Only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you win every battle - Know Yourself "Our Geostrategy"
Preface:
As people who are concerned about macroeconomic and geopolitical issues, we must pay attention to geostrategic issues.
As for geopolitical issues, we are not only watching others' "excitement" across the Internet, but we are also facing great difficulties and "turning points" ourselves.
We often study and pay attention to the Western economy and its operating trajectory as a process of improving our self-awareness, but this is only knowing the enemy. As for our own home, we should also know ourselves appropriately.
Although at this point many people have already thought of all kinds of complaints, all kinds of bad things, and some even directly sing bearish views.
It doesn’t matter. In fact, what I want to say is that if you have enough perspective to see, you will find that it is not us who are sad, but every family has its own problems.
When I was a child, my parents taught me this saying: "A son will not dislike his mother's ugliness, and a dog will not dislike his family's poverty." Although the viewpoint is too subjective, I think this saying is worthy of respect.
Faced with the current situations and the various incidents that have occurred, we do feel uncomfortable, have complaints, and even suffer losses. However, if complaining can solve problems, then the popular status of "freedom of speech" in the West would have surpassed that of parliament and Congress long ago.
Complaining, discussing, reviewing, and complaining are all good. After all, mistakes are inevitable and need to be corrected. However, complaining cannot solve the problem. At sensitive times, it is better for everyone to cheer each other up, which will make life a little better.
Let’s get to the point:
When it comes to geostrategy, the topic that all countries in the world cannot avoid is actually centered around two "powers" - land power and sea power.
Speaking of the earliest debate on land power and sea power in modern times, it can be traced back to the late Qing Dynasty, when the two "giants" in the court of the late Qing Dynasty, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, had a fierce debate on sea power and land power.
Among them, Zuo Zongtang advocated the development of land power, while Li Hongzhang advocated the development of sea power.
The biggest examples of sea power and land power are the Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road.
When a country decides on the development direction of its geostrategic strategy, it determines the route and plan of its future economic development, which is a decision that can affect the country's economic lifeline.
And 20 years ago, we were still focusing on developing the maritime power strategy. This can be seen from the country's vigorous development of key cities and coastal economies. At the same time, paying attention to our imports and exports, we can also see how much we rely on sea transportation.
Disadvantages first appeared:
In fact, sea power has always been disadvantageous to us in modern times, because we have lost the advantages of the early development of the first and second industrial revolutions, which has led to our power being very weak.
This has resulted in our maritime transport being squeezed to survive over the past many years.
In the second globalization process, we were a passive participant and still enjoyed certain conveniences. However, when the third globalization began, we did not participate significantly, and the world began to gradually develop regional economies, and contradictions in globalization arose.
When conflicts arise, frictions arise. From the initial sanctions, whether in science and technology, military, industry, etc., to our efforts to catch up, and the formation of the current initial confrontational forces, this process was very difficult.
In this context, although we have been working hard to develop maritime power capabilities in the past 20 years, we are still constrained in many ways.
Led by certain Western countries, they began to form alliances with several maritime powers and began to curb the development of our maritime power. Although there was no direct conflict, the economic containment was also very important.
Their purpose is simple: to decouple us from the Asia-Pacific economies and even the entire Eurasian plate.
A major industrial producer, a country that is overly dependent on sea power, once its sea power is curbed, its external export capacity will be weakened, and its internal income costs will increase or raw materials will decrease, which will cause internal economic problems.
This is in line with the old saying, "Hit the snake at its most vulnerable part" and it really hurts.
At this point, many people may say, our maritime power is increasing, so can’t we fight?
No, you absolutely cannot take the initiative. It's like discussing business at a business table. You can choose not to talk, you can leave, but you can't take action directly. Once you do, you will face international public opinion and pressure, and even more chain reactions.
Economic war and trade war are more like soft knives. They may not look dangerous, but they are deadly in every move!
At present, we have to admit that the drawbacks are that the economy is overly dependent on foreign exports, and at the same time, there is an excessive demand for crude oil, ore, soybeans and other bulk commodities. Once in this situation, the sea power capacity is restricted, and the lifeline will be curbed.
A set of data shows our dependence on imports: 70% of the annual energy demand, 90% of iron ore, 90% of soybeans, etc., are all dependent on imports.
Although we are still optimistic about our current maritime power, the data shows that we are overly dependent on import and export trade, which means that we must always be vigilant that our lifeline cannot be threatened.
Of course, as I said above, force cannot solve all problems, so how to guard against soft knives? That is to do a good job in diplomacy, but not blindly be weak. Internally, we need to develop another transportation route, that is, to attach importance to the road rights construction that Zuo Zongtang once advocated.
Right of way development:
In fact, even now, in the past few years since the emergence of the Belt and Road Initiative, more and more people are still focusing our development focus and economic growth on the southeastern coastal areas, and are still continuing the economic system derived from the traditional maritime power economy.
However, what cannot be ignored is that we have been gradually adjusting various construction projects in the west and northwest to expand land transportation capabilities.
I mentioned in an article before that we are currently developing along three lines:
To the north, across Siberia and then to Northern Europe, maritime power can extend to the American continent.
The middle line crosses the Eurasian continental shelf, West Asia, the Middle East countries, and continues to southeastern Europe, directly through Europe. It goes down through Egypt and directly to the African continent.
Offline, it is still sea power transportation, extending to the wider Pacific Ocean and the Southern Hemisphere.
Through this route, we can actually see that it relies more on the right-of-way lines to maintain.
If you look at it from this perspective, when you recall many of the actions taken in recent years and the confusion among many people about why money was thrown around to help developing countries, you may understand why we did this.
Historical perspective:
I said earlier that governing a large country is like cooking a small fish. This is about paying attention to details. Here I want to say that our human perspective is too fast, while the historical perspective is too slow. The human perspective is too close, while the historical perspective is too long-term.
We always focus on the next three, five, or ten years because it is closely related to us. However, for strategic layout, long-term, stable, and sustainable development are the core. The pursuit of short-term benefits cannot solve the fundamental problem.
Because it only takes a few decades for us humans to be born and die, and when we die, we give up everything in this world. However, a country's life lasts for hundreds of years, so various strategies must always be considered as long-term plans.
Ending:
In fact, it is understandable that we digest the US all day long. In fact, we have made many stupid and wrong moves ourselves. There is nothing we can do. This is the limitation of human beings. We can never be right forever. At the same time, we cannot judge whether it is right now or in the future in the short term.
Many people may have doubts after reading the content. Since there are conflicts and we want to improve diplomacy, why can't we be "softer" in exchange for a better economy and a higher quality of life for residents?
Actually, this question is another long article, and it is more sensitive. But what I can say is that you can look at Japan and South Korea. In the last century, their economies took off, their industries were developed, and their technology was ahead of everything else. But what happened in the end?
If you compromise blindly in exchange for short-term conflict resolution, you will need to give up your own sovereignty. Then you can get the support of developed countries, but are you still yourself?
To put it simply, if we had chosen to compromise like Japan and South Korea did back then, and chose to reduce our national sovereignty in exchange for economic growth, we would be doing very well now and our economy would be very good.
But the only bad thing is that when you walk on the street and see certain people, you need to call them "foreigners".
If you think I am exaggerating, you might as well take a look at history yourself, especially modern history, especially countries that lost their sovereignty. How did they face their "foreign masters"?
Just like when we invest and do business, only when we have capital and money can we have the right to speak. Similarly, when a country’s people face a more powerful country, if they do not have sovereignty, they will also have no self-respect.
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