Dan Wang

And essentially, over the last 15 years,

The number of politicians citing whatever new breakthrough as a Sputnik moment for the U.S.

I once cataloged this.

I found a half dozen instances of major figures that included Barack Obama to various other U.S.

senators have cited this thing or that as a Sputnik moment.

I think Obama cited high-speed rail in China as the Sputnik moment.

Some other senators cited Huawei's lead in 5G telecommunications equipment.

Just two weeks ago, there was a Harvard professor, Steven Greenblatt, who wrote in the New York Times, Chinese universities are really rising in global rankings in part because they're doing better and better science.

I am quoting him essentially.

If that's not a Sputnik moment, I don't know what will be.

And what I'm actually kind of afraid of is that the more we use this term Sputnik moment, which Americans are using quite often, and the less that it is actually accompanied by real action as the original moment in the 1950s was, the more that this term is just bandied about.

Boy, you're a great wolf.

glibly crying wolf about this or that, and actually there's no fundamental action.

What I'm often really surprised about is just the lack of real sense of crisis with a lot of Americans with the rusting manufacturing base.

We're chatting together in New York City.

The Second Avenue subway extension costs about $2 billion per mile.

Almost everything in the U.S.

in terms of major infrastructure, especially in big cities, ends up being over budget and over time.

Voters originally approved the California high-speed rail by referendum in 2008.

I think they said this must be finished by 2020.