The Cultural Impact of Museums

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But some in the church wonder if that's actually a good thing. I'm not so concerned about Mormonism kind of being radicalized. I'm actually more concerned about it becoming so obsessed with assimilation that it kind of loses sight of what it actually is. What happens when faith goes mainstream? That's this week on Explain It To Me. Find new episodes Sundays where Tim Cook is in China at the moment. He's been opening a big store, and previous to that, he was at the China Development Forum in Beijing and there he was using some mollifying language. He said, we are committed to collaborating with our partners across China and with all of you to make this vision of progress at Apple a reality. It didn't really seem to address the issue head-on, but I think it was supposed to mollify opinion in China that is turning against Apple to some degree. So to me, what is happening to Apple in China is that it's being pressured by the Chinese government to make commercial concessions and it's already made one, but China wants more . Welcome to China Decode. I'm Alice Hann. And I'm James King. In today's episode of China Decode, we're discussing how Tim Cook's China visit highlights Apple's reliance on iPhone sales in the mainland, why Trump's Beijing summit delay exposes the broader context of US-China competition in the Iran conflict, and how China's museum boom is reshaping its culture. Now that's all coming up, but first let's do a quick check-in with how the Chinese markets are starting the week. On Monday, both the Shanghai A-Share Index and the Hang Sang H share indexed closed down nearly 4% as investors scrambled to adapt to the possibility of tighter monetary policy. This was the worst day for the Hangsang since the Liberation Day tariff announcement, no doubt affected by the Iran crisis. Precious metals company Lalpul Gold and Sejin Mining Group fell more than five percent after the price of gold tumbled, and tech giants Alibaba and Tencent both ended the day in the red. Before we go to the episode, a quick announcement. China Decode now has a weekly newsletter. We go beyond the topics we cover here on the podcast and give you even more data and analysis on the most important stories coming out of China this week. Subscribe at Chinadecode.profgmedia.com. It's free for now, so be sure you get subscribed soon. That's Chinadecode.profgmedia.com. All rightright, let's get into it. Last week, Tim Cook was in Chengdu, China, for a high profile Apple store event marking the company's 50th anniversary. His visit underscored how crucial China remains for Apple, even as the US China tensions rise and regulators in China push for a more open app store ecosystem. 23% so far in 2026, while the broader smartphone market shrinks. Meanwhile, Apple has cut its app store fees in China from 30% to 25%, though Beijing is signaling it wants more concessions. Despite Apple leaning on the iPhone for growth, Apple is still struggling to find traction in AI. James, this is an exciting topic because we did have, as you recall, uh Patrick McGee who wrote Apple in China. So this is a topic that we've discussed previously. But what has been interesting to me relative to I would say the discussion a year or two ago is that Apple's not quite dead in China. You know, even though we have heard stories and seen data of manufacturing moving further south to India, for instance, or Southeast Asia, and that the market within China is sh is shifting more strongly to the local variants, whether it's Huawei or Oppo, it seems that the strong performance this year and Tim Cook's trip to China suggests that there still is a market for Apple. I'm just not really sure how sustainable it is, but certainly I've seen from Chinese social media that this, especially the orange cased iPhone that came out, iPhone seventeen, has been viral because it's known as as the Hermes Orange, like the Hermes designer brand. But what what's your take on this, James? Yes, I think China remains highly important to Apple. And to me, this story is really bigger than just Apple in China. This is a story that says, in this case, when China says jump, Apple will jump, at least to some degree. That's because Apple has invested so much in the China market, and because Apple gets such a large proportion of its global revenues from China. And the reason why I think this is such a big issue is because Apple is not the only company experiencing these types of dynamics in the China market. In fact, there are lots of US companies and lots of European companies that are in the same boat that China is so important to them that when the government of China says you've got to do this or you've got to do that, they would be rash to ignore such instructions completely. And as you mentioned, uh, we had Patrick McGee on the podcast, and he said that basically China has captured America's most famous company. It's an extraordinary realization that Apple is worth about 3.7 trillion US dollars on the stock market, but it isn't really the company's shareholders that actually call the shots, at least not in China. In China, it's the Chinese government that calls the shots. And that's why, as you mentioned at the top, Alice, Apple had to bring down the commission it earns on the Apple uh App Store for Chinese users. As I mentioned, Apple is not the only company that derives a huge proportion of its total global revenues from China. In the US, there are other companies in the same bracket. Qualcomm, the semiconductor maker is one. Texas Instruments is another. Tesla, which of course makes cars and also energy generation and storage technology, Micron, Corvo, Broadcom, all chipmakers from the US uh are in the same bracket, just to name a few. From Europe, ASML, the huge Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer, the car makers from Germany, V VW and BMW, the uh big German industrial companies like BASF and Siemens, the Swiss luxury company, Richmond, Rio Tinto, the mining company, all of these companies uh derive a very large proportion of their global revenues from China. And therefore, when the Chinese government says something or issues an order or an instruction to these companies, they would be very rash to refuse that instruction point blank. And I think this is this is a crucial aspect of the whole commercial uh and geopolitical dynamic that you that the Western companies get into when they start investing so much in China. But let's just return to the question of Apple. What happened in order, was that earlier this month the People's Daily, which of course is the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, criticized Apple for its monopolistic behavior. This came just days after Apple said it would drop its typical commission on the mainland app store purchases from 30% to 25%. This was a big concession by Apple because it drops the App Store commission to below what it is for US users. But it wasn't enough for China. The People's Daily Editorial said that Chinese users and developers still face many restrictions that Beijing believes are anti-competitive. And we'll have to see what Apple does in the future. Uh, as you mentioned, um, Tim Cook is in China at the moment, he's been opening a big store. And previous to that, he was at the China Development Forum in Beijing. And there he was using some mollifying language. He said, We are committed to collaborating with our partners across China and with all of you to make this vision of progress at Apple a reality. It didn't really seem to address the issue head-on, but I think it was supposed to mollify opinion in China that is turning against Apple to some degree. So to me, what is happening to Apple in China is it is being pressured by the Chinese government to make commercial concessions and it's already made one, but China wants more. Yeah, it's interesting. I agree with all these points, James. I would just take another, you know, vector of analysis to this and and look at it from the vantage point of Chinese consumers. Because if we had this conversation two years ago, I would have said, you know, the writing is in the wall for Apple. China is making amazing phones with amazing cameras. You know, you just look at Xiaomi, you look at Huawei. And they're making great phones for a fraction of the price. And they have you know AI chips installed as well, so super competitive in the AI domain as well. I would be worried if I were Apple, but I think again, and this is begs the question: is this sustainable long term? There seems to be still a market for Apple. Um, maybe it's not the aspirational middle class, maybe it's the upper uh echelons of of Chinese society that can still afford to buy an apple iPhone. But the virality of it was really interesting to me. So in in Chinese, the Cheng Tzu, which is the the word for orange, sounds like the word for success, Chenggong. So you know, in the year of the horse, every a lot of people were talking about this. This this orange colored uh phone was seen as being very lucky or auspicious. So that was part of the virality, certainly, of the iPhone 17 that made it very, very successful as a model. But longer term, what I worry about is Apple's place in AI ecosystem. Because in the US too, I mean Apple is behind in this horse race compared to uh the AI providers, but the A you know, the AI downstream and upstream providers, whether it's you know the LLMs, Frontier Labs like OpenAI, Claude, but or even if it's the you know, the data center um providers like Oracle or Salesforce, it it's not clear to me that they are going to take advantage of AI. And um more importantly in the Chinese context, how is it actually going to work? So as of yet, Apple's Apple Inellitgence, so it's AI um, you know, generative AI product that it offers on all its iPhones, which are available in the West, uh, is not available yet in China. It's subject to approval. Now apparently that approval process was delayed by the trade disputes last summer. So we're gonna have to see whether this year they will finally get the green light. Uh, because as of yet, these other phones, these other Chinese phones are gonna be more advanced in in the on-divid device AI market. And then the next question is: how will Apple integrate some of the new moves in a Gentic AI that we're seeing? You know, we've we've just seen an announcement that 10 cents, OpenClaw, uh personal assistant or agentic AI has disappointed to the downside. And so, you know, that's obviously taken a hit in terms of stock price. But I think the next question as we see AI evolve, and we've talked about this previously, James, is how a a device is gonna embed these personal assistance, these agentic AI platforms. And I'm not sure if Apple is at the forefront of it. I think that all a lot of the other Chinese providers are, but the I think the statistics are pretty s dazzling. Twenty-six percent year on year growth in the first two months of this year. That's pretty good by Apple standards. Those are great points you're making about Apple and AI in China. Chinese companies are really moving ahead quickly in AI. Uh the number of applications uh of of of of different uses, uh startups in AI all over the country, it's just it is a fever at the moment in China. And it's quite possible as you raise the possibility that Apple could get left behind, particularly if its AI products are delayed for whatever reason from coming into the China market. I really do see that as a as a risk uh that you point out. Yeah, super interesting. And just to continue what you said about how China still is really important for Apple's manufacturing, it manufactur stersill about eighty percent of Apple's manufacturing capacity globally. That's fifty-five percent of the MacBook products, eighty percent of the iPads, and over eighty percent of the iPhones. Now there's a big push to get India to increase its share, but at least in the next few years in the short term, it seems like they really still need China uh to manufacture Apple goods across the board. 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Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/slash Scott. That's LinkedIn. com Welcome back. Trump's postponement of his Beijing summit with Xi Jinping is sending ripples through global diplomacy and markets. Chinese officials are frustrated and state-run outlets like the Global Times are mocking the delay, suggesting the US is using the conflict to pull China into policing the Strait of Hormuz Meanwhile behind the scenes, Beijing sees the Iran crisis as a chance to make political capital at the expense of the US. oil traders or just traders in general. Uh I I'm curious how you've been faring in the last few weeks. But I have been struck by the lack of real Chinese media coverage on Iran. I think even relative to Viz Venezuela. There's been a lot of focus obviously on the new five-year plan that's come out on some of the domestic data that have come out. But I've been struck how there hasn't been a lot of talk uh within Chinese media about Iran and how China actually hasn't been that vocally critical of the US's uh campaign. Now that may change if we in the coming days see Trump escalate in terms of boots on the ground to try to stabilize the strait or even decapitate uh the leadership in Tehran. But right now I I sense that the Chinese are playing a wait and see game to see what pans out. They've just sent a special envoy of to the Middle East uh to the region to talk to the Gulf states, to the Iranians. I sense that maybe there are moves early on to see if they can be involved in a in a longer term diplomatic peace process. But right now it seems like Beijing is playing a wait and see game. What's your view? Yes, absolutely. I think uh China's strategy for the moment is to make rhetorical capital um out of the US actions. Uh I thought uh in particular recently, Li Chiang the Premier uh made a speech at the China Development Forum, which is China's version of Davos. It's a place where CEOs of companies from the West who can be relied upon to praise China, collect with Chinese officials and academics from the West, who can also be relied upon to lavish praise on China. And this took place over the weekend uh in Beijing. And uh if you look at what Premier Li Chiang said in front of all of these assembled dignitaries in the Dia Yutai State Guest House, he said that China was committed to being a cornerstone of certainty and quote a harbor of stability in a world that is dominated by rising trade protectionism and upheavals in the rules-bedas international order. He did not mention the US by name at any point, but it was very clear that he was making a contrast between China's role and the role of the US. He also said, uh talking about trade that he wanted to optimize and balance the development of trade and expand global economic and trade uh uh ties with the rest of the world. And to me, you know, although this was an oblique reference to the US, it really struck a very strong point against Washington. The other thing I thought was really fascinating about what went on at the China Development Uh Forum was that the governor of the central bank, Pan Gong Sheng, said that uh he sort of took aim at the US uh dollar. he And decided uh without naming the US, he described some countries' persistent trade deficits as being the result of a quote, international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign currency. So basically he's saying that all of the US trade deficits are partly the result of the strength of the US dollar. And he wanted to deflect criticism of China's 1. 2 trillion US dollar trade surplus in in doing this. So I would say that this is a fairly blunt criticism of the US. China still doesn't like to call the US out by name and I think it still wants President Trump to visit China, even after he obviously postponed the visit that had been expected to take place on Ailpr the first. But certainly I I would say at the moment that China's trying to portray itself as this harbor of stability for the world as the US engages in the war in Iran and the war in Iran threatens to spread beyond Iran itself. It's interesting. Um when we talked about the five year plan and the two sessions in a previous episode, we talked a lot about self-sufficiency and and de-risking in supply chains. Uh to your point, and when you quoted the PBOC governor, there is, I think, a sort of a collision of events right now pointing towards this theme of de dollarization, whether it's, you know, the the PVC governor talking about it, it's coming up in Chinese media. I think it in in irrespective of what's happening in Iran, it came out of the five year plan as well to increase, you know, CNY usage in trade settlements. I picked up on a particularly interesting data point. So China over the last few years has been working with the major central banks of uh Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, so some of these Gulf states in the Middle East, to increase trade settlements via these uh central bank bridges, you know, digital tokenized uh uh cross-border transactions. And uh since twenty twenty two we've seen uh two thousand five hundredfold increase in the use of this uh these tokens through the these M bridges, so to speak. It's about fifty-five billion dollars, and around I think ninety-five percent of that settlement of that sum is in UN because China's been the big proponent of it uh diplomatically and and through these financial institutions. And in the last couple of days, we've seen China announce that they've expanded the number of commercial banks that are gonna use ECNY. I think that one of the longer term themes maybe from this crisis is that the Gulf states will become more and more like Russia. So if we think about the increase in UN settlement between Russia and China since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, that has been very favorable to CNY usage. We we know we don't have the exact data on the ground, but there has been an increase in C N Y usage in cross border trade settlement, notably for oil and gas. I believe a couple years ago there was a gasprom deal agreed but by Putin and Xi in which there would be a 50-50 UN ruble split in terms of settlement. So I could foresee China actually benefiting from the morass and quagmire that the US has gotten itself into financially by increasing CNY usage in global trade settlement. Currently, according to SWIFT, it's about eight percent of global trade settlement. That number could easily rise, I think, a couple of percentage points in the next couple of years, helped along by, you know, concerns about US hegemony, concerns about US instability, uh and and the instability it's causing in other regions around the world. I'm curious if you have your view on this, James, uh, because I certainly am seeing the more chatter about this in in financial markets. Yeah, I mean, I think you're dead you're dead right there, Alice. I think uh China is using this crisis in Iran, and obviously the conflict is spreading beyond Iran now, uh, to damage US credibility on the global stage, to portray the US as a global wrecking ball, and as you rightly say, Alice, to make commercial capital. And one area that they're trying to make commercial capital, it's not immediate, but in the longer term, is to slowly replace the dominance of the US dollar with uh the Reminbi. Um, and uh, you know, these movements are kind of tectonic in nature, they happen slowly, but once they do change, then the whole global economic and geopolitical system changes in their wake. It really does matter a great deal uh what the world uses to e you know to transact its trade and investment flows. At the moment it's the US dollar, but the Remnb is rising f fairairlyly, strongly, and I think we can now envisage a future in which the Remin B has a much greater uh share of global settlement, uh, both for trade and for investment. So yeah, I mean these are these are very big forces that have been unleashed. China is, I wouldn't say enjoying the US's misfortune, but it is certainly capitalizing on the US's misfortune and the damage that the US is doing to its reputation. Yeah, you know, it goes without saying on the oil and energy front, it it is also at a disadvantage China is, right? On the oil and energy front, you know, if if WTI goes north, continues to go north of a hundred, that is going to cause pressure. If supply chains in oil continue to be constricted, that is going to cause pressure for Beijing. But you're right, geopolitically and diplomatically, if we look at it from that vector purely, I I think this has been a an unforced era by the Americans in which uh that has caused an opportunity for China to gain leverage, not only just in the Middle East, but also in potentially US China trade talks that are still ongoing. Because, you know, the more that the US is distracted and bogged down in the Middle East, uh, the less likely they're gonna be firing shots at China, you know, in trade and technology export controls. Uh it seems and this is I'm just citing a global times piece that was really interesting that came out, I think about March 15. Uh that one op-ed in the Global Times says the US has set the fire and now they're asking the world to help it put it out and split the bill. I thought that that was an interesting image and it sort of goes to the heart of how the Chinese perceive this is a mess of the American making and that the Chinese do not want to get involved in any collaborative effort. And it reminds me to some ex extent what happened in 56 of the Suez Crisis, you know, you had Britain, France trying to um, you know, take control of the Suez Canal, another major choke point in Egypt. Uh, and they did not get the approval of then US President I think a similar thing is happening now with the Chinese deciding that they're not going to back the Americans and and collaborating to demine the strait or to uh unblock the strait and put pressure on the Iranians. So that's been interesting. Thus far I haven't seen the Americans really react. I think that they're very much bogged down in what is happening Yes, I think so. And I think uh this gives China an opportunity to uh act as the statesman, the peacemaker. According to Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, he said that the urgent priorities now are firstly to curb the spread of the conflict and prevent other countries from becoming involved, other countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both of which are friendly nations, uh with China, and both of which have been struck by uh missiles from Iran. And China's also called for a unified international push for an immediate ceasefire and further mediation efforts. And this goes back to what you were saying earlier, Alice. I think that China will portray itself as the mediator to end this conflict or perhaps after the conflict has ended to step in as a mediator between the nations in the region and thereby it will portray itself even more as the peacemaker whereas the US, as I said earlier, it will want to be uh portraying as a kind of a wrecking ball. So I think China's strategy is pretty clear. Trump, of course, called on China to help uh assure the shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. And I think that I the idea that China would cooperate directly with the US to further the UF's objectives in anything to do with this war in Iran is completely pie in the sky. China will not want to do that because it wants to portray itself as separate and in opposition to what it calls an unjust war um uh which has been started by the US. I think, you know, for China, they are keeping their eye on the propaganda gains that they can make from the US war in Iran. Yeah, and just to back up your point of China being a peace peacemaker in the region. There is a history of this, right? China back in 2023 was responsible for the rapprochement between the Saudis and the Iranians that led to a diplomatic detente and a rapprochement. So they have a track record. I am on the side that you are on James is that they will play a part in in in any peace negotiation in the region, uh, given the outsized commercial, economic and diplomatic influence they have with a lot of the Gulf and Iranian players. You know, if I'm looking at this from a realist perspective, you know, Allah, John Mir Sheimer or Graham Allison, I I am worried that the Wrecking Boar analogy that you used has actually empowered the access of ill will. If you think about the countries uh the original countries within that nomenclature were Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. You know, with oil prices going up for the conceivable future, that benefits Russia. Iran is hard to decapitate. We've probably replaced one leader with a more hardline leader. And China, to uh to your earlier point, James, uh, looks to be benefiting diplomatically. I I'm w I'd be worried if I were come back from the grave and looking at what Washington's doing. Yeah, I mean, you know, I I I think it's too early to say because we don't know what the end of this war will be. Um it could be that the US wins and then the US gets to set the terms of whatever peace may follow that or whatever situation may follow that. And under those circumstances, maybe the US emerges from this looking slightly better than it does at the moment. If the US can restore shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, the price of oil comes down, uh Trump gets to sound more like a statesman on the world stage, uh then maybe the pendulum swing swings back again in the US favour in terms of international opinion on this action. But at the moment, I think there's no doubt that China is making propaganda capital from this. Great point. And to your point, a lot can change in the next week or two. So we will stay braced for the news. Okay, let's take one last quick break. Stay with us . Support for the show comes from Neutrifil, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. Trusted by over one and a half million people. Neutraful now offers hair growth supplements tailored to men at every age because the root cause of hair thinning change over time and your routine should as well. Nutriful men for ages 18 to 49 can help improve hair growth and achieve thicker, fuller hair in three to six months, and their new product, Nutriful Men 50 Plus, is the first and only hair growth product specifically formulated for men 50 and older. You can feel great about what you're putting into your body since neutral hair growth supplements are backed by peer-reviewed studies and NSF content certified. The gold standard and third-party certification for supplements. 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And their new product, Nutrifle Men50 Plus, is the first and only hair growth product specifically formulated for men 50 and older. You can feel great about what you're putting into your body since neutral hair growth supplements are backed by peer-reviewed studies and NSF content certified. The gold standard and third-party certification for supplements. Adding neutral to your daily routine is easy. You can order online, no prescription needed. Plus, with a neutral subscription, you can save up to 20% and get added perks to support your hair growth journey. Start Neutrafil today and make the hat optional. Visit neutral.com and enter promo code ProfG for $1 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out why Neutrafil is the best-selling hair growth Supplement brand at neutrafil.com spelled n-t-r-a-fol.com promo code Prop G. That's Nutrafil.com promo code Prop G. When you think of the most influential American politician of the 21st century, you probably think of a man. But there's one woman who might fit the bill. She never thought she'd be in politics, but went on to break what she calls the marble ceiling. Then they'd say well why don't you all just make a list of things that the women want and we'll do those. What? This is in this century. Really? So the marble ceiling, it's not a glass ceiling and more, it's a marble ceiling. And they all had it lined up, but you go next and I'll go next and I'll go next. And we're like, well, you know what? We've been waiting over 200 years, we're breaking in line. Mancy Pelosi, the longtime Democratic Speaker of the House, live on stage at South by Southwest in Austin. Today explained, every weekday, and now on Saturdays too . Welcome back. China's museum boom is rewriting the nation's cultural story from just a handful of museums in nineteen forty nine to over six thousand eight hundred today, the expansion of galleries, libraries, archives and museums reflect a deliberate strategy to link heritage, urban development, tourism, and soft power. State backed cultural districts now dominate the landscape, shaping what histories are told, what art is seen, and how China projects itself globally. Even private and contemporary art spaces operate within this structured ecosystem highlighting a shift from independent experimentation to curated national storytelling. James, are you an avid museum goer and tell me what's your favorite museum in China? I am actually I I you know really do enjoy going around a museum. I bet you do too, Ale. Yeah, I do too. I didn't know the extent of this trend. It seems to be the case that in China, there's a new museum opening uh almost once every two days. And these days there are perhaps you know more than 7,000 museums and about 1.5 billion annual visits as of late 2025. So um whatever numbers you're using, this is a huge, huge trend in China. And I've been uh looking at um some of the eye-catching museums that there are in China. Um well, you know, some of them are fairly mainstream, like the Zhugong Dinosaur Museum, which is in a southern province of China. And the point of differentiation is that it's a museum obviously of dinosaur bones or fossils that are built right over the pit where the fossils were actually first found. Going to another end of the spectrum, there is also a museum in China for mental illnesses. It's called the Black Museum. And it has sort of immersive displays. Uh like uh you can sort of feel what it's like to be going through a hallucination. And of course, there's a sex museum in China. This museum used to be in Shanghai, but it used to, but it became a bit too sensitive and it had to move to a smaller town,, uh the town of Tongli in Jiangsu Province, and it has a over a thousand exhibits, including erotic paintings and ancient sex toys and Ming Dynasty sexual furniture. I also heard that there's a paper aeroplane museum. I mean, of all the things to have a museum about, this is in Wuhan, and it shows off about 200 classic paper planes, those that can fly a long way, uh, those that spin around, stunt gliders, etc. And of course, because we're in the digital age, there's a Chinese meme museum as well. But I I just think this is a fascinating topic. Partly because I kind of get the feeling that there is a cultural aspect to this. Chinese are big collectors. And I think this is a culture that goes back millennia. If you look at the use of grave goods in graves across the centuries in China, there's all kinds of collections. Of course, the most famous is the Terracotta Army, uh, which was built for the first emperor of China, Qin Shuhuang, uh, and which has about 8,000 life-size clay warriors and countless bronze weapons, and of course, it hasn't even been fully excavated yet. So, you know, there is this sense that you know collecting things is very deeply in Chinese culture. What would you say about that, Alice? Have you noticed that? I love the way you said that. I completely agree. I've never actually thought about it that way, but I think that that is a big part of Chinese culture. It's interesting when um you know you hear talk about what uh the Chinese leadership is like is that they have a an acute sense of history. They're obsessed with history. I I remember the story that um you know you know back in the day the the top Chinese leadership um were being asked to read uh by Wang Chi san, who was remembered for a time the the anti corruption minister, the you know, really the fire brigade men right next to Xi Jinping, to read uh history books, including Tocaville's Democracy in America. So th I I think it's very much in the DNA of Chinese people to be obsessed with history uh and to be obsessed with learning, but it in particular learning about the past. Um I remember as a kid going to museums in Taiwan and in in Beijing, where y not only is there great historical relics, but um great uh artistic relics. I remember this obsession, especially in the Taiwan National Palace Museum. This one probably the most expensive thing there is this jade cabbage. You know, that looks exactly like cabbage but completely made out of jade. These sort of curiosities um I think uh is a big focus in a lot of these museums and as you were talking I was thinking about some of my favorite museums and and interestingly enough I find that in China I see a lot more of these although I would say in the UK you do see this too um these houses former houses of famous people being turned into museums or memorials, as you say. So one of my favorites is actually Songqing Ning's house in Shanghai. She's the former wife. She was the former wife of the father of modern China, Sun Yat sen, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. And her house is really beautiful. Um you get to see the interior of the space and how they lived, uh, while seeing, you know, the historical moments and chapters in her life. You know, another museum that I really love is the Shanghai History Museum. And apparently they've got a new Qi Paul museum that's just come up. So an exhibition dedicated to uh a very traditional Chinese style dress that was really popular from the twenties onwards, um, and that you also see in the West. Yeah, it's interesting to me how in the last few years we've had an expansion of different types of museums beyond what we've been discussing, beyond just the historical and the curiosities, to some of these cultural elements that you're discussing, you know, planes and sex but you know, paper planes and sex and and cheapals. But I want to bring it back to another point, which is the party's role in history making. But curious what you have to say about this, uh, because certainly there is the more benign aspect of museums but there also is more of an ideological aspect to it and I'm curious if you have thoughts on that. Yes. I mean you know there are uh endless numbers of uh of expressions that you could cite. Uh there's a traditional Chinese expression, examine the past to understand the present. And then there's a more kind of foreboding uh non-Chinese uh uh phrase from I think it was 1984, the J George Orwell novel He Who Controls the Pass, the Past Controls the Future. Um, and so I think there are two overtones there that both are valid, actually. Um, and um, you know, we've spoken about the cultural interest that Chinese people have in the past, and and we've spoken about the number of collections and museums there are throughout China. Um, I'd like to bring it around to the money side of this because this is also really considerable. Um, I used to collect a few things when I was in China, a bit of furniture here and there, none of it was worth very much money. Um, but I've been reading about some of the top collectors in China. There's Liu Yichien and Wangwei. They're uh they're they're often cited as China's top collecting power couple, and they've spent billions of Reminbi on art. They spent thirty-six million US dollars on a Ming Dynasty chicken cup. It's not, it's I I mean, you mentioned the uh the cabbage, which I've actually seen in the Taiwan's National Museum. Um you know, this is a rather nondescript uh cup, if you ask me, but it they bought it for 36 million US dollars and they also spent 45 million US dollars on a Tibetan tapestry. So, you know, there are lots of collectors all throughout China, and some of them are spending huge amounts of money. And, you know, it would, it's quite surprising on the number of different things that Chinese people collect and the number of different things in which a market is now being created. There's a market even for those Mao badges, you know, those badges that everybody used to have to wear it during the period of uh of Ch of Chairman Mao, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.