ChinaTalk

By Jordan Schneider

What's ChinaTalk about?

Conversations exploring China, technology, and US-China relations. Guests include a wide range of analysts, policymakers, and academics. Hosted by Jordan Schneider.

Check out the newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media/

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ChinaTalk episodes:

05.02.2024
TSMC Takes Arizona
TSMC is taking on Arizona. How's it going? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Viola Zhou, journalist at Rest of World. She has published pieces on Foxconn's quest to make iPhones in India and most recently, a gripping feature about the cultural...
04.25.2024
History and Future of India-China Relations
India’s elections are underway! What does the future hold for the world’s largest democracy? Will the election results impact India-China relations? What about India-US relations? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Dr. Raja Mohan, Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at...
04.18.2024
DOJ vs Data Espionage
The DOJ is now charged with protecting American data from foreign adversaries. This new proposed rule they recently issued is, according to one observer, “one of the most ambitious and sweeping new initiatives in national security law over the past...
04.17.2024
Japan's Resurgent Tech Scene
Ryan Takeshita is the Chief Global Editor at PIVOT, a new media outlet in Japan focused on the emerging startup scene. We get into: A stroll through recent economic history leading to today's 'boom times' Why more people are looking to leave traditional...
04.10.2024
Japan's Economic Security Renaissance
To learn about Japan’s new economic national security policy, export controls, chip policy, lessons from history, and even space policy, we interviewed Kazuto Suzuki. Suzuki-san is a professor at the University of Tokyo. He serves as an advisor to Japan’s Ministry...
04.04.2024
A Gut Check on Intel and Nvidia with Asianometry, Fabricated Knowledge, and SemiAnalysis
Just minutes after the Taiwan earthquake yesterday, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge, Jon of Asianometry and yours truly had a brief hang where we got into: Intel's process progress and rocky financial road ahead Reflections out of GTC Jensen's...
04.02.2024
Amb. Rahm Emanuel on China and Japan
Straight from Tokyo, Japan: an exclusive with Amb. Rahm Emanuel. Before his current posting as US ambassador to Japan, Rahm served as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton, multiple terms in the US House of Representatives, Obama’s first chief of staff,...
03.25.2024
Biotech 101
Biotech. What is it? Why should you care? Does biotech really matter for national security? What are China’s biotech ambitions? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Jason Kelly, the Chair and Vice Chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. Jason...
03.14.2024
EMERGENCY POD: TikTok Ban!?
Is Congress for real this time? To discuss the US domestic politics of the dramatic rollout and broader social, national, and geopolitical implications of the House's passage of a bill that would force Bytedance to divest from TikTok US, Ben Smith...
03.13.2024
Matt Clifford on China, AI Safety, and Entrepreneurship
How do you stand up an effective national AI project? Is the world prepared for the Reformation-level societal change AI could bring? Matt Clifford, according to Politico Britain’s most powerful tech adviser, joins ChinaTalk to discuss! He served as Prime Minister...
03.10.2024
Doomscrolling Chinese Twitter
Chinese Doomscroll, which faithfully records happenings from the wild west that is Weibo (China’s Twitter/X equivalent), won the ChinaTalk award for best China-focussed Substack on 2023. Today we have on the brain behind the newsletter: Molly, who’s been doomscrolling for...
03.04.2024
AI + The State Department
How can AI change diplomacy? To discuss the State Department’s options for AI integration, we interviewed the State Department's Deputy Chief Data and AI Officer, Garrett Berntsen. He served as an officer during two tours in Afghanistan and recently rotated off...
02.25.2024
India's Chip War
Why can India design chips with the best of them but has completely failed to develop fabs, much less a broader electronics industry? To discuss, I have on Pranay Kotasthane, former chip designer at TI and Qualcomm who now works...
02.18.2024
AI at the Frontier: What it Takes to Compete
What does it take to train a frontier model? What's the know-how, the secret sauce that makes firms lets OpenAI and Deepmind push the limits of what's possible? How much are Chinese firms benefitting from western open source, and in...
02.14.2024
Pottinger on Trump 2.0
Matt Pottinger reported for years out of China, served as a US Marine Corps intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, and held several senior roles on Trump's NSC , concluding his time in the White House as the Deputy National...
02.01.2024
Is the NSC Unwell?
Heart attacks, prostate cancer, Jake Sullivan awake for a home invasion attempt at 4 AM because he was just up working on a random Tuesday night? Is the national security bureaucracy in America unwell? To discuss, I have on today John Gans,...
01.25.2024
Taiwan Election Results and Implications for Beijing
Kharis Templeman, research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, returns to ChinaTalk to break down the recent Taiwan elections, held on January 13. We discuss: The lack of surprises in the election results, the subdued vibes during the campaign, and contrasts between local...
01.18.2024
How the Navy Learned to Fight
How did the US Navy evolve over the first half of the 20th century from a bunch of unschooled violent sailors who couldn't shoot straight to the world's largest and most technologically advanced fighting force? What lessons around organizational design...
01.16.2024
Taiwan Election Results Rapid Reaction
How did Lai win, what does China think, and what’s at stake for the DPP? ChinaTalk editor Nicholas Welch reads his latest recap of the 2024 Taiwan elections: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/taiwan-election-results-how-lai-won Subscribe to the newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JV9ayVWYr8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
01.15.2024
AI: Open vs Closed + NeurIPS Reflections
Should AI be more open or closed? What does it mean to be open, anyway? And can France overtake China in AI?? Today I'm running a crossover episode with the Retort AI, hosted by AI Ethicist Tom Gilbert and Nathan Lambert...
01.11.2024
PilotTalk: Cops and Journalists in PRC and Taiwan TV
New year, new PilotTalk! Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Semafor, joins Jordan and editor Irene to watch Chinese and Taiwanese TV shows. Ben’s favorite genre is crime and police dramas, and we cover the following new-ish releases: A Date With The Future...
01.05.2024
The Pentagon's AI Implementers
Margaret Palmieri is the Deputy Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Officer. I had her on to dicusss: Innovation vs diffusion in the DoD context Data issues making her life difficult How CDAO sources and tests ideas for implementing AI into different corners of the...
12.27.2023
Best Chinese Music of 2023
Jake Newby of the substack Concrete Avalanche with an end of year ChinaTalk takeover! Here's his accompanying year in review post https://jakenewby.substack.com/p/2023-in-review?utm_source=activity_item Tracklist: Intro: 'Lost in China' (excerpt) – Tation 天声 (self-released) This 'postmodernist rock band from Tibet' produced some of their best work to date...
12.20.2023
ChinaTalk 2023 in Perspective
80 episodes and 145 newsletters later, we've made it through my first year working on ChinaTalk full time. Editor Ryan Hauser hosts a review episode where we reflect on the past year, get into my production function, what I think...
12.12.2023
Setser on US-China Trade, Lessons from USTR, Economics of Great Powers, and Panda Diplomacy
Brad Setser, fellow at CFR who spent a year during the Biden Administration in USTR, joins ChinaTalk to discuss: China's long term growth trajectory and implications for national power Zambia debt negotiations and Argentina's dollarization When strategic trade policy can make sense Panda export...
12.08.2023
US-China Tech in 2023: Top 5 Stories of the Year
Kevin Xu of https://interconnect.substack.com/ and I run down our top five stories of the year in US-China tech. We get into: The eternal chip war The battle for AI model supremacy EV competition Venture investing in China PDD and Temu's rise TikTok's impressive resilience Here's ChinaTalk's...
11.30.2023
Taiwan Election Showdown! A Blue Prof and Green Pol Explain
The Taiwanese populace will head to the polls to choose their next president on January 13, 2024 — and the three-party slate is set! To discuss, we brought on Lu Yeh-chung 盧業中 — a professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University...
11.26.2023
How Rep. Gallagher Would Fix Congress and Beat China
This was a good episode. Mike Gallagher, Chair of the Select Committee on China, has some thoughtful thoughts! We get into: How he would fix Congress Why the early Cold War is still relevant today What he took away from his time in...
11.23.2023
Emergency Pod: We Are So Back! OpenAI Drama and US-China
Rohit Krishnan of Strange Loop Canon and I kibbitz about this weekend's OpenAI drama as well as the safety and US-China regulatory dynamics likely raised in the discussions with the board. Some content we discussed: Jade Leung PhD thesis: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ea3c7cb8-2464-45f1-a47c-c7b568f27665 Jeff Ding and...
11.21.2023
Xi-Biden at APEC + What It Takes To Compete
Matt Turpin, China NSC Director in the Trump administration currently at Hoover and Palantir, comes on to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of US-China relations coming out of APEC. We get into: Realistic expectations for bilateral US-China diplomacy What...
11.13.2023
Peter Harrell on Bureaucratic Barriers to Competition
Peter Harrell, who served as Biden's Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness on the NSC and NEC, comes on to discuss: Why things do or don't happen in the executive branch What reforms we might need to accelerate and amplify decision-making Lessons...
11.09.2023
RAND CEO Jason Matheny Gives a Masterclass on Risk and Organizational Design
This interview was so good. Jason Matheny, Biden's former top tech + national security advisor, has recently reached one year as CEO of RAND. We had a truly classic ChinaTalk-style conversation, hitting on: How to design a world-class research organization The right and wrong...
11.09.2023
London AI Summit + OpenAI Dev Day!
Zvi Mowshowitz of Don't Worry about The Vase and Nathan Labenz of the Cognitive Revolution podcast come on for a quick recap of the past week's AI news! We get into: What AI diplomacy is looking like post-Bletchley Park What new applications OpenAI's...
11.04.2023
RAND CEO Jason Matheny Gives a Masterclass on Risk and Organizational Design
Redownload for better audio! Jason Matheny, Biden's former top tech + national security advisor, has recently reached one year as CEO of RAND. We had a truly classic ChinaTalk-style conversation, hitting on: How to design a world-class research organization The right and wrong lessons...
11.01.2023
Emergency Pod: AI Executive Order!
Biden just dropped a 50 page executive order that's going to make the world safe for AI, hopefully? To discuss the sprawling EO we've brought on three CNAS analysts, Vivek Chilukuri, Bill Drexel and Tim Fist. We touch on: Immigration and federal...
10.27.2023
Can AI Be Governed?
In this episode, Jordan Schneider interviews Markus Anderling and Anton Korinek, two of the coauthors of the paper 'Frontier AI Regulation: Managing Emerging Risks to Public Safety'. They discuss the need for regulation and oversight of advanced AI models, known...
10.25.2023
PLA Purges + Taiwan War Risk
Defense Minister Li Shangfu just got officially purged. To discuss, we brought on Joel Wuthnow, a fellow at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, US-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. He joined ChinaTalk to discuss...
10.21.2023
Jason Furman on Inflation and Policymaking
Jason Furman was Obama's CEA chair and a Harvard econ professor, while Kyla is the my favorite economics influencer. We get into: What the deal is with inflation How policymaking is broken and what we need to fix it How Homer would tackle...
10.20.2023
How to Process Violence
Two rabbis on ChinaTalk? What am I even doing? Zohar Atkins of the wonderful Meditations with Zohar podcast alongside Ari Lamm of Bnai Zion come to discuss and process the aftermath of the Oct 7th attack. Outtro music: Ishay Ribo - Seder...
10.19.2023
EMERGENCY POD: Export Controls Dropped!
BIS just released its revision to the Oct 7 2022 restrictions. Jon of Asianometry, Dylan of Semianalysis, and Doug of Fabricated Knowledge join the pod to discuss why NVIDIA got screwed, why ASML may not have, and what these regs...
10.13.2023
Cities of Slaughter
Israel is a country dear to my heart and I wanted to provide the ChinaTalk audience with one more perspective on the events of this past weekend before returning to our regularly scheduled program. To that end, I'm running a guest...
10.10.2023
EMERGENCY POD: Two Views from Israel on Hamas + China-Middle East Relations
We discuss their experience of the past few days, China's response, its broader policy and aspirations in the Middle East, and what comes next. Our first guest is Carice Witte who is the founder and director of the SIGNAL Group. Second in...
10.05.2023
Kurt Campbell on Grand Strategy and US-China
Kurt Campbell is the Deputy Assistant to the President and the White House Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs. ChinaTalk recently joined Campbell in Washington to discuss US-China relations and mark the podcast’s 300th episode. We discuss: The nature of national power today; If China is peaking; How ideology impacts...
09.30.2023
Deep Tech VC On AI, Chips, and US-China Competition
James Wang, partner at Creative Ventures, joins to discuss: Huawei breakthrough implications and why NVIDIA's CUDA will make it particularly difficult to create a useful domestic AI chip Why China's AI companies have been underperforming my expectations How semiconductor industry dynamics parallel the...
09.22.2023
Peak China with Noah Smith and Matt Klein
Noah Smith of https://www.noahpinion.blog/ and Matt Klein of https://theovershoot.co/ join ChinaTalk to discuss: We get into: What's really happening with China's economy and why it matters strategically How China's potential peak parallels Japan's Why the world should and shouldn't be scared of China's progress...
09.13.2023
EMERGENCY POD: Huawei's Breakthrough, the Technical, Industrial and Strategic Implications
Huawei’s breakthrough Kirin 9000s: what is it, why is it a big deal, and what if anything should the US do about it? Joining me, I have on two fantastic semiconductor analysis, Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge and Dylan Patel...
09.06.2023
Why Congress Can Save Us All
This episode of China Talk explores the past, present, and future of Congress with AEI's Philip Wallach. We get into: Origins of representative government trace back to medieval England, when the king consulted regional advisors – leading to development of Parliament Founders...
08.29.2023
How China Regulates AI
How does the public, corporations, academia and civil society end up directly influencing some of China's most important regulations? What's the trajectory of China's approach to AI? Matt Sheehan of CIEP returns to discuss the AI regulatory policy process in...
08.16.2023
Culture Month! Painting in Premodern China
Culture month continues with some traditional Chinese painting coverage! What was it like to paint in premodern China? How did a husband-wife and master-mentee team up to produce some remarkable art? Why is it okay to say Chinese art is "good"...
08.12.2023
"Emergency" Pod: Outbound Investment Screening!
Emily Benson (CSIS) and Martin Chorzempa (PIIE) come on to discuss the new executive order and Treasury's ANRPM (advanced notice of proposed rulemaking) on novel outbound investment screening rules on AI, quantum and semis. Treasury document: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/206/Treasury-ANPRM.pdf Outtro music: 水碾河南三街 LSGCsikoriot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wzz1Deafh8 Midjourney:...

What's ChinaTalk about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

ChinaTalk episodes:

TSMC Takes Arizona

History and Future of India-China Relations

DOJ vs Data Espionage

Japan's Resurgent Tech Scene

Japan's Economic Security Renaissance

A Gut Check on Intel and Nvidia with Asianometry, Fabricated Knowledge, and SemiAnalysis

Amb. Rahm Emanuel on China and Japan

Biotech 101

EMERGENCY POD: TikTok Ban!?

Matt Clifford on China, AI Safety, and Entrepreneurship

Doomscrolling Chinese Twitter

AI + The State Department

India's Chip War

AI at the Frontier: What it Takes to Compete

Pottinger on Trump 2.0

Is the NSC Unwell?

Taiwan Election Results and Implications for Beijing

How the Navy Learned to Fight

Taiwan Election Results Rapid Reaction

AI: Open vs Closed + NeurIPS Reflections

PilotTalk: Cops and Journalists in PRC and Taiwan TV

The Pentagon's AI Implementers

Best Chinese Music of 2023

ChinaTalk 2023 in Perspective

Setser on US-China Trade, Lessons from USTR, Economics of Great Powers, and Panda Diplomacy

US-China Tech in 2023: Top 5 Stories of the Year

Taiwan Election Showdown! A Blue Prof and Green Pol Explain

How Rep. Gallagher Would Fix Congress and Beat China

Emergency Pod: We Are So Back! OpenAI Drama and US-China

Xi-Biden at APEC + What It Takes To Compete

Peter Harrell on Bureaucratic Barriers to Competition

RAND CEO Jason Matheny Gives a Masterclass on Risk and Organizational Design

London AI Summit + OpenAI Dev Day!

RAND CEO Jason Matheny Gives a Masterclass on Risk and Organizational Design

Emergency Pod: AI Executive Order!

Can AI Be Governed?

PLA Purges + Taiwan War Risk

Jason Furman on Inflation and Policymaking

How to Process Violence

EMERGENCY POD: Export Controls Dropped!

Cities of Slaughter

EMERGENCY POD: Two Views from Israel on Hamas + China-Middle East Relations

Kurt Campbell on Grand Strategy and US-China

Deep Tech VC On AI, Chips, and US-China Competition

Peak China with Noah Smith and Matt Klein

EMERGENCY POD: Huawei's Breakthrough, the Technical, Industrial and Strategic Implications

Why Congress Can Save Us All

How China Regulates AI

Culture Month! Painting in Premodern China

"Emergency" Pod: Outbound Investment Screening!