超越刻板框架，追求共同进步

I want people to get out of these rigid frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal, autocratic to think about the US and China. 我希望人们能够摆脱社会主义、资本主义、新自由主义 (Neoliberalism: 一种主张自由市场和有限政府干预的经济哲学) 和专制等僵化框架，来思考美国和中国。

I want both Americans as well as Chinese to demand better from their government. 我希望美国人和中国人都能要求他们的政府做得更好。

What works really well in China and what do we have in the US right now? 中国有哪些方面做得非常好？而我们美国现在又拥有什么？

There is no winner here. 这里没有赢家。

There is no loser here. It's not a race. 这里也没有输家，这不是一场竞赛。

Nobody gets to hit the win button. 没有人可以按下“赢”的按钮。

We should be having some sort of better synthesis. 我们应该寻求某种更好的融合。

主持人 (Eric): Dan, the book is Breakneck. 主持人 (Eric): 丹，你的书是《Breakneck》。

It's a New York Times bestseller in just under two weeks. 它在不到两周的时间内登上了《纽约时报》畅销书榜。

Congratulations. 恭喜你。

嘉宾 (Dan): Thank you. 嘉宾 (Dan): 谢谢。

主持人 (Eric): What is the conversation that you hope to create with the book? 主持人 (Eric): 你希望通过这本书引发怎样的对话？

What do you want people to take from it? 你希望人们从中获得什么？

嘉宾 (Dan): I think that I want people to get out of these rigid frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal, autocratic to think about the US and China. 嘉宾 (Dan): 我认为，我希望人们能够摆脱社会主义、资本主义、新自由主义、专制等僵化框架，来思考美国和中国。

I want both Americans as well as Chinese to demand better from their government. 我希望美国人和中国人都能要求他们的政府做得更好。

美国基础设施困境与加州高铁的启示

We're sitting here now in Silicon Valley. 我们现在正坐在硅谷 (Silicon Valley: 位于美国加利福尼亚州北部，是全球高科技产业的中心)。

Not far away is the California high-speed rail project meant to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. 不远处就是旨在连接旧金山和洛杉矶的加州高铁项目。

It's been more than 15 years since voters approved this referendum to build this train. 选民批准这项高铁公投至今已超过15年。

How many people have taken this train? 有多少人乘坐过这趟列车？

Precisely zero. 确切地说，是零人。

Silicon Valley it works really well in all sorts of ways and doesn't work well for most people, and so I want people to in America to demand better from local governments. 硅谷在许多方面运作得非常好，但对大多数人来说却不是这样，所以我希望美国人民能要求地方政府做得更好。

And I want China and I want Chinese to feel like they can have live in a government that respects individual rights and respects their own individual creative flourishing. 我也希望中国人民能感受到，他们生活在一个尊重个人权利和个人创造性繁荣的政府之下。

“律师社会”与“工程师国家”：治理模式的对比

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. And one of the framings you add to this book that I think is the meme that's become more most popular from it is the competition between America being a society of lawyers, the political class, and China more engineering and the different cultures there. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。书中你提出的一种观点成为了最受欢迎的梗，那就是关于美国作为“律师社会”（政治阶层）与中国作为“工程师社会”（更注重工程）之间竞争的框架，以及它们不同的文化。

Stephen, I know you found that sort of breakdown remarkable. 史蒂芬，我知道你觉得这种划分非常引人注目。

Why don't you talk about that? 你为什么不谈谈这个呢？

嘉宾 (Stephen): Well, I in a lot of ways I I bring it back to the way that we frame companies often and we see companies in Silicon Valley as like startups and we see startups as being founder-led and we quite often, I wouldn't say exclusively, but near exclusively see them as as the product or engineering people. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 嗯，在很多方面，我把它引回到我们通常看待公司的方式。我们把硅谷的公司看作是创业公司，把创业公司看作是创始人领导的，而且我们经常，我不会说完全是，但几乎完全把他们看作是产品或工程人员。

Particularly in this AI era, we see them as the engineering people and we we then see the big companies as somewhere along along the way making this transition to being MBA (Master of Business Administration: 工商管理硕士，通常指商业管理人员) which in a lot of ways is kind of lawyer-led. 特别是在这个人工智能 (AI: Artificial Intelligence) 时代，我们把他们看作是工程人员。然后我们把大公司看作是在某个阶段向MBA管理模式转变，这种模式在很多方面都是由律师主导的。

It's it's they're led by the rules of a system and arbitrage of those rules rather than breaking the rules with new bits of technology. 它们由系统规则和这些规则的套利 (Arbitrage: 利用不同市场或资产之间的价差获取利润) 所引导，而不是通过新技术打破规则。

And so I see that and and I, you know, we we see it in how the companies even have reacted to AI where all the big companies immediately went to the government and basically said regulate us which to me is the lawyer culture, right? 所以我看到了这一点，而且你知道，我们甚至在公司如何应对人工智能方面也看到了这一点，所有大公司都立即去找政府，基本上说“监管我们”，这对我来说就是律师文化，对吧？

主持人 (Eric): Like what it was it literally blew my mind that companies would start off before this technology is diffused, before anybody knows about it, thinking regulate us. 主持人 (Eric): 没错，这简直让我大开眼界，一家公司竟然在技术尚未普及、无人知晓之前就开始要求“监管我们”。

嘉宾 (Stephen): And and yet there we were. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 然而，我们却看到了这样的情况。

So I do see that similarity. 所以我确实看到了这种相似性。

I wonder how many A6Z companies have been led by lawyers. 我好奇有多少家a16z投资的公司是由律师领导的。

Number's probably not zero, right? 这个数字可能不是零，对吧？

嘉宾 (Dan): Well, I'm actually on the board of a company of software for lawyers that was co-founded by a lawyer by coincidence, but not very many. 嘉宾 (Dan): 嗯，碰巧我参与董事会的一家为律师提供软件的公司就是由一位律师共同创立的，但这样的公司并不多。

There are people with law degrees, but they often have engineering undergraduate degrees. 有些拥有法律学位的人，但他们通常本科是工程学专业。

Okay. 好的。

主持人 (Eric): Or or they were lawyers and then immediately just made the leap to being operating executives in startups. 主持人 (Eric): 或者他们曾经是律师，然后立即转变为创业公司的运营高管。

中国模式的优势：高效的基础设施与城市生活

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. You you mentioned in your opening that you want America and China to both demand better their governments. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。你在开场时提到，你希望美国和中国都能要求各自的政府做得更好。

Why won't you flesh that that out a bit more? 你能不能再详细阐述一下？

Some people point to this convergence or or say that hey we we are borrowing from each other. 有些人指出这种趋同性，或者说我们正在相互借鉴。

Not necessarily always the the best things but why don't you talk about that too? 不一定总是最好的东西，但你能不能也谈谈这个？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. So what works really well in China? 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。那么中国有哪些方面做得非常好呢？

I think it is the urban living experience and the countryside living experience day-to-day life functions really really well. 我认为是城市和乡村的日常生活体验，它们运作得非常顺畅。

So, I was living in Shanghai, China's most functional city, where everything pretty much works. 我当时住在上海，中国功能最完善的城市，那里几乎一切都运转良好。

You go outside, subway stations are not very far. 你出门在外，地铁站离得不远。

There's dense commercial areas. 有密集的商业区。

The shops stay open past 8:00 p.m., which is not something you can say necessarily about San Francisco. 商店晚上8点以后仍然开门，这在旧金山可不一定能看到。

And the train and the park systems all work beautifully. 火车和公园系统都运行得非常好。

In the Chinese countryside, a lot of the remote villages are still really well connected by bridges, by high-speed rail, by highways. 在中国农村，许多偏远村庄仍然通过桥梁、高铁和高速公路连接得非常好。

And in the US countryside, there's basically roads and cars and almost nothing else. 而在美国农村，基本上只有道路和汽车，几乎没有其他东西。

Okay, so that's what works really well in China. 好的，这就是中国做得非常好的地方。

We have really functional logistical systems. 我们有非常高效的物流系统。

We have really functional urban cities that are have good order. 我们有运行良好、秩序井然的城市。

美国模式的优势：创新与财富创造

嘉宾 (Dan): And what do we have in the US right now? 嘉宾 (Dan): 那么我们美国现在又拥有什么呢？

Well, again in Silicon Valley, this infrastructure here is not really wonderful. 嗯，再次回到硅谷，这里的基础设施实在算不上出色。

And what Silicon Valley does have, what we have here is, you know, companies worth trillions of dollars, which is not something that any other country is able to claim. 而硅谷真正拥有的，我们这里拥有的是，你知道，价值数万亿美元的公司，这是其他任何国家都无法企及的。

Here, we have really functional wealth creation. 在这里，我们拥有真正有效的财富创造机制。

We have people who are able to drive a lot of corporate value. 我们有人能够创造巨大的企业价值。

And what I'm really hoping for is that there could be a little bit of learning between each other such that why shouldn't CalTrain (California Train: 加利福尼亚州通勤铁路系统) work a lot better than it does? 而我真正希望的是，双方能够相互学习，比如为什么加州通勤铁路 (CalTrain) 不能比现在运行得更好呢？

Why shouldn't it be much more possible for workers to take the train to go from Silicon Valley to New York, I'm sorry, from Silicon Valley to San Francisco? 为什么不能让工人更容易地从硅谷乘坐火车去旧金山呢？

And I hope that the Chinese government could actually respect its entrepreneurs, respect entrepreneurial drive, not try to crush anyone who is out of line with government directives. 我希望中国政府能够真正尊重其企业家，尊重创业精神，而不是试图打压任何不符合政府指令的人。

And that's that's where we should be having some sort of better synthesis. 而这正是我们应该寻求某种更好融合的地方。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。

中国模式的挑战：社会工程的代价

嘉宾 (Stephen): Yeah. To I don't want to say it in such a cliche way to push back on it, but there is also one of the the things that you experience when when living in China too is you you know you you see the the workforce like particularly in the factories in Shenzhen. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 是的。我不想用陈词滥调的方式来反驳，但你在中国生活时也会经历一件事，那就是你会看到劳动力，特别是在深圳的工厂里。

There are the rural people and they're not allowed to just move. 有农村人口，他们不能随意迁徙。

Like they they can temporarily relocate for work and then the state sort of requires them to to go back and in a sense they they are forced to repatriate what they earned as a salary in the rural community. 他们可以暂时搬迁工作，然后国家会要求他们回去，某种程度上，他们被迫将工资所得汇回农村社区。

And so I I do think that some of the things that are but that also is a huge benefit like it's an immense benefit. 所以，我确实认为有些事情，但那也是巨大的好处，比如它是一种巨大的好处。

It's what enabled their whole system to work. 正是这一点使得他们的整个系统得以运转。

But here the cities are more attractive. 但在这里，城市更有吸引力。

If they were all allowed to move to the cities, they would love to move to the cities, but they're not allowed to. 如果他们都被允许搬到城市，他们会很乐意搬到城市，但他们不允许。

So, how do it's challenging to sort of navigate this take the best of both or to learn when you have to look at the even the best part has some parts that are that would be rejected here. 所以，如何驾驭这种取长补短、或者说学习的过程是很有挑战性的，因为即使是最好的部分，也有一些在这里会被拒绝。

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. Well, the Chinese state has restricted a lot of rural people from going into the cities for quite a long time. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。中国政府长期以来一直限制许多农村人口进入城市。

This is known as the hukou system (Household Registration System: 中国的户籍登记制度，限制了人口的自由流动和公共服务获取). 这就是所谓的户口制度 (Hukou system)，它阻止了许多农村人口进入学校接受更好的教育或获得医疗服务。

I think a lot of that has been loosened in the last couple of years, especially if you're in a place like Shenzhen, which is much more welcoming towards migrants. 我认为在过去几年中，许多限制已经放宽，特别是如果你在像深圳这样更欢迎移民的地方。

And I think one of these other big differences between the US and China, is that in China, the cities generally work pretty well and people really want to go into the big cities. 我认为中美之间另一个巨大的区别是，在中国，城市通常运行得很好，人们真的很想去大城市。

In the US, well, people would much rather live in their suburbs and the cities aren't necessarily very pleasant. 在美国，人们宁愿住在郊区，城市不一定那么宜居。

And what I would love for American cities is to be much more pleasant and allow agglomeration and for people to be able to afford San Francisco, afford New York and feel like they can take mass transit there in a safe way and go eat some dumplings past 8:00 p.m. or eat some sandwiches, whatever else. 我希望美国城市能变得更加宜居，允许人口聚集，让人们能够负担得起旧金山和纽约的生活，并感觉可以安全地乘坐公共交通，在晚上8点以后去吃饺子或三明治，或者其他任何东西。

法律体系对建设的阻碍：加州案例

主持人 (Eric): You're right how we're a sort of lawyerly society on on the political level and yet we have you mentioned, you know, some of the the best companies in the world and the best entrepreneurs in the world you know but what is it about our sort of government that even Elon Musk couldn't you know help solve some of the the budget issues and how do we what is the potential path such that the law society won't sort of, you know, crumble or or sort of collapse strengthen sort of the the engineering one. 主持人 (Eric): 你说得没错，我们在政治层面是一个律师型的社会，然而你提到了世界上一些最好的公司和企业家。但是，我们的政府究竟有什么问题，以至于像埃隆·马斯克这样的人也无法帮助解决一些预算问题？我们如何才能找到一条潜在的道路，让这个律师社会不至于崩溃，而是能够强化工程师社会的力量呢？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, I think Elon is a pretty interesting guy. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我觉得埃隆·马斯克是一个非常有趣的人。

I'm I'm sure you guys have more thoughts and interactions with Elon. 我确信你们对埃隆有更多的想法和互动。

I think that maybe the tragedy with Elon has been that he has been focused so much on cutting costs, focused on personnel rather than regulatory red tape. 我认为，埃隆的悲剧可能在于他过于专注于削减成本，专注于人员，而不是监管障碍。

And I think that personnel costs are not a giant aspect of America's budget. 而且我认为，人员成本在美国预算中并非一个巨大开支。

And arguably we need a lot more personnel in order to you know process drug discoveries and make the FDA (Food and Drug Administration: 美国食品药品监督管理局) much more efficient, process high-skilled immigrant visas and have a much more functional government. 可以说，我们需要更多的人员来处理药物发现，提高美国食品药品监督管理局 (FDA) 的效率，处理高技能移民签证，并拥有一个功能更健全的政府。

And I think it is a little bit tragic also that Elon was focused on reducing aspects of the government that he didn't like rather than conceptualizing how to build great projects inside the government. 而且我认为，埃隆专注于削减他不喜欢的那部分政府，而不是构思如何在政府内部建设伟大项目，这也有点悲剧。

So if I'm thinking of something like, you know, some of the great achievements of America over the past century, I would offer projects like the Manhattan Project (第二次世界大战期间美国主导的核武器研发计划), the Apollo missions (美国国家航空航天局的载人登月计划), which were absolutely an element of the technological sublime, which had so much inspiration for so many people. 所以，如果我想到上个世纪美国的一些伟大成就，我会提到像曼哈顿计划 (Manhattan Project) 和阿波罗任务 (Apollo missions) 这样的项目，它们绝对是技术崇高的体现，给无数人带来了巨大的启发。

And these were engineering-led projects within the government with a military component as well. 这些都是政府内部由工程主导的项目，也包含了军事部分。

And you know, I think it would be much more interesting if Elon actually went in to try to do something like that. 而且，你知道，如果埃隆真的去尝试做那样的事情，那会更有趣。

But what do you guys think about, you know, why Elon couldn't have cut through a lot of the morass with the regulations? 但是你们怎么看，为什么埃隆无法突破许多法规的泥沼呢？

主持人 (Eric): Well, I think just on your question, the the Manhattan Project, what is the incentive? 主持人 (Eric): 嗯，就你的问题而言，曼哈顿计划的激励是什么？

It seems like more and more is being privatized. 似乎越来越多的东西正在私有化。

So, why would the best engineers in in in in the country, you know, work for sort of an initiative where there isn't that same level of upside, not just upside, but also autonomy? 那么，为什么全国最顶尖的工程师会为一个没有同等回报，不仅是回报，还有自主权的倡议而工作呢？

And you know, why would do they want to be sort of, you know, it seems like outside the system is is is just working better. 而且，你知道，他们为什么会想要，你知道，好像在系统之外运作得更好。

Yeah. Well, uh, maybe we need a degree of patriotism and national security consciousness because pretty sure the Manhattan Project engineers had better things to do than go out in the desert of New Mexico and, uh, work on this thing in pretty confined environments and we're making a lot of money. 是的。嗯，也许我们需要一定程度的爱国主义和国家安全意识，因为曼哈顿计划的工程师们肯定有更好的事情可做，而不是去新墨西哥州的沙漠里，在相当受限的环境中研究这个东西，而且我们还赚了很多钱。

嘉宾 (Stephen): That's on the upside. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 那是好的一面。

But then, how about could Anderrell have built within even just the feasibility like effectiveness of of it, you know? 但是，安德雷尔能否在它的可行性，比如有效性之内建造出来呢？

Yeah, I mean it's definitely the case that the prime contractors through the Department of Defense are not really inspirational places to work and absolutely I think there should be efforts outside of it. 是的，我的意思是，通过国防部的主要承包商确实不是令人鼓舞的工作场所，我绝对认为应该在系统之外进行努力。

But you know, outside of just, you know, building products, I would like for many more talented engineering types to go into the government to build all of these big engineering projects that we really need things like mass transit, things like subway systems, things like solar wind and transmission to decarbonize our economy. 但是，你知道，除了制造产品，我更希望有更多有才华的工程类人才进入政府，去建设我们真正需要的所有这些大型工程项目，比如公共交通、地铁系统、太阳能、风能和输电，以实现我们经济的脱碳。

These are all projects that could have used an Elon to support. 所有这些项目都可能需要像埃隆这样的人来支持。

主持人 (Eric): Well, of course, Elon led the leads the country in in solar and in energy in general. 主持人 (Eric): 嗯，当然，埃隆在太阳能和整个能源领域都处于全国领先地位。

And I I think that that's pretty interesting. 而且我认为这非常有趣。

嘉宾 (Stephen): It is it is, you know, first of course in Silicon Valley, when people want to point to government success, I think that the general the first place they land is on the internet itself. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 是的，你知道，首先，当然是在硅谷，当人们想指出政府的成功时，我认为他们首先会想到的是互联网本身。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. But it also shows the incredible strength that is unique, which is a a true public private partnership to develop that that involved the universities, private companies, and the government itself and a unique way of government funding, which was like, "Hey, go build this and we don't really have a goal." 主持人 (Eric): 是的。但它也展现了一种独特的强大力量，那就是真正的公私合作模式。这种模式涉及大学、私营企业和政府本身，以及一种独特的政府资助方式，就像是说：“嘿，去建造这个吧，我们并没有一个具体目标。”

And I I think that's a thing that you don't often see in China, the engineering focus, which is we love to build with this very specific goal. 我认为这在中国并不常见，中国更注重工程，我们喜欢带着非常具体的目标去建造。

And and I think that you always love to get those strengths of both, but there were these things where sometimes it just seems like you really can't just take the best of both. 而且我认为，你总是喜欢获得两者的优势，但有些时候，似乎你真的无法兼顾两者。

Like our we have a very long history of of saddling new initiatives here with too many extraneous things. 比如，我们这里在启动新倡议时，长期以来一直附加过多不相关的要求。

I mean, and the CHIPS Act (芯片与科学法案: 美国旨在加强国内半导体制造和研发的法律) most recently is one where if you actually read the text of the CHIPS Act, the money came with like an unsolvable set of requirements. 我的意思是，最近的芯片法案 (CHIPS Act) 就是一个例子，如果你仔细阅读芯片法案的文本，你会发现资金附带了一系列无法解决的要求。

Like there there was no way you could actually spend the money. 比如，你根本无法实际花掉那笔钱。

This much had to go to these geographies. 这么多钱必须流向这些地区。

It had to employ these kinds of people. 它必须雇佣这类人。

It had to do these kinds of things, spend the money in these cities and and that's not really a partnership. 它必须做这些事情，在这些城市花钱，这并不是真正的合作。

It's like companies really needed money and they just had to say yes and they really wanted to make a statement by having the money out there. 这就像公司确实需要钱，他们只是不得不说“是”，而且他们真的想通过把钱拿出来来发表声明。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。

“中国特色社会主义”的内涵：国家掌控与竞争

嘉宾 (Dan): Which is way different than, you know, when China decides we want to be really good at like security. 嘉宾 (Dan): 这与中国决定要在安全等领域做得非常好的方式大相径庭。

And this is where the focus of engineers typically is on the result and the focus of lawyers typically is on the process. 工程师的关注点通常在于结果，而律师的关注点通常在于过程。

And I think the at least the CHIPS Act was able to allocate a lot of the money to the chips companies before President Trump is now threatening to withdraw some of that. 我认为至少《芯片法案》能够将大部分资金分配给芯片公司，而现在特朗普总统正威胁要撤回其中一部分资金。

But if we take a look at the other big pieces of legislation, bipartisan infrastructure act (两党基础设施法: 美国旨在投资基础设施建设的法律) as well as the inflation reduction act (通胀削减法案: 美国旨在降低通胀、投资清洁能源和医疗保健的法律), there's been very little by way of infrastructure actually built by the infrastructure act and there's been very little built by the way of clean technology. 但如果我们看看其他重要的立法，例如两党基础设施法案 (bipartisan infrastructure act) 和通胀削减法案 (inflation reduction act)，你会发现基础设施法案实际建设的基础设施微乎其微，清洁技术方面的建设也少之又少。

And so, you know, I think the one of these problems that I feel is that the US is trying to do industrial policy by putting a lot of lawyers in charge. 所以，你知道，我认为我感觉到的问题之一是，美国正试图通过让大量律师来主导产业政策 (Industrial Policy: 政府干预经济以促进特定产业发展的政策)。

And the lawyers are still really thinking about their committees. 而律师们仍然在思考他们的委员会。

They're still really thinking about their process. 他们仍然在思考他们的程序。

And for China, in the 20th party congress (中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会: 中国共产党五年一度的全国性会议) that concluded about three years ago, what Xi Jinping did was that he elevated a lot of the leaders of China's military-industrial complex, the people who ran China's crude space missions, the people who ran China's biggest weapons companies, and he elevated them to be provincial party secretaries and to be governors. 而对于中国，在大约三年前结束的中共二十大 (20th party congress) 上，习近平所做的就是提拔了许多中国军工联合体 (Military-Industrial Complex: 指军事工业与军事部门之间相互支持的体系) 的领导人，那些负责中国早期航天任务的人，那些负责中国最大武器公司的人，他把他们提拔为省委书记和省长。

And it's kind of unimaginable that someone who used to run Loheed Martin would become a governor of a major state in the US. 这简直是难以想象的，一个曾管理洛克希德·马丁公司的人会成为美国一个主要州的州长。

But rather we have a lot of people from law schools conducting our industrial policy and I think it's just not the right strategy to bring a lot of lawyers to a technology fight. 但我们却有很多法学院出身的人在执行我们的产业政策，我认为让这么多律师参与到科技竞争中，这不是正确的策略。

嘉宾 (Stephen): Well, we in fact we had a president who was a general who warned everybody about having generals defense contractors run the country. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 事实上，我们曾有一位总统是将军，他警告过所有人不要让将军和国防承包商来治理国家。

So there's a lot of history to to that as well. 所以这方面也有很多历史。

But what is it? 但是什么呢？

What what one of the things you write you talk a lot about though are the challenges that engineers bring to running things. 你书中写到的，你大量谈论的一件事是工程师在管理事物时带来的挑战。

And certainly as an engineer I read that carefully. 当然，作为一名工程师，我仔细阅读了这一点。

But I I actually think my view of it is much of the excitement in at least half the audience of your book is that it points out that engineers are not good at doing at running things. 但我实际上认为，我的观点是，你的书至少一半读者感到兴奋的地方在于，它指出工程师不擅长管理事务。

And I think people gravitated to to that aspect. 而且我认为人们被那方面吸引了。

What what were some of the things you saw or see or experience in China that the engineering mindset really backfires? 在中国，你看到或经历过哪些事情表明工程思维会适得其反？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, I think the problem with China is not that they're only physical engineers. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我认为中国的问题并非仅仅在于他们是物理工程师。

If there were only physical engineers, there's some problems with overbuilding. 如果只有物理工程师，确实会有过度建设的问题。

There's some problems with that, environmental destruction, displacing people. 这会带来一些问题，比如环境破坏，人口迁移。

But overall, it really helps to have physical dynamism because you can see your streets, your city, your home get better year by year. 但总的来说，拥有物质上的活力确实有帮助，因为你可以看到你的街道、你的城市、你的家园一年比一年好。

The problem with China is that they are also fundamentally social engineers. 中国的问题在于，他们本质上也是社会工程师 (Social Engineers: 指通过设计社会结构、政策或制度来引导或改变社会行为和结果的人)。

And social engineering can be really dangerous because they treat the population itself as just another building material to be torn down as they wish and remolded as they wish. 而社会工程可能非常危险，因为他们将人口本身视为另一种建筑材料，可以随意拆毁和改造。

So I spent a lot of time in my book thinking about the one-child policy (中国计划生育政策，限制每个家庭只生一个孩子) as well as Zero-COVID (中国严厉的清零政策，旨在完全消除新冠病毒的传播), which the number is right there in the name. 因此，我在书中花了很多时间思考独生子女政策 (one-child policy) 和清零政策 (Zero-COVID)，这些政策的名称本身就揭示了其含义。

There's no ambiguity about what the one-child policy could possibly mean. 独生子女政策的含义毫无疑问。

And a lot of this ends up being, you know, in the case of the one-child policy, this campaign of rural terror that was really meted out against female bodies mostly in the countryside. 在独生子女政策的案例中，很多结果是，你知道的，这种针对农村女性身体的农村恐怖运动。

And Zero-COVID made a lot of people lose their minds and it was pretty traumatic for especially the residents of Shanghai, China's biggest city, richest city, in the spring of 2022 in which people couldn't leave their apartment compounds over the course of about eight weeks in the spring. 而清零政策让很多人几近崩溃，尤其对中国最大、最富裕的城市上海的居民来说，2022年春天，他们在大约八周的时间里无法离开自己的公寓大院，这带来了相当大的创伤。

And so this is where I think, you know, I'm pretty cleareyed about having a state run by engineers, which they feel like they are just making decisions very technocratically. 所以这就是我认为，我对一个由工程师治理的国家看得非常清楚的地方，他们觉得自己只是在以非常技术官僚 (Technocratically: 以技术专家治国的方式) 的方式做出决策。

Everything feels super rational for them. 对他们来说，一切都感觉超级理性。

They have the state capacity really to enforce a lot of their big goals. 他们拥有真正的国家能力来执行许多宏大目标。

This is where, you know, I I prefer not to have anything like one profession running everything. 这就是，你知道，我宁愿不让任何一个单一职业来主导一切。

I think a healthier society would have not only lawyers completely overrunning the US Congress right now. 我认为一个更健康的社会不应该只有律师完全充斥着美国国会。

I think there's something like 47 US senators who went to law school and one has had any degree that resembles a STEM degree (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: 科学、技术、工程和数学学位). 我认为大约有47名美国参议员上过法学院，而只有一个人拥有类似STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) 学位。

Instead of just being purely dominated by engineers or lawyers, let's have a few economists. 除了纯粹由工程师或律师主导之外，我们也可以有一些经济学家。

Let's have a few entrepreneurs. 我们也可以有一些企业家。

Let's even throw in a few dentists in there. 甚至可以加入一些牙医。

That's that's not so bad. 那也挺好。

主持人 (Eric): We have a couple doctors. We we actually do. 主持人 (Eric): 我们确实有几位医生。

嘉宾 (Dan): Excellent. 嘉宾 (Dan): 太棒了。

法律体系对建设的阻碍：加州案例（续）

嘉宾 (Dan): Well, but it is interesting because that is a thing that that you know earlier just mentioning how we have these technology founder-led people, but very often and I actually think there's a preponderance of this there's a a ying and yang actually of of a technical founder and the non-technical or the the socially oriented or business-oriented co-founder. 嘉宾 (Dan): 嗯，但这很有趣，因为你之前提到我们有这些由技术创始人领导的人，但很多时候——我实际上认为这种情况占了多数——技术创始人与非技术或社会导向或商业导向的联合创始人之间存在一种阴阳平衡。

And I I I think I would agree that our our policy directives sort of lack that a balance of any kind. 我认为我们的政策指令确实缺乏某种平衡。

And it's and it's very interesting and how much we're structured around the procedures of the law. 而且非常有趣的是，我们是多么围绕法律程序来构建的。

Like so much of unable to build the the high-speed rail has just been the law. 比如，许多无法建设高铁的原因仅仅是法律。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。

嘉宾 (Dan): Like and and it's the law used to prevent building as you know and and the CHIPS Act. 嘉宾 (Dan): 比如，你知道，法律过去是用来阻止建设的，还有芯片法案。

It was the law that sort of said, "Well, here's all this money except use it this particular way," which is not how engineers would have thought of of the problem. 正是法律规定，“好吧，这是所有这些钱，但只能以这种特定方式使用”，这并非工程师解决问题的方式。

嘉宾 (Dan): It's a definitely a double-edged sword. 嘉宾 (Dan): 这绝对是一把双刃剑。

You can't build companies worth trillions of dollars without having legal protections and intellectual property protections. 没有法律保护和知识产权 (Intellectual Property: 指智力劳动成果的专有权利) 保护，你无法创建价值数万亿美元的公司。

On the other hand, any fool is able to hire a lawyer to stop a project that he or she doesn't like. 另一方面，任何傻瓜都可以雇佣律师来阻止一个他或她不喜欢的项目。

And so I spent a lot of time looking at quite a lot of these projects that California really tries to build. 所以我花了很多时间研究加州真正尝试建设的许多项目。

I spent a lot of time thinking about this in particular this expansion plan by UC Berkeley to try to, you know, let more people attend and get educated on its inside its excellent classrooms. 我花了很多时间思考，特别是加州大学伯克利分校的扩建计划，旨在让更多人能够进入其优秀的课堂接受教育。

And it was trying to build a student dormitory on this vacant lot. 它正试图在这块空地上建造一座学生宿舍。

And homeowners nearby put up their hands and said yeah, well, maybe we shouldn't let students move here. 附近的房主举手反对说，嗯，也许我们不应该让学生搬到这里。

主持人 (Eric): Has the states sufficiently studied the idea that students constitute some sort of noise pollution? 主持人 (Eric): 州政府是否充分研究过学生会构成某种噪音污染的说法？

嘉宾 (Dan): This park, it was a tiny little park. 嘉宾 (Dan): 这个公园，它是一个很小的公园。

主持人 (Eric): It was a tiny little park and I think they had some affordable housing units in there as well, but they were alleging that the state didn't study sufficiently the problem that students are pollution. 主持人 (Eric): 那是个很小的公园，我想里面也有一些经济适用房单元，但他们声称州政府没有充分研究学生是污染的问题。

And we have all these very strange things in which, you know, often when I'm in New York, often when I'm in San Francisco, I live around Vaness Avenue. 我们有很多非常奇怪的事情，你知道，通常当我在纽约或旧金山时，我住在范内斯大道附近。

Vaness Avenue has tried to add a bus line onto the avenue for something like 20 years. 范内斯大道尝试在路上增加一条公交线路，大约有20年了。

It took about 20 years more or less to add a bus lane. 差不多花了20年才增加了一条公交专用道。

That's these are the sort of things that are kind of really crazy and often it is people hiring environmental lawyers to stop what are, you know, should be pretty innocuous projects. 这些事情有点疯狂，通常是人们雇佣环境律师来阻止那些本应是无害的项目。

“中国特色社会主义”的内涵：国家掌控与竞争（续）

主持人 (Eric): You you mentioned early in this conversation how you're trying to move past sort of simplistic explanations like or sort of terms like, you know, socialist or capitalist to describe the differences in the country. 主持人 (Eric): 你在谈话早期提到，你正试图超越诸如社会主义或资本主义等简单化的解释或术语来描述国家之间的差异。

How should we interpret sort of socialism with Chinese characteristics especially as we think about the term in the US like say more about what it means to them? 我们应该如何理解中国特色社会主义 (Socialism with Chinese characteristics: 中国共产党提出的一种社会主义理论和实践)，尤其当我们从美国的角度思考这个词时，你能不能多谈谈它对他们意味着什么？

嘉宾 (Dan): Socialism with Chinese characteristics represents to me a couple of things. 嘉宾 (Dan): 对我而言，中国特色社会主义 (Socialism with Chinese characteristics) 代表着几层含义。

But you know, first and foremost, I'll say that socialism with Chinese characteristics represents a lot of discretion by the state to take control of resources and do with it what it will. 但首先，我会说，中国特色社会主义代表着国家拥有巨大的自由裁量权来控制资源并随心所欲地使用它们。

So you know, I think Karl Marx did not write that much about redistribution. 所以你知道，我认为卡尔·马克思并没有太多关于再分配的论述。

A lot of it ended up being about public ownership of critical goods and if we take a look at China's economy, still there's a giant state sector in which some of the most important industries in China are owned by the state. 很多时候，它最终是关于关键商品的公有制，如果我们看看中国的经济，仍然存在一个巨大的国有部门，其中一些最重要的产业都归国家所有。

So all of these upstream strategic industries like telecommunications, airlines, energy, essentially these are always organized by three giant state-owned companies that control pretty much the entire state of the of the business. 所以所有这些上游战略产业，如电信、航空公司、能源，基本上都是由三家巨型国有企业组织起来的，它们几乎控制着整个业务的状况。

And so this is partly why if you go into the countryside in China, they're not giving much cash handouts to ordinary people. 因此，这也是为什么如果你去中国农村，他们不会给普通民众发放很多现金补助的部分原因。

In China, I think they still have this socialist mindset that every act of spending by any personal household is kind of this capitalist act of consumption while any big infrastructure project is this noble strike in favor of socialism. 在中国，我认为他们仍然持有一种社会主义心态，认为任何个人家庭的每一笔开支都类似于资本主义的消费行为，而任何大型基础设施项目则是支持社会主义的崇高举动。

So, China provides a pretty threadbare welfare net. 所以，中国提供的福利保障网 (Welfare Net: 指政府为公民提供社会保障和福利的体系) 相当薄弱。

It does not provide much by way of distribution. 它在分配方面并没有提供太多。

Xi Jinping often sounds like Ronald Reagan when he denounces people for relying on welfare and for being too lazy. 习近平在谴责那些依赖福利和懒惰的人时，听起来常常像罗纳德·里根。

That's exactly right. 正是如此。

And so, you know, this is and so so first and foremost, socialism with Chinese characteristics means that the state it is the state's pleasure to decide how to spend most of the country's resources. 所以，你知道，首先，中国特色社会主义意味着国家有权决定如何支配国家大部分资源。

The other part of socialism with Chinese characteristics that I offer, this is not at all a standard definition in the political science literature is I take a look at some of these highly competitive industries in China. 我提出的中国特色社会主义的另一部分，这在政治学文献中绝非标准定义，那就是我研究了中国一些竞争激烈的行业。

And I think a lot about something like the solar industry in which most of these solar companies are extremely competitive offering not highly differentiated products and competition is absolutely miserable. 我经常思考像太阳能产业这样的例子，其中大多数太阳能公司都极具竞争力，提供的产品并没有高度差异化，竞争环境非常残酷。

So the solar company margins, profit margins are pretty minuscule. 所以太阳能公司的利润率非常微薄。

The investors make very little money here. 投资者在这里赚的钱很少。

On the other hand, China owns pretty much 90% of this industry. 另一方面，中国几乎拥有这个行业90%的份额。

Everything from the polysilicon processing down to module assembly. 从多晶硅 (Polysilicon: 制造太阳能电池和半导体的重要材料) 加工到组件组装。

And so that is a national success for the state and I think Chinese firms have inarguably driven most of the innovation in terms of pushing down costs in terms of solar as well. 因此，这对国家来说是一项全国性的成功，而且我认为中国企业在降低太阳能成本方面无疑推动了大部分创新。

So, you know, socialism with Chinese characteristics also means to me investors and companies kind of lose. 所以，你知道，对我来说，中国特色社会主义也意味着投资者和公司某种程度上是输家。

They're pretty miserable. 他们相当痛苦。

Consumers win and the national government wins. 消费者赢了，国家政府赢了。

知识产权与商业环境差异

嘉宾 (Dan): But Stephen, I want to ask you a little bit about some of these competitive dynamics that you saw in China. 嘉宾 (Dan): 但是史蒂芬，我想问你一些关于你在中国看到的这些竞争动态。

A lot of it is pretty cutthroat competition. 很多都是非常残酷的竞争。

Can you offer some thoughts from your days at Microsoft about what sort of competition that you saw? 你能结合你在微软的日子，谈谈你当时看到了什么样的竞争吗？

嘉宾 (Stephen): Well, I think that the the thing that jumps to mind relative to competition is of course one of the things you you had alluded to earlier, which is that in the US you rely on a legal framework for a lot of competition. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 嗯，我认为谈到竞争，首先想到的是你之前提到的一点，即在美国，很多竞争都依赖于法律框架。

And it works both ways. 这是一种双向作用。

It it it protects what you have, but it also gives the government the right to to take away what you have if it becomes too big or too successful. 它保护你所拥有的，但如果你的企业变得过于庞大或过于成功，它也赋予政府权力收回你的所有权。

And I I think China is very good at the taking away part. 而且我认为中国在“收回”方面做得非常好。

And they they by design as part of the socialist capitalist view don't really view intellectual property as the most important thing. 而且他们从一开始，作为社会主义资本主义观的一部分，就没有真正把知识产权看作是最重要的东西。

And so in particular for for the software industry, that was hugely problematic because the software industry itself is just an intellectual property business. 所以，特别是对于软件行业来说，这问题非常大，因为软件行业本身就是一项知识产权业务。

And in your book you write about China never really hasn't exported the arts and entertainment very much yet. 在你的书中，你写到中国还没有真正大量出口艺术和娱乐产品。

嘉宾 (Dan): Correct. 嘉宾 (Dan): 正确。

嘉宾 (Dan): And that's also because there's not a lot of intellectual property protection. 嘉宾 (Dan): 这也是因为知识产权保护不足。

Like if you invented an incredibly cool Marvel comic universe in China, you wouldn't have any real protection to be able to maintain it. 比如，如果你在中国创造了一个非常酷的漫威漫画宇宙，你将没有真正的保护来维持它。

Like people could just copy it. 人们可以轻易复制它。

They could own all your merch, copy all your merch, and the economics of it go away. 他们可以拥有你所有的周边商品，复制你所有的周边商品，这样它的经济价值就消失了。

And I've always found that particularly interesting. 我一直觉得这特别有趣。

And then of course at a very granular level, like you you literally don't when you do business in China you you don't have trade secret and you're you're just in the office and there's the CCP (Chinese Communist Party: 中国共产党) members that work in your office that you're forced to employ that report back to what's going on and you have no say in that like at the level of like they get to walk into your data center and they get to log on to any system and that's that's the cost of of doing business. 当然，在非常细微的层面，比如你在中国做生意时，你实际上没有商业秘密，你就在办公室里，而办公室里有你被迫雇佣的中共党员 (CCP members)，他们会向上汇报情况，你对此毫无发言权，比如说他们可以走进你的数据中心，登录任何系统，这就是在中国做生意的代价。

It's sort of like in the US, you open up a restaurant, the the food inspector can show up at any point and walk around the kitchen all they want, except when it's a data center and the goal is not safety for the consumers but security for the state. 这有点像在美国，你开一家餐馆，食品检查员可以随时出现，随意在厨房里走动，但当它是一个数据中心时，目标就不是消费者的安全，而是国家的安全。

It it's a sort of a different a different kind of challenge. 这是一种不同的挑战。

中美制造业的“饥饿感”与发展路径

主持人 (Eric): When you were hiring a lot of engineers in China, what were you looking for? 主持人 (Eric): 当你在中国招聘大量工程师时，你寻找的是什么样的人？

How hungry were they? 他们有多渴望？

Were they dynamic? 他们有活力吗？

嘉宾 (Stephen): Yeah, that that's a great a great thing to really see and you you you do see some of this in the US, but in in China, like in particular, like the example I always use is is um I start from the Consumer Electronic Show and you you go to one part of the show where all the component makers are and you want magnets like to to put your MagSafe (Apple 公司用于无线充电和磁性配件连接的技术) adapter on and there's 500 companies selling magnets and you walk up to any one of them and you just take the slightest bit of interest and they're whipping out a dealbook and they are hungry to not just like I talked to a guy last CES and CS on my mind because it's it registered this week but um he made cases for iPhones with with chargers and magnets and stuff in them and he was like, "What do you not like?" 嘉宾 (Stephen): 是的，那是一个非常值得关注的现象，你在美国也能看到一些，但特别是在中国，我总是举的例子是，我从消费电子展 (Consumer Electronic Show) 开始说起，你会走到展会的一个区域，那里都是零部件制造商，你想要磁铁，比如用于你的MagSafe (Apple 公司用于无线充电和磁性配件连接的技术) 适配器，那里有500家公司销售磁铁，你走到其中任何一家，只要表现出一点点兴趣，他们就会迅速拿出交易手册，他们非常渴望不仅仅是……我去年在消费电子展上和一个家伙聊过，我脑子里想着消费电子展是因为这周它刚注册，但他为iPhone制造了带充电器和磁铁的手机壳，他问我：“你有什么不满意的地方？”

Have you looked at all the competitors? 你有没有看过所有竞争对手的产品？

Have you seen the one from this other company? 你有没有看过这家公司的产品？

They suck, right? 它们很烂，对吧？

We How many do you need? 我们需要多少？

And you're like asking like like I'm just a guy. 你就像在问我只是一个普通人。

Like I don't even my badge doesn't say like buys lots of cases. 我的胸牌甚至没有写着“大量采购手机壳”。

Like it says nothing that would indicate I'm about to write a check for 300,000 units of a iPhone case. 上面没有任何信息表明我即将开出一张30万个iPhone手机壳的支票。

But booth after booth, no matter the size of the component or what you want and and and it's very different than in the US. 但是，一个又一个展位，无论零部件大小或你想要什么，这与美国非常不同。

You go to a US company at a trade show and you sort of show interest. 你在美国的贸易展上找一家公司，并表现出兴趣。

They know if you're a qualified buyer or not just by how you look and carriers and they're not going to talk to you. 他们仅凭你的外表和随身物品就知道你是不是合格的买家，然后他们就不会理你。

Like I watched a a guy just fall in love with this um this uh iPhone container that looked like Darth Vader or something last year and he just wouldn't shut up. 我去年看到一个家伙爱上了这个看起来像达斯·维达的iPhone外壳，他简直说个不停。

He thought it was the coolest thing ever and they were literally about to give him an order of one. 他觉得那是史上最酷的东西，而他们几乎要给他一个订单，就一个。

Right? 对吧？

Just to do business with the guy and see where it led. 只是为了和这个人做生意，看看会发展成什么样。

And that hunger is is definitely a novel thing. 那种渴望无疑是一种新奇的现象。

And I we saw it when we were building Surface and we could just watch the component people, you know, basically fight over the business and they fight as, you know, the PC industry grew up in Shenzhen and they have these factories where like you show up and if you commit to building, you know, 100,000 laptops, they will build you a building and they will keep all your IP in the building. 当我们建造Surface时，我们看到了这一点，我们可以看到零部件供应商基本上都在争夺业务，他们像你知道的，个人电脑产业在深圳发展起来，他们有这样的工厂：你出现，如果你承诺建造10万台笔记本电脑，他们就会为你建造一栋大楼，并将你所有的知识产权都保存在那栋大楼里。

They will not cross employees over and they will promise you the very best. 他们不会让员工交叉工作，他们会向你承诺最好的。

And that's, you know, like Quanta, a company in Taiwan that does that. 你知道，就像台湾的广达公司就是这样做的。

And I I think I think that hunger is is definitely a thing you just don't see here to that degree. 而且我认为，那种渴望的程度在这里是绝对看不到的。

主持人 (Eric): Why not? 主持人 (Eric): 为什么不呢？

What's the deal? 有什么问题？

Why aren't people more hungry? 为什么人们不更渴望呢？

Why won't they build our factories? 他们为什么不建造我们的工厂？

嘉宾 (Stephen): Well, the building the factories is is probably a different, you know, I'm not here to represent all of America and and what goes into it. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 嗯，建造工厂可能是一个不同的问题，你知道，我不是来代表整个美国以及其中涉及的一切的。

But I I do think that the the factory thing I I view is a very subtle and interesting point. 但我确实认为工厂这个问题是一个非常微妙而有趣的观点。

It's also one where the parties have completely switched roles over over the past 30 years or so. 这也是在过去30年左右，双方角色完全互换的一个领域。

You know when China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO: 旨在促进全球贸易自由化的国际组织), this was a milestone I I would say for earth, you know, it was a huge immense deal for China and but the the earth was like I I don't remember what the phrase was in the book. 你知道，当中国加入世界贸易组织 (WTO) 时，我认为这对地球来说是一个里程碑，你知道，这对中国来说是一个巨大的、非常重要的协议，但地球当时的心态，我记不起书中的措辞了。

I I think you you called it like it was consistent with the elite agenda or or something like this and and it was like the oh consensus, it was the elite consensus that China entering the World Trade Organization was the right thing and not one person in Western Europe or in the US thought, "Oh, this could be a problem." 我想你把它称为“符合精英议程”之类的，就像是一种共识，精英共识认为中国加入世界贸易组织是正确的选择，西欧或美国没有一个人认为“哦，这可能会有问题”。

Like, it was, in fact, it was like, "This is the greatest thing ever. 事实上，当时是这样的：“这是有史以来最伟大的事情。”

It's the true global Star Trek one economy where everybody just practices art all day and we all just it's great." 这是一个真正的全球化《星际迷航》式经济，每个人整天都在搞艺术，我们都觉得很棒。

And and it really created this what I would think of in the in a not the most positive way but like this private equity phase of American business which was all the businesses just said how do we get rid of our factories cuz like we can't employ people because they were busing people in from rural China to work for small wages every day and busing them back and we can't compete with that and they're committed to low price high volume. 它确实创造了我认为不那么积极的“美国商业私募股权 (Private Equity: 对非上市公司进行股权投资和管理的一种金融活动) 阶段”，所有企业都在说“我们如何摆脱工厂”，因为我们无法雇佣工人，因为中国农村的人每天都被大巴送来工作，拿着微薄的工资，然后又被送回去，我们无法与此竞争，他们致力于低价高量。

And so you know, it starts with t-shirts and socks and then it gets to radios. 所以你知道，它从T恤和袜子开始，然后发展到收音机。

And you see this all over Asia. 你在亚洲各地都能看到这种情况。

You see even Japan saying, "Well, we could make Sony TVs in China." 你甚至看到日本说：“嗯，我们可以在中国制造索尼电视。”

And you could see LG saying, "Well, we could do our industrial products in China." 你也可以看到LG说：“嗯，我们可以在中国生产工业产品。”

And meanwhile, the US is like, "And we could do cars in Mexico and in Canada." 与此同时，美国则说：“我们可以在墨西哥和加拿大生产汽车。”

And so everybody took that moment in time to say, "Well, how do we make the leanest profit-making engine in in the US?" 所以每个人都抓住那个时机说：“那么，我们如何在美国制造出最精益的盈利机器呢？”

In the first way is you just don't do you don't own manufacturing. 首先的方式就是，你根本不做，你不拥有制造业。

And and I I think now everybody is coming to sort of regret this. 而且我认为现在每个人都开始有点后悔了。

The question I have for you is I feel like on that one you the book kind of plays both sides of it. 我对你的问题是，我觉得在这方面，你的书有点两面讨好。

It says on the one hand the US has to manufacture stuff, but on the other hand it will never compete. 它一方面说美国必须生产东西，但另一方面又说它永远无法竞争。

It can't catch up. 它赶不上。

So what is the right answer to that? 那么正确的答案是什么？

Not the right. 不是正确的。

I mean, that's unfair to burden you with the right answer for that, but 我的意思是，让你承担这个问题的正确答案是不公平的，但是……

制造业回归与产业政策的考量

嘉宾 (Dan): I'm going to burden you with the right answer for that. 嘉宾 (Dan): 我会给你那个问题的正确答案。

But let me offer that what matters is kind of direction as well as intent. 但我想说的是，方向和意图都很重要。

So, right now, last I checked, China's share of its economy dedicated to manufacturing is about something like 26, 27%. 所以，就目前而言，我上次查阅时，中国经济中专门用于制造业的份额大约是26%到27%。

And for the US, it is about 10, 11%. 而美国大约是10%到11%。

And so fine, you know, the US is a pretty rich country. 所以，没关系，你知道，美国是一个相当富裕的国家。

Its labor force doesn't really want to work be busted to factories and work for small wages every single day. 它的劳动力并不真的想被困在工厂里，每天拿着微薄的工资工作。

But why doesn't the US try to achieve let's say Japan or German levels of, you know, manufacturing as a share of GDP which are closer to 20%? 但是，为什么美国不尝试达到，比如说日本或德国那样占国内生产总值 (GDP: Gross Domestic Product) 20%左右的制造业水平呢？

Yeah. And so I don't think there's any natural law that says that manufacturing as a share of US GDP should only be about 10%. 是的。所以我认为没有任何自然法则规定美国国内生产总值 (GDP) 中制造业的份额只能是10%左右。

Let's try to get it a little bit higher. 我们应该努力让它更高一点。

Let's try to get workers quite a lot more excited about building all sorts of products. 让我们努力让工人们对制造各种产品更加充满热情。

Let's try to have the government actually create functional infrastructure such that our ports work much better than they do, our trains work much better than they do, our trucking systems. 让我们努力让政府真正建立起有效的基础设施，这样我们的港口、火车和卡车运输系统都能比现在运转得更好。

That's something that China does really well. 这是中国做得非常好的地方。

It invests in all sorts of port infrastructure. 它投资各种港口基础设施。

It invests in all sorts of power production. 它投资各种电力生产。

So they have the nuclear power in order to build a lot of stuff. 所以他们拥有核电来建造大量东西。

And so infrastructure, the government absolutely does have a good role to play here in terms of creating all of these public goods. 因此，在基础设施方面，政府在创造所有这些公共产品方面绝对可以发挥很好的作用。

And then it's also up to the entrepreneurs to decide that well making products is really really exciting and we should try to, you know, build a little bit here. 然后也取决于企业家决定，制造产品真的非常令人兴奋，我们应该尝试在这里建造一点。

And so when you have, you know, a little bit more of these if we treat technology as more of a aesthetic project as more of a political project that's really the sort of direction that I that I want to take things. 所以当你拥有更多这样的东西时，如果我们把技术看作是一种更具美学意义的项目，一种更具政治意义的项目，那才是我真正希望事物发展的方向。

I don't think there's a level that we can possibly target. 我认为我们无法设定一个可能的目标水平。

But right now it doesn't seem still all that interesting for many people to build. 但目前，对许多人来说，建造东西似乎仍然没有那么有趣。

The other part that China does right, I think is that it hasn't been so focused on this idea that, you know, there's this line, I think that's kind of attributed to Tim Cook, that inventory is evil. 我认为中国做得对的另一方面是，它并没有那么专注于“库存是万恶之源”这种观点，我认为这句格言某种程度上归功于蒂姆·库克。

We just got to get products out the door. 我们只需要把产品运出去。

We shouldn't keep them all in in stock, have lean manufacturing. 我们不应该把它们都存放在库存中，实行精益生产 (Lean Manufacturing: 一种旨在最大限度减少浪费的生产管理方法)。

And when China had a crisis, as it did in 2020 with the COVID pandemic, when it had a production issue, there were a lot of pretty inefficient state-owned enterprises as well as entrepreneurial firms that had a giant workforce that had a lot of slack in the system and they were quickly able to retool to build masks and cotton swabs. 当中国在2020年遭遇新冠疫情 (COVID pandemic) 的危机，面临生产问题时，有许多效率不高国有企业 (State-owned Enterprises) 和创业公司拥有庞大的劳动力，系统内存在大量冗余，它们能够迅速调整生产线来制造口罩和棉签。

And American companies were unable to do that because they had lot let a lot of their skills atrophy. 而美国公司做不到这一点，因为他们让许多技能退化了。

They keep a pretty lean workforce. 他们保持着相当精简的劳动力。

This workforce is hyper well adapted and optimized for one particular task and they can't really easily retool and reskill pretty quickly to confront an emergency. 这种劳动力针对某一项特定任务进行了高度适应和优化，他们无法真正轻易地快速调整和重新培训技能来应对紧急情况。

And so, you know, this is where I want to encourage US firms to build in a little bit more buffer both in terms of inventory as well as labor because you never really know when there might be a crisis and that that might strike and then you don't want to be hyper optimized for one thing. 所以，你知道，我希望鼓励美国公司在库存和劳动力方面都建立更多的缓冲，因为你永远不知道何时会爆发危机，而那时你不会希望自己只是高度优化于某一件事情。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah, I think that's a that's a fantastic a fantastic point and it it it sort of feeds into the that evolution that happened at the start of WTO. 主持人 (Eric): 是的，我认为这是一个非常棒的观点，它有点呼应了世贸组织成立之初发生的那种演变。

I mean, it was it what rose for that was this whole lean manufacturing which actually came out of Japan and the idea of like how do you minimize the not just the length of the assembly line but the stockpile of inputs at the beginning of the assembly line. 我的意思是，当时兴起的是整个精益制造，它实际上源于日本，其理念是如何最大限度地减少不仅是装配线的长度，还有装配线前端投入品的库存。

But one thing I do think that that as because you mentioned Tim Cook, I would say something that Apple does uniquely, which in this environment they they aren't getting enough credit for is is almost like how do you even count the engineers versus the manufacturing people? 但有一点我确实认为，因为你提到了蒂姆·库克，我想说苹果公司做得非常独特的一点，在当前环境下他们没有得到足够的认可，那就是你甚至如何区分工程师和制造人员？

Because even at Apple, the number of people that really are manufacturing people, they just happen to work in Certino and fly to Asian locations a lot is very, very high. 因为即使在苹果公司，真正从事制造工作的人数也非常非常多，他们只是恰好在库比蒂诺工作，并且经常飞往亚洲各地。

Thousands and thousands of people as part of the company. 成千上万的人是公司的一部分。

And I I think that the reason that Apple products are what they are is because they don't see this this line that people saw in the 80s or the '90s with the WTO of manufacturing is, you know, rural people on a bus doing the same operation 12 hours at a shift and then smart people figuring everything out in the headquarters. 而且我认为苹果产品之所以如此，是因为他们不认为像20世纪80年代或90年代加入世贸组织时人们看到的那样，制造业就是农村人乘坐巴士，在一班12小时的工作中重复相同的操作，然后聪明人在总部解决所有问题。

Apple sees much more of a continuum. 苹果看到了更多的连续性。

And I think where American industry really didn't do so great was it very quickly snapped to small number of people in headquarters that are the brains and there there's just too much of a distance to what's made and that's what happened with the PC industry. 我认为美国工业做得不好的地方在于，它很快就只把少数人放在总部作为大脑，而与实际制造的东西之间存在太大的距离，这就是个人电脑行业发生的情况。

Like all PC laptops basically became the same because not just the manufacturing but the design and the innovation and the origination all came from the factory. 比如所有个人电脑笔记本电脑基本上都变得一样，因为不仅是制造，设计、创新和起源都来自工厂。

And so to use your the came from the engineers, not the designers or the MBAs or the lawyers, right? 所以，用你的话说，它们来自工程师，而不是设计师、MBA或律师，对吧？

主持人 (Eric): And the engineers making a laptop are going to make it for efficiency. 主持人 (Eric): 而且制造笔记本电脑的工程师会为了效率而制造它。

And they're in fact were responding to and the same happened with American cars. 事实上，他们是在回应，同样的事情也发生在美国汽车上。

Like American cars, you know, like no one your brain says, you know, an SUV and a tiny little compact car should share as many parts as possible. 就像美国汽车，你知道，没有人会认为一辆SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle: 运动型多用途汽车) 和一辆小型紧凑型汽车应该共享尽可能多的零件。

But an engineering outsourcing brain says, well, for efficiency sake, we should use the same turn signals and all. 但一个工程外包的头脑会说，为了效率，我们应该使用相同的转向灯等等。

So, I had this tiny car with this giant turn signal cuz it was the same one they used throughout the whole Chrysler line, you know, which made no sense at all, but that's that's efficiency and that's what an engineer says. 所以，我有一辆小车，却有着一个巨大的转向灯，因为它是克莱斯勒整个生产线都在用的那个，你知道，这完全没有意义，但这就是效率，这就是工程师的说法。

Right? 对吗？

从日本经验看中国崛起：整合与学习

主持人 (Eric): I want to ask if there are lessons that we can take or analogies from further back in history. 主持人 (Eric): 我想问问，我们能否从更久远的历史中吸取教训或找到类比。

So, let's look at Japan and how they built a manufacturing economy. 那么，让我们看看日本是如何建立制造业经济的。

What what are things that you think are are resonant with with how China has done it or what are things that maybe maybe not so much? 你认为有哪些地方与中国的做法产生共鸣，又有哪些地方可能不那么相似？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, I think that the biggest difference between Japan and China is that I mean first of all I think the Japanese are much more meticulous and they have done, you know, I think on average just a much higher quality of production starting out. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我认为日本和中国之间最大的区别在于，首先，我认为日本人更加一丝不苟，而且他们从一开始，平均来说，生产质量就高得多。

You know, the the Chinese kind of started out really poor and then they got a lot better and the Chinese and the Japanese tend to be much better throughout this process. 你知道，中国人开始的时候真的很穷，然后他们变得好多了，而中国人日本人在这整个过程中都倾向于做得更好。

But I think the maybe that's just a matter of opinion, maybe that's just a a qualitative measure that is a little bit difficult to quantify. 但我想这也许只是个人观点问题，也许这只是一个有点难以量化的定性指标。

But I think the crucial crucial difference between Japan as well as China is that Japanese companies were making mostly Japanese product for exports and it didn't have that much foreign involvement in Japan making something like, you know, the Nintendo products or the Mitsubishi products. 但我认为日本和中国之间最关键的区别在于，日本公司主要生产用于出口的日本产品，在制造像任天堂产品或三菱产品这样的过程中，日本的外国参与度并不高。

That was almost all Japanese value add and China took a pretty different approach in part because of WTO accession that Stephen is right about is was tremendously important. 那几乎完全是日本的增值部分，而中国采取了相当不同的方法，部分原因在于史蒂芬所说的加入世界贸易组织极其重要。

So China realized that it was so far behind the technological frontier. 所以中国意识到它在技术前沿方面落后太多。

It couldn't possibly produce anything like game consoles or memory chips that Japan had already been really good at. 它不可能生产出像日本已经非常擅长的游戏机或存储芯片之类的东西。

And so China was really welcoming of foreign companies, companies like Microsoft, companies like Apple and companies like Tesla to build factories in China and then have Apple engineers come over, train a lot of people, bring their managerial talents, bring their design talents and then mostly assemble at the start components that were coming from the US and Japan and Germany and Korea and only provide the labor involved in producing these sort of products. 因此，中国非常欢迎像微软、苹果和特斯拉这样的外国公司在中国建厂，然后让苹果工程师过来，培训大量人员，带来他们的管理才能、设计才能，然后最初主要组装来自美国、日本、德国和韩国的零部件，只提供生产这些产品所需的劳动力。

That was not the case with Japan. 日本的情况并非如此。

Japan was already producing really high-quality products at the start and China was much more excited about welcoming foreign investors and you know even today there are still a lot of products from Apple as well as Tesla that are being produced in places like Shenzhen and Shanghai for export and I think the Chinese approach is going to avoid a lot of the problems of Japan in the past because Japan really had been locked into its own model. 日本从一开始就生产高质量产品，而中国则更积极地欢迎外国投资者，你知道，即使是今天，苹果和特斯拉的许多产品仍在深圳和上海等地生产并出口，我认为中国的做法将避免日本过去遇到的许多问题，因为日本确实一直被锁定在自己的模式中。

It is, you know, suffered what we call Galapagos syndrome (加拉帕戈斯综合症: 指一个国家或地区的产品和服务在本土市场非常成功，但在国际市场却难以适应的现象) in which it wasn't really, you know, adapted well for other markets and Japan was much less integrated than China is today. 它，你知道，遭受了我们所说的加拉帕戈斯综合症 (Galapagos syndrome)，即它并没有真正适应其他市场，而且日本的整合程度远低于今天的中国。

主持人 (Eric): Stephen, you have a prop that you want to show us about something with Japan. 主持人 (Eric): 史蒂芬，你有一个关于日本的道具想给我们看看。

嘉宾 (Stephen): Well, I think it's super I I love this point in that you make in the book about about quality and and what you just reiterated here. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 嗯，我觉得你书中关于质量的观点以及你在这里重申的观点非常棒，我非常喜欢。

And I also think one thing that that we tend to underestimate in the west so to speak is the degree to which the the South Asian countries are incredibly focused on each other. 我还认为西方国家往往低估了一件事，那就是南亚国家之间相互关注的程度。

Like they everybody in Beijing knows what's going on in Tokyo, knows what's going on in Seoul, is paying attention to Singapore and they really are keyed in. 比如，北京的每个人都知道东京发生了什么，知道首尔发生了什么，也关注着新加坡，他们真的非常投入。

And I when I was living in China, that was the biggest thing I saw, which was, you know, China was very proud that Sony was coming to open factories in China for foreign investment and build TVs. 我住在中国的时候，看到最重要的一点就是，中国当时非常自豪索尼要来中国设厂，进行外商投资，并生产电视机。

And and so Sony didn't quite realize it, but what had happened what was happening to them already was that Korea had already seen how Japan was successful with TVs and had already decided LG and Samsung that we're going to win in TVs. 所以索尼并没有完全意识到，但当时韩国已经看到了日本在电视机上的成功，并且LG和三星已经决定我们要在电视机领域取胜。

And not in a government-mandated way, but in a capitalist market way. 而且不是以政府指令的方式，而是以资本主义市场的方式。

And so today, the share of TVs, that's LG and and Samsung is super high for export around the world. 所以今天，LG和三星电视在全球出口中所占的份额非常高。

And that was very deliberate. 那是非常故意的。

And it turns out in the early 2000s, China was already seeing what Korea was doing. 结果发现在21世纪初，中国就已经看到了韩国在做什么。

And I I would meet with the CEOs of the electronics companies like TCL and higher. 我还会和TCL等电子公司的高管开会。

And I would think, "God, these TVs are awful." 然后我会想：“天啊，这些电视太糟糕了。”

Like they're they would make like these 6-in thick LED TVs, and they were they didn't have the screen technology, and they're like, "We're going to win in this." 比如他们会制造出像6英寸厚的LED电视 (Light Emitting Diode Television: 使用发光二极管作为背光源的电视)，他们当时还没有屏幕技术，但他们说：“我们会在这个领域取胜。”

And they were also going to beat Intel, and they were going to beat HP or whatever in making computers. 他们还打算在电脑制造方面击败英特尔和惠普等公司。

But it would the thing that's interesting in today's view of things is there are a lot of people who who aren't as worried about China. 但在今天的视角下，有趣的是有很多人不再那么担心中国了。

结语：摆脱极端，迎接长期竞争

嘉宾 (Stephen): And part of what they think about is like, well, you know, we went through and your book does a great job of of all the reasons if you wanted to believe that China couldn't be successful, you know, the demographic problem, the financing problem, the R&B (Renminbi: 人民币，中国的法定货币) problems, these are real things that they have to overcome. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 他们部分思考的是，你知道，我们经历了——你的书很好地列举了所有如果你想相信中国不会成功的原因，比如人口问题、融资问题、人民币 (Renminbi) 问题，这些都是他们必须克服的真实问题。

And so part of it was I was thinking back to the the 80s and and in Japan and you know like this was this Time magazine cover how to cope with Japan's business innovation. 所以，一部分原因是，我回想起80年代的日本，你知道，就像这本《时代》杂志的封面——《如何应对日本的商业创新》。

主持人 (Eric): You should hold that up made in Japan. 主持人 (Eric): 你应该把那个举起来，“日本制造”。

嘉宾 (Stephen): And um and it's super interesting because it it to me I feel like I'm on a on like a talk show. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 嗯，这超级有趣，因为对我来说，我觉得我好像在参加一个脱口秀节目。

主持人 (Eric): Can you you get that in frame? Is that working? 主持人 (Eric): 你能把它放到画面里吗？这样可以吗？

Yeah. 是的。

Okay. 好的。

嘉宾 (Stephen): Amazing. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 太棒了。

嘉宾 (Stephen): And and I think that it's just so interesting. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 而且我觉得这太有趣了。

We spent 20 years in the US freaking out about Japan. 我们美国花了20年对日本感到恐慌。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。

嘉宾 (Stephen): And and it it never really won. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 而且它从未真正获胜。

There was a brief time when it won. 它曾短暂地获胜过。

And so I worry that that's exactly the kind of incumbent complacency that can happen with China, which is well, we've been here. 所以我担心，这正是我们对中国可能产生的固守自满 (Incumbent Complacency: 指在位者因现有优势而产生的自满情绪，导致忽视变化和创新)。

We saw this. 我们见过这个。

We're not worried. 我们不担心。

And and actually all the things you just cited like the goalpost syndrome and the making things only for the Japan market not being welcome to foreign direct investment were were probably the reasons why Japan is not the leader in electronics today. 而且实际上你刚才提到的所有事情，比如加拉帕戈斯综合症和只为日本市场制造产品，不欢迎外国直接投资，可能正是日本今天不再是电子产品领导者的原因。

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, I think that's a really great point about American complacency because America can cite this triumphalist victory narrative that, "Oh, well, you know, in the 40s we defeated Germany and then later on we defeated the Soviet Union and then later on Japan was never quite the economic threat that, you know, the emperor wasn't going to sell his land and then buy all of the land in California because that was how much the palace was worth." 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我认为这是一个非常好的观点，关于美国的自满情绪，因为美国可以引用这种胜利主义的叙事，说“哦，你知道，在40年代我们击败了德国，然后后来我们击败了苏联，再后来日本从未真正构成经济威胁，你知道，天皇不会卖掉他的土地，然后买下加利福尼亚所有的土地，因为那是皇宫的价值。”

And I fear that China is a much more formidable competitor in part because it is just so much bigger. 我担心中国是一个更强大的竞争对手，部分原因在于它实在是太大了。

It's four times the population, perhaps economy roughly on par by some measures to the US. 它的人口是美国的四倍，经济规模在某些衡量标准下大致与美国相当。

It has a much stronger manufacturing base. 它拥有更强大的制造业基础。

It has some advantages. 它有一些优势。

It has some disadvantages. 它也有一些劣势。

But one other advantage is that the Chinese Communist Party is a very good student of history. 但另一个优势是，中国共产党是一个非常善于学习历史的学生。

It saw what went wrong with Japan throughout the mostly the 1980s with all of its economic problems. 它看到了日本在20世纪80年代期间的所有经济问题。

It really intensively studies the Soviet Union as well as its political failures. 它认真深入地研究了苏联及其政治失败。

It is really intent not to repeat these sort of mistakes. 它真的决心不重复这类错误。

And when you combine that with all of other of China's advantages, what I want to say is that the competition I believe between the US and China will last for decades. 当你将这一点与中国的所有其他优势结合起来时，我想说的是，我相信中美之间的竞争将持续数十年。

It will not be solved or resolved through any single technology, not even a technology as crucial as artificial intelligence. 它不会通过任何单一技术来解决或化解，甚至不是像人工智能 (Artificial Intelligence) 这样关键的技术。

They're going to be, you know, one country will become stronger. 它们会，你知道，一个国家会变得更强大。

Let's say if if China is much stronger than the US, China will feel overconfident, it's going to make mistakes and that's going to prompt the US to try to race faster as well and vice versa. 比如说，如果中国比美国强大得多，中国会变得过于自信，它会犯错，而这会促使美国也尝试加速竞争，反之亦然。

And so what I I I think it is just really unlikely that either country will just implode and fail to get back up. 所以，我认为，两国中任何一个国家会突然内爆并一蹶不振，这种可能性真的非常小。

Rather, we should be preparing and thinking about a pretty formidable competitor. 相反，我们应该准备并思考一个相当强大的竞争对手。

嘉宾 (Stephen): I yeah, I definitely I I definitely agree with that and I and I think that, like I said, my biggest worry is just is is complacency from our own, you know, like Detroit is the classic example of complacency in the US where, you know, Japan made cars. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 是的，我绝对同意这一点，而且我认为，就像我说的，我最大的担忧就是我们自己的自满情绪，你知道，比如底特律就是美国自满的经典例子，当时日本制造了汽车。

They they actually used their lawyers and they went to the government and basically solved their their car problems by having the government either bail them out and or through a combination of just making it harder for Japan to to do business in the US and sell their cars. 他们实际上动用了他们的律师，找到政府，基本上通过让政府进行救助，或者通过两者结合的方式，使得日本在美国开展业务和销售汽车变得更加困难，从而解决了他们的汽车问题。

Germany. You know, one of the things that always through the 70s and 80s that surprised Americans was why are there so many German cars all over Europe when they would go visit Europe? 德国。你知道，20世纪70年代和80年代一直让美国人惊讶的一件事是，当他们去欧洲旅游时，为什么整个欧洲到处都是德国车？

And it's like, well, and then you would drive them and it became this big thing. 然后你会去驾驶它们，这成了一件大事。

"Wow, these cars are really, really good." “哇，这些车真的很好。”

And then we did everything we could to make them expensive. 然后我们竭尽全力让它们变得昂贵。

And so now they're the most expensive cars and they have the luxury market, but you know, they don't have trucks. 所以现在它们成了最贵的车，占据了豪华车市场，但你知道，它们没有卡车。

And I and I and I think that those lessons and then, you know, certainly like in the world of software, you know, we spent a long time like thinking, "I don't know Japan doesn't seem to have its act together on software," and then sure enough here's China marching through, "Oh, we're going to make Red Flag Linux and we're going to make our own CPUs," and those have all failed and then one day you're like, "Wow, like Huawei looks pretty good," like and I was just I was in Japan last week playing with the Chinese phones which you can't really do here and they're all fine. 而且我认为这些教训，然后在软件世界里，你知道，我们花了很长时间思考，“我不知道日本在软件方面似乎没有做好准备，”然后果然中国大举进军，“哦，我们要制造红旗Linux，我们要制造自己的中央处理器 (CPU: Central Processing Unit)，”这些都失败了，然后有一天你会说，“哇，像华为看起来挺不错，”就像我上周在日本玩中国手机一样，你在这里没法真正做到，而且它们都很好。

Yeah, like like like if they were to be able to sell them here, which you know is a challenge, you know, those phones would all be these share leaders and it wouldn't just be Samsung in the AT&T store, for example. 是的，如果他们能够在这里销售，你知道这是一个挑战，那些手机都会成为市场领导者，而不仅仅是美国电话电报公司 (AT&T) 商店里的三星手机，举例来说。

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. And here's I mean I wonder if you agree with this proposition that over the last let's call it 15 years, China has gotten a lot better at software. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。我的意思是，我不知道你是否同意这个观点：在过去的15年里，中国的软件水平提高了很多。

And over the last 15 years, the US has a lead on software, no question about that, but its manufacturing and hardware has not gotten that much better. 在过去的15年里，美国在软件方面处于领先地位，这一点毫无疑问，但其制造业和硬件并没有那么大的进步。

So the Chinese are learning at a much faster rate and patching up their deficiencies than the Americans are. 所以中国人学习和弥补自身不足的速度比美国人快得多。

嘉宾 (Stephen): Yeah, we have really only two companies doing a good job on on hardware, which is the constellation of Elon Companies and and Apple and and after that we run out and so we have all of our bets are are there. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 是的，我们真正只有两家公司在硬件方面做得很好，那就是埃隆·马斯克旗下的公司群和苹果公司，除此之外我们就没什么了，所以我们所有的赌注都压在那里。

I I do think I I will be interested in seeing over time there is a cultural difference and I I think some of it just comes from the scale and the the wages and the need to appeal to a whole broader economy. 我确实认为，随着时间的推移，文化差异会显现出来，我认为其中一些差异仅仅源于规模、工资以及吸引更广泛经济体的需求。

The there is a quantitative difference in quality. 在质量上存在量化差异。

You know that you you can really measure on on the Chinese products. 你知道，你可以在中国产品上真正衡量这一点。

I I think that the the phones are good. 我认为那些手机是好的。

They're like what I would say is they're good enough. 它们就像我说的，足够好。

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。

嘉宾 (Stephen): But and the software is good enough. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 而且软件也足够好。

And actually I I think you alluded to like also the buildings are kind of good enough and the bridges aren't going to last as long as the Brooklyn Bridge. 我确实认为你暗示了，建筑物也足够好，桥梁也不会像布鲁克林大桥 (Brooklyn Bridge: 美国纽约市的一座历史性桥梁，以其坚固耐用著称) 那样经久耐用。

You know, they they're not built for that. 你知道，它们不是为此而建的。

They're not designed for that. 它们不是为此而设计的。

And certainly that was, you know, our apartment was falling apart and it was brand new and we we used to just laugh about this constantly. 当然，那时，你知道，我们的公寓正在散架，而且还是全新的，我们过去常常为此而笑。

And and but I I think that our challenge is we we don't have a quantity. 但是我认为我们的挑战是，我们没有数量。

I mean, I like I thought it would be good people should understand the scale of China. 我的意思是，我认为人们应该了解中国的规模，这会很好。

I know that sounds like a cliche, but I don't think people really understand it. 我知道这听起来像陈词滥调，但我不认为人们真正理解它。

So, let me just put my scale and then you you update it. 所以，让我先说出我的标准，然后你来更新。

Cuz when we were first opening up all the Microsoft offices in China, the person we hired to be the the head of China said, "Um, well, you have to have an office in every city that's more than 2 million people," which in the US would not be a lot of maybe broad metropolitan areas, but not the cities. 因为当我们第一次在中国开设微软办事处时，我们雇用的中国区负责人说：“嗯，你必须在每个超过200万人口的城市设立一个办事处”，这在美国可能不会有很多广阔的都会区，但不是城市。

And we're like, "Well, how many is that?" 我们问：“那有多少个城市呢？”

And they said 30. 他们说有30个。

And we're like, "Well, there's no country we have 30. 我们说：“嗯，没有哪个国家我们有30个办事处。

We don't have 30 offices in the US." 我们在美国都没有30个办事处。”

And but, you know, how about 10 million? 但是，你知道，1000万人口的城市呢？

"Oh, well, there's just two of those." “哦，只有两个。”

And so, here we are today and I think there's 18 cities with 10 million. 所以，今天我们在这里，我认为有18个千万人口城市。

I mean, that's and and I don't think you could count how many. 我的意思是，那简直是数不清的。

I mean, 2 million is like a town. 我的意思是，200万就像一个城镇。

主持人 (Eric): Right? 主持人 (Eric): 对吧？

Right. 对。

Right. 对。

Yes. 是的。

Yes. 是的。

嘉宾 (Dan): China scale is real and the sort of broad statistics that I like to highlight is that China is responsible for about a third of manufacturing value added globally. 嘉宾 (Dan): 中国的规模是真实的，我喜欢强调的总体统计数据是，中国在全球制造业增加值 (Value Added: 生产过程中新增的价值) 中约占三分之一。

If we take a look at, you know, almost any particular industry, whether that's structural steel or solar photonics, China can represent as much as 90%. 如果你看看几乎任何一个特定行业，无论是结构钢 (Structural Steel) 还是太阳能光伏 (Solar Photovoltaics)，中国所占的份额都可以高达90%。

And there's a couple of really crucial industries that China has almost a total choke hold over. 而且有几个非常关键的行业，中国几乎拥有完全的控制权。

We saw this most prominently with rare earth magnets (稀土磁体: 含有稀土元素的永磁材料，广泛用于高科技产品) this year after Trump imposed sky-high tariffs about of about 150%. 今年，在特朗普对稀土磁体 (Rare Earth Magnets) 征收高达150%的关税后，我们最明显地看到了这一点。

China retaliated with not only raising tariffs really high as well, but it suspended exports of rare earth magnets. 中国不仅也大幅提高了关税，还暂停了稀土磁体的出口。

And then a lot of automakers across the West started to panic because they couldn't manufacture their cars anymore. 然后，西方许多汽车制造商开始恐慌，因为他们无法再生产汽车了。

And that's not China's only card. 这并非中国唯一的牌。

China is also really dominant in a lot of things that include antibiotics, segments of fermented antibiotics, namely ibuprofen, and other active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs: 药物中具有生物活性的成分). 中国在许多领域也占据主导地位，包括抗生素、发酵抗生素的某些部分，即布洛芬 (Ibuprofen)，以及其他活性药物成分 (APIs)。

China could totally constrain the world's ability to make solar to deploy solar for for a while. 中国完全可以在一段时间内限制世界制造太阳能、部署太阳能的能力。

And so this is where I I I'm taking a look at a couple of particular industries where they have choke points and they could really hurt the West if it doesn't build enough. 所以这就是我正在关注一些特定行业的地方，这些行业存在扼制点，如果西方建设不足，中国真的可能伤害西方。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah, I I'm just personally particularly worried about pharma the most and I think that one's particularly interesting because we have all this pressure in the US to light loosen the regulatory climate for for pharma. 主持人 (Eric): 是的，我个人特别担心制药业，我认为这一个领域尤其有趣，因为我们在美国面临着巨大压力，要求放宽制药业的监管环境。

But the problem is China's regulatory climate is is very loose. 但问题是中国的监管环境非常宽松。

And I worry about, you know, we we see it all the time with like, "Oh, you know, people are testing like they went to the CVS and they got the same antibiotic in three different generics and they're actually kind of not what they say they are or they're not nearly the level of quality that they should be or purity that they should be." 我担心，你知道，我们经常看到这样的情况，比如“哦，你知道，人们正在测试，他们去了CVS药店，拿到了同一种抗生素的三种不同仿制药，但它们实际上并不像它们声称的那样，或者它们的质量或纯度远未达到应有的水平。”

And and so I I think we need to like pharma is the most strategic and important one that we need to build up because it's the one that also we we had the highest safety standards in the world for for leading it. 因此，我认为我们需要像制药这样最具战略性和重要性的行业发展起来，因为它是我们拥有世界上最高安全标准来引领的行业。

And so my hope is that's and it's such a straightforward one in a I mean we used to make them all in Delaware and and stuff and that just seems to have gone away in New Jersey and that seems to have gone away. 所以我的希望是，这是一个非常直接的，我的意思是，我们以前都在特拉华州和等地生产这些产品，而这似乎在新泽西州已经消失了。

美国产业政策：挑战与机遇

主持人 (Eric): A lot of our approach in terms of catching up on manufacturing seems to be around industrial policy and picking winners sort of following some maybe the approach that China and Japan have have taken to some degree. 主持人 (Eric): 我们在追赶制造业方面采取的许多方法似乎都围绕着产业政策和“挑选赢家”，某种程度上效仿了中国和日本的一些做法。

Do you think that's the that's the right approach or what would you come in on that? 你认为这是正确的方法吗？或者你对此有什么看法？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, well, I think industrial policy could be defined as broadly as we like Eric. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我认为产业政策可以像我们喜欢的那样被广义定义，埃里克。

So let's just define it really broadly. 所以让我们把它定义得非常广泛。

This could involve also the creation and deployment of better sources of infrastructure. 这也可以包括创建和部署更好的基础设施来源。

Again, I come back to not only traditional infrastructure like ports and railroads that move around a lot of goods, but also China has a lot of data connectivity. 再次强调，我不仅仅是指港口和铁路等运输大量货物的传统基础设施，中国也拥有大量数据连接。

They build just enormous fleets of nuclear power stations. 他们建造了庞大的核电站群。

You know, there's something like something like 40 nuclear plants under construction in the world and 35 of them are in China right now. 你知道，目前世界上大约有40座核电站正在建设中，其中35座在中国。

And the US is barely building out enough of the nuclear plants. 而美国几乎没有建造足够的核电站。

It's not President Trump now is pretty unfriendly towards wind turbines. 现在特朗普总统对风力涡轮机相当不友好。

He keeps tweeting about this sort of stuff. 他不断在推特上发布这类内容。

And we industrial policy could also be defined in terms of education in terms of, you know, giving more money to some of our most functioning university labs or national laboratories to get them to deploy technologies quite a lot better. 而且我们的产业政策也可以从教育角度定义，比如向我们一些运行最好的大学实验室或国家实验室提供更多资金，让他们更好地部署技术。

Maybe it could also involve workforce training. 也许它还可以包括劳动力培训。

It doesn't all have to involve giving money to Intel. 它不必全部涉及向英特尔提供资金。

You know, are we even picking winners here when we give a lot of money to Intel? 你知道，当我们给英特尔很多钱的时候，我们甚至是在挑选赢家吗？

Intel hasn't been doing very well. 英特尔的表现一直不尽如人意。

So, I say that let's have a broader definition of industrial policy. 所以，我说我们应该对产业政策有一个更广阔的定义。

We don't have to call it industrial policy. 我们不必称之为产业政策。

Let's call it national competitiveness. 让我们称之为国家竞争力 (National Competitiveness)。

But right now, I would say that the trend for the US has just not been doing very well. 但就目前而言，我想说美国的发展趋势并不乐观。

So, let's try something else. 所以，让我们尝试一些不同的方法。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. I think and I think to build on what you were saying earlier, I I think the lawyer side of us needs to focus it's just as important to broadly define it as, you know, we want these things to happen and we're not going to saddle them with ancillary requirements, you know, and and so much of of the challenge has been like, "Oh, yeah, we want you to do this, but we also like rare earths," you know, rare earths are real challenge it's a kind of a weird name there it's not that there are super rare elements it's that They're they're just called that in chemistry, but that they're really really difficult to get out of the ground and process and turn into useful products. 主持人 (Eric): 是的。我认为，在你之前所说的基础上，我们律师界需要关注的同样重要的一点是，要广义地定义它，也就是说，我们希望这些事情发生，但我们不会给它们附加额外的要求。你知道，很多挑战都是这样：“哦，是的，我们希望你这样做，但我们也喜欢稀土。”你知道，稀土是一个真正的挑战，它的名字有点奇怪，并不是说它们是超级稀有元素，而是它们在化学中就是这样称呼的，但它们真的非常非常难以从地下提取、加工并转化为有用的产品。

And our part of the reason we don't like doing it here is because of those environmental downsides. 我们不喜欢在这里做的部分原因正是那些环境负面影响。

But the flip side is we we we have to be able to do them. 但另一方面是，我们必须能够做到。

And the same with pharma. 制药业也是如此。

Like people don't like chemical plants near where they live. 比如，人们不喜欢化学工厂建在他们住所附近。

And we have a lot of history that says that gets to be problematic over time. 而且我们有很多历史经验表明，随着时间的推移，这会变得有问题。

So we we need to be able to figure out how to get things done not just by like encouraging but by also putting barriers around the barriers. 所以我们不仅需要通过鼓励，还需要通过设置障碍来解决问题。

Yeah. 是的。

Otherwise, people can't invest. 否则，人们无法投资。

嘉宾 (Dan): You know, you can't it it all everything turns into sort of commercial real estate where you have to be this very special breed of person that has like a 60-year time horizon to build one building. 嘉宾 (Dan): 你知道，你不可能，一切都变成了商业房地产，你必须是一种非常特殊的人，拥有60年的时间跨度才能建造一栋建筑。

主持人 (Eric): And that's and that's really the challenge. 主持人 (Eric): 那确实是挑战。

I mean with something like rare earths, we absolutely need them and they're absolutely super polluting. 我的意思是，对于像稀土 (Rare Earths: 一组具有特殊性质的金属元素，广泛用于高科技产品) 这样的东西，我们绝对需要它们，而且它们绝对是超级污染的。

If we take a look at some of the rare earth processing facilities around China, the cancer rates are off the charts. 如果我们看看中国各地的一些稀土加工设施，那里的癌症发病率简直高得离谱。

In California, this is a totally NIMBY (Not In My Backyard: 反对在自己社区附近建设不受欢迎设施的态度) state. 在加利福尼亚州，这是一个完全邻避 (NIMBY) 的州。

You know, I can't imagine that any homeowner will say, "Yes, let's have a rare earth processor in my backyard." 你知道，我无法想象会有任何一个房主会说：“是的，让我们在我的后院建一个稀土加工厂吧。”

Even in places like Nevada, which is mostly, you know, high which is mostly desert, hot desert, you know, there were a lot of protests about putting some nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (美国内华达州的一个山脉，曾被提议作为核废料储存地) and that was like a pretty remote place, right? 即使在像内华达州这样大部分是沙漠、炎热沙漠的地方，你知道，对于在尤卡山 (Yucca Mountain) 储存核废料，也有很多抗议，而那是一个相当偏远的地方，对吧？

So I I I don't see how we get from here to there. 所以我不知道我们如何从这里走向那里。

A lot of these rare earths discussions that I saw from the Biden administration was let's make the Canadians do it. 我从拜登政府那里看到的很多关于稀土的讨论是，让加拿大人来做。

And so you know this was not a really ambitious project to say, "Okay, well, we got to figure out some remote part of California, you know, some part of the West where there's a ton of federal land." 所以，你知道，这并不是一个雄心勃勃的项目，他们没有说：“好吧，我们必须在加州的一些偏远地区，或者西部联邦土地多的地方，想办法解决。”

主持人 (Eric): The one thing we have is remote. 主持人 (Eric): 我们确实有偏远的地方。

We have a lot of remote that it's also fairly accessible. 我们有很多偏远但交通也相对便利的地方。

嘉宾 (Dan): And it's federal land, you know, so why why don't we just build there and yet we can't. 嘉宾 (Dan): 而且那是联邦土地，你知道，所以我们为什么不在那里建设呢？然而我们却做不到。

And yet we can't. 然而我们做不到。

So that's the challenge. 所以这就是挑战。

Yeah. 是的。

中美外交政策对比：工程师式建设与全球联盟

主持人 (Eric): Dan, I want you to compare and contrast American and China's approach to foreign policy and how that impacts the the the competition as we think about it. 主持人 (Eric): 丹，我想请你比较一下美国和中国在外交政策上的做法，以及这如何影响我们所思考的竞争。

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. Well, America has been a global power for a very long time. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。美国长期以来一直是一个全球大国。

There's what let's say 100 countries or maybe 50 countries where there's American military bases. 大约有100个国家，或者说50个国家，设有美国军事基地。

There's a lot of people who would really like the America to the United States to have their back. 有很多人确实希望美国能够支持他们。

And China has not built this network of alliances. 而中国并没有建立起这样的联盟网络。

It doesn't have that much trust. 它没有那么多的信任。

It doesn't have that much trust even among its near neighbors, all of whom have something to fear from Chinese power. 即使在近邻之间，它也没有那么多信任，所有这些近邻都对中国的力量有所畏惧。

主持人 (Eric): There have been a few wars. 主持人 (Eric): 曾发生过几场战争。

嘉宾 (Dan): There's been quite a few wars. 嘉宾 (Dan): 确实发生过不少战争。

And I think for me what the way that I would characterize China's foreign policy is that it's very engineer driven. 我认为，对我来说，我将中国外交政策描述为非常由工程师驱动。

They the way that they conduct a lot of diplomacy in Africa and Southeast Asia as well as Latin America is just to go up to these countries and build some roads, build some light rail, build some ports. 他们在非洲、东南亚以及拉丁美洲进行外交的方式，就是去这些国家修建一些道路、修建一些轻轨、修建一些港口。

And I think for the most part that's pretty positive. 而且我认为在大多数情况下，这是相当积极的。

A lot of these countries really do need a lot of functional infrastructure. 这些国家确实非常需要大量功能性基础设施。

China is really good at building these at home, but it's found that it hasn't been super good at building these more locally. 中国在国内建设这些方面非常擅长，但它发现自己在当地建设这些方面并不是特别出色。

It hasn't been able to, you know, build effectively and cleanly and, you know, in a way that satisfies a lot of political elites over there. 它未能有效、廉洁地建设，也没有以一种能够满足当地许多政治精英的方式进行建设。

Otherwise, I think that, you know, China's foreign policy has been not terribly ambitious. 否则，我认为，中国的对外政策并没有那么大的野心。

A couple of months ago, there was this minor border skirmish between Cambodia as well as Thailand. 几个月前，柬埔寨和泰国之间发生了一次小规模的边境冲突。

And so there were some some troops that died in this fatal conflict. 在这场致命冲突中，有一些士兵牺牲了。

And was it China that the regional power that really stepped up to mediate with that conflict? 那么，是作为区域大国的中国真正站出来调解这场冲突了吗？

Actually, it was mostly mediated by I believe Malaysia. 实际上，我相信主要是马来西亚进行了调解。

So it wasn't the US or or Beijing that did something about this. 所以，处理这件事的不是美国，也不是北京。

This was Malaysia. 这是马来西亚。

China has pissed off a lot of Europeans who are not very happy about Trump by engaging in wolf warrior diplomacy (战狼外交: 中国外交官以强硬姿态回应西方批评的外交风格) as if insulting these countries is the way to make friends. 中国通过从事战狼外交 (wolf warrior diplomacy)，惹恼了许多对特朗普并不满意的欧洲人，仿佛侮辱这些国家是交朋友的方式。

That's also been very very strange. 那也一直非常非常奇怪。

And in any sort of global conflict, China will have will issue Beijing will issue these statements to say, "Well, maybe things between Israel and Palestine should calm down and maybe, you know, Russia and Ukraine should be friends," but they also don't really do anything to to have stakes here. 而且在任何形式的全球冲突中，中国都会发表北京会发表这些声明，说：“嗯，也许以色列和巴勒斯坦之间的事情应该平静下来，也许，你知道，俄罗斯和乌克兰应该成为朋友，”但他们也没有真正做任何事情来在这里拥有利害关系。

And so I think that the engineering states' foreign policy is still mostly to build stuff rather than get really deeply involved in a way that America has actually achieved and make friends and build alliances in a way that America seems to be mostly walking away from now. 因此，我认为工程师国家的外交政策仍然主要是建设，而不是像美国那样真正深入参与，建立友谊和联盟，而美国现在似乎正在逐渐放弃这种做法。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah, it's super interesting that I love your characterization of of their foreign policy as engineering. 主持人 (Eric): 是的，这非常有趣，我喜欢你将他们的外交政策描述为工程化的方式。

Like if you go to Africa, like take Madagascar, which is arguably the poorest country in the world, you know, like to go see to land in the capital city and go see chocolate and lemurs, you know, it's this 100 mile 100 km drive and China came in and and but there's all this aluminum and metals in the same place and China came in and just said, "Hey, we'll build you with a railroad," and and the French had built one and then it deteriorated then China came in, but the French were colonizing ing the area. 比如你去非洲，就拿马达加斯加来说，它可以说是世界上最贫穷的国家，你知道，你去首都降落，去看巧克力和狐猴，你知道，那是一段100英里100公里的路程，然后中国来了，而且那里有很多铝和金属，中国来了就说：“嘿，我们给你修铁路，”法国人曾修过一条，后来年久失修，然后中国来了，但法国人当时是在殖民那个地区。

Whereas China came in and said, "Oh, we'll build you a railroad and we're going to just build a village where we live and we won't even bother you." 而中国来的时候说：“哦，我们给你修一条铁路，我们就在这里建一个我们自己住的村庄，我们甚至不会打扰你。”

And like literally, you could go if you wanted Chinese food, you just turned left and you went to the Chinese part of town and they never bothered anybody. 而且，说真的，如果你想吃中餐，你只要左转走到镇上的中国区就行了，他们从不打扰任何人。

And then if you wanted Malagasy food, you they just said, "Hey, come here and we'll give you chocolate and cool spices and stuff." 然后如果你想吃马达加斯加食物，他们就会说：“嘿，到这里来，我们会给你巧克力和很棒的香料之类的。”

And they no, they never bother us. 不，他们从不打扰我们。

And so in a way they they got the engineering the transaction is I think what the State Department the way they say it is it's very transaction-oriented. 所以从某种意义上说，他们实现了工程，这种交易，我认为用美国国务院的说法，就是非常交易导向型 (Transaction-oriented: 侧重于单次交易而非长期关系的策略)。

Here's the train and now we're going to extract and leave you alone. 这是火车，现在我们要开采，然后就让你们自生自灭。

But then also once the extraction is done or once it's it's normalized then that infrastructure isn't super well-maintained. 但一旦开采完成或者一旦正常化，那么基础设施就不会得到很好的维护。

It's not expansive. 它不具备扩展性。

And and yet the flip side is like countries Latin America saw like what happens when the US came in and so in a sense what I'm hearing and also what I believe is that the world needs a different kind of foreign policy that is much more to use a Chinese phrase much more of a win-win than than either country currently sets it up to be. 然而另一方面是，像拉美国家就看到了美国介入后发生的事情，所以从某种意义上说，我听到并相信的是，世界需要一种不同类型的外交政策，用中国人的话说，那就是一种比目前任何一个国家所设想的更具双赢 (Win-win: 指双方都能从中受益的结果) 性质的政策。

嘉宾 (Dan): Sure. 嘉宾 (Dan): 当然。

Well, the State Department also says that when China talks about women diplomacy, it's about China winning twice. 嗯，美国国务院也说，当中国谈论女性外交时，那意味着中国赢了两次。

主持人 (Eric): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly I mean like Madagascar is still the poorest country and now they have sort of half a railroad and less aluminum, right? 主持人 (Eric): 是的。是的。是的。这正是我的意思，比如马达加斯加仍然是最贫穷的国家，现在他们只有半条铁路和更少的铝，对吧？

台湾问题：2027年与长期趋势

嘉宾 (Dan): You know, speaking about foreign policy, thinking about the the the short to medium term here, one of the biggest questions, of course, is is Taiwan in 2027. 嘉宾 (Dan): 谈到外交政策，考虑到这里的短期到中期情况，当然，最大的问题之一是2027年的台湾。

What are the things you're watching to sort of get a better read on on what what could possibly happen and what's what's your base case on, you know, how how it plays out? 你正在关注哪些事情，以便更好地了解可能发生的情况，以及你对事态如何发展的基本判断是什么？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah. Well, I want to quote from the great analyst Ben Thompson here who recently moved back to the US from Taiwan and his assessment is that there's always a lot of risks out there, but in his view, the conflict between Beijing and Taipei is not imminent and not inevitable. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的。我想引用杰出分析师本·汤普森的话，他最近从台湾搬回了美国，他的评估是，风险总是存在的，但在他看来，北京和台北之间的冲突并非迫在眉睫，也并非不可避免。

And that's kind of my view. 这基本上也是我的观点。

I feel like there is no deadline that Beijing has issued to say we will seize the Taiwan island by 2027. 我觉得北京并没有发布任何明确的最后期限，说我们将在2027年前攻占台湾岛。

Maybe they want to be ready to do it. 也许他们想为此做好准备。

But I think, you know, so long as Beijing feels that the long-term trends favor China and that is their publicly stated position that China is growing wealthier, it's growing more powerful, it is, you know, getting more confident at the same time while the US appears to be falling, you know, Beijing likes to say the east is rising and the west is falling and perhaps they take some solace from the messiness of American society right now in 2025 that they feel that time is on their side if they have some sort of hope that the Taiwanese could themselves really vote themselves to be part of the mainland again, that looks pretty unlikely now, but maybe they get a KMT (Kuomintang: 中国国民党) government which is more friendly towards Beijing so long as they believe in all of that then I think they have no urgency really to move and I think that the status quo has been pretty robust for the last 75 years now and maybe that could hold for quite a few years longer. 但是我认为，你知道，只要北京方面觉得长期趋势有利于中国——这也是他们公开声明的立场，即中国变得更加富裕，力量更加强大，而且，你知道，与此同时也变得更加自信，而美国似乎正在衰落，你知道，北京喜欢说东方正在崛起，西方正在衰落，也许他们从2025年美国社会目前的混乱中得到了一些慰藉，他们觉得时间站在他们这边，如果他们抱有某种希望，认为台湾人民真的可以投票让自己再次成为大陆的一部分，这现在看起来可能性很小，但也许他们能有一个对北京更友好的国民党 (KMT) 政府，只要他们相信这一切，那么我认为他们就没有真正的紧迫性采取行动，而且我认为现状在过去75年里一直相当稳固，也许还可以维持相当长一段时间。

主持人 (Eric): And so you're not worried about some people say because of sort of the demographic situation or because of sort of China's, you know, sort of economic, you know, somewhat slowdown that they're going to be forced to to sort of, you know, make a hand here while they while they have it. 主持人 (Eric): 所以你并不担心有些人所说的，由于人口状况，或者中国经济某种程度上的放缓，他们会被迫在此刻采取行动。

You think it's unlikely? 你认为这不太可能吗？

嘉宾 (Dan): Yeah, I think that China's demographic situation is a problem more in the next 50 years rather than the next 5 years. 嘉宾 (Dan): 是的，我认为中国的人口状况是未来50年的问题，而不是未来5年的问题。

The slope, the curve of their demographic decline is pretty modest. 他们人口下降的斜率和曲线都相当平缓。

I mean, they still have 1.4 billion people or just shy of that now. 我的意思是，他们现在仍然有14亿人口，或者略低于这个数字。

It's not that many people that they're losing every single year. 他们每年失去的人口并没有那么多。

And their economy, you know, you can debate what exactly the the number is, but they publicly say something like 5% growth. 而他们的经济，你知道，你可以争论具体数字是多少，但他们公开表示大约有5%的增长。

And there is still growth there. 而且那里仍然有增长。

And there is still all sorts of, you know, new business creation there and all sorts of fantastic new technological advancements there. 而且那里仍然有各种各样的新业务创造和各种令人惊叹的新技术进步。

And so I don't think they view themselves to be fundamentally weak and that there's a window that they must act in before it closes. 所以我认为他们不认为自己根本上是弱小的，也不认为有一个窗口期，他们必须在窗口关闭之前采取行动。

结语：摆脱极端，迎接长期竞争

主持人 (Eric): What I appreciate about about the about the book is right now in the intellectual conversation around China, I feel like there's the two extremes where you have this sort of extreme bearishness like the Zhan view of hey because of sort of demographics because of sort of limitations around food and energy, you know, he thinks they're going to implode in in the next decade. 主持人 (Eric): 我很欣赏这本书的一点是，在当前围绕中国的知识分子对话中，我感觉存在两个极端：一种是极度看空，比如詹的观点，认为由于人口结构和食物、能源方面的限制，中国将在未来十年内崩溃。

And then there's the sort of, you know, BI but many others who are like, "Hey, they have many more people and they're smarter and they're just winning on so many things and it's only going going to compound." 然后还有一些人，比如彭博社国际 (BI: Bloomberg International) 以及其他许多人，他们认为：“嘿，他们有更多的人，他们更聪明，他们在很多方面都在赢，而且只会越来越好。”

And I feel like you have a more sober view to some degree, which is, "Hey, America's got unique strengths and and weaknesses and and China's got unique strengths and weaknesses and it's going to be there is no implosion." 我感觉你的观点在某种程度上更清醒，那就是：“嘿，美国有其独特的优势和劣势，中国也有其独特的优势和劣势，而且不会有崩溃。”

When one side is ahead, the other side will overstep and then the then and then they'll need to catch up. 当一方领先时，另一方就会越界，然后他们就需要迎头赶上。

And so I want to say that there is no winner here, there is no loser here. 所以我想说的是，这里没有赢家，也没有输家。

It's not a race. 这不是一场竞赛。

Nobody gets to hit the win button. 没有人可以按下“赢”的按钮。

And I think we should just take this as a slow, steady grind that will require all of us to get better in all sorts of ways. 我认为我们应该把这看作是一个缓慢而稳定的磨砺过程，需要我们所有人以各种方式变得更好。

嘉宾 (Dan): I think it's a great place to wrap. 嘉宾 (Dan): 我认为这是个很好的总结。

The book is Breakneck. 这本书是《Breakneck》。

Dan, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. 丹，非常感谢你来参加播客。

主持人 (Eric): Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Stephen. 主持人 (Eric): 谢谢你，埃里克。谢谢你，史蒂芬。

嘉宾 (Stephen): Thanks so much. 嘉宾 (Stephen): 非常感谢。