China’s manufacturing advantage at risk as restrictions mount and competition intensifies, leading engineer warns
- Adviser to Beijing suggests that China set up a vocational education system to train talent for advanced manufacturing as nation tries to stave off international competition
- Pandemic has accelerated the push to reshore parts of the manufacturing process, and this poses a serious challenge as China strives to improve its supply chain
Years of imitating others’ innovations and relying on imports are among the reasons China is still a long way from becoming a hi-tech manufacturing powerhouse, according to a leading engineer who advises the Chinese government.
“The next 15 years will be a critical period for our nation’s manufacturing industry to grow stronger,” Chen Xuedong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at an event in Beijing on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the push to reshore parts of the manufacturing process, and this is a key challenge for China as a global producer seeking to gain control of its own supply chain, according to Chen.
We have been following and imitating scientific and technological innovation for a long time … There have not been many original major technological breakthroughs
“We are currently a major manufacturing country, and the added value of manufacturing has ranked first in the world for 11 consecutive years, reaching 26.6 trillion yuan (US$4.2 trillion) in 2020,” said Chen, who is also a member of an academic committee that advises Beijing on advanced manufacturing policies. “It is large, but it is not strong, and the overall value is at the low end of the global value chain.”
Chen also referred to a 2019 national assessment of the global competitiveness in 26 key industries in China, noting that 15 sectors were still lagging behind Western countries. The assessment concluded that China’s most advanced manufacturing industries included telecommunication equipment, advanced rail-transit equipment, textiles and home appliances, but it was still relying on imports in areas such as integrated circuits; operating systems and industrial software; and aircraft engines.
“We have been following and imitating scientific and technological innovation for a long time … In the field of natural sciences, we rarely raise any major questions,” Chen said. “There have not been many original major technological breakthroughs … the innovation ability of enterprises is weak, and the integration of industry, university and academic research has not been formed.”