Shadowing Practice: Why the US is Losing the Infrastructure War - Learn English Speaking with Video
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25 years ago, America and China both started spending on a scale the world has never seen.
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The US built history's largest war machine.
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They spent trillions on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
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Meanwhile, China spent trillions building their industrial capacity.
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Roads, railways, power grids, factories, ports, cities.
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China invested in the industries of their future.
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25 years later, the bill has come due.
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This video is going to examine the spending choices of each superpower and the implications of these, which I think will define the rest of the 21st century.
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Let's start with the United States and their spending on their post 9-11 wars.
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The story starts in October 2001 with America's invasion of Afghanistan.
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The United States military has begun strikes against Al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
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Immediately, the spending started.
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Soldiers, bases, combat operations, aircraft, weapons, fuel, logistics, military contractors,
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rebuilding Afghanistan, supporting Afghan security services.
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The list goes on.
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The point is war isn't cheap.
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The fighting went on for 20 years, only ending in August 2021 with US and NATO forces withdrawing from the Afghan capital of Kabul.
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The comptroller of the US Department of Defense, these days the US Department of War, put the cost at $895 billion.
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That was only one theatre in the war on terror.
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The Iraq conflict started in March 2003 with the US invasion.
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By May 2003, George W.
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Bush was standing on an aircraft carrier declaring, In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
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But the fighting and the spending continued for a lot longer.
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The war officially ended in 2011, but then the US were quickly drawn back into Iraq and Syria to fight Islamic State.
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By the end of 2024, the Department of Defense estimate that the US had spent $805 billion.
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Put it together, 895 billion in Afghanistan, 805 billion in Iraq and Syria,
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and so far the US has spent 1.7 trillion dollars fighting these wars.
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While the US was spending on wars, China spent a similar amount building out their transport infrastructure.
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In 2001, China was a massive country, largely disconnected.
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It had no meaningful high-speed rail or urban rail and had less than 12,000 kilometers of expressways.
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For comparison, the US in 2001 had 76,000 kilometers.
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But China started building.
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Starting with expressways, it spent $450 billion to go from 12,000 kilometers to more than 191,000 kilometers.
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For comparison, in that time, the US has gone from 76,000 to 78,000.
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Next up was massive spending on rail.
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Both urban rail in cities and then high-speed rail to connect cities.
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China spent $150 billion laying 11,000 kilometers of urban rail across 54 cities
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and then spent $1.05 trillion to lay 50,000 kilometers of high-speed rail track.
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Today China has 70% of the world's high-speed rail infrastructure.
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I want to hold on high-speed rail for a moment
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because I think it really demonstrates the difference between China and America's ability to build big projects.
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Let's go back to 2008.
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That was the year that China opened its first dedicated high-speed rail line.
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It was also the year that California voters approved Proposition 1A,
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a proposal to build a high-speed rail line from San Francisco in the north to LA in the south.
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Well, fast forward to today, China has laid 50,000 kilometers of high-speed rail track.
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California has laid zero.
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But that's not all.
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The scale of California's project has shrunk massively.
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Rather than connecting the north and the south of the state, it is now going to connect a small part of the Central Valley.
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Costs have blown out from $33 billion to an estimated $231 billion,
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and a project that was meant to be finished today is now expected to be finished in 2033.
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High-speed rail isn't the only mega-project that China's been able to build.
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There are three that illustrate the scale of China's ambition.
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The first, the South-North Water Transfer Project, is the largest water diversion project ever built.
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At a cost of $80 billion, China built 4,000 kilometres of canals to move 45 billion cubic
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metres of fresh water each year from the wetter south to the drier north of the country.
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To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of 87 Sydney harbours being moved each year.
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The second mega project is the Hong Kong Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
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At a cost of $20 billion, China built a 55-kilometre bridge that links Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China.
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To put its size in perspective, it is about 20 times the size of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
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The third mega project that shows the scale of China's ambition is the Sheshuan-Tibet Railway.
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At a cost of 50 billion dollars, China is building more than a thousand kilometers of railway over the Himalayas.
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It is one of the most technically difficult railway projects ever can see.
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Add all of that together, the three mega projects, the expressway, the urban rail and the high-speed rail,
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and we get to roughly the equivalent of what the US have spent in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
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But here's the thing, the cost of war goes far beyond the battlefield.
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Brown University's Cost of War project has estimated the indirect Pentagon costs of these post 9-11 wars.
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These are the costs of actually administering and carrying out the wars back in America and around the world.
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It was to pay for things like higher personnel costs, recruitment and retention, additional equipment needed to fight these specific wars,
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and readiness spendings to ensure that bases around the world were ready to support the fighting in the Middle East.
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Brown University estimate that $884 billion was allocated to the Pentagon above its ordinary base budget to put America on a war footing.
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We can compare that indirect cost of war to China's investment to become an energy superpower.
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Over the past 25 years, it has become the world's largest producer of electricity and today produces one third of the world's total electricity.
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To put that in context, China generates more electricity than the US, European Union and India combined.
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This hasn't been by accident.
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This has been two decades worth of investment by the Chinese government.
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Let's start with renewable energy, where they've spent $170 billion to become a solar and wind superpower.
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China is now the largest manufacturer of solar panels
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and exports them around the world but they've also installed 2 billion solar panels at home.
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Turning to wind, China now accounts for more than half the world's offshore wind turbines,
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with more than 7,700 installed in the past two decades.
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Hydropower has also been a priority for the Chinese government.
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It's already home to the world's largest hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam, which,
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fun fact, is so big that it actually slowed the Earth's rotation 0.06 microseconds.
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But China aren't settling for that.
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They are spending $137 billion to build a hydro dam three times the size of the Three Gorges Dam in Tibet.
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The Meidong Hydropower project will produce 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year,
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which is enough to power all of the UK.
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Turning to nuclear energy, China has spent $60 billion to build or start construction on 89 nuclear reactors since 2001.
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Now it's all good and well to generate a lot of electricity, but China has spent $250 billion to connect the country to the electricity grid.
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Today it is home to 35 of the 37 largest high voltage direct current power transmission systems in the world.
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So while the US spent hundreds of billions projecting power around the world, China spent hundreds of billions generating more power at home.
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The final line item in the cost of America's wars is long-term veteran care.
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These are more immediate costs like veterans, medical care, PTSD and psychological care,
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and disability payments, but also factors in the long decades of medical treatment as veterans grow older.
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This estimate comes from Harvard's Linda Bilnes working with Brown University's Cost of War project.
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They estimate it will be $2.2 trillion through 2050.
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That $2.2 trillion can be compared to what China has spent to make it an industrial and manufacturing superpower.
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Let's start with electric vehicles, where China spent $230 billion to take its car industry from non-existent
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or at least not a player on the world stage to the biggest player in the global car industry.
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In 2025 BYD took over Tesla as the largest maker of battery electric cars.
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China controls 69% of the global electric vehicle battery market.
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And you only need to read the annual reports of American
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or European car makers to see how much trouble they're in facing cheaper Chinese cars.
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China also spent $95 billion on building their semiconductor industry.
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Now this one's had mixed results.
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Chinese companies still rely on cutting-edge Nvidia chips.
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There's plenty of stories about the black market for these chips and how Chinese companies try to smuggle them into mainland China.
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But the semiconductor industry in China has been okay at producing less cutting-edge chips for more consumer or general applications.
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One area where China has excelled is 5G.
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They spent $173 billion building more 5G towers than the rest of the world combined.
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That hasn't just been to help Chinese people get better phone
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internet It's also to lay the groundwork for the embodied AI and robotics revolution that China expects to lead
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Things like AI connected robots walking the street,
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Internet of Things devices, all of that relies on consistent internet connections enabled by 5G.
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So after that 5G investment we've seen a recent announcement from the Chinese government for a hundred
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and thirty eight billion dollars to to supercharge their robotics and AI industry.
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China's ambition for the future of technology is really encapsulated in Shoyan,
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which was a 145 billion project to build a new city.
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Situated 100 kilometers south of Beijing, it is China's city of the future that they're building from scratch.
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But China's ambitions go far beyond their borders.
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They go far beyond the Earth.
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China has spent $40 billion becoming a power in space.
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This really started in 2011 with the Wolf Amendment, where US Congress banned Chinese astronauts from going on the International Space Station.
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So China said, screw you, we'll build one ourselves.
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They built their own space station.
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They also landed a rover on Mars and became the first country to collect samples from the far side of the moon.
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And finally, the biggest project that we've covered today, the most ambitious of China's development, is the Belt and Road Initiative.
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China has spent $1.4 trillion to fund more than a thousand projects across 150 countries to build modern trade routes for Chinese goods.
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They have tried to absolutely reshape global trade.
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These projects have been everything from an economic corridor down into Pakistan so Chinese goods can avoid the South China Sea,
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or a freight rail to Europe to find another way to get Chinese goods to the European market.
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So, let's bring it all together and tally it all up.
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Starting with America, all in, the US spent more than four trillion dollars on these post 9-11 wars.
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And that estimate could be low.
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Harvard's Linda Bilmes estimates between four and six trillion dollars,
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and Brown University's Cost of War project actually puts all the post 9-11 wars at eight trillion dollars.
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And America didn't get nothing for this investment.
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They built the largest and strongest army history has ever seen.
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They solidified their status as the world's superpower by having an army that no one could rival.
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And it's not like the US economy didn't grow in that time.
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An 11 trillion dollar economy in 2001 turned into a 32 trillion dollar economy today.
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Almost three times growth in the US.
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But that pales in comparison to China.
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China spent more than four trillion dollars building out electricity, transport and trade infrastructure and then supporting the industries to make the most of that infrastructure.
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It became the world's largest manufacturing economy, the largest exporter of goods, and the largest producer of electricity,
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steel, cars, batteries and solar technology.
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In 2001 GDP was 1.3 trillion, today China's GDP is 19 trillion, almost 15 times growth.
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So 25 years later, which country made the right decisions?
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It's easy to look at China and to see what they've built and think those were the best investments.
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But Americans would argue that their economy is still almost twice the size of China,
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They are home to the most cutting edge technology and they have a much larger military.
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It's too early to say which investments will pay off for China and what the long-term implications of America's spending will be.
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What we do know is the past 25 years has seen spending on a scale the world has never seen before.
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Both of these superpowers have been transformed and the way that they've transformed is going to define the competition between them
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for the rest of the 21st century.
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Let me know in the comments which country you think has made better spending decisions
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and which mega projects or investments I didn't cover in this video.
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Now I've got good news for you, if you've enjoyed this video, we've got plenty more like it on the Equitymates Explains YouTube channel, so go over and check it out.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 160 sentences and 2174 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:12. The speaker talks at a steady 143 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rail noun | /ɹeɪ(ə)l/ | A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing. |
| electricity noun | /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/ | Originally, a property of amber and certain other nonconducting substances to attract lightweight material when rubbed, or the cause of this property; now… |
| estimate noun | /ˈɛs.tɪ.mət/ | A rough calculation or assessment of the value, size, or cost of something. |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| mega adjective | /ˈmɛɡə/ | Very large. |
| infrastructure noun | /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/ | An underlying base or foundation for a building, organization, or system. |
| railway noun | /ˈɹeɪlˌweɪ/ | A transport system using rails used to move passengers or goods. |
| ambition noun | /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/ | Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's… |
| chip noun | /t͡ʃɪp/ | A small piece broken from a larger piece of solid material. |
| generate verb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/ | To bring into being; give rise to. |
| veteran noun | /ˈvɛ.tə.ɹən/ | A person with long experience of a particular activity. |
| producer noun | /pɹəˈdjuːsə/ | An individual or organization that creates goods and services. |
| installed verb | /ɪnˈstɔːld/ | readied for use |
| define verb | /dɪˈfaɪn/ | To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly. |
| rely verb | /ɹɪˈlaɪ/ | To trust; to have confidence in; to depend. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| build out verb | To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.). | |
| carry out verb | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | To hold while moving it out. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| go over verb | To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze. | |
| take over verb | To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has never seen · has come · has begun |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was meant · being moved · was allocated |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as they've, didn't, we've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thirty /ˈθɝti/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/, invasion /ɪnˈveɪʒən/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, transmission /tɹænsˈmɪʃən/, rotation /ɹoʊˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, semiconductor /ˌsɛmikənˈdʌktə/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like rail, electricity, estimate.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.