More than 300 leading international business leaders, led by the chief executive officers (CEOs) of America’s 90 largest transnational corporations, including Tim Cook of Apple, Darren Woods of Exxon Mobil and Noel Quinn of HSBC, attended the largest business event in the People’s Republic convened by the State Council, which is the “China Development Forum” (“China Development Forum” /CDF). There, Premier Li Qiang formulated the national and international guidelines of the system founded by Mao Tse Tung in 1949.
In the same week, President Xi Jinping visited the plant that the German chemical company BASF built last year in Hunan province, with an investment of more than $10.5 billion. It is the most advanced chemical complex in the world, superior even to those of BASF in the Federal Republic.
In his opening speech, Li Qiang invited the world’s major investors to participate in a Chinese economy that is in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution based on knowledge and high technology; and underlined how this constitutes an extraordinary business opportunity for the global system and its large companies. Li Qiang also underlined that, in addition to having approved the total opening of the Chinese manufacturing sector – the largest in the world – to foreign investments, the entire service sector has now also begun to open up, and primarily those linked to “digital economy”.
In this way, the Prime Minister confirmed that China’s fundamental strategy consists in systematically opening up its economy in all its sectors and regions, and it is, he specified, the second largest economy in the world (18.6 trillion dollars/ 19% of global GDP).
The State Council also presented a 24-point program, discussed and developed together with transnational companies, aimed at facilitating foreign investments, especially those that contribute to the full deployment of the “digital economy”.
It is what Xi Jinping calls the creation of “new productive forces of advanced quality,” which is the cornerstone of his conversion to a 100% digital economy over the next decade. Therefore, China aims to complete the historic feat of complete digitalization in 2035.
Apple, the largest high-tech company in the United States and the world, has signaled its intention to double its investments in the People’s Republic over the next three to five years. “I think it’s essential,” said Tim Cook, “because China is the future.” The company created by Steve Jobs has more than 200,000 employees in the People’s Republic and adds: “There is no more relevant production chain in today’s world than China.”
Apple’s sales in the Chinese market amounted to $21 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, and more than 80% came from sales of fifth-generation/5-G iPhones. Among the activities in which Apple intends to double investments in 2024 is above all the laboratory it has installed in Shanghai, focused on research and testing its most advanced iPhones, deepening the systematic cooperation it maintains with its Chinese suppliers.
It is clear that for Apple and North American high technology, the advanced science and technology typical of the fourth industrial revolution has an essentially cooperative character, and the incessant competition that characterizes it takes place within that cooperative framework.
The rule applied by large American multinationals is clear and unequivocal: “If you don’t have a strategy in China, you don’t have a global strategy.”
Kristalina Georgieva, Director General of the International Monetary Fund, emphasized that if the People’s Republic steps up the development of domestic demand on the basis of the development of its “digital economy”, it can increase its GDP by more than 20% in the next 15 years. years, which is equivalent to 3.5 billion dollars. This appreciation has direct importance for the world economy because China accounts for 35% of its annual growth.
In short, the conflict that exists in the United States between the geopolitical struggle with China – its political system, media and public opinion – and the process of global capitalist accumulation is largely resolved in favor of this last.
This is a crucial year for the United States because the presidential succession between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is resolved in the November 5 elections.
The United States is at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution, and the importance of artificial intelligence in the world’s leading economy has begun to manifest itself in all its glory. And it is experiencing an extraordinary process of geopolitical weakening caused by its internal political crisis, centered on the weakness of President Joe Biden.
History is not deterministic, but there is a determinism in history. What remains to be determined are the means and conditions – that is, the politics – by which this historical certainty will be realized.
Source: Clarin
