ChinaTalk

Prepare a nice cup of tea and put your feet up for a special episode of stories and anecdotes about the late American historian and Sinologist Jonathan Spence, as told by his friend and colleague Paul Kennedy.

He takes us through

Outro Music: 'This Map' from the opera The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (!!!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71cJopakfAw

Here's a video recording of the whole opera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_susz11wE9Q

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AI safety is having a moment. To discuss why AI safety matters for national security, today I have on Paul Scharre (@Paul_scharre). He’s the Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS. He previously served in OSD Policy and as a US Army Ranger.

We discuss

Outro music: A.I. 爱 by 王力宏 Wang Leehom, a very much cancelled Taiwanese pop star https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4DuqEL0ChQ.

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Does America need an industrial policy to compete in biotech?

Today I'm joined by two guests, Ryan Fedasiuk (@RyanFedasiuk) and Gigi Gronvall (@ggronvall). Ryan is a fellow currently on leave from Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). Gigi is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

We discuss:

Outro music: 发现美的耳朵 by 马思唯 and 也是福 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaJHDriJGPE

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Wouldn't it be nice to have a world where important policy decisions were decided based on evidence and data rather than narratives and turf battles? Dan Spokojny thought so too, and that's why he's the founder of fp21, a think tank dedicated to changing the processes and institutions of US foreign policy.

Along with Jon Bateman, a senior fellow in the technology and international affairs program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in this episode we talk about some of the failings of contemporary foreign policy decision making processes and what can be done to fix them, including:

Outro music: Good Bayesian by Baba Brinkman, MC Lars and Mega Ran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6Wc_f1Cgo&t=195s

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On Aug 9th Biden signed the Chips + Science Act into law. What’s it gunna do for science?

Joining us today is 

Cohosting with me is Jacob Feldgoise, Who recently wrote a column on the Act on the CHINATALK NEWSLETTER WHICH YOU SHOULD ALL SIGN UP TO READ! I even bought a new url for you: chinatalk.media.

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A few weeks back, Congress actually did something, passing the Chips and Science Act. Most of you have probably heard of the billions going toward subsidizing domestic manufacturing, but a far less-heralded part of the bill may end up matting more in the long run. The Act created the ‘National Semiconductor Technology Center.’ What is it and why does it matter?

To discuss, Eric Breckenfeld of the Semiconductor Industry Association and Hassan Khan, who holds a PhD in engineering and public policy, join the show.

Outtro music: 发现美的耳朵 by 马思唯 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaJHDriJGPE

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To discuss, Eric Breckenfeld of the Semiconductor Industry Association and Hassan Khan, who holds a PhD in engineering and public policy,

Outtro Music: Leo王 - 陪妳過假日 feat. 9m88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS89Vb07C-U

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This year marks ten years since Wang Lijun's fateful flight to the US Embassy in Chengdu, a decision which set in motion a chain of events that ultimately brought down one of China's most powerful politicians, Xi's most credible rival for power in 2012, Bo Xilai.

The former mayor of Chongqing remains in prison to this day for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of office, along with his wife Gu Kailai, who is serving life imprisonment for the murder of a British businessman. But a decade later, how much of an impact does Bo's story have in the halls of power?

New York Times reporter Chris Buckley joins the show this episode to discuss Bo's legacy and share anecdotes about his encounters with him prior to his arrest, along with formerly Chongqing-based author Xujun Eberlein. Former ChinaTalk producer Alex Boyd co-hosts.

We discuss

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Joseph Torigian’s “Prestige, Manipulation and Coercion, Elite Power Struggles in The Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao” is in pole position for my best China book of 2022. Books that deeply engage with both Soviet and CCP primary sources around elite politics basically never come out nowadays. I for one am deeply grateful that Joe, one of the few folks on the planet with the training, language skills, and motivation to this sort of work, was able to produce this book.

Joe puts forward convincing revisionist interpretations of Khrushchev’s triumph after Stalin’s death, had me reconsider my conception of the Gang of 4 after Mao’s death, and made me feel for Hua Guofeng getting done dirty by Deng. His new model of how power transitions really work in authoritarian countries with weak institutions left me more scared than hopeful for whatever happens once Xi exits stage left.

Cohosting with me is Lizzi, a video journalist at Wall Street TV, a New York-based independent Chinese language media outlet focusing on Chinese politics and economics.

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When Churchill announced in 1946 that an iron curtain had descended over Europe, the US government only employed two dozen experts on the Soviet Union. Two years later, with the cold war well underway, the CIA only had 12 Russian speakers.

Over the following decades, philanthropists and the US government started an intellectual mobilization that had profound effects on the course of the cold war. To talk about this, David Engerman, author of Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts, joins the show along with cohosts Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts, and Sam George, who just finished a masters in East Asian studies at Stanford.

We discuss:

Outro music: We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g

Check out David's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Enemy-Americas-Experts/dp/0199832471

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