Hard Numbers

837: Chinese direct investment in Pakistan totaled $837 million in 2017, compared to $42 million for the US. China loves a vacuum.

15: Iranians have become 15 percent poorer in real terms over the past decade, according to the BBC. Now some of them are calling for change.

7: China’s One Belt One Road initiative is expected to costmore than seven times what the US spent on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. This is the most important geopolitical story you’ve never heard of.

150: The Chinese government has committed $150 billion dollars to AI in its current five-year plan. The US spent $1.2 billion on unclassified programs in 2016.

22: The popularity of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tory Party dropped 22 percentage points this summer, the largest such drop for any UK prime minister in the past half century. #StrongAndSteady