China yesterday defended a manufacturing development plan and rejected complaints that foreign makers of electric cars and other goods might be pressured to hand over technology or forced out of promising markets.
Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei (苗圩) tried to reassure foreign companies that the “Made in China 2025” industry plan treats all companies equally.
“The strategy and its related policies are applicable to all businesses in China, be they domestic or foreign,” Miao told a briefing.
Miao was responding to a report by the European Union Chamber of Commerce this week that said China is violating its free-trade pledges by inducing foreign firms to give up encryption and other technology to potential Chinese competitors.
Technology is a growing flashpoint in trade tensions with Washington and Europe, which worry their competitive edge is eroding as Beijing buys or develops skills in semiconductors, renewable energy and other fields. China has faced mounting complaints the government improperly shields its fledgling developers of robotics, software and other technology from competition.
The plan calls for China to be able to supply its own high-tech components by 2020 and materials by 2025 in 10 industries from information technology and aerospace to pharmaceuticals. A broad outline was issued in 2015 and officials have been gradually releasing details.
Miao said targets for domestic brands’ share of the market in some sectors should be seen as forecasts rather than mandatory.
“When we were drawing up the plan, we did not deliberately pursue these targets,” Miao said.
The European chamber noted that China’s strategy says two of the top 10 global brands in electric cars should be Chinese by 2025. It said that rules out joint ventures created by foreign companies with Chinese partners.
The chamber called the strategy “a large-scale import substitution plan aimed at nationalizing key industries, or at least severely curtailing the position of foreign business in them.”
In an apparent response to such criticism, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) last week promised in a speech at the opening of China’s annual legislative sessions that foreign companies would receive “equal treatment” under the manufacturing plan.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day