China Explained with Dan Wang

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.5 • 692 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We talk to writer and analyst Dan Wang, whose book Breakneck argues that China is an engineering state, run by people who build, while America, Ireland and the wider Anglosphere have become lawyer states, run by people who litigate. China lays highways and high-speed rail at warp speed; common-law countries file objections and environmental reports. Europe, meanwhile, risks turning into a mausoleum economy with great croissants, beautiful cities, and a shrinking industrial base. We ask does China’s engineering mindset can deliver both stunning bridges and harsh social controls? Does a world of tariffs, security fears and cyber-fragility forces us to rethink who we let run the show: the builders or the barristers?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature.
0:06.7	This podcast is powered by ACAST.
0:12.7	Sitting the bar, just one scubage.
0:15.1	The one.
0:16.2	We'll have the one.
0:17.2	Maybe some nuts.
0:18.4	A bag of crisps.
0:19.8	That'll lead on to another one. It's the salt really the guess, isn lead on to another one it's the salt really the guess
0:22.7	isn't it yeah it's the saltiness when you have to quench the salt you do we just might sneak in to arthur's
0:28.7	just for the one yeah and a chaser how you doing there it is the podcast as you can hear from these
0:35.4	two voices it's's Christmas season.
0:37.8	And the two lads were out last night and are feeling a little bit tender and we're
0:42.3	contemplating whether we should go for the cure.
0:45.0	The hair or the dog.
0:46.2	I think the cure could be an essential part of our Saturday morning.
0:52.7	Well, it's almost afternoon.
0:53.9	Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's almost afternoon. Yeah.
0:54.4	Yeah.
0:55.4	Anyway, enough of that carry on.
0:57.9	Let us kick off.
0:59.4	In fact, we'd love to do the podcast from the pub one day.
1:03.1	Just from the back of the pub, just having the crack.
	...

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