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 history help maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait? Today’s interview begins with one shocking truth — while medieval Europe suffered under near-constant war, East Asia’s Middle Ages were defined by great power peace. To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Professor David C. Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC and co-author of Beyo...
Feb 13, 2025•1 hr 29 min
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, and Tim Cook succession plans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 07, 2025•36 min
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 update export controls in light of DeepSeek’s R1 release, DeepSeek’s willingness to generate information about bioweapons, Technical defenses against model distillation and AI espionage, How advanced AI could eventually impact democracy, Whether there is tension between export controls and the belief that AI will broadly increase human fl...
Feb 05, 2025•44 min
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 illustrate about Chinese innovation Tensions between open-source cosmopolitanism and nationalism built into DeepSeek and the broader Chinese tech community DeepSeek's organizational and talent management strategy, parallels to OpenAI, and what the fame will mean for the firm and Chinese AI policy What DeepSeek should and may mean for the future of ...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 12 min
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: The Departure, Max Richter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R5Ppb9wqjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 24, 2025•33 min
What makes some countries more innovative than others? What role do intellectual property rights play in building national power? Does Elon Musk really give competitors free access to Tesla’s patents? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Adam Mossoff, professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. We discuss… How the patent system has shaped American society since independence, The extent to which patent policy caused the great divergence between the West and China, Whether...
Jan 24, 2025•55 min
Here's a best-of playlist for 2024: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3yexkG2kvPlq68B22pjOWw?si=da3d1cf64dfe4a2ci Outtro Music: Дили-дили (Dili-dili) Artist: Гюлли Чохели (Gyulli Chokheli), 1967 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 22, 2025•35 min
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 the author of an upcoming book on the revival of the Japanese economy. We discuss… The goals of Silicon Valley's pro-Trump constituency, from deregulation, to tariffs, to China policy, Whether Elon is standing up for Taiwan behind closed doors, Whether Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Poland need their own nuclear weapons, How Taiwan could ba...
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr 10 min
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 two years of Biden BIS policy and where we could all be going next. Outtro music: 大雨 - deca joins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFALDn1yGQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 16, 2025•35 min
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 Lennart Heim, Jimmy Goodrich, Chris Miller, and Dylan Patel. Outtro Music: Afida Es & the Siglap Boys - jangan goda, Malaysia, 1967 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXrdwKST1U&ab_channel=schutbart hasnah haron & the spiritual 70's _ bintang pujaan, Malaysia 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cMsoLttNs&ab_channel=nostalgiahass...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 3 min
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 communicating during a great power competition? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed R. Nicholas Burns, Biden’s Ambassador to China, whose diplomatic career spans 35 years and 8 countries. We discuss… Kissinger’s experience negotiating with the CCP, Why China’s negotiating tactics are so different from those of the Soviet Union, How European ...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 18 min
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 and vice president of Beacon Global Strategies. We get into… Pro-immigrant attitudes among Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley Creative political maneuvering that could make high-skill immigration reform a reality Whether Vivek is right about American culture aspiring to normalcy Other areas where Elon and the tech right might spend their poli...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 14 min
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, or from the tracklist he presented on ChinaTalk back in June. Now that the year is over, Jake is here to introduce his picks for the overall most interesting songs to come out of China in 2024. This tracklist includes everything from Afrobeat-influenced Beijing funk endorsed by Gilles Peterson, to an electronic track crafted in a Tibetan m...
Dec 29, 2024•55 min
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 regular ChinaTalk listeners!) The geopolitical implications of scaling on test time compute What is and isn't working with US export controls And a whole lot more this was a great episode! The CSET report I referenced: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/chinas-sti-operations/ Chris and Lennart's ChinaTalk in early 2023 https://www.ch...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 30 min
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 like, rigged nationalist singing competitions, megacorp boy idol capitalism corrupting something as seemingly innocent as a farming reality show, and xinjiang-set tv hit drama. Our guest today is Em who writes Active Faults, one of my favorite substacks that explores the China’s entertainment industry and celebrity fandom. It is a consist...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 7 min
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 year and next. We also talk about what he's learned training advanced AI models at the Allen Institute. Outtro Music: Young and Holtful by Young-Holt Unlimited, 1969. https://open.spotify.com/track/5am0dV7aB91Q6sWqIAuurA?autoplay=true Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 09, 2024•48 min
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 for more? To discuss, I’m joined by Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Greg Allen from CSIS. A disclaimer: We recorded this yesterday the same day the regs were released, and given their complexity our takes are inevitably provisional. We get into: What’s in the new controls: high bandwidth memory, FDPR, and the Entity List. Why key assumptions...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 31 min
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, Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, SMIC, Huawei, Deepseek and the rise of ChatGPT. Outtro music: Sabicas, Carcelera (Reflejo Andaluz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2_nX21D8Go Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 26, 2024•28 min
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 understanding statecraft, leadership, and the evolution of warfare across millennia. The New Makers of Modern Strategy (2023) is a thousand pages long and analyzes strategy from ancient Greece to the Congo. The man behind this behemoth collection is Hal Brands, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a retur...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 9 min
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 Security Division attorneys Lee Licata and Devin DeBacker. Before DOJ, Lee was an attorney at DHS and then CBP, while Devin was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and then worked with the Office of White House Counsel. Today we’ll be discussing the DOJ’s new proposed rule on data security. We get into… DOJ’s plan to protect your data from fo...
Nov 12, 2024•52 min
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. His original songs can be found here. Bonne écoute! Track 1: 芳草地 (The Fragrant Meadow) by DIGI GHETTO (艾志恒Asen/thomeboydontkill/mac ova seas/KIV/Mula Sakee/付思遥) Track 2: 威远故事 (The Story of Weiyuan County) by GAI周延 Track 3: 变蓝 (Turning Blue) by 也是福 (Eddie Beatz) feat. PO8 and 喜辰晨 Track 4: 亚特兰蒂斯陷落 (Atlantis Surrenders) by 弗兰德斯坦/C-Low Track 5:...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 5 min
ChinaTalk columnist Alexa Pan and Jake Newby of the China music substack Concrete Avalanche (https://jakenewby.substack.com/) No election content whatsoever! 1. 'Hohhot Aquarium' - NarrowLaneAngel 窄巷天使 One of the stand-out acts from the Kind of Shoegaze Vol. 1 compilation focused on young Chinese bands that was released at the start of the year, NarrowLaneAngel formed in Inner Mongolia in 2023. In August of that year, they released an eponymous debut EP. 2. 'Limpid' - Forsaken Autumn Based in Sh...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 14 min
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 Soviet leaders, ChinaTalk interviewed Yakov Feygin. Feygin is the author of Building a Ruin: The Cold War Politics of Soviet Economic Reform, which examines how various Soviet leaders, institutions, and economists attempted to boost Soviet growth and national power. Co-hosting today is Jon Sine, writer of the Cogitations substack. We discus...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 43 min
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 台灣政府在推動半導體產業發展中的角色,特別是工研院和科學園區的貢獻 台積電的管理模式,包括研發與製造部門的平衡以及人才培養策略 台灣半導體產業的國際競爭力,尤其是與三星等競爭對手的比較 台積電在全球地緣政治中的角色,以及"矽盾"這一概念的由來和影響 AI時代對半導體產業的影響,特別是對記憶體和邏輯晶片整合的需求 台灣與美國在看待國際關係上的差異,以及這種差異對台灣國際戰略的影響 Special thanks to the host of this interview, Arrian Ebrahimi of the Chip Capitols substack. Cohosted by ChinaTalk editors Nicholas Welch and Lily Ottinger. Outtro...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 31 min
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 Brought China Success and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline. We cover a lot of ground in this two-hour installment. During the first hour, we discuss… The aspects of imperial China’s governance Mao chose to embrace, and those he chose to abandon, The factors enabling Mao’s radical policies compared to imperial rulers, Why China was able t...
Oct 02, 2024•2 hr 5 min
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 Technology Brought China Success and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline. It’s a rich book, a product of a career of reflections, with each page delivering something novel and provocative. In this first half of our two-part interview, we discuss… How the imperial examination system (known as keju) shaped Chinese governance, culture, and society, W...
Sep 23, 2024•1 hr 15 min
To discuss America’s comparative advantages in national competition and the structural forces that drive (and limit) innovation, ChinaTalk interviewed Kumar Garg. Formerly an Obama official in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Kumar spent several years at Schmidt Futures focusing on science and technology philanthropy. He has been a mentor and cheerleader for ChinaTalk over the years, and he is the president of the newly established Renaissance Philanthropy. We discuss: The inspiratio...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 16 min
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 analyst in the CIA focused on East Asia before moving into leadership roles. He served as chief of staff for the CIA deputy director and worked on modernization efforts in the agency. We discuss… How the intelligence community informs high-level policymaking, Why different institutional approaches are needed to collect intelligence on non-state...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 4 min
To discuss the post-election future of US competition policy, ChinaTalk interviewed Peter Harrell and Nazak Nikakhtar. Nazak served in the Trump administration after a long career as a civil servant, where she was instrumental in shaping the Commerce Department’s work on China, first at the International Trade Administration and later leading the Bureau of Industry and Security. Peter worked in the Biden administration on the National Economic Council and National Security Council, focusing on i...
Sep 04, 2024•1 hr 16 min
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 publication of his new book, Technology and the Rise of Great Powers, enjoy this interview with Jeff from the ChinaTalk archives. Jeff Ding argues in a 2023 paper that great powers must harness general-purpose technologies if they want to achieve global dominance. That is, diffusion capacity (not just innovation capacity) is critical to economic g...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 12 min
