The Wire China Podcast

7 Episodes

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Mules, Moonshine, and Magnets

2026-03-1316:43

Reporter Noah Berman and editor Tom Mitchell take us to small-town North Carolina, where a new magnet factory has set up shop. Vulcan Elements wants to make magnets without sourcing any materials from China — a difficult task, because Chinese companies monopolize the supply and production chain for the rare earths needed in the process. Also in this episode, an excerpt from this week's Q&A with Kei Koizumi, former Deputy Director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,...

AI vs The Big Screen

2026-03-0616:50

In our sixth episode, reporters Eliot Chen, Rachel Cheung, and Savannah Billman discuss the latest breakthroughs in Bytedance’s AI video generation tool, Seedance 2.0. The extremely lifelike videos went viral around the world, but also triggered existential questions for the film industry and the Chinese startups looking to make a profit from AI cinema. We also explore why AI diffusion in China is so low despite the high technical capabilities of domestically developed models and tools. Comi...

How to Smuggle Chips to China

2026-02-2720:14

Smugglers in Texas, New Jersey, and New York. A mysterious Hong Kong client. And a plot to illegally sell Nvidia AI chips to China. In our fifth episode, The Wire China reporter Eliot Chen ventures into the criminal underworld with news editor Andrew Peaple. They discuss how Eliot mapped out an international smuggling ring busted late last year for sending advanced chips to Chinese customers. It's a case that reads more like a thriller — and it shows just how far companies will go for an edg...

Epstein and China

2026-02-2020:21

China's economic rise beckoned Jeffrey Epstein in the 2010s. Associates of the financier and sex offender, who made much of his money from advising billionaires, sought opportunities to connect him with a network of powerful men in China. Though no concrete deals ever materialized, the Epstein files demonstrate how power, connections, and opportunities flowed among the elite as China's star continued to rise. In this episode, our reporters discuss how they sorted through thousands of files t...

A Tale of Two Exports

2026-02-1310:53

In our third episode, features editor Tom Mitchell is joined by reporter Noah Berman to discuss shifts for two of China's most consequential exports: military armaments and electric vehicles. Even as wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa raged on in 2024, newly released data for that year shows that China's arms exports decreased by ten percent as Xi Jinping's anti-corruption investigations roiled the country's defense industry. Meanwhile, despite trade tensions, the door for Chin...

Living a Double Life at Google

2026-02-0618:31

Welcome to the second episode of The Wire China podcast, in which we take you behind the scenes of the stories we cover each week in our magazine, thewirechina.com. In this episode, reporter Eliot Chen walks us through a true crime thriller with news editor Andrew Peaple. A mild-mannered Chinese software engineer working for Google in California schemes to make it big as a tech entrepreneur by setting up his own company back in China. Instead, he winds up in the middle of the U.S.-China tech...

Robotaxis On a Roll

2026-01-3114:04

Welcome to the first episode of The Wire China podcast, in which we will take you behind the scenes of the stories we cover each week in our magazine, thewirechina.com. In this episode, news editor Andrew Peaple talks to reporter Rachel Cheung about her latest cover story on China's fast-growing robotaxi industry, and whether a recent spate of accidents involving self-driving cars will drive the sector off course. We also have an extract from our latest Q&A, with Chinese economist D...

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