Dan Wang on China's Breakneck Economic Growth | Odd Lots

In this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal interview Dan Wang, a research scholar at the Hoover Institution and author of "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future," about China's unique approach to building and industrialism. The conversation explores why China prioritizes construction, the influence of engineers in policymaking, and whether China's economic planning challenges conventional economic theories. Wang also discusses the potential downsides of China's model, including financial problems, overcapacity, and the suppression of individual expression, and touches on the US and China emulating each other's economic strategies, the impact of US export controls on China's technology development, and China's global ambitions. The discussion concludes with the U.S. needing to invest more in manufacturing and process knowledge to compete with China.