{"id":162900,"date":"2025-08-17T04:41:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=162900"},"modified":"2025-08-17T04:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:44:14","slug":"the-engineered-chinese-state-vs-lawyerly-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=162900","title":{"rendered":"The Engineered Chinese State Vs Lawyerly America"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Financial Times writes<\/a>: “China is run as an engineering state that excels at construction while the US has become a lawyerly society that favours obstruction. By 2020 all nine members of the Chinese Politburo\u2019s standing committee had trained as engineers. By contrast, the US has turned into a \u201cgovernment of the lawyers, by the lawyers and for the lawyers.\u201d”<\/p>\n

Amazon says about this new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future<\/a>: <\/p>\n

A riveting, firsthand investigation of China\u2019s seismic progress, its human costs, and what it means for America.<\/p>\n

For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang\u2015\u201ca gifted observer of contemporary China\u201d (Ross Douthat)\u2015has been living through the country\u2019s astonishing, messy progress. China\u2019s towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time. But rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout the society. This reality\u2015political repression and astonishing growth\u2015is not a paradox, but rather a feature of China\u2019s engineering mindset.<\/p>\n

In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding China\u2015one that helps us see America more clearly, too. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the United States has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad<\/p>\n

Blending razor-sharp analysis with immersive storytelling, Wang offers a gripping portrait of a nation in flux. Breakneck traverses metropolises like Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, where the engineering state has created not only dazzling infrastructure but also a sense of optimism. The book also exposes the downsides of social engineering, including the surveillance of ethnic minorities, political suppression, and the traumas of the one-child policy and zero-Covid.<\/p>\n

In an era of animosity and mistrust, Wang unmasks the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck reveals how each country points toward a better path for the other: Chinese citizens would be better off if their government could learn to value individual liberties, while Americans would be better off if their government could learn to embrace engineering\u2015and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Financial Times writes: “China is run as an engineering state that excels at construction while the US has become a lawyerly society that favours obstruction. By 2020 all nine members of the Chinese Politburo\u2019s standing committee had trained as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4708],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162903,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162900\/revisions\/162903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}