ChinaTalk

@BadChinaTake, an anonymous twitter account that combined vicious takedowns of, well, bad china takes with a blog https://wokeglobaltimes.com/ that does deep dives into everything from tankie subcultures to China’s xinjiang policy, is one of the best things to hit China twitter. BadChinaTake was recently unmasked as Jake Eberts, a young DC-based China analyst. He joins us today to talk about his j...

In 2019, Thomas Colvin, Irina Liu and Shirley Han at the Science and Technology Policy Institute (https://www.ida.org/ida-ffrdcs/science-and-technology-policy-institute) were part of a team of researchers that published what is to date the most comprehensive English-language overview (https://www.ida.org/research-and-publications/publications/all/e/ev/evaluation-of-chinas-commercial-space-sector)...

How do Roombas illustrate the promise and peril of translational research? Which valley of death is really the worst valley of death? And how can woolly mammoths save the planet from climate change?   To discuss, I have on: Andrew Sosanya, Policy Analyst for the Day One Project Adam Marblestone of Schmidt Futures (his policy proposal: https://www.dayoneproject.org/post/focused-research-organizatio...

Chris Miller of Tufts and I discuss our report Labs over Fabs, our case for the US to be spending money more broadly than currently conceived by the CHIPS act. (https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/labs-over-fabs-risc-vs-promise)   Please consider supporting ChinaTalk! https://glow.fm/chinatalk/  JP Kleinhans (@JPKleinhans) joins to cohost and discuss his April 2021 report that argues it's dumb for Eu...

Why does Xi govern like he's running out of time? Rhodium's Dan Rosen and CSIS' Jude Blanchette discuss their recent Foreign Affairs pieces recapping the past years of Xi's rule from an economic and political perspective. We get into failed financial liberalization, anti-corruption, the prospects for war over Taiwan, lessons from Sputnik, and vertical farming.   Dan's FA piece: https://www.foreign...

How did Chinese firms come to dominate the global solar industry? Now that the Biden administration has banned imports for some key components of solar panels made in Xinjiang, how will global solar buyers adapt? Andy Klump, CEO of Clean Energy Associates, a firm tasked with monitoring Chinese solar supply chains, joins the podcast to discuss.   Outtro Music:  星球坠落（FALLING）by 艾热, a rapper...

Is China different? Does secular stagnation apply?  How have Chinese economic policymakers changed over time? Should industrial policy be a thing? What should American academia navigate its relationship with China? To discuss, ChinaTalk welcomes its first former cabinet secretary to the show! Larry Summers is a professor at Harvard, who previously served as Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury and...

Xi Jinping will not rule China forever. What have CCP leadership transitions looked like in the past, and what can we expect when Xi exits stage left? To discuss we have today Richard McGregor, an Aussie journalist with decades of experience in East Asia and author of three absolutely mandatory China books The Party, Asia’s Reckoning, and Xi: The Backlash, and Peter Vanderslice, a recent college g...

Dave Aitel, who started his career at NSA and spent the past twenty years in offensive cybersecurity,  comes on ChinaTalk to discuss What he's learned in his quest to read every cyber policy paper What blindspots remain in the field How China ranks in offensive and defensive cyber ceapabilities relative to the US and what we can all learn from the Tianfu Cup (http://www.tianfucup.com/) Why Cyberpu...

Ben Reinhardt, an independent researcher and robotics PhD, discusses Why DARPA has so many hits to its name Why NASA wasted the past two decades What needs to be subtracted from the US research ecosystem Sci-fi book recommendations Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at https://glow.fm/chinatalk/ Intro Music: Mura Masa, Messy Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwXuBAd7Hh4 Outtro Music: 贝贝 / M...

Dr. Yan Zheng, senior technical staff specializing in microelectronics at In-Q-Tel, discusses What it's like to invest in startups for the CIA and the rest of the US intelligence community What's broken in the early stage chip ecosystem and how to fix it Why the US government should consider expanding its direct investments in hard tech companies How the US needs to counterbalance CFIUS with carro...

Bell Labs is dead, long live Bell Labs! This week's guest, Ilan Gur, the CEO of Activate.org, has a plan to improve America's R&D apparatus: fund start-ups that allow entrepreneurial researchers to pursue the practical applications of their world-class basic research. We discuss why we're lucky to have Moderna and BioNTech (beyond the obvious reasons), the impact of research moving from corporatio...

The Endless Frontier Act, the most important piece of legislation no one's heard of, got blown to bits in committee this week. Sam Hammond of the Niskanen Center joins to discuss.  My recent coverage in the ChinaTalk newsletter https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/endless-frontier-the-most-important  Sam's coverage: https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-congress-ruined-the-endless-frontier-act/  Outtro M...

Why hasn’t North Korea emulated Deng’s Opening & Reform? Are China’s wealthy, educated, urbane youth liberals? Could the PLA cooperate with the U.S. military in the event of Korean reunification? Dr. Sungmin Cho of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies joins ChinaTalk for a discussion of the Korean Peninsula as viewed by Beijing. This episode is a companion to this week’s ChinaTalk with Odd...

Odd Arne Westad joins ChinaTalk to discuss his latest book Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations. Westad’s work is a diplomat’s handbook that connects the sweeping currents of history to the geopolitics of today. Co-hosting today is Danny Crichton of Techcrunch. We explore how Korea, past and present, navigates its relationship with the powerful empires on its doorstep. K...

For Part Three of ChinaTalk's industrial policy series, we are joined by two leading lights of the American left: Saikat Chakrabarti, AOC's former Chief of Staff, and Zack Exley of the 2016 Bernie campaign. (Don't forget to check out Part One with Rob Atkinson and Part Two with José Fernandez.) Co-hosting is Vishnu Kannan, a junior fellow in Carnegie's Technology and International Affairs Program....

Kevin Xu of the fantastic Interconnected newsletter, and formerly of Commerce and the Obama White House, ran through a grab bag of some of the hottest topics in US-China tech. We got into the politics of Tesla in China, what Morris Chang of TSMC thinks about the future of the semiconductor industry, how open source is key to the future of American industrial policy, why the Endless Frontier Act (w...

Student Research Symposium: https://forms.gle/FYoSeHS7t3ZLLwEh9 Work with me! https://rhg.com/job/research-assistant-china-technology-and-industry-research/ Thomas Shugart joined me and Eric Lofgren on another cross-over episode of ChinaAcquisitionTalk. Thomas spent 25 years in the US Navy and is currently an adjunct senior fellow at CNAS. This possibility is made more dangerous considering the ri...

Fascinated (or stunned) by China’s recent anti-monopoly moves against tech giants Ant and Meituan? Want to get inside the head of Chinese regulators as they plan their moves against the globe’s largest corporations? ChinaTalk has you covered. This week I’m joined by Dr. Angela Zhang, a professor at The University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law, to discuss her new book “Chinese Antitrust Exceptional...

Enzo Chen, author of the Substack 推播助栏The Podcast Pick, and Caiwei Chen, the host of 定向跳转 The Redirect Podcast and the superb newsletter Chaoyang Trap, discuss all things podcasting in China and Taiwan. We get into the best Chinese-language shows, what makes China's leading podcast app so special, the demographics of podcast listeners, censors efforts to control the newly popular medium, a...

What as the rise of streaming, idols, and increased censorship done to Chinese TV?   Co-hosting is Ina Yang, one of the founders of the Chinese-language podcast Loud Murmurs. We discuss Chinese dramas with AvenueX, the intrepid YouTuber who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Chinese TV scene. AvenueX explains how the internet changed Chinese dramas (and not always for the better), why China’s ce...

What is Huarong and why do its struggles explain the central contradictions of China's financial system? To discuss, Logan Wright of Rhodium joins the show. In the first ten minutes, Logan catches us up on the news of the week. Then in the following hour, I rerun an episode we recorded together in late 2018 discussing his report Credit and Credibility, which explains why the big one hasn't hit yet...

What was the Chongqing Model and why does it still matter? Yueran Zhang, a PhD student in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, discusses. We talk about how Bo Xilai utilized mass mobilization against his enemies in the central government and China’s labor movements, and the significance of the 2018 Jasic protests. Zhang’s two recent articles for Made In China journal, “The Chongqin...

Scott Rozelle (legend, Stanford professor, co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions) joins ChinaTalk to discuss his recent book Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, co-authored with Natalie Hell. We discuss how China’s 900 million-strong low-income population will decide China’s future development path. Is China is the next Mexico? Why i...

To discuss, ChinaTalk assembled two of my favorite Japanese think-tankers, Yuka Koshino, a Research Fellow at the UK think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and Akira Igata, the Executive Director at the Tama University-affiliated Center for Rule-making Strategy (CRS). Joshua Fitt of The Center for a New American Security cohosts. Thanks to CNAS for making this show possib...