Question:China's economic
growth in 2002 was beyond many people's expectations. Facing
the extraordinarily fast development of the Chinese economy,
some people abroad claim that China's rapid progress will
threaten its neighboring and other countries. However, many
people with breadth of vision believe that China's economic
development will bring the world and other countries new
opportunities. What's your opinion?
Answer:Before answering your question, Id like to make a
brief depiction of China's national conditions. In spite of
its rapid economic growth over the past 20-odd years,
China's basic national conditions have remained unchanged,
and the country is still and will continue to stay for a
quite long time in the initial stage of socialism. Even when
a few regions lead other localities in realizing
industrialization, urbanization and modernization, most
areas in China still call for long-term efforts to achieve
this.
Compared with China's neighbor Japan, the latter's
per-capita GDP is seven-fold that of China. In 2000, the
agricultural sector took up 15.9 percent of China's GDP,
which is equivalent to the level of Japan in 1959. In that
same year, the Engel's coefficient of China's urban
residents was 39.2 percent, but Japan registered the rate of
38.8 percent as early as in 1965. The per-capita electricity
consumption of China today is still lower than that of Japan
in 1960.
Q:Obviously, China is still a
developing country. Why do some people abroad worry about
its progress? Is this related to China's growing role in the
global distribution of work?
A:In
addition to its economic strength, the position taken by a
country in the global distribution of work also depends on
its comparative advantages and resources endowment. We
divide strategic resources closely related to economy and
trade into five categoriesnatural resources, human
resources, capital resources, knowledge and technological
resources, and international resources. International
comparison indicates that China has certain advantages in
the fields of natural, human and capital resources, and is
relatively weak in the fields of knowledge and technological
resources and international resources.
In fact, China
and developed and emerging industrialized countries, staying
in different stages of economic development, have fairly
great disparities in resources endowment. Varied development
levels and resources endowment, to a great extent, influence
the competitive advantages of different countries in various
fields. While China enjoys competitive advantages in
labor-intensive industries and low-technology products,
developed and emerging industrialized countries possess
competitive advantages in knowledge- and
technology-intensive industries and high-tech products.
Meanwhile, a certain extent of competition exists between
the two in products with medium-level technologies.
Undoubtedly, the international competitiveness of developed
and emerging industrialized countries greatly exceeds that
of China. However, the mutual compensation and cooperation
between the two in economic, industrial, trade and other
fields outstrips competition.
Q:In a
report issued at the end of last year, Stephen Roach, chief
economist of Morgan Stanley, noted that when American
consumers were feeling continuous pressures, the low-cost
goods from China helped enlarge the domestic purchasing
power of the United States. In this regard, China might have
played a key role in the soft landing of the US commercial
cycle. Simultaneously, American companies have benefited
from their purchase in China. The imported parts from China
have lowered their cost, thereby increasing their profits.
For American business circles and investors, this has
enhanced the overall competitiveness of the United
States.
Do you regard the rapid economic development and
continuous increase in the comprehensive national strength
of China as an opportunity or a threat to the world and its
neighboring countries?
A:In my view, the
rise of China in the 21st century is a definite trend of
historical development. China's rapid development will bring
tremendous opportunities to the world and its neighboring
countries. Let us see some analyses of experts from the
World Bank.
The book China in 2020 published by the World Bank
points out that China's economic boom will bring
opportunities to world development, just as the economic
bounce of the United States in the 19th century and that of
Japan following World War II in the 20th century, which
dynamically drove up the global economic and trade growth.
The book encourages investors to make investment in China
and share China's growing economic returns. It says, to
developed and emerging industrialized countries, China's
economic growth and economic globalization play an important
role at least in the following three aspects: First, China's
development produces a huge demand for capital-, technology-
and knowledge-intensive products, and the growth of the
country's import of these products is 2-2.5 percentage
points higher than that of the country's total import
volume. Second, China's economic and export growth can meet
the great demand of developed and emerging industrialized
countries for labor-intensive products. Third, with the
progress of economic globalization, industrialized countries
will transfer the production of large amounts of
labor-intensive products to developing countries,
particularly to China, a country with rich labor resources,
a tremendous market and good development
prospects.
In my view, China's economic boom means
opportunities and contributions but not threats and
challenges to the world. First, it is manifested by China's
contribution to global economic growth. My calculation in
accordance with the data provided by the World Bank shows
that between 1980-2000, the United States ranked first in
the contribution to global GDP growth, with the rate
reaching 20.7 percent; China came second, with the rate
standing at 14 percent; and Japan ranked third, with the
rate coming to 7 percent.
Second, it is manifested by
China's contribution to global trade growth. Between
1980-2000, the contribution of the United States and Japan
to the newly added commodity and service trade worldwide was
14.4 percent and 6.9 percent respectively. China ranked
third, registering a contribution rate of 4.7 percent. In
the future, with the continuous expansion of China's
aggregate economy and total trade volume, the country's
contribution to global economic and trade growth will go up
continuously and rank second in the world.
Third, it is
manifested by China's contribution to global poverty
reduction. According to materials provided by the World
Bank, between 1990-98, while the poor population of other
developing countries dropped by 77.5 million, that of China
declined by 147.2 million, representing a contribution rate
of 190 percent. If China had not considerably reduced its
poor population, the global population living in poverty
would have increased instead of coming down. The
international community has promised to cut the ratio of the
poor population of developing countries by 50 percent by
2015. The realization of the goal greatly relies on China's
effort to considerably reduce its urban and rural poor
population.
The building of an all-round well-off society in
China, a country with its current population exceeding 1
billion, is the greatest event in the history of human
development. At present, the population of high-income
countries worldwide is less than 900 million, and these
countries have taken 200-250 years to reach their present
level of development. The population of upper-middle-income
countries is less than 600 million, and these countries have
taken 100-150 years to attain their current level. The
population of the two totals 1.47 billion. By 2050, however,
it will only take 100 years for China, then having a
population of 1.5-1.6 billion, to enter an intermediately
developed society. This is not only a miracle in the human
development history, but also a historic contribution made
by China to the development of humankind.
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