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The Sanctions Age
The Sanctions Age is a podcast that explores how sanctions are changing the world.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Department of Treasury had imposed sanctions on fewer than 1,000 companies and individuals. Today, more than 10,000 entities have been targeted.
Leaders around the world are imposing sanctions in response to wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights violations, and technological competition. As a result, a growing list of countries are targeted by sanctions, export controls, and investment restrictions, including China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria.
The Sanctions Age invites the people who understand sanctions best—economists, historians, lawyers, policymakers, and journalists—to explain their use and significance. Understanding sanctions is the key to understanding politics and economics today.
We are living in The Sanctions Age.
The Sanctions Age
How Sanctions are Spurring Chinese Innovation
Over the past several years, the United States has escalated its use of sanctions and export controls in the context of growing strategic competition with China. A central goal has been to contain China’s rise in high-tech industries—especially semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and clean energy—by cutting off access to advanced technology. This approach reflects a bipartisan consensus in Washington that restricting China’s access to innovation is key to preserving American technological dominance.
But there is an emerging debate about whether this approach is working as intended. Recent developments suggest that export controls and sanctions might be spurring faster innovation in China—forcing Chinese firms and the state to deepen their technological capabilities and reorganize industrial supply chains.
Kyle Chan is a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University whose work focuses on industrial policy, innovation, and green technology in China. He is the author of an excellent newsletter titled High Capacity. He also recently published an op-ed in the New York Times on US-China technological competition.
The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj.
The show is produced by Spiritland Productions.
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www.thesanctionsage.com
The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj. The show is produced by Spiritland Productions.
To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read Esfandyar's notes on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/