ChinaTalk

By Jordan SchneiderNews Technology Government Politics

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Typical duration
71 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

ChinaTalk episodes

October 22, 2025PLA Purges and How Xi Rules with Jon Czin
Jon Czin spent years as a top China analyst at the CIA, served as China Director on Biden’s National Security Council, and now works at the Brookings Institution. We discuss what Xi’s fourth-term means for China’s top leadership and military, Taiwan, and the US. We cover:
How Xi’s mafioso-style “decapitation strategy” has kept the PLA in line and why he’s purged more generals than Mao.

Cognitive decline and how end-of-life thinking might be shaping Xi’s succession plans and Taiwan strategy.

Tariffs, rare earths, and China’s appetite for pain vs. America’s.

Beijing’s parochialism and its limits in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

What intelligence work on China actually looks like and whether or not Xi’s era is duller than previous generations.
Plus: who might succeed Xi, comparing the Politburo Standing Committee to a frat house, and why chips and TSMC matter much less in Xi’s Taiwan calculus than most think.
Outtro Music:

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1 hr 55 min
October 17, 2025 Second Breakfast: Gaza, SOUTHCOM, AI Nuke Analogies Stink, Generals Using AI (with M. Horowitz and L. Kahn!)
Guests today include Michael Horowitz (Penn now, in the Biden years was DAS for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities + Director of the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office) and Lauren Kahn (worked with Michael in the DoD, now at CSET).
The book that Mike recommended is free to download online! https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/catalog/30-4.pdf
Outtro Music: The Shirelles, Soldier Boy
00:00 Gaza and the Middle East Peace Process
06:26 US-Latin American Policy and Military Engagement
10:38 AI and Nuclear Weapons: A Seductive Analogy
17:47 Nuclear Energy vs. AI: Lessons in Governance
20:02 The Future of AI in Military Operations
31:46 Transforming Military Lessons with AI
37:38 Operational Surprise and Historical Context
45:55 Social Acceptability of Military Technologies
57:59 Ethics and Accuracy in AI Warfare

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1 hr 5 min
October 15, 2025Tarun Chhabra on the Stakes of AI Competition
Tarun Chhabra is Head of National Security Policy at Anthropic, and previously served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Technology and National Security on Biden’s NSC.
Today, our conversation covers…
Why the US needs to maintain an advantage in the race for AI development against China,
Whether the US’s AI industry is prepared for future competition from China,
The lawyers vs. engineers debate, and what the US needs to build AI supply chains,
How government and industry can work together to across the AI development process.
Outro music: Stephen Wilson Jr. - Stand By Me (Live at The Print Shop) (YouTube Link)

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1 hr 8 min
October 13, 2025Anduril's Christian Brose on the Dangers of Unseriousness
Chrisian Brose is the Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries. He’s been at the forefront of the debate about how America needs to change in order to win a future war against a high-tech adversary like China. He’s the former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee and the author of the essential book, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare.
We discuss:
Why the U.S remains dangerously vulnerable to low-cost drone attacks and what it would take to get serious about defending the homeland,
How bureaucratic logjams and budget dysfunction stall America’s adoption of counter-drone and other critical defenses,
What the Ukraine war reveals about the future of warfare and what the US has yet to learn from it,
Why confidence in American technological superiority is misplaced, and why state-of-the-art weapons may not guarantee a quick or decisive war,
How humans will make military decisions in the age of AI.
Outro music: Kay Kyser - Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition (YouTube Link)
Gracie Fields - Thing-Ummy-Bob (That's Going To Win The War) (YouTube Link)

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1 hr 30 min
October 09, 2025 EMERGENCY POD: China's Rare Earth Export Controls
Chris Miller (chip wars), Chris McGuire (10 year State Dpt vet, check out the past episode on the feed) and I discuss a big move by MOFCOM to squeeze Trump in advance of their APEC summit.

Outtro Music: Paul Simon, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAb2Mu0CRk4

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58 min
October 08, 2025AI Hardware Net Assessment: Why Huawei Can't Beat Nvidia
Last week, Jensen Huang said that China is “nanoseconds behind” the US in chipmaking. Is he right? Today, Chris McGuire joins ChinaTalk for a US-China AI hardware net assessment. Chris spent a decade as a civil servant in the State Department, serving as Deputy Senior Director for Technology and National Security on the NSC during the Biden administration and back at State for the initial months of Trump 2.0.
Today, our conversation covers:
Huawei vs Nvidia, and whether China can compete with US AI chip production,

Signs that chip export controls are working,

Why Jensen is full of it when he says China is “nanoseconds behind”

What sets AI chips apart from other industries China has indigenized,

How the US has escalation dominance in a trade war with China, and the significance of BIS’s 50% rule,

Chris’s advice for young professionals, including why they should still consider working in government.

Outtro Music: Abao Uduli https://open.spotify.com/track/176BwQLW0IGc2mhkkMe0yH

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1 hr 29 min
October 06, 2025 Second Breakfast: Putin's Drones, SecWar Patton, Wargaming, Finding Subs
Bryan Clark, a former submariner now with the Hudson Institute, joins the show!
Outtro speech: George C. Scott's rendition of Patton's speech

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1 hr 2 min
October 03, 2025 RAND's Jeff Alstott on How Facts Can Shape Tech Policymaking
At long last, Jeff Alstott, the fairy godfather of DC AI policy, joins the show. He’s the founding director for RAND’s center for technology and security policy, TASP, worked at NSC, NSF and IARPA, and has a PhD in complex networks.

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1 hr 8 min
October 01, 2025 Transistor Radio: Intel, Dylan Falls in Love, Nvidia Captures Dylan, Slop City (our dumbest show yet)
for better or worse, the first ep on chinatalk feed I had to put an explicit tag on...

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52 min
September 29, 2025 Second Breakfast: The Future of Intelligence
Anthony Vinci, former CTO of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and author of the upcoming book The Fourth Intelligence Revolution, joins as Second Breakfast's first ever guest.

Outtro Music: Otis Redding, Something is Worrying Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ughAT80R8

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1 hr 24 min

About ChinaTalk

From the publisher's feed

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