However, because China's cultural self-confidence has not been crushed, and it has been restored to a large extent after the war with Britain, the whole country feels that domestic goods are the best (for example, this beef is sold far more expensive than imported beef), and it is difficult for Western goods to have any forced qualifications, and even the liking has become synonymous with the uneducated, nouveau riche and grandstanding to some extent, so even if there are no policies that restrict the consumption of luxury goods, Western high-end goods are also difficult to sell in China......

The government of the Republic of China, arguably the world's most demanding trade protection policy, has rightly attracted the dissatisfaction and even economic retaliation of Western countries, but the few fist products exported by China are not afraid of high tariffs. For example www.biquge.info penicillin, which was renamed "sterilization ling" by Li Hui, can save lives, which politician dares to raise too high tariffs? There are also skin care products that are still the only one and have no other branches for the time being, which are highly sought after by the upper class, and no politician dares to open their eyes to it.

In fact, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, these export goods of China were not formal channels at all, but foreigners who came to China to buy them at high prices in China and brought them back to China in the form of personal belongings. Even the most powerful of the United States IRS has nothing to do about it, let alone other countries......

After the signing of the Treaty of Calcutta, the Chinese government used the reparations to sweep up goods in Europe, and when these acquired companies moved back to China, they quickly made up for the gaps in system technology, and China established a complete industrial system that could cover all the needs of people's livelihood......

Therefore, since 1896, China's foreign trade surplus has been quite large, and it has increased year by year, and the outflow of precious metals, which is already much less in the West, has accelerated.

Even though the gold standard has been abandoned, real money is still the main means of international delivery and an important material for precious jewelry, and its value is still high. What's more, even if it is not directly linked to fiat currency, a country's precious metal reserves can still affect people's confidence in its fiat currency, and the outflow of large quantities of precious metals is definitely not a trivial matter.

As a result, not long after the abandonment of the gold standard and the end of deflation, inflation in the Western powers began again, and it became worse by the day, making the poor people of all countries miserable.

Moreover, what many world-famous economists did not expect is that such inflation has not helped Western countries recover from the economic crisis, and even the economic crisis that has not ended so far has a tendency to worsen......

It turns out that the inflation created by the government on its own initiative by using the money printing press has indiscriminately looted the people's wealth, but the benefits obtained have been concentrated in the hands of a very small number of big capitalists, whose own consumption is limited (compared to the total amount of wealth), and they must be very cautious in investing when the economic situation has not improved, so the purchasing power that can be increased is quite limited, at least far from being enough to make up for the huge losses caused by the loss of the Chinese market and the seizure of many domestic markets by Chinese goods......

All this was expected by Li Hui, and it can even be said that to some extent, such a situation was deliberately created by him......

In fact, because domestic industrial output is still very limited, and China's size is too large, if we look at satisfying the needs of the domestic people, there are still many commodities that can be imported. However, Li Hui believes that a large number of Western industrial products will pull the industry of the Western powers and help them get rid of the economic crisis, considering that the two sides will eventually have a war in the future, this is tantamount to a capital enemy, and because of China's terrifying potential needs, once the import is released, the prices of those commodities will surely soar, China can actually buy not so many materials, which is equivalent to only a little short-term small profit but make the future enemy stronger, this is undoubtedly very unwise, Li Hui would rather live a hard life in China for ten years, It will not be so short-sighted, anyway, at this time (1897) even if there is still a shortage of necessities in the country, at least no one will starve to death, and even if China carries out trade protection, it will only affect the national living standard rather than the speed of economic development, that is, wait a few more years, and life will still be better in the future.

Li Hui regarded this as a war, an economic war, and he made full use of China's size and technological superiority to greatly delay the industrial development of the Western powers in a manner similar to the Seven Wounds Fist.

However, the Western powers are not stupid, who will be happy to take advantage of them if they suffer losses and take advantage of them?

If it was before the First Sino-Japanese War, the West would have tore through the camouflage and acted as bandits, but now China is no longer the Manchu Qing that can be bullied casually, and it would be self-defeating to play blackmail by force. But even so, the anti-China sentiment of Western countries is still inevitably gradually increasing, which Li Hui does not want to see, and he is especially worried that the West will unite against China because of this, so from time to time he will spit out a little good to appease a little, so that the Western dog will jump over the wall in a hurry and take the route of "boiling frogs in warm water", and at the same time, this will also be combined with diplomatic means to create a rift among Western countries, so that they will never be able to unite......

For example, in 1897, it took 432 tons of silver and 108 days to complete the "modern metallurgy", a level 5 main technology (the scientific research date is 1900, but as a level 5 technology, it is actually equivalent to the world's advanced level in history in 1936. After that, Li Hui quickly asked people to transfer the part of gold refining to the United Kingdom, so that the world's largest reserves of the South African Rand gold mine have the possibility of greatly increasing production to two or three hundred tons of gold per year, which can reduce the already high price of precious metals, so that Li Hui can get more gold to feed the system, and at the same time, it can also allow Britain to recover its strength to a certain extent, because Li Hui believes that a slower decline in Britain is beneficial to China in general...... (To be continued.) )