Xi Jinping's Handshake Rejected! The Chinese Side Collapses in Embarrassment, Get Back to Beijing? Trump's Maximum Pressure, Making the CCP Go Bankrupt in Competition, Replaying the Road to the Soviet Collapse, Must Not Touch Taiwan Before the 21st Party Congress

This episode mainly discusses the geopolitical significance behind the second Trump-Xi summit, the deep strategic competition between the US and China, and the possibility of repeating the Soviet model. The content covers details of Xi Jinping's visit to the National Archives and his interaction with Trump's wife, the controversy surrounding the Treaty of San Francisco and the undetermined status of Taiwan, the US side playing the French Revolution's Song of Freedom and anti-communist songs, Xi Jinping's health condition and special plane itinerary, and analyzes the long-term war of attrition faced by China and the US in technology, economy, and the military-industrial complex, as well as the fiscal and population aging crises China may face.

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Today we are going to wrap up all loose ends, as well as discuss the crisis nature of Taiwan's year-end elections and the major crisis facing the Chinese people at the end of the year. Do you know that after the second Trump-Xi summit ended, one of the most widely circulated clips on the internet was actually not about what Trump and Xi Jinping discussed, or whether Taiwan was sold out for China's so-called great rejuvenation, nor was it about any trade or technology agreements? In fact, long before this Trump-Xi meeting, I asserted to you that there would be no substantive trade progress. So, what was that key clip that garnered tens of millions of views in just over a dozen seconds? It was the scene where, after touring the US National Archives together with Trump and his wife, as they were preparing to leave, Xi Jinping reached out both hands toward Trump's wife, Melania, to shake hands and say goodbye. As a result, Trump's wife immediately pulled her hands back and stepped back, and that was it. The two did not have the full handshake that everyone expected. Of course, I suppose the most heartbroken person in all this must be Guanzhang. The original script should have been Peng Liyuan shaking hands with Guanzhang, and Trump's wife shaking hands with Xi Jinping—a mutual NTR scenario, right? Of course, jokes aside, getting back to serious matters, this footage is now being crazily replayed and broadcast, and netizens around the world are asking one question: Did she genuinely dislike Xi Jinping and refuse to shake his hand, or was she giving Trump face by not shaking hands with another man, since he isn't Guanzhang? Of course, this doesn't prove that Trump's wife intentionally humiliated Xi Jinping, but why did this footage go viral? Because it fits so well with how everyone wants to feel after watching the entire Trump-Xi summit: it looks close, but when you actually reach out your hand, those final few centimeters—the last 3 centimeters—cannot be bridged.

And on that same day, I believe there was another, even more important international political implication that is very interesting. That is, where Trump took Xi Jinping: the US National Archives. This wasn't just a casual field trip like we used to do in school where you just wander around and take pictures. No, inside are kept the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—including why the American people have the right to bear arms, so that if the government ever turns totalitarian, they can take up arms and fight back at any time; this is a right granted to the American people by the Constitution. This time, they also arranged many historically important documents on US-China relations. And do you know what? The chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, who is also a current Republican lawmaker, even posted online saying that after Xi Jinping visited our country's archives, he should be inspired to let the Chinese people live in freedom and with a free lifestyle. Back in 2024, this lawmaker even led a bipartisan delegation to visit Taiwan and met with our then-president, Tsai Ing-wen. Here comes the bombshell: according to a White House reporter who broke the news on his X platform, documents like the Treaty of Tianjin and the Treaty of San Francisco, which were originally prepared to be shown to Xi Jinping and the Chinese delegation, were temporarily removed before Xi Jinping's arrival. The reporter mentioned that the reason the Treaty of San Francisco was removed seems to be related to the so-called unsettled status of Taiwan. In other words, the real question worth asking now is not whether Xi Jinping refused to look at it—because I estimate he couldn't understand it, and the think tanks on the Chinese side didn't want Xi Jinping to see that section—but whether the US side temporarily removed it at the request of the Chinese side so that Xi Jinping couldn't see it. Why is the Treaty of San Francisco so sensitive to Beijing? Because official CCP authorities still do not recognize the Treaty of San Francisco, and their Foreign Ministry has publicly stated once again that the CCP has never recognized nor accepted this treaty, because it involves the sovereignty arrangements over the territory of Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, right? Beijing's reasoning is also very crude and simple: back then, the People's Republic of China did not participate in this Treaty of San Francisco. Furthermore, the most sensitive part is that in the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan renounced Taiwan and the Penghu islands, but the text did not directly write, "Right, then I am handing it over to the People's Republic of China." Therefore, until it is handed over, regardless of whether we want to call it the Taiwan State in the future, it has nothing to do with your five-star red flag. So this document from over 70 years ago still touches upon the most core historical narrative issue of the Taiwan Strait—Xi Jinping didn't want to see it. Then, the plot twist: at that banquet, Trump played three songs. The first was by the anti-communist singer and patriot Teresa Teng; the second song symbolized the free uprising of the French people, a song celebrating freedom that is banned from being publicly played within the territory of the People's Republic of China—a song of the French Revolution. When Xi Jinping heard these three songs, wow, what must his thoughts have been? He might not have understood them, but his aides were probably extremely furious, right? And just as Xi Jinping finished his visit to the US National Archives and was about to board his plane, his high-platform shoes ran into trouble again. Those 30-centimeter platform shoes of his were very clear to all of us; there is definitely something wrong with his legs. Little Pinks are still flatly denying it, how many times has it been now? From his visit to Kyrgyzstan, all the way to the India summit, and this time getting on and off the plane coming to and leaving the US. Trump also quite amusingly stopped and exchanged pleasantries with Xi Jinping so that people wouldn't notice too much that his foot was injured, that he needs a hip replacement, or that he's going to have an amputation (just kidding). But we can notice that in this footage, Xi Jinping had to rely on his cane—meaning Guan-chang's wife, Peng Liyuan—to go up and down the stairs smoothly, right? Is a foot problem a medical condition? Of course it's a medical condition, what else? Otherwise... seeing an orthopedic doctor for a foot, isn't that seeing a doctor? Isn't that a pathological sign? Soon after Xi Jinping boarded the plane, Trump immediately reposted on his Truth Social platform and on the White House account a post and video that sparked high speculation from the outside world: "The United States will never become a communist country," and he captioned it by saying we will defeat communism, the Communist Party, and Marxism. Is this a symbol of good friends? Just like after the US-Soviet Cold War leadership summits, Nixon—or was it Reagan?—continued to mock the Soviet Union with cold jokes on television. Do you say this is friendship and friendliness?

So if you put these few scenes together, it becomes very interesting. The first one, the incomplete handshake by Mrs. Trump, is just a few seconds of body language. The latter is a set of completely unresolved historical issues. And the true epitome of this second Trump-Xi meeting is that, on the surface, the atmosphere and demeanor were excellent—having afternoon tea, dining, and visiting the B1 and B2 bombers, which turned into B12, this 'vitamin.' In the end, even the Chinese side's own press release claimed it was a very successful visit. But what was the substantive content? Besides sending pandas, what else did you have? Nothing. Not a single Chinese entrepreneur attended the matchmaking dinner this time. But if we look one layer deeper, have the core issues between the US and China disappeared because of these two Trump-Xi meetings? Have they become partners in cooperation? Has China replaced Japan's status to become a good strategic partner of the US? Has it? So, in these 2-3 days, what exactly did the two sides agree on? If you lay out the announced results one by one, the US and China have resumed the operation of original trade and investment mechanisms. Both sides will continue to talk about some non-sensitive goods, agricultural products, and medical equipment. They also established a so-called communication mechanism for artificial intelligence, and the issues of rare earths and critical minerals are still being discussed, right? But while they are talking, the US, Japan, and Australia are building a new type of supply chain to get rid of China's rare earth sanctions, aren't they? So, I had long predicted the second Trump-Xi meeting: both sides are confirming which areas are in competition, but while we compete, we maintain channels of communication, and the level at which we established these channels is very high. Why? To avoid a hot war. Outside of these competitive areas, are there any areas that people feel should not be subject to a 'one-size-fits-all' approach? We carve those out, and we don't apply a 'one-size-fits-all' approach there. This time, it is also moving in the direction I predicted, and I am not wrong. You can go back and check my videos from a few weeks ago; did I not say it like this? Yes, I did. And another result that everyone remembers best is the pandas. The two pandas just mentioned, one is even named 'Pingping,' going to the Atlanta Zoo. Atlanta is also the outbreak site of the TV series 'The Walking Dead.' Everyone can go take a look. After seeing that, I think there's no need to send Pingping anymore. In the future, the US should have two 'Pingpings': one Pingping at the Atlanta Zoo, and the other Pingping might have to go to jail in New York with Maduro.

So if you look at the news footage, you get a very strange feeling. What have the world's number one comprehensive superpower, the United States, and the second-largest economy, China, been discussing over these three days? Taiwan, perhaps discussed in closed-door meetings; rare earths, AI, tariffs, Iran, North Korea, Russia-Ukraine, military armaments. In the end, the one achievement the public remembers most is the pandas. This doesn't mean the talks were meaningless; what is truly worth noting are the issues that were not resolved, such as the Taiwan issue. A White House reporter asked twice, right in front of Xi Jinping and Trump, whether they had discussed Taiwan. Xi Jinping and Trump remained silent, and Xi Jinping's expression was clearly displeased. Do you see any discussion there? If there had really been a betrayal, Trump would have said, 'Yes, we talked, it went well, I've sold them out,' and then Xi Jinping would have said, 'Great, how refreshing,' right? No. Moreover, the Chinese side wrote it out themselves in their own readout: Xi Jinping and the Chinese side hoped that the U.S. would firmly oppose Taiwan independence. The U.S. has not changed its 'One China' policy, but you have misinterpreted it as the 'One China' principle. Before this, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea had also publicly stated, through their foreign ministers and secretaries of state, that they support Taiwan and oppose the CCP's use of force or united front tactics to surround or invade. This support was not canceled because of these two state banquets and red carpets with Trump and Xi Jinping, right? Reuters wrote this clearly as well. This is why I have always felt that if many people only look at Trump and Xi Jinping shaking hands, eating, chatting, and drinking together, and then conclude that China-U.S. relations have improved, then you are looking at things too superficially. Have you ever entered society? Do you think the same way about your interpersonal relationships with colleagues, superiors, and bosses? No wonder your social interactions fail. Would you handle social nuances like that? It wouldn't be surprising for six best friends to have 60 group chats, right? So, how much more so for this kind of political relationship involving interests? What really concerns me is something else: why do these two keep meeting? Trump and Xi Jinping have also scheduled upcoming summits in Shenzhen this November and in the U.S. in December. This is what I mentioned a few days ago—they intend to discuss these two meetings, right? Go back and look at that. This means that the leaders of the world's two greatest powers and most populous nations are now not just meeting once or twice a year, but three or four times. Is this really a symbol of friendship? Come, let me continue to explain the historical context and current affairs to you all. Many people seeing this will say that these two have become close and are going to sleep together. I, on the other hand, feel that there is at least another interpretation: China-U.S. relations have now become so complex that many issues cannot be handled solely by defense ministers, secretaries of state, war ministers, foreign ministers, treasury secretaries, or commerce departments negotiating slowly. The top leaders on both sides must come out regularly to hit the final brake. It has returned to the era of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S., where both sides were in a cold war but could communicate via a hotline at any time. It has reached that level. Here, I am providing a complete argument; there is no need to cut any single sentence of mine to take it out of context.

Today it's rare earths, tomorrow it's chips, the day after it's Taiwan, and a few weeks later it's the first island chain, the second island chain, the third island chain, and the South China Sea—all under control. If any AI-related line encounters a problem, US-China relations could be dragged down into a quasi-hot war situation at any moment. Is this possible? Go back and look at the historical trajectory and you will know. Therefore, when I look at these recent meetings, rather than calling it a US-China reconciliation, I'd rather understand it as the establishment of a summit-level crisis management hotline. Simply put, it's not that we won't compete anymore, but that we will compete, and we are even adversaries, yet we do not want a hot war, let alone a nuclear war. I think this is the most important outcome of this second Trump-Xi meeting and the statement made to the outside world, to academia, and to political circles. Of course, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still has a fairly big difference compared to the former Soviet Union: China is deeply embedded in the global economy. Although decoupling is happening now, the speed of this decoupling is accelerating—of course, also thanks to the US, which pulled the CCP into the World Trade Organization. Back then, the Soviet Union did not have today's scale of Chinese exports, nor its global supply chain manufacturing capacity, nor so many Western enterprises relying on the Chinese market and Chinese factories for the long term. After all, you entered such a mechanism back in 2000, and Taiwanese and Hong Kong businessmen also went in to support you, right? Therefore, the economic relationship between the US and the Soviet Union back then and today's US-China relationship are obviously not the same thing; it must be handled with much greater complexity and care at such a complicated level, right? Is China gradually showing the kind of highly dangerous structural problems seen in the late Soviet Union? How so? This is precisely the point that the Chinese people need to care about very much next. China's real estate, local government finance, urban investment bonds, long-term sluggish domestic demand, depressed consumption, and deflation will make it the country with the most severe population aging in history. The economic growth rate can never return to the Hu-Wen era. But I believe you all understand this implicitly. Yet, if we turn to the other side, can China still compete with the US in technology? Economic independence must be pursued, AI must be chased, aerospace must be chased, the military industry must be chased, Starlink must be chased, shipbuilding must be maintained, new energy electric vehicles must be pushed to continue breaking into the global market, Unitree robots must be developed, quantum technology must be invested in, nuclear weapons and missiles cannot be stopped, the Rocket Force must continue to be purged, local governments must deal with urban investment bonds and exploding real estate without a hard landing, and pension and medical systems are facing the most severe population aging in the world about to arrive. Just think about it, what does all of this stacked together represent? It all costs money, and right now, the fiscal revenue self-sufficiency rate of China's local governments is entirely insufficient. Go back and check the data yourselves from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, I'm not making it up. This is where I start to feel the Soviet model metaphor has true value. It doesn't mean the CCP's regime is going to collapse tomorrow, nor does it mean Xi Jinping is Gorbachev—of course, the difference is too vast—rather, when a country's economic growth rapidly declines and urban investment and foreign debt explode, the cost of its external competition strategy will not decrease accordingly. Have you never thought about this question? Then these two lines will eventually get closer and closer, and in the end, who pays the bill? Isn't it you Pink collars earning 3,000 to 5,000 or 8,000 yuan a month, working 10 to 14 hours a day?

Of course. If you can stubbornly push through, working 20 hours a day just to keep up the US-China competition, then I suppose I wouldn't care. That was the real agony for the Soviet Union back then: not only was American military power stronger than theirs, but just as their economic efficiency began to decline, they had to keep spending massive resources to sustain strategic competition with the United States, continuously pumping out domestic and overseas propaganda. You see, people thought the Soviet Union was about to surpass the US; some Americans thought so at the time, and the Soviets themselves thought so too—we've caught up with and surpassed Britain and America, right? So, will the US defeat China? A much more interesting question is this: if you were the US today, would you really want China to collapse immediately? I actually doubt it. Because China has nuclear weapons, a massive military, and a population of over 1.4 billion. If Little Pinks and Xianzhong truly spin out of control into civil war and widespread riots, descending into disorderly chaos, it would spell a huge risk and political crisis for the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the entire world. Therefore, the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party must be orderly and controllable. What would be another approach better suited for long-term great power competition? Perhaps it is not requiring you to fall tomorrow, but making you keep running until you collapse—rather than me actively chopping off your legs. You want to chase chips? OK, go ahead. You want AI? Then we'll burn through tokens together, especially since yours are distilled from mine anyway and got exposed by my report. You want sixth-generation fighter jets? No problem, keep building them. You want to build aircraft carriers? OK, keep building them. You want semiconductor import substitution? You want robotics substitution? OK, just keep doing it. Use your own equipment, your own materials, your own software, your own wafer fabs. I, the United States, along with the Netherlands, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and the whole world, will build a supply chain together. Does China have its own national supply chain? Are you going to rely solely on yourself? Even the US knows that relying solely on yourself incurs gigantic costs. The People's Republic of China expects to rely on its own fiscal revenue? Come on, let's play this game together, and let's see who falls in the end. Put another way: Does Lei Jun have money? Yes, very wealthy. Does Musk have money? Extremely wealthy. Let's pit the two together and see who burns through their money first. Who burns through it first? It goes without saying. Does the American public still have per capita savings and stock market investments to afford playing this game? I dare not say, but they can definitely afford it much better than China's fiscal revenue. In the past, ordinary Chinese people could eat grass and dry bark for three years; now, people have tasted the good life, especially the Chinese middle class. I have to put a question mark here: can you really go back? Of course, what I am talking about right now is the logic of strategic competition (a slip of the tongue), which doesn't mean that the US or the White House actually thinks this way. So what is truly worth observing? If the US keeps pushing the technological threshold forward, how much money will China have to spend just to chase that threshold? That is the real question. Just imagine: if a country has to tell itself every single year that our chips are a bit behind, our AI is a bit behind, our military is a bit behind, the Rocket Force is a bit behind, our aerospace is a bit behind, taking Taiwan is a bit behind, the internationalization of the renminbi is just a kick away from the goal—along with all these industrializations, like high-end machine tools—what lies behind the next round of all this? Little Pinks continuing to turn into bitter stock investors? Isn't that exactly how it goes? That is when it becomes truly terrifying. It's not that you can never catch up at all, but that you think you are about to catch up yet never quite do, and you have to chase for another 10 years, keep chasing higher, keep chasing higher, thinking you are just this close, keep chasing higher, getting trapped, and crashing down. Therefore, this kind of political system—especially systems like the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union—is very easily persuaded by its own rhetoric. People's consumption and retirement ages are continuously pushed back: "Bear with it a little longer." But national competition cannot be lost, and our national face cannot be disgraced. This is why I think China genuinely needs to avoid following in the Soviet Union's footsteps. But as a Taiwanese person, who wouldn't want to see the CCP collapse like that? Perhaps collapsing this way would bring the shortest birth pangs for the Chinese people too; otherwise, do you want to plunge into those disorderly wars and civil wars? Surely nobody wants that, right? Wasn't the Soviet Union the same back then? The space race, the nuclear arms race, the Olympics, boxing, Rocky going toe-to-toe—the Soviet Union wasn't just reduced to the day its flag was lowered in 1991. The preceding 10 or 20 years were spent chasing a richer, more advanced America with far more allies, while its own domestic economic efficiency slowly disintegrated on the inside. Both sides were locked in a contest of who would crack under their own costs first. This is the war of attrition between nuclear-armed superpowers, and the war has already begun, fought in precisely this form.

There is a great irony here: Trump can invite Xi Jinping to a state dinner, call you a friend, take you on a tour, and have tea with you, but the title of the video released by the White House itself is called 'The United States will never be a communist country and will destroy it.' So, for the second, third, or fifth Trump-Xi meeting, the biggest misjudgment everyone makes is thinking that because the two people smiled and shook hands, the two countries have reconciled and are no longer competing. You know, during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, the leaders of the two countries met 16 times—16 times. In those days, the speed of the planes they flew wasn't even as fast as it is now, right? So, this new model of competition involves high-level officials constantly meeting while the grassroots level constantly competes. The heads of state strive to keep conflicts below the red line, but in terms of technology, military, supply chains, diplomacy, allies, and systems, they continue to fight. In fact, it is more complex than the US-Soviet Cold War because, during the US-Soviet Cold War, each side could do its own thing, but with the US and China, it's a situation where I am doing business with you while simultaneously strangling you. Can I slowly withdraw while doing business with you? I am competing with you while simultaneously ensuring your economy doesn't suddenly collapse, otherwise, how would I win my midterm elections? This is the smartest method of democratic politics, because you don't have to learn from totalitarian countries and use a 'one-size-fits-all' approach. Anyone can use a 'one-size-fits-all' approach; it's fast and convenient, but is it good for the people?

As for what will happen after Xi Jinping returns to Beijing this time, that is the biggest thing everyone should pay attention to: the Fifth Plenary Session. Whose loyalty has become a problem again? Why did Hu Chunhua appear recently? Why did he take Cai Qi with him? Could it be that Cai Qi or Hu Chunhua are planning a joint coup? Or is one of them going to succeed as General Secretary? Or are they both just smoke screens, and I, Xi Jinping, will continue to serve as head of state in 2027, all the way until 2032? Actually, I think you can guess why Trump and high-level US officials continue to want to engage with Xi Jinping, even towards the end of the year. Doesn't that imply that perhaps US intelligence knows that Xi Jinping's intention to be re-elected is very high, which is why they continue to meet with this person instead of another crown prince? Of course, this is my own speculation and does not necessarily mean it is correct. Therefore, what really determines the next five or ten years is not whether the next Trump-Xi meeting will involve another high-level reception and handshake—after all, Eisenhower also met Khrushchev at the airport, right? It is about which country's finances can last longer, which country's technology advances faster, which has fewer internal problems, which has stable allies, and how much price the people are willing to pay for this long-term competition. If China really begins to experience the structural pressures of the post-Soviet era, then what Beijing should fear is perhaps never that the US, Taiwan, or Japan will unite and suddenly defeat China, but rather that in the next five or ten years, China will feel every year that it is 'almost there,' that it is 'just a little bit off,' and will keep chasing, keep spending, and keep investing, until one day it discovers that what has truly been exhausted is not just the gap with the United States, but itself—your own people. This is the next step that I believe people who truly care about China and the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should watch after the Trump-Xi meeting concludes. That's it for today's video.

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I am Bajiong. See you next time. Bye.