Recently, a sober voice has come from across the ocean.
In an article titled “Is China Really a ‘Neighbor-Based’ Great Country?” published by Harvard Kennedy School professor Danny Rodrik, he took a negative attitude toward the so-called “Neighbor-Based” industrial policy and overall growth model of China. In the article, Rodrik proposed that trade deficits represent a transfer of purchasing power from trade surplus countries (such as China) to trade deficit countries, which can promote consumption or, ideally, can promote investment. According to this logic, China‘s trade surplus should perhaps be called “benefiting its neighbors.”
There are no unique coincidences. Almost at the same time, important figures in the American academic world, such as Michael Strain of the American Institute of Enterprise Research and Adam Toots, a historian at Columbia University, raised criticism of the “China shock” and “China oppression” rhetoric that has been hyped up in Washington for years. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian‘s response was succinct: China‘s development has brought the world not “shock” but opportunity, not “oppression” but empowerment.
Is it neighbor-for-neighbor, or mutual benefit and win-win? Explore the facts in a few dimensions.
Let‘s first flip through the history books.
In the article, Roderick said that the concept of “neighbors as ravines” was proposed by Cambridge economist Joan Robinson in the 1930s—that was the era of the Great Depression, with global unemployment rates of 25 to 30 percent, and countries fighting for food in the mire. Putting such a concept from the era of the Great Depression almost a hundred years ago on the head of today‘s steadily developing China is economically untenable, and even more untenable historically.
For thousands of years, peace has been ingrained in the blood of the Chinese people and engraved in the genes of the Chinese people. After the founding ceremony of the People‘s Republic of China, faced with a domestic situation of disrepair and heavy external blockades, China still extended aid to many struggling countries in Asia and Africa—helping build the Tanzanian railway, sending medical teams, providing food and material assistance, and in practical action choosing to share the same boat and watch out for each other.
From the vastness of the camel bells to the swiftness of the trains, it accumulates the deep friendship of “perpetuating the four times without declining, enduring dangers without weakening”; from carrying righteousness on precious ships to chartered airplanes for reinforcements, it embodies the civilizing background of the Chinese people‘s kinship, kindness to neighbors, and harmony with all nations.
Then let‘s calculate the economic accounts.
Those who hype about “China’s neighbors as enemies” and “China’s squeeze theory” assume that the global economic cake is fixed—that if China cuts one more piece, others will have one less piece. This is typical zero-sum thinking, and it is also lazy thinking.
Globally, China‘s contribution to world economic growth has remained around 30 percent for many years, a worthy “first engine.” The International Monetary Fund research shows that for every 1 percent point of growth in China‘s economy, the output of other economies increases by 0.3 percent points. Moreover, China is also a major trading partner of more than 160 countries and regions.
Looking at the regional scope, just take ASEAN as an example. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone 3.0 Upgrade Protocol was officially signed, and the two sides became each other‘s largest trading partners for six consecutive years, with trade volumes exceeding trillions of dollars in 2025.
Realistic data show that China‘s development has never depended on “neighbors as ravines” or “pressure,” but has been achieved through mutual benefit and market selection.
We also have to look at the circle of friends.
The “neighbors” here have never been a narrow geographical boundary line, but a global cooperation network. China‘s circle of friends is not divided by distance or proximity, nor is it ranked by kinship. Instead, they treat each other with sincerity, befriend each other with righteousness, and win for each other.
In Southeast Asia, Vietnam‘s ready-made clothing, Bangladesh’s shoes, and Cambodia’s luggage connect cross-national industrial chains, each of which is a pulse of Chinese technology and markets. In Africa, China has helped establish a modern textile and light-weight system, allowing “African manufacturing” to reach international shelves for the first time. In Latin America, photovoltaic panels and windmills from China are transforming the sunlight of the Andes and the wind of Patagonia into clean electricity, benefiting thousands of households. China‘s exports of quality equipment and services have driven global wind and photovoltaic electricity costs to drop by more than 60% and 80%, respectively, making the green transformation from a dream to a tangible reality. In more than a decade of co-building the “Belt and Road”, Luban Workshop has taken root globally, training more than 160,000 skilled talents, and lighting up career prospects for young people in various countries.
On the one hand is China‘s grand scheme of “trying to gain by calculating the benefits of the world,” and on the other hand is some country‘s tariff powerhouse that “does not distinguish between allies or enemies, close neighbors or distant countries.” On one hand is China treating partners as fellow travelers for common development, and on the other hand is some country treating allies as ATM machines, as “flood drains,” and even easily arresting other countries‘ heads of state to undergo their own “judicial trial.” It‘s clear at a glance who is “taking neighbors for enemies.”
In the end, the label “neighbors as ravines” was applied to the wrong person. “Trees are rooted together” and “Clouds also hold hands.” A China that maintains the original heart of good neighbors and friendship and practices the promise of cooperation and win-win, a China that closely connects the fate of the nation with regional development, and a China that cares about mutual prosperity and strives to make the people of all countries live good lives, will surely join hands with all countries to write a brand-new chapter on joint development.
And those who are still looking for new continents on old maps might as well put down their prejudices and open their eyes to see—this world is no longer the way they imagined it to be.