Dan Wang on Engineers vs. Lawyers

The phrase “developing country” is often pejorative. It conjures images of dust, concrete, corruption and a reckless dash towards modernity. But it also connotes change and the palpable sense of a brighter future. Is China a developing country? Can the United States still develop? In his new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (W. W. Norton, August 2025), the writer and analyst Dan Wang argues for a new paradigm to understand the People’s Republic in contrast to the United States. China is an engineering state, where a sledgehammer is the tool for all jobs; the U.S. is a lawyerly society, where everything is gavelled to a halt. The book takes readers from the rise of China’s tech behemoths to the disasters of its One Child and Zero-Covid policies. Parts reportage, philosophy, memoir and history, Breakneck makes a fascinating argument about the future of both China and the United States.