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In recent years, as the multipolar pattern of the world has become more and more prominent, and the competition between China and the United States has become white-hot, the "American recession theory" has been constantly mentioned.
The former superpower is already in the waning position in the eyes of most people, and it is only a matter of time before it is replaced by China.
However, Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, once said of the United States: "The United States has three major advantages, and as long as these three points are still there, it will be difficult for it to really decline."
So, what exactly are Lee Kuan Yew's three major advantages of the United States?
Talent siphoning advantage
First of all, Lee Kuan Yew believes that the United States has a strong pool of top talents, which is where its greatest strength lies.
As an extremely young country, the civilizational precipitation of the United States is almost lackluster.
However, from McDonald's to Starbucks, from Hollywood to Disney, from Microsoft computers to iPhones, America's global influence has penetrated almost every field.
The core secret of why the United States can maintain such a high-intensity cultural output is its talent advantage.
The United States has the largest number of talents in the world, and top talents are located in almost all of its institutions, industries, and fields, and play a vital role.
Intelligent, innovative, and dedicated, they are the soul of the team and the core of America's economic growth and social progress.
The upper limit of an organization's development and its strength often depends on a small number of core members.
As Bill Gates put it, "If you take away my 20 core members, Microsoft will be irrelevant." ”
Bill gates
Throughout the road to American strength, it is countless great men and wizards who have contributed their wisdom to pave the way.
For example, Ford's Model T subverted the world's concept of time, space and transportation, and Jobs's innovation in the field of smartphones ushered in a new era of communication tools.
It is precisely because of the endless emergence of top talents that the United States is now strong.
It is worth pondering why in a country with a history of only more than 200 years and a population of only 330 million, so many talents with global influence can emerge.
Throughout the history of the United States, its top talent advantage is due to a sound higher education system, a developed scientific and technological system, and a prosperous cultural environment.
But as a country of immigrants, the talent introduction mechanism may be the root cause of its continuous talent flow.
Talent introduction is a way to accumulate human capital, and the process of talent flow is the process of further realization and appreciation of personal value.
For a long time, the United States has clearly been very successful in recruiting talent.
Americans have always encouraged foreign immigration, and each period has different measures and purposes to attract immigrants.
During the period of freedom and opening up, the United States attracted foreign human resources with great fanfare, and a large number of foreign immigrants brought capitalist production methods and technologies, which contributed to the beginning of American industrialization and economic construction.
Later, with the realization of modernization and industrialization in the United States, the immigration policy became more and more stringent, and the immigration regulations began to implement the principle of preference for those with skilled expertise.
For example, the "Chinese Exclusion Act" was only aimed at ordinary Chinese people, and did not restrict the immigration of Chinese scholars and businessmen.
Another example is that on the eve of World War II, the United States' acceptance of Europe's upper-class elites is a reflection of the importance it attaches to outstanding talents.
Later, the United States promulgated a series of politically charged refugee provisions, and by accepting refugees from all over the world, it easily obtained a large number of outstanding talents from various nationalities, and used their wisdom and technology to promote its own development.
After several periods of evolution, the U.S. immigration policy has formed a very complete legal and policy system, which has a continuous siphon effect on talents around the world, and has played a vital role in the development and rise of various fields in the United States.
Take, for example, the tech sector.
In the 30s and 40s of the last century, the United States accepted a large number of exiled scientists from Europe, including Nobel laureates such as Einstein, Fermi, and Bohr, as well as von Neumann, Taylor, and so on from the American Academy of Sciences.
The arrival of these top talents has directly supported the American scientific community.
As Mrs. Fermi's wife put it: "These are young and energetic people, who are glad that they have escaped the hostile political conditions of Europe, and who cherish the free air of the United States, and are determined to fit in." ”
The Americans have further cultivated talents who are "at their fingertips" and have continuously provided fresh blood for the development of various fields in order to maintain their own continuous strength.
The United States, which has the world's largest number of top talent, is hard to imagine that it will decline.
Urbanization has laid the foundation for development
Second, Lee Kuan Yew believes that the level of urbanization in the United States has laid the foundation for its strong and unfailing prosperity.
The process of urbanization in the United States began in the early 20th century, and it took 100 years for Americans to successfully urbanize.
By the end of the 20th century, the overall urbanization rate of the United States exceeded 70%, and it has now reached about 83%, leading the world in urbanization.
Moreover, the urbanization of the United States is different from the excessive advance of the general Latin American countries, nor is it slightly lagging behind the Asian countries, the urbanization of the United States is completed under the leadership of the free market economy, closely follows the industrialization throughout the process, and achieves the synchronous transformation of the industrial structure at all stages.
In the process of industrialization, capital, labor and other factors flow to the manufacturing industry, which promotes the agglomeration of population, which in turn drives urbanization.
At the same time, urbanization, in turn, supports urbanization.
So when the industrialization process in the United States was completed, urbanization also came to an end.
The rational transformation and interaction between cities and industries shows the extreme coordination between urbanization and industrialization in the United States.
In addition, urbanization in the United States has promoted a balanced flow of human factors.
Urbanization has led to the improvement of infrastructure, the popularization of transportation vehicles, and the development of transportation networks, which have promoted large-scale migration of people.
From the perspective of regional human factor flows, the overall population of the United States has shown a trend of moving from the northeast and south to the north-central and western regions, which makes the population of the United States achieve a basic balance in regional distribution.
Currently, 20 percent of the population is in the western and northeastern parts of the United States, while 30 percent each is in the southern and north-central regions.
This reflects from the side that the industrialization and urbanization of the United States have gradually moved from the initial imbalance to a balanced process.
The process of inter-regional population flow is consistent with the transformation of urbanization in the United States from dispersion to equilibrium, which indicates that the urbanization process and current situation in the United States are relatively stable and good.
Moreover, urbanization in the United States is very different from that of European countries, and its process is rarely disturbed by exogenous and accidental factors, such as wars, natural disasters, and regime change, but stems from the endogenous driving force of its economic development.
From the perspective of the urbanization development of various regions in the United States, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, its economic activities were concentrated in the Northeast region, and commerce and trade opened the urbanization process for the Northeast.
After the Civil War and into the 20s of the 20th century, the Midwest became a new industrial production area, and urbanization also developed to its peak.
Since the 60s, the rise of high technology and the tertiary industry has not only promoted the economic rise of the Pacific Rim, but also brought about the urbanization process of the region.
In several stages of regional development, the urbanization development of the United States has all reflected endogenous characteristics.
Although the government's policies and regulations play a supporting role in the process, the factors that really dominate the urbanization process are endogenous factors such as the improvement of industrial structure and infrastructure construction.
The subsequent development of urbanization led by endogenous factors is bound to be more stable.
With the support of developed and stable urbanization, the "foundation" of the United States as a developed country will be there, and it will be even more difficult to decline.
The geographical advantage cannot be denied
Finally, Lee Kuan Yew pointed out that the geographical superiority of the United States is also a major guarantee for its long-term prosperity.
The geopolitical environment is closely related to the development and strength of a country, and no country can easily change its geographical location and environment.
The advantages and disadvantages of the geopolitical environment directly affect the upper limit of a country's development.
Fortunately, the Americans are blessed with a unique geopolitical environment, especially in terms of geopolitical security.
In terms of location, the continental United States is bordered by two oceans on the left and right, Canada and Mexico on the upper and lower sides, as well as Alaska in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and many islands and reefs in the Caribbean and the far Pacific Ocean.
Such a high-quality geopolitical environment is destined for the United States not to stand out on the world stage.
Before the rise of the United States, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were like two "moats" that guarded the national security of the United States and protected it from the invasion of powerful powers.
Thus, for more than 200 years of American independence, with the exception of a war between the United States and Britain in 1812 and an attack on the homeland, the rest of the year remained peaceful.
After the United States developed and grew, the two oceans became a way for the United States to pursue global hegemony and move toward the path of foreign expansion.
Through the Pacific Ocean, the Americans stretched out their hands to the weak Far East and Asia.
In 1844, the United States forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Wangxia, and the Chinese territory was replaced by a colonist.
In 1854, the U.S. Navy fleet blasted open the gates of Japan;
In 1898, after the end of the conflict between the United States and Spain, the Philippines was also taken under the control of the United States.
To this day, the United States still controls countries in the Far East and Southeast Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, across the Pacific.
At the same time, the Atlantic Ocean has become a shortcut for the United States to convey influence and hegemony to Europe.
In the later stages of World War I, it was through the Atlantic Ocean that the United States landed in Europe and changed the tide of World War I, and the United States took a big step towards the center of the world stage.
After World War II, the Atlantic Ocean became one of the main battlefields of the United States.
By controlling shipping in the Atlantic, the United States defeated Germany and replaced Britain as the hegemon of the Western camp.
In addition, the United States' advantage in the geopolitical security environment is also manifested in the fact that the United States has been a weak neighbor for a long time and has not been troubled by strong enemies competing and aggressing.
Canada to the north and Mexico to the south are far from being comparable to the United States.
The other great powers in the world are all entangled in complex relations with their neighbors.
Such a safe and secure geopolitical security environment is doomed to the United States to protect itself by retreating and establishing global hegemony by advancing.
Even if the United States' national strength is declining, it is difficult for other countries to pose a major threat to it by virtue of such a good geographical position.
epilogue
It has been a fact that the United States has been weak in recent years, but the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and we still cannot relax our vigilance in the face of such a behemoth as the United States.
What's more, the United States is far from being "emaciated".
The huge talent pool, the developed and stable level of urbanization, and the excellent geopolitical environment are the foundation for the United States to maintain its strength.
Perhaps, as Lee Kuan Yew has argued, the decline of the United States may be far away until these factors disappear.
At the same time, however, the United States also has many disadvantages such as a loose political structure, ethnic divisions, and domestic instability.
No one can say for sure what the future of the United States will be, after all, it is man-made.
Resources
- Lin Hongyu.Four advantages supporting the status of the United States as a superpower[J].Leadership Literature,2016(14):34-36.
- The main characteristics and enlightenment of urbanization in the United States[J].China Party and Government Cadres Forum,2017(08):103-105.
- Wang Chuanxing.Historical evolution and current situation of American political thought[J].People's Forum,2021(35):22-25.)