The Trivium Weekly Podcast: March 14, 2025

Andrew Polk (00:10): Hi everybody, and welcome to the latest Trivium China Policy Discussion. We are now a proud new member of the Sinica Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Trivium China co-founder, Andrew Polk. And I am joined today, once again, by my Trivium China co-founder, Trey McArver. Trey, how’re you doing today?

Trey McArver (00:27): Yeah, doing great. Always happy to be on the pod.

Andrew (00:30): Great. Glad to have you. So, today, we are going to talk about the two sessions, again, which are the meetings that have been happening in China over the past week. The meetings wrapped up officially on Tuesday, March 11th. We’re recording today on Wednesday, March 12th. These are the annual meetings of the legislature and political advisory body that set out the policy agenda for the year. And so, while we talked about the key outcomes last week on economic targets and things like that, we are going to talk about other developments from the two sessions over the past week from sort of a different perspective, which is why it’s great to have Trey on the pod today. Specifically, we’re going to talk a little bit more about sort of the political and messaging developments that came out of the two sessions, or we’re going to at least analyze them from a political and messaging perspective.

(01:25):

And specifically, we’re going to go over what stood out to Trey, as it related to Xi Jinping’s itinerary at the two meetings. That itinerary included a meeting with delegates from Jiangsu Province to talk about economic growth and innovation, a meeting with delegates from the political advisory body or the CPPCC who are involved in the education sector, and a meeting with NPC delegates from the armed forces. So, economy and innovation, education, and armed forces. That was on Xi Jinping’s agenda for the two sessions, which should tell us something, and we’ll get into what the applications are here in a minute. And then we may talk, at the end, a little bit about the fact that the chairman of the NPC, Zhao Leji, was not at the conclusion of the two sessions, which is an interesting development and is going to sort of probably get the rumor mills flying. But we’ll talk about sort of the implications or not of that.

(02:20):

Like I said, this would be a little bit of a different look at the two sessions than we did last week when I covered with Dinny, the more economic developments, because it’s important to look at these meetings from different perspectives because they don’t just set out the economic and social targets here, but they also set sort of the overall tone, policy tone, political tone for the year, or you could say the vibe for the year, which is a good place to stop and take our customary vibe check before we get into discussion. Trey, with the two sessions concluded, what’s your vibe today?

Trey (02:55): Is tired and acceptable answer?

Andrew (02:58): I think you have said that the past four pods.

Trey (03:03): And I will say it for the following four pods. Yeah, I mean, it’s true. The two sessions as we’ll get into it, it’s a lot, and obviously it’s happening, so it’s a lot every year, and then it’s happening in the context of a lot of news flow coming from outside of China as well. So, I mean, again, it’s a really interesting time to be doing our work because there are so many moving pieces, both within China and outside of China. Yeah, whenever anybody asks me how I’m doing, my first thought is just like, I’m so tired.

Andrew (03:35): I hear you. So, that’s a good vibe check. My vibe for today is actually the opposite. I’m energized, maybe it’s the weather warming up in D.C., it’s spring. The two sessions are kind of exciting for people who are in our line of business. It is March. They set out the agenda. Chinese politicians and policymakers set out the agenda for the year, and then they try to go make it happen. And this is maybe a good place to point out, Trey, you and I were talking before the pod, the two sessions soaks up a lot of the energy in China, right? There’s not a lot of policymaking going on or other sort of developments in terms of regulatory updates or things like that out China. So, it’s really like the news flow. If you are reading in Chinese and looking at Chinese commentary and media and those kinds of things, it is really all about the two sessions. It’s really like, it’s not a perfect example, but it’s like the State of the Union in the U.S. or the Joint Address to Congress, as they call it, in the first speech by the president of each administration.

Trey (04:44): Well, I would say it’s more like if there was a State of the Union for like seven days in a row.

Andrew: Right, yes.

Trey: (04:50): That was accompanied by a 60-page kind of mission statement every time.

Andrew (04:56): Yeah, good point, good point. So, this is a big deal and it’s another place we just want to remind folks that, on this pod, what we’re going to do is talk about the biggest things that are happening in China each week. So, if you’re reading the headlines around China and the western media this week, it’s all about tariffs, Trump tariffs, the back and forth, whether or not any negotiations are making progress or not. Bloomberg reporting this morning is that both sides are frustrated. The Chinese are saying they don’t know what the U.S. ask is, and the U.S. has said, “We’ve been totally clear and we want you to put an ad on the People’s Daily about the dangers of the fentanyl trade.” But that’s not moving the needle in China this week. I think it’s important to keep that perspective, and that’s what you’re going to hear on the Trivium podcast each week.

(05:44):

So, good points, Trey. I do want to do a little bit of housekeeping before we get into the thick of the discussion. First, I just want to remind folks, as we said last week, and I said at the top of the pod, we’re proud new members of the Sinica Podcast Network, excited with that tie-up with Sinica, and Kaiser Kuo, who runs the Sinica Podcast and Sinica Substack. We’re going to roll out some new and interesting content via that partnership. So, it’ll be really great stuff. Second piece, following my discussion with Trey today on the latest policy developments out of China, we are excited because we’re going to bring you our first interview with a guest from outside of Trivium. And that guest is Lewis Black, the co-founder and CEO of the largest non-Chinese tungsten miner called Almonty Industries. The reason we’re bringing Lewis on, as many listeners will know, tungsten has become one of the key critical minerals caught up in the recent export control back and forth between the U.S. and China.

(06:37):

So, we’re going to get into the specifics of those controls, why they matter for global businesses. So, that’s going to be an exciting conversation, stick around for that. Third thing to go over quickly is just to remind folks, we’re not just podcasters, we are — Trivium China is a strategic advisory firm that helps businesses and investors navigate the China policy landscape. So, if you need any help on that front, please reach out to us at hq@triviumchina.com. We’d love to have a conversation about how we could support your business or fund. And next, if you are interested in receiving more trivium content, check out our website, www.triviumchina.com. We have a bunch of different subscription options, both free and paid, so depending on your level of interest, you can get free updates from Trivium. So, check that out, sign up to our mailing list. And finally, please do tell your friends and colleagues about Trivium, generally, and about the podcasts. And while you’re at it, please subscribe to the pod and leave us a rating. All right, so housekeeping is out of the way. Trey, a lot of stuff.

Trey (07:40): Well, I don’t know, I’m tempted to jump in there on your housekeeping and just underline a little bit for our listeners, especially the ones that may new to us, that we stay on track of China policy, but that’s not just the policy within China, that’s also China policy in the U.S., in the EU, and I think, as you know, that is just as important these days for global investors and global businesses. And so I think something that not everybody realizes that we do, but actually we help clients to understand China policy in D.C., Brussels, London, Berlin as well.

Andrew (08:14): Absolutely. So, good plug there. A reminder to everybody, we are our business, we do love podcasting, but hit us up and we will keep you smart on China policy, both in China and elsewhere throughout the world. So, we are going to dive into the two sessions now, and we’re just going to take the meetings that Xi Jinping had throughout those two sessions, one by one. Those are, again, as a reminder, one on the economy, one on the education, and one with the military. But first, I just want to ask Trey, with the two sessions recently concluded and knowing Xi Jinping’s itinerary and the economic targets overall, what was your just general impression of the two sessions this year? Any high-level takeaways you have?

Trey (08:57): Yeah, well I think the thing that stands out to me most looking at this year’s two sessions is how similar they were to last year’s two sessions, right? I mean, if you look, let’s take, I mean talk about the GDP growth target, exactly the same, around 5%. Then if you look at the meetings that we’re going to talk about today, Xi Jinping’s itinerary during the two sessions, basically exactly the same as 2024. He met with delegates from Jiangsu to talk about the economy. He met with CPPCC delegates to talk about technology and the innovation ecosystem. And he met with the armed forces to talk about strengthening the military. And so, to me, what’s so interesting about that is the contrast with where we are. I’m sitting in London, you’re sitting in D.C., where it feels like everything’s kind of been turned on its head, right? I mean, everything’s up for grabs and it feels like the ground is kind of shifting under our feet.

(0:09:54):

And in China, actually, it’s almost the exact opposite, right? Where it’s like, meh, it’s kind of just the same — same as it’s always been. The priorities are the same, the policy is the same. And so that to me, I think, was just really striking as much as for the contrast with what’s happening, particularly in the U.S. but also in Europe and-

Andrew (10:13): Yeah, the U.S. Yeah, elsewhere.

Trey: Elsewhere, yeah.

Andrew (10:18): That’s a great point. I mean, you dial back to March 2024, and we’re in a very different environment in the U.S. and in the UK and the EU than we were a year ago. China, not so much, very much kind of steady as Xi goes, which, again, and I do this a lot on this podcast, but I can’t help myself, cuts against one of the key narratives on China in D.C., which is China’s on the back foot, China is trying to figure out this changing world. And they’re kind of like, well, actually, we understand that the U.S. relationship with China is going to be fraught and probably long-term on the decline. It’s a volatile global world. We’re going to try to continue to cozy up to the Europeans if they’ll let us. And it seems like maybe there’s some space there, but otherwise, we’re not being super reactionary.

(11:11):

And, as I pointed out before, they were the only country that, so far, really in the face of tariffs, now things have changed a little bit with the latest Canadian tariffs and the EU announcing retaliation, but they just didn’t pick up the phone immediately and try to negotiate with Trump. They just said, “Okay, we’ve done this before, we’re going to do our playbook. Hopefully, we can get some meetings happening at some point.” But it’s a really great point that you lay out that China’s sort of steady as Xi goes when that cuts against a lot of the Western narrative about China right now. So, that’s a good place to pivot, sort of this first meeting that we want to discuss, which was the meeting between Xi Jinping and delegates from Jiangsu, where Xi spoke to the delegates about sort of leading economic growth and reform. So, for those who don’t know, Jiangsu is an economic powerhouse, and Xi Jinping wants the province to integrate, lead the integration of SciTech and industrial innovation. He also wants them to lead the deepening of economic reform and economic opening, and to lead the nation’s common prosperity drive. So, Trey, what do we take from that meeting between Xi Jinping and the Jiangsu delegates?

Trey (12:24): I think to your bigger point about China not being on the back foot, I mean, I think they are reacting, right? I mean, they are changing, and I think that’s what we’ll get into today is kind of how the tactics will change depending on how the situation changes. And obviously, when we talk about the external environment, there’s a lot of things that are changing. And so, I think the tactics are changing there. But I think this meeting in particular, the meeting with the Jiangsu delegation on the economy really does underline how the strategy has actually been set for a while now and is pretty firmly in place, and it looks very unlikely to change. I think this meeting in particular, of these three meetings, is really the most similar to its counterpart last year. So, if you look at this meeting, and again, I do think it just underlines the strategic priority for China right now, which is innovation, right?

(13:22):

It is increasing productivity. I mean, that is what this meeting was all about. It talked about how Jiangsu, this year, just like last year, needs to promote new quality productive forces, which is the latest economic policy catchphrase but the one that I think is really driving things forward here. And I think, again, that’s because we’ve talked about this a lot. I mean, China’s biggest issue going forward over the medium to long term is going to be increasing productivity, right? I mean, with the declining population, the only way you’re going to sustain growth is to increase productivity. And they’ve put that right at the heart of their economic policy. And that is what Xi Jinping told these Jiangsu delegates they need to be doing right, is focusing on increasing productivity, increasing innovation. I think also, again, it’s the same thing, but while we’re talking about new quality productive forces, I do think the thing that nobody seems to notice about this initiative is that it does focus on developing these kind of horizon technologies, right?

(14:33):

So, it’s like, okay, we’ve got to invest in AI, we’ve got to invest in quantum, we’ve got to do all this stuff, but it’s also about making the traditional manufacturing sector more efficient as well, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Trey (14:44): So, it’s also saying, “Hey, we may have to make sure that we take AI, that we take digitization and that we apply it to everything that we’re doing throughout the whole economy. So, not only are we making the newest LLM, but we’re also making our sneakers or our consumer electronics much more productively than we used to.” And I think that is something that’s really, I think, flown under the radar. But I think for all of those people that are worried about the next China shock, I think it should terrify them, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Trey: Because it’s not just going to be in EVs or these kind of new industries, it’s also going to continue to be where China’s been “shocking” us for decades, right? They’re just going to get better at making cell phones and computers and washing machines.

Andrew (15:39): Well, and that’s a great point. I think I read three headlines this morning, all about how China is dominating in robotics investment and advancement, right? And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. Not just have these new technologies, but applying them to traditional industries through robotics. And that’s a really great point. The broader picture to me, well, two things — One is people always say China can’t innovate, but they’re good at process innovation. Well, that would be one hell of a process innovation to apply AI in the industrial internet of things to all these legacy industries to even further boost process innovation. And that would be, as you said, hugely impactful to the global economy because then they can export those technologies and robotics expertise to the global south, who can potentially use those to quickly move up the sort of technology chain, or technology frontier, that’s the word I was looking for. Second thing that I think it always bears reminding people is that Xi Jinping has explicitly said the strongest economy is not the one that grows the fastest, it’s the one that has this most advanced technology. That statement says all you need to know about why he is managing this economy differently and why he’s letting the property market meltdown, and why he is so focused on new productive forces. Any thoughts on the back of that, or should we move to the education piece?

Trey (17:12): Well, I think just quickly a little bit, just some other signals coming out of that meeting with Jiangsu that, again, I think probably are counterintuitive for a lot of people and certainly are not going to get the headlines, but if you look at what he was advocating to move forward new quality productive forces and to make sure that China’s becoming more productive, it was basically market-oriented stuff, right? It’s all about removing internal market barriers, integrating different regions, getting rid of local protectionism. So, I think it’s the issue with China more broadly, right? Is that it’s often moving in different directions at the same time, right? So, what I see here is we all know China state-directed economy, and part of new quality productive forces is saying, “Hey, here are the 10 industries we want to lead in and this is where government resources should be directed.”

(18:10):

Very state-led industrial policy-centric kind of policy there, or approach to development. At the same time that they’re pursuing that industrial policy, they’re also making market-oriented reforms, literally reducing administrative barriers, reducing internal barriers to trade, things like that. And I think, sorry, and I’m kind of waxing poetic now, but I do think we are often confronted, when I’m talking to people about China who aren’t as familiar with it, they tend to have a pretty extreme view. And it’s either that extreme view of like China will take over everything, like it’s just an unstoppable behemoth, or it’s the kind of China is a house of cards that’s about to collapse. And I think those narratives, you can find proof to reinforce either one of those narratives, but the truth is, is that there are things that push in both of those directions, and that’s why, overall, the truth is pretty much always in the middle, right?

(19:08):

China’s not going to collapse, it’s going to keep moving forward, but it’s also going to have some constraints on its growth, and it’s certainly not necessarily a well-oiled machine. Anyway, I just thought that stood out to me here, and it’s something, I’m sure there was no article anywhere in the West that said Xi Jinping promotes pro-market reforms in discussion with Jiangsu delegation, right? But he did.

Andrew (19:33): Yeah. Well, and that just goes back to the discussion we had with Kaiser last week and which I had with Kendra two weeks ago, which is things shift, and I think, well, time will tell, but it does seem that the embrace of the private sector by Xi Jinping over the past few weeks may be a bit of a watershed moment, where, yes, they are going to invest state resources and have state-led innovation, but it’s pretty clear they see a role for the private sector on the DeepSeeks of the world. Everyone’s now in on Manus or Manus, I don’t know exactly how to say it. We’ll get into that on some podcast with Kendra, but they’re supposed to be the next DeepSeek, right? So, Xi Jinping and Chinese leaders seem to see a role there for the private sector. And also, as a segue, part of boosting innovation is increasing or boosting your level of education, the skills of your workers. So, maybe now we go to the next meeting, which was between Xi Jinping and CPPCC delegates and the political advisory body delegates from the education sector on March 6th. Trey, can you tell us a little bit about that meeting and what it tells us about China’s priorities in that area?

Trey (20:50): Yeah, well, I mean, and again, I know we’ve said it a million times, but innovation technology, innovation technology, innovation technology, right? That is the through line through all of Xi Jinping’s meeting, and really through kind of economic policy writ large these days. I thought what was interesting about his meeting with CPPCC delegates this year, so he meets them every year, right? And this year the meeting was much more focused. So, last year the meeting did focus on technology and education, but it also focused on environmental protection. It focused a little bit on Taiwan. It focused on supply chains. This time was all about how do we create a more effective innovation ecosystem that is with the education system forming the key foundation of that system? In a way you can over interpret from these things, right?

(21:49):

And I think we’re always trying to strike this balance between, hey, look, there are little differences here that’s meaningful. We need to interpret them. That’s at the heart of what we do. At the same time, sometimes a little difference is just a little difference, right? I would say the fact that this meeting was solely focused on the innovation ecosystem does show that, again, I mean, it just underlines what we’ve already said, which is that is the most important thing here, but I think most important thing for Chinese policymakers I also thought this meeting really showed exactly kind of what we were just referencing about how China is always a little bit two steps forward, one step back or has things that will have policies that pull in different directions or will maybe make an effective policy in one place, will then be undermined by a policy in another place.

(22:38):

And I think looking at this meeting, again, not a lot of policy details in here. The broad policy initiatives all make sense, right? Like, it’s kind of how do we make sure that we are commercializing advances that happen within our education system? How do we make sure that business and education system are more closely aligned so that the education system is training the workers of the future? How do we make our education system more integrated so that we have more cross-disciplinary stuff? How do we make sure that we apply digital technology to education kind of new quality productive forces in the education sector, right? How do we make sure that this is becoming more effective with the use of technology? All stuff that, again, devil will be in the details about how you figure that out, how you implement that, and how effective it is. But the top line like priority is, I think, largely uncontroversial, right?

Andrew (23:37): Right.

Trey (23:37): At the same time, there was also some language in there that was like, we need to make sure that we are increasing our ideological education and building moral students who will take on the baton of socialism. I mean, I think we all know a lot of people that have gone through the Chinese education system and I think they would all say that the ideological component of it has not added anything to China’s innovative capacity.

Andrew (24:05): Yeah, agreed.

Trey (24:07): And so, again, I just think that encapsulates a lot of what happens in China, right? Is that you have some really good ideas and some really bad ideas.

Andrew (24:18): Well, and the education sector is an interesting to one to watch. We actually follow it pretty closely. There’s not a ton of policy action on education. So, it’s not like there’s weekly developments on that front. But I think it’s sort of widely seen as not a particularly sexy sector or policy area by a lot of people, but it’s obviously foundational to how the economy works, how different generations kind of perceive how they fit into society. And so, I would note a couple of things. One is there are really interesting things happening in the sector. Beyond this meeting, the Government Work Report talked about basically trying to institute universal free preschool, which would be huge in terms of economic policy, freeing up people to spend more money on consumer items rather than on their kids’ preschool education. We highlighted in Trivium today a report from Peking University, I believe it was, that said the average price for preschools 8,000 renminbi per year; that obviously varies widely between regions. And that individuals, the households pay 50% of that. 4,000 renminbi a year, especially for the lower income segment of the population is not nothing. It’s a significant chunk of money.

(25:48):

So, if they could push that through, it has huge economic ramifications. And the other interesting thing for all of this is some people will be familiar with this, some won’t, but, basically, Xi Jinping sort of totally dismantled the private education sector a few years ago as part of the tech crackdown. It was called the double reduction policy, where they basically said, “We don’t want education outsourced to the private sector, partly because we want to control it through these ideological education type things,” but also because it’s getting very expensive and it was a race to the bottom in terms of parents having to pay all this money to try to get their kids a leg up in the educational system, which is famously both very rote and very controlled but also highly, highly competitive, right?

(26:38):

But the interesting thing here, just to bring it back to the AI point, is now they’re talking about AI teachers and all sorts of innovations in technology-enabled education reforms. And so, you can almost see it as potentially a total revival of the edtech sector where they now operate more within the bounds of what the state wants, which is what the whole tech crackdown was about, but where the private sector will definitely be part of bringing solutions to that. So, we could see a revival of a whole new set of edtech companies in the years ahead if the government gives those companies just a little bit of leash to help enact some of the technology-driven solutions to the education systems challenges that they seem to be wanting to address. So, it’ll be an interesting place to watch and that’s also a place, just partly for the investors out there, where there’s going to be some new Chinese companies that pop up doing some really interesting things. So, it’ll be a space to watch.

(27:39):

Okay, so last one here. Potentially the most interesting meeting — Xi Jinping with delegates from the PLA, which is the People’s Liberation Army and the wider armed services on March 7th. Well, I guess there is probably an innovation piece with the military. Not probably, there definitely is. This is somewhat of a dog-leg from the previous two meetings. What do you make of it, Trey?

Trey (28:02): Yeah, well, I mean, actually, I think of these three meetings, this one might actually be the one that had the most information in it or revealed something for us, right? Or showed kind of a change maybe; in that, again, the kind of economic policy meeting, the education meeting were broadly built on themes from last year. But the readouts from the meeting with the armed forces, when you compared this year to last year, was a really, really striking difference. And I mean, I think have to preface this by just saying that the armed forces are like the black box within the black box. Chinese politics, the Chinese system, famously opaque, and then this is probably the most opaque part of that system. So, we really don’t know a lot about what is going on inside of it. But it has been pretty clear for the past two years that something bad is going on inside of it, right?

Andrew (29:02): Yeah.

Trey (29:03): So, the highest military body in the land is the Central Military Commission. Xi Jinping chairs that, there’s then two vice chairman, and, traditionally, there’s four members, right? So, it’s a seven-member body. Two of those seven members have been purged in the past 18 months, right? I mean, I think it actually is unprecedented, and I think it just speaks… and it’s part of a much wider purge that’s been going on throughout the military over the past two years, right? So, we’ve seen lots of generals, particularly started in the rocket force, but we’ve seen it’s spread out into the wider defense industrial sector. So, we just saw the minister for industry officially removed from his position in the past few weeks, and almost certainly seems to be connected to whatever’s going on within the military. And so, I think there’s clearly something bad going on within the military, and that seemed to be really evident in this meeting that Xi Jinping had, where, again, last year it really was all about innovation.

(30:07):

It was like let’s build this high-tech 22nd century military where we’re going to like own space and deep sea. And it was, I don’t know, aspirational and kind of a sci-fi vibe to it. And this year, it was like we really need to get our procurement system working and make sure that we’re doing a lot more internal auditing. It was very kind of brass tacks, boring, like time to shape up everybody. And, again, we don’t have much more than that, but I do think it is evidence, I think, that the military, that there are some major problems within there and that probably Xi Jinping doesn’t have a ton of faith in them, which, obviously, does have a lot of implications for China’s interactions with the wider world.

Andrew (30:56): Yeah. Well, good points all. As a lowly economist, I don’t really have a lot of thoughts on the military piece but appreciate all of those analyses and thoughts. I think it’s definitely the military sort of corruption challenges and the overall challenges in the military will be an ongoing place that we watch as well in the coming months and years. But one final thing just to wrap up is there was reporting that Zhao Leii, who’s the chairman of the legislature, the NPC, which is the two sessions are the political advisory by the CPPCC, and the legislature, the NPC. So, he’s basically supposed to be running this show, but he wasn’t there at the closing session on Tuesday. And so, it’s got people speculating this and that. The meeting was actually run by the vice chairman, or the session on the March 11th of closing session was run by Vice Chairman Li Hongzhong, who said, “Chairman Zhao Leji requested leave from this afternoon’s meeting due to a respiratory infection. I was entrusted to preside.”

(32:07):

I’m going to ask you what to make of this, if anything, like I do think… Well, I’ve got my thoughts but I want you to lead. But just before we started recording, I saw a story that said Zhao Leji spoke to journalists covering the parliament on Wednesday, State Media reported, a day after he unexpectedly missed a key session, he had been due to open. So, he’s already been seen publicly. Maybe it’s not even worth analyzing, but maybe a chance to talk more meta about why people freak out anytime a senior leader is not where he is supposed to be.

Trey (32:42): Yeah, well, I mean, we’ve already talked about black boxes inside black boxes. And again, another one of those black boxes certainly is the senior leadership. And so, we don’t really know much about them. We don’t really know that much about what they do. And I think in that information vacuum, a lot of people fill it with speculation. And so, whenever anything happens, that’s outside of the norm, like the chairman of the legislature not chairing the annual session of the legislature, people tend to immediately jump to speculate all sorts of crazy stuff. I mean in this case, obviously, now I guess we’ve had it confirmed that there was nothing going on. It didn’t really pass the sniff test to me, frankly, that anything was going on because they kind of addressed it, right?

(33:31):

I don’t know. Usually, they would say something more vague or they just wouldn’t say anything at all, and it seemed pretty anodyne from the outset, especially because he had been there throughout the proceedings during the week as well.

Andrew (33:44): Sometimes Occam’s razor is people just get sick, right?

Trey (33:47): Oh yeah.

Andrew: Well, and just for listeners, the one little detail who some people will know, but just to back up the point that we don’t know much about the senior leaders, we don’t even know their birthdays. And the only reason that we know Xi Jinping’s birthday is because seven, eight years ago…

Trey (34:05): It was Narendra Modi.

Andrew (34:07): Narendra Modi, I was going to say, the prime minister of India tweeted, ‘Happy Birthday Xi Jinping’ on June 14th, right?

Trey: 15th.

Andrew (34:15): Oh, 15th, yeah. So, everybody’s like, “Oh, I guess it’s his birthday today.” And so, that’s why you’re seeing all these headlines about a potential birthday summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, whose birthday’s on the 14th. We just happen to know that because crazy tweet by Narendra Modi. Again, it’s an opaque system, but we’re trying our best to figure it out. I think we can leave it there. As always, Trey, we’ve covered a lot of ground, and we’ll make sure to continue covering all the latest out of China each week. In the meantime, please stick around for my conversation alongside Cory Combs with Lewis Black, the co-founder and CEO of the largest non-Chinese tungsten miner Almonty Industries. It’s an interesting discussion. Otherwise, Trey, thanks for joining me today.

Trey (35:03): Yeah, great to be here.

Andrew (35:04): All right, everybody. We’ll see you next week. Stick around for the discussion with Lewis Black. Thanks all.

(35:15):

Over the past few years, critical mineral supply chains have gone from a behind-the-scenes industry issue to a centerpiece of global geopolitics. As the U.S. clamped down on China’s access to high-end chips, China looked for its own leverage and found it in Chinese producers mining and processing industry dominance. While China doesn’t dominate every mineral supply chain, it controls a large enough share of enough different mineral production chains to pose serious problems for the U.S. and partner country supply chains. Since February ’24, 2024, we’ve argued that tungsten is among the most critical at-risk minerals to get caught up in the back and forth between the U.S. and China. And then, in February of this year, Beijing imposed new export restrictions on tungsten.

(35:59):

Today, we’re excited to dive deeper into the tungsten industry, including its importance for various global interests, the impact of China’s export controls, and global businesses’ responses to those controls. And beyond making our assessments as outside observers, today, we are delighted to get the inside scoop from the best possible guest, Lewis Black, co-founder and CEO of the largest non-Chinese tungsten miner Almonty Industries. Joining us in conversation today will be Cory Combs, Trivium’s head of critical mineral supply chain research. So, Cory, welcome. Please tell us how you’re doing, and then let’s welcome Lewis to the podcast.

Cory Combs (36:36): Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Andrew. It’s been unsurprisingly a busy week, busy few weeks post the two sessions, but, honestly, it’s been promising, and we’ve had a lot of encouraging conversations recently with people who are becoming more and more proactive in dealing with supply chain issues. And so that busyness is a reflection of a positive trend of more proactive engagement. So, happy on my front to be busy.

Andrew (36:55): Great. Well, Lewis, welcome to the podcast.

Lewis Black (36:58): Thank you very much for having me. And I’d just like to add I’m not so happy being so busy because, generally, in tungsten, when you are busy, it means that the world is not in a great place.

Andrew (37:08): There’s good busy and there’s bad busy, and it sounds like you’re bad-

Lewis (37:13): So, yes, I’m busy, but it doesn’t reflect well on the state of affairs in the world generally.

Andrew (37:18): That’s fair enough. And in that context, we very much appreciate you taking time out of that busy schedule to spend time with us today. I think we’re going to have a great conversation. For listeners, I’m going to toss this over to Cory to run the show from here. I may interject occasionally, as I want to do, but otherwise, Cory, over to you.

Cory (37:38): Cheers. Well, again, Lewis, thank you so much for being here. It’s a pleasure to have you on the pod. Well, to kick things off, could you give listeners just a very brief 101 on tungsten from an industry perspective? What is it? Why does it matter so much?

Lewis (37:50): Well, tungsten is a metal that has always been very well respected amongst governments because of its importance, and therefore any kind of tension between different nations, cultures, governments, tungsten’s not really been in the front of it because it’s in everything, and only a little bit of it, very small amount. But without it, there’s no end process. And so, to give you an example, I don’t know, you want to build a car, you want to build a plane, you want to make a semiconductor, you want to produce a battery, you want to produce munitions, armor, you want to put a guidance system in a satellite system, you want an MRI machine, you want a scalpel, it’s in every… If you look at the critical metals and you look at what metals affect what sector, tungsten is, right out the front, is number one as having the most impact on the most sets of the economies, the global economy. And that’s why it’s what we call tungsten diplomacy. There’s very little of it, it’s a declining resource. It’s very difficult to mine because it’s very brittle, and it is 90% controlled by North Korea, Russia, and China.

Cory (39:06): One other piece to add here is, I’m curious, we talk with economic planners and trade authorities, and a lot of the time they say there’s a difficulty because it’s so critical, but it’s also traded in relatively low volume. It’s harder to attract than some of the other key commodities that are traded in bulk. Has that also been…?

Lewis (39:24): Yes. I mean, as I said, the world consumes, it depends if you believe Chinese data or not, but we produce somewhere between 86,000 and 94,000 tons a year of tungsten globally. That’s it. It’s literally a rounding era once compared to something like an iron ore or copper. And yet the impact of that small amount of tungsten is profound because, as I said, it’s in everything. So, it is very difficult to track. It’s quoted through Platts Fastmarkets in London once a week. They canvas for real trades, spot trades, which unfortunately means that the price is very much following what goes on in China.

(40:07):

I mean, I think we have to understand, so pricing and tracking pricing, one thing we have to understand is that China, when they arrived in the ‘80s, had a plan that they executed beautifully. I mean, we can’t take anything away from them. They wanted to control that market share. And when you are the biggest producer, and for instance, in tungsten, North Korean and Russian tungsten also flow through China before it finds its way to the wider market. So, they, by default, control 90%. You also control price. And even though WTO says you can’t have price fixing, you can’t have collusion, that’s absolutely the case. They respect that. They just happen to be able to produce more than anyone else, and so, therefore, they can involuntarily control pricing. So, it was a very sophisticated and long-term view and vision that they had. And now, a generation later, we are now into our oops moment.

Cory (41:11): Yeah. Let’s turn more fully to the geopolitical side of this. I mean, I think a lot of the tension here is navigating these different national interests when you’re, in many ways, I imagine, would prefer not to have to align and be able to do business openly with everyone. But there are these geopolitical pressures. I’m very curious to hear how you navigate that. And we can turn more specifically to China’s export controls. But let’s start just a little bit more broadly on how do you deal with and navigate these geopolitical issues?

Lewis (41:39): Well, I think, in most metals, it’s rather simpler than tungsten. And the reason why I say that, not just because I’m in tungsten, is because tungsten is used in defense. And I think I have a customer who’s a very large producer of penetrators and it was said to me that… he showed me a 50-caliber penetrator, and he said, “The crazy world that we live in is that we ship these to Ukraine for them to defend themselves against the three nations that provided 90% of the raw material for this munition.” And when you take a pause and you think about that, this is a really unhealthy situation we got ourselves in. And because defense is involved, you’ve got an added layer of geopolitical problem, which is this isn’t about guys who can’t produce inserts to manufacture cars.

(42:34):

This isn’t about someone losing market share in the semiconductor business. This isn’t about you have to buy a Chinese MRI machine and not an American one because there’s no tungsten for it. This is defense. This is right at the top of the agenda. And now we come into the unusual situation about defense. You see, if you acknowledge you have a problem, you send a message of weakness. If you don’t say anything, does anyone really do anything? Well, geopolitics here is a rock and a hard place. It’s unwinnable. And I think, really, many people knew there was a problem, firstly, during the Biden administration when they started shipping uranium-tipped artillery shells to Ukraine. And what was interesting about that was that, after the first Iraq war, this was a carcinogenic munition, and I think 54 countries banned it.

(43:33):

It wasn’t meant to exist anymore. And yet it seemed that the inventories of tungsten munitions had got to such low levels in the U.S., they had to ship stuff that wasn’t really even meant to be around anymore. And that sent a message to everyone, not just internally in the West, in NATO countries, because then NATO, shortly after, declared tungsten as one of the most coveted metals, but also China and Russia, it told everybody, we don’t have capacity, and even if we had the raw material, we don’t even have the capacity to produce them because it’s just not cool anymore to make munitions.

Cory (44:07): This is one of the dynamics we’re very curious to see how the notion of dual use has been evolving. And just to confirm for listeners, dual use, generally speaking, materials that can go into both civilian and military or defense applications. And we’ll kind of pivot here a little bit too toward China’s most recent tech control, or critical mineral controls, which largely, at least on paper, are justified by dual-use applications. Now, there are some cases where we think that’s a clumsy justification. We’ve written about this — In cases like graphites where the nuclear buyers’ club did not… the particular types of graphite that China had controlled on dual use basis were not recognized by the nuclear buyers as such. And so this seems a little bit more of a justification on paper than… But then you have things like tungsten, which are genuinely truly important to dual-use applications, which just adds the layer of this isn’t just a political issue, this is a genuine… it’s a much deeper issue, let’s say, than just surface-level politics as some mineral space.

Lewis (45:05): No, I think you’re right. But I think it’s also important to look at the fact that China is, again, very creative about using our own regulations against us. So, we have similar regulations in the EU and the U.S. regarding dual use and tungsten. This exists, but it exists for a very finite number of products because if you make a breaking part, are you going to argue it’s dual use? Because it could end up on an armored vehicle. But what China has done is they’ve made it for everything. And so even though they say, “Well, we’re just doing what you guys do,” it’s not exactly true. They’re being quite frugal there with the reality. But I think, ultimately, it’s now given them the opportunity to decide who gets what at their election. It’s a way of weaponizing a global economy, especially one that the market share was seeded to them because we had no resistance.

(46:10):

And so we felt, but we gave you this. We didn’t defend our own sectors because you said you were the future. I mean, of course, we were really outsourcing all the dirty end of the business. We wanted to be in the downstream, not in the upstream. We wanted to make the bagels, we wanted to make the croissants. We didn’t want to actually grow the wheat. So, there is a bit of kind of shock and confusion here because they’re saying, but you owe us kind of thing. But say, “Oh, but you have the same rule to us.” So, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

Cory (46:41): Yeah. And just a bit of context for listeners, tungsten has been mined, and still is in small degrees, mined in the West. There were at least 12 states that I’m aware of in the U.S. that had tungsten mines operating at various points, dating back as far as the late 19th century, if I’m not mistaken. But I think roughly the 1980s, during that particular price crash, basically everyone exited the market in the West. Is that an accurate characterization?

Lewis (47:06): I mean, in the run up to the ’80s, there was probably, give or take, a hundred tongues to minds around the world outside of China. And by the mid- ’90s, there were two left. So, there was a complete destruction of a sector because you couldn’t price compete. China essentially arrived with free material. Now, they weren’t giving it away because we were great people and lovely personalities, it was because it was buying market share and it was a very effective tool. And they also understood our insatiable appetite for greed. So, suddenly, we found ourselves with cheap raw materials, but we weren’t dropping the prices of our downstream products. So, our margins just mushroomed. And we were able to buy that new high-rise office. We were able to buy a plane. And what’s more, China was a phenomenally reliable, consistent supplier.

(47:57):

It’s not like they crashed the price and then just said, “Now come beg for it.” It was like fast food. It was a fast food supply chain. You needed something in a hurry. It was there for you. That meant that your CFO was happy. He said, “Oh my goodness, that 12 months of inventory we carry, we don’t need to do it anymore. We can reduce it to three months because these guys over there, they’re always got stock. And look at how good our balance sheet looks.” The CEO gets a round of applause from the shareholders, he gets a bonus. The balance sheet looks fantastic. Everybody was happy, and everyone got fat on this. But what they weren’t watching or they weren’t acknowledging they were living in a little delusion was that while China was feeding our margins, they were also perfecting exactly what we were doing. So, if you look at the quality of products that China was producing 10 years ago, say in tungsten, and you look now, what they produce now is as good as we can produce in the West. And so this point of divorce was inevitable because they’re not going to keep feeding and supplying their competitors. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Cory (49:10): I think there’s two great things I’d like to just follow up on there. One is I think right now there’s a lot of narrative in D.C. and Brussels and elsewhere to varying extents, obviously very strong in the U.S. that Beijing has masterminded this 50-year, 40-year plan to undercut American companies. The nuances missed there is there was genuine value creation. A lot of folks, as you say, in the West were very happy with the situation for a long time. And now, as we see Chinese entities, state-owned as well as private, that’s a natural next step for them is to try to move all that production and processing up the value chain and increase their margins. It just so happens that this is now also a point of leverage just given the scale and the lack of any… the fact that we offshored so much and exited the market so dramatically. Right?

Lewis (49:54): But we knew there was an issue in 2008. And the financial crash, what all of my customers saw was that China canceled all supply contracts for tungsten, and they did probably across many other sectors using force majeure because they argued that national security was a force majeure. This is obviously an interesting interpretation of a force majeure. But when you’re a totalitarian state, you can make those justifications and be completely supported. And so, at that point, all of my customers were saying, “Oh, you know what? We really should diversify.” And there were think tanks and there was committee meetings, and everyone was, “That’s it, we’re not going to let this happen again.” And then things calmed down, financial crisis passed, economy started to recover, and six months later, China started ringing their customers going, “Hey, we are ready for business.” And saying, “Oh, are you going to do that again?” “No, no, it won’t happen again. No, it was a one-off, don’t worry. It was a bit of a blip. We didn’t really understand what was happening over with you with the crisis. Now we understand you guys are smart, you worked it out, let’s go.”

(50:51):

And everyone said, “You know what? We got a lot of other problems. We’ll deal with this supply chain later. We’ll do it next year. Okay? Because it’s so easy.” Again, we are addicted to the simplicity of supply.

Cory (51:03): Yeah, I love that line — Addicted to the simplicity of supply. We had a clear signal in 2008, there were issues and we just didn’t move on, didn’t act on it effectively. Is that right?

Lewis (51:12): Well, I mean I guess it’s like if you’ve got a drinking problem and you have a liver transplant, it probably tells you should stop drinking. But there are some guys who say, “Yeah, you know what, I got a new liver.” It really was a classic case of addiction.

Cory (51:27): There’s a bunch of avenues I’d love to move into from here, but I think, in the interest of time, I will jump to one other piece just to make sure that we have the full picture here, which is the most recent export controls. Trivium readers will know plenty about the, and listeners will know a fair bit about China’s ongoing and evolving use of critical metal export controls, along with other related controls of technologies, etc., for processing. And this has been evolving really since June 2023. We saw gallium and germanium announced. We saw a bunch of others most recently in February. And this is covered a little bit on February 7th podcast, for those interested in going back, on tungsten, molybdenum, bismuth, and a couple others. So, these controls are evolving. What I think listeners are probably less familiar with is the details of the market impact of those controls and non-Chinese companies such as Almonty’s responses. I mean, what’s been happening? We’d love to hear from the horse’s mouth. What’s been going on since then?

Lewis (52:21): Well, I think, firstly, we are seeing, like antimony, the price started to rise quite dramatically in tungsten. So, we’re going to continue to see this. But we have a problem. China’s approach to protecting its market share with lithium or rare earths was just to essentially produce more, say they were going to produce more and you saw the price collapse, but China also has tungsten as a declining resource. Last year, the bulk of the subsidies to those mines, those subsidies have been in place for nearly 30 years. So, when you have a mine that works with state subsidy, your approach to mining is, hey, let’s mine everything. I mean, what a beautiful way to exist as an operator. I mean, I would love that. Production plan, who needs one? Start digging. I mean, it’s just simplicity. And then, after all those years, when you turn around to a mine that’s been operating like that for 10 or 15, 20 years, it’s almost impossible then to turn it into a commercially viable project.

(53:22):

So, they’ve been closing them, they’ve been closing down. And we saw last year something we’d never seen before. We saw China aggressively buying Western concentrates and to be a net importer of concentrates. And this was the first warning sign that what happened in February was on its way. They started feeding. And the question is, why? Why would they do that? Some of my customers who perhaps haven’t fully grasped the problem that they face, oh, because the concentrate is cheaper in the West than China. And I would say, well, that’s a very interesting approach, and I’m sure that’s the reason they did it. But to be honest, and I think they know this as well, if you crash the price, does it really help you? No, because there’s really no Western production of tungsten. And I’m about to open the world’s largest one in South Korea, it opens in two to three months, and I have a hard floor on my contract. So, if they crash the price, I don’t care.

(54:23):

So, we’ve taken that out of their arsenal. But what about if you starve the West from material? That also protects your market share. If my customers have nothing to feed from, then, of course, that’s the other way. Now, all of my customers, after 2008, they all pivoted to use more scrap. They said, “Okay, it’s a kind of diversification.” So, they probably feed 50-50, scrap and concentrate. And the scrap has been ringfenced that it doesn’t allow the importation and consumption of scrap. It’s under one of their environmental codes. But we’ve seen the outline for the CCP conference of Congress this month that environmental code is now under examination. And if that gets lifted, and it would then come into effect July one of this year, China can now compete with the West for scrap as well.

(55:24):

So, now they can cover all of the raw material for my customers. And I think it’s very important to understand the disadvantage my customers have. It’s not that they’re not charming people, it’s not that they’re not lovable, it’s that they are governed by a set of regulations because of the, essentially, the jurisdictions that they’re in. there are certain red lines you cannot cross. And so, when I’ve seen China buying, say artisanal concentrated in Africa, I always describe redline as the river. And we are all on one side of the riverbank. And China’s just on the other side. They don’t even bother going inland. They don’t need to go that far in. But they know that we can’t cross that river. And crossing a river means, I don’t know, giving everyone in a village a flat screen TV? It’s something which is a red line that Dodd-Frank wouldn’t allow us to do.

(56:13):

Getting on a commercial aircraft with two suitcases full of used 20s and 100s to buy material. This is something which I am fairly confident that some of the largest companies in the world that actually can… and they consume tungsten can’t go into their CEO office and ask for cash in used non-sequential notes. Plus, I’m imagining going through JFK airports through the security of the TSA and trying to explain that. So, you can see these red lines we can’t cross. So, even if we have more money, which is actually debatable, a lot of the suppliers of concentrate outside of us are artisanal. And artisanal miners, well, they have different needs and wants than we do.

Cory (56:57): There’s a lot to unpack there. And I realize we’re not going to be able to get to every piece of this. And it’s the economic front, just the global dynamics of to what extent the demand side will boost the economics of this industry, and many other critical minerals depends on demand growth that were still uncertain. There’s the financial side of just actually supporting these projects if they’re subsidized, if you have a hedging mechanism or a price floor to protect your investment. And that’s not even to get into the technical side of, are you able to produce and to process at cost-competitive rates. And then, meanwhile, the politics, so I know there’s a lot here, but I think your comments kind of touch on the intersection here really well.

(57:38):

I would like to press a little bit, I know you’re in a unique position as a businessman, as a business leader in this industry, but if you had the ear of the leaders in question, if you had the ear of Donald Trump, and he’s looking at these issue or his team is looking at these issues, how would you advise the U.S. to deal with some of these issues? And, on the flip side, if you were a Chinese miner and you had the ear of Xi Jinping, what would your advice be for dealing with this nexus of issues in ways that align with your own national interests?

Lewis (58:11): Well, I think they’re very different in terms of the advice I would give. For the U.S. president or President Trump, I would say that the issue in tungsten in terms of who consumes it, they are consolidated businesses that are almost entirely vertical. So, they produce not just parts for munitions, but they do car parts, they do aerospace. And the question is, if they’re fortunate enough to get non-Chinese supply of tungsten, will they use it in the national interest or will they use it in the commercial interest? And this is something which I would say from a presidential level is to say, you know what? We need, we estimate around 2000 tons a year of tungsten just for defense in the U.S., especially in the increase, the program, they want to expand it. How do you ensure you can procure that?

(59:04):

Because if you go to your supply chain of people who manufacture, they’re going, “Oh, we can’t get it.” Because maybe they make more margin on inserts, maybe they make more money in different drill parts. I mean, you just don’t know. Are they going to act in national interest? And, to be honest, these companies are not American. They may have American parts of them, but they could also be European, they could be Japanese, they could be South Korean. The global economy means that ownership has spread all over. I would say to the president, go to the DoD, you need roughly 2,000 tons. Go find it quietly and discreetly without noise and that is consistent. Traders are traders. I mean, before you know it, you’ve got Miramar equipment or equivalent, or everything you shouldn’t have. But look, the paperwork says it’s made in England. So, you’ve got to be very careful.

(1:00:00):

And with Xi Jinping, as a Chinese miner, it’s more difficult because there, you can only act in national interest. It’s a very different approach. It’s almost as if you don’t perform, you got a big problem. We have a book on every tungsten project in the world. I’ve got one guy in the company, that’s all he does. Because I want to know always about what’s there, what’s good, what’s bad, what can threaten us, what can’t. And I remember we did a tour in Russia years ago, not recently, don’t worry, didn’t break any sanctions. And we found in the Russian mines, and, of course, tungsten was very important for defense. Even then, the Russian mines were running two sets of books. They were running the reserve books and the financial performance books that they gave to the generals back in Moscow. Everything was great. Don’t have to worry about a thing. It’s all beautiful.

(1:00:57):

But then they had their real books, which was, oh my goodness, we’ve got a real problem. If this doesn’t work, we’ve got barren areas there. What the hell are we going to do? And that’s the problem when you have national interest as the backbone of commercialism is that you often, you then tell the truth for fear of what could happen. And you know the guy you’re giving the nonsense to is also happy when he hears nonsense because then he can report up the food chain and say, “Hey, everything’s great.”

Cory (1:01:26): Right. Especially when this is all political and especially when they get public involved.

Lewis (1:05:37): Exactly. You can go to Xi Jinping and say, “Hey, you know what, it’s all good. We’ve got nothing to worry about. These damn Yankees, we got them.” Even though they may have all kinds of issues, it’s relevant. So, it’s a very different way of approach. And I think the president has to accept the fact that companies often who are not fully American are not going to act in national interest. They’re going to work in shareholder interest and commercial interest. And so the government’s role in this is to ensure that at least they have sufficient to cover defense. Everything else, it’s a big wide free market world. We’re all big boys. It’s not like you didn’t know this wasn’t going to happen. It’s like, I’m sorry, but when we were building, what are you doing that for? We don’t need this. But my customer in Austria, after 2008, he actually felt that diversification was important.

(1:02:24):

I mean, they thought he was a crackpot. Now, of course, he’s doing a victory lap at how smart he was. I think that’s what I would say to the two presidents. The problem in China is that you have to act in a very particular way. And in the U.S., you can’t rely that they will act in the same way in the interests of defense.

Andrew (1:02:45): Obviously, you’re not going to tell us the real answer because if there’s something that’s worrying you, you don’t want people to know about that and then enact it. But is there something you can kind of point to at maybe a higher level that you see the riding on the wall of what China might do or how the market might react to these geopolitical tensions that that’s the thing that really keeps you up at night?

Lewis (1:03:05): My worry is, for me as the founder of a company that I think has really, we are by far the biggest, is that if my customers are staffed to death, who do I sell to? And that worries me because-

Andrew (1:07:25): You need other people selling into the market.

Lewis (1:07:27): I can’t supply everybody. Now, the people I supply will do very, very well. But problem when companies do in a virtual monopoly is that, ultimately, they fail. You need Coke and Pepsi. It has to exist. It’s really important that it exists because it drives you to do better. And China isn’t resting on their laurels. My guys who I supply will get fatter, but they’ll get caught really quickly by China, who are much more dynamic. As a shareholder, I’m very excited because what’s the worst that going to happen to me? The worst that going to happen to me is that at some point, if it looks bad in the West, China’s going to come along and offer me a vast amount of money for the world’s largest tungsten mine.

Cory (1:04:07): Yeah, I think that brings us back around, like one of the key issues right now is a lot of the national security discourse recognizes the issue of aligning with commercial interest, but I don’t think it’s found a way to really create a commercial environment with the commercial incentives in the ways that D.C. would like to see. In many ways, I think D.C. would like to behave more like Beijing in some ways of being able to say, “Here’s what business needs to do.” But if they’re not able to create that environment, it’s not going to happen, right?

Lewis (1:04:33): And also you need idealist like me. I mean, I’m domiciled from Canada to the U.S., very specifically for a purpose. The purpose will be revealed later, but for a purpose because I mean, I am, despite my accent, an American. I’ve been an American for many, many years. This country has given me everything that I have. I’ve been able to do all this journey because of the U.S. I actually feel, and I know this is really silly in this day and age because it’s laughed upon, but I actually feel that what we are doing is important, and I have the opportunity in a very, very small, minuscule way to make a tiny difference because I have something that no one else has and it’s needed. It’s not that I’m picking sides. I’m not saying, oh, you are good and you are bad, Democrat, Republican — no interest. I’m an American, I’m re-domiciled into the U.S. because I believe if politicians can’t get it together, maybe companies should take the lead.

Andrew (1:09:35): As a business owner myself, I will say I wholeheartedly endorse that, and I think that’s a great place to leave it, on an optimistic note. I will say, as Trivium China, we actually feel the same way. We’re trying to contribute to the understanding of China, to the understanding of the U.S.-China relationship for companies for exactly the same purpose — just to provide a little bit the tiniest bit of what we hope is good in the world, and hopefully have some fun while we’re doing it. I think this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you, Cory, for running it, and thank you so much, Lewis, for your time, and these comments. Really, really insightful stuff.

Lewis (1:06:08): My pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Andrew (1:06:10): Well, we appreciate it. Thanks again, Cory. And thanks everybody for listening. We’ll see everyone next time. Thanks, everybody.