Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
Readers may know of Wang since he is a prolific author and recognized China expert. In his new book “Breakneck” he asserts that the future belongs to China. He makes compelling points not easily refuted or dismissed. He is an eminent scholar in residence at the Hoover institute at Stanford a highly regarded neoliberal conservative think tank which for many years has argued for China’s coming pre-eminence..
Gordon Chang is a lawyer, scholar and commentator known for his pessimistic predictions about China’s economy and government. His consistent theme since 2011 is the assertion that China is near collapse. It is a view he has continued to express in 2025.
Both are experts and provide valuable insights. I don’t know enough to say I’m more influenced by one than the other, only that is salutary to keep abreast of both. Wang’s thesis, if true, is the direct result of the policies of Obama and Biden which were haphazard and ill-informed, brought about without examining the actual and hidden costs of rudderless passivity and the absence of strategic goals.
Trump is turning the imbalance around by instilling respect for America in China and our other global adversaries. If we could balance more consensus and less contention, more understanding, and less antagonisms, we could enter an age of peace and prosperity heretofore unimaginable. That is not to say we should mindlessly conform with Trump. He is often wrong, sometimes outlandish. Unremitting and heartfelt opposition is necessary in a free society, only the opposition ought not be mean, spiteful, and hateful, but loyal and principled.
No analysis of Wang and Chang in complete without considering the explosive change already being wrought by AI which is predicted to change life as we know it, sooner rather than later, and with its exponential civilizational influence will alter our calculations for the future in a fundamental way. It will take the unprecedented cooperation of Chinese engineers and American lawyers, Wang’s designation of the opposite cardinal influencers in each society, to harness the whirlwind so that it propels us to a utopian age and does not signal the end of our species.
The answer to the question of to whom does the future belong to is complicated and not a forgone conclusion. It matters who is President. I won’t argue futilely to you for Trump. That would set me upon a fool’s errand.
But I insist with 100 percent confidence that it must not be AOC, Newsome, Pritzker, Warren, Buttigieg, Booker, Crockett, Harris, Shapiro, or the other flotsam and jetsam that constitute the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, now more than a wing , not merely the lunatic fringe, but its molten core, a realm of nightmares.
Those who harp on Trump’s admitted flaws incessantly and gratuitously pile on others flagrantly calumnious are not entirely wrong. Here, I am refraining from admitting or denying, to avoid entering a hopeless impasse.
Instead, my appeal is to minimalist logic in accord with the dictate of Occam’s Razor, as potentially more persuasive, and ask a concession ( a that in “the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.” A concession is not a repudiation of fundamental convictions, both ones deprecations and grudging admissions are not mutually exclusive.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”