Thoughts on Breakneck

September 21st, 2025

I am loving Dan Wang’s Breakneck. His model of Chinese engineering society vs American lawyerly is valuable. It’s a model that helps the average American to understand China’s successes. But I worry the following chapters, describing the tragedies of the One-Child Policy and the COVID lockdowns, will reflexively trigger more dismissal of China (“See! the China’s success only comes from economic slavery”) rather than the understanding.

China successes come from the Chinese people. The best the CCP has done is get out of the way. If you read Vogel’s Deng biography, that was Deng’s genius: understanding his own and his party’s limitations and choosing to hold back when he could afford it.

Talking with my parents and my girlfriend, who is from the mainland, you realize China today is deeply affected by the immense tragedy of its previous decades. Quite honestly, the immense trauma that Deng Xiaoping’s generation came from, living through the century of humiliation and the horrors of total war on their soil. America has never had an occupying military power rape and pillage of their citizens on their soil on a scale of millions. I am sure the National Pork Reserve has something to do with the Great Famine.

That kind of trauma instills the need for control, to prevent that pain from ever happening again, even when circumstances have changed. Japan is not invading China this century, nor would they perpetuate the war crimes they did last century. But you can’t tell a victim of rape to not flinch. The idea that Deng, who lived through those times and worse, purges by his own compatriots, could live through these times and still relinquish any control is his wisdom.

This is the other big reason China has been so successful. Nation-wide poverty makes obvious “To be rich is glorious.” Chinese people’s willing to work, save, sacrifice is intensely connected with the wars, famines, and poverty. My dad has a second-hand Amazon Fire that he uses almost a half-decade later. My offers to buy them a new iPad come with reprimands. When I tried to buy them a new car, they told me they’d rather I buy myself a new car and they take my old car. My uncle, despite a lifetime of success, still buys military surplus clothing. And at the same time, how proud he is to own three houses. I can’t emphasize enough how deep and how widespread this mentality is. It’s admirable not because of the wealth, but because they’ve managed to channel their hardship into something productive and just as importantly, not harmful…until it is harmful (aka real estate bubbles).

I largely agree with Dan’s thesis that both societies have a lot to learn from each other. I get the sense that the US is adapting quickly, trying to jumpstart datacenter and power construction right now, but hopefully certain types of manufacturing in the long-term. The next decade will surely be defined how these two powers learn from and rival each other.