Contemporary China, with its maniacal building, corrupt systems, and creation of immense entrepreneurial wealth, strongly resembles America's late 19th-century Gilded Age. This historical parallel suggests China may be heading towards its own "Progressive Era" of technocratic reform and civil service improvements.

A critical asymmetry exists in the US-China competition: It is far harder for the U.S. to rebuild its complex manufacturing ecosystems and tacit process knowledge than it is for China to improve its scientific research capabilities, where it is already making significant strides.

Attempting to beat China by mimicking its state-controlled industrial policies is a strategic failure. This approach politicizes the economy, breeds inefficiency, and plays to China's strengths. The U.S. wins by leveraging its own core advantage: out-innovating and out-competing through a market-driven system.

China's immense state capacity allows for rapid infrastructure development but also enables disastrous national policies like the one-child policy or Zero-COVID. Unlike the deliberative U.S. system, China's efficiency means that when it goes off track, it can go catastrophically off track before any course correction is possible.

China operates as a high-agency "engineering state" that executes relentlessly on large-scale projects. In contrast, America's deliberative, litigious society often leads to endless delays and failures on major infrastructure goals like the California high-speed rail, highlighting a fundamental difference in state capacity and approach.

China's constant building of subways, high-speed rail, and parks provides tangible proof of national improvement. This "physical dynamism" creates a powerful sense of public optimism and builds political resilience for the Communist Party, a stark contrast to the stagnation felt in the U.S.

From the transcontinental railroad to the Apollo missions, the U.S. once had a powerful engineering culture that drove national progress. This identity has been lost, replaced by a lawyerly culture that prioritizes obstruction over construction, leading to decaying infrastructure and societal stagnation.

China's "engineering state" mindset extends beyond physical projects to social engineering. The Communist Party treats its own people as a resource to be moved or molded—whether displacing a million for a dam or enforcing the one-child policy—viewing society as just another material to achieve its objectives.

A nation's leadership class shapes its priorities. China's government, heavily populated by engineers, excels at long-term, systematic infrastructure and technology projects. The US, dominated by lawyers, often gets mired in litigation and short-term cycles, hindering large-scale execution.