An editorial in today’s edition of China’s Global Times took note of President Joe Biden’s self-congratulatory praise of the recently passed bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which he described as a “monumental” step forward. But, the daily wrote, “the bill will by no means solve all the U.S.’s problems and give the country enough vitality to compete with China in the sphere of large-scale infrastructure projects.”
The daily reports that China has a special advantage in deriving large-scale productivity advances from its infrastructure investments. “China has a large population, which determines a higher use rate of infrastructure.” The Biden package, they argue, “will push the country into a false prosperity papered over by quantitative easing and excessive money-printing. It is tantamount to a fairy tale to revitalize U.S. competitiveness relying merely on a stimulus bill.”
A separate article in Global Times argued that “the hollowing-out of the U.S. manufacturing sector means that its domestic industries don’t have the production capacity to support the `once-in-a generation’ infrastructure construction. While the Biden administration may not necessarily want to increase imports from China to support the infrastructure plan, no other country except China can meet its need for large amounts of industrial goods under such a grand infrastructure program.” The article correctly concludes that U.S.-China cooperation in such projects domestically and internationally is necessary and mutually beneficial.
