Driven by the obstacles to globalization and regional economic integration, the economic and trade relations between China and ASEAN have been further strengthened, which is also regarded as a "strange way" for China to break through the economic blockade of Europe and the United States.
In this regard, at the 2023 "Understanding China" international conference held on December 3, Chi Fulin, president of the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, believes that as China's largest partner, ASEAN's role is becoming more and more important under the trend of regionalization of industrial chains and chains. On this basis, we need to seize the opportunity to jointly build a more resilient China-ASEAN industrial chain through unilateral opening-up, so as to create important conditions for China's industrial security.
This article is based on shorthand and has not been reviewed by the speaker himself, for readers' reference.
Chi Fulin: My overall view is that in the context of the accelerated evolution of the world economic pattern, the global industrial chain has been deeply adjusted, and it is necessary to build a more stable and resilient global industrial chain. After thinking about it yesterday, I changed another theme and put forward three judgments around "China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation under the trend of regionalization of the first chain".
First, under the new trend of the first chain, how to judge China's role?
First of all, the layout of the global industrial chain has changed from the previous low-cost and high-efficiency orientation to safety-oriented. This is mainly due to the superposition of geopolitical conflict factors, which leads to the increase in the uncertainty of the industrial chain, and the regionalization of the industrial chain has a significant increasing trend.
On the one hand, the trend towards regional integration has not changed in general. In the 14 years from 2008 to 2022, 336 new regional free trade agreements were added around the world, which is 13 times. Since 2020, a total of 72 items have entered into force. On the other hand, the proportion of regional high-tech products has continued to increase, and in the 14 years from 2008 to 2022, the proportion of high-tech products in Asia has increased by nearly 5%, and the Americas have increased by 25%。
In the future, in order to effectively reduce the risk of the first-chain terminal, relevant countries will continue to formulate policies for inward development and friendly shore outsourcing, especially to accelerate the regionalization process of key links in the manufacturing industry. Under such a trend of regionalization, that is, under the trend of regionalization of industrial chains and chains, what is China's role?
The super-large-scale single market and the complete manufacturing system are the reasons why China has become one of the world's leading industrial chain centers. China's manufacturing intermediate goods account for 1 5 of the world's first, China's manufacturing production will reduce by 10 billion US dollars, overseas production and sales will be reduced by nearly 6.7 billion US dollars, the next five years China's goods and services are expected to accumulate more than 32 trillion US dollars, especially with China's industrial structure, consumption structure, structural transformation and upgrading, will not only form an important market for the stability of the regional industrial chain, but also provide an important impetus for the optimization and adjustment of the regional industrial chain.
The second is to stabilize and strengthen the China-ASEAN industrial chain, does it have an important impact on the world?
My overall judgment is that the center of gravity of the world economy is shifting eastward, for example, in the two decades from 2000 to 2021, Asia's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.0 per year in constant 2015 dollars0, which is 1 of the world's average growth rate8 times, accounting for 39 percent of global GDP1%, more than Europe and North America. China and ASEAN accounted for 68% of Asia's GDP growth9%, especially with the rapid economic growth, Asia has become the most important manufacturing hub in the world.
With the trend of shifting the economic center of gravity to the east, I believe that ASEAN has begun to become the key to the security of regional industrial chains and chains. At present, China and ASEAN have gradually formed a circular model in which ASEAN exports primary products to China, imports machinery and equipment and intermediate products from China, and then exports consumer goods to China and other third countries. ASEAN has obvious comparative advantages in the fields of energy and minerals, agriculture, etc., and in the context of Western countries represented by the United States is speeding up the "de-sinicization" of the first chain, accelerating the layout of the first chain in the ASEAN industrial chain will create important conditions for China's industrial security. To this end, it is urgent to strengthen, strengthen and optimize the China-ASEAN industrial chain.
As an economy with abundant labor force and huge development space, ASEAN will become the world's fourth largest economy from 2028 to 2030, and as the core unit of the Asia-Pacific region, ASEAN will also become the key fulcrum of the world's major powers in the strategic layout of the Asia-Pacific region. It is estimated that in the next few years, the layout and basic framework of the industrial chain between China and ASEAN will be formed as soon as possible, and while stabilizing the industrial chain in the short term, it will also take the initiative to shape a new model of medium and long-term division of labor and cooperation between China and ASEAN.
In September 2023, the China-ASEAN Expo ushered in an open day for the public. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Xiaobang.
Third, is it feasible to build a more resilient China-ASEAN industrial chain through unilateral opening-up?
Last month, the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, where I work, released a research report entitled "Unilateral Opening-up - A Major Breakthrough in China-ASEAN Freedom** (22 Articles)", which attracted attention from many parties. At present, in the face of the strategic window period in the next three to five years, there is an urgent need to jump out of the existing ASEAN open cooperation framework, take the initiative to unilaterally open China's commodity market, service market, investment market and labor market to ASEAN, and do not make equal and reciprocal requirements for ASEAN, lower the threshold and commitment conditions for ASEAN to participate in China-ASEAN freedom, and pragmatically promote the process of freedom between China and ASEAN with a more proactive and open strategy.
On the whole, the conditions for China's unilateral opening up to ASEAN are now in place, and the risks are generally controllable, because since 2010, China's manufacturing added value has continued to rank first in the world, and China's first-class structure has been upgraded. Manufacturing accounted for more than 95% of China's exports last year, and the risk of unilateral opening up to ASEAN is generally controllable. Some people have raised the question of whether rice from ASEAN, in particular, will hit the Chinese market. I have calculated that according to the current scale, the rice exported to China by the four rice-producing countries in ASEAN will increase from the current 1624 percent rises to more than 50 percent, accounting for only 327%。From this point of view, the benefits of China's unilateral opening up to ASEAN outweigh the disadvantages, and it is operable.
In order to focus on stabilizing the China-ASEAN industrial chain and pragmatically promote the unilateral opening process to ASEAN, we have put forward four proposals: to achieve a major breakthrough in China-ASEAN freedom, to enhance the integration and sustainability of the industrial chain as the focus, to rely on the existing regional and sub-regional cooperation mechanism to rely on the infrastructure network, to promote the basic strategy of each country and step by step, to take the lead in the implementation of cargo expansion to cargo, and to take the lead in the land field to expand to the maritime fieldIt will be implemented in the economic and trade fields, and gradually expand to qualified fields.
The above three judgments hope to attract attention and discussion. Thank you!