The real story behind China's technology triumph

"Many of China's poorest provinces have better infrastructure than the United States' wealthiest regions. China's policies designed to stimulate manufacturing growth have led to price wars, waste and debt crises. It is true that China's one-child policy and zero-COVID strategy caused unnecessary suffering. It is also true that US regulatory policies are hindering the provision of public services such as railways in the United States."

"Wang is deeply sceptical of what he sees as China's top-down, technocratic model. His core argument is a familiar one in the field of political economy: no central planner, however skilled, can manage a complex economy better than the market can. Economists and philosophers such as Friedrich Hayek and Michael Oakeshott have called this faith in central planning the 'pretence of knowledge' or 'rationalist conceit'."

Dan Wang's Breakneck provides a factual examination of China's economic and technological development, presenting concrete details often missing from Western scholarship. The book documents how China's poorest provinces possess superior infrastructure compared to America's wealthiest regions, while also acknowledging that China's manufacturing stimulus policies have generated price wars, waste, and debt crises. Wang frames China as a technocratic state ruled by engineers making narrow technical decisions, contrasting it with the US legal system. He argues that China's top-down central planning model, despite technical expertise, cannot match market efficiency—a concept economists like Hayek termed the 'pretence of knowledge.' The analysis balances recognition of both China's achievements and failures alongside US regulatory obstacles to public services.

Read at Nature