Alice Han

So I see a lot of rocky obstacles to this April meeting.

I don't think it's going to be smooth sailing between now and when Trump and Xi are supposed to meet in China and Beijing.

And one last thing that I'll end on is it's interesting to note that China is still very, very much behind on its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Russia has the most, which a lot of people actually don't know.

It's got 5,500 nuclear weapons, followed by the U.S.

at 5,300.

And China only has 600.

Now, the Pentagon says they predict that that arsenal will grow beyond 1,000 operational warheads by 2030.

But from China's point of view, they want to continue to build its nuclear stockpile because they're quite a bit behind.

And if we think about the timeline to a Taiwan showdown, having a nuclear war chest is going to be critical.

I would agree with that.

And what is different from the Soviet American experience during the Cold War is that China is still a great degree behind the Russians and the Americans.

So it has an incentive to massively build up its nuclear arsenal.

Whereas if you look back to even as late as the 80s during the time of Reagan,

and Gorbachev, there was an incentive given that both were neck and neck in the nuclear stockpiling for both of them to say, hey, we need to take a step back from the brink and try to limit our nuclear capabilities.

China is not in that position.

And as you rightly say, James, it has an incentive from a strategic standpoint to keep building it because it gives it more coverage and capabilities if there is a Taiwan showdown.

So again, I think that this story is another example in which, you know, U.S.

and China, beyond the dovish signs that we're seeing between Trump and Xi in recent months, has a lot of thorny intractable issues that they need to deal with.

And it's unclear to my mind that this will actually be dealt with.