By only developing high-end manufacturing, it is impossible for China to become a developed country

The video explores the feasibility of China relying solely on high-end manufacturing to become a developed nation. By comparing South Korea's population with the per capita production and sales of Samsung phones and automobiles, it points out that for China to reach South Korea's level of per capita GDP, the required product sales volume would far exceed the total global shipments. It concludes that the world's purchasing power is insufficient to support a country of 1.4 billion people in becoming a developed nation through high-end manufacturing alone.

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Is it feasible to become a major high-tech manufacturing power? This is the path envisioned by Xi Jinping and many Chinese people, but it is actually a dead end. We have long been indoctrinated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the idea that if China can grasp the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it can become a developed country. At first glance, this logic seems sound, but it ignores a very important and core variable: scale. The world cannot really support a country with 1.4 billion people becoming a developed nation by relying solely on high-end manufacturing.

South Korea is one of the few developed countries that relies on high-end manufacturing as its core. If China wants to achieve a per capita GDP level similar to South Korea's and become a lower-middle-tier developed country, we can perform a simple calculation. South Korea's population is around 50 million, and how many mobile phones does Samsung sell in a year? The figure for 2025 is 223 million, which means South Korea sells 4.4 Samsung phones per capita. If we apply this level of 4.4 phones per capita to China, how many would China need to sell in a year? It would need to sell at least 6.16 billion phones annually. This figure is four times the current total annual global mobile phone shipments.

The same logic applies to automobiles. South Korea's per capita automobile production is 0.15 units. If 1.4 billion people were to produce 0.15 cars per capita, it would require Chinese brands to sell 210 million cars a year. This sales volume is twice the total annual global automobile sales. If China wants to become a developed country relying only on high-end manufacturing, it is no longer a question of whether technological innovation can succeed, but rather that the world's purchasing power is simply not enough.