What Does China's Seismic Economic Progress Mean for the USA? With Dan Wang

Intelligence Squared

News, Society & Culture, Arts, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

America used to pride itself on ambition. Today, it looks stuck. Meanwhile, China has been busy building the future. In a new book, Breakneck, technology analyst Dan Wang provides a new framework for understanding China. It operates as an engineering state - which brings a sledgehammer to problems both physical and social, in contrast with America’s lawyerly society, rooted in its constitution, which protects individual rights but blocks almost everything, good and bad, and leads to greater inequality. In this episode, Dan speaks to Chris Miller about the remarkable strengths and appalling weaknesses of the engineering state, and how each country reveals a better path for the other. --- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:46.8	Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
0:50.7	I'm producer Mia Serenti.
0:53.5	America used to pride itself on ambition.
0:56.0	Today, it looks stuck.
0:58.0	But meanwhile, China has clearly been busy building the future.
1:02.0	Over the past six years, technology analyst Dan Wang lived through China's astonishing, messy progress,
1:09.0	and the dissolution of its relationship to the West.
1:12.2	On today's episode, Wang joins author of Chip Hual, Chris Miller, to discuss a new framework
1:17.8	for understanding China and its relationship to the US, one which helps us see global geopolitics
1:23.5	more clearly too. Now let's join Chris Miller with more. Welcome everyone. I'm Chris Miller,
1:31.2	professor at the Fletcher School, author of Chip Boar and delighted to host this Intelligence
	...

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