Shows / ChinaTalk
ChinaTalk
Conversations exploring China, technology, and US-China relations. Guests include a wide range of analysts, policymakers, and academics. Hosted by Jordan Schneider. Check out the newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media/
Episodes
ChinaTalkWarTalk: Still Very Much Out of Ammo!
Two weeks into the US-Iran ceasefire, CENTCOM is requesting Dark Eagle hypersonics, the 82nd Airborne is flowing into theater, and the wargames keep telling us…
ChinaTalkQuantum 201: US v China Quantum Industrial Base
Constanza Vidal Bustamante joins Chris Miller and Zachary Yerushalmi to break down her new report with John Burke, Quantum's Industrial Moment: Strengthening…
ChinaTalkWarTalk: No Ammo for Taiwan, Polymarket, Bye Phelan, Will Driscoll Go The Distance?
The Pentagon is leaking to the press that America doesn't have the missiles to win a war over Taiwan — and the Iran war is the reason why. Meanwhile, a Special…
ChinaTalkSen. Chris Murphy on Corruption, China and AI
outtro music: Pardon Pen! https://suno.com/s/2tXSJ7uJFA7k1pUC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkQuantum 101
What exactly is quantum computing? Why does it matter, and what would it actually mean to “win” the quantum race? Zach Yerushalmi, CEO of Elevate Quantum, a…
ChinaTalkWarTalk: Is Mythos a Cyber Nuke? + The Blockade That Wasn't
We discuss… Why Mythos is a Dr. Strangelove moment — and whether the better analogy is a nuke or a pandemic Who gets the keys: Ukraine vs. South Korea vs…
ChinaTalkThe Think Tank New Breed (IFP + FAI)
Caleb Watney (Institute for Progress) and Max Bodach (Foundation for American Innovation) on what the new breed of DC think tanks does differently and why the…
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Claude Mythos and National Power
Anthropic’s new model found decades-old vulnerabilities in foundational open-source code that millions of automated tests and countless human experts had…
ChinaTalkWarTalk: Who Won the Iran War? (Second Breakfast Rebranded...)
Eric Robinson, Tony Stark , Justin Mc , and Secretary of Defense Rock join me to score the Iran conflict. We discuss… Whether Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll…
ChinaTalkHow Ukraine Makes Drones
Ukrainian drone manufacturing. How has the country been able to build hundreds of thousands, even millions of drones over the past four years of conflict? What…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: F-15, Pete's Purges, CENTCOM Hubris, War of 1812
An F-15E is down in southern Iran. Justin, Tony, Eric and I talk through what combat search and rescue actually looks like, how a captured pilot changes the…
ChinaTalkThe American Federal Civil Service: A History
The history of the American federal civil service — what can we learn from its past glories and failures, and where should we take this next? We have Kevin…
ChinaTalkJen Pahlka on an Optimistic Vision for Government Renewal!
Jen Pahlka is an American Hero, in a past life the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer and member of the Defense Innovation Board. She wrote Recoding America…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: We Negotiate with Bombs, War by Brainrot
Full house with Bryan, Eric, Tony and Justin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkOverfit is now ModelTalk! GPU Smuggling, OpenAI Cooked? + Open Models, AI Writing
Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ and Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ catch up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Taking Kharg Island, Terrorism, Grift
The administration is reportedly considering seizing Kharg Island, and the global economy is beginning to buckle under the pressure of disrupted energy flows…
ChinaTalkThe Toymaker vs. the Tariffs
A century-old toy company has taken down Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs with a self-funded lawsuit. But how? Today’s guest is Rick Woldenberg, CEO of Learning…
ChinaTalkWarTalk: AI, Nukes, Iran and Autonomous War
WarTalk launches! We chat with Pranay Vaddi (MIT, Sandia, formerly Biden NSC) and Chris McGuire (State, NSC, now CFR) about AI, nuclear command and control…
ChinaTalkIran: No Save Point
Two weeks into the US-Iran war, CENTCOM has struck 6,000 targets, but Hormuz is closed, oil is at $100 a barrel, the regime hasn’t fallen, and 400 kilograms of…
ChinaTalkWhy it Sucks to Work in AI in China + Open Source with Kevin Xu
Kevin Xu of http://interconnected.blog/ and I did a liveshow on substack! We chat about why working in Chinese AI looks so much tougher than building in the…
ChinaTalkSoftware Abundance for Government With Cognition's Russell Kaplan
Russell Kaplan, co-founder of Cognition — the company behind Devin — and previously at Scale AI and Tesla, joins the podcast to discuss what “software…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Iran and the DIB with Fmr SECAF Frank Kendall
Frank Kendall served as the 26th Secretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2025. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and…
ChinaTalkAutonomous Weapons 101 + Anthropic v DoW
Mike Horowitz, Penn Professor and Biden DoD official who wrote 3000.09, clears up some autonomous weapons misconceptions! Learn more about your ad choices…
ChinaTalkEmergency Pod: Iran + Anthropic
An all-star cast today with: Emmy Probasco, a fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and former Navy officer with deep…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Anthropic, SecDefs being weird
what a mess! Wario Amodei's slow jam vibe: https://suno.com/s/cf3KDdVQ5F0KCjow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkLawrence Freedman on Strategy and Nuclear War
Lawrence Freedman is the dean of strategic studies. He’s written books about the Falklands War, nuclear strategy, political-military relations, Kennedy’s…
ChinaTalkEmergency Pod: SCOTUS Scraps Tariffs!
Peter Harrell drops in, attorney who served in the Obama and Biden admins and submitted a brief in this case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Iran, Munich + European Defense Tech, Anthropic
Bryan Clark opens the show talking Iran. Recurring cohosts include Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson. Eric Slesinger of 201 Ventures drops in…
ChinaTalkHow the US Won Back Chip Manufacturing
We’re here for a CHIPS Act megapod, in person with Mike Schmidt and Todd Fisher, the director and founding CIO of the CHIPS Program Office, respectively. We…
ChinaTalkChinese Peptides (Reported Podcast Special Edition!)
We're trying out a different format to explore "Chinese peptides." We talk to biohackers using compounds like BPC-157 to heal extreme injuries, go undercover…
ChinaTalkRickover’s Playbook: Building Hard Things Inside the State
Admiral Rickover — America’s most famous, perhaps most influential admiral of the second half of the 20th century. To discuss his unbelievable life story…
ChinaTalkChina's Gaming Landscape
Today, we’re discussing all things gaming in China! Our illustrious guest is Daniel Camilo, a Portuguese national who has spent over a decade in the Chinese…
ChinaTalkChinamaxxing
Minh Tran (https://www.couldabeenatthe.club/), Afra Wang (https://afra.work/) and Lauren Teixeira (https://lrntex.substack.com/) join me to talk about…
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Military Revolutions with Ed Luttwak
Today’s guest is the legendary strategist Edward Luttwak — the Machiavelli of Maryland. He’s consulted for presidents, prime ministers, and secretaries of…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Invading Canada, Benedict Arnold, Iran
whole gang is here. Also a little Minnesota and 30 seconds of NDS (which is all it deserves) suno: https://suno.com/s/SJ0FoEPMVZ3QS441 'He couldn’t capture…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: PLA Purges Continue!
Jon Czin, former CIA analyst and NSC staffer, returns to talk purges. We have far too much fun. The disney take on PLA purges…
ChinaTalkOverfit: Claude Code is Everything, Trump Vibe Codes
Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ and Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ report for duty. Athena makes a brief guest appearance before dipping…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Battleships, Golden Dome, Greenland, Kash, Presidential Comedy
Bryan Clark (former submariner at Hudson), Eric Robinson, and Justin McIntosh report for duty. Davos disco: https://suno.com/s/2SpR62beigk2JeDr Learn more…
ChinaTalkThe Future of Economic Security with Dan Kim and Chris Miller
Is there such a thing as MAD in economic warfare? How should we measure the effectiveness of our industrial policy tools, and what outcomes should we be aiming…
ChinaTalkParty Time! Jon Czin on US-China in 2025 and 2026
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…
ChinaTalkRichard Danzig on Cyber and AI
Richard Danzig, national treasure, joins the podcast to discuss the national security implications of AI in the cyber context. Do note we conducted this…
ChinaTalkThe China Commission Reports!
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission late last year released its annual report to Congress. ChinaTalk welcomes two commissioners to the pod…
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Ben Buchanan on AI and Cyber
Happy New Year! This is your reminder to fill out the ChinaTalk audience survey. The link is here. We’re here to give the people what they want, so please fill…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Iran, $500B for Defense...and should we pity RTX?
Bryan Clark joins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkTransistor Radio: WFE and Doug's Claude Code Psychosis
but in a nice way happy new year! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ChinaTalkAre We Cooked? Q1 2026
We check in on the state of the republic and allied scale with Peter Harrell, former Biden official and host of the excellent new Security Economics podcast…
ChinaTalkEmergency Second Breakfast: Venezuela
The gang (Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson) and I talk about what the hell just happened this past weekend and what it all means. Learn more about your…
ChinaTalkJapanese Economic Security Policy with A REAL LIFE METI OFFICIAL
Nishikawa Kazumi, Principal Director for Economic Security Policy at the legendary Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), joins China Talk…
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ChinaTalk 2025 Year in Review
ChinaTalk Audience survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQ99GAL0m_8iBqZDiKoEjRZiyX6544QvaCNtd1cVkc826n7A/viewform?usp=dialogFeatured coverage on…
ChinaTalkJoe Weisenthal and I do a Show About Nothing
A festivus special! Joe Weisenthal, host of Odd Lots and my podcast host alter ego, come to celebrate his ten years of hosting, reflect on the medium and…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Arctic Warfare Christmas Special!
Steve Gagnon joins the show! Book: Thousand Mile War https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Mile-War-Aleutians-Classic-Reprint/dp/0912006838 Outtro music: Learn more…
ChinaTalkRahm Returns to Chat Trump and China: “He is the worst negotiator.”
Rahm Emanuel returns to ChinaTalk with a characteristically blunt assessment of U.S.-China relations, delivering an unsparing verdict on the first year of…
ChinaTalkDétente 2.0 with Mike Froman of CFR
Mike Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. Trade Representative. He joins ChinaTalk for the first time to discuss: Why his…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Habemus NDAA!
We've got a full house with Tony, Justin and Eric today. We get into: The hottest NDAA takes on the airwaves (DFC, OSC, AUKUS, Taiwan, contested logistics…
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Overfit: NeurIPS Vibes, Research Doesn't Matter, OpenAI Cooked?
Nathan and Jasmine debrief from NeurIPS San Diego, where we of course threw the best party. outtro music: we're on a boat https://suno.com/s/dkulmuRvScACxObX…
ChinaTalkEmergency Pod: H200s to China with Dmitri Alperovich
It's never over with Trump...Dmitri Alperovich of the Silverado Policy Accelerator comes on to discuss Trump's decision to allow the export of H200s to china…
ChinaTalkSecond Breakfast: Trump's National Security Strategy + Hegseth's Second Strike
First half on the national security strategy you can read here https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf 26:18…
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Helen Toner Takes the CSET Reins
It's think tank director week at ChinaTalk! Helen Toner of CSET kicks us off to talk through where she's planning on taking the storied organization. her…
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The Future of Secure Telecom
In the wake of Salt Typhoon, what does the future of secure telecom look like? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed John Doyle, a former Green Beret who spent a…
ChinaTalkTransistor Radio: OpenAI Loses the Mandate, Railroad Bubble = AI Bubble
Doug, Dylan, and Wei of SemiAnalysis join me (Jon was sleeping at 5AM taiwan time...) for a pre-holiday get together. 01:00 AI Mandate--OpenAI slipping 19:03…