1) Is "pressure" on Xi even a thing? I would be curious for those who actually know the top few hundred families in Beijing or their associates (I met like 2-3 associates of the top people over the years for various business things but that's it) to understand their thinking, it certainly seems like the course of China's relations with the rest of the world has been disastrous from any perspective except the ultra-nationalist one in which nationalist triumphalism is the only good anyone wants or needs, and will lead to all elites being essentially cut off from the West economically and perhaps even physically, which can't be their preferred outcome given the precarious nature of leaving all assets at home subject to the turning of their elite politics, yet there seems to have been essentially zero pushback on Xi, ever, from an outside perspective (assuming one discounts rumors of "reformers" objecting but actually never really objecting). What's going on with those families?

2) In line with the Pettis analysis, the higher the deficit, the less the short-term pain, but the greater the long-term pain. As long as no rebalancing occurs, it's a catch 22.

3) My question is, is it even feasible for the US to go for a sudden and rapid decoupling, or would there have to be a concerted, multi-year effort with massive gov't assistance for large companies to get key supply chains/manufacturing in things like medical and military (!) out of China before we did? Would there be like actual economic collapse for the US if it were done suddenly, or would there just be a ton of pain and would the companies (again, likely with massive gov't assistance) be able to ramp up other operations pretty quickly? I ask this not from the perspective of the markets or market analysts, who always seem to say it would be a complete disaster because they're ultra-sensitive to short-term pain since it causes stock prices to go down, but from the actual perspective of feasibility of maintaining supplies of crucial goods etc and assuming big gov't support.