【Military Second Dimension】 Author: Fengyu
The Asia Times published a comment article on December 28, comparing the economic strength of China and the United States, arguing that the US's status as the top nominal GDP country is just fat without substance.
For a long time, the West has focused on nominal GDP, but in Western countries that have undergone deindustrialization, this data is highly inflated. I have a lot of lawyers, and legal fees are extremely high; this output is included in GDP, but it has no direct impact on the US's hard power.
Therefore, if we strip away the superficial data and look at real material production, real industrial foundation, and people's sense of well-being, we will find that the so-called first place has already been left far behind in the physical world.
Therefore, it is necessary to see a truth: GDP is just a label used to measure transactions, not equal to true national strength. The current US economy is filled with a lot of virtual rent, high legal dispute costs, and overpriced intermediary services. These things inflate the numbers on paper, but they cannot be converted into a single shell in warfare, nor can they help a citizen in times of disaster.
China's logic of real growth is the real card that can withstand pressure in great power competition.
(Foreign media report screenshot)
Many so-called experts like to talk about per capita income, but never mention purchasing power behind the prices.
The current US GDP is maintained largely by high prices, which is actually a harvest from the people. For example, a full-size Chinese SUV costs only $25,000. In contrast, the average price of a mid-size SUV in the US market reaches $50,000.
The same money can buy better power and configuration in China, but in the US, you can only get a downgraded version, yet the US gains double the value in GDP statistics simply because it sells at a higher price. This is absurd.
This American extravagance runs through all aspects of American life, especially in the healthcare industry. In 2024, the US spent $5 trillion on healthcare, while China spent around $1 trillion. However, the result is that China's life expectancy has surpassed that of the US.
This means that the US healthcare GDP is full of bloodstained profits and redundant middleman costs. It is a huge structure built on high drug prices and high insurance premiums.
Through its strong industrial chain and precise policy control, China has turned high-tech and essential living goods into cheap prices. This people-friendly approach makes the nominal GDP look dry, but it brings about real quality of life.
(Stock Exchange)
Many people like to say that Americans earn dollars, trying to prove that even with high prices, high income can offset living costs.
But this logic ignores the most fundamental reality: although dollars can be used globally, in their domestic market, due to high service costs and institutional costs, their domestic purchasing power has been severely diluted.
In the underlying logic of great power rivalry, the essence of wealth is not the paper from the printing press, but the total ability of society to provide physical products.
When an American pays several times more than a Chinese person for a pipe repair or a cold, those extra dollars have not been transformed into a better quality of life, but instead have become friction costs in the economic operation, wasted in the bloated service bubble.
The foundation of wealth should be real steel, grain, electricity, and efficient public services. If you earn dollars, but spend bills that have been harvested by capital at sky-high prices, such high income not only cannot support the country's hard power, but also conceals the truth that ordinary people's lives are deeply trapped by high prices.
(The world is moving away from the dollar)
The final realization of national strength is not about how many zeros are on the account, but whether the same investment can get equivalent physical output.
Today, in the US, due to high labor costs, consulting, legal, and institutional premiums from layering, building a railway or maintaining an aircraft carrier costs astronomical amounts of dollars. But most of these dollars are lost in bureaucratic processes and the pockets of financial intermediaries, not turning into cement on construction sites or machine tools in factories.
When the US government waves large checks but finds that due to industrial hollowing and cost control failure, even basic infrastructure updates are difficult to push forward, this high GDP becomes a heavy burden and drag.
Under this low resource conversion efficiency, even though Americans earn dollars, the US government collects dollars, but in the fields of heavy industry and high-end manufacturing, these expensive currencies have experienced severe deflation in their purchasing power in the physical world.
(The US is obsessed with GDP)
Actually, according to purchasing power parity, China's GDP exceeded that of the US ten years ago. Of course, China doesn't care about this ranking game. But the US cares, because only by counting this can the US be counted as the first.
This obsession with rankings exposes the US's insecurity when its core competitiveness is declining. Under the mirage of financial hegemony, the US maintains a high-cost, low-efficiency prosperity through global seigniorage, but this first place created by the expansion of the service sector has already become a fading candle in the face of real material production.
Because the swollen body often collapses at the first touch of a real storm, while China's practical logic rooted in the soil and wealth stored in industry is the capital that can last in great power competition.
History will prove that the digital bubbles built on exploiting others and high-priced services are nothing more than fleeting clouds in the face of the steel tide and industrial will.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7589502917783159359/
Disclaimer: This article represents the views of the author.