Today we’re releasing part one of our a two-part conversation with Nick Mulder, a history professor at Cornell and author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War — a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2022. With cohost Lars, Schönander, we discuss: The recent advent of the use of sanctions (for example, in the Crimean War, Britain continued to fulfill payments to Russia, the nation it was fighting right then!) Why Europeans were reluctant to employ blockades and sanctions...
Mar 03, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Data scientist Bryan Cheong breaks down how AI actually works, creating video using AI and how the technology is being used beyond image and language models. Also, I've got a meetup March 7th in Palo Alto! https://partiful.com/e/dVY7k51xQX4WhNr6AUcH Joined by Zheng, we also discuss: The farmers in India using AI for marketing Denoising and weights, the tech behind AI image generation tools What's next for developments in AI Singapore's tech scene Outro music: 我說所有的酒都不如你 by 房東的貓 https://www.youtu...
Mar 02, 2023•50 min
Today we’re going to do a show about the scariest US-China news story I’ve seen in years, that “ The US has intelligence that the Chinese government is considering providing Russia with drones and ammunition for use in the war in Ukraine .” Would China really arm Russia, and if so what will that mean for the world if the US and China end up on opposite sides of a proxy war? To discuss this I have on today Georgetown’s, Dennis Wilder, a longtime CIA veteran who served as an NSC director on the Ch...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min
With AI on the verge of transforming the world, how are regulators across the globe approaching the challenges the technology might pose? Also, what does US-China AI collaboration look like today, and will it get caught up in broader tensions in the relationship? Matt Sheehan and Hadrien Pouget, who are both at Carnegie, come on to discuss. Matt's paper on US-China collaboration: https://www.brookings.edu/research/can-democracies-cooperate-with-china-on-ai-research/ Matt's work on Chinese algori...
Feb 20, 2023•56 min
William 'Balloon Guy' Kim returns for a roundup of the past few days of news around the Chinese spy balloon and unidentified object shooting. We share our favorite theories of what on earth is going on and what this all means for US-China relations. Subscribe to the ChinaTalk newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media/ Outtro Music: Sammy Davis Jr's Up Up and Away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hYNMZtxJoU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Feb 15, 2023•37 min
Hey ChinaTalk listeners, this year we’re going to do something new—occasional episodes in Mandarin! While getting mainland guests to talk about more conventional topics like US-China relations and export controls has been nearly impossible, I think doing more slice of life/business stories about odd corners of China in the pale imitation of Gushi FM is both fun and enriching to our coverage. In this episode, you’ll hear from the founder of mechanical keyboard manufacturer Meletrix , Simba Hua, a...
Feb 12, 2023•49 min
How does one organization turn expert knowledge into real policy change? Dan Correa, CEO of the Federation of American Scientists and Founder of the Day One Project , discusses the power of policy entrepreneurship and shares examples of the ideas his nonprofit helped turn into legislation. We'll delve into the nitty-gritty of policymaking and explore topics such as: How to make meetings with government officials more productive. The importance of pre-work in preparing good ideas and the role exp...
Feb 10, 2023•42 min
What do we talk about when we talk about tech policy? What are the weird corners of the chips and science bill? How is talent policy broken and what can anyone do about it? And broadly, if you want to change the world through better regulatory and executive action, how do you go about this? To discuss all that we have Divyansh Kaushik, a newly minted PhD from Carnegie Mellon currently at the Federation for American Scientists focusing on emerging tech policy. He was also closely involved with th...
Feb 08, 2023•48 min
Chinese balloons over Wyoming!! To discuss, we have on today William 'Balloon Guy' Kim of the Marathon Initiative, Eric Lofgren of AcquisitionTalk, and Gerard Dipippo of CSIS. Intro Music: Up Up and Away, The 5th Fifth Dimension https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akEgsZSfhg Outro Music: NENA | 99 Luftballons [1983] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu5a0Bl8eY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 03, 2023•39 min
Love it or hate it, AI capabilities continue to advance. As futurists imagine how this technology may one day be used, how it develops and who will be able to access AI tools will also depend on who funds AI projects and what hardware will be needed to get it to work. Lennart Heim is a researcher at the Center for the Governance of AI and the author of a fantastic AI compute syllabus primer, which I have just spent the past few weeks obsessed with. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DF31DIkwS9G...
Feb 03, 2023•1 hr 13 min
China v Taiwan: who would win? Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research at Brookings. He specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and American national security policy. We discuss The limits of scenarios that predict the outcome of a China-Taiwan conflict. What are intercontinental rail guns? How sports teams that play each other in the same year can have different outcomes - and what this says about predictability. Given all this, what’s the point of mo...
Jan 29, 2023•1 hr 9 min
This episode is sponsored by Policyware. Check out Samm's class at https://www.policyware.org/chinatalk How do Chinese cyber laws and regulations affect multinational companies, and US-China relations? Samm Sacks of Yale Law School walks us through the latest developments in this arena — we discuss: Why Chinese data policy has been on front-page news in the past few years; What China is hoping to gain from its new laws and regulations; The status of TikTok negotiations, and the prospects of a de...
Jan 25, 2023•19 min
Say China wins a war for Taiwan. What happens next? To discuss the political and economic consequences of a PRC takeover of Taiwan, I have on today Jude Blanchette and Gerard Dipippo, both fellows at CSIS. Our conversation builds off their paper https://www.chinatalk.media/p/war-for-taiwan-what-happens-after. We recorded this episode in mid-December. Outtro Music: 水哥 ft. 蛋堡 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHU9kEYiAQw&list=PLegPxPQebljkJOhscK3tLUXfZ9n1lgkwC&index=31 Learn more about your ...
Jan 23, 2023•1 hr 3 min
In 2023, ChinaTalk is going to Congress! First up in our series is Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat who represents Silicon Valley. We get into: What he hopes the China Committee can accomplish Why ChatGPT let him down What an effective industrial policy looks like Also, I'm hosting a ChinaTalk meetup in DC next week! RSVP here: https://partiful.com/e/Zni1rBY3PFhy6WYFm2VK? Outtro music: Bruce Springsteen, My Hometown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gKSp8WoRg Cover Art: I gave midjourney a Miro and told...
Jan 19, 2023•33 min
What can $52bn for semiconductors actually accomplish? To discuss the tensions and tradeoffs underlying the decisions that the US government is about to make on how to spend this money, I have on today Jacob Feldgoise , an analyst at CSET and Vishnu Kannan , who works at the Carnegie Endowment. We'll be discussing their fantastic paper entitled: "The Limits of Reshoring and Next Steps for U.S. Semiconductor Policy." Jacob and Vishnu's paper: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/11/22/after-chips-a...
Jan 17, 2023•50 min
As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, we consider the question of whether there are limits to what computers can know and how this compares to human understanding. Joining me on this episode is Sam Hammond, the director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, and Zohar Atkins, a rabbi and host of the podcast "Meditations with Zohar." We discuss The impact of AI on creativity and human thought. Fears around AI and the centralization of power. The potential for AI to have an egalitarian effec...
Jan 13, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution makes his ChinaTalk debut! We get into: How AI is going to change art, education, politics and human relationships Why Tyler tried to write a book to explain America to the PRC How babies born in 2023 will see their educations changed by AI; Playing chess against the computer and creativity in the AI era; Religion, American antisemitism, and the movie Her ; Writing a book about America for Chinese people; Why China is one of the hardest countries to predict. Ou...
Jan 09, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Before we get back to the interviews, I read from the newsletter I run which you should subscribe to at https://www.chinatalk.media/ If you're interested in advertising on ChinaTalk, reach out at Jordan@chinatalk.media! Here's my year in review: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinatalks-year-in-review Favorite books: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/a-year-in-books Favorite everything else: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/2022-media-diet-tv-movies-chess-elden Outtro music 忏悔录 by KKECHO https://www.you...
Jan 06, 2023•21 min
Subscribe to the ChinaTalk newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media/ Outtro music: Fred Again's Frank Ocean remix https://soundcloud.com/joseph-ibrahim/chanel-vs-a-new-error-frank-ocean-moderat-fred-again-mix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 20, 2022•15 min
Subscribe to my newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media/ Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge and Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis go through our most important semis stories of 2022. We get into: Samsung and Intel's stumbles Arm taking on Qualcomm Risc-V's rise The politicization of semiconductors Outtro music: ChatGPT + PG One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvFGLSIU2c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Dec 16, 2022•46 min
Today US Department of Energy Secretary Granholm announced a nuclear fusion breakthrough at Livermore Labs. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be getting commercially viable fusion reactors anytime soon. Economist Eli Dourado wrote in a piece today : “ Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as the next great energy source, capable of providing nearly limitless power without the harmful emissions and waste associated with other forms of energy generation. This week, the National I...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 9 min
How do you get into chips? Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge and Jon Y of Asianometry run us through how to they came to We also discuss Why starting with something's history can help you understand how it works. Who they talk to and what they read to understand their niches. Following your passion and making a whole video on Taiwanese 7-Elevens. Keeping the YouTube algorithm happy. SIA job posting: https://www.semiconductors.org/sia-jobs/ Outro music: Still Alive by Johnathan Coulton, per...
Dec 08, 2022•35 min
Ling Li , lecturer at the University of Vienna, comes on the pod to discuss: The origins and evolution of Covid Zero Different paths the CCP could take to cracking down What the protests tell us about modern China Intro sounds: https://twitter.com/renminwansui5/status/1597064778543157250 Outtro sounds: https://twitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1597225385728827392 Subscribe to ChinaTalk for an ad-free feed: https://chinatalk.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...
Nov 29, 2022•41 min
I talk about where I think these protests are heading and what they mean for Covid Zero and the international situation. First voice memo is from @wstv_lizzi and the second is from @lichtspektrum. The outtro singing is protesters in Shanghai singing the Internationale. Here's my essay on the topic in written form: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinas-protests-harbinger-or-passing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Nov 28, 2022•21 min
Can the US and China play nicely enough with each other to not ruin the planet in the coming century? In particular, what prospects are there for cooperation around global challenges and biotech? For this episode, I'm joined by Scott Moore, Penn's director of China programs and strategic initiatives and perhaps the nicest person on China Twitter. We discuss Medical cooperation between China and the US during the Ebola outbreak. Whether shared global challenges can be combatted without China. Lea...
Nov 15, 2022•41 min
Do export controls work? And will they work for AI? Meet Emily Weinstein and Tim Hwang. They're research fellows at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and have written a paper on the goals of export controls and whether what the US government is trying to achieve with them is clear. We discuss Did the US inadvertently help China make better missiles? How export controls have hurt some US industries' international competitiveness. What export controls can - and can't ...
Nov 08, 2022•46 min
What will the Biden administration's new export controls mean for the US and Chinese semiconductor industries as well as the future of the US-China relationship? To discuss, I assembled the Chips Avengers , consisting of Reva Goujon (Rhodium Group), Jay Goldberg ( Digits to Dollars ), Doug O'Laughlin ( Fabricated Knowledge ), and Martin Chorzempa (PIIE). We got into The second-order implications of the Biden Administration's moves for industry What it would take for China to circumvent these con...
Oct 27, 2022•1 hr 2 min
The AI revolution in art is coming, not in decades but months and years. What does this mean for creativity and how will it change the way artists work? Meet Campfire creative director Steve Coulson. He recently produced an entire comic book using images created by the midjourney AI art generator. Together with my brother Phil Schneider cohosting, we discuss: Whether using tech to generate art is taking money from already struggling artists How AI will end the stock photography industry Why Xi J...
Oct 25, 2022•30 min
What was life actually like for people in rural China over the last seventy years? Brew up a nice cup of tea and find a comfy armchair, it's time for another special edition of ChinaTalk. In this episode, Stanford University graduate student Vivian Zhong tells the story of her grandfather's life, from his childhood in the early days of the People's Republic to today pieced together from conversations they've shared over the years. She talks about: What it was like being a student in provincial C...
Oct 22, 2022•28 min
Kamil Galeev comes on the show to talk about the current situation in the war in Ukraine and what it means for: prospects of nuclear war Elite Russian politics and Putin's future viability State stability Moscow's grip on the regions This show was recorded on October 6th. Outtro music is a tatar folk song with the google-translated title "Look at your eyelashes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY-axn5sk70 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 13, 2022•52 min
