THREAD on the Foreign Affairs magazine throwdown on the US-China endgame. What American policy is most likely to avoid WWIII?

We've got some real heavyweights in the ring today:
Rep. Gallagher + Trump NSC Pottinger
Ex Biden NSC Doshi
Ex State Weiss + Steinberg
ex IC Heer Gallagher and Pottinger (G/P) piece made waves last month for the loudest articulation yet in 'respectable circles' that the US should make "victory" it's lode star, defining that as something which smells an awful lot like regime change

TSMC Takes on Arizona needs to be a documentary

"U.S. engineers told Rest of World that some Taiwanese male engineers had calendars with bikini models on their desks and occasionally shared sexual memes in group chats.

A female American colleague, according to an American trainee who witnessed the conversation, asked a Taiwanese engineer to remove his computer wallpaper depicting a bikini model. One former American engineer said some local co-workers referred to him as a “white breeding pig,” implying he was only in Taiwan to sleep with local women. At a meeting, a manager said Americans were less desirable than Taiwanese and Indian workers, according to people who saw leaked notes, which circulated among trainees."


from @violazhouyi 's excellent piece restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-ariz…

Lessons from Okimoto's 1989 classic "Between MITI and the Market: Japanese Industrial Policy for High Technology". A thread!

To start: MITI almost killed Sony in the cradle by not letting them purchase foreign semiconductor tech for $25k. MITI's highest profile success, the VLSI project, probably would've happened anyways without government intervention.

Plus, VLSI's executive director said that the only reason he was able to get anything done was sake parties to get researchers to be friends across companies.

OpenAI's newly released Code Interpreter changes everything.

Every business on the planet now has access to an on-demand team of McKinsey consultants for $20/month.

To see why, here's what I was able to do in 10 minutes with my own company's data: I run a newsletter called ChinaTalk () which covers US-China and technology policy.

After uploading the dataset of my 25k readers, it made a plan to help sell ad space. While ChatGPT could do something like this, what came next amazed me... https://t.co/8dmE8L4QaUchinatalk.media

Why would Xi give Putin weapons?
If he does, will a US-China Cold War start for real?

THREAD on what might be the scariest geopolitical development in years First, some context: recently reports emerged across credible western media that the US had intel that Xi was seriously contemplating sending lethal military aid to Russia.

cnn.com/2023/02/24/pol…

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What does China's most important tech official have to say about ChatGPT?

A THREAD on China's AI blueprint featuring a revealing soccer analogy...

/1 Wang Zhigang, the head of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, did a ministers' press conference on March 5 during the Two Sessions ...

/2

COMPUTE THREAD — how will the geopolitics of AI compute impact the future of US-China relations? In 2020, Ben Buchanan (now on the NSC) popularized the “AI triad”--the three inputs that drive national AI power.
1. data
2. algorithms,
3. computing power — or simply “compute.”

1/17

THREAD: One year after Russia invaded Ukraine, what do Chinese elites think of the war?

Hint: Influential scholars and even some ultranationals want Xi to stop embracing Putin. Foreign Minister Wang Yi dropped his peace plan on Feb 24, but Hu Wei, a State Council advisor, wasn't impressed.

He writes, "... the paper contains no specific implementation plan or any operational measures. ... Even Russia says the document does not reflect its positions."

THREAD: China wants to lead the world in AI.

But there's something suprising standing in the way: The CCP. Here's why: Xi desperately wants to turn China into a "science and technology superpower" and believes that leading on AI is key to doing so.

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What does China's AI industry think about ChatGPT?

A THREAD: China wants to build its own OpenAI.

Tsinghua Prof Huang Minlie: "China must have its own large foundational and large application models.

What can George Kennan's legacy tell us about how the US should respond to China?

How do the reflections of key NSC officials Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer on Kennan help explain Biden's policymaking today?

A BOOK REVIEW THREAD: In 2018, @MatthewRojansky and @mkimmage put together a series of essays and interviews reflecting on the man.

All-star contributors included Sullivan and @JonathanKFiner, past heads of Policy Planning @SlaughterAM, @RichardHaass, Dennis Ross and historian @JeremiSuri

BALLOON THREAD: The military history and future applications of balloons in the US-China context: What advantages do balloons have over satellites?
1. Easy to conceal;
2. More persistent - can hover for days over a target;
3. They're cheap!

best set i've heard in a year @_fabknowledge_

Isaac Newton: an insecure loner, nofapper, heretic, and alchemist. A man who got into petty Kim Kardashian v. TSwift-style fights with rivals like Liebniz.

The "last of the magicians," he invented calculus and paved the way for how we do science today.

A BOOK REVIEW THREAD: The following perspectives on Newton's life all come from @JamesGleick 's masterful gem of a biography
amazon.com/Isaac-Newton-J…

Taylor Swift ballads of great romances in history:
1. Marc Antony and Cleopatra 2. Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

Are the protests in China a harbinger of what's to come, or a storm soon to pass?

A THREAD recapping the 'Chaos Under Heaven,' with analysis and premature predictions: A refresher on the timeline:
- Thursday night: fire breaks out in locked-down Urumqi, killing at least 10 apartment residents (mostly Uyghur)
- Friday night: (mostly Han) residents protest in Urumqi; vigils and gatherings begin other cities

RAND helped craft America’s strategy against the USSR which helped win the Cold War.

With US-China tensions on the rise, it's wise to reflect on RAND's impact in:
— defining nuclear strategy
— incubating game theory
— reshaping how the Pentagon spends money

Here’s a breakdown: This thread draws primarily from Soldiers of Reason, the only book-length exploration of RAND history:
amazon.com/Soldiers-Reaso…

How has China's Ministry of State Security infiltrated the mindshare of Presidents Clinton and Trump, not to mention countless public intellectuals who set the terms of the global China debate?

A THREAD: The following excerpts are all taken from @alexjoske 's fantastic new book Spies and Lies

amazon.com/Spies-Lies-Chi…

Is the US Intelligence Community really prepared for sustained competition with China?

SCSP's new report highlights some severe deficiencies inside the system that need to be addressed for the IC to bring the best possible analysis to policymakers on China.

A THREAD: In what ways might the IC fail going forward? It's not how some might expect; there's little chance that the US will be blindsided by a Taiwan invasion. Instead, it really could fail to adequately support decisions on tech and economic competitiveness.

scsp.ai/wp-content/upl…

@AcqTalk @ChorzempaMartin @mchorowitz has anyone written a paper or book that takes what Hirschmann does in Rhetoric of Reaction (hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…) and applies it to arguments militaries have made over history against adopting to various new technologies? Like are there- type errors across history militaries make about dismissing technologies they should take seriously?

What do the Biden admin's new semiconductor export controls mean for:
--the risk of war
--the global chips industry
--retaliation from Beijing

A THREAD: First, a bit of background. The US Commerce Department limited Chinese firms' access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and AI chips in a bid to restrict China's tech advancement. For more color, see this interview: chinatalk.media/p/new-chip-exp…