Over the past few years, the world as we know it has changed dramatically.
In his later years, Lee Kuan Yew, known as the "founding father of Singapore", predicted the world pattern and asserted: "The eurozone will disintegrate, Japan will become mediocre, and India will be in great difficulty."
Lee Kuan Yew's prophecies are being confirmed one by one, and it seems that the world is facing a major reshuffle. Many people are worried about such changes, but some people think that all these huge changes are the norm in the world.
As Zhang Beihai said to Wang Miao in "The Three-Body Problem": "Life without major changes is actually an accident", and the changes in the world today seem to have been predestined many years ago.
Taoguang's obscure past
In 2001, a collision incident occurred between China and the United States, and Wang Wei, a pilot of the mainland air force, was killed. Since China was actively preparing for WTO accession, it took as gentle a way as possible to resolve the issue.
Many people who lived in that era had heard the word "Taoguang Yanghui", and many people regarded it as an excuse for weakness, and their hearts were filled with endless resentment.
Fortunately, later events proved that we were right to back down. At that time, there was a word called "American China", Americans enjoyed the cheap goods obtained from China for many years of good life, while China gritted its teeth, endured the pain of being exploited by capital, survived in hardship, and fooled the United States to continue to complete deindustrialization.
Until 2008, the year seemed to be the beginning of a series of major changes since the beginning of a new century. This year, Lehman Brothers on Wall Street declared bankruptcy, the United States financial crisis broke out, and the Ponzi scheme that Americans had played for decades finally reached the time when the bubble was blown up.
In the same year, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake occurred in Sichuan, China, and the whole country united to fight the earthquake and provide disaster relief, and Chinese soldiers rushed to the disaster area as soon as possible, creating one miracle after another. Also in this year, China successfully hosted the XXIX Summer Olympic Games.
Since the beginning of this year, the world's attention seems to have suddenly shifted from Europe and the Americas to Asia, where China is located.
Four years later, in November 2012, China's 18th National Congress was successfully held. China's new generation of leaders has stepped onto the stage of history. It was also in this year that the Chinese Liaoning ship was delivered to the People's Liberation Army.
In 2013, the first chapter of Lee Kuan Yew's later political book, Lee Kuan Yew Views the World, devoted his comments and predictions about China's past development and possible future. At the same time, the future of the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, India and other countries has also been predicted accordingly.
US President Barack Obama, international experts Henry Kissinger and others have seen Lee Kuan Yew's book as a very important policy reference.
Later, Lee Kuan Yew's prophecy was confirmed little by little. Many things came even earlier than prophesied.
"Good-looking" Europe
In 2016, the United Kingdom held its first referendum to decide whether it should leave the EU. After several rounds of voting, the UK successfully withdrew from the group. The reason why Britain left the EU is nothing more than a reluctance to be dragged down by other economically backward countries in the eurozone.
At the end of the day, the British and the EU countries are not at all the same mind. When the economy is good, the British follow the Europeans to make money, and when the economy is bad, the British and Americans together want to earn money from EU countries. The British are not philanthropists, and it is not in the interests of the British to pay for some economically backward countries in the European Union if they do not make money.
The British are right, but they are hateful. The British tore off the disguise of "detachment" in European countries. Even France and Germany, which occupy major positions in the European Union, have various small circles between the two sides.
A Russian-Ukrainian war can be seen. Despite the shouting of the United States and Britain, who in Europe really dares to oppose Russia. Even the occasional few who dared to jump were watching the faces of Germany and France.
And Germany and France are also two countries you look at me, I look at you. No one wants to really contribute, and no one wants to stand on the opposite side of Russia at once.
The EU never seems to have really come together. Alliances forged because of interests can never be of one mind. Today's scattered EU, in addition to some money, seems to be unable to continue to lead the development of the world.
European countries have experienced the dividends of the Industrial Revolution, the struggles of World War I and World War II, the rapid development after the war, and the era of high welfare, and now it seems that good luck has come to an end.
In addition to Germany's strong industrial system and struggling to support it, almost most EU countries seem to have long forgotten the meaning of the EU's existence.
In addition to the fact that everyone is still using the same currency for settlement, they are all thinking about how not to be led by others, and how to make more benefits when the big ship sinks. Now from the EU, it seems that the shadow of the changes in Eastern Europe can be seen in those years. Sure enough, feng shui took turns, and now it is the "home" of the European Union.
In this Russian-Ukrainian war, whether Europe dragged Russia, or Russia dragged Europe, it seems that it is too early to draw conclusions.
Japan: Development is locked in, and mediocrity is inevitable
Let's go back and look at our neighbor, Japan. This manufacturing powerhouse, once one of the "Four Asian Tigers", seems to have begun to decline, and Japan's national fortunes seem to be coming to an end.
As soon as I write this, there are always quite a few "Sei-Japanese elements" who stand for Japan, and as long as someone dares to say Japan, they will immediately spray. That being the case, let's just talk about the facts.
Not long ago, Japan's MRJ passenger aircraft project officially failed. Japan is not a large aircraft like our national C919, the MRJ is just a small regional airliner project.
Someone once held a ballpoint pen and said, "China even relies on imports from Japan for industrial products such as ballpoint pen nibs."
Japan may have been able to be called an industrial powerhouse. This was true both before and after the war.
After World War II, Japan quickly became an economic power in Asia and the world by relying on the semiconductor industry, the automotive industry, and the "education industry," which was all "female teachers." The honeymoon period of hooking up with Americans led to the sale of Japanese products all over the world, and the shadow of Japanese products could be seen everywhere.
But Japan's development has a ceiling. After World War II, Japan's sovereignty was castrated and development was strictly controlled within a designated area.
The failure of Japan's MRJ project dooms Japan to the fact that Japan can only assume the role of a processor of subdivision projects in a subdivision industry, and its powerful industry is only a superficial shiny. In the last century, Japan wanted to carve out a bloody path from the semiconductor industry, through semiconductor processing stations to the top of industrial manufacturing.
However, as soon as the Japanese started their "minds", the United States cut off Japan's high-end chip manufacturing industry like a tumor and directly gave it to South Korea.
Many people who play audio know that the Japanese can make power amplifier tubes, op amps, small integrated circuits, and storage chips that perform better than the rest of the world, but it is impossible to make processors with excellent performance. This is the line that the Americans drew for the Japanese, and the Japanese can only honestly stay in it.
Today, the only industry in Japan that can play a pivotal role is the automobile industry. The former technical reserves have allowed Japan's automobile industry to survive for some time in the future, but not for long. With the rise of electric vehicles, traditional fuel vehicles, no matter how much technical reserves you have, will face the dimensionality reduction blow of technological replacement.
In the development of the electric vehicle industry, Japan does not have any competitiveness without mastering core technologies and core material resources.
Japan's Mitsubishi spares no effort to get the MRJ project, that is, to find new industrial projects in the case of losing the advantages of the early development of electric vehicles to make up for the crisis caused by the imminent replacement of the automobile industry, and a large number of productivity needs to have a way out to be realized. But there is no way, this road is still blocked by the United States.
In 2022, Japan's trade deficit continues to hit highs, which is equivalent to the entire country living beyond its means. The failure of the MRJ project may hit Japanese industry harder than the persistent trade deficit.
If Japan cannot find a way to break the situation, it is very likely that Japan will only play the role of a low-end producer in world trade in the future. Perhaps the production of "ballpoint pen nibs" may become the mainstream of Japanese industry in the future.
India in its difficulties
Finally, India. India's development path is far more difficult than China's. The most important reasons for this are mainly in two aspects.
India's national sovereignty was not acquired through violent revolution, but in exchange for the cession of some benefits to the British in its former suzerainty. Therefore, India lacks a state apparatus with strong executive power, and also lacks the ability to manage national wealth, finance, and other aspects.
The caste system, which has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people for a long time, has made India in a situation of huge gap between the rich and the poor and unfair distribution of social resources. This situation makes life extremely difficult for India's people at the bottom and their education is low. The reaction in productivity is that it can only be engaged in low-end production for a long time.
Although India has a proud software industry, its employees can only be code farmers, and it is impossible to engage in high-end design. Those who have the ability to engage in high-end design have also immigrated to developed countries such as the United States.
In his later years, Lee Kuan Yew also said something about the advantages of Singapore's system. However, the rhetoric is more biased. Lee Kuan Yew believes that Singapore's development and achievements are not due to the root of Confucian cultural thought in Singapore, but to the rule of law left over from the British colonial period. Lee Kuan Yew is right that the rule of law in Britain does suit Singapore. But Lee Kuan Yew's quote can only apply to Singapore, and the same situation in India turns out to be what we see.
In Singapore, which has a small population base and can only engage in subdivided industries or financial industries, the social system left by the colonists can indeed have a certain advantage. But any major country that follows this pattern will become a second India.
This may be related to Lee Kuan Yew's living environment, after all, he has been colonized for a long time, and he may not be able to remember the unity of his family and country in Chinese.
There is no immutable world, and change is the inevitability of this world. Feudal society Chinese created cultural, political and economic miracles in the feudal era. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Western countries developed industry and wealth, becoming so-called "developed countries".
However, the era of Europe, Japan, and the United States has passed, and the trend that guides the development of the world in the new history is gradually shifting from Europe and the Americas to East Asia.
Because China is leading the world's change!