The UIBE professor argues that weak domestic demand, structural change and Western investment restrictions matter more than any retreat from opening-up.
“Structural compatibility” marks a subtle shift from openness as access to openness as selection. Foreign capital remains welcome when it reinforces technological upgrading and supply-chain security. The difficulty is that compatibility may be judged only after investment, through procurement, data, and standards. Predictability—not formal market access—may therefore become the real test of openness.
Thank you for translating this — "structural compatibility" is the honest phrase, and it deserves more attention than the headline decline. When the reason for inviting capital shifts from filling gaps to acquiring capability, the invitation carries its own expiry date. Ford signed a technical-assistance contract with Moscow in 1929 to raise the Gorky auto works; by the mid-thirties the pupils no longer needed the teacher. The 45 per cent fall is priced; the change in what the door is for is not. Which investors still hold something China cannot yet build — that is the real negative list.
I think the biggest most intractable problem is that FDI no longer see 'win-win' and instead interpret it as 'heads I win, tails you lose'. Western successes in China don't have a profile in comparison to western failures from KFC and Starbucks to the VW Group. Since this 'losing hand' has taken hold as a mindset it's very hard to break, especially since they are also told that 'they are in decline, while the east is rising'. Messages that are isolated implicit in formation and for may even be for government audiences, compound in odd ways in reality to create a mental malady. I am not sure what the solution may be, given the rise of populism I am not sure I like the direction of travel either.
“Structural compatibility” marks a subtle shift from openness as access to openness as selection. Foreign capital remains welcome when it reinforces technological upgrading and supply-chain security. The difficulty is that compatibility may be judged only after investment, through procurement, data, and standards. Predictability—not formal market access—may therefore become the real test of openness.
Thank you for translating this — "structural compatibility" is the honest phrase, and it deserves more attention than the headline decline. When the reason for inviting capital shifts from filling gaps to acquiring capability, the invitation carries its own expiry date. Ford signed a technical-assistance contract with Moscow in 1929 to raise the Gorky auto works; by the mid-thirties the pupils no longer needed the teacher. The 45 per cent fall is priced; the change in what the door is for is not. Which investors still hold something China cannot yet build — that is the real negative list.
I think the biggest most intractable problem is that FDI no longer see 'win-win' and instead interpret it as 'heads I win, tails you lose'. Western successes in China don't have a profile in comparison to western failures from KFC and Starbucks to the VW Group. Since this 'losing hand' has taken hold as a mindset it's very hard to break, especially since they are also told that 'they are in decline, while the east is rising'. Messages that are isolated implicit in formation and for may even be for government audiences, compound in odd ways in reality to create a mental malady. I am not sure what the solution may be, given the rise of populism I am not sure I like the direction of travel either.