The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - China Decode: Apple Doubles Down on China as Trump Blinks

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Alice Han and James Kynge break down why Apple is bending to Beijing — and why it still may not be enough. As Tim Cook doubles down on China, Trump delays a major summit with Xi, raising new doubts about China’s global power. And behind it all, China’s massive museum boom is quietly reshaping the country’s story — and its influence on the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Peter Kafka, the host of channels, the show about tech and media and what happens when they collide. You can hear my conversation with Neil Vogel now, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Tim Cook is in China at the moment. He's been opening a big store, and previous to that, he was at the China Development Forum in Beijing, and there he was using some mollifying language. He said, we are committed to collaborating with our partners across China,

and with all of you to make this vision of progress at Apple a reality. It didn't really seem to address the issue head on, but I think it was supposed to mollify opinion in China that is turning against Apple to something. degree. So to me, what is happening to Apple in China is that it's being pressured by the Chinese government to make commercial concessions, and it's already made one, but China wants more. Welcome to China Decode. I'm Alice Han. And I'm James King. In today's episode of China Decode, we're discussing how Tim Cook's China visit highlights Apple's reliance on iPhone sales in the mainland. why Trump's Beijing summit delay exposes the broader context of U.S.-China competition in the Iran conflict,

and how China's museum boom is reshaping its culture. Now, that's all coming up, but first, let's do a quick check-in with how the Chinese markets are starting the week. On Monday, both the Shanghai A-Share Index and the H-Seng-H-Share Index closed down nearly 4% as investors scrambled to adapt the possibility of tighter monetary policy. This was the worst day for the Hangsang since the Liberation Day tariff announcement, no doubt affected by the Iran crisis. Precious metals company, Lauple Gold and Sijing Mining Group, fell more than 5% after the price of gold tumbled, and tech giants, Alibaba and Tencent both ended the day in the red. Before we go to the episode, a quick announcement.

China Decode now has a weekly newsletter. We go beyond the topics we cover here on the podcast and give you easy. even more data and analysis on the most important stories coming out of China this week. Subscribe at Chinadecode.progmedia.com. It's free for now, so be sure you get subscribed soon. That's Chinadecode.com. All right, let's get into it. Last week, Tim Cook was in Chengdu, China, for a high-profile Apple store event,

marking the company's 50th anniversary. His visit underscored how crucial China remains for Apple, even as the U.S.-China tensions rise, and regulators in China push for a more open app store ecosystem. iPhone sales are booming in the mainland, up 23% so far in 2026, while the broader smartphone market shrinks. Meanwhile, Apple has cut its app store fees in China from 30% to 25%, though Beijing is signaling it wants more concessions. Despite Apple leaning on the iPhone for growth, Apple is still struggling to find traction in AI. James, this is an exciting topic because we did have, as you recall, Patrick McGee who wrote Apple in China. So this is a topic that we've discussed previously.

But what has been interesting to me relative to, I would say, the discussion a year or two ago is that Apple is not quite dead in China. You know, even though we have heard stories and seen data of manufacturing moving further south to India, for instance, or Southeast Asia, and that the market within China is shifting more strongly to the local variants, whether it's Huawei or Opo. It seems that the strong performance this year and Tim Cook's trip to China suggests that there still is a market for Apple. I'm just not really sure how sustainable it is, but certainly I've seen from Chinese social media that this, especially the orange-cased iPhone that came out iPhone 17, has been viral because it's known as the Hermes Orange, like the Hermes designer brand.

But what's your take on this, James? Yes, I think China remains highly important to Apple. And to me, this story is really bigger than just Apple in China. This is a story that says, in this case, when China says jump, Apple will jump, at least to some degree. That's because Apple has invested so much in the China market and because Apple gets such a large proportion of its global revenues from China. And the reason why I think this is such a big issue is because Apple is not the only company experiencing these types of dynamics in the China market. In fact, there are lots of U.S. companies and lots of European companies that are in the same boat that China is so important to them that when the government of China says you've got to do this or you've got to do that, they would be rash to ignore such instructions completely. And as you mentioned, we had Patrick McGee on the podcast, and he said that basically China has captured America's most famous company.

It's an extraordinary realization that Apple is worth about $3.7 trillion U.S. dollars on the stock market. But it isn't really the company's shareholders that actually call the shots, at least not in China. In China, it's the Chinese government that calls the shot. shots. And that's why, as you mentioned at the top, Alice, Apple had to bring down the commission it earns on the Apple App Store for Chinese users. As I mentioned, Apple is not the only company that derives a huge proportion of its total global revenues from China. In the U.S., there are other companies in the same bracket. Qualcomm, the semiconductor maker is one, Texas Instruments is another, Tesla, which of course makes cars and also energy generation and storage technology.

Micron, Corvo, Broadcom, all chipmakers from the US are in the same bracket, just to name a few. From Europe, ASML, the huge Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer, the car makers from Germany, VW and BMW, the big German industrial companies like BASF and Zemans, the Swiss. luxury company, Richemont, Rio Tinto, the mining company, all of these companies derive a very large proportion of their global revenues from China. Therefore, when the Chinese government says something or issues an order or an instruction to these companies, they would be very rash to refuse that instruction point blank. And I think this is a crucial aspect of the whole commercial and geopolitical dynamic that the Western companies get into when they start investing so much in

China. But let's just return to the question of Apple. What happened in order was that earlier this month, the People's Daily, which of course is the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, criticized Apple for its monopolistic behavior. This came just days after Apple said it would drop its typical commission on the mainland App Store purchases from 30% to 25%. This was a big concession by Apple because it drops the App Store commission to below what it is for US users. But it wasn't enough for China. The People's Daily editorial said that Chinese users and developers still face many restrictions that Beijing believes are anti-competitive. And we'll have to see what Apple does in the future. As you mentioned,

Tim Cook is in China at the moment. He's been opening a big store. And previous to that, he was at the China Development Forum in Beijing. And there he was using some mollifying language. He said, we are committed to collaborating with our partners across China and with all of you to make this vision of progress at Apple a reality. It didn't. It didn't. really seem to address the issue head on, but I think it was supposed to mollify opinion in China that is turning against Apple to some degree. So to me, what is happening to Apple in China is that it's being pressured by the Chinese government to make commercial concessions, and it's already made one, but China wants more. Yeah, it's interesting. I agree with all these

points, James. I would just take another, you know, vector of analysis to this and look at it from the vantage point of Chinese consumers. Because if we had this conversation two years ago, I would have said, you know, the writing is in the wall for Apple. China is making amazing phones with amazing cameras. You know, you just look at Xiaomi, you look at Huawei. And they're making great phones for a fraction of the price. And they have, you know, AI chips installed as well. So super competitive in the AI domain as well. I would be worried if I were Apple. But I think, again, this begs the question, is this sustainable long term? There seems to be still a market for Apple. Maybe it's not the aspirational middle class. Maybe it's the upper echelons of Chinese

society that can still afford to buy an Apple iPhone. But the virality of it was really interesting to me. So in Chinese, the chengse, which is the word for orange, sounds like the word for success, Chenggung. So, you know, in the year of the horse, a lot of people were talking about this, this orange-colored phone was seen as being very lucky or auspicious. So that was part of the virality, certainly, of the iPhone 17 that made it very, very successful as a model. But longer term, what I worry about is Apple's place in AI ecosystem. Because in the US, too, I mean, Apple is behind in this horse race compared to the AI providers, but the AI, you know, the AI downstream and upstream providers, whether it's, you know, the LLMs, Frontier Labs, like Open AI, Claude, or even if

it's, you know, the data center providers. like Oracle or Salesforce, it's not clear to me that they are going to take advantage of AI. And more importantly, in the Chinese context, how is it actually going to work? So as of yet, Apple's Apple intelligence, so it's AI, you know, generative AI product that offers on all its iPhones, which are available in the West, is not available yet in China. It's subject to approval. Now, apparently that approval process was delayed by the trade disputes last summer. So we're going to have to see whether this year they will finally get the green light

because as of yet, these other phones, these other Chinese phones are going to be more advanced in the on-device AI market. And then the next question is, how will Apple integrate some of the new moves in agentic AI that we're seeing? You know, we've just seen an announcement that 10 cents, open claw personal assistant or agentic AI has disappointed to the downside. And so, you know, that's obviously taken a hit in terms of stock price. But I think the next question is we see AI evolve, and we've talked about this previously, James, is how a device is going to embed these personal assistance, these agentic AI platforms. And I'm not sure if Apple is at the forefront of it, I think that a lot of the other Chinese providers are. But I think the statistics are

pretty dazzling, 26% year-on-year growth in the first two months of this year. That's pretty good by Apple's standard. Those are great points you're making about Apple and AI in China. Chinese companies are really moving ahead quickly in AI. The number of applications of different uses, startups in AI all over the country, it's just, it is a fever at the moment in China. And it's quite possible, as you raise the possibility, that Apple could get left behind, particularly if its AI products are delayed for whatever a reason from coming into the China market. I really do see that as a risk that you point out. Yeah, super interesting. And just to continue what you said about how China still is really important for Apple's manufacturing. It manufactures still about 80% of Apple's manufacturing capacity globally,

and that's 55% of the MacBook products, 80% of the iPads, and over 80% of the iPhones. Now, there's a big push to get India to increase its share, but at least in the next few, years in the short term, it seems like they really still need China to manufacture Apple goods across the board. Okay, we'll be back with more. After a quick break, stay with us. Support for the show comes from Gusto. When you start a business, you're also signing up for figuring out a bunch of tedious, complicated stuff involving payroll and HR often on your own. But with Gusto, you don't have to spend your evenings and weekends guessing on tax forms or tracking down onboarding docs. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small businesses. It's all in one.

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Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Scott. That's LinkedIn.com slash Scott. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back. Trump's postponement of his Beijing summit with Xi Jinping is sending ripples through global diplomacy and markets. Chinese officials are frustrated and state-run outlets like the Global Times are mocking the delay, suggesting the U.S. is using the conflict to pull China into policing the strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Beijing sees the Iran crisis as a chance to make political capital at the expense of the U.S. James, it's been sleepless nights for a lot of my friends who are oil trading. or just traders in general. I'm curious how you've been farring in the last few weeks, but I have been struck by the lack of real Chinese media coverage on Iran, I think even relative to Venezuela. There's been a lot of focus, obviously, on the new five-year plan that's come out on some of the domestic data that have come out.

But I've been struck how there hasn't been a lot of talk within Chinese media about Iran and how China actually hasn't been that vocally critical of the U.S.'s campaign. Now, that may change if we, in the coming days, see Trump escalate in terms of boots in the ground to try to stabilize the straight or even decapitate the leadership in Tehran.

But right now, I sense that the Chinese are playing a wait-and-see game to see what pans out. They've just sent a special envoy to the Middle East to the region to talk to the Gulf states, to the Iranians. I sense that maybe there are moves early on to see if they can be involved in a, in a longer-term diplomatic peace process. But right now, it seems like Beijing is playing a wait-and-see game.

What's your view? Yes, absolutely. I think China's strategy for the moment is to make rhetorical capital out of the US actions. I thought in particular recently, Li Chiang, the Premier, made a speech at the China Development Forum, which is China's version of Davos. It's a place where CEOs of companies from the West, who can be relied upon to praise, China, collect with Chinese officials and academics from the West, who can also be relied upon to lavish praise on China. And this took place over the weekend in Beijing. And if you look at what

Premier Li Chiang said in front of all of these assembled dignitaries in the Diayutai State guesthouse, he said that China was committed to being a cornerstone of certainty. And, quote, a harbor of stability in a world that is dominated by rising trade protectionism and upheavals in the rules-based international order. He did not mention the U.S. by name at any point, but it was very clear that he was making a contrast between China's role and the role of the U.S. He also said, talking about trade, that he wanted to optimize and balance the development of trade and expand global economic and trade ties with the rest of the world. And to me, although this was an oblique reference to the US, it really struck a very strong point against Washington.

The other thing I thought was really fascinating about what went on at the China Development Forum was that the governor of the central bank, Pan Gongsheng, said that he sort of took aim at the US dollar. And he described, without naming the US, he described some countries persistent trade deficits as being the result of a, quote, international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign currency. So basically he's saying, or that all of the US trade deficits, are partly the result of the strength of the U.S. dollar. And he wanted to deflect criticism of China's 1.2 trillion U.S. dollar trade surplus in doing this. So I would say that this is a fairly blunt criticism of the U.S.

China still doesn't like to call the U.S. out by name. And I think it still wants President Trump to visit China, even after he obviously postponed the visit that had been expected. to take place on April 1st. But certainly, I would say at the moment that China's trying to portray itself as this harbor of stability for the world as the U.S. engages in the war in Iran, and the war in Iran threatens to spread beyond Iran itself. It's interesting. When we talked about the five-year plan and the two sessions in a previous episode, we talked a lot about self-sufficiency and derisking in supply chains. To your point, when you quoted the PBOC governor, there is, I think,

sort of a collision of events right now pointing towards this theme of de-dollarization, whether it's, you know, the PVOC governor talking about it, it's coming up in Chinese media. I think in irrespective of what's happening in Iran, it came out of the five-year plan as well to increase, you know, CNY usage and trade settlements. I picked up on a particularly interesting data point. So China over the last few years has been working with the major central banks of Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE and Saudi Arabia, so some of these Gulf states in the Middle East to increase trade settlements via these central bank bridges, you know, digital tokenized cross-border transactions. And since 2022, we've seen 2,500-fold increase in the use of these

tokens through these M bridges, so to speak. It's about 55,000. billion dollars and around, I think, 95% of that settlement of that sum is in yuan because China's been the big proponent of it diplomatically and through these financial institutions. And in the last couple days, we've seen China announce that they've expanded the number of commercial banks that are going to use EC&Y. I think that one of the longer term themes maybe from this crisis is that the Gulf states will become more and more like Russia. So if we think about the increase in UN settlement between Russia and China since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. That has been very favorable to CNY usage. We don't have the exact data on the ground, but there has been an

increase in CNY usage in cross-border trade settlement, notably for oil and gas. I believe a couple years ago there was a gas prom deal agreed by Putin and Xi in which there would be a 50-50 U.N. ruble split in terms of settlement. So I could foresee China actually benefiting from the morass and quagmire that the US has gotten itself into financially by increasing CNY usage in global trade settlement. Currently, according to SWIFT, it's about 8% of global trade settlement. That number could easily rise, I think, a couple of percentage points in the next couple years, helped along by, you know, concerns about US hegemony, concerns about US instability and the instability it's causing in other regions around the world. I'm curious if you

have a view on this, James, because I certainly... I'm seeing more chatter about this in financial markets. Yeah, I mean, I think you're dead right there, Alice. I think China is using this crisis in Iran, and obviously the conflict is spreading beyond Iran now, to damage U.S. credibility on the global stage, to portray the U.S. as a global wrecking ball, and, as you rightly say, Alice, to make commercial capital. And one area that they're trying to make commercial capital, it's not immediate. but in the longer term is to slowly replace the dominance of the US dollar with the Remembe.

And, you know, these movements are kind of tectonic in nature. They happen slowly. But once they do change, then the whole global economic and geopolitical system changes in their wake. It really does matter a great deal what the world uses to transact its trade and investment flows. At the moment, it's the US dollar, but the RIMB is rising fairly, fairly strongly. And I think we can now envisage a future in which the RIMB has a much greater share of global settlement, both for trade and for investment. So, yeah, I mean, these are very big forces that have been unleashed. China is, I wouldn't say, enjoying the U.S.'s misfortune, but it is certainly

capitalizing on the U.S.'s misfortune. damage that the US is doing to its reputation. Yeah, you know, it goes without saying on the oil and energy front, it is also at a disadvantage China is, right? On the oil and energy front, you know, if WTI goes north, continues to go north of 100, that is going to cause pressure. If supply chains and oil continue to be constricted, that is going to cause pressure for Beijing. But you're right, geopolitically and diplomatically, if we look at it from that vector purely, I think this has been an unforced error by the Americans in which that has caused an opportunity for China to gain leverage, not only just in the

Middle East, but also in potentially U.S.-China trade talks that are still ongoing. Because the more that the U.S. is distracted and bogged down in the Middle East, the less likely they're going to be firing shots at China, you know, in trade and technology export controls. It seems, and this is, I'm just citing a Global Times piece that was really interesting that came out, I think about March 15, that one op-ed in the Global Times says the U.S. has set the and now they're asking the world to help it put it out and split the bill. I thought that that was an interesting image, and it sort of goes to the heart of how the Chinese perceive this is a mess of the American making and that the Chinese do not want to

get involved in any collaborative effort. And it reminds me to some extent what happened in 56 of the Suez Crisis. You know, you had Britain, France, trying to, you know, take control of the Suez Canal, another major choke point in Egypt. and they did not get the approval of then U.S. President Eisenhower, who decided to not back, you know, old imperial regimes, but back the Egyptian president NASA. I think a similar thing is happening now

with the Chinese deciding that they're not going to back the Americans and collaborating to demine the strait or to unblock the strait and put pressure on the Iranians. So that's been interesting. Last far, I haven't seen the Americans really react. I think that they're very much bogged down in what is happening in the middle. least. Yes, I think so. And I think this gives China an opportunity to act as the statesman, the

peacemaker. According to Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, he said that the urgent priorities now are firstly to curb the spread of the conflict and prevent other countries from becoming involved. Other countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both of which are friendly nations with China, and both of which have been struck by missiles from, Iran, and China's also called for a unified international push for an immediate ceasefire and further mediation efforts. And this goes back to what you were saying earlier, Alice. I think that China will portray itself as the mediator to end this conflict, or perhaps after the conflict has ended to step in as a mediator between the nations in the region. And thereby it will portray itself

even more as the peacemaker, whereas the US, as I said earlier, it will want to be portraying as a kind of a wrecking ball. So I think China's strategy is pretty clear. Trump, of course, called on China to help assure the shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. And I think that the idea that China would cooperate directly with the US to further the U.F's objectives in anything to do with this war in Iran is completely pie in the sky. China will not want to do that because it wants to portray itself as separate and in opposition to what it calls an unjust war, which has been started by the U.S. I think, you know, for China, they are keeping their eye on the propaganda gains that they can make from the U.S. war in Iran.

Yeah, and just to back up your point of China being a peacemaker in the region, there is a history of this, right? China back in 2023 was responsible for the rapprochement between the Saudis and the Iranians that led to a diplomatic deton and a rapprochement. So they have a track record. I am on the side that you are on James is that they will play a part in any peace negotiation in the region, given the outsized commercial, economic and diplomatic influence they have with a lot of the Gulf and Iranian players.

You know, if I'm looking at this from a realist perspective, you know, Allah, John Meersheimer or Graham Allison, I am worried that the wrecking bore analogy that you used has actually empowered the access of ill will. If you think about the countries, the original countries within that nomenclature were Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, you know, with oil prices going up for the conceivable future, that benefits Russia. Iran is hard to decapitate. We've probably replaced one leader with a more hardline leader.

And China, to your earlier point, James, looks to be benefiting diplomatically. I'd be worried if I were Kissinger come back from the grave and looking at what Washington's doing. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's too early to say because we don't know what the end of this war will be. It could be that the U.S. wins. And then the U.S. gets to set the terms of whatever peace may follow that or whatever situation may follow that. And under those circumstances, maybe the US emerges from this looking slightly better than it does at the moment. If the US can restore shipping in the Straits of Pormuz, the price of oil comes down. Trump gets to sound more like a statesman on the world stage. Then maybe the pendulum swings back again in the US

favour in terms of international opinion on this action. But at the moment, I think there's no doubt that China is making propaganda capital from this. Great point. And to your point, a lot can change in the next week or two. So we will stay braced for the news. Okay, let's take one last quick break. Stay with us. Support for the show comes from Nutrafol. The number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, trusted by over one and a half million people. Nutriful now offers hair growth supplements tailored to men at every age because the root cause of hair thinning change over time in your routine should as well. Nutraful men for ages 18 to 49 can help improve hair growth and

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museums reflect a deliberate strategy to link heritage, urban development, tourism, and soft power. State-backed cultural districts now dominate the landscape, shaping what histories are told, what art is seen, and how China projects itself globally. Even private and contemporary art spaces operate within this structured ecosystem, highlighting a shift from independent experimentation to curated national storytelling. James, are you an avid museum goer?

And tell me what's your favorite museum in China? I am actually, you know, I really do enjoy going around a museum. I thought you would. I bet you do too. Yeah, I do too. I didn't know the extent of this trend. It seems to be the case. that in China there's a new museum opening almost once every two days.

And these days, there are perhaps more than 7,000 museums and about 1.5 billion annual visits as of late 2025. So whatever numbers you're using, this is a huge, huge trend in China. And I've been looking at some of the eye-catching museums that there are in China. Well, you know, some of them are fairly mainstream, like the Zegong Dinosaur Museum, which is in a southern province of China. And that's point of differentiation is that it's a museum, obviously, of dinosaur bones or fossils that are built right over the pit where the fossils were actually first found. Going to another end of the spectrum, there is also a museum in China for mental illnesses. It's called the Black Museum.

and it has sort of immersive displays, like you can sort of feel what it's like to be going through a hallucination. And of course, there's a sex museum in China. This museum used to be in Shanghai, but it became a bit too sensitive, and it had to move to a smaller town, the town of Tongli in Jiangsu province.

And it has over a thousand exhibits, including erotic paintings and ancient paintings, and ancient sex toys and Ming Dynasty sexual furniture. I also heard that there's a paper airplane museum. I mean, of all the things to have a museum about, this is in Wuhan, and it shows off about 200 classic paper planes, those that can fly a long way,

those that spin around, stunt gliders, etc. And, of course, because we're in the digital age, there's a Chinese meme museum as well. But I just think this is a fascinating topic, partly because I kind of get the feeling that there is a cultural aspect to this. Chinese are big collectors. And I think this is a culture that goes back millennia. If you look at the use of grave goods in graves across the centuries in China, there's all kinds of collections. Of course, the most famous is the Terracotta Army, which was built for the first emperor of

China, Chinchua Huang, which has about 8,000 life-sized clay warriors and countless bronze weapons, and of course it hasn't even been fully excavated yet. So, you know, there is this sense that, you know, collecting things, it's very deeply in Chinese culture. What would you say about that, Alice? Have you noticed that? I love the way you said that. I completely agree. I've never actually thought about it that way, but I think that that is a big part of Chinese culture. it's interesting when, you know, you hear talk about what Chinese leadership is like, is that they have an acute sense of history. They're obsessed with history. I remember the story that, you know, back in the day, the top Chinese leadership were being asked to read by

Wang Chishan, who was, remember for a time, the anti-corruption minister, you know, really the fire brigade men right next to Xi Jinping, to read history books, including Tocqueville's democracy in America. So I think it's very much in the DNA of Chinese people to be obsessed with history and to be obsessed with learning, but in particular learning about the past. I remember as a kid going to museums in Taiwan and in Beijing where not only is there great historical relics, but great artistic relics, I remember this obsession, especially in the Taiwan National Palace Museum, this one, probably the most expensive thing there is this jade cabbage, you know, that looks. exactly like cabbage, but completely made out of jade. These sort of curiosities, I think, is a big focus in a lot of these museums. And as you were talking, I was thinking about some of my favorite museums.

And interestingly enough, I find that in China, I see a lot more of these, although I would say in the UK, you do see this too. These former houses of famous people being turned into museums or memorials, as you say. So one of my favorites is actually Song Qingling's house in Shanghai. She's the former wife. She was a former wife of the father of modern China, Sanyatzen, Dr. Sanyatzen. And her house is really beautiful.

You get to see the interior of the space and how they lived while seeing, you know, the historical moments and chapters in her life. You know, another museum that I really love is the Shanghai History Museum. And apparently they've got a new Chi Pau museum that's just come up. So an exhibition dedicated to a very traditional Chinese style

dress that was really popular from the 20th knees onwards and that you also see in the West. Yeah, it's interesting to me how in the last few years we've had an expansion of different types of museums beyond what we've been discussing, beyond just the historical and the curiosities, to some of these cultural elements that you're discussing, you know, planes and sex, but, you know, paper planes and sex and cheapiles. But I want to bring it back to another point, which is the party's role in history making. But curious what you have to say about this, because certainly there is the more benign aspect. And aspect of museums, but there also is more of an ideological aspect to it. I'm curious if you have

thoughts on that. Yes, I mean, you know, there are endless numbers of expressions that you could cite. There's a traditional Chinese expression, examine the past to understand the present, and then there's a more kind of foreboding non-Chinese phrase from, I think it was 1984, the George Orwell novel, He Who Controls the Past, The Past, Controls, controls the future. And so I think there are two overtones there that both are valid, actually. And, you know, we've spoken about the cultural interest that Chinese people have in the past, and we've spoken about the number of collections and museums there are throughout China. I'd like to bring it around to the money side of this, because this is also really considerable.

I used to collect a few things when I was in China, a bit of furniture here and there. None of it was worth very much money. But I've been reading about some of the top collectors in China. There's Liu Yi Qian and Wang Wei. They're often cited as China's top collecting power couple, and they've spent billions of Raminbi on art. They spent $36 million US dollars on a Ming Dynasty chicken cup. It's not, I mean, you mentioned the cabbage, which I've actually seen in Taiwan's National Museum. You know, this is a rather nondescript cup, if you ask me, but they bought it

for 36 million US dollars. And they also spent 45 million US dollars on a Tibetan tapestry. So, you know, there are lots of collectors all throughout China, and some of them are spending huge amounts of money. And, you know, it's quite surprising on the number of different things that Chinese people collect and the number of different things in which a market is now being created. There's a market even for those Mao badges, you know, those badges that everybody used to have to wear during the period of chairman Mao, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. I think many Chinese people hate to look back at that part of their history, but others are now collecting those badges, and there is a bit of a market in that kind of thing as well. Do you

collect any Chinese stuff, Alice? I don't as of yet, but I do have some pieces that have been gifted to me, and at some point I probably will be a collector of Chinese Taiwan, like teacups, that are used in tea ceremonies. And then the other thing, because my parents are Buddhist, you know, some Buddhist artwork that has been given to me or that my father has as well. But I'm not yet a collector, but at some point I think I will. What about you, James? Yeah, I mean, I'm afraid I don't have the financial resources to be called any kind of a collector, but I got a few things here and there. You know, I got a couple of bits of porcelain from my time in China and a couple of bits of furniture, which I rather like, but they're not worth that much. All right. James, you know what time

it is. It is prediction time. What do you see in your crystal ball for the future this week? Okay, last week, my prediction was about Chinese AI emotional companions. So this week, I thought I go to the other end of the spectrum and give a political prediction. I guess we're a broad church here, aren't we? I think that at some point, China will emerge from whatever it's doing behind the scenes on both the Iran conflict and on the Ukraine conflict to take a more public role. And I think this role will be to use its powers to mediate some aspects of the peace that follows each of these conflicts. And I think it will do this partly as a conduit to help it invest and subsequently rebuild, I mean physically rebuild, construct infrastructure and buildings in both of these countries.

So I guess that's a fairly bold prediction given where we are, both in the Ukraine conflict and in the Iran conflict, but at some point these conflicts have to end, and I think that China will be focusing on the aftergame already. Really, really interesting. So mine is surprisingly about AI, so we're sort of reversing roles as opposed to geopolitics. I would say that even although some of the 10-cent announcement was negative about the integration of agentic AI, that China is going to be at the forefront globally of agentic AI adoption and integration, because it already has this strong super app ecosystem. When you think about the use of Alibaba or Tencent, every day people's lives, it's these super apps. I think we're going to see China really be the first and the fastest

to adopt and integrate these agentic AI personal assistance in day-to-day life. So, you know, for instance, and I know this is already happening, getting your agent to book flights, trains, set your meetings, an agenda, text somebody, give you dating advice, everything. I think that that will be much more heavily integrative in everyday people's lives in China versus the rest of the world. And I think that we'll start to see a boom in apps doing agentic AI in China. But in particular, the Tencent's and Alibaba's being the frontrunners of the pack because they have those embedded super app ecosystems.

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