Kyle Chan on the Future of US-China Competition — #94

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Sep 11, 2025

Kyle Chan, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton, dives into the fierce competition between the U.S. and China. He explains how China has overtaken industries like electric vehicles and solar tech, originally dominated by Western powers. Chan discusses the contrasting railway developments in China and India, spotlighting efficiency versus bureaucracy. He addresses the implications of industrial policy on global perspectives and highlights the need for the U.S. to innovate and collaborate to ensure technological relevance amidst rising Chinese advancements.

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INSIGHT

Development As The Central Puzzle

Kyle Chan reframed development as the core question: why some countries get rich and others don't.
He argues sociology plus comparative fieldwork reveals institutional causes beyond narrow economic metrics.

ANECDOTE

Fieldwork On High-Speed Rail

Kyle Chan describes riding many trains while researching why China built high-speed rail fast and India did not.
He found China's project-based nodes concentrated power into small teams that delivered massive projects efficiently.

INSIGHT

Nodal Bureaucracy Drives Big Projects

Chan's theory credits bureaucratic structure: China used specialized project corporations as nodes of responsibility.
India had diffuse matrix structures that blurred authority and slowed decision-making.

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Kyle Chan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology at Princeton University. His research focuses on industrial policy, clean technology, and infrastructure with a regional focus on China and India. He is currently working on a book on Chinese industrial policy that aims to explain how China came to dominate certain industries today that had originally been led by the US, Japan, and other industrialized nations. These industries include electric vehicles, solar, high-speed rail, and consumer electronics. The book will describe the wide range of industrial policy tools used in China and their ongoing efforts in other industries, such as semiconductors and biotechnology.

Kyle Chan writes a popular newsletter called High Capacity on industrial policy, clean technology, and infrastructure, particularly in China and India.

Personal website: https://www.kyleichan.com/

NYT op-ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/china-us-trade-tariffs.html

Lu Feng interview: https://www.high-capacity.com/p/chinese-industrial-maximalism

Chapter Markers:

(00:00) - Introduction
(00:50) - Kyle's Background and Research Interests
(05:51) - China vs. India: A Comparative Study of Railway Development
(12:38) - The Broader Implications of Industrial Policy
(37:48) - Introduction to Industrial Maximalism
(38:54) - China's Manufacturing Strategy
(41:33) - US-China Technological Competition
(59:45) - Global Collaboration and Future Outlook

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.