Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 25th, Question: Expose the four fallacies of Western public opinion against China's economy
Xinhua News Agency reporter
Recently, some Western media have been attacking China's epidemic prevention policy, downplaying China's economic prospects, and making groundless accusations and attacks on China.
From hyping the accelerated loss of foreign capital and the serious economic stall, to accusing China of aggravating the global supply chain crisis and creating a "debt trap", these fallacies confuse the public and mislead the market.
In order to help the outside world correctly understand China's economy and eliminate misunderstandings and worries, it is necessary to clarify the truth and clear the fog.
- Fallacy 1: Foreign capital is accelerating its withdrawal from China.
Some Western public opinion claims that China's epidemic prevention policy is hurting China's competitiveness as a global manufacturing center and its attractiveness to Western investment, and foreign investors are accelerating their withdrawal from China in search of "alternative options".
The truth: It is thanks to the general policy of "dynamic clearing" that China can become the only major economy to achieve positive growth in 2020.
In 2021, China's total economic output will exceed 110 trillion yuan, further consolidating its position as the "stabilizer" and "power source" of the world economy.
In 2021, the scale of China's foreign investment will hit a record high, an increase of 14.9% over the previous year.
In the first four months of this year, China's actual use of foreign capital in US dollars increased by 26.1% year-on-year, and 185 major projects with contracted foreign capital of more than 100 million US dollars were added, which is equivalent to an average of 1.5 major foreign investment projects landing every day.
A recent report by the American Chamber of Commerce in China shows that under the influence of factors such as the epidemic, more than 60% of the surveyed companies still plan to increase investment in China this year, and more than 80% of American companies in China do not consider moving out of China.
Recently, a number of well-known multinational companies have increased their investment and layout in China focusing on low-carbon businesses.
According to the British "Financial Times" report, even at the critical moment of epidemic prevention and control, many international investment banks, including Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase, still choose to promote their business expansion plans in Shanghai, casting a vote of confidence for the Chinese economy with practical actions .
Luo Siyi, former director of the Economic and Business Policy Office in London, said that the scale of China's attracting foreign investment has increased year by year, which has proved China's attractiveness to foreign investment.
"The most important thing is not to see what they (foreign-funded companies) say, but to see what they do, especially where they put their money."
At present, the Chinese government is accelerating the pace of opening up to the outside world, granting national treatment to foreign businessmen in more fields, on a wider scale and at a deeper level, continuously shortening the negative list, releasing more opening-up dividends, further strengthening foreign investment service guarantees, improving the business environment, and coordinating solutions. Foreign-funded enterprises have resumed work and production, and accelerated the implementation of major projects.
Foreign investors who are determined to invest and start businesses in China for a long time are expected to gain high-growth benefits by deeply cultivating the Chinese market.
- Fallacy 2: China's economic slowdown is out of control.
Some Western financial institutions have recently lowered their forecasts for China's economic growth this year, chanting China's economic prospects.
Some Western public opinion claims that China's economy faces "great risks" and is "in critical condition."
Fact: Since the beginning of this year, the repeated COVID-19 epidemics, the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the intensification of global inflation, and the change of monetary policy in developed economies have put the world economic growth prospects under general downward pressure, and have also brought new risks and uncertainties to China's economic development. .
However, the fundamentals of China's economy remain stable and sound in the long run, and the basic characteristics of strong resilience, great potential and wide room for manoeuvre have not changed.
In the first quarter of this year, China's GDP grew by 4.8% year-on-year, and the national consumer price rose by 1.1% year-on-year.
Looking at the world, China's economic growth rate ranks among the top of the major economies, and the price increase is at a relatively low level.
Facts have proved that repeated epidemics and short-term fluctuations will not crush China's economy, but will only temper China's governance and China's resilience, and stimulate China's innovation and China's vitality.
With a population of more than 1.4 billion, more than 400 million middle-income groups, and a super-large market with a per capita GDP of more than 10,000 US dollars, the added value of the manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years, and the industrial chain and supply chain are resilient. Continue to support the long-term improvement of the Chinese economy from both the demand and supply ends.
At the same time, the Chinese government has a low deficit rate, generally controllable debts, and many policy tools. The current macro-policy efforts are constantly increasing, and incremental policy tools are being planned. The policy of stabilizing growth is expected to be further effective.
Hayley Turck, an economics professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the United States, believes that China's economic governance pays more attention to long-term structural growth than short-term interests. Great potential and optimistic outlook.
- Fallacy 3: China exacerbates the global supply chain crisis.
Some Western public opinion claims that China's epidemic prevention measures have exacerbated the global supply chain crisis, making the global supply chain already under pressure due to the epidemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine face greater challenges.
The truth: Unswervingly adhere to the general policy of "dynamic clearing", so that China's economy has released tremendous resilience and vitality that have attracted worldwide attention on the basis of efficient epidemic prevention measures.
China's position in the global industrial chain has not weakened, but has become more prominent, effectively alleviating the crisis in the global supply chain.
Thanks to a series of "combinations" to stabilize the chain and ensure supply, in the first four months of this year, the total value of China's import and export of goods trade was 12.58 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%.
China's imports and exports to major trading partners have maintained growth, and trade relations with countries along the "Belt and Road" are still close.
The causes of the current global supply chain crisis are complex.
In recent years, the surging trend of "de-globalization" has brought many obstacles to the global industrial chain.
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, the rise of trade protectionism hindered international economic and trade cooperation.
The U.S. frequently uses the "big stick" of tariffs to provoke economic and trade frictions, seriously disrupting global supply chains and trade flows.
The British "Economist" published an article that the global supply chain that has benefited multinational companies for decades is facing serious threats, and the tariff war is one of them.
After the outbreak, the global supply chain, which is highly dependent on the international division of labor, is facing severe challenges, affecting key links such as production, processing and transportation.
With the gradual recovery of the world economy and the concentrated release of consumer demand, the production capacity and logistics and transportation of enterprises that have been sluggish to resume work cannot match it. Coupled with factors such as the differentiation of the recovery process of various economies and the mismatch between supply and demand, the impact of the epidemic on the supply chain is constantly escalating.
Since the beginning of this year, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Western sanctions against Russia have made the global supply chain increasingly fragile.
Russia and Ukraine are important origins and international transport routes for global energy, industrial raw materials and agricultural products. Conflicts and related sanctions have led to new challenges for global supply chains.
It can be seen that the United States and other Western countries are the main sources and concentrated outbreaks of the global supply chain crisis, while China, with its strong industrial foundation and policies, has continued to exert its strength, and its foreign trade has maintained high growth, making a huge contribution to the global “stabilization of the chain”. .
Practice has proved that since the epidemic spread around the world, China's "dynamic clearing" has not only created a healthier, safer and more stable environment for China's development, but also benefited the world and brought greater certainty to the world economy.
- Fallacy 4: China creates a "debt trap".
Some Western media recently took advantage of Sri Lanka's debt crisis to hype up the lie that China has created a "debt trap", saying that the Sri Lankan government has borrowed a lot of debt from China to finance domestic infrastructure projects, many of which have little benefit, thus causing Sri Lanka to fall into a debt crisis.
Fact: Analysts say Sri Lanka's debt crisis is caused by weakening public finances in recent years and a lack of production of tradable goods and services, causing the country to gradually "make ends meet".
In addition, the pandemic has hit the country's lucrative tourism industry, which, coupled with shrinking remittances, has further compressed its international income.
The Sri Lankan debt crisis is a microcosm of the debt problems of developing countries over the years, most of which have complex causes and are mainly related to the West.
The ratio of debt to gross national income (formerly known as gross national product) for low- and middle-income countries excluding China rose from 37 percent in 2019 to 42 percent in 2020, according to World Bank data.
Zhou Yuyuan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, told Xinhua that since 2010, among developing countries' external debts, loans from private financial sectors in the United States and other Western countries have grown rapidly, far exceeding the growth rate and scale of loans from multilateral financial institutions and Chinese financial institutions. loan.
According to the World Bank's international debt statistics, Latin America will become the region with the highest debt ratio in the world in 2020, and Wall Street financial institutions and commercial banks in the United States and Europe are its main creditors.
In Africa, the proportion of external debt from the private financial sector has risen rapidly and has become the largest source of external debt in the region.
The conclusion of debt relationship itself is a normal economic behavior, and only debts with harsh political conditions or malicious intentions have "traps", which are just the usual methods in the West.
The so-called "debt trap" created by China has been repeatedly hyped by Western public opinion, which is essentially to smear and obstruct South-South cooperation, and disrupt and disrupt financing cooperation between China and other developing countries based on the principle of equality and reciprocity.
(Participating reporters: Du Jing, Fu Yunwei, Deng Qian, Fan Yu, Ouyang Wei, Su Liang, Zhang Xin, Sang Tong)