Why Chinese Tech Is Crushing US Innovation in 2024 | Ben Harburg DSH #1071

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Fast fashion brands that they built kind of gamifying e-commerce, just knocking the socks off of Western competition. So you're going to see this over and, you know, extends into photovoltaics and solar panels and of course into all kinds of hardware. So today, if you're in an emerging market, more likely than not, you have a Chinese phone in your hand. Apple is way too expensive for anyone.

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So those are the metrics I'm worried about.

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All right, guys, we got Ben here today. We are at AmFest. Is this your first one? It is. Let's go. What do you think so far? Amazing. Amazing. I'm messing good people. Yeah. You had a breakfast this morning with Charlie, right?

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Yeah. How'd that go? Really impressive seeing the results of all the work that they've done over the last year and how much of this vote they turned and how much really I think this election can be credited to their work.

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Is that how you found out about him, through the clips?

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No, no. I've known Charlie since 2016. Wow. I met Charlie then, and he invited me to his credit. So one of his events, I think it was an AmFest or something, in Washington with President Trump. And I couldn't fit it in my schedule, and I regret it. But I've kept in touch. Nice. And so they invited me out here this time around. But then they've been trying to get me to come things for a while.

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I love it. So you've been going to China back and forth for the past nine years. What's been going on with your trips lately? Yeah.

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I mean, I took the view a long time ago that our biggest geopolitical, military, economic competitor was going to be China for all of our lifetime and probably that of our children. And I'm a little older than you, but I was in high school when 9-11 happened. And immediately after it happened, a few people had different reactions. Some raced to join the military and enlist.

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A lot started studying Arabic and going to work and study in the Middle East and try to kind of understand Islam and what that dynamic was, because we were fixated on this global war on terror. I see China as the same thing.

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So I really thought it was kind of my duty to go and understand China because our bench of people that actually understand China and are in a position to make a difference from a policy perspective is very, very thin.

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Yeah. And there's a lot of misinformation on China too, right?

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That's right. I mean, people around here would understand this concept of fake news. I mean, fake news doesn't just extend to the Republican Party. There's a huge opacity around China and the way it's described and depicted economically, politically, militarily, and that leads to misadvised policy decisions. Right.

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What do you think the biggest misunderstandings are with China from ordinary people?

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Well, I think one of the biggest ones today is that China is somehow on its knees economically and that, you know, and that maybe it's unstable internally and that people are unhappy with Xi and that therefore there's a chance for in the, you know, and maybe in the more modest case, a huge economic downturn and in the extreme, some kind of change of government.