What is the difference between the theory of comparative advantage and China's foreign trade development strategy?

Comparative advantage theory is the basis of traditional international trade theory, which mainly refers to comparative cost theory and factor endowment theory. According to this theory, different factor endowments in different countries lead to different factor prices, and the proportion of factors used in products in different countries is also different, so the cost of products in different countries is different, which leads to international trade. The trade pattern of comparative advantage generally shows that developed countries should export capital and technology-intensive products, while developing countries should export labor and resource-intensive products. In 1980s, Professor Porter put forward the theory of competitive advantage, that is, Porter's diamond theory. The question to be answered by this theory is why a country can gain long-term international competitiveness in a specific industry and the foreign trade strategy that China should adopt. China can neither adopt a foreign trade strategy of one-sided pursuit of expanding exports, nor exchange excessive opening of imports for expanding exports. Protecting the domestic market and industry is crucial. The only question is which industries should be protected and which industries should be opened.

Theoretical analysis on the protection of infant industries points out that the most favorable trade policy for the economic development of developing countries is to protect industries with relatively low productivity but great potential for improving productivity, which can raise the technology-intensive degree of domestic industries to a new level. China has a good frame of reference when choosing the object of trade protection according to this consideration, that is, the existing industrial structure.

Before turning to the reform and opening-up policy, in order not to be dominated by superpowers such as the United States and the Soviet Union, China devoted itself to establishing an independent industrial system, thus forming a relatively complete industrial system, including almost any kind of industrial sector. Judging from the level of science and technology in China now and then, many of the industrial departments established in this way must be those with poor product performance and high cost, which leads to the lack of international competitiveness, especially those with higher technical content required for production. This is very obvious in the aviation industry and other departments. After the reform and opening up, most enterprises in this industry have fallen into the predicament of loss and become an economic burden.

Judging from the fact that economic development needs a technology-intensive industrial structure, the production of these high-tech products, which are not internationally competitive at present, is the production department that should be vigorously developed in China's industrial upgrading in the coming decades. The growth of an industry needs time and experience, and it can never be completed at once with funds to buy equipment.

Taiwan Province's economy was developed enough in the early 1990s, but when it wanted to build its own aviation industry, there was no basic support. At that time, in order to develop its own aircraft manufacturing industry, Taiwan Province Province tried to buy McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company of the United States, but it failed because of the intervention of the American government. This example shows how important the industrial base of an economy is, and it is the most precious wealth of society.

If we take appropriate measures to protect and support the production of these high-tech products that are not competitive in the world at present, and preserve and develop their technical strength, it will greatly accelerate the improvement of the technical capacity of the whole country and prepare the pillar industrial sector for the economy when the country reaches the developed level in the future. If these uncompetitive sectors are allowed to die out in the market competition, the state still has to solve the employment and living relief problems of those employees who are often high-tech in these sectors, otherwise it will bear a heavy economic burden. The best gain and loss is not to give up, but to further support and develop the production of these departments. The main way to support the production of these existing high-tech products is to protect the domestic market of these departments in foreign trade, in addition to subsidies given by the state through various channels.

The general law of economic development is that a new product produced by a country usually occupies its own market first and then develops into export.

. For a country with a large population like China, as long as the per capita income can be rapidly increased, any high-tech products can have an extremely broad market in China. For the products with the highest technical level, such as passenger planes, China is already one of the countries with the largest demand in the world. The only problem is to protect our domestic market with appropriate trade policies.

Judging from China's current production and trade patterns, China's technology-intensive industrial structure has reached such a level: China's technology content is equivalent to that of shipbuilding and household appliances production, and its departments are already internationally competitive, because China has started to export a large number of low-tech household appliances and ships. In this case, China should completely abandon the trade protection measures for the sectors with lower technology content than those produced by these products, and concentrate the limited possibilities of tariff and non-tariff trade protection on the sectors with higher technology content than those produced by these products. Those low-tech production departments that give up protection in principle range from textile and garment production departments to steel production departments. In the domestic production of these departments, only a few high-tech products need to be protected. Therefore, trade protection measures to restrict the import of products in these sectors should focus on varieties with relatively high technical content, such as some special textile fabrics, some special alloy steels or steel products. Among these low-tech production sectors, only one sector should be an exception, that is, the agricultural sector. Although the technical content of agricultural products is generally low, China should implement high trade protection measures for agricultural products to protect its agricultural production as much as possible. This is not only to ensure China's agricultural and food security, but also to protect the interests of farmers who still account for more than half of China's population.

According to this foreign trade strategy, the domestic industrial sectors that China needs to protect at present include: chemical industry (including petrochemical industry), machinery and equipment manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing and high-tech parts production in computer industry (such as integrated circuit production and software development). The state should use all possible tariff and non-tariff trade protection measures to protect domestic production in these sectors. Therefore, it is necessary to make major adjustments to the current tariffs and other foreign trade policies. At present, China's tariff and foreign trade policies encourage enterprises to use foreign-made equipment instead of domestic equipment, and encourage enterprises to use imported aircraft instead of domestic aircraft. This situation should not continue.

At present, the import of machinery and equipment accounts for a large part of China's imports. The shift to key protected industries with high-tech content may lead to an increase in China's imports, thus slowing down the growth of foreign trade as a whole, and even reducing the proportion of foreign trade in China's GDP. In the process of further rapid economic growth, it is normal for the statistical dependence on foreign trade to decline. As far as China is concerned, as long as the decline is gradual rather than sharp, there is no need to make a fuss until the proportion of foreign trade in GDP drops to 20%.

China's real economic problem in the future is that China's per capita resources are far below the world average. To become an economically developed country, China must become a country with high-tech products, including machinery and equipment, as its pillar industries, and focus on the production of high-tech products such as machinery and equipment in the international division of labor system. China's economic development is a process in this direction. In order to complete this development, China must fully protect and develop this industry in its foreign trade. If the transition to this economic structure can be completed, China will mainly import resources and primary products, especially crude oil; The transformation to this economic structure is also the transformation of import structure to primary products such as crude oil. China must now prepare for and start this transformation, so it is necessary to make major adjustments to the whole foreign trade strategy and the whole country's economic, scientific and technological policies.

The biggest adjustment of foreign trade strategy is to go all out to protect our equipment and machinery manufacturing and high-tech industries with tariff and non-tariff means. On the one hand, it will accelerate China's technology-intensive industrial structure, thus accelerating China's long-term economic growth; On the other hand, it will save foreign exchange earnings from exports to import oil and other important raw materials. On the premise of successfully doing this, China should learn from the American strategy, reduce the exploitation of its own oil resources, and store its own oil resources as a strategic reserve to deal with major international crises. In terms of foreign economic relations, China should also try its best to participate in oil development in Russia and Central Asia and reach agreements with these countries in exchange for oil and gas supply after investment and development. This will diversify China's future crude oil import sources. On the one hand, it will spread the supply risk. More importantly, it will enable China to resist possible western embargoes and blockades in the future. In line with these foreign strategies, China should combine the implementation of the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, focus on the application of energy-saving technologies, especially fuel-saving technologies, and in the process of independently developing advanced technologies and acquiring independent intellectual property rights, take the development of new energy, especially pollution-free energy (wind energy and solar energy), as one of the key points of independent scientific and technological development, and strive for a breakthrough.