The Chinese Century April 18, 2026April 18, 2026 ROBOTS The Chinese outnumber us 4 to 1 in people and the entire world in robots. Why would we expect always to remain the largest economy and the most powerful nation on earth? And that’s okay — not every nation can be forever #1. In terms of happiness, we’re not even in the Top 20. As I’ve argued before, the American Century began in 1917 when we entered World War I and ended exactly on time 100 years later when the current president was sworn in. I think you’ll find this New York Times “The Daily” ear-popping: How China Made Itself Tariff-Proof (32 minutes). (If you’re not a Times subscriber, here’s the executive summary: they are way ahead of everybody — even the Germans and Japanese — in “dark” factories that need no humans . . . and in using robots to manufacture more robots to widen that lead further . . . and in part it’s their response to the one-child policy that has left them with tens of millions of highly educated young people who refuse to do factory jobs. How ironic is that? A Chinese labor shortage.) To me, the top line is that we’d better find a way to be nice to each other and avoid the Thucydides Trap. What about a world in which we and China cooperated to enforce sovereignty, eradicate poverty, solve the climate crisis and — most challenging of all — keep A.I. from brushing us all aside, save the few it might keep for research and amusement? BILLBOARDS This simple leaving MAGA billboard in Spokane, Washington, made the local news and went viral on Reddit, driving 80,000 visits to the leavingMAGA site. It’s hard to leave MAGA, as founder Rich Logis can tell you first-hand. For years, he was one of their biggest boosters. It’s a little less hard now that there’s a community of like-minded people to welcome them home. PEDOPHILES Any word on the files in which the Trump name appears more than 38,000 times? Any word on the young teen’s accusation that has not gone away? MARTHA NEVER SAID THIS But she may have thought it.