If Beekok has too many Lawyer, SG has too many Property Agents, Kym Boss JohnTan??

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America’s Lawyerly Society Can Learn From China’s Engineers​

Plus, checking in on Fed prediction markets.

Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
By Walter Frick
August 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM GMT+8
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Welcome back to The Forecast from Bloomberg Weekend, where we help you think about the future — from next week to next decade.

This week we’re looking at a new book comparing the US and China. Plus, with the Fed’s Jackson Hole meeting coming up, we’re checking in on prediction markets tracking the next Fed chair. You can read Bloomberg News’ coverage of the Trump-Putin summit here and here.

America’s Lawyerly Society vs. China’s Engineers​

When Dan Wang first heard President Donald Trump describe the date for imposing tariffs on US trade partners as “Liberation Day,” the phrase caught his ear. “‘Liberation’ is not a very American word,” he told me recently. “It’s much more of a Chinese word.”

Wang would know. For years, as a China-based analyst for a macro research firm, he pored over speeches and official documents of the Chinese Communist Party, trying to extract meaning from jargon.

 

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Wang now sees parallels between Trump and President Xi Jinping, he says: the blind loyalty of their base, the demonization of foreigners and a willingness to foment unease among immigrants and minorities by threatening their status within society. “What we have in the US is authoritarianism without the good stuff,” he says. The good stuff being, according to Wang, things such as high-speed trains, well-functioning cities, and political and economic stability.

The United States needs to study China if it’s going to remain a superpower, Wang argues in his new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. But it needs to learn the right lessons — including, most importantly, how to build.


In Breakneck, Wang argues that the key difference between the two giants is that China is run by engineers — in 2002 all nine members of the Politburo standing committee had engineering backgrounds — whereas the US is run by lawyers. China prioritizes building colossal public works such as bridges, dams and airports, as well as products like toys and iPhones. The US excels at making and enforcing rules.

 

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This was a good thing during the 1960s and ’70s, when lawyers pushed back against the American technocratic regime that had damaged the environment, run highways through urban neighborhoods and gotten the country mired in Vietnam.

But now the rulemaking has gone too far, Wang says, and it’s preventing the US from keeping pace with rivals.

Wang calls for the US to take a page from Xi’s playbook and rediscover hard engineering as a proud pursuit, to celebrate “the world of atoms instead of the world of bits.” It doesn’t matter how many apps the US designs — or even tools for AI warfare — if it runs out of missiles.

 

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Breakneck – why China’s engineers beat America’s lawyers​

Dan Wang’s compelling and provocative book explores both the merits and the madness of China’s engineering state.
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Engineers follow their robots as they compete during the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Aug 15.

PHOTO: AFP
John Thornhill

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China

Published Aug 17, 2025, 04:00 PM
Updated Aug 17, 2025, 04:55 PM

In April 2022, during China’s belated Covid-19 lockdown, airborne drones buzzed around Shanghai repeatedly blasting commands to hungry residents huddling in their apartments. “Repress your soul’s yearning for freedom,” a woman’s voice ordered. “Do not open your windows to sing, which can spread the virus.”

Such a scene may seem like something out of a dystopian science-fiction movie, but Shanghai’s 25 million residents had already grown used to drones barking at them to mask up or return home. Little escape was to be had online either as ever-attentive censors quickly expunged all posts and videos from anti-lockdown protesters, who provocatively cited the first line of China’s national anthem: “Arise, you who refuse to be slaves.”

 

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Qing Dynasty refusal to modernization at the 1st And 2nd Industrial Revolution had a direct impact on the next 150yrs of Asia history

Our ancestors spend next 3-4 gen to catch the golden chance to hike the wave of 1970s after countless of hardship and n8ghtmare. peace and prosperity dun come easy.

Always ask the hard questions and do the heavy lifting tasks like the one who came before us. The road to success is always laced with trapdoors and bear traps