Kim Min sees the United States: Trump yells at the trade war "Made in China" quietly reoccupies the United States

A few years ago, when I arrived in Washington as a "special correspondent" from Beijing, like all people traveling abroad, there was only one big suitcase and small carry-on baggage. The difference is that this is all my family living in Washington. Even in the only big suitcase, half of the space gave a quilt, because experienced friends reminded me that the quilt can cope with the worst possibility of sleeping without a place to live.

Buying, buying, and buying have become the top priorities. At the time, Wish had just begun to transform into an e-commerce business. Ali Express (Aliexpress) was just one of the most active cross-border platforms in the world, but I have never heard of them. Shopping in the United States is the main way to integrate into the United States after work. After all, shopping centers have shaped the consumption patterns, travel styles, and leisure hobbies of millions of American families. At that time, the US department store retail industry was at a turning point from the prosperity to the decline, and the large-scale "closed shop tide" was at best a sacred statement.

The feeling is not without it. The most obvious thing is that the label of “Made in China” in daily necessities is decreasing. At that time, China’s attractiveness as the preferred location for manufacturing investment began to decline, and the link between “Made in China” and sweatshops began to ferment in public opinion in the United States. The recession facing traditional Chinese manufacturing is directly reflected in my shopping cart: more and more Indian/Vietnamese/Indonesian/Turkish manufacturing, from clothes and shoes, daily necessities to furniture.

As China's low-end manufacturing industry shrinks, the textile industry in Bangladesh, Vietnam and other Asian countries has developed rapidly and become a new global manufacturing center, while the United States has vigorously promoted the strategy of revitalizing manufacturing. Although manufacturing accounts for only 12% of US gross domestic product, it is the core of high-end US exports.

The US manufacturing industry attracts more than one-third of foreign direct investment. They employ nearly one-fifth of the labor in the US manufacturing job market. In the eyes of the Americans, those are good jobs.

Of course, there is no shortage of Chinese contributions from these foreign capitals. China's overall economy has slowed down, and Chinese manufacturing companies have invested in setting up factories overseas. In fact, Chinese companies have adapted to the characteristics of the times at the time. Foreign direct investment has become more important than trade. They are very moving, and the documentary directly refers to it as "Made by China in America."

The Obama era created a return to manufacturing and promoted the development of high-end manufacturing. In the Trump era, although the unemployment rate in the United States stood proudly at the lowest level in 17 years, Trump never missed the election and tried to promote the return of American overseas manufacturing. In order to create more manufacturing jobs for the United States, his strategy is to carrots, sticks together, and even stir up the trade war in the world.

Trump recently announced plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, including a 25% tariff on imported steel to protect employment in this traditional industry. The problem is that the unemployment rate in the US steel industry has been as low as 1.4%. In addition, steel only provides a small contribution of 2.7% to the US trade deficit, but Trump is determined to use this as a starting point to reverse the US trade deficit.

Trump's tempered Trump did not know that the historical convergence of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation formed a knife behind him. In the trade transformation, large containers are being countered by small pieces of fast shipping, and cross-border e-commerce is booming as a new business, directly attracting 39% of American consumers to buy goods from China. "Made in China" quietly resumed occupation of the United States.

(Cross-border e-commerce is booming as an emerging business,

"Made in China " created a path to reoccupy the United States)

Going to the United States

When I first arrived in a completely different country, my greatest interest was to observe cities of different shapes and sizes.

The American cities I have been to are not many, mainly some industrial rust belt cities. They were told more in the history of the city that I was exposed to. Visiting these cities, you can also find the glory of these former industrial towns in the corners of the streets. You can also see the transformation of the manufacturing industry to the southeast, the automation upgrade, the decline of the US steel and coal industry, globalization and internationalization. After the baptism, they stepped out of the industrial decline and achieved revival efforts.

Telling a story about the United States is relatively simple, but when Chinese factors are involved, it becomes complicated.

More than 20 years ago, some manufacturing states in the United States faced difficulties. The way they thought of it was to extend the taxation, trade, and investment of olive oil to overseas manufacturers who came to invest, and introduced international capital in exchange for upgrading the industry. More than 20 years later, the Obama administration has resorted to the same means of boosting manufacturing with a tilt in taxation, trade and investment policies. At that time, it coincided with the acceleration of the globalization of Chinese enterprises, the growth of overseas investment, and the manufacturing industry became a node of the historical convergence of the two.

At that time, a wave of Chinese manufacturing companies came to the United States to inspect and invest in setting up factories. People were excited to talk about the globalization of Chinese enterprises entering a new stage. In fact, many companies have decided to set up factories in the United States because of the consideration of comprehensive costs.

The first Chinese company I contacted to invest and build in the United States was Jiangnan Chemical Fiber. That was in the spring of 2013, and Sun and I of Jiangnan Chemical Fiber went to Nanka. Mr. Sun always holds her iPad in her hand. The iPad has all the details of the location she wants to go to. Before coming to the United States, she has surveyed it from various angles through network maps. Sun is always the kind of entrepreneur who works hard, but there is always a light and graceful look in his eyes. These two conflicting temperaments are hard to get together in her.

Jiangnan Chemical Fiber Co., Ltd. is a recycled polyester staple fiber with a capacity of 110,000 tons. About 80% of the raw materials are purchased from abroad. 65%-70% of the products are exported to the United States. The cost of parts, plant construction costs and labor costs in the United States are calculated. It is much higher than China. There is little difference in financing and taxation between the two countries. However, considering the factors such as logistics, freight and operational risks, it is more economical to choose to produce in the United States.

The second time I saw Sun Zong again in July 2016, when I followed the China Textile Research and Development Delegation to the US investment delegation to investigate the investment environment in South Carolina and Georgia. Both states are located in the major chemical fiber industry belts in the United States. Since the 1990s, the chemical fiber textiles in this chemical fiber industry have been dumped one by one, and the manufacturing industry in the United States has also been down.

Looking all the way, the historical cycle of the chemical fiber textile industry happened before my eyes: After the US textile mills moved to Southeast Asia and China more than 30 years later, China began to face a serious over-capacity situation. Driven by the de-capacity, Chinese textile companies have now come to the United States, Southeast Asia and other places to expand their territory, and the textile industry has undergone a large-scale restructuring on a global scale. In the spring of 2018, Sun’s US factory was full of production and began to make a profit. This process is longer and harder than they expected, but Sun said that it is still worth it.

In the past few years, the most disproportionate in the manufacturing industry was the highly competitive textile industry.

In contact with people in the textile industry, we must first establish a strong clothing confidence – no matter what big-name clothing, no matter whether the style leads the trend, when they, especially when they look at me, I can feel their sharp eyes. Ignore the glitz of all appearances, directly examine the fineness of the stitches, and identify the woven or knitted. If they are still interested in analyzing materials and fabrics, as industry insiders do not bother to get started, their eyes quickly judge whether they are plant fibers or mineral fibers, whether they are recycled fibers or inorganic fibers.

Of course, the textile industry bosses really don't care what I wear. They, like other manufacturing entrepreneurs, are looking for the most profitable local development markets around the world, while at the same time producing the most economical and efficient places in the world.

On a small summer night, Chinese entrepreneurs who came to the United States to study in the United States, removed the shackles of suits and suits, and tasted the red wine. They frankly talked about their respective difficulties: the domestic labor costs are rising, and the price of cotton raw materials fluctuates greatly. , China's traditional wholesale, distribution and distribution functions and the market's competitive advantage gradually weakened. The attractiveness of the United States is the cost advantage of energy and the cost advantage of land. However, the cost of Sino-US culture and the cost of team building are high, and all the way to account, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Later, I didn't hear which company I went to set up in the United States. I just saw Shandong Ruyi Group 000626 from the news. The stock market chose to enter the luxury goods field through acquisition. The cross-border M&A selected by the world's largest wool textile industry group is a Chinese company. The main way of investing. Speaking of these Chinese manufacturing in the United States, I went to consult Lin Xinwei, president of the US state associations in China. He was known as the first person to guide Chinese manufacturing companies to invest in the United States. His observations were quite in-depth and authoritative.

He said, "In recent years, through the observation of the US$2 billion Chinese investment project that brought me the United States, it seems to subvert some of my previous perceptions. This may also be the perception of many Chinese. I now think that The most competitive and promising projects for Chinese investment in the United States are some of the traditional industries in our usual sense, high-energy-consuming industries, or companies that produce commodities. They are the most advantageous industries for Chinese companies. However, there are not many companies of the same kind in the United States. Due to lack of competition, these companies have lived too well and are too easy. American industrial customers are more eager to have new spoilers."

Several Chinese-made projects in the hands of Lin Xinwei are actually American customers who want them to come over. In order to facilitate their supply, the United States hopes that Chinese spoilers can supply from auto parts to textile, chemical, building materials, plastics and packaging industries. Business sounds form a full competition with each other.

Can China's manufacturing industry spoil? For China, when everyone talks about transformation and upgrading, changing cages, big data, and AI, Lin Xinwei said that this is a good thing, but don't lose the advantage we have established.

American trade protectionists are struggling to prevent China from manufacturing in the United States. The cornerstone of this power includes my friend Mark. The Bethlehem Steel Plant in Maryland closed down a few years ago, and one of Mar’s thousands of unemployed people settled in a jewelry store after changing jobs.

When he chatted, he asked me what topic I was writing. When I mentioned the word "manufacturing", he was poked to the point of pain. He kept turning over the work photos from his mobile phone and found me a video about the Bethlehem Steel Plant on the Internet. The past in black and white pictures directly corresponds to the frustration and anxiety of a low-skilled American white male who could not get a better job. I suddenly realized that the tens of thousands of Mark's angry forces supported Trump to say "no" to "Made in China."

Trump can work on traditional trade, but now the new force that incites the international trade pattern is cross-border e-commerce, which is completely a new battlefield.

(The position lost by the US manufacturing industry is a map that it has not used yet: Kim Min Jong)

To put it bluntly, it’s just a fight against the air.

When Trump is still entangled in manufacturing in China or in the United States, Wish has grown into an e-commerce company with annual sales of several billion dollars. Ali Express has covered 230 countries around the world. The absolute scale of Chinese e-commerce has been Accounted for 40% of the global market share, 2017 also announced the record of the most serious physical store closures in history.

Last autumn at an Italian restaurant in Washington, when I was gathering with a few American friends, a glass of wine that was accidentally overturned was flowing on my pure white silk skirt. After a mess, looking at the unrecognizable skirt by the wine stains, I joked that it forced me to update the wardrobe. My friend from Florida came up with a sentence: You can always Wish. (Will there is always Waiting for you.) Seeing me for a moment, she immediately exaggeratedly asked, you won't know Wish?

In fact, I really don't know. Although 80% of daily consumption is basically achieved by online shopping, I use Amazon, the world's largest cross-border e-commerce platform, and eBay, one of the world's largest online trading platforms, just like most Americans. However, Wish is in a hurry. The e-commerce website has a valuation of $3.7 billion in financing in 2015. In the second half of last year, it was reported that Wish was conducting a round of financing totaling about $250 million, and its valuation would exceed $8 billion. I later found that most Americans around me are already using this e-commerce platform frequently, so "there is always Wish waiting for you" is not a joke.

Entering the Wish interface, all kinds of low-priced goods are trying to compete for the eye, and the advantages of price and price/performance ratio are basically in sight. Compared with Amazon, Wish offers more than 300 million products and links thousands of small and medium-sized suppliers to non-high-end users. Amazon is more biased towards branding providers in terms of traffic distribution, and the client is targeting 40% of the middle class. According to statistics, most American households with annual incomes of more than $100,000 have Amazon Prime accounts. Currently, there are about 90 million Prime members in the United States. In 2018, 51% of American households are expected to become Prime members.

The success of Wish has brought great challenges to old e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, which transforms mobile devices into handheld shopping malls. In 2017, Wish defeated Amazon to become the number one shopping app in the United States.

But it is even more important to know that Wish is Trump. As he advances the goal of "making the United States great again," Chinese-made goods have already occupied the United States through e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Wish. “Made in China” products are more cost-effective, more SKUs, and longer tails than other countries. These advantages and competitiveness are demonstrated by the carriers of cross-border e-commerce.

In the first half of 2017, the scale of cross-border e-commerce transactions in China was 3.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.7%. Among them, the scale of export cross-border e-commerce transactions was 2.75 trillion yuan. Cross-border e-commerce has become an important driving force for China's foreign trade growth. From 2013 to 2016, China's cross-border e-commerce retail exports grew at an average annual rate of nearly 60%. Among the major export destinations of cross-border e-commerce in China, the United States, the European Union, and ASEAN rank among the top three.

Amazon has dominated China's export channel. In 2016, the value of Chinese companies' exports through Amazon exceeded 300 billion yuan. According to Amazon's official data, as of November 30, 2017, more than one million new sellers have settled in 12 sites around the world, and nearly one-third of them are from mainland China or Hong Kong. About 31% of the world's top 1,000 eBay sellers are cross-border e-commerce sellers. Among them, more than half of the sellers are from China.

Wish currently has the largest market in the United States. According to similarweb data on March 1, November 17, 2017, January 18-1818, Wish's main source of traffic, namely its main markets are the United States, Brazil, France, Germany. And Italy. In 2016, Chinese sellers exported nearly US$3 billion through Wish, and goods from China accounted for more than 90% of sales.

In addition to these large cross-border e-commerce platforms, Americans have recommended that I use some smaller e-commerce platforms. Just looking at the description of the product, the packaging, and the presentation of the product, I didn't even realize the connection between them and the Chinese manufacturing. After the last thing was sent from China, it was only stunned.

The improvement of product quality, technology content and price competitive advantage made in China gives people a little surprise from time to time. For the people in the circle, this must be the ANKER of Shenzhen. ANKER is immersed in its own brand. Last year, it defeated big brands such as Apple and Samsung and became the leader of the international smart accessories industry. This legend has spurred the Chinese manufacturing industry and realized and began to pursue the value of brand and quality.

However, in exchange for the "vest" of the cross-border e-commerce platform, Chinese-made goods are still dominated by low-priced impulses, which is of course a reason for consumers to buy.

Gu Junlin, founder and CEO of Wuwu Haitao, described to me the trend he found: Consumer demand is not always upwards or downwards. He said that in the past people had a standard in mind, assuming that the 100-dollar Nike shoe is the standard, and now there is a $50 brand-name shoe. If the quality of the shoe is good enough, people will accept it, so the need can be created.

People tend to pay attention to the quality of the product itself, and the tendency to look down on price factors is common in fashion, technology, home decoration, beauty, fitness equipment and other commodities. On the e-commerce platform, low-cost online transactions are popular. Amazon launched a "less than $10" free shipping product in January. eBay followed suit and announced a new "less than $10" shopping product, as well as a free shipping service. When the price advantage is still China's advantage for a long time, the popularity of low-cost online trading has opened the way for more Chinese manufacturing to enter the United States.

Gu Junlin ran on both sides of the United States and China. He found that since last year, his friends from entrepreneurs, investors, to industry, they are increasingly saying that they want to do something on the export e-commerce platform. The cross-border e-commerce platform for foreign trade has suddenly become the most popular dream field.

At the national strategic level, China has placed the foreign trade market for the revitalization of cross-border e-commerce in the country's economic development. However, the United States is also pushing the trade protectionist agenda at the national policy level. On March 8, Trump signed a tariff announcement and decided to impose tariffs of 25% and 10% on imported steel and aluminum, respectively. Gu Junlin is worried about Guan Rui's application to Chinese-made products. Regardless of whether the trade war is not playing, in the current tide of the times, Trump chose to play against the air in fact, the development of e-commerce and the take-off of logistics, rather than playing with China.

(Editor: Song Zheng HN002)