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
August 4, 2025 • 130 mins
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 d...
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July 29, 2025 • 73 mins
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...
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July 23, 2025 • 89 mins
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)
...
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July 20, 2025 • 100 mins
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,
Wh...
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July 18, 2025 • 72 mins
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 coul...
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July 10, 2025 • 86 mins
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 ...
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July 9, 2025 • 78 mins
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
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July 7, 2025 • 61 mins
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‘ –...
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July 2, 2025 • 40 mins
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 ...
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June 29, 2025 • 58 mins
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 ...
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June 26, 2025 • 52 mins
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
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June 24, 2025 • 70 mins
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...
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June 16, 2025 • 76 mins
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 a...
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June 12, 2025 • 77 mins
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...
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June 6, 2025 • 73 mins
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
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June 3, 2025 • 50 mins
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 Israe...
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May 29, 2025 • 33 mins
Dylan bonds with Nvidia's CFO and I try to keep the GPUs in actual democracies.
Outtro Music: FaceTime, Karencici, 2018. https://open.spotify.com/track/2PNDZp0ultOJrQL4AVENPO?si=46cdf72cdffb40a3
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May 23, 2025 • 78 mins
What can Mao Zedong teach us about Donald Trump?
To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed the legendary sinologist Orville Schell, who visited China during the Cultural Revolution and is currently at the Asia Society.
We discuss…
Mao Zedong’s psychology and political style,
Similarities and differences between Mao and Trump,
How Mao-era traumas reverberate in modern China, including how the Cultural Revolution has infl...
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May 16, 2025 • 61 mins
Just how weird will the AI-powered future be?
To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Nathan Lambert, who writes the Interconnects newsletter and researches AI at the Allen Institute.
We get into…
Why OpenAI is trending toward engagement farming and sycophancy,
The state of Chinese AI innovation six months post-DeepSeek, and the factors influencing diffusion of Chinese vs American models,
Meta’s organizational culture and h...
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May 14, 2025 • 61 mins
What does the future of industrial policy in America look like, and what state capacity investments are needed to get there? How does China factor into the future of the U.S. semiconductor industry? And what do government affairs offices at large technology firms actually do? To explore these questions, we’re concluding our CSIS Chip Chat series with Bruce Andrews. Bruce has had a long career on Capitol Hill, led government affairs...
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