"They're looking to explore Alaska" is the latest word on how Communist China might reduce its dependence on uncertain Persian Gulf oil imports, according to a Fox News report on Thursday.
As you must know by now, President Donald Trump and his impressive entourage are in Beijing for a two-day summit with Chinese Communist Party boss Xi Jinping, which always makes for great TV. I grew up watching presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush meet with an accelerating array of Soviet party bosses, usually so that they could agree that neither side would build more nuclear missiles than it takes to blow up the world 30 times, instead of the previously agreed-to 25 times.
Then there was that time in 1986 at Reykjavik when the Soviets were so close to being flat on their backs that Mikhail Gorbachev proposed that both sides give up their entire nuclear arsenals — "Nuke Free in '93!" or some drivel like that — if Reagan would just give up his silly notions about missile defense.
Nyet, comrade.
The point is that back then, these things were tense because one bad summit might mean the end of the world.
Nuclear Armageddon isn't on the table with China — or at least not quite yet — but both sides wage Cold War II along parameters like trade where the Soviets were basically a nonentity, or in fields like AI that didn't exist during the first Cold War.
While modern summits lack the nuclear drama, the stakes and the tension still run high. Heck, Chinese journalists — government scribes just like our own but without the moral preening — trampled a White House aide on Thursday. The New York Post reported that one member of the U.S. delegation called the whole thing a “s—tshow."
Still, better than last year.
2025 was a tough one for Trump's China policy. Trump wanted yuge tariffs (among other policies) to incentivize further decoupling from China, but Xi yanked his chain by playing the rare earths card.
Both sides backed off a bit, avoiding a full-fledged trade war, but developments in 2026 rearranged the chessboard.
Trump moved China-aligned Venezuela into the American camp, and he's still in the prolooooonged process of at least neutralizing Beijing's Middle East source of discounted oil, Iran. Also, the rare earths card can only be played once. Last year, the entire West let out a collective, "Oh hell, we really did deindustrialize the strategic supply chain," and began the long process of re-shoring and friend-shoring production.
Everyone understands that it'll take years to eliminate our dependence on Chinese rare earths. What's less appreciated, however, is Xi actually showed a weak hand when Trump forced him to play his biggest, um, trump card so early in the game.
But while the rest of the world (including Yours Truly) is starting to get a little anxious over what happens to the Islamic Republic and the ongoing struggle for the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing needs a reliable source of oil and gas.
We're on Day One of the summit, and China already agreed to buy 200 American commercial jets from Boeing — take that, Euroweenies and your silly Airbus planes — and discussions are reportedly going well on increased purchases of American farm products.
As one Fox New commentator just put it, "I'm encouraged that we're talking about selling them oil and gas, and I spoke to the senator from Alaska yesterday, and he was telling me that [China] was looking to explore Alaska."
As I said, it's better than last year. Much better.
Now if we could just get their reporters to trample our reporters, that would be the best.
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