China Is Run by Engineers, and the US by Too Many Lawyers
In his new book, Dan Wang argues that America is too good at making rules, and could learn from Beijing’s laser focus on technical innovation.
Photo Illustration: Chantal Jahchan for Bloomberg; Wang by Silvia Lindtner; courtesy (3)
When Dan Wang first heard President Donald Trump describe the date for imposing tariffs on US trade partners as “Liberation Day,” the phrase caught his ear. “‘Liberation’ is not a very American word,” he told me recently. “It’s much more of a Chinese word.”
Wang would know. For years, as a China-based analyst for a macro research firm, he pored over speeches and official documents of the Chinese Communist Party, trying to extract meaning from jargon.