The economic miracle of China is undeniable. Never before to such a large country and with such a population has grown in this way. Since 1970, the annual gross domestic growth growth rate (GDP) has been wonderful since the average annual average amounted to more than 9% since 1978, when economic reforms began. In the next decades, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth for such a large country until it became the second largest economy in the world. Part of this growth is due to politics, which seems obvious and easy, but it is not easy to fulfill (evidence of this – those dozens of countries that do not come out of poverty or even the rich insist on applying a policy of dubious efficiency, which has not been successful in other countries): China “copied” and imitated everything that worked in advanced countries With excellent tricks, auxiliary sectors and key companies that promoted a great economic miracle. The big question is what happens when you can no longer copy, because you are suddenly a leading country at the technological level? Then it’s time to invent … And it seems a little more complicatedChil China is not the first case in history, and it will not be the last … as economists of the economy noted: “We have already seen this story before.”
For decades, China managed to increase its performance, simulating technologies and methods used abroad. The country took advantage of its distance from the technological border (it was mainly an agricultural and underdeveloped country) to grow “copying”, adapting and reducing the already invented processes. The plan seemed simple for the economy aimed at Beijing: use cheap and abundant labor to acquire the mechanism, technologies and methods that have already existed and do the same as others, but cheaper. A few years later, The world was flooded by the famous “Made in China” (It seemed that everything was done in China). The strategy was a huge success: China multiplied its per capita GDP to more than 40 from 1980 to todayGoing from a very bad economy, from GDP per capita, a little more than $ 300, to the country that is going to enter the developed world if he has not yet done this with an income of the population of more than $ 13,000. Such is their growth, which even the Chinese who lived in Spain for some time began to return to their country.
A free plan (he took hundreds of millions of poverty people), who allowed China to grow into the beast and remove his productivity (also wages) until he reached the technological border. Now, in order to continue to grow at an increased pace and maintain performance, it should no longer be copying from the outside, since China is very close to leading technological levels or even exceeds them in some sectors. Now it’s time to invent (well invent) or die. At the moment, as a result, many companies and sectors began to spend huge amounts of money to get mediocre results. The invention is not as simple as copying … not even as cheap.
Plane plans
“China pursues an expensive policy to achieve global technological leadership through the massive use of its industrial policy,” Capital Economics reports, but “The growth of performance in the production sector weakens.” The road to the top was successful, the problem is that as soon as the peak is reached, the company does not know how to continue to rise. Investments to increase productivity and manufactured goods are a large and indefinite result. When everything was “copying”, he always left with the confidence that the result would be greater performance and more complex and the last goods compared to the previous ones. Now that you need to introduce innovations, investments sometimes do not bring fruit and many headaches. Although some of the Chinese companies are already operating in the front line or next to it, “strategy fails” in the main goal noted by Xi Jinping: a widely increased performance.
A good example was noticed in recent days. All news about Spain has been reproduced Some images of dozens of robots, awkwardly playing football in a tournament organized by ChinaThese robots were able to cost thousands of euros or even hundreds of thousands of euros (adding an investigation, tests …), but now their only utility is to imitate the “absurd” version of the football match. This does not mean that the efforts are in the bucket, since these robots can become the beginning of something more and more useful for society. But so far the result was an expensive investment that did not affect performance.
“China promotes technological leadership through implementation Large industrial policyJudging by the current competitiveness of many Chinese companies, the field is successful in many areas. However, according to Xi Jinping, the key to success is whether the increase in performance is being promoted. In this sense, the strategy fails. The increase in performance has weakened in the production sector. There are more and more evidence that industrial policy is partly responsible, ”said experts on economic economic issues.
Industrial policy fails
This stagnation occurs precisely since industrial policy has become the main character. Subsidies, tax benefits and state support allowed us to create national champions such as BYD, but also created “generalized waste and some perverted results: failed companies that remain alive; Unproductive signatures that expand to new sectors. ” Capital Economics warns that these politicians “ultimately drowned performance as a whole”, despite very well -known concrete successes.
However, this stagnation also coincides with The point at which China was supposed to move from the “copy” to the “invention”. In the 80s, 90s and 2000s, an industrial policy, although less intense, was also present and achieved important success, as happened in South Korea or Japan. Management of efforts by sectors with a large improvement area, in which only the methods and mechanisms used by the Western need to track, was the key to the take -off of China. Today, the same politicians no longer work the same way or do not make sense in sectors where China is close to the technological border.
Moreover, the last successes of the country did not come from the hands of interventionist industrial policy, rather from the “invisible hand” of the markets. The Deepseek case illustrates another method: innovation blooms when “the state remains outside.” This new company surpassed state giants in artificial intelligence, not receiving help. The diagnosis is clear: “Industrial policy can help in some casesBut the global effect of this policy is to greater the growth of performance in the economy. “
After its current trajectory, China will achieve its goal to become a world leader in key technologies, but will not achieve the fact that Xi Jinping established as a key goal: a significant increase in the overall performance of factors and, therefore, wealth per inhabitant in China. “We have already seen this story. Japan was at the technological vanguard in various sectors of the 1980s (After he traced the West, and also created important contradictions) … At that time it was widely believed that the Japanese industrial policy was an important catalyst for this success. The subsequent analysis showed that this is not so. As in China now, politics was conceived by their architects to support innovation, ”they explain from the capital economy.
From Financial times They note in an extensive report that, despite the fact that it is an industrial superpower and the second largest economy in the world, China continues to face Numerous technological “narrow places” that prevent them from achieving complete self -esteem in key sectorsThese narrow places cover from the advanced semiconductors to components less known as accurate bearings, carbon fibers or vacuum evaporators that are necessary for strategic industries.
President Xi Jinping released a clear message in favor of industrial self -esteem, with symbolic visits to factories such as bearings in Loyan, which is a reflection of national efforts to reduce technological dependence from the line. Several studies and experts admit that China has achieved noticeable achievements in some areas, such as lidar sensors, lithium batteries or operating systems, but other key technologies, such as photolithographic equipment for advanced chips, are still unattainable.
According to experts with whom they consulted FeetInitiatives such as “made in China 2025” and the deployment of industrial AI not only strive to eliminate narrow places, but also increase productivity throughout the country’s industrial fabric. Thus, instead of competing directly with the United States, China focuses on reducing its external dependence, strengthening its production base and consolidating its long -term economic situation.
“The Japanese lesson is that technological leadership is not necessarily transferred to macroeconomic success; But also this macroeconomic weakness can coexist with a high level of the avant -garde of innovation, ”they say from the capital economy. Thus, while China is advancing to global technological leadership, it risks retreating in the most important things: more productivity and more wealth of innovation in direct performance and greater economic prosperity for its inhabitants.
