Recently, an increasing number of countries have released their GDP figures for the first quarter of this year, and we have observed a significant decline in GDP growth rates in several countries, primarily due to the United States.
The United States has consistently attempted to exploit other nations, primarily through the use of capital and orders. However, regardless of the method employed, the underlying strategy is to first create dependency and then suddenly withdraw it.
It appears that in the foreseeable future, more countries may encounter similar issues.
Will such a problem arise in China?
01, Vietnam's Situation is Troubling
Vietnam, which was once the most promising Asian country to replicate last year's highest growth rate this year, has already fallen from grace.
It is important to note that last year, Vietnam's economy frequently stood out, yet this year, Vietnam's first-quarter GDP has hit a 12-year low, with exports alone experiencing a 12% decline.
Last year, Vietnam's GDP growth was robust, and manufacturing orders continued to increase, even suggesting the potential to take over China's position as a manufacturing hub.
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However, Vietnam has a fatal weakness: it is overly reliant on exports. If external export volumes falter, Vietnam's economy is affected in every aspect.
Moreover, its manufacturing industry chain is not complete. What exists within Vietnam's borders is only one or two links in the entire chain, often the mid-to-low-end manufacturing segments, with the majority of the industry chain located outside of Vietnam.This strong dependence is also tightly constraining the path of Vietnam's economic growth.
02, South Korea and Singapore
Similar situations are not limited to Vietnam alone.
South Korea's semiconductor material foreign trade export volume has been halved, and South Korea's GDP in the first quarter is also not optimistic.
South Korea is also predicted that this year's GDP may still show a negative value.
At the same time, Singapore's GDP data is also astonishing, Singapore's first quarter GDP only has a growth of 0.1%, barely maintaining growth, and not showing a recession.
In just a few months, the GDP of these countries has undergone earth-shaking changes. It's a bit puzzling. What's wrong with these countries?
This requires us to start again from the perspective of the United States' harvest.
03, Two kinds of harvest
We often say that the United States' harvest is analyzed from the perspective of capital.The United States initially adopts a loose monetary policy, leading to the excessive issuance of currency, which results in a substantial influx of funds into other emerging countries, creating a dependency on these funds.
With an abundance of capital, the economy naturally experiences rapid growth, and the stock and real estate markets can also rise swiftly. However, this kind of prosperity is often fleeting; once the U.S. begins to tighten its monetary policy, funds immediately flow back to the U.S., turning the temporary boom into a bubble.
In addition to this method, the U.S. also fosters dependency by generating a large number of manufacturing orders, which affects emerging countries that are primarily focused on manufacturing.
For instance, last year Vietnam was overwhelmed with orders and had to continuously expand its production lines and workforce.
But once the U.S. economy falls into a recession and contracts its orders, exports from several countries, including Vietnam, experience a significant decline in a short period of time.
It is evident that as long as there is dependency on the U.S., it is hard to escape being harvested.
04, China's Increase by 4.5%
However, these issues have not occurred in our case.
Thus, although the GDP growth rate of other Asian countries plummeted in the first quarter of this year, our growth rate rebounded significantly, reaching 4.5%.
Firstly, we do not have a significant dependency on U.S. orders. In recent quarters, our export growth rate to the U.S. has been far lower than our export growth rate to other economies. The U.S. is no longer our largest trading partner, and of course, we are no longer the largest trading partner of the U.S.The lack of heavy dependence on American orders naturally reduces the impact of the American economic recession.
Our dependence on American funds is also not significant. In the past, more than 1/3 of our foreign exchange reserves were U.S. Treasury bonds. If we said there was a certain dependence on American funds at that time, there is no longer any dependence now. Therefore, the amount of U.S. Treasury bonds we have sold in recent years has exceeded 400 billion U.S. dollars.
Although the United States continues to raise interest rates, China has not experienced capital flight. On the contrary, more and more funds are pouring into our country.