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Articles by Jacob Dreyer
Whose AI Will Rule The World?
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. “What appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy’s resources.“ —Nick Land SHANGHAI — Today, China and the United States are co-creating a powerful new technology that changes how we think, communicate with each other and understand what consciousness itself means.
How AI Is Rewriting Human Nature
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. Looking in the mirror each morning at my permanently fatigued face, I start my day with a gulp of apple cider vinegar and a vitamin pill. I move on through a box of sardines and a grapefruit, some dense rye bread, some brown yogurt (ryazhenka) and cashew nuts. I think of these things as healthful, in the same realm as traditional Chinese medicine — their effects are holistic rather than targeted.
America’s A.I. Is Futuristic. China Is Just Making It Work
Every evening as our children eat dinner, my phone notifies me that our 3-year-old’s teacher has uploaded photos taken during the day at school. An artificial intelligence facial recognition feature puts a red square around his face, letting me know which photos to look at. It’s kind of creepy, but kind of helpful, too. In China, surveillance technology and A.I. surround our everyday life.
Smart supremacy: Why China is so much less scared of AI
Every evening as our children eat dinner, my phone notifies me that our 3-year-old’s teacher has uploaded photos taken during the day at school. An artificial intelligence facial recognition feature puts a red square around his face, letting me know which photos to look at. It’s kind of creepy, but kind of helpful, too. In China, surveillance technology and AI surround our everyday lives.
America’s A.I. Is Futuristic. China Is Just Making It Work. Original
America’s A.I. Is Futuristic. China Is Just Making It Work. May 9, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ET Credit...Allison Filice Mr. Dreyer is an American editor and writer who lives in Shanghai. Every evening as our children eat dinner, my phone notifies me that our 3-year-old’s teacher has uploaded photos taken during the day at school. An artificial intelligence facial recognition feature puts a red square around his face, letting me know which photos to look at. It’s kind of creepy, but kind of helpful, too.
Trump Is Coming to a China That Has Moved On
When I first moved to Shanghai from Virginia in 2008, China still looked up to America. Much of what China did, how it saw itself, what it strove for and its place in the world was measured against “Meiguo” — the “beautiful country” — as America is known in Chinese. Fresh out of college, I had no work experience. But just being American was enough. I landed jobs at top high schools and universities where I taught classes such as Western culture. But there wasn’t really a curriculum.
Trump llega a una China que siguió adelante
Cuando me mudé a Shanghái desde Virginia en 2008, China todavía admiraba a Estados Unidos. Gran parte de lo que China hacía, cómo se veía a sí misma, qué anhelaba y su lugar en el mundo se medía en comparación con "Meiguo", el "país hermoso", como se conoce a Estados Unidos en chino. Recién salido de la universidad, no tenía experiencia laboral. Pero con solo ser estadounidense me bastaba.
Trump Shouldn’t Expect Too Much From His China Trip
1 day ago In January 1980, President Jimmy Carter made a bold promise: If any foreign power tried to dominate the Persian Gulf or the region’s vast oil reserves, it would be met with American military force. By guaranteeing the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz over the next 45 years, America …
Trump Shouldn’t Expect Too Much From His China Trip Original
You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading. Trump Shouldn’t Expect Too Much From His China Trip May 3, 2026, 1:00 a.m. ET Credit...Vincent Thian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Dreyer, an American editor and writer, wrote from Shanghai. When I first moved to Shanghai from Virginia in 2008, China still looked up to America.
After The AI Revolution
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. “From our ugliness will grow the soul of the world.” —Andrei Platonov, “Soul” As the race to build ever-better artificial intelligence continues, the relationship between its chief competitors, the U.S. and China, is increasingly being defined by this quest. As partners in this strange new dance, they are the only two civilizations with the necessary scale to engage — and yet, they could not be more different.
The Heart of the Country
We need to operate as if America did not exist. –Rem Koolhaas What happens when the countryside— the global periphery —becomes the center of human progress, and America, once the heartland of modernity, turns into an exceptional, possibly obsolete island? Maybe America pivots, leaving twentieth-century allies behind and reorienting toward the places that will play a central role in the automated AI future, where the social order is closer to feudalism than to democracy.
China's biotech is cheaper and faster
Just outside Shanghai, in the city of Wuxi, China is building its future of medicine — a booming biotechnology hub of factories and laboratories where global pharmaceutical companies can develop and manufacture drugs faster and cheaper than anywhere else. Amid the Trump administration's tariffs on China, I figured manufacturing hubs like this one would be racked with anxiety. But when I visited Wuxi in April, government officials insisted that its research hub was flourishing.
China’s Biotech Is Cheaper and Faster
Just outside Shanghai, in the city of Wuxi, China is building its future of medicine — a booming biotechnology hub of factories and laboratories where global pharmaceutical companies can develop and manufacture drugs faster and cheaper than anywhere else. Amid the Trump administration’s tariffs on China, I figured manufacturing hubs like this one would be racked with anxiety. But when I visited Wuxi in April, government officials insisted that its research hub was flourishing.
Opinion | China’s Biotech Is Cheaper and Faster Than America’s Original
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. China’s Biotech Is Cheaper and Faster Aug. 17, 2025, 1:00 a.m. ET Credit...Fortunate Joaquin Mr. Dreyer is an American editor and writer who lives in Shanghai.
Con Trump, EE. UU. comienza a parecerse a China
¿Recuerdas el cuento de hadas de la globalización? Hubo un tiempo en que muchos estadounidenses creían que China inevitablemente se asemejaría más a nosotros con solo integrarse en el orden comercial mundial que establecimos y quizá, como sugirió una vez el presidente Bill Clinton, incluso se democratizaría. La victoria final del neoliberalismo liderado por Estados Unidos estaba cerca. Clinton y otros como él no se equivocaron del todo.
Con Trump, Estados Unidos comienza a parecerse a China
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. Con Trump, EE. UU. comienza a parecerse a China 3 de julio de 2025 a las 12:51 ET Credit...Sammy Harkham Dreyer es un editor y escritor estadounidense que vive en Shanghái. ¿Recuerdas el cuento de hadas de la globalización?
Role Reversal: Trump’s America coming up more like China
NEW YORK: Once upon a time, many Americans believed China would inevitably become more like us just by plugging into the world trading order that we established and maybe, as President Bill Clinton once suggested, even democratise. The final victory of American-led neoliberalism was close at hand. Clinton and others like him weren’t entirely wrong. China has spent decades emulating key elements of the American model of entrepreneurialism, consumerism and integration with global markets.
Opinion | China Used to Emulate America. Now the Reverse Is True.
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. America and China Are Becoming More Alike Every Day July 1, 2025, 1:00 a.m. ET Credit...Sammy Harkham Mr. Dreyer is an American editor and writer who lives in Shanghai. Remember the fairy tale of globalization?
Here’s why China’s science and innovation model is thriving
An increasing number of Chinese companies are grabbing the headlines with new technologies rolled out at scale.
How China can become a biotechnology superpower
Rao Yi is a leading reformer of science and education in China. Rao began his career in the United States in the 1980s. After he returned to China in 2007, he introduced practices that have revitalized life-sciences research in the country, including the use of tenure and of peer review to evaluate academics’ merits. Now based at Peking University in Beijing, he runs a leading brain-research laboratory, and holds other leadership positions. He’s also famously outspoken.
China’s Past, America’s Present: Revisiting Wang Hui
Late last October, we were in the basement of an obscure academic building in Berlin’s southwestern suburb of Dahlem, a group of twenty or thirty people assembled to hear Wang Hui talk about nationalism; my friends at the Berggruen Institute Europe had organized a residency in Venice and Berlin for him, to engage with European thought before the Trump victory that everybody saw coming.
OMA and architecture after globalization by Jacob Dreyer
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Photo Essay: Indonesia’s Decarbonization Tipping Point
China Environment Forum // Guest Contributor // Vulnerable Deltas By & Indonesia is at the heart of the next decade of growth in Asia. It also is at the frontier of Chinese industry’s move to develop clean energy markets overseas. The Indonesian government and Chinese investors are aligned on a narrative of decarbonization, but on the ground, coal remains central.
China made waves with Deepseek, but its real ambition is AI-driven industrial innovation
When US technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s book Zero to One was published in Chinese in 2015, it struck at an insecurity felt by many in China. Thiel suggested that although the country excelled at scaling and commercializing emerging technologies, it lagged behind the United States in true innovation — creating something entirely original from scratch. Take the iPhone: engineers in Cupertino, California, design them; workers in -Shenzhen, China, build them.
Can China Fuel Indonesia’s Clean Energy Transition?
Indonesia’s economy is on a roll. The archipelago nation harbors ambitions for 8% growth a year on its growing strength as an exporter of coal, palm oil, , and stainless steel made from its booming nickel mining industry. Investments from China are driving this growth—and run the gamut from traditionally dirty industries (mining, steel, and aluminum) to the crown jewels of Chinese clean energy tech: batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), and solar panel production.
The Death And Rebirth Of Europe | NOEMA
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. They’re saying Europe is dying. “We need to be lucid, and recognise that our Europe is mortal. It can die. It all depends on the choices we make, and those choices need to be made now,” Emmanuel Macron said in April. Its two largest economies — Germany and France — have practically stopped growing, and unemployment is rising; they both have unstable governments with right-wing populists waiting in the wings.
Is the Chinese Communist Party targeting our burgers? Here’s why Republicans in Congress are worried China is poised to “dominate global food supply chains’
Jacob Dreyer | New York Times | December 11, 2024 In late September, 11 Republican members of Congress wrote to the directors of national intelligence and the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Homeland Security to warn of the latest threat emerging in China.
Is Communist China Coming for Your Turkey, Too?
In late September, 11 Republican members of Congress wrote to the directors of national intelligence and the Department of Agriculture's Office of Homeland Security to warn of the latest threat emerging in China. They said China seeks to become the world leader in production of meat alternatives - part of a "targeted attempt to dominate global food supply chains" that could pose an urgent threat to the food security of the United States and its allies.
China’s regional cities are now major players in world science
As Chinese research goes from strength to strength, it is natural that the country’s biggest and most economically developed urban areas, such as Beijing and Shanghai, would become superstar science cities; as China gets richer, more educated and more technologically sophisticated, the megacities drive further progress. What might be more surprising is that some of China’s smaller provincial capitals are becoming globally significant, also ranking among the Nature Index top 20.
Xi Jinping has a peasant soul
ChinarestofworldrowSocietyXi Jinping The Chinese rock band Varihnaz is more likely to sing about pesticides and rice than love and loss. Its part-farmer, part-musician bandmates appeal to young Chinese who dream of a simpler, slower way of life beyond the frenzied cities. Its name, Varihnaz, translates as “fields filled with fragrant rice flowers” — a rare sight for the Chinese urbanite. Many of these ambitious youth have flocked to the cities from the countryside in search of a better life.
China Builds A New Eurasia
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. Editor’s note: This essay is part of a collaboration between Noema Magazine, e-flux Architecture and the Critical Media Lab at the Basel Academy of Art and Design. Read the introduction here and further essays here and here. “You are the soul of all those who died believing in the happiness that would come in the future. And now see, it has come.
Xi Jinping's cunning housing crisis
CCPChinaHousingrowSocietyXi Jinping With the imposition of his “three red lines” regulations in 2020, Xi Jinping called time on China’s epic real estate boom. For the previous two decades, real estate had played a huge part in China’s economy, matched only by exports to the West. But Xi brought an end to housing as an asset class. For Xi China’s building binge had a single purpose: to urbanise the nation. And now China has enough. Since 2004, 12.7 billion metres of housing have been built in China.
How China Is Using Silicon Valley
How China Is Using Silicon Valley
China is stealing Silicon Valley's homework
ChinaElectric vehiclesrowScienceTechnology Up until the 16th century, China was the most technologically advanced region in the world. While aristocrats ruled Europe, China’s meritocratic literati made exquisite scientific discoveries: gunpowder, the compass, papermaking and printing, among others. Now, China hopes to return to its golden era, with the Chinese state once again fixated on science and technology.
China In 2035 - NOEMA
Credits Jacob Dreyer is an editor and contributing writer for Noema based in Shanghai. “When the Grand course was pursued, a public and common spirit ruled all under the sky; they chose men of talents, virtue and ability; their words were sincere, and what they cultivated was harmony.” — The “Book of Rites,” a core text of Confucianism.
Waiting for the Barbarians: How China Views the U.S. Election
Nothing was ready for the war that everyone expected. —Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace This January, I pushed a stroller up and down the street under a murky grey sky. The pollution had been gone for many years, but this year it had returned with a vengeance, like some sort of karma. Some say that Westerners, heirs to the Enlightenment, see history as a line or, as American progressives would have it, an arc bending toward justice.
Xi piensa que China puede frenar el cambio climático; ¿y si tuviera razón?
¿Un sistema estatal como el chino está mejor posicionado para resolver una crisis generacional como el cambio climático? A primera vista, Xi Jinping parece haber perdido el rumbo. El presidente chino parece estar reprimiendo el dinamismo emprendedor que le permitió a su país salir de la pobreza y convertirse en la fábrica del mundo.
Opinión: Xi piensa que China puede frenar el cambio climático; ¿y si tuviera razón?
XI QUIERE QUE CHINA GANE LA CARRERA DE LAS SOLUCIONES CLIMÁTICAS Y ASUMA EL LIDERAZGO MUNDIAL QUE ELLO CONLLEVARÍA. SHANGHÁI — A primera vista, Xi Jinping parece haber perdido el rumbo. El presidente chino parece estar reprimiendo el dinamismo emprendedor que le permitió a su país salir de la pobreza y convertirse en la fábrica del mundo.
Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He’s Right?
At first glance, Xi Jinping seems to have lost the plot. China’s president appears to be smothering the entrepreneurial dynamism that allowed his country to crawl out of poverty and become the factory of the world. He has brushed aside Deng Xiaoping’s maxim “To get rich is glorious” in favor of centralized planning and Communist-sounding slogans like “ecological civilization” and “new, quality productive forces”, which have prompted predictions of the end of China’s economic miracle.
Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He's Right? Original
At first glance, Xi Jinping seems to have lost the plot. China's president appears to be smothering the entrepreneurial dynamism that allowed his country to crawl out of poverty and become the factory of the world. He has brushed aside Deng Xiaoping's maxim "To get rich is glorious" in favor of centralized planning and Communist-sounding slogans like " ecological civilization" and " new, quality productive forces," which have prompted predictions of the end of China's economic miracle.
What Does It Mean To Be Chinese?
Credits Jacob Dreyer is a writer and editor based in Shanghai. All images courtesy Thomas Sauvin / Beijing Silvermine. Beijing Silvermine is an archive of more than a million negatives salvaged over the last 14 years from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing. Sauvin, a French collector and artist, assembled the archive into a unique photographic portrait of the Chinese capital and the life of its inhabitants in the decades following the Cultural Revolution.
El mar interior que se convirtió en desierto y en advertencia para la humanidad
LA DESAPARICIÓN DEL MAR DE ARAL NOS DEBE IMPORTAR A TODOS. Caminar entre los restos, cada vez más reducidos, de lo que solía ser el mar de Aral en Uzbekistán fue como entrar al infierno. Todo era un desierto sin vida, con la excepción de los matorrales de saxaúl. El polvo se arremolinaba bajo un sol rojo y punzante a una temperatura de 43 grados Celsius. Llegué a la orilla de uno de los lagos desperdigados, que son todo lo que queda de lo que alguna vez fue una enorme masa de agua.
El mar de Aral se convirtió en un desierto y en una parábola sombría
Caminar entre los restos, cada vez más reducidos, de lo que solía ser el mar de Aral en Uzbekistán fue como entrar al infierno. Todo era un desierto sin vida, con la excepción de los matorrales de saxaúl. El polvo se arremolinaba bajo un sol rojo y punzante a una temperatura de 43 grados Celsius. Llegué a la orilla de uno de los lagos desperdigados, que son todo lo que queda de lo que alguna vez fue una enorme masa de agua.
A giant inland sea is now a desert, and a warning for humanity
Muynak, Uzbekistan * Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell. All around was a desert devoid of life, aside from scrubby saxaul trees. Dust swirled in 110-degree Fahrenheit heat under a throbbing red sun. I reached the edge of one of the scattered lakes that are all that remain of this once-great body of water. I took off my shoes and waded in. The water was so full of salt that it felt viscous, not quite liquid.
The Aral Sea’s Demise Is a Parable of Our Environmental Hubris - The New York Times
Opinion|A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/opinion/climate-uzbekistan-water-aral.html Guest Essay Mr. Dreyer, an editor and writer, wrote from Muynak, Uzbekistan. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell.
The Aral Sea’s Demise Is a Parable of Our Environmental Hubris - The New York Times
Opinion|A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/opinion/climate-uzbekistan-water-aral.html Guest Essay Mr. Dreyer, an editor and writer, wrote from Muynak, Uzbekistan. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell.
The Aral Sea’s Demise Is a Parable of Our Environmental Hubris - The New York Times
Opinion|A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/opinion/climate-uzbekistan-water-aral.html Guest Essay Mr. Dreyer, an editor and writer, wrote from Muynak, Uzbekistan. Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell. All around was a desert devoid of life, aside from scrubby saxaul trees. Dust swirled in 110-degree Fahrenheit heat under a throbbing red sun.
A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity
Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell. All around was a desert devoid of life, aside from scrubby saxaul trees. Dust swirled in 110-degree Fahrenheit heat under a throbbing red sun. I reached the edge of one of the scattered lakes that are all that remain of this once-great body of water. I took off my shoes and waded in. The water was so full of salt that it felt viscous, not quite liquid.
Empires Are No Gentlemen
Flooding in Beijing, heatwaves in Paris, air pollution in New York City—climate change events are increasing in frequency and severity around the world. One has the sense that the climate crisis and related mass migrations and geopolitical conflicts will be for our time what World War II was eighty years ago: a moment of extreme peril which may be eventually passed at great cost, with the world remade in its wake.
How Presidents Biden and Xi should steer the U.S.-China talks
A couple of weeks ago, a young crowd in Shanghai came out in force to celebrate Halloween. The street where I live filled with revelers dressed in a range of elaborate costumes — as the white-clad enforcers of China’s Covid lockdowns, as Chinese courtesans or simply as a watermelon. Halloween allows us to dress up as something that we can’t otherwise be.
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