Podcast
ChinaTalk
Hosted by Jordan Schneider · EN
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/
526episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Stalemate Summit: Xi-Trump in the Long Sweep of US-China Relations
6d ago01:19:51Summary readyJulian Gewirtz, former Biden administration China official, now at Columbia, joins me to chat about the Xi-Trump visit and all things US-China. Matt Sheehan, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, drops by to give his takes on the AI angle.We cover: What to expect (and not expect) from the Trump-Xi “stalemate summit” Historical echoes from the 1793 Macartney mission and the 1972 Nixon-Kissinger opening — summit optics, status games, and the choreography of power. Taiwan — arms sales, declaratory language, and Beijing's long game on Taiwanese morale and politics. The good and bad case for China in the Iran conflict, and how Chinese officials may be reading America's military commitments, political cohesion, and staying power. US-China AI safety conversation after Mythos, China's approach to frontier AI risks, and the control, harness, govern playbook for emerging technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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WarTalk: Iran War 'Love Tap' Edition feat. Jack Shanahan
1w ago01:20:28Summary readyThe White House says the war is over. The White House also says it's continuing in a new form. Two weeks after the launch of Project Freedom, only two Maersk ships took the offer. Roughly 900 ships remain trapped in the Persian Gulf, and the Saudis just declined to grant basing or overflight rights. Retired Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan — founding director of the Pentagon's Joint AI Center and former head of Project Maven — joins Bryan Clark, Eric Robinson, Tony Stark, and Justin McIntosh to dig into the purgatory. We discuss… Why Project Freedom collapsed A leaked CIA assessment putting 70% of Iran's ballistic missile capability still intact The Anthropic supply chain risk designation, Mythos, and the "call me" moment Four F-15Es down, 30 MQ-9s shot down, and why Jack thinks the Air Force was one inch from a televised POW disaster song:https://suno.com/s/kBuJ4ruS5UkfTdY3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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(Audio Fixed!!) Ken Liu on AI, Daoism, and Freedom
2w ago01:18:12Summary readyKen Liu graces ChinaTalk with his presence. He is the author of the Dandelion Dynasty silkpunk fantasy series and a brilliant short fiction writer — one of his stories was recently adapted into Sam Altman’s favorite show, Pantheon. We all know his translation work on the first and third volumes of the Three-Body Problem trilogy, but even better was his absolutely brilliant translation and commentary of the Dao De Jing. As much as I hoped that project would get him fully on the classical Chinese translation train, he followed it up with a very different direction — a techno-AI thriller, All That We See or Seem, released late last year. Irene Zhang of ChinaTalk joins us to co-host. In a wide-ranging conversation, Ken Liu argues that: Technology is the most human thing we do — humans have always externalized our minds into the world and then allowed those creations to reshape who we are. AI “slop” won’t stop humans from making art that matters, and the real distinction isn’t quality versus slop, but between desire-fulfilling machines and artists who draw from the collective unconscious. The deeper danger of AI isn’t machines replacing humans, but systems that train humans to behave like machines. Science fiction isn’t prophecy, but mythology — and ideologies are just mythology’s cheaper, hack cousins. Orwell, Shelley, Tolkien, and Le Guin endure not because they predicted the future, but because they gave us metaphors powerful enough to think with across generations. Large language models are intelligent, but can’t be wise. Drawing on Laozi and Zhuangzi, Ken explains why everything that truly matters lies beyond language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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WarTalk: Still Very Much Out of Ammo!
3w ago01:02:54Summary readyTwo weeks into the US-Iran ceasefire, CENTCOM is requesting Dark Eagle hypersonics, the 82nd Airborne is flowing into theater, and the wargames keep telling us the same thing — there’s no military solution to the Strait of Hormuz. Becca Wasser, America’s wargaming queen, currently with Bloomberg, joins WarTalk regulars Bryan Clark, Eric Robinson, and Justin Mc. We discuss… Why CENTCOM is using JASSMs to hit targets a glide bomb could handle What cosplay costs the Indo-Pacific The myth of US air superiority over Iran, and the SEAD legwork no one wants to do Who actually benefits from the ceasefire and why Iran has the lower bar for reconstitution Song: https://suno.com/s/wUhL26xyvUiklraY We now have the songs on spotify! https://open.spotify.com/artist/3wltBV7tzUjci0vyTSv6h7?si=aVdBxNM7QVOknAXRakJZCg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Quantum 201: US v China Quantum Industrial Base
3w ago01:14:39Summary readyConstanza Vidal Bustamante joins Chris Miller and Zachary Yerushalmi to break down her new report with John Burke, Quantum's Industrial Moment: Strengthening US Quantum Supply Chains for Scalable Advantage — a deep dive into the components, chokepoints, and policy levers that will decide who wins the race to a fault-tolerant quantum computer. We discuss… (00:00) Why quantum is "pre-transistor" — and why the US still has time to lock in supply chain dominance before the next-gen architecture is even invented (09:53) Dilution refrigerators, helium-3 from the nuclear stockpile, and whether mining the moon is actually a viable Plan B (17:43) Did the 2024 export controls backfire? Inside the case study of China going from zero to dominating dilution-refrigerator publications in two years (48:44) Lasers, photonics, and the Chinese supplier that reverse-engineered a Danish flagship — and is still selling into US labs under R&D tariff exemptions (1:03:45) Why quantum looks more like biotech than semiconductors: 90 companies, ~7 modalities, and the anthropology of an industry where everyone thinks their qubit is the right one Constanza's report: https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/quantums-industrial-moment The Quantum Throne song: https://suno.com/s/9kBx74ZqUHsgYiQ2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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WarTalk: No Ammo for Taiwan, Polymarket, Bye Phelan, Will Driscoll Go The Distance?
3w ago00:58:12Summary readyThe Pentagon is leaking to the press that America doesn't have the missiles to win a war over Taiwan — and the Iran war is the reason why. Meanwhile, a Special Forces master sergeant is looking at federal charges for a $400,000 Polymarket bet on the Maduro regime, and SecNav John Phelan spent an hour sitting in the West Wing lobby waiting to get fired. To discuss, WarTalk is joined by Bryan Clark (former submariner, Hudson Institute), Justin Mc (former Green Beret, now in defense tech), Eric Robinson (former OSC NCT and 101st Airborne, now a lawyer), and Tony Stark of breaking beijing. We discuss… Why the Pentagon is leaking that the U.S. can't win a war over Taiwan — and what it means when the primes, INDOPACOM, and the deputy all scatter-shot the same message through the Washington Post The case for scrapping the legacy munitions portfolio — burning LRASMs on the Iranian Navy, the GPS-jamming Excalibur problem, and why locking in seven-year buys of Cold War weapons sets us up for the next round of failures A Special Forces master sergeant, $400,000, and the Polymarket Maduro bet — plus the hairdryer-next-to-a-thermometer scam at Charles de Gaulle, and why financial libertinism is "smoking in daycares" The firing of SecNav John Phelan — the waffle-bar bundler, the Golden Fleet fantasy, and how Stephen Feinberg captured the submarine program office and knifed his own Navy secretary A preview of the last two years of Trump II — DeSantis, Cotton, Chairman Rogers, and whether Congress flipping means more foreign adventurism or just acting secretaries all the way down Song, "Phelan on the couch when it happened" https://suno.com/s/C0LmG53KdrT3evfe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Sen. Chris Murphy on Corruption, China and AI
4w ago00:25:01Summary readyouttro music: Pardon Pen! https://suno.com/s/2tXSJ7uJFA7k1pUC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Quantum 101
4w ago01:13:02Summary readyWhat exactly is quantum computing? Why does it matter, and what would it actually mean to “win” the quantum race? Zach Yerushalmi, CEO of Elevate Quantum, a Mountain West–based public-private consortium advancing the U.S. quantum ecosystem, and Chris Miller join the podcast to discuss. Our conversation covers… What Quantum Computing Actually Is — A primer on qubits, superposition, and why quantum computers aren’t “faster classical machines” but fundamentally different systems designed to simulate nature and solve specific classes of problems. Why Quantum Matters Now — Breakthroughs in error correction and hardware have shifted quantum from theory to an engineering race, with major implications for drug discovery, materials science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. The Economic and National Security Stakes — Quantum’s potential impact on cryptography, advanced manufacturing, biotech, and defense makes it a strategic technology with an extremely small margin for error in global competition. From Science Project to Industrial Policy Challenge — The bottleneck is no longer just physics but scaling. Talent pipelines, fabrication capacity, supply chains, and the kinds of public-private partnerships needed to move from lab prototypes to deployable systems. What Winning Looks Like — Leadership isn’t just building the first powerful machine. It’s shaping standards, securing supply chains, protecting encryption, diffusing capabilities across industry, and sustaining innovation in a tight U.S.–China technological race. Plus, the encryption stakes, the engineering bottlenecks, the race with China — and a reading list and job resources for those interested in the field. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this episode. Zach’s Quantum Technology Reading List: Quantum Computing Fundamentals: But What Is Quantum Computing? by 3Blue1Brown Quantum Computing Overview: The Map of Quantum Computing by Domain of Science Quantum Sensing: Atomic Advantage: Accelerating U.S. Quantum Sensing for Next-Generation PNT by CNAS The Quantum-Classical Divide: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve? by Philip Ball, Quanta Magazine (February 2026) Systems Engineering Bottlenecks: Computer Science Challenges in Quantum Computing: Early Fault-Tolerance and Beyond by Jens Palsberg et al., IEEE Quantum Week (2025) Further reading if curious: When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (2021) Introduction to Special Issue on the Early History of Nuclear Fusion by M. B. Chadwick and B. Cameron Reed, Fusion Science and Technology (2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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WarTalk: Is Mythos a Cyber Nuke? + The Blockade That Wasn't
Apr 1701:02:18Summary readyWe discuss… Why Mythos is a Dr. Strangelove moment — and whether the better analogy is a nuke or a pandemic Who gets the keys: Ukraine vs. South Korea vs. Japan vs. the Five Eyes, and why the Defense Production Act now looks likelier than the supply-chain-risk designation The death of the patch model — and the return of air-gapped networks, mesh comms, and couriers shuttling classified work in person Steve Feinberg's half-trillion-dollar portfolio, the rise of direct-reporting program managers, and why a Senate-confirmed deputy can now make American industry rise and fall Hey God It's Dario song: https://suno.com/s/2d0u5eLbSyzDeDY3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Think Tank New Breed (IFP + FAI)
Apr 1601:08:00Summary readyCaleb Watney (Institute for Progress) and Max Bodach (Foundation for American Innovation) on what the new breed of DC think tanks does differently and why the old model is broken. We discuss: Why "counterfactual policy impact" matters more than white papers and what's wrong with project-based funding Cross-partisanship vs. picking sides: IFP pulls the rope sideways, FAI builds a big tent on the right Vertical integration over specialization — the person who wrote the brief should be the one selling it on the Hill Whether AI eats the think tank or just the parts that weren't working anyway Timestamps 00:38 — Applied think tank vs. white paper mill 16:56 — Partisanship: FAI's conservative tent vs. IFP's cross-partisan design 37:09 — Why researchers should do their own comms and outreach 50:26 — Betting on young talent as policy entrepreneurs 57:56 — Will AI eat the think tank? song: https://suno.com/s/I244K1rIpPdB6lO9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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