| As an integrated industry cluster that involves many sectors of national economy and has a long value chain and a wide range of products,manufacturing is a pillar industry serving as the material basis of national economy.It also reflects where the productivity of a country is.After 70 years of development,China now is the only country in the world that has all industrial(manufacturing)sectors in the UN Catalogue of Industrial Classification,and also ranks No.1 in terms of the output of more than 220 industrial(manufacturing)products amongst a total of over 500 global major industrial products(Miao Wei,2019).According to the World Bank,China outperformed the U.S.in terms of total manufacturing industry size(value-added)and became the world's largest manufacturing country in 2010;and China's manufacturing value-added accounted for over 28%of the world's total in 2018,and an array of large enterprise groups were established,making the goal of building China into a "major manufacturing country" a reality.As indicated in the Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index(GMCI)respectively released by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and the U.S.Council on Competitiveness in 2010,2013 and 2016,China has outweighed the U.S.and become the world's most competitive manufacturing country.Many organizations including the World Economic Forum(WEF),the International Institute for Management Development(IMD)and the Renmin University of China(RUC)also draw a similar conclusion on China's manufacturing when making overall assessment of countries.According to the statistical indictors of the World Bank however,the labor productivity of China's manufacturing is about 10%of the U.S.level;the energy consumption per unit of manufacturing value-added accounts for 19.3%of the world's average level;and recalls of exported products due to quality problems occur every year.In particular,due to the escalating China-US trade frictions since 2017,the U.S.clamps down on China's high-tech manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei,which has rippling impacts on China's information and communication industry,industry security and employment.Also,as a result of the China-US trade spat,the stock market of China,the U.S.and even the world plunged,reflecting a gloom hanging over the future high-end manufacturing market.The global ranking of China's manufacturing competitiveness is high on the list,but why is it "that vulnerable"?Many microanalysis-based researches indicate that China has weakness in certain sectors,but how we should see the overall competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry in an objective,calm and comprehensive way and safeguard state and industry security,remains an issue deserving exploration.Over the past four decades of China's reform and opening-up,what has manufacturing contributed to China's economic growth and improvement of China's social welfare?And what are the problems in the existing manufacturing industry competitiveness evaluation model and measurement?This study tries to make a theoretical explanation and correction of the above-mentioned phenomena,and evaluates and measures China's manufacturing industry competitiveness from the welfare economics perspective.The traditional studies on industry competitiveness evaluation that are based on international trade theory,excessively focus on the application of the theory of comparative advantage and the theory of competitive advantage,and also excessively discuss about such aspects as respective strength of competitors in international trade and actual results of their competition for survival of the fittest,the wane-and-wax of industries in various countries,throat-cutting grapple for limited market shares,and the effect of "the law of jungle".In view of this,the industry competitiveness theory is in a "cold color"(Jin Pei,1996),and is basically all about a zero-sum game.However,the study on manufacturing(competitiveness evaluation)should consider the role of government administration and also focus on how the industry improves people's overall living standard and contributes to social and economic advances(Xu Kuangdi and Zhu Gaofeng,1998).Therefore,this study believes the evaluation of manufacturing industry competitiveness should include in-depth analysis of welfare economics and value judgement factors.In other words,the manufacturing industry competitiveness assessment should focus on not only how various economies promote international division of labor and complementary industries,but also how much social welfare is maximized,including increase of national income per capita and labor productivity,improvement of law and legal systems,sustainable talent development and social value,better environmental protection,and reduction of financial corruption of a service-oriented government.The contribution of manufacturing to welfare economics(beyond a specific country)should be included in the indicator system for industry competitiveness evaluation.In recent years,all major developed economies introduced strategies and initiatives to drive forward their manufacturing development and sharpen their manufacturing competitiveness,such as "Industry 4.0" of Germany,"Manufacturing Comeback" of the U.S.,The Future of Manufacturing:A New Era of Opportunity and Challenge for the UK,Japan's Whitepaper on Manufacturing Industries 2018,and the "Made in China 2025" strategy put forward by the Chinese government in May 2015.These policies and initiatives have certain content of welfare economics,but lack theoretical proofs and logical basis from the perspective of academic research.Currently,there are few theoretical researches on how collaborative development of welfare economics and manufacturing competitiveness can help correct misplacements in the academic circles at home and abroad.Welfare economics is an interdisciplinary concept involving economics,psychology,management science and social sciences,and the publication of Welfare Economics,a book authored by Arthur Cecil Pigou(1877-1959),in 1920 marked the start of welfare economics.The basic principles of welfare economics analysis are researches on how economic activities affect people's well-being,and explanation of how to grow and maximize people's overall welfare level.Enhanced manufacturing competitiveness is of crucial significance to improving the overall welfare level of people(Jin Pei,1996).According to some scholars,the improvement of a country's industry competitiveness does not necessarily compromise the survival and growth space of other national industries;otherwise,the country's welfare will be fundamentally damaged.Furthermore,strengthened industry competitiveness may drive(regional)economy to develop in an inclusive,balanced and all-win way.There is a big difference between the industry competitiveness theory from the welfare economics perspective and the traditional industry competitiveness theories focusing on zero-sum game.In this context,this study reviews the results of previous researches on welfare economics,introduces the consistency analysis in the Michael Porter Diamond Model,and concludes three supporting and alternative elements between welfare economics and manufacturing industry competitiveness:current industry strength,industry development potential and advantages of industry environment.In other words,the current manufacturing strength provides the material basis for social welfare;the development potential of manufacturing offers a future guarantee for social welfare;and the advantages of manufacturing industry environment and social welfare economics complement each other for shared growth.On this basis,this study puts forwards nine theoretical hypotheses(dimensions and indicators)of the manufacturing competitiveness reflection mechanism model.(Chapter II and III)To better measure "manufacturing industry competitiveness"(composite variable),this study verifies correctness of the theoretical hypotheses by collecting questionnaires and making statistical analysis,in combination with the Exploratory Factor Analysis(EFA)that is based on Construct Validity test put forward and verified by Professor Ma Qingguo,an expert of management science,and also collects supporting proofs to weed out the questionnaire questions running against the hypotheses.After three questionnaire surveys based on the“9-306 Manufacturing Industry Competitiveness Indicators",the"5-101 Manufacturing Industry Competitiveness Indicators' and the "4-21 Manufacturing Industry Competitiveness Indicators' respectively,and also completion of credibility and validity tests,this study successfully completes the statistical test and builds the "4-19 Manufacturing Industry Competitiveness Indicator System",i.e.19 specific evaluation indicators under 4 dimensions.(Chapter IV)To truly reflect international comparison of manufacturing competitiveness from the welfare economics perspective,this study builds a complex panel data based on the available statistics directly from authoritative organizations,i.e.data of 19 manufacturing competitiveness evaluation indicators under 4 dimensions of 9 countries including China,the U.S.,Germany,Japan,the U.K.,France,South Korea,Brazil and India in 2012-2018,and uses the easy-to-quantify and standard indicator weighting method and the mathematical model of regression analysis to make a comprehensive evaluation.This study sends out questionnaires to 57 Chinese experts in manufacturing industry theory,industry operation and industry management,and uses the Likert scale to give weights to all indicators.As the final evaluation results indicate,China's manufacturing industry competitiveness(index)ranks No.4,following the U.S.,Germany and Japan but followed by other countries like the U.K.and France,while India and Brazil see weak manufacturing competitiveness.As explained in the study,a country that has a huge population base sees a competitive edge in industry size,so China has a stronger competitive advantage in industry size than other economies.China has made slight improvement in terms of manufacturing quality and benefits,but it still has a large gap to bridge when compared with developed countries like the U.S.and Germany.This partly explains the theoretical basis of China's industry strategy of quality development of manufacturing.In addition,as concluded by the study,unreasonable industrial structure is one of the underlying causes of China's passive response to the China-US trade frictions;as China still has a visible gap to close in terms of industrial structure when compared with the U.S.,Germany and Japan,China should attach great importance to fundamental researches and development of generic technologies,and should not improperly belittle itself;and in terms of sustainable development capability,China keeps making steady improvements and sees a small gap when compared with the above-mentioned countries.In addition,this study,based on the analysis of 19 evaluation indicators under 4 dimensions,puts forwards several policy suggestions on sharpening China's manufacturing industry competitiveness and clearly-defined implementation paths.(Chapter V and VI)At last,Chapter VII describes the limitation and to-be-improved areas of this study,including improvement suggestions on the evaluation system and optimization of indicators.The methodology,explanation of contents arrangement,technical route and innovation points of this study are described in Section 3 and Section 4 of Chapter I. |
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