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Look, there is a sense of victimhood, and it is
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: very much embodied in the way that Trump and his
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: administration views the world, that America has been a victim.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: It's hard to conceive of that, of course, when you
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: look at the United States from the outside. The idea
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: that the United States is a victim of other countries
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: is a very difficult idea to get the head around.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: But he certainly thinks that America has been a victim.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: They've been ripped off. He sees Canada as taking advantage
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: of America and, for whatever reasons, thinks that that uh,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: imbalance needs to be addressed. And, but it's, it's a
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: very complicated, I mean, one, it involves destroying agreements that
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: he himself entered into, um, which I always find, uh,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: mildly humorous, but, uh, but it also, uh, opens economic
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: cans of worms that, um, actually quite messy, you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: so the talk of imposing more tariffs on Canadian motor vehicles,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: as well as, um, motor vehicle parts and components will
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: have very concentrated and adverse effects on Michigan, for example,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: where something like 55% of imported Canadian motor vehicle parts arrive.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And by also tariffing completed motor vehicles that come from
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Canada to the United States, It actually has a different effect,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: which is that it will penalise American spare parts or
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: American parts exporters that export to these Canadian factories where
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: they assemble motor vehicles. So both ways, just on the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: motor vehicles issue, you're actually adding costs for imports coming
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: one way. You're adding costs on motor vehicles, obviously. But
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: by doing that, you're going to shoot yourself in the
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: foot because there's a whole bunch of American factories that
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: manufacture motor vehicle components that are sent to Canada for
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: assembly into completed products. What's the upside of that? How
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: do you go to Michigan and campaign on the basis
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: that you're going to disrupt and jeopardise their industries by
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: increasing the cost of imported components? I think that some
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: of these things are kind of counterintuitive. And let's not
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: forget that the United States also imports a bunch of
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: crude oil from Canada, which is necessary as a kind
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: of oil for the Midwestern refineries. Those refineries aren't set
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: up to deal with crude oil from any other part
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: of the world. They're set up to deal with the
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: oil from Canada, without which, of course, the ability of
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the United States, particularly their refineries, to not only service
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: their own domestic needs, but to export their surpluses is
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: hampered as well. The United States exports a bunch of
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: stuff in the downstream refined environment because it imports crude.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: This is the thing that people often forget. When they
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: sort of bland it out and abstract it out and
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: say America's a net exporter of energy, well, yeah, it
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: is if you reduce everything to you know, jewels. But
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: when you actually break things down into product categories, you
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: actually realise that quite a lot of American exports are
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: only possible because of imports, without which it couldn't export anyway. So,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: you know, again, you know, it actually adversely affects the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: interests of American refineries and arguably it affects the strategic
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: interests of the United States in terms of its ability
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: to supply refineries refined products into particular markets. It's a
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: very strange thing.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Or critical minerals. You know, like Canada is a very
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: important component of U.S. effort to build a China-free critical
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: mineral supply chain. You know, China has put export control
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: on galleon. Now, galleon just happened to be a byproduct
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of aluminum production. And the limiting... the limiting factor on
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: aluminum production is electricity. And as we all know, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: electricity in the United States is not cheap because especially
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: nowadays with all the demand from the new AI data
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: centers that's coming online. And that's why Alcoa had moved
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: their aluminum plants to Canada because Canada has plenty of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: cheap and plenty for hydroelectric power. And that was one
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: of the great hope for, you know, where U.S. might
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: get its galleon from. But now they can kiss goodbye
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to that as well. And, you know, the galleon is
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a very important component that will go into all sort
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: of gears for the U.S. military industrial complex, you know,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: to miss up components, parts, everything. So, yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: It's... Today's world and supply chain networks are so intertwined, upstream, midstream, downstream,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: and things sort of recycle often as well. You know,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: so the cars was a great example, you know, where
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: components manufactured on one side of a border are added
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: to other components on the other side of the border.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: That combined assembly then moves back across the border to
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: then be, you know, put into a completed vehicle, for example,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: and gallium, you know, as a by-product of aluminium, et cetera,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just very hard to disentangle all of this.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: And this is why I think that people in the
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: administration of a certain generation in particular still have a
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: mental map of the world where these kinds of complex
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: processes entanglements don't exist, where we just buy things and
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: sell things and everything, whatever it is that we buy
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: is self-contained, whatever it is that we sell is self-contained.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: And they don't understand that complex manufacturers in particular include
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: all these kinds of things mixed together through processes along
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: the way. And you simply can't willy-nilly untangle what is
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: in effect the evolutionary outcome of 50, 60 or even
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: 70 years of industrial reconfiguration. Now, these dynamics and the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: contours that exist today didn't appear overnight. They also took
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: decades to emerge as particular parts of the world and
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: enterprises became especially good at different things. They built relationships
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: with other firms upstream and downstream that they became comfortable
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: with working with. They aligned their processes. They got their
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: standards in sync so that they could have confidence that
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: the products that they were importing from others would be
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: immediately useful. et cetera, et cetera. They built the payments
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: architectures on top, the information and data architectures, the customs
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: clearances and the compliance regimes. All of this stuff didn't
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: appear in the space of 12 months. It appeared over
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: literally 40, 50 and sometimes much longer years. And, you know,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: the idea that you can just run around the world
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: and run around your own backyard and causing these kinds
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of disruptions, expecting there to be zero downside risk, you've
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: got rocks in your head. To also assume that industry
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and enterprises can somehow miraculously adapt and replace these systems,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it actually just doesn't happen. And so.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: The assumptions that somehow, well, if we increase the price
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: on this stuff by putting a tariff on it, domestic
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: firms will expand their production. Well, it just hasn't happened, right?
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Or new firms will enter the market. Well, that hasn't
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: happened either. And we know this because the capital expenditure
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: data shows that the only industries that have been receiving
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: growth in capital expenditure are AI-related. None of the others have. So... It's,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: you know, often you sort of say, you wonder to yourself,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: what is going on? What drives this? And there clearly
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: are reasons. There's a thought process behind some of this.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I think there's also some intuition as well, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: this sense of others treating us as Americans unfairly and
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: we need to, you know, recalibrate that or sort that out.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: There's a bit of that anyway. But I tend to
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: think that a lot of the assumptions is that, and
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: in a sense, it's a misplaced confidence in the capacity
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: of the American system. There's a belief that somehow the
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: American system can just immediately react and respond and fill
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: the gap, and it can't. It can't because economic systems
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: and production processes and the ecosystems that make it all
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: possible are actually really complicated and they take time to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: get up to scratch. A great example of that is
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the human capabilities that you need to deal with these
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: complex processes. And if you look at the industrial capacity
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: of China, one of the reasons why the Chinese industrial
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: capacity is where it is now is because of the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: large numbers of incredibly well-educated, well-trained people, number one, but
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: also the accumulated learning in these integrated ecosystems that has
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: emerged over 30 or 40 years. So the idea of
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: learning by doing and then transferring that learning through interactions
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: within industrial ecosystems. Again, you can't manufacture that in 12 months.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: This is the sort of stuff that takes decades to accumulate.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: It's an accumulative, accretive process. And you need people with
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: skills and know-how for that. A great example is, well,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: you know, at a macro level, we do see in
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: the United States a declining standards on literacy and numeracy.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: We don't have great numbers of graduates in key areas.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Mining is a classic example. So you talk about this
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: aspiration to become detached from the Chinese rare earths. and
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: critical minerals supply chains. And of course you say, well,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: of course we'll just go and mine our stuff. We'll
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: mine stuff ourselves and process it ourselves. That's great in theory,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: but where are all your mining engineers coming from? The
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: United States Mining Industry Association estimates that the United States
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: is gonna be short hundreds of thousands of relevant skilled
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: mine sector workers by 2030. And that's because there's not
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: enough younger people coming through the system to go and
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: fill the kind of modern jobs in mining. You've got
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: to remember, mine workers aren't the ones with a hat
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and the light on top with a pick, right? These
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: are people who are driving complicated equipment and machinery. They're geologists, engineers.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: But the other thing is, is that the retirement numbers
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: are huge. There's actually a whole cohort of skilled workers
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: in the mining industry who will be retiring between now
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: and the end of the decade. and they won't be replaced.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: They won't be replaced. So what happens then? You can
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: have all the grand plans that you want, but if
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: you don't have the human resource capabilities in your system,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: then they will be your weakest link. If you think
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: about what's happened in China, at 2026, the world talks about,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: you know, Chinese capacity, overcapacity, or whatever you want, right?
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: But there is a recognition that China... has an industrial
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: capability that is second to none by a long way.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: It also recognises that China is no longer the manufacturer
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: only of cheap socks and jocks. It's making some very
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: complicated and sophisticated things. None of that would have been
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: possible had it not been for 30 to 40 years
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: of progressive investment in an expansion of the education pipeline.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: This is a window, an era in which China recoups
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: at a national level, at a system level, a return
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: on investment of 30 to 40 years of human capacity development.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: It's starting to unfold now, and it has been for
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: about 10 years, but it's really picking up a head
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: of steam now. Imagine what it's going to do over
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the next 10 years. whole bunch of clever people coming
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: through the system. They'll replace a whole bunch of older people,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: people like me, for example, who are nowhere near as
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: well-trained or as clever. And they will, as people like
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: in my cohort and reach the end of our working lives,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: much better qualified and knowledgeable people actually come through. And
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: so long as the ecosystem can pass on the knowledge
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: and And the know-how, the stuff that you learn on
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: the job to that next generation, it's going to be
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: an incredible cohort of people to drive the next wave of, well,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: is it industry 4.0 or is it going to be
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: industry 5.0?
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: So I just did some fact checking. I just looked
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: up the top geoscience schools around the world. And according
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to the US News website, the latest ranking, the top
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: four universities globally for geosciences, top four, three are Chinese.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: And US university, not even on the list, the only
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: non-Chinese university made top four was Zurich. And my alma mater, Caltech,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: actually came in number five. That's the first US university
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that made the list. And the same picture goes for
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: chemical engineering. You know, like China produce hundreds of thousands,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: if not millions of chemical engineers every year. And they
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: rank like top 20 out of 20, occupy the top ranks.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: And that's also why China now possesses the best coal-to-oil technology.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: They're fine through the straight-or-home-moose crisis because they are able
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to make their fertilizer from coal, and they can convert
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: coal to synthetic oil. It's profitable now at the current
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: oil price. So China is doing okay. This is how
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: China was able to cut its import of oil by
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: nearly half last year.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Look, just on so many things, I mean, a sort
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: of work that I do is working with a team
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: of researchers in the material sciences. So it certainly wasn't
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: my own background, even though I've always been fascinated by it.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: But I've been fortunate that I have a group of
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: material science researchers who tolerate me and slowly but surely
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: educate me on a lot of the things that are
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: really at the bleeding edge of the material and chemical sciences.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: And what is happening out of Chinese laboratories is mind-blowing.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Whether it's stuff to do with neurodegenerative technology interfaces through
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: to developments in conductive materials, copper replacements, biochemistry, plastic replacements,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: using salt water purely to create hydrogen, new breakthroughs in
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: solid-state cooling systems. I mean, this stuff's going to be
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: quite incredible because once you've got solid-state cooling systems beginning
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: to industrialise and commercialise, it will transform the way that,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: you know, information systems work because information systems, of course,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: are big heat generators because they're big users of energy, right?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Data centres are really massive cool rooms in some respects.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: And so the breakthroughs that are happening upstream in scientific laboratories,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: in chemical sciences, material sciences, et cetera, et cetera, right
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: across the Chinese ecosystem is going to, I think, create
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: what could be one of the biggest portfolio restructures, if
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: you will, that the world has seen since the Industrial Revolution.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Because the Industrial Revolution gave rise to and made possible
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: the environment for a whole bunch of what we now
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: call the material sciences. And a lot of it's been
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: actually quite stable for a long time. But we're going
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: to have a whole new generation of stuff, of, you know,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: new molecular... structures, if you will, that can be used
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: in all sorts of application cases. I mean, one of
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: the most interesting ones I find is that, you know,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: these things that they call TENGs, triboelectric nanogenerators, which are
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: micro devices that enable the harvesting of ambient energy from nature.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is remarkable stuff. Because it means that
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: you can have micro-sized, nano-sized devices that are harvesting energy
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: just from the minute vibrations in the world, for example,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: collecting data on all sorts of stuff, you know, for
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: good and for bad, of course. But this is remarkable.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: And I just don't see a lot of this coming
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: out of the American environment. There's lots of smart people, right?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: There doesn't seem to be a public culture that says
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: this stuff's really important. In fact, you have a very
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: different public culture, which is all these people coming out
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: of universities really need to be dragged back down to
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: earth because we've got all these smarties out of universities
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: and we need more common sense. There's a public culture
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: that actually puts on a pedestal this idea of, well,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: in truth, And often, not always, but often it is
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: a level of ignorance, but it's eulogised. And that's a
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: real shame because you end up with crazy stuff and
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: a lack of a commitment to things that I think
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: can make a material difference to the quality of a
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: society and the quality of life of people.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I just looked up the top engineering college ranking, global
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: ranking on USA News, and it's even more shocking than
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: I thought. I just said top 20 out of top 20.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I thought that was impressive. And I scrolled down the list.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I'm on the top 33 list. engineering top engineering schools
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: in the world there's only two that are non-chinese and
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: those two are singaporean there's a couple hong kong oh
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: well hong kong is part of china now there's also
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: a couple hong kong university there and coming on the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: 34th is athlete university athlete in australia uh you know
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: there's no american university on the rank at all you
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: know even on from through to top 39. I mean,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: it's mostly, it's just mostly Chinese.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And look, that to me, I think says everything about,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: in some ways, you know, we've got, we spoke about
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: all these conflicts happening in the world, but what's at
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: the heart of a lot of this stuff? And I
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: don't want this to sound particularly reductionist, you know, it's
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: not a single factor thing, but whilst all of these
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: expressions of displacement and anger and violence is taking place,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: In another part of the world, we've got countries like
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: China that remain totally committed to human capacity development. And
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: these are transformative things. And if there is some hope
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: in all of this stuff, it is the fact that
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: there are still countries in the world that understand that
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: without human capacity development, we're never really going to have
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: a chance of addressing many of the problems that we've got,
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: create some new problems along the way. When you look
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: at Iran, one of the reasons why Iran has been
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: underestimated is because there have been these cartoon images of
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: what Iran is, you know, repressive, blah, blah, blah. But
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: in truth, Iran has one of the most sophisticated engineering
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: ecosystems that you can find, and remarkably, under conditions of
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: decades of sanctions and isolation. Iran has developed its own
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: domestic missile capabilities, some of which are second to none, really.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And that's been done, again, under conditions of severe Western
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: imposed constraints. And if you looked at Iranian educational graduation numbers,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Iran produces an incredible number of engineers, of mathematicians, chemists.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's, and you wonder why it's able to,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: you know, stand up to the United States. Well, it's
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: because it's got a population of people who are smart
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: and who have been able to do stuff in the
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: world with material resources mining resources engineering chemistry physics and
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: all of that to create things that of course can
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: contribute to the enrichment of a country but also enables
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: this particular country to defend itself i mean remarkable stuff
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: the russians are the same by the way um for
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: decades there's been this you know there's this view that
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: russia's a gas station masquerading as a country. It is
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: a country of drunks with low life expectancy. But, of course,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: for the best part of the last 20 years, the
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: foundations of Russian society have transformed, leveraging off actually decades
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: of institutional capability in the hard sciences. And if you
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: looked at the complexity indices that are maintained by American
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: researchers from memory, it was at Harvard, I think it's Harvard,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Russia's complexity has been on the rise now for the
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: best part of the last decade and a half. And
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: it's actually one of the more sophisticated economic systems in
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: the world. But, of course, underestimated and ignored because it
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: didn't fit the character, the caricature that the West had
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: created about the Russians, the Iranians. And, in fact, I
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: think the West has also had a bunch of caricatures
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: about China and the Chinese. And it's ruining that today,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: you know, these misconceptions, these cartoonish perceptions of what, you know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: China can't innovate. It's a bunch of IP thieves. It
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: can copy but can't create. Now, all of these cartoonish ideas, well,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: you know, what does it do? Well, it leads you
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: to underappreciate others. And it also leads you to a
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: bloated sense of how good you are yourself. So you
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: get complacency on the one hand and an underestimation of
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: others on the other. Well, you know, that's not exactly
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: what you'd call a recipe for success, is it?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Well, the man that coined the term that Russia is
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: a glorified gas station with nukes, that's John McCain. And
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think he has stepped inside an American university
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: research lab since the Vietnam War. Because if anyone who
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: has been there would have noticed, I have. When I
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: came to the U.S., 1990 i stepped inside uh the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: university of illinois uh research lab where my dad worked
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: with the fellow chinese grad students i look around okay
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: this is all like chinese russians indians iranians this that
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: that composed the majority of the workforce that is a
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: pillar of the American foundation of American science and research
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: are these result of the brain drain through the Cold
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: War And, you know, the people who are making all
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: these disparaging remarks in Congress, in Capitol Hill, none of
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: these guys, I bet, none of these guys have set
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: foot inside an actual research institution in the United States
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: because they wouldn't have known if they have. Like, you
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: actually depend on these people. These are the people who
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: depend and build upon, you know, what you call the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: American greatness, you know, like the joke has always been
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that the so-called AI competition between U.S. is really a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: competition between the Chinese in U.S. versus the Chinese in China,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: which is true. I mean, just look at all the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: core AI team members, whether on X or Meta. Look
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: at the names. And most of them are not even
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: like Chinese born in U.S. Most are not even Chinese Americans.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: They're like Chinese born and grew up in China. graduated
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: through Chinese universities that then came to the United States.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and Trump is snipping that pipeline. All the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's effort of going after Chinese scientists and researchers are
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: now trying to help reverse that brain drain, pushing these
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: people back to China. So good for him.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: But this is, and this is where the United States
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: is at. And this is part of, One of the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: ways it's reacting to the displacement of its central role
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: in the world is to lash out at others and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: to blame others for its plight. And one of the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: symptoms of that is to actually cut off its nose
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: to spite its face. It needs smart people. Smart people
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: take time to cultivate. In fact, you need cultures and
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: ecosystems as well as other smart people to pass on
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: and teach education. And you can't create that out of
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: thin air in the space of a year or two.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: You can certainly destroy it very quickly, though, especially if
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: you keep pushing smart people away and making it impossible
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: for smart people to stay, either because the environment's toxic
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: or because they've been harassed away. Other countries are actually
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: going to benefit substantially. Ironically, I think Canada is going
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: to be one of the beneficiaries too. There's plenty of well-educated,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: smart people who worked in the United States who will
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: actually be poached by Canadian institutions and companies. It's a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: very easy move. You know, go north, not very far.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Language cultures are not too dissimilar and you can settle
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: in quite quickly Others, of course, will go back to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: their home countries, whether it's returning back to China or
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: returning back to India, in fact. You know, there's a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: lot of Indian scholars and students who have been in America. And,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: of course, others will end up in places like Australia
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: who will also benefit from the fact that the United
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: States is simply no longer as attractive anymore and Australia,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I would hope, will grasp this opportunity to get a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of clever people from around the world as well.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: The UK, I think, is actually trying its best to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: lure people, not necessarily Chinese, but certainly other well-educated people
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: from parts of the world that might have gone to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: the United States, you know, 10 years ago, but now
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: are starting to have second thoughts. So... These are just
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: symptoms of the changes that are going on. I mean,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: we started this talk about the sanctions that are being imposed,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: the grand isolation of Iran, and perhaps the bookend to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: this discussion, Carl, is actually to reflect upon the idea that,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: in fact, what's going on is not the grand isolation
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: of Iran, but it's a self-isolation of the United States.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed. Okay, now I'm opening for questions about my
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: China experience. Yeah.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I saw you did a couple of walking shows and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: also a broken arm. And you were there during the typhoon, right?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: And over the course of the last few weeks, there
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: have been ongoing stories about, once again, consumption problems, to
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: a point of collapse even, all sorts of these issues.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: They never seem to go away. But I just didn't
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: get the sense, following some of your travels there, that
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: that's actually the mood in China at all. And you
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: spend a bit of time walking and cycling through Shanghai,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: and I think one of the frontiers of this next
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: phase of China's economic development is actually in the urban
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: renewal space. And I'd be interested in some of your
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: observations about how urban spaces are being transformed particularly from
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: what they used to be like say 30.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: Years ago yeah that's that's a great question because uh
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you know i'd love to uh bicycle around because i
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: think that's one of the best way to see a
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: city because you get the uh you're kind of like
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: you're close to the ground you're almost like walking but
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: you are going at a speed almost like an automobile
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: so I cycle around the Huangpu River, which is the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: main river that cuts through the Shanghai metro area, especially
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: along the East Bank in the Pudong area. Pudong is
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: the area that was developed after 1990, after Shanghai was
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: made a special economic zone, especially in Pudong. Before 1990,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Pudong was mostly farms, warehouses, and now has been transformed
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: into skyscrapers. The classic Shanghai skyline you see today, that's
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: in Pudong. Everything is built, everything is new. In a way,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me somewhat of Irvine, California, because
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: it's newer, so everything is planned out, and they just
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: have better infrastructure. They have better walking trails, bike trails.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: They have a lot of greenery. There's parks everywhere. exercise
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: machines for, for elderly. They have the design. So I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: just find out today, yesterday, actually talking to a long-term
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: American expat living in Beijing. So he actually find out
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: those exercise machine that put in the parks are actually
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: specifically put there for the elderly. Cause they're, they're, they're
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: designed to work the type of muscles that might be
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: grow weakened as you age. And, and then you will,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: cause your problems later. So, so, so, and I see
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of retirees, you know, making full use, use
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: of them at all time of the day. And one
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: of the observation I saw was the retirees really having
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the time of their lives in China right now, because they,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: you know, most of them, they all, they all own
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: their house, which they don't have to pay property tax
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: for in China. because there's no property tax in China.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: And their children already have their jobs, already moved out.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: So now they're just enjoying their retirement, spend their time
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: doing Tai Chi in the morning, dancing in the evening,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: playing cards games with friends, and fishing, swimming, exercising in between.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: And a lot of them are also traveling all across China.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: So when I did my traveling around China, including to Xinjiang,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: which is pretty remote. If you think, especially from Shanghai,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I see a lot of elderly folks traveling
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: just to see parts of China. And, and so I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: found my conversation with, with the locals as well. They
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: all agree. So retirees has the best life right now
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: in China. They also retire early. It's like 50, the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: retirement age is like 55 for women, you know, a
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: little bit higher, like 60 and above for men, I think. But,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: you know, it's still pretty good. And, there is the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: locals did tell me there is a economic slowdown after COVID. But,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: but they also tell me they feel things have now
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: bouncing back, especially in 2026. And I, I just, I
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: talked with a clothing store, a West, a French expat
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: living in Shanghai was operating a fashion brand store in, in,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: in Shanghai. And he told me, yeah, yeah. Business has
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: been picking up lately. And that's what the feedback I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: hear from other people in retail as well. So it
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: seems like China is definitely in the midst of an
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: economic transition. You know, it's transitioning away from the traditional
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: real estate-led growth to high manufacturing, AI, tech-focused sectors. You know,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: like the.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: The joke is that the Shanghai mother-in-law in the old
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: days would be you know, pushing their daughter to, to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: marry like a real estate guy. And now, now they're the,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the prime bachelor candidate will be like someone in AI,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: you know, or high tech semiconductors maybe. And, but, but yeah,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: it seems like, I mean, for, for me as a visitor,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the life just super convenient. I just like, I get a, I,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: you know, For a foreigner, I know there's still a
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: little bit onboarding you need to do, but the thing
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: is for Chinese people, things are very convenient because everything
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: they can just scan in, scan in their phone anywhere
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: they go. And sometimes they don't, some people, some of
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: them don't even need to scan. They just, you know,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: wave their hand or scan their face and to pay.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I still have to use my phone because,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I have a foreign passport, but it's, it's, And,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: and there are apps that, uh, you know, besides Alipay
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: and WeChat, there's app map service, like a Mac, which
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: allow me to travel anywhere in China from point A
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: to point B it's the best map service. Uh, that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I recommend anybody who wants to go to China, get
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: it because Google is not accurate in China. Um, and so,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: so get, get, get, uh, a map and you will
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: allow you to go from point A to point B
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: and you can choose. which mode of transportation, whether you
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: want to ride a bicycle, ride share bike, or you
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: want to walk or public transportation or combination between, or
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you want to hail a cab, like a ride share taxi.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: You can do everything within the cab, within the app. And,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: and it's all like the integration is seamless. Um, you,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: it it's, uh, yeah. And, and I also got to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: experience the Chinese medical system, Medicare system firsthand. Because I
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: got a little too cocky. But first, I'll try to
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: answer your question about urban renewal. So as I was cycling,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: I got this from cycling, by the way. So as
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: I was cycling along the Huangpu River, I passed through
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of the older abandoned factory buildings that were
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: in northern part of Pudong. Um, and, and now they
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: have been transformed into like, these are art exhibit centers, um, uh, uh,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: some kind of the, sometimes like a community, uh, um, uh, center,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: like all these, all these places that in a lot
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: of the U S cities, I see just been left
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: abandoned and rotting, uh, you know, often popular with homeless, uh,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: and these, these, these buildings are actually being transformed to reuse.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: And a lot of them have been transformed into creative spaces.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: And it's quite safe. I must emphasize. This is why
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I was able to cycle in Shanghai 3 o'clock in
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: the morning. Maybe that wasn't a great idea. But the
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: whole bikeway was well lit. It's super safe. that's why
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed my experience cycling at night. So I
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: keep on going out and then, you know, maybe I
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: should have thought maybe not be a good idea to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: go so soon right after the typhoon passed. The ground
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: was wet and I was going through a patch just
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: around the bend of the park where there's not so
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: much light. I was going downhill and My bike slipped
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: and I fell. So that's how I injured my wrist.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: I went into the hospital a few hours later. I
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: went to the emergency. And surprisingly, everything was very fast.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Like they really didn't want you to spend a lot
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: of time in the hospital. They want to move you
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: in and out so they can serve more people. So
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I lined up. I arrived in the hospital at like
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: 7 a.m. There was already a line. You know, there
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: was a lot of especially retired old uncles and aunties
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: already lining up ahead of me. But the line moved
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: very quickly. I was in line for maybe like 10 minutes.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: And then they were able to give me a magnetic
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: card with stripes. So that allowed me to do things
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: like stripe my stripes. check myself in for like x-ray
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: and a CT scan. But at first they asked what
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: happened to me. They assigned me to a, like a
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: doctor specialized in bones. And the guy just told me, Oh,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: go get your x-ray. So I went to the machine,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: swipe the car and it tells me to take a number.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: And I'm so used to in United States that I
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: have to take a lot, wait a long time to
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: get to x-ray. So I was, taking my time, was
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: calling my wife. And the next thing I noticed, I
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: look up, I saw the number on the x-ray room.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: It's like 10 more than the number I have. I
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: went to ask like, they're like, oh, we called your
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: name long time ago. You know, you didn't show up.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, things really move fast here.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: And so I got my x-ray. My wrist has a
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: mini fracture, but the doctor wasn't sure about my hip.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: my pelvis. So he ordered a CT scan. Uh, so
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: I did that as well. And, um, and then in the,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: in the end, my pelvis was fine. So he set
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: the cast to my, uh, to my arm, all in
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: all everything, including medicine, including all the bandage, all the treatment, doctor,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: CT scan, x-ray. It comes about, comes out about 1200 RMB,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: which is about 177 us dollars. which in US terms
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: is nothing. When I posted that on Twitter, a lot
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: of the Chinese folks are saying, oh, that's so expensive.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Normally our insurance would cover most of that. Well, I'm like,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: I'm actually happy. I'm actually happy. That's all I had
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: to pay. Because I obviously don't have Chinese insurance. It's
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: out of pocket for me. I was pretty happy to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: go in and out in a matter of about two
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and a half hours. You know, get the x-ray done,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: get the CT scan, get the cast on. And all
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: it cost me $ 177. So I was very happy. A
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: lot of Chinese people are like, oh, that's so expensive.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Our insurance would cover that. I'm like, good for you.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's fair to say that you did
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: get ripped off. But about that. It was like I
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: had a coffee. I had some cash one day a
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: while back, and I bought a Luckin coffee with cash,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: and it cost me 11 RMB. So what's that, $ 1. 60
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: or something US? And I posted that, and a whole
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: bunch of friends basically said, you know, you should have
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: used the app. You would have got it for 9.5
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: RMB or 9. You know, you're an idiot. You got
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: ripped off.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: Well, all's well that ends well. I'm glad that your
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: arm's on the mend anyway and that you got to
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: relay to us your firsthand experiences of the system. You know,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: the big hospitals in Shanghai receive about 10,000 outpatient visits
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: a day. These are significant operations. They're very big machines.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: They're amazing.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the hospitals I went to.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: I went to the Zen Chi Hospital, which is one
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: of the bigger public hospitals in Shanghai. It's very well equipped.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: And there were a lot of people. Let me tell you,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: even at 7 o'clock in the morning, I went, there
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: was already a line.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as you say, there's also quite a lot of
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: uncles and aunties there. And in fact, there's often a
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: lot of out-of-towners. And the out-of-towners come into the Shanghai
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: hospitals regularly. often with minor ailments, but they believe that
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: the hospital in Shanghai is better than the hospital in
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: their nearby hometown. And so they'll often come into Shanghai
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: and they'll wait around a little bit. The system's actually
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: trying to sort that out because it does create bottlenecks.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: The other thing that you might have noticed, I don't
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: know whether you would have, but you might have, is
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: that a lot of the traffic jams in Chinese cities
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: are particularly pronounced around hospitals and schools.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Yes.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's an urban planning traffic management problem. And
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: part of it is that there's a lot of, out
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: of the 10,000 or so outpatient visits to a lot
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: of the big hospitals in the major cities, I saw
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: some studies a couple of years ago which estimated that
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: a good fifth of the visitors are actually out of
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: town and another fifth are are people who really didn't
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: need to go to the hospital. So there's a lot
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: of people who are still presenting at outpatients who could
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: go somewhere else.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: There's a big attitude, I tell you, in terms of
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: going to hospital in China and in the United States.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Because in the US, I would have probably just toughed
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: it out. Because when I went back to the hotel
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: at like four o'clock in the morning, the hotel staff
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: saw my knee was bleeding. So they offered to bandage
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: me up and I was just going to go back
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: and sleep it off. And the hotel staff like, you
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: better go to the hospital in the morning. I'm like,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: is that, is that that serious? I mean, like, it's
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: just a minor scrape, you know, just a, it's just
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: a flesh wound. And, uh, but, but in the morning
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, this is a good opportunity for me
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: to check out the Chinese medical system to see how
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: much it would cost. Um, and I'm glad they did
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: find out there was a mini fracture and then, and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: got the, got the cast on. So yeah, in the,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: in the U S most of the, cases like this,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: I would just simply, you know, tough it out because
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of times I feel like, okay, the doctor
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: just going to look at you for like, you know,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: five minutes and prescribe you some antibiotics and then order
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: you some x-ray and then put you a bill for
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: shit tons of money. That's my experience. And you wait,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: you spend, you waste like half a day, you know,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: waiting in the hospital. So this is why I really
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: didn't like to go to the hospital. At least when
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: I was in the US, I kind of carry, subconsciously,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: I carried that habit Even here in Bali, my wife
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: really hates it. My wife's like, just go see the doctor.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: You're not in the US anymore. You can't afford it.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: Well, there we go. I think we've reached the end
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: of the show. But it's your show, so you need
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: to sign off.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening. And if
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: anyone wants to follow your work, Dr. Pa, where would
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: they go?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, warwickpowell.substack.com and go to Amazon and check out a
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: copy of my book, Thermoeconomics in a Time of Monsters.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: That's probably the best two places to go.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks to everyone for listening in. Until the next time. Bye-bye.