YouSaid · the spoken record

Keyu Jin

lines on the record: 121
first: 2025-08-13
most recent: 2025-08-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Behind all this competition and ambition, you have a very genuine group of people. They are funny, they are community based, they are authentic, actually. It's not contradictory, right? You have a society which is heavily controlled, but they find ways to be truly, truly authentic. Ultimately, they're just a very social group, right? Again, I keep on coming to this being lonely aspect of the Western society and increasingly living alone. That is not China. It's still very, very warm country, and they're warm to foreigners, and they are friendly”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very short amount of time. This is all the new generation. Where are the opportunities? It's in the local areas. It's all about localism, not globalism, localism. Being rooted in your local economy, you will actually find so many more opportunities. You go to Chongqing. I actually was watching a video about Chongqing. I thought we were in Shanghai. I was so surprised. And you go to Chengdu. It's fun. You know, people work a little bit less, but it's really exciting. It's very fun. People are really nice. Go to Xinjiang. Take a look for yourself. There's ski resorts. Being open there. You have a very interesting, colorful, dynamic, complex country, and it's not defined by Beijing and Shanghai.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pop mart. They're coming from these second tier cities that care about the local economy, about fun, entertainment. That's what the new generation is about. They don't want to be lining up some factory, you know, doing manufacturing jobs, if you think that the Chinese new generation is still all about that. You should really study them a little bit more. They're all about making their lives more fun and more interesting, right? That's the cycle, right? In the beginning, Chinese people were hungry. They want to look for jobs and they find these jobs in manufacturing. Now they want to work-life balance. They are a spearheading fashion, right? They spend so much more on entertainment travel, clothing, restaurants. They have come out with these amazing coffee chains that have beaten completely Starbucks within a”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A checkout speed His travels into China. I think they represent a more dynamic reality than just visiting Beijing and Shanghai and Shenzhen, the big cities. I actually think a lot of the opportunities, especially economic opportunities, are in the second third tier cities now. In China. And there's a return of talent. You know, these companies”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The real estate collapse also meant the local finances, local government finances also shrunk dramatically. Real estate was a really important part of the financial industry. It brought that down. Together, it really had a major impact on the economy, but also from the consumer side, their wealth was primarily tied into real estate, not the stock market, not other kind of investment opportunities. It was real estate. So they felt poor, they consumed less.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Embodied the two fundamental pillars of the economy. One is the fiscal system and one is a financial system. So coming back to our local mayor economy, where did you think the local mayor has got their funds through real estate? They sold land. Real estate property developers came in. They can develop the entire local economy because the services will come in, the jobs will come in. And by the way, you are an equity owner of the entire city. So you want these property developers around. Many countries throughout history all have this property transition, right? You need to wean the economy off of property. In a good situation, it takes three to five years. In a bad situation, it can take 10 years. I don't know where China belongs currently, but I”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A few years ago, there was a crackdown on the real estate sector. And again, it comes back to a lot of the social issues we were discussing. Why aren't people having kids? Well, maybe it's because housing is too expensive. Maybe it's because education system is too competitive. The speculative bubbles in the real estate is making housing unaffordable, and that's not part of the Chinese social characteristics. And so when they decided that the property investors were going to be reined in, that housing was to be lived in not speculated, it really brought down the whole sector in terms of investment, in terms of the financing of the sector. But ultimately, it made such a massive impact or such a massive dent on the economy because it really...”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“U.S. companies on these high tech. That's the first time in history. Even the Soviet Union, which was very technologically advanced, did not have the extent of commercializable civilian technology and the technologies that were pervasive throughout the economy. But fundamentally, we have to understand how much of this real estate crisis has impinged on the economy and explains the persistent slowdown.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Chinese economy has a lot of potential because the fundamentals are still there. When we talk about the fundamentals, it's the skills, it's a human capital, it's the physical capital, it's the macroeconomic stability and political stability. That's a lot going for a country if you look around the world right now. And this is why the entrepreneurialism is still there, because the fundamentals are there, even though the economy is weak, consumers are not confident, and private investment is insufficient. The fundamentals are there. Is China where it should be far, far, far from it? Because China's potential based on the fundamentals is a much higher level of per capita income than it where it is currently. It's kind of currently in a $10,000 bracket. And this is also a puzzle because you're a $10,000 per capita income country that can actually do leading-edge technology and can be neck-to-neck with you.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Collapse is such a strong word, and the West has been using this word repeatedly, if I remember correctly, maybe four to five times, maybe even six times since nineteen eighties during the period of China's fastest growth. I tend to not think that Chinese economy will collapse, but with a slowdown continue, we'll be able to lift up again, will it be able to come out of this cycle soon I think that's more relevant.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you look at the most recent evidence on this issue, they found that post 1990. Aging economies became richer. Not the other way around, which was true for the pre 1990 sample. And the reason is that these aging societies much more rapidly adopted new technologies automation that actually helped the entire economy. So should we be panicking about this now when we're actually also panicking about the fact there are not enough jobs around? There are other issues that are more relevant for the Chinese economy today.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We haven't even figured out the relationship between labor force, productivity, what are the factors of production that will be most important for future economy. And so we shouldn't be terrified that there's a looming aging problem because I think the more important question is that skill gap, right? What kind of skills do we actually need in the economy? What kind of education system should we design in economy to better suit the country to an ever-evolving and transformative technological society?”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“South Korea. Very, very, very low fertility rate. It's just that for China's stage of development, it should be having more babies than it is currently having. So the one-top policy accelerated that demographic transition, right? It really squeezed in many, many decades into two. My view about the demographic aspects for the economy is not as pessimistic as most people. Because meanwhile, we're talking about aging. There are also high rates of unemployment, right? When we're talking about is there enough people to do the jobs? We have things like AI and not enough jobs and these kind of questions that are first order.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Challenge, which is they were so strict about the one-top policy and they kept it in for too long so that once they decide to loosen it and decided that fertility rates were way too low to sustain the Chinese economy in its future, it was already too late. And now it's finding all kinds of creative ways to make people have more kids. This is not something that they can demand and command in ways that they can demand and command emerging strategic sectors, right? So all these really interesting social anecdotes where they're encouraging even single women in a highly conservative society, encouraging single women to raise children. Nothing to be afraid about that. Lots of support system going there. I mean, they're radically changing the whole thinking around these kind of issues.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It relates to the puzzle, the housing puzzle. How is it possible that the Chinese youth can afford these really expensive real estate with their meager income? Well, one common saying is that they have six wallets, right? You and your spouse, together with the parents, and maybe even the grandparents would chip in. So there's this kind of intergenerational family dynamics that makes our models focused on the individual consumption just completely inappropriate to describe these dynamics. But the demographic side is the other”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The tutorialships, education. They have to buy a house. You have to buy a house for them so that they can. Married eventually So it's very, very expensive to have a child, if I have more children, you spend more, but maybe people don't want to have more children because the cost of having a child is so high. And this is driven by the competition. And why is there so much competition? Because there's a one-child policy generation, right? You want your child to be the dragon or the phoenix, and you put everything into that one child. That makes the child more anxious, makes the whole environment more competitive. And in the end, these one child policy children don't want to have a lot of kids because they don't want them to see them suffer what they have suffered, right? So there are all these kind of unexpected consequences, but also changing the social fabric. I'd like to say that it broke the hierarchy of the family where the parents had the dominant role. Now the kids are the boss. They boss everybody around. They boss their grandparents around.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very important causes of high saving rate. You know, I always tell people you want to stimulate consumption, we'll have more kids. You know how much one of those costs, right? Especially in China.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because they've seen how much bargaining power you as a Chinese woman and as a rare bride or a scarce supply of brides goes, you have raised your bargaining power and you can command high amounts of dowry. That was unintended good thing about the One Tall policy and to the opposite the recent relaxation of the One Top policy. Actually, women are now encouraged to have as many kids as they possibly can. The flip side of the One Child policy has not necessarily been good to women in the job market because they think, oh, well, you've only had one child. Oh, guess what? You can have another child. So that's not necessarily good for long-term employability. But on the economic side, I've written about this in my academic papers. It's been one of the”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It had lots of unintended consequences on the economy and society as well, maybe on the good side. It's actually a golden age for Chinese women because the Chinese girls never had as much education investment apportioned to them as they've had after being the only child in the family. And you raised a daughter like a son. And if we look at all the skill gaps and the education gaps and the returns to education, girls fared better. Apart from the top, top, top leadership in the Chinese political class, you look at the CEOs and major companies in the ministry, civil servants, there are a lot of Chinese women. And actually recently, if you look at the surveys, the Chinese families would prefer to have a daughter than a son.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's probably one of the most radical policies that China has enacted in its history. And the enforcement was very strict. In my class, nobody had a sibling except my friend who was a weakwer. 98% of urban households had only one child. The other two percent are twins, which you are allowed to keep, thank goodness, if you had the good fortune of giving birth to twins”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is the trend that you need to manufacturing things that are important for national security. It's not efficient, but it's so-called strategically safer.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, you know, the US has been trying to Build another TSMC outside of Taiwan. It's very, very, very slow, right? There are a lot of cumulative knowledge experience and skills that are involved. It's not that easy. The Chinese don't want to see an eruption of TSMC either because, again, it's vitally important for everybody. Whilst I don't think that this is really necessarily a bargaining chip, because if you See what the Chinese think about Taiwan. It goes beyond economics. It goes beyond the logical. It is about realizing a dream which Even I tended to not place enough importance. But when I talk to the young people in China, I realize that it's still their dream.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's also something that I think people miss, which is that the soldiers in mainland China, that's part of the One Child Policy generation, right? There's only one son. Families have only one son. And I think to assume that the Chinese people desire and would be able to forsake that generation for unification purposes or be able to tolerate lost lives for this, I think is also a bit of an exaggeration and stress. And I think Chinese people also really They really care about peace and stability. Chaos is just not part of what they think is good for them. The role that TSMC plays is so critical, given the choke point they have on the rest of the world. In the semiconductor's industry, which we know is one of the most important industries, sustaining the economy, not to mention things like AI and technologies.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, you have to keep the communication channel open, right? There was a risk of that being shut off during the Biden administration. That's highly, highly dangerous.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there's more political wisdom of the Chinese government side than we assume outside of China. And that strategic ambiguity, but also strategic patience, especially given China's economic situation currently. Means that more likely or not, I think that if China does really well economically and Taiwan is not doing as well economically as we've seen, that over time this is still the best strategy from China's point of view to resolve these differences. I think any military use in action would be Actually, quite detrimental to China.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Taiwan has, among other things, TSMC, which is vitally important for the global economy. Also, very important for the Chinese leadership and the Chinese people. You don't want to ask what I think, asked the Chinese young generation. They would one day like to see unification. It's part of the patriotic, the dream, if you will. So, and it's a chip, right, between the US and China. So, everybody is watching Taiwan, but I'd say that this attention is not necessarily good for Taiwan because all this uncertainty on the political risk has meant that investment there has dramatically been curtailed. And mainland China is a very, very important economic partner to the Taiwanese economy. I think that I don't have a lot of views about this, but I just say this”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That volatility and clash without breaking apart. And other countries don't have the capacity, the institutions, the culture to be able to tolerate and still maintain, to keep the society together. So I think it is a very interesting, but yeah, it's a puzzle.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I want to come back to the point of choice, right? What makes America so great is that Tolerates instability. It tolerates clashes. It tolerates volatility. Think about the financial crisis, right? The financial volatility. But again, the US dollar is where it is because of this deep liquid financial system in the U.S. that no other country has managed to build. There are clashes everywhere in society, but it is a very diverse country with all the benefits to that. It is a highly, highly unequal country, economically speaking. The CEO pays, right, the businessmen being able to be in top political positions, you kind of balk at that level of cronyism, if you will. But the US is the technological leadership, and it kind of is able to stomach.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is becoming ever more important. And as a nation, you know, some kinds of skill immigration is actually what makes the US the most technologically advanced country in the world. At the same time, you do have to think about your own citizens, the ones that have had generations and been around, and you have to think about their livelihoods”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it keeps the prices down, keeps inflation down, it keeps up the supply, which is very important when you have that much demand. And look, you know, the standards of living have also improved for many people who can afford it, right? The low-cost workers being able to sustain the service economy. So I understand both sides of the story. I think that In the end, it is a balance and I do believe even as an economist that social harmony, and I come back to this word harmony repeatedly, even though as an economist this thing doesn't even exist”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On US immigration You see, I understand both sides of the story, to be very honest. And I also understand a bit of the protectionist streak, not only coming from the US, but also from Europe and various parts of the world, which is going to be a trend. I understand that before you care about people in the rural villages in Indonesia, you really care about, you know, the northern Brits in this country, and they have not fared well. I understand that your jobs may be under threat because of this uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrants. From a purely economic and rational level, you'd say immigration”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kinds of subsidies that are justified for the green transition, for innovation, R&D, support for the university system. The US is the world leader in terms of attracting talent as everything going for it. But it was a little bit complacent. And by dropping off of that global network, it's going to do itself more disservice.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They haven't closed the imbalance with China, with the rest of the world because ultimately the US saves less than NMS. And that's a macro phenomenon. It's not a trade phenomenon. But I fear that the US, by kind of dropping off of this global trading network and system, it will lose more and more of its power. You have power when you're deeply engaged and embedded with a country. Once you've left it, you actually lose any sort of leverage.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. Tariffs is a way to punish foreigners, but what you really want to do is to strengthen your own domestic competitiveness. And I want to draw an analogy to the U.S., Japan competition in the nineteen eighties. Japan actually took over in many parts of the semiconductor's industry, even though the microchip was invented in the US. But guess what happened? Well, it actually drove more competition and more mobilization in the U.S. actually creating this innovation system changed a few really critical laws that helped with US innovation and the consumers benefited. The US took over again as the leader of the semiconductor's industry. There's no better way than to strengthen yourself to be competitive because ultimately tariffs have not done anything to help the US. The trade deficits have widened since Trump, right?”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Under more disorderly fragmented rule of a jungle kind of world, that's an illusion. That's what politicians tell their people, but that's not the truth.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that China quite likes it actually. You know, US kept a peace, and during this peaceful times things were working very well economically, technologically, they kept the sea lanes open, they did their part to preserve peace to the extent they can, I guess. But China wants peace, right? Only with peace can they do what they can. And actually, U.S., despite saying they've been victimized, look, they've had a very, very good time. Never have quality of life standards of living, technology risen as much as the US did under its own liberal order than it has. Ever before, and the amount of influence and power. Yes, of course, you can blame the US for lots of things that happen, but it actually had a really good time, and China as well. So now they're going to take this apart. They think that they're going to be somehow better off, that American people and Chinese people are going to be better off.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No. I think that there is a real problem in global trading system and globalization in general that is not going to be resolved by tariffs. We do need to think about More harmony Between countries where, let's say, not one country dominates. And here I'd push back on China and say, yes, you have amazing companies and competitive companies, but you just can't dominate everything. That would not be good for global harmony. You need to give other countries an opportunity. You need to develop your own internal economy, right? Rely on your consumers as part of the deal. Tariffs, this kind of highly protectionist method is very distortionary, and it's going to be bad for the US. I'd actually argue that both China and the US have totally taken advantage and also enjoyed the global economic realm under the US liberal order.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that Trump can show to the American consumers that he has gotten some sort of a deal, right? That the Chinese have bought more American goods or promised to buy American goods and then the American companies can come into China and then a lot of the previously restricted investment opportunities are now not restricted and the American banks can make money in China. He can say that. And I think that could be part of a really realistic deal that somehow American companies will be better protected through IP protection. And again, that's in China's interest as well. So I don't see a fundamental conflict here. At the same time, they lower the tariffs, right? Not to the rates where they were before, but lower and you don't prohibit trade than for China. That would also be success. So you can actually have success for both places, but being realistic is part of the game.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Xi Jing thing is not Putin, right? There is a genuine desire on China's part to de escalate. Again, coming back to the level of pragmatism, under economic strain in China, you don't really want to be picking fights. They don't agree at all with Trump's economic views and world vision, let's just put it simply. Understanding But there's a genuine desire to take the temperature down with the U.S., even if the weather doesn't fundamentally change.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have an absence of diplomacy, but you're absolutely right. There needs to be respect. Chinese at least really care about respect. And I wish there was just a bit more cultural fluency. And I think a lot of things would be so much easier between the two countries, just understanding that. Because you can actually push China to do a lot of things, right? All within reason that would work in favor of the US, but understand that respect is vitally important. Face saving is very, very, very important”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of more goods, they can discuss about transparency around rules and regulations on e-commerce, on data. All of that is fine. But don't confound economic issues with political issues. Hong Kong, Taiwan is not part of the deal, by the way, in case anyone was wondering, trying to change China's state hybrid private sector model don't go there. Anything that challenges China's technology, security, That's not really part of the discussion. So I think that people have to be clear about also what China thinks and wants, and also the Chinese to be clear about what Trump wants, although I don't know anybody, even Trump himself knows exactly what he wants, in order for these very complex negotiations to actually succeed.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“China's core principles, and I think that this is not well understood from the rest of the world towards the US and something that they have kept up is equivalence, reciprocity, and realism. China is not going to lower tariffs unless the U.S. does, right? You can kind of stand up to Trump like a man. That's the only way to deal with Trump. That's its view. The deal has to be realistic. The phase one deal of the last time wasn't realistic and China thinks, look, the US is going to use this as a leverage, right? That's not possible. This can't be seen as political concession. The deal has to be seen as mutual commerce. So where China can have room to negotiate is opening up things like services, you know, American banks, American financial institutions have a lot of business to do in China. They can buy a limit.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Manufacturing goods anchor global manufacturing prices The cumulative tariff burdens when you get to Canada, when you get to Mexico, when you get to any other vinyl destination, these terrifact. So it's clearly very, very bad for the world.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know China has been preparing for this for the last five years and for the return of Trump. And for Trump's maniac trade policies, you'd think that Trump also had five years to prepare for this battle with China. It didn't show. You can say that the Chinese, at least this time around, have played their hand pretty well when dealing with Trump's tariff threats and the trade war with a level of calibrated assertiveness. They have really thought through everything very elaborately. And look, you know, this is not good for either country. Let's just be clear. It's bad for US and China and it's bad for the world. And every country has a stake in the US-China trade war. Because whether you trade directly or indirectly with China, you're going to be affected. They are one of the largest intermediate exporters in the world.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hope it was unintentional. Otherwise, you'd be questioning the level of intelligence of the US administration, right? It sped up domestic capacity. It motivated the whole country to do this whole of a nation program to go after technology. It's kind of like the way they go after Olympics, right? Olympic gold medals. They wanted to maximize Olympic gold medals and they put the whole nation at work and all the resources. And that's what China did. Huawei, another example. They were sanctioned. Guess what? They have come back to life stronger than ever before. And this is not unique to this episode if we look throughout history. These blockades don't work, the continental system actually indirectly led to industrial revolution in the UK when the Spanish kind of blockade, the Portuguese, they came up with a very ferocious, forceful naval power. And you're talking about China here. They just don't lie down and lie down.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There will be alternatives and substitutes. Got to be very, very careful of what coercion leverage means. Same thing with the US, right? So I think this is all the old thinking of who wins who dominates. I think we need a new playbook.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Imagine what China would have been like, let's say, if the economy was doing better, right? But you could also argue that it's because people feel threatened that they make more leaps. Now, I wish the world is not, we don't have to drive each other to the corners to do something great, but that is the reality. And I don't think that there's an easy say between who wins, because I think the winning idea is part of the old playbook, right? You're all kind of part of a network. Different countries, different players have different choke points on each other. I don't think it's just about the US and China. And what's more, you use your leverage once, and that leverage has a half-life. It becomes a lot less effective the second time around because other countries, other companies are going to try to substitute it away. You know, if China uses the rare earth leverage, which I think it is now a little bit,”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's an interesting dilemma here, which is that this is happening in a time of extreme economic softness, slowdown, and mist uncertainty, trade wars, a lack of confidence, a slowdown in private investment and consumption, a withdrawal of foreign investment from China, especially the US venture funding.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“U.S. truculence on technology. Now, I'm sure there are many aspects of hyperbole related to deep seek, but it just shows you that the gap is much smaller between the China and the US on leading-edge technologies than what was expected, that these export controls were not effective. They may have even backfired. And it shows you that China has this relentless focus on taking some of the existing technologies and using scale and the advantages to cost and to diffuse. And this is just the beginning. I think it will happen in many other industries as well, including in semiconductors. That's the Chinese approach.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Deep Seek was a surprise to the world, but I don't think it was that much of a surprise to the same degree to the Chinese. And remember that deep sea happened in times of Crisis, urgency, not in times of comfort. A lot of these technological breakthroughs and leapfrogging happens in times of crisis. This is called crisis innovation. And you've got to thank the U.S. for that, right? When the Chinese were comfortably importing chips from the US, the whole industry stalled for 20 years. I mean, why would you plow in billions, tens and billions, and even more when you can just import the best? You don't want to do your own innovation. It's because of these export controls, these sanctions on these companies that Chinese companies and the Chinese state felt an existential crisis. A few years ago by being cut off from these critical components, and guess what happened in a short amount of time, the degree of domestic capacity ramping up and catch up has been nothing short of remarkable, again, thanks to”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source