Our Year in Review

Year in recap + 25 biggest US-China events of the century

In 2025, ChinaTalk’s eighth year of existence and my third doing it full time, we did the thing. We put out on the newsletter over 150 editions that centered on China AI lab, policy, and application coverage.

On the podcast we published a hundred shows about:

• Chinese elite politics and US-China policy

• US-China chips and AI

• Economic statecraft around export controls and tariffs, which made up the majority of our ten emergency pods this year (double 2024’s emergencies!)

• A growing focus on defense, with the launch of our weekly Second Breakfast show, a good bit of military history and our AI and the Future of War series

ChinaTalk’s substack grew 60% this year to 65k subscribers. This is a really big number. The second largest think tank substack is SCSP, which has 35k. Recent CFR, the Atlantic Council, and Brookings annual reports say that, after two decades of building lists, they each have around 200k total email subscribers. Not a bad showing for ChinaTalk’s much smaller budget only three years in the game.

The show gets 10-15k listens per show across the podcast and YouTube, and was downloaded a million times last year. These are also really big numbers. Across all of foreign policy think tank-dom, only one show (CFR’s The President’s Inbox) is bigger. And it’s not like Mass Ave isn’t trying. CSIS has 40 shows alone.

Why do so many people engage with our work?

1. US-China tech is an covering important, underserved niche. A year after DeepSeek, to my endless surprise there are still only a handful of analysts working in English in public on tech and China. While there is more out there on the defense side, most coverage tends toward SpecOps bro, Zeihan geopolitics bro, or lifeless industry coverage.

2. We make substantive, engaging content that resonates in today’s media landscape. In traditional think tanks, podcasts, newsletters and responses to news developments are afterthoughts to the long reports and small in-person events funders expect as outputs. Since podcasts and research with outputs under 10,000 words often aren’t directly funded and so happen on fellows’ personal time, talent in these areas isn’t hired for or developed. By only accepting unrestricted funding, we’ve had to limit our headcount growth, but it ensures we’re covering what matters today, not getting stuck writing long reports that won’t matter by the time they’re finished in the extremely fast-moving field of US-China and technology.

3. Brands matter in DC way less than they used to. Writing a smart newsletter in some ways even gains you credibility vs working at a brand name think tank, university, or news organization. It blew my mind as well to learn that Jasmine Sun wrote that “I was shocked to learn from a senior WaPo reporter that they consider anything over 10,000 views good.” Our worst performing posts do more than this!

2025 was the year to test whether I wanted to grow a research team or continue to float along as an extended Ezra Klein cosplay, podcasting and writing when the mood strikes. The answer to that is a definitive yes to growing a team. It's been a pleasure getting to empower young talent in an open ended, self-driven think tank position I wish existed when I was in my 20s. We’ve brought on some great analysts who have all already contributed to the national conversation: Lily Ottinger, Irene Zhang, Nick Corvino, and Aqib Zakaria.

Unfortunately, funding is still holding us back from the fully humming ChinaTalk as we don’t have the money to grow headcount. If you’re interested in seeing ChinaTalk flourish even more in 2026, please get in touch!

What follows is a rundown of our most memorable podcasts and articles.

Our 10 Most Memorable Podcast Episodes of the Year

Here’s a spotify playlist to listen to them!

Contemporary Politics

PLA Purges with Jon Czin

Jon Czin, longtime CIA China analyst now in the think tank world, chatted PLA purges. I’ve done less domestic chinese political coverage of late, as not much surprising or dramatic has happened since the COVID response drama, but the PLA purges are easily the most interesting domestic elite political development in years.

I’m also pretty proud of my thumbnail for this one…

Jake Sullivan

Felt like I’ve been prepping for this one for five years. All the other podcasts he’s done since leaving government followed the same trajectory of the hosts beating up on him for Gaza/Ukraine leading Sullivan to spend his airtime defending his record. I wanted to do something different, instead trying to explore what the experience is like of serving as NSA. I think we succeeded.

Dan Wang

Dan Wang came over to my house to discuss Breakneck, exploring China’s “engineering state” versus America’s “lawyerly society” through the lens of brutal social engineering projects. Wang argues China’s engineering mindset — treating society “as liquid flows” where “all human activity can be directed with the same ease as turning valves” — enabled four decades of 8-9% growth lifting hundreds of millions from poverty but also created “novel forms of political repression humanity has never seen.” We also did a podcaster all-star show with Dan Wang + Ezra + Derek!

Allied Scale and Net Assessment with Rush Doshi

If America doesn’t use its allies, it will lose the 21st century. This interview with Rush Doshi explores how the U.S. should strategically compete with China by leveraging partnerships with allies. While China faces real challenges like demographics and debt, Doshi argues that China’s scale, manufacturing dominance, and industrial capacity pose enduring strategic threats. He critiques both the Biden and Trump approaches to alliances: Biden’s overemphasis on persuasion and Trump’s heavy-handed use of coercion. Instead, Doshi emphasizes the need for capacity-centric statecraft, where allies help each other build economic, technological, and military strength.

China’s Rare Earth Controls

An emergency pod with the Two Chrises (Chris Miller and Chris McGuire) after China dropped their rare earth controls for the second time this fall. China successfully backing down the Trump administration by deploying rare earth controls felt like a turning point in the relationship.

Deepseek: What it Means and What Happens Next

Early in the year, Kevin Xu and I reflected on the long term implications of the DeepSeek saga, looking into what the firm does and doesn’t illustrate about Chinese innovation and implications for future US policy. It holds up pretty well!

Liberation Day Pod: MAGA: A Guide for the Perplexed with Tanner Greer

In this podcast episode, recorded on Liberation Day, Tanner Greer and I talk through the chaotic dynamics of Trump’s second administration China policy. Greer explains Trump’s unpredictable decision-making style, his use of internal factional conflict as a management tool, and the administration’s disjointed tariff policies. The conversation explores four quadrants of Trump World ideology and how adherents of each quadrant approach trade, industrial policy, and Taiwan.

Trump’s Pivot to Putin + AGI and the Future of Warfare

Recorded the day after Trump’s disastrous meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office, Mike Horowitz, Shashank and I discussed what the brave new world of Trump’s global diplomacy and just how much war is changing. The second Shashank show of the yar we did following up with Rob Lee exploring to what extent the war in Ukraine is a revolution in military affairs continues the theme.

History

Inside the Soviet Cold War Machine

Sergey Radchenko’s To Run the World explores the Cold War not as a clash of ideologies, but as a tragic and often absurd contest for prestige, legitimacy, and recognition among insecure leaders struggling to validate their power, both externally and at home. In this interview, Radchenko argues that authoritarian regimes, especially the USSR and China, pursued global influence to compensate for internal weakness.

A propaganda poster in support of North Korea. The title reads, “Annihilate the American aggressors!” ca. 1950. Source.

Part two came out in April, and it’s even better than part one! In this deep-dive, Radchenko unravels how personal egos and the battle for international prestige shaped Soviet decision-making — from Khrushchev’s downfall to Brezhnev’s Vietnam gamble, the paranoid Sino-Soviet split, Nixon’s unlikely détente, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan. This episode asks the question, what if boredom, not grand strategy, is what starts wars?

The Party’s Interests Comes First

Joseph Torigian’s biography of Xi Zhongxun reveals the CCP as simultaneously a religious organization and mafia — where suffering paradoxically deepens loyalty and persecution is a badge of honor. Our epic two-part interview explores the life of Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping, from his life as a young revolutionary to his purge and eventual rehabilitation.

The Long Shadow of Soviet Dissent: Disobedience from Moscow to Beijing

This ChinaTalk episode with historian Ben Nathans and longtime reporter Ian Johnson explores how Soviet dissidents built a moral and intellectual movement by demanding that the USSR live up to its own laws — a strategy pioneered by mathematician Alexander Volpin that later echoed in China’s rights-defense (维权) activism. Through episodes like the 1966 Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, dissidents transformed “socialist legality” and show trials into moral theater, using underground samizdat networks to expose the state’s hypocrisy and preserve truth.

The Pacific War

We explore Ian Toll’s incredibly expressive Pacific War trilogy, examining both his innovative narrative techniques and strategic questions about WWII’s Pacific theater. The conversation covers whether Allied victory was predetermined after Pearl Harbor, how Japan’s domestic political instability drove its military aggression abroad, the evolution of kamikaze tactics as a resource-scarcity solution, and the crucial role of media management in shaping military leaders like MacArthur and Halsey into national heroes. Part 1 and Part 2 here.

Most Memorable Articles of the Year

We already recapped our tech coverage in our “China AI in 2025 Wrapped” post, but I wanted to highlight a few more pieces that stood out.

On the travel side, Lily found some fascinating China connections travelling in Kyrgyzstan, Irene and Lily reflected on some Korean makeup and massacres, and I spent some time in Tel Aviv and the Bay Area.

On the war beat, we ran a piece by a Japanese colonel studying at Air War College in Alabama about lessons from how Japan intended to defend Taiwan against an American invasion in WWII.

I also updated my early career guide for folks who are interested in topics adjacent to ChinaTalk themes.

25 Biggest Events in US-China Relations This Century

Stealing Nate Silver’s listicle format, I ranked the 25 most important events in US-China relations this century. If there’s interest I could explain my reasoning in a full piece. I’d also be interested in taking submissions on this theme!

1. Xi Jinping becomes CCP General Secretary (18th Congress/1st plenum) — 11/15/2012

2. China joins the WTO (trade-driven takeoff shorthand) — 12/11/2001

3. Trump elected U.S. president — 11/08/2016

4. China abolishes PRC presidential term limits — 03/11/2018

5. Chen Shui-bian wins Taiwan presidential election — 03/18/2000

6. Shinzo Abe returns as Japan’s PM (Second Abe Cabinet inaugurated) — 12/26/2012

7. U.S. “Oct 7” export controls on advanced computing/semiconductor tools to China issued — 10/07/2022

8. “Liberation Day” tariffs announced (Rose Garden speech) — 04/02/2025

9. 9/11 attacks — 09/11/2001

10. Dr. Li Wenliang dies as COVID escalates — 02/07/2020

11. “Made in China 2025” issued by State Council — 05/19/2015

12. Huawei added to the U.S. Entity List — 05/16/2019

13. Tsai Ing-wen wins Taiwan presidential election — 01/16/2016

14. Trump signs Section 301 action memo (trade war kickoff marker) — 03/22/2018

15. Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy (financial crisis kickoff) — 09/15/2008

16. Hong Kong National Security Law takes effect — 06/30/2020

17. NYT publishes the “Xinjiang Papers” leak (standing in for Xinjiang repression) — 11/16/2019

18. DeepSeek releases R1 — 01/20/2025

19. Bo Xilai sentenced to life imprisonment — 09/22/2013

20. U.S. SecDef calls for halt to land reclamation/island-building (Shangri-La Dialogue) — 05/30/2015

21. Tibetan unrest begins with Lhasa protests — 03/10/2008

22. Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony — 08/08/2008

23. U.S. BIS issues denial order cutting off ZTE’s export privileges — 04/15/2018

24. U.S.–China Anchorage talks open (Blinken/Sullivan vs. Yang/Wang) — 03/18/2021

25. Obama delivers “pivot to Asia” speech (Australia Parliament) — 11/17/2011

Ins and Outs for 2026

And lastly, borrowing the format from Jasmine Sun, we’re doing some Ins and Outs for 2026. Predictions are NOT endorsements!