Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future - Hardcover

From an indispensable voice on China comes a riveting, first-hand account of China's seismic progress.

For close to a decade, Dan Wang has been observing China’s tumultuous and astounding growth. The state has:

• Constructed towering bridges
• Built gleaming railways
• Established sprawling factories

All of this has been achieved to improve economic outcomes in record time. However, this rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout society.

China's remarkable growth has been fueled, in part, by beating America at its own game: capitalism and harnessing the restless energy of a vast population. Dan Wang blends political and economic analysis with reportage, creating a provocative new framework for understanding China. This perspective also offers insights into America, revealing stark contrasts between the two nations:

• China is an engineering state, relentlessly building on a grand scale.
• The United States, in contrast, has become a lawyerly society, where efforts to enact change—whether good or bad—are often stalled.

As relations between the US and China remain tense and uncertain, with the potential for dreadful conflict looming, Wang provides an inventive new way of understanding these two superpowers.

In Breakneck, he reveals how each country could inspire a better path for the other. Wang argues that the world would be much improved if:

• Americans could live in a society not solely governed by lawyers.
• Chinese citizens could live under a state that values their individual liberties.