"What you mean is, if we develop the automotive industry chain properly, we can raise a hundred million people to the living standards of developed countries?"
"Yes. Take Japan, for example. Its automotive industry has reached world-class levels, and a single automotive industry chain has driven the development of related sectors like steel, chemicals, electronics, and more."
"Japan only has a little over a hundred million people, right? They became a developed country by relying on that one automotive industry chain?"
"Not exactly. Japan also possesses high-end industry chains in home appliances, shipbuilding, semiconductors, and so on. That is why their per capita income and living standards far exceed the baseline for developed countries."
"Now that you put it that way, we understand."
The automotive industry was important, and the older generation certainly acknowledged that. They had come through the years of war and knew that artillery had to be hauled by vehicles, rather than relying on soldiers to push it by hand.
So after 1949, the mainland had placed great importance on automotive development, launching projects such as Jilin Automobile, Nanjing Automobile, and others.
But if you asked exactly how important the automotive industry was, the overwhelming majority of people could not provide a precise quantitative metric.
Even if these big shots asked renowned experts and scholars, they could only offer vague descriptions such as "expected," "should," or "possibly," because they feared that if they said something wrong, they would shatter the hard-won golden image they had built for themselves.
Li Ye knew that all big shots and people in high positions disliked such vague summaries. They wanted something definite and precise, a pledge of military command like Yuan Chonghuan's "Pacify Liaodong in five years."
Back then, in the imperial court of the Great Ming, not a single minister