Zheng Yongnian column
Many elites in the American society advocate to slow down and even curb China's development by making economic warfare with China.Therefore, it is not difficult to understand. Although China and the United States have a trade war today, the trade war is just a name. The actual level has already greatly surpassed the category of trade, including business, investment, intellectual property rights,,, and intellectual property rights,,, and intellectual property rights,,, and intellectual property,,,,,,In terms of technology, it can be said that it has opened the posture of comprehensive economic war.
The United States wants to carry out economic war against China, which reminds people of some elite figures in modern China to advocate the idea of commercial warfare with Western powers.Among them, Zheng Guanying (1842-1921) in the late Qing Dynasty was the most typical and influential.Zheng Guan should be the general office of the Shanghai machine weaving layout and the Vanity Merchants Bureau, which is closely related to the Westernization faction.
Early re -renewal thinkers believed that foreign invaders carried out economic plundering to China was the main reason for China's poor and weak. Therefore, they advocated not only to pay tribute to the military defense, to resist the war of western capitalist countries, but also to vigorously develop national industrial and commercial business.Western countries conduct business war.Zheng Guanying's thought of commercial warfare (mainly reflected in his masterpiece published in 1893) was one step closer. He believes that: Xi Bing warfare is not as good as the business war.
In his opinion, learning to the West only relies on the purchase of iron ships, turrets, firearms, water -making, navy, and land formation. He pays no effort on war.In order to conduct commercial war, China must break the traditional prejudice of farming -oriented, the end of business, and the end.
He believes that the purpose of Western powers invading China is to turn China into their land and profit fields, and then use the means of war and commercial warfare to deal with China.It is serious and more dangerous.The so -called soldiers are prone to people, and the business of Shang can be invisible.He advocated that the Westerners were fighting for business, and I used business, and I would also use business.Only the business of the business, the workers and the workers, and the western people want to strengthen the self -improvement.
Zheng Guanyin's commercial war is similar to the merchantism, which not only affects the Emperor Guangxu at that time, but also affects the generation of political and intellectual elites in the future, including Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yat -sen, Mao Zedong, etc.From this perspective, what Chinese economists have said today also have the shadow of Zheng Guanying.Anyway, learning, catching up, and surpassing the West has always been the dream of these generations of Chinese people, and the purpose of doing so is to prevent the powers from arbitrarily bullying China.
Today is the U.S. Economic War on China
Now the situation in China and the West has fallen, it is the United States to fight with China.The reason for the United States to conduct economic warfare in China is naturally different from that of modern China to carry out commercial warfare with Western powers.Although the United States has experienced a relatively declining decline today, it is still the most powerful country in the world. It leads almost all other countries in all fields. At the same time, the United States has not faced powerful enemies like modern China.
The problem of the United States is internal. If the internal problems cannot be solved, externalization has become an international problem. The trade war is only one of the external behaviors.Obviously, the United States is not only fighting a trade war with China, but also with many other countries including Mexico and India to fight a trade war.The United States hopes to solve the internal problems through the external economy (trade) war, although no one believes that the United States will succeed in doing so.
Of course, for the United States, the economic war is not new.Shortly after the establishment of the United States, a economic war was carried out with the Britain of the advanced country at the time, that is, the implementation of businessism, developing and protecting the ethnic industry.The United States only has an open policy after being strong inside and enters the world.The United States became the world's largest economy in the 1890s, and then began to intervene in world affairs during the World War II. After World War II, it became the entire Western leader. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, it became the only hegemony.
However, during this period, the United States has never stopped conducting trade war or economic warfare with other countries.During the Cold War, the Cold War of the United States and the Soviet Union was largely manifested as the economic war.Although the Cold War of the United States and the Soviet Union looked at the military competition on the surface, it was economic competition behind it.Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union is not an external and the United States military competition, but the internal stagnation and the dissatisfaction of the people.The Berlin Wall collapses from the inside, not from the outside.
Once when the United States feels that (or to be surpassed by (or to be) to be surpassed by (or to be), it will be relentlessly to accurately combat and solve problems through the trade war, including even Germany, France, and Japan, such as Germany, France, and Japan.Today, the United States' means of suppressing Huawei Company is not much different from the US, France and Japan's means. The difference is that these countries are allies in the United States. They can also find their friends within the United States (such as the US State Department and the ArmyFang), and today China is regarded as an opponent by the United States, so it cannot find internal sympathy or supporters.
The trade war is the concept of the West, and it is also a traditional means to use Western countries to solve the problem of trade between the country and the country.In China's long history, similar concepts have never been developed or using similar methods.Historically, before the rise of the West in modern times, China was the most developed country, and exported a large number of silk, porcelain, tea and other products for countries around the world.The four major inventions of China have spread to all corners of the West and the world, and there have never been intellectual property rights like today.
Over the years, people have regarded the traditional tribute system as an unfair trade arrangement for China and other countries.But this is the intentional solution of the West, because in today's words, the tribute system is actually a unilateral open policy implemented by China for other smaller countries.China conducts trade, but the Chinese emperor does not require the country to open to China.
Therefore, when the gifts of the Chinese emperor are not eaten, they are required to reduce the number of foreign tribute or extend the tribute cycle.This feudal trade arrangement may be that although China was a major trading country, it did not develop the reasons why international trade rules, or one of the important reasons for China's backwardness.
Western countries are not the first time to trade with China.The first and second Opium War was a typical trade war.When Britain did not have competitiveness in trade with China and generated a large amount of trade deficit, Britain made illegal opium trade in China as shamelessly.After China was defeated, the powers of various countries have launched competition in China.The process of modern Chinese history starts from this shame.
Now it is how China has dealt with the economic war launched by the United States.From the current situation, the intention of the United States is extremely clear, that is, to delay and curb China's development.How the future situation depends to a large extent on how China responds.China today is not Wu Xia Amon, not Zheng Guanyin. The history of the future is not an absence of an American family. China is also a protagonist on this stage.
China needs to respond and must respond, but the method of response must be proper.If the modernization of contemporary China began from the Mao Zedong era, then China had lost the opportunity to walk on the modern and Western powers in Japan at that time.Western powers are all assisted internal modernization through the methods of imperialism and colonialism.In comparison, China follows a modern hairstyle accumulated through internal capital.It was not until the start of the reform and opening up policy that China changed this situation.
It should be pointed out that most of the time after the reform and opening up, China opened its own country and welcome foreign capital to enter China.Although foreign capital has contributed to China's development, it is mainly the combination of foreign capital and Chinese cheap labor and land.In the process, the benefits of foreign capital are extremely rich. China has also developed through capital accumulation and Western technology diffusion, but the costs (especially environmental protection) they pay are also heavy.China's capital going out is only after China joined the World Trade Organization.But after many years, it ushered in today's trade war.
In other words, China has also experienced its own stage of businessist development.The endogenous development model makes the Chinese economy rely on Western and the United States as high as many other economies.In the final analysis, giant economies like China eventually need to rely on domestic demand to achieve sustainable development, but this is by no means a retreat.Customs locking the country must be avoided.At the beginning of the reform and opening up, Chinese society reached a extensive consensus on the open policy, that is, closed down, and beating behind.
This consensus has not changed today.Therefore, when the United States began to carry out trade protectionism and economic nationalism, the Chinese leadership repeatedly declared that they would adhere to the open policy and started a new wave of more in -depth open policy practice.
In other words, China is facing the United States' economic war against the United States with a comprehensive, large -scale and deeper open policy.Different from the era of exclusive businessism, today's economic warfare competition is more open, depending on who can attract the highest quality economic and technological resources through an open policy, thereby improving and strengthening their competitiveness, chasing or maintaining the economy leadingstatus.
West will not give up the Chinese market easily
From the perspective of world economic history experience, as long as one country itself is open, no other country can beolate the country.Similarly, as long as China itself is open, the logic of capital determines that China cannot be isolated.One of the reasons why the US economy is strong is because of the consumer market in the United States. The huge consumer market has led many countries to survive in the US market.This logic is also applicable to China.China today is the world's second largest economy and the largest trading country. The contribution rate of internal consumption to China's economic growth has exceeded 70%.
Although the ratio of the middle class in China is still less than the United States, its absolute scale has been caught up or even surpassed the United States.In other words, China has a large profit market.American commodities need markets, technology in the United States need markets, and no one is willing to abandon the Chinese market.Even if the capital of the United States has to give up because of political pressure, what about the European Union and Japan?Does the United States have the ability to pressure all Western countries to abandon the Chinese market?
Furthermore, if American companies abandon the Chinese market, they will increase their costs, leading to a reduction in investment, which will eventually lead to the decline of enterprises.Since the United States has entered the world system, its economy is strong because it has been expanding.In the words of Marx, the essence of capital is expansion, otherwise it will be death.If the concept of Western is used, China is the last frontier of capitalism.Since the West has spent great efforts to open the Chinese market, who will easily abandon the Chinese market?
Indeed, in this trade war, American entrepreneurs did not speak for China, and some stood on the side of the government.However, the intentions of the American business community and other vested interest groups (including security and military systems, politicians, etc.) are different. Entrepreneurs put pressure on China to open for China, and other interest groups are intended to curb and siegeBlock China.From the perspective of capital, simply speaking, the more open China is, the more difficult it is to fight the US trade war.
On the international stage, countries are facing the crisis of disintegration of existing multilateralist organizations, especially those in the United States that dominate it, including the World Trade Organization.The United States retreated to the group and turned to unilateralism and bilateralism.However, for all other smaller countries, including EU member states, Japan and ASEAN (Aya'an) countries, they still need to solve problems through multilateralist institutions and methods.
This aspect can also be worked hard in China.China can speed up some regional multilateralist organizations, including the Cross -Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) without the United States.At the same time, China can create new multilateralist institutions, similar to Asian infrastructure investment banks, and try to include American allies as much as possible; even projects like the Belt and Road Initiative can be converted into multilateralist institutions and open to other multilateral institutions.
Anyway, the United States has launched an economic war to China. It is difficult to avoid China even if they want to avoid it.But the process of fighting should be the process of rational display, not the process of emotional expression.Emotions are easy to express, while rationality is rare.However, only rationality can protect and promote the maximization of national interests, and only rationality can promote China's regional and international responsibility as a large country.
The author is a professor at the East Asia Research Institute of Singapore's National University
The article only represents personal point of view
