Nate Silver writes Silver Bulletin and is the author of On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything , now in paperback with a new foreword. In today’s conversation, we discuss… Honesty, reputation, and paying the bills with writing, Impact scenarios for the AI future, including how AI could impact elections and political decision-making, The emerging synergy between prediction markets and journalism, and how Nate would build a team of professional Polymarket traders, How to build a legacy, and st...
Sep 18, 2025•1 hr 20 min
Uncle Sam is taking a bite out of companies left and right. Today, we’re going to focus on MP Materials — the Trump administration’s answer to China’s restrictions on rare earth material exports to America. To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Daleep Singh , former Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, now with PGIN; Arnab Datta , currently at Employ America and IFP ; and Peter Harrell , former Biden official and host of the excellent new Security Economics podcast . Today, ...
Sep 16, 2025•1 hr 2 min
We're going weekly. Outtro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk18bFIgOS4&ab_channel=ThereIRuinedIt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 14, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Ryan Julian is a research scientist in embodied AI. He worked on large-scale robotics foundation models at DeepMind and got his PhD in machine learning at USC in 2021. Follow him on X: @ryancjulian In our conversation today, we discuss… What makes a robot a robot, and what makes robotics so difficult, The promise of robotic foundation models and strategies to overcome the data bottleneck, Why full labor replacement is far less likely than human-robot synergy, China’s top players in the robotic i...
Sep 12, 2025•1 hr 27 min
Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution and the Tracking People's Daily substack https://trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/ alongside James Crabtree, author of Billionaire Raj, chat whatever the hell is happening in the trilateral relationship. Outtro music: Chalte Chalte Title Song | Abhijeet, Alka Yagnik | Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkOakcMqJ-8&ab_channel=T-SeriesBollywoodClassics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 08, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Our third defense pod, I guess we're really doing it now. Like and subscribe if you're just here for our Civil War coverage. Guests include: Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/ Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/ Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC Outtro Music: After going through twenty different John Brown's Body recordings this one was my favorite, an acapela rendition by Deborah An...
Sep 05, 2025•1 hr 8 min
For the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Japan, ChinaTalk interviewed Ian Toll about his Pacific War trilogy , which masterfully brings America’s bloodiest war — and the world’s only nuclear war — to life. Ian’s detailed scholarship creates a multisensory historical experience, from the metallic tang of radiation after the bombs were dropped to the stench of Pacific battlefields. Ian’s forthcoming book, The Freshwater War, will explore the naval campaign the US fought against Britain ...
Aug 31, 2025•1 hr 59 min
Dan Wang at long last makes his solo ChinaTalk debut! We’re here to discuss and celebrate his first book, Breakneck . We get into… Engineering states vs lawyerly societies, The competing legacies of the 1980s in China, the decade which saw brutal repression via the One Child Policy and Tiananmen alongside intellectual debate, cultural vibrancy, and rock and roll, Methods of knowing China, from the People’s Daily and Seeking Truth to on-the-ground research, How to compare the values of China’s co...
Aug 28, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Israeli/Ukranian-style bolt from the blue drone attacks freak out Eric. I don't buy Silicon Shield. Lessons from Waymo on about the future of warfare. Intertextual analysis of the Mick Ryan interview. Fed Supernova, which is a terrible name for a conference, and counterintelligence. Has John Bolton taken enough Ls already? I guess not. Guests include: Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/ Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/ Eri...
Aug 25, 2025•54 min
Are GPUs being smuggled into China? Nvidia says no. But Steve Burke, editor in chief of Gamer Nexus, has traced out the entire smuggling chain in an epic three-hour YouTube documentary. He filmed another three-hour documentary exploring the impact of tariffs on America’s supply chain ecosystem. In today’s conversation, we discuss… Steve’s investigative process, including how he found people in mainland China willing to speak on the record about black market GPUs, The magnitude of smuggling, weak...
Aug 22, 2025•57 min
Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian army and author of three books — War Transformed : The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict, White Sun War , which is a piece of fiction about a near-future Taiwan war, and The War for Ukraine : Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire . He also writes the excellent Futura Doctrina Substack, which has taught me a tremendous amount over the past few years. The way Mick synthesizes history and contemporary conflict mak...
Aug 20, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Jon, Doug, Dylan and Wei join the chat to talk export controls and GPT5. Books Doug and I like: Jonathan Spence's Search for Modern China Gavan Daws' Shoal of Time Joseph Heinrich's The Secret of Our Success Outtro Music: Europhia II from kkluv's new album https://open.spotify.com/track/61kEkWr0gQrcDwd6uIbxQ1?si=190526b87e96487c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 14, 2025•1 hr 3 min
So we're selling AI chips to China now. Chris Miller, author of Chip Wars, and Lennart Heim at RAND join to discuss: What are the tradeoffs involved in selling Why China is talking like they don't even want the H20s Why selling HBM and semiconductor manufacturing equipment might be an even bigger deal than Nvidia chips Check out the Horizon Fellowship to work in DC on emerging tech policy issues like AI chip export controls! https://horizonpublicservice.org/applications-open-for-2026-horizon-fel...
Aug 13, 2025•1 hr 11 min
We talk AGI nihilism in the Taiwan fight, combined arms breach, and Palmer Luckey's Taiwan speech. Part 2 explores Detachment 201, the evolution of the Office of Strategic Capital, and the MP Materials rare earths deal. Guests include: Tony Stark, Army vet who writes https://www.breakingbeijing.com/ Justin McIntosh, former Green beret who writes https://justinmc.substack.com/ Eric Robinson, lawyer and Army vet who spent time in OSC, JSOC and the NCTC Outtro Music: Last Chance, Mary Cox https://o...
Aug 10, 2025•1 hr 12 min
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement — the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Professor Ben Nathans — is perhaps the sharpest, richest, and funniest account of the Soviet dissident movement ever written. Today, we’ll interview Nathans alongside the legendary Ian Johnson, whose recent book Sparks explores the Chinese dissident ecosystem. We discuss… The central enigma of the Soviet dissident movement — their boldness in the face of hopeless odds, How c...
Aug 04, 2025•2 hr 11 min
What does it take to make a living betting on politics? Can prediction markets offer insights about the future that other analyses cannot? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Domer , a professional prediction markets bettor. Domer is the number one trader by volume on Polymarket, and he’s been trading since 2007. He initially entered this world through poker, but now makes bets about who will win foreign elections, whether wars will start, and whether bills will become law. We discuss… Why some i...
Jul 29, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Tobias Harris of the Observing Japan substack https://observingjapan.substack.com/ joins to discuss the latest Japanese election, how we got here, and what happens next. How Abe's assassination led to the LDP's three years of struggles What the latest results in the upper house election tell us about domestic Japanese politics What's the deal with big winners like Kōmeitō and the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) How domestic dynamics tie into US-Japan and China-Japan relations Outtro Music...
Jul 23, 2025•1 hr 30 min
This is part two of our series with Joseph Torigian, author of the definitive biography of Xi Zhongxun . This episode traces the inner world of a man navigating power politics, exile, and reform, and the legacy he left his son, Xi Jinping. Against the backdrop of the Great Leap Forward, the Sino-Soviet split, the Cultural Revolution, and reform and opening up, we discuss… The moral dilemmas of a mid-level party cadre, What it’s like to be purged, and why the party prescribes self-criticism as th...
Jul 20, 2025•1 hr 40 min
Why has Japan fallen out of Trump’s good graces? Will Japan close a deal with the US before tariffs take effect? And how will the upcoming Japanese election impact relations? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi, a longtime observer of US-Japan relations and former advisor to the late Shinzo Abe. We discuss… Why 1970s trade competition is still impacting US-Japan relations today, and how Japan could create “Wow factor” when dealing with Donald Trump, How Shinzo Abe use...
Jul 18, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Joseph Torigian’s The Party’s Interest Comes First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping is a monumental scholarly achievement — easily a contender for one of the best China books of the decade. Joseph’s goal, in his own words, was to “shine as much light into the darkness of the past as possible” to understand the nature of authoritarian politics, and he succeeds beyond my wildest expectations. This biography gives me a feel for Chinese politics that I honestly thought I’d never have. ...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Nathan Lambert (https://www.interconnects.ai/), Jasmine Sun (https://jasmi.news/) and I kick off a new series 'Overfit' to talk how AI is shaping the future of media, why Nathan just needs $100m to take on Deepseek, and how to make money in this creator economy . Outtro music: Todd Terje, Preben Goes to Acapulco https://open.spotify.com/track/70jWHwvymR4x1PUXXrUD1S Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 09, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Jake Newby , author of the China music substack Concrete Avalanche , presents his official playlist of China’s best new music. It includes ADHD-inspired hip hop, experimental ambient music from rural China, and Shanghai cold wave, finishing off with a “mind-blowing” hyperpop track. Tracklist: 00:00 ‘Rhyme’ – Rubey Hu 01:02 ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ – SMZB 生命之饼 04:46 ‘秋茄子之味’ – 红发少年杀人事件 09:04 ‘The Wanderer of Renfengli 仁丰里的闲逛者‘ – DaYe 大叶 12:08 ‘back to the pond 1’ – Jian Cui 15:57 ‘Chapter II’ (e...
Jul 07, 2025•1 hr 2 min
How does Russia prevent uprisings, and what can other authoritarians learn from Moscow’s methods of coup control? For the second anniversary of the Wagner uprising, ChinaTalk interviewed London-based historian Kamil Galeev , who was also a classmate of Jordan’s at Peking University. We discuss… Why the Wagner Group rebelled in 2023, and why the coup attempt ultimately failed, How Wagner shifted the Kremlin’s assessment of internal political challengers, Similarities between post-Soviet doomerism...
Jul 02, 2025•40 min
Is America cooked? We check in on what clarity the past three months have given us on the long term dynamic between the US and China. Guests include: Peter Harrell, former Biden official who hosts the Security Economics podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/security-economics/id1794022711) Matt Klein of the https://theovershoot.co/ substack Kevin Xu of the https://interconnect.substack.com/ subsctack Outtro music: Emitt Rhodes, Textile Factory, 1970 https://open.spotify.com/track/1JO2jo...
Jun 29, 2025•58 min
Also, somehow, the Third Temple, twink human sacrifice for the AI labs, and the SemiAnalysis Desi Waifu 3000. Outtro Music (sounded like a let's get dylan a girlfriend prayer to me?) Finding Her, Kushagra, Bharath, Saaheal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtSnQBsBW0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 26, 2025•52 min
Patrick McGee is the author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company . Our discussion led us through a detailed history of Apple’s relationship with China, where iPhone manufacturing became a project of nation-building. Cohosting today is Kyle Chan of the High Capacity Substack. Today, our conversation covers: Why Apple moved production to China in the 1990s, and why it struggles to leave, How Apple’s obsession with perfection catalyzed China’s industrial upgrading, The pol...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Eva Dou is the author of The House of Huawei , an excellent book covering the personal, economic, and geopolitical arc of Huawei, China’s most important company. We discuss… The life of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, who rose from Cultural Revolution disgrace to become one of China’s richest businessmen, How Ren built Huawei, and what makes their corporate culture unique, Huawei’s strategic entry into developing and high-risk markets like Libya, Iraq, and Iran, and whether the controversial dea...
Jun 17, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Renaissance Philanthropy — in my opinion, the most exciting S&T philanthropic venture in the US — is getting a one-year check-in. Kumar Garg first appeared on the show right before I went on paternity leave, and now we’re back for round two. Before founding Renaissance Philanthropy, Kumar worked in the Obama Office of Science and Technology Policy and spent time at Schmidt Futures. We discuss… How Renaissance catalyzed over $200 million in philanthropic funding in its first year, The goa...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital joins ChinaTalk to talk: Elon, Trump and the tech right The future of the R&D base and importance of immigrants Why short videos aren't terrible after all? Philanthropy and books Read the social history of the machine gun ! Outtro Music: Youba by The Sway Machinery and Khaira Arby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYNUm4UfoAs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 07, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Two weeks in a row what has gotten into us. Jordan tries to save the NSF and immigrant visas with an AI researcher letter Our quarterly AI mandate of heaven update (there's been alot of movement!) Dylan makes bad slop jokes The Ezra Klein/Dylan Patel beef begins We recommend the amazing book Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business Outtro music: באמפרים” (pronounced Bam-pe-rim, roughly “Bumpers”) by the Israeli hip-hop duo Ness & Stilla, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/track/3FihyZ7YA7vrNi...
Jun 04, 2025•50 min
