ChinaEconTalk

what a mess! Wario Amodei's slow jam vibe: https://suno.com/s/cf3KDdVQ5F0KCjow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawrence Freedman is the dean of strategic studies. He's written books about the Falklands War, nuclear strategy, political-military relations, Kennedy's foreign policy, the revolution of military affairs, and (my personal favorite) the history of strategy.   Freedman is now part of the father-son writing duo samf.substack.com. Note: we recorded this in the summer of 2023. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this conversation. In this far-reaching conversation, we discuss: How the Falklands saved Thatcher's premiership, making her the Iron Lady, Why the great strategic decisions of history rarely have clear, pivotal moments, Parallels between Putin, Xi, and the Argentine junta — what the Falklands campaign tells us about Ukraine, Taiwan, and the future of war, How nuclear war went from being a “winnable” geopolitical contest to the apocalyptic dog that didn't bark, What Cold War arms control treaties can and can't tell us about AI, The best strategists not covered by last week's interview with Hal Brands, Lawrence Freedman's recipe for wide reading and prolific writing. Outro music: Oh! It's a Lovely War (1918) · Courtland & Jeffries (Youtube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Harrell drops in, attorney who served in the Obama and Biden admins and submitted a brief in this case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark opens the show talking Iran. Recurring cohosts include Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson. Eric Slesinger of 201 Ventures drops in https://ericslesinger.com/ outtro music: rubio's speech https://suno.com/s/KnIpTyZIU7iJSeIf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're here for a CHIPS Act megapod, in person with Mike Schmidt and Todd Fisher, the director and founding CIO of the CHIPS Program Office, respectively. We discuss… The mechanisms behind the success of the CHIPS Act, What CHIPS can teach us about other industrial policy challenges, like APIs and rare earths, What it takes to build a successful industrial policy implementation team, How the fear of “another Solyndra” is holding back US industrial policy, Chris Miller's recent interest in revitalizing America's chemical industry. This post is a collaboration with the Factory Settings Substack: https://www.factorysettings.org/. Subscribe for more insights from former CHIPS Program Office leaders! Suno song link: https://suno.com/s/wwVYK10LfrAD5zK2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're trying out a different format to explore "Chinese peptides." We talk to biohackers using compounds like BPC-157 to heal extreme injuries, go undercover as peptide buyers, and discuss the challenges of reporting on the Chinese pharmaceutical ecosystem with the legendary Hamilton Morris. Special thanks to guests Jasmine Sun, Hamilton Morris, Aaron Kesselheim, Marcus, and David. This episode was produced by Lily Ottinger with additional reporting from Irene Zhang and Nick Corvino. Check out Jasmine's NYT article here. ChinaTalk merch available now at https://chinatalk.printful.me/. Your purchase helps us make more content like this! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Admiral Rickover — America's most famous, perhaps most influential admiral of the second half of the 20th century. To discuss his unbelievable life story, dramatic impact on the Cold War, and implications for the future of what the U.S. government should do when it tries to build hard things, we have two guests — Charles Yang, founder of the Center for Industrial Strategy, who also does AI science work at Renaissance Philanthropy, and Emmett Penney of FAI. We discuss: Rickover's immigrant origin story from Polish village to almost being deported at Ellis Island and his improbable path into the Naval Academy. Drive, discipline, expertise, and how Rickover bent Washington to his will. Rickover as tyrant, teacher, technocrat — what his contradictions reveal about leadership, power, and effectiveness. Why Rickover matters now — nuclear revival, defense procurement reform, engineers vs. lawyers, and a major archival digitization effort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're discussing all things gaming in China! Our illustrious guest is Daniel Camilo, a Portuguese national who has spent over a decade in the Chinese video game industry. We cover the most important titles, publishing and development trends, and where the industry is headed. We discuss: How China's game industry climbed the value chain from low-cost mobile and PC titles to globally competitive AAA releases, Why Genshin Impact reset global expectations, becoming the template for live-service “cash cows,” China's domestic market's newfound self-sufficiency, as hundreds of millions of middle-class gamers mean Chinese developers no longer need international success, Steam's magical liminal status in China as a de facto gateway for uncensored and imported games, Why gaming is a global language in ways movies and music aren't, and how mechanics and genres travel even when stories don't, The Wuchang: Fallen Feathers controversy, where nationalist backlash led to patched-out boss deaths and preemptive self-censorship. We also cover Daniel's pick for the biggest Chinese game of 2026, the looming Genshin-style live-service bubble, and how a game set in 1984 East Germany channels distinctly Chinese workplace anxiety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Minh Tran (https://www.couldabeenatthe.club/), Afra Wang (https://afra.work/) and Lauren Teixeira (https://lrntex.substack.com/) join me to talk about Chinamaxxing — the growing fascination among younger Americans with Chinese short-form content. We discuss why these videos feel so appealing in a moment of pessimism at home, how Trump's America shapes that gaze, and where the “shiny,” abundance-driven vision of China starts to break down. We also get into what short-form can't show and review Chinese films and hip-hop! Chapters 00:00 Cultural Exchange and Chinese Short Form Content 08:14 Influencers and the Appeal of the China Aesthetic 14:13 Contradictions in the Chinese Narrative 25:06 Recommendations for Exploring Chinese Culture 33:33 Jia Zhangke's Cinematic Vision 38:12 Chengdu hip hop 41:48 The Future of Chinese Cultural Products 42:56 Censorship and the Dynamics of Domestic Entertainment in China Outtro Music: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is the legendary strategist Edward Luttwak — the Machiavelli of Maryland. He's consulted for presidents, prime ministers, and secretaries of defense, and authored magnificent books on Byzantine history, a guide to planning a successful coup, and an opus on the logic of strategy and the rise of China. He raises cows, too. We recorded this episode in Feb of 2024. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this episode. Our conversation today covers… Luttwak's childhood and formative encounters with war, including an early fascination with the mafia in Sicily, Technological step-changes in warfare, Books that shaped Luttwak's view of war, from Clausewitz to the Iliad, The costs of “removing war from Europe” post-1945, China's strategic missteps, The psychology of deterrence, including what kind of Middle East policy would actually deter Iran, The strengths of democracies vs. autocracies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

whole gang is here. Also a little Minnesota and 30 seconds of NDS (which is all it deserves) suno: https://suno.com/s/SJ0FoEPMVZ3QS441 'He couldn't capture Canada, but captured infamy— The only general in history who failed at treason and geography!' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Czin, former CIA analyst and NSC staffer, returns to talk purges. We have far too much fun. The disney take on PLA purges: https://suno.com/s/Wv1yQyxdUhWBzyA0 08:50 Deep read into the WSJ nuke traitor allegations 22:10 Xi getting paranoid? 26:13 Taiwan implications 32:38 Succession implications 45:55 It must really suck to work in Chinese politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ and Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ report for duty. Athena makes a brief guest appearance before dipping for pilates. Jordan's flower app: https://cut-from-the-masters.vercel.app/ Jordan's acting app: https://acting-trainer.vercel.app/ Jordan's mahjong trainer app: https://mazel-jong.vercel.app Suno song: https://suno.com/s/BArMAm90qTxbupUz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark (former submariner at Hudson), Eric Robinson, and Justin McIntosh report for duty. Davos disco: https://suno.com/s/2SpR62beigk2JeDr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there such a thing as MAD in economic warfare? How should we measure the effectiveness of our industrial policy tools, and what outcomes should we be aiming for anyway? Our guest today is Dan Kim, who served at USITC with stints at Qualcomm and SK hynix before returning to government as the Chief Economist for the CHIPS Program Office. He recently joined TechInsights as Chief Strategy Officer. Also joining us is Chris Miller of Chip War fame.  We discuss: What $39 billion can and can't buy — why the CHIPS Act was never meant to de-risk the U.S. from China or Taiwan, and what “success” looks like when autarky is neither affordable nor desirable, Apple vs. Xiaomi + BYD — invention versus fast-following as competing models of national power, and which system performs better when the goal shifts from profit maximization to geopolitical resilience, What resilience actually means — capability vs. capacity, weakest links, and whether economic security should be measured as “time to recovery” rather than self-sufficiency, Managed dependence vs. overreliance, and whether dependence itself can be a form of power, Why the U.S. still lacks a clear theory, metrics, and institutional design for industrial strategy — and what you can do about it. Subscribe to the ChinaTalk Substack to stay updated about the essay contest! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Czin spent years as a top China analyst at the CIA, served as China Director on Biden's National Security Council, and now works at the Brookings Institution. We talk through: Xi, Trump, and what drove the roller coaster of US-China relations in 2025 Why it feels too quiet right now and what could get this train off the rails in 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission late last year released ⁠its annual report to Congress⁠. ChinaTalk welcomes two commissioners to the pod to discuss. Before joining the Hoover Institution, ⁠Mike Kuiken⁠ spent two decades on the Hill with Senators Schumer and Durbin. He was appointed to the commission by Leader Schumer. ⁠Leland Miller⁠, the co-founder and CEO of ⁠China Beige Book⁠, was appointed by Speaker Mike Johnson. We get into… What the U.S.-China Commission does, and why “alligators closest to the boat” explains Congress's blind spots, The case for an economic statecraft agency, and reorganization lessons from post-9/11 sanctions reform, The year supply chains became sexy — and the best-case scenario for responding to chokepoints like rare earths and pharmaceuticals, Xi's unresponsiveness to consumer spending concerns, and the military-tech developments he's targeting instead, The quantum software gap, synthetic biology in space, and Congress's role in competing with China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Danzig, national treasure, joins the podcast to discuss the national security implications of AI in the cyber context. Do note we conducted this interview in July of 2025. We discuss Richard's excellent paper on AI and cyber you can find here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA4079-1.html Teddy Collins cohosts. Thanks to Hudson for sponsoring this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy New Year! This is your reminder to fill out the ChinaTalk audience survey. The link is here. We're here to give the people what they want, so please fill it out! ~Lily

Bryan Clark joins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

but in a nice way happy new year! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We check in on the state of the republic and allied scale with Peter Harrell, former Biden official and host of the excellent new Security Economics podcast, Kevin Xu, who writes the Interconnected newsletter, and Matt Klein, author of Trade Wars Are Class Wars and The Overshoot substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The gang (Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson) and I talk about what the hell just happened this past weekend and what it all means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nishikawa Kazumi, Principal Director for Economic Security Policy at the legendary Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), joins China Talk. Cohosting is Charles Lichfield of the Atlantic Council.  Today, our conversation covers:  METI's reputation as a juggernaut of industrial policy, and how the organization has evolved since the 1970s, How Japan conceives of and pursues economic security, METI's criteria for market intervention, and how it balances economic security considerations with business incentives, Japan's experience dealing with China's weaponization of rare earths, How Japan maintains strong relationships with the U.S and other allies. Thanks to the U.S.-Japan Foundation for sponsoring this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ChinaTalk Audience survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQ99GAL0m_8iBqZDiKoEjRZiyX6544QvaCNtd1cVkc826n7A/viewform?usp=dialogFeatured coverage on Substack: Industrial diamonds: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/diamonds-are-a-trade-wars-best-friend China's influence in Central Asia: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/notes-on-kyrgyzstan Taiwanese WWII veterans: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/taiwan-confronts-wwii Chinese tourism in Taiwan's outlying islands: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/mainland-tourists-at-kinmens-golden NeurIPS street interviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOr0IlE6NPc&t=1s Outtro Music: Jameison Greer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrojJFYEL1E Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Weisenthal, host of Odd Lots and my podcast host alter ego, come to celebrate his ten years of hosting, reflect on the medium and China. 01:21 following your podcasting bliss 21:19 handling guests 26:06 china 46:04 journalism integrity 49:24 parenting in nyc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Gagnon joins the show! Book: Thousand Mile War https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Mile-War-Aleutians-Classic-Reprint/dp/0912006838 Outtro music: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rahm Emanuel returns to ChinaTalk with a characteristically blunt assessment of U.S.-China relations, delivering an unsparing verdict on the first year of Donald Trump's second term. We discuss: The “Fear Factor” in Asia: Why Japan and South Korea are ramping up defense spending not because of Trump's strength, but because his unpredictability and isolationism have forced them to buy “insurance policies” against a U.S. exit, Corruption and “Own Goals”: How “draining the swamp” has turned into institutional degradation — and why the Trump family's entanglement of personal business interests with foreign policy damages U.S. credibility and strategic leverage, Adversary, Not Competitor: Why the U.S. needs to stop viewing China as a strategic competitor and start treating it as a strategic adversary — one whose win-lose economic model is designed to hollow out global industrial bases, Education as National Security: Why tariffs are a distraction and the only real way to beat China is a massive domestic push for workforce training, AI and Inequality: Rahm's evolving thinking on artificial intelligence — why he's still learning and why a technology that boosts productivity but widens inequality is a political and social risk. Plus: prescient observations on Iran, why Ari Emanuel's robot UFC idea might actually be sound policy, Rahm's case that he's now the real free-market capitalist in the room, and rapid-fire takes on J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and the 2028 Republican field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. Trade Representative. He joins ChinaTalk for the first time to discuss: Why his 1992 dissertation on détente is suddenly relevant again – and why “positive linkage” fails to change adversary behavior, How mutual assured destruction has shifted from nuclear weapons to rare earths, supply chains, and technology, and why the U.S. and China are stuck in a costly, uncomfortable stalemate, Trump's unorthodox use of economic leverage and America's resilience problem, CFR's new cross-fellow initiatives on China, economics, and open-source analysis, Plus: an inside look at how think tanks work — salaries, funding, and what to expect from Mike Froman's tenure leading the CFR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've got a full house with Tony, Justin and Eric today. We get into: The hottest NDAA takes on the airwaves (DFC, OSC, AUKUS, Taiwan, contested logistics, Xi's money) Tony has an amazing tv pitch for the deposed dictator White Lotus SOCOM creatine and super soldiers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nathan and Jasmine debrief from NeurIPS San Diego, where we of course threw the best party. outtro music: we're on a boat https://suno.com/s/dkulmuRvScACxObX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's never over with Trump...Dmitri Alperovich of the Silverado Policy Accelerator comes on to discuss Trump's decision to allow the export of H200s to china. outtro music, a fan song to Jameison Greer: https://suno.com/s/yTi5R7xDRcM7p2ho Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First half on the national security strategy you can read here https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf 26:18 we get into the second strike Tony's Taiwan baseball podcast rec: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6s26btM3CFq7FgUUmdECST?si=gMIOtaZxSPKYzk5qCNMePQ Kimi said I should set the song to veggietales, so I did. https://suno.com/s/P4XaZR6f1mphSrkP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's think tank director week at ChinaTalk! Helen Toner of CSET kicks us off to talk through where she's planning on taking the storied organization. her speech about jagged progress: https://helentoner.substack.com/p/taking-jaggedness-seriously Outtro music: https://suno.com/s/HcdTS6W1OmHh8ZYz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wake of Salt Typhoon, what does the future of secure telecom look like? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed John Doyle, a former Green Beret who spent a decade building Palantir's national security practice before founding Cape, which calls itself “America's privacy-first mobile carrier”. Also joining the conversation is Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman and co-founder of Silverado Policy Accelerator, founder of CrowdStrike, and an angel investor into Cape. Thank you to Cape for sponsoring the episode. We discuss… Why telecom data is so valuable to adversaries, and what China discovered in the Salt Typhoon campaign, Cape's founding thesis, including what makes Cape's cell network so much more secure than major providers like AT&T, How wars are run on commercial cell networks, and how Russia and Ukraine's reliance on that has been exploited over the course of the war, Other instances of telecom data weaponization, including by Hezbollah, Israel, and Mexican drug cartels, Taiwan's plan for dealing with undersea cable sabotage, What it takes to cultivate engineering talent in telecoms, and why Huawei has stayed innovative while US providers stagnated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doug, Dylan, and Wei of SemiAnalysis join me (Jon was sleeping at 5AM taiwan time...) for a pre-holiday get together. 01:00 AI Mandate--OpenAI slipping 19:03 Dylan sells TSMC on AI better than sama 24:17 Doug teaches a lesson on railroad bubbles and ai 32:30 Sarah Friar fails up 35:17 Zohran-Trump Suno slop: Moody's man came down from New York City https://suno.com/s/5DGCTgqam8dQMkZf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Robinson, Justin Mc, Tony Stark and I talk China's sushi ban, Witkoff's peace plan, Jake Sullivan, William Manchester's absurd memoir Here's the full text of the peace plan: https://www.axios.com/2025/11/20/trump-ukraine-peace-plan-28-points-russia Chapters 00:00 China bans pufferfish sperm 02:14 Peace Deal Drama 11:12 How the Trump Court explains everything 20:11 The Future of Russian Military Power 30:34 Lessons from Syria and chemical weapons 39:02 Where's Europe though 49:32 Lessons from Ukraine + William Manchester's absurd memoir our broadway suno take on the plan: article 5: but different! https://suno.com/s/Dwx3udwSMVMRNxFV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zixuan Li is Director of Product and genAI Strategy at Z.ai (also known as Zhipu 智谱 AI). The release of their benchmark-topping flagship model, GLM 4.5, was akin to “another DeepSeek moment,” in the words of Nathan Lambert. Our conversation today covers… What sets Z.ai apart from other Chinese models, including coding, role-playing capabilities, and translations of cryptic Chinese internet content, Why Chinese AI companies chase recognition from Silicon Valley thought leaders, The role of open source in the Chinese AI ecosystem, Fears of job loss and the prevalence of AI pessimism in China, How Z.ai trains its models, and what capabilities the company is targeting next. Co-hosting today are Irene Zhang, long-time ChinaTalk analyst, as well as Nathan Lambert of the Interconnects Substack. Follow Z.ai on X: https://x.com/Zai_org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After five long years since ⁠his last ChinaTalk appearance⁠, Jake Sullivan returns to the show! We discuss… Sullivan's experience managing crises, implementing grand strategy, and cultivating leadership skills during the Biden administration, The art of crafting aggressive industrial policy, from chips to rare earths to infrastructure,  The risk of miscalculation in the Taiwan Strait, and whether Pelosi's Taipei visit was a mistake, Russia's nuclear brinkmanship and the development of Biden's posture on Ukraine, Whether Trump can succeed at ratcheting down tensions with China. Check out Sullivan's new podcast, The Long Game (⁠Apple⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠) Reading recommendations: ⁠Feeding Ghosts⁠ ⁠The Social History of the Machine Gun⁠ ⁠To Run the World A reminder: this is the conversation I wanted to have with Jake, not the one you want to have. For other recent interviews that get more into the Biden administration around the withdrawal of Afghanistan, the pace of arming Ukraine, and America's handling of Israel's invasion of Gaza, see all these six other shows he's done this year.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Justin and Eric cohost with Pete Modigliani and Matt McGregor, coauthors of the Defense Tech and Acquisition substack (https://defenseacquisition.substack.com/). Chapters 16:24 The Future of Defense Technology and Startups 33:37 Cultural Shifts in Acquisition Practices 44:57 Taskers and Bureaucratic Inefficiencies 55:06 Vendor Lock and Software Solutions Outtro music: more suno slop https://suno.com/s/FVtn90DmV8xuLcfp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jasmine Sun (https://jasmi.news/), Nathan Lambert (https://www.interconnects.ai/), and special guest Afra Wang (https://afraw.substack.com/). Our article on 'China makes AI girlfriends and America makes AI boyfriends' https://www.chinatalk.media/p/why-america-builds-ai-girlfriends More on the Hefei model: https://hellochinatech.substack.com/p/china-hefei-model 05:53 ai 12:46 remorseful AI models 29:43 AI in porn 32:17 ai voice generation uncanny valley 34:55 good Chinese AI models and the hefei model 47:40 Vice Signaling Outtro music: a suno song with kimi-generated generated lyrics called "A glitch in the gospel" https://suno.com/s/O8tIJ63c7t3NOEtO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

we cooked better than cafe milano 00:00 Colby's trainwreck of a hearing + right wing DC food 16:42 Countering Drones 35:32 How to train seriously Guests include: Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/ Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/ Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC Outtro music: more suno https://suno.com/s/hpZX8pdjirTsM5je Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices