#167. Frank Tsai: Careful When Opening
01:44:07 Share

Hi, I'm Frank Tsai. I run China Crossroads. I'm the largest organizer of public lectures in Shanghai, and I've run about 70 public lectures a year and 600 of these talks since 2010. You've been on this show before. Why did you agree to come back?

You guys are influential, that's the honest answer. So, you know, you're great people and I enjoy being with great people, but, you know, my time is valuable and this is a good use of my time. All right, so Frank, we got through a lot of shit today. Barely, right? I mean, last time I had no idea who you guys were. I come in here, it's a cold room and there's three strangers around a table and I'm dressed really badly and I get on video, right? But this time something's changed.

What were a couple of things that you wish we would have gotten to that we're going to get to the next show? Well, we never really got on the whole Chinese American identity thing. So we were saying we're getting on that last time. We still didn't get to it this time. You're still on that kick. Yeah. So we've said a couple of times talking about like dating life for ABCs. I have so many anecdotes about that. I probably could have bloviated more on my political preferences and what I think about the US. That's never ending topic. All right. I'm Justin. I'm Eric. This is The Honest Drink. Please welcome back.

Frank Tsai. Cheers. Cheers. Welcome back. Thanks for having me back on. Wait, so you drink like five glasses of whiskey? No, wine. Wine. Wine. Yeah. You know, running all these events, I've inadvertently become a wine vendor or a wine merchant because I'm moving so much wine, right? And so it's just sitting there and, you know, I have some drinks. Nice. Talking about your events, you guys were talking about this idea of

Being kind of like a control freak. That's right. I feel the same way about the podcast because it's my own controlled environment and people come to me. But outside of that, you know, I wouldn't feel so comfortable with it as well.

Is that how you are? Like with your events, you have to be in control of every little thing like a puppet master? Yeah, I think... You got to talk into the mic. So the events look very, very spontaneous and we allow for a lot of spontaneity. But in fact, you know, the whole thing is, you know, my network and I've created the agenda. Yeah, it's a way of creating a social... Like if you don't like your social life, I always say you should start an event.

Because then you create the social life that you want to have. So I've said it before. I'm not much of a joiner. I don't join anything, but I created something that other people join. So I become in control of my social life. So is that really at the bottom of China Crossroads is a social life for you? I think it's a way of an introvert finding a way to make an impact in the world. Because what I think I'm going to get angry again. You see it coming.

I think the world's run by extroverts and I'm not happy about it. So, so much of life is, you know, they're power holders and you have to, you know, get with the power holders and impress them. So much is upward networking, right?

And I don't think that's really the forte of introverts, right? So I think that by creating events, I end up with some kind of social power, you could say. You have a large network and that can lead people to take you seriously. So I always say if you're an introvert, you don't like your social life, just start an event. It's a great way of starting things off. That's actually really interesting because I just did an episode with Dr. Stuart Dessen. He's the founder of

psychometric assessment tool called Lumina Spark. He was saying that one of the biggest biases in society is the overvaluation of extroversion. It's one of the most common biases you will see throughout, whether it's in the professional world, in the social world,

And, yeah, he was talking about that. And it's like we undervalue actually the strengths of introversion. Yeah, and that's absolutely true. I mean, it's also true of especially, I think, American culture and certain kinds of business culture, like, you know, certain kinds of consulting firms, this kind of thing. So maybe it's not totally universal, but that's what I've experienced. But I think what I said also has some kind of merit in that...

a lot of life really is upward networking, right? And introverts can do that too. But I just think that extroverts have a special way that's, it gives them advantages in life. But for an introvert, you have a huge social network. How'd that happen? Yeah, how did it happen? Well, I was just saying, I mean, I guess I just know a lot of people, right? And so you know a thousand people and you're very picky about your friends, you'll still make at least 20 friends, right? I see. Well, what about yourself? I mean...

How do you score on the introversion, extroversion scale? I'm pretty highly introverted. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like people who don't know me as well might think I'm extroverted because I host a podcast. Right. But it's because I'm introverted. That's why...

I feel comfortable in a podcast format. Right. Like my podcast format. Yeah. Right. It'd be different if I were to go on someone else's show. Right. I'd probably be pretty anxious about that. Right. Or to speak, you know, in public. Yeah. Like that would be, that's a different ballgame for me. I wouldn't be nearly as comfortable doing that.

I'm pretty comfortable speaking in public and going on media or this kind of thing. But I just think it's practice. And, you know, you've done it a couple dozen times and it gets, you know, really easy. Yeah. But also there's a degree of control. So, like, what's interesting about your show is that there's no agenda and it's longer. And so there's no way anyone's going to have everything set to say in this show. Yeah, yeah. So the first time I came on, oh, it's just going to be like, you know, a 20-minute podcast. I'll have a few set things to say. But it wasn't like that at all, right? So, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If it's a short format thing, you can really, as an introvert, you can have that degree of control. Um, if you're the person being interviewed. Yeah. We, we get some guests coming on, um, who don't expect that. And before they come on, they're asking all these questions like, Oh, like what's the topics where are we going to talk about? What are the, you know, where, where are the bullet points, blah, blah, blah. They want to be very structured with it. And I just respond like, look, it's, it's,

completely off the cuff. Like I don't even know what we're gonna talk about until we start talking. I don't know, sometimes you get a lot of magic out of that too. - Yeah. - What's on your mind these days, man? - I mean, we're just talking about extrovert and introversion now. I had nothing on my mind until now. Now this is on my mind. But I really think it's not fair. I mean, it's just a matter of social justice that a certain kind of personality type can get more resources into contemporary world. I think it's one of the forms of injustice we never think about actually.

I mean, we can't help if we're born a certain way. Yeah. I mean, why do more sociable people get more in life? I'm sure if you looked at the data, if there were statistics that it would show that more sociable people are more successful or get more money in this kind of thing. And it's all because we have to get along in group life. So I run a one-person company. I actually don't have to be involved in group life too much. But in general, we're in organizations and you have to be there and get along with everyone. And being sociable is the way that's traditionally done. Mm-hmm.

So do you really just chop that up just to purely extroversion? Like, what is it about extroverted people? You think they're just...

They just put themselves out there more. So hence, get more opportunities in response to that. And introverted people are stereotypically just, I guess, more reserved and maybe more shy. I don't know if these, you know, these are loaded words to begin with to describe introverted people. You know, I don't want to be too, you know, too extreme, but you know, it's a nuanced issue. There's a certain skill of getting what you want from other people, right? And you could call that manipulation. You could be called out of social skills. I'm not sure. That's not exactly introversion and extroversion, but I think that

Extroverts just have more social comfort, right? So they're going to have an advantage in that particular kind of skill. You guys probably know, I mean, I think there's been a study done where babies, they looked at babies and they had like a mobile above their cribs. And if the baby enjoyed the mobile and was kind of laughing, smiling, that was highly correlated with extroversion. But if the baby was like crying and doesn't like new things,

That was correlated with introversion, and that kind of makes sense. In other words, people are just a stimuli, and extroverts just are happy with new stimuli, and introverts need to be in their comfort zone and get used to things. Why do you get sort of worked up when you think about this topic?

Like when I mentioned social justice? Yeah. I mean, I think it's like a very interesting like angle to take, but isn't sort of any facet of someone, some, you know, any characteristic that might lend itself to this person being able to be more successful? You know, isn't that something that is part of life?

Yeah, I just don't think it's if someone's smarter or harder working, I think it's a just situation if they're more successful. But I don't think it's just if you're more sociable. So that's actually my bias. I think you're absolutely correct.

But I think this points to a difference between the way we think too, right? So I'll often think, well, the world is not right and I'm fine. The world's not right. I don't have to change myself. The world's not right. Therefore, I'm going to complain it's unjust or it shouldn't be that way. And I'll try to change things in however I can, but not myself, the world. Well, so you have an aversion to changing yourself?

I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. I think, you know, the way I've dealt with situations in the past is by changing the pond I swim in or changing the social situation I'm in. Do I have an aversion? I think it's hard. I think it's very hard to change yourself, right? So that makes it, you know, often we don't want to do hard things. So it's more about efficiency.

Yeah, for me, it's easier to change the external environment than the internal environment, right? Maybe it's also like genuineness. Like, I don't know. I just feel like I should be myself. And I don't want to be... A lot of what makes us unhappy is that we're always in situations where we have to be other people, right? I mean, when you're an adult, you have to do that. And I don't find myself in that situation too much, unless it's my own events. And I'm just so delighted. I'm happy to play that role. That's the difference, by the way, between this and my events is I think...

I get a lot of energy from the fact that so many people have come. I'm just genuinely happy to see that people want to come. When you say the world's not right, are you talking more specifically about anything? Or what do you mean by the world's not right? I think the world's not right in any number of ways. When the standards that lead people to advance or become more successful or powerful, when they're not what I consider fair...

That's what I meant by the world's not right. I mean, this applies to, let's say, U.S.-China too. I'm not taking a Chinese perspective, but certainly the argument would be that

You know, the China doesn't have the resources it deserves, you know, given its capacities and its virtues. And we want to fix that. Last time we spoke, was it right after the lockdown? Was it during the lockdown? No, it wasn't during the lockdown. Was it before or after the lockdown that time we spoke? I thought we spoke in exactly one year ago. Maybe it was exactly two years ago. Maybe it was 2022. Eric, you're better with memory. When was the last time we had Frank on?

I thought it was exactly one year ago. Last year? Yeah. Okay, so it was right after the lockdown. But it seems like a different time, doesn't it? Like, that was a post-lockdown period, and now I feel like we're way past the post-lockdown period. Yeah, so I'm asking, like, especially with the events that you run, you know, for you at least, has it been for the better, for the worse? Like, is it more difficult, less difficult?

Yeah, in the last year, I think things have gotten easier for me in terms of like the numbers coming in terms of the revenue. But also, I mean, there's many signs of the government policy becoming friendlier to despite what all the foreign media says. And there's a lot of things going on in China. But in our little world here in Shanghai, the way the government treats foreigners and what they do.

I see more tolerance and I see different data points for that. And that applies to what I'm doing as well. So I feel very good about that. What kind of tolerance are you talking about? Less monitoring, simple as that.

Less tea? Yeah, just less concern and more of a recognition. I mean, I think the bureaucracy has many, many wheels and it turns at different speeds, so it's hard to generalize completely. But I've seen different wheels turn in the right direction. There's a realization, of course, that Shanghai needs to have FDI and foreigners stay here and come and like the place. China needs more exports for sure, partners abroad, and especially as the U.S.,

And China, you know, are basically enemies now. It needs to have other partners, especially Europe. But I, you know, I'm not a, you know, I'm not, I don't work on this full time as an analyst, of course, but that's what I see from my perspective. So in the civil society space, I think things have gotten better in the last year. That's good to hear. Yeah. I mean, whenever it comes to issues of China,

it's almost it almost feels like a very bifurcated um landscape of opinion right even on the same topics and so i feel like half the time what i hear is more leaning towards like

more of a doom and gloom, like, oh, you know, they're cracking down more and it's not as open as it used to be. And, you know, you hear a lot of that narrative as well. But then you also hear from people like you that, no, it's actually, you know, it seems to be trending in a more positive direction than they would have you, than a lot of media outlets would have you believe. Yeah. So it's hard to make sense of it all. Right.

It's a huge topic. I mean, it's subtle. Like if you asked me a year ago, I would say things are getting worse. And maybe I did say that a year ago. Now I think things are ticking up, but the last five years have been a period of tightening and closing. But what I often say is that

China can be tightening to some extent while still being much more open than you think. We know that all these business people come here and they're surprised by how dynamic and how open it is compared to their impressions from the media.

So it's just, it's, it's just totally consistent for China to both be tightening and also be at a higher level of international openness than you had expected. Right. Yeah. I mean, I just, there's a famous like American, uh, China, uh, expert who was in Shanghai recently and he was an elementary on, I guess it's on Fulu and he was just blown away. And I was like, wow, I mean, you work on China all the time.

full time back in the U.S., but you didn't realize that we had this, I mean, what does that mean? That means there's imported cheeses and wines and this place has been around for a long time and there's a big constituency for these kinds of products and this kind of openness, actually. So now I'm talking like a talking head, right? So you're getting the thing I know about. There's a couple of things you mentioned. I'll start with the last piece first, which is, but that's a pretty low bar. I mean,

It's like, it's at the expectation. So imagine like you can go into a grocery store in the US and you can buy like any kind of Chinese sort of good, right? I mean, you've been able to do that for a long time, probably like 30 years, right? And the fact that you can go in and get cheese is some type of indicator, right?

Right. Cause like 20 years ago in Shanghai, you wouldn't be able to get all this imported stuff that just shows you how low of a starting point, like how closed it actually was in the beginning. I mean like fucking one of the most closed places in the entire world. And if that's the comparison point, and then if you look at the media,

Of course. It's like looking at the stock market, right? Have you, you know, have you seen like a stock where it's like, okay, the five day average, you know, the three month average, a six month average, you can interpret that data any way you want it to. You could be like, the stock is going down, it's going up, right? People who try to read the tea leaves there. I mean, they're, they're foolish because you can look at any period of time. And if you zoom out or zoom in enough, you're going to see that the stock is going up.

you can tell any story that you sort of, you know, want to tell, right? Because it's either always going up or going down. Yeah. And so if you think about like news, you know, this,

News is just trying to create some stickiness through their algorithms and through these stories. All they're trying to do is create some type of stimulus so that you're gonna look at it. So they're always gonna choose a data point where it either dropped a lot or it improved a lot. No one's ever gonna like zoom out and be like, oh, it hasn't really changed. That wouldn't sort of be news. So I think like one is like, the bar just seems like super low for China sometimes. And it's just, it's meaningless.

I suppose unless you live here, then it's like a nice thing that you can actually get like, you know, foreign foods and all that shit. And then if you just look at the media and the news, it's like, it's completely arbitrary the way they tell the story. And I mean, you know, Nicholas Tlaib talks a lot about this and fooled by randomness, right? Which is just like, it's all nonsense. Well, I get you about the low bar thing and you do make a good point about that. But to me, when Frank was telling, you know, his anecdote about,

To me, what really highlighted for me was actually the low bar of assumption for a lot of people who are maybe China experts, right? Absolutely. So he's like a China expert, but he's working predominantly out of the States. And so this China expert is coming in to China and even just being what we would consider just normal everyday life at a restaurant here.

that is like blowing his mind is just highlighting the low bar of assumption. And I think the lack of understanding and awareness of really what's, what it is on the ground, like dwelling. A hundred percent. That's, that's the crazy. And there were two things there, right? So the, that second comment I made was more just about the news cycle and the stuff that you see in the news cycle. That's just bullshit, right? Cause like they could just tell whatever the story they want in terms of the foreign expert.

I mean, and I think this speaks to something we've talked a lot about the show. Lem Moy, you know, back in the day, like talked about this and he passed away actually. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. I didn't tell you he passed away. No. We had one of our earlier guests and I never met him because I actually, yeah. Cause you did it like online. Oh, that's really sad. Yeah. No, no, go ahead. Yeah.

moment of silence i mean he was i only heard his voice um but he was from or he spent time in houston texas seemed like a really really thoughtful man yeah yeah cheers to him um yeah but i think the second piece um is the lack of transparency right and it's

And I think you can look at that on both sides. So one is the low bar that you talked about of people outside looking in because of the negativity bias, right? And that's just how a lot of times our minds work. If we can't see something, we're going to assume the worst. And that's just bias, right? That's kind of programmed into us because we have the sort of the, you know, the lean towards identifying negative things. That's just how we're wired, right? Because if everything was positive, we would have been eaten up.

And at the same time, I don't think that China has necessarily done itself a favor because like, I mean, it's still very closed in certain ways, right? There's a great firewall, there's all this stuff. So then when you look at foreigners who don't have a full picture, can you really blame them?

So I think it's two sided. Right. And so when you look at these things, like, is it really the victim? Should it really get a fair shot? I do think, you know, the U.S. is probably a bully in a lot of ways. And I don't think China helps its own cause. And it's a combination of those two things.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely the cognitive bias in America now because everybody's closing ranks against China. So all of his colleagues are saying, I mean, there's a lot of consensus against China. So he's going to go into that thinking that it's a closed place. I mean, Cam was saying, you know, Cameron Johnson, who's going to be on another show, said,

he said that, what, 2016? Like that started happening even before Trump came first. - Sure, yeah. - Trump won, right? - Yeah, for sure. Way before Trump. - It's been about 10 years, right? - Yeah. - At least.

Yeah. Yeah. But I just think it's astounding still if, if your career is based on analyzing China, but you don't have that kind of ground feel. Uh, and it's not just what the goods you can purchase or buy at that store, but just the whole feel like the whole vibe. Yeah. Much more international than, than, uh, he would expect. Well, he couldn't come.

Yeah, but I think this is a big question, but I think to understand any place like China, any country, you have to have a lot of data points, right? And some of those data points have nothing to do with like the actual thing you're studying. Let's say it's Chinese politics or economy and just to have a big field, talk to a lot of people and speaking Chinese is very helpful.

Well, I've actually said to a couple of people, I think like China would have a better America policy and have a better understanding of America if some of their scholars had just worked in McDonald's a couple of years. And they haven't done that, of course, either. But I think just having that, you know, ground feel is really important to the bigger analysis. Well, when you say McDonald's, are you, is that just a metaphor or are you, do you literally mean like working at McDonald's? I literally mean working at McDonald's, you learn a lot about the United States by doing that.

Like the common day folk. Yeah. Yeah. And kind of just ordinary life. A hundred percent go on the front lines, anything. Yeah. Factory. Yeah. Right. A small business. Yeah. Go into the village and it's both sides. Yeah. If you really want to understand a place where,

I mean, Lem Moy said this, right? If you really want to understand a place, you got to go talk to the people there. Right. Yeah. That's the best way to learn. And, and I think. Like the keyword is you got to go, but you got to be there yourself. Well, is that, you know, and also like Zach Dykwald said, well, not necessarily if it's just a lot harder if you don't actually go there. Right. Because you don't have your five senses. Um,

But it doesn't mean it's impossible, but your biases can easily get in the way if you're just looking through a screen, right? So it's much easier. And it also shows intent and it shows sort of your, like how deliberate you are, but you gotta go and spend time and you have to have the curiosity and the right mindset. And, you know, I know you deliberately didn't mention this person's name because it probably be, you know, not be so nice to this person, but that, that,

It sounds like this person then had a revelation like, oh, I've been stuck in a bubble and I really need to rethink the way that I engage because it's easy to kind of just become very tribal and then be in your place and think you understand and get groupthink where you really need to constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and always be asking yourself, like, where am I wrong? Not even like, how could I be wrong? It's like, what are the areas that I know that I can find out that I'm wrong?

I would think that person probably didn't have a revelation, but having this one more data point I think can help enlarge your judgments about China.

If he thought before that the general level of openness was five before, but now ends up being seven, that can inform his judgments about the direction of China. Yeah. And it accumulates incrementally, right? Like there's no one thing that's just going to completely change someone's ideology or previous thought, but it accumulates. And then like you say, there's more data points to consider, even if they're not fully aware, but it's rattling around in there somewhere, right? Right.

Or here's another thing that we can, like a little conclusion we can draw. So I think that kind of place or that part of Shanghai shows that China is a complex society. I mean, a lot of things going on. It's a complex economy. And so let's look at monitoring. I mean, it may be harder to monitor people in China than you might have assumed because it's not such a uniform place where people are doing the same thing like back in socialist times. And the party has great capacities too, but it could have some implication in how you judge these kinds of things. Yeah.

So when it comes to the talks that you host, have you, what's been the general vibe in terms of getting speakers? Do you ever come across a lot of people who,

who maybe are not so familiar with the landscape and they're more hesitant to be like, oh, wait, this is a talk in China. I have to be up there talking. Like, do they feel some sort of risk associated with that? Yeah. So the great majority of my speakers live right here in Shanghai. So I'm all about community. And so I, most, half my speakers, they just come to the event before and I get to know them because I, that's

I'm in the community building business. So no problems with them. Yeah. I used to host more professors and experts from abroad, but I do less now because they're here on, they're here themselves to learn to catch up on China. Right. So I'm not going to host them. And if they're a well-known figure, I have to worry that, you know, they may be monitored. And I have different strategies. I think that, you know, that for, for,

for hosting a somewhat more sensitive talk, but it's a limited resource. I can't use it all the time. So I don't host too many people from abroad, actually. I don't have to worry about that too much. Wait, didn't you used to have a rule? Do you still have a rule where they have to live and work here to talk in your events or something? No, that was the rule for the YouTube, actually. Well, the YouTube channel is...

The rule for that is you have to have been a former speaker, so they could live abroad. But it's supposed to promote, it's supposed to like get our views out of Shanghai. So I have that kind of straight on the YouTube channel. But for the speakers, you can live, I mean, you just have to be a China expert. If it's on China, you have to be a China expert of some sort. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's only one case I can think of where the person was coming from abroad and they know China extremely well and they were a little hesitant. I understand because that person is very high profile.

But in general, the speaker won't get in trouble. I will. Right. So they don't have to worry so much. So what's your level of concern? As I said, it's going down. Yeah. That's all I'll say. I can't say too much, honestly. Yeah. Well, Frank, you mentioned, you know, something a little bit earlier about, you know, things are better than last year just in terms of how strict things are. Right. Right. But there's still...

you know, more restrictive than sort of five years ago. And I'm just curious if like, if you could comment on,

Okay. Like how long have you been in China? Like just remind everyone. Right. And then what's been that arc? Because again, right? Like we are just a speck. I mean, I don't want to get too philosophical, but we are a speck in the universe compared to the lifetime of a universe. Oh yeah. Right. If you really, really zoom out. Yeah. And so when we start looking at, you know, time periods of a couple of years, you just lose sort of perspective, right? Because these things just, they all have cycles. Right.

So I'm curious, like in the time you've been in China, like what cycles have you seen? And I would imagine that the last couple of years have been the most restrictive it ever has been, but in part due to, you know, COVID.

Right. So yeah, it's good to recap a bit because I feel familiar because I've been on the show before, but listeners are new. Yeah, I've been doing these events for 15 years. And the first 11 years were more informal. I was working in different jobs. I was formerly a political risk consultant and I worked with The Economist as well. And I was just doing these events on the side and they became my passion. So I started my own company in 2020. So you have to divide like in terms of

the event universe, there was the pre-company and post-company days. Now, in terms of what we could host, we could host any topic we wanted just about, and I mean like US-China relations or what's the future of China's, you know, what's China's future? All these things that maybe are a little more, definitely more dicey now, right? Especially US stuff or like, you know, hotspots in the world. I mean, if the Ukraine-Russia war had been going on in 2015, we would have been able to host it

or if Israeli Gaza issues back then we would have been now, now these are considered hotspots and we don't want to, we don't want to quote unquote cause a, uh, cause people to get angry in public. I'm paraphrasing. Um, so what I take away from that is that it's great. And it also shows that there was a, a, a great degree of tolerance by this government that time. Cause you know, at the same time period, let's say 2018 in Beijing, it was, it was a bit tighter actually. Right. So, uh,

And then there are a couple other, you know, kind of, you know, watersheds. Of course, during zero COVID, you know, things were tighter in terms of actually, you know, gathering people together. I was still able to do 130 events, by the way, in person during zero COVID. But, you know, there were venue restrictions sometimes on the number of people. And of course, the state just extended its reach, right? But in terms of my operations, I didn't see too much effect, honestly, in terms of, you know, what the state cared about.

And then we had the crash out of COVID. And that's when I see much more tightening on civil society, not just me, but other folks in this town. And you can easily understand why, because there was actual social unrest in Shanghai. And the way this government thinks about things is, you know, when these things happen, it must be because some foreign power has caused it to happen.

There's no spontaneous social movement. It's that an enemy government, let's say the United States of America, is seeding this discontent and actually perhaps manipulating facts on the ground. Like provocateurs? The way America's been accused of doing...

let's say in Ukraine, and Maidan in 2014. And so they want to eliminate that possibility. You know, the kind of tightening I'm talking about is not unlike the Halloween-ish. Like, this is Halloween. And the year before that, it was more, right? So, you know, what could happen in public? And could that lead to some kind of unrest?

And if that happens, that's the way the government talks about it, is it's bad for Shanghai because we want to have a stable environment so that we can keep getting back to the good old days. So ironically, we want to control a bit more so we can have stability to get back to the good old days, global Shanghai, partly because if things get out of hand, who's going to come down on us again? It's going to be Beijing, right? So we want to stay within the bounds.

and get back to the old days. Yeah. Like without going too deep on this fairly, you know, like a sensitive topic, but I am curious because, you know, you've studied lots of different things, probably I'm assuming historically and stuff. Is this new though? Like if you just look at governments in general over the last millennium, you know, I mean, is it new that governments would use different levers to,

mitigate or to prevent unrest. I mean, that seems just like any government would do that, like no matter what, right? And in fact, the further you go back, the less stable governments are in general, I would assume, right? Like probably these days, governments are...

more stable than they've ever been. I'm just curious, like historically, do you have a perspective? Have you ever studied that? Yeah. I mean, governments, especially, you know, more tighter, more closed governments don't want to have out of control social movements and unrest for sure. And that's been true throughout history. What's changed is the means available both to the organizers and to the government, right? So now it's social media. I mean, you know, in the past it was the mass media, this kind of thing.

So you're able to... There was no totalitarian government pre-19th century because the government simply didn't have the means to control the population. Now it has the means. And so that's what's really changed. What about colonialism? Because I imagine that that would be hotbeds for unrest. And if you go back a couple hundred years, like the British Empire, Dutch, Spanish, etc. How much...

Do you know or is there anything, color you could share just around like the techniques that they used in the places that they were occupying?

Yeah, I have to say I'm not an expert on that. I'm sure it would vary across all these different countries. What's the framework you think we should be looking at this idea of tightening or opening, depending on the country you're in or the government and the time? Do you feel like, I guess maybe to Eric's example of the stock market, is it always just a cycle or fluctuation of sometimes it's tightening and sometimes it's opening and

it'll just kind of keep going up and down and open and close, you know, within let's say three to five year cycles, something like that. Or do you feel the framework we should be looking at it is more long-term? Like this is a longer term trend of, of closing down in China. Like what, how, how do you see it? I,

I think it's all things at once. So, you know, it's almost like a homeostatic system. A lot of systems like the human body are homeostatic. So after a period of going up, it'll go down, right? Like our body temperature. I think that's also true of not just Chinese politics, but, you know, many different kind of cultures.

different polities. So, and also what's happening globally as well will affect. Sure. So we have a certain kind of regime. Now we'd expect there'd be some push, you know, be different kind when, when it's gone and they'll go up and down. So that's one dynamic. Now we have to add two more. There's, there's definitely a long-term trend toward tightening that, uh,

I don't think it's going away. And I don't think that's contingent upon this government. I think it's that America has, the more America pressures China, the more China will react and prioritize national security, worry about subversion and spying. And that's what governments do when they feel they have an enemy. America's doing the same thing too in terms of being more careful about Chinese nationals. But is that the intention on the US side? Because like, I mean, is there a long-term,

you know, goal is to destabilize or are we just caught in this vicious cycle where, you know, they do a little, there's a reaction and then they can't get out of that loop anymore.

I think that's a hard question. Is it a long-term goal to destabilize? I don't know. It's kind of true and false at the same time. I mean, I think for sure. So I don't make a lot of predictions, and I think predictions are very hard. But what I will say for sure is that America's, you know, kind of indignation about China's rise and desire to prevent China from replacing it is not going away fast.

for a very long time. So I make that prediction. As long as that factor's there, you're going to expect a reaction from the Chinese side. If your biggest geopolitical enemy, the United States, is telling you, well, you should open up, engage in economic reform and other reforms, why would you do that? I mean, your enemy is telling you that. So this is dynamic number two now. So there's a homeostatic up and down. There's a secular tightening, which I right now do predict is happening and will happen.

And mostly on the American side. I mean, I think I have some understanding of the United States and its history. This is something that's deep in the American psyche now that it feels threatened by the rise of China. And I'm not even saying that I disagree with American policy, by the way. In some ways, I think American policy has been effective so far in warring the government here and isolating China. We'll see how it goes going forward. So I'm not even saying I disagree with the United States. It may even be an effective policy, but it's a tightening policy for sure. Mm-hmm.

Finally, there's another dynamic. I hate to be so social scientific-y, but there's the, there's the unfooloo dynamic, right? So you have 30, 35 years of engagement. You have stakeholders who are buying this cheese and wine and they want engagement with the world, right? And that's how they derive their livelihoods. I don't know. I just saw something in Economist. Some, someone was interviewed. I can't remember what the issue was, but because she'd seen something on Netflix, she thought something in China was just not right. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, there's an article in The Economist about how in some town, I think it was in Jiangsu province, some of the former government officials like monitoring like how many babies you have, you know, used to only be able to have one. Now they're encouraging families to have two or more, right? And so the same official was telling this lady, hey, when's your period? When are you going to have a baby? And then she said, you know, this is just my privacy. You know, this is like the, she said, this is like the handmaid's tale.

That is a long-term dynamic that actually furthers China's opening, I think, right? Because these people aren't going away. And we've had this 35 years in game. We've had these TV series watched over all these years. It's not going away right away, right? What's not going away?

Consciousness of the way things work in the West and how things might not exactly be right here. And I'm not even being critical of the government. I'm just saying that, you know, things can be more open here because we have a lever, a perspective from all these years of engagement. So I hope it's not too complicated an answer. No, I mean, that third piece was just everyone's hope from the Western side, right? WTO and all that stuff that would just be an inevitability. And while, yeah,

You know, that didn't play out sort of across the world in the way that, you know, people might have expected. It doesn't, maybe it's just a timeframe thing. I'm saying I'm a relative optimist about it. I mean, I just said, I think China's tightening. And so we're going to have less of those aha moments from watching Netflix or international TV series are going abroad or starting abroad for sure.

But I'm an optimist about the way that 35 years invests in a certain kind of view of the world among a lot of educated people. And that inertia won't go away too quickly. So I'm an optimist about that. But I'm quite a pessimist about the pressure, the international pressure on China. Yeah. And some of these things that, you know,

like the time period is, the way the time period then overlaps with our lifetimes is just, you know, it's unpredictable, right? Like, I mean, you could be talking about hundreds of years and then we're all dead. You know, and that I think, like, cause we like to also think of things in terms of our own lifetimes or even in, you know, just different inflection points in our own lives, right? And I think that's hopeful thinking, it's not realistic.

Yeah, I think that's really interesting what you just said, Frank.

they never really thought about it that way and correct me if i'm wrong if i'm misinterpreting what you said but it's just like basically the the last 35 years of opening there's this carryover momentum in society with the way people think and the exposure that they have and maybe their hopes and expectations for their own livelihood in their future and so that carryover momentum even if on a larger trend china is

trending in a way that's more restrictive, there will be more resistance towards that because of that carryover momentum in the way people think. And we see that right now. I mean, some of the, I don't know, some of the crimes of despair, the huge consumer pessimism about the economy, a lot of it is that we have these big assumptions and they're not going away, right? Yeah. I mean, if you were to do a survey and you were to ask people, you know, where do

would you live if you could live anywhere? Where would you invest if you could invest anywhere? Where would you send your school if you could send them anywhere? Right? That would be

The litmus test. Because the way that people would answer in the Western world and the way that people would answer here, well, you can draw your own conclusions. Yeah. And then ultimately when you put your money where your mouth is, that's the problem. That's the reality. I mean, at the end of the day, you can talk about anything. Yeah. But what decisions do people actually make? And if you can't keep people from

you know, leaving or going elsewhere, then you got a problem. Like no amount of like, you know, sort of, I guess, control can change that. I mean, a little data point. So I'm an adjunct professor at a French business school, one of the more highly ranked ones in,

And just talking to my boss there the other day, and like they're doing gangbusters in terms of Chinese student intake. And, you know, part of that is they take the program, they get that degree here in China and they get a nice foreign degree. And he said, well, we're trying to do this in Vietnam and various other countries. And it just never works. Like China is the golden goose. And, you know, it never stops laying that egg.

because there's so many people who want that for, and this is not even the U S or Britain, this is France. And he even said, we'd never do this in the U S because basically who wants to have a French business degree? We're in the U S right. Or we would never do this India because they want to study in Britain. But in China, even if you're not on the first tier, you're in the second tier of foreign education, you're not even going abroad, you're staying in China. There's just so much demand still. Right. And that's an indicator of what exactly what you're saying, you know? Yeah. The momentum at like, it's sort of like thinking out loud, like,

for these people like i wonder i wish what could it be like and i think there's a curiosity yeah from this 30 35 years of just you know very very limited opening i mean just through like television they kind of see like oh maybe there's a whole sort of thing out there yeah yeah

Yeah, it's like you open up a whole can of worms and there's no way you can stuff it all back, right? Yeah, exactly. But like from like, you know, we've been kind of hearing your perspectives from a macro level. But like in terms of your own personal individual life, right, regardless of China Crossroads and what you're doing professionally, like you're living here as a normal human being.

I mean, are you, do you see yourself staying here long-term, going to what Eric just said, putting your money where your mouth is kind of thing? Right. Like, are you sticking around long-term? Do you have plans to leave eventually? Like, do you have any sort of...

Expectation for your future. That's also a complicated question with a complicated answer. So I hope I take some time here. I definitely want to stay here. I don't think I'll ever have a better job in my life. You know, am I, I make, I make all the decisions in my life and I can do whatever I want with these events. I think that also, I think I'm more gratified by the role I'm playing and you know, what I'm doing basically is creating

creating a community literally at the crossroads of China and the West, right? It's a lot of foreigners here, but also Chinese nationals and returnees here. So that's what gratifies me in creating this interface between China and the world. But also as...

And as there have been fewer events and also fewer China experts coming to China, I think that this role of mine has become a little more important in the world. So I just, I don't know, I was just in, you know, Frankfurt giving a talk and went to Europe. I went to DC about a month ago as well. And I think because I'm on the ground here, I think my views are a little more valued. And if I leave China, I'm not going to have that, right? Because this is the source of all the insights. So in that sense, I'm really happy to be here. If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd be more worried.

I'd be worried about how sustainable this is. I'd be worried about the direction of government policy. So again, optimism in the short term. But I think in the next 10 years, even five, all three of us have to have a plan for exit.

Just as a former risk consultant, we must, because we don't know what's going to happen with the Trump administration or with U.S.-China general policy. And it'd be nice if we're Germans, but we're not. We're American nationals, and that makes a difference. Well, and I think there's sensitivity in terms of what passport you hold, for sure, right? What passport you hold can completely change the equation 100%, right? And then second of all, depending on that passport, wherever you are,

you should have some type of backup plan. So if you are in the U S what would your backup plan be? And if you are in China or wherever it is, like what's your backup plan going to be? We don't need a backup plan in the U S cause we're Americans. So then maybe I'm expressing a political position now, but it's the fact that we're here. I mean, we don't have a right to live. I mean, we don't have a right to live in China. We're here as China's guests. And if China doesn't want us here, we can be kicked out very easily. Right. But I hear this conversation happening more and more now in America where

With the current, you know, situation there, a lot of people are thinking about, oh, wait, do I really want to be here? You know, you know, clearly this is I think people who are more anti-Trump. Right. Right. And they're very unhappy with the results of the election. And they're asking themselves, oh, like, do I have a backup plan? Like, where else would I live? Right. Right.

And so I find that conversation, whereas it would never really happen before, is starting to happen now with, you know, with a sizable amount of people. Yeah, I mean, I think about that too. I mean, if I ever leave China, you know, I mean, I think Trump being president makes me less happy about living in the U.S., but it's not because I fear...

political persecution or that I won't be able to have, enjoy certain privileges or rights I otherwise would. It's just, I think it might not be as good a place to live in terms of the general atmosphere, right? But, and I think the vast majority of people saying that America are thinking that, not that it affects their, their, their, their, their, their kind of like political or economic. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. So it's more of like, there is a little bit of that. These people are just spoiled. So I hate to be so controversial because I'm always, I always get angry at some point, right? But,

I guess get angry, but they're just spoiled. Like, you know, if you're what's his name? Jack Smith, you're the special prosecutor just had to step down. Yeah. Maybe you should really fear some kind of like politically motivated attack on you or persecution. Right. If you're one of Trump's actual enemies, but in general, you don't have to worry about that. Yes. Yes. And yes. And for most. Right. But we don't want to discount like the whole deportation thing.

Cause that is a big thing. I mean, it's, you know, cause if it was just, it was just the overall general sentiment. Okay. That's one thing. Right. But it's like, no, they've actually talked about, we're going to deport all these people. And then it gets a little bit slippery. And then you kind of, you're looking at sort of like your different levels of sort of safety. Right. It's like, Oh, how many generations have you been in America? Oh, I'm like, you know, X number of generations. Maybe I'm a little bit safer, but Oh, well,

you know, I'm a little bit newer. Oh, I wasn't born there. Oh, maybe I don't, you know, I don't make that cutoff, right? I know that's a little bit of paranoia, but that is a real sort of thing in terms of people doing this. And I wonder, right, in recent history, has there ever been that sentiment? And the only thing I can think of is like, if you go back really, really, really far back, back in the day, you know, maybe like after the

you know, sort of the, you know, American Revolutionary War and all that stuff, like people would go to Europe for a period of time. Like Benjamin Franklin did go to Europe, right? There would be times where it'd be like, oh shit, like things aren't gonna really work out here in the US. I go overseas until things kind of like blow over. But I am curious in recent history, has that happened? Vietnam War, for instance, some of these things where people were really, really disgruntled and pissed off because I think history just, my sense is,

is that it just repeats itself in many, many times, even within one lifetime. It's just that we have short memories and we have limited puny human minds. So we're not experts in all these different areas. I'd love to ask ChatGBT this question. It seems like ChatGBT- Well, we got Frank here. Let's just ask him. Yeah, exactly. It's my second appearance, so I'll just be even more frank than I was last time, Frank. Yeah.

But I don't know. I mean, I have a certain kind of ABC view on things and maybe, you know, I'm going to be pegged on the right now. But I just think that, you know, being a citizen really matters. And so let's worry about that if it comes to it. Of course, there were the interments of Japanese in World War II. That's the thing we have to worry about. There's an actual conflict with China, right? That's more about conflict with China, though, than Trump's

you know, immigrant policy. So, I mean, he has a number of, let's say very right wing, crazy Chinese Americans, I think among his advisors, you know. - You gotta just love those. - He's got Vivek, I mean, so I don't think, you know, I don't think Vivek's getting deported anytime soon. - Those are the people like in the Bruce Lee movies though.

So the question is, you know, if all these non-Americans get deported, does that affect us at all? And, you know, I have to say, I don't think it does in one bit actually. But not us, right? I'm not, I wasn't speaking on, in terms of my own personal, I was just speaking sort of the overall sentiment. Like I could understand why there would be people that are concerned. Yeah. They're just like, so there's, so non-Americans in America, just like us in China. So they live in America at the,

you know, through the graces of the US government and they can be deported. So, I mean, I'm sounding very right wing now, but it's a big difference. And there's no way all can be deported either, but citizenship matters. Well, and then you bring up a really good point. And I think the point here is that

How many people are in China illegally? Probably like way, like orders of magnitude less than in the U S because you cannot be here if you don't have a freaking, but I, but at the same time, I think you would also be surprised about the number of people that are here illegally. Huh?

I think it would be like, I would say less than America. I would, I would agree with that. But I think even the number that we are given would be, would still be surprising even though it's less than America. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a little anecdote about this. I'm not an expert on this, but in 2021, um, the, the kind of like, uh, visa kind of like,

slash incubator that I was with was actually shut down by the government because some of their consultants were, you know, making up fake stuff for their clients. The clients were actually just, you know, teaching English to kids, but they said they were marketing consultants. So I saw a tiny bit of this actual enforcement of the immigration policy about

by China, like actually doing things they're supposed to do anyway and kicking out some foreigners who just hear on false pretenses. Yeah. I just, I think I love this type of conversation where to help us gain perspective, we take a situation that might be analogous on both sides and then just kind of like...

like cross-check it. Right. Cause a lot of times we're very emotional. So like you hear something and then immediately you jump to some conclusion based on, it could be a bias. It just could be some kind of perception. And then when you do this sort of like swapping of places and say, okay, well, what would the analogous situation be like in China? Yeah. And then it gives you a lot more perspective. You can be a lot more objective. Yeah. No, I love doing that too, because it seems more like you said, it's more of an objective and more of a fair and accurate way to actually look at things and then come to,

a certain conclusion or judgment about it, right? And I think to me, like the most obvious ones that Frank, you touched on already before was, you know, when we're comparing national security threats, right? And I think at least for us and the, I guess maybe the media that I'm exposed to because of my Western background,

Most of the narrative, well, not even most, like all the narrative is always America's national security concerns, right? When in regards to US China relations, there's always some sort of national security reason or excuse, whatever you want to feel about it. The way, you know, but they always invoke the idea of national security when it comes to China.

But you never really hear the other side where it's like, well, China also has their national security concerns too. And that narrative is usually, at least in the circles that we run in, is rarely mentioned. Frank, why is that? Why is this thing that this narrative Justin's talking about where it seems like if you frame something, well, first of all, in the US, you typically hear

people framing certain situations as a national security risk. That's just a very common thing, right? So first of all, why is that seemingly so common and why is it so effective in the U.S.? Are there elements of the U.S.'s history that, you know, that make that true?

Right. Because if anything, like China should be the one scared because they got the shit kicked out of it many, many, many times in the U S hasn't really. Well, also the U S is the most powerful country in the world. So why is the most powerful country always talking about like, Oh, like we got security risks.

I mean, this is two different levels. So in the policy realm, the kind of macro realm, yeah, whenever you make something about national security, it's more marketable, right? I mean, you get people to listen. There are a lot more professionals in the Pentagon in America and kind of defense-related industries than others in D.C., I think. So you get people more interested in the topic. And it's a way of mobilizing support, you know? So I think that's maybe a very kind of like banal explanation for why national security sells, right?

But like in the US in particular, is it because the complex is so powerful? I think it's true anywhere. I mean, if you frame it as an existential issue, then it becomes more important, right? So let's say you're some kind of average China policy researcher. Maybe you'll get more attention if you frame it in terms of national security as opposed to something else, right? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. If you have a headline that's a little more nuanced and subtle, like it's not going to get a lot of eyeballs. But if you say, oh, this is like existential risk, you know, and then everyone's going to be paying attention to it. Also, you know, I get the feeling, especially in recent years, that America is kind of like the land of hyperbole.

So everything is packaged in this life or death. It's almost like this cartoonish, like evil versus good kind of scenario. Even the way they talked about Trump, they were saying a lot of people, pundits were saying he's the next Hitler. Like everything, every bad thing is always like compared to Hitler, right? Like in America. So it's like, it's just a land of hyperbole where they always just go to the most extreme examples of

to compare something that they're against or don't like. And it's almost like, well, if you do this, it's like a snowball effect and then it'll just become like the worst, you know, situation in the world. Is that American thing, the Hollywood sort of thing that Justin really nicely described is, do you think that is distinctively American?

I think that's actually part of it. And I think also maybe another part is just Cold War 2.0. So this strategy of demonizing the Soviet Union, and it was a very bad regime, so I shouldn't say it shouldn't be demonized, but it was a mobilization strategy to get people on board. I mean, if it's really a matter of evil versus good and this kind of thing, then you can justify interventions in Vietnam and Korea, this kind of thing. And I actually agree with the policy. Sometimes politicians do have to exaggerate to accomplish the goal, and the goal was successful. The Soviet Union was defeated in the Cold War.

So that's kind of answering that question. But let me just get down to what I really want to say. So in terms of like how national security sells, I'm no expert. I don't live in DC. It's just my thinking. But I think I have more insight on the kind of like micro level. So-

I just think that, you know, however much, you know, it seems that, you know, things are tightening in America in terms of what you can say on China and the kind of public opinion that limits what the moderates would say. It's nothing compared to China in terms of the national security consciousness.

So America is still a relatively open society and China's regime is a relatively closed one and it's very concerned through its founding ideology about the potential for foreign countries to subvert the government's goals.

So call out culture is more on the societal level, whereas the stuff here is happening at the sort of government level. Well, then going back sort of and just rewinding, just like half a click here. When you look at dominant powers in the past,

Like, did they use the same way of framing things in national security? Like, are you aware, like, for instance, like the British Empire, right? Did they frame everything in terms of like life and death like the U.S. does? I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, I don't think the U.S. Britain did because it was, you know, it was replaced by the U.S. in many ways, right? So I don't think it was an animosity, like a relationship of animosity. But I'm no expert on that either, sorry to say. Yeah. It's just fascinating though, like framing things in a way that just like

taps into your greatest fears, you know? And I just wonder, like, in other, like, major powers, how effective were they in doing that? Because it seems like the U.S. is just really good. Like, I mean, the whole communist scare and, you know, and McCarthy and all that stuff, it seems like we're just fucking really good at that shit. I mean, maybe the more general question is,

when you're number one, don't you always fear being replaced by number two? And that's been the true of every- Well, did Rome, I mean, did they do that? Were they like, did they have public campaigns? Yeah, I think historically speaking, they were also, you could be seen as very paranoid because there is a good point

Point where it's like, if you are the number one power, just like in sports examples, if you're the number one team, everyone's gunning for you. Right. So you got a target on your back. Yeah. And so, you know, there are legitimate threats, of course. But like, I mean, every country, especially if you're a superpower, has legitimate threats. So that word you mentioned, paranoid. So do you think that America is more paranoid than it should be? I think it's a very hard empirical question.

So, I mean, more specifically, if America no longer is the top power, does that mean that the world becomes chaotic and America really is providing these public goods that prevent conflict? Specifically, I don't know, South Korea and Japan re-arming, having nukes and there being security competition in East Asia. That's the fear, right? I don't know the answer. I think it could go both ways. I think that's one answer, but I think as Americans, it's certainly in our interest that America has more power.

And that it continues to hold its position. And this is not a, you know, this is not a, you know, right or wrong answer. It's just as it's what's in our interest. I think it's that. It's a very self-serving thing for us. Yeah. But here's, I think to your point in terms of like, is this, it's like kind of this hyperbole, like unique and packaging things in a certain way. Is that unique to America? I think, yeah.

And I'd be really curious to see what your thoughts on this are, Frank. But I get the feeling that it's because America is a democracy, right? So politicians and stakeholders, for the most part, need the buy-in of the people a lot more than the government here needs necessarily the buy-in of the people on like a shorter cycle. Obviously, on the long term, government here definitely needs the buy-in of people to do really to sustain itself and to stay in power. But for...

For American people or American politicians, that's like on the top of their heads every single day. So every single action, every single thing they say publicly is in regards to getting reelected. And so when you're speaking, most of what you're talking about when you're talking about publicly is aimed towards the common everyday citizens. Right?

it becomes like a TV program or an advertisement. You need in this 15 seconds that clip to get most people to buy in what you're saying, to listen to what you're saying, to stay engaged with what you're saying and try to get them to agree with what you're saying. So you're going to speak in hyperbole because that's, as humans, that's what we've been conditioned to pay attention to now. Let me jump in and I want to hear Frank's, but what you say, and I want to connect this to a thread of conversation that we've had

in the last couple episodes, right? Like we've talked about high context and low context. So I'm wondering, right? If, because we're such a low context culture that this is like, is there, is there a surprise or is it kind of strange that we, you know, that the U S invented a lot of this stuff, like the social media? Yeah.

Like, is it surprising that these other cultures that have different ways of sort of communicating through deep traditions and legacies and heritage and we're a much newer place. And so we need to have this more short form kind of thing. And we invented sort of the Snapchats of the world. And then, right, it's all about selling. Okay.

Because we had to constantly sell people. And so like this whole Hollywood hyperbole, this thing is like the U.S. fundamentally is based on this sort of selling culture. Like we had to like get people to buy in because it was like a melting pot. It's like in the U.S. it's more important what is said, but I feel in Chinese culture, it's more important what is unsaid. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, I was actually just teaching this yesterday. I teach a class on

sociology of organizations of all things. I actually didn't, but anyway, I got to jump into many things here, but I wonder if the causality is opposite from what you say. It sounds like a technical issue, but I don't think it is. So I think America became a low context society because of certain historical reasons, like the fact that we had a frontier, uh, that we had diverse groups of people going to America. You were, there were strangers, you had to cooperate on the frontier or in these cities with different groups. And you had to make yourself very clear. It'd be relatively loud and

And you have to promote yourself. I do think America is the most self-promotional culture in the world, but it makes sense if you're in a society of relative strangers and you want to get something done and become known. You're not in the village where people have known you for generations. And a misunderstanding in that environment could be fatal. Yeah, exactly right. So I think that actually helps form an American character that is more talkative, loquacious, self-promotional, and low context. And you hate that. Yeah.

You know, I can do that too. I mean, I can be very talkative, but in general, I don't think it's a good thing. But anyway, I mean, it's almost like a social scientific experiment where the British originally that way, the people went over. I don't know if they weren't, then probably the social and historical situation made them that way, right? Right, it's a chicken and egg. But no, I very much agree what you were saying because we've talked about this, which, you know, the frontier, and I can't even remember if we talked about this in our last show, but it's certainly come up on the show.

which is that you have diverse cultures. They didn't have sort of like hundreds of years, thousands of years of context. Land of immigrants, right? Exactly. And so they had to, that's the reason why low context, the culture sort of developed. And then, right, did that sort of,

then maybe kind of help create this, the whole social media, the way that we actually do things, right? And it amplified that. You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or let's say the advertising industry. - The advertising industry. - 100 years ago. - Yeah, like Hollywood, it's all like sort of hyperbole, less nuanced. So then when we look culturally, let's say the last 100 years, was that then,

like kind of an amplification, right? A snowball effect of the low context culture. And then it sort of fed on itself. Yeah. And then I created certain types of innovation. Yeah. Do what is the modern day advertising industry?

Is that pioneered by the America? Like, were they like the pioneers of what we consider modern day ads in the market and the industry? I believe so. I'm not an expert, but I mean, America had the first kind of like industrial modern mass market, you know, in the early 20th century. Yeah, that makes sense. I read about this and, you know, I mean, just very, very peripherally, but like back in the 20s and the 30s, I read about people. I was studying salespeople and

and there was a guy named Elmer Wheeler and he had like a laboratory of just like two or three people. Elmer's glue? No, no, different one. Elmer Wheeler. And like he worked with these large organizations and they would come up with thousands of different versions of like a five word phrase. Yeah. And it's like, it's not the steak that sells, it's a sizzle. And so like, it's very interesting, like again, this connection potentially to the low context culture. Right, right. And did this exist in sort of other forms in other places? I don't know, but-

you can directly reference about 100 years ago in the US, this kind of stuff happening. Yeah. Like this whole sales technique, like, you know, you go in for like a,

like a car or oil change. And they, he would literally sell these phrases to these large corporations, you know, tens of thousands of dollars just to buy that one line. Like, oh, like, you know. And by the time the fifties rolled around, you had Mad Men, right? Mad Men, exactly. Yeah, I'm actually watching that these days too, again, for the third time. It's fascinating stuff. Mad Men? Yeah. I just bought it because you know what? It went on sale on, you know, the...

One of the... iTunes? Yeah, iTunes. $19.99, buddy. A lot cheaper on Amazon, anyway. Ooh. Ooh. Yeah, it's definitely my favorite series ever, and I think it's just such a revelation. Yeah. I want to get back to that point, though. No, no, go ahead. So, I mean, I really agree with what you're saying about how...

the enemy has to be sold right whether it's china or or or the soviet union and you have to get and you were putting in more negative terms i think in that you're going to simplify things so the masses agree with your you know your policy um but i would just say what choice do we have would you rather have some some small elite making foreign policy it's better to have the buy-in of the people you gotta get them on board somehow right um so i mean the cold war is a case study of this so um

There was a lot of, uh, there was a lot of saying that the Soviet Union was an evil empire in the Reagan era or, you know, undue fears of, uh, the Soviets, you know, invading Western Europe or taking over the world, the domino theory. One reason why I went to Vietnam, a lot of distortions, but then what would you prefer that the cold war was a more civil, a less extreme affair, but.

you know, executed by a small elite in DC, I'd prefer the people be involved. Right. So it's hard, it's hard to say what's better in some ways, you know? Yeah, no, for sure. There's, there's a nuance there. Absolutely. I think my point was just that when us as normal everyday citizens, right. And we're not in behind closed doors in the rooms where these high level decisions are being made, but often we come to certain,

judgments and conclusions and it shapes the way we feel and even emotionally, right? And you know how everything is so let's say polarized and divided in America right now. I think a lot of it is just because you're just being manipulated by what people are saying and what media is saying, what politicians are saying. And

My feeling, you know, obviously, I don't know, I could be wrong, but my feeling is that they're saying one thing towards you because they need your support, but then what they're saying and what they actually intend to do could be very different. And so in that way, both things can still exist at the same time. They do need the buy-in of people maybe to stay elected and be in power, you know, throughout different levels of the government.

But then also there is maybe a smaller group of elites

that when it comes to actual decision-making, they're making decisions that aren't in line with what they're telling you. It just feels very manipulative, right? It's like, they can't really tell you the truth of what the real purpose is because... And maybe for good reason too, because of national security concerns. But then it's like, it kind of is like, it disillusions you a little bit about the world. It's like, it's like your parents, your parents have to like trick you and manipulate you to get you to do, and they can't just be like straight up with you. And like, it just, it,

I mean, it's so polarizing. And now the levers that they're pulling is they're all the negative levers, right? And that's, I think, what kind of puts me off a little bit. Why can't you just be straight with us? I don't think it's as sinister and bad as you say. So, I mean, I think a lot of leaders actually believe the exaggerations they promote.

uh because they're just like us they mean they came up through the system they watched the media and listen you know so i don't think there's necessarily like a cabal of leaders who are inventing these lies i mean and i think china is a good example so i think the leaders here genuinely want certain things but they're also a product of the propaganda environment in china for the last how many decades right but they just sincerely believe certain things too that's true yeah that's a good point that's yeah um i was gonna say um

But so you're absolutely right about the way things get exaggerated. And one dynamic is when things are polarized, right? And so, you know, we invent these narratives just to defeat the other guy. But the irony, the interesting thing is that in China, there's not this polarization. There's actual genuine consensus on both sides that China is now America's greatest threat.

So I don't see as much politics, you know, in terms of the China policy of the US. It's actually less politicized, even though it's, you know, it's rather extreme. Yeah, yeah. Like you said, more consensus, more agreement. It's the only thing that's bipartisan that both parties agree on almost every single time is anything that's anti-China.

Yeah, so I've said before, I think it's a great thing in some ways, even though it may not be a great policy, at least we agree on something. I mean, what would you prefer, that America's also divide on this? Yeah, one more thing to be divided on. It's kind of like life, like sometimes you have to choose a direction, you can't just vacillate on something so important. Maybe, you know, it's also bad to make mistakes, for sure, but I think I prefer some consensus on China, at least this one, than total chaos. No, I mean... Like on our Ukraine-Russia policy, now it's crazy, I think, you know.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's really crazy. Whereas it wasn't when it first started. And then I think maybe more and more narratives are put out there and more information is out there. And especially I think people are getting just tired of like, they don't really see any positive results coming from this long-term. But I want to go back to your point about that, you know, in terms of in the States, this kind of bipartisan agreement of things that are anti-China is...

you know, just one less thing to be divided about over there. I can totally understand that point. But I think for, at least for, I'll speak for myself, for me in from a self-serving perspective of me actually living in China, I wish actually it was more of a divisive topic over there because the last thing that I want and what sometimes keeps me up a little bit is the reality

is that there is a non-zero chance that there will be escalation of real conflict between these two countries. I mean, that's just terrible globally, right? So that's like game over kind of scenario. And so I don't know what the percentages of likelihood of that actually happening. You have people who think it's very, very unlikely to happen given all the dependencies that these two countries have. You have some people who think otherwise, right?

And so I don't know, but I just like, whatever that chance, however small that chance might be, I want to minimize it even further. Right. Because especially now I have a kid in the world. Like I just, I'm looking towards the future. And that scenario is like the worst case scenario for me. It's like a nightmare scenario. And I don't know.

you know, what I would do if that happened, right? - Yeah, I mean, I have to be honest, you know, just like you, I'm also, I want to be here. I have a lot of things going on here. So yeah, in that sense, it's definitely in my interest to have a more conciliatory policy toward China. So before I was speaking like what's good for the US, but it's always the same as what's good for me, right? - Yeah. - But who benefits from like any kind of conflict, honestly? - I don't know. I think people have to necessarily benefit. I think often conflicts are about dignity and pride.

And we do things for those reasons. Yeah. But I just feel like there's a proximity sort of element to this. So that if you're making decisions, but the, you know, the sort of the collateral damage is far away from you, right? Then you don't feel it as much. And then you can be a lot more aggressive, right? It's like, if there's like a,

big-ass dude sitting over there, you can talk a lot of shit. But if he's right in front of your face, probably not going to talk shit to him. Yeah, because you don't have a horse in the race, right? And when you have a horse in the race, you have stakes that you care about. But also, just like, if that fight is on your doorstep, like, if it's actually going to happen on your soil, you're going to make very, very, very different decisions than if it's like, you know...

half the world away. Absolutely right, which is why America's not clear on its own policy. It's just so abstract for people. Yeah. And I have a specific thing I want to say, which is the danger of Trump is that just in his thinking since the 80s, okay, he's not a guy who cares about allies or the...

emotive or normative aspects of international relations, like, I don't know, democracies and that kind of thing, you know? So, I mean, even in 1984, he was saying the Germans, they're hitting us with all these cars and they're so unfair. Why are they our allies? He's been saying that for 40 years. America has a ton of allies and these allies are a force multiplier for American power. So,

To weaken the alliance system, you know, kind of ipso facto weakens America. And that's what he does. And it's very concrete. When that conflict comes, America's going to go begging to Germany saying, you got to sanction China. You got to get BMW and VW out of here. And we want Germany to listen to that case. And so America needs these allies for a lot of reasons Trump doesn't seem to understand, right? So are you saying Trump's tendency to be more protectionist and is more protectionist

I guess, rhetoric. Oh, that's a whole other can of worms, which also weakens America. I mean... But you can make the argument that that protectionist attitude alienates the Allies in other countries, right? I wasn't saying that. That's also true. But even if he was a total free trader, this would still be true, right? Because he's been insulting the Allies. Well, he's been telling Europe, he's been...

Saying things like, I don't think NATO... He says I may not defend certain countries in NATO. He's skeptical of NATO, this kind of thing. He tells South Korea to pay up. He's telling everybody to pay up. So this mercenary kind of gang member, gang boss attitude. So even if it was a total free trader, it'd be true. But the free trade, of course, the trade angle is awful as well. Because he actually wants to sanction our allies, it seems, more than he does China. Because at least right now, it's 25% for Canada and Mexico, right? What will the impact be...

I mean, what do people forecast the impact will be because he's got four more, you know, he's got not four more, but he's got four years, right? So like, do people just sort of like, okay, we'll take the gut punch and then we'll move on and things will get better because there's sort of a back, a homeostatic. You mean among the American allies or? Yeah. I don't know. I think he's so uncertain that no one knows. I don't think they know. I don't think they, they, they're not sure what's going to happen. They may be wishing for the best, but.

I mean, like on Ukraine, they may be wishing for the best, like he's not going to come to an immediate settlement and he'll think about, you know, Europe and Ukraine's interests, whatever. But, but having said all this, so many things are coming to my mind, but let me make a very pro Trump argument now. Okay. Cause we want to engage people a little bit, but, um, you know, since the eighties, I saw him on YouTube and he looked great. He sounded great in like 1986, 84. And he was so articulate. I think he's, he's a smart man, but he seems to have, you know, he's, he's slowed down since 1984 anyway. Um,

And, uh, he was saying even back then, you know, these Germans, these Japanese, they're flooding our markets with these cars. And it's just not fair because we rose, you know, we, we raised them up. Right.

It's not fair that we Americans have the most advanced economy. And then through our kind of kindness and desire to build a global order, quote unquote, they all came to our level. Now they're competing on our doorstep and we're losing American jobs. It's simply not fair. This alliance system raised other people up.

a lot and us a little. That's I think his entire, and there's a certain, there's certainly an emotional, there's even a certain empirical logic to that, right? And so why should America be involved in the world after all? Maybe it was just all the propaganda of all the internationalists from FDR on who wanted all these bases everywhere and said that we benefited, but I, Donald Trump said, say we do not benefit.

And it's a long tradition in America. For the first 150 years, we were isolationist. We didn't think we had a lot to gain from this deep engagement, at least security engagement with the world. Of course, we had a lot of trade. And so he's just going back to American traditions. And you can see a certain logic there. No, for sure. If you're an American citizen in America, there is definitely a certain logic you can follow there that makes sense, right? And because what do you care about what's happening outside your borders, right? As long as

domestically things are good for you yeah yeah and i mean there's obviously a debate whether it will ultimately be good for you that approach but you know it's there nonetheless i mean trump look again for me personally i've never been on this whole bandwagon of like you know f trump like you know this guy's a horrible person because i just me i'm a little more extreme i just feel like

The whole thing is bad. Like, I just feel like both sides are, are not great. Right. And so to me, it was always, it was always silly how people who are really anti-Trump, like if you want to be anti-Trump, go for it. I mean, that's your right. That's your prerogative. Be anti-Trump.

But by default, because they hated Trump so much, they put the other side up on a pedestal and was like, oh, that's a godsend. That's the answer. I'm like, well, no, that's not the answer either. It doesn't seem like, you know, it's kind of this like lesser of two evils approach. And if they're not Trump, then they must be good, right? And so that, to me, that narrative or that framing was always kind of silly for me. I think we got to look at Trump through a China lens. That's what we know here. And I mean, you have to think that Trump does everything

political instability. Like this, this, this country is all about stability, right? Which means we don't want the regime to change violently or chaotically. We want there to be continuity in the way things works. I mean, certainly Trump increases political instability in America in any manner of ways. So in that, that way, I don't think we should be happy. That's, and that's separate from like trade. I just talked about trade and like, you can like his foreign policy, but still really think it's dangerous. What he's, the way he politicizes the bureaucracy and the justice department and going after his enemies, uh,

Yeah. There's a whole host of issues in other words, right? Yeah. For sure. For sure. That's fair. But do you feel that, like, let me play devil's advocate here. Do you feel that Trump has shown a more willingness to actually engage in

With countries that are not their allies, you know, like let's say in his last term, you know, he engaged with North Korea, right? That historic visit, I think it was in Singapore. Yeah, right. And they talked. Like, I mean, do these examples maybe have, is there like a slimmer of light there where, like as...

Because he is kind of like more of a rogue figure, so he will go and break maybe traditional norms and be more engaging and be more willing to at least open dialogue with enemy states, for example. Yeah, I mean, I have to say I have an adverse reaction to his kind of playing cowboy with the Kim Jong-ils and Putins of the world. You think it's reckless?

I think it is reckless. And I think also, you know, part of it is you do have to consider the opinions of the rest of the Western world and your security partners as well when you do those kinds of things.

I mean, he just doesn't like, so the thing is that he doesn't have any, he doesn't care about democracy or, I mean, he actually prefers autocrats and strongmen, right? It's a very worrying thing. I think when the leader of a democracy says that, I mean, the extreme left will say this is maybe the last, you know, he's going to become, I don't know, a fascist. I mean, he's going to like end democracy. I mean, I think it's very unlikely. Okay. But,

he's more likely than other people, right? Because he doesn't actually like democracy too much. He doesn't like that process. He'd rather be a strong man. What's troubling for me in this is that this kind of, I don't know, cowboy approach might work on a playground. Yeah, right. But, I mean, you're talking about, you know, the most sophisticated or the most powerful leaders in the world, right? And if you look at his businesses, right?

It wasn't like he was the most successful businessman. Yeah. Right. So if he couldn't even compete, and I mean, and of course these are very difficult things, like just to run a small medium business where you can feed yourself is hard as we, as you, as you know.

But you're talking about like a thousand levels up. Like you're talking about the, the NBA, you're talking about the Olympics, right? You're talking about the top of the heap. And so these, this rhetoric, I mean, is he that much more sophisticated? Like, is he really a genius where he can actually out negotiate these? I mean, that's just such a false simplification. I mean, that, that narrative is,

maybe there are people that are, you know, I mean, that would believe that. It's kind of a joke to me, honestly. Not everything is New York real estate in the 80s. And so we have, there are literally thousands of people who have contributed to his briefing books and the knowledge of a bureaucracy that would help him in his discussions. And he doesn't read this stuff, right? So I find it very worrying. I mean, is he the smartest person that's ever lived in mankind? Of course not. And I agree with what you're saying, but what we can say that about...

Any of the other options, if Biden ran and was to have one, would he be able to do that? No. Would Kamala be able to do it? I don't think so either. But they rely on like...

I think there's a humility and curiosity. They respect expertise, basically. Maybe it's us because I think all of us are experts in the big scheme and maybe it's our own interest to say experts are important. Who knows? I think expertise is super important. But like I said, I'm not saying I'm so anti-Trump. I am anti-Trump. But what I'm saying is that you can divide this issue from many others. I just express a position of emigration with people on the right. I don't think...

You know, I think it really matters if you're a citizen or not. And if you're not a citizen of America, we don't owe you very much. I honestly think that. Okay. And so he can't deport that many, but that's a separate issue to me. Um, yeah.

Now, if it's trade policy, I think it's bad for the American economy, bad for the world. That's a separate, I don't see as much of a moral issue there. Now, I also talked about American alliances that weakens America vis-a-vis China, and that's why China should be happy. Then there's another issue about weakening the United States as a regime and increasing the chances of regime change in America. He does that.

This is speaking to China's anxiety. And I think like, I mean, what I hear you saying is like, I mean, you know, you're not anti-Trump per se. You're anti many of his policies because we all at this point want and need him to succeed. Right. Regardless of what we think of him as a human being or a person or the morality or whatever it is, I don't want to see him fail.

I hope he makes decisions. Regardless of the decisions, I hope he makes good decisions. I don't know what you mean by anti-Trump. I mean, I'm not, I certainly think he's the worst thing to happen, to have happened in the United States in my lifetime. So I think that makes me anti-Trump.

I don't think, I don't think I'm like reflexively, like I hate everything, every policy of his, but I am certainly anti-Trump and it's the most depressing thing that's happened in my life since 2016, honestly, that he's had this power worries me greatly. Yeah. But then at the same time, if he were to deploy and like policies that actually work, then, you know, okay, good. Well, I definitely want him to succeed on the U S economy on U S China on, uh, you know, coming to some kind of peace in Europe. I, you're absolutely right.

I don't want him to succeed though in his policies of trying to, you know, eliminate the deep state, what he calls a deep state and politicizing the U S department of justice, uh, going after his enemies domestically. I don't want him to succeed at that. But how do you, how do you resolve your position on him with the fact that he has a lot of support now in America from the, I mean, that's how you won the election, right? It's like a landslide victory. Like,

Clearly there's a lot of support there. Not a landslide, not a landslide. Yeah. I think, I think as, as, as minorities, Asians, Americans, I think we have a voice in this debate. So all I know is I'm from South Carolina and I'm an Asian American and I don't think my, my neighbors are racist, but they're called racist by the Democrats and they hate it. They've been called racist for 30 years. They're going to think these Democrats are out of touch and they're going to go for the Republicans. And I think it's, it's, I think it's actually that simple that they're, they're, they're called deplorables and racists and, and, and,

bad people and they don't like that because they're actually not. Yeah. Well, that's, that's a really stupid strategy by the Democrats. I mean, just the entire approach to be kind of so disconnected with the pulse of the people. I've known plenty of American intellectuals or kind of elite people. They, they say, well, I, you know, I just fly. I mean, they actually proud of the fact they don't know anything besides the two coasts. That's not, that's nothing to be proud of actually. And it really pisses people off over 30 years. Could Kamala of one with a, so if you think about, I've heard, you know,

There's sort of different ways to look at this, but because she was brought into the last minute, I imagine like, you know, it was a little bit of a puppet master and people behind the scenes. And, you know, I mean, if you only have like two or three months, how do you have the confidence?

you know, one to, to actually communicate with the people in America, but two to the people that actually put you in the position to be able to do this. And she couldn't really talk back to her. Yeah. There's a real China talking point in here, which is that, you know, America, you've accused us of being, I don't know, a closed one party state, but look at you. I mean, the democratic party is,

couldn't come to a decision about this at all. There was no input at all, and we had to pretend that the guy was healthy when he wasn't, and then we had a rushed process. How is that different from the way decisions are made here? I'm not saying that's true, but it's a very strong argument that these kinds of closed processes are just an artifact of political life and not the regime, or let's say of unhealthy political life. It's not as black and white. Yeah. Right? I think what you're saying is that...

The Democratic Party should have had more input. One is that you have to apply the same standards then. If you're going to judge China this way, you're going to judge it that way. And then it's a little bit more gray now. I mean, clearly it's not the same as here, but then it's not as sort of black and white as people would

It's not as polar opposite as we would have predicted. Exactly. There's more similarities. Because the way it's framed is that you have two different types of regimes. Right, right. And they're... Like opposite ends of the spectrum. And it's good and evil. Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is that they're not as... They're closer in the spectrum. They're closer. Exactly. That's what it is. They're closer...

And so one is that we over vilify the other side, whether it's Republican, Democrat, China, US, we over vilify, and then we discount that there are things that we actually have in common. And then that ultimately in any kind of human relationship becomes the friction point. And then sometimes the breaking point, whether it's a marriage, whether it's like, you know, in a company, et cetera.

I'm saying something different, actually. So I think the regimes are very, very different. But I'm also saying that not everything's the regime. And so there's just group life, in this case, group political life. And when there's an unhealthy group political life, you know,

you have decisions that are not good, that don't get enough popular input. And so we've had the anointing of Hillary Clinton at some point, and then we had this anointing of Biden. This is not a healthy process for them. I mean, we say the Republican Party is broken. The Democratic Party is also broken that way. Well, you can make the argument, and a very good argument in my opinion, is that the Democratic Party is way more broken than the Republican Party is.

judging just by the results. I mean, like the Republicans won and the Democrats lost. But I think that's a process versus like sort of like content thing, right? Which is that what you're saying is that the Democratic, the Democrats process is more broken than the Republicans, but the actual outcome of their policies, that's arguable. Sure. Like, I mean, we were trying to put in people in the cabinet that are like,

Right? It's like, who can we find that has first no experience in this particular area of expertise and then two, who actually has really like strange and crackpot theories about that particular thing. But it also just seems like there's like a

big level of incompetence there because there's like this disconnect, right? So on one hand, you had the democratic party, like religiously saying, oh, if Trump wins, it's like the end of democracy. Again, going back to this hyperbole thing, right? It's the end of democracy. He's the new Hitler, you know, like the end of the world kind of scenario, right? And they're painting this like really doom scenario if Trump wins. So on one hand, they're saying that,

On the other hand, they're not coming up with a good strategy to win. The Republicans are doing the same thing. If the stakes were that high, wouldn't you like, wouldn't you be more competent with your strategy and have a better winning strategy? Like, you know? Yeah. They're just, they have a broken process because I think they thought the stakes were that high. Let me break the China now. So let me say some pretty extreme things as I'm want to do. Okay. But I think America's lost the mandate of heaven. Okay. Something like this. What is that?

You know, the gods smiled on America for a very long time and they don't now. And not just that, but I'm not sure that, I think the most worrying thing, and you may disagree, but I think the most worrying thing about Trump's election is it shows that people don't care that someone who tried to overthrow the democratic process is now reelected. I mean, the world's laughing in America for this reason. I don't think it can be taken seriously as a, let's put it this way.

I'm not sure that the American people are considered by the world to be qualified to hold a viable democracy because they've elected this man president. I think going towards also what you just mentioned, Frank, in terms of losing the mandate of heaven or at least losing to some level some credibility maybe on the international stage, it's expounded with the fact that Americans, I mean American elites,

politicians also have this habit of wanting to lecture other countries too, even their allies, right? And so the more you do that nowadays, it's like even seen as even more ridiculous. So that also weakens America. So I just said Trump weakens America vis-a-vis China. So America has much less room to be lecturing if it doesn't, if the electorate doesn't even take democracy seriously in this view, right? Yeah. Um,

Yeah. Uh, I think that's among the most worrying things. Uh, so you have to, you have to think the founders are, you know, are turning their graves right now because Trump is so unprecedented. I hate, I hate to sound like a democratic talking point, but, uh,

But really, I mean, you go to Richard Nixon, the guy was, you know, he broke some laws. He definitely had a lot of, you know, devious aspects. He did politicize the Department of Justice, didn't he, right? So, but he was ultimately a patriot and you read his texts and, you know, he actually didn't, you know, he had bad instincts and he hated himself and he did bad things. But he ultimately was on the side of the United States and democracy. Trump was so far outside that mainstream, it's incredible. Yeah.

I mean, the founders thought that, you know, they wanted us to elect a head of state. A head of state should embody some of the virtues of the people, but also to be qualified to choose your leaders, you have to yourself have a degree of virtue and understanding of what this democracy is.

I'm putting this in Confucian terms in some ways. Confucius would say that the leader has virtue and it bends the people to him like winds bending the leaves. That's the metaphor. But our system is somewhat different. In other words, the people have virtue

and they're going to bend the government to their ways, right? The people are the ones with the virtues. So if I have two questions then, one is, then in your opinion, is Trump the least virtuous leader in the history or one of the least virtuous people in the history of the world? And then two, if so, then how come 50X percentage of the people were still able to overlook that? Because we've lost virtue and-

He's the least virtuous in terms of democratic virtues. I'm sure there have been worse people. I'm not sure. But in terms of his other misconduct, I'm sure there have been others. There have probably been others worse. But in terms of democratic virtues, he's the worst, certainly. But I think the people have lost the virtue. We've lost the mandate of heaven. So it's a very serious issue. What's the best-case scenario for...

for the next four years based on the things that you care about and, and what's the worst case scenario. And when I say best and worst case scenario, I mean, things are like probable, like, you know, at least a 20% chance. Right. I mean, I'm, I'm no, I'm no, uh, kind of, uh, prediction analysts. Um, it seems to me best case scenario is same old, same old, right. And, uh, we don't have a blow up of the international system, no conflicts, uh, involving America and Europe or Asia. And

And the worst case is that there are such things, right? - No, but what, like, no, just spell it out. Like, what's the worst, like, what's a word, what's a probable, you know, like when- - Yeah, a 20% probable worst case. - So let me share some context, 'cause you were at The Economist before. But when they were talking about their models and all that stuff, right? So they actually go through, like, what are the most probable sort of scenarios? And the single most probable scenario is the one that happened, which is that Trump swept, you know,

you know, those states in the second most probable scenario, even though when you add up all the probabilities, they actually had Harris slightly ahead, right? Yeah. But if you were to look at like probable sort of types of scenarios, what would that...

you know, pessimistic sort of bad one could be like war. Right. Do you see that? So, yeah, it depends on how you put the threshold. So I don't, I wouldn't put a U S China conflict in the top, you know, within the 10% and maybe even 5% thresholds. We're not going to talk about that. So I don't see that as a somewhat likely bad case scenario. Now, I think, I think Europe's more worrying. So, um,

Putin action on, after Ukraine settlement, Putin action on the Baltics, dissolution of NATO because no one's acting, America steps back. That's probably higher percentage chance, I think, than here in China. I'm not sure if it's 10% or not. I'm more worried about that. America's exiting NATO or Trump making it clear he would not commit troops. Again, that's in a higher percentage band for me. But isn't like, I mean, to me,

The the I don't know that the magic bullet or like the genius of the American system is the term limits And so it's just kind of like I mean no matter what you can't really fuck shit up that bad. He's so old Don't you think he'd want to stay on even if he could I think he would but I don't think that anyone credibly would believe that the chances of us not holding an election with

two new people the next four years is any different, right? - Only because he's too old. I actually think otherwise. He's broken so many norms, I think if he were younger, he could pull it off, I think. He's pulled so many things off we didn't think he'd pull off, right? He's a genius in that way. But he said, you know, I have to say another term, I think he could still win. - What can we learn from Trump then? I mean, I agree that he's sort of a negative, like a pathological genius. I think he's truly extraordinary, basically.

based on what he's done in terms of his own goals. What can we learn from him? What can we do to be more effective when we hold some small bit of influence and power so we can make the world better? Okay, so I'm gonna have a, I have an answer for this, so a set answer, but I hope it makes sense.

What we can learn from this is that civic education is very important. And I blame the Democrats in the 1960s for changing America such that civic education was no longer important. What is civic education? Understanding what a democracy is and what the founding... So China does this extremely well, right? I mean, every...

body here has had many years of education about what the party thinks, what China is about, what the humiliation was about, you know, what are our, it's, it's, it's actually, you know, it's a, it's, it's a, you know, 10 out of 10 performance in many ways and getting the people to understand what is the mission of this regime. You may not agree with the goals, but it's a 10 out of 10 performance. America used to do pretty well. I mean, as a, over its hundreds of years of history and people understanding this was a project and a mission and, you

We are the last best hope on earth. We're shining a light on the future. All this kind of thing, the new order, all this kind of thing. And we don't do that anymore. So why is that? I do blame the left in the 60s for thinking of America in a different way and thinking of it less of a civic nation, more of a melting pot of different ethnicities and different political positions. So I'm very much on the right, I have to say, in that way.

Um, if we'd had more of that 50 styles education, despite, you know, some of its problems, I think we'd be a more stable society. We'd never have elected Trump because we understand what a democracy entails. And you'd be more unified. Yes, we'd be. So, I mean, another China perspective is I think unity and cohesion is really important, even at the cost of some things. China does it very well. And America has historically done it pretty well too, just not in the recent decades. So fascinating what you just said, right? It's like,

And I don't think that these things are necessarily mutually exclusive, right? This idea that we're a melting pot, because I think the narrative for a long time was that that's what made us really sort of great, right?

And so I feel like you could integrate that approach. It's like this diversity, it makes us really, really, really great because even though we come from all these different backgrounds, we understand what the end goal is. Right. And so if you're like, and I haven't heard this viewpoint, I'm not knowledgeable about what happened with civic education, but in no way do I think these are mutually exclusive. And maybe we just sort of missed the plot. We took it for granted. And we focus so much on the fact that like,

You know, we're all sort of different coming together rather than then highlighting that we should be pointing at a common North Star. Yeah. I mean, this is a fascinating kind of discussion. I mean, we can go so long about this, but like what I'm thinking of right now is this.

I split it up in kind of like two things. One is like getting the buy-in and unity of the people within the country, the citizens. Right. And then in terms of like, this is the greatest place we are, the shining light on top of the hill and getting the belief and buy-in and unity through that. But then what I think America did so well was they got people like,

they got pretty much the rest of the world to also believe that. And that's largely because it was a melting pot. So you had people from all different countries who can go there, start a life, the American dream, right? Start a life and become successful, hence proving to the rest of the world that what they're saying, what they're believing is actually true. This is the shining light. This is the city on the top of the hill, right? And so in a way, the fact that it was a melting pot also proved that

That ideology, I guess that education, what you're talking about in a way to the rest of the world, because it confirmed what they were saying. So I want to clarify what I said about like, what's the problem with America? And I just blame the left, right?

And I'd earlier said something like, you know, I think the left shouldn't be calling people racist in South Carolina where I'm from, and that's the whole root of the problem. So let me just be very careful the way I speak, okay? I don't think the left had a, you know, concrete program to change, you know, middle school textbooks through all 50 states. You know, it's very hard to do that.

But through the greater cultural shift to the 60s, prioritizing the individual and especially our ethnic identities and other identities, it makes our country less one people and more a bunch of fiefdoms, you know, more of a, you know, a salad, right, instead of a melting pot. And that's a lot of what the Republicans don't like. They still think we're one people. And I think we actually...

largely are given how the Hispanics are going for Trump and this kind of thing. And many Asian Americans too. Um, so that's my, that's my critique of the lab. It's much kind of more, it's maybe deeper, but also less like direct cause and effect more about what they did in the culture, not just in America, but throughout the West. So I don't think that was a good development.

I want to wrap it up with this thought and question to you and kind of to kind of come back full circle, also considering your identity as a Chinese American. What culture do you feel or what society do you feel more comfortable in? Like if you were to move back to the States, given that it's very low context there and also considering, again, your identity versus China, which is very high context, right?

Given everything and the landscape of everything that's happening on, happening politically, culturally, blah, blah, blah. Like where, where do you feel more comfortable as just a human being, just as an individual, just as Frank Tai? Yeah, I still feel more comfortable here, you know, not just because it was China, but also because it's an international community. I mean, I love America. I, you know, majority of my friends are Americans, but I think that more extroverted, low context culture is, is not, not as much mine, uh,

So just another little anecdote. So yesterday I was teaching these French business students, and there's all this kind of like classic research on low context, high context, but also agreeable, disagreeable. So the French are extremely disagreeable, and Americans are kind of toward the more agreeable end, and China's more agreeable, and Japan's super agreeable. So I'm just a more disagreeable person, and I think in that way I get along in that way more with French than Americans, for example, right? So I can be misconstrued as a bad person because I...

seem disagreeable, right? And that's not exactly my place. But wait, China is what? Agreeable. And then you're disagreeable. So like you like to be sort of the, I don't know, right? Like you can sort of be yourself a little bit. Right. No, no. So in that sense, yeah. But maybe I'm still in an expat community here, right? So it's not like I'm, you know, if I was working in a Chinese company, I'd be way too disagreeable for that organization for sure. Well,

where I was only dealing with Chinese people all the time. - So you get the best of both worlds, right? Because it is very international. It is like a developing place. It attracts like,

people with different types of energy. So you can kind of get like the best of both worlds. Yeah. But this goes back to the exit plan. We never, I mean, there's so many threads we didn't cover, but there is a non, non-zero risk of a serious, you know, thing happening where we have to leave. Right. So we should all have one, but also, I mean, we're all, we're not getting any younger. Part of me thinks that, well, if I, I plan to be a, uh, in America, uh,

you know, for my retirement or something, I should probably get started. And maybe that applies to you guys too. Like, you know, if that's the rest of your life, what's to stop? But why shouldn't we just start it now? Because it's going to happen anyway.

So is that something you think about now that's weighing more and more on your mind is like, maybe I should go back? It's less that I, cause I don't, it's less that I want to go back because I think the, I don't, but kind of the, the age thing weighs on me. Right. So. What about your family? You have family, where are they based? Yeah, they're in South Carolina. They're very old. Actually, that does weigh on me. I have to see them quite often now cause they're very old. What city? Somerville, South Carolina. Somerville. It's a suburb of Charleston. Oh, Charleston. What a wonderful place. Right. Um,

Yeah. So I think it's something we could all think about. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Frank, man, I do love talking to you. I mean, with you, it's almost like we almost can't help ourselves but get political, but that's because I appreciate your perspective so much and your willingness to share. Thank you. And I love what you do with China Crossroads as well. I hope it keeps going on for a really long time. And like you mentioned before, I think given the trends that are happening, an event like yours is ever so much more important to

to sustain and keep going. Thank you very much. If people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way? The best way is to add my WeChat, and I guess you're not going to show that, or write my email to me. I could, in the show notes, in the details, if you want it there. Yeah, sure, let's do that then. Okay, awesome. All right, Frank, cheers, man. Cheers. All right, that was Frank. I'm Justin. I'm Eric. Be good, be well. Peace. The rest is that we'll see. Yeah.

♪ I've been wishing you a tie-dye-dye-dye ♪