Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America

Zichen Wang is the writer of the Pekingnology newsletter, which translates important speeches and articles from China into English, and contextualizes them for Western readers. Over the past year, he's been a master's degree student at Princeton University, although he's recently returned home to resume his career at a think tank in China. His stint in the US obviously came at a very interesting time, both due to the rising US-China tensions, and also the growing restrictions on Chinese students in the US. So before making his trip back home he joined us for another episode of Odd Lots. We discussed his experience here in America, his assessment of the state of US-China relations, and what his message will be upon his return to China. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Finance is increasingly being built on digital rails. But as the adoption of virtual assets, tokenization and stable coins grows, can regulation not only keep pace but help accelerate it? Find out more later in the podcast.

• 0:16Tracy Alloway?

  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Business Week's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.

• 0:59Tracy Alloway?

  But according to recruiters, advisors and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company. And Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates, quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 1:39Speaker 02

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• 2:29Joe Weisenthal?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

• 2:34Tracy Alloway?

  And I'm Tracy Alloway.

• 2:35Joe Weisenthal?

  Tracy, we're recording this June 5th. President Xi Jinping and President Trump just held a phone call.

• 2:40Tracy Alloway?

  Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation?

• 2:43Joe Weisenthal?

  I would. I don't know what that means. Markets moved on it. I'm always surprised how hard it is to set up phone. Just pick up the phone. But I'm always a little surprised that like these are like bigger news. It should be noted that this was reported first by the Xinhua News Agency out of China. And there was a headline that the news agency specified that the phone call was at Trump's request. They made a point of saying that.

• 3:06Tracy Alloway?

  I still have this image of Trump sitting in the Oval Office by the phone, just like twiddling his thumbs, waiting for Xi Jinping to call, like hoping, is he going to call me? Should I wait two days? Should I wait three days before responding? That kind of thing.

• 3:19Joe Weisenthal?

  There was a Wall Street Journal article I saw from a few weeks ago, which made the observation, which I had not realized. Outside of the September 11 terrorist attacks, there's never been a contact between the US and China that was initiated by China, which I hadn't realized before. I assume it's true.

• 3:36Tracy Alloway?

  So Xi Jinping is sitting in his office, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for Trump. Okay.

• 3:40Joe Weisenthal?

  And then he decides, but he decides to either take the call. Anyway, all of this sort of speaks that to the fact, you know, we sort of are confused by all this. And there's still just so much that I think Americans in particular, and but I'm sure it goes both directions, like genuinely don't understand about the other country. And given a time of increased tension, obviously the trade war heightened geopolitical concerns. It's not great. I think it would be better, even if we sort of accept the premise of there is this very intense competition, that the two countries and the populations and the governments and the people going to government, just know more about how they work.

• 4:15Tracy Alloway?

  Absolutely. Have you ever read an English translation of the way China academics write and talk about American society and American politics?

• 4:25Joe Weisenthal?

  I should read that.

• 4:25Tracy Alloway?

  It's really, really interesting.

• 4:27Joe Weisenthal?

  You should send me some links.

• 4:28Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, okay, I will. But I know a person who has done this and translated it and done the work, and he will definitely send you some links.

• 4:35Joe Weisenthal?

  So I am very excited to say that we have a, and I think it should be a special episode. We've talked to him on the podcast before. We're going to be speaking with Zhishan Wong. He is the author, the creator of the Pecology Substack, which essentially looks at public comments from officials, academics, leaders in China, and then writes about them and translates them for an American audience and actually sort of helps an American audience understand like what this sort of like public discourse is. And anyway, over the last year, he's been getting his master's degree in public policy at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. So he's been in Princeton over the last year. But he's going back to China and he's going to return for where he was working at the think tank, the Center for China and Globalization.

• 5:21Tracy Alloway?

  Right. So this is his exit interview from America, basically.

• 5:24Joe Weisenthal?

  When I heard that he was leaving town, I was like, let's do an exit interview. And of course, the other added context, which I think is very relevant here is that this comes a time of extreme scrutiny on the mere existence of Chinese students at American universities, particularly out of the Trump administration. It's an American export. US universities, and there's this major crackdown. We've seen people, all these concerns about visas, et cetera. So there's a perfect time to do this exit interview. So Zhishan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  Well, thank you for having me here back again.

• 5:57Joe Weisenthal?

  You run a great newsletter and we had a great episode with you. And as a student in the US, you're sort of situated at a very interesting time. But let's like back up like, what prompted you to come to the US to study in the first place? I mean, you did this program at Princeton. How come?

• 6:15Speaker 05

  Before coming to the Mid-Career Master in Public Policy program at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, formerly known as the Willard Wilson School, I'd already been working for thirteen years, so I was like at the middle of my professional trajectory and I was thinking about getting another advanced education. And of course, the United States is a top destination. One other thing is that, to the credit of Princeton, the Policy School offers fully funded education. So that means they examine all the tuition and the healthcare coverage.

• 6:48Joe Weisenthal?

  There's no export revenue for us.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly. In this case, yes. And also I live in Stipend, and so I turned down some other offers from the UK, from Singapore, and came here. And also, as you correctly mentioned at the very beginning, you know, China-US relations is perhaps the most consequential bilateral relations. For someone whose past career was in journalism and non-governmental think tank, I couldn't think of a better place to be, here in the US. But, you know, here we are, and I feel like being overwhelmed by all these news.

• 7:19Tracy Alloway?

  So, on that note, was the plan always to go back to China after you completed your degree, or is this something new?

• 7:27Speaker 05

  That was like eighty or nineteen percent of my plan, mainly for personal reasons. But also, I think the political atmosphere is a bit overwhelming. I did have some kind of offers from potential employers here, but I decided against them. The State Department announced actually, you know, they are going to aggressively revoke Chinese students visas, as well as impose, you know, further scrutiny on future Chinese students visa applications. Let's say I stay for one more year, I would be on OPT or CPT, which is a post-training upon graduation from a US college, but that status would be linked to your student visa,

• 8:08Speaker 05

  your F1 visa. So, the potential consequences for Chinese students is not just currently enrolled students, but also other, you know, people who are on OPT/CPT status here.

• 8:21Tracy Alloway?

  Out of curiosity, is Princeton providing guidance on visas? Because I can only imagine being a college student and having to deal with immigration issues on top of everything else.

• 8:31Speaker 05

  In light of what happened at Harvard, let me think of a way of not putting Princeton in jeopardy again. I did get, I think, not just me, but everyone else did get some emails from, you know, sort of guidance from the university, which says it took notice of recent news and it is offering resources, basically, I guess, you know, counseling as well as potential legal resources for people to, not to be against the administration, but to comply with all the laws and regulations in this country.

• 9:03Joe Weisenthal?

  This was a one-year program, obviously, say versus 10 years ago. The sort of level of suspicion and anxiety about the presence of a lot of Chinese students at American universities has grown quite a bit. What about even in the last year? How do things feel shifted? And when you talk to other Chinese students, you know, is it just like noise coming out of DC or does it change the campus environment?

• 9:27Speaker 05

  Well, I think it definitely has already had a chilling effect. And I mean, for me personally, I feel very welcomed and I feel all the hospitality and warmth from my American professors, you know, school administrators and the Princeton community of neighbors and my local friends. But for, you know, most of the Chinese students who are currently in this situation are perhaps too scared to speak up. And especially after the news last week, I think they are under a bit of stress because the announcement out of the State Department is very broad. It doesn't use very exact language to ascertain who will exactly be in trouble.

• 10:11Speaker 05

  There are currently, I think, 270,000 Chinese students here in the United States. China is the second largest origin of international students here in the US.

• 10:21Joe Weisenthal?

  Wait, what's the first?

• 10:23Speaker 05

  India. So for many years, China was the largest source of international students here in America, but that number has come down. Since bilateral relations worsened. The United States has a proud history of welcoming Chinese students who come to the United States. In the beginning of the 20th century, when China was still governed by the Qing Dynasty, there was this boxer indemnities, basically the compensations paid by then Qing Dynasty to various Western powers. And at that time, the US was, you know, kind enough and smart enough to turn those compensations into a scholarship program, which seeded-

• 11:00Tracy Alloway?

  This was part of their, like, money diplomacy of the early 1900s, right?

• 11:04Speaker 05

  Well, before Joseph Nye created the concept of soft power, and the US has been practicing that. So they seeded a top university in Beijing and sponsored a 1,300 Chinese students to come to the United States. And after the bilateral ties were established, you know, since the two countries normalized their diplomatic relations, Republican and Democratic presidents both welcomed Chinese students. There was this very famous episode where Chinese top leader Deng Xiaoping at the time asked, you know, if he could send something like 5,000 Chinese students to the US. And President Carter, according to his own recollections, he responded that, well, tell

• 11:47Speaker 05

  him, tell Deng Xiaoping to send 100,000 students to America. I also read President Ronald Reagan actually received the Chinese students and made remarks in some sort of reception welcoming them. And let's remember, that was a time when China was much less open and dynamic than it is today. So what is happening is really unfortunate. I think because of this long history, many Chinese took for granted the opportunities to come here and study in America if they are good enough to be offered an admission letters. But the larger background is, of course, I guess globalization, because for many, many years, people just believe, you know, everyone is going to be more connected and we will

• 12:29Speaker 05

  benefit from more people-to-people exchanges, from commerce, from, you know, research collaborations. But unfortunately, that era seems to be ending right now. While it may have begun to be ending quite a few years ago.

• 12:44Tracy Alloway?

  Joe, just as an aside, there's a really good book called Fortunate Sons about some Chinese students who were sent to a Connecticut school in, I think, the late 1800s? Love to read that. It's really good. I read it when I bought that house in Connecticut to try to bridge the gap, I guess, between Hong Kong and where I was living.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  What's next for virtual assets? I'm Jacob Grease, host of Economy Scale, a series exploring growth in key global sectors. And in this episode, we're diving into the digital forces shaping finance. Sean McHugh from Dubai-based Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority has this to say.

• 13:35Speaker 06

  We're seeing a lot of insocial players come in, digital asset dedicated hedge funds, high frequency traders and that sort of thing, and folks who service insocial clients.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  As more capital enters the market, adaptive regulation is likely to become increasingly key. Reese Merrick of Ripple says.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  A lot of regulators globally would like to cleat the industry at arm's length. That's the opposite here. I think also what you'll find is that regulation and frameworks can come out, but some of them are maybe a slight iteration on some 80-year-old policy and not actually in line with what the technology can do and offer. And again, that's very different in Dubai.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. This series is brought to you by Bloomberg Media Studios and the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism.

• 14:21Tracy Alloway?

  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.

• 15:04Tracy Alloway?

  But according to recruiters, advisors and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company. And Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at ChatGPT.com.

• 15:44Tracy Alloway?

  I wanted to ask, what's the difference or differences from your perspective in terms of what you would learn in a public policy degree in China versus a public policy degree at someplace like Princeton?

• 15:58Speaker 05

  Well, that's a very good question. I think there is this key difference. It's, for example, policy schools are mostly for early career and mid-career professionals in public service sector. And here, I think, for example, at Harvard Kennedy School, at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, at Yale, at Princeton's BIA, they are offered full-time. And that's because not just the US, but also many governments across the world, they have the flexibility to allow their people to basically take a year or two years of their professional career and come here. But back in China, I think many of those programs are taught as a part-time process, although like they are labeled a full-time process.

• 16:41Speaker 05

  Because I think sometimes the rigidity of personnel management system means that it's very difficult for people to basically leave work for a year or two and get a full-time education at, you know, maybe Tsinghua and P K University. And also here in the US, I think the policy schools benefit greatly from, first of all, former policymakers, like retired former assistants, Secretary of State. And so here we have like many very good practitioners who are becoming, you know, teachers. We have, for example, at Princeton's BIA, Biden administration officials who just exited the administration. Well, I think in Chinese universities, to be fair, I haven't gone to those policy schools, but that would be rare.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  And secondly, this place benefits from a much broader. Well, I guess this is a toxic word now, diversity here now. For example, my class is highly international, like over half of the classmates are international students and also the faculty members. Some of them even come from foreign governments. I really benefited from the global perspectives I get from Princeton here.

• 17:48Joe Weisenthal?

  What did you do for undergrad?

• 17:49Speaker 05

  Well, I went to a Chinese college and majored in finance, actually.

• 17:53Joe Weisenthal?

  I don't know much about Chinese universities. The only thing I ever hear these days about Chinese universities is usually in the context of tech competition and the number of STEM graduates. And you hear a lot about the number of hundreds of thousands of STEM graduates and the advantages that sheer scale confers. You know, when I think of American universities, they're STEM, but I also think a lot about the heavy importance on liberal arts degrees and literature and history and people can go on to, you know, careers in tech and finance even from a history degree. Can you compare and contrast that sort of like intellectual environment at the Chinese colleges in terms of the non-technical fields?

• 18:33Speaker 05

  Well, this is something I think that has been observed and they talked about in in the past few years. When people compare, you know, Chinese and American universities, but also between Chinese and I guess Indian universities because based on what I read, which may not be like very accurate, it's like India also trains a lot of like lawyers and you know, social sciences majors. But the general perception is that the Chinese colleges and universities are training many more STEM grads and you know, in semiconductor related in, you know, mechanical engineering.

• 19:06Joe Weisenthal?

  But not everyone's a STEM grad, right?

• 19:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 19:07Joe Weisenthal?

  I mean, this is just what everyone's talking about these days because of this anxiety about tech competition.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, that's correct. And almost all universities in China are state run. All the Ivy Leagues are privately run universities here in the US. Maybe because I think China is still to some extent. And a transition economy. So China initiated its reform and opening up in nineteen seventy eight. But before that, it was a totally planned economy where the government basically tells everyone what to do. Uh, you know, in their schools and in their uh professional journeys. And based on those, you know, paradigms, a lot of Chinese universities are set up like to train people in a specific fields. For example, there is this Beijing Aeronautics University, which basically trains people.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  You know, in space related technology and and maybe rocket science. And and then there is also, you know, comprehensive universities. But for for many years, there was this maybe legacy China learned from the Soviet Union to have specialized colleges and universities in training STEM grads. And also, you know, China has one point four billion people. It is now the second most populous country on earth. So naturally you will see, you know, there are just many, many more Chinese students there. And the Chinese, they put heavy emphasis on science and technology. Can I share with uh one detail with you? Because I graduated from finance and I went on to join a news agency in China. You're uh Xinhua. Yes, the same news agency.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  And and my mother used to tell me, why don't you learn something real? Like finance and journalism, they are not like real professional. I didn't. Well, I guess I didn't test very well in China's college entrance examination. For many years, there was this quote in China, and I think it still rings true, and it maybe it rings even truer today. Well, in Chinese, it's called. Xuehao shuli hua, like if you learn mathematics and physics and chemistry, you can go everywhere and do and do well. And that is still on many Chinese minds. And so, for example, in AI, I think Jian Xun Huang of Nvidia, he said like a few weeks ago.

• 21:19Speaker 05

  I think he was citing Marco Polo, a think tank here, formerly affiliated with the Paulson Institute, is that fifty percent of the global AI talent is Chinese. Or maybe having some some sort of Chinese heritage. So that does speak to the enormous training capacity. Of the Chinese education system. And which also makes many people wonder here, you know, AI is going to shape everything in the future. And the two countries seem to be locked in a competition. That the US really want to shut out such a large talent pool in AI. And these students, Chinese students, you know, after completing their undergrad degrees, they come to the United States. They contribute to meaningfully to groundbreaking research.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  And I think this is one thing that many people have a maybe an inaccurate understanding of how graduate level education, especially in STEM fields work. This is not an extractive process. It's not that, you know, Chinese Indian, you know, students from Global Souths come to the US universities. They learnt, they sat in classrooms, they learnt from their American professors and peers, and then they leave and brought the knowledge back with them. That's not the case. Yes, they benefit enormously from the education system here, which is just spectacular. But they make meaningful contributions in conducting research, in collaborating with their American peers and professors.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  They stay in labs for days and months, which would result in papers in top American journals. They actually contribute to the creation of knowledge and the sharing of knowledge here. They contribute in the process. It's a symbiotic process, not an extractive process. So by having them here and some of them, you know, would remain here legally, I should say, you know, to work in the US, become entrepreneurs and researchers and American taxpayers to pursue their American dreams and some of them would leave the US and go back to China, India and, you know, everywhere on earth. And they would become, you know, informal ambassadors of American openness, of American inclusiveness, of American hospitality.

• 23:24Speaker 05

  And they would serve as one of the defense lines in terms of China-US relations as decreasing mutual strategic misunderstanding and miscalculations. So this is truly something very important in my mind. And I'm really saddened to see, you know, the crackdown on Chinese students to come to the United States. When you go back to China.

• 23:45Tracy Alloway?

  China, what nice things are you gonna say about America?

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Well, the first thing I would tell them is I have the enormous privilege of coming to Outlaws on Princeton. I'm Bloomberg, I'm sorry. And that's really a-

• 23:58Joe Weisenthal?

  That's the first thing. Okay, what's number two?

• 24:01Speaker 05

  Well, number two is I think I benefit a lot from all the critical discussions on oncologists. It's not just, you know, pro-Trump or against Trump. We have very different views on all sorts of subjects. Some professors are rightfully worried about, for example, rule of law here. But we have also some classmates who have faculties who are very sympathetic to what the broader Republican agenda is doing here in the United States. So I think this clash of different ideas, the market of free ideas is something really stimulating for me personally. And the other reason is that, for example, I'm fully funded by Princeton's beer here.

• 24:44Speaker 05

  And so I benefit truly from the hospitality and the generosity of the American people here. Princeton is the private universities, the money coming in from private donations. I'm truly grateful for that. And I don't think like any other country on the earth has, simply has the financial capacity to do something like that. So this is something really should be cherished here. I will certainly carry, you know, all these lessons and appreciations back to China.

• 25:15Tracy Alloway?

  We started this conversation talking about deteriorating US-China relations. And I don't think anyone would disagree with that premise. But the question I wanted to ask you is, as someone who's worked in both Chinese and Western institutions, or at least studied at a Western institution, what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding between the US and China? What's the biggest sticking point?

• 25:41Speaker 05

  You mentioned the the subset I did technology and all those. For example, I also had the privilege of being invited to some of the major think tanks here to to share my views with, you know, fellow think tank analysts and former government officials. I think if I really want to summarize, like, what I've been doing is to normalize China. Because China has a vastly different political system from the United States, from all the major Western and industrial economies. I think people fundamentally see China as a different beast. But China also has politics. The Chinese government has many government departments, ministries. They compete with one another. There is politics between different departments, politics between different people

• 26:26Speaker 05

  inside one government department. The Chinese make five-year plans and they seem to be implementing that quite well. For example, Made in China 2025 coming to mind. But sometimes they are also very short-sighted. The Chinese have good accomplishments. They also make stupid mistakes. That's just human nature.

• 26:47Joe Weisenthal?

  What are some examples of short-sighted? Because Americans love to go to China and then they come back and they say, they think a century is unlike us who just think, you know, it's these very cliches, these very cliched commentary that you just hear over and over again. It's like, we just think about the next quarterly estimate or hitting the next GDP. When you say, obviously, any society is going to be richer than these sort of cliché tropes that, you know, when you look back at decisions, because as you mentioned, seems like the Made in 2025 stuff worked out really well. But where do you see it breaking down at times?

• 27:20Speaker 05

  For example, let's talk about EVs, right? You know, the electric vehicles. So everyone now knows that China is leading on EVs. And people talk about BYD, about, you know, Xiaomi, the former smartphone maker turned automobile maker. And it seems like, you know, Ford and other US auto giants are falling behind. So many people attribute to some sort of Chinese subsidies and industrial strategy.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  But bear also in mind that before this EV boom, there were like a dozen Chinese automobile makers. Almost all of them were state-run automobile companies. Because China implemented this, when foreign carmakers come to China, you have to form joint ventures with Chinese partners. And in many cases, the Chinese partners have to be in control of fifty-one percent of the joint venture. But all these Chinese state-run automobile giants are actually falling behind now. What you are seeing in the EV boom in China, the names coming to mind are all very new private-run Chinese automobile makers.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  They didn't exist, they didn't benefit from the sort of state monopoly or preferential loans and maybe land and all these in-kind subsidies for those. They basically partnered with BMW, with all these American and European carmakers. But look, they are falling behind now.

• 28:48Joe Weisenthal?

  But on the other hand, sorry, but on the other hand, I could listen to that story and say, because of this requirement for JVs, the only possibility of actual private automobile development in China was for domestic companies, and international companies never had that chance to actually sort of be truly autonomous within the Chinese domestic market. Seems like that worked out very well in the grand scheme of things for ensuring that the only companies with complete agility, etc. in the Chinese market ended up being Chinese.

• 29:19Speaker 05

  Well, first of all, that could be some sort of a good policy advice for the Trump administration, I guess. And also maybe European governments. And secondly.

• 29:27Joe Weisenthal?

  I'm very down with, please bring BYD in a JV or something like that. I wanted BYD Gigafactor in Georgia or something like that. I've said that before. Anyway, keep going.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  What I was trying to say is, there is this discrepancy with, you know, all the power of our industrial strategies. But at the same time, it's the private ingenuity of the innovation, of the hard work of the private Chinese companies, which have somehow come out on a top. All the state-run companies, they are falling behind, at least in the automobile sector. And that shows that, I think.

• 30:04Speaker 05

  People tend to see China as a country with the Communist Party of China sitting on top. The state tells everyone what to do and marshalling all the resources. But it is also at the same time, just a spectacularly competitive and innovative place where private ingenuity and hard work really plays a very big role. There is this saying in China, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine, basically says, you know, over half of the GDP of the taxation, of the new employment are all created by private companies. And so that's something, when Americans perceive China, they think of just one very coherent, I don't know, behemoth.

• 30:47Speaker 05

  Where, you know, there is this larger central brain telling everyone to do everything else. And, uh, yes, the, like, the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China enjoys enormous power in telling, in shaping the Chinese society compared with Western powers. But do not discount, and actually, I think, uh, much more emphasis should be put on the non-state part of the Chinese society.

• 31:11Tracy Alloway?

  You mentioned your mom thinking that doing finance and journalism was not very valuable. And one thing you sometimes hear is that China places greater importance or value on people studying STEM, going into tech. And I guess I'm curious, how much has that changed over the years? Like, if I was a high school student in China in, I don't know, the 1990s, would I be encouraged to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher? Or would I be encouraged to go into tech? Like, basically, how has that culture of which subject is most valued changed over time?

• 31:50Speaker 05

  You are very sharp-eyed. I think if it was in the 1990s, people wanted to go to, I don't want to name names, like, certain finance schools in China. And after graduation, uh, like, they would want to work in Goldman Sachs. And, uh, and, uh, Morgan Stanley, that's like the top jobs.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  Maybe when I graduated from college in 2011, that's still the case, what the people wanted to do. Because it makes huge money, it makes very big money. But especially in the past decade, I think, I'm sure you have reported this. There is a large cuts to to the income, to the to the wages of Chinese financial engineering. And even when it comes to the internet sector, Facebook now known as Meta and all those booms. They contribute to consumer internet. That was the thing in China as well, like Alibaba and Tencent. What they do is they popularize some technologies which makes lives much easier for everyday consumers and and also businesses.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  But in a sense, I think now more value is put into the sort of technologies that would really boost the productivity in, you know, industrial process. For example, even doctors and hospitals can identify certain diseases. It's not just, you know, I can go out and get a delivery much easier from a from a restaurant. So the the the term technology, I think, has taken on a new meaning. And if if I can make a recommendation, there is this Dan Wang, who who I think is in year. Oh, Dan Wang.

• 33:34Joe Weisenthal?

  You don't need to recommend Dan Wang to the Odd Lots audience. We've had him on several times. I'm sure we'll do a big thing when his book comes out. Both Tracy and I have copies of it on our desk. You should go preorder it on Amazon right now.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  So basically, I think China is is wishing to make, basically, these hard technologies more sexy than, you know, just joining a tech firm.

• 33:57Joe Weisenthal?

  It's interesting. It sort of feels this is becoming an international phenomenon that everyone is getting very anxious about their country's capacity to do, quote, hard tech. You are returning to China and you're going to go back to the think tank, the Center for China and Globalization. It's interesting. I'm looking at the controversy section in the Wikipedia page for it. And Marco Rubio, who's now the secretary. Secretary of State in 2018, he actually blasted your school. He blasted the Woodrow Wilson School for inviting a scholar from the CCG. And he said there were ties to the Chinese Communist Party. And CCG, according to Wikipedia, is a member of an alliance of think tanks coordinated by the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party that support the Belt and Road Initiative,

• 34:42Joe Weisenthal?

  which we've talked about on the show. Now, granted, your situation strikes me as a little bit unique because most students coming to the US from China are not going to a public policy school on a one-year funded thing. Why shouldn't American lawmakers, however, be concerned about training many of the next generation of leaders in a country that is perceived to be a major rival? And doing work with them and training them in AI and all of these things that there is so much sort of, almost everyone accepts that there is going to be some degree of, you know, either geopolitical and business competition.

• 35:21Speaker 05

  First of all, about the Wikipedia page you just mentioned.

• 35:25Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, I know. It's very, very thorough research I do here. I click out a link and I scroll to the controversy section. But I wanted to, you know, I saw both your think tank and the Wilson School have come under controversy for connections.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  The joke I typically make in this sort of conversations is that, well, I came from the state ground news agency.

• 35:46Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  I was a proper Chinese government personnel. And now people would characterize me as some sort of, you know, the term united front. That's like semi-government. You're done greeting me like I was a proper Chinese government for 11 years. And I left, you know, in October 2022. And if we have time, I'd be happy to dive into the details of, you know, the difference between a government run think tank and a non-governmental think tank in China. But to your larger point is that. There is this term which says keep your friends close and keep your enemy closer. I'm not sure exactly if China and US are enemies at the moment.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  But just from that insight, I think it will be very beneficial for the US, especially policy schools, but also other, you know, social sciences and universities to try to have Chinese contributions, to have Chinese students' presence here. So that, you know, when push comes to shove, they have someone to call. They know what the Chinese are really thinking about. And that is, I think, one of the tragedies from the crackdown on, for example, Harvard than Harvard Kennedy School.

• 37:12Tracy Alloway?

  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk, and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs, and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw, innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.

• 37:56Tracy Alloway?

  But according to recruiters, advisors, and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company, and Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates, quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 38:35Tracy Alloway?

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• 39:05Joe Weisenthal?

  You mentioned that there's a difference between properly state run think tanks and non state run think tanks. I think in the US, there is a perception, and this actually goes back to the talking about companies, including car companies, et cetera. There is a perception that there's actually no private companies, that implicitly even the private companies, the BYDs, et cetera, are at some level, you know, at the backend call of the state and some more literally than others. Eva Do's incredible book about Huawei talks a lot about there's a Communist Party leadership within the company. It engages in making sure its members who are employees of the company engage in more moral behavior and aren't doing things like gambling, et cetera.

• 39:47Joe Weisenthal?

  Why shouldn't we think that every country within China, regardless of how it's incorporated, answers up to political leadership in Beijing?

• 39:55Speaker 05

  I think on a macro level, I do not see a drastic difference between, for example, a US president wants to have like Nvidia or Apple to become the dominant forces in the world. And from the CHIPS Act, from the Inflation Reduction Act to offering, you know, generous subsidies to American companies. In China, there is this support for Chinese companies, but in many cases, not from the very start. It's like, you know, Huawei started very little and it was competing with European telecom vendors at the very beginning.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  And for many years, you know, China Mobile, China Unicom, all the state telecommunication firms, they just wanted the equipment from the Europeans. Suppliers. That's a credible story. Yeah, and Huawei had to go to the European markets to increase its customers' numbers and revenue. And after a few years, and especially when the industry became more strategic. And and then the Chinese government would, you know, take a look at of the potential players and believe, oh, this is perhaps an industry that's going to be of strategic value in the future and would provide some sort of assistance to them.

• 41:15Speaker 05

  But I wouldn't think that there is a CCP committee overseeing Huawei on a daily basis telling them, you know, this is something you should do in the in Southeast Asia, and this is something you should work on in Africa. And if that were the case, Huawei wouldn't be where it is today. Which is also why I sincerely believe the the US persecution of Huawei and other properly private Chinese companies is a strategic mistake because these companies were on their way to making China more dynamic, more private, having more private elements in the Chinese society, to have more international exposure,

• 42:01Speaker 05

  to allow people to have a career path, a meaningful one, a financially rewarding one outside the apparatus. These companies are helping China to become more open, more aligned with international standards. So these are positive forces from a market perspective that would help align China with with the globalization process with the so-called rule-based international order. And this is also the reasons, for example, the US has imposed many export controls and has, for example, sanctioned Russia and other, you know, states and companies that are deemed hostile to US national interests.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  And many of the Chinese private companies are, well, silently just abide by all these sanctions because they want to globalize, they want to have markets and partners and suppliers across the world.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  But I guess this is the year 2025. Yeah. There is no way to turn around this phenomenon, I guess.

• 43:03Tracy Alloway?

  Well, on this note, this actually leads into a question I wanted to ask, and I think this will be the last question from me. But one of my pet theories right now is that the US is starting to look a lot more like China and China is starting to look a lot more like the US. So just recently, for instance, you've seen Chinese policymakers try to boost consumer spending, which is a page out of the US playbook after financial crises. They've been enhancing their social safety net, which again, kind of looks American, although you can debate how strong the American social net is. America, meanwhile, has been making more strategic investments in certain industries. Industrial policy has become a thing again. China is

• 43:46Tracy Alloway?

  liberalizing part of its market. The US says it's going to keep Chinese investors out of its market. Like, it feels like they're taking on each other's characteristics to some degree. I guess my question is, would you agree with that? And I have to say, Michael Pettis did not agree with me, but a couple others, Victor Schwetz over at Macquarie, agreed with me. And then right after I wrote my piece about this, there was a big foreign policy article basically saying the same thing. So I would love to get your opinion.

• 44:16Speaker 05

  Well, I think I've heard the term called beating China by becoming China. And I do think that the United States has its legitimate interest in strengthening its supply chains, in safeguarding the resilience of its industries. Like, I totally understand that the US doesn't want to rely 100% on PPEs during COVID. It wants to ensure a certain level of self-reliance when it comes to manufacturing capacity, maybe onshore or maybe friendly shoring, like in its allies, you know, transatlantic allies. I get that. And I think when it comes

• 44:57Speaker 05

  to China, what you were mentioning, and I guess maybe Michael Pettis doesn't fully agree, is that many people believe the process. In China of, you know, showing up the, the consumer spending and strengthening the, the social safety net. That should be accelerated, that should go much faster than it is happening today. Because, you know, the Chinese government, they have officially, according to their policy papers, recognizes that, in the Chinese minds, it's not about basically learning from American way of establishing a social safety net. Maybe from the Europeans, I guess, but because it is fundamentally helpful and beneficial for the Chinese society,

• 45:38Speaker 05

  for the Chinese people to have a relatively robust healthcare coverage insurance, so that they could spend money on more iPhones and other consumer electronics. This is fundamentally good, something good. It's not about learning from the, from the rest of the world. But on the phenomenon you just mentioned, that there is this some sort of convergence. I do hope they converge on being more open, on being more humane, on being more humanitarian, being more, you know, hospitable to people, to persons. And if I may have some sort of last word on this, I'm really saddened and sometimes I'm angry that it's the students.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  They are at their early twenties or maybe like nineteen years ago, they are being made pawns in this game. Come on, they are innocent. This strategic rivalry, yes, take all your measures against the military industrial complex and even maybe Huawei's, but leave the people alone from this. And let's, you know, people-to-people exchanges and student exchanges happen. And this will try to safeguard the long-term stability of the two countries. Because, I mean, as competitive, as hawkish as the US Trump administration hopes to be on in China, although I haven't read the latest readout of the phone call, but nobody wants the two countries to go to war.

• 47:01Speaker 05

  And to just prevent something catastrophic against that, we need to people-to-people, you know, dialogues. And the Chinese leaders have been receiving US guests. For example, the Vice President of China, recent, just, I think yesterday or today, received the US non-governmental players in China. The Chinese leaders met, for example, John L. Thornton, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. They met Graham Allison, the founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. So you have many news in China from Chinese leaders receiving non-governmental guests from the US.

• 47:35Speaker 05

  Officially reported in China legitimizing the non-governmental visits from the US to China. But the other way around, I don't see any news even under Biden administration that the US government openly receives, you know, non-governmental visitors, scholars, entrepreneurs. And the Chinese, you know, for example, Xi Jinping met with, you know, dozens of US companies and Western and European company CEOs. So in that thing, the Chinese legitimizing the Western interactions coming into China. But unfortunately, I'm not seeing any of that here. Here, what we have is like delegitimizing any Chinese government and the non-governmental people coming here. And I, I think I've heard that, you know, the US government is also meeting with non-governmental

• 48:20Speaker 05

  Chinese actors, scholars, while working in state-run universities and think tanks. But they are not saying anything about that. And, and that's not something very good, I think.

• 48:31Joe Weisenthal?

  Zixin Wang, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots. Thank you for doing your, I guess, interview with us. This is really fascinating, really glad we got to chat before you left town. And I hope we continue reading your work. I hope you're going to keep doing Pechanology?

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Yes, definitely.

• 48:47Joe Weisenthal?

  That's fantastic, because I, I think for a lot of us here, it's a very useful resource, those of us who don't speak Chinese or those of us who don't know who the names that we should actually be paying attention to. So really appreciate it and safe travels home.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  Thank you. I'm truly grateful for the opportunity. Thank you to Tracy and John. And I hope, maybe not just for me, but for Chinese students, it's, it's adios, not goodbye.

• 49:12Joe Weisenthal?

  Real quickly, has there been a change in perception, the desirability of coming here?

• 49:17Speaker 05

  If the Chinese students don't face the restrictions, they, they certainly still want to come here.

• 49:22Joe Weisenthal?

  Thank you so much.

• 49:23Speaker 05

  Thank you. My pleasure.

• 49:36Joe Weisenthal?

  First of all, really enjoyed that conversation. It is hard for me, you know, this sort of really aggressive attempt to no longer have American universities be a sort of destination for many of the world's most, you know, talented individuals. It's hard for me to imagine that not being sort of like a pretty big hit to both the US economy and it's just sort of like standing in the world.

• 50:00Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, so Zixin's point about, well, you know, Chinese students who come to America for their education, they largely go back to China with fond memories of America. I think the idea that America wouldn't value that is really indicative of how much less we seem to be valuing soft power nowadays. It seems like that kind of diplomacy just isn't, uh, isn't as popular as it once was. And so you're seeing people like the Trump administration say like, well, why should we be doing this? We don't get anything out of it. But then people like Zixin will say, well, you actually do get something out of it. You get better relations and you get that sort of cultural understanding and that soft

• 50:45Tracy Alloway?

  diplomacy.

• 50:46Joe Weisenthal?

  I do wonder though, the degree to which the American public has been sold on the benefits of so-called soft power, right? So like a lot of people would say, oh, American influence abroad, American ideals, what America stands for, for freedom and almost in so many other countries, or maybe did up until recently, I know global perceptions have changed, et cetera. But then I think, you know, maybe there is another argument that's like, oh, that's great that all these countries see us as a beacon of freedom or whatever. What do I get out of that? How does that benefit me? And I think when you look at some of the political turns, perhaps the case hasn't been made.

• 51:22Joe Weisenthal?

  To the US public in a very compelling way from the people who believe in sort of liberal internationalism, that the average citizen in the US actually should care at all about what, uh, how the rest of the world views us.

• 51:33Tracy Alloway?

  Look, everyone needs to travel more if they can. That's what I say. You need to go to a place that loves America and then you need to go, I don't know, to the Middle East or something and talk to someone that hates America and see what the difference is. There's a big difference.

• 51:47Joe Weisenthal?

  This is a really good perspective and take.

• 51:50Tracy Alloway?

  Okay. Shall we leave it there?

• 51:51Joe Weisenthal?

  Let's leave it there.

• 51:52Tracy Alloway?

  This has been another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

• 51:58Joe Weisenthal?

  And I'm Jill Weisenthal. You can follow me at the stalwart. Follow our guest, Zixin Wong. He's at Zixin Wong here and check out his Peknology Substack. I do hope he sustains it upon return to China. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armin, Dashil Bennett at Dashbot, and Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg.com/oddlots. We have a daily newsletter and all of our episodes and you can chat about all of these topics 24/7 in our Discord, discord.gg/oddlots.

• 52:29Tracy Alloway?

  And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like it when we conduct exit interviews with Chinese students studying at Princeton, then please leave us a positive review at your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

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