Reference News Network reported on October 27 that the Spanish “Herald” website published a review article entitled “They and Us” written by Ramon Aimeric on October 25, stating that Europe and the United States are still working hard to eliminate Coronavirus, and the economy I have encountered great difficulties in returning to normal. China leads the world in fighting the pandemic, and its economy is recovering steadily, leading the world in growth. The full text is excerpted as follows:
The Chinese have returned to work for 6 months. According to recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter increased by 4.9% year-on-year. The industrial machinery in Europe and the United States stopped in mid-March, and the economy began to recover steadily in the summer. However, this is a mirage. Now the second wave of pandemic is threatening this recovery, so that the economy may stagnate again.
The 4.9% growth rate is lower than China’s previous performance, but it is still unimaginable in Europe and the United States. China has resumed operations, while the United States and Europe are still working hard to eliminate the virus and are experiencing great difficulties in returning to normal economic conditions.
China is now leading the world’s growth, occupying a large market share in the export of consumer electronics and medical supplies.
In the short term, data has proven that China has found the best way to deal with the pandemic. China has adopted severe measures to prevent the spread of the virus, using blockade and control measures that we do not like. On the contrary, Western countries have many difficulties in controlling the pandemic. The pandemic has become the root cause of internal conflicts in many countries. So far, they do not know how to get rid of the difficulties.
A few weeks ago, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that Western public opinion (except Italy and Spain) had a very negative evaluation of China’s pandemic management. But in the next few weeks, this evaluation is bound to change.
Some people say that if China had acted more transparently at the beginning of the pandemic, other countries in the world would have 20 days to make better preparations, but this would actually not help. Because the problems in the West are not only related to the lack of medical infrastructure and the complexity of decision-making, but also related to arrogance. We believe that the pandemic is extremely rare and cannot happen to us. Sometimes arrogance is a sign of decline.
In the medium and long term, China’s strong recovery will have a major impact. The pandemic will end one day, and when it ends, the world will become different. The pandemic will become an accelerator of the changes and trends already brewing. Two of these changes are irreversible, one is digitalization, and the other is the decline of Western hegemony.
In the past 20 years, the income and wealth of the western middle class have stagnated or even declined. Globalization is a good business for the elites. It also benefits the non-Western middle class, especially the Asian middle class. They have seen how the gap has narrowed and consumption has reached levels unimaginable 25 years ago.
The latest data show that since the 2008 financial crisis, this process has intensified. If this rate continues, within 20 years, the western middle class will fall out of the circle of 20% of the world’s richest population for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. The elite class also replaces the newcomers with the old, and the current elite must give way to the large number of rich Asians.
China still faces many problems, and it needs to work hard to continue its growth. Since its involvement in the Cold War with the United States, the situation has become more severe. But for now, China has won the war against the pandemic, while the United States has suffered a humiliating disaster in the pandemic. The results of the November 3 general election will hardly change this. As we grew up in the values and culture of the American century, we will soon see the emergence of a long period of Asian hegemony.
