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

December 30, 2025 39 mins
ChinaTalk Audience survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQ99GAL0m_8iBqZDiKoEjRZiyX6544QvaCNtd1cVkc826n7A/viewform?usp=dialogFeatured coverage on Substack: Industrial diamonds: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/diamonds-are-a-trade-wars-best-friend China’s influence in Central Asia: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/notes-on-kyrgyzstan Taiwanese WWII veterans: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/taiwan-confronts-wwii ...
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A festivus special! Joe Weisenthal, host of Odd Lots and my podcast host alter ego, come to celebrate his ten years of hosting, reflect on the medium and China. 01:21 following your podcasting bliss 21:19 handling guests 26:06 china 46:04 journalism integrity 49:24 parenting in nyc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Steve Gagnon joins the show! Book: Thousand Mile War https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Mile-War-Aleutians-Classic-Reprint/dp/0912006838 Outtro music: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Rahm Emanuel returns to ChinaTalk with a characteristically blunt assessment of U.S.-China relations, delivering an unsparing verdict on the first year of Donald Trump’s second term. We discuss: The “Fear Factor” in Asia: Why Japan and South Korea are ramping up defense spending not because of Trump’s strength, but because his unpredictability and isolationism have forced them to buy “insurance policies” against a U.S. exit, ...
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December 15, 2025 61 mins
Mike Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. Trade Representative. He joins ChinaTalk for the first time to discuss: Why his 1992 dissertation on détente is suddenly relevant again – and why “positive linkage” fails to change adversary behavior, How mutual assured destruction has shifted from nuclear weapons to rare earths, supply chains, and technology, and why the U.S. and China are stuc...
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December 12, 2025 64 mins
We've got a full house with Tony, Justin and Eric today. We get into: The hottest NDAA takes on the airwaves (DFC, OSC, AUKUS, Taiwan, contested logistics, Xi's money) Tony has an amazing tv pitch for the deposed dictator White Lotus SOCOM creatine and super soldiers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Nathan and Jasmine debrief from NeurIPS San Diego, where we of course threw the best party. outtro music: we're on a boat https://suno.com/s/dkulmuRvScACxObX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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It's never over with Trump...Dmitri Alperovich of the Silverado Policy Accelerator comes on to discuss Trump's decision to allow the export of H200s to china. outtro music, a fan song to Jameison Greer: https://suno.com/s/yTi5R7xDRcM7p2ho Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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First half on the national security strategy you can read here https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf 26:18 we get into the second strike Tony's Taiwan baseball podcast rec: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6s26btM3CFq7FgUUmdECST?si=gMIOtaZxSPKYzk5qCNMePQ Kimi said I should set the song to veggietales, so I did. https://suno.com/s/P4XaZR6f1mphSrkP Learn more about your ad choice...
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December 2, 2025 64 mins
It's think tank director week at ChinaTalk! Helen Toner of CSET kicks us off to talk through where she's planning on taking the storied organization. her speech about jagged progress: https://helentoner.substack.com/p/taking-jaggedness-seriously Outtro music: https://suno.com/s/HcdTS6W1OmHh8ZYz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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November 25, 2025 59 mins
In the wake of Salt Typhoon, what does the future of secure telecom look like? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed John Doyle, a former Green Beret who spent a decade building Palantir’s national security practice before founding Cape, which calls itself “America’s privacy-first mobile carrier”. Also joining the conversation is Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman and co-founder of Silverado Policy Accelerator, founder of CrowdStrike, and ...
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Doug, Dylan, and Wei of SemiAnalysis join me (Jon was sleeping at 5AM taiwan time...) for a pre-holiday get together. 01:00 AI Mandate--OpenAI slipping 19:03 Dylan sells TSMC on AI better than sama 24:17 Doug teaches a lesson on railroad bubbles and ai 32:30 Sarah Friar fails up 35:17 Zohran-Trump Suno slop: Moody's man came down from New York City https://suno.com/s/5DGCTgqam8dQMkZf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
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Eric Robinson, Justin Mc, Tony Stark and I talk China's sushi ban, Witkoff's peace plan, Jake Sullivan, William Manchester's absurd memoir Here's the full text of the peace plan: https://www.axios.com/2025/11/20/trump-ukraine-peace-plan-28-points-russia Chapters 00:00 China bans pufferfish sperm 02:14 Peace Deal Drama 11:12 How the Trump Court explains everything 20:11 The Future of Russian Military Power 30:34 Lessons fro...
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November 21, 2025 76 mins
Zixuan Li is Director of Product and genAI Strategy at Z.ai (also known as Zhipu 智谱 AI). The release of their benchmark-topping flagship model, GLM 4.5, was akin to “another DeepSeek moment,” in the words of Nathan Lambert. Our conversation today covers… What sets Z.ai apart from other Chinese models, including coding, role-playing capabilities, and translations of cryptic Chinese internet content, Why Chinese AI compan...
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November 18, 2025 70 mins
After five long years since ⁠his last ChinaTalk appearance⁠, Jake Sullivan returns to the show! We discuss… Sullivan’s experience managing crises, implementing grand strategy, and cultivating leadership skills during the Biden administration, The art of crafting aggressive industrial policy, from chips to rare earths to infrastructure,  The risk of miscalculation in the Taiwan Strait, and whether Pelosi’s Taipei visit wa...
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Justin and Eric cohost with Pete Modigliani and Matt McGregor, coauthors of the Defense Tech and Acquisition substack (https://defenseacquisition.substack.com/). Chapters 16:24 The Future of Defense Technology and Startups 33:37 Cultural Shifts in Acquisition Practices 44:57 Taskers and Bureaucratic Inefficiencies 55:06 Vendor Lock and Software Solutions Outtro music: more suno slop https://suno.com/s/FVtn90DmV8xuLcfp Lea...
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Jasmine Sun (https://jasmi.news/), Nathan Lambert (https://www.interconnects.ai/), and special guest Afra Wang (https://afraw.substack.com/). Our article on 'China makes AI girlfriends and America makes AI boyfriends' https://www.chinatalk.media/p/why-america-builds-ai-girlfriends More on the Hefei model: https://hellochinatech.substack.com/p/china-hefei-model 05:53 ai 12:46 remorseful AI models 29:43 AI in porn 32:17 ai vo...
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we cooked better than cafe milano 00:00 Colby's trainwreck of a hearing + right wing DC food 16:42 Countering Drones 35:32 How to train seriously 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: more suno https://suno.c...
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November 6, 2025 81 mins
Peter Harrell and Oren Cass join the show to talk IEEPA at the Supreme Court and broader US grand strategy towards China. 03:01 IEPA Tariffs and Their Implications 17:27 Reciprocity and Trade Agreements 20:13 USMCA and Fortress North America 39:01 Decoupling from China: A Strategic Perspective 43:41 Trump's Economic Approach to China 47:48 The Chips Debate: National Security and Economic Interests 01:05:24 Reflections on Pol...
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November 2, 2025 81 mins
Why do leaders with vast expert bureaucracies at their fingertips make devastating foreign policy decisions? Tyler Jost, professor at Brown, joins ChinaTalk to discuss his first book, Bureaucracies at War, a fascinating analysis of miscalculation in international conflicts. As we travel from Mao’s role in border conflicts, to Deng’s blunder in Vietnam, to LBJ’s own Vietnam error, a tragic pattern emerges — leaders gradually isolat...
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