Josh Chin
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joshchin.bsky.social
Josh Chin
@joshchin.bsky.social
3.6K followers 1.4K following 120 posts
Senior correspondent for WSJ covering collisions of geopolitics, tech, and power. 15+ yrs in Asia, mostly China. Co-author of SURVEILLANCE STATE: https://www.josh-chin.com/books

Signal: joshchin.86. Also: [email protected]
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joshchin.bsky.social
Hmm, where have I heard this bef…oh, right:
July 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM
joshchin.bsky.social
Welp
June 24, 2025 at 8:48 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Some colleagues thinking about getting t-shirts made
Screenshot shows a tweet from Elon Musk with text that reads "Their new name is perfect" over a black and white image showing WSJ's logo with an @ symbol between the S and the J. Beneath the logo is bold text saying "we suck at journalism"
June 18, 2025 at 5:15 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Chinese scientists in the U.S. are bracing for a new wave of government scrutiny. Expect this to lead to a new wave of Chinese scientists in fields like AI leaving the U.S.

Here's a telling chart, plus a gift link to the full story by my colleague @shen-lu.bsky.social

www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
April 23, 2025 at 4:52 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Setting aside whether you trust DOGE or any government agency not to abuse access to this much of your data, the mere act of centralizing it increases the risks and costs of it being hacked or leaked. China's public security bureau found this out the hard way 3 yrs ago:

www.wsj.com/articles/vas...
Screenshot of a WSJ article with text that reads: "A sample of the data posted by the hacker, who claimed it included 750,000 records, contained individuals’ personal names, national ID numbers, phone numbers, birthdays and birthplaces, as well as detailed summaries of crimes and incidents reported to the police. The cases ranged from incidents of petty theft and cyber fraud to reports of domestic violence, dating as far back as 1995 to as recently as 2019. While the scope of the data leak remains unconfirmed, The Wall Street Journal verified several of the records in the leak by calling people whose numbers were listed. Five people confirmed all of the data, including case details that would be difficult to obtain from any source other than the police. Four more people confirmed basic information such as their names before hanging up. One woman, alarmed at the accuracy of the leaked details, asked whether the information about her had come from the iPhone that she had reported stolen in her case file in 2016."
April 10, 2025 at 4:25 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
China slapping back with tariffs doesn't hurt the U.S. as much, obviously, given that China buy relatively little from the U.S. But Beijing has a bunch of other weapons to deploy:

www.wsj.com/world/china/...
Screenshot of a WSJ article. Text reads: "While Trump has focused on tariffs as his trade weapon of choice, China’s strategy goes well beyond imposing its own levies, relying on the lure of the Chinese market for U.S. companies. A central thread running through its calculus is how to inflict hardship on companies that bank on their ties with the world’s second-largest economy. Tools that Beijing has already used and is likely to expand include export controls of critical materials American companies use to make chips and defense-related products, regulatory investigations designed to intimidate and penalize U.S. companies, and blacklists intended to bar U.S. businesses from selling to China. In addition, authorities are preparing new ways to pressure American companies to give up their crown jewels—intellectual property—or lose access to the Chinese market. The toolbox underscores leader Xi Jinping’s capacity to engage in a prolonged economic warfare with the U.S. At a time when both capitals appear to move toward decoupling, it also highlights the ever-rising risks for U.S. companies operating or investing in China, or simply trading with the country."
April 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
This is such a good read, and perhaps of educational value to Americans newly wondering what life under full-blown authoritarianism is like. From one of China's sharpest writers:
A screenshot of text that reads: "It’s not worth it, it’s worthless, and devoid of a sense of achievement. And it’s exhausting. The day shift is 11 hours and the nightshift is longer—13 hours. During the breaks, most of the censors sneak away to smoke and chat in the stairwell. Liu Lipeng doesn’t smoke and has nothing in common with the others to gossip about. Bored stiff, he logs on to a VPN service to circumvent the Great Internet Firewall of China and uses Google Earth to wander streets in unfamiliar cities, fantasising about the people there and their lives. He often logs on to the Weibo webpage, not as a censor but as an ordinary user. On Weibo, his username is ‘Ordinary Fascist’ (普通法西斯). It’s a satirical name but Liu Lipeng is unsure whom it satirises."
April 4, 2025 at 8:09 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Not expecting this to break through given all the right-now craziness -- though if you're keeping track of the long-term challenges piling up as the U.S. collapses inward, it's a big one. China is set to do with humanoid robots what it did with electric cars, with ripple effects across the economy
A chart shows the number of humanoid robot models unveiled from 2022 to 2024. Chinese models shot past those from Canada and the U.S. in 2024, accounting more than 30 out of a total of roughly 50
March 31, 2025 at 2:15 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Latest annual threat assessment from the U.S. DNI says China's military "probably" plans to use LLMs in disinformation attacks. Has anyone seen evidence so far of the PLA, or any arm of the Chinese state, using generative AI to push disinfo effectively?

www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/d...
Screenshot of text that reads: "China almost certainly has a multifaceted, national-level strategy designed to displace the United States as the world’s most influential AI power by 2030. China is experiencing a boom in generative AI with the rapid emergence of a large number of PRC-developed models, and is broadly pursuing AI for smart cities, mass surveillance, healthcare, S&T innovation, and intelligent weapons. Chinese AI firms are already world leaders in voice and image recognition, video analytics, and mass surveillance technologies. The PLA probably plans to use large language models (LLMs) to generate information deception attacks, create fake news, imitate personas, and enable attack networks. China has also announced initiatives to bolster international support for its vision of AI governance."
March 26, 2025 at 2:43 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
And there is it. A book ultimately about data extraction itself inevitably made a victim of it
March 21, 2025 at 3:38 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Equating human beings with drug shipments. Flashback a hundred years to the Chinese Exclusion era when U.S. officials referred to Chinese immigrants as "contraband."

www.reuters.com/world/trump-...
Screen shot of text from a news article that reads: "Trump said on Monday that he was considering imposing the duties on Canada and Mexico unless they clamped down on the trafficking of illegal migrants and fentanyl, including precursor chemicals from China, across their U.S. borders."
January 22, 2025 at 2:09 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Trumpism in full force among supporters of South Korea’s impeached president.

One speaker, screaming through the loudspeakers (in English, to roars of applause): “Stop the steal! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Protesters in front of impeached president’s home in Seoul holding signs that say “Stop the Steal” in English A protester in Seoul wearing a “Make Korea Great Again” baseball cap Two women wave a South Korean flag from a pedestrian bridge overlooking hundreds of protesters and police
January 5, 2025 at 11:37 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
I used TweetDelete to scrub my X profile a few weeks ago. Now a handful of old retweets have come back from the dead. (Ironically in light of the bro bent there, they’re all retweets of bad-ass women). Anyone know what’s going on?
December 18, 2024 at 11:18 PM
joshchin.bsky.social
A pleasure to pitch in for the first time on a news story in South Korea and talk to people who approach the exercise of democracy with a generational view: www.wsj.com/world/asia/s...
A photo shows a middle aged Korean man with a toddler on his shoulder standing next to a middle aged Korean woman at a protest. The family is smiling and waving electronic candles Screenshot of WSJ story. Text reads: Na Jung-hwan and his wife brought their 5-year-old son to be a part of history, bearing the frigid weather with other South Koreans. They held LED candles, recalling the imagery of the country’s so-called “candlelight revolution” that helped spur the impeachment, then ouster in 2017, of conservative former President Park Geun-hye. Na hopes Yoon gets punished accordingly by the law. Nodding to his son sitting atop his shoulders, he said: “I don’t want something like this to happen again when my kid is all grown up.”
December 14, 2024 at 11:20 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
If Lee does succeed Moon, it could have reverberations outside Korea:
December 9, 2024 at 12:14 PM
joshchin.bsky.social
I don't flatter myself that any of my deleted posts will be missed, but I did screenshot one for the #China folks that seemed to get resurfaced on a regular basis (for some reason). Hard to believe it's a decade old:
Screenshot of a Twitter post from Nov. 10, 2014. The text reads: "Chinese internet users FTW. #APEC2024." Below is diptych with one panel showing Chinese leader Xi Jinping shaking hands with then Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, and the other panel showing Winnie the Pooh shaking hands with Eeyore with the exact same posture
December 2, 2024 at 7:39 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
And there you have it: 16 years, nearly 17,000 tweets, archived then deleted.

I'm keeping my account there because I'm a reporter and need to maintain a window into that world, as unpleasant as it's become. But it's clear my attention is better spent here, despite having 1/60th the following
December 2, 2024 at 7:28 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
The traditional Chinese translation of SURVEILLANCE STATE just won Taiwan’s Openbook Prize. This is such a thrill and honor. Massive kudos go to our translator, Yian Lee, who grasped the story perfectly and made it sing for an audience we dearly wanted to reach
November 29, 2024 at 3:44 PM
joshchin.bsky.social
Items that are going to get more expensive if Trump follows through on his tariff threats include game consoles, strawberries and frozen french fries

www.wsj.com/economy/trad...
Chart showing US imports from Mexico in 2023, including large percentages of strawberries, raspberries and avocados Chart showing US imports from China in 2023, including large percentages of video game consoles and toys Chart showing US imports from Canada in 2023, including large percentages of frozen French fries and bakery products
November 29, 2024 at 12:46 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
I’m not sure on the population figures around Fushun, but there’s this further down in the story. Seems not just a question of stations per capita but also of opportunity cost. Is closer high-speed rail the solution to what ails these communities?
Text reads: That route will soon bring high-speed trains to Sichuan’s Gao County, south of Fushun, for the first time. In the county seat, property developers are erecting new apartment blocks in a district that will be home to its high-speed rail station. Gao County’s population of about 375,000, including many pig farmers and grain growers, has shrunk nearly 10% since 2019 as locals sought work elsewhere. Per capita economic output is two-thirds of the national level. The area doesn’t lack connectivity. High-speed trains run through the city of Yibin, 40 minutes north. The 20 million-person metropolis of Chengdu is reachable in about two hours. The bigger issue for Gao County, and the residents of its 200 villages, is a lack of jobs.
November 21, 2024 at 10:36 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Even in the land of big numbers, the data on China’s high-speed rail extravaganza boggles the mind. 30K miles, $1 trillion in debt, and local examples like this:
Text reads: The expansion now stretches into quieter corners of inland China, such as central Sichuan province’s Fushun County, where the population of 700,000 mostly rural residents has been shrinking for years. It got its first high-speed trains in 2021, and there are now at least 12 high-speed rail stations within a 40-mile radius in the county and its surrounding areas. On a recent afternoon, Fushun Station itself was practically deserted, with around 20 travelers milling about in a cavernous waiting room with seats for 1,000.
November 21, 2024 at 9:35 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
My colleague, WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, had his head shaved by prison authorities ahead of his sham trial in a Russian court. I’ve shaved mine in solidarity and plan to keep it his way until he's out. Evan is a journalist and journalism is not a crime. #IStandwithEvan #FreeEvan
July 7, 2024 at 7:02 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
And here's a gift link to a deeply reported story on Putin's stockpiling of Americans for prisoner swaps, which includes details of the proposal that would have freed Navalny

www.wsj.com/world/russia...
March 29, 2024 at 5:14 AM
joshchin.bsky.social
Hi Folks: Firing up this account for the first time to note that today marks one year since the Russian government detained my colleague Evan Gershkovic in an act of supreme cynicism and cowardice. WSJ’s response is this stunning front page. #FreeEvan
March 29, 2024 at 3:32 AM