Experts talk about Sino-US trade friction: Want to fight? Not so easy to fight

The "trade war" between China and the United States is on the verge of shock. All parties are advising and eager to try their best. It should be said that the complexity of Sino-U.S. relations is quite high. You and I have nothing to say about you, therefore, from the 301 investigation list. It can also be seen that the two parties have tried their best to avoid many trade projects that are highly dependent on one another. However, the trade between the two parties is actually more complementary than competitive.

It can be said that you want to fight and fight. At the same time, you want to fight? It is not so easy to fight.

In this situation, it can be almost judged that when Trump yelled '100 billion U.S. dollars', the meeting had already passed the mid-range, and 'talking' was the next focus.

However, on the other hand, it should be noted that no matter what this meeting is about, the trade friction between China and the United States is nothing more than the relative change brought about by the relative changes in Sino-U.S. power, and it is necessary to make long-term strategies to cope with this change in relations. Plan and plan.

Several of the so-called 'trade wars' are particularly eye-catching, and the facts have also proved that they do indeed reflect the deeper problems of the Chinese economy. These problems are that we really should pay attention to and pay attention to after the turmoil. of.

The first problem with soybeans

Soybeans are in the limelight in this trade war.

What people generally understand is that, on the one hand, exports of soybeans to China are very important to the United States. China is the first export market for soybeans in the United States, accounting for 62% of the total US soybean exports. Nine of the top ten soybean producers are Supported Trump to help him win the election; On the other hand, China's dependence on imported soybeans is also quite high. China's soybean consumption needs 80% of the total imports, almost divided by the United States and Brazil and other South American countries.

China was once the world’s leading soybean producer and exporter. Until 1995, China’s consumption of soybeans was basically provided by domestic production. However, in recent 20 years, China’s soybean imports have risen linearly, from 2010 to 5.478 million tons in 2010. In 2017, the 95.526 million tons, an increase of up to 74.3%. In 2017, China's soybean production was 14.4 million tons, an increase of 11.3% over the previous year, and the import volume was 95.53 million tons, an increase of 13.8% over the previous year.

At the same time, there was another 'vision' in corn. The sown area of ​​corn increased from 24.068 million hectares in 2003 to 38.119 million hectares in 2015, an increase of nearly 54%. In northeast China and Inner Mongolia, corn was greatly squeezed. Soybean cultivation area. After 2010, the price of wheat, rice, corn and soybeans in the international market saw a significant decline, but the increase in corn production did not reduce the price, and the international price was generally lower than the domestic price. Not only that, the annual corn production exceeded the consumption. , Accumulation of a large number of inventory, inventory is equivalent to about 140% of annual consumption. When the international food price dropped significantly in 2014, the domestic food auction turnover rate dropped significantly, further exacerbating the problem of high inventory.

Food security is related to national security, and food issues are of the highest priority. Since 1978, China’s food production has been on an overall upward trend, especially for the 12 consecutive years from 2004 to 2015, and 2016 and 2017 have also maintained historical highs.

However, apart from the details, the strange phenomenon of high price, high yield, and high inventory of corn and the strange demand of soybeans with large demand, small output, and high imports may seem to explain each other, and it seems that people are immersed in it. Go to more questions.

Behind soybeans is the mechanism of market price of food prices and land circulation mechanism

Regardless of whether it is soybean or corn, it is behind Chinese agriculture. Behind Chinese agriculture, it is price mechanism and land system.

The formation of food prices has its own particularities. Unlike industrial products that are basically confirmed by market supply and demand prices, the market demand for agricultural products (7.310, -0.22, -2.92%) is relatively rigid, and their supply cycle is relatively long, and agricultural product prices are vulnerable to supply. influences.

China’s grain price management system has undergone several rounds of reforms. Since 2004, it has adopted the policy of purchasing the lowest price for grain. In 2008, the temporary purchase and storage system was established to achieve a continuous increase in grain production and a rapid increase in farmers’ income, as well as market prices. The mechanism caused a certain distortion, and the temporary reserve system deviated from its original purpose in the implementation process, resulting in 'three high issues' with high domestic grain output, high inventory, and high import volume, and it also brought about aggravated financial burden and insufficient domestic capacity. Soybean and corn have been closed since 2014 and 2016, but the formation of a market price mechanism, the digestion of inventories, and the rebalancing of production and supply will probably take time. The market price reform of food prices may also need further in-depth development. And perfect.

In addition, a large number of imports are not unrelated to the price advantage, and the price advantage is closely related to cost. Over the past ten years, China's grain planting costs have risen sharply. In 2004, the ratio of the total cost of planting rice, wheat, corn and soybeans was only 0.51. , 1.37, 0.73, 0.75; In 2015, the four crop cost ratios were 1.24, 3.10, 1.56, and 1.39. The biggest difference was the labor cost item, US wheat, corn and soybeans were 20-30 yuan, and rice was about 100 yuan. China is basically 350-500 RMB.

China’s labor cost per unit is still lower than that in the United States. Therefore, the main reason for the high labor cost is the production method. The per capita farming area is small, and large-scale mechanized production is difficult to carry out. Therefore, the artificial investment is too high. In recent years, the Central Government has attached great importance to promoting To support large-scale production of food, but in order to solve the problem, the future may still require greater efforts to deepen the reform of the rural property rights system and innovate the land circulation system.

The second problem with the aircraft

The plane is another focus in this 'trade war'.

At the end of last year, the U.S. trade delegation visited China. Boeing and China Aviation Equipment Corporation signed a purchase agreement for 300 Boeing aircraft with a total value of over 37 billion U.S. dollars.

China’s current restrictions are on aircraft with a payload of 15,000 to 45,000 kilograms, which exactly covers the Boeing 737 series that Boeing’s major Chinese exports to China. The Chinese-made C919, which was successfully tested for the second time in the near future, happens to be It is the model that will use 737 as the main competitor.

We call the C919 its own large aircraft. China's big aircraft manufacturing process is very tortuous.

In the 1970s, the state launched the '708 Project' and various elites from more than 300 units of the national aviation industry were mobilized to participate in the development task of the large aircraft 'Yun-10'. In September 1980, 'Yun-10' made its first flight. , and it has made 7 trips to Tibet’s Lhasa Gongga Airport, which is the most difficult to take off and land. “Yun-10” is fully domesticated. It is China's first large aircraft with completely independent intellectual property rights, making China a successor to the United States. After the EU, it was the fourth country to make its own 100-ton class aircraft. However, due to various factors, 'yunyun-10' was announced in 1985. The 'disasturing' of Yunma 10 caused a ten-year gap and a large number of domestic aviation manufacturing industries. Brain drain. China is caught in the import and export of 800,000 shirts in exchange for a Boeing or Airbus.

Since then, China has also proposed a three-step plan for the development of the aircraft industry in an attempt to embark on the path of international cooperation. However, on the issue of intellectual property rights and key core technologies, foreign aircraft manufacturers will absolutely not make any slight concessions. Steps to go' plan to declare failure.

Twenty years later, after unremitting efforts to prove and prove, in May 2008, China Commercial Aircraft Co., Ltd. was unveiled and established in Shanghai, marking the start of the development of China's 'big aircraft'.

On November 2, 2015, the first aircraft of the C919 passenger plane formally went offline.

May 5, 2017, the first time to leave the ground for the first flight.

Industrial policy behind big aircraft

Behind a large aircraft is a country’s industrial policy.

Large aircraft is a manifestation of a country’s overall strength and level of aviation industry. Aviation manufacturing represents almost the top level of a country's manufacturing industry.

Only Boeing of the United States and Airbus of Europe have successful marketization experience. During the development process, the support of government industrial policy has always been strong.

Both the United States and Europe regard the aero-engine industry as the core of maintaining the status of a big country. The key technologies such as engines have a long research and development cycle, and the cost is huge. The United States, Britain, France and other countries have always passed the state support and investment, 'pre-research' first. The United States only IHPTET one The pre-research project lasted for 17 years, with a total investment of up to 5 billion U.S. dollars, which is equivalent to 6 times the total investment in the engine's 20 years of pre-research.

The United States regards the aircraft industry as a strategic industry related to the fate of the country. From the "Aerospace Law" of 1958 to the "Federal Air Transport Law" of 1976, the "Federal Technology Transfer Law" of 1986, and the "Advanced Technology Plan of the Clinton Period". In 2005, the corresponding call: Maintaining America's Leading Aviation Plan, etc., aircraft manufacturing companies received huge support from the state, legislative, budget, technology, and personnel, and received huge orders from the military.

Airbus can 'become after another' and is inseparable from government support.

At the same time, the specific measures for industrial support are normative and indirect. In the course of the development of the US large aircraft industry, the government is everywhere, but it does not directly 'reach out' to interfere. Such obvious support measures as budget support are also Hidden in the intangible legislative support, tax deductions and extensions, etc. The specific development, testing, stereotypes, mass production, sales, etc., are formed in a good integration with the marketization process, thus promoting the enterprises in a completely competitive environment. The most effective allocation of resources. Enterprises and their management do not rely on the government micro-level, basically take a modern corporate governance approach to deal with development and production, sales, after-sales service, etc., and continue to pre-research to enhance technology reserves to meet the challenges of competitors.

How to effectively select, support strategic industries, and how to implement industrial policies more efficiently is a difficult issue for China in the future.

The third problem brought by semiconductor chips

This time, the United States '301 investigation' report also specifically accused China's 'chip' industry access to intellectual property rights of overseas companies, as well as cross-border acquisitions.

The United States is very concerned about China’s semiconductors. In January 2017, the White House of the United States publicly issued an “Authentication” for the 'status of the United States’ semiconductor industry and China’s active involvement in the 'threat' of the global players in the chip field. The report on U.S. Semiconductor Leadership was written by Obama’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, who had just left office.

The various attitudes of the United States show its extremely contradictory attitude.

On the one hand, reducing the Sino-U.S. trade surplus is its main demand. The United States hopes that China will increase imports. China is the world's largest semiconductor chip consumer market and has long relied heavily on imports. The trade deficit continues to expand. 2017 China Integrated Circuits The demand for its products reached 1.40 trillion yuan, domestic self-sufficiency rate was only 38.7%, import value exceeded US$260 billion, and it became China's largest import commodity instead of crude oil. The US is an important chip importer in China. Qualcomm's 2017 fiscal year Revenue in mainland China was US$14.579 billion, accounting for 65% of total revenue. Another memory chip giant, Micron, had US$10.4 billion in revenue in mainland China in 2017, accounting for 51% of its total revenue. .

On the other hand, the United States is not really hoping that China will get US 'high-quality' semiconductor chips. In April 2015, after China’s Tianhe No. 2 won four consecutive rounds of global supercomputer competition, the U.S. Department of Commerce banned US companies from Exporting supercomputer chips. In 2015, Ziguang Group announced that it was trying to acquire Micron for US$23 billion, but the national security issue eventually fell to its knees. In 2016, the United States exerted pressure on Germany, and for the sake of national security, prevented China Hongxing from acquiring German chip companies. Love strong.

Not only that, the United States does not want China's own R&D and innovation upgrades. The United States has criticized China’s semiconductor policy in recent years, arguing that China’s 'National IC Industry Investment Fund' 'distorts the market and threatens the US’ semiconductor industry'. '301 investigations In the report, "Made in China 2025" was named directly, and semiconductor chips also became a major concern.

Behind the semiconductor chip is the company and talent

Speaking of semiconductor chips, people have to think of 'Silicon Valley'. 'Silicon Valley' is named after 'silicon' because local companies are mostly engaged in industrial activities related to semiconductors and computers made of high-purity silicon. But actually, this The world's scientific and technological holy lands were only famous for apple orchards before the 1950s.

In 1951, Terman, the vice president of Stanford University, presided over the creation of Stanford Research Park, the first industrial technology park in the United States. It transferred an important incubator role to the industry from Stanford University's scientific research. In 1956, semiconductor inventions. One of them, the Nobel Laureate Shockley established the Shockley Semiconductor Institute and became Silicon Valley’s first semiconductor company. At that time, eight engineers of the company later set off to establish Fairchild Semiconductor Co., Ltd. from Fairchild. The people who came out later founded Intel, AMD, etc.

The success of Silicon Valley is certainly related to the training of talents in universities such as Stanford and Berkeley. But more importantly, in Silicon Valley, we have established a complete set of venture capital cooperation with industry, universities, and research institutes, and a good mechanism for the transformation of achievements. According to statistics, the US venture capital One-third of the investment is in Silicon Valley. In addition, the government has a very good cooperative relationship with the industrial sector. It insists on actively cooperating with construction projects that require government approval, tries to attract companies to enter, accelerates the entrepreneurial and development process, and most importantly, it continuously develops , Perfect legal procedures, built a good, legal business and innovation environment for companies and talents, so that companies and talents can flex their muscles, gain benefits and values, and have no worries.

In recent years, China has also done a lot of work on the issue of corporate and talent. However, the market environment conducive to fair competition for enterprises still needs to be improved. The “production, research, and research” model has not achieved the desired results in actual operations, and China’s scientific and technological achievements have been transformed. The ratio of productivity to reality is not high.

How to spur talent and enterprise's creativity, and put talents and company's achievements into practical use, so that individuals and society can benefit from it. The realization of technological innovation in economic development, transformation and upgrading is the key to the future.

It is a long-term appeal to defeat oneself and seek development.

Trade is a national commodity and window of production. The problem of trade structure reflects the structural problems of a country’s commodities, production, etc. In this sense, the sparks of the trade war are the most important ones. They are traded from China. What is the length and breadth of the domestic economic structure embodied in 'a longer and shorter'.

The first is the issue of agricultural policy, behind which is the price formation mechanism and the land property rights system. Our price formation mechanism problem, our land property rights system, is the key point in the supply-side structural reforms, how can we resolve supply-side distortions and allow the market to To play a full role in the foundation and direction of economic development.

The second is the issue of national strategy. Behind this is the integration of industrial policy and marketization. It is not a dream for the Chinese to sit on their large aircraft. However, from the development of large aircraft, we will find that industrial policy is a necessary and necessary part of national strategy. However, how to effectively and efficiently implement industrial policies requires more profound reforms. China’s large aircraft has once been supported by the government and lost to government intervention. In the future, the development of large aircrafts and other similar industries will certainly require the government. Support, but at the same time, it also needs marketization to achieve effective allocation of resources and truly accomplish national strategic goals. How to do it? It is a major issue that China’s reform needs to face in the future.

Thirdly, the issue of transformation and upgrading is behind the incentive mechanism of enterprises and talents. There are many enterprises and talent-related policies, and awareness may be in place. However, most of them do not have detailed operating rules for implementation, and lack smooth procedures for the connection of various departments. Related laws The protection of laws and regulations is still rather lacking. In the early stages of reform and opening up and the early days of talent introduction, this 'fuzzy' approach did indeed liberate the productive forces and gave the market vitality. But that was in contrast to the previous rigid system. To this day, this The lack of 'fuzziness' of regulatory guarantees can no longer meet the needs of the development of the new era. It can no longer promote but will constrain the enthusiasm and vitality of enterprises and talents. Many technology transfer models are subject to cooperation trust, moral hazard, legal system, etc. With the influence of factors, a large number of scientific research results have been shelved and commercialization has not been successful. The perfection of the legal system plays an important role in the success of technology transfer. The improvement of the legal system is also the ultimate guarantee for the release of vitality of enterprises and talents.

Sure enough, the most intense contradictions in these three kinds of trade wars, the debate over the most popular commodities, indeed embodies the sharpest, most prominent, and most pressing issues in China.

And not with the United States 'war', may be short-term, may be long-term. But to find their own short board, to overcome their own development, must be long-term.

postscript

At the end of this article, Trump made another push claiming that the two parties had a good relationship and had reached an agreement.

However, as I said at the outset, Trump has repeatedly raised the bargaining price, but in fact the medium price has already passed. Now that the consensus seems to have been reached, it is actually just the beginning.

Indeed, judging from this time's 'juncture,' it seems that the overall situation has been set, but the logic behind this behavior has not changed the history. This logic will profoundly change the international situation and change the situation in China and the United States. It also changed the situation in China.

All along, the US’s foreign policy has a complete set of theoretical and strategic deployments. It also tactically focuses on the combination of virtual reality and reality. It selects the most suitable method and uses its own status and strength advantages to the extreme.

For a developing China, the rising China, the future is bright and difficult.

What China needs is to understand the situation, find a short board, and look for the next path.

As a rising emerging power, China may still need more progress in some aspects. To clarify its short, medium, and long-term objectives, formulate corresponding strategies and tactics, and constantly adjust the situation according to the current situation. Lack of strategic tactics is the ultimate goal. The strategy of lacking tactics is on paper. Confusion and the use of tactics as strategies are even more dangerous. It is easy to fish out.

The person who knows one's wisdom, the person who knows oneself is the one who knows oneself. Knowing oneself and knowing oneself and knowing oneself can only go further.

2016 GoodChinaBrand | ICP: 12011751 | China Exports