Welcome everyone to this joint GGB 96 and Seneca podcast live recording.

I'm Zara John and I'm joined by my 96 co-host, Hans Tung, managing partner at GGV Capital,

and by Kaiser Kuo, host of the

Cynica podcast and producer of the 96 podcast. Please join me in welcoming our special guest,

Professor Yasheng Huang.

We're delighted to have Professor Huang with us today. He is the international program professor in Chinese economy and business and professor of global economics and management at the MIT's Long School of Management. And he's the founder and head of the China Lab and the India Lab at MIT.

I'm so glad that you could join us here. It was such a pleasure talking to you for cynical last year in San

Francisco. Your straight talk and your frankness is always quite the breath of fresh air. So let's

deal with the elephant in the room first. I think we all know that it's the trade war. We've seen

volleys in both directions now. First, the steel and the aluminum tariff and then a very subdued Chinese response.

Then you had the $60 billion punitively over the 301, the WTO complaint.

Then China's announcement, and now just on Thursday this week, a threat of an even larger tariff of $100 billion by Trump.

So it's quite clear that the Trump administration really is focused as opposed to one particular

target of this tariff.

It's China's new tech-focused industrial policy that's called Made in China 2025.

America has basically always opposed industrial policy. Yet, Miti in Japan in the 1980s,

which is a target of American ire, for instance. What is it that they object so much to in

made in China 2025? And is there actually something to object to? Is there something that's

quite unfair? Stay, very close.

Okay.

Thank you, Kaiser, and very good to share the podium with Hans and Zara as well.

Yeah, this is a big elephant in the room, and I think the possibility is a real one that things can get out of the control.

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