The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for Our Future

About this book

A timely vital account of Californias unique relationship with China told through the exploits of the entrepreneurs activists and politicians driving transformations with international implications. Tensions between the worlds superpowers are mounting in Washington D.C. and Beijing. Yet the Peoples Republic of China and the state of California have built deep and interdependent socioeconomic exchanges that reverberate across the globe making California and China a microcosm of the most important international relationship of the twentyfirst century. In The Transpacific Experiment journalist and China analyst Matt Sheehan chronicles the real people who are making these connections. Sheehan tells the story of a Southern Californian mayor who believes a Chinese electric bus factory will save his town from meth labs and skinheads. He follows a Chinese AI researcher who leaves Google to compete with his former employer from behind the Great Firewall. Sheehan joins a tour bus of wealthy Chinese families shopping for homes in the Bay Area revealing disgruntled neighbors and raising important questions about Californias own narratives around immigration and the American Dream. Sheehans ontheground reporting reveals movie sets in the Hollywood of China Chinesefunded housing projects in San Francisco Chinese immigrants who support Donald Trump and more. Each of these stories lays bare the new reality of twentyfirstcentury superpowers: the closer they get to one another the more personal their frictions become. Cuts right to the heart of the relationship between Silicon Valley and China: the tangled history the current tensions and the uncertain future . . . a mustread.KaiFu Lee former president of Google China and founder of Sinovation Ventures