​​Our guest today is economist Noah Smith, who made time for an in-person interview during his recent trip to Taiwan. He runs the Noahpinion substack and is the author of an upcoming book on the revival of the Japanese economy. 

We discuss…

• The goals of Silicon Valley's pro-Trump constituency, from deregulation, to tariffs, to China policy,
• Whether Elon is standing up for Taiwan behind closed doors,
• Whether Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Poland need their own nuclear weapons,
• How Taiwan could bargain for independence with China’s leaders post-Xi,
• National health insurance as a potential solution to China’s aggregate demand problem,
• A Georgist perspective on China’s real estate problem,
• Why China’s demographic issues are overstated, 
• Recommendations for Taiwan’s economic development.

Outtro music: Wifey by Dizzy Dizzo 蔡詩芸 (Youtube Link)

Cover art: 清 冷枚 梧桐双兔图

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Greg Allen of CSIS and I are tired! We go through today's new export controls to stop TSMC from fabbing Huawei chips, some DRAM revisions, and discuss the past two years of Biden BIS policy and where we could all be going next.

Outtro music: 大雨 - deca joins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFALDn1yGQ

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Biden last export control, for real this time! Who does and doesn't get to build datacenters under this new regulation?

To discuss, we brought on RAND's Lennart Heim, Jimmy Goodrich, Chris Miller, and Dylan Patel.

Outtro Music: Afida Es & the Siglap Boys - jangan goda, Malaysia, 1967 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXrdwKST1U&ab_channel=schutbart

hasnah haron & the spiritual 70's _ bintang pujaan, Malaysia 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cMsoLttNs&ab_channel=nostalgiahassny

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Can diplomatic charisma prevent crises from escalating? Does the CCP feel conflicted about aligning with the likes of Iran and North Korea? What’s the use of communicating during a great power competition?

To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed R. Nicholas Burns, Biden’s Ambassador to China, whose diplomatic career spans 35 years and 8 countries.

We discuss…

• Kissinger’s experience negotiating with the CCP,
• Why China’s negotiating tactics are so different from those of the Soviet Union,
• How European allies are helping to push back against Chinese aggression,
• Great power responsibilities, and whether Chinese leaders truly appreciate the reputational costs of helping the Russians and the Houthis,
• Biden’s victories with new partners in the Pacific,
• How diplomats express consequences and draw red lines during international crises,
• Areas of mutual interest where the U.S. and China can still engage productively,
• The importance of specialists in the Foreign Service. 

Outro music: 

Óró Mo Bháidín - Mary O’Hara

Auld Lang Syne - Rendition by The Irish Rovers, originally written by Robert Burns

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To discuss the Christmas Day MAGA civil war over H1Bs and the future of US immigration policy, ChinaTalk interviewed Divyansh Kaushik, a computer science PhD and vice president of Beacon Global Strategies. 

We get into…

• Pro-immigrant attitudes among Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley
• Creative political maneuvering that could make high-skill immigration reform a reality
• Whether Vivek is right about American culture aspiring to normalcy
• Other areas where Elon and the tech right might spend their political influence 
• How nativist backlash could influence Trump’s agenda
• Why India has yet to produce an influential, home-grown AI lab

Special thanks to Mani Subramani, Gauri Subramani, and our anonymous contributor who grew up in China for sharing their reflections on immigrant parenting. 

Outro song: Kishore Kumar, Rote Hue Aate Hai Sab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e18Pgofqpnc

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Jake Newby is the author of Concrete Avalanche, a free newsletter about music from China. You might remember Jake from the Chinese shoegaze election playlist, or from the tracklist he presented on ChinaTalk back in June. Now that the year is over, Jake is here to introduce his picks for the overall most interesting songs to come out of China in 2024.

This tracklist includes everything from Afrobeat-influenced Beijing funk endorsed by Gilles Peterson, to an electronic track crafted in a Tibetan monastery featuring Buddhist chanting. You can find links to listen to each track individually on the ChinaTalk substack. Enjoy!

1. Golden Seeds 黄金种子 by Sleeping Dogs

2. Never Broken, Never Healed by Seon Ga 信鴿

3. Aroma Compound by ayrtbh

4. Stage Riot 舞台 by Carsick Cars

5. Hereditary Nightmare 遗 传 噩 梦 by The Swan and Blossoms 天鹅与花朵

6. Kagi 鍵 by Voision Xi

7. 物件 (Object) by Mdprl & Git Bu$y Trio

8. Night Patrol by Fazi 法兹

9. Mantra Of Buddha Akshobhya 不 动 佛 心 咒 by Howie Lee

10. Ghostbomb by Ghostmass 大鬼众

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Chris Miller of Chip War and Lennart Heim of RAND check in on the geopolitics of AI. We explore:

• Chinese labs' algorithmic progress (surprising to everyone but regular ChinaTalk listeners!)
• The geopolitical implications of scaling on test time compute
• What is and isn't working with US export controls
• And a whole lot more this was a great episode!

The CSET report I referenced: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/chinas-sti-operations/

Chris and Lennart's ChinaTalk in early 2023 https://www.chinatalk.media/p/ai-compute-101-the-geopolitics-of

Outtro music: japanese citypop producers collaborating Beijinger Cheng Fangyuan in the 80s! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=403GCMhZ89Q&ab_channel=Heatwolves itself a cover of this Japanese track but better than the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyjnkuhRfJA&ab_channel=PopBULL

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We’ll be getting into the biggest tv show of 2024, a celebrity road trip “will they or won’t they divorce” show which is just as big of a hot mess as it sounds like, rigged nationalist singing competitions, megacorp boy idol capitalism corrupting something as seemingly innocent as a farming reality show, and xinjiang-set tv hit drama.

Our guest today is Em who writes Active Faults, one of my favorite substacks that explores the China’s entertainment industry and celebrity fandom. It is a consistently dark read but one of my favorite discoveries this year. https://activefaults.substack.com/

Puttro music: one of those foreigners who showed up the Chinese singers in 歌手， China's 'The Voice" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMpnuYBcA_I

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Nathan Lambert of the excellent https://www.interconnects.ai/ newsletter and the Allen Institute joins the pod for a rundown of the biggest AI stories of this year and next. We also talk about what he's learned training advanced AI models at the Allen Institute.

Outtro Music: Young and Holtful by Young-Holt Unlimited, 1969. https://open.spotify.com/track/5am0dV7aB91Q6sWqIAuurA?autoplay=true

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Commerce released its much-anticipated chip export-control updates yesterday, December 2. But today's guests are unimpressed.

But are we right to have hoped for more? To discuss, I’m joined by Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Greg Allen from CSIS.

A disclaimer: We recorded this yesterday the same day the regs were released, and given their complexity our takes are inevitably provisional.

We get into:

• What’s in the new controls: high bandwidth memory, FDPR, and the Entity List.
• Why key assumptions in Biden’s approach to export controls limited
• How China’s stockpiling spree may have already rendered these new rules partially obsolete, and what policymakers can do about that going forward.
• The law-enforcement approach vs. the counterintelligence approach, and whether export controls should be a foreign-policy tool or simply a law-enforcement activity.
• How the new chip controls are like removing puzzle pieces just one at a time — and why that’s exactly what China wants.
• The “America First” rationale for domestic chip production.
• Why the Democrats’ regulatory design philosophy has favored massive complexity to the detriment of enforcement — and what the Trump administration might do differently going forward.

Outtro music:

From the Netherlands! Mensen by Josine Van Dalsum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igRkp_03UHk

From Japan! Yadokari - Meiko Kaji https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJG2Wozor94

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Dylan Patel, Doug O'Laughlin, Jon from Asianometry and I all chat the biggest semiconductor stories of the year. We get into energy demands for datacenters, Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, SMIC, Huawei, Deepseek and the rise of ChatGPT.

Outtro music: Sabicas, Carcelera (Reflejo Andaluz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2_nX21D8Go

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