Author: Ruan Yingxian
The Sino -US trade war began for more than a year, and it was still in full swing.To understand the background of the Sino -US trade war, we must start with China's reform and opening up in 1978.
In 1978, China's reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping's reform in a step -by -step method (Gradualism) crossed the river with stones.China has created many policies with Chinese characteristics on the road to reform, such as dual -tracking systems, dry systems, urban and rural enterprises, and special economic zones.It turns out that these reforms conform to China's national conditions at that time (such as price control, unclear property definition, and backward technology, etc.), which has led to the high -speed economic growth of three or forty years in the future, and many citizens have been poverty alleviation.
New structural economics of reform and opening up
With the southern tour of Deng Xiaoping in 1992, China continued to promote the reform of state -owned enterprises.Which state -owned enterprises are privatized, which are closed, and which continues to accept government subsidies is planned by the government.Some downstream companies such as food and textiles are soon replaced by private enterprises.However, upstream and strategic enterprises such as communication, electricity, banking, insurance, etc. are still held by state -owned enterprises, and benefit from low -interest banks in banks, forming national monopolies, private enterprises and foreign capital cannot participate.In addition, the Chinese government consciously accelerates the technical transfer of China's industrial production. For example, in hand -telephone and computer production, foreign businessmen must invest in joint ventures with Chinese funds in China.China ’s supervision of intellectual property protection is loose, coupled with trade barriers of foreign goods, the purpose of these industrial policies is to protect their own enterprises and speed up their development.
Economist Lin Yifu has admired the national development policy of centralized protection and subsidizing the centralized protection of the government's industrial policy. It is called new structural economics, which has vigorously promoted to developing countries in Africa in recent years.In fact, this method led by government policies is not unique to China. Japan and South Korea after World War II also have similar policy subsidy industries, such as Mitsubishi and South Korea Samsung and other chaebols. They have inextricable relationships with politics.
Neo -liberal impact in China Economic Model
Since the 1980s and 1990s, Neo-LIBERALISM was very prosperous in the West. At that time, Liggen and Mrs. Dewell advocated a large market and small government.This trend of economics has also been promoted to developing countries, the so -called Washington Consensus.Washington Consensus has three claims: trade and capital liberalization, privatization of state -owned enterprises, and government revenue and expenditure (small government).Washington consensus prediction regardless of national development, as long as the above -mentioned policies are pursued, the economy can grow rapidly.This consensus is advocated by the U.S. government and sells through Foreign AID and international organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.At the same time, the World Trade Organization was established in 1995 to promote global free trade.
Obviously, the liberalization and privatization in the consensus of Washington has violated the guidelines such as promoting key enterprises in Chinese industrial policies in Chinese industrial policies.Therefore, China must choose to choose one when joining the WTO negotiations. In the end, China joined the WTO in 2001. In order to integrate into the international market, China has conceded in industrial policies.Joining the WTO has a short -term boosting role in China's economy, but in the long run, Chinese companies still lack international competitiveness and may not be able to maintain high growth.
The Chinese government used two strategies.First, underestimate the RMB to increase China's export goods competitiveness and promote China's economic growth with strong exports.However, this method has a result that it will increase China's trade surplus. From 2006 to 2008, the trade surplus was as high as 8%of the total national product value, which is staggering.This is a major controversy in the Sino -US trade war today.
Second, China has not effectively implemented some promises to join the WTO.This includes that the SASAC still controls many state -owned enterprises, local governments still subsidize local enterprises, set up different levels for foreign investors, protect intellectual property rights, and still maintain trade barriers in many service industries (such as banking and insurance industry).These issues are the same as that after the Mainland and Hong Kong signed CEPA (the mainland and Hong Kong's arrangements for establishing closer economic and trade relations), there are problems with the door open and small doors.There are many execution problems caused by the imperfection of the Chinese government's structure in the middle. It is unknown to how much the government deliberately refuses to fulfill its promises.This is another major controversy in the Sino -US trade war today.
The prosperity of various development strategies
As the Chinese economy continues to grow high, the overall economic output of China's overall economy is gradually approaching the United States, so the economic friction caused by the above two aspects has become more and more serious.For example, Economist Paul Krugman believes that the underestimation of the RMB exchange rate will cause trade to tilt and cause US employment positions to lose to China.Trump repeated this kind of remarks during the campaign and after taking office.At the same time, China's per capita production value is far less than the United States, which shows that China's technical level is still a large distance from the United States.Therefore, China is unwilling to abandon state subsidies and let all domestic companies compete freely with foreign companies.Finally, because China has not fulfilled part of the commitment since its entry into the WTO, the United States forced China to amend the law on the trade agreement, and China refused to cause the previous round of trade negotiations to break down.
The Washington consensus that advertised the market -led and liberalization of the market. Although it was extremely prosperous in the 1980s and 1990s, it entered the 1990s, and the financial crisis in many developing countries around the world, such as the 1994 Mexican pour crisis and the 1997 Asian financeStorm, 1998 Russia and Argentina's economic crisis.Later research pointed out that the liberalization of capital accounts made the hot money coming into a large excess, causing asset bubbles, and the development of countries in the development of countries could not resist.The International Monetary Fund has also been transferred in recent years, re -affirming that capital control is one of the policy options.
In addition, developed countries have undergone a major lesson of financial tsunami in 2008. It is learned that if the market lacks appropriate government supervision, it can cause catastrophic consequences, and the taxpayer will be paid by the taxpayer.After Trump came on, he proposed the United States priority, advocating protectionism, threatening tariffs on countries around the world, and the trend of new liberalism seemed to gradually fade away.
The Chinese -style government's strategy to drive the market, although very successful in the early days of development, has quickly made China a middle -income country, but most economists believe that the long -term economic policies that are free to open are more efficient.Subsid state -owned enterprises to monopolize national upstream enterprises, squeeze downstream private enterprises in disguise; financial systems reduce loan interest rates for enterprises, and indirectly make depositors' investment returns decline; restrict foreign imports and reduce the choice of domestic consumers;Tenture of rental, etc. These are some of the disadvantages of the current economic system.
Many economists believe that whether China's economy can continue to maintain high growth, depending on whether the government can promote reform in the existing system, and gradually approach the free and open -efficient economic system, people can do their best.Of course, the bottom line of the Chinese government is the autonomous economic policy, not reforming by external forces.This is a political issue. Source: Ming Pao
