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ChinaTalk

ChinaTalk

By: Jordan Schneider
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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 on Substack at https://www.chinatalk.media/Jordan Schneider Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • The Manhattan Project, Take Two

    The Manhattan Project, Take Two
    Oct 29 2026
    In the new era of global competition, being at the forefront of Super Intelligence innovation equals geopolitical power. To maintain leadership and establish the next world order, the U.S. is moving to cement its lead. Barnett Koven is a Managing Director of AI and Data at Accenture Federal Services. He came to Accenture Federal Services after stints in industry and a faculty job at the University of Maryland, where his counterinsurgency research showed that some of the most influential quantitative studies got the answer exactly backwards. We discuss… Why “inaction is in and of itself risky” — and how government risk-aversion compounds against less-cautious competitors The “gun-armor race” in classified AI environments, where defense costs grow exponentially against linear offense Entity resolution and predictive modeling for BIS export-control enforcement, and unwrapping the PLA’s shell-company maze DOE’s Genesis Mission and Accenture Federal’s “backbone for scientific research” Thank you to Accenture Federal Services for bringing us this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    46 mins
  • What's Broken About China's Economy + The Cost of Keeping China Out | Meg Rithmire

    What's Broken About China's Economy + The Cost of Keeping China Out | Meg Rithmire
    Oct 27 2026
    ChinaTalk spends a lot of time on the leading lights of the Chinese economy... the MiniMaxes, ByteDances, Unitrees, and BYDs of the world. But what about the rest of the system, the part growing at zero to two percent? To talk about what's broken, not just what works, we talk with Meg Rithmire. Meg is the James E. Robison Professor at Harvard Business School and author of Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia. With UC San Diego's Peter Cowhey, she recently wrote "The Cost of Keeping China Out" for Foreign Affairs, which argues that Washington should let some Chinese firms build in America... on strict terms. We discuss… Mafia firms: how Anbang, HNA, and Wanda raised money on stock exchanges, tunneled it into subsidiaries by the thousands, and bought the Waldorf Astoria without making anything at all How China's zombie firms moved out of real estate and into industrial policy, why households put up with it when "the rest of the world seems awful," and what Japan teaches about living well with bad macro numbers Why the Chinese Communist Party is more nervous about controlling its own champions than Western media assumes A reverse Tesla: Meg's case for letting BYD and CATL build in the US with localized supply chains, split hardware and software, and continuous monitoring US vs. China corruption Plus: the Indonesian tycoon hiding behind the building on Meg's book cover, whether AI can do David Barboza's paper-trail reporting in five seconds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 34 mins
  • WarTalk: Kofman on Starlink + What Ukraine Can Teach the U.S. Military

    WarTalk: Kofman on Starlink + What Ukraine Can Teach the U.S. Military
    Oct 25 2026
    Ukraine and Russia have rebuilt their armies around drones, deception, and long-range strike. What should the U.S. military take from it? Michael Kofman joins WarTalk regulars Jordan Schneider, Justin McIntosh, and Tony Stark. We discuss: How much leverage the U.S. still has over the war, and why Europe can't replace America's role in NATO. Why buying drones means nothing without drone platoons and companies to fight with them. Why no one owns the night anymore, and why the U.S. military has no culture of decoys. What counts as a lesson from Ukraine, and discussions on wet-gap crossings Plus: getting rich as a military analyst, and how to tell real maneuver from sparkling mobility. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:28 U.S. leverage in Ukraine 00:30:02 Who will fight with the drones? 00:47:05 You don't own the night 01:04:32 Wet gap crossings 01:08:56 What to tell Congress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 25 mins
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