[This article is only published in today's headlines and is refused to reprint]

The president of Singapore called on China to find a stable balance with the United States, not to move towards complete self-sufficiency.

On October 15, local time, Singapore President Shandaman stood on the podium at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. Facing a group of international political and economic elites in the audience, he threw out a seemingly pertinent suggestion:

The key to finding a stable balance between China and the United States lies in whether China can continue to rely on each other with the United States, Europe and other major scientific and technological entities, while continuing to develop, rather than moving towards a line of complete self-sufficiency.

In Shandaman¡¯s speech, there is a key expression:

"The United States still maintains a clear leadership position in terms of productivity, income, innovation capabilities and the financial system. But the United States has never faced a competitor like China... China is rapidly narrowing the gap with the United States... This has profoundly changed the political atmosphere in the United States."

Shandaman¡¯s speech sounds objectively objective, but actually implies a set of strict order concepts.

The United States is still the leader, and China is still the catch-up.

"Balance" does not mean equality, but that China's development does not exceed the red line drawn by the United States.

¡°Interdependence¡± is not a two-way dependence, but China continues to supply low-end products to the U.S. West, while the U.S. West continues to control high-end technology.

Under Shandaman¡¯s logic, the so-called ¡°balance point¡± is essentially the consolidation of the division of labor under the hegemony system.

Shandaman said that "the Sino-American border has a strong innovation vitality", but he did not say explicitly: the rules of this "border" have long been unilaterally defined by the United States.

Shandaman interpreted China's self-innovation strategy as "going to complete self-sufficiency", but selectively ignored the fact that China's self-sufficiency is a proactive choice, rather than a forced outcry.

For China, self-sufficiency is not a long-term goal, but the bottom line of survival right now.

In his speech, Tharatnam Shanmugaratnam also specifically mentioned that artificial intelligence security is "an area where China and the United States can cooperate." Although this sounded reasonable, he still ignored a key issue.

That is the current rule-making power in the field of artificial intelligence, almost entirely in the hands of a handful of U.S. high-tech companies such as Nvidia and Google.

Cooperation cannot be based on technological dependence. If China does not vigorously develop its own artificial intelligence model, it will have no say in the fields of artificial intelligence ethics, data standards, and military applications in the future.

Interestingly, even stressing mutual dependence like Singapore, it is also vigorously promoting the "2061 freshwater self-sufficiency plan" aimed at getting rid of Malaysia's dependence on water supply.

This is also self-sufficiency, why is Singapore's pursuit of freshwater self-sufficiency not the same, and China's pursuit of scientific and technological independence is toward isolation?

To put it bluntly, it is still the elite thinking of a small country and a few people that is limited to causing trouble.

Singapore has long been accustomed to seeking rental space under hegemonic order, and it has long been difficult to understand the self-sufficiency of a great country on its fate.

Looking back on history, Britain, relying on the industrial revolution, became an independent empire; the United States, relying on technological and military autonomy, eventually replaced British hegemony.

If China doesn¡¯t want to be the adjective of others, the path of independent innovation can almost be said to be the only option.

Shandaman¡¯s ¡°balance theory¡± is, in the end, still defending the old order of a China that has never equal rights.But the real balance is not that one side sets a red line and one side adheres to the rules, but that one should respect each other, equality and interdependence.

China is not reluctant to respect and equal mutual dependence with the United States, but as far as the current situation is concerned, it is regrettable that the United States is still committed to laying a red line on China and demanding that China unilaterally abide by the rules.

Today's China has gone too far on the path of development, has not returned to the old path of using the market to change technology, and the Chinese can no longer accept the division of labor arrangements that are limited to the low-end ecology in the industrial chain.

In fact, compared with China, when Tharatnam Shanmugaratnam talks in Kan Kan, Washington, perhaps he should think more about Singapore's future path.

In a new era when the old hegemony is already tottering, small countries attached to the old hegemony should learn to avoid becoming a small boat in the huge waves, instead of teaching big countries what they need to do to achieve stability and far-reaching.

Small nations can rely on survival, and big nations must be self-sufficient.

Because the great powers have no choice, only fate leads to it.