Kyle Chan on the Great Reversal in Global Technology Flows

About this episode

Kaiser Kuo interviews Kyle Chan about the dynamics of U.S.-China technology relations and the implications of the Great Reversal in global technology flows.

This week on Sinica, I speak with Kyle Chan, a fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, previously a postdoc at Princeton, and author of the outstanding High-Capacity Newsletter on Substack . Kyle has emerged as one of the sharpest and most empirically grounded voices on U.S.-China technology relations, and he holds the all-time record for the most namechecks on Sinica’s “Paying it forward” segment. We use his recent Financial Times op-ed on “The Great Reversal” in global technology flows and his longer High-Capacity essay on re-coupling as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging conversation about where China now sits at the global technological frontier, why the dominant decoupling narrative misses powerful structural forces pulling the two economies back together, and what all of this means for innovation, choke points, and the global tech ecosystem. 4:35 – How Kyle became Kyle Chan: from Chicago School economics to development, railways, and systems thinking  12:50 – The Great Reversal: China at the technological frontier, from megawatt EV charging to LFP batteries  17:59 – The electro-industrial tech stack and China’s overlapping, mutually…

People in this episode

Host: Kaiser Kuo

Guest: Kyle Chan

Topics covered

• U.S.-China technology relations
• global technology flows
• decoupling narrative
• innovation
• industrial strategy
• tech ecosystems

Keywords

• technology flows
• U.S.-China relations
• decoupling
• innovation
• industrial strategy
• tech ecosystems
• electric vehicles
• batteries

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings, Princeton, Financial Times, Waymo, Zeekr, Unitree

Products: megawatt EV charging, LFP batteries

Books & works: High-Capacity Newsletter, The Great Reversal, High-Capacity essay

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