Confusion around what China has officially agreed to in terms of pausing its rare earths, and other critical mineral, export controls persists – even as we are a week out from Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s trade agreement in South Korea.

Significant discrepancies remain between official statements from the White House and China’s Ministry of Commerce on the issue.

• Meanwhile, officials and commercial players on both sides of the Pacific are reporting significant differences around their expectations for how quickly, and abundantly, rare earths and other critical minerals will flow from China.

In this week’s Trivium China podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined by his colleague Cory Combs to lay out their latest understanding of the issue. The two discuss:

• The key discrepancies between US and Chinese statements on the export control pause
• How political messaging from the White House is adding to the confusion for businesses
• And whether the political will exists for both sides to fully align on the details – and to maintain the trade ceasefire for a full year

Andrew and Cory then move on to examine the growing debate in Washington around how quickly the US can fully end its reliance on China for rare earth supplies. Cory gets into:

• What a realistic timeline for ending reliance on China would look like
• The reasons the US found itself in this situation in the first place
• Benchmarking how quickly China can build new rare earths processing facilities – as a baseline for the potential US build out
• The highly technical aspects of rare earths processing that will ultimately determine success or failure

It’s another fascinating discussion from the fine folks on the Trivium team – you won’t want to miss it!

Also, check out this excellent paper by Jessica DiCarlo, Cory Combs, and Raphael Deberdt that Cory mentions in the show: Fractured Extraction: Mining Firms, Provinces and Municipalities in the Decentralized Politics of China’s Rare Earth Production

It was another monumental week on the China front.

• On Tuesday, the Party released its sprawling 15th Five Year Plan (FYP) Proposals – laying out the sheer scale of Xi Jinping’s policy ambitions over the next half-decade
• Then on Thursday, Xi and US President Donald Trump got together in South Korea – their first meeting in six years – and agreed to a year-long ceasefire in the trade war

In this week’s Trivium China podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined by colleagues Kendra Schaefer and Dinny McMahon to break it all down.

That’s right folks, this episode is a two-fer.

Andrew and Kendra start off by discussing:

• The details of the trade agreement, as we know them
• What China thinks it got out of the deal
• The pros and cons of the one-year timeframe
• Future tripwires that could set things back on an escalatory spiral

Kendra then touches on her key takeaways from the 15th FYP Proposals, when it comes to China’s tech ambitions, before Dinny joins the pod to walk through:

• The headline macro takeaways from the FYP Proposals
• Chinese leaders’ sense of urgency over the next five years
• How policymakers are thinking about consumption’s role in the economy
• China’s more assertive position on the world stage

It’s another solid episode, folks, so enjoy!

Alright folks, this one is a banger.

In this week’s Trivium China podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined first by colleagues Dinny McMahon and Joe Peissel. The three discuss:

• The most recent China macro data
• Economic headwinds and tailwinds as we move into 2026
• Their early read of the 4th Plenum – and Xi Jinping’s make or break moment with the upcoming Five-Year Plan

Andrew is then joined by a very special guest – US-China Business Council President Sean Stein. They get into:

• How US businesses are navigating the uncertainty of the US-China relationship
• How the fentanyl issue offers the most promising path toward building trust
• The impact of the BIS’ new 50% rule on corporate compliance
• Why US companies still value the China market (The reasons might surprise you!)

It’s so good you’ll want to listen to it twice.

By the by: The fellas mention this report in the pod, which is very much worth checking out, as well: China’s Economic Transition: Debt, Demography, Deglobalization, and Scenarios for 2035

It’s been a frenetic and exhausting couple of weeks on the US-China front.

After tensions heightened again last week – in the wake of China’s major expansion of export controls – the two sides continued to jockey, both privately and publicly, over the past few days.

• At this point, it appears that both sides are willing to continue negotiating – but the current state of the relationship is very fragile and will remain highly volatile.

To discuss where things currently stand, how we got here, and where we are going, this week’s pod features Trivium Co-founders Andrew Polk and Trey McArver.

The gents get into everything we know, everything we think we know, and everything we definitely don’t know about what’s next for US-China negotiations.

Policymakers in Beijing wasted no time getting back into the swing of things after the week-long October holiday.

On Wednesday, officials at the Ministry of Commerce unveiled sweeping updates to China’s export control regime – with new controls on rare earths and lithium batteries in particular focus.

• The moves also further Beijing’s drive toward long-arm jurisdiction by applying some of the controls to companies globally – not simply those producing within China’s borders.

Unsurprisingly, on Friday, US President Donald Trump responded to the move by applying a new 100% tariff to imports from China – and promised to implement an unspecified set of new export controls on US software.

In this week’s podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk is joined by Cory Combs, Trivium’s head of supply chain research, to go through it all. Specifically, the two discuss:

• The key details of China’s export control expansion
• What’s new, and what’s not in these controls
• Beijing’s seeming motivation in implementing these controls now – which we argue goes beyond the immediate US-China trade negotiations
• How the near-term practical impacts of these controls are likely to be minimal – even if the medium-term implications are huge
• Whether China has the capacity to enforce long-arm jurisdiction
• What all this means for ongoing US-China talks

The gents end the discussion by walking through Trivium’s work projecting which critical minerals are likely to be controlled next by China.

• For anyone who needs to stay ahead of the curve on China’s upcoming moves on this front – you’ll definitely want to listen to the end.

Tired of listening to the same old Trivium voices? Wishing for more variety in your podcast diet? Well, do we have a treat for you!

In this week's podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, are joined by Gerard DiPippo, associate director at the RAND China Research Center and a senior researcher in RAND's D.C. office.

• Gerard is one of the sharpest minds out there when it comes to the global implications of what's happening in China's economy.

The conversation starts with Gerard explaining what he means when he makes the observation that China's economy is currently "both strong and weak at the same time."

The gents then discuss Gerard's recent work assessing where exports previously bound for the US are now heading, and also talk through how falling prices have managed to keep Chinese exports buoyant.

• Finally, they get into China's anti-involution push and where Beijing might be taking it.

Interested in Gerard's work? We highly suggest you check out his recent piece for the China Leadership monitor, "Changing Course in a Storm: China’s Economy in the Trade War."

Chinese policymakers are looking to diffuse AI into key industrial, commercial, and governance fields as deeply and quickly as possible.

The overarching framework for their approach is captured in the AI+ plus initiative.

• Officials published the overarching policy architecture for AI+ in late August.
• And more granular AI+X plans (e.g. AI+Energy, AI+Transportation) are now starting to roll out.

In this week’s podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined by colleagues Kendra Schaefer (head of tech policy research) and Cory Combs (head of critical mineral and supply chain research) to explain China’s AI+ approach.

They delve into:

• The overarching AI+ framework – and how it differs from previous AI policies in China
• The six key fields that China is targeting for AI diffusion
• What to expect as the AI+ policy ecosystem takes shape in the months ahead
• China’s AI+Energy plan – what it seeks to achieve and why it is so fundamental to the wider AI+ vision
• How officials will approach more foundational aspects of AI+ – including foundational models, compute, data supply, developer ecosystems, and talent

The gang then wrap up the discussion by zeroing in on why the AI race is different from previous global competitions to produce technological breakthroughs.

• The key point: Achieving AI breakthroughs will look more like past pushes into electrification and the internet – as opposed to the nuclear weapon or space races.

You’ll definitely want to stick around till the end for this one – enjoy!

For decades, China's economy was driven by debt-fueled construction of housing and infrastructure.

• But once the housing market collapsed in 2021, China needed to find a new growth model.

The key parts of that new model are well known: 

• Industrial upgrading
• Aggressive export growth
• Technological innovation 

What's less well understood is how these parts fit together, and how the new model might transform China in the coming decade – assuming it all works.

For the past 18 months, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, have been working on a research project focused on understanding what type of economy Beijing is trying to build over the next decade, and how those efforts will be shaped by the challenges of high debt levels, a souring demographic profile, and the shifting forces of deglobalization. 

CSIS published that report – China’s Economic Transition: Debt, Demography, Deglobalization, and Scenarios for 2035 – at the beginning of September.

In this podcast, the gents draw upon that research to explain what Beijing wants from its new growth model, how it's supposed to work, and how we might be able to tell if it's working.

China’s GDP growth has been unexpectedly strong this year. But paradoxically, tax revenue has been contracting.

That’s not supposed to happen:

• Tax revenue typically falls during a recession, but not when the economy is expanding by more than 5% annually.

In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Trivium’s Head of Markets Research, discuss the reasons behind China’s falling tax revenue, and why it matters – both in the short term and to Beijing’s longer-term economic aspirations.

• They then get into what Beijing is doing about it, and whether those efforts are likely to meaningfully boost badly needed tax receipts.

Xi Jinping’s growing diplomatic clout was on full display over the past week.

• Things kicked off in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, where Xi hosted the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
• The enduring image from that meeting will be a beaming Russian President Vladimir Putin, walking hand-in-hand with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – just before the two shared a hearty laugh with Xi.
• Over the next several days, Xi hosted a spate of key bilateral meetings with Global South leaders – the one-on-ones with India and Russia (again), alongside Malaysia, Indonesia, and North Korea stood out as particularly notable.
• And of course, on Wednesday, many of those same leaders joined Xi in Beijing for a huge military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the ending of the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” – or what most of the world refers to as World War II.

The big question: Was all this pageantry simply good optics for the Chinese?

• Or will the past week mark a major turning point in China’s hoped-for shift to a New World Order?

In this week’s podcast, Trivium Co-founders Andrew Polk and Trey McArver hash it all out.

• They also talk through how to make small talk when a fellow authoritarian leader floats the idea of immortality.