Podcast: Democracy reform: Ranked-choice voting

The global hierarchy of innovation is undergoing a structural shift that Washington is dangerously slow to acknowledge. For decades, the prevailing narrative in the United States was that China was merely the "world’s factory"—a nation capable of mass-producing Western designs but inherently lacking the creative spark to invent its own. This assumption has been shattered. Today, Beijing is no longer playing catch-up; in sectors ranging from electric vehicles and next-generation nuclear power to hypersonic missiles, China is setting the pace.

The central challenge is that China has mastered the entire innovation ecosystem, while the United States has allowed its own to fracture. Innovation is not just about a "eureka" moment in a laboratory; it is a relay race that begins with basic scientific research, moves through the training of specialized talent, and ends with the large-scale commercialization of "hard tech." China is currently winning every leg of that race.