Beijing Daily Client | Reporter Bai Bo
The "Academic China·2022" International Summit Forum with the theme of "Civilization in Great Changes: China and the World" opened in Beijing on August 26. Li Daokui, dean of the Institute of Chinese Economic Thought and Practice at Tsinghua University, said in his opening speech that under the profound changes unseen in a century, China will become the largest contributor to global economic growth by 2035 and 2050, and The leader of new economic globalization.
"Slightly Optimistic" Estimate: China's economy will account for 34% of the global economy in 2050
What role will China's economy play in the face of major changes unseen in a century? Li Daokui said that by 2035 and 2050, China will continue to be the largest contributor to global economic growth and the leader of new economic globalization in the long term.
"Let's take a brief look at historical data. Since 2001, China's economy has been the largest contributor to global economic growth, with an average contribution of more than 30%. By 2035 or 2050, China will be the largest contributor to global economic growth. "I'm afraid this pattern will not change." Li Daokui said that at this stage, China not only has a large economic scale, but also has great economic growth potential.
After spending a lot of effort to sort out historical data, Li Daokui's team concluded that it is a "very conservative" estimate that by 2050, China's economy will account for 25% of the global economy, which is roughly equivalent to the UK leading the industrial revolution. The first round of globalization after , the proportion of the British Empire and its colonies in the global economy, and the second round of globalization after the United States led the second round of industrial revolution in 1950, the proportion of the U.S. economy in the global economy. A "slightly optimistic" estimate is that by 2050, China's economy will account for about 34% of the global economy, basically restoring China's share of the world economy in the late 1600s.
Li Daokui pointed out that to achieve the "slightly optimistic" goal, China's economic growth rate will be 2.5 percentage points higher than the global economic growth rate before 2035, and 2 percentage points higher than the global economic growth rate from 2035 to 2050. In the past 20 years since 2002, the average annual growth rate of China's economy has been 5 percentage points higher than that of the world.
China has met the three conditions for becoming a leader in new economic globalization
Based on historical experience and academic analysis, Li Daokui said that China has met the three conditions for becoming a leader in new economic globalization. First of all, the leader of the new economic globalization must gradually occupy a certain commanding height in advanced technology and have certain guiding power. Only by mastering advanced technologies and industries can we expand our new technology industries in the process of globalization. New technology industries have already made early investments and have economies of scale for expansion, and China is catching up in this regard.
He cited figures and said that China has ranked first in the world in terms of the number of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) for three consecutive years, the number of published scientific papers, and the number of citations. Engineering majors account for 40% of China's tens of millions of university graduates every year, four times that of the United States and more than the total number of engineering graduates from India, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea. Technological innovation requires a lot of experience accumulation and personnel investment, which are also important advantages.
Secondly, the leader of new economic globalization must have a large domestic market. Only in this way can we take the lead in opening up our own markets when some countries are temporarily unwilling to open up trade and investment, and then leverage, lead, and guide the opening up of other countries. Li Daokui pointed out that China's economy ranks first in the world in terms of market volume of tradable products. For example, the continued holding of the China Import Expo under the impact of the epidemic is a concrete measure of conscious and proactive opening up.
Third, the leader of the new economic globalization must have certain ability to redistribute economic interests. In the mid-19th century, the United Kingdom launched a series of social welfare reforms, and the United States launched a series of social welfare reforms in 1939, both of which largely supported their efforts to join or lead the globalization mechanism. Li Daokui said that China also has experience in this regard, and now it has proposed a beautiful vision of common prosperity, which to a large extent will also improve China's benefit distribution mechanism in the process of economic globalization.
Should learn from China’s experience to form a new global theory
In order to realize the expectation of becoming the largest contributor to world economic development and the leader of new economic globalization, Li Daokui said that China must continue to work hard in four aspects.
We must first straighten out the mechanism of scientific and technological innovation and further release the potential of scientific and technological innovation. Second, we need to unleash the development potential of the unified domestic market. Third, we must work hard, be proactive, pragmatic, and seek truth from facts, and gradually implement the beautiful vision of common prosperity without affecting the driving force of economic growth. Finally, Chinese humanities and social sciences scholars must work together with scholars around the world to sublimate a series of new knowledge and new academic concepts of universal significance in the process of global modernization from the successful practices of China and other countries.
"The basic theoretical framework of my field of economics was formed after the previous two rounds of industrial revolutions. Now, we need to innovate, learn from China's economic development experience, and upgrade it into a theory so that peers around the world can accept it. This is both a It’s an honor but also an arduous task,” Li Daokui said. The
"Academic China·2022" International Summit Forum was hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and was held in a combined online and offline manner. More than 100 scholars from China and 15 countries participated. The "Academic China" International Summit Forum, also known as the "100-person Forum", invites top experts in my country's philosophy and social sciences and internationally renowned scholars to hold regular and continuous meetings around a theme to comprehensively display "Academic China" and "Theoretical China" "China in Philosophy and Social Sciences" aims to create an academic forum brand with important influence in the world, making it an important platform for prospering Chinese academics, developing China theory , and disseminating Chinese thoughts.
