Hi folks, my own company, Baiguan, has just announced something quite ambitious: a month-long marathon of Baiguan China Tours, comprising 7 standalone modules, in the coming Autumn.
I will personally be with these tours alongside Caixin, David Fishman, Max Peiro, and many other illustrious partners of Baiguan.
But before I share more details with you, let me share a real story that shocked me recently.
Do you know Breakneck?
So a while ago, I hosted a sharing session about Baiguan’s experience with 40-plus Chinese media professionals working in international communication.
Here, “international communication” simply means they produce foreign-language content for a living.
In the sharing session, I mentioned the book Breakneck by Dan Wang, which went viral last year in overseas China-watching circles. Even many people who are not normally interested in China have read that book.
I wanted to use this book to make a point: when international audiences look at China, it’s not really China they are looking at; it is themselves.
Just like Breakneck, which is supposed to be the most popular book about China in recent years, the book is actually less about China and more about how the U.S. compares with China, and it’s the anxiety that Americans feel about deindustrialization that ultimately fuels the popularity of the book.
I covered this topic quite extensively here:
I brought up that book midway through my sharing and posed a quiz to those in attendance.
The quiz is simple: “How many of you have heard about this book?”
I was expecting maybe only a few of them to have heard of the book, so I would use that as a second-order proof of my point: we also know far less about the other side than we should. A lot of what we Chinese know about the world is based on what we want to know, and we are always projecting ourselves onto the world as well.
Only that I probably made my point too well.
It turned out, to my great shock, that of more than 40 Chinese media professionals whose main job is to produce English-language content for foreign audiences, and who are supposed to follow what the foreign readers are reading, NONE of them, absolutely ZERO of them, have heard about Breakneck.
Such is the state of our world. We live too much inside of our own bubbles. We imagine others in our own mode. We are so used to projecting ourselves onto others, to the point that we no longer have an accurate reading of what’s actually going on.
This is why we sometimes see a great sense of mission in what we at Baiguan are trying to do.
In a world where walls are growing ever taller, we are still naive enough to think that we can break the wall, at least for some people.
To make that happen, simply providing data and research, or writing newsletters, is far from enough. We have to make it real.
This is why we have come to see offline events and study tours as an increasingly important part of our business. After organizing several successful tours to China, we have come to appreciate the unique value of offline, human-to-human interactions in enhancing understanding among people.
Such is the context for our upcoming 2026 autumn tour. You can read about all the details here.
My personal favorites include:
Meet the senior management of Moonshot (Kimi)
Meet the Founding team of Zhipu (GLM)
Have a rare glimpse into Chinese commercial space companies
A rare glimpse into Chinese nuclear fusion companies
Test-drive one of the best electric racecars out there
Be accompanied by David Fishman for a private tour
Visit ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent’s cloud and AI arms
Visit the twin capital of global commerce: Huaqiangbei and Yiwu
Check out the emerging Chinese luxury brands, who are redefining global luxury
Visit the place where Buddhism and nomadic culture fused into what eventually became today’s China
Visit the former capital of China (and my birthplace!)
To ensure the quality of our tours, they are by application only. You can apply by filling in this form here.
Next Wednesday and Thursday, I will also hold two info sessions and live Q&As to answer any questions you have. Please choose the time slot that matches your time zone and make sure to mark your calendar!
Session 1
Wednesday, Aug. 19
9 pm Singapore / 9 am ET / 2 pm London
Meeting Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85232827349?pwd=znYbS32pEsLsoE74SxuWarUh8KC15A.1
Session 2:
Thursday, Aug. 20
4 pm Singapore / 9 am London / 4 am ET
Meeting Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82363623800?pwd=rrI8dkb8RoTWjVGRdWNTdVy7Lc1dS8.1
I agree with your assessment about 'Breakneck' wholeheartedly. I tried reading it a few weeks ago; couldn't finish. I did, however, listen a few interviews that Wang's given.
In Silicon Valley, where I work, the anxiety and tension are especially palpable ever since DeepSeek and more recently, intensified by OpenAI hacking into HuggingFace / debate between open-weight vs. closed models. The popularity of the book is certainly benefiting from this macro / micro context instead of on its own merit.
I am also not surprised zero so-called 'international communication' professionals had heard about the book. My observation about the Chinese media is that they mostly served the purpose of 'selling' the narrative under certain direct/indirect 'guidance'; single, rather than bilateral.
Both US and China are 'talking at' each other, but neither of them listen. So much about 'communication' - it takes two to dance.
It trickled into dinner table conversation too, creating some 'interesting moments' between friends/family who came from either sides. I would like to see evidence first-hand and make my own judgement. The autumn tour is very timely. Thanks for organizing. When I will clear my Oct schedule, I shall apply.
Breakneck isn't worth reading, and it's a good thing that Chinese people are not aware of it. It will spare them much aggravation.
The book is a sustained, laboriously writtten ideological attack on China disguised as a memoire of the author's few years back in the country of his birth. It fills dozens of pages with irrelevant sorties into China's past, including the COVID years, tacks on an equally irrelevant autobiographical chapter, and ticks all the boxes of current US prejudice.