The Trivium China Podcast

There’s only one storyline that matters geopolitically right now, and that’s the ongoing war between the US and Israel and Iran.
Now in its third week, the war increasingly looks likely to be a protracted engagement, and as the conflict grinds on, the implications – both political and economic – for the many countries not involved in the fighting will become clearer.
China, of course, has a wide-range of interests – both short- and long-term – that will be impacted by the situation.
To unpack the thinking around all of this in Beijing, Trivium China Podcast host Andrew Polk is joined on this week’s episode by two of Trivium’s lead analysts on all things geopolitics, trade, and commodities – Joe Mazur and Even Pay.
The trio gets into:
China’s most immediate concerns – largely revolving around resource security
How Beijing’s patient buildup of commodity reserves over the past decade has now been vindicated
Whether Xi Jinping and company see any strategic upside from the confrontation
What, if anything, Beijing can do to influence the outcome
And what it all means – in China’s view – for the longer-term evolution of the geopolitical system
It’s another banger folks – you won’t want to miss it.

On this week’s edition of the Trivium China Podcast, host Andrew Polk is back with a gaggle of Trivium analysts to go deep on various aspects of the recently released 15th Five Year Plan (FYP).
The group covers a broad range of issues including:
Key macroeconomic, development, and economic security goals
The plan for industrial upgrading – and key priorities in upstream, midstream, and downstream industries
The nexus of technological and industrial ambition
How climate goals and industrial policy interact
China’s latest efforts to solve its compute problem
How innovation factors into goals for the healthcare and agriculture sectors
Just like the FYP itself, this conversation is wide-ranging and hits on a bunch of key policy themes that matter – both now and in the years ahead.

It’s been a big week in China, with the annual government meetings (aka the Two Sessions) kicking off to lay out key policy priorities for the year – and to drop a draft version of the 15th Five Year Plan (FYP).
There’s a ton of policy to wade through in both the annual government work reports and the FYP – from macro, to tech, to healthcare, to bio-manufacturing, and more.
On this week’s Trivium China Podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined by six different Trivium policy specialists to walk through their initial takes on what matters most in latest releases.
Then on the second half of the pod, Andrew is joined by Ilaria Mazzocco, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss all the latest in the China electric vehicle (EV) space. Ilaria gets into:
Successes and failures of Chinese industrial policy in supporting EVs
The role of the private sector in realizing China’s EV dominance
How countries throughout the world are responding to the Chinese EV juggernaut – from the US, to the EU, to a range of emerging markets – as they seek to protect or grow their own advanced manufacturing capabilities
How it all plays into various national conceptions of economic security – in both China and the West
The conversation is a must listen for anyone who cares about the future of global electrification, as well as issues of economic security.

2026 has kicked off with a geopolitical bang – from US intervention in Venezuela to threats against Greenland to potential military action against Iran, not to mention the latest tariff turmoil following last week’s US Supreme Court ruling.
All of this volatility – and what it might say about the role the US will play in the world going forward – can lead to some pretty lazy assumptions that China will automatically benefit by easily positioning itself as a stabilizing global force. 
But reality is more complicated: Chinese leaders are likely just as befuddled by the rapidly changing landscape as their counterparts in NATO.
On this week’s Trivium China podcast, host Andrew Polk sits down with Jude Blanchette, director of the RAND China Research Center, to unpack how China actually sees “The Rupture” in global politics.
This is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
But wait, there’s more! Before talking with Jude, Andrew is joined by Trivium’s Head of Markets Research Dinny McMahon to discuss Beijing‘s recent focus on the need to “invest in people,” and the step-change that might signal for the buildout of China’s welfare state during the next five-year plan period.

It's been a while between trips, but last week Trivium's Head of Markets Research, Dinny McMahon, was back in Beijing.
In this podcast, he and Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk discuss Dinny's observations and takeaways from the trip.
After dissecting the vibe on the street, the gents get into:
Where there might be some potential for investment growth this year
Why the only thing that will unlock household spending is a housing market recovery
This one is short and sweet, so please enjoy this fun-sized pod. 
And a note to listeners: 
The pod will be off for the Lunar New Year next week.
But we'll be back in your feeds after the holiday with some exciting new content, so stay tuned!