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Alice Han

Director; Co-Host, China Decode, Greenmantle

Search every verified Alice Han interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Alice Han, a director at Greenmantle and former co-host of the China Decode podcast, has recently appeared on multiple programs to discuss U.S.-China relations, AI competition, and China's technological and economic trajectory. In late September 2026, she commented on Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the U.S., describing the summit as high on pageantry but low on substance. She said that China perceives a stronger negotiating position as the U.S. faces geopolitical distractions, and she predicted that Beijing would press for concessions on Taiwan, AI, and trade while seeking workarounds to U.S. chip restrictions. Han also stated that some U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, may seek an AI arms control legacy akin to Henry Kissinger's, but she noted that President Trump and key advisers remain resistant to AI regulation. Han has also discussed China's AI and robotics advancements, arguing that the real AI race involves embedding technology into the physical economy. She cited data showing China installing over half of the world's new industrial robots and predicted that Chinese humanoid robots and industrial automation would become a major global trend. She expressed skepticism about U.S. efforts to contain China's tech rise, noting that China is ramping up domestic memory chip production and finding offshore training workarounds. Additionally, Han predicted that China's STAR Market could surpass the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's total market cap within a decade, driven by high-tech manufacturing and AI listings. She also commented on Microsoft's retreat from China, arguing that the company still sells Azure and AI services to Chinese firms like ByteDance and Tencent.

Recent appearances

  • Trump Meets Xi — But China Has NEVER Been Stronger

    September 24, 2026 · 📺 Raging Moderates and The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Scott Galloway is joined today by Alice Han for a deep dive into one of the most consequential diplomatic events of Trump's second term: Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States in nearly a decade. Trump personally welcomed Xi at Andrews Air Force Base — the first U.S. president since JFK to receive a foreign counterpart there — rolling out the full diplomatic spectacle of a state dinner and red carpet welcome. Ahead of Xi's arrival, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have extended their trade truce until January. But underneath th…

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  • US geopolitical 'quagmire' is playing into China's hands, says Greenmantle's Alice Han

    September 24, 2026 · 📺 CNBC International Live

    Greenmantle’s Alice Han says China sees a stronger hand in U.S.-China negotiations as Washington becomes more distracted by geopolitical conflicts. She expects Beijing to press for concessions on Taiwan, AI and trade while finding workarounds to U.S. chip restrictions.

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  • Fed Hikes Rates For First Time In 3 Years — Here’s Why It Matters

    September 17, 2026 · 📺 Prof G Markets

    Ed Elson is joined by Robert Armstrong to break down the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates and what a high rate environment means for the markets. Then, Alice Han returns to break down how China has responded to the AI apocalypse fears in the U.S. Finally, Ed shares his thoughts on the news that the EU invited Canada to become its first associate member. Robert Armstrong is the author of the Unhedged Newsletter and US financial commentator for the Financial Times. Alice Han is a Director at Greenmantle. Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 00:41 - Market Vitals 01:07 - Fed Hikes Rates (ft. Robert…

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  • Could China Replace the U.S. as the Global Superpower? | China Decode

    September 15, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    After a year of decoding China's rise, Alice Han and James Kynge sit down for one final episode, and they go big picture on where China goes from here. First: the real AI race isn't just about who has the best model — it's about who embeds AI into the physical economy fastest. China spent roughly 23x less than the U.S. on private AI investment in 2025, yet is shipping ten times more humanoid robots and deploying industrial AI robots at nearly nine times the U.S. rate. Alice and James dig into the shifting balance of AI talent, chips, and capability — and make their predictions on who leads ne…

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  • China's Pharma Industry Is Booming — Here's Why | China Decode

    September 08, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge look ahead to Trump and Xi's September 24 meeting in Washington, set against a busy stretch of Xi diplomacy, from the SCO summit to a first-ever trip to India, plus talk of a possible Trump-Putin-Xi trilateral in November. They dig into how trade, rare earths, and soybean purchases are shifting the leverage between the two powers, and whether the fight over AI dominance deserves more attention than the trade deficit. Then: Ruby Wang, author of China Cure: The Rise of a Biotech, AI Medicine and Global Health Superpower, joins to unpack China's rapid rise in pharmaceut…

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  • Is China Winning the Global AI Trust War? | China Decode

    September 01, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge start with the global AI race after an OpenAI system reportedly broke free and hacked into Hugging Face — a mess that pushed Hugging Face toward Chinese firm Z.ai's open-source model, and gave Z.ai an opening to argue China's open-weight approach is the safer one. They dig into a suspected Chinese bot farm quietly fueling U.S. opposition to AI data centers, Bill Gates's push for a sit-down with Xi on AI risk, and striking new polling on just how differently Chinese and American publics feel about trusting AI. Then: as U.S.-Canada trade talks collapse into a new round…

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  • The China Robot Boom Is Here | China Decode

    August 25, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge start in Taipei, where the government has approved a record $35 billion defense budget for 2027 — an 18.2% jump — coming right on the heels of this year's Han Kuang drills, which mobilized nearly 22,000 reservists and adopted U.S.-style command tactics for the first time. They dig into what it means for Taiwan's military readiness, and whether this is more about deterring China or convincing Washington. Then: Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan — once China's richest man — has been sentenced to life in prison for financial fraud on a staggering scale, closing the book on t…

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  • Why Microsoft Is Quietly Abandoning China | China Decode

    August 18, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge break down Microsoft's five-year retreat from China — shuttered offices, closed retail stores, and thousands of jobs wound down — while the company quietly keeps selling Azure and AI services to Chinese giants like ByteDance and Shein. They dig into what's driving the pullback, whether this is the decoupling everyone's been warning about, and the irony that Microsoft's Beijing R&D center helped train alumni now leading rivals like DeepSeek and SenseTime. Then: former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji — the man who steered China into the WTO in 2001 and became known as "Chin…

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  • China's Plan to Win Over the World with Free AI | China Decode

    July 28, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge break down Xi Jinping's pitch at the World AI Conference in Shanghai: free, open-source Chinese AI models for developing nations shut out by expensive U.S. systems. They dig into WAICO, the new 29-member intergovernmental AI organization China just launched, how it echoes (and diverges from) the Belt and Road and Digital Silk Road playbooks, and whether China's open-source generosity can actually last. Then: mathematicians Yu Deng and Hong Wang just became the first two Chinese nationals to win a Fields Medal in the same year — only the second and third Chinese natio…

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  • China Just Passed America in Global Popularity. Here's Why It Matters. | China Decode

    July 21, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge start with Trump's claim that China ran an influence operation using voter files from over 220 million Americans, and why Beijing is calling it fabricated. They dig into what the underlying intelligence actually shows, how it lands just two months before Trump's planned visit to China, and what it means that global public opinion is now tilting toward Xi over Trump. Then, Selina Xu, head of China research for former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, joins to talk about her recent trip to China with Schmidt, where the U.S. and China each have the edge in the AI race, how cultu…

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  • China Just Dropped Its Jobs Target for the First Time in Decades | China Decode

    July 14, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge look at why, for the first time in decades, China's new Five-Year Plan sets no numerical target for urban job creation. With unemployment at 5.1%, producer prices at a four-year high, and AI anxiety rippling through the labor market, what does it mean when Beijing, a government that treats jobs numbers as sacred, stops setting one? Then: Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder in Manus, the Chinese AI agent startup Meta tried to buy for $2 billion before Beijing forced the deal to unwind. Alice and James unpack why Chinese regulators intervened, what ha…

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  • China Tests Ballistic Missile, Europe's AC Addiction, & China's AI Coding Challenger | China Decode

    July 07, 2026 · 📺 The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway

    Alice Han and James Kynge start with China's latest ballistic missile test into the Pacific and what it means alongside a new Australia-Fiji defense pact. Then: Europe wants to shrink its record trade deficit with China, but its worst heat wave on record has sent demand for Chinese air conditioners soaring. They break down whether the two sides can actually cooperate on AI and renewable energy even as tensions rise. Plus: Z.ai just launched ZCode, a coding agent for its GLM-5.2 model said to rival Claude and ChatGPT. Alice and James discuss how big a threat this is to U.S. AI dominance, as w…

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Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“They can talk about cooperating while not cooperating. That is what I think will end up happening. They will both say, 'Hey, we're going to work towards humanity because we're the two main powers with pretty much most of the AI capabilities at this point.' And this will be great for world peace and for our bilateral relationship. I do know for a fact that there are some members of the US administration. Here I point ”

“I ran the numbers actually of from Xi's last visit, state visit in 2015 with Obama. The GDP nominal GDP has doubled from around 11 trillion to 20 north of 20 trillion today and the defense budget spending has almost doubled. China is in a very different position economically, militarily, geopolitically and technologically than it was in 2017 and even 2015. And that changes the balance of power in the relationship. It”

“I do sense that the elites in China have understood the politicization of AI. I've sensed this as early as the summer that the writing was on the wall for these large language models coming out of these hyperscalers and closed frontier labs because they had an inordinate amount of power and that the electorate was becoming more and more worried about what I would say is the consolidation of economic, political, and i”

“I think this is the real critical balancing act of our time. Both countries need to figure out what the right mix is. In the US, you have this sense that we're going full skelter into innovation at all costs and we're starting to see some of the political backlash as a result. In China, there is a feeling that they do need to protect the domestic ecosystem by putting in these safety guidelines, registrations, safety ”

“The area that's catching mice in China right now is factory and industrial automation. And last year, China installed 295,000 new industrial robots. That makes up over 54% of all industrial robot installations throughout the world. And it's that that you and I have seen in factories and in exhibition centers all over China. It's that that's really moving the needle. I mean, my favorite example of this is the absolute”

“I think one of the things we've really tried to do on China Decode is to put the right frame around the many many different topics that we see coming out of China and involving China and the US and China and Europe and China and the rest of the world. And so I spent a little bit of time thinking about the correct frame for China's advances and progress in artificial intelligence. And I would have to say that really I”

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