Du Jianguo: Do ​​not underestimate China's high-end manufacturing

On July 18th, Global Times International Forum published an article by Mr. Jia Genliang, “Upgrading Manufacturing, Needing Protectionism”. Jia Wen believes that China's manufacturing industry is only at the low end of the international division of labor, so that multinational companies occupy or even monopolize the Chinese market. The author believes that Mr. Jia Genliang seriously underestimated the current high-end manufacturing industry in China.

In the field of construction machinery, among the top ten global engineering machinery manufacturers in 2011, Chinese companies Xuzhou Heavy Industry, Zoomlion, and Sany Heavy Industry accounted for three of them. The world’s largest tonnage of crawler cranes and booms Long pump trucks are produced by these companies.

In the area of ​​offshore engineering, deep-sea semi-submersible drilling platforms at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipyard and Yantai CIMC Raffles Shipyard, deep-sea crane and pipelaying ships at Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industry, and LNG carriers produced at Shanghai Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard, ZPMC's port machinery and equipment are all world advanced.

In terms of production equipment, China's million-kilowatt ultra-supercritical thermal power generating units, millions of kilowatt-class advanced pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant complete sets of equipment, 1000KV UHV AC power transmission and transformation equipment, ± 800KV DC power transmission complete sets of equipment, etc. It has reached world-class or even leading level.

At the end of 2011, Jinan No.2 Machine Tool Group Co., Ltd. defeated international machine tool giants such as Germany and Japan in the same platform and won orders for all five large-scale fast intelligent stamping production lines at Ford's two US plants. The world's single largest capacity 800,000-kilowatt hydro-turbine generating unit manufactured by Harbin Electric Power Group has just completed assembly at the Xiangjiaba hydropower station. China Second Heavy Machinery Group is independently designing, manufacturing and installing the world's largest 80,000-ton large-scale die forging press, which will provide a solid foundation for China's development of large aircraft and other projects.

Although China's aviation industry is not as famous as the aerospace field, its progress in recent years is also remarkable. In terms of military products, a series of new weapons and equipment with world-class or even leading-edge level have been launched. In terms of civil aviation, although the gap between Europe and the United States is still large, the progress made in the manufacture of large passenger aircraft is also worthy of recognition.

In addition to individual areas such as large airliners, Western multinational corporations, such as Mr. Jia Genliang's said, occupy or even monopolize the Chinese market. They are rare in the entire high-end manufacturing sector. At present, Chinese companies not only occupy most of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry in China, but also have a growing share in the world market. Australia exports ore to China, and imports China's mining and transportation machinery; the United States has added products such as sanitary chopsticks to Chinese exports, and imported more and more electromechanical products; Norwegian oil companies use deep-sea oil extraction equipment in China.

Mr. Jia Genliang’s intention to use trade protection to promote the development of China’s high-end equipment manufacturing industry is worthy of recognition, but it is not up to date with the current situation. The upgrading of China's manufacturing industry has been quietly conducted for a long time. For future growth, what is most needed is definitely not trade protection. ▲ (The author is a Beijing independent scholar)