We’re taking a little time this week to re-share one of our all-time favorite episodes: Why did Canada suddenly decide to open up its market to Chinese cars?

Earlier this month, Chinese carmaker Geely announced it would start selling in Canada in 2027. It's a huge shift for Canada, which once was aligned with the United States on keeping Chinese autos out. Now, the U.S. will be the only country on the continent with no Chinese vehicles. We're revisiting the discussion on the topic between writers Eliot Chen and Savannah Billman.

PLUS: The Wire China Podcast is moving to Tuesday! Make sure to subscribe via Substack to get episodes and transcripts right to your inbox: https://thewirechina.substack.com/

In 2022, memory chip manufacturer YMTC looked like it was on the way out. The Chinese chipmaker had just been hit with U.S. sanctions and lost a major contract with Apple. But four years later, YMTC is now the third largest memory chip maker in the world. How did it survive?

In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Savannah Billman revisit her recent analysis of how YMTC survived not only U.S. sanctions, but the cutthroat competition and involution in the Chinese market.

Plus, Rachel and Savannah look at another dominant Chinese company, battery-maker CATL, and why it may yet survive its sudden drop in market value.

Read the pieces here:

https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/04/the-survivor/

https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/11/chinese-carmakers-try-to-break-free-from-the-catl-herd/

We also have a clip from our just-published interview with Gunnar Wiegand, a former EU diplomat, on the narrowly-avoided trade war between China and the EU.

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In 2021, a Chinese-American engineer founded a specialized semiconductor company in Belgium. A year later, a similar company opened in Fuzhou, China — partially owned by the same engineer. Was economic espionage involved?

Reporter Noah Berman is back this episode with news editor Andrew Peaple to discuss the evolving case of chipmakers BelGaN in Belgium and GaNkool in China. Belgian authorities are investigating whether the two companies share more than just a similar name. The investigation comes as European governments are grappling with their own trade and economic policies towards China, and as Beijing continues to seek self-reliance in key technologies like chips.

Read Noah's article: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/10/04/chips-china-and-trade-secrets-how-an-arrest-in-brussels-could-tie-them-together/

We also feature an excerpt from the upcoming Q&A with author Emily Feng on her new book "Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria's Civil War," which will be available later this month.

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Early this summer, Anthropic's advanced AI model Mythos stunned the tech world by identifying thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities across the internet and even in U.S. government systems. Across the Pacific, Chinese AI regulators were also paying close attention.

In this episode, reporter Savannah Billman is joined by Kristy Loke, a MATS research fellow focusing on China’s AI governance and innovation strategies and author of a recent opinion piece published on The Wire China. We discuss why China is waking up to the risks of frontier AI, how tech leaders are developing new regulatory capacity, and why Xi Jinping is an AI governance-pilled president.

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The main muscle of President Trump's second-term China policy isn't at the State Department. Nor is it at the Department of Commerce. Instead, it's the U.S. television regulator.

Reporter Noah Berman and editor Andrew Peaple are back this episode to discuss Noah's analysis of how the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, headed by Brendan Carr, has come to be the lead agency on so many import regulations on advanced Chinese technology.

Read: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/20/the-fcc-vs-the-prc/

And as President Xi Jinping touches down in Washington DC for a much-anticipated summit — and expected discussion of AI — we share a clip from our interview with Concordia AI's Brian Tse on how China thinks of AI safety.

Read: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/24/brian-tse-on-how-china-plans-to-keep-ai-safe/

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China’s Gen Z factory heirs have a problem. They graduated into an era where high-tech robots and AI can usher in a new industrial revolution. But frustratingly, the factories run by their parents are too old-fashioned to ditch the pen and paper for profit.

In this episode, reporters Peiyue Wu and Rachel Cheung discuss the tech-savvy Chinese who are trying to bring AI to the manufacturing sector. Many of them see themselves as Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDE), a job title popularized by Palantir, on the front lines of a battle against the old ways of running business.

Also, an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with former Trump official Stephen Vaughn on why he believes the Trump administration’s aggressive strategy towards China is working.

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Birds of a feather tend to stick together, at least in the case of Chinese companies sanctioned by the United States. Our reporter Noah Berman found that many recently sanctioned firms actually share the same address, down to the same floor of a Hong Kong office building.

This week, features editor Tom Mitchell and Noah Berman discuss his recent examination into how Chinese firms use Hong Kong-based shell firms to avoid U.S. sanctions, and what Washington might be trying to signal so close to the anticipated Trump-Xi summit.

Read the article: https://www.thewirechina.com/2026/09/06/the-familiar-hong-kong-addresses-in-americas-iran-sanctions/

Also, an excerpt from our forthcoming Q&A with Susan Shirk on where to go next in the U.S.-China relationship.

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Montana has been the unlikely source of America’s most influential China-hand senators. Somewhat paradoxically, it’s also one of the most pro-Trump — and tough on China — electorates in the country.

In this episode, reporters Savannah Billman and Brent Crane discuss Brent’s recent reporting on why the Treasure State’s relationship with China appears to swing so widely between extremes. As U.S. national and state governments continue to debate how best to approach China, Montana reflects the rewards and limits of U.S.-China engagement.

Read Brent’s cover: www.thewirechina.com/2026/08/30/red-china-and-red-state-montana-its-complicated/

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