https://youtu.be/4QLosKkrrU8
https://youtu.be/4QLosKkrrU8 Wawancara "The Real News Network" dengan Prof. Mingqi Li tentang Perang Dagang Trump dengan Tiongkok. PAULJAY: Welcometo The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay. TheFinancial Times chief economic columnist Martin Wolf has called Trump’s tradewars with Europe and Canada, but obviously the big target is China, he’s calledthis a war on the liberal world order. Well, what does this mean for China?China’s strategy, the distinct road to socialism which seems to take a coursethrough various forms of state hypercapitalism. What does this mean for China?The Chinese strategy was developed in what they thought would be a liberalworld order. Now it may not be that at all. Nowjoining us to discuss what the trade war means for China, and to have a broaderconversation on just what is the Chinese model of state capitalism is Minqi Li,who now joins us from Utah. Minqiis the professor, is a professor of economics at the University of Utah. He’sthe author of The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy,and the editor of Red China website. Thanks for joining us again, Minqi. MINQILI: Thankyou, Paul. PAULJAY: SoI don’t think anyone, including the Chinese, was expecting President Trump tobe president Trump. But once he was elected, it was pretty clear that Trump andBannon and the various cabal around Trump, the plan was twofold. One, regimechange in Iran, which also has consequences for China. And trade war withChina. It was declared that they were going to take on China and change in afundamental way the economic relationship with China and the United States. Andaimed, to a large extent, trying to deal with the rise of China as an equal, orbecoming equal, economy, and perhaps someday in the not-too-distant future anequal global power, certainly as seen through the eyes of not just Trumpians inWashington, but much of the Washington political and economic elites. Sowhat does this mean for China’s strategy now? Xi Jinping is now the leader ofthe party, leader of the government, put at a level virtually equal to MaoTse-tung. But his plan for development of the Chinese economy did not, I don’tthink, factor in a serious trade war with the United States. MINQILI: OK.As you said, Trump was not expected. Which meant that Trump in fact was not theconsensus candidate of the American capitalist class back to the 2016 election.So with respect to these economic policies, especially about his tradeprotectionist measures, these new tariffs imposed on the Chinese goods, let’sput it this way: These arenot, certainly not the traditional kind of neoliberal economic policy as weknow it. So some sections of the American manufacturing sector[capitalists] may be happy about this. But I would say the majority of theAmerican capitalists probably would not approve this kind of trade war againstChina. Now,on the Chinese part, and we know that China has been on these parts, there was capitalistdevelopment, and moreover it has been based on export-led economic growth modeland with exploitation of cheap labor. So on the Chinese part, ironically, China very much depends onthese overall what Martin Wolf called liberal global order, which might betterbe called the model of global neoliberal capitalism. So China actually muchmore depends on that. Andso you have, indeed there are serious trade conflicts between China and U.S. that will, of course,undermine China’s economic model. And so far China has responded tothese new threats of trade war by promising that China, despite whateverhappened to the U.S., China would still be committed to the model of openness,committed to privatization and the financial liberalization. The Chinese government hasdeclared new measures to open up a few economic sectors to foreign investment. Now,with respect to the trade itself, at the moment the U.S. has imposed tariffson, 25 percent tariffs on the worth of $34 billion of Chinese goods. And thenTrump has threatened to impose new tariffs on the additional $200 billion worthof Chinese goods. But this amount at the moment is still a small part ofChina’s economy, about 3 percent of the Chinese GDP. So the impact at the moment is limited, butcertainly has created a lot of uncertainty for the global and the Chinesebusiness community. PAULJAY: Sogiven that this trade war could, one, get a lot bigger and a lot more serious,and/or even if they kind of patch it up for now, there’s a lot of forces withinthe United States, both for economic and geopolitical reasons. Economic beingthe discussion about China taking American intellectual property rights,becoming the new tech sector hub of the world, even overpassing the Americantech sector, which then has geopolitical implications; especially when it comesto the military. If China becomes more advanced the United States in artificialintelligence as applied to the military, that starts to, at least in American geopoliticaleyes, threaten American hegemony around the world. Thereare a lot of reasons building up, and it’s certainly not new, and it’s not justTrump. For various ways, the Americans want to restrain China. Does this start to make theChinese think that they need to speed up the process of becoming more dependenton their own domestic market and less interested in exporting cheap labor?Butfor that to happen Chinese wages have to go up a lot more significantly, whichbutts into the interests of the Chinese billionaire class. MINQILI: Ithink you are right. And so for China to rearrange towards this kind ofdomestic consumption-led model of economic development, the necessary condition is that you have income,wealth redistribution towards the workers, towards poor people. And that issomething that the Chinese capitalists will resist. And so that is why and sofar China has not succeeded in transforming itself away from this export-ledmodel based on exploitation of cheap labor. PAULJAY: Youknow, there’s somesections of the left in various parts of the world that do see the Chinesemodel as a more rational version of capitalism, and do see this because they’vemaintained the control of the Chinese Communist Party over the politics, andover economic planning, that do see this idea that this is somehow leadingChina towards a kind of socialism. If nothing else, a more rational plannedkind of capitalism. Is that, is there truth to this? MINQILI: Well,first of all, China is notsocialist at all today. So income of economic sector, the [space] sectoraccounts for a small number, a small fraction of the overall economy, byvarious measurements. Andthen regarding the rationality of China’s economic model, you might put it thisway: The Chinesecapitalists might be more rational than the American capitalists in the sensethat they still use most of their profits for investment, instead of justfinancial speculation. So that might be rational from the capitalistperspective. But on theother hand, regarding the exploitation of workers- and the Chinese workersstill have to work under sweatshop conditions- and regarding the damage to theenvironment, the Chinese model is not rational at all. PAULJAY: Myunderstanding of people that think this model works better, at least, than someof the other capitalist models is that there’s a need to go through this phaseof Chinese workers, yes, working in sweatshop conditions, and yes, wagesrelatively low. But overall, the Chinese economy has grown by leaps and bounds,and China’s position in the world is more and more powerful. And this createsthe situation, as more wealth accumulates, China is better positioned toaddress some of the critical issues facing China and the world. And then, asbad as pollution is, and such, China does appear to be out front in terms ofdeveloping green technologies, solar, sustainable technology. MINQILI: OK.Now, Chinese economy hasindeed been growing rapidly. It used to grow like double-digit growth ratebefore 2010. But nowChina’s growth rate has slowed down just under 7 percent in recent years,according to the official statistics. And moreover, a significant part of China’s growth thesedays derives from the real estate sector development. And so there has beenthis discussion about this growing housing market bubble. And it used to bethat this housing price inflation was limited to a few big cities. Butfor the first half of 2018, according to the latest data, the national average housingprice has grown by 11 percent compared to the same period last year. And thattranslates into a pace of doubling every six years. Andso that has generated lots of social resentment. And so not only the working class these days are pricedout of the housing market. Moreover, even the middle class is increasinglypriced out of the housing market. So that is the major concern. And in the long run, I thinkthat China’s current model of accumulation will also face the challenge ofgrowing social conflicts. Worker protests. As well as resources constrained andenvironmental damage. And regarding the issue of China’s investment inrenewable energy, it is true. China is the largest investor in renewable energydevelopment, in the solar panels. And although China is of all the largest investor in about everything. Andso China is still the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world,accounting for almost 30 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions in theworld every year. And thenChina’s own oil production in decline, but China’s oil consumption is stillrising. So as a result, China has become the world’s largest oil importer. Thatcould make the Chinese economy vulnerable to the next major oil price shock. PAULJAY: Andhow seriously is climate change science taken in China? If one takes the scienceseriously, one sees the need for urgent transformation to green technology. Anurgent reduction of carbon emission. Not gradual, not incremental, but urgent.Did the Chinese- I mean, it’s not, it’s so not taken seriously in the UnitedStates that a climate denier can get elected president. But did the Chinesetake this more seriously? Because you don’t get the same, any sense of urgencyabout their policy, either. MINQILI: Well,yeah. So like many othergovernments, the Chinese government also pays lip service to the obligation ofclimate stabilization. But unfortunately, with respect to policy, withrespect to mainstream media, it’s not taken very seriously within China. And so although China’s carbondioxide emissions actually stabilized somewhat over the past few years, but isstarting to grow again in 2017, and I expect it will continue to grow in thecoming year. PAULJAY: Imean, I can understand why, for example, Russia is not in any hurry to buy intoclimate change science. Its whole economy depends on oil.. Canada also mostlypays lip service because the Alberta tar sands is so important to the Canadianeconomy. Shale oil is so important to the American economy, as well as theAmerican oil companies own oil under the ground all over the world. But Chinais not an oil country. You know, they’re not dependent on oil income. You’dthink it’d be in China’s interest to be far more aggressive, not only in termsof how good it looks to the world that China would be the real leader inmitigating, reducing, eliminating the use of carbon-based fuels, but stillthey’re not. I mean, not at the rate scientists say needs to be done. MINQILI: Notat all. Although China does not depend on all on oil for income, but Chinadepends on coal a lot. And the coal is still something like 60 percent ofChina’s overall energy consumption. And so it’s still very important forChina’s energy. PAULJAY: What-Minqi, where does the coal mostly come from? Don’t they import a lot of thatcoal? MINQILI: Mostlyfrom China itself. Even though, you know, China is the world’s largest coal producer, on top ofthat China is either the largest or the second-largest coal importer in theworld market as well. And then on top of that, China is also consuming anincreasing amount of oil and natural gas, especially natural gas. And soalthough natural gas is not as polluting as coal, it’s still polluting.And so it’s expected China will also become the world’s largest importer ofnatural gas by the year 2019. So you are going to have China to be simultaneously the largestimporter of oil, natural gas, and coal. PAULJAY: TheChinese party, just to get back to the trade war issue and to end up with, theidea of this Chinese nation standing up, Chinese sovereignty, Chinesenationalism, it’s a powerful theme within this new Chinese discourse. I’m notsaying Chinese nationalism is new, but it’s got a whole new burst of energy.How does China, if necessary to reach some kind of compromise with the UnitedStates on the trade war, how does China do that without looking like it’sbacking down to Trump? MINQILI: Well,yes, difficult task for the Chinese party to balance. What they have been rightnow is that on the onehand they promise to the domestic audience they are not going to makeconcessions towards the U.S., while in fact they are probably makingconcessions. And then on the other hand the outside world, and they make announcement that theywill not change from the reform and openness policy, which in practice meansthat they will not change from the neoliberal direction of China’s development, and they willcontinue down the path towards financial liberalization. And so that iswhat they are trying to balance right now. PAULJAY: Isaid finally, but this is finally. Do the Americans have a case? Does the Trumpargument have a legitimate case that the Chinese, on the one hand, want aliberal world order in terms of trade, and open markets, and such? On the otherhand are not following intellectual property law, property rights and law, theway other advanced capitalist countries supposedly do. Is there something tothat case? MINQILI: Well,you know, let’s say the Chinese government right now, even though is led by the so-called CommunistParty, is actually much more committed to the neoliberal global order that theTrump administration in the U.S.- but I don’t want to makejustifications for the neoliberal global order. But let’s put it this way: The Trump administration of thistrade protectionist policy, although not justified, it reflects fundamentalsocial conflicts within the U.S. itself, and that probably cannot be sorted outby the Americans’ current political system. PAULJAY: Sothe crisis- you know, when you look at the American side and the Chinese side,including the deep debt bomb people talk about in China, there really is nosorting out of this crisis. MINQILI: So the overall neoliberal regimehas become much more unstable.. PAULJAY: Allright. Thanks for joining us, Minqi. I hope we can pick this up again soon. MINQILI: OK.Thank you. PAUL JAY: Thank you for joining uson The Real News Network.
