Title: Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
Author: Dan Wang, Research Fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University
Review by: Suresh Sharma, former GE executive-turned-entrepreneur
Breakneck from Dan Wang is uniquely gripping and rich. The beautifully moving narrative feels like a cross-country bike ride deep into China and the U.S. accompanied by a wise observer of the history, economics, life and change in both countries.
For me, the insights drawn from this book worked like missing glue between existing geo-economic knowledge and the emerging new landscape of technology, infrastructure, trade, cities – and how these issues affect global power balances. By observing the world’s two largest economies in a new and unique way, Wang helps one develop a seamless 360-degree understanding of the new world we are getting into at a super-fast speed.
The section on how China, at its core, has developed into a vibrant engineering society versus how the USA has evolved into a lawyer’s society, rings true, clearly showing why we in the U.S. are so preoccupied and entwined with ourselves, even as our glorious infrastructure is falling apart.
Likewise, the U.S. could learn from Wang’s description of how China has mastered Special Economic Zones, which foster the “process knowledge” that could be essential to bringing substantive manufacturing back to the U.S. A ‘factory here – and a factory there’ is not going to cut it; one only has to just study the cycles of Shenzhen again. Such insights are vital to understand and formulate for optimal industrial policies going forward.
China is not new for me. I’ve been visiting the country extensively over the past 25 years for business, setting up manufacturing facilities and innovation centers, and observing trends as part of my role at ICA Institute. Still, this book brought refreshing dimensions to my understanding of what is happening in China today – especially during the ‘zero-COVID years’ and after the pandemic – and what its real global implications are, not only for America but also for Japan, Korea, India and several other emerging economies as China continues its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. A fascinating read for all.
About the reviewer:
Suresh Sharma is a former GE Executive and Innovation Fellow of Georgia Tech; On one hand, Suresh exemplifies commercialization of innovation globally, while on the other, he is a deep researcher and student of business policies and socio-economic drivers of how societies, culture and nations evolve, rise and decline. A well-known author of several business books, his body of work is reflected in; ‘DIGITAL SHOCK’ (2025), ‘ENERGY 2040’ (2024,a Forbes Top-10 business read), and ‘INDUSTRIALIZING INNOVATION’ (2019) and ‘THE 3RD AMERICAN DREAM’ (2014). In addition, he has been serving on the Board of a not-for-profit policy research group for emerging markets, India China America Institute, for more than 20 years.
Editor’s Notes
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