5 May 2026

THE “NO STRINGS ATTACHED BOOK CLUB”

SPONSORED BY THE SOCIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PTOS

“This riveting book offers a distinctive framework for understanding China as an “engineering state.” Wang argues that the prevalence of officials with engineering backgrounds among the upper echelons of China’s leadership has produced a proclivity for top-down economic and social policymaking that has guided many of the country’s most transformative initiatives. This dynamic has informed China’s rise as a technology and infrastructure power, its devastating one-child policy, and its draconian approach to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Wang marvels at all that the engineering state has achieved, but he also bemoans the lack of a more democratized and rules-based policy process that would allow the state to correct its errors. Wang counterposes China’s engineering state with what he calls the “lawyerly society” of the United States. In his eyes, the United States elevates process over outcome, which stifles initiative and protects the interests of the wealthy rather than those of the majority. For both China and the United States to continue to prosper, they will have to alter their respective models: the United States must recapture its engineering prowess and commit to twenty-first-century manufacturing and infrastructure, and China must embrace political reform. Wang is rooting for both countries to succeed” (Foreign Affairs November/December 2025)

https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/25577944532574?p=RGIr0HSXF0qoZrpsw8

Meeting ID: 255 779 445 325 74

Passcode 2XN7CG3w

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Tuesday May 5th from 4:30-5:30 PM (ET)

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