In the last ten centuries, the Chinese economy was the world’s largest in at least six. The 21st century is expected to flip from the United States to China, breaking a run which the US started around 1894 when it overtook the British economy. Building on knowledge through discoveries in transistors, microprocessors, Internet, and others, the 20th century was an American century.
But China began to rise with pragmatism through an entirely new economic playbook which took the world by storm. As I wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “China designed and executed a policy that shrank the industrialization process in a mere 25 years — something that many economies took at least a century to do.” I have followed up on that thesis in many briefs for investment banks, postulating that China has already won the future!
Sure, ex-president Donald Trump came and put some pedals. But unfortunately, like the Igbo proverb will say, when you see the Aneke the bird dancing by the roadside, check well as something is beating the music it is dancing to. Yes, China’s competitive advantage is that it is the manufacturing capital of the world – and its advantages are accelerating and compounding daily. You can buy an “iPhone case” and get it shipped from China to New York for $2.87 at eBay. Try to ship a package of the same weight from Atlanta to New York and the United Postal Service will put you behind by at least $7 excluding the content.
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So, how is that cheap logistics possible? That is China’s double play. Make logistics so low and outcompete all SMEs and small manufacturers anywhere in the world. And use that playbook to ramp up development. There is a reason why shipping from China to Lagos is cheaper than transporting from Lagos to Sokoto!
Huawei rose and the US had issues with it, cutting it off from the sources of integrated circuits and processors.
But instead of making space for another nation, the news today is that Xiaomi is now the world’s largest phone maker: “Not long after it displaces Apple to clinch the No. 2 spot for Q2 2021, Xiaomi has taken the first spot as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor for the first time. That’s according to July’s numbers from Counterpoint Research, which has Xiaomi in first with 17.1 percent of the global market, Samsung in second with 15.7 percent, and Apple in third with 14.3 percent.” Xiaomi is a Chinese brand.
Now, Joe Biden, would you cut-off Xiaomi? That would be a waste of time as another Chinese brand will emerge. This is a network effect kind of phenomenon. Yes, when you cut them, the fittest will grow and become dominant because the energy from China is so asymmetric for any other player in the world to have a chance.
Who is playing for Aneke the bird: Huawei gone, Xiaomi come….and we are documenting the ascension of China.
Xiaomi Topples Samsung, Becomes the Biggest Smartphone Maker
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China is rising and winning, because it’s smarter than its western detractors, only that the latter are both dumb and hypocritical.
The question should be, why did Africa accept democracy as the right form of political governance? You can as well blame the continent’s underdevelopment on democracy. Look at all the time and resources we waste on elections, only to throw up crappy creatures as leaders, over and over, and you think we are on track? Do what works for you and block the external noises!
Every strong and enduring empire is forged with blood, not by throwing banters in the legislative halls or demonstrating here and there for all manner of rights and privileges; those things sound great and exciting, but they won’t give you economic power or supremacy in geopolitics, because the world was never configured to be such a nice place. What do you think would have become of China if it had followed western model of democracy and governance? It would have been a chaotic place, perhaps worse than Afghanistan, due to its population.
The West will tell you how undemocratic China is and its human rights abuses, yet they can’t do without China, and they still want to gain access to that ‘demonic’ regime and its ‘oppressed’ citizens, so who are the jokers here?
Economic power will always subdue political power, because when it comes to voting with your wallet, most people are willing to forego their rights in exchange for food and cheaper products; it’s a constant, don’t mind the lies you have been told for decades.
China doesn’t have time to debate immigration and how many genders we should accommodate, it simply wants to dominate the economic space.