What will happen to the world in 2023?
The editorial department of Observer Network has set up the "Top 15 Predictions for 2023". Under each prediction, the views of our columnists are selected as a reference, and readers are invited to participate in voting. By the end of this year, we will take stock of these predictions again to see which predictions have become reality, which predictions have failed, and what other unexpected things have happened in 2023. (See the end of the article for the voting column)
1. Will the Russia-Ukraine war end?
In the predictions for 2022, many people did not expect that the biggest black swan event that year was the Russia-Ukraine war, which profoundly changed the international geopolitical landscape and plunged the world into an energy crisis , a food crisis, economic crisis ... The prophets who originally thought that Russia would be resolved quickly did not expect that this war has been delayed to this day. Is it possible that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will end in 2023?
"In 2023, the biggest black swan may be the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war, and even the use of nuclear weapons . If by next year, Russia can still survive economically and on the battlefield, and even has some advantages on the battlefield, then It means that Russia has successfully survived the sanctions. The pressure is coming to the United States..." - Jin Canrong ( Professor of School of International Relations, Renmin University of China)
2. Will there be multiple peaks of infection in the new crown epidemic?
At the beginning of 2023, China experienced a peak of new coronavirus infections, with the statistical infection rate in Sichuan, Beijing and other places reaching 80%. With the adjustment of China's epidemic prevention policy and the possibility of mutation of virus , the new crown epidemic has not dissipated.
"In my personal opinion, if no new variants come in and emerge, then the trend of the epidemic should be maintained at a relatively low level, and the possibility of another peak of infection with the same strain is not very high. Unless there are some special circumstances, such as a large gathering that causes a large number of people to gather, there may be the possibility of another outbreak, but this possibility is very small. Although the virus's immunity is partly It is cross-linked, but it is not completely resistant to new virus variants. Therefore, when new virus variants come, it is more likely that there will be a small peak again, but the possibility of a peak exceeding the current one is almost non-existent.” - Mao Enqiang (Member of the Shanghai New Coronavirus High-level Expert Treatment Team, Director of the Emergency Department of Shanghai Ruijin Hospital)
3. Will there be a more pathogenic epidemic strain of the new coronavirus, and the epidemic will make waves again?
From the original strain to delta, omikron, and various branches... In the past three years, we have witnessed the continuous mutation of the new coronavirus. After the relaxation of epidemic prevention and control measures, everyone is generally worried that the new coronavirus will mutate at this level again, bringing about stronger transmission of infection and once again impacting the life that has just returned to normal.
"Viruses always have the 'impulse' to mutate, but human active immunity or immunity generated by infection and repeated infections will restrict the direction of the new coronavirus mutation. After the emergence of the Omicron family, the evolution of the new coronavirus has been restricted, and it is extremely difficult to 'jump out' from the Omicron family." - Zhang Wenhong (Director of the Infectious Diseases Department, Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University)
4. Will China's economic growth exceed 5.5%?
In the local two sessions at the beginning of the new year, various regions have made full efforts to plan for economic development in 2023. With the adjustment of China's epidemic prevention measures, everyone's expectations for consumption and exports have also begun to increase, and we look forward to the Chinese market ushering in new vitality.
"If the growth in 2022 is about 3.5%, the base is relatively low, which should push up next year's growth. Coupled with the current optimization and adjustment of epidemic policies, the overall trend next year is restorative growth. The first half of the year may be difficult, and the growth in the second half of the year will be stronger. Taking these factors into account, I predict that next year's economic growth rate should be higher than 5%, and I hope it can reach 6%.”——Zhang Jun (Dean of Fudan School of Economics, Director of China Economic Research Center)
5. Will Jiangsu GDP surpass Guangdong and become China’s GDP? The “Big Brother” of the Chinese Economy?
In 2022, Guangdong topped the list of all provinces in the country with a GDP of 12.8 trillion, ranking first for 34 consecutive years. Jiangsu, which has always been “competing” with Guangzhou, also climbed to the 12 trillion level for the first time. The difference is less than 800 billion. In 2023, Guangzhou has set its GDP growth target at more than 5%, and Jiangsu has also set it at about 5%. Jiangsu and Guangxi will start to compete for the top spot in GDP.
"Suzhou and Guangzhou have many pillar industries. The big difference is that the position of Guangdong's industrial enterprises in the industry chain is polarized. In addition to industry still playing an important role in driving the economy in some cities in Guangdong, the financial services industry also plays an important role in economic development. Most of Jiangsu's industrial enterprises are in the middle reaches of the industrial chain, and it is difficult to obtain funds. The resident population is small and the growth is slow. However, they are not absolutely without advantages. Whether Jiangsu can be ranked first in GDP among all provinces in China in the future depends on whether Jiangsu's talent advantage can offset its numerical disadvantage. ”——Yu Pengkun (independent writer)
6. Will housing prices in first- and second-tier cities generally see a significant increase?
In 2022, China’s real estate industry will be in turmoil. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics According to statistics, national real estate development investment in 2022 was 13.2895 billion yuan, a decrease of 10.0% from the previous year; of which, residential investment was 10.0646 billion yuan, a decrease of 9.5%. Serious crises occurred in many leading real estate companies, leading to "loan and supply suspension" incidents in many places. The expected arrival has also raised expectations for the real estate market in 2023. Kang Yi, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that it is preliminary judged that the drag on the entire economy in 2023 will not be greater than in 2022.
"In 2022, the real estate market will be affected. First, the supply of commercial housing is too large, and it is difficult for housing prices to rise until it is cleared; second, suppressing housing prices as a policy for real estate regulation has not been effectively corrected; third, there is still a one-sided interpretation of "housing is for living, not for speculation", which has become the 'Sword of Damocles' over the market. Imbalanced real estate policies have led to massive economic bleeding. The first and most urgent thing is to stop the bleeding. As long as real estate does not return to its normal heartbeat, it will be difficult for any other policy to bring the economy back to life. ”—— Zhao Yanjing ( professor of Xiamen University, vice chairman of China Urban Planning Society )
7. Will China’s natural population growth rate be lower than 2022? -0.60‰?
At the end of 2022, the national population was 1,411.75 million, a decrease of 850,000 from the end of the previous year. The number of births in the year was 9.56 million, and the birth rate was 6.77‰; the number of deaths was 10.41 million. The population mortality rate is 7.37‰; the natural population growth rate is -0.60‰. This is the first time that China’s population has experienced negative growth. Although the country has opened up the three-child policy and provided various subsidies in education, medical care, and housing, young people’s desire to have children does not seem to have increased significantly in 2023. If the economy and epidemic situation are expected to be better than in previous years, will the negative population growth situation be reversed?
"Now the entire economic and social development continues to point to low fertility rates. Changes in population fertility rates depend on endogenous variables, and endogenous variables are determined by the level of economic and social development. With the development of economy and society, the improvement of human education level, the improvement of women's status, the increase of female labor force participation rate, the fertility rate of developed and developing countries around the world is declining, and this big trend has not changed. ”——元新 (Professor of the School of Economics of Nankai University, Vice President of the Chinese Population Society)
8. In 2022, the Federal Reserve ’s continuous interest rate hikes have severely damaged the economies of various countries. This year’s global economy Will a financial crisis break out?
In 2022, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates seven times, becoming the largest overall rate increase in the United States since the end of the Cold War. From 2004 to 2006, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 17 times in a row, which became the trigger for the 2008 financial crisis, and history seems to be repeating itself. The International Monetary Fund predicted last year that the global economic growth rate in 2023 may be 2.7%, lower than the 3.2% in 2022 (both forecast values). The World Bank on January 10 sharply lowered its global economic growth forecast for this year to 1.7%, which will be the third worst performance in the past 30 years.
"The economic slowdown in the West will undoubtedly intensify, as all major Western central banks are raising interest rates to curb inflation. These central banks have all said that despite the severe economic slowdown, they will be forced to raise interest rates further - the opposite of the rate cuts needed to limit the economic slowdown. Therefore, we can make a clear prediction: The economic slowdown in Western economies has just begun - the overall economic growth data in the West will be worse in 2023 than in 2022." - Luo Siyi (British economist, former Director of the London Economic and Business Policy Office)
9. Will China's automobile exports exceed Japan's in 2023?
In 2022, China's automobile exports will increase by 54.4% year-on-year, reaching 3.11 million units. China has surpassed Germany to become the world's second largest automobile exporter, approaching Japan, which ranks first. Japanese automakers exported a total of 3.2 million vehicles overseas in the first 11 months of 2022, and exports for the whole of 2022 are expected to decline slightly from 3.82 million vehicles in 2021. Among them, the most eye-catching performance is electric vehicles. Electric vehicle shipments in 2022 will increase by 120% year-on-year to 679,000 units. Electric vehicles have become one of the important pillars of China's automobile exports. In contrast, Japanese automobile companies have always been hesitant to enter the electric vehicle market.
"China's fuel vehicles are relatively cheap and have greater competitiveness in developing countries. China's electric vehicle exports are strong, especially BYD, which basically produces its own chips. When other vehicles had to stop production because they could not get the chips, BYD maintained production and was able to export in large quantities. In addition, China's foreign-funded car companies can also export more products. The three reasons combined In terms of exports, it is relatively certain that China will surpass Japan in the future. However, as to whether it can surpass Japan this year, since the gap between the two is not a small number, it may be difficult to achieve this goal in 2023. "——Chen Gang ( Japanese economic researcher)
10. Will Chinese chips achieve mass production of 7nm?
Currently, the most advanced process chip that can be mass-produced in mainland China is 14nm. In 2021, the yield rate of SMIC's 14nm will reach 95%, already catching up with platform Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. And 7nm has also been put into small-scale production. In contrast, TSMC and Samsung have already achieved mass production of 3nm chips, and Samsung even announced that it will achieve mass production of chips using the 1.4nm process technology in 2027. Can Chinese chip technology close the gap in 2023?
"The development of the chip industry theoretically follows Moore's Law . Before the 28nm process, Moore's Law went smoothly. But in the 16nm/14nm era, chip design costs have climbed to hundreds of millions of dollars, and factory construction costs have reached 15 billion U.S. dollars. Products such as CPU and DRAM that benefit from Moore's Law have slow performance improvements. It has not benefited from advanced manufacturing processes. At present, the mainstream manufacturing model in the chip industry is system-on-chip (SoC), while the Chiplet model goes in the opposite direction, using module production and flexible configuration, which also provides new opportunities for the Chinese chip industry. "——Science and Technology Force (Technology Columnist)
11. The British political chaos continues, Prime Minister Sunak Can Prime Minister Sunak survive until the end of the year?
From Boris Johnson to Elizabeth Truss to Rishi Sunak , the UK in 2022 can be said to have staged a "replacement drama." Sunak, who took over the Prime Minister's baton, in addition to reducing government debt, lowering inflation and restoring economic growth, also promised to reduce the record waiting list of the British National Health Service and take more measures to deal with illegal immigration. It promises a lot, but how much can it be fulfilled?
"In today's Britain after Brexit, the Conservative Party itself has split into multiple interest groups that cannot even be reconciled with each other. The Conservative Party's civil war has also become an absolute theme in British politics after 2016.In the post-Brexit UK, under the governance of the multi-fragmented Conservative Party, there is no "community" in the country's common interests, let alone "harmony" between political parties and different interest groups within society. In this embarrassing situation, the short-lived Prime Minister Truss was able to leave her name in British political history. As for what happens next, no one cares. ”——Yin Zhiguang (Professor of the Department of International Politics, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University)
12. Will the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives McCarthy “visit” Taiwan?
After 15 rounds of voting, which can be called a historic "humiliating moment" in the U.S. Congress, Kevin McCarthy was finally elected as the Speaker of the 118th House of Representatives of the United States with a narrow margin of 4 votes. This "anti-China pioneer" established a campaign against China just three days after taking office. China's special committee, everyone is also paying attention to whether he will fulfill his "commitment" and "visit" Taiwan. And Pelosi "visit" Taiwan lessons, McCarthy is not ignorant of the current domestic politics in the United States. atmosphere, the special status of the Taiwan issue in the U.S. strategy toward China, and the overall strategic tendency that the U.S. government has shown, combined with some of McCarthy's personal political characteristics, McCarthy's visit to Taiwan in 2023 is currently an event that has a high probability of happening. Moreover, based on the demand for domestic partisan political struggle in the United States, and McCarthy's endogenous motivation to make a political comeback after a humiliating speaker election for a century, he may form a systematic and series rather than a single impact and challenge on some major issues in China. He will strive to restore his unfavorable situation in domestic politics by establishing himself as a political strongman against China and tough against major external threats to the United States. Therefore, the probability of a visit is higher, and the probability of coming up with new tricks is also higher compared to Pelosi. "—— Shen Yi (Professor of the Department of International Politics, Fudan University)
13. Will the Chinese women's football team enter the top eight in the 2023 Women's World Cup?
In the 2022 Women's Asian Cup final, the Chinese women's football team finally defeated South Korea 3:2 and won the ninth Asian Cup crown in team history. Qatar World Cup in the same year has once again ignited the enthusiasm and expectations of Chinese fans. The 2023 Women's Football World Cup will start on July 20. With the glory of the "nine crowns" of the Asian Cup, will the Chinese women's football team surprise us again?
"Looking at the Chinese women's football team's draw for this World Cup objectively, perhaps the goal is more to score 1 point. If you want to win a game, you need more effort. As the new European Cup champion, the biggest feature of the England women's football team is its strong impact. They advance very quickly on both wings and are good at continuous crosses from both sides. This is probably something that the Chinese women's football team cannot withstand, and it is very possible to lose a big score.
The Danish women's football team can be regarded as the strongest team in C. In this world preliminaries, the Danish girl won all 8 games, scoring 40 goals and conceding 2 goals to secure her promotion spot early. Judging from the European Cup, their strength is not necessarily inferior to Spain, which can compete with the England women's football team.
There is another opponent in this group, the winner from the play-offs. Chile and Senegal are relatively stronger, especially during the Olympics, when the Chilean women's football team almost defeated the Japanese team . In addition, when facing Canada and the England women's football team, the Chilean team also fought hard. Especially the 1-2 defeat to the eventual champion team Canada was quite impressive.
In the last Women's World Cup , Jia Xiuquan led the Chinese women's football team to lose 0-1 to Germany, win 1-0 in South Africa, and draw with Spain to reach the top 16. It is really difficult to repeat the results this time. This is not because we are getting weaker, but because our opponents are getting stronger a little faster. ”——Li Tianhao (Sports Analyst)
14. Can China’s movie box office exceed 40 billion in 2023?
The impact of the epidemic on the domestic film and television industry for three years is obvious: In 2019, China’s movie box office was 64.2 billion, which dropped to 20.4 billion in 2020, which is less than 1/3 of the previous year.In 2021, the domestic epidemic situation stabilized, and the movie box office also saw a brief rebound. The annual box office number was 47.2 billion, but in 2022, it plummeted to 30 billion. As China relaxes epidemic prevention and control, it has also brought hope to the Chinese film market. The pre-sales for the Spring Festival in January alone have exceeded 180 million, and the box office is expected to exceed 10 billion, which is a good start for Chinese films.
"My personal opinion is that it will reach 40 billion, but it will not exceed too much. However, the box office of Chinese movies will increase significantly from the end of 2023 to 2024.
With the adjustment of epidemic policies, the audience and consumers of the movie market have been greatly released. More people are paying for tickets to go to the cinema. This is undoubtedly the film market. The biggest benefit to the market. After more than 20 years of development in the Chinese film market, film consumption has already become a "rigorous demand" deeply tied to the entire personal consumption market. With the recovery of China's economy, the film market will definitely not be deserted in 2023. Despite many major setbacks, there will be a box office of 30 billion. For 2023, 40 billion is not a particularly difficult number.
But on the other hand, film projects are a long-term process from investment to launch, and there is a fixed cycle from recovery to prosperity. Due to the uncertainty caused by the epidemic in 2022, investment and production will be greatly affected, so this year's market is mainly small and medium-sized genre films and the consumption of previous stocks. What cannot be ignored is the wave of movie theater closures in 2022, and theater chains have to slow down. It will take some time. Overall, the film market in 2023 should gain strength in the recovery. If there is no major recurrence of the epidemic and society remains stable and prosperous, 2024 will be a year of great development.” - Xinzhi (film critic, speaker of Xinzhi Shuo)
15. Can humans produce specific drugs for the new coronavirus in 2023?
From Pfizer Paxlovid to Azivudine, everyone’s diligent pursuit of specific drugs is exactly their expectation for a successful fight against the new coronavirus. But the reality always seems to be cruel. There is no concept of "special medicine" scientifically and legally. It can only be a "special therapeutic medicine", not a "miraculous medicine".
"There are no 'special medicines' in either Western medicine or Chinese medicine, let alone 'miracle medicine'. Generally, patients can use ordinary cold medicines, and there is no need to pursue any particular medicine, including the 'three medicines and three prescriptions'. Commonly produced local cold medicines are also fully usable. After infection with the new coronavirus, strictly speaking, the role of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine is only auxiliary treatment, helping to alleviate some symptoms, control the development of the disease, and reduce the risk of becoming severe. Even' "Small molecule specific drugs", their mechanism is only to inhibit virus replication, but not to eradicate the virus. Moreover, the treatment window of this type of drugs is relatively narrow, only effective within 5 days after infection, and should not be used in combination with statins. "——Zhang Boli (Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering)
The answers to each of the above questions are divided into two options: "yes/no", sorted according to the question number, and each question can only be selected once. welcomes readers to vote enthusiastically and share your views on these topics in the comment area. We will select outstanding reviewers at the end of the year and give away exquisite gifts ~
Source | Observer Network
