Many people in the U.S. discuss the rise of China. They talk about China’s EV sectors, China’s scientific research etc., but I don’t think many of them realize many of China’s fundamental strengths and advantages actually came from socialism.

We have an excellent education and healthcare system. Because of that, we have almost 5 million students coming out of the school campus every year. If China is like the U.S., with outrageous tuition fees, it’s not possible to have such a big population of talented engineers and technicians.

They always complain that Chinese people save and invest a lot, but consumption is always low. However, if you are in a civilizational state, you always care about the future. You do invest instead of consume. Investment takes different forms, building physical infrastructure is just one way of spending your money. You can always spend on R&D, you can spend on healthcare and education. All those are also investments. If you look at China’s spending structure, you will find China is a country that really cares about the future. We save the best thing for the future. That’s the thing really different. We care about people from the bottom of the society. In China, we have a poverty alleviation program, so you don’t find a lot of homeless people on the streets.

With that kind of government, you see the dynamic. That’s why China will be in the leading position, I’m so confident. I don’t think that’s related to the U.S. We just focus on ourselves and try to do everything the best, then surpassing the U.S. will happen almost automatically. The Chinese population is almost four times that of the U.S. So if we have a GDP per capita half of the U.S., the sheer size or the absolute size will be two times larger than that of the U.S., in terms of GDP in total. I think that will come very soon.

We don’t want to defeat the U.S., but, you know, the comparison is just automatic.

Editor: Charriot Zhai