James Kynge

So if this holds, and that is a big if, then it really is a big change.

And I'm James King.

You're over in Australia, right, Alice?

Absolutely.

It looks so sad from here.

No, I very much agree with you.

I mean, I also seized on the fact that missing is this phrase of great power competition that was very prominent in the national security strategy of the first Trump administration and also President Biden's.

NSS.

I mean, it's a little bit like suddenly the Yankees admitting to mention that they want to beat the Red Sox or in soccer, Real Madrid going soft on Barcelona.

I mean, China was the main competitor, the main strategic adversary to the United States in both

the first Trump and Biden administration, and this Trump administration until now.

So it is certainly a fundamental change.

Whether it's a sustainable long-term pivot, as you've just been talking about, Alice, is much more difficult to say.

If you want my kind of heads-up

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.