As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 350 The Core Demand

Whether it is people or organizations, most of them will only repeat the path they once took to success.

It is too difficult to achieve reform solely through internal strength. Throughout human history, there are few successful cases.

From top to bottom, Goryeo also knows that over-reliance on exports is not conducive to healthy and stable economic development.

The size of their territory and the number of their citizens left them with no choice.

We can only repeat past successful experiences.

I want to change but I don’t know where to start.

At this time, external stimulation is needed.

The bubble was burst after Japan signed the Hiroshima Agreement, and since then it has shifted from stimulating economic development through infrastructure to investing globally.

Neon's external net assets have ranked first among all countries in the world for forty consecutive years.

It’s as if everyone in China knows from top to bottom that real estate is a stimulant that can make you excited temporarily but cannot fundamentally improve your physical fitness.

It was not until the emergence of virtual reality that China's real estate bubble began to burst, and they realized that they could no longer go down this path.

After the emergence of the virtual world, no matter how much the necessity of real estate is advocated, Chinese residents with purchasing power will no longer believe it.

It is also external forces that cause the changes.

It is too difficult to rely on self-discovery and change the development path.

Goryeo doesn't have this ability.

Countries or regions like Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, which have reached a certain stage of economic development, all have one characteristic in common: they are extremely dependent on overseas markets.

Looking at these four countries or regions that are somewhat similar in economic development, we can find that Korea has the least amount of foreign investment.

They are heavily dependent on the foreign trade economy, and since most of their export industries are high value-added industries, most of the industries remain in their home country.

Taking the data between 2010 and 2020 as an example, Neon’s total external net assets are close to trillion US dollars.

Net external assets refer to the figure obtained by subtracting liabilities from overseas assets.

Even if we exclude the 1.2 trillion U.S. Treasury bonds held by Japan, Japan's net foreign assets exceed 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars.

After China significantly reduced its holdings of U.S. debt, Japan became the country with the largest amount of U.S. debt in the world.

Goryeo's figure is less than 650 billion, and even less after deducting the U.S. debt it holds.

Lion City’s overseas net assets are around 250 billion US dollars. Excluding US$100 billion in debt, Lion City’s overseas net assets are 150 billion US dollars.

The proportion of overseas net assets to GDP is slightly higher than that of Goryeo.

Taiwan is a special case. Its overseas net assets are extremely high, exceeding one trillion US dollars, and the amount of U.S. debt it holds is only 200 billion.

You should know that Goryeo's GDP is about 2.7 times that of the Taiwan region.

From the actual data, it can be seen that among these four similar economies, Korea is the least willing to invest abroad and build factories overseas.

This asset allocation results in a high concentration of risk.

It was still caused by the initial path. Goryeo's original capital accumulation came from massive borrowing, borrowing from international capital in the name of the government.

Their high-speed development path comes from this, leading to over-reliance on overseas capital.

Neon’s original accumulation came from World War II, and Taiwan’s original capital accumulation came from the wealth brought over from mainland China.

For Goryeo, this was an inevitable fate.

Unlike the European continent, Goryeo did not receive assistance from the American Marshall Plan.

Between 1945 and 1953, America's Marshall Plan aid worldwide amounted to $443 billion.

This was more than 40 billion euros in the 1940s.

The Marshall Plan was divided into grants and loans, with direct grants to the entire European region exceeding 10 billion euros.

Given such historical origins, even if the Americans put forward American priority, it would only consume their accumulated geopolitical heritage.

But it is impossible to completely make the European Alliance turn to China.

The fact that England would leave the EU and then rejoin the Europa League, and even be willing to give up the pound, has surprised many geopolitical observers.

Because in the Marshall Plan, England was the country that received the largest amount of American economic grants and loans, approximately 25% of the total amount.

Faced with unprecedented changes, Goryeo's economy was the most vulnerable.

"Mr. Zheng, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to communicate with you in person."

The leader of Goryeo was the first top figure Zheng Li dared to see after he came to Blue Star.

Therefore, after the other party made the request, Zheng Li agreed to meet with the other party.

He was somewhat curious about what kind of requests the other party would make and what conditions they would be willing to offer.

Goryeo has had a hard time in recent years. Virtual reality technology is just the fuse that detonates the bomb. The actual crisis began ten years ago.

America's chip plan is the clarion call for their economic decline.

After that, the magic brain system led to China's leapfrog development in certain areas, and directly squeezed Goryeo's living space.

China is a country that aims at the entire industrial chain. It is known as the meat grinder of developed countries, and it is not just a name.

Even after Huawei was banned and its share of the global mobile phone market plummeted, most of the market share given up by Huawei was taken over by other Chinese mobile phone brands.

Not Samsung.

Whether it is Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. or Deep Blue Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. based on DNA storage technology, their direct competitors are Korea's storage industry.

You should know that before Deep Blue Memory came out, the global memory chip industry had an annual revenue of 1319 billion US dollars, of which about % of the market share was taken away by Korea.

The main ones are Hynix and Samsung.

The emergence of DeepBlue Storage and the rapid progress of China's Yangtze Memory Technologies in the traditional storage field have caused a sharp drop in Gaoli's revenue in this market.

Later, including the Europa League and America, they mastered the biological storage technology, and Korea's storage chip industry fell directly from 1319 billion US dollars to 300 billion US dollars.

Directly cut at the ankle.

This is because the production capacity of biological storage servers is limited, and Korea's storage chips can still be sold to the personal market and third world countries.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. is also squeezing into this market share.

Hynix was almost on the verge of collapse, and in the past five years it has been relying on ultra-low-interest loans from the Korean government to survive.

The memory chip industry is just one area that has been affected.

Including high-end chemical raw materials, semiconductors, consumer electronics, etc., they are facing an all-round encirclement.

China's technological development speed has far exceeded expectations.

Therefore, during these ten years, Goryeo did not have a leader who could serve for a full five years.

If you can work for three years, it is considered a long time.

The current leader of Goryeo is the leader of the Justice Party.

Ten years ago, this party would have had no chance of coming to power, as they only held six seats out of the 300 seats in the Goryeo parliament.

Compared with the two major parties, it is on the fringe of the fringe.

Even though they were the third largest party in Goryeo at the time.

But as times have become increasingly difficult over the past decade, their voices have been growing louder.

The Justice Party is an extreme left-wing party whose main advocacy is to oppose oppression and exploitation. In simple terms, it is a party that wants to get rid of the chaebols.

They were able to grow stronger and absorb some centrist factions in the middle, as well as factions that broke away from the first two major parties.

Successfully ascended last year.

When times get tough, extremist forces rise.

"Hello." Zheng Li shook hands with the other party and said two simple words before not talking about anything else. Because he was very unfamiliar with Goryeo, so unfamiliar that he just knew there was such a place and it seemed to be developing well.

At the same time, among the users of the magic brain, there is one whose coordinates are located in Goryeo.

Beyond that, there is no further knowledge.

In fact, Zheng Li knew nothing about the other party's background and political demands.

Since the other party wanted a very private meeting, only Zheng Li, the Goryeo leader and the translator were present.

There is no fourth person.

If Li Miaomiao were here, it would have eased the embarrassment to a certain extent.

“Mr. Zheng, I wonder how much you know about Goryeo.

We are the developed country with the slowest economic growth in the past decade, and even experiencing a serious recession.

Especially in the face of the recent impact of the upcoming virtual reality devices.

From the real economy to the financial sector, we have reached a point where we can no longer sustain our business.”

Zheng Li asked: "Why?"

The other party smiled bitterly and said, “Because of expectations.

The global real economy has lost expectations for the future.

If the virtual world is almost the same as the real world, the demand for the real world will shrink greatly.

We are at the downstream of the supply chain, and everything is shrinking from the upstream resource side to the demand side.

This has led to an unprecedented crisis in our real economy.

The global supply chain system that has been built is already facing substantial bankruptcy.

Other countries are also facing shocks, but compared with other developed countries.

Goryeo had no strategic depth.

Not only is there a lack of strategic depth in the market, there is also a lack of strategic depth in finance.”

Strategic depth is a term in military science, but its application is not limited to the military and often appears in the economic field.

China has a vast market. Not including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, China has more than 300 prefecture-level cities, nearly 3,000 county towns and more than 40,000 townships.

Cities alone can be divided into first, second, third, fourth and fifth tiers.

This is strategic depth.

It is precisely because of the broad strategic depth of the Chinese market that companies like Pinduoduo can be born.

At the same time, thanks to such a broad strategic depth and extremely strong social mobilization capabilities, the bursting of China's real estate bubble will not sweep across the country like Japan did.

But it is limited to a certain range.

Don’t even think about big fireworks, but there will be lots of small fireworks.

For Goryeo, not only do they lack strategic depth, but more than 50% of their population is concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.

More than 50 percent of GDP comes from exports.

Economic development is extremely single.

In fact, one of the important reasons why Goryeo's overseas investment is slow is that they lack a sense of security and are not used to placing industries abroad.

They have been beaten since ancient times. They were beaten by Japan in World War II, and after the end of World War II, they were beaten by China and entered Seoul.

There is no sense of security from top to bottom, and this subconscious feeling leads them to be reluctant to build factories overseas.

As for why Taiwan dares to do this? When Taiwanese businessmen encounter problems, they turn to China.

Chinese embassies abroad help Taiwanese businessmen deal with civil disputes, economic and criminal cases.

It’s like having a father means you don’t have to worry.

Neon also lacks strategic depth, but they are better than Goryeo.

In order to solve the problem of lack of strategic depth, Neon chose to invest heavily overseas and purchase land resources overseas.

The land that Japan has purchased in Brazil has exceeded the land area of ​​their country.

"We would like to ask for your help."

After Zheng Li finished talking with the Goryeo leaders, Li Miaomiao asked curiously, "What kind of demands did the other party make?"

Li Miaomiao was very curious.

No matter how bad Goryeo has been in recent years, with news of attacks on the Blue House from time to time, it is still a developed country after all.

It is also the only country that has transformed from a developing country to a developed country since the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in 1964.

After all, it is one of the major countries in the world.

Li Miaomiao was very curious about the other party's mysterious behavior.

“They came up with several ideas.

Basically, they hope that we can set up a production base in Goryeo.

Including virtual reality equipment and related supporting devices, which can be produced locally in Korea."

“Gao Li wants to be our OEM factory?
In other words, do they want to be just a foundry within Korea or a global foundry?
That is to say, we have to produce virtual reality equipment for Korea locally.

What about other countries?" Li Miaomiao asked.

Zheng Li: “The other party’s general meaning is that they naturally hope the more the better.

The bottom line is that if we want to sell our virtual reality devices in Korea, then these devices and supporting facilities must be produced locally in Korea.

They don’t mind letting us take the profits, but they have to leave job opportunities in Korea.”

Li Miaomiao said directly: "The other party must still want to steal our production process."

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Even if our production factory is located in Goryeo, some core raw materials still have to be transported from China."

“Yes, I think you will also be prepared to keep it a secret.

Our lithium metal positive electrode materials have been studied for so many years that even the structure has been understood, but the only thing we don’t know is how to produce them on a large scale.

They are really thinking too much about obtaining the secrets in this regard.

What do you think? "

Zheng Li replied: “I am talking about the virtual reality equipment of Goryeo that can be produced in Goryeo.

I can’t guarantee that for other places.”

“What benefits are they willing to give up?”

"I didn't pay much attention. Someone will contact you later and you will know then."

Li Miaomiao nodded and said, "It's nothing more than some tax rate concessions, land concessions and low-interest loans.

This is nothing to us.

The other party came here in person and made this one request?"

Zheng Li shook his head: "The most important request they made is that they hope to be able to set the price of the virtual reality equipment sold in Goryeo.

The Korean government is willing to compensate us for the difference between the global price and the price we sell.”

Li Miaomiao asked: "For example, if we want to sell it for 10,000 RMB, they want the price to be 5,000 RMB, and then the Korean side will directly subsidize us the remaining 5,000 RMB?"

"Yes, I feel this should be the other party's most core demand in the entire conversation."

(End of this chapter)