All events listed here are manually curated for readers of Eye on Digital China, with a focus on Chinese (digital) culture, language, society, history, and broader China insights. Many of these events are hosted around the world.
✉️ If you want to add an event, send me a message at manya[@]whatsonweibo.com
- This event has passed.
Dan Wang on Engineers vs. Lawyers: Book Talk on Breakneck (📍🇺🇸)
📚 Dan Wang on Engineers vs. Lawyers: Book Talk on Breakneck
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
🕒 Time: 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
📍 Location: Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue, New York, NY
10021
🌐 Organizer: China Books Review x Asia Society
🎟️ Tickets: $15 Nonmembers / $8 Members
🗣️ Language: English
📚 Books Available for Purchase Onsite
🏷️ Description:
In his provocative new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (W. W. Norton, 2025), Dan Wang proposes a powerful new lens to understand China and the U.S.: one as an engineering state, the other a lawyerly society. Through a mix of reportage, philosophy, memoir, and history, Wang explores the implications of this divide—from the rise of tech giants to the consequences of top-down policy failures like the One Child and Zero-Covid campaigns.
At this special in-person event, Wang will discuss Breakneck in conversation with Julian Gewirtz, a former senior official in the Biden administration and a scholar of U.S.-China relations. The discussion will ask: Can authoritarian engineering adapt and learn from liberal pluralism? And can America’s lawyer-dominated elite make room for the engineers of the future?
🧠 Topics: U.S.-China Relations, Technology, Development Models, Industrial Policy, Governance, Political Philosophy, Innovation
🎙️ Speakers:
Dan Wang — Author of Breakneck, Research Fellow at Hoover History Lab, Stanford University
Julian Gewirtz — Senior Research Scholar, Columbia SIPA; Former NSC China Director