ChinaEconTalk

ChinaEconTalk

By SupChinaBusiness
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ChinaEconTalk episodes

  • Nate Silver on AI, Politics, and Power

    Nate Silver writes Silver Bulletin and is the author of On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, now in paperback with a new foreword.

    In today’s conversation, we discuss…

    • Honesty, reputation, and paying the bills with writing,
    • Impact scenarios for the AI future, including how AI could impact elections and political decision-making,
    • The emerging synergy between prediction markets and journalism, and how Nate would build a team of professional Polymarket traders,
    • How to build a legacy, and strategies for balancing long-form and short-form projects,
    • Nate’s hypothetical plan to reform US institutions, and how that compares with real-world prospects for creating political change over the long term.

      • Outro Music: 動物園釘子戶 (Zoo Gazer) - 大大大大大象 (YouTube Link)

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      1 hr 20 min
    • MP Materials, Intel, and Sovereign Wealth Funds

      Uncle Sam is taking a bite out of companies left and right. Today, we’re going to focus on MP Materials — the Trump administration’s answer to China’s restrictions on rare earth material exports to America.

      To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Daleep Singh, former Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, now with PGIN; Arnab Datta, currently at Employ America and IFP; and Peter Harrell, former Biden official and host of the excellent new Security Economics podcast.

      Today, our conversation covers:

      • Why critical mineral markets are broken,

      • How China achieved rare earth dominance,

      • The history of rare earth mining and refinement in the US,

      • What the MP Materials deal does, and whether it can succeed,

      • The key ingredients for successful industrial policy, with case studies including a Strategic Resilience Reserve, a US sovereign wealth fund, and support for Intel.

        Outro music: Ornaments Of Gold - Siouxsie And The Banshees (YouTube Link)

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        1 hr 2 min
      • The Robotics Revolution

        Ryan Julian is a research scientist in embodied AI. He worked on large-scale robotics foundation models at DeepMind and got his PhD in machine learning at USC in 2021. Follow him on X: @ryancjulian

        In our conversation today, we discuss…

        • What makes a robot a robot, and what makes robotics so difficult,
        • The promise of robotic foundation models and strategies to overcome the data bottleneck,
        • Why full labor replacement is far less likely than human-robot synergy,
        • China’s top players in the robotic industry, and what sets them apart from American companies and research institutions,
        • How robots will impact manufacturing, and how quickly we can expect to see robotics take off.

          • O*NET’s ontology of labor: http://onetcenter.org/database.html

          ChinaTalk's Unitree coverage: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/unitree-ceo-on-chinas-robot-revolution

          Robotics reading recommendations: Chris Paxton, Ted Xiao, C Zhang, and The Humanoid Hub on X. You can also check out the General Robots and Learning and Control Substacks, Vincent Vanhoucke on Medium, and IEEE’s robotics coverage.

          Today’s podcast is brought to you by 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit that helps people find fulfilling careers that do good. 80,000 Hours — named for the average length of a career — has been doing in-depth research on AI issues for over a decade, producing reports on how the US and China can manage existential risk, scenarios for potential AI catastrophe, and examining the concrete steps you can take to help ensure AI development goes well.

          Their research suggests that working to reduce risks from advanced AI could be one of the most impactful ways to make a positive difference in the world.

          They provide free resources to help you contribute, including:

          • Detailed career reviews for paths like AI safety technical research, AI governance, information security, and AI hardware,
          • A job board with hundreds of high-impact opportunities,
          • A podcast featuring deep conversations with experts like Carl Shulman, Ajeya Cotra, and Tom Davidson,
          • Free, one-on-one career advising to help you find your best fit.

            • To learn more and access their research-backed career guides, visit 80000hours.org/ChinaTalk.

            To read their report about AI coordination between the US and China, visit http://80000hours.org/chinatalkcoord.

            Outro music: Daft Punk - Motherboard (⁠YouTube Link⁠)

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            1 hr 27 min
          • Emergency Pod: US-India-China Meltdown

            Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution and the Tracking People's Daily substack https://trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/ alongside James Crabtree, author of Billionaire Raj, chat whatever the hell is happening in the trilateral relationship.

            Outtro music: Chalte Chalte Title Song | Abhijeet, Alka Yagnik | Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkOakcMqJ-8&ab_channel=T-SeriesBollywoodClassics

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            1 hr 3 min
          • Second Breakfast: Parades, U.S. Grant, JCIDS, Warbots

            Our third defense pod, I guess we're really doing it now.

            Like and subscribe if you're just here for our Civil War coverage.

            Guests include:

            • Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/
            • Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/
            • Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC

              • Outtro Music: After going through twenty different John Brown's Body recordings this one was my favorite, an acapela rendition by Deborah Anne Goss https://open.spotify.com/track/20id0r7ZlSIFxKifoEFlfC?si=0d2a59f7dfe142fa

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              1 hr 8 min
            • War in the Pacific with Ian Toll

              For the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Japan, ChinaTalk interviewed Ian Toll about his Pacific War trilogy, which masterfully brings America’s bloodiest war — and the world’s only nuclear war — to life. Ian’s detailed scholarship creates a multisensory historical experience, from the metallic tang of radiation after the bombs were dropped to the stench of Pacific battlefields.

              Ian’s forthcoming book, The Freshwater War, will explore the naval campaign the US fought against Britain on the Great Lakes between 1812 and 1815.

              Today our conversation covers….

              • How Ian innovates when writing historical narratives,
              • Whether Allied victory was predetermined after the US entered the war,
              • Why the Kamikaze were born out of resource scarcity, and whether Japanese military tactics were suicidal as well,
              • How foreign wars temporarily stabilized Japan’s revolutionary domestic politics,
              • How American military leadership played the media and politics to become national heroes,
              • Lessons from 1945 for a potential Taiwan invasion.

                • Cohosting is Chris Miller, author of Chip War. Thanks to the US-Japan Foundation for sponsoring this podcast.

                Outro music: The Mills Brothers - Till Then (YouTube link)

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                1 hr 59 min
              • Dan Wang on Modern China

                Dan Wang at long last makes his solo ChinaTalk debut! We’re here to discuss and celebrate his first book, Breakneck.

                We get into…

                • Engineering states vs lawyerly societies,
                • The competing legacies of the 1980s in China, the decade which saw brutal repression via the One Child Policy and Tiananmen alongside intellectual debate, cultural vibrancy, and rock and roll,
                • Methods of knowing China, from the People’s Daily and Seeking Truth to on-the-ground research,
                • How to compare the values of China’s convenient yet repressive society with the chaotic pluralism of the USA,
                • What Li Qiang’s career post-Shanghai lockdowns can tell us about the value of loyalty vs competence in Xi’s China.

                  • Outro music: Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro (YouTube link)

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                  1 hr 17 min
                • Second Breakfast: Drones, Silicon Shield, Waymo, FedFest, Bolton

                  Israeli/Ukranian-style bolt from the blue drone attacks freak out Eric.

                  I don't buy Silicon Shield.

                  Lessons from Waymo on about the future of warfare.

                  Intertextual analysis of the Mick Ryan interview.

                  Fed Supernova, which is a terrible name for a conference, and counterintelligence.

                  Has John Bolton taken enough Ls already? I guess not.

                  Guests include:

                  • Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/
                  • Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/
                  • Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC

                    • Outtro Music: Bach, Chris Thile, Partita 1 in B Minor 1002: VI. Double https://open.spotify.com/track/780bh3MspPK19jVDD7EIKu?si=4809af67eda34c38

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                    55 min

                  About ChinaEconTalk

                  From the publisher's feed

                  A weekly conversation exploring China's economy and tech scene. Guests include a wide range of policy analysts, business professionals, journalists, and academics. A SupChina production, hosted by…