China builds, US argues

Dan Wang’s Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future is a timely and much-needed work to understand what drives the construction obsession of the Chinese state. Breakneck is the apt word to describe the speed at which China is building and constructing. The author is a Canadian technology analyst and writer who specialises in contemporary China. A research fellow at the Hoover Institution, he is also a visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

Reading the book while Beijing unveiled its tallest bridge in Guizhou Province —cutting travel time from two hours to two minutes — proved prophetic. Wang discusses why the Chinese state is obsessed with mega projects, and this news puts his argument into perspective. He writes, “Call it propaganda of the deed, but one way to impress a billion-plus people is to pour a lot of concrete.” Beijing is not only constructing at home but also exporting its formula to the world through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The book is woven with personal experiences and anecdotes and provides a nuanced understanding of the path Beijing has adopted for growth and development. Wang’s core idea is to compare, contrast and predict which country, China or the United States, is better positioned for the future. His central argument is that the United States and China “are inversions of each other” and that both can learn from one another. Wang calls the Chinese state an engineering state, while the United States is one driven by lawyers. He argues that as Washington lost its “enthusiasm for engineers,” China embraced engineering in all its dimensions. Its leaders are not only civil or electrical engineers — they are, fundamentally, social engineers.

The planning and execution of the One-Child Policy and the Zero-Covid Policy, he writes, could only be achieved in an engineering state, especially one driven by data. It is a state that does not consider its citizens to have emotions and is obsessed with controlling and commanding their bodies, minds and souls. This argument strengthens when he notes, “The Communist Party continues to build because it’s full of engineers and also because Marxist-Leninists don’t want to cede economic agency to the people.”

Protecting the wealthy

He calls the United States a country today driven — or rather stalled — by lawyers, a total contrast to Beijing. Chinese leaders for generations have been engineers, while most American leaders and policymakers have prominently been lawyers. “The United States is still a superpower that is able to outclass China on many dimensions,” Wang argues, “but it is also in the grips of an ineffectual state where people are increasingly concerned with safeguarding a comfortable way of life.”

Lawyers, he observes, are primarily focused on protecting the wealthy, and their dominance has pushed the cost and timeline of major infrastructure projects in the United States, becoming a major criticism and hurdle for American society today. The United States needs to build, as most of its infrastructure is dated, dilapidated, and in need of upgrade.

Written around the achievements and challenges faced by both Beijing and Washington in the last four decades, Wang makes a heartfelt comparison of the two countries, governments and societies. He asserts, “The future would be better if China could learn to build less, while the United States learns to build more.” He also notes that for more than four decades, China and the United States “have been complementary to each other.” The “commitment to transformation is an ideology that both the United States and China share.” Yet, when it comes to transformation, while the United States celebrates innovation, China is a technological power today primarily because of “its spectacular capacity for learning by doing and consistently improving things.”

Beyond data and timelines

What stands out is an interesting point Wang makes about the adjective “developing.” He argues that the United States should also consider itself a developing country, just as China does, because: “Isn’t it better than to be a ‘developed’ one, which implies that you’re done, finished, at the end of the road?”

The author beautifully juxtaposes the differences and similarities between the two major global economies. He rightly asserts that the “United States has pluralistic values, which positions it to better figure out the right solutions.” His argument that China must recognise that mega projects and “literal-minded solutions” cannot alone define its future path is persuasive. China needs to extend agency to its people and believes that “their creative energy could bring as much prestige to China as great public works.”

The book is a beautiful comparison of China and the United States that moves beyond data and timelines, providing a glimpse into how the two nations are inherently tuned to behave and act. It is this inherent difference, Wang shows, that makes their relationship interesting and their future interdependent. Breakneck does not merely compare two powers; it dissects their temperaments. Where America litigates, China constructs. Where the United States safeguards rights, China engineers results. Both, Wang concludes, are incomplete without the other.