Perfectly said here. I would only add that a great way to move closer to this destination is through the practice of Yoga. I remain on my mission to bring more men into Yoga!

China Morning Missive Are you, at all, interested in the development of the Chinese AI stack? Well, this recent piece by RAND does a rather decent job of laying out all of the specifics. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of RAND, but props are due for the rather comprehensive assessment of the Chinese Ai stack. It is rather balanced, but RAND being RAND, the piece is littered with more than its fair share of cope. The final assessment is that China is building a competitive AI ecosystem although not a likely competitor to what is being built in the US. From what I’ve witnessed this is an errant conclusion to make. What confounds me to no end though is how American policy makers, and those on bended knee in the Beltway (such as RAND) continue to underestimate the ability of China to exceed expectations. In fact, I would place this error as being the single most critical point when it comes to why China continues to outpace America year in and year out. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA4012-1.html

Posting a second video on China. Another short musing of an American who has lived in Shanghai for 30 years. If any of you out there have a specific topic that you’d like for me to address, send it through. Far more interested in addressing issues raised by others. Quick note. Wanted to just directly upload the video to Nostr but continues to run into uploading issues with Damus and Primal. Will hopefully have those issue ironed out when I post the next video. https://youtu.be/y8o0NDb6n_w?si=M8oYlVqsgH6YlsoG

Coming fast and furious now. Synopsys also back in business with %China. Tokyo Electron and ASML I would expect are set to join the fray in the next day or two. Perfect timing given that it's July 4th and the Big Beautiful Bill is sucking the air out of all conversations. Is anyone really going to pay attention to tis development? U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce, Synopsys says https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/03/us-lifts-chip-software-curbs-on-china-amid-trade-truce-synopsys-says-.html?__source=iosappshare%7Ccom.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard

China Morning Missive Very much as expected. While details remain limited, the quid pro quo for China agreeing to resume rare earth exports was that America would lift the export controls of advance chip and chip related technologies. No wonder the Trump team refused to release any details from the recent London meeting and the details need to come from Siemens of all sources to confirm what pretty much everyone expected. Limiting China’s access to these sorts of “national security” inputs is a very much bipartisan issue throughout Congress. Give it a week and then expect a blow back from various corners of the Beltway. For myself, the writing was clearly on the wall the moment China hastily agreed to reconvene with Bessent and his team in London the other week. Rare earths restrictions were having a direct and immediate impact on a swath of American industries. Trump had to deal. Moreover, Trump had to deal on the terms set out by China. Finally, the parties not just agreeing to terms over a short two day period, and then “inking” that deal roughly a week later was further evidence, at least to me, that China ended up getting pretty much everything it asked for. The Chinese NEVER enter and conclude negotiations that quickly unless they do get what they want. Moving forward, this should be a clear example of how the bilateral relationship will operate. When China squeezes, and they have a plethora of areas where they can squeeze, the American side will have no choice but to capitulate regardless of what Trump posts on social media or what the headlines might read. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/siemens-says-us-has-lifted-chip-software-curbs-china-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-07-03/

Speaking of Huawei, just stumbled upon this classic US govt tactic. If you can’t compete or are looking to kneecap a global competitor go with Extrajudicial reach. Criminal charge? Trading with Iran https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chinas-huawei-must-face-us-criminal-charges-judge-rules-2025-07-01/

China Morning Missive Not a week goes by, it seems, without a Chinese tech group announcing some new AI development. This time we have Huawei and the announced open-sourcing of its AI models. What’s particularly interesting about this development is that the Huawei models were built using the company’s own Ascend chips which I believe is a first. It is yet to be seen how the performance of these AI models will compare to all of the others now in the market, both from China and those developed in America. The fact remains; the ongoing American policy of containment is continuing to demonstrate a lack of any real teeth. All that has been achieved through this policy of containment is to incentivize Chinese industry to pick up the mantle and brute force its way to innovate around all obstacles. And China has an excess of brainpower to throw at all such problems. All I will share is that DeepSeek entered the zeitgeist FIVE months ago. Since then it has been nothing but rapid forward progress. The Little Dutch Boy only has so many fingers and the Chinese dam of technological innovation continues to flow forward. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/07/01/huawei-open-sources-more-ai-models-grows-into-chinese-ai-juggernaut.html

What’s shaking Greeting from the Orient. From Shanghai! Have a great morning and day.

I promise you that this speech will not age well at all.

Heard a great line over the weekend. Not mine, but “don’t be so hard on yourself. there are plenty of people in this world that will do that”.

Been there myself more than once. Imagine if you can having a decent job on Wall Street and deciding to give that up to come teach English in China for $200/month. And that was back in 1995. If you love what you do and see it as being far more than just about a vocation, then you’ve nothing to prove to anyone. Keep on keeping on.

Pardon my vulgarity here, but fuck ‘em. You just keep doing you.

I’ll piggyback on this note. If #China was so desperate to “take Taiwan” then there’d be no better time than today. America is preoccupied and simply doesn’t have the armaments. And yet there is no move being made by Beijing. All the talk and headlines of “China is preparing to take Taiwan by force in 2027” is nothing more than laying the foundation for the next American misadventure. Thankfully Beijing sees right through the facade and Xi Jinping has even stated that he won’t “be goaded by Washington”.