James Kynge

straight off the bat, which may turn out to be incorrect.

But my sense of this is that the reason that the White House's China policy has shifted to one of stability and emphasizing economics, as you've just said, is because America wants to bide its time.

It wants to gain time to

to wean itself off its complete dependence on China for rare earth minerals and other types of critical minerals.

Until it does that, it wants to go easy on China so that it doesn't provoke China into cutting off these rare earth mineral supplies.

Because as we all know, the rare earth minerals are crucial to all types of American industry.

And even more crucially, they're used in making weapons.

So without these rare earths,

it will be difficult for America to make the weapons it needs to defend itself.

And so that's why I think we're going to see this calmer, more stable, less adversarial U.S.

policy towards China.

And unless something big happens, my hunch is that this may set the tone for the next few years.

Because, of course, it will take, I would say, a minimum of five years before the U.S.

can wean itself off its dependence on China's rare earth minerals.

Do you think that call is a bit left of field?

Do you think it's a bit sort of out there?

Maybe there's more going on.

Maybe it's to do with Trump not wanting to jeopardize his planned visit to Beijing next April.

What's your sense?

I think they're absolutely delighted.