Name: 決定下個世紀的科技對決！丹・王與柯梅爾・佛斯特 (The techno-rivalry that will decide the next century | Dan Wang and Kmele Foster)
Uploaded: 2025-11-20T18:20:28.000Z
Duration: 56 min 55 s

情態副詞

You said earlier that I was painfully pessimistic, Neil, and

here's where I want to be a little bit more apocalyptic.

在這裡我想要變得更末日一點。

If you're an American or a Japanese or a German automaker, it takes you something like six years to conceptualize a new vehicle, brand a new vehicle model, and

如果你是美國、日本或德國的汽車製造商，要構思、品牌化一款新車型，

then actually get that out to the market, into the streets where people are driving it.

然後將它推向市場，送到大家開的路上，大概需要六年的時間。

In China, the statistic is something like 18 months to two years.

在中國，這個數字大約是 18 個月到兩年。

China built its very first highway in the year 1993.

中國在 1993 年建造了第一條高速公路。

Eighteen years later, China built one America's worth of highway.

十八年後，中國建造了相當於美國的高速公路。

Nine years after that, it built another America's worth of highways.

再九年後，又建造了另一個美國份量的高速公路。

China has built essentially one New York City, plus Boston's worth of housing every single year for roughly the last 30 years.

在過去大約 30 年裡，中國每年都蓋了相當於一個紐約市加上波士頓的房屋。

China has a manufacturing workforce of something like 70 million people in which they are building some of the most sophisticated electronics every single day.

中國擁有大約七千萬人的製造業勞動力，他們每天都在製造一些最精密的電子產品。

I think that, you know, it doesn't sound good to me that Apple and Nvidia are worth as much as they do because they are also deluding us into what actually matters.

我覺得，你知道，對我來說，Apple 和 Nvidia 的價值這麼高，聽起來不太對勁，因為他們也讓我們對真正重要的事物產生了錯覺。

Is our answer to a member, a struggling member of the working class in America going to be something like, well, let them eat iPhones or let them eat GPUs.

我們給美國一個掙扎中的勞工階級成員的答案，會不會是「讓他們吃 iPhone」或「讓他們吃 GPU」之類的？

I think that is not compelling enough of a solution.

我認為那樣的解決方案不夠有說服力。

Dan, I'm delighted to be here in conversation with you.

I want to commend you on what I think is a really interesting and compelling book that offers a different perspective on China and the U.S.

我想讚揚你寫了一本非常有趣且引人入勝的書，它提供了對中國和美國不同的觀點。

most of the time, you encounter these conversations about U.S.

大部分時候，你會遇到關於美中關係的對話，

it's all about the geopolitical rivalry, the fight, who is going to win, who's going to lose.

這些對話總是圍繞著地緣政治的競爭、戰爭，誰會贏，誰會輸。

I think a kind of patient, thoughtful appraisal of the differences between these two important quintessential powers is something that was long overdue and I think just to get us started here.

我認為，一種耐心、深思熟慮地評估這兩個重要、典型的強權之間的差異，是早就該做的事了，我想，為了讓我們開始。

Well, two things actually, really quickly.

嗯，其實有兩件事，非常快速地說。

One, Dan's book is something that it sounds like a lot of you have read already, some of you haven't.

其中，丹的書是聽起來你們很多人都已經讀過，有些人還沒讀。

There will be spoilers, so to speak, but it's still well worth reading.

會有劇透，可以這麼說，但它仍然非常值得一讀。

One of my favorite things about the book, Dan, is that closing chapter, which opens with this interesting and, for me, emotional kind of recounting of your trajectory, your family's trajectory, for you to be here now.

關於這本書，丹，我最喜歡的部分之一是最後一章，它以一種有趣且對我來說很感人的方式，回顧了你的歷程，你家庭的歷程，讓你現在在這裡。

And I actually want to start in a somewhat unconventional way by having you perhaps give a little bit of a sense of your backstory, how you came to be here in the United States working on this particular topic, and

我其實想用一種不太尋常的方式開始，請你稍微講講你的背景故事，你是如何來到美國，從事這個特定主題的研究，以及

why you thought it was important for a book like Breakneck to exist.

你為什麼認為像《Breakneck》這樣的書有存在的必要。

I grew up in the southwest of China, which is a very mountainous place.

我在中國的西南部長大，那是一個非常多山的地方。

The stereotypes that people have around the southwest of China is that people sit around sipping tea, telling jokes.

人們對中國西南部的刻板印象是，人們坐著喝茶、講笑話。

And I really believe that we are the funniest region of China.

而且我真的覺得我們是中國最有趣的地區。

Much funnier than much more serious prosperous zones.

比許多更嚴肅、更繁榮的地區有趣多了。

My family and I emigrated to the country of Canada when I was seven years old.

我七歲時，我的家人和我移民到了加拿大。

我大部分時間都在加拿大長大。

Anyone from Bucks county or Pennsylvania here, a great place to be from.

這裡有來自巴克斯縣或賓州的嗎？真是個很棒的家鄉。

And so we have been thinking a lot about what it was like for us to move out of China right before essentially the Chinese economy took off in a really big way to enrich quite a lot of people, introduce more novel forms of repression at the same time, and

所以我們一直在思考，在中國經濟起飛、讓許多人致富，同時也引進更多新型鎮壓方式之前，我們離開中國的經歷是什麼樣的，

thinking a lot about what is really quintessentially different between the US and China.

並深入思考美國和中國之間真正本質上的差異。

And so I used to work here in San Francisco.

所以我以前在舊金山這裡工作。

I used to work here until the start of 2016.

And I moved to China in 2017 to think a lot about what the Chinese were up to in terms of a lot of different technologies.

然後我在 2017 年搬到中國，深入思考中國人在各種技術方面都在做些什麼。

Now when I moved out of California then it really felt like California Silicon Valley was the center of the world in all sorts of very important ways.

現在，當我離開加州時，感覺加州的矽谷在各方面都像是世界的中心。

The most important, the most talented people were moving to California.

最重要、最有才華的人都搬到了加州。

And I was also kind of struck that so many of the businesses being created here were very consumer driven.

我也覺得在這裡創立的許多企業都非常以消費者為導向。

There was a lot of cryptocurrencies at the time.

At the time we hadn't even gotten to B2B SaaS yet.

那時候我們甚至還沒開始做 B2B SaaS。

And when I learned about what was going on in China, thinking about made in China 2025, a big industrial plan that Beijing had announced, they were working on things like ultra high voltage transmission memory chips, electric vehicle batteries.

當我瞭解到中國正在發生的事情，想到「中國製造 2025」，這是北京宣佈的一項重大工業計畫，他們正在研究超高壓輸電、記憶體晶片、電動車電池等項目。

That felt like a very exciting story to try to study at the time.

當時我覺得這是一個非常令人興奮的故事，值得去研究。

And part of the reason I asked you to tell that story, or at least to talk about that kind of context, is because in the account that you offer, there are two things that really stood out to me.

我之所以請你講這個故事，或是至少談談那樣的背景，部分原因是因為在你提供的敘述中，有兩件事讓我印象特別深刻。

The, the first is just your parents experience of leaving China and coming here and your own experience as this essentially first generation child who grows up in this country, who this is very much your identity and kind of all, you know, in the book you explain that this was clearly the right decision for you personally, that your passion, the things that you work on, you could kind of only do that here.

第一點是你的父母離開中國來到這裡的經歷，以及你身為在這個國家長大的第一代移民小孩的經驗，這非常地塑造了你的身分認同，而且你知道，書裡也清楚說明瞭這對你個人來說絕對是個正確的決定，你的熱情、你所做的工作，在這裡才能實現。

But for your parents, it's a bit different.

但對你的父母來說，情況有點不同。

Immigrants to this country, our families end up abandoning everything you leave behind, everything that you know, and

移民到這個國家，我們的家人最終會放棄所有你留下的東西，所有你認識的一切，

you come to someplace completely alien to try to make a life for yourself.

然後來到一個完全陌生的地方，試圖為自己開創人生。

And in my experience, coming from the West Indies, this, the sentiment has always been, of course, that was the right decision to make.

依我的經驗，我來自西印度群島，大家總是抱持著這個想法，當然，那是一個正確的決定。

Every single time I've gone back to visit Jamaica, I see young men about my age and I know very well that I didn't want to be that guy.

每次我回牙買加探親，我都會看到和我年紀相仿的年輕人，我非常清楚我不想成為那樣的人。

But for your parents, they had a real quandary about this because of the robust growth that China is seeing in terms of their interactions with family members and friends who are still there.

但對你的父母來說，他們對此感到很為難，因為中國正經歷強勁的經濟成長，這也影響到他們與仍然留在中國的家人和朋友的互動。

Could you talk a little bit about kind of the contrasting experiences of their generation growing up and experiencing the progression of China economically there domestically versus what your parents had to experience here?

你能不能稍微談談，他們那一代在中國國內經濟發展的過程中成長的經歷，與你父母在這裡所必須經歷的，這兩者之間的對比？

Yeah, I think the first thing to say is that I so glad I grew up in Canada and also in the United States.

沒錯，我想第一件事要說的是，我很高興在加拿大和美國長大。

I split high school between Ottawa as well as Philly area.

我高中時期分別在渥太華和費城地區唸書。

And without this sort of an upbringing where I could have really read the books that I really wanted to read, I was a philosophy major in college.

如果沒有這種能讓我真正閱讀我想讀的書的成長環境，我大學時就不會主修哲學了。

I wouldn't have been able to write this sort of book and engage in the sort of intellectual work that I'm quite proud of.

我就沒辦法寫出這種書，也無法從事我引以為傲的那種學術工作。

But as you mentioned, Camille, it was a slightly different trade off for my parents.

但正如妳提到的，Camille，對我父母來說，這是一個稍微不同的權衡。

My parents were living in southwestern China.

This is a kind of a backwater, economic backwater of China back then.

那個時候的中國，那裡算是個經濟上的邊陲地帶。

And even now it is a giant backwater where not too much goes on.

即使是現在，那裡仍然是一個沒什麼發展的巨大邊陲地帶。

But still they, by virtue of being college graduates in China, they were also urban residents.

但即便如此，由於他們在中國是大學畢業生，他們也是城市居民。

They could have been allocated a few apartment units by the state, which is one of the big drivers of wealth that a lot of Chinese have been able to enjoy.

他們本來可以由國家分配到幾套公寓，這也是很多中國人能夠享有的財富來源之一。

If you are a resident of a first tier city like Beijing or Shanghai, you were able to liquidate just one of your apartments and then you could send your kid off to college, a private university in the US and something like usc.

如果你是北京或上海這種一線城市的居民，你只要賣掉其中一間公寓，就可以送小孩去唸美國的私立大學，像是南加州大學。

Give her an apartment as well, and give her a Mercedes as well for her to drive around.

再給她一間公寓，再給她一臺賓士車讓她開。

And my parents really missed this giant wealth boom that they could have participated in if they had stayed.

而我父母真的很錯過這個他們本來可以參與的巨大財富成長。

And so this is one of these sort of tragedies.

I feel that I wish that America could have had rising wealth for many more people.

我希望美國能有更多人分享財富成長。

Definitely not on the same scale as a lot of Chinese, but something closer to that scale.

當然規模不能跟很多中國人比，但希望規模能接近一點。

I think a lot about how if you were Chinese growing up, and

我常常在想，如果你是中國人，從小在成長過程中，

let's Say born in the early 1990s, which is roughly when I was born.

假設是大概跟我同一時期，也就是 1990 年代初期出生。

You could have seen your world transform in all sorts of big ways.

你會看到你的世界以各種重大方式轉變。

中國在 1993 年蓋了第一條高速公路。

Eighteen years later, China built one America's worth of highways.

十八年後，中國蓋了跟美國一樣多的高速公路。

九年後，又蓋了跟美國一樣多的高速公路。

So if you were born in 1993, by the year you reached legal driving age in China, you would have been able to drive on an America's worth of highways.

所以如果你出生在 1993 年，等你到了中國法定開車年齡，你就能開上跟美國一樣多的高速公路。

China has built essentially one New York City plus Boston's worth of housing every single year for roughly the last 30 years.

在過去的三十年裡，中國每年蓋的房子相當於一個紐約市加上一個波士頓的量。

And so China is just engaged in these giant spasms of construction.

所以中國只是進行了這種大規模的建設。

They're making the cities nicer in a lot of ways as well.

他們也讓城市在很多方面變得更好了。

So if you're a resident of a city like Shanghai, maybe you didn't have subway systems growing up and now you do.

所以如果你是上海這樣的城市居民，小時候可能沒有地鐵系統，但現在有了。

Maybe you didn't have a lot of parks growing up and now there's about a thousand parks in Shanghai, which has doubled from the year 2020.

小時候可能沒有很多公園，但現在上海有大約一千個公園，比 2020 年增加了一倍。

You're getting cleaner air as well, and you feel in general still a sense of rising wealth.

你也會呼吸到更乾淨的空氣，總體上仍然能感受到財富的增長。

One of the things that I struggle with a lot of Americans is that especially if you are living in a place like San Francisco, where there simply isn't a great deal of construction, especially in a place like Berkeley, which just hasn't built enough housing, which hasn't updated and renewed and expanded its subway systems for a very long time, you see your life being pretty static and you kind of expect the future to look relatively similar as well.

我覺得很多美國人在這方面會有點掙扎，特別是如果你住在舊金山這種地方，那裡根本沒有什麼大規模建設，尤其像柏克萊這種地方，根本沒蓋足夠的房子，而且地鐵系統很久沒更新、翻新或擴建了，你就會覺得生活很停滯，也預期未來差不多就是這樣。

So maybe you lose a McDonald's and then you gain a Dunkin Donuts, but

所以也許你失去了一家麥當勞，然後又開了一家 Dunkin Donuts，但是

I think there's a little bit more to life than that.

And so if you are Chinese and you're seeing these bridges go up, you're seeing these high speed rail systems go up, I think this is not just an economic program really to try to wire up the country in order to be quite a lot better.

所以如果你是中國人，看到這些橋蓋起來，高鐵系統蓋起來，我認為這不只是一個經濟計畫，而是真的要串聯起這個國家，讓它變得更好。

I think this has also really substantially built political resilience for the Communist Party as well, in which people have seen momentum from their lives get better in the past and they expect that their lives will be better in the future.

我認為這也大大增強了共產黨的政治韌性，因為人們看到過去的生活越來越好，他們也預期未來生活會更好。

And this is what I wish for a lot more Americans, because my parents are now in suburban Philly, which is, I think is pleasant but extremely boring.

這也是我希望更多美國人能擁有的，因為我父母現在住在費城郊區，我覺得那裡很宜人但超級無聊。

They are, they're kind of the highlight of their weeks is to go to the Costco every week, like a lot of immigrant families as well as a lot of middle class Americans.

他們，他們每週的樂趣大概就是去好市多，就像很多移民家庭和很多美國中產階級一樣。

But I Wish that there could be something more in which there is a sense of physical dynamism in this country, because this can build a lot of optimism into the population as well.

但我希望可以有更多東西，讓這個國家有種實際的活力，因為這也能為民眾帶來很多樂觀。

As you were describing that circumstance where people are growing up and.

當你描述人們成長的那個情況，而且

And experiencing all of this profound change over the course of their lifetime, seeing these cities explode into being, I thought about something Peter and I believe in the context like this, I can mention him with just one name.

在他們一生中經歷了所有這些深刻的變化，看到這些城市蓬勃發展，我想到了 Peter 和我所相信的一件事，在這種情況下，我可以用一個名字提到他。