Dan Wang, Breakneck

 - Dan Wang has written a brilliant book on all levels. In clear, very readable prose, he tells the story of the dynamic post-Mao China over the last fifty or so years, focussing particularly on the current Xi Jinping era. China has evolved into an 'engineering state', relentlessly building big at breakneck speed. All twenty-five members of the Politburo, China's cabinet, are engineers, and male. 

- In contrast, the US has floundered over the same period, losing its manufacturing capabilities and ambitions. In stark contrast to China it has become a 'lawyerly state', bogged down in administrative procedures, legal processes, and judicial restraints which stall every attempt to make change. 'Lawyers create so many complications that the rules governing everything from health care and housing to banking have become incomprehensible'. 

- A very enlightening feature of the book is the way Wang describes the huge cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen and paints a picture of what living in them actually entails. Shanghai is by far the best place to actually live, rather than just work, 'where many streets have remained human-scaled rather than being built for cars'. It's full of cafes, has a Paris edge, is easy to get around by bike, and is highly walkable. The other large cities are dominated by tall tower blocks and highways. They are cold and lack charm. 

- As for the people, they are lightly taxed, in fact three-quarters of them pay no income tax at all. There are no broad property taxes either, so the rich do well. But there are severe consumption taxes which are regressive because they burden the poor rather than the rich. As Wang notes 'China is a country governed by conservatives who masquerade as leftists'. 'Low taxes make China stingy on welfare. Around 10 percent of its GDP goes towards social spending, compared to 20% in the United States and 30 percent among the more generous European states...Only ten percent of the unemployed are eligible for modest benefits'. 

- Wang goes into great detail about the two disasters that the Chinese leadership brutally forced on their citizens over the recent decades - the One Child policy introduced in 1980, and the Zero-Covid policy.  Both were cruel, inhumane and destructive. 

- I would have liked Wang to go deeper into the foreign policies of both China and the US, particularly over Taiwan, but he doesn't go anywhere near that, apart from hinting that if the US goes to war with China over Taiwan it will lose. As we know the US is a warmongering nation but China isn't, despite Xi's massive spending on defence and weapons over the last decade. 

- China calls itself a developing nation. The US should too.

- Read this magnificent, highly informed book. 

(Dan Wang is a research fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University)