They Say America Can't Escape China. They're Wrong.

It's too hard to decouple from China. Yeah, blow it out your ear. Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell. We live in a world that's dependent on China for just about everything. From rare earths and pharmaceuticals, to Chinese manufacturing and technology, and more. You're probably watching this on a device that was made in China. Probably while pooping. Don't worry, that's just a guess. I'm not spying on you. But China is. This dependence was no accident. This was intentional. But here's something that doesn't depend on China. Your own personal skill set, and whether you learn how to use technology to make your life easier and more profitable. And that's why I'm working with today's sponsor, Outskill. Outskill will be hosting a Claude AI Mastery Workshop this weekend. Why? Because most people use Claude like it's a fancy version of Google. That's like having a DeLorean, but staying in the 80s. It's meant to take you to the future. 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In two days, you'll learn how to do deep research with Claude, build your own dashboards, create full presentations, automate the boring stuff in your job, generate amazing images and videos with AI, and walk away able to put a big chunk of your week on autopilot. Sign up now, and you'll also get 3 free bonuses, an AI prompt bible, 50 secret Claude codes that turn it into a top-tier tool for you, and a personalized AI toolkit builder. What you learn in two days will change your next two years. I urge you to sign up now before they sell out. Click below or scan the QR code. So back to China. The world assumed, or at least told itself, that if China was integrated into the world economy, it would democratize, and the world would be a better place. Kind of like how if you give Dracula an edible arrangement, he'll totally stop sucking blood. Yeah, that'll work. But decades later, we've seen that's not the case. China is still authoritarian. And it has spent decades increasing influence in manufacturing and global supply chains, as well as stealing intellectual property from the West and flooding the world with cheap knockoffs, thus draining Western countries of their own manufacturing. Kind of like a vampire. See? Dracula was a perfect analogy. The good news is, the US is waking up to the dangers of being too dependent on China. Which may or may not have something to do with China's export restrictions on medical supplies during Covid, and its recent threats to withhold rare earths. You played your hand too early, China, and now you're going down. The Trump administration is actively working to decouple from China. In some ways, at least. But there are some people who say that decoupling from China is a bad idea. NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang says the idea of decoupling from China is naive and not based on any common sense. Today I learned basic survival instincts aren't common sense. Others like to emphasize how China and the US are too entangled to decouple. Or how decoupling is even dangerous. And it's all so expensive. That last point has recently made the rounds after the Financial Times put out a report from the global strategy consultancy EY Parthenon, which claimed cutting China reliance would cost the West 23 trillion dollars over the next 25 years. Which would require the EU to double its annual budget. So we definitely shouldn't do it. Kind of like when you see the cost to cut out a tumor. Not worth the surgery. Just let that corrosive bad boy linger forever. Not only that, but the report cites China's stranglehold over critical industrial materials and Chinese intervention against decoupling to conclude that the West could not decouple from China in the short run. And that decoupling would drive up prices and inflation. At this point, I feel like everything does that. An ant farted, groceries are now more expensive. From reading that article, you might come to the conclusion that decoupling is just so tremendously costly for the West that it's not worth it. You might be tempted to believe that US-China decoupling isn't happening. Or that US companies could keep operating in China. The CCP loves analysis like this. Chinese state-run media, like my favorite, the Global Times, loved this Financial Times report so much that it shared the story and added decoupling is simply unrealistic. Only by strengthening cooperation with China can Western countries achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. Propaganda aside, can we just talk about how deeply uncool it is to Google yourself and share compliments you find? What are they, theater kids? You know, it's got to be true if Chinese state-run media is backing it. But here's the thing. The Financial Times has all the stuff to say about the cost of decoupling from China for the West. What about the cost to China? China actually has a lot more to lose from decoupling than the West. China knows that its economy is absolutely tanking. It's facing massive unemployment, a mountain of hidden debt, deflationary pressure, a population crisis, and a bunch more issues. After the real estate bubbled and so much as pop as explode spectacularly, China has become even more reliant on exports—especially exports to the West—to keep running. China is dependent on the West's dependence. I'd say they need a 12-step program, but they'd likely just throw dissidents down those stairs. As a former member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Desmond Shum points out, decoupling for China would come at the cost of lost demand, idle factories, stranded assets, unemployment, and permanently slower growth. And as former Marine Intelligence Officer and friend of the show Grant Newsham points out, decoupling would also cost China a huge amount of its convertible currency earnings, leaving it unable to buy or do many of the things it has to pay for in mostly US dollars. For example, supplies for waging war over Taiwan. As much as China likes to talk about the power of Mao and Xi when it comes to trade on the world stage, it's all about the Benjamins, baby. On top of that, what's the alternative? Do nothing and continue being dependent on China? The CCP would love for Westerners to feel this way—trapped in a cycle of dependence on China. After all, it gives China tons of leverage that it's not afraid of weaponizing when things don't go its way. Losing Western dependency on it weakens China's leverage over them. That's why it keeps warning against calls for decoupling. It's also why it keeps promoting the idea that decoupling would harm countries like Japan. All while dehumanizing them and wishing for their extermination. This is the most extreme economic good cop bad cop in history. Which brings us to another point the Financial Times is missing out on—that 23.6 trillion figure that it calls a cost for the West is actually an investment. Shum points out that it would create new factories, infrastructure, research capacity, software and supply chains—productive assets that the West could continue to own. It's not like a 23 trillion dollar pile of money would just burst into flames. Unless, of course, a Chinese EV ran into it. Better yet, it helps Western businesses keep more of their stuff away from Chinese hands, which in turn counters the tried-and-true cycle of China stealing technical know-how, creating cheaper subsidized knockoffs, and out-competing Western businesses enough to drive them out of business. It's kind of like learning that your vision wouldn't be so blurry if you stopped jamming pencils in your eye. It also gives third world countries the opportunity to grow their economies. Which could have improved better had China not kept clinging on to its title as the world's manufacturing hub, the manufacturer for manufacturers. And from a moral standpoint, this also reduces Western complicity in forced labor, which China still uses and makes harder to track. Now you won't go to hell for having a hand in this. You'll go to hell for that other thing. You know, Michael. We all know. Let's also not forget that Western businesses should be better prepared for the worst case scenario. Like if China decides to attack the US or threatens to completely disrupt trade. Maybe we should stop letting the person constantly saying they want to murder us have keys to our apartment. Just a shot. So when you really think about it, decoupling isn't as expensive as the naysayers make it out to be. It's an investment. And you know what else is an investment? Outskill, which does fantastic live training on how you can maximize AI for yourself. Like if you use Claude, but only the chat function, you've barely scratched the surface. Claude has secrets that could save you hours every single day, while everyone else is slaving away at their 9 to 5. So click my link below and register for Outskill's free AI training this weekend. I'm Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.