After "Made in China" has built half of China's economy, how to give full play to China's human advantages has also entered a bottleneck. Considering the challenges of institutional efficiency and energy security, China's economic development faces three bottlenecks that need to be broken through (Abstract).
There is an American proverb: "God is fair". If this principle of fairness is applied to national advantages, western countries have efficient systems, Middle Eastern countries have the best oil resources, and China has abundant human resources.
In recent years, the theory of "the rise of China" has swept the world. While the outside world, especially the west, mentioned "the rise of China", some people also mentioned "the threat of China". China also secretly rejoiced in the "rise of China", but insisted that the rise of China was a "peaceful rise", that is, China would rise economically and become a peace-loving economic power through competition in the global environment. This is a grand ideal, and it is not an unattainable goal. However, can China continue to rely on China's advantages in human resources to become an economic power? The answer is no, because God's justice also shows that every economy has the potential and opportunity to break through its own advantages, and it must also break through its existing advantages in order to have a real economic rise.
The United States continues to lead because of its system, energy and manpower.
Why did the United States become the world's first economic power in only two hundred years, and supported Japan and Germany as the second and third economic powers in the world after World War II? The main reason is that the United States can lead its rivals in efficiency and has advantages in system, energy and manpower.
For the United States based on Protestant ideas and values, the birth of political system and economic system is the same, complementary and restrictive, but not insurmountable. If there is an economic problem, the economy dominated by the private economy is immune, but also because of the alternate complementarity of governments, such as the previous government spending too much, this government must save money to balance the budget, and the ideological struggle between the two parties can prevent the policy from going to extremes, which has an invisible correction. However, it is difficult for countries that only introduce political or economic systems to fully appreciate the efficiency of the system. For example, countries in South America have introduced the political system of the United States, but they are lagging behind in the reform of the economic system. Therefore, it is difficult for even a democratically elected government to lead its own people to the road of becoming a powerful country.
According to the statistics of the US Department of Labor, the production efficiency of the United States ranks first in the world for several years in a row, and one of the main reasons is the hard work of Americans. The unemployment rate in the United States has been below 5% this year, while the unemployment rate in some developed countries in Europe is above 10%. Institutional efficiency, energy security and human resources are the three major factors of the country's economic rise. Although the United States is facing more and more severe challenges today, it is likely to be in the leading position in the world economy for a long time because it still maintains advantages in system, energy and manpower.
In addition, the United States has begun to be prepared for danger in times of peace and aware of its challenges in energy security and human resources. In this year's State of the Union address, Bush specifically mentioned energy security and human resources. Bush said that Americans have become oil addicts, and the scientific and technological quality of American human resources has been strongly challenged by China and India. Bush also put forward some concrete measures, such as increasing government investment in energy research and development to replace oil and strengthening American students' study of mathematics and physics. Bush mentioned the challenge of scientific and technological quality of human resources, but did not mention the shortage of human resources, because many religious conservatives in the United States are still giving birth normally. More importantly, Mexico has been providing sufficient human resources to the United States through legal and illegal channels.
Make China's human resources more expensive.
Although China has advantages in human resources, how to give full play to China's human resources has also entered a bottleneck after "Made in China" has built half of China's economy in the past two decades. Considering the challenges of institutional efficiency and energy security, China's economic development faces three bottlenecks that need to be broken through: institution, energy and manpower.
The bottleneck of human resources faced by China is not the shortage of human resources like many developed countries, nor the low quality of human culture and science and technology like some developing countries. If we can borrow President Bush's saying that Americans are addicted to oil, I can say that China's economic development is addicted to China's abundant cheap labor, which is the bottleneck of human resources for China's next economic development.
First of all, the low labor cost of China people, especially migrant workers in China, is the main reason for the gap between the rich and the poor, which not only affects economic development, but also seriously affects social stability. The most fundamental way to improve the low-income class in China is to make the labor cost in China more expensive. Second, because China's economy has enjoyed low-cost human resources for a long time, China enterprises lack the spirit of innovation, and it is difficult to have the motivation to develop into high value-added industries. Third, China's cheap labor weakens people's purchasing power, which in turn affects China's economic development. At the same time, the foreign exchange reserves brought by "Made in China" provide low-interest loans to people in the United States and other western countries. In recent years, low-interest housing loans in the United States have directly benefited from the huge debts held by China.
It should be pointed out that making China's human resources more expensive does not mean losing the cost advantage of "Made in China". Especially in the next 10 or even 20 years, China will not only be unable to give way to its position as a "world manufacturing center", but also must maintain and strengthen this position and continue to develop into a high value-added manufacturing industry, because this is an obvious historical responsibility given to China by China economy and world economy.
Therefore, under the premise of not losing the advantage of "Made in China" and improving the labor income of Chinese people, China's economy can adjust its cost structure and increase high value-added industries.
China should curb its dependence on petroleum energy.
As for energy security, as China is not rich in oil resources, restraining China's dependence on oil energy is another important strategic measure besides China's active search for oil energy security in the international market.
It can be predicted that in the next 10 year, China will become a big automobile manufacturing country, but its sales should be more aimed at the international market, and the domestic automobile demand should be cooled down through taxes, because in the future, China people should not be addicted to oil because of automobile consumption like Americans now, and it should be an obvious trend that all hard-earned money will be used to buy oil, and the price of oil will continue to rise.
China should use petroleum energy more for industrial development than for people's consumption. Public transportation to work and renting a car on holidays should be the development direction of people's transportation consumption in China and the premise of China's urban construction and development model. So China can become a big automobile manufacturing country, but it doesn't have to be a big automobile consumption country, because China's economy and China people don't have luxury goods to consume automobile energy.
Get benefits from transportation and management fees
According to the survey of American AMR Group, China's expenditure on transportation and other supply chains accounts for 2 1% of the gross national product, while the United States accounts for 8.6%. In 2004, China's administrative expenditure accounted for 14% of the gross national product, and the United States accounted for 3.9%. From this, we can see the gap between China and the United States in transportation and administrative efficiency, which is also the potential for China to benefit from transportation and administrative expenses.
For China's administrative expenditure, we can take such an example to illustrate its potential for waste and saving. There are many small cities in the central and western regions, and the annual administrative income is simply not enough for their own expenses, so the state subsidizes the taxes collected from the developed eastern regions to these cities in the central and western regions. In fact, what should be done is to reduce the administrative staff of these central and western cities and make them self-sufficient in administrative expenses. The funds subsidized by the state for the expenses of the New Deal can be used for investment, and solving employment includes hiring laid-off administrative personnel.
There is a famous "ladder theory" in American economics, that is, the global economy has become a ladder, and the added value increases from bottom to top. Industries in developed countries, such as software, medicine and aviation, are at the top, while manufacturing industries in developing countries are at the bottom. The same theory can also be applied to the economic development of China, that is, the developed and underdeveloped areas of China are also on the same ladder, with the goal of climbing China's economy as a whole. Gradually, there are more high value-added industries on the upper steps, and the lower steps and foundations are solid. The key to the normal operation of this ladder is the efficiency of transportation and other supply chains needed by many industrial strategies in China to advance westward, which cannot be achieved simply by building tens of thousands of kilometers of roads.
The key is to solve the contradiction between the political system and the economic system.
In order to improve the efficiency of supply chain and reduce management costs, it is necessary to reform the system, which requires China to intensify the reform of political and economic systems. Establishing more software systems of highway, railway and supply chain and applying advanced management technology can improve the efficiency of supply chain to a certain extent, but it is fundamentally a systematic problem. For example, up to now, China's transportation and other supply chain systems are not market-oriented.
In order to make a breakthrough in the system, the focus of China's next reform should be how to solve the contradiction between the political system and the economic system. In the long historical process of China before the reform and opening up in 1980s, there were many peaceful and non-peaceful changes, including several major changes in the last century. Although the institutional form and ruling style have changed after the reform, the core idea of China's traditional culture has not changed, and it is still a top-down political system. Because western civilization is a whole, it is difficult to separate economic thought from political thought. Today, after more than 20 years of reform and opening up in China, how China treats western political ideas has become the core of reform, because western political ideas are fundamentally different from China's traditional governance ideas. In the market economy environment, the China government requires people to participate in free competition, but at the same time it imposes great restrictions on people's right to compete freely. The fact that China still has household registration control is a concrete example, which will also hinder the rational flow of labor force and affect the westward shift of China's industrial strategy.
In a word, 2 1 century presents China with the opportunity of economic rise, but the challenge that China's economy faces is that whether it can really rise depends on China's breakthrough in system, energy and manpower.