Continuing the conversation started by article ¹ and responses to article ², we would like first of all to express our deep gratitude to all the participants of a very interesting discussion and, of course, to the editorial board of the journal that organized this discussion.

In any case, the panelists raised and discussed a number of interrelated issues, including those that are fundamentally important for theory and practice. Among them, of course, were the prevailing model of the world order, its impact on the socio-economic development of specific countries, and the likelihood of an alternative, replacement, or transformation (modification) of this model.

Aggregate indicators of socio-economic development (primarily GDP) and their adequacy to the tasks of measuring the relative levels and quality of development of different countries were discussed. Current trends in scientific and technological progress, such as whether "innovation clusters" are driving economic growth, also came into focus. Considerable attention was paid to the role of the financial sector in the economies of developed and developing countries and to the reflection of this role in the economic growth models of these countries and in the models of the future world order.

Many participants spoke in favor of changing approaches to understanding the global and regional problems of the modern world and Russia's place in it. Our discussion, which was not constrained by the rigid framework of the agenda, undoubtedly provided both a sufficient variety of views on China's place in the modern world and a common understanding of the importance of integrated approaches to this issue.

We remind readers of the deliberate sharpness of some of the accents in our first article, stipulated in the preamble. Unfortunately, this sharpness sometimes led our readers who took part in the discussion away from our main topic: the interaction of mainstream ³ and Chinese practice - interactions, not contradictions, especially antagonism. One of the most important aspects of this topic is the relationship between finance and the real sector in the world economy, as well as in the Chinese economy. This correlation, of course, cannot be reduced to any opposition between the United States and China or the economies of these two countries, especially at the current stage of globalization.

This is different: quantitatively, and even in a competitive sense qualitatively, China represents a certain comparable, special⁴and, at the same time, several different countries.

¹ See: Oriens. 2011, No. 5, pp. 72-83.

² See: Oriens. 2012, No. 1, pp. 82-108; No. 2, pp. 87-124.

³ Recall that we have included three components in the mainstream: neoliberalism, the theory of post-industrial society, and the policies of the United States (international financial institutions), which are currently undergoing a significant transformation.

⁴ This is an education (state) V. V. Mikheev also described China as "politically alien to the West" (Berger and Mikheev, p. 63).

It is a separate education in relation to the Western mainstream (and Western finansomics).

Studying this education, including in its interaction with the mainstream (external and internal, Chinese) and Western finance, is an urgent task for international and Chinese scholars, especially in Russia.

We also remind you that the first article was written in February 2011, when Hu Jintao's visit to the United States had just ended. Libya has not yet been bombed, and forecasts for a global economic recovery have been much more optimistic than at the beginning of 2012, when these lines are being written, and markets and Western economies are unusually nervous. Over the past year, a lot of events have taken place (one way or another affecting the interaction between the mainstream and China): the mainstream and financial economy changed (the eurozone crisis, increased state regulation of the market, for example, the Dodd-Frank law in the United States), growth and inflation rates in China decreased, this country increased capital export and the policy of internationalization of the yuan. The past year has also been rich in many other events that indicate a kind of contraction of the current historical time - a phenomenon that is common for crisis and transition periods. And increasingly, China has been at the center of news and events.

CHINA'S LOCOMOTIVE FOR THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

It so happened that the speeches of many panelists, including comments on the article, often referred to China's position in the global economy and the possibility of applying the not quite clear concept of "leader"^to this country5.

In particular, V. Ya. Portyakov believes that China, Asia or the BRICS countries are still not up to the role of the world economy leader. V. A. Melyantsev is a little more cautious: on the one hand, he noted that in the current century "the rapid growth of the largest Asian developing countries has become the engine of the global economy", and, on the other hand, he cited a number of indicators that indicate that China is significantly lagging behind the United States: in terms of individual income, accumulated national wealth, and the volume of "human capital". capital", etc.

Of course, we do not argue with the fact that China is much inferior to developed countries in these indicators. This article was about something else: the fundamental insufficiency of the mainstream to overcome backwardness and dependence. China, on the other hand, is more successful than other countries in coping with these fundamental problems, distancing itself from the Western mainstream and relying on capital formation, integrated industrial development, and the creation of a national infrastructure (market in the physical sense). These tasks have historically not been solved by Western countries in a forced mode. Moreover, Western finansomics (in the course of extensive growth and expansion to the rest of the world over three decades, including within the framework of the policy of globalization) grew mainly from the already achieved power of corporations, significant labor productivity in industry, and the resulting withdrawal of part of industrial capital to finance.

China, on the other hand, is only now approaching this stage of economic evolution - while the features of the intensification of industrial growth and the emergence of finansomics are already very prominent in certain regions and corporations, and they are also confirmed by the beginning

⁵ The authors ' position on the possible role of China in the global economy and reactions to it is described in comparative detail in the works: The New Leader of the world Economy // Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2008, No. 3; China: universal modernization model? / Sovremennye problemy razvitiya [Modern Problems of Development], Ed. by V. G. Khoros, Moscow: IMEMO RAS, 2010; Perekhod k okhlozheniyu ekonomiki v Kitae [Transition to Cooling the economy in China]. Yearbook, Moscow: IMEMO RAS, 2011. At the same time, it seems a bit of a stretch for some authors to use the expression "new superpower" to the PRC - if we talk in terms familiar to international experts. But here we are still talking about an economic locomotive.

mass export of capital. Just the sheer scale of the Chinese economy gives this situation an extraordinary drama, making economic growth in this country also a geopolitical factor.

In mid-2011, a report from the well-known McKinsey company was published. It contains a fairly simple but convincing calculation: if the accumulation rate in the global economy as a whole had remained at the level of the 1970s, an additional $ 20 trillion would have been invested in it. This huge amount is a kind of "bill" to the mainstream from the real sector of the planet: unpaved roads, hospitals, schools, etc. It is here that we see a particularly striking contrast between China and, for example, "transition" countries. It is for this reason that we have characterized the Chinese model in a general sense as an investment model, without, of course, setting ourselves the task of describing it in any complete way (many of its important features were precisely pointed out by J. M. Berger, O. N. Boroch, and other participants in the discussion).

Let us now return to the question of leadership. "Motor", "locomotive" and "leader", especially in the world of sluggish economic dynamics, in our opinion, are partly related concepts. Noting China's leadership characteristics, especially in relation to developing countries, we wanted to emphasize that in difficult times, good economic dynamics even psychologically overshadows accumulated resources, especially if the latter do not give economic growth and profit. Incremental parameters are much more important during such periods. China, on the other hand, accounted for about half of the total global GDP growth in 2009 - 2011. Domestic demand and imports continued to grow in 2009 - 2011. China's imports at the end of 2011 reached 85% of the same indicator in the United States and grew by almost 25% in 2011. For this reason, the PRC certainly deserves the title of one of the locomotives of the world economy.

Together with the exceptionally strong monetary and financial position of the state-in contrast to the governments of Western countries - the PRC has quite sufficient grounds for membership in the club of world leaders in the future. In our opinion, the financial crisis in the West has led to the emergence of a polycentric world, no longer as a powerful trend, but as a global economic and geopolitical reality. A more democratic "twenty" can serve as a prototype of the club.

Many analysts have noted leadership signs in China over the past year. For example, the phrase from the Deutsche Bank report (spring 2011): "China pulled the world economy out of recession" is quite adequate, and this expression, in our opinion, is adequate both literally (as a trading partner and lender) and figuratively (as an example of psychological stability). This is also true in the opposite sense - imagine that the Chinese "locomotive" will slow down or stop. "In the minds of many, China is already an economic and political superpower," writes R. Kuhn, a well-known expert on China [Kuhn, 2011, p.IV].

In the last few years of the crisis, the world has changed a lot and continues to change in a compressed time. Until relatively recently, our international experts recorded that "the leading role in the transition from industrial to information and financial societies (emphasis added by us-A. S. and V. T.) belongs to the countries of the West, and above all to the United States" [Voskresensky, 2004, p.35]. Now, in the period of the financial crisis, which has not been overcome in the West (and where calls for reindustrialization are increasingly being heard), the question of leadership has "moved" from the field of quantitative comparisons to another plane: political economy, orientation and development strategies, worldview and, we emphasize, attitude to the mainstream.

The mainstream is quite rightly considered one of the causes of the financial crisis in the richest country in the world, printing a reserve currency. The attitude to the mainstream in other countries is becoming both a philosophical and ideological issue - according to the absolutely fair observations of P. M. Sadykhov and N. A. Kosolapov. And the beginning of reindustrialization in the United States and calls for insourcing (the return of business from abroad).-

In other developed countries, it is also a tribute to the Chinese challenge in industrial development, especially since insourcing is often understood as a return from China.

For this reason, the mainstream-also as an idea of a post-industrial (information and financial) society, as almost the next independent formation or the common future of humanity in our days - is just a utopia, even in relation to the United States, which clearly did not reach the role of a global bank and information center. And does the planet need such a device in the singular?

At this critical time, the usual quantitative differences are not so significant - the previous hierarchy and ratings are becoming insufficient and incomplete. What was fundamentally important was another difference: the power of the United States, which was relatively strengthened by the long and relatively successful imposition of the mainstream on other countries (and restraining their development, especially if the adherents were too diligent), and the dynamics of China, which critically adapted the mainstream (barely hiding behind its" specifics " useful recipes for others, including countering harmful external influences).

It would seem that the signs of leadership do not directly follow from this "defensive" position of China. But this is only at first glance. In a polycentric world, the mainstream is not necessary at all (here we will agree with V. Ya. Portyakov and the Chinese, who also consider polycentrism to be a variety of socio-economic systems of different countries) - at least because of the huge differences in the well-being and mentality of individual countries and regions, reinforced by globalization. Somewhere there are conditions for the formation of high-tech structures (but not societies!) or their segments, ⁷ somewhere agrarian reforms are on the agenda, somewhere-initial or re-industrialization ⁸. Somewhere it is necessary to liberalize the economy, somewhere to go along the path of privatization. In some places, on the contrary, nationalizations, state planning, and state capitalism cannot be dispensed with, which historically, by the way, is equally characteristic of the Kuomintang and the CCP. To some extent, China is freeing up space by its example for an evolutionary return to a greater variety of projects and tools - from today's fever of dancing for the trust of "global" investors and high ratings of rating agencies.

Having failed to overcome the mainstream of China (and indeed a significant part of Asia), the West begins to abandon it itself, including in the central issue (as O. V. Malyarov rightly noted) about the role of the state in the economy.⁹ Among other things, he is being pushed to such a refusal by the "withdrawal" of jobs by corporations from the West to the East, including in the new "workshop of the world". But N. A. Kosolapov is absolutely right: this refusal is incomplete and the West will not be able to change the foundation of ideology. Which, perhaps, is to the advantage of a more omnivorous China at its invariably initial stage of building socialism (and with business eternally loyal to the state?), which has not lost, unlike the USSR,

⁶ Any doctrine that claims to be complete needs its own dream (utopia), the role of which in the mainstream has been perfectly fulfilled by this idea from the work of d. Bella is naturally vulgar in specific politics.

⁷ I have repeatedly written about the small number and very modest contribution of high technologies to GDP and employment, even in the United States. Krugman. "The figures for new jobs in the United States," II. Roberts noted in September 2011, " have nothing to do with propaganda about the new economy."

⁸ " The United States also has an industrial policy-support for the financial industry, which supposedly effectively distributes capital to the most promising sectors of the economy. In reality, as we know, all this has turned out to be nothing more than inflating bubbles in financial markets and real estate," writes Adam Hersh, an economist at the Center for American Progress. In his opinion, the United States needs full-fledged rsindustrialization.

⁹ Not only the state, but also the authorities - a very valuable remark of N. A. Kosolapov; for example, global financial markets, seemingly anonymous investors, etc. have power.

this " - ism "in the ideological struggle ¹⁰ and does not yet try to replace the post-industrial" formation "with the perspective of a" fair " social structure, which is certainly not close and certainly includes a high-tech component. China's" new type of industrialization " welcomes this component, which in recent years has also led to the transfer of R & D from developed countries to China - closer to the industrial capacities previously outsourced there.¹¹

The paradox of the current historical moment also lies in the fact that if in the West the mainstream is increasingly attacked from the left, often quoting K. Marx, then China "criticizes" The West in a mainstream way-by buying (not buying) or selling government debts of developed countries, appeals to WTO rules, etc. In the United States, passions are boiling over the uneven distribution of income, and in China they are preparing infrastructure for placing securities of foreign issuers, while Chinese multimillionaires are leaving for the United States and Canada, including in order to teach children in higher education institutions with less stringent exams. In this "mixed world", Europeans bombard Libya in the spring of 2011, barely abandoned by Chinese construction workers, and in the fall of the same year they ask Beijing for a loan.

As a result, China calmly overcomes the mainstream and confidently looks at the stagnant West in the Dengxiaoping style - "without unnecessary disputes" and "without unnecessary brilliance" (Taoguang yanghui) - not to shoot with a Confucian caliber at the emasculated shell of the mainstream, which becomes just a convenient business dialect. And the intellectual (universalist) claims of the mainstream are presented with specific and therefore especially convincing objections - in the form of free money, access to the Chinese market, purchases of airliners, building its own fleet for transporting LNG (liquefied natural gas), etc.

There is another paradox. Increasingly market-oriented (democratically market-oriented-according to A.V. Akimov) China is increasingly rejected in the United States - even by liberals (Democrats). It seems that this is not a matter of theories and principles, but simply of the changing balance of power and the unwillingness of the United States to move, yielding or sharing its usual positions with the PRC.

For this reason, the Chinese are becoming less patient with invectives about excessive thrift or "misunderstanding" that demand is the main engine of the economy. Meanwhile, their consistent " Keynesianism "(as opposed to the "inconsistent" Keynesianism of the current US administration) is the subject of obvious envy of American liberals-P. Krugman, R. Reich, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Stiglitz ¹², although, as we understand, Keynesianism is not the only secret of China's success.

It just so happens that under the influence of the crisis, a new bipolarity of the modern world has emerged and is developing; but in it, the United States can no longer, and the PRC does not seem to want to perform leadership functions alone. So much for a polycentric world.

But China's leadership potential (as an internal sense of self) is promoted and accompanied by the very dynamics of changes in the post-crisis balance of power, the destruction of old hierarchies, and (high) self-esteem.¹³ At the same time, the recommendations of Western scientists to overcome the crisis may be quite suitable, as O. N. Borokh rightly notes, leaving the "theoretical" priority to the West.

¹⁰ The point that China adheres to socialism is even included in the final document of negotiations with the WTO.

¹¹ The transfer of these works from the United States to China is becoming widespread. General Electric, for example, recently announced an additional $ 0.5 billion in R & D investment in China - on top of the $ 2 billion already invested.

¹² At the same time, the listed scientists (all, we note, free traders) unanimously condemn Beijing for the" undervalued " yuan exchange rate.

¹³ Regarding one of the points of Deng's legacy-the need for modest behavior in the external arena (the already mentioned expression "Taoguang yanghui") - in today's China, heated discussions continue unabated.

But the Chinese are not particularly eager for the laurels of theorists in an ideologically closed, as N. A. Kosolapov points out, and simply alien discourse, not at all complaining about their "alienness" to the West. It is just that the implementation of the sensible recommendations of the same American liberal economists often seems to us more likely in China than in the West.¹⁴ And the discussions in China are getting more interesting and deeper every year. We think O. N. Borokh will partially agree with us on this, and he will certainly agree that our public doesn't know much about these discussions. Finally, in its combined "model", the PRC took into account the theoretical developments of other countries (including Eastern European ones), adapting them to the situation of agricultural overpopulation, which is more typical for the modern world and has long been forgotten in developed countries.

We are far from seeing the full extent of the problems facing China. The same task of expanding the domestic market and demand in addition to creating infrastructure (in which the Chinese are successful, although not without major failures, in particular in the construction of high-speed railways), is likely to require a very energetic and large-scale maneuver, reminiscent of the "great compression"¹⁵ in the United States. But if in China Beijing is being forced into such a maneuver rather harshly by internal social circumstances, a more statesmanlike view of the world, and already acquired status characteristics (this does not mean that the maneuver will be successful), then in the United States a possible resumption of economic growth will simply postpone the solution of the problem indefinitely. These same internal circumstances force the PRC to maintain a high (by world standards, but already familiar to the economy) investment rate, which does not exclude its decline - gradual and already carried out in the course of the fight against the next "overheating" of the economy in 2010 - 2012, which is fraught with a serious, including crisis, scenario.

This is also why we are far from promoting the Chinese "model" as a model for Russia. The fact that following the mainstream did not help us very much does not mean that we are ready for the Chinese path (it is the paths, not the models, as J. M. Berger quite rightly noted - modeling and schematism were more characteristic of the static of the mainstream and more for adherents than for the mainstream centers themselves). And this path now also includes very different "models" of Chinese regions in terms of wealth and profile. They differ qualitatively, including in the stage of transition from a predominantly industrial to a service economy. And this poses additional and acute problems for the center.

Reflecting on the signs of leadership, we can once again think about the extensive and intensive beginning in the economy of the United States and China, for example, due to their so different provision of natural resources, labor and land in the historical context and perspective.

You can also ask yourself where there is more capitalism in the classical sense of the word (as expanded reproduction, savings and accumulation), or contrast the" destroyers "from Wall Street and the "creators" from Chinese factories that produce electric bicycles, photovoltaic panels or LEDs - as typical representatives of the farms of the two countries.

But this may not be a completely legitimate contrast, since the real sector in China is located with Wall Street in the relationship of the division of labor in the global economy (and even complementarity - the swelling of Western financiomics,

¹⁴ Curiously, both P. Krugman, R. Reich,and J. Stiglitz complain about their lack of demand in the economic headquarters of B. Obama. Commenting on Obama's speech in July 2011, Krugman called the call for spending cuts" tragic".

¹⁵ P. Krugman uses this expression to describe a sharp increase in the uniformity of income distribution in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s as a result of the implementation of the "new deal"ideology. Other liberal American economists are also calling for such a maneuver in the United States today.

perhaps not coincidentally accompanied by the rapid growth of the real sector in China). Another thing is the emerging and very difficult relationship between the "nascent" Chinese and" mature " American finansomics, which must be analyzed with special attention.

You can see in the same policy of internationalization of the yuan an attempt by China to start a kind of deglobalization of Western finance, clearing space for its own finance and currency.

Perhaps this interpretation of Chinese policy has led to endless discussions between Beijing and Washington about the exchange rate of the Chinese currency and its conversion regime.

Our discussion has undoubtedly captured the additional scope for research in the field of economic theory and practice that emerging bipolarity and the narrowing of the Western mainstream (which has become even more apparent over the past year) open up for other participants in the global economy.

And one of the prescriptions for the Russian economy was written out by V. A. Melyantsev, who mentioned that the rate of accumulation in our country is 40% lower than its decreased level in developed countries, twice lower than in India, and three times lower than in China. Also for this reason, the "Chinese model" is not yet a reference point for us.

HOW DEPENDENT IS CHINA ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD?

After listing China among the locomotives of the world economy and stating the emerging bipolarity that does not contradict polycentrism and is presented (with serious reservations) It seems that our considerations should be supported by additional arguments in favor of the position of the PRC as one of the centers of economic power. Strength, and, if you will, strength - including in relation to external crises. This situation, in our opinion, is not only due to high rates, but also due to China's sufficient independence - including from foreign economic relations - in which V. Ya.Portyakov and I. R. Tomberg did not fully agree with us.

Summarizing their points of view, we can first state (following V. A. Melyantsev) two circumstances. First, the PRC (not to mention India) is fundamentally different from the East Asian NIS with a lower level of this dependence, and, secondly, this level can both increase and decrease, especially when crisis and depression phenomena are observed in developed countries that are deeply involved in the world economy. Let us also note another fundamentally new circumstance: a decline in trade with sluggish economies can be accompanied by a rise in trade between the more dynamic parts of the world economy, which destroys the usual center - periphery scheme extremely quickly.

Here are some simple examples: during the zero years, the trade turnover between China and India grew 28 times (!), and now China, and not the United States, is Delhi's largest trading partner. India and Brazil exported more goods to developing countries than to developed countries in 2010. Similar processes are observed in the sphere of direct investment movement. In 2010, FDI inflows to developing countries exceeded the corresponding figure for developed countries for the first time in history. This circumstance, as well as the high share of peripheral countries in investment from developing countries16, is largely due to the movement of entrepreneurial capital to and from China.

¹⁶ In 2007-2010, the share of developing countries in investments from developed countries increased from 26 to 45%, and in investments from developing countries-from 58 to 63% [World Investment Report 2011, 2011, p. 14].

But let's return to the PRC's dependence on foreign economic relations. It is worth mentioning a few considerations about the methods for evaluating this dependence. The most well - known objection is the incomplete comparability of foreign trade and GDP, since the latter includes only value added. For this reason, modern econometrics consistently exaggerates the contribution of exports to economic growth.

This defect, by the way, is gradually being overcome: Statistical analysis of exports by value added is already used in Sweden, Costa Rica, and the EU headquarters in Brussels. The WTO secretariat also announced its intention to launch a statistical analysis of world trade by value added in 2011.

There is another circumstance that calls into question the validity of comparing indicators of foreign trade volume with GDP, investment or retail trade, especially on long dynamic series.

The fact is that during the evolution of China's thirty-year open policy, for a long period (until about the mid-2000s), the share of products that pass through customs registration twice in the country's foreign trade increased: when importing components and then exporting finished products (which partly gave outstripping the growth rate of foreign trade). Only in the last five years (2005-2009, and also in 2011) has there been a tendency to increase the export of goods produced entirely by China (and not just in China), while reducing dependence on foreign trade. And this indicates a fundamental change in the very type of dependence on the external world - it is no longer critical.

Finally, the high concentration of China's foreign trade in coastal areas, especially in the Guangdong-Hong Kong area, is well known. For the rest of the economy, the decline in sales abroad is certainly not a blessing, but it is also not a crisis, as the statistics of economic growth in the regions of China in 2008 - 2009 clearly showed ¹⁷. GDP and investment growth rates in the central and western regions of China are now higher than on the coast. This may lead to a further easing of dependence on foreign markets.

The high share of consumer goods in Chinese exports does not prevent a very dynamic expansion of the country's position in foreign markets (observed in 2010-2011), where demand for cheaper goods may expand in depressive phases due to the forced refusal of consumers to make expensive purchases. But during such periods, not only China's dependence grows, but also its dependence on China.

Finally, "Greater China" has practically developed an integrated foreign economic body. At the same time, all territories, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, are highly dependent on the "mainland".

Let us agree with V. Ya. Portyakov that it is rather difficult to predict the strengthening or weakening of China's dependence on foreign economic factors. Among other things (global market and price movements), two multidirectional trends interact. On the one hand, the international division of labor "locks" China in the role of a global factory (increasing this dependence - and, we add, dependence on Chinese suppliers of foreign retail chains, including in the United States), and, on the other hand, the dynamic growth of the share of non - factorial services in China's GDP and consumption reduces this dependence.

With the Chinese scale (and in the face of this economy, we have a quantitatively unprecedented example of a successful and time-compressed industrial revolution in recent history, which is fundamentally wrong to analyze and predict according to the previous schemes and econometric formulas), there are no big problems.

¹⁷ Professor C. Hughes of the London School of Economics noted in autumn 2011 that " China will be able to survive the drop in exports as the authorities stimulate domestic demand. And exports are now a much smaller part of the economy than they were a few years ago." http://www.mn.ru/newspaper_economics/20111014/305848086.htm

contradictions between the two processes. This is the development of complex, full-scale industrialization, on the one hand, and the use of comparative advantages in a number of industries in the foreign market, on the other. If you like, we have D. Ricardo and I. Fichte "in one bottle".

At the same time, Beijing responds to the growing trade and technological protectionism of the West by controlling capital inflows (both loan and entrepreneurial ¹⁸), as well as regulating the exchange rate and currency conversion regime. It is quite deliberately delaying further strengthening of its positions in international financial markets for a long period of time - in favor of the same external economic independence and due to the sufficiency of its own capital. The slow but consistent "internationalization of the yuan" is yet another example of an undogmatic approach to the mainstream, which has always pushed its adherents to "full currency convertibility", "infrastructure liberalization", etc.

The independence of the Chinese financial system, as I. R. Tomberg rightly notes, also makes it possible to conduct an independent and large-scale game on the international credit and currency markets. And for more than a year, foreign financial markets have been sensitive to certain actions of the regulator within the PRC, while volatility on the Chinese stock markets has noticeably decreased, indicating the stability and, we emphasize, calm independence of the economy of this country from the mood of foreign financial markets. And independence, we repeat, allows us to focus on internal problems that are relevant for the current stage of development.

One of these problems is the knowledge economy, innovation, and so on. Among the responses to our article, the idea that the technological achievements of previous civilizations were preserved to the extent that they were important for solving the problems of life support on the planet seemed particularly interesting. Following A.V. Akimov on this topic, it is worth asking about the role of high and not-so-high technologies, including in the United States and China, in the context of solidarianism or emerging bipolarity.

Without delving into this complex problem, we will limit ourselves to a few simple sketches.

The Chinese don't invent a bicycle, they make it. Take, for example, the e-bikes mentioned above. In 2010, 22 million units were produced in China, and 1 million were exported abroad. Both the electric motor and the bicycle are not innovations. But their combination and, most importantly, mass production is an innovation that is hardly possible on such a scale, even in modern developed countries.

China already accounts for the bulk of the world's photovoltaic panel production. Characteristically, they are mostly exported, and 70 million urban households use hot water heated by sunlight in tanks on the roofs of houses - photo panels are not yet affordable. You can see a policy that is commensurate with the average conditions in the country and on the planet.

At the same time, breakthroughs are also visible. In 2010, for the first time in history, developing countries outperformed developed countries in terms of the cost of green projects implemented. These include the use of wind, solar, modern technologies for the use of biological resources, etc. The total investment of developing countries in this industry amounted to 72 billion dollars, and China accounted for almost 49 billion dollars, 28% more than in 2009.

For comparison, it can be noted that European countries invested $ 35 billion in" green " projects , which is 22% less than in 2009 [Global Trends..., 2011, p. 9].

¹⁸ That doesn't go unnoticed in the rest of the world. Thus, of the 149 investment policies implemented in 74 countries in 2010 and analyzed in the UNCTAD World Investment Report 2011, almost one-third of them are new restrictions and regulations, compared to just 2% a decade ago.

In other words, China has joined the ranks of world leaders in an important industry of human life support, which is a major market for the implementation of new technologies and an area of intense competition.

The US share of global R & D spending declined from 38% in 2000 to 31% in 2009, while Asia's share increased (largely due to the growth of such spending in China) from 24% to 35%.

At the same time, China, as P. M. Sadykhov notes, has taken on the mission of infrastructure improvement in Africa and, we add, has every chance to capture the niche of cheap and simple technologies.

These and more complex technologies can be implemented or put under the rug: the second option is more likely when technological leadership is monopolized. But such monopolies do not last forever, including thanks to"convention violators".

And this is another reason why it is no longer feasible without the participation of China (at least as a consumer, but not only in this capacity), the practical implementation of high-tech achievements anywhere, and especially their distribution on a global scale. Modern industry is the key to overcoming backwardness, to solving the problem of employment (but not directly in production itself, but by creating additional jobs, including in finance), to economic growth, and to innovation. In Asia, by the way, the advantages of paying special attention to the industry are especially clearly visible when comparing the pairs "Hong Kong-Singapore" and "India-China", which were at approximately the same levels of development in the 1970s.

It is strange when arguments against "Chinese leadership" are supplemented by the structural differences between the Chinese economy (where the share of services seems to be relatively low) and other developed and developing countries (where it is much higher) - and, therefore, China "still needs to grow and grow" (which, due to its scale, is possible, succeeds). But no less anomalous is the situation when the financial sector in the United States, according to J. Before the crisis, 40% of all profits accounted for Stiglitz, and after the crisis - almost 70% (this figure was given in October 2011 by M. Khazin). Whether the PRC will be able to turn its nascent financial economy around to address the country's acute social problems is another "question from the future" that should be kept in mind in our discussions.

The emerging new bipolarity, in our opinion, is still more favorable to the mainstream for "third parties": first of all, by expanding the possibilities of choice (including in the framework of revising and modernizing the mainstream) - both development strategies and orientation of economic ties. Moreover, a partial revision of the mainstream and reindustrialization in the United States is quite a likely scenario, a kind of tribute to the emerging bipolarity or co-leadership of the two powers.

The financial crisis in the West does not mean that the real sector in China will not face acute problems, and the Western financial sector will be deflated. ²⁰ But some recipes for solving Chinese problems by humanity, including in East Asian countries, have already been partially developed.

Connecting high-tech not only with Chinese industry, but also with the "patriarchal and stagnant" countryside opens up additional opportunities for solving them (recall that Deng Xiaoping considered the peasantry "superfluous" for modernization). Chinese society is already more than half urban, but the village remains "alive": it, among other things, increases electricity consumption while reducing the number of inhabitants.

¹⁹ This does not fully take into account the change in the nature of employment of employees in industrial enterprises themselves - in marketing departments, etc.

²⁰ Rather, it will continue to expand, "getting cheaper" in relation to the real sector, but this is a separate topic.

Note also that there is more optimism in Asia as a whole, with Indian scholars, for example, suggesting that "although Asia may not be able to develop complete immunity from the West's problems, it can mitigate their consequences for itself."²¹

Perhaps the secret of this optimism is simply to preserve an industrially active view of the world, a kind of advantage of "catch-up development".

And a way out of crises, as we know from the classics, is unthinkable without increasing savings. The aforementioned McKinsey report predicts an increase in investment demand (and an increase in the price of capital) that could reach levels "not seen since the post-war recovery of Europe and Japan or the era of rapid growth in developed markets. The markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa are already experiencing a surge in investment activity, driven by the growing demand for new homes, transport infrastructure, water supply systems, factories, offices, schools, hospitals and shopping centers" [Farewell to Cheap Capital..., 2011, p. 7].

The fact that capital will rise in price is not yet a fact. But the fact that the Chinese "investment model" has made a significant contribution to the increase in the economic temperature on the planet is a fait accompli.

list of literature

Bell D. The coming postindustrial Society, Moscow: Akademiya Publ., 1999.

Berger Ya. M., Mikheev V. V. Public order of China: "postsocialist capitalism?" / / Society and Economy. 2005. N 7 - 8.

Resurrection A. D. the Russian-Chinese strategic interaction and world politics. Moscow: East-West, 2004.

Krugman P. Credo liberala [Liberal's Credo], Moscow: Evropa Publ., 2009.

Reich R. Posledeshok. Economy of the Future, Moscow: Career Press, 2012.

J. Stiglitz Krutoe pike: America and the New Economic Order after the Global Crisis, Moscow: Eksmo, 2011.

Farewell to Cheap Capital: The Implications of Long-term Shifts in Global Investment and Savings. McKinsey Global Institute, 2011.

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011. UNEP, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Bloomberg New Energy Finance: P., 2011. September.

Kuhn R. How China's Leaders Think: The Inside Story of China's Past, Current and Future Leaders. N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.

Roberts P. The Great Transformation: America's Third World Economy // Beijing Time. 21.09. 2011.

Walt S. The End of the American Era // The National Interest. 25.10.2011.

World Investment Report 2011. New York - Geneva: UNCTAD, 2011.

²¹ http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2011/09/02/world/562949981387866

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