Engineers v. Lawyers

Dan Wang's Breakneck

Dan Wang wants Americans to know just how similar they are to the Chinese. Both peoples are materialistic. Both venerate success. In both countries, wealth produces “displays of extraordinary tastelessness” and encourages “a spirit of vigorous competition.” Both are can-do nations, full of “hustlers peddling shortcuts.” Both are overawed by the “technological sublime,” confident that “theirs is a uniquely powerful nation that ought to throw its weight around if smaller countries don’t get in line” (ix).

Many Americans don’t know any of this. And the tensions between China and the US are partly the product of ignorance. He wrote Breakneck to stimulate “mutual curiosity,” on the supposition that “the more informed Americans are about Chinese, and vice versa, the more likely we are to stay out of trouble” (xv).

Wang knows what he’s talking about. Born in China, he moved with his parents to Canada when he was seven. He attended Yale Law School and was once a fellow at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center. As technology analyst for the investment research company, Gavekal Dragonomics, he’s often traveled to China in order to produce “research notes for hedge funds, endowments, and other asset managers hungry for China analysis.” Macro is his specialty: “Can China’s political system really breed tech giants? Will advanced manufacturing succeed when the rest of the world is throwing up trade barriers? How does a faltering economy affect Beijing’s designs on Taiwan?” (xii).

Wang doesn’t ignore the radical differences between China and the US, though he doesn’t think the traditional oppositions (communist v. capitalist) are very illuminating: