that's the greatest problem in the united states. there will be more radicalism unchecked coming out of afghanistan and pakistan on the basis of the taliban taking over and not being able to control their country. that is primarily a problem for the chinese, for the indians, for stan, and, of course, for our our allies -- and pakistan. to the extent that biden h as a foreign-policy doctrine, it is really this idea of a foreign policy for the american middle class. the jake sullivan national security at pfizer has been most articulate. -- the national security advisor has been most articulate. to the effect that for 20 years now as we have been fighting a war that is not serve the purpose of the average american. i was elected on the basis of changing that he was the guy that strongly up was the failed surge in the obama administration in afghanistan he wanted to put and end to that.

the average american voter is not voting and how successful the u.s. is or is not in afghanistan. there must -- much more interested infrastructure than in $2.2 trillion wasted in 20 years in afghanistan. biden is politically very aware of that. that i don't take -- issue. taylor: you had educate, next up, china. it is interesting the editor of the global times, the state run media commented then and hinted that china is not as arrogant as the americans to swoop in. they are not so sure that they would go in. argue for the case for why they need stability for the belt and road initiative to stan and what economic interests they have in afghanistan -- through paskistan. ian: the chinese are not about

to take the baton and send tens of thousands of troops on the ground in afghanistan. no question about that. but they are the major power in the region now that will be most affected by the fact that the taliban, the taliban are a failed state. so we already see chinese leaders that are sort of throwing promises of diplomatic support and eventually economic investment into afghanistan. and chinese have been killed, a bus in pakistan because they are seen as too active on the ground. this is going to be a problem for china going forward, no question. caroline: closer to home, you mentioned that most voters are more concerned at home, how much spending is being done. and in terms of this -- what the spac is -- what the spac is, by democrats and some

republicans, what is unfolding in afghanistan and whether it makes it difficult to pus through the spending agenda that biden does have. ian: the country is incredibly divided up and we of january 6. that was a normatively -- was enormously problematic in showing political dysfunctionality in the u.s. and you can still get movement on bipartisanship for infrastructure on the back of that. this is a smaller deal than the average senator member of the house of representatives in kabul than what happened on january 6 for the republic but we are not through this yet. i want to be clear. if we end up in a hostage situation whewre americans -- where americans are caught in the crossfire, where this ends up making headlines for weeks or months the way you did iran in 1979, this will destroy biden's presidency. that's a lot bigger than whether or not we get through the

infrastructure money. i don't think that's a base scenario, it is not 50% but it is not 1%. this speech that biden gave almost implied that there wasn't such a risk going forward. he already talked in the rear premier, i'd make that decision again. let's get to the crisis first. the acting american ambassador fled this we but a lot of americans are still there, and as much as the taliban is saying that they will provide safe passage to the kabul airport, i don't necessarily trust the taliban at face value face value. -- i think it is fair of me to say that. taylor: as we pivot to international relations and a lot of commentary about taiwan or ukraine right nonw. what are you thinking when you think about the way americans,

allies and china's rising influence. how do you think about china and taiwan in this moment? ian: you ask about taiwan and you can. these are two very different animals. if you are ukraine, you recognize and you should recognize for a long time that the americans do not really care very much about you. we had agreements, as did the russians with them that they gave him nuclear weapons that we would make sure, ensure their sovereignty. that did not happen when the russians attacked. we've made clear we will not let ukraine in nato. we do not cap in the europeans will not let them in the european union. if you are country that is not a top purity, what you are seeing in kabul -- not a top priority, what you are seeing in kabul, the world is one where regional or set carol paul dominion and nonstate actors can play around in a vacuum. now taiwan, different story.

i wanted a top strategic priority for the u.s. militarily, economically, technologically -- semi conductors. the same thing is true for the balkan states. members of nato. and i do not believe for an instant that the same members of the chinese government that are doing wheelies over american decline around mishandling in afghanistan think that the u.s. suddenly does not care about taiwan and they can just take it over. that is propaganda but it is also bs. romaine: i want to stick on the china theme and the idea that china may play a larger role here. there was a lot of discussion in the lead up to this about china's potential influence in afghanistan as well as in some of the other areas out there that are some sort of dispute with the u.s. creating this vacuum. there has been an argument made that china's economic approach to some of these regions and to some of these groups, like the taliban, could be more effective than the military and different

medical approach that the u.s. in europe has taken. ian: i except that. the united states is the world's military superpower. it is the only one. , and with the level of military influence we have when we respond to international challenges, we tend to overweight that in the equation. i think united states would've been far better off with fewer troops on the ground, less focus on the military, and more focus on humanitarian support, diplomatic support, grassroots support. you can't take over all of afghanistan that wait.the initial mission was get rid of al qaeda, get rid of been laden. -- bin laden. we did. building up a 300,000 person army in afghanistan, that is a stupid way to proceed. four presidents have failed in various aspects of that mission. plenty of blame to go around but the chinese should not try to

replicate u.s. nationbuilding. in that regard, there downsize will be more effective. taylor: smart and brutally honest comments from ian bre mmer. among the geopolitical turmoil going on, there are talking a lot about china. we got a lot of that data overnight and some of the peak growth concerns that we got. i want to bring a few highlights. retail sales 8%. industrial production up 6.4%, well below estimates. in unemployment rate that rose back up to 5.1%. this chart of course, the retail sales but it has been across the board, caroline. what do you think about peak growth being behind? caroline: flooding in central china and weak auto sales, slope property market in environmental policies -- not to mention their own regulatory headwinds caused by the government itself

to chart a crackdown on these outperforming industries and foreign capital from flooding in. we talk about china also in the focus of the delta virus. all of this is something we want to dig in into the future of china and implications thereof. we'll be talking the revelatory outlook next. tech crackdown, no signs of letting up. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: welcome back to "what'd you miss?" talking a lot about what is going on overseas and no way that vacuum in afghanistan we are talking about china. china's emerging power. you have to look within china's

borders, even before all of the sort of geopolitical issues, to talk about the chinese economy and the chinese tech industry and what gigi brings -- xi jinping's plans were. caroline: technology was in the headlines around the financial -- the anti financial ipo and into education companies and into the gaming environment. that is why we continue to see tencent under pressure by 4.5%, a significant amount of its revenue coming from gaming. alibaba under pressure and not to mention net -- half of their earnings coming from mobile games as we see china tightening regulation, talking about the sentiment of basically worries about addiction to this thing, the policy curves that could come into play. taylor: some of those intraday charts, we had a few of those. one day has been about 20 of

those days. in northeast asia, a practice had at eurasia group. michael, great to have you. we are talking to your counterpart, ian bremmer for the geopolitical angles of all of the news.talk to us about the market perspective. what is china's goal when you think about the regulatory crackdowns and really ruling with an iron fist, what you think the end goal is for beijing? michael: being the end goal for xi jinping is to make sure that all parts of china's corporate sector, especially the private sector, are aligned behind his agenda. and for the thinking about the large e-commerce companies, they are really caught in the cross was between those two key priorities. what is the shift from consumer focused technology to so-called hard tech, like semi conductors that beijing believes are

critical to u.s.-china competition or where they need to reduce the reliance on the u.s. the other aspect is seeking things growing focus on -- xi jingping's focus on addiction and worried about demographic issues. the large e-commerce platforms especially are really hit by both of these factors that have taken a leg up over the last three to four months romaine: i'm curious about the long-term goal paid we get to the idea that china has always been or in recent years been a communist country. and even though we sort of had free market principles that guided the way for the growth of this economy over the last few decades, at its heart the we embrace of that communism seems to be a big part of zhejiang -- xi jinping's goal.

how do you foster these companies allow them to grow if not necessarily more powerful? michael: i think this is less about private sector versus the state, markets first planned economy as it is about really the party reasserting control private sector and pushing them to aligned behind the party's goals. that said, the tensions are just as you described. you've seen essentially an entire sector, online education stocks, put out of business overnight. and you have seen a crackdown that is impacting a lot of sectors, especially high growth sectors in china. so i think this is going to be a problem. i think it is going to be a challenge for the animal spirit's in the private sector. i think it is going to weigh down foreign investors, even in sectors that beijing wants to channel capital into.

what is in the mind of policymakers here is the private sector that is thriving but one that is aligned behind where the party wants him to go. so, this is a more specialized private sector. it is one that is focused on national innovation goals. it's not one where you have very large tech companies that are just moving aggressively into adjacent sectors and dominating whole ecosystems. so, this is going to be a tough time for a lot of private sector firms in china to make in a difficult adjustment for investors. caroline: could bytedance go public in america now? is that a reality on the table and should u.s. investor want to go into it? michael: i think it is going to be tricky. i think it is going to be difficult both on the chinese side and on the u.s. side, because one thing we have seen over the last realy six weeks is that in the wake of the

didi debacle is both sides putting new restrictions on ipo's. and those restrictions are tougher chinese companies that possess data which is an area of concern both on the chinese side and on the u.s. side, and of course, bytedance and tiktok come of concern for regulators in both countries. so, it is not necessarily out of the picture but the political hurdles are getting very high for this kind of ipo. taylor: how do you see this all playing out? michael: i think investors are rightfully focused on thinking about which sectors are next, but is not so much that i think other sectors are going to face the treatments of online educational stocks. i still think that is an outlier. but this is the new normal that's going to impact a quite broad range of sectors in china. so i think it is going to be a matter not so much of new business models becoming obsolete overnight, but a lot of business models are going to be under pressure. profitability is under pressure. it is going to be a matter of understanding how the political

objectives a beijing are shifting. right now they are focused on antitrust, on data security, on social welfare goals, on demographic issues. those will probably stay front and center but others will come and these will ebb and flow. it is a confusing picture. it does not mean china is declaring war on the private sector or foreign capital, but to be sure they are definitely under a significant geopolitical and strength now. romaine: always great to get your thoughts. michael hirson, over at the eurasia group. we are talking about what is going on within china, the second largest economy. we re going to talk about what is going on coming out of china, a $1 trillion in imports coming out of china. we will talk about how the biggest port could cause a amid -- could cause a major disruption of shipping in the u.s.. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: focused on china and one of the key stories has been the ongoing closure of what is the world third biggest port. taylor, this is all around -- when it comes to covid. taylor: it is like we did not have a problem before hand, we have a really -- we really have a problem now. these are shipping crates. it is east to west and west to east, europe to asia, all over the world we have been having huge congestion and huge pricing issues. we have had a lot of conversation on this program with the port of long beach and los angeles. they just finally started to get rid of some of the congestion and then, indeed, some of the supply chain kinks means that congestion is about to begin all over again. let's do all of this and more with the mercury group ceo anton posner. what do you make of some of the supply chain issues that we felt

like this had started to ease but then you get a closure of the t hird busiest port and you start to wonder if it will happen all over again. anton: good afternoon, great to be on again. thanks for having me. it never ceases to period as this poing. we're dealing with all kinds of disruptions and problems throughout the world but particular in china with closure of this large marine terminal in ningbo south of shanghai. these are container ships, steamship lines, diverting ships from port, trying to figure out ways to move their containers to other ports. there is no good answer. we are hearing a possible reopening of this particular terminal with sometime within the next couple of weeks, unofficially. it's -- this just adds to the craziness. romaine: can you give us some

insight into the option the some of the folks are taking to get their stuff out and get it to the u.s. or wherever the stuff is going? if they are not using the containers and they moved to bulk, how does that change the dynamic? anton: good question. the problem is not all cargos are conducive to switching to bulk. let's say you're dealing with delicate consumer goods, not something necessarily you will want to stack ten high in a bulk carrier. however, if you're dealing with metals or copper or feel goods that could potentially work in bulk, we are seeing a rush towards trying to change those cargoes over to get onto bulk ships. at least with bulk ships you have a main vessel, most often you know when that ship's going to be in. you're not putting your goods in the container, hoping it eventually gets onto a ship. we're seeing this changeover to

some extent. where it makes sense to do so with that particular, with some certain cargoes and commodities. caroline: it has been six days, we haven't heard any updates since wednesday on this particular port. you're a man who brings transparency to this area. tell us what, we are about to get retail earnings from the united states, but retailers are desperate to know whether they will get goods for the seasonal distribution. let aone people ordering -- let alone people ordering couches or refrigerators, which is a pain but they are not aimed at one day. how are people getting transparency as to whether the zero covid policy will keep on knocking into winter? anton: the simple answer to that is there is not going to be any hope of transparency in to what is going on. we could wake up tomorrow and find out that the situation is happening in another port.

to give us some other insight on the bulk side you have ships with coal, for example, going for indonesia into china that, then from australia for that matter, that china is keeping offshore because of covid concerned, because of -- or concerns about quarantine. it is not sure -- not even isolated to container ships and the retail goods. as far as what you mentioned, caroline, the transparency is extremely tough. the nature of containers is that you stuff your goods into a container and you send it to the port. you don't necessarily know what ship is going to be loaded on. it sits at the port. it's off, you're still on your books at that point. caroline: anton, always helping us pain a picture of what is so difficult to see. anton posner, stay well. that does it for "what'd you miss?" taylor: "bloomberg technology"

is up next. romaine: this is bloomberg. ♪

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announcer: from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide, and silicone valley and beyond. this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. [standby]