ChinaTalk Podcast Summary

Episode: The China Commission Reports!
Date: January 17, 2026
Host: Jordan Schneider
Guests: Mike Kaiken (Hoover Institution, former Hill staffer) & Leland Miller (CEO, China Beige Book)
Topic: The 2025 US China Congressional Commission Report: Purpose, Impact, and Forward-Looking Policy Deep Dives

Episode Overview

This episode of ChinaTalk explores the newly released 2025 US China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) Report, a comprehensive, bipartisan deep dive into the state of US-China relations and the issues Congress should prioritize. Host Jordan Schneider welcomes Commissioners Mike Kaiken and Leland Miller to break down the Commission’s purpose, the notable recommendations, and Congress’s evolving role in guiding American China policy outside the daily executive/legislative friction. The conversation touches on the machinery behind US policy—from export controls and sanctions to supply chain and rare earth resilience—capping off with a forward look at innovation strategies in quantum, biotech, and space.

Commission Background and Purpose (00:26–03:28)

• History and Origins

  • The China Commission, formally the US China Economic and Security Review Commission, was founded during the era of China’s WTO accession as Congress’s tool to monitor China and the executive branch on economic and security issues.
  • “The thing that we do every year… is a kind of geek out on China report…” — Mike Kaiken [01:38]
  • The annual report (about 800 pages) is bipartisan, with contributions from both Democratic and Republican co-chairs and a staff of subject-matter experts.

• Mandate

  • Horizon Scanning: The commission looks beyond immediate crises (“alligators closest to the boat”) to flag issues just emerging on the policy horizon.
  • “What the China Commission tries to focus on are the issues that are more distant, that are on the horizon." — Leland Miller [02:24]
  • Raising Literacy: Emphasizes evidence-based, well-researched analysis to elevate discourse beyond the partisan, headline-chasing norm.

The Congressional Nexus: Policy Impact vs. the Executive (06:39–08:21)

• Congress’s Pivotal Role

  • Many of the major China policy shifts (e.g., CHIPS Act, CFIUS reform, Taiwan Relations Act updates) have originated in or been seriously shaped by Congress.
  • “If you want to have durable policy that lasts, you need to have Congress involved." — Leland Miller [08:21]
  • Even as executive agencies hold day-to-day power, Congressional guardrails and legislative pushes often define the agenda.

• Legislative vs. Executive Dynamics

  • Ongoing push-pull where Congress legislates and the executive implements—sometimes incompletely, leading to oversight issues (e.g., TikTok, Taiwan).

Structural Challenges: Coordination, Fragmentation, and the Call for Reorganization (13:07–21:23)

• Commission’s #1 Recommendation: New Economic Statecraft Machinery

  • Leland and Mike want a new, more integrated agency or mechanism to oversee sanctions, export controls, and related tools—a parallel to the government’s post-9/11 reorganization in financial intelligence.
  • “Right now you have export controls... all these things happen at a mid-level layer… they languish. Decisions languish..." — Mike Kaiken [14:49]
  • Structural tensions within departments (e.g., Commerce: business promotion vs. export controls) undermine effective, coordinated action.
  • Call for a high-level, perhaps cabinet-status official to own economic coercive tools and break through bureaucratic inertia.

• Need for a National Economic Security Strategy

  • Current policymaking is piecemeal and siloed. Only a comprehensive strategy can prioritize and coordinate across trade, investment, technology, and supply chain resilience.
  • “Unless you have a broader policy that weaves them in... everybody’s fighting for their own piece of the pie." — Leland Miller [19:32]

Supply Chain Vulnerabilities and Rare Earths “Wake-Up Call” (23:27–30:51)

• Rare Earths as the Canary in the Coal Mine

  • China’s 2025 rare earth export controls served as an overdue alarm, alerting policymakers to hard power leverage held by Beijing.
  • “If you put it in terms of the fact that China may actually have a choke point on the ability for the United States to get insulin, heparin, antibiotics… then all of a sudden you’re saying: holy cow, this is an enormous potential vulnerability." — Leland Miller [25:30]
  • Broader vulnerabilities range from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors, with little data transparency (companies resist, agencies don’t demand).

• Bureaucratic and Industry Pushback

  • Industry and some government actors have historically resisted intrusive policies, especially on corporate supply chains (“that’s our domain”).

• Intelligence Integration

  • Past successes (e.g., Treasury’s deep integration with the intelligence community post-9/11) show the model for merging supply chain intelligence with policy levers—something not yet accomplished in tech control spaces.

The Export Controls & Sanctions Playbook: Lessons and Limitations (41:53–45:04)

• Export Controls Under-Resourced

  • BIS (Bureau of Industry and Security) is massively underfunded relative to its mission, often with single inspectors covering entire countries.
  • The Commission suggests creative emerging solutions: whistleblower hotlines, leveraging technology, changing the sales model to a “rent”/ongoing control paradigm.
  • “How can we use technology and some other mechanisms to make BIS job easier and more effective?" — Leland Miller [42:48]

• Learning from Financial Sanctions

  • The post-9/11 transformation of financial controls—driven by crisis—could be a playbook for export controls, but equivalent urgency is missing.
  • “The biggest unlock was 9/11… allowed people to look at these things in a different way and see how non state actors were leveraging the financial system.” — Mike Kaiken [43:46]

Forward-Looking Competition: Innovation, Quantum, Biotech, and Space (39:10–55:52)

• Innovation as Supply Chain Insurance

  • US innovation’s resilience remains a bulwark, but continuing investment is key to prevent future reliance on foreign (Chinese) tech and materials.
  • “All this stuff runs on money. If you want to talk about supply chains going 10, 20, 30 years in the future, we need to make sure that we’re sort of feeding in that innovation machine.” — Mike Kaiken [40:09]

• Quantum Technology: The Next “Horizon”

  • The Commission is especially concerned that Congress risks missing the next big frontier, like quantum computing, where US investment and strategy remain inconsistent, and software infrastructure is lacking.
  • “Quantum is really a case study in whether we can help get the DC community more serious about future technologies..." — Leland Miller [52:01]

• Biotech’s Quiet Takeover

  • China’s accumulation of biotech manufacturing and research capabilities parallels its rare earths control, potentially giving Beijing enormous leverage.
  • “They have this slow acquisition of not only the manufacturing capabilities and research capabilities but really the entire infrastructure layer of the biotech economy." — Mike Kaiken [50:20]

• Space: The Fast Chase

  • US space infrastructure is aging, while China pours capital and energy into new launch, satellite, and orbital tech.
  • Synthetic biology is flagged as unexpectedly critical for long-term ambitions in space habitation.
  • “We have this incredible historic infrastructure... But imagine two cars going down the road... there’s a car coming behind us at 100 miles an hour... that’s what we’re seeing China do...” — Mike Kaiken [56:25]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The “Alligator Closest to the Boat” Analogy
  A running theme about how government prioritizes the immediate crisis over long-term vulnerabilities.
  “Folks on the Hill are... having to deal firsthand... with the alligator closest to the boat issues.” — Mike Kaiken [02:54]

• On Evidence-Based Policy and Staff Research “I was... amazed at the amount of information that was in open source and them being able to, to find this and sort of pull it out.” — Mike Kaiken [05:59]

• The Bureaucratic Challenge “Decisions languish, you know, just everything languishes and there’s no natural forcing function... we are in a period of economic statecraft and it’s going to be a continuous cycle of measure countermeasure between us and the Chinese.” — Mike Kaiken [14:49]

• Policy Without Data “The problem with supply chains: it’s not that we have bad policies, it’s that we have refused up to this point to even get the data necessary to highlight what the vulnerabilities are.” — Leland Miller [37:32]

• Pessimism vs. Resilience
  “Just because it looks dour doesn’t mean you got to stop pushing the rock up the hill… I still think it’s important people feed ideas into the system that are outside the noise level.” — Mike Kaiken [46:39]

Key Timestamps

• 00:26–03:28 — Commission origin, mandate, and “horizon” focus
• 06:39–09:51 — Why Congress matters; Congressional vs. Executive branch dynamics
• 13:07–21:23 — Case for new economic statecraft agency and national economic security strategy
• 23:27–27:03 — Rare earths, API (active pharmaceutical ingredients), supply chain “wake-up”
• 41:53–45:04 — Export controls, agency resource challenges, whistleblower models
• 52:01–54:57 — Quantum computing and the challenge of prepping for future horizons
• 56:12–59:01 — Space competition, synthetic biology, and infrastructure aging

Final Takeaways

• Congress’s Horizon-Scanning Function is irreplaceable in surfacing and focusing on strategic China challenges, even when the executive is distracted by the “alligators closest to the boat.”
• The 2025 USCC Report is both a research-rich diagnosis of US vulnerabilities (rare earths, APIs, innovation) and a legislative playbook for the coming years.
• Urgent Need for Bureaucratic Overhaul in economic statecraft, with calls for better interagency coordination, new authorities, and resource investments.
• Long-Term Resilience depends on continuous investment in innovation and thinking ahead, whether in quantum, biotech, or space.
• Despite present frustrations and slow progress, Commissioners urge persistent “pushing rocks up the hill” to anticipate the next big crisis before it arrives.

For further detail and the full recommendations, read the full 2025 US China Economic and Security Review Commission Report.