The Engineering State and the Lawyerly Society: Dan Wang on his new book "Breakneck"
Sinica Podcast21 Aug 2025

The Engineering State and the Lawyerly Society: Dan Wang on his new book "Breakneck"

This week on Sinica, I'm delighted to be joined by Dan Wang, formerly of Gavekal Dragonomics and the Paul Tsai Law Center at Yale University, now with the Hoover Institute's History Lab. Dan's new book is Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, and it's already one of the year's most talked-about books. In this conversation, we go beyond what's actually in the book to discuss the origins and implications of the Chinese "engineering state" — the world's biggest technocratic polity — and what the United States should and should not learn from China. We discuss how Dan's ideas sit with Abundance by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, and much more. Don't miss this episode!

03:51 – Guitar industry in Guizhou

09:49 – Engineering state vs. lawyerly society

23:13 – Downsides of the engineering state

34:24 – Process knowledge: U.S. vs. China

43:01 – Attitudes toward technology: U.S. vs China

52:32 – Historical roots of the engineering state in China

59:48 – Building institutions that bind outcomes to rights

01:04:15 – What can be learned from the COVID lockdowns

01:07:51 – The tradeoff between resilience and efficiency

01:10:52 – Dan's view on Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein's "Abundance" argument

01:13:41 – Legitimacy in China and the U.S.

01:21:13 – Building toward cultural pluralism


Paying it Forward: Afra Wang, He Liu.


Recommendations:

Dan: Mozart's Italian operas, written with Lorenzo Da Ponte; The Red and the Black by Stendhal; In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust; Moby Dick by Herman Melville; Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

Kaiser: China is enjoying Trump 2.0 by Yun Sun (article), books: Revolutionary Spring, The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Avsnitt(538)

Lizzi Lee on Involution, Overcapacity, and China's Economic Model

Lizzi Lee on Involution, Overcapacity, and China's Economic Model

This week on Sinica, I chat with Lizzi Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute and one of the sharpest China analysts working today. We dig into the 4th Plenary Sessi...

5 Nov 20251h 24min

Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on Shifting Views of China

Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on Shifting Views of China

This week on Sinica, I chat with Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, about how the journal has both shaped and reflected American discourse on China during a period of dramatic shifts in t...

30 Okt 20251h 5min

The View from Behind Xi Jinping's Desk, with Jonathan Czin

The View from Behind Xi Jinping's Desk, with Jonathan Czin

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I speak with Jonathan Czin, the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. His new ...

21 Okt 20251h 19min

The Symbolism of the Flying Tigers: Peking University's Wang Dong on the American Volunteer Group and its Historical and Diplomatic Usages

The Symbolism of the Flying Tigers: Peking University's Wang Dong on the American Volunteer Group and its Historical and Diplomatic Usages

This week on Sinica, I chat with Peking University's Professor Wang Dong (王栋), an international relations scholar at the School of International Studies at Peking University, where he also serves as D...

29 Sep 202538min

Jasmine Sun on Silicon Valley through a Chinese Mirror

Jasmine Sun on Silicon Valley through a Chinese Mirror

This week on Sinica, co-host Tianyu Fang makes his debut on the show to join me in interviewing his Stanford classmate and talented writer Jasmine Sun, who studies the anthropology of disruption. This...

22 Sep 20251h 11min

Yascha Mounk on China and Western Liberalism

Yascha Mounk on China and Western Liberalism

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with well-known author and public intellectual Yascha Mounk about his recent fascination with China, his approach to learning about the country and learning Chi...

17 Sep 20251h 22min

What Did the September 3 Parade Mean?

What Did the September 3 Parade Mean?

This week on Sinica, I speak first with retired Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, a frequent commentator on Chinese military and security affairs and a prolific writer now at the Center for International Securi...

10 Sep 20251h 43min

What Does China Want? The Authors of a New Paper Challenge the DC Consensus

What Does China Want? The Authors of a New Paper Challenge the DC Consensus

This week on Sinica, I chat with Dave Kang (USC), Zenobia Chan (Georgetown), and Jackie Wong (American University in Sharjah, UAE) about their new paper in International Security titled "What Does Chi...

2 Sep 20251h 29min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
badfluence
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
rss-svart-marknad
rss-borsens-finest
avanzapodden
svd-tech-brief
uppgang-och-fall
rss-dagen-med-di
fill-or-kill
lastbilspodden
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
dynastin
24fragor
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
rss-den-nya-ekonomin
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
bathina-en-podcast
borsmorgon