说说台湾

统一台湾是个极其庞大的系统工程。能够把这个事情办下来的人，功绩是仅次于推翻清朝那种档次的。为什么这么说呢?

因为拿下台湾并不只是把台湾岛攻打下来这么简单。那只是最容易的第一步。这一步以中国的能力明天就可以做到。难是难在打下来了以后下一步怎么办? 根据俄罗斯占领克里米亚的例子，可以毫无疑问的预见，中国拿下台湾以后，会受到西方的经济和军事制裁和封锁。最直接的就是石油和芯片禁运，以及切断中国对西方的出口。那在这种情况下，中国怎么抵抗? 这才是中国领导人在想的问题。

可以看出这十年来中国好几个战略方向都在为这个一步一步的铺路:

1. 石油运输路线：争夺南海岛礁，核心意义是为了保证马六甲海峡不被封锁。把南海打造成不沉的航空母舰。同时要开发绕过马六甲的航线。比如印度洋入海口。最根本的是摆脱对中东石油的依赖。所以委内瑞拉必须拉拢。页岩气必须开发。

2. 芯片禁运：中国芯片进口比石油还要多。重要性不多说了。2025说白了就是芯片国产化的运动。中美贸易战说白了也是芯片科技争夺战。如果没能做到芯片自主，那就没发科技自主。没有科技自主，那是经不起西方制裁的。

3. 商品市场: 一路一带的核心就是要开发西方以外的出口市场。在西方封锁经济的情况下，对一路一带沿途国家的出口还可以养活中国的工业生产力。

所以可以看出，这几年中国的战略，目的是在能源，科技，以及市场三方面摆脱对西方国家的依赖。这些都是为统一台湾铺路的。

至于和平统一可不可能? 可能。但是两岸间的柏林围墙不会那么容易倒下。哪怕倒了，也会面临国际孤立和封锁。所以得未雨绸缪。

至于时间点，很难具体预测。但是有一点可以肯定，这个时机是有限的。首先，中国人口在老化。随着人口老龄化，经济增长和军队战斗力会饱和然后下降。其次，美国会把重点转移到亚太。所以，中国在跟时间竞赛。必须要在前面两点实现之前达到那能源，科技和市场自主才能够顺利拿下台湾。由此可见，这未来十年必须相当专注。如果精力花在改朝换代，那就会错过这个历史机会。

中国人口结构不可持续性

分析一下中国的人口结构和社保制度在当今中等收入阶段是不可持续的。

现在的社保制度靠年轻人工作交社保，到了老年的时候享用。道理是简单。但是年轻人还没退休呢？你交的钱先给已经退休的老人用。说白了是个Ponzi scheme。

这个社保制度的前提是不断有年轻人加入到这个pool里头贡献他们的公积金。这就要求出生率要有一定的保证。可是目前中国的社会经济情况并不鼓励高出生率。人要生孩子，需要考虑到住房，教育，医疗，还有培伴孩子的时间。这些因素在国内都非常昂贵。

想象一下有两个家庭：家庭甲决定全心工作，不要孩子; 家庭乙决定要孩子。家庭甲由于没有孩子的负担，成天加班，在工作上晋升得快，赚的收入也多。由于没有孩子，攒了很多钱，加上适当的投资，到退休的时候有很丰厚的一笔退休金。这还没有包括社保。

家庭乙，由于要养孩子，在工作上时间精力没有家庭甲多，所以工资也不高。孩子身上花销大。到了退休的时候退休储备少很多。这还不够，平时他们辛辛苦苦攒的退休社保，还要跟家庭甲这样的富人去分享。

这么一对比，谁还会生孩子?

问题的根源是什么? 是中国的人均生产力的增长速度低于人口增长速度。当人均生产力增长快的时候，一个人的收入就搓搓有余地养活一家人。反之，一个人的收入连自己都养不起。现在中国大城市很多就是后面这种情况。有人说中国现在养孩子的成本贵。但是这些成本贵却正正是你人均生产力相对低下的表现。

大部分发达国家要进入发达国家的前提是人均GDP要进入上万美元。要是在没有进入这个门槛前人口就出现负增长的话，那社会财富总量就会下降。这是因为老年人的退休金就把年轻人的积蓄全给消耗掉了。简单的说国家攒不了钱。因此就耗在中等收入陷阱。

随想-中国的工业化

继前两天关于中国外交史的回顾，今天再谈谈中国工业化进程中几个重大的节点: 资本国有化，抗美援朝，中苏交好，知青下乡，大跃进，原子弹，改革开放。

这些跟工业化和搞经济又有什么关系呢？

很多人，尤其是年轻人，以为工业化就是发展经济，发展经济就应该像资本主义那样，按照自由经济规律，能者多劳的分配原则，凭着我们中国人的聪明智慧，自然就会走上发达国家的道路。

这种想法无疑是非常天真的。有这种想法的人，不太了解国家经济背后的基本元素是什么。发展经济需要三个元素: 资源，科技，还有市场。其中资源包括自然资源，人力资源，还有资本。新中国刚成立的时候，可以说是要什么没什么: 自然资源受国外掐脖子，科技一无所有，人连饭都没吃饱。

如果你是领导人，接手了这么一套烂摊子，你会怎么选择? 当时有三种选择: 一种是选择买办经济，跟西方靠拢。让西方产品进场，充斥国内市场。那我们拿什么去买单呢？全国人的人力和国家的资源呗。不光这样，重要的经济领域将会被西方国家垄断，而且他们会通过民主政治保证我们选出来的领导人永远为他们服务。例子请参考拉美国家。

第二种选择是做独裁资源国家。上层领导靠卖资源维持自己的独裁统治，并满足人民的基本生活以至于他们不会造反。可是上文说了，中国因为资源本来就缺乏，还需要进口呢。

最后一种选择就是老老实实的硬着头皮的发展自己的工业。你可能会想，得，我努力干活还不行吗？但就这样，也不是一条容易的道路。首先，人家凭什么要把饭碗教给你啊？ 你要不是老毛通过朝鲜战争讨好斯大林，哪有156项工业项目啊？

一个国家要从无到有开始工业化，人得先吃的上饭。要吃饭就得有大规模农业。要农业就得有化肥，农业机械，土地和人员集中管理。要生产化肥需要巨大反应器，这就要有钢铁技术。土地人员集中管理需要打破小农经济的组织方式。但这还不够，国家大部分资源资本零零散散的落在私有资本手里，怎样去发展国家急需的工农业? 所以需要收归国有。现在知道了吧，这一切现在看来当年老毛一系列反人类的做法，都是为了把资源最大化得集中起来，甘最重要的事情。按照市场经济的话，中国工业化估计还会停留在东南亚的水平。

可是西方国家不是傻瓜。当时历史上从来没有出现过人口过亿的发达国家。如果让中国工业化成功了，那他们还混个屁啊？为什么日本韩国，沙特，甚至德国不敢跟美国对着干呢？因为人家军队就在你家待着。这些所谓美国盟友只有一天没有自己的国防，一天都得听美国的话。所以说经济独立，是要建立在国防军事独立的基础上的。

中国到目前为止做得最伟大的一件事情，就是勒紧裤腰带搞了原子弹。想象一下美国明天派军队过来那枪指着你的脑袋要你停止发展中国制造2025。要是没有原子弹压箱子，你屁都不敢放一个。

而作为一个穷国要搞原子弹，钢铁，汽车，化肥这些工业基础谈何容易? 不用极端手段把资源集中起来能行吗？没有这些工业基础，后来来料加工轻工业能这么轻松吗？

回头看才知道，谁才是真正的世纪为人。俗话说，不当家不知道米贵。底层的老百姓不知道做领导的每天晚上都在想什么问题。我们确实走了一些弯路，钻了一些牛角尖。但是能把地球五分之一的人口，在一块资源相对贫瘠，地缘环境相对封闭的土地上，在几十年内，从GDP全世界倒数，变成排名第二。这种成就，有时候光想想都自豪得想哭。

What US China Trade War is really about

Forget soybeans, auto imports, iPhones, crude oil, and cheap Chinese gadgets. Also forget tariffs, duties, and subsidies. Even forget weapons.

The real reason behind the US-China "trade" war has little to do with actual trade, and everything to do with what China's president, Xi Jinping, said when he visited a memory chip plant in the city of Wuhan earlier this year. In a white lab coat, he made an unexpectedly sentimental remark, comparing a computer chip to a human heart: “No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart”.

What is really at the basis of the ongoing civilizational conflict between the US and China, a feud which many say has gradually devolved into a new cold war if few top politicians are willing to call it for what it is, are China’s ambitions to be a leader in next-generation technology, such as artificial intelligence, which rest on whether or not it can design and manufacture cutting-edge chips, and is why Xi has pled.

Washington plans to ramp up export controls next year on so-called foundational technologies — those that can enable development in a broad range of sectors — and the equipment for manufacturing chips is one of the key target areas under discussion.

This is a concern for China as the $412 billion global semiconductor industry rests on the shoulders of just six equipment companies, with three of them based in the US. Together, these companies make nearly all of the crucial hardware and software tools needed to manufacture chips, meaning an American export ban would choke off China’s access to the basic tools needed to make their latest chip designs.

"You cannot build a semiconductor facility without using the big major equipment companies, none of which are Chinese,” said Brett Simpson, the founder of Arete Research, an equity research group. "If you fight a war with no guns you’re going to lose. And they don’t have the guns."

To be sure, under Beijing’s auspices, Chinese chip companies have made enormous gains in semiconductor design as well as chip testing and packaging, in an attempt to catch up to the US. Several private and state-owned Chinese companies — Intel-backed Tsinghua Unigroup, Cambricon Technologies and Huawei’s HiSilicon among them — have already begun to venture into designing the leading edge chips capable of AI applications.

But the real difficulty is not in designing the chips, but in making them: "From a design perspective, Chinese companies are at least on par with anyone else in the world,” said Risto Puhakka, president of VSLI Research. “Where they have a challenge is if they decide to make a very cutting-edge chip."

Foremost among them is the Netherland’s ASML, which makes the photolithography machines that print and etch designs on to silicon wafers. It is the only supplier of the extreme ultra violet (EUV) lithography machines needed to make a 7-nanometre processor, the industry’s current gold standard.

Over in the US, Lam Research and Applied Materials as well as Japanese company Tokyo Electron dominate the market for equipment that can deposit billions of transistors and other active components on to a single chip. Another US company, KLA Tencor, sells much of the technology used in testing and monitoring the quality of chip production.

It is China’s reliance on these companies, more than any down swing in the stock market, that has made it vulnerable.

Bank of America's Michael Hartnett said half a year ago: for all the talk of the escalating confrontation between the US and China, the "trade war" of 2018 should be recognized for what it really is: "the first stage of a new arms race between the US & China to reach national superiority in technology over the longer-term via Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Hypersonic Warplanes, Electronic Vehicles, Robotics, and Cyber-Security."

Which is why, at this point delaying Beijing may be the best option for the US which is slowly but surely losing its one insurmountable technological advantage. But while that may win the short-term battle, will it merely lead to an even faster victory for China in the war, first trade and eventually, real.

Dangerous Move

If, as Mark Twain reputedly said, history often rhymes, our era increasingly recalls the period preceding 1914. And as with Europe’s great powers back then, the United States, led by an administration intent on asserting America’s dominance over China, is pushing the world toward disaster.

The context of the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou – a dangerous move by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in its intensifying conflict with China – matters enormously. The United States requested that Canada arrest Ms. Meng in the Vancouver airport en route to Mexico from Hong Kong, and then extradite her to the United States. Such a move is almost a U.S. declaration of war on China’s business community. Nearly unprecedented, it puts American business people travelling abroad at much greater risk of such actions by other countries.

The United States rarely arrests senior business people, U.S. or foreign, for alleged crimes committed by their companies. Corporate managers are usually arrested for their alleged personal crimes (such as embezzlement, bribery or violence) rather than their company’s alleged malfeasance. Yes, corporate managers should be held to account for their company’s malfeasance, up to and including criminal charges, but to start this practice with a leading Chinese business person – rather than the dozens of culpable U.S. CEOs and CFOs – is a stunning provocation to the Chinese government, business community and public.

Ms. Meng is charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Yet, consider her arrest in the context of the large number of companies, U.S. and non-U.S., that have violated America’s sanctions against Iran and other countries. In 2011, for example, JP Morgan Chase paid $88.3 million in fines in 2011 for violating U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet Jamie Dimon wasn ’t grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody.

And JP Morgan Chase was hardly alone in violating U.S. sanctions. Since 2010 , the following major financial institutions paid fines for such violations: Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, Bank of Guam, Bank of Moscow, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Clearstream Banking, Commerzbank, Compass, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, National Bank of Pakistan, PayPal, RBS (ABN Amro ), Société Générale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Trans Pacific National Bank (now known as Beacon Business Bank), Standard Chartered and Wells Fargo.

None of the CEOs or CFOs of these sanction-busting banks were arrested and taken into custody for these violations. In all of these cases, the corporation – rather than an individual manager – was held accountable. Nor were they held accountable for the pervasive lawbreaking in the lead-up to or aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, for which the banks paid a staggering US$243 billion in fines, according to a recent tally. In light of this record, Ms. Meng’s arrest is a shocking break with practice. Yes, hold CEOs and CFOs accountable – but start at home in order to avoid hypocrisy, self-interest disguised as high principle and the risk of inciting a new global conflict.

Quite transparently, the U.S. action against Ms. Meng really seems to be part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to undermine China’s economy by imposing tariffs, closing Western markets to Chinese high- technology exports and blocking Chinese purchases of U.S. and European technology companies. One can say, without exaggeration, that this is part of an economic war on China – and a reckless one at that.

Huawei is one of China’s most important technology companies and therefore a prime target in the Trump administration’s effort to slow or stop China’ s advance into several high-technology sectors. America’s motivations in this economic war are partly commercial – to protect and favour laggard U.S . companies – and partly geopolitical. They certainly have nothing to do with upholding the international rule of law.

The U.S. appears to be trying to target Huawei especially because of the company’s success in marketing cutting-edge 5G technologies globally. The U .S. claims the company poses a specific security risk through hidden surveillance capabilities in its hardware and software. Yet the U.S. government has provided no evidence for this claim.

快乐指数

今天给大家讲一个有趣的故事。
在上世纪70年代美苏争霸的时候，赫鲁晓夫和尼克松曾经有过这么一段故事。在一次会面中， 赫鲁晓夫向尼克松展示了苏联当时最先进的太空科技和武器，以表示苏联社会主义的优越性。 尼克松则展示了美国的一个普通人家的厨房，以及里头的各种现代化的电器设备。 尼克松提出一个问题， 我们美苏两国的年轻人， 以后会选择选择生活在哪种体质的社会里呢？ 赫鲁晓夫觉得很可笑， 答案当然是伟大的社会主义制度的苏联。

这次会面之后， 苏联统计局专门找人做了一番研究， 看看如何定量的计算苏联人的生活快乐程度，以此来判断苏联人民是否比西方国家过得更加好。 当时有一名数学家名字叫米哈伊尔-布林接受了这个任务。 这位布林先生是个犹太裔天才， 毕业于莫斯科国立大学。 本来志愿是当宇航员。 但是由于他是犹太人， 他被拒绝于物理研究门外。 毕业后只能进入统计局算算幸福指数。 但是他还是非常敬业， 每当看到自己国家的幸福指数远远高于西方国家的时候， 他心里面暗自为自己的工作感到自豪和高兴。

直到有一次机会他参加了一次国际会议。 会议他与世界各地的专家交流。他很惊讶的发现，其他发达国家并没有专门算过他们的幸福指数。 会议以后他很纳闷， 便开始反思他自己的工作到底有么有意义。 他最后觉得， 如果连自己喜欢的专业都不能从事， 那哪里谈得上幸福呢？ 他想到自己孩子的将来。

最后他决定要移民到美国。当他到移民局申请的时候，他统计局的公务员工作马上被开除。在等待移民的过程做， 他到处打零工来维持家庭开资。 最后在8个月后如愿移民到美国。

由于受过高等教育， 布林和他妻子在美国都找到了很好的工作。布林在马里兰大学教书， 他妻子进入了美国宇航局工作。 这在苏联根本没法想象。

他们的儿子， 从小学习优秀并显露超凡的数学天才。 最后进入了斯坦福大学。 毕业后，儿子创立了一家公司。 这家公司名字叫谷歌。

故事讲完了。 最后还是回到尼克松当年问赫鲁晓夫的问题，我们两国的年轻人，最后会选择在内个社会生活呢？ 苏联的快乐指数计算者布林给出了完美的答案。

Owning the Choke Points

As China charts its global reach, six zones demand special attention: the maritime choke points.

The entryway to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. The passageway from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean via the Strait of Malacca. The corridor separating Europe from Africa at the Strait of Gibraltar. Bab el Mandeb, off Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. The Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Access to the Mediterranean from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal.

At any one, an outbreak of hostilities could imperil China’s free movement around the globe, jeopardizing its exports and access to resources.

These zones have historically been policed by American naval power, which has made China’s access dependent on peaceful relations with the United States. To liberate itself, China has been lavishing investment on governments that control the choke points.