Browser Interviews: Dan Wang

Baiqu: Welcome to The Browser Interviews, today I'm with Dan Wang who is a Shanghai based writer focusing on China's technology development. Welcome to The Browser.

Baiqu: So, what would you recommend if someone wanted to know more about China's technology developments? I mean, this is your area of expertise, so where would you recommend that they start.

Dan: I spend a lot of my time thinking about things a bit broader than that. Every morning when I wake up, I wonder what's going on in the mind of Xi Jinping, China's top leader, and I try to figure that out, and a lot of my thoughts now are very much concerned with determining what Xi Jinping Thought looks like over the next few years. To do so, I do things like subscribe to Qiushi, which is the party's main theory magazine, the English translation is known as Seeking Truth. In addition to all of my technology work, I write annual letters – basically a very long essay in the beginning of the year, every January 1st – thinking through a little bit more about what's going on in China. (You can find these letters on my site).

Now, my quick summary now of what's going on in China, what people have to realise, is that this is both a dynamic society as well as a repressive one. I used to work in California, in Silicon Valley, and the saying from Mark Zuckerberg was "move fast and break things." And I feel that this is a society that practices move fast and break things, not just in tech, but in so many other areas. And in addition, this  is a society that practices move fast and break people.

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