Ezra Klein

force China's progress to slow, that it would never allow it to achieve not even expansionary or hostile ambitions, just development at the frontier of technology. And the agreement in Washington that China should be treated as an antagonist certainly has the possibility of making China more of an antagonist because, well, don't they then have to treat us as more of an antagonist?

force China's progress to slow, that it would never allow it to achieve not even expansionary or hostile ambitions, just development at the frontier of technology. And the agreement in Washington that China should be treated as an antagonist certainly has the possibility of making China more of an antagonist because, well, don't they then have to treat us as more of an antagonist?

And I'm not trying to take responsibility off of them. They've done plenty wrong there too. But I worry that we are careening towards a world where the tit for tit and the tat for tat almost ensures a future of hostility. And neither side seems in any way interested in even defining what an off-ramp from that might look like.

And I'm not trying to take responsibility off of them. They've done plenty wrong there too. But I worry that we are careening towards a world where the tit for tit and the tat for tat almost ensures a future of hostility. And neither side seems in any way interested in even defining what an off-ramp from that might look like.

Yeah. That just jogged for me. When, you know, two years ago, we were going through the decline in conventional wisdom about China's prospects.

Yeah. That just jogged for me. When, you know, two years ago, we were going through the decline in conventional wisdom about China's prospects.

One of the big things that was driving that was that Xi Jinping had embarked on a campaign of humiliating, firing, it appeared even sometimes disappearing, members of the party, the Communist Party, and leading tech executives like Alibaba's Jack Ma, who had displeased him.

One of the big things that was driving that was that Xi Jinping had embarked on a campaign of humiliating, firing, it appeared even sometimes disappearing, members of the party, the Communist Party, and leading tech executives like Alibaba's Jack Ma, who had displeased him.

And the sense was, from the outside, China is weakening because the thing it has had, which is competent government that is willing to absorb internal disagreement and wants to see its top entrepreneurs and CEOs succeed, is collapsing into a peevish dictatorship.

And the sense was, from the outside, China is weakening because the thing it has had, which is competent government that is willing to absorb internal disagreement and wants to see its top entrepreneurs and CEOs succeed, is collapsing into a peevish dictatorship.

Now, Jack Ma is back in the good graces and Xi Jinping is trying not to destroy China's tech sector and is giving warm speeches to rooms that include Ma now. And we are doing the other thing.

Now, Jack Ma is back in the good graces and Xi Jinping is trying not to destroy China's tech sector and is giving warm speeches to rooms that include Ma now. And we are doing the other thing.

We are – we, Donald Trump, Elon Musk – on a campaign of retribution throughout the federal government, on a campaign of retribution against CEOs and universities and members of civil society who have angered the administration. It is we now who seem to not care about how competent people are or what success they've achieved or what kind of linchpin they are in our national strategy.

We are – we, Donald Trump, Elon Musk – on a campaign of retribution throughout the federal government, on a campaign of retribution against CEOs and universities and members of civil society who have angered the administration. It is we now who seem to not care about how competent people are or what success they've achieved or what kind of linchpin they are in our national strategy.

We are doing the exact thing that not that long ago people like me were sharply downgrading their estimation of China's future prospects on. China's reversed course. But we're just getting started with our cultural revolution.

We are doing the exact thing that not that long ago people like me were sharply downgrading their estimation of China's future prospects on. China's reversed course. But we're just getting started with our cultural revolution.

Well, it gets to a question I rarely hear asked, which is what should the goal be? What is the aim of all this policy? And I think most of the time in a conversation that is quietly structured by this Thucydides trap idea, this idea there can be only one, it's that the goal of our policy is to make sure China in wealth and might and strength is never surpasses us, right?

Well, it gets to a question I rarely hear asked, which is what should the goal be? What is the aim of all this policy? And I think most of the time in a conversation that is quietly structured by this Thucydides trap idea, this idea there can be only one, it's that the goal of our policy is to make sure China in wealth and might and strength is never surpasses us, right?

The goal is to keep ourselves ahead or to keep them down, as opposed to the goal being our own strength and partnership. And I think that you could listen to that and say, well, wouldn't that be naive to have partnership? But Europe's strength isn't bad for us. The fact that Nova Nordis has created an extraordinary class of GLP-1 drugs is not a bad thing.

The goal is to keep ourselves ahead or to keep them down, as opposed to the goal being our own strength and partnership. And I think that you could listen to that and say, well, wouldn't that be naive to have partnership? But Europe's strength isn't bad for us. The fact that Nova Nordis has created an extraordinary class of GLP-1 drugs is not a bad thing.