Jianggan Li: China vs. USA Tactical Pause, Moves vs. Countermoves & Rare Earths Leverage – E647
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
36 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 16 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
They feel like the West is doomed. They feel like America is downhill from here. If there's an error that the Chinese make of the Americans, to make it more fair, is I think they tend to, from my perspective, underestimate the American system as well. Because it reminds me of what Lee Kwan you said, right? Which is you should never count the Americans out, right? Basically, right? Never underestimate Americans. You'll figure out a way to bounce back. Yeah. And make things happen. Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on Success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah Founder, Harvard MBA, Science Fiction Nerd, and Dad of Two Daughters.
Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesea.com. Stay well and stay brave.
Good morning. How are you?
Why did US tariffs fail to break Chinese exporters?
Good morning. It's like uh Just a few weeks to the end of the year.
Yeah, I know, crazy, right? Well, we'd be better not count our chickens before they hatch. You never know what else might happen in this year. And so I think especially because you and I tend to cover like, you know, kind of like the China dynamic between Southeast Asia and US and it feels like the news keeps shifting every week, right? So by the time we record something You know, either it's just in time or it's a bit too late based on whatever new shenanigans or negotiation or pause or escalation happens.
I uh I have some friends who are analysts and their frustration is that quite often something happens, this they're like step overnight to write a piece of analysis and before they could publish the next morning, things have shifted. So there's lots of effort like writing things which never get published.
Yeah, and you just had to sign up on Truth Social because that's where all the breaking news is happening. Uh you know, and then it takes time for it to be screenshotted, inserted into CNN, right? And then CNN also takes time for them to write the analysis. And then the market's already moved because uh everybody else is, you know, either on Truth Social or using bots to, you know, react to the market news. Yeah. So yeah, so w what a year, right? What a year. And I think that's what we want to do was kind of reflect about maybe some of the reflections and learnings we've had over the past year. Because I think when we started the year and the podcast, we were talking very much about the Biden administration.
How did China use rare‑earths and soybeans as strategic leverage?
We're just Oh yeah.
Biden was still there.
Yeah, still around and we knew that Trump was coming in. And what we thought at that time, of course, was that Biden was known as predictable, obviously also anti-China in the sense of pro-America. But I think the policies were clearly signaled, progressed, and executed. And some the big ones were like reverse ciphers, the ban on investing in Chinese entities in the stock markets, your technology licensing, etc. So quite a lot of big stuff Biden administration. But the Trump administration has really been a lot of roller coaster, right? I think uh Global Liberation Day for terrorists, the anti-China terrorists. Especially I think a lot of the negotiations, ups and downs around soybeans, semiconductors.
Oh yeah. Rare Earth. This is the year that rare earths became known as a word, I think, that for most people.
Yeah, most people actually study the digging on what what exactly is that? Why is that so important for our for our lives and and stuff. But if you look at the industrial policy of China, I mean they ha they identified this as a strategic like decades ago. So so now when you talk about uh I think the US and other places trying to sort of build their rare earth capabilities, that also probably takes years. The question is that of whoever who is proposing it, with whoever who's working on it, do they have the commitment to follow that through? So so that that's why you see this this like and sometimes I mean the the guys controlling this like the Chinese or whoever, right?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:09
2
Why did US tariffs fail to break Chinese exporters?
1:09–2:32
3
How did China use rare‑earths and soybeans as strategic leverage?
2:32–4:50
4
What is the “tactical pause” and why did escalation give way to equilibrium?
4:50–7:21
5
What do factory floors and air‑conditioned warehouses reveal about modern China?
7:21–10:03
6
How did Chinese product cycles speed up and threaten global incumbents?
10:03–12:23
7
Why do media narratives on both sides miss the nuance of US‑China tensions?
12:23–15:06
8
How did the TikTok restructuring create a template for cross‑border platforms?
15:06–36:22
Speakers
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