Shakespeare saw a comedy, we are seeing a tragedy of errors
Raised in a farmhouse without electricity or running water, sometimes it takes a lot to shock me about today’s world, but when reading Evan Osnos’s article in The New Yorker titled “The Future Made in China,” I got a series of shocks.

His secondary headline outlined his article: “Beijing is competing with the U.S. for tech supremacy. Who wins will have huge political implications.”

It should be read by everybody over 13 years of age. China is challenging the Divided States of America in every paragraph. 

Shakespeare wrote a comedy, All’s Well That Ends Well, about a good outcome makes up for earlier troubles. The title comes from a line in the play: “All’s well that ends well, still the fine’s the crown, whatever the course, the end is the renown.”

The final result is good, the difficult journey or problems to get there do not matter as much. He wrote another play (of  37!) titled A Comedy of Errors but Osnos writes we are committing a tragedy of errors trying to meet the challenge of Chinese technology.

China has developed more than a hundred automakers, makes more electric vehicles than Tesla, and some models have in-car karaoke, foot massagers and video-type headlights that project drive-in movies.

The most famous auto plant is owned by the Xiaomi Company, a company that made fortunes manufacturing and selling smartphones, electric toothbrushes and frying pans.

The car factory covers the area of a hundred soccer fields, was built in 14 months and has assembly lines operated by 700 robots controlled by thousands of wires. Few humans are in the plant while 127 robotic carts carry parts to the lines and warn “Make Way” if a human strays into their path.

The plant has a rapid-fire X-ray system that determines whether parts are made to specs.

This is what shocked me: A completely finished car rolls off the line every seventy-six seconds!
The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra comes off the line with 1,548 horsepower and can go to 60 in less than two seconds!

Want coffee on a Chinese tour? A drone will deliver a latte!
Travel companies sell tours to the plant “on the world’s fastest train” and, if you want a coffee, a drone will deliver your latte in minutes. The tours are so busy, locals have to win a lottery to tour the plant.
The CEO of Ford visited several factories and later described Chinese progress as “the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Another shocker: Chinese billionaires built so many apartment buildings trying to capture the market that the country still has 90-million concrete apartments that are empty, enough to house the entire population of Russia!

China President Xi Jinping, who is also General Secretary of the Communist Party, states his challenge bluntly: “Technology is the main battlefield of international competition, and the East is rising and the West is declining.”

It sure looks like it.

From Osnos’s article: “China produces 70 percent of the world’s drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. It deploys more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined, and, in medicine it has surpassed the United States in the number of registered clinical trials. Its shipbuilding capacity is roughly 200 times that of the U.S., and some observers worry that American stockpiles of munitions would not match China’s in a war over Taiwan.”

A worldwide survey by the Alliance of Democracies of polls states that international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly 40 points in the past two years.

A think tank at Renmin University in Beijing recently published an assessment for the decline of the Divided States of America with the sardonic headline “Thank Trump.” They stated his actions had hastened the end of the American Empire by “undermining our alliances, civil service workers, scientific institutions and university grants, and destroying the democratic credibility of the country.”

Here’s how China has done it in just 20 years. China has gone from producing half as much electricity as the U.S. to generating twice as much at far lower prices.

In just one year, China installed more solar power than we have installed in our entire history!
In the city of Hangzhous more than a dozen 6’2”, 216pound robocops police busy intersections and direct traffic.

Meanwhile, while lying about climate change by saying it is a “hoax,” Trump endorses and worships fossil fuels that American historian Timothy Snyder calls committing “Superpower Suicide.”

Malignant narcissist Trump has had severe dementia all of his life about personal relationships and alliances among nations. He thinks all countries are screwing us by “nymphomatically” raping us by unfair trade practices. That’s crazy-ignorant.

In 2025 he was going to teach China a lesson about trade by putting his stupid favorite sweeping tariffs on China. China demolished that idiotic trick by cutting exports of rare-earth products and magnets to the U.S.

Soon Ford was forced to stop making Explorers, a most profitable vehicle.

China retained its position as the world’s leading trading nation with a trade surplus of $1.2 trillion. What has happened? In 2001, four out of five countries traded more with America than with China. By 2023, this had reversed to seven in 10 trading more with China. It took only two decades.

China thinks “The Chosen One” is helping them dominate the world
They also think the Divided States of America is still dangerous but the Trump’s foreplay with Venezuela, his insults and efforts to dominate Canada by calling it the 51st state, and his attempt to buy Greenland and threats to invade and capture it from Denmark, is helping them to dominate the world in the end – unless the “end times” come sooner.

Trump’s constant misadventures help China to focus on winning the technological battle.
China is well on its way to dominating the following industries: AI, biotech, batteries and electric vehicles. In 2025, Chinese automakers made nearly 16 million electric vehicles, representing 75% of the EVs made in the world.

More electric vehicles are sold in China than gas-powered vehicles.

In the DSA only 10% of the vehicles sold are electric. Here is China’s sales record in other areas of the world for electric vehicles sold: Latin America-80%, Southeast Asia-75%, Australia-57%.

It’s also price, price, price. Chinese budget models sell for $7,800 compared to the Chevrolet Volt, which is $29,000 in the U.S.

Electric vehicles are more popular because some have refrigerators, massage seats and big TV screens. The Chinese have also solved the problem of waiting around for car batteries to be charged. They have developed the technology of replacing depleted batteries with fully charged ones. They have more than 6,000 charging stations that can replace a battery with a fully charged one in minutes-– and are adding about 200 stations a month.

South Korean potato farmers recently ran a big special on baked
It appears that climate change may not be a hoax, folks. A. recent record-breaking heat wave of more than 100-degrees in South Korea brought out potato farmers worried about their green crops fading to brown leaves and it was close to picking time. The heat wave lasted so long that it cooked potatoes in the ground. Is there a big market for baked potatoes in the supermarket?

When I was tending bar in the Tree Top Restaurant in Moorhead’s Frederick Martin Hotel in the 1950s, there was always a special Red River Valley huge potato with all kinds of fixings on the menu, but the cooks had to bake them first. It was big enough for a meal.

The man who claims he is “the most powerful man in the world” (who is also the most ignorant!) claims he has made a deal with Venezuela for 65 billion barrels of oil so countries can continue to increase the temperature of our planet to make it totally uninhabitable in just a few years.

The D.C. nutcase hates EVs, solar panels, thinks wind turbines cause cancer and kill too many birds, that climate change is a hoax, and is so dumb he doesn’t understand the continued use of fossil fuels will kill every human on the planet.

The oceans average nearly 70 degrees, the hottest in 125,000 years. July was the hottest month in the U.S. since records were kept since 1895.

According to reports, Europe is close to a climate disaster. Climate expert Roger Saul put it bluntly: “We have walked straight off the edge of the cliff.” 

Spain, Morocco and North Africa are going through what is called “desertification.” That is, they are turning into deserts.

France, Spain and Portugal have had numerous destructive forest fires. Cool England is in a drought on 75% of its arable land affecting 45 million people. Rainfall is down to 10% of normal! Grain harvests are the worst on record. British farmers are losing about $530 million and other European farmers are in the process of losing $2.3 billion.

The worst news? The current El Nino is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years where temperatures are rising rapidly.

The supply of water for home use and agriculture is becoming critical in all of Europe. Europe’s longest river the beautiful “Blue” Danube, is so low the scuttled Nazi ships from World War II are fully exposed in the river.

Nuclear power plants have had to close down because there isn’t enough river water to cool the reactors. Germany’s Rhine River is at its lowest in history. Many riverboat industries have had to shut down.

Tourist riverboats can no longer use many rivers in Europe. Many companies have shifted their boats to The Netherlands and Belgium where there is sufficient water. Mediterranean resorts have closed because tourists are looking for cooler climes. 

Since 1980 extreme weather in the European Union has cost nearly $1 trillion – mostly in the last four years.

People have to be reminded that climate disasters are not necessarily new. In 2003 several heat waves killed more than 70,000 people.

High temperatures affect the old. poor and the isolated residents in disadvantaged areas. In other words, extreme and invisible heat waves kill people who are often invisible in public life.

French climate scientists in 2017 warned that average heat waves could reach more than 122 degrees by 2100. France already has heat waves in May, June and July, In a few years they will experience them in September and October. Very few French schools have air conditioning.

Europe has already lost many thousands to heat waves: In 2022-70,000, 2023-48,000, and 20240-63,000. Paris alone lost 10,000 residents to heat waves in 2025, with many deaths in the river Seine by swimmers trying to cool down from 105-degree days.

My French brothers and sisters can be very stubborn. Even in 2026, 78% thought air conditioning “not respectful of the environment!” Only 25% of French homes have air conditioning.

The Swiss are experimenting with placing solar panels between train tracks to see if they can get enough electricity to power their electric trains. It is working. They may install solar panels on 3,000 miles of track in Switzerland to run their trains.

The Divided States of America has 140,000 miles of track. Solar panels between them could help solve a major problem!