Source: Asia Times
“For a time, the West comfortably regarded China as the world’s workshop, a place that made cheap goods and left the clever work to others. By the 2020s, that picture was untenable. Chinese companies led in electric vehicles, batteries, green energy, and 5G, and competed hard in artificial intelligence and semiconductors. Policymakers in Washington and Brussels were stunned. Like a bereaved person who functions normally on the surface while feeling nothing underneath, the West was slow to grasp that its monopoly had gone. Shock tends to give way to denial, and the Western response followed the pattern. … Reconstruction occurs when one ceases to wonder why this had to happen and wonders instead what could still be done. The crucial realization is that while one cannot change the situation, one can determine how one reacts to it.” (10/13/26)
https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/the-seven-stages-of-american-decline/