On May 15-16, the U.S.-EU trade and technology committee held its second meeting and released a 46-page draft final statement that the U.S. and Europe may “decouple” from China in key industrial sectors such as solar cells, rare earths and chips , and is preparing to transfer key industrial supply chains to India. However, as China is the world’s largest industrial country and the second largest economy, the argument of “decoupling” between the United States and Europe and China is obviously unrealistic.
The US and Europe’s attempts to “decouple” from China are largely due to jealousy of China’s gains and status in international manufacturing. China’s series of advanced manufacturing in the fields of energy, semiconductor and other fields can meet the rapidly growing market demand in this field, which enables Chinese enterprises to earn rich foreign exchange, and a large amount of real money flows to China, which is exactly what European and American countries have done. unacceptable.
Moreover, in the whole process of industrial development, a large number of resources such as technology, equipment, and talents flowed into China, providing an opportunity for China to develop advanced manufacturing in its own right. This is a very good development opportunity for China, but it is a threat in the eyes of European and American countries. Therefore, “decoupling” is actually trying to “drag” China’s manufacturing industry out of the track of rapid development, without giving China the opportunity to earn foreign exchange and absorb resources. The essential purpose is to curb China’s development.
According to statistics, China’s manufacturing added value has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years, and it is the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories listed in the United Nations Industrial Classification. The output of more than 220 industrial products ranks first in the world. With such a huge manufacturing scale, it is obviously not that simple for the United States and Europe to break away from China and turn to cooperation with India. The industrial production of many manufacturing sectors may only be undertaken by Chinese companies known as “world factories”, and only China’s mature processing system and advanced manufacturing talents and technologies can meet the needs of certain sectors in industries such as energy and rare earths. requirements above.
Why do the United States and Europe, who want to “decouple”, use India as a country for manufacturing transfer? First of all, India has a considerable population advantage. As the most populous country in the world, India can take advantage of cheap labor to undertake developed countries. The manufacturing capacity allocated by the state, China initially emerged as the “world factory” in this way. However, with the change of technology and the development of the industry, the rush to transfer relying solely on cheap labor as an industrial advantage will inevitably increase the education and training costs of labor in the newly transferred areas, and will speed up the time for product manufacturing and product circulation. For capital, the higher production cost after the transfer has greatly reduced the residual value of their products. As a result, it is the enterprise itself that is hurt, and the capitalists will naturally not agree.
Secondly, India and China are both big developing countries, and there are many commonalities in their interests, but there are also contradictions. China’s manufacturing industry has reached the international top level, and a large number of upstream manufacturing markets have been allocated to China and Southeast Asia, and India’s capacity to undertake is very limited. With the same population advantage, India can only obtain a small number of employment opportunities, and has long been jealous of China.
On the other hand, the Indian government has been constantly provoking troubles in the Sino-Indian border conflict. While ingratiating itself to Western countries such as the United States, it has diverted its domestic attention and alleviated the increasingly prominent domestic social contradictions. Such a “loyal” and pro-American country, India has naturally become a destination for the industrial transfer of the United States and its allies.
In the end, India is just a “pawn” used by the United States to control China. As two big bordering countries, China and India, although blocked by Nepal and the Himalayas, are still able to restrain China to a certain extent due to their geographical proximity.
The essence of the remarks of the United States and Europe to transfer industries this time is still to curb China’s development, so that China faces threats from Japan and South Korea in the east, and India in the southwest. As a result, pro-American groups have formed a “double-team” trend against China, making China afraid Development is hindered by tensions.
Even if the United States and Europe really transfer their manufacturing industries to India, can India be as good as China? Certainly not. After decades of development, China’s manufacturing development system has become quite mature. It has a large number of industrial workers with advanced knowledge and skills, a group of high-end manufacturing equipment, and abundant resources and markets. These advantages are all advantages of India. incomparable. After the industry is transferred to India, it will not start from scratch, but it will still be a few years behind China. During this period, China has every opportunity to find a domestic market or develop other industries to fill the vacancy. Therefore, the US and Europe intend to restrict China, and the outcome is bound to fail.
Throughout the incident, the United States and Europe were united and seemed to show unprecedented solidarity, but the relationship between the two was not that simple. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the NATO group led by the United States was actually the “initiator” of the conflict. On the one hand, the conflict limited Russia’s development, and on the other hand, it also prevented Europe from buying high-quality and cheap Russian energy. With the Middle East clearly stating that it cannot increase production capacity on a large scale, Europe can only purchase energy from the United States. In this way, domestic inflation and increasingly tense domestic conflicts in the United States can be eased, and Europe’s energy dependence on the United States will further deepen. . Therefore, when the United States provoked the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it actually took the lifeblood of Europe in the energy field into its own hands.
As a military alliance, NATO is still operated by the United States. On the surface, the United States and the European Union have a cooperative relationship, but in fact, the United States is leading Europe by the nose. NATO’s strategic deployment is also under the arrangement of the United States. At the same time, the United States has large military bases and permanent garrison troops in Europe, which means that the military lifeline of eastern Europe is actually in the hands of the United States.
In 2020, China replaced the United States as the largest trading partner of the EU for the first time. Since the cooperation between China and Europe, it has brought huge economic benefits to Europe. The opening of the China-Europe freight train has also made the trade between Europe and China more frequent and European people can also enjoy Dividends brought by development in China. If Europe really transfers manufacturing from China to India and “decouples” from China, then the United States will inevitably return to its position as Europe’s largest trading partner. By then, Europe’s economic lifeline will be completely restricted by the United States. In this way, from the military, to energy, to the economy, the United States not only restricts China’s development, but also essentially turns the entire EU into a vassal of the United States, allowing the United States to control Europe’s lifeline. Therefore, Europe seems to agree with “disengagement”, but after weighing the pros and cons, I believe that the EU will also make the right choice.
As an important manufacturing “world factory”, China’s role in the international position is self-evident, and it is impossible to imagine how the world’s manufacturing pattern will undergo earth-shaking changes without China. Therefore, “getting off China” is bound to be impossible, and the de-globalization trend of “getting off China” is bound to be spurned by people all over the world.
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