ChinaTalk

Jon Czin, former CIA analyst and NSC staffer, returns to talk purges. We have far too much fun.

The disney take on PLA purges: https://suno.com/s/Wv1yQyxdUhWBzyA0

08:50 Deep read into the WSJ nuke traitor allegations

22:10 Xi getting paranoid?

26:13 Taiwan implications

32:38 Succession implications

45:55 It must really suck to work in Chinese politics
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Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ and Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ report for duty. Athena makes a brief guest appearance before dipping for pilates.

Jordan's flower app: https://cut-from-the-masters.vercel.app/

Jordan's acting app: https://acting-trainer.vercel.app/

Jordan's mahjong trainer app: https://mazel-jong.vercel.app

Suno song: https://suno.com/s/BArMAm90qTxbupUz
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Bryan Clark (former submariner at Hudson), Eric Robinson, and Justin McIntosh report for duty.

Davos disco: https://suno.com/s/2SpR62beigk2JeDr
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Is there such a thing as MAD in economic warfare? How should we measure the effectiveness of our industrial policy tools, and what outcomes should we be aiming for anyway?

Our guest today is Dan Kim, who served at USITC with stints at Qualcomm and SK hynix before returning to government as the Chief Economist for the CHIPS Program Office. He recently joined TechInsights as Chief Strategy Officer. Also joining us is Chris Miller of Chip War fame. 

We discuss:


What $39 billion can and can’t buy — why the CHIPS Act was never meant to de-risk the U.S. from China or Taiwan, and what “success” looks like when autarky is neither affordable nor desirable,


Apple vs. Xiaomi + BYD — invention versus fast-following as competing models of national power, and which system performs better when the goal shifts from profit maximization to geopolitical resilience,


What resilience actually means — capability vs. capacity, weakest links, and whether economic security should be measured as “time to recovery” rather than self-sufficiency,


Managed dependence vs. overreliance, and whether dependence itself can be a form of power,

Why the U.S. still lacks a clear theory, metrics, and institutional design for industrial strategy — and what you can do about it.

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Jon Czin spent years as a top China analyst at the CIA, served as China Director on Biden’s National Security Council, and now works at the Brookings Institution. We talk through:

Xi, Trump, and what drove the roller coaster of US-China relations in 2025

Why it feels too quiet right now and what could get this train off the rails in 2026

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