What this covers
In just a few years, the narrative on China has almost completely flipped. The dominant sentiments in America had been awe, envy and a kind of fear. China’s growth seemed relentless. Its manufacturing prowess was lapping ours. It weathered the pandemic without the mass death seen in the West. It could build housing and transit and infrastructure at a speed we could no longer even imagine.
And then, as 2022 ticked over to 2023, things changed. China’s real estate bubble popped. Its Zero Covid policies turned pathological. Its leader, Xi Jinping, turned what many saw as a technocracy with autocratic characteristics into something closer to a plain old autocracy. Foreign investors began looking to diversify. Companies that had long relied on China, like Apple, began trying in earnest to build manufacturing chains elsewhere. And under President Biden, American policy toward China began to match Trumpian rhetoric toward China: Slowing China’s rise, and building America’s ability to manufacture crucial goods, became central goals.
So what’s true about China right now? Which of these narratives, if any, hold water? Dan Wang is the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics and a visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. He focuses particularly on the core vector of U.S.-China competition: technological innovation and manufacturing prowess. Each year, his annual letter about what China can do, and how it does it, is eagerly awaited by many in the United States who are trying to understand that nation’s rise. In 2020 and 2021, those letters were profoundly bullish on China. In 2022, his sentiments turned. And so I wanted to explore the various sides of the China story with him.
Mentioned:
“China’s Hidden Tech Revolution (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-hidden-tech-revolution-how-beijing-threatens-us-dominance-dan-wang) ” by Dan Wang
2020 Letter (https://danwang.co/2020-letter/) by Dan Wang
2021 Letter (https://danwang.co/2021-letter/) by Dan Wang
2022 Letter (https://danwang.co/2022-letter/) by Dan Wang
Book Recommendations:
The Jesuits (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691180120/the-jesuits) by Markus Friedrich
Last and First Men (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Last_and_First_Men/cgDap5L8fsMC?hl=en) by Olaf Stapledon
Disturbing the Universe (https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/freeman-dyson/disturbing-the-universe/9780465016778/) by Freeman Dyson
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast (https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast) , and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs (https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html) .
“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Pat McCusker and Kristina Samulewski.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts (http://nytimes.com/podcasts) or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Wong argues that China's shift from pragmatic technocratic governance focused on growth to ideologically-driven authoritarianism under Xi Jinping, combined with its alliance with Russia, represents a fundamental deterioration that is eroding both its economic dynamism and its soft power, while simultaneously driving the US and China into mutually destructive competitive decoupling that weakens both countries.
- China's state capacity, once used effectively for pandemic control and manufacturing coordination, is now being applied with destructive excess—lockdowns causing starvation, youth losing freedom to travel, entrepreneurs losing confidence
- US technology containment policies on semiconductors, while intended to block Chinese advancement, likely accelerate China's self-sufficiency while destroying the cooperative relationships (pandemic supplies, renewable energy cost reduction) that had mutual benefit
- Both nations are becoming 'worse versions of each other'—the US prosecuting Chinese scientists and restricting talent, China disciplining private enterprise and closing off the West—driven by security fears that may be self-fulfilling
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China's solar industry dominance represents a public policy success but investor failure: the government declared solar a Strategic Emerging Industry in 2010, subsidized production and consumption heavily, induced numerous companies to enter an increasingly commoditized market, resulting in China controlling ~80% of the global solar value chain but with minimal profit margins for private companies or investors.
“a decision taken by the state Council...to declare solar a strategic emerging industry an SEI in 2010 what happened after the Chinese government designated solar to be a super important industry was that the subsidies were enormous and they flowed in”
One of China's major achievements over the past 25 years was to employ a large growing workforce (expanding until 2015 when the workforce began to shrink) and provide them with things to do by building cities, bridges, roads, housing, and infrastructure at massive scale, creating the basics of an industrial civilization.
“one of the biggest successes I think that China has had over the last 25 years is to employ a lot of people and get them to build a lot of the basics of an industrial civilization that over the last 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic when China was a broken country where a lot of things had already been torn up either by the Japanese invasion or by the enormous Civil War afterwards that they didn't really start with much and every year they've had a lot of expansions in the workforce all the way up until about 2015 when the workforce started to shrink that they needed to employ a lot of people and give them stuff to do and uh you know they are Chinese government has therefore been much more focused on just creating Goods building cities Building Bridges building roads”
In 2020 and 2021, Chinese manufacturers had a 'can-do spirit' where they viewed making money as their core competence and quickly pivoted to producing PPE (masks, rubbing alcohol, personal protective equipment) when the pandemic created demand, in contrast to Western companies that questioned whether mask-making aligned with their core business.
“Chinese companies simply decided that making money is their core competence and therefore they should be making masks”
Historical precedent shows the danger of unchecked state capacity in China: the Ming Dynasty shut down successful treasure fleet exploration because of dislike of coastal development; the one-child policy caused millions of forced sterilizations and killed female infants despite fertility already declining—showing how powerful states can visit trauma on populations for ideological goals, and neither kind of decision would be possible in Western governments.
“a decision in the Ming Dynasty a few centuries ago when one of the Emperors said we have these really marvelous treasure fleets sailing out to Africa...they shut down this entire program of building out the treasure fleets now this decision may be good it may be bad...I think this is just not really something that any other government in Europe at the time would have been able to do”
Xi Jinping has told Chinese scientists they must be patriots first and serve China's strategic goals, and is trying to create Chinese national brands rather than global brands, signaling that China's market is moving away from integration with Western global capitalism.
“Xi Jinping has told our Chinese scientists that they must be Patriots first that they must do national service and service us of a lot of China's strategic goals he has been fairly explicit on that and that it is trying to create Chinese Major Brands instead of global Major Brands”
In advanced economies, talent is probably the most important resource; the US failed strategically by allowing ambitious graduates to pursue careers in finance and consumer internet rather than advanced manufacturing, materials science, and engineering—a failure satirized by the film 'The Graduate' where 'plastics' became a punchline rather than an aspiration.
“I think of talent as you say as probably the most important thing there can be in an economy that the economy really is simply made up of people and the knowledge that they have”
By designating Chinese technology companies to sanctions lists, the US forced them to stop buying American chips, which gave Chinese companies an enormous incentive to develop competitive domestic alternatives—potentially accelerating rather than decelerating China's semiconductor capabilities over the long run.
“a lot of Chinese companies previously were uninterested in buying obviously inferior Chinese Chips that they were much more interested in buying the best products on the market which were overwhelmingly American and after mostly the Trump Administration has designated a lot of China's technology Champions to you know various sanctions lists that after these companies are unable to buy American chips while they really have no choice but to buy Chinese instead that has given them an enormous push”
US-China competition is driving both countries to become worse versions of each other: the US is prosecuting Chinese-heritage scientists over minor research malfeasance, restricting Chinese students/entrepreneurs/workers, and pursuing unfriendly rhetoric; China is disciplining private firms to serve state goals and closing off the West, partly driven by perception of the US as an 'implacably hostile power' wanting China's impoverishment or Communist Party expulsion.
“this competition is making each country internally worse versions of the other that you know I brought up in the US that the US government is you know pretty intent on constraining sales of American companies to China...prosecuting a lot of scientists of uh mostly Chinese Heritage because of you know various pretty small research malfeasance issues”
Noah Smith and economic research suggest that Chinese industrial policy has largely failed: the AI industry lags the US significantly, semiconductor industry development has been a failure, aviation (Comac) can't compete with Airbus or Boeing despite heavy subsidies, China hasn't produced a top-tier car brand, and studies show Chinese firms that received subsidies have negative productivity correlations with subsidies.
“the economist and commentator Noah Smith had an interesting argument about this in his newsletter or where he said that Chinese industrial policy in his view has largely been a failure that you look at its AI industry it's far behind the US its efforts to build an internal semiconductor industry have been a failure we come back to semiconductors that it's Aviation sector has gotten a lot of money but can't compete really at all with Airbus or Boeing it hasn't managed to produce a top car brand there are studies suggesting that if you look at the firms they got Chinese subsidies that their productivity is negatively correlated with getting those subsidies”
Semiconductors are important to the US-China competition for two reasons: (1) chips are ubiquitous in modern products from electric vehicles to internal combustion vehicles to infrastructure, (2) the US has historically dominated semiconductor production but now production has migrated to Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, though the US still dominates semiconductor production equipment (Applied Materials, KLA, Lam Research) and EDA design software.
“chips are in everything these days that chips are in electric vehicles they're in basic Vehicles saw internal combustion Vehicles they are in uh pretty much everything”
The CCP has operated with a marriage between competent government and successful business people dating back centuries, representing a partnership between mandarins trained in classical learning and world-class entrepreneurs—which was on clear display during the pandemic response.
“a marriage that has been in place I I would say for the last few centuries where you have a lot of mandarins who are supposedly very well trained in poetry and classical Chinese locked in a very fertile Embrace with some of the world's best business people”
The Biden Administration views manufacturing dependence and economic interdependence with China as a profound national security vulnerability and is pursuing policies to ensure that in a Taiwan contingency, the US would have manufacturing resilience and technological independence to respond as it would choose.
“the U.S China relationship one thing that that I really hear when I talk to the body Administration is a sense that manufacturing dependence and not just manufacturing dependence but profit dependence uh U.S economic interwovenness with China has become for them much more significant National Security vulnerability”
The pandemic revealed that good US-China relations had tangible benefits: China produced PPE more effectively than the US during COVID, and China tolerated sales of essential goods to the US even when it had leverage—demonstrating that trade relationships enabled cooperation on matters of importance.
“it really was helpful to us so we could get so much protective equipment and other kinds of important goods from China during the depths of the pandemic”
The original iPhone in 2007 had approximately 5% of its value added produced in China (mostly labor assembling components from Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, US), while the iPhone 10 in 2018 had approximately 25% of value added from Chinese companies producing sophisticated components—demonstrating China's rise in the value chain.
“the original iPhone when it first came out and about five percent of its value added are actually produced in China and that was pretty much the value of the labor of work assembling components mostly from Germany Japan Taiwan South Korea and the US and the figure for the iPhone 10 in 2018 is something closer to 25 because a lot of the Chinese companies are able to make the sophisticated components inside the iPhone”
China's strategy has been to prioritize resilience over efficiency, which economists criticize for producing lower returns on equity and return on assets, but this reflects a different and defensible set of priorities—building basic industrial capacity and employment rather than maximizing investor returns.
“the Chinese state has long placed greater value on resilience over efficiency which has dragged down its performance on metrics that economists care about like return on equity”
The US government should reconsider its assumption that only advanced semiconductor and AI competition matters between the US and China; other factors like logistics capacity, production of basic goods, and broad manufacturing workforce are likely more important in an actual geopolitical conflict, and an overemphasis on technology competition may be misguided.
“if I want to create the best case for uh you know whether technology controls are good you know I think a lot of that has to rest on the proposition that a lot of the competition in the future is going to come down to things like Advanced semiconductors...and I'm not totally sold on the case that really the only thing that matters between competition between these two countries is the ability to produce the most advanced chips”
Three major events in 2022 marked a fundamental shift in China's trajectory: (1) enforcement of zero-COVID lockdowns that went too far, causing food insecurity and migration of lockdowns in Shanghai until abrupt abandonment in December, (2) Xi Jinping's consolidation of unchecked power at the 20th Party Congress in October, guaranteeing approximately 20 years of his rule, (3) China's declaration in February of 'limitless friendship' with Russia with 'no forbidden zones' weeks before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
“the first was that uh the enforcement of zero covid went a little bit too far and immigrated a lot of people in China due to lockdowns until they were completely and abruptly abandoned in December”
The real estate sector has been central to Chinese growth, with warnings of a bubble dating back a decade, but year after year the government has managed to stabilize the market through interventions—until 2022 when it melted down.
“there was a real estate bubble that you would hear about these ghost cities full of big apartment buildings and nobody seemed to live in the government had flooded a lot of money into the sector it was accounting for quite a bit of Chinese economic growth despite not seeming like it was using money all the productively and then year after year after year you wouldn't have that pop right you would keep reading you'd check into this on Bloomberg people would still be worried about it but there'd be some turbulence and then China would stabilize the market and they would get through it for another year and then over the last year it has melted down”
The dominant emotion in American political dialogue about China between 2020 and 2021 was envy, based on China's manufacturing prowess, ambitious projects like Made in China 2025 and Belt and Road Initiative, successful pandemic response, and infrastructure-building speed unimaginable to the US.
“the dominant emotion in the American political dialogue about China's envy and that is most true among the people who are counted as most anti-china take Donald Trump he would go on and on about how China was winning how is beating us at everything”
The main impression from Klein's 2012-era trip to China was that all Chinese elites believed if economic growth fell below 8% annually, Chinese society and political stability would crack, driving the party's pragmatic focus on maintaining high growth—but this view has now clearly ended.
“the main impression I had then was that everybody seemed to believe that if economic growth fell under eight percent a year that Chinese Society the sort of political stability of it would crack up and so the party's pragmatism on economics came from this overwhelming View that you really had to maintain a very high level of growth to hold the system stable and what has been interesting to me in the past couple of years has been a clear end of that view right she and others coming to the perspective that they can hold Chinese Society stable even if growth begins to fall”
Talent and the knowledge people possess is probably the most important resource in an advanced economy, and therefore there is a legitimate public policy question about where talent flows and what social value it creates.
“and it connects to something that's in your writing which is that may be the most important resource in an advanced economy is Talent and there is a public interest in where Talent goes”
Klein notes the balloon incident and the geopolitical tensions exemplify a moment of 'heightened tensions' where mistakes or miscalculations could spiral quickly, and the window for cooperation on shared interests (pandemic response, climate, science, manufacturing) is closing as political incentives shift entirely toward escalation and decoupling.
“you have the balloon recently which it's very hard to know what to make of that and might have just been like an honest technical error...but it comes in this sort of moment of height intentions and cancels an important visit it just feels to me...that almost all now of the political incentives on both sides or on escalation and decoupling and it's very easy to imagine ways that could go either wrong in a Flash right wrong through misjudgments or miscalculations or a spiral of retaliation”
The danger of having extreme state capacity is that eventually somebody will want to use it; the seductiveness of believing you can control society leads those in power to increasingly apply control, eventually defining how the government operates—making policy excess and surveillance the default rather than the exception.
“the danger of having a state this powerful is that eventually somebody's going to want to use it and the tendency the um seductiveness of being able to control society when you think you can do it eventually that will come to Define how the government operates”
The Chinese government in 2021 was pursuing a vision of capitalism similar to German industrialization—with medium-to-large manufacturing firms world-dominant in niche technologies, embedded in regulated markets, and maintaining a substantial manufacturing workforce—rather than US-style capitalism driven by consumer internet and finance.
“the Chinese Communist party has decided that they don't very much like capitalism with American characteristics...they were much more skeptical of a mode of growth in which over the last 20 years...growth has been driven very significantly by Silicon Valley...and by Wall Street”
China's problem is sometimes to have too much state capacity and too much of an engineering mindset—able to succeed at controlling problems like pandemic spread (2020-2021) but also able to fail catastrophically by overextending that success, as with Shanghai lockdowns that made 25 million people unable to leave apartments or apartment compounds for two months.
“for about two months 25 million people were not really able to step outside of their apartment doorways or at best travel outside their apartment compounds”
The Chinese government has managed to blow away its enormous stock of human capital through travel restrictions (making it harder to leave than enter), restrictions on passport renewals/issuance (requiring work/school reasons to travel), and tightening constraints on free expression and cultural creativity that cause young Chinese to perceive decreasing freedom.
“the Communist party has quote managed to pull off the impossible blowing away China's enormous stock of human capital”
Wong did not sufficiently appreciate that a government willing to decapitate the online education sector would also have the capacity and will to inflict catastrophe on whole cities, demonstrating that the same state capacity that enables good outcomes can enable terrible ones when deployed without adaptive governance.
“what I did not sufficiently appreciate is it a government that would so casually decapitate the online education sector would also have the will to visit catastrophe upon whole cities”
The Chinese government, feeling strengthened by pandemic success and experiencing confidence and public support, became increasingly assertive both domestically and in pursuing regulatory crackdowns on private sectors starting in summer 2021.
“but one thing that then happens alongside this is that the Chinese government feeling some strength feeling that it is exhibiting confidence it has the support of the people becomes an important ways more assertive at home and one thing that was a major focus of your analysis in 2021 was the set of regulatory crackdowns Beijing launched in that summer particularly around tech companies”
The Chinese government sought to redirect talented physics PhDs and elite graduates away from lucrative positions in hedge funds and consumer internet firms toward roles in semiconductors, meteorology, and chemical engineering to serve strategic national goals.
“the Chinese government is much more keen to say that well you know a lot of these physics phds really ought to be doing something like physics rather than going to work for a hedge fund and they are to some extent closing off these exciting dazzling glamorous opportunities in consumer internet or in finance and really trying to encourage the country's best and brightest to go work in something like semiconductors or meteorology or chemical engineering instead”
Chinese industrial policy in solar succeeded not because China invented solar technology but because the US and Germany did the basic research and achieved scientific maturity, and then China waited for the science to mature before focusing on scaling and manufacturing, building world-class manufacturing capabilities while not yet having world-class scientific capabilities.
“a lot of the science are indeed a lot the basic research and Solar Technologies was made by the US government as well as in Europe to establish the basic scalability of the solar PVS and what happened was that China after waited I think not totally intentionally but was in a good moment to wait for the science to be mature and then focus on scaling and so it built a lot of the manufacturing capabilities China doesn't have still a really excellent world-class scientific capabilities yet but China does have world-class manufacturing capabilities it waited until a lot of the science was mature and then just focused on scaling up this technology”
Too much state capacity may not be good for human flourishing, especially in a state committed to Marxist-Leninist ideology with revisionist ambitions, because the state is able to pursue big projects that might not serve human welfare either domestically or globally.
“perhaps for a human flourishing of various sorts it is a little bit better not able to have so much capability here to be able to do what the state wants especially if the state is and about Marxist leniness power that has some revisionist Tendencies around the world that it is you know continuously able to pursue so many big projects that perhaps this is not the very best thing for human flourishing either in China or globally”
Historically, posting to China used to be a pathway to the highest corporate ranks for American executives, but now China is so different—with data controls and political complexities—that it's viewed as a career quagmire rather than an essential rung on the corporate ladder.
“there were a lot of American Executives who became CEO after spending a couple of years a standard length is something like two to five years running the China operations because that was such a booming Market that everybody really needed to have some exposure to because that could have represented a lot of growth in the future but one of the things that China has done under Xi Jinping is to reject a lot of at least one can say liberal values that these globalist values that are are present in the US as well as in Europe”
Xi Jinping has shown pragmatism and tactical maneuverability in adjusting policies based on feedback, including tweaks to Belt and Road after criticism and reassurance meetings for entrepreneurs after they complained about being neglected—but these tactical adjustments are not being pursued in service of the grander ideological goals, creating conflicts between short-term pragmatism and long-term ideology.
“she is patient that he has some pragmatism that he is capable of tactical maneuver and he has adjusted several things in the past for example under criticism of the Belton Road initiative they made some tweaks there that after entrepreneurs complained in I think something like 2018 of not getting enough love and attention from the government that he was able to you know convene some meetings and try to reassure them the problem I think is that these tactical adjustments are not being missed for the grander Strategic goals”
Wong acknowledges the balloon incident 'could be a defensible position to shoot down the first allegedly spy balloon' but 'to blow out of the sky and incinerate...probably hobbyist balloon of the bottle cap balloon Society' seems disproportionate, suggesting a pattern of escalatory signal-sending.
“I certainly find it uh very uh strange all sorts of these crazy incidents let's say about the balloon that you know I think it could be a defensible position to shoot down the uh first uh let's say allegedly spy balloon let's say you know that surveillance balloon but you know to blow out of the sky and incinerate you know the uh probably hobbyist balloon of the bottle cap balloon Society you know that seems uh just a little bit weird to me”
Klein argues that American readers reflexively treat the 2020 narrative about welcoming China to the global system as an obvious historical mistake, but this misses the countervailing tangible benefits: the 97 percent drop in renewable pricing from Chinese manufacturing, pandemic-era PPE production, and scientific and manufacturing integration that would be foregone in decoupling.
“everybody goes back now in America and thinks it's such an obvious mistake that we welcome China to a global system and they don't weigh on the other side say the drop in renewable pricing they're making a mistake”
Technological growth in the West has broadly slowed because pushing the technological frontier forward is increasingly difficult (Moore's Law in semiconductors approaching its limits), so China will likely be able to solve remaining technological deficiencies through engineering effort since these are mostly engineering challenges within a large industrial power's capacity.
“technological growth in the west has broadly slowed down in part because it's increasingly difficult to keep pushing forward the technological Frontier this is what a lot of people have acknowledged in the US perhaps even that Moore's law in semiconductors this is really on its last legs and therefore I expect that China will be able to figure out a lot of these technological deficiencies because these are I think still mostly engineering challenges”
The US government backed Solyndra (a failed solar startup) and Tesla (then a struggling small EV company) through an Obama-era loan program, illustrating a fundamental difference in risk tolerance: the US government is so afraid of Solyndra-type failures that it would prefer not to support companies like Tesla if avoiding failure means missing successes.
“to go back to an Obama era program this loan program that backed solyndra which was kind of a disaster in terms of Returns on equity and embarrassed people in the Obama Administration but also backed and through a Lifeline at that time to Tesla which was a small struggling electric car company is now obviously a behemoth I would say it's fair to say that here the incentives of government are such that they are so afraid of solyndras they would prefer to not have them at the cost of not supporting a Tesla”
The Chinese government is willing to accept many failed investments (many 'Solyndras') if that means it gets some successful ones (Teslas), treating failures as a necessary cost of achieving breakthroughs.
“the Chinese again I would call this a pathology is to just try things out and to build and even if a lot of these Investments really don't work out and drag on returns on Equity that they really like it if a Tesla emerges out of a bad program”
Throughout the Trump administration's China technology sanctions, there was likely insufficient long-term planning about the consequences, and the Biden administration has continued many of these policies without necessarily having fully gamed out whether they will constrain or accelerate Chinese technological development.
“I suspect that these things really were not terribly well thought out because initially when the US government was doing a lot of these actions it was President Trump in charge of the process and I suspect that they did not do the most careful sort of planning and thinking about the long term under President Trump and more or less the Biden Administration has continued a lot of these different policies especially to control China's access to the most advanced ships”
Despite high-level reassurance rhetoric toward entrepreneurs, the CCP has comprehensively beaten down the Chinese economy and strangled key businesses, making its repeated statements about loving entrepreneurs and valuing growth seem unconvincing and unlikely to restore confidence.
“the Chinese government is able to say the sweetest words of encouragement to entrepreneurs that it is to speak about the economy and the importance of economic growth in totally loving and tender terms but you know this is only after it has strangled a lot of businesses and delivered a comprehensive beating to the Chinese economy”
Knowledge in technology sectors travels at 'the speed of beer'—people move between firms, talk informally, share ideas—which has allowed China to catch up in many technological deficiencies through this informal knowledge transfer, despite being behind on frontier innovation.
“the saying that we have there is that knowledge travels at the speed of beer beer coffee picture poison people tend to talk about these sort of things people tend to move between firms knowledge tends to travel”
Foreign businesses in China, including long-embedded American companies, are souring on China's production capabilities and view it as a 'three-headed Chimera': one head representing old-style Chinese manufacturing reliability; one head representing Japan-like mature market without strong growth; one head representing Russia-like geopolitical risk requiring rapid exit, especially if China makes moves on Taiwan or faces US sanctions.
“foreign businesses in China even the uh hyper-embedded American companies that have been there for several decades are starting to sour a little bit on China's production capabilities”
The Chinese Communist Party has shifted from viewing itself primarily as a technocracy that occasionally slips into Marxist ideology to an autocracy that is primarily committed to ideological goals where growth is a secondary concern, representing a fundamental reorientation of state priorities.
“this shows very much that the Communist party has been interested in growth for a very long time that it remains still fairly interested in economic growth that it retains quite a lot of economic pragmatism but I think one of the things that we really have to adjust is to think of this country as a little bit less of a technocracy that slips occasionally into Marxist Doctrine and Marxist faults and that this has to be viewed on balance much more as an autocracy that is occasionally interested in economic pragmatism but which is a natocracy that is much more committed to these ideological goals where growth is important but it is a more of a secondary concern”
The Jesuits were a highly successful organization at establishing themselves as centers of scholarship and wielding influence in church affairs, serving as a historical example of institutional durability and adaptation over long timescales.
“I read a very good book last year uh called the Jesuits by a German historian called Marcus Friedrich who studied the Society of Jesus which is a quite successful organization that has uh had you know quite a lot of success in establishing itself as a you know Center of scholarship and having influence in church Affairs”
Freeman Dyson's essay collection 'Disturbing the Universe' discusses his experiences with ambitious space travel concepts (exploding nuclear bombs behind spacecraft to reach Jupiter's moons), civil rights activism, and large-scale science projects, providing insights into creative large-scale problem-solving.
“the third book I'll recommend is a set of essays by Freeman Dyson called disturbing the universe which talks about you know his experiences in trying to do space travel on what I think is a pretty mad idea to get to the moons of Jupiter by exploding nuclear bombs behind a space vessel also his uh you know times in the civil rights movement and doing all sorts of crazy things in terms of big science”
The novel 'Last and First Men' by Olaf Stapledon imagines the future of the human race across millions of years, with casual throwaway lines like '60,000 years later' describing iterations of human civilization, providing a mind-expanding perspective on deep time.
“a second longer term uh book that I like is something called last and first men which is a British novel uh written in the about the 1930s a by a hegelian professor called Olaf Stapleton who imagined you know whites of the human race would look like uh you know millions of years from now and so you would have these casual throwaway lines like you know 60 000 years later you know this is what the 17th iteration of the human race did and I find that to be a very mind-expanding book”
Wong recommended three books that have influenced him: 'The Jesuits' by Marcus Friedrich (study of a successful organization with influence in scholarship and church affairs); 'Last and First Men' by Olaf Stapleton (1930s novel imagining the human race millions of years in the future, with time-spanning perspective); 'Disturbing the Universe' by Freeman Dyson (essays on space travel, nuclear propulsion, civil rights, and big science).
“I read a very good book last year uh called the Jesuits by a German historian called Marcus Friedrich who studied the Society of Jesus which is a quite successful organization that has had you know quite a lot of success in establishing itself as a you know Center of scholarship and having influence in church Affairs you know a second longer term uh book that I like is something called last and first men which is a British novel uh written in the about the 1930s a by a hegelian professor called Olaf Stapleton who imagined you know whites of the human race would look like uh you know millions of years from now and so you would have these casual throwaway lines like you know 60 000 years later you know this is what the 17th iteration of the human race did and I find that to be a very mind-expanding book the third book I'll recommend is a set of essays by Freeman Dyson called disturbing the universe which talks about you know his experiences in trying to do space travel on what I think is a pretty mad idea to get to the moons of Jupiter by exploding nuclear bombs behind a space vessel also his uh you know times in the civil rights movement and doing all sorts of crazy things in terms of big science”