Huang Youguang: Where does the Sino -US trade war lose more?

Perspective collision

The Sino -U.S. Trade war is intensive, and there is a trend of continuing to expand.At present, there are many analysis of this trade war. Most of the analysis is very one -sided, and there are many problems.

According to the view of US President Trump himself, it seems that China ’s exports to the United States are much more than the United States exported to China. Therefore, the Sino -US trade war must be even greater in China.This pure business person's view is too simple.

Economists will conduct in -depth analysis.For example, Professor Yu Zhi, Economics of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, takes into account the company's ability to increase tariffs.(See "Lianhe Zaobao" on July 26 "China should prevent the expansion of the trade war".) According to Professor Yu's discussion: Andhellip; Andhellip;Only ordinary products with production subsidies can only be thin or micro -profit. Anandhellip; Andhellip; Once these products are imposed on tariffs, it is difficult to absorb tariffs by reducing profits and it is difficult to survive in the export market. Therefore, if the trade war expands, exports to China exports to ChinaThe impact is not a simple straight -line increase, but an acceleration increase. Anandrdquo; Therefore, Professor Yu believes that the trade war and "impact on the Chinese economy will accelerate, and it will be significantly greater than the impact on the US economy; ChinaMeasures should be taken to prevent further expansion of Andrdquo;

I agree with Professor Yu's conclusions on preventing the expansion of the trade war.

Trump's simple businessman point of view

Let's start with some issues of Trump's simple businessmen.One of his basic errors is that exports are making money and favorable; imports are spending money and unfavorable.Therefore, whoever exits more will lose more.This brief view ignores a country, region, and enterprises. It can not only profit from the price exports higher than the domestic market, but also profit from buying or producing lower prices than domestic markets.

In fact, at least in the long run, the export itself is not the purpose, but to earn foreign exchange that can buy goods that can be used to buy other countries, and it is worth exporting.

Due to the above reasons, if the trade war reduces the products exported to the United States to the United States, it will not only be unfavorable to China, but also to the United States; the reduction of goods from the United States to China will not only be unfavorable to the United States, but also to China.Therefore, there is usually no winner in the trade war, and where the other is more loser, it cannot be simply determined by the exports of both parties.

Secondly, according to the accounting method of international trade, the import and export amount is misleading according to the total value of export products, rather than based on its added value.In many cases, companies A in the United States in China not only hire Chinese workers, but also use US capital, corporate capabilities, design, certain raw materials and semi -finished products in Southeast Asian countries.Later, it was exported to the United States at a price of 100 yuan.In terms of trade accounting, this is exported to the United States at all, 100 yuan per piece.

However, the added value that belongs to China may be less than 20%, and the Americans make more than 40%.In general, according to the estimation of data in 2015, China's exports are only 25.5%of the added value of the country, and those exported to the United States are only 24.8%.On the other hand, the proportion of added value exported to China in the same year was more than 50%of the added value of China.(Professor Liu Zunyi, a presence of a well -known economist and the former President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, at the end of July this year.)

Misacuity according to the possibility of bearing ability

Professor Yu Zhi obviously surpasses Trump's level, but the analysis of the ability is also very problematic.If the level of corporate profit margin to the United States in China is low, if the United States increases tariffs on these products, they cannot make money, and they may need to turn off or switch to other products.According to Professor Yu's analysis, this is a factor that makes China more losses.This inference seems to only look at the short -term impact and not look at the long -term impact.

In the long run, most of the production factors that were originally used to produce commodity A in the United States can be transferred to the production of other commodity B, including exports to other countries and consumption in their own country.If the profit when producing A is relatively low, it means that the loss from A to B is relatively small.Therefore, low bearing ability may mean that the short -term impact is relatively fast and large, but it also means that long -term losses are relatively small.

For those exports that rely on government subsidies or caused major pollution in China, their production and exports are likely to be unfavorable to China.Reducing the production of these export products may be beneficial to China, or its losses are negative.On the issue of pollution in the country, since China is overwhelming to the United States, it is a matter of service, but in terms of service, it is over the United States to overcome China; and the production of items has a larger degree of pollution than services. Therefore, in this regardThe US trade is relatively large in US profits.However, in terms of technology transfer and follow -up from trade, China should be relatively large.

The influence of the short -term in the short term depends on the crackdown on business confidence, especially in terms of investment.If you have caused unemployment due to a large decline in confidence and total demand, the impact may be great.However, in this regard, from the perspective of the results of the 2008 global financial crisis, China is obviously more impact in the crisis faster than the United States and other countries.After China invested 4 trillion yuan in 2009, China quickly returned to high -speed growth.The United States and other countries, after many years of quantitative easing, began to recover around two years ago.

How long is the long -term loss?The factors that affect this include the difficulty and cost of product and factor transfer, and the degree of replacement of other markets.In fact, as mentioned above, not only will exports lose loss due to the trade war, but also loss of imports will be lost.For example, if China reduces imported soybean from the United States, it may need to be imported from Brazil at a higher price, or produces more in the country at a higher cost.Similarly, the United States will lose due to the reduction of China to the United States or the reduction of their imports from China.

Some estimates about the loss of all parties

In terms of the difficulty and cost of product and element transfer, the author believes that the situation in China is relatively low and it is easier to transfer.Therefore, the loss will not be great.Other factors affecting the loss of both parties are not easy to estimate.According to some analysis in this regard, there are some conclusions.

According to the analysis of an article in the International Economist Economy in the "The International Economy" this year: And "And" Chinese losses are limited. From the perspective of asset allocation, other conditions are the same., China seems to be Asian countries with the lowest influence of the Sino -US trade friction upgrade. The industries that will be hit by US trade measures are Vietnam's textiles, leather and shoe, computer and electronics in Malaysia, and chemistry with SingaporePetroleum products. Anandrdquo;

One of the reasons for the limited impact on China is that in recent years, the Chinese economy has changed from export orientation to mainly domestic orientation.Since 2009, the direct contribution of net exports to China's GDP (GDP) has been zero or negative.The ratio of exports accounted for GDP, from 35.3%in 2006 to 18.1%in 2017.The proportion of exports from China to the United States accounted for GDP, from 7.2%in 2006 to 3.4%in 2017.These numbers refer to the total number of theings.If it is based on the added value of the country, as mentioned above, there are only about a quarter.Therefore, 3.4%becomes less than 1%.

According to the simulation estimation of the Bank of England, the Sino -US comprehensive trade war has reduced the global GDP by 2.5%in three years, the UK is 2%, and the United States is 5%.

In March this year, the article "Wall Street knows more about economics than Trump" in Netease this year has discussed Andrdquo; and Andrdquo; and "ANDHELLLIP with a large overall defense; Andheellip,"Most of them are some economic or policies in this country (such as insufficient savings, fiscal deficit, etc.), and cannot blame a country's surplus to its surplus andrdquo;.Add another point here.

According to the simulation estimation of the Bank of England, the Sino -US comprehensive trade war has reduced the global GDP by 2.5%in three years, the UK is 2%, and the United States is 5%.

As the US dollar is the special status of the world currency, the United States is the country that can undertake the trade deficit.With the growth of the world economy, the increase in price levels, and the increase of the transaction volume of each unit of products (this includes the increase in division of labor level and the increase in intermediate product levels), countries have increased their holding of the US dollar.Therefore, the US dollar naturally flows into other countries from the United States, and this naturally causes the US international trade to surpass.Within the scope of this factor, the overtaking of the United States is actually the huge interest of the United States, at least equivalent to interest -free loans to the United States.

Moreover, as long as the international currency status of the US dollar is maintained, this loan will never have to be repaid.As a businessman, Trump seems to only see the money, and he does not realize that money is used to buy things.If you do not need to use a lot of exports, you can get a lot of entrances. This is beneficial to the United States. You do n’t have to use a trade war that is not good for everyone to try to correct it.Moreover, theory and experience show that the trade war cannot reduce the deficit.

Beyond pure economic factors

The Sino -US trade war is not just a purely economic dispute.Like Professor Zheng Yongnian's article on August 14th in an article in "Lianhe Zaobao", and "The essence of this trade war is Andlsquo; the cold war AndRSQUO; this, the United States can at least slow down or terminate China's economic development.If this problem has been discussed in recent years, the content of Andersquo; and Andrsquo; and Andlsquo; and the content of the trap andrsquo; then, for the United States, it leads China to Andrsquo;; It is the most effective way to avoid Andlsquo; Xiu Xidid trap andrsquo; because Andlsquo; medium -income trap andrsquo; meaning that China will not have the power to challenge the US hegemonic position Andrdquo;.

Professor Zheng analyzed well, Trump should think so.However, subjective desires may not be an objective fact.Although the prospects are full of unknown, I would rather believe that Professor Liu Zunyi and the Bank of the British Bank of the United Kingdom did not believe the analysis of businessman Trump.China's economic growth may decline slightly, but most of them will not stagnate.Trump's short -sighted Andrdquo; policies in the United States, regardless of economic or economic long -term effects, should accelerate the decline in the status of US overlords. In the long run, Trump may be China's largest friend./p>

The author is a lecture professor at Wen Simin, Department of Economics of Nanyang University of Technology in Singapore