In this compelling episode, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso interview Shannon Brandao – attorney, Mandarin speaker, and founder of the China Boss Substack – to explore China's expanding influence even as America appears to turn inward. Broadcasting from Europe, Brandao delivers her unique insights on Chinese Communist Party strategy, economic challenges, and geopolitical ambitions.

Brandao emphasizes that perception easily becomes reality, in that when America appears to withdraw, China seizes opportunities to expand influence through economic leverage and promises of stability. This directly impacts Indo-Pacific supply chains controlling critical minerals, batteries, and essential products that Americans depend on daily.

Rejecting claims that China seeks only regional stability, Brandao explains that the Chinese Communist Party operates from a paranoia that requires control to ensure regime survival. Under Xi Jinping, ruling "red aristocrats" fear vulnerability to external powers, and even successful Chinese entrepreneurs like Jack Ma, leading to enterprise nationalization and tight party control over innovation.

While China faces economic headwinds, including debt, demographic challenges, and declining GDP, Xi Jinping has successfully modernized the military. Still, China's unreliable economic statistics mask systemic problems, with Communist Party interference undermining potential innovation, even despite a tremendous national talent base.

China exercises strength in strategic sectors—solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, shipbuilding, and artificial intelligence—through massive subsidies, but this creates a chronic overcapacity problem. Local government subsidies benefit politically connected firms like Huawei, creating quasi-monopolies across industries: steel, aluminum, cement, telecom gear, plastics, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc. Endemic corruption further dilutes programs, with billions disappearing from AI innovation funds.

Companies attempting to leave China face complex challenges. When signaling departure, employees report to Party and government officials, triggering shakedowns through exit bans and extortionate demands. Recent surveys show companies staying but withholding investment and hedging elsewhere. For firms that do leave, repatriating profits and protecting intellectual property depends entirely on relationships with local government officials.

Asked for what advice she would give to President Trump before meeting Xi Jinping at the upcoming APEC Summit, Brandao warns that Xi will use flattery while masking the geopolitical reality, and that failing to press American interests in the Indo-Pacific creates vacuums China eagerly fills.

👉 Follow the “China Boss” Shannon Brandao on LinkedIn or on her Substack

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👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

In this special, in-person episode, host Ray Powell sits down with James Minnich, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and editor of the Center’s new book Edge of Competition: Disruption, Division, and Competition in the Indo-Pacific. Recorded in APCSS’ studios in Hawaii, they dive deep into the region's most pressing geopolitical challenges, exploring how disruption, division, and competition are reshaping global security and economics.

James shares insights from the book, highlighting why the Indo-Pacific matters to everyone—from Taiwan Strait tensions and South China Sea disputes to the rise of multipolar dynamics involving China, the US, India, and ASEAN. They discuss whether we’ve reached "peak China," globalization's double-edged sword, ASEAN centrality, spheres of influence and the need for narrative warfare to counter malign influence operations. Plus, James recounts a story from his time at the UN Command Military Armistice Commission in South Korea, blending negotiation tactics with real-world security operations.

Whether you're tracking US-China relations, maritime security in East Asia, or broader Indo-Pacific geopolitics, this episode unpacks the ongoing disruptions that are already impacting global trade, technology, and stability. Don't miss this expert analysis on Taiwan, Korean Peninsula security, and strategies for resilience in a competitive world.

Key Topics Covered:

• Disruption in the Indo-Pacific: Peak China debates, Taiwan's semiconductor dominance, and globalization's risks.
• Division and Multipolarity: India's role, ASEAN communities of interest, and the pitfalls of spheres of influence.
• South China Sea escalations, South Korea's strategic clarity, and commanding the narrative against political warfare.
• Mastering the clock, weaponizing resilience, and proactive information strategies.

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👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay, or LinkedIn, or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight

👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn

👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

In this thought-provoking episode, we're joined by renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur and defense reform advocate Steve Blank in a sweeping conversation on Pentagon innovation, the U.S.-China technological rivalry, and what it takes for democracies to outpace authoritarian competitors.

Key Highlights & Takeaways:

Diagnosing U.S. Innovation Stagnation: Steve dissects why the once dominant U.S. defense sector, long-dominated by the big “primes”, got overtaken by bureaucratic inertia—contrasted with China’s highly focused whole-of-nation approach. He examines how factors such as lobbying, revolving doors, and outmoded acquisition systems have played their parts in hampering adaptation to new threats.

Hacking for Defense Origins: Steve unpacks how the “get out of the building” lean startup method moved from Silicon Valley to challenging national security problem-solving, birthing the global Hacking for Defense movement that started at Stanford but is now in dozens of universities worldwide.

From “Innovation Theater” to Outcomes: The conversation critiques the proliferation of “incubators” unconnected to real acquisition, and highlights how meaningful reform only comes when new tech is linked to actual defense deployment.

What’s Changing: Blank describes major reforms currently underway under the new Trump Administration: scrapping legacy acquisition hurdles, empowering innovation-focused leadership, expanding the Defense Innovation Unit, and setting new strategic priorities.

Politics and Semiconductors: Steve provides a unique take on the CHIPS Act, Taiwan’s semiconductor leverage, and the evolution of U.S. “industrial policy” as exemplified by the U.S. government’s taking of a direct stake in the Intel Corporation.

Practical Advice: Steve and the hosts help surface actionable lessons: embrace private-sector speed, connect innovation directly to field outcomes, and learn from adversaries who now copy America’s best ideas and occasionally outpace them.

SeaLight Targeted by Beijing: Steve and Ray banter about how Ray’s innovation project inspired by Hacking for Defense blossomed into the SeaLight phenomenon, and how its success in illuminating China’s “gray zone” activities got both of them targeted by Beijing’s propaganda machine.

This essential episode illuminates how democracies can survive and thrive amid global tech rivalry, and what must change if the U.S. hopes to remain a leader in security and defense innovation.

👉 Follow Steve Blank at his website

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👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay, or LinkedIn, or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight

👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn

👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific