Starting in 2023, China's shipbuilding industry has shown strong resilience, setting a new record with 80 ships and 680,000 CEUs for the whole year, becoming the world's No. 1. Behind this achievement, relying on the hot sales of China's new energy vehicles around the world, the substantial growth of electric vehicle exports has boosted the demand for car carriers. However, the accumulation of China's shipbuilding industry has also aroused the vigilance and jealousy of some countries, including the United States. According to the Global Times, citing the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative on April 17, the United States will launch a Section 301 investigation into China's maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries.
In response, the Ministry of Commerce of the mainland quickly pointed out that the US report is full of accusations that do not conform to the actual situation, and distorts normal trade and investment as a so-called "national security issue", which has no factual basis and is contrary to economic common sense. The Ministry of Commerce further pointed out that the United States has been found to have violated the rules by the WTO when the previous administration launched a Section 301 investigation against China and imposed tariffs on China. The Ministry of Commerce stressed that China will closely monitor the progress of the investigation and will take all necessary measures to safeguard its rights and interests.
It should be pointed out that although the Biden administration is attacking the mainland from three areas at the same time, the real target of the other side is actually the shipbuilding industry. On the surface, as the US Trade Representative, Dai Qi tried to use the "301 stick" to maintain the country's backward production capacity, but in fact, it was unscrupulous to weaken the revenue capacity of mainland shipyards and fundamentally hit the mainland's shipbuilding industry. First of all, "protecting the U.S. shipbuilding industry" has been a false proposition from the beginning, from 1983 to today, in the full 40 years, the U.S. shipbuilding industry from upstream to downstream, more than 17,000 enterprises have failed.
The fundamental reason for this situation is the emergence of global economic integration, which allows countries around the world to participate in international competition at a lower cost. At this time, the United States has engaged in "shifting from real to virtual", a large amount of financial capital has hit real capital, further compressing the living space of the American manufacturing industry, and losing its profitability, the US shipbuilding industry has been unable to make technological breakthroughs, and has lagged behind foreign competitors year after year. In the end, the U.S. shipbuilding industry was completely reduced to relying on military orders to survive, but this in turn limited the speed of development of the U.S. Navy.
More importantly, the 301 investigation launched by the United States this time is not only to protect its backward production capacity, but also mixed with the political calculations of one party and its own selfishness. According to the "Observer", citing a number of US media released on the 17th, Biden plans to announce that the current steel and aluminum tariffs on China will be increased to more than 3 times in a recent speech to local steel workers in Pittsburgh. The reason for choosing this place is that Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh is located, has always been the main battlefield of the U.S. presidential election. Biden wants to steal the votes of the blue-collar class from Trump, even if the United States imports only 0.6% of the total steel demand in the United States from China.
In other words, whether it is to launch a Section 301 investigation on the mainland's maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding, or to impose higher tariffs on the mainland's steel and aluminum exports to the United States, Biden's personal political interests are more mixed behind this. Negotiation and communication in the ordinary sense can no longer prompt the Biden administration to change its mind.
It is an undeniable fact that the United States has "decoupled" from China in various fields, and what China can do to counterattack the United States at present is to "see the move" after the other side launches an attack. Moreover, China, as the world's second largest economy, is not without the power to fight back, even if the Biden administration wants to use China as a "flag", it will not want to retreat with its whole body.