有政策的地方就有对策，有压迫的地方就有反抗。“没有了运动，就没有生命。”

——第九位受访者，宝洁抵制者

亲爱的媎妹：

见字如面！

这次想跟大家分享我最近发表的论文：《激进的抵制者和温和的购买者：中国社交媒体上的消费主义女权行动》。这篇文章是我和香港中文大学的副教授、也是我大学本科的导师方可成合作完成的。他是新闻实验室项目的发起人，最近又在香港建立了过滤气泡工作室，我们第一次线下见面会就是在那里办的。

这篇文章发表的过程极其漫长，22年暑假就写完了，到今年秋天才发表。我们研究的两个案例——抵制宝洁（boycott）和支持韩束（buycott）——在当时还相当热门，但现在已经是古早事件了。

先帮大家回忆一下这两件事：2021年，宝洁邀请杨笠在京东推广卫生巾，但活动开始前就遭到很多男性抵制，于是宝洁就把杨笠的照片从宣传海报里撤掉了。此举激怒了许多女性，并引发抵制行动。结果是杨笠还是参加了直播，宝洁中国也在3月25日在微博公开道歉。

第二个案例和吴亦凡性侵事件有关。美妆品牌韩束在吴被正式批捕之前就终止了和他的合作，因此得到了大量支持。解约当晚有132万人涌入韩束直播间，很多支持者在号召她人参与时说，“你花的每一分钱都是在为你理想中的社会投票。”

虽然事情已经过去很久，但我们的结论并没有过时，因为类似的抵制/购买事件如今依然层出不穷。例如去年大家抵制京东（也是因为杨笠），还有前段时间支持盼盼（因为其抖音旗舰店的直播委婉批评政府在Maskpark偷拍女性事件中不作为）。

这些事件都表明，消费者的力量已成为中国当代女权运动不可或缺的一部分。在威权体制下，女性消费者正在用创造性的方式推动社会变革。为了深入了解消费和女性主义的关系，我们采访了27位曾参与抵制宝洁/支持韩束的女性，并分析了3500条豆瓣/微博帖子和回复。接下来，我会介绍研究的主要发现，即中国消费主义女权的动机、组织方式以及参与者复杂的的政治立场。

一、把品牌变成盟友：女权主义应是“政治正确”

我们发现很多女性参与消费主义女权行动主要是为了争取更多盟友，从而改变公众对女权主义的看法。中国女性在制度和文化层面均处于弱势地位，且女权主义面临污名化和严格的审查。在这种艰难的处境下，很多受访者开始想和各种力量合作，希望能让女权成为新的社会规范。

具体来说，参与者主要有三重战略考量。首先，在中国开展线下公共活动的风险太大，而通过网络参与抵制或支持品牌要安全很多。线上消费行动还能帮一些人避免冲突。例如有受访者说：“我不擅长和男权群体争论，那样太累了。我更喜欢通过购物表达支持”。

其次，很多参与者希望品牌能看到女性消费者的购买力，从而更关注性别问题，因为“以女性为目标客户的品牌必须要满足女性的需求才能生存”。她们希望品牌尊重女性消费者、停止厌女营销、和女性代言人合作等等。

然而，对于企业是否需要真心支持女权，参与者们看法不一。一些受访者发现她们的行动对企业的影响有限，所以以后也不太想再参加了。例如韩束直播里的产品有很多是清仓货，包装上甚至还印着吴亦凡的照片，这说明品牌其实主要只是想趁势大捞一笔。不过，大多数受访者认为品牌的真实意图不重要，只要能让大家知道“尊重女性消费者才能盈利”就行了。例如有受访者说，“品牌如果想骗女性的钱，就必须从头到尾包装自己。Fake it until you make it。”

最后，受访者希望消费行动能让大家正视性别不平等的问题，吸引原本不关心女性权益的人也加入女权运动。

总之，在保守主义抬头的背景下，大多数参与者的目的在于塑造公众舆论、尽可能争取更多盟友，为未来作准备。制度改革不是她们的首要目标。

二、“人人都可以是领导者”：草根行动者的跨平台合作

有趣的是，参与者们运用各种平台的独特功能展开了跨平台的女权行动。她们的行动主要分为三个阶段，在三种类型的平台上进行：豆瓣、微博以及京东、淘宝、抖音等直播平台。豆瓣是用来制定策略和遣送“部队”的总部；微博是和反女权主义阵营对抗的核心战场；微博和各种直播平台是参与者和品牌互动的地方。

在第一阶段，参与者的目标是增加事件的热度。很多人利用豆瓣吸引第一批参与者，这是因为豆瓣有很多去中心化的小组，而且很多组由女性管理。管理员会将重要帖子标记为“星标内容”以吸引更多关注，小组成员也会通过回复顶帖，所以就算一个人本身没多少粉丝，她的帖子也可能被很多人看到。

接下来，她们会利用微博话题扩大影响力，因为微博是“舆论战场”，且经常通过推广和性别或明星有关的争议性新闻来吸引流量。一些人甚至在豆瓣组织抽奖活动，将三支Ukiss口红作为奖品，送给三位发帖抵制宝洁的女性。

（P.s. Ukiss是中国美妆品牌，曾批评哔哩哔哩传播厌女内容，并于2021年终止了与哔哩哔哩的合作）。

在微博和豆瓣，参与者都会运用民族主义话语刺激大家加入消费行动。例如，有抵制者说，女性无论如何都应该抵制宝洁，因为它来自“西方资本主义国家”。有支持韩束的人说购买韩束的产品既能促进性别平等，又能帮助国产品牌。

在微博和豆瓣，参与者都会运用民族主义话语刺激大家加入消费行动。例如，有抵制者说，女性无论如何都应该抵制宝洁，因为它来自“西方资本主义国家”。有支持韩束的人说购买韩束的产品既能促进性别平等，又能帮助国产品牌。

在第二阶段，参与者在豆瓣制定和完善行动指南，这样才能让大批女性立刻行动起来。一些帖子汇总了宝洁的所有产品，方便大家抵制。她们呼吁大家申请退款或索取发票、在微博/领英联系宝洁的公关经理、在京东上联系客服、在宝洁直播间刷一样的评论。为了鼓励更多人参与，抵制者会写好各种话术，其她人可以直接复制粘贴，不用自己编辑消息。支持韩束的人则会介绍各种产品，方便其她人快速下单。

在最后阶段，参与者在微博及直播平台和品牌互动。21年3月，宝洁中国为其客服回复时的不当言论道歉。此外，她们涌入直播平台留言以寻求即时的回应。很多人开始剪辑韩束直播的切片，两个主播的CP向视频在抖音迅速走红。

值得注意的是，虽然跨平台的女权行动看起来轰轰烈烈，但个人和平台间的权力差注定了这类草根行动会面临巨大的阻碍。平台以盈利为先，因此“品牌的公关部门可以轻易贿赂平台来压制抵制活动、减少负面影响。”此外，网络审查日益严格，删帖和禁言越来越普遍。有受访者表示，女权主义者常常讨论转移到其她平台，但“这不现实，因为人们可能会分散，很难重新组织起来。没有人能投入那么多时间和精力。”总之，中国女权运动受到政治和技术方面的重重限制。

三、参与者光谱：激进的抵制者和温和的购买者

消费女权主义的参与者之间存在立场的差异，并非铁板一块。她们大体上可以被分为三类：只参与抵制品牌的人、只购买支持品牌的人，还有同时参与抵制和购买的中间派。

其中，只参与抵制的女性更加激进，对当局持批判态度；而只参与支持活动的女性则较为温和，很少和政府对抗。她们对消费主义的态度也截然不同：只参与抵制的人认为资本主义建立在父权制上，因此拒绝通过拥抱消费主义推动女权发展。例如一位受访者说：“女权反对粉红税，反对消费主义陷阱，激进女权从来没有提倡购买某种商品维护女权...商业可以向女权靠拢但女权不能向商业靠拢，女权要守着自己的高地不放松自己的标准。”

相较之下，只参与支持行动的人鼓励大家“为缩小性别差距买单”。

此外，只参与抵制的人往往更具有反叛精神。她们反对审查、反对建制，认为“权力来自破坏而非购买”。我们采访的所有强硬抵制者都自认为是激进女权主义者。她们总是强调“抵抗”、“反叛”、“斗争”，且不相信与国家力量合作，不愿因为现状艰难而妥协。

相比之下，只参与购买的人大多不了解审查制度，或是认为有些女性过于反叛，因此支持审查。她们很少认同自己是女权主义者。例如有受访者说：“审查制度是合理的，因为有些观点是不可接受的。我支持女性争取权利，但反对极端女权。现在女性的状况已经比上一辈完善很多了。”不管有意还是无意，只参与购买行动的人也可能和当局一起压制女权主义。

最后，中间派主张在两者之间找到平衡，在一定程度上承认并抵制审查，但容易妥协。例如，有受访者认为应该和政府合作保障女性基本权利，例如为农村地区的女孩提供卫生用品。同时，她们拒绝接受单一定义的女权，希望拥抱多元化的观点。她们也更担心因为支持女权主义而遭受污名化。

抵制和支持女权主义之间的鲜明区别可能源于以下两个因素。其一、在威权国家，抵制商品的成本要比“买爆”某商品更高，这是因为抵制者通常会激烈地批判性别压迫，鼓励人们反抗，其情绪是“负面”的。她们更常和男权群体发生冲突，更容易面临审查。所以有抵制者提醒其她女性在联系宝洁公关时使用小号、避免暴露隐私。而参与购买的人是在奖励某些品牌，其情绪是积极正向的。因此抵制商品的帖子会被删除，支持购买的则不会。

其二、一些只参与购买行动/中间派的女性在体制内工作/学习，更容易受到审查，参与抵制的风险也更高。例如有受访者曾因发布女权内容遭到处分，于是不再做太激进的事情。这表明参与者的立场受其与国家权力距离的影响。一个人和权力的距离越远，就越容易持更激进的立场。

四、消费女权的两大问题：阶级主义和新自由主义

消费女权的实际效果有限。这类行动主要围绕明星和直播八卦展开，而品牌的回应往往只是危机公关策略。企业优先考虑的是吸引流量快速获利，而非倡导女权主义事业。其实，很多参与者也意识到了消费主义女权效率不高、作用间接且短暂，但它确是威权体制下难得可行的反抗方式。我们发现中国社会对女权主义的污名已经深入人心，有受访者在收到采访问题之后问我“你是外国人吗？”，暗指女权和境外势力有关。也有还在上学的受访者说她的大学会监控学生在网上的发言，女权被视为“错误观点”。在这种环境下，女权行动派的选择不多。

此外，消费主义女权深受新自由主义和阶级主义影响。参与者强调卫生巾/美妆品牌必须尊重女性，因为女性是购买这些产品的主力军。然而这种说法的潜台词是“少数群体只有有钱才能获得尊重”。而且，它忽略了女性在父权社会的资源分配中本就处于弱势，整体的经济能力低于男性。同时保守派也可以用抵制/支持品牌的方式反女权，例如宝洁事件的导火索就是男性因为杨笠抵制宝洁。

其次，大多数受访者对女权的看法暗含等级观念。例如大家普遍认为，只有更多女性努力“往上爬”，女权主义才能实现。所以，她们也试图通过贬低男性的经济资本来赋予女性权力。例如，一位抵制者发帖称：“抵制杨笠的都是一个月只赚3000的厂工屌丝，成功人士哪有时间做这种事。品牌居然会关心这种loser，真是荒谬。” 这种论调完全忽视了女性的脆弱性。如果低收入男性理应被品牌抛弃，那处于更加弱势地位的工厂女工呢？

而且，我们发现消费主义女权的实践者大多来自发达地区、有一定特权的女性。研究中所有受访者都是受过良好教育（均为本科或研究生）的中产阶级，主要居住在中国南方沿海城市和省会，其中一些人有海外背景。因此，中国消费主义女权的纲领与欧美白人中产阶级女权主义相似：某种程度上以特权阶级为核心、忽视经济资本匮乏的女性的利益。

结语

中国消费主义女权的兴起反映了威权体制下女权运动的机遇与挑战。一方面，作为一种集体行动，社交媒体上的消费主义女权为女性提供了新的政治参与途径。参与者通过抵制或支持品牌来提高公众对性别问题的认知，同时以较低的风险争取更多盟友、为未来做准备。她们相互配合、利用不同平台的功能推进自己的议程。当然了，这类行动的局限性也很明显：它们常常流于表面，缺乏对制度改革的推动。而且，在阶级主义和新自由主义的影响下，其进步性亦有限。

然而无论如何，我依然认为这是一种非常宝贵的实践。虽然已经过去了很久，一位受访者说的话依然时时在我耳畔回响，“有政策的地方就有对策，有压迫的地方就有反抗。‘没有了运动，就没有生命。’”

我觉得这也是中国消费主义女权行动最生动的写照。

就此搁笔，期待下一次和大家见面！

陌生女人1号 兔姐*

二〇二五年十二月二十二日

P.s. 本文由陌生女人1号主笔，陌生女人2号编辑。

这些年，经常听到中文世界有人讲“平庸的恶”或“恶的平庸”。这是汉娜·阿伦特的说法，用老百姓的话来说，就是随波逐流干坏事，像希特勒时代的纳粹官员、像文革时代的红卫兵，像现在中国体制内的一些大大小小官员。

阿伦特对纳粹德国的说法有一定道理，但她不是个有深度观察能力和深度思考能力的人，对很多事务的评论，都流于表面。在恶的问题上，也是这样。她有本书，名叫《艾希曼在耶路撒冷》。艾希曼是纳粹德国的犹太事务主管，组织杀害了很多无辜的犹太人。德国投降后，他逃到阿根廷，被以色列特工绑架到以色列受审。

阿伦特旁听了审判，写了几篇文章，后来结集成书。她把艾希曼描绘成一个不善言辞、平凡普通，没有思考能力的人，说他组织杀犹太人，完全是执行纳粹德国的政策，在当时并不违法。

从后来披露的一些有关艾希曼的材料看，也从我个人对邪恶现象的观察来看，没有思考能力的不是艾希曼，而是阿伦特。她的整个叙事完全被艾希曼牵着鼻子走，所谓“平庸的恶”或“恶的平庸”，成了她为艾希曼总结的辩护词。

任何一位有经验的律师，都能识破被告这种把戏：假装无辜，假装头脑简单，假装体制的受害者，干坏事的是体制，不是他——他只是体制大机器上一颗小小的螺丝钉。阿伦特掉进艾希曼这种自我辩护的套路中，对艾希曼的表演和伪装照单全收，成了艾希曼玩弄于股掌之间的useful idiot。“平庸的恶”或“恶的平庸”就是阿伦特这么“思考”出来的。当然，这里的“思考”是加引号的。

更奇特的是，不少人把这当成深刻。中文世界一些知识分子这样做，尤其令人不解。中国这两代人经历了文革，现在又经历文革2.0版，体制内外各色人等，作恶都是争先恐后，一点都不平庸。在现实中，尤其是在中国的现实中，恶不但不平庸，而且相当积极，十分乖巧。很多看似平庸的人作恶，不是因为随波逐流，而是因为不甘平庸，想通过作恶的捷径往上爬。

在以前的节目中，我曾经给大家讲过“短语的奴隶”——slave of phrases。这是教育普及后出现的一个观察力萎缩现象。人们从书上看到一个词，一个短语，像“平庸的恶”“恶的平庸”之类，就被这个词，这个短语牵着鼻子走，成了短语的奴隶，不再观察，不再思考，不再用现实来矫正概念的偏颇。明明现实中的恶，一点都不平庸，但不少人一看到阿伦特说“平庸的恶”“恶的平庸”，就觉深刻，就放弃了自己的眼睛和头脑。

这些年，我在观察历史和现实时，越来越感到一种不安。用阿伦特“平庸的恶”来解释纳粹德国，解释毛时代的文革，解释土皇帝的文革2.0，解释无差别杀人的恐怖分子，虽然方便，但太轻描淡写，太虚假了。“平庸的恶”成了一块遮羞布，不但遮蔽了现实中令人毛骨悚然的恶，也掩盖了作恶者主动作恶的冲动和意图。

阿伦特去耶路撒冷看审判艾希曼。她看到被告席上是个唯唯诺诺、满口套话的中年男人。从这种浮皮潦草的观察，她得出结论，说艾希曼不是恶魔，他只是不思考，他只是盲目服从命令。阿伦特不知道，大部分有头脑的被告，在法庭上都是看起来唯唯诺诺、满口律师教的套话。这是被告席上的常态。何况艾希曼曾经是纳粹德国负责犹太事务的官员。他的头脑显然比阿伦特的要复杂一些。

一个人在放手作恶时的行为方式，跟他在被告席上的行为方式，完全就是两码事。就像一个杀人越货的劫匪，被抓获归案后，上了被告席，跟他端着枪抢银行的时候，会判若两人。这本来应该是观察人的基本常识，但阿伦特缺少这种常识。她用艾希曼在被告席上的言行，来推断他作为纳粹官员，组织灭绝犹太人时的行为方式和心理状态。没有比这更荒唐的思路了。

在纳粹体制中，艾希曼相当精明，在作恶方面极度乖巧。在执行灭绝犹太人的国策时，他 不是机械地服从，而是创造性地发挥。为了提高运输犹太人的效率，他主动设计方案，协调铁路，克服物流困难。甚至在战争后期资源紧张的时候，他仍然超额完成杀人指标。说这是“平庸的恶”，简直跟精神错乱差不多。

所谓“平庸”，不过是艾希曼在成为阶下囚之后，为了保命而精心设计的一张面具。他把自己伪装成一颗没有灵魂的螺丝钉。但他不是螺丝钉，他是作恶者。恶都是人主动作出来的。人不主动去作恶，世界上就不会有恶。这是能撬动“恶”这个问题的阿基米德支点。阿伦特的头脑中，没有这个支点。

在中国的现实中，我们看到的更多的是“乖巧的恶”，就是为了乖巧地迎合上意，积极主动地去作恶。在文革中，他们发明出各种折磨人、羞辱人的方式方法；在新冠封城清零中，他们不断加码，像对待牲口一样对待居民；在文革2.0中，他们主动出击，小题大做、无中生有，攻击文明的声音。他们不甘平庸，乖巧地作恶，从意图、出发点到结果，都是损人利己，甚至毁人利己。

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Rahm Emanuel returns to ChinaTalk with a characteristically blunt assessment of U.S.-China relations and verdict on year one of Trump 2.0.

We discuss:

• The “Fear Factor” in Asia: Why Japan and South Korea are ramping up defense spending not because of Trump’s strength, but because his unpredictability and isolationism have forced them to buy “insurance policies” against a U.S. exit,

• Corruption and “Own Goals”: How “draining the swamp” has turned into institutional degradation — and why the Trump family’s entanglement of personal business interests with foreign policy damages U.S. credibility and strategic leverage,

• Adversary, Not Competitor: Why the U.S. needs to stop viewing China as a strategic competitor and start treating it as a strategic adversary — one whose win-lose economic model is designed to hollow out global industrial bases,

• Education as National Security: Why tariffs are a distraction and the only real way to beat China is a massive domestic push for workforce training,

• AI and Inequality: Rahm’s evolving thinking on artificial intelligence — why he’s still learning and why a technology that boosts productivity but widens inequality is a political and social risk.

Plus: why Ari Emanuel’s UFC US-China robot rumble is sound policy, Rahm’s case that he’s now the real free-market capitalist in the room, and rapid-fire takes on J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and the 2028 Republican field.

Have a listen in your favorite podcast app.

On Playing Into China’s Hands

Jordan Schneider: Rahm Emanuel, welcome back to ChinaTalk. What a year for US-Asia policy it has been.

Rahm Emanuel: That is the understatement of the year.

Jordan Schneider: In our 2024 show we started out with me asking you questions about, “Oh, look at all this nice stuff you guys did. Rebuilding alliances. Japan and South Korea are friends again.” And now we’ve got all this.

Rahm Emanuel: How did we go downhill so quickly? Is that what you’re asking?

Jordan Schneider: We now have a year-long sample size of “Trump II” taking a very different take from both Biden and Trump I. Really, it’s a departure from the past 70-plus years of US foreign policy when it comes to relations with our treaty allies. What has it been like watching this, Rahm?

Rahm Emanuel: It’s depressing. It’s infuriating. There are a lot of other emotions. Look, it starts from a premise. China’s view is that they are the rising power. America is receding. Their message is, “Either get in line, or we will give you our full China coercion policy.”

Our message is that we’re a permanent Pacific power and presence and you can bet long on the United States. Unfortunately, everything President Trump’s doing is underscoring China’s message with a bunch of exclamation points because of the way we’re behaving.

When President Biden and his team walked in in 2020, China was on their front foot. When we left, they were on their back heel. They were angry at being isolated and it took a strategy of flipping the script. Rather than them isolating Japan or the Philippines, we isolated the isolator through the United States, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and India. They knew it on a political, military, and strategic level.

All our military exercises were multinational. Japan was the number one foreign direct investor in the United States and is a long pole of our policy there. We built an alliance that China thought could never be done — and part of their strategy relied on it not being done — between the United States, Japan, and Korea. This culminated in what we accomplished at Camp David. That was, and remains, China’s worst nightmare. Trump basically took it off the page.

We then extended it to Japan, the United States, and the Philippines. If you look at where the Philippine islands are and where the Okinawa islands are, China’s strategy to quarantine Taiwan becomes much more difficult to achieve.

It had a strategic, political, and military level that was unprecedented. Then we had the Quad. We doubled down on the Quad, which Trump had actually pushed along in his first term to his credit. But now he has taken a 35-year project of bringing India into our orbit and totally expelled them for Pakistan’s vanity. It looks like it was done for Pakistan’s economic gifts to the Trump family, the Witkoff family, and the Lutnick family. Specifically to the Trump boys. That’s what it looks like.

China has been trying to force Japan into submission through economic coercion — which they haven’t done since 2010. It took the United States almost two weeks from the get-go to finally do a B-52 air surveillance run with Japan’s F-35s. Crazy. We should have been there immediately to send a direct message, but we didn’t.

At every level, this administration has made America weaker and more vulnerable. It has actually played into China’s message to all the countries we were attempting to pull into the US gravitational pull.

Jordan Schneider: The MAGA retort would be, “Look, we said some mean things, and defense spending in all these countries is going up. What’s not to like about that?”

Rahm Emanuel: First of all, not Japan. Let’s just deal with that. Japan increased their defense budget from the ninth largest to the third largest when I was there. To their credit — I don’t deserve it, and the Biden administration doesn’t deserve it — they did it early on, even before I got there. That wasn’t due to President Trump. They committed to 2% and did it in five years. They were well on their way before President Trump ever put his right hand on the Bible. So that’s calling offsides for what was not true.

Second, they have done things in that defense budget regarding counterstrike capability that pre-date Donald Trump. They just concluded a sale of ships to Australia. They did things they were constitutionally prohibited from doing, also pre-Trump. If anything, their willingness to go above 2% of GDP in defense spending is probably more out of fear of Donald Trump’s failure to show up than it is because of prodding by the Trump administration.

That has also been true to the credit of the new Korean president. His first set of conversations were with the Japanese because of their fear that the United States is AWOL. The facts just don’t bear out.

Plus, I’m right about India. The Trump administration totally punted on a bipartisan project that was succeeding in making China very nervous. Go look at what they were doing in the Himalayas. They haven’t shown up as it relates to the Philippines and the South China Sea islands.

Then last week, the Trump administration validated the AUKUS submarine project between the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. That all predates them as well. If that’s their argument, they better get some facts to back it up because nothing across six different countries adds up to that argument.

Jordan Schneider: There is a part of this that is downstream of this MAGA worldview that America just isn’t up for it anymore. What do you think about this whole idea of defining down what America can accomplish on the global stage?

Rahm Emanuel: I don’t buy it. A superpower doesn’t pick geographies, which is what they’re trying to do. They failed with Canada, they failed with Panama, they failed with Greenland. We’ll see what happens in Venezuela. The only place you could say they had a success was a $40 billion pledge to Argentina in the middle of cutting healthcare for the United States. I don’t think it should be hemispheric.

As a superpower, does that mean they are going to pull up stakes on the Middle East where Russia has now been kicked out and China is a bit player? That is an important geographic, strategic, and resource-rich area. Dumbing down or strategically pulling back only makes the world more dangerous.

Now, there are reforms that should be made to the alliances. But as you and I are talking about this, for 40 years the United States was telling Europe, “Don’t get economically energy-dependent on Russia.” Now the President of the United States is begging Europe to become more of a vassal energy-wise to Russia. This is in direct competition with our own energy policy and interests.

I’m a former ballet dancer, so I’m proud of being flexible. But these guys redefine flexibility. Here you are saying maybe we should dumb down or restrict ourselves, yet you’re telling Europe to get more dependent on Russia — and less dependent on Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. I can’t think of anything more stupid than that.

Also, in the Mideast, Russia has been kicked out of Syria. China has no play. It’s a major geographic area strategically. It’s a major purchaser of defense weapons. It’s a major investor in America’s economy. We have an ally both in Israel and in the Gulf countries, and also in the immediate Arab world. That is to our strategic advantage. Pulling back from that would make America more vulnerable politically, economically, and strategically. It’s foolish without even touching the rest of the world.

Would I say that Latin America and Central America in American foreign policy over the years have been stepchildren? 100%. Focusing on it is the right thing to do, but not at the expense of other regions. America can walk, chew gum, and be a superpower that brings a strategic presence to our policies in the Indo-Pacific, as an example.

Flooding the Swamp

Jordan Schneider: When I was reading that national strategy document, I was trying to make sense of it. You try to get in their worldview and think about how serious it is. But at the same time, you got everyone’s children making billions of dollars on the side. I really think this is a new thing in American history. It makes it very hard to take this new grand vision of how they want America to play in the world all that seriously.

Rahm Emanuel: Well look, I saw this today — it’s a pivot. When they had the big signing in the Sinai and around this ceasefire in Gaza, the Indonesian president says to Trump, “I need to talk to Donald.” The two boys are very upfront about it — they got caught on tape. In the midst of a tariff negotiation, we are mixing our strategic vision with President Trump’s checkbook. They’re not one and the same.

When I got to Congress, I set up a blind trust. First member to do it. Kept it as Chief of Staff. I had to re-up it and change it to meet the executive branch requirements. As Mayor, I filled out massive financial forms. In fact, I got an email about four months after I left saying, “You have to do your exit financial form.” I said, “You guys must be really lonely because you’re chasing me after I’ve left where I have no conflict.”

Meanwhile, you got a bunch of people who just left prison and are now investors. Crazy. Okay? I don’t know if you noticed, but they just left prison.

But you can go through the country. There was an announcement the other day. A startup company on one of the private equity funds from — I’m not sure which of the sons of Donald Trump — won a $700 million contract out of the Pentagon. A startup.

I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal. The theory of “Broken Windows”is that small crimes create conditions for big crimes. That’s exactly what’s been happening. It’s not just about streets — it’s also about the corporate suite. The kids of Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce Witkoff, the special advisor for everything and anything, and Donald Trump’s kids — their checkbook is bigger today and yours is smaller today because they’re conducting themselves to enrich themselves.

The only envy Donald Trump has of Putin is that that is their business model, and he would like it to be America’s model. He has to work around some legal boundaries, of which the Supreme Court continues to remove for him. It is unbelievable to me what goes on here, having spent a lot of money with lawyers and accountants.

One of the things I’m proud about, starting from Bill Clinton forward, is that I’ve never hired a lawyer for anything I did when I was in public service. What these guys are doing makes me feel like I was a schmuck. I’ve never seen anything like this, and nor has America in American history. We have a lot of competition — and I’m from the city of Chicago — for corruption. But they have not only corrupted in the sense of the money they’re making in public policy, but they’ve corrupted the process of doing it.

Jordan Schneider: There’s big 17th or 18th-century European aristocracy energy here — like the princes marrying each other and doing deals on the side. [Neo-royalism!]

Rahm Emanuel: Here’s the thing. In the last 48 hours, two people were caught — ethics reports for not selling stock or whatever. Who’s going to investigate them? The FTC? The SEC? The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department? The Supreme Court — John Roberts and the rest of those hacks — gave him a carte blanche to go steal.

You basically can appoint members, fire all the Inspector Generals, and appoint or fire whoever you want at these independent agencies. You have a Justice Department and FBI which is a bunch of Keystone Kops. So of course people are going to break the law. You told them they get to write the law for themselves and nobody will enforce it. That’s what John Roberts did — the genius that he isn’t.

Jordan Schneider: I’m old enough to remember, “Drain the swamp”. And it won an election.

Rahm Emanuel: And what they decided was just to make the swamp a little bigger. Take India and Pakistan and the strategic point here, because there are other things relating to the American family’s checkbook being smaller than the Trump family’s. One is getting bigger and one is shrinking.

We have had a project from George Herbert Walker Bush to Bill Clinton to George Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump One to Joe Biden — bring India into a closer strategic alliance. Because Modi did not want to play stooge to Donald Trump, he made peace. Trump gets angry. Pakistan waves a bunch of contracts. The Financial Times has a great story about this regarding crypto and mining for the Trump kids.

We’ve abandoned a 35-plus-year project of America’s strategic interest just so the two Trump boys can have a little gold coin. That is what happened. And I stand by it.

Jordan Schneider: I would be remiss not to bring up Hunter’s pardon.

Rahm Emanuel: Bring it up. It was wrong.

Jordan Schneider: I thought it was really gross. It was really disappointing. I actually thought he wouldn’t do it.

Rahm Emanuel: If you want me to live in a glass house before I throw a stone, I ain’t doing it. But I’m going to say this, I never hired a lawyer for something I did. I believe in what Kennedy said about public service. That is not the virtue of this White House. They are stealing in broad daylight and getting away with it because John Roberts gave him a “get out of jail” card.

Who’s the Socialist?

Jordan Schneider: Let’s talk US-China. We had Liberation Day, we had Liberation Day v2. We had rare earths thrown on the table twice. Then the Trump administration backing off. What’s your read on all this, Rahm?

Rahm Emanuel: The whole “Tariffs and Liberation Day” was about drugs one day, then manufacturing the next — whatever the moving target was based on the day. I don’t disagree with the desire to build America’s industrial capacity, but three points of fact illustrate the issue.

When the President walked in, there were 50,000 manufacturing jobs with “Help Wanted” signs that nobody could fill. We would be 50,000 manufacturing jobs ahead today if we had focused on the training side — getting Americans ready to do those jobs. Instead, we’ve lost jobs under Trump.

Number two — this went unnoticed, but two weeks ago, the CEO of Ford said he has thousands of empty jobs today paying six figures because people don’t have the skills — mechanics, electricians, etc. These are not in the corporate suite. They’re on the shop floor, and he cannot fill them. He says it’s only going to grow.

There was a story about China being ahead of us on energy production. One of the big problems for us to compete with China on AI and transmission is that we are short 200,000 electricians. Every one of those is a six-figure job with healthcare and retirement. The Merchant Marines — which are key to building up both economic and security capacity — are short 200,000 jobs over the next decade.

If we had focused on the problem analysis — that you need industrial capacity and a base in the United States to compete — that part is true. But tariffs and looking weak? Of the top five choices, that was number ten. We have Americans looking for work, the ability to buy a home, and a way toward economic independence. We have jobs that would give you a start on that independence — six figures — and every one of those companies is short workers.

Nobody covered what the CEO of Ford said. It was treated like a little thing that happened on the side. If the President had dropped 50,000 “Help Wanted” signs on manufacturing the day he walked in, we’d be a hell of a lot farther ahead on manufacturing than with tariffs — which he calls “the most beautiful word in the English language.”

The President continues to do this. He analyzes a problem not entirely wrong — not always right, but not wrong — but then his solution is far worse than the problem he started to try to solve. It didn’t work against China, it made us look weaker, it divided us from our allies, and he is telling Europe to buy oil and gas from Russia, not from us.

In fact, the oil and gas industry in America has fewer wells today — which means fewer people working, drilling, and transporting — than when he walked in. Even his “drill baby drill” strategy is failing. I find this immensely frustrating from an economic renaissance perspective because we have a challenge that is actually an opportunity and our politics, and specifically how this administration is failing America and Americans, is the issue.

Jordan Schneider: So, forward-looking — we’ve had this rare earths saga. It is clear that big parts of the US economy have — and probably will for the foreseeable future — large dependencies. The economic coercion playbook that China has is significant. What is the international strategy to handle them? And also, how do you spend that money to start to ameliorate those vulnerabilities at home?

Rahm Emanuel: Having been Ambassador to Japan, I recall the first critical minerals economic coercion playbook China started was in 2010 against Japan around the Senkaku Islands. We knew about the old playbook and didn’t do squat — both parties. Then, when it came to COVID, they withheld basic medical gloves, masks, etc. That was economic coercion up front, though more for their own self-preservation than just for punishing everyone else. This has been part of their playbook.

You have to look across the system. I wrote a piece in the Washington Post about how we’ve had five helter-skelter national industrial policies. The auto bailout was a national industrial policy. What we did on CHIPS and the IRA under Biden was a national industrial policy. What we did during Warp Speed and COVID was an industrial policy. Some elements of policy are successful and others aren’t.

You quoted the National Security Council producing the NSS. I would have the National Economic Council produce an economic blueprint at the beginning of every administration — that looks out over the horizon. Here are our strengths, here are our weaknesses, here are our vulnerabilities. Today, it’s obviously critical minerals and magnet production. Four years ago it was — and still is — semiconductors and the production of chips, which was the impetus for the CHIPS Act and IRA coming out of the chip wars. Look through the strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, and then develop a strategy around that.

China has decided that on quantum, AI, life sciences, fusion, and alternative energy, they’re going to kick our ass. They’re not going to compete with America; they’re going to try to beat it. You saw after COVID their vaccine was a debacle. They made a decision that would be the last time. Now, five years later, they are competing, if not superseding us in certain areas, on life sciences and new drugs. You can look at what they did on chips and what they’re doing on alternative energy.

This attack on America’s research foundation, the university system, is an “own goal” of the worst kind. You won’t see the pain today — you’ll see the pain for the next decade. Donald Trump is leaving America far worse off. We should not concede any one of those areas. I spent time as an ambassador helping on quantum computing for America’s competitiveness between the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago, bringing IBM and Google in to fund that at $150 million.

Pick the areas, compete, and win. Our scientists and our funding mechanism, while not great, keep us at the top of the game. We should not be trying to strangle MIT, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, or the University of Illinois in competing and winning the innovation war against China. That’s number one.

Number two, the brawn behind the brains. We should be in a massive education push, whether it’s electricians, mechanics, or in jets, so we have the capacity to compete. China’s AI is getting more competitive not because of innovation, but because their electricity is 50% cheaper than ours — because our transmission and energy production are way behind.

Third, related to regulatory reform, there is a place for consensus on legal immigration. We should be very clear about bringing the best scientists, the best engineers, and the best-educated to the United States of America. Each one requires drilling down deeper, but at 10,000 feet, that’s what I would do.

Jordan Schneider: At a principle level, it’s been very interesting to watch. In 2009 and 2010, you guys got screamed at for being socialists for saving GM and Ford. Now we have a Republican administration taking equity bites. We’re doing “national champions” now, I guess. What’s your read on that? And broadly, how far should the government go to mess with these private sector dynamics?

Rahm Emanuel: You have golden shares in Nippon buying US Steel as an example. You have the Intel 10%. I disagreed with Senator Romney on this — then a presidential candidate. He talked about GM and Chrysler going bankrupt. We spent political and financial capital saving the auto industry for a reason. Yes, we were called socialists. We were also called socialists on healthcare. It’s a normal card. I suppose, if you keep playing it, one day you may be right.

Jordan Schneider: We’ll see how many companies Zohran ends up buying.

Rahm Emanuel: What China has done is outright intellectual property theft — some of it explicit, some corrupt. But they invest in certain new technologies and they refuse to let those companies raise money so they can bankrupt them, and then steal all the patents or take them back to China. That is their national strategy. They can’t replicate the beauty of America’s research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, so they steal it through the front door, the back door, and the kitchen window. That’s what’s going on right now.

To me, that’s where we’ve got to sharpen up. To your point about socialism — Solyndra. We invested in this new solar firm and everyone’s like, “Oh my God, oh my God!”, and here are these guys investing in and putting public money in companies with zero operating capacity.

I believe I’m more of a capitalist and a free marketer than the Trump administration and the Republican Party. The Democrats would never take economic stakes in a company. Let me say this — we did bail out GM and Chrysler to save the jobs and the communities that depend on them. We got our money back, plus profit. But the goal was to get out, not to stay in and increase ownership. We did it with AIG, got out, and made a profit.

The goal was not to get in, stay in, and increase your stake. The Secretary of Commerce says we want royalties for our public dollar investments now. I think there’s a way you could pay a system that funds greater research, but what he’s thinking about is ownership — which is the last thing you need. I love politics, but that’s not the type of politics I want.

Jordan Schneider: Here’s a blast from the past. I was a press office intern in the Biden administration. It was during Solyndra, I think it was summer 2012. And what you guys ended up doing was letting journalists see every single email that was sent about it. I had to sit in a room minding all these Politico journalists. We’ve gone from that level of transparency to, like, if Sasha and Malia were on the board of Solyndra or something.

Rahm Emanuel: Let me just be really clear. You had us investing in a startup to jumpstart a technology in America and that was called socialism. Today, you have the United States investing and owning pieces of companies. Back then you had journalists who actually cared about what was going on. Today, if you did that, you’d get fired from your corporate leadership because you were “offensive” to the President. So the world’s gone full circle. You’re not crazy. It’s just gone upside down.

“We’re Now Adversaries”

Jordan Schneider: So let’s do the US-China piece a little bit. This idea of America losing escalation dominance — we had a Biden administration that was able to slowly start to boil the frog when it came to a lot of these technology controls without necessarily having China snap back in an aggressive fashion that would affect America’s economy. And now that dynamic has shifted. So what happens next, Rahm? What’s the smart play here?

Rahm Emanuel: Look, I’d just be forthright and honest. I would tell China: “You wanted to be strategic competitors, but you have decided you want to be a strategic adversary. You have decided to go into our entire infrastructure — our utilities, our waters, and our systems. You’re also in our software, in our government agencies. That’s not a competitor — that’s an adversary. So if you want to go back to the competitive era, I’m ready. Everything you’ve done to endanger America — get out of here. We’ll compete, but we’re gonna go to a different level if you want to be adversaries.”

In this challenge, we don’t have an American to waste or a community to overlook. We made a mistake in 2012 thinking that Battle Creek can battle Beijing on their own. It’s going to take an all-country effort. I’m talking about what Ford said. I talked to you about other industries that have job openings and nobody there to fill them. We have thousands of young men and women looking for purpose and looking for economic independence, and every one of these jobs they can do. So I would go on a massive training push.

And I would be clear both on a technological level and a strategic level to our allies — “We have a certain period of time we have to buy. Our allies can play a bigger role in that effort so we can get to a point of competitiveness and a point of making China as deterred as they have done to us under President Trump.”

Don’t lose sight of Liberation Day and how we backed off. How much degradation to our deterrence posture was created when the President — after his talk with Xi, which he does first—then calls the Prime Minister of Japan (our number one ally) and never mentions Taiwan? And then for two weeks, while China is intimidating Japan, we don’t do anything. How much does that deterrence get degraded?

And while it’s being done to Japan, if you’re in the Blue House in Korea, you’re in Melbourne in Australia, you’re in New Delhi in India, you’re in Manila in the Philippines — you’re looking at what the United States doesn’t do with Japan and you’re saying, “There I go but for the grace of God.” So you bet you start to buy your insurance policy. You start to say — “Okay, the United States can’t be trusted. So what do I do?” That’s what’s dangerous here.

Jordan Schneider: The nuclear proliferation arc, which we haven’t quite seen yet, but I mean it’s coming, right?

Rahm Emanuel: When I got back early in February, I wrote this — if you think non-proliferation was expensive, wait till you see the bill for proliferation.

We spent a good time — not me directly, but in the region — convincing South Korea not to go independent on a nuclear weapon. We made a lot of assurances, too. You look at what’s happening now; it’s going to be hard to convince South Korea, given North Korea and China, to stay nuclear-free much longer. Not saying it’s not possible, but they’re going to look around. Part of their strategic overview is a nuclear and military guarantee and support from the United States. You look at what’s been going on in the last year, you’re going to sit there in the Blue House in Seoul and say, “Well, we can’t keep it like this now.”

If South Korea were to go nuclear, other countries like Japan would sit there and go, “Wait a second.” You have China building up nuclear capacity massively. North Korea, we know. And India and Pakistan. What if you add in South Korea and Japan? What could go wrong with six nations in a small geographic space — all who have 800 years of history and animosities — what could possibly go wrong? This is insane at every level.

Jordan Schneider: Well, we haven’t even talked about Iran, Saudi, UAE...

Rahm Emanuel: Can I say one thing that’s underappreciated in the strategic world and doesn’t get a lot of coverage unless you’re like a weirdo like me and read it? Iran is going through one of the biggest social-cultural revolutions since the Ayatollah walked into Tehran in 1979. They’re allowing concerts because they can’t control the youth. Women are openly totally disregarding the cultural norms of the ruling government. Because of a water shortage and corruption, they’re thinking of moving the capital out of Tehran.

I get Tehran has a strategic vision of themselves in that Shiite arc from Tehran to Beirut. There is a slow-boil implosion happening in Tehran right now. I don’t know how it manifests itself, I don’t know where the ball bounces, but there’s a cultural revolution going on — and I use “revolution” with a small ’r,’ not big. Given the demographics of the country — it’s dominated by people aged 30 and younger who so much want to be part of the rest of the world and believe the ruling class is holding them back economically, politically, and culturally.

There’s something going on in Iran and in a year from now, or maybe two —I’m going to look prescient saying what I just said. Something is happening there that we’re not seeing. And one day we’re going to wake up and say, “Who knew?” But you can’t have a ruling class all of a sudden — because of political vulnerability — say to the kids, “Right. You want to have all these concerts and go out and do all this that are not part of the norms? Go ahead.” Once you do that, that genie’s out of the bottle. If that genie’s out of the bottle, there’s going to be another genie out of the bottle. That’s the one thing we know from cultural history.

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Jordan Schneider: One more foreign policy one for you. Let’s do a little bureaucratic reform talk. Someone’s going to have to rebuild the civil service. Say you’re Secretary of State 2029. What do you do with the place?

Rahm Emanuel: You know, it’s interesting you say this. I was down in Austin about three weeks ago, and I grabbed lunch with two very, very good top national security former generals. I don’t want to use their names — I don’t want to get them in any trouble if they’re doing any kind of advisory board for the government. Very smart people that I’ve worked with who rose to the highest levels in their roles out of the national security institution.

And I asked this question, “Okay, you got all this chaos. We all operated in this. If we have the opportunity here — you got a clean legal path — how would you reorganize this?” I was thinking, you know, move this here, move that there, which is the thrust behind your question. Basically, I was in the same kind of zeitgeist you are.

Their response was interesting. I’m not saying they’re right, but it was actually interesting and not what I expected. They said, “You hire good people at the top. It does two things — lifts morale and brings the talent that’s left back in. If you start changing things and moving furniture around, it’s just all this energy on something else, when the immediate thing you have to do for the next couple of years is get the intellectual capacity back in. That means the top of the org chart. No B’s, no B-minuses, no B-pluses. You got to get A’s. They’ll get the morale up, and they’ll get talent to come back in and do public service.”

I gotta be honest, I was surprised because I thought, “Oh God, it’s a clean slate. We could do this.” But they said, from a capacity to run while you’re fixing something in chaos, talent is the number one goal. They said some other things which are true, like the intel operation capacity over the State Department, and the anti-terrorism financial end of the Treasury — both underappreciated in the intelligence world and swinging way above their weight class and they should be at the big boys’ table, not at the kids’ table anymore.

Those were just two observations from the national security side that I thought were persuasive. So I posit that that’s how I would approach it. Go with a talent at the top, get morale up, and make it a magnet for other types of talent to come back in.

Jordan Schneider: All right, rapid fire round. Selling chips to China?.

Rahm Emanuel: No.

He is the worst negotiator. I’m going to give you a story. We’re negotiating a balanced budget. It’s Erskine Bowles, myself, Gene Sperling, Bruce Reed, John Podesta, Sylvia Mathews, and I’m senior advisor. So one day in the morning I go to the Oval Office and I said, “Mr. President, every night Gingrich is calling you and you’re giving away the store. We spend the first three hours clawing back stuff you’ve given away. I’m just going to tell you, if you’re negotiating, Rule One is the other side has to know that you can live with the ‘No.’ You want to get to a ‘Yes.’ Everything you do is to convince the other side you are very comfortable with a ‘No’ as much as you are with a ‘Yes.’” I said, “We cannot have you doing this. We’re going to get to a balanced budget agreement. We have the upper hand here, but we are giving it away and diminishing it.”

Anyway, the lesson here is Donald Trump is so solicitous of trying to get a deal that he’s selling the family jewels to get it, and the Chinese know it. He’s going to run around on some soybean deal — which is his problem — or fentanyl and a couple other things. I’m not disregarding the fentanyl issue, but he’s so hungry for a deal, the Chinese are going to play him. And they’re playing him now — and they haven’t even gotten to a deal yet. And you can see it.

He just gave away the chips for what? What’d you get? He gave away something he could have gotten at the table for something else. What did we get? They just did a military exercise with Russia around Japan, your ally, forcing you to come out of the closet and finally do your B-52 covers with the F-35s. What did you get for that chip deal? Bupkis. As my grandmother used to say, “Bupkis”. The worst negotiators I’ve ever seen.

China’s Win-Lose Model

Jordan Schneider: Where is the Democratic Party on China?

Rahm Emanuel: There’s no uniformity. Having spent some time on this, I’ve come to the conclusion that we have a fundamental problem. They’re not strategic competitors — they’re strategic adversaries. They’re trying to bury us. Your competitors don’t get buried into the infrastructure, technology, and systems to destroy this country. God forbid we ever get to something kinetic. We don’t steal private information from government officials like they do, or steal from Google. We’re not stealing Huawei’s IP.

Second, we believe(d) — until Trump — in the rule of law. As part of their business model, they’re open to economic espionage and intellectual property theft. It’s very hard to have two economic models integrated where one believes in the rules and one believes the law doesn’t apply.

Third, our economy, even with the tariffs and Liberation Day, is integrated. The world is dependent on America. Their economic model is that the world becomes dependent on China, and China becomes independent of the world. That is why they’re exporting and crushing every other country’s industrial base — developed or developing world — whether it’s steel, toys, or EV cars.

It’s very hard to have an integrated model where destroying the other side is the goal. It’s one thing if you want to trade and it’s one thing if you want to compete. It’s another thing if the goal is “I win, you lose.” There has never been a “win-win” in China’s model. I don’t say that because I’m angry at them. That’s a fact.

Now we have to figure out where we’re going to go from here. They just passed a trillion dollars in trade, and their imports from other countries are down. South Korea’s only steel plant closed. Chile’s only steel plant closed — 20,000 jobs. That’s not the United States. That’s China. They’re doing it across the board. If Europe doesn’t protect itself, its auto industry will be destroyed.

We’re on a win-win model. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. They’re on a win-lose model based on economic espionage and intellectual property theft. There’s a case where they were stealing AI secrets from Google and from ASML, which is Dutch. They were caught stealing intellectual property.

I have not seen our companies that are into chip manufacturing stealing intellectual property from companies of other countries. I’m willing to stand corrected and say I’m wrong if there are suits on patents, but not outright government-sanctioned, government-sponsored intellectual property theft. As an example, Tokyo Electron, which makes chip manufacturing machinery, competes against ASML. Neither one has been found cheating and stealing IP from the other. China has been caught stealing and cheating from both of those companies.

Jordan Schneider: Rahm, your brother’s got a role to play in all this. Ari pitched the UFC on having an event in China, and they took him to a robot demo. He said this on a podcast — maybe we should have American and Chinese robots fight in a cage. America needs to see our robots getting their asses handed to them because right now, it’s not salient just how good China is getting at all these emerging technologies. You don’t see the cars on the road, you’re not really using the AI models. It just shows up in trade numbers and in factories closing. Having that as a primetime thing on Paramount Plus — there’s something to this, Rahm.

Rahm Emanuel: Let me just say this. Since I usually tell Ari and Zeke at family meals and holidays to just shut up, I’ll let Ari know that you think he has a good policy idea. But it will not come from me complimenting him, because there’s very little space I’ll give Ari in the policy world. The worst thing to do is tell somebody in Hollywood they have a good idea because they think they’re brilliant.

Jordan Schneider: Unless you’re George Clooney.

Rahm Emanuel: Yeah.

AI and Education

Jordan Schneider: Ok, domestic politics of AI. This dog hasn’t really started biting yet. But by 2028, it’s gotta be one of the top three things just from an education, social change, and job displacement perspective alone. You just pitched that we should be banning social media for kids under 16. What’s your take on all this?

Rahm Emanuel: You wanna talk about kids, poverty — I’ve got ideas. I’m learning about AI. I had a lunch today with somebody I consider very, very smart who discussed the confusion between OpenAI and open weights, and how the real challenge is in open weights where there are no firm protocols.

I want to be clear: I don’t have the answer. I know it’s important. I’m learning as we go. I’m trying to figure out who really knows their stuff.

While AI is important to the future and productivity, I have two cautionary notes. One, we have to figure out our energy production in the United States. China adopted the Obama “all of the above” strategy. We walked away from it in 2016 under “Drill Baby Drill.” We’re now paying the price because our electricity costs are two times China’s. They decided to go with an “all-in” approach, and we decided to go with a singular approach. Full stop.

Two, we’re short of the workforce to build out that energy capacity, to build out this chip capacity, and to build out the AI language capacity because we don’t have the workforce we need — from brawn to brain. Energy is going to be essential to the success, not just how small the chip is, but how much energy you produce.

Third, regarding AI, there is a cautionary note from the last 30 years. While globalization and technology worked, they didn’t work across the board. They worked for you, they worked for me, but they didn’t work for everybody. If you want a new technology to benefit society, it has to benefit everybody in the society. If it doesn’t, then you have to figure out ways to ensure there’s a better level playing field.

And we did. That doesn’t mean you could have stopped the clock and said “no Internet, no trade.” The question is, if you’re going to go forward — to quote President Clinton — how does everybody cross the bridge to the 21st century? You don’t have a queue where just some people make it and other people stand in line. That’s my cautionary note about AI — it will have an impact on productivity, and it will also have an impact on the people that lose their jobs because of that productivity.

What’s the strategy behind that technology to keep America competitive while ensuring all Americans are part of that? I don’t have it figured out yet. If I told you I did, I’d be full of crap. I know what the opportunities are. I know what the challenges are. I know how we have to start to think about it. Who has got the best thoughts on it? I don’t know.

Jordan Schneider: Two pitches for you on that. The education adoption side is the piece I’m most worried about. The productivity diffusion — the free market is going to figure out how to make workers more impactful, do their jobs better and faster. But the promise of having the greatest tutor that humanity has ever invented tailored to every single child, exactly where they are in their learning journey, is a world-historic opportunity. You’re talking about the haves and have-nots here. You fought teachers’ unions in the House. There’s going to be a lot of mess, a lot of hesitancy, and a lot of fear.

Rahm Emanuel: There’s a lot of fear. That’s not illegitimate. When I was mayor, we had the shortest school day and the shortest school year in the entire United States of America. I said, “What are we fighting about? You have great teachers. I want more time with the kids with the great teachers.”

We had no kindergarten, no Pre-K, no recess, no lunchtime, no gym time, and no arts class. I said, “What are you talking about here? It’s the shortest school day. Kids are being cheated.” I said to the head of the union, “I can’t believe we’re arguing about this. We have no recess, no arts education, reading is down to 40 minutes a day. We have no money for kindergarten, no money for Pre-K.” All the things that we eventually took care of. I said, “You believe in this? Why are we arguing? This makes no sense to me.”

Jordan Schneider: When we did our first show, my wife was five months pregnant. We now have a one-and-a-half-year-old. We spent this morning at preschool interviews for twos programs. I came out a little nauseated because, you’re right, Rahm, I have resources that not everyone has in this city. Walking through this incredible place — which is, again, a twos program — Pre-K starts for free in the US when your kid is four. They have the paints and ceramics, and literally, the ceramics are from the nicest ceramic store that you’d find in a $10 million apartment. I’m sitting here thinking, “This is gross.” It’s going to be the same for middle and high school, but it’s going to be an even bigger deal because they’re going to have access to $20,000-a-month AI tutors.

Rahm Emanuel: When I became mayor, there was no universal kindergarten and no Pre-K. We made every five-year-old get a full day across the city and every four-year-old get a full day across the city. But the biggest accomplishment was on the other end, in high school.

We did three things in high school that we haven’t changed since we first brought it along.

One, if you get a B average in high school, we made community college free — tuition, books, and transportation.

Two, we brought college into high school. 50% of our kids were graduating with college credit so they didn’t have to pay for it later on, and they got the confidence they could do college-level work.

Three — the most important thing we did — to receive your high school diploma, you had to have shown us a letter of acceptance from a college, community college, a branch of the armed forces, or a vocational school. It was a requirement. 97.8% of our kids met that requirement. When you walked on graduation day, you had to be able to show us where you were walking to.

Not just your child who is young. Mine are all grown up past those years. Two are in the military — one full time, one reserve. They all went to college. They knew where they were going. I don’t really care whether you’re going to Michigan, or to be a bricklayer, an electrician, the Air Force, or Harold Washington Community College. I don’t care. But you are not stopping when you’re 17. And that to me made my time in public life worth it.

Stanford said that the Chicago public school system was the best of the big 100 — the best. When I walked in, William Bennett had called it to the worst. But what Dr. Janice Jackson and I did in reforming the high school years was fundamental to the trajectory of these kids’ lives. 20,000 went to community college for free.

Jordan Schneider: I got one more pitch and then a final question. You talked about banning social media. The other thing to watch is AI companions. Everyone’s saying these AI are going to be better friends than people. That is a whole different thing from what Instagram was.

Rahm Emanuel: I will keep my eye on it, but I’m going to stake my battle on what I know. Chicago, under my tenure, had the most restrictive policies on tobacco sales to teens, and we took teen smoking down to single digits. As I told you, we did the same with Pre-K and kindergarten. When I was Senior Advisor to President Clinton, I negotiated the Children’s Health Insurance Program for 10 million children whose parents worked but didn’t have health care.

If it relates to kids and teens, that’s where I’m going to put my energy. It’s the future. My dad was a pediatrician — that may be my own desire regarding what I think is important. I’m not saying other issues aren’t important, but that’s where I’m going to spend my time. Given what Australia is doing, and given what I think you can do technologically to turn the algorithm into an ally rather than an adversary, that’s where I’m going to spend my time. I’m not saying the issue you raised isn’t important, but I’m not diffusing my energy.

Hot Takes on the GOP Field

Jordan Schneider: Everyone on all these other podcasts asks you if you’re running, and they ask you about all the other Dem candidates. I want to talk about the Republican ones. We’re going to just go down the list. Kalshi has J.D. Vance at 50% to be the Republican nominee. What’s your take?

Rahm Emanuel: Politics is crazy these days, but it is very hard to knock off a sitting Vice President. My guess is it’s probably right.

Jordan Schneider: Aside from electability, what do you think of him as a politician?

Rahm Emanuel: Likability is an important factor, and I think that’s a vulnerability for him. That’s all I’ll say.

Jordan Schneider: Rubio, 9% right now.

Rahm Emanuel: Part of leadership, in my view — and I’ve said this repeatedly — is you got to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and have the strength to get it done. You can infer from that anything you want.

Jordan Schneider: DeSantis, 4%.

Rahm Emanuel: That’s generous.

Jordan Schneider: Tucker, also at 4%.

Rahm Emanuel: That’s overly generous.

Jordan Schneider: And how about Donald Jr. rounding out our top five, also at 3%?

Rahm Emanuel: I can’t wait for him to do the financial disclosure form.

Jordan Schneider: Rahm Emanuel, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being a part of ChinaTalk.

Rahm Emanuel: Can I say one thing?

Jordan Schneider: Yeah, of course.

Rahm Emanuel: I have three kids — 28, 27, and 25. You’re about to experience the greatest journey of life with a lot of hits and a lot of misses. But you have two parents who are role models. You’re going to be great at it, and it’s going to be a great journey. Mazel Tov. Thank you so much.

这次西部之行包括El Paso。El Paso是得克萨斯西部荒漠中的一座边城。格兰德河从这里流过，形成得克萨斯跟墨西哥之间的天然边界。河对岸就是墨西哥。一百多年前，一位美国将军，以一己之力，不顾《排华法案》的禁止，把500多名中国人和他们的家眷，从这里带进美国，让他们脱离了墨西哥叛军的枪口和绞索。

这段往事已经很少被人提起，今天，我们把这段被掩埋了一个世纪的往事，重新挖出来，从头到尾讲一讲。这是个关于战争、逃亡、忠诚、偏见、良知、报恩、契约精神和军人荣誉的故事。

现在一说得州的华人，很多人可能首先想到的是休斯顿、达拉斯。但100年前，得州华人最多的城市，既不是休斯顿，也不是达拉斯，而是El Paso。

El Paso的很多华人，可能跟美国任何一个地方的华人都不太一样，他们的爷爷、老爷爷来自中国，但他们的奶奶、老奶奶是墨西哥人。这些华人有个奇特的名字，叫“Pershing Chinese”——“潘兴华人”。

潘兴（John Pershing）是美国历史上最受尊崇的军队将领之一。在第一次世界大战中，他是美国远征军总司令。大家耳熟能详的几位二战名将——艾森豪威尔、麦克阿瑟、巴顿、马歇尔，都曾经是潘兴将军的手下，可以说是潘兴将军的学生。

很多听众可能了解，从1882年到1943年，有61年时间，美国实施《排华法案》，禁止华人劳工入境，禁止境内的华人归化为公民。“潘兴华人”是怎么来的呢？

一边是战功卓著的美国名将，一边是在美国社会夹缝中生存的华人，这两个名字是怎么在El Paso这座荒漠边城连在一起的呢？为什么在排华法案最严酷的时代，500多名华人和他们的家眷，却能被美军用军车浩浩荡荡地接进美国？为什么一位美国将军为了他们，去跟美国总统和国会硬刚？

1881年5月，南太平洋铁路从加州修到El Paso，即将跟贯穿路易斯安那和得州的铁路连通。1200多名修建铁路的华工，跟着铁轨来到这片荒漠，很多人留下来，定居在这里，形成了得克萨斯最早的唐人街。第二年，美国通过《排华法案》，堵上了华人劳工合法入境的渠道。

既然不能合法进入，就会出现非法偷渡，就像前几年的“走线”一样。当时，中国还是满清帝国。大清国的走线客，先坐船到墨西哥，再坐火车北上，到达El Paso边境线另一侧的华亚雷斯落脚，等待时机偷渡进入美国。El Paso自然成了偷渡进入美国的第一站。

南太平洋铁路开通后的几十年，El Paso成了各种冒险家的乐园，汇聚了形形色色的人物，包括各个阶层的华人：有老实巴交的菜农，有精明的商人，也有开杂货店、洗衣店的小业主。

在格兰德河对岸，墨西哥境内的华亚雷斯，也有着规模庞大的华人社区。生活在那里的华人，有些是本来要偷渡进入美国，但却最终留下来，就地谋生的劳工，有些是开杂货铺的店主，也有些是生意人。很多华人精明能干，日子过得比墨西哥本地人要好。这自然会招来一些当地人的羡慕、嫉妒、恨。羡慕、嫉妒、恨，这是人性，在任何地方、任何人群，都避免不了。

当年住在墨西哥的中国人大多是苦力和偷渡客，男多女少。他们到了成家立业的年龄，大多数娶墨西哥本地女子，他们的孩子就成了中墨混血。这当然更会加剧一些当地人的羡慕、嫉妒、恨。在正常情况下，虽然双方关系有点紧张，有点微妙，但总体上能和平相处。

这种微妙的平衡，在1910年代被一场突如其来的风暴打破了。这场风暴就是“墨西哥革命”。

第三世界的革命都少不了打家劫舍的草莽英雄。墨西哥革命的草莽英雄名叫Pancho Villa。革命了，每个人都要选边站，不是站墨西哥政府，就是站Pancho Villa的叛军。很多墨西哥的华人更倾向于站在墨西哥政府一边。很多人因此被叛军杀害。Pancho Villa的叛军不仅杀害当地华人，而且会灭门，把他们的墨西哥太太和孩子一起杀掉。

1916年3月9日，Pancho Villa干了一件令人震惊的事。他率领一小股叛军进攻美国，在新墨西哥的边城哥伦布镇，杀死了18名美国士兵和平民。当时的美国总统是威尔逊，他下令驻扎在得克萨斯布利斯堡基地（Fort Bliss）的约翰·潘兴少将，率军进入墨西哥征讨叛军。

布里斯堡基地就在El Paso旁边，离哥伦布也只有一百多公里。哥伦布是个小镇，坐落在边境线上。边境线另一侧就是墨西哥的Puerto Palomas。几年前，我们骑车穿越美国的时候，曾经在哥伦布越过边境线，到Palomas吃了顿午饭。那里的广场上有Pancho Villa的雕像。我们还在他的雕像下面照了张相。

在那个年代，革命者和匪徒并没有明确的界限。

潘兴将军率领一万多名美军，浩浩荡荡杀进墨西哥北部。但他很快发现，美军面临的最大威胁，并不是Pancho Villa的叛军，而是后勤补给。

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Most coverage of China’s pandemic response has focused on its handling of COVID. Far less attention has been paid to what China has done in its aftermath, during which the country has been making interesting moves to prepare for the next large-scale biological threat.

Since 2023, Beijing has revised the Infectious Disease Law (IDL) and the Biosecurity Law and launched new frameworks like the Public Health Emergency Response Law (PHERL). Their rhetoric has also been increasingly telling, with criticism of the US’s pandemic response and self-proclamations of China as a global leader in pandemic oversight.

Pandemic prevention in China has moved from emergency reaction to long-term system design.

Chinese officials appear determined to ensure the next COVID doesn’t start within their borders. That determination increasingly stands in contrast to the United States, where public health institutional capacity has lost steam since 2020, especially during Trump 2.0.

Today’s installment examines governance initiatives, but this is only one part of a much larger ecosystem. Future pieces hope to explore PPE stockpiles, vaccine production, early-warning surveillance, research and lab standards, and the AI-bio crossover.

Main Takeaways

• The CCP looks to be taking pandemic risk seriously. After China’s public-health system was shown unfit for purpose when COVID hit, Beijing has now enacted some of the most actionable steps of any major country to bolster its pandemic-readiness system.
  

• COVID exposed how costly Beijing’s old instincts were: burying early signals, punishing whistleblowers, and relying on improvised crackdowns left the center blind and politically exposed. The new reforms try to fix this by giving local officials clearer rules, reporting guidelines, and more room to act early without fear of punishment. Beijing appears willing to trade some information-control for a more rule-bound, faster-moving system, though whether officials feel empowered to speak up remains uncertain.
  

• A more centralized domestic monitoring and command system gives China greater ability to manage potential outbreaks internally, reducing pressure to depend on international organizations. That avoids reputational costs and protects “face,” which helps explain why China can buy-in heavily to pandemic preparedness while still resisting meaningful collaboration or data sharing with groups like the WHO.
  

• Globally, Chinese state rhetoric casts the U.S. as the country that bungled COVID while downplaying its own early missteps. And Beijing is positioning itself as an international leader on health governance, especially for the Global South.

*Starting with “Recent Government Initiatives,” each section ends with a grade. Taken together, China earns a C+ overall, which is an improvement over the D I would have given it pre-COVID, though still shy of the B- I’d give the US.

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Roadmap of China’s Agencies

Since 2023, the major players in China’s pandemic readiness system have received new mandates, budgets, or planning documents to strengthen their roles.

At a high level, China’s system runs on a clear hierarchy. The State Council directs national strategy, the National Health Commission (NHC) leads implementation, and a network of technical and support agencies (at both federal and provincial levels) executes the work.

Key Players

State Council (国务院) — the top command centre in any outbreak. It activates the “Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism” (联防联控机制), created during COVID, to coordinate ministries across health, industry, and emergency management. Since 2023, the State Council has signalled an effort to bolster its coordinating role for pandemic response.

National Health Commission (国家卫健委, NHC) — China’s main health authority and a cabinet-level executive department of the State Council. It drafts and enforces key laws, oversees the China CDC and the National Health Emergency Response Center, and manages early-warning and emergency-medical systems.

National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention (国家疾控局, NADC) — created in 2021 to strengthen disease control and biosafety. It sets national standards for surveillance and builds modern early-warning/data systems. It’s one of the key additions of China’s post-COVID infrastructure.

China CDC（中国疾控中心） — the technical core of the system. It collects and analyzes infectious disease data, runs testing labs, and provides guidance to local CDCs. The CDC workforce numbers surged during COVID, increasing by about 20% to reach 240,000 in 2022, the highest level ever. This was preceded by years of post-SARS neglect, which left the system understaffed and unprepared for COVID (see graph below).

There are also many supporting ministries that handle logistics, funding, and research, such as

• National Health Emergency Response Center (国家卫生应急中心) - coordinates emergency medical teams and logistics during crises.

• National Biosecurity Work Coordination Mechanism (国家生物安全工作协调机制) - coordinates biosecurity-specific policy and emergency response across ministries.

• Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部, MIIT) - manages medical supply production and logistics.

• Ministry of Science and Technology (科学技术部, MOST) - supports new R&D programs in pathogen detection and modelling.

• National Medical Products Administration (国家药品监督管理局, NMPA) - fast-tracks new countermeasures.

• People’s Liberation Army (中国人民解放军, PLA) - deploys medical units and runs military R&D in pandemic-related situations.

How Does the US Compare?

In China, authority flows from the State Council through the National Health Commission and its affiliated agencies. Provinces largely mirror this structure, which makes it easier to coordinate and implement national policy quickly once priorities are set in Beijing.

The US system is much less centralized. The Department of Health and Human Services — mainly through the CDC and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) — leads at the federal level, but state and local governments hold most of the practical authority over public health measures. In practice, the federal government provides funding, guidance, and aggregates data, yet in a major pandemic, it’s less clear that the US could quickly coordinate a unified national response.

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Centralization, on the other hand, has trade-offs. China’s unified chain of command can move quickly, but a bad call at the top can misdirect the entire system. The U.S.’s decentralized model is more heterogeneous, since one state’s mistakes don’t necessarily drag everyone else down. China’s approach, therefore, relies heavily on accurate information flowing upward and on giving localities enough room to adapt policies to local conditions, which many of the initiatives below attempt to do.

Recent Government Initiatives

In September 2025, China’s top legislature (NPCSC seventeenth session) passed the Public Health Emergency Response Law (突发公共卫生事件应对法, PHERL). It’s the country’s most significant effort since COVID-19 to overhaul how it manages outbreaks, arriving alongside a substantial revision of the Infectious Disease Law (传染病防治法, IDL) earlier this year. Together, the two laws do a good job of weaving in many of the major pandemic readiness updates in recent years, and are meant to give China a more coordinated and legally coherent framework for handling future epidemics.1

One surprising feature of both PHERL and IDL is that neither substantively mentions the Biosecurity Law (生物安全法). Since its introduction in 2020/2021, the Biosecurity Law has been China’s main legal framework for managing biological risks, specifically, from pathogen labs to zoonotic disease surveillance. The law divides biotechnology research and development activities into three risk categories — high, medium, and low — requiring approval for high-risk and medium-risk activities. It also establishes classified management of pathogenic microorganisms and hierarchical administration of pathogenic microorganism laboratories. The law was mildly amended in 2024, though many of its weak spots remain.

The gist of these recent moves is an attempt to correct the legal and regulatory weaknesses that became apparent during COVID. At the time, SARS-CoV-2 was classified too slowly, lines of authority in emergencies were poorly defined, and rigid central control over information disclosure left local governments hesitant to act.

All Talk?

Do these reforms have any teeth? There are a few ways to parse this out.

The Biosecurity Law, IDL, and PHERL are binding laws (法律) passed by the NPC Standing Committee. This makes them more authoritative than the guiding opinions (指导意见) and plans (方案) that often crowd China’s policy space. Responsibility for their implementation also increasingly falls under the State Council, the top executive body of the land, giving these measures more political backing than if they were purely the responsibility of various lower-ranking ministries.

Still, the NPC passes many laws that aren’t effective. This is because (1) people don’t know they exist, or (2) they are not clear enough to be actionable. Therefore, what’s more important is enforcement clarity. Can local officials, hospitals, and labs actually understand what these laws require and act on them in real time? Here, the picture is mixed.

Many provisions are more explicit than previous drafts, but some remain vague or lack operational detail. For example, Article 74 of the IDL allows private entities to file complaints (申诉) if they believe emergency measures are excessive, a gesture to remediate the lack of voice many people felt during Zero-COVID. However, Article 74 offers little guidance on how such complaints will be handled or whether they provide meaningful recourse, making it unclear to people tempted to complain whether they will face consequences. By contrast, more fleshed-out stipulations like the updated early-reporting requirements (explained in the next section) clearly spell out responsibilities, timelines, and penalties, making them more obviously enforceable.

After reviewing the earlier versions of the IDL and Biosecurity Law and comparing them with the updated texts and the addition of PHERL, the system as a whole has gained some enforcement clarity. My rough sense is that only about 20–30% of the original provisions felt truly actionable, meaning that, as a local official or doctor, you could read them and understand what you were expected to do. In their current form, it feels closer to 40%.

Enforceability is jagged, though. The revised Biosecurity Law doesn’t feel meaningfully clearer to me, while PHERL and IDL seem to have made big strides.

Finally, we can look to historical analogues. The post-SARS reforms significantly reshaped China’s pandemic response system. Before 2003, the public health apparatus was fragmented and underfunded; the China CDC had only been established a year before, and case reports were still handwritten and faxed to Beijing. SARS prompted the government to carry out a wave of initiatives, such as building a real-time reporting network that linked clinics and hospitals across the country. The SARS reforms were incomplete, of course, given China’s lack of preparation for COVID, but it was a significant evolution from what little previously existed. The post-COVID reform wave feels like a similar energy stemming from a similar realization that their pandemic readiness system was far behind where it should have been.

The Content

*Graded from Best to Worst: Partly Post-COVID Improvements, Partly Overall Performance

Interagency Coordination

PHERL and IDL stress interagency coordination. The “joint prevention and control mechanism” (联防联控机制) created by the State Council during COVID is now written into law. It brings together more than 30 ministries and agencies across health, industry, and emergency management. At least a dozen civilian and military departments must share surveillance data, coordinate logistics, and build a unified national information platform for early warning. The aim is to keep ministries from working in silos and ensure outbreaks are met with synchronized mobilization.

Before COVID, no comparable command structure existed. Outbreak response rested with the NHC and China CDC, agencies without the authority to pull in heavyweight ministries or compel timely reporting from local governments. Coordination was improvised and slow. By placing the joint mechanism under the State Council, PHERL and the IDL give epidemic response a body that can enforce nationwide logistics and require all relevant ministries and provinces to report upward, ensuring that at least one institution has a complete, real-time picture of the entire situation.

Grade: A-

Mobilizing dozens of ministries and a national response is something the CCP can do better than anyone. The key caution is avoiding excessive uniformity; provincial conditions vary, and a highly centralized system must take care not to impose directives that could overlook unique situational circumstances.

Classification

The IDL updates China’s three-tier disease classification system (Classes A, B, C). Class A diseases, such as plague and cholera, trigger the highest-level emergency responses: immediate reporting, mandatory isolation, and broad quarantine powers. Class B diseases, like SARS or COVID (once it was officially listed), require strong but somewhat less sweeping interventions. Class C diseases, being the least concerning, are monitored primarily for trends and local containment, such as influenza or the mumps.

Previously, new or unknown pathogens couldn’t trigger a response until they were formally classified, a flaw made clear by how long it took to classify COVID. The revision tries to fix this by adding “sudden outbreaks of unknown origin [突发原因不明的传染病]” as an event that can be treated as Class A for response purposes. This designation prompts the State Council to rapidly investigate and issue a formal recommendation, allowing containment measures to begin before full classification is complete.

The concern for diseases of unknown origin reflects China’s growing rhetorical emphasis on “Disease X (X疾病)” (coined by the WHO in 2018), which calls for proactive preparation against future, as-yet-unidentified pathogens. As a government white paper put it earlier this year, China now aims to “draw on the experience of COVID-19 prevention and control, and make proactive preparations for future pandemics such as Disease X.”

Grade: A-

This lets officials act preemptively rather than reactively, but I’m docking half a grade as the incentives around sounding the alarm early are still uncertain. It’s unclear whether people will actually feel safe triggering a potential Class A response even when they’re technically allowed to do so.

Monitoring and Surveillance

Surveillance has taken on a more prominent role in the new framework. IDL Article 42 now mandates what’s called “sentinel surveillance” (哨点监测), a system in which selected hospitals and clinics continuously report data on specific diseases or symptoms to detect unusual spikes early. The revisions also strengthen requirements for identifying and reporting clusters of unknown or emerging illnesses, bringing China’s procedures more in line with the World Health Organization’s revised International Health Regulations (IHR).

Article 13 forbids excessive data collection and limits the use of personal information (like digital travel codes) to infectious-disease prevention and control. In theory, that’s a privacy safeguard; in practice, it’s anyone’s guess how strictly those boundaries will be enforced.

More speculatively, China’s ‘AI Plus’ Plan and related AI + Medical/Healthcare guidelines envision using artificial intelligence to enhance this surveillance network. The health-industry guideline lists public health services as one of four key application areas for AI, and pilot programs in cities like Shanghai are experimenting with AI systems that use citizens’ health data for lifelong health monitoring or proactive symptom detection. These efforts, however, remain largely aspirational.

Grade: B+

China already has the world’s most capable general surveillance system, so it will likely be able to implement this effectively. It’s still surprising that disease-specific surveillance measures weren’t firmly in place before COVID.

Local Authority

Under the IDL, local authority is also expanded. County- and city-level governments can now issue early warnings (Arts. 9, 53) and activate emergency responses when dealing with a sudden outbreak of unknown origin (Art. 65). This aligns the IDL with the Emergency Response Law, closing the gap between local initiative and national oversight. In theory, it allows quicker reaction on the ground while keeping reporting lines to Beijing intact.

Grade: B

Local officials can now move faster while Beijing deliberates — just not too fast, given an early move might look bad optically and provoke backlash from Beijing if it turns out to be a false alarm, given how vague the ostensible protections are.

Government Accountability

When it comes to checking central government power after some of the most controversial Zero-COVID measures — such as sealing residents in their homes, welding apartment doors shut, mass quarantine transfers, and imposing citywide lockdowns that lasted weeks — the recent reforms offer only modest adjustments. New provisions require local governments to ensure food and water supplies, maintain medical access, protect vulnerable groups, publish emergency hotlines, and keep workers employed during lockdowns (Arts. 64–67).

These steps are intended to prevent the worst excesses, but they do not meaningfully limit the state’s authority to impose sweeping restrictions in the first place. It is stated multiple times that decision-making remains centralized, and local officials must still carry out whatever directives Beijing issues.

Grade: B-

The CCP won’t be publicly apologizing for Zero-COVID anytime soon. But these reforms tacitly acknowledge its excesses and theoretically prevent future worst practices, like quarantined residents being locked in their homes without food.

Punishment

The revisions further strengthen enforcement but aim to channel it through clear legal authority. Individuals or institutions that refuse to cooperate with legitimate disease-control orders can now face fines of up to 1,000 yuan (~US$140), and entities up to 20,000 yuan (~US$2,810) (Art. 111 of IDL). Previously, Chinese law didn’t penalize most violations of epidemic orders, forcing police to repurpose unrelated statutes — such as those meant for constitutional “states of emergency” — to enforce zero-COVID restrictions. The fine is small, but “refusing to cooperate” is defined so broadly that even something like declining to wear a face mask could trigger a penalty.

Grade: C+

If this were aimed at punishing officials who bury crucial information — like those in Wuhan who hid early COVID signals — it would be a big upgrade. Instead, it mostly adds small fines that feel more suited to policing minor noncompliance, which risks echoing the punitive instincts of Zero-COVID rather than fixing the real failures.

Dual-Use Technologies

The Regulations on the Export Control of Dual-Use Items (中华人民共和国出口管制法), updated in late 2024, fold biological materials, technologies, and associated equipment into the same export-control framework that governs chemical, nuclear, and other sensitive goods. Under the new update, biological exports are managed through MOFCOM, under the State Council, which now appears to have greater authority over licensing and enforcement. Still, it’s unclear what exactly has changed — the specific list of what qualifies as “dual-use” biological items has yet to be clearly defined.2

Grade: C

This feels more about restricting what China sells abroad than about tightening its own safeguards around creating dual-use biological tools to begin with. It’s good as a nonproliferation measure, but the issue of creating clear research norms and controls over dual-use work inside China is still largely unaddressed.

Early Reporting

A core reform is early reporting. Under IDL, hospitals, blood banks, and local CDCs must report suspected outbreaks, clusters of unknown illness, or abnormal health events within two hours through the national Direct Reporting System. Those who report in good faith are protected from punishment (and eligible for some sort of award) even if their alerts later turn out to be wrong (Art. 51), while any official or institution that interferes with or delays reporting can now be penalized.

These provisions appear to respond directly to the early weeks of COVID-19, when local officials in Hubei delayed or suppressed information about the emerging virus — most infamously in the case of Dr. Li Wenliang, the Wuhan physician reprimanded by police for spreading “false information” after trying to warn colleagues about an unusual respiratory illness. Tragically, he later died from COVID.

However, it’s never really explained what disease reporting is supposed to include, and the promise of protection for “good-faith” reporting also feels fuzzy, since no one has defined what counts as good faith.

Grade: C-

If I were a doctor, I’d still be somewhat uneasy reporting early warnings. The protections are vague, and the precedent for punishment is much higher than in other countries.

Biotechnology Risks

The biggest shortcoming with China’s pandemic readiness system, in my opinion, is that it has not made substantial progress in addressing the safety risks posed by biotechnology — meaning the dangers that arise when genetic engineering, synthetic biology, or laboratory manipulation of organisms could unintentionally create or amplify biological threats.

The 2021 Biosecurity Law was the first statute that gestures at governance in this space. It formally divided biotechnology R&D into three risk tiers — high, medium, and low — with high- and medium-risk projects requiring approval or registration and restricted to legally incorporated domestic entities. The law also established security management rules for human genetic resources and biological resources.

The law was amended with updates that took effect in April 2024, but the changes appear largely procedural rather than substantive. There are still no specific ethical guidelines for biotechnology R&D; the three-tier risk system (high, medium, low) lacks concrete criteria for how projects should be classified; and the vague references to “relevant departments” (有关部门) leave unclear which agencies are responsible for what. In practice, this means ethical oversight is likely to devolve to institutional review boards or ministry-level discretion. These bodies vary widely in capacity, and because biotech research is competitive, institutions may have incentives to adopt more permissive review practices to maintain an edge.

This gap is likely related to the fact that Beijing also views biotechnology as a strategic growth sector. Much of the Biosecurity Law reads more like a biotech development agenda with biosecurity sprinkled on top. Article 5, for instance:

“The state shall encourage innovation in biotechnology, strengthen the building of biosecurity infrastructure and the biotechnology workforce, support the development of the bioindustry, raise the level of biotechnology through innovation, and enhance the capabilities to guarantee biosecurity.”

Grade: D

Synthetic pathogens are one of the most plausible routes to a truly catastrophic outbreak, yet Beijing’s biotech push largely ignores these safety concerns. However, in the US and other countries, ethical oversight also seems to fall to institutional review boards or ministry-level discretion, so I can’t give this a completely failing grade.

To sum up, China’s recent policy initiatives reflect a system trying to learn from its own COVID contradictions. Beijing wants a more unified and legally codified pandemic readiness system, one that detects and contains outbreaks before they spread, but also one that avoids repeating harsh crackdowns and which made provincial authorities feel powerless to national authorities. It’s a tough balance to strike.

Overall Grade: C+

Many of the laws and local incentives are still unclear, but Beijing is at least increasingly turning abstract goals into concrete procedures and has an unmatched capacity to trigger a unified response. And unlike some countries, its rhetoric does not actively denigrate public health measures.

For reference, I would give the US a B-. Even with its issues, the US does better at dual-use tech governance [pdf] and has better incentives for early reporting and information sharing.

Funding

Funding is an indicator of whether these statements have backing to them, but data is limited.

Our best piece of evidence comes from the Chinese Ministry of Finance, which shows that major infectious-disease prevention funding rose from about ¥16.98 billion ($2.38 billion) in 2018 to ¥23.82 billion ($3.34 billion) in 2023 — an increase of roughly 40% over five years. These funds are meant to expand things like vaccine-production capacity, surveillance systems, and hospital preparedness.

There’s no visible COVID-era spike in 2020–21 because much of that emergency spending flowed through temporary epidemic-response channels — one-off MOF transfers and provincial emergency budgets — rather than this regular subsidy line. The subsidies in the graph instead indicate Beijing’s effort to institutionalize emergency spending within its normal public-health budget.

Small bits of additional evidence tentatively point in the same direction. China launched a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction of the national CDC system in 2023, alongside major provincial investments in places like Shanghai and Guangdong. Data beyond 2023, however, is limited, so drawing further conclusions would be premature.

Grade: B-

They’re on an upward trend, but the total still looks modest relative to China’s GDP and population. In 2023, ¥23.8 billion (~US$3.3 billion) works out to only about US$2–3 per Chinese citizen per year. By contrast, OECD estimates put average pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response spending at around US$101 per capita, with the United States at US$279 and Germany at US$209. The true gap must be smaller, since China adds money through provincial budgets, immunization programs, and other health lines that don’t show up in the MOF subsidies, but I estimate that the sum of these monetary investments still falls well below the OECD average.

How China Talks About the US

One interesting factor shaping China’s pandemic governance has been its rhetorical positioning vis-à-vis the United States.

Beijing has leaned heavily on the narrative that America’s COVID response was chaotic, politicized, and unscientific, using US failings as a foil to validate its own system. The strategy deflects criticism of China’s early missteps and reinforces the idea that China’s centralized model is not only legitimate but superior.

For example:

• A People’s Daily editorial from May 2025 calls the US the “全球第一抗疫失败国” (literally: “world’s No. 1 failure in pandemic response”), citing CDC death totals and arguing that the outcome exposes pseudo-science.

• A post on the National Health Commission’s website accused the US of “squandering time” and policy ineffectiveness.

• A Global Times editorial said, “As the world’s most developed country, its response to the pandemic has been a complete failure, offering no positive lessons.”

This narrative has political uses, but it could also make Beijing overconfident. By defining itself in opposition to the US, China has built a pandemic story that depends on its own perceived success, which could also make addressing institutional shortcomings difficult.

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For instance, Chinese state media outlets have often disparaged the effectiveness of US vaccines, framing Western rollout efforts as reckless or unsafe. Yet beneath those critiques lies the unspoken acknowledgment that during COVID-19, China’s vaccine sector fell far behind its Western counterparts in both technology and trust. Beijing’s decision to reject mRNA vaccines like Moderna, despite their demonstrated efficacy, left millions reliant on weaker domestic shots.

Meta-Grade: China is grading its own paper here, and giving itself full marks despite doing a lousy job of handling COVID. Revising history, rather than addressing one’s mistakes, tends to be a bad idea.

International Moves

China has also engaged in a series of international initiatives on pandemic preparedness, though international communiqués on public health are rarely binding. Xi’s Global Security Initiative, for example, claims China will lead international biosecurity, but says little about how it will actually accomplish this.

Funding is a clearer signal. In May 2025, China pledged $500 million to the WHO over five years, effectively becoming the organization’s largest funder after the US withdrawal. China has also contributed to many other initiatives, like the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund, and hasn’t abstained from other multilateral health financing mechanisms (unlike the US).

A substantial portion of China’s health funding targets the Global South, particularly in Africa. China committed $80 million for constructing an Africa CDC headquarters in Ethiopia, a project that became operational during the pandemic, and $2 billion in assistance for COVID-19 response and economic recovery in developing countries. China’s WHO funding notably includes the condition of “a certain amount of voluntary contribution and projects support through the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund” — terminology tied to China’s Health Silk Road initiative, essentially the public health dimension of the BRI. 52 out of 54 African countries have participated in these health programs.

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China has also recently convened ASEAN Conferences on biosecurity governance in conjunction with the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs. These talks emphasize lab safety, pathogen-sharing, and early-warning systems between South East Asian countries.

Despite positioning itself as a global health leader, China consistently fails to report the specifics of its assistance activities to international agencies like the OECD’s Common Reporting System or the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Tensions have also flared with organizations like the WHO over China’s lack of timeliness, completeness, and durability of data sharing, especially around origins-relevant evidence for COVID and during recent disease surges. In November 2023, for instance, the WHO formally requested detailed information on pneumonia clusters among children following reports of cases in northern China. Beijing eventually provided data, but only after a significant delay, underscoring a pattern of reactive rather than proactive disclosure. China furthermore does not participate in Joint External Evaluation Assessments, where a team of independent international experts evaluates a country’s health security capabilities across 19 technical areas.

I believe this kind of behavior makes sense when accounting for how central reputation and “saving face” are to China’s public-health motivations. Reporting outbreaks quickly or exposing gaps in its own system can be embarrassing; projecting itself as a global public health advocate and generous benefactor to the Global South is not. If China can manage its own health problems internally and fund other systems externally, it (1) looks good and (2) reduces outside scrutiny — a bit like a boyfriend who pays for dinner so his girlfriend doesn’t go through his phone.

Grade: C

They say all the right things, and it’s good they’re helping the Global South’s public health infrastructure, but they still avoid building the deeper collaborative foundations we’d need for a globally unified response to a major infectious outbreak.

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Conclusion

The CCP is taking pandemic readiness seriously, but the through line isn’t a coherent strategy so much as a collection of post-COVID impulses: prevent another global pandemic from originating in China, avoid another round of draconian lockdowns, and do it all without loosening Beijing’s grip while empowering people to speak up.

Call to action

If you know anything about this topic or think I’ve missed something important, please reach out. I’m particularly interested in hearing from people with knowledge about China’s vaccine development capacity, high-end PPE manufacturing, biosurveillance systems, or research and safety standards for future installments.

I did not find nearly as many experts on Biosecurity x China as I would have liked. China’s pandemic preparedness apparatus remains surprisingly under-studied, especially compared to the extensive analysis of its COVID response or the pandemic readiness systems of other countries. The expert on this could be YOU.

Follow up to: nick@chinatalk.media

前些年，每逢感恩节过后，会请助理给各地的朋友寄一本事务所的挂历，再附上我的一封信。Lee一直在那个名单上。

我来美国后，先工作了两年，后来去读学位。开学报到之后，学院有个新生招待会，备置了饮料和零食。新生在胸前贴上自己的名字，聚在招待处，吃喝谈笑。Lee在一堆身材高大的新生中略显瘦小，穿着普通，讲话一脸笑容，没有化妆。一个朴实的中西部女孩子。看我站在旁边，她伸出手说：“我叫Lee。”

握手寒暄之后，她问我是韩国人还是中国人。那个学校东亚面孔的学生主要来自这两个地方。我说是中国人，她就问Lee在中文中有什么意思。我说听发音，会有很多意思， 可以是梨，或者犁，也可以是李子、栗子，或者茉莉，还可以是美丽。她说，那就是茉莉吧，很有中国味道。但以后见了面，仍然叫她Lee。

第一学期，课业紧张，大多数日子在两点一线穿梭。在教室碰到Lee，寒喧几句，又各自忙碌。偶尔午饭时遇到，就多聊一会儿。那时候，她是国民卫队现役下士，每月有一个周末去军营训练，日子比我们更紧张。她的任务是驾驶黑鹰直升机，负责运送士兵和装备。

周五下课后，她开四个小时车去军营报到，训练两天，周日晚再开回学校上课。同学中还有另外两位预备役军人，但都是男生。一位戴眼镜，文质彬彬，曾在海军服役。有次聊天，他说服役时军舰曾在香港停泊，上岸逍遥，十分喜欢。另一位有菲律宾血统，曾在陆战队服役，个头不高，但像牛 一样结实。他言语不多，似乎不是太喜欢学校生活。

第二学期，学院贴出告示，说院刊要从学生中招几位编辑，招聘标准是看第一学期成绩，再加一篇命题作文。在走廊看告示的时候，碰到Lee。她问，你去不去应聘?我有点动心，但那篇命题作文也让我犹疑。我三十岁以后才用英文写作业，对这种语言充满隔膜。此前，虽然翻译过一些英文书，但翻译是一回事，写作是另一回事。

我问Lee是否参加，她说是。见我犹疑，她又说：“你也参加吧，即便选不上也损失不了什么，但不试一下，就不知道能不能选上。”我想，是啊，就决定参加了。Lee见自己有说服力，很高兴的样子，话就多起来，说同学中没有几个像你读过那么多福克纳、海明威 ，你肯定写得好。说得我有些飘飘然的感觉，但内心知道，读文学是一回事，写论文是另一回事。

作文比赛的结果出来了。Lee跟我都在榜上，对我来说是个惊喜，但Lee一直胸有成竹。

编辑部要审阅稿子，定期讨论，与Lee见面多起来。她做事很认真，但并不苛求。有时遇到语法、表述和引用格式问题 ，我会向她请教。编辑间常会有不同意见，争执不下，Lee跟我总是站在一方。偶尔，她会报怨个别编辑对作者过于苛求。编辑部的工作，如果认真做，每周要花十几小时。遇到交作业或考试，只好从睡眠时间中往外挤。Lee仍旧去军营训练，要比我们从睡眠中挤出更多的时间。有几次讨论 ，她看上去实在疲惫，坐在角落一言不发。

那年三月，伊拉克战争爆发。同学中很多人反战，也有不少人支持推翻萨达姆。对于大部分同学来说，战火是另外一个世界的事情。但对于预备役军人来说，却随时可以发生在自己身上。菲律宾裔同学被部队召回，送到前线。他发回了一些战斗前后与战 友在一起的照片，学院张贴在布告栏中。

那时候，伊拉克似乎时常有战斗，每天电视上都公布阵亡美军士兵的名单。新闻说，前线兵员紧张，开始从国民卫队中抽调士兵。我问Lee，她说已经有一起训练的战友被送到伊拉克去了，不知道哪一天她就会接到命令。我们尽量避开这个话题，她似乎也不太担忧，反正每天都有做不完的事情。跟大部分同学不同，她从不说是赞成还是反对那场战争。

几个星期后，Lee接到了命令，要开赴伊拉克前线。学院在小教堂举行了一个送别仪式。她讲话仍然一脸笑容，说我们一起入学，但不能一起毕业了。送士兵去前线，爱国是主题。但同学和我只想让Lee平安回来。虽是道别，却不伤感，她脸上仍然是疲惫的笑容。那时候，不能理解为何他们要送一位女生去前线。

Lee走后的几个月，每次看到电视上在伊拉克阵亡士兵的照片和名单，就会想到她，为她担忧。战事时断时续，她的消息越来越少。后来，当地报纸报导了家乡去的军人在伊拉克的情况。在报导中看到了Lee的名字，她说：“到了前线，人生就变了，只想一件事，其他都不再忧虑了。”我们隔着半个世界，一边是战火，一边是和平，都知道那件事是指什么。

最后一学期，大家忙着找工作，为毕业后的生计奔波。编辑部招新人进来，老编辑离校前合影留念，还专门请来摄影师。毕业快二十年了，我的书架上一直放着那张照片，只是Lee不在上面。我们照像的时候，她正在伊拉克前线。当初，如果没有Lee鼓励，我也不会在那张照片上。

同学四散，我一路南下，流落到德克萨斯定居下来。一年后，Lee从伊拉克返回家乡，恢复了学业，毕业留在本地工作。我们相隔千里，偶尔通信问候。几年前，她打电话来，说正在奥斯汀出差，只是路程太紧，来不了休斯顿拜访。相距三个小时车程，算是擦肩而过。

Lee没有孩子。疫情前，她说想从加纳收养个孩子。如今，她也已经年近半百。不知道是否了却了那桩心愿。

感恩节过后，Lee收到挂历，每次都会来信感谢。 记得最清晰的是有一年，她说挂历很好看，但附信更令人感动，她珍藏起来，作为自己写信的样板。唉，那么多年过去了，经历了风风雨雨，甚至战火，Lee依旧本色，不吝惜给人美言和鼓励，真诚而朴实。

旧事随流水，转眼二十几年。青春过后，岁月催人老。念及当年，同学一场，青春还有些余音，还没有被生活压缩得面目全非。如今都成了往昔。人生如萍水相逢，尽是他乡之客。有些美好的记忆挥之不去，让异乡人在漂泊中感到故人的温暖。

学习一门崭新的语言的语言，是感受自己跃跃欲试，一腔热血，许多挫败，无能为力，再把自己收拾起来越过一个个坎的过程。语言学习没有尽头，还好考试有尽头。

花了半年多的时间每天学6-10个小时把荷兰语学到了B1,又抢考位抢不到抢到了被作弊的人搞取消，四门考试从夏天考到了秋天,最后在终于在冬天收到了全部通过的消息！

就我学习英语，西班牙语，荷兰语的经验和广泛看书看youtube视频多语言人士的语言学习方法的总结，这个世界最有效的语言学习方法就是：代尔夫特学习法（delft method)，也叫尚雯婕学习法，也叫100LS学习法，也是跟读学习法，也叫婴儿语言学习法。或者说所有人类学会自己的母语，都是这么学会的：通过听和跟说/跟读。

在我们还不识字，不会写字的时候，我们就已经会中文了，学习的方法就是听父母和周围人每天说，我们当“复读机”。所以无论你此刻在学习任何语言，我都建议采用这个人类最自然也最科学的方法来学习：即通过听一句话，跟读它，多次听，多次跟读，记住这句话（不仅大脑皮层记住了单词语法句子搭配，也通过耳朵和口腔的肌肉记住了它）。

多语言者学会语言的核心经验也是：找一个language parent(语言家长），你把自己当baby跟它学。

荷兰语的“代尔夫特学习法”就是这样：一篇精彩有意思的课文，在网上分成了每一句，点击每一句收听后，跟读录音，系统有AI会判定你哪个词读得不准确会标红。你就再一次重听，重读，直到把这句话的每个词读对，整个句子全是绿色。这个AI系统，成了你的language parent.

每次我把一篇文章全部听和跟读完，都需要2-3个小时，下巴和整个口腔都在发麻。跟读完还有文章的填空练习，听写练习，和文章中的语法练习。上课的时候老师就会让把书合上，提问书中的各种问题，需要自己真正搞明白了内容，并使用自己学会的句子和搭配来回答，同时还有写作题目的练习。

因此它把听说读写和语法都全方位练得非常扎实：让你既形成肌肉记忆，也形成理性思考的大脑记忆。不让你背单词，但是几乎让你通过无数次跟读，填空，听写和回答问题（使用你学到的东西）来让你背了所有东西，让你在有context，有上下文的情况下记住了单词和它们的用法。

非常坦诚地说，这是我学习语言以来，遇到的唯一科学的学习方法。而我在中国学习英语的过程，虽然我雅思也考了7.5，四六级都是六百多，过了英语专八，拿了全国大学生英语竞赛二等奖，但是我感受到的我从英语课堂上接受到的学习方法，仿佛生怕我学会英语似的。而我们中的绝大多数人，学了十几年英语，在大学考4级的时候（差不多就是B1水平，甚至还不考口语和写作）依然极其艰辛，归根结底，不是人的问题，而是教学方法的问题。

所以无论你此刻在学哪门语言，只要你是真心想学会的，我都推荐代尔夫特学习法。

在荷兰有专门的delft method荷兰语的课程，当我报这个课程准备半年到1年达到B1水平时，我刚好有一位荷兰语特别好的朋友，她来荷兰七八年了，有荷兰家庭，日常就能进行荷兰对话，还有一位退休的荷兰人一对一每周对她进行荷兰语教学，相当于真的有language parents. 彼时她正在准备荷兰语B1考试，她觉得我这个半年到1年的计划疯了，因为她的老师说没有亚洲人可以做到这件事。但是delft method帮我做到了半年完成B1课程，顺利通过结业考试的目标。

不过坦诚地说，语言的确是靠时间和日常积累的过程。虽然我俩都通过了B1考试，但是她日常生活用荷兰语和荷兰人简直是无缝聊天的水平，而我必须得对方说得慢说得简单，我才可以聊半个小时（且我主说，因为对方一旦说话快，我就听不懂）。

我能半年通过B1国家级考试，不是因为我有语言天赋，而是上课的方法科学+我精心准备考试的结果。

荷兰也有很多免费的荷兰语课程，大家也可以搜索Sagènn这个机构（只有稍大的城市有）和wijk centrum（社区中心），基本都可以获得免费的荷兰语课。倘若你要上学或者上班，就可以上这种比较低强度的课，以一种正常的节奏，达到B1的水平（大概2-3年）。倘若你有半年集中相对空闲的时间，就建议花钱上delft method的课（delft和tilburg都有，估计其它城市也有），学得更有效更扎实。我有一位朋友在其它地方上到了B2才开始学er的用法，我的课简直从B1刚开始就开始学了。而且这个课的课本内容，能帮助你了解荷兰的方方面面，而且相当有思辨力和有趣，有intellectual humor. 而其它的教材我也有看过，它们更偏日常生活。

虽然日常生活在日常更有用，但是日常有用的东西我们迟早会学会的，而用荷兰语呈现的有思辨有趣的内容，我们很难自己主动找着去看，通过课本学到了就会很好。我的一位朋友也是市面主流几乎所有教材都用过，她最后也是发现delft method的教材内容最好。

说完了资源，渠道，和学习方法，我来分享一下我准备考试的具体方法和心得。我对很多人说多次无法通过四级考试一直非常震惊，因为它都和英语能力关系并不大，它本质是一个考试，只要用正确的备考方法，它很难不通过。所以在这里也分享一下大部分语言考试都能用到的备考方法。

这里面有帮助我从一头雾水到开窍听懂以及各种最高效的准备考试的资源素材，以及网上没有我同学发给我的能省巨大功夫的的口语题库。不是所有人都需要考这个考试，我就在这里设置一个分割墙。在准备语言考试的时候倘若心态崩塌，可以看这一篇文章：《如何和挫败感，焦虑及自我怀疑面对面：它们并非高山》。

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Tony Stark and Justin Mc return for Second Breakfast.

Our conversation covers…

• How strike decisions are made, and the implications for military officers,

• Why this is a pivotal point for military ethics,

• What Congress may do in response,

• Why Hegseth being the TEA breaks the impartial review process.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app.

The Target Engagement Authority

Jordan Schneider: Let’s talk about the second strike. Justin, you wrote an article on it. What’s your take?

Justin McIntosh: My hope with that article was to clarify some of the language around this topic.

Shortly after the September strike, it was revealed that Secretary Hegseth was the target engagement authority (TEA). Generally, the TEA is a task force commander or a designee vested with the authority to approve strikes.

There are two main types of strikes. Some are status-based strikes, where a person is a known adversary but isn’t actively engaged in hostile acts. The others are action-based strikes, where adversaries are actively threatening friendly forces.

The bar is lower for an action-based strike, but collateral damage estimates are still required. Strikes must adhere to the principles of proportionality and the laws of war, and avoid causing undue damage or suffering or targeting protected sites. The strikes in the Caribbean seem to be status-based until the targets are in a location where they can actively threaten Americans.

If it were a status-based strike, it had to be approved by a TEA following a briefing. Typically, there’s a period of “soak,” where you watch the target — be it a person, building, or something else — to build a pattern of life. You do SLANT counts, which tally the number of men, women, and children. If the count is unfavorable, meaning women and children are present, you do not strike.

All of that information is fed by a ground force commander or a strike cell commander to the TEA in an incredibly detailed briefing. Something like, “Sir, I want to direct your attention to this sensor, under this Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We are targeting X. Over the last 48 hours of observation, we have this many reports from signals collection co-locating his phone with him. We had a high SLANT count at his location of 4-1-1, but it is currently 1-0-0. We know who it is. We’ve been watching him for 48 hours, and we have a window of opportunity to conduct this strike without causing collateral damage. This is how we will weaponize the strike to keep collateral damage to an absolute minimum, affecting only that person, building, or vehicle. Pending your questions.”

The TEA will then approve, disapprove, or ask for clarification, and give remarks and restrictions, including re-engagement authority. Then he will sit there and watch the strike, because he has now signed on the dotted line as the Target Engagement Authority.

The first thing that was weird about this situation was that Secretary Hegseth was the TEA for these strikes. Assuming everything happened as reported, the strike did not sink the vessel immediately, though it began to sink. There were apparently two clear survivors. 41 minutes later, there was a re-engagement. That is a long gap for re-engagement, which suggests there were discussions among the various stakeholders about whether they were allowed to re-engage. This probably included watching the vessel sink and realizing the strike was not going as planned.

The fact that the TEA left after the initial strike is important. He had already signed off and conceivably given remarks and restrictions, including for re-engaging. If he’d already authorized that, then it doesn’t matter that he wasn’t watching. The commanders below him have a moral, legal, and ethical responsibility to act appropriately, but he has already signed up for whatever comes next if he’d given that clearance.

If you say something like, “Kill them all,” as the TEA, you have technically signed off on whatever happens next, because, as the Target Engagement Authority, you stated your intent was for all targets to be dead.

Tony Stark: I have two thoughts on this. First, ownership is an issue here — I’m sure they are discussing what leadership ownership is behind the scenes. Second, the ethics here aren’t complicated. Every U.S. Army infantryman is taught a simple, non-negotiable rule — a wounded or surrendering enemy is under your care. You do not execute them. Every soldier is taught what it means to commit war crimes, and this is the baseline.

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That rule is drilled into every officer, whether from West Point or Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Everyone in that decision-making room knew the line between engaging a target and recognizing when they are under your care. This is not complex law. The idea of them debating that for 41 minutes is cartoonish.

Justin McIntosh: My task force commander — he’s now a two-star general — once refused to authorize a strike and pissed off a lot of his junior officers and Special Forces captains. The proposed target was a mosque that was a staging location for insurgents — dozens of men were seen moving weapons out. Everybody was excited about the target, but the SLANT count was in the 60s, and Kurdish forces would arrive the next day.

This commander said, “Guys, I understand why you’re proposing this. But we are going to own that terrain tomorrow, and the negative repercussions of this strike greatly outweigh any potential positive benefit. I have not seen anything that shows an imminent threat to our forces or our partner forces that warrants taking secondary risk.”

This is the nuanced distinction between action-based and status-based strikes. A guy running at you with a weapon — that’s a clear threat. But a radio operator 15 kilometers away in a building you can’t see into? That is a tough call. We endlessly debate what constitutes a valid strike. Most commanders I served with were cautious — unless a target said, “We’re about to kill the Americans,” they didn’t shoot. They didn’t know who else was in that building. Sometimes an adversary put a child on the radio, with an adult feeding them lines, to make sure you knew a kid was there.

Warfare is ugly. I allow for confusion in the heat of the moment. But as a commander, you have to see the bigger picture. Is there an active threat? How do the benefits weigh against the costs? We are seeing those repercussions.

Jordan Schneider: If the Secretary of Defense is making these calls, what happens to the mission? They publicized these strikes to look tough and scare drug dealers — to shift their risk-benefit calculus. But the second strike might cost him his job.

Initially, Congressional oversight on this campaign was surprisingly muted. Now, it’s dialed to 10. Most Americans would be deeply uncomfortable reading that article — there is political grist in that. War crimes aside, striking two shipwrecked guys was a politically dumb decision.

Tony Stark: The Democratic base sees the whole episode as illegal, but most of the country doesn’t care if drug traffickers die. That said, most people don’t care if murderers die either, but we don’t execute people in the streets. The rule of law demands we behave better than our animal instincts.

Once the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (HASC and SASC) are involved, the situation changes. Congress hates being lied to, having its funds misused, and having its power usurped. While Congress has abdicated some of its war powers, once HASC and SASC have their hooks in you, they don’t let go, especially before midterms. That will tie up the administration’s agenda.

Any new budget aligned with the National Security Strategy will be filled with restrictive NDAA items. Six months ago, officials felt immune from investigation — now they are concerned. There’s no clean escape — Congressional staffers will want to talk to everyone. I don’t know if they will need a sacrificial lamb or a leadership change, but I doubt the Senate can confirm a new Secretary of Defense.

This is like a Spider-Man meme, everyone pointing fingers at each other. They can’t change what happened, but they can make it painful. I don’t know what comes next.

Justin McIntosh: The Secretary of Defense acting as decision-maker for the strike creates a problematic chain of review. If he had delegated authority — say, to South Command (SOCOM) commander Mitch Bradley — any questions about a strike would have gone to the Secretary for an impartial review. He could have consulted his council and then absolved Bradley of any accusation.

But who can be the impartial reviewer within the department now? By making himself the decision-maker, the Secretary has removed that layer of internal oversight. This puts the department in a weird position, because now questions go to the Senate. The Secretary can’t tell the Senate he is an impartial reviewer of the events — he was the primary decision-maker.

Jordan Schneider: Why would he do it in the first place? Did he want to feel cool and tough watching explosions on TV?

Justin McIntosh: With the right access, the Secretary could have watched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) feeds from anywhere in the world. The question is why he was supervising. Mitch Bradley was the squadron commander for DEVGRU, and commander for JSOC, and SOCOM. He was on SEAL Team Six during the bin Laden raid. His entire career was built on these operations — he knows the process and is fully qualified to make decisions without another TEA. It also doesn’t make sense to include the Secretary as a secondary backup. Bradley didn’t need that level of oversight. Or, perhaps he did.

Gray Areas

Tony Stark: More information will come out about this, though Congress is always weird about investigations during the holidays. But the main takeaway should be this — the U.S. military has not abdicated its moral responsibilities. This is not the military’s default setting. Politics aside, we are at a critical point for military ethics. What does good order and discipline look like? Do we still care about these standards?

Justin McIntosh: Warfare is full of gray areas. The Kunduz hospital bombing is a good example. The 3rd Special Forces Group team and their Afghan partners were under fire, likely from the hospital. As protected sites, there is a higher standard for strikes on hospitals, and insurgents exploit that for their advantage.

Some argue we undermine our military by allowing sanctuary sites, but in my service, I was proud that we held ourselves to higher standards than the insurgents. Those standards protect children, sick and wounded people, innocent civilians, and doctors bravely risking their lives to heal.

That said, there are big gray areas. I usually give grace to ground force commanders, who have small optics and are focused on their men under fire. They are directly encountering active threats, and imperfect decisions are understandable.

My grace degrades for commanders removed from danger — secure in a strike cell with cushy leather chairs. That is the problem here. This strike was unnecessarily messy. There was ample time to develop the target and demonstrate our incredible precision. Secretary Hegseth could have justified the first strike by declassifying evidence that they were drug smugglers.

Jordan Schneider: This will not be our last conversation about this strike.

Tony Stark: Certainly not. Some argue ethics of warfare are a new invention, but these norms are shaped by culture and past wars. The many laws that followed WWII were a response to atrocities on the battlefield. Even in the Civil War, there were standards for treating the wounded and negotiating with the enemy to recover the dead.

The question of what defines a valid target is not new. Our modern standards are an important moral evolution.

Justin McIntosh: There is a psychologically strategic advantage to humane treatment. If the enemy knows they will be mistreated or killed if they are captured — like the Bataan Death March or the slave camps of World War II — they will fight harder. If your forces are known to treat POWs well, there will be more enemy defections. That is militarily relevant.

Jordan Schneider: Hegseth is Secretary of War because he defended Eddie Gallagher on Fox News, even though Eddie’s teammates said he did some heinous things. If that is your formative professional experience outside of public service, then you’re learning some twisted lessons. In other contexts, that behavior leads to a dark place. That’s the only logical explanation for what happened in September. It’s disgusting and counterproductive.

This isn’t a sustainable strategy. The American people can tolerate a lot, but celebrating these strikes from the rooftops is a profound misjudgement of the public mood.

Tony Stark: Congress was initially quiet because the American people didn’t care — it was almost a meme. But the public debate around this will change public opinion. Midterms are around the corner — this is a bad time to try to build up support for a military campaign.

DoD will likely be looking for new mission strategies, such as hitting targets at the source — production facilities, for example, anything legally or morally straight, or off camera. If the political fallout worsens, they may even seek congressional authorization to provide official cover.

If Bradley goes down for this, other officers will see that these strikes can cost them their careers. We might reach a critical mass of officers saying, “I am not risking my career, my livelihood, and my pension for this.” Six months ago, that was not a consideration.

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Jordan Schneider: It comes back to the SOUTHCOM commander who retired early. How much did he see? Did he hear orders like “kill them all” and decide he wasn’t up for the task? It makes more sense now.

Tony Stark: Has he been called to testify before Congress yet? Bradley testified in a classified hearing this week. I am interested in seeing the former SOUTHCOM commander testify.

Justin McIntosh: I agree. That’ll be the telling moment, because it was around September when he announced he was going to retire early. The timing is weird.

Tony Stark: Congress failed by not immediately saying, “That’s weird, we should ask about that.”

Justin McIntosh: Normally, combatant commanders don’t retire halfway through their command.

Jordan Schneider: Especially when their job suddenly attracts public attention.

Tony Stark: If you’re at SOUTHCOM, you’re thinking, “Oh my God, I finally have assets! This is fantastic.”

Justin McIntosh: They’re in Tampa, so they’re trying to pull CENTCOM guys to fill those roles.

Jordan Schneider: Well, that was some real “SportsCenter for War” action. We’re closing with Grok. I asked it what regimes the paragraph from the National Security Strategy reminded it of.

It answered Fascist Italy, National Socialist Germany, and Franco’s Spain.

Apparently, Fascist Italy had a demographic campaign called the “Battle for Births,” which was intended to boost birth rates. Maybe we’ll cover that next week!

Tony Stark: That’ll really interest our audience.

Jordan Schneider: I’m really excited for the AI song I’m going to make from that paragraph.