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Outside In | ‘Made in China 2025’ is not unique, as US hawks insist, except in its effectiveness
- David Dodwell says China should not be demonised for implementing an industrial policy, especially one that invests billions in technology, such as clean energy and electric vehicles, that could benefit the planet
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Why you can trust SCMP
Before you set out to demonise an opponent, you must first create a straw man – a crude stereotype with enough snippets of truth to make the unreasonableness of the opponent seem plausible.
So it is that US President Donald Trump’s trade team has set out to demonise China’s distinct and – over the past 30 years – successful economic model.
The characteristics of this particular straw man are built around autocratic, centralised political control by the Communist Party, state-owned enterprises and mass exploitation of subsidies to subvert the market-driven efforts of international competitors.
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The straw man is embellished with manipulation and theft of intellectual property, industrial espionage on a mass scale and insurmountable barriers for foreign companies to compete effectively in the China market.
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As with any straw man, there are threads of truth here. But the complaints are not as clear cut as the stereotype suggests, nor are China’s transgressions unique. Every economy – including the US’ – has large numbers of local companies with “special” influence on government decision-making, preferential access to huge procurement business and privileged control of local monopolies or oligopolies.
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