Breakneck

Technology analyst Dan Wang—“an indispensable voice on China” (Evan Osnos) for close to a decade—has been living through the country’s astonishing, messy progress. In this time, building big has fueled China’s economic ascent. But social engineering has led to unbearable costs, including the traumas of zero-COVID and the cruel legacies of the one-child policy. In Breakneck, Wang traverses dazzling metropolises and factory complexes, blending political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal how the Communist Party’s darkening ambitions have shaken its people.

As relations between the US and China are tense and uncertain and the potential for dreadful conflict looms, Wang offers an inventive new way of thinking about the two superpowers. Breakneck reveals that each country points towards a better path for the other. How much better the world would be, he argues, if Americans could live in a society not only governed by lawyers, and Chinese citizens could live with a state that values their individual liberties.