S8 Ep712: STREAMING THE MAKING OF THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, TUESDAY 4-7-2026. 1905 PEKING STREET IN SHANGHAI.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
STREAMING THE MAKING OF THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, TUESDAY 4-7-2026.
1905 PEKING STREET IN SHANGHAI.
This transcript from The John Batchelor Show features experts David Shedd and Jack Burnham discussing the aggressive campaign by the People’s Republic of China to illicitly acquire American technology. The conversation highlights a shifting focus toward robotics and artificial intelligence, noting that China frequently utilizes a "playbook" of espionage and "adversarial distillation" to replicate expensive U.S. innovations at a lower cost. To counter these threats, the experts analyze new bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing the federal government from purchasing Chinese-made humanoid robots that could serve as data-leaking tools. Additionally, they discuss how private tech giants like Google and OpenAI are beginning to collaborate to defend their models from foreign exploitation. The dialogue emphasizes that while the methods of theft and sabotage mirror historical Soviet tactics, the modern scale and speed of these operations pose an unprecedented risk to national security. Ultimately, the sources warn that the civil-military fusion in China ensures that any stolen data or hardware serves the strategic interests of its state security apparatus.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm I'm I'm The I'm The I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm And our good day to you, this is the making of the John Bachelor show. We have wonderful, wonderful conversation today about espionage and sabotage and the suspicion that all of our secrets are not secrets anymore because of the miracle of cyberspace. |
| 0:57.7 | I read headlines, however, because the wars in the Eurasian supercontinent continue, and all of these will affect decisions ahead of us. |
| 1:07.7 | Several blasts reported on Iran's Karg Island, rail bridge struck in central Iranian city |
| 1:13.8 | after a warning by Israel. And U.N. U.S. officials says airstrikes on Karg Island targeted |
| 1:21.3 | military sites, and IRGC threatens to deprive the U.S. and its allies of oil, quote, for years if it crosses red lines. |
| 1:31.9 | We have a countdown, according to the report out of the White House these last days, to a ultimatum or threat or quid pro quo to the IRGC, which I understand is a way of describing what is left of the leadership in Iran. |
| 1:52.3 | And all of that is coming to a conclusion somewhere in the next 12 hours. |
| 1:58.4 | Our job, however, is to look beyond the immediate headlines |
| 2:02.3 | and look at the 21st century and the rivalry between the United States, its allies, and the |
| 2:10.2 | People's Republic of China, which is why I turn from the warfighting to cyberspace, espionage, sabotage, theft, purloining. |
| 2:21.6 | There are many words for it, but they all come down to private enterprises engaged in an extremely expensive genius, |
| 2:29.7 | which is artificial intelligence. |
| 2:32.3 | That requires something called large language models. It also involves |
| 2:36.6 | a lot of engineering similar to the rise of the aircraft industry in the early part of the |
| 2:42.3 | 20th century. Everybody competing in general, but happy to hear about rivals doing well so we |
| 2:50.3 | can borrow from them or not doing well so we can |
| 2:52.8 | get ahead of them. There's a race on. It's a requiring a great deal of capital investment and |
| 3:00.2 | risk. And because that capital is part of the way to keep score, there is the loud suspicion that the U.S.'s rival, the People's Republic |
| 3:11.9 | of China, has been borrowing without permission, information, or just simply time on the large |
| 3:20.5 | language model in order to catch up or race ahead or make claims of success. |
| 3:26.2 | We saw that with Deep Seek some years ago. |
| 3:28.9 | However, there's a new concern, I learn, from Jack Burnham of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
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