Involution — neijuan (内卷) in Mandarin, literally “inward curling” — entered everyday Chinese speech around 2020. The concept was borrowed from the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who described a pattern in colonial Java in the 1960s: farming systems that grew more elaborate and complex without becoming more productive, absorbing ever more labor for diminishing returns.
China’s AI boom is creating a different kind of entrepreneur
Backed by the state, Chinese workers are using AI to deal with limited resources and drive innovation to compete with Silicon Valley.
