(picture taken in Yuyuantan Park, Beijing)
1) In the process of the game between China and the United States, we must always have a clear mind to evaluate the balance of power between China and the United States, and use this to evaluate the effectiveness of China's relevant policies in response to US containment and suppression. nature, and at the same time give an objective evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the United States, learn from its strengths and avoid its shortcomings. Here, we must adhere to a basic principle, that is, we can neither be proud nor complacent when evaluating China's strength in the context of the Sino-US game; nor can we use some unreasonable and unscientific evaluation indicators to compare the power of China and the United States, and then I always feel that China is “inferior to people everywhere”.
2) When evaluating the relative strength of the two sides in the context of the Sino-US game, the most important thing is to look at the comparison of comprehensive national strength based on economic and technological strength. When comparing the economic strength of China and the United States, we must abandon nominal GDP, a seriously flawed indicator, and instead use more GDP indicators measured in purchasing power parity (ppp).
3) In the past few years, as the inflation in the United States has been much higher than that in China, and the Federal Reserve has maintained the U.S. benchmark interest rate at a high level in order to combat inflation, thus pushing up the U.S. dollar market exchange rate, this has resulted in China's nominal GDP relative to the U.S. nominal The ratio of GDP does not increase but decreases. In fact, in the past few years, China's real GDP growth rate after deducting inflation has been about twice that of the United States. There is no doubt that the gap between China and the United States' real GDP should be narrowed, not as reflected in nominal GDP. It gets bigger and bigger. There are a large number of "bubbles" injected into the U.S. economy by inflation and a higher dollar exchange rate. These things look good in statistics, but they can neither improve the living standards of American people nor enhance the overall national strength of the United States. Therefore, the U.S. This "puffy" nominal GDP number has no practical significance. If calculated based on purchasing power evaluation, China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest economy in 2014. In recent years, China has further widened its GDP gap with that of the United States. According to estimates, in 2020, based on purchasing power parity, the United States' real GDP accounted for 86.3% of China's. By 2024, this proportion is expected to drop to 81.6%.
4) Let’s take the automobile market as an example to see how serious the “water injection” of GDP in the United States is. In 2023, China's automobile sales (including commercial vehicles and passenger cars) were 30.094 million units, with total sales of 4.86 trillion yuan. The average exchange rate of the US dollar against the RMB that year was 1 to 7.0467. Therefore, if calculated according to the market exchange rate, in 2023 Total automobile sales in China were US$689.68 billion. For comparison, in 2023, the sales volume of new cars in the United States will be 15.6 million, which is only 51.8% of China's. The average selling price will be approximately US$48,000, and total sales will be approximately US$748.8 billion. In other words, in 2023, the United States will create more GDP than China when its car sales are only about half of China's. In recent years, the quality of China's automobiles, especially the level of electrification and intelligence, has definitely been higher than that of the United States on average. Therefore, we can also say that, at least in the automobile market, the GDP of the United States has "watered down" compared to China. More than 100%. For American consumers, the price is more than double that of Chinese consumers, and they may not be able to buy cars of the same quality that Chinese consumers can buy. Such a GDP, apart from creating "remarkable" statistics, does not bring any benefit to the welfare of American consumers. Such a "water-filled" GDP cannot be compared with China's GDP, which is composed of "real money."
5) Due to the serious "water injection" of US GDP statistics, it is also very unreliable to use such GDP data to measure per capita GDP, labor productivity and other indicators. This is the consciousness and introspection that anyone who studies the Chinese and American economies must have.
6) In addition to the economy, technology has the greatest impact on the comprehensive national strength of China and the United States. I am not going to go into detail on this aspect. The Economist magazine, a British media that has long held an anti-China stance and has been "badmouthing" China, recently published a set of in-depth reports. The final conclusion is that China has become a superpower in the field of science and technology. . China's R&D investment, the number of high-level scientific research papers measured by the "Nature Index", and the number of intellectual property patents have all surpassed the United States in annual data.
7) It can be seen from this that in the past few years, China has not only failed to widen the gap with the United States in the two most critical indicators of economic and technological strength that affect comprehensive national strength, but has actually left the United States behind. This is the core fact that we must see when comparing the comprehensive national power of China and the United States.
8) In addition to comprehensive national strength, let’s look at some specific areas. Has the gap between China and the United States really widened?
- Judging from the number of "unicorn" companies, China is indeed lagging behind. However, the concept of "unicorn" companies originated from the West is itself a statistical standard full of financial color. It refers to companies that have not exceeded A company with a valuation of over US$1 billion in ten years. The so-called valuation is originally a financial concept, even a numbers game. Before China implemented the “double reduction” policy, there were many so-called “unicorn” companies in the education and training industry. Looking further forward, there have been many "unicorn" companies in the notorious PPP industry. Now, the valuation bubble of these companies has burst, which will inevitably lead to a reduction in the number of "unicorn" companies in China. However, is this a bad thing? In addition, in the context of the game between China and the United States, it is also true that the United States intends to suppress Chinese companies and restrict U.S. venture capital funds from supporting Chinese start-ups. Compared with the unreliable concept of "unicorn" companies, we should take a closer look at whether there are more "rising stars" in China or the United States in the field of high-tech manufacturing. This is in line with China’s orientation of advocating high-quality development and creating new-quality productive forces.
- Is China lagging behind in the field of artificial intelligence? After the "hollowing out" of the U.S. economy, the two industries of technology and finance are now abnormally developed. In the past few years, the United States seems to have achieved rapid development in the field of artificial intelligence. The United States is indeed ahead of China in high-end artificial intelligence chip design, computing power, and basic algorithms and models. But is China necessarily lagging behind? The containment and suppression by the United States is creating an unprecedented opportunity for the development of China's domestic artificial intelligence chip industry. No one believes that the United States can lock up the space for the development of China's artificial intelligence industry through blockade alone. Historically, the U.S. blockade of China has contributed to China's comprehensive breakthroughs in the fields of atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, missiles, aerospace, global navigation systems, space stations, and cutting-edge radars. We have no reason to doubt that the US blockade will not stimulate China to one day independently design and produce artificial intelligence chips that can rival or even surpass the United States. More importantly, China is the world's largest economy (calculated by purchasing power evaluation) and the world's largest industrial country. We have countless scenarios where artificial intelligence technology can be applied and its value can be exerted. Today, China's facial recognition technology is widely used in consumers taking high-speed trains and airplanes, etc., far beyond that in the United States. Today, China's unmanned ports and unmanned mines are also further developing. The value of these artificial intelligence technologies combined with China's strong manufacturing industry will definitely not be less than that of the United States. The artificial intelligence technology in the United States seems to be very advanced, but the inherent flaw in its lack of a strong industrial base to create application scenarios is also very obvious. We will never blindly underestimate the development of artificial intelligence technology in the United States, but we must believe that China can definitely do better than the United States in integrating artificial intelligence with social production and people's lives.
9) China and the United States are both major countries. At this stage, neither side should underestimate the other. However, China's manufacturing industry is larger than all Western countries combined, which is definitely an advantage. In the future, under conditions of extreme sanctions and war, it will be clear how "virtual" the U.S. economy is and how "real" China's economy is. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the weakness of the entire Western world's military industry is shocking. North Korea, which many people in China do not look down upon, has a basic military production capacity that is stronger than that of most Western countries. This is the real reason why Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to visit North Korea.
10) Back to the core of this article, In the context of the game between China and the United States, it is necessary to objectively evaluate the respective strengths of China and the United States:
First, we must always grasp the most critical indicator of comprehensive national strength, and we must always grasp the economy and scientific and technological strength, the two most critical indicators that affect comprehensive national strength. Putting aside comprehensive national strength, as well as the economic and technological strength that determines comprehensive national strength, talking about the gap between China and the United States only from some fragmented fields will only lead to the effect of "blind people feeling the elephant";
Second, in the comparison of subdivided fields The strength of beauty requires not only seeing the merits of various indicators, but also seeing their inherent flaws. Using flawed indicators to evaluate will inevitably lead to unreliable conclusions.
It is inevitable that the comprehensive national strength of China and the United States will wax and wane.
In the context of the game between China and the United States, China is an emerging power, full of vigor and vitality. Moreover, the fundamental purpose of China's economic development and technological improvement is not to contain and suppress the United States, nor to compete with the United States for global hegemony. It is to enable the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people to live a better life, and in the process, Treat all willing countries in the world as equals and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. There is no doubt that China is on the right side of history, and China will definitely be able to get more help.
Looking back at the United States, over the past 200 years since the founding of the country, its economy has had a very serious problem of "transferring reality into fiction". The phenomenon that its political system is controlled by oligarchs is very obvious, and its national governance level has declined significantly compared with its peak period. The so-called Sino-US game is nothing more than the United States imposing the traditional logic of great power struggle for hegemony on China under the guise of ideology and values.
Chinese people don’t like this. We are not interested in competing for hegemony with the United States, and we are even less interested in preventing and destroying the development of the United States. However, if the United States insists on continuing to pursue hegemonic logic and prevent China from further development, then we have one sentence - "Just do it." .
"When a friend comes, there is good wine; when a jackal comes, there is a shotgun."
In this process, whether we are looking at China or the United States, we must adhere to the principle of seeking truth from facts.
We must not only oppose "arrogance", but also oppose "arrogance".
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