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 Beijing’s foreign policy;

Campbell’s hopes and fears for the Biden administration’s Asia policy;

Whether the US is still aiming to “maintain as large of a lead as possible” on chips and AI;

How to think about the risk of and effectively deter military escalation;

And the dark shadow of Tiananmen and its lasting impact on Chinese politics and US foreign policy.


Outtro music: Brahms: Sonata in E flat major for Viola and Piano, Op. 120, No. 2 I. Allegro amabile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYrC4rx5VrA
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Kurt Campbell on Grand Strategy and US-China

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

Software How-To

News

Politics

Government

Nathan Lambert of the Interconnects substack and Allen Institute joins for a roundup where we get into:

What DC should understand about the Bay Area AI engineer psyche

What GPT4o and Google's AI Dev Day mean for the future of AI

OpenAI's model spec, and exit, voice, and loyalty in the leading labs


Outtro music: Scarlett Johansson's The Moon Song
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AI Roundup: GPT4o, SCSP AI Expo, Open vs Closed

We're taking one out of the archives!
Douglas Irwin is a Dartmouth professor and the author of Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy. On this episode, Irwin provides an overview to the history of U.S. trade policy from the 18th century to the modern day, highlighting significant legislation as well as the formation of important intergovernmental organizations that have sprung up along the way.
Outro Music: Janis Joplin, Mercedes Benz
19:53: On the flawed logic behind the Tariff Act of 1930, and the parallels with similarly problematic thinking in the modern day: “There’s absolutely a parallel there because some Democrats in Congress said, ‘You know, we ought to really think about this carefully, and not just our domestic interest but also our export interests, and other countries might retaliate.’ And basically, the reaction of most members of Congress was, Republicans at the time, ‘No, we don’t have to worry about that. This is a domestic piece of legislation, it doesn’t really concern other countries. They’re not going to retaliate.’ And, of course, they did.”
39:40: Doug discusses the tips and tricks behind one example of “tariff engineering”: “The tariffs applied to motorcycles with piston displacements of 700cc and above. What Honda started doing is producing a 699cc version. Now the difference [between the two] is imperceptible, but just by changing that one cubic centimeter, it changed the whole tariff treatment and you avoided a 45 percent tariff and were assessed at a much, much lower rate.”

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250 Years of US Trade Policy

Brad Setser of CFR talks Biden's new tariffs!
Earlier podcast deep dive on Chinese EV policy: ChinaTalk: Why Chinese EVs Will Take Over the World on Apple Podcasts
Earlier podcast on the deep history of US trade policy: ChinaTalk: Tarriffs, taxes, and trade: Doug Irwin on ChinaEconTalk on Apple Podcasts
Brad's paper: Power and Financial Interdependence (ifri.org)
Outtro Music: Golden Earring's Radar Love
Here's a fun playlist on the best car songs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6l0sSAdFwyCH1yzQX2IrKQ?si=fb3b8fdd29644631
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EMERGENCY POD: Biden's Electric Curtain

Charles Clancy is the CTO of MITRE, an American not-for-profit organization managing federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) supporting various US government agencies in defense, healthcare, national security, and cybersecurity fields, among others.
In this interview, we discuss:

What is MITRE and how does it support national science & technology strategy

How China threatens America’s infrastructure and university R&D

The cyber workforce gap and how AI could fill it

Finding mission-driven work for highly skilled technologists

How the ecosystem of S&T and R&D funding evolved through the 20th century to today

Outtro music: Yung Bae, Magic Yung Bae - Magic (youtube.com)
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MITRE on S&T Strategy

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 challenges that TSMC is facing trying to manufacture semiconductors in the USA. Throughout her story, we get a peek into a world of rigid hierarchies, American workers who are slow on the uptake, and culture clash over pornographic desktop flair. 
Today’s interview discusses:

Sleuthing techniques for independent journalism;

The challenges faced by Taiwanese semiconductor engineers relocating to Arizona;

TSMC’s management style and the complaints raised by new American employees;

The similarities and differences between TSMC’s expansion to the USA and Foxconn’s expansion to India;

Whether adapting to American work culture will tank the prospects of the new Phoenix Fab.


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Kurt Campbell on Grand Strategy and US-China

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