What is clear is that with a step-by-step industrial development, China could easily overtake the United States as the world's largest industrial power, quickly widen the gap, and eventually grow into a behemoth that will make the entire West tremble. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Since time is on our side, the longer the period of peaceful development, the stronger China's strength will be, so naturally we don't want to get involved in the war too early and bring about variables. But the earth does not revolve around China, and it is not that Li Hui can always keep peace if he does not want to fight......

Due to the continuous expansion of armaments and the deepening of the second scientific and technological revolution, Germany was the first to emerge from the Great Depression in 1901, followed by Britain and the United States a year later, followed by France, Italy and other countries, and the Western economy finally returned to the normal track of growth. However, the unprecedented decade of depression has really hurt the vitality of the West, and the new round of growth has not recovered as strongly as it has in the past, and the impact of the decade depression has also made many people in the West realize the fatal flaw of capitalism again.

In order to get rid of the economy and prevent revolution, many Western countries have carried out drastic reforms of their economic systems, among which Britain and the United States are the most representative.

Due to the changes in the world pattern caused by the rise of China, Chamberlain, who had not been able to realize his ideals until his death, succeeded in winning the support of British industrial capital and the broad masses of the middle and lower classes to become the British Prime Minister (Note 1), and immediately implemented a series of major measures that later generations called the "Chamberlain Reforms......

The first is to make good on the promises made during the election campaign, increase government procurement to woo entrepreneurs, and establish a better social security system to appease the poor and at the same time boost consumption.

What makes the world even more concerned is that the British government, which has always advocated free trade, has introduced the most stringent trade protection policy in history to protect its own industry, basically as long as the British (including the colonies) can produce their own industrial products, there are more than 100% high tariffs, and some goods are as high as 300%!

You know, at this time, the cost performance of British industrial products is actually not bad in the world, but the positioning is not high, low is not enough, the domestic and colonial markets are being eroded by German goods and American goods from the high-end and low-end respectively, but there is such a completely beyond the conventional high tariff policy to protect the short, at least the cost-effective as the selling point of the American goods will definitely not be able to survive, even if it is a German product that takes the boutique route, life is also quite sad.

Even if the war against China was lost and many colonies were lost, the capacity of Britain's "domestic" market was still equivalent to at least a quarter of the world market, while Britain's total industrial output accounted for less than one-sixth of the world's total, and the gap between the two was huge. Germany's total industrial output was about to catch up with Britain, and suddenly the gap was widened again......

However, not all British companies are happy about this, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, Armstrong Shipyard and other world's leading leading enterprises have suffered because of the retaliatory measures taken by other powers, so there are quite a few complaints about the old Chamberlain's trade protection measures, fortunately, they are all close to the military (in other words, Britain now basically only has some military and dual-use industrial sectors or the world's first), just give more orders to make up for it, the problem is not too big......

The British market is very important to American companies, because the former is not only broad enough, but also uses the same language and weights and measures, if sold to other countries, whether it is pre-sales and after-sales service (the influence of language), or processing accuracy (the conversion between metric and imperial system will increase a little error) will further decline, the already poor international reputation of American industrial products must be worse, and the loss will be difficult to make up for anyway.

Germany was relatively less affected, but they were not happy for long, and I don't know how the old Chamberlain thought that he chose to import Chinese goods to replace those industrial products that must be imported from Germany, so the Germans also vomited blood, and the British market is also their most important overseas market, without such a large piece of cake, the funds that can be used to expand reproduction must be greatly reduced, when will Germany catch up with Britain and become the number one industrial power in Europe?

The reason why the elder Chamberlain would do this was actually when China auctioned off the Haitian-class armored cruiser, and afterwards the British Admiralty borrowed one from Chile for a series of tests, and found that the performance of all kinds of steel used in it surpassed that of British products, including armor steel, structural steel and cannon steel, even if compared with the Krupp armor imported from Germany, it was slightly better. The workmanship of each part of the Haitian class is also beyond the one who has always liked to boast that "made in Germany must be a high-quality product." The fact that the German goods and the silver explosives that could not be copied in any case proved that the level of China's chemical industry was also extremely high. As for the special drugs that Li Hui relied on to become famous, they have established the world's first position in China's pharmaceutical industry.

Rather than shocked, the elder Chamberlain was more concerned about the metallurgy, chemical, pharmaceutical and machinery industries that were precisely Germany's dominant industries, and suddenly came up with a bold idea, "Why not import Chinese products to replace those German goods?" ”

You must know that for Britain, which is most afraid of the unification of the European continent, the rise of Germany is absolutely intolerable, and every little commodity imported from Germany is tantamount to funding the future enemy. However, Britain's metallurgical, chemical, pharmaceutical, and machinery industries are not as good as Germany's, and they must import Germany's high-quality steel, chemical products, medicines, and precision machine tools, otherwise those British products related to them will inevitably fall behind. And if Chinese products are not worse than German goods, then the import of Chinese goods to replace is undoubtedly a better choice, although China and Britain also have contradictions, and even fought a war, but from the fundamental interests of the two countries, in fact, it is far easier to coexist than Britain and Germany, after all, the distance between the two countries is too far...... (To be continued.) )