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Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future

By (author) Dan Wang

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For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wangâ€”â€œa gifted observer of contemporary Chinaâ€ (Ross Douthat)â€”has been living through the countryâ€™s astonishing, messy progress. Chinaâ€™s 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 realityâ€”political repression and astonishing growthâ€”is not a paradox, but rather a feature of Chinaâ€™s engineering mindset. In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding Chinaâ€”one 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 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. 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 engineeringâ€”and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.

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