Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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In conversation with Robert Wright, Kaiser Kuo, host of the Sinica Podcast, argues that China hawkism has waned and assesses the causes and consequences.

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0:00 Teaser
1:03 A brief history of American China hawkery
16:14 The 2008 financial crisis changed things
19:56 Xi Jinping and the great man theory of history
26:07 Can we get along with autocrats?
32:40 How China hawkery became bipartisan
38:55 Total eclipse of the hawks?
48:40 Kaiser’s "Great Reckoning" thesis

Discussed in Overtime:
How power corrupts cognitive empathy.
Is Chinese espionage really so extreme?
The unenlightened eclipsing of China hawkery.
The pandemic's unlearned lessons.
Western Orientalism strikes again.
What made Dario Amodei a China hawk?
US vs. Chinese approaches to AI.

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Kaiser Kuo (sinicapodcast.com/). Recorded November 19, 2025.

Twitter: twitter.com/NonzeroPods