« Nous venons de prendre un cours d’art de la guerre à la chinoise » - François Asselineau

This segment of Tocsin is an extended interview between the host and François Asselineau, identified as president of the UPR. The conversation begins with light political context, then quickly centers on the Trump–Xi meeting in Beijing. Asselineau’s core thesis is that the meeting symbolized a historic shift in power: in his view, China has become the first world power, and the United States arrived from a position of weakness despite Trump’s rhetoric. A large part of the discussion is devoted to Taiwan. Asselineau insists that Taiwan is historically part of China and that Beijing will never allow it to become independent. He argues that Xi’s reference to the “Thucydides Trap” was a deliberate strategic signal showing that Chinese leaders understand Western strategic thought, while Western leaders do not understand China’s historical self-conception. …

1. Asselineau treats the Trump–Xi meeting as a symbolic admission of China’s strategic primacy.
2. He sees Taiwan as the central flashpoint and says Beijing will never accept its independence.
3. He argues Xi used the “Thucydides Trap” to signal awareness of U.S. decline and strategic containment.
4. He presents China as pacific in rhetoric but formidable in long-term state capacity and industrial mobilization.
5. He says Western leaders, especially Americans, misread China because they lack historical and cultural understanding.
6. He ties the China discussion to a broader critique of NATO, the EU, and France’s loss of sovereignty.

• The claim that the meeting officially confirmed China as the world’s first power is more interpretive than demonstrated.
• Several historical digressions are used as evidence, but the transcript does not rigorously connect them to the present policy question.
• The assertion that Nvidia’s China market will fall to zero is stated with excessive certainty and little sourcing.
• He strongly asserts China will never allow Taiwan independence, but does not engage with escalation risks or counter-strategies in detail.
• The idea that the U.S. can’t manage multiple conflicts at once is plausible, but he treats it as settled rather than argued.
• His claim that China’s model is broadly pacific sits uneasily alongside repeated references to military buildup and coercive state power.