After Supply Chains Broke, Migrants Are Cheaper Than Robots—and More Disposable

Source: Diary of a CEO | Published: 2026-09-14T07:00:11Z

Jiang Xueqin argues that deglobalization has shattered the formula for technological progress, permanently closing the parallel universe where AI solves climate and scarcity—replaced instead by networked surveillance cameras and autonomous drone-controlled infrastructure.

After that trip, he made the rounds on American podcasts and forgot about a promised two-week limit, overstaying considerably. This time, arriving to record Diary of a CEO, he was pulled into secondary screening again. The officer gave no explanation — only a suggestion: expect this every time you come, and when your I-94 expires in six months, it may not be renewed.

He believes he's being watched because he publicly discussed what he calls the "Clean Break Memo."

A Formula for Where Technological Progress Comes From

Throughout the podcast, Jiang returns to an equation he derived himself: Technological Progress = Specialization × Globalization.

The logic runs like this: semiconductors require three core materials — silicon, gallium, and germanium. China supplies roughly 60–70% of the world's silicon, 70% of its gallium, and 90% of its germanium. Chip design happens in the United States (Nvidia, Apple), fabrication in Taiwan and Malaysia, lithography machines come from ASML in the Netherlands (at $400 million each), and final assembly into consumer products happens in China. A single chip is the product of the entire planet working together.

This system runs on two pillars: the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency, and American military hegemony guaranteeing freedom of maritime trade.

Jiang's argument is that once those two pillars shake — once globalization retreats and nations turn inward — specialization declines with it, and the formula breaks. He isn't saying innovation will slow down. He's saying the material foundation of civilization's technological progress begins to dissolve.

Why the Petrodollar Is the Linchpin of Everything

To follow his framework, you have to go back to 1971.

After 1945, the United States exported goods to postwar Europe and Japan in exchange for a promise of gold repayment. Then America overspent, flipping from creditor to debtor nation. In 1971, Nixon announced the dollar's decoupling from gold — the Nixon Shock.

After decoupling, what backs the dollar? Demand. A series of landmark arrangements followed: Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states agreed to price oil exclusively in dollars (the petrodollar system); China agreed to accept only dollars in exchange for cheap manufactured goods; Japan agreed to recycle its savings into U.S. Treasuries.

This architecture built the world we know: the Middle East pumps oil, Japan and China use that energy to produce consumer goods, export surpluses flow back into U.S. debt, and America focuses on innovation and finance. New York sits at the financial node of this chain.

The three largest holders of U.S. Treasuries — Japan, Gulf Cooperation Council states, and China — are also, ultimately, the financiers of the entire AI bubble.

The Middle East Wars Are Severing the Chain

Jiang's analysis starts with Iran's proxy network. The Houthis control the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (the Red Sea's exit). Hezbollah can threaten the Suez Canal. Iraqi Shia militias can threaten the Eastern Mediterranean. Iran itself can close the Strait of Hormuz. These four forces are dispersed and fanatical, united by an apocalyptic ideological framework, and all report to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"China ships supplies to Iran via the Belt and Road. Russia supplies Iran through the Caspian. In theory, Iran can fight indefinitely."

From a game theory perspective, Jiang believes Iran's optimal play is to manufacture uncertainty in global trade — random strikes against Saudi energy infrastructure, Israel, and the Suez Canal corridor. The goal isn't occupation. It's to make it impossible for insurers to underwrite global shipping. Global trade runs on confidence. Once confidence collapses, shipping stops.

The American countermove is to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure — desalination plants and power grids. Tehran has roughly ten million people and a food supply heavily dependent on cold chains. The consequences of a blackout, he says, would be more severe than a nuclear strike.

He doesn't see this as beyond America. By imperial logic, he argues, the U.S. would be compelled to act.

The Next War Is Over Water, Not Oil

Maps Jiang presents show an almost perfect overlap between global water stress and geopolitical flashpoints over the next twenty years: the American West (the Colorado River dispute), the entire Middle East, the India-China border region, and Northeast Asia.

A second map shows that the regions with the world's highest birth rates — Africa and the Middle East — almost perfectly coincide with the zones of highest geopolitical tension. Young populations, scarce resources, and conflict inevitably produce migration toward Europe.

Europe's problem is that the most developed nations (Japan, Europe, North America) are aging fastest. Aging societies need cheap labor and must import migrants; importing migrants triggers political backlash from existing residents. He calls this a structurally unsolvable contradiction: robots could theoretically replace labor, but robots require copper (Chile, Peru), lithium (the lithium triangle), and rare earths (China) — all of which depend on global supply chains. When those chains break, migrants are cheaper than robots. And more expendable.

Three Predictions That Land in Silence

First prediction: New York besieged.

Jiang believes that if Trump remains in power after 2028 — by whatever means — cities like New York may refuse to remit federal taxes and block federal law enforcement from entering. Historical precedent: Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War; Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans during World War II. He predicts the federal government may cut off New York's food and water supply, creating a prolonged siege. He offered the host Steven a $100 bet: on January 21, 2029, Trump will still be in the White House.

Second prediction: an attack on American financial infrastructure.

His logic: 9/11 converted public trauma into self-destructive revenge — one strike on a symbol of American power unleashed twenty years of permanent war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, burning through trillions of dollars, military credibility, and Washington's moral standing. The next 9/11-style attack will target financial data servers. One morning you pick up your phone to buy a coffee and your bank account reads zero, with no timeline for recovery. That's harder to process than collapsed buildings, because it renders all savings meaningless.

Third prediction: Messi becomes president of Argentina.

The logic chain here is longer: Israel is experiencing a deep internal fracture between secular Jews and messianic Jews, and one release valve is emigration. Argentina is seen as a viable destination, but absorbing large-scale Israeli immigration requires a political figure large enough to bring locals on board. Messi's stature, combined with Argentina reasserting its claim over the Falkland Islands — two things that make Argentines feel proud — could provide political cover for an immigration policy.

A China-Japan Conflict Is Nearly Geographically Inevitable

Jiang argues that Western commentary has long overestimated the likelihood of a Taiwan invasion — while inside China, almost no one actually believes it will happen. What everyone believes, instead, is that there will be a conflict between China and Japan.

Geography dictates the logic. China is a largely self-sufficient land power. Japan is a maritime nation entirely dependent on external resources. Japan's energy, food, and industrial inputs arrive almost entirely from overseas. As global supply chains fragment and the American security umbrella shrinks, Japan must secure access to Southeast Asian resources — and Taiwan sits directly in the way.

If Taiwan unifies with China, Beijing theoretically acquires the option to blockade Japan. Japan cannot tolerate that option remaining open, even if it would never be exercised. This is the fundamental reason Japan treats the Taiwan question as a core national security interest.

Jiang sees this as quietly advantageous for the United States: rising China-Japan tensions will push TSMC to relocate semiconductor manufacturing to American soil, and TSMC's new Arizona fab is already under construction. Taiwan's strategic value to America is less a political commitment than a supply chain bargaining chip.

Russia's Only Path to Victory Is Dragging Europe Into the War

Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian oil refineries transformed this from a war of attrition in eastern Ukraine into a direct economic wound on Russia. The drones are built in Germany and the UK. Europe provides open-ended financing and intelligence. Theoretically, Ukraine can sustain this indefinitely.

Jiang believes Russia's only way out of this grinding war is to force Europe to formally enter it. The method: escalate strikes against European domestic infrastructure, enrage European publics and governments, and trigger mass mobilization. Once Russia declares total war, it can theoretically mobilize at least three million reservists, forcing Europe to mobilize in kind. But he believes Europeans would sooner overthrow their own governments than fully mobilize against Russia — which is exactly the card Russia is betting on.

AI Won't Solve Our Problems. It Will Be Used to Control Us.

If global supply chains continue contracting over the next twenty years, the formula for technological progress cannot sustain the conditions for AGI. In Jiang's view, that parallel universe — where AI solves climate change, cures disease, and eliminates scarcity — will close.

In its place, AI gets redeployed as control infrastructure: networked cameras, real-time surveillance, autonomous drones. His example: if New York is ever actually besieged, Palantir will use the moment to advance an AI-controlled autonomous drone warfare system.

His deeper concern isn't surveillance itself — it's how AI cheapens human experience. He invokes the narratives of Musk, Thiel, and Altman — computers will outperform humans at math and medical diagnosis — and then says: even if that's true, the core human mission is love, imagination, and care for one another. Fixating on AI pulls us off that track.

From a Yale Scholarship to Believing in God

Jiang Xueqin grew up poor, in an immigrant family. His father washed dishes for thirty years. No car. No vacations. He won a full scholarship to Yale and entered the world believing it was meritocratic — that reason, science, truth, and good people would prevail.

Brexit and Trump's election shattered that belief. He describes both as traumatic. One was Britain rejecting globalization; the other was America rejecting meritocracy. He spent years rebuilding his framework from the wreckage, and arrived at the formula: specialization times globalization.

His advice to ordinary people comes down to two things: believe in God, and invest in your family. He says he spent his thirties and forties angry, frustrated, and depressed because he had staked everything on the material world and the elite order. Without God, there is no order; without order, there is only chaos. His wife, his three children, and a faith he only truly found in the past two years are what carried him out of that despair.

When his son Chris was two years old, he told his parents: "I come from another world." Then he gave that world a name. The two of them looked at each other and thought: yes. We know.