Everyone keeps calling the US-China AI competition a race.

• But Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Global South Project, says that framing is wrong – because a race implies a finish line, and this competition doesn't have one.
• Eric’s view is that Chinese AI companies aren't necessarily looking to out innovate US closed-weight models.
• Instead, the goal for China is to become Android to America's Apple – 10% of the profit, but 90% of the world's users.

On this week’s episode of the Trivium China Podcast, Eric discusses China’s approach to building AI offerings in the Global South with host Andrew Polk – but only after the two run through the flurry of travel and diplomacy Xi Jinping is undertaking throughout September.

The two discuss the implications of Xi’s travels, then turn to China’s AI strategy in the region, touching on:

• How Xi turned a single stop in Egypt into a four-birds-one-stone diplomatic play, touching on the Iran war, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Africa-China relations, and the dynamics around Xinjiang all at once
• Why the India-China thaw is real but fragile, and why Xi and Modi's sideline meeting at the upcoming BRICS summit matters more than anything on the summit's official agenda
• Why China’s AI push into the Global South won’t really be about the models themselves – but about enabling those models with Huawei servers, support contracts, and services sold on top of free, open-weight code
• Why the "China is less secure" pitch against Chinese AI companies doesn't land in a Global South that trusts Washington about as little as it trusts Beijing
• Why nobody in the Global South expects much from Xi's Washington visit, and why the mood in Beijing right now is just as hardened as it is in DC

Strap in – we cover a lot of ground in this one!

The US and China have been quietly testing each other’s limits all summer – and neither side actually knows where the breaking point is.

To discuss the nature – and limits – of the fragile US-China economic détente, we are joined this week by Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

• Evan’s read: The US-China relationship is at an unstable equilibrium, and in for a snapback toward a much more contentious state of play.  

In this episode, host Andrew Polk and Trivium colleague Cory Combs sit down with Evan to unpack:

• Why Xi Jinping’s upcoming state visit to Washington, the first in over a decade, may be the one thing still holding the relationship together
• How the trade war became a supply chain war back in April 2025, and why tariffs aren’t the main event anymore
• Why China keeps reaching for chokepoints tied to US national security instead of hitting the broader economy, and what that reveals about Beijing’s actual theory of leverage
• The uncomfortable new front opening up: Beijing increasingly penalizing American companies for the crime of complying with US laws

It’s another great discussion, so enjoy!

Chinese tech companies keep getting fined and blocked overseas – sometimes unfairly, and sometimes because they’re behaving exactly like they do at home.

• Beijing just released a plan to fix both problems at once.

Our take: “China’s nefarious plan to get its companies to obey overseas laws” is a Foreign Affairs headline just waiting to be written.

On this episode, Trivium China podcast host Andrew Polk sits down with Kendra Schaefer (Head of Tech Policy Research) to unpack:

• Why lumping AI labs, e-commerce platforms, and cybersecurity firms into the single regulatory category of “cyberspace enterprises” is a bigger deal than it sounds
• The story behind AliExpress’s EUR 550 million EU fine, and why Chinese companies keep getting tripped up by rules they don’t fully understand
• One vague line in the CAC’s latest policy doc that might matter most: Beijing says it will “regulate the overseas competitive behavior” of its own tech firms, with zero detail on how
• Why cleaning up Chinese tech companies’ act abroad might get Beijing branded as the bad guy either way

China’s July macro data just landed, and the title of our monthly macro note says it all: “A Grim Picture.”

• Consumption, investment, and property all deteriorated further last month – and the two props that supported the economy in the first half of the year are now fading fast.

On this episode, Trivium China podcast host Andrew Polk sits down with Joe Peissel (Lead Macro Analyst) to unpack:

• How July’s slowdown was broad-based, across nearly every metric that matters – and why growth looks even worse than the headlines suggest
• How the K-shaped economy has spread from output into investment flows, entrenching the divide between booming and struggling sectors
• Why deflation, not inflation, remains the real danger for a heavily indebted economy like China’s – as officials are having to quietly pick their poison
• Why even China’s 24% y/y export growth print obscures a much less impressive reality, once you separate price from volume

Chinese companies can’t legally buy the most advanced US-made AI chips, so they’re renting them instead – from data centers in Thailand, Malaysia, and beyond – completely legally.

• US policymakers know about the issue – but several years into the implementation of export controls on advanced chips, they still haven’t closed it.
• And there’s a reason for that.

On this episode of the Trivium China Podcast, host Andrew Polk sits down with Tom Nunlist (Associate Director, Tech Practice, Shanghai) to unpack:

• How Kimi K3’s release forced Washington to confront a loophole in export controls it’s known about for ages
• Why renting chips sits completely outside the rules that govern buying them, even when the end result is identical
• Why closing this gap risks a “double win” for Beijing: 1) marketing material to court the Global South with China’s AI stack and 2) and potential leverage to retaliate with rare earths, ultimately causing the US to back down
• Why cutting off compute access could undermine trust in the US AI stack, like sanctions have eroded trust in the US dollar – and why that risk may be exactly what’s keeping policymakers’ finger off the trigger

When it comes to China’s key nodes of economic leverage, rare earths get all the attention – because they’re the cheapest, easiest lever China has to pull.

But the more durable – and future – points of leverage are already hiding in plain sight, in hundreds of intermediate goods most people never think about.

• Gerard DiPippo, Director of Global Macro at Eurasia Group, returns to the pod as our first ever two-time guest, joined by Dinny McMahon and Cory Combs, to unpack it.

On this episode, host Andrew Polk sits down with Gerard, Dinny, and Cory to dive into:

• Why rare earths are a uniquely cheap and low-cost weapon for Beijing, and why other chokepoints like batteries carry far higher stakes
• How China’s licensing regime doubles as a surveillance system, giving Beijing visibility into global supply chains it can use to ratchet pressure up or down at will
• The “shoe that hasn’t dropped yet”: China’s shelved extraterritorial rule that could restrict any product containing Chinese-origin content, anywhere in the world
• Why intermediate goods are the next frontier to watch, and why China’s reaction function gets a lot murkier once controls move further down the production chain – into products with real commercial value to Chinese firms themselves

It’s another great discussion – so enjoy!

On August 5th, China dropped a new batch of retaliatory economic measures against various US entities.

• And this time, officials did something they rarely do – naming exactly which US actions they were responding to and why.

On this episode of the Trivium China Podcast, Andrew Polk sits down with Cory Combs (Head of Supply Chain and Critical Minerals Research) to unpack:

• What exactly landed in MofCom’s four-part policy package – from countersanctions on US biotech and compliance firms to China’s first ever foreign-trade national security investigation
• Why this round of retaliation was aimed squarely at the FCC and DHS, and how it traces back to actions on robotics, drones, and forced-labor sanctions
• Whether Beijing’s unusually direct language about the Busan detente is a warning shot or a sign the deal is really at risk
• Why neither side seems ready to blow up the agreement just yet, even as both keep testing its edges

US policymakers are constantly discussing whether America can leapfrog China in key technologies.

• Our answer: probably not, and batteries prove it.

In fact, the real question isn't whether the US can – or even should – try to outpace China in at least some advanced tech; it's whether the West can afford not to learn from China.

On this podcast episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Cory Combs (Head of Supply Chain and Critical Minerals Research) to unpack:

• Why China is placing simultaneous bets on LFP, sodium-ion, and solid-state batteries, and what that "multi-modal" strategy reveals about how it actually innovates
• How brutal domestic competition, not central planning, is driving some of China's biggest technological breakthroughs
• Why Beijing tolerates crushing margin pressure on its own battery makers, and what it's betting that pain buys
• The uncomfortable case for the US actually licensing "second-best" Chinese tech, rather than racing to rebuild it from scratch

Beijing just released its most detailed rebuttal yet to accusations from the West around industrial overcapacity – and it pointedly avoided using the very word that started the fight in the first place.

• There’s a reason for that, and we break it all down in today’s podcast.

On this episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Dinny McMahon (Head of Markets Research) to unpack:

• The five core arguments in MOFCOM’s new position paper on overcapacity, examining which ones hold up and which ones stretch too far
• Why Beijing dropped the word “overcapacity” for “involution” 18 months ago, and what that rhetorical swap is designed to do
• How China frames itself as both free trade’s champion and its victim, and why that framing leaves little room for compromise
• Why the US may have the least at stake here economically, and why Europe is where this fight actually gets decided

As always, we hope you enjoy the discussion – reach out and let us know any thoughts or feedback.

China's July Politburo meeting is always a big one, as the leadership takes stock of the economy and signals policy adjustments for the second half of the year.

• In this year’s July meeting, officials clearly signaled that more fiscal support is on the way, but only in modest amounts.

Note: This is our second short format episode – tighter, quick-turnaround reactions to the news as it breaks, alongside our regular weekly deep dives.

• Let us know what you think about the new format!

On this episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Dinny McMahon (Trivium’s Head of Markets Research) to unpack:

• How this July Politburo readout offered surprisingly clear language that more fiscal support is coming, and in what form
• What "fiscal-financial cooperation" means in practice, and why it's really code for interest rate subsidies
• Why Beijing is likely to lean on accelerated special-purpose bond issuance – and a probable Q4 top-up, following last year's playbook – rather than broad interest rate cuts
• Why none of this changes the underlying story: Beijing is deliberately riding out a long, painful real estate adjustment – and this is just a slight pick-me-up