Agreed! As Napoleon once said, “never interfere with your adversary, when they’re in the process of destroying themselves.
The Straight of Hormuz appears to be our Suez Canal Crisis—when the Brits and Israel failed to take the Suez Canal—The British Empire signed its own death certificate—for the US, the date: TBD!
We may have been a declining superpower, but Trump is an accelerant of the worst order, and history will not be kind!…:)
When DT was elected in 2024 by a mandate I said this; "Trump is either going to be a Hero or a Herbert Hoover." . . . . had he done what he campaigned upon, most likely he would have ended up the former. We are now in full damage control mode and those CEO's and Trump's 'Team' are so far removed from the realities the rest of the population deal with on a daily basis we are in for more 'living in interesting times'
100% agree, although, I’m from NY, worked in finance my entire career, and always knew how this would end!
Put a failed business man who believes he is a LEGEND (in his own mind), and is worshipped because he was a reality TV host, was never going to save us.
Trump represents the malignant tumor on a cancer that has been metastasizing on this nation for decades; as well as a death by a thousand judicial cuts (SCOTUS)—it’s a recipe for disaster!
As Robert Maynard Hutchins presciently said:
“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
Nixon sold out the American middle class in 1972, thinking China would "modernize" away from communism. The USA still doesn't understand China and is actively destroying itself to help billionaires.
Don't forget the other big sell out of the middle class was going off the Gold Standard in 1971.....in all fairness to poor old Nixon though, he was forced to go off the Gold Standard due to the deficit LBJ created via the Vietnam War and Great Society Project. After JFK was assassinated the world fundamentally changed. Great leaders like FDR, Eisenhower and JFK, men of purpose were replaced with men who could be bought both in the Administrative and Legislative branches.....at first it was innocuous for the most part but now? Pretty evident what it has morphed into on both sides.
Nixon thought he was going to get developing markets - along with CEOs back then. China has developed a much more capitalist economy than they had under Mao - under a professional class of leaders that looks very much like a modern take on their ancient merit-scholar based bureaucratic system - that kept China going through numbers of emperors/wars/changes. They work as a team. Consensus matters. No surprise that business and trade is important - it’s always been important in China, except for the relatively short revolutionary years under Mao. Communism is just the rallying cry, like Democracy is in the west. They are empty labels, disguising what really happens in countries. The dragon wasn’t sleeping. It was reorganizing and re-inventing itself along modern lines that are quite true to its ancient cultural values. I think this is apparent to a lot of us, except for our politicians and news media.
Nixon wanted to sell Coca-Cola to the Chinese and break American unions by offshoring jobs. After the Cultural Revolution, China was ready to try anything, even capitalism, to avoid economic collapse and famine. China and the USA will continue to exploit their workers and replace them with robots until the desperate masses eat the rich. Branding a nation as a dragon or a cowboy is just propaganda to cover up oppression.
I guess we agree Nixon thought he would expand markets. Nixon's Republicans were eager for cheap manufacturing - which resulted in offshoring jobs - something the Democrats fought for a long time before they folded, and joined up with the world trade meme, which was almost totally pervasive at that time, along with demonization of unions. I remember Democrats arguing there would be lost manufacturing jobs, and Republican politicians ignored them or sneered at them that they didn’t understand commerce. Capitalism isn’t new to China. They’ve always had trade and businesses of all sizes, and various economic forms of capitalism that support business. Chinese leaders say outright, their government is a result of millennia of their own practices and values. The period under Mao was the exception - not the norm. I’m not branding anything. Just referring to the fact that for a couple of centuries, China was known as The Sleeping Dragon or The Sleeping Giant to westerners, mainly because it was insular under the last emperors and Mao, and not well understood by the west. which didn’t stop western countries from trying to exploit it. The phrase says more about western ignorance about China than about China itself.
China’s growing economic and industrial strength is undeniable. Its advancements in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and naval expansion represent one of the most significant geopolitical developments of the modern era. However, reducing global leadership to GDP growth, factory output, or military tonnage fundamentally misunderstands what has historically made civilizations durable, influential, and admired. Economic power alone does not define greatness. Human freedom does.
The recent argument that China now approaches the United States from a position of superior strength ignores the most important measurement of national power: the ability of human beings to think, speak, worship, create, dissent, innovate, and govern themselves freely.
China’s model is built upon centralized authoritarian control. The Chinese Communist Party maintains strict limitations on freedom of speech, press freedom, religious liberty, internet access, political opposition, and independent civil society. Citizens cannot openly criticize the government without fear of censorship, surveillance, imprisonment, or economic retaliation. Entire digital ecosystems are controlled behind the “Great Firewall,” limiting access to outside information and suppressing dissenting voices.
Religious freedom is heavily restricted. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan Buddhists, and all religious communities operate under intense state oversight or outright suppression. Churches are monitored. Mosques are surveilled. Religious teachings are expected to align with Communist Party doctrine rather than independent spiritual conviction. Reports regarding Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang — including detention camps, forced labor allegations, population-control measures, and mass surveillance — have generated global condemnation and accusations of crimes against humanity from multiple governments and human rights organizations.
The article celebrates China’s industrial dominance but ignores the human cost often associated with that dominance: state-controlled labor systems, suppression of unions, limited worker protections, restricted political participation, and a social-credit infrastructure designed to encourage obedience over liberty.
More importantly, China’s rise has not translated proportionally into global cultural leadership.
Modern civilization is not shaped solely by steel production or battery exports. It is shaped by ideas, philosophy, literature, film, music, political theory, artistic freedom, and the unrestricted exchange of thought. The United States and the broader Western democratic tradition have contributed disproportionately to modern science, constitutional government, human rights theory, free-market economics, cinema, journalism, technological entrepreneurship, academic inquiry, literature, and popular culture precisely because individuals were given freedom to challenge authority and create independently.
Innovation flourishes most where people are free to fail, criticize, question, and dissent.
While China has become extraordinarily effective at scaling manufacturing and adapting technologies, critics argue it has contributed comparatively less to modern global philosophical and cultural movements relative to its economic scale. The world’s dominant entertainment, operating systems, social media platforms, political ideals, universities, constitutional frameworks, and artistic exports largely emerged from freer societies, not tightly controlled authoritarian ones.
History repeatedly shows that civilizations built primarily on centralized control often appear powerful externally while becoming brittle internally. Economic expansion can coexist with intellectual stagnation when political conformity becomes mandatory.
The United States has deep flaws and contradictions, but its greatest strength has never been perfection. Its strength lies in openness: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, democratic self-governance, free inquiry, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and the ability to openly criticize its own leaders and institutions without disappearing into prison.
That distinction matters.
Because ultimately, the true measure of a civilization is not merely what it produces — but whether human beings living within it are genuinely free.
Galloway's closer is the sharpest line written about this summit. The CEO entourage reveals a structural misalignment thats more important than anything discussed inside the room. The US government is running a decoupling strategy through chip controls and entity lists. US corporations are running a re-engagement strategy through CEO delegations and market access lobbying. The two tracks are pulling in opposite directions and in the American system corporate lobbying eventually overrides foreign policy doctrine.
The CEO delegation is the private sector signalling to Washington that decoupling is economically intolerable and that corporate America will work around government policy to maintain China access regardless. Apple needs Chinese manufacturing and Nvidia needs the Chinese market. Their quarterly earnings are decided in Zhongnanhai not the White House. the real power asymmetry this summit exposed is between the US government and its own corporations, and Beijing understands that tension far better than Washington does.
China is lusting for Siberian natural resources, notably fresh water, petroleum products, lumber and rare earths. The population of Siberia has been falling 300,000 per year since the Ukraine war heated up. China is proposing the construction of factories in Siberia, manned by Chinese, that would be profitable for a Russian economy that is flailing despite high oil prices.
China can walk and chew gum.
Fully aware that Trump has been moving ordnance from the East to the Middle East to fight his stupid Iran war, China sees a weakened and distracted US in the China Sea. Furthermore, XI may rely on Trump's stupidity and greed to offer him a billion dollar bribe to look the other way when China takes back Taiwan and the lion's share of world-wide AI chip production.
The clock is ticking for China. They have two more years until Trump is out. Look for them to make their move against both Russia and Taiwan by 2028.
Anybody else notice that we seem to be in a world war right now?
Isn’t it odd that neither Russia or China have (overtly) stopped recent USA aggression in Venezuela or Iran?
Agreements already in place?
Trump/USA, Putin/Russia, Xi/China, Modi/India, MBS/Saudi Arabia, Orbán/Hungary, Milei/Argentina, Bukele/el Salvador, Bolsonaro/Brazil, etc all seem to be on the same side.
Who are we fighting in this silent world war?
Until you change the way money works, you change nothing.
What kind of new financial system are they planning right now?
Friday May 15 2026 — The day Jerome Powell officially steps down as Federal Reserve Chair. Kevin Warsh takes the seat. The US financial system changes.
I wonder what kind of deals are going to be signed starting tomorrow.
Mr. Long, remember that the Fed works by consensus. The whole board must vote. Powell still sits on that board and will be very influential. I'm betting Warsh won't be Trump's lap dog since he knows as well as anyone that, if the world capital markets get the notion the Trump is setting monetary policy, there will be a head-spinning flight from the dollar that will collapse the US economy.
Agreed! As Napoleon once said, “never interfere with your adversary, when they’re in the process of destroying themselves.
The Straight of Hormuz appears to be our Suez Canal Crisis—when the Brits and Israel failed to take the Suez Canal—The British Empire signed its own death certificate—for the US, the date: TBD!
We may have been a declining superpower, but Trump is an accelerant of the worst order, and history will not be kind!…:)
When DT was elected in 2024 by a mandate I said this; "Trump is either going to be a Hero or a Herbert Hoover." . . . . had he done what he campaigned upon, most likely he would have ended up the former. We are now in full damage control mode and those CEO's and Trump's 'Team' are so far removed from the realities the rest of the population deal with on a daily basis we are in for more 'living in interesting times'
100% agree, although, I’m from NY, worked in finance my entire career, and always knew how this would end!
Put a failed business man who believes he is a LEGEND (in his own mind), and is worshipped because he was a reality TV host, was never going to save us.
Trump represents the malignant tumor on a cancer that has been metastasizing on this nation for decades; as well as a death by a thousand judicial cuts (SCOTUS)—it’s a recipe for disaster!
As Robert Maynard Hutchins presciently said:
“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
Perfectly said 👍
Nixon sold out the American middle class in 1972, thinking China would "modernize" away from communism. The USA still doesn't understand China and is actively destroying itself to help billionaires.
Don't forget the other big sell out of the middle class was going off the Gold Standard in 1971.....in all fairness to poor old Nixon though, he was forced to go off the Gold Standard due to the deficit LBJ created via the Vietnam War and Great Society Project. After JFK was assassinated the world fundamentally changed. Great leaders like FDR, Eisenhower and JFK, men of purpose were replaced with men who could be bought both in the Administrative and Legislative branches.....at first it was innocuous for the most part but now? Pretty evident what it has morphed into on both sides.
Nixon thought he was going to get developing markets - along with CEOs back then. China has developed a much more capitalist economy than they had under Mao - under a professional class of leaders that looks very much like a modern take on their ancient merit-scholar based bureaucratic system - that kept China going through numbers of emperors/wars/changes. They work as a team. Consensus matters. No surprise that business and trade is important - it’s always been important in China, except for the relatively short revolutionary years under Mao. Communism is just the rallying cry, like Democracy is in the west. They are empty labels, disguising what really happens in countries. The dragon wasn’t sleeping. It was reorganizing and re-inventing itself along modern lines that are quite true to its ancient cultural values. I think this is apparent to a lot of us, except for our politicians and news media.
Nixon wanted to sell Coca-Cola to the Chinese and break American unions by offshoring jobs. After the Cultural Revolution, China was ready to try anything, even capitalism, to avoid economic collapse and famine. China and the USA will continue to exploit their workers and replace them with robots until the desperate masses eat the rich. Branding a nation as a dragon or a cowboy is just propaganda to cover up oppression.
I guess we agree Nixon thought he would expand markets. Nixon's Republicans were eager for cheap manufacturing - which resulted in offshoring jobs - something the Democrats fought for a long time before they folded, and joined up with the world trade meme, which was almost totally pervasive at that time, along with demonization of unions. I remember Democrats arguing there would be lost manufacturing jobs, and Republican politicians ignored them or sneered at them that they didn’t understand commerce. Capitalism isn’t new to China. They’ve always had trade and businesses of all sizes, and various economic forms of capitalism that support business. Chinese leaders say outright, their government is a result of millennia of their own practices and values. The period under Mao was the exception - not the norm. I’m not branding anything. Just referring to the fact that for a couple of centuries, China was known as The Sleeping Dragon or The Sleeping Giant to westerners, mainly because it was insular under the last emperors and Mao, and not well understood by the west. which didn’t stop western countries from trying to exploit it. The phrase says more about western ignorance about China than about China itself.
China’s growing economic and industrial strength is undeniable. Its advancements in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and naval expansion represent one of the most significant geopolitical developments of the modern era. However, reducing global leadership to GDP growth, factory output, or military tonnage fundamentally misunderstands what has historically made civilizations durable, influential, and admired. Economic power alone does not define greatness. Human freedom does.
The recent argument that China now approaches the United States from a position of superior strength ignores the most important measurement of national power: the ability of human beings to think, speak, worship, create, dissent, innovate, and govern themselves freely.
China’s model is built upon centralized authoritarian control. The Chinese Communist Party maintains strict limitations on freedom of speech, press freedom, religious liberty, internet access, political opposition, and independent civil society. Citizens cannot openly criticize the government without fear of censorship, surveillance, imprisonment, or economic retaliation. Entire digital ecosystems are controlled behind the “Great Firewall,” limiting access to outside information and suppressing dissenting voices.
Religious freedom is heavily restricted. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan Buddhists, and all religious communities operate under intense state oversight or outright suppression. Churches are monitored. Mosques are surveilled. Religious teachings are expected to align with Communist Party doctrine rather than independent spiritual conviction. Reports regarding Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang — including detention camps, forced labor allegations, population-control measures, and mass surveillance — have generated global condemnation and accusations of crimes against humanity from multiple governments and human rights organizations.
The article celebrates China’s industrial dominance but ignores the human cost often associated with that dominance: state-controlled labor systems, suppression of unions, limited worker protections, restricted political participation, and a social-credit infrastructure designed to encourage obedience over liberty.
More importantly, China’s rise has not translated proportionally into global cultural leadership.
Modern civilization is not shaped solely by steel production or battery exports. It is shaped by ideas, philosophy, literature, film, music, political theory, artistic freedom, and the unrestricted exchange of thought. The United States and the broader Western democratic tradition have contributed disproportionately to modern science, constitutional government, human rights theory, free-market economics, cinema, journalism, technological entrepreneurship, academic inquiry, literature, and popular culture precisely because individuals were given freedom to challenge authority and create independently.
Innovation flourishes most where people are free to fail, criticize, question, and dissent.
While China has become extraordinarily effective at scaling manufacturing and adapting technologies, critics argue it has contributed comparatively less to modern global philosophical and cultural movements relative to its economic scale. The world’s dominant entertainment, operating systems, social media platforms, political ideals, universities, constitutional frameworks, and artistic exports largely emerged from freer societies, not tightly controlled authoritarian ones.
History repeatedly shows that civilizations built primarily on centralized control often appear powerful externally while becoming brittle internally. Economic expansion can coexist with intellectual stagnation when political conformity becomes mandatory.
The United States has deep flaws and contradictions, but its greatest strength has never been perfection. Its strength lies in openness: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, democratic self-governance, free inquiry, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and the ability to openly criticize its own leaders and institutions without disappearing into prison.
That distinction matters.
Because ultimately, the true measure of a civilization is not merely what it produces — but whether human beings living within it are genuinely free.
Galloway's closer is the sharpest line written about this summit. The CEO entourage reveals a structural misalignment thats more important than anything discussed inside the room. The US government is running a decoupling strategy through chip controls and entity lists. US corporations are running a re-engagement strategy through CEO delegations and market access lobbying. The two tracks are pulling in opposite directions and in the American system corporate lobbying eventually overrides foreign policy doctrine.
The CEO delegation is the private sector signalling to Washington that decoupling is economically intolerable and that corporate America will work around government policy to maintain China access regardless. Apple needs Chinese manufacturing and Nvidia needs the Chinese market. Their quarterly earnings are decided in Zhongnanhai not the White House. the real power asymmetry this summit exposed is between the US government and its own corporations, and Beijing understands that tension far better than Washington does.
Everything is connected.
Russia is bleeding out in Ukraine.
China is lusting for Siberian natural resources, notably fresh water, petroleum products, lumber and rare earths. The population of Siberia has been falling 300,000 per year since the Ukraine war heated up. China is proposing the construction of factories in Siberia, manned by Chinese, that would be profitable for a Russian economy that is flailing despite high oil prices.
China can walk and chew gum.
Fully aware that Trump has been moving ordnance from the East to the Middle East to fight his stupid Iran war, China sees a weakened and distracted US in the China Sea. Furthermore, XI may rely on Trump's stupidity and greed to offer him a billion dollar bribe to look the other way when China takes back Taiwan and the lion's share of world-wide AI chip production.
The clock is ticking for China. They have two more years until Trump is out. Look for them to make their move against both Russia and Taiwan by 2028.
Anybody else notice that we seem to be in a world war right now?
Isn’t it odd that neither Russia or China have (overtly) stopped recent USA aggression in Venezuela or Iran?
Agreements already in place?
Trump/USA, Putin/Russia, Xi/China, Modi/India, MBS/Saudi Arabia, Orbán/Hungary, Milei/Argentina, Bukele/el Salvador, Bolsonaro/Brazil, etc all seem to be on the same side.
Who are we fighting in this silent world war?
Until you change the way money works, you change nothing.
What kind of new financial system are they planning right now?
Friday May 15 2026 — The day Jerome Powell officially steps down as Federal Reserve Chair. Kevin Warsh takes the seat. The US financial system changes.
I wonder what kind of deals are going to be signed starting tomorrow.
Mr. Long, remember that the Fed works by consensus. The whole board must vote. Powell still sits on that board and will be very influential. I'm betting Warsh won't be Trump's lap dog since he knows as well as anyone that, if the world capital markets get the notion the Trump is setting monetary policy, there will be a head-spinning flight from the dollar that will collapse the US economy.