China’s Technology Is Now Cool Among American Youth: Tyler Cowen

Amid all the excitement, surprise and anxiety over China’s DeepSeek R1 AI model, I would like to make a broader yet neglected point: To many young Americans, and I say this as an old American, DeepSeek is downright cool. It is not that they are enamored of the Chinese Communist Party, but rather that they see the Chinese internet as hip and intriguing.

How did this happen? First and foremost, because China’s internet actually is cool. Politics aside, Chinese products and services have an increasing flair and originality. I am not an avid TikTok user, but it ...