ChinaTalk25 Okt 2023

PLA Purges + Taiwan War Risk

Defense Minister Li Shangfu just got officially purged. To discuss, we brought on Joel Wuthnow, a fellow at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, US-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. He joined ChinaTalk to discuss Xi Jinping’s recent purges of high-ranking members of the People’s Liberation Army, Xi’s larger vision for the PLA, and what all this internal turmoil might mean for China’s longer-term designs on Taiwan. This was recorded earlier in October. Key insights: Over ten years after coming to power, Xi is still purging corruption from the military, reflecting his continued lack of trust in the PLA; Corruption is historically endemic in the PLA in part because of its incentive structure, which makes graft a prerequisite for rising through the ranks; Xi’s efforts to break up the PLA’s supervisory apparatus have only been partially successful (they’re still the same people even if they’re in a different department); Amid the anti-corruption shakeup, China’s Rocket Force has been successfully developing hypersonic missiles, technology viewed as critical to countering US intervention in a regional conflict over Taiwan; Despite Xi’s apparent distrust of his inner circle of military advisors, an echo chamber–induced invasion of Taiwan is still a live possibility. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow with the National Defense University. Nicholas Welch cohosts. Outtro Music: The Weeknd's take on Drake's Trust Issues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVCV6hyv7ac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(563)

WarTalk: GWOT at 25 with Wesley Morgan

Twenty-five years after 9/11, the Pech Valley represents the war in miniature: outposts meant to shield Afghan villages that instead drew the fighting to their doorsteps, built for reasons nobody mann...

5 Sep 1h 21min

Cyber Apocalypse, Now? Hugging Face and the Future of Cyber Risk

OpenAI models mid-training broke out of their sandbox, hacked internal infrastructure, and eventually compromised Hugging Face — the first headline-grade AI breakout, and one that safety researchers s...

2 Sep 1h 10min

WarTalk: USN Readiness Reckoning, Steampunk Navy, and AI Cyberwar with Shashank of the Economist

The USS Abraham Lincoln is coming home after a deployment that stretched past 240 days, and the bill is about to come due: mechanical failures, rations down to the emergency stores, 20,000 unfilled bi...

29 Aug 1h 4min

How AI Becomes a Political Crisis

The political economy of AI — things are getting weird, it seems. We have models on the loose, open weights being dropped from the heavenly temple, and data center protests fanning out across the land...

24 Aug 1h 8min

Lessons from the American Civil War

Note: This episode was recorded in late 2024. Luckily, there haven't been any US Civil War updates since then, so the episode's content still holds up. Enjoy! During paternity leave, the new influx o...

21 Aug 1h 32min

North Korea's Messiah

Why is North Korea so weird? Is it Stalinism? Maoism? Japan-style emperor worship? Ancient Korean hermit kingdom energy? No, argues Jonathan Cheng, Beijing bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and...

19 Aug 1h 59min

The Rise of China’s Electric Vehicle Industry

How did China grow its EV industry? Hint: it wasn’t really central planning from Beijing. It was a magical concoction of entrepreneurs and local officials using their guanxi to dance around giant SOEs...

17 Aug 1h 54min

China's Best Music in 2026 (So Far)

Jake Newby is the author of the Concrete Avalanche Substack, which covers the best music coming out of China. If you enjoy this playlist, check out Jake’s sets from 2025, 2024, and 2023, as well as hi...

14 Aug 54min