China’s struggle for tech ascendancy, with Dan Wang of Gavekal Dragonomics
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2021
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, Kaiser talks with Dan Wang, a Shanghai-based analyst at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, who also contributes a regular opinion column to Bloomberg. Combining firsthand knowledge of China’s tech sector with broad erudition and a humanist’s perspective, Dan offers a unique take on China’s innovation ecosystem, the country’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in technology, and the role of economic growth, fundamental optimism, and inspiration in China’s rise as a tech power.
13:53: The outsize importance of economic growth
25:02: An overemphasis on digital technology
33:55: Reciprocity and technological codependence
49:12: Technology is more than just tools and patents
Recommendations:
Dan: The works of Marcel Proust, and the ham and mushrooms of Yunnan Province.
Kaiser: The Netflix series Flavorful Origins and Great State: China and the World, by Timothy Brook.
Read Dan's 2020 annual letter: http://danwang.co/2020-letter/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynical podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina. |
| 0:14.9 | SubChina is the best way to keep on top of all the latest news out of China, especially if you subscribe to our daily email newsletter, SubChina Access, or check out subChina.com for all the latest news out of China, especially if you subscribe to our daily email newsletter |
| 0:21.2 | SubChina Access, or check out SubChina.com for all the original reported stories, op-eds, |
| 0:27.3 | great regular columns, and our growing range of videos and podcasts. |
| 0:32.1 | It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world. |
| 0:38.3 | I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you today from my home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. |
| 0:43.4 | I have an informal checklist of characteristics I keep in mind when I take the measure of any |
| 0:49.1 | individual whose livelihood is all about analysis or commentary on China. |
| 1:00.4 | I admit it's a tall order, but ideally that individual should have spent a good chunk of time living in China such that they have a real sense of the stakes, some actual skin |
| 1:05.0 | in the game, and a well-developed cognitive empathy muscle. |
| 1:09.3 | They should take a holistic approach, one that's |
| 1:12.2 | inter or multidisciplinary, grounded in good solid social science methodology, but also |
| 1:18.0 | attuned to, you know, the soft stuff, the qualitative, the less tangible things, people who |
| 1:24.8 | have enough interaction with Chinese people in different walks of life to really get |
| 1:29.0 | their habits of mind and their reactions, their body language, they should be steeped in history. |
| 1:35.8 | And not just China's history, that alone is not of all that much value without a comparative |
| 1:40.0 | framework. |
| 1:41.0 | They should be able to zoom in on the trees without losing a sense of the forest. |
| 1:46.1 | So my guest today is someone who demonstrably ticks all these boxes and then some. |
| 1:51.9 | Here's this a voice on China. |
| 1:53.1 | I hope we hear a lot more from in years to come because he brings to the conversation on China |
| 1:57.8 | and especially to the conversation on technology in China, which we'll |
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