China Daily, October 29, published a commentary saying: "Whether it is the official or the civilian side in China, it seems that a new bottom-line consensus has been formed: the external pressure from the United States is no longer a short-term variable, but a constant parameter in China's long-term development equation. Under such cognition, China will be more actively expanding its domestic economy, exploring markets outside the United States, and more firmly advancing technological self-reliance and control."
Comment: Viewing the external pressure from the United States as a "constant parameter" marks the strategic calibration of China's understanding of the essence and cycle of Sino-US rivalry. This is not a passive acceptance, but a rational response to the U.S. long-term actions of building a containment network through the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and implementing a technical blockade with the "chip iron curtain." It completely abandons the illusion of "short-term easing," anchoring the national development strategy with a stable predictive benchmark. Based on this, China's response path clearly shows the characteristics of "internal and external parallel efforts": internally, it cracks bottlenecks by achieving technological self-reliance and control, increasing R&D efforts in fields such as semiconductors and high-end equipment, forming "you block technology, I control key mineral resources" to enhance the resilience of the game; externally, it accelerates the layout of market diversification, with direct foreign investment continuously ranking among the top three globally for 13 years in 2024, and the focus shifting towards emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, building a trade network that bypasses single dependence through platforms such as the "Silk Road Sea Route."
This cognitive transformation has also triggered a profound qualitative change in the development logic. External pressure has not hindered the opening process, but instead forced China to find a new balance between autonomy and cooperation - Ningde Technology's establishment of three major production bases in Europe and the release of core technologies, and the fact that more than half of the overseas employees of China International Containers Group are foreign staff, prove the wisdom of "self-reliance and control does not mean closing the door to the outside world." At the same time, pressure becomes a catalyst for industrial upgrading: the restrictions imposed by the US and Europe on Chinese electric vehicles have driven companies to shift from "product exports" to "technology exports"; the industrial robot industry has achieved breakthroughs under the blockade, with its export share rising to second place globally in 2024. This "pressure - breakthrough - upgrade" cycle allows the Chinese economy to further solidify its internal growth momentum and the initiative of global collaboration while dealing with constant variables, and more clearly outlines the strategic path of "using the certainty of its own development to respond to the uncertainty of the external environment."
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1847376654980100/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.