ChinaEconTalk

Adam Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), joins Jordan to talk about technology competition between the United States and China. In this episode, they discuss a recent report by CFR titled Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge, which examines the increasingly vexed technology ties between the two countries and the implications of tech nationalism worldwide.

11:44: Undue pressure on Chinese scientists

16:39: Does it matter who invests in research and development?

21:26: Would antitrust regulation impact industry research and development?

30:21: The civil-military divide and Silicon Valley culture

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Li, a Chongqing native and a technology reporter for Quartz, talks through some of the differences between Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo. She also discusses the website Douban, the lively and open discussion among its young users, and the threat that looming censorship poses to it. In addition, she provides details on why some Chinese internet users have turned their backs on Huawei in the wake of an extended jail term served by one of its employees. 

4:10: Twitter vs. Weibo — what’s the difference?

6:52: The “China Twitter” maelstrom 

11:06: Online discourse regarding the Hong Kong protests

14:23: What is “251” and how does it relate to Huawei?

20:04: The Douban online ecosystem

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can one street tell China’s story? Jonathan Chatwin, author of Long Peace Street: A Walk in Modern China, takes listeners on a tour of Chang’an Avenue, a major artery for traffic in central Beijing, which was also the scene of several critical moments in China’s modern history. Jordan and Jonathan discuss the symbolism of national buildings and monuments along it, and the role of the street as a place of protest and a part of China’s revolutionary history. 

11:05: Baobaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery  

20:22: The Beijing Museum

32:26: The Forbidden City

44:51: Chang’an Avenue, the sterile highway

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Triolo, practice head of geotechnology at the Eurasia Group, sat down with Jordan to address some of the questions at the center of the U.S.-China tech relationship: the future of 5G research and innovation, persecutions of researchers and scientists from China based in the U.S., security concerns surrounding Huawei and Chinese-funded communications infrastructure, and more. 

6:38: Current blind spots in Chinese tech policy

18:30: What does a “good” tech policy look like?

32:09: Is change possible under Xi Jinping?

42:16: What makes Huawei competitive?

The Eurasia Group has no clients in the People's Republic of China.

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeremiah Jenne, history teacher, writer, and the man behind Beijing by Foot, is in the guest seat this week. He speaks with Jordan about the changes — both tangible and intangible — that Beijing has undergone in the last few decades. They chat about how Chinese history is reinterpreted through the lenses of different regimes, the ways in which this new history is presented to the world, and Beijing’s modernizing cityscape and the varied reactions it is met with.

10:57: Out with the old, in with the new

15:17: What to make of the Qing dynasty, with help from the CCP 

27:40: An age of censorship

29:37: History is different in Beijing and Taipei

Use promo code ChinaEconTalk for 20% off at https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Puzzled by rising drug deaths at raves in the United States, author and investigative journalist Ben Westhoff set out to find answers. A Google search for “Buy fentanyl in China” took him down a rabbit hole that led to a face-to-face meeting with the CEO of a company selling fentanyl on Skype “all day long” and a drug lab in Shanghai. Ben tells Jordan the remarkable story.

5:06: The digital rabbit hole

9:20: Want to make fentanyl? Just Google it.

13:57: Between Heisenberg and Pfizer

22:17: How suppliers dodge U.S. Customs

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bloomberg technology reporter Lulu Chen gives the scoop on the tech world in China: what’s to come for Alibaba under newly minted CEO Daniel Zhang, the long-standing grudge Meituan CEO Wang Xing holds against Jack Ma, the Communist Party’s growing presence within technology companies, and her own views on reporting on tech in China. 

2:07: Hong Kong protests

24:03: Daniel Zhang’s new venture

28:11: Meituan drama

36:22: International expansion of Chinese tech

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake Sullivan served in the Obama administration as National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden and Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. He currently teaches at Yale Law School. In this episode, Sullivan discusses his perspectives on the current U.S.-China relationship, his experiences working in the Obama administration and on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton campaign, and the ways our relationships with other governments around the world are changing under Trump. 

What to listen for on this week's ChinaEconTalk:

5:05: Reflections on the Obama years

19:03: A case for internationalism

27:46: Doing more to achieve less with China

45:20: The direction of U.S. foreign policy

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mira Rapp-Hooper, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, provides an overview of the history of U.S. foreign policy from Washington’s farewell address to the modern day. She also discusses the implications of a rising China for the future of U.S. alliances.

3:20: The costs of going it alone 

10:41: Cold War “Great Power” competition

36:32: The Taiwan Strait crisis

41:47: Trump and the future of U.S. alliances

Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ChinaEconTalk is live from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., with Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow in the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Host Jordan Schneider sits down with Martijn to discuss a few of the more contentious topics surrounding the ongoing friction between the United States and China, including rare earths, the strategic implications of 5G, concerns about Huawei software and security, and global ICT standard setting. Get bonus content on Patreon

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices