ChinaTalk

Derek Sandhaus is the author of Drunk in China: Baijiu and the World's Oldest Drinking Culture and part of the team behind Ming River Baijiu, the first (good) Baijiu created especially for the international market. We discuss AA in china, Baijiu's origins, different varieties of Baijiu, the drink's evolving role in modern China, as well as the challenge of bringing such a polarizing drink to Europ...

Are the US and China in ideological competition? How does one go about answering that question? Dan Tobin of the US Intelligence Community's National Intelligence University and Ryan Manuel of Official China have a dangerous amount of fun debating guiding ideologies and what they mean for geopolitics. Dan's 2020 congressional testimony on CCP ideology: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/test...

John Verwey of the Substack “Semi-Literate" (and formerly of Commerce’s BIS, USITC, and USTR) talks the history and future of China's chip industry. We get into government guidance funds, the CHIPS Act, “Fabs not Labs,” export controls, and more.  John's substack: https://semiliterate.substack.com/ Outtro Music: Justice‘s Genesis (Live Version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsEaSx7u90 Get bonus...

Michèle Flournoy joined AcquisitionTalk's Eric Lofgren and me for another crossover episode of China-AcquisitionTalk. Flournoy is a former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, co-founder and new board chair of CNAS (where I'm a fellow), and currently the founder and managing partner of WestExec Advisors. I dove deep into the archive, digging up copies of Flournoy's undergraduate and master's thes...

In her years as a Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent in Hong Kong and Beijing, Te-Ping Chen came across a lifetime of remarkable characters and events. Most of these didn’t make her newspaper articles, so she began collecting them in short stories, which were collected in a book published just last month, Land of Big Numbers. Mara Hvistendahl guest hosts an interview with Te-Ping, where we...

Dan Rosen is the founding partner of the Rhodium Group and leads the China team. He is also my boss! We talk about our plans for China tech coverage, lessons from thirty years of China-watching, how he thinks about decoupling, China's debt situation. We also play underrated/overrated on whether track two dialogues are a waste of time, PDF length, and talking to government officials.  Want to work...

Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australia National University discusses his new book 'Indo-Pacific Empire.' We talk 15th-century Korean maps, the promise of the 1947 Asian Relations Conference, Australia and India's shifting conceptions of their place in the region, the origins of the Quad, China-Australia relations, and advice Rory has for the Quad countries as they try to...

Adam Tooze (now on Substack!) and Matt Klein, author of Trade Wars Are Class Wars, return to ChinaTalk and pick up right where they left off in September.  We discuss whether Ricardo’s theories of comparative advantage actually work in a globalized age, why Stalin’s embrace of “socialism in one country” was a response to the hegemonic power of British (and American) capital, whether a Bolshevik Re...

Shen Lu of Protocol discusses the magical world of Mandarin language Clubhouse before diving into the feminist movement in China. We cover the Xianzi case, Bilibili's misogynist content, and the challenges that women face working in China's highest-flying tech firms. Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at glow.fm/chinatalk Outtro Music: 賽文&GOD - 努力工作吧 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYSncv...

Aizhe, 故事FM's founder, runs the leading Chinese language podcast. His show gives a platform for everyday Chinese to tell their stories. We talked about his show and the state of journalism in modern China. Aizhe is a personal hero of mine and I'm so grateful I had this opportunity to record this episode.  Aizhe would love to get in touch with American podcast producers, so if you are one, please...

Four contributors to the recent book China's Quest for Foreign Technology: Beyond Espionage discuss China’s foreign technology acquisition. Is it nefarious, or just typical behavior of an upwardly mobile nation? Is the myth of a stateless global society dead? And why does such a pressing issue seem invisible in the West?  Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at https://glow.fm/chinatalk Outtro mus...

I have a newsletter! If you listen to this podcast I can say with high confidence you'll enjoy it! Do subscribe at https://chinatalk.substack.com/. Jose Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente, an independent researcher who runs the blog nintil.com, complicates our previous week's ChinaTalk on US industrial policy with Rob Atkinson. We discuss whether the state invented the iPhone, if the trends of hist...

Chinese Cooking Demystified is my favorite English language Youtube cooking channel. I chat with creators Chris and Steph about how they create their recipes, who watches their videos, whether Chinese food is soft power, bilibili vs youtube cooking channels, and why everyone in China wants to learn to bake.   Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at https://glow.fm/chinatalk/ 春节快乐！ Outtro musi...

Richard Fontaine, CEO of CNAS, discusses what it's like to run what very well may be the hottest think tank in the Asia policy game (full disclosure: I'm a CNAS adjunct).  We get into Biden and Asia and how the new president's foreign policy team will prioritize what they want to get out of the US-China relationship. We also touch on the biggest argument Richard's had with current senior DoD offic...

Maggie Lewis (Seton Hall) and Lev Nachman (UC Irvine) talk Biden's Taiwan policy, pork trade politics, the future of the KMT, third parties, academic freedom, gay marriage, and asylum from Hong Kong. Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at www.glow.fm/chinatalk Outtro Music: ABAO阿爆（阿仍仍)【Kinakaian 母親的舌頭】feat. 林宜瑾, 丁立芬 共創 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsh4lMH1fA8) Get bonus c...

I have a newsletter! If you listen to this podcast I can say with high confidence you'll enjoy it! Do subscribe at https://chinatalk.substack.com/.  Rob Atkinson is the president of ITIF, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-partisan DC-based think tank. We’re going to discuss US industrial policy grand strategy in light of China’s rise, what the US can expect from its allie...

Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese history at Oxford University, discusses his book from earlier this year, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism. Now seventy-five years after China’s victory over Japan, China is rethinking how it grapples with the legacy of WWII (see, for example, The Eight Hundred, the highest-grossing film of 2020, discussed towards the end of the show)...

Matt Brazil discusses his new book co-written with Peter Mattis, 'Chinese Communist Espionage, An Intelligence Primer.'  We talk about the role spies played in the creation and evolution of the CCP, run through some Zhou Enlai conspiracy theories, and discuss the role of espionage in today's China.  Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at https://glow.fm/chinatalk/  Intro Music: Wong Chia Chi's th...

On the second joint episode of Acquisition Talk and ChinaTalk, Richard Danzig, a Secretary of the Navy under Clinton, discusses US-China relations and military innovation. Richard is a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins APL, a former Secretary of the Navy, and a fiction guy. We traverse a number of subjects, including: How the risk of war with China is reflected in trade policy The problems regulators...

Kicking off a series on US-China defense-related issues with Eric Lofgren of the podcast AcquisitionTalk, we host Defense Innovation Unit head Michael Brown. We touch on a number of topics, including: Industrial espionage and foreign investment The debate over basic vs. applied research China starting to determine technical standards Coordinating with allies on semiconductors Transitioning tech in...

Why is KFC so big in China? What is the “Toilet Revolution” and why does it matter? How does Chinese propaganda work? How have bicycles’ role in Chinese society evolved over time? Neil Thomas of MacroPolo takes on this grab bag.  Note this is a rebroadcast from November 2018.    Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at glow.fm/chinatalk. Outtro music is a KFC vs McDonalds rap battle. Get bonus cont...

Duoduodiliao walks us through his favorite Chinese rap songs of 2020, taking us everywhere from soul rap and R&B to drill and Caribbean-inspired beats. Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at www.glow.fm/chinatalk Songs in order played in the show, all available on YouTube PO8 - 霓虹 李爾新 lil shin《CN DRILL》官方微博完整版 慕斯塔法 / JELLORIO 李佳隆 - Falling  八口8uck/KnowKnow -《Map》 Lexie Li...

Peter Harrell and Liz Rosenberg, both CNAS fellows, joined ChinaTalk in May to talk about their report authored with Ashley Fung, 'A New Arsenal for Competition: Coercive Economic Measures in the U.S.-China Relationship.' We discuss how the Trump administration has refined the use of these policy tools since Liz and Peter served under Obama, do a round overrated/underrated for international econom...

Wendy Culter, who served 28 years in the Office of the US Trade Representative, discusses how Biden should address Beijing on trade. We talk about how he could leverage allies' frustration with Chinese behavior and speculate about the future of the WTO. We also debate the merits of a number of my hair-brained trade ideas including the Strategic Shiraz Reserve and a Mutual Trade Defense Pact.    If...

Xiaowei Wang discusses her new book. She explores Taobao villages where Snow White Halloween costumes get made, how one police station is sputtering towards digitization, parallels between Silicon Valley and Chinese tech culture, and pearl farming #distrupt.   Please consider supporting ChinaTalk at https://glow.fm/chinatalk Pick up a Smart Air Filter for the holidays (https://smartairfilters.com/...