In his new book, author Dan Wang compares China’s “engineering” state that is enabling its rapid rise on the tech ladder, with U.S. policy and immigration rules that threaten to dent its edge.

While Americans lament their crumbling infrastructure, China is rapidly expanding high-speed rail, subway systems, and airports across the country. Chinese tech products, from autonomous vehicles to drones to addiction-inducing algorithms, have won over global consumers and put companies such as BYD, DJI, and TikTok in pole position.

China’s prowess in engineering and manufacturing is now at the center of the U.S.–China rivalry in artificial intelligence. Despite Washington’s efforts to block China from advancing in AI, the country has continued to make progress in developing chips and training state-of-the-art large language models.

Dan Wang moved to Canada at age seven from Yunnan in southwestern China. A former tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, his stints in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai allowed him to closely observe China’s trajectory. In his new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, Wang compares the country’s “engineering” state, which favors large-scale manufacturing, with America’s “lawyerly” society, which he believes hinders new construction and development.

  • IllNess@infosec.pub
    6·
    2 days ago

    As the U.S. government decided to restrict some technologies to China, it should have been more serious about these restrictions. But due to a somewhat permissive licensing policy maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce, due to the Chinese firms being able to smuggle or buy these technologies on the black market, due to the fierce resilience of companies like Huawei that refused to fail, and due to the very extensive lobbying efforts of American companies to continue to supply to Chinese customers, the export control policy was severely weakened.

    I never really thought about the black market. If each country has a different tariff depending on their relationship to this administration, then a country that doesn’t comply can still get what they need from the US through other countries. Really best of both worlds.

    It doesn’t make sense to turn off the U.S. as an attractor to some of the scientists yearning for some aspect of freedom, and it doesn’t make sense to deport a lot of people who could form the manufacturing industrial base in the U.S.

    I never understood why the US would educate people and then try to kick them out in a short time frame. You are basically making other countries better and gaining little from it.

    • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
      9·
      2 days ago

      I never understood why the US would educate people and then try to kick them out in a short time frame. You are basically making other countries better and gaining little from it.

      I agree, but at the same time… this is the same country that gave their own citizens (3 entire generations!) lead poisoning and used to lobotomize women. So, I am afraid that expecting intelligence, humanity, and logic from the US can only lead to heartbreak and disappointment.