In January 2013, China Fortune Publishing House launched Yang Daqing's monograph "The Dilemma of the Sheepfold - The Logistics "Short Legs" of China's Rise as a Great Power". In the book, Yang Daqing proposed that China's rise as a great power has long been constrained by the "sheepfold dilemma" in geography, culture and transportation.

First, China has a geographical "sheepfold dilemma". When viewed from the air, China's terrain looks like a sheep. There are the Himalayas and Tanggula Mountains in the southwest of China, and the Kunlun Mountains and Tianshan Mountains in the northwest. They are all like natural fences, isolating China from the Eurasian continent. In the north of China, there are the stretching Qilian Mountains and the Yinshan Mountains. However, these natural The fence was relatively short, so Qin Shihuang and Ming Chengzu successively built the Wanli Great Wall to make it an "artificial fence". These constitute China’s geographical “sheepfold characteristics”. The Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, and East China Sea block the way out in the east of China, and the South China Sea blocks the way out in the south. Although it is possible to get out by sea, the Ming and Qing emperors, who had a strong farming civilization, "closed the country" policy of "not allowing sailing to the sea" almost put the "sheep pen" "All exits are sealed. The prosperous Qing Dynasty gradually became a sheep trapped in the "sheepfold" in terms of economic development, and was eventually slaughtered under the iron heel of imperialism. The first unequal treaty in China's modern history was the Sino-British "Treaty on Nose Puncture". China's leader was held by the British lion's nose. But the British were not satisfied and tore up the "Treaty of Nasal Puncture" and forced the Qing government to sign the more severe "Treaty of Nanjing".

Second, there is a “sheeppen dilemma” in Chinese culture. China is one of the few countries in the world with a sheep totem. The founder of Chinese farming culture, Emperor Yan Shennong, was born in Changyang Mountain, Shaanxi, and was a farming tribe with the sheep totem as its highest totem. China has Wuyang Temple in Guangzhou, Qingyang Palace in Chengdu, Huayang Palace in Xi'an, and Shenyang Temple in Zhengzhou. This kind of culture is nostalgic for its homeland and relocates to its homeland. It is not like the nomadic culture with lion totems in Europe and the United States (the most important animal totem in European and American countries is the lion, and the national emblems of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, etc. have lion totems), nor is it like the nomadic culture with wolf totems in Japan and South Korea. Culture (Japanese and Korean culture both belong to the Altaic civilization with the wolf totem as the highest totem) likes to explore and explore. Caught in the cultural sheepfold predicament, it is intriguing that the Yugu ethnic minority in China popularizes a kind of "sheepfold mat" for weddings. Shaanxi Province has famous clothing companies such as Seven Sheep Company, Leader Sheep Company, Sheep Laoda Company and other sheep totem companies. , the trademark of Yanghe Co., Ltd., China's largest A-share company by market capitalization in 2009, is Aries... The Chinese are happy with this sheepfold culture and sheep totem.

Third, China’s transportation “sheeppen dilemma”. Although Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty dredged the Silk Road in the Western Regions 2,000 years ago, and Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty took the lead in launching ocean voyages and dredging the Maritime Silk Road 600 years ago, China did not develop a global super enterprise in the past. In modern times, The main channels for foreign trade logistics are monopolized by the East India Company of capitalist countries such as Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States. Falling into the "sheeppen dilemma" of the circulation economy. "The Sheepfold Dilemma" points out that China's reform and opening up and joining the WTO are to break the sheepfold dilemma and go global. However, for a long time, China's economy has been more "emphasis on production and less on circulation" and lacked attention to the logistics and circulation industry. This also caused China to have a service trade deficit for nearly 20 years from 1992 to 2012, with the highest deficit being in transportation and logistics. China's logistics channels are monopolized by European, American, Japanese and Korean companies. In 2011, China became the world's second largest trading country after the United States, and is expected to become the world's largest trading country in 2013. More than 90% of global trade relies on shipping. If a large trading country loses control of logistics resources, it will often be difficult to ensure its own economic security. China has long had two major weaknesses in its foreign trade logistics:

First, China’s shipping market has long been monopolized by Japanese, Korean and Nordic shipping giants, especially in strategic resource materials such as iron ore, oil and liquefied gas. superior. Currently, Mitsui Lines is the world's largest liquefied gas shipping company, and NYK is the world's largest iron ore shipping company and the world's largest automobile shipping company, and they monopolize China's related markets. China has had a deficit in its foreign trade in services for nearly 20 years from 1992 to 2012, with the highest deficit being in shipping and other transportation and logistics services.

Second, China’s maritime transportation channels have long been restricted by the “First Island Chain” and “Second Island Chain” controlled by the United States, Japan and their strategic allies. Abe’s strategy of “encircling” China also restarts the Cold War mentality. During the Cold War, Western forces led by the United States proposed the "Island Chain Plan" to block and embargo China, building a "First Island Chain" and a "Second Island Chain" from the East China Sea to the South China Sea and the Pacific to cut off China's international shipping. Logistics channel. China's Diaoyu Islands are located near the Miyako Strait on the East China Sea Logistics Corridor, and many of the islands in the South China Sea that the Philippines and Vietnam are trying to occupy are located on China's South China Sea Logistics Corridor, which is the main sea route into the Malacca Strait. The strategy of encircling China proposed by Shinzo Abe, who returned to the throne of Japan's Prime Minister at the end of 2012, is to win over the United States, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea and others to build China's sheepfold.

"The Sheepfold Dilemma" points out that the rise of China as a great power requires solving the problem of short legs in logistics, especially in maritime logistics, railway logistics and aviation logistics. Yang Daqing pointed out in "Supply Chain is King" (published by China Development Press) that the development of manufacturing in various countries generally goes through four stages of development: Production is king, marketing is king, channel is king, supply chain is king.

The first stage is "production is king". This stage is the "shortage economy era". The supply of goods exceeds the demand, and companies often worry about how to produce more. Before the 1980s, most industrial enterprises were "production-oriented". "Iron Man" Wang Jinxi and other national labor models are the role models of this era. Mass production promotes industrial development. Today, China manufactures more than one-third of the world's home appliances, including 50% of the world's color TVs, 50% of the world's mobile phones, 70% of the world's air conditioners, and nearly 100 of the world's microwave ovens...

The second stage is "marketing" is the king”, or “brand is the king”. With the expansion of production scale and improvement of production efficiency, social goods are becoming increasingly abundant, and companies often worry about how to sell more, so "marketing packaging" has become the key. Around the 1990s, the "idea king" He Yang, whose ideas could sell for hundreds of thousands of yuan, became the darling of the era. The success of "golden ideas" lies in marketing packaging. Shi Yuzhu's "Melatonin" drink, Qin Chi's bid for CCTV's title, etc. mostly became popular through marketing.

The third stage is "channel is king". With the extensive establishment of corporate brand culture and the overall improvement of social commodity quality, there are more and more homogeneous products. "Price wars" are frequently staged and profits are diluted. Companies often worry about how to make more profits. "Channel is king." "It's very popular. Because at this stage, production and marketing problems are solved, and companies enter the battle for channels. From the end of the last century to the present, whoever controls the retail channels has the right to speak. Huang Guangyu, the founder of Gome, won by "channel is king" and became the richest man in China. Gree, which occupies 60% of the global air-conditioning market, also relies on Dong Mingzhu's self-operated channels to dominate the world.

The fourth stage is "supply chain is king". This stage is also the "era of surplus economy", where production, marketing, and channels are no longer major issues. First, market demand is shifting towards personalization, and consumption has become the core of the value chain. Secondly, channels are becoming more and more diversified. It is no longer traditional retailers who have the right to speak. Therefore, Home Depot, B&Q, Best Buy, etc. have collapsed in China. Supply chain service providers such as Alibaba and Amazon, which integrate information flow, capital flow, logistics, and business flow, are gradually rise.

The book "Supply Chain is King" points out that global industrial competition has entered an era in which "supply chain is king". As can be seen from Apple, the world's largest market capitalization company, Apple has ranked first among the top 25 global supply chains for the fifth consecutive year in 2012. Although China produces one-third of the world's smartphones, many companies are just workers downstream of the supply chain such as Apple and Samsung.

The book points out that in the era of the Internet of Things, future channels will focus on mobile terminals such as smartphones, rather than general supermarkets or department stores. Supply chain competition is a comprehensive competition that integrates business flow, logistics, capital flow, and information flow. Traditional physical retail channels are difficult to compete with emerging companies such as Amazon and Alibaba in terms of "four-stream" integration capabilities and response speed. Traditional channels need to be moved to mobile terminals such as PDAs and smartphones.

Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company that ranked second among the top 25 companies in the global supply chain in 2012, has entered the smartphone market. Google, the American company that acquired Motorola, has entered the e-commerce market and launched same-day express delivery, turning into a supply chain service company. South Korea's Samsung, which ranks first among the top 15 companies in the Asia-Pacific supply chain, is already the world's largest smartphone supplier. In 2009, Samsung joined forces with China Unicom and others to enter the Chinese mobile e-commerce market. Alibaba, Asia's largest e-commerce company, is also seeking to launch Alibaba Cloud smartphones to seize the handheld e-commerce market. Traditional Chinese manufacturers and retailers need to change their mindset and work together to develop the handheld market.