The bell as 送钟 was already all over my Chinese social media before I saw a single English-language report about the ceremony — I just didn’t know why it landed so hard until reading this. The Kimmel line, the CITIC report, and the Weibo captions all saying the same thing in three different registers, none of them talking to each other is such a good point. “The wake was announced on April 18. The body arrives May 14.” Subscribed.
Thanks for the insightful thoughts!Ps. There is a tendency here on substack to try to capture the reader by strongly positing a binary when X, it's not Y, but Z. I am starting to notice and feel the urge to skip ahead because of the tone, even if the content is interesting.
Brilliant Andrew, this is America’s obituary as a global hegemony. It’s almost as though it was designed this way and a deliberate plan to reshape the global order.
Seriously, nothing Trump did made sense; from trying to justify the tariffs as our allies screwing us. To threatening to invade Greenland—forcing our allies to move critical resources away from Europe while Ukraine fights for its life’s. To removing the USS Gerald Ford from The Mediterranean to invade Venezuela, while Ukraine and Europe are fighting to save UKRAINE.
Then we have Trump’s refusal to arm Ukraine—either flatly refusing to sell them weapons, or slow rolling delivery. And this is in addition to Trump releasing sanctions on Russia every time they face a threat of collapse (lifting sanctions on the Russian Central Bank bailout), as well as refusing to enforce the current sanctions.
It s almost chaos theory to its perfection: They put a deranged, impulsive and reckless “Bull in a China Shop” in charge; while he hires the cosplay cabinet from hell as the distractions—all the while slowly guiding us into a new world order. Just saying!…:)
On the broader point: the piece is agnostic on whether what we are watching is design or improvisation. My argument is narrower. Beijing's institutional reading is settled regardless. The lens does not require Trump to be acting to a plan. It only requires that the empirical record, read from Beijing, is consistent with the trajectory the CITIC report describes.
Whether the chaos is engineered or organic is a separate question, and one I would not want to claim to have answered.
This raises the interesting question of did 'the Firm' (the massive apparatus who's public face is the British Royal Family) deliberately choose the bell to signal they were viewing the future and seeing the same thing.
Because 'the Firm' and the British government are entirely different things. And even though every official, acknowledged, talked about piece of control that the Firm has over the Government and British society has be broken and acknowledged by all to no longer exist, indeed sometimes inverted to give the Government apparent control over the Firm, the Firm can set the lens through which the Government sees things.
If the answer is yes, then the bell might also have two more octives, one that speaks in Chinese and the other that speaks in the subtle language of the British Upper Class, where body language shouts what cannot be said or heard. And that message is 'MINE, not available to you'
Charles was Britain's representative at the 1997 Hong Kong handover and wrote about it in a diary that later leaked. He has personal experience of this seam at a moment that mattered. The idea that no one in his orbit recognized 送钟 is a stretch.
It's also a recognizably British move. The English upper class has a long tradition of saying the cutting thing in a register that preserves plausible deniability.
If you're right, the bell rings in three octaves. The Chinese one, the British upper-class one, and the silence of the official record that will never acknowledge either.
The west, particularly the US, has been misreading China for decades
We lack the cultural and linguistic understanding to look beyond the polite smiles and public handshakes
China has been quietly winning the soft power war for the last 20 years and more, and they know it
The US has been shedding both hard and soft power like a tree in autumn
China knows this
The US does not.
Yet
This visit will be watched, measured, catalogued, priced into future arrangement and deals not only with the US but also with a world turning *away* from the US
One small push back. I'd argue China hasn't been winning the soft power war for the last twenty years. It is only now reaching the point of being a real soft power competitor, and much of that is recent. TikTok went mainstream. Xiaohongshu picked up the TikTok refugees. Chinamaxxing is now a recognizable Western consumer pattern. None of this existed five years ago. Hollywood, the universities, the English language itself, these were and still are enormous American assets.
The visit will be watched and measured. You're right about the world turning away. That part is worth its own piece.
I’ll grant that, at least in regards to the west 🙏
My characterization stems from where I retired - I live in Cambodia - so I am likely overstating the case
China’s soft power is quietly omnipresent in all of SE Asia (Even in Thailand which is a US regional ally). Military agreements in some cases, economic assistance and investments in others, tourism across the board
This is an area where the US essentially walked away, and China filled the void
Yes, absolutely different in SEA. And I agree it's both the U.S. walking away and China proactively offering a sometimes more palatable alternative. I hope you are enjoying Cambodia.
Assuming a deal is concluded between the US and Iran before Trump lands in Beijing one imagines he will have China to thank for applying sufficient pressure. If there is no deal then Trump is landing in an even weaker position to negotiate anything of substance. If Trump thinks keeping the war going gives him leverage over China in these negotiations he is going to gifted a mirror and a bell.
Agreed but imagine if China becomes the benefactor of Iran and is able to show it has and exerts influence over the opening of the SOH what this does to its global reach. China ends up with an indirect lever and what a strategic disaster for the US and global power balance.
"what was missed in London" - I'm pretty sure nothing was missed! There was real intent on the bell gift, and the tangerine sucker hugged it because it was golden...
Thank you. The century of humiliation is real and present. It is in the school curriculum, on commemorative dates, in how policy gets framed when foreign actors push on sovereignty or territory.
It is also one of the most over-read narratives in Western analysis of China.
The West tends to treat it as the master explanation for Chinese behavior, which reduces China to a grievance-driven actor rather than a competent strategic one. Most Chinese policy in 2026 is forward-looking, driven by capability and interest.
Now that was worth a read, good analysis.
The bell as 送钟 was already all over my Chinese social media before I saw a single English-language report about the ceremony — I just didn’t know why it landed so hard until reading this. The Kimmel line, the CITIC report, and the Weibo captions all saying the same thing in three different registers, none of them talking to each other is such a good point. “The wake was announced on April 18. The body arrives May 14.” Subscribed.
Thank you for the corroborating perspective and for subscribing.
I’m tremendously excited to share future dispatches from Beijing .
Thanks for the insightful thoughts!Ps. There is a tendency here on substack to try to capture the reader by strongly positing a binary when X, it's not Y, but Z. I am starting to notice and feel the urge to skip ahead because of the tone, even if the content is interesting.
If you wanted to kill the US, you would do everything Trump has done.
Brilliant Andrew, this is America’s obituary as a global hegemony. It’s almost as though it was designed this way and a deliberate plan to reshape the global order.
Seriously, nothing Trump did made sense; from trying to justify the tariffs as our allies screwing us. To threatening to invade Greenland—forcing our allies to move critical resources away from Europe while Ukraine fights for its life’s. To removing the USS Gerald Ford from The Mediterranean to invade Venezuela, while Ukraine and Europe are fighting to save UKRAINE.
Then we have Trump’s refusal to arm Ukraine—either flatly refusing to sell them weapons, or slow rolling delivery. And this is in addition to Trump releasing sanctions on Russia every time they face a threat of collapse (lifting sanctions on the Russian Central Bank bailout), as well as refusing to enforce the current sanctions.
It s almost chaos theory to its perfection: They put a deranged, impulsive and reckless “Bull in a China Shop” in charge; while he hires the cosplay cabinet from hell as the distractions—all the while slowly guiding us into a new world order. Just saying!…:)
Thank you, glad it landed.
On the broader point: the piece is agnostic on whether what we are watching is design or improvisation. My argument is narrower. Beijing's institutional reading is settled regardless. The lens does not require Trump to be acting to a plan. It only requires that the empirical record, read from Beijing, is consistent with the trajectory the CITIC report describes.
Whether the chaos is engineered or organic is a separate question, and one I would not want to claim to have answered.
Best,
Andy
Agreed! Fully understand your point…:)
Great piece of analysis 👏 and profound information
DC cannot see because they are too stupid.
This raises the interesting question of did 'the Firm' (the massive apparatus who's public face is the British Royal Family) deliberately choose the bell to signal they were viewing the future and seeing the same thing.
Because 'the Firm' and the British government are entirely different things. And even though every official, acknowledged, talked about piece of control that the Firm has over the Government and British society has be broken and acknowledged by all to no longer exist, indeed sometimes inverted to give the Government apparent control over the Firm, the Firm can set the lens through which the Government sees things.
If the answer is yes, then the bell might also have two more octives, one that speaks in Chinese and the other that speaks in the subtle language of the British Upper Class, where body language shouts what cannot be said or heard. And that message is 'MINE, not available to you'
Thank you, good point.
Charles was Britain's representative at the 1997 Hong Kong handover and wrote about it in a diary that later leaked. He has personal experience of this seam at a moment that mattered. The idea that no one in his orbit recognized 送钟 is a stretch.
It's also a recognizably British move. The English upper class has a long tradition of saying the cutting thing in a register that preserves plausible deniability.
If you're right, the bell rings in three octaves. The Chinese one, the British upper-class one, and the silence of the official record that will never acknowledge either.
Best,
Andy
Brilliant!
The west, particularly the US, has been misreading China for decades
We lack the cultural and linguistic understanding to look beyond the polite smiles and public handshakes
China has been quietly winning the soft power war for the last 20 years and more, and they know it
The US has been shedding both hard and soft power like a tree in autumn
China knows this
The US does not.
Yet
This visit will be watched, measured, catalogued, priced into future arrangement and deals not only with the US but also with a world turning *away* from the US
Thank you.
One small push back. I'd argue China hasn't been winning the soft power war for the last twenty years. It is only now reaching the point of being a real soft power competitor, and much of that is recent. TikTok went mainstream. Xiaohongshu picked up the TikTok refugees. Chinamaxxing is now a recognizable Western consumer pattern. None of this existed five years ago. Hollywood, the universities, the English language itself, these were and still are enormous American assets.
The visit will be watched and measured. You're right about the world turning away. That part is worth its own piece.
Best,
Andy
I’ll grant that, at least in regards to the west 🙏
My characterization stems from where I retired - I live in Cambodia - so I am likely overstating the case
China’s soft power is quietly omnipresent in all of SE Asia (Even in Thailand which is a US regional ally). Military agreements in some cases, economic assistance and investments in others, tourism across the board
This is an area where the US essentially walked away, and China filled the void
Yes, absolutely different in SEA. And I agree it's both the U.S. walking away and China proactively offering a sometimes more palatable alternative. I hope you are enjoying Cambodia.
At what point during the May 14th visit does Orange try to trade Taiwan for China brokering a way out of Iran.
I really enjoyed this, thank you for writing. With a 5000 year history comes lenses :-)
Wow! Thank you for this brilliant take from “ the seam”…..
Fix: To see what Beijing is seeing in the photograph of King Charles handing Donald Trump a bell, one must be fluent not in Chinese but in Chinese
Assuming a deal is concluded between the US and Iran before Trump lands in Beijing one imagines he will have China to thank for applying sufficient pressure. If there is no deal then Trump is landing in an even weaker position to negotiate anything of substance. If Trump thinks keeping the war going gives him leverage over China in these negotiations he is going to gifted a mirror and a bell.
One never knows how this will turn out, but it seems that Iran has little incentive to let Trump off the hook.
Agreed but imagine if China becomes the benefactor of Iran and is able to show it has and exerts influence over the opening of the SOH what this does to its global reach. China ends up with an indirect lever and what a strategic disaster for the US and global power balance.
"what was missed in London" - I'm pretty sure nothing was missed! There was real intent on the bell gift, and the tangerine sucker hugged it because it was golden...
fascinating.
I would be very curious about your view on the 100 years of humiliation, and the implications of that upon today's relations.
Thank you. The century of humiliation is real and present. It is in the school curriculum, on commemorative dates, in how policy gets framed when foreign actors push on sovereignty or territory.
It is also one of the most over-read narratives in Western analysis of China.
The West tends to treat it as the master explanation for Chinese behavior, which reduces China to a grievance-driven actor rather than a competent strategic one. Most Chinese policy in 2026 is forward-looking, driven by capability and interest.
The scar is real. It is not the steering wheel.
This deserves its own piece.
Best,
Andy
fascinating. I have just recently focused my imagination onto China...
I learn a lot from what you write.
Of course.
China is not simple, and my infantile view of it is just become 3 dimentional.
I look forward to the water people like you will give it.