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
ChinaTalkAmerica's R&D Reckoning
What has happened in the past 100 days to America’s science and technology ecosystem? What are China's ambitions and how is the government trying to take…
ChinaTalkChina's Nuclear Shadow
Can China use military force to achieve its political goals, without triggering nuclear war? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Fiona Cunningham, a professor…
ChinaTalkWill Everyone Get Nukes Now?
What is Trump doing to extended deterrence? I got Polymarket to create a market on whether a US ally will acquire nuclear weapons in 2025. It’s currently…
ChinaTalkAllied Scale: Rush Doshi on US-China Net Assessment
Rush Doshi (CFR, Biden NSC, author of the excellent The Long Game) and I run through the US-China tale of the tape. The future of America's relationship with…
ChinaTalkChips: Liberated? Trump’s Semis Tariff Gambit
Bill Reinsch of CSIS and the Trade Guys podcast with Jay Goldberg of Digits and Dollars and the Circuit podcast join to dicuss Trump's tariff impact on semis…
ChinaTalkBreaking Huawei + Tariffs Done Right with SemiAnalysis and Asianometry
Dylan Patel is a man on a mission. We get into how: Huawei is giving NVIDIA a run for their money What USG needs to do about it What smart semiconductor tariff…
ChinaTalkBreaking Beijing: Military Competition with Tony Stark
Does America still have what it takes to stand up to China? Does short-term military readiness trade off with long-term strategy? What does the US need to do…
ChinaTalkGreatDepressionTalk with SemiAnalysis and Asianometry
Doug gives his "we're heading for the end of the dollar-based world order" take. Dylan has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to macro or politics…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: Are We Cooked?
Kevin Xu of https://interconnect.substack.com/, Matt Klein of https://theovershoot.co/, and Peter Harrell, Biden's U.S. White House as senior director for…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: Liberation Day with Tanner Greer of Scholarstage
Tanner Greer of Scholar's Stage and I try to make sense of Liberation Day, the intellectual underpinnings of Trump's team, and what it all means for the world…
ChinaTalkThe Soviet Cold War Machine: Inside the Sino-Soviet Rivalry
Welcome to part two of our series on Cold War history with Sergey Radchenko. Here’s part one. In today’s interview, we discuss… Khrushchev’s removal from power…
ChinaTalkSuperintelligence Strategy with Dan Hendrycks
Is there a stable state the US and China can hope for on the road to AGI? To discuss we have on today Dan Hendrycks. A CS PhD, Dan runs the Center for AI…
ChinaTalkSemiAnalysis + Asianometry on Intel, Gemini 2.5, and Chinese Robots
The Transistor Radio boys are back. Jon of Asianometry, Doug O'Laughlin and Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis on the pod to talk about Google's AI push, Intel's new…
ChinaTalkThe Soviets' Bid for Global Power
Sergey Radchenko’s book, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Bid for Global Power, is a masterwork! In my mind, it’s in pole position for best book of 2025. Sergey…
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Building Compute in America
Despite leading the world in AI innovation, there’s no guarantee that America will rise to meet the challenge of AI infrastructure. Specifically, the key…
ChinaTalkManus: A DeepSeek Moment?
A Wuhan-developed AI agent went viral this weekend. Guests Rohit Krishnan of the substack Strange Loop Canon, Shawn Wang of Latent Space, and Dean Ball of…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: Trump's Pivot to Putin, AGI + The Future of Warfare
Note: This episode was recorded Wednesday February 26th, two days before Zelenskyy's press conference with J.D. Vance and Trump in the White House. Shashank…
ChinaTalkChokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
Can sanctions really work? What lessons can we draw from US sanctions on Iran, Russia, and China in the 21st century? To find out, we interviewed Eddie…
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Innovation Emergency: The Role of IP
How do patents influence emerging technology innovation? How far could AI and DOGE push our current IP regime? Does it matter that China issues way more…
ChinaTalkChina's Great Power Wars: Lessons from Imperial History for Today
How has Chinese hegemony shaped power relations in East Asia? Why did imperial China conquer Tibet and Xinjiang but not Vietnam or Korea? Can learning from…
ChinaTalkSemiAnalysis + Asianometry on the AI Mandate of Heaven
Dylan Patel and Doug O'Laughlin (SemiAnalysis), Jon from Asianometry and I have way too much fun talking hyperscaler capex, the AI mandate of heaven tier list…
ChinaTalkAnthropic's Dario Amodei on AI Competition
Dario Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic. In today’s interview, we discuss… Whether an AI innovation race is inevitable between the US and China, How the US should…
ChinaTalkDeepSeek: What It Means and What Happens Next
Kevin Xu of Interconnected and Interconnected Capital and I knock it out of the park with a roundup episode exploring: What DeepSeek does and doesn't…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: DeepSeek R1 and the Future of AI Competition with Miles Brundage
Miles Brundage, a six year OpenAI vet who ran its Policy Research and AGI readiness arms, discuss why all your deepseek takes are so terrible. Outtro music…
ChinaTalkPatents and National Power
What makes some countries more innovative than others? What role do intellectual property rights play in building national power? Does Elon Musk really give…
ChinaTalkChinaTalk in the Year of the Dragon + What Comes Next
Here's a best-of playlist for 2024: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3yexkG2kvPlq68B22pjOWw?si=da3d1cf64dfe4a2ci Outtro Music: Дили-дили (Dili-dili) Artist…
ChinaTalkNoah Smith: Trump 2.0's Impact on Asia + The New Tech Right
Our guest today is economist Noah Smith, who made time for an in-person interview during his recent trip to Taiwan. He runs the Noahpinion substack and is…
ChinaTalkyup, more export controls....foundry, DRAM, and reflections
Greg Allen of CSIS and I are tired! We go through today's new export controls to stop TSMC from fabbing Huawei chips, some DRAM revisions, and discuss the past…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: AI Diffusion Export Controls
Biden last export control, for real this time! Who does and doesn't get to build datacenters under this new regulation? To discuss, we brought on RAND's…
ChinaTalkAmb. Burns Reflects from Beijing
Can diplomatic charisma prevent crises from escalating? Does the CCP feel conflicted about aligning with the likes of Iran and North Korea? What’s the use of…
ChinaTalkTech Bros vs MAGA, Immigration, and Whether Tiger Parents Will Win Cold War 2.0
To discuss the Christmas Day MAGA civil war over H1Bs and the future of US immigration policy, ChinaTalk interviewed Divyansh Kaushik, a computer science PhD…
ChinaTalkChina's Best Music of 2024
Jake Newby is the author of Concrete Avalanche, a free newsletter about music from China. You might remember Jake from the Chinese shoegaze election playlist…
ChinaTalkAI Geopolitics in o3's Age with Chris Miller + Lennart Heim
Chris Miller of Chip War and Lennart Heim of RAND check in on the geopolitics of AI. We explore: Chinese labs' algorithmic progress (surprising to everyone but…
ChinaTalkChinese Pop Culture in 2024
We’ll be getting into the biggest tv show of 2024, a celebrity road trip “will they or won’t they divorce” show which is just as big of a hot mess as it sounds…
ChinaTalkTop AI Stories of 2024/2025 + How to Train a Model with Nathan Lambert
Nathan Lambert of the excellent https://www.interconnects.ai/ newsletter and the Allen Institute joins the pod for a rundown of the biggest AI stories of this…
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EMERGENCY POD: Biden's Final Export Controls Misfire?
Commerce released its much-anticipated chip export-control updates yesterday, December 2. But today's guests are unimpressed. But are we right to have hoped…
ChinaTalkSemiAnalysis on Top Chip Stories of 2024
Dylan Patel, Doug O'Laughlin, Jon from Asianometry and I all chat the biggest semiconductor stories of the year. We get into energy demands for datacenters…
ChinaTalkMakers of Modern Strategy with Hal Brands
Few books have influenced me as much as the Makers of Modern Strategy series. The three volumes (published in 1942, 1986, and 2023) are indispensable to…
ChinaTalkData Wars and the DOJ
To discuss the Department of Justice’s new proposed rule on data security, we interviewed two brilliant guests from the ChinaTalk Hall of Fame — DOJ National…
ChinaTalkMusic Hour! Chinese Hip Hop Annual Roundup
Antoine, aka 多多底料, is a French Mandarin teacher by day and a Chinese rap enthusiast by night. Today, he’s here with a setlist of his favorite hip hop tracks…
ChinaTalkMusic Hour! Chinese Shoegaze: An Introduction
ChinaTalk columnist Alexa Pan and Jake Newby of the China music substack Concrete Avalanche (https://jakenewby.substack.com/) No election content whatsoever!…
ChinaTalkSoviet Ruins and China's Future
Why did the Soviet Union collapse? Which lessons from Cold War history are relevant for China’s future? To discuss the successes, failures, and strategies of…
ChinaTalk中文版：打造矽盾：台積電與台灣的未來
林宏文是《晶片島上的光芒》一書的作者,這本書深入探討了台積電的歷史、管理方法和國際角色。作為台灣最資深的半導體記者之一、林宏文以其三十多年的行業經驗,為讀者呈現了一個全面而生動的台灣半導體產業發展故事。 訪談中、主要討論了以下幾個關鍵話題: 台積電的創立背景及其在全球半導體產業中的獨特定位…
ChinaTalkImperial Legacy Part 2: 1949 to Xi's Death
Welcome back to part two of our interview with Yasheng Huang 黄亚生, the author of The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology…
ChinaTalkAutocracy, Exams and Stagnation: Imperial China's Modern Legacy
Yasheng Huang 黄亚生 is the author of one of the decade’s greatest books about China — The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and…
ChinaTalkR&D Renaissance with Kumar Garg
To discuss America’s comparative advantages in national competition and the structural forces that drive (and limit) innovation, ChinaTalk interviewed Kumar…
ChinaTalkNational Intel Council on The IC's Pivot to Asia
Michael Collins is the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). He has spent 28 years in the intelligence community, starting as a career…
ChinaTalkCompetition Policy 2025
To discuss the post-election future of US competition policy, ChinaTalk interviewed Peter Harrell and Nazak Nikakhtar. Nazak served in the Trump administration…
ChinaTalkAI and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers
Jeffrey Ding is a professor at George Washington University, leading US scholar on China’s AI, and the creator of the ChinAI Substack. In honor of the…
ChinaTalkHistory and Future of Global Patent Policy
Thanks to The Innovation Alliance for sponsoring this episode. The Innovation Alliance is a coalition of research and development-based technology companies…
ChinaTalkIndustrial Icebreaker Policy
Here at ChinaTalk, we break the ice on all things international relations, and today we are diving into a topic that is snow joke — icebreakers! We interviewed…
ChinaTalkThe Pentagon’s Innovation Insurgents
Chris Kirchhoff was a founding member of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and previously worked in the Obama NSC. He recently published a book called Unit X…
ChinaTalkA BREATHER: Making Clothes in China
This is a show about globalization, fashion design, and the future of manufacturing-based economic growth. For a breather from the election chaos, ChinaTalk…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: JD Vance's Economics + How to SPR Critical Minerals + Policy Entrepreneurship
What does JD think about currency, tariffs, and industrial policy? How has the Strategic Patroleum Reserve evolved into new relevance with some fun new powers…
ChinaTalkSen. Young on Tech Legislation
Where is Congress on AI? How will a second Trump term impact US innovation? Does Congress have what it takes to step up and legislate in a world without…
ChinaTalkEMERGENCY POD: Biden and Shakespeare
How can Shakespeare help explain the dynamics we're seeing around Biden today? We get into King Lear, Richard II, Macbeth and Coriolanus to illustrate themes…
ChinaTalkA National Vision for Competitiveness
What will it take for the US to remain competitive in 21st-century technologies? Is high state capacity a thing of the past? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed…
ChinaTalkScale's Alex Wang on the US-China AI Race
How could AI change the global balance of power? What could the US and allies do to preserve national moats? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed the CEO of Scale…
ChinaTalkTaiwan War + Grand Strategy for Cold War II
Is Cold War II upon us? What should America do to prevent it from becoming a hot war? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Dmitri Alperovitch. Dmitri emigrated…
ChinaTalkThe Best Chinese Songs of 2024 - with Concrete Avalanche
Jake Newby is the author of Concrete Avalanche, a free newsletter about music from China. Today, he's here to play you some of his favorite tracks from 2024…