Thursday, May 14, 2026
PMT: The China Challenge
As the President arrives in China, one has to think that Chinese leaders believe they are in a good position.
For years, they have developed electric cars and clean-energy infrastructure to sell all over the world. The war in Iran and the US retreat from traditional and longstanding international relationships has created a fantastic opportunity for them: they can build huge market share worldwide in the things that international markets want the most as gas prices remain unstable (in the long term, it is instability, not just high prices, that disrupt the status quo).
Meanwhile, we have used a significant percentage of our key weaponry in Iran, and build it pretty slowly-- and with some key components (especially rare earths) sourced from world markets that are dominated by China. That means that the risk to China of attacking Taiwan in 2027 (the earliest date some experts feel that is feasible) goes down significantly, if we are not able to bring fully-armed weapons systems to bear in the effort to repel an attack. There is the danger, too, that our protection of Taiwan is something that may be bargained away.
We will see what comes out this meeting-- but I worry we may not get the whole story.
