Emily Benson (CSIS) and Martin Chorzempa (PIIE) come on to discuss the new executive order and Treasury's ANRPM (advanced notice of proposed rulemaking) on novel outbound investment screening rules on AI, quantum and semis. Treasury document: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/206/Treasury-ANPRM.pdf Outtro music: 水碾河南三街 LSGCsikoriot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wzz1Deafh8 Midjourney: used this 18th century Japanese woodprint and prompted it with "quantum semiconductor" https://www.metmus...
Aug 12, 2023•52 min
Should democracies band together to protect themselves from Chinese economic coercion? What can deterrence theory teach us about geoeconomic strategy? To discuss these questions, I brought on Matt Goodman and Matt Reynolds of CSIS along with Matt Klein of The Overshoot and David Talbot of the Milken Institute. We discuss: –Why China uses economic coercion, especially against smaller states. –How democracies might join together to deter and respond to this aggression. –Why reslience beats retalia...
Aug 07, 2023•49 min
This August, ChinaTalk is going to take a bit of a break from our usual routine of tech and politics coverage to spend some time with Chinese culture! Starting us off is Jake Newby of the Concrete Avalanche substack who will be taking us through a radio hour of some of the most interesting independent music coming out of China. Here's the playlist: Intro music: Voision Xi - 'Too Late to Complain' from Five Loops in Her Way . More on that EP here ; listen to Voision's jazz record Lost For Words h...
Aug 04, 2023•54 min
How is the DoD thinking about deploying AI? What are the challenges and opportunities involved in building out AI assurance? To discuss, I brought on Dr. Jane Pinelis, Chief AI Engineer The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She was previously the Chief of the Test, Evaluation, and Assessment branch at the Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). Prior to joining the JAIC, Dr. Pinelis served as the Director of Test and Evaluation for USDI’s Algorithmic...
Aug 01, 2023•1 hr
Until yesterday, Qin Gang 秦刚 was serving as China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. But on Monday, July 24, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee announced an emergency meeting for the next day, July 25, during which Qin was “removed” 免职 (albeit not “dismissed” 撤职) from his position as China’s #2 diplomat. To dissect the rumors and make sense of it all, we have on Matt Brazil — a senior China analyst at BluePath Labs , writer for SpyTalk , fellow at the Jamestown Foundation , and longti...
Jul 26, 2023•33 min
ChinaTalk welcomes Taiwan expert and Hoover research fellow Kharis Templeman . This episode is all things 2024 Taiwan elections — slated for January 13, 2024. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Kharis is the program manager of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific , and previously was the program manager of the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project . In this show, we discuss: The frontrunners’ profiles — Lai Ching-te 賴清德, Hou Yu-ih 侯友宜, and Ko Wen-je 柯文哲 — and what makes this thre...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 5 min
• How did the Chinese EV industry become so dominant? • What institutional and cultural factors shape China’s auto market? • What can Western democracies learn from Chinese industrial policy? To discuss these questions, I brought on GWU professor John Helveston , an expert in tech and innovation policy and Chinese electric vehicles. Outro music: https://open.spotify.com/track/4QQEzkxcONBthDLfzqIh9S?si=2af235017c8c4449 Photo: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...
Jul 22, 2023•1 hr 15 min
What companies beyond OpenAI matter to the future of AI? What is the relationship between closed and open source source? When will researchers lose the reins to government on AI's trajectory? To discuss, this week I brought on Matt Lynley of the fantastic Supervised News substack as well as Lux Capital's Danny Crichton. Jade Leung's thesis: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ea3c7cb8-2464-45f1-a47c-c7b568f27665 Outtro music: https://open.spotify.com/track/2opgXfgG4tdM2fuHiamoaG?si=e1eabaf135d846d...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Foreign aid is dominated by just a few huge players that receive the bulk of grants from the US government. But is bigger better? And are local players with innovative solutions to global issues missing out? Unlock Aid wants to see smaller stakeholders get access to more funding and seats at the table. The group’s executive director, Walter Kerr and COO Amanda Arch explain why. We also discuss: How much the US spends on foreign aid each year and who gets that money. How to make the distribution ...
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Paul Huang , Taiwan military expert and research fellow at the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, returns to ChinaTalk! Today he gives us an update on Taiwan’s military readiness, the PLA’s expansion, and whether Xi Jinping would really send it. If you missed his episode back in 2020, give it a listen, too. And check out his recent thoughts posted on NBR, as well as his long-form special report , “Threats to Taiwan’s Security from China’s Military Modernization.” In this episode, we cover: The st...
Jul 03, 2023•48 min
What happened over the past few days in Russia? What does this mean for the future of Putin and the war in Ukraine? To discuss, I recorded today a show with Kamil Galeev , a PKU classmate of mine formerly of the Wilson Center. Outtro music: Repo Man, Coup d'etat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJjuVzZQj0U Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 27, 2023•49 min
Blinken went to China to meet with Qin Gang, Wang Yi, and Xi himself! What happened, why does it matter, and does this make it any less likely we'll be in WWIII anytime soon? Do discuss, I bought on Dali Yang, political science professor at UChicago, and Nathaniel Sher of Carnegie. Subscribe to ChinaTalk at https://chinatalk.substack.com/! Outtro music (a two-parter!): Selena Gomez: Lose You to Love Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJDTxahav0 Beyonce: Start Over https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Jun 20, 2023•54 min
We're talking Chinese TV this week on ChinaTalk! Hollywood writer Trey Kollmer and ChinaTalk editor Irene Zhang discuss farming reality tv, a dongbei murder, and some super creative animated content out of Bilibili. Farmer show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fklN-OnYuGc Dongbei show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs0OJVemJz4 Animated show: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0gnw1pNh6C1yA3EUU-aQrOjI3hvBC7oQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 09, 2023•43 min
Doug O'Laughlin of the Fabricated Knowledge substack and I discuss: NVIDIA's corporate history and how it arrived at such a dominant position today What makes it so irreplacable in the coming AI revolution The national competitiveness implications of NVIDIA in a US-China context Outtro music: 邓典果DDG/李尔新 -《帅到没朋友》 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CqvpDd1xK0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 03, 2023•50 min
Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under Obama, CNAS founder, and co-founder of WestExec Advisors, returns to ChinaTalk to discuss: How the Biden Administration is trying to re-engage with China Reflections on innovation in defense, AI, and the war in Ukraine ChinaTalk meetup in NYC this Friday! https://partiful.com/e/taNb35oaCKjglbHHdEA1 Reuters reporting: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/why-us-delayed-china-sanctions-after-shooting-down-spy-balloon-2023-05-11/ New Yorker ...
May 31, 2023•1 hr 1 min
The Pentagon has a new tech strategy! What does it say, what impact will it have, and what do its authors think about technological change and warfare? Dr. Nina Kollars, advisor to Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) Heidi Shyu, and R&E’s Chief Data Officer Cyrus Jabbari join us to discuss in a wide ranging and at times philosophical conversation about the challenges of peacetime innovation critical technology lists lessons from the origins of the machine ...
May 23, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Dan Faggella, who for ten years has interviewed business leaders about the challenges of implementing AI, joins ChinaTalk to discuss about just how hard it is to get AI to diffuse across an economy. We also get into: Why the past ten years of AI hasn't lived up to its promise The technological, bureaucratic, and cultural challenges of corporate AI diffusion Which sectors are most and least likely to adopt quickly NYC ChinaTalk meetup: https://partiful.com/e/taNb35oaCKjglbHHdEA1 Music: Uyghur dri...
May 18, 2023•43 min
Jeff Ding is the leading US scholar on China and AI and author of one of the earliest China-focused Substacks, ChinAI . He recently published a fire paper called, “The diffusion deficit in scientific and technological power: re-assessing China’s rise.” It makes the argument that diffusion capacity (not just innovation capacity) is critical to economic growth — and China actually fares much worse in diffusion capacity than mainstream narratives imply. In particular, “In cases when the emerging po...
May 11, 2023•1 hr 14 min
PJ Maykish, Abigail Kukura, and Will Moreland from the Future Technologies platform team of the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) join the conversation to discuss critical technologies and the development of a national technology strategy. The guests provide insights into how the United States can create a comprehensive technology strategy that prioritizes the development of critical technologies to compete with China. They also discuss the importance of international collaboration in t...
May 06, 2023•1 hr 1 min
On Monday, May 1, I interviewed Virgina Senator Mark Warner. We get into the RESTRICT Act, state capacity to analyze emerging technologies, the future of industrial policy, the nature and limits to bipartisanship around China, as well as the government’s role in regulating artificial intelligence. Check out the ChinaTalk newsletter for a full transcript! https://www.chinatalk.media/ Art via midjourney prompt: corporate America’s naïveté vis-à-vis China Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...
May 02, 2023•43 min
J. Edgar Hoover was a controversial figure who served as the director of the FBI for nearly five decades. In this episode, we explore his life and legacy with Beverly Gage, a professor of 20th-century U.S. history and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning biography "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century." We discuss The context in which Hoover developed his anti-communist worldview, and how this shaped his approach to law enforcement. The deportation of anarchists to Bolsh...
Apr 25, 2023•1 hr 35 min
How did Xi Jinping’s formative years influence how he views the world today? Veteran China scholar Orville Schell , the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, looks back at decades of writing and working on China, weathering the cycles of the country opening up and shutting down and gives his two cents on what’s going on in Xi’s head. We also discuss — Why Mao Zedong is a better read than Xi — China’s reciprocity problem on the international stage — How US officials reacted ...
Apr 14, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Stephen Roach is a Yale professor with extensive experience in China. He also taught the first China class I ever took, so it may be fair to say he's partially to blame for the entire ChinaTalk enterprise. In our conversation (taped on February 23), we discuss: The nexus between US-China relations and the DSM-5 (we need some relationship therapy!); How false narratives strangle effective diplomatic development; What Stephen thinks about the odds of a hot conflict over Taiwan; Practical proposals...
Apr 09, 2023•53 min
Paul Scharre , Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS, joins ChinaTalk to discuss AI, military, strategy, and US-China geopolitics. Listen in for a discussion on: How AI will impact the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war How and why AI operates — whether in chess, Dota 2, or aerial dogfighting — in fundamentally different ways than humans; Why AI called for a “protective response from the bureaucracy” The significance of the US’s comparative advantage over China in talent ...
Apr 02, 2023•1 hr 4 min
What actually is foreign influence, and how might Canada handle China’s interference in its domestic affairs? Akshay Singh is a research associate at the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa. We discuss: How to roll out a foreign agent registry; The role of the US-Canada relationship; Whether foreign influence is a diaspora problem; And performance reviews for the United Front’s Canada desk. Akshay on how democracies should respond to foreign influence: https://www...
Apr 02, 2023•40 min
The Chips Avengers assemble once again! Reva Goujon of the Rhodium Group , JP Kleinhans of the European think tank SNV , Jay Goldberg of Digits and Dollars , and Dylan Patel , who writes SemiAnalysis . In this episode of ChinaTalk, we all: Deep dive into the CHIPS Act's recent Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO); Discuss the potentially existential impact of AI on global power dynamics; Consider the true intentions of the October 2022 export controls — from military constraining China to crippl...
Mar 28, 2023•55 min
Kevin Xu, Obama-era White House official and creator of https://interconnect.substack.com/ comes on ChinaTalk to discuss: Our impressions of the House's TikTok hearing Continued cross-border reliances around batteries and cloud computing The missed opportunity of Zhang Yiming's generation of founders GPT4's remarkable translation capabilities Outtro Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Mar 24, 2023•59 min
How will GPT4 change the world? What implications does it have for policy, economics, and society? How will US-China 'racing dynamics' play out and what are the implications for AI safety? To discuss, I've brought together the AI Justice League: Zvi of ' Don't Worry About the Vase ', Nathan Labenz of Waymark, and Matthew Mittelsteadt of Mercatus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Mar 16, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Dennis Wilder returns to ChinaTalk — this time with some broader thoughts on how the US intelligence community can rise to the occasion vis-à-vis China. In particular, we discuss: The importance of government hiring those with experience living in China; Contributions that the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS) has made to China intelligence, and why it should be reinstated; A serious request to make an ChatGPT as good as Alice Miller is at analyzing CCP documents; https://www.hoover....
Mar 13, 2023•40 min
Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with Nick Mulder and Lars Schönander. Picking the narrative up in 1935, get real in this episode: Why the Great Depression, counterintuitively, made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism; The difference between autarky and autarchy ; Whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology; Nick’s definition of “temporal claustrophobia,” and what ...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 2 min
