Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A Concise Armchair Analysis of Chinese Resiliency and Their Place in the World - per Dan Wang’s book
Last video was too long and detailed.
Here I condense into key points, albeit very important.
China is an “Engineering State”, with engineers in almost all key positions at all levels of government, for roughly the last 45 years. Premier Xi Jinping is a chemical engineer from a top science university. CCP (China Communist Party) Politburo’s 24 members are almost all engineers; namely managers of huge engineering projects.
Key policies, good and bad, mainly set by engineers in 5 year plans. Economic growth rates of 10% per year in many regions, doubling economy size (new country) every 7 years. Downside - engineers think they know best to control people - social engineering - like One-Child Policy (1980 - 2015), and Zero-Covid policy, with draconian enforcement.
Now, fertility rate of 1.0, if it continues will halve China’s 1.4 billion people to 700 million by 2100.
China has overbuilt for resilience in last 45 years.
USA is a “Lawyerly Society”, which took over country in 1970’s and 80’s to clean up rivers on fire, chemical plant leaks, cars dumped in rivers, smog, haze,… but this stayed in place and removed engineers and scientists from ear of government.
China facts:
Fortress China: Xi Jinping quotes: “… worried that China will be cut off from world; we must be prepared for worst case and extreme scenarios; worried about war with USA…” China is working seriously to harden itself to win a war, should one ever come…
Energy Security: Enormous effort to build low-carbon capacities of solar, wind, nuclear within its borders, reduce pain if it loses access to sea-lanes that deliver its oil. 2023 - added 20x more coal burning capacity than rest of world put together.
Food Security: Zi Jinping in wheat field: “The bowls of Chinese people should be filled mostly with Chinese grain”. Pandemic, Russia invasion of Ukraine, emphasized this self-sufficiency importance.
China has 100 million people working in manufacturing, Germany 8 million, Japan 10 million, USA 12.5 million now, 11 million a decade ago, peaked at 20 million decades ago.
2022: USA 5 ships under construction, China 1,800 ships
Munitions/shells: in 2 days, Ukraine could fire an entire months of U.S. production
Nuclear power plants: 1991 first in China, 2025 has 55 in China, 54 in USA, USA has 1 under construction, China has 31 under construction.
Rule of Thumb: China produces 1/3 to 1/2 of global production for all manufactured goods.
UN numbers: China to reach 45% of global industrial production capacity by 2030
Building Big:
China first interstate highway 1993
2011: highways same length as U.S. interstates
2020: 2x length of U.S. interstates
1990: 0.5 million cars in China
2024: 435 million (800x more)
Builds 60 million cars per year (1/3 electric)
Subways in 51 Chinese cities in 2025; 11 greater in length than NYC
High speed rail: longer than rest of world together, costs 40% less than Europe, 80% less than California
Container ships: port of Shanghai moved more cargo in 2022 that all U.S. ports combined
High voltage power lines connect entire country
Huge water diversion projects to divert water from south to north via 3 massive canals to be completed by 2050
In one year (2019-2019) China poured 4.4 B tons of concrete, more than USA produced over entire 20th century…
Shenzen - hardware capital of world
1980 300,000 people, 2000 7 million, 2020 18 million
Mostly engineers, built iPhone in 2007 with all imported materials, by iPhone X in 2017 25% of materials were from China
Huge factory complexes, have all tools, recipes, process knowledge to make superb high quality products.
West, by outsourcing to China has lost this vitally important process knowledge/engineering know-how/ and can hardly build anything within budget or on time…
China lags only in semiconductors and aircraft engines, but will overcome in next 5 years or so.
When we talk about societal collapse, we really mean the west. Not China. They will be the last ones standing
A Concise Armchair Analysis of Chinese Resiliency and Their Place in the World - per Dan Wang’s book
Last video was too long and detailed.
Here I condense into key points, albeit very important.
China is an “Engineering State”, with engineers in almost all key positions at all levels of government, for roughly the last 45 years. Premier Xi Jinping is a chemical engineer from a top science university. CCP (China Communist Party) Politburo’s 24 members are almost all engineers; namely managers of huge engineering projects.
Key policies, good and bad, mainly set by engineers in 5 year plans. Economic growth rates of 10% per year in many regions, doubling economy size (new country) every 7 years. Downside - engineers think they know best to control people - social engineering - like One-Child Policy (1980 - 2015), and Zero-Covid policy, with draconian enforcement.
Now, fertility rate of 1.0, if it continues will halve China’s 1.4 billion people to 700 million by 2100.
China has overbuilt for resilience in last 45 years.
USA is a “Lawyerly Society”, which took over country in 1970’s and 80’s to clean up rivers on fire, chemical plant leaks, cars dumped in rivers, smog, haze,… but this stayed in place and removed engineers and scientists from ear of government.
China facts:
Fortress China: Xi Jinping quotes: “… worried that China will be cut off from world; we must be prepared for worst case and extreme scenarios; worried about war with USA…” China is working seriously to harden itself to win a war, should one ever come…
Energy Security: Enormous effort to build low-carbon capacities of solar, wind, nuclear within its borders, reduce pain if it loses access to sea-lanes that deliver its oil. 2023 - added 20x more coal burning capacity than rest of world put together.
Food Security: Zi Jinping in wheat field: “The bowls of Chinese people should be filled mostly with Chinese grain”. Pandemic, Russia invasion of Ukraine, emphasized this self-sufficiency importance.
China has 100 million people working in manufacturing, Germany 8 million, Japan 10 million, USA 12.5 million now, 11 million a decade ago, peaked at 20 million decades ago.
2022: USA 5 ships under construction, China 1,800 ships
Munitions/shells: in 2 days, Ukraine could fire an entire months of U.S. production
Nuclear power plants: 1991 first in China, 2025 has 55 in China, 54 in USA, USA has 1 under construction, China has 31 under construction.
Rule of Thumb: China produces 1/3 to 1/2 of global production for all manufactured goods.
UN numbers: China to reach 45% of global industrial production capacity by 2030
Building Big:
China first interstate highway 1993
2011: highways same length as U.S. interstates
2020: 2x length of U.S. interstates
1990: 0.5 million cars in China
2024: 435 million (800x more)
Builds 60 million cars per year (1/3 electric)
Subways in 51 Chinese cities in 2025; 11 greater in length than NYC
High speed rail: longer than rest of world together, costs 40% less than Europe, 80% less than California
Container ships: port of Shanghai moved more cargo in 2022 that all U.S. ports combined
High voltage power lines connect entire country
Huge water diversion projects to divert water from south to north via 3 massive canals to be completed by 2050
In one year (2019-2019) China poured 4.4 B tons of concrete, more than USA produced over entire 20th century…
Shenzen - hardware capital of world
1980 300,000 people, 2000 7 million, 2020 18 million
Mostly engineers, built iPhone in 2007 with all imported materials, by iPhone X in 2017 25% of materials were from China
Huge factory complexes, have all tools, recipes, process knowledge to make superb high quality products.
West, by outsourcing to China has lost this vitally important process knowledge/engineering know-how/ and can hardly build anything within budget or on time…
China lags only in semiconductors and aircraft engines, but will overcome in next 5 years or so.
When we talk about societal collapse, we really mean the west. Not China. They will be the last ones standing
