The Wire China Podcast

In China’s black jails, detainees are pressured to confess to crimes they don’t know they committed while being prevented from knowing where they’re being imprisoned or even from seeing daylight.

The organization Safeguard Defenders has documented the practice, known as “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” (RSDL), in its just-published third edition of a book that tells the stories of survivors in their own words.

Peter Dahlin (Safeguard Defenders) and Michael Kovrig (Kovrig Group, Centre for Strategic Statecraft), themselves survivors of RSDL detention, join reporter Savannah Billman on this episode to discuss the legal origins of RSDL, how it works, and the power of survivor testimonies collected in the book.

Read more: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/25/torture-tales-from-chinas-black-jails/

02:05 - The People’s Republic of the Disappeared

03:06 - What is RSDL?

06:46 - Legal Concerns & Pushback Against RSDL

09:10 - National Security Charges & Interrogation Practices

13:14: Post-RSDL Life

17:00 - Exposing RSDL: Testimonials & Documenting the System

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• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:10 – Inside the Courtroom: The Case Against Huawei
• 03:52 – Skycom, Meng Wanzhou, and the "Two Michaels"
• 06:06 – "Tappy" the Robot
• 07:05 – Geopolitical Context
• 08:18 – Huawei’s Defense Strategy
• 09:47 – Possible Verdicts
• 12:20 – Wire China Preview

China’s tech giant Huawei is finally on trial in New York City. Accused of theft, sanctions evasion, and fraud, the telecom giant's case kicked off years of hostage diplomacy involving two Canadian citizens and escalated U.S.-China tensions.

Now, almost eight years after the first charges were unsealed, a jury will decide: is Huawei guilty?

The Wire China’s reporter Noah Berman went to the courtroom in Brooklyn to find out what both sides of the case are saying. In this episode, Noah and news editor Andrew Peaple discuss what we've learned about the mysterious Chinese tech company.

Read the story: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/11/01/catch-us-if-you-can/

In 2018, China detained two Canadians for three years in retaliation for the arrest of a Huawei executive in Canada. One of them, Michael Kovrig, wrote last week’s cover story on China’s secretive and violent detention practices. Read for free: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/25/torture-tales-from-chinas-black-jails/

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What will China do with all its solar panels? Many of them, it turns out, are going on farms — turning sheep pens and fish ponds into green energy hubs.

In this episode, reporter Peiyue Wu and features editor Tom Mitchell discuss why Chinese entrepreneurs are combining solar farms with actual farms. It checks two important boxes for Beijing: boosting green industry, and increasing agricultural output. But for crayfish farmers, it's a creative scheme to boost sales.

Read Peiyue's article here: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/18/dual-use-farms/

We also have a clip from our Q&A with Seth Center, a former State Department official in the Biden administration who led the first talks with China on AI: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/22/seth-center-on-talking-to-china-about-ai-risk/

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We’re taking a little time this week to re-share one of our all-time favorite episodes: Why did Canada suddenly decide to open up its market to Chinese cars?

Earlier this month, Chinese carmaker Geely announced it would start selling in Canada in 2027. It's a huge shift for Canada, which once was aligned with the United States on keeping Chinese autos out. Now, the U.S. will be the only country on the continent with no Chinese vehicles. We're revisiting the discussion on the topic between writers Eliot Chen and Savannah Billman.

PLUS: The Wire China Podcast is moving to Tuesday! Make sure to subscribe via Substack to get episodes and transcripts right to your inbox: https://thewirechina.substack.com/

In 2022, memory chip manufacturer YMTC looked like it was on the way out. The Chinese chipmaker had just been hit with U.S. sanctions and lost a major contract with Apple. But four years later, YMTC is now the third largest memory chip maker in the world. How did it survive?

In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Savannah Billman revisit her recent analysis of how YMTC survived not only U.S. sanctions, but the cutthroat competition and involution in the Chinese market.

Plus, Rachel and Savannah look at another dominant Chinese company, battery-maker CATL, and why it may yet survive its sudden drop in market value.

Read the pieces here:

https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/04/the-survivor/

https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/11/chinese-carmakers-try-to-break-free-from-the-catl-herd/

We also have a clip from our just-published interview with Gunnar Wiegand, a former EU diplomat, on the narrowly-avoided trade war between China and the EU.

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In 2021, a Chinese-American engineer founded a specialized semiconductor company in Belgium. A year later, a similar company opened in Fuzhou, China — partially owned by the same engineer. Was economic espionage involved?

Reporter Noah Berman is back this episode with news editor Andrew Peaple to discuss the evolving case of chipmakers BelGaN in Belgium and GaNkool in China. Belgian authorities are investigating whether the two companies share more than just a similar name. The investigation comes as European governments are grappling with their own trade and economic policies towards China, and as Beijing continues to seek self-reliance in key technologies like chips.

Read Noah's article: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/04/chips-china-and-trade-secrets-how-an-arrest-in-brussels-could-tie-them-together/

We also feature an excerpt from the upcoming Q&A with author Emily Feng on her new book "Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria's Civil War," which will be available later this month.

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Early this summer, Anthropic's advanced AI model Mythos stunned the tech world by identifying thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities across the internet and even in U.S. government systems. Across the Pacific, Chinese AI regulators were also paying close attention.

In this episode, reporter Savannah Billman is joined by Kristy Loke, a MATS research fellow focusing on China’s AI governance and innovation strategies and author of a recent opinion piece published on The Wire China. We discuss why China is waking up to the risks of frontier AI, how tech leaders are developing new regulatory capacity, and why Xi Jinping is an AI governance-pilled president.

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The main muscle of President Trump's second-term China policy isn't at the State Department. Nor is it at the Department of Commerce. Instead, it's the U.S. television regulator.

Reporter Noah Berman and editor Andrew Peaple are back this episode to discuss Noah's analysis of how the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, headed by Brendan Carr, has come to be the lead agency on so many import regulations on advanced Chinese technology.

Read: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/20/the-fcc-vs-the-prc/

And as President Xi Jinping touches down in Washington DC for a much-anticipated summit — and expected discussion of AI — we share a clip from our interview with Concordia AI's Brian Tse on how China thinks of AI safety.

Read: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/24/brian-tse-on-how-china-plans-to-keep-ai-safe/

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China’s Gen Z factory heirs have a problem. They graduated into an era where high-tech robots and AI can usher in a new industrial revolution. But frustratingly, the factories run by their parents are too old-fashioned to ditch the pen and paper for profit.

In this episode, reporters Peiyue Wu and Rachel Cheung discuss the tech-savvy Chinese who are trying to bring AI to the manufacturing sector. Many of them see themselves as Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDE), a job title popularized by Palantir, on the front lines of a battle against the old ways of running business.

Also, an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with former Trump official Stephen Vaughn on why he believes the Trump administration’s aggressive strategy towards China is working.

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Birds of a feather tend to stick together, at least in the case of Chinese companies sanctioned by the United States. Our reporter Noah Berman found that many recently sanctioned firms actually share the same address, down to the same floor of a Hong Kong office building.

This week, features editor Tom Mitchell and Noah Berman discuss his recent examination into how Chinese firms use Hong Kong-based shell firms to avoid U.S. sanctions, and what Washington might be trying to signal so close to the anticipated Trump-Xi summit.

Read the article: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/06/the-familiar-hong-kong-addresses-in-americas-iran-sanctions/

Also, an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with Susan Shirk on where to go next in the U.S.-China relationship.

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Montana has been the unlikely source of America’s most influential China-hand senators. Somewhat paradoxically, it’s also one of the most pro-Trump — and tough on China — electorates in the country.

In this episode, reporters Savannah Billman and Brent Crane discuss Brent’s recent reporting on why the Treasure State’s relationship with China appears to swing so widely between extremes. As U.S. national and state governments continue to debate how best to approach China, Montana reflects the rewards and limits of U.S.-China engagement.

Read Brent’s cover: www.thewirechina.com/2026/08/30/red-china-and-red-state-montana-its-complicated/

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China’s running, dancing, kung-fu fighting humanoid robots are better at being influencers than anything else. But soon they will have to get real jobs, and fast.

In this episode, editor Tom Mitchell and reporter Savannah Billman discuss the explosive growth of Chinese humanoid robots this year. China expects to produce 100,000 of them, much more than anticipated, but is the technology developed enough for customers to buy them all?

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As U.S. restrictions complicate DJI’s expansion beyond drones, its camera rival Insta360 has gained an unexpected advantage among American consumers.

In this episode, reporters Peiyue Wu and Savannah Billman discuss the surprising case of two Chinese companies going head-to-head over the U.S. market. As Peiyue wrote earlier this week, both DJI and Insta360 make cameras and drones — but only the latter is able to sell both of its products in the United States. What does the dispute reveal about how Chinese firms navigate both normal business competition and tightening U.S. regulations?

Read Peiyue's article: www.thewirechina.com/2026/08/02/dji-gets-into-a-fight-in-the-u-s-with-another-chinese-dronemaker/

We also feature an excerpt from our recent Q&A with UCLA School of Law professor Alex Wang on how China's environmental policies impact its diplomacy.

Read the Q&A: www.thewirechina.com/2026/08/02/alex-wang-on-what-china-gets-right-and-wrong-on-the-environment/

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Nvidia has nearly 1,000 partners around the world, including over 100 in China. Some of these firms, according to a Wire China investigation, have close ties to China's military. What does this mean for Nvidia and the future of U.S. chip restrictions?

This week, reporter Noah Berman and editor Andrew Peaple go behind the scenes of Noah's investigation into Nvidia's China partners, discussing how one partner connects to a network of sanctioned universities, and what this reveals about the way the world's most valuable company operates. His article is now available to read on our website, thewirechina.com.

We also have an excerpt from our recent interview with historian and sinologist Geremie Barmé in which he talks about his misadventures studying Maoism in Shanghai right after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Read Noah's investigation: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/07/26/nvidias-china-partners-and-the-pla/

Read the interview with Geremie: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/07/26/geremie-barme-on-the-other-china/

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China’s consumer economy is doing very poorly if you look at it one way: low consumption, deflation, and overcapacity. But popular — and successful — global brands like Anta Group and Popmart seem to paint a different picture. What’s really going on?

Last week, The Wire editor Andrew Peaple joined Asia Society’s Paris Summer Summit and discussed Chinese market trends with Sandrine Zerbib, an expert on China’s consumer sector. This episode shares the recording of their panel.

Other stories in our upcoming issue include a profile of CXMT, China’s star chipmaker with a blockbuster IPO, our cover story on Nvidia’s Chinese distribution partners by Noah Berman, and an op-ed by Ruby Scanlon on how long China can sustain its commitment to open-source AI development.

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Before Nvidia won approval to sell more chips to China, it first told the U.S. government that Huawei sales would soar if it was kept out.

This week, Noah Berman joins fellow journalist Rachel Cheung to discuss his scoop on one reason why the U.S. government gave Nvidia permission to sell its H200 chips to China last December: a report outlining the alleged threat to Nvidia's business if it couldn't enter the Chinese market. Is Huawei really about to take a chunk of Nvidia's market share, and has there been any sign that Beijing will allow the H200s in?

Read the piece: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/07/02/nvidia-uses-the-specter-of-huawei-to-make-its-chip-exports-case/

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China’s leading science organization does much more than spearhead basic research. It runs universities, advises the government, and incubates leading technology companies in frontier areas such as quantum and AI.

In this episode, news editor Andrew Peaple and reporter Savannah Billman discuss her recent overview of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A crucial engine behind China’s technological rise, CAS is nonetheless an organization little understood.

Read the piece: www.thewirechina.com/2026/06/21/the-long-arm-of-the-chinese-academy-of-sciences/

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Jupiter Systems is an American company that makes video screen technology for the U.S. military. In 2024, the government discovered something shocking — it had been sold to a Chinese tech company years earlier.

Reporters Noah Berman and Rachel Cheung are back on the podcast to go behind the scenes on their recent investigation into the sale of Jupiter Systems and how the United States government is trying to get it back. Read their story on The Wire China here: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/06/14/behind-the-screens/

We also feature an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with the former head of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, Alan Estevez.

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AI is driving layoffs and discontent across the United States. China wants to avoid the same problems — or is it already too late?

Reporter Rachel Cheung and editor Tom Mitchell discuss her recent article on how much pain Beijing may allow AI to inflict on Chinese society in exchange for productivity gains. From the unemployed Chinese youths ‘squatting’ in their parents’ homes to the optimistic hustlers using AI agents to get ahead, the technology is already transforming daily life.

Plus, a clip from our forthcoming Q&A with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown on their new book, “How to Win a Trade War."

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SALE: We’re offering your first month of The Wire China for just one dollar. More details below!

For years, the United States has tried to stop China from getting its most advanced chips out of concern the technology could bolster the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities. But the web of export controls it has imposed has not stopped the Chinese military from trying to get Nvidia’s products.

John Costello, Director of Strategic Affairs for WireScreen and author of a new report on the acquisition attempts, joins us this episode. We discuss how and why China's military tried to obtain advanced computing technology over a six year period, and the supplier network that has emerged around it.

Read more on The Wire China: www.thewirechina.com/2026/06/04/how-the-pla-has-tried-to-get-around-chip-export-controls/

We also feature an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with Liz Cannon, formerly at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Start your subscription to The Wire China today! We’re making it easy with your first month for just one dollar. Sign up for our free newsletter below and we’ll send you the discount code to apply at checkout.

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SALE: We’re offering your first month of The Wire China for just one dollar. More details below!

The world is facing a global memory chip shortage, with companies scrambling to buy what they can. The crunch puts desperate U.S. firms in a bind: will they need to start purchasing chips from China?

In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Noah Berman discuss the rise and global allure of China’s homegrown chipmakers. Even though the U.S. government designated two of China’s biggest suppliers as military companies and subjected them to export controls, looming chip shortages mean purchases from China aren’t off the table just yet.

We also feature an extract from our Q&A with author and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom on the importance of understanding Chinese history.

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Move over, DeepSeek and Minimax. Investors are flocking to a new set of AI winners: the Chinese manufacturers making circuit boards and other components that keep the world's AI models humming along.

In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Savannah Billman discuss the growing importance of these so-called 'pick and shovel' makers and where the money is flowing within China's AI ecosystem. The AI industry is fraught with risk for developers and investors, but the manufacturers will win no matter which LLM comes out on top.

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TP-Link is having a tough year. The California-based, Shenzhen-founded internet router company can’t seem to shake skepticism that moving to the United States means it is no longer Chinese.

This week, reporters Noah Berman and Savannah Billman return to the podcast to discuss the strange story of TP-Link. In a bid to shed its Chinese origins and sell in the U.S. market, the company’s owner Jeffrey Chao brought his entire family to the Golden State and restructured the firm. But, as Noah reports, the router company's American Dream is caught up in the U.S. government’s suspicion of Chinese tech companies.

We’ll also have a Q&A with Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief, on his new book exploring North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung’s Christian background.

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There are fewer U.S. journalists working in China now than at any point since the two countries normalized relations in the 1970s. Today, the New York Times has one reporter in the country, the Wall Street Journal two, soon to be one, and the Washington Post none.

Features editor Tom Mitchell and reporter Eliot Chen return to the podcast to discuss Eliot’s investigation into why the journalist population in China has struggled to rebound. While Beijing doesn’t seem to mind this turn of events, the dearth of reporters on the ground in China means the world knows much less about what happens there — a challenge we aim to overcome here at The Wire China.

Eliot’s article will be published this weekend on thewirechina.com, along with other stories on China’s leading AI glasses maker Rokid, what exactly Trump’s idea for a U.S.-China Board of Trade entails, Chris Horton on how how tensions with China are bringing Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan closer together, and a Q&A with Sebastian Mallaby on why the U.S. should be ready to give up its chip export controls if it can help secure an AI safety deal with China.

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Another day, another AI chip smuggling ring has been busted by the United States government. But this one is different: for the first time, executives from U.S. server manufacturer Super Micro have been charged with selling NVIDIA chips to Chinese buyers — a violation of U.S. export controls.

Reporter Eliot Chen returns to the podcast with editor Andrew Peaple to discuss how the operation worked, and why smuggling chips to China is seemingly so hard to stop.

Also, we’ll have a clip from our forthcoming Q&A with author Nicholas Niarchos on the impact that the push for clean energy is having on the countries that supply many of the key resources needed for products like batteries and electric vehicles.

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In the high-stakes world of cryptocurrency, traders are writing big checks with borrowed funds — a risky investment trend known as leveraging. To understand whether this will help or hurt the industry, The Wire looks back at the trend's emergence in China.

In this episode, we are joined by a new guest: journalist Grady McGregor, who discusses his upcoming piece on crypto leverage and its Chinese origins with features editor Tom Mitchell. His cover article will be published this weekend on our website, thewirechina.com.

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After so many years of Canada and the United States presenting a united front against Chinese electric vehicles, some were surprised by Canada's announcement earlier this year it would drop its high tariffs on EVs — and even allow them to set up factories.

But, as reporters Eliot Chen and Savannah Billman discuss, security risks haven't disappeared as the tariffs have. In this episode, Eliot explains why the two North American neighbors fell out over EV policy, and traces the close ties between one Chinese car company and a sanctioned surveillance firm.

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China's solar imports aren't welcome everywhere, but that's not the case in Africa. Solar exports to the continent as a whole increased by almost 50 percent last year.

In our latest episode, editor Andrew Peaple and reporter Noah Berman discuss his upcoming reporting on Chinese solar's booming sales to the continent. Solar proponents spy opportunity to improve electrical grids across African nations with Chinese imports, but are widening trade deficits and China's anti-involutionary policies going to slow the rush?

In the second part of this episode, we look at how the U.S. intelligence community viewed the Hainan spy plane crisis through the eyes of Dennis Wilder, who was then CIA China Division Chief. Our oral history of the incident continues this week on our website, thewirechina.com, where Part II will be released this Sunday evening.

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25 years ago, a Chinese and a U.S. plane collided over the waters off of China's southern coast. The Chinese pilot was never found, while the 24 surviving American crew members made an emergency landing on a Chinese military base on the island of Hainan.

In this special episode, The Wire China kicks off our two-part oral history series on the Hainan spy plane crisis, a defining diplomatic test for both nations at the beginning of the so-called "Asian Century." Editor Tom Mitchell, reporter Rachel Cheung, and the Wire China Team bring together the voices of the officials, pilots, diplomats, and military personnel who were there to understand how they navigated the crisis — and if such an incident might occur again.

The full oral histories will release in two parts on thewirechina.com over the next two weeks.

Audio:

President Bush/Chen Ci from AP Archive

Shenyang J-8 audio from Wikimedia Commons

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It seems as if everything is AI now — well, not this podcast. But you can't discuss U.S.-China relations without understanding which one is ahead in artificial intelligence. Who leads on the scorecard?

In our eighth episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Savannah Billman discuss Rachel's upcoming story on where the United States and China score across the stack of technologies and capabilities that make AI possible.

We also have an excerpt from our upcoming Q&A with veteran diplomat Sarah Beran on the role of U.S.-China diplomacy in an evolving international environment. You can read these stories and more at thewirechina.com.

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