Silicon Valley has a China envy problem.

硅谷陷入了对中国的羡慕。

In social media posts, podcasts, interviews and newsletters, the elites of the American tech sector are marveling at China’s speed in building infrastructure, its manufacturing might and the ingenuity of the A.I. company DeepSeek. At the same time, they are lamenting aging infrastructure and cumbersome regulations in the United States, and an economy that can’t seem to make screws or drones, or the machines that manufacture them.

在社交媒体帖子、播客、采访和时事通讯中，美国科技界精英对中国的基建建设速度、制造业实力以及人工智能公司DeepSeek的创新能力赞叹不已。与此同时，他们也在痛惜美国陈旧的基础设施、繁琐的监管体系，以及这个连螺丝钉、无人机乃至其生产设备都难以制造的经济体。

Some have called for an American DeepSeek project, published industrial manifestoes full of references to China and even adopted China Tech’s grueling “996” work culture, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

一些人呼吁启动美国的DeepSeek项目，发布充满中国元素的产业宣言，甚至仿效中国科技行业严苛的“996”工作制——每周工作六天，每天从早上9点到晚上9点。

“As China races forward, moving goods, people and information at machine speed, we risk being stuck in the past,” a recent blog post from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz warned.

“当中国全速前进，以机械的速度运送货物、人员和信息时，我们可能正被困在过去，”风险投资公司安德烈森·霍洛维茨近期在一篇博客文章中警告。

Among Silicon Valley leaders and policy-minded Democrats, there is a fascination with China. It’s a mix of curiosity, anxiety and envy. Long-held assumptions about China are being re-evaluated.

在硅谷领袖和关注政策的民主党人当中弥漫着一种对中国的痴迷情绪，混杂着好奇、焦虑与羡慕。长期以来关于中国的固有认知正被重新评估。

Suddenly, Chinese firms once dismissed as copycats are being studied for lessons on efficiency and scale. China’s top-down, state-led system is being reframed not as a political liability but as a model of efficiency and execution.

曾被斥为抄袭者的中国企业如今突然成为研究效率与规模的典范；中国自上而下的国家主导体制也不再被视为政治上的不利因素，反而被重塑为高效执行的典范。

Both narratives — China as cheater and China as colossus — are simplistic reactions to something far more complex. Yet their popularity reveals something deeper about the American psyche as the nation struggles to adjust to a world where it is no longer the uncontested source of technological progress.

无论是将中国视为作弊者还是巨无霸，这两种叙事都是对复杂现实的简化反应。然而，它们的盛行揭示了美国人深层的心理状态——当这个国家正艰难适应一个不再以自己为唯一技术进步来源的世界。

美国科技精英对中国的发展和创新着迷，包括像DeepSeek这样的公司。

“For Americans, the idea that the future is now being created elsewhere — not in the United States — is a hard reality to accept,” said Afra Wang, a Silicon Valley-based tech writer. “This isn’t just about technology; it’s a question of identity.”

“对于美国精英来说，美国没有创造未来，而是别的国家在创造未来，这个现实是很难接受的，”硅谷科技作家阿夫拉·王（音）表示。“这不仅仅关乎技术，更是一个身份认同问题。”

That identity crisis touches more than tech. It informs the views of so-called abundance Democrats frustrated by America’s inability to build housing or high-speed rail, as American tourists post social media videos of China’s bridges, trains and skylines.

这种身份认同危机不仅影响科技领域。当美国游客在社交媒体上发布中国的桥梁、高铁和城市天际线视频时，那些对美国无力建造住房和高铁感到沮丧的所谓丰饶派民主党人也受到了这种情绪的影响。

The new admiration for China highlights both how little Americans understand about the country and how disillusioned many have become with their own. By holding China up as a mirror, America is seeing its own strengths and weaknesses more clearly than it has in decades.

新近产生的对中国的崇拜既凸显了美国人对这个国家的了解之少，也反映出许多人对本国的幻灭。将中国视为一面镜子，美国比几十年来任何时候都更清晰地看到了自身的优势与劣势。

Tech leaders are right to be alarmed. The old American model — we innovate, we build, we export — collapsed after the United States outsourced much of its manufacturing capacity. Now America mostly designs while China increasingly embodies that earlier American model of building and producing. In a tense geopolitical environment defined by supply chains, the ability to manufacture has become both strategic and existential.

科技领袖们的警惕并非毫无道理。美国旧有的“创新-制造-出口”模式在制造业大量外包后已然崩塌。如今，美国主要负责设计，中国则日益承接起昔日美国的“制造-生产”模式。在以供应链为核心的紧张地缘政治环境中，制造能力已成为兼具战略意义与生存价值的关键能力。

The challenge goes beyond traditional manufacturing. Integrating artificial intelligence with hardware is essential. Machines today are “the hardware version of software; they are the embodied version of A.I.,” said Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist. “The car is not just steel and glass anymore — it’s a robot on wheels.”

挑战不止于传统制造业。人工智能与硬件的融合至关重要。风险投资家马克·安德森表示：“如今的机器是软件的硬件形态，是人工智能的实体化体现。汽车不再只是钢铁和玻璃——它是有轮子的机器人。”

He concedes that China is “ahead on everything involved in building physical things,” and much more advanced in unified hardware and A.I. manufacturing.

他承认，中国在“所有实体制造相关领域都处于领先地位”，在硬件与人工智能融合制造方面占据巨大优势。

It’s a positive sign that Silicon Valley is paying attention to China.

硅谷开始关注中国，这是一个积极的信号。

All along, Chinese entrepreneurs have spent decades studying the United States. They have read the biographies of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, devoured the translations of “Zero to One,” the book by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters. They have built business models and management philosophies around Silicon Valley’s playbook.

中国企业家花了数十年时间研究美国：他们阅读史蒂夫·乔布斯和埃隆·马斯克的传记，潜心研读彼得·蒂尔与布莱克·马斯特斯合著的《从0到1》(Zero to One)译本，并围绕硅谷的运营模式构建商业模式和管理哲学。

American companies are racing to build machines more intelligent than humans. Yet if Silicon Valley studies China closely, it will find that China’s A.I. industry is not obsessed with artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I. Chinese entrepreneurs are focused on applying A.I. to services, devices and manufacturing.

美国公司正争相研发比人类更智能的机器。然而，若硅谷深入研究中国，就会发现，中国的人工智能产业并不痴迷于通用人工智能，中国企业家更专注于将人工智能应用于服务、设备和制造业领域。

I talk to a lot of people who work in the tech industry in China. Rarely do they mention A.G.I.

我与许多中国科技行业从业者交流过，他们很少提及通用人工智能。

In an opinion essay in The New York Times, Eric Schmidt, the former Google chairman, and his colleague Selina Xu urged Silicon Valley to be less obsessed with A.G.I. and to learn from their Chinese peers to help integrate A.I. into daily life.

前谷歌董事长埃里克·施密特与同事赛琳娜·许（音）在《纽约时报》的评论文章中呼吁，硅谷应减少对通用人工智能的痴迷，向中国同行学习，将人工智能融入日常生活。

This is yet another example of China’s pragmatism versus America’s idealism.

这正是中国实用主义对阵美国理想主义的又一例证。

American policymakers and Silicon Valley need to assess China and its tech sector realistically — its strengths and limits and what truly lies behind its efficiency and scale. China’s tech scene, like America’s, has visionaries and frauds, triumphs and dead ends.

美国政策制定者和硅谷需要客观评估中国及其科技行业——包括其优势与局限，以及其效率与规模背后的真正原因。与美国一样，中国的科技领域既有远见卓识者，也有骗子；既有辉煌成就，也有死胡同。

The current narrative risks swinging from underestimation to overestimation.

当前的叙事存在从低估走向高估的风险。

Part of the reason American tech leaders amplify China’s capabilities, or its threat, is to pressure Washington into squeezing their Chinese peers with tariffs and regulation, and to win federal funding. By framing China’s rise as an existential challenge, they can push the government to pour money into their industries. The more they can alarm U.S. politicians and the public, the greater their leverage, and the more power they ultimately gain.

美国科技领袖夸大中国的能力或威胁，部分原因是为了施压华盛顿，让政府对中国同行实施关税和监管限制，并争取联邦资金支持。将中国的崛起定义为生死攸关的挑战，他们就能推动政府向其所在行业注入资金。他们越能引起美国政界人士和公众的恐慌，就拥有越大的影响力，最终获得越多权力。

Alexandr Wang, when he was chief executive of the start-up Scale AI, urged President Trump to expand federal A.I. support to match China’s investment “in a new kind of technological arms race.”

初创公司Scale AI前首席执行官汪滔(Alexandr Wang)曾敦促特朗普总统扩大联邦政府对人工智能的支持，以匹配中国在“新型技术军备竞赛”中的投资。。

Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, has claimed that Chinese chips are only “nanoseconds” behind and that China is not trailing the United States in A.I. Such assessments drew skepticism in both countries, but they reveal how China has become the default benchmark in nearly every frontier field.

英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋称，中国芯片仅落后“几纳秒”，在人工智能领域并未落后于美国。这些评估在两国都引发了质疑，但也反映出中国已成为几乎所有前沿领域的默认标杆。

Yet Silicon Valley’s China conversation often overlooks contradictions at home. Some of the same leaders urging a U.S. revival also support policies that undermine it: cutting university funding, tightening visa rules for skilled immigrants and waging trade wars that disrupt supply chains with allies like Canada and Mexico.

然而，硅谷关于中国的讨论往往忽视了本国的矛盾：一些呼吁美国复兴的领袖，同时也在支持着破坏复兴的政策——削减大学资金、收紧技术移民签证规则，以及发动贸易战破坏与加拿大、墨西哥等盟友的供应链。

While the United States debates how to rebuild, China is doubling down on government support of research and development.

在美国还在争论如何重建之际，中国正加大政府对研发的支持。

But for all its strengths, China’s system carries enormous costs. The same state-driven model that builds record-breaking bridges has left provinces buried in debt. Behind the polished image of A.I. labs and high-speed railways lie stagnant wages and a frayed social safety net.

但是，尽管有种种优势，中国的体制也伴随着巨大代价。同一套国家主导的模式，既造就了创纪录的大桥，也使各省深陷债务泥潭。在人工智能实验室和高铁的光鲜形象背后，是停滞不前的工资水平和脆弱的社会保障体系。

位于贵州的世界最高桥梁。贵州是中国负债最多的省份之一，由此也可以看到这个国家的体制需要背负巨大的代价。

The world’s tallest bridge, recently completely in Guizhou, stands in one of the country’s most indebted provinces, where rural pensioners live on less than $20 a month. The $1.50 taxi rides that delight American influencers mask a growing class of ride-share drivers: unemployed lawyers, teachers and accountants.

贵州近期竣工的世界最高桥梁坐落于中国债务最重的省份之一，该省农村养老金领取者每月生活费不足150元；让美国网红们惊叹的10元低价出租车服务背后，是日益扩大的网约车司机群体——其中不乏失业的律师、教师和会计师。

That contrast is easy to miss from afar. China’s rise is real, but it’s not boundless. Its achievements coexist with deep structural flaws, just as America’s weaknesses coexist with enduring strengths.

这种反差在远距离观察时很容易被忽略。中国的崛起是真实的，但并不是无限度的；其成就与深层次的结构性缺陷并存，正如美国的弱点与其持久的优势共生一样。

Silicon Valley’s China envy ultimately says more about America than about China. It reflects a nation grappling with its lost confidence.

硅谷对中国的羡慕，归根结底更多反映的是美国自身的状态，折射出这个国家在失去自信后的挣扎。

It’s also worth remembering that the U.S.-China tech rivalry is an ongoing race. In 2018, I began this column with a piece about China’s “Sputnik moment.” Under the weight of American sanctions, the near-death of a tech company had jolted the country into building chips and other technology to reduce dependence on the United States.

同样值得铭记的是，中美科技竞争是一场持续的竞赛。2018年，我在本专栏的开篇文章中探讨了中国的“斯普特尼克时刻”——在美国制裁的重压下，一家科技公司的濒临倒闭，促使中国加速芯片及其他技术的研发，以减少对美国的依赖。

When OpenAI released ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022, A.I. engineers in China called that day their “ChatGPT moment.” It was, for many Chinese, a time of despair.

2022年11月30日，OpenAI发布ChatGPT时，中国的人工智能工程师将那一天称为他们的“ChatGPT时刻”，对许多中国人来说，那是一段绝望的时期。

Two years later, DeepSeek unveiled a cost-effective, high-performing chatbot powered by weaker computer chips. This time, it was called a Sputnik moment for the American A.I. industry, a reminder that the race never ends.

两年后，DeepSeek推出了一款成本低廉、性能优异的聊天机器人，其运行仅需性能较弱的计算机芯片。这成了美国人工智能行业的“斯普特尼克时刻”，它提醒着人们：这场竞赛永无止境。