Episódios
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To learn about Japan’s new economic national security policy, export controls, chip policy, lessons from history, and even space policy, we interviewed Kazuto Suzuki.
Suzuki-san is a professor at the University of Tokyo. He serves as an advisor to Japan’s Ministry of the Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) as well as advising Japan’s space program. He served on the UN Security Council's Iran Sanctions Panel, and he also recently established the Institute of Geoeconomics at the International House of Japan.
We get into…
What Japan’s new economic national security law does, and what it means for global semiconductor supply chains;
The state of multilateral export controls;
Nippon steel, the US election, and cooperation between East Asian democracies;
Historical examples of economic coercion, from the Qing Dynasty to FDR vs imperial Japan to the Senkaku islands;
Japan’s goals for space commercialization;
… and more!
Co-hosting today is Arrian Ebrahimi, student at Yenching academy and author of the Chip Capitols Substack.
Outtro Music: Every Breath You Take/Theme from Peter Gunn as featured on the Sopranos The Sopranos - Every Breath You Take (youtube.com)
Cover photo: Toyohara Kuniteru III | Illustration of the Imperial Diet House of Commons with a Listing of all Members | Japan | Meiji period (1868–1912) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)
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Just minutes after the Taiwan earthquake yesterday, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge, Jon of Asianometry and yours truly had a brief hang where we got into:
Intel's process progress and rocky financial road ahead
Reflections out of GTC
Jensen's galaxy brain
Photo of the woman who saved Intel, Dr. Ann Kelleher, General Manager of Foundry Technology Development.
Outtro music: YELLOW黃宣 & 9m88 - 怪天氣 Strange Weather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n_i0JupwRA
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Straight from Tokyo, Japan: an exclusive with Amb. Rahm Emanuel.
Before his current posting as US ambassador to Japan, Rahm served as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton, multiple terms in the US House of Representatives, Obama’s first chief of staff, and the mayor of Chicago.
If nothing else, you can count on his gloves-off, no-holds-barred approach to politics — and he’s been no different when it comes to China. Notwithstanding reports that even officials in Biden’s NSC have told him to stop “taunting” China, Rahm has been consistently, uniquely willing to say out loud what virtually every other high-ranking US official doesn’t.
Of course, the ambassador — or, as his desk placard during his chief-of-staff days read, “Undersecretary for Go Fuck Yourself” — may take issue with that framing. His comments aren’t “critical,” Rahm says, but “truthful.”
This interview covers a ton of ground. On China:
How the Biden administration is closing the chapter on “hub and spokes,” what tomorrow’s “latticework” architecture will look like, and what Asia-Pacific alliances might look like under a second Trump administration;
The future of Japan-Korea, and a peek behind the curtain on how the historic Camp David summit materialized;
Rahm’s “3 Cs” for China — calm, conflict, charm — and how US foreign-policy leaders should reckon the mutual inconsistencies among those three;
And roads not taken by Xi: why Rahm thinks China’s entrepreneurial culture has taken a nosedive, and what China’s government today is most scared of.
And on politics and life:
Why “diplomacy” and “politics” are the same thing — and why that’s a good thing;
Whether the State Department suffers from a personality deficit, and what makes for a good ambassador;
How to heal America’s body politic — post-Trump, post-Recession, post-GWOT;
Why Rahm thinks “quality time” with kids is “BS,” and thoughts on raising kids as a time-crunched politician;
And what Rahm thinks the biggest emerging threat to the world is.
I really enjoyed my trip to Japan, and I’d love a financial excuse to continue recording shows on the country. If you work at JETRO, METI, The Japan Foundation, Mitsubishi, Rakuten, etc. and are interested in seeing more deep coverage of Japan and US-China-Japan relations on this podcast, do reach out!
Outtro music: Tadao Hayashi Japanese Harp Trio's 1977 take on I Could Have Danced All Night Tadao Hayashi Harp Trio – The Impossible Dream 1977 (youtube.com)
Also from 1977, Tokai by Kaeko Onuki Tokai (youtube.com)
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Biotech. What is it? Why should you care? Does biotech really matter for national security? What are China’s biotech ambitions?
To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Jason Kelly, the Chair and Vice Chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, a publicly traded firm that provides a horizontal platform for cell programming. Michelle Rozo is currently Vice President of Technical Capabilities at In-Q-Tel, and she previously held positions in Biden’s NSC, the Department of Defense, and on the Hill.
Co-hosting today is Chris “CRISPR” Miller, author of Chip War.
We get into:
The powerful science behind genetic engineering ;
How the US government turned biotechnology into a $1 trillion industry over the course of the last fifty years;
Why generative AI is destined to revolutionize synthetic biology;
And whether China’s national biotech champions can leapfrog the US.
Outtro music: Suite Bergamasque: Clair de Lune, No. 3 (youtube.com)
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Is Congress for real this time?
To discuss the US domestic politics of the dramatic rollout and broader social, national, and geopolitical implications of the House's passage of a bill that would force Bytedance to divest from TikTok US, Ben Smith of Semafor joins the podcast.
Outtro music:
Olivia Rodrigo - Deja Vu 【Sped Up & reverb】 (youtube.com)
The Platters - Only You - Lyrics - YouTube
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How do you stand up an effective national AI project? Is the world prepared for the Reformation-level societal change AI could bring?
Matt Clifford, according to Politico Britain’s most powerful tech adviser, joins ChinaTalk to discuss! He served as Prime Minister Sunak's sherpa for the UK AI Summit, chairs ARIA, the UK's answer to DARPA, and co-founded Entrepreneur First, a startup incubator with a strong presence throughout Europe and Southeast Asia.
We get into:
Tech Diplomacy & the UK AI Safety Summit: How countries are waking up to the watershed moment at the advent of powerful new AI, and the surprising commonalities in China’s perspectives on AI safety.
Organizational Design at ARIA: What are the challenges creating a world-class science project in government? How can you attract the best people and create the right organizational culture for success?
Open Source AI and the Global AI Race — How should we evaluate the approaches to AI across different countries and private actors? What’s the verdict on open source models?
Preparing for monumental changes — and why history cautions against expecting business as usual, and how fiction can open our mind to the possibilities.
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Chinese Doomscroll, which faithfully records happenings from the wild west that is Weibo (China’s Twitter/X equivalent), won the ChinaTalk award for best China-focussed Substack on 2023. Today we have on the brain behind the newsletter: Molly, who’s been doomscrolling for us since early 2023. We discuss:
Why Weibo keeps Molly up at night;
Chinese elementary school kids’ academic prowess;
How social issues gain attention on the trending list;
Terrible bots;
And what makes microblogging uniquely compelling.
Outtro music is 演员 by Joker Xue 薛之谦: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKuL5xaKZHM
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How can AI change diplomacy?
To discuss the State Department’s options for AI integration, we interviewed the State Department's Deputy Chief Data and AI Officer, Garrett Berntsen. He served as an officer during two tours in Afghanistan and recently rotated off the NSC. He's optimistic diplomacy can be more effective with comprehensive, timely, and accurate data-driven analysis, and that AI will be part of achieving that mission.
We get into:
How AI can streamline bureaucratic busy work
The value of data-driven negotiation prep in diplomatic contexts
The benefits of transparency in a democratic society
What level of risk is appropriate for the civil service
How close he is to getting ChatGPT into State
The balance between transparency and secrecy in the age of big data
How the Snowden leaks changed the State Department’s relationship with technology
What the State Department can and can't import from the private sector
Thanks to the Hudson Institute and Andrew Marshall Foundation for supporting this podcast.
Outtro music: 國蛋 GorDoN - White Noise ft. 蛋堡 Soft Lipa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ZM440owzw
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Why can India design chips with the best of them but has completely failed to develop fabs, much less a broader electronics industry? To discuss, I have on Pranay Kotasthane, former chip designer at TI and Qualcomm who now works at the Takshashila Institution and is the author of the new book When the Chips are Down.
Chris Miller of Chip War cohosts.
We get into:
How the political economy of technology in India led to world class software and services but underwhelming manufacturing
Why India was slower to the uptake than China that socialism really sucks at getting your country rich
What it takes to design a chip.
Outtro music: Ye Jo Des Hai Tera https://youtu.be/4tiVPuLbbHg?feature=shared
Image: spectacular Mughal painting of an elephant currently on at the Met. that I prompted with semiconductor alot https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/825607?pkgids=906
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What does it take to train a frontier model? What's the know-how, the secret sauce that makes firms lets OpenAI and Deepmind push the limits of what's possible? How much are Chinese firms benefitting from western open source, and in the long term is it possible for western labs to maintain an edge?
The hosts of the excellent Latent Space podcast, Alessio Fanelli of Decibel VC and Shawn Wang of Smol AI, come on to discuss.
We get into:
How the secret sauce used to push the frontier of AI diffuses out of the top labs and into substacks
How labs are managing the culture change from quasi-academic outfits to places that have to ship
How open source raises the global AI standard, but why there's likely to always be a gap between closed and open source
China as a "GPU Poor" nation
Three key algorithmic innovations that could reshape the balance of power between the GPU rich and GPU poor
Outtro music: CHEKI https://open.spotify.com/track/1zKL2bOEkMDGuIjLhG34YA?si=9a713a88aa3d4f71
Cover photo: "Inkstand with A Madman Distilling His Brains" 1600s Urbino. Kind of like training a model! https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188899
The met description: In this whimsical maiolica sculpture, a well-dressed man leans forward in his seat with his head in a covered pot set above a fiery hearth. The vessel beside the hearth almost certainly held ink. The man’s actions are explained by an inscription on the chair: "I distill my brain and am totally happy." Thus the task of the writer is equated with distillation—the process through which a liquid is purified by heating and cooling, extracting its essence.
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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.
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Outtro music: Miles Davis, So What https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU
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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 innovations like track changes and video conferencing have dramatically changed national security policymaking
How reading Shakespeare can improve the quality of our policy-making
What a better model could look like
Illustration from the New Yorker's recent feature on Sullivan. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat
Outtro audio from
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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
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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
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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
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Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JV9ayVWYr8
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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
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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
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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
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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_itemTracklist: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 how he fell in love with the genre.‘Where’s Tommy?’ – Hualun 花伦 (bié Records) intriguing change of direction from the ambient soundtrack masters.‘Specter’ – The Fallacy 疯医 (Modern Sky) Brilliant return to form from Henan post-punks enlivened by new recruit Li Zenghui, who also played sax with Black Midi earlier this year‘Cliff’ – The river, Orchestration, Walkman! 河边走 (self-released) Short sharp burst of bewildering brassy brilliance from one of the best new bands to emerge in 2023.‘Vanished Instant’ – A Fishy Tale 有话 (Qiii Snacks Records) Another young band with a psychedelic sound; recorded during a trip to a Zhejiang mountain village.‘East Yunnan Hallucinations’ – Instinkto Industrio 本能事业 (Maybe Mars) Folksy rhythms mix with techno-dystopian lyrics on one of 2023’s most characterful records. ‘Standing in the Wind’ – Zhaoze 沼泽 (self-released) Guangdong guqin-driven post-rock outfit’s new album is one of their best.‘Station 2020’ – Wu Zhuoling 吴卓玲 (self-released) The leading lady of alternative Chengdu music serves up an immersive ambient tune.‘The Little Assassin Who Lives Beside the Sea Becomes and Environmentalist’ – Li Daiguo 李带菓 (Beihesan) The Dali-based artist had a productive year; this beautiful number was among the highlights.‘Daididau’ (excerpt) – Mamer (Old Heaven Books) A too-short taste of a 7-minute long improvised piece on traditional Kazakh instrument the sherter from musical genius Mamer.‘Four Seasons’ – Hugjiltu (self-released) An emotive folk number from an album featuring ‘collaborations’ with tapes of the Mongolian musician’s late father.‘Harbour for Bias’ – Louzhang 楼长 (Jyugam) An alt-ambient highlight from a strong year for this offbeat Guangdong electronic label.‘Snoring in the Valley’ – Howie Lee (self-released) Quirky electronic music from the renowned producer, quietly slipped out at the start of the year.‘Solaris’ – Zhang Weiwei 张玮玮 (self-released) Chinese folk grandee swaps his accordion for a synth to interesting effect on his first album in over a decade.‘I Want An Earth’ – Yu Su (pinchy&friends) Title track from the celebrated producer’s impressive EP of clever, beguiling electronic sounds.‘Holes of Time’ – 33EMYBW (SVBKVLT) A typically idiosyncratic slice of avant club music from one of China’s leading producers.‘The Forest That Hears’ – Laughing Ears (self-released) A welcome return from one of the country’s most interesting electronic music artists.‘W.C.’ (Liars remix) – otay:onii (No Gold) Acclaimed artist Angus Andrew adds a new dimension to otay:onii’s weirdness after bié Records released her third LP in March.‘Ἀντὶ θεῶν’ – Ὁπλίτης (self-released) Incredible one-man-band creating blistering metal tunes examining Chinese social issues. In Greek, obviously.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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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 [email protected]
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
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