Peak China with Noah Smith and Matt Klein

ChinaTalk | 22 September 2023 | 1h 12m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Noah Smith and Matt Klein discussing what’s really happening with China’s economy and why it matters strategically; how China’s potential peak parallels Japan’s; why the world should and shouldn’t be scared of China’s progress in semis and EVs; and what another Trump Administration could do for US-China relations.

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Economic Warfare: Implications for Sanctions Today

ChinaTalk | 8 March 2023 | 1h 03m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Part 2 of an interview with Nick Mulder about his book The Economic Weapon. Discusses why the Great Depression made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism; the difference between autarky and autarchy; whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology; “temporal claustrophobia” and what it has to do with Japan siding with the Axis; parallels between the “ABCD circle” (America, Britain, China, Dutch East Indies) and the semiconductor export controls today; why having an empire was a liability for Britain; what sanctions had to do with the Czechoslovaks – even with a larger army – falling to the Nazis; how the blockades of WWI differed from WWII; and what lessons pro-decouplers should learn from this history of sanctions.

 

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Economic Warfare: A History

ChinaTalk | 3 March 2023 | 1h 20m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Part 1 of a podcast with Nick Mulder about his book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War. Discusses the recent advent of the use of sanctions; why Europeans were reluctant to employ blockades and sanctions in the early 20C, and how their thinking evolved through two world wars; how Wilson’s notion of “moral sanctions” and decision to keep blockades in place after the war were important to the development of sanctions, especially during the interwar period; the League of Nations’ efforts to establish a “positive sanctions” fund, and why the concept never took off; why Hoover is underrated; and when and why Italy almost fought a war against Germany over Austria.

 

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Tyler Cowen on AI and China

ChinaTalk | 9 January 2023 | 1h 21m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Tyler Cowen discussing how AI is going to change art, education, politics and human relationships; why he tried to write a book to explain America to the PRC; how babies born in 2023 will see their educations changed by AI; playing chess against the computer and creativity in the AI era; religion, American antisemitism, and the movie Her; writing a book about America for Chinese people; and why China is one of the hardest countries to predict.

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How AI is Unlocking Creativity

ChinaTalk | 25 October 2022 | 0h 31m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Steve Coulson about producing his comic book Summer Island: A Folk-Horror Myth using images created by the midjourney AI art generator. Discusses whether using tech to generate art is taking money from already struggling artists, how AI will end the stock photography industry, how young artists can get a leg up by learning to use AI, and the challenge of using AI generator tools when you don’t speak English.

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Twilight Struggle: Cold War Lessons for US-China Today

ChinaTalk | 7 May 2022 | 1h 24m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Hal Brands about his book The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today. Discusses how the US capitalised on Soviet heavy-handedness in the developing world; how technology impacted the broader trajectory of the Cold War; the US’s never-ending cycles of self-confidence and self-doubt; today’s Sinologists versus Cold War Sovietologists; why the only person who can stop the war in Ukraine is the one who started it.

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Selling China’s Story

ChinaTalk | 7 November 2021 | 0h 33m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Maggie Baughman about how the Chinese government uses Western social media to promote their desired image of China internationally. Discusses how she used public procurement data to identify the companies helping the Chinese government; the scale of the revenues involved; how Facebook benefits from this; and how China’s messaging contrasts with other countries.

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How Abe Reshaped Japan

ChinaTalk | 26 July 2021 | 1h 16m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Tobias Harris about his book The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan. Discusses the dramatic rise, fall, and rise again to power of Abe Shinzo; how he reshaped governance in Japan through bureaucratic reform; and how he managed relations with the US and China.

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