The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
Time flies, if we look back to 1995 a few decades ago, when China's domestic production and construction was in a state of accumulation, decades of accumulation of high-quality labor and open measures, is making the country in a vigorous development, but looking at the world, China at this time is only an insignificant part.
It was also in that year that a magazine began its transformation and decided for the first time to produce a list that could weigh the world's "giant companies": Fortune Magazine, an international magazine focusing on business, investment and economics.
In that year, due to the transformation of the world economic situation and the rapid rise of Japan, the editor-in-chief of the magazine at that time decided to upgrade the original wealth list to a global list. This is also recognized as the first official "Global Enterprise List", and since then, the concept of the so-called "Global 500" has begun to take root in the hearts of the people and has been recognized by many people. So who was the top of the list that year, and how far did we get to the rest of the country? [Beer]
1
The beginning of the "faltering".
Looking back on that year, it is not difficult to find that there are two countries that can be said to "stand out from the crowd", that is, the old world hegemon the United States and Japan, the emerging large economy of the year, these two countries together even accounted for more than half of the amount, three-fifths of the world's largest enterprises are in these two countries, and the United States is narrowly ahead of Japan in the first place.
At that time, it can be said that the United States and Japan were in a "golden age", and just looking at the American economy, it was ushering in a period of strong growth. That year, its gross domestic product reached a staggering $7 trillion, accounting for nearly a quarter of the global economy. After a brief economic downturn of 1990-1991, the United States quickly regained its vitality and entered a years-long boom in the mid-1990s.
In the year the list was released, the unemployment rate in the United States remained relatively low at about 5.6%, while inflation was effectively controlled at 2.8%. The economic prosperity during this period was mainly due to technological innovation and the rapid development of the Internet, especially the vigorous growth of the information technology industry, which injected a steady stream of new impetus into economic growth. Because of this, the U.S. stock market also showed a strong upward momentum that year, especially technology stocks.
All these favorable factors made an important contribution to the economic growth and wealth accumulation of the United States that year. With the increase in tax revenues and the effective control of government spending, even the long-criticized deficit problem has begun to ease, and the fiscal has even begun to show signs of surplus for the first time in a long time.
Japan is next behind the United States, with a share of about 17% of the global economy. Despite the recent double whammy of economic stagnation and deflation, known as the "Lost Decade", Japan still played a pivotal role in global manufacturing, technological innovation, and exports. However, with the rapid economic growth of Asian countries such as China and the slowdown in Japan's domestic growth, its relative weight in the global economy gradually diminished in the years that followed.
What was China like during the same period? In that year, our economic aggregate could be said to be very low in the world, but it had already begun to show a strong growth momentum. At that time, China's GDP was about 7 trillion yuan, which was equivalent to about 700 billion US dollars according to the exchange rate of that year. At that time, China's share of the global economy was about 2.4%, about the same as Brazil's.
Although this figure is very low in our eyes today, it is a small position in the global economy compared to the United States and Japan at the same time. But in 1995, China was already one of the world's fastest-growing major economies. Since its implementation in 1978, China's reform and opening-up policies have promoted rapid economic growth, attracted large amounts of foreign direct investment, and gradually integrated China into the global economic system.
In the same year, China's cooperation with many multilateral cooperation organizations was in full swing, especially the most crucial WTO accession negotiations, which will further promote the globalization and opening up of China's economy in a few years. At the same time, during that period, China was also actively promoting the reform of state-owned enterprises and promoting the development of the private economy, which laid an important foundation for the rapid growth of China's economy in the following decades.
2
"Fifty years are hard to surpass" and the lost "thirty years"
Let's continue to look at it, as we said earlier, the world's economic situation that year can be simply summarized as "the United States and Japan compete for hegemony", we can look at the top ten list, it can be said that it fully reflects the situation of the world economy that year. It can be seen that at that time, there were basically either Japanese or American companies on the top, especially the top five were basically in the hands of Japan. If you only look at the data of that year, Japan can be said to be in full bloom.
At that time, China's shortlisted companies were only in single digits, and their rankings were low, and the overall output value was difficult to compare with those at the top. At that time, not to mention the "behemoth" of the United States, even Japan, which was the second in the world, was difficult for us to match, and the overall domestic economy at that time was only a fraction of Japan's, and the huge gap even caused many people in China to despair at that time, and put forward the slogan "It will be difficult to surpass it in 50 years" that many people believed at that time.
However, just like the classic philosophical theory, the only thing that does not change in this world may be "change" itself. In fact, it didn't take 50 years at all, just a dozen years later, the GDP surpassed. This historic moment symbolizes a new height in China's economic development and reveals the reversal of roles between China and Japan on the global economic map.
Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced rapid economic growth, especially in the 21st century, with an average annual growth rate, attracting a large amount of foreign investment, and promoting the process of export-oriented industrialization and urbanization. At the same time, the government has actively implemented the strategy of domestic demand and the development of the service industry, which has injected strong impetus into economic growth. In contrast, Japan is different, it can be said that it has fallen into a long-term downturn, from ten or twenty years to almost 30 years now, and there is no hope in sight.
While Japan still has a competitive edge in high-tech and manufacturing, the slowdown in economic growth has overtaken China in the global GDP rankings. China's economic overtaking of Japan has not only profoundly changed the economic fortunes of both countries, but also reshaped the global economic landscape. As the world's second largest economy, China's growing influence in international trade, financial markets, and global governance has triggered drastic changes in the global economy.
3
Catching up
With time, we can continue to look downward, with China's overtaking, the world began to change, especially Japan, because of the "ceiling" national strength in these years can be said to be not only not rising but declining year by year, the former "giant" has now been constantly falling, and finally this year was overtaken by Germany and reduced to the fourth, from the disappeared ten years, twenty years to the "disappeared thirty years".
Compared with the top ten of the latest list, we can see that compared with the first list of the year, the changes in the content can be said to be very obvious, the most intuitive of which is three points, the first is that Japanese companies have basically disappeared, the second is that American companies are still strong, and the third is that China has begun to emerge. Of course, Japan's strength is still "not to be underestimated", after all, "a skinny camel is bigger than a horse", although it has been stagnant for a long time, Japan is still the third country on the list.
And we have become the first, this is thanks to the results of our continuous efforts to develop for decades, the same comparative data, Japan compared to the data of the nineties, the total amount can be said to be declining, even if you do not look at the dollar denomination, and use the yen itself to denominate, the overall growth rate may only be a few percent, on average to a few decades down, it can be said that it is standing still, no, it should be said that it is "moving backwards".
Not to mention the problem of inflation, as well as the rise in overall prices, it can be said that just like the top ten list, the horror Japanese companies that once claimed to be "can say no" and "buy the world" have gradually begun to fall, leaving only one Toyota company barely maintained in the position of more than a dozen, and as new energy vehicles gradually seize the original market share, coupled with the new energy research and development is not smooth, this ranking is likely to continue to decline.
Of course, we can't be too optimistic, we can still see that although according to the content of the list, we are already the most on the list, with 145 countries, the second United States has 124 and the third Japan only has 47 left, but most of the Chinese enterprises in the forefront are some state-owned resource-based enterprises, while most of the United States are some science and technology and service enterprises, which is worthy of our attention.
In fact, judging from the number of companies on the list, it can be shown that although our development is in the forefront of the world in terms of total amount and volume. However, our high-tech industry and high-quality service industry are still at a relatively ordinary level.
In the face of such a difference in volume and quality, it is still necessary to adjust the strategy in time, so that we can truly not only reach a big country and power in terms of scale, but also reach a higher level in quality. For example, two representatives of our electric vehicle industry, BYD and CATL, have 212 and 292, indicating that our development has not yet come to an end, and with the adjustment and upgrading of the industrial structure, there is still a lot of room for progress.
Resources:
[1] Xinhuanet - 2021.2.10 "The Growth of the World's Top 500 Chinese Enterprises in the "Digital Century"
[2] National Business Daily - 2023.8.2 "Interpreting the 2023 Fortune Global 500 List: Which Chinese Companies Are New to the List and Which Companies Are Being Squeezed Out?"