There are two different views on the evaluation of this phenomenon. One view is that the tertiary industry plays a leading role in the industrial structure, which is the softening of the industrial structure, and the softening of the industrial structure cannot be confused with the hollowing out of the industry. For a country, no matter how the proportion of primary and secondary industries declines, as long as it is based on the high development of science and technology and productivity and the formation of a virtuous circle relationship among the three major industries, it cannot be said that the industry is hollow. Because under this premise, the change of proportional relationship has not destroyed the balance between the supply capacity and demand capacity of a country's production. On the contrary, this structural evolution is purely a kind of progress, which marks the transition from industrial society to "post-industrial society" or "information society" and is the inevitable result of social progress and new technological revolution. The essence of industrial hollowing out is to destroy the above proportional relationship, leading to imbalance between supply and demand, and then domestic demand is increasingly dependent on foreign imports, and the trade deficit is aggravated.
Another view disagrees with the above view and thinks:
(1) There is no so-called post-industrial society. What the United States is experiencing now is not a transition from an "industrialized society" to a "service economy", but only a transition to another industrial society. In fact, the American manufacturing industry, once regarded as a "sunset industry", has seen new vitality in recent years and has become an innovative department in the United States. It is the recovery of manufacturing that helps the United States avoid falling into a serious recession.
(2) The decline in the number of manufacturing employees is not a bad thing in itself, but it may reflect the technological progress and the improvement of labor productivity. But this is only the positive side of the problem, and there is also a negative side. That is, the shrinkage of manufacturing industry means the weakening of social and economic foundation. Without an industrial base, there can be no prosperous service society and technological progress. Because of technological progress, most of them are produced by highly developed production processes, not just in the laboratory. The great development of service industry in the United States in the past 20 or 30 years was only possible under the premise of the great development of industry and agriculture before and during this period. If the manufacturing industry shrinks and hollows out for a long time, the prosperity of the service industry may last for a while, but it will eventually collapse. Britain is a warning. /kloc-In the middle of the 0/9th century, Britain once made its economic development reach the highest level in history by virtue of its status as a "world factory" and became a world financial center. But then, British industrial capital invested heavily overseas. At the beginning of the 20th century, British overseas investment once exceeded the scale of domestic investment, which led to the decline of British domestic industrial production from the end of19th century, and the speed of technological progress slowed down obviously. Finally, it was overtaken by the United States and Germany, and it was reduced from a "world factory" to an importer of industrial products. In the next half century, although it still maintained the leading position in finance, it was later replaced by new york and then surpassed by Tokyo. The United States is repeating the mistakes of Britain today. If the manufacturing industry continues to decline, the financial service center will one day move to Japan. In fact, as a world financial center, the United States can't catch up with Japan now.
There are other reasons why it can't build a prosperous economy based on the service industry: (1) The service industry, like the manufacturing industry, is also threatened by foreign competition; (2) Generally speaking, the improvement of labor productivity in service industry is slower than that in manufacturing industry, and the average wage is lower than that in manufacturing industry. Therefore, with the shrinking of manufacturing industry and the development of service industry, the average wage level will tend to decline, thus affecting the improvement of economy and living standards; (3) The great development of American service industry has not offset the huge balance of payments deficit caused by the shrinking manufacturing industry, and it will not in the future. On the contrary, the accumulation of this deficit has made the United States the largest debtor country in the world, depriving the United States of its capital in the financial services industry to some extent; (4) Technology outflow. With the transfer of production abroad, some key technologies have also fallen into the hands of foreigners, thus losing their technological advantages.
(3) America's wealth and strength can only be maintained by organizing and controlling material production. It is not a long-term solution for a large number of manufacturing industries to move outward. Because although this can reduce some costs, it is impossible to solve the problem of domestic production efficiency, and it will make American manufacturers unable to control the products they cannot produce. The feasible strategy is to revitalize the manufacturing industry, combine advanced technology with skilled workers and innovative management, reduce production costs and improve efficiency by adjusting production structure, adopting high technology and updating equipment, and form an economy with high wages and high productivity.
Of course, at present, the hollowing out of American industry has not changed the whole industrial outlook of the United States, and its manufacturing industry still has a relatively solid foundation. In science and technology and some industrial fields, the United States is still in a leading position. This shows that industrial hollowing out is a long-term problem, and it is bound to go through the transformation process from quantitative change to qualitative change. Japan is now moving towards industrial hollowing out, which is manifested by a large outflow of capital, the expansion of some unproductive service industries, and the sluggish domestic material production and investment, but it has not reached a serious level.
China has entered a period of accelerated transformation of industrial structure, and the tertiary industry, as one of the key industries, needs to accelerate its development. In particular, the transportation industry and emerging industries such as finance, insurance, real estate, information consulting, education, science and technology, which have long been the "bottlenecks" of the national economy, need to be vigorously developed, so that the proportion of the tertiary industry will be significantly increased, and the structural proportion of the tertiary industry whose development level is excessively lower than the needs of the national economy will be quickly solved, and the stable development of the primary industry, the expansion of the total amount of the secondary industry and the improvement of its quality will be better guaranteed. But in the 1990s, the secondary industry will maintain its leading position in the whole industrial structure.
The development of the tertiary industry and the adjustment of the industrial structure of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries should be adapted to local conditions: (1) Large cities, megacities and developed regions can adjust the regional industrial structure in the order of three, two and one; (2) The development of growth areas should be adjusted in the order of two, three and one; (3) Backward areas also need to actively develop the tertiary industry, which is mainly based on transportation, but we should not be too eager to fundamentally change the structural pattern of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
This paper analyzes the changes of the spatial structure of the world economy from four aspects.
Economically, China is still a developing country. There is a widespread problem of re-industrialization in developed areas of China, and large areas to be developed are waiting for development. Traditional industries still need greater development, especially basic industries and basic industries. China's participation in modern international division of labor is not great. Judging from these actual conditions, these megatrends seem to have little impact on China. But in fact, it is impossible for China to stay out of the world's new technological revolution. Every major change in the world economy has to have a big or small impact on China. In particular, if China wants to open wider to the outside world and participate in the international division of labor and exchanges on a larger scale, it needs to pay close attention to the trend of the new technological revolution in the world and grasp the changing trend of the spatial pattern of the world economy, which is of great significance for correctly formulating China's strategy and tactics for participating in the international division of labor and correctly planning the strategic layout of China.