And because Chinas population is so large and its development needs so great, there can never be enough foreign investment to satisfy all needs. This is particularly true in light of the huge concentr
And because China’s population is so large and its development needs so great, there can never be enough foreign investment to satisfy all needs. This is particularly true in light of the huge concentration of FDI in the coastal belt, and the low levels of FDI in central and western China.
3.The economic “arrival” of China is of global historical significance.
While China is not the first agrarian Asian country, of Confucian cultural heritage and low per capita income, to combine technology, modern managerial skill, and low-cost labor to form a new global economic power (Japan before World War II, and later South Korea moved onto the rapid development path earlier), China’s apparent mastery of many of the most difficult challenges associated with building of a modern industrial sector is a large event in human history because of the immense size of the country’s economy, its productive capacity, and its present and future market.
China’s course over the past decade suggests that the world now faces a new reality: the reality of a huge, rapidly modernizing, but still relatively poor economy, operating at full throttle in global markets, increasingly able to perform economic tasks that formerly could only be handled by the wealthiest and most advanced industrial economies.
Speaking broadly, I would assume that the people of China would prefer to move out of low incomes and into middle or high incomes as fast as they can – even though China’s relatively low per capita income (and thus low labor costs) are, for now, a factor in the country’s rapid economic growth. And indeed, on balance, I believe that China’s trade partners around the world will derive greater benefit from trade and investment with China as Chinese living standards continue to rise. In an ideal situation, all of China’s huge population would move rapidly into middle-income status, as many have already done.
But the size of China’s population means that massive income growth across the entire society growth is a huge task that will take many many decades to achieve. To the many struggling, competing Chinese municipalities or provinces less affected so far by China’s sudden economic growth, it may seem that even the condition of moderate comfort implied by today’s phrase xiaokang shehui(小康社会) will require the work of generations. And the task of attracting needed foreign investment in the face of bitter competition from other Chinese cities and towns must seem very difficult.
Americans, too, in towns and cities across our country where the natural environment is severe or economic and educational levels are lower, and my fellow countrymen in towns and cities whose industries have died with the depletion of natural resources or changes in world markets or the obsolescence of their industries know the pain of economic change, as many in China know it.
In other words, even great progress produces new dilemmas, in a dialectical way. Thus, as China becomes a global trading power, assimilating large quantities of foreign investment, both the people of China and the citizens of China’s many trading partners around the world will continue to face significant difficulties adjusting to a “new overall situation”. And in China’s wake, other large, continental economies are likely to follow, perfecting for themselves the same combination of stronger participation in the world economy. Before too long, China may be facing competition in the global economy from countries not yet as advanced as China has already become.
That’s the end of Part 1. Now we move on to part 2.
（责任编辑:秩名）
