The first time China upended the U.S. economy, between 1999 and 2007, it helped erase nearly a quarter of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. Known as the China Shock, it was driven by a singular process — China’s late-1970s transition from Maoist central planning to a market economy, which rapidly moved the country’s labor and capital from collective rural farms to capitalist urban factories. Waves of inexpensive goods from China imploded the economic foundations of places where manufacturing was the main game in town, such as Martinsville, Va., and High Point, N.C., formerly the self-titled sweatshirt and furniture capitals of the world. Twenty years later, those workers haven’t recovered from those job losses. Although places like these are growing again, most job gains are in low-wage industries. A similar story played out in dozens of labor-intensive industries simultaneously: textiles, toys, sporting goods, electronics, plastics and auto parts.

1999年至2007年间，中国首次颠覆美国经济时导致美国制造业近四分之一的就业岗位流失。这场被称为“中国冲击”的现象由一个非同寻常的进程所驱动——中国在20世纪70年代末从毛泽东时代的中央计划经济向市场经济转型，这一转变迅速将中国的劳动力和资本从集体化的农村农场转移到资本主义的城市工厂。来自中国的廉价商品浪潮瓦解了美国许多以制造业为支柱的地方经济基础，比如曾经自诩为世界运动衫之都的弗吉尼亚州马丁斯维尔，以及自诩为世界家具之都的北卡罗来纳州海波因特。二十年过去了，当地劳动者仍未走出失业阴霾。尽管这些地区经济开始复苏，新增岗位却多集中于低薪行业。与此同时，纺织、玩具、体育用品、电子、塑料和汽车零部件等数十个劳动密集型产业也遭遇了类似的命运。

Yet once China’s Mao-to-manufacturing transition was complete, sometime around 2015, the shock stopped building. Since then, U.S. manufacturing employment has rebounded, growing under President Barack Obama, the first Trump term and President Biden.

然而，大约在2015年前后，中国完成了毛泽东式经济到制造业大国的转型，这场冲击开始趋于平缓。此后，美国制造业就业人数开始反弹，在奥巴马总统、特朗普第一任期和拜登总统执政期间都在持续增长。

So why, you might ask, are we still talking about the China Shock? We wish we weren’t. We published the research in 2013, 2014 and 2016, along with our collaborator David Dorn of the University of Zurich, which detailed for the first time how Chinese import competition was devastating parts of America, through permanent declines in employment and earnings. We are here to argue now that policymakers are spending far too much time looking backward, fighting the last war. They should be spending much more time examining what’s emerging as a new China Shock.

那么，你可能会问，为什么我们还在谈论“中国冲击”呢？其实我们也希望不用再谈。我们与苏黎世大学的戴维·多恩合作，在2013年、2014年和2016年发表了研究成果，首次详细阐述了中国进口竞争如何通过导致就业和收入的永久性下降重创美国部分地区。但现在我们在这里要指出的是，政策制定者花费了太多时间回顾过去，执着于打上一场战争。他们要做的应该是把更多精力用来对付正在浮现的新一轮中国冲击。

Spoiler alert: This one could be far worse.

剧透一下：这次冲击可能要严重得多。

China Shock 1.0 was a one-time event. In essence, China figured out how to do what it should have been doing decades earlier. In the United States, that led to unnecessarily painfully job losses. But America was never going to be selling tennis sneakers on Temu or assembling AirPods. China’s manufacturing work force is thought to be well in excess of 100 million, compared with America’s 13 million. It’s bordering on delusional to think the United States can — or should even want to — simultaneously compete with China in semiconductors and tennis sneakers alike.

“中国冲击1.0”是一次性事件。从本质上讲，中国只是明白了如何做它几十年前就应该做的事情。在美国，这导致了不必要的痛苦失业。但美国本来就不会在Temu上卖网球鞋或组装AirPods。中国的制造业劳动力大军据信远超1亿，而美国只有1300万。认为美国能够——甚至应该——同时在半导体和网球鞋等领域与中国竞争，这种想法简直是异想天开。

China Shock 2.0, the one that’s fast approaching, is where China goes from underdog to favorite. Today, it is aggressively contesting the innovative sectors where the United States has long been the unquestioned leader: aviation, A.I., telecommunications, microprocessors, robotics, nuclear and fusion power, quantum computing, biotech and pharma, solar, batteries. Owning these sectors yields dividends: economic spoils from high profits and high-wage jobs; geopolitical heft from shaping the technological frontier; and military prowess from controlling the battlefield. General Motors, Boeing and Intel are American national champions, but they’ve all seen better days and we’re going to miss them if they’re gone. China’s technological vision is already reordering governments and markets in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and increasingly Eastern Europe. Expect this influence to grow as the United States retreats into an isolationist MAGAsphere.

正在加速逼近的“中国冲击2.0”标志着中国从弱者蜕变为强者。如今，中国正强势进军美国长期居于垄断地位的创新领域：航空、人工智能、通信、微处理器、机器人、核能与聚变能、量子计算、生物医药、太阳能、电池技术。掌控这些领域意味着多重红利：高利润与高薪职位创造的经济收益；引领技术前沿获得的地缘政治影响力；掌控未来战场的军事优势。通用汽车、波音和英特尔这些美国的国家旗舰企业虽然辉煌不再，但它们如果真的消失，必将让人体会到它们曾经的举足轻重。中国的技术愿景已在非洲、拉丁美洲、东南亚乃至日益于东欧重塑政府与市场格局。随着美国退守"让美国再次伟大"的孤立主义，中国的影响力预计将进一步增长。

In the 1990s and 2000s, private Chinese businesses, working alongside multinational corporations, turned China into the world’s factory. The new Chinese model is different, with private companies working alongside the Chinese state. China has created an agile, if costly, innovation ecosystem in which local officials such as mayors and governors are rewarded for growth in certain advanced sectors. They had been assessed by total G.D.P. growth, a blunter instrument.

在20世纪90年代和21世纪初，中国的民营企业与跨国公司合作，将中国变成了“世界工厂”。新的中国模式则不同以往，现在是它的民营公司与中国政府合作。中国构建起一套高效灵活却成本高昂的创新生态系统，在这个系统中，市长、省长等地方官员的政绩考核从粗放的GDP总量增长指标转向特定先进产业的增长。

Before it became the site of China’s second-largest producer of electric vehicles, the city of Hefei was the undistinguished capital of a poor hinterland province. By putting up venture funding, taking risks on struggling EV producers and investing in local research and development, Hefei made the leap into the country’s top industrial tier in barely half a decade.

在成为中国第二大电动车生产基地之前，合肥只是贫困内陆省份一座毫不起眼的省会城市。通过设立风投资金，押注困境中的电动车企，并加大对本地研发的投入，合肥在短短五年内就一跃跻身中国的一线工业城市之列。

China has performed this miracle many times over. The world’s largest and most innovative producers of EVs (BYD), EV batteries (CATL), drones (DJI) and solar wafers (LONGi) are all Chinese start-ups, none more than 30 years old. They attained commanding technological and price leadership not because President Xi Jinping decreed it, but because they emerged triumphant from the economic Darwinism that is Chinese industrial policy. The rest of the world is ill prepared to compete with these apex predators. When U.S. policymakers deride China’s industrial policy, they are imagining something akin to the lumbering takeoff of Airbus or the lights going out on Solyndra. They should instead be gazing up at the nimble swarms of DJI drones buzzing over Ukraine.

中国已多次创造此类奇迹。全球最大、最具创新力的电动车制造商（比亚迪）、电动车电池生产商（宁德时代）、无人机企业（大疆）和太阳能硅片制造商（隆基绿能）生产商，都是成立不到30年的初创企业。这些企业之所以能取得压倒性的技术和价格领先地位，并非因为习近平主席下达的指令，而是因为它们在中国工业政策推动下的“经济达尔文主义”中脱颖而出。世界其他国家尚未做好与这些顶级捕食者竞争的准备。当美国的政策制定者嘲笑中国的产业政策时，他们脑海中浮现的可能是空中客车的缓慢起飞，或是Solyndra（一家破产的美国太阳能公司）的黯然退场。殊不知更该仰望的，是盘旋在乌克兰上空嗡嗡作响的大疆无人机群。

China Shock 1.0 was bound to ebb when China ran out of low-cost labor, as it now has. Its growth is already falling behind Vietnam’s in industries such as clothing and commodity furniture. But unlike the United States, China is not looking back and mourning its lost manufacturing prowess. It is focusing instead on the key technologies of the 21st century. Contrary to a strategy built on cheap labor, China Shock 2.0 will last for as long as China has the resources, patience and discipline to compete fiercely.

当中国劳动力成本优势耗尽时，“中国冲击1.0”注定会减弱，这在当前已成现实。中国在服装和大众家具等行业的增长已落后于越南。但不同于美国，中国没有回头哀悼其失去的制造业实力，而是正将重点放在21世纪的关键技术上。与依赖廉价劳动力的战略不同，只要中国拥有资源、耐心和进行激烈竞争的自律，“中国冲击2.0”就会持续下去。

And if you doubt China’s capability or determination, the evidence is not on your side. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an independent think tank funded by the Australian Department of Defense, the United States led China in 60 of 64 frontier technologies, such as A.I. and cryptography, between 2003 and 2007, while China led the United States in just three. In the most recent report, covering 2019 through 2023, the rankings were flipped on their head. China led in 57 of 64 key technologies, and the United States held the lead in only seven.

如果你怀疑中国的能力或决心，那你就错了。根据澳大利亚国防部资助的独立智库澳大利亚战略政策研究所的数据，在2003年至2007年间，美国在64项前沿技术中有60项领先于中国，而中国仅三项领先。但在最新的涵盖2019年至2023年的报告中，这一局面彻底反转：中国在64项关键技术中领先57项，而美国领先的只有七项。

What has been America’s response? Mostly tariffs: tariffs on everything, everywhere, all at once. This would have been a lackluster strategy for fighting the trade war America lost 20 years ago. On our current trajectory, we might just get those jobs making tennis sneakers. And if we push things further, we could be assembling iPhones in Texas by 2030, a job so tedious and poorly paid that the satirical newspaper The Onion once memed, “Chinese factory workers fear they may never be replaced with machines.”

美国的反应是什么？基本只有关税：同时对所有东西、所有国家征收关税。这种策略即便用来应对20年前美国输掉的那场贸易战都嫌拙劣。按照目前的发展轨迹，我们或许真能重获那些生产网球鞋的工作。若再进一步，到2030年，我们可能会在得克萨斯州组装iPhone，这项工作非常乏味，工资也很低，讽刺报纸《洋葱报》曾调侃说，“中国工人唯恐自己永无被机器取代之日。”

One thing that tariffs alone will never do is make the United States an attractive place to innovate. Yes, tariffs belong in our trade arsenal — but as precision munitions, not as land mines that maim foes, friends and noncombatants equally.

单靠关税永远无法让美国成为一个有吸引力的创新之地。关税固然该纳入贸易武器库——但应该作为精确武器，而不是无差别杀伤的地雷，同时重创敌人、朋友和平民。

So what’s the alternative? Before we conducted our China research a decade ago, we believed, as many economists did, that a hands-off trade strategy was better than the messy alternatives. We no longer think that. The United States’ mismanagement of China Shock 1.0 taught us that a better trade strategy is needed. What does better look like? As Einstein supposedly said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. In lieu of a too-simple answer, we offer four core principles.

那还有别的选择吗？在我们十年前进行中国研究之前，我们和许多经济学家一样认为，自由放任的贸易策略优于其他混乱的替代方案。现在我们不再这么认为了。美国对“中国冲击1.0”的应对失策告诉我们，需要更好的贸易战略。更好的战略是什么样子？正如爱因斯坦所说，凡事力求简洁，但不能过分简化。我们无意给出过度简化的答案，谨此提出四大核心原则。

First, policymakers must recognize that most of our difficulties with China are shared by our commercial allies. We should be acting in unison with the European Union, Japan and the many countries with which we have free trade agreements, such as Canada, Mexico and Korea, rather than punishing them with sky-high tariffs for the gall of selling us products we want to buy. Tariffs on electric vehicles would look very different if they were adopted by an expansive coalition of the willing, with the United States in the lead.

首先，政策制定者必须认识到，我们对中国的大部分困境也是我们的商业盟友共有的。我们应该与欧盟、日本以及同我们签订了自由贸易协定的许多国家（如加拿大、墨西哥和韩国）步调一致，而不是因为它们竟敢向我们出售我们想要购买的产品，就用高昂的关税惩罚它们。如果电动车关税是由一个美国牵头的广泛自愿联盟采取的，情况就会大不一样。

Simultaneously, we should encourage China to build battery and auto plants in the United States, just as China enticed leading U.S. companies to set up shop there over the past three decades. Why invite these ruthless competitors onto U.S. soil? Chinese policymakers frequently invoke the “catfish effect,” whereby a strong foreign competitor spurs the weak domestic “sardines” to swim faster or else get eaten. When China’s EV manufacturers were still sardines, Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai served as their catfish. Tesla is no longer a catfish in China and is increasingly looking like a nervous sardine.

同时，我们应该鼓励中国的电池和车企赴美建厂，就像中国在过去30年里吸引美国大企业在那里设厂一样。为什么要邀请这些无情的竞争者来到美国的土地上呢？中国的政策制定者经常援引“鲶鱼效应”——强大的外国竞争对手刺激弱小的国内“沙丁鱼”游得更快，否则就会被吃掉。当中国的电动汽车制造商还是沙丁鱼时，特斯拉的上海超级工厂就成了它们的鲶鱼。如今特斯拉在中国不再是一条鲶鱼，而越来越像一条惶惶不安的沙丁鱼。

Does inviting China to manufacture in the United States raise national security concerns? Sure, in some cases. And that’s a reason to mine our own rare earth metals, to ban Huawei networking equipment and to modernize our fleets and ports with ships and cargo cranes supplied by our highly competent Japanese and South Korean allies. But if we close the door on China’s leading industries, we’ll be stuck with homegrown mediocrity.

邀请中国在美国生产是否会引起国家安全方面的担忧？当然，在某些情况下会的。正因为如此，我们要自己开采稀土金属，禁止使用华为的网络设备，用实力雄厚的日本和韩国盟友提供的船只和货物起重机对我们的船队和港口进行现代化改造。但是，如果我们把中国的领先产业拒之门外，我们就只能面对本土的平庸情况。

Second, America should take a page from China by aggressively promoting experimentation in new fields. Choose sectors that are strategically vital (drones, advanced chips, fusion, quantum, biotech) and invest in them. Then do it “China style,” in which the U.S. government operates big venture funds that expect to have a low success rate for any single company or project and a larger success rate in spurring new industries.

第二，美国应该向中国学习，积极推动新领域的实验与创新。选择在战略上至关重要的行业（无人机、先进芯片、核聚变、量子、生物科技），并对其进行投资。然后采取“中国模式”，即美国政府设立大型风投基金，不渴求单个企业或项目的成功率，而着眼于培育新兴产业方面的整体成功率。

This approach worked during World War II (the Office of Scientific Research and Development brought us major developments in jet propulsion, radar and mass-produced penicillin), the race to the moon (NASA engineered getting there and back safely), and Operation Warp Speed (the federal government partnered with big pharma to produce a Covid-19 vaccine faster than essentially any other major disease vaccine had been produced).

这种方法在第二次世界大战期间（科学研究与发展办公室为我们带来了喷气推进技术、雷达和量产青霉素方面的重大进展）、登月竞赛（美国国家航空航天局设计了安全往返的计划）和曲速行动（联邦政府与大型制药公司合作，以创纪录的速度研发出新冠病毒疫苗）当中都起了作用。

These new ecosystems will need supporting infrastructure: reliable and inexpensive energy generation, rare earths, modern shipping and universities with vibrant STEM programs. This will mean pulling back from subsidizing legacy sectors such as coal and oil, restoring federal support for scientific research and welcoming rather than demonizing the talented foreign technicians who would love to help the country advance. At this point, we’d advocate a politically insulated strategic investment capacity in the United States, something like the Federal Reserve, but for innovation rather than interest rates.

这些新的生态系统将需要配套的基础设施：可靠而廉价的能源供应、稀土、现代航运和拥有充满活力的STEM项目的大学。这将意味着撤回对煤炭和石油等传统行业的补贴，恢复联邦政府对科学研究的支持，欢迎而非妖魔化愿意帮助美国进步的外国优秀技术人员。在这一点上，我们主张在美国建立一个政治上独立的战略投资机构，类似于美联储，但针对的是创新而不是利率。

Third, choose the battles that we can win (semiconductors) or those we simply cannot afford to lose (rare earths), and make the long-term investments to reach the right outcome. The American political system has the attention span of a squirrel on cocaine. It changes the rewards and penalties so often that little good can happen. Whether or not you thought President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was worthwhile, it’s a terrible idea to chop down all those new investments in climate technology three years after they got started, as the recent domestic policy legislation has done. Likewise, summarily terminating the talented CHIPs and Science team, which was chartered to revitalize domestic semiconductor manufacturing, as Mr. Trump has called for Congress to do, won’t advance American leadership in A.I. chips. Both sides of the aisle agree that confronting China is essential for a secure economic future, which offers a semblance of hope that some continuity in our economic policies may be feasible.

第三，选择可胜之战（半导体）与必守之地（稀土），进行长期投资以取得理想的结果。美国政治体系的注意力持续时间就像吸食可卡因的松鼠。它如此频繁地改变奖惩措施，以至难以产生积极成功。不管你认为拜登总统的《通货膨胀削减法案》是否值得，但像最近的国内政策立法所做的那样，在气候技术方面的所有新投资启动三年后就大举撤裁，是一个糟糕的主意。同样，像特朗普呼吁国会所做的那样，草率地终止优秀的、为振兴国内半导体制造业而成立的“芯片与科学”团队，美国在人工智能芯片领域的领导地位必将受损。两党一致认为，对抗中国对于经济未来的安全至关重要，这为我们的经济政策保持一定的连续性带来了一丝希望。

Fourth, prevent the devastating impacts of job loss from the next major shock, be it from China or somewhere else (you’ve heard of A.I., right?). The scarring effects of manufacturing-job loss have caused America a heap of economic and political trouble over the past two decades. In the interim, we’ve learned that extended unemployment insurance, wage insurance through the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program and the right kinds of career and technical education from community colleges can help displaced workers get back on their feet. Yet, we carry out these policies on too small a scale and in too poorly targeted a manner to help much, and we’re moving in the wrong direction. Inexcusably, Congress defunded Trade Adjustment Assistance in 2022.

第四，防止下一次重大冲击造成失业的破坏性影响，无论冲击是来自中国还是其他地方（你听说过人工智能，对吧？）在过去20年里，制造业工作岗位的流失给美国带来了一系列的经济和政治问题。在此期间，我们了解到，通过联邦贸易调整援助计划延长失业保险和工资保险，以及社区大学提供适当类型的职业和技术教育，可以帮助失业工人重新站稳脚跟。然而，我们执行这些政策的规模太小，针对性也太弱，无法发挥很大作用，而且我们正在朝着错误的方向前进。不可原谅的是，国会在2022年取消了对贸易调整援助的资助。

There is no economic policy that can make job loss painless — especially when it cuts the heart out of your industry or hometown. But when industries collapse, our best response is getting displaced workers into new jobs quickly and making sure the young, small businesses that are responsible for most net U.S. job growth are poised to do their thing. Tariffs, which narrowly protect old-line manufacturing, are terribly suited for this task.

没有任何经济政策可以使失业变得毫无痛苦，尤其是当失业使你所在的行业或家乡失去元气的时候。但是，面对行业崩溃，我们最好的反应是让失业的工人迅速找到新的工作，并确保那些带来美国净就业增长的年轻小企业做好准备。关税只能局限在保护老牌制造业，非常不适合这项任务。

The stakes couldn’t be higher. While gazing in the rearview mirror, we’ve lost sight of the road ahead. Some mile markers on our current route include the ebbing of U.S. technological, economic, geopolitical and military leadership. Managing China Shock 2.0 requires playing to our strengths, not licking our wounds. We must nourish industries that have high potential for innovation, funded by joint investments by the private and public sectors. These industries are in play globally, something China figured out a decade ago. We should stop fighting the last trade war and meet China’s challenge in the current one.

我们正面临重大的利益攸关时刻。我们盯着后视镜，却看不清前方的路。我们当前道路上的一些里程标志包括美国技术、经济、地缘政治和军事领导地位的衰落。应对“中国冲击2.0”需要发挥我们的优势，而不是舔舐伤口。我们必须培育具有巨大创新潜力、由公私部门共同投资的产业。这些产业在全球范围内都大有可为，中国早在十年前就意识到了这一点。美国必须停止纠缠过往贸易战，去迎接当前的中国挑战。