The Trivium China Podcast

During Xi Jinping’s late-September visit to Washington, the US and China extended their trade truce – but more than a month later, there’s still no Federal Register notice or amended MofCom announcement formalizing it. Jessica DiCarlo, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Utah, calls this “managed interdependence,” not de-escalation. And she says the idea that Beijing can simpl...

China’s GDP growth rose to 4.5% y/y in Q3, after slipping to 4.3% in Q2. That puts it right at the bottom edge of Beijing’s 4.5–5% target range. On the surface, that looks like a real pickup. A closer look tells a less encouraging story. Nearly all of the growth came from China’s record trade surplus, which rose almost 30% y/y. Consumption and investment added very little. Joe Peissel calls it “ho...

On October 8, the PBoC published an essay – in both English and Chinese – defending China’s exchange rate policy and pushing back on foreign calls for the RMB to appreciate. Just like MofCom’s July essay on overcapacity, the piece takes aim at the fundamental premise of Western policymakers’ complaints rather than answering them directly. Beijing has now taken two key economic issues that advanced...

Back in July, when the Politburo met to discuss economic policy, officials signaled little more than incremental policy tweaks were on the horizon. But fast forward to early October, and Beijing has rolled out a slate of support measures, including a fresh debt quota for local governments, more policy bank lending, and new interest subsidies for mortgages. Dinny McMahon calls it a clear pivot – Be...

For the first time in recent memory, a senior Chinese economic official is really pushing the idea that China needs to control its debt-to-GDP ratio. In a recent Qiushi essay, central bank (PBoC) Governor Pan Gongsheng laid out why credit growth has to slow. Trivium made this call back in July, when deleveraging sounded like a wild idea given how weak the economy is. Dinny McMahon’s take: “We feel...

When Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on US labs to pace the AI frontier, Washington said no – and so did Beijing. In fact, Chinese state media outlet China Daily went further, calling Amodei’s suggestion a “self-serving bid for profit.” The back-and-forth has led to an ongoing debate around whether China takes AI safety seriously. Kendra Schaefer’s take: China does take AI risk seriously – but w...

From ports to lithium mines to diplomatic battles over Taiwan, China has spent two decades persistently building influence across Latin America and the Caribbean – one contract, one relationship, one chamber of commerce at a time. Leland Lazarus’s new book – Dragon in the Americas: China’s Power, Presence, and Regional Influence – argues this isn’t simply a trade story. It’s a long game, and China...

US President Donald Trump met Xi Jinping on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday – a rare honor last extended to the Pope by Barack Obama. The atmospherics of the greeting and the rest of Xi’s Washington trip were great. The actual deliverables of the visit were more muted. The one concrete outcome from Xi’s Washington visit was a two-month extension of the Busan trade truce, far short of...

Back in 2017, China’s former SASAC chairman told Joerg Wuttke, then president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, precisely which industries China’s overcapacity machine would roll through next: EVs, batteries, solar, wind, basic chemicals. Fast forward a decade, and it happened exactly as he predicted. Joerg’s very blunt take: “China, in essence, is kind enough to tell us when and how they’re...

China’s manufacturing output just grew at the fastest pace in six months, but retail sales barely moved last month – and the gap between the two growth rates just hit its widest point in over three years. The upshot: Exports are still picking up the slack. But an increasing chunk of China’s export growth is simply down to price increases, not rising volumes. So even that stalwart economic prop is...

Everyone keeps calling the US-China AI competition a race. But Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Global South Project, says that framing is wrong – because a race implies a finish line, and this competition doesn't have one. Eric’s view is that Chinese AI companies aren't necessarily looking to out innovate US closed-weight models. Instead, the goal for China is to become Android to...

The US and China have been quietly testing each other’s limits all summer – and neither side actually knows where the breaking point is. To discuss the nature – and limits – of the fragile US-China economic détente, we are joined this week by Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Evan’s read: The US-China relation...

Chinese tech companies keep getting fined and blocked overseas – sometimes unfairly, and sometimes because they’re behaving exactly like they do at home. Beijing just released a plan to fix both problems at once. Our take: “China’s nefarious plan to get its companies to obey overseas laws” is a Foreign Affairs headline just waiting to be written. On this episode, Trivium China podcast host Andrew...

China’s July macro data just landed, and the title of our monthly macro note says it all: “A Grim Picture.” Consumption, investment, and property all deteriorated further last month – and the two props that supported the economy in the first half of the year are now fading fast. On this episode, Trivium China podcast host Andrew Polk sits down with Joe Peissel (Lead Macro Analyst) to unpack: How J...

Chinese companies can’t legally buy the most advanced US-made AI chips, so they’re renting them instead – from data centers in Thailand, Malaysia, and beyond – completely legally. US policymakers know about the issue – but several years into the implementation of export controls on advanced chips, they still haven’t closed it. And there’s a reason for that. On this episode of the Trivium China Pod...

When it comes to China’s key nodes of economic leverage, rare earths get all the attention – because they’re the cheapest, easiest lever China has to pull. But the more durable – and future – points of leverage are already hiding in plain sight, in hundreds of intermediate goods most people never think about. Gerard DiPippo, Director of Global Macro at Eurasia Group, returns to the pod as our firs...

On August 5th, China dropped a new batch of retaliatory economic measures against various US entities. And this time, officials did something they rarely do – naming exactly which US actions they were responding to and why. On this episode of the Trivium China Podcast, Andrew Polk sits down with Cory Combs (Head of Supply Chain and Critical Minerals Research) to unpack: What exactly landed in MofC...

US policymakers are constantly discussing whether America can leapfrog China in key technologies. Our answer: probably not, and batteries prove it. In fact, the real question isn't whether the US can – or even should – try to outpace China in at least some advanced tech; it's whether the West can afford not to learn from China. On this podcast episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Cory Com...

Beijing just released its most detailed rebuttal yet to accusations from the West around industrial overcapacity – and it pointedly avoided using the very word that started the fight in the first place. There’s a reason for that, and we break it all down in today’s podcast. On this episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Dinny McMahon (Head of Markets Research) to unpack: The five core arguments in MO...

China's July Politburo meeting is always a big one, as the leadership takes stock of the economy and signals policy adjustments for the second half of the year. In this year’s July meeting, officials clearly signaled that more fiscal support is on the way, but only in modest amounts. Note: This is our second short format episode – tighter, quick-turnaround reactions to the news as it breaks,...

A leaked, four-hour investor call with DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has been spreading like wildfire on the Chinese internet over the past few days – before links to it started disappearing – and Trivium's Bao Linghao joined the pod to give it a Friday-morning stress test. His verdict: The transcript seems legit, and it tracks with everything else we know about how the lab operates. Quick n...

Beijing is moving to restrict how far its own open-source AI models can travel abroad, just as Washington moves to restrict how far they can travel in. Same standoff, squeezing from opposite ends of the pipeline. Quick note: This episode is the first of a new, more frequent style of podcast we're rolling out – shorter, faster-turnaround conversations to react to the news as it breaks, alongsi...

China is stepping in to prop up its stock market, quietly opening the door to more outbound investment, and easing off the credit gas – all at once. Coincidence? We don't think so. On this week's Trivium China Podcast, Andrew Polk sits down with Dinny McMahon (Head of Markets Research) and Joe Peissel (Lead Macro Analyst) to unpack: Why the "national team" bought A-shares after...

Data has become one of the most important inputs in the modern economy, especially as access to high-quality information increasingly shapes the global race to develop artificial intelligence. But while US policymakers tend to view data primarily through a national security lens, Beijing is pursuing a much broader strategy aimed at unlocking data’s economic value. On this week’s Trivium China Podc...

China’s economy has lost momentum after a surprisingly strong start to the year. But while many analysts are asking why Beijing isn’t doing more to stimulate growth, this week’s Trivium China Podcast explores a different question: why are policymakers deliberately choosing not to? Pod host Andrew Polk is joined by Trivium’s Head of Markets Research Dinny McMahon to examine why Beijing may be quiet...