Arthur Kroeber

So a couple of things.

So first of all, the Chinese system like –

the systems that preceded it in East Asia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, so forth, has always put a lot of emphasis on being good at exporting.

So there are a lot of pressures within the system to create industries that can export, right?

The reason this is important is if you have a totally closed system,

which frankly is what I think Donald Trump is trying to create in the United States, and people are just producing essentially for domestic consumption, there's no incentive to keep up with global technology developments.

So if you have this constant export focus, essentially what everyone is trying to do

If you're a closed domestic market, you can rig the domestic market and buy off your connections in government to make sure that you as a company have your market share.

So there are a lot of ways to win that do not involve technological upgrading.

And that is what dooms all import substitution regimes.

If you have an export-driven economy, you can't rig the global economy.

Ultimately, you have to compete, right?

And you can't compete just on price.

You have to compete on raising your game.

And Japan did this successfully.

Taiwan did this successfully.

Korea did this successfully.

China's done that successfully.

So that's answer one, is that you had this underlying system, which was heavily incentivized in technological upgrading across the board.

So that's what you were sitting on top of.