ChinaTalk Jordan Schneider

Ryan Takeshita is the Chief Global Editor at PIVOT, a new media outlet in Japan focused on the emerging startup scene.
We get into:

A stroll through recent economic history leading to today's 'boom times'

Why more people are looking to leave traditional occupations for insurgent firms

Challenges around demographics and immigration


Outtro Music:
Idol by Yaosobi https://open.spotify.com/track/1hAloWiinXLPQUJxrJReb1?si=36552bdc34cb4a73
Matsuri No Genzo by Hideo Shiraki and 3 Koto Girls https://open.spotify.com/track/6eTteH1zyZeQKZ2Mu7VC5d?si=230b3d1739d5417e
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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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