One of WIM2020 first speakers was Jianguo Wei, who spoke as Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges about global economic exchange and cooperation system in the New Era.
On December 9-12, EqualOcean was holding the World Innovators Meet (WIM) 2020. This year, the event's main topic was 'Technology and Innovation Connect the World.' WIM2020 gathered innovators from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas to share their knowledge and key achievements, promoting the concept of 'Tech for Equal.'
"At present China puts forward 'dual circulation' – a new economic exchange and cooperation system with the domestic market as the main body, supported by the mutual facilitation between China and other countries, which needs more entrepreneurs, more young people and more cross-industry efforts," so claimed Jianguo Wei, Vice Chairman of CCIEE, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Commerce and lead speaker for the Leadership Chapter.
During the World Innovators Meet on the 9-12th of December, innovators from all over the world met up online to discuss the key achievements in 2020, marking out how breakthroughs are adding convenience to everyday life. Jianguo Wei joined WIM2020 and shared interesting points about global economic exchange and the cooperation system in the New Era, along with comments on China's leading role in global innovation in the next 10 years.
Jianguo Wei started his speech from the story that happened to him in Shenzhen 6-7 years ago. The former vice president Albert Arnold Gore was visiting Shenzhen for a Global Leadership training. When he saw more than 2,000 young people gathered in the hall, he noted that seeing so many young people who have so much interest in innovation will give China a leading role in global innovation in the future. In recent years, China's innovation has made rapid progress and created three miracles:
1. Speed miracle. Remarkably, China's technology and innovation enterprises as well as the local and central government, are invested in supporting these enterprises. Therefore, the number of China's patents applied by enterprises has ranked first in the world.
2. 'Produce, learn and research' miracle. Nowadays more innovation has achieved the overall industrial effect through the market-oriented operation that means we are on track to production, learning and research that is also a miracle.
3. The change of people's minds. Jianguo Wei reflected on the decade when children called matches 'foreign fire', tomatoes 'overseas persimmon' and carrots 'outland radish' because all of that things were imported from the Middle East or abroad. At that time, people thought that it couldn't be produced and planted in China, but now China has made great progress in self-sufficiency across countless domains.
Since joining the WTO, China has evolved, both as a World Factory and as a place with a door open to the outside world. In terms of technology and innovation, China has implemented the principle of 'more entrepreneurship, more innovation'; so now, China has more talented entrepreneurs and individuals and the speed of technological development is getting faster and faster.
First, China's unicorns ranked first in the world last year (233), while the USA's ranked 227. No doubts that Beijing ranks first (78), followed by Shanghai (56), Shenzhen (including Hangzhou) and other regions (Wuhan and Nanjing). Such development in China shows that China's unicorns' development is faster than the USA's. Second, most of Chinese unicorns' top leaders work their way up from being people who start with a primary responsibility, rising all the way up to become chief executive officer with Jack Ma being a great example. Third, and the most important – is the majority of young people who are willing to engage in the technology and innovation field. Therefore, unicorns in China keep developing.
Jianguo Wei gave an example. There are two kinds of trade in the world: the goods trade and the services trade. Now China's trade in services is on the peak of rising. The general goods trade means that you use your clothes, design and re-export by yourself, the whole process is your own. The processing trade between the two sides is when raw materials and design are from abroad and manufacturers selling their products abroad only pay for the local processing fee. Now the processing trade has made rapid progress. Guangdong and Jiangsu Province have developed to 43%. But during the pandemic, the processing trade has declined because manufacturers have had to pay for resources consumption, environmental damage and cheap labor. It indicates that this kind of trade cannot be sustained, but cross-border e-commerce is still rising.
Cross-border e-commerce has become a new main force, now there are 56 million people who have found a way into cross-border e-commerce in China – most of them are university graduates, middle school graduates and even primary school graduates. So the country's success in the technology and innovation field is entirely due to the innovation strength, perseverance and hard learning spirit of these young people.
We can clearly see that more and more young people are reaching higher and higher levels of success. In this case, we can see that China also proposes a dual cycle, to create a new economic development pattern with the domestic and international markets as the main body. This pattern needs more entrepreneurs and more young people to flow in with great ideas. It is open and inclusive, so it needs not only young people in China but also young people in the world.
Now many Japanese innovators have arrived in China, so I think there will be three developments after the epidemic:
1. Modern services and high-end manufacturing development. Modern services have shown that the production chains of other markets are not as complete as in China, which has the most complete production chain in the world. Among 400 kinds of goods, China's export production ranks first, with 220 kinds – this result is due to China's complete large-scale production chain.
Since the epidemic in China, many enterprises have changed their product lines. Texas Mobil has built a production line of 2.6 million tons in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, with an investment of more than 10 billion US dollars. Germany has invested 10 billion yuan in China's second fine chemical industry base, not to mention investing in Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW Brilliance that shows more and more foreign producers entering China's market.
2. Technical development. A lot of countries invest in Chinese technologies and innovation, like Ukraine, Israel, Japan and South Korea.
3. Talent and capital development. Now more foreign capital is coming to China, and it is a good sign.
Jianguo Wei thinks that many business activities and academic activities, including cultural activities like fashion and literature, will come to China. The world heritage conference will be held in Fuzhou, Fujian Province in 2024.
After that, more headquarters will probably also move to China. Jianguo Wei claims that through the determination of the dual cycle and the proposal of new globalization after the epidemic, including 5G scaling, digital economy, robotics, cloud computing and big data, and then more young talents will have more opportunities to participate in meetings like today.
Most people in the world believe only when they see, but there are only a few people who don't see this thing can create it in their hearts and minds. And after this, they start working hard, struggling with problems all the way, creating again and making it a reality. Now, these people are famous around the world, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma and Pony Ma. Most people in the world do things according to the existing rules of the game. Only a few people know that, if there are some rules we know exist, it’s possible that others may exist too, so they keep struggling to explore and seek new rules – as a result, they succeed." ON this uplifting note, Jianguo Wei finished his motivation speech.
About WIM
Hosted by EqualOcean, the World Innovators Meet (WIM) (click to watch the online event on December 9-11, 2020) is a global event for innovators. It provides limitless opportunities to learn from and connect with the most sought-after technology pioneers.
About WIA
The World Innovation Awards (WIA) are announced at WIM to recognize game-changers across various industries and geographies. Selected by a committee of distinguished experts, entrepreneurs and investors, WIA are designed to acknowledge technology disruptors striving to make a positive impact on a global scale.
See this year's WIA lists and download the research reports in English and Chinese on EqualOcean and 亿欧智库 respectively.