Chinese passenger car market 2026 – Part 2: Exports
China’s industrial sector long lagged behind that of the developed countries. To close this gap, Chairman Deng Xiaoping proposed importing advanced foreign technology to strengthen domestic industry. At the beginning of the 1980s, the national strategy was to open the domestic market in exchange for advanced technology — a policy often summarised as ‘market for technology’. The automobile industry was a central pillar of this strategy. The most common business model was the 50–50 joint venture. The results were far less satisfactory than hoped. Foreign partners, such as Volkswagen, held their core technology tightly. Chinese partners, in turn, often took the easy path — sourcing key components directly from the foreign-invested joint ventures rather than investing in independent R&D, which would have significantly raised their costs. Even by the early 2010s, the technological capabilities of Chinese automakers had barely improved. The turning point came with the rise of new energ...
