A Nutstuff Friday thought: as the Korean BBQ and AI/Tech related sell off marches on. ( annoying as it is to be reminded Nutstuff very vocally sounded the exit here with my big China piece 2 1/2 weeks ago…)
“The West still talks about China as though it’s a giant factory making trainers and toasters. It isn’t. The Chinese aren’t putting gold on their chips or Coca-Cola in their Lafite; they’re relentlessly climbing the technology value chain. Just this week, Beijing-based Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter open-weight model that it says rivals the best systems from OpenAI and Anthropic in coding and reasoning. Whether every benchmark stands the test of time is almost beside the point. The point is that the frontier is no longer exclusively American.
Ask yourself a simple question: beyond Xi Jinping and perhaps Yao Ming, how many prominent Chinese entrepreneurs, engineers or business leaders can you actually name? Most people struggle. That ignorance matters because markets punish complacency. Nobody is suggesting China’s command economy is one to emulate, nor would many envy its political system. But Western arrogance, ignorance and condescension towards China’s technological capabilities have become investment risks in their own right. While almost 45% of the S&P 500 has become a one-way bet on a handful of AI winners, China has quietly built world-class capabilities across EVs, batteries, robotics, drones, industrial automation, advanced manufacturing and now frontier AI. History suggests that when investors become convinced innovation can only happen in one country, they’re usually looking in the rear-view mirror. Nutstuffs
Point is that the opportunity isn’t necessarily to bet against America; it’s to stop underestimating everyone else.”
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1July 17, 2026 175 1
