What the U.S. Can Learn from China’s Infatuation with Infrastructure
wsj.com
wsj.com
I have been interested for a while in the phenomenon of why some countries are led by engineers, and some by lawyers, and whether it really makes any difference. Perhaps it isn't so much a determining input function, but a reflection of whether a country's needs are material/get-us-out-of-technological-poverty, versus established-wealth/manage-our-conflicting-interests in its evolutionary stage?
Although as some people note, the US has been generally lawyer-led since the beginning.
A quick search: Xi Jinping studied chemical engineering, Li Kejiang, studied Law and Economics, Hu Jintao studied water engineering, Wen Jiabao studied geomechanics. So that's 3 out of 4 of the top leadership of the last 15 years. Before that, Jiang Zemin was an electrical engineering graduate, which means that all leaders in the last 30 years (i.e. since Deng Xiaoping) have had an engineering background.
This is probably influenced by the political environment. There is no doubt that this has an impact on policy.
Infrastructure is generally built and well-maintained when the country has lots of spare money. Like the US in the 1950s and 1960s. And like China today.
When countries get short of cash, they tend to let maintenance of infrastructure lapse.
It's roughly estimated that to fix the US's crumbling infrastructure it would cost about 2-3 trillion dollars. That's 2-3 trillion dollars that the US doesn't have easily to hand.