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You've spoken honestly about the possibility of
war between US and China in the long

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term if no diplomatic solution is found, for example, on the question of

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Taiwan and one China policy. How
do we avoid the trajectory where these two

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superpowers clash. Well, it's worth
reading that book on the difficult to pronounce

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the Acidides trap. I believe it's
called I love war history and say out

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and backwards, there's hardly a battle
I haven't read read about, and trying

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to figure out what really was the
cause of victory in any particular case,

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as opposed to one side or another
claim for the reason both the victory and

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what sparked the war. And yeah, yeah, the whole thing. Yeah,

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so that Athens and Sparta is classic
case. The thing about the Greek

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is that really wrote down a lot
of stuff. They loved writing. You

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know, there are lots of interesting
things that happened in many parts of the

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world, but they just people didn't
write down, so we don't know what

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happen, and or they didn't really
write with in detail. They just would

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say like we went, we had
a battle, and we won, and

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like what can you add a bit
more? The Greeks, they really wrote

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a lot. They're very articulate on
they just love writing, so and we

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have a bunch of that writing that's
preserved. So we know what led up

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to the Peloponnesian War between the Spartan
and Athenian alliance, and we know that

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they for quite they saw it coming. I mean, the Spartans didn't write.

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They also weren't very for both by
their nature, but they did right,

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but they weren't very for they were
ters. But the Athenians and the

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other Greeks wrote a line and they
were like and Spartan was really kind of

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like the leader of Greece. But
but Athens grew stronger and stronger with each

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passing year, and everyone's like,
well that's inevitable that there's going to be

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a clash between Athens and Sparta.
Well how do we avoid that? And

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they couldn't. They couldn't. They
actually they saw it coming and they still

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could not avoid it. So you
know, at some point, if there's

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if one group, one civilization or
country or whatever exceeds another sort of like

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if you know, the United States
has been the biggest ki kill in the

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block since I think Ground eighteen ninety
From an economic standpoint, so the United

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States has been the economic most powerful
economic engine in the world longer than anyone's

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been alive. And the foundation of
war is economics. So now we have

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a situation in case of China where
the the economy is likely to be two,

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perhaps three times larger than that of
the US. So imagine your the

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biggest kid in the block for as
long as anyone can remember, and suddenly

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a kid comes along, here's twice
your size. So we see it coming.

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How is it possible to stop?
Is there some let me throw something

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out there, just intermixing of cultures, understanding there does seem to be a

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giant cultural gap and understanding of each
other. And you're an interesting case study

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because you are an American. Obviously
you've done a lot incredible manufacture here in

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the United States, but you also
work with China. I've spent a lot

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of time in China. I met
with the leadership many times. Maybig A

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good question to ask is what are
some things about China that people don't understand?

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Positive just in the culture. What's
some interesting things that you've learned about

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the Chinese? Well, your number
of really smart, hard working people in

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China is incredible there are I belief
if you say, like how many smart,

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hard working people are there in China, there's far more of them there

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than they are here. I think, in my opinion, the UH and

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they've got a lot of energy.
So I mean, the architecture in China

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that's in recent years is far more
impressive than the US. I mean that

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the train stations, the buildings,
the high speed rail, everything, it's

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really far more impressive than what we
have in the US. I mean,

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I recommend somebody just go to Shanghai
and Beijing, look at the buildings and

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go to you know, take the
train from Beijing to Chian where you have

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the Terracotta warriors. China's got incredible
history, very long history, and you

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know, I think arguably the in
terms of the use of language from from

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a written standpoint, sort of one
of one of the oldest, perhaps perhaps

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the oldest written language. And then
China people did write things down. So

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now, China historically has always been, with rare exception, been internally focused.

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They have not been acquisitive. They've
they've fought each other. There have

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been many, many civil wars in
the Three Kingdoms. War I believe they

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lost about seventy percent of their population. So and then so they've had brutal

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internal wars like civil wars that make
the US of a war look small by

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comparison. So I think it's important
to appreciate that China is not monolithic.

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We sort of think of like China's
the sort of one entity of one and

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this is definitely not the case from
what I've seen. And I think most

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people who understand China would agree that
people in China think about China ten times

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more than they think about anything outside
of China. So it's like ninety percent

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of their consideration is you know,
are is in tonal? Well, isn't

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that a really positive thing? When
you're talking about the collaboration and a future

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piece between superpowers, when you're inward
facing, which is like focusing on improving

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yourself versus focusing on yeah, quote
unquote, improving others through military might.

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The good news the history of China
suggests that China is not inquisitive, meaning

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they're not going to go out and
invade a whole bunch of countries. Now,

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they do feel very strongly, you
know, So that's that's good.

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I mean, because a lot of
a lot of very powerful countries have been

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inquisitive. The US is one of
the also one of the rare cases that

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has not been inquisitive. After World
War Two, the US could have basically

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taken over the world in any country, like we got nukes, nobody else

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got nukes. We don't even have
to lose soldiers. Which country do you

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want? And the United States could
have taken over everything? Oh wait,

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ad will and it didn't. And
the United States actually helped revolt countries.

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So it helped rebuilt Europe, you
know, helped rebuilt Japan. This is

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very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented.
You know. The US did conspicuous acts

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of kindness like the Berlin Airlift,
you know, and I think, you

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know, it's always like, well, America has done bad things. Well,

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of course America has done bad things. But one needs to look at

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the whole track record and just generally, you know, one one sort of

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test would be how do you treat
your prisoners of war? Or let's say,

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you know, no offense to the
Russians, but let's say you're in

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Germany, it's nineteen forty five,
you got the Russian army coming one side,

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and you got the French, British
and American armies coming the other side.

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Who would you like to be surrendered
to? Like, no country is

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like morally perfect, but I recommend
being a POW with the Americans. That

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would be my choice, very strongly
in the very much so. And in

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fact, one of them, Brown
took, you know, a small guy,

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was like, we've got to be
captured by the Americans. And in

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fact the ss was under orders to
execute bon Brown and all of the German

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rockin issues and they narrowly escaped their
SSI. They said they were going out

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for a walk in the woods.
They left in the middle of winter with

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no coats, and it ran like
no food, no coast, no water,

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and just ran like hell and ran
west and by share like they I

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think his brother found like a bicycle
or something and and then just cycled,

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where as fasts he couldn't found found
a U. S patrol. So anyway,

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that's that's one that's one way you
can tell moralities. Who where do

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you want to be a p W. It's not fun anywhere, but some

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places are much worse than others.
So anyway, so like America has been,

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while far from perfect, generally a
benevolent force, and we should always

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be self critical and we try to
be better. But anyone with half of

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r knows that. So so I
think there are in this way, China

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and the United States are similar.
Neither country has been acquisitive in a significant

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way. So that's like a you
know, a shared principle. I guess

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now. Now China does feel very
strongly about Taiwan. They've been very clear

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about that for a long time.
You know, from this downpoint, it's

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it's it would be like one of
the states is you know, not there,

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like like Hawaii or something like that, but but more significant than Hawaii,

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you know, and Hawaii is pretty
significant for US, so that they

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viewed as as as really the that
there's a fundamental part of China, the

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island of Formosa now Taiwan that is
not part of China but should be.

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And the only reason it hasn't been
is because the US specific fleet and is

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there economic power grows and is their
military power grows. The thing that they

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are clearly saying is their interests will
you know, clearly be materialized. Yes,

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China has been very clear that they
will incorporate Taiwan peacefully or militarily,

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but that they will incorporate it from
this standpoint is likely. You know,

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something you said about conspicuous acts of
kindness as a geopolitical policy. It almost

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seems naive, but I'd venture to
say that this is probably the path forward

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how you avoid most wars. Just
as you say, it sounds naive,

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but it's kind of brilliant if you
believe in the goodness of underlying most of

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human nature. It just seems like
conspicuous acts of kindness can reverberate through the

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populace of the country is involved.
Yeah, well, and de escalate absolutely.

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So after World War One, the
they made a big mistake. You

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know, they basically try to all
the blame on Germany and and and you

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know, settled Germany with uh impossible
reparations, and you know, really there

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was a lot of blame. There's
a fair quite a bit of blame to

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go around for World War One,
but they try to put it all in

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Germany, and uh, that was
that that laid the seeds for World War

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Two. So that's a lot of
people were not just Hitler. A lot

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of people felt wrong and they wanted
vengeance and they got it. People don't

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forget Yeah, you can you kill
somebody's father, mother, son, daughter,

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They're not gonna forget it. They
will want vengeance. So after World

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War two they're like, well,
the treat of us I was a huge

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mistake in World War One, and
so this time instead of uh, you

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know, crushing the losers, we're
actually gonna help them with the Marshall Plan,

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and we're gonna help revolt Germany.
We're gonna help rebold or you know,

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Austria and the other you know,
Italy and whatnot. So and that

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was the right move. There's a
does feel like there's a profound truth to

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uh conspicuous acts of kind as being
an antidote to this. Something missed up

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the cycle of versus go violence.
Something must stop it or it will,

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you know you it'll, it'll,
it'll never stop. Just eye for an

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eye, tooth for a tooth,
limb for a limb, life for a

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life, forever and ever,