I don’t know how long this article will stay up. I only hope that in whatever time remains, you’ll read carefully, absorb what’s hidden between the lines, and hold onto it.
1
Some say we’re in the pre-dawn light — not yet day, not yet night. Others say this is the closing chapter of an era, with the road ahead uncertain.
But from a practical standpoint, the real show — the true new phase — is only just beginning to unfold.
Many things, if you fixate narrowly on isolated details, will only look more depressing the longer you stare. But step back and consider the macro picture, and you’ll find that this enormous force of ours is accumulating, settling, enduring, and waiting.
And growing stronger all the while.
2
In this world, weakness is a kind of original sin — so much so that when you are weak, even if you are oppressed and harmed by great powers, no one pays any attention.
“I want to destroy you — what does that have to do with you?” Brutal, yet real.
In this world, strength is also a kind of original sin. When you truly rise and rejuvenate, the great powers that once fed off you will look upon you with disgust and contempt — and they will fear that you remember the injustices of the past.
3
When reading the many shifts happening around us, don’t just look at the immediate fragment — look at the direction of change.
Those who can read trends can read the world.
The increasingly clear posture of neutrality from France and the UK. The ever more complete and independent supply chains built since the trade war. The continuous development of naval and air forces — ships and planes rolling off the line. The determined restructuring and phasing out of old industrial capacity…
Yes, life isn’t exactly comfortable right now. But what can you do — climbing a hill has always meant working up a sweat.
And over the past two years, I’ve traveled through most of the world’s major regions. Every household has its own difficult story to tell.
4
Some things aren’t convenient to say publicly — nor is there any need to speak in absolutes. After all, 99% of people can’t follow complex logic. In their eyes, everything is either black or white. They have no concept of the “gray zones” that mature adults navigate.
It’s like the many people who love to offer grand commentary on world affairs, yet have never managed even a small work team of more than twenty people in their entire lives.
So let me offer a few trend-level summaries.
Going forward, cities will undergo further stratification and increasingly defined roles. Small cities will offer quiet, peaceful living. Major cities will burn with ambition and energy.
The easing of monetary conditions has been progressing in an orderly fashion. The time left to position yourself for the next phase is not short — but it’s not long either. This will be the most important and decisive “era dividend” of your life.
All the diverging views will be validated over the next five years. The bets are placed; the stones are down — no second-guessing.
Infrastructure will be renewed and upgraded. Industries will be optimized and transformed. Our own products will begin, slowly, to step beyond our borders — achieving the true strategic advance of commercial and institutional capital.
5
For ordinary people, there is one essential truth to understand: the era ahead will only become more “urban” — not more “freelance and freewheeling.”
What’s the difference?
Urbanization increasingly sidelines raw individual effort. What it tests instead is your ability to read policy, current events, and cycles. These forces will give you opportunities, again and again — it’s purely a question of whether you can cut through the noise, identify what matters, and seize it.
Opportunities always exist. But going forward, they will be concentrated in the next three to five years.
For ordinary people, there are several questions you genuinely need to sit down and think through: Does my job and the industry I’m in have a future? Does the city where my assets and property are located have a future? Have I truly set aside the time to seriously study the current macro trends?
One more reminder: right now we’re in a period of building up to something big. By year-end and into next spring, a wave of critical decisions will emerge that will require your judgment.
I’ll say again what I’ve always said: what decides your entire life is, in the end, just 20 key choices.
If those 20 choices go well, your life will be one of steady, sustained ascent. If those choices go wrong — or if you simply give up and refuse to make them — then life is destined to slowly decline until it sinks into the mud.
— Master Chi