I've been reading Dan Wang’s "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future" (August 2025). The book examines China’s rise as an engineering state contrasted with the U.S.’s lawyerly society. A central point that Wang repeatedly underlines is that "China is an engineering state, which can’t stop itself from building, facing off against America’s lawyerly society, which blocks everything it can." The United States, by contrast, "has a government of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers," Wang says. "Lawyers have so many tools available to delay or prevent building," and the mission of the procedure-obsessed U.S. lawyers seems to be "to stop as many things as possible."
Wang acknowledges that this is not always bad. Lawyers do important work. Stopping bad things is good. But on the other hand, stopping good things is bad.
Based on Wang’s own experiences in China, the book argues that China’s approach to problem-solving - whether building infrastructure or managing society - relies on decisive, often heavy-handed action, likened to wielding a sledgehammer.
This contrasts with the U.S., where legal and regulatory barriers often impede progress. The book frames the U.S.-China rivalry, including trade and tech conflicts, while highlighting shared traits: both nations are restless innovators shaping global change, defying simplistic labels like socialist or neoliberal.
Wang warns that the U.S. could fall into decadence and retreat into digital irrelevancies. Meanwhile, "Xi will be shepherding Chinese through the physical world to make babies, make steel, and make semiconductors."
"Breakneck" blends personal narratives with analysis. Wang describes China’s "socialism with Chinese characteristics" as delivering abundance, producing more steel than the rest of the world combined and building functional cities with ample housing and transit. However, he critiques its social engineering, notably the one-child policy, which involved forced sterilizations and abortions, treating people as malleable resources and leaving lasting trauma.
Science and technology, space and AI
Wang highlights China’s manufacturing dominance, leading in electric vehicles, solar (90% of global industry), and robotics, driven by “process knowledge” and entrepreneurial energy, not just state planning.
When it comes to science and advanced technology, China "is dedicating enormous resources to pursuing better science." Wang underlines that China was the first country to land a rover on the far side of the moon or to achieve quantum-encrypted communication by satellite. These advances show that "China is steadily investing in scientific capabilities that give it the power to achieve increasingly difficult tasks." Wang notes that China is vigorously pursuing the plan to land people on the moon by 2030. Many aerospace commentators see a very real possibility that China will be the first to return astronauts to the Moon.
Yet, Wang notes weaknesses: overbuilding, economic imbalances, and a lag in cultural production and soft power. In AI, China trails due to a less creative innovation ecosystem. Yet, "China has advantages it can bring to bear in artificial intelligence," Wang observes. "Chinese AI researchers haven’t been laggards. They publish a great number of papers on AI, and its companies have released models that score highly on technical benchmarks." He notes that the Chinese AI model DeepSeek has been developed "with costs that are a fraction of those demanded by OpenAI’s ChatGPT." This shows the vitality of Chinese AI research.
The state, however, seems interested in AI mainly for "censorship, facial recognition, and other means of control," not to mention military applications. "I do not think that outright war between the United States and China is certain to happen," wang says. "But each side is closely studying the other’s military strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of conflict."
Left and right
The final chapter reflects on the glorious story of engineering in the U.S. and Wang’s family’s emigration from China to Canada. Wang advocates for mutual learning to avoid self-defeating narratives in a multipolar world. He has advice for both the "procedure-obsessed left" in the U.S., which should learn to appreciate and support builders, and the U.S. right, which should "remember that the government is capable of building mighty works too." I think U.S. politicians should listen to Wang's advice.
Interview with Ross Douthat
In a September 2025 New York Times podcast, Interesting Times, Ross Douthat interviews Dan Wang about "Breakneck," exploring China’s potential as a global superpower and U.S. vulnerabilities. Douthat is the author of many thoughtful books, including "The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success," which is very relevant to this topic.
In the interview Wang, who lived in China from 2017 to 2023, described China’s engineering-driven model versus America’s lawyerly stagnation, framing their competition.
Wang shared a 2021 bike ride in Guizhou, China’s fourth-poorest province, where infrastructure - bridges, highways, airports - outshines wealthier U.S. regions. He attributed this to China’s engineering state, led by technocrats since Deng Xiaoping’s 1980s reforms, contrasting with U.S. legalistic barriers that stall projects like New York’s Port Authority refurbishment. China’s leaders, often engineers, treat the economy as a hydraulic system, redirecting resources decisively, as seen in Xi Jinping’s 2020–2022 crackdowns on tech giants like Alibaba, erasing $1 trillion in market value to prioritize strategic sectors like semiconductors.
Douthat probed China’s ambitions: global hegemony or regional dominance? Wang leans toward the latter, seeing China as a "serene empire" focused on self-sufficiency and East Asian influence (e.g., Taiwan, Vietnam), not cultural exports. On AI, Wang is skeptical, comparing China’s adoption to a novice cook with advanced tools - unlikely to lead without creative ecosystems. China excels in hardware (e.g., 90% of rare earth magnets, 35% of global manufacturing), but overbuilding and social engineering, like the one-child policy’s brutal enforcement, reveal flaws. This policy, executed in the 1980s with forced sterilizations, created a demographic crisis China struggles to reverse.
Wang critiqued U.S. deindustrialization, noting the loss of “process knowledge” as firms like Apple outsourced to China, training its workforce. He cited U.S. failures in producing simple goods and munitions, risking military disadvantage. While America remains dynamic, Wang warned of economic decline if services dominate over manufacturing. He doubts tariffs will reverse this, advocating for industrial policy and scientific investment.
Douthat questioned if Chinese emigration undermines China’s strength. Wang argued China’s manufacturing might still prevails. He rejects ideological framings (democracy vs. autocracy), urging both nations to focus on delivering for their people - affordable housing, economic stability. Wang sees a decades-long rivalry, not a singular technology like AI determining the outcome, and calls for the U.S. to rebuild its industrial base to compete.