Azeem Azhar

every attempt at control creates an unintended resilience, a greater capability to be independent.

I think of the quote, it's a misquote of Fontaine, but it's in Kung Fu Panda, and Master Oogway says to Master Shifu,

one often meets one's fate on the path one takes to avoid it.

And if the path you want to take is to have more control in this case, what you may end up doing is making the other side much, much more resilient.

And we've known from China's various...

five-year plans that they wanted greater independence in semiconductors.

They wanted greater independence in a range of other products.

They do lean more heavily on open source for their software infrastructure than we do in the West.

If there is any coherence to this big mess that you described, does it actually just lead to a control illusion rather than a real sense of control?

And I feel, I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today was that it starts with those October the 9th rare earth rules.

You know, what breaks first?

in that environment?

Let me just dig into this question, which is, we have got these leaders.

And, you know, when you talk about self-reliance and you bring up these examples from the 1920s, we can also think about Juche, right?

The North Korean theory of self-reliance.

But what really are the politics of the leaders?

Because it does feel that...

China and Chinese communism looks very different today to how it looked in the era of the bicycle or just at the moment that Nixon started that rapprochement.

I mean, there is something changed.

So what are their politics and their influences around this particular question?