Piers Tang Within U.S. politics, a longstanding divide has existed between progressive leaders who emphasize distributional policy—welfare, equality, and redistribution—and those who argue that economic growth itself must remain a central objective. Critics and supporters of Abundance (Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, 2025) converge on a key claim: without robust growth and sustained supply expansion, redistribution alone … Read more
In High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy (2024), Angela Huyue Zhang examines China’s regulatory approach, comparing it with developments in the United States and the European Union. She argues that, despite differences in political and economic structures, China faces regulatory challenges similar to those confronting Western systems. Zhang frames this … Read more
In the United States, the growing prevalence of ALICE households—asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed—represents not merely a social welfare challenge but a structural failure in talent mobilization. High living costs, pervasive legal and regulatory risk, and an expensive failure environment constrain individuals’ ability to pursue technical training, tolerate career risk, or sustain long time horizons. These … Read more
“Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” (ALICE) describes U.S. households that earn above the Federal Poverty Level yet lack the resources necessary for economic security. ALICE is neither a conspiracy nor a moral failure; it is a rational outcome of interacting systems optimized for self-protection in a society that has lost its stabilizers. U.S. over-financialization and … Read more
Engineering capability—the ability to transform theoretical and technological innovations into practical products—has long been a cornerstone of national competitiveness. The United States, once a global leader in this domain, has experienced a gradual decline due to a complex interplay of factors: overdevelopment of the service and financial sectors leading to industrial hollowing out, globalization and … Read more
Western analyses of China often remain trapped in Western-centric political assumptions and fail to appreciate the enduring indigenous logic of Chinese political development. It is tempting to interpret China’s actions and ambitions through American or broader Western paradigms, yet such projections distort reality rather than illuminate it. A more accurate understanding requires approaching China on … Read more
China’s internet ecosystem has evolved beyond a purely economic or commercial domain, increasingly expressing a distinct lifestyle and consumption philosophy grounded in deep user integration. Everyday scenarios—such as paying utility bills through Alipay or accessing ride-hailing services within WeChat—are not simply conveniences enabled by superior technology. Rather, they reflect a systemic logic in which digital … Read more
Western critiques of China’s hukou (household registration) system often frame it as a uniquely authoritarian mechanism that restricts permanent migration to major cities by tying access to public services—such as education, healthcare, and social housing—to one’s registered locality. This comparison, however, is strategically incomplete. It evaluates hukou against an idealized vision of Western mobility rather … Read more
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the First Gulf War in 1991 marked the zenith of American global dominance and gave rise to the belief that liberal capitalism and American-style democracy constituted the “end of history.” Emboldened by this perceived victory, the United States pursued a post–Cold War globalization strategy centered on exporting its … Read more
The United States persistently confuses moral conviction and procedural authority with substantive material strategy, a pattern evident in its unplanned decoupling from global dependencies—a deliberate echo of habits ingrained since the Cold War’s end. To effectively vie with China in the technological arena and avert recurring pitfalls, the U.S. must confront its fundamental errors and … Read more