Gen Z's fascination with China is about their disillusionment with capitalism

Carl Godfrey for BI

Reed Adams' interest in China started on Google Maps.

"I really like infrastructure," said Adams, 20, a part-time travel content creator. "I would just spend time on Google Maps and see these huge new mega-projects in the Chinese countryside — huge towers and everything — and I sort of fell down that rabbit hole of looking at how China has developed."

At the time, Adams was 13. It wasn't until 2025 that he'd saved enough money from working at Walmart and finally got to see China for himself.