Mandate of AI

Silicon Valley believes its founders are carrying the future of AI into being. In China, who carries it?

May 11 • afra

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April 2026

The Center and The Periphery

I wrote a piece about jailbreaking iPhones as a teenager, LLM distillation, Huaqiangbei, Charles Dickens, Henry Ford, and the spirit that lives between…

Apr 7 • afra

17

5

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March 2026

China OS vs. America OS (2026 version)

Another unfiltered conversation: the bloodline politics of AI talent; open source as strategy? token-maxxing; why OpenClaw hit China harder than Silicon…

Mar 31 • afra

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First, Dig the Latrines

The Morning Star of Lingao is China's cult industrial time-travel novel. Its main author has some thoughts on AGI, power, China's media landscape, and…

Mar 17 • afra

66

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14

February 2026

An AI-Maxi New Year

China's Spring Festival was drenched in AI—from Jia Zhangke's short film to robots on the gala stage; Notes from a society embracing the same technology…

Feb 18 • afra

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January 2026

We Are All Wall Dancers Now

A conversation with Yi-Ling Liu about "The Wall Dancers," her new book on the Chinese internet. We discussed freedom, control, living within truth, and…

Jan 28 • afra

51

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November 2025

Reading Breakneck from China

How diaspora readers debate China as “engineering state,” America decline, civil society’s collapse, rule of law vs. rule by man, and what it means to…

Nov 19, 2025 • afra

77

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Story of A Beijing Vibe Coder

From burning through $50,000 in Claude Code tokens per month to building global software products from Beijing apartments—how resource scarcity is…

Nov 7, 2025 • afra

170

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32

October 2025

The China Tech Canon

How does the paideía of the Chinese tech elite differ from their counterparts in Silicon Valley?

Oct 22, 2025 • afra

197

8

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The Room Where AI Happens

A weekend at the Curve conference—an AI insider gathering in Berkeley revealed how people think about AGI timelines, China, creativity, and writing

Oct 10, 2025 • afra

42

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September 2025

AI Prophecy from Hangzhou

China's first ASI evangelist, Alibaba's Yunqi Conference, more vibe shift

Sep 24, 2025 • afra

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Topology of "China AI"

On circles, misconceptions, deep infrastructure, founder archetypes, state's role, memes, AGI. A conversation about the topology of China’s AI world for…

Sep 11, 2025 • afra

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