China
country in East Asia
Named more than in passing in 38 episodes, from 3 April 2025 to 11 November 2026: Peter Zeihan 25 · Paul J. Warburg 13. Wikidata
2026 · 37 episodes
2025 · 1 episodes
November 2026 · 4
5:18
China's Power Vacuum Worsens
Peter Zeihan
Xi Jinping has created a one-man dictatorship that is purging the bureaucracy to the point where China cannot function accurately. It is really hard to get an accurate view of what is going on inside the country now because everyone who used to collect that information has now been purged.
26:22
Russia Just Declared War on...Pizza?
Paul J. Warburg
This isn't a war about weapons. It's not a war about territory.
25:17
Russia’s Population Collapse is Worse Than We Thought
Paul J. Warburg
Vladimir Putin has a use-them-while-you've-got-them mentality. Once the war in Ukraine is over, it's going to seem like small cookies compared to what happens to Russia over the ensuing decades and generations.
22:07
Russia Just Suffered the Ultimate Humiliation
Paul J. Warburg
One of the telltale signs that somebody is broke and doing everything they can to avoid bankruptcy is when they start to sell off everything they own just to meet their monthly obligations. We'll keep watching how these trends go and where they ultimately lead.
October 2026 · 11
4:02
What Happens When China Runs Out of Water?
Peter Zeihan
The People's Republic of China is going to vanish in the next couple of decades. The People's Republic of China is going to vanish in the next couple of decades.
25:39
China Just Lost Its Best Chokehold On The Global Economy
Paul J. Warburg
China's long-term strategic hold on the global economy through rare earth metals is ending because its heavy rare earth supply is finite while other nations have untapped reserves. The geopolitical landscape is reversing as China faces a genuine supply shortage of heavy rare earths while the world develops alternatives.
6:55
How Will the Elections Impact Serbia and Brazil?
Peter Zeihan
Recent elections in Serbia and Brazil represent minor steps along a long road rather than landmark changes. No radical changes are expected in either country because they remain trapped by their specific geographic and historical constraints.
13:20
Data Centers: A Necessary Evil...Kinda
Peter Zeihan
Data centers are necessary for modern economic function because removing them would force a return to manual paper-based systems resulting in significantly lower standards of living. While data centers have negative effects like high energy use, eliminating them would condemn millions to low-value jobs and drastically reduce personal incomes.
3:46
Oil Pricing Is Going Crazy
Peter Zeihan
A severe break in the security environment allows the market to function differently. By the time we get to the end of the year, unless something is resolved politically, we're going to be looking at outright breaks in supply lines.
19:38
China Just Got Some Terrible News
Paul J. Warburg
China is afraid of losing Western markets and will not use coercion tactics that threaten its economic survival. Today, China, which traditionally has been more adversarial, finally got a really good check put in place on them.
5:44
Does China Have a Succession Plan
Peter Zeihan
If Xi dies tomorrow, there simply isn't an institution, much less a personality, who could potentially step forward and take over his role. The best case scenario is that Xi becomes the new Yeltsin or Brezhnev and remains just alive enough that he can be propped up in a chair and wave to the crowd every once in a while while everything slowly disintegrates around him.
3:41
China Gets a New Base in Southeast Asia
Peter Zeihan
China is building a self-sufficient base in Laos to project power across Southeast Asia despite the high risk of conflict with Thailand. Thailand represents a significant strategic hurdle because it is the most capable country in the region with a history of resisting foreign control.
31:48
Russia's Banks are Now Preparing for Sudden Collapse
Paul J. Warburg
Russia has entered an economic trap eerily similar to Nazi Germany towards the end of World War II. Russia is destroying its economic future by continuously degrading its system into a slow-moving car crash with no growth.
5:44
Building Out the Power Grid: Large Power Transformers
Peter Zeihan
The United States cannot expand its grid by 50% to support reindustrialization because it lacks domestic large transformer production and faces severe permitting delays. Without significant changes in federal policy and domestic manufacturing, the US will fail to maintain its grid or reindustrialize.
7:56
How To Ban Diesel Exports
Peter Zeihan
Export bans without infrastructure changes create oversaturation that reduces domestic energy security. The conversation is misplaced until distribution systems are fixed alongside any bans.
September 2026 · 18
5:02
U.S. Sanctions on Iran Take a New Approach
Peter Zeihan
The U.S. aims to make life difficult for the Iranian population so they will rebel and overthrow the government. Two arrogant and increasingly isolated men are pretending that they know what's going on.
3:31
The AI Race: U.S. vs. China
Peter Zeihan
China cannot compete in AI because export restrictions prevent them from building the necessary high-end hardware. The structural issues regarding data and ethics are irrelevant because the race comes down to hardware access.
37:02
Why Putin Can NEVER Use a Nuclear Weapon
Paul J. Warburg
Russia cannot credibly threaten nuclear war because its arsenal is likely non-functional and launching would destroy the regime. The ultimate cost of operating one of the most corrupt countries on Earth is that everything crashes in on itself.
5:48
The Venezuela Oil Deal Is Just the Start
Peter Zeihan
The oil deals represent only the beginning of a potential renaissance, not an immediate turnaround. The current situation is a step in the right direction, but we must not get too crazy or ahead of ourselves.
3:58
My Two Cents on the AI Debate
Peter Zeihan
The current debate over AI safety is actually a positive sign of open conversation. The current debate does not need to bear fruit until the 2040s when supply chains are rebuilt.
+1
5:08
China's Hold on Congolese Cobalt
Peter Zeihan
We must learn to get by with less because business as usual for tech advancement will simply not fly. More likely, the business as usual of tech advancement that we become used to is simply not going to fly.
5:42
How to Work Together Like Early Rome
Peter Zeihan
Southeast Asia and Southern Latin America resemble pre-Rome due to economic integration and lack of historical conflict. These regions must form new alliances to survive the breakdown of current global systems.
29:51
China's Population Collapse is Worse Than We Thought
Paul J. Warburg
The Chinese government's strict population controls created a self-reinforcing collapse where people now refuse to have children. China is likely hiding the true scale of its population decline and may eventually resort to war or internal collapse.
18:11
Ukraine Just Sparked a Panic in the Russian Arctic
Paul J. Warburg
Russia's strategy of using its massive size as a defensive advantage is now obsolete. Ukraine is unlocking the entire country, and that hunting season won't end until Russia ends its war.
11:31
What Does Life After Donald Trump Look Like?
Peter Zeihan
Trump has destroyed the Republican Party's institutional capacity and mirrors the fragile personalist regimes of China and Russia. When these leaders leave, the result will be quick and complete collapse because governance is them.
+5
32:42
Something Very Strange is Happening to China’s Military
Paul J. Warburg
China is a paper tiger using propaganda to appear stronger than it actually is. Investing in cheap drones can overwhelm China's expensive, unproven military image.
3:04
Project Vault Doesn't Solve the Mineral Problem
Peter Zeihan
Project Vault fails to solve the mineral problem because most critical materials processing is done in China. Without diplomacy to secure resources from Canada, Australia, and Brazil, the initiative remains a rounding error.
4:28
Why a Russian-Chinese Pipeline Won't Happen
Peter Zeihan
The Chinese see the Russians as backwards barbarians and the Russians see the Chinese as peasants. Whenever Putin and Xi get together, the conversation always is, hey, let's do a pipeline.
5:27
Global Shipping Comes Under Attack
Peter Zeihan
No country can defend all eight major transit choke points simultaneously. No nation or coalition can keep global sea lanes safe anymore.
5:05
China’s Real Estate System Is Failing
Peter Zeihan
The Chinese government is now trying to get this money somewhere else. I've always found it very amusing of the people who want to get their money into China to make money when the people who are in China are desperate for any way to get the money out.
7:30
Russia Is Struggling to Defend Its Own Capital
Peter Zeihan
The combination of fuel shortages and the risks of peripheral mobilization makes the current situation looking pretty bad for the Kremlin. The convergence of battlefield losses and social pressure from forced mobilization creates a dangerous situation for the Kremlin.
21:55
China’s Biggest Problem Just Got SO MUCH Worse
Paul J. Warburg
China's water shortage puts them at a structural disadvantage against AI competitors and increases their incentive to provoke water conflicts. China's only real solution is geopolitical, potentially involving damming rivers or bringing water from Russia.
5:29
Trade War Revival: Trump, Canada, and Tariffs
Peter Zeihan
The US cannot reindustrialize under current conditions because uncertainty prevents investment. We are farther away from clarity now than we were in January of 2025.
August 2026 · 4
28:31
Something Utterly Bizarre Just Happened in China
Paul J. Warburg
China's technological dominance masks a fundamental weakness caused by massive debt and a lack of domestic energy resources. In the net, in China, what we see is a house of cards that is reported on as if it were a house of steel.
6:04
The U.S. Chooses Favorites: North Korea over South Korea
Peter Zeihan
The United States is abandoning South Korea, forcing it to develop nuclear weapons and triggering a regional arms race. The strategic balance of peace in Northeast Asia is ending because South Korea will likely build a nuclear weapon.
4:51
Ukraine's Flamingos Crush Russia's Space Program
Peter Zeihan
Russia is losing its technological power and becoming dependent on China while Ukraine destroys its industry. Russia will likely lose its ability to export resources from the Black and Baltic Seas before year's end.
42:34
The U.S. National Debt Just Reached a Bleak Milestone
Paul J. Warburg
The U.S. debt is not a solvable problem because it funds the economy, and the real risk is inflation from printing money. We must focus on the complex system as a whole rather than just the symptoms like high debt numbers.
April 2025 · 1
4:17
Auto Tariffs and the Art of Routine Vehicle Maintenance
Peter Zeihan
The new tariff policy will drive up vehicle costs significantly. The cumulative effect of these tariffs could easily see automobile costs going up by $10,000.