In The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life (2016), Anu Partanen challenges the common perception of Nordic countries as “socialist nanny states,” arguing that this label misunderstands both how their systems function and the type of freedom they foster. Her work highlights that the Nordic model offers a distinctive approach to … Read more
Industrial policy has been more successful in China than in Western Europe, the United States, and Japan because China uniquely combines strong state capacity, long-term political commitment, and market scale with the ability to coordinate firms, finance, and regulation toward strategic goals. In industries such as photovoltaic panels, EV batteries, display manufacturing, and telecommunications equipment, … Read more
China’s so-called “proof by exhaustion,” sometimes referred to as the “no-choice method” by Wang Tao of Fudan University, is best understood not as indecision or brute-force trial and error, but as a system-level strategy for development under extreme uncertainty. Designed for long time horizons and sustained geopolitical pressure, it reflects a distinct logic for managing … Read more
China’s industrial policy is often misunderstood as a toolkit of subsidies, plans, and coordination mechanisms. In practice, it operates as a political–institutional tolerance system, one that permits repeated, large-scale corporate failure without triggering regime, legal, or reputational collapse. The experiences of firms such as BOE, SMIC, CATL, and Huawei illustrate both the strengths and limits … Read more
BOE’s transformation from a struggling restructured state-owned enterprise into a global leader in semiconductor displays provides a rare, internally consistent lens on how China’s industrial policy operates in practice. Rather than functioning as rigid blueprint planning, this case reveals a dynamic system centered on selection, scaling, and the absorption of risk. Through iterative support, disciplined … Read more
This thought experiment uses the rise of China’s BOE as an analogy to explore how the United States might deliberately reconstruct a failed industrial bet—Solyndra—into a globally dominant clean-energy firm comparable to China’s Longi, tracing a hypothetical path from early-stage rescue through scale, cost leadership, and global market penetration. It examines how such a strategy … Read more
BOE Technology Group’s transformation from a marginal Chinese display maker in the early 2000s into the world’s leading LCD producer by the late 2010s exemplifies state-enabled latecomer industrial catch-up. Through a combination of long-term investment, scale expansion, engineering iteration, and patient state support, BOE systematically restructured the global display ecosystem, forcing Japanese and South Korean … Read more
The implications of Sino–U.S. technological competition and global hegemony cannot be understood through the narrow lens of trade policy or export-control mechanisms alone. Rather, they emerge from a deeper interaction between historical trauma, systematic technology denial, and China’s capacity for industrial-scale adaptation. Together, these forces have reshaped China’s national strategy and are now transforming the … Read more
China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry is not the result of isolated subsidies or short-term stimulus; it is the outcome of a deliberate, system-level industrial strategy refined over two decades. Guided by long-horizon planning, scenario-driven experimentation, and pragmatic iteration, this strategy integrates fiscal and regulatory coordination, market shaping, ecosystem development, and global rule influence. Far from … Read more
China’s rise to near-peer status with the West reflects deliberate strategic choices rather than chance. While the United States and much of Europe gradually abandoned industrial density—treating manufacturing as expendable, subordinating engineers to finance, and assuming globalization and symbolic dominance would secure permanent advantage—China embraced production as a civilizational foundation. It built dense industrial ecosystems, … Read more