Chinaecontalk

Matt Pottinger reported for years out of China, served as a US Marine Corps intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, and held several senior roles on Trump's NSC , concluding his time in the White House as the Deputy National Security Advisor. Today, Matt chairs the China Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. In this interview, we discuss: How Matt expects a second Trump administration’s China policy might develop. Why Trump is leaning more into strategic ambiguity than Biden, what that means for deterrence, and how that impacts the likelihood of him standing by were the PRC to invade Taiwan. Why bipartisan support for the US-China trade war will continue to shape the contours of great-power conflict. Matt’s look at the origins and political fallout of COVID-19. Plus, reflections on Mike Flynn and how Trump ran his NSC.  SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER! https://www.chinatalk.media/ Outtro music: Miles Davis, So What https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU Learn more about your

Heart attacks, prostate cancer, Jake Sullivan awake for a home invasion attempt at 4 AM because he was just up working on a random Tuesday night? Is the national security bureaucracy in America unwell? To discuss, I have on today John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter, who’s had many, many other jobs in Washington. He is also the author of the fantastic “White House Warriors,” a history of the National Security Council.   We get into: Why the organizational design of the NSC leads to such crushing burdens for midlevel and senior staffers The kinds of high-flyers that are drawn to the national security complex and what keeps them there How POTUS’s time constraints impact decision-making Why NSC’s historically are excellent at spotting problems but often overeager when crafting solutions The NSC’s role in America’s “forever wars.” Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, and Trump’s “maverick model” of running the NSC compared to the Eisenhower vision of “regular order” How seemingly prosaic technological innovatio

Kharis Templeman, research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, returns to ChinaTalk to break down the recent Taiwan elections, held on January 13. We discuss: The lack of surprises in the election results, the subdued vibes during the campaign, and contrasts between local perspectives and foreign media narratives. Why the KMT failed to win the presidency, notwithstanding voter dissatisfaction with the DPP. China’s surprisingly muted response to the election, and how it may reassess its cross-Strait policies given a third DPP president. The new composition of the Legislative Yuan, and the strategic position of the Taiwan People’s Party as gatekeeper. Observations from Kharis’s time in Taiwan during the election season, and the gift of Taiwan’s democratic process. Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epwlWDCCevY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did the US Navy evolve over the first half of the 20th century from a bunch of unschooled violent sailors who couldn't shoot straight to the world's largest and most technologically advanced fighting force? What lessons around organizational design can we learn from this transformation? Trent Hone, author of Learning War and Mastering the Art of Command, joins to discuss. Outtro Music: A selection from Brahms' 3rd Symphony, apparently Adm. Nimitz's favorite https://open.spotify.com/track/3T9xcTbS2E3epbncsMwkNC?si=296e316488c841d5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did Lai win, what does China think, and what’s at stake for the DPP? ChinaTalk editor Nicholas Welch reads his latest recap of the 2024 Taiwan elections: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/taiwan-election-results-how-lai-won Subscribe to the newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JV9ayVWYr8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should AI be more open or closed? What does it mean to be open, anyway? And can France overtake China in AI?? Today I'm running a crossover episode with the Retort AI, hosted by AI Ethicist Tom Gilbert and Nathan Lambert who writes the fantastic https://www.interconnects.ai/ newsletter covering technological advancements in machine learning. Outtro Music: Bela Fleck et al, Bahar https://open.spotify.com/track/4D1ne3QFCBtUU2xFnoTir4?si=aeef1aefc6e047c6 Cover photo is a Midjourney a riff off of this very cool Derian portrait showing in the MET till Jan 21 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/846896?pkgids=884 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New year, new PilotTalk! Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Semafor, joins Jordan and editor Irene to watch Chinese and Taiwanese TV shows. Ben’s favorite genre is crime and police dramas, and we cover the following new-ish releases: A Date With The Future 照亮你 (2023, mainland): Romance where a firefighter falls in love with a journalist! **Ordinary Greatness** 警察荣誉 (2022, mainland): Sitcom about a local police station. The World Between Us 我們與惡的距離 (2019, Taiwan): Acclaimed miniseries set in the aftermath of a mass shooting, addressing media sensationalism, treatment of the mentally ill, and the death penalty. Outtro music: Kiss Me by Taiwanese artist Karencici https://open.spotify.com/track/7HZmJLWtISxYnoBqwx04bw?si=896165f1b52a4aa0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Margaret Palmieri is the Deputy Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Officer. I had her on to dicusss: Innovation vs diffusion in the DoD context Data issues making her life difficult How CDAO sources and tests ideas for implementing AI into different corners of the kill chain Thanks to the Andrew Marshall Foundation and the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology for bringing you this episode. Outtro music: SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS Andre 3k, Killer Mike, Future, Erykah Badu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU0SmxKucCw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake Newby of the substack Concrete Avalanche with an end of year ChinaTalk takeover! Here's his accompanying year in review post https://jakenewby.substack.com/p/2023-in-review?utm_source=activity_item Tracklist: Intro: 'Lost in China' (excerpt) – Tation 天声 (self-released) This 'postmodernist rock band from Tibet' produced some of their best work to date on the remarkable Illusions of the New Era EP. ‘Wen’s Woozy Wrap’ – Pu Poo Platter (fRUITYSHOP) Key cut from Brooklyn-formed Chinese funk group’s debut LP. ‘Greedysleeper’ – A Wordless Orange 沉默橙 (Taihe) Young Wuhan group deliver soulful pop-rock on one of the year’s best albums. ‘Watch the Crown’ – BoomHan 包涵 (Seafood Market Records) A sample of the 17-year-old Changsha rap prodigy’s impressive flow, from his debut album Gravediggaz. ‘Umbrella’ (featuring J-Fever) – PO8 (Tildawn Music) Not a Rihanna cover. Chengdu rapper toys with Shanghai jazz sounds. ‘Rap’ – ZhiYu Xia 夏之禹 (Mintone Records) Sichuan-born rapper, dubbed ‘the Jia Zhangke of hip hop’, dissects

80 episodes and 145 newsletters later, we've made it through my first year working on ChinaTalk full time. Editor Ryan Hauser hosts a review episode where we reflect on the past year, get into my production function, what I think the point of all of this is, and how I expect to evolve ChinaTalk in 2024. Please get in touch! I'm at jordan@chinatalk.media Here's my cause exploration essay: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/E2BghQq9pwPgtHgiH/war-between-the-us-and-china-a-case-study-for-epistemic Outtro music: Gurrumul, Bayini https://open.spotify.com/track/1XZ9HxC4MiMUUNQ7WKFucM?si=a40c4dfdd71c428e Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Setser, fellow at CFR who spent a year during the Biden Administration in USTR, joins ChinaTalk to discuss: China's long term growth trajectory and implications for national power Zambia debt negotiations and Argentina's dollarization When strategic trade policy can make sense Panda export controls Sign up here for international intrigue! https://www.internationalintrigue.io/?utm_source=chinatalk&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=1223 Kyla Scanlon of the https://kyla.substack.com/ newsletter cohosts. Outtro music: I Hear a Rhapsody, Bill Evans and Jim Hall https://open.spotify.com/track/2oEvw0AfrT2fPNpEnBwVml?si=cc9f1add64034de7 Midjourney image: a panda bald eagle combined mystical animal in the style of a traditional chinese painting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Xu of https://interconnect.substack.com/ and I run down our top five stories of the year in US-China tech. We get into: The eternal chip war The battle for AI model supremacy EV competition Venture investing in China PDD and Temu's rise TikTok's impressive resilience Here's ChinaTalk's attempt to benchmark Chinese models https://www.chinatalk.media/p/putting-chinas-top-llms-to-the-test Outtro music: two songs from my spotify wrapped which are kind of ancillary to crappy US-China relations? 2gether, Mura Masa and Gretel Ganlyn: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Wqd0R1X1tuVK9FySVyLpt?si=48a61ddf3f094b57 No Talk, Lowell: https://open.spotify.com/track/0ToOqwERQswtN1O7AveCU9?si=9424183956b74960 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Taiwanese populace will head to the polls to choose their next president on January 13, 2024 — and the three-party slate is set! To discuss, we brought on Lu Yeh-chung 盧業中 — a professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University 國立政治大學 — and Lin Fei-fan 林飛帆, previously the Deputy-Secretary of the DPP and well-known for leading the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014. Our conversation gets into: What a three-party race means in a first-past-the-post electoral system, and how the pan-blue and pan-green camps are feeling; Why the KMT-TPP alliance broke down, and what the pan-blue side needs to do to mobilize its electorate; The KMT’s and DPP’s views on whether Taiwanese and mainland Chinese are part of the same family 兩岸一家人; What the 1992 Consensus means to the KMT and DPP, and the tensions and synergies between idealism and functionalism in Taiwanese politics; How the CCP views the upcoming election, and to what extent it really fears pro-independence activists in Taiwan; What demarcates the KMT and

This was a good episode. Mike Gallagher, Chair of the Select Committee on China, has some thoughtful thoughts! We get into: How he would fix Congress Why the early Cold War is still relevant today What he took away from his time in Iraq and the Eisenhower Archives Why all you should really do to understand China is listen to ChinaTalk and read our substack (at https://www.chinatalk.media/) My book rec: https://www.amazon.com/Men-Machines-Modern-Times-Press/dp/0262529319 Outtro music, Ella Fitzgerald, My Cousin in Milwaukee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWy9XjHt324 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rohit Krishnan of Strange Loop Canon and I kibbitz about this weekend's OpenAI drama as well as the safety and US-China regulatory dynamics likely raised in the discussions with the board. Some content we discussed: Jade Leung PhD thesis: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ea3c7cb8-2464-45f1-a47c-c7b568f27665 Jeff Ding and Jenny Xiao's piece: https://www.governance.ai/research-paper/recent-trends-chinas-llm-landscape The Foreign Affairs piece: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/illusion-chinas-ai-prowess-regulation Image made by my mother on DALLE to represent Altman getting fired for the family groupchat. Outtro music: Happy Survival https://open.spotify.com/track/5txZKim1ruceUUhDlU84yc?si=b0d183344163418d It'l All Be Over: https://open.spotify.com/track/1KFtR58Hn1nQ9fR0DRnC9n?si=512636c8caf24610 Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Turpin, China NSC Director in the Trump administration currently at Hoover and Palantir, comes on to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of US-China relations coming out of APEC. We get into: Realistic expectations for bilateral US-China diplomacy What are the necessary ingredients for coherent and effective policymaking What Matt expects and worries about from a second Trump administration Why foundations and corporations should sponsor ChinaTalk! Outtro music: Time/Breathe Reprise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw1bJrFdCjY Virtual insanity: https://open.spotify.com/track/24SUWisv2lYQiB3bVpE1sn?si=cf1cf18c0bc94ef7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Harrell, who served as Biden's Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness on the NSC and NEC, comes on to discuss: Why things do or don't happen in the executive branch What reforms we might need to accelerate and amplify decision-making Lessons from the sanctions response to the war in Ukraine for China Check out our newsletter at https://www.chinatalk.media. James Brown--Bewildered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iXlDeqSTRA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This interview was so good. Jason Matheny, Biden's former top tech + national security advisor, has recently reached one year as CEO of RAND. We had a truly classic ChinaTalk-style conversation, hitting on: How to design a world-class research organization The right and wrong lessons to learn from RAND's heyday in the 1950s Existential risks around AI and bio Government's capacity to grok and implement technology strategy What national security professionals can learn from art and architecture And a ton more. Thanks to Check out the Hudson Institute's defense research center here: https://www.hudson.org/policycenters/center-defense-concepts-technology Some 1950s vibes for our outtro music: Julie London: https://open.spotify.com/track/6crfO56bDm0RjpctUuGs5X?si=5a434079b24b4d03 Doris Day: https://open.spotify.com/track/20G1XJaTwIm2IuwA3Pjg1d?si=22095e2f9aa842cc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zvi Mowshowitz of Don't Worry about The Vase and Nathan Labenz of the Cognitive Revolution podcast come on for a quick recap of the past week's AI news! We get into: What AI diplomacy is looking like post-Bletchley Park What new applications OpenAI's latest announcements mean for future AI applications Outtro: Bizarrap with Milo J https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGWa-GO8mKg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Biden just dropped a 50 page executive order that's going to make the world safe for AI, hopefully? To discuss the sprawling EO we've brought on three CNAS analysts, Vivek Chilukuri, Bill Drexel and Tim Fist. We touch on: Immigration and federal hiring If AI + bio can ever be a safe thing What's going to happen to cloud access What are the hoops you'll need to jump through to train GPT5 and whether they're enough What to do about open source Why Jordan just wants to be an AI czar RSVP to the Los Angeles meetup! https://partiful.com/e/SgjdajUSrD1aEOOrVgXk Outro music (yea I was not going to impose Devo on you all): The B Tune by Bela Fleck https://open.spotify.com/track/6h6vvG1t4xtfP9lkOKzBTv?si=6ec3f32629bd46a2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices