ChinaEconTalk

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

Peter Harrell and Oren Cass join the show to talk IEEPA at the Supreme Court and broader US grand strategy towards China. 03:01 IEPA Tariffs and Their Implications 17:27 Reciprocity and Trade Agreements 20:13 USMCA and Fortress North America 39:01 Decoupling from China: A Strategic Perspective 43:41 Trump's Economic Approach to China 47:48 The Chips Debate: National Security and Economic Interests 01:05:24 Reflections on Political Discourse and Legal Arguments 01:16:17 a ridiculous suno song We discuss Oren's 'Grand Strategy of Reciprocity' https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/grand-strategy-reciprocity and 'Stop Selling the Rope' essays https://americancompass.org/stop-selling-the-rope/ Outtro music: Suno does Hamilton for this case https://suno.com/s/xPRkTjq5KQ4MPXLb Peter's amicus brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-1287/380641/20251024173045050_24-1287%2025-150%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do leaders with vast expert bureaucracies at their fingertips make devastating foreign policy decisions? Tyler Jost, professor at Brown, joins ChinaTalk to discuss his first book, Bureaucracies at War, a fascinating analysis of miscalculation in international conflicts. As we travel from Mao's role in border conflicts, to Deng's blunder in Vietnam, to LBJ's own Vietnam error, a tragic pattern emerges — leaders gradually isolating themselves from their own information gathering systems with catastrophic consequences. Today our conversation covers… How Mao's early success undermined his long-term decision-making, The role of succession pressures in both Deng's and LBJ's actions in Vietnam, The bureaucratic mechanisms that lead to echo chambers, and how China's siloed institutions affect Xi's governance, The lingering question of succession in China, What we can learn from the institutional failures behind Vietnam and Iraq. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Featuring the Kirsten and Charlotte Asdal alongside Tony (https://www.breakingbeijing.com/) Eric Robinson, Justin (https://justinmc.substack.com/) and myself Chapters 02:55 US-China Relations: Punctuated Decoupling 05:52 Woo Trump didn't sell out Taiwan! But what if he did? 08:21 Xi Jinping's Confidence and Military Calculations 24:12 Blockades 28:54 Innovation vs. Production in Defense Technology 43:08 Book Recommendations and Cultural Reflections 44:57 Game of the Week: Historical Insights Outtro music: suno' s version of bad bunny singing about antietam. I promise I won't do this for every episode outtro until the AI gets better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining the pod today are Rob Lee of FPRI, Shashank Joshi of the Economist, and Tony Stark of the Breaking Beijing substack. We discuss… Whether Ukraine represents a revolution in military affairs and what lessons the war holds for other theaters Why roughly 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by UAVs, and the symbiotic relationship between artillery and drones, The limits of FPVs and UAVs, tactics to counter UAV attacks, and the role of unmanned ground vehicles, Institutional friction within the Ukrainian forces, How Chinese components and commercial drones from DJI are shaping the battlefield. Drone incidents over Europe, burden sharing, and the US policy climate. Outro music:  Leon Bridges and Khruangbin - Texas Sun, a song that made it onto a 2022 playlist a reporter made of songs they heard on the front in Ukraine (⁠https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72paG2c3VqKblZsZlsCBOx?si=ace9197c40c6440f⁠) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining the pod today are Rob Lee of FPRI, Shashank Joshi of the Economist, and Tony Stark of the Breaking Beijing substack. We discuss… Whether Ukraine represents a revolution in military affairs and what lessons the war holds for other theaters Why roughly 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by UAVs, and the symbiotic relationship between artillery and drones, The limits of FPVs and UAVs, tactics to counter UAV attacks, and the role of unmanned ground vehicles, Institutional friction within the Ukrainian forces, How Chinese components and commercial drones from DJI are shaping the battlefield. Drone incidents over Europe, burden sharing, and the US policy climate. Outro music:  Leon Bridges and Khruangbin - Texas Sun, a song that made it onto a 2022 playlist a reporter made of songs they heard on the front in Ukraine (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72paG2c3VqKblZsZlsCBOx?si=ace9197c40c6440f) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tobias Harris of the Observing Japan substack returns to catch us up on the new Prime Minister. We get into what Takaichii's deal is, chart her rise to power, explore the domestic constraints she'll operate under, and what she will mean for Japan's international relations and defense policy. Lily's in Osaka, hit her up at lily@chinatalk.media Chapters: 00:00 Election Upset and Political Drama 07:43 The Rise of Takaichi, Her Political Background and Style 24:27 National Defense and International Relations 40:58 Coalition Challenges and Government Stability 48:33 Implications of a Minority Government 01:03:47 How She'll Do With Trump Outtro Music: Gotta - Tade Dust Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan, Eric, and Justin join the fun. 00:00 Venezuela 16:08 Shutdown Effects on Military Operations 34:45 The PE Army Takeover + Datacenters 46:32 Submarine Detection and Naval Strategy 48:44 Sledge Outtro Music: Botaste la Bola, Un Solo Pueblo 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 discuss what Xi's fourth-term means for China's top leadership and military, Taiwan, and the US. We cover: How Xi's mafioso-style “decapitation strategy” has kept the PLA in line and why he's purged more generals than Mao. Cognitive decline and how end-of-life thinking might be shaping Xi's succession plans and Taiwan strategy. Tariffs, rare earths, and China's appetite for pain vs. America's. Beijing's parochialism and its limits in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. What intelligence work on China actually looks like and whether or not Xi's era is duller than previous generations. Plus: who might succeed Xi, comparing the Politburo Standing Committee to a frat house, and why chips and TSMC matter much less in Xi's Taiwan calculus than most think. Outtro Music: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guests today include Michael Horowitz (Penn now, in the Biden years was DAS for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities + Director of the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office) and Lauren Kahn (worked with Michael in the DoD, now at CSET). The book that Mike recommended is free to download online! https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/catalog/30-4.pdf Outtro Music: The Shirelles, Soldier Boy 00:00 Gaza and the Middle East Peace Process 06:26 US-Latin American Policy and Military Engagement 10:38 AI and Nuclear Weapons: A Seductive Analogy 17:47 Nuclear Energy vs. AI: Lessons in Governance 20:02 The Future of AI in Military Operations 31:46 Transforming Military Lessons with AI 37:38 Operational Surprise and Historical Context 45:55 Social Acceptability of Military Technologies 57:59 Ethics and Accuracy in AI Warfare Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tarun Chhabra is Head of National Security Policy at Anthropic, and previously served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Technology and National Security on Biden's NSC. Today, our conversation covers… Why the US needs to maintain an advantage in the race for AI development against China, Whether the US's AI industry is prepared for future competition from China, The lawyers vs. engineers debate, and what the US needs to build AI supply chains, How government and industry can work together to across the AI development process. Outro music: Stephen Wilson Jr. - Stand By Me (Live at The Print Shop) (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chrisian Brose is the Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries. He's been at the forefront of the debate about how America needs to change in order to win a future war against a high-tech adversary like China. He's the former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee and the author of the essential book, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare. We discuss: Why the U.S remains dangerously vulnerable to low-cost drone attacks and what it would take to get serious about defending the homeland, How bureaucratic logjams and budget dysfunction stall America's adoption of counter-drone and other critical defenses, What the Ukraine war reveals about the future of warfare and what the US has yet to learn from it, Why confidence in American technological superiority is misplaced, and why state-of-the-art weapons may not guarantee a quick or decisive war, How humans will make military decisions in the age of AI. Outro music: Kay Kyser - Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition (YouTube Link) Gracie Fields - Thing-Ummy-Bob (That's Going To Win The War) (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Miller (chip wars), Chris McGuire (10 year State Dpt vet, check out the past episode on the feed) and I discuss a big move by MOFCOM to squeeze Trump in advance of their APEC summit. Outtro Music: Paul Simon, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAb2Mu0CRk4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, Jensen Huang said that China is “nanoseconds behind” the US in chipmaking. Is he right? Today, Chris McGuire joins ChinaTalk for a US-China AI hardware net assessment. Chris spent a decade as a civil servant in the State Department, serving as Deputy Senior Director for Technology and National Security on the NSC during the Biden administration and back at State for the initial months of Trump 2.0. Today, our conversation covers: Huawei vs Nvidia, and whether China can compete with US AI chip production, Signs that chip export controls are working, Why Jensen is full of it when he says China is “nanoseconds behind” What sets AI chips apart from other industries China has indigenized, How the US has escalation dominance in a trade war with China, and the significance of BIS's 50% rule, Chris's advice for young professionals, including why they should still consider working in government. Outtro Music: Abao Uduli https://open.spotify.com/track/176BwQLW0IGc2mhkkMe0yH Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark, a former submariner now with the Hudson Institute, joins the show! Outtro speech: George C. Scott's rendition of Patton's speech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At long last, Jeff Alstott, the fairy godfather of DC AI policy, joins the show. He's the founding director for RAND's center for technology and security policy, TASP, worked at NSC, NSF and IARPA, and has a PhD in complex networks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

for better or worse, the first ep on chinatalk feed I had to put an explicit tag on... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthony Vinci, former CTO of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and author of the upcoming book The Fourth Intelligence Revolution, joins as Second Breakfast's first ever guest. Outtro Music: Otis Redding, Something is Worrying Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ughAT80R8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ and Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ discuss a wide variety of topics of interest around AI and culture. Outtro Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujC4p7mf0XE&ab_channel=Release-Topic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

back at it again Outtro Music: Boys of the Old Brigade, Wolf Tones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoQBXgbVVT4&ab_channel=rebelsongs Book: https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/child-soldiers-in-the-western-imagination/9780813563701/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nate Silver writes Silver Bulletin and is the author of On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, now in paperback with a new foreword. In today's conversation, we discuss… Honesty, reputation, and paying the bills with writing, Impact scenarios for the AI future, including how AI could impact elections and political decision-making, The emerging synergy between prediction markets and journalism, and how Nate would build a team of professional Polymarket traders, How to build a legacy, and strategies for balancing long-form and short-form projects, Nate's hypothetical plan to reform US institutions, and how that compares with real-world prospects for creating political change over the long term. Outro Music: 動物園釘子戶 (Zoo Gazer) - 大大大大大象 (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uncle Sam is taking a bite out of companies left and right. Today, we're going to focus on MP Materials — the Trump administration's answer to China's restrictions on rare earth material exports to America. To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Daleep Singh, former Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, now with PGIN; Arnab Datta, currently at Employ America and IFP; and Peter Harrell, former Biden official and host of the excellent new Security Economics podcast. Today, our conversation covers: Why critical mineral markets are broken, How China achieved rare earth dominance, The history of rare earth mining and refinement in the US, What the MP Materials deal does, and whether it can succeed, The key ingredients for successful industrial policy, with case studies including a Strategic Resilience Reserve, a US sovereign wealth fund, and support for Intel. Outro music: Ornaments Of Gold - Siouxsie And The Banshees (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're going weekly. Outtro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk18bFIgOS4&ab_channel=ThereIRuinedIt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Julian is a research scientist in embodied AI. He worked on large-scale robotics foundation models at DeepMind and got his PhD in machine learning at USC in 2021. In our conversation today, we discuss… What makes a robot a robot, and what makes robotics so difficult, The promise of robotic foundation models and strategies to overcome the data bottleneck, Why full labor replacement is far less likely than human-robot synergy, China's top players in the robotic industry, and what sets them apart from American companies and research institutions, How robots will impact manufacturing, and how quickly we can expect to see robotics take off. O*NET's ontology of labor: http://onetcenter.org/database.html ChinaTalk's Unitree coverage: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/unitree-ceo-on-chinas-robot-revolution Robotics reading recommendations: Chris Paxton, Ted Xiao, C Zhang, and The Humanoid Hub on X. You can also check out the General Robots and Learning and Control Substacks, Vincent Vanhoucke on Medium, and IEEE's robotics coverage. Today's podcast is brought to you by 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit that helps people find fulfilling careers that do good. 80,000 Hours — named for the average length of a career — has been doing in-depth research on AI issues for over a decade, producing reports on how the US and China can manage existential risk, scenarios for potential AI catastrophe, and examining the concrete steps you can take to help ensure AI development goes well. Their research suggests that working to reduce risks from advanced AI could be one of the most impactful ways to make a positive difference in the world. They provide free resources to help you contribute, including: Detailed career reviews for paths like AI safety technical research, AI governance, information security, and AI hardware, A job board with hundreds of high-impact opportunities, A podcast featuring deep conversations with experts like Carl Shulman, Ajeya Cotra, and Tom Davidson, Free, one-on-one career advising to help you find your best fit. To learn more and access their research-backed career guides, visit 80000hours.org/ChinaTalk. To read their report about AI coordination between the US and China, visit http://80000hours.org/chinatalkcoord. Outro music: Daft Punk - Motherboard (⁠YouTube Link⁠) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution and the Tracking People's Daily substack https://trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/ alongside James Crabtree, author of Billionaire Raj, chat whatever the hell is happening in the trilateral relationship. Outtro music: Chalte Chalte Title Song | Abhijeet, Alka Yagnik | Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkOakcMqJ-8&ab_channel=T-SeriesBollywoodClassics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our third defense pod, I guess we're really doing it now. Like and subscribe if you're just here for our Civil War coverage. 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: After going through twenty different John Brown's Body recordings this one was my favorite, an acapela rendition by Deborah Anne Goss https://open.spotify.com/track/20id0r7ZlSIFxKifoEFlfC?si=0d2a59f7dfe142fa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Japan, ChinaTalk interviewed Ian Toll about his Pacific War trilogy, which masterfully brings America's bloodiest war — and the world's only nuclear war — to life. Ian's detailed scholarship creates a multisensory historical experience, from the metallic tang of radiation after the bombs were dropped to the stench of Pacific battlefields. Ian's forthcoming book, The Freshwater War, will explore the naval campaign the US fought against Britain on the Great Lakes between 1812 and 1815. Today our conversation covers…. How Ian innovates when writing historical narratives, Whether Allied victory was predetermined after the US entered the war, Why the Kamikaze were born out of resource scarcity, and whether Japanese military tactics were suicidal as well, How foreign wars temporarily stabilized Japan's revolutionary domestic politics, How American military leadership played the media and politics to become national heroes, Lessons from 1945 for a potential Taiwan invasion. Cohosting is Chris Miller, author of Chip War. Thanks to the US-Japan Foundation for sponsoring this podcast. Outro music: The Mills Brothers - Till Then (YouTube link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Wang at long last makes his solo ChinaTalk debut! We're here to discuss and celebrate his first book, Breakneck. We get into… Engineering states vs lawyerly societies, The competing legacies of the 1980s in China, the decade which saw brutal repression via the One Child Policy and Tiananmen alongside intellectual debate, cultural vibrancy, and rock and roll, Methods of knowing China, from the People's Daily and Seeking Truth to on-the-ground research, How to compare the values of China's convenient yet repressive society with the chaotic pluralism of the USA, What Li Qiang's career post-Shanghai lockdowns can tell us about the value of loyalty vs competence in Xi's China. Outro music: Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro (YouTube link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Israeli/Ukranian-style bolt from the blue drone attacks freak out Eric. I don't buy Silicon Shield. Lessons from Waymo on about the future of warfare. Intertextual analysis of the Mick Ryan interview. Fed Supernova, which is a terrible name for a conference, and counterintelligence. Has John Bolton taken enough Ls already? I guess not. 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: Bach, Chris Thile, Partita 1 in B Minor 1002: VI. Double https://open.spotify.com/track/780bh3MspPK19jVDD7EIKu?si=4809af67eda34c38 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are GPUs being smuggled into China? Nvidia says no. But Steve Burke, editor in chief of Gamer Nexus, has traced out the entire smuggling chain in an epic three-hour YouTube documentary. He filmed another three-hour documentary exploring the impact of tariffs on America's supply chain ecosystem. In today's conversation, we discuss… Steve's investigative process, including how he found people in mainland China willing to speak on the record about black market GPUs, The magnitude of smuggling, weaknesses in enforcement, and crudeness of US restrictions, China's role in manufacturing the GPUs they aren't allowed to buy, How Gamers Nexus monetizes content, What it takes to stand up to Nvidia as an independent journalist. Check out ChinaTalk's previous work on the history of Nvidia here. As of August 21st, YouTube has removed the full documentary. Gamers Nexus is working on getting the video back on YouTube, but you can watch it here in the meantime. Outro music: Jim and Jesse - Ballad of Thunder Road (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian army and author of three books — War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict, White Sun War, which is a piece of fiction about a near-future Taiwan war, and The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire. He also writes the excellent Futura Doctrina Substack, which has taught me a tremendous amount over the past few years. The way Mick synthesizes history and contemporary conflict makes it one of my few true must-read Substacks. In today's conversation, we discuss… Lessons from the history of warfare, and how to apply them to modern conflict, Why superweapons don't win wars, and how the human dimension of war will shape military applications of AI, Why economic integration alone cannot prevent a US-China war, The role of deception and the limits of battlefield surveillance, with case studies in Ukraine and Afghanistan, Mick's four filters for applying lessons from Ukraine to a Taiwan contingency, and the underappreciated role of Taiwanese public opinion in shaping CCP goals. Thanks to the Hudson Institute's Center for Defense Concepts and Technology for sponsoring this podcast. Outro music: Elvis Presley — Down by the Riverside (YouTube Link) Reading recommendations: Paul Kennedy — The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War Norman F. Dixon — On the Psychology of Military Incompetence  Aimée Fox — Learning to Fight: Military Innovation and Change in the British Army, 1914–1918  Williamson Murray & Allan R. Millett — Military Innovation in the Interwar Period and Military Effectiveness trilogy  Trent Hone — Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945  Brent L. Sterling — Other People's Wars: The U.S. Military and the Challenge of Learning from Foreign Conflicts (2021) Dima Adamsky — The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (2010) Meir Finkel — On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield and Military Agility: Ensuring Rapid and Effective Transition from Peace to War Andrew Krepinevich —  The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers R.V. Jones —  The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945 Francis Hoffman — Mars Adapting: Military Change During War You can find more syllabi on Mick Ryan's Substack (here and here) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon, Doug, Dylan and Wei join the chat to talk export controls and GPT5. Books Doug and I like: Jonathan Spence's Search for Modern China Gavan Daws' Shoal of Time Joseph Heinrich's The Secret of Our Success Outtro Music: Europhia II from kkluv's new album https://open.spotify.com/track/61kEkWr0gQrcDwd6uIbxQ1?si=190526b87e96487c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we're selling AI chips to China now. Chris Miller, author of Chip Wars, and Lennart Heim at RAND join to discuss: What are the tradeoffs involved in selling Why China is talking like they don't even want the H20s Why selling HBM and semiconductor manufacturing equipment might be an even bigger deal than Nvidia chips Check out the Horizon Fellowship to work in DC on emerging tech policy issues like AI chip export controls! https://horizonpublicservice.org/applications-open-for-2026-horizon-fellowship-cohort/ Outtro Music: It's a Shame, The Spinners, 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQQudHLi0A&ab_channel=TheSpinners-Topic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk AGI nihilism in the Taiwan fight, combined arms breach, and Palmer Luckey's Taiwan speech. Part 2 explores Detachment 201, the evolution of the Office of Strategic Capital, and the MP Materials rare earths deal. 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: Last Chance, Mary Cox https://open.spotify.com/track/3LAOSqy3DoiA1OiPxC9yMe?si=da00b16696f042f8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement — the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Professor Ben Nathans — is perhaps the sharpest, richest, and funniest account of the Soviet dissident movement ever written. Today, we'll interview Nathans alongside the legendary Ian Johnson, whose recent book Sparks explores the Chinese dissident ecosystem. We discuss… The central enigma of the Soviet dissident movement — their boldness in the face of hopeless odds, How cybernetics, Wittgenstein, and one absent-minded professor shaped the intellectual backbone of post-Stalinist dissent, Why the Soviet Union was such fertile ground for dark humor, and why humor played a vital role for Soviet resistance movements, How the architect of Stalin's show trials laid the groundwork for, ironically, a more professional legal system known as “socialist legality,” Similarities and differences between post-Stalinist and post-Maoist systems in dealing with opposition, Plus: Why Brezhnev read The Baltimore Sun, how onion-skin paper became a tool of rebellion, and why China's leaders study the Soviet collapse more seriously than anyone else. Today's episode is sponsored by Alaya Tea, cofounded by ChinaTalk listener Smita Satiani. Alaya Tea ships Indian teas straight from the source, and their products are 100% plastic-free. My favorite is their Assam black tea, which I've been using to make a fantastic milk tea. Go to ⁠alayatea.co⁠ and use the code CHINATALKTEA for free shipping. Outro music: Владимир Высоцкий - Охота на волков (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it take to make a living betting on politics? Can prediction markets offer insights about the future that other analyses cannot? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Domer, a professional prediction markets bettor. Domer is the number one trader by volume on Polymarket, and he's been trading since 2007. He initially entered this world through poker, but now makes bets about who will win foreign elections, whether wars will start, and whether bills will become law. We discuss… Why some issues — like Romanian elections, the NYC mayoral race, or Zelenskyy's outfit choices — can attract hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume, Systematic biases in prediction markets, including why they overestimate the likelihood of a Taiwan contingency, What happens to prediction markets in the absence of insider trading regulations, Why prediction markets are still a solo endeavor, and what a profit-maximizing team of traders would look like, Bonus: How betting markets backfired on Romanian nationalists, what AI can teach you about betting, and other insights on winning from one of Domer's contemporaries. Outro music: Bob Dylan - Rambling, Gambling Willie (YouTube Link) This episode is brought to you by ElevenLabs. I've been on the hunt for years for the perfect reader app that puts AI audio at the center of its design. Over the past few months, the ElevenReader app has earned a spot on my iPhone's home screen and now gets about 30 minutes of use every day. I plow through articles using Eleven Reader's beautiful voices and love having Richard Feynman read me AI news stories — as well as, you know, Matilda every once in a while, too. I'm also a power user of its bookmark feature, which the ElevenReader team added after I requested it on Twitter. ChinaTalk's newsletter content even comes preloaded in the feed. Check out the ElevenReader app if you're looking for the best mobile reader on the market. Oh, and by the way — if you ever need to transcribe anything, ElevenLabs'  Scribe model has transformed our workflow for getting transcripts out to you on the newsletter. It's crossed the threshold from “95% good” to “99.5% amazing,” saving our production team hours every week. Check it out the next time you need something transcribed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tobias Harris of the Observing Japan substack https://observingjapan.substack.com/ joins to discuss the latest Japanese election, how we got here, and what happens next. How Abe's assassination led to the LDP's three years of struggles What the latest results in the upper house election tell us about domestic Japanese politics What's the deal with big winners like Kōmeitō and the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) How domestic dynamics tie into US-Japan and China-Japan relations Outtro Music: The Communist Party's 2025 Gender song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V59qOPTe62g&ab_channel=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%85%B1%E7%94%A3%E5%85%9A Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is part two of our series with Joseph Torigian, author of the definitive biography of Xi Zhongxun. This episode traces the inner world of a man navigating power politics, exile, and reform, and the legacy he left his son, Xi Jinping. Against the backdrop of the Great Leap Forward, the Sino-Soviet split, the Cultural Revolution, and reform and opening up, we discuss… The moral dilemmas of a mid-level party cadre, What it's like to be purged, and why the party prescribes self-criticism as therapy, “Frenemies” in the CCP, Deng Xiaoping's autocratic side, and the unsung heros of the reform period, How Xi Zhongxun instilled party loyalty and other values in his son, Xi Zhongxun's return from exile and his complicated relationship with reform, How Chinese leaders think about redemption, guilt, and survival, And a bonus: Why the PRC-produced biopic of Xi Zhongxun is so disappointing — and why his life deserves the Star Wars treatment. Outro music: Teresa Teng - 小城故事 (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why has Japan fallen out of Trump's good graces? Will Japan close a deal with the US before tariffs take effect? And how will the upcoming Japanese election impact relations? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi, a longtime observer of US-Japan relations and former advisor to the late Shinzo Abe. We discuss… Why 1970s trade competition is still impacting US-Japan relations today, and how Japan could create “Wow factor” when dealing with Donald Trump, How Shinzo Abe used golf, dinner parties, and history lessons to cultivate a close personal friendship with Trump, The roots of Japanese resolve in dealing with PRC aggression, The emergence of Russian disinformation surrounding the Japanese election, The political economy of the Japanese Self-Defence Force, and how Abe managed the controversy surrounding his reinterpretation of Article 9. Co-hosting today is Charles Litchfield of the Atlantic Council. Thanks to the US-Japan Foundation for sponsoring this episode. Outro music: Shinji Tanimura - Left Alone (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joseph Torigian's The Party's Interest Comes First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping is a monumental scholarly achievement — easily a contender for one of the best China books of the decade. Joseph's goal, in his own words, was to “shine as much light into the darkness of the past as possible” to understand the nature of authoritarian politics, and he succeeds beyond my wildest expectations. This biography gives me a feel for Chinese politics that I honestly thought I'd never have. It does an incredible job of digging deep to shed light on some of the most consequential moments in CCP history, as well as conveying what it was like to live as a senior official under Mao and Deng. Reading it was a powerful experience at both an intellectual and human level. We get memorable vignettes, like 15-year-old Xi Zhongxun attempting to assassinate a teacher, or General Peng Dehuai using his shoe to silence Xi Zhongxun's snoring in their shared bunk. In this interview, we discuss: What we can learn about authoritarianism, the CCP, and China's future from studying Xi's father, Torigian's methodology for uncovering hidden Party history, How the Party became an existential source of meaning, and how it weaponized suffering to paradoxically deepen political loyalty, The arc of Xi Zhongxun's life — from a young revolutionary to key advocate of reform — and his role during Tiananmen, The interplay of family, love, and career under the all-encompassing shadow of the Party, The role of “Surrogate fathers” and patronage in navigating political ascent, How literature shaped China's early revolutionaries, and even impacted the Party as we know it today. Co-hosting today is Jon Sine, former ChinaTalk intern. Outro music: The Temptations - Papa Was A Rolling Stone (YouTube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices