This is John Batchel, conversation with colleague Mary Kissel about China at years end, and

Xi Jinping in particular. Mary measures his incentives to make deals with the United States, his

incentives to grow less threatening to the region. And they're not much.

The economy of the People's Republic of China is in a state of collapse.

Deflation is one of the collapsing problems.

However, Xi Jinping remains what he was at the beginning,

a threat to com comedy and a brute.

What is to be done?

Well, what the UNICE is doing is looking for a trade deal.

Why?

Because Xi Jinping used his leverage with rare earth metals to scare the U.S. into obedience.

It's the nature of gang warfare.

You scare the other guy with your threats.

Here's Mary to explain.

Much more of this later.

Xi Jinping does not know that much about economic growth.

He's a committed Marxist-Leninist.

He has a middle school education. He's risen to power through cunning and brutality. He has formed alliances with other nations that look like China, Iran and North Korea, Russia. He's cultivating relationships and corrupting leaders across Africa.

He is trying to pull Saudi Arabia and other U.S. partners away from Washington.

I think we underestimate his willingness to let the Chinese people suffer through not just the brutality of the regime, but the lack of economic prospects.

And he doesn't really have to do anything vis-à-vis the United States.

He has new levers that he's demonstrated he can use to push us into negotiations, like the restrictions on the export of critical minerals, where we, you know, climbed down this year from high tariffs

...