ChinaTalk

Ling Li, lecturer at the University of Vienna, comes on the pod to discuss: The origins and evolution of Covid Zero Different paths the CCP could take to cracking down What the protests tell us about modern China Intro sounds: https://twitter.com/renminwansui5/status/1597064778543157250 Outtro sounds: https://twitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1597225385728827392 Subscribe to ChinaTalk for an ad-fr...

I talk about where I think these protests are heading and what they mean for Covid Zero and the international situation. First voice memo is from @wstv_lizzi and the second is from @lichtspektrum. The outtro singing is protesters in Shanghai singing the Internationale. Here's my essay on the topic in written form: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinas-protests-harbinger-or-passing Learn more about...

Can the US and China play nicely enough with each other to not ruin the planet in the coming century? In particular, what prospects are there for cooperation around global challenges and biotech? For this episode, I'm joined by Scott Moore, Penn's director of China programs and strategic initiatives and perhaps the nicest person on China Twitter. We discuss Medical cooperation between China and th...

Do export controls work? And will they work for AI? Meet Emily Weinstein and Tim Hwang. They're research fellows at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and have written a paper on the goals of export controls and whether what the US government is trying to achieve with them is clear. We discuss Did the US inadvertently help China make better missiles? How export control...

What will the Biden administration's new export controls mean for the US and Chinese semiconductor industries as well as the future of the US-China relationship? To discuss, I assembled the Chips Avengers, consisting of Reva Goujon (Rhodium Group), Jay Goldberg (Digits to Dollars), Doug O'Laughlin (Fabricated Knowledge), and Martin Chorzempa (PIIE). We got into The second-order implications of the...

The AI revolution in art is coming, not in decades but months and years. What does this mean for creativity and how will it change the way artists work? Meet Campfire creative director Steve Coulson. He recently produced an entire comic book using images created by the midjourney AI art generator. Together with my brother Phil Schneider cohosting, we discuss: Whether using tech to generate art is...

What was life actually like for people in rural China over the last seventy years? Brew up a nice cup of tea and find a comfy armchair, it's time for another special edition of ChinaTalk. In this episode, Stanford University graduate student Vivian Zhong tells the story of her grandfather's life, from his childhood in the early days of the People's Republic to today pieced together from conversati...

Kamil Galeev comes on the show to talk about the current situation in the war in Ukraine and what it means for: prospects of nuclear war Elite Russian politics and Putin's future viability State stability Moscow's grip on the regions This show was recorded on October 6th. Outtro music is a tatar folk song with the google-translated title "Look at your eyelashes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY-...

The US Commerce Department just dropped 100+ pages of new export control regulations that have the potential to reshape the future of the global semiconductor industry. But will these regs stop China from getting below 14nm? Is that a goal even worth pursuing? Are they really enforceable? And what are the tradeoffs baked into taking a unilateral vs multilateral approach? To discuss, I have on toda...

How advanced is China's AI ecosystem and how much of it has military applicability? For a Department of Defense perspective, former DOD staffer and current CSIS fellow Greg Allen talks us through AI technology in China. Co-hosting is Eric Lofgren of the podcast AcquisitionTalk. We discuss AI usage in the war in Ukraine China's strategy for AI up to 2030 The military applications of AI technology H...

Why aren't elderly people in China getting vaccinated? To talk all things vaccine from the early days of the PRC to Covid-19, this episode's guest is Cambridge University associate professor in global studies of science, technology and medicine Mary Brazelton (@brazelton_hps). She is also the author of the 2019 book Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China. Co-hosting is...

Prepare a nice cup of tea and put your feet up for a special episode of stories and anecdotes about the late American historian and Sinologist Jonathan Spence, as told by his friend and colleague Paul Kennedy. He takes us through Why the worst thing about being stationed in Germany was the drunk British soldiers Conversations about Chinese history with Henry Kissinger How archaeological digs win y...

AI safety is having a moment. To discuss why AI safety matters for national security, today I have on Paul Scharre (@Paul_scharre). He’s the Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS. He previously served in OSD Policy and as a US Army Ranger. We discuss What the future of war looks like as militaries around the world adopt AI technologies Why using AI in warfare isn't as easy as people think...

Does America need an industrial policy to compete in biotech? Today I'm joined by two guests, Ryan Fedasiuk (@RyanFedasiuk) and Gigi Gronvall (@ggronvall). Ryan is a fellow currently on leave from Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). Gigi is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. We discuss: The growing uses of biotechnology Biotech security i...

Wouldn't it be nice to have a world where important policy decisions were decided based on evidence and data rather than narratives and turf battles? Dan Spokojny thought so too, and that's why he's the founder of fp21, a think tank dedicated to changing the processes and institutions of US foreign policy. Along with Jon Bateman, a senior fellow in the technology and international affairs program...

On Aug 9th Biden signed the Chips + Science Act into law. What’s it gunna do for science? Joining us today is  Tim Clancy, founder of Arch Street consulting and former COngressional staffer and NSF official. Toby Smith, Senior VP for Science Policy at the Association of American Universites Cohosting with me is Jacob Feldgoise, Who recently wrote a column on the Act on the CHINATALK NEWSLETTER WHI...

I HAVE A NEWSLETTER! Subscribe to it at https://www.chinatalk.media/ A few weeks back, Congress actually did something, passing the Chips and Science Act. Most of you have probably heard of the billions going toward subsidizing domestic manufacturing, but a far less-heralded part of the bill may end up matting more in the long run. The Act created the ‘National Semiconductor Technology Center.’ Wh...

I HAVE A NEWSLETTER! Subscribe to it at https://www.chinatalk.media/ To discuss, Eric Breckenfeld of the Semiconductor Industry Association and Hassan Khan, who holds a PhD in engineering and public policy, Outtro Music: Leo王 - 陪妳過假日 feat. 9m88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS89Vb07C-U Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year marks ten years since Wang Lijun's fateful flight to the US Embassy in Chengdu, a decision which set in motion a chain of events that ultimately brought down one of China's most powerful politicians, Xi's most credible rival for power in 2012, Bo Xilai. The former mayor of Chongqing remains in prison to this day for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of office, along with his wife Gu Kailai...

I HAVE A NEWSLETTER! Check it out! Joseph Torigian’s “Prestige, Manipulation and Coercion, Elite Power Struggles in The Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao” is in pole position for my best China book of 2022. Books that deeply engage with both Soviet and CCP primary sources around elite politics basically never come out nowadays. I for one am deeply grateful that Joe, one of the few folks...

When Churchill announced in 1946 that an iron curtain had descended over Europe, the US government only employed two dozen experts on the Soviet Union. Two years later, with the cold war well underway, the CIA only had 12 Russian speakers. Over the following decades, philanthropists and the US government started an intellectual mobilization that had profound effects on the course of the cold war....

In light of Abe's assassination, I thought it would be worthwhile to reflect on the man and his legacy. Last year I recorded an episode discussing Abe Shinzo, second only to Xi as the most consequential East Asian politician of the 21st century. Tobias Harris of the Center for American Progress joined to discuss his new biography of Abe, The Iconoclast. Tobias and I discussed His dramatic rise, fa...

I'm off getting married/honeymooning for the next couple of weeks so in my absence please enjoy this fine ChinaTalk vintage. How can China be so corrupt and yet grow so fast? What's the relationship between corruption and competent governance? How does 'access money' at the higher levels differ from the "profit-sharing" you see lower down in the bureaucracy? How does China in the 21st century comp...

Mister Softee, the famed northeastern American ice cream brand, in Suzhou, China? Yes, that was a thing. Turner Sparks, rising from humble beginnings as just another English teacher making his way in the world, achieved fame and fortune thanks to a catchy jingle and some tasty mango-flavored soft serve. Yet his vision of China-wide ice cream domination dissolved amid a deluge of backstabbing regul...

From then-PM David Cameron knocking back pints with Xi at the local pub to the Chinese ambassador being banned from Parliament: how has China's relationship with the UK changed since the so-called Golden Era? This week we have on Sam Hogg (@BeijingToBrit), the recently unmasked writer behind the Substack Beijing to Britain. Co-hosted by ChinaTalk's editor and crypto journalist Callan Quinn (@Quinn...