Our first-ever Supreme Court-driven emergency pod! Oren Cass, the founder and chief economist of American Compass, and Peter Harrell, former Biden White House official, host of the Security Economics podcast and, as of a month ago, a Georgetown Law scholar, have joined to discuss:

• Why Trump’s most arbitrary tariff impositions might be the most easily defensible in the Supreme Court case,

• Why this Supreme Court case probably has no real bearing on negotiations with China,

• The USMCA as a template for negotiating with Asia,

• What tariff negotiations can tell us about Trump’s philosophy on decoupling from China,

• How the U.S. can compel allies to take defense seriously.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app or watch on YouTube:

Litigation Day

Jordan Schneider: Oren, why don’t you kick us off?

Oren Cass: I love the case as a legal matter. While partisans on both sides will tell you this is a clean-cut decision, I think there are actually many very close legal questions, which is fascinating.

The reality is that we are almost surely going to get a decision that attempts to put down some long-term markers for how the court thinks about these questions, while on the specifics of the tariffs, essentially trying to stall. The court will probably give a bunch of new guidelines and principles and then remand the case back to a lower court to figure out how to implement them. It’s a little bit like what you saw them do with the presidential immunity question.

The result will be that everyone will have a better sense of how the court would initially decide this, but there will be more time before anything is actually resolved. In the interim, the administration will have to figure out what it wants to move on through other authorities, what it wants to keep fighting on, and what, if anything, it wants to legislate. Anyone who’s looking for a clear-cut and decisive victory or devastating loss will almost surely be disappointed.

Peter Harrell: I might disagree a bit with you, Oren, on that. I heard a majority of the court was skeptical that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes at least all of the tariffs that Trump has imposed under IEEPA. While we could see a decision that holds that some IEEPA tariffs are authorized and then kicks the case to lower courts to sort out the exact parameters, I think we are more likely than not to find that at least the “universal and reciprocal” tariffs (the 20% on Vietnam, 15% on the European Union, 19% on Thailand, etc.) are not authorized under IEEPA.

I could be wrong, but I heard a fair amount of skepticism from the Chief Justice, Justice Barrett, and even Justice Gorsuch on the extent of the IEEPA’s authorization.

To your broader point, even if the court does strike down a decent chunk of the IEEPA tariffs, the administration has fallback options, as Ambassador Greer and other administration officials have said. I think we will see the administration work through other authorities to put some of the tariffs back together.

I agree with you that the decision may be narrow in some sense, as it will be about what this 1977 emergency power statute says. However, I also think we will get some broader discourse in the opinion about how the Supreme Court thinks about its major questions doctrine and about executive power versus congressional power generally. I think this is a decision that students and lawyers will be reading for some time to come because it will have broader ramifications beyond just a particular case on tariffs.

Jordan Schneider: The weird wrinkle of all this is that if the administration didn’t have “Liberation Day,” but just spent a few more months writing some Section 232 findings, or even had ChatGPT write the Section 232 findings, the standing for the Supreme Court to jump in and say, “You can’t do this,” would have been much smaller than the route the Trump administration ended up choosing. Am I wrong on that?

Peter Harrell: All of us who think about trade law are now unpacking these other statutes and thinking about what he could do under them and what their limits are. For your audience, Jordan, who may not be deep in the weeds here, the tariffs at issue in this case are the IEEPA tariffs — the universal and reciprocal tariffs, the so-called fentanyl tariffs on Mexico, China, and Canada, the tariffs on India over its oil import purchases, and the tariffs on Brazil over issues with former President Bolsonaro. It is not the product tariffs, so we are not talking about the steel and aluminum tariffs or the car tariffs here.

When I look at estimates from the Yale Budget Lab and others, roughly 70% of the tariffs Trump has imposed this term are at issue.

I think Trump has used this statute for two reasons. First, as you suggested, Jordan, the alternatives all require process. Trump has done a bunch of Section 232 investigations on cars, steel, and aluminum. But, as we are seeing with the fact that he has had a Section 232 on semiconductors for six or eight months that he has not yet completed, these things take time. Trump is not known as somebody who has a lot of patience when it comes to trade policy, and he does not want his administration to wait months and months before putting tariffs in place. IEEPA has let him avoid the time and fact-finding element that other statutes require.

The other thing is that if you really unpack these other statutes, I think he will find some substantive constraints on them. Now, a lot of these statutes haven’t been litigated much, so we will see what substantive constraints emerge. For example, Section 301, which he used to impose tariffs on China during his first term (something I very strongly agreed he was correct to do), arguably has some substantive limits. The quantity of tariffs must be tied to an unfair trade practice by the foreign country. With China, it is very easy to justify even much higher tariffs based on unfair trade practices. But if you wanted to maintain, say, a 10% tariff on Australia, a country we have a trade surplus with, it is difficult to identify an unfair Australian trade practice that merits a 10% tariff. You might be able to find something, maybe related to how they regulate our big tech companies, but I do think he would find some substantive constraint on some economies.

As I think about it, if he loses and decides not to go back to Congress, I think he can recreate more than 50% of the tariffs. But I do not think it is 100%, even after he jumps through all the hoops that these other statutes require.

Trump announcing his tariffs on “Liberation Day” (April 2, 2025). Source.

Oren Cass: I agree with Peter. I think the universal global tariff is the piece that is the hardest to justify under either IEEPA or through a Section 301 or Section 232, and it is probably the piece where you are most likely to need legislation if you actually want it to be a permanent part of policy.

The irony is that the stuff people are most frustrated with Trump over — the stuff that seems most unsubstantiated, like, “We don’t like the ad that Canada ran, so here’s another 10% on Canada” — is in a lot of respects the stuff that is most defensible under IEEPA or under an executive authority where the premise is, “Look, we’re negotiating here. We are using tariffs quite explicitly as a tool of foreign policy to try to strengthen our hand in negotiations.” You could not possibly do that through legislation. You couldn’t go back to Congress in the middle of a negotiation and say, “Hey, now we want you to do X instead of Y because that’s what we threatened at the table yesterday.”

This is where I agree very much with Peter that at the end of the day, within everything that has happened under IEEPA, there are actually just a lot of different rationales and different legal implications. That’s where maybe we disagree a little bit — I think it is very likely that the court’s take is going to be to try to draw out those strands and then send it back for somebody else to figure out. I think it is very unlikely that the Supreme Court would simultaneously try to distinguish all of these different things de novo. That would also at some point become new findings of fact that you would need to then implement. That is where I think you will see the Trump administration ultimately get some breathing room. But then, in terms of what U.S. Trade policy is going to be for the next decade, we probably and hopefully need to start laying down something more permanent than an emergency power before we look forward.

Jordan Schneider: Peter, I’m curious to what extent the specter of the fentanyl tariffs being taken off potentially impacted the negotiations between Xi and Trump at APEC.

Peter Harrell: I actually don’t think that the specter of Trump losing tariffs in court has that much of a meaningful impact on the China negotiations. I’m not even sure it has that much of a meaningful impact on any of the negotiations, but China in particular. Because there is an existing Section 301 on China and because there are other Section 301 investigations underway (an existing one from Trump’s first term and one on Chinese shipbuilding), China is the country he could most quickly and easily pivot to these other dials to re-impose the tariffs. I think it has almost no relevance to the China negotiations.

It has only limited relevance to some of the other negotiations. When I talk to European and Japanese officials, they are all watching this court case with great interest, but they also understand that Trump could recreate at least a portion of these tariffs under other authorities. They have a pragmatic view — “If Trump loses this, he can recreate some of it under other authorities, so why would we anger him by provocatively walking away from the trade deals we’ve just signed?” I do think that if he loses in court, you might see the European Union move more slowly to implement some of its commitments under the trade deal while Trump figures out his next steps, but I don’t think you would see a lot of walking away.

One final point — I do think we would have seen a pretty different case yesterday if a much narrower set of tariffs had been on the table. If the tariffs had just been on India for its purchases of Russian oil — something we’ve long used IEEPA sanctions to deal with — I think you would have seen a very different tone yesterday. But the Justices are looking at a whole panoply of tariffs, and that framed the skepticism we heard yesterday in many ways that we wouldn’t have heard if Trump had, in fact, used this more judiciously.

The question I wanted to ask Oren, sort of looking forward, is about Congress. The small-c constitutionalist in me thinks if we are going to have a reform in U.S. trade policy as big as the one we are currently undertaking, that is fundamentally a congressional prerogative. For this sort of thing, you should go to Congress and get legislative change. I’m also a realist, having dealt with Congress for many years, and I know all the challenges of getting Congress to do anything. I am interested in hearing your thoughts: Do you think there would be a path now in Congress, or over the next year and a half, to getting Congress on board with major changes in U.S. trade policy, or do you think, practically speaking, we are just not there?

Oren Cass: I think there is definitely a path forward. I divide the tariff policy question into three camps — the global tariff question, the reciprocal tariffs and negotiations with allies, and then China.

All of the reciprocal stuff going on, trying to strike new deals — do you ultimately get a USMCA that needs to go to Congress? Maybe. I don’t know what it would look like to legislate that piece of it. That’s why I’m most sympathetic to figuring out how the president has the authority to conduct what feels more like foreign relations to me.

When it comes to the global tariff, when it comes to China, I think there’s a path to move in Congress, and I think it is what we need. If you’re going to have a stable new expectation domestically and globally of what U.S. trade policy is, there is some — not a lot — bipartisan support for some sort of global tariff. If you didn’t have the incredible polarization of Trump on top of things, you could certainly see a world where Democrats would be at least as enthusiastic as Republicans about doing something here.

When it comes to China, I think there is definitely support. The main move would be to repeal Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). That is where you have very substantive and promising legislation with many co-sponsors. If you made a political push on that, it is hard to envision who exactly these days would be fighting to maintain PNTR with China.

I think those are the two places the administration should focus, and there is some potential that they could or would. Ultimately, it comes down to — can anything move through Congress? You have to be sympathetic to some extent to an administration saying, “Well, if we can’t even fund the government, it is hard to envision getting a big bipartisan win for the president on elements of the trade stuff.”

Fortress North America

Jordan Schneider: Oren, we talked earlier about how Australia should be the most excited about this ruling, not really China. You have this vision of a grand strategy of reciprocity. I’m curious — to what extent could a Supreme Court ruling back the president into the type of global trade relations that you’d actually be more excited about?

Oren Cass: I don’t know that a Supreme Court ruling could have that direct effect. I think in a world where you get the kind of ruling I think is most likely — one that signals to the administration, “You have a little more time here, but you do need a different plan” — that is probably the best prospect to then see a focus on moving in Congress, which I think would be useful.

But in terms of what the overall strategy is, that is where we’re still waiting and really need the clarity from the administration, mostly from Trump himself, on where this is all going. Is the goal to get a big deal with China, or is there a recognition that there isn’t really a deal to be had?

We are right at the point now where what a renegotiated USMCA is going to look like is very much in focus. I see that as the linchpin of whatever we are building. USMCA, as it is structured and agreed to, will be the template. The administration needs to articulate very clearly what we actually want from USMCA if we are going to not just demolish the old system (which I think needed demolishing) but actually be building something better.

Peter Harrell: I very much agree with you, Oren, that USMCA is the linchpin. We are right now getting comments due to USTR on what stakeholders want out of USMCA, and I think this is going to be the central issue. If the Trump administration is going to succeed over the next three years in building a new order, as opposed to just putting the final nails in the coffin of the old order, this is absolutely the linchpin.

There are a couple of reasons for that, not least that these are the trading relationships where we have by far the most leverage. We import 80% of Mexico’s exports. These are wildly asymmetric trading relationships in terms of our leverage. Putting aside all the strategic interests we have in North America, this is the opportunity we have from a tactical negotiating perspective to really negotiate something very new and very interesting. I certainly hope the Trump administration takes advantage of it.

I was actually quite interested two weeks ago when we got the first actual deal text of what some of USTR might be thinking from the Cambodia and Malaysia trade deals. There are actually a lot of interesting provisions in there to unpack. I give the administration quite a bit of credit for some of the details they put in those deals. But we can make those much more real and deeper in the USMCA context. That is where we can really start the process of building a new order.

Jordan Schneider: You want to highlight some of them, Peter?

Peter Harrell: Yes, we can start with the China-focused provisions of the Cambodia and Malaysia deals. A lot of this will, of course, need to be implemented, but let’s start with the promising parts.

You saw both Cambodia and Malaysia agree that if the U.S. raises a tariff or non-tariff barrier — for example, a restriction on Chinese telecommunications equipment — we can notify them, and they have committed to taking comparable action under their domestic law. If that is followed through, that is a huge win for the United States.

It was also interesting in Malaysia. One of the things the Trump administration and others worry about is what Chinese companies are doing in third countries — are they setting up factories in Malaysia and then dumping products into the U.S. market? Malaysia and Cambodia committed that if we raise concerns with them about the actions of Chinese companies in their markets that impact our market, those countries would take action. Both countries also committed to setting up an investment screening law. These are commitments we have to see implemented, but there were some very promising signs coming out of those deals.

Oren Cass: I want to jump in on the USMCA point quickly. I agree exactly with what Peter was saying about these other deals — both that they are very interesting, and that how robustly you can implement those sorts of commitments with Cambodia remains to be seen.

Those kinds of commitments in a USMCA, however, become a total sea change in the way trade policy is conducted globally. In my mind, what is so important about USMCA is, firstly — it’s where we have the most leverage. We should treat Mexico and Canada well, respectfully, and as equal partners, but they do not really have other options, creating a unique opportunity for the U.S. to define what it wants.

Then, because of the history going all the way back to NAFTA, there is a capacity to robustly implement and enforce commitments in a way that will become a proof of concept for this stuff actually happening beyond just being on paper.

Finally, if we successfully structure USMCA in a way we want, it then becomes a fallback for us relative to all other negotiations — what some folks in Washington are now calling Fortress North America.

If the U.S. were truly going it alone, you could have real concerns. But if the U.S. is going forward with USMCA, with the size of that full market, the security commitments, and the diversification that Mexico and Canada bring, the U.S. can credibly say, even to Japan or the EU, “Here are the USMCA-like terms. We would love to have you in our trading bloc. If you’re not up for that — if you are insisting on remaining open to China, if you’re not willing to commit to bringing greater balance to trade — then good luck to you, because we actually have something better than continuing to work with you in the way you have been working.” If we can get this right, the U.S. then has the foundation to build from an improvement on what the prior system has been and a credible fallback for any other negotiations taking place.

Jordan Schneider: Peter, how credible is “Fortress North America” — the trade side of the Monroe Doctrine?

Peter Harrell: I think this could be pretty credible, and I do think it creates, as Oren says, this potential gravitational pull that then gives us more leverage in our trade negotiations elsewhere. I think this is pretty credible. It will require complicated, tough negotiations, and it will require a disciplined and sustained focus on this issue over six or nine months, which has not always been the President’s strong suit. I know that his trade team — Ambassador Greer and Secretary Lutnick — see this. I am optimistic that we are going to see a very interesting deal come out of this. We are going to see a bit of an attractive fortress that other folks will start wanting to join, starting in the back end of next year.

Oren, I really enjoyed your recent piece in Foreign Affairs where you argue for a grand strategy of reciprocity. The way I read your piece, you are arguing there should be three core elements to a trading bloc — commitments to take care of our own security, commitments to balanced trade, and commitments to getting China out of our operating system. I wonder if you could unpack how you are thinking about this and how feasible you think it is as a strategy.

Oren Cass: I think it is certainly feasible, given the steps we are already taking in this direction. We are seeing in these negotiations with countries that should be U.S. Allies on all three fronts an acknowledgment that this makes sense.

It is a starting point for other countries to acknowledge that the U.S. has a legitimate concern about balanced trade. Frankly, these other countries do as well. The funny thing about Germany or Japan, which have been the flip side of a lot of these imbalances once you set China aside, is that their economies are suffering from it as well. It has been a problem for Germany and Japan to be suppressing domestic consumption and relying so much on exporting. There is a potentially mutual benefit in moving to a more balanced model.

Likewise, when you think about China, everybody enjoys the short-term sugar high of the cheap stuff from China, but everybody also recognizes the long-term danger. One of the really interesting effects of the way the U.S. has started to confront China is that it heightens that pressure on everybody else. People ask why the U.S. didn’t just get together with allies and agree to confront China together. The answer is because no one else would have been willing to do that. The Biden administration tried that for four years, and asking nicely just doesn’t get you anywhere.

Peter Harrell: Yes, we certainly talked about it.

Oren Cass: It is not a novel concept that Western democracies should confront China, and obviously, that would have been great. The reality is that for many of the same reasons the U.S. political system refused to address it for so long, other market democracies have had a real problem doing anything about it, and cajoling just did not get us where we needed to go.

Credit to Trump: when you actually say, “Fine, watch this,” not only do you prove you can do it, and obviously, this is not free — there are costs — but it has not destroyed the U.S. economy to have very high tariffs on China and to be starting to drive a real decoupling. All those surpluses then start to backwash instead into the EU, and the EU now faces a much sharper choice than they were before. At least they are really put to the choice now in a way that they were trying to avoid.

You see these model agreements, even with Cambodia or Malaysia. You have certainly seen Mexico take the need to confront China more directly very seriously. Canada is busy on its quasi-liberal fainting couch about all of this, but at some point, they will get serious as well. That side of it is painful and costly, but it is in the mutual interest of all of these countries.

The third piece, security, is the same story. Cajoling and saying, “Hey, guys, wouldn’t it be great if you actually took your own security seriously?” is not a novel concept. We tried that for a very long time, and it simply did not work. What you are now seeing within the Trump framework is much more serious commitments in Europe and Japan to actually taking responsibility for security in their regions. It is a realization that that is good for them. It is expensive, but it would be much better if Japan, Korea, and Australia could credibly deter China over Taiwan. Plus, if Taiwan actually spent on its own defense, instead of everyone looking over their shoulder, wondering if they’ve done enough homework. The same applies to the EU — if they want to deter Russia and be secure in Europe, the way to do that would be to deter Russia and be secure in Europe. By putting them to these choices, it is understandable why they are sulking and frustrated, but if you step back and look at it from a neutral perspective, it all actually makes a lot of sense.

Jordan Schneider: I did a show last night with Jake Sullivan, and “How hard could you have pushed the Allies?” was, not surprisingly, a theme. The one hypothetical he did deeply entertain was the one where you just do the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR) on the semiconductor export equipment and say, “Sorry, Korea, sorry, Japan, sorry, Netherlands, we’re the hegemon. Deal with it.” I’m curious about your reflections on this. My hypothesis was that Biden went into office with the central thesis being, “We need to repair our alliances.” If that is your core principle, then doing the thing that Oren highlighted — the United States saying, “Do this and stop that,” but rarely saying “or else” — your “or else” credibility just isn’t really there.

Peter Harrell: President Biden was very alliance-focused. Going back to his days in the Senate and as Vice President, he truly believes, going back to his memories of the Cold War, in cooperative games rather than confrontational games. A clear directive from the President was that we should focus on working things out and use inducement-oriented cooperation on China, as opposed to a threat-heavy approach with our allies.

I do think one of the lessons of the Trump era that we should be taking seriously as a country is that sometimes you need to be prepared to deliver a firmer “or else” message. That is a really important takeaway.

I actually think there is another, deeper critique of the Biden administration’s trade policy — although it had a clearly thought-through geopolitical logic (“Let’s get our allies and partners on board”), I actually think the Biden administration did not have a clearly thought-through economic logic of what it wanted out of trade policy. It was too internally torn — are we now in an era where, from our own economic self-interest, we actually want higher tariffs because we are trying to onshore manufacturing to the United States? Or are we still in some version of a neoliberal world order, at least among allies and partners, where there are very low barriers?

What you saw was an effort at a trade policy purely through the lens of geopolitics and not through the lens of economics. I posit that that was never going to work. Trade policy has to be about your economic vision — what do you want economically as a country out of this, not just geopolitically. That was the more foundational challenge, though I agree that when it comes to China, there is a clear lesson — we should have been prepared to be a little bit more stick-heavy.

Chip Bargaining + Trump’s China Philosophy

Oren Cass: Peter, I totally agree with your characterization of the Biden administration on the economic side. It seems to me less that they were unclear than that it was a house divided against itself. Ambassador Tai had a very clear economic perspective, but Secretary Yellen probably had a very clear opposite economic perspective, and I’m not sure that was ever resolved.

The China question is really interesting, though, because I look at Jake Sullivan’s “small yard, high fence” formulation, the first half of which is “small yard.” It seems to me that even toward China, the view was that the relationship was going to be viewed solely through a geopolitical lens, and there was this very small set of national security concerns to be narrowed as far as possible to ensure that a hypothetical broader, constructive relationship could still flourish. I’m curious if you think that’s fair to say that’s where the administration was or how you think “small yard, high fence” translates as a China policy.

Peter Harrell: I have two responses to that. First, Oren, I agree. When I say that the Biden administration did not have a coherent economic theory of the case on what it wanted out of trade policy, I very much agree that that was probably the result of many diverse views in the administration that were never reconciled. It was a problem of getting to coherence among divergent views.

On the question about China, it is interesting because I think, on one hand, many of the senior officials in the Biden administration, including the President himself, bought into this conceptual frame of a small yard of restrictions with a high fence, where most trade and most relations would be allowed to continue. I do think the administration was both internally divided and never got to a coherent perspective on how wide that yard is.

I remember once I was in Europe, and a friend showed me a meme going around about Jake Sullivan’s speech. It was a photo of a European chateau surrounded by acres and acres of lawn, with meme language saying, “This is Jake Sullivan’s yard.” There were certainly views about how wide the yard was.

Jake, to his credit, actually did have a view that it should be narrow. I think other people thought it should be wider. This is one of the fundamental questions we as a country need to coherently resolve — do we think we should have a 20% decoupling with China? Should we have a 50% decoupling? Or do we have an 80% or 90% decoupling? We need to start with what we think the end state should be and then build from that.

I personally am in favor of a fairly broad decoupling. I don’t worry too much about furniture, shoes, and garments from a national security perspective, but I do think we should have a pretty broad decoupling from China because I think it is in our strategic interest to do so. I also think, over time, it might actually provide some strategic stability to the U.S.-China relationship to be more decoupled, because we wouldn’t have these ongoing blow-ups and concerns about rare earths and things like that. We could have a less economically dependent relationship where we could then talk about strategic issues and maintaining geopolitical stability. That is not the view in my party (Democratic) or certainly not in the Biden administration. I think there was not a view that we should be 60% decoupled — I think it was sincerely something much narrower.

Oren Cass: I appreciate you making that point about this actually being a potentially more stable relationship because I think that’s super important. The thing that drives me most nuts in these conversations is this finite, descriptive term — I won’t use “midwit,” but it’s appropriate — for the idea that, “Well, countries that trade with each other don’t go to war, and if we disrupt our trade relationship, doesn’t that ensure World War III?”

I honestly don’t know where this idea came from. We had two world wars break out among countries that were literally bordering each other and closely economically intertwined. Then we had a 50-year Cold War where we agreed to have two systems that were mostly separate, and that was a far more stable arrangement that allowed for much less hot conflict. I don’t understand why we think that trying to manage the integration of these two completely different economic and political systems, two countries that are adversaries, is somehow a more stable world than one where we actually do decouple and concede each other spheres of influence. That strikes me as a much more stable arrangement.

All that being said, you see in the Trump administration almost an inversion of what you were describing for the Biden administration, Peter. In this case, you have much more consensus on the economic picture, but much less clarity on the geopolitical side. A lot of that comes from President Trump himself, who has been too consistent on China. You go back 30 or 40 years ago, his attitude was, “We’re getting screwed, we need a better deal.” When he ran for president in 2015, “China’s screwing us, we need a better deal,” was the almost out-of-the-Overton-window hawkish position. Everyone got locked in their heads that Trump is the China hawk. They spent his first term trying to get a deal, and he got the Phase One deal, which did not resolve a lot of the fundamental issues.

Since 2015, broader economic and political views in Washington have shifted so far that “We just need to get a better deal with China” is now the sort of dovish position, almost outside the window to the other side. As far as I can tell, that’s still exactly where he is. Trump still thinks we are getting screwed by China and need to get a better deal. You see him very focused on this idea of how to get a deal with China, which makes him the ultimate China dove within the Trump administration.

There is a very clear focus economically on this idea of reindustrialization, reshoring, and balanced trade that is consistently held and articulated by Trump, by Vance, by Bessent, by Lutnick, by Greer. That is terrific. On the question of what the actual goal or end-state status quo with China should be, I don’t think we are hearing as much clarity as we need to see.

Peter Harrell: That’s a really interesting point. It does look to me like former President Biden and a bunch of his senior staff saw China as a geopolitical threat — lots of focus on Taiwan, lots of focus on the military strategic issues. Economics were important but were probably less important overall than the strategic issues.

I look at Trump, and to your point, it is very interesting — it is not at all clear to me he sees China as a strategic threat or a military enemy. He clearly sees them as a trading threat and as a country that has been ripping us off for years. But he also thinks everyone else has been ripping us off for years. It looks like he may think, “If I can resolve the trade issues with China, I’m not as worried about these strategic issues.”

Oren Cass: The two best proof points of this are,

1. He is still very interested in Foreign Direct Investment from China. You have seen him out on the campaign stump saying, “Maybe we should get BYD to come build factories in the United States.” If this is just about the economics and there is no geopolitical or strategic concern, then yes, we like that Toyota is here, so we should get BYD here.

2. The other place you see this is on the advanced AI chips. There are people trying to do this “galaxy brain” argument where, “If we can get China hooked on the Nvidia chips, this will ensure that China adopts an American AI stack.” This sounds like things people were saying about moving production to China in 1999. The actual motivation seems to be, “The goal was to sell more stuff to China. One of the things we are really good at making is advanced AI chips, so we should sell them to China.”

That is wrong, but I have more respect for it because if you only care about the economic side and you do not think about the geopolitical side at all, then it kind of makes sense. On both these issues, you see very clear, ongoing, robust debate within the Trump administration. This debate is not from a bunch of people who are unsure, but from different people with very concrete perspectives. In a sense, Trump himself is the outlier on some of this at this point.

Jordan Schneider: The weird thing is that in the Biden administration, when there were disagreements, you just kind of didn’t really have any action or decisions. In Trump world, when there are disagreements, we just change our minds three times.

Oren Cass: You get them all at the same time. Exactly.

Peter Harrell: Yes, indeed. I’m curious about the chips issue, Oren, because you have obviously been writing quite a bit about this lately. From where I sit, having seen that Trump got through his meeting with Xi without seeming to put the high-end Nvidia chips on the table, I viewed that as a very important development for U.S. national security. Credit to the team around Trump and to Trump for seeing that we should not be putting our highest-end capabilities in the hands of the Chinese, given the intense competition and where we are in the state of the race. I am curious if you think this is going to stick. There is a piece of me that’s a little worried: It was great in Asia that you didn’t do that, but are we going to see Jensen in the Oval Office in another three weeks and some revisiting? How do you think we can make sure this sticks going forward?

Oren Cass: You described the dynamic exactly right, Peter, which is that there’s a live-to-fight-another-day element here. I don’t think this reflects a resolved, finalized, “not selling chips to China” policy. But look, at the battle-by-battle level, there was a meeting where that could have gone either way, and it went the right way, and that’s great. That’s certainly better than the alternative.

More broadly, this is ultimately best understood as one dimension of the larger China discussion. That’s part of the reason I’ve become so interested in it — we’ve been doing a lot of work on it at American Compass — it is very much the tip of the spear litmus test for how you think about China because it is so clear and discreet.

To your point, yes, there’s this much broader discussion — what exactly does decoupling mean? What share of trade are we talking about? How much is it trade versus investment? What does it mean for allies? All of that is super important, but it doesn’t lend itself as nicely to a clear pro/con debate in a lot of cases. It’s really important to have clear, distinct questions that you can anchor on, which make people put their underlying assumptions on the table and say, “Look, if you believe X, you come out this way on the question. If you believe Y, you come out this other way.” That’s where something like, “Does it make sense to sell advanced chips to China?” or “Does it make sense to have BYD investing in the U.S.?” are such useful places to focus the policy discussion.

On the chip debate, I think it’s very much moving in the right direction. It’s notably a place where you’re seeing Congress be somewhat active even in the face of the Trump administration. The GAIN AI Act, which is frankly a very narrow policy — all it says is you can’t sell advanced chips to China where there is literally an American company saying, “No, please let us buy the chip instead” — even that the Trump administration initially signaled its opposition to. That did not stop Republican senators, Senator Banks, and Senator Cotton, the co-sponsors, from saying, “Sorry, we think this is important.” It’s in the Senate version of the NDAA.

That is one very important political dimension to it. Another is looking at where the tech sector is aligning around this stuff. We all know Jensen at this point, and it is genuinely bizarre to me how far out he and Nvidia have gone in ways that have just ruined for a generation their credibility as at all interested in either good-faith political engagement or the American national interest. If I were a long-term shareholder, I would be very upset that that’s the way that they’ve gone.

Jensen is trying to talk his book on selling into China even as he increasingly goes into arguments that, to try to make his case, he now has to be out there saying he actually doesn’t even think it matters who wins on AI, or he thinks China’s going to win on AI, or he thinks China wants to be a market country where American companies succeed. The arguments just get increasingly ludicrous in a way that makes it harder and harder for the administration to say they’re siding there. You’re seeing the rest of the tech sector get pretty fed up with it too. It was really notable — you had Palantir’s chief technology officer write an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal essentially calling Jensen Huang a useful idiot.

Jordan Schneider: In the Wall Street Journal, and then the next week signing a deal with them.

Oren Cass: Right, so this is then another really good example. Palantir signs a deal with Nvidia, and the way they celebrate it is to say, “We’re so proud to be working with Nvidia because Nvidia’s technology is so key to U.S. leadership in the geopolitical competition with China and re-industrialization.” It’s such an incredible passive-aggressive move.

Obviously, everybody is scared of Nvidia because they want Nvidia chips. You even had Microsoft come out publicly and say they supported the GAIN AI Act. I think everything has been moving in a good direction on this. We are winning in the present tense, the fight. But as Peter noted, and I would acknowledge, you are always one Oval Office meeting and tweet away from heading the other direction. So frankly, this is another argument for Congress to be involved, as we were talking about back in the broader trade context. The question of our export control policy toward China ultimately should be legislated, permanent, and stable. It is an issue where there is bipartisan agreement, where this is Congress’s role, and I think they should make a law.

Jordan Schneider: Two things. First, listeners of the show will have heard many guests who are in favor of strong export controls to China. What is remarkable to me is how hard it has been to find someone to talk the other side of this who isn’t directly financially compensated by firms that would make money if export controls were lifted. It’s not for lack of trying for me to get another side of the debate, but if you’re out there and you’re sharp on this stuff and you want to make the case, send me an email.

Peter Harrell: Jensen should come on the podcast.

Oren Cass: Jensen is eager to say foolish things on every podcast. I’m surprised he hasn’t called.

Jordan Schneider: I’ve sent the email.

On the second point, say you actually have legislation — does that change the sort of escalation/dominance dynamics around this stuff? If China is trying to undo something, then they can threaten X, and then Trump will have to tell his Commerce Secretary, “Don’t do Y.” But if it comes out of a bill, then it’s less easy to negotiate about. Then, trying to threaten the Senate Commerce Committee gets them even more angry and they say, “Go screw yourself.” I’m curious how you think this escalation stuff would play out if it was really Congress that took the front role here.

Oren Cass: Peter, I’m curious what you think about those dynamics generally these days.

Peter Harrell: Let me offer a couple of thoughts, first on the export controls front because we’re talking GAIN AI, and then maybe coming back to the trade front.

The way I see it, for national security reasons, we should not be in the business of offering our most advanced chips to China. I don’t think this is something we should be negotiating over as part of our trade deals. There are plenty of other things we can negotiate with China. The idea that Congress would take this particular issue off the negotiating table, I see that as being in the U.S. interest rather than against us. From a negotiating perspective, it cuts both ways. The administration can’t offer it, but again, I don’t think they should be in the business of offering it. The flip side is they can just tell the Chinese, “I wish we could talk about this issue, but I can’t. We’re going to have to work something else out.” It changes that negotiating dynamic, but it doesn’t necessarily make it an unfavorable negotiating dynamic.

On the trade front, and this was a little bit lost in the debate yesterday back to the Supreme Court case, I actually think from a negotiating escalation/dominance perspective, there is more flexibility in the other trade statutes than they get credit for. I look at Trump’s first-term trade actions on China, and he used Section 301 pretty effectively to counter-escalate when China escalated on the U.S. That use of Section 301 to counter-escalate was upheld through the intermediate appellate courts when that got litigated. So I actually think that these other tools, once an administration does its homework — certainly for more competitive and adversarial countries like China — to build the regulatory basis for these tariffs, I think they would still find these tools to be reasonably effective.

From a negotiating leverage perspective, it is certainly true that Trump couldn’t use a Section 301 to threaten 10% tariffs because he is angry about a TV ad. But, on the other hand, he shouldn’t be doing that anyway.

Oren Cass: The point about it being good to take things off the table when we don’t want them on the table is exactly right.

The one other thing I would just add about the escalation/dominance discourse is that there’s almost a “tell” in the phrase escalation dominance. It sounds super exciting and cool, and it’s what all the people who in the past would have been planning various wars are now really excited to game out. It’s not clear to me that either side here wants to do any of that. It’s a little bit like mutually assured destruction, where I think both sides accept that they can cause massive pain to the other side. Who can shoot the most nuclear weapons at the other side is at some point not an especially important determinant.

Especially because in this case, I think we’re actually moving toward a situation, you can call it a détente, but a situation where both sides actually do kind of want to decouple. If you believe the U.S. wants to decouple, then you have that side. President Xi’s policy for a long time now has been to essentially develop total self-sufficiency, to not be dependent on anybody, certainly not the United States, for anything. While China certainly enjoys being able to sell lots of stuff to the U.S., one thing we’re seeing is that insofar as China’s commitment is simply to grow manufacturing and export, they have other places they can do that. Longer run, they are much like Germany and Japan — they are going to have to address their domestic imbalances and domestic consumption.

It seems to me that both sides kind of want to be at a 40% or 50% tariff with a slow but steady and not too disruptive decoupling. The rest thus far has proven to be, and I think rationally should be understood as, a lot of theater.

Jordan Schneider: I don’t think that’s the right way to characterize the Chinese view. There are many Xi speeches about how he wants to get the world more dependent on China and have leverage. Decoupling to the tune of 20% where we are now to 50%, or 80% over the next five to 10 years is going to be uneconomical and cost billions of dollars on either side. How much near-term GDP growth are we willing to put on the table in order to have China have less leverage? Is the way you’re characterizing this, Oren, that it’s okay for the U.S. to have these economic nukes pointed at us, because I don’t know how you follow a lot of the reciprocity stuff that you were pushing without facing down the enemy getting a vote here?

Oren Cass: No, I don’t think so at all. Maybe I was a little bit unclear in what I was saying. A huge part of the decoupling is that you, in effect, disarm those nukes over time. Where you’re seeing the U.S. focus first is on, alongside the sort of just general shifting of supply chains, things like semiconductors, things like rare earths that are the immediate concerns. The point in my mind is that I don’t think the U.S. necessarily wants to or expects to preserve some sort of weapon pointed at China in this respect.

I agree with your point that obviously China would love to have leverage over countries, would love to have the U.S. dependent on it for some of these things. At the end of the day, though, that sort of isn’t up to China. China got to do that as long as everybody else was being really stupid. But if the U.S. actually takes seriously the need to rebuild a rare earths capacity, China can’t stop it from doing that. What would that even look like? It would be China saying, “We’re going to fire the gun now essentially and try to stop you from developing a rare earth’s capacity by threatening that if you try, we’re going to cut off rare earths now.” Yes, they could cause a lot of pain doing that. But as we’ve already seen over the last six months, even loading the gun just leads to more rapid commitment to building up the alternative capacity. And in firing the gun, the U.S. has a lot of guns it can fire back.

If you actually game it out, I just don’t see an end state. From either the U.S. or the China policy planning perspective, I don’t see how you could be expecting to plan for a world where you’re maintaining that kind of leverage long term. If you accept you’re not going to have it, then the question is, what’s the path from here to there? Is it worth blowing up a bunch of stuff on both sides in the meantime, or would you rather minimize the cost to your own side? I think both sides are rationally trying to do it in a way that minimizes the cost to their own side.

Peter Harrell: Jordan, my view is much less informed about Xi’s thinking than yours is, and I’m very well aware of that. It does seem to me that while Xi probably does want to keep the world broadly hooked on certain Chinese choke points, he has to be clear-eyed that if the U.S. continues to stay organized the way we have been over the last couple of years, and particularly frankly, on rare earths this year as the Trump administration has gotten very serious about it, he is going to lose that leverage at least vis-à-vis the U.S. Maybe the Europeans won’t get organized. He might be able to keep that leverage over other partners. I hope not, but he might. It just strikes me as a solvable problem from our perspective, and he strikes me as not stupid, so he has to be able to see that coming.

Jordan Schneider: It’s interesting what’s solvable and what’s not solvable. Is the world going to recreate the solar manufacturing ecosystem on the scale that China has, or the EV manufacturing ecosystem on the scale that China has? Perhaps. But rare earth seems like a much more manageable thing. We’ll see.

Supreme Court Improv

Peter Harrell: I listened to two and a half hours of the Supreme Court argument. I think this is the first one I’ve heard in maybe 10 years, and I just have some anthropological observations I’d be curious about both of your thoughts on. First off, it was refreshing to hear political discourse that is sharp and grounded, and they’re talking about facts. Second, I have this new hobby of listening to podcasts where these Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox rabbis give their interpretations about the week’s parsha, and every eighth word is in Yiddish or Hebrew. Also, when I listen to Chinese podcasts, I understand about 85% of it. That was kind of what I felt here, where they’re just jumping around between all these cases, and you can kind of get the gist, but there is this level of arcana that is pretty impenetrable.

It did feel odd that we’re referencing people from 250 years ago, like they really matter today. There are not many other venues in society where we’re going back. It is kind of rabbinical, right, where you care about Rashi or Rambam the same way you care about Jefferson or Madison and how they thought about tariffs in 1802, or what have you.

The last thing — those poor solicitors, man, this is really stressful. They just get interrupted all the time, and they’ve got to think quickly on their feet. There was one moment in there where some judge said, “This point doesn’t make sense anymore.” After four back and forths, the government lawyer said, “Yeah, I guess so. Okay, let’s just move on.” That must be a lot. It’s very much like theater, like improv. You’ve got to know your stuff incredibly well.

Peter Harrell: Hopefully, you want to watch some more, right? Is this your future entertainment here? Instead of podcasts, you can listen to Supreme Court oral arguments.

I have a couple of reactions to that, Jordan. First of all, I agree with you. It is refreshing to hear a lively debate where you have people who clearly have an open mind and are grappling with multiple sides of an issue. I actually think this is what we want our court system to be doing. It did not strike me as particularly partisan. That’s not to say you couldn’t see Justices’ views coming into the courtroom — of course, you could. But you saw Justices grappling in a serious way with the complicated issues in front of them.

I agree it’s got to be hard for the lawyers arguing these cases. They were all, I’m sure, mooted many, many times. I’m sure they did lots of rehearsals for this. This is not something you wing it going into, but you certainly do have to think on your feet.

History — that is kind of the way our law works. You’re trying to build off of precedent. You’re trying to think about what the precedents are. You’re trying to relate the precedents to the facts in front of you. On the thing that came up that is most historical in that case—and here I’ll go a little weedy—the challenge the government has in this case is that, as you heard the Solicitor General concede, there is no other part of American law where the phrase “regulate... importation” includes the power to tariff. There’s no other phrase in American law where “regulate” by itself includes the power to tariff. The government’s argument, and it’s certainly true, is that back in the 1790s to 1820s, everyone understood “importation” as including a power to tariff. They kind of have to rely on this early historical understanding of that phrase because of the absence of more contemporaneous precedents in support of their position.

Jordan Schneider: One more question for both of you guys. Do the arguments actually matter? There are hundreds of pages written on all of this. Is the quick quip you have in response, which was only going to be about 150 words anyway, actually going to persuade a judge one way or another?

Oren Cass: I agree that that oral argument seems majestic and open-minded and the kind of deliberation we want. If this case were being heard two years ago about a Biden administration use of IEEPA to try to force a global climate agreement, do you think those nine judges would have simply been asking exactly the reverse set of questions in preparation for voting exactly the opposite way, or do you think this is how the conversation would have gone?

Peter Harrell: You would have seen a different lens. I think you would have seen a shift in the window of the debate there for sure. I actually don’t think you would have seen a radical 180, though. I think you probably would have seen the Chief Justice, Justice Roberts, and Amy Coney Barrett being a little bit more skeptical, but they had some skepticism yesterday. I think you would have seen Kagan and Justice Jackson more sympathetic to the government. But I think you would have seen them worrying about some of the presidential concerns that we saw Justice Gorsuch asking about yesterday.

And how this might play out over time. I do think it would have been a shift, but I don’t think it would have been a 180.

To your question, Jordan, about whether the oral argument does matter — I think probably in many cases it doesn’t matter. As you say, there are literally thousands of pages with all the amicus briefings and everything else in front of the court. But I do think there may be a couple of moments that I could see mattering yesterday.

For example, the strongest intuitive argument that the government has going for it — not really legal, we can talk about the legal — the strongest intuitive argument that the government has going for it is that if IEEPA would let President Trump embargo the world (and IEEPA does form the basis of embargoes on Russia and embargoes on Iran), if IEEPA would let us embargo the world, why does it not allow a tariff as a lesser measure? If it would allow an embargo, why doesn’t it allow a tariff? You could see a couple of the Justices really trying to grapple with that sort of intuitively very appealing argument.

What you heard the Oregon lawyer say, which got a laugh in the courtroom, was, “Well, it’s not that the tariff is a donut hole — it’s that it’s a different kind of pastry.” I think that is the kind of thing that will matter. If the Justices are not going to read a tariff authority into IEEPA, they will have to be persuaded that the tariff is just different from these other kinds of powers that are in IEEPA. I don’t know where that will come down, but that debate strikes me as something that you could actually see the Justices grappling with. A couple of them seemed open on the question, so maybe it will matter.

Jordan Schneider: Yeah, PolyMarket had it from 40% down to 20%.

Oren Cass: Wait, in which direction? What’s the contract for?

Jordan Schneider: There were two. I cannot believe PolyMarket hasn’t started sponsoring ChinaTalk yet. It’s actually a little offensive. The market was “Will the Supreme Court rule in favor of Trump’s tariffs?” It was at 40% when the debate started and is now sitting at 25%. Then there’s another market — “Will the court force Trump to refund the tariffs?” which started at about 8% and is now up to 16%.

昨天是美国的选举日。晚上，各地投票结果出炉，最引人注目的是，民主党赢了新泽西州长、弗吉尼亚州长、纽约市长。有人预言民主党翻身了，有人看到纽约选出社会主义市长，预言说对共和党有好处。有朋友问，这些预言靠不靠谱。答案很简单：从一次地方选举预言全国政治如何如何，从来就没靠谱过。

这期节目，我想结合这次选举，说说中文世界的一种比较突出的政治现象。

我在美国经历了克林顿、小布什、奥巴马、川普第一任、拜登、川普第二任，每个总统执政都做对了一些事，都做错了一些事。但中文世界有很多政治二极管，他们不是把政客当政客看，而是跟政客建立感情纽带，把他们支持的政客当成爹妈般的亲人，把他们反对的政客当成有杀父之仇，不共戴天。

在启蒙时代，这叫政治不开化。海外中文媒体上一些反共人士，刚脱离墙内的封闭环境，不是先虚心学习，让自己开化起来，而是拿自己造反的不开化反共产党的不开化，反来反去，还是不开化。

民主选举不是选伟大领袖，而是选不是有这种毛病，就是有那种毛病的人。有位读者说：“每次选举都得在2个烂苹果中选，这样的制度还玩不玩的下去啊…”

这是一种很恰当的比喻。民主就是在烂苹果中做选择。只有中国那种没有选择的制度才会出金光闪闪的伟大领袖。从历史来看，民主的烂苹果=国民可以按自己的方式过日子。金光闪闪的极权伟人=一场接一场人祸——从大跃进、文革、独生子女政策，到集中力量发展某个产业，然后咣叽一声，连人口都断崖下坠。民主的烂苹果政客，让国民不用经历那种断崖下坠。

所以，恰恰是在烂苹果政客中做选择，民主才玩得下去。一旦选出金光闪闪的伟人来，民主才危险。一旦多数国民开始膜拜金光闪闪的伟人，民主就玩不下去了。

我在美国经历的五位总统，都是这种烂苹果，只是烂的程度不一样。他们都做对了一些事，也都做错了一些事。因为通胀、物价、南部边境失控、非法移民问题，去年大选，民主党大输。川普上台以后，南部边境和非法移民问题得到控制，现在美国人最大的不满是物价，生活成本太高。

这次投票，民主党在新泽西、弗吉尼亚、纽约都打民生牌，尤其是控制生活成本，共和党在得州也打民生牌，结果表明，都打对了。民主党的候选人抓住了选民最关心的问题，就是物价上涨太快，生活成本居高不下，日子越来越不好过。

得州这次投票公决州宪法修正案，大部分条款以绝对多数通过。这些条款几乎都跟民生相关，尤其降低房产税、限制涨税，获得两党选民和多数中间选民的支持。

上周末公布的几家…

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我正坐在我的窗前写作，大大的窗子外面，是荷兰已经秋叶满枝头的树木。秋日的阳光非常好，可是在这明亮到些许刺眼的阳光里，白色的雨线竟然也倾斜着缤纷落下：说明窗外不仅有雨，还有风。

（荷兰的秋天）

这个时候在室内就是一种看窗外就是一种别样的幸福了，更别说窗边的迷你音响还播放着让人心绪流淌的爵士乐。在这个时刻我突然就想起来一首诗：

假如生活欺骗了你

不要悲伤

不要心急……

所有在中国受过9年义务教育的人，几乎都能听到第一句开始无意识地背第二句。这首诗在我们基因里熟悉的程度，堪比海子那首“面朝大海，春暖花开”。

诗是所有文体里最抽象的，最频繁使用比喻和象征这两个修辞手法的。所以对这首诗，我一开始没有疑问，我能够明白它想借由这些比喻所传达的含义，对人的鼓励。

但是最近几年，我在每次想到“假如生活欺骗了你”时，我都忍不住脑子里冒起问号：啊生活吗？它咋欺骗人啊？生活为什么要骗人啊？How and why 啊？？？

命运会弄人，社会环境和主流意识会绑架人，家庭，学校，公司，各种机构恶集团，一切认识的不认识的人都有可能欺骗人。

可是生活本身怎么骗人呢？

它难道不是被骗的那个吗？

人被如上种种欺骗了，会过上一种被欺骗的生活：回首往事时，感受当下时，都悲哀地发现，自己从未过上自己真正想过的生活，甚至不知道自己想要什么，但是确切地知道，自己的生活被磋磨了，被掠夺了，被四面八方蚕食了。

人如何过上被欺骗的生活呢？

和其它人一样就行。

听话就行。

被动就行。

甚至可怕的是：努力就行。

很多时候，越努力，越投入，被欺骗地越深。

今年年初甘肃天水一家幼儿园发生幼童铅中毒的事件，我当时看到这条新闻里有一条评论是说：“恰恰是平常最听话的孩子，把幼儿园给的饭乖乖吃光的孩子，中毒最深。”

这简直是让人悚然的骗局。这个时候人再也不能拿比喻和文学欺骗自己：

假如生活欺骗了你？不，是别的东西。

是没有食品安全的所谓“大环境”，是出了事情就掩盖的各级行政机构。更是那不可言说的东西。

人怎么会是被生活欺骗的呢？每件事都有确切的加害者，从来不是笼统的“生活”。

我前些天看到一个讨论是：为什么很多中年人身上一股“恨”感？

看到很多答案千言万语汇成一句话：因为它们被这个社会欺骗了。

只要按部就班，就一定会被欺骗。

社会时钟就是吹蛇人的笛子，傀儡戏的钟鼓，缅北的来信。

越听时代的鼓点，泥足越深陷。

考试恋爱结婚生子考公考编，孝敬父母，响应二胎（甚至三胎），爱岗敬业，买车买房，入场A股……

人活一生能一直被骗，每步都被骗吗？

问得更残酷一些：人在年幼无知，身无长物的时候被骗了一二三步。之后第四步，依然受骗了，是谁的责任呢？

我觉得答案很复杂。

人活在一个社会环境里，想要丝毫不被骗是很难的：空气和水都会骗你，而你不能不吸空气不喝水。当然你可以买空气净化器，买净水机，可是这两者就难道不是一种新的骗局吗？你本来不需要它们的，所有被额外创造出来的需求都是骗局。

我在北京上大学时，经常冬天早上刷牙恶心干呕，我就去校医院看病，医生说是咽炎，我当场反驳：我这么年轻怎么可能有咽炎（因为我看电视里咽炎广告的主角都是老年人）。医生淡淡说了一句：“在北京生活，谁能没有咽炎？”

我当时恨意陡升，恨意是什么呢？你被骗了被害了，却无能为力，不知道能去找谁讨回正义。人在这种迷茫的时刻，只能有恨。

后来毕业工作，经常冬天窗外就是一副末日景象，走入末日一会儿就头疼不已。后来公司就通知雾霾实在太严重，员工可以居家办公。很多时候打工的痛苦程度是：希望明天能出点事，不用去公司。

可是在隔断间里头疼地吸雾霾，看窗外混沌的末日朋克风，让人更迷茫：不去公司的代价需要这么这么大吗？感觉活在左右掣肘的骗局里。

活在骗局里，就是和所有人活在同一辆往沼泽行驶的大巴车里。好多时候，你甚至得非常努力，才有上车的机会。又要在车上无数小推车的营销，蛊惑甚至强迫消费里保护住自己微薄的钱包，同时还得表现优异，获得在车里往前挪挪靠近窗户靠近车门的机会，还要头脑清醒，鼓足勇气，从车门或者车窗一跃而出。

跳出去了不一定是软着陆，好多时候还容易摔得半死。走在外面刮风下雨了，有些人又会无限怀念有盖的那辆车，怀念里面抽烟放屁挤来挤去的烟火气，再回到那辆大巴车里，往沼泽驶去。

然后在生活的某个时刻，再自怜地念起：

如果生活欺骗了你，

不要悲伤，不要心急！

忧郁的日子里需要镇静：

相信吧——快乐的日子将会来临。

心永远向往着未来；

现在却常是忧郁。

一切都是瞬息，一切都将会过去；

而那过去了的，就会成为亲切的怀念。

我想，这是普希金和普希金（represent 3 brothers）子民的诗，不会是我的诗。

我尽量不欺骗生活

它约等于不欺骗自己

不得已的欺骗我只给过去的日子

未来我尽量不说：是我被骗了

没有被动，你知道的

我或许还会受骗，但不会一而再，再而三

我不假装没看见

我不假装没听见

我甚至不忘记，忘记是最顶级的假装

这是我对生活本身的诺言

我不再等待

不等待戈多，也不等待明天

真正的生活，就是今天

——我写给自己的诗，也写给同样愿意给予自己这样诺言的你。

Much of the coverage we do at ChinaTalk relies on WeChat, the Tencent super-app where most Chinese people send messages, consume content, and share updates with friends and family. WeChat is a huge information ecosystem and an arguably essential resource for following the latest news in China’s AI landscape.

Where should you go on WeChat (and on the broader Chinese internet) to learn about what’s happening in AI? The ChinaTalk Cinematic Universe brings you a comprehensive guide to following AI on WeChat, featuring:

• How to make your WeChat work like Substack;

• Various types of AI media outlets;

• And how to read beyond WeChat.

We’re also looking to run a weekly roundup of the most interesting Chinese developments around AI in the newsletter. If interested, submit a sample here. We pay!

How WeChat Works

Specifically relevant for our purposes is the “Official Accounts” tab. It’s a little like a Substack ecosystem inside WeChat: anyone can open an Official Account on WeChat and publish articles to their subscribers’ feeds — and reading and sharing Official Account articles is a daily occurrence for WeChat users. Government organs, public service authorities, news media (both state-run and independent), and corporations alike use Official Accounts to communicate with citizens.

Subscribing to relevant Official Accounts is the most streamlined way to read Chinese tech news directly from the source. WeChat makes it very easy for non-Chinese speakers to navigate by putting a “Translate Full Text” option at the top of every article, although the quality of translation remains mediocre relative to what ChatGPT can deliver.

Our Favorites

For headlines:

新智元 AI Era

Founded in 2015 by Yang Jing 杨静, then a researcher at the Ministry of Civil Affairs-affiliated Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, AI Era is one of the earliest and most successful media-entrepreneurship ventures to focus on AI in China. AI Era hosted the inaugural World AI Conference (WAIC) back in 2016. Its feed is a blend of repackaged stories from Western tech media, accessible explanations of new ML/AI research, and content for aficionados. While AI Era doesn’t produce a lot of original reporting, it is a solid one-stop shop for keeping up with the Chinese AI Joneses.

Where to start:

• The AI Era team tests GPT-5-Codex;

• A breakdown of the DeepSeek-R1 Nature paper.

量子位 QbitAI

QbitAI is an AI-focused media startup whose Official Account similarly reaches many in China’s AI community. Its coverage is relatively accessible and includes popular trends.

Where to start:

• How vibe-coding is changing Haidian 海淀, the Silicon Valley of Beijing;

• The AI technology stack behind Xiaohongshu/Rednote, China’s trendiest social app.

机器之心 Synced

Founded in 2015, Synced is a leading source of information on emerging tech in China. They cover machine learning research much more closely than more generalist tech publications, and they host their own directory of models.

Where to start:

• Amazon Bedrock now supports Qwen3 and DeepSeek-V3.1;

• Launch of Tongyi DeepResearch Agent.

机器人大讲堂 RoboSpeak (suggested by Zilan Qian)

RoboSpeak is a joint media venture between Zhongguancun Rongzhi Specialized Robotics Alliance (ZSRA), a Beijing-based robotics industry organization, and the startup incubator TusStar, earning financial support from a variety of public and private partners. Its work lies between journalism and think-tank research, and is well-known in the Chinese robotics community.

Where to start:

• An interview with Professor Wang Hesheng 王贺升 of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who will serve as general chair of the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Hangzhou;

• Observations from the 2025 China International Industry Fair.

For business-savvy reportage:

36氪 36Kr

36Kr calls itself a platform for “participants of China’s new economy.” It’s a business media outlet with a heavy dose of tech reporting — the TechCrunch of China, if you will — and consequently produces some of the best original Chinese-language reporting on technology as a business. Their deep understanding of the relationships between technology, Chinese society, and the economy makes reading their work particularly informative for analysts.

Where to start:

• Graphing vertically integrated supply chains to understand the success of Chinese hardware startups;

• How entrepreneur Wang Laichun 王来春, whose company Luxshare will build OpenAI’s first consumer device, went from Foxconn factory girl to “the richest Teochew businesswoman”.

• A highly abridged translation of ’s article she wrote for us on ‘Why America Builds AI Girlfriends and China Makes AI Boyfriends’ article! See below for her commentary on what they took out.

  • Thanks to 36kr’s translation, my relatives in China can finally read my work—and thanks to its selective censorship, they don’t have to worry about me running into political trouble! Here are the things that the translation removed, which I guess partly because it is politically sensitive and partly because the translator thought my article was too long:

    • The Regulatory Comparison: The original introductory analysis comparing U.S. regulatory concerns (FTC inquiry on child use) with Chinese concerns (AI Safety Framework 2.0 on social order and childbirth) was entirely removed. This seemed an editorial choice, as the translators began the translation with their own introduction of my article.

    • The Core Political Analysis: The entire section linking the Chinese government’s motivation for regulating AI boyfriends to the demographic crisis, low birth rates, and the government’s historical use of the “leftover women” label was omitted. I still credit them for mentioning the stigma of “leftover women,” even though they erased who created it.

    • The Geopolitical Risk: The discussion detailing the rise and disappearance of the Chinese app Talkie from the U.S. App Store—and its analysis as a potential “more powerful TikTok” national security threat due to intimate persuasion and data risks—was also removed.

    • Sexual Content Details: The detailed explanation of monetizing sexuality via “freemium” models, including specific mentions of “unblurred explicit images” and ‘NSFW’ features, was heavily condensed. Only the thesis statement “both models seek to capitalize on sexuality to attract and retain users” remained.

    • Finally, the translator replaced “inside the Great Firewall” (防火墙) with “inside the Great Wall” (长城) when the article shifted to describe the AI companion market in China, suggesting an artistry in how some master the subtleties of translation under censorship.

钛媒体 TMTPost

Another tech-focussed media outlet with a solid journalistic track record, the “TMT” in TMTPost stands for technology, media, and telecommunications. Its coverage of entrepreneurs and Big Tech firms in China is particularly strong. We previously translated TMTPost’s 2024 interview with Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing 王兴兴.

Where to start:

• A conversation with Xu Zhijun 徐直军, a rotating chairman at Huawei, about AI compute;

• What’s happening with AI in Hong Kong.

For human-centered stories:

AI故事计划 AIstory

AIstory is a new media brand under Beijing Zhen’gu Media Group (北京真故传媒有限公司), best known for the nonfiction publishing platform TrumanStory 真实故事计划 . The company was founded by Lei Lei 雷磊, a former Southern Weekly and GQ reporter in China, and has excelled at long-form, human-centered reporting despite China’s brutal journalistic landscape. AIstory focuses on humanizing the impact of AI on Chinese society and unearths particularly unique angles beyond labs, policymakers, or investors.

Where to start:

• Manus’ sudden move to Singapore, as told by an intern;

• How fangirls are leading the charge to resist AI-generated media content in China;

• Why DeepSeek created even more busywork for Chinese low-level bureaucrats.

硅星人Pro

By Afra:

A Chinese-language WeChat publication at the intersection of AI, technology, and culture. Its core reporting covers the fast-moving world of large models—DeepSeek, R1, and every new version that emerges—alongside architecture strategies, compute efficiency, cost dynamics, and the competitive landscape shaping the global AI race.

But 硅星人Pro’s regular features dive into tech culture and labor issues, exploring how AI and automation collide with the realities of work, inequality, and the everyday life of engineers, gig workers, and startup employees.

Sometimes you find sarcastic, sometimes salty voice. Readers can expect sharp takes on the AI bubble, founder dramas, job replacement anxieties, ageism in the tech industry, and the broader involution of both Silicon Valley and China’s own innovation scene.

GeekPark (极客公园)

By Afra:

GeekPark (极客公园) is one of the few Chinese tech media outlets that consistently produces in-depth, long-form original reporting on China’s technology industry.

Among domestic outlets, it’s often seen as the closest equivalent to Western tech media: blending narrative reporting, analysis, and insider access in a way that feels more like The Verge and Wired than a typical WeChat information feed.

For wonky analysis (suggested by Bitwise):

中国信息通信研究院 China Academy of Information and Communications Technology

CAICT is a research institute directly under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, specializing in research on the digital economy and technology policy. Their Official Account publishes helpful executive summaries of their reports and official readouts from various Chinese conferences related to AI. Its feed is certainly less exciting than many of the other Official Accounts mentioned above, but it is a very helpful resource to understand where technocrats in Beijing are placing their attention.

Where to start:

• Ten keywords for the AI industry in 2025;

• A list of example cases for digitalizing the manufacturing industry in China.

阿里研究院 Alibaba Research Institute

Alibaba’s in-house industry research think tank produces many interesting reports about AI applications, safety, and governance. You should take their findings with a grain of salt on account of their corporate ownership, but their work is nevertheless interesting.

Where to start:

• Official transcript of CEO Eddie Wu’s September 2025 speech on the path to AGI;

• Analyzing business models for incorporating AI into consumer products in China.

腾讯研究院 Tencent Research Institute

In contrast to the ARI above, Tencent’s in-house think tank works more broadly across social science and humanistic topics. Their work, influenced by the thorough penetration of Chinese citizens’ private lives by Tencent products, has a stronger focus on how AI is shaping Chinese society.

Where to start:

• Annual survey on the Chinese public’s views on generative AI;

• TRI series on AI and education.

Influencers:

By :

Cyber Zen Heart (赛博禅心)

Cyber Zen Heart (赛博禅心) is one of the growing AI influencers on WeChat. He updates at breakneck speed, often catching the pulse of a new model, tool, or meme before the mainstream discourse picks it up. Beyond commentary, he has quietly shaped the scene: helping many early AI consumer apps think through their go-to-market strategy, coaching founders on how to generate buzz, and amplifying their launches to wider audiences.

The account is run by the owner, nicknamed”Big Smart”, of Beijing Haidian’s AGI Bar, a late-night hangout where AI founders, hackers, and artists cross paths. His posts swing between news update, “omg this is awesome”-bait articles, and deliberately confusing memes—half koan, half hype cycle. That mix makes him feel like “China’s Lenny” (as in Lenny Rachitsky): a guide and amplifier for a new generation of builders. I wrote about my experience in the AGI bar here.

半导体行业观察

半导体行业观察 is one of China’s most dedicated WeChat publications tracking the chip world. It dives deep into the nitty-gritty technical details of semiconductor design, fabrication, and packaging—so deep that, to a casual reader, it can sometimes feel painfully dry and even boring for someone like me. Where the account shines is in its close tracking of China’s domestic chip research and development. Like many chip-focused outlets, the tone occasionally reflects the geopolitical tensions surrounding semiconductors.

LatePost 晚点

LatePost (晚点) is often described as “China’s version of The Information”: known for high-quality, deeply sourced reporting on business and technology. Its editorial strength lies in exclusive founder interviews, inside scoops, and longform articles that cut through hype to reveal how China’s leading companies. The LatePost podcast—published under the same name—has become a must-listen for anyone trying to understand China’s AI ecosystem.

Luo Yonghao’s Crossing Road 罗永浩的十字路口

Luo Yonghao’s Crossing Road 罗永浩的十字路口 is a new longform podcast hosted by Luo Yonghao—once a smartphone entrepreneur, now one of China’s most recognizable internet personalities. Think of him as a mix between Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman in a Chinese context: curious, blunt, and willing to let conversations stretch out for hours

Each episode runs about 3 hours, giving founders, cultural figures, and celebrities the space to share deeply personal stories and unfiltered thoughts. Among the standout episodes is Luo’s marathon conversation with He Xiaopeng, founder of XPeng Motors—widely regarded as a must-listen for anyone who wants to understand the ambitions, struggles, and psychology behind China’s EV wave.

Beyond WeChat

The downside to WeChat’s Official Account ecosystem is that its comment function is often restricted, and it can be hard to go beyond the article if you are looking for more context. Other parts of the Chinese internet can offer more community-based insights on technology and provide direct access to insiders’ views.

CSDN

CSDN, China’s first open-source community, is a web forum for developers that dates back to 1999. Discussions on there feel like a mix of Stack Overflow and Hacker News, and contain many useful technical resources. ChinaUnix is another similar forum.

Zhihu

Imagine if Quora still had loyal users — that’s basically Zhihu. Though it has deteriorated from its heyday as a bastion of liberal debate on the Chinese internet in the 2010s, Zhihu remains a platform where scholars, thinkers, and technologists are quite active. Our story on Kimi relied heavily on Moonshot AI engineers’ commentary on Zhihu, and so did this guest post by Mary Clare McMahon on Huawei’s attempts at bypassing Nvidia CUDA.

Xiaohongshu…?

Yes, that Xiaohongshu/Rednote. If you know what you’re doing, it can be a uniquely valuable resource. Xiaohongshu has an especially strong network effect for academic and tech-focused communities. Searching for ML/AI-related keywords on Xiaohongshu eventually leads you to professors, entrepreneurs, and investors influential in the space, as well as many, many anonymous insiders posting offhand observations and rumours in comment sections. It’s arguably the closest thing to getting those elusive-but-unreliable “vibes on the ground.”

Between language barriers and the Great Firewall, it can seem difficult to get reliable information about the world of technology in China. We hope that by highlighting these great Chinese-language resources, we can encourage more people to conduct their own open-source research and enrich debates in the English-speaking world.

Have other Official Account recommendations? Reply to this email or drop your suggestion in the comments!

We’re also looking to run a weekly roundup of the most interesting Chinese writing on AI in the newsletter. If you’re interested, submit a sample here. We pay!

大家好，转眼就11月了，好象今年什么都还没做，已经快过完。11月的第一个周末，美国几家民调机构公布了10月末的民调结果，主要媒体都做了报导。虽然具体数字不完全一样，但几家民调显示的趋势是一样的：民意在变，川普总统的支持的率大幅下滑。虽然他本人嘴上说，自己的支持率很高，但八成也能体会到民意如流水。

美国的主要民调都有媒体冠名，但一般都不是媒体自己做的，都是媒体委托专业民调机构来做，结果并不反应媒体的倾向。这期节目，我们结合三家民调结果，来看美国民意的变化。为了简便期间，我们只说冠名媒体的名字，第一家是NBC，第二家是《华盛顿邮报》和ABC，第三家是《经济学人》。

把这些数据放在一起，能大致浮现出一幅眼下美国的政治图景：选民关心的问题是什么？在哪些问题上，选民不再支持川普？从去年大选到现在，民意在哪些方面摇摆最大？在哪些方面变化不大？年轻人、中年人、老年人、男性、女性、上学多的，上学少的，白人、黑人，这些不同的选民群体，哪些摇摆最大，哪些变化最小？为什么？

我们在以前的节目中分析过，美国是个建立在理念之上的国家，人人生而平等，享有生命、自由和追求幸福的权利，这是美国的建国理念。这种理念体现在制度设计上，就是宪政和民主。美国这个国家的生命力，就在于它的宪政，在于它的民主，还有支撑宪政和民主的建国理念。

宪政相当于国家的护栏，用老百姓的放来说，就是不让车开到沟里去。车可能会撞到护栏，可能会刮蹭，甚至可能会撞坏某些护栏，但在美国建国后的249年中，这道宪政护栏修修补补，仍然在发挥作用。

有人看到有车撞了护栏，就喊护栏没用了。没用的不是护栏，是这些人的观察力和判断力。如果他们真想看护栏没用的地方，或者真想看根本就没护栏的地方，应该看俄国，看中国，看北朝鲜；看美国，是看错了地方。

宪政发挥护栏的作用，但一个国家只有护栏是不够的。社会、经济、国民生活的方方面面，都需要活力。美国这个国家的活力来自民间，体现在政治制度上，就是它的民主。每四年一大选，每两年一小选，政客要看民意，民意体现在选票上。没有选票，上不了台。丧失了民意，只能下台。

这个道理大部分中国人都懂，都会说，而且都说的很形象，很好听：民意能载舟，也能覆舟。从《荀子》开始，中国人就把民意比作水，把政权比作船，说“水则载舟，水则覆舟”。这种话已经说了2300年，但说了白说，说了2300年都没折腾出“载舟-覆舟”的法治轨道。说到最后，成了统…

Read more

Why do leaders with vast expert bureaucracies at their fingertips make devastating foreign policy decisions? Tyler Jost, professor at Brown, joins ChinaTalk to discuss his first book, Bureaucracies at War, a fascinating analysis of miscalculation in international conflicts.

As we travel from Mao’s role in border conflicts, to Deng’s blunder in Vietnam, to LBJ’s own Vietnam error, a tragic pattern emerges — leaders gradually isolating themselves from their own information gathering systems with catastrophic consequences.

Today our conversation covers…

• How Mao’s early success undermined his long-term decision-making,

• The role of succession pressures in both Deng’s and LBJ’s actions in Vietnam,

• The bureaucratic mechanisms that lead to echo chambers, and how China’s siloed institutions affect Xi’s governance,

• The lingering question of succession in China,

• What we can learn from the institutional failures behind Vietnam and Iraq.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app.

Mao, Hitler, and “Hot Hand” Leadership

Jordan Schneider: Let’s kick it off with Mao Zedong. You start the clock after independence. I’m curious, when you think about leaders like Mao who followed their instincts to achieve a remarkable place in world history — Mao bet on himself again and again and won. When Stalin pressured him to make a deal with the Nationalists, Mao said, “No, we’re going to fight and we’re going to win in the end.” Then the Japanese invaded and shifted the balance of power, and in the end, history worked in Mao’s favor.

Most leaders experience a series of successes and luck over the decades it takes them to reach power, which can build psychological confidence in their own instincts. As we think about the interaction between bureaucracies and leaders — when leaders trust their gut over other advice — how does that confidence in their instincts shape their later decision-making? When their instincts conflict with expert advice, do they trust themselves over the system?

Tyler Jost: That’s a great question. You could probably break it down into three categories of explanation.

First, some psychologists think human beings are hardwired to be overconfident. There’s a baseline tendency across the human population that when presented with gambles, people make riskier choices than they probably should, given a dispassionate look at the data.

Second, there’s a category which I think Mao probably fits into — certain personalities tend to be more risk-accepting than others. This could be because some people are comfortable with risks and taking gambles. It could also be because the way we perceive risk can vary among people. Some people might perceive the gamble of war as less risky than others. Mao probably falls into that category.

The third category has to do with the political phenomenon you’re talking about. In foreign policy decision-making, we often study the decisions of presidents, prime ministers, and dictators — leaders who have climbed up the political ladder. They’re already in office. That could trigger a “hot hands” phenomenon — “Look, I was able to get here, this must mean my views are good, and as such, I should trust those instincts as opposed to the data around me.”

Jordan Schneider: I’ve been going back to Ian Kershaw’s histories of Hitler. There are just so many calls in the 1930s where Hitler’s gut was right and the Allies folded. Invading Poland kind of worked out, and invading France went better than anyone could have imagined. There was a point when Hitler’s generals were about to kill him because they thought the calls he made in the late 1930s were too risky.

Then he made some epochal blunders — declaring war on the US, invading the Soviet Union — it’s understandable that someone who went from jail for a failed coup to nearly dominating Europe 20 years later could become overconfident and make terrible calls.

Tyler Jost: This is a book about miscalculation. Both historians and political scientists often try to evaluate individual decisions based on outcomes — if things turned out well, it must not have been a miscalculation, whereas if things didn’t, it must have been. That’s actually a problematic approach to history.

You can make a decision that ends up working out even though it was based on horribly inaccurate views of the world, and vice versa. If we really want to study the quality of decision-making, we have to start with temporal analysis. We have to look over time rather than examining any single decision.

If you had a 5% chance of things going your way according to the data, then that’s still a 5% chance. But if you keep making that bet over and over again, eventually it will catch up with you. For methodology— and this applies equally when doing historical analysis — you want to take a bird’s-eye view. What is the pattern of success and failure over time as opposed to specific instances in isolation? The book tries to go deep in particular cases to illustrate the mechanisms, but it’s important to start with base rates.

When Mao Stopped Listening to Bureaucrats

Jordan Schneider: You can tell a story of the 1930s where the international world is weak and ripe for toppling, but suddenly the most Jewry-Bolshevik infested one happens to be the one still fighting even after losing millions of people in the summer and fall of 1940. You can draw terrible extrapolations based on a limited set of data points.

Let’s return to Mao. From an epistemological perspective, you have a ton of material from the Nianpu 年谱 of what the daily leaders are discussing and the documentation of their decision-making. Were you surprised that all of this was out there for you to sink your teeth into once you started investigating?

Tyler Jost: The Chronicle of Mao Zedong or Mao Zedong Nianpu 毛泽东年谱 was released just before I started graduate school. I don’t think I realized then how lucky I was in my timing. The party archives publishes compendia of daily activities of senior revolutionary-era leaders, such as Mao’s meetings with his advisors and Mao’s meetings with the Politburo. Not just the ones that were released or publicized in The People’s Daily 人民日报, but the private ones as well, where the real action happened.

I stumbled into this, knowing I was interested in writing a dissertation about decision-making. It so happened that the most detailed records pertaining to Mao’s decision-making had just been released by the party.

Jordan Schneider: Give us an overview. You periodize Mao’s administration from 1949 to 1962 and from 1963 to 1976. Let’s start in that early era. What was the national security decision-making apparatus that he was working around?

Tyler Jost: Through all of these frameworks, start with the leader. I’m interested in miscalculations about questions of war and peace. The assumption at the starting point — this is a theoretical assumption you could question, but I try to show empirically that it’s sound — is that you have to get the leader on board. Leaders make the final call on big decisions in foreign policy. There could be other subsidiary decisions that low-level bureaucrats get to make on their own, but the starting point for any analysis has to be the leader.

This is an easy assumption that aligns with the historical understanding of Mao’s era. Mao was a dominant force in decision-making. The reason I say that the period between 1949 and 1962 was different from roughly 1963 to the end of Mao’s life is that the system Mao created when they founded the government in 1949 was, comparatively speaking, quite integrated.

What do I mean by integrated? There were many mechanisms by which the leader was able to reach down into the Chinese party-state and extract information needed to make decisions. There was an unusually high status of the Foreign Ministry, which was a function of the fact that many individuals who went into the Foreign Ministry early on had been part of the military and had revolutionary credentials. This included Zhou Enlai 周恩来, who was the first foreign minister and concomitantly the Premier 总理 of the country at the outset. His replacement, Chen Yi 陈毅, was similar — one of the Ten Marshals 元帅/大将.

So that’s a diplomatic core or critical mass of diplomatic information that Mao had access to. Then obviously there’s the military. The military already had a high standing and good access to get information up to Mao. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Chinese leaders’ ability to get the information they needed from the state system was pretty good.

Jordan Schneider: Okay, let’s take it to 1962. What was happening between the mainland and Taiwan?

Tyler Jost: 1962 is four years into the Great Leap Forward. The Chinese economy is doing incredibly poorly. There’s a suspicion that perhaps the regime is not fully stable. In the spring of 1962, Chiang Kai-shek, who had been monitoring the situation on the mainland very closely, got it in his head that this was his last favorable opportunity to take serious military action (“Project National Glory/國光計劃”) against the mainland to foment a revolt that would ultimately topple the communist regime.

He takes a series of actions, from writing in his diary about how serious he is about military action against the mainland to setting up internal Taiwan military bodies, convening military planning meetings, and reaching out to the Americans to see whether they would support something.

Unfortunately for Taiwan — and this is eventually what’s discovered by Mao — this is a year after the Bay of Pigs in the Kennedy administration. The US and Taipei had signed the Mutual Defense Pact a couple of years prior, which essentially gave veto authority to the US for any major military operations, including the one Chiang had in mind in 1962. Chiang essentially has to decide whether he’s going to go it alone, go back on the treaty commitment, or just back off. That’s the scene setter before we get to the mainland side of things.

Jordan Schneider: What did Mao know? When did he know it, and what was the decision space he was facing once he started hearing whispers of Chiang restarting the civil war?

Tyler Jost: Mao gets a pretty early wind that something serious is happening in the spring of 1962 through intelligence channels. He immediately engages with the bureaucratic establishment. There’s a series of Politburo, Central Military Commission, and Leading Small Group 领导小组 meetings, all of which are activated to determine what China should do.

What’s remarkable about this — because this is 1962, four years into the Great Leap Forward — is that the Foreign Ministry is at the table, military officers are at the table, and there’s pretty candid discussion, particularly given that Mao early on in the crisis seems to indicate he’s taking the chance of an invasion seriously.

Beijing eventually lands on a two-pronged strategy. One in which the PLA is going to mobilize, but do so publicly to showcase that it’s aware of what’s happening and prepared to defend itself militarily. But then critically — and this is where the Foreign Ministry and Zhou Enlai play a big role — they activate a diplomatic channel that the PRC has with the US.

Remember, this is the Cold War, so there’s no formal diplomatic recognition between the two countries, but there is an ambassador-level channel in Warsaw through which the two sides can communicate. The Foreign Ministry officials, including Foreign Minister Chen Yi, have this intuition that Chiang Kai-shek is probably going rogue, and it’s unlikely the US is behind it. If the US isn’t behind it, they’ll likely be able to rein Taipei in.

That’s exactly what they do. They reached out to the US in Warsaw in the summer of 1962, and received a message loud and clear that was personally approved by Kennedy. It’s fascinating — I trace that message from Kennedy to the US ambassador in Poland to Wang Bingnan 王炳南, the representative from the PRC side. We have both the US cable and now the Chinese cable. We know the distribution list for the cable on the Chinese side. It goes not just to Mao Zedong, but to all the senior Politburo members, members of the Diàochábù 调查部 (the domestic and foreign intelligence agency at the time), Foreign Ministry, CMC, and so forth.

Wang says in his memoir — and I think this is proven by Mao’s subsequent actions — that the information coming through the Foreign Ministry channel had a big impact on Mao’s thinking. You can imagine it breaking very differently. Think about the First Taiwan Strait Crisis or the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis — Mao had previously used violence to achieve his military goals. He doesn’t in ‘62 — he’s more circumspect, in part based upon the information the Foreign Ministry was able to gather for him.

Jordan Schneider: There were other times in the 50s where he saw the upside of escalating — in the Korean War and then in the Taiwan Straits, where he seemed to think, “We need to make sure our revolutionary fervor is still high.” It’s interesting that the Great Leap Forward, as you argue, has him calibrate down how aggressive he’s willing to be in running risks. So Mao, good job, you avoided World War III in 1962, but seven years later you’re back at it again. What was he thinking in the China-Soviet border disputes in ’69 that almost brought us to global thermonuclear war?

Tyler Jost: It’s probably an exaggeration to say either of those would have resulted in a world war. Things certainly were worse in ’69 compared to ’62.

Again, it’s important to provide some context. By 1969, the Sino-Soviet Split 中苏交恶 was well underway, and the two sides were increasingly confrontational, both vying for leadership in Africa and Southeast Asia, and also along their shared border. They had unresolved territorial disputes dating back to the founding of the PRC. A series of skirmishes, particularly on the northeastern part of China’s border, began to escalate in the late 1960s.

Alongside this is the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia under the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine in 1968. The combination creates real anxiety in Beijing about what might happen. Mao gets it in his head that some sort of Soviet military action needs to be countered, and the right strategy is through a clear demonstration of military force — hit first, demonstrate resolve, and the Soviets to back off.

Mao was wrong on two fronts. First, the Soviets would not back off. Second, he misjudged the severity with which the Soviets were contemplating military action prior to China initiating conflict in March of ’69.

From the behavioral indicators of the Soviet Union — what does the Soviet Union do in response to the ambush in March of ‘69? They escalate, both locally in the northeastern part of the border and by August, opening another front in the western part of China’s territory. By fall 1969, the Soviet Union was making veiled nuclear threats. How serious those threats actually were is debated quite fiercely among historians. But China took the threats seriously.

Based upon the Soviet records we have prior to March 1969, there’s no indication that military action was in the offing. In other words, Mao creates the type of military escalation he fears through his own actions. From that perspective, I argue that the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969 was a miscalculation on Mao’s part.

There are many ways of trying to rescue rationality or good judgment from disaster. There are potential ways to say, “Well, maybe Mao was after this or that,” and in the book, I try to address each one. But the argument the book makes about why this miscalculation occurs has to do with how institutions linking the leader to the bureaucracy had changed.

Unlike ’62, the lead-up to and then the Cultural Revolution 文化大革命 itself had decimated the connective tissue between Mao and the foreign policy bureaucracy. This begins around 1962 as Mao starts contemplating his own death. The quote nominally ascribed to him is “What will happen after I die?” Mao increasingly feared that what he observed during the Great Leap Forward was a premonition of the lack of revolutionary zeal that would overtake the Party after he was gone. In that regard, he was absolutely right.

How do you prepare for that? You need to begin attacking key leaders within the bureaucratic establishment who you perceive to be not revolutionary enough. This happened as early as fall 1962 and continued. The way Mao made decisions in ’63, ’64, ’65 shifted. The forums he used became more insular and exclusionary. All of this built up to the atomic bomb that Mao unleashed upon the foreign policy bureaucracy in the Cultural Revolution.

Jordan Schneider: Is it fair to consider ideology versus cold calculation as a variable? In 1962, he was burned by a dumb series of ideologically driven decisions that starved tens of millions of people, and he was reconsidering. By 1969, he was at a very different point, and he was seeing ghosts — both in the Party and around the world — which led him to read the Soviet Union poorly.

Tyler Jost: There are several ways to think about ideology. I want to emphasize that it’s important as a driving force in foreign policy decision-making, not just in China but in other countries as well.

One way to think about ideology is as a baseline set of left and right limits about what is permissible to political debate.

In Beijing, the Cultural Revolution narrowed the range of politically permissible opinions one could potentially have. This is bound up in how the institutions I discuss in my book are expressed. These institutions are the rules governing how a leader and a bureaucrat are supposed to interact. There’s a literal sense in which those rules can shape information flows between actors.

If I eliminate the Politburo, that removes a mechanism by which information flows upward to the leader. The transaction costs associated with getting information to the leader might be higher, but there’s also a strategic element to how bureaucratic actors respond to rule changes.

The rupture of connective tissues between leaders and bureaucrats — fragmenting the system — signals to bureaucrats about the political and ideological environment. In environments where this connective tissue has been stripped away, bureaucrats become more cautious in their reporting.

They end up spending energy not on determining the true state of the world, but rather on figuring out what they think the boss believes.

In that type of environment where information flow between leaders and bureaucracies is poor, bureaucrats focus on three questions: “How can I find out what the boss thinks? How can I find information that confirms that prior belief? And if I can’t do either of those things, how can I make my report so vanilla that no matter what the leader actually thinks or what actually happens, I remain safe?”

The result is either ideologically charged information designed to confirm what the leader has deemed ideologically correct, or reports so stripped of meaningful content and filled with ideological dogma that they’re no longer useful to the leader.

Jordan Schneider: This reminds me of Hitler. There was someone who walked around with what they called a “Führer machine” with big fonts because Hitler’s eyesight had deteriorated by the time the war started. Whenever they saw Hitler feeling down, they would print out an article saying how awesome and amazing he was and how everything was great. When you reach the point where you need psychological boosters of feeding leaders information that makes them feel good, you’re probably not in the best state for good, hard-nosed national security, analytical decision-making.

Tyler Jost: Indeed. One argument I encountered early in this project was that once leaders destroy this connective tissue, they know they’ve done so. They know their subordinates, being rational and strategic players, have incentives to provide biased information. Shouldn’t a rational leader then discount everything supplied to them?

In that fragmented institutional arrangement, it might seem to revert to a single leader making decisions independently, without necessarily making the situation worse. The argument I make in the book is that while this might theoretically be true, if we accept that human beings are prone to bias and enjoy hearing good news about themselves without properly discounting information that confirms their priors, then this situation can lead to an echo chamber.

Jordan Schneider: Another interesting dynamic you explore is fears of a coup. This was obviously relevant in Hitler’s case and very relevant for Mao as well. They began to wonder, “Are my generals going to shoot me and throw me overboard?” With Mao, Stalin’s case hung over him as the disaster he wanted to avoid — losing revolutionary edge and having the founder of the nation thrown under the bus.

Tyler Jost: Precisely. The book argues that these institutions don’t arise deus ex machina — they don’t appear out of nothing. They’re political choices informed by leaders’ calculations about how much threat the bureaucracy poses to their political survival and agenda, and how much they need that bureaucracy to accomplish their goals while in office.

The most troubling combination, exemplified by the Cultural Revolution, occurs when leaders perceive the bureaucracy as threatening.

In Mao’s case, he was concerned about what the bureaucracy would do after he was gone and felt the need to rekindle revolutionary fervor in the party. The worst scenario is when leaders both fear the bureaucracy and are inwardly focused on domestic rather than international policy.

You can imagine a different world where you fear the bureaucracy but face a threatening international environment and have ambitious international goals. In that case, you would need to balance your fear with the demand for information that only the bureaucracy can provide. The worst combination occurs when you fear the bureaucracy, but you’re inwardly focused and have no need for their expertise. In that situation, why assume any risk? You simply cut them out.

The Other Vietnam War

Jordan Schneider: Let’s fast forward to Deng Xiaoping in 1979. What was Deng thinking in ’79 when he ended up invading Vietnam?

Tyler Jost: The 1979 case is a forgotten war, but it shouldn’t be because it’s really consequential, both in terms of the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region for the last stretch of the Cold War and what it tells us about decision-making in China and its potential pathologies.

China decided to launch a punitive war against its southern neighbor, Vietnam, in 1979. The logic that Deng consistently articulated both internally and externally was that China needed to punish Vietnam for its invasion of Cambodia and its growing relationship with the Soviet Union through a demonstration of battlefield strength.

The PRC planned to invade for a short period of time to display the power of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). They frequently used the phrase that they were going to “teach a lesson” to their southern neighbors. The analogy at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds, particularly Deng’s, was the 1962 war with India, where this strategy worked reasonably well.

In 1962, the Indians underestimated Chinese military capabilities. The battlefield demonstration that fall showed that the PLA was a force to be reckoned with. They had the upper hand at the border, and India revised its policies accordingly.

That success wasn’t replicated in 1979. To be fair to Deng Xiaoping, China did eventually achieve its tactical military objectives. However, the strategic motive — the real reason why China invaded in the first place — was not met. There are these quotes from newly available Vietnamese archival evidence where they state, “It was not China who taught us a lesson; it was we who taught them a lesson.”

Even though the PLA eventually reached its tactical objectives, the high casualty rate and slow advance demonstrated how severely the Cultural Revolution had damaged the PLA. The military prowess that the war was supposed to highlight in the eyes of Vietnamese decision-makers failed to materialize. From that perspective, the strategic calculation failed.

Jordan Schneider: What were the analytical errors that Deng made in this decision?

Tyler Jost: Part of it stems from misunderstanding the state of the PLA. Most evidence suggests that Deng eventually realized this prior to the invasion, around January. Ironically, most good information Deng received right before the invasion came through informal channels because people were afraid to speak candidly in more formal settings.

By that point, Deng had already committed himself to pushing this forward as part of his political agenda, making it difficult for him to back down by January.

There was another set of geopolitical and diplomatic errors: a lack of consideration for how Vietnam would respond if the PLA didn’t perform as well as it had in 1962, and a failure to assess what that would do to Vietnamese perceptions of PRC capabilities and resolve. That question was never asked. The debate around the war was very shallow.

In December 1978, the months prior to the war, they also misread the US. This is interesting because it’s sometimes suggested — partly as a political strategy Deng employed after the war failed to achieve many of its strategic objectives — that the war was a way of demonstrating China would be a good ally to the US. The narrative implies the US was secretly encouraging China to take this action, and Deng was taking one for the team to establish good credentials and secure normalization and healthy relations against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

What we now know from US archives is that President Jimmy Carter actively discouraged the invasion. Deng Xiaoping took his famous trip to the US in January 1979, right before the invasion. Carter discouraged him both in small groups of advisors and in one-on-one meetings. Carter told Deng, “You have other options available to you. You could move your forces to the border and engage in a series of limited operations which might draw some Vietnamese forces north away from Cambodia without risking the international backlash this war will create.”

Jordan Schneider: The Vietnamese had defeated the Americans. Did the Chinese think the Vietnamese were unprepared? Regardless of the internal assessment of the PLA, the fact that Deng thought Vietnam wouldn’t be ready for a fight after spending 15 years battling the most advanced military in the world — and that they couldn’t stand up to China — is absurd.

Tyler Jost: It’s interesting. This dovetails with your first question about why people tend toward optimism in their assessments when they don’t examine data. This would be one potential data point supporting that first category of explanation.

Jordan Schneider: What do you think about Joseph Torigian’s argument that this was actually just a way for Deng to solidify power domestically? Hua Guofeng 华国锋 was leaving the scene, Deng was coming in, and almost everyone in the bureaucracy disliked the decision. But Deng said, “I’m going to show who’s boss. We’re going to do this anyway.” This was how he fully demonstrated to the system his control over the PLA — by forcing them into doing something they didn’t want to do, showing he was the new Mao.

Tyler Jost: There are two ways of thinking about this argument. Joseph’s book discusses it, but the most detailed articulation of this political motivation comes from Xiaoming Zhang’s excellent book Deng Xiaoping’s Long War.

The first interpretation, which Professor Zhang emphasizes, is that the PLA needed reform. Deng needed to demonstrate the military weakness of the PLA to drive organizational reforms within the military. The interesting thing is that the primary evidence for this logic comes from a speech given toward the end of the conflict.

There are two ways to read this. Deng was certainly aware of what he called “bloatedness” within the military in the 1970s. However, it’s very difficult to find anything in the historical record prior to the war where he states that the war would allow him to pursue this political agenda.

One interpretation of the fact that this document appears toward the end of the conflict is that perhaps he felt this way all along, which is certainly possible. We must be circumspect about asserting what leaders believed at certain points. But to me — and Joseph wrote this in his book as well — that speech reads quite defensive, as though Deng was trying to justify what he’d done. From that perspective, one could argue it was an ex post rationalization for what China gained from the war, rather than a belief Deng held throughout.

The second interpretation is as you articulated it — Deng knew the position would be unpopular, but pushing through an unpopular policy would demonstrate political strength, affirming his position vis-à-vis Hua Guofeng. That’s also possible.

The weakness in that argument is the intimate involvement Deng had in planning the war. If we accept that the war didn’t go as Beijing hoped and Deng was responsible for planning it, that’s an enormously risky move because he tied himself to the planning process. While possible, this explanation wouldn’t account for many other aspects of the overall decision-making process.

Jordan Schneider: More broadly, do you get more erratic decision-making when you have a leader who feels comfortable in power, or when they’re at the beginning or end of their reign, or when they perceive domestic threats?

Tyler Jost: Going back to our discussion about the Cultural Revolution, there’s an analogous argument here as well. The political contestation inside Beijing is important to the story I tell in my book.

Elite politics were quite contentious in the mid-to-late 1970s, making it beneficial to keep institutions fragmented.

The connective tissues ripped out from the Chinese system during the Cultural Revolution weren’t repaired. Most attempts to restore connections between leaders and the bureaucracy didn’t happen until after the Hua-Deng power struggle subsided in the 1980s.

Jordan Schneider: Fast-forwarding to 2025, much discussion revolves around whether Xi Jinping will stay in power. It’s important to internalize that China’s last major military action began right after a power transition. Xi will eventually die, leading to another power transition with volatility that might cause leaders to make terrible decisions. This insecurity appears in many of your case studies, causing people to narrow their information sources and make increasingly reckless decisions.

Tyler Jost: That’s exactly the right question to ask. While I don’t speculate about Xi Jinping and Taiwan, the succession problem and the institutional choices Xi must make to navigate those perilous waters deserve more attention. War could theoretically result from power balance shifts, perceived lack of American resolve, or miscalculations before that point. However, the succession problem remains the unnoticed elephant in the room that will become more obvious as time passes.

Jordan Schneider: Is there another case study of succession-driven decision-making?

Tyler Jost: Mao’s case is the primary succession example. You can view the 1969 conflict as rooted in institutional choices Mao needed to make to secure his legacy after his anticipated death in 1976.

The succession problem can also be viewed from the other side of the transition — whoever inherits power is likely in a politically precarious position because of the types of people that leaders, particularly personalist ones, bring into their inner circle toward the end of their tenure. These successors inherit foreign policy problems and dysfunctional institutions that make them prone to miscalculation. That’s what happened in the 1979 war.

Jordan Schneider: Toward the end of a leader’s tenure — whether democratically elected or autocratic — you argue, the quality of their advisors declines. Can you choose a case study to illustrate this?

Tyler Jost: One of the most fascinating aspects of foreign policy decision-making is how political selection institutions — what we typically describe as the difference between democracy and autocracy — both matter and don’t matter.

One benefit of democracy is that outgoing leaders don’t have to worry about what happens after they leave office and face constraints on how they can arrange the political landscape after their departure. In that sense, autocracy creates more opportunities for the pathological institutions my book discusses.

Nevertheless, democratically elected leaders can still fear what bureaucracies might do to them politically. Two cases examine this in depth. The first is the Indian side of the 1962 Sino-Indian border war and Nehru’s apprehensions about the foreign policy establishment, particularly the Defense Ministry and military and intelligence apparatus.

The second example occurred right here in the US — the reconfiguration of the National Security Council under Lyndon Johnson after he assumed office following JFK’s assassination in 1963.

Jordan Schneider: Let’s discuss Vietnam. After JFK was assassinated, LBJ was suddenly in charge of JFK’s people, who hated his guts and were about to kick him off the ticket before JFK died. Take it from there, Tyler.

Tyler Jost: The argument in my book is that these dynamics you described — this unusual path to power in 1963, coupled with LBJ’s psychological predispositions — led Johnson to be tremendously paranoid that the bureaucracy threatened his political agenda. His primary focus was passing two hugely consequential pieces of domestic legislation pertaining to civil rights and the Great Society. We have him on record, both during and after his presidency, saying that these were his priorities.

Jordan Schneider: You quote him saying that Great Society legislation was “the one woman I truly loved.” As a serial adulterer, that statement carries weight coming from LBJ.

Tyler Jost: Earlier, we discussed the worst possible political environment for institutional efficiency and effectiveness. It’s a situation where you deeply fear the bureaucracy while focusing on domestic agenda items. The irony is that while Johnson inherited a reasonably well-functioning foreign policy decision-making apparatus, he intentionally took steps to undermine it.

Johnson established a very insular forum for his decision-making process known as the “Tuesday Luncheon,” which excluded a vast swath of the national security bureaucracy from important discussions. His reasoning was clear. In a retrospective interview quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, Johnson stated he knew the bureaucracy would punish him through information leaks that would make him look bad. He believed that when he held National Security Council meetings, information would “leak out like a sieve.” In contrast, these Tuesday luncheons never leaked anything.

Johnson’s logic for reorganizing the decision-making institutions was entirely political — a careful calculation he made. However, he paid a big cost for this approach. While making the most consequential choices of the second half of the Cold War for the US, he committed perhaps the biggest blunder in American Cold War history. It cost him politically in 1968, and he decided not to run for reelection because he knew he would lose.

Jordan Schneider: Let’s dive deeper into 1965. What information didn’t Johnson receive that might have led him to avoid escalation in Vietnam?

Tyler Jost: You can trace this back even further to the summer and fall of 1964. Several key individuals expressed deep apprehension about escalation in Vietnam — George Ball, Chester Cooper in the National Security Council, and others in the State Department’s intelligence apparatus (INR), like Allen Whiting.

All these individuals were systematically sidelined. There’s a myth that George Ball was given a voice in the spring of 1965, but in my book, I demonstrate that his influence was minimal compared to what he tried to communicate to Johnson earlier in the summer and fall of 1964.

As a result, all key decisions regarding escalation occurred in a very insular setting. LBJ was advised principally by McGeorge Bundy (National Security Advisor) and Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense), with Dean Rusk present but clearly suffering from a degree of imposter syndrome. Johnson made the call for escalation based on a very narrow set of information and considerations, and the results speak for themselves.

The Making of Siloed Institutions

Jordan Schneider: Fast forward to 2016. Let’s discuss Trump’s national security decision-making in this context.

Tyler Jost: I should caveat this by saying that the study doesn’t consider the Trump administration’s decision-making institutions in any way, shape, or form, but it has a theoretical framework that we could apply. We can think about Trump’s position coming into office in 2017 and what happened within the decision-making structure.

Generally speaking, President Trump inherited a number of international problems in 2017, ranging from North Korea to Afghanistan to other parts of the Middle East. The demand for information and advice from political advisors or the national security establishment remained substantial. However, Trump came in with healthy skepticism and limited experience dealing with the foreign policy bureaucracy.

These two countervailing forces — the threatening aspect of his position and the demand for solutions to Afghanistan and North Korea — placed him in a middle ground that the book discusses.

I call it a “siloed institution” where you limit what any single bureaucracy can do independently while still depending on them.

It resembles a hub-and-spoke system with the leader at the center. Individual bureaucratic nodes gain access and relay information upward, but they don’t communicate effectively with one another or coordinate particularly well.

Some evidence suggests this might have occurred, at least at the margins. Journalistic accounts have revealed that lower-level components of the National Security Council system — which have existed for decades and serve as connective tissue at the deputies and sub-deputies levels for information sharing, policy coordination, and analysis — were perhaps less frequently utilized. This would be consistent with the arguments.

The outward-facing signaling or messaging strategy sometimes appeared confusing. While it’s possible Trump was orchestrating some strategic plan behind the scenes, from an outside observer’s perspective, it seems some foreign policy actions weren’t as well-coordinated as they could have been. That said, in the broader scheme, the first Trump administration doesn’t resemble anything like what we saw under LBJ, much less during the Cultural Revolution. It’s important to maintain this comparative reference point.

Jordan Schneider: What about in Trump’s second term?

Tyler Jost: It’s early days. Trump hasn’t revoked the National Security Council. He may have established some parallel structure behind the scenes that we’re unaware of, similar to the Tuesday luncheon, which would send signals to the bureaucracy with a chilling effect even at the highest levels. Within the framework of the book, which focuses on high-level institutional interactions between leaders and bureaucracy, it’s difficult to ascertain from the outside how much Trump has pushed things even in the direction of LBJ.

Warning signs exist, however. The reorganization of USAID is particularly informative to people within the bureaucratic establishment. To be fair, having a Foreign Ministry or Department of State oversee USAID’s responsibilities isn’t unheard of. Placing their personnel within the State Department isn’t outlandish. It’s entirely reasonable for a president to have a foreign policy agenda that curtails foreign aid distribution.

Whether we agree with that policy is separate from how it affects the decision-making process. The means, process, and scope of organizational change bound up in the USAID actions represent the biggest warning sign. We shall see what unfolds in the coming months and years.

Jordan Schneider: I take your point, Tyler, about it being early days on the bureaucratic reorganization front. However, you can also examine the personnel perspective regarding the types of senior advisers now in place, which presents a very different complexion than what we saw in Trump’s first term and feels more like late Mao than early Mao.

Tyler Jost: That’s a fascinating point. The book doesn’t focus centrally on appointing loyalists versus experts, but other areas of political science address that trade-off. They don’t necessarily conceptualize institutions as I did — they think more in terms of hiring criteria, whether it’s credentials for the job or absolute fealty to the leader. It’s an analogous political problem.

The book can’t speak as directly to this question, making it somewhat more difficult to apply the framework to the first versus the second Trump administration along this dimension. Nevertheless, it’s an important question we should continue to monitor.

The “red versus expert” debate is simply one way of articulating the standard expertise-versus-loyalty trade-off that many economists and political scientists have discussed. Some people think this debate is unique to China, but while the formulation may be uniquely Chinese, this represents a perennial political problem.

Jordan Schneider: It’s an LBJ issue, too — he didn’t want people leaking. What do you gain and lose by leaning “red” or leaning “expert”?

Tyler Jost: You can think about this issue in both functional and strategic terms. In the functional sense, imagine a stylized model where you have two candidates. One possesses all the indicators and benchmarks suggesting they’ll excel at the job. The other lacks those attributes but demonstrates complete loyalty — they’ll do exactly what you want once in office.

Often, these indicators aren’t so stark, and typically, you seek people with elements of both qualities. But keeping the model simplified — from a functional perspective, if you choose the candidate without expertise (defined by indicators of job performance), you’re reducing government capacity. You’ve screened candidates solely on loyalty rather than competence, limiting their ability to perform effectively.

The strategic dimension requires more nuanced thinking. Imagine both candidates secure positions and face choices about how to perform their duties and what risks they’ll take to advocate for what they believe is right. The candidate with strong performance credentials has something to fall back on when speaking truth to power. They can justify diverging from the leader’s view because they have experiences underpinning their judgment.

Contrast this with the candidate chosen solely for political loyalty. They have little foundation except the leader’s trust in their allegiance. This fundamentally shapes how they seek information. They’ll likely pursue data confirming what the leader wants to hear and demonstrate risk aversion in identifying new developments in the international environment. This leads to those bland, vanilla reports characteristic of fragmented institutions.

Jordan Schneider: It’s a leveraged bet on the leader’s gut instinct — if you go more “red,” you get more of the leader in whatever policy emerges, for better or worse.

Tyler Jost: Precisely. The book was inspired by a wave of political science literature examining how individual leaders shape foreign policy — something that captured my imagination in graduate school. Where my analysis intersects with this approach is recognizing that when institutions tear away the connective tissue between leaders and the bureaucracy, foreign policy increasingly shows the leader in absolute terms. This isn’t necessarily beneficial — that’s the twist my book offers. Only when institutions incorporating bureaucratic perspectives are established do outcomes begin to look substantially different.

Jordan Schneider: Let’s conclude with Xi. We discussed the post-Xi era, but let’s talk about Xi himself. How is he handling all this?

Tyler Jost: We should be even more cautious about drawing inferences regarding Xi than with Trump because the information environment is quite poor. I’ll make two points.

First, I’m reasonably convinced Xi Jinping inherited those middle-ground siloed institutions I described — the hub-and-spoke model where information reaches the leader but with limited horizontal sharing between bureaucratic actors. This conclusion stems partly from the system’s own statements justifying institutional changes they implemented, such as establishing the National Security Commission early in Xi’s first term.

Some argue that these institutional reforms solved all problems, but I’m skeptical for several reasons. The National Security Commission essentially renamed its predecessor, the National Security Leading Small Group, signaling Xi’s political power — similar to Joseph Torigian’s argument about Deng Xiaoping pushing for war with Vietnam as a power demonstration. But the composition of these groups didn’t change substantially. Additional staff may have been added, but public reporting indicates the National Security Commission has focused more on domestic issues than international security problems.

What made the system “siloed” when Xi took office was primarily the segregation of military decision-making via the Central Military Commission from the civilian bureaucracy. That division between these two systems remains the most prominent feature of what Xi inherited. His response hasn’t been to integrate the military with civilian bureaucracy at lower levels. Instead, he appears to have doubled down on direct, unilateral control of the military through the Central Military Commission. This gives him more control but at a cost — it allows the military to channel information directly upward without vetting by other bureaucratic elements.

Second, we might ask whether the system has deteriorated under Xi. Unlike the Cultural Revolution, where systemic changes were obvious to outside observers, the formal structures of decision-making haven’t undergone a dramatic transformation. However, the dismissal of minister-level positions in the Foreign Ministry and military apparatus operates at a different level — focusing on personnel rather than institutions. This likely creates a chilling effect. Lower-level bureaucrats report fear of speaking truth to power, which isn’t surprising.

We must be careful about these inferences, though. Most indications of the chilling effect from Xi’s anti-corruption campaign and personnel decisions come from very low levels. What remains unclear, at least publicly, is how the bureaucracy interacts with political leadership — the primary focus of my book, which argues this is the most important area to examine. We don’t know if the same fear of speaking truth to power shapes those higher-level interactions. It may be some time before we can conclusively characterize decision-making under Xi’s system.

Jordan Schneider: From a Western policymaker perspective, given these new uncertain variables about how information travels upward, what should officials be thinking or doing differently if they might be in this complicated situation rather than a clean information environment?

Tyler Jost: This is an important question with both assessment and strategy components — what we should think and what we should do.

On the assessment side, we should incorporate into our calculations the possibility that Beijing may develop a completely different perspective on the international environment. This could result from Xi Jinping’s independent judgment or from judgments based on the information presented to him, combined with his personal understanding of the situation.

Regarding strategy, the challenge is substantial. It requires a two-step approach: first, identifying early signs of misperception forming on the Chinese side; second, attempting to correct that misperception. However, if the institutional structures themselves are causing China to develop misperceptions, then direct interaction with the leader may be the only effective channel for shaping their worldview.

If the bureaucracy won’t transmit quality information for any of the reasons we’ve discussed — whether related to personnel, institutions, or other factors — then lower-level interactions won’t be effective. Military demonstrations, actions in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait, export controls — all these signals get filtered through the bureaucracy in ways that may prevent belief changes at the top. This forces us to consider that altering beliefs on the Chinese side might require direct interaction with the Supreme Leader, making face-to-face diplomacy one of the few means available to meaningfully influence the situation.

“We Were Wrong, Terribly Wrong”

Jordan Schneider: Tyler, across all your case studies, is there one moment or meeting you wish you could have witnessed firsthand?

Tyler Jost: Probably all of them. There’s the meeting in fall 1961 with Nehru and his advisors, where foreign policy was pushed to its limit. There were meetings in January, February, and March in Beijing between Mao and his subordinates that led to the Sino-Soviet border clash.

There’s also January 29, 1965 — the date when the “Fork in the Road” memo was drafted primarily by Bundy and McNamara and delivered to LBJ. I believe they met that same day. While different theories exist about the true turning point of the Vietnam War, my personal assessment, as presented in the book, is that this was the decisive moment. It would have been fascinating to witness these meetings firsthand.

Jordan Schneider: Can we discuss how terrible that memo was? It was high school-level, B-minus work. It’s embarrassing.

Tyler Jost: What’s interesting is that, unlike the Iraq War generation of American leaders who maintained until their deaths that they did nothing wrong, the Vietnam era advisors were deeply troubled by what happened. McNamara states in his memoirs that, “We were wrong, terribly wrong.”

McGeorge Bundy, who didn’t publish memoirs but left a draft available in the Kennedy Library in Boston, makes two points. First, he acknowledges that communism in Asia could have been contained at much lower cost than the escalation in Vietnam — undermining the rationale that motivated him. Second, he identifies his greatest mistake as National Security Advisor as the shallowness of analysis he provided to LBJ, which is remarkable since that was his primary responsibility.

Bundy understood this was his job, particularly from his years with Kennedy. However, Johnson’s choices made it difficult for advisors like Bundy and McNamara to perceive the situation accurately. Bundy, in particular, was a hawk, so Johnson’s system allowed the analysis to excessively reflect Bundy’s personal perspective. This bias is evident in both the memo we mentioned and in several others Bundy wrote the following month, most notably after the attacks at Pleiku.

Jordan Schneider: It’s fascinating that these Vietnam era officials didn’t gaslight us, while the Iraq War ones maintained their positions until death. My assumption is that the independent variable is 58,000 versus 4,000 American military casualties. There’s an undeniable truth to that number and a shock to the societal fabric that might not have seemed as important when compared to Korean War, World War II, or World War I death tolls.

Vietnam crossed a threshold of public awareness in the US.

That factor, combined with the definitive way the war ended, made a difference. By the time Rumsfeld died, we had ISIS in Iraq, but the outcome remained somewhat unresolved, unlike in Vietnam where the Viet Cong clearly took over the country.

Tyler Jost: You should consult some of my colleagues who have studied the Iraq War in depth. This comparison between Vietnam and Iraq officials is an interesting point about the independent variable. I’ve used this comparison multiple times without explaining the difference. What strikes is how unusual it is for advisors to admit they made mistakes in the decisions they were most responsible for. This tells us something important was happening in the lead-up to Vietnam.

Of course, other explanations exist. There are more self-interested interpretations where they might have been trying to salvage their reputations. At certain points in his memoir, McNamara’s analyses about why they were wrong seem completely misguided. For example, he claims the US had extensive expertise regarding the Soviet Union but none regarding Southeast Asia. This is objectively false.

The problem wasn’t a lack of experts in the State Department or National Security Council. The problem was that when these experts wrote memos to be sent to the President, officials like McNamara blocked them, saying, “No, absolutely not. This isn’t going anywhere.” McNamara did this for specific reasons, and we can understand why he acted as he did.

Tragedy appears in the opening lines of my book. These events are tragic and with the benefit of hindsight, one wishes things had been different. The cold reality is that these outcomes are so firmly rooted in politics that even if we hope decision-makers would rise above such forces, politics remain powerful enough to ensure these patterns will continue perpetually as a result of contestation between political actors.

Jordan Schneider: Let’s close with your opening lines then:

“One of the tragedies of international conflict is that it often achieves so little. History is replete with examples of states charging headfirst into international confrontations that left them no better off and often much worse off than where they started.”

Here’s to hoping.

Mood Music:

人生在世，有两样关键东西，都不是天生的，一是专业知识，二是人生阅历。这两样东西，都是要通过学习，通过亲身经历，才能学到手，一个人不管天生多聪明，如果不去学，不去经历，用聪明弥补不了专业知识的不足，更弥补不了人生阅历的欠缺。

庄子有句话，说“人生也有涯，知也无涯”，人生是有限的，大部分人活不过百岁，但知识是无限的，再勤奋，再虚心的人，也只能学到冰山一角，何况很多人既不勤奋，也不虚心。

很多人离开学校，就停止了学习，活到退休，认知还停留在学生时代。很多人从小学就被家长、老师逼着做题、背答案，童年、少年就开始厌学，上大学除了很窄的专业技能，什么也没学到，因为对知识、对世界，甚至连对自己，都已经没了好奇心。

至于人生阅历，有很强的个人性，对塑造一个人的见识和思路举足轻重。生活世界的很多事，如果自己没有经历过，再聪明也白搭，只有虚心听有阅历的人讲，边听边去经历，至少在头脑中经历，才能获得这笔人生财富。

不少朋友经常问我读什么书。多年前，曾经有位同事向我推荐艾比克泰德的《手册》，跟孔子的《论语》差不多。艾比克泰德是罗马人，比孔子晚500年，本来是奴隶，后来成了智者，教了很多学生。

到今天，美国很多家长教育孩子，还经常用一句话，说人长了两只耳朵，才一张嘴，不是没有原因的。聪明的人会多听少说，听进去的至少要比说出来的多一倍。据说，这句话就出自艾比克泰德。可惜的是，在现实世界，不少人两只耳朵都是摆设，偶尔用一下，随时都在用的，只有那张嘴。

艾比克泰德早年经历了人生的至暗时刻，很多话就是对身处至暗时刻的人讲的。这几年，中文世界很多人感到压力倍增：政治高压、经济下行、社会失序，机会窗口在关闭，年轻人被逼着“内卷”。整个国家像套上了一条不断勒紧的绳索，勒得所有人都喘不过气来。

有人选择逃离，有的人选择逃避，有的人干脆放弃，选择躺平。但无论哪种选择，心底的“无力感”“失控感”，都挥之不去。房价眼看着在降，工资却一直不涨，甚至收入也在下降，而人们对眼前这一切都无能为力，感觉到人生不再由自己掌握，而是被巨大的力量裹挟着，不知道下一步被裹到哪里。

这种感觉，不是当今中国独有。翻开历史看一看，大部分时段，都算不上好时候。坏时候、不好不坏的时候，是历史的常态。好的时段，反倒是历史的例外。在中国历史上，尤其是这样。过去几十年，中国改革开放，东西方冷战结束，全球化兴起，国际国内各种因素，都十分有利，中国经济快速增长。在这个时代长大的人，自然会觉得开放、增长是理所当然，是中国的常态。但是，如果把这个时段放到历史中看，它其实是中国历史的一个例外，并不是常态。

中国历史的常态，不是停滞，就是失序，或者停滞跟失序并行，就像这十年一样。中国经济虽然发展了几十年，但它的政治制度、社会结构、大部分中国人的精神世界，并没有走出历史的笼子，而是仍然按历史惯性走。各行各业很多有见识的中国人，看到了这一点。

崔健有句话概括的好：“该变的都没变，不该变的都变了”。

“该变的都没变”，这是它停滞的一面。但跟历史上停滞的帝国不一样，它还有另一面，就是“不该变的都变了”，维系道德人伦、礼义廉耻的传统规范，都被打碎了。社会处于失序状态，大部分人随波逐流，很多不愿随波逐流的人感到迷茫。

而有坚固人格内核的人，既不会随波逐流，也不会让自己迷失在失序的世界中。当外部世界失去秩序，他们会在精神世界建立内在的秩序。

这几年，经常听到有人抱怨，自己起点太低了，大环境太恶劣了，不管怎么努力，都没有机会。我们今天讲的两个人，可以肯定的是，当今很少有人比他们的起点更低，条件更恶劣。一个就是前面已经提到的艾比克泰德。他生来就是奴隶——当代中国人，不可能起点比奴隶还低。从奴隶起步，他成了对罗马帝国，对欧洲和美国影响最大的几位哲学家之一，不仅罗马皇帝把他当成老师，近代的启蒙思想家读他的书，而且美国的国父乔治·华盛顿、托马斯·杰佛逊也读他的书。

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