明代中國及其對川普貿易戰的啟示


|大衛‧菲克林，專欄作家

明代中國及其對川普貿易戰的啟示

如果希望美國再次偉大，退回到孤立主義是最糟糕的道路。看看歷史就知道了。
大衛‧菲克林 (David Fickling) 是彭博社觀點專欄作家，主要負責通報氣候變遷和能源議題。此前，他曾任職於彭博新聞社、華爾街日報和金融時報。
孤立主義終結了中國的黃金時代。
攝影師：Heritage Images/Hulton Fine Art Collection／Getty Images
從某個角度來看，川普總統的關稅攻勢看起來只不過是長期嫉妒中國的表現。
看看星期三在白宮玫瑰園宣布的失敗者名單吧，這是這檔極為真實的真人秀節目的季終集：從對貿易逆差的痴迷到將製造業工作崗位從海外帶回國內的承諾，每一個跡像都表明，美國要再次成為中國。想像一個擁有持續貿易順差和蓬勃發展的製造業的大陸規模的經濟體，最明顯的候選人就是中國，這是川普近十年前宣布首次競選總統以來最持續的威脅。
如果川普借鏡了中國的經濟經驗，那麼這個經驗並不是過去二十五年來推動中國經濟崛起的那段經驗。畢竟，這一事件是在貿易壁壘大幅減少和數十年的經濟改革之後發生的，旨在減少政府的作用並提供穩定的投資環境，這與美國目前的情況完全相反。

打開門

2001 年加入世貿組織後，中國關稅壁壘大幅下降
 
資料來源：世界銀行
註：所有產品均以最惠國加權平均關稅計算。
相反，川普的模式可以藉鏡更早、更令人沮喪的事件：
明朝從14世紀開始對外貿易的禁令。

孤立主義政策非但沒有讓中國再次偉大，反而為中國數百年的衰落和最終在外國列強的壓迫下遭受羞辱鋪平了道路。美國未能扭轉川普第一任期內實施的所有商業限制，因此應該反思，隨著限制措施進一步收緊，情況可能會變得多麼糟糕。美國已對大部分中國產品加徵 34% 的關稅，加上今年稍早生效的 20% 的關稅，總關稅稅率至少達到 54%。
與21世紀的美國一樣，13世紀的中國是世界上最大的貿易、金融和工業強國之一。西元 1000 年左右，遠洋帆船的發展促進了活躍的商業活動，當地生產的陶瓷和紡織品交換著印度和東南亞的香料和商品。由帝國國庫白銀儲備支持的紙幣的存在，以及煉鋼和採煤技術的發展，形成了與工業革命初期英國類似的條件。
孤立主義終結了那個黃金時代。
從明朝開始的五個世紀中，中國政府對對外貿易實行越來越嚴格的控制，封鎖港口，禁止建造船舶，並對被政府定性為海盜的商人進行軍事遠徵。
關於這項「海禁」政策的原因，人們已經爭論了幾十年。或許中國只是試圖對貿易進行更嚴格的控制，以朝貢使團取代自由貿易，朝鮮、日本和其他國家的統治者透過朝貢使團與皇帝交換禮物。

 （如果今天重現這些正式的外交屈服表現，加上精心設計的敬禮儀式，無疑會滿足川普的自尊心。）

也許他們擔心白銀會流入外國商人的金庫，破壞其法定貨幣體系的基礎，導致那個時代的惡性通貨膨脹。

或許，他們也試圖鞏固國內權力。

許多野心勃勃的官員悄悄地從非法航行中獲利，

而叛亂分子則利用台灣和其他地方的海上襲擊來破壞帝國的權威。

班級墊底

川普政府對外國關稅稅率的估計似乎是基於對貿易經濟學的基本誤解
 
資料來源：國際貿易中心；彭博觀點計算；詹姆斯·蘇羅維茨基
註：「公佈的稅率」是川普政府對各國向美國徵收的關稅的估計。 「計算率」是 2024 年美國與每個國家的貿易逆差佔 2024 年美國從該國進口的百分比。此計算方法最初由 Surowiecki 在 X 上提出，作為公佈利率的解釋。
然而，就像川普的關稅一樣，試圖阻止經濟潮流的行為引發了越來越極端的措施。看看本週最大的受害者：越南、泰國、台灣和馬來西亞等國家，近年來，為了回應川普政府首次試圖脫鉤兩國經濟，這些國家一直在擴大與美國的貿易，作為進入中國的後門管道。
同樣，明朝的海禁在阻礙商業方面也收效甚微，從而引發了更極端的措施。在最反動的政策下，政府驅逐了整個國家東南沿海地區的人口，並將社區遷移到內陸。
其影響是災難性的。由於貿易被視為一種威脅而非福音，中國逐漸發現自己與世界脫節，並進一步落後。儘管在少數允許貿易的港口中，世俗官員和忙碌的經紀人階層都看到了對外貿易的好處，但這種制度直到 19 世紀中葉仍然基本存在。
當時，鴉片戰爭的恥辱性影響被打破，英國及其殖民對手迫使搖搖欲墜的帝國向更廣闊的世界開放。
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美國短期內不會發生這種事。即便如此，川普本周承諾的措施仍具有世界歷史性的規模，據估計，這些措施將使關稅壁壘上升至19世紀以來的最高水準。與中國一樣，美國是一個大陸經濟體，它對世界的需要遠小於世界對它的需要：就國內生產總值份額而言，只有古巴、蘇丹、埃塞俄比亞、百慕達和關島與其他國家的商品交換比美國更少。這些措施對美國人來說將是痛苦的，但對其他國家來說則更加痛苦。
危險就在於此。隨著航海時代歐洲掌控了世界，貿易限制緩解了明朝中國相對衰退所帶來的衝擊。類似的政策或許能給21世紀的美國一些心理安慰，因為它無法接受中國以及隨後的印度的崛起。然而，就像肌肉因缺乏運動而萎縮一樣，一個與貿易隔絕的國家也會逐漸衰弱。如果希望美國再次偉大，退回到孤立主義是最糟糕的道路。
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    本專欄不一定反映編輯委員會或彭博有限合夥公司及其所有者的觀點。
    大衛‧菲克林 (David Fickling)是彭博觀點專欄作家，主要負責通報氣候變遷和能源議題。此前，他曾任職於彭博新聞社、華爾街日報和金融時報。


    |David Fickling, Columnist

    Ming China, and Its Lessons for Trump’s Trade War

    If you want America to be great again, a retreat into isolationism is the worst path to follow. Just look at history.
    David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
    Isolationism put an end to China’s golden age.
    Photographer: Heritage Images/Hulton Fine Art Collection/Getty Images
    From a certain angle, President Donald Trump's tariff blitz looks like nothing so much as a chronic case of China envy.
    Look at the losers’ list announced from the White House Rose Garden Wednesday in the season finale of this all-too-real reality show: Every sign points toward a desire to Make America China Again, from the obsession with trade deficits to the promise to bring back manufacturing jobs from abroad. Think of a continent-sized economy with a persistent trade surplus and a booming manufacturing sector, and the most obvious candidate is China, Trump’s most consistent bogeyman since he announced his first presidential run nearly a decade ago.
    If Trump is borrowing an economic lesson from China, though, it’s not the one that drove that country’s economic rise over the past two-and-a-half decades. That episode, after all, followed a sharp reduction in trade barriers and decades of economic reforms to reduce the role of the state and provide a stable investment environment, pretty much the opposite of what you see happening in the US right now.

    Opening the Doors

    China's tariff barriers plummeted after it joined the WTO in 2001
    IndiaChinaJapanEUUS0510152025 %
    Source: World Bank
    Note: Based on most-favored-nation weighted mean tariff, all products.
    Instead, Trump’s model could be drawn from an earlier and more demoralizing episode: the Ming dynasty’s bans on foreign trade from the 14th century onward. Far from making China great again, that isolationist policy paved the way for centuries of decline and eventual humiliation at the hands of foreign powers. An America that was unable to reverse all the restrictions on commerce imposed during the first Trump term should reflect on how much worse things could get as this ratchet is tightened further. The US has imposed a 34% tariff hike on most Chinese products, adding to the 20% tariffs that took effect earlier this year, bringing total levies to at least 54%.
    Like 21st century America, 13th century China was one of the world’s great trading, financial and industrial powers. The development of oceangoing junks around 1,000 AD fostered a lively commerce, exchanging locally made ceramics and textiles for Indian and Southeast Asian spices and commodities. The existence of paper money backed by the imperial treasury’s reserves of silver, and the development of steelmaking and coal mining, fostered similar conditions to those seen in Britain at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
    Isolationism put an end to that golden age. From the start of the Ming dynasty and continuing for five centuries, Chinese governments imposed stricter and stricter controls on foreign trade, blocking ports, banning the construction of ships, and conducting military expeditions against merchants who were characterized by the government as pirates.
    The reasons for this haijin or “sea ban” policy have been debated for decades. Perhaps China was simply trying to bring trade under tighter control, replacing freewheeling commerce with the tribute missions under which rulers from Korea, Japan and other nations exchanged gifts with the emperor. (These formalized shows of diplomatic submission, complete with elaborate rituals of obeisance, would no doubt please Trump’s ego if recreated today.)
    Perhaps they were concerned about silver disappearing into foreign merchants’ coffers and undermining the base of their fiat money system, leading to the hyperinflation that plagued the era. Perhaps, too, they were trying to consolidate their domestic power. Many ambitious officials were quietly profiting from the illegal voyages, while rebels used sea-based attacks from Taiwan and elsewhere to undermine imperial authority.

    Bottom of the Class

    The Trump administration's estimates of foreign tariff rates appear to be based on a basic misunderstanding of trade economics
    CambodiaVietnamBangladeshThailandChinaIndonesiaTaiwanSouth AfricaSwitzerlandIndiaSouth KoreaMalaysiaJapanEuropean UnionIsrael020406080100 %
    Source: International Trade Centre; Bloomberg Opinion calculations; James Surowiecki
    Note: "Announced rate" is the Trump administration's estimate of tariffs charged to the US by each country. "Calculated rate" is the 2024 US trade deficit with each country, as a percentage of 2024 US imports from that country. The calculation was first suggested on X by Surowiecki, as an explanation for the announced rates.
    As with Trump’s tariffs, though, the attempt to hold back the economic tide prompted more and more extreme measures. Consider the biggest victims this week: Countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, and Malaysia that had been expanding trade with the US in recent years as backdoor conduits into China in response to the first Trump administration’s attempt to decouple the two economies. The Ming dynasty’s sea bans, similarly, had limited success in shutting off commerce, prompting ever-more-extreme measures. At its most reactionary, the government depopulated whole swaths of the country’s southeast coast and moved communities inland.
    The effect was devastating. With trade conceived as a threat rather than a boon, China progressively found itself cut off from the wider world, and falling further behind. Despite worldly officials and a bustling class of brokers in the few ports where trade was permitted who could see the benefits of foreign commerce, the system remained largely in place until the mid-19th century. At that point, it was blown open in the humiliation of the Opium Wars, when Britain and its colonial rivals forced a crumbling empire to open itself up to the wider world.
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    Nothing of that level is going to happen to the US any time soon. Even so, the measures promised by Trump this week are world-historical in scale, lifting tariff barriers to their highest levels since the 19th century, by some estimates. Like China, America is a continental economy that needs the world much less than the world needs it: As a share of gross domestic product, only Cuba, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bermuda and Guam exchange less merchandise with other nations. These measures will be painful for Americans, but even more painful for other nations.
    Therein lies the danger. Trade restrictions cushioned Ming China against the shock of its relative decline as the Age of Sail put Europe in control of the world. A similar policy may provide some psychological comfort to a 21st century America unable to come to terms with the similar rise of China, and after it India. Like muscles that atrophy from lack of use, however, a country closed off from commerce will gradually weaken. If you want America to be great again, a retreat into isolationism is the worst path to follow.
    More From Bloomberg Opinion:
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      This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
      David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.



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