Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From Asia Society Switzerland, I'm Rem Kotanis. This is State of Asia. AI, EVs, semiconductors, BYD, TSMC, DeepSea. Technology, trade and geopolitics are more interconnected and in flux than ever before. High time to bring in an expert, which is exactly what we did with John Lee,
the 2025 Toy Senior Fellow at Asia Society Switzerland. John is a leading voice on China's high-tech industries, which are becoming ever more prominent, if not dominant, in their fields. And not just in China, but far beyond. Trained as a lawyer in Australia, John is now based in Berlin, where he started out as a senior analyst at Merix, the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
Right now, John is the director of EastWest Futures, a researcher at the Leiden Asia Center and a visiting fellow at the Isaias Youssef Ishak Institute at National University Singapore. He also co-leads the China Semiconductor Observatory, a project funded by the European Union. We're thrilled to have John on board here at Asia Society Switzerland as the 2025 TOI Senior Fellow to bring his expertise on these crucial and fast-evolving topics to our audiences.
And we're starting right here on the podcast, for which I'm joined by my co-host, Nico Luchsinger. John, it's great to have you on. And there's so much that we wanted to talk to you about. It seems that right now, what's happening at the crossroads of tech and geopolitics, whether this is about...
new AI models or where semiconductors are made and how is something that is maybe not discussed at every kitchen table, but definitely a lot more boardrooms and government agencies than maybe just a few years ago. So those are topics that we're looking forward, obviously, to hear from you over the course of this year's fellowship. I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit how you ended up in this field. You are
You grew up in Australia, you're a lawyer by training, yet now you're sitting in Berlin, Germany, and you're thinking and writing about technology and geopolitics. How did that happen? Well, it's been a long and winding path. I actually was working for the Australian government before I moved to Europe, and I had, of course, in that role, many chances to work on strategic and geopolitics issues.
But I also had the chance to do a fellowship with my previous employer, the Mercato Institute for China Studies in Berlin back in 2016, which gave me a chance to really start focusing on technology issues and China in particular. And at that point, it was becoming very topical in Europe. This was the time at which, for example, Chinese acquisitions of high technology German companies were starting to appear in the German media.
Interestingly enough, in Australia, it was also the point at which the tensions between the two countries, China and Australia, were really starting to ratchet up. So that combination of an increasingly geopolitical world, as viewed from my desk job in Canberra, and the changes in the global technological environment seen from Berlin, really changed my interest set. As you said, Nico, I'm actually a lawyer by training. I focused on international law, and in particular, law of the sea.
But in fact, I found that this was quite a good intellectual preparation to look at complex systems and an international environment in which all of these things were starting to come together.
And I also had the advantage of, in my roles for the Australian government, working on sanctions, implementation and policy, which at the time was seen as a very niche role, but in fact proved to be very much the coming issue in terms of how international politics was going to play out, again, with respect to many of these high technology areas.
After I arrived in Europe and started working for Merix, I did have the chance again to focus on the chip sector in particular. And of course, 2019, 2020, just before the start of the COVID pandemic, was a time when there was a lot of focus on 5G networks, again, on the role of Chinese companies like Huawei and the
politicization and securitization of technological systems that previously people had taken for granted as very interconnected. So I would say that I definitely caught the wave of the times. They're fascinating subjects to work on, and I found that it's been very rewarding to
approach these issues from a variety of angles. You say it's interesting to look at these issues from different locations, different perspectives. They're complex systems. What's the view on this interplay between technology and geopolitics in Berlin, in the heart of Europe? Do you think the sense of urgency is sufficient?
I think that the policymakers in Europe have become very aware of these intersections over the past few years. The question, of course, is whether the political settings and the structural features of politics in Europe and of the European Union are enough to allow agile responses to the problems. Of course, you have on top of this now the layer of challenges presented by the new administration in the US,
But I would certainly not doubt the attention that's being given in the European capitals, whether we're talking Brussels, Berlin, Paris, or indeed any of them these days to these issues. And you only have to look at the efforts that are being made, for example, by Central and Eastern European countries to attract major Taiwanese chip makers to Europe.
locate more activity in their countries to see how the paradigm has changed. I don't think that if you went back 10 or 15 years, you would be seeing the governments in Lithuania or Czech Republic or other countries focusing on trying to have TSMC, for example, locate R&D centers or fabrication activity in their countries.
But we do live in a world where partly as a result of the pandemic and partly as a result of the trend in international politics, which is not unrelated, of course, people are very much more aware of supply chain vulnerabilities and in particular of the...
very constrained nature of access to some of the most exquisite technologies that we all take for granted. To dramatically oversimplify the global tech landscape, it seems, you know, that you can either be a country or region that is leading on innovation, that is producing the new things that everybody wants to use,
Or then you are what you have referred to in your writing, John, as a technology taker. And you said this about Southeast Asia. And those would then tend to be countries who are a bit more downstream of the supply chains where maybe a lot of this stuff is made or some of the resources that are being used in new EVs or batteries or what have you are coming from. And now my sense is that Europe's problem is that it's neither.
It's not where a lot of the innovation comes from. There's been a lot of huffing and puffing about Europe lagging behind, obviously in digital and in AI. But it's also not a low cost manufacturing place. It isn't necessarily a huge hub of resources. So what's Europe's role here? Is that an accurate assessment? It seems like we're sort of in the worst place or we're not. Our value add isn't on either side of the supply chain.
I think that Europeans tend to be their own harshest critics in this regard. Let's maybe flip the script and focus on some of the very objective strengths that Europe does have in some areas. You're right in that the way that a lot of these, let's say, modern technological ecosystems have evolved, European companies have not captured the roles at scale that companies like, obviously, the big US tech and platform giants or the Chinese equivalents have. But
On the R&D side, Europe is still an extremely strong player. The problem is translating that into commercial applications and into successful businesses at scale. But even there, I think that people sometimes miss the European champions because they tend to be champions in areas which are maybe less sexy and in the headlines. So, for example, as...
You know, I focus a lot these days on the automotive sector and electrification and the move to intelligent driving. The leading vendors of many of the chips that are used in this sector are European companies, and not just one of them, three or four or five of them. They're ahead, actually, of their American and Japanese competitors in terms of market share. And they are also pushing the technological frontiers. We're not talking here about
cutting-edge fabrication at the high-density nodes as the case with TSMC, again, which is what you usually read about in the media. But that doesn't mean that European companies, which are pushing the boundaries with, let's say, silicon carbide power management chips or with microcontrollers or who still have at least dominant market share,
in these industries don't play a very large role, including overseas. So you mentioned Southeast Asia. Many of the big players in the semiconductor supply chain in the ASEAN countries are European multinationals, alongside American and Taiwanese and Japanese ones. So
On the R&D side, I think that the strength of the university system in Europe and its contributions to technological advance is also often underplayed. The challenge, again, is making that available to European industry in a way that allows them to use the technologies to... If you like, creating the conditions that will allow European companies to use these technologies to...
to achieve scale and to become internationally competitive in different industry verticals. I got this press release a couple of days ago in my email from the Shenzhen Denza New Energy Company. Turns out that's what we in Europe would refer to as a car manufacturer.
It's part of BYD and labels itself as the premium tech-oriented automotive brand of the BYD group. Denza will make its European debut at the Breda Design Week in Milan, Italy in April. What explains the difference in approach that we would think of, hey, it's a car manufacturer like BYD, and they label themselves, well, we are a new energy company. We're not a car company. It's worth remembering that BYD by origin is actually a battery company. It's
effectively turned itself into a carmaker and because EVs are very much built around the battery, that's the single most important component in the supply chain. BYD has leveraged that into becoming the most successful NEV vendor in the world.
So in terms of branding, the Chinese companies are becoming quite agile, I would say, in how they market themselves overseas. And Denza is the upmarket brand for BYD. It's selling very well. Again, if we were to look at Southeast Asia, for example, I believe that Denza is now the fastest selling brand in Singapore, which you could say is the wealthiest consumer market in the region.
So I think also it's worth remembering that Chinese companies are leading in a variety of renewable sectors, not just in electric vehicles. And obviously, if you're talking about stationary energy storage, then the same technologies and know-how that are applicable in the EV sector are also relevant for developing these related sectors.
In terms of their positioning, I think it's simply smart branding for Chinese companies to be marketing themselves as leading the new energy revolution, particularly in a world where the current US government has withdrawn from the Paris Accord and is very clearly backpedaling on the green energy transition. Whether that is enough to counteract the uncertainty
measures that are being posed from above in terms of, if you like, leveling the playing field against Chinese car companies in the EU and the skepticism among European publics towards Chinese brands remains to be seen. When we look at the Chinese EV industry, my sense is that they were able to develop what really is an incredible market position very, very quickly and
And it seems to have taken a lot of the observers here in Europe, probably with the exclusion of you and some others, by surprise. My sense is that this keeps happening, right? The Chinese EV industry for us seemed to appear out of nowhere. And then DeepSeek released a model that, again, was definitely not on most people's radar. So how is it that we keep getting surprised by...
technology advances coming out of China. It seems like we should know by now, right? It seems like we should pay closer attention, but for some reason we don't. And for some reason, these things sort of keep coming up and keeps sort of fueling this narrative that there's something we're not seeing. Is that accurate? And why would that happen?
Well, I think that you put your finger on it at the start there, Nico, in saying that people who do watch these industries are less surprised. And that goes for deep seekers as well. I mean, the AI development community was very aware of what was going on. They might have been maybe a bit taken aback at the performance benchmarks when R1 was released. But I don't think that it's the case that every technological development coming out of China surprises people
the people who are watching these things. But perhaps...
If you talk about the general public, then we do still live, at least in the Western countries, in a mental universe where we expect the technological advancements to come, if not from the United States, then at least from countries in the, suppose, broader Western community, by which you might include conceptually Japan and perhaps South Korea. The idea that one party state, which, I mean, Shenzhen has been mentioned in this discussion, that was literally a fishing village
30 or 40 years ago. A communist dictatorship like China, which has come from such a low base of economic development over the course of a generation, could be putting out cutting-edge technologies in so many fields at this point, is something that doesn't quite register, I think, with our worldview. Now, that might be different in many countries in the so-called global south, where, I think, from their own experience, they...
can see how quickly societies can transform and how fast new technologies can be applied in different contexts. I mean, it's well known, for instance, that a lot of developing countries have jumped straight to mobile phone telecoms and simply bypassed telecommunications.
largely the landline stage. So that level of, or that pace of technological advancement is something that perhaps we're less in the developed world in our generation than
acclimated to. It's something that is going to be in our face going forwards, because again, we are not talking only about one sector here. You could say, when we're discussing China in particular, that we're now seeing, if you like, a critical mass that's been reached, where a lot of factors that China has been building up for the past generation are coming to fruition.
And results such as the deep-seq model or BYD's industry leadership, etc., are basically the manifestations of the development that's been taking place in China, which hasn't been noticed, again, by the general public in at least the developed world over the last 20 or 30 years.
And we're going to see more of it across a wider range of sectors and industry verticals. A year ago, John, you spoke at an event of ours here in Zurich about the increasing tech rivalry between China and the US. And back then you concluded China was in the most difficult position due to curtailed access to advanced semiconductor technology. A year is a lifetime when talking about topics like these. And just a few weeks ago, China's leader Xi Jinping met with the country's tech titans
And he told them the east wind is still prevailing. To which Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, responded to Xi that concerns have eased of the country's lack of homegrown chips and operating systems. And he said, Ren said...
He still firmly believes that a stronger China is rising at an accelerated pace. I was just wondering, in light of all of this, how has your view evolved from a year ago regarding China being in the most difficult position due to US export restrictions? Well, of course, it always helps to put on a brave face in public.
I think it's important also to not overestimate Chinese technological progress because we do have this pendulum effect where from regarding the Chinese as rice paddy farmers, people tend to see news about deep sea and then go to the other extreme where suddenly the Chinese technology is taking over the world and the Western countries are out of the running. Obviously, neither of those extremes reflects reality.
The Chinese industrial and R&D ecosystem, if you talk to anybody who works on this, they'll tell you that there are still a lot of problems and inefficiencies and indeed a lot of pessimism around the long-term capacity to compete with the U.S. and its allied group of nations. We could go down a whole rabbit hole around how much cooperation there is within that group.
But certainly from the Chinese viewpoint, it's far from clear that they're now in a winning position, I would say, via the US-led bloc. That's to oversimplify it. But I think that it's important to look objectively at this. Yes, the Chinese semiconductor ecosystem, if we want to focus on that, has obviously made a lot of progress with import substitution, probably more, again, than most external observers
or even a lot of domestic ones would have given them credit for going back two or three years when the really severe US export controls on the Chinese chip sector were introduced. But they are very far from...
being able to substitute for everything that the international supply chain provides. And that is actually reflected in the statements. I don't believe that Xi Jinping has ever... One thing that you must say, actually, about Chinese policy is that it has been quite consistent over the long term. And Xi Jinping himself has always, despite all of the talk about dual circulation and increased self-reliance, said that it's important for the Chinese economy to remain internationally connected.
And the chip industry is a good example of that, where it is so complex and some of the technologies are so difficult.
that is very challenging or the cost would certainly be extremely high for China to pursue a truly autarkic path. What they are doing is, because they've been forced to by the US export controls, really pulling out all of the stops to import-substitute certain critical elements. But that's far from saying that their ecosystem, taken simply on its own terms,
is equivalent to the global industry, let alone ahead of it. That meeting between Xi and the tech titans, do you think that meeting was mostly aimed at a domestic audience or an international one? Well, I think that a lot of the messaging in China is always aimed at both. And obviously overseas, there's been a strong narrative of a tech crackdown in China and of the private sector
technology sector being on the back foot since Jack Ma's unfortunate speech a few years ago. Again, the reality has always been a bit more nuanced than that. I would say that there's never been a tech crackdown in China. There's been a selective disciplining of certain big platform firms, of which Alibaba was the leading example, and an effort to redirect resources towards what the state sees as more strategic sectors. For example, semiconductor manufacturing equipment,
rather than, let's say, more scaling of food delivery apps. Once it's seen in that context, I don't think that it's that surprising. I mean, obviously, an event like that, I'm sure, has been choreographed to send a certain message. Everyone's aware these days of the difficulties facing the Chinese economy generally, the slowing economic growth, the...
weighing down of the whole economy by the real estate sector. I personally think that over the medium term, the Chinese authorities will get a grip on all of these problems and find a pathway out of it. But at the moment, boosting investor and consumer confidence, including foreign investors, is clearly going to help their situation, especially again, when you're seeing more
pressures from the United States. So it's not surprising that they are trying on the Chinese side to present a picture of domestic unity and strength to signal to the outside world, as well as to their own public, that they're ready for this and that China is still a horse to bet on when it comes to investing in the technology sector or in, let's say, strategic
technology competition at large. We're being presented with an interesting but also somewhat vexing dilemma where on one hand, we are interested and probably should be interested in Chinese technology and Chinese innovation. You did mention Chinese leadership in a lot of areas regarding to clean tech. Europe, of course, is committed to the energy transition and it stands to reason that
That goal can only be achieved or could at least be achieved much more easily and cheaply if we were to rely more heavily on technology and innovation developed and manufactured in China. On the other hand, technology is never neutral. And there's always a political dimension to technology. And there are a variety of concerns when it comes to Chinese tech.
whether that's censorship. We've seen a lot of discussion around the fact that DeepSeq won't answer questions on Tiananmen, but also on data privacy and data security, espionage factors. But then I think maybe more broadly, really just on what that would mean for certain local industries. But if you're a European policymaker, you're trying to wrap your head around this. What's a good guideline or what are good guidelines for
If you want to come up with policy that does not shut you out, that does not shut your country out from accessing what might be very helpful, useful innovation, but also takes into account the concerns I just outlined. I think we do, especially in Europe, need to get into a mentality of trade-off.
because Europe has been very fortunate and defence spending is the obvious example which is in the headlines every day now over the past two generations of being able to have the cake and eat it too to put it frankly and
We're now in a world where there will have to be choices made. And renewables is another example where I think the public also is coming to understand that if you want to have the fastest, cheapest green transition possible,
then that's not compatible with having a very exclusive policy position, regulatory position towards Chinese technology. Because if you're talking about who has the electric vehicles at scale, who is providing the cheapest solar panels and other renewable technologies at the moment, then clearly the economic decision would be to simply import the technology from China. But the reality is that we live in a political world.
Everyone, again, is very conscious of that these days. I mean, live in a country where we just had a federal election last weekend, and there is clearly no mandate to pursue a policy which does not give a high priority to protecting domestic industry and jobs. And here, again, the changing environment via the United States is also important with
the politics of international trade and the pressure on the WTO-centric system that
has served Europe so well over the past half century, European policymakers are realizing that we need to start making trade-offs and that choices which are made in one area will involve costs which have to be absorbed or perhaps funded, if you're talking about trade-offs
let's say, re-industrialization programs or other resource-consuming initiatives. And that is going to have to be explained to the voting public if this is going to be sustainable over the longer term. Do you think the US, for all the loud words we hear coming from there, is the US still in a position to put the brakes on Chinese innovation using export controls or other trade restrictions? Yes.
or to pressure other countries in limiting their exports to China. Does the US still have the power or are we seeing the end of that being effective? I think we're going to find out over the next year. And it's been, what, less than two months since President Trump returned to the White House. And we've seen quite a lot of water under the bridge already.
But certainly, you know, over the course of his second presidency, we will find out just how central the United States still is to the world economy. Because even over the past four years, if you're talking about an example like export controls and the chip sector, I think that it's shown the limits rather than the extent of American power.
That's not to say that it hasn't been successful to some degree. I'm sure that the Chinese semiconductor industry would have had a much easier time of it over the past several years without those controls. But the reason that we're talking about this is that clearly they haven't succeeded in freezing Chinese technological progress in place, which was the stated objective.
by the Biden administration. And a large part of that has been the inability, which has been acknowledged by the US government, to bring allies along, at least in whole. I think it's one thing to, let's say, have...
certain like-mindedness when it comes to the broad strategic picture via V-China. It's another to agree on whether a particular strategy and the costs involved
particularly where those costs are not equally distributed, are justified. And in the case of the chip controls, it's been quite clear that no US allied government, including Japan or the Netherlands, has been completely on board with the US approach. And I think a large part of that has been the
accurate perception that the so-called small yard, high fence, as I've written in one of my commentaries, is basically a mirage. The idea that you can have a narrow front approach to strategic technology competition with China is illusory simply because the technologies involved are so dual use and so complex and internationally distributed.
that if you really want to freeze Chinese technological progress, you have to target as many areas as possible, which is why you've seen the US export controls continuously expanding over the past several years. The Biden administration in its last five weeks rolled out at least five new rules in this area.
And the Trump administration, although they haven't indicated clearly what they're going to do, I would be surprised if they were going to backpedal this very much. So from the viewpoint of the US allies, there does, I think, need to be a serious calculation made about how much this is directly in their own interest, particularly, again, when the effects on their companies, who are competitors to American companies, are in some cases quite negative.
And again, you have to put that in a context where now under the second Trump administration, you have effectively an evolving trade war. The discussion in European capitals is all around how to deal with American economic coercion rather than Chinese. I wanted to widen the scope a little bit. From your vantage point and the topics that you're interested in, what are...
the places, the countries within Asia besides China that you find most interesting and that you find yourself thinking about and looking at most closely? I think Southeast Asia, which has come up a few times in this conversation, is in many ways really the main front in the, if you must frame it that way, geopolitical battle over tech situation.
between the US and China, simply because several of the countries there do play prominent roles in the electronic supply chain. Malaysia, that's a good example where it's a significant player in the global semiconductor industry, not in the sense that its companies occupy dominant positions in different niches, but as a location for a lot of activity by MNCs. But also increasingly, it's a location for data centers.
And again, there are reasons for that abundant cheap energy, friendly government policies. But again, this has brought the country increasingly into the geopolitical spotlight. And one of those rules I mentioned that the Biden administration put out in its last few weeks is the now notorious AI diffusion framework.
which aims to control on the US government's part the export of effectively advanced computing power for AI applications overseas. And countries like Malaysia will be increasingly constrained in their ability to host US companies.
data center vendors and AI chip vendors like NVIDIA to have their products exported to these countries because of restrictions from the U.S. government, which are very much concerned with the access of Chinese companies to these technologies and the potential expansion abroad of Chinese companies.
So Southeast Asia, I think also because it is one of the fastest economically growing regions in the world, still relatively young demographically, is very interesting. Also, obviously, in a military strategic sense, you're talking about the South China Sea, the Straits of Malacca. So from whichever angle you look at it, which is unsurprising because it is China's neighborhood, I would say that this is probably the main region to watch. India, obviously, that's
had a lot of attention as the only country with the same scale as China, now with a population that's slightly larger than China's, and a government which is also very focused on industrial upgrading and on wielding its technological power, I would argue.
The main thing that I would say with respect to India is that, again, it's important to see this in perspective. India is an economy which is now much smaller than China's because of the different growth trajectories over the past 30, 40 years. And its industries are also in a much less developed state than China's in many of the key areas. One barometer of this is that despite the political tensions,
The Modi government has over the past year been loosening rather than tightening restrictions on Chinese technicians, for example, because Indian industry has asked for visa requirements to be eased, for instance, so that they can get the Chinese engineers that are needed to enable their own operations.
And even in terms of Chinese investment in India, though the screws seem to be loosening more slowly on this, there seems to be an increasing recognition in New Delhi that for India to pursue its own industrial upgrading strategies, of course, the Western countries are a very important part of that.
But also particularly in the manufacturing sectors, it is very difficult to do this without the Chinese partners. And that's also reflected in India's trade balance with China. So the idea that India can serve as a counterweight to China, I think, needs to be heavily qualified. And again, it's perhaps something that's missed in the context.
international discussion around this. We've covered a lot in this conversation. Just given the highly dynamic character of all these fast-paced developments in topics of your expertise. We're very much looking forward to seeing you here in Zurich at the Oxford debate live on April 7th on Chinese innovation. More on that in the show notes. Just to put you on the spot a bit, come this November when you're also in
in Zurich for our annual state of Asia conference. What are the most significant developments you're looking out for between now and then? I think that the pace of AI development, um, has caught a lot of people by surprise. I did say at the start of this podcast that, um, those who watch various technological stacks, um, tend to not be overly, um, caught off guard by new developments. But again, um,
In the pace of generative AI development, even many industry experts, I would say, have been quite surprised by the amount of progress that's been made over the past several years. So that's definitely something that I will be watching closely. If we're going to talk more about the automotive sector, then I think particularly in the context of the emerging trade war between the US and many of its competitors,
allies and partners. What happens in terms of how, let's say, Chinese EV makers and their suppliers are treated in the European Union or in countries like Canada and Mexico is, again, going to bear close observation. This is obviously one of those fields in which the Chinese companies do have a pretty significant advantage at the moment. So whether that is reimagining
reinforced by the current trend in trade politics, or whether events take a different tangent will be very interesting to observe. And looking at the chip sector again, the semiconductor supply chain writ large, it will be quite interesting to see what new developments come out of China. I mean, I
tried to put in perspective earlier in the podcast by saying that the Chinese industry, although it's made a lot of progress, still is laboring under a lot of constraints. But again, if we were to caveat that, it also depends on what Chinese industry's needs are and the extent to which the domestic chip supply chain, at least in the areas which are targeted by US export controls, are able to meet those.
Because again, although this is something that tends not to make the news headlines a lot, it's being able to service the more mundane needs of your companies in various industry verticals, which translates into a lot of real world outcomes.
although China may not produce its own TSMC in the near future, which is able to manufacture at scale transistors at the most cutting edge, if you like, of the technology. If
Chinese industry is able to meet the requirements, let's say of Chinese EV vendors, of the big mobile network providers or of Chinese robotics companies, and hence those companies are able to be more competitive than their foreign rivals, certainly within the Chinese market, but increasingly overseas, then I would argue that has a bigger impact
than if you like the exquisite technological breakthroughs. So those three areas that I obviously work on a lot suggest that people who are interested in how Chinese technological advance impacts in a concrete way, like in the now, on foreign players should be paying attention to it.
Thank you very much, John Lee. And we're looking forward to hearing a lot more from you over the next year. Well, thanks very much, Renko and Nico. Always nice to talk and looking forward to seeing you guys in Switzerland. Thank you, John. John Lee, our new TOI Senior Fellow here at Asia Society Switzerland. A fellowship that is made possible through the generous support of Max and Monique Burger and the Thinking of E! family, Hong Kong.
And if you're in the neighborhood early next month, grab your chance to hear from John in person, as he and three other stellar debaters will participate in our Oxford debate live on April 7th in Zurich. The question up for debate at that event? Will innovation made in China change the world? All the information and tickets are available on our website. The link is, as always, in the show notes. That's all for now. My name is Rem Koutanis. Thanks very much for listening.