Once a technology star, Zhao Weiguo rose fast and fell hard. For the last eight years, Zhao’s semiconductor manufacturer, the Tsinghua Unigroup, had fanfare, ambition, large-scale state backing, and an affiliation with China’s most prestigious institution of higher learn­ing, Tsinghua University. All this made Zhao the face and future of China’s semiconductor industry. Frequently appearing alongside Presi­dent Xi Jinping, he helped convince the nation that China would rise as a technological superpower that could rival American hegemony. In 2014, the Chinese government accelerated its semiconductor industrial policy with the formation of a massive investment consortium, the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, or the “Big Fund.” Zhao, whose childhood was…

So far, the year 2022 has certainly looked like a deflating technology bubble. After a decade of rising market caps, stocks for formerly hot “tech” companies fell far below their recent highs. By September 2022, exercise equipment maker Pelo­ton was down 90 percent from a year before; ridesharing company Lyft had fallen 70 percent; videoconferencing…

The fight over zoning in America has created odd bedfellows. Self-declared socialists have allied with big developers and railed against regulatory burdens on business. Self-professed conservatives have allied with radical environmentalists to fight development. Now that housing prices have surpassed their 2006 peak, mortgage rates have risen, and discussions of a housing crisis have become…

Shortages of essential personal protective equipment (PPE) and medicines during the Covid-19 pandemic endangered the lives of many Americans and medical personnel, while the inflation-stoking shortages that have followed pandemic-caused lockdowns have illustrat­ed the dangers of disruptions to supply chains of many kinds. At the same time, the deepening military and strategic rivalry between the United States and China and the crisis that has followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have caused alarm over the extent of the dependence of U.S. military and civilian industries, as well as consumers, on China and Russia in particular. Minimizing supply chain disruptions that can endanger U.S. national security, the economy, and long-term national productivity…

For hundreds of years, friendly nations have agreed among each other to use tariffs, and not domestic income or sales taxes, to favor domestically made products over imported versions. Unfortunately, American tariffs have atrophied to almost zero since 1934, when Congress handed the State Department authority to cut tariffs via international agreements. As producers offshored…

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the question of the size of the Russian and Chinese economies—relative to Western economies—has become highly significant. Early on, policymakers compared the Russian GDP to that of Spain or Italy, for example, as a way of minimizing its global importance. Now that these geopolitical tensions have resurrected Cold War blocs, it is crucial to clarify our understanding of the real size and importance of these economies…

On May 24, 2022, in a coordinated action, the Russian and Chinese militaries flew nuclear bombers across the Sea of Japan while U.S. president Joe Biden was in Tokyo on a state visit. The Russian Ministry of Defense was quick to point out that the exercise was “strictly in accordance with international law,” since the…

Most emerging markets have not found an engine of durable growth comparable to manufacturing—most have indeed grown over the last few decades, but dependence on services and commodities exports has not made them rich. Thus most “developing” countries—we are skepti­cal of that euphemistic label—are in a worse structural position than they were a few decades ago…

On December 1, 2018, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was sworn in as president for a six-year term. Following a decisive election in which AMLO more than doubled the vote share of his nearest opponent, the “populist” president-elect promised zero tolerance against corruption and a “Fourth Transformation.” (The other three transformations AMLO referred to…

In the mid-1860s, things were looking up for Karl Marx. After years laboring in poverty and obscurity in a small apartment in London, his fortunes seemed to be turning around. In 1864, his friend and benefactor Friedrich Engels became a partner in his father’s factory, gaining a generous income for himself and offering Marx a…

Liberals like Hollinger may never particularly like the direction in which evangelical Protestantism points, yet they are likely to find intel­lectually engaged Protestant conservatives easier conversation partners than the Dionysiac ideologues who have increasingly seized control of the progressive Left. Regardless, despite ongoing claims of secularization, the prospects for renewal of American public life, for conservatives as well as for liberals, will continue to depend in large part upon the intellectual health of evangelical Christianity…

James Burnham’s tract on political realism, The Machiavellians, finishes with a number of remarkable postulates. In the sixth, Burnham states, “Historical and political science is above all the study of the elite, its composition, its structure, and the mode of its relation to the non-elite.” This axiom is remarkable because, in contemporary social science, research…

In April 2003, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code hit bookstores. Judging by the modest sales of his previous novel, Angels and Demons, two years earlier, it’s unlikely that either Brown or his pub­lisher anticipated the new book’s sensational success. But just a year later, on the first anniversary of the release, Doubleday announced it…