ChinaTalk

Earlier this year, we ran an essay contest on economic security. We gave entrants two prompts:

What are the most important high level KPIs that policy should aim for? What is the analogy of the Fed’s ’2% inflation and full employment’ target for economic security?

Where today would you put $10-50bn to get the most for your investment in economic security? Feel free to propose both defensive and offensive ideas, and either a portfolio of ideas or the one large idea you think will deliver the most value.

We ended up with a literal four-way tie for first place, with each judge giving a different essay top marks. We heard from Farrell Gregory earlier about how to spend rare earths money, and here, we’ll be spotlighting the three others who went into the framework question.

Joining us today — ⁠Jahara Matisek⁠, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and fellow at the U.S. Naval War College; ⁠Naveen Krishnan⁠ at the Belfer Center and an intel officer in the Navy Reserve; and ⁠Guy Ward Jackson⁠, senior policy analyst at the Tony Blair Institute in London. No one is speaking for the Air Force, the Navy, Harvard, the Naval War College, the Tony Blair Institute, or the Department of War. I’m speaking for ChinaTalk.

Our conversation covers:

Why economic security is really an insurance problem — you’re paying people to keep factories warm, workers trained, and capacity idle for a war that may never come — and why no democracy likes paying that bill.

Why the U.S. can’t China-proof its economy alone — the case for a distributed allied industrial base and using allied leverage and counter-coercion as an offensive tool.

What $6 billion and four years bought in artillery production, why it still wasn’t enough, and how Patriot missile economics expose the danger of having exquisite weapons without industrial depth.

Why you can’t science your way out of a volume problem — AI, robotics, and frontier R&D are caffeine, but the U.S. is still short on food and water.

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To discuss, we have Farrell Gregory, a researcher at the Foundation for American Innovation and winner of ChinaTalk’s Economic Security essay competition, and Joris Teer, a policy analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies who authored Beijing’s critical raw material weapon – and how to dismantle it. Co-hosting is ChinaTalk’s Aqib Zakaria.

Our conversation covers...


China’s critical mineral weapon — How Beijing turned its dominance over rare earths into a tool of economic coercion and why the West is struggling to respond.


25 minerals that actually matter — Why policymakers should focus on the specific materials China can weaponize rather than spreading resources across broad critical mineral lists.


Why subsidies alone won’t fix the problem — How China’s industrial policy, overcapacity, and ability to flood markets make it nearly impossible for Western supply chains to compete without coordinated action.


Reshoring the industrial base — The tradeoffs behind rebuilding domestic capacity: higher end-product costs, environmental NIMBYism, skilled labor shortages, and the need for deeper US-European cooperation.


The next resource race — How defense, AI, robotics, and energy demand are intensifying competition for critical materials and what the future of allied industrial power might look like.

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Ely Ratner, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and now a principal at the Marathon Initiative, joins Jordan, Bryan Clark, and Justin to make sense of the Iran ceasefire and where US-China competition goes next.

We discuss:

Why the MOU reads as a loss: the blockade comes down first, Iran keeps its missiles and its "nuclear dust," and a younger, harder regime learns it can take American firepower and wield an oil weapon

The "bullshit détente" with Beijing and whether reindustrialization can carry a China-competition message without sounding hawkish

Output metrics over input metrics, the seven-year force-posture problem, and what Ratner wishes he'd moved into the "break glass" category at the Pentagon

RoboCom: the pros and cons of standing up a new combatant command

Plus Crassus at Parthia, and why chasing parades is a bad idea unless you're the ny knicks

suno song: https://suno.com/s/scu8twGj01AIOYSL
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AI will make ideas cheap. What does that mean for sicence?

Charles Yang is a fellow at Renaissance Philanthropies and writes about AI and science here: https://republicofscience.substack.com.

We discuss…

Why AI will crack math but not science, and what Mendel's peas sitting ignored for 60 years says about a model that's smarter than everyone

Why China never caught the West's lone-genius bug, and why that's about to pay off

Tools over ideas, from Warren Weaver's six instruments to the thousands at CERN who proved a Higgs boson three guys took home the Nobel for

How do spend a billion dollars to save higher education

AI, souls, and whether your Claude gets into heaven

Suno song: https://suno.com/s/3Q11kw74vQmH7eLN
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Chris McGuire, former civil servant in State and the Biden White House now at CFR, talk about the export control craziness of these past two weeks.

We discuss:

The 5:21 PM letter that took the world's most powerful model offline

Why the "let it rip" administration pivoted to mandatory AI regulation overnight

The incoherent export-control regime: regs that still say one thing while policy says another

The overseas-subsidiary loophole, the Sunday emergency fix, and the foundry gap still left open

outtro music: https://suno.com/s/UVeDiboPyj0jvIgO
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