Since the United States imposed trade sanctions in 2019, the saying that "Vietnam and India want to replace Chinese manufacturing and become the world's factory" has become popular.
The result?
According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in the first four months of this year, the total import and export value of mainland trade in goods was 13.32 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%, of which the total export value reached 7.67 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%; The total value of imports was 5.65 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.02%; The trade surplus was 2.02 trillion yuan, an increase of 56.7%.
Let's look at Vietnam and India. According to Vietnamese customs data, in the first four months of this year, Vietnam's imports amounted to US$107.1 billion, with exports falling by 13% year-on-year; Imports in the first four months were US$99.6 billion, down 17.7% year-on-year. According to data released by the Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam's GDP grew by 3.32% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, lower than expected (the original target was 6.5% annual growth), and also lower than 5.05% in the same period last year. At the same time, the situation of domestic enterprises in Vietnam is not optimistic, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam:
In the first quarter, the number of enterprises closed down in Vietnam reached 42,900, a year-on-year increase of 20.1%;
In the first quarter, about 12,800 enterprises in Vietnam were closed and waiting to be dissolved, an increase of 13.1% year-on-year.
In the first quarter, 4,600 enterprises in Vietnam completed dissolution, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%.
As for the situation in India, it is not optimistic. India's Ministry of Industry and Commerce has not yet released data for April, according to the first quarter data that has been released, India's total exports in the first quarter were 108.285 billion US dollars, down 7.41% year-on-year. India's exports have been declining for four consecutive months.
As for other manufacturing countries in Asia, such as South Korea and Japan. South Korea's exports fell 12.6% year-on-year in the first quarter, with a trade deficit of $22.5 billion. Among them, exports to China fell by nearly 30% year-on-year, which is already exports to China have fallen for 11 consecutive months. Not only that, chip exports, one of South Korea's most important export commodities, decreased by 40% year-on-year. Samsung Electronics, a chip giant, had a first-quarter operating profit of $485.6 million, down 95.5% year-on-year, its worst quarterly performance since 2009. Samsung's chip manufacturing business lost $3.475 billion in the first quarter, compared with $6.38 billion in the same period last year.
Although Japan's export data is growing, Japan has been running a trade deficit for 20 consecutive months, and the trade deficit continues to widen. Not only that, as Japan's most important export product, Japan has always been the world's largest automobile exporter, but in the past two years, Japan's automobile export status has also been shaken. Last year, China overtook Germany to become the world's second largest auto exporter, and in the first quarter of this year, China's exports reached 1.069 million units, a year-on-year increase of 54%, surpassing Japan's 1.047 million units. In the future, this trend may even continue to amplify, because Japan has not kept up with the development of new energy vehicles, and automobile exports have not increased but decreased this year.
So, from this data, did you find out? China's exports, which have been sung, are almost the best among Asian countries, even globally.
Speaking of this, I believe many people are puzzled: the United States has sanctioned so many fields, including chips, photovoltaics, etc., Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea have also transferred some industries to other countries, why have the mainland's exports not been affected? Is it really possible for Made in Vietnam to replace Made in China in the future?
Let's talk about each issue one by one.
In fact, the effect of these sanctions is not obvious, some of them have a role in promoting mainland related industries, and some even embarrass the United States itself. Let's take photovoltaics and chips as examples.
In December 2021, the United States signed the bill on severe trade restrictions against China under the pretext of so-called "human rights violations." Under the bill, the United States would impose import controls on solar panels and other critical renewable energy equipment from China. In June 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection unjustifiably seized solar equipment imported from China, causing a large number of photovoltaic parts to be stranded.
However, the United States would not have imagined that in just a few short months, they would have to lift restrictions on solar panels. This is because the vast majority of the world's solar photovoltaic modules come from China.
The United States has a large demand for photovoltaic modules and is the world's second largest market for photovoltaic products. Without the photovoltaic modules produced in China, the United States cannot find a replacement in the world. As a result, there is a shortage of photovoltaic products. According to Reuters, in 2022, 3 million kilowatts of imported photovoltaic products with more than 1,000 batches of imported photovoltaic products will be stranded in US ports. Statistics from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) show that new installed capacity at large utility scales in the United States will decrease by 40% in 2022, to approximately 10.3 million kilowatts. The installed capacity of small solar projects in the home increased by 37% to about 5.8 million kilowatts, but overall, the new installed capacity is still decreasing.
Later, many Chinese photovoltaic products, through Southeast Asian countries, were eventually exported to the United States. Due to the US Customs to verify in batches, photovoltaic products are still stranded in the US Customs on a large scale. This directly leads to higher costs for domestic photovoltaic companies in the United States, and also faces the dilemma of broken supply chains of photovoltaic products. The rise in costs here actually stems from the fact that photovoltaic products need to enter the United States through Southeast Asian countries.
The domestic photovoltaic industry in the United States is full of mourning, and the stronger the US sanctions, the more uncomfortable they are, and many companies even face bankruptcy. According to statistics, 318 photovoltaic projects have been cancelled or postponed, and the entire industry is almost paralyzed.
So, in March this year, the United States admitted to this issue, and the US Customs began to issue photovoltaic products from China. The Biden administration also wants to exempt four Southeast Asian countries (Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam) from solar panel tariffs. It's just that the U.S. Congress didn't want to make the Biden administration and the U.S. photovoltaic industry better, and they overturned the proposal for a tariff exemption. Of course, the Biden administration also realized that if a tax of up to 254% on solar panels in four Southeast Asian countries is imposed, it will be tantamount to a disaster for the entire US photovoltaic industry. As a result, Biden threatened to use the "veto" to veto congressional decisions.
Therefore, from sanctions, to release, to Biden's decision to exempt the four Southeast Asian countries from solar cell tariffs, it is not difficult to see that the US sanctions on photovoltaic products basically ended in failure, and the United States itself lost a huge amount.
And chips, that's another story. It should be said that from the moment of sanctions, China's chip industry ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. It's not hard to see from the statements made by Peter Wennink, CEO of optical technology giant ASML, over the years.
In 2020, he declared that China could not make complete drawings.
In 2022, his tone softened, he said: China is unlikely to independently replicate the top lithography technology, but it is not absolutely impossible.
In 2023, his attitude came to a 180-degree turn, he said: China's self-developed lithography machine is to destroy the global chip industry chain. The demand in the Chinese market continues to rise, and the company must not afford to lose.
The president and CEO of the American Semiconductor Industry Association recently made a similar remark to Peter Winningk, saying:
China is the largest market for U.S. semiconductors, and despite the U.S. government's so-called national security concerns, U.S. semiconductor companies cannot be absent from the Chinese market.
From their speeches, it is not difficult to see that the US sanctions against Chinese chips are actually very uncomfortable. And that's exactly what happened. Chip Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm have all experienced a decline in performance to a certain extent, especially Samsung's decline is very serious. However, the situation is more serious than they thought.
Because they found that China's first-quarter diode and similar semiconductor imports were 101.2 billion, with an import value of $5.743 billion, down 40.6% year-on-year. Combined with the export data we mentioned above, it is not difficult to understand a truth, that is, in the low-end part of degree diodes and similar semiconductors, we have almost driven out European and American companies and achieved complete self-research.
So why did self-research come so quickly?
This is because U.S. sanctions have made China realize that chips can only rely on themselves. As a result, many new companies have emerged, and a large amount of capital investment has been concentrated in the field of chips, making chips have unprecedented development opportunities. You know, looking at the world to "let a business model from 1 to 100", it is estimated that no one will be China's opponent, shield machine is a typical case.
As a result, European and American companies have been cleared out of diodes and similar semiconductors in the low-end field. In fact, Bill Gates realized this very early, he actually criticized US policy, he said:
The U.S. approach "forces" China to spend time and money making its own chips, and "the U.S. will never succeed in preventing China from having powerful chips."
We must know that China is the world's largest chip market, and sanctions have made it impossible for these European and American companies to make money in this market, ruining a large number of revenue sources.
Coupled with the rise of Chinese companies, it eats away at their original market share. Recently, various technological breakthroughs in lithography machines have been ushered in.
If this situation continues, China will eventually conquer the high-end chip field, and by then it will not be said that the Chinese chip market has no European and American companies, and whether they can keep the market other than China will be in question.
Some may question whether China can really break through the technological blockade of chips. In fact, this problem has to be taken apart, the chip industry to develop, is nothing more than money and talents, due to the US sanctions, a large amount of money into the chip industry, and the number of Chinese talents in the world is also the first echelon. Therefore, the current Chinese chip industry is really timely, geographical, and human, and it is only a matter of time before it catches up with the international leading level.
So, you see, the various sanctions imposed by the United States are actually quite a bit of a shot in the foot.
The last question is, will Made in Vietnam replace Made in China with the support of the United States?
The answer is clearly no. Made in China has a natural scale advantage, not just labor costs. Made in Vietnam is actually more like the spillover of Made in China, which needs to rely on Made in China to have its own value. The most typical example is that when Vietnam finds that they have nothing, they will run to China to buy it, rather than saying that they have made it themselves, and of course they really can't make it themselves. Components of various sizes can be quickly found in China, the fundamental reason is actually the scale advantage of Chinese manufacturing, looking at the world can not find a second, this kind of industrial cluster is impossible to transfer, other countries are difficult to establish in a short period of time.
In addition, if Vietnam wants to become a manufacturing powerhouse, it also needs to develop heavy industry and chemical industry, which are the basis of industry. Investment in these industries often requires subsidies from the policies behind them, with small returns, long cycles and slow profits. In this regard, Vietnam has almost no development, and of course the United States cannot allow Vietnam to develop.
Therefore, Made in Vietnam cannot replace Made in China at all. #History##海关总署: Cross-border e-commerce is growing rapidly #