 Matters on Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel. It's a five o'clock block on a given Monday with many menendez. And we're taking a new look about business in China. You know, we've heard so much negativity about China. It's not only political, it's geopolitical. And we have, you know, the sort of the public opinion about China, you know, being being hard on the Uyghurs, being hard on surveillance and oppression, being hard on its citizens. On the other hand, they are very effective. And Xi Jinping is an effective leader in getting business done. The question is, over the past 20 years, whether the American businessmen such as Manny Menendez has done better or worse. And what is prospects are now going forward in China in a country that's effective, that's prosperous, even in these difficult times. But that suppresses people and suppresses human rights. So Manny, you know, do these negative things affect you in your perception, your work, your business in China? Well, I think they're difficult questions that you've posed. And I think some of it is politically motivated. Because I don't see that reality of what you're talking about, actually, on the ground in China, generally, and all over the country, people are happy. Their economy has grown. If you looked at 1980, the average per capita, the average daily income was 53 cents a day, less than 100 bucks a year per capita. Now, it's averaged for over 1.4 billion people. The average is now over 10,000 US dollars. I mean, the country has grown. All countries are not perfect, as we know. But I think overall, people's lives have improved. 500 million people have come out of absolute poverty, which is amazing. In China, they've done a good job in a lot of areas, especially with the economy. I don't get involved in the politics. I do focus on the business and the business environment has been fantastic. During COVID, the only major economy that grew in the world was China, at about 2.3% GDP growth in 2020. In 2021, that they just finished up, the GDP growth of China was 8.3%. China, as you know, now is the number two economy in the world behind the United States. But it's a rich country, and I've said this before on your show, Jay, it's a rich country and a poor country at the same time. There's a lot of regions in China that haven't developed yet. 1.4 billion people, a lot of people, with about 22% of the world's population. But those areas in the major cities have done very, very well, and they stay on track with the economy. But there are issues. Yes, there's issues, geopolitical issues, not just in China, but as you know, our show will be interrupted when Putin starts knocking on the door and enters Ukraine. Well, we certainly have global issues. As a matter of fact, ThinkTech is doing a program on April 1st about global issues in six continents with six simultaneous live speakers. And you're not fooling on April 1st. You're serious about that. No, this is not quite serious. Okay. But it does take you to Xi Jinping's common rhetoric to the effect that he has achieved democracy in China, people vote in China, representative government in China, people have rights in China, maybe not in the same way that we see those rights. And in fact, and this is my question to you, in fact, as far as he's concerned, the system, if you will, in China, the democracy such as it is in China is better, more effective, and more caring than the system in the US. I'm sure that could be debated on this side of the pond. But I can say just generally speaking, the people in China, and I talked to not just leaders and government leaders, but the actual people on the ground, they feel that their lives have improved. And the system has not clamped down on them in any onerous way. I mean, I think that there's certain areas that there's issues that have come up. We don't know the whole story, but they're sensitive issues. And I think that China has to address them. And I think they're trying to do that in a responsible way. But at the same time, the boss, we call him Xi Dada, Xi Jinping, when everyone's known in China, we call him Xi Dada. He's leading the country. He's certainly a strong leader, Jay. There's no doubt about that. And I think that they're going now in March as we speak. They'll go into what's called the double sessions of the government. And we'll see if he gets his third term, which is a big thing. Because that's not a big thing. But is there any question in your mind? There's no question in my mind. He's going to have his third term. Yeah. No, just remember that there have been leaders, even in the US FDR, he was in for how many terms, four terms, maybe five. Until they changed it. Until they changed it exactly. But we'll see. I mean, the economy is doing well. There are certain issues, maritime issues, Taiwan issues, Shenzhen issues. I mean, every country has its hot list. We have a few here in the US and certainly other parts of the world. But I think they're handling things methodically and trying not to disrupt the country as they deal with certain issues. I mean, it's they're complicated. And quite frankly, I don't think anyone knows both all sides of the story, because we have limited information. And when people get questioned quite hard on, you know, they said it's in Xinjiang genocide. I mean, the Chinese, there's no Chinese I know of those will agree to that at all. But I've never seen any data that supports that. I don't have access to the data that maybe our top government officials do. But I just don't see that. And I've had people recently go to that area. And they said things seem to be normal. But I just don't know. And I stay away from those things, by the way, Jay, because I was going to ask you about that. That is the smart money to stay away from it. And all of the people that I know, including, you know, Chinese people from Hawaii, and for that matter, trying to eat people from China, very careful, very circumspect about making any political statement at all, or any for that matter, negative statement about what's going on in China. And I expect that if you want to do business in China, all the more important that you you be circumspect to it. So it's just good business, right? It's good business, but I don't see it. You know, so I, you know, facts do matter. One of the famous quotes from Deng Chaoping, the supreme leader in the 1980s in China, and really is the architect of the open door policy. He always said, and I had the privilege of meeting him on several occasions, but he always said, seek the truth from the facts. And I so I'd like to see more facts on these sensitive issues, but on where I focus, and the people that I talk to, I just don't feel that. And I don't see it on the ground. So maybe they're going to last last time I looked many, and I have seen you over the years. I've seen you at the Plaza Club for the Veggie Capital Association, seen you here on Think Tech, you know, I'm sort of watching your trajectory over, I don't want to say a lifetime, but a long time anyway. It's a long time. Long time. And, you know, I admire you for, you know, for being there and doing business there. I mean, for example, I've noticed over the years that you are indeed an American Howley, I've noticed that. Hard not to notice that. And you go to China and you manage. And, you know, you can do business, you can come back, it's almost as if it's your impervious to whatever the problems are. And I just, I want to know how that's possible, because even if you take, you know, the cautious route, even if you are careful, you know, not, not to, not to get into anything contentious. The fact is there are people in China that don't particularly like Americans, and they don't like American businessmen. Do you ever feel that? No, I don't. I haven't, you know, and I'm, I don't think I'm a rare case. I think generally, if you go back to Confucius thinking, one of the things that Confucius said, when people come from afar, you should be happy and welcome them. And I have felt that Confucius thinking anywhere I went in China, the very open, very welcoming society. And I have not felt I was not welcomed, you know, so and I don't think that's unusual for foreigners. I don't think it's unusual for Americans. I think that there's a lot of, during the last administration here in the States, I think that, you know, there was a lot of things that went sideways, a lot of negative trade wars and things that I some, some, I think were avoidable and not necessary, and really hurt the US side more than the Chinese side, in terms of increased prices, supply chain issues, so forth. But, but I think working, I have a saying that if you keep working with people and keep dialoguing with them, that's the best way to develop guanxi or friendships. And as you mentioned, I mean, I've been in China now, it's going on, I don't want to admit it, but it's going on for decades. And I've been there since the opening and right through to today. And I think that experience does matter. You have to know what you're doing. A lot of people go to China unprepared. And you really just really have to have the experience of doing the business there because there, there are things, the end goal is always the same. Everybody wants to be successful, make money, have a sustainable business. But how you get there, there's a whole different roadmap, if you will, when you're in China. There's some different ways of doing things, not negative. It's just a Chinese way versus a US way is a lot different. We like to get things quickly to the end goal very fast. You don't need to know anyone. You can just sign a contract to move ahead in the States. And in China, relationships and building relationships first really does matter a lot if you want to get to the finish line. I have a saying, go slow, the finish first. So go slow in the beginning, make sure that you develop the relationships and the friendships and the trust. In Chinese, it's Quan Chi. And then, so you can get to the finish line first. We kind of rush in the beginning and then issues develop after we move forward. I've been to China three times, all in the odd years. And I saw, at least in the first and second trip, probably the third trip too, an opening, like you say, a Deng Xiaoping opening, where people in China wanted to have you there. They wanted to do business with you. They were eager. And you could make a deal. And everybody looking to make a deal all the times in every interaction that I had. But I'd say this, that it seems to me that over the past 10 years, maybe more, there has been a dynamic. And my question to you is, you've been there, you've followed this for decades. That is really something. You should write a book. You should write a book, man. If you haven't already, you should write a book like Jerome Cohen, my life in China. So Jerry Cohen is my pal. I mean, he's 91 now. And he was a lawyer for some of my deals at Paul Weiss up in New York City. But I call him Bowtie Jerry, always wore Bowtie. But he was one of the first attorneys in China. Great guy, great man. He's been on our show a couple of times, yeah. No, no. He's a great guy. But he's mighty concerned about what happened, what is happening in Hong Kong. If you read his newsletter. I know. Yes. So the question is over the past decade, or maybe a little more than that, there's always a dynamic. You know, as you said, there's a dynamic in the world. There's a dynamic in the US for sure. Not necessarily a good one. And there's a dynamic in Europe. We see that every day, probably every minute. There's changes happening. And so what are the changes been as far as the business community, business opportunities of a businessman like you in China? I mean, nothing ever stays the same. The only thing it's constant is change. And I'm just wondering what the change has been for you. Is it easier to do business now? Is it harder? What do you have to watch out for now that you didn't have to watch out for before? Well, in the beginning, great question, Jay. I mean, in the beginning, kind of both sides didn't know what we were doing with new laws, joint venture laws, like equity joint ventures or technology transfers. Everybody kind of was learning. But one thing stayed the same. If you built the relationships and things didn't go right. If you made a solid foundation, you could you could move easily to solutions. I think the big differences in the early days, it took longer to get things done. But once you got them done, they were solid and and were there was not not that much competition in the market. Now, I think it's easier to get paperwork done. You know, it's like setting up an LLC. You can do it quickly in China. You can set up legal stuff quickly, but actually entering the market, it's a very different market than it was in the 1980s. So you have to really be more surgical. And many of the people that I advise or have helped over the years, I say when you think about doing business in China, your mind will explode. But if you think about it in a different way, for example, if you have a product or service, think about a city of which the demographics fit that product or service. Because for example, the population of Beijing, 23 million is equal to the population of Australia. Same of Shanghai. So you can be in four or five cities that are size of major countries, the people who commute in and out of Beijing every day are about 4 million people. That's, you know, three three point something times the size of Hawaii. So when you think about business in China, you really have to think today about your product and service and your entry strategy and be more surgical because everyone in the world is there. And when you hear all the issues, oh, well, you know, there's this problem and that problem, I can tell you every major corporation in the world is in China doing business, because they know it's a robust and growing market. So I mean, what do you mean surgical what surgical means surgical means instead of thinking you're going to just enter the whole country. Just again, pick that product or service and pick some cities that you can enter at a very certain what a surgical level is at a city level. Because again, the size of these cities are massive, you know, and if you you can do well in two cities and have a huge business. I mean, all the major luxury brands, every single luxury brand is there killing it. Every major auto company is in China. And there's been a shift, what I call the center of gravity has moved even we're design centers of products are actually coming out of China now where in the past the car might have been designed in Detroit. But some of these models now are being actually being designed in China for the China market. So I think being surgical in your thought process and figuring out again who your partners are, because in China, one of I think the keys of success is who are your partners, who are you working with. And if you have, if you've done your homework and done the due diligence and really spent the time at building relationships, and you have a great partner, and they are part of the economic equation. You make money, they make money, they lose money, you lose money. If you really are tied together that way, I think you can avoid a lot of the pitfalls in China. But you got to know what you're doing, experience doesn't matter. Well, I would make a guess and say that in the past 10 years, 15 years, the average Chinese executive is going to be more Akamai than he was before. He's going to know more about the West, he's going to know more about the US. The chances are that he took a college master's PhD in the US or in Britain or anywhere somewhere else. Yeah, usually English speaking country, UK, Australia, and US. Over one point, I think it's, I don't have the current data, but it's at least 1.5 million Chinese students have studied in the US and have gone back. So I think that is a great point, Jay. Having the global experience, the Chinese have now, the largest traveling tourist population in the world is China. China, about 175 million people travel outside. This is pre-COVID, but travel outside the world. And I think that makes a difference. Well, COVID itself, I mean, everybody wonders. And we do have a young fellow who spent a couple of years in China teaching English. And he came back and he does a show with us every couple of weeks. And I'm so impressed with that. I'm so impressed with his show. But he was there through COVID and you've been there through COVID. And I would ask you the same question I would ask him, how did COVID affect your life? How did COVID affect the country? How did COVID affect the way you engage with others and with the government? Well, I think there's an interesting dynamic there. When COVID came up and the country said wear masks, everyone wore masks. I mean, there was no pushback because they know, and just generally in Asia, I've worked a lot in Japan and Singapore, a lot of other countries. If you're sick, everyone puts a mask on anyway, if they have a cold. It's kind of a normal habit because they don't want to spread it to somebody else. So there was zero pushback in China. And not because of what, you know, maybe U.S. rhetoric would be, oh, the communist government pushed everybody to wear mask. No, the people themselves want to protect other people and they want to keep things moving forward. I think the Chinese have not been given enough credit for the wonderful job they've done to contain COVID. I think they're going to have some issues going forward, but they have a zero COVID policy. It was difficult. I've been back three times since 2020 when it started, and you have to get a special visa. You have to go through quarantine. And I can tell you, the quarantine part, I don't like. I don't think anybody- But it's 21 days or something. It's really onerous. It's called 14. Now it's 14 plus seven. In the beginning it was 14, but it's 14 plus seven. And it's not just for westerners, it's for everyone. So if you're Chinese and you travel abroad, you have to go through the same quarantine. They're serious. They're serious. And usually if there's an outbreak, they target the area, they lock it down, they test everyone. I mean, there was a case in Qingdao, and they think that the COVID came in on some imported products, and within 72 hours they tested 12 million people. I mean, they can deploy. When it comes to deployment and testing and doing fast testing and tracking and tracing, China has done a marvelous job. And I think that's why they have almost very, very few cases. I don't think you can avoid COVID anywhere in the world, but they've really done a great job at managing it and keep the economy moving. There's a balance there. We spoke for a minute before the show about the Olympics and all that. But with all of the threat of COVID and the mutations in COVID, they nevertheless pushed through on the Olympics. What's that about? I mean, wouldn't it have been more prudent if you want to zero COVID not to have the Olympics? No, but I think that would be a mistake. I mean, and I think China would agree. I mean, you don't not have the Olympics if you're the host. And also it was the first time that a country had the summer Olympics and the winter Olympics in the same country. So I don't think China, I don't think any country would miss that opportunity. But what they did do is they created these bubbles so that, you know, when you came in the airport, you had a certain way to go, all the athletes, they had special transportation, and they really tried to keep everybody safe. I mean, that was the priority. It's not anything onerous. I mean, you could put any spin on it you want, but I can tell you the Chinese government leadership, it's all about keeping the people safe. You want to put any other kind of political spin on it? I've seen that before, but I mean, that's their purpose. They wanted to keep everyone safe. And I think they had the largest, I don't know, the final number with the largest audience of any Olympics in history. I don't know what the actual final number. I know there was like 400 million Chinese per night watching the Olympics, but I've heard what the global audience was. Oh, sure. So the last couple of times that you and I spoke, Mani, we spoke about coal, about clean coal in China. You were heavily involved in that, and I wonder if you still are. And whether that's been affected by China's announced intention to deal with climate change, to deal with fossil fuels, and to try to go renewable. They have the technology and they made the statement, but query, how does that affect you and clean coal? No, I think they've done a great job. Again, they're spending about, I want to say, 10, 11 billion dollars a year on environmental technologies to clean up the latest project I'm working on as a US technology that takes nitrous oxide knocks out of combustion systems. It's a breakthrough technology, wonderful company based in Tulsa. But the clean coal, I think my realistic view on coal is countries that have coal, they'll take a while for them to get off. It's not going to be an easy transition off a coal like Vietnam, like India. India has the largest coal production in the world, China, largest producer of coal, larger user of coal. But cleaning it up is a start. And I can tell you in terms of renewables, China has more solar, more wind, more geothermal, more hydro install capacity than anybody in the world. I mean, they're going full bore on renewables. And you'll see the big next breakthrough is going to be in hydrogen technologies. So at the Olympics, all the buses and cars were hydrogen fuel cell zero emissions. I mean, the byproduct of hydrogen fuel cell is water dripping out of your tailpipe. But I mean, they went all hydrogen. It was amazing at EV. So the largest market for EV will be the largest market for hydrogen fuel cell technology. You'll see that in high speed trains and trucks and cars, but really, they're doing a fantastic job on pollution control. I can tell you in the past, in the wintertime, you could not see, you know, 10 years ago, 20 feet in front of you. Now, the blue sky days is what we call it in China. Blue sky days are many and the the emissions have been really curtailed because they moved really away from coal, especially in populated areas, to natural gas. So I think they're doing a really good job on environment. They don't get enough credit for that. And I think that they stepped up to the place for the Paris agreements and going carbon neutral. And carbon peak by 2030 is the goal and 2060 is carbon neutral. And I think they'll beat that in those dates. Well, that raises another question I want to ask you. But first, do you live in the Beijing area? Because I remember that Beijing had ring roads around the city. And it was a lot of particles in the air. Has that all been resolved? No, it's not all, but it's dramatically, dramatically improved. The thing that when you have coal, I'll give you an example, very specific example in Beijing, they have 12,000 district heating boilers. They used to be almost all coal fired. Then China said, we got to reduce that 2.5 PM particulate matter. We got to get that out of the air. We got to load nitrous oxide. So within a three year period, they went from 12,000, I'm giving you round numbers, but 12,000 industrial boilers burning coal. And now it's 98%, 99% natural gas. There's no coal, especially in these populated areas. Now, when you go out in the outer reasons, there's still coal. I mean, in the United States, we still burn a lot of coal. I think the last time I looked, and it wasn't that recently, but the last time I looked, we're doing about a billion tons of coal fired plants in the year. That's the usage, a billion tons of coal for electrical power generation. Used to be about 50% of the electrical power in the States came from coal. In China, it's like now about 65% is coming from coal. And then the balance is oil, about 20% is oil. And then the remaining is all renewables. And there's been a big push in China also to go nuclear. France, as you know, the whole country of France is nuclear. I think it's 90% is nuclear. And China is now going to increase that mix to probably about 5% of the total energy mix will be nuclear. Yeah, there's a lot of positive points about nuclear, especially in a time of concern about global warming. And it's renewable. You just have to, when you build it, you can't make shortcuts. You just got to make sure that you have all the safety protocols and citing, like Fukushima, you'll never see a plant put on the coast and where earthquakes or tsunamis can have an impact on it. I wanted to also ask you sort of the larger question about the economy. We've heard, we had heard, to use that expression, we had heard a lot about Belt Road. And indeed, it's a pretty dramatic statement to say that they're going to Spain. And then not too long ago, there was a piece in the newspaper about how you could get on a train in Beijing and travel all the way to Spain. Not the same train, but on rail, you could do that. Yeah, it's part of the BRI Belt and Road initiative. Yeah. So how is that doing? Because, you know, we're in a time of COVID and there has been, a certain effect on economies all along the route. Is it still going strong? Is it still a high priority for the Chinese government? Well, very strong. So mobility, you're hitting on a key factor that has helped China grow. Two big kind of aha moments. Well, I'll give you a three. One, the largest migration in human history has taken place in China, where when we started in the 1980s, 80%, 85% of the population lived in the rural areas and 15% lived in the cities. And then about eight years ago, that 50% then went into the cities and now it's 60, 70% like the U.S. So there's been this huge human migration of people from the rural areas to cities. So that's number one. Number two, there's been the birth of a true middle class in China. About 500 million people in China are in the middle class. And that's what's driving the economy today, like our economy, is domestic consumption. So domestic consumption, China used to be government spending and exports, government spending and exports. So that was the China of the past. Now, China moved from a world factory to a world market. And so when that shift occurred, it's being driven by a fluent middle class of about 500 million people. I think we have 330 million people in the U.S. total. China's middle class is over 500 million. Well, our middle class is a lot less than 300. So China's middle class is really... And the third part is because of that, China's plan on mobility. The high-speed train is the only thing I'll take in China when I have a choice. It's efficient. It's on time. It's average like 350 kilometers an hour. I'll send you a video of that. I actually have a couple on my phone from my recent trip. And it's the mobility to connect first tier cities, second tier cities, third tier cities. And also the surrounding region. Yes, the plan is everywhere the belt and road goes. A high-speed train will go. You can get on a train in Beijing and go all the way to Shenzhen, go all the way to South China or go all the way to the north to Heilungjong province, or go all the way to Tibet. You want to go to Tibet? Get on the... And they have a special train, by the way, that goes to Tibet because of the high altitude. I remember that was in the newspapers. That was very interesting. It's just like an airplane. It's actually a pressurized cabin. Oh, no kidding. I think mobility is part of allowing the economy to grow. Well, no, I was going to say the same thing. Mobility is more than just getting around. Mobility is integrating the country, integrating the economy, pulling people together, allowing the central government to do things it could not otherwise do. Allowing people to experience other places the way, and that means business deals the way they would not otherwise have the chance. So mobility is much more. And I think we have had a show, and we'll have a show about mobility in Latin America, that these countries are one of the great failings in Latin America, if they don't have any infrastructure. We should look at that as a case of mobility is curitiba. Look that up, and you'll see that the governor there who came to Hawaii, and I remember that's when I was working in the cabinet with the mayor, Mayor Harris, those days, he came a high me learner. I'm just going back through my database in my head. And he came and he put tremendous mobility programs in curitiba. But what's interesting, I used to joke with then Mayor Harris, I said to him, if you want to do the high speed rail, let's make a joint venture with China, and it'll be built in 18 months. You know, that was good advice. And then the second thing I said is, and when you cut the deal, when you cut the deal with any of these people who are actually, because economic development was my focus. So one of the things that I said, I thought, I still think it's a great idea, is instead of just having the rail companies supply you with railcars, actually put in an area in, you know, maybe it's where we have open space in Waipahu or somewhere, there's open area, put in a rail maintenance and repair facility, and actually build, actually assemble, actually assemble some of the railcards, provide jobs in Hawaii, where they don't send you because I do a lot of manufacturing. So a lot of things, I make it different places and then I pull it together. And that's also one of my strategies on how to protect IP is in China, I might make three things in three different places. And then I put it together in my facility where I have our people working on the assembly and putting the secret sauce into the whatever I'm making. So the same thing holds true in Hawaii, you know, to provide jobs, we could have the rail company, I know they wouldn't like it. I'm not saying 100% of the railcars, but a percentage of the railcars you can actually assemble in Hawaii, provide higher paying jobs. And at the same times as you're assembling it, you're understanding actually how to fix it going forward. Maintenance is so important. We need to have that expertise. And I think that's a way to do it. And I think that it would be a little creative thinking where you would do that. But, you know, part of it is to create. That was good advice on both points, Manning. And boy, if they had taken that advice, we'd be in a different place on rail today. We were pushing that those days, you know, the high speed buses. So to avoid the tremendous infrastructure costs, and we were going to create some dedicated lanes. And we thought that the solution back then was hybrid high speed buses. And then if you have an event in town, you can redeploy the buses to the event as well. So it was more optionality with the plan we had. That didn't end up going anywhere. But I still think it was, you know, for certain key routes, if you had key lanes that you built just for high speed, hybrid buses, I think we would have saved a bunch of money and got it done a lot quicker. Well, that demonstrates something about you and about, you know, being a businessman, and that is you have to be indefatigable. So if somebody says no great idea, but we're not going to do it, you have to go on the next idea. And I know that's what you've been doing your whole professional life. And my last question to you is this, is, okay, again, things are changing. And, you know, indeed, as China grows and grows more influential, more dominant, if you will, in Asia Pacific, and maybe more arrogant too, its relationship with the US changes, depending on the administration. Trump certainly was a special case, but this could happen again with another administration. Remember, Joe Biden has not taken off the tariffs, is still there. And there are people in this country who, you know, they don't like China. They don't like Chinese, regrettably. So, you know, it all changes, it will all change. And it's hard to say that the world is heading for, you know, Kumbaya, we're not heading for Kumbaya, maybe something else, but not Kumbaya. So, the question is, where does that put you? You're a citizen of two countries, business-wise. You know the both, and you know how to leverage, deploy business ideas from one to the other. Abitrage, arbitrage of ideas, arbitrage of business skills and tips and tricks and what have you, you know, manufacturing techniques, what have you. And so, where does that put you, where are you going? Are you going to spend more time in the U.S., in Hawaii or Seattle? Are you going to spend more time in China? Is this a resilient, sustainable position for you to maintain after all these 40 years? Yeah, I think it is. I think China's focus is to keep growing the economy, trying to prove people's lives. And I think in the U.S., and I believe this, and I say this from a business perspective, and it's part of my motto of world peace through world trade. And I believe that the more you interact with people, whether that's on a cultural level, sports level, student exchanges, business level, the more you're talking, the more you're rubbing shoulders, both sides. There's more dialogue. You can solve anything. I'm not going to say that they're easy solutions because there's history. You got to remember China's history. They were occupied by other forces, other countries, you know, and they have a long history that you have to look back at. And there's certain sensitivities because they were occupied by other countries that they want to stay strong. But the other thing I always say is you've got to look at the neighbors of China. I always joke about this, but it's a serious joke. Look at the neighbors of the U.S., Canada, got to worry about the Canadians. Mexico, got to worry about Mexico. Bermuda, you got to worry about Bermuda, you know? But if you look at the neighborhood that China lives in, you have Russia, you have North Korea, you have Pakistan, you have India. And I'm not saying anything bad about those countries. That's not my point. But all those countries are nuclear. So in the China, you got to kind of sometimes walk in the other person's moccasins, as they say, as Mark Twain said. So if you walk in the other guys' moccasins and Mark Twain, you will think about what China is thinking about. Their second largest economy. And they've got all these neighbors. Some of them have been unpredictable in history. And they're worried about that. And I think that at least the leaders that I talk to, the posture that China takes, because we didn't talk about the military, because I'm not certainly not going to talk about that. That's something out of my wheel well. But I'm just saying wheelhouse. I think when you look at the neighbors, one of the things that the Chinese are following, because it always comes up about how they built up the military, the U.S. spends about $750 billion a year on military. China spends, to our knowledge, $200 billion. Say that they're not doing the accounting or make it $300 billion. But whatever it is, their concern is they want to have a very, very robust and strong defense so that if anything happens, they can switch to offense. And I think the U.S. posture has been the same. We want to make sure we have the best and strong, and we do have the best and strongest military in the world. And I think that the point is, is that the same same as for China, you have to be, have the best at what you do in order to protect your national assets. So I think that's what their mindset is. And again, the leadership that I've seen and I've had the privilege of knowing in China, they really want a country that's doing well, they want to improve people's lives. They've never, when you think about the history of China, they haven't kind of ventured into Europe or ventured into other areas to take over a real estate. They've stayed in China. They've had conflict internal in China, but they haven't expanded their footprint. It's not part of their characteristic. You know, but you're excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan from that in Tibet and maybe Mongolia too. So in the neighborhood, they have expanded their footprint, but obviously beyond the neighborhood, they haven't encamped and won't. Well, Hong Kong was a 99 year lease that was over and it's always been part of China. They couldn't wait. Anyway, I just I wanted to say, I think I learned something and I want to articulate it and see if you agree is that, you know, like nations, when you're doing a deal with Chinese organization, you have to understand the special mindset of the Chinese. And one more step, you have to understand what the Chinese person or organization thinks of you. So you have to, you have to feel it coming back. You can't, it's not a one way street. You have to see both sides of the street. You have to see not only how you feel about him and he feels about you. It's like, it's like the barbershop mirror. You know what I mean? It just goes on indefinitely, this sort of reverberating between the two of you. Am I right about that? Yeah, I think you have to be like, it doesn't have to be just China, but I mean, it's really critical in China. Relationships do matter. I think you have to be forthright. You know, and when I hear, you know, things like, oh, they forced us to do this or forced to do that. I've never, I've been in situations where the deal or the transaction wasn't a good deal. And I, and because the relationship was good, I just say, we can't, we can't move forward. I mean, I was never forced ever to make a bad decision. So you can just say it's not going to work out. I mean, that's what I think is important because sometimes I hear, oh, we were forced to do this, forced to do that. There's no one holding a gun to your head in China. You're there literally because you want to maybe expand your product or service into that market. Maybe you want to do something for export. But if the deal is not right, you just don't do the deal. You know, there's no one's forcing it. So in answer to your question, there's no shortcut in building truthful, honest foundational relationships and making sure you work through that to make sure that you have the right alignment in your thought process going forward. And I always spend time when I'm working in China talking about what happens when things don't go right. You got to spend just as it's in Chinese thinking it's called yin and yang, you know, where there's darkness, there's light. We've heard of that. Yes. So yeah, that's all over the world in every culture, is it? That's right. So I think you have to spend the time and building that relationship in the front. That's where I said, go slow to finish first. And once you know that you have the right part, you're done to do diligence, then you can proceed step by step and you'll get to the finish line a lot faster than most people. What I really like to do in another show with you, Manny, is have some case studies, anonymous case studies, no naming of names, just the kinds of things that happen, the kinds of things that you learn in a given deal. You know, years ago, in the time we spent with the Venture Capital Association, there were a lot of people trying to do deals and a lot of Chinese were here, you know, telling you how to do deals. But as it stands, let me say, it seems to me, you're a survivor of this. You can still do it. You're still able to discuss it. You're still able to tell us to teach us how to do these deals even now today after all the things we've been through with China. That is really, really interesting. I could give you some case examples. I mean, everything I've done there has not been perfect. I mean, there's been challenges. But the key is, you know, the famous saying it's not how you fall down, it's how you get up. I mean, I think the key, Jay, is your thought process of when things happen, not to get in the blame game, but really get into the solution game. Don't blame, you know, someone did this or someone did that. I mean, that's not going to build any relationship. Look at the issue and then figure out together with your Chinese partners how to make it better because they want to make things better. Usually, you know, someone, a lot of Westerners say, oh, they did this, they did that. I hear a lot of horror stories. But really, I think, again, going back to building the relationship when things happen, have the ability to pick yourself up and then look together mutually for solutions. Because at the end of the day, the old saying, you have to have three things, mutual understanding, that takes time. It sounds simple, but mutual understanding takes time to really have mutual understanding. Then you have to have mutual benefit. Mutual benefit comes from mutual understanding. What is the benefit for the parties? And the third is a given in any country, but important in China is you have to have mutual respect. And if you don't have respect for the other guy, so sometimes when there's political issues and I see these guys going at each other, they're not going to come to a solution if they don't actually have a, you can agree to disagree is what I'm saying. Yeah, very wise, very wise. Manny Mande is our old friend, Hitherin Yan between the U.S. and China really enjoyed this discussion. We'll have to do it again. Thank you, Manny. And may I say Xie Xie and Sai Jian. Sai Jian.