| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the experimentation necessary for nascent technology integration of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter here. Some Korean American friends once invited me to their son's first birthday party, which I found odd, because who wants to go to a first birthday party? Not even one-year-olds, if my experience is typical. But it turned out that a Korean child's first birthday is a pretty amazing day, called a Dol. Grandparents and cousins come from around the globe, the celebrant is dressed up in a colorful robe and hat combo, all sorts of yummies are set out, including miyeok-guk, a seaweed soup that my kids weren't gonna touch but for me sure beats a melting Fudgie the Whale and half-slices of cold pizza. The big event is of the day is the Doljabi ceremony, in which the child is placed in front of an assortment of objects and urged (occasionally steered) by the family to choose one that may predict his or her future. You'll see coins, pencils, string and even a toy stethoscope — to augur wealth, scholarship, long life, and long hours as a resident, I guess. It was charming, but real import of the day didn't hit me until later: One year of life has long been a big day because in a high-mortality society like 18th-century Korea, it was quite an achievement for a child just to get there. Which brings us to a question: Will the one-year trade deal conceived in South Korea by US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping live to see its Dol? Because around Trump, such agreements have a very high mortality rate. Robert Burgess isn't looking up seaweed soup recipes, even if Trump did rate the meeting a very Trumpian 12 on a scale of 1 to 10. "As far as not adding to the disruptions in global trade caused by Trump's chaotic tariff policies, Trump's assessment is probably correct," Robert writes. "But on substance, it's more like a five — at best — for the US. Rather than coming away with a framework for resolving the fundamental differences between the two countries, the few details we have of the one-year truce struck on Thursday suggest a temporary stabilization of relations where China maintains significant leverage over the US in one critical area." The critical area, of course, is Labubus! OK, sorry — just making sure you were paying attention. It's really minerals critical to manufacturing and military might. "The trade war with China may not have gone as the White House hoped — but exactly as it should've expected. Rather than capitulating, Chinese leaders leveraged their commanding position in mining and processing rare earth metals to pressure the US into bargaining," writes the Editorial Board. "A truce shouldn't obscure the glaring lesson: The US urgently needs to accelerate efforts to develop a non-Chinese supply chain for critical minerals and magnets."  China also has a hoard of more prosaic materials, and a stranglehold over the contents of your kitchen drawer. "It lacks the effervescence of copper and the geopolitical allure of rare earths – yet aluminum is the metal of the moment," writes Javier Blas. "Key to modern life and everywhere in the global economy, it's entering a make-or-break phase: Either the world is sleepwalking into a supply crisis or further into the hands of China. Or, more worryingly, both." Moving even further down the prosaic scale, we have iron ore — a scrap over scrap metal. "The raw material is China's biggest single import after computer chips and crude oil, with $133 billion spent last year on supplies from Australia, Brazil, and a handful of other countries," writes David Ficking. "This may well be the first major fight in which companies that grew rich providing China with raw materials find themselves contending with a destabilizing wave of 'scrapitalism.' Sitting atop colossal stockpiles of aging metal from its own industrialization, Beijing is turning itself from a pure consumer of basic commodities into a supplier and competitor." Beijing, however, does not sit atop a colossal stockpile of high-end semiconductors. "China will expect the US to loosen curbs on cutting-edge chips, so it can get access to high-end technology and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, future-proofing its economy," Karishma Vaswani writes. "Such an outcome would reinforce Xi's narrative that the West is in decline, and the East is rising amid 'great changes unseen in a century.'" To be fair, the US has had some wins of late in terms of geopolitics — but nothing that will change Xi's narrative. "Trump has gotten toughest with relatively weak actors, whether isolated outlaws like Venezuela and Iran, or allies that are strategically dependent on Washington. The real trial will be making American might effective against the recalcitrant great powers that aren't much impressed by his swagger," writes Hal Brands. "Russia and China are determined to show that Trump's toughness is bluff; they are pursuing geopolitical projects radically at odds with US interests. Checking their power will require Trump to change, or at least temper, three of his defining traits." Those three traits are, according to Hal: a short attention span, a tendency to stab allies in the back, and a penchant for divisive politics at home. Change is always possible, I suppose. But Trump's sojourn in Seoul hasn't tempered a fourth defining trait— one he shares with Korean toddlers at a Doljabi: an irresistible attraction to shiny objects.  South Korean President Lee Jae Myung knows all that glitters attracts Trump. Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Bonus One Reading and Quizzing: What's the World Got in Store ? - OPEC+ meeting, Nov. 2: OPEC+ Won't Pivot on Production Until Oil Prices Fall Further — Javier Blas
- US Election Day, Nov. 4: Don't Decriminalize Sex Work. Legalize and Regulate It. — Allison Schrager
- BOE rate decision, Nov. 6: King Charles Destroys His Brother Over Epstein. America Dithers — Rosa Prince
Rare earths, aluminum, iron ore — everything seems to be going China's way in the battle between the superpowers. But all these metals are nothing but scrap in comparison agentic AI. And while the US (maybe?) still has the lead in quality, China is hoping quantity has a quality of its own. According to a new report from the China Internet Network Information Center, the nation had more than 500 million AI users as of June, up by 266 million since December. Is that metric meaningful? "The question shouldn't be how many there are, but how they're using it," writes Catherine Thorbecke. "And while state-owned enterprises are adept at following government directives, they aren't known for excelling at the experimentation necessary for nascent technology integration. Getting people to use or play around with AI is the easy part. Ensuring it has an impact on the bottom line has been trickier." But who cares about the bottom line when you can play around with this fella?  AI arf. Photographer: Manaure Quintero/ AFP/Getty Imags "Humanoid robots have been getting a lot of buzz this year. But quadrupeds — the mechanical 'dogs' — are emerging as the true proving ground for embodied artificial intelligence," Catherine writes in a separate column. "These four-legged machines have an edge over their upright cousins in stability and agility, making them better suited for real-world deployment." Of course: "China, not the US, already dominates." "It's a lead that will be difficult for the US to claw back. Quadruped robots are fast evolving from backflipping tech demos to serious testbeds for computer systems navigating the real world," Catherine tells us, while throwing in a caveat: "Despite all the hype, especially from China, it is not yet ready for primetime. Many are still trying to prove themselves as useful, instead of just highlighting the tricks they can do." This great-power rivalry just got off the leash. Note: Please send AI puppies and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net | 
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