On April 24, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his second visit to China.
Mr. Tan learned that at the beginning of this year, the US side put forward its intention to visit China, and the United States wanted to come, but communication and action were more important.
It can be seen that before this visit to China, the US side was still creating "bargaining chips" for itself in negotiations by means of people in the know and the media hyping up a certain issue
But if you want to rely on such "chips" to exert pressure, will it work?
According to foreign media reports, Blinken will take Yellen's microphone this time and then talk about the so-called "overcapacity theory" in China.
Yellen's reasons for this issue during her visit to China are that China's production capacity greatly exceeds China's domestic demand and the global market's capacity. Overcapacity can lead to large quantities of low-priced exports, hurting companies and workers in the U.S. and other countries.
Yellen's remarks are incomprehensible even to some American economic analysts, who believe that Yellen's remarks go against the most basic principles of economics that have been flaunted by the West for more than 200 years.
Searching for reports on "China" and "overcapacity" in the US media, it can be seen from the changes in quantity that the topic of the so-called "overcapacity" in China has begun in 2022.
The U.S. media continues to make a fuss about the "overcapacity theory", what are they talking about? The analysis of the subject words of these reports also shows some obvious changes and nodes:
Since 2022, the entities involved in the so-called "overcapacity theory" in China and the fields targeted have undergone significant changes.
In 2022, U.S. media coverage of the so-called "overcapacity theory" in China focused on the semiconductor industry.
So far in 2023, the US media's coverage of the so-called "overcapacity theory" in China has shifted to China's "new energy products", among which new energy vehicles are particularly prominent.
In order to dismantle the narrative routine of the US side, we also analyzed the trend changes in the report on "new energy vehicles" in the so-called "overcapacity theory" in China.
The most reported period was Yellen's visit to China.
Another small peak is on August 23, 2023, after refining the most touched report content of the day through big data, Tan Zhu found that the node corresponding to this peak is a global industry analysis agency released estimates that the EU is expected to import more than 1.2 million electric vehicles from China in 2030.
In addition, there is another high-reach story titled "China's 'Complex' New Energy Industry Overcapacity May Hinder New Growth Drivers".
It can be seen that China's industries that have advantages over the United States have become "surplus industries" under the narrative of the United States, and whenever China's new energy industry shows its competitiveness, the US media hype up the so-called "overcapacity" in China. In other words, the attention of the US media to the so-called "overcapacity" in China is the tracking and attention of China's economic highlights and breakthroughs, and behind this is the anxiety of the United States about the development of China's new quality productive forces.
And this is only one side of the American narrative routine, we analyzed the entities that appeared in the US media's reports involving the so-called "overcapacity theory" from 2022 to 2023, and found that the reports in the first small peak of 2023 are mainly related to China, and the object of the narrative is mainly Europe. From 2023 to the present, the frequency of "Europe" is gradually increasing - Europe has become the main object of the United States to exaggerate the "threat" of China's new energy industry.
This corresponds to a very important purpose of the United States in hyping up the "overcapacity theory", that is, it is trying to "kidnap" its allies with a discourse trap and turn the so-called "overcapacity theory" into a trade weapon against China.
On April 4 this year, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that the U.S. and the European Union should work together to "correct measures that are not conducive to our market dynamics."
In fact, from 2023, the United States has begun to provoke its allies
In order to implement this action, before Dai Qi, American politicians had already begun to pave the way. In July 2023, a written testimony at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives declared:
China deliberately creates "overcapacity" and sells products at below-market prices in order to gain market share and move up the value chain...... Some advanced technologies were first invented and commercialized in the United States, but China's strong economy has not only pushed American and European companies out of the industry, but also stifled innovation in the industry.
As a result, the testimony recommends working with U.S. allies to increase trade barriers to China.
These words distort the global development model that the United States and other Western countries once flaunted.
For new energy vehicles, the new energy vehicle industry is not overcapacity, but still far behind.
To achieve the goal of global zero carbon emissions, more new energy vehicle production capacity is also needed as a guarantee
China is the world's largest producer and seller of new energy vehicles, with 9.587 million new energy vehicles produced in 2023, and this year, China exported 1.203 million new energy vehicles — nearly 90% of China's production capacity, which is meeting domestic demand. This also means that for the world, China's exports in the new energy vehicle industry are high-quality production capacity and scarce production capacity.
Tan Zhu learned that about 80%-90% of China's production capacity, just like wind power, is to meet the needs of the domestic market. This also fully shows that insufficient production capacity is not only a problem faced by the new energy vehicle industry, but also a shackle faced by the green transformation of the global economy.
Research by CICC Research Institute shows that in order to achieve green transformation, the "green premium" must first be reduced to negative value – the cost of clean energy must be reduced to a lower cost than fossil fuels, so that the market can be motivated to use clean energy.
The way to reduce the "green premium" is to give full play to economies of scale.
The reason why the new energy industry has economies of scale is inseparable from its industry characteristics.
First of all, equipment investment accounts for a high proportion of the total investment in the new energy industry. The cost of equipment for gas power accounts for less than 20%, the cost of equipment for coal power accounts for 40%, and the cost of equipment for wind power and photovoltaic power is more than 80%.
Secondly, the new energy industry has invested heavily in technology research and development. Whether it is the proportion of R&D investment or the average number of patent applications for actual production of services, the new energy industry greatly exceeds that of the fossil energy industry.
Finally, the development of the new energy industry depends on the construction of public infrastructure. Whether it is the construction of UHV lines or energy storage and distribution, it needs the support of public infrastructure.
At present, the only country that has done a good job in these three items and brought into play the economies of scale of the new energy industry is China.
In fact, the competitiveness of China's new energy industry is clear to Americans.
On December 14, 2023, in the peak of U.S. media coverage, a high-reach article was a 10,000-word research report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States. Here's what the report says:
China didn't become a climate tech giant overnight. The current distribution of supply chains is the result of a long-term division of labor in global markets, international cooperation and entrepreneurship. In addition, government policies aimed at attracting domestic and foreign investment in the target industries have created a highly competitive environment. As a result, replicating alternative supply chains is difficult.
Perhaps it is precisely because of a clear understanding of the real competitiveness of China's new energy industry and the objective gap with China in terms of industrial production capacity that the United States feels anxious from the bottom of its heart.
What makes the United States even more anxious is that China and Europe, as the global leaders in the development of clean energy, have maintained close exchanges with companies, non-governmental organizations, and research institutions, even though there are some noises and fluctuations in European political circles. Since 2021, European companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Volkswagen have not only built new factories in China to expand production capacity, but also reached in-depth cooperation with Chinese new energy vehicle companies from vehicle to software.
According to the report "China-EU Relations – Green Transition" recently released by the Delegation of the European Union to China, green cooperation has become a key area of China-EU cooperation.
Green cooperation between China and the EU is undoubtedly a major obstacle to the "de-risking" of China promoted by the United States
It is not difficult to understand why the Biden administration chose to start the so-called "investigation" of China's intelligent networked vehicles this year, which is in essence an attempt to curb and suppress the development of China's advanced industries through these "off-market moves" when the competitiveness of its own industry is far from keeping up with market demand.
Its purpose is to grasp some aspects of China's greatest strengths, concentrate on singing the decline, interpret China's advantages into "disadvantages" and shape them into "threats", and vainly attempt to undermine the focus of our development
The United States thinks that creating such "bargaining chips" will discourage China's confidence, but isn't their behavior proving that we have done the right thing?
Source: Yuyuan Tan Tian