US-China Relations: History, Culture, and AI Competition, with Noah Smith, from Econ 102

**Noah Smith** (0:00)
We have to get out of the mentality of thinking that America makes all the choices, that we have all the power, that we have all the agency, that we're the big one who makes all the choices. We're not the big one anymore. They're bigger than us in most of the important ways. We're big, we're still big, but they're bigger than us in most important ways.

**Nathan Labenz** (0:15)
I have never quite been able to figure out why the United States, the West, whatever, is so bent on this sort of path of escalation and keeping China down, or I'm not even quite sure what exactly it is we think we're trying to do with our export controls.

**Noah Smith** (0:33)
We had this rupture in our relations with China under Mao that we repaired, we patched it up, and we'll patch it up again someday. We'll be friends with China again someday, but unilateral dropping of deterrence, unilateral weakening of all our deterrence methods is not the way to patch that up more quickly.

**Nathan Labenz** (0:51)
Hello, and welcome back to The Cognitive Revolution. Today, I'm beginning what I expect will be an ongoing series of episodes, exploring one of the most consequential and fraught issues of our time, US-China relations. My guide today is economist Noah Smith, author of the No Opinion blog and co-host of the Econ 102 podcast, also on the Turpentine Network. There's an old joke about a visitor to China. After a week, they think they know something about China, and after a month, they believe they know a lot about China. But after a year, they realize they know nothing about China.
I mention this because I approach this topic with genuine humility. Considering the role that fear of China and Chinese AI plays in American AI discourse today, and considering the many foreign policy mistakes the US government has made in recent decades, I feel this topic is too important to ignore, and also too complicated to uncritically accept the Washington Consensus. But to be very clear, and to channel the language of a historical red scare, I do not now, nor do I ever expect to have all of the answers. With that in mind, I consider this a sort of warm-up episode, which I hope will serve as useful context for a number of additional conversations going forward. And I think that Noah is really a good person to provide such perspective, as he's a super well-read, well-traveled, including having lived in Asia for a few years, and extremely open-minded thinker who's willing to challenge prevailing orthodoxies. I started off by asking Noah to sketch out the historical arc of U.S.-China relations, and I appreciated how his analysis balanced short-term realism, noting that China, and arguably Xi Jinping specifically, was first to defect from a more positive relationship, with longer-term perspective, observing not only that the US and China have been allies in the past, but that there are no major fundamental reasons that the two countries couldn't conceivably repair their relationship in the future. In fact, contrary to anyone who would frame the U.S.-China rivalry as some sort of inevitable or eternal clash of civilizations, Noah also notes that despite our obviously different histories and political systems, there are a number of surprising cultural similarities shared between our two peoples. Along the way, we also get Noah's takes on some of the most important AI-related questions being debated today. What are the US export controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment and chips themselves ultimately meant to accomplish? How much are they changing China's calculus when it comes to potentially acting on Taiwan? And what will their practical effects be? Can we expect to deny China the ability to militarize AI technology or meaningfully slow their progress toward AGI? Or will we perhaps simply deny the Chinese public the benefit of AI productivity improvements and economic growth? I appreciate that Noah answered as many of these questions as he felt confident answering and also gave his standard fallback no-opinion answer to a few as well. This is, of course, far from the final word on these topics, and we should all be striving to learn and understand both the other side and the overall situation better as we go forward through time. As always, if you're finding value in the show, we'd appreciate it if you'd share it with friends, write a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. Your feedback, including suggestions for guests that can provide a unique perspective on the U.S.-China question is always welcome to, either via our website, cognitiverevolution.ai, or by DMing me on your favorite social network. Now, I hope you enjoy this foundation laying conversation on U.S.-China relations with economist and writer, Noah Smith.