Technology and China analyst, Hoover Institution research fellow and author of Breakneck
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Dan Wang brings an industrial perspective to the competition between China and the United States. He helps audiences look beyond announcements and product demonstrations to the manufacturing experience, institutions and practical capabilities that sustain technological progress. His years researching technology in China give leadership teams a grounded way to discuss supply chains, industrial policy and the difficulty of building things at scale. For companies operating across the two markets, he offers a useful framework for examining dependencies that persist beyond an election cycle.
Examine the institutions and manufacturing experience behind China’s development. Consider both the advantages of building at scale and the social and economic costs of the choices that make it possible.
Connect industrial policy, export controls and technological development. Explore how political decisions interact with capabilities that take years to accumulate and cannot be replaced by a short-term policy announcement.
Look at the skills, supplier networks and operational learning embedded in production. Ask what a company must understand before relocating capacity or assuming that a supply chain can be rebuilt quickly.
Compare different approaches to development and institutional problem-solving. Use that comparison to examine a company’s assumptions about speed, execution, innovation and the consequences of large investment decisions.
Dan Wang is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, published in 2025. His work examines technology, industrial development and the relationship between China and the United States.
Wang previously served as a research fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and as a technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. He lived in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, researching China’s technology sector and the effects of American policy on its development. His writing combines institutional analysis with close attention to factories, supply chains and the people who build industrial capabilities.
Breakneck compares the strengths and costs of different approaches to development. It asks what societies gain from the ability to build and what can be lost when institutions pursue engineering solutions without sufficient regard for individual lives. That tension gives his work relevance beyond a conventional discussion of geopolitical rivalry.
Before his research career, Wang worked at Flexport and Shopify. He studied philosophy at the University of Rochester. His widely read essays connect technology and political economy with observations from travel and everyday life.
For leadership audiences, Wang offers a long view of competitive advantage. His perspective helps distinguish access to a technology from the accumulated skills and production systems needed to use it effectively. A briefing can explore how export controls, industrial policy and manufacturing experience influence strategic choices, and which dependencies deserve attention before a company changes suppliers, locations or investment priorities.
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