Email of the writer: jw368@163.com
Thousands of sailing boats plough past the wreckage of a sunken ship; thousands of young trees flourish aside a withered tree. This phrase is from a poem by Liu Yuxi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, describing his outlook on the law of evolution and development of the world.
As revealed in the poem, nature as well as human society evolves with the new forces inevitably replacing the old and the moribund, regardless of volatile and unpredictable turbulence.
Amid a host of adverse factors at home and overseas such as the risk of over-leveraging and a seemingly imminent trade war between the U.S. and China, China saw a 6.8 percent year-on-year increase in GDP in the first quarter of 2018, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on April 17.
The robust Chinese economic growth is characterized by balance, resilience and sustainability. The service sector is the largest contributor to the growth, with a 7.5 percent rise, while manufacturing maintains stable growth, with a 6.3 percent increase.
Given China’s massive economic size today, a 6.8 percent increase is indeed remarkable, a feat unthinkable to any other economy in the world!
The achievement is credited with China’s constant efforts in reform and opening up. Increasingly, the Chinese economy is driven by new forces including consumption and innovation. Strong consumption, which accounted for 77.8 percent of economic growth in the first quarter, has helped support China even as risks grow for its exporters.
The first quarter saw 1.32 million new businesses registered, up 5.4 percent over the last year. Value added in emerging industries of strategic importance grew by 9.6 percent, 2.8 percent faster than that of the industrial enterprises above designated size.
In addition, China’s growth is getting greener with energy consumption per unit of GDP down by 3.2 percent.
China’s excellent economic performance has relieved worries of many at home and abroad about the potential impact from the ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. It is crystal clear now that external turbulence may affect China’s development to some degree, but nothing could reverse China’s rise.
The pursuit of development and happiness is an inalienable right for every nation. It’s only a matter of time until China, a nation with the world’s largest population, outweighs the U.S. in economic size, so it will be a futile attempt to contain China’s development.
Gripped by anxieties and fears of China’s rise, the U.S. under Trump’s leadership is desperately trying to ambush China on its way toward national rejuvenation.
After issuing a series of strategic documents mainly aimed at containing China, including the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, Washington has launched attacks at China wave after wave, virtually pushing the bilateral relations to the precipice.
On the groundless accusation against China of the theft of American intellectual property, Trump threatened to impose up to US$150 billion tariffs on Chinese goods, a move in blatant violation of all of America’s international obligations and a move that is detrimental to the international trade system.
Naturally. China is retaliating against such a move that is against the historic trend. China has vowed to respond to U.S. provocations with reciprocal measures.
To increase more pressure on China, Washington announced to bar ZTE, a Shenzhen-based leading Chinese telecom company, from purchasing American components for seven years.
The sanction will not only leave ZTE in hot water, but will also pose tremendous pressure on many other Chinese high-tech companies that rely heavily on the supply of American components.
It serves as one lesson for these pessimists and another for Chinese manufacturers.
True, China suffers a lot from a lack of core technologies, but we have our own upper hand: powerful, efficient and competitive manufacturing and a massive market, without which, American semiconductor chips will never become products, much less profitable. So, the U.S. and China are actually interdependent. A complete departure from the Chinese market means self-destruction for American high-tech companies. Unilateral sanctions hurt American interests as much as Chinese interests. So cooperation is the only choice.
On the other hand, however, China must act fast to research and make its own core technologies to avoid over-reliance on foreign products.
When we are preparing for the worst, nothing can be worse.
(The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)