CaptionImage by Arek Socha from Pixabay 

Is America falling hopelessly behind, or can it rediscover the drive that once made it a world leader in building and innovation? Today, we review Dan Wang’s must-read book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, which lays out the stark realities facing the United States—contrasting America’s bureaucratic gridlock and lost industrial edge with China’s relentless, engineer-driven rise. Breakneck isn’t just a wake-up call; it’s a blueprint for how the U.S. might claw back its relevance before it’s too late.

See related podcast: Book Review: Breakneck – China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

Engineers vs. Lawyers: The Great Divide

One of the most striking contrasts drawn from Dan Wang’s book is the fundamental difference in leadership and culture between the U.S. and China. “In China, the president and much of the Politburo are engineers by training. In the U.S., political figures are almost all lawyers,” Jim Puplava, host of Financial Sense Newshour, notes. This isn’t just trivia—it shapes how each country gets things done.

When the Chinese government sets its sights on a project, “they think about it and just do it,” Puplava says. Whether it’s building a bridge, a dam, a factory, or a high-speed rail line, decisions move rapidly from conception to completion. Environmental reviews, zoning, and legal challenges are minimal compared to the U.S. “Here, everything is subject to years of studies, regulations, and lawsuits. Progress is often stymied by ‘zoning, environmental regulations, or impact studies that take five years before you can do anything.’”

Puplava illustrates this with a jaw-dropping example: the U.S. recently completed a nuclear reactor after 17 years and $30 billion. In that same period, and for the same cost, “China could build 11 nuclear power plants—and do it in five years.” The lesson? “China’s engineering-driven system enables rapid, large-scale change, while America’s legalistic culture breeds delay and red tape.” Puplava also draws a historical parallel: America once had a similarly pragmatic, engineer-led approach during the post-WWII boom, but this began to shift in the 1970s.

Related: Book Review: China's Grand Strategy to Displace America

Process Knowledge: America’s Lost Edge

So what’s behind China’s meteoric rise in manufacturing and technology? Puplava, echoing Wang, points to “process knowledge”—the hands-on, iterative expertise that only comes from actually building and refining products. America, he argues, has lost much of this edge over decades of offshoring. “When you outsource manufacturing to China, Mexico, and elsewhere, you lose the ability to innovate at the ground level.”

China’s industrial strength, Puplava insists, is not just copying or reverse engineering. “China's industrial might isn't simply the result of imitation, but of a deep accumulation of practical know-how. They can take something, reinvent it, and make it more efficient.” This gives them a crucial advantage in industries like electric vehicles (about 50% of global sales come from China), robotics, drones, and green energy.

A current example: When the U.S. blocked China from buying Nvidia’s top-tier chips, “China boycotted lower-tier Nvidia chips and quickly developed an advanced chip of their own—with faster performance at a lower price. That’s process knowledge in action.” Puplava also notes that this “know-how” is what allowed American giants like Ford to revolutionize manufacturing in the 20th century—a legacy now at risk.

Dumping, Disruption, and the Global Tech Race

China’s approach to global competition isn’t just about speed or efficiency—it’s also highly strategic. Puplava points to China’s history of “dumping” products, such as rare earth minerals. When Japan sought alternative sources after a Chinese embargo in 2010, “China dumped rare earth metals on the market and drove that U.S. company out of business.” This wasn’t an isolated move, but part of a broader pattern: “Another way to compete economically against U.S. high-tech companies is something like AI. China is releasing similar models for free, depriving U.S. companies of the revenue they would otherwise capture.”

Such tactics erode the U.S.’s technological and commercial advantage. While American AI firms increasingly move to monetize their models, China is “dumping its AI knowledge into the marketplace for free to compete against Silicon Valley.” The result is a race where U.S. firms face immense pressure, not just from innovation, but from deliberate undercutting.

The infrastructure gap is another front in this battle. As U.S. big tech companies look to expand AI and cloud capabilities, Puplava notes, they’re building overseas because “our infrastructure here is too old” to support the explosive growth of data centers. China, by contrast, is building out massive, state-of-the-art capacity at home as part of its long-term strategy.

See Human-Level AI and BMIs: Dr Alan Thompson on US-China Race for Superintelligence

Short-Term Thinking vs. Long-Term Vision

Another major source for America’s struggles, as Wang contends in Breakneck, lies in its deep-rooted dependence on short-term thinking. “In the U.S., you have a political and lawyerly society, and elected officials who can’t think beyond the next election cycle. Everything here tends to be short-term.” China, meanwhile, plans decades ahead—sometimes at the cost of overbuilding, but with the benefit of coordinated, large-scale progress.

Puplava gives personal examples of how this affects American life. “When we designed a custom home that we wanted to build, it took me over a year just to get the permits.” He points to wildfire-ravaged communities in Los Angeles that languish for years due to regulatory bottlenecks, even while residents are desperate to rebuild.

The contrast is stark: “China’s centralized governance allows coordinated, long-term planning, unlike America’s fragmented policies.” Puplava links this to the inability to launch new mines, factories, or even housing developments in a timely manner, which in turn makes it harder for the U.S. to adapt to new economic challenges and opportunities.

Reclaiming the Builder Spirit

Despite these obstacles, Puplava believes there’s still hope for the U.S. “Pharmaceutical companies are bringing factories back. COVID showed us the downside of overreliance, with half our drugs made in Asia. Ford, Apple, others are also shifting or returning production to the U.S.” He sees the recent “reshoring” trend as a sign that America is waking up to its vulnerabilities.

But there’s still a long way to go. “It takes years just to get through permits and impact studies. Five years before pouring a foundation. We need to streamline the process—it doesn’t have to be five years; maybe one or two years would be a big improvement.” He calls on policymakers and business leaders to “get back to being a builder nation. Build infrastructure, build factories, restore process knowledge.”

Puplava recommends Dan Wang’s book—and the YouTube video “China’s Insane Megaprojects That Make U.S. Infrastructure Look Ancient”—as wake-up calls for anyone who doubts the future that China is building.

Looking Ahead: Learning from the Competition

Of course, Puplava acknowledges that China’s “build at all costs” approach has created its own set of problems—ghost cities, overcapacity, debt. “They overbuild and overproduce. That’s why exports are so critical for them—they don’t have enough internal consumption to absorb all the products.” In contrast, he argues, the U.S. is hamstrung by excessive regulation and under-building in critical areas like housing, infrastructure, and energy.

The real takeaway from Breakneck, as Puplava frames it, isn’t about copying China’s model or clinging to America’s status quo. It’s about learning from each other’s failures and strengths. China may need to rein in its unchecked expansion and centralized control. The U.S., meanwhile, desperately needs to cut through its bureaucratic paralysis and rediscover the will to build.

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