Breakneck

Great overview of China's engineering-driven approach in contrast to the US legalistic approach, and why both countries need to learn from each other

I recommend reading the author’s book announcement which clearly states the thesis of the book:

China is an engineering state, which brings a sledgehammer to problems both physical and social, in contrast with America’s lawyerly society, which brings a gavel to block almost everything, good and bad.

Some will be turned off by anything that seems to be critical to the US, which is a mistake here. The book explains how much of what China has done in the past few decades is exactly what the US used to do decades ago: build infrastructure to improve life for citizens. Lawyers, often in service of the wealthy, have managed to block much of the progress that was once common in the US. Wang writes:

The United States had lost something special over the past four decades. While China was building the future, America had become physically static, its innovations mostly bound up in the virtual and financial worlds.

Wang thankfully spends much more time explaining Chinese policy over the last few decades than it does American policy, a good decision given the American policy history would be old news for most readers. He devotes a lot of time covering the disastrous one-child policy and as well as the more recent zero-COVID policy, how both were driven by an engineering mindset that fails to account for human factors.

On a personal note, I spent a little time working in China twenty years ago and visited many of the locations mentioned in the book. However, everything seems unrecognizable now given the rapid pace of change in China. I’d love to return, though (as covered in the book) it’s getting harder and harder for westerners to visit China these days.