Odd Arne Westad: How the Past Shadows China’s Future | Foreign Affairs Interview
Odd Arne Westad: How the Past Shadows China’s Future | Foreign Affairs Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubdp8te6rd4
Tag: China
Thanks to Antitrust Officials, iRobot Will Be Acquired by a Chinese Robotics Firm Instead of Amazon
“iRobot, the creator of Roomba, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday. If Amazon had been allowed to acquire the company in 2022, consumers likely would have enjoyed improved quality and lower prices. Now, thanks to antitrust regulators, iRobot will be acquired by a massive Chinese robot vacuum manufacturer, Shenzhen Picea Robotics, instead of American-owned Amazon.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/17/thanks-to-antitrust-officials-irobot-will-be-acquired-by-a-chinese-robotics-firm-instead-of-amazon/
Guan Heng Exposed China’s Uyghur Camps. ICE Wants To Deport Him.
“Guan Heng is a former resident of China who did something amazing: He defied the country’s authoritarian government and documented the abuses of Uyghur Muslims.
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A few months ago, in August, ICE detained him after he admitted he had initially entered the country illegally. Immigration authorities would now like to deport him, either to Uganda—where he would likely be taken back to China—or to China directly.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/17/guan-heng-exposed-chinas-uyghur-camps-ice-wants-to-deport-him/
The US Navy’s $1.6 Trillion Plan to Defeat China
The US is having trouble building its navy partially because it doesn’t have enough skilled people. It takes 8 years to get people fully up to speed, and it is having trouble keeping its aging workforce on the job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2W99bL_TEQ
How APPLE Got CAPTURED by China | China Decode
When it comes to manufacturing iPhones, no one can do it like China does. Creating such phones has a lot of needs, and China meets all of them.
China doesn’t see overproduction as a bad thing because the goal isn’t maximizing profits, but undercutting and deindustrializing other countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9694CESmOZc
China’s 50% Increase in EV Truck Sales Wipes Out Global Diesel Demand
Electric trucking is taking over China because it’s cheaper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm33rrAiXB0
Trump Says China Didn’t Buy Soybeans While Biden Was President. Here’s What the Data Show.
“American farmers exported more than 26 million metric tons of soybeans to China annually during Biden’s term. Trump’s deal with China would cover less than half that amount
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Since 2017, America has exported more than 22 million metric tons of soybeans to China in every year except two. Those years? The first was 2018, when China cut off purchases of American soybeans in response to Trump’s tariffs targeting American imports of Chinese goods. The second was this year, when China did the same thing in response to another set of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/10/trump-says-china-didnt-buy-soybeans-while-biden-was-president-heres-what-the-data-show/
How China checkmated Western economies
China is using its stranglehold on rare earth minerals to wage economic warfare against the world. If a company wants such materials from somewhere else, they will be more expensive, and those companies’ products will no longer be competitive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dASaGYbN0dw
Why China and Russia can track the F-35
Although stealth delays radar detection, its more important role is making stealth planes hard to target with weapons. The wide bands of radars that can detect the planes are not able to locate them accurately enough to target them with weapons. No stealth is invincible, so mission planning is also key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CvdMbWGHTA
Michael Pettis: Bilateral Tariffs Will Fail To Restructure Global Trade Imbalances
When countries like China focus on heavily investing, initially it works well because they invest in productive things and this grows their economy. However, later, they run out of that many productive things to invest in, in which case they are robbing their citizens of consumption and outcompeting other countries’ manufacturing, but not gaining much actual new productive benefits. This leads to debt.
Bilateral tariffs like Trump is doing don’t work. The U.S. has a huge deficit because it consumes more than it exports. A global tariff could work by making goods more expensive and incentivizing people to consume, now relatively cheaper, domestic products. Bilateral tariffs just mean Americans will import cheap goods from country C and D instead of the heavily tariffed countries A and B.
Getting foreigners to invest in the U.S. hurts the U.S.. The U.S. has plenty of capital to invest and doesn’t need more. Additional investment means driving up the dollar, making U.S. goods less competitive internationally, and hurting U.S. exports.
China has debt to support investment. The U.S. has debt to support consumption. The system is out of whack and needs adjustment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSNdzfydRU