中国树童英语机构爆雷 创始人：不退费等破产清算
10/14/2021
中国近日又有一家教育机构突然爆雷。树童英语全国多个校区停工停课，总部已解散部门遣散员工，学生家长退费无果。面对家长学费退款和投资退款，创始人李小静直言：“不退费，等破产清算吧，没钱可退。”
根据中国基金报报道，近日，有不少广州、成都等地的学生家长反应，树童英语培训机构突然倒闭，疑似卷钱跑路，导致上万元（人民币）的培训费退费困难，维权无果。此外，该培训机构还存在拖欠教师工资的情况。针对各个校区出现的情况，总部暂未公开回应，也未提供解决方案。
据了解，近日在一次公开会议上，树童创始人李小静女士正式宣布：树童总部已经遣散员工、解散部门，不再拨款任何一家分校，不再理会分校的一切事务。校区财务状况长期由广东树童教育顾问有限公司 ( 下称“树童教育”) 监管运作，没有资金维持运营。
本月初，树童英语培训学校成都天紫界校区、五羊华友校区全体职工、广州淘金校区纷纷发布“致家长的信”，表示由于员工工资、房租问题总部一直未解决，以及受总部、其它校区的影响，校区老师人身安全无法得到保障，暂时无法继续在岗位任教，现全面停工停课。
据称，自疫情以来，全校员工的薪资自6月份开始一直没有正常发放，8月、9月还未发放。基于对学生负责的态度，该校区全体职工服从并贯彻公司决策，正常上课以及完成所有额外的工作任务，但截至目前仍未收到工资，同时这两天还突然收到总部不管分校的噩耗。
五羊华友校区全体职工上周五（8日）也发布了一封公开信，信中说，在得知其他校区陆续爆雷的情况下，赶紧核查信息、多方沟通，但是等来的结果却十分令人心寒。
公开信还说，7日晚间，树童老板李小静女士正式向广大股东和员工无赖地宣布：“树童总部以及遣散员工解散部门，总部不再拨款任何一家分校，不会理会分校的一切事物。总部没有钱，未来一切开支需要分校各自承担。”
据不完全统计，目前停课的除了成都天紫界校区，还涉及成都蜀跃路校区、崔家店南路校区，广州南沙敏捷校区、珠江新城校区、荔湾陈家祠校区、华景校区、仲恺校区、五羊华友校区等。
树童教育集团官网资料显示，树童教育创办于1999年，专注于3至15岁少儿英语培训，同时涵盖游学、留学等业务。目前已在全国开设了至少230家课程中心，有学员20万人。相关介绍中还提到，树童计划在全国开设1000所分校，五年内登陆资本市场。
企查查APP显示，树童教育关联企业为广东树童教育顾问有限公司，法定代表人、大股东、董事长均为李小静。该公司对外投资企业数量已超百家，该公司对惠州儒程教育信息咨询有限公司、珠海市简茂教育咨询有限公司、珠海市奥朗教育咨询有限公司等上百家公司有实际控制权，其中大部分都是100% 控股。而李小静关联企业共43家，控制企业达136家。
值得注意的是，成都市金牛区力顶教育培训学校有限公司，以及广东树童教育顾问有限公司前天因民间借贷纠纷被他人起诉，成都市金牛区人民法院现已立案。
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中国知名英语培训机构爱贝斯总裁跑路 涉欠工资学费2亿人民币
9/04/2021
中国知名英语培训机构爱贝斯上周六（8月28日）公告，公司实控人、总裁谢龙自上月27日带着行李箱失联，至今未找到。目前公司因家长退费及拖欠员工薪资问题被推上风口浪尖。
根据证券时报客户端消息，爱贝斯通过微信公众号发布声明称，公司于27日下午4点后发现谢龙电话失联，寻找未果后，于当日晚8点报案，经过警方多方调查排查，最后发现谢龙带着行李箱开车离去，现暂时还未找到本人，总经理唐玮翎至今未现身。
公告还承认，爱贝斯员工工资确实存在到期未付的情况。值得注意的是，就在该声明发出两天前，爱贝斯还通过微信公众号发布声明称，部分用户散播“爱贝斯跑路”等不实言论，给公司的声誉和正常工作造成严重负面影响。爱贝斯目前经营正常，将于2021年8月28日正常上班复课。
当时的声明还称，爱贝斯受疫情和政策等因素影响，面临巨大挑战，但公司管理层将积极面对困难。不料，公告发出短短两天后，爱贝斯的危机被证实。
爱贝斯学员家长徐女士接受访问时说，“我们是8月28号接到通知的。那天爱贝斯的老师统一在学习群里发布消息，说老师们有两个多月没有发工资，老板已经卷款跑路了，大概涉及100多个校区，有5万至6万名学员，大概涉及的金额有两亿（人民币，下同，约4000万新元）左右。”
“爱贝斯在西南片区是规模比较大的一家，我家孩子在爱贝斯学习英语有几年了，前两年一切都比较规范，所以这次课程到期后，我们一次性交了2年9800元费用，大概只学了半年，机构就跑路了。”徐女士表示。
在爱贝斯维权群，有家长表示，她在今年7月份缴纳了240课时的费用约1.26万元，原本约定今年10月份开课，但一节课未上，公司就出现了问题。
徐女士称，今年7月，“双减”政策发布后，她与爱贝斯学校的老师有过沟通，老师表示，除了上课时间会从周末调整至周内，没有其他影响。此后，徐女士配合将孩子的上课时间进行调整，本学期课程原定从本周四（9月2日）开始，但课程还没开始，就得到实控人失联的消息。
“‘双减’政策出来前后，他们还在大肆推广一些价格非常低的课程，比如16800元包整个小学期间的培训课程，吸引了很多家长报名。”徐女士表示。
“（出问题后）我们跟校区负责人沟通，对方表示他们对于实控人跑路也感到非常突然，也没有意识到会出现这种问题，目前正积极配合警方和教育局处理该问题。他们向教育局提供了我们校区所有学员的剩余课时、学费金额的数据。“徐女士说。
在跑路事件发生后，爱贝斯周三（1日）再次发布情况说明指出，成都已成立由多个相关部门组成的工作专班，将从快从严开展查处工作。
声明指出，爱贝斯集团目前对全国所有校区的具体情况还不完全了解，待各地情况清楚后，集团将根据各地具体情况，尽最大可能进行问题解决工作。并恳请多给一些时间，会想尽一切办法给出各地处理方案。不过，在这份公告下面，大量家长留言，对公司的解释表示不满，要求公司尽快退款。记者在多个爱贝斯家长维权群中看到，许多家长已报警寻求退费，还有部分家长已聘请律师，展开维权行动。
针对爱贝斯的出现的问题，媒体多次拨打谢龙、唐玮翎电话，均无人接听或关机。
据天眼查信息显示，于2013年11月成立的四川爱贝斯教育咨询集团有限公司股东共有两名，其中谢龙持股95%，唐玮翎持股5%。目前，爱贝斯旗下未注销的子公司尚有22家，主要为分布在四川、云南、贵州等地的分支机构。
爱贝斯官网信息显示，2018年公司在读学员达到两万余名，直营分校覆盖四川所有地级城市；2019年直营校区突破80家，在读学员突破五万名，教职工达到2000人；而2020年，其直营校区达到100家。
据了解，爱贝斯在西南地区尤其是四川英语培训市场上，具有较大影响力。爱贝斯此前在相关介绍中称，其为“西南最大的直营少儿英语培训机构”，未来将立足西南，辐射全国，成为国内最大线上+线下相结合的青少儿英语培训学校。
实际上，今年“双减”政策发布前，爱贝斯就已经开启了业务转型。
爱贝斯曾在7月1日发布公告称，为了顺应国家政策和社会需求，公司全面布局素质教育业务板块，并以此打造全新的课程体系，包括3至8岁幼少儿文化素养教育，户外研学和营地培训，家庭教育父母课堂等。
中国留学机构“霍兰德教育”员工诉英国CEO卷千万人民币跑路
8/14/2021
中国留学培训机构“霍兰德教育”微信公众号“霍兰德英国私校规划”昨天发布文章称，霍兰德教育CEO Jake Hall卷走了所有家长的课时费和留学咨询费，隐瞒所有员工、老师、家长等举家潜逃回了英国，并于今天中午通过视频匆匆宣布破产，还拒绝对欠下的债款有任何的解释。
据观察者网引述公号文章称，这篇标注为“霍兰德全体员工”撰写的文章控诉了霍兰德教育CEO Jake Hall涉嫌卷钱跑路、欠薪、诈骗等违法行为。
文章指出，霍兰德教育CEO Jake Hall拖欠公司将近80名员工半年的五险一金和税费，扣除了员工缴纳部分，但未缴纳给中国政府。拖欠将近两个月工资和其他员工自行贴补的报销款。
对中国用户，文章称，霍兰德教育CEO Jake Hall通过香港账户，卷走了所有家长的课时费和留学咨询费，整体欠款可能超过千万（人民币）。
文章还说，目前公司账户上没有一分钱，所有的高管除了一个台湾人全都是英国人，而且都已经联系不上或者潜逃回了英国。霍兰德教育CEO Jake Hal昨天下午关闭了所有员工的邮箱、以及与公司有关的账号，并且粉碎了大量公司文件。目前，公司所有的受害者已向上海警方做报警处理。
霍兰德教育微信公众号信息显示，霍兰德教育是致力于英国私校留学的全球化教育机构，旨在为7至16岁的全球学子提供专业英国私校咨询服务、考试培训、监护等一站式服务，拥有来自英国及中国的专业顾问团队，每年帮助超过800个家庭成功申请英国私校。
Biden’s China Doctrine?
By Raihan Ronodipuro
7/19/2021
The current issue of “The Economist,” published recently, features a cover story on Biden’s China Doctrine. According to the report, “Bidenism” has converted the rhetoric of the “Trumpism” era into a policy prescription of Sino-US clashes (particularly institutional confrontation), with only one winner.
Biden and his team think that China is not interested in coexisting with the US, and they anticipate an early domination. Because of this, the goal of US policy toward China is to undermine China’s objectives. The US can collaborate with China on topics of mutual interest, such as climate change, but on problems such as the economics, technology, diplomacy, military, and values, the US focuses opposing China’s aspirations by strengthening itself and expanding cooperation with allies.
The report calls Biden’s China Doctrine into doubt. Internally, although Biden wishes to utilize China to unify the two parties and push his own agenda, the Republican Party is clearly not foolish enough to readily embrace Biden’s proposals as long as Biden includes a “China” chapter on the bill’s cover.
Diplomatically, Biden not only misjudged the United States’ present global power, but also miscalculated the losses that American allies would suffer if they faced China. In reality, instead of promoting cohabitation, the US administration has turned the relationship between major powers into a “zero sum” game.
The article provides an illustration of how China is on the verge of dominating the economic sphere. Aside from becoming the world’s largest economy, the number of nations with China as their primary trade partner has nearly doubled that of countries with the United States as their primary trading partner.
When it comes to the Sino-US competition, Germany’s perspective is clearly influenced by economic reasons. Southeast Asian countries turn to the United States only for security, and they look to China for economic growth. As a result, if forced to choose between China and the United States, many countries will go with China.
Biden has continued to utilize China’s difficulties to push the domestic agenda, despite the US’s capacity to re-defend norms. His policy proposals include industrial strategies, government involvement, planning, and control. According to rumors, the Biden administration may employ further subsidies and oversight to ensure that jobs and manufacturing remain in the United States.
So, in effect, Biden’s policy proposals have followed a moderate kind of trade protectionism. If the Biden administration withdraws its friends from China, if the goal is to allow the US to leave more employment possibilities, the allies who have not benefitted will understandably wonder, “Why on earth should I join the US in doing this?”
The cover story of The Economist may be considered to have struck the high points of Bi’s China policy since taking office. The Biden administration appears to have clear stances and propositions on China policy, but both its logic and the actions of relevant officials send a strong signal that it serves only the internal affairs of the United States – as if the United States is unconcerned about the affairs of other countries.
Benefits and emotions For example, Southeast Asia was originally given significant weight in the United States’ Asia-Pacific policy, but when the ASEAN foreign ministers met at the end of May, Anthony Blinken, who had been invited, not only did not attend, but instead decided to travel from Ireland to Israel. Connected to join, however because to technical difficulties, other individuals waited on the scene for over an hour before connecting successfully. Despite the fact that it is only a technical problem, the impression provided to ASEAN nations is that the Biden administration does not value Southeast Asia.
A few weeks later, the same group of ASEAN foreign ministers traveled to Chongqing for the meeting. China not only laid out the red carpet for them, but Foreign Minister Wang Yi also had constructive face-to-face talks with them. When ASEAN nations compare their sentiments to those of China and the United States, they realize how frigid they are.
Aside from technical problems, Blinken opted to visit the Middle East rather than Southeast Asia, which rendered the Biden administration’s “return to Asia-Pacific” rhetoric unconvincing to many countries. The US Department of Defense relocated its lone aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific to facilitate military departure from Afghanistan, sending an incredible signal to US allies.
Similar events took place several times in the six months after Biden entered the stage. For example, when the Indonesian foreign minister visited New York last month for a UN meeting, he requested a foreign minister-level meeting with Blinken, but Blinken wasn’t sure if he couldn’t spare the time or didn’t want to see each other at all.
Other nations’ bewilderment, as well as the United States’ skepticism of the Biden administration, has inevitably been felt. Biden and his staff are now pushing for a solution. Blinken, for example, stated last Sunday that the Biden administration maintained the Trump administration’s policy of rejecting China’s South China Sea sovereignty claims, and that the US and the Philippines have signed a mutual defense treaty, and that any attacks on the Philippines will result in a response from the US.
Trying to win the approval of the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. However, studying Pompeo will not help the US diplomatic position. If Biden’s China policy proposal continues to follow the thinking and operations of the Trump era, it may face significant domestic and foreign problems.
US must outcompete China for a stable relationship: Daniel Russel
Beijing’s aggression comes from perception that America is declining, former official says
TSUYOSHI NAGASAWA, Nikkei staff writer
7/10/2021
WASHINGTON — The secret visit of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Beijing on July 9-11, 1971, kicked off an American policy of engagement with China. Fifty years later, with China on track to overtake the U.S. economy as early as 2028, bilateral relations are at a crossroad.
In an interview with Nikkei, Daniel Russel, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the Obama administration, said the nature of the relationship is changing, and it would be wrong to assume that Washington would return to the “good old days,” supporting China’s growth while making an effort to avoid friction and confrontation.
But Russel, now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, also stressed that aiming for regime change in Beijing is unrealistic and unwise, and would be in line with the “catastrophic” failures of attempted regime changes in the Middle East.
Edited excerpts from the interview follow:
Q: Since Kissinger began an engagement policy with China in the 1970s, the U.S.-China relationship has been relatively stable. The U.S. has invited China into the international system. Looking back, how do you evaluate the pros and cons of this policy?
A: If we took a step back and looked broadly at the historical record, we see that the United States deliberately chose a policy of engaging China and supporting its development, first back in 1972 under President Richard Nixon, where this was part of the strategy for containment of the Soviet Union, but then again in the ’90s, when Bill Clinton was president, after the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was a second policy of engaging China that led up to the entry of China into the WTO.
From the Clinton era on, America’s policy toward China was based on the view that a stable China, a prospering China, would serve the best interests of the United States, in part because a weak China, or an insecure China, would likely pose a lot of risks to U.S. interests and to our allies.
I’ve never heard a persuasive argument that it would have been better to do something different than engagement, at those junctures. The United States made a common-sense decision, to try to engage China and to shape its behavior, to integrate China and to give it a stake in the international system, that the United States had largely designed.
And, while people hoped for political liberalization, I don’t think that political liberalization was the reason that the U.S. government and other governments took this approach, because what was the alternative?
Who is going to argue that an effort to isolate China and to contain China, or to destabilize China would have been a better strategy? It would have been a recipe for disaster.
Today, there is a kind of new conventional wisdom that is based on the view that cooperation with China is impossible, that engagement with China is a failure.
If you look at the historical record, that’s just not defensible, that’s not true.
But that doesn’t mean that we can go back to the “good old days” where we tried to support China’s growth, where we made an effort to avoid friction and confrontation.
There are two reasons for this.
In the past, as long as there was a large disparity, a gap, in military power and economic power between the two countries, the relationship was reasonably stable. But China has become much more economically successful and much more militarily and technologically capable. China is now close to being a peer power to the United States, which it never was.
Secondly, in the Xi Jinping era — which now is about almost nine years — China’s leadership has become more assertive, more ideological, and more brazen, more overt, in challenging global norms and challenging U.S. leadership. We’ve seen bullying behavior intensify by China.
Q: What were negotiations with China like in the years of President Barack Obama?
A: We had two very different experiences with the Chinese. On the South China Sea, Obama had very direct, very blunt, discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping repeatedly, from 2013 and the Sunnylands meeting on, each time more forcefully warned Xi that China’s island building, its reclamation, its activities, were creating risk, and that the United States had a responsibility to the defense of the Philippines and more broadly had a strong commitment to freedom of navigation, and could not accept efforts by China to claim the so-called nine-dashed line, or to develop outposts in international waters, and that this was damaging the U.S.-China relationship.
Finally, in the meeting in 2015, Xi made an assurance, and he made a public assurance as well, that China would not militarize the outposts that it built.
But, in that case, China did not ultimately honor that commitment, and the problematic behavior continued. And it had a very damaging effect on U.S. relations with China.
The issue of cyber theft, and particularly the Chinese government’s sponsorship of cyber-enabled theft of American intellectual property from companies, that was a different experience, because for years Obama raised this issue with Xi and warned of consequences, and told Xi that, although China was denying it, the United States knew that China was conducting these attacks, and that they couldn’t hide from us.
And finally, the Chinese saw evidence that the United States was preparing to take very severe action in retaliation for this, and the Chinese leadership recognized that they were reaching a dangerous, critical point, and so they sent to Washington the top security official in China, Meng Jianzhu, who came with instructions: don’t come home without an agreement.
And he stayed in Washington for several days. He met with the U.S. government team. And you may remember that the U.S. and China issued a four-point agreement. In that agreement, China essentially acknowledged that this cyber theft had occurred, committed to end it, and made some public commitments that they did implement, they did honor.
For several years after that, the U.S. agencies that were monitoring cyberattacks formed a judgment that China had, in fact, scaled back significantly the attacks that at least the government, the state, was supporting.
Q: Based on those lessons, how should the U.S. approach China?
A: My judgment is that Chinese behavior has become much more troubling and dangerous as Chinese leaders have begun to believe that they are as strong as the United States, that they are getting stronger and the U.S. is getting weaker.
I don’t think that it is wise or feasible to pursue a strategy of weakening China. Instead, it is necessary and wise to pursue a strategy of strengthening the United States and its allies because, as I pointed out before, when the power differential between the United States and China was wider, the relationship was very stable.
As long as the Chinese perception is that the United States is weak, is on the decline, is withdrawing from its traditional role in shaping and often leading international affairs, in rules-setting and so on, and has abandoned the sort of moral high ground that gave the United States so much soft power over the decades, China is incentivized to challenge more directly.
If and when the Chinese leaders see more evidence that the United States is demonstrating resilience, is renewing and reinventing itself, that the overall strength of the democratic communities is growing, not shrinking, the Chinese leaders will be much more open to compromise. They will be much more flexible, much more careful, in their behavior.
Chinese leaders are Leninists and Leninists respect strength and have contempt for weakness.
If the United States, over the course of this year, shows, for example, extraordinary ability to stop the spread of COVID-19, an extraordinary ability to develop vaccines that have 96% to 97% effective rates, demonstrates the ability to manufacture billions of doses and make them available to countries around the world, whereas China, despite its very strict and draconian controls, now continues to battle emerging cases of the delta variant, and the Chinese vaccine, Sinovac, which they have distributed around the world, is now revealed to be far less effective in preventing COVID than advertised, that’s a way in which the United States is already demonstrating its strength.
It is already outcompeting. We’re not hurting China. We’re not blocking China. But we are outperforming China.
Q: You talked about the leadership of Xi Jinping himself. How is he different from former presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin before him?
A: Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were not democrats; they had no interest in sharing power. But they were also pragmatists, and they were continuing the tradition of Deng Xiaoping, the tradition of “hiding and biding,” the tradition of opening and reform.
Xi Jinping represents a more nationalist and a more ideological strain of Leninism. In the Chinese communist system, he is clearly representing those who believe that more control is the right answer, and that political liberalization is a recipe for disaster that China cannot afford.
Q: China hawks in the U.S. have argued that the biggest problem is the Chinese Communist Party and thus the U.S. should seek regime change.
A: Number one, the people who are advocating regime change are the very people that have experimented with regime change in Iraq, in Libya, and other parts of the world. And, in every case, it has been a catastrophic failure. It’s not only that it didn’t succeed; it’s that it created immense problems in the country and immense problems in the United States.
The United States does not have the power to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party, and we know from experience that, even if we were successful, the consequences are unpredictable and immensely dangerous.
We can certainly hope for a change and an improvement. There’s much that we can do to bolster civil society within China, and much we can do to help strengthen institutions other than the Chinese Communist Party, in China.
There is a lot of pressure that can be applied externally on the Chinese leadership to limit their behavior. But the notion of the United States reaching in and changing the government in China is unrealistic and unwise.
Q: Is there a similarity between the current situation and the 1970s, in the sense that the Biden administration is now seeking a stable and predictable relationship with Russia so as to focus more on China and try to drive a wedge between China and Russia?
A: The big difference in the 1970s was that Moscow and Beijing were in an intense rivalry and were virtual enemies. Another difference was that the U.S. and the Soviet Union were in a very significant Cold War, in which we had very little economic or other mutual dependencies and were largely separated into independent blocs, and we were competing around the world for influence, in a very direct way.
Today, Russia is a relatively weak power that is largely focused on making problems, making mischief for the U.S. and for the West.
And the relationship between Moscow and Beijing is very cooperative, very collaborative. And unlike the Soviet Union, China is well integrated into the global system, the multilateral system, and the degree of economic and technological integration between China, the United States, and the rest of the West, is unimaginably large.
So, I think, in those respects, we’re in a very, very different world. And, while it is problematic for the United States when China and Russia cooperate in causing problems for us and our friends, and while there would be some virtue and value in trying to provide incentives for Moscow to moderate its behavior and to refrain from that kind of mischief-making, I don’t think there is any prospect for a kind of fundamental alteration of the triangular relationship, the way that Kissinger and Nixon changed it in 1972.
China beating US by being more like America
Cultivating human capital will be essential if the US rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution
By BRANDON J WEICHERT
4/25/2021
The United States transitioned from an agrarian backwater into an industrialized superstate in a rapid timeframe. One of the most decisive men in America’s industrialization was Samuel Slater.
As a young man, Slater worked in Britain’s advanced textile mills. He chafed under Britain’s rigid class system, believing he was being held back. So he moved to Rhode Island.
Once in America, Slater built the country’s first factory based entirely on that which he had learned from working in England’s textile mills – violating a British law that forbade its citizens from proliferating advanced British textile production to other countries.
Samuel Slater is still revered in the United States as the “Father of the American Factory System.” In Britain, if he is remembered at all, he is known by the epithet of “Slater the Traitor.”
After all, Samuel Slater engaged in what might today be referred to as “industrial espionage.” Without Slater, the United States would likely not have risen to become the industrial challenger to British imperial might that it did in the 19th century. Even if America had evolved to challenge British power without Slater’s help, it is likely the process would have taken longer than it actually did.
Many British leaders at the time likely dismissed Slater’s actions as little more than a nuisance. The Americans had not achieved anything unique. They were merely imitating their far more innovative cousins in Britain.
As the works of Oded Shenkar have proved, however, if given enough time, annoying imitators can become dynamic innovators. The British learned this lesson the hard way. America today appears intent on learning a similar hard truth … this time from China.
By the mid-20th century, the latent industrial power of the United States had been unleashed as the European empires, and eventually the British-led world order, collapsed under their own weight. America had built out its own industrial base and was waiting in the geopolitical wings to replace British power – which, of course, it did.
Few today think of Britain as anything more than a middle power in the US-dominated world order. This came about only because of the careful industrial and manipulative trade practices of American statesmen throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century employed against British power.
The People’s Republic of China, like the United States of yesteryear with the British Empire, enjoys a strong trading relationship with the dominant power of the day. China has also free-ridden on the security guarantees of the dominant power, the United States.
The Americans are exhausting themselves while China grows stronger. Like the US in the previous century, inevitably, China will displace the dominant power through simple attrition in the non-military realm.
Many Americans reading this might be shocked to learn that China is not just the land of sweatshops and cheap knockoffs – any more than the United States of previous centuries was only the home of chattel slavery and King Cotton. China, like America, is a dynamic nation of economic activity and technological progress.
While the Chinese do imitate their innovative American competitors, China does this not because the country is incapable of innovating on its own. It’s just easier to imitate effective ideas produced by America, lowering China’s research and development costs. Plus, China’s industrial capacity allows the country to produce more goods than America – just as America had done to Britain
Once China quickly acquires advanced technology, capabilities, and capital from the West, Chinese firms then spin off those imitations and begin innovating. This is why China is challenging the West in quantum computing technology, biotech, space technologies, nanotechnology, 5G, artificial intelligence, and an assortment of other advanced technologies that constitute the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can focus on making cheaper cars and better roads?
Since China opened itself up to the United States in the 1970s, American versions of Samuel Slater have flocked to China, taking with them the innovations, industries, and job offerings that would have gone to Americans had Washington never embraced Beijing.
America must simply make itself more attractive than China is to talent and capital. It must create a regulatory and tax system that is more competitive than China’s. Then Washington must seriously invest in federal R&D programs as well as dynamic infrastructure to support those programs.
As one chief executive of a Fortune 500 company told me in 2018, “If we don’t do business in China, our competitors will.”
Meanwhile, Americans must look at effective education as a national-security imperative. If we are living in a global, knowledge-based economy, then it stands to reason Americans will need greater knowledge to thrive. Therefore, cultivating human capital will be essential if America rather than China is to be the base of the next industrial revolution.
Besides, smart bombs are useless without smart people.
These are all things that the United States understood in centuries past. America bested the British Empire and replaced it as the world hegemon using these strategies. When the Soviet Union challenged America’s dominance, the US replicated the successful strategies it had used against Britain’s empire.
Self-reliance and individual innovativeness coupled with public- and private-sector cooperation catapulted the Americans ahead of their rivals. It’s why Samuel Slater fled to the nascent United States rather than staying in England.
America is losing the great competition for the 21st century because it has suffered historical amnesia. Its leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as its corporate tycoons and its people must recover the lost memory – before China cements its position as the world’s hegemon.
The greatest tragedy of all is that America has all of the tools it needs to succeed. All it needs to do is be more like it used to be in the past. To do that, competent and inspiring leadership is required. And that may prove to be the most destructive thing for America in the competition to win the 21st century.
Source: https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/china-beating-us-by-being-more-like-america/
Feb 18, 2021
Aug 4, 2020