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

“In the end, if China is all about innovation technology, you cannot not have very strict IP protection. And ultimately, again, we're still in the short, flat. Stage, right? When we graduate from that stage, you're going to have very different views about these things. And you're going to try to diversify and do different things. But again, it's a stage. Chinese people were hungry. They're still a little bit hungry. They're not going to be as hungry in the future.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, unfortunately, this is a big cultural difference. Our sense of property rights is actually quite different from the US. I think that will change over time, but absolutely you're right. They have no qualms about copying as long as it leads to success, right? That's the difference in values. As we mentioned in the beginning, you asked why the level of competition is so fierce. Well, they all do the same thing once they've seen one successful thing everybody does the same thing. You'd have no respect for doing that in the US, right? But in China, it's all fine. But I think that over time it will change. Just give it a little bit of time.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think where it ultimately leads to an impact on the economy that's more important. It's this persistent question we have, why don't we see the productivity in the numbers? You're in AI, AI. We had long periods of investment, right? You just don't, you hadn't seen it in the numbers until maybe even recently and it's still very slow. But China's pushing that in the sectors, robotics, AI, cloud, industrial internet of things, and even companies like Huawei, I think it's gotten a little bit of too bad of a rep in the US, but American engineers working for a Huawei said that it's, you know, they're so happy working for Huawei. The intent focus on innovation, but also on solution driven innovations in Africa, in rural areas, really changes people's lives. It doesn't change the world, but it changes individuals' lives.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's starting and starting, but it's not there. So I think these two approaches are actually quite compatible with each other. I don't know what all this fuss is about, right? China uses technology very well, can scale up and reduce costs, and then it can spread it around, and the US makes the highest value added by inventing these technologies. But again, diffusion matters.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? You don't want to spend too much time on investigating something that you don't even know if it's commercially viable. So basic research is still weaker than in the US universities, but also this kind of intrinsic motivation. It's very different, right? In China, it's driven by extrinsic motivation. You are rewarded by, you know, compensation, financial compensation, all these kind of extrinsic motivation is what drives you. But intrinsic motivation, pursuit of knowledge for knowledge sake, that was deep in the Confucius philosophies, but of course, you know, poverty has changed all that. The profound commitment to scholarship, to research, which we know is very much true in the US university.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And China currently has this AI program, which is about pushing AI into every single plausible sector with the help of the state. So adoption, diffusion is very important. Why China can't do breakthroughs or can't deduce zero to one technologies? I think at the root of it, and there are some deeper, we talked about the proximate reasons, the short, flat fast, for instance.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chinese companies focus on solutions, problem solving. Again, that comes back to the education system, right? You're giving a problem. I'm going to find the answer. The Chinese students can do it. You want them to write their own question. They can't do it, right? I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it's a little like that, right? They see a problem. They're going to go after it, and they're going to find the best solution. And that's really, really useful, right? Because we don't need developing countries especially don't need these frontier technologies that they can't use.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The US will lead for some time on breakthroughs, on disruptive technologies, the zero to one technologies that ultimately change the world. But Innovation is a process. It goes from invention to production and commercialization and diffusion. Diffusing technology throughout all parts of the economy and on those two stages, I think that China has a unique advantage, even if it still can't do the zero-to-one breakthroughs. Because in the end, how much this technology is adopted by the countries and by the various parts of the economy is fundamentally crucial to how much productivity will be unleashed. And China's innovation currently, the deep-seek is really one example, and I think it's really the beginning of the scale-based leading-edge technology cost cutting driven kind of innovation model could be just as powerful, maybe even more effective and powerful than the breakthroughs. And it's a very different approach to innovation.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not how I would describe that generation and their feelings towards China. Of course, you always get exceptions, right? The ones who have moved to the US and who wants a democracy, but by and large, people are deeply grateful to China, the Chinese government, the Communist Party, if you want to label it as that, because they've seen their lives be totally transformed. I mean, Jack Ma went from being a school teacher to becoming one of the most powerful people in the world. I mean, if you didn't have China, how could that have happened, right?”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All of them do. All of them do because their lives, their destinies were totally changed because of China, because of the government, because of Deng Xiaoping, because of everything.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, he's an extremely fascinating character, which, you know, and if he were in the US, he'd thrive. Funny, witty, smart, wise, creative, loves a good life. And I think it's by choice that he's roaming around the world given that he has more free time.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, stay out of politics, but I just want to say that said, Jack Ma was really an emblem of extreme success for China and the Chinese entrepreneurs look up to him. That's really important. It was a signal that, unfortunately, was misconstrued by the Sidon by also outside world. But it's laid a different path for what these entrepreneurs should be doing.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Don't be too outspoken. Don't try to get too much attention and too much influence. And just, you know, again, it's a cultural thing, but just keep your head down. Be humble, you know, contribute to society, do philanthropy, work, collaborate with the government, and you're kind of okay.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the moral of the story is that the top leadership understands that it needs these top entrepreneurs, the likes of Jackma. And they have done so many great things for the country, even for the world. But in China, garnering too much influence and power, even through social media, doesn't make you look that great. It's not a good thing for you personally. And there's a saying in China that you just don't want to be the tallest tree, right? The tallest tree gets the most wind. So I don't agree at all with the Western conclusion that this anecdote, the story has meant that entrepreneurs don't want to be entrepreneurs anymore, the young kids don't aspire to be people like Jack Mau. That's not true at all. The incentives are still there. It's a different kind of rich elite class in China.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Keep your head down and make money, and that's fine, right? Do some philanthropy. There are also many, many other billionaires that are just fine, that are actually very much in favor of the political leadership. And they do their thing. Now, I'm not saying what's right, what's wrong. It's just very, very different culture in different country. In the US, it's great to be colorful.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the US, capital controls politics, one could argue. In China, it has to be the other way around. Capital must be reined in by politics. As part of the capitalist class, do not have the ambition to exceed the powers of the political class is really at the core of it, I'd say. The biggest difference between US and China. There are important details that I think the West has not fully provided to the public. For instance, and financial as innovative as it was, was doing banking jobs without being regulated like a bank, right? So that obviously poses a host of financial stability questions. Rules and regulations and so forth. So, the fact that IPO was halted, you could say that there were strong economic regulatory grounds for that. But I think more broadly speaking, if you're an entrepreneur, part of the capitalist class,”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's true. The potential negative ramifications are there. But I think personal protection is a big difference. If you make a mistake, if your company's not run well, you go to jail. I think that the US is much, much more tolerant entrepreneurship entrepreneurs on failure.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you dine and wine, you know, figuratively speaking, you have to have a very good relationship with them. That's a different kind of work.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's an advantage to that, okay? But I would not feel safe, not because of danger of expropriation or nothing like that, but the bankruptcy laws are not there, right? It's not necessarily always fair competition. Things don't happen necessarily in orderly manner. If you have a competitor, you can have a very evil competitor and evil competitors are there everywhere in China. They would, you know, call the police on you, put you in jail, spread false rumors about you. Maybe that happens also in the US, but there's a different level in China. And also, the mold that you can have to protect yourself, the IP protection, right? That's much weaker in China because the legal system is not very effective. You have a good idea you'd be copied. And there's a lot of work you have to dine and wine with a local government. I mean, that's not allowed anymore, by the way.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In China, the speed is just all inspiring. You have a good idea, you implement it, you realize your dream very fast because there's also the support system, right? The infrastructure there, the digital infrastructure there, the engineers are there, the talent is there, and they're cheap, and the market competition is there is to keep you going, the consumers give you a very, very fast feedback. Look at Xiaomi. It was making phones and now it makes one of the world's best EVs. $270,000 cars sold in one day a few days ago with a new model. They were phone makers.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the West, they group these economies together as if they're the same thing. No, it's not the same at all. There's so many differences, so much more flexibility. You can have dynamic entrepreneurialism at the same time have socialist characteristics. And I think this is what China has been able to shape and mold a unique model that balances between government and industry, between state coordination and market mechanisms, and between individualism and communalism. It's not necessarily black and white. You can have all these things at the same time.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Helpful for the private or something like that. There are certain sectors where this SOEs dominate when it comes to national security in terms of energy. But let's not focus on Lee's few sectors. By and large, most of the economy, if you actually admit to the fact that China is highly innovative, highly entrepreneurial means that it must be the private sector that is driving the show.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gradually established bankruptcy laws, you know, corruption laws, rules and regulations on what's possible. One interesting point is that in China you ask the companies to innovate first and then you regulate after, right? So that has led to things like P2P platforms. It's led to lots of kind of financial innovations, some of which has actually been very helpful and good, some of which have been disastrous. But the intention to regulate after the fact is to really not slow down or hinder the innovation. This is a very different approach from Europe. You regulate first and then companies have to work around that. So this is why Chinese economy is so complex. You cannot reduce it to simply a statement saying the state is un”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“State wants to go and suppress these private companies, which ultimately is kind of a beacon, represents a beacon success for China. Now, on how much freedom they have, it's really ranged from too much freedom. That's part of the problem, where you have defense companies buying art auction houses, real estate companies like Evergrand buying soccer clubs, doing EVs, companies investing in real estate that has nothing to do with their core business. That's how much latitude we're given to private companies. And there were consequences. There were not reigned it. And then you go to the other extreme where they're scolded, they're reprimanded, they're reined in, and they're kind of folded into submission. So that is the whole spectrum. You have the whole range. But I guess what we're really getting at is it is a country that is moving from a no rule of law or very little rule of law, very immature markets to something that is being grown.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another big misunderstanding and a fundamental one is that people somehow think that the state suppresses the private sector. It's not at all as simple as that. For the most part, if we look at the local government's incentive system, they want to help the best private companies which are the most promising because it makes them look good. It adds to their GDP, it adds to the jobs, investment. They are so helpful to these private companies. Actually, I know many of these local government officials working tirelessly day and night, especially in bad times, to coordinate between debtors and creditors and to kind of smooth out and define relationships with banks. They want to help these private companies because again, their incentives are aligned. Deep Seek is private company, by the way. So it has done the country proud. And why would the”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think to the same extent because there's Hollywood. You can see Daily American life, although it might not be totally realistic. There was a huge amount of admiration of US technology innovation, but also the American dream. I think our newspapers, even though there's bias everywhere, is not focused only on reporting the really bad stuff and portraying a negative side. I think these few years have been a little bit different, but so many students went to the US, right? So many people travel to the US. And this is the interesting thing. I've rarely met an American who has been to China and who still goes on about how bad China is. I think that going to China makes all the difference.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Taiwan, Tibet, and Tamman Square. They thought about China, they thought about these three things. And I was like, well, that's strange because that's not how I'm feeling in China with all this, you know, bidding for the Olympics before 2000 and all these buildings going up and down, all this excitement about, you know, joining the WTO, all these radical forms that are taking place. And then all this effervescence that you feel in the air. It's not GDP growth as numbers. You actually see it. I said, this is really, you know, and they're describing China as if it was a place shredded with white terror. And so I thought, hmm, that's interesting. There's a big gap, big gap of understanding. And even today, that many years later, people know China a little bit more, but the sentiment hasn't profoundly changed.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Youth League party, and then straight to supporting their Democratic campaign because the host family was running for state attorney general in New York Kind of going to these conventions and handing out flyers and try to get votes. And I don't know, in China or something. But it was so interesting to see that's how the system worked. But in the course of doing that, I realized that people had a very simplistic understanding about China. And that's probably even when I was 14, I decided that one thing I wanted to do was to Dispel some of these deep myths about China because the China that they knew, and again it was all the three Ts back in the late nineteen nineties.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's funny that we're talking about this now because I was able to go to the US on a scholarship to an American high school because the US at that time was open arms, all open arms towards international students. They kind of wanted to be the country that was going to educate the future leaders of the world and their elitist institutions like Harvard was really going to be, you know, they're the center of the world. So they welcomed students like me and many, many others to be exchange students to study in the US. And we thought, wow, we've never seen a more generous country. And I was able to go to high school, an American high school, and live with an American family, which was, wow, can I say, a big change from China, not only because I was plucked from the communist”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be a leader in technology, but then the financial system is not liberalized. It's highly regulated, but there's also intervention. Even if we look back at the French civil law versus the English common law, well, the former protects creditors and the latter is more friendly towards debtors, which gives them more breathing space to innovate but also to fail and to innovate again. And that makes a big difference. So it's all about a spectrum, right? But you can't have it both ways.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's a spectrum, right? And Europe is somewhere in between, I'd say. But Europe also is not as technologically and innovative as the US. But on a social level, there is more social protection for the people. There is a stronger sense of community, I'd argue. It's not perfect. Ultimately, it is a choice. And this is what I think that China has to decide, right? Do you want technological supremacy and radical breakthroughs? Well, yes, if you do, then you have to tolerate that there are going to be some people who are going to be Just going to be uncomfortably rich, right? Like in the United States, you can't say that you detest the financial system for its greed, but then not accept the fact that it is what fuels innovation, right? Risky capital fuels uncertain investments.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Put down values, and you forsake harmony in order to get ahead. That's certainly the Chinese society now. That was not the case before.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, everybody having a common goal and a sense of community, right? That is what's missing in these extremely individual based capital societies. And I think what the Chinese government is striving to do with Chinese socialistic characteristics is to somehow try to preserve a bit of that socialist character while still relying on markets, market-based incentives. But if you're an extremely individual-based society, I think you do lose a lot of that. And I think some of the backlash that we are seeing from society is a reflection of that, right? People being alone more and more. The death of despair in the US, addiction, you know, that they're lonely, right? And competition means that you kind of have to be somewhat badass. And you sometimes”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Better. And I remember being on the back of my father's bike, getting up, you know, 6 a.m. every day and going to nursery. And, you know, that's the typical day. Not a lot of material goods, but people had a sense of purpose. And that's radically a different, it's completely different now in China.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, we look back at those moments when everybody in China was very poor with a bit of nostalgia. I remember no doors were locked. I was in Beijing and I remember every day in the summer everybody just went downstairs and chatted with everybody else. It was very social. It was very community-based. The neighbors help each other. We had very, very little small apartments, very limited access to certain goods. When I was born, there were even in Beijing, there were, you know, these vouchers for how many eggs you can buy. And even Beijing, there were three or four blackouts per week, typically. There was a sense of community. There was a very strong bond between people and within the family because they were going after a common goal, making your life better, right, struggling, striving to make your life better.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That there will be cycles, there will be up and downs, and so these very short termist thinking and opportunistic way of driving business will ultimately fail. It's bad for China that we're having a sustained economic softness, sustained economic softness. But I think it's also very, very important lesson for the Chinese people to go through.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a transitory phenomenon, I'd say. But if you look at the cheaper stuff, poor quality, that's a reflection of the copying, it's the same kind of mentality. Just get ahead quickly. But again, that is all shifting. That is all shifting because China is now in a different stage of development. If you ask the younger generation, they really care about quality. They care about values. And these companies, these very successful companies, successful in five years, ten years, found themselves in a very difficult position after a longer period of time. So that short, flat, fast attitude, which was so popular, especially before the pandemic, that's actually somewhat disappearing. So in some sense, this economic downturn is not that bad for China because it made the Chinese realize that it's not always going to go up and it made them really look down deeper into what they really should be focused on.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Longstanding companies, and the values are just so different, even though a lot of these public companies are constrained by the quarterly results and so forth, but the values are about sustaining something, a company for a long time, thinking about organic growth, thinking about investments for the future, sustainability. Maybe it's that competition, maybe it's the speed that we're used to in China. People think about short. So, you know, this dichotomy is very, very interesting.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're an investor, you only want to invest in things that you can quickly turn around, make a lot of money, and don't need to do much work. It also applies to marriages. So a short courtship, a very flat emotional relationship, and a fast divorce. That is how you see these companies rise within a very short period of time. Of course, investors are only interested in those companies that can turn around and exit in a very short period of time, making many, many multiples. And so in that sense, people are very, very impatient, right? I said on some boards of these”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Chinese are both the most patient and the most short-termist economic actors I met. The patients I don't need to explain because I think the political continuity means that they can make plans for two decades ahead, even longer. The investment of Chinese parents in their children is a multi-decade-long project and they save. You know, Chinese people love to save because they think that they'll have even more money if they save that money rather than spend it on a ski vacation. So that I think it's patently obvious to most people around the world. That's the impatient part of the Chinese culture, especially with respect to the economy. Short, flat fast was used to describe a winning volleyball strategy that eventually became adapted to describing the society as a whole and economic decision-making.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You need to be elected and re elected, right? Is that what your electoral base cares about, right? In China, it's what the central government your boss cares about. If you ask the consumers, they'd rather you spend on social spending, right? The things we talked about that stimulate consumption, on education, on healthcare, things that stimulate demand That's the political difference of political system.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nothing, right? Semiconductors, thanks to Biden, thanks to Trump, it's improved dramatically, but all these things that they tried to do before, they couldn't do, but when it's a new thing, like something that there's no incumbent, no particular advantage in any country, actually China is really spearheading these sectors.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very, very skeptical about the role of the state, especially in such a major way. But if you look at the Chinese experience, the evidence for success is all there. The cities that have pushed the most on supporting that particular sector ultimately did the best in terms of production, but also in terms of innovation measured by patents. It's all in the data. But the downside is that a lot of the capital is wasted. And this is what I also discuss in my book, is that it is inefficient, although maybe it's necessary. The amount of waste of investment, you know, plowed into these companies that will ultimately just go under, but also the misallocation of resources because it's led by the state are some of the downsides. But I guess on balance, it's been positive because look at China's internal combustion engine effort.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not really in any of the canonical models that I've studied in economics in the Western school of thought, state push, state mobilization, state initiation. That's not there. But I think if you look at EV's solar panels, even just thinking about the idea of reforms in the first place, that initial state push was vitally important. The other negative, although I think by and large positive aspect is I don't think that we need 80 cities to do their own EV brands, but to get started maybe that's what it would have taken to drive that incentive. And then ultimately it's up to the market to decide who are the last five remaining EV companies, right, through market mechanisms. That's Chinese-style industrial policy. Industrial policy was heavily criticized. And again, if I talk to my Harvard professors, they will be very...”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it depends on the timing. If you're starting something, starting a new emerging strategic sector like EVs or batteries or solar panels, you need the local governments to be involved, to mobilize the big push to coordinate the supply chains. If you wait for the markets to develop over time, it's going to take a long time. Maybe they don't even want to do it. Look at the US. The U.S. is very, very behind on some of these new strategic sectors. But once you've reached a certain level of market competition, I think the state needs to withdraw or to retreat because ultimately the state is not the best at allocating resources, picking winners. You want the private actors, whether it's the venture funds or the, you know, through market competition to ultimately decide who gets the most resources. But in the beginning, that big push is not”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Making sure that it's coming from consumption, this GDP growth rather than from investment or infrastructure, then I think that it might focus the government's objective a bit more on thinking about how to make people feel more secure so that they want to save more. For instance, creating more jobs. For instance, more on social security spending, on healthcare, on elderly care. Because for the longest period of time, this political economy model was brilliant as scaling up supply, but it was extremely weak at raising personal consumption because the incentive does not lie in consumption, lies in production. So you shift the objectives a little bit, and maybe the local government will do more to stimulate consumption.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The metrics shouldn't be geared just towards growth alone, GDP growth alone. It was just singular GDP growth and you can borrow heavily and just spend on infrastructure. That's not a productive way to drive the economy. That's what the local governments were doing for a long period of time. You know, in the last few years, innovation, unicorns, have kind of been an implicit yardstick for local governments. That's kind of how we've seen these great EV companies, 80 cities doing EVs. I mean, do we really need 80 cities to do their own EVs, right? Solar panels, now deep-seek has become a star, semiconductor companies, you know, each local government wants to have their own national champion.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or supporting real estate, supporting investment, and they can do a better job. So then it was geared towards real estate, and that's how the property cycle became the big thing. Everything was at double speed because of what the local government's incentives were designed to do. I say now that China's biggest challenge is consumption, right? It's not production. We know that China is very, very competitive in production and supply. China needs to be a consuming country to be a rich country. Why don't you put consumption as part of the yardstick for measuring local governments? For a while there's environmental protection. Guess what? Very few of them will really want to do it seriously because it goes against the incentives of driving growth, right? They would suffer on GDP growth if they were very serious about environmental protection. So for a couple years, nothing happened in China on that front. And then the central government got really kind of”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The mayor of the city of Nunjing in Jiangsu Province, I'm going to like peek at my neighbor's mayor's city's GDP growth, and I'm going to be very, very competitive. By the way, I forgot about that competition is extremely competitive among the local government officials because you are competing with other mayor for a top job, right? So you need to do better than them. And whether that was efficient structure or not, I cannot comment, but it certainly just fueled this massive and rapid expansion, economic expansion. First, it was industrialization. Everybody wanted to do exports. Then they discovered, oh my gosh, we can have so much fiscal revenues coming from land, selling land and let's build real estate and let's urbanize. And then the money coming into these local governments and that they can spend it on nurturing more companies.”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the central leadership politically is extremely powerful and it's very consolidated, but they hold a very crucial key to the local governments, which is that they decide their fate. Am I going to promote them? Am I going to put them in jail? Am I going to fire them? Am I going to reward them? Am I going to punish them? They hold that crucial key. And I think what was very surprising for most of the Western audience is that when I mentioned about the mayor economy, there's a, you know, why don't our American mayors in each city do these very radical things and then push for GDP growth and technology and innovation? It's quite different. I think this is where China's very unique in the world is that political centralization, economic decentralization, and the yardstick to measure local mayor's competence through, in the first stage, it was GDP growth. So I am a”
2025-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source