Peking Playbook

Hello! Welcome to the 9th episode of the podcast “Peking Playbook,” featuring me (Zichen Wang), Robert Wu of Baiguan and China Translated substacks, and Johnny Zou of East8 . [00:41] Robert’s experience of publishing a guest essay on the New York Times discussing China’s resolve in the trade war. [06:32] Significance of China halting Boeing deliveries [8:08] Jensen Huang’s China visit: Is it a sla...

Many China-focused English-language podcasts are online, mostly run by Western institutions and individuals. Some have tried hard to include Chinese mainland guests in their conversations. I applaud their efforts. For various reasons, their success is uneven. I guess—or I’d like to believe—I may be in a better position to bring some Chinese voices to a global audience, so let me have a try—startin...

Hello! Welcome to the 8th episode of the podcast “Peking Playbook,” featuring me (Zichen Wang), Robert Wu of Baiguan and China Translated substacks, and Johnny Zou of East8 . [3:30] Did Trump plan for all of this? [12:42] Optimism about China-EU relationship [21:06] Pessimism about China-EU relationship [23:10] Will China see Trump’s sexemption for consumer electronics as a chance to soften its st...

On Monday, April 7, I was invited to the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), a 70-year-old nonpartisan think tank, to talk in front of an audience with Neysun A. Mahboubi , a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the FPRI Asia Program as well as Director of the Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. The title of the program A Grand Bargain Between the U...

Hello! Welcome to the 7th episode of the podcast “Peking Playbook,” mainly featuring me (Zichen Wang) and Robert Wu of Baiguan and China Translated substacks, just talking about recent news. Today, we have Johnny Zou of East8 join us as well. Johnny was with us on the January 28 episode . In the following 43-minute conversation recorded on Sunday morning ET, April 6, 2025, we talked about: [00:46]...

Hello! Welcome to the 6th episode of the podcast “Peking Playbook,” mainly featuring me (Zichen Wang) and Robert Wu, of Baiguan and China Translated substacks, just talking about recent news. In the following 39-minute conversation recorded on Saturday evening ET, March 29, 2025, we talked about: [00:52] Xi met global CEOs [04:25] What’s more serious for foreign businesses in China, organic domest...

Hello! Welcome to the 5th episode of the podcast “Peking Playbook,” mainly featuring me and Robert Wu, of Baiguan and China Translated , just talking about recent news. In the following half-hour conversation recorded on Sunday evening ET, March 23, 2025, we talked about [01:32] Some observations during Zichen’s ongoing study at the mid-career Master in Public Policy (MPP) program at Princeton Sch...

Hello! Welcome to the 4th episode of the on-and-off podcast that has been tentatively named “Peking Playbook,” mainly featuring me and Robert Wu, of Baiguan and China Translated , just talking about recent news. In the following half-hour conversation recorded on Sunday morning ET, March 9, 2025, we touched on [00:56] Two Sessions? [03:31] Birth subsidies [06:33] 1-trillion-yuan state VC fund? [11...

Hello! Welcome to the 3rd episode of the on-and-off podcast that has been tentatively named “Peking Playbook,” mainly featuring me and Robert Wu, of Baiguan and China Translated , just talking about recent news. In the following half-hour conversation recorded on Sunday morning ET, February 23, 2025, we touched on Timeline: [01:14] Chinese leaders’ symposium with private entrepreneurs [15:49] Mark...

Immediately after the U.S. elections in November 2024, I spoke at a panel at the STATE OF ASIA 2024 in Zurich organized by Asia Society Switzerland , alongside Wang Qing (王罄) , the host of the popular Chinese podcast "The Weirdo" (不合时宜) and Adam Tooze , economic historian and professor at Columbia University and author of Chartbook . The discussion was moderated by Finbarr Birmingham , Europ...

Happy Lunar New Year to all those who celebrate it! The top news on the last day of the lunar year of Dragon is obviously DeepSeek, the Chinese AI start-up. You’ve probably heard Americans talk about it all day now. Here is me, Robert Wu of Baiguan and China Translated , and Johnny Zou of MJFinance talking about it after the close of the brutal trading day when Nvidia sheds nearly $600 billion. Li...

An unscripted experiment where Zichen Wang , with Robert Wu of Baiguan , talk on January 24, 2025, about top China news of the day, covering Xi Jinping’s visit to northeast China, the government’s effort to bring long-term investment into its beleaguered stock market, the emerging controversy in China on the effectiveness of generic drugs via its universal health insurance system, and recent specu...