model, and it worked very well. In option pricing terms, the price of that option was very, very low. As US-China tensions build up, the price of that option becomes much more elevated. And at some point, as the factor happened in Australia, you are asked to make a choice. And believe me, the last thing these dual-option countries want to do is make this sort of choice. So the first thing is to recognize that this dual-option model worked fine when it was US and Europe. The US would stand by and let Europe pursue its ever closer union, because that was viewed actually as enhancing the national security of the continent. But it's very different when it comes to US-China with all the complications of that relationship. That is the first major change in the way the system operates. But there's another change that I think we should not underestimate. Coming out of World War II, we constructed a global system where the core, basically the US and Europe, were given massive privileges, and (32/43)