中國已做好迎接貿易戰的準備，美國仍有許多值得學習的地方（2/2）

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

China Came Ready for This Trade Fight, and the US Has a Lot to Learn (2/2)

Bloomberg - Tom Orlik, Eric Zhu and Jennifer Welch

Wed, August 13, 2025 at 3:00 a.m. PDT 8 min read

(continue)

Such thinking was behind successive waves of development plans. In 1983, Deng Xiaoping introduced the State High-Tech Development Plan, aiming to close the gap with the US in information technology, automation and other areas. In 1994, Ren Zhengfei, founder of telecommunications equipment champion Huawei Technologies Co., told then-President Jiang Zemin “a nation that does not have its own switching equipment is like one that lacks its own military.” Ren’s lesson on the link between industrial self-sufficiency and national security is one the US is only now beginning to relearn.

Under Jiang’s successor Hu Jintao, the priorities were “indigenous innovation” to bring foreign technologies in and a “Great Fire Wall” to keep Western influence out. More than a decade before the US debate about TikTok’s influence went viral, Google, Facebook and Twitter found themselves on the wrong side of the wall and effectively frozen out of the China market. Blocking the US giants opened space for China’s own tech companies—Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and others—to flourish.

In the top job since 2013, Xi unveiled his “Made in China 2025” plan to extend Beijing’s technology ambitions from self-­sufficiency to global leadership in industries including IT, robotics, high-speed rail and electric vehicles. His “Belt and Road” initiative aimed to diversify export markets, reducing dependence on the US consumer and extending China’s global influence through investments in ports, rail networks and roads. While neither plan has been an unequivocal success, there have been tangible wins, including surging EV and solar panel exports and stronger ties with other emerging markets. Trump eyes the expanding BRICS coalition—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as several more ­countries—as an anti-American club.

In the US, meanwhile, policy was shaped by post-Cold War hubris. The collapse of the Soviet Union convinced leaders that democracy and capitalism had won and the days of authoritarianism and state control were numbered. President Bill Clinton called support for China’s membership in the World Trade Organization “the most significant opportunity we have had to create positive social change in China since the 1970s.” His successors George W. Bush and Barack Obama did little to change the orientation.

Focused on the next quarterly earnings report, US multinationals shifted their supply chains to China’s low-cost factories. An implicit bargain was struck: access to the world’s most populous consumer and labor market in exchange for blueprints for vital technologies that power modern industry. Automakers including Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG were welcome so long as they signed on to joint ventures with homegrown Chinese companies. Starbucks Corp. and KFC opened thousands of outlets. But access to strategic upstream industries such as power and steel remained strictly walled off.

In a first-best world of free trade and market competition, the dynamism of the US approach should win every time. In the second-best world of protectionism and economic statecraft in which we now find ourselves, China’s planned approach still carries significant costs, but the benefits are also easier to discern.

The theory of the second best, expounded by economists Richard Lipsey and Kelvin Lancaster in 1956, holds that if one of the conditions for perfect markets is missing, sticking with the others—rather than finding a second-best accommodation—only makes things worse. China’s state planners have spent decades developing tools for a second-best world. Their counterparts in the US haven’t.

Of course, the US isn’t entirely bereft of sticks and devoid of carrots. Control of the intellectual property behind advanced semiconductors, and the biggest consumer market in the world, might not enable Washington to deliver a hammer blow against China, but it can certainly land some painful punches. Investment pledges running into the hundreds of billions of dollars from the likes of Apple Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. suggest Trump’s attempts to bring manufacturing home are gaining at least some traction. As a free-market democracy, the US has a capacity for course correction that is missing from China’s state-controlled, single-party system.

Conversely, China’s slow-motion real estate collapse, burgeoning industrial overcapacity and sky-high debt mean the blow from Trump’s tariffs is hardly coming at an auspicious moment. The European Union following suit with its own protectionist measures threatens to compound the problem. Brussels has imposed tariffs on China’s EVs, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s recent remarks on China “flooding global markets with cheap, subsidized goods, to wipe out competitors” echo Trump on substance, even as the tone hews closer to diplomatic protocol.

“I don’t blame China,” Trump said shortly after his April 2 tariff extravaganza. “I blame the people that were sitting at that desk in that beautiful Oval Office for allowing it to happen.” His solutions might misfire. Tariffs and export controls could end up causing more problems for Silicon Valley than they do for Shenzhen. On diagnosis of the cause of the problem, though, Trump has a point. The US thought free trade would change China’s leaders; in fact, it empowered them. Now it’s the US that faces a wrenching transition.

Translation

中國已做好迎接貿易戰的準備，美國仍有許多值得學習的地方（2/2）

（繼續）

這種思維模式是一波又一波發展計劃背後的驅動力。 1983年，鄧小平提出了國家高科技發展計劃，旨在縮小與美國在資訊科技、自動化等領域的差距。 1994年，電信設備巨頭華為技術有限公司的創始人任正非對時任國家主席江澤民說：「一個國家沒有自己的電信交換設備，就如同一個國家沒有自己的軍隊。」任正非關於工業自給自足與國家安全之間聯繫的教訓，美國現在才開始重新領悟。

在江澤民的繼任者胡錦濤的領導下，中國優先考慮的是「自主創新」以引進外國技術，以及建立「防火牆」以阻止西方影響。早在美國關於nTikTok  影響力的爭論引發熱議的十多年前，Google、Facebook和Twitter就發現自己站到了在錯誤的一邊，實際上被排除在中國市場之外。中國阻擋這些美國巨頭為本土科技公司 - 百度、騰訊、阿里巴巴等 - 的蓬勃發展開闢了空間。

自2013年上任以來，習近平公佈了「中國製造2025」計劃，旨在將北京的科技雄心從自給自足擴展到在 IT、機器人、高鐵和電動車等行業佔據全球領導地位。他的「一帶一路」倡議旨在實現出口市場多元化，減少對美國消費者的依賴，並透過對港口、鐵路網和公路的投資擴大中國的全球影響力。雖然這兩項計劃都未取得絕對的成功，但也取得了一些實質的成果，包括電動車和太陽能板出口激增，以及與其他新興市場關係的加強。特朗普將不斷壯大的金磚國家聯盟（巴西、俄羅斯、印度、中國、南非以及其他幾個國家）視為反美俱樂部。

同時，美國的政策則受到後冷戰時期傲慢主義的影響。蘇聯解體使領導人確信民主和資本主義已經勝利，威權主義和國家控制的日子屈指可數。克林頓總統稱支持中國加入世界貿易組織是「自1970年代以來我們在中國創造積極社會變革的最重要機會」。他的繼任者喬治·W·布殊和奥巴馬幾乎沒有改變這個方向。

美國跨國公司專注於下一季的獲利報告，將供應鏈轉移到中國的低成本工廠。雙方達成了一項隱含的協議：進入全球人口最多的消費市場和勞動市場，換取驅動現代工業的關鍵技術藍圖。包括福特汽車公司和大眾汽車在內的汽車製造商只要與中國本土企業簽約成立合資企業，就受到歡迎。星巴克公司和肯德基開設了數千家門市。但電力和鋼鐵等戰略性上游產業的准入仍受到嚴格限制。

處於一個用自由貿易和市場競爭營業的「第一最佳」世界裡，美國模式的活力應該每次都能勝出。而在我們如今所處的以保護主義和經濟治國手段的「第二最佳」世界裡，中國的計劃經濟模式仍然代價高昂，但其益處也更容易被察覺。

經濟學家 Richard Lipsey 和 Kelvin Lancaster 於1956年闡述的「第二最佳理論」認為，如果完美市場的其中一個條件缺失，那麼堅持其他條件 - 而不是尋找次優方案 - 只會讓情況變得更糟。中國的國家規劃部門幾十年來一直在為打造一個「二最佳世界」而努力，而美國方面卻沒有。

當然，美國並非完全沒有「大棒」和「胡蘿蔔」。掌握著先進半導體背後的智慧財產權以及全球最大的消費市場，或許仍不足以讓華盛頓對中國施加重擊，但肯定能造成一些疼痛。蘋果和台積電等公司承諾的數千億美元投資表明，特朗普將製造業帶回美國的努力至少正在獲得一些支持。作為一個自由市場民主國家，美國擁有中國由國家控制的一黨制所缺乏的調整能力。

相反，中國緩慢的房地產崩盤、迅速增長的工業產能過剩以及高昂的債務, 意味著着特朗普關稅的打擊來得於一個不合適的時刻。歐盟效仿並採取貿易保護主義措施，可能會加劇中國的問題。布魯塞爾已對中國電動車徵收關稅，歐盟委員會主席馮德萊恩最近關於中國「向全球市場投放廉價補貼商品，以消滅競爭對手」的言論的實質內容與特朗普的如出一轍，即使語氣更接近外交禮儀。

特朗普在4月2日的關稅狂潮發表後不久說道: 「我不怪中國」。 「我怪的是那些坐在那間漂亮的橢圓形辦公室辦公桌前的人們，是他們讓這一切發生」。他的解決方案可能會失敗。關稅和出口管制最終可能會為矽谷帶來比深圳更大的問題。不過，在對問題根源的分析上，特朗普是有道理。美國認為自由貿易會改變中國領導人；事實上為他們注入能力。現在，美國面臨痛苦的轉型。

       So, Donald Trump has launched a multipronged attack on China’s economy. Now the US stance on China has swung from cautious engagement to something between fierce rivalry and outright hostility. Currently China’s exports to the US equal about 3% of gross domestic product. That means even if half of China’s exports to the US get wiped out, the blow to the overall economy is just 1.5%. Apparently, as a free-market democracy, the US has a capacity for course correction that is missing from China’s state-controlled, single-party system. Ultimately it is a competition between two philosophies in governance.

Note:

1. Switching equipment in telecommunications, such as telephone switches, is crucial for routing calls and enabling communication between different systems. These systems facilitate interoperability across diverse platforms. Examples include the 1ESS switch. The switching matrix within these systems is responsible for directing calls to their intended destinations. This technology allows for seamless communication and is a fundamental component of telecommunication networks. (Sider Fusion)

中國已做好迎接貿易戰的準備，美國仍有許多需要學習的地方（1/2）

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

China Came Ready for This Trade Fight, and the US Has a Lot to Learn (1/2)

Bloomberg - Tom Orlik, Eric Zhu and Jennifer Welch

Wed, August 13, 2025 at 3:00 a.m. PDT 8 min read

(Bloomberg Markets) -- Under President Donald Trump, the US has launched a multipronged attack on China’s economy. Since Chairman Mao Zedong’s reign, China has seen it coming. A US system built around the ideal of openness and interdependence is facing off against a Chinese counterpart constructed as a fortress of control. Both sides have powerful resources. Only one has been preparing for the fight for decades.

Since the beginning of Trump’s first term in 2017, the US stance on China has swung from constructive if increasingly cautious engagement to something between fierce rivalry and outright hostility. China’s exports to the US face duties running close to 40%. Supply of bleeding-edge semiconductors for China’s technology companies has been curtailed. The country’s science, technology, engineering and math students, once welcomed into US university labs, are checked at the border. The social media app TikTok, owned by Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd., is on a stay of execution in the US market.

The assumption in Washington is that China must now be floundering. Isn’t it hooked on US customers and technologies? It’s only a matter of time, surely, before President Xi Jinping picks up his red phone to call the White House and concede defeat.

The reality is rather different. It’s certainly true that Trump’s policy pivot is a problem for Beijing. Bloomberg Economics calculations show tariffs at the current levels would erase more than 50% of sales to the US. But it’s far from the end of China’s development story.

China’s exports to the US equal about 3% of gross domestic product—down from a peak of 7% two decades ago, after a campaign to diversify away from American consumers that’s been every bit as deliberate as US efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains. That means even if half of China’s exports to the US get wiped out, the blow to the overall economy is just 1.5%. Not good news, to be sure, but far from a disaster.

With the US starting a trade war against not just China but everyone else as well, its losses may well be around the same size. Model-based estimates from Bloomberg Economics flag a hit of about 1.6% of GDP as import prices rise and supply chains snarl.

The algorithmic outperformance of DeepSeek (China’s answer to ChatGPT) shows its coders are smart enough to work around the US embargo on semiconductor supplies. Control of rare earth elements critical for manufacturing and defense industries has given China an export-controls weapon of its own—one it’s used in this year’s negotiations in Geneva and London to extract concessions from the US.

The upshot: Even after almost a decade of US efforts to contain its manufacturing might, China’s share of global exports remains elevated.

Why is China proving so resilient? Because for more than a century, from the last gasp of the Qing dynasty, through a short-lived Republic, to the chaos of Maoism and the progress of the reform era, there’s been one outstanding constant: preparation for the struggle now playing out.

It started in the late 19th and early 20th century, when, after humiliation from foreign invaders, China’s thinkers started to aim at “self-strengthening” through modernization. Born in 1854, and graduating from the British naval academy, intellectual and educator Yan Fu translated into Chinese the works of Western scholars such as English biologist Thomas Huxley and Scottish economist Adam Smith. From Huxley he introduced the idea of “survival of the fittest,” making the case that nations, like species in the natural world, must continually build themselves up to avoid falling prey to more powerful rivals.

In the 1930s struggle between Mao’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, Mao’s promise of effective resistance against the Japanese invaders, as much as the dream of a more egalitarian society, was the center of his appeal. In power from 1949, he instituted a forced-march approach to industrialization that ended in the graveyard for many Chinese. The path was winding, but the aim was unwavering: Stave off foreign threats. “The American imperialists have always wanted to destroy us,” he warned.

In the reform era that began soon after Mao’s death in 1976, the self-strengthening objective remained the same, but the policies to deliver it were vastly improved. In the 1980s and ’90s, He Xin—a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar whose work ­circulated among top leaders—warned that as China rose, “developed countries feeling threatened by the increase in ­competition will seek to hold China down.” He had a plan to respond: “With the constant threat of being destroyed, building a fully self-reliant industrial system should naturally be the most realistic option for China.”

(to be continued)

Translation

中國已做好迎接貿易戰的準備，美國仍有許多需要學習的地方（1/2）

（彭博市場）—在特朗普總統的領導下，美國對中國經濟發動了多管齊下的攻擊。自毛澤東主席執政以來，中國就已預見此一趨勢。以開放和相互依存為理念建構的美國體系，正與以控制堡壘為核心建構的中國體系對峙。雙方都擁有強大的資源。只有一方為這場鬥爭準備了數十年。

自2017年特朗普第一任期開始以來，美國對華立場已從建設性但日益謹慎的接觸，轉變為介於激烈競爭和徹底敵對之間的一種狀態。中國對美出口面臨近40%的關稅。中國科技公司尖端半導體的供應已受到限制。曾經受美國大學實驗室歡迎的中國科學、技術、工程和數學專業的學生，如今卻在邊境受到檢查。其中國母公司字節跳動旗下的社群媒體應用程式TikTok 在美國的市場被暫停營運。

華盛頓的假設是，中國現在肯定陷入困境。難道它不依賴美國客戶和科技嗎？ 習近平主席會拿起他的紅色電話致電白宮承認失敗肯定只是時間上的問題。

現實情況並非如此。特朗普的政策轉向確實對北京構成了問題。彭博經濟研究的計算顯示，以目前的水平徵收關稅將使中國對美銷售額減少50%以上。但這遠非中國發展過程的終點。

中國對美出口約佔國內生產毛額（GDP）的3%，低於20年前7%的最高峰。此前，中國積極推動經濟多元化，減少對美國消費者的依賴，這與美國減少對中國供應鏈的依賴的努力同樣深思熟慮。這意味著，即使中國對美出口減少一半，對整體經濟的打擊僅1.5%。這當然不是好消息，但遠非災難。

隨著美國不僅對中國發動貿易戰，也對其他國家發動貿易戰，其損失很可能與美國本身大致相同。彭博經濟研究基於模型的估計顯示，由於進口價格上漲和供應鏈混亂，GDP將受到約1.6%的衝擊。

DeepSeek（中國版ChatGPT）演算法的優異表現表明，其程式設計師足夠聰明，能夠繞過美國的半導體供應禁運。中國對製造業和國防工業至關重要的稀土元素的控制，讓它擁有了出口管制的武器 - 在今年日內瓦和倫敦的談判中，中國也利用了這項武器迫使美國讓步。

結果：即使美國近十年來一直試圖遏制中國製造業實力，中國在全球出口中的份額仍然保持在高位。

中國為何如此堅韌？因為一個多世紀以來，從清朝的末期，到曇花一現的民國，再到毛澤東時代的混亂和改革開放的進步，中國始終堅持一個突出的原則：為現今的鬥爭做好準備。

這始於19世紀末20世紀初，當時飽受外敵侵略之辱的中國思想家開始致力於透過現代化去實現「自強」。嚴復 (Yan Fu)出生於1854年，畢業於英國海軍學院，是一位知識分子和教育家，他將英國生物學家 Thomas Huxley 和蘇格蘭經濟學家亞 Adam Smith 當等西方學者的著作翻譯成中文。他從Huxley的著作中引入了「適者生存」的概念，認為國家如同自然界中的物種一樣，必須不斷自我發展，才能避免被更強大的對手吞噬。

在1930年代毛澤東領導的共產黨與蔣介石領導的國民黨之間的鬥爭中，毛澤東的核心號召力是承諾有效抵抗日本侵略者的，以及建立一個更加平等社會的夢想。 1949年上台後，他推行了強行推進工業化的路線，但最終卻讓許多中國人走向了墳墓。這條路雖然曲折，但目標堅定不移：抵禦外來威脅。他警告說： “美帝國主義者一直想毀滅我們。”

1976年毛澤東去世後不久中國開啟的改革開放時期，自強不息的目標依然如故，但去實現這一目標的政策卻得到了極大的改進。在1980年代和1990年代，中國社會科學院學者何新 (He Xin) （其著作曾在高層領導人中流傳）曾警告稱，隨著中國的崛起，「已開發國家感受到競爭加劇帶來的威脅，將試圖壓制中國」。他制定了應對計劃：「面對持續存在的被摧毀的威脅，建立一個完全自給自足的工業體係自然應該是中國最實際的選擇。」

（待續）

Note:

1. Yan Fu (嚴復)（1854–1921）, born in 1854 in Fuzhou of China, began his scholarly journey at a young age. His early education was rooted in traditional Chinese learning, starting at a private school around age seven, then under the tutelage of esteemed scholars from age eleven, laying a strong foundation in the Confucian classics. After his father’s death in 1866 that plunged the family into hardship, Yan Fu entered the Foochow Arsenal Academy in 1867, where he studied English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, navigation, and other practical subjects. He graduated with top honors in 1871 and then served aboard naval vessels for five years. In 1877, Yan Fu was sent to Europe to further his studies. He first studied in Portsmouth in Britain before earning admission to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich in London. There, he excelled in advanced mathematics, chemistry, physics, naval tactics, maritime law, and artillery fortifications. During his time in Britain, he immersed himself beyond his assigned courses by frequently visiting libraries, attending court sessions, and exploring Western political, economic, and social philosophies, fueling his lifelong quest to understand the sources of Western strength. (ChatGPT)