Recommendations you can check.
by Jordan Schneider
Who uses, recommends or left China Talk, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.
3 people
Straightforward coverage of all things China. Jordan's one of best, and I've been a long time fan and supporter!
Doug O'Laughlin's Substack recommendations page (no publication date shown on page; date is fetch date, 2026-09-25) — he personally blurbs newsletters he recommends to his subscribers (undated page)
When this is good and on point, it is very, very good, and provides essential perspective I couldn’t have found elsewhere, especially when doing key interviews.
A post going through the blogs and newsletters he recommends and why, written after declining offers of reciprocal recommendations.
2025-06-30·thezvi.substack.com ↗
An incredible wealth of timely information about China-related stuff
Noah Smith's own recommendation blurb for the newsletter ChinaTalk, on their Substack's recommendations page.
2023-10-19·noahpinion.blog ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.