中國經濟犯下兩大錯芯片花費超過石油進口 , 半導體與汽車工業

視頻

時間：2023年10月2日：李世默直言中國犯下兩大“致命大錯”：半導體和內燃機汽車，正是因為多年前的“造不如買”和“市場換技術”思維，導致今日芯片受製於人！李世默用犀利觀點，徹底點破當前市場內卷的深層邏輯*缺乏海外市場才是最大的缺陷！本視頻李世默引入大量數據，深度解析中國經濟的韌性、挑戰與戰略失誤的代價。顛覆你所有認知，千萬別錯過！

對“一帶一路”的質疑：債務陷阱與當地勞動力利用問題

Given that there were sort of some unhappiness with how BRI has been implemented previously in terms of how it's been accused of being a debt trap diplomacy as well as not utilizing as much local company and local labor for that I'm really interested to hear your view Thank you Ladies and gentlemen the rise of China means the modernization and sophistication of 1 4 billion people This is more than the combined population of all the G 7 nations A transformative process of this scale will give rise to a myriad of multi decade mega trends impacting not just China but globally Not unexpectedly China's rise has also led to geopolitical tensions particularly with the U S as the world transitions from a globalized and unipolar world led by the U S to a multi polar world order where China has a rising influence We now operate in an environment that is radically different from what we have experienced over the past decades when the U S was the clear leader China achieved a period of unprecedented growth since its economic reform in 1978 Whilst we continue to see its resilience and new economic growth opportunities packing all this growth in a short span of 40 years has also resulted in various unintended structural challenges that China needs to resolve now In this regard we are honoured to have with us today Dr Eric Li to share his thoughts on the U S China rivalry China's economic situation as well as what he sees as the sequel to the China economic growth model and globalisation Good morning Thank you Kenneth for the generous introduction It's a pleasure to be here It's my first time at KMF so I'm a little nervous because I want to do a good job so I get invited back So I have my anxieties and of course I think it seems that we're living in a moment of acute anxieties everywhere I'm from Shanghai and I can speak to that So as Dr Freud said that the cause for anxiety is repression and the way to deal with it is to talk about it So let's talk about it Here are the headlines to our anxieties The Chinese economy is in trouble because real estate is collapsing big techs are being reined in the state is taking over the market and private capital is being choked and we talk about Japanification of China so the coming last decade or decades And China is in trouble because politics is turning left power is totally centralized and of course we have this rivalry between China and the U S and the West is intensifying by the day and it's decoupling of technology and supply chain And of course we hear talks of war The world is in trouble because de globalization So we had this amazing period of 20 30 years what we call globalization which turned out or supposedly turning out to be an anomaly And we're de globalizing we're going backwards And there's a new Cold War looming And of course people talk about the collapse of the post war international order This famous American thinker Robert Kagan wrote this book called The Jungle Grows Back The Jungle Grows Back If the U S is not running the world the jungle must grow back So these are the headlines But I'd like to take a step back and put it all If we observe the surface all these could be true Okay These are obvious But let's take a If we dig a little deeper and see the undercurrents then we can predict the future So let's take a step back and put it in a larger and longer context of globalization So at the onset of globalization there was this theory about core the center and peripheral of globalization These are the theories I won't bore you with the theories But suffice to say that we know who are in the core and who are in the peripherals Okay So the core of globalization if you look back 20 30 years when China joined the WTO there was great debate in America whether they should let China into the WTO And there are a lot of congressional testimonies And there are a lot of scholars writing papers And this idea that there was a grand plan for globalization there's a grand design for globalization it goes as follows There's the core of globalization which is the center Okay And that's the US led West They possess the most advanced technology and the greatest economic resources Okay So they design the rules set the rules And then there are the peripherals And those are the developing countries They provide cheap labor raw materials and market for the high end products that core countries make Okay And this is the grand design for globalization And the two largest beneficiaries of this grand design of course have been in the last 20 years the United States and China We all know that It's a fact Okay And some even put of course US as the core and China as the peripheral And some theorists put China as the semi peripheral Okay Sort of a big swath of territory that's in between the core and the peripheral That we support the core and we exploit the peripherals Okay This cannot go on It cannot go on because it's no longer sustainable It cannot go further That's why we're in this juncture We're in this trouble and all these anxieties Because primarily because the largest peripheral or semi peripheral China is saying no to remaining in the peripheral Okay They don't want to do that To use the professor's term China wants a new bargain And in fact it's probably not fair to say that China wants a new bargain Because China never agreed to the old bargain It was a temporary bargain at best Okay So if you look at So when did this happen If you want to put a finger on the time and a date I would put it around 2015 when China was drafting the 13 th five year plan We're now in the 14 th five year plan Okay So but if you could even push it back further if you read the 11 th five year plan 12 th five year plan it was clear in black and white that China's goal was not to stay in the peripheral Okay So the U S convinced itself that they could keep this design forever for at least a couple of generations But they failed to read the documents It amazes me that so many people policymakers decision makers they don't bother to read the documents Okay These were documented Okay And the 13 th five year plan now we're in the 14 th five year plan Okay So China is saying we're not staying in the peripheral So let's take a look at the first phase of globalization China globalization 1 0 Okay That's from 2000 to 2020 20 years 2000 that was when we joined the WTO Okay And this biggest push of globalization happened in my generation There are three pillars to the Chinese economy to the market economy The fourth one was driven by the state infrastructure building right But the three pillars to market economy Number one real estate which accounts for a huge portion of China's GDP about almost 30 Second we all know the rise of the consumer internet platforms The Alibaba is the 10 cents of the world Okay Huge huge economy Third is the building of industrial capacity and the global value chain based on low end manufacturing to begin with And it's gradually slowly moving to medium end Okay These are the three pillars of the Chinese market economy And of course like I said the two biggest winners US and China in those 20 years we 10 xed our GDP using those models Okay But by the time around 2015 plus minus these three pillars had run out of steam They could not go on Here's why Okay There are great problems One these internet platforms for instance the second pillar the consumer internet platforms Internet platforms are winner take all businesses Okay Those were business model innovations that created great big monopolistic companies And they're financial capital driven Okay What happens is because they're a monopoly or designed to be monopolist right So I'm a venture capitalist I've lived through this Made plenty of money out of this Okay Entrepreneurs come to you with a plan And because the winner take all eventually it will become it will have to burn so much capital because user acquisition costs are so high But if you end up being the winner you own it all You become a monopoly And then you can start collecting rents And if you So if you go from a future monopoly and you discount that value back into today net present value is huge Because it will be a monopoly So based on that net present value they raise capital from suckers like us And they use that capital to pursue and build a monopoly So it's a closed loop financial capital driven model Okay And in fact in the last 20 years the level of technological true technological innovations was pretty low Okay The QR code that's ubiquitous in China and everywhere else That was invented like in the 1990 s or 80 s Old stuff Nothing new Okay But business model transformation that changed everybody's lives Okay And very low value add industrial capacity that's attached to the platforms Okay So that's the old model So what Another issue is that these companies are both monopolies and monopsonies Okay Monopoly is downward monopoly I'm the only seller Okay You're the only buyer for labor for instance That's why you've got these drivers and you've got these delivery men that have no health insurance Because they have nowhere else to go Okay Who is taking those burdens When they get sick the state is The government is So it's called negative externalities Okay So then we have technological stagnation We screwed up China made huge blunders Okay Great success story but several big blunders Semiconductor being one of them as we all know today Okay Another is auto industry We made a big blunder in auto in combustion engines 20 30 years ago We opened the gate to the largest auto industry auto market in the world And foreign capital owned it all We got nothing Okay Just tiny little money But we got lucky EV came about So we changed land and surpassed them We didn't repeat the mistake But we didn't get quite lucky on a semiconductor So we're in a tough fight right now All right Then of course we have concentration wealth and great inequality Because it's monopolies and monopsonies And environmental degradation So those 20 years these are great successes great problems Real estate I don't need to tell you about it Okay I'm not a real estate investor I don't know much about real estate But then you know in the last two three months all these big real estate behemoths are getting in trouble And I took out their balance sheets I looked at their balance sheets I'm surprised that they hadn't gotten in trouble much earlier Some of these people do belong You're nowhere So if you're an economist this is what you should be looking at Okay Total factor productivity It's a simple number So if you look at China's economic growth our total factor productivity is basically simple How much input does it take to produce an output Okay The greater the output the less the input the more productive you are So our economy we reached the ceiling on the contribution of increases in total factor productivity around 2010 And since then it's been declining Which means that our economy is getting It's not improving on productivity It's just growing in size Okay So what's coming next What's the sequel We have these old growth drivers that I talked about Real estate consumer internet platforms and low end manufacturing What are the new growth drivers I like to use this smile curve a couple of economists put out Okay And if you look at the smile curve we've grown really big Okay But we stay at the relatively bottom position The position on the smile curve the size grew but the position has not changed much What we need to do for the economy is this We got to move upper left And I would like to argue that this is the primary driver of this looming this existential struggle between the U S and China Because the United States cannot tolerate this movement If China succeeded what are they going to eat Okay So this is what's happening All right So the new growth drivers what are they I call it technology enabled industrial capacity and supply chain And then there are new industries two areas And the second area is there are new industries that are driven by technological innovation to begin with Okay In this great competition China's greatest asset is its industrial capacity Okay We have the largest industrial capacity in the world Thirty three some percent of the world's industrial output It's bigger than U S Japan Germany put together Okay Biggest industrial capacity in the world We make everything Okay In fact I would argue we're hitting the ceiling It can't get bigger than that Some things have to be made locally Okay And how much is it It's about five to ten trillion U S dollars a year in value Huge Bigger than all countries Okay So by my calculation the value add on that industrial capacity is about 12 Okay So if you look at So if you take the five to ten trillion dollars a year and compare it to a company's revenue then the value add is its gross margin Okay So our gross margin is about 12 And if you look at America in the 1970 s when its economy was the most industrialized economy in the world when its industrial capacity was highest in the world their gross margin was about 35 40 Okay So I like to put it to you that these 20 30 percentage point gap is the money that China needs to make for our next generation Okay And that is what I call technology enabled industrial capacity Of the 20 30 maybe eight or nine percentage points are semiconductors Okay We Think about this Semiconductor industry is the biggest one of the biggest industries in the world Okay And China is about 45 of the world's semiconductor industry Huge But we import all of our chips Nearly Okay The money China spends on importing chips from America and Taiwan and other parts is bigger than crude oil and iron ore combined And China is the largest crude oil importer in human history Think about it No country in the history of man had imported more oil than China is today Yet we spend more on our chips Not potato chips Computer chips Okay I like to talk about the iPhone story You know when Apple started making the iPhone in China 10 years ago it's a 1 000 product But we kept 3 5 of the value Now the number is up to 26 Huge Okay We need to repeat the iPhone story in every sector If we made the chips the number will be 65 Okay So what are these new sectors What are these new opportunities Manufacturing technologies Okay How do we inject more technology into our manufacturing capacity to raise the growth margin Supply chain technology I mean so many industries Hundreds of billion dollars worth a year The entire supply chain is in China But efficiency is still low Semiconductors are talking about healthcare and life sciences Synthetic biology where China is at the forefront Okay Alternative energy China is already at the forefront So we are changing our economic model And there's no turning back And this is why we are experiencing anxieties Because this is a wholesale structural change to the largest economy in the world A bit of a shock therapy So we're all in shock There's a lot of pain There's a lot of pain There's a lot of winners And there are even more losers in the short term Guaranteed Okay And more importantly the government our political leadership had decided had concluded which I concur that market forces could not be relied upon to engineer this much needed transition So they initiated a top down through political initiative a supply side restructuring of the economy And that by necessity is extremely painful To redirect capital away from the old pillars to the new pillars That leads to losers a lot of losers Okay And the winners are not here yet That's So we're in this vacuum And I expect it to continue for a couple of years at least So sit tight Put on your seatbelt Okay So the government is doing a lot These guidance funds So you have top down political initiatives and then you have market forces Capital is going through those market forces And then you have these new industries being built So two things One is to inject technology into old industries to raise the growth margin And two is to build new industries EVs alternative energy synthetic biology life sciences all these things Okay So this is the kind of new economy the sequel that's upon us If you read the 14 th five year plan this is President Xi Jinping's first real five year plan that he was at the helm when it was drafted It's written all in there Okay You don't have to go beyond that document to know why these policies are taking place So this is Faisal in the morning said that when Adam Smith talked about economics it was political economy right And at some point along the way the political got dropped This is only economics Why I'm guessing because the winners already did their politics And the economics under those politics that they did was working for them It put them at an advantage And put everyone else at a disadvantage So they're saying don't do politics just do economics So you stay in the peripheral Okay You cannot pursue a different political game The political game is settled I mean I don't know if the great professor is still here You know I thought it was an amazing thing that he said you cannot change your history You know it cannot be perfect There's so many imperfections And Britain you know England was you know I'm telling you one of the greatest imperfections that China faces today is that we cannot go out and get ourselves a bunch of colonies And get ourselves a bunch of colonies You know that That was That played a big role in making it so perfect for England So we had to We had to Overcome and compensate for that imperfection And this is what we need to be doing Okay So And this is a political process that directs the economy in a particular way And that's why the powers that be hate it in the world They want to stop it So they want to cut off our access to semiconductor at the top Cut off our access to semiconductor manufacturing at the bottom Semiconductor industry was an old industry Now it faces amazing opportunities Here's why it's being transformed and reconfigured around the globe Because of this great ride Because one party's attempt to stop another party from achieving the value add Okay In that global supply chain You know I talk about We didn't We're an active investor in semiconductor We never We didn't do that for many years because it was a settled industry Okay There's no Everyone is happy buying American chips And if we were looking at a semiconductor investment we'd be examining both the supply side and the demand side Right Supply side is can you make the chip Demand side is will somebody buy it Even if you can make the chip And the demand side was always the problem Because you go to visit customers Customers say well I'm happy with Intel Why should I switch Now every Chinese company is worried about getting on some list And have their access cut So now semiconductor industry in China is basically If you can make it you can sell it And it's 45 of the world's largest industry Think about the opportunities Okay So I want to end by talking about is there a globalization sequel Is there a sequel to globalization And I want to borrow the concept an American concept political concept called small yard and high fence Okay I'm sure you heard about it And they refer to technology to my industry The idea was to keep a small yard of really high end technologies and build high walls so that China cannot access it Okay So I borrow that concept I look at it and I say who are exactly in that small yard Who are in that small yard Who are in that small yard So of course it's two groups One is the British Empire and its four grandsons You know who they are And then of course there's these countries in Western Europe I marked them black here Okay If you look at it they account for the world about 40 50 of the world's GDP The rest in green there are some middle territories Okay Middle zone But the rest in green is what we call the global south And we account for about 40 also 40 to 45 of the world's economy but almost two thirds of the growth Okay So the global south is highly diverse First it includes the poorest countries in Africa like Niger's It also includes countries that build on gold like Saudi Arabia and UAE and military superpowers like Russia This is the big world So the question I think that we need to answer and the answer is probably awaiting us in the next 10 20 years is can China the biggest global south country the biggest economy in the world can China lead the way and drive a new round of globalization outside the fence in the real world So small yard big world Thank you very much Thank you Eric for another very interesting and thought provoking presentation We will now open the floor for questions If you have a question please raise your hand and then the staff will bring will come to you with a mic We will go number four Hi Dr Eric I'm Takif again But I do have a question and it's more along the lines of contextual clarity I think when you're talking about top down directives who really has the say here in terms of research design implementation and alteration I think the question is how diffuse are these policy mechanisms And what actors and agents are involved And then a follow up question to that is do you think top down directives are sustainable in the long run when it comes to like very sensitive economics It's the only thing that's sustainable Cool thank you So just like in any company without top down design nothing is sustainable in that company If you want a company that lasts 100 years you don't do top down design you're doomed to fail That's probably why America is failing today Because they lost their ability to do top down design like they were doing post World War II Okay So China has a highly complex political system And in many ways a bit more opaque than other countries But in other ways it's not so opaque Like I said if you just read the documents it's all written there Every five years they have this detailed plan I mean down to which industry which sector in what location It was all written there And if you look at the five year plan history a five year plan in the last several decades 80 85 90 of the five year plan get carried out as planned That's a lot better than almost all the companies I invested in Okay So if you study how the five year plans are developed the moment they put out the next five year plan they start doing the following five years So it's a long process It takes two three years collecting data collecting industry data collecting public opinion posts go to different regions collect information sending things down trials So the five year plan is a highly complex process And it's all written there So I think we should take that seriously Thanks Number three Yeah thank you Hi Dr Eric What's your advice to our youngsters Traditionally we've sent our children to the former empire and the grandchildren of the empire So given the picture that you've painted what's your advice to them Where should we seek knowledge Thank you Like I said I think the big world the real big world today is the global south That's my view Okay And Malaysia of course is a very important country in the global south I recently spent a lot of time in the Middle East in Gulf states Saudi Arabia and UAE working on investments semiconductor industries We're talking about Panan going there to study So if you have children I think you should probably get them to learn more and more about the global south The diversity the potential the different political systems different religions You know one of the biggest characteristics about the global south is pluralism So there's so many different political systems different religions different cultures different economic models It's great to go to the west go to Oxford go to Harvard to study but they give you a singular vision And if you're steeped like I was steeped in those singular visions at a young age that could handicap you I'm lucky because when I got steeped in it we went into a 20 30 year process that was very much linked to that singular vision But that singular vision is no longer going to be the driving force for the world Thanks Number one Hi Eric It's great to see you again Brian here I was just wondering picking up on what you said about the global south The elephant in the room strikes me as the Sino Indian relationship which I think is an incredibly important relationship hopefully a partnership going forward into the future Now we see territorial conflicts disputes the Quad and India is being co opted into parts of these alliances But it's clear that India has its own strategic autonomy and wants to act as an independent state that's free from influence from both the West and also China So just taking a Sino Indian relationship as an example how should China address the pluralism and pluralities that constitute the global south today And how can it forge a sustainable leadership going forward Thank you very much I think one of the most common characteristics Like I said global south countries are highly diverse but they share one thing in common which is the need for development So in the past 23 years like the professor put out these charts China did great a few countries did great but a lot of global south countries have stagnated So it's critical for the global south that some form of globalization continues Now the Western core Western countries maybe it's in their interest to reverse globalization given their own issues So I think China should probably play a if they want to win this win the day is to continue to encourage globalization openness interconnectedness among these developing countries That's one And two is to allow for diversity to encourage diversity So there is the West wanted in the first wave in globalization 1 0 it's driven by so called universal values They wanted something universal Of course the word universal means one Uni right Singular Okay And China wants a pluralistic world They want the opposite of universality They want differences And that's I think that plays to the characteristic of the global south Okay I think we have time for just two more questions We'll go with number six first and then number two Hi Dr Eric Thanks for your talk so far The dry jokes about colonialism have been excellent I've got a very down to earth question So Kazana is an investment house I'm from Kazana I'm Raman My question to you is this right You occupy a unique viewpoint of being a political scientist So you understand politics and you're also an investor So how do you think about deploying capital in a world where there is active top down change Because as you mentioned market forces cannot be relied upon to do the job to drive structural change Thank you Well I mean I could speak to China where I am and where I have my business which is that we I mean I got a lot of colleagues who are just complaining who are just whining okay Because the old days are over The good old days are over There are new things They're not used to it My point is let's stop whining Let's engage the present and embrace the future And the future is in these industries that I talked about That's where the future value will be created If you don't have a stake I put it to you without extraordinary circumstances like a war or anything 10 years from now we will reach these goals Our gross margin of our industrial capacity will get to 25 30 35 off of a denominator of 10 trillion US dollars a year If you don't have a stake in that you're out to lunch Last question Hi good afternoon My name is Mei Yi and I'm from Sol's Energy Thank you so much for painting the picture for us of the old pillars and the new pillars coming forward I'm curious about how that relates to in terms of the Belt and Road Initiative BRI and especially how that relates to countries in ASEAN Given that there were sort of some unhappiness with how BRI has been implemented previously in terms of how it's been accused of being a debt trap diplomacy as well as not utilizing as much local company and local labor for that I'm really interested to hear your view Thank you Debt trap I mean Belt and Road it's an amazing thing that I guess it's just because they control the media Belt and Road is the only project where I could see I could remember that when a loan goes bad it's the borrower that complains not the lender Okay So actually there haven't been many bad loans on Belt and Road And when BRI started 10 years ago exactly 10 years ago actually we never none of us understood the far reaching impact it would have We thought it was just China exporting its capacities and finances But looking back with all these de globalizing forces around us BRI is probably today the strongest globalizing forces in a de globalizing world And I think that means a lot Okay thank you I think that's all we have time for today Please join me for a round of applause for Dr Eric Let's do it

風蕭蕭_Frank

對“一帶一路”的質疑：債務陷阱與當地勞動力利用問題

中國崛起：14億人口的現代化與多極世界的地緣政治緊張

中國經濟的韌性與結構性挑戰：李世默的見解引言

李世默開場：處處充滿焦慮的時代與應對之道

當前對中國經濟的焦慮焦點：房地產、科技與“日本化”擔憂

全球格局變化：逆全球化與新冷戰的逼近

中國製定第十三個五年規劃的時間點（約2015年）

壟斷經濟：未來壟斷者的巨大淨現值

平台經濟的副作用：負麵外部性與技術停滯

中國經濟增長模式轉型：傳統動力的終結（房地產/平台經濟）

中國的兩大錯誤之一：芯片花費超過石油進口額

新的增長機遇：先進製造業技術的挑戰

對抗下的戰略真空期預測：現狀將持續數年

既得利益者的政治布局與優勢

“小院高牆”戰略：高端技術的圍堵

全球南方與中印關係：中國的應對策略

（簡短評論）關於不切實際的“白日夢”

中國經濟曾犯下的兩大錯誤：半導體與汽車工業

回應“一帶一路”質疑：項目成功取決於商業邏輯與成本效率

風蕭蕭_Frank

中國經濟犯下兩大錯 芯片花費超過石油進口 , 半導體與汽車工業

對“一帶一路”的質疑：債務陷阱與當地勞動力利用問題

中國崛起：14億人口的現代化與多極世界的地緣政治緊張

中國經濟的韌性與結構性挑戰：李世默的見解引言

李世默開場：處處充滿焦慮的時代與應對之道

當前對中國經濟的焦慮焦點：房地產、科技與“日本化”擔憂

全球格局變化：逆全球化與新冷戰的逼近

中國製定第十三個五年規劃的時間點（約2015年）

壟斷經濟：未來壟斷者的巨大淨現值

平台經濟的副作用：負麵外部性與技術停滯

中國經濟增長模式轉型：傳統動力的終結（房地產/平台經濟）

中國的兩大錯誤之一：芯片花費超過石油進口額

新的增長機遇：先進製造業技術的挑戰

對抗下的戰略真空期預測：現狀將持續數年

既得利益者的政治布局與優勢

“小院高牆”戰略：高端技術的圍堵

全球南方與中印關係：中國的應對策略

（簡短評論）關於不切實際的“白日夢”

中國經濟曾犯下的兩大錯誤：半導體與汽車工業

回應“一帶一路”質疑：項目成功取決於商業邏輯與成本效率

中國經濟犯下兩大錯芯片花費超過石油進口 , 半導體與汽車工業