Ian Bremmer

So this is not a time when the Chinese want to see reduced demand for their manufactured exports, the one part of their economy that has been outperforming.

But now you've got people around the world that won't be able to buy as much, can't afford as much.

from the Chinese.

China has big stockpiles of oil and of commodities, but still all of this disruption from the Strait is costing them.

They need the plastics, they need the polymers, and they're not getting them.

And when they are, it's at very expensive prices.

So they really want this war to be over.

But, but Scott,

The Chinese are also the one country in the world that has made the long-term strategic investments at scale in moving past oil and gas and in electrifying their economy and in having

the solar and nuclear and wind at scale getting cheaper, and the batteries and the rare earths and the critical minerals that are powering them.

So long term, the more this war goes on and tells everybody the future is not oil and gas, which the Emiratis clearly understand today,

But the big beneficiaries are not the Emiratis.

The big long-term beneficiaries are the Chinese.

So they are extremely well positioned, despite all their domestic challenges, on the back of this Iran war.

And the worse the war gets, the longer the war goes on, the more the long-term Chinese bet looks like the most intelligent bet they could make.

Now, in the context of all of that, China has said, we want peace, we want this over.

They've engaged with Pakistan, but they're not taking the lead in negotiations.

They don't want responsibility for that.

They don't expect it will go well, and they don't want to be responsible for it not going well or perceived to be attached to a failure.

Having said that, they are proceeding all in