For me, the best offense is offense. The act of being defensive, again for me, is nothing more than a demonstration that a company - or country in this instance - is simply unable to compete. In the past several hours we’ve had (1) Trump announcing that all chip software suppliers are to no longer export to China and (2) the US State Department is moving forward with revoking Chinese student visas. There’s no question that China has taken full advantage of the American open system. That should be a net positive as it forces both government and business to remain innovative and compete, compete and compete. On the student visa issue, this will result in a massive brain drain from America. How many Chinese students ended up remaining in the US working (and building) all of the highly successful tech companies? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rubio-says-us-will-start-revoking-visas-chinese-students-2025-05-28/

DeepSeek is back, only this time the decision was made to be very quiet about the release. Suppose that is the better way to go about things otherwise the ire of the American government will come out guns blazing once again. Now we just need to see how the AI community reacts in the next couple of days. First impressions though seem to suggest that the updated model is even more powerful than the original from just a few months ago. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-28/deepseek-unveils-update-to-r1-model-as-ai-race-heats-up?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy

Prepare for a sharp leg down on “risk on” prices people. Unconfirmed reports that the Chinese have already left the negotiating table in Geneva. That’s was quick.

Give it another month and it’ll be down to 10% (if that)

And people hound me about #China being a dystopian hellscape. Perhaps, but what only seems obvious is that America is heading in the same direction. Sam Altman's eye-scanning ID project launches in U.S. with six locations

CNBC

Sam Altman's eye-scanning ID project launches in U.S. with six locations

Altman co-founded "World" in 2019 — known as Worldcoin until last year — to create a global identity verification system.

China Morning Missive Any American company having, to this very day, a China supply chain acute dependency is - bluntly - a company having no other options. Or better put, has no other options which won’t either (1) detrimentally impact adequate access to finished goods/required inputs or (2) severely impairs profitability. It’s been seven years since Trade War 1.0 and the point at which the risk posed by an over-reliance on China for any given company’s supply chain became overtly evident. Then that risk went from theoretical to very, very real. China at the onset of Covid implemented export controls on locally manufactured PPE. Today it’s rare earths. What might be next? All else equal, the combination of these two known events should have resulted in all American companies exiting completely from their China based production. But all else is not equal and for far too many the Gordian Knot has proven impossible to cut. All that was left were excuses. Again, it has been seven years and I’ll repeat my point. If a company hasn’t shifted its production out of China it’s because they can’t. What has been learned is that China is all but impossible to quit for so many and so many critical industries in America. All that Mr. Ackman has done here is put his ignorance on full display. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-26/ackman-says-time-is-friend-of-us-enemy-of-china-in-trade-war?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy

China Sunday Morning Missive Sitting back with a coffee on a Sunday morning and this is what comes across the “feed”. DeepSeek is back. Then again, it was just a matter of time. Assuming the speculation is true it could be yet another chaotic week ahead. Then again, what else is new? It would appear that the proverbial genie is now well and truly out of the bottle. Lest we forget China also had its Thorium moment last week as well. The evidence is building. A policy of containing China has failed. Like it or not, the only path forward is cooperation. Granted, that is - sort of - what TresSec Bessent openly said last week. The Trump team does want to engage and negotiate. There is a desire for a “really big deal”. The issue, however, are the terms of those negotiations and right now the parties are well and truly divided. China has made it abundantly clear what is required to begin talks. Trump is increasingly boxed in and as that realization continues to become impossible to deny expect a further walking back. As more and more time passes, and as China continues to demonstrate tenacity in the face of tariffs, whatever American leverage may exist rapidly fades.

Wccftech

DeepSeek R2 AI Model Rumors Begin to Swirl Online; Reported to Feature 97% Lower Costs Compared to GPT-4 & Fully Trained on Huawei

DeepSeek is set to drop another model pretty soon, as details about their next

Hope is not a strategy. Treasury Sec. Bessent says China, U.S. have 'opportunity for a big deal' on trade

CNBC

Treasury Sec. Bessent says China, U.S. have 'opportunity for a big deal' on trade

Bessent named-checked Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, who recently expressed fears of a sharp fallout from President Donald Trump's tariff policies.

China Morning Missive II What can only be described as a complete turnaround on China in a single day could be very telling. What I’ve not yet added is how there’s been zero commentary within #China about how it is the Beijing power players are thinking about the issue of US trade. The point remains though. The entire Trump team, including the President himself, is out there publicly in what can only be described as pulling back from the abyss. Might this all be some sort of 4D chess play? Maybe. Then again, I am far more inclined to go with Occam’s Razor here. The answer to the about-face on trade with China is simply the understanding that China is the producer for nearly everything the US consumes. Cutting the supply off, almost entirely I might add, is set to (1) lead to higher prices for all manner of goods and/or (2) a vast reduction in the overall supply of goods on the shelves of American retailers. If you thought American’s lost their mind when eggs prices surged earlier this year, think what the reaction would be if they walked into Walmart and found that the shelves were barren. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-23/trump-says-he-ll-be-very-nice-to-china-in-trade-talks?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy