ChinaTalk

By Jordan SchneiderNews Technology Government Politics

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ChinaTalk episodes

December 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 the point of all of this is, and how I expect to evolve ChinaTalk in 2024.
Please get in touch! I'm at [email protected]
Here's my cause exploration essay: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/E2BghQq9pwPgtHgiH/war-between-the-us-and-china-a-case-study-for-epistemic
Outtro music: Gurrumul, Bayini https://open.spotify.com/track/1XZ9HxC4MiMUUNQ7WKFucM?si=a40c4dfdd71c428e

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42 min
December 12, 2023Setser 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 controls
Sign up here for international intrigue! https://www.internationalintrigue.io/?utm_source=chinatalk&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=1223
Kyla Scanlon of the https://kyla.substack.com/ newsletter cohosts.
Outtro music: I Hear a Rhapsody, Bill Evans and Jim Hall https://open.spotify.com/track/2oEvw0AfrT2fPNpEnBwVml?si=cc9f1add64034de7
Midjourney image: a panda bald eagle combined mystical animal in the style of a traditional chinese painting

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1 hr 26 min
December 08, 2023US-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 attempt to benchmark Chinese models https://www.chinatalk.media/p/putting-chinas-top-llms-to-the-test
Outtro music: two songs from my spotify wrapped which are kind of ancillary to crappy US-China relations?
2gether, Mura Masa and Gretel Ganlyn: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Wqd0R1X1tuVK9FySVyLpt?si=48a61ddf3f094b57
No Talk, Lowell: https://open.spotify.com/track/0ToOqwERQswtN1O7AveCU9?si=9424183956b74960

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55 min
November 30, 2023Taiwan 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 國立政治大學 — and Lin Fei-fan 林飛帆, previously the Deputy-Secretary of the DPP and well-known for leading the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014.
Our conversation gets into:
What a three-party race means in a first-past-the-post electoral system, and how the pan-blue and pan-green camps are feeling;
Why the KMT-TPP alliance broke down, and what the pan-blue side needs to do to mobilize its electorate;
The KMT’s and DPP’s views on whether Taiwanese and mainland Chinese are part of the same family 兩岸一家人;
What the 1992 Consensus means to the KMT and DPP, and the tensions and synergies between idealism and functionalism in Taiwanese politics;
How the CCP views the upcoming election, and to what extent it really fears pro-independence activists in Taiwan;
What demarcates the KMT and DPP outside of cross-Strait politics, and which domestic issues are most compelling for the average Taiwanese voter;
And how the KMT and DPP balance government spending on hard military assets versus subsidizing critical technologies like semiconductors.
DPP ticket:
president: William Lai Ching-te 賴清德
vice president: Hsiao Bi-khim 蕭美琴
KMT ticket:
president: Hou Yu-ih 侯友宜
vice president: Jaw Shaw-kong 趙少康
TPP ticket:
president: Ko Wen-je 柯文哲
vice president: Cynthia Wu Hsin-ying 吳欣盈

Outro music: 回春丹- 鲜花 https://open.spotify.com/track/35XxW360SO3puJQDfuaY4r

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1 hr 25 min
November 26, 2023How 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 Iraq and the Eisenhower Archives
Why all you should really do to understand China is listen to ChinaTalk and read our substack (at https://www.chinatalk.media/)

My book rec: https://www.amazon.com/Men-Machines-Modern-Times-Press/dp/0262529319
Outtro music, Ella Fitzgerald, My Cousin in Milwaukee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWy9XjHt324

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47 min
November 23, 2023Emergency 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 Jenny Xiao's piece: https://www.governance.ai/research-paper/recent-trends-chinas-llm-landscape
The Foreign Affairs piece: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/illusion-chinas-ai-prowess-regulation
Image made by my mother on DALLE to represent Altman getting fired for the family groupchat.
Outtro music:
Happy Survival https://open.spotify.com/track/5txZKim1ruceUUhDlU84yc?si=b0d183344163418d
It'l All Be Over: https://open.spotify.com/track/1KFtR58Hn1nQ9fR0DRnC9n?si=512636c8caf24610

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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58 min
November 21, 2023Xi-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 are the necessary ingredients for coherent and effective policymaking
What Matt expects and worries about from a second Trump administration
Why foundations and corporations should sponsor ChinaTalk!

Outtro music: Time/Breathe Reprise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw1bJrFdCjY
Virtual insanity: https://open.spotify.com/track/24SUWisv2lYQiB3bVpE1sn?si=cf1cf18c0bc94ef7

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1 hr 11 min
November 13, 2023Peter 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 from the sanctions response to the war in Ukraine for China

Check out our newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media.
James Brown--Bewildered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iXlDeqSTRA

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58 min
November 09, 2023RAND 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 lessons to learn from RAND's heyday in the 1950s
Existential risks around AI and bio
Government's capacity to grok and implement technology strategy
What national security professionals can learn from art and architecture
And a ton more.
Thanks to Check out the Hudson Institute's defense research center here: https://www.hudson.org/policycenters/center-defense-concepts-technology
Some 1950s vibes for our outtro music:
Julie London: https://open.spotify.com/track/6crfO56bDm0RjpctUuGs5X?si=5a434079b24b4d03
Doris Day: https://open.spotify.com/track/20G1XJaTwIm2IuwA3Pjg1d?si=22095e2f9aa842cc

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1 hr 51 min
November 09, 2023London 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 latest announcements mean for future AI applications

Outtro: Bizarrap with Milo J https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGWa-GO8mKg

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42 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.