On March 27 this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accused China's new energy industry of "overcapacity" during a visit to a photovoltaic cell factory in Georgia, saying that "China's overcapacity disrupts global prices and production patterns and harms the interests of U.S. companies and workers."
During her recent visit to China, Yellen said at an event at the American Chamber of Commerce in China in Guangzhou that she was particularly concerned about the problem of overcapacity, including signs of overcapacity in emerging fields.
As an economist, you should have a full understanding of the concept and principle of "overcapacity", and you should know what the real "overcapacity" is, instead of "following the feeling" and being led by the nose by political interests. Judging from Yellen's remarks accusing China of "overcapacity", her coat as an economist has been completely stripped off by her remarks and turned into "the emperor's new clothes".
According to Yellen's theory, we might as well take a look at what the United States is doing in the field of high technology. Chips, mobile phones, etc., which have not been subsidized by the U.S. government, which are not sold to other countries have a high proportion of products, especially chips, the chip bill introduced by the U.S. government, the intensity of government subsidies is so large that America's allies are terrified, and they are worried that their own companies will be snatched away by the United States. So, has the United States already had "overcapacity" in chips and other fields, and should stop or reduce the production of chips and expand internal demand?
As a matter of fact, there is no country that has not given government subsidies to high-tech and high-tech products in the early stage of development, otherwise, it would be impossible for these technologies and products to be developed. What's more, a lot of subsidized technologies and products have not been successful in the end, and the percentage of real success is very low. Under such circumstances, government subsidies have become an indispensable and important part of scientific and technological progress, product upgrading, and the improvement of residents' living standards. Using government subsidies as one of the means to accuse a country of "overcapacity", Yellen and her American politicians are not afraid to laugh off their big teeth.
China's success in catching up with new energy vehicles is not the result of Chinese government subsidies, but the result of ceding a huge market. You must know that over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China, as the most potential market in the world, has continuously opened up to developed countries, including the United States, especially the automobile market. A few years ago, the car sales of Volkswagen in the Chinese market were equivalent to the sales of all self-owned brand cars in China. General Motors of the United States and Toyota Motor of Japan also have huge market sales in China, so why don't politicians in the United States and other Western countries say that their own countries have overcapacity in automobiles and do not reduce their automobile production capacity?
China has ceded such a huge market capacity of fuel vehicles, and through continuous independent innovation, to gain a position on the new energy vehicle track, it has begun to make the United States and other Western countries not calm, and they think that China's new energy vehicles have "overcapacity", is it really full of confidence? Is there enough reason to accuse China of "overcapacity"? Here, we might as well take a look at an analysis report published by the American media Bloomberg, questioning the United States' accusation of overcapacity in China's new energy vehicles. According to the report, in the field of electric vehicles, the capacity utilization rate of the vast majority of China's top auto exporters is at an internationally recognized normal level, and the problem faced by the United States and Europe is that their corporate efficiency is not as good as that of Chinese companies, rather than China's "overcapacity". The report also believes that China is the world's largest market for new energy vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and the proportion of product exports in total production is much lower than that of major auto producers such as Germany, Japan and South Korea. If there is indeed "overcapacity" in China, it could lead to a large number of parking lots filled with unsold new cars. However, Bloomberg's analysis of public information of listed companies and industry associations shows that the inventory of Chinese auto dealers is not high, and it is impossible to conclude that there is "overcapacity".
The information provided in the report is enough to see that the so-called "overcapacity" of China's new energy vehicles is only a "crime of wanting" by the United States, and it is a politician's behavior that violates the conscience of economists. If the United States were a country that really emphasizes market economy and fair competition, and if Yellen was an economist with a conscience, she would not have come to the conclusion that China has "overcapacity" in new energy vehicles.
The key to the United States' desperate hype about China's new energy vehicle "overcapacity" is that the production cost of new energy vehicles in the United States is too high and the competitiveness is not strong. In January this year, data showed that the average price of a new energy vehicle in the United States was $60,544, about $13,000 higher than that of a fuel vehicle. According to media statistics, in the United States, the choice of new energy vehicles below $40,000 is only 1/10 of the models on sale. Don't find problems from yourself, but want to achieve your own goals by suppressing and blaming China's new energy vehicles, obviously, Yellen and other American politicians not only have no bottom in their hearts, but also have ghosts in their hearts, and the more ferocious the means, the more troublesome the ghosts in their hearts will be.