For better or worse, Wang says that China has leaned into a belief that almost anything can be engineered. They’ve invested massively in infrastructure, which has improved life for Chinese citizens in many ways, but the country is also dealing with a stagnating economy and record youth unemployment. China’s “engineering” mentality has led to a stubborn belief that society itself can be built from the top down, Wang says, often to draconian results like the harsh ‘zero Covid’ rules or state crackdowns on the tech sector. Can the US learn from China’s rise and avoid its mistakes?
“China's a country I describe as the ‘engineering state’ because they build a lot,” Wang explains, “They also treat society as a big engineering project, where people are yet another building material that the leadership just want to tweak and destroy if necessary.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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