The Red Leaf Express

From the Iran hostage crisis to today’s race to power AI, Red Leaf Express follows the link between energy prices and political power. Joey Chou traces how conflict in the Persian Gulf reaches American gas pumps, how voters respond, and why developers are looking overseas for cheaper electricity for AI. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

When international groups cannot agree, who gets to make the call? From Ethiopia’s abandoned appeals to today’s diplomatic phone calls, Joey Chou explores how influence shapes choices for countries and individuals. Finland, Germany, Taiwan, Kevin Tsai and Chou Tzu-yu reveal the difference between speaking freely and reading someone else’s statement. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

From the Suez Crisis to today’s Indo-Pacific, Joey Chou examines two limits on power: dependence and resources. Russian diesel, Chinese rare earths, military exercises near Taiwan and delayed weapons deliveries frame a central question: how much pressure can Washington apply when it needs its rivals and faces competing military demands? -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Foreign support comes with conditions. From South Vietnam and Finland to Japan, Ukraine and Taiwan, Joey Chou examines why countries help others, and when that help ends. Taiwan’s investments can build American interest, but lasting security also depends on its own willingness to fund defense and face shared threats together. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

From Italy’s 1948 election to today’s contests, Joey Chou examines how powerful countries try to shape other nations’ choices. Open endorsements, trade pressure, covert campaigns and intimidation all exploit emotions. Across Taiwan, Brazil and British Columbia, the challenge is separating evidence from accusations and voting with judgment rather than fear. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Ahead of possible APEC sidelines talks in Shenzhen, Red Leaf Express revisits Nixon’s opening to China and Taiwan’s exclusion from those negotiations. Today, Ukraine and Taiwan face decisions made without them, while South Korea seeks its own seat. Who gets a say when great powers bargain over smaller countries’ futures? -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Old treaties still shape the Indo-Pacific, but this week’s signals came from what arrived—and what did not. Joey Chou follows fighter jets held in Hawaii, a Taiwanese patrol ship delivered to the Philippines, and a minister’s visit to Nanjing to examine what the Trump-Xi summit means beyond its written agreements. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Forty-one years after the Plaza Accord reshaped Asia’s manufacturing map, another round of quiet U.S.-China negotiations unfolds behind presidential ceremony. Joey Chou examines the officials drafting agreements on artificial intelligence, rare earths and tariffs, while Taiwan and Japan make consequential moves of their own beyond the summit’s carefully managed stage. -- Hosting provided by SoundO...

Beijing relies on others to enforce its pressure against Taiwan. Joey Chou examines governments that resist, Taiwan’s own cautious compliance, and the shipping companies and insurers whose private decisions could determine whether China’s rules carry weight—drawing lessons from West Germany’s Cold War-era Hallstein Doctrine and how it ultimately collapsed. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

From Xi Jinping’s Cairo message to Chinese coast guard ships east of Taiwan, this episode examines what “no outside interference” means when a great power sets the rules nearby. Joey Chou weighs US strain, Beijing’s pressure and Taiwan’s response, asking what autonomy looks like for an island that cannot leave. (Photo generated by AI) -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Four governments, four guarded rooms: Beijing reaches into personal devices, Moscow controls an Arctic shipping route, Taipei catches restricted AI servers, and Washington holds the legal leverage. Joey Chou examines why Taiwan can defend its own border yet still depends on decisions made inside institutions it cannot enter or control. (Photo generated by AI) -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

When something goes wrong, a government has 2 things it can actually use. The first is other governments — who takes its call, and who gives it a straight answer. The second is its own machinery — what it can decide, fund and deliver without asking anyone's permission. And both of them take years to build. You cannot make an ally overnight. You cannot pass a budget by Friday. Whatever a government...

Earlier this year, a researcher in Amsterdam was poking around the internet and found a Chinese police computer system that nobody had locked.   So he went in. The system was built to keep track of foreigners. He scrolled through it for a while. And then he found his own name.   His photo was in there. His passport number. The phone number he used back when he lived in China.   Now, that's alarmin...

China, Japan, the United States and Taiwan all look wealthy on paper. But can they use what they own? Joey Chou traces frozen offshore fortunes, untouchable Treasury holdings, costly American borrowing and Taiwan’s economic and military constraints to reveal the widening gap between wealth and power that can actually move. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

In Manila, the American Secretary of State was asked why weapons Taiwan has already paid for still haven't arrived. He didn't say the commitment had changed. He said the sales were still being reviewed against stockpiles and supply, while Washington works to rebuild its defence industry. That's a supply answer, given by the country's chief diplomat. Over Jordan, fewer incoming missiles and drones...

Imagine you run a shipping company. Or a small country's foreign ministry. Or a defense budget. You have to make a decision this year that will not pay off for six years. And to make it, you need to know what one large government is going to do. So you go and look. And you find that the large government is saying four things at once. Its diplomats are saying one thing. Its trade officials are doin...

For more than 20 years, a major American research center has asked people around the world how they feel about the United States and China. This year, the order flipped: Across 36 countries, China now has a more favorable image than the United States in 25 of them—including Canada, Mexico, much of Europe and most of Southeast Asia. Joey Chou examines what that shift measures and what it does not....

At one minute past noon last Monday, a ballistic missile broke the surface of the Pacific, fired from a Chinese submarine somewhere underwater. It flew for roughly half an hour and came down in the South Pacific — where three Chinese survey ships were already waiting to measure exactly where it landed. At almost the same hour, in a hotel lobby in Taichung, in central Taiwan, a Japanese commentator...

Last Tuesday, China’s foreign minister called America’s top diplomat — and the two governments came away with two different phone calls. Beijing’s readout carried a pointed warning about Taiwan. Washington’s readout did not mention Taiwan at all. This week: Beijing raised its voice on Taiwan three times in three days — a phone call, a speech, and a law. In the same three days, Washington’s officia...

On Tuesday, China's newest aircraft carrier — the Fujian — transited the Taiwan Strait. That sentence has appeared in news feeds before. It will appear again. And each time it does, the instinct is to file it under provocation, under pressure, under the weekly drumbeat of Chinese military activity around Taiwan. That instinct is not wrong. But this week, it may be incomplete. Because the Fujian di...

This past week, two things were true about the world at the same time. The first: markets surged. A peace deal was signed. Oil prices fell. Taiwan’s stock market hit all-time highs — twice. The economy is now expected to grow nearly ten percent this year. A respected Swiss business school ranked Taiwan the fourth most competitive economy on the planet. By every measure that usually gets reported,...

Five hours. That's how long it took this week for Donald Trump to go from threatening to bomb Iran's Kharg Island — the island that handles roughly ninety percent of Iran's oil exports — to announcing on social media that the United States and Iran were about to sign a peace agreement. Five hours, on the eve of his eightieth birthday. Around the same time, three thousand kilometers away, six Chine...

In the summer of 2026, the United States sent seventeen of its most powerful business executives to Beijing. The list included the CEOs of Nvidia and Qualcomm — the two American companies most directly affected by US chip export controls on China. It included the head of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. It included the chiefs of Visa and Mastercard. Seventeen people who between them r...

On May 27th, the leaders of Japan and the Philippines sat down in Tokyo and signed a joint statement. They agreed to elevate their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership — deeper intelligence sharing, military equipment transfers, coast guard cooperation. And they agreed to begin formal negotiations to draw a maritime boundary between them in the waters east of Taiwan. Three days la...

In March 1996, China fired ballistic missiles into the waters off Taiwan's coast. Not at Taiwan. Near it. The target was the psychology — a message delivered to every Taiwanese voter preparing to cast a ballot in the island's first-ever direct presidential election: look at what proximity to us costs you. Look at what your democracy is worth to us. The voters looked. Over ten million of them. Seve...