How China is poised to dominate global industry and technology

China combines cooperation between all its national players — to create “a Chinese potential of situation unlike any other in the world” — with cut-throat competition to exploit it

The political system is the pairing of a “directive but collaborative” regime, to prepare the national offering (planning), with a “liberal” regime that lets entrepreneurs exploit the national potential in their own best interests, in a climate of intense competition.

In the West it is either liberalism or state direction; in China it is both, but at different moments. No other country has managed it on this scale.

China has built its ecosystem at national scale

China optimises at the scale of the nation, whereas the rest of the world confines itself (the Toyota model) to ecosystems optimised at the level of the extended enterprise, together with its suppliers.

That ecosystem is the sum of many parts: national planning and technology roadmaps; the pooling of everything that is not differentiating; regulation that organises the field; speed of execution; the involvement of the digital giants and of “Tier 0.5” suppliers; strong, targeted public support; special economic zones dedicated to a single industry; control of strategic materials and dominance of key sectors, starting with batteries; continuity of leadership; sheer numbers of engineers; ultra-modern infrastructure; robotisation; civic spirit and collective ambition; a weak currency.

It is a revolution that is hard to copy in the West, where competition law prohibits this kind of concerted action and where private interest comes before the national interest.

“Special economic zones” number in the thousands and make it possible to concentrate the production of a single product, pushing the experience curve to its maximum

These zones, from 100 to 2,000 km² for the major cities, offer ultra-modern infrastructure along with tax and social-contribution advantages; the density of firms there sustains permanent competition.

No one in the world can compete with China in this field any longer, for want of any comparable concentration.

Reproducing such concentration outside China would require zones on the same scale — nothing of the kind exists in Europe today, where production is instead dispersing towards Eastern Europe, Spain, Turkey and Morocco.

China has 20 times the population of France, but more than 50 times its productive hours worked

Within that gap, working time accounts for 20%, and the share of the population in work for 80% (55% in productive work in China, against 28% in France).

To that workforce, add the robots: half of all those installed worldwide each year are installed in China.

The speed of execution is staggering: in vehicle development, twice as fast and three times cheaper

China thus develops six cars for the same budget, and in the same time, as a European carmaker developing a single one.

The aim is to reach a market first and take enough of it — at least 50% — to become “uncatchable”.

China gives priority to growth rather than profitability in every substitution market (electric cars), where Westerners, conversely, put profitability before growth.

Finance serves the growth strategy, not the other way round: BYD finds funding it would not find in the West, while Western groups whose very future is under threat go on paying dividends.

China’s lead in batteries is considerable, and premeditated

Anticipating “Western decarbonisation ambitions”, China set its plan in motion long ago to gain the advantage: renewable energy, batteries and strategic materials, control of numerous mines around the world, almost the entirety of global refining capacity, and command of every battery technology (NMC, LFP, sodium, solid-state). Above all, command of industrialisation, after ten to fifteen years of development funded by the state or the provinces — a problem Europeans are discovering only today.

Training engineers and scientists en masse is part of the plan — and scientists are valued by society

China trains twice as many students in scientific disciplines as the United States and Europe combined.

Take into account their numbers, their speed and the pooling of know-how at national level — set against the West’s every-firm-for-itself — and the firepower of Chinese engineers is formidable.

We found that national ambition in every single person we met.

The aim is to recover the technical supremacy China exercised over the world for centuries, and lost from the unequal treaties of the nineteenth century onwards.

Innovation is everywhere — Chinese engineers question everything

We sat in on project reviews devoted to individual functions: steering (wheels turning through ± 90°), new suspensions, more effective and quieter braking, the autonomous car, lighting displays, digital interfaces, zero-gravity seats, the intelligent cockpit, ultra-fast charging, high voltage, and more.

Innovative software, electric motors, LiDAR, AI, autonomous driving: these building blocks are available to everyone, start-ups included.

The market is being flooded, with 500 models. In 2024, 54 Chinese models were aimed at Tesla; in 2026 the priority target is the German premium segment, at 50% to 60% less.

Financial support from the state, the provinces and the cities is enormous, in order to create jobs and exports.

China is building powerful soft power in the countries of the South, across Asia and into the West itself: entry into Formula 1, showcases of humanoid robots.

Chinese carmakers have mastered every electrified powertrain — plug-in hybrid, range extender and full electric (PHEV, EREV, BEV) — which is not yet the case in the West.

“Tier 0.5” suppliers offer a complete platform (with battery, electric motors, electronics, software, axles, suspension and more): all that is left for you to do is the bodywork and the seats.

Chinese carmakers produce equipment adjacent to the car, drawing on the same core technologies

Chinese carmakers do not stop at the car: they develop and produce high-growth “adjacent products” built on the same mechatronic building blocks as the electric vehicle.

These include photovoltaics, humanoid robots, vertical take-off and landing aircraft, and satellites to control their own communications. The aim is to earn a better return on R&D in core technologies and to create very high-margin markets, so as to afford more competitive selling prices on cars and accelerate their growth worldwide.

The service offering widens accordingly: integrated into its ecosystem and its partners, the car itself becomes a platform — autonomous driving is another.

Financing is never an obstacle

In China, as in the United States, finding financing is not a problem for an entrepreneur. But the solutions are different.

In China, an entrepreneur will find a multitude of support schemes from their city, their province and the central state — and all the more so where the project is in line with the nation’s development plan.

Free land, premises made available by the city, zero-interest loans for equipment, long-term loans, supplier credit — suppliers themselves being able to refinance cheaply with local banks, and so on.

What a contrast with Western practice!